Divas and Dead Rebels Read Online Free Page A

admitting I’m wrong. Unlike a certain person who shall remain nameless—Bitty Hollandale. Okay, so I have issues with her stubborn inability to admit when she’s wrong most of the time.
    “I’ll ask her,” said Brandon, and he reached for his cell phone to call Heather. As he walked toward the open door into the hallway, one of his friends showed up.
    “Hey, everything okay?” the young man asked. His eyes got a little wider when he saw the campus police standing in the middle of the room. “Uh oh, nobody’s dead, I hope.”
    I thought Bitty was going to have a rigor right there. Her eyes bugged out, and her mouth dropped open, and I had to say something quick or there’s no telling what she may have blurted out. So instead of giving an answer that made some sense, I came out with: “The only thing dead in here is the Latin language.”
    As jokes went, it flew right over the heads of everyone there except the young police officer. He’s the only one who got it.
    “Latin has been a dead language for a lot longer than my college days,” he said, and I smiled gratefully. Everyone else just stared at me as if I had been speaking in . . . well, Latin. Truthfully, pig-Latin is the only foreign language I can remember.
    The boys’ friend only looked confused, shook his head, and disappeared down the hallway. I wondered what on earth they were teaching students these days.
    I didn’t finish college, though I had attended Ole Miss for a semester before I met my future husband and decided that sit-ins for causes like Greenpeace and Save the Whales was a lot more important than a degree. How foolish the young can be at times. I don’t have the husband anymore, but I do have our wonderful daughter, who’s married and living in Atlanta with her engineer husband. She’s smart enough to have gone back to school for another degree, even though it’s only at night right now.
    Bitty had finished her college education at Ole Miss with a degree in Liberal Arts. I’m not sure what that was supposed to prepare her for, but it wouldn’t have mattered anyway because she married a popular football jock with a penchant for making money. Unfortunately, Frank Caldwell wasn’t picky about minor things like the law and got himself into trouble with a pyramid scheme that cheated quite a few people. He’s still doing fifteen to twenty-five in a Federal prison, while Bitty divorced him, gained full custody of their twin sons, and went on to marry again. Three more times. She’s either an eternal optimist or a horrible judge of proper husband material. I lean toward the first assessment.
    Her current male companion, however, makes up for all the former mistakes. He’s an excellent attorney with offices in several towns and absolutely adores Bitty. I’m quite sure that feeling is returned, although Bitty is being extremely cautious this time around. Her last divorce was a doozy. People still talk about it, especially since her senator ex-husband ended up murdered, and she was briefly a prime suspect in his death. That can traumatize some people.
    Fortunately for her, Bitty is not “some people.” Instead of being traumatized, she ignored reality while I and the rest of the Dixie Divas were left to try to sort out things. Which we did rather clumsily. Now we have a local reputation for getting involved in murders. Well, I think what’s really being said is that we’ve intruded in so many police investigations we’re lucky we’re not in prison. Bitty has always led a charmed life. With all that in mind, Bitty is somewhat justified in thinking that we can get away with disturbing a murder scene. I, however, have a more pessimistic view of the situation.
    So there we were, standing in the dorm room where we’d found—and moved—the body of her son’s ancient history professor, talking to police about the theft of missing blankets. Try as I might, I can never quite match Bitty’s insouciance in the face of