When Bobbie Sang the Blues by Peggy Darty Page A

it didn’t work on the big deputy.
    “Well, Mrs. Bodine,” he said, his voice booming, “I thought you’d like to know there’s something ripe in your pickle barrel—and it ain’t pickles! I need to speak with you in private.”
    He led Bobbie out of the room, and Christy quickly followed, barely clearing the door before he slammed it.
    Outside the door, Bobbie spoke in a low voice. “My pickle barrel is in storage,” she said, looking confused.
    “Yeah, I know. Hornsby called me out there this morning. He’d been smelling something foul coming out of your unit and couldn’t reach you on your cell phone. He went inside, and what he found prompted him to call me.”
    Christy could hear movement on the other side of the door. She could even hear whispers. She imagined all the ladies pressed against the door, their red hats askew.
    “Wh-what did you find?” Bobbie asked. She honestly seemed to have no idea what he was talking about. Christy suspected where this was going, and Deputy Arnold’s next sentence confirmed her fears.
    “We found the man who has been missing since Monday night, your ex-husband, Eddie Bodine. He was struck in the back of the head and shoved into the barrel. The medical examiner is doing an autopsy now. What do you know about this?”
    Bobbie swallowed. “I don’t know anything about it! We learned he was missing when his girlfriend called Christy.”
    Deputy Arnolds gray eyes swung toward the closed door of the party room, where voices rose in protest. “Well, I think you have a fan club working in there, so before they come after me with hat pins and steak knives, we need to leave.”
    “Where are we going?” Bobbie asked, rooted to the spot.
    “You’re gonna need to come down to headquarters and answer some questions.” He turned and walked toward the restaurant exit. Bobbie lowered her head and followed.
    “Big Bob, you don’t have to be so dramatic,” Christy whispered as the three of them entered the foyer.
    Miz B, a mass of purple and red, met them holding a huge platter of fried chicken. “Bob, what do you think you’re doing?”
    “Save me some chicken,” he said, hurrying Bobbie out the door. Once they reached the parking lot, he turned to Christy. “I don’t recall inviting you to come along.”
    “She’s my aunt. She doesn’t know anyone here, and besides,
Dep-u-ty
Arnold, she hasn’t done anything wrong.”
    The big man sized up the tiny blond woman for the first time. She opened her purse and reached for her bottle of pills, her face pale.
    “What are you doing?” he demanded, peering at the pill bottle.
    “Taking my medication,” Bobbie answered.
    Christy glared at him. “Why are you being so mean and unreasonable? My aunt would never murder anyone. You’re putting too much emphasis on the fact that they had a disagreement in a public place.”
    “I have to ask this little lady if she stole ten thousand dollars fromEddie Bodine, which he came here to retrieve. But before he could do that, he wound up dead in his prime suspect’s pickle barrel. In her locked storage unit.” He leaned toward Christy. “Now do you think I’m being unreasonable?” He turned back to Bobbie. “Who else has a key to that unit?”
    Bobbie shook her head as she continued to wrestle with the bottle cap.
    Automatically, Christy took the bottle from her, pushed down hard and twisted, and then handed it back. “I’ll get a bottle of water from the car,” she added.
    “Thanks,” Bobbie said.
    When Christy returned with the water, Bobbie swallowed the pill and then turned to Deputy Arnold. “About the storage unit, that guy Hornsby probably keeps a spare key to every unit.”
    “Did you loan your key to anyone else?”
    Bobbie opened her purse and looked inside. Christy and Deputy Arnold watched as she fished out a key ring and lifted one of the keys. “Here it is, but I haven’t been back to that unit since Christy and I were there on Monday.”
    Christy stepped