Peggy Webb - Elvis and The Dearly Departed (Southern Cousins Mysteries)

N obody asks my opinion around here, but if they did Id tell them basset hounds are the most brilliant dogs on earth. We could rule the world if theyd let us. Of course, around here Im lucky if I get to rule over the oak tree I consider my private pissing post. After all, I was the first dog on these premises, and if you ask me that makes me the King. Not to mention the fact that I had umpteen hit records in my other life as a fat man in a white sequined jumpsuit.

I guess youre thinking Im one of those modern-day reincarnationists, but Im not. Im Baptist to the bone. Give me hellfire and damnation anytime over all that New Age stuff. Callie Valentine Jonesthats my human momclaims to be Zen Buddhist. Burns candles and chants stuff under full moons and all that mumbo jumbo. But I think thats because shes just looking everywhere for answers to all the stuff she has to deal with. Her inconvenient attraction to her almost ex, for one thing.

That would be my human daddy, Jack. They had a falling-out over his Harley Screamin Eagle with the heated seats. Take it from methose seats feel mighty good on a nasty day in January when temperatures in Tupelo, Mississippi (my birthplace, population forty thousand), drop below forty.

Im partial, myself, to hot weather. Lazy August days like today. Brings out the best in me. I can lie in the shade and let my ears flap in the breeze. Nobody would notice one is longer than the other, which has kept me from winning more Best in Show titles than I care to think about. But whats a dog show title when youre already the King?

Back to the ValentinesCallies mama is always teetering on the brink of financial doom. Personally I admire a woman gutsy enough to place a fifty-dollar bet on a five-dollar hand. Its not as if Ruby Nells addicted or anything. She just likes an occasional jaunt to Tunica, where casinos sprang up out of the cotton patch like strangler kudzu after the Mississippi legislature had a big brain fart and legalized gambling. Thats all right, Mama! I sang some of my biggest hits in the casinos of Las Vegas.

And then theres Lovie. Aptly named. Shes had more lovers than Ive had fleas. Callie worries needlessly over her cousins affairs. Any woman who can build a catering business out of recipes featuring whiskey and sherry deserves the motto love me tender. And any other way she wants it.

Some say Callies uncle Charlie is the only stable, sensible member of the family. Granted, he is her rock of ages. But let me tell you, before Lovies daddy settled down to making the dead look like they can sit up and walk over at Eternal Rest Funeral Home (pronounced E -ternal around here), Charlie Valentine was conducting a colorful life that narrowly kept him from singing the jailhouse rock. A man after my own heart. Give him a sequined jumpsuit and some sideburns and hed still set hearts aflutter, even at sixty-two.

Well, now. Whats this I hear?

Itll never make a number-one hit record, but its music to my ears. Callie, calling me to supper. Judging by the smells that have been coming from the grill, Id say its a good leftover T-bone steak.

Thank you, thank you very much. Elvis has left the building.

TupeloDr. Leonard Laton, 78, prominent physician, died Wednesday, August 8, at Peaceful Pines Nursing Home after an extended illness. He is predeceased by his wife, Marie Hotchins Laton.

Survivors include one son, Kevin Laton of Tupelo; three daughters, Janice Laton Mims and her husband, Bradford, San Francisco; Bevvie Laton, Boulder; and Mellie Laton, Tupelo; and three step-grandchildren also of San Francisco.

Eternal Rest Funeral Home is handling all arrangements, which are incomplete at this time.

E lvis has just peed on my shoes, which is my life in a nutshell. Every time I think Im fixing to forge forward, somebody comes along to rain on my parade.

Not only do I have the most arrogant failed show dog east of the Mississippi, but I have a beauty parlor thats more outgo than income, an almost exhusband Im fighting for custody of my dog and my inconvenient libido, and a mama who makes withdrawals as if Im the Bank of Callie Valentine Jones.

Currently Elvis is taking umbrage over getting dog chow for supper while Dr. Latons California relatives eat all the T-bone steak. Uncle Charlie always offers the out-of-town bereaved a place to stay, and my two-story, white clapboard house in Mooreville (population six hundred and fifty) on the outskirts of Tupelo is the only one in the Valentine family big enough to accommodate Janice Laton Mims, her husband, Bradford, and his three teenaged boys, plus Janices seven-piece matched set of Louis Vuitton luggage. The only good thing I can say about the invasion is that I dont have to worry about being bushwhacked in my own bed by Jack Jones.

I bend over to scratch behind Elvis ears. Ordinarily this would make him forgive me, but just when Im about to placate my opinionated basset hound, one of Dr. Latons step-grandkidsRufus, I thinkruns up and pulls his tail. Major mistake. Elvis prances over and hikes his leg on Janice Laton Mimss Prada purse.

Somebody get that animal out of here, she yells, never mind that shes a guest in my house.

Dont worry. Ill clean it up. Itll be just like new. Collaring her purse and my dog, I escape to my kitchen.

Some people dont know the meaning of gratitude.

Im happy to say Im not among that number. Im putting up with the Laton bunch because it makes Uncle Charlie happy, and Id do anything for the man who has been my surrogate father and my stronghold for most of my thirty-seven years.