Killer in Crinolines

by Duffy Brown

  • • •

  At ten the next morning, I opened the prissy Fox. The heat index hovered near sweltering and by noon would reach sizzling. “You got to do something right quick.” Auntie KiKi bustled through the back door in yellow slippers and a matching housecoat billowing out behind her. Her hair was done up in big yellow rollers all over her head and the cucumber mask gave her the look of a green raccoon hiding out in a banana. “I’ve been on the phone for an hour,” she panted, pulling sweet tea from the fridge. Horror stricken, I watched as she gulped straight from the pitcher. Sweet mother in heaven! No belle old or young ever gulped from a pitcher. All Savannah was in desperate need of ice skates because hell had just frozen over.

  “Chantilly’s out making rounds this morning,” KiKi hurried on. “She dropped off Henrietta Duncan’s prenatal vitamins to Sister Donovan over there at St. John’s Church. Father Gleason saw the whole thing and is lighting candles and saying novenas as we speak. I’m not quite sure what that’s all about but it doesn’t look one smidgeon good for either of them.”

  Auntie KiKi took another swig and wiped her mouth with the sleeve of her robe. “You ought to be calling Chantilly right this very minute and tell her you’ll do the delivering again today.” KiKi held the pitcher high looking a bit like the statue of liberty in hair rollers. “If General Beauregard Summerside took up the cause to save our fair city from harm and devastation, you need to be doing the same.” KiKi held out her iPhone. “Call.”

  “I have a shop to run and there’s something about a cloud and profits I need to look into and I’m tired.”

  “I tell you Chantilly’s more distraught than a hen in a hurricane with all that’s going on and making more mistakes than this city can tolerate. Besides, you don’t have yourself any profits and there’s not one single cloud in the sky today so you can’t be looking at that. We all know the reason you’re tired is you’re taking up with that Walker Boone person.” Auntie KiKi folded her arms and tapped her left foot. “I saw him swaggering out of here last night big as you please.”

  “He’s trying to prove Chantilly innocent, is all, and came over to see what I knew, which isn’t much. I can’t believe you had yourself such a good time yesterday that you’re up for round two of UPS for beginners.”

  “Oh, honey, not me. I can’t be going with you today. I have a dance lesson with Bernard Thayer. Missing a lesson with him just wouldn’t be right. He pays double and in advance. You’re flying solo today.”

  Dancing with Bernard was like driving a Mack truck with bad breath. “You’re a chicken, you know that.”

  KiKi patted my cheek. “Cher would call it inspirationally resourceful. And there’s more.”

  “I don’t want more. I don’t want any. I want to go back to bed till September.”

  “Chantilly’s on her way out to the Waverly Farms this very minute to pick up a UPS package. She told Sister Donovan all about it when dropping off the pills. Chantilly intends to give Waynetta a piece of her mind about getting what she deserved in stealing Simon the way she did, then him dying on her right there at the wedding.”

  “UPS sent Chantilly to the Waverly Farms?”

  “UPS isn’t all that plugged into the Savannah kudzu vine.” Auntie KiKi put the phone in my hand. “You got to get a hold of Chantilly and talk sense into her right now before she gets to Waynetta or there’s going to be a catfight out there like no other.”

  “If Chantilly’s intent on ranting and raving, she’s not going to pay one bit of attention to a phone call.”

  “That’s just what I’m thinking.” Kiki reached into her robe and pulled out the Beemer keys. “Go get her.”

  • • •

  Five minutes later I was barreling out of town—or as much as anyone barreled in Savannah on a hot summer morning—heading for Whitemarsh Island and Waverly Farms. Not that I wanted to do this. The front hall of Cherry House was mouse gray and in desperate need of new paint if I could beg KiKi’s leftovers from redoing her kitchen, and somehow I had to come up with ideas on how to get more customers. Hollis’s threat of foreclosure and no business was more real than I’d ever tell him. Then there was the cloud issue. Scary thought that the moneyman for the hood knew one heck of a lot more about running a business than I did. I considered his cash flow and mine and decided he had reason to know more.

  The Beemer could overtake a UPS truck any day of the week but Chantilly had a good start on me. I hoped she had a few more deliveries before meeting up with Waynetta to give me a little time. My second hope was that she didn’t cause too much mayhem in town while making those deliveries or her job was history.

  I got onto East Victory and did a quick stop at Sisters of the New South to pick up a bag of delicious temptation.

  If your mamma and grandma didn’t keep a jar for drippings on the stove, then Sisters was not the place for you. It was pure Southern eating and near Bonaventure Cemetery, a convenient location for those who frequented the sisters a little too often.

  I crossed over the Wilmington River, sparkling like diamonds in the sunlight as it meandered its way out to sea, then took the second right off the main drag. Wild oats and marsh grasses hugged the road, a UPS truck lumbering along just ahead. Honking, I got up next to Chantilly and pointed to the side for her to pull over.

  Chantilly must have guessed that I was here to head her off before she reached Waynetta because she hit the gas, leaving me in a cloud of exhaust. Poking her head out the window, she did a hand gesture that would make her mamma faint dead away then threw her head back and let out a cackle I could hear even over the roar of engines.

  Chantilly was in serious need of therapy. I wasn’t sure how much I wanted to catch up with her in this state but I couldn’t let her run around town in a UPS truck either. I punched the Beemer and launched forward, sea grasses whizzing by, KiKi’s fancy car neck and neck with the truck. If someone came in the opposite direction the Beemer was toast and my favorite auntie would kill me dead. Planning ahead for this very thing, I gripped the steering wheel with one hand and held the Sisters green-and-orange bag over the roof of the car. I made the bag do a little dance to get Chantilly’s attention, and sure enough the UPS truck slowed and coasted to a stop.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” I slammed the car door and stomped my way toward the truck.

  Chantilly looked like a crazed porcupine with curls, her hair sticking out in all directions from under her UPS hat. She made a grab for the Sisters bag, but I yanked it out of her reach. Her brow wrinkled and her lips thinned. “Bet you got fried chicken, yams, cabbage, and corn bread in that bag. The sisters make to-die-for corn bread.”

  “And smothered pork chops and you only get it if I’m the one picking up the package at Waverly Farms.”

  “That there’s blackmail pure and simple. Your mamma would have a stroke if she knew you were into blackmail. Besides, I’m fine as can be. Guess I could do with a doughnut.”

  “You’ll have to get your own doughnut. Honey, you’re not yourself these days. You got everyone over at St. John’s Church in a tizzy, phones are ringing off the hook, Twitters are tweeting and it’s not even noon. If you meet up with Waynetta, you’ll fight like dogs over a bone, and your bail might get revoked and you’ll wind up in jail looking guiltier than ever.”

  Chantilly eyed the bag and licked her lips. “I’m not sure I like you right now.”

  “Give me the keys to the truck so I can pick up the package at Waverly Farms, I’ll give you the bag. No eating in the Beemer or KiKi will have a conniption.” I held the bag high. Chantilly squared her shoulders and did likewise with the truck keys. “On the count of three we swap,” I suggested.

  Chantilly nodded; I counted and on three grabbed the keys and Chantilly grabbed the food. “You also have a pickup over at Icy’s fish house down by the docks,” Chantilly said around a mouthful of smothered pork chop, gravy coating her fingers. “Don’t mess it up,” she said between licks. “I’ll get fired for sure.
My boss is on his last nerve with me.”

  “Gee, imagine that.” I peeled Chantilly’s hat off her head deciding that since I had on a brown Gap T-shirt, the hat was all the UPS uniform I really needed. Gap, UPS—letters were letters, no one paid attention. I climbed in the truck and took off.

  Sitting on a log and munching corn bread, Chantilly waved a bye-bye pork chop at me, then faded into the distance. Waverly Farms forked left and I followed the painted plank fence to the big white house, fountain splashing in the front. I killed the engine and jumped off the truck just like a real UPS person as Reese Waverly shouldered his rifle and took aim. Holy mother-of-pearl! And here I thought everyone loved UPS!

  I considered diving under the truck to take cover but realized Mr. Got-bucks wasn’t aiming at me but a life-size cutout of Simon propped against the fence. A shot rang out, leaving a hole right smack in the middle of Simon’s forehead. There was dead and real dead. What did Simon do to have Reese Waverly taking potshots at him when he was already at the morgue?

  “Pickup is around back,” Waynetta said from behind, making me jump. Gunshots will do that to a person. Waynetta had on a yellow cotton skirt, white blouse, pearls, and the tiara she’d won as Miss Peaches-and-Cream some years ago. I figured that her self-esteem must be in need a little boost after the wedding from hell, but this wasn’t exactly a picture of a grieving bride.

  “I’ll get the package and be on my way,” I said.

  Waynetta gave me the I can do anything better than you look that she did so well. It was the have and have-nots of the tiara world and a UPS driver clearly had not. “There’s more than one package,” Waynetta ordered. “Fact is I have a whole living room full. I’m returning all my wedding gifts. My fiancé was murdered; you probably read about it in the papers. Bessy May has done packed up all my gifts, took her a full day, and I do declare I’m plum worn out from the experience.”

  “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

  “That’s mighty neighborly of you.” Waynetta offered a wobbly smile, then sniffed and swiped at a nonexistent tear. “There was a truly lovely silver tea service I’ll miss something awful.”

  I was referring to Simon dead as a bedpost down at Savannah’s House of Heavenly Slumber. Another shot rang out, the cutout of Simon swaying from the impact. “I take it your daddy wasn’t all that fond of Simon.”

  The I can do anything better look turned to an eat dirt and die look. “I’ll have you know Daddy loved Simon. They were pals, he treated Simon like a son, and the reason Daddy’s shooting at his likeness is that he’s so mad at Simon for getting himself done in that he has to let off steam.” Waynetta’s eyes got all watery again but the wishing-me-dead part lingered.

  Waynetta didn’t mourn the death of her almost husband and was doing her best to convince me that her daddy liked Simon when obviously he didn’t. Savannah-style mourning consisted of rounds of forty-year-old bourbon, Havana cigars, and a deviled egg or two, but not bullets in the head.

  I waited for Waynetta to go inside but instead of heading for the back of the house to get the packages, I strolled out to Reese Waverly. Something was going on out at Waverly Farms and it wasn’t a lot of crying and carrying on.

  “What?” Reese asked, not taking his eyes from the target.

  I held up my handy-dandy DIAD signature thing. “I just need for you to sign that I’m picking up packages. I’m sorry for your loss.” That line got Waynetta talking and I hoped it would do the same thing now. “Yeah, some loss.” Reese neutered Simon with one pull of the trigger.

  “Waynetta doesn’t seem all that upset,” I ventured.

  Reese snarled, “She’s plenty upset. Cried and carried on something fierce all night long. She keeps her feelings to herself with strangers is all.” He scribbled on the little machine. “Packages are around back. Go collect them and be on you way.” This time Reese put a bullet clean through Simon’s heart.

  Taking the hint, I scampered back to the truck, put it in gear, and headed for the rear entrance just as a red ’57 Chevy convertible crunched its way down the crushed-oyster-shell drive. Walker Boone? No one else I knew had that car. It wasn’t exactly a silver SUV like the rest of the country drove. What was that man doing here? The Waverly horse farm was third-generation Southern sophistication; Walker Boone was first-generation legit and at times even that was questionable. Boone had his share of snobby friends and even belonged to the country club, but he and Reese Waverly didn’t run in the same circles. They barely lived on the same planet. Yet here they were.

  If Boone can drop in on me, I can eavesdrop on him, right? I got the truck out of sight, killed the engine, then wiggled between the magnolia tress in front to catch a peek. Boone shook Dead-eye’s hand, but it was more businesslike than good-old-boy friendly.

  “You are some kind of busybody,” Waynetta said from behind me again. “I’m calling your supervisor right this very minute.”

  “Thought I dropped something out of the truck is all. Thought it rolled into the bushes and I was looking for it.”

  “Why are you spying on my daddy?” she hissed. “Are you spying on me, too?” She eyed my T-shirt. “Gap is not UPS. I know you. You’re that Summerside person. Your mamma’s running for city council and you own a consignment shop and got divorced from Hollis Beaumont. I should call the police; I bet you’re here trying to run off with all my stuff to sell at your place. You’re nothing but a thief and up to no good and causing me more problems than I already have.”

  I pointed to Big Brown. “I am UPS and I don’t need any of your stuff to sell,” I lied on both accounts. I was faux UPS, Waynetta had first-rate stuff, and it would sell like hotcakes at the Fox. Since I was already busted I decided to push on. “You don’t seem all that upset about Simon being dead and I’m wondering why.”

  “I most certainly am upset.” Waynetta put the back of her hand to her forehead drama-queen style, knocking her tiara kittywhumpus. “I’m in such a sorry state by all this nonsense and it’s frightful hot out here. I’m going inside and you better leave if you know what’s good for you, or else.”

  With sweat sliding between my boobs and my hair stuck to my scalp, I loaded the truck. When I left a half hour later Boone’s car was still parked out front. Maybe he was doing some legal work for Waverly Farms, but Reese for sure had his own band of legal eagles, so what was with Boone?

  I hung a left onto the two-lane. Whoever assigned the UPS delivery routes was determined to keep Chantilly out of town and doing pickups more than deliveries. Guess they figured that was one way to minimize problems. I took Lighthouse Road down to the weathered docks stretching far out into the river to accommodate tides. I parked Big Brown next to the clapboard sun-bleached building with “Icy’s Fish and Shrimp” scripted in faded blue on the side.

  Two shrimp boats with huge black nets hanging loose bobbed at the end of the pier. Men who looked as if they did more than lift a pencil or peck a keyboard for a living hosed off decks and scrubbed. In May when the ocean was cool, shrimpers stayed out twelve days at a stretch to get their quota. Now that the water was warm they shrimped a few hours in the morning or late at night. Come fall they’d be back to long weeks onboard. It wasn’t that I knew so much about shrimp boats but I knew plenty about fresh shrimp stuffed with crab and wrapped in bacon.

  Inside the building, refrigeration hummed and a man stood behind a display case, his back to me as he packed shrimp in ice. A chalkboard reading “Catch of the Day” sat to one side, and the smells of ocean hung heavy in the air. “UPS for a pickup,” I called out.

  The man turned, his once-white apron wet and dirty. He was late fortyish, thinning hair, no smile, no shave, no bath, and built like a backhoe. He pulled five brown paper packages out of the display case. “Packed in dry ice. Don’t put ’em in the sun.”

  I handed over the signature gizmo that looked lost in his huge hands and would smell like shrimp for a week. “You were at the Waverly wedding,” I said, making a little innocent con
versation as he wrote. “I saw your truck. That sure was some affair. Have people talking for months. Bet you did the shrimp for the shrimp cocktail. Bet it was great.”

  Shrimp shoved back the gizmo along with a look cold as the dead fish in the case. “Best mind your own business.”

  I snapped up the packages and headed for the truck. What happened to my innocent conversation? First Pillsbury didn’t want to be recognized at the wedding and that I understood. But now Icy Graham—that was the name he scribbled on the DIAD device—had a nasty reaction to the situation. Why? Bad shrimp? Did he overcharge the bride? Maybe he ripped off the caterer? He could have knocked off the groom except I couldn’t imagine Icy in a peach bridesmaid dress or running with the likes of pretty-boy Simon. Then again, I didn’t know Simon very well and Icy could have had a female accomplice.

  The DIAD was equipped with GPS but the back roads on Whitemarsh meandered all over the place like a drunken snake. I had a better chance of not getting lost if I headed back toward Waverly Farms and drove to town from there. The sun hovered at a blinding four o’clock angle, making me do the how-could-I-forget-my-sunglasses squint. The air smelled hot, still, swampy, and stagnant. Sea oats and grasses stood tall, not a puff of breeze anywhere.

  I was tired and hungry and needed to have a little heart-to-heart with Chantilly. I couldn’t do this every day; I had a shop to run and keep out of Hollis’s money-grubbing clutches and a hall to paint and—

  Something smacked the truck from behind, snapping my head forward and lurching the truck to the side. I fought the steering wheel, Big Brown swaying back and forth across the road, packages sliding everywhere, stuff crashing to the floor. I was hit again harder, this time packages flying through the air. The tires caught the side berm, dragging the truck off the road. I gripped the wheel for all I was worth, bracing myself, heading toward the water, cattails and oats smacking the windshield as I sank down, down, down into the murky, smelly Savannah swamp.