by Duffy Brown
“And if I find someone suspicious at the bakery, I follow them and get the goods on the killer like they do on Law and Order?”
Good God in heaven, I created a monster! “No getting the goods. Undercover means you keep your mouth shut and ears open.” I looked Percy straight in the eyes to add some stern to my words. “This is not a TV show; there’s a real killer out there. He murdered once and wouldn’t blink at doing it again.” Especially if you’re humming show tunes.
The last thing I wanted to do was put Percy in harm’s way. I just wanted him out of my way. If he stumbled onto some information we could use, so much the better. “If anything looks suspicious, bring it to me and we’ll talk it over.”
Percy nodded with a smile. “This is a really good plan, but I just can’t walk into the bakery with my uniform and toolbox, they’ll think I’m up to something. Everyone knows there’s not a repairman to be had in Savannah in August with all the old AC units on the fritz.”
“Delta’s the owner and my bet is she’s called so many people to fix the mixer and oven she’s lost count. Tell her you had a cancellation. She’ll be tickled to see you and won’t think about asking questions. Hey, you’ll get free doughnuts.”
Percy rubbed his hands together, a little grin playing at the corners of his mouth. “I do have a brown work uniform from Chicken-On-The-Run. That’s Uncle Chicken’s shop. I love cinnamon doughnuts. I do believe I could make this work.” Percy wiped his hands on a T-shirt that I’d never be able to sell now. Considering my customer flow I probably wouldn’t have sold it period.
Flipping his coat over his shoulder James Bond style, Percy picked up his toolbox, gave Chantilly a reassuring smile, then swaggered out the door not stopping to question the next customer. So far so good and maybe things would get even better tomorrow at the funeral. Not that I had a particular liking for funerals, but my guess was whoever killed Simon would show up. Dropping Simon’s cold sorry butt in the ground was the cherry on the sundae for the person wanting Simon dead.
But that was for later. Right now I had to fulfill my nice promise to God and Auntie KiKi. Reneging on a promise to either was never a good idea so I was off to dinner with a little coronary bypass chitchat to keep things lively.
• • •
“No, you can’t go to the funeral,” I said to Chantilly as I opened the door at ten sharp the next morning. I had on my one-and-only little black dress and heels that pinched my big toe and turned it black-and-blue. I could wear something from the Fox, but in my present state of financial difficulties I couldn’t afford the Fox.
Chantilly stood in the hallway, arms folded, lower lip extended. BW gave her a quick once-over. Not finding any readily available treats, he wandered outside to greet the day and water the grass and weeds. BW was an indiscriminate waterer.
“Simon’s my boyfriend. Was my boyfriend,” Chantilly amended. “This is a free country; I have a right to be going to his funeral if I want to and I really want to.”
“You’ll cause a ruckus. You’ll meet up with Waynetta and she’ll pitch a fit. It’ll get ugly and you’ll look guiltier than ever. You have on a red dress for crying out loud!”
“I want to say a proper good-bye.”
“I’ll put a rose on his casket for you.”
“I was thinking more like taking Daddy’s shotgun and blasting Simon’s casket to smithereens. Simon wasn’t in love with me, he was in love with money, other people’s money, my money. Last night I did the math and Simon was charging me a blooming fortune in interest just for the down payment on Mamma and Daddy’s place like you said. How could he go and do such a thing to me? We were engaged. I’m glad he’s—” I slapped my hand over Chantilly’s mouth before she could say the d-word, especially after the shotgun comment and with early-bird customers coming up the walk.
“You’re in enough trouble,” I whispered, flipping the “Closed” sign in the bay window. “Stay here. Mind the store.”
“Simon Ambrose was a first-rate jackass and I want to tell him that in no uncertain terms. I never got the chance when he was alive. I was stupid and in love, or at least thought I was in love. Mostly I was just stupid.”
Been there, done that. I pulled Chantilly behind the door/counter as two ladies strolled in. I lowered my voice. “We’ll go back to the cemetery this afternoon. You can dance all over his grave if you want. We’ll bring champagne, make a toast. Just not now!”
A horn blast cut through the morning calm, meaning KiKi wanted me in the Beemer ASAP. I headed for the door. “Watch BW. Don’t let him get overheated. Only one hot dog for lunch and don’t let him wheedle two. He’s a great wheedler. If you need anything, call KiKi’s cell. Number’s in the Godiva box.” Translation: cash box. Ben & Jerry guarded my wealth at night; Godiva did the same by day. Did I have good taste or what?
“We’re going to be late,” KiKi huffed, barreling down East Gaston. “What will people think if we’re late to a funeral. Lord have mercy, we’ll be Twittered about and did you and Dr. Hunk have a good time last night? I noticed he walked you home.”
“And I noticed how you just slipped that last part in there all casual like I wouldn’t notice. I live next door. Doc Hunky wanted to meet BW.”
“You could do with a little hunk in your life, you know.”
“No zing.”
“Zing?”
“Chemistry, attraction, animal magnetism that makes you all hot and sweaty.”
“It’s August, there’s enough sweat going around. Besides, look what happened with you and Hollis, the king of zing. And what about kids?”
“Sweet mother, how did kids get into this?”
“You’re thirty-two with no prospects.”
“I have a dog.”
KiKi gave me the Southern auntie tsk, then hunkered down and drove Savannah style, keeping one eye on the speedometer, the other on the lookout for ticket-happy police wanting to replenish city coffers. I never talked when KiKi drove like this, the g-forces scaring the talk right out of me. She got on the Truman Parkway, officially Harry S. Truman Parkway. No one ever called it that, of course, being that Harry S. was one of those frightful northern Democrats. What his parkway was doing here in Savannah was a mystery to us all.
“Chantilly wanted to come to the funeral,” I said to KiKi when she got to our exit and laid rubber screeching onto the two-lane. I had to change the subject fast before she brought up Dr. Hunky again.
“No doubt Chantilly wanted to come naked and on a horse. Saints preserve us. How did you talk her out of it?”
“Told her we’d come back later on today. She finally realizes Simon was using her. You wouldn’t happen to have a spare bottle of champagne lying around, would you?”
“Bet Simon used a lot of people and took their savings, thanks to Miss GracieAnn and her referrals. I wonder why he ditched that girl to take up with the likes of Chantilly? That never did make much sense to me.”
“Think of Chantilly-the-lovely in her pre-breakup months. Now think of GracieAnn any month.”
“But she was Simon’s money machine. Eventually he hooked up with Waynetta but that was later on down the road and not even on the horizon when he and GracieAnn were doing business. Fact is, about the time Simon ditched GracieAnn, Waynetta was engaged to Sugar-Ray and they were getting ready for that wedding. Of course when she found Sugar-Ray doing the unmentionable with Robert Carter she fainted dead away, went to some chichi spa in Alabama to recover, then took up with the first thing that came along and Simon made sure it was him.”
I stared at KiKi slack jawed. “Robert Carter and Sugar . . . Sugar . . .” My head started to spin, little dots dancing before my eyes.
“All very hush-hush,” KiKi went on. “Waynetta not wanting to admit she was engaged to a gay guy and Sugar-Ray not all that interested in coming out of the closet, so to speak, with him being a marriage counselor and all. Cher says, Men aren’t necessities, they’re luxuries, and Waynetta always has been hell-bent on having her s
hare of luxury.”
“But that’s crazy. Why did Sugar-Ray go into marriage counseling of all things?”
“I figure he got into that particular business, then realized he was so not suited for that particular business, if you get my drift. By that time he had a decent reputation and was pulling in money. Coming out isn’t as easy as people think. Customers would have second thoughts on taking advice from someone who leaned in a different direction. I’m not saying it’s right, but it is what it is.”
“How . . . How do you know these things?”
KiKi did a wicked little laugh. “Oh, honey, the dance teacher hears all. When you hold someone’s hand and his arm is around your back, you form your own little world. Things just sort of come out.” Someone needs to tell those CIA guys never to take dance lessons. We pulled up behind a string of cars respectfully parading under massive trees draped in gossamer moss and through the heavy black iron gates of Bonaventure Cemetery. No place did cemetery better than Bonaventure. The line curled past family plots first populated over a hundred and fifty years ago and cordoned off by rusting fences and aging markers. Some headstones were tilted, weathered, and forgotten. Other markers were brand-spanking-new and bedecked with baskets and bouquets of fresh flowers. We drove past Wilmington River on the left then to Marguerite Laveau’s tombstone surrounded by candy, cigars, white rum, and money.
Marguerite was the resident voodoo queen who knew her stuff even from beyond the grave. If you wanted help with romance and finance, you came to Marguerite. Word had it that someone once stole five dollars from her grave and dropped dead before he reached the gates, his body withered clear through to the bone right there on the spot. No one messed with Marguerite before or after her residence at Bonaventure.
The cars stopped, and KiKi killed the engine. Quiet settled around the procession following the casket to the shaded grave draped with a green cloth to hide the fact that there was a big six-foot-deep hole soon to be occupied.
“See anyone who doesn’t belong here?” I whispered to KiKi, pulling her to the back of the procession.
Kiki gave me the shhh-mind-you-manners stare that aunties do so well. There were a lot of people gathered around what looked like a really expensive bronze coffin. Not that I was some expert on such things, but my guess was Reese Waverly had spared no expense. Did he do it out of fondness for Simon like Waynetta insisted or because Reese Waverly was happy as a pig in mud to be rid of the guy and it gave Reese great pleasure to do it up in style? Turning Simon’s likeness to Swiss cheese with a Remington long-barrel indicated the latter. The question was, why?
Vidallia Ambrose sat in the front row place of honor, but it was the Abbott sisters sniffing and crying and carrying on something fearful that drowned out Reverend Weatherman. I surmised that they were trying desperately hard to make up for the total lack of sniffing and crying and carrying on by everyone else, except for Vidallia.
I caught sight of Icy Graham across from me and standing next to Pillsbury in the back of the crowd. Icy had on a rumpled brown suit two sizes too small; Pillsbury’s suit was not the one he wore at the wedding when impersonating a bouncer but a suit that cost what I made at the Fox in a month. Okay, two months, but I was trying right hard to drum up business. Why was Icy here? Why did Pillsbury show up? And what in the world was Walker Boone doing here?
Delta and GracieAnn looked almost happy with barely contained smiles. They stood next to Suellen, the waitress, her eyes red, a soggy hankie wadded in her fist. Doreen-the-wedding-planner looked a lot cheerier at Simon’s funeral than she had at his wedding. Waynetta was emaciated, bored, and in a pout like always. With her funeral black hat perched on her head and lower lip sticking out, if she turned sideways, she’d look like a swizzle stick. Reverend Weatherman coaxed the last Amen from the congregation. Close friends and relatives put white roses on the casket. There weren’t many roses. When I looked back to where I’d seen Boone before, he was gone.
KiKi and I started for the Beemer, others offering condolences to Vidallia and Waynetta. KiKi whispered, “That was a mighty strange funeral if you ask me. You’d think people would be more distraught with someone so young dead and all.”
“I think it depends who the someone is that happens to be dead.” I cut my eyes to Icy climbing into an old blue Pontiac. “That’s the guy we’re going to see. His market was the last stop I had in the UPS truck before Swamp Adventures with Boone. I have no idea how Icy Graham knows Simon, but he’s here for some good reason.” I glanced around, soaking up the serenity. “To tell you the truth I was hoping for a little more drama at this thing. Elsie and AnnieFritz won best of show hands down.”
I opened the car door and heard shouting by the gravesite. Waynetta shoved the bridesmaid who’d lost her dress at the wedding onto the pricey casket, scattering white roses everywhere and knocking the casket off its brass perch, Simon landing half in, half out of his six-foot hole.
“You’re nothing but a common old two-bit whore,” Waynetta screeched, waving her arms. “You screwed Simon the very day he was to marry me and I know all about it. I saw your bridesmaid dress on the floor of your room and the bowtie on the bed and heard all that commotion coming from inside the closet. I knew what you were up to in there. How stupid do you think I am!”
“Simon was marrying you for your money,” Bridesmaid screeched back, scrambling to her feet. “He sure didn’t love you.”
Vidallia burst into tears, Suellen sobbed, Delta gave the casket a good shove, sending it nose-down into the hole with a solid thud, and GracieAnn pulled a dead-man cookie from her purse and bit off the head. Bridesmaid continued, “He never intended to be faithful to the likes of you, he told me so himself that very day. I was going to be his mistress.”
“He’d tell you anything to get into your pants.” Waynetta yanked off her little black hat and threw it at Bridesmaid. “You and Simon deserve each other. If I had my way you’d be dead too and lying right next to his sorry self in that coffin; it’s what you both deserve.”
KiKi gave me a little poke in the ribs and whispered, “I do declare, you got your wish and then some, honey. This here is drama with a capital D, and if I’m not mistaken, we have ourselves another prime murder suspect or two.”
Chapter Eight
“TURN here,” I said to KiKi and pointed at the sign for Lighthouse Road. The Beemer slowed, tires crunching over the gravel leading to the docks.
“I don’t see any big old truck that could have knocked you into the soup,” KiKi said, pulling to a stop by the sun-bleached fish market house. “There’s no one here, not a single car in the lot. Maybe we should forget this. Icy didn’t appear to be all that pleasant, and whatever in the world am I going to talk to the man about anyway to try and keep him occupied?”
“Shrimp.” I got out of the car just as a young woman came around the corner of the building, toddler in her arms.
“Can I help you?” The girl was young, midtwenties, with short blonde hair and bright blue eyes.
“What a cute little boy,” KiKi said, giving me a this is what I’m talking about look. “Children are a true blessing.” Subtlety was not Auntie KiKi’s strong suit.
“They are indeed.” The girl cradled the toddler and blew raspberries on his tummy. He giggled and squirmed, his dark eyes laughing, his black curly hair shining in the sunlight. “If you all are looking for shrimp, we’re sold out for today. My father had a funeral and didn’t get a chance to go out in the boat this morning. He gave the crew the day off—too hot on the water to catch much right now anyway, especially midday.
“Funerals are so sad,” I ventured, trying to get some information as to why Icy was out at Bonaventure. “Hope it wasn’t anyone close.”
“Oh, Lordy, no. Just some no-count, troublesome piece of scum I got mixed up with and who we’re all better off without.” The girl kissed the top of the toddler’s head. “Isn’t that right, doodlebug.” The girl looked so serious and protective, cuddling her baby close in
spite of the heat. “I think Daddy wanted to make sure the bastard was gone for good and out of our lives. Things will be better now, I’m sure of it,” she said to herself as much as to us. “So much the better. I know that sounds mighty terrible, speaking ill of the dead and all, but this person was the devil incarnate and then some.” She nodded at the market. “I have some nice flounder inside.”
“Flounder,” I repeated tying to digest what I just heard.
“Fresh fish? Isn’t that what you’re looking for?” The girl asked.
“Right,” KiKi said. “Fresh fish, of course. We sort of had out hearts set on the shrimp. We’ll be back tomorrow.” She tugged me toward the car. “Take care of that baby now, you hear.”
“Oh, I will. His granddaddy would skin me alive if I didn’t.”
KiKi and I got in the car and exchanged wide-eyed looks. We waved to the girl and she waved back, her little boy doing the baby bye-bye thing. “Holy Moses and sweet Jesus above,” KiKi whispered as we headed up Lighthouse Road and turned onto a country lane. “Are you thinking the same thing I’m thinking?”
“That if we gave that baby a goatee and added on thirty years, we’d have Simon Ambrose reincarnated?”
KiKi pulled off onto a sandy shoulder, careful not to do Swamp Adventures part two. “Icy Graham wasn’t into Simon for borrowing money. Icy wanted Simon out of his grandson’s life.”
“That’s what I thought too, but it just doesn’t add up if you think about it. I mean instead of Icy wanting to get rid of Simon, why didn’t the girl blackmail Simon. She could have threatened to tell Waynetta that Simon had a child. Waynetta would have hated that and ditched Simon in a heartbeat. Simon sure didn’t want that to happen. He would have paid her plenty to keep quiet, don’t you think.”
KiKi shook her head. “That’s not the way that little girl thinks. She loves that baby. He’s her whole life and my guess is he’s Icy Graham’s life too. Simon was all about money, anything for a buck, and now Icy Graham and his daughter are glad he’s dead. There was money in this for Simon somehow. He was working an angle.”
