Killer in Crinolines

by Duffy Brown

  I got out of the car. “There’s a bunch of people with as much motive to kill off Simon as Chantilly. One of them did it, not her.” A caught a glint in Boone’s eyes. It was almost unnoticeable, just a flicker, but I’d been around Boone a lot, a lot more than I wanted to be. “You talk a mean game, but you don’t think Chantilly’s guilty either. You’re lying to me to get me to back off. You really think I’d do that?”

  Boone put the car in gear. “I should have left you under that bookcase. You’d be a heck of a lot safer.”

  “I’m not backing down, Boone. You know something.”

  “I know plenty and I’m not going to help you wind up next to Simon at Bonaventure. You’re out of your league on this one. It’ll work out, just leave it alone.”

  “In case you haven’t noticed I’m always out of my league.” I watched Boone take off, leaving behind a quiet summer night. Usually I liked the quiet but now with Boone gone and being attacked by a bookshelf I felt alone and a little scared. I hated being scared but until Simon’s killer was behind bars and I wasn’t poking into everyone’s business and stirring up trouble, scared would pretty much be a way of life.

  • • •

  The next morning I hurt in places I didn’t know I had and gyrating my hips and torso and shoulders to Bellydance Overdrive was not helping one bit. The Silver Spoon Girls seemed to be having a good time. I had my back to them at the moment, the soft jingle of bells and tinkle of finger symbols filling Auntie KiKi’s oversized parlor. I rotated and swayed and did a double twitch of my hips but didn’t hear any more tingling and jingling. I turned around to make sure the girls got that last move but they didn’t get it at all. They didn’t get anything. They stood perfectly still, frozen in place, bleary-eyed, not breathing, and staring at . . . “Boone?”

  He didn’t say anything, his gaze glued to me. Sweet mother, now what? Maybe he realized Reese Waverly was guilty like I said? Maybe Chantilly was guilty and he found proof positive and hated to tell me? Maybe he had indigestion? “That’s all for today,” I said to the ladies.

  The girls drifted past Boone in various stages of salivating. “Are you okay?” I asked him after the last Silver Spoon Girl closed the door behind her.

  “What was that?” Boone’s voice sounded weird and his voice never sounded weird. Condescending from time to time when berating me and always superior, but that was about it.

  I checked my skirt and blouse tied in the middle to make sure something hadn’t slipped out that needed tucking in. Not that I had much to tuck nor would it be of much interest; it sure wasn’t to dear old Hollis. “It’s a dance lesson,” I said. “What are you doing here?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Boone?” I waved my hand in font of his eyes. “Are you having a stroke or something?”

  He peered down at me, his black eyes darker than ever. “I came to see if you were okay. Obviously you . . . are. Dang, girl.” Boone turned and walked away hunched over like he had a hernia. He opened the front door and Auntie KiKi came in as Boone left without so much as How are you these days, Miss KiKi, and how is Doctor Putter?

  “What’s wrong with Boone?” KiKi asked, both of us staring at the door.

  “Who knows? He’s a man; there’s no figuring them, I swear. I used to think they were just like women but unshaved.” I grabbed my flip-flops off the floor. “I have to go. It’s ten and I might have customers.”

  “Hope springs eternal, honey,” KiKi called after me as I hurried out the door. I ran across the grass, thinking maybe I should call Dinky, Boone’s secretary to have her keep an eye on him. Dinky and I bonded during my divorce. I cried on her shoulder, she asked me to be a bridesmaid. She’d want to know if her boss was losing his marbles.

  By noon the mailman had delivered an electric bill so exorbitant I immediately turned off the AC. There was also a postcard saying the Daughters of the Confederacy were having an ice cream social out at Forsyth Park on Friday night to raise money for the new cannon. Must be one heck of a cannon. There was also an envelope, my name and address scribbled menacingly across the front. The paper inside read, Next time the alligator wins. Mind your own business.

  The little dots were back dancing before my eyes. I sat down on the stool, sucking air to keep from passing out. I was a shopgirl and dabbled in house rehabbing. Death threats in the morning mail was not the usual bill of fare. Whoever knocked me into that swamp meant business. Visions of my sorry self floating facedown in Gray’s Creek surrounded by hungry alligators flashed before my eyes. I sucked in more air. Maybe I should back off Chantilly’s case, let Detective Ross settle this. Except Ross’s idea of settling was Chantilly behind bars for the rest of her natural life.

  For the next three hours the mailman along with one obnoxious woman accounted for my entire customer list, giving me plenty of time to think about the letter and Hollis’s threat to sell Cherry House. I looked down at BW lying on my left foot, both of us behind the counter in the hall. “How do you feel about being an orphan?”

  BW put his paw over his eyes as Chantilly came in the front door. “I’m flat broke,” she whined. “With no job at UPS and paying Percy, I’m going to have to vacate my apartment and move in with my parents. Do you have any idea what that’ll be like? They’ll want to know where I am, who I’m seeing, did I brush my teeth and have my yearly mammogram. Can I move in here?”

  “I can’t afford AC and BW and I share a bed, but you’re welcome to the floor.”

  “My life sucks.” Chantilly banged her head on the checkout counter. “Tell me good news about something, anything. I’m desperate here, Reagan.”

  In her present state of forlorn I didn’t have the heart to tell Chantilly I lost the notebook that could very well have helped her case and that I was getting death threats so I went with shallow and mundane. “Know that ugly brown sweater you and I both hated? It’s sold so we don’t have to look at it any more.”

  “Wonderful.” Chantilly brightened. “That’s a good start. What else did you sell?”

  “The sweater’s the start and the finish. In a month from now everyone will be clamoring to freshen up their wardrobe, sell the stuff in their closets, and looking for fall deals. But that’s at the end of September when it’s cooler. It’s not doing me one lick of good now at ninety-two in the shade and I owe Savannah Electric and Power a bunch of money. Maybe you could send out another tweet talking about the bargains here. It worked last time.”

  “Being arrested for murder, I’ve been unfriended and unfollowed by everyone except your auntie and Reverend Weatherman.” Chantilly hoisted herself onto the checkout counter, feet dangling off the edge. She picked up the ice cream social postcard, the nasty-gram right beside it. Casually I plucked the nasty-gram from the pile and slid it under the Godiva chocolate box/cash box. No need to upset Chantilly any more than necessary. One of us upset was enough.

  Chantilly waved the ice cream card. “Too bad you’re not a charity. You know how folks in Savannah rally around a good cause. You need some rallying.”

  “KiKi’s at a luncheon with the Daughters of the Confederacy as we speak to raise money for that cannon they want to put down on River Street. Tipper Longford and his boys are doing a reenactment. I suppose it’s practice in case the Yankees get rambunctious again.”

  “That’s it!” Chantilly hopped down and did a little Snoopy dance right there in the hallway that still needed painting.

  “Honey, I know there are those who think otherwise and always will, but the war is indeed over . . . really. I have the tax returns to prove it.”

  “Not that, you need to be a charity.”

  “The one thing I do not need is a cannon.”

  “But the Daughters of the Confederacy do and they’re having all sorts of events to get money for it. Tell them the Prissy Fox will donate a percentage of its sales for the next month to their cause. You know how the daughters are all gossip queens; they’ll get the word out that shopping at the Fox benefits their c
annon and we’ll have tons of customers in no time and bring in new ones.” Chantilly pushed me toward the door. “Go get ’em, girl.”

  “You want me to talk to the daughters now?”

  Chantilly swept her hand over the empty store. “Times a-wasting and things are not improving here.”

  “I don’t even have my purse.”

  “There’s nothing in there but junk.” She slammed the door in my face, leaving me alone on my own front porch staring at my white peeling paint and bay window. I loved my peeling paint and window. Rumor had it that Robert E. Lee himself once came calling to Cherry House. I had no idea if that was true but it made for a great story and if I didn’t do something quick and bring in more cash, I’d go belly-up like Hollis said and that mighty good story would be someone else’s to tell.

  I started off for the Pirate House as a navy Jaguar purred up to the curb beside me. Another lost tourist I imagined. A rich lost tourist. Except it wasn’t a tourist at all but Doc Hunky. He was tall and gorgeous and flashed me his hundred-kilowatt smile.

  “I realize this is short notice,” he said after powering down the window. “But if you’d happen to be free this evening, I’d love to take you to dinner. I was thinking the Olde Pink House? I hear they do a mighty fine shrimp and grits and their bread pudding is divine. I tried to phone but I must have the wrong number.” The smile kicked up a few more kilowatts. “I ran over here between surgeries hoping I’d catch you, and here you are lovely as ever.”

  And the bait was free food, really great free food of shrimp and grits, and a big dose of flattery. I could live with that. “Why, thank you kindly,” I said throwing in a bit of Southern belle-ese, feeling a bit belle-like at the moment. Doc Hunky could do that to a girl. “I’d simply love to have dinner with you.”

  His eyes danced. Don’t think I ever had that effect on a guy before except in tenth grade where Simon Castor and I dissected a frog together and I spilled the formaldehyde.

  “I’ll pick you up at seven.” Doc Hunky winked and motored off and I didn’t care if he did talk triple bypass all night. I hadn’t been to the Pink House in ages, and did I mention the part about the free food?

  Chapter Ten

  “HONEY, that’s called a date and it means the age of miracles is not dead and gone after all,” KiKi gushed when I caught up with her in the Captain’s Room at the Pirate House. I’d just finished making my little presentation to the Daughters of the Confederacy as they forked down plates of blueberry buckle with vanilla ice cream. Hard to compete with blueberries and ice cream but I think they got the point that shopping the Fox meant money for the cannon. The girls were now headed across the street to Emmet Park to watch Tipper save Savannah while KiKi and I lingered in the AC.

  “It’s not a date,” I insisted as the busboys cleared the tables. “Think of it as free food; that’s what I’m going on.”

  KiKi hitched the blue straw purse she got at the Fox onto her shoulder, then pulled me out into the hall. “You can’t use the man like that. It’s downright indecent. He’s a fine person and intelligent and not your meal ticket. You need to think of this as your first venture back out into the world of dating since the Hollis fiasco.”

  “I hate dating, look what I wound up with the last time. I’m really bad at dating. I think I married Hollis so I didn’t have to date anymore. This is just dinner.” But KiKi was right about the meal ticket. For a minute there my empty fridge overrode good manners. “All right, all right, I’ll dress nice and engage in scintillating conversation and compliment his shoes.”

  “And do something with that hair of yours. You got yourself two inches of roots showing and for crying in a bucket put on some color and stick out your boobs.”

  I was trying to decide if free food was worth all this effort and maybe a dinner of Cheerios wasn’t so bad after all when the daughters filed back inside the restaurant. They dabbed perspiration with their grandma’s laced hankies and declared it much too hot to do battle in Savannah in August and if the Yankees wanted Savannah in this heat, they were welcome to it. The daughters passed around glasses of sweet tea to revive themselves from the ordeal; the soldiers, in full wool Confederate uniforms and sweating like field hands, headed for the rum cellar below.

  Legend had it that tunnels led from the cellar to the Savannah River and pirates plied men with rum, then kidnapped them aboard their boats to get crews. The tunnels were haunted with ghosts of those who resisted . . . or so I told everyone on my tours to fuel the hype that Savannah was indeed the most haunted city in the U.S.

  I was getting ready to hitch a ride home with KiKi until I caught a glimpse of Suellen the waitress, her arm hooked around Tipper Longford, or in this case Captain Longford. Tipper laughed at something Suellen said and together they took the steps down into the cellar. The last time I’d seen Tipper he was doing battle royal with Delta at the Cakery Bakery, fists clenched and the little blood vessels in his eyes ready to pop. This was Tipper in happy mode. Go Tipper!

  A waitress balancing a tray of beers wobbled at the top of the steps. I grabbed an edge of the tray to steady it and set it on table. “I can help with a few of those if you like.”

  “Oh, sugar, you are an angel sent from above, I do declare. These here mugs get so heavy and I hate doing these steps more times than I have to. ’Course if Suellen had taken her share instead of being all goo-goo-eyed over a certain someone, I wouldn’t have to do all the work myself, now would I.”

  I grabbed an extra tray, and we divvied up the mugs. “Not that this is the first time,” she went on. “With Suellen and men it’s like bees to honey. She sure couldn’t afford one of those new town houses over on East Taylor with a waitress salary, now could she? Had herself some help, if you ask me. Man kind of help.”

  The rum room had an old stone foundation, wood barrels and cargo nets lining the walls, scarred wood tables and chairs in the middle. Brass nautical lamps lit the room, a dartboard to the side. Tipper sat at a table, Suellen on his lap, his captain’s hat perched on her head. That hat on someone else’s head was sort of unnerving, like seeing Auntie KiKi swinging Uncle Putter’s golf club around, not that such a thing would ever happen in the Vanderpool household. Suellen pulled a fancy pink-jeweled iPhone from her pocket, held it up in front of her and Tipper, and clicked a picture of the them laughing together.

  “This goes right on my Facebook page,” she said, all smiles. “Thank you for giving it to me; you are so sweet.” Suellen kissed Tipper on the cheek and he blushed all the way back to his ears. I couldn’t remember seeing Tipper and Delta laughing together like this ever.

  I put the beers on the table, one soldier handing me five bucks as a tip. Maybe if I moonlighted at the Pirate House I could afford a phone. I gave the money to the waitress, then hurried back upstairs before KiKi left me and I had to hoof it back home on my own two feet or wait an eternity for an afternoon bus.

  “Where in the world have you been?” KiKi drew up beside me. “I’ve looked my eyeballs out for you. You’ve got to get ready for tonight.” She peered at me with critical auntie glint in her eye and sucked in a quick breath. “It’s going to take a while, a long while.”

  “Did you happen to see that waitress Suellen with Tipper Longford?” I asked KiKi as we headed for the Beemer parked in the side lot. “I thought she was into Simon?”

  “My guess is when Suellen isn’t near the man she loves she loves the man she’s near. The girl’s moving on, is all, something you need to do.”

  “Seems kind of fast don’t you think? I mean we just hauled dear old Simon out to Bonaventure.”

  KiKi shoved me in the passenger side. “Maybe she was in need of a little variety in her life and doing Simon-the-younger and Tipper-the-elder at the same time. We’ll visit Simon’s place tomorrow instead of tonight and try to piece things together.” KiKi patted me on the head like I was five. “Because tonight you’re going on a date.”

  “It’s not a date.”

  • • �
�

  I locked up the Fox at six and snagged a blue dress with a white jacket off a display ladder I had painted yellow and rigged up in the hallway for display. I stuffed an IOU for the dress and sling-back shoes in the Rocky Road container so I wouldn’t forget to pay the consigner then headed for the shower. The problem was the hair. There was no time to dye it, and if I cut off the blonde part I’d have two inches of brown spiking out. When in doubt, curl!

  “You look lovely,” Doc Hunky said as I stepped out onto the front porch at seven sharp.

  “You look lovely, too.” He laughed, but I was dead serious. I was starved and he was going to feed me. Then I remembered my promise to KiKi to be scintillating. “Nice shoes.”

  • • •

  The pink house was delicious as always, Doc Hunky charming and sophisticated and a connoisseur of wines that didn’t have a screw lid. There was no unsettling talk of anything bypass-related. It was only ten when Hunky dropped me off, needing a good night’s sleep to save more hearts on the morrow.

  “I had a great time,” he said, his eyes blue and dreamy. “I’m attending a conference in Atlanta with your uncle, but when I get back maybe we can get together again?”

  Visions of the Pirate House danced through my brain. I tried to squelch it, I really did, but the lure of pecan chicken is hard to ignore. “I’d like that,” I said with true sincerity even though the motive was questionable.

  Hunky did the bright-smile thing and kissed me good night. The kiss was okay, but truth be told I’d gotten better from Bruce Willis. The best part of it all was I got a doggie bag!

  I waved as the navy Jag pulled away from the curb, then skipped back onto the porch. I kicked off the sling-backs and pried open the crunch of aluminum foil shaped like a swan. BW peered inside with me, out heads together over the goodies, his tail in overdrive. “How would you like a nice piece of pecan chicken? I already took out the bones for you.”