Killer in Crinolines

by Duffy Brown

  “Last time we saw Sugar-Ray he was packing heat. I’ll pick you up at nine. He can’t shoot both of us at once.”

  I watched the Jeep drive away and kicked off my flip-flops. They were shot. Everything I had on was bug-ridden. I unlocked the front door and started to step inside, then stopped. With the way my luck was running, a pregnant creepy would fall off, hide in the floorboards, and give birth to a bazillion other creepies. It was either risk total embarrassment now and strip on the spot or infest Cherry House forever. I backed into the shadows, ran my hands through my hair to knock lose anything that had taken up housekeeping, ripped off every piece of clothing on my body then grabbed Old Yeller and darted inside. BW gave me one good sniff, barked, and ran for the kitchen. This was the same dog that just a few hours earlier flopped over on his back for the Savannah Strangler. Not a good omen.

  I grabbed the baseball bat I kept beside the front door and the three of us—me, Old Yeller, and the bat—headed upstairs. Turning the shower on full hot, I grabbed the bat in one hand, then dumped my purse upside down into the tub.

  Two roaches wandered out. My screams temporarily immobilized them till I pulverized the little dears. I swished their remains down the drain, giving them a burial at sea. I joined my purse in the shower—bet you can’t do that with one of those fancy Coach bags—lathered and shampooed every inch of me and Old Yeller thrice. I wrapped in a towel, called BW in to have another whiff. After two more barking sessions and retreats to the kitchen, I finally declared myself Dumpster free, set my alarm for 8:45, and collapsed into bed just as the sun peeked over the cherry tree in the front yard.

  • • •

  The next morning my hair looked like it got caught in the blender, if I had one. After five shampoos, all the conditioners in the world couldn’t save me from the wild woman of Borneo look. Using my chicken-turning tongs I pinched my clothes off the porch. Holding them at arm’s length to keep Dumpster inhabitants as far away as possible, I tossed them into the garbage can, then dropped in the tongs for good measure. I couldn’t fry chicken for diddly anyway.

  At nine sharp the red Jeep motored up to the curb and I opened the door to a rush of lavender and vanilla. A sleepy-looking Chantilly handed me take-out coffee.

  “I scrubbed and Febreezed for an hour last night,” she said. “Left the car open to air it out and stomped two more leftover cockroaches on the way here. I think we’re good to go.”

  I took the passenger side. That Chantilly didn’t comment on the status of my hair made me rethink what it looked like the rest of the time. I pried off my coffee lid. Bug free. In spite of my hair and questionable infestation of the Jeep, today was already better than yesterday.

  Chantilly put the car in gear. “Google says Sugar-Ray’s got his marriage counseling office over there on MLK. We need a nonthreatening approach to get him talking.”

  “Since I’m divorced and Simon is pushing up daisies, coming in for marital advice isn’t going to work for either of us. I’ll think of something.”

  But when we walked into the office building and followed the directory to Sugar-Ray’s office on the second floor my brain cells still weren’t functioning, and I no idea how to get Sugar-Ray to spill his guts. The office was small but smartly furnished with a contemporary flair of cream and celery green, Ikea with taste and pizzazz. There was no one in the reception area so I knocked on the desk. “Hello?”

  Sugar-Ray stepped out from a connecting door. I got a better look of him now than at the cemetery. Wavy hair, gym build, beige suit, and yellow silk Versace tie I recognized from a Nordstrom catalog KiKi brought over to keep me abreast of fashions for the Fox.

  “Do you have an appointment?”

  “Hi.” I gave him a little friendly hand wave. “I know it’s been a while but if we could just talk to you for a few minutes, Chantilly and I would really appreciate it.”

  I got the blank stare. “My receptionist doesn’t come in till noon.”

  “Reagan Summerside? High school? The prom?” Worse night of my life and that included the one in the Dumpster.

  “Reagan!” Sugar-Ray forced a smile. Guess the prom didn’t hold fond memories for him either. We followed Sugar-Ray back to his office, the décor a continuation of the reception area. I took one green club chair, Chantilly sat in the other, and Sugar-Ray parked behind his glass desk, a spray of cream and green orchids on the end pulling the color scheme together.

  “You know,” he said, looking at Chantilly, then me. “I never expected to see you here.”

  “Yeah, neither of us have great track records in the marital department.”

  “Sometimes there’s a reason things don’t work out and we have to keep that in mind.”

  I nodded trying to build a rapport. “Hollis, my ex, was cheating on me and Chantilly got dumped and the guy’s now dead, just one of those things.”

  “And then you found each other?”

  “Reagan’s been a great friend,” Chantilly said and gave me a sincere smile.

  “Sometimes there are explanations, very personal private explanations why one relationship works and one doesn’t.” Sugar-Ray came around his desk and put his hand on my shoulder and Chantilly’s. He gazed down at me, his smile sweet. “Failure in one relationship doesn’t mean all your relationships are doomed to end badly. You need to keep that in mind.”

  Chantilly scoffed, “I’m just swearing off men.”

  I added, “The last one I dated kissed like a lizard.”

  “That’s because you were with men who didn’t have your best interest at heart. You belong together, it’s the way things are meant to be, and don’t let anyone tell you differently. I know it’s hard, but you came to the right place to talk things over. I understand, I truly do.”

  My eyes fused with Chantilly’s. Oh holy mother! “No,” I said, jumping to my feet, Chantilly shaking her head, her mouth opening and closing like a landed fish but no words coming out. “We”—I pointed to Chantilly, then myself—“are not together like that. It would be fine if we were, of course.” I added, rambling on, “Chantilly is kind of cute and all and I wouldn’t mind having access to her wardrobe, but no.”

  “You’re not a couple? As in together?” Sugar-Ray glanced back and forth. “Then why are you here before office hours? I assumed this liaison was something you wanted to keep quiet.”

  “We saw you out at Bonaventure Cemetery at Marguerite Laveau’s,” I blurted. “Waverly, money, Simon, white rum. What was that all about? And what’s with the gun? It’s a cemetery, they’re already dead.”

  Chantilly put her hands on her hips and cut her hand thought the air. “That is without a doubt the worse excuse for clever I ever heard.”

  “The couple thing caught me off guard,” I said as Sugar-Ray’s eyes morphed from understanding and sympathetic light blue to bone-chilling navy.

  “So I was at Bonaventure,” Sugar-Ray said in a flat voice. “So what, a lot of people go there to see Marguerite. My business with her certainly doesn’t concern the likes of you two.”

  I was tired of chasing dead ends and getting nowhere. I was tied of getting knocked into swamps and trapped in gross Dumpsters. I was done with pussyfooting around. I had to start getting some concrete answers. I pointed to Chantilly. “This does concern us. She’s accused of a murder she didn’t commit. Simon cheated on Waynetta Waverly and then scammed her daddy on a golf course deal that doesn’t exist. Rumor is you’re hurting for money and Reese Waverly wanted Simon dead. Now that’s a marriage made in heaven between the two of you, if you ask me.”

  Sugar-Ray’s eyes shot wide open. “You know about the golf course?”

  Bingo! We were right on! “Crinolines are easy to come by and then there’s the gun issue.”

  “Wait a minute, first of all, I do not wear crinolines and I can’t believe you think I killed Simon.”

  “He took your place with Waynetta,” I said still on a roll. “Reese couldn’t get his hands dirty with murder and was out of ti
me to keep Waynetta from marrying Simon because he’s crooked as a dog’s hind leg. He hired you to get the job done.”

  This time Sugar-Ray put his hands on his hips. “Let me tell you about Waynetta; she had an August marriage planned and no intention of canceling it. Simon was focused on getting rich and had no intention of canceling that. I had no reason to kill Simon. I was out of the picture before he came into it.”

  Chantilly said, “You and Reese have something going or you wouldn’t be out there at Bonaventure chanting his name and swilling rum. That brings this conversation back where it started, you and Simon.”

  Sugar-Ray ran his fingers through his perfectly groomed hair. He paced the room then turned back. “Leave Reese Waverly alone, he’s been good to me.” Sugar-Ray shook his fist. “Butt out of what’s none of your concern, Summerside, and take your friend with you. I’m not your murderer. Look somewhere else.” He strode to the door and yanked it open. “Now get out and I don’t mean just this here office. You mess up my life and I promise I’ll return the favor.”

  I followed Chantilly into the hall, Sugar-Ray slamming the door behind us. “Well, girl,” Chantilly said as we headed for the car. “I say we done poked the bear. There’s something going on with Sugar-Ray and Reese Waverly, and Sugar-Ray is scared out of his designer boxers we’ll discover what it is.”

  “And it has something to do with that golf course. Just mentioning it made Sugar-Ray go crazy and get all defensive.”

  Chantilly powered up the Jeep and hit the AC, another hot-as-Hades day bearing down on our fair city. When we got back to Cherry House, Chantilly pulled to the curb and killed the engine. Pillsbury gave us a howdy wave from the top porch step, BW beside him eating some treat. I’d locked the door to the house, of course. That obviously didn’t matter diddly to Pillsbury, of course, because BW was outside instead of inside. “Well now, looky who’s come calling,” I ventured.

  “Goodness me,” Chantilly said in a deep Savannah drawl. “He is one mighty fine-looking man. Makes a girl forget all about dead bodies, Dumpsters, Sugar-Ray, and getting fired from UPS.”

  “Does it make you forget about your daddy?”

  “Spoilsport.” Chantilly hurried up the steps and sat beside Pillsbury. He took her hand and kissed the back. Okay, I had to admit, that was downright romantic. We should all have a boyfriend like Pillsbury, just with a different occupation and address. I gave Pillsbury a nod when I got to the door.

  “Hope you don’t mind I let your dog out,” he said in that voice that seemed to come all the way from his toes. “He’s right fine company. Gave him some healthy treats.”

  “It’s not you hanging around my dog that’s got me worried.” I cut my eyes to Chantilly, then went inside and flipped the sign in the front bay window.

  “Well, look who’s out there on your front porch making goo-goo eyes at Chantilly,” Auntie KiKi said, coming down the hall after entering through the kitchen. Sometimes I wondered why I bothered to lock the house at all. Everyone knew how to get in. I should pass out keys and charge rent. KiKi fluffed her hair. “He is some kind of stud.”

  “Thought you were married.”

  “It’s like Cher says, You don’t go looking for men, they just fall in your lap. This morning I’m appreciating the fall. Who is he?”

  “A banker. Hear anything from Putter?” I headed to the kitchen to get the money and set up business for the day.

  KiKi called after me, “Putter misses my pot roast and Doc Hunky wants to see more of you. Don’t know quite how to take that but it sounds mighty interesting.”

  “This is not going to be one of those interesting relationships.” I pulled out the Rocky Road container. “This is going to be a let’s-do-dinner, have-a-nice-chat, and I-get-the-doggie-bag relationship. Period.”

  “Honey, with that hair you should take what you can get, but right now you got yourself some mighty unusual visitors coming your way.”

  “Customers already! Do they have expensive pocketbooks? You can always tell a money-spending customer if she’s toting an expensive purse.”

  “Two cops, Detective Ross, and they’re toting badges and unfriendly expressions.”

  My stomach jumped to my throat. I hurried in from the kitchen and KiKi grabbed my shoulders. She looked me dead in the eyes. “Detective Ross is not here to pick out a new wardrobe, is she. What in the world have you gone and done now to have the police here first thing in the morning?”

  “There may have been a dead body over at Simon’s place last night and Chantilly and I sort of stumbled across it.” KiKi and I made the sign of the cross for the dead body.

  “And you didn’t call the police?”

  “They came of their own accord and hanging around a corpse didn’t seem like a good idea at the time so we left.”

  “Who was it?”

  “Suellen, that waitress from over at the Pirate House with the side ponytail and blue eye shadow.”

  “And I’m just now hearing of it?” KiKi slapped her palm to her forehead. “This is what I get for forgetting to turn my phone back on and checking my tweets. Your mamma’s running for office, remember? Family drama does not get people elected, it gets them on The Daily Show with snide comments and unflattering pictures. If she finds out about this, she’ll have a canary.”

  “Can we send her on a cruise?”

  Detective Ross and the policemen strode onto the porch and Auntie KiKi followed me out to meet them. Ross nodded to Pillsbury, then her gaze landed on me, her expression way less friendly. Not a good sign when the police greet you with less congeniality than the local gang member. “How do you keep winding up in the middle of things?” Ross grumbled.

  “There’s a full moon.”

  She walked over to Chantilly. “You’re under arrest for the murder of Suellen Hamilton.”

  “No!” Chantilly said, holding up her hands defensively and taking a few steps in retreat. “This is not fair. I didn’t do it, I swear. I hid in a Dumpster for crying out loud. No way could you have seen me. I suffered through bugs and slop and creepy things I’ll be dreaming about for months, and my car has roaches in it and—”

  Pillsbury clamped his sizable hand over Chantilly’s mouth. “Babe,” he said in the deep calming voice of someone who knew the police drill. “You need to chill. Don’t say another word now, you hear.”

  I ran our escape route in my brain. Chantilly was right, there was no way the cops saw us. They would have given chase and nailed us in that alley if they had. “What makes you think Chantilly killed Suellen, because she didn’t. Why would she? She didn’t even know the girl.”

  “How can you be sure about that?”

  Because she told me when she saw the body was on the edge of my tongue till I caught a warning glance from Pillsbury. “Just a guess.”

  “Guess again,” Ross said. “Chantilly’s fingerprints were on the murder weapon.”

  “I was giving myself a mani-pedi.” Chantilly pointed to her peep-toe sandals and held out her fingers, all twenty nails broken and chipped from the Dumpster dive.

  Ross looked at me. “Unless you have one heck of a good alibi between ten and midnight I got a feeling you’re mixed up in this someway.”

  “There was this guy trying to strangle me.”

  • • •

  The interrogation room was putrid green, the table gross and sticky. The worst part was that this was no surprise because I’d been here before. On second thought that wasn’t the worst part of this whole affair at all, not even close, because Mamma came through the door in her perfect navy suit, cream blouse, and coiffured hair with natural silver streaks.

  “Reagan, what’s going on?”

  I should have stayed in the Dumpster. “How did you know I was here?” Mamma took the seat across from me.

  “Honey, what did you do to wind up in this place?”

  Those were the exact same words she used in Principal Stiller’s office when I got caught skinny-dipping in the high school pool
. That the rest of the soccer team managed to get away scot-free should have been a warning that a life of crime or almost crime was not for me. I never was good at warnings. “Well, there was this dead body.”

  Mamma looked pained. In my thirty-two years of life there’d been quite a few oh honeys and pained looks.

  “Detective Ross doesn’t have anything on me. She’s trying to pin the murder on a good friend of mine because her fingerprints just happen to be on the murder weapon. There are other suspects; I just have to make Detective Ross aware of them.”

  Mamma nodded. “My guess this murder is connected to the one out at the plantation?”

  I took Mamma’s hand. “I’ll try to keep things on the down low and not sabotage your chances for alderman and I’ll keep Auntie KiKi safe though I don’t think I’ve got a prayer of carrying off that last part.”

  Mamma grinned. “Do the best you can on that score.” She checked her watch. “I have to get to court. Don’t fret over the alderman election, you just do what you have to. If you need anything, anything at all, call me and don’t let my sister talk you into a bunch of trouble.” Mamma kissed me on the cheek. “That’s what she used to do to me all the time and you be sure and tell her I said so.”

  Mamma opened the door then looked back, her expression serious. “I’m not going to try and talk you out of helping a friend because that’s who you are. But you need to be right careful, Reagan; one hand for your friend, and one for yourself.” She gave me a little wink then left. I let out a pent-up lungful of air, and relaxed. Not that I was afraid Mamma would yell and throw a hissy, that was not her way. Even though she was a judge and a lot of times my judgment sucked, we saw eye to eye on most things, my marrying Hollis being one of the great exceptions. My biggest concern at the moment was that I’d disappoint her. Least that was my biggest concern till Walker Boone came through the door, hands in pockets, holier-than-thou smirk firmly in place, and the last person on earth I wanted to see.

  “What mess have you gotten yourself into this time, Blondie?”