Demise in Denim

by Duffy Brown

  Chantilly stared at me for a beat. “Really? That’s all you got?”

  “Right now it’s the best I got of anything.”

  “Lord have mercy, Walker’s gonna fry.” Chantilly got out of the car and hooked her finger in a follow me gesture. “Since we’re here, we’ll talk to the guy.”

  “Breakfast-crashing?”

  “Still got that twenty? I’m starving, aren’t you starving? I just bet Russell feels the same way and I bet he’s a man who likes to be catered to. I’m a caterer, I know about these things.”

  I had no idea what Chantilly was talking about, but she seemed to have a plan and that beat the nothing going on in my brain. We opened the door to the Old Harbor Inn and I followed Chantilly inside. The reception desk was on the upper level, and we trooped to the main floor, avoided the desk, and headed toward the clatter of china and chitchat from guests in the back. I took in the yellow-and-white breakfast room overlooking the Savannah River with sightseeing boats, tenders, and ferries at the docks. Chantilly talked shop with the headwaiter. She slipped him the twenty and came back with two white Old Harbor Inn towels and a tray laden with pastries, plates and napkins, and a coffee carafe and mugs. “How do you feel about being a waitress?”

  “Depends on the tips.”

  Chantilly stuffed the towel into her waistband across her front to look waitresslike and I followed suit. She snagged the tray, I took the carafe, and we headed out the back entrance onto River Street.

  Sure enough, our man Russell was standing on the dock. He had on a red Atlanta Braves baseball cap, and there was another guy with him in khakis and a green polo. Some sort of surveying camera/telescope thing was set up on a tripod, drawings were laid out on a little table, and a toolbox sat open with tape measures and the like spilling out onto the wood plank flooring. It was just like Lamar said.

  “Yoo-hoo, Mr. Russell,” Chantilly called in a friendly voice, adding a big toothy grin. “We have some nice refreshments here for you and your guest, compliments of the hotel. We like to take special care of our important clients.”

  Russell stopped staring through the telescope thing. He gave us a lurid once-over, making my skin crawl. Wolf whistles and waves were fine; Russell was plain creepy. He eyed the coffee. “Sure, why not.”

  I poured out two mugs and Chantilly offered the pastries, saying, “You gentlemen are sure hard at work out here in the morning sun. Don’t you think our Savannah docks are safe enough?”

  “Just checking things, is all. Don’t you worry your pretty little heads about it,” khakis guy said in a smart-man-to-dumb-woman voice. Munching a slice of pound cake, he gazed out at the river and said to Russell, “This is going to work. We’ll get the divers here to check the water depth. Savannah’s a deep-river port; we’re good to go. How’s that guy you’re working with?”

  Russell hunched. “Not the sharpest knife in the box. You’ll meet him at the game.” He held out his mug to me for a refill and stopped, eyes focusing. “I know you.”

  Drat. Everybody knew me. I needed one of those big-round-glasses-with-plastic-nose disguises. It couldn’t be any more obvious than my present face.

  “Thought you were a waitress over at the Plantation Club,” Russell continued.

  “I freelance a lot.”

  “And you were on TV, something to do with Walker Boone.” Russell glanced over to Chantilly. “Get out of here, both of you.”

  “More Danish?” Chantilly offered the tray.

  “Buzz off and stay out of my business.” Russell’s eyes hardened to bits of gray steel, and he picked up a hammer from the toolbox. “You don’t want to mess with me, girl. Whatever you heard, you didn’t hear. Got it?”

  Normally I was a get-out-of-here kind of person, especially if there was a hammer involved, but I had zilch on finding Conway’s killer, getting Boone off the hook, getting the crime scene tape off Conway’s house, and finally getting my blasted furniture and a car.

  “Why are you so interested in the docks?” I pressed on. “What property are you buying and why are you going after the Tybee Post Theater?”

  Something flickered in Russell’s eyes. Bingo, I’d hit a nerve. “I like river property and I like show tunes, wanna make something of it?” He took a step closer and I didn’t back up. “You have no idea who you’re messing with,” he hissed.

  “Maybe I do.” My insides shook so bad I thought I might fall apart, but I still didn’t budge. It wasn’t that I was heroic but more the fear that if I did move I’d collapse.

  “We got a problem over here?” a policeman on horseback said as he trotted on over.

  “We’re just having morning coffee,” Russell beamed, holding up the mug, and Chantilly offered the policeman a Danish. “And taking a few dock measurements. The Savannah River is a beautiful sight.”

  Mr. Policeman bent down and snagged the pastry. “Hey,” he said to me. “Don’t I know you?”

  Glasses with nose for sure. “Just a waitress.” I nodded at the inn.

  Chantilly grabbed my towel and tugged me along. “And we have to get back inside right now. This is our busy time. Yep, busy little bees.”

  We dodged an orange tourist trolley motoring down River Street, its auto-play warbling on about the exploits of James Oglethorpe and his peeps, and we ducked into the back entrance of the inn. Chantilly stopped me inside the hallway and closed the door. “What in the name of all that’s holy are you doing? Did you see that dock out there? You’re going to wind up facedown in the water right beside it.”

  “Yeah, but we poked the bear.”

  “Ya think?”

  I dropped my voice. “Now we know why Russell is here, and it’s not just to buy the Tybee Post Theater. He’s after the Old Harbor Inn, too. I saw it on the plans spread out on that table.”

  Chantilly started to say something, and I shook my head. “We can’t talk here.”

  A maid hustled by, then stopped, eyeing the tray and giving us a curious look. “Who are you?”

  Chantilly and I simultaneously slapped on bright cheery smiles, the Southern woman’s answer to any and all unpleasant situations that might arise.

  “Why, we’re with Mr. Russell, who’s staying here at the inn with you all.” Chantilly handed her the tray as I passed over the carafe, and then we added our aprons. “We’re just returning these, and Mr. Russell said to tell you that the pastries were divine and to add the charge to his room. And if it’s not too much of a bother, to tack on a nice fifty-dollar tip for the valet out front who is always so helpful and polite beyond words.”

  The waitress gave us one of those what the heck are you talking about looks. “Mr. Russell said that? Just between us, the man’s not much of a tipper.”

  “See there, he’s mending his ways.” Chantilly smiled and we took off down the hallway. We cut through the inn and came out onto the back lane where we’d parked the Chevy. “So let me get this straight,” Chantilly said as I powered up the car. “Russell really wants to buy the Old Harbor Inn?”

  “That’s what it looks like to me.” We waved to Lamar, who was busy with other guests, and headed for the land of Victorian houses and fewer tourists.

  “Jiminy Christmas, can things get any worse?” Chantilly ran her fingers though her long curly hair in frustration. “We got to keep this to ourselves. Boone’s for sure going to fry if it gets out.”

  “I don’t get it. Why does this matter so much?” I asked, stopping for a red light.

  “Because if Boone knew about the sale of the inn and he knew Conway left the inn to him, it looks like Boone knocked off Conway before he could sell and cheat him out of the inheritance.”

  “Holy freaking—” The car behind honked, jarring me back to the moment. I hit the gas and motored on. “But Boone didn’t know about the inheritance till after Conway was dead.”

  “There’s no way of provi
ng that. The Russell deal is another nail in Boone’s coffin.”

  “Mind if I make a McDonald’s stop?”

  “Boone is going to skin you alive for eating in this car, I can tell you that . . . except I could do with a McMuffin right now. And about a gallon of coffee to get my brain cells activated. Things are not improving here, kemosabe.”

  Chantilly cracked her knuckles as we motored into the drive-through and ordered up. I headed for home and pulled the Chevy around back to the garage and killed the engine as we polished off breakfast from a bag. “We can talk later,” I said, downing my last bit of apple pie. “I’ve got to open the shop, and you need to get to work, too. If you think of something, send it over in another order of mac and cheese.”

  “We just polished off a bazillion calories. We shouldn’t be hungry till next week.”

  “Except for your mac and cheese.” I added a smile so she’d know I meant it. “Thanks for going with me this morning.”

  We climbed out of the car; both of us had a lot more questions than answers and no idea how to turn things around.

  “I’m not telling Pillsbury what we found out about Russell,” Chantilly finally said. “If the Seventeenth Street guys get involved in this, it will make Boone look more guilty—if that’s possible—with ties to the gang. And you know Pillsbury will tell Boone about the inn and how it makes things even worse, and the guy’s got to be lower than a snake’s belly as it is.”

  Chantilly gave me a hug, her voice cracking. “What are we going to do, Reagan?”

  I couldn’t talk, with a lump the size of Georgia in my throat, the apple pie like a brick in my stomach. I hugged Chantilly tighter. “We’ll figure it out. We figured out what happened with you and Simon, and we’ll get this right, too.” Then I offered up a quick prayer that I was right.

  “We’re just missing something,” I added. “I can feel it. It’s like a big old mosquito out there buzzing around in the dark driving me nuts.”

  Chantilly let me go and swiped away a tear. “Well, when you smack it down flat, honey, you let me know.” She trotted off for her Jeep, added a little wave, and then headed for Cuisine by Rachelle over on Jefferson. I headed inside.

  My brain was mush, but somehow by ten I was open for business as usual. With new customers bringing in clothes to consign, I didn’t have a minute to think more about Russell buying the inn and Boone rotting in jail. Change of season was always good for the Fox. People cleaned out closets and brought their gently worn items to me. With a little luck they would find a few things here at a bargain to fill that spot they’d just cleaned out. Recycling at its finest . . . and Reagan Summerside made money.

  “Business sure is brisk,” Anna said to Bella as the sisters pranced in the front door during a momentary lull.

  “See, it’s just like I told you.” Bella smiled. “This here shop is a great idea.” I started to offer a greeting, but they strutted right past me as if I didn’t exist. Guess I wasn’t worth the effort, since I hadn’t planned on dying and leaving them money.

  By noon I’d taken in two full racks of clothes to sell that needed to be priced, and I had people standing in line to check out. BW took to sleeping behind the counter so as not to get stepped on, and the sisters were still hanging around the shop looking at the clothes. My guess was they intended to bring in some of their own to consign, and that was fine by me. For sure they were complete snobs with questionable morals, but they had great fashion sense.

  I closed the shop at six sharp. If I hadn’t had KiKi’s Shakin’ Seniors and Melvin the octopus to contend with, I would have stayed open longer to let a few more people shop, and I could have cleaned up the place since it was trashed. It would also have given me time to think about the Russell/Old Harbor Inn situation. But I did have the dance lesson at seven, and I wanted to look in on KiKi. She hadn’t been over all day to get the skinny on Russell, and that was so un-KiKi-like. Either dear Auntie was in a terrible state or she was wallowing in her soaps.

  I didn’t see Uncle Putter’s car in the drive, so he wasn’t on hand to offer sympathy. It also meant KiKi was well enough to be left on her own and the terrible state possibility was off the table. I made up a pot of mint tummy-soothing tea, then begged some blackberry scones from the Abbott sisters, who were recouping from the Conway Adkins wake with a pitcher of margaritas. I picked flowers from KiKi’s lovely garden and put together a cheery get-well-soon tray.

  “Teatime,” I sang out as I knocked and opened KiKi’s bedroom door. Princess the cat—who morphed into a snarling, hissing, biting Hellion the cat when KiKi wasn’t looking—sat perched on a satin pillow. The TV warbled on from the other side of the room and Auntie KiKi sobbed uncontrollably into a white hankie. Her eyes were red and blotchy, her nose was running, and tissues were strewn across the covers like little puffs of fluffy snow.

  “Sweet mother in heaven, who died?” I asked, figuring it had to be that to warrant so much anguish. I set the tray on the nightstand and gathered KiKi in my arms. BW jumped up on the bed, gave Hellion a wide berth, and offered whiny sounds of sympathy.

  “Alfonzo,” KiKi managed between choking back sobs. “He’s truly gone!”

  “Oh, honey, that’s terrible.” I held KiKi tighter. “Did you know him well?”

  “Oh my, yes. Eleven years now. He went to Brazil to rescue Arielle and got captured by the pygmy headhunters and they ate him for dinner.”

  Ewww! And I thought I’d had a tough day. “Oh my God! Oh my God! I am so sorry,” I soothed, patting KiKi, who was now blubbering on my shoulder. “How did you find out? Are the authorities sure that’s what happened and he’s just not missing in the jungle and . . . Waitaminute, there aren’t pygmies in Brazil, and they don’t eat people.”

  “Of course there are, and yes they do.” KiKi sobbed louder still. “The Years of Our Splendor would not make up such things. And Alfonzo was such a biscuit, he was just starting to get that touch of gray at the temples that men do.” She let out a deep sigh. “He’s so romantic.”

  “Honey, trust me, Alfonzo will show up next week as a twin, a ghost, father, uncle, cousin, or maybe he’ll crawl out from under a rock. He’s coming back, I promise.”

  “You really think so?” KiKi sniveled, looking at me now and swiping at her eyes.

  “I truly do.” I grabbed a tissue and blew KiKi’s nose. “And you can make sure if you check online to see if Alfonzo renewed his contract.”

  “That seems a bit like cheating.”

  “So is having man-eating pygmies in Brazil.” I fluffed KiKi’s pillows, except the one Hellion occupied, and then I poured out the tea. “How’s your stomach?”

  “Getting itself up and running. I think Putter brought home a bug from the hospital, is all. I tell you, that man’s immune to everything; he’s got the constitution of a rhinoceros, but this ailment sure had me down for the count.” KiKi sipped her tea and broke off a crumb of scone. “I was perking up right fine this afternoon till the Alfonzo situation. Sent me right into a relapse, it did.”

  “I think what got to you was sneaking over to my house and devouring my leftovers from Walls’.”

  “Whatever are you talking about?” KiKi sipped tea and ate more of the scone between feeding bits to the resident pets.

  “The ribs? The greens? Eating too much of that stuff will really get you late at night. No wonder you got an attack of jelly belly.”

  KiKi scrunched her nose and wagged her head. “Reagan, dear, I was in this here bed all night and I have no idea what on earth you’re talking about.”

  “Of course you don’t, and that’s just fine as long as you’re feeling better.” Heck, I wouldn’t be too anxious to own up to an overindulgence of that magnitude either. I stood and smiled and kissed KiKi on the head and smoothed back her curly red hair, thankful that an upset stomach and Alfonzo were the only things upsetting KiKi.

  �
�Guess I better get myself downstairs; the Shakin’ Seniors will be arriving. Any words of advice for Melvin?”

  “The .38’s in the desk drawer and the .22’s in the closet. Feel free to help yourself.”

  Chapter Eight

  BY eight the Swingin’ Seniors were smiling and waving and trooping out the front door, the last strands of something country-western thumping in the background. I ran the dust mop around Auntie KiKi’s dance studio, which had once been the dining room and parlor.

  Back in the day of the horse and buggy and when folks came a-callin’ in their top hats and hoop skirts, a fifteen-room Victorian house was all the rage. But when Auntie KiKi came along she figured that thirteen rooms were as good as fifteen, she and Uncle Putter needed money for medical school, and setting up her very own dance studio was a dream come true. Plus it paid the bills.

  I punched up KiKi’s iTunes playlist of music to tidy up by, and the Beach Boys came to life telling me that “God Only Knows.” Amen to that.

  “You are such a cheater, cheater, pumpkin eater,” Auntie KiKi said as she came down the stairs in a peach robe that went to her toes. She parked herself on the bottom step with BW sitting beside her, his head in her lap. “I could hear the thump of that music all the way upstairs, you know. I’m guessing you did a little cha-cha, threw in the electric slide, and ended up with the Texas two-step.”

  “Those are dances; we danced.”

  “And not a touchy-feely dance in the lot. You chickened out.”

  “I improvised a little and it worked; everyone was happy. How are you feeling?”

  “I seem to be doing a bit better.” KiKi yawned, then patted BW and stood. “Putter should be home soon. He gave one of those olive oil for butter and applesauce for sugar talks to the Scrumptious Savannah cooking club tonight. If they don’t tar and feather the dear man and run him out of town, he should be home by nine. Lock up on your way out.”