Lethal in Old Lace

by Duffy Brown

  “Except…” I held the lid open. “We sort of got a situation.” Auntie KiKi nodded to Willie. “There’s a little matter of the grandson thinking granddad here didn’t exactly die of asthma but that he was … well … murdered.”

  Mercedes’s eyes rounded to the size of goose eggs. “Do you two stay awake nights dreaming this stuff up or what?”

  “I’m sure the kid’s got it all wrong,” KiKi pushed on. “So I … we … just need you—”

  “Me!”

  “’Cause you’re our friend and all. All you got to do is tell the kid that granddad died because it was his time.”

  Mercedes shoved back her bangs. “Do you see coroner written up here on my forehead? I’m just the nab ’em, slab ’em, and fab ’em girl around here. That means folks come to me and I make them look more fabulous dead than they were alive. The reason they went and got themselves dead and departed is not in my job description.”

  KiKi held out her hands. “Just meet with the grandson, have a milkshake and some fries, my treat, and tell him Willie was a victim of natural causes. Think of it as public service for a grandson grieving for the beloved grandpa he was named after. Touches the heart, don’t you think?”

  Mercedes struck a pose and tipped her head. She didn’t say no right off, so that had to be a good thing, right?

  “I want to be a bridesmaid. If I’m going to be part of all this here crazy stuff that’s going on, I want to be part of the good stuff. I want to pick out pretty dresses and go to BleuBelle Bridal over there on Abercorn and drink champagne that they bring out to you on a little silver tray and treat you all special ’cause you’re getting married and about to spend a boatload of money on dresses you only wear once. I look real good in fuchsia and something off the shoulder to show off the girls here.” Mercedes thrust out her chest. “I do have mighty perky girls, if I do say so myself.”

  “I … I was thinking small wedding?”

  “I just love weddings and never been in one.” Mercedes glanced back to Willie in the coffin, then to KiKi, then back to Willie.

  “Well, now you are going to be in a really terrific wedding,” KiKi gushed, putting her arm around Mercedes, who was still staring intently at the coffin. “I tell you, Reagan doesn’t know what she’s talking about with that small-wedding stuff. Who in Savannah ever heard of a small wedding? Such things just aren’t done around here. She needs to be having a big fancy Southern affair with all Walker’s friends and her friends and her customers and her mamma being a judge, and I do believe fuchsia will be just dandy.”

  KiKi gave me a pleading look and added, “So now all we got to do is close up this here casket in front of us and tomorrow you can talk to Willie the Second and tell him granddad is at peace with the Lord and the angels singing above and—”

  “Wait … a … minute.” Mercedes put her hand up, and this time she held the lid open. She snagged the flashlight from Auntie KiKi and aimed it close. “Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle,” she said in a breathy whisper.

  “Does that take the place of being a bridesmaid?” I asked, KiKi giving me the auntie evil eye.

  “Look right there.” Mercedes pointed behind Willie’s ear. “It’s a rash. You know, I saw that before but didn’t think anything of it. I just added another layer of makeup to cover the places you could see ’cause the new owner around here is having a hissy about wasting money. With the medical examiner giving Willie the dead-from-natural-causes stamp of approval when he was brought in, I figured all was well. Over there at Sleepy Pines they didn’t find Willie till that morning. He was sort of bluish when they brought him in here. Bodies tend to lose color with no blood swishing around inside.”

  Mercedes aimed the light closer still. “Willie had an inhaler clutched in his hand to the point where I had to pry his cold stiff fingers off the thing—like he was hanging onto it for dear life. It said to use at bedtime, so I guess he took a blast before he went to sleep each night. That along with a history of asthma adds up to an asthma attack. Embalming pinks up the skin, making the rash more noticeable. I’m no doctor, but asthma does not cause a rash. Allergic reactions cause rashes. I doubt if Willie did this on purpose, so that means…”

  “An unfortunate accident?” I ventured.

  “That maybe had some help.” Auntie KiKi harrumphed. “I hear they watch the dietary restrictions real careful over at the Pines. All his life Willie was a fast-talking, double-dealing scalawag, and my guess is somebody had enough and bumped him off just like the kid said. I say we call the cops and let them figure things out. You know, this is working out fine. Willie Junior will be so indebted to us for getting to the truth he won’t be posting on YouTube. We need to celebrate and go on over to Jen’s and Friends and order a round of strawberry martinis. I could do with a martini or two.”

  Auntie KiKi pulled out her cell and tapped in 9 and 1, but I snapped it away before she hit the next 1. “You know that part about somebody having enough of Willie and his dealings? Well, you can include Elsie and Annie Fritz. Willie got the sisters involved in some kind of con, and they were nearly doing the happy dance at his funeral. They work at the Pines and had to know about Willie’s allergy and asthma, so that gives them motive, means, and the opportunity to do him in. That puts them on the let’s-off-Willie list.”

  KiKi snatched back the phone and held it tight. “Look, if Willie lived up to his reputation, there’s got to be others who wanted him permanently pushing up daisies. Maybe the sisters are innocent.”

  “Of course they’re innocent, but the cops may think otherwise once they start connecting the dots. Willie took the sisters for a bundle.”

  KiKi yanked the Snickers from Willie’s pocket and ripped off the wrapper. “This here is a full-out emergency, and I never met a situation that a two-olive martini or chocolate didn’t make better.” She caught a peanut on her tongue, her eyes starting to focus. “Okay, that’s better.” She squared her shoulders and smacked her palm against her forehead. “My neurotransmitters are firing up again to make sense of all this. I get that we can’t call the cops because the sisters are involved, and I get that we can’t be putting old Willie in the ground because that rash proves he was murdered in the first place, just like Willie Junior thinks. So the way I see it, all we have to do is reschedule Willie’s sendoff till after we figure out who did him in for real. Once a body is planted, it’s difficult to get it dug up, especially if the relatives protest. With that nice inheritance in her hand, Willie’s daughter would put up a fight for sure and we’ll never get the body back.”

  I gave KiKi a long, hard look. “Define reschedule.”

  “The old fart’s all stuffed and mounted, so storage isn’t an issue.”

  “Storage?”

  Eyes gleaming, KiKi turned to Mercedes. “Here’s what we’ll do. You tell the family there’s a problem at Bonaventure Cemetery with the backhoe breaking down and not able to dig Willie’s final resting arrangements. The remaining Fishbines won’t care two figs about that since they can be heading off to the lawyers earlier than planned for the reading of the will. Reagan here impersonates a secretary from the Slumber and informs the cemetery there’s an issue with a relative coming to pay his last respects, so Willie’s on hold for few days. I tell Willie Junior we’re hot on the case and to give his itchy trigger finger a rest and not hit ‘Send.’”

  KiKi held her hands high as if she’d just kicked a touchdown. “Problem solved.”

  “Are you out of your ever-loving mind?” Mercedes screeched, stomping around the room and waving her arms like a possessed chicken. “A problem is having pie for dessert when you’re on a diet or wanting to buy purple shoes when what you really need are boring black ones. If we get caught hiding a body, it’s the three of us sharing a cell. Honey, I’ve been there before in my previous life, and it’s no fun. And there’s the fact that we’re sending real bad vibes out into the universe by abducting a corpse. You know deep down inside this whole sordid affair is going to come back
and bite us on the bare bottom.”

  KiKi pointed a stiff finger at Willie all snuggled in his blue satin slumber chamber. “If you ask me, it’s not like we’re doing anything wrong here. Fact is, I’d say we’re doing something right in finding the killer, so that’s good vibes we’re sending out. Just think of this as Willie taking a detour for a few days. I ask you, now, who wouldn’t welcome a little detour at this particular juncture of their life—or nonlife as the case may be? All we got to do is figure out where Willie’s detouring to.” KiKi looked from me to Mercedes. “And I just happen to have one doozy of an idea.”

  Chapter Seven

  “If we lathered it in Crisco and shoved like the dickens, it still wouldn’t fit,” Mercedes said, the four of us staring at the end of the casket sticking out the trunk of the Beemer.

  Auntie KiKi had moved the car next to the delivery door at the House of Eternal Slumber so that the Beemer was in the shadows and we wouldn’t have to roll a casket perched on a cart clear across the parking lot.

  “So what should we do now? And we better think real fast,” Mercedes said in a panicky voice.

  I snagged a brown tarp draped over a mound of mulch. “We wrap the end of the coffin in this and use BW’s leash to hold it in place. I’ll tie my yellow scarf at the end so what we’re hauling looks legal.”

  “And then I’ll park the Beemer in my garage,” Auntie said. “I’ll tell Putter that the car manual says BMWs need to rest every twenty thousand miles. He’s a mighty fine cardio guy, none better, but he’s not exactly a car expert.”

  “You want him to believe that you read a manual?” I gave KiKi a “Get real” look.

  “If I add in that there’s pot roast for dinner, the man will forget anything else I said. Pot roast is the abracadabra of the male species; say it and everything else vanishes.”

  Mercedes held the tarp in place while I wrapped the leash. KiKi added the scarf, a smile breaking across her lips as she took a step back. “Looks good to me. You know, I think this little plan of mine is going to work just fine and dandy.”

  “What’s going to work fine and dandy?” Aldeen Ross wanted to know as she drew up beside Mercedes. KiKi grabbed my hand, I grabbed hers, and the only thing that kept us from fainting dead away was fascination with Aldeen’s electric green nightshirt with “I See Guilty People” on the front in dayglow pink. Neither of us wanted to miss that or the police cruiser slippers strobing red and blue when she walked.

  “What are you doing here?” Mercedes asked as her lovely mahogany complexion faded to latte brown.

  “I got myself one of those app things for when the ‘Hot Now’ light goes on at Krispy Kreme over on Abercorn.” Aldeen flashed her iPhone as she licked her lips. “See there, the app is blinking, which means a new batch of doughnuts is ready from the oven. I was heading on over and saw you all back here. I didn’t want to be missing out on the fun.” Aldeen slapped the tarp with a solid whomp. “What are you hauling at this hour? Dead bodies?”

  Mercedes’s laugh sounded like the Wicked Witch of the West. “It’s … it’s folding tables. Yep, lots of folding tables that the Slumber loans out to future customers.” She hitched her head toward KiKi.

  “Hey, just who you calling a customer?” KiKi snorted.

  “The tables are for my shower,” I blurted as Aldeen started to peel back the tarp.

  “And I’m in the wedding,” Mercedes said in a hurry as the tarp got inched up. “And … and Reagan here wants you to be in her wedding too. She told me herself.”

  “I did?”

  Mercedes jabbed me in the back.

  “I did!”

  “And it’s going to be a big wedding,” Mercedes babbled on. “And we’re going to pick out dresses out there at BleuBelle Bridal where they serve you champagne on the little silver tray and all kinds of stuff.”

  “Me? In your wedding?” Aldeen squealed, dropping the tarp back in place. Her eyes teared and she ran to me, the little red-and-blue lights strobing faster, and was that a siren sound now coming from the slippers? Aldeen threw her arms around me and hugged tight, making it hard to breathe—or maybe the gasping part was relief that the tarp was back in place.

  “I’ve never been in a wedding before,” Aldeen sniffed. “This will be a first for me.”

  “Girl, let me tell you, this here is a night of firsts.” Mercedes retied the tarp. “I was thinking fuchsia for the bridesmaids’ dresses. Don’t you think fuchsia’s a great color? I just know you’d look amazing in fuchsia.”

  Aldeen hugged tighter. “And gold shoes. Aren’t gold shoes the best thing ever? Always wanted an excuse to buy gold shoes and now I have one.”

  “And there’s no way you should be on a doughnut run tonight,” KiKi said to Aldeen. “You want to look great in your new fuchsia dress.”

  Aldeen held me at arm’s length, a determined look in her eyes. “I’m going on a crash diet. Maybe I’ll meet someone. Weddings are great for meeting guys. I know, you’ll just have to invite that new coroner the city hired on. I tell you, he’s a real hunk and I think he’s got his eye on me.”

  “And I’m sure he does.” KiKi hooked her arm through Aldeen’s and steered her back to the blue Honda parked at the curb. “Every wedding needs a coroner, and I’ll teach you the rumba tomorrow at our dance lesson. I bet you can get in a workout tonight so you can get that diet on track.”

  Aldeen giggled, then bear-hugged KiKi. She climbed into the Honda, gave us a thumbs-up, and barreled down Broad Street.

  “A coroner?” I choked. “At my wedding? I don’t even know this guy. What if he drives his coroner-mobile to the wedding?”

  “Better the coroner than having that wedding in a cellblock, you in jumpsuit orange, and Walker smuggling a hacksaw in the cake.” Mercedes climbed in her Caddy and stuck her head out the window. “All I know is that this here is going to be a wedding to remember.”

  It was after midnight by the time BW and I helped KiKi berth the Beemer in the garage. In case Uncle Putter got curious about the car needing a rest and peeked in the garage window, we piled boxes around the back to hide the protruding casket. I then threatened my dear auntie with physical harm if she ever ate another Snickers, gave her a kiss on the cheek, and BW and I headed for home.

  “Where have you been?” Boone mumbled as I crawled into bed. He snuggled up behind me all warm and sexy. “Did BW decide to walk to China?”

  “I left the cake downstairs for breakfast, we’re having a big wedding and Mercedes and Aldeen Ross are bridesmaids. They’re wearing hot pink with gold shoes and a coroner is on the guest list.”

  Boone didn’t move, but I could feel his body tense beside me.

  “And we’ll have pot roast at the reception.”

  “Pot roast?” I could feel Boone’s mouth soften into a smile against my neck as he planted a lingering kiss, sending lightning bolts down my spine. He draped his big arm around me, drawing me close. “It’s going to be a really great wedding.”

  * * *

  “What did Walker say about where you were last night?” KiKi wanted to know as I handed her a cup of coffee that I’d brought out onto my front porch. We sat on the top step with the sun just tipping over St. John’s steeples, a perfect breeze stirring the trees.

  “Stealing a corpse isn’t exactly pillow talk,” I mumbled, still half asleep. “Thank heavens Boone left early this morning to start relocating his office to his house and moving his personal stuff into my house. The good news is he’s okay with the big wedding.”

  KiKi winked at me over the rim of her coffee cup. “And we’re having pot roast at the reception?”

  “Along with biscuits and gravy—Boone just loves biscuits and gravy. And to add to the morning crazy, I called Bonaventure Cemetery. I thought I’d just leave a message on their machine, but they answered. I guess the line between day and night gets a little blurry when dealing with dead people. Anyway, the man said Willie has to take up residence in five days or they sell his hole to the
next on the list, meaning you get Willie as a permanent guest forevermore in your garage. We now have less than a week to find out who else wanted Willie out of the way. For some reason, everything leads back to Sleepy Pines, so I’ve been thinking we should probably start snooping around there first.”

  I took a sip of coffee and peered at KiKi over the rim. “The only thing is, I don’t think the Pines group will be all that willing to spill their guts to an outsider.”

  KiKi stopped midsip, her gaze fusing with mine. “Outsider?”

  “We need an insider, and before you blow a gasket, hear me out. Uncle Putter’s gone on that golf trip, so what if you sort of sprain your ankle? You can’t take care of yourself in that big house with all those steps and you’ll need help getting around.”

  KiKi plopped her mug down on the porch with a solid thud, coffee sloshing over the top. “I knew this day would come—you’re putting me in an old folks’ home!”

  “Willie’s room is available.”

  “You want me to stay in a dead guy’s room!”

  “Well, he’s not using it any longer, and it was your Snickers addiction that got us into this mess.”

  “I can just tell that I’m going to hear about that Snickers for the rest of my life.”

  “If I have my way, you are, and so here’s your chance at making things right. And with you having a sprained ankle, no one will think it’s suspicious you’re not driving the Batmobile, so it can stay in the garage. And you won’t have to cook—think of that! You hate to cook. You’re the bomb at canasta. You could be the canasta queen and get your picture added to all the ones in the hallway at the Pines, and you’ll be waited on hand and foot, and you can use Uber to drive you around.”

  “I love to cook; you’re the one who hates it and eats nothing but junk, and I want a hot driver. Tall, dark, Italian, who sings opera. Something Puccini would be nice.”

  “This is Savannah, not the Amalfi Coast, and where is all this coming from?”

  “I was watching Moonstruck ’cause I wanted to see Cher again and decided I like opera. Take it or leave it. Hot Italian opera singer or forget your great idea.” KiKi stuck her nose in the air and folded her arms.