“Ohhhh,” he said laughing. “Old maid status.”
“Shut up. In the city being thirty and single is no big deal, but in Whiskey Bayou everyone is expected to marry and reproduce shortly after graduation. You have no idea what it’s like to walk down the street and have people look at you like your ovaries are no better than dried prunes.”
“You’re right. I don’t.”
“Greg was exactly what I was looking for in a man. He had a respectable job and he would have been a good father.”
“And he was cheating scum.”
“Yeah,” I said depressed. “That, too.”
“You never mentioned passion. Where was the spark? You can’t spend fifty years of your life admiring his charisma and intelligence.”
“Spark doesn’t last,” I said, getting irritated because I knew he was at least partially right. “It’s never a good idea to let hormones make the important decisions in life.” I opened my eyes and finally looked him in the eye. His cocky grin was not reassuring.
“Maybe next time you should look for someone who gives you better orgasms than a pint of Haagen Dazs.”
“Get out,” I said, wishing I had the strength to throw something in his direction.
“Hey, look on the bright side. Right at this moment a whole room full of cops are watching you take your clothes off on tape. I’m sure you’ll find a man in no time after that.”
“Out,” I said and pointed toward the door. I ignored his laughter as he let himself out of my apartment. I tried to console myself with a bite of ice cream, but I realized he was right. I did have better orgasms with frozen desserts than with a man.
As far as I was concerned, real orgasms were myths anyway. And any man watching me strip on that tape would probably suffer from erectile dysfunction for the rest of his life.
I decided to take back the nice thoughts I was having about Nick Dempsey. He was still a jerk, and I’d had more than my fill of jerks lately. Greg and Nick were packaged differently, but I had a sinking feeling that they were very much the same on the inside.
CHAPTER SIX
Wednesday
I woke up to music blaring and my head pounding. I slapped feebly at the alarm, because I had no desire in my present condition to listen to Paul Simon singing about some woman who had diamonds on the soles of her shoes, and made my way to the kitchen for more aspirin. I caught my reflection in the toaster. My forehead was an interesting shade of purple, yellow and green.
I staggered into the shower and let the hot water and steam work its magic on my body. Of course, the hot water in my apartment lasted for exactly four minutes and thirty-two seconds, so I’ve learned to be efficient once under the spray. Adequate shower time was definitely a priority in my new home.
I turned off the water, got out and wiped down the fogged mirror with a towel.
Eeek!
I should have let it stay foggy. The yellow and green on my forehead had disappeared at some point during the shower, and all that was left was dark purple and black and a big lump. It was an appropriate color for attending a funeral.
I was a little relieved to see the lump. I’d read somewhere once that it was always important that a lump form when you had a head injury because if it didn’t it meant your brain was bleeding on the inside.
I was good to go.
My hair was wet and plastered around my head, and a brilliant idea popped into my brain. I needed bangs. Bangs would solve all of my problems. They’d give me a new look and cover my massive lump. Problem solved.
I snipped at a few strands of hair and was satisfied I’d achieved my new look. I did a full makeup job and blow-dried my hair. The bruise was still showing after all that work, but there wasn’t much else I could do.
I winced as I heard a deep rumble of thunder loud enough to rattle the panes in my windows. I heard a crash of glass and went searching through the apartment until I found the broken shards on the floor of my bedroom. The thunder had rattled a few panes right out of the window, so there was a gaping hole in my bedroom, though it did bring in a nice breeze.
“Great. Don’t you know I don’t have time for this today?” I asked God. Not that he was probably going to help me out since I hadn’t visited him in a while.
I swept up the glass and taped a garbage bag over the hole with duct tape. While I was in cleaning mode, I made my bed, vacuumed the floor and put the cans of beets, salmon and sauerkraut in alphabetical order in my pantry. They were the same cans that had been there since I’d moved in, and I’d already decided I’d leave them to be demolished with the rest of the building when I moved out. But that was no reason not to be tidy. Or perhaps I was stalling.
At ten o’clock I dug through my closet until I found my funeral suit. It was the same black suit I’d worn to my father’s funeral and overwhelming sadness took hold of me so quickly that I shoved it back in the closet and looked for something else.
The only other black dress I had in my closet was a 1950’s wool day dress with a flared skirt and thin black belt. I’d found it on the clearance rack at Neiman’s for a quarter of its original price, but it still had the tags on it because there was never a good time to wear wool in Georgia. As soon as the fabric got wet I was going to feel like I was being suffocated by a wooly mammoth, but I pulled it off the hanger anyway.
I skipped the pantyhose, slipped on a pair of three-inch strappy sandals, grabbed a pink rain slicker and shoved a bunch of Kleenex in the coat pockets.
I parked my car in the parking lot and slogged my way up to the doors of The Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church behind all the other mourners. Funerals were attended by all in Whiskey Bayou. All the businesses closed except for the Good Luck Café, and that was only because they had to be prepared for the onslaught of mourners that would hit the tiny restaurant after the burial.
The church was packed to its full capacity by the time I found a seat on a back pew. Both balconies were filled and the choir loft was crammed with singers in white robes. Mr. Butler’s casket was mahogany and draped with a white cloth, and the casket was closed to keep the guests from having an up close and personal look at what a body looked like after an autopsy.
Mr. Butler’s family walked in a procession from the back of the church to the front pews reserved for family. I didn’t recognize any of them because Mr. Butler had been a transfer from a Savannah high school several years before, and he’d kept his Savannah residence instead of moving to Whiskey Bayou. There was a younger version of Mr. Butler at the end of the procession, which I assumed had to be a younger brother. He had the same sandy colored hair and slight build.
Unfortunately, genetics hadn’t been kind to the Butler brothers because they all looked like Mr. Burns from The Simpsons, and after seeing their mother lead the procession down the aisle it was very obvious that her boys got their looks from her.
The youngest brother turned as he passed my pew and gave me a look of such startling hatred that I sucked in a breath and flushed in embarrassment as the people sitting around me began to titter nervously. I slunk back in my seat and wished I’d worn one of those big black hats with the netting on them.
“We are here to today to celebrate the life of Bernard Ulysses Basil Butler.”
I took out a Kleenex and covered my face so no one would see my smile. How could anyone name a poor, helpless baby that?
I kneeled and sat and sang and kneeled some more with the rest of the mourners. I didn’t even start crying until the woman next to me started blowing her nose and hiccupping. We kneeled again and prayed some more, and I listened as Mr. Butler’s family and friends told stories about the man they loved.
I’d been right about the young man who’d given me the hateful look. His name was Robbie, and he was the youngest of the five Butler brothers. I had an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach as soon as he took his place at the podium.
“My brother was a good man,” Robbie said in a shaky voice. His eyes were rimmed red and filled with sorr
ow. “He was a man who touched the souls of everyone he met.”
I couldn’t help but think how Mr. Butler had been touching the soul of the woman that was giving him the lap dance, but that probably wasn’t what Robbie was talking about.
“Bernie was my brother. And my guardian angel. He always protected me, no matter what the cost. But he had no one to protect him when his life was so viciously taken.”
Robbie’s eyes found mine and stayed steady, the hatred not a figment of my imagination as I had first hoped.
“Bernie was my guardian angel, but he was also human. A human who made errors and bad decisions. He fell victim to the beauty and seduction of a Jezebel. A woman who might as well have stabbed him in the heart herself.”
The crowd was looking around nervously, trying to see who Robbie was staring at so intently. I was doing the same thing. I wanted to see a Jezebel just like every other person in the room.
I could hear Mrs. Butler openly sobbing from the front of the room and the choir was shifting anxiously, prepared to burst into song at a moments notice.
“Bernie was a victim. This woman teased him with her body and led him astray with promises of immoral acts. Those of you that know Bernie and have heard the gossip know that he would have never been at an establishment like the one he was murdered at unless he was lured.”
Robbie’s gaze had never faltered from mine during his speech, and it hit me like a bolt of lightning that he was talking about me. I was the other woman. The Jezebel.
My eyes widened and he gave me an evil smile. Why would Robbie think that I was involved with Mr. Butler? The only thing I could think of was that he knew my secret. But how? And it still didn’t explain why he thought we’d be involved.
“I ask each and every one of you to be the guardian angels over the people you love. Protect them from evildoers and harlots, and don’t let the task fall to your neighbors, because how well do you really know the person sitting next you?”
Robbie Butler left the podium and took a seat next to his mother, putting a comforting arm around her frail body. The rest of the church sat still in silence with the fear of God upon them. If my knees weren’t so sore I’d think I was sitting in the middle of a bunch of Lutherans caught at a Baptist tent revival. As far as eulogies went, it left a lot to be desired.
I sat and kneeled and prayed for another half hour before the pallbearers carried Mr. Butler down the center aisle. I kept my head down and looked at my feet as the family followed slowly behind the body. I wasn’t up to seeing Robbie Butler’s accusing glare again.
The rows began to file out and everyone was invited to walk next door to the cemetery. Umbrellas popped up and I used the crowd of people as cover to sneak to my car and get away.
I’d been called a harlot, a Jezebel and a seducer of men in the House of the Lord. Just because no one knew it was me Robbie had been talking about didn’t mean the barb didn’t sting. If I was going to be accused of being a slut, I damn well wanted the sex to back it up.
It was after noon by the time I got back to my apartment. I changed into a short, black denim skirt and an electric blue halter top to make myself feel better about the lump on my head and looked for something to eat, but the lunch fairy hadn’t visited while I’d been gone.
When the rain still hadn’t stopped by three o’clock, I ran downstairs and borrowed a couple of boxes of double fudge brownie mix from Mrs. Nowicki so I would stop worrying about Robbie Butler, my principal’s murder, the money for my house and Nick Dempsey—not necessarily in that order.
“Okay. I’m just going to have to tough this out. The cheating scums of the earth can’t be caught if I’m afraid of a little rain.”
A little rain might have been under exaggerating just a bit. It was a torrential downpour that no sane person would go back out in. It was a hell of a day to dig a grave.
I wrapped the brownies up, exchanged my sandals for a pair of cute pink galoshes with daisies painted on them and put on my pink raincoat. I was glad I’d been lazy and parked close to the building once I saw how high the water was rising in the parking lot. Galoshes weren’t helpful in a swimming pool.
As I suspected, there was no one crazy enough to be out in the weather but me, so the drive to Kate’s office was made fairly quickly, considering I was mostly driving blind.
“I smell brownies.”
I had barely gotten in the door when Kate and ten other people started making their way towards me. All of Kate’s employees were former law enforcement of some kind, and they were like Pavlov’s dogs over day-old jelly donuts, much less homemade brownies.
“I only made two dozen so you’ll have to share.”
“That’s not the way it works here,” Kate said, grabbing two. “This office is about survival of the fittest.”
I grabbed two for myself and handed the rest of the brownies over before I was accidentally eaten. I followed Kate to her office and brought the camera and notes I had collected on Barry Crumb.
“That bruise looks painful.”
“Dammit. I didn’t think anyone would notice.”
I peeled off my raincoat and hung it on the coat rack in the corner of Kate’s office. Kate was a big film noir fan, so everything in her office looked like it just came out of a black and white movie, right down to the slatted blinds and black lettering on her office door.
She was wearing a pinstripe suit today, as equally shapeless as the one she had on the last time I saw her, and sensible flat shoes. I guess the jacket had to have plenty of room to hide her gun.
“I like the bangs by the way. And the outfit makes for a nice diversion,” Kate said.
“Thanks. Obviously not diverting enough if my forehead was the first thing you noticed when I walked in.”
“Well, technically I noticed the brownies first. And maybe I noticed the bruise because Nick stopped in this morning and told me what happened last night.”
“I don’t think I like Nick. Nick has the sensitivity of a clod of dirt.”
“Well, he’s a man. But he is a damn good cop. He seems to have developed a little bit of a soft spot for you.”
“Oh, yeah. I could tell that right off last night when he told me he only stayed around to help me because you’d be pissed if I got your camera stolen.”
“If he didn’t care a little he would have let you fall to the ground and taken the camera with him to make sure it was safe.”
“Okay, so Nick’s a saint. I’d just as soon he achieved sainthood by bothering somebody else. I’ve already dealt with enough jerks in my life.”
“Oh, so you’re telling me you weren’t attracted to him when he first walked in yesterday? I’ve known you too long to not know when you’re hot for someone.”
“Sure I was attracted. The man’s a god. He just has the personality of a troll. If I could keep him from talking and then have my way with him everything would be fine, but I have a feeling he’s a hard man to shut up.”
“You’re letting this deal with Greg make you cynical.”
“I know. I’m just so pissed off about everything. My life is spiraling down the toilet.”
I blew my new bangs out of my eyes and wondered what I could have been thinking. Now I’d have to go through that awkward growing out stage.
“How was the funeral?” Kate asked.
“Long, sad, boring. The usual,” I said. “And Mr. Butler’s brother got up in front of the whole congregation and called me a harlot, but other than that it was the same old, same old.”
“What?”
“Well, he didn’t actually say That Addison Holmes is a whore beyond all reasonable doubt, but he was looking right at me when he gave the eulogy about his brother being seduced. He really looked like he hated me. It was scary.”
I thought about the anonymous message I’d gotten on the phone and the photograph taped to my window and wondered if Robbie Butler could be the guilty party.
“If he didn’t call you by name, then you’ve got nothing t
o worry about. Maybe he has a glass eye and couldn’t look at anyone but you.”
“You could be right. But I’ve always thought glass eyes were kind of expressionless, not hate-filled and menacing.”
“Like I said, don’t worry about it. You’ve got bigger problems with John Hyatt and Veronica Wade. Not to mention the fact that it’s been a while since you’ve had sex.”
“I don’t understand why relationships are so difficult for me,” I said. “I’m not hideous. And I’ve got a steady income.”
“It’ll come, honey. When you’re not even looking for it. Don’t settle just because it’s something you want. You’d have been settling with Greg. Just look at me and Mike. I never wanted to get married, but then I almost shot him and he almost arrested me and then we fell in love and put the handcuffs to good use.”
Mike had been a detective for five years when Kate went into the academy, so they hadn’t run in the same circles. They’d met by complete accident when Kate had caught Mike skulking around her apartment complex looking for a kid who’d just knocked over a liquor store. Only Kate didn’t know that. She’d thought he was a burglar and knocked him over the head with her Smith & Wesson 9mm pistol. Mike had retaliated by taking her off guard when he regained consciousness and handcuffing her to the pipes on the outside of the building. The fireworks between them hadn’t stopped since.
“I was over Greg the minute he cheated. I’m just looking for someone fun. Someone that I can talk to and relax with and have crazy sex with. I’m sure you’re right. When my soul mate comes along I’ll know it.”
“Which is why I’ve set up a date for you tomorrow night,” Kate said. “He’ll be by to pick you up at seven. Wear something slutty.”
“I don’t want to go on a blind date. Who did you set me up with? It’s not Mike’s cousin, is it? Because I really don’t think we’ll suit. He’s an infant.”
“No, it’s not Mike’s cousin. It’s a surprise. Just be ready at seven and keep an open mind.”
Whiskey Rebellion (Romantic Mystery/Comedy) Book 1 (Addison Holmes Mysteries) Page 7
