Iced Chiffon

by Duffy Brown

  Auntie KiKi sobered and made the sign of the cross to cancel the blasphemy of losing Rose Gate. “What if you wind up on a slab at the morgue with coroner Hewlett peering over your naked dead body?”

  “No one expects me to be looking for Cupcake’s murderer. Everyone thinks I’m tickled to my toes that Cupcake is dead and gone. There’s no love lost between Hollis and me, so why would I want to see him go free? I’ll fly under the radar.”

  “You never fly under the radar. You’re a king-size blip on everyone’s screen.” Auntie KiKi counted off on her fingers. “Your mother’s a judge, you married the town playboy, who everyone knew was a playboy but you, and you drive cars with dead people in them. Let Boone take care of this. He has connections. No one messes with that man. He has the tattoo to prove it.”

  “Have you ever seen it?”

  “Well”—Auntie KiKi’s lips formed a sly smile—“Angie Gilbert’s a nurse over at Doc Wilson’s, and she gave Boone a flu shot once. There it was, that ‘17’ on his shoulder, big as you please. She nearly peed her pants. He is one fine-looking boy.”

  “He’s Darth Vader minus the voice and cape.” I stood and pulled Auntie KiKi to her feet. I held on to her till she steadied. “Go home, eat something.”

  “And what are you going to do? Get yourself into trouble, no doubt.”

  “I thought I’d pay IdaMae a visit. She was mighty upset this morning when Hollis and I got hauled off to the police station. The poor woman was beside herself. She deserves better. I’m going to get her a sandwich and cheer her up. Food cheers everyone up.”

  “And then you’re going to ransack Cupcake’s desk.”

  “I was thinking more like her computer. Come distract IdaMae for me.”

  KiKi held up her hands as if warding off evil spirits. “I’m not being party to this. Your mamma would skin me alive.”

  “I’ll dance with Bernard, be his partner for a whole month, and you won’t have to. Think of your poor abused feet.” The reason I could do this is that the summer I turned thirteen I was antsy, chubby, and pimply, and KiKi taught me to dance. You name it, I learned it—everything from the fox-trot and salsa to the electric slide and hip-hop. By the time I went back to school in September, I’d lost fifteen pounds, found the magic of Clearasil, and was a hit at school parties. Dancing isn’t just for the stars.

  “Two months.” KiKi picked up her shoes instead of putting them on. Guess she knew from experience that heels, martinis, and steps weren’t a great mix. “We’ll get Conquistadors from Zunzi’s. What do you think is in that special sauce? I want to take a bath in that sauce.”

  Auntie KiKi gave me a long, hard look. “And if you find out anything more about Cupcake, even one little thing, you’ll take it, along with what we know about Urston, straight to Boone as fast as you can. People will put two and two together soon enough and know you’re snooping. That includes the killer.”

  “I’ll drive.”

  “You gotta promise me, okay?”

  TWENTY MINUTES LATER, AUNTIE KIKI, IDAMAE, and I sat around the conference table at the real-estate office, wolfing down sandwiches and garlic bread. Extra stress justifies extra carbs.

  “I can’t believe Janelle’s gone,” IdaMae said over slices of chicken sticking out between chunks of French bread with sauce dripping off the end. Is there anything better than dripping sauce?

  I took a bite of my sandwich and for a moment thought I saw Jesus. “What do you think happened?” I asked around a mouthful.

  IdaMae’s eyes were blank, nothing registering. Her usually neat bob looked as if it had been combed with a weed-whacker. “What do you mean?”

  I tried to make it sound more like three women chatting over good food and less like an interrogation by Detective Ross. “Why would someone want Janelle…dead? I mean, we know Hollis isn’t responsible, so who is? Maybe we can help Hollis stay out of jail.”

  “Do you think we can do that? When the police arrived this morning, I thought for sure they’d arrest Hollis.” IdaMae’s eyes got all watery, her shoulders slumped. “I went to the library last night when I should have come back here to catch up on some filing. I could have been Hollis’s alibi.” She put her sandwich down, then buried her face in her hands. I put my arm around her and then gave her back the sandwich. She started eating again, methodically biting and chewing as if on autopilot, a terrible waste of a Conquistador; every bite should be savored.

  Questioning IdaMae was getting me nowhere. I needed a look at Cupcake’s laptop, which sat closed up like a clam on top of her desk. In no time, the police or Boone would nab it, and my chance to check it for information would be gone.

  “Why don’t you go home,” I said to IdaMae after we’d polished off the last of the bread. “It’s been a long day.”

  “I have things to take care of. Hollis called me from the lawyer’s office and said he’d stop by in a bit. I need to be here for him. It’s the least I can do.”

  I could level with IdaMae about snooping around for Hollis’s sake, but then word would get out fast, and everyone would have their guard up. IdaMae may be a Southern belle, but she was also a Southern blabbermouth. “You need fresh air. You’ll feel better. I’ll watch the office.” I gave KiKi a pleading look that said Do something.

  She took IdaMae’s arm and they stood. “Just a turn around the block, honey, I insist. It’s for your own good.” Not giving her any choice, Auntie KiKi escorted IdaMae out the front door, just like she escorted reluctant teenage boys around the dance floor. They didn’t have a choice either.

  I counted to twenty to make sure the duo was really gone, then took my purse to Cupcake’s desk and fished out a pen and a receipt from McDonald’s so I could write notes on the back. I flipped open the laptop. Nothing but files on homes sold, homes for sale, loan applications, and a lot of other real-estate stuff.

  I faced two months of Bernard and smashed toes for this? The computer wasn’t even password protected. I clicked on the file marked “Homes and Gardens Tour” and pulled up schedules for radio and TV spots, interviews with home owners, and local-celebrity interviews like Raimondo Baldassare and Urston Russell. I scribbled down the schedule, because it had Urston’s name, and shut the computer.

  I pulled open the long, thin drawer across the front of Cupcake’s desk to find pens, business cards, promotional magnets advertising Janelle Claiborne, and a bottle of Essie’s Adore–a–Ball Pink nail polish. Cupcake had her faults, but she had excellent taste in polish. The side drawer held expensive hand lotion from that chichi boutique on Broughton Street. There were more real-estate brochures and a flyer for a “Family Values Rally,” with Reverend Franklin and his wife and five kids on the front.

  The back of the flyer listed rally dates and locations, with every other one circled in red marker. Cupcake at a family-values rally was hard to imagine; going to three of them boggled my mind. According to IdaMae, Franklin didn’t like Cupcake, and I assumed the feeling was mutual. So why the flyer?

  Footsteps sounded on the front stoop. I quickly shut the drawer and dropped the flyer, pen, and receipt in Old Yeller. Slinging my purse over my shoulder, I jumped out of Cupcake’s chair, looking all sweet and innocent as Hollis shuffled in. His jacket was wrinkled; his shirt, worse. He looked like something a dog dragged out of the river.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  “I brought IdaMae lunch, and she’s out taking a walk with Auntie KiKi to get some air while I clean up and mind the phones. What did Boone have to say?”

  “He told me to get out my checkbook and pray a lot.”

  I gave in to my curiosity. “What did you and Janelle argue about last night?”

  Hollis looked at me for a long moment, then let out a deep breath. “I’m an idiot, a big fool. Janelle used me, and I bought it, the whole shebang.”

  Hollis ran his hand through his hair and sank into a chair. He had never suffered from low self-esteem. He never called himself an idiot or a fool. Hollis though
t he was adorable; just ask him.

  “What did Janelle do?”

  He shrugged. “It’s not important now. She’s dead, and my life goes back to normal.”

  “Uh, Hollis, normal is not you in the slammer. We have a long way to go before we hit normal around here.”

  “I don’t know who killed Janelle. Her death had nothing to do with me or our argument last night. She wasn’t the woman I thought she was, that’s for sure.”

  The door opened, and this time Detective Ross and two uniformed policemen came in. My heart stopped, and Hollis was no longer breathing.

  Ross said, “Hollis Beaumont, you are under arrest for the murder of Janelle Claiborne. You have the right to remain silent.” She droned on with the rest of the litany of rights as the uniformed cops hauled Hollis to his feet.

  “What can I do?” I asked Hollis. Going though a divorce was bad, but getting hauled off to the slammer was terrifying.

  Hollis’s eyes weren’t focusing, his brain not functioning. “Water my plants? Call Boone? Give my mamma a kiss?”

  I could handle Boone and plants, but kissing Penny Beaumont was not happening. He dropped his keys in my purse as IdaMae powered through the doorway, a woman on a mission.

  She elbowed her way past the cops and threw her arms around Hollis. “What are they doing to you?” she wailed.

  Detective Ross was at the part “can and will be held against you” when the uniforms handcuffed Hollis. IdaMae collapsed into a chair mumbling, “This is all so wrong. Why wasn’t I here? How can this be?”

  “What evidence do you have that I killed Janelle?” Hollis asked Ross, the reality of the situation settling in.

  Ross flipped open her little brown book. “Body was in your car and a neighbor saw the Lexus over on East Hall last night about the time of the murder. ‘HB3’ is a pretty distinctive license plate, Mr. Beaumont.”

  Hollis looked dumbfounded. “I wasn’t on East Hall. Janelle showed a house there. I was here at the office doing paperwork. If I was going to murder my own fiancée, why would I use my own car that’s easily recognized?”

  “You argued with Ms. Claiborne at the Telfair Museum,” Ross continued. “Anger makes people do rash things. We found Ms. Claiborne’s car parked on Hall. Neighbors said your car pulled around in back of the ‘For Sale’ house around nine o’clock, then left ten minutes or so later. Ms. Claiborne was wrapped in plastic that matches the cut end of the plastic protecting the carpet in the house. Get yourself a good lawyer, Mr. Beaumont.”

  The cops led Hollis out the door, and I called Boone on the office phone. I knew his number by heart from the divorce, 1–800-DIRTBAG. I left a message on his voice mail. I wondered if he knew my number by heart, but that was impossible because Boone didn’t have a heart. And there was the little problem of the fact that I no longer had a phone.

  Auntie KiKi got IdaMae a glass of water, and we bundled her into KiKi’s Beemer and took her home. We got her tea and brandy that was more brandy than tea, reassured her that everything would be okay, then left.

  “Well, Hollis has certainly gotten his do–da in a wringer this time,” Auntie KiKi said as we stopped at a traffic light on Abercorn. “Did you find anything at the office?”

  “I’m not sure what I’m looking for. How would you like to go to a family-values rally tonight?”

  “I think our family values are doing okay. How about a double dip of Old Black Magic at Leopold’s instead?” KiKi countered. “All that singing and alleluias gives me heartburn, and I’d rather give my heart a workout over ice cream with bits of brownie and chunks of chocolate.”

  I pulled the family-values flyer from my purse. “I got this from Cupcake’s desk. The only thing she valued was money and more money and definitely not family. IdaMae said Cupcake and Franklin weren’t exactly bosom buddies, so why the flyer?” I flipped it over. “She has dates circled on the back, and tonight is one of them. The rally is up at Johnson Square. I hate taking the bus at night, and we really should check in on IdaMae later.”

  “We? What happened to turning all this over to Walker Boone? I thought that was the plan.” The light turned green and KiKi pulled forward with the rest of the afternoon traffic.

  “I know you don’t want to hear this, but I’m not handing anything over to that overpriced ambulance chaser. I have a better chance of finding the killer than he does, and when I do, he and Hollis will never darken my Victorian doorway again.”

  “You fix plumbing, rotting floors, and rafters, and you sell clothes. The only thing you’ve ever uncovered is termites. You can’t be putting yourself in danger like this. It’s just not right. What if something happens?”

  “It’s a family rally, nothing dangerous, but I’m not sure what I’m looking for.” I bit down on my bottom lip. “You know more people and their business than I do. Maybe you’ll see something or someone. Come with me.”

  “American Idol is on. You know I love American Idol.”

  “I’ll do another month with Bernard.”

  “I’ll be ready at six.”

  Chapter Four

  “THAT is absolutely the worst parking job I’ve ever seen in my life,” I said to Auntie KiKi. I frowned at the Beemer sitting kittywhumpus at the curb. “You’re going to get a ticket.”

  “I have a martini headache. Any Savannah cop would understand about a martini headache and bad parking.” KiKi rubbed her forehead, then tucked her purse under her arm. We started down Whitaker. “How did I let you talk me into this?” KiKi asked me. “I should be curled up in front of my TV with Putter snoring at my side and forgetting this day ever happened.”

  “It happened, and tomorrow when Bernard is mashing my toes instead of yours, you’ll be mighty thankful.”

  A warm glow from wrought-iron lamplights peeked though the Spanish moss and overhanging live oaks. Early evening traffic ran heavy with tourists going the wrong way on the one-way streets and looking for restaurants recommended on Yelp. Dodging a horse-drawn carriage, KiKi and I crossed to Johnson Square, the first square laid out by founding father James Oglethorpe and his merry men. There were twenty-three squares left, progress seeing fit to turn two of the original ones into parking garages before the good citizens of Savannah chained themselves to trees and threatened anarchy.

  “Big crowd,” KiKi said, our steps slowing as we got close to the makeshift stage by the sundial that didn’t work for beans since it was under the trees. “The press is even here; must be a slow night for Savannah mayhem.”

  Looking like one of those preachers on Sunday-morning TV, Franklin stood tall at a podium, family at his side, his voice tinny over the cheap microphone. KiKi gazed longingly at a park bench. “Think anyone will notice if I laid down here and went to sleep for a bit? Why did we come here?”

  “The question is why would Cupcake come here?”

  “Well, bless her heart.” KiKi’s voice dropped to a whisper, her eyes fixed on the stage. “Virgil’s wife is downright homely and then some. I mean like bow-wow. Next time I get my promo pictures done for Dancing with KiKi, I want the guy who took her photo for the front of that there flyer you showed me. Being a reverend’s wife must be mighty hard on a woman.”

  I gave KiKi the Shush; mind your manners look, but I had to admit she was right as rain, and, unfortunately, all five kids favored Mrs. Birdie Franklin more than the reverend. “Birdie is Hollis’s second cousin. I see her once in a while, and every time she looks more…”

  “Homely,” KiKi finished.

  “I was going for tired, but homely fits.”

  Franklin’s sermonizing wound down to a mixture of “alleluia”s and “amen”s, and the choir started up with “Amazing Grace.” People shook Franklin’s hand and dropped money into a box at his side. I pulled a few bills from Old Yeller that I’d earmarked for luxuries like toilet paper and shampoo.

  “You’re donating to the cause?” KiKi eyed the ten dollars in my hand.

  “I want to ask him about Cupcake, and this
gives me an excuse to get close and not look conspicuous.”

  “You don’t think ‘Bless you, Reverend Franklin, and did you happen to whack Janelle Claiborne last night?’ is a mite conspicuous?”

  “I’ll think of something.” I made my way to the stage, and when I got to Franklin, I handed over the money. He smiled but it morphed into a frown when I added, “Are you doing the funeral service for Janelle Claiborne?”

  His lips thinned to a straight line and his eyes went cold, his voice the same. The other side of family values? “It’s my understanding that Janelle Claiborne is to be transported back to Atlanta and buried there. That’s what her mamma wanted. That’s where she’s from, you know.”

  I did know, but before I could ask why he went to see Hollis and why he didn’t care for Cupcake, a cute young woman nearly as tall as Franklin came up beside him. She had long auburn hair pulled back in a gold clip. “That Janelle person should have stayed in Atlanta for all our sakes,” she said in an angry voice.

  “Because she surely would have been safer there,” Franklin added in a rush, and then gave the girl a warning glance. Not that anyone would have noticed the glance unless looking for something. I was looking for anything. “We are all mighty upset over this tragedy here in our fair city. Our hearts go out to Janelle Claiborne’s family and friends.” Franklin sounded like a rehearsed news bite from a government office. He moved to the next person in line, cutting me off completely and giving me nowhere near ten bucks’ worth of information.

  I found KiKi next to a street vendor, the side of his van propped open to display chips, sodas, and meat of questionable origin. KiKi eyed a hot dog getting decked out for consumption by a man in a straw hat wearing a “WWJD” T–shirt. What Jesus would probably do is not eat here. “Find anything out?” KiKi asked.