by Duffy Brown
“No, but the information could go to the church elders. I haven’t heard any rumblings from them.”
Baxter picked up his electrician’s case and tossed it in the truck. He climbed behind the steering wheel and struck his head out the window. “Whoever has Janelle’s contingency plan is going to act on it sooner or later. Usually that person gets a check every month. The month the money stops coming, the information goes out.”
“How do you know all this?”
“Straight from the horse’s mouth. Janelle told me.”
IT WAS NEAR FIVE WHEN I GOT BACK TO THE FOX. KiKi sat behind the old oak that now served as a table I’d rigged for writing up sales. She was counting money. Lord be praised! Money! A pile of consigned clothes lay across two chairs waiting to be tagged and put out. Business was good, or at least it wasn’t as pitiful as before.
“We’re closed,” KiKi said, still counting and not looking at me. “Come back tomorrow at ten. We have lots of new stuff.”
“I parked your car in the garage.”
KiKi’s head jerked up, and she pressed her hands to her cheeks, looking relieved. “You’re safe!” Then she hustled around the table and shook me, upset-auntie style. “Where in heaven’s name have you been?” she demanded. “You never picked up your phone! I thought you were dead in an alley, bleeding from your eyes, until Elsie Abbott came in and said she saw you and Birdie Franklin in my car, flying up Bull Street.”
“We were on a Baxter hunt.” I locked the front door. “Thanks for opening the shop after your dance lessons, and you’ll be happy to hear Baxter’s not the killer. He’s making a little extra on the side so he can treat Trellie well, and not just use her money. As for Birdie, Reverend Franklin is about to get his comeuppance.”
“You believe Baxter is really innocent?”
“He’s a man doing what he has to do to make things right for the woman he loves.” I made a cross over my heart and held up two fingers. “I promise. All women should be so lucky.”
Auntie KiKi did an ear–to–ear grin. There was no need to tell her about Baxter and his Atlanta life. That was between him and Trellie, and if they were all to remain friends, I wanted KiKi to think well of Baxter. “Baxter and I ran into each other when I was following him. He’s an electrician.”
“Electrician? As in sticking plugs into sockets?”
“Electrician as in those big overhead wires that get plugged into businesses and make them go. He had a job the night Cupcake was murdered. I met Birdie in the alley because she thought Virgil might be inside the hotel with Sissy. She knows he’s cheating, and she’s going to straighten him out.”
KiKi kicked off her shoes and sat in the chair I’d slept in the night before. I started hanging up the new clothes we’d gotten in that day. “I thought Baxter was a prime, grade–A candidate for Cupcake’s killer, and he’s not. Franklin’s no saint, but I don’t think he’s the killer either.”
KiKi handed me a skirt hanger. “Franklin doesn’t have the cojones for murder.” She let loose with a sassy smile. “Hey, I’m a woman of the world and traveled with Cher. I know what those things are. That leaves us with Raylene, Urston, Sissy, Dinah, and the others on Cupcake’s blackmail list. It would be nice if we had that list.”
I added a pink sweater to the rack of clothes. “Baxter filled me and Birdie in on the finer points of blackmail. Seems he knows someone who had an unfortunate experience with something of this nature.” Sometimes a little white lie was all for the best. “Blackmailers have life-insurance policies. They leave instructions with someone that if they die, the incriminating evidence they have is to be sent out to where it will do the most harm. It guarantees that the people they are blackmailing will wish them a long and healthy life. The murderer could be someone Cupcake was blackmailing or not.”
KiKi took a minute to digest this. “Actually it’s kind of ingenious, if you ask me.”
“As far as Birdie knows, no incriminating evidence has gone out yet, but it will. Janelle was a lot of things, but stupid wasn’t one of them. You know she left evidence with some third party. She pays them each month, and when they don’t get the money, people of interest get the dirt. What we need is Cupcake’s checkbook, or address book, or something out of the ordinary that might lead us to the person Janelle’s been paying. Maybe he, or she, knows who might have killed Janelle. We need to take another look at Hollis’s town house. This time we’re not just looking for a list of names but anything a bit suspicious.”
“First you need to put away your money.” KiKi thrust a wad of bills at me. “And we need supper. I’m starved; aren’t you starved?” She slipped on her shoes, then gave me a critical once-over, head to toe.
“What?” I asked, getting the feeling something was going on besides supper.
“It’s been a tough day. I had Miss Annabelle do up a nice roast for me this evening, being as I was so busy and all. How would you like some mashed potatoes with that roast, little spring peas, and biscuits? Peach cobbler for desert? Doesn’t that sound mighty good? I bet you could do with a supper of roast beef and cobbler.”
I wasn’t sure if a person could faint dead away from just thinking about food, but I was getting darn close to finding out.
“See you in a half hour, and put on that cute blue skirt you have and some lipstick. Lord knows you could do with lipstick once in a while, and a dye job would be in order, but there’s nothing we can do to fix that particular situation right now.”
KiKi turned to go, and I jumped between her and the door, flattening myself across the exit. “What are you up to?”
KiKi slapped a sweet–as–sugar grin on her face, which practiced Southern belles do without a moment’s hesitation. “Me?” She rolled her eyes and placed her palm to her cheek. “Why, honey, would you think I’d be up to anything? I’m just having a little company over is all. One of Putter’s doctor friends is in town, and with your pitiful day, this is just the ticket to set you to rights and—”
“And he’s single, bald, lonely, and rich.”
“Two out of four isn’t bad, and I’m not saying which two, either, so don’t be asking. The way Cher tells it, ‘A girl can wait for the right man to come along, but in the meantime that still doesn’t mean she can’t have a wonderful time with all the wrong ones.’ You need to start socializing, meet men, and have a little romance in your life. A woman can get crotchety if she doesn’t get some romance once in a while.”
I opened the door. “In case you’ve forgotten, romance is what got me into my current state of crotchety. I’ll meet you at the town house. Leave the man; bring the cobbler.”
After KiKi left, I switched laundry from the washer to the dryer and filled displays with the clothes KiKi took in. I hid the cash from today’s sales in the freezer in an ice cream carton I’d gotten from the Abbott sisters’ garbage. An ice cream container in the freezer was not exactly a rival for Fort Knox, but unless a burglar had a craving for Rocky Road, I was safe. I jammed the chair under the back doorknob, turned the lights on in my bedroom as if Reagan Summerside was home, dumped kibble out for Bruce Willis, then met up with KiKi and the cobbler on the front stoop of Hollis’s place. I fished the new key from the bottom of my purse and opened the door. When we went inside, the place was still a shambles; no nice little cleanup fairies had come to the rescue.
After two hours, KiKi and I dragged a third garbage can to the Dumpster, and she said, “Unless we start tearing up the floorboards around here, we’re out of luck finding Cupcake’s collection of others’ unfortunate deeds or the identity of that mysterious person she paid to keep her files.”
We sat on the back steps watching the overhead security light reflect off the big green Dumpster by the garages. If I kept having this much fun, I’d be tempted to take KiKi up on her next offer of bald, boring doctors.
“Do you think she could have hidden the files or maybe her checkbook at the real-estate office?” KiKi asked me.
“Not with IdaMae and Ho
llis having the run of the place. Boone was at the town house before me last night; he could have found Cupcake’s list of those she was blackmailing. He could also be Cupcake’s contingency plan, for all I know. He could be the guy she paid off each month. He’s a lawyer, and he knew Cupcake.”
“Maybe the reason he hadn’t sent out the incriminating evidence yet was that it would interfere with Hollis’s defense. The people being blackmailed were Hollis’s friends, and that makes a mighty good motive for Hollis killing Cupcake if he found out and was ticked off.” KiKi shook her head at her own idea. “But that’s just plumb stupid. Hollis and Boone are friends. Would Boone really take on the job of sending out evidence against friends?”
“Urston, Raylene, and Sissy are possible suspects, and there are probably more. I have a feeling Boone knows who they might be. He knows things we don’t; I’m right sure of it.”
KiKi stood and stretched like a cat on a rainy day. “What are you going to do; ask that low-life rodent straight-out?” KiKi started up the back steps, talking to me over her shoulder as she went. “You can talk to him if you like, and I wish you luck ’cause you’ll need it. I told Putter I’d meet up with him and tall, dark, and handsome at the country club for a nightcap.”
We did a simultaneous eye roll at KiKi’s visiting-doctor description, which we both knew was a big Southern pile of crapola. “I’ll walk to Boone’s,” I told KiKi. “It’ll give me a chance to swallow my pride.” I added the last part in an easy manner, finally getting the knack of lying though my teeth. “I’ll see you tomorrow, and let you know what happens.”
Unless you get a call from the police tonight and have to bail your beloved niece out of the clink on breaking-and-entering charges, I added to myself.
No way would I ask Boone anything. He’d tell me to go home and lock my doors. I’d simply take the information I needed. Boone said his office didn’t have an alarm system. I knew Dinky, his secretary, the layout of the office, and about the staircase that had been walled over during office renovations. It was now in the back of a closet, and Dinky used it when running late to work and to sneak out for wedding-dress fittings in the middle of the day.
I needed to know who was on that blackmail list. Were they fed up enough to polish off Cupcake? Was there someone else whom Cupcake had pushed too far? Maybe all of them got together and pulled off a Murder on the Orient Express where everyone kills the bad guy. If that was true, why frame Hollis? Just toss Janelle’s sorry butt in Ebenezer Creek Swamp and be done with the whole mess.
Someone somewhere had answers, and tonight my money—not that I had any—was on Walker Boone. I just didn’t want him to find out.
Chapter Thirteen
I WATCHED Auntie KiKi drive away from the town house, then headed up Habersham. Boone’s white-stone office was well over a hundred years old, with an elevated entrance off the sidewalk. It faced Columbia Square and was next to the Kehoe House, now a bed-and-breakfast and haunted by the Kehoe twins for the last century. Some kids can’t wait to leave home; others you can’t get rid of.
The live oaks in the square blocked the moonlight and confined streetlight to circles on the sidewalks. I found a vacant bench, and while waiting for evening strollers and traffic to subside, I tried to figure out how to get into Boone’s office. Nothing came to mind, so I ducked into Screamin’ Mimi’s for a slice of salami-and-pepperoni pizza and had them toss on some anchovies since fish was brain food. If that didn’t jar my thinking cells awake, nothing would.
I reclaimed my roost on the bench, the fragrant aroma of the pizza keeping interlopers from horning in on my space. I took a bite of heaven and rummaged around in Old Yeller for something that might aid and abet my burglary. I came up with a flashlight, screwdriver, teasing comb, and black flip-flops to complement my burglar attire of jeans and an old Georgia Bulldogs T–shirt Hollis had left when he moved out.
The Second African Baptist Church chimed ten. I should wait another hour, but I was fidgety with wanting to get this ordeal over with. I wrapped up the last of the pizza and dropped it in my purse, then crossed the street to the white-stone building. Instead of taking the steps up to the porch and main entrance, I took the two steps down to another door below. Back in the day, this was the service entrance, where deliveries were made and servants entered. Now it was locked and dark.
I made the sign of the cross in hopes of not winding up damned for all eternity for being where I shouldn’t, and I turned the door handle. It didn’t budge. I turned it harder and shoved with my shoulder. The only thing that moved were my bones being squashed. Flipping on the flashlight, I tried to block the glare so as not to draw attention and studied the knob. It was big, brass, new, and solid enough to keep out invading armies and interfering ex wives.
“What you doing down there, white woman?” came a deep baritone voice from the sidewalk.
I yelped, tripped over Old Yeller, and landed flat on my behind. All I could make out against the darkness was a gold tooth, pristine white shoes, and bright eyes. “Big Joey?”
I scrambled to my feet as Big Joey took the steps down, making it very crowded in the very little space. We were toe–to–toe. I could feel the heat of his body seeping into mine, and he was sucking up all the oxygen. He grinned down at me. My head started to throb, my stomach rolled, and I couldn’t breathe. I slid under Big Joey’s arm and ran up the two steps to the sidewalk, gulping in deep breaths of air.
“You afraid of me, white woman?”
I shook my head and I pointed to where he stood. I tried not to hyperventilate. “No room. No air.”
“Claustrophobia?” Joey grinned. “I read. I know.” He leaned against the doorjamb, watching me pull myself together. “You and Boone got a thing going on? You sneaking in there to give him a little surprise?”
“The surprise part is true enough.”
“You breaking in for something else?” There was a knowing laugh deep in his wide chest. “Scarlett O’Hara does Sherlock Holmes. What is that smell?”
“Leftover pizza from Mimi’s. What are you doing in this part of town?”
“Heading for The Wall.”
The Wall was a hole–in–the-wall place over on York Lane, which was still dirt paved. It had no AC, one bathroom so small you couldn’t sit, and the best red-velvet cake, spiciest barbecue sauce, and sweetest iced tea in Georgia. It’s where Savannah ate and the tourists couldn’t find on their GPS receivers.
Big Joey turned around and took hold of the knob. Even under Big Joey’s grip, the lock held. “You not getting in there without a key; Boone made sure.”
“Why are you helping me?”
“Good deed for the day.” He took my flashlight, which I’d dropped, and killed the beam. “What’s Boone got that you need?” Big Joey gave me a suggestive wink. “Bet I can guess.”
“Boone and I are after a killer, and I want to know what Boone knows.”
“Lady, you never know what Boone knows.” Big Joey hitched his head to the street. “Cops two blocks down don’t much cotton to B and E; take it from one who understands this-here business. You being the judge’s daughter could add drama.” Big Joey took two steps up to the sidewalk, stopping next to me. “Look for a key. No scratches at the lock; door’s not used much. No one carries the key for that door; they hide it.”
“Are you going to tattle on me to Boone?” I asked as he walked off.
Big Joey turned back, his eyes lit with humor. “No need; Boone’ll know.”
I watched Big Joey meander on. “Thanks,” I called to him, getting no response.
I didn’t care if Boone did know I was here; I just wanted to have a look at his files. If they were on his computer, I was screwed—they’d be password protected. But not everything was on a computer. There could be notes, letters, a stack of incriminating evidence waiting to go out in the morning mail and ruin people’s lives. I felt along the ground in front of the door, around in the dirt, and turned over a rock, and something scurried out. It if
scurried onto me, there’d be a scared-stiff corpse under Boone’s porch for the cops to find.
I was running out of time; I could see the cruiser with the bank of lights across the top approaching slowly in the curb lane, as if checking things out. There was no place to hide, and if Big Joey had seen me, the cops would, too. I could feel my heart pounding in my chest. If I ran out from where I was now, the cops would see me for sure. Shaking, I felt over the doorframe again, and this time my fingers connected with a break in the stone, touching something cold, round, and metal. With two fingertips, I plucked the key from the crack. Because I was shaking so badly, I had to use both hands to jam the key in the lock. I let myself inside, closed the door, and heard the cruiser motor on by. If Hollis was really guilty after all this sweat and angst, I was killing the man dead myself.
I only knew about the stairway from Dinky bragging how she used it to outfox Boone. I twisted on my flashlight and aimed it up a flight of stairs that probably had “Condemned by the City Inspector” nailed to it somewhere. Holding on to the railing that wobbled under my hand, I took the steps one at a time, filling the narrow passage with creaking sounds. I got to the top, turned the handle, and stepped into a large storage closet. There were shelves of paper, ink cartridges, envelopes, and what had to be a five-hundred-dollar espresso maker that did everything from grind beans to dump coffee in the cup and serve it to you on a sliver platter. So, this is where my three-hundred-dollar-an-hour divorce settlement went.
I considered the coffeemaker in my kitchen, with its broken on–off switch and cracked lid, which I’d gotten at the Abbott sisters’ yard sale. I swallowed back a growl, then opened the next door into the outer office. The closet was behind Dinky’s desk, and I slunk across the room and into Boone’s office—the snake pit. After months of divorce haggling that’s pretty much what the place felt like. I had a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach that I was someplace I shouldn’t be, and Big Snake would not be pleased.
