Iced Chiffon

by Duffy Brown

  “I’ll take her home,” said a familiar voice from above. It wasn’t God, though at times I’m sure he thought he was. I looked up to see Walker Boone hovering over me. “She’s a friend,” Boone offered in further explanation. “I’ll give her a lift.”

  Boone hunkered down beside me, everyone else drifting away. “What happened?” he asked.

  “I tripped.”

  “With those boots, I can believe it. Is there snow on the way that I haven’t heard about?”

  I was tired and cranky and really fed up with things happening to me. I wanted boredom, monotony, a plate of brownies in front of the TV…if I had a TV. “Nothing happened. I’m fine; go away. Stay away.”

  “I saw the car that tried to take you out.”

  That got my attention. “Was it an Escalade by any chance?”

  “You’re having problems with an Escalade?” Boone put his hand on my shoulder. “Who are you not having problems with?”

  I stood, feeling a little wobbly. “I need to get home.”

  “It was a Ford Escape,” Boone said, still sitting on the curb. He held up his hand with numbers and letters scribbled on the palm. “License plate.”

  “What were you doing here, anyway? Following me?” I poked myself in the chest. “Bait?”

  Boone got up. “I was coming out of the Kroger parking lot, and the Escape that nearly sideswiped you almost did the same to me. Is it too hard to comprehend that I go to the grocery once in a while?”

  I narrowed my eyes. “That’s the best you got?”

  “And maybe I was following you a little. What was going on with Raylene earlier? She was one unhappy camper. That woman is scary.”

  “I’m going home now,” I said, hobbling. I’d twisted my foot in my butt-kicking boots.

  “I can drive you.”

  I didn’t bother to respond but limped my way back up Gwinnett. I didn’t have dog food. What I did have was a can of SpaghettiOs in back of the cupboard that I’d saved for a dire situation. I glanced at my scraped knees and hands. I bet BW would love SpaghettiOs.

  I TOLD THE SISTERS THAT I’D TRIPPED. I DON’T think they bought that version of why I was banged up any more than Boone had, but they were far too polite to argue. After they left, I closed the Fox early and fell asleep next to BW behind the counter. I was suddenly wakened by someone licking my face and making little whiny sounds. Hollis?

  Actually, it wasn’t Hollis, and it wasn’t sudden I realized once my grogginess cleared. The house was nearly dark, afternoon having passed into evening without me or BW noticing because we’d slept for hours. I took BW outside for a potty break. He seemed stronger, sniffing and lifting his leg with usual doggie gusto. But the best part was that BW went back inside with me. He was housebroken. Usually that meant a dog went outside; for BW, it meant he came in.

  We heated up the SpaghettiOs and had a quick dinner, and I told BW I was going out and to mind the store. He gave me a big yawn and fell asleep behind the counter.

  It was later than socially acceptable to be out calling on neighbors, but I needed to talk to Frank. If he had seen Urston driving the Lexus, it went a long way in proving Raylene and Urston guilty.

  I rapped the pineapple doorknocker on the big Queen Anne, and a gracious lady dressed in a peach linen dress and pearls answered. I flashed one of Boone’s business cards, which I had from my divorce days, and said I was with Walker Boone, attorney at law, and we were defending Hollis Beaumont and trying to get all the facts. As soon as we did that, the police would take the crime-scene tape off the “For Sale” house.

  Frank and his wife were jubilant to hear that the tape and the police wouldn’t be around much longer. I chatted with them for ten minutes about the house and what they saw, and I realized they knew nothing. Yes, the Lexus drove up, but it was dark, and they didn’t see the driver.

  I left the Queen Anne and walked over to the “For Sale” house. I stood on the corner by the stop sign, looking at the dark, dreary Colonial Revival. Houses not lived in took on a sad, abandoned look all their own, as if no one loved them and cared for them. This place looked worse. Not only was it vacant, but tragedy had struck. It needed the This Old House people to come in, work their magic, and make it charming again.

  What I needed in the way of magic was something more than Raylene’s Escalade to prove her and Urston guilty. KiKi and I had never made it into the “For Sale” house to look inside. It wasn’t likely the police had overlooked anything, but they didn’t know Raylene and Urston like I did. There was a golden rule to snooping: do it often enough and something pops up—sually when least expected.

  I cut around to the backyard and, with the help of a half moon overhead, made my way to the door. Using the Big Joey approach to breaking and entering, I found the key in a flowerpot with dead geraniums from last summer. Saying a little prayer Tommy Lee was busy watching something like CSI and involved in someone else’s problems, I let myself in.

  The outside of the house was spooky, the inside something out of Poe. Humid and musty, it smelled weird, like…death. My imagination was in overdrive, and if a heart started to beat under the floorboards or a raven swooped low, I was out of there. Fishing around in my bag, I found my flashlight. I twisted it on and crossed the muddy yellow linoleum in the kitchen to the dining room. My footsteps sounded downright thunderous in the big, empty house. Butt-kickers did not make good skulking shoes.

  The carpet was beige, covered with plastic tracked up with a lot of footprints and debris brought in by lookers. A section of the plastic in the corner was cut away. It was the section used to wrap Cupcake.

  I took a few deep breaths and slowly walked over to the cut-plastic area. I couldn’t imagine Raylene killing Cupcake or Urston wrapping up her body, but somebody sure had. It was somebody no one suspected, or he or she would be in jail instead of Hollis, and I’d have Cherry House free and clear.

  I directed my light to the floor. I could see the path where the body was dragged. I started to shiver, and I felt sick. This was getting me nowhere, and the place creeped me out. I looked around to make sure I hadn’t messed anything up and swiped a handful of debris by the door that I tracked inside. I was ready to put the key back under the flowerpot but didn’t.

  What if I needed to get back in here and someone else took the key? I wasn’t exactly a supersleuth, and if I could find this key, anyone could. I locked the door from the inside, shut it firmly, and stuffed the debris from the floor and the key into the front pocket of Old Yeller.

  Taking baby steps across the yard, I slid between the two hydrangeas and right into Walker Boone, who was leaning against the stop sign at the corner.

  “You have no life,” I said to him.

  “What I do have are pictures of the crime scene. Find anything interesting?”

  “Why should I tell you?”

  “Because I have something of interest for you. Sissy Collins owns the Ford Escape that nearly took you out. Guess she’s not thrilled with you messing around in her love life. If she tried to kill you, she could have killed Janelle. Good chance she’s my mystery woman who came here to see Janelle the night she was killed. Sissy didn’t want her blackmailing Franklin.”

  “Sissy Collins is a twentysomething, lovesick husband stealer.” I squeezed my eyes shut for a minute, giving in to complete frustration. “Then again, it wouldn’t be the first time a twentysomething, lovesick husband stealer killed someone, would it? Until you showed up with the skinny on Sissy, I thought I had this case all figured out.”

  “Is that right?” Boone had that superior smirk in his voice.

  “For the record, Raylene Carter is your mystery woman who came to see Janelle. Tommy Lee, your reliable witness across the street, failed to tell you about the Escalade he saw. He thought Raylene might be a potential buyer for the house, and he didn’t want you upsetting her with a lot of questions about seeing a murder. But Raylene left the house before the couple who had the appointment showed up, meaning Janelle
was alive then. I think Raylene came back later and killed Janelle, but I can’t prove it.”

  “Or maybe Sissy came here after the couple left,” Boone added. “She’s infatuated with Franklin and would do anything to keep him for herself. Then there’s Dinah Corwin. We need to find the one person who couldn’t take it anymore, someone who snapped. People kill for revenge, greed, love, politics. Why do you think Raylene wanted Janelle dead?”

  Raylene had a kid and a marriage. Paying off Urston to win some stupid award wasn’t right, but it wasn’t worth ruining a marriage over, and the Carters would not tolerate a scandal. “I can’t tell you why,” I said to Boone. “If stuff got out and she’s not the killer, innocent people get hurt.”

  “I can keep a secret.” Boone did a cross over his heart. “You’d be amazed at the secrets I know.”

  “Like about your friends over on Seventeenth Street? Why aren’t you with them? Why are you here?”

  Boone rolled his shoulders in reply, meaning this conversation was over. He thrust a plastic bag in front of me, and I looked inside. “Dog food and a pack of hot dogs? How did you know I was out of both?” I shucked in a quick breath. “You broke into my house?”

  “With the glass out in your back door, the breaking part’s debatable. I was checking on our dog. No hot dogs in the fridge. An empty Science Diet bag of doggie kibble in the trash. I decided to make a donation.”

  “Our dog?”

  “With that vet bill, I figure I own a leg and the tail. I have a window guy coming to your house tomorrow.” Boone walked off toward the Chevy, hands in pockets.

  “Did you talk to Sissy?” I called after him. “If you’re following me around, at least you could make yourself useful.”

  “Hey, I got dog food; that’s useful. I’ll leave Sissy to you. You’re the one on her hit list.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  THE next morning at seven sharp the guy from the hardware showed up to fix the glass in the back door. BW needed an outside break, and Auntie KiKi needed to catch up on my world of lies, suspects, and murder. She waltzed across the front yard dressed in a yellow dancing skirt that fell below her knees and a red top with lots of ruffles. It was morning and salsa-lesson time in the Vanderpool parlor.

  “What did good-neighbor Frank have to say?” KiKi asked me as she handed over a steaming cup of coffee.

  We took a seat on the steps and watched BW mark his territory all the way around the yard. The dog had a bladder the size of a basketball. “Frank is no Tommy Lee. He’s got nothing, so I ventured into the ‘For Sale’ house.” I shivered at the memory. “Creepy, but not much there either. Just the plastic the body was wrapped in and the drag marks from hauling it outside.”

  KiKi’s eyes rounded over her mug. “We should have gone in there together. That-there’s no place to be alone.”

  “How was the Crab Shack?”

  “The crab was dry, the shrimp overcooked, the mussels spoiled rotten. Worst meal I ever had in all my life.”

  I clinked my mug against KiKi’s. “Thanks for that. How would you like to visit Sissy Collins with me this morning?”

  “I’d rather go back to the Crab Shack.” KiKi did a slow head wag. “Do you really think she has any part in this murder? She’s just stupid and in love with the wrong man is all. It’s like Cher says, ‘Some women get all excited about nothing…and then they marry him.’ That’s Sissy to a tee. The girl would get hitched to Franklin in a second if she could.”

  “That girl tried to run me over with her car yesterday.”

  KiKi put the warm coffee mug to her forehead and let out a long audible sigh. “Lord have mercy. Just when I think things can’t get any more bizarre around here, they up and do. I’ll crank up the Batmobile.”

  KiKi headed back to her place, and I clapped for Bruce Willis to come to me. He did one last celebratory leg-salute, but before we got inside, a white Escalade drew up to the curb and stopped. Uh–oh. Raylene. For a second I had visions of drive–by shootings where the bad guy whips out a tommy gun and opens fire. Raylene got out, but instead of a gun, she had an armful of clothes, nice ones that would sell in a flash. She pranced up the steps and thrust them at me. “Open up an account with my name on it, and you and KiKi come to my house at nine tonight. The help has the night off, and Junior has a bank meeting. Our son will be at a sleepover. Park down away and come to the back of the house. Be discreet.”

  “What’s going on?”

  Exasperation pinched her lips into a tight pout. She spoke between clenched teeth. “We can’t talk here in the heart of gossip town, and don’t let that mutt near these suits. I want a fair price for them.”

  BW might be a mutt, but he was my mutt. Temptation to shoo Raylene off my property gave way to fundamental nosiness. “What’s this about?”

  “To get the Janelle situation straightened out once and for all,” she whispered. “If you want to know, you’ll show up. Don’t be late.”

  “Maybe you’ll just shoot me?”

  “You’re not worth the trouble and aggravation.” Raylene pranced back to the Escalade and drove off. I went in the house, hung up the suits, and told BW if he had a snarl like Raylene’s, our breaking-and-entering days would be over. I gave him fresh water, and when he refused to move from the fridge, I caved and got him a hot dog. I thanked the repairman, grabbed my purse off the counter, and met KiKi in her driveway.

  “Was that Raylene here to do business?” KiKi asked as we drove off toward Sissy’s. “I could tell that she gave you some nice stuff to consign.”

  “It was an excuse. What she really wants is to meet up with us at her place, nine sharp. We’re to be discreet.”

  “I’ll make sure my life insurance is paid up and leave Putter a note confessing it was me who dinged the front bumper of the Beemer and not him. No need to give Saint Peter too much ammunition if we happen to meet up tonight.”

  “She wants us at her house. We should be okay there.”

  “It’s the ‘should be’ part I don’t much care for. You’ve seen that garden of hers. Easy enough to bury a body or two under that fountain you sold her, and no one would be the wiser.”

  We headed down Abercorn, and I told KiKi where Sissy lived, on State Street. After knocking on her apartment door with no response, we headed for Good Shepherd Church, on Whitaker. We entered the side door marked “Office.”

  A woman in her sixties with poker-straight graying hair and a Peter Pan collar blouse sat at a computer drinking tea, pinky extended. “Hi,” I said as we walked in. “We’re looking for Sissy Collins. Has she come in?”

  The faux-brass plaque on the desk said I was talking to Helen Lenox. “Is this about joining the church? We have a mighty fine church here. We’re very active in the community, you know.”

  There were a lot of reasons people got struck by lightning, and it seemed to me that lying about joining a church when you had no intention whatsoever of doing so was a guaranteed zapper. “We met Sissy at the family-values rally.”

  “Maybe Reverend Franklin can help you; he comes in around nine. I need to run to the church for a moment. If he’s there, I’ll send him right on over.”

  “If we could just speak with Sissy?”

  Helen put her fingers over her lips as if squelching a sob. “She’s in the back office.” Helen’s voice warbled. “And to tell the truth she may not be the one to talk to at this particular moment.” A tear inched down Helen’s powdered cheek, and she took a tissue from the crocheted daffodil dispenser on her desk. “It’s so terrible. I’m afraid Sissy won’t be with us much longer. How can this be?”

  “She’s dying?” KiKi asked.

  “Moving to Charleston.”

  In Savannah, those two occurrences were pretty much synonymous. We thanked Helen as she left the office for the church, and KiKi and I headed down the hall to an open door at the end. Sissy was piling belongings in a cardboard box. When she spied us, her face reddened, and her eyes bulged.

  “You!”
she said and charged at me, waving a statue of Saint Francis surrounded by woodland animals. KiKi snagged Sissy around the middle, rumba style, and held her in place.

  “I hate you!” Sissy spluttered, fighting against KiKi, dropping Francis and cracking him into chunks of plaster. “You ruined my life. I know you were the one who told Birdie about me. I saw you and her out in that alley, and now Virgil’s chosen her. Not me. Her! He’s ending it between us. How can he do that?”

  Sobbing, Sissy sank into a chair, and I closed the door to the hallway. The only place that carried more gossip than a funeral was a church.

  “We’re in love. We’re happy together,” Sissy wailed, burying her head in her hands. “First it was that Janelle person making trouble for us. Virgil told me all about it, and how she wanted money, and how we had to be careful about meeting. She ruined everything. I’m glad Janelle Claiborne’s dead. No one deserved it more.”

  “And then you tried to kill me, too.”

  Sissy looked up though watery eyes. “What do you mean, too?”

  “You killed Janelle so your affair with Virgil wouldn’t go public. Neither of you had the money to pay off Janelle, so you did what you had to do for the man you loved. Then you tried to kill me yesterday because you think I told his wife about the two of you, and I was getting close to finding out you were the real killer.”

  “I didn’t kill Janelle Claiborne,” Sissy’s voice wobbled. “I didn’t have to because someone did it for me. If you don’t believe me, ask Virgil. We were together at the Hampton Inn the night she was murdered.” Sissy sighed and rolled her eyes skyward as if expecting the clouds to part and angels sing. “Virgil brought me candy and flowers. We danced to Lawrence Welk on the PBS channel.”

  “You could have killed Janelle together,” KiKi said, arms folded drill-sergeant style.

  “My Virgil would never do such a thing. He’s a saint. He only helps people and is an inspiration to everyone. I think that’s why he’s such a wonderful lover; he’s pure of heart, mind, and spirit.”