by Duffy Brown
A loud banging sound came from the front door. Raimondo hung up, uttered a few expletives that weren’t exactly Italian, and wrapped a towel around his waist. When he went for the door, I slid out of the cocoon. Creeping into the bathroom, I sidestepped a stack of fresh towels balanced on the edge of the sink and a bottle of Black Leather hair dye. I looked from the dye to the tanning bed to Raimondo. What the heck was this all about?
When I heard KiKi yelling at Raimondo about something, I crept into the bedroom, then the hall. My eyes connected with KiKi’s for a split second; then I headed for the kitchen, with KiKi’s voice escalating to keep Raimondo’s attention on her and to cover my footsteps. Tiptoeing in hiking boots was tough. I opened the back door and ran for the river birches and didn’t stop till I saw the gravel road. I hid in the brush waiting for KiKi, trying to catch my breath, feeling my skin crackle, sweating like a plow mule. When the Beemer came up the road, I ran for it, yanked open the door, and dove head first into the passenger seat. “Go!”
KiKi hit the gas, and the BMW lived up to the hype that went with the car. In minutes we were on the parkway and headed back to town. I finally got up the nerve to look at KiKi. “Guess this means Raimondo isn’t doing your yard. You really lit into him back at his house.”
“I’m writing you out of the will.”
“Maybe there’s another hot gardener around,” I offered trying to salvage a great niece-auntie relationship. I expected KiKi to offer up another rendition of “There’s no one like Raimondo,” but instead a slow, sexy smile slid across her face.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said in a breathless voice. “Now that I think about it, I suppose I’ll keep you in the will after all.”
“Are you okay? Lordy, what happened back there?”
“I got to see Raimondo Baldassare in nothing but a little old white towel.” KiKi’s grin widened, and she fanned herself with her hand. “Life is good, honey.” She looked a little dreamy-eyed. “Life is good, indeed.”
“You do remember you’re a married woman, right?”
“I promised to love, honor, and cherish, and there was not one little word about looking. I’m allowed to look.”
KiKi was clearly in a state of Raimondo Baldassare euphoria, and I could relate. I could relate a lot better if I weren’t cooked. “Do you know where Raimondo is from?”
“Florence, Rome, Naples, heaven—take your pick.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to tell KiKi about the tanning bed and hair dye. I wanted to say there was something fishy about Raimondo. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. Raimondo wasn’t just a superfine Savannah gardener; he was the resident pinup boy, the local eye candy, the man every woman in Savannah talked about at one time or another over lattes and martinis. He was Savannah’s answer to Brad Pitt and Jude Law, and I had no right to take that away unless I had proof-positive Raimondo was the killer.
“Why are you so quiet over there?” KiKi asked, cutting her eyes to me. “What happened in Raimondo’s house? What did you find out?”
“Nothing. I hid in the closet till you banged on the door and I could escape. That’s it, a big waste of time.”
“That’s what you think.” KiKi grinned again. “Since you didn’t find any evidence that Raimondo’s guilty, there’s a chance he isn’t, and that’s good enough for me. My bet’s still on Sissy; she’s nutty as a Christmas fruitcake.”
A tanning bed and hair dye didn’t exactly smack of sanity.
When we pulled in the driveway to Rose Gate, the first big, fat drops of rain splashed against the windshield. I made a dash for Cherry House, the Fox emptying out quickly with the threat of an all-day soaker. Thunder rattled the city, and Elsie and AnnieFritz headed for their place to close windows and get ready for an afternoon viewing at House of Slumber. Bruce Willis sniffed to see if I had brought him food. Finding nothing, he settled in for sleepy time after an exhausting morning of eating biscuits. Morning business had been good, and the next time I went to the grocery, I would be able to fill one of those little plastic baskets. I wasn’t up to cart status yet but beyond what I could carry in two hands.
I left the door open, listening to the rain beat a comforting rhythm against the metal porch roof. I didn’t have any customers, so after lathering myself in aloe, I made a display in the front window with a navy suit, cream blouse, and a tan jacket. When I turned to add in a pink skirt for a little pizzazz to the display, I saw Birdie Franklin hurrying up the walk, huddled under an umbrella.
“You look good,” I said when she stepped inside after leaving her umbrella on the porch.
“I got rid of the gray.” She bit her bottom lip. “Mercy, honey, whatever happened to you? You look a fright.”
I thought of my hair and my sunburn. “Which fright are we talking about?”
“You’re red as an apple and your lips are swelling up like that Jolie person.”
I ran my tongue over the fat, smooth, tight skin that used to be my average mouth. “It’s allergies, bad allergies. What can I do for you?”
She blushed like a schoolgirl. “Virgil and I are going away.”
“You’re leaving Savannah?”
“Second honeymoon. Well, really it’s the first honeymoon. We were broke when we got married. Virgil was in school, and we didn’t have the money. I had an inheritance, but we wanted that for a house. Virgil says we don’t have the money now, especially since I went and hired that private investigator. I told Virgil what a divorce would cost him, and he’s starting to see things my way. That’s why I’m here.”
Birdie pulled a photo from her battered pocketbook. “I wanted to show you this so you’d know that Virgil didn’t kill Janelle. I know there’s been talk, and I wanted to set things to rights.”
It was a picture of Virgil and Sissy, and Birdie explained, “The PI took it the night of the murder.” Birdie pointed to the time stamp. “Isn’t that a nice shot of my darling Virgil and his little harlot?” There were red devil horns drawn on Sissy. “So you can see that Virgil’s innocent.” Birdie snorted. “Well, we both know he’s not innocent in some ways, mind you, but he’s not your murderer.”
And this picture proved that Sissy wasn’t the murderer either. That pointed the finger straight at Raimondo.
“Now, with all that sordid business out of the way,” Birdie went on, dragging my thoughts from Raimondo being a cold-blooded killer, “I feel the need to go shopping.” She took down the suit I’d just hung in the window. “This is right nice, don’t you agree, and just my size. I’ll take it.” She put the suit on the counter and gazed around the store as if it were her own personal paradise. She pulled a Visa card from her purse and tossed it on the counter beside the suit. “That’s the card Virgil used for his tryst. I don’t know what the limit on it is, but I’m going to try and see how close I can come.”
By five o’clock I was exhausted, my skin was on fire, and my lips couldn’t form words. Birdie Franklin shopped me out of everything in a size 8 and bought four purses and five pair of shoes. I gave her a nice discount and wished her bon voyage and happy honeymoon. She left, then brought me back a stash of popsicles for the swelling, a super economy tube of skin lotion, and a magazine, Allergies and You.
After she left, I sat on the porch, enjoying the cool of the evening on my toasted flesh and hanging out with BW. I sucked down one popsicle after another for dinner, sharing chunks with BW. We voted the blue ones best, followed by the red, then the orange. BW was great company. He didn’t care that I had blotchy skin, that my lips were gross, and that I had two-toned hair that needed washing.
We decided Raimondo was not who he pretended to be. He had something to hide, and who better to extort money from him than Cupcake? It was a real shame he killed her, mostly because Raimondo provided great scenery for the local female population, and Cupcake had gotten what she deserved. Watching day drift into night, I let my eyes close, completely relaxed, and dozed off till I felt the porch boards sag.
I pried one eye
open, thinking Bruce Willis was changing sleeping positions, except his big head was in my lap. I rolled my eyes up and zeroed in on a very ticked-off Raimondo Baldassare. He held up something long, thin, and silver. He gave it a twist, and the light came on, shining up to his menacing face, which looked demonic with all the weird shadows.
“I believe this belongs to you,” he said without his sexy Italian accent.
Chapter Eighteen
“HOW do you know that flashlight is mine?” I asked Raimondo, trying to get my brain working.
“Mrs. Vanderpool was at the front door, and you were in my tanning bed.” Raimondo shined the light in my face now. “And there’s no use in denying it. You’re a total mess. You got anything for that burn? You’re going to blister and peel like old paint on a barn.”
“Thanks for the warning. You can’t kill me out here. I’ve got nosy neighbors. You have no idea how nosy. You’ll never get away with it.”
“Kill you?”
“Like you did Janelle.”
“You think I killed her?”
“She knew you weren’t Italian and was blackmailing you. Every woman in Savannah loves that you’re sexy and exotic; if you lose that, you lose your business. I know you went to see her at the house that’s for sale. You wanted to get her to stop demanding money from you, and when she wouldn’t, you killed her, and if you come near me I’ll scream my head off.”
Raimondo turned off the flashlight and dropped it in my lap. “I didn’t kill Janelle.”
“Boy, if I had a nickel for every time I heard that line this week. I know you were at the ‘For Sale’ house, where Janelle was murdered. I found a pink frond from those exotic palms you grow. You’re a neatnik. When you prune something, you stick the clippings in your pocket. The thing is, when you reach into your pocket, you pull out the clippings, and they go everywhere.”
“I saw Janelle the night she was murdered,” Raimondo confessed. He jammed his hands in his jean pockets. “I went in through the back door and heard her arguing with Raylene over money. Janelle just laughed when Raylene said she couldn’t pay. Janelle threatened to tell Junior about Raylene bribing Urston. That’s when I realized that Janelle was in the blackmail business, that it wasn’t just me she was after, and she wasn’t about to let anyone off the hook. So I left. I must have put my hands in my pockets, and the pink frond came out when my hands did.” Raimondo took out his hands, tiny leaves of some plant coming along for the ride, proving his point.
“And you came back later on, killed Janelle, and framed Hollis.”
“When I left, I went back to the Telfair. I had an interview with Dinah Corwin, that TV gal from Atlanta. She can vouch for me.”
“An interview only takes an hour. That gives you time to get back there and do the deed.”
“Dinah was running late because she spilled wine on her dress and I had to wait for her. Ask at the bar; they know me because I’m on retainer to take care of the indoor plantings. I didn’t kill Janelle. In fact, after hearing Raylene and Janelle argue, I decided I was done with the whole ugly blackmail mess. I intended to tell Janelle she could shout who I am from the rooftops for all I cared. I was not paying her another cent.”
“Who in the world are you?”
Raimondo folded his arms across his broad chest and leaned against my front door. The sexy smile was back. “Bob Smith, from Peoria, Illinois.”
That took a second to digest. “Where did Raimondo Baldassare come from?”
“Desperation. I fell in love with Savannah when I went to art school here. My grandma had taught me about plants since I was old enough to walk, so I thought I’d open up a landscaping company. Nobody cared about another humdrum guy with a bunch of plants for sale. I left for a year and went pack to Peoria. I bulked up, listened to Italian tapes, put on a white flowing shirt, dyed my hair and tanned my body, and came back as Raimondo. Image is everything, especially in this city.”
“Why would you risk all that you’ve worked so hard for and not pay Janelle?”
“At first I needed the image to get the jobs, but now my work speaks for itself. No one’s going to drop me because I’m not Italian. I do good work. My gardens are the best, and I have a new rose coming out that my grandmother and I developed together. It’s going to knock everyone’s socks off. I had no reason to kill Janelle. I was done with her.”
“Then who did kill her?”
“You were at the wake at the Marshall House. There were a lot of people there that night, and it wasn’t just a coincidence they were drinking and dancing.”
“And they all have alibis.”
Raimondo gave me a long steady look. “Somebody doesn’t, or someone’s lying.”
He turned to leave and I called after him. “Will you still do KiKi’s yard? It would mean a lot to her. I promise to stay out of your tanning bed, and Bob Smith is safe with me, I swear.” I made a cross over my heart and held up my right hand, Girl Scout style. “I’m just trying to find who killed Janelle so my ex won’t sell this house to pay his legal fees. KiKi is my aunt; she was trying to help.”
“Tell Mrs. Vanderpool I’ll call next week to set things up.” Raimondo/Bob did the sexy smile thing again. “Seems to me your ex and Janelle deserved each other, and for heaven’s sake get something on that burn.”
Raimondo faded into the night. I was glad Raimondo-the-delicious was innocent and Bob-the-gardener was the toast of Savannah flora and fauna, but now I was out of suspects. If Raimondo was with Dinah, that meant she was with him. Everyone on my whodunit list had an alibi. There could be more suspects on Janelle’s hit list of blackmail victims, but I didn’t have that. I had nothing, zip, nada. The only thing I did have was a bad sunburn.
The killer was still out there. A time or two I must have gotten close, because my house had been broken into and I’d been grabbed and stuffed in the alley. I thought of that old Kenny Rogers song about knowing when to fold your cards and walk away. That’s where I was. Tomorrow I’d pay Boone a visit, tell him what I knew, and hope to heaven he had more information than I did.
When I lost Cherry House, I’d lose the Prissy Fox as well. Maybe I could find another location for my shop. Maybe I could move in with Mamma or Auntie KiKi and Uncle Putter for a while. Maybe BW and I could live in a cardboard box under the Talmadge Bridge. I considered my options. I always liked the Talmadge Bridge.
THE NEXT MORNING, BLISTERS HAD MORPHED INTO cracked skin. I brewed coffee, poured out two cups, and BW and I paid our favorite auntie a visit.
“What’s this?” KiKi asked when she opened the back door. Today KiKi had on matching purples, from headscarf to velour slippers. Easter comes to Savannah. She gave me the critical-auntie once-over. “You got this from being out in the sun yesterday at the nursery?”
I couldn’t very well tell KiKi about the tanning bed if I intended to keep Raimondo/Bob’s identity a secret. “I’ve developed sun allergies. Birdie Franklin gave me a magazine; maybe it will help.”
BW sniffed the kitchen for food, and KiKi and I sat at the table, which had been the gathering place for three generations of Vanderpools. What stories it could tell. “The good news is, Raimondo plans on doing your yard, and the other good news that is also bad news is that he is not the killer. He paid me a visit last night to return my flashlight, which I’d dropped at his place. He knew you and I are joined at the hip, and he figured if you were pounding on his front door in the middle of the day and acting loony, there was a connection between that and a strange flashlight in his hallway.” A little white lie to preserve Raimondo’s identity and KiKi’s fantasy seemed like a good idea.
KiKi hunched over the table. “Raimondo really came to your house last night? Were you still wearing those god-awful boots? But I suppose with striped hair and peeling nose, boots are the least of your problems. Maybe when Raimondo does my yard, you can prance around in short-shorts and a halter top to pique his interest a little. You haven’t done anything to mess up the rest of yourself, have yo
u?”
“KiKi!”
“I’m just saying, is all. A girl could do worse than Raimondo Baldassare. Think of your kids with that lovely Italian skin and dark hair.”
Wanna bet? I thought to myself, and took a big drink of coffee. KiKi went to her pie safe and withdrew a cinnamon coffee cake. Bank of America’s safes had nothing on Auntie KiKi’s.
I took down plates and got forks as KiKi asked me, “How do you know for sure Raimondo isn’t the killer? I thought you had that pink-palm thing that put him at the scene? And if he’s not the murderer, how does this translate into something bad?”
“The night of the murder, Raimondo visited Janelle at the ‘For Sale’ house.”
KiKi gasped. “Mercy. He is a man of mystery. Raimondo has dirt? An ex? Kiddies? A handsome brother in the Mob?”
Lies were like that. Tell one, and you had to keep it up for ever. “I’m not sure about the dirt,” I said, taking the easy way out. “But Raimondo had an interview with Dinah Corwin back at the Telfair Museum when Cupcake was killed, so Raimondo has an alibi. And Sissy has an alibi. Birdie Franklin came in to the Fox yesterday and showed me a picture of Sissy and Franklin that the PI she hired took of those two together at the Hampton Inn. It’s time stamped, and if a picture is worth a thousand words, Franklin and Sissy did not have murder on their minds.”
KiKi slowly put down her coffee and slumped back in her chair. “I do declare. Raimondo didn’t do the deed and neither did Sissy? Now what?”
“I’m headed over to Boone’s to tell him what I know and hope he has more leads. I thought all night about there being another suspect, and I can’t come up with anyone. I’m out of ideas.”
“Jan from the Cutting Crew hated Janelle, and so did Sarah at the shoe store,” KiKi offered up in desperation. “We need to talk to them.”
