by Liliana Hart
I squenched my nose up in disgust. That was more information than I needed to know.
“What’s this about shady characters in town?” she asked. “Is someone making trouble?”
“Could be,” I hedged. “You notice any strangers around the last few months?”
“Edith Gobel’s nephew,” she said. “He’s come to visit a few times, and every time he does, things go missing out of her house. Rides a motorcycle, so it’s probably why he’s had to make so many trips to visit.”
“What about strangers?”
“I don’t go into town as often as I used to. Since Vince is retired we can go have our fun during the week, and then be back for church on the weekend. He took me to the casino in Mississippi last week. I won three hundred dollars on the penny slots.”
I blew out a breath. There was no point trying to get information out of my mom the quick way. She wasn’t capable of giving a short version of anything. But her mention of the church reminded me of something.
“You don’t happen to know Beverly Jennings’s home number, do you? I need to get some information from her.”
“That’s right, she’s off on Mondays,” my mother said. “I’ve got it here stored in my phone. I’ll text it to you. What kind of information?”
“For the wedding,” I lied. “I’ve got to go. Talk to you soon.”
I hung up before she could start asking more questions. My lies would only get me so far. Phyllis Holmes was a master at ferreting out information from people. Aunt Scarlet should have hired her to find out information about Savage.
My mom was true to her word and texted me Beverly Jennings’s phone number and I gave her a call, keeping an eye on the clock.
“Hello?” she answered.
“Mrs. Jennings?” I asked. “This is Addison Holmes.”
“Oh, yes,” she said. “Pastor Charles just told me you’d be reaching out. He said you were helping him with a private matter.”
She sounded a little bit perturbed that he wasn’t coming to her for help.
“Yes, I appreciate your help. I need to get a copy of all the personnel files for anyone who has worked at the church in the last ten years.”
“That’s easy enough,” she said. “I can email them to you since they’re all digitized now. I don’t know why we had to change it from the old way. There’s nothing like pen and paper, I always say. That’s how records stay confidential. Now you put them in a cloud and everyone knows all your business.”
“How long have you been secretary for the church?” I asked, curiously. I knew she’d been there when I was growing up.
“Thirty-four years. I’ve been through five pastors that have come and gone.”
“I imagine you’ve gotten to be a pretty good gatekeeper,” I said.
“You have to be,” she said. I could practically hear her head nodding on the other end of the line. “The pastor has an important job to do, but he can’t be everything to everyone in the congregation. He’s got to delegate. That’s why we have elders and deacons and volunteers. Everybody comes to me wanting to speak with the pastor, but it’s my job to find out what’s going on and gently persuade them that someone else is better suited to help them with what they need.”
“Ever have anyone who doesn’t want to be persuaded?”
“Oh, sure,” she said. “I’ve had some doozies over the years. But nothing I couldn’t handle. I’m tougher than I look.”
That was a terrifying thought, because Beverly Jennings looked like a linebacker. She was the perfect person to run interference for the pastor.
“Anyone bother Pastor Charles that ever worried you? Or made you worried for him?”
“No,” she said immediately. “Nothing like that. Do you think Pastor Charles is in danger?”
I wasn’t sure how much to tell her, or how much Pastor Charles wanted me to tell her. But she was a sharp lady and had her pulse on everything going on with the church. And I was sure in her position she had to keep certain confidences.
“I think it wouldn’t hurt to keep an eye on him and his schedule. Make sure you know where he’s going and who he’s going to see.”
She was silent for several seconds. “I see. I’ll make sure to get you all the personnel files immediately. Anything else you need?”
“Just a list of anyone who’s maybe been overzealous in getting close to the pastor. Maybe even a woman who’s been overly interested or won’t take no for an answer.”
Beverly snorted out a laugh. “Lord, there’s been plenty of those. I didn’t even think of that. Pastor Charles is a good-looking man, and still in the prime of his life. Donna Larkin would be at the top of that list.”
I winced sympathetically. Donna Larkin was a bulldozer. There wasn’t anything she didn’t get if she set her mind to it. It was probably driving her crazy that Pastor Charles had rejected her advances.
I thanked Beverly again for her help, and gave her all my information. And then I told her to call me day or night if anything unusual happened or she felt like something was off with Pastor Charles.
I hung up the phone no farther to where I’d started. It was hard to hide in a town the size of Whiskey Bayou. Even if you tried to skulk about and take pictures without anyone noticing, someone would have seen a vehicle or noticed something out of place. It was no wonder Scarlet had made such a great spy. Everyone in Whiskey Bayou was trained to snoop from the cradle.
Chapter Six
By the time I headed back into Savannah it was starting to get dark. It was also starting to drizzle.
Anyone who’s from the south knows this is a terrible thing to happen. Nothing could stir panic in the hearts of Southerners like ice on the roads. Or ice anywhere, really. We weren’t equipped to deal with it. We didn’t have snow tires, extra blankets in our cars, or kitty litter in the trunk. We just gripped the wheel as tight as possible and screamed as we slid across the highway. I was grateful Nick wasn’t working traffic.
By the time I got into the heart of historic Savannah, there was already a thin layer of ice on the roads and the sand trucks were out. From the looks of things, I’d be sleeping at the office tonight.
I found street parking easily when I got to Le Couture, mostly because no one else was insane enough to try wedding dresses on in an ice storm.
I’d barely turned off the ignition when Rosemarie ran out the front of the bridal shop. It took me a minute for my eyes to adjust because she was swathed in hot-pink satin, and it was hiked up to her knees so it didn’t drag on the ground.
“Are you going to prom in 1988?” I asked. “Are we having a theme wedding?”
“Hurry,” she said, skidding to a halt on the sidewalk. “It’s a good thing you’re early. They’re going to close soon on account of the weather. There’s dresses flying everywhere in there, and everyone is naked. I think I’ve lost three pounds since we started. I’m sweating like a pig.”
“Not good for satin,” I said.
She was holding the door open for me. Le Couture kept the front door locked, and only people with appointments were buzzed inside. The downstairs was just a small reception area with a sleek black counter, three black leather chairs, and a door that led back into an employees-only area.
I followed Rosemarie up white carpeted stairs to the second level and gasped at all the gowns. This was nothing like the first time, when I’d bought a wedding dress at the Bridal Barn. These were dresses. There were mirrors and a little stage area to twirl in. And racks of white dresses on one side and evening gowns on the other side for the wedding party.
There was a seating area, almost like a gallery for people to watch the spectacle, and sitting at opposite ends of the U-shaped black leather couch were Aunt Scarlet and Nina Dempsey.
It had been a while since I’d seen Nina. Actually, we’d only ever met once, and it wasn’t on the best of terms since her husband tried to hit on me. She was dressed in a stiff navy winter suit with an ice blue shell, and she wore the pearls sh
e never seemed to leave home without. I wondered if she slept in them.
Aunt Scarlet faced her, not blinking, and she’d undressed down to a hot-pink bra and panties. I’d spent a week with Scarlet at a nudist colony, so I figured Nina was probably in shock. Age and gravity hadn’t been kind to Scarlet, despite the fact she’d had the occasional nip, tuck, lift, and implant through the years. She mostly looked like a sack of potatoes wrapped in liver-spotted skin.
They each held a glass of champagne.
Kate was standing behind them in a lovely powder-blue gown that gathered at one shoulder. She was holding up a bottle of champagne and an already full glass. “I think you’re going to need this.”
I didn’t argue. I just took the glass and drained it. And then I directed my next words to Kate.
“This is supposed to be a simple wedding for close friends and family only. I want simple. Simple dress, simple everything. I just want to get married.”
“You should have thought of that before you put an open invitation in the newspaper, young lady,” Nina said. “The church only holds four hundred people. And of course, those are all your people. I had to send invitations by courier so Nick’s side of the family would even know there was a wedding at all. Disgraceful.”
“Oh, put a cork in it, Nina,” Scarlet said. “You did no such thing. I’m good friends with your father-in-law and he said you sent out a mass email. Have another glass of champagne. Your son is damned lucky to marry my grand-niece. She’s a resourceful girl, and your son better treat her right or he might find himself dangling off a balcony like my husband.”
“Ridiculous,” Nina said. “Everyone knows Albert died choking on a piece of bread. He probably did it on purpose after being married to you.”
Scarlet gasped, and Kate shifted her weight slightly. I was wondering if she was planning to knock both of their heads together.
“You bitch,” Scarlet said. “For your information, I was talking about Francesco. He was Italian. Very passionate. Fighting and making love. It was all the same. But you wouldn’t know about passion. It’s hard to do anything with a block of ice.”
This time it was Nina’s turn to gasp, and she came to her feet, clutching her pearls. Scarlet hopped up from her chair, mad as a hornet—all five feet of her—the extensions in her ponytail making her head fall back on her shoulders.
“I get the feeling y’all have known each other a while,” Rosemarie said from behind me.
I’d completely forgotten about Rosemarie. She’d gone back into the changing room, and gone was the hot-pink satin prom dress and in its place was a canary-yellow toga of the same material. She looked like a shiny banana.
“Oh, sure,” Scarlet said, waving the hand with the champagne glass in it so some splashed over the top. “That dress is terrible, by the way, Rosie. You look like one of those Day-Glo condoms. Me and Nina go way back. Had relations with her daddy back in the sixties.” She shrugged. “I regret that one. It was the ’shrooms. She gets the ice block routine honest is all I can say.”
Nina was red in the face and cocking her hand back to punch Scarlet when there was a zzzzz sound, and both of them dropped to the ground. Kate stood behind them unapologetically with two stun guns.
“I brought two just in case,” she said.
“Good call,” I told her. “You think Scarlet’s too old for that?”
“Nah,” Kate said. “She’s breathing. Let’s move them out of the way, so we can get finished with this.”
“You must’ve had a hell of a day in court,” I said.
“Don’t ask,” Kate answered.
The sales girl made a squeak and we all turned to stare at her. She looked terrified.
“We apologize,” Rosemarie said. “They’ll both be splitting the cost of everything we purchase here. Do you have more champagne?”
Before I knew what was happening I was stripped down to my panties and standing on the little platform in front of the three floor-to-ceiling mirrors. The champagne had taken away my need for modesty, and the fact that I should be laying off things like cinnamon rolls, peach pie, and champagne.
“Damn, girl,” Rosemarie said. “How many cinnamon rolls did you have this morning?”
“I will kill you,” I told her, giving her my death stare. “I’m under a lot of stress. This is stress weight.”
“My mom called today and said you had five pieces of pie at the Good Luck Café,” Kate said.
“Since when do you talk to your mother?” I asked. “And I didn’t have five pieces of pie. I had two pieces.”
“There’s a lot of defensiveness in your tone,” Kate said. “Maybe it has something to do with the fact you were asking about mysterious people skulking about Whiskey Bayou.”
“Can’t I care about my community?” I asked, holding out my arms so the poor sales girl could measure me. “Wouldn’t you want to know if unsavory characters were roaming the streets in your neighborhood?”
“Yes, which is why I live in a gated community,” she said. “You’re acting strange. You know I’m going to get to the bottom of it. You’ve never been able to keep anything from me.”
“No one is keeping anything from you,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I’m just trying to get married. Y’all are supposed to be helping me do that.”
“You’re right,” Kate said. “But you’d better hurry up with the dress. I think I saw Scarlet move.”
The sales girls rushed back in with several dresses slung over her arm, and she began hanging them from the pegs on the wall. Another girl rolled in a cart with bridesmaids’ dresses on it and then ran back out again. I couldn’t say I blamed her.
“What about Phoebe?” Kate asked. “Why isn’t she a bridesmaid?”
“I asked her,” I said, eyeing the first dress the girl brought. It had a lot of lace and beads. Not simple. I shook my head at her and pointed to the one in the middle. “That one.” And then I turned back to Kate who had also had enough champagne to strip down to nothing.
“What’d she say?” Kate asked.
“She said I was giving her a bad vibe, so she was going to pass. I pretty much expected a response like that. It’s similar to the one she gave me when I tried to get married the first time.”
Rosemarie hiccupped. “And look how that turned out. She was right. Maybe she’s got the sight. She seems like the type.” And then she flushed red and looked back and forth between me and Kate. “Sorry,” she said. “Champagne makes me very blunt. They should serve real drinks at places like this. This never happens with a Highball.”
I think I’d prefer champagne Rosemarie over “real drink” Rosemarie. Real drink Rosemarie had a tendency to make inappropriate sexual advances to everyone she passed. She also tended to dress like Bondage Barbie. There were many sides to Rosemarie.
I stepped into the gown, not really paying attention to myself as the sales girl tugged it up around me and started zipping and pinning. She’d turned me away from the mirrors, which I was secretly glad about because I was almost positive thinking about eating more peach pie had expanded my waistline.
“Have you had any luck with caterers for the reception?” Kate asked.
I was assuming she was talking to Rosemarie because I knew absolutely nothing about what was going on with the wedding.
“The little Italian place on Second can do it,” she said. “They’re taking care of everything and will get in and set up early Friday morning. They’ll have a buffet spread for two hundred people.”
“A buffet?” a voice said from the corner. It was like nails on a chalkboard.
I looked up in horror to see Nick’s mother roll to her hands and knees and slowly get up. She looked like the Bride of Frankenstein. Her hair looked like it’d been brushed with a hand mixer and her lipstick was smeared across her face.
“I’ll not have it,” she said. “This isn’t a Golden Corral. It’s the wedding of the grandson of a senator.”
“And me,” I added dryly, but she ignored
me.
She held up her hands like she was seeing them for the first time, and then looked down at her mussed suit. “What happened to me?” Then she looked down at Scarlet, still prone on the floor.
“Ummm...” I said.
“She sucker-punched you,” Rosemarie said with a straight face. “Surprised us all. You were just standing there and it came out of nowhere.”
Nina looked down at Scarlet for a few more seconds and then kicked her in the side. The rest of us all gasped in sync.
“That woman’s the devil,” Nina said, and then she turned her laser beam eyes on me. “You’ve got some of that in you. If my son ends up shot or dangling from a balcony there is no corner of hell where I won’t find you. Do I make myself clear?”
I nodded.
“Good,” she said and then looked to the sales girl. “Grace, I don’t need a new gown after all. Apparently, I should go to the Goodwill and find some overalls to go along with the buffet.”
Nina made a grand exit and then everyone looked back over at Scarlet. She was starting to twitch.
“What do you think?” Grace asked, taking a step back from the little stage I was on.
I turned to look at myself in the mirror and gasped. The dress was beautiful. It was just a long column of soft white satin with a small train, but it was exactly what I wanted.
“I’ll take it,” I said. And then I looked down and saw the small tag pinned to the bottom hem of the dress. The dress cost more than I made in an entire year when I was teaching. I almost felt guilty for letting Nina and Aunt Scarlet pay for it, but when I thought about it, I figured it was kind of like getting hazard pay and I probably deserved it.
I twirled in front of the mirror a couple of times and let my mind replay the scene I’d just witnessed between Nina and Scarlet until something jogged my memory.
“Wait a second,” I said, and turned to Rosemarie. “You said they can cater for two hundred people?”
“Yep,” she said. “That’s the limit. They’re a family-owned restaurant and don’t have a huge staff. They’re closing down the restaurant just to do your wedding.”
