I finally found Auntie where I’d started off–at Rhett’s car.
“I thought you had to show me something that couldn’t wait,” I said after waiting for her for five minutes while she and Rhett spoke.
“I didn’t say that,” she said.
“You sounded desperate,” I said.
“I don’t know that desperate would be the right word. But pretty close to it, I guess,” she said.
“So then, let’s get to it.”
“Okay,” she said. She grabbed my arm and held on to it like she needed help walking. She turned back and waved to Rhett. “Isn’t he just the sweetest man?”
I rolled my eyes. “I wouldn’t know,” I said.
“After riding all the way out here in the same car, you still don’t know?”
“I don’t know what you think you’re up to,” I said.
“Nothing,” she said way too quickly. “I just thought you’d like to get to know him better.”
“What I would like to know,” I said, “is why you keep telling people that I’m going to bake crawfish pies?” I asked. “I’m not baking any pies. Especially enough to feed a band full of men.”
“We’ve got a girl in the band, too.”
“I’m not baking any pies,” I said.
“Why don’t you think about it?” she said, patting my arm. “Nobody makes pies better then you. Plus, you’ll need the practice. I promised twenty pies to the crawfish booth, kiddo, and I want ours to be the best ones there.”
“If I already make the best pies, why do I need practice?”
“I was thinking you might be a little rusty. I didn’t remember seeing any stands up there in Chicago selling crawfish when you took me over to Navy Pier.”
I rubbed my hand over my eye. “Why did you want me to come out here, Auntie?” I asked. No need to continue that conversation. She’d told everyone that I was baking pies. The only way I knew to get out of baking them was to find a place to hide where she couldn’t find me, and I knew of no place like that.
She bumped herself against me “I need your forensic eye,” she said.
“My forensic eye? Why? What’s going on?”
“I think that I’ve found the crime scene.”
“What crime scene?”
“Where Squatter Guy was killed,” she said.
We took the steps to the second floor to a room halfway down the outside corridor. She swung open the door and made a big gesture of sniffing in the air.
“What do you smell?” she asked.
“Would the answer be ‘nothing’?”
“No, it would not. Take another whiff.” She did it for me. “Don’t you smell it?”
“No, Auntie,” I said. “I don’t smell anything.”
“Formaldehyde.”
I breathed in again, making a production number of it like she had. Nothing. I stuck my head inside the door and tried it again.
I shrugged. “Maybe,” I said, then gave it a second thought. “I don’t know.” I scrunched up my nose. “Maybe it’s just still stuck in my nose from this morning.”
“Oh heavens, darlin’, you must be like that commercial says, ‘nose blind’ not to smell it.”
She stepped inside the door and with her hands tried to usher the smell out to me.
“Uhmmm...” was all I had to offer.
“Well, if you can’t use that nose, use your eyes,” she said. “Do you see anything?”
“A motel room?”
“Other than that.”
“No.”
“No clues?”
“Clues of what, Auntie?”
“Murder.”
“Murder...” I let my eyes drift around the room. “No blood,” I said. “No sign of a struggle.” I looked at her. “I don’t see anything.”
I stood at the doorway while Auntie Zanne waltzed around the room, stopping in different areas and looking to me and my “forensic eye,” something I wasn’t aware I even possessed, for answers. All I saw was a messy room I presumed belonging to a guest. And I wasn’t even too sure it was okay for us to be in the room.
“Whose room is this?” I asked.
“Herman St. John.”
“And who is he?”
“I think he’s the squatter.”
“The body at the funeral home?”
“How many other squatters do you know?” she asked. She pulled off her over-sized hat and started fanning herself with it, her usual high hair now deflated. “He rented the room about a week ago.”
“How do you know that?” I asked. “I can’t imagine how you could just happen upon this room and it just happened to be the room of the guy at the funeral home.”
“I didn’t just happen upon it. It’s the universe settling in. Righting wrongs.”
“I think it’s about your nosy nature.”
“Partly that, too,” she said. “You know one of the members of my chapter of the Red Hat Society owns this place.”
“And?”
“Raye Anne.”
“Raye Anne. Who is Raye Anne?”
“Don’t you remember her?
“No,” I said. “I don’t remember her.”
“She owns this place. She’s who I’m talking about. She gives me things that people leave.”
“Is she giving you these things?”
“No. At least not yet. She gives her guests a certain amount of time to come back or call to claim their things.”
“How long?”
“I don’t know, but however long she gives, thirty days or so I’m guessing, the time hasn’t passed yet on this stuff.” She glanced over at me. “It’s called abandoned property–all legal.” She went back to walking the room. “She gives them to me so I can use them for people that don’t have money to buy clothes for the deceased or to take to the clothing center where I spearhead the clothing drive.”
She pulled open a drawer and shut it, then pulled open another one, bending over to look under the bed. I didn’t say anything, and I didn’t want to watch her snoop, so I stepped outside the door and looked over the banister at the pool.
Something black on the ground caught my eye. It was a black cigarette. I frowned. I thought smoking wasn’t allowed outside of the rooms. I looked up and down the corridor. I didn’t see any outside ashtrays. I bent down to get a closer look. It was unique. I didn’t think I’d ever seen a cigarette that looked like that before.
“So anyway,” she said and came over to the doorway. “Are you listening to me?”
I stood up. “You weren’t saying anything,” I said. “But I can hear you.”
“Well we were on our way down to her storage closet,” she pointed down the corridor, “and we passed this room,” she said. “And it reminded her of the gentleman, that’s what she called him–a gentleman–that had rented the room. It’s hot. C’mon.” She tugged at my arm and pulled me back to the doorway. Then she sat down on the bed and began fanning again.
“And?”
“And what?” she asked.
“And you were telling me how you got to see this room.”
“Oh yeah. We were passing it...” She looked at me. “Did I say that part already?”
“Yes, you did.”
“It’s so hot. I can’t keep up with my thoughts.” She stood up and took off the thin coat that matched her dress. “Okay,” she said. “So, we were passing the room and she just popped open the door. Then she said, ‘This guest has been gone a couple of days. Maybe just off on a little side trip, but if he doesn’t get back soon, his things will probably be going into the unclaimed pile soon.”
“She’s just going to give his stuff away?” I asked.
“Yes.” She looked over at me. “All quite innocent,” Auntie said. “I told you that. She was just showing me the ro
om, wanting me to see how people leave things and then disappear. But when she opened the door, that smell hit me in my face.”
“And then you knew?”
“Yes. That’s when I knew.”
“The universe settling in?”
“That and the formaldehyde.”
I took in another whiff of air. Still nothing.
“Why do you think there’s a smell of formaldehyde in here?”
“Maybe they did the embalming in here?” she said.
“Where?” I said.
“Not on this bed, huh?” she said and bit her bottom lip. “It’s not rumpled enough.” She leaned in and smelled it.
There she went sticking her nose in things again. Literally.
“Well?”
“No more than what I smelled in the air,” she said. “And the room doesn’t look like anyone did any kind of procedure in here.”
“No, it doesn’t,” I said. “And I don’t think it’s important.” I didn’t want to tell her how little formaldehyde had actually been inside the body. I had to be careful about sharing info about the case with her because she’d run off and try to solve it before Pogue could get to it.
Like now.
“Smelling it is important,” she said. “It’s a clue.”
“Maybe not.” I said. “So, is that what made you think of the dead stowaway?”
“Yeah, and your Aunt Julep.”
“She didn’t do it.”
“It’s never good to jump to conclusions, darlin’. Didn’t they teach you that in medical school?” she said as she peeked around the backside of the television set. “The fact is formaldehyde may have been what killed him.”
Did she forget I’d just completed the autopsy?
She was probably just trying to goad me into giving her some answers.
“You jumped to a conclusion the very first time you said Aunt Julep was the culprit.”
“I based that statement on facts.”
“And that’s what makes you think this Herman St. John is the same person as our John Doe? Facts?”
“That and he hasn’t been back in the room for a few days.”
“How many days?” I asked.
“Why? What do you know?” she asked. She stood up and narrowed her eyes. “What did you find out in the autopsy?”
“Nothing I can share with you.”
“What? Oh good heavens, Sugarplum. You have to tell me, we’re partners.”
“Partners in what?”
“Clearing Josephine Gail’s name.”
“I don’t think you have to worry about that.”
“Why? What did you find?”
“Here’s a fact for you,” I said. I figured cause of death was something I could share, and hopefully something that would stop her from her self-appointed investigation. “Dead Guy died from a shotgun wound to the back.”
“Oh,” she said and thought about that for a moment.
“And then he was embalmed?”
“That’s about all I can tell you.”
She waved her hand at me, dismissing my secrecy. I’m sure she figured she’d get something out of me eventually. “So. You notice something in here? A clue that goes along with what you found out during the autopsy?”
“Clue? No, I don’t see anything. What do I notice?” I asked, sarcasm in my voice. “Other than the maid needs to come and clean this and that you,” I swirled my finger at her, “are trespassing? I don’t see anything.”
A spark came into her eye. “The maid,” she said, then wagged a finger at me. “That’s a good idea, I’ll talk to her when we’re finished here.”
“Talk about what?”
“Like why she hasn’t cleaned the room. Or dumped the trash.” She bent down and looked in it. “Oh. Look at this. Woodchips.” She picked up the can and brought it toward me. “How do you think those got in here?”
I backed further outside the door. “I’m not looking,” I said.
“And why would they be in the trashcan? I don’t see any on the floor.”
“I am not going to be complicit in your wrongdoings.”
“Looking is not going to hurt.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “It might.”
“And it might be a clue,” she said. She took the wastebasket back to where she’d found it next to the desk and set it down.
“What do you think is in here?” She pointed to a briefcase that was set atop the bed, the flap opened as if someone hadn’t long ago gone into it.
“I think that it’s none of our business.”
“I think we should see what’s in it,” she said.
“I think that’s illegal,” I said.
She looked at me, and without moving her eyes, swept her hand across the bed, flipping the briefcase over the side and causing the contents to spill over onto the floor.
“Oh my,” she said and placed her hand over her chest. “I’m just so clumsy.” Auntie Zanne stooped down, picked up the few items from the floor, and placed them on the bed.
“Auntie Zanne.” I shook my head and stepped back a foot farther. “Did you call me here to help you commit felonies?”
“Felonies? Oh heavens, Sugarplum,” she said sitting down on the bed and spreading out the items. “What in the world do you mean?”
“This,” I waggled a finger at her pile on the bed, “I’m sure is obstructing justice. You should have called Pogue instead of me.”
“Why would I call Pogue?” she asked. “I don’t know for sure who this stuff belongs to. And we’re not trespassing, either. Did you forget I said Raye Anne let me in?”
“I’m sure they make jail cells big enough for all three of us.”
“I think we need to study all of this stuff more.” She shuffled through the items on the bed. “It might be a clue. Maybe we should take it with us.”
My hand flew up to my eyes. I didn’t want to see her in the act. “You can’t take anything in here,” I said. “It’s evidence.”
“How could it be evidence? Didn’t you say that my conclusion that this is the squatter’s room was very unlikely, and as faulty as my conclusion that it was your Aunt Julep that did it?”
I hadn’t said that exactly, but even if the universe was settling in like she said, I did think it was highly improbable that this room belonged to the dead guy.
What were the chances?
But, either way, it was impossible that it was my Aunt Julep who was the killer.
“It doesn’t matter, Auntie Zanne. You can’t take anything. It’s illegal.”
“But it would be more like stealing then obstructing justice, right?”
“Oh, so you think stealing is okay?”
“Of course not, I was saying that it’s not as bad as obstructing justice. Which, I’m not doing because we don’t know who this guy is.”
“And you’re just stealing stuff from some random guy.”
“Now you’re understanding me, sugar.”
“You need a good lawyer, Auntie.”
“I keep one on retainer.”
Chapter Fifteen
“There’s Consuela,” Auntie Zanne said. “She cleans all the rooms around here.” She took off walking, mumbling as she went. “I need her.”
“Need her for what?” I asked.
“I need to question her.”
“Question her?” I almost had to trot to keep up with Auntie Zanne’s short legs once she spotted the maid.
Consuela was a pudgy Hispanic woman, she had her black hair with stands of white pulled back into a bun. She had olive skin and brown eyes, a stocky build. There were beads of sweat popping up on her forehead and she wheeled her heavily stocked cart from door to door down the sidewalk.
“Maybe she saw Julep here,” Auntie Zanne said.
“My Aunt Julep?”
“Really, Romaine that is getting very old.”
“What?”
“You constantly asking which Julep I’m talking about. I’m going to tell you now, for the last time. I am investigating Julep Folsom. Your aunt. For the murder of my squatter.”
“He’s marked as John Doe.”
“Fine. Squatter John Doe.”
“Auntie, you know you can’t make your killer fit the description of someone you want to be the murderer.”
“It’s Julep,” my auntie said and nodded. “I just need to prove it.”
I stopped and watched as she walked around the end of the U-shaped area. I had promised Pogue that I’d keep an eye on my auntie. But she was going off the deep end and it was she who’d taught me when things go bad, you don’t go with them.
And then I thought, what could she hurt? If she went to Pogue with her crazy theory, he wouldn’t go for it. He could just ignore her.
A smile spread across my face. I was just worried for nothing.
“Consuela,” Auntie called out and waved to her as she carried an armful of linen into a room. “I want to talk to you.”
“Hi, Mrs. Derbinay,” she said with a heavy Spanish accent. “I have no time to talk. I very busy.”
“I see you’re busy,” she said just as I arrived. She pointed to the pile of white sheets and towels Consuela was carrying and looked at me. “Help her out.”
My eyes got big. “Help her?”
Consuela looked at me, then back at my aunt. “I don’t need no help.”
“Of course you don’t,” Auntie said, the whole time nodding at me to grab the load.
I pushed the handles of my purse onto my shoulder and tried to grab the bundle. Consuela wasn’t letting go.
“Consuela,” Auntie Zanne said, “I think one of the motel’s guests has been murdered.”
“Murdered?” she said and lost interest in the bundle. I stumbled once she let go of her grip. “I don’t know nothing about it. I no murder no one.”
“Of course not,” Auntie said and then paused. She gave Consuela a questioning look, then shook her head. “I didn’t mean you killed someone.” Auntie tilted her head. “You didn’t, did you? You can tell me, you know. If you have.”
Secrets, Lies, and Crawfish Pies Page 10
