Dead Man Talking

by TM Simmons

  ~

  Katy called, and I hurried into the Garden Room where she had laid out our meal on a small tea table beside the back wall. Windows took up that entire area, with a view of the yard and pool, and fans swirled lazily. None of Katy’s plants drooped, nor did spider webs dust the ceiling corners. The windowpanes sparkled, a testament to Sue Ann’s diligence.

  Katy murmured something about getting her fresh bread, and I gazed out the windows. The yard covered nearly three acres, magnolia and pecan trees interspersed, cedar at the back edge. She’d landscaped with monkey-grass-bordered brick paths, beds of fiddle ferns, and red and white roses. A lot of Katy’s roses were scores old, planted by the various women over the generations, the plants an intriguing mixture. Some spread and wandered up trellises; others her gardener kept trimmed and low-growing around marble statues of children or angels.

  We couldn’t see the gazebo, the guesthouse, or the half-acre maze from here. The gazebo was gorgeous, white gingerbread-trimmed, a place where family gathered for meals on cool days. Katy installed electricity and a fan. The guesthouse had formerly been the garconniére, a separate house from the manor house. Plantation sons moved into it in their teens, their own bachelor quarters away from their parents’ alert eyes.

  We’d only been treated with occasional visits to Esprit d’Chene over the years. Miss Emmajean, already elderly, didn’t entertain much. But every two or three years, the clan gathered and spent a weekend helping Miss Emmajean paint or take care of some work she didn’t trust to local contractors. While the adults worked and chatted, the children were left pretty much to their own devices, which included playing in the maze.

  Nasty little brats we were at times, too. The older ones, who had learned the intricacies, led the younger ones in. Then we zipped down a path too quickly for them to keep up — hid in the maze and giggled until their curiosity turned to fear and shrieks. In between, we forgot about the willow switches our parents cut. Back then, our parents believed more in willow switches than time-outs.

  Katy had grudgingly allowed Trucker and Miss Molly free run, and I’d set the litter box in the Peach Room, the bedroom I’d be using, their food and water bowls in the Garden Room. They’d both eaten sparingly, interested in re-exploring the house. They’d been at Esprit d’Chene twice before, just after Katy moved in, so Katy had been right to caution me about their habits. But I was determined to keep a close eye on them. Now they lay in the doorway, alert for a rare tossed tidbit of table scraps as Katy returned with a basket of bread and a bowl of fleur de lis butter patties in ice. I pigged out until I noticed Katy toying with her salad.

  “Sugar, you need to eat. Bet you didn’t have breakfast, either.”

  “No." She leaned back to gaze toward the pool area. She needed time to regroup emotionally from the invasion of a headless corpse and teams of investigators before we got deeper into the subject of Bucky Wilson-Jones, but she couldn’t seem to get it out of her mind.

  “Do you have any mint julep syrup?” I asked.

  She gazed at the clock. Cocktail hour in her world didn’t start until at least six p.m., and it was only two. “The syrup’s in the refrigerator. I’ll get some fresh mint.”

  Katy wandered out of the Garden Room door to the window box herbs while I stepped over Trucker and Miss Molly. I could see Katy’s downcast expression as she snipped mint while I set the syrup on the table and removed frosty highball glasses from the freezer. Did her distress come from the fact that a murder had been committed on Esprit d’Chene property, or the possible identity of the corpse?

  Katy kept most of her booze at the library bar, but a bottle of bourbon resided in a kitchen cabinet. Jack Daniels Black, nothing else would do for mint juleps. I set the bottle by the glasses and turned, expecting to see Katy with the mint. Instead, she trudged down a brick path to a rose bed, where someone had trampled one of the red roses. She leaned down and gently removed the huge bloom and stem, then laid her nose in the blossom as she gazed toward the other end of the landscaped area, which contained the maze. She dropped onto a concrete bench and buried her face in her hands, shoulders shaking.

  I’m not good with crying people. Most of my tears are angry ones after loss of my too-close-to-the-surface temper. I hurried out and sat beside her, slipping an arm around her waist. “Katy, Sugar — ”

  Katy leaped from the bench and sniffed back her sobs. “I’m fine. Let’s get our juleps.”

  See? I’m just no good with crying people at all.

  In the kitchen Katy mixed the juleps. She added far more than a double shot of bourbon to both the glasses, dropped in sprigs of mint and handed me one drink. I started back to our lunch table, but when I sat down, I saw Katy still in the kitchen, half of her julep already gone. Sighing, I took a sip of my drink and grimaced. Now, I love Jack Daniels, but straight, I’d rather have it over ice alone. I added unrefined sugar from the antique container on the table.

  Katy finally wandered in and sat across from me. She juggled three glasses and handed me another drink. Her first glass was nearly empty, and she’d fixed two more. She had admitted she hadn’t eaten breakfast and barely touched her lunch. Even I knew better than to drink that much bourbon on an empty stomach, and Katy had always been an easy drunk. Still, I was reluctant to chastise. Her emotional trauma buried her bubbly personality, the strain visible on her face. Maybe the drinks would loosen her up. We had things to talk about, the two of us.

  “Are you ready to talk?” I asked softly.

  “Not yet. Not yet, Alice. We do need to talk, but...not yet." She finished her first drink and immediately started on the second.

  “Would you rather talk about Sir Gary?”

  “That man!” she fretted, as though he were alive. She took another deep swallow of julep. “I can’t decide if I want you to completely banish him or just get him back in line!" Another swallow, and she stared across the table, eyes wide and troubled. “What on earth will we do if he’s involved in this murder?”

  A tingle of goosebumps crawled over me, and I gazed around. “It’s extremely rude to eavesdrop,” I said to the room at large.

  Katy caught my drift. “Show yourself or have the decency to stay out of a private conversation!”

  Sir Gary materialized by a huge potted fern. Face properly subdued, he walked over to stand by Katy. Trucker and Miss Molly eyed him warily, and Trucker growled low. He considered Katy a member of his circle of love, despite her irritation at him at times, and the dog expected mortals or ghosts to pay heed.

  “Quite some animal." Sir Gary eyed the dog but didn’t mention Miss Molly.

  “You need to acknowledge him,” I said. “His name is Trucker.”

  “Ummm? Good dog, Trucker, boy.”

  Satisfied, Trucker laid his head down, but kept a watchful eye on the ghost.

  “The cat’s Miss Molly,” I said.

  “Ah, the Egyptian breed, I see. She has a queenly air.”

  Miss Molly padded across the room. Traitorously, since she hardly ever tolerates anyone else, she curled around — well, through — Sir Gary’s legs and purred. The ghost reached down to stroke her. His hand didn’t stir a hair on her back, but Miss Molly accepted the caress and padded back to Trucker.

  “I took it upon myself to also search the grounds,” Sir Gary said.

  “Did you find anything the police missed?” I prodded

  He shook his head.

  “I thought you weren’t interested in this crime investigation, just your own problems,” I reminded him.

  He shrugged inside his silky shirt. “I assumed you’d be distracted from your true purpose here until we got this bloody mess out of the way.”

  Katy cringed...and swallowed more bourbon.

  “Bloody’s just an English expression, Sugar." I glared at Sir Gary. “A curse word.”

  “I apologize,” he said with a slight bow. “But cursing is a male trait. Although I know it offends ladies, who don’t share that vice. Or shouldn’t.”r />
  He and Howard would get along just fine.

  He motioned at the chair, which moved back so he could sit. “The tire tracks the bobbies were so interested in look like others I’ve watched Katy’s gardener repair. Sometimes her guests leave rather tipsily — run off the driveway." Sir Gary stared at our drinks and glanced at the clock. At least he could tell time. “I presume you ladies are having some of that somewhat less than delightful iced tea?”

  “As a matter of fact, it’s bourbon." Katy took another defiant swallow.

  “Sugar, why don’t you rest up? I’ll clean up.”

  Katy hiccupped and didn’t bother to excuse herself. “I can’t let you do that, Alish. You’re my guesht.”

  Uh oh. “I’m family and friend, also, Sugar. And you’ve had a horrible day. Let me help you out for once.”

  She glared at Sir Gary and swallowed more bourbon. “I’ve had a horrible few weeksh. All my friendsh have ‘bandoned me, ‘cause of a ghosht who won’t behave himshelf! And now somebody killed a man in my home!”

  I didn’t bother to correct her that the body had been found outside as I walked around to her chair. Taking the wobbling bourbon glass before she dropped it, I rubbed her shoulder gently and urged her to her feet. “Come lie down for a while.”

  Arm around her waist, I led her out of the Garden Room. Sir Gary watched us leave rather than following, a prudent move on his part, given Katy’s and my irritation. Katy didn’t need to negotiate the stairwell in her condition, so I led her into the Ladies’ Parlor and settled her on a green fainting couch. Covered with an afghan, she stared up teary-eyed, probably from a combination of the bourbon and her emotions.

  “Thank you, dear Alish,” she said. “Thansh for being here." She snoozed off within the blink of an eye.

  I smoothed her hair and started back to the Garden Room. As I left, I heard a hearty snore behind me and smiled. Katy would never admit that she snored — it wasn’t lady-like. But I’d spent many nights with her and knew differently. “Snore away, darling,” I whispered. “I’m afraid you’re going to need it, because the next few days aren’t going to be at all pleasant.”