I couldn’t get through to the side streets, so I drove to the flashing red light and turned left, to the North, on Apalachee Avenue and then left again on Magnolia Lane to Lexi’s.
“Come on in, Jess.” Lexi welcomed me warmly at the door and led me into her cute little two-story fixer-upper that Kyle never got around to fixing up. “Do you still drink tea, or did the big city turn you to the dark side?”
I had never thought about it that way before. “One Darth Vader special, if you’ve got it, Lex. I still like my sugar and cream, though.”
“Of course, I have it. Kyle can’t stand up in the shower until he’s had his coffee. Kids! Come on down! Aunt Jessie is here!”
I couldn’t believe how much they’d grown in the three years since I left for law school. Katy Lyn was a beautiful young lady of 14, Kramer was a sturdy 10 year old, and Kristin was an adorable little 6-year-old chubster. They all called her KC, but all of them had Kyle Carnigan’s initials.
“Who’s the smartest?” I provoked in my playful auntie style. KC raised her had. “Me, me!”
“Not me,” Kramer said with a shrug.
Katy just rolled her eyes and chewed her gum. I guess my magical “auntie” spell over the bigger munchkins had kind of evaporated, and KC just barely remembered me.
“Are you that lady who used to twirl us around on the stools at the counter where Mom works?”
“Yes, until you threw up all over her,” Lexi said with a reminiscent smile.
I tried to laugh with KC, but it wasn’t really one of my fondest memories.
“Mom, can we go back upstairs now?”
“Yeah, Katy Lyn and me are real popular on Facebook today because we live in the murder town, and our mom was there when it happened.”
“Katy Lyn and I…” his mother corrected.
“Nah ah. It’s me and her. We’ve already got like a hundred new friends each.”
Lexi thought about correcting his new grammatical error for a second, but didn’t. “Just go…go. Jessie lives here in Whispering Pines now, so you’ll be seeing a lot of her.”
The two older ones were up the stairs before Lexi finished her sentence, and little KC was not far behind, trying to take two stairs with each step. “Bye, Auntie Jessie. I’m going to play with Jiggers.”
Lexi exhaled with more than a bit of exasperation. “I hate Saturdays. Come on…let’s go in the kitchen. Kyle is coming home early for lunch.”
Kyle had an office in City Hall, upstairs of the Dairy Queen, since the city was his biggest contractor. He usually grabbed a bite there, but the line, I’m sure, was way too long today.
“Jiggers?”
She exhaled again. “Yeah, I finally caved and let them have a kitty. I try to keep her upstairs.”
“Sit down, Jess.”
She poured my coffee and brought the condiments, then she opened a can of soup and put it in a saucepan on the stove.
“They have microwave ovens for that now, Lex. It’s this new fangled machine that…”
“Very funny. I just feel more like a wife and mother when I do it the way my mom did, you know?”
“Yeah, I guess I can see that.”
She put the stove on low. “I know you don’t have any food in the carriage house, and the Tea Room isn’t open yet…”
“We open at 4:00.”
“Perfect. …so I’ll pop in an English muffin for you.”
Then she made a sandwich from some leftover ham, covered it with plastic wrap until Kyle got home, and brought me a lightly toasted muffin. She plopped herself down across the small table with her cup of tea and slid the butter dish and honey my way.
We looked at each other, and I could hear the gears turning in her head. This was the point at which she would usually ask me when I was going to settle down, get married, and have a family, but instead we both just broke out laughing.
“I guess you can’t tell me how great family life is when life has you so harried, huh, Lex?”
“It is great,” she said, “and I wouldn’t change a thing. But, yeah, this might not be the best day to sell you.”
“Well, at least your youngest just started the first grade. You’re all done with diapers and preschoolers who are home all day, so that’s got to be nice.”
Uh-oh. I knew even before her eyes met mine that that was the wrong thing to say. I back peddled. I had a feeling in my tummy…about what was in her tummy.
“But maybe another baby would be a good thing for you and Kyle right now. I mean, you’re such a great mother…”
But it was too late. She burst into tears.
“I didn’t go to the dentist yesterday like I told you, Jessie.”
I know. You went to the doctor – the obstetrician. I didn’t speak.
“I went to see Dr. Henderson in Stony Point.”
The back door opened, and Kyle came waltzing in.
“Man, oh man. There are more cops in town today than people—and there are a million people. I might just take the afternoon off.” He sat at the chair between Lexi and me and realized that she was in tears.
“Oh, honey, I know it was a real shocker last night, but you can’t let it bother you like this.”
He looked at me and I shook my head. That’s not it, Kyle. I took a bite of my muffin.
She wiped her tears with a paper napkin and looked at her husband, silently for a moment. Then she said it. “I’m pregnant.”
Kyle’s eyes grew wide and his face grew a little pale. He had no reaction to the headless corpse, but this seemed to scare the heck out of him. Lexi put her face in her hand, covering her eyes, and he looked at me.
I gave him exactly five seconds to wrap his mind around it, and then I gave him the firm jaw and raised eyebrows, with a glance and chin-nod towards his wife, to send him a message: Man up, dude! She needs you right now.
He gulped and looked toward his distraught wife, then back at me. I pinched his forearm, but he was still too stunned to move. I squeezed the little piece of his arm flesh tighter and started to twist it slowly. He took in a short breath and the glaze left his eyes. I think he’s getting it.
“Tha…that…that’s fantastic, sweetheart! What a wonderful surprise!”
He stood up and pulled Lexi up into his arms. “I really needed some good news today, and this is just about the most wonderful news I could imagine.”
“Really, honey? You’re not upset?”
He did a great job, and earned a discreet, smiling nod from me. Lexi actually started to enjoy the excitement she should be feeling in anticipation of this blessed event. She got the soup hot and brought him his sandwich, as the conversation turned to murder.
I wasn’t as subtle as I hoped I would be. “So, spill, Kyle. What have they learned from the body and the investigation? Any clues? Any theories? Any suspects?”
“Well, nothing I say can leave this room,” he said as he took a huge bite of his sandwich.
That was an encouraging start. Maybe he was going to give us some real news. But now we had to wait for him to chew and swallow. He took his time, but he did.
“Well, the knife blade would have to have been at least at 700 degrees Fahrenheit in order to cut so smoothly through the neck like butter and seal off most of the blood vessels. Probably much hotter to close the arteries like that.”
I knew a little bit about metallurgy from a case last year. “But wouldn’t it be glowing if it were that hot, Kyle?”
“That’s just the thing. If it were over 400 degrees it would have been glowing red, and at 700 it would have been a bright orange. And it would have to have a high tensile strength too, or it would have been too soft the slice through the neck like that.”
“Why didn’t Mr. St. George scream?”
“The killer sliced right through the larynx, and it was very swift.”
“We’ll have to ask his wife and daughter if they felt any heat. They were right next to him.” I finished my English muffin and tried to process all of the new i
nformation.
“I hadn’t thought of that. And what do you mean, we’ll have to ask?”
“Well, you just admitted you don’t think of everything, Mr. big-time investigator. The police will need some help. So, what kind of knife could have been used?”
“Not sure exactly – or if it even was a knife. With a stab wound you can get a pretty good idea of the length and shape of the blade, but here there was nothing left to go by. Whatever was used to kill Dane St. George was able to cut cleanly through the entire neck and right through the cervical neck bone. That was left burnt and black on top from the heat. Maybe you caught a little scent of that, like when the dentist is drilling your teeth.”
Maybe I did…there was an odd odor. Lexi had something else on her mind, but seemed afraid to ask.
“What is it, Lexi? There are no stupid questions. Just ask him.”
“Well…are they considering the possibility that it could have been…you know…”
Kyle didn’t know what she was getting at, but I did.
“Ghosts. Could it have been ghosts, Kyle?”
“Or even extra-terrestrials with technology beyond our own. I mean, we were all there. We didn’t see a big glowing red knife flying through the air. So, if it can’t be explained by natural means, then…”
“…it’s not ridiculous to think it might have been supernatural.”
Kyle was the practical type. “I can’t argue with your logic, girls, but this is planet earth, and we should try to exhaust all the human possibilities before we get carried away.”
Party pooper.
•
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Chapter Seven
The front half of the Nirvana Tea Room was already filled with people from the press waiting for the kitchen to open. The locals were sitting at the counter. Behind the counter, there was a pass-through window on one side of the double swinging doors, a wide walk-through that split the counter into two sections, and the coffee and beverages were behind the short side of the counter near the front of the restaurant. It had sort of a 50s deco look with a black-and-white checkerboard tile floor and thirteen round swivel stools anchored to the floor in front of the counter.
The back of the restaurant was reserved for law enforcement personnel, who could use the French doors to the back porch to get easy access from the crime scene through the courtyard. Ashley was bringing out a large tray of finger sandwiches when we arrived, which she set on a back table for the officers and investigators. I was surprised to see her back today, but she seemed to be in good spirits.
It was just after 3:00 when I checked in with Carlo in the kitchen.
“How is it going back here, Carlo?”
He was muttering something to himself in French or Cajun or whatever.
“Not so well, Jessica. They took my knives! Those buffoons in uniforms took my entire set of cutting utensils! They took my seven-hundred-dollar Perceval French Chef Knife from Le Cordon Bleu, my bread knives – everything! And then they want me to prepare food for them. I cannot cut meat, so they will get egg salad!”
Then there were more French words, which I was glad I couldn’t understand.
Settle down, Carlo. I’ll have Lexi pick up some temporary knives on the way in, and I’ll make sure that Kyle gets your knives back from the crime lab as soon as they are able to release them.
I approached slowly and rubbed his back. “I didn’t know you went to Le Cordon Blue in Paris.”
He took a couple of breaths as he rolled up a sheet of wheat bread slathered in egg salad, and the red rage left his face.
“I did not study there, Jessica. I was an apprentice to the galley chef on a U.S. Merchant Marine ship, and we docked in France for an entire month. I took a train to Paris and visited the school. I was young and impetuous. When no one was looking I may have accidentally put the knife in my trousers, and I still have the scar I got on my leg from running back to my room in the hostel.”
Why, you little bandit. “Well, then I can see why it has so much sentimental value for you, Carlo.”
“That’s right. It reminds me of a special time in my youth…”
When you were a criminal.
“…and it inspired me to become the great chef that I am today.”
Well, at least he was modest about his culinary talent.
“Can we start taking orders pretty soon, Carlo?”
I caught Lexi just in time, so she pulled into the thrift store to get some knives. Save-a-Lot gets donations plus all of the rejected merchandise from the antique shops and sells it to the locals, but they usually have some pretty good stuff.
It was good to see some familiar faces along the counter. Ralphie Moore, the semi-retired plumber, was in the Tea Room every morning with a couple of his buddies. I’m not sure if he ever had any plumbing jobs, but he always drove his green F150 and wore clean bib overalls and a baseball cap. Today he was with Joey Barnes and Elmer Privit. They all called themselves “swamp-billies,” which described them pretty well…down-home, blue-collar good ol’ boys, mechanical wizards, practical jokesters, and the happiest and sweetest bunch of guys you’d ever want to know.
Ralphie rubbed his whiskered chin and looked at me with his partially toothless grin. “So was it ghosts what done it, Miss Jessie?” Then he moved his face closer and did a thing with his googly eyes that made them look like they were popping out of his head. “Or maybe it was Gator-boy from the Elvira swamp that bit his head clean off!”
Joey and Elmer were doing their best not to laugh. I’ll play their game. I leaned in right up a few inches from his face, probably closer than he’d ever been to any woman. I could see him gulp a little as he tried to hold his ground, and I moved a little closer and got a little louder with each word.
“It was a little lady with a big knife who didn’t like being teased!”
Then I kissed him on the nose and sashayed away with my hips swaying just a little. He turned bright red, and his buddies burst out laughing.
“See you later, boys.” What the heck – I winked. I was a goddess to them and probably just made their day. I kind of enjoyed their adoration too.
But now I had work to do. There was a murder to solve.
Ashley had just walked in. She put her sandwich-sized DSG purse – which still probably set her back a couple hundred bucks – under the counter. It was probably the last thing that Dane St. George ever autographed. Then she tossed her purple and gold hoodie sporting the “C” Cad logo (for the Charleston College of Art and Design). It was a big “C” with the c-a-d inside of it and de artis vero arched beneath it. I suppose it meant “from art, truth.”
“Ashley, start taking orders – just the finger sandwiches, number one through four, and soup for now. Carlo will keep filling up platters, so it should be fast and easy to plate and serve the orders. Katy Lyn and Lexi will be here to help you soon. Don’t let the crowd overwhelm you. Just take one step at a time, and do what you can do.” Ah, to be that young and pretty again.
I went into the lobby to find Arthur. That’s where we moved his bed when the solarium was taped off.
“Arthur! Where are you, my little buddy?” I can’t whistle, except for those loud ones where you use two fingers. “Here, boy!”
“Are you going to take him for a walk?” Grandma Dixie poked her head out of the wall.
“Hi, Gran.” That’s still a little unnerving for me. “I thought we’d take a little walk up the street through the shops, talk to a few people.”
“I sure wish I could go with you. But I’m tethered to this house.”
“Well, it’s a big house, and you’ve got Mom here with you.”
“I guess…and those beastly little brats upstairs.”
Whoa… the ghosts of the Carlisle children really are living up there?
“Your little pooch is in the pawn shop with Gus.”
“Gus?”
“Th
e pawn broker, Gustav Gasparelli.”
A rotund little woman waddled out of the pawnshop with Arthur trotting happily on the end of a multi-colored braided leather leash. “Here’s your dog, Miss Delacroix. Carlo fed him an hour ago, and I took him into the pines to do his business just before you came.” She handed me the leash. “I’m Anika.”
“Oh. Nice to meet you, Anika. Is Gus out today?” She had the same bright golden eyes as the old man.
“Oh, no. Gus is never out. He just has me take over when he needs to talk to people. He doesn’t speak much. Stop in later, and we will get acquainted.”
“Yes…I’ll do that. I’d love to get to know you both.”
She disappeared into her shop, which was quite busy today. I looked around, but Granny was nowhere to be found.
“Okay, little boy. Let’s go and talk to the neighbors and see if we can solve this murder while we’re at it.”
We walked a couple blocks down Carlisle Boulevard, and Arthur just did not seem to be his normal mischievous, playful self. He was way too well-behaved. I stopped in front of Wally & Molly’s Bake Shop, and he sat like a trained service dog and looked straight ahead.
This is very odd for my little monkey.
I bent down and looked him in the eyes. Maybe it was just the way the light was hitting them, but his pupils looked red, like you see in flash photos sometimes. I examined him more closely as the flow of people moved around us on the sidewalk. Then he looked right at me and said:
“What are you looking at?”
I was taken aback for a moment – until I recognized the voice.
I gritted my teeth and spoke right through them. “Granny, you get out of my Arthur right now!”
She answered telepathically.
“I can’t, Jessie. I’m not in the Inn.”
“Get out of him!” I was fit to be tied.
“I’ll cease to exist, Jessie. Is that what you want?”
A Sinister Slice of Murder: A Jessie Delacroix Murder Mystery (Whispering Pines Mystery Series Book 1) Page 5
