Pearls and Poison (A Consignment Shop Mystery)

by Brown, Duffy

  “Scumbucket?”

  “If the shoe fits . . .”

  Boone pulled up in front of Cherry House, put the car in neutral, and turned my way. “Archie Lee was put on the ballot one fine Saint Patrick’s Day by a city full of inebriated individuals as a tribute to their favorite bar and bartender. At the time it seemed like a good idea.”

  “You were in on it?”

  “Green beer makes people do strange things. Seymour’s death doesn’t have to be connected to the election. Might be a murder of convenience with Gloria showing up mad as a hornet. Seymour bites the dust, and the police have their suspect. All very neat and no one poking around because the killer is obvious.”

  “Or maybe Archie Lee likes the limelight that goes beyond serving drinks at the Cemetery and has his eye on being alderman. Kill two birds with one honey bourbon bottle, and he’s sitting on city council.”

  Boone did the dismissive-shrug thing. “I’ll look into it.”

  “No you won’t; I know you. I’ll look into it.”

  “You start poking around and everyone will clam up.”

  “I’ll be discreet.

  “Getting run into a swamp, dragged into an alley, trapped under a bookshelf, and strangled by a pissed-off boat captain doesn’t happen to people who are discreet. You don’t have a discreet bone in your body. Staying off your mother’s case is the best way to help her.”

  A growl crawled up my throat. “This is the woman who changed my diapers, kissed my boo-boos, and didn’t say I told you so when I caught Hollis doing the Hokey Pokey with Cupcake. If it were your mother, would you do nothing?”

  Boone’s face went instantly blank, not one readable flinch or blink. During my divorce, while sitting in Boone’s cherrypaneled office grinding my teeth and visualizing his head on a silver platter, I learned a few things about the guy. He was hardworking, arrogant, conceited, a pain in the butt, and liked a little coffee with his cream and sugar. I knew Boone the lawyer and considered Big Joey and Pillsbury his siblings of the hood. I knew zip about Boone in the early years, how he wound up a lawyer, but somewhere I hit a nerve.

  He didn’t look like he wanted to chat about it at the moment. I got out of the car and parked my hands on my hips. “We have different ways of doing things is all.”

  “I have connections; you rattle everyone’s cage till something escapes and has you for dinner. Stay away from the courthouse.” Boone put the car in gear and motored down Gwinnett.

  I trudged up the sidewalk, got the daily cash from the safe that was actually a rocky road ice cream container in the freezer. I let BW out to irrigate the front yard then sat down on the top step of the porch . . . alone. Usually Auntie KiKi was with me along with coffee or a martini or two or three as we dished the dirt on Savannah society or lately tried to figure out the latest murder. Right now I had no KiKi or martini or suspect . . . except for Archie Lee.

  The Cemetery was a watering hole for locals with the best boiled peanuts on the planet. Using Old Bay spice was the secret that wasn’t really much of a secret, but Archie Lee had fine-tuned the technique. The bar was across from Colonial Park Cemetery, a convenient location if things got out of hand and ended badly, and two doors up from Urgent Care if things just got marginally out of hand. Having a face-to-face with Archie Lee about motives and murder may not be a prudent idea on my part, but I’d never been a slave to prudence, and Archie Lee was the only lead I had at the moment.

  That gave me a plan, something to work on, something to cling to in finding the killer. The day would improve, I convinced myself as I flipped the Closed sign in the bay window to Open. Least that’s what I thought till I spied Marigold Haber in full election regalia of vest, pin, and straw hat strutting her way up my sidewalk, huge cardboard box in hand.

  “I do declare what a morning this has been.” Marigold plopped the box on the green checkout door and swiped a stray curl off her forehead. “Gloria’s arrested and the owner of the HotDoggery just evicted us. Do you believe such a thing! Said he’s not having a murderer for a tenant, that it’ll give the place a bad name.”

  Marigold held out her hands in total disbelief. “They sold processed meat, for crying out loud, with enough added nitrates to kill a small army. Now that’s a bad name if you ask me. I was beside myself with worry not knowing what to do or where to go with your mamma’s campaign headquarters, and then it came to me clear as a bell.”

  Marigold gazed around my shop, a euphoric grin tripping across her face. “You have a parlor and a kitchen that’s empty as a schoolhouse in summer since you sold off all your furniture to pay your bills on this place, such as it is.”

  Gee, thanks. “I have kids clothes in the parlor now.”

  “Why this here hall is plenty big enough to accommodate those little bitty things, and there’s nothing around but used clothes anyway, so it’s not like we’re upsetting anything important. We’ll be setting up shop and working from here. We can store the banners and placards in the kitchen.”

  Marigold grabbed my shoulders, her eyes moist. “You’re such a good daughter, Reagan. Your mamma will be mighty proud of you helping out like this in her time of great need.” She kissed my cheek. “Mighty proud indeed.”

  Jiminy Christmas, Marigold was playing the proud parent card. She’d just insulted my business and me and my house, but any child south of the Ohio River will do whatever it takes to make Mamma and Daddy proud. Mighty proud indeed are the magic words that get kids to play football instead of chess, attend church on Sunday mornings even if they sleep through the sermon, take dance lessons instead of skateboarding, and apply to the University of Georgia instead of Stanford. I was toast, and Marigold knew it.

  “We’ll all have such a fine time together in this old place, don’t you agree?” Marigold beamed, a twinkle in her eye. “Keep up each other’s spirits till the real killer is behind bars where he or she belongs. I already called the phone people, and they should be here any minute now to run more phone and fax lines for us to get things going.”

  Marigold poked her head out the front door, stuck her thumb and finger in her mouth, and let go with a piercing un-belle-like whistle. Three cars screeched to the curb.

  “Now that I think about it,” Marigold said to me, “getting evicted is a blessing in disguise. We won’t have to pay rent and rely on donations that are sure to dry up with all this bad publicity circulating like it is.” She raised her right hand, looking a bit like Paula Deen and the Statue of Liability all rolled into one. “We’re not giving up, no siree Bob. Onward and upward in the election polls.”

  Marigold headed for the parlor located off the dining room followed by a string of chatty women trooping in the front door lugging more boxes, chairs, laptops, and a cappuccino/espresso/latte machine.

  “This way, ladies, follow me,” Marigold called over her shoulder as a U-Haul truck parked in KiKi’s driveway. Since KiKi hadn’t mentioned anything about moving and Savannah burglars had more smarts than to fleece a place in broad daylight, this was more campaign stuff headed my way.

  “Oh and, honey,” Lolly Ledbetter said as she passed me, adding a schoolteacher finger wag for emphasis, “you might want to take care of those dark roots you got going on. Not attractive at all for the candidate’s daughter.”

  “And for heaven’s sake,” Dottie chimed in, “stand up straight.” Dottie went to high school with Mamma and used to be Miss Six o’clock News on WSAV. She knew all about standing straight. “The press and TV reporters come calling around, and you don’t need to be slouching around like an addle-minded teenager.”

  My left eye started to twitch as I spied Chantilly entering through the kitchen, steps slowing, eyes widening at the continuing chaos. “What’s going on around here?” She dodged two men lugging a table, BW hid under the checkout door, and three customers coming up the walk took one look at the confusion and fled for their lives.

  “I got to find Scumbucket’s killer and do it quick,” I said, my voice shaky. I gr
abbed Chantilly’s hand and dragged her over to the parlor doorway, the volunteers fixing up, setting up, and plugging in. “They got kicked out of Mamma’s campaign headquarters over on Broughton. This is me having a roomful of mothers.”

  “Mothers like in PB and J sandwiches with the little crusts cut off?”

  “Like mind your manners, no kissing on the front porch, what time did you get in last night, and don’t trust bad boys.” I felt my eyes start to cross. “I can’t take it. We need to go to the Cemetery tonight and see Archie Lee. I’m hoping he’s the killer; he’s got the most to gain with two opponents out of the way.”

  “And you intend to tell him that to his face?”

  “I was thinking of wording it a little better.”

  “How do you get into these messes?” Chantilly asked. Then we both made the sign of the cross.

  • • •

  AT THREE O’CLOCK THE PEARL-GIRLS ALONG WITH some of the good-old-boys were in full campaign mode; the Prissy Fox not so much. Ringing phones, cranking fax machines and printers did not add to the ambiance of a shopping experience and were killing dead what was gearing up to be my best month so far for Prissy Fox sales. But an even worse problem was that there was no sign of Mamma or KiKi. Boone said it would take a few hours to get bail arranged, but five was more than a few. Five was many . . . too many. I was done with being cautious and standing around doing nothing. I didn’t care what Boone said; I was headed straight for a full-blown panic attack and the police station to get my family out of jail if I had to rent a backhoe and level the place to do it.

  Grabbing Old Yeller I made for the door as the Beemer squealed into KiKi’s drive. She jumped out, grinned, held up to-go cups with Jen’s and Friends stenciled in blue on the sides, then cha-chaed her way across the grass/weed patch separating our properties.

  I threw my arms around her. “What happened? What took so long? Are you and Mamma all right?”

  KiKi sipped from her cup and handed me the other one. “I got us strawberry martinis to celebrate my new do.” She did a little twirl. “What do you think? I’m plum gorgeous, don’t you agree?”

  I plopped down on the top step of the porch. “You stopped off to get your hair done?”

  KiKi parked next to me. “Didn’t have to. Mercedes did it right there in the slammer. Your mamma looks terrific. Got rid of that old bob thing she had going on. We hung around for a while so Mercedes could show us how to do the curling part. She’s coming over tomorrow to put in highlights. I’m going to teach her the rumba.”

  I took a sip of martini, little gray brain cells starting to function. “Waitaminute. You stayed in jail on purpose because you wanted to? What happened to shivs and dope and being somebody’s bitch before noon?” I took a big gulp of martini. “Where the heck’s Mamma?”

  “Oh, honey, even Martha Stewart taught knitting while incarcerated. Must be a new trend these days. Mercedes took a liking to us right off, and we passed the time away. Your mamma’s back at her house safe and sound without a reporter in sight thanks to Betty Lou Harris and her marital difficulties. Seems she found her Dwain with two prostitutes over there at the Weston, and she went and shot his do-da clean off. I’m here to tell you that a dismembered private part trumps fingerprints on a liquor bottle any day of the week. Sorry I missed all that hoopla, had to be some sight. Heard tell Jerry Springer is headed this way. He’s gearing up to do a show about using it and losing it.”

  KiKi finished her martini, eyes not focusing as she sucked two strawberries right off the toothpick and nodded at the open door. “So what’s going on around here?”

  “Business sucks. Mamma’s campaign headquarters moved into the Prissy Fox, and I’ve been told to stand up straight and put on lipstick like I’m an addle-minded teenager. I should have gone to jail with you.”

  KiKi gave me a kiss on the forehead. “Come up with any ideas on who polished off Scumbucket?”

  I did the clueless hunch and KiKi tsked. “Poppycock. You’re lying like a rug. I can tell a mile away. You should be ashamed of yourself, fibbing to your dear auntie that way after she just got out of jail.”

  She snatched my martini right out of my hand. “But I got to lay low tonight anyway, so don’t go snooping around on your own. Putter’s coming home, and it’s going to take all my womanly wiles to explain away me being in jail. Thought I’d go with ‘I was just there waiting for Gloria to get sprung.’”

  “And leave out that you were in the pokey with her while waiting? I suppose that’s not exactly a lie.”

  “The way I see it, this falls under the category of selective absentmindedness. Anyone in AARP has the right. I do believe it says so right there on the bottom of the card.” KiKi winked, gulped down the rest of my martini, followed by an appreciative burp, then sashayed her way across the yard to Rose Gate.

  Lolly Ledbetter came out the front door, the guys and gals of Campaigns-R-Us in tow. They gave a little wave as they left, and Lolly said, “We’re meeting up at your mamma’s tonight to talk damage control. She’s calling a press conference first thing tomorrow morning before Seymour’s funeral to say her being at the police station was a misunderstanding.”

  “Think they’ll buy it?”

  “Not for a minute, and that’s what they’ll write, but we’re not giving up. All of us will be back here tomorrow except me. It’s my day to run the trolley.”

  Lolly sat down beside me and heaved a weary sigh. “This isn’t the way it was supposed to be, you know. Nowadays, Cazy takes Monday, Wednesdays, Fridays, and I do Lolly’s Trolley the rest of the time. Used to be the trolley was just a hobby of mine for when the kids went off to college, and I liked sharing the wonders of our fair city with visiting folks. Since Cazy lost his job at the savings and loan the trolley’s turned out to be our bread and butter.”

  Lolly took my hand and grabbed tight, a steely glint in her eyes. “I’m sorry your mamma got nailed for whacking Seymour, but no one deserves being whacked and buried more than that man. He was evil clear through to the bone. Amen, hallelujah, and good riddance, I say.”

  Lolly headed for her car, and BW gave the yard a good sniffing in search of squirrels, rabbits, or chipmunks daring to invade his space. Boone said Scumbucket had enemies. I never considered the fact that Lolly was one of those enemies and working on Mamma’s campaign to make sure Scumbucket didn’t get elected as alderman.

  I went back inside to finally enjoy a moment of peace and quiet till I heard the printer grinding away in the parlor and found Marigold Haber sitting alone at one of the long tables stuffing envelopes. “You should be the one running for office considering all the hours you put in on this campaign,” I said to her.

  “Oh, Lordy, no. Put a microphone in front of me, and I sound like a cracked record. Besides, Butler’s a dinner-on-the-table-at-five and did-you-pick-up-my-blue-suit-at-the-cleaners kind of husband.”

  “Honey, it’s after five.”

  “Imagine that.” Marigold forced a tight smile, but her eyes looked more sad than happy. “Where does the time go?” Seemed like she meant that for more than just today. She turned off the printer and snagged a handful of flyers and her black purse that was showing a bit of wear.

  “I’m off to see your mamma,” she said. “We’re going to win this here election if it’s the last thing I do. Gloria deserves it, she’s worked hard all her life, and I’m going to make it happen for both our sakes. See you tomorrow, honey, and pick out something a little more fashionable than shoes held together with glue. You can see it oozing right out the side.”

  Business picked up a bit without the hubbub of the campaign buzzing in the background. As I scurried around taking in clothes to consign and ringing up sales, I thought about the good old days that were less than twenty-four hours ago. Life turned on a dime . . . or a honey bourbon bottle.

  At eight sharp two honks at the curb heralded Chantilly’s arrival, and I hurried out to the Jeep idling under the streetlight. “Great outfit,” I said as I c
limbed in, eyeing Chantilly’s green skirt, short boots, and tan suede jacket. “Win the lottery?”

  The Jeep turned for Abercorn, night settling in over the city and tucking it in for the night. “It’s part of last year’s splurge when I was gainfully employed with UPS. I so need a job. I go on interviews, and employers take one look at me and say, ‘Hey, you’re that girl.’ Being tied to Simon’s murder isn’t helping my chances one little bit.”

  Riding a horse naked on YouTube didn’t enhance Chantilly’s resume much either, but she felt bad enough at the moment without me throwing that in the mix.

  “I told Pillsbury you and I were headed for the Cemetery,” Chantilly added. “Said he’d stop on by, doesn’t want anyone infringing on his territory. That means me. Isn’t that the sweetest thing you ever heard? And another big reason I need a job. I need rent. Moving back in with my parents is out of the question. If ex-cop daddy gets wind of Pillsbury and me together, that there conflict with the Yankees a while back will look like a tiny skirmish in comparison.”

  “Your daddy thinks you sit home knitting?”

  “Told him I was dating an accountant and that part happens to be the God’s honest truth. Pillsbury’s a full-fledged certified public accountant for Pete’s sake. What more could Daddy ask for, right?”

  “That Pillsbury’s public wasn’t the Seventeenth Street gang? But then I married Hollis the horse’s patoot when everyone told me not to, so I’m not one to be giving advice or throwing stones.”

  Chantilly found a parking spot, and we hoofed it the few blocks to the bar. The Cemetery was old as dirt. Many moons ago Sherman’s soldiers downed a few pints at the place, and more than one wound up poisoned, buried in the basement, and left wandering the halls of this fine establishment to this day . . . or so we haunted Savannah tour guides liked to elaborate. The present day Cemetery was known for beer cocktails such as Black and Tans. Translation: pale ale, Guinness, with a taste like burnt tar with a dash of roadkill.