Demise in Denim (19 page)

Mamma headed off to court, KiKi had morning twinkle-toes time with Bernard Thayer, and I woke BW the wonder puppy and we went inside Cherry House. I fed BW his morning kibble along with a peanut butter apple for saving my
butt last night. I grabbed a shower to try to sober up, maybe wake up, and for sure wash away interrogation-room grime. With my hair still wet I dabbed on some eyeliner and slid into a black cotton skirt. Not exactly a fashion statement of the season but the best I could do with no sleep and two shots of vodka under my belt on an empty stomach.

The boutique wouldn't be open for shopping at this hour, but I knew firsthand what went into getting things ready for a busy day . . . when I used to have a busy day. I told BW to hold down the fort, snagged a protein bar, then flagged down Earlene for a lift on Old Gray. Mamma was right in that Harper dead in Boone's office held the key . . . literally. So, who needed to get rid of Harper and why, and the last time I talked to Harper, and Anna and Bella's Boutique were our topics of conversation.

“Did you hear what happened over at Walker Boone's place?” Earlene said to me as I sat down behind her. “That poor man keeps getting in deeper and deeper; someone's sure out to set him up, even put a price on the man's head, and I don't believe for one minute he had a little something going on the side with that Harper Norton woman.” Earlene gave me a sideways glance. “Do you? So, honey, where can I drop you this fine morning?”

“Everyone knows about Harper and Boone?” I asked.

“Got five tweets this morning discussing the situation, as much as you can discuss on Twitter, that is. But we all know that there is no Harper and Boone, and you shouldn't concern yourself with such talk.” She added another sideways glance. “Right?”

I got off the bus two stops early so I didn't have to listen
to the rest of the Harper and Boone scenario. I crossed the street, where a line was already forming in front of Anna and Bella's Boutique. I spotted Mercedes sitting on a bench behind Colonial Park Cemetery, sipping coffee and checking her e-mail. See, that was what I wanted to be doing, coffee and e-mail, not hunting a killer.

“You're looking none too happy,” I said to Mercedes as I sat down beside her. “Bad news?”

“That's all it is these days, with dead bodies piling up like pancakes on Sunday morning. First it's Conway in the tub and now it's that girl in Mr. Boone's office and him standing right over her, least that's what the gossips are saying and they usually get it right.”

She gave me a hard look. “Well I'll be, I heard you were there, too. You should know that nothing was going on between that Harper woman and Mr. Boone. I keep the man's house and I know wrinkled sheets when I see 'em and if there be more than one doing the wrinkling, if you know what I mean. There hasn't been any wrinkling for quite some time now. He likes you.”

“Why?”

Mercedes laughed, her whole face happy. “Now that you have to be asking him. So, are you here to check out the competition?” She nodded to the boutique.

“Hope they're giving you a discount because you're working for them.”

Mercedes fluffed her hair and looked ticked. “I
used
to work for them; then they up and fired me after only one time cleaning.”

“But what about the bonus of doing up their dear old
husbands for the big meet-their-maker party? That was the whole purpose of getting you to clean their houses, right?”

“See, that's the thing, it's like the boys just dropped off the face of the earth and my excellent Slumber services aren't needed. I stopped by here to see if they showed up. You'd think they'd be at their wives' new business venture, now don't you, but I didn't see them today or yesterday.”

“We could just ask Anna and Bella where Clive and Crenshaw are.”

“I did, and they told me to mind my own blankety-blank business and went back to unpacking all their fancy New York clothes.”

“Atlanta, aren't these rich ladies from Atlanta?”

“New York, I saw the boxes being delivered myself when doing the cleaning that one time.” Mercedes checked her watch. “I need to be getting myself over to the Slumber. Junior Lambert enjoyed Walls' barbecue one too many times and thumbed his nose at Lipitor once too often. Let me know if you run into C and C. They're always nice to me. I hope nothing's happened to them, I truly do.”

Mercedes headed for her pink Caddy parked across the street and I studied the line of customers, a lot of whom used to be
my
customers. But the strangest part was the Clive and Crenshaw disappearing act. If I'd picked up on the two of them gone and so had Mercedes, there was something to it. Going in the front door of the boutique was for shopping; going in the back door was for snooping. I crossed the street, then cut down an alley off Lincoln used for local deliveries. A panel van sat parked at the end, the back door to the
boutique propped wide. A man tore boxes open and ripped plastic bags off clothes, really nice-looking clothes.

“What are you doing back here?” Bella said to me from the doorway. “This here is private property.”

“Actually it's an alley.”

“Too bad about your pathetic little business going belly up like I'm sure it is, not that I've had time to check it out. Come here to see what success really looks like!”

“Where're Clive and Crenshaw? Thought they'd be here to support your success.”

Bella's eyes went to bits of ice. “Clive and Crenshaw are none of your business.”

“Thought your rich consigners were from Atlanta, that's what everyone's saying.” I picked up the side of a box with an address on the side. “New York? Why New York? Did Harper Norton wonder the same thing? She told me you have a sweet scheme going on here and she wanted in on it.”

Bella's hands fisted at her side.

“Is that why you killed her?” I asked.

“I didn't kill anyone, you annoying person. Now get out of here before I call the cops and they put you behind bars where you belong.”

“Let me see if I got this right, you obviously don't care about your husband, but just mentioning Harper Norton sends you into a tizzy? What did she have on you? Enough to want to shut her up permanently?”

Bella took her phone from her pocket. “You'll be sorry you got involved in this, Reagan Summerside. My sister and I know how to get what we want and keep it, and get rid of
people we don't want around. You are not messing things up for us.”

I didn't need another run-in with the police in less than twelve hours, so I turned and left. I still didn't know about C and C, but I'd hit a nerve with Harper. Least I wasn't the only one starting off the day with a bang; now Anna had a little something to think about, too.

I started for home. If I could just catch a few hours' sleep before I opened the Fox, that would be terrific, not that there'd be any customers, but I had to figure out what to do to improve my plight and . . .

I lost my train of thought as a red SUV pulled up beside me; Dinky stuck her head out the window, crying and sniveling.

“Please don't tell me there's another body.” I leaned against her car, feeling weak in the knees.

“I
'
VE
been looking for you,” Dinky said between sniffs and nose blowing. “I'm desperate for a place to stay and I didn't want to just show up at your place, and you really need to get a phone.”

“Oh, honey, your husband kicked you out?”

“No, he didn't kick me out,” she sobbed. “He wouldn't know what to do with baby Boomer; the man can't change a diaper to save his life and the only bottle he knows is the kind with Budweiser on the front. Boone's office is a crime scene, of all things. There's blood on the carpet, the new Oriental.”

She cried louder. “This keeps getting worse and worse. Will you take me in? Can I set up the office at your place? I've got paperwork that Mr. Boone started before all this murder stuff started up, and I need to be filing legal documents with the courts and the like and keep the office going.
With that new boutique in town going gangbusters you probably don't have any business so I figured you wouldn't mind.”

I heaved a sigh. “Sure, why not.” I opened the passenger-side door to get in; files spilled out onto the street, and the morning commuters were less than thrilled with the show making them late for work. I scooped up the files and set them on my lap as we motored across Congress. “Don't you use computers for this file stuff?” I asked Dinky.

“We use both, and paper files can't be hacked. This will be fun,” Dinky said, swiping at her tears. “It's been so lonely sitting at the office all by myself and I'm getting depressed. I heard that the police think Mr. Boone was carrying on with that Harper Norton woman, and that's just not true at all. She went and sent him her dead wedding bouquet, and that really kills the mood, if you get what I mean.”

Dinky pulled up in front of the Fox. I hooked my arm around a stack of files and hauled them up the walk.

“Nice display window,” Dinky said, trailing behind me with a box. “The mannequin with BW sitting next to it looks like a magazine cover. Maybe you should go with a vintage shop; that Anna and Bella boutique isn't competing against that.”

“Not enough money in vintage clothes.” I balanced the files on my hip and unlocked the door. I nudged it open and BW barreled out onto the porch, jumping and whining as if I'd been gone a year; the files slid out of my hands and scattered across the floor.

Dinky looked at the mess. “I think you were missed.”

I picked up a file labeled
Clive and Crenshaw
. “Boone gave them some advice on their wills, right?”

“I can't say.”

“They were clients, right?”

“I can't say.”

I sat cross-legged on the porch while BW inspected the landscape. I flipped open the file and Dinky snapped it out of my hand. “Lawyer-client privilege is sacred. You can't just read this stuff 'cause you're nosy.”

“Both these guys are missing; no one's seen them for days. They're old and rich and their wives just opened a store in the historic district. Smell a little fishy?”

Dinky sat down beside me. “I'll look. I'm like an attorney . . . sort of. It's just notes saying Clive and Crenshaw told Mr. Boone to butt out of their affairs, and he tried to point out the error of their ways in setting up their wills making their wives sole beneficiaries.” She closed the file. “That's it, just that one meeting. Fact is, it's the last meeting Mr. Boone had that night before he took off.”

“The night he found out Conway was his dad?”

Dinky nodded. “Yeah. I remember setting it up. It was late and I left at six, and they didn't come in till around seven.”

“That means Boone didn't give Clive and Crenshaw this will advice till after Conway was dead. Anna and Bella, the dear wives, had no reason to swipe Boone's gun, kill Conway, and frame Boone for the deed. They had no reason to be pissed at Boone at the time of Conway's demise.”

“You mean Anna and Bella were suspects in all this?
Why, I had no idea, and that surely is mighty fine news. I'd hate to see that boutique of theirs close. I love that place.” Dinky pressed her lips together tight. “You sure you don't want to go vintage?”

I helped Dinky unload more files, file cabinets, and a leather chair that a passerby tried to buy right out of the back of the SUV. Another lady tried to buy the Tiffany-style lamp that I hauled in, and AnnieFritz offered fifty bucks for the little petit point footstool Dinky used to keep her feet elevated to avoid the much dreaded varicose veins.

I went to the car to retrieve the espresso maker, amazed how much stuff Dinky had crammed into the car. When I came back in, Dinky's red leather chair was parked behind my green door checkout counter. She'd plugged in the Tiffany lamp, giving a soft glow to the hallway; the antique floral desk blotter with matching pen holder sat on top along with her flower stapler, laptop, printer, and two framed pictures of baby Boomer.

“Ta-da.” Dinky spread her arms wide over her new home. “The red and the green look great together, and the antique desk set fits the vintage décor of the house.” She slid into her chair looking like she owned the place. “I'll piggyback onto Miss KiKi's Wi-Fi—we'll have to get her password—and once I get a landline in here for faxing, this will be a really great office.”

“You know that other dead body I mentioned when you stopped me, there might be one after all.”

“Really?”

“You never know. This is my checkout area.”

“Checkout what?” Dinky glanced around the empty shop.

“When I had customers this was where I checked them out.”

“And when that happens we'll talk relocation. Now let's charge up the espresso machine and get to work.”

I muscled the espresso machine into the kitchen, then did what every woman did when she got herself into a mess she didn't know how to get out of: whined to a friend. I slipped out my back door and right into KiKi's back door.

“Save me.” I plopped down into a chair at the oak table and banged my head on top.

KiKi turned off the mixer where she was undoubtedly making something totally delish and sat down across from me. “You'll have to be more specific, dear. Save you from murderers, Deckard, no business, Walker when he finds out about the Chevy?”

“All of them except the Chevy one. Boone already knows. Dinky's commandeered my checkout counter as her office, and I can't stop her because I have no reason to. I don't have any business and the only potential business I've had all morning was people trying to buy her really nice office stuff. I can't compete with Anna and Bella's Boutique.”

“It's just like Cher used to say to us when we were on the road in that big tour bus of hers eating salt and vinegar chips, all of us need to invent ourselves.”

“I did that, I invented the Prissy Fox.”

“Well, Prissy something else. You said people tried to buy Dinky's furniture, and you have the furniture at Conway's house lined up, and I have an attic full of Lord-knows-what and I bet your mamma does, too.”

“I'm not selling the family wares because I'm in a funk, but . . . but the furniture angle might work.” I grabbed an
oatmeal cookie from the golf ball cookie jar. “I can sell my bed frame and dresser and maybe Boone's leather couch.”

“Honey, we've got enough dead bodies around here, we don't need to be adding yours to the heap. Men got a thing about their golf clubs, their couches, and their remotes. Best to leave them be.”

“Mind if I use your computer to make up flyers and pass them out?” I asked around a mouthful of crumbs.

KiKi gave me a toothy grin as a shiver of doom slid down my spine. “The Shakin' Seniors are on their way here as we speak, and Melvin Pettigrew's been asking about my cute little niece. I can do those flyers in lemon yellow or electric green, what do you think?”

An hour and fifteen minutes later BW and I hobbled our way—actually I was doing the hobbling; BW was in the pink of health—down Abercorn. I put lemon-yellow flyers about the joys of consigning furniture on billboards, on phone poles, and in shop windows if I begged and pleaded with the proprietor and offered him or her a 10 percent discount.

I tried to hit places where the locals congregated, like Jen's and Friends, Pinky Masters, Blue Moon Brewers, and the CVS. By the time I got to Bay Street I was almost out of flyers and pretty much in tourist territory, but there were hotels and inns here updating on a regular basis that might be looking for a place to sell that slightly worn club chair or nightstand. And besides, I was a breath away from the Old Harbor Inn and Grayden Russell. He and Harper must have run into each other. He hadn't had any qualms about me in the water; he would knock off Harper without batting an eye if she had some juicy dirt on him.

BW and I cut through Emmet Park, the Spanish moss floating lazily in the breeze. We took Factor's Walk down to the inn. Grayden Russell was getting into his sports car, top down, luggage in the back. “Going somewhere?”
To blazes, if I had any say in the matter.

“You're like a bad penny,” Russell sneered. “You keep showing up, and this time you have your mutt. Hear you were at Boone's office with that dead girl. Too bad you lived to tell about it.”

“Harper Norton—she worked here. Did you knock her off because she found out you torched the Tybee Theater?”

“Prove it.”

“Maybe Harper could, and that's why she's dead. Or maybe she knew about your gambling and that you cheated Mason Dixon so he'd be in debt to you and do your dirty work. You seem awfully lucky and Dixon seems awfully unlucky.”

“It's the way the cards fall, and you better watch your mouth. You saw Harper; you know what happens to people who don't.”

Russell took a step closer. “I've just about got the Tybee Theater in my pocket. That Steffy Lou gal can't come up with the cash and I can. Do anything to jeopardize that and it'll be the last thing you do, got it?”

“What about the inn? Got your grimy hands on that, too?”

“The inn's history. I'm done with this place. Between murders and wills the place will never be free. It looks like Tucker Adkins will wind up with it, but how long will it be tied up in courts? They still don't have Boone and I need to move now. Cheers, chickie.”

Russell got in his car and cranked the engine. I pulled BW to the side to get out of the way as Russell roared off. Lamar strolled over, the three of us now staring as Russell squealed around the bend.

“Well, good riddance,” Lamar said while patting BW. “Though I got to admit I did get one decent tip out of that guy.”

“He really is leaving?”

“Checked out fifteen minutes ago. I pity the staff at the Savannah River Inn. That's where he said to forward his mail and contacts; he just up and left without any warning. We're having a little celebration dinner in the breakfast room tonight. Chantilly's doing the catering. Darn shame about Harper. She sure could play the piano, and she and Mrs. Adkins were trying to save the theater out there on Tybee. They said if it worked out I could valet for them when they had productions. Now it looks like Russell's going to get the place after all the work those two put into it.”

“Did you ever see Harper with anyone else here? Were she and Russell friends?”

“Never saw them together, but I'm outside mostly. I don't believe Mr. Boone killed her like they say, and I don't believe the two of them were getting it on. Mr. Boone wouldn't do you that way. He's a righteous dude.” Lamar hurried off to help a guest pulling up to the inn, and BW and I headed for home. Russell was no longer interested in buying the inn? Where did that come from? And if he and Tucker were in cahoots, Tucker had to be spitting nails this very minute. The man was desperate for money, and his salvation had just hightailed it over to the Savannah River Inn.

“There you are,” Dinky said as BW and I ambled inside. She nodded at a chest of drawers, two wingback chairs, and two white floor lamps in the hall. “A lady dropped them off and I took her information and wrote her a receipt and said you would be in touch. Wouldn't be legal to take her things without a receipt. What's this all about?”

“Having running water and electricity, thank you, Jesus, and . . .” I looked at the info sheet “Thank you, Daphne Weeks.” I kissed the lamps. “I never expected such a fast turnaround. I can't compete with the new boutique.”

“Girl, no one can compete with that place,” Dinky tossed in.

“So I'm trying furniture, decent, usable, gently worn. Not antiques, I know nothing about antiques, but I know a rickety chair from a sound one and oak from cherry.”

Dinky slapped me on the back. “Well, there you go, and I'll take those two chairs for my family room. Got to do something to spruce up that place and get the attention off my husband's leather couch that he won't get rid of.”

Dinky helped me stage the furniture in the dining room, putting the floor lamps on either side to light up the place. We pulled the clothes that weren't very stylish and tossed them into the hall to donate, then shoved the nicer clothes to one side so it looked like a cute closet.