Iced Chiffon (30 page)

Raimondo faded into the night. I was glad Raimondo-the-delicious was innocent and Bob-the-gardener was the toast of Savannah flora and fauna, but now I was out of suspects. If Raimondo was with Dinah, that meant
she
was with
him
. Everyone on my whodunit list had an alibi. There could be more suspects on Janelle’s hit list of blackmail victims, but I didn’t have that. I had nothing, zip, nada. The only thing I did have was a bad sunburn.

The killer was still out there. A time or two I must have gotten close, because my house had been broken into and I’d been grabbed and stuffed in the alley. I thought of that old Kenny Rogers song about knowing when to fold your cards and walk away. That’s where I was. Tomorrow I’d pay
Boone a visit, tell him what I knew, and hope to heaven he had more information than I did.

When I lost Cherry House, I’d lose the Prissy Fox as well. Maybe I could find another location for my shop. Maybe I could move in with Mamma or Auntie KiKi and Uncle Putter for a while. Maybe BW and I could live in a cardboard box under the Talmadge Bridge. I considered my options. I always liked the Talmadge Bridge.

T
HE NEXT MORNING, BLISTERS HAD MORPHED INTO
cracked skin. I brewed coffee, poured out two cups, and BW and I paid our favorite auntie a visit.

“What’s this?” KiKi asked when she opened the back door. Today KiKi had on matching purples, from headscarf to velour slippers. Easter comes to Savannah. She gave me the critical-auntie once-over. “You got this from being out in the sun yesterday at the nursery?”

I couldn’t very well tell KiKi about the tanning bed if I intended to keep Raimondo/Bob’s identity a secret. “I’ve developed sun allergies. Birdie Franklin gave me a magazine; maybe it will help.”

BW sniffed the kitchen for food, and KiKi and I sat at the table, which had been the gathering place for three generations of Vanderpools. What stories it could tell. “The good news is, Raimondo plans on doing your yard, and the other good news that is also bad news is that he is not the killer. He paid me a visit last night to return my flashlight, which I’d dropped at his place. He knew you and I are joined at the hip, and he figured if you were pounding on his front door in the middle of the day and acting loony, there was a
connection between that and a strange flashlight in his hallway.” A little white lie to preserve Raimondo’s identity and KiKi’s fantasy seemed like a good idea.

KiKi hunched over the table. “Raimondo really came to your house last night? Were you still wearing those god-awful boots? But I suppose with striped hair and peeling nose, boots are the least of your problems. Maybe when Raimondo does my yard, you can prance around in short-shorts and a halter top to pique his interest a little. You haven’t done anything to mess up the rest of yourself, have you?”

“KiKi!”

“I’m just saying, is all. A girl could do worse than Raimondo Baldassare. Think of your kids with that lovely Italian skin and dark hair.”

Wanna bet?
I thought to myself, and took a big drink of coffee. KiKi went to her pie safe and withdrew a cinnamon coffee cake. Bank of America’s safes had nothing on Auntie KiKi’s.

I took down plates and got forks as KiKi asked me, “How do you know for sure Raimondo isn’t the killer? I thought you had that pink-palm thing that put him at the scene? And if he’s not the murderer, how does this translate into something bad?”

“The night of the murder, Raimondo visited Janelle at the ‘For Sale’ house.”

KiKi gasped. “Mercy. He is a man of mystery. Raimondo has dirt? An ex? Kiddies? A handsome brother in the Mob?”

Lies were like that. Tell one, and you had to keep it up for ever. “I’m not sure about the dirt,” I said, taking the easy way out. “But Raimondo had an interview with Dinah Corwin back at the Telfair Museum when Cupcake was killed, so Raimondo has an alibi. And Sissy has an alibi. Birdie
Franklin came in to the Fox yesterday and showed me a picture of Sissy and Franklin that the PI she hired took of those two together at the Hampton Inn. It’s time stamped, and if a picture is worth a thousand words, Franklin and Sissy did not have murder on their minds.”

KiKi slowly put down her coffee and slumped back in her chair. “I do declare. Raimondo didn’t do the deed and neither did Sissy? Now what?”

“I’m headed over to Boone’s to tell him what I know and hope he has more leads. I thought all night about there being another suspect, and I can’t come up with anyone. I’m out of ideas.”

“Jan from the Cutting Crew hated Janelle, and so did Sarah at the shoe store,” KiKi offered up in desperation. “We need to talk to them.”

“They’re used to pain–in–the-neck customers driving them nuts. They may have hated Janelle, but if hair salons and shoe stores killed every nasty customer who walked though their doors, they’d have bodies piled high as the Forsyth Park Fountain and no one around to shop.”

“You’re giving up? We’re giving up?” KiKi took my hand and looked sad clear through. “Oh, honey, this is plumb awful. You’ll lose the house if Hollis goes to trial. The lawyer fees will be horrendous. I think you and Bruce Willis should move in with Putter and me; I truly do. Putter’s always wanted a dog.”

Only if that dog played golf and drank martinis at the club. “BW and I already have a place lined up with a good view of the river. We’ll be fine.”

KiKi and I finished our coffee and cake, talking about mundane things that didn’t matter. Cupcake’s murder had
consumed so much of our lives this last week that it was hard to revert back to daily humdrum and be excited about it.

When BW and I got home, I changed into a skirt and blouse and put moisturizer on my face. I looked like a buttered russet potato. I told BW to mind the store and I’d be back by ten. I caught the bus and headed for town. When I got off near Boone’s office, Dinky was unlocking the front door to Walker Boone, attorney at law. We stepped inside together, Boone following.

“I need to talk to you,” I said to him.

“What happened to your face?”

“Hair-dryer malfunction.”

“I’ve never met anyone else like you.”

“Right back at ya.”

Boone walked into his office, and I trailed along. “What now?” Boone asked from behind his big antique desk, which had probably belonged to Lee or Davis or Al Capone.

I looked to the wall, the bullet hole still there. “Aren’t you going to fix it?”

“Great conversation piece. Keeps clients in line.” He shot me a meaningful look.

I took a seat in a red-leather club chair, the same one I had sat in so often during my divorce. It still had my clenched finger marks embedded in the armrests. I parked Old Yeller beside me. “I thought lawyers wore suits.”

“Have you ever seen me in a suit? You’re stalling.”

“Do you have any suspects for who killed Janelle?”

“And I should tell you so you can go mess up more lives? Sissy Collins was in such a state after you and KiKi talked to her that the church secretary had to call the life squad. It was some kind of anxiety attack. Sissy didn’t kill Janelle.”

“You want anxiety—she nearly ran me over with her car; now that’s anxiety.”

“Why are you here?”

“I’m out of the murder business.”

“And the pope isn’t Catholic.”

“I’m letting you find the killer. I quit. The case is yours, all yours.”

“You’re giving up?” This time Boone sounded more serious. He let the words sink in for a second and raked back his unkempt hair, messing it even more. I doubted the man owned a comb. “About time you came to your senses. You don’t have a clue what you’re doing out there, running around looking for a murderer. The only thing you accomplished was to drive the killer underground and make finding him harder.”

Teeth clenched, I leaned across Boone’s desk. “I’ve been dragged into an alley, had my dog poisoned, my house broken into, been nearly run over, parboiled in a tanning bed, and will probably lose the roof overhead. I am in less than a good mood this morning, Mr. Attorney at Law. Do you want me to tell you what I know or not?”

Boone got a folder from the top drawer of his desk, and Dinky came into the office. “Mrs. McCoy needs to see you right away,” she said to Boone. “Her husband just transferred their life savings to a bank in the Cayman Islands. I gave her a Valium and put her in the conference room.”

“I have to take this. Don’t hide pizza in my computer.” Boone left. With nothing to do, I opened the file to pictures of Cupcake wrapped in plastic, her eyes wide open, vacant. I didn’t think it would bother me after all that had gone on this last week, but it did. Death was never pretty, just sad.
The next picture was the trunk of the Lexus with the body in it, one without the body, a few close-ups of the “For Sale” sign with blood splatters, the dining room with the plastic cut out, and shots showing drag marks across the plastic. More shots of the back door, front door, the dirty floor with little yellow tent markers by a pen, black glove, used tissue, earring, and a blue sock—all left behind by potential buyers no doubt. Little wonder why real-estate companies covered carpets; they’d be trashed in no time.

I flipped the pictures over; there was just so much of Cupcake dead I could take before ten in the morning. I started to read the police report, but there wasn’t anything I didn’t already know, except that Detective Ross misspelled
chiffon
. I got to the part in the report about blood on the dress, which happened to be my dress that Cupcake bought at the Fox. Little gears in my tired brain start to churn, trying to make sense of what I saw in front of me. I stopped reading and flipped back through the pictures, stopping at the dirty floor. The blue sock thing threw me; who leaves behind a sock? I stared at the earring. It was black and beaded and dangly.

Holy mother of pearl!
I bolted straight up in my chair. I knew that earring! I’d looked at the mate for fifteen minutes straight at the Fox trying to find a similar pair. That earring belonged to Dinah Corwin.

Everything fit like puzzle pieces falling together. Raimondo had the interview with Dinah, but he said he had to wait. Wait for what? Wait for whom? Why? This was before Cupcake’s demise so there weren’t all that many interviews because Cupcake spread those rumors about Dinah. And there was the little fact that Cupcake stole Dinah’s husband back in Atlanta. Talk about a double motive. That first day Dinah came into
the Fox, she said she’d spilled wine on her black dress. Raimondo mentioned it again when he said he was waiting for the interview. What if it wasn’t wine but blood?

I grabbed the earring picture, stuffed it in my purse, closed the file neat and tidy as if all was right with the world, and walked out of the room. Dinky said Boone wouldn’t be much longer. I said I had to get back to the Fox and told her to tell Boone something smelled really bad in his office and this time it wasn’t my pizza.

I caught the bus, and by nine thirty, I was hurrying right on by Cherry House and heading for KiKi’s. I banged on the front door.

“What’s going on?” KiKi asked when I hustled inside. “You’re all atwitter, honey. Now don’t go getting yourself worked up this way; you can move right in with Putter and me. Everything’s going to be fine.”

“I’m not freeloading just yet,” I said, trying to catch my breath as much from exertion as excitement. “I was in Boone’s office looking at pictures of the crime scene.”

“Honey, some people start the day with a walk in the park. You need to give it a try.”

“There was a picture of the dining-room floor of the ‘For Sale’ house, and there was a bunch of stuff left behind by people who had gone through the house. There was even a sock. Who leaves behind a sock?”

“You’re here to talk footwear?”

“An earring. It’s black and beaded and it belongs to Dinah Corwin. She showed it to me at the Fox hoping I had a pair like it because she lost the mate.”

KiKi led me to the kitchen table, where we drank coffee earlier. She pushed me down into a chair and pulled out the
one next to me. “It’s too much of a stretch to think you’d recognize a black earring. Savannah is loaded with them. You can’t swing a dead cat around here without hitting a woman wearing a black earring.”

“Dinah handed it to me herself and had me looking for a similar pair forever. By then I knew each bead by heart.”

“Why would she let you look at an earring she left at a murder scene?”

“She didn’t know she lost it there. How many single earrings do you have and don’t know where you lost the mate? Dinah had no idea I’d ever look at crime-scene photos; she didn’t know I was looking for the murderer. My guess is she lost the earring while trying to wrap up the body and drag it all by herself to the car. And the police can’t find Cupcake’s purse. I bet anything Cupcake was carrying the Gucci bag Dinah’s husband bought for her in Atlanta, the one he took back from Dinah and gave to Cupcake.”

KiKi sat still, hardly breathing. “Dinah got what was hers after she bashed in Janelle’s brains.” We both made the sign of the cross at the bashing part. KiKi confessed, “I have to admit, that’s what I would do. Now what do
we
do? We don’t have any real evidence to give to the cops, and that Detective Ross will never buy your black-earring story. That woman had on a polyester suit that must have been ten years old. Fashion is not that woman’s thing at all. She’ll never get it.”

“So we make it her thing. Let’s go find ourselves a Gucci handbag and a black earring.”

“Where? How?”

“Dinah’s staying at the Marshall House, and I have no idea how to get in her room.” But the good news was that it probably wouldn’t involve a tanning bed.