Iced Chiffon (6 page)

Auntie KiKi got IdaMae a glass of water, and we bundled her into KiKi’s Beemer and took her home. We got her tea and brandy that was more brandy than tea, reassured her that everything would be okay, then left.

“Well, Hollis has certainly gotten his do–da in a wringer this time,” Auntie KiKi said as we stopped at a traffic light on Abercorn. “Did you find anything at the office?”

“I’m not sure what I’m looking for. How would you like to go to a family-values rally tonight?”

“I think our family values are doing okay. How about a double dip of Old Black Magic at Leopold’s instead?” KiKi countered. “All that singing and alleluias gives me heartburn, and I’d rather give my heart a workout over ice cream with bits of brownie and chunks of chocolate.”

I pulled the family-values flyer from my purse. “I got this from Cupcake’s desk. The only thing she valued was money and more money and definitely not family. IdaMae said Cupcake and Franklin weren’t exactly bosom buddies, so why the flyer?” I flipped it over. “She has dates circled on the back, and tonight is one of them. The rally is up at Johnson Square. I hate taking the bus at night, and we really should check in on IdaMae later.”

“We? What happened to turning all this over to Walker Boone? I thought that was the plan.” The light turned green and KiKi pulled forward with the rest of the afternoon traffic.

“I know you don’t want to hear this, but I’m not handing anything over to that overpriced ambulance chaser. I have a better chance of finding the killer than he does, and when I do, he and Hollis will never darken my Victorian doorway again.”

“You fix plumbing, rotting floors, and rafters, and you sell clothes. The only thing you’ve ever uncovered is termites. You can’t be putting yourself in danger like this. It’s just not right. What if something happens?”

“It’s a family rally, nothing dangerous, but I’m not sure what I’m looking for.” I bit down on my bottom lip. “You know more people and their business than I do. Maybe you’ll see something or someone. Come with me.”

“
American Idol
is on. You know I love
American Idol
.”

“I’ll do another month with Bernard.”

“I’ll be ready at six.”

“
T
HAT
is absolutely the worst parking job I’ve ever seen in my life,” I said to Auntie KiKi. I frowned at the Beemer sitting kittywhumpus at the curb. “You’re going to get a ticket.”

“I have a martini headache. Any Savannah cop would understand about a martini headache and bad parking.” KiKi rubbed her forehead, then tucked her purse under her arm. We started down Whitaker. “How did I let you talk me into this?” KiKi asked me. “I should be curled up in front of my TV with Putter snoring at my side and forgetting this day ever happened.”

“It happened, and tomorrow when Bernard is mashing my toes instead of yours, you’ll be mighty thankful.”

A warm glow from wrought-iron lamplights peeked though the Spanish moss and overhanging live oaks. Early evening traffic ran heavy with tourists going the wrong way
on the one-way streets and looking for restaurants recommended on Yelp. Dodging a horse-drawn carriage, KiKi and I crossed to Johnson Square, the first square laid out by founding father James Oglethorpe and his merry men. There were twenty-three squares left, progress seeing fit to turn two of the original ones into parking garages before the good citizens of Savannah chained themselves to trees and threatened anarchy.

“Big crowd,” KiKi said, our steps slowing as we got close to the makeshift stage by the sundial that didn’t work for beans since it was under the trees. “The press is even here; must be a slow night for Savannah mayhem.”

Looking like one of those preachers on Sunday-morning TV, Franklin stood tall at a podium, family at his side, his voice tinny over the cheap microphone. KiKi gazed longingly at a park bench. “Think anyone will notice if I laid down here and went to sleep for a bit? Why did we come here?”

“The question is why would Cupcake come here?”

“Well, bless her heart.” KiKi’s voice dropped to a whisper, her eyes fixed on the stage. “Virgil’s wife is downright homely and then some. I mean like bow-wow. Next time I get my promo pictures done for
Dancing with KiKi
, I want the guy who took her photo for the front of that there flyer you showed me. Being a reverend’s wife must be mighty hard on a woman.”

I gave KiKi the
Shush; mind your manners
look, but I had to admit she was right as rain, and, unfortunately, all five kids favored Mrs. Birdie Franklin more than the reverend. “Birdie is Hollis’s second cousin. I see her once in a while, and every time she looks more…”

“Homely,” KiKi finished.

“I was going for tired, but homely fits.”

Franklin’s sermonizing wound down to a mixture of “alleluia”s and “amen”s, and the choir started up with “Amazing Grace.” People shook Franklin’s hand and dropped money into a box at his side. I pulled a few bills from Old Yeller that I’d earmarked for luxuries like toilet paper and shampoo.

“You’re donating to the cause?” KiKi eyed the ten dollars in my hand.

“I want to ask him about Cupcake, and this gives me an excuse to get close and not look conspicuous.”

“You don’t think ‘
Bless you, Reverend Franklin, and did you happen to whack Janelle Claiborne last night?’
is a mite conspicuous?”

“I’ll think of something.” I made my way to the stage, and when I got to Franklin, I handed over the money. He smiled but it morphed into a frown when I added, “Are you doing the funeral service for Janelle Claiborne?”

His lips thinned to a straight line and his eyes went cold, his voice the same. The other side of family values? “It’s my understanding that Janelle Claiborne is to be transported back to Atlanta and buried there. That’s what her mamma wanted. That’s where she’s from, you know.”

I did know, but before I could ask why he went to see Hollis and why he didn’t care for Cupcake, a cute young woman nearly as tall as Franklin came up beside him. She had long auburn hair pulled back in a gold clip. “That Janelle person should have stayed in Atlanta for all our sakes,” she said in an angry voice.

“Because she surely would have been safer there,” Franklin added in a rush, and then gave the girl a warning glance.
Not that anyone would have noticed the glance unless looking for something. I was looking for anything. “We are all mighty upset over this tragedy here in our fair city. Our hearts go out to Janelle Claiborne’s family and friends.” Franklin sounded like a rehearsed news bite from a government office. He moved to the next person in line, cutting me off completely and giving me nowhere near ten bucks’ worth of information.

I found KiKi next to a street vendor, the side of his van propped open to display chips, sodas, and meat of questionable origin. KiKi eyed a hot dog getting decked out for consumption by a man in a straw hat wearing a “WWJD” T–shirt. What Jesus would probably do is not eat here. “Find anything out?” KiKi asked.

“That if food causes nightmares, you’re doomed,” I whispered then added in a normal voice, “Did you order one for me?”

“You criticized my parking. I should let you starve.”

“Do you know who the gal is beside Franklin? I don’t think she cared much for Cupcake.”

“That there is Sissy Collins,” the vendor volunteered as he added a squirt of mustard to KiKi’s hot dog creation, then mine, and sprinkled on onions. Street meat, come to mamma! “She’s the church deacon, and I thought she had a real liking for cupcakes, especially chocolate ones. She ate two at our last covered dish. My wife and I go to the reverend’s church, you see.” The vendor gave me a look that suggested if I kept holy the Sabbath I’d know about these things.

Auntie KiKi and I took our dogs and found an empty bench by the monument to Nathanael Greene. That Mr.
Greene had his very own square over on Houston but his monument here in Johnson Square was just one of the little mysteries of life in Savannah. We watched families make their way to the stage while we scarfed hot dogs and licked bits of relish from our fingers. “You’re awfully quiet,” I said to KiKi, who was never quiet.

“Just look up on that stage and tell me what you see.”

“My ten bucks gone forever, and I want it back.”

“It’s just like Cher says, ‘Women are the real architects of our society.’ We have the cute little deacon, the handsome minister, and mamma bear and her cubs gone home. It’s the minister and the deacon who don’t like Cupcake, not the minister and the wife, or the minister and the organ player, or the Sunday school teacher or the church usher.”

I had a bad feeling where this was going and made the sign of the cross so God wouldn’t strike us dead for thinking bad things about a minister. Women of the South died peacefully in their sleep in their best jammies, not in a park chowing down on a hot dog and pointing accusatory fingers at men of the cloth.

“Franklin’s a man, and I’ve been watching couples dance around my parlor for thirty-five years now. Some want to look good at the country-club dance and that’s it; others go home and do the rumba, if you get my drift. Those two up there on that stage are all about the rumba.”

I watched the body language as we polished off our dogs. Those two were too close, too touchy, too many glances. “Do you think anyone else suspects?”

“No one else is looking.”

“We need to go home.” I pulled KiKi to her feet. “We’re both going to fall asleep on this bench and get arrested for
vagrancy.” We started for the car. “Tomorrow will be better. Lordy, it’s got to be better.”

“For me, maybe it will be,” KiKi said with a devilish glint in her eyes. “I’m not the one dancing with Bernard Thayer at nine o’clock in the morning.”

A
T EIGHT O’CLOCK
I
DRAGGED MYSELF OUT OF BED
, and it wasn’t because my alarm went off but because there was pounding on my front door. This was how yesterday started off. I felt like Bill Murray in that movie
Groundhog Day
, where he kept living the same day over and over. I couldn’t do yesterday over and over; I didn’t have the intestinal fortitude for more yesterdays. But when I opened the door, it wasn’t Bill Murray or Raylene on the other side but, “Mamma?”

“Mercy, Reagan, honey, what is going on with you? It’s all over town.” Mamma stepped inside and closed the door. How could anyone look so together at eight in the morning? She had on her best black suit, and her short bob had every salt and pepper hair in place. Of course, Judge Gloria Summerside would have it no other way.

“I had calls every fifteen minutes yesterday,” she went on. “Everyone wanted to tell me about you finding Janelle dead in Hollis’s car and Hollis being arrested and you taken in for questioning. I was in court and couldn’t get here, and last night when I came over you were gone, and your cell phone’s been disconnected, and I think something’s living under your front porch.”

She took a quick look around at the dining-room table piled with clothes and the other, empty rooms. She brushed
a strand of hair from my forehead and kissed the vacated spot. “Are you all right?”

That was a loaded question if I’d ever heard one. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from being the daughter of a lawyer who excelled her way up to judge, it’s that the best defense is to answer a question with a question. “Do you think Reverend Franklin is having an affair with his deacon?”

Mamma gave me the
Nice try
look that mothers and judges do so well. “I have no idea about the reverend, but I do know it doesn’t look good for Hollis.”

“He’s got Walker Boone as his attorney, and Hollis is selling Cherry House to pay him.”

“Boone? Again? Those two are a worrisome duo, especially when it comes to you. I’m sorry, Reagan, I truly am.” Mamma studied me for a minute, like she had the time I used her credit card to buy tickets to Prince. I was going to pay her back with my babysitting money, I swear. “Why did you want to know about Reverend Franklin?”

“Idle curiosity.”

Mamma checked her watch. “I have to be in court.” She took both of my hands in hers and looked me dead in the eyes. She hadn’t done that since she made me promise not to vote for Kerry back in ’04. “I know you love this house, but swear to me you won’t get involved trying to find out who killed Janelle.”

“Now what would ever make you think I’d do a thing like that?” I did my best to sound thoroughly aghast, hoping to sound convincing.

Mamma held a little tighter. “Because that’s what I would do.” Before I could respond, Mamma was out the door and driving away in her black Caddy. I watched the car fade
down Gaston, then turn onto Drayton. Who would have thought that the most conservative judge in Savannah would even consider going after a murderer? Even though I did vote for Kerry, Mamma and I weren’t really all that different…sometimes.

“Unless you intend to give Bernard his dance lesson in hot-pink pj’s, you better change,” Auntie KiKi said as she trudged up onto the porch. She leaned heavily against my front door. “If I was any more worn out, I’d be lying in a coffin out there in Bonaventure Cemetery. Was that Gloria’s car I saw parked out front?”