Pearls and Poison (A Consignment Shop Mystery) (15 page)
Read Pearls and Poison (A Consignment Shop Mystery) Online
Authors: Duffy Brown
“You still have noodles in your hair,” Mercedes said. “Lo mein. Stinking lo mein.” She plucked them out and tossed them into a garbage can. “So now what are we looking for?”
“Nothing.” I held up a campaign button, Kippy smiling back at us. “Seymour’s wife and Delray Valentine, the campaign manager, were here earlier. They must have spent the day clearing the place out.” I waved my hand over the empty tables and cabinets. “Everything from Seymour’s campaign is in garbage bags out back. I thought there was something going on with the campaign because I wanted it that way, not because it’s so.”
Mercedes folded her arms and wagged her brows. “I’ve seen this Honey Seymour on TV a few times. She’s always dressed in some fancy clothes with perfect hair and nails. Trust me, Honey baby is no cleaning lady. If she was here, it was for a reason, and the reason is all about her rich-witch self. I guarantee it. Give me that there flashlight you carry around and let’s take a look-see.”
I handed off the light, and BW and I followed Mercedes down the hall. “This is Seymour’s office,” I told Mercedes when we got to the closed door. “It’s where KiKi and I found the body.”
“Lucky you.” Mercedes turned the knob, and we went in, the light picking out Scummy’s desk piled with boxes. I pried off a lid to more campaign buttons, but this time Kippy wasn’t the one smiling back, but Honey Seymour in all her bleached white teeth and hair glory. “Holy freaking tomatoes!”
“Okay, now we’re getting somewhere.” Mercedes opened another box to find “Vote for Honey Seymour” flyers. “Honey Seymour’s taking her husband’s place in this upcoming election. No wonder she wanted the word to get out he was doing the wham-bam with the cuties. She’s going after the pity vote, the poor wifey angle, when she announces her candidacy, and from the looks of all this stuff she’s gonna be doing that announcing right soon.”
My eyes met Mercedes’s across the pile of boxes, my heart skipping a beat. “Do you think she and Valentine had this planned all along . . . the murder, framing Mamma, running for alderman? If Seymour’s philandering had gotten out before the election, he never would have won, and all that money and effort they had invested would have been for nothing.”
“So just get rid of the donkey’s butt. Heck, that’s what I’d do,” Mercedes said. “We need to find the bill for all this stuff. If Honey ordered from the printers before Seymour died, then it goes to premeditated murder and shows that your mamma could have been framed.”
Mercedes held the flashlight over the desk so we could both see. She rifled through the boxes, and I rooted through a drawer that had escaped the big Scummy campaign clean out. There were “Vote for Kip Seymour” pens, pencils, notepads, mints, sticks of yellow Juicy Fruit gum, and matching aspirin scattered about for those headaches on the go. Guess running for office wasn’t all fun and giggles.
“Here it is,” Mercedes said, holding the sheet of paper under the light. “The order was placed the day after Seymour croaked, not before.” Mercedes hunched her shoulders. “I thought we had her. I really did. Don’t you get yourself all down in the mouth now, you hear. This doesn’t mean Honey didn’t have it all planned out right from the start. She has motive out the ying-yang; we just don’t have proof yet.”
“The problem is we have lots of people with a lot of motives for wanting Seymour dead, but not one shred of proof anywhere.”
Mercedes locked the front door, and I replaced the key under the mat. I couldn’t smell myself anymore, but that Mercedes walked two steps behind and BW stretched his leash as far out in front as possible proved I was plenty ripe. The blonde-hair curse had morphed itself into the brunette curse. Having had enough of encounters of the rotten kind at the Cemetery, we detoured onto Abercorn to head home that way.
A trip to Jen’s and Friends was definitely out in my present state of grossness, so Mercedes ducked into Pinky Masters, the bar for cheap PBR and lovers of Tabasco popcorn. The beer she could do without, the popcorn not so much. BW and I waited outside, wanting nothing more than to get home . . . especially since Dozer the Delightful was walking right toward us. Would this day ever end?
“Well, well, just who I was looking for,” Dozer said to me, his mouth curled in an ugly sneer. “If it isn’t the blight of Savannah with ratty hair out walking her doggie. I left something for you on your porch. A little reminder of who’s in charge now.”
“Just like you left something in that bourbon bottle for Kip Seymour? Was that a big reminder of who’s in charge now?”
Dozer grabbed my arm. “You stink, you know that.”
“Right back atcha.”
His fingers tightened, digging into my muscle. “One of these days you’re going to get what’s coming to you, and I hope I’m around to see it.” Dozer let go and walked off, a sinister laugh trailing behind him. I was tired of being manhandled and threatened, and falling into garbage.
“You okay?” Mercedes asked, coming out the door. “That man has a mean streak a mile wide. I wouldn’t put anything past him.”
“Thanks for fixing my hair and going with me tonight,” I said to Mercedes when we finally got to the steps at Cherry House, the light in the bay window never looking better. “It’s been a rotten day.”
“But hey, it’s looking better. There’s a package by your front door; it’s even got one of those sticky bows. Bet it’s a present. See, this is what happens when you have brown hair instead of that blonde stuff: good things start to happen. Sometimes it just takes a while to settle in.” Before I could stop her, Mercedes picked up the box and handed it to me.
“Go on, open it.”
I took the package,
Boom
scribbled right there on the front of the brown paper wrapping. It was just too much.
Dots danced in front of my eyes, the world started to spin, and I couldn’t breathe, followed by a clanking in my head, then everything went dark, and I sank to the floor in a big heap.
“W
HAT
in the world happened to you?” Mercedes said, lifting my head, my eyes still not focusing and BW licking my face.
I grabbed the package and threw it as hard as I could out into the yard. “Duck!”
“What duck? I don’t see a duck. Why are you trying to hit a duck of all things?”
“Not the quack-quack duck, the we’re-all-gonna-die duck. Duck!” I grabbed Mercedes with one arm, BW in the other, and held them tight against me. I had no idea how that would help the situation, but it felt right. I cut my eyes to Mercedes, her cheek pressed tight to mine, eyes big as saucers.
“I think you done lost your mind.”
“It’s a bomb.
Boom
was written right there on top. Dozer said he’d get me, and this is it.”
Mercedes wiggled free, retrieved the package from the yard, and trudged back to the porch. I was too tired to protest. If the darn thing blew, I’d croak quick, and the day would finally be over. Amen!
Mercedes sat the box between us and pointed to each letter on the front. “B-o-o-n-e not B-o-o-m.” She kissed me on the forehead. “We’ll get the remedial reading teacher here in the morning. Right now just open the package.”
My fingers were still shaking as I fumbled with the paper. “Bet it’s a tracking collar.”
“For Bruce Willis?”
“Not exactly.” I pulled off the lid. “It’s a jean jacket.”
“Oh, and it’s a nice one. Soft, already broken in.” Mercedes handed me the card.
“To new memories,” I read aloud.
Mercedes cocked her left brow. “So, what kind of memories are we talking about here?”
“Not those kind of memories.”
“Uh-huh, that’s why you’re blushing like a school girl. See, it’s that brown-hair karma starting to do its magic.”
• • •
I WOKE LYING FLAT ON MY BACK, STARING UP AT THE
ceiling, my baseball bat at my side after the night of Dozer and the boom package. BW was sprawled across my chest. I think he was in protection mode after the day from hell. I glanced at the denim jacket on the dresser. What did this mean? Anything? Nothing? Boone was embarrassed to be seen with me?
It meant that my old jacket was falling apart and I was looking a little beat-up these days, period. A denim jacket was not like a dozen long-stemmed roses for Pete’s sake. I was overthinking this. Sometimes a jacket’s just a jacket like a dance is just a dance.
It was almost ten, and I had a shop to open. I peeled BW off my prone body, covered him with a blanket, and started for the bathroom. When Hollis the Horrible and I moved into Cherry House five years ago, the whole place needed big-time work. Hollis didn’t know a saw from a hammer, leaving the rehabbing to me and a copy of
Home Improvement for Dummies.
The first thing I tackled was turning the putrid, rusty, cracked, flaking bathroom into something new in celery green and cream. I still had the scars to prove it.
“Nice hair,” KiKi said, coming in the front door just as I opened up. “You got that Harry Potter with a sunburn look going on. Kind of cute.”
“I was thinking more Anne Hathaway.”
“Why now I do declare, you are absolutely right, except you’re better looking,” KiKi lied as any good auntie would. She handed me a cup of coffee. “Your Mamma’s off teaching Zumba Gold at the senior center. Don’t go worrying yourself into a state. It’s a sitting-down kind of class. I think everyone’s safe.”
KiKi dropped a newspaper clipping on the checkout door. “This was nailed to the side of your porch. Something about Delany Construction building an addition to the firehouse. What do you have to do with that?”
“It’s a little present from Dozer, a warning for me to stay out of his business.”
“You get some mighty strange presents.”
“More than you can imagine.”
Two customers walked in, and KiKi came around the checkout door to where I stood. She dropped her voice. “I have news, really juicy news. You’re-going-to-love-it kind of news.”
“I have juicy news, too.”
“Bet my news is juicier than yours.”
When it came to dishing the dirt, Auntie KiKi was the queen bee. “Guess who’s taking their husband’s place in the alderman election?” KiKi mouthed
Money-Honey
. “It’s all over Twitter.
Good Morning Savannah
says she’s having a big rally at Johnson Square at five, and it’s leaked she’s announcing her candidacy from there. She’s following it up with a private party at her house for contributors. What do you make of that?”
I eyed the customers and gave KiKi the
not now
look. KiKi drummed her fingers on the door, impatiently shifting her weight from one foot to the other, the customers leaving without buying a thing. When the door closed, KiKi blurted, “We need to get ourselves to Honey’s rally.”
“Don’t even think about it.” I added a lot of stern to my voice. “Someone will recognize us, and it will be a disaster, and Mamma will look guiltier than ever for us being there. Besides, I need to keep the Fox open for business. This is my busiest time of year, and I should make enough money to take me through January and February when no one buys anything.”
“We can go just for a little while; this rally is important. The killer will be there, you know that. With Honey taking over Seymour Construction, Dozer’s going to show up, and Butler Haber will be there and Archie Lee, all three prime murder suspects. Archie Lee has a rally just three squares over, so the fur’s bound to be flying. We’ll dress up in disguises.”
“Because that worked out so well for us before.”
“We’ll stay in the background where we can see everything and no one will pay any attention to us. We’ll do the blend-in thing.”
“Somehow we always get attention, the wrong kind of attention, and all that’s going to go on at that rally is a bunch of blah, blah, blah about how Honey’s going to save Savannah from wrack and ruin. What we need is solid proof somebody spiked that bourbon.”
“Party pooper.”
I gave Kiki a hard look. “Uncle Putter won’t appreciate your picture on the front page of the paper surrounded by the riot squad. Promise me you won’t go on your own.”
“Fine, I promise. But I’m not happy about it. I better go save the Zumba seniors from two-left-feet Gloria.”
KiKi hurried out the door as Lolly’s Trolley pulled up to the curb, Lolly sprinting up my walk. “I need a nice dress and maybe some jewelry,” Lolly said as she came in behind another customer.
“A funeral?” I wasn’t sure Savannah could survive another red-dress-at-the-coffin encounter. The occurrence headlined the kudzu vine for two days straight.
“Heavenly days, no. I’ve had my fill of funeral homes for a while. My darling Cazy’s doing a martial arts demonstration at the Weston tomorrow, and I want to look presentable and—Sweet Jesus have mercy.” Lolly stood dead still staring at me. “What in the name of heaven and earth happened to your hair and face?”
“Sun lamp and curling iron malfunction,” I said as if it were the gospel truth. “You know,” I said, hurrying to change the subject and do a little fishing along the way, “I never pictured Cazy as being a martial arts kind of guy. Is he any good at it?”
I led Lolly over to a jewelry display on the dining room table, and she held up a pair of sparkly earrings. “He’s really good, black belt and everything. Last week he was splitting boards with his head for the Daughters of the Confederacy luncheon at Sweet Marsh Country Club and got interviewed by that blonde leggy gal on TV.”
Lolly picked up a bracelet. “’Course the whole thing got cut because it was the same day Scumbucket Seymour croaked and all the news was about him. But I got to tell you the best part of the day was when your mamma decked Scummy right there on the sidewalk. Wish I did the deed myself. I was so tickled I did a happy dance right in the middle of Bull Street then got my nails done at Jan’s Cutting Crew to celebrate the occasion. Blushing Cherry will always bring back fond memories.”
“Sorry I missed you dancing.”
“Honey, you had your hands full with hustling Gloria off in that there Caddy and getting her out of harm’s way like you did. But it is a pity you missed it; it went something like this.” She put down the earring and bracelet, and right there between the racks of blouses and sweaters Lolly Ledbetter did a pretty fair tap dance that would have made KiKi proud. I applauded along with two other customers, Lolly taking a little bow.
I put Lolly, three dresses, and a taupe suit in the changing room. As I checked out the next customer, it occurred to me that I was two for two in the suspect department. Not only couldn’t Cazy have killed Scummy because he was out at Sweet Marsh doing the head-bashing thing for the Daughters, but Lolly had her fingers in the soaking bowl at Jan’s. That was good in that I liked Lolly and Cazy, and didn’t want them to be murderers, but it also gave me two less suspects in getting Mamma off the hook.
“What are you frowning about,” Chantilly asked, coming in through the kitchen, a takeout bag from Cuisine by Rachelle in her hand. She made it do a little dance in the air. “Bet this will cheer you up and . . . Holy mother in heaven! Blair Street?”
“The moral of the story is don’t get close to exploding houses.”
“You look like Harry Potter.”
“I’m going with Anne Hathaway.”
“Why’d you go brunette?”
“Word has it they live longer.”
“Worth a try.”
I peeked in the bag and tried not to salivate.
“It’s Honey’s Hazelnut Cake and some mac and cheese with toasted bread crumbs on top that I bet you’ll love. Guess who’s catering an event tonight at Honey Seymour’s house?” Chantilly batted her eyes and twitched her hips. “Rachelle and I’ve been working since last night to get things ready, even hired two temp people to help out. I talked Rachelle into taking the job even though we’ll lose money. It’s good advertising, and we need the business. How would you like free lunch like this for a week?”
I arched my eyes over the bag. “You got my attention.”
“We need help, we’re desperate, and we can’t afford to hire anyone else for the event. I was going to have you wear a wig since you’re Gloria’s daughter and all, but no one’s going to recognize you now, especially in a white blouse and black slacks like the rest of the staff. Just don’t carry your purse—it’s a dead giveaway. You can stay in the kitchen, set things up, and no one will know you’re around.”
Serving little hot dogs to Savannah’s snooty rich was not in my top-ten list of things to do in life but this was a great chance to poke around. Money-Honey and Valley had a litany of
whys
to knock off Scummy, but I was clueless on the
how
part and needed something concrete to connect them to the deed. Mamma was running out of time, and I had no idea if Boone was making any progress at all. “I’m in.”
“Really?” Chantilly gave me a big hug. “We’ll need you at five to help set up. That’s when Honey’s rally starts and we’ll be ready when they all come back there.”
I told KiKi I was keeping the Fox open late, even used it as a reason not to attend Honey’s rally, and now I was closing early and going to Honey’s house? If KiKi found out, it would be hissy part two around here. “I’ll be there,” I said to Chantilly. Somehow.
Customers tapered off around four-thirty, shoppers heading home to dinner and family, and when the Beemer pulled into the driveway, I still hadn’t come up with a reason why I was closing early. Keeping the motor running, KiKi and Mamma got out of the car and trotted over to the Fox.
“We just wanted you to know we’re going out to dinner and won’t be back for a few hours,” Mamma said, KiKi nodding enthusiastically beside her.
“That’s a terrific idea. Where?”
“Where?” Mamma repeated, not even mentioning my new do and toasted face. This must be some dinner. She looked back at KiKi, eyes wide.
“Vic’s,” KiKi said as Mamma blurted, “Maxwell’s.”
“You haven’t made up your mind?”
“That’s it,” KiKi said in a rush as she grabbed Mamma’s arm and hurried her toward the door. “Haven’t decided, either is great, love Maxwell’s crab cakes and Vic’s salads, but we’ll be gone for a few hours, and we’re just fine and dandy, and don’t wait up or whatever.”
Mamma gave me a toothy grin and a little finger wave, KiKi slammed the door, and I heaved a sigh of relief. Mamma and KiKi were dining out and wouldn’t even notice the Fox closing up; all that worry on my part for nothing. I watched out the bay window till the Beemer turned onto Lincoln, then told the two remaining customers I was closing and would hold their selections till tomorrow and give them a discount for the inconvenience.
Discount
was music to any consignment shopper’s ears.