Pearls and Poison (A Consignment Shop Mystery) (19 page)

S
IRENS
sounded in the distance, red and white lights blasting through the black night. Common sense said to stay put and let the pros handle things, but with a missing mother, auntie, and BFF, common sense was out the window. Where could they be? Why didn’t they stay in the car? I wanted to cry, I wanted to scream, I wanted it to be two weeks ago when life was normal and my biggest concern was whether to have a second doughnut, and everyone I loved was safe and sound.

I ran full-out to where we left the bag down by the river because I had to start looking somewhere. The fire hadn’t spread to the trucks and two cutting sheds, and maybe with the firefighters here they’d be spared. I came around the last log-hauling semi and crashed right into Mamma and KiKi.

“We’re looking for BW,” Mamma panted, her face lit with terror. “We opened the car door to put in the bag, and he bolted out; my guess is he’s looking for you.

Think, Reagan, think
! “Go tell the firemen that we can’t find Butler or BW. And then you two stay by the car, and we’ll meet up. Promise me, please. Don’t move. BW’s scared; he’ll come to me. I’ll be careful,” I added in a rush, knowing that would be the very next thing to come out of Mamma’s mouth.

I gave them each a hard shove to get them moving, watched them head for the fire trucks, then I headed down to the river. It’s where we’d parked the car before and maybe where BW would go looking for me. I could feel the fire on my back and neck, seeping into my scalp. The flames burned hotter by the second.

“BW? Come here, baby,” I yelled because I had to do something but doubted I could be heard over the roar of the fire.

“BW, I have hot dogs,” I lied, my voice more of a sob than a yell this time. I headed toward the worst of the fire, smoke now pouring out of the buildings in roiling black clouds. I spotted the tie from the white cotton bag on the ground. It must have come undone when Mamma and KiKi grabbed it. I stashed it in my jean jacket pocket and looked up at BW staring right at me through the smoke. He blinked and took a few steps, then stumbled and collapsed to the ground.

“BW!” I sank down beside him coughing and choking, my eyes watering as much from the smoke as fear.

“Wake up, come on, boy. Wake up!” I gagged, each breath becoming more impossible, ash clogging my lungs. He was suffocating. I was suffocating. I slid my arms under BW and somehow lifted all seventy pounds of pup right off the ground. Coughing and sputtering, I staggered around the corner of the warehouse heading for the strobe lights in the front; the air was so dense the lights were the only things I could see.

A fireman drew up beside me. He said something that didn’t register in my fogged brain and tried to take BW from my arms, but I couldn’t let go. The fireman ran ahead and then came back with a red canister tucked under his arm, a plastic cone thing attached that looked like a funnel. He slipped the funnel over BW’s snout, and miracle of miracles, BW opened his eyes. He looked at me, and he smiled.

• • •

IT WAS GOING ON TWO A.M.
AS I SAT HUDDLED UNDER
a blanket on Mamma’s front porch with BW asleep in my lap. I had the baseball bat in hand, and Mamma and KiKi were asleep inside. We figured it was a night we needed to be together and circle the wagons, strength and security in numbers just like the days of the pioneers. A red Chevy pulled to the curb, and Walker Boone got out. He swung wide the white picket gate that squeaked same as it did twenty years ago, and he sauntered up the brick walk. He sat down beside me and petted BW.

“Hot date?” I asked, glad for the distraction from fire and pandemonium even if it was Boone’s love life.

“Meeting with a client out on Tybee.”

“Is that what they’re calling it these days.”

“Not that kind of meeting.” And from the hard set of Boone’s jaw and the steely look in his eyes, he wasn’t lying. “You don’t look so good, Blondie,” he said.

He cut his eyes to me, a half smile on his face. “Don’t you think sitting out here at two
A.M.
with your dog is carrying this grounding your mother thing a little too far?” He leaned closer. “You smell like smoke.”

“You smell like diesel fuel and Gray’s swamp.”

“Like I said, I was out at Tybee. What’s with you and eau de barbecue?”

“Mamma, KiKi, and I went to shake and drum up good luck for Marigold out at Haber Lumber, and then KiKi had to pee in the bushes, and we forgot the drum and rattle, and they belong to Odilia, so we had to go back, and by the time we got to the lumberyard, the place was on fire, a whole lot of fire. We couldn’t find Butler, and then Mamma and KiKi went looking for BW because he went looking for me and . . .” My voice cracked; I couldn’t go on. Telling the tale was like living the hell all over again.

Boone got up and went to his car and rummaged around inside for a minute. When he came back, he passed me a silver flask. “Dr. Boone’s magic elixir.”

I took a swig, whatever was inside burning my throat and stomach, and realigning my scattered brain cells.

“I bet the Savannah fire department is taking up a collection as we speak to send you on a nice, long vacation someplace far away,” Boone said to me. “This makes you a double whammy in the fire category.”

“And Scummy’s dead and Delray Valentine stopped by to warn me to keep Mamma and KiKi away from Honey and his election or else. And of course there’s Dozer. I know way too much of his business to suit him, so he’s not happy with me, and Archie Lee is just a pain in the butt on general principle.”

Boone took a swig of his elixir then gave me the long, slow stare. “That’s why you’re out here? Standing guard with a baseball bat?”

“I swing a pretty mean baseball bat.”

“Did you see anyone out at the fire?”

“I couldn’t find Butler, and I really searched for him, and so did the firemen. It doesn’t look good, and his car was there and . . .”

“What?”

“And Honey and Valley were there at the lumberyard, too. I forgot about that because it happened before the fire and I was a mess over nearly losing BW. Honey, Valley, and Butler had words; Butler decked Valley, then he and Honey left, and then we left. None of them saw us because we were around back of the warehouses; we went down by the river to do our drumming and shaking, and we waited till the coast was clear before bugging out.”

“These days Honey, Valley, and Butler aren’t a let’s-meet-for-drinks kind of group; sounds like part of the lumber-switch situation. Butler could trash Honey’s campaign if he had a mind to, and blackmail is a good motive for murder. Valley and Honey could have doubled back after you left to get rid of Butler like they got rid of Kip. If you saw Honey’s car, she could have very well seen KiKi’s and known they needed to wait till you left to do their thing.”

“There was an employee there, too. They just waited till he left then killed Butler and tossed him in the fire?”

“One match and a little accelerant and a lumberyard is history. Not that many years ago Money-Honey was serving me beers at the Red Lion over on MLK and living in the projects. The woman’s got street smarts and knows how to survive. She took on Kip to up her social standing. When that backfired, she got rid of him. If she felt threatened by Butler, she’d get rid of him, too.”

“What about Dozer? He was furious Butler and Scummy nearly drove him out of business, except now he had a deal with Butler to get cheap lumber so he could win the contracts. But what if Butler reneged on the deal? Dozer would go after him big-time, like burn him out.”

I took another swig from the flask and passed it back to Boone. He took a drink then said, “You saw Honey and Valley, the election is days away, and they can’t afford the scandal. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck.”

Boone gave BW a final pet then eased him off my lap. Boone took my hand and pulled me to my feet. “You need to take our dog inside and get some sleep.”

“You really do look terrible.” I kissed him on the cheek and had no idea why. Adam Levine wasn’t even playing in the background. It was probably the aftereffects of Dr. Boone’s magic elixir. That’s it, had to be. Why else?

Boone’s dark stubble felt rough and sexy against my lips, his breath slow and steady and warm as it curled around my neck and down my spine. His hands circled my back, resting easy, and truth be told, being here with Walker Boone was the best, the safest, I’d felt all day, probably all week.

“What was that for?” Boone asked, his voice as smooth and rich as the excellent bourbon in the flask, his eyes black and mysterious with a spark of heat deep inside.

“It seemed like a good idea. Take care of yourself, Walker Boone.” Then I eased out of his embrace, opened the door, went inside my mother’s house with our dog, and dunked my head under the kitchen faucet to cool off.

• • •

BY THE TIME I CRAWLED OUT OF THE SHOWER EARLY
the next morning, the aroma of coffee and something delicious baking had swirled its way up the steps to the second floor of Mamma’s house along with the homey chatter of family. I found an old green warm-up suit from high school tucked away in what used to be my room, which was now a guest bedroom done up in yellow and white thanks to some lovely decorator no doubt. I could sort of squeeze into the pants because they had an elastic waist, and as long as I didn’t pig out on the baking goodies downstairs, I’d be fine. Since my upper endowments hadn’t increased with age, the zip-up top wasn’t too bad of a fit.

“Well, goodness me,” Mamma said as I came into the kitchen, the table set for three, BW enjoying a plate—a china plate if you please—of scrambled eggs and neatly cut-up pieces of hot dog that Mamma must have just bought this morning. Mamma was a good doggie mamma.

“You look like you’re still on the soccer team.” She handed me a strip of bacon, knowing I’d sneak one anyway.

“I sucked at soccer.” Proven by the fact that my warm-up suit was in pretty bad shape; I wore it a lot sitting on the bench.

“Just like your days in high school,” Mamma added.

“Even down to kissing your beau right there on the front porch,” KiKi chimed in over the edge of her coffee cup, a glint in her eyes.

There were times when I thought I missed being a kid and being clucked over and taken care of and not having the responsibility of a shop, a big old house, and a dog. Next time I paid my electric bill and outrageous mortgage, I’d kiss the checks and happily send them out the door. “Do you two miss anything?”

“Not when it counts.” KiKi chuckled. “Nice of Mr. Boone to stop by and see how you’re doing even if it is the middle of the night.”

“I was out getting some air, is all,” I said, feeling as if there was more high school going on in this kitchen than just my warm-up suit.

I turned to Mamma. “Do you know if something’s bothering Boone? He looked upset, and Boone never looks upset. Usually he’s just, you know, Boone the Unreadable, smug and conceited with a superior smirk thrown in from time to time. Arrogant, he does arrogant really well, especially if he’s cleaning my clock in a divorce; you can take my word for that. He said he was out at Tybee, and from the look on his face he wasn’t thrilled about it.”

“He has a house out there. Maybe there was a problem with the electric or plumbing or something. You know how beach houses can be.”

“Maybe,” I said but wasn’t convinced. Something was up, and it had Boone on edge. Walker Boone was never on edge. Mamma poured the coffee, and KiKi dished up the eggs and biscuits. It was a morning of cholesterol be damned and bring on the comfort food.

“Is there anything in the news about the fire,” I ventured around a mouthful, knowing we’d have to talk about this sooner or later.

Mamma and KiKi exchanged looks, and KiKi said, “I couldn’t even bring myself to tweet about it, but last I heard they did find Butler’s body. The police seem to think he was trying to put out the fire in the second warehouse and got overwhelmed by the smoke.”

But I looked there, and I didn’t see him. Even called his name. Maybe by then it was too late, and he’d already collapsed. I should have gone in, dragged him out. Why didn’t I go in?

“I’m going to check on Marigold as soon as we finish up here,” Mamma said, breaking into my internal tirade of guilt. “I haven’t talked to her, but she must be terribly upset. She and Butler had problems, and now this had to happen, that poor woman. So much for bringing her any good luck with the drumming and rattling we did.”