Iced Chiffon (10 page)

Paid who? About what? Where did Cupcake fit into all this? Hunched down, all I could see through the vines and fence was a pair of dark loafers. They were nice, Italian maybe—at least they looked a lot like the Italian loafers in that Nordstrom’s catalog KiKi brought over—but they were roughed up, with a dark smudge on the side, and not new. Raimondo probably wore Italian loafers, especially to this affair, and with him working in the garden, they wouldn’t be polished. Of course, I couldn’t be sure if Raimondo wore loafers tonight since my gaze had never traveled below his derriere. But Raimondo wasn’t the only guy in Savannah to wear expensive loafers.

Loafer guy walked off, and I assumed Raylene did the
same. It occurred to me that there were a lot of clandestine payoffs going on around Savannah, and Cupcake was right smack in the middle. What was she up to besides stealing my husband (among others), threatening a minister, and winding up dead?

The fountain wobbled against my shoulder. I tried to steady it, the corner sinking deeper into the mushy ground. Lily pads, cute animals, and a lot of water tipped backward toward me, and I jumped out of the way to avoid being flattened. The fountain landed with a solid thump, murdering a mound of tulips and sending a metal frog rolling off into the daffodils. My dress was soaked, plastered to me like a second skin; my strappy shoes were ruined; and the pump made dry gurgling sounds.

The music stopped; everyone stared. My wet dress was more revealing than it had been when dry, and the red-polka-dot underwear I had on underneath probably explained the arched eyebrows, a few winks, and Auntie KiKi with her hand to her forehead, Lord-have-mercy style. Raylene looked as if she might have a coronary right there under the wisteria archway.

Embarrassment inched up my neck to my face, which now, undoubtedly, matched the polka dots. Where were tighty-whiteys when you really needed them? In the wash, that’s where. I crossed the grass, the crowd parting as if I had the plague. At least the deviled-egg waiter was near the door, and from the grin on his face, I’d say he was a real fan of polka dots. I grabbed an egg and mentally bid farewell to my pride and a well-stocked fridge.

Three hours later, Mr. Sayjack, city bus driver for thirty years and now six months away from retirement, let me off
right in front of Cherry House instead of the designated stop at the corner. It was a probably a pity stop because I’d told him about the fountain fiasco at Raylene’s and using that blow-dryer thing in Leopold’s bathroom to dry my dress before I met up with my ghost tour. No need to have my polka dots on display for the half of Savannah who’d missed the show over at Raylene’s. More than likely, he let me off as payback for giving him the fries from the Happy Meal I’d picked up after my tour.

I watched bus taillights fade into the dark, along with a cloud of lung-clogging exhaust. I took off my ruined sandals, which had shrunk from the fountain dousing and were now killing my feet. I had just started up the walkway when I noticed two golden eyes peering from under the porch. The eyes were too big and far apart to be a rat or even a raccoon or cat. After having given a haunted tour, my ghost senses were on high alert, but these eyes didn’t seem all that eerie. I caught a glimpse of a snout. “Dog?”

I got a doggy whine in reply. What was a dog doing here? I’d tried owning a cat once, Miss Fluffy, till I gave her a bath and she tore a hole clean through the back screen door, never to be seen again.

“I don’t do well with pets.”

This got another pitiful whimper, so I took a McNugget from my bag and, with the tip of my ruined shoe, pushed it under the porch. Immediately, I heard chewing. Hungry. I heaved a sigh, and my heart felt a little heavy. I knew all about hungry, and the poor fella was probably scared. I could relate to both. More times than I would care to admit over the last two years, I’d pulled the covers over my head and thought,
What am I going to do now?
That’s when KiKi
would bring over coffee and pastries with lethal fat content, and I felt instantly better. KiKi helped me; I could help the dog.

I sat on the grass next to the steps, pushed another nugget to my guest, then stuffed one in my mouth. “You should know that things are sort of lean around here.”

“Who are you talking to down there?” KiKi asked as she ambled across the yard. She had on the blue lounging robe I’d given her for Christmas last year and a cup of something hot and steamy in her hand.

“There’s a stray dog under my porch.”

“Uh–oh.” KiKi sat down on the steps. “Maybe you should call those SPCA people. Remember Miss Fluffy?”

“What happened after I left Raylene’s?” I took the mug from KiKi and sipped coffee laced with Kahlúa. KiKi had lounging down to an art form.

“Things were downright boring after you hightailed it out of the party, though they had to give Raylene a few sniffs from Bernice Clark’s portable oxygen pack to keep her from fainting dead away. Raimondo fixed the fountain easy enough, and two women wanted me to ask you where you got your underwear.”

“Did you happen to notice if Raimondo was wearing loafers?” A starry night peeked down at us through overhanging cherry blossoms, and the warmth from the earth kept the chill at bay. Summer wasn’t far off.

“Honey, when it comes to that man, I’m not looking at his shoes. Well, except for tonight. Raimondo had on loafers, and so did Urston and Baxter Armstrong. Now there’s another delicious piece of eye candy, though he sure shuns the cameras. He leaves the limelight for Trellie.”

Baxter Armstrong was a blond, blue-eyed boy toy from Atlanta, the new husband of Trellie Hudson (now Armstrong), one of the richest women in Savannah. That Baxter was twenty-nine and Trellie was fifty-plus did not bother the two of them one little bit, but it rivaled the Hollis-Cupcake extravaganza for top billing on the kudzu vine.

KiKi snagged a McNugget, and that was fine by me because she left me the Kahlúa. “Putter said he wanted loafers for his birthday, and he went on pointing them out so I’d get the expensive ones and not cheap knockoffs. I told him that-there putting green we’re having installed was setting us back enough, and he’d jolly well have to wait for his loafers.” She took a bite of nugget. “What’s this all about? Are you consigning men’s clothes, too?”

“That’s a good idea. Most women buy for their husbands. The shoe thing is about me overhearing Raylene and a man arguing. They were on the other side of the fence when I was working on the fountain. Raylene said she paid off somebody, and it sounded like she meant Cupcake or that she paid someone to knock her off. Hard to tell. Loafer guy’s answer got drowned out by the splashing water. All I could see were his shoes, but he’s involved in a big way.”

“We all know nothing drowns out Raylene if she’s having a hissy.” KiKi took the mug. “But why would she pay off Cupcake or want her dead?”

“Boone let it slip that there’s more than one person involved with the murder. We know about Urston giving Cupcake money at the Telfair. There could be a connection from Urston and Cupcake back to Raylene, especially since Urston had on loafers tonight. Maybe they both wanted her out of the picture for some reason.”

I handed off the last nugget to the big, pitiful eyes beside me now instead of hiding in the shadows. “Hollis told me today that Cupcake knew secrets.”

KiKi took a gulp from the mug. “Blackmail? That’s my guess. I can’t imagine any hanky-panky going on with Raylene and Urston. Raylene would just as soon throw herself off the Talmadge Bridge than risk a divorce and losing the Carter name and money over the likes of Urston Russell. If Urston even thought about cheating, Belinda would skin him alive.” KiKi turned to me, eyes wide. “But I think you’re right, something is going on, and Cupcake had the goods. Cher says, ‘If you really want something, you can figure out how to make it happen.’ I think Cupcake wanted money, and blackmail was the way to get it. Do you think she had the goods on more people?”

“According to IdaMae, Janelle said Hollis would make her rich, and now I’m thinking it wasn’t from selling real estate. Dinah Corwin’s wake tomorrow night could be mighty interesting. Best I can tell, everyone thinks Hollis did the deed, case closed. The real killer should be right comfortable at the moment and might not feel the need to keep to the down-low. The killer could very well be Dinah Corwin herself. She sure didn’t make a secret of her dislike for Cupcake. If Dinah had her way, she’d be dancing on Cupcake’s casket all the way back to Atlanta.”

“But she has a boyfriend now,” KiKi reminded me. “She seems happy, not moody and resentful. I don’t think she killed Cupcake one bit. She’s moved on.” KiKi looked down at the snoring dog. “Worst deviated septum I’ve ever heard. Sounds like a freight train coming through a tunnel. Too bad he’s not some cute little fluffy puppy that fits in a purse.
Purse animals are very in. I suppose you could call him Calvin Klein. Slap a designer label on anything, and nobody will mind if he hangs around.”

I eyed a muddy-brown, mangled ear and scarred snout. “Poor thing. The tip of his tail’s missing, and I think he’s missing a front tooth. He’s pretty beat up for Calvin.”

KiKi scratched behind his ears. “I do believe this here is Bruce Willis in a fur coat.”

“I do not need a pet.”

Contented snoring sounds surrounded us. “Honey, you’ve done been outvoted.”

I ignored the outvoted comment but knew KiKi was right as rain. Bruce and I had broken McNuggets together. It was a done deal. We’d bonded. I gave BW a reassuring pat and decided to hit up KiKi while she was feeling all softhearted. “You know, what I do need is an excuse to visit the loafer boys and check out their shoes to see who Raylene was talking to. That would be a big help, and I could do it if I had an accomplice. In fact, it would be a snap if I had someone to be a distraction while I went off to find the bathroom, got lost, and happened upon a shoe closet.”

KiKi made a sour face. “How did I get roped into this? Wait, you’d actually go through Urston’s shoes?”

“He’s our prime suspect because you saw him pay off Cupcake for whatever reason. Tomorrow we can stop by Urston’s and ask to see his rose garden because you’re redoing your backyard and need suggestions on landscape.”

“Uh, how many rosebushes have you seen on a putting green, but I suppose I can cook up some excuse to go see Urston. The thing is, I can’t see him or Raylene knocking off Cupcake.”

“We’re looking for a lead; that’s all there is to it, nothing more. Maybe Urston will let it slip why he was handing Cupcake money.” I said this to appease KiKi. Personally I believed Urston would knock off Cupcake in a heartbeat if he had to, and so would Sissy and maybe even Franklin. Reverend or not, he was human, and people got desperate and did desperate things. I watched those
CSI
shows, and I knew if the stakes were high enough, anything was possible.

If Cupcake threatened to spill the beans, and it became common knowledge that Franklin was doing the naughty with Sissy, he’d lose his congregation, respect, and probably his family. Raylene was into something big, or she wouldn’t have been having a conniption fit right there at her own garden party. She could have filtered money to Cupcake though Urston. I figure Raimondo was innocent and just happened to have on the right shoes at the wrong time.

I had suspects, an invite to a wake, and a meeting with Urston’s shoe closet. Was I on a roll or what?
Walker Boone, eat your heart out.

“What are you grinning about?”

“What time should we visit Urston?”

A
THIN
sliver of moonbeam slipped though the dining-room windows and splashed across the pine floor between the display of jackets and blouses I set out. I laid the dress rack I was working on across two sawhorses and finished putting in the last screw. I’d concocted the thing out of leftover wood from the upstairs bathroom project and only nicked my finger twice with the jigsaw.

The Tybee Island Country Club had a bash next week, and the Rotary Club was planning a dinner event. The Oglethorpe Society always had some charity affair on the books. Spring was a great time for party dresses and accessories, and that should translate into good business for the Fox. Besides, I couldn’t sleep, and building stuff relaxed me, least it did till I heard a dog bark right outside in my yard. I guessed it was Bruce Willis but couldn’t be sure since
I’d never heard Bruce bark. Footsteps made their way across the front porch and stopped at my door.

Like any city, Savannah had its safe parts and the not–so–safe parts, except the robbers, rapists, and murderers sometimes drifted out of their designated comfort zones. The front door handle turned, and I held tight to my screwdriver. I was one mean dude with a screwdriver. The door opened, and Walker Boone strolled in, my heart dropping to my toes. “You scared me to death. Ever hear of knocking?”

“It’s three in the morning. Why aren’t your doors locked?”

“Every window is open, and getting through a screen isn’t much of a challenge. I’m not too crazy about closed–in spaces if I can help it. Besides, if I screamed, Putter would be here in a flash, waving his fearful golf club. You’re up at three; why shouldn’t I be? And why are you opening the door to my house uninvited at three in the morning?”