Iced Chiffon (22 page)

“That policy didn’t work too well. I’m not the go–to guy for life insurance, but I imagine someone out there is. And before you ask, I haven’t found Janelle’s blackmail list or the evidence she had on everyone. I have no idea what she did with it.
Now
can we get some sleep?”

“It doesn’t matter if we find the list or not. No one on it would have murdered Janelle. They knew if something happened to her, their secrets weren’t secrets any longer.”

Boone let out a resigned, sleepless sigh. “Janelle’s murder was one of passion. She was whacked in the head by someone pissed off, who’d had enough of her for whatever reason and lost control in the moment. The murder wasn’t thought out; it wasn’t planned; it happened. That’s why Hollis is a prime suspect, though the premeditated part is still on the table. He and Janelle fought that night, so he had preexisting motive. He had opportunity because she was alone in the house and Hollis knew it. The body was found in his car, and his fingerprints are all over the ‘For Sale’ sign. It was in the Lexus under the body. As far as the police are concerned, this case is closed. Now can we sleep?”

“If that’s all you have, how do expect to find the killer? How do you plan on proving Hollis innocent?”

“I don’t have to find the killer; I just need reasonable doubt. I need the jury to believe that someone else besides Hollis had motive and opportunity to commit the crime.”

“Do you actually know that someone else met up with Janelle? Did the neighbors see another person?”

“The neighbors across the street were on their way to a movie and saw a single woman going into the house. Janelle’s car was parked on the street, so she was already there.”

“Maybe it was the person interested in buying the house?”

“That was a couple, and they arrived later. When the neighbors came back from the movie, they had wine on their porch and remember Hollis’s Lexus going in the drive and
circling around to the back. They went inside before it drove out.”

“That’s a big nail in Hollis’s coffin.” I hoped it wasn’t literally. “Except Hollis is smarter than that; he wouldn’t just drive up in his noticeable car and cart off a dead body. He’d wipe his fingerprints off the murder weapon.”

“The police maintain Hollis was distraught and not thinking clearly. You and I know there’s something else going on. And here’s another interesting aspect: Janelle’s purse is missing. The police searched everywhere for it. If Hollis is the murderer, there’s no reason for him to hide the purse since his obvious plan was to ditch the body. Why not just drop the purse in the trunk, too? And why would Hollis wait till the next day to dispose of the body? Why not just do it that night and get rid of everything out in some swamp? It all seems a little off.”

“Don’t the police see that?”

“They see evidence. Usually it’s a pretty straight line from motive to killer, but not this time. I think someone took the key from Janelle’s purse, got the Lexus, and drove it over to the ‘For Sale’ house. He or she loaded up Janelle, then took the car and the body back to where Hollis parked it, framing Hollis while he sat fat, dumb, and happy in his office doing paperwork.”

“So why
would
the killer keep a purse?”

Boone shrugged and yawned. “I don’t know, and I don’t care. My defense is that someone else besides Hollis could have done the deed, and I have an eyewitness willing to testify that a woman visited Janelle that night. She could have returned, gone in the back door after the potential buyers left, and killed Janelle. The obvious appearance of
the Lexus at the house later on makes it look like a frame. I could drag the people being blackmailed up on the stand and question them, but they’ll just deny everything. I need Janelle’s blackmail list to prove I’m right and that others had motive.”

“Do you think your case is strong enough?”

“I’m looking for the woman who visited Janelle at the ‘For Sale’ house. She wasn’t there to see the house; there was no appointment in Janelle’s book. That gives me my other person, and you know she went to see Janelle for a reason. I find her, I win the case.”

I got an uneasy feeling in my stomach, the kind that said something else was going on here, and I wasn’t going to like it. “Why are you telling me all this?”

“You have a right to know. You’re putting your house on the line to prove Hollis innocent.”

“Try again.”

“You digging around ruffled some feathers. It’s probably someone on the blackmail list, who could also be our killer.”

“Our?” Now I knew how KiKi felt when I threw pronouns around.

“Go to the police about what happened to Bruce Willis. If you tell them you’re poking around in your ex’s murder, they will not be happy. A dog poisoning will make them keep an eye on your house. You need that.”

“You think tonight is about someone trying to scare me off the case and whoever it is may very well come back? This gives a face to your theory.” I thought about this for a few seconds. “You’re using me, Boone. I’m bait? I’m nothing more than a fat old worm on the end of a hook for you to
find the murderer.”

“Hollis will be free, your house safe.”

“If I live that long.”

“Keep my number on speed dial.”

I lunged for Boone, but the vet came in before I could strangle him. “Is everything okay here?” the vet asked, eyeing my hands around Boone’s neck. “You can take your dog home tomorrow. You can see him now if you like. He’s still a little groggy.”

The vet handed me the bill, and I stuffed it in Boone’s shirt pocket. “Consider it bait fee.”

T
HE
sun was turning Savannah from the pearl gray of dawn to sunny-morning yellow when Boone dropped me off in front of Cherry House. He told me to call if any new suspects surfaced. I told him to eat dirt and die. We’d stayed with Bruce Willis till the vet said Boone and I looked worse than the dog and threw us out.

I sat on the porch, feeling lonely without BW to keep me company and bad at the wretched night he spent at the vet. KiKi shuffled out the front door of her house in a blue-flowered robe and matching fluffy slippers, green cream on her face, eyes peering out raccoon style from the mask of goo. She sat down beside me, drawing close. I could smell the cucumber fragrance of the cream.

“What are you doing up so early?” I asked.

“Putter’s off to a symposium in Atlanta for a few days, and I needed to help him finish packing. The man can’t tell
black from blue to save his life. And what are you doing, sitting out here at this hour?” KiKi nodded down the street. “I saw that spiffy red car driving off. Are you making time with the enemy? I hope it was good.”

“Someone poisoned Bruce Willis, Boone took us to the vet, and now he’s using me as bait to find Cupcake’s killer.”

Auntie KiKi looked at me as if I’d sprouted another head. “You’re out of my sight for one little ole night and everything goes right to pot. Who in the world would hurt that sweet dog? How is Boone using you to find the killer? I thought that was his job.”

“I think his job is mostly screwing me over. All Boone needs is to make the jury think someone other than Hollis had a motive to kill Janelle. He thinks the person who is after me is more than likely connected to Janelle’s death. That gives Boone what he needs. I should never have told him about the salami, pepperoni, and anchovies.”

“What’s salami and anchovies got to do with any of this?”

“I sort of broke into his office and he caught me, so I left him a little present in his computer.”

KiKi put her arm around me, the fuzzy part of her robe on my neck comforting. “Why don’t you get a nice hot shower and come over for some eggs?”

“No bald doctors waiting in the wings?”

“No bald doctors, but you do have a dance lesson with Bernard at two.”

Some days I got the bear, and some days the bear got me. I trudged inside, thinking that it was still early morning and I’d already been eaten alive. I started up the steps to my bedroom and stopped on the third step, a weird sort of
creepy feeling pushing through my fatigue. Something in the house was off. I had no idea why I thought that, but I did. Maybe because I didn’t just live here; Cherry House and I were a part of each other. I’d fixed rafters, plumbing, electric, floors: you name it, I had my fingerprints on it. Slowly, I turned and looked at the Prissy Fox from up on my perch. Everything in the store seemed the same, from the displays I did the night before to the checkout counter to the clothes I’d hung up when I came back from hounding Baxter.

I took the steps back down and went into the kitchen, dropped my purse on the counter, then held my breath and checked the freezer. Yep, the money was still there. This thing with Bruce Willis had me spooked, that was all. I picked up Old Yeller and started to leave, then stopped. The chair wasn’t under the back-door knob. It was beside it.

I shut my eyes, trying to picture myself doing the nightly ritual of securing the place earlier in the day. It was like taking vitamins; you do it so often you can’t remember exactly from one day to the next. Maybe I forgot the chair. Last night, when I went to the town house, seemed like a hundred years ago.

I was tired, I was hungry, I had eggs waiting, I told myself, feeling better at the thought of hot food until the curtain on the back door fluffed out from the frame. I walked over, my shoes crunching. I pushed the blue gingham aside to a broken window, glass on the floor. I felt cold, numb, violated. Even on the old marred wood, I could make out scrape marks where the chair was worked free from the knob and shoved aside.

Stooping down, I picked up shards, noticing a few drops
of blood there as well. Someone cut himself when he reached though the window. This was not a pro job but a person who wanted inside my house. Why?

I started to shake. The
why
was the same reason they poisoned my dog. Something besides fear stirred in my gut and snaked its way to my vocal cords. I slowly stood and planted my feet firm and put my hands on my hips. I wasn’t exactly a Southern belle, but I’d lived in Savannah all my life and knew a thing or two about being fuming mad.

“I am not putting up with this foolishness any longer,” I yelled. “This is my life, my house, my dog, and I’m telling you flat out—whoever you are, you’re not getting the best of Reagan Summerside.”

I looked around the Fox; there was nothing disturbed there. I stomped my way up the stairs as an act of courage, and also in case anyone was still hanging around. Maybe he or she would jump out the window. I grabbed a shower and pulled on a sweatshirt, jeans, and hiking boots from when Hollis and I decided to be more outdoorsy. That had lasted for all of an hour till we came across a Starbucks and regained our sanity. Today I needed to feel strong, determined, and in charge, and flip-flops weren’t going to do the trick. I needed butt-kickers.

Ten minutes later, I opened the door to Auntie KiKi’s kitchen and the aroma of biscuits, bacon, and coffee. Still in her blue robe but without the cucumber mask, KiKi scurried about, the Abbott sisters at the table, sipping coffee, a gift basket of pastries in front of them. No Southern woman worth her pearls made a morning social call without baked goods.

“Lordy, Lordy,” Elsie Abbott cried when she saw me.
She dabbed her eyes with a lace-trimmed hankie. “KiKi just informed us about your poor doggie.”

“What is this world coming to?” AnnieFritz added.

“I had to tell them,” KiKi said, breaking eggs into a blue mixing bowl. “It’s dangerous for all of us on this street when some ornery cuss is out hurting innocent animals.”

“There’s more.” I took a seat at the table and reached for an apple fritter bigger than my hand. “Someone broke into my house last night. They busted out a window in the back door and unlocked it from the outside. I called the police and told them about BW and the break–in. As far as I could tell, nothing was missing. The police said they’d send an officer out later on and keep an eye on the street for us.”

Jaws dropped. KiKi, Elsie, and AnnieFritz stared at me for a full five seconds without saying a word. Considering they were contenders for nonstop gossip awards, that was amazing. Finally AnnieFritz managed, “Things like that never happen around here since the Victorian District started renovations. Twenty years ago, homes were boarded up and sold for next to nothing. Then there were break-ins everywhere. But now that we’ve gone yuppie, everything is peaceful-like.”

That every occupant had enough firepower to arm a small country didn’t hurt either.

“This wouldn’t have anything to do with you looking for Janelle Claiborne’s killer, now would it?” Elsie asked, knowing everyone was thinking the very same thing. “We’re all aware that you’re trying to find out who did the woman in so you can get Hollis off.”

AnnieFritz nodded in agreement and added, “Odds on the street are three to one Hollis is guilty as a priest in a
whorehouse, but if you think different, honey, that’s your business.”

“Odds? As in betting odds?” KiKi’s eyes were bigger than the yolks in the frying pan on the stove, the concept sinking in.

“Big Joey’s the bank,” Elsie elaborated. “He’s sure Reagan will find the real killer. Big Joey says Reagan Summerside is a woman possessed, or maybe that was obsessed? Anyway, he stands to make what you might call a killing if she succeeds.” AnnieFritz giggled. “I need to be more careful how I choose my words with Janelle gone and a killer on the loose and all. Have to respect those who go before us.” Everyone in the kitchen made the sign of the cross for those already gone and in hopes none of us were next in line.