One Foot in the Grove (15 page)

“We forgot about the dang-fangled snake in the pantry!” scolded Precious in the bedroom doorway. “Hey! What the hell are y'all doin', girl!”

Precious dropped the gloves and cleanser and clomped over and took hold of the mattress, releasing the crushing weight from my back and shoulder. My ribs felt like they were on fire. I stood, doubled over, next to Precious, as she held the mattress overhead with one hand.

We both stared at the gun on the box spring.

“Pastry guy was shot,” I whispered, slowly standing back up. “Do you think . . .”

Of course, she thought the handgun was the weapon used to shoot and kill the man from Boston. We both did. Who wouldn't? Why else would it be hidden under a mattress?

Still holding the mattress above us, Precious looked at me, eyes popping wide. “That, sure as shinola, looks mighty sketchy to me, Sunshine.”

I squatted down to get a better look at the pistol. Etched into the black barrel, there was a big “G” with the word “lock” inside the letter. Then, there was a “19.”

“It's a Glock 19,” I said. “Why would anyone hide a gun like this? Shouldn't it be in a cabinet somewhere?”

“Sounds reasonable.”

“A gun safe. We have a gun safe for the guests, don't we? Yes. I know we do. In fact, Daphne
insists
all guns be locked into the safe when people are not using them to hunt. I know she does. She would never let her kids be around guns. And why would anyone
have
a gun like this? Do people hunt with handguns? Besides, it's not even hunting season—is it? Wait! Don't you need a license to carry a handgun in Georgia? Yes. I think you do.”

I was rambling. Trying to think. Sort it out.

“Then why am I seein' folks carryin' shotguns and rifles in the back windows of their pickups all the time? You mean
all
those crazy-ass folks got a license to carry guns?”

“No . . . I think you can carry a long gun in Georgia openly. It's just the handguns you need to have a license to carry. Have I got that right? I don't remember. It was different in Massachusetts. Still, you wouldn't hunt with a gun like this, would you?”

“Sunshine, I'm pretty sure that folks'll hunt with any kind of gun they got, this kind included. Heck, folks'll hunt with a peashooter. It's hidin' it under the mattress that's shady.”

“Maybe this guy is not licensed to carry a pistol in Georgia. He's from New York; does that matter? Although . . . omigosh, Precious, what if we've got a murderer in the house!” I whispered. “Daphne will die when she finds out about this. We need to get the kids out of here. Think we should take the gun?”

“Take it? Hell no. Don't touch it! Remember what happened to my cousin, Dewanna? Gun went off—
bang!
—just like that, and her man dropped dead. Nuh-uh. No guns for me. Stay away from the dang thing.”

“I hear you. Do we call the sheriff's department? Oh, wait. Crap. If this is the murder weapon, I've just destroyed evidence by tearing apart the bed. And they're already gunning for me. Get it? They're already ‘gunning for me'? Ha.”

“Very funny.”

“So, what do we do?”

“Leave it alone. Make the bed. Act like we never saw the cursed thing. I don't want no murderer coming after me 'cause I uncovered his bloody murder weapon. Nuh-uh!”

“Let's think. Maybe we're jumping to conclusions. This could be perfectly innocent. By the way, I heard you scream. I can't believe we
both
forgot about Noose. Is he alright? You didn't kill him, did you?”

“I left the blasted thing right where it was, slitherin' around a big jar of pickled beets. And I ain't goin' back in there until that nasty creature is gone. Now, gettin' back to the conversation we were havin' about the gun here, since when is hiding a gun under a mattress that isn't yours ‘perfectly innocent'? Have y'all taken a good look at that Malagutti fellow? He's a gangster if I ever saw one.”

“Oh, Precious, that's such a stereotype,” I said. “Let's put the mattress down. At least for now.”

Precious carefully lowered the heavy mattress back onto the box spring, over the Glock.

“What the hell were y'all doin' liftin' up a mattress ten times your weight, anyway?”

“I was flipping it.”

“Flipping it? Sunshine, folks have been making mattresses that don't need to be flipped for a decade or more.”

“Now you tell me.” I was feeling like someone was sitting on my chest.

“Let's just scrub the place and get the hell outta here,” said Precious. “Seein' that gun has given me the creeps. Not to mention, your niece's stinkin' snake.”

“Wait. Let's think. Maybe this isn't the gun that killed the pastry guy. After all, do we know that the Malaguttis even
knew
him?”

“Maybe they did. Maybe they didn't. Maybe they killed their guide 'cause they didn't like the fish they caught? Maybe they didn't catch enough fish? Maybe they didn't like the fella's outfit? Or, if he was your pastry guy, like you said, maybe they didn't like the pastries he made. Who
knows
!”

“We need to find out what kind of gun killed Leonard, er, the pastry guy. They should know that at the sheriff's department, right? Can your friend, Tilly what's-her-name, find out?”

“Beekerspat. Tilly Beekerspat, Sunshine. Hell, they got to know somethin' down there, but at this point, I ain't so sure they know anything 'cept how to give speedin' tickets and eat donuts.”

“And your muffins.” I winked at Precious.

“And my muffins.” Precious grinned.

“If I tell the authorities about this gun, and this
isn't
the murder weapon, then I've ruined some potentially important guest relations and killed any sort of business Daddy might have been able to pull off with these guys. And by implicating someone else, I've made myself look guiltier.”

“Looking at these folks, I ain't so sure your paw should be doin' business with 'em anyway.”

“Even if it
is
the murder weapon, we don't know if it'll have prints on it or not. So, still, I could get blamed, just because I know about it.”

“My money says the dweeb detective will try to pin it on y'all no matter what. He's not smart enough to figure it out for himself.”

“It makes more sense that Loretta killed Leonard—right? Why else would she disappear? They were running off to get married. They quarreled. The gun went off. He died. And she ran away. Hey, maybe it was actually an accident.”

“You mean, she smoked him like Dewanna did to her husband?”

“Like Dewanna. Only Loretta, having just shot and killed her fiancé, runs off in a panic. Maybe he followed her down here? It could be that she knew him in New England, and after she came down here, for whatever reason, he came, too, snowing Daphne into giving him a job as a guide. I don't know where in Rhode Island Loretta is from, but the tiny state of Rhode Island is right next to Massachusetts and only about an hour from Boston.”

“I dunno. If you ask me, none of it makes sense. All these folks sound crazy to me.”

“Okay. Here's the plan. We find out what sort of gun killed Leonard. If it was a Glock like this, then we say something. If not, no harm, no foul, as they say. We keep our mouths shut and hope Sal Malagutti leaves soon—with his little gun—happy with his stay here and loving our olive oil. Meanwhile, we keep looking for Loretta.”

“I didn't know we was lookin' for Miss Loretta.”

“We are now.”

“We are?”

“Yes. We need to figure out what happened. We need to clear my name. We need to make sure everyone is safe, especially Daphne and the kids. And if she's innocent, we need to be sure Loretta is safe. Although, somehow, I think she's more than capable of taking care of herself. She's a brute if ever there was one. And now, I'm wondering why she came down here in the first place.”

“Okay. Whatever you say, Sunshine.”

“We need to solve this so we don't kill Daddy's and Daphne's businesses. I owe them both.”

“I get it.”

“And I've got no faith in Detective Gibbit. Do you?”

“Well, no. Not really. Not at all.”

“Maybe Buck Tanner is behind all this nonsense about me being a murderer. After all, he has more reason to want me in jail than he does to find justice. It's not like he owes
me
anything.”

“That's for sure.”

“So, are you in?”

“Okey dokey.” Precious nodded. “So, we leave the piece under the mattress and we case the joint, lookin' for this missing Loretta person—only I don't know what she looks like, and I don't know what we're gonna do when we find her, especially if she's a murderer.”

“And we keep our eyes and ears open regarding Sal and Guido. As much as I hate to admit it, I agree; they look like
they've stepped straight out of a mob flick. But, of course, we have no real proof of that. Maybe it's all a coincidence.”

Precious started looping the ends of the bottom sheet over the mattress corners. “Right. If you say so, Sunshine. But those two give me the jitters. Y'all should see the way they look at your sister, Pep.”

“Every man looks at Pep that way. She oozes sex appeal. I call it ‘Pep Appeal.' Sometimes, I wish I had a little of it myself.”

“Oh, you're fine just as you are, Sunshine. You got your own ‘Miss Eva-ness.'” Precious let out a big laugh. “And believe me, those two men have taken notice. Now, help me make the bed. I wanna get out of here quick, like a bunny.”

“Sounds good to me.”

I grabbed the other side of the bottom sheet and tucked it under the mattress that hid the gun. As I draped the top sheet over the bed, it occurred to me how remarkably easy it'd been to obstruct justice.

“You always drive this slow?” Precious shouted from the backseat.

Driving down the country road with the convertible top down—enjoying the rush of fresh, sweetly scented summery air as it whipped my hair around—I felt a surge of much-needed energy.

“What's wrong with forty-five?” I shouted over my shoulder. “You don't like following the speed limit?”

“Speed limit? Girl, what planet are you on? You been up North too long. Speed limit is sixty around these parts. Step on it!”

Like an oversized carnival doll, Precious had insisted on sitting in the backseat of my BMW 3 Series. And because gargantuan Precious didn't exactly fit in the tiny backseat, we'd put the top down to give her more room during our jaunt to town.

We'd finished cleaning the guest suites, and, at the insistence of Precious, I'd acquiesced and recovered Noose in the pantry before returning him to his aquarium up on the third floor. While Precious met with Daphne in the kitchen,
I'd hobbled around the yard calling for Dolly, planning to bathe and take a nap for the remainder of the afternoon. However, Dolly wasn't to be found. Then, Daphne'd asked if Precious and I could go to town to pick up extra stuff for the Chamber of Commerce meeting the next day while she and Earlene Azalea finished cleaning. She'd promised to have the older kids look for Dolly when they came home from school. After another check around the yard for Dolly, I'd ducked into my cottage just long enough to take two ibuprofen tablets and grab my purse and sunglasses before setting out a bowl of food and some water for Dolly on the cottage steps. In no time, Precious and I were zipping down the country road.

Nodding to Precious in the rearview mirror, I punched the accelerator. She was right. I hadn't adjusted to the faster speed limits. In Massachusetts, a road like this would've been marked forty-five miles per hour. Maybe even thirty-five. However, down in Abundance, unless you found yourself behind a slow-moving tractor, a truck with a full load, or a geriatric driver, you put the pedal to the metal. That was, of course, as long as you weren't on the interstate. None of the locals used it. One of only two ways in or out of the county, it was the sheriff's playground. Or at least it had been when Sheriff Titus ran the show. I'd no idea what Buck Tanner was doing about traffic stops.

“Tell me again,” I shouted, “why are you sitting back there, as opposed to up here, in front?”

“On account that unless I'm driving,” Precious shouted, “I
never
sit up front. Decided long ago that if folks are drivin' me, I'm goin' in style. Like Miss Daisy!”

“So, I'm your chauffeur?” I asked, glancing back in the mirror again. The fresh air and ibuprofen had me feeling better.

“You got it, Sunshine!” Precious gave me a thumbs-up. “Whoa, watch where you're goin' there, sista!”

I smiled as we swerved around Benderman's Curve, a tight turn on the road in a woodsy area near Benderman's
Campsites between Knox Plantation and town. “Hey, backseat driver, you said I should speed up!”

“Not around
that
curve. It's bad! Folks come 'round that bend in the middle of the road. Last year a fellow drivin' a turkey truck flipped and landed in the ditch! Turkeys everywhere!”

A few moments later, Precious pointed as we passed a deer carcass on the side of the road. Well, part of a carcass, actually. The skin and legs were there, but any part of the animal that could've provided meat had been removed. And if it had been a good-sized buck, there was a decent chance the head and anthers were being made into a wall trophy.

“Poachers!” shouted Precious.

I scrunched my face and nodded. It wasn't uncommon for poachers to hunt deer and process the animal in the back of a pickup in the woods before dumping the unwanted carcass on the side of the road. It always upset me when I came across deer remains like that. Seeing her frown in the rearview mirror, I got the impression that Precious didn't much like it, either.

“I hate guns,” I said.

We rode the rest of the way—about fifteen minutes—silently. We whizzed under shady tunnels of live oaks, then flew over bright, sunlit stretches of road past miles of fences and crop fields. Although I was achy and tired, the afternoon sunshine felt good. And except for seeing the deer, I enjoyed the ride.

On the edge of town, I dropped off Precious at the market. I was to pick her up forty minutes later. That gave me just enough time to drive to the packy on Main Street, where Daphne'd instructed me to purchase some wine and extra glassware. Then, after reconnecting with Precious, I'd drop her off at Greatwoods before heading home with Daphne's stuff.

On Main Street, I pulled up to a sunny parking spot in front of a peacock blue Victorian with red gingerbread trim. There was a blue and red striped awning, and potted red
miniature roses in front of the building. A small sign read
ABUNDANCE PACKAGE STORE
. I stepped out of the BMW onto the boulevard and fished for a quarter out of my purse.

“Nice car,” said an elderly man passing on the sidewalk.

“Thanks!”

“I reckon it's a right beautiful day to be out enjoin' the ride.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Y'all have a nice day, now.”

“I will. You, too.”

The man moved on, and I put a quarter in the meter before shuffling in Daphne's Wellies across the hot brick sidewalk and into the shade under the awning. I pulled open the glass door, and a little bell jangled. I slid my sunglasses to the top of my head as my eyes struggled to adjust from the bright afternoon sunlight to the darkened shop. The only natural light came in through the glass door behind me. Cool with a dusty smell about it, the liquor store was jam-packed, floor to ceiling, with bottles of wine and alcoholic and nonalcoholic beverages of every kind. There were tall, library-style ladders to reach the highest bottles on shop shelves near the tin-covered ceiling. At the back of the store, coolers filled with ice and beverages hummed and glowed with cool neon lights.

“Good afternoon, young lady,” said a husky, fortyish man behind the counter next to the door. He had a blocky head, tiny ears, and big eyes that looked even bigger behind black eyeglasses. His light hair was buzz-cut short. He wore a black bow tie and a name tag on his red short-sleeved shirt that identified him as manager.

“What y'all know today?” he asked. Then, he stopped short. “Oh, hey! I recognize you! You're the runaway bride. The Knox gal. I've seen your picture in the
Supermarket Stargazer
a bunch of times. And on the Internet! Why, you're right famous! And much prettier in person.”

He'd caught me off guard. Although, by this time I should've been prepared for it. I ignored his comments and squinted to read the name on the tag. It said
WENDEL WILCOX
.

“Wendel,” I said, smiling, “My sister, Daphne Bouvier, sent me to pick up some glassware. She said that you have some saved for her. Also, she asked me to pick out some wine.”

“Of course, Miss Knox. Why don't y'all choose the wine while I get your sister's order together in the back. We've been busy today, so I'm a bit behind. It'll take me a few minutes.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem. I can't believe I'm seein' you in person! Wait till I tell my family.” Wendel slammed the counter with his hand excitedly before he hurried off to the back room.

I was pretty sure that my plastered smile had morphed into a grimace.

While Wendel hunted down Daphne's glassware in the back, I grabbed a mini shopping cart near the door and headed toward an aisle to search for the various wines Daphne had on her list. There were no other customers in my narrow aisle, but I could hear other shoppers talking and sliding bottles off the shelves around the store. Slowly, I pushed my mini cart down the first aisle. I was in the “red” section, passing rows and rows of wine bottles labeled with little signs sticking out from the shelves:
BORDEAUX
 . . .
CABERNET FRANC
 . . .
CABERNET SAUVIGNON
 . . .
MALBEC . . . MERLOT . . .
I needed to find the sparkling wines. At the end of the row, I pushed my cart around the corner.

Right into Debi Dicer.

“Well, look who the cat dragged in—and, all gussied up like Daisy Duke! Eva Knox, bless your heart. What brings you here, darlin'?” Debi cackled as she took a slender finger and flipped her processed blonde hair away from her face.

Any Southerner knows that “bless your heart” is code for something that rhymes with “duck you.” Not nice.

“Debi! You haven't changed a bit in twenty years.”

I hoped that would be the end of it and we could both move on. I tried to work my cart around Debi, but the aisle was too narrow, and she made no effort to move. Instead,
she just stood, smiling at me as she cradled two bottles of champagne in her perfectly toned arms.

It was a Southern-style standoff.

“Oh, thanks, sweetness. I work real hard to keep my figure just as it was when we were in high school. And my man appreciates it,” said Debi with a big wink.

Translation: I look just as young and sexy as I did in high school, and I have a boyfriend. Moreover, the inference is, of course, that the person being addressed—that was me—does
not
look young and sexy and does
not
have a love interest.

Debi wasn't off the mark.

She, was fit, tall, and tanned. Her makeup was flawless, and her long nails were meticulously done and matched her bright pink lipstick. Debi had a sleek “inverted bob” haircut—her hair was shoulder length in the front and just nape length in the back. And somehow, it poofed up at the crown. Kind of modern day, big hair, Southern chic. Quite an improvement from the last time I'd seen her looking like a hedgehog, all foiled up in Tammy Fae's salon. Debi's Lilly Pulitzer shift dress was suitably pert, in a neon floral print with white trim. She wore high-heeled white sandals and carried a straw bag with a designer label. I had to admit, Debi was a very attractive, put-together-looking woman. Her bright blue eyes flashed as she gave me a good once-over.

I was still in dirty cutoffs, my ripped and stained
GEORGIA VIRGIN
tee, and ugly rubber Wellies, and my tangled hair looked like a rat's nest, not to mention, except for my hands and face, I was still pretty filthy and my skin was scratched and torn from head to toe. Debi's look of disgust wasn't a surprise. She flicked her hair again and licked her pink-painted lips.

“And you! Well, Eva sweetie, y'all are still
exactly
as I remember you in high school. And how
cute
, advertising yourself as a Georgia virgin!” Debi smiled as she fingered her hair again. She made “cute” sound like a dirty word.

There was no use trying to dodge Debi's barbs.

Game on
.

“Well, you know, for me, each time is like the first time,” I said sweetly.

“Well, I suppose, for you, that it could be so . . . with y'all havin' been with so
many
men and all. How many times is it that you've been engaged now?”

“That's just what it's like, being marriage material. Men just love proposing to me. Has anyone proposed to you, Debi?”

Debi smiled and pretended to not hear my comeback.

“Say, hon, I hear they found y'all layin' next to a
dead
man in your daddy's olive grove. Did y'all love the poor fellow to death, or what?” Debi's high-pitched laugh echoed through the store.

“Actually, I'd never seen the man here before.”

“Really? Before what? Before y'all knocked him off after your one-nighter? You go, girl!” Debi winked at me.

I decided Debi's comments were distressingly off-color. I'd had enough of the game we were playing. I didn't answer. I hoped the awkward silence would dissuade her from saying anything else. A moment ticked by. Then two.

“I hear the dead fellow worked for y'all. He was some sort of hunting guide, wasn't he? From up North. Like you.”

Now, with the worst of the insults over, Debi was digging for dirt.

“I'm from Abundance, not ‘up North.'”

“If you say so. Now, sweetness, forgive me for askin', but who hires a guide from somewhere else? What was your big sis, Miss Daphne, thinking? And y'all know, it's funny, but folks have been sayin'
you
killed that poor fellow.”

“Folks are wrong.”

“Well then, pray tell, what were y'all doin' out there in the middle of that stormy night?”

“I was running.”

“From what? Or from whom, I should say!” Debi cackled again. “Y'all weren't runnin' from
another
fiancé, were you?”

Debi raised her eyebrows and had a cold, fiery look in her eyes. I realized there was nothing I could say that would
satisfy her. This kind of insult exchange was sport. If she had her way, we'd be at it for hours.