Pearls and Poison (A Consignment Shop Mystery) (2 page)
Read Pearls and Poison (A Consignment Shop Mystery) Online
Authors: Duffy Brown
“And you’ll look like a big namby-pamby bozo if you do for letting some skinny-butt woman get the drop on you,” Mamma shot back over her shoulder.
Oh sweet Jesus, things were not improving! I hustled us to the next block where I spied an old white Caddy rumbling my way, pink plastic tulips taped to the antenna and a WWJD sticker on the bumper. I’d know that car anywhere and flagged down Elsie Abbott. Elsie and her sister AnnieFritz lived next door to me. I ran the Prissy Fox consignment shop and sold clothes; the sisters were professional mourners and ground zero for Gossips-R-Us. Guess who had the most likes on Facebook. I shoved Mamma in the backseat. “Take her to my place,” I said to Elsie. “Don’t let the press anywhere near her.”
“But I was just starting to have fun,” Mamma insisted, her head poking out the window.
“What’s going on?” Elsie asked, clutching her phone, all of Savannah on speed dial. For sure this was not my first choice in stealthy getaway cars, because there’d be nothing stealthy about it. But beggars can’t be choosers, and I had to get Mamma out of there right this minute.
“I’ll fill you in later,” I said to Elsie. She nodded and sped off, leaving me in a cloud of exhaust and with the realization that this was God getting even for all the angst I’d caused the woman who single-handedly raised me after daddy went boar hunting with the good-old-boys and proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that guns and Johnny Walker Red were indeed a bad mix.
I walked back and stood across the street, staring at the headquarters, everyone having gone back inside. I should do something, but what? I tried to come up with a scenario that painted Scumbucket as the bad guy in all this as a navy Beemer squealed up to the curb.
“Oh, honey,” KiKi gasped after powering down the window. “Tell me your mamma didn’t for real deck Seymour?”
“Flatted him like a fried egg in the skillet.” I took shotgun.
“Why do I keep missing all the good stuff,” KiKi huffed then added, “But as much as the woman deserves a medal for the deed, you know full well Scumbucket’s going to sue her panties off and make a big deal out of this. We need to convince him somehow that would be a bad idea, that it’s better to keep this altercation on the down low. Where is your mamma now?”
“Sent her to my place with Elsie Abbott.”
“Holy Saint Patrick, we’re doomed. I wonder if Savannah has one of those spin doctor people who make catastrophes seem like Christmas morning with presents under the tree.” Deep in thought KiKi tapped the tips of her fingers together. “Maybe we can reason with Scumbucket.”
I gave her a
get real
look.
“What about Valentine? He’s Scumbucket’s campaign manager. We need to go in that there headquarters and make Delray Valentine realize his candidate sprawled on the ground makes him look weak and pitiful.”
“Or Valentine will throw us out.”
“There is that.” Minutes then more minutes rolled by, a brain-numbing migraine pooling behind my eyes. “I got nothing,” KiKi finally said, opening the car door. “You’ll just have to wing it once we get inside.”
“Me?”
“You flunked phone calls. Think of this as redemption.”
We crossed the street, people entering and exiting Scumbucket’s headquarters, the inside bustling with campaign hoopla, “Happy Days Are Here Again” warbling in the background. I didn’t see Money-Honey or Valentine, but a twentysomething blonde in a short pink skirt and a white sweater with a cute little pink poodle pin gave KiKi one of those
where do I know you from
looks. I stuck an “Elect Kip Seymour” button on KiKi and grabbed a hat for me along with a sticky bun, complete with gooey pecans.
“Camouflage,” I mumbled to KiKi around a mouthful of total goodness. One of the workers told us Seymour was in his office down the hall, working on a speech, and he didn’t want to be disturbed no matter what. We waited a few minutes then headed that way.
“Should we knock?” I asked KiKi when we got to the closed door. In response she turned the knob and strolled right in to the sunlit office full of metal chairs, a desk cluttered with flyers and flags, but no Seymour.
“Look at this.” I pointed at a line of creepy life-size cardboard stand-up posters against the far wall. “Here we have sophisticated Seymour in a blue suit and big smile, casual Seymour in khakis and a polo and doing the thumbs-up we win gesture, workingman Seymour with a tool belt and hard hat, debonair Seymour in fancy tux complete with Georgia flag lapel pin and—”
“Dead as a doornail Seymour right here on the floor next to my big toe.” KiKi pointed behind the desk, her cheeks fading to pasty white.
“Dear God in heaven, it
is
Scumbucket!” I said peering over KiKi’s shoulder. I made the sign of the cross for maligning the dead and braced for a lightning bolt to strike.
KiKi collapsed down in Scumbucket’s desk chair and reached for a half-empty glass by the phone. “Looks like Gloria went with the honey bourbon softening up approach on the old fart, for all the good it did. I sure could use a belt of hooch right now myself.”
“You’ll get Scumbucket cooties.”
KiKi snapped back her hand, and I picked a paper off the desk. “Look at this, it’s Scumbucket’s speech, and it’s all about Mamma ruining Savannah’s restaurant economy, a follow-up to his ad, no doubt.”
The shock of Scumbucket dead faded away and being plain old madder than a wet hen took its place. I grabbed the receiver and jabbed 911. “Kip Seymour is dead as a frog on the four-lane over here at his campaign headquarters on Bull Street,” I said to dispatch. “No, this isn’t a joke. He’s just lying there staring at the carpet and not in a gee-ain’t-this-a-nice-carpet way. I didn’t kill him, tempting as it might be, the no-good piece of crud.”
KiKi rolled her eyes so far back she nearly fell off the chair. Guess I should have left out the crud part. I gave my name and KiKi’s, getting another auntie eye roll.
“Did you have to go and drag me into this? Putter will hear about it and give me one of his what-have-you-gone-and-done-now lectures and want me to call him every hour telling him where I am.”
“You’re sitting at Seymour’s desk. He’s dead right in front of you. You’re into this up to your eyeballs.” And come to think of it KiKi’s eyeballs weren’t focusing too well at the moment. Maybe I should have left off the last dead reference. I snagged her arm, hauled her off the chair, and ushered her into the main room where life and theme song carried on as usual; a little color returned to her cheeks.
“In two minutes the cops are going to come barreling through that door,” I whispered to KiKi, hoping to get her mind off things dead. “Any suggestions how we can prepare all these workers?”
“Yell ‘The jackass bit the big one’ and run like the dickens before someone recognizes us?”
Translation . . . a little fresh air and Auntie KiKi was back to being Auntie KiKi.
“Ohmygod, Ohmygod!” screamed poodle-pin girl, running out of Seymour’s office. “Kip’s dead! He’s really and truly dead right there in his office and not breathing or moving or anything, and how can this happen, and now who do we vote for?” The girl crumpled into a heap on the floor like that wicked witch when they threw water on her.
Everyone stared for a moment, the headquarters quiet as a tomb, comprehension as to what happened sinking in bit by bit. It was the lull before the storm. Then as if someone had thrown a switch, three guys ran for Scumbucket’s office, girls cried and hugged, and sirens blared in the distance that suddenly wasn’t distant at all but right outside the place.
Detective Aldeen Ross flanked by three uniformed police rushed in. Ross stopped dead when she spied me, her eyes narrow, frown lines puckering her mouth like she’d sucked on a lemon. “I should lock you up and throw away the key once and for all. Do the city a favor.”
I wanted to say the feeling was mutual, but Ross had a gun strapped to her bony hip and knew how to use it. She once possessed the proportions of a fireplug but had developed a crush on Dr. Oz, dropped forty pounds, and with her brown hair and suit now looked pretty much like a stick.
“Every time I see you someone’s dead,” Ross groused.
Duh, you’re a homicide detective
was on the tip of my tongue, but again there was the gun issue.
“Heard Seymour and your mamma had an altercation.” Ross pulled a notebook from her brown saddlebag purse as the uniforms tried to calm everyone down, though with the arrival of the coroner coach and the press, calm was not happening any time soon.
“Altercation my old tomato,” poodle-pin blurted as she struggled to her feet, hair wild, pupils dilated. “It was a knock-down drag out brawl right out there on the sidewalk.” She jabbed a manicured finger in that direction. “That old bat judge punched Kip. She killed him as sure as if she stabbed him with a knife. How could she do something like that?”
“Gloria Summerside is not an old bat,” I growled, hands on hips. “My guess is Kippy thought bacon was the fifth food group and it caught up with him.”
“Is it true?” Delray Valentine said as he huffed his way through the door, his face blotchy and red. “Kip’s really . . . gone? What happened? How can this be?” Delray ran his hand though his thinning gray hair. “I was at the printers and got a tweet about the fight and . . .” His voice trailed off, and he leaned heavily against a table. “We had such big dreams, big plans for the city. A vision.”
Visions of dollars from bribes and payoffs and a lot of lying and cheating
, I added to myself.
Poodle-pin girl swiped away more tears, sniffed, and hugged Valentine tight. “Kippy was a wonderful man, simply divine. This can’t be happening. How will we ever survive? What should we do?”
“Celebrate?” Auntie KiKi’s eyes brightened and a grin tipped her lips. She did a little jig right there in Scumbucket’s headquarters. “Gloria Summerside wins!”
“W
ELL,
that was about as much fun as getting poked in the eye with a sharp stick,” KiKi said to me an hour later as she powered up the Beemer and we headed for the Victorian district after talking to the cops.
“Detective Ross was a lot nicer when she was plumper,” KiKi added. “See, that right there is a mighty good reason to not diet. I’ll have to tell Putter.” Putter was KiKi’s husband, Uncle Doctor Putter. He carried a nine iron at all times, defending Savannah against heart and golf ball attacks.
“You married a cardiologist, honey. The big-is-better theory has sailed.” Auntie KiKi and Uncle Putter lived in a pristine Queen Ann that had been in the Vanderpool family since Sherman and his merry men set up shop in our fair city. I lived next door in a partially restored nonpristine Victorian. To make ends meet, or at least come a little closer together, I led haunted Savannah tours during tourist season, opened a consignment shop on the first floor of the Victorian, and took in a dog. Bruce Willis didn’t help my economic status, but he had a nice smile and shared my love for hot dogs and SpaghettiOs surprise.
KiKi parked the car in her driveway, and we cut our eyes to my place, the Open sign in the bay window, my good friend Chantilly holding down the fort while I did phone and dead-guy duty. “Think your mamma’s heard about the Scumbucket mishap?” KiKi asked.
“Does Dolly Parton sleep on her back? This is Savannah; everybody knows everything in ten minutes flat.”
“What in the world happened?” Chantilly pounced when KiKi and I came in the front door of the Prissy Fox. A customer perused clothes displayed in the dining room, and Mamma paced behind the checkout counter that was really an old green paint-chipped door I found in the attic and balanced across two flat-back chairs. Chantilly had helped me set up the Fox a few months ago. She was a former UPS driver and an ex–murder suspect. Chantilly led a rich and colorful life. She dropped her voice. “Is you-know-who really you-know-what?”
“As a mackerel,” KiKi volunteered.
Mamma braced her arms on the counter and leaned across, her nose nearly touching Auntie KiKi’s, her hazel eyes beady. “You danced?”
“Well, maybe a little. Just a teeny-tiny one, I swear,” Auntie KiKi said, holding up her thumb and forefinger, an inch of space between them to emphasize the teeny-tiny part. “Barely moved my feet at all. There may have been a twirl or two involved, but I’m willing to bet no one noticed in all the confusion. It was the stress of the day building up inside me. Besides, honey, you win!”
“And you were tickled to your toes Seymour was dead and gone,” Mamma added.
“There is that. The police think it was a heart attack,” KiKi said after I sold a pair of leather boots that I had my eye on but couldn’t afford. After putting the money in the Godiva candy box that served as my cash register, the Fox was customer free. A good thing in that we could talk; a bad thing in that the water bill was due.
“Hard to imagine Scumbucket suddenly keeling over like that,” KiKi said. “He was fit as a fiddle when threatening you with ruin and devastation earlier in the day, then bam, he’s worm food. Cher says words are like weapons. The way I see it, this was the good Lord’s way of getting even for those ads he had coming out.”
KiKi was a roadie for Cher back in the day and never quite got off the bus. From time to time she burst into Cher-isms whether they fit or not. “It was a comeuppance for sinful deeds,” KiKi added.
“Uh, we might want to keep that to ourselves.” I nodded toward the front bay window sporting a display of tan slacks, a cream sweater, and a WVXU van screeching to a stop out by the curb.
“Holy mother of pearl, it’s the press.” Chantilly grabbed Mamma’s hand and looked her dead in the eyes. “They found you, honey! Run! Hide. Change your name and get a nose job. I mean it when I say that nothing good ever comes from these people. They twist and turn things to suit their needs and to sell their papers, and don’t listen to a blessed word you say. Look how they went and exaggerated me naked on that there horse at my ex’s engagement party.”
“You weren’t naked?” I asked, vividly remembering the story.
“I had on a top hat for Pete’s sake, and they never even mentioned it.”
“I’ll have to face them sooner or later.” Mamma pulled her lipstick from her purse, added a swipe. “You all stay here in case someone heard about the jig.” Mamma glared at KiKi then strolled out the front door to face cameras, microphones, and busybody neighbors, meaning everyone within a two-block radius with a pulse.
KiKi, Chantilly, and I pressed our noses to the bay window, catching snippets of Mamma’s speech about heartfelt condolences, differences with the deceased being purely political, and, no, she would not attend the funeral. This was a time for Honey and family to mourn the loss of a dear loved one. Mamma was an ace at winging it.
“I think that went pretty well,” Mamma said when she came back inside, the crowd dispersing and the press driving off. “I’ll suspend campaigning till after the funeral. I need to tell the volunteers what’s going on.”
“I can drop you off on my way home.” Chantilly batted her eyes and added a sexy grin. “I happen to have a hot date with Pillsbury. We’re going for an early dinner at Café 37. Their brandy cream sauce is to die for. Then he’s coming to my place and itemizing my assets.”
Pillsbury was the accountant—the doughboy—for the Seventeenth Street gang. He had the brain of Warren Buffett, the body of an army tank, and the hots for Chantilly. None of us were going to touch the assets comment with a ten-foot pole.
After everyone left, BW and I priced and hung up the new batch of consigned clothes that Chantilly had taken in and did the entrepreneur thing of running the Prissy Fox till seven. I scrambled us up some bacon and eggs in case our Southern cholesterol level was sinking into the normal range, and the two of us dined alfresco, parking our behinds on the front porch of Cherry House, named for the old cherry tree in front. The faint outline of
REL
carved in the trunk of that tree was still visible, and I liked to think it stood for Robert E. Lee since he was supposed to have slept here. More than likely it stood for Roy Elbert Lemon who used to live down the street and had a pet skunk.
I fed BW a chunk of egg. He wasn’t exactly a hot date, but he kept my feet warm at night and was a better listener than most men, including the one in the red ’57 Chevy convertible pulling up to the curb this very minute. Walker Boone happened to be the slimeball attorney who took me to the cleaners in my divorce from Hollis the Horrible. That I signed an airtight prenup made the cleaners part pretty easy for Boone. He also got me out of a jam or three and paid a hefty vet bill for BW, laying claim to his snout and tail. Since I wasn’t in trouble at the moment and BW was in the pink of health, that left the slimeball attorney part to deal with. “What?”
BW bounded down the wooden stairs and did the paws-on-shoulder ritual with Boone. Even SpaghettiOs surprise didn’t get me that kind of affection. Boone performed the scratch-behind-the-ears routine then sat beside me. He had on worn jeans and a white dress shirt turned up at the sleeves, his face bore a perpetual scruff, and he smelled like expensive brandy. He snagged a bacon strip and chunk of egg and popped it in his mouth.
“In about twenty minutes Ross is going to take your mamma to the police station for questioning about Kip Seymour,” Boone said around a mouthful. “Thought you’d like to know.” He licked his fingers and eyed the last piece of bacon.
“Nice try. I was there, saw the body, and got a firsthand report. Scumbuck. . . Seymour died of a heart attack pure and simple, so if you came here to rattle my cage, save your breath; it’s not going to work.”
“Bumped into Ross over at the Pig in the produce section. Taught her how to thump melons. Seymour’s heart attack had help.”
I snagged the last bacon strip before Boone. “They think ’cause Mamma punched Seymour she caused his death?”
Boone broke off the end, munched, and stood. “Ross must have more than that. She wouldn’t go after a judge without something substantial.”
“Substantial like what?” The bacon suddenly tasted like wallpaper paste. “Seymour’s the one who came to Mamma threatening her with a damning ad. He wanted to ruin her campaign even if he lied to do it. He called her ‘girlie’ for crying out loud.”
A grin played at the corners of Boone’s mouth, his black eyes creasing at the corners. There’d been reports of grown women fainting dead away from that very look. “No wonder she decked him,” Boone said. “Sorry I missed it. All I know is Ross wasn’t happy about the situation. Your mamma is the judge every cop wants to try his case. She’s got . . . cojones.”
Cojones and Mamma in the same sentence was a little unnerving, but at the moment I had bigger fish to fry. No matter how crazy my life got Mamma was my rock, my true North . . . or South being that this was Savannah. Little prickles of fear crawled up my spine. “I gotta call Mamma.”
“I already did. She’ll need an attorney.”
“You’re an attorney, do something.” My voice sounded like Alvin the chipmunk.
“I worked on legal stuff for Seymour a few years back; it’ll smack of conflict of interest if I get involved. Besides, Gloria Summerside is on a first name basis with half the attorneys in Savannah.”
Meaning Mamma had options other than an ex-Seventeenth Street gang member turned lawyer. Chantilly wasn’t the only one who led a rich and colorful life. Boone was a good attorney no matter what his origins. He won, a lot. My disastrous divorce was living proof. I followed Boone to the Chevy, pulled back the seat, and let BW jump in the back. I took shotgun. “Drop us off at Mamma’s.”
“Still no car?”
“Do you know what a new roof on an old house costs these days?”
“You need to stay out of this. Seymour wasn’t just two hams in a grocery bag like everyone thought; he had enemies.”
“Sure would have been nice if they said something in the campaign.”
“They’re not choirboys.” Boone turned sideways, his eyes black as the night. He gave me his
no-nonsense lawyer
stare that I knew so well. “Ross is a good detective. She has a gun. Let her do her job.”
I gave Boone my
loyal daughter
stare. “If you think for one minute I’m letting my mamma’s future rest in the scrawny hands of Aldeen Ross, you’ve lost your marbles.” I pointed to the ignition. “I don’t need a lecture. Come on, time’s a wasting, floor this puppy.”
Boone gripped the steering wheel and let out a sigh. “Reasoning with you is like teaching a setting hen to crow. Ross will put your mamma in the cruiser, and you’ll have a hissy right there in front of her house, yell a bunch of stuff you shouldn’t, and wind up in jail yourself. You need to cool off.”
My hair fried. “I
am
cool, blast you! Drive now!” Maybe I should have left off the blast you part. I dragged BW out of the backseat then slammed the door behind me and kicked the front tire. “You’re nothing but a bacon-stealing scalawag.”
“On my better days.” The Chevy’s taillights faded down the street, turned onto Abercorn leaving BW and me alone on the sidewalk, the rest of the inhabitants of East Gwinnett tucked in for the night. Getting a taxi out here at this hour was the impossible dream, KiKi and Uncle Putter were deep into
Downton Abbey
season three, and besides KiKi had had enough drama in her life for one day. If I got the Abbott sisters involved, Mamma would headline the nine o’clock kudzu vine news.
I hitched up BW, grabbed Old Yeller, doggie scoop bags, and a Snickers for dessert to go. I put on my gym shoes that had never graced the inside of a gym and jogged down the street, trying to get to Mamma’s before Ross. Usually night was my favorite time in Savannah, kind of magical with the soft glow of the old lamplight through the live oaks, Forsythe Fountain sparkling in the moonlight, strollers out for a late dinner. The only magic tonight was of the black variety with Mamma right in the middle of a big, fat mess.
Panting and sweating I promised God I’d light candles if he let me make it to Mamma’s without having a stroke. When she didn’t answer my door-pounding, I hung a right onto Habersham and headed for the redbrick police station designed by a teething two-year-old that was ground zero for major in-city offenses and home away from home for Ross. Tonight Officer Dumont occupied the gray Formica welcome desk, the hubbub of Savannah crime and crime stoppers swirling around him as he yelled into the phone and scribbled notes. I knew Dumont from when I swiped a memorial wreath out of Colonial Park Cemetery and the time I found a dead groom facedown in a wedding cake.