Lethal in Old Lace

by Duffy Brown

  Lethal in Old Lace

  A CONSIGNMENT SHOP MYSTERY

  Duffy Brown

  For Spooky and Dr. Watson … my two feline writing companions who make my house a home.

  Chapter One

  “You want to marry me?” I asked Walker Boone, who just happened to be the hunkiest guy in all Savannah. “Why in the world would you want to do such a thing?”

  Walker Boone wanted to marry me, Reagan Summerside, owner of the Prissy Fox Consignment Shop, Bruce Willis (the black-and-white canine version who’d rescued me more than I’d rescued him), and a dilapidated Victorian that I loved, peeling paint and all. How had I gotten lucky enough to have this delicious man want to marry me?

  Good question. I’m not exactly a lucky kind of girl. I’m more of a my-hair-turned-orange-because-I-dyed-it-myself kind of girl, or a will-you-go-to-the-prom-with-me-because-there’s-no-one-else-to-ask kind of girl. Why wasn’t I seizing my moment in the sun? Why didn’t I tackle Boone to the ground and have my way with him, all the while yelling, “Yes, yes, yes, I’ll marry you!”? What was my problem?

  Reality!

  “I have bad man karma,” I blurted, determined to spill my guts and tell all. “I signed a prenup with Hollis Beaumont the Third, for crying out loud, was left high and dry in our divorce with a run-down house, and then had to save Hollis’s whoreson cheating hide from the gallows to keep my run-down house. It wasn’t pretty, Boone. There was a dead body in a trunk wearing my favorite pink chiffon dress, I accidently shot up a really nice wood-paneled office, and Hollis still drives me nuts to this very day. Does any of this sound familiar?”

  Boone’s dark eyes danced, a hint of fire lurking in them and a devil smile at his lips. That he’d been on the run from the cops for the last two weeks for a murder he hadn’t committed and looked more bum than attorney didn’t detract from his hunkiness one little bit. “I represented Hollis in your divorce, and that office with the bullet hole is mine. Trust me, I remember.”

  “See, doesn’t that worry you that I’d get mixed up with such a guy in the first place?” I paced the brick walkway, which was dappled in golden lamplight slicing through old oak trees and wisps of Spanish moss. “And I sort of had this thing for you even though you were my soon-to-be-ex-husband’s lawyer and totally cleaning my clock in the divorce. How dumb is that?”

  I spun around, arms spread wide. “And what about me stumbling across all these dead bodies lately? I don’t go around looking for them; they just sort of show up on their own. Poof, and there’s trouble right in front of me. I think I’ve acquired some kind of dead body syndrome. Why would anyone want to marry me with all this going on? Heck, I scare myself half the time.”

  Boone slid his arms around my waist, bringing me close and warm as the cool evening breeze ruffled his too long black hair. “You had a thing for me? Does that mean you still do?”

  My arms slipped around his waist. “There is that.”

  His smile got bigger. “I’ll take that as a yes?”

  “You’re a strong, professional, know-how-to-get-the-job-done kind of guy. I’m more a let’s-try-this-and-see-what-happens kind of girl. I love junk food, and you hate it.”

  “I’ll trade you two carrots for a Snickers.”

  I closed my eyes and thanked the gods of love and good fortune for this amazing man. “Yes, Walker Boone, I’ll marry you.”

  He kissed me right there under a full moon in that lovely old Southern park, taking my breath away, curling my toes, turning my brain to oatmeal, and melting every bone in my body.

  “Lord have mercy and time’s a wastin’,” came a voice I knew all too well. My dearest Auntie KiKi was here, now! I’d recognize my one and only auntie a mile away; problem was, she wasn’t a mile away. She was close and getting closer. My eyes snapped open to see KiKi’s best funeral hat flapping and her black dress flowing behind her as if it couldn’t keep up.

  “You two need to finish up your smooching later. There’s work to be done right quick.”

  “But … but we found the real killer, and Boone’s free as a bird and not on the lam, and we’re getting married,” I gushed to KiKi, the best auntie in all the world except at this moment. “Can you give us a minute here?”

  Auntie KiKi and Uncle Putter lived next door to me in a perfectly restored Victorian done up in blues and greens. He was a cardio doc extraordinaire who carried a putter at all times in case a golf ball dropped to earth and he had to sink a birdie to save mankind. KiKi taught the belles of Savannah how to waltz so they wouldn’t embarrass their mammas and daddies at the cotillion. Lately—due in large part to my recent dead body syndrome—Auntie KiKi had solved murders with me and BW (Bruce Willis) on my front porch over a silver shaker of chilled martinis and frosted glasses. The complexity of the case determined whether it was a two-olive situation or, in desperate times, a three-olive one.

  Auntie KiKi wagged her head, sending her auburn curls into a tizzy. “Honey, I got the free-as-a-bird news from the kudzu vine gossips five minutes ago. That’s how I knew where to find you. Every one of us in this fine city knew you and Walker would be getting together sooner or later. You two just took your old sweet old time is all.” KiKi stood on her tiptoes and kissed Boone on his scruffy cheek. “Hope you know what you’re getting yourself into, honey. Mark my words, life as you know it will never be the same.” KiKi made the sign of the cross and added, “The man has a right to know, and now that this engagement thing is taken care of, we got other things to be fretting over, important things that just can’t wait.”

  Knowing there’d be no peace till I gave in, I gritted my teeth. “Okay, okay, as long as it doesn’t involve another dead body. I really can’t take another body right now. Is it a nice bank robbery for a change? I wouldn’t mind poking around a bank or maybe a jewelry store heist. It’s been a tough two weeks getting Walker off the hook, and I’m all dead-bodied out.”

  “Well, that’s just too bad because, in a manner of speaking, a body it is.” Auntie KiKi straightened her hat. “Elsie and Annie Fritz are needing our support over at the House of Eternal Slumber, and I promised to drag your sorry self along with me.”

  “You’re taking me to a funeral?”

  “Willie Fishbine’s wake, but the sisters’ weeping and wailing doesn’t seem to be packing ’em in like usual, and that’s bad for business. Their big old house is in desperate need of a new roof and we all know what those cost these days. I got an SOS tweet—that’s code for ‘save old sisters’—saying they’re worried something fierce about attendance and getting future bookings. They need folks to show up right this minute, and that means us.”

  Elsie and Annie Fritz were retired schoolteachers who lived on the other side of my house. They’d inherited the place when their dear uncle OD’d on Southern deliciousness and joined that great fried-chicken-and-buttered-biscuits buffet in the sky. The sisters were now professional mourners to supplement their income, and no one could get a crowd blubbering better—the mark of a truly successful wake.

  “But … but I’m supposed to go dancing,” I whined to KiKi. “Run through fields of yellow daisies, drink champagne.”

  KiKi’s brows narrowed. “And who fills in for you over there at your shop at a moment’s notice when you have a dead body to tend to, tell me that, huh? Elsie and Annie Fritz, that’s who, so shake a leg, girl. I parked down the street, but we can walk on over to the Slumber from here.”

  Auntie KiKi gave Boone a critical once-over. “Since you look like something that should be right in the casket with Willie, you’re excused from participating on this particular occasion. But as you’ll soon be part of the family, these things will be commanding your attention now and then, and you are now officially put on alert.”
/>
  Boone laughed, then kissed me. The heart-stopping thing happened all over again. He gave KiKi a hug. “The family, huh. I like the sound of that.” Then Boone headed across East Congress toward his oh-so-lovely house on Madison Square, and I hooked Old Yeller, my yellow pleather purse that had seen me through thick and thin, onto my shoulder. KiKi and I headed for the Slumber.

  Streetlights cast fat gray shadows across the sidewalk, and the aroma of blooming azaleas hung heavy in the evening air. Auntie KiKi gave me a sideways glance, frowned, then dug a starched hankie out of her purse and shoved it into my palm. “You need to be getting that sappy smile off your face and bring on the tears. In case you forgot, Willie’s toes-up and eyes-closed and lying flat in a box. That means we’re in dire need of some red eyes and snotty noses.”

  “But I’m happy, really happy.” Fact is, I wondered if a person could actually die from so much happiness. “I’m getting married,” I sang in a too-loud voice, making passersby smile and stare. “Me, Reagan Divorced-and-Left-for-Broke Summerside, is getting hitched to the best guy ever. And besides,” I added in a lower voice. “Willie was older than dirt and mean as a skunk and that last part’s why no one’s at his wake. He chased me out of his yard with a hoe when I tried to sell him Girl Scout cookies. How am I supposed to work up a cry for that?”

  “Think of Hollis, that donkey’s butt you married the first time around. I tell you, that man’s enough to make any woman weep a river.”

  We took a right on Broad, the Slumber up ahead softly bathed in lighting to die by. The place had a white frame and black shutters and an original widow’s walk at the top. A maze of add-ons jutted out here and there, the place having been passed from family to family over the last hundred-plus years before finally becoming the home of funerals, flowers, and embalming solution.

  “See what I mean,” KiKi said in a quiet voice as we joined a few others on the walkway lined with tulips, daffodils, and fresh mulch. “It’s a mighty sparse crowd showing up and, sweet mother, you’re still smiling.” She elbowed my side, bringing tears to my eyes.

  “Ouch!”

  “Quit complaining. It’s for a good cause.”

  We signed the I-was-here book, then padded across the thick maroon carpet in the entrance hall. We maneuvered around cherry end tables polished to a high shine, gold brocade couches, and a series of ferns and palms. These were the just-in-case plants the Slumber kept around to fill in if there happened to be too few sprays of flowers sent from grieving mourners. All things considered, it looked as if old Willie was gone from Savannah and would very soon be forgotten.

  We aimed for the nice bronze casket with the not-so-grieving Arnett Fishbine on one side and the Abbott sisters trying to make up for that too-obvious fact by standing on the other side bawling their eyes out. I hankied my nose because it was the right thing to do as KiKi said to Arnett, “We’re very sorry for your loss, honey. And your daddy looks right … peaceful.”

  Actually, Willie’s scruffy goatee was trimmed for once, but his skin tone resembled a pomegranate and there was a little black chicken pinned to his lapel. What was that all about? Usually the Slumber did better work, but with the place under new management, who knew what was going on. “If there’s anything I can do,” I added to Arnett to be polite, “please let me—”

  “You bet there’s something you can do,” Arnett said as if we were standing on the corner talking about the weather. “You need to stop by Sleepy Pines Retirement Home, pick up Daddy’s things, and sell them at your consignment shop.”

  “We’re talking business? Now?” I stuttered.

  “Send me a check when you get everything sold.” Arnett waved her hand at Willie. “It’ll help with the cost of all this.”

  Arnett waved her hand dismissing me then turned to Auntie KiKi. I stumbled off to take a final view of Willie. “I don’t know what you did to piss off your daughter,” I whispered, “But it must have been a doozy.”

  I had started to leave when a teenage boy shuffled up beside me. He sniffed, wiped away real tears, then slid a Snickers into Willie’s breast pocket and hurried off. Love of Snickers—apparently the one and only thing Willie Fishbine and I had in common.

  “Don’t even think about it,” I whispered to Auntie KiKi when she drew up next to me, both of us staring into the casket—or, more precisely, staring at the candy bar.

  “These are dreadful times in my life,” KiKi said with a hitch in her voice. “Your Uncle Putter has our house on sugar lockdown. He read me a three-page article on Satan Sugar and made me promise to buy healthy. I tell you, if it was up to the medical profession, we’d eat nothing but fruits and vegetables and die of complete and total boredom.”

  “That’s no excuse.”

  “It’s kind of an excuse.” KiKi opened her purse to display two Clif bars. “Will you take a look at these things? They taste like sawdust with raisins.” KiKi snapped her purse closed, her gaze drifting back to the Snickers. She licked her lips, her pupils dilating. “Putter didn’t say boo about stealing unhealthy.”

  I felt my own pupils dilate. “You cannot rob a dead man,” I hissed through gritted teeth. “People will notice.”

  “For crying in a bucket, Reagan, it’s candy, not the Hope Diamond.” She let out a sigh. “All right, all right, no swapping.”

  “Promise?”

  “What am I, ten?”

  “Right now, eight would be a stretch.” I gave KiKi one last “Mind your manners” glare; then she headed off for Lila Witherspoon. I aimed for the tea table and the latest in Savannah gossip. Tonight Walker and I would be the topic of choice, and that was fantastic. For once I was connected with something really good instead of “What dead body did that Reagan Summerside person trip over this time?” The problem was the puny crowd. The kudzu vine regulars were MIA, and I had the teapots, windmill cookies, piped-in organ music, and bragging rights of getting engaged all to myself.

  I poured out a splash of Earl Grey and glanced back at Auntie KiKi and Lila, who were no doubt speculating about Willie’s will, the best part of any funeral, and … and, holy cow, what was that on KiKi’s lips? It was chocolate! And was that a Clif bar in Willie’s pocket? My one and only auntie was heading straight to hell in a handbasket.

  Annie Fritz gave me a little nod, the super-sprayed gray curls framing her face not daring to move as she scurried my way. “Mercy me, what a night. I don’t know how much more of this Sister and I can take.”

  “I’m so sorry about the Clif thing.”

  “Cliff? His name’s Willie, honey, and I’m not sorry one little bit he went and kicked the oxygen habit. He’s nothing but the south end of a northbound mule, no doubt about it. Sister and I might be crying up a storm on the outside, but inside our little old hearts are singing ‘Highway to Hell,’’cause that’s where Willie’s headed for swindling us like he did.”

  Annie Fritz cut her eyes side to side, then hiked up her long black dress, revealing pink flats with rhinestone bows. “We wore our party shoes for the occasion.” Her mouth dropped into a sad frown. “This is all my fault. I should have known better than to get mixed up with Willie Fishbine and his get-rich-quick scheme, but that’s what happens under the influence of bourbon balls and limoncello.”

  “Did you go to the police?”

  “The scam is getting gullible people like me and Sister to invest in a company that sells junk, and Willie made his money before the vitamins he peddled got proved to be junk. Then he just walked away and we had worthless stock certificates. Spring Chicken Miracle Capsules are perfectly legal, since who can say what constitutes a miracle? They just happened to be dried dandelion leaves, wheat, dried carrots, and aspirin, and that ‘spring in your step’ it claims to give you is from the terrible gas. Pricilla Day said it grew hair on her toes, but if you ask me, that woman’s always had hair on her toes and everywhere else if she bothered to look around. Can we say tweezers?” Annie Fritz snagged my teacup and, using her big floppy funeral hat like a sh
ield, plucked a tiny silver flask nestled in her ample cleavage and filled the cup to the brim. She tossed back the tea in one big gulp, the aroma of fine bourbon drifting my way.

  “But you can recoup, right? Your mourning business is doing well ever since you partnered up with Sleepy Pines in offering the Premium Woeful Weeping Package to residents.” I waved my hand at Willie. “Nice casket, nice flowers, lots of howling and sniveling—makes for one terrific funeral. What a deal.”

  “Except for the fact that lately folks at the Pines are now dropping like flies, and it’s looking like Sister and I have a pox upon us. I’m right nervous the Pines is going to dissolve our agreement. No one’s going to a place that’s a short stopover on the way to Bonaventure Cemetery.”

  “It’s just a glitch,” I soothed. “I bet there won’t be another termination at the Pines for months and months. No one else is looking poorly … right?”

  “And if they are here’s praying no one finds ’em,” Annie Fritz mumbled, then hurried on. “I need to be getting back and help Sister before she’s all warbled out. Good thing I baked a nice red velvet cake with double-chocolate icing to revive us when we get home. Nothing revives like cake, especially if there’s a hot toddy to go along with it.”

  Annie Fritz replaced the flask, trotted off, then stopped dead and turned back. “You’re not aiming to move, are you?”

  “Not as long as the windmill cookies hold out.”

  “With your getting engaged to Walker, it only makes sense that you’d live in his fine place over there on Madison Square. I suppose you could always find a storefront for the Prissy Fox and sell Cherry House, but I’d hate it if you did such a thing.”

  Annie Fritz swiped her eyes, and this time there were tears for real. “Sister and I would be sorely depressed to lose you and Bruce Willis as neighbors. He is a mighty fine pup, even if he does go burying his bones in my garden and do his business right there in the lilacs. I don’t know what your auntie and Sister and I would do without you two around to liven up the place.”