Lethal in Old Lace

by Duffy Brown

  “Me? Move?” I finally managed to croak out around the big lump sitting in my throat.

  “There’s another person in your life now. Fine man that Walker is, he’s got his own take on things, and now you got to consider what kind of ham the man wants to be serving up with the red-eye gravy on Christmas and what toothpaste you two are going to use. When my niece over there in Garden City got married, her husband liked that bubblegum-flavored stuff, and she had to put up with it for twenty years thinking she’d hurt his little ole feelings by switching.”

  Annie Fritz gave me a hug, then joined Elsie in a renewed belt of crying, and I felt like joining right in. Not because of Willie or using bubblegum toothpaste, but the thought of leaving Cherry House, named after the old gnarled cherry tree in the front yard, was a knife to the heart. I loved that tree. I loved my house. Okay, the windows should be updated and the front door didn’t close tight and the chimney was ready to slide right off the roof, but I’d done a lot of the repairs myself. With the help of YouTube, I’d put in a new bathroom and fixed holes in the walls and reinforced the joists. Before Cherry House, I’d thought a joist was another name for smoking weed. Cherry House was the only good thing to come out of my seven-year marriage to Hollis-the-Horrible, who had wanted to sell the place when we got divorced. I’d opened the Prissy Fox Consignment Shop on the first floor to keep my adorable money pit standing, and things had been going okay until lately. But sell? Move?

  “Cripes almighty, my feet are killing me,” Auntie KiKi grumped as she hobbled up to the table and poured tea. “My toes are squashed up in these new shoes like pickles jammed in a jar. That’s what I get for buying cute instead of going for sensible. I asked Elsie to give us a ride back to my Beemer, but she said her Caddy’s in the shop and they took a cab and … and, honey, you’re the saddest-looking person in the whole place. When I told you to look down in the mouth, I didn’t mean it had to last all night.”

  “I have to talk to Boone right now.”

  “That’s better.” KiKi gave me a sly wink. “I’m assuming that’s code for something a lot more fun than talking?”

  But it wasn’t code for anything. I was freaking out. With one failed marriage under my belt, the freaking came pretty easily.

  “Give Mamma a call to come get you,” I said to KiKi. “She’s filling in at night court for a judge friend, but she’s probably finished by now. You can talk about the wedding.”

  “Honey, this is your wedding, your day. You can have it any way you want, and we’ll be thrilled just to be in attendance.”

  “Really?”

  “Of course.”

  “I mean it’s not exactly the Summerside way to just sit on the sidelines. I want something simple. Just family will be prefect.” I kissed KiKi’s cheek and headed for the side door of the Slumber. The sisters’ faux sobbing drifted out the open windows as I circled around to the back. The alley wasn’t the most scenic route to Boone’s house, but it was more of a shortcut and, considering my present level of premarital angst over living arrangements and toothpaste, every minute counted.

  Grimy bulbs dangled from phone poles and over rear doors of businesses closed for the night. Loose gravel crunched underfoot and bits of broken glass sparkled in the dingy light. Heart pounding, I ran full out, then stopped dead, staring down the empty alley. What the heck was wrong with me? What was I thinking? Sure, I loved Cherry House, but I loved Boone so much more. I could sell my house and move into Boone’s big fancy house. It was pretty much unfurnished except for the ugliest dining room set on planet earth, left by the previous owners, who wouldn’t pay to move it. But the house was lovely and faced an amazing Savannah square, and Boone really liked his house.

  Here’s the thing. Boone had grown up dirt poor, had gone from member of the gang to member of the bar, and having a really nice house had probably been a dream. Boone deserved the dream. He deserved to live in his house. Could I do that for him? Sure! But the dining room set had to go.

  I hopped a puddle of something green and slimy, dodged a stack of wooden pallets, and spotted a white Caddy nearly as old as me. It was parked in the shadows, but I could still make out the pink tulips taped to the antenna and a WWJD sticker on the front bumper. There was only one Caddy in all Savannah like this, the sisters’, and this was the rear entrance to Soap Box Cleaners. Last time I’d checked, they didn’t repair cars, and who was that sitting in the back seat?

  I cupped my hand to the window. It was a woman in a blue hat. Sleeping? Maybe a street person catching a few Zs—except she looked kind of hunched over, and who could sleep like that … and … her eyes were open. No one slept sitting up with their eyes open, and what the heck was that running across my foot? I dropped Old Yeller and jumped.

  “Yikes!”

  Chapter Two

  Something gray with a skinny tail and beady eyes scurried right between my legs. Dead people and now rodents too! The syndrome was getting worse. My shoulder smacked against a green scummy dumpster, and the hugest roach in all of Christendom landed on my arm.

  Dead body and rat and ginormous bug. At times I could be kind of badass, but at this particular moment, huddled in a back alley, alone, I was totally wimpyass. I grabbed Yeller, swiped at my blouse, screamed like a two-year-old with an earache, and tore down the alley.

  Stepping in God-knows-what, I didn’t stop till I got to the streetlights on Abercorn. Panting and sweating and swearing like a sailor under my breath, I yanked off my blouse. When it came to bra versus bug, bug won out every time. I shook my blouse in the air and snapped it hard to dislodge anything with antennae and wiggly legs determined to hang on. If wiggly flew out and landed back on me again, I’d die right where I stood and they could just bury me under the stop sign.

  I held my blouse up to the light to check it out and got a round of applause from three guys across the street coming out of Wall’s Barbecue. I took a bow … what else is a girl to do, and, besides, I did just happen to have on my new pink lace push-up bra, though truth be told there wasn’t all that much to push up. With a little luck, no one had recognized me. Without luck, Mamma would be getting a phone call tonight saying her one and only was doing a striptease right out there in the open air.

  Promising God I’d get my behind to church on Sunday if he saved me from roaches, rodents, and dead people tonight, I shrugged back into my blouse. I gulped some air to calm myself down, then turned for Madison Square. I knew I should suck it up and go back into the alley and take another look at the Caddy, but I just didn’t have it in me to face her alone. Boone would go with me, but did I want to dump a dead body on him the very night we got engaged? How could I put this? I love being the future Mrs. Boone, and by the way, I found another body …

  Trying to figure out what to do, I headed for Boone’s stately gray Federalist that overlooked the park with William Jasper, resident Revolutionary War hero, standing guard in the middle. One light glowed from Boone’s upstairs window and one in the living room. For the first time in two weeks, Walker Boone was home legally. Illegally we’d run into each other in his pantry when we were hiding from the cops.

  The moon silhouetted hanging fern baskets that neighbors had obviously kept watered in Boone’s absence. Neighbor helping neighbor was the Savannah way. Blue-and-yellow pansies overflowed the two stone urns by the black front door complete with pineapple knocker, and Boone sat on the top wrought iron step. He held a beer in one hand and shared cookies with BW with the other.

  “You’re a dognapper,” I said, sitting down on the other side of Bruce Willis and giving his ears a scratch. “And you’re going to give BW jelly belly with this junk food, and his teeth are going to rot and fall out of his head.”

  Boone held up a cookie. “Doggy treats, the only thing left in my house to eat, and right now I’m too tired to be picky.” He picked up the bag and read, “‘Organic, low-fat, and contain no animal byproducts.’ That makes them the healthiest things I’ve eaten for a while.” He popped a cookie in
his mouth and added, “And the way I see it, there’s no dognapping. I own BW’s snout and tail after paying that vet bill, and the rest of him just followed along when I got him from your house. I figured you’d be at the wake a while. We came out to meet you.”

  I gave Boone a sideways glance and swallowed a groan. Not because he was eating dog food, but because he smelled really good and looked great. Droplets of shower clung to his dark hair so long it curled at the ends, and even though he had probably shaved fifteen minutes before, a forever scruff darkened his jawline. If he’d had on a fur coat and a Valyrian steel sword, he could’ve passed for Jon Snow. Game of Thrones fans, eat your heart out.

  “Friends at Wall’s give you a call?” I asked to distract myself from his jumpability.

  He held up his beer. “The boys say thanks.”

  I took a deep breath. “After we’re married, what do you think of me moving in here? I can sell Cherry House. But who’s going to cook dinner? That’s got to be you or we’ll have SpaghettiO surprise every night and we’ll get pasta butt and I really like your butt the way it is and what toothpaste are we going to use? That whitening stuff tastes like battery acid but brown teeth are gross and as for my blouse coming off tonight there was a bug on it and I saw a rat and I sort of found a dead body in a Caddy.”

  Boone threw back the beer and gulped. That he didn’t raise so much as one eyebrow when I threw in the Caddy comment was a clue as to how crazy my life was. “You like my butt?”

  “Every female east of the Mississippi likes your butt. There’s talk of putting it on a coin.”

  Boone gulped again. “Well, you can’t sell Cherry House because KiKi is next door, and if you move away she’ll beat me up. I’ll cook, and SpaghettiO surprise once in a while is okay by me. I’ll relocate my law office here to this place and you can pick the toothpaste.” He kissed me on the forehead. “I have no intention of waiting till we’re married to move in together—we’ve been apart long enough—and where exactly is this body?”

  “The Abbott sisters’ Caddy is parked in an alley, and there’s a lady, old best I could tell, in the back seat sleeping with her eyes open, so that kind of means she’s … dead. What if somebody else finds the car and the body and calls the cops? Isn’t there a law about hauling around dead people? Annie Fritz and Elsie can’t go to jail; they taught my catechism classes and got me ready for my First Communion, and now they’re my friends and they’re going to be your friends.”

  Boone dropped his arms around me, pulling me close, the heat from his body making me feel warm and safe and all mushy inside. “We got the house and toothpaste thing covered. The body thing might take some doing, but we’ll figure it out.”

  My gaze met Boone’s. “You said you’d do the cooking, so how do you feel about us planting a nice big six-feet-deep garden this year?”

  * * *

  “It’s … it’s gone,” I said to Boone as the three of us—Boone, me, and BW—pulled up behind Soap Box Cleaners in the alley. I jabbed my finger at the shadowy spot where the Caddy-plus-dead-person had been parked. “It was right there.”

  I noticed that Boone’s eyes didn’t sparkle quite as much as usual and he looked worn and tired to the bone. Running from cops, killers, and estranged relatives takes it out of a guy no matter how tough he is. And now that I thought about it, there was the fact that Boone had just gotten out of one mess and didn’t need to get mixed up in another if he intended to keep his law practice in good standing. “You know, maybe it was the sisters’ laundry in the back seat. This is the Soap Box Cleaners after all.” I smacked my palm against my forehead. “What was I thinking?”

  “You’re thinking you saw a body.”

  “Well, maybe not.” Before Boone could press the issue, I slipped my arm through his and steered him back down the alley, adding quickly, “Look, we caught a killer today, nearly got killed ourselves, and last but not least and the best part of my life ever, we got engaged. Maybe we should just leave it at that.”

  “Sweet thing, laundry doesn’t look like a dead person.”

  I snuggled close. “Or maybe it was a…” Think, Reagan, think. “… a reflection in the window. The lighting back here sucks, and even though it’s late, I bet Zunzi’s will deliver a Conquistador sandwich right to your doorstep if you talk sweet to Angie Mae. And”—I needed to up the ante—“if you mention there’s no food in your house and you’re eating canine kibble, I just bet Angie Mae will throw in extra fries and slaw. How does that sound? Pretty good, huh? Better than a Caddy in an alley for sure, but just be sure Angie Mae and her short-shorts don’t throw anything else your way, got it?” I held Boone’s hand tight. “You’re almost a married man now.”

  Boone stopped next to a telephone pole, moths and bugs swarming around the light over our heads. “You’re not coming back to the house with me? Who’s going to defend me against Angie Mae?”

  I handed him the leash. “You need sleep.”

  “I was thinking we’d do that together.” Boone wagged his brows.

  I was beyond excited about being engaged to Boone, and my feet hadn’t touched the ground since he’d asked me to marry him, but Elsie and Annie Fritz needed help. A body in a car wasn’t something I could put off a day or two. I needed to find the Caddy and figure out what the heck was going on before the cops got involved.

  “I need to stop by Mamma’s and tell her we’re engaged.”

  “It’s Savannah, the land of dishing-the-dirt and all things fried. She knows.”

  “Yeah, but she should hear it from me or she’ll have hurt feelings and for the next twenty years I’ll hear about how I didn’t tell her myself. Do you know how long twenty years of guilt from Mamma can be? And she’ll want to talk about wedding dresses, venues, flowers, churches, bridesmaids, wedding colors. I was thinking sage green and cream, by the way. What do you think?”

  Boone’s look of splendor-in-the-sack gave way to deer-in-the-headlights. Nothing turned a guy off more than wedding colors and flowers. “Big wedding?”

  “Maybe.” A very distant maybe, so it wasn’t a lie, and I really did need to tell Mamma. Not that I hadn’t lied to Boone before. Heck, I did it all the time to keep him out of my hair, but now that we were permanently and forever in each other’s hair, lying was a big no-no.

  “Think I’ll get that sandwich.” Boone gave me a kiss, a really good kiss that I didn’t want to end.

  “And for the record,” I said, our hands together holding the leash. “I really, really like being your fiancée.”

  Hating every minute of it, I watched the two guys in my life walk away, then took a deep breath and headed for York Street and Mamma’s house. I’d give her the good news on the engagement and then somehow make a quick getaway. I had to find that Caddy and have a little come-to-Jesus meeting with the sisters about their part in all this.

  I passed Columbia Square and the Davenport House, the first house to be saved by the Historic Savannah Preservation. These were a group of steel magnolias hell-bent on keeping the best of Savannah from the wrecking ball, thank you very much. The mansion was a museum now, the only permanent residents being a hundred-year-old tabby cat and a little girl who refused to leave, much to the delight of the operators of the local ghost tours.

  I cut across Oglethorpe Square, the fountain gurgling merrily in the center, then Wright Square with a canine watering fountain—how cute is that! Mamma’s cottage was just ahead, surrounded by a white picket fence I’d painted more times than I wanted to remember. The house had been built for General William Hardee and still had three musket balls embedded in the living room ceiling. Talk about a great conversation piece.

  “Hi, Mamma,” I said when she opened the front door, the light from the entrance hallway spilling out onto the porch. “Boone and I are engaged; isn’t that great? I’m really tired and I need to get home, and I’ll stop by tomorrow and we can chat over coffee, and—”

  Mamma yanked me inside and, without a word, led me into the kitch
en done up in yellow and white with pink lilacs fresh from the garden sitting on the counter. She shoved a glass in my hand and held up her own. “And here’s to keeping you two engaged and staying married for a long, long time.” Mamma downed her glass in one gulp. She smacked her lips and added another splash. “KiKi and I stopped by the church and lit three candles to enhance your chances. We’ll start a novena in the morning.”

  “This is apple juice, and why don’t you think Boone and I are going to last? I thought you liked Boone. You even paid his way through law school.”

  “The juice is to keep a clear head, and of course I love Walker. He’s the son I never had, and I love you.” Mamma finished her splash and took the glass from my hand, downed the contents, and thumped the glass on the round oak table where the two of us had shared meals and talked my whole life.

  “But the thing is, dear,” Mamma went on, “you and Walker are not exactly the dental-hygienist-and-accountant sort of couple. You’re more mayhem super-sized than marital bliss.”

  “Hey, we’re the lawyer and the shop girl. That’s pretty close to hygienist and accountant.”

  “What about all the bodies you come across and killers on the loose and one or both of you right in the thick of things? ‘Till death do us part’ takes on a whole new meaning with you and Walker. Who’s dead isn’t specified. I can’t bear the thought of you two breaking up.”

  “We just got together!”

  Mamma let out a resigned sigh. “In case you didn’t get the memo, Walker doesn’t cotton to you chasing after the bad guys, and you don’t take kindly to being told what to do and … and…” Mamma took a step back, looking me over, her eyes widening. “Oh, sweet mother,” she said in a strangled voice. “You’re flipping your hair and your eye’s twitching. You’re nervous as a pea on a drum. I know this look, Reagan. You got something going on right now. Is it a live something or a dead one?”

  Mamma pinched the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes. “You’ve only been engaged three hours. How in the world does this keep happening to you? Normal people don’t have bodies popping up in their lives like this except for that Jessica Fletcher woman in Cabot Cove. I can’t understand why anyone in their right mind would want to be her friend. They all wind up dead, and now you’re getting to be the same way.”