by Duffy Brown
I got to the sidewalk, rummaged around in Old Yeller for the flip, and hit speed dial 1.
“What did Hollis do now?” came Boone’s voice on the other end.
“Dex isn’t the killer. He was with Hollis driving around Georgia trying to see who he could swindle next when Willie and Bonnie Sue bit the collective big one. I guess he could have rented a car, driven back at night, and knocked off Willie then Bonnie Sue, but that’s two trips back and forth, no sleep, and it seems pretty far-fetched.”
“He could have paid someone.”
“That would cost him, and we know he’s operating on a shoestring. Mother of pearl, how could I be so wrong about this guy? I thought he was such a creep that knocking off old people for money fit him to a tee. Maybe he’s not that bad and will marry Eugenia. Tell me you found something out on your end. I need good news.”
“Well, your mother and KiKi just put fifty bucks on old dead-eye whoever-that-is, and they’re making plans to go visit the gym shoe guys.”
“You have got to be kidding.”
“Sweet thing, I don’t have enough imagination to make this stuff up.”
“See you later, alligator.” I disconnected
Walking on autopilot, I headed for home. So now who was the killer, and how could I tell Elsie and Annie Fritz things were not going well? They were counting on me. I was counting on me. Maybe the gym shoe hunt would turn up who these guys were, or maybe Anna and Bella had knocked off Willie and Bonnie Sue? The two openings at the Pines just when the gold diggers needed them most really did seem too good to be true. And what about Arnett? She needed daddy’s money, and the only way she was going to get it in a timely fashion was to take action. Maybe Arnett, having no intention of sharing the loot with Bonnie Sue, had just gotten rid of her too.
So far the Abbott sisters still had top billing for knocking off Bonnie Sue with her being found in their garden and the tassel pillow in the car. The good thing was that they had no motive to knock off Bonnie Sue. When it came to Willie, the sisters had mucho motive, but so did others, thank heavens. That there was no smoking gun that tied the sisters to Willie’s murder helped a ton. Anyone could have served him peanuts, though there were none in his stomach.
The police still thought Willie’s death was down to natural causes, so at the moment I knew more about Willie and Bonnie Sue’s deaths than Aldeen did, and that gave me time to find the killer. I just hoped this was a really long moment, since my number one suspect had just alibied out.
“Thank you kindly for the money in the envelope you left for us,” Elsie said as I came in the door at the Prissy Fox. “It’ll come in handy.” She clasped her hands together and giggled. “Now you have to tell Sister and me all about the wedding dress.”
“It’s lovely,” I sniffed. “Mamma took pictures, but you’re sworn to secrecy.” I walked behind the counter and kissed Elsie on the cheek, then Annie Fritz.
“Whoa,” Elsie said, holding her hands up as if in surrender. “What’s gone wrong, honey?”
“Nothing.” I forced a smile. I was doing a lot of that lately. I couldn’t tell these two lovely ladies how desperate things were. Why worry them when I was worried enough for all three of us? “I’m just getting sentimental about the wedding is all.” But unless I got lucky, the only way Elsie and Annie Fritz would see the wedding was on Instagram.
“Well, that is understandable, with marrying a lovely man like Walker and having the affair at your auntie’s house,” Elsie said. “And Sister and I have some great cake ideas. I know you said red velvet, but we’ll set up a little tasting so you and Walker can decide what flavor suits you. You just might change your mind. Brides have the right to do that, you know.”
“And we got our eye out for the perfect cake topper,” Annie Fritz added. “But right now we’re headed off to Narobia’s Grits and Gravy for another fan appearance. Seems everyone wants to hear about us and the body in the garden. And business sure is good when we’re here at the Fox. We’re thinking you should put our pictures on one of those bus benches, something like ‘Sisters … saints or sinners? Come see at the Prissy Fox.’”
“Aldeen Ross would have a canary.”
“Honey, Aldeen Ross would rather have the coroner.” Elsie and Annie Fritz laughed all the way out the door and my heart sank. Who was the blasted killer?
Business was good, taking my mind off the Dexter fiasco. Another mannequin for display would be great; a charge card machine would be terrific, or even one of those things you hitch onto your phone that takes credit cards. Of course, that meant an expensive iPhone, and right now that was not in the cards. This was my first week doing well financially and I needed a few more before considering a phone upgrade. And besides, I didn’t want to give my flip an inferiority complex.
I took in a cute pair of yellow sandals, white denim capris with rhinestones on the cuff that I loved, and a navy-blue polka dot rain jacket that would look adorable on Mamma.
“We got a problem,” Mercedes panted as she stumbled into the Fox. “And, yes, it needs to be on a T-shirt, I get it.”
“You could have called. I have a phone, remember?”
“Girl, this is way beyond a phone conversation.” Mercedes cut her eyes side to side to see if the customers were listening, then whispered, “Grab your purse and get the keys. You know that certain someone cooling his heels in KiKi’s garage as we speak? His presence is needed back at the Slumber right now! Aldeen Ross is on a hunt for Willie Fishbine!”
Chapter Seventeen
“We can’t drive a Beemer down Broad Street in the middle of the day with a casket sticking out the back, and what’s going on?” I said to Mercedes. “Why in the heck does Aldeen want Willie now?” I smacked my hand on the counter. “I know why. Willie Junior went to the police pitching a fit again that his granddaddy was murdered and they finally listened to the boy. That and the fact that Annie Fritz just happened to mention that Willie was involved in a scam and she was taken to the cleaners by the old goat might have spurred Aldeen’s sudden interest just a bit.”
“Sweet goodness, you think!” Mercedes came to the other side of the checkout counter. “Now Willie’s death is looking suspicious and Aldeen’s got a right to exhume. Seems she contacted Bonaventure; Bonaventure said ‘What body?’ and called the Slumber. The secretary freaked out, started to call Dexter, who happens to be out of the office. She has a hot date, so I told her I’d look into this mess. But unless we kidnap Aldeen Ross or she’s abducted by aliens, she’s going to come looking for Willie and that’s bound to lead her right to us. There are not that many people interested in these murders, and we are definitely at the top of that list.”
“It’s getting late, going on dinner time. There’s a good chance Aldeen will wait till tomorrow and we can do our magic tonight and make Willie reappear.”
“It’s just a little after four and Aldeen’s on a diet, so forget dinner. Right now she’s more dog with a bone, and the bone’s missing and she’s got to be wondering why and most of all how.”
Think, Reagan, think! “We need something to distract Ross. She needs a new focus. How well do you know the coroner? Can you get him to do you a favor, a really big favor, like ask Aldeen out on a date tonight? Tell him we’ll pay.”
“We?”
“Tell him it’s Be Kind to a Detective Week and … and taking her to dinner would make her really happy, and a happy detective is good for everyone and … and I don’t know, just promise him anything else you can think of.”
“Our distraction is a coroner?” Mercedes rolled her eyes, then pulled out her phone.
“You have him in your address book?”
“We’re in the same business. He finds ’em, I fix ’em.”
Mercedes hustled out the door and onto the porch as a customer came up to check out. I kept one eye out the display window watching Mercedes pace back and forth and one eye on my sale pad as I wrote up two pairs of jeans and a blue paisley blouse. Mercedes laughed, then looked serious, then lau
ghed again. She came in as the customer left.
“Okay, we’re on, he’ll do it. And he wants to be in the wedding.”
“Invited?”
“Wedding party. You said promise him anything. He likes Walker, and with him being new in town, he thinks being in the wedding will be fun and a good way to meet people that talk back to him. He’s got a sense of humor.”
“I got a funny coroner in my wedding party?”
“Better than a bun in your oven.”
“Not according to my mother. Meet me back here at nine. I’ll get the spare keys for the Beemer, but we need muscle to move the coffin. When we were at the Slumber, we could just roll the thing and push it into the trunk. Now we got to haul it and get it out of the trunk. I’d ask Boone, but transport of a body in a Beemer is probably against some kind of law and he’s an attorney and that’s a no-no. I’ll think of something. Hey, we got this far, didn’t we? We’re on roll.”
“On a roll to where?” Boone came in the door, balancing two grocery bags.
Mercedes folded her arms and hitched her hip onto the counter. “This explanation I gotta hear.”
I gave Mercedes an evil look that didn’t make her budge one inch, then turned to Boone. “You know how you liked that coroner guy? Well, he’s now in the wedding party. I needed him to ask Aldeen Ross out on a date tonight, and being in the wedding party was part of the bribe. He’s got a sense of humor, so that’s nice, right? And remember that client–attorney confidentiality thing you have going on? Well, maybe this time we could go for a what-you-don’t-know-can’t-hurt-you confidentiality. Sometimes being in the dark isn’t all bad. You could be asked questions it would be best you didn’t know the answers to.
“I’ll take my chances.”
I took a deep breath. “Think of this as part two of part one. Aldeen is looking for that certain guy I told you about who’s chilling out in Auntie KiKi’s Beemer. Many think he’s supposed to be in a certain cemetery, but when he turned up MIA, that certain cemetery called the funeral home wondering what the heck’s going on. Someone needs to get MIA back where he belongs before Aldeen sends out a search party and certain people wind up in deep doo-doo. The names have been changed to protect the guilty and to keep you out of this mess as much as possible.”
“I appreciate that, but your mess is my mess.” Boone kissed me on the forehead. “Maybe the MIA guy simply got lost in that certain cemetery. The place is big, there’re coffins everywhere, it’s pretty much coffin central. Most are encased in concrete with angels and the like on top, but it doesn’t mean they all have to be. Things do go missing or get misplaced and then suddenly they’re found. It happens.”
“You mean—”
“I mean I’m going to fix dinner and then work on the attic tonight so we can get the expansion going and not live in sawdust and plaster for the rest of our lives. That leaves you to maybe … wash your hair.”
“I can wash my hair.”
“And I bet Big Joey would like to help you wash your hair. Sometimes hair can be hard to manage and heavy. You’ll need help with the heavy.” Boone held up the grocery bag. “How does stir-fry shrimp and salad sound? It should be dark, really dark, when you wash your hair, so you have time to eat now.” He turned to Mercedes. “Hang around; there’s enough for three.”
Boone walked off toward the kitchen, Mercedes watching as he went. “Dibs.”
“Too late, honey; he’s all mine.”
* * *
A crescent moon slipped behind the clouds, the only sounds crickets and birds without enough sense to be asleep at midnight. I killed the Beemer headlights and Mercedes, Mamma, Auntie KiKi, and I stared at the stone entrance to Bonaventure Cemetery, black iron gates chained together and padlocked shut. During the day and evening the historic place was crazy with tourists and guides and buses and snapping cameras. In the dead of night it was, well … dead.
“You shouldn’t be here,” I said to Mamma, sitting in the back seat. “What if we get caught? You’re a judge. You could get … de-judged.”
“I’ll plead temporary insanity. With a casket in the trunk, it won’t be a hard sell, and you should thank your lucky stars KiKi and I volunteered to help. How did you and Mercedes plan on getting Willie out of the trunk with Big Joey and his muscles tied up at a nephew’s bar mitzvah?”
“How was I supposed to know about the bar mitzvah? It’s not exactly a seventeenth gang ritual now is it.” I heaved a sigh. “All I wanted was for you to bring me the Beemer keys ’cause I couldn’t find the spare set over at Rose Gate. I didn’t expect you both to show up on my doorstep and wind up here.”
“Beats reruns of Mash, and Mr. Jim ran out of martini olives. What’s a girl to do for the rest of the night?” Auntie KiKi turned in her seat, facing us all. “So now that we’re here and procrastinating, who’s going to get out of this nice cozy comfy car and open that gate? Big Joey said he’d get it unlocked for us, so my guess is he did. We need a volunteer from the audience.”
We all looked at Mercedes.
“Why me?”
“You’re used to dead people,” KiKi added.
“In the Peaceful Pasture room at the Slumber, not … here.” Mercedes twirled one of her curls around her finger. “Fine. It’s always the pretty sexy girl that gets eaten by the zombies first, so I guess I fit the bill.”
Mercedes unclicked her seat belt and put one foot out the door as if stepping on eggs. She switched her phone to flashlight and crept to the gates, pulled on the lock, which gave way, then threaded the chain back through the grating, the scraping of metal on metal giving me the chills, Mamma and KiKi rubbing their arms as well. Mercedes swung the right gate open, the creaking loud against the eerie quiet. She waved us through. I started up, our tires crunching the gravel as we inched along. Mercedes closed the gate, then hopped back in the car and slammed the door shut. We all exhaled in one big whoosh, Mamma, KiKi, and I applauding.
“Sweet mother, this is one scary place,” Mercedes said, her voice shaky. “We need to get Willie dumped right quick before something happens that we don’t want to happen, and around here at this time of night anything can happen.”
Headlights doused, I crept along under aged trees and low-hanging moss floating in the breeze. Moonlight slipped through here and there, reflecting off white marble tombstones, benches, and statues. Little rusted iron fences marked the perimeter of old family plots with mossy urns and benches.
“I believe that there’s Miss Marguerite Laveau’s grave,” Mercedes whispered into the dark. A few bottles of top-shelf rum lay at the base beside baskets of fresh eggplant, candles flickering in the darkness, and a clay bowl no doubt filled with money. Without saying a word, we all bowed our heads and made the sign of the cross.
“My mamma once said,” Mercedes went on in a hushed voice, “that her no-good great-uncle Louie stole five dollars from Marguerite’s grave and dropped dead before he reached the gates.”
“I heard his body was withered clear through to the bone right there on the spot,” Mamma added. We all made the sign of the cross again. Everyone in Savannah knew that if you needed help with finances, love, or family matters, you went to Marguerite, and no one ever messed with the voodoo queen, alive or dead.
“Up ahead looks good enough.” Auntie KiKi pointed to a crypt flanked by large columns and a weeping angel. I pulled to a stop, killed the engine, and we got out next to two purple rhododendrons in full bloom, the quiet seeping into our bones. “This is a fine place for a coffin to go missing. It’s hidden, not too hidden, it comes with flowers, and I already said one prayer for Willie so he’s good to go.”
“We got to get permission,” Mercedes said. “This time it’s not for Willie but whoever this here spot belongs to ’cause it sure doesn’t belong to us. Unless you all want to end up like great-uncle Louie, we need to keep the calm around here.”
Using the flashlight, Mercedes located the name chiseled on the gravestone. She stepped back and we joined hand
s. “Monroe Raleigh,” Mercedes said. “We ask you kindly to let Willie Fishbine park here for a spell till he gets claimed for his own resting spot. And we are mighty sorry indeed to burden you with this lousy scumbag, but with a little luck the police will be here tomorrow to claim his worthless hide and get the miscreant creep out of your way.”
Auntie KiKi stared at Mercedes. “That didn’t sound too calming to me.”
“The truth is the truth, dead or alive, and lying to Monroe wouldn’t be right. Now who’s got twenty bucks on ’em?”
KiKi pulled bills from her skirt pocket. “I was putting another fifty on Dead-Eye to knock off Sharpshooter. It’s a long story.” She cut her eyes to Mercedes. “So now you’re paying the dead?”
“’Course not.” Mercedes winked and slid the fifty into her cleavage. “You’re paying me for saving you all since you didn’t have enough good sense to do it yourselves. Now let’s ditch Willie and skedaddle.”
I crawled into the back of the Beemer, dropped the seat, brace against the front seat and put my feet to the coffin. Then I pushed.
“He’s a comin’,” Mercedes grunted. “We’re pulling on this end best we can. Sure weighs a ton for such a little guy.” The box slid forward, teetered on the edge of the trunk, then tipped onto the ground, still leaning against the Beemer.
“Willie’s standing on his head.” Auntie KiKi called to me. “Bet he hasn’t done that in a while. We’ll hold the feet end and you pull forward. If we scratch the back of the car, Putter will ask questions and I sure don’t want to try and explain to the man how they got there.”
I shimmied into the driver’s seat, turned over the engine, moved ahead, and heard the coffin drop to the ground with a solid thunk.
“Rub off the fingerprints,” I yelled back to my partners in crime. I raced around, took off my jacket, and helped rub, getting rid of any lingering evidence. We all stood back and KiKi pressed the button on the trunk to close it down. “Good enough.”
“What are you doing here, and what’s good enough?” came a voice behind us.