by Duffy Brown
“Here,” Boone said holding up a front page of the Savannah Times. He pointed to Dinah with Baxter and Trellie Armstrong, smiling, holding drinks, looking very important.
“That’s the earring!” I said, grabbing the paper right out of Boone’s hand. I stood and did a yippee dance right there in the closet with Mr. Lawyer looking on as if I’d lost my mind. “We got her!” I threw my arms around Boone in a bear hug, realized what I was doing, and jumped back.
The corner of his mouth turned up in a slight smile. “You need to get out more.”
“I get out plenty. What do we do now?” I said all breathless and exited. Finding that picture made me happier than I’d been in ages.
“I take the picture from the crime scene and the newspaper and go to the police, they get a search warrant, and you go home.”
“Yeah, right.”
We left his office together. Boone cranked up his Chevy and headed for the police station, and I hustled back to the Marshall House. I took a seat at the bar with a clear view of the double-glass entrance doors, the beautiful walnut check–in desk, and the winding stairway that General R. E. Lee supposedly took a time or two. With five bucks in my pocket, I ordered water.
Twenty minutes later, two uniformed police and Detective Aldeen Ross came in, Boone behind them. Ross flashed her badge and the warrant at the manager in a black suit, blue shirt, and yellow silk tie. Together the little party trooped up the circular stairway.
Boone spotted me. “That went pretty smoothly,” I said to him when he took a stool next to mine.
“This is a nice place, but it’s not the first time the Marshall House has seen a search warrant.” Boone ordered a beer, and KiKi and Dinah Corwin came through the front door. KiKi mouthed, “What’s going on?” behind Dinah’s back, as Dinah said, “Well, I’ll be. Here you two are together in the middle of the day. I think you’re sweet on each other.”
Dinah whispered to me, “But you really need to fix yourself up a little, honey. Walker here is a real catch, and you’re looking kind of frumpy these days, if you don’t mind me saying so.”
Ross and two uniforms hustled down the stairs. Ross stopped when she spotted Dinah in the bar and pulled herself up to all of her five feet two inches. “Dinah Corwin,” Ross said as she came our way. “You are under arrest for the murder of Janelle Claiborne.”
“What?” Dinah looked ready to faint, and everyone within earshot stopped to take in the show. “You have the murderer!” Dinah declared.
Ross held up a plastic baggie thing that held the incriminating earring, and the Gucci bag.
“I didn’t kill Janelle,” Dinah said, her voice breaking. “She was already dead when I got to the house. I wanted to talk about the rumors she’d been spreading about me and tell her to stop. I might have done a little dance when I saw her beady little eyes staring straight up at me, and I took the purse, which was mine all along. Then I ran out. Well, I sort of skipped out, but I didn’t kill her. I swear I didn’t.” She looked at Boone. “Can you help me?”
“Yes. Don’t say anything more.”
The police read the entire “can and will be used against you” mantra, then led Dinah out of the Marshall House in handcuffs.
“You’re going to defend her?” I asked Boone. He tossed beer money on the bar.
“Why not? I sure didn’t make much off you.”
“This time you didn’t make much. What about last time?”
“Yeah, there was last time. I’ll get the paperwork going for Hollis. He should be out by tonight.”
Boone left, and the rest of the hotel staff and guests switched gears back into a normal routine. KiKi hugged me tight enough to impede breathing. “That’s it, honey,” she cooed. “It’s over. Lord be praised, you did it.”
KiKi took Boone’s stool and ordered us vodka martinis with blue-cheese-stuffed olives. “Now this is the way to begin a day.”
I started in on the olives. KiKi started in on the martinis and asked me, “Why aren’t you dancing on the tables?”
“Dinah looked totally distraught when Ross arrested her, not like someone who had killed and was glad that person was dead because she had it coming.”
“Dinah was upset because she got caught. She thought she’d get away with it.”
“Dinah and I had no use for Janelle, to be sure, but we’d both moved on, or so I thought. Why would Dinah risk that by killing Cupcake?”
“Because of Cupcake, Dinah couldn’t get interviews, and she’d had enough of her; that’s my take on this.” KiKi finished off her martini and started on mine. “What are you thinking, honey?”
“I can’t see Dinah pulling me into that alley, or breaking my window, or poisoning BW. I mean, why would she do those things?”
“I think there’s two parts here,” KiKi said, giving her martini-induced theory of the situation. “Yes, Dinah killed Cupcake for her own reasons, but when you went looking for the murderer, you got into a lot of people’s business. The people Cupcake blackmailed got antsy you’d find out who they were and expose them and their secrets. They wanted you to stop, and scaring you is a good way to do that.”
“I can’t see Raylene or Urston breaking into my house.”
KiKi held up a toothpick speared though an olive. “That sounds more like Sissy, if you ask me. Cupcake was out of the picture, Hollis in jail, and Sissy thought everything would die down and she and Franklin would go on with their hanky-panky. Then you came along, stirring the pot and riling everyone up again.”
“That makes sense.”
“Of course it makes sense. After a martini everything makes sense. Relaxes the brain, lets the little gray cells breathe free and unencumbered by problems.”
KiKi finished off the second brain relaxer, and this time handed me the empty glass and keys to the Beemer, then caught a cab home. She needed to get back for a cha-cha lesson that promised to be very interesting with two martinis under her belt before noon. I wanted to tell Mamma about Dinah and find out if the running for alderman rumors were true. But instead of heading for the courthouse, I blew my last five bucks on milk and cereal and made a detour to East Macon. I parked in front of Hollis’s town house. After a week in jail, having breakfast tomorrow in his own place had to be the next best thing to paradise. I was in a good mood, and I could afford to share a little paradise, even with my ex.
I put the milk in the fridge and dumped water on the plants like Conway said, except I dumped too much too fast, with dirt spilling down the side, leaving a muddy trail. I cleaned up the mess, fluffed up the dirt to even out the top, and noticed something sticking out where the dirt had been. It looked like the corner of one of those baggies Detective Ross used to protect Dinah’s earring and purse. I slowly tugged on the corner, the bag sliding out of the dirt. There were papers inside.
My heart kicked up a notch, and my hands shook as I brushed off the potting soil and unzipped the top. There were pictures of Sissy and Franklin coming out of the back entrance of the Hampton Inn; Raylene paying Urston; Raimondo with his blond-haired family visiting Savannah; and Baxter with a woman who was probably his ex–wife in Atlanta.
There were names, bank-account numbers, and PINs. Welcome to the twenty-first-century method of blackmail: direct deposit. No clandestine meetings, no opening suitcases and counting cash in the back alley. More important, there were no other names on the list, meaning there were no other suspects, and everyone on this list had an alibi. I’d had a few niggling doubts about Dinah doing the deed, mostly because I liked her, but this tied everything into a neat little package. Tomorrow I’d give everyone on the list his or her information. Case closed.
I felt the universe shift into place, peace settle into my bones. I had my life back, my house back, and I had a dog. What more could a girl want?
It was three when I returned to Cherry House after visiting Mamma. She was running for alderman all right, proven by the campaign button she pinned on my yellow Savannah shirt. I walked into the Fox, and
KiKi, AnnieFritz, and Elsie threw confetti at me and blew silver noisemakers left over from New Year’s. Bruce Willis barked and ran around in circles.
“Oh, honey,” AnnieFritz gushed. “KiKi told us everything. We’ve been on the phone for the last hour spreading the word how you connected Dinah Corwin to the earring at the crime scene. Glory be, you are the berries.”
“And that I won you a boatload of cash doesn’t hurt,” I added.
“There is that,” Elsie said and snatched up her purse. “Tomorrow night we’ll have a nice supper, my treat. Right now we got to get ourselves ready for the Steller funeral. It’s going to be a whopper. Clyde Steller was president of the Oglethorpe Society for years, and then he made that hole–in–one out at the club back in 2001. Hard to tell which will bring in the most viewers.”
KiKi gave me another hug. “After the wake I’m meeting Putter out at the club. He’s taking me dancing, which means he bought another expensive golf club while in Atlanta and is feeling guilty as sin about it. I have such a good time when Putter’s got a bad case of guilt.” KiKi followed the sisters out the back door, and I went and got the broom for the confetti.
“Good news,” I said to BW as I tried to sweep up pieces of plastic confetti that stuck to everything like little magnets. “We’re not relocating.”
I finished straightening, then very quietly opened the fridge to check the dinner menu, knowing that if he heard me, BW would come charging in and not leave till he got his hot dog handout. Some dogs responded to a whistle; for Bruce Willis, it was the fridge. He was all guy. If I still had a TV, BW would probably have a remote taped to his paw.
I cooked up two dogs and SpaghettiOs, and we dined al fresco on the front porch with the cherry tree in full bloom and a half moon hanging over the spire of Saint John’s. Hollis called to say he’d stop by around nine to pick up his keys and cell phone and that the crime-scene people finished processing the Lexus so it was ready to go.
I locked the front door, and BW fell asleep behind the counter. I put the day’s take into the Rocky-Road carton, then dumped my purse on the counter to pull out Hollis’s wallet, key ring, and the new key to the town house. I slipped the new key on the ring next his Lexus key. For a second I wondered how Hollis would get the Lexus home with me having his keys here till I remembered the Lexus was hauled off by the police, my key still in the ignition.
Except it wasn’t really my key that was in the ignition, of course, it was Hollis’s key. I was tired, not thinking straight, but this wasn’t right either. I’d sold the fountain to Raylene, needed the Lexus for the delivery, and IdaMae had given me Hollis’s key. But she couldn’t have, because here it was, right in front of me on his key ring.
There were two keys to the Lexus. Hollis had one, and the other key I gave to Cupcake. I remember watching her snatching my keys and dropping it in her Gucci bag before picking up my chiffon dress.
If I had Hollis’s key here in my hand, it had to be Cupcake’s key at the station. IdaMae didn’t give me Hollis’s key; she gave me Cupcake’s key, and the only way she could have done that was if she had taken it from Cupcake’s Gucci purse the night she was murdered.
A chill snaked up my spine, and I felt lightheaded. Dinah Corwin didn’t kill Cupcake. Dear God, IdaMae killed Cupcake!
I gasped at the realization and dropped the keys on the counter. My head snapped up, my gaze fusing with IdaMae’s, who was staring at me through the kitchen window. She should be home, having tea, petting Buttercup, going to the library. She didn’t go to the library the night Janelle was killed; she went to the “For Sale” house and killed her! I lunged for the kitchen door to lock it, but IdaMae was faster. Her two hundred pounds shoved against the door hard, knocking me backward. Her eyes were dark, threatening. Her lips were thin and set in a straight line. There was no trace of a proper belle anywhere. Good God, she looked like she came from Chicago! She locked the door behind her and took Hollis’s .38 from her pocket.
“Why couldn’t you just leave things be?”
Chapter Twenty
“YOU should have let Hollis rot in jail,” IdaMae said to me in an angry voice I didn’t recognize. “He cheated on you, divorced you, treated you bad.”
“Rot in jail? Hollis was going to sell this house to pay legal fees. I worked my behind off to fix it up. I redid the entire upstairs, including the bathroom, by myself. It’s Irish cream and celery green; let me show you.” I was scared and babbling.
“Stay right where you are, and don’t move.” IdaMae waved the gun, then picked up the key ring I’d dropped on the counter. “Everything was fine till Hollis put this in your purse. My plan was for him to give me the keys when he got arrested, not you. I was supposed to be there when the police came, not you. You hadn’t been to the office in months.”
“You weren’t upset over Hollis getting arrested. You were upset because he gave me the keys. You wanted to water Hollis’s plants so I wouldn’t use his keys and maybe spot the Lexus key. It’s all about the keys. You dragged me into the alley to get at my purse, and you broke in here looking for it.”
“I tried everything to get these keys,” IdaMae snarled. “After the break–in at the town house, I had the locks changed. I wasn’t worried after that, till Dinah got arrested.” IdaMae wagged her head. “Hollis would be let out of jail and coming to get his things. I knew you’d put it all together.” She bit her bottom lip. “I just knew you would. I even told you that lie about going to the library the night Janelle died. Why couldn’t you just run your store and be content with that?”
“Why frame Hollis? He’s family. How could you?”
“He chose her over me.” IdaMae’s eyes sparked with rage. “He was going to fire me. Janelle wanted to take over the office and wanted me gone. Hollis was going to do it; she told me so that night at the house. I offered her cash to leave Savannah. She laughed at me, said she had a lot of pigeons here. She knew dirty little secrets. Reverend Franklin was good to my mamma when she was at the nursing home. I wasn’t going to let that two-bit hussy do such a thing to that fine man. She was mean and hateful, and Hollis was no better.”
Her voice cracked and a tear trickled down her cheek, followed by another. “How could Hollis up and fire me after all these years? This here is the South. We don’t treat family that way in Savannah.”
“Hollis was blinded by love, honey.” And IdaMae was blinded by hate and revenge. They all needed therapy.
“Janelle and Hollis had it coming,” IdaMae declared. “I wrapped that little witch in the plastic, knew she had your Lexus key because she’d been driving that fancy car the day before. I got the Lexus after I bashed in Janelle, and when I came back, her purse was gone. Someone had been at the house. I was worried at first, but no one said anything. I figured whoever took that purse was glad Janelle was dead. She was a mean, hateful woman. He was poison for you, Reagan. Pure poison for us all.”
Poison. The word bounced around in my brain. “You tried to kill Bruce Willis. You’re the one who fed him the chocolate. You even have it on your desk. That’s why he liked you so much when you came shopping here at the Fox. He never did anything to you. He’s just a sweet dog.”
“He’s a mutt. He’s just like Janelle. No breeding, no family name, no old money or fine home. If he’d barked, he’d have given me away. I needed to get inside and look for that key.”
“If you shoot me, KiKi and the sisters will come running.”
“Everyone’s at Clyde Steller’s funeral. No one will hear anything. I’m going to shoot you with Hollis’s gun here. When he comes in, I’ll shoot him. He called me to say he’d been released and would be at the office tomorrow. He thinks everything will be like it was before. But it’s too late for that. It’ll look like the murder-suicide of a deranged man. His fiancée is dead, his business nearly bankrupt, and you won’t sell the house for the money he needs. Everyone knows you had a messy divorce and hate each other.”
The grandfather clock let out the fir
st chime for nine o’clock. IdaMae slipped the key ring in her pocket. She was going to get away with murder. Make that three murders, and she’d poisoned my dog. Suddenly I was gut-cramping, hair-frying, foot-stomping, hissy-fit mad. There was something about a full-fledged hissy that cleared the brain and stiffened the Southern spine. I picked up the ice cream container. “I need to put this away. It’s chocolate. I don’t want BW to get sick again.”
I opened the freezer door, then slammed it shut. Immediately, I heard the telltale scratch of nails on hardwood, and BW bounded around the corner in full gallop. Startled, IdaMae turned, and I shoved her backward as hard as I could, the gun going off, scaring the liver right out of me. I half ran, half stumbled into the dark front hall, remembering too late that I’d locked the door and now couldn’t get out. I dove under the rack of evening dresses, trying to think of a plan besides being scared and throwing up.
“You can’t run from me, Reagan.” IdaMae’s voice came from the hall. “I know you’re in here.”
For a second I panicked that BW would follow me, thinking this was a game. But no game compared to hot dogs. BW was rooted to his spot in front of the fridge, waiting. I didn’t have a gun, but I did have home-court advantage. I knew every creak and groan of the old floors.
“I’m going to find you in here, honey,” IdaMae singsonged. “There aren’t many places to hide.” Her steps got closer. “Hollis will be here any minute, and then I’m taking care of you both.”
The floor squeaked, then creaked. Hangers slid across a wood dowel. IdaMae was searching for me by the blouses. Footsteps and then a double creak put IdaMae by the skirts now. More hangers parted. She took two steps to the coatrack, where I’d just finished a display of denim and red jackets. It crashed to the floor. Footsteps came closer, stopping in front of the little black dresses where I hid. I back-crawled out the other side till my foot touched the wall and my hand connected with the grandfather clock.
IdaMae shoved aside the dresses, and I stood, flattening myself beside the clock. I had nowhere to go. Faint moonlight backlit the windows, and IdaMae’s silhouette moved away from the dresses.