by Duffy Brown
Come to mamma, I mentally pleaded. Just a little closer to the clock.
“Reagan!” Boone shouted from the hallway, nearly giving me a heart attack.
Stupid man! He’d get himself killed on my account, and then I’d have to feel bad about it.
IdaMae turned toward Boone’s voice, and I shoved the clock hard. It crashed to the floor, missing IdaMae but offering one heck of a distraction. I jumped over the clock and did a headfirst tackle, flattening IdaMae facedown in the hallway, knocking the wind right out of me and jarring every bone in my body.
“Get the gun!” I gasped as it skittered across the floor, but Boone was already stooped down beside me, gun in one hand, holding IdaMae’s wrists behind her back.
“Let me go,” IdaMae sobbed. “Let me go. You’re ruining everything.”
I sat on the floor, gasping for air, listening to IdaMae cry, trying not to shake so hard and wondering if I’d broken my elbow.
“This is not funny!” I said as Boone ruffled my hair.
“The Falcons need a linebacker.” He snatched a belt from the floor and secured it around IdaMae’s wrists.
“What are you doing here?” I pushed Boone backward, knocking him off balance. Even in the dark I could see him grinning as he landed on his butt.
“Looking for you—thought you might need some help.”
“You knew IdaMae was the killer and didn’t tell me?” I socked his arm and his grin broadened.
“I wasn’t sure till I saw the gun in her hand.”
“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you? You’re crazy as a waltzing pig. We could have been killed.”
“Yeah, but we weren’t, and it’s always fun to nail the bad guys.”
I sat back and wrapped my arms around my knees, trying to pull myself together and not shake myself apart. “Hard to think of IdaMae as bad.”
“She’s a long way from good, sweet pea,” Boone said, his voice dead serious. He touched my lip, which I didn’t realize was coated with blood. “She was going to kill you, Reagan, without a second thought. There’s noting good about that.”
“How did you figure it out?”
Boone leaned against the wall, looking comfortable. Sirens sounded a few blocks away. “It bothered me that Dinah didn’t have the key to the Lexus. If she was the killer, it should have been somewhere. She had the purse and the earring; why not the key? Hollis said you had his keys. When I got the Lexus out of hock, there was the other key, the one you used. Your key had to be the one the killer used, and that pointed to IdaMae because you said she gave it to you.”
“How’d you get in here? IdaMae locked the back door.”
“You need better locks.”
Sirens stopped in front of Cherry House. I turned on the lights and opened the front door to red and blue strobing cruisers, four uniformed cops, and Detective Ross, who looked none too thrilled to see me. Boone gave the quick version of what happened, which didn’t satisfy Ross one bit. She gave us the quick version of how we were not the police and needed to stay the heck out of their business, then added a few choice phrases straight off Seventeenth Street.
I watched Ross escort IdaMae out of my house and wondered how this all happened. A lot more was ruined around here than my marriage. I fed BW his hot dog and hitched a ride with Boone to the police station. “What are you going to do for fun now that this is all over?” Boone asked me as he drove the Chevy. He had the top down, displaying the meandering live oak branches overhead.
“Stay as far away from you and Hollis as possible.”
EARLY THE NEXT MORNING, I DRANK PECAN COFFEE as Auntie KiKi stomped back and forth across her kitchen, little circles of smoke curling from her ears. “I go dancing one little old night with my honey, and look what happens—I miss everything. Who found Cupcake’s body in the trunk?” She jabbed herself in the chest. “Me. Who was there when the coroner carted off the body?” She jabbed herself again. “Me. I have finder’s rights. This is not fair.”
KiKi picked up the Savannah Times with IdaMae’s picture on the front and waved it in the air. “You’re mentioned in here, Boone’s mentioned, and even that Detective Ross. But am I? No. Every good gossip deserves press time once in a while to keep up her credentials. This was my one-and-only chance at a little fame.”
“Maybe there’ll be another murder?”
KiKi made the sign of the cross. “Saints preserve us. I don’t need press time that bad, and all I can say is that you better have the Fox ready for business at ten sharp. Everyone’s going to want to see the place, with it being in the papers and all. Too bad there’s not blood on the floor. The place would be swarmed if there were blood.”
I agreed about the blood but held high hopes that the smashed clock and bullet holes in the kitchen ceiling and dining-room wall would be enough to entice shoppers. Only in Savannah.
I told KiKi I needed to tidy up the shop. I returned to Cherry House and changed into my business uniform of navy skirt and cream blouse. I ratted up my hair to hide the stripe effect, then hitched up Bruce Willis. I snagged my purse off the counter and locked up the place. I was off to play Santa Claus before the Fox opened. I wanted to hand out the information from the blackmail list. I didn’t tell KiKi, figuring this was between the people being blackmailed and Janelle. I was just the middleman, setting things right.
BW and I strolled up Abercorn, past Calhoun Square, with Savannah’s most haunted house at the corner; past Lafayette Square, where the Saint Patrick’s Day parade began each year; past Oglethorpe Square, named for our dear founding father even though his statue was over on Chippewa Square. Then again, General Pulaski’s monument was at Monterey Square and not Pulaski Square. Next was Reynolds Square, ablaze with azaleas and tulips and named after a governor in the seventeen hundreds who robbed the city blind. Go figure.
BW and I turned down Saint Julian and took the front steps to Raylene’s. I rang the bell, and her majesty herself opened the door. “Well, I do declare, if it isn’t the town troublemaker. What do you want now?”
“Can we talk for a second?”
“You’re not bringing that mangy mutt into my house. It’s bad enough Priscilla Annabelle has gotten herself sick today, and I’m all alone here and have to answer the door, and now you want to talk? I don’t have time to talk. Go away.”
I was tempted to just toss the information in the trash and forget Raylene, but I wanted something. “It’s about Janelle.”
Raylene huffed and tsked and rolled her eyes till I saw only the white parts before she finally stepped out. “What?”
“Here,” I said thrusting an envelope at her. “I found Janelle’s list, if you know what I mean. It’s not a good idea for you to win Best of Show this year.”
Raylene put her hands to her hips and hissed. “And why not?”
Because the whole city was sick to death of Raylene, and it was time for a change. “There’s still certain information out there that Janelle left with someone. If it fell into the wrong hands, it could be embarrassing if you won and then it got around that you were actually paying for the privilege.”
“Are you threatening me?”
“I’m just saying there’s information out there, is all.”
“Wait right here,” Raylene said with more confidence in her voice than I liked. She left me standing on the porch, then retuned a minute later with a white folder. “You mean this information? Walker Boone delivered it to me himself yesterday. He’s such a nice man, not like some people in this-here city.” She gave me the Some people look. “He said he came across Janelle’s blackmail list, and returning the information she had was the right thing to do. Guess I can win Best of Show or Best of the Whole Planet if I have a mind to.” Raylene snapped the folder from my hand, stepped back in her house, and slammed the door in my face.
I was rooted to the spot. Boone! Blast his no–good, cheating, conniving hide. He was the life-insurance guy after all. Cupcake’s contingency contact person! He lied to me straight
-out, told me he knew nothing, and all along he knew who was on that list. He knew everything. He had all the information. He knew they had motives to kill Janelle but didn’t expose them. How nice for them. How rotten for me. I was going to kill Walker Boone dead as Janelle and bury his pitiful hide in my weed-infested yard.
When BW and I got to Boone’s big house on Jones Street, I rang the bell over and over and banged on the door with both hands and even kicked it a few times.
Boone opened the door, a happy–as–a–pig–in–mud smile creeping across his face. “Took you long enough.”
“You’re pond scum, you know that? You played me, Boone. You lied to me. You let me stumble around and find out why everyone was being blackmailed. I looked though Urston’s closet and touched his gross shoes. I followed Baxter down alleys. I sweated in Raimondo’s tanning bed. This has not been fun. Why did you get involved with Janelle Claiborne in the first place? I don’t mean that literally.”
“I told Janelle I’d do her dirty work so it didn’t fall into the wrong hands. I had the information; I had control. She thought because I’m of questionable origins I’d do anything for a buck.”
I mentally reddened at the accusation because I had thought the very same thing about Boone.
He added, “I didn’t have the right to tell you. Besides, you’re the one who found all the alibis, and I really didn’t know who murdered Janelle.”
“I did your work for you,” I growled.
“Look at all the money you saved. Your legal fees are next to nothing.”
“They’re probably in the thousands.”
“Probably.”
“Thousands are not nothing!” BW sat on my foot and gave Boone his paw. I folded my arms and glared. “This isn’t over, Boone. It’s you and me, and this time there’s going to be a humdinger of a fight.”
He grinned and ruffled my hair. “I’m counting on it. I truly am.”