Dipped to Death

by Kelly Lane

  “Sorry about that, Precious,” Pep said from the other side of the counter. “I gotta double as waitress for another hour or so. Nettie Perle had to take her granddaddy to the hospital tonight. His heart ain’t right again. She’s comin’ in late. Until then, there’s no one here to serve tables or tidy up the ladies’ room ’cept me . . .”

  Precious started fishing for something inside her purple alligator purse.

  “Hey, did y’all hear about the Twiggs place . . . It’s sold!” someone down the bar said.

  “No kidding!” said Pervis.

  “And I hear that Taylor Farm might be goin’ under contract . . . any day now,” said Jimmy Ray.

  “Sure ain’t gonna be like it used to be around these parts . . .”

  “Here ya go, gentlemen,” said Pep. She slid the Savannah 88 shots in front of the farmers at the bar.

  “Hey, you! Waitron!” shouted the gruff voice from the corner.

  This time, the voice sounded familiar. My stomach churned. I didn’t dare look.

  Surely, it can’t be.

  “We need another round . . . and before tomorrow!” he boomed.

  I started to turn again to look, when Precious grabbed my hands, pulling me around, toward her.

  “Here, Sunshine,” said Precious. “You mind holdin’ this stuff for a sec? I don’t dare set it on the bar, on account of all the germs.”

  “Hey!” cried Pep. “I heard that.”

  Precious wasn’t listening. She was too busy shoving half the contents of her purse into my hands . . . purple alligator wallet, sparkly smartphone, reading glasses, embroidered linen hanky, lipstick, address book, sewing kit . . .

  “I swaney! Where is my compact? It’s like I’m a blind dog in a meat house,” she mumbled.

  She kept jamming the contents of her purse in my hands.

  Smiling, Pep set four shot glasses on her tray. Then she grabbed the Pappy Van Winkle’s bourbon. Again, she raised the bottle in the air and poured out four perfect shots. She grabbed the tray of bourbon, holding it high with one hand as she headed to the end of the bar. Tapping me on the arm, she rounded the end of the counter and tipped her head toward my watered down cola.

  “I’ll be right with ya in a sec.”

  I nodded.

  “No prob,” said Precious, yanking out her sparkly compact. “We got all night. Don’t we, Sunshine?” She grinned at me. It’d been a statement, not a question. That’s because Precious had the car.

  CHAPTER 20

  I rolled my eyes.

  A full foot taller than I was, even seated, I had no doubt that Amazonian Precious was the biggest person in the bar that night. If she’d been a man, no doubt she’d have shopped at a big-and-tall store. That is, if they’d carried designer clothes.

  For an estate manager, she sure makes a pile of money.

  Precious tugged at her screaming yellow silk skirt. Then she flipped open the glittery compact from her purple alligator purse and checked herself in the teeny compact mirror.

  “It’s actually brighter out here at the bar than it was in the ladies’ room. A ladies’ room needs to have decent lighting.”

  “Precious, this is the Roadhouse. We’re probably lucky there are any lights at all.”

  Satisfied, Precious snapped the compact shut and dropped it back into the bag on her lap. She fanned her coppery face with a well-manicured man-sized hand.

  “Um, Precious,” I said. Pointedly, I looked down at all the stuff from her purse, still piled in my hands.

  “Oh, sorry, Sunshine.”

  She grabbed the pile and crammed everything back into the purple alligator bag on her lap.

  “Boy, seems like I ain’t been to this dump in ages,” she said, looking around the dingy watering hole. “And I mean it in a good way. Although, I forgot how smoky it gets in here. Oh, wait . . .” She reached into her bag and pulled out her smartphone in the glittery gold case. “I’m shuttin’ off my phone tonight. I don’t want anyone to interrupt our girls’ night out!”

  “Why bother?” I asked. “I don’t know how you could hear a phone in here, anyway . . . it’s so noisy.”

  “Noisy?” asked Pep as she crossed back behind the bar. “Ha! Hon, you ain’t heard nothing yet. Just wait until the band starts.”

  Precious lifted a tree-trunk-sized leg to show off a spiky purple linen Louboutin pump. “Ugh. These shoes are brandee-new! And already they’re sticky on the bottom. I hate sticky shoes.”

  “No worries!” cried Pep. “Just like it’ll kill the germs on the bar”—she winked—“alcohol will help anything that ails ya. Drink up, Miss Precious, and you’ll never notice your sticky shoes.”

  “Ha!” Precious laughed.

  “So what can I get y’all? Eva, darlin’, you look like you could use something extra stiff. That cola you’ve been nursin’ sure ain’t gonna do the trick. Not after the day you’ve had. Findin’ that stiff in the pond . . . yikes! Only you, sweetie. Only you.”

  “Your little sister’s bottom lip is poochin’ out so far, a whole flock of turkeys could set on it,” said Precious to Pep. “That’s why I insisted our Little Miss Sunshine come out with me. Pining away in that dinky cottage of hers, moping after findin’ another dead man and blowin’ out a tire on her daddy’s truck ain’t solvin’ nothing.”

  “Precious has a point, Eva. You’re turning into a hermit. Y’all need to get out more often. Why don’t ya give Buck a call, hon?” She raised her eyebrows and lowered her chin, making a smarty face. “A little nooky can’t hurt a girl.”

  “Very funny,” I said.

  “Ooooh, yes! Why not call Sheriff Sexy Pants for a date! I’ve seen the way he looks at you . . . That hunk of burnin’ love lusts for ya big-time! I just know it!” Precious looked from side to side, like she had a big secret. Then she whispered, “I can see it in his peepers.” She winked.

  Pep let out a big snort. “Buck’s always had the hots for Eva. I think he’s just doin’ Debi Dicer to keep himself in shape . . . for the time when Eva comes to her senses.”

  “Mmmm-hmmm.” Precious nodded in agreement. “And don’t he have the most pinchable butt!”

  “Stop it, you two. Pep, don’t mention Debi. Ever. She makes me crazy. And both of you, I’m not interested in Buck. Or any man these days. Remember my man moratorium? I haven’t exactly had a lot of success with men, you know.”

  “Yeah . . . well, we all make mistakes,” laughed Pep. “Look at me and Billy . . . he’s run clear off to Alabama to hide out with his mommy after cheatin’ on me.” Abruptly, she frowned. Then she flapped her hand and smiled. “So, what’ll y’all be havin’ tonight?”

  “I’ll have another one of your badass pierced fuzzy navels, Miss Pep,” said Precious, holding up her empty glass. “Grey Goose vodka, please. Heavy on the peach schnapps. Thank you.”

  “Hear, hear!” cried someone down the bar.

  Pep grinned as she flipped a switch on the wall behind the bar. Up high on the wall, a toy train started up, slowly chugging its way around a near-ceiling-height track encircling the room. As the toy engine toot-tooted, the men seated down the bar suddenly stopped talking and chugged their drinks all at once.

  Pep watched me, watching the men. “Tradition,” she explained. “When the train toots, folks take a shot.”

  “Good golly gosh, girl.” Precious slapped me on the shoulder. “Where y’all been hidin’ all your life? Everyone knows that!” She laughed.

  I rolled my eyes. “I’ll just have another cola,” I said.

  “Party pooper,” said Pep. She made a mock sad face.

  “Ya know, Sunshine, I think a better idea is for me to buy you a shot of what those folks had.”

  Like Precious, I spun around on my barstool to look across the smoky room. Precious nodded toward the dark corner where a small group was talking animat
edly around a big, round table. In front of them were the four shot glasses of bourbon that Pep had recently poured and delivered.

  “Oh God,” I said, quickly spinning back to face the bar.

  The Boston crowd.

  They were the last people I wanted to see. Especially on this night. Hadn’t the day been bad enough? Apparently, I hadn’t noticed when they’d entered the place and seated themselves at the table in the far corner. They’d been the group who’d ordered the Pappy Van Winkle’s bourbon. Seeing them confirmed my worst fear. It’d been Wiggy calling waitron.

  I groaned.

  “How’d they find out about this place?”

  “I told them,” Pep answered brightly. “I ran into the big guy with the beard, the one who looks like Yogi Bear—”

  “Wiggy,” I said.

  “Right. Well, I ran into him earlier today, and he asked me if I knew any place in town where he and his buds could drown their sorrows about their dead friend. I suggested they come here, of course.”

  “Crap.” With my elbows on the bar, I put my head in my hands. “Just crap.”

  Nodding to Pep, Precious pointed to the Pappy Van Winkle’s bourbon.

  “I figure anything you got stashed high up on a shelf like that is either real bad stuff or extra-special stuff. And judgin’ by the gleam in your little eye, I’m thinking this is the extra-special stuff. Plus, the group you’ve been servin’ it to looks real happy, even after their friend croaked in the pond today. So I’ll have me some, please. Pour Miss Poopy Pants one, too. My treat.”

  “Miss Precious, unless you’ve won the lottery lately, you may want to rethink that notion,” said Pep. “That particular vintage of Pappy Van Winkle’s retails for more than thirteen hundred dollars a bottle.”

  “What?”

  The farmer seated next to Precious whistled.

  Pep smiled coyly. “The group from Boston said they wanted somethin’ to commemorate the passin’ of their friend. And they said that money was no object. Who am I to say no? I poured out the priciest bottle in the house.”

  “To Dex!” roared the Bostoners from their table in the corner.

  Watching in the mirror behind the bar, I could just barely make them out. Holding their drinks high in the air, they clinked their glasses together before throwing back their heads to chug the pricey booze.

  “Heavens to Murgatroyd!” Precious gasped. She snapped open her alligator purple purse. “Thirteen hundred dollars? Why, that’s enough to buy a pair of Louboutins!”

  “Sure is,” agreed Pep. “Or a six-and-a-half to seven-and-a-half-inch truck suspension lift kit.”

  “I got no idea what that is, Miss Pep. Still, the point is, thirteen hundred dollars is a whole lotta cash to piss away,” chortled Precious. “And I mean that literally.”

  “You’re right about that, hon!” Pep snorted little piglet giggles. “Still, the fifteen-year Pappy Van Winkle’s bourbon is cheaper than Pappy Van Winkle’s twenty-year reserve. A bottle of that costs nearly two thousand bucks. And the twenty-three-year reserve is closer to three thousand! Alas, we don’t carry it, or I would’ve served it to the folks from Boston.” She broke out into little piglet snorts again.

  I shook my head. “I’ll stick to cola.”

  “Suit yourself,” Pep said with a shrug.

  Precious slapped a hundred-dollar bill down on the bar.

  “Since the bottle’s already opened, pour Miss Sunshine a shot of Pappy Van Winkle’s thirteen-hundred-dollar bourbon. Me, too. Neat. No need to let it go to waste.” She looked over her shoulder and frowned. “Or to waste it all on a bunch of rude folks from up North.” She slapped a second hundred-dollar bill on the bar. Then a third. “Keep the change.” She snapped her purple alligator purse shut.

  Pep squealed, “Thanks!”

  At the same moment, I moaned, “Are you kidding?”

  Before Precious could change her mind, Pep grabbed the pricey bottle of bourbon along with two shot glasses and poured our drinks, sliding one small glass with the potent amber liquor in front of each of us. Precious raised her shot glass, waiting for me to pick up mine.

  “C’mon, Sunshine. If ever someone needed a shot of bourbon, it looks to be you. You sure know how to rack up a pile of dead men. Not to mention vehicles. Drink up!”

  “Fine,” I said. “But only because I’ve never tasted a fifteen-year-old bourbon before. This is a learning experience.”

  Pep snorted a laugh as she flipped a switch under the bar and the toy train toot-tooted. The old men at the bar next to Precious raised their drinks.

  “Here’s to mud in your eye!” cried Precious.

  “Cheers!” cried the men.

  Together, Precious and I, along with everyone else sitting at the bar, tipped our heads back and guzzled our drinks.

  “Mmm,” said Precious with a big grin. “Warm and smooth as silk. I might hafta get me a bottle of my own to take home! Although, come to think of it, maybe Mister Collier has some of this . . .”

  “And what was it you said your boss does?” I asked. The bourbon made my eyes water.

  “Now, Sunshine, you know right well that I never said what it is that Mister Collier does. And I ain’t planning to say it, neither, even to you. He’s a private person, and he pays me real good to keep my mouth shut. And as much as I love ya more than bacon, I’m not singin’ till the day I die.”

  I shook my head.

  “Miss Pep,” called Precious with a grin, “don’t forget my pierced fuzzy navel!”

  Pep laughed as she made her way to the other end of the bar. “You’re a woman after my own heart, darlin’. Comin’ right up.”

  “I need a cola chaser, please,” I said.

  “Oh, waitron!” Wiggy shouted from the table in the corner. “Another round!”

  Pep smiled and gave the loudmouth a wave. “I’ll be right with y’all in a minute, hon,” she shouted across the room. I doubted he could hear her.

  I peeked over my right shoulder. Wiggy was dressed in a polka-dot bow tie, oxford cloth shirt, and natty tweed jacket. Looks like Smokey Bear got dressed at Brooks Brothers. He pursed his lips together and puffed on his pipe.

  “That fella’s just plain rude.” Precious huffed. “Even for a Yank. Do you think he murdered the guy in the pond?”

  “I take it, by asking the question, that you think Detective Gibbit is finally right this time? About Dex being murdered?” I asked Precious. Please no. Please no. Please no.

  “Looks like it to me,” said Pep. “I mean, at your place, they usually are . . .” She rolled her eyes.

  “Thanks for that.” I let out an exasperated sigh. “Back to your question, Wiggy’s always been a boor. He thinks his charge in life is to insult and order other people around. Still, could he have actually murdered somebody? Could any of them? It’s certainly hard to imagine that anyone I know could do such a heinous thing.”

  “You know him?” interrupted Pep.

  “I know all of them. We socialized from time to time when I dated Dex, years ago.”

  “So, then, I’m guessing that the big, fat argument I heard you had last night at the big house with the dead guy was old business,” said Pep. “What gives, sis? Why all the secrets?”

  “Looks like our Little Miss Sunshine has quite a few secrets up her sleeve, huh?” said Precious.

  “I guess you’re not the only one keeping a few secrets, Precious. You harbor all kinds of information about Greatwoods that you don’t share,” I shot back. “Besides, I already came clean. I told you and Daphne earlier today that I knew Dex.”

  Precious frowned at me.

  “You didn’t tell me!” cried Pep.

  “That’s not so nice, Sunshine,” said Precious to me. “You know that I can’t talk about my job at Greatwoods, or Mister Collier. It’s not personal. It’s work.”
r />   “Give me a break, Precious. I don’t need to know all the gory details about the man; I just want to know something about him. After all, he is our next-door neighbor.”

  “Ha! More likely, ya want to know more about our next-door neighbor ’cause he looks tasty as gobs of butter meltin’ on a stack of hot waffles!” Pep giggled.

  “I already warned y’all: Stay away from Mister Collier. He’s not up for grabs.” Precious huffed. “Gobs of melting butter or not, y’all both need to mind your p’s and q’s.”

  “Speaking of minding one’s p’s and q’s, Precious, how did you know this morning about the argument Dex and I had at the tasting party last night?”

  “Aw, shoot. Everyone in town knows about that!”

  “Everyone?”

  “Heck, Sunshine. Beula Beauregard was at the tasting, and everyone knows she’s got the biggest mouth in town. Anyways, I heard from Coretta Crumm that the dead guy pinched your butt and you didn’t take too kindly to it. Then I heard that you called him a . . . what was it? Oh yeah. You called him a ‘flipping ass.’ Right there in front of everyone.”

  “That I did,” I said. “Of course, I doubt Eunice and Eugene Ord heard any of it.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “I’m sure they were thrilled for the interesting pantomime . . .” Pep sniggered.

  “Then, Coretta said that she heard the dead guy called you a tart and a tease, and a few other unflattering things, including a few curse words, and he said you wasn’t worth a damn,” said Precious.

  “That he did.”

  “And then he grabbed your boob!”

  “Yep.”

  “And after that, you slapped him on the arm when he tried to grab you again. Then you said some bad words and threatened him before you stormed outta the place.”