by Brown, Duffy
“Nice try. I was there, saw the body, and got a firsthand report. Scumbuck. . . Seymour died of a heart attack pure and simple, so if you came here to rattle my cage, save your breath; it’s not going to work.”
“Bumped into Ross over at the Pig in the produce section. Taught her how to thump melons. Seymour’s heart attack had help.”
I snagged the last bacon strip before Boone. “They think ’cause Mamma punched Seymour she caused his death?”
Boone broke off the end, munched, and stood. “Ross must have more than that. She wouldn’t go after a judge without something substantial.”
“Substantial like what?” The bacon suddenly tasted like wallpaper paste. “Seymour’s the one who came to Mamma threatening her with a damning ad. He wanted to ruin her campaign even if he lied to do it. He called her ‘girlie’ for crying out loud.”
A grin played at the corners of Boone’s mouth, his black eyes creasing at the corners. There’d been reports of grown women fainting dead away from that very look. “No wonder she decked him,” Boone said. “Sorry I missed it. All I know is Ross wasn’t happy about the situation. Your mamma is the judge every cop wants to try his case. She’s got . . . cojones.”
Cojones and Mamma in the same sentence was a little unnerving, but at the moment I had bigger fish to fry. No matter how crazy my life got Mamma was my rock, my true North . . . or South being that this was Savannah. Little prickles of fear crawled up my spine. “I gotta call Mamma.”
“I already did. She’ll need an attorney.”
“You’re an attorney, do something.” My voice sounded like Alvin the chipmunk.
“I worked on legal stuff for Seymour a few years back; it’ll smack of conflict of interest if I get involved. Besides, Gloria Summerside is on a first name basis with half the attorneys in Savannah.”
Meaning Mamma had options other than an ex-Seventeenth Street gang member turned lawyer. Chantilly wasn’t the only one who led a rich and colorful life. Boone was a good attorney no matter what his origins. He won, a lot. My disastrous divorce was living proof. I followed Boone to the Chevy, pulled back the seat, and let BW jump in the back. I took shotgun. “Drop us off at Mamma’s.”
“Still no car?”
“Do you know what a new roof on an old house costs these days?”
“You need to stay out of this. Seymour wasn’t just two hams in a grocery bag like everyone thought; he had enemies.”
“Sure would have been nice if they said something in the campaign.”
“They’re not choirboys.” Boone turned sideways, his eyes black as the night. He gave me his no-nonsense lawyer stare that I knew so well. “Ross is a good detective. She has a gun. Let her do her job.”
I gave Boone my loyal daughter stare. “If you think for one minute I’m letting my mamma’s future rest in the scrawny hands of Aldeen Ross, you’ve lost your marbles.” I pointed to the ignition. “I don’t need a lecture. Come on, time’s a wasting, floor this puppy.”
Boone gripped the steering wheel and let out a sigh. “Reasoning with you is like teaching a setting hen to crow. Ross will put your mamma in the cruiser, and you’ll have a hissy right there in front of her house, yell a bunch of stuff you shouldn’t, and wind up in jail yourself. You need to cool off.”
My hair fried. “I am cool, blast you! Drive now!” Maybe I should have left off the blast you part. I dragged BW out of the backseat then slammed the door behind me and kicked the front tire. “You’re nothing but a bacon-stealing scalawag.”
“On my better days.” The Chevy’s taillights faded down the street, turned onto Abercorn leaving BW and me alone on the sidewalk, the rest of the inhabitants of East Gwinnett tucked in for the night. Getting a taxi out here at this hour was the impossible dream, KiKi and Uncle Putter were deep into Downton Abbey season three, and besides KiKi had had enough drama in her life for one day. If I got the Abbott sisters involved, Mamma would headline the nine o’clock kudzu vine news.
I hitched up BW, grabbed Old Yeller, doggie scoop bags, and a Snickers for dessert to go. I put on my gym shoes that had never graced the inside of a gym and jogged down the street, trying to get to Mamma’s before Ross. Usually night was my favorite time in Savannah, kind of magical with the soft glow of the old lamplight through the live oaks, Forsythe Fountain sparkling in the moonlight, strollers out for a late dinner. The only magic tonight was of the black variety with Mamma right in the middle of a big, fat mess.
Panting and sweating I promised God I’d light candles if he let me make it to Mamma’s without having a stroke. When she didn’t answer my door-pounding, I hung a right onto Habersham and headed for the redbrick police station designed by a teething two-year-old that was ground zero for major in-city offenses and home away from home for Ross. Tonight Officer Dumont occupied the gray Formica welcome desk, the hubbub of Savannah crime and crime stoppers swirling around him as he yelled into the phone and scribbled notes. I knew Dumont from when I swiped a memorial wreath out of Colonial Park Cemetery and the time I found a dead groom facedown in a wedding cake.
“I’m Reagan Summerside,” I said to Dumont, taking advantage of the turmoil and hoping he didn’t remember me from past offenses. “Is Gloria Summerside here?”
“No dogs allowed.” Dumont gulped his coffee and made a face at a baggie of tiny carrots.
“I just want to know if my mamma’s okay? Why was she taken into custody?”
Dumont took another call, cradled the phone against his shoulder, wrote with one hand, and pointed to the door with the other. “You and the pooch outside.”
Summersides sucked at waiting, proven by the fact that three months ago Auntie KiKi got herself locked in a closet and instead of waiting to get rescued crawled through an attic and out onto a fire escape then proceeded to fall off the building. When Dumont hung up the phone that immediately rang again, I pulled the Snickers from Old Yeller and stealthily slid the candy bar across the desk, stopping right next to the carrots. “Why do the police think Gloria Summerside is responsible for Scum . . . Seymour’s heart attack?”
Two officers broke up a fight in the back of the room, a metal chair sailed across the concrete floor, and Dumont ignored it all and the phone. He eyed the prize, fingers inching closer, a droplet of drool at the corner of his mouth. “Suspicious autopsy.”
“And?”
“There was a drinking glass at the crime scene with digitalis-laced honey bourbon. Facebook and tweets from the judge’s campaign this afternoon said the judge was headed over to Seymour’s with the bourbon to make peace and hopefully continue on with a respectable campaign. Then there were online pictures of her punching his lights out. Sorry I missed that. Seymour’s crud.” Dumont snagged the Snickers, ripped the wrapper, and bit, a glazed euphoric expression softening his face, meaning that on a fundamental level Officer Dumont and I were kindred spirits. Then reality returned, and he grabbed the phone and pointed to the door. “No dogs allowed. Out!”
BW and I stood on the sidewalk under a streetlight, BW in his coat, all cozy and warm against the autumn chill and making me wish I’d brought a jacket, and another Snickers would be nice, too. Dumont didn’t say the police had found the tainted bottle of honey bourbon, so right now everything was speculation as far as whether the poison was in the bottle that Mamma brought. Heck, everyone in Savannah knew Seymour fancied honey bourbon. He could be the poster boy for the stuff, and anyone could have poured out a glass of the tainted booze.
According to Boone, Scummy had enemies, and there was a whole roomful of people at Seymour’s headquarters who could have done him in. That these same people were working morning, noon, and night to get him elected was a minor motivation flaw I didn’t want to consider at the moment.
Something else I didn’t want to consider was just how close Auntie KiKi came to drinking that bourbon. Seymour cooties saved the day. Anyone who doesn’t think God works in mysterious ways hasn’t lived in Savannah.
“Heard they picked up Judge
Gloria Summerside for questioning in the Kip Seymour case,” a twentysomething guy said as he rushed up. He had a hedge-trimmer haircut and camera with lens attached dangling around his neck. “Is she inside?” Hedge Trimmer hitched his head toward the building. “Did you see her? What do the cops have to say? When are they letting her out? I need pictures and a statement.”
The Kip Seymour case? Statement? Pictures? Why couldn’t it be Kip Seymour done and over with and hallelujah he’s gone? “I haven’t seen Judge Summerside,” I said. “You must have heard wrong.”
Another camera guy pulled up beside him on the sidewalk, a cigarette tucked behind his ear, one dangling from his lips. “I know you. You’re Gloria Summerside’s daughter.”
“I was out for a walk.”
“Sure, and you’re here to contemplate Savannah’s architectural wonder, no doubt. You’re here because the judge is inside.” Savannah’s version of the paparazzi snapped my picture and headed for the door.
After little white dots stopped dancing in front of my eyes, I headed for the parking lot on the back side of the station where Savannah’s finest rode up in their cruisers to deposit Savannah’s not so finest to be locked away. That I knew such things was due to Hollis being accused of murder some months ago. There were times when I wished I’d let his miserable hide rot in jail. ’Course then I’d have lost Cherry House to pay for his attorney fees.
I had to get a message to Mamma. She needed to come out through the back door and avoid the press. I’d already used my Snickers bribe on Dumont and figured the cop manning the rear entrance had little use for a near-empty can of hair spray, a half tube of Pink Blossom lipstick, or a roll of Life Savers that were the only decent things left in Old Yeller worth considering a bribe.
“Yo, woman,” came a voice behind me. “What you doing here at this hour?”
Big Joey was Pillsbury’s bro and grand poobah of the Seventeenth Street gang. We met one hot summer day with me intruding on his turf, giving testimony to the direction my life had taken lately. BW flopped over between two unoccupied cruisers and waited for a belly rub.
“My mamma’s inside,” I explained as Big Joey did the puppy-pat thing. “They’re questioning her about—”
“Seymour getting snuffed. Word is she did the deed. Dropped him a left hook.” Big Joey grinned, his gold tooth catching the streetlight. “Props to Mamma Judge.”
“The press is here. If they get pictures, it could hurt her chances of getting elected.”
Big Joey headed for the station. “A brother got himself incarcerated over an unfortunate error in judgment down at Wet Willies. I’ll inform Mamma.”
I glanced across the parking lot, checking for reporters. “Can you tell her to hurry?”
“Not her choice, babe.”
“Why would you help a judge?”
“Ask Boone.” Whistling, Joey took the walkway and banged on the door. It opened, the backlight silhouetting the two men. They did one of those fancy handshakes. The Seventeenth Street band of brothers weren’t model citizens by any stretch, but they kept guns and dope out of schools and parks and street violence to a minimum, something the cops could never do on their own.
Moths swarmed the dingy light over the back door of the station. I chewed my thumbnail, my stomach doing somersaults. Mamma being hauled in here for questioning would hurt her campaign for sure, and everyone she’d convicted would come out of the woodwork and malign her good reputation. All her hard work and dedication to truth, justice, and the American way would go right down the drain because of Kip Seymour. The man was a true pain in the rump even from the grave.
The door opened, and this time Mamma’s poised silhouette was framed in the doorway. She shook the policeman’s hand and walked toward me.
“How do you know Big Joey?” she asked as I hustled her and BW between cruisers toward Hull Street, high heels and doggy nails clicking on the blacktop.
“I’m on his health insurance plan. We’ve got to get out of here; the reporters are hot on your trail. If they get your picture by the station, they’ll have you tried and convicted before morning.” Voices and footsteps approached from Habersham, and I yanked Mamma and BW down between empty cars in the lot. I made the shh sign across my lips at Mamma and fed BW a cherry Life Saver to keep him occupied and not do the pet-me belly flop for our pursuers—worst guard dog east of the Mississippi.
“I don’t see her,” one of the guys huffed, fighting to catch his breath.
“This way,” another added. “She’s here somewhere.”
The reporters ran past us, and I counted to ten then poked my head over the edge of the hood. “We’ll stay in the shadows,” I whispered to Mamma. “Cut across Hall and take the alleyways to my house. There’s no hard evidence linking you to Seymour’s demise, so by tomorrow some other mayhem will have befallen our lovely city and be page one news instead of you.”
I gave Mamma a quick once-over. This was my hazel-eyed brainy parent of perfect hair and suit who spent her days making wise decisions and giving guest lectures at luncheons and graduations. “Are you okay? Being on the lam isn’t a normal kind of night for you.”
“It isn’t for you either.” Mamma chuckled then sobered. “Is it? How do you know about these alleys, and what’s this about Big Joey and insurance?” Her brows knitted together like that time in the third grade when someone who shall remain nameless released the classroom hamster into the wild and played “Born Free” over the PA system.
“I’m pleading the fifth.” I held tight to the leash, took Mamma’s hand, and ran.
Chapter Three
“GOOD God in heaven, who died now?” Auntie KiKi asked as BW and I hustled into her kitchen at seven A.M. the next morning. KiKi had on an autumn ensemble of pumpkin-colored housecoat, matching slippers and hair rollers, and a green facial mask, meaning Uncle Putter had already left for his symposium up in Charlotte.
“It’s either that or you’re out of food and hungry for breakfast,” she added. “After yesterday I’m wishing mighty hard for hungry.”
“I can work with hungry.” At the moment my fridge contained BW’s hot dogs for his daily treat and a grocery list for when I paid the water bill and could actually afford groceries. I turned on the kettle, snagged china cups from the cabinet, and put a bowl of apples on the table to give the appearance of a healthy breakfast in case somebody peeked in the window or one of us weakened and gave into a pang of good-nutrition conscience.
KiKi pulled a lemon/blueberry crumb cake from the antique pie safe that in my opinion beat the heck out of any other kind of safe. With Mamma being a single parent, Auntie KiKi and Uncle Putter were more Mamma and Daddy part two. I knew their house as well as the one on York. “Have you checked your tweets this morning?” I asked KiKi.
“Clara Martin didn’t leave Reverend Sweetwater’s house till well after midnight, but we all know the man’s gay as a tree full of monkeys so that puts the kibosh on any hanky-panky going on, and Seymour’s kicking the bucket is still top billing, but that’s about it.” KiKi stopped the knife slicing halfway though the cake, her lips pursing tight, drawing her face up like a shriveled kiwi. “Uh-oh, why are you asking?”
“Detective Ross picked Mamma up for questioning last night. Someone spiked that glass of honey bourbon on Scumbucket’s desk with digitalis, bringing on the heart attack. Everyone and his brother knew Mamma was ticked off at Scumbucket and headed to his place with the liquor bottle to try and smooth things over, and then she decked him on the sidewalk. Someone’s out to frame her.”
“Glory be.” KiKi sank into a chair, the knife still sticking out of the cake. “The old boy went and got himself done in.” We both made the sign of the cross to counteract any feelings of just deserts we might be experiencing. “Where’s Gloria now?”
“At the courthouse doing business as usual as a judge. No one’s found the bottle she brought, so there’s no actual evidence to link her to the murder. Right now everything’s speculative. Mamma sa
id she left the bottle on the desk, but it sure wasn’t there when we showed up.”
I took KiKi’s hand. “You nearly drank from that very same glass. The cootie scare was the only thing between you and being there on a slab right beside Scummy.”
Deep in thought, KiKi finished the slice, put the cake in my cup, then poured tea onto the sugar bowl. “Except there is a mighty big difference between my healthy self and Seymour. My ticker’s fine as can be thanks to the superior Summerside gene pool and eight generations of Southern cholesterol adaptation.”
KiKi tapped her finger against her lips. “Let’s see, how does this go? The digitalis would have caused me problems sure enough, and I would have skedaddled off to the hospital to get checked out, but I could have been treated and been fine as frog’s hair. Seymour had heart problems, and everyone knew about it, one foot on a banana peel so to speak. The alcohol dumped the digitalis in the bottle straight into his bloodstream and stopped his heart like hitting the brakes on a freight train. Bam!” KiKi clapped her hands together like a gunshot, making me and BW jump a foot. “The old coot was dead as a fence post in forty minutes, probably less.”
I stared at KiKi wide-eyed, my heart still pounding. “You’ve been watching Criminal Minds again, haven’t you? How do you sleep at night?”
“Forget TV.” KiKi fluffed her rollers know-it-all style. “You can’t be married to a cardiologist for thirty years without picking up a thing or two along the way.”
“Well, that’s it, then. Don’t you see?” I said, jumping up suddenly happy as a pig in mud. “Mamma’s innocent. Where the dickens would she get digitalis? She’s a judge for crying out loud, not a doctor or a pharmacist. You don’t just buy digitalis over the counter like bubble gum. Maybe someone who had access to Seymour’s medication did the deed. Why did Ross go after Mamma at all? It makes no sense. Ross is on a witch hunt.”
KiKi pulled me back down onto the chair and nodded out the bay window. “What do you see?”