Pearls and Poison (A Consignment Shop Mystery)

by Brown, Duffy

  It had to be the Adam Levine influence I told myself. “One More Night” was one of my favorite songs, and Levine’s voice could turn any situation, even a teen dance lesson and Walker Boone into something . . . hot. I took a few deep brain-cleansing breaths as I locked up KiKi’s house and headed for mine. Mamma’s Caddy was parked at the curb.

  “You’re all flushed,” she said to me while getting out of the car.

  “Taught one of KiKi’s dance classes is all.” We started up the walk together. “Are you here for breakfast?” I asked, needing to get my brain focused on something else besides Boone and midnight black eyes. “I was just going to the store. I can fix pancakes, I’m getting better at pancakes, they’re not so gooey in the middle, and if you add enough syrup, you don’t even notice.”

  “You’re rambling. What happened now?” Mamma stopped and looked back at me, a quizzical expression on her face. “Walker dropped by my place a half hour ago. He looked upset and all out of sorts, too.”

  “Really?” My mouth went completely dry.

  “Did you do battle again?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “I declare, you two are oil and vinegar.”

  “Sometimes.”

  “You’re always at each other over that divorce or whatever else is in the wind. Savannah’s not that big. You’re going to keep running into each other.” Mamma headed for the steps. “One of these days you’ll have to bury the hatchet and kiss and make up, you know.”

  I tripped on the top step and landed on all fours.

  “Oh for goodness’ sake,” Mamma said, helping me up. “It’s just an old expression, but it would be nice if you two got along. You’re going to drive each other crazy.”

  “Did he say anything?”

  Mamma pushed open the front door. “He said you needed me to come right over and lend a hand. That fall was a mighty busy time at the Fox and you couldn’t keep up. Said you needed me to pitch in for a few weeks and help out.”

  Mamma held out her arms, showing off her white blouse and black tailored slacks. “I’m dressed for work. You just tell me what to do. I’m all yours.”

  Well, there you go. Boone and his out-of-sorts were about carrying out his plan to get Mamma here as watchdog and being all pleased with himself that he pulled it off. The dance was just a dance and nothing more. Why would I think otherwise? It was Adam Levine’s fault, pure and simple.

  I plastered a big smile on my face for Mamma. “I’m glad you could make it. November is hectic. The change of seasons makes people want to change their wardrobes. I’ll show you the ropes. You’ll love working at the Fox. I have terrific customers.”

  BW trotted down the steps after having hogged the whole bed in my absence. He did the paws-out-butt-up stretch and yawned so wide I could see clear back to his tail. Oh, for the life of a dog. I let him out the back where chasing critters would lead to KiKi’s yard or the Abbott’s and not the street.

  When I came back from the kitchen, Mamma was staring at the deserted campaign headquarters, no volunteers scurrying about, no phones ringing or fax machines grinding. A stack of flyers sat lonely and forlorn on a table, yard signs in the corner, discarded “Elect Gloria Summerside” hats on the floor, and more stuff back in the kitchen.

  I came up beside her and took her hand. “Boone’s going to find the killer, and then it’s full steam ahead for your campaign. We’ll make up for lost time. You’ll be a wonderful alderman; everyone knows that.”

  “Scandal, even if it’s later proven bogus, pretty much kills any chance of winning an election, honey. I think it’s over for me.”

  “But Savannah needs you.”

  “I’ve been thinking about this,” Mamma said with a smile, but it was one of those forced ones like when I got a D in chemistry after studying for a week. “Archie Lee will be okay as alderman. Getting on the ballot was a joke to him at first, but from what I hear he’s taking it more seriously now. My fear is he’ll be swayed by his beer-drinking buddies and not do what’s best for the city, and you truly need to stay away from his bar. I hear his brother is mighty protective, almost as protective as my daughter is of me.”

  Mamma gave me a little wink and kissed my cheek. “Did you really land on your behind right out there in that alley?”

  “I had a hankering for boiled peanuts, is all, and Archie Lee’s brother thought I was there to cause trouble with me being your daughter. A little misunderstanding, there’s nothing to worry about.”

  I hated Facebook. I hated that Zuckerberg guy and the Twitter guy and any communication device with a lower case i in front of it. The goal to connect the whole freaking world was making my life a living hell. How was I supposed to find Scummy’s killer, keep Mamma from fretting over my well-being, and keep Boone off my back . . . or the dance floor?

  • • •

  BY NOON SALES WERE UP, AND I’D TAKEN IN A NICE batch of fall clothes for consignment along with a floral folding screen that we set up in front of the campaign headquarters in the parlor. We didn’t need customers going in and poking around, and Mamma didn’t need the constant reminder of what almost was.

  In no time Mamma knew how to check people out and record the amounts so I could pay my consigners when they came in, and she’d really gotten into the swing of things by rearranging all the displays. Sweet saints in heaven, now the purples were in with the lime greens, orange with turquoise, and gold mixed in with pinks. A black scarf adorned a brown sweater, navy shoes sat next to black skirts, and an orange shoulder purse crossed a purple stripe coat.

  Mamma had no color sense! Not one lick. Thank God she always wore black! I figured it was destiny along with a big dose of divine intervention that made her a judge, and she pretty much always dressed the black-and-white part. That she hired decorators to redo the house when she got the urge was a blessing from above. Thank you, Jesus!

  Chantilly came in the front door, exchanged wide-eyed looks with two other shoppers, and held up her hands in astonishment. “What in the world is—”

  “Is my mother doing here?” I cut in, pointing to Mamma behind the counter. “Mamma’s come to help me, and she redid all my displays. Aren’t they incredible?” I did the toothy-grin nod, hoping Chantilly would catch on.

  “That’s one way of putting it,” Chantilly said. “Actually the displays are amazing. I don’t know quite how she accomplished such a feat.”

  Mamma smiled, a little blush in her cheeks. I guess as a judge you don’t get many compliments on sending people off to the pokey.

  “Now that Chantilly’s come to visit,” Mamma said to me, “and you have the extra help you need for a few hours, I’m going over to the courthouse. I won’t be trying cases for a while, so I need to get things ready for the other judges taking my place starting on Monday.”

  Mamma nibbled her bottom lip for just a second, a hint of worry sneaking through. Then she was her bright, sunny self again. “I’ll be back here tomorrow right after church and for the rest of the week,” she added. “I can do the display in the front bay window. I’ll make it special.”

  Mamma collected her purse and hustled out the door, and I felt my heart squeeze tight. Mamma was more worried than she was letting on. I hated that anything upset her. Baby bear protects mamma bear; at least that was my plan, and I wasn’t doing all that good of a job.

  Chantilly grabbed my shoulders, snapping me back to the moment. She looked me dead in the eyes. “What happened to this place? It’s giving me a migraine. Isn’t it giving you a migraine? You’ve got to find the . . .” She eyed the shoppers and mouthed the word killer. “And you’ve got to do it right fast.”

  “I know.” And I meant it for more reasons than arranging displays. “I may have a lead, and it’ll help you out, too. You can be my mole, my inside person.”

  Chantilly took a step away. “Uh-oh.”

  “It’s a job. You said you needed a job.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “You’ll make some money, listen to w
hat’s going on, and maybe pick up why this particular person didn’t care for you-know-who and maybe did you-know-what. It’s the best of both worlds. Great idea, huh?”

  “You want me to take a job with a you-know-what?”

  “Well we don’t know for sure, it’s just a possibility, and best I can tell she only gets upset when you cross her; otherwise, she’s a lovable little old gray-haired lady. She’s a caterer.”

  Chantilly leaned across the checkout door, eyes thin slits, nose nearly touching mine. She whispered through gritted teeth, “You want me to work for someone who poisons people, and she’s a cook!”

  “Cuisine by Rachelle,” I whispered back. “She’s a caterer and needs a delivery person because Mamma sent her son to prison and he did the deliveries before. Since you know the city so well, being a UPS driver like you were, you’re perfect. We know why she dislikes Mamma. All you have to do is find out why she dislikes Scummy and whether it is enough of a dislike for her to kill him and frame Mamma for it.”

  “In other words you want me to see if she’s crazy as a loon.”

  “It’s Saturday, and my guess is Rachelle is in her kitchen right now cooking for some event tonight. You should go see her. Tell her you were at Archie Lee’s when she dropped off the buns and heard she needs a delivery person. She likes Archie Lee. You’ll be able to pay your rent, not move in with your parents, and keep seeing Pillsbury. This is all in the name of love. Tell me, what do you think of that song ‘One More Night’?”

  “Lethal. A girl gets dancing to that and she could fall for an orangutan.”

  “That’s just what I suspected. Rachelle will never figure out that you know Mamma, but just in case she does don’t eat anything.”

  • • •

  I CLOSED THE SHOP AT FIVE TO MAKE GOOD ON MY promise to BW to bring home the bacon, or in his case the hotdogs. I grabbed Old Yeller and the denim jacket that should have been donated to the Goodwill years ago. It had a frayed right sleeve from my arm rubbing against the desk while scribbling all those notes during my college days. The pink smudge on the bottom was from the time KiKi and I sampled different nail polishes at the local CVS, the stain by the pocket was from picking strawberries with Mamma, and the yellow splotch was from painting the shutters of Cherry House for the first time. It was a stonewashed diary. How could I give this jacket to the Goodwill?

  Kroger’s was right around the corner, an easy walk from my house. I remembered my two reusable market eco-friendly bags so I could carry one in each hand, the trick being not to overload them so my arms were two inches longer when I got back from the store than when I left. The night air was crisp, a hint of wood smoke lingering from fireplaces in use to take the chill off the house as KiKi would say.

  As I crossed the street, a red BMW slowed beside me, and the window powered down, framing Hollis’s face in the opening. Hollis was in his mid-forties, a touch of gray at the temples, and GQ handsome. You know the saying don’t judge a book by its cover? That went double for Hollis.

  “Nothing better to do on a Saturday night than grocery shop?” Hollis quipped. “Thought you’d be hobnobbing out at the country club with the rest of us. Billy Bob Sayer’s annual birthday bash. Headed there myself after picking up Judy Rollins; we’re an item now.”

  “What do you want, Hollis?”

  “I hear your mamma’s moved her campaign headquarters to Cherry House. Gee, that’s got to be real good for business.” He laughed. Actually it was more of a sneer; with Hollis it was hard to tell one from the other. “Bet you’re not making a dime with all that confusion. That big old house is going to have you in bankruptcy, Reagan, mark my words.”

  “And you want to sell it for me and spare me all that unnecessary aggravation. We’ve been through this, Hollis. I saved you from an orange jumpsuit wardrobe and mystery-meat cuisine for the next twenty to twenty-five years. Cherry House is mine free and clear.”

  “For old times’ sake I can help you out in your time of need.”

  “I’m not in need, and old times was you bedding anything in a skirt and me too dumb to know what was going on.”

  “I can get a pretty penny for Cherry House now. If you wait till the holidays roll around, the market dries up. No one wants to move during the holidays.”

  “Bye, Hollis.” I walked on, the BMW keeping pace, Hollis’s head poking out the window turtle style.

  “If your mamma can’t shake this murder charge, you won’t have any business; you realize that, don’t you? A scandal like this gives everyone in the family a right bad name. Who will want to associate with the daughter of a murderer and that includes buying merchandise? You should sell now before things get worse. When Gloria goes on trial, things will get much worse, I promise.”

  “You have a buyer, don’t you?”

  “Loan’s preapproved and everything. They have big plans for that house. Think about it, Reagan.”

  I gripped the window opening, and Hollis stopped the car. Expensive cologne oozed from the interior, and his minty-fresh breath fell across my face, devil horns neatly concealed under his hundred-dollar haircut. He probably had his pitchfork stashed in the trunk. “Judge Gloria Summerside would never kill anyone, but that doesn’t mean her one and only daughter wouldn’t if you get my drift.”

  An icy contempt flashed in his eyes. “I should never have listened to Boone.”

  Hollis floored the BMW, laying rubber like a teenager with too much car and too little brain. I cut across the parking lot. As much as I disliked Hollis Beaumont the Third, I had to admit our divorce was not all his fault. I was the stupid idiot who married him in the first place, and what did he mean about not listening to Boone? The only connection between me, Hollis, and Boone was the divorce that still gave me nightmares.

  Saturday evening at the grocery store was pretty Zen with most people having better things to do than squeeze the tomatoes and read the ingredients on a cereal box. I loaded up on the essentials of life like SpaghettiOs and toilet paper, and wrote down a recipe on the back of my receipt for meatloaf that the checkout gal guaranteed even I could make and would impress Mamma to no end.

  I stuffed the recipe in my pocket, hoisted Old Yeller onto my shoulder, and snagged my now full eco-friendly market bags. On the way out of Kroger’s I picked up a free copy of the Savannah Pennysaver and met Mercedes coming through the door. Tonight she had on black slacks, a cream blouse, and a blue jewel-toned pashmina scarf with matching pumps I’d seen in the Nordstrom’s fall catalog. Obviously spiffing up the dearly departed paid well.

  “What’s a fine girl like you doing here on a Saturday night?” Mercedes asked. “You should be out making whoopee with some young stud.”

  “I did the stud thing once, and it was a disaster.”

  “Honey, that’s because you went and got yourself the wrong stud. I still got my eye on Mr. Boone for you. Now there’s a fine-looking man and then some. You should give him a try.”

  Both grocery bags slid from my hands, the contents spilling out onto the sidewalk. Mercedes shifted her weight to one foot and looked me over head to toe. “You got something going on with Boone?”

  “Nothing good.”

  “Uh-huh.” Mercedes laughed and helped me with the items. She handed me the copy of the Pennysaver that I’d dropped along with the bags.

  “Why there’s Dozer on the front page of this here paper doing some advertising. My guess he’s trying to recoup some of that business he’s lost to Seymour.”

  “I met up with Dozer last night.”

  Mercedes arched her left brow high enough to touch her red bangs. “So that’s what got you tossed out of the Cemetery? You got to be careful with Dozer. A few drinks and he gets real unpleasant, and if you’re to keep winding up on the Internet, we need to do something about those roots you got going on.”

  I stepped off to the side and out of the way of shoppers coming and going, Mercedes following. I dropped my voice. “You mentioned that Dozer was upset with Seymour outbiddin
g him on projects. Last night when I was talking to him, he said he’d found out something about Seymour, something he was hiding. Something big. Do you think Dozer is capable of killing Seymour? But then why would he when he could just go to the police with this information he has and get rid of him that way? Do you have any idea what’s going on?”

  “Dozer couldn’t turn in Seymour to the cops because Seymour probably had something on Dozer. You do me, and I do you kind of thing. Dozer runs a pretty big operation, and best I can tell Seymour was driving him into the ground financially. Building new houses is dead in Savannah and has been that way for a few years now. My guess is municipal projects are where the money is, but with cities being cash poor that’s got to be mighty tight too and the competition stiff. I haven’t had anything to do with Dozer in months, but if he came across some information that gave Seymour the edge in these municipal bidding wars, he’d be crazy mad about it.”

  “Crazy enough to kill him?”

  “You can only push a man so far. You think someone was letting Seymour know the lowest bid on a project and then he’d turn in an even lower one.”

  “But then how could Seymour make money if the bid was so low? Something was going on between Seymour and Dozer, and Dozer was on the short end of the stick.”

  Mercedes pointed to the little map in Dozer’s ad. “Delany Construction is a few blocks over from here. We could take a look around.”

  “It’s Saturday night. He’s closed.”

  “There’s all kinds of closed, honey. The thing is, I like your mamma. She’s not one of those uppity snobs who think she’s too good to talk to the likes of me. We both know she didn’t kill Seymour, but somebody sure enough did. Dozer is as good a candidate as any. He wasn’t nice to my girls back when I had the Mane Event, and I don’t forget something like that ever.”

  “You should know that I have a way of attracting the wrong kind of attention lately. Well, actually, more than lately. I don’t want to cause you trouble.”