Killer in Crinolines (8 page)

“‘Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’ from
Oklahoma
. At it for an hour now.”

I went into the dining room and, without looking up, Percy said, “I’ll have this baby up and running for you in no time. One summer I helped my uncle Chicken. He’s a repairman over there in Garden City. Can you hand me that Phillips head screwdriver out of my toolbox? Always keep my toolbox in my car just in case something like this happens. Got to be prepared, that’s what Uncle Chicken says.”

I handed off the screwdriver, then retrieved a denim jacket out of the display for a customer. Chantilly was busy at the checkout. Well, shut my mouth and call me a clam. I was actually making money. I glanced back to my AC unit and Percy reconnecting hoses and metal parts like he actually knew where they belonged. He attached the front cover of the unit and flipped the switch to
on
. When nothing happened Percy gave the unit a smart whack with the flat of his hand and the unit hummed to life, sounding better than ever. He grinned like a kid at Christmas. “I still have the touch.”

“What do you know about mixers?” I asked, a plot brewing in my desperate brain, the fear of no customers gnawing at my insides.

“Uncle Chicken says I have the Damon Gift. I’m the Superman of the motor world. But right now I have a case to work on.” He looked back at Chantilly and lowered his voice. “She’s counting on me, she truly is. I have to come through for her. I know she’s innocent, I just have to prove it.”

I whispered back. “GracieAnn over at Cakery Bakery was involved with Simon. He was a loan shark and GracieAnn sent him business.”

“No.” Percy gasped, his eyes wide.

“Yes,” I gasped back, hoping to add a bit of drama and excitement to my plan. I pulled Percy to the corner. “And if we can find the other people GracieAnn sent to Simon to borrow money, we can maybe pin the murder on one of them.”

“Others?”

“Chantilly borrowed money from Simon, and GracieAnn won’t talk to anyone like me who is trying to get Chantilly off. She believes Chantilly stole Simon from her and she’s out for revenge. Nothing would make her happier than Chantilly behind bars permanently. What we need is to watch GracieAnn, listen in on her conversations, and see who she meets with. What we need is for someone to go undercover.” I draped my arm around Percy and drew his head close to mine. “The mixer and the oven at the Cakery Bakery conked out; you can fix them like you did my AC and keep your eyes and ears open. You can be our undercover guy.”

“They know I’m Chantilly’s lawyer. Won’t they recognize me and wonder what I’m doing as a repairman?”

“Put on a brown uniform. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my UPS days, it’s that no one pays attention to who you are if you have on a brown uniform. Bring your toolbox and you’re in.”

“But I have to prepare Chantilly’s defense.”

I grabbed the front of Percy’s shirt and ground out, “Right now we have no defense. We have Chantilly the sobbing, jilted ex-fiancée who rode a horse naked, borrowed money from the murdered guy, and ate his wedding cake when he was marrying someone else. Things aren’t looking good here.”

“And if I find someone suspicious at the bakery, I follow them and get the goods on the killer like they do on
Law and Order
?”

Good God in heaven, I created a monster!
“No getting the goods. Undercover means you keep your mouth shut and ears open.” I looked Percy straight in the eyes to add some stern to my words. “This is not a TV show; there’s a real killer out there. He murdered once and wouldn’t blink at doing it again.”
Especially if you’re humming show tunes.

The last thing I wanted to do was put Percy in harm’s way. I just wanted him out of
my
way. If he stumbled onto some information we could use, so much the better. “If anything looks suspicious, bring it to me and we’ll talk it over.”

Percy nodded with a smile. “This is a really good plan, but I just can’t walk into the bakery with my uniform and toolbox, they’ll think I’m up to something. Everyone knows there’s not a repairman to be had in Savannah in August with all the old AC units on the fritz.”

“Delta’s the owner and my bet is she’s called so many people to fix the mixer and oven she’s lost count. Tell her you had a cancellation. She’ll be tickled to see you and won’t think about asking questions. Hey, you’ll get free doughnuts.”

Percy rubbed his hands together, a little grin playing at the corners of his mouth. “I do have a brown work uniform from Chicken-On-The-Run. That’s Uncle Chicken’s shop. I love cinnamon doughnuts. I do believe I could make this work.” Percy wiped his hands on a T-shirt that I’d never be able to sell now. Considering my customer flow I probably wouldn’t have sold it period.

Flipping his coat over his shoulder James Bond style, Percy picked up his toolbox, gave Chantilly a reassuring smile, then swaggered out the door not stopping to question the next customer. So far so good and maybe things would get even better tomorrow at the funeral. Not that I had a particular liking for funerals, but my guess was whoever killed Simon would show up. Dropping Simon’s cold sorry butt in the ground was the cherry on the sundae for the person wanting Simon dead.

But that was for later. Right now I had to fulfill my
nice
promise to God and Auntie KiKi. Reneging on a promise to either was never a good idea so I was off to dinner with a little coronary bypass chitchat to keep things lively.

• • •

“No, you can’t go to the funeral,” I said to Chantilly as I opened the door at ten sharp the next morning. I had on my one-and-only little black dress and heels that pinched my big toe and turned it black-and-blue. I could wear something from the Fox, but in my present state of financial difficulties I couldn’t afford the Fox.

Chantilly stood in the hallway, arms folded, lower lip extended. BW gave her a quick once-over. Not finding any readily available treats, he wandered outside to greet the day and water the grass and weeds. BW was an indiscriminate waterer.

“Simon’s
my
boyfriend.
Was
my boyfriend,” Chantilly amended. “This is a free country; I have a right to be going to his funeral if I want to and I really want to.”

“You’ll cause a ruckus. You’ll meet up with Waynetta and she’ll pitch a fit. It’ll get ugly and you’ll look guiltier than ever. You have on a red dress for crying out loud!”

“I want to say a proper good-bye.”

“I’ll put a rose on his casket for you.”

“I was thinking more like taking Daddy’s shotgun and blasting Simon’s casket to smithereens. Simon wasn’t in love with me, he was in love with money, other people’s money,
my
money. Last night I did the math and Simon was charging me a blooming fortune in interest just for the down payment on Mamma and Daddy’s place like you said. How could he go and do such a thing to me? We were engaged. I’m glad he’s—” I slapped my hand over Chantilly’s mouth before she could say the
d
-word, especially after the shotgun comment and with early-bird customers coming up the walk.

“You’re in enough trouble,” I whispered, flipping the “Closed” sign in the bay window
.
“Stay here. Mind the store.”

“Simon Ambrose was a first-rate jackass and I want to tell him that in no uncertain terms. I never got the chance when he was alive. I was stupid and in love, or at least thought I was in love. Mostly I was just stupid.”

Been there, done that. I pulled Chantilly behind the door/counter as two ladies strolled in. I lowered my voice. “We’ll go back to the cemetery this afternoon. You can dance all over his grave if you want. We’ll bring champagne, make a toast. Just not now!”

A horn blast cut through the morning calm, meaning KiKi wanted me in the Beemer ASAP. I headed for the door. “Watch BW. Don’t let him get overheated. Only one hot dog for lunch and don’t let him wheedle two. He’s a great wheedler. If you need anything, call KiKi’s cell. Number’s in the Godiva box.” Translation: cash box. Ben & Jerry guarded my wealth at night; Godiva did the same by day. Did I have good taste or what?

“We’re going to be late,” KiKi huffed, barreling down East Gaston. “What will people think if we’re late to a funeral. Lord have mercy, we’ll be Twittered about and did you and Dr. Hunk have a good time last night? I noticed he walked you home.”

“And I noticed how you just slipped that last part in there all casual like I wouldn’t notice. I live next door. Doc Hunky wanted to meet BW.”

“You could do with a little hunk in your life, you know.”

“No zing.”

“Zing?”

“Chemistry, attraction, animal magnetism that makes you all hot and sweaty.”

“It’s August, there’s enough sweat going around. Besides, look what happened with you and Hollis, the king of zing. And what about kids?”

“Sweet mother, how did kids get into this?”

“You’re thirty-two with no prospects.”

“I have a dog.”

KiKi gave me the Southern auntie tsk, then hunkered down and drove Savannah style, keeping one eye on the speedometer, the other on the lookout for ticket-happy police wanting to replenish city coffers. I never talked when KiKi drove like this, the g-forces scaring the talk right out of me. She got on the Truman Parkway, officially Harry S. Truman Parkway. No one ever called it that, of course, being that Harry S. was one of those frightful northern Democrats. What his parkway was doing here in Savannah was a mystery to us all.

“Chantilly wanted to come to the funeral,” I said to KiKi when she got to our exit and laid rubber screeching onto the two-lane. I had to change the subject fast before she brought up Dr. Hunky again.

“No doubt Chantilly wanted to come naked and on a horse. Saints preserve us. How did you talk her out of it?”

“Told her we’d come back later on today. She finally realizes Simon was using her. You wouldn’t happen to have a spare bottle of champagne lying around, would you?”

“Bet Simon used a lot of people and took their savings, thanks to Miss GracieAnn and her referrals. I wonder why he ditched that girl to take up with the likes of Chantilly? That never did make much sense to me.”

“Think of Chantilly-the-lovely in her pre-breakup months. Now think of GracieAnn any month.”

“But she was Simon’s money machine. Eventually he hooked up with Waynetta but that was later on down the road and not even on the horizon when he and GracieAnn were doing business. Fact is, about the time Simon ditched GracieAnn, Waynetta was engaged to Sugar-Ray and they were getting ready for that wedding. Of course when she found Sugar-Ray doing the unmentionable with Robert Carter she fainted dead away, went to some chichi spa in Alabama to recover, then took up with the first thing that came along and Simon made sure it was him.”

I stared at KiKi slack jawed. “Robert Carter and Sugar . . . Sugar . . .” My head started to spin, little dots dancing before my eyes.

“All very hush-hush,” KiKi went on. “Waynetta not wanting to admit she was engaged to a gay guy and Sugar-Ray not all that interested in coming out of the closet, so to speak, with him being a marriage counselor and all. Cher says,
Men aren’t necessities, they’re luxuries
, and Waynetta always has been hell-bent on having her share of luxury.”

“But that’s crazy. Why did Sugar-Ray go into marriage counseling of all things?”

“I figure he got into that particular business, then realized he was so not suited for that particular business, if you get my drift. By that time he had a decent reputation and was pulling in money. Coming out isn’t as easy as people think. Customers would have second thoughts on taking advice from someone who leaned in a different direction. I’m not saying it’s right, but it is what it is.”

“How . . . How do you know these things?”

KiKi did a wicked little laugh. “Oh, honey, the dance teacher hears all. When you hold someone’s hand and his arm is around your back, you form your own little world. Things just sort of come out.” Someone needs to tell those CIA guys never to take dance lessons. We pulled up behind a string of cars respectfully parading under massive trees draped in gossamer moss and through the heavy black iron gates of Bonaventure Cemetery. No place did cemetery better than Bonaventure. The line curled past family plots first populated over a hundred and fifty years ago and cordoned off by rusting fences and aging markers. Some headstones were tilted, weathered, and forgotten. Other markers were brand-spanking-new and bedecked with baskets and bouquets of fresh flowers. We drove past Wilmington River on the left then to Marguerite Laveau’s tombstone surrounded by candy, cigars, white rum, and money.

Marguerite was the resident voodoo queen who knew her stuff even from beyond the grave. If you wanted help with romance and finance, you came to Marguerite. Word had it that someone once stole five dollars from her grave and dropped dead before he reached the gates, his body withered clear through to the bone right there on the spot. No one messed with Marguerite before or after her residence at Bonaventure.

The cars stopped, and KiKi killed the engine. Quiet settled around the procession following the casket to the shaded grave draped with a green cloth to hide the fact that there was a big six-foot-deep hole soon to be occupied.

“See anyone who doesn’t belong here?” I whispered to KiKi, pulling her to the back of the procession.

Kiki gave me the
shhh-mind-you-manners
stare that aunties do so well. There were a lot of people gathered around what looked like a really expensive bronze coffin. Not that I was some expert on such things, but my guess was Reese Waverly had spared no expense. Did he do it out of fondness for Simon like Waynetta insisted or because Reese Waverly was happy as a pig in mud to be rid of the guy and it gave Reese great pleasure to do it up in style? Turning Simon’s likeness to Swiss cheese with a Remington long-barrel indicated the latter. The question was, why?

Vidallia Ambrose sat in the front row place of honor, but it was the Abbott sisters sniffing and crying and carrying on something fearful that drowned out Reverend Weatherman. I surmised that they were trying desperately hard to make up for the total lack of sniffing and crying and carrying on by everyone else, except for Vidallia.