Pearls and Poison (A Consignment Shop Mystery) (22 page)

“W
HAT
buddy?”

Archie Lee laughed and hitched his head toward the back. “Move it and don’t try anything funny. This is my pappy’s shotgun, and it don’t miss.”

Mamma? Did Archie have her in the back? Did she beat me here and figure it all out, too? Oh, please, not Mamma. But I didn’t see her flowers. KiKi was with Uncle Putter. Mercedes? It must be Mercedes; maybe she’d figured it all out.

I wound my way through the tables heading toward the hall; the kitchen door was closed. “Open it,” Archie Lee ordered.

The big cauldron sat cooking on the old black stove, the fragrant aroma of Old Bay Seasoning and Guinness filling the room, and Walker Boone was tied to a chair in the corner. He looked at me and sighed. “Great. What the heck are you doing here?”

“
You
knew about the dates on the invitations, too?”

“Butler’s books. He sold lumber to Archie Lee, and the delivery was to the house on Blair. I figured there was a connection.”

“You bet there’s a connection,” Archie Lee said. “That there was my granny’s house. I bought the wood and fixed her steps for her, and she fell straight through and broke her hip and her back. That fall put her in a wheelchair. Haber burned down her house to get rid of the evidence, but I knew what happened, and I wasn’t about to let him get away with it. Seymour Construction was doing the same thing, hurting innocent people by using bad lumber, and they were going to get away with it, too.”

“So you took care of them both,” Boone said, giving me a weird look. “With Honey Seymour accused of murdering Butler, it would all get front-page attention. Otherwise, it would be buried in the courts forever.” This time Boone gave me a piercing look. Either he had gas or something was up. I gave him a
what
look back, and he rolled his eyes.

“And it was easy enough to pull off,” Archie Lee continued in a smug voice. “The night Honey had her rally I slipped in like a delivery guy and snatched one of her fancy scarves. My rally didn’t start till six so I had plenty of time.”

“And then you planted the scarf at the lumberyard when you knocked off Butler and set the place on fire,” I said, seeing it all fall into place. “Why the taillight?”

“Brother said I needed more to connect Honey than just a scarf, so he busted the light out late last night and planted it at the fire. With all the commotion going on no one noticed him there. He even put sawdust from the lumberyard on the bottom of the gas cans in Honey’s garage.”

“Nice touch.”

“Now I get to be Savannah’s new alderman.” Archie Lee grinned ear to ear. “Not bad, if I do say so myself. I’m a lot smarter than people think I am.”

“Wait a minute, back up,” I said, things starting to sink in. I glared at Boone. “Why are you here?”

“Bad timing?”

I parked my hands on my hips. “When the lumberyard went up in flames, you knew it wasn’t Honey who set the fire all along. You knew it was Archie Lee?”

“I suspected.”

“What happened to looks like a duck and quacks like a duck?”

“I didn’t want you to wind up exactly where you are now, but in true form you wound up here anyway.”

“You wanted to handle it.”

“Something like that.”

“And look where it got you. You are a rotten, no-good, two-faced—”

“Archie Lee,” came Popeye’s voice from an open door in the corner. “I almost got that hole dug down here like you wanted.”

Keeping the shotgun on me, Archie Lee backed to the doorway. “We’re needing another hole. We got more company.”

“What company?”

“That Summerside girl.”

A sinister laugh floated up the stairs, sending chills clear through my body.

Archie Lee stood on one foot, a sly smile on his face. “We’re going to bury you two in the basement with those Yankee soldiers everyone’s always talking about around here. I got one crate cleared out front, and I’ll get another, or maybe I’ll just jam you both in the one and save time. What do you think about that?”

“I think it sucks,” I said to Archie Lee. “I think all this sucks.” I glared at Boone. “I’m so pissed off at you. And I’m fed up with having guns pointed at me, and I absolutely, positively refuse to be buried with a bunch of damn Yankees.”

I kicked the two-by-four out from under the stove, the boiling caldron flipping over, scalding water and peanuts sailing right for Archie Lee and the open door.

Archie Lee jumped out of the way, dropping the shotgun, and Boone decked him with a solid left hook as I whacked Archie Lee in the gut with the oar and slammed the door to the basement closed, Boone flipping the lock.

“Nice going, Blondie.” Boone grinned. “Glad you got my message.”

“What message? There was no message. I thought you were having an attack of something, and don’t you Blondie me you double-dealing piece of crud. You lied to me; you always lie to me. I never know what to believe.”

“How about believing this?” Boone picked me up and kissed me, and for a second I forgot about being mad. Okay, maybe for a lot of seconds I forgot about being mad. I couldn’t breathe, my heart raced, and I really did see stars, lots of ’em. He let me go, setting me back on the floor.

“You . . . You think that makes up for the duck thing?”

The grin grew. “Maybe a little.”

“It doesn’t, not one bit.”

This time Boone laughed. “Worth a try, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.” And then he kissed me again.