Iced Chiffon (7 page)

“Mamma can be pretty cool.”

KiKi gave me a little wink. “She has her moments, but the woman can’t dance for diddly. Now get a move on.”

I was tired, too, and the thought of driving Bernard around the dance floor made my toes curl—for good reason. “I might have customers,” I offered as a last-ditch excuse not to take on Bernard. “I need to make money. I need to open my store.”

“Honey, there was a body right outside your house yesterday. I don’t think anyone will be showing up at a murder scene to buy clothes. Your store doesn’t even have a name. What kind of store doesn’t have a name? And you promised about Bernard, and I’m holding you to it.”

“Hi there,” a woman called from the open window of her car as she slowed to the curb in front of the house. “Is this here that prissy consignment shop I heard about on the news?” She pointed down at the street. “Was the car with that body in it right there? Lordy, that must have been something, finding a body in a trunk like that. I like your pj’s. Do you have any more in that store of yours?” The woman
parked her Prius and killed the engine. She made her way up the path and gave me the once-over. “Well now, you looked kind of foxy on the TV yesterday. What happened?” She pushed past me and went inside, searching through the clothes on the table and a few I had hanging from the antique brass chandelier in the middle of the room.

KiKi shrugged. “You could do with a little concealer, and you need to be getting more clothes in here to sell; we’re almost out. I brought my Nordstrom’s catalog over so you can get familiar with what’s new and what’s expensive and what prices to put on things.” She sat on the steps and flipped the magazine pages. “I’ll mind the store, and you get yourself dressed. Remember to be nice to Bernard. He pays double.”

An hour later, I hobbled back to my house and plopped down on the steps beside the bill pile and KiKi. “Look at this,” KiKi said, waving her hand over the shoppers in the dining room. “Murder truly is good for business. I never knew people could be so ghoulish. Everyone wants to know every gory little detail about Cupcake and the body. I suppose it’s like Cher said: ‘There is no such thing as bad publicity.’ ”

“Cher said that?”

“She would have if she’d thought of it first. We’ve been busy as ants at a picnic. I’m thinking it’s all because of the body in the Lexus, but now we are getting clothes to sell. I also took in some costume jewelry that looked kind of nice, and maybe we should start to do furniture. While you were gone, I went and named your store the Prissy Fox. I got it from our customer this morning before you went dancing with Bernard. How is he?”

“How is
he
?” I growled, then peeled off my left shoe and
held out my red big toe. “
He’s
just fine and dandy, thank you very much.”

There was a knock at the door, and KiKi stood. “We need one of those ‘Open’ signs so people can come right on inside like a real store.”

A real store
, I thought to myself. I had a long way to go before that happened, but at least people were here looking around. KiKi admitted a woman in her midforties with styled blonde hair and a tan knit suit. She gazed past KiKi, spied me on the steps, and hurried over, holding out her hand. I shook it as she gushed, “I saw you on the news yesterday. I’m Dinah Corwin. I wanted to meet you, since we have so much in common, and that common thing is now dead and gone, Lord be praised.”

I didn’t think it was good karma to be praising the demise of another human being, but I wasn’t wearing sackcloth and ashes about this particular event either. “Cupca…Janelle wasn’t one of your favorite people?”

“Oh, honey.” Dinah laughed and put her hand to her chest to contain the jubilation. “I’m with WAGA Atlanta. I do the
Georgia Southern Style
segment of the news every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I’m here to cover the Homes and Gardens Tour you-all are having this week. I saw on the news about Janelle. Today is a fine day indeed.”

Dinah did a little happy Snoopy dance right there in my hall. “I was celebrating with a nice pinot at the Marshall House, where I’m staying. That hunky bartender with the dreamy bedroom eyes gave me the dirt on Janelle breaking up your marriage, too. Said your husband ditched you just like my husband did to me back in Atlanta when Janelle came along. Of course, she never married the old fool, just
bled him dry. He bought me a cute little blue Gucci handbag with a braided handle for our anniversary, then swiped it right out of my closet and gave it to that little round-heeled Sue. A month later, she left him and moved here to Savannah. Lucky you. I, on the other hand, got myself a new beau in Atlanta. Henry. We’ve been going together for six months now. I suppose all’s well that ends well.”

I blinked a few times trying to take this all in. “Your husband? Janelle?”

“But now she’s dead as a doornail, and I have Henry. With all my celebrating last night, I spilled a glass of wine on my black dress and lost one of my favorite earrings to boot. I’m hoping you can fix me right up in an outfit I’ll look good in. I wanted to throw some business your way if I could since we’re sort of connected ’cause we married low-down conniving cheaters who did us wrong. I have a ton of interviews scheduled, you see. Tonight I’m at”—Dinah took her iPhone from her purse and touched the screen—“Raylene Carter’s house. Seems her garden is the front runner for Best of Show fourth time in a row. From what I understand there’ll be garden parties all week long but tomorrow night, I’m having a little wake of my very own over at the Marshall House to observe this momentous occasion of Janelle dead and gone. Spread the word, honey. Drinks are on me. I shouldn’t be so vocal about this, but I simply can’t contain myself.”

Obviously!
I slipped on my shoes, my big toe screaming
no, no, no
in protest then hobbled over to Dinah. I showed her some new black dresses I’d taken in on consignment then retrieved a box of earrings. A half hour later, I finally found ones similar enough to make her happy. If every sale was going to be this hard, my shop was doomed from the start.

After Dinah left, KiKi whispered to me, “Mercy me, Cupcake had a checkered past?”

“Better than that, Cupcake had enemies. Franklin, Sissy, Urston, and now Dinah Corwin. It’s getting to be a regular laundry list of people who wanted her out of the way. I wonder if Hollis…”

“Honey, Hollis knew Cupcake was young, stacked like a brick outhouse, and that his marital status at the time was not an issue. In the world of Hollis Beaumont the third, what else is there to care about?”

“Being in the slammer. I’ll keep the Prissy Fox open till noon. I need the business. Maybe a few more curious customers will drift in, and are we really going to name this place the Prissy Fox?”

“Better than Ye Old Secondhand Store.”

“You convinced me. I’ll close up for lunch, then go visit Hollis.”

“And then you’re going to visit Walker Boone, right? You have a lot of information now and real suspects besides Hollis. Let him handle things, honey.”

I crossed my fingers behind my back. “You bet.”

You bet
wasn’t exactly a full-fledged lie to my dear auntie, who would worry herself to a frazzle if she thought I was in danger. Worse still, she’d tell Mamma, and then they’d both worry. In my opinion, it was the duty of a caring daughter and niece to prevent her mother and auntie from any sort of frazzle on her part.

H
OLLIS LOOKED BAD
. T
HEN AGAIN, JAIL WASN’T
exactly a Sedona spa. I sat at a long metal table separated
into cubes. A piece of glass perforated with holes to let voices though and nothing else divided me from Hollis. I handed a police officer the cheesecake I’d picked up for Hollis from Sugar Daddy’s. Guess the cops were going to stab around in the goo to make sure I didn’t sneak in a hacksaw.

“You look good,” I lied.

“Boone better get this straightened out and fast. That’s why I’m paying him.”

Actually
I
was the one paying Boone, but this didn’t seem the best time to quibble. “Why weren’t you bawling your eyes out when you found out Janelle was…dead?”

“You came here to ask me that?”

“I brought cheesecake.” Hollis loved cheesecake. If anything would get him to open up and tell me what was going on, it was cheesecake. “Did you know Janelle was fooling around before? That she broke up a marriage in Atlanta? Why do Reverend Franklin and his cute little deacon have Janelle on their do–not-like list?”

The first two questions passed over Hollis without so much as a raised brow, but the Franklin-Sissy issue warranted a clenched jaw and flared nostrils. Pay dirt!

“Leave it alone, Reagan. I’m not telling you anything, no matter what kind of cheesecake you brought.” His eyes narrowed. “What kind did you bring?”

“Raspberry amaretto swirl.”

“Glory be.” He licked his lips, his eyes glazing over. “Franklin has nothing to do with Janelle’s death, so forget it.”

“Janelle wasn’t the cute little pixie doll you thought. She was up to something, and it wasn’t just selling houses.”

“Let Boone handle this. You’re just going to screw things up, like you always do.”

Now I understood the reason for the glass partition; it was to keep me from strangling Hollis with my bare hands. “You’re the one who screwed up my life in so many ways. If I didn’t have just fifteen minutes with you, I’d gladly list them. Tell me about Janelle and Franklin; you owe me that much. I brought you cake!”

“Franklin has kids, and you know his wife is my cousin. We’re family, and I don’t want to see Birdie hurt. Drop it.” Hollis ran his hand over his face, looking exhausted.

So, what would hurt Franklin’s wife? Duh! Another woman! I knew all about that kind of hurt. Auntie KiKi was dead–on about Sissy and Franklin. Auntie KiKi had great rumba radar. “Franklin’s having an affair with his little deacon.”

“Leave it be,” Hollis repeated, this time adding some stern to his voice. Translation:
there was more than just an affair to deal with
.

“I bet Janelle knew about the affair, and that’s why Franklin and Sissy didn’t like her. So why did he look so awful yesterday at your office when he heard Janelle was dead? He should have been jumping up and down and doing cartwheels across the room. His secret was safe.” I sucked in a quick breath. “Unless he wasn’t safe. Bless my soul, Janelle had pictures, or love letters, or something. Intrigue.”

Hollis had that same
Oh sweet Jesus
look in his eyes he did when I caught him and Cupcake on top of his desk at the office two years ago. It was the look that said
Busted!

“What tied Janelle to Franklin and Sissy was that she
was blackmailing them, and Franklin doesn’t know where the blackmail goodies are.”

“Franklin’s a minister and doesn’t have two dimes to rub together for blackmail. You’re way off base.”

I felt more like I was rounding first and heading for second. “His wife is a Beaumont, and she
does
have money. Of course, Franklin getting it to pay off Janelle to keep her quiet might be a little tricky since then he’d have to tell dear Birdie why he needed it.”

Hollis whispered though clenched teeth. “The day before the murder, Franklin came to me about Janelle and asked me to get her to back off and leave him alone. Before that, I swear I had no idea what Janelle was up to. I tried to tell her to stop, but she just laughed in my face. Said Savannah was easy pickings with all the secrets. She said that’s why she hooked up with me. She got to know everyone’s business.”

“That’s what the argument at the Telfair was about, and why you weren’t all that overwrought at Janelle’s death.” Hollis gave me a shoulder shrug that said I was right. “What about bail and getting you out of here?”

“First-degree-murder charges and all the evidence against me makes bail a freaking fortune.”

A red light came on in the front of the room, where the cops were holding my cheesecake hostage. A loudspeaker blared that visiting time was over.

“Stay out of this, Reagan. I mean it. You’re going to make things even worse than they already are. Boone will take care of everything. He’s smart; he’ll find the killer.”

And he probably would, I thought to myself as I left Hollis and followed the yellow line on the floor with the other
visitors to the exit. But in the process, I’d lose my house for sure. I had my laundry list of suspects who could have knocked off Janelle, but Boone knew stuff too, stuff I could really use. The big question was how to get him to tell me.

During the divorce, I was mad as a rat in a trap, and it showed. In those days, visions of Walker Boone’s head on a stake outside the courthouse gave me great comfort, and he was aware of that since I might have mentioned it a time or two. Now I was smarter, calmer. For sure I was over Hollis, and I could play Walker Boone to get what I wanted, right?

I was Hollis’s ex and the one who found the body, so asking Boone a few questions was logical enough without making him suspect I was trying to find the killer. And since I spotted Boone walking across the parking lot at that very moment, now was as good a time as any to wheedle information. I slapped on my best Little Miss Innocent smile and set my brain to wheedling mode.