Rosemary and Crime (27 page)

I stared at him in disbelief. His answer came much too quickly for my suspicious mind to accept. “A done deal…? Just like that?”

He snapped his fingers. “Just like that.”

The leather cushion wheezed as I shifted my weight to better see his expression. “You usually fight me tooth and nail whenever I broach the subject of Lindsey spending more time with me. What’s up? Why the change of heart?”

He took another sip of bourbon, then gave me a sheepish grin. “I finally convinced Amber to move in with me. We could use some privacy. Havin’ a teenager hangin’ around sorta cramps my style … if you get my drift.”

“Oh, I got your drift all right, but will Lindsey?” I pushed myself out of the sectional’s cloying embrace. “Our daughter’s not going to be happy being displaced in favor of Miss Peach Pit.”

“Wh-what…?” CJ sputtered, his face flushed.

“Did I say Miss Peach Pit?” I retrieved my purse from where I’d left it. “I meant to say
fiancée.
How quickly I forgot that teensy detail. I’ll let you explain the situation to Lindsey. And,” I added, “you might want to give our son a heads up on the current state of the union.”

After saying good-bye to Lindsey, I returned to my car, knowing I’d erased the self-satisfied smirk from CJ’s face. Casey woke from his doggy nap on the front seat and greeted me with a series of excited yips. His small body fairly hummed with joy at my return. I rubbed his head, pleased at the unabashed response. As I drove away from CJ’s palatial home, I prayed my daughter’s fondness for the pup would help lessen the sting of her father’s defection in favor of a blond bimbo in a short skirt.

*   *   *

The following afternoon I was leafing through a food magazine when Melly entered Spice It Up!, accompanied by her friend Dottie Hemmings. “Hello, Piper,” Melly smiled. “Quilting club ended early so Dottie and I thought we’d stop by to say hello.”

“Lottie Smith spilled sweet tea all over the bunny quilt she’s making for her niece’s new baby.” Dottie wagged her head sorrowfully, but her helmet of teased blond hair didn’t move one iota.

“Poor dear was inconsolable,” Melly explained. “We voted to end our meeting early.”

“Did you hear about Buzz Oliver?” Dottie asked eagerly. Before I could answer, she launched into a tale of woe. “Buzz had gall bladder surgery. In and out of the hospital the same day. Imagine! When I had mine removed years ago, I stayed in the hospital a whole week. Had one of those little tubes that drained awful yellow-green bile. My husband, the mayor, stayed by my side night and day.”

“Poor Buzz,” I murmured. “How’s he doing?”

“Oh, he’s doin’ fine. Becca Dapkins buzzes over him like a bee around honey.”

Melly straightened a stack of mail I had yet to sort. “Becca’s probably got a guilty conscience from feeding the poor man a steady diet of casseroles featuring creamed soup.”

Dottie nodded. “Maybelle Humphries heard the menu that set off Buzz’s attack was turkey à la king. But Becca swears it wasn’t the cream of mushroom soup. She’s blaming it on the chopped turkey she found in the freezer.”

“Unfortunately,” Melly said, pursing her lips, “Becca doesn’t remember if the turkey was from last Thanksgiving … or the year before.”

Dottie patted her hair. “Rumor’s flying around about a wild party after the prom. Don’t suppose by any chance Lindsey mentioned the details.”

“Dottie Hemmings!” Melly looked shocked by the suggestion her precious granddaughter would be privy to such information. “Lindsey has far too much sense to be even remotely involved in such goings-on.”

“Simmer down, Melly,” Dottie was quick to protest. “Don’t get all high-and-mighty on me. I was curious, is all.”

Melly fingered her ever-present string of pearls. “Lindsey happens to be dating Jason Wainwright. From everything I’ve heard, Jason is an upstanding young man destined to follow in his father’s footsteps.”

I bit my tongue at the “upstanding young man” comment. In my opinion, Jason was nothing more than a spoiled boy with a lot of growing up to do. But in all fairness, Lindsey had a lot of growing up to do as well. She hadn’t demonstrated much maturity of late.

Dottie gave me a sly smile. “Jolene Tucker told Gerilee Barker that after Beau got back from helping the sheriff reroute traffic early Sunday morning, he spotted Chief McBride’s truck parked outside your shop. Anything cooking between the two of you?”

Indignant, Melly turned to me. “Piper, tell Dottie that Beau was mistaken.”

“Tsk, tsk,” Dottie scolded. “Shame on you, Melly. You didn’t always used to be such a stick-in-the-mud. I remember a time or two, you liked to kick up your heels. Besides,” she continued, “Wyatt McBride’s a right-handsome tall drink of water. If I was younger—and single…” She giggled.

The idea of Melly Prescott kicking up her heels was giving me a headache. “Actually, ladies, Chief McBride
was
here,” I admitted, boldly deciding on a white lie—if there really is such a thing—rather than trash my daughter’s reputation in front of her grandmother. “The chief was kind enough to inform me personally that the security system at CJ’s home had been breached.”

Melly’s blue-veined hand flew to her pearls. “Oh, dear. Was everything all right?”

“A malfunction of some sort. The chief quickly managed to get the situation under control.” What I’d just told her hadn’t been a total lie. I failed to mention the security system in question wasn’t a fancy electronic method, but rather CJ’s next-door neighbor. “Since I was listed as a contact person,” I continued, “McBride thought I should be notified.”

Melly frowned. “Where was CJ when all this was going on? He never breathed a word to me he was leaving town.”

“Goodness gracious, Mel,” Dottie chimed. “CJ’s a grown man. You can’t expect him to run everything by his mama for approval.”

Dottie had a good point, I mused. Given a chance, Melly would have nipped his affair with Amber Leigh Ames in the bud. Wait till she discovered he planned to have Amber move in as a permanent houseguest. Sparks would fly. “I’m sure he meant to tell you, Melly,” I said, adopting a placating tone. “With all those new cases his billboards have brought in, it probably slipped his mind.”

“Yes, dear, but I
am
his mother” she said. “CJ tells me everything.”

“CJ had box seats for a Braves game. Rather than drive home late, he decided to stay overnight.”

My explanation brought a smile to Melly’s lined face. “CJ’s been a Braves fan since he was a boy.”

Not long afterward, Dottie made her excuses and left. The headache that had started small but was steadily worsening made me long for some fresh air. On impulse, I turned to Melly and asked, “Would you do me a favor and mind the shop while I run a couple errands. I promise, I won’t be gone long.”

“No trouble at all, dear.” Melly beamed. “Take your time.”

I grabbed my purse and was out of the shop in a wink. The sky had changed from sunny to silver with a hint of rain in the air. The gloom mirrored my present state of mind. Head down, I nearly collided with Ned Feeney, who emerged from Gray’s Hardware, with a can of paint in one hand and spackle in the other. A putty knife protruded from the pocket of his jeans.

“Hey, Miz Piper.” He gave me his slightly lopsided grin.

“Hey yourself, Ned,” I said, but kept walking. Ned was as big a gossip as Dottie, and I wasn’t up for more questions about wild parties or why McBride’s truck was parked outside my shop in the wee hours of the morning.

I paused to examine a display of estate jewelry in the window of Yesteryear Antiques when Diane Cloune barreled out. She either didn’t see me standing there or chose to ignore me. Whichever, I thought her attitude off-putting for the wife of a man running for public office. You’d think she’d want to curry favor from one of his constituents. Diane apparently had more important things on her mind than being polite to little ol’ me. I watched her slide into a car, which was parked at the curb.

A big, black Lincoln.

Frozen in place, I stood on the sidewalk as the car accelerated down Main Street and disappeared around the corner. It was then I noticed the dealer logo on the rear bumper. A grinning circus clown with the slogan:
DON’T CLOWN AROUND, VISIT CLOUNE MOTORS
.

The exact same logo I’d seen on the car that had nearly ground me into mincemeat. A tingling sensation started at the base of my spine and crept its way up my scalp as my brain processed this information.

Memory’s a funny thing.
McBride’s words came back to haunt me.

C
HAPTER
30

S
O WHAT IF
Diane Cloune drove a big, black Lincoln. Diane had no reason to want me dead. Or at the very least, seriously injured. Unless, that is,
she
was Mario’s killer. I quickly dismissed the notion as ridiculous. I’d heard Diane tell Vicki Lamont that her affair with Mario ended amicably some time ago. Diane’s driving a car similar to the one that tried to run me down was coincidence.

Coincidence. Pure and simple.

Besides, how would that explain the larger of the shoe prints?

As I continued on my merry way, I waved to Pete Barker, who stood in the doorway of Meat on Main. He waved back. Guilt nipped at my conscience. I’d raised the finger of suspicion and leveled it smack-dab at his midsection. But if Pete was innocent, why lie to his wife about his whereabouts the night of the murder? The time to start eliminating possible suspects was long past due. And Pete’s name ranked high on my persons-of-interest list. I thought again about the footprints we’d found at the crime scene.
Hmm,
I mused,
I wonder what size shoe Pete wears.
The situation called for a consultation with my BFF. I needed to drop by the Klassy Kut for a little brainstorming, but first I decided to swing by Proctor’s Cleaners and pick up my trench coat, which I’d dropped off last week.

Bitsy Johnson-Jones glanced up from the paperback novel she was reading when the overhead buzzer announced my arrival. “Hey, Piper.”

“Hey yourself, Bitsy,” I returned. Bitsy, bless her heart, was as sweet as could be, but there was nothing even remotely “bitsy” about her. The woman loved to eat and it showed with every jiggle of her plus-size figure. “I’m here for my raincoat,” I said, handing her the crumpled ticket I’d excavated from my purse.

“Oh, yeah, I know the one. Mr. Proctor said to make sure you sign a waiver when you came to get it.”

“A waiver?” That sounded ominous. “What kind of waiver?”

“It acknowledges your coat was torn when you dropped it off.” Bitsy pressed a button on a remote control device and a ceiling-mounted track began revolving. Clothes sheathed in plastic whooshed past, leaving a trail of noxious fumes in their wake. I felt my headache increase in intensity. Finally the whirring and whooshing stopped. Bitsy separated my trench from dozens of look-alike bags.

“Here it is.” With a flourish, she ripped off a pink sheet of paper that had been stapled to the plastic and handed it to me along with a pen. “Sign at the bottom.”

I quickly scanned the document. By signing it, I agreed not to hold Proctor’s Cleaners responsible for any damages.

“I didn’t realize the coat was torn when I brought it in,” I said in self-defense as I scrawled my signature on the waiver.

“Mr. Proctor said the garment looked as though it’d been through hell and back. Wanted me to tell you he did his best. He could see from the label that the coat was expensive so he spent a lot of time trying to remove the stains. That’s why there’s an extra charge.”

“Be sure to thank him for me.”

Great, I thought, I’d just paid a ridiculous sum for dry-cleaning a coat that in all likelihood would wind up at Goodwill. Draping the plastic-encased garment over my arm, I bid Bitsy good-bye and headed for the Klassy Kut.

“Hey, girlfriend.” Reba Mae stopped mixing a vile-smelling potion and gave me a distracted smile as I entered. “Don’t suppose you brought a starving hairdresser some lunch?”

I could see at a glance she was busy. One client sat with strands of hair wrapped in aluminum foil. Another, her head covered with perm rods and encased in a plastic bag, leafed through the pages of a gossip magazine. I motioned Reba Mae aside and lowered my voice. “Sorry for the interruption, but we need to talk.”

She stopped stirring and looked at me quizzically. “Looks like someone’s got her panties in a twist.”

“We need to come up with a way to find out Pete Barker’s shoe size.”

“Well, honeybun,” Reba Mae drawled, “Pete’s feet are gonna have to stand in line behind highlights and a perm.”

“Fine,” I agreed. “I’ll talk to you later, but promise to give it some thought before those fumes start destroying brain cells.”

When I returned to Spice It Up!, Melly smiled as she came out of the storeroom. “Did you enjoy your little outing, dear?”

I hung my coat in the cupboard. I’d take it upstairs later. “Fine,” I said. “I hope you weren’t bored while I was out.”

“Not at all,” Melly said. “While you were away, I took the liberty of alphabetizing your spices. Your customers will be able to find things much easier now that everything is in alphabetical order instead of scattered helter-skelter.”

I couldn’t believe my ears. All my clever groupings? My eye-catching displays? Gone, all of them? “You didn’t…”

“You don’t have to thank me. I was happy to help.”

I looked around to find my precious spices lined up with more precision than cadets at a military academy. Baking spices mingled with those used for barbecue. Sweet cohabitated with nutty. Warm and earthy with bitter. Middle Eastern bordered Southwest. The entire place was a disaster of gigantic proportions.

Melly’s hand flew upward to fondle her pearls. “You don’t look pleased. I hope you’re not angry with me, Piper.”

Shaking free from the initial shock, I stared at my ex-mother-in-law, seeing her clearly for the first time in ages. A network of fine lines fanned out from eyes the same silver-blue as my daughter’s. Somehow she seemed a smaller, frailer version of the steel magnolia I always envisioned. Lastly, I noticed the slight quiver in her lower lip, as if she might burst into tears any moment, and my irritation faded. “I’m just amazed you managed to rearrange everything so … quickly.”