Authors: Duffy Brown
Uh–oh
. I’d wanted to get Auntie KiKi’s support so she wouldn’t pressure me into handing the case off to Boone. I thought she might be ticked that Boone had downplayed our abilities, but I hadn’t counted on an out-and-out hissy fit. I took Auntie KiKi’s hand. “That’s pretty much the way he makes me feel all the time. You’ll get over it.”
KiKi swiped her hand back. “I will not get over it, and no one picks on a Summerside without spoiling for a fight.” She jabbed her hands to her hips. “The way I see it, we got
ourselves a pretty fair list of people who wanted Cupcake dead. Now we figure out which one did the deed, and we tell the police. To do all that, we need sticky buns and pecan coffee. The brain works much better with a good old sugar rush.”
She pulled me up, my joints not happy about moving. “And I got both at my house right this very minute.”
I followed KiKi out my door to hers, surrounded by yellow buttercups and purple wisteria. I brought the blue-enamel coffeepot and Spode cups to the table, KiKi snagged the sticky buns from the antique pie safe in the corner. Even as a kid I thought a safe for pies had to be the best idea ever—as long as I had a key, of course.
KiKi got a pen and paper. Things were getting serious if lists were involved. There was no way I could get my dear auntie to back out of finding the killer now, but Boone was right in that it was dangerous. I didn’t mind putting myself in harm’s way, but it wasn’t right to do that to KiKi. If I lost my house, that was one thing, but if anything happened to my auntie…Well, that simply wasn’t an option.
KiKi plopped two cubes of sugar in her coffee, gave a quick stir, then picked up her pen, which had a little plastic tulip sticking out of the top. At KiKi’s house, nothing was simple; everything was a bit over the top.
“For suspects so far we have Urston and Raylene, Sissy and Franklin, and Dinah Corwin.” KiKi stopped writing. “I forgot to ask, did you find out anything at the club about Baxter? Is he playing golf like Trellie thinks he is, or is he playing bedroom bingo over at the Marshall House like we think?”
I took the pen and paper and added Baxter Armstrong.
“The bartender and servers had no idea who Baxter Armstrong was, and there’s more. Last night Hollis’s town house was broken into. My guess is by one of the people Cupcake blackmailed. I went over there to look around and found—you’re going to love this—horn-rimmed glasses.”
“Baxter’s!” KiKi said in a gasp.
“How many people have you seen in glasses like that? Hollis wouldn’t be caught dead in the things, and they surely aren’t from Cupcake’s accessory drawer.”
“Well, blast his cheating hide!” KiKi fanned herself with a yellow napkin. “Cupcake found out Baxter was messing around with other women and blackmailed him.” KiKi sat back in her chair, took a bite of sticky bun, and said around a mouthful, “I don’t rightly know what to do now. This will break Trellie’s heart if she finds out, and you know she will.”
KiKi finished chewing, her eyes fixed in deep concentration. She slapped her palms on the table, making the paper, pen, and me jump. “We should tell that lily-livered cheater that we know what he’s doing, and he needs to put a stop to it right this very minute.”
“He could be more than a blackmail victim,” I added. “He could be the killer, and if we confront him, he could add us to his list.”
“Trellie was there for me when my daddy passed, and I remember when her Frank dropped dead so sudden-like on the sixteenth hole over at Sweet Marsh. She was so sad that I didn’t think she’d ever get over it, and then she met Baxter, and the twinkle was back in her eyes. I can’t let her heart get broken all over again, now can I?” KiKi stood up. “First thing we’ll do is follow Baxter and see what he’s up to, and then we knock some sense into him. Go get your bat.”
This was like trying to stop a runaway train.
KiKi added, “You need to get the Fox ready for the week. While you’re doing that I can follow Baster.” Her eyes got steely, just like the time she set her mind to do the 5K walkathon for breast cancer. That she hobbled around for months after was of little consequence.
“You have to call me every hour and check in, and we confront Baxter together, remember that word—
together
. There’s safety in numbers.”
“Honey child, calling’s going to be a mite hard since you don’t have yourself a phone, now do you. Maybe you can use Hollis’s; he doesn’t have any use for it.”
Duh! Hollis’s phone. All this time I hadn’t even thought about that option. “I’ll run down to his office and see if it’s there and call you with the number. I’ll close the Fox at noon, and we’ll meet up then.”
“I have a tango lesson at one, so you can take my place following Baxter, and I’ll go on back home.” KiKi pursed her lips. “You know, I truly can’t see Baxter Armstrong as the killer. If he was, he’d have knocked off Trellie by now for the money.”
“How do we know she’s not next on his list?”
KiKi made the sign of the cross, and I left her with that less-than-happy thought and went back home to grab a quick shower. I needed to get to IdaMae for the phone before I opened the shop. I pulled on my last clean pair of underwear, the ones I liked least, the ones that had lost their elastic zing and now classified as droopy drawers. I slipped into jeans too tight from eating too many sticky buns. Bruce Willis’s bowl sat on the second step, and I filled it with food mixed with a hot dog. With a little luck, he’d stay on that step, and
sooner or later I’d work him up to watchdog position. I clapped my hands. “Come and get it, boy.”
Bruce charged out, eyed his bowl, and chowed down, looking like me and cranberry stuffing at Thanksgiving. I didn’t like cranberries but suffered though them to get to the rest of the stuffing, which was simply sublime.
At the office, IdaMae was typing away at the computer but at Cupcake’s desk. IdaMae had two pink African violets in full bloom, a candy bowl, a caddy of matching pens, and a framed picture of her cat, Buttercup.
“Reagan, honey!” she gushed. “You look lovely today, I must say.”
“Truth be told, you’re the one who looks lovely.”
“It’s the hair.” IdaMae blushed and fluffed her soft curls, now a honey blonde with subtle highlights. “I went to that Cutting Crew place Janelle frequented, and they fixed me right up. They didn’t have much good to say about Janelle—I can tell you that.”
“And new lipstick and makeup?”
“Those Clinique girls out at the mall know their stuff. I got new shoes.” She stuck out her foot from behind the desk. “Sensible but stylish, that’s what the lady at Macy’s said. I figured I best be looking professional if I’m in charge of the office till Hollis gets himself back home. I have to spruce myself up if I’m showing houses and all.” She held up a big, black handbag. “Put all my real-estate stuff in it and keep it right here by my chair. I can grab it and go.”
I held up Old Yeller. “I keep my bag on the counter at home for the same reason. Hollis is lucky to have you on the job. With him not being here, I was wondering if I could use his cell phone. I’m financially distressed at the moment.”
The light went right out of IdaMae’s eyes, and she rested her head in her hands. “Oh dear me. How could Hollis end up in jail of all places? To make things even worse, his town house got broken into. Who would do such a thing? That nice caretaker came all the way over here to tell me. He changed the locks and dropped off the new keys. Plumb nice of him, if you ask me.”
IdaMae took a key from her desk and handed it over, then pulled in a deep, ragged breath and forced a smile. “I’m sorry to be so down in the mouth. I just have these little worry spells from time to time is all. Hollis left his phone on his desk that dreadful day when they hauled him out in handcuffs.” A tear trailed down her cheek. “I’ll go get it for you,” she said in a wobbly voice. “I put it on his charger to keep it up for when he comes home to us nice and safe.”
“I’ll get it.” I started down the hall. “You finish up what you’re doing.” I didn’t want to upset IdaMae more than necessary. She’d been through enough. I opened the top drawer of Hollis’s desk to find business cards, envelopes, a carryout menu from Screamin’ Mimi’s pizza, a football schedule for the Georgia Bulldogs, the cell phone, and a .38 Smith and Wesson for those times when haggling over real estate went beyond haggling and someone had to restore peace and prosperity to the South.
The phone was one of those complicated phones with enough gizmos to get you to Mars and back and communicate with anyone you met along the way. I took it and the charger, thanked IdaMae, snatched two candies from the bowl, then called KiKi while walking back to Cherry House. I gave her Hollis’s number and reminded her that under no circumstances was she to confront Baxter. I disconnected,
got home, threw in a load of laundry, and opened the Fox at ten sharp to three tourists who thought shopping at a Southern resale shop had to be the most fun in all of Georgia. God bless the tourists.
At noon I put a “Be Back at Three” sign on the door. This was no way to run a railroad. I needed regular shop hours, but I also needed to find Cupcake’s killer. KiKi helped out at the Fox when she could, but she had a business of her own and Uncle Putter to tend to, in addition to now doing Savannah’s version of
Murder, She Wrote
with me. Maybe the Abbott sisters would help out? I couldn’t afford to pay them, but if I gave them 50 percent off what they bought at the Fox, which was my half of the profit from the sale, that might be incentive enough. Plus, they could gossip with all the customers.
I caught a bus up to Broughton. Usually I walked, but if KiKi saw Baxter with a bimbo, there was a distinct possibility she’d go ballistic on Trellie’s behalf, and the SPD would have to call in the riot squad. KiKi had phoned earlier and told me she’d followed Baxter from his house to a garage, where he changed clothes and identities, picked up his truck, then headed to the Hilton Hotel on East Liberty. I got off the bus and found the service alley behind the Hilton, KiKi’s out–of–place Beemer parked next to a van reading “Dan’s Flora and Fauna.” I slipped into the passenger side.
“What’s up, Sherlock?”
“Nothing,” KiKi said, “except I got to pee so bad I might drown. I’m willing to bet there’s plenty going on with Baxter inside that hotel. Last time we saw him over at Marshall House; this time, the Hilton. That man’s clearly up to no good. I never thought Baxter could be the killer, but the
longer I sit here and think about him, the more I realize I don’t really know the man at all. He just sort of showed up in Savannah and got to be a regular on the benefit circuit, going to dinners at the Oglethorpe Club, parties at the country club and the Telfair Museum, and the like. He said he did some modeling in Atlanta, and before you know it, he and Trellie were making goo-goo eyes at each other over martini glasses, then running off to Vegas and tying the knot.”
“You better go. The Petersons will have a conniption if you’re late.”
“Then the teens come in for cotillion dance lessons. The group I have this year can’t dance for beans. How they ever learned to walk is a mystery to me. I’m leaving you the car, and I’ll catch a cab out front. Let me know what happens.”
“Get the cabbie to do a pee stop at Ray’s BBQ, and pick up sweet-potato fries while you’re there. Ray does great sweet-potato fries.”
I watched KiKi head off, then got out and walked around the car, settling down in the comfy leather driver’s seat to wait for Baxter. Five minutes later, he came out the service entrance, pulled his baseball cap low over his face, and jogged to his truck. He had on another pair of horn-rimmed glasses, and I watched him toss his case in the back of the pickup, then hop in the driver’s side. I sank lower still as he motored out of the alley and hung a left. I brought the Beemer to life and followed at a distance. The BMW may be a really nice car, but it got noticed. What I needed was a silver SUV. Half the cars on the road these days were silver SUVs.
Baxter swung onto Bay Street, then circled around back of the Hampton Inn. This guy had one heck of a constitution and was headed for a lifetime achievement award of Wilt
Chamberlain proportions. Maybe that was the problem. Women panted after Baxter; I’d seen them do it. Trellie was older, and perhaps she simply couldn’t keep up. The way this guy was going, no woman could keep up!
The service alley was tight with trucks and Dumpsters, forcing me to park at the entrance. I wasn’t sure what KiKi and I were going to do with the information about Baxter. Tell Trellie? Confront Baxter with ‘The jig is up, bubba; reform your philandering ways’? Have our obituaries posted in the morning news?
Someone knocked on the passenger-side window, and I jumped so high I cracked my head on the visor. Thinking about one’s obituary can do that to a person. Recognizing the no–makeup look and the stringy mouse-brown hair that almost made my two-tone stripes look good, I powered down the window to Reverend Franklin’s wife, Birdie. She was Hollis’s cousin, so our paths had crossed a few times. “Uh, hi, Birdie.”
She climbed in. “I know what you’re doing here, and I tell you it’s downright disgraceful. Do you have any idea how many lives you’re going to ruin? Don’t you have a conscience?”
“I’m not trying to ruin lives, I’m trying to find Cupca—Janelle’s killer so an innocent man doesn’t go to prison.”
And I don’t lose my house.
Birdie nodded to the Hampton. “And you think that no–good cheater is the murderer?”
“Well, he’s running all over town, slipping in and out of back doors, lying to his wife, sleeping with who-knows-how-many women, and getting blackmailed. I’m sure he wasn’t happy about that.”
“Oh dear Lord!” Birdie slapped her hand to her forehead and looked faint. “He’s playing around with more than one?”
“The way I see it, Baxter is Hugh Hefner without the wrinkles and robe.”
Birdie’s face morphed from tortured to weird. “For pity’s sake, who’s Baxter?”
“The man I’m watching. Why did you think I was here?”
“To keep an eye on my Virgil, of course. I know he’s fooling around on me with that snooty little deacon. I thought you were here to take pictures of the two of them together and get proof that Virgil had a motive for killing that Janelle woman and get Hollis off the hook. Virgil might be a gigolo in preachers’ clothing, but he’s not a killer. He’s not that kind of man. He’s a good man.” Birdie bit back a sob. “He truly is.”