2 On the Nickel (17 page)

I felt sick to my stomach. I was
thirty-eight years old. Mama and Erica had been enemies for my entire life. And
she’d paid blackmail for ten years. “How did you pay her? Didn’t Daddy notice
the expense?”

“Grocery money. You think I came up with cheese doodle croutons for fun? I bought sale items in bulk and gave her my grocery
money. Why do you think I shopped four places before I bought a pair of shoes?
Because I had to have money for Erica.”

I couldn’t comprehend the scope
of what Mama was saying. I had reached my saturation point and needed time to process the information. But while she was handing out secrets, I had one more to probe. “Where
did you go on Tuesday night after the hospitality committee meeting?”

Mama flushed. Bright red flags
appeared on her thin cheeks. “Bud’s house. We had a drink. One thing led to
another, and I fell asleep in his arms. A phone call woke us up. I rushed home and hurried up to my bedroom so you wouldn’t smell Bud’s cigar on my clothes.”

I believed her. “You didn’t kill
Erica?”

“Nope. Though I wish I’d thought
of it.”

A blizzard of relief showered
through me. Mama had an alibi. “Bud will corroborate your story?”

“Of course.”

I tried to put this together in a
logical format, but it wouldn’t go. A huge piece of the picture was missing. “Did
anyone else know you went over to Bud’s after the meeting?”

“No. Francine and Muriel don’t
know about our affair. No one does.”

“You’re wrong there. Erica knew.
So did her killer. Was this the first time you went to Bud’s after a church meeting?”

“No. I’ve been going there after
every hospitality meeting this summer. You didn’t think those church meetings ran for several hours, did you?”

Truthfully, I hadn’t paid any
attention to Mama’s comings and goings. I’d had my hands full of teenaged angst
and a hot boyfriend all summer. But someone else had plenty of free time. Someone had been skulking around Hogan’s Glen. “It was your routine to sneak over to Bud’s
whenever you could?”

“Only after your father died.”
Mama drew cross over her heart. “I swear I didn’t sleep with Bud before Joe’s
aneurysm.”

It was hard to set aside Mama’s
secret romance and focus on the murder, but I did it. “Someone went to a lot of
trouble to set you up. They knew where you were going to be, they knew how long
you would be there. They stole your car, ran over Erica, and returned your car
without you noticing it was gone. Who called Bud’s house that night?”

Mama shrugged. “It was a wrong
number.”

“Man or woman?”

“I don’t know. Bud answered the
phone.”

The phone call worried me. Especially the timing of it. Someone had planned this to the nth degree. Someone wanted Mama to take the blame. “Chances are the murderer made that call so you would be on
the road near the time of Erica’s death.”

Mama slumped into the sofa,
defeated. “Who is doing this to me?”

“Someone who wants you and Erica
out of the way. My guess is the killer is someone you know. Someone who knows your crowd and your personal routine.”

“Good Lord. You think Francine or
Muriel did this?”

I rubbed my face with my hands. It
had been a long day. My muscles were stiff, my brain was numb, and a nap still
sounded like a great idea. I stood and stretched. “It wouldn’t have taken brute
strength to run someone over. Though they are frail, Francine and Muriel are
prime suspects in my book.”

“They would never do this to me,” Mama asserted loyally. “They are my friends.”

“They didn’t stick up for you in
the meeting last Monday. Everyone has a breaking point. Maybe they got tired of
your constant bickering with Erica. Maybe they got tired of you bossing
everyone around. Who knows? We have to be careful not to tip the killer off
while I figure out who it is.”

“How are you going to question
Muriel and Francine without their knowing it?”

“The hospitality committee is a
good place to start. They will be busy arranging the food for Erica’s funeral.
I’ll step into your role for the reception, and they won’t even realize I’m
questioning them.”

Mama drew herself up to her full five-feet-four
inches. A determined gleam glittered in her eyes. “Oh, no you don’t. You’re not
leaving me out of this. Not when my butt is on the line. I’m manning the church
kitchen for the funeral reception. That’s my final answer.”

Chapter 11

As I dressed in my black sheath dress and strappy sandals
for Erica’s funeral Monday afternoon, the notion of Mama and Bud Flook as
lovers danced through my head. She’d blindsided me with that news. Not that she
didn’t deserve happiness.

Heat rose to my face. Gracious,
who was I to judge anyone in that regard? I was enjoying being “happy” again.
What would sex be like when I was in my sixties? Would it still be the
blood-racing, earth-shattering, thrilling event of age thirty-eight?

I hoped so.

Madonna whimpered as I buckled
the slender straps at my ankles. “You’ll be fine, Madonna. Take a short nap,
and I’ll be home before you know it.”

I applied a hint of blush, dark
brown mascara, and neutral lip balm, then splashed on a dab of new cologne.
Slightly lemony with a hint of musk and sandalwood. Understated. Elegant. It
suited the new me.

The new me came with old responsibilities—namely, saving Mama from the slammer. Unless I came up with proof she’d been framed, she would take the fall. I’d dreaded answering the door and
the phone on Sunday, sure that the police would be there. But the phone hadn’t
rung, and we’d had no uninvited visitors.

My suspect pool was as broad as
Erica’s circle of acquaintances: basically everyone in a ten-mile radius, which
was way too many to investigate. The people who spent the most time with her were those senior ladies, which was where I would focus my snooping. My gut insisted
they knew more than they were telling.

Erica had been raised in historic
Crandall House in Hogan’s Glen, the town her ancestor founded. She’d come from money, and she’d married money. She’d received two million in life insurance money when
her husband died twenty years ago. Hard to believe she’d run through that much
money in Hogan’s Glen.

I already knew she’d been short
on money. She’d stiffed her hairdresser and extorted money from her peers.
Every ounce of my accounting blood insisted Erica’s death was about money. One
thing about money. It left a trail. All I had to do was find it.

Erica’s heirs, Evan and Eleanor,
would be at the funeral. I’d read newspaper accounts of kids killing their
parents for money. Hunky Evan and Perfect Eleanor didn’t appear to be
cold-blooded killers, but, hey, I was desperate. If I didn’t find a credible
suspect, Mama would go to prison.

I shifted a few items into my
black purse and hit the stairs. The funeral started in half an hour. I planned
to hang out in the church kitchen and ask everyone plenty of loaded questions.
And keep Mama out of trouble. Couldn’t forget that important task.

Mama waited on the bench by the
front door in her funeral attire of black crepe jacket dress, triple-stranded
pearls, sheer stockings, and black pumps. Next to her were glass trays of
deviled eggs and sliced banana nut bread. Both looked suspiciously normal.

“What took you so long?” she
asked. “I don’t like to be late.”

I put on a good face. “You ready
to kick some funeral butt?”

Mama rose. Her dark eyes
sparkled. “I was born to kick funeral butt. Let’s go.”

As I drove us to the church in
the Gray Beast, Mama fingered the dusty console. “Charla’s going to be driving
soon. She needs a new car,” Mama said.

Yep. Mama was back in fighting
form again. I’d missed sparring with her. I grinned. “Charla’s not getting a
new car. If I buy a second car, she’ll get this one.”

“This car’s older than dirt. She
wants something peppy.”

Alarms clanged in my head. “Peppy
will get her killed. She needs a safe car to drive.”

“You sound just like your father.
I tried to get him to buy you a little convertible, and he wouldn’t do it. Said
he’d rather have his daughter alive.”

His caring filled me with righteous fervor. “I’m still alive, so he must have been right.”

“You accountants are a boring,
dull lot,” Mama said, but there was an undercurrent of praise in her voice.

It felt good to talk about Daddy.
I’d missed him so much these last few years. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d really thought about him. Maybe that was the key. Thinking about him
would remind me of the things he used to do and say.

What would he do in my shoes?
He’d go into this funeral reception loaded for bear. He’d grill everyone there,
from the kitchen help, to the clergy, to the mourners. He wouldn’t leave a
stone unturned until he found out who killed Erica Hodges. I wouldn’t, either.
Not when Mama’s freedom was at stake.

“Let me out here,” Mama said as I
drove under the portico at the parish hall entrance.

“Forget it.” I frowned and kept
driving until I found a parking space in the back. “I’m not letting you out of
my sight. We’re doing this together or we’re going home.”

“I thought you trusted me.”

“I do trust you. It’s everyone
else I don’t trust. Sending you in there alone is like sending Charla off in a
peppy car. It’s not going to happen.”

Mama couldn’t quite hold her
smile in as we walked into the parish hall together. I couldn’t remember when I’d felt this in sync with her. We were a team. I wouldn’t let her down.

“You’re late, Dee,” Francine said
as we walked into the large industrial-sized kitchen bearing our containers of
food. She shook an arthritic finger at Mama, the motion sending the tiny polka
dots of her dress into a frenzied flight.

“Yeah, well, we can’t all be
early birds like you,” Mama snapped back. “Muriel, get your head out of the
fridge before you freeze your boobs off.”

Muriel peeked around the
refrigerator. Her soft white hair clouded around a cherubic face and an impish
smile. She’d matched her lipstick to her dusty rose-colored cardigan. “You all
right, Delilah? No more house arrest?”

“Put those down over there,” Mama
said, pointing me toward the center island. “Did anyone start the coffee?”

“We wouldn’t start the coffee
without you,” Muriel said, containers of orange juice and ginger ale in her
thin arms.

I set down the trays of deviled
eggs on the stainless-steel counter. “Shouldn’t these go in the refrigerator?”

“Fine. Fine. Everyone’s a critic these
days,” Mama said. She stowed our purses under the counter and pulled out red
cotton vests for us to wear. The word “Hospitality” was embroidered in black
thread in the upper left side of each vest.

I donned a vest, cinching the
sides so that it fit me. Then I put the deviled eggs in the fridge. “What
should I do?”

“All the serving dishes need to
be wiped off,” Francine said.

I opened cabinets until I found
the good stuff. The sterling silver dishes had been a gift to the church from
Erica’s grandmother. “They look clean to me,” I observed as I pulled them down.

“Wipe them down,” Mama said,
wrestling the top off the large coffee urn.

I had visions of coffee grounds
flying everywhere. I placed the gleaming platters on the counter and rushed to
Mama’s side. “Let me help you with that, Mama.”

She brushed me aside. “I can do it.”

I took the urn from her and tried
the lid. It stuck fast until I twisted with all my might. “Good heavens. Why
don’t y’all replace this monster? Get something that’s more manageable.”

Francine cackled as she poured
mixed nuts into small crystal bowls. “Can we keep her, Dee? I like hearing her
sass you.”

“Cleo’s not here for your
entertainment.” Mama filled the coffee pot with water. “She’s here to find a
murderer.”

I stopped in my tracks. This
wasn’t how we had agreed to proceed. “Mama!”

She fussed with the coffee urn as
if she hadn’t seriously deviated from our game plan. “I don’t care what you
think, Cleopatra Jones. Francine and Muriel didn’t kill Erica.”

Mama’s statements clanked around the tile floor of the industrial-sized kitchen. Francine’s hand fluttered
to her apricot-colored lips. “You suspected us?”

With a harsh stare at Mama, I
picked up a clean dish cloth and wiped off the spotless sterling silver trays. “I
suspect everyone. Muriel, last Friday you mentioned your grandson and his
college entrance exams. How did you handle that?”

Muriel’s pale skin went a tone
lighter than her white hair. She gripped her clutched hands to her breast. Her
watery blue eyes went wide behind her large glasses.

“Cleo, you don’t need to know
that,” Mama said, standing next to Muriel.

“Yes, I do, Mama. We have to
eliminate suspects or we’ll never get anywhere.”

Francine turned to her sister. “She’s
going to eliminate us, Muriel. I should have had Joan color my hair this
morning. I always wanted to be a blonde.”

I couldn’t believe Francine was
cracking jokes. Anger hummed through my veins. “This is serious. Erica is dead,
and someone went to a lot of trouble to make it look like Mama killed her. Was it
one of you?”

Muriel laughed shakily. “You
don’t know us very well, do you, Little Dee?”

I shook my cleaning cloth at her.
“I’m not little. And I want to know what happened with your grandson, Muriel.
What did you do?”

“I paid Erica off, of course.
What choice did I have?”

She said it so matter-of-factly
that her admission floored me. Erica had her fingers in the same pies as these women, the hospital auxiliary, the church, the library board. “How could you
work beside a woman who extorted money from you for years?”

“I didn’t like her. None of us
did. But we wouldn’t kill her. We made a pact years ago.”

“A pact? What kind of pact?”

“One where we would stick
together. Don’t you see? Erica was into all of us.”

“You, too, Francine?”

Francine nodded.

“What did she have on you?”

Francine chewed her lip and stole
a glance at Mama. “Do I have to tell her?”

Mama nodded.

“She knew about my gambling
problem. She made me sign over the deed of my house to her to cover a gambling
debt.”

“Your house? The house where you and
Muriel live?”

“Yes. We pay her a thousand
dollars a month to rent our own house. It was either that or be put out on the
street.”

“Where do you get that kind of
money?”

“We pool our Social. We work part-time
at the drugstore. We manage.”

“What happens with your house
now?”

“We don’t know.” Worry lines
etched across Muriel’s powdered forehead.

“One last question,” I said. “Where
did you two go on Tuesday night after the hospitality meeting?”

“We didn’t go anywhere,” Francine
said. “We were in for the night. The night-blind thing, remember?”

“Are we in the clear?” Light
glinted off Muriel’s oversized glasses.

“I suppose so,” I said, glumly
heading back to my stack of sterling silver platters.

More food trays came in, and we didn’t get another chance to talk about Erica’s blackmailing ways again. Between
making the coffee, mixing up the punch, pressing the linens, setting up the
serving tables, and handling the donated food, we couldn’t catch our breath.

But the new information churned
in my head. Francine had deeded her house to Erica. That meant Erica’s heirs
now owned Francine’s charming little two-bedroom Victorian cottage. Would the
bulletin sisters soon be homeless?

Jonette brought in a bag of fancy
chocolate mints after the reception started. She was a vibrant study in royal
blue. She leaned close so she wouldn’t be overheard. “Did you see the ‘For Sale’
sign?”

“What sign?” I poured the mints
into a crystal dish and prayed she wasn’t talking about Francine’s house. If
Mama’s friends were put out on the street, she’d insist we take them in. I’d
have to move Lexy in with Charla to make everyone fit. And, if I remembered correctly, Muriel had two large cats. Between the cats, the soon-to-arrive puppies, and
the people, my house would become a zoo overnight. I didn’t want that.

Jonette munched on a handful of
cashews. She leaned in and whispered, “The sign in front of Crandall House.
It’s on the market.”

My jaw dropped. Thoughts tumbled
out of my mouth in a breathy rush. “My God. That house has been in the Crandall
family for generations. I can’t believe they’d sell it. Erica isn’t even in the
ground yet.”

“No kidding.”

Didn’t they value their family
heritage? I peeked out the kitchen door at Evan and Eleanor. The dark knight
and the ice maiden. Who knew they were so greedy? What was it with this family
and money? Where did their money go?

To follow Erica’s money, I needed
a credit report. My heart sank at the obvious answer. Charlie could get it for me. All I had to do was ask. There was no time to lose.

I shrugged out of my hospitality vest
and handed it to Jonette. “Cover for me. I’ll be right back.”

I stepped into the crowded
reception room, scanned the room, and caught Charlie’s roving eye. He loped
across the room to greet me. It didn’t escape my notice that he wore the
charcoal suit I’d bought him for Daddy’s funeral and the tie clip I’d given him
on our last Christmas together.

My nails bit into my palms. I was
doing this for Mama.

“You’re looking delectable, Mrs.
Jones.” Charlie sniffed my ear. “Smell good too. Sassy. Sexy.”

Thank God I had on my spiky
sandals and towered over him. “Give it a rest, Charlie. I need to talk to you.”

Charlie put his hand on the small
of my back and steered me into a vacant corner of the reception hall. He leaned
one arm against the wall, blocking me in. “Excellent. Because I wanted to talk
to you, babe.”

The fluorescent lights seemed overly bright, the roar of conversation in the room too loud. What did Charlie want? The
only thing I had that he wanted was custody of the kids. My blood pressure
spiked. He was not getting full custody of the girls. He was the adulterer. Not
me.

“I want Lexy to have the digital
camera she needs for the yearbook staff,” Charlie said.