Read Killer in Crinolines Online

Authors: Duffy Brown

Killer in Crinolines (5 page)

“You got flip-flops. UPS don’t allow no flip-flops. They run a tight operation.”

“I have special dispensation.” I held up the package. “I’m looking for Mr. Pillsbury.”

“Bet your mamma don’t know you’re here.” Big Joey pinched his nose. “What’s that stink?”

“Sewer backup.”

“Never happens in this part of town. I’m calling the sanitation department. What’s this here city coming to?” Big Joey stepped aside, and a guy I hadn’t had the pleasure of meeting before came out onto the porch. He stood a head taller than Big Joey, had a piggy bank tat on his left bicep, a dollar sign on his right, hair pulled back in a ponytail, and a yellow number 2 pencil behind his ear. J. P. Morgan on steroids?

“I’m Pillsbury,” he said in a deep baritone vibrating through the porch floorboards. I held out the package. What could it be? Guns, ammo, body parts. I gave it a shake.

“Software.” Pillsbury took the package and scribbled his name like he’d done this before. “Gives immediate visibility into our key performance indicators.”

“Huh?”

“Sees where the boys pocket the Benjamins.” Pillsbury tucked his thumbs in the waistband of his jeans looking like a stealth bomber ready for takeoff. “It tracks what pays, what don’t. Joey says you have yourself a business? You need the cloud, girl. How you expect to stay in business without a data center?” Pillsbury tsked, he truly did. I swear it was just like KiKi. Hey, if three hundred pounds of living, breathing wrought iron wanted to tsk like a Savannah belle, it was fine and dandy by me. “Tells where you make the most dough.”

“Pillsbury?”
Lightbulb moment
. “Money! You’re the dough boy.” I did the head-slap, duh thing. “That’s really cute.”

Pillsbury’s eyes turned hard and cold and he looked nothing like the smiling pudgy guy on a roll of biscuits at the grocery store. “Or not so cute, but you do look sort of familiar. We’ve met?”

Pillsbury stood taller, adding another six inches to his immenseness, and I hustled back to the truck. If there was a list of things not to say in the hood,
cute
and
you look familiar
had top billing.

I picked up KiKi at Clary’s and I relayed the story of Pillsbury as we chugged our way home through rush-hour traffic of heat and hydrocarbons. Chantilly reclaimed her truck and I begged AnnieFritz and Elsie to stay on for a few minutes so I could grab a shower and toss Chantilly’s uniform in my old Maytag. I decided to keep the Fox open till eight, hoping to entice late-night customers. It never happened.

By August, everyone was tired of summer clothes, and shopping for fall sweaters, jackets, and suits in ninety-plus heat was not happening. Day business was no better, proven by the fact that AnnieFritz, Elsie, and Chantilly had time to leave me a pitcher of sweet tea in the fridge and a fresh-baked pan of corn bread.

While trying to figure out how to pay the taxes on Cherry House due next month, I locked up and stashed the meager daily take in a Ben & Jerry’s container I kept in the freezer. Not exactly Bank of America, but unless a burglar had a hankering for Rocky Road I figured I was safe.

“Good thing you like hot dogs instead of steak,” I said to Bruce Willis, who was sitting on my foot, both of us staring into the mostly deserted fridge. “How do you feel about peanut butter and jelly? It may come to that, you know. Times are tough.”

“I hate peanut butter and jelly,” a voice said behind me. “But the corn bread’s mighty tasty.”

Chapter Five

I
JUMPED,
yelped, and spun around to Walker Boone leaning against my kitchen counter eating my corn bread. BW jumped too, putting his front paws on Boone’s shoulders and licking his face. Worst watchdog in three states. “How’d you get in here?”

“I can’t tell if you’re stupid or have a reoccurring death wish.” Boone swiped his hand across his mouth, cleaning away corn bread crumbs. “What were you doing over on Seventeenth Street?”

“Men talk more than women ever thought about doing. Bet I wasn’t even back in the UPS truck after making my delivery before the boys were texting you.” Boone gave BW a chunk of bread and I snagged the pan away, knowing full well those two would kill off the rest given half a chance. “I was helping Chantilly with UPS deliveries, if you must know. She wasn’t up to the task and I was helping out.”

“Heard you went the wrong way down Drayton and nearly ran over a troop of Girl Scouts by the Juliette Gordon Low house. That’s not good for tourism.”

“We were looking for addresses. Do you know how difficult it is to find addresses in this city? Are you so bored with life you’ve taken to spying on me?” Boone had on a faded Crab Shack T-shirt, cutoffs, boat shoes, and a day’s growth of beard most men didn’t sport for a week.

“No need for spying. Did you realize Chantilly taught AnnieFritz and Elsie how to use Twitter? The kudzu vine just got kicked into the twenty-first century and word has it you’re the guilty party who left the fearsome threesome together. Folks are mighty upset. I’d keep an eye out for voodoo dolls if I were you.”

I racked my brain for the patron saints of tweets and dolls with pins. “They were supposed to be minding my store. Working.”

“That’s your job. You should stick to it. Pillsbury said you recognized him. Not good. He’s more of a lay-low kind of guy, fades into the woodwork.”

“I got news for you. At six-five and two-fifty-plus, the man’s not fading anywhere.”

“Seems you’ve made a day out of pissing people off.”

I dropped the bread on the counter and glared at Boone. “Then you tell me what Pillsbury was doing at the Waverly wedding? I know he was there because I saw him with my own two eyes. He had on a suit that made him look shrink-wrapped and I’m willing to bet he wasn’t on the guest list anymore than I was.”

Boone’s eyes darkened just a smidge. That meant he had to do something he didn’t want to and right now that was tell me something. If he didn’t, I’d keep poking around. “Pillsbury has a thing for Chantilly and figured she might cause trouble at the wedding like she did at the engagement party. He was looking out for her.”

“Well, he didn’t look hard enough, now did he; the girl’s accused of murder.” I broke off a chunk of corn bread and munched, trying to digest this latest piece of information of Chantilly and Pillsbury. “You really think Pillsbury killed Simon because he did Chantilly wrong?” I took another bite of corn bread and considered that. “That’s kind of sweet.”

Boone grinned. “Pillsbury’s been called a lot of things but I doubt if sweet is one of them.”

“What about cute?”

“You didn’t.”

“It may have slipped out.”

Boone snagged the last chunk of bread from the pan and I gave him an evil look. “You know it’ll go straight to your hips,” he said. “Nothing more pitiful than a belle with big hips. You’ll get the
Ain’t she just precious
treatment.”

Nothing puts the fear of God into a Southern woman more than the precious treatment.
Ain’t she just precious
is what people say about you when there’s nothing much good to say at all. At present I was divorced, over thirty without a man, and couldn’t cook to save my life. If I got big hips, I’d definitely be in the
precious
category. I dropped my corn bread back in the pan and Boone grabbed it up.

“You played me.”

“I’m hungry.”

Tired to the bone, I hitched myself up onto the yellow counter and tucked one leg under the other, trying to get comfortable. “Sweet or not, Pillsbury wielding a cake knife doesn’t compute. A man that size appreciates food—he’d never harm a raspberry layer cake—and my guess is the boys have more effective ways of disposing of a body than in the middle of a wedding.”

Boone pulled out the pitcher of sweet tea. He poured a glass, took a drink, then poured tea into a bowl, setting it on the floor for BW. The pecking order of man, dog, Reagan.

“Caffeine
and
sugar? Really?” I groused. “BW will be up all night driving me crazy.”

“Who else is on your radar of suspects?” Boone gave me a sideways glance. “I’m just helping Pillsbury and he’s on Chantilly’s side.”

I swiped the glass from Boone and took a long drink. “I’ve never even heard Chantilly mention Pillsbury. Secret relationship?”

“So secret she doesn’t know. He’s from the hood, her daddy’s a retired cop. Some things aren’t meant to be. About those suspects?”

Meaning he told me about Pillsbury and Chantilly so now it was my turn to cough up information. “GracieAnn’s baking dead-guy cookies over at Cakery Bakery. They look an awful lot like Simon. Waynetta Waverly is more concerned about keeping her wedding gifts than her almost-husband facedown in fondant and buttercream. Neither seems all that upset that Simon’s taking up permanent residence out at Bonaventure Cemetery.” I considered mentioning Suellen from the Pirate House as a suspect but decided she was more of an upset waitress who saw a dead guy in a cake. Then again, there was that mumbling about
Now what am I going to do
. “Who do you think killed Simon?”

Boone snagged back the sweet tea, drank, and shrugged. “GracieAnn had motive. She was at the wedding and knows her way around a cake knife.” Boone put down his glass. He turned to me and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. A caring gesture not like Boone at all and there was a glint of devilment in his eyes. Boone was trouble enough without the devil thrown in. He said, “Last time you went snooping for a murderer you nearly wound up dead in your own shop. This time I might not be around to save you, Blondie.”

I parked one hand on my still-somewhat-narrow hip and poked Boone in the forehead with my index finger. “Don’t call me Blondie, and your memory is a touch foggy because
I
saved you.”

Boone arched his left eyebrow, then headed for the kitchen door. I threw the pan at his head, missing by a mile. The canine vacuum cleaner gobbled the corn bread and I watched through my back window as Boone disappeared down the walk to the street. “I
did
save your sorry, miserable hide, and right now I’m wondering why I went and did such a dumb thing.”

• • •

At ten the next morning, I opened the prissy Fox. The heat index hovered near sweltering and by noon would reach sizzling. “You got to do something right quick.” Auntie KiKi bustled through the back door in yellow slippers and a matching housecoat billowing out behind her. Her hair was done up in big yellow rollers all over her head and the cucumber mask gave her the look of a green raccoon hiding out in a banana. “I’ve been on the phone for an hour,” she panted, pulling sweet tea from the fridge. Horror stricken, I watched as she gulped straight from the pitcher. Sweet mother in heaven! No belle old or young ever gulped from a pitcher. All Savannah was in desperate need of ice skates because hell had just frozen over.

“Chantilly’s out making rounds this morning,” KiKi hurried on. “She dropped off Henrietta Duncan’s prenatal vitamins to Sister Donovan over there at St. John’s Church. Father Gleason saw the whole thing and is lighting candles and saying novenas as we speak. I’m not quite sure what that’s all about but it doesn’t look one smidgeon good for either of them.”

Auntie KiKi took another swig and wiped her mouth with the sleeve of her robe. “You ought to be calling Chantilly right this very minute and tell her you’ll do the delivering again today.” KiKi held the pitcher high looking a bit like the statue of liberty in hair rollers. “If General Beauregard Summerside took up the cause to save our fair city from harm and devastation, you need to be doing the same.” KiKi held out her iPhone. “Call.”

“I have a shop to run and there’s something about a cloud and profits I need to look into and I’m tired.”

“I tell you Chantilly’s more distraught than a hen in a hurricane with all that’s going on and making more mistakes than this city can tolerate. Besides, you don’t have yourself any profits and there’s not one single cloud in the sky today so you can’t be looking at that. We all know the reason you’re tired is you’re taking up with that Walker Boone person.” Auntie KiKi folded her arms and tapped her left foot. “I saw him swaggering out of here last night big as you please.”

“He’s trying to prove Chantilly innocent, is all, and came over to see what I knew, which isn’t much. I can’t believe you had yourself such a good time yesterday that you’re up for round two of UPS for beginners.”

“Oh, honey, not me. I can’t be going with you today. I have a dance lesson with Bernard Thayer. Missing a lesson with him just wouldn’t be right. He pays double and in advance. You’re flying solo today.”

Dancing with Bernard was like driving a Mack truck with bad breath. “You’re a chicken, you know that.”

KiKi patted my cheek. “Cher would call it inspirationally resourceful. And there’s more.”

“I don’t want more. I don’t want any. I want to go back to bed till September.”

“Chantilly’s on her way out to the Waverly Farms this very minute to pick up a UPS package. She told Sister Donovan all about it when dropping off the pills. Chantilly intends to give Waynetta a piece of her mind about getting what she deserved in stealing Simon the way she did, then him dying on her right there at the wedding.”

“UPS sent Chantilly to the Waverly Farms?”

“UPS isn’t all that plugged into the Savannah kudzu vine.” Auntie KiKi put the phone in my hand. “You got to get a hold of Chantilly and talk sense into her right now before she gets to Waynetta or there’s going to be a catfight out there like no other.”

“If Chantilly’s intent on ranting and raving, she’s not going to pay one bit of attention to a phone call.”

“That’s just what I’m thinking.” Kiki reached into her robe and pulled out the Beemer keys. “Go get her.”

• • •

Five minutes later I was barreling out of town—or as much as anyone barreled in Savannah on a hot summer morning—heading for Whitemarsh Island and Waverly Farms. Not that I wanted to do this. The front hall of Cherry House was mouse gray and in desperate need of new paint if I could beg KiKi’s leftovers from redoing her kitchen, and somehow I had to come up with ideas on how to get more customers. Hollis’s threat of foreclosure and no business was more real than I’d ever tell him. Then there was the cloud issue. Scary thought that the moneyman for the hood knew one heck of a lot more about running a business than I did. I considered his cash flow and mine and decided he had reason to know more.

The Beemer could overtake a UPS truck any day of the week but Chantilly had a good start on me. I hoped she had a few more deliveries before meeting up with Waynetta to give me a little time. My second hope was that she didn’t cause too much mayhem in town while making those deliveries or her job was history.

I got onto East Victory and did a quick stop at Sisters of the New South to pick up a bag of delicious temptation.

If your mamma and grandma didn’t keep a jar for drippings on the stove, then Sisters was not the place for you. It was pure Southern eating and near Bonaventure Cemetery, a convenient location for those who frequented the sisters a little too often.

I crossed over the Wilmington River, sparkling like diamonds in the sunlight as it meandered its way out to sea, then took the second right off the main drag. Wild oats and marsh grasses hugged the road, a UPS truck lumbering along just ahead. Honking, I got up next to Chantilly and pointed to the side for her to pull over.

Chantilly must have guessed that I was here to head her off before she reached Waynetta because she hit the gas, leaving me in a cloud of exhaust. Poking her head out the window, she did a hand gesture that would make her mamma faint dead away then threw her head back and let out a cackle I could hear even over the roar of engines.

Chantilly was in serious need of therapy. I wasn’t sure how much I wanted to catch up with her in this state but I couldn’t let her run around town in a UPS truck either. I punched the Beemer and launched forward, sea grasses whizzing by, KiKi’s fancy car neck and neck with the truck. If someone came in the opposite direction the Beemer was toast and my favorite auntie would kill me dead. Planning ahead for this very thing, I gripped the steering wheel with one hand and held the Sisters green-and-orange bag over the roof of the car. I made the bag do a little dance to get Chantilly’s attention, and sure enough the UPS truck slowed and coasted to a stop.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I slammed the car door and stomped my way toward the truck.

Chantilly looked like a crazed porcupine with curls, her hair sticking out in all directions from under her UPS hat. She made a grab for the Sisters bag, but I yanked it out of her reach. Her brow wrinkled and her lips thinned. “Bet you got fried chicken, yams, cabbage, and corn bread in that bag. The sisters make to-die-for corn bread.”

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