I could see how in its heyday the tattoo might have been an interesting conversation piece, but the inked woman was now wizened with age and arm hair, and it looked vaguely as if she were shooting the rosary out of her vagina. But Aunt Scarlet had recognized it, and that was all that mattered.
I brought the camera up and took a couple of quick shots, and then I bit my lip as I debated whether or not to stretch his skin out a little and get a more complete picture. I finally decided that was the alcohol talking and probably not the best decision, and then I realized the alcohol had been giving me directions through this whole debacle because what I was doing definitely wasn’t using my best judgment.
I found this out the hard way when I turned to crawl back to my own lounger and my towel got stuck under my knee, pulling it completely off and leaving me bare-assed with my lady bits flapping in the breeze.
“Yikes,” a male voice said behind me.
I scrambled to cover my rear with the towel and turned my head in time to catch Elmer Hughes’s horrified stare.
“Jesus God,” he wheezed, clutching his chest. “I thought I was having a flashback from the seventies. Those things looked a lot different then. That’s nothing like ’70s bush. You’ve got a nice landscaper.”
I turned fifty shades of red and scrambled to make sure I was completely covered with the towel. And then I noticed his gaze had shifted to the camera in my hand.
“I can explain,” I said.
Thursday
One day earlier…
I
t wouldn’t be
the South if there weren’t proverbial skeletons in everyone’s closets.
We certainly had our fair share in my family, and I knew other families had their fair share too, because we still talked about them in the checkout line at the Piggly Wiggly or with the cashier at Dairy Queen while waiting on an ice cream sundae.
It was January and dreary and cold in Whiskey Bayou, Georgia. I’d temporarily moved back home due to the fact that my boyfriend, Nick Dempsey, had proposed and I’d had a moment of panic where I saw myself the last time I’d been about to get married—big poofy white dress and cake for two hundred—only to catch my fiancé boffing my archenemy in our honeymoon limo.
They say lightning doesn’t strike the same place twice, but the proposal and subsequent panic attack were enough that I knew I needed some time and space to think about the proposal and being married to Nick for the rest of my life.
So I did what any girl does when unsure of the future. I moved back home with my mother. There are two problems with this. One: I worked in Savannah and the drive was a real bitch. And two: I was living at home with my mother.
Don’t get me wrong. I love my mother dearly. And maybe we’re more alike than I’m comfortable admitting. But living in the same house with her is enough to put me over the edge. Not to mention she’s newly married and the walls are thin at Casa de Holmes.
Needless to say, I’d spent the last couple of weeks since the infamous proposal working as much as humanly possible so I wouldn’t have to act like an adult and face my issues head-on. I had to admit, I was missing Nick. I’d gotten used to him. Which was really what marriage was all about—getting used to someone enough that you didn’t want to murder them if you had to spend more than a few hours a day with them.
I was currently sprawled out on the leather couch in Kate’s office, regretting the second cinnamon roll I’d just devoured and wondering how much Jillian Michaels butt clenching I’d have to do to make up the calories. My best friend, Kate McClean, owner of the McClean Detective Agency, sat in the chair just across from me.
That’s when I heard the ruckus from down the hall. I was the daughter of a cop. And Kate was a former cop. So unless there was active gunfire neither of us were known to sweat the small stuff. Okay, maybe I sometimes sweated the small stuff, but it usually had to do with Black Friday specials and Louboutins being on sale. I was a seven, so my size always went fast.
“I’m here to see my niece and you can’t stop me,” a familiar voice—both fragile and four-star general—roared over me like a freight train. “I’ve got a .44 in here and I’m not afraid to use it. Better step out of my way, Elvira.”
My eyes widened and I saw the pure fear on Kate’s face at the thought of my Aunt Scarlet tangling with Lucy, the gatekeeper for the agency. Nobody made it past Lucy unless they were an employee or a client. I had my suspicions about Lucy. The two most prominent being that she’d worked for the CIA at some point or that she was a vampire—though I hadn’t really figured out how she got around the whole sunlight issue.
We both shot up to a standing position and started running, but we went through the door at the same time and got stuck. It was then I noticed Lucy standing at the end of the hallway, her red lips pressed firmly together as she stood her ground. But Aunt Scarlet had worked as a spy for the OSS during World War II and she’d outlived five husbands, so nothing much intimidated her.
“Aunt Scarlet,” I called out, shoving past Kate.
Aunt Scarlet was digging in her purse and pulling out a .44 revolver the size of a cannon. It was so heavy she couldn’t lift it and she shot a hole in the floor between Lucy’s feet.
I guess that was enough to stun Lucy because Scarlet pushed right by her and headed straight for us.
“I don’t remember that gun having such a sensitive trigger,” Scarlet said. “That sucker packs a punch. It was like getting kicked in the hot box by a mule.”
I was afraid to ask what she meant by “hot box” but I’d gotten pretty good at interpreting Scarlet-speak over the course of my life. It had been three years since I’d last seen her, and the trauma of it all made it feel like yesterday. My mother was going to have kittens.
Scarlet was my father’s aunt. Which meant she was my great-aunt. And she was our skeleton in the closet. She’d grown up as a Holmes in Whiskey Bayou during the Great Depression, and the family gossip was that she’d been shipped off to Paris by her father because she’d been having affairs with a couple of married men and they’d challenged each other to a duel, agreeing that the winner would get to keep Scarlet to himself.
Apparently Scarlet had been quite a looker in her day—a dead ringer for Ava Gardner, some people said—but she’d been rather loose with her virtue. Scarlet had never seemed to mind. When I was twelve, she’d told me it was better to be loose with your virtue than loose with your bank account. If I’d listened to Scarlet I’d probably be a lot more sexed up and a lot richer.
The days of Ava Gardner had long passed, and Scarlet now looked like Hannibal Lecter had put all of her bones in a skin bag and shaken them up so nothing quite fit together. She got around better than she should have for someone her age, and she attributed it to the fact that she’d smoked unfiltered cigarettes when she was younger and her insides were pickled from highballs.
The black wool coat she wore swallowed her whole and she’d left it unbuttoned, displaying a leopard-print velour jogging suit beneath. She wore white tennis shoes that were so bright they hurt to look at and a magenta scarf was wrapped around her neck. Her hair was a shock of white that had been permed within an inch of its life and shellacked with such success that not even the misty rain and frigid winter wind had budged it. She topped off the look with the signature bright red lipstick I’d never seen her without.
“I smell cinnamon rolls,” she said, shoving her gun back in her handbag and brushing past me and Kate. “I didn’t get breakfast.”
Scarlet followed her nose into Kate’s office and shrugged out of her coat, handing it to Kate to hang up. She left the scarf around her neck.
“Do you have a permit for that gun, Scarlet?” Kate asked.
“Darling, I don’t need a permit. I was in the OSS. I have a pass.”
“They don’t hand out passes to carry weapons because you slept with Nazis seventy years ago.”
“I’ve always liked you, Kate,” Scarlet said with a smile. “Let me give you some advice. Germans are terrible in bed. Avoid them at all costs. But if you want to get them to talk, just stick your finger straight up their butthole. Works every time.”
Scarlet looked around the room and wandered to Kate’s desk, picking up the candy dish of Hershey’s Kisses and sticking the entire thing into her purse.
“I’m married,” Kate said dryly. “He’s Scottish.”
“Well, maybe you can do better next time, dearie. I enjoyed my fourth husband immensely.”
Scarlet poured herself a cup of coffee and helped herself to one of the cinnamon rolls before sitting in the chair Kate normally occupied during meetings.
“Sit, girls. Time is of the essence here. I could die tomorrow.”
I shrugged and freshened my coffee and got a new cup for Kate as well. Kate and I had been friends forever, but sometimes I was a trial. And that included stray family members that had popped in and out of my life through the years.
“Does Mom know you’re in town?” I asked, taking my usual spot on the sofa next to Kate.
“Heavens no. And we’re going to keep this our little secret. Your mother is always trying to steal my thunder. There can only be one eccentric in a family and until I die that’s me.”
Though Scarlet had been married five times, she’d stopped changing her name after her second husband because she hated the lines at the social security office. She’d said she was born Scarlet Holmes and that’s how she wanted to die.
“I thought you were living on one of those cruise ships,” Kate said.
Scarlet waved the statement away and took a bite of the cinnamon roll. She was a Holmes all right. I got that same look on my face whenever eating sweets or having an orgasm.
“That ended after Thanksgiving. I think the captain was drugging me and sneaking into my room at night to fondle me. I woke up every morning with a horrible hangover and no underwear. He tried to tell me it was because I was drinking too much and leaving my underpants on the craps table for good luck, but that’s ridiculous. I don’t even play craps. Everyone knows that roulette is my game.”
A horrible thought struck me and I blurted out, “Are you moving back to Whiskey Bayou?”
“Hell no,” she said, appalled. “Lord, I hate that place. Though I like to go and visit the cemetery because I know everyone buried there. It’s a lot easier to talk to people when they don’t have the capability of talking back.”
She let out a gentle belch and then leaned back and propped her sneakered feet on the table.
“After the cruise ship I found a little resort place in Florida. It’s always warm and it’s right on the water. I can’t wait to get back. This cold is terrible on my bones. Can’t even feel my nipples. I smashed one of them in the car door and didn’t even notice.”
“You drove here?” I asked, unsuccessful at keeping the terror out of my voice.
“You bet. Just bought a brand new Hummer. It’s a real beaut. You don’t even notice when you run over things.”
“Christ,” Kate said under her breath.
“How long are you staying?” I asked.
“That’s what I’m trying to explain. We need to get back there lickety-split.”
“We?” Kate and I said together.
“You girls don’t have the sense that God gave a goose. I’m trying to tell you something important here. I’ve found a murderer!”
Y
ou might think
one would get excited or concerned over Scarlet’s news. But the truth was, Scarlet had a tendency to bend the truth on occasion. She also had the tendency to steal things that caught her eye, and she’d once gotten caught using a blow dart gun when the Jehovah’s Witnesses wouldn’t leave her alone.
“You girls are very calm and have excellent poker faces,” she said, nodding. “The OSS could’ve used you.”
I was personally glad to hear this, because I’d been working on my poker face. Before I’d started working for Kate, pretty much everything I thought was broadcast on my face for the world to see.
“We’ve dealt with our fair share of murderers,” Kate said diplomatically. “Did you witness the murder?”
“I sure as heck did,” she said.
This caught me by surprise. Either she was hallucinating and making up a heck of a story or she’d really witnessed a murder. Her answer had been definitive.
“That no-good bastard Elmer Hughes is a coldblooded killer. And he’s my neighbor to boot. Nearly scared me to death when I saw him eating alone in one of the restaurants at the resort. I couldn’t even finish my crème brulee.”
She must’ve been terrified. Not much came between a Holmes and dessert.
Scarlet’s eyes narrowed to beady slits and she tapped her crimson nails on the arm of the chair. “I’m not a coward. They didn’t call me Bouncing Betty during the war for nothing. So I walked right up and asked if he’d like some company. He didn’t remember me. The bastard. I admit I’ve changed a little since the last time we saw each other, but I haven’t changed
that
much.”
“When was the last time you saw him?” Kate asked.
“When I was seventeen.”
Kate and I both stayed silent. I’d seen pictures of Scarlet at seventeen. The only thing that looked even remotely the same from those days was the color of her eyes—and even that had faded a bit.
“Seventeen?” Kate asked. “This isn’t a current murder?”
“Don’t be so impatient, girl. I’m getting to that. There’s no statute of limitations for murder, right?”
“Right,” Kate said. “Sorry, keep going.”
“He went by Frank back when I knew him, and Lord, was he a handsome devil. Charming too. He had me wrapped right around his little finger.”
“Did he break your heart? Is that the real reason Grandpa Holmes shipped you off to Paris?” I asked curiously.
In secret, I kind of wanted to be like Scarlet, but I was already in my thirties and certain parts of my body weren’t as high up as they used to be. I wasn’t holding out hope for spying for our country or having mad affairs with handsome foreigners. Though the more I thought about it, I
was
spying for the McClean Detective Agency, and I was having a mad affair with a hot Irish detective, and I’d almost had a mad affair with a super-hot Native American FBI agent. I was cultural as shit. And maybe I was more like Aunt Scarlet than I knew.