Dead Man Walker

Berkley Prime Crime titles by Duffy Brown

Consignment Shop Mysteries

ICED CHIFFON

KILLER IN CRINOLIN
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PEARLS AND POISON

DEMISE IN DENIM

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DEA
D MAN WALKER

Dead Man Walker

Duffy Brown

THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

Published by the Penguin Group

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DEAD MAN WALKER

A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the author

Copyright © 2015 by Dianne Kruetzkamp.

Excerpt from
Demise in Denim
by Duffy Brown © 2015 by Dianne Kruetzkamp.

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eBook ISBN: 978-0-698-17802-1

PUBLISHING HISTORY

Berkley Prime Crime Special edition / February 2015

Cover photos:
Dog
© Eric Isselee,
Scooter
© Supertrooper, and
Savannah
© Gary C. Tognoni.

Cover design by Diana Kolsky.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

To Irma and Tony who taught me that life is short, hard work pays off and family is everything.

I miss you.

“See, there he is, Mr. Boone,” Mercedes said to me. “Just like I told you on the phone, Conway Adkins dead as a fence post in his very own claw-foot bathtub and naked as the day he was born.”

“I take it you added the washcloth?” I said to Mercedes, both of us standing in the doorway and staring at the corpse.

“Couldn't be having the man lying there with his shriveledness all exposed to the world now could I? Not proper for a man his age.”

“Or for the rest of us,” I added. “So, did you get me over here for bragging that you did the deed or complaining that someone beat you to it?”

“Not that the old fart wasn't deserving with the way he treated people, but I'm here to tell you that this ruins cleaning day. Every Monday like clockwork I do Mr. Adkins's house and now this. Messes up my schedule something fierce.”

“I'd say take him out and shoot him for the offense but . . .”

“The bigger problem is with me being on probation and the police getting more than a tad upset if I keep company with dead folks unless, of course, they happen to be lying flat out on my table where I usually come across them over there at the House of Eternal Slumber.”

Mercedes parked her hands on her well-rounded hips covered in a white maid's apron and cut her eyes back to the tub. “All I know is that it's going to take a considerable amount of putty to patch those holes so we can lay him out proper-like. The going-in diameter isn't bad but the coming-out part's a different story. Mercy.” Mercedes made the sign of the cross.

Mercedes was a housekeeper by day, a mortician/beautician by night, and a once-upon-a-time madam. The madam part is what got us together. Not that I engaged her services but I did keep her out of jail for that particular offense and now she keeps my house and a few others. The mortician part explained why she wasn't freaking out over a dead man and, considering her credentials, the putty statement was probably dead-on. Eight in the morning was early to be discussing washcloths and putty but one of the joys of being a lawyer in Savannah is I never know what's coming around the corner.

A knock sounded from below, Mercedes jumping a foot. Guess the mortician part hadn't made her immune after all. “Did you call the police?” I asked.

“Lordy, no. In times of stress and anxiety I'm prone to be saying all sorts of things I shouldn't to the law enforcement establishment, which is why I got you over here to Conway's house right quick.” Mercedes walked to the bathroom window and peered out. “Well, you can be forgetting about the cops. It's Reagan Summerside down there on the stoop this fine spring morning. She sure is a sight for sore eyes.”

Before I could stop her, Mercedes leaned out waving. “Howdy, girl, up here. How y'all doing? Haven't seen you since we broke into Dozer's construction company a few months back. Now that was something, wasn't it? That guard dog nearly ate us alive.” Mercedes cut her eyes back to me and made a deep sigh. “See what I mean about having run-on of the mouth in times of stress. Wonder what brings Reagan here at this hour.”

“The way things are going, it sure can't be anything good,” I said to myself more than Mercedes as Reagan yelled from below, “Is Mr. Adkins up there? We have an appointment. Tell him I'm on my way.”

“Honey, you should know he's not exactly in a meet and greet frame of mind,” Mercedes called with me adding, “Go away, Reagan.” Not that I expected it to do any good.

Two years ago I represented Reagan's ex in their divorce, and she came away with a rundown Victorian house and a fistful of bills, wanting nothing more than my head on a platter. Of course, the outcome had more to do with the fact that she'd signed an airtight prenup than with me being an ace attorney. At the moment we were sort of enemies. The divorce accounted for the enemy part, that we shared a dog named Bruce Willis and a kiss or two accounted for the
sort of
part. Reagan was the double espresso with a shot of Red Bull part of my life . . . energy, excitement with hair-raising consequences.

I heard the door open downstairs, then footsteps echoing through the big house that dated back to when Sherman had parked his unwelcome mangy Northern butt in our town, and Reagan Summerside joined us in the bathroom. She had on black slacks, a white blouse probably from her consignment shop located in that Victorian she now owned, and she was carrying that big ugly plastic purse the color of a Yield sign. Business garb. Usually she was in something denim, hair pinned up like she forgot what a comb looked like and a sprinkled doughnut in her hand. During a heat wave last August she wore short shorts and a halter top that caused a five-car pileup over on Whitaker and was oblivious to it all.

“Boone, it is you,” Reagan said. “Thought I heard your irritating voice. What are you and Mercedes doing up here in the bathroom? It's nice and all but where's Mr. Adkins? I'm here to give him a price on furniture he wants to sell over at my shop and— Sweet Jesus in heaven!”

Not breathing, Reagan looked from Conway to me then slowly slouched against the tile wall. “What did you go and do?”

“Me?”

“You had issues with him and then some.”

“So did half the people in this town.”

Sirens sounded in the distance and Mercedes smacked her palm to her forehead. “Now the fly's in the butter for sure. Think it's too late to make a run for it?”

The sirens stopped outside the big white frame house, followed by the door opening, someone yelling “Police!”, more footsteps up the staircase, and Detective Aldeen Ross and two uniforms crowding into the tight space.

“A dead guy in a tub, it must be Monday,” Ross groused, taking in the scene. “So, are you all holding a convention in here or what 'cause forensics is going to have themselves a hissy over corrupting the crime scene like this. It'll take a month of Sundays and a bucket of fried chicken from Sisters to calm them down, I can tell you that.”

Ross was “born short and squashed flat,” as my grandma Hilly used to say. Ross gave new meaning to
yo-yo dieting
and that she had powdered sugar on her blue suit suggested skinny Ross the Cranky was headed back to Ross the Pleasantly Plump.

“You do this?” Ross said to me and pointed at a fancy blue pillow on the floor with holes on both sides, suggesting the killer shot through it to muffle the sound.

“I know there's talk about me and Adkins,” I added before Ross could. “We didn't get along, but murder is a whole lot of not getting along.”

“The man never was a saint sitting on a cloud in anyone's book.” Ross said, then added, “Della Mae next door called saying she heard shots is what got us here. Mostly she wanted to tell the female contingent down at the police station that you showed up wearing our favorite jeans with the blue pinstriped shirt.”

“Favorite jeans?” I repeated trying to keep up.

“Like it or not, lawyer boy, you're fine eye candy and we all truly do appreciate it early in the morning like this.” Ross turned to Mercedes. “I just saw Reagan here over at the Cakery Bakery getting a sprinkled doughnut so that makes you a prime suspect at the moment. Care to enlarge on the situation?”

Mercedes held up her hands. “Well, there you go. I get the finger-point and this time I'm innocent as new driven snow. But I do have my suspicions who done the old boy in.”

Mercedes huddled us together. “Not to be tooting my own horn, you see, but I think the culprit in all this happens to be a wannabe customer of mine. Ya see, the oldsters around here hire me on to clean their places knowing that I always spiff them up right nice when their time comes to meet their Maker. It's an extra little perk I throw in for treating me good while they're still kicking. The word's gotten out that I offer up this bonus. Been right good for business I'll tell you that. But I only got so many cleaning spots available bein' that I work over there at the Slumber.”

The two uniforms exchanged
you gotta be kidding me
looks and Ross asked, “Let me see if I got this right, you're saying that someone would kill to get you to clean their house so you'd make them look good at their funeral?”

“Oh, honey.” Mercedes tisked. “Did you ever see what the wrong foundation does to the dearly departed under those god-awful funeral home lights? Why Fanny Elkins was the color of a toad last week at her lay-out and Janis Wilkes wound up right there on YouTube, casket and all, captioned ‘It ain't easy being green.'”

Nodding, Reagan held out her hands. “Word on the kudzu vine is that Jeanette Laylaw's the one who pushed Henry Wentworth down the steps at St. John's Church last month because she was next on your house-cleaning list.”

“See,” Mercedes nodded. “What did I tell you? Old Henry busted his hip big-time, went straight into assisted living, and Jeanette called me that very night to claim his spot.”

Ross massaged her forehead. “This is about makeup?”

Mercedes harrumphed. “This is about a person's last big splash before they get tossed in the ground and have dirt dumped on 'em.”

Ross glanced back at the corpse. “You're saying Adkins was planning on dying soon? Is that why he hired you?”

Mercedes shook her head. “He liked that I knew how to keep my mouth shut, and that I baked the best peach-and-blueberry pie here in Savannah.”

The door opened downstairs and Ross said, “Well, that'll be the meat wagon.” She took Mercedes's arm. “You can fill me in on the particulars down at the station.”

Mercedes paled and, considering her natural skin tone, that was going some. She turned to me. “If you're looking to have yourself a clean house and fresh laundry tomorrow keep in mind that I'm in need of some legal help here.”

The uniforms escorted Mercedes down the steps and into the back of a cruiser, Ross filled forensics in on the prize waiting for them upstairs, and I followed Reagan out to the sidewalk. We stood together under the branches of the huge live oaks on Chippewa Square stretching clear across the street, offering shade against the morning sun. Reagan shifted from foot to foot then flipped her hair, studying the house.

“Whatever you got going on, you don't want to go back in there,” I said to her. “The police are crawling all over the place and they don't need your company, and you don't need to be joining Mercedes in the cruiser for getting in their way.”

“Except, at the moment, the cops are upstairs in the bathroom fraternizing with Conway, and I do need to find who did him in before Friday or I'm toast.” Reagan fished around in her yellow bag, pulled out papers and held them up for me to see. “Here's the thing—Conway agreed to consign with me. This is for his cherry dining room table with eight chairs, the buffet, the side server, and the painting of the lion-eating-a-zebra, which from all accounts was pretty much his life in nutshell. He was redecorating, and I had first dibs. I came to get measurements.”

“So?”

“The contract is good till Friday. I've paid movers and have customers hot to buy, money in hand. If this house is tied up as a crime scene for weeks on end, I'll lose a bundle and that no-good son of his will more than likely swoop down and sell the stuff on eBay to finance one of his sailboats. That gives me four days to untie. I have plans for that money. I have bills.” Reagan bit her lip. “And I want a car. I'm tired of taking the bus. I want my very own seat every day, want my very own steering wheel, and I really, really want a cup holder.”

“Cars are overrated.”

“This from the guy who's got a mint '57 red Chevy convertible parked across the square.”

“I know how to drive.”

“Hey, I can drive.”

“The jury's still out.” That got me a punch in the arm. “Let me handle this one?” I tried to reason, knowing in my gut it was never going to happen. As much as Adkins was the lion-eating-a-zebra, Reagan was dog-with-a-bone. “Mercedes is on the ropes here so me and my dust bunnies are already knee-deep in the case. Conway Adkins owns the Olde Harbor Inn. That's unions and contractors. That means dealing with a rough group and it's a long way from you running the Prissy Fox.”

“Ever see three women fighting over a discounted Gucci bag? Now that's a rough group.”

I mentally banged my head against the wall. “Conway doesn't have a state-of-the-art security system on this house and a double-barrel shotgun in his trunk for kicks. Let me poke around on my own.”

Reagan folded her arms. “And you really expect me to believe you'll keep me in the loop?”

I flashed my best smile. “Sure I will.” That sounded like a lie even to me.

Reagan waved the agreement paper and poked me in the chest with her index finger. “I'm good at finding the bad guys. In case you forgot, I'm three for three.”

“In case you forgot, we nearly got buried alive that last time around.”

“‘Almost' only counts in horseshoes . . . or maybe its badminton. Whatever. I'm going to find Conway's killer, murder the termites eating my front porch before I don't have one anymore, and I'm getting a car, so you might as well tighten your seat belt, up your insurance, and get used to it, lawyer boy.”

“Lawyer boy? Really?”

“Ross started it. Besides, you disparaged my excellent driving ability so you had it coming.” Reagan jutted her chin, spun on her heel, and strutted down the sidewalk with her hair catching the spring breeze, hips swaying just a bit, the slight indent at her waist the perfect size for my hand and . . .

Dang. I needed a drink. What I really needed was something else entirely but that was not going to happen with Reagan Summerside.

The forensics guys wrestling the black body bag though the front door and down the outside steps snapped me back to the moment. Curious onlookers that included every adult within a two-block radius surged closer to get a better look. As the police worked to keep the crowd at a distance and to persuade reporters to keep this quiet till Adkins's daughter-in-law and son could be contacted, I snuck back inside the house.