Iced Chiffon (19 page)

“And why are you here?”

“I hired a private investigator, and he said Virgil and that bimbo meet here. I wanted to see for myself if it was true.” She sniffed, her eyes watering. “Virgil never brings me to nice places like this.”

The Hampton was an okay hotel but not a “nice places like this” hotel. It was a “Mom, Dad, and the kids on their way to Grandma’s” kind of place.

“When Virgil and I go out,” Birdie said to me, her voice bitter, “it’s to those rallies and fund-raisers with rubber chicken, Stove Top stuffing, and no wine. I could do with a glass of wine served to me once in a while, something white. I’d love a drink with a little umbrella.”

“You need to try the drinks with olives. I don’t think your husband is a murderer, but he’s not a good man either, least not to you.”

Me giving marital advice was like Joan Rivers giving advice on facelifts, but if I stood by and let Birdie make the same mistakes I had, that wasn’t right either.

“Look, if you know Virgil is messing around, and I know he’s messing around, it’s only a matter of time till all of Savannah knows. The way this works is that the guy gets the cupcake, and the woman gets the embarrassment and the heartache.”

“But we were in love once. We have children. I don’t know what to do.” She bit back another sob.

Shoot the bastard
was on the tip of my tongue, but I went with, “Tell Virgil he has to make a choice. Don’t be stuck in the middle letting him make all the decisions for your life and his. I did that and nearly lost my mind. It’s no way to live.” I spotted Baxter’s truck whizzing by and said to Birdie, “I have to follow that truck. That’s Baxter, and he’s messing around on his wife and clearly married her for her money. She could be in real danger.” I started the Beemer and took off.

“Oh goodness.” Birdie buckled up and gripped the dashboard. Hunched over in concentration, she peered through the windshield. “Don’t be getting too close. I’ve seen those TV shows. You’ve got to hang back, or he’ll spot us.”

We took Habersham to Congress, and the truck swung in the alleyway behind The Planters Inn, which faced Reynolds Square. “Mercy me, this Baxter person sure has expensive taste. Is he really going after his wife’s money?”

“If he killed Janelle to get her to stop blackmailing him, he could very well plan to knock off his wife for her money.” Baxter got out of his truck, and I drove on past so as not to look too suspicious.

“Stop!” Birdie yelped.

“What? Where?” I slammed on the brakes, leaving the smell of burning rubber and two years’ worth of tread streaked down the alley. Was there a cat? A dog? A kid? An adrenaline rush of perspiration trickled down my front. I didn’t see anything, but Birdie flung open the car door and ran toward Baxter, her brown pencil skirt sneaking up her thighs, her jacket billowing out Batman style.

“I’ve had it with your kind!” she yelled at Baxter.

Good God in heaven, the woman had snapped! I ran after Birdie as she swung her purse over her head. “You two-timing good-for-nothing bastard, how dare you!”

Baxter held up his hands in defense, trying to ward off the blows. His hat few off, his glasses hit the ground, blood gushed from his nose, and he staggered backward.

“Make her stop!” Baxter pleaded. I grabbed Birdie, using all my strength to hold her. Note to self:
don’t get the preacher’s wife riled up!

“He’s one of them! They’re everywhere; they’re everywhere!” Birdie panted, struggling to get at Baxter again.

“What are you talking about?” Baxter used his sleeve to try and stop his bleeding nose.

“Men like you are what I’m talking about!” Birdie pointed a long, accusatory finger, as only a preacher’s wife can. “You play around on your wife and think you can get away with it, and you don’t care how much you hurt her or anyone else. Shame on you! Shame, shame, shame on you, Baxter!”

If Baxter didn’t feel like he was headed straight for the fires of hell after all that, he was untouchable.

“You’re nuts, a complete whack job.” Baxter’s eyes were already turning black and blue.

“We know you’re cheating on Trellie,” I said while keeping a firm grip on Birdie. “I’ve been following you around town, and we know about all the hotels, the sneaking, and going in through back doors.”

“You’re following me? Why don’t you mind your own business, and for the love of God, I’m not cheating on Trellie. I wouldn’t do that. I go to hotels because I’m an electrician, a master electrician. I take care of the high-voltage lines.” He kicked his case, which he’d dropped to the ground. “Look in there if you don’t believe me. It’s all tools. No condoms in sight. You two should be locked up. You’re both bat-crap nuts!”

B
AXTER
was an electrician? “If you’re innocent as the driven snow, why were you sneaking around?” I asked him straight-out. “Why the truck? Why the disguise? Why this?” I marched to the Beemer and pulled the horn-rimmed glasses from my purse. I waved them in Baxter’s face. “Look familiar?”

Baxter’s face went ashen. With his wild hair and black-and-blue eyes, if he’d had on a nightshirt and chains, he’d pass for Marley right out of Scrooge. This was a far cry from his usual yumminess.

“Where’d you get those?” he asked me, staring at the glasses.

“Where do you think I got them?”

Birdie looked from me to Baxter and back to me again, tennis-match style. “Somebody want to tell me what in the world is going on around here?”

Baxter snagged the glasses right out of my hand. “You were the one in the town house last night,” he accused me.

“You were there trying to cover your tracks from being there before,” I accused right back.

“I was looking for the information Janelle has on the people she was blackmailing,” Baxter said to me in explanation. “I don’t think anyone has found it yet, or they’d take up where Janelle left off, and I’d be back to forking over more money, just to a different person.”

Birdie put her hand to her forehead. “Saints preserve us, never even considered the possibility of that happening. I figured that since Janelle was dead, the threat of being blackmailed was over and done with. It’s not, is it? Virgil’s a stupid fool.” She scrunched up her face and studied Baxter. “But I don’t understand about you. If you’re not carrying on with another woman like you say, what did this Janelle person have that could hurt you?”

“Like I’m going to tell you so you can blackmail me. I should just start handing out leaflets and get it over with.”

Birdie folded her arms. “Janelle Claiborne was threatening to blackmail my husband, the one and only Reverend Virgil Franklin, poster boy for family values, who is skipping around town as we speak, doing the deacon. Try and top that one.”

Baxter let out soft whistle. “I think that wins the Kewpie doll.”

“Blackmailers deserve to burn in hell for all eternity,” Birdie said in an authoritative voice as someone who knew all about hell burning and what constituted admission. “I suppose you and my husband are in the same boat.”

“Not really.” Baxter said, running his hand through his
hair. “I love my wife; I truly do. At first I did marry Trellie for her money. Janelle knew that and threatened to tell Trellie if I didn’t pay up.”

Birdie said, “It’s your word against Janelle’s. Your wife would believe you, don’t you think?”

“When I was in Atlanta, I’d married a woman there and divorced her and took her savings—well, half of it. I lost it in a real-estate deal gone bad, then came to Savannah to find another wealthy woman and do the same thing all over again. I fell in love with Trellie, really fell in love. I’ve been working to pay the woman in Atlanta back and pay Janelle to keep her mouth shut. I’m a pretty good electrician, and the people I work for don’t travel in the country-club circles. They don’t know me as Trellie’s husband. I do the disguise just to make sure. Janelle knew my ex in Atlanta. Janelle knew a lot of people, like Dinah Corwin from WAGA, who’s doing the interviews here in town. Janelle broke up her marriage and had to get a restraining order against Corwin. She went a little crazy.”

Baxter gave me a look like Birdie and I belonged in the same category. He added, “I think one of the reasons Janelle came to Savannah in the first place was to bleed me dry when she found out I married Trellie.”

“So you got tired of paying Janelle and killed her?” I blurted, then realized that may not be the wisest thing to say to a killer.

“Look,” Baxter said to me, the part of his multicolored eyes that hadn’t yet swollen shut looking sincere. “I’m trying to straighten out my life, not screw it up even more. I had an emergency electrical job over at the Bay Street Inn the night Janelle was killed. Trellie had a stomach virus, so we
didn’t make the party at the Telfair Museum. She went to bed early, and I took the job. Someone had backed into a pole and wiped out the electrical system to the kitchen. I worked six hours straight to get the inn up and running for the next morning. The manager paid me double. He’ll remember the guy with the glasses.”

“The glasses are a nice touch,” I told him.

“The glasses are a necessity. I do some pretty tricky work, and connecting the wrong lines could be fireworks, if you get my drift.”

“Guess it also helps with picking locks.”

“I did what I thought I had to do. Did you find Janelle’s stash of information? Are you going to tell Trellie all this or what?”

“I don’t know where Janelle’s stuff is on the people she’s blackmailing, but you have to tell Trellie about Atlanta,” I said to Baxter, Birdie standing at my side, nodding in agreement. “She’ll find out. I did.”

“Yeah, but you’re a pain–in–the-butt snoop who’s aiming to get into a lot of trouble if you keep digging around to find out who killed Janelle.” Baxter ran his hand through his hair, making it look even scarier. “But you are right about Trellie finding out. Fact is, she’ll probably get a registered letter straight from Janelle Claiborne.”

“Uh, honey, Janelle’s dead as can be. No worries there,” Birdie said.

“Janelle’s dead all right but not forgotten. Blackmailers are smart.” Baxter had that defeated look about him, like someone fighting a losing battle. I’d had that feeling a few times myself lately. “Blackmailers have contingency plans to keep themselves alive and well. They leave incriminating
evidence with a third party. In the event of their untimely death, this third party sends out that information to the police, government, press, spouses, or wherever it will do the most damage. This makes the people being blackmailed have second thoughts about killing their blackmailers.”

He turned his attention to Birdie. “Have you gotten anything about Franklin’s infidelity?”

“No, but the information could go to the church elders. I haven’t heard any rumblings from them.”

Baxter picked up his electrician’s case and tossed it in the truck. He climbed behind the steering wheel and struck his head out the window. “Whoever has Janelle’s contingency plan is going to act on it sooner or later. Usually that person gets a check every month. The month the money stops coming, the information goes out.”

“How do you know all this?”

“Straight from the horse’s mouth. Janelle told me.”

I
T WAS NEAR FIVE WHEN
I
GOT BACK TO THE
F
OX
. KiKi sat behind the old oak that now served as a table I’d rigged for writing up sales. She was counting money. Lord be praised! Money! A pile of consigned clothes lay across two chairs waiting to be tagged and put out. Business was good, or at least it wasn’t as pitiful as before.

“We’re closed,” KiKi said, still counting and not looking at me. “Come back tomorrow at ten. We have lots of new stuff.”

“I parked your car in the garage.”

KiKi’s head jerked up, and she pressed her hands to her cheeks, looking relieved. “You’re safe!” Then she hustled
around the table and shook me, upset-auntie style. “Where in heaven’s name have you been?” she demanded. “You never picked up your phone! I thought you were dead in an alley, bleeding from your eyes, until Elsie Abbott came in and said she saw you and Birdie Franklin in my car, flying up Bull Street.”

“We were on a Baxter hunt.” I locked the front door. “Thanks for opening the shop after your dance lessons, and you’ll be happy to hear Baxter’s not the killer. He’s making a little extra on the side so he can treat Trellie well, and not just use her money. As for Birdie, Reverend Franklin is about to get his comeuppance.”

“You believe Baxter is really innocent?”

“He’s a man doing what he has to do to make things right for the woman he loves.” I made a cross over my heart and held up two fingers. “I promise. All women should be so lucky.”

Auntie KiKi did an ear–to–ear grin. There was no need to tell her about Baxter and his Atlanta life. That was between him and Trellie, and if they were all to remain friends, I wanted KiKi to think well of Baxter. “Baxter and I ran into each other when I was following him. He’s an electrician.”

“Electrician? As in sticking plugs into sockets?”

“Electrician as in those big overhead wires that get plugged into businesses and make them go. He had a job the night Cupcake was murdered. I met Birdie in the alley because she thought Virgil might be inside the hotel with Sissy. She knows he’s cheating, and she’s going to straighten him out.”