Iced Chiffon by Duffy Brown Read Free Book Online

litany of rights as the uniformed cops hauled Hollis to his feet.
    “What can I do?” I asked Hollis. Going though a divorce was bad, but getting hauled off to the slammer was terrifying.
    Hollis’s eyes weren’t focusing, his brain not functioning. “Water my plants? Call Boone? Give my mamma a kiss?”
    I could handle Boone and plants, but kissing Penny Beaumont was not happening. He dropped his keys in my purse as IdaMae powered through the doorway, a woman on a mission.
    She elbowed her way past the cops and threw her arms around Hollis. “What are they doing to you?” she wailed.
    Detective Ross was at the part “can and will be held against you” when the uniforms handcuffed Hollis. IdaMae collapsed into a chair mumbling, “This is all so wrong. Why wasn’t I here? How can this be?”
    “What evidence do you have that I killed Janelle?” Hollis asked Ross, the reality of the situation settling in.
    Ross flipped open her little brown book. “Body was in your car and a neighbor saw the Lexus over on East Hall last night about the time of the murder. ‘HB3’ is a pretty distinctive license plate, Mr. Beaumont.”
    Hollis looked dumbfounded. “I wasn’t on East Hall. Janelle showed a house there. I was here at the office doing paperwork. If I was going to murder my own fiancée, why would I use my own car that’s easily recognized?”
    “You argued with Ms. Claiborne at the Telfair Museum,” Ross continued. “Anger makes people do rash things. We found Ms. Claiborne’s car parked on Hall. Neighbors said your car pulled around in back of the ‘For Sale’ house around nine o’clock, then left ten minutes or so later. Ms. Claiborne was wrapped in plastic that matches the cut endof the plastic protecting the carpet in the house. Get yourself a good lawyer, Mr. Beaumont.”
    The cops led Hollis out the door, and I called Boone on the office phone. I knew his number by heart from the divorce, 1–800-DIRTBAG. I left a message on his voice mail. I wondered if he knew my number by heart, but that was impossible because Boone didn’t have a heart. And there was the little problem of the fact that I no longer had a phone.
    Auntie KiKi got IdaMae a glass of water, and we bundled her into KiKi’s Beemer and took her home. We got her tea and brandy that was more brandy than tea, reassured her that everything would be okay, then left.
    “Well, Hollis has certainly gotten his do–da in a wringer this time,” Auntie KiKi said as we stopped at a traffic light on Abercorn. “Did you find anything at the office?”
    “I’m not sure what I’m looking for. How would you like to go to a family-values rally tonight?”
    “I think our family values are doing okay. How about a double dip of Old Black Magic at Leopold’s instead?” KiKi countered. “All that singing and alleluias gives me heartburn, and I’d rather give my heart a workout over ice cream with bits of brownie and chunks of chocolate.”
    I pulled the family-values flyer from my purse. “I got this from Cupcake’s desk. The only thing she valued was money and more money and definitely not family. IdaMae said Cupcake and Franklin weren’t exactly bosom buddies, so why the flyer?” I flipped it over. “She has dates circled on the back, and tonight is one of them. The rally is up at Johnson Square. I hate taking the bus at night, and we really should check in on IdaMae later.”
    “We? What happened to turning all this over to Walker Boone? I thought that was the plan.” The light turned green and KiKi pulled forward with the rest of the afternoon traffic.
    “I know you don’t want to hear this, but I’m not handing anything over to that overpriced ambulance chaser. I have a better chance of finding the killer than he does, and when I do, he and Hollis will never darken my Victorian doorway again.”
    “You fix plumbing, rotting floors, and rafters, and you sell clothes. The only thing you’ve ever uncovered is termites. You can’t be