Free Pearls and Poison (A Consignment Shop Mystery) by Duffy Brown Page B

usually learned on that big yellow bus or the playground.
Tell them what they want to hear and do as you darn well please
. . .
just don’t get caught,
was tops on that particular list.
    “Boone’s good at what he does.” I ground my teeth so hard I think I chipped a molar. I crossed my fingers under the table. “I’ll stay out of his way.”
Unless he gets in my way, then all bets are off,
I added to myself.
    Mamma smiled then patted my cheek. “That’s my good girl, and if you don’t get involved, neither will KiKi. I’ll rest so much easier knowing both of you are safe.”
    I left Mamma’s feeling as if the wind had been knocked right out of my sails, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t row the boat. Not that I didn’t see her point. If I were the one in trouble, I wouldn’t want Mamma to put herself in danger for me. But she would . . . and so would I.
    I headed for home, cutting across Madison Square and rounding the statue of William Jasper. Why there wasn’t a statue of James Madison, Father of the Constitution and fourth prezy of the USA, in Madison Square was one of those little Savannah mysteries of life. A more current mystery was how to find who killed Scumbucket and do it on the down-low when I was more of an in-your-face, front-and-center kind of girl.
    • • •
    AS ALL DOG OWNERS KNOW, THERE IS NO SUCH THING as sleeping in. Dogs want out when they want out, and they don’t really care diddly if you tossed and turned all night, have the hangover from the Black Lagoon, or slept like the dead, which happened to be my present condition. BW used the suffocation approach to get me out of bed, sitting on my back till my lungs quit working and I woke up gasping for air. Worked like a charm.
    I crawled into jeans, ran a toothbrush around my mouth, and added a hoodie and socks against the seven A.M. nippiness. BW was already at the front door doing the can’t-wait doggie dance as I stumbled down the steps. I opened it and sat on the porch to make sure he didn’t chase something into the street. I waved to Uncle Putter as he backed down the drive, another day another dollar in the life of Savannah’s numero uno cardiologist.
    I looked over to his house. There were lights on in the kitchen, Auntie KiKi was sitting at the table laden with pastries, and my chocolate-icing-with-sprinkles doughnut alert was fully activated. She was chatting with a lady in a red floppy hat with a tan lacy shawl across her shoulders. Mercedes? Highlights and doughnuts were the only things I could think of that would get KiKi up and going at this hour.
    My stomach growled, the sprinkles beckoning. In a few hours the pearl-girls would again take over my house. I needed fortification to make it through the day, and I needed to thank Mercedes for taking care of Mamma and KiKi the way she did. I was no expert on prison protocol or the life and times of Martha Stewart, but there was more going on than Mercedes being there when needed and Beauty Salon 101.
    “Well Jeez Louise, you must be little ol’ Reagan I’ve been hearing so much about.” Mercedes jumped up and flung her arms around me bear-hug style. She was about as big as KiKi and Uncle Putter put together and had the personality of a Golden Retriever. She looked me over, head to toe, like a long-lost relative. “Well goodness me, aren’t you just as cute as a bug’s ear? I can fix those roots you got going on and then hook you up with Mr. Boone. He could do with a nice woman in his life.”
    “You . . . you know Boone?”
    Mercedes sat down and using KiKi’s sterling silver tongs carefully selected a cinnamon doughnut and put it on one of Grandma Summerside’s blue china plates. “I’ve been cleaning Mr. Boone’s house for the last six months, what there is of it. The man’s in fearful need of furniture; he rattles around in that big old place like a BB in a box. Can’t imagine why he bought it in the first place.”
    Without the benefit of high-octane