The Last of the Real McCoy: A Maybelline Mystery

By Suzanna Myatt Harvill

When real estate tycooness Pepper McCoy is found murdered in her opulent home in the small town of Maybelline, Florida, the rollcall of suspects reads like the toppings list in a pizzeria. Pepper was feared more than she was respected, and any number of people had reason to kill her.
Seanna Flynn is the head of the multi-cultural, multi-racial, mostly aggravating Flynn clan who have controlled the politics and the economy of Maybelline since before the Civil War, when Maybelline Hancock Flynn opened the “Finest whorehouse east of New Orleans.”
Seanna’s “cousin,” Sheriff’s Captain Elroy Flynn, is in charge of the murder investigation, and Seanna cannot keep her pretty nose out of his business. Her curiosity uncovers more mysteries than just the murder and results in Seanna becoming the target of the killer. Is the adventuress who inherited Pepper’s estate the late realtor’s love child? If so, who is the father? Who committed a decades-old murder that set Pepper on her way to riches?
Handsome Irish hunk Drieu O’Bannon sees Seanna as a target of another sort. The Hibernian charmer is determined to win her love while trying to keep her safe from the clutches of a killer.
The Last of the Real McCoy is a fast-paced, sexy, and often funny mystery. A perfect read for a rainy night in the sultry tropics…or a snowy night in the frozen north. Wherever you are, the story immerses the reader in a steamy southern stew of offbeat characters and more plot twists than the roots of a gulf coast banyan tree.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Aug 16, 2023
• ISBN: 9781663254689

Suzanna Myatt Harvill

Suzanna Myatt Harvill is an author of suspense stories with a Southern flair and attitude. Writer’s Digest award winner. She is the author of the Shadow Bayou series and the comic mystery No Place Like Home

Book preview

THELAST OFTHEREAL MCCOY

A MAYBELLINE MYSTERY

Copyright © 2023 Suzanna Myatt Harvill.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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ISBN: 978-1-6632-5467-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6632-5468-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023913127

iUniverse rev. date: 07/14/2023

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

1

2

3

4

5

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EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

WITH THE EXAGGERATED care of the well and truly inebriated, Pepper McCoy eased the Cadillac CT5-V Blackwing into its niche in her cavernous garage. Her collagened lips curved in a feline smile. Sinatra’s mellow voice celebrated "That’s Life" from the sound system.

Yeah, Frankie, baby. She hummed a line. That’s life, and after all these years, I finally knocked that bastard on his face for good, she slurred to the empty air. He ain’t gonna get his ass back up and get back in the race. Her dry cackle deteriorated to a smoker’s bark.

Pepper settled the car comfortably between a 1959 Caddy convertible and a massive Escalade. Beyond the mammoth SUV sat a sporty classic Caddy XLR two-seater convertible. All four vehicles displayed the distinctive shade of apricot that was Pepper’s trademark...the color used throughout the offices and advertising brochures for her business, Real McCoy Real Estate.

She pressed an elegantly manicured finger to the garage door control, switched off the car’s engine, and opened the door. Pepper swung her long, still slender legs out and placed both stiletto-shod feet firmly on the spotless tiled floor. She reached back and retrieved her Louis Vuitton handbag from the passenger’s seat. Taking a deep breath, she heaved herself to an upright, if wobbly, position and stood for a moment gripping the doorframe.

Jesus, she chuckled, exposing a set of expensively capped teeth in a lopsided, vulpine grin. What a day...what a lovely, fuckin’ day. She brushed a lock of artfully tousled auburn hair from her forehead, then tugged the silk Versace dress out of her crack. Damn thongs, she grumbled. The dress, like the streaks in her hair, matched the hue of the cars.

Balancing with one hand on the fender, the realtor navigated toward the door leading into the house. The security system’s light was off, indicating the system was not activated...as usual. Nonetheless, Pepper eyed the tiny indicator critically. Fuckin’ nuisance, she accused the device. She could never remember the coded sequence of numbers on the damn thing… had enough trouble remembering the one for the door lock.

Resting a forearm against the doorjamb and scrunching her sherry-colored eyes, she poked at the lock’s keypad. The green light came on. Okeedokee.

Pepper considered the security device a waste of good money, but the system lowered her insurance costs considerably. Her sumptuous Mediterranean-style home occupied several acres on the shores of Lake Cypress and was one of the largest, most expensive pieces of residential property in the small Central Florida city of Maybelline.

Gripping the doorknob to keep from toppling over, she stepped inside. The door snicked shut behind her.

All was quiet. Her housekeeper had left hours ago. Her quartet of apricot poodles were having their bimonthly grooming at the doggy beauty parlor and were not there to greet her with their customary cacophony of yips and barks.

Pepper leaned against the doorframe and lifted her head, sniffing the air like a wild animal entering its lair and catching an alien scent.

Hmmpf. She tottered down the back hallway on her lizard-skin Manolo Blahnik spikes. Her ankle turned, and she nearly careened into the ornamental wall-rack that usually held the dogs’ leashes. Cursing softly, she braced one hand against the wall and tugged off her shoes. She exhaled a grateful breath and wriggled her toes, feeling just the tiniest bit of grit on the marble-tiled floor. Damn that lazy Juanita.

Grumbling about the sorriness of hired help, she waddled into the kitchen with its high-tech everything, gleaming stainless steel appliances, custom cabinetry, imported marble countertops with an apricot-colored vein running through the stone. The stovetop light, reflecting off the polished surfaces, provided the only illumination.

Again, Pepper sensed something…a subtle difference in the atmosphere…like an unfamiliar spirit had wafted through the room, leaving only a hint of its spectral passing…a smell…a faint change in the aura…something out of sync.

The skin on the back of her neck prickled, and she briefly surveyed the room.

Nothing seemed amiss…not that she would’ve noticed, she wryly reminded herself. Cooking was for lesser creatures, not for real estate entrepreneuresses.

She fumbled across the room to the sink and dropped her purse and shoes on the counter. Getting a glass from the cabinet, she stuck it under the water dispenser in the door of the restaurant-size refrigerator. Despite all the booze she’d imbibed, her mouth felt dry as a popcorn fart. She leaned against the counter and drank down half the glass. The cold water hit her stomach like an ice-filled ball. She puffed out her lips. Shit. The word hissed out on the tail end of a belch.

Muttering to herself, she put the glass in the sink. She picked up her shoes and handbag and launched herself away from the counter, her gait unsteady.

Pepper wended her way through a maze of dimly-lit hallways and interconnecting rooms, padding across the acreage of apricot-streaked, Italian marble flooring, to the two-story living room. Moonlight spilled through the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the lake, lending a silvery sheen to the room, limning its furnishings in a soft glow. The rough stone facing of a fireplace large enough to roast a cow stretched from the floor to the second-story ceiling, adding a touch of Renaissance Italy to the room’s ambiance. A gilt and crystal chandelier the size of a Volkswagen bug hung from the ceiling.

The lady of the house could’ve gone up the back stairway to her suite on the next level of the house, but she liked to use the shallow winding staircase in the large entry hall. This gave her a chance to admire the ballroom-size living room, with its opulent furnishings and exquisite knickknacks, and the gallery of Impressionist paintings lining the wall along the staircase.

The paintings were the Real McCoy, just like her, she relished telling people. She didn’t know squat about art, but the dealer told her they were immensely valuable...and their colors matched the décor.

Alicia Pepper McCoy enjoyed her extravagant belongings and never tired of looking at them. She’d worked her buns off for over forty years and was in a position to afford the best.

She’d taken a small-town real estate company and parleyed it into one of the top property handlers in the Sunshine State. No matter that she ran her business with tactics that would’ve sent Attila the Hun scurrying to cover his backside. She married and disposed of five husbands with the same aggressiveness and alacrity she used to move her properties. Her ruthlessness in business and in her private life wrecked more than a few lives, but as far as Pepper was concerned, none of that was any skin off her surgically restructured behind.

Nobody had ever gotten the better of her in a business deal, and only one man had ever bruised her gator-tough ego, humiliated her...hurt her to the quick. That was years ago, when she was young and relatively naïve. Since then, year after year, she’d savored taking her revenge, slowly gnawing at the financial bones of his company.

Today, she’d taken the last big bite, chewed him up, and spat him out.

Pausing, one hand on the wrought-iron banister, her dry chuckle trembled on the air in an eerie echo of old bones rattling. Another shift in the air brought a new coldness.

A twinge of something almost like fear tickled the base of her spine.

What ails me?

She wasn’t afraid of anything. She’d put fear behind her years ago. Nobody and nothing scared Pepper McCoy. She was the one who struck terror in the hearts of others. People respected and feared her. And she enjoyed knowing she was feared. She wielded intimidation like a freshly stropped straight razor.

Stiffening her backbone against the unfamiliar qualms, she resumed her trek up the stairs.

At the top, a mezzanine overlooked the living area, and a foyer led to Pepper’s private lair, her boudoir.

Darkness filled the doorway to her suite.

Odd…Juanita didn’t leave a light on.

Trepidation, like an exquisite sexual tingle, skittered up Pepper’s vertebrae.

A dark room...both familiar and mysterious...beckoning.

The fear she felt moments before was replaced with anticipation at what she suspected…hoped…awaited her.

A lewd smile quirked one corner of her carefully lipsticked mouth, as her mind explored the erotic possibilities of what might be waiting in the darkness.

She moved toward the dark portal…reached inside and felt along the wall for the light switch.

The room exploded with light.

A hand shot out and grabbed her hair, jerking her forward.

She dropped the shoes and purse. The contents of the pocketbook scattered across the thick apricot carpet.

Pepper stomped on one of the shoes, digging the sharp heel into the sole of her bare foot. She screeched in pain. What the fuck! Let go…eeeh!

She clawed at the hand threatening to tear her hair out by its roots. She was dragged into the room, stumbling, kept on her feet only by the fist tangled in her hair. Her face pointed toward the floor, and she couldn’t see who or what had ahold of her.

In a parody of a tarantella, her attacker staying behind her, the macabre dancers staggered in a circle and fell against her dressing table.

Glass shattered, bottles broke. Pepper smelled the scent of her favorite perfume, Bal a Versailles. Damn you! That stuff cost…owww!

A cuff to her temple, followed by muffled male laughter, cut off her protests.

She flailed and clawed at the fist gripping her hair, to no avail. The man was too strong for her to fight, but she would not go down without a struggle. She made a grab for the intruder’s crotch, but he shifted his stance, and her curved talons grabbed only air.

You mother fucker…I’ll kill you…you weren’t suppo…aiyeee!

Her attacker swung her in a half-circle, nearly lifting her off her feet.

Pepper’s back collided with the wall. Air exploded from her lungs. Stars danced in front of her eyes, blinding her.

She clawed feebly at the air in front of her, trying to fend off her assailant.

Panting, fighting to breathe, she opened her mouth to scream but choked on a mewling cry when her head was slammed against the wall.

The edge of cold steel pressed against her throat.

Bug-eyed, Pepper McCoy gawked at the gnarled, warty, green and purple face of a creature from outer space, scant inches from her own.

1

WHAT DO YOU mean, she’s dead? A cold fist gripped my stomach. She can’t be dead. Pepper McCoy’s indestructible...like...like…I don’t know…Darth Vader in drag or something. I sagged onto the stool behind the breakfast bar, huffing out a breath. I can’t believe it. I just saw her yesterday at the Chamber of Commerce luncheon. She was fine, enjoying being her usual obnoxious self.

My cousin, Captain Elroy Flynn of the Ridge County Sheriff’s Department, tossed his hat onto the breakfast bar and hefted his six-foot-three, two-hundred-pound-plus frame onto another stool. I’m tellin’ you, darlin’, the woman is S.N.D.

S.N.D? I fish-eyed him.

Sho’ ‘nough dead, he translated. A crooked grin split his milk chocolate face.

I grimaced. Ordinarily, I could laugh at Elroy’s graveyard humor, but this was Pepper McCoy he was talking about. I’d known Pepper since I was knee-high. The woman was a legend even then, feared, admired even, but not loved. I reached for the coffee pot at the end of the bar and poured him a cup of the brew. My hand was just the tiniest bit unsteady, and a few drops splattered onto the marble countertop. How’d she die? Heart attack or something?

More like the ‘or something.’ My cop cousin took a careful sip of the hot coffee and wrinkled his nose.

I didn’t comment on his expression. I knew he hated my coffee and only tolerated it out of fondness for me. I used an expensive brew, but that didn’t seem to matter. Everybody says my coffee could be used to dissolve roofing tar. Since I don’t drink the stuff, I don’t know diddly about how coffee’s supposed to taste and can’t understand other people’s addiction to it. I suppose it’s like scotch…not too awful if you manage to keep down the first gallon or two, but I’ve never acquired a taste for either libation. I took a napkin from the hand-painted ceramic holder and wiped off the countertop before picking up my cup of hazelnut-flavored chocolate. What happened to her?

Somebody beat the shit out of her and strangled her with her own bra…black lace…Hanky Panky.

What?

The bra’s brand name…Hanky Panky.

Jesus. I put my cup down. Pepper murdered. I tried to get my head around this. Who on earth would want to kill Pepper?

Hell...who wouldn’t? I don’t recall her ever being voted Miss Congeniality.

Umm...point taken, I agreed. She actually enjoyed riling people. It was like she taunted them, dared them to do something to her. I slipped off the bar stool and tugged at the hem of my short-sleeved, muted rose top. The casual jacket was paired with black pants. Black and gold jewelry and high-heeled, black mock-crock sandals completed my ensemble. Despite the current trend toward slutty sloppiness, I enjoyed dressing well. Come into my parlor and tell me all about it.

We moved from the kitchenette at the rear of the store to the area set aside to serve customers tea or my killer coffee, while they nattered over fabrics for drapes or samples of wall coverings.

Before I go any further with this tale, Southern manners dictate that I introduce myself and clarify a couple of matters.

My name is Seanna DeRheta Marie-Antoinette Devereaux-Flynn, or just Seanna Flynn. Once upon a time, there was a Mancini added to that string of monikers, but I eliminated the name when I cut my philandering ex-husband out of my life. He left me with nothing but a tattered ego, a distrust of men in general, and two bullet scars.

Part of my livelihood derives from my business, Creole Rose, an upscale home décor and gift shop downstairs and an interior design studio in the second-story loft. I sell antiques, real and faux, as well as a variety of mostly expensive specialty items, including exquisite china, crystal, and silver. I inherited the store from my Aunt Bridget, along with all my aunt’s worldly belongings, including a staggering amount of real estate and investments…and lots of plain, old money.

The un-worldly belonging I inherited from Aunt Bridget was the family position of The Flynn, or head of my multiracial, multicultural, multisocio-economic, mostly aggravating-as- hell clan. We Flynns have been the movers and shakers in Maybelline, Florida, and Ridge County since before the War of Northern Aggression, as we right-thinking southerners still call the Nineteenth Century unpleasantness between North and South. As The Flynn, I’m expected to negotiate family disputes, dispense advice, keep them from killing each other, and just put up with their orneriness in general. A voluminous family tree chronicles all these relatives, and I’m proud to say my branch has more forks than some of the others. Rather than try to keep them all straight, I just call most of them cousin.

Elroy is my favorite cousin. We’re not related by blood…or we might be, if you believe some of the more lurid stories about the Ante-Bellum South, I’m blond and green-eyed. Elroy is tall, handsome, and dark, with a killer Denzel Washington smile. My white Flynn ancestors owned his black ancestors. No…I won’t call him African-American. He doesn’t use that tacky appellation himself. Like many freed slaves, his ancestors used the family name and stayed around after the messiness of the war was resolved.

Elroy folded his long frame and settled into the bent-cane rocker facing a fireplace, which boasted an original mantel nicked by a bullet from the good ol’ Florida cracker cowboy days, when the building housed a saloon. Before he could begin his tale, his cell phone squawked. He juggled his cup to answer it. Captain Flynn here. He set his cup down on the table beside his chair and took a small notepad and a ballpoint pen out of his shirt pocket. Yeah. Go ahead.

A smile tickled my lips. My cousin still preferred to take his notes with paper and pen, instead of using his electronic notebook. Like Elroy, I’m a bit old-fashioned, and my surroundings reflect my taste for vintage items.

I perched on the burgundy Victorian sofa, facing a pair of wingback chairs, upholstered in burgundy-trimmed cream velvet. A low, gleaming oak table holding an Eighteenth Century sterling silver tea service and a spray of fresh flowers in a crystal vase separated the sofa from the chairs. From her portrait above the fireplace, Maybelline Hancock Flynn, my ancestor for whom the town was named, watched over the store.

Placing my cup of cocoa on a silver coaster on the coffee table, I absent-mindedly massaged my left wrist with my right hand, while I waited for Elroy to conclude his mostly grunted contributions to the phone conversation. I pondered the mystery of who could’ve killed Pepper McCoy and why. Like Elroy said, she was nobody’s favorite person and had ties to everything from organized crime to the local Humane Society. Pepper was a Sunshine State celebrity, famous and infamous.

Elroy gave a final grunt and told somebody to, Lemme know soon’s you find anything else.

I tucked a lock of hair behind my ear, before picking up my cup again. So give me the lowdown before it’s spread all over town and I have to hear it on the street. Nothing’s going to stay a secret in this town anyway.

Elroy placed his notepad and pen back into his pocket and retrieved his cup of coffee from the side table. He rocked back in the chair. We don’t actually know much. The housekeeper found Pepper this morning when she arrived for work. The old gal, name’s Juanita, was hysterical when she called 911. I was just coming on duty. I got to the house the same time the paramedics arrived. Pepper’d been dead a while. The bra was wrapped around her neck, and the bedroom looked like she’d put up a hell of a fight. Cosmetics scattered all over the place...broken perfume bottles all over the floor. He wrinkled his nose. Whew, I can still smell that stuff she wore. I must stink like a two-dollar whore. He used two fingers to pull his shirt away from his chest and fan himself.

"Bal a Versailles, strong and expensive. I supplied the name of Pepper’s trademark perfume. Did it look like anything was stolen?"

He shook his head. Not so far as the maid could tell, and she’d worked for Pepper for years. She had a major case of the screaming meemies when we got there, so she might notice something later when she calms down.

Elroy was not divulging any confidential information to me, a civilian. I’d worked undercover as an auxiliary for the sheriff’s department in the past, so my cousin persuaded Sheriff Chris Allman to deputize me on a permanent basis as a consultant. I’m licensed to carry a concealed firearm, and I’m paid a salary of one dollar per year. My deputation is just another perk of being The Flynn, seeing as how I’m not at the top of our sheriff’s dance card. Allman’s a biscuits in the oven, buns in the bed type. However, our Chief Bozo with a Badge finds it advantageous to make use of my being related to nearly everyone in the county. He also recognizes that my little shop is a pipeline for all the local gossip.

Elroy paused to sip his coffee. Funny thing, though, there was a knife on the floor by the bed, but whoever killed her didn’t use it. Still, he must’ve brought it to the room for just that purpose. He grimaced against the taste of the vile brew sliding down his gullet. Which is another strange thing...according to the maid, the knife came from Pepper’s kitchen. But it looks like whoever killed her jimmied the French doors on the rooftop balcony outside her bedroom and entered the house that way. Door’s a mess. Scratches all around the lock.

So he used something sharp to get into the house from the second story balcony and then got one of her knives.

Makes me wonder what he used on the door.

Maybe he brought a knife and broke it on the door, you suppose?

He tapped his cup with a finger. Maybe. It was something small, like a pocket knife…small blade would’ve been easy to break. We didn’t find anything like that…not yet, anyway. If he broke the blade, he probably took it with him.

The kitchen’s at the other side of the house from the bedroom. I’d been in Pepper’s house numerous times for civic-cum-social functions, and I’d redecorated her house less than two years ago. I was familiar with the labyrinthine layout of the place.

Yeah, it is. Elroy sipped. He must’ve been pretty familiar with the house and backyard, too, since he knew about those outdoor stairs from the patio to the upper floor, and you can’t see that from the street.

With the landscaping and that long curving driveway, you can barely see the house.

That’s why we’re figuring he wasn’t a stranger.

Hmm…so why would he break in through the French doors upstairs and then go downstairs all the way through the house to the kitchen, get a knife, and come back and strangle her with her bra?

Makes no sense, unless he came unarmed and decided to wait for her. Elroy pulled a frown. We’re still not ruling out a robbery gone south.

That doesn’t sound right, though, does it? I mused aloud. I mean if he intended to rob the place, why wait for her to come home...and then he didn’t take anything, as far as we know? If he planned to hurt her...or kill her...you’d think he would’ve brought his own weapon and taken it with him.

Yeah…that’s what I’m thinking, too. Elroy shook his head. We’ve been running around like sprayed roaches all morning, trying to get a grip on this thing before the news media get ahold of it and go crazy.

Well, it’s not like somebody of Pepper’s stature gets killed in Maybelline every day.

Thank God. He emitted a short bark. Whoever killed the old gal isn’t the brightest bulb on the tree. The dude apparently wore a Halloween mask, creature from outer space, some such shit as that...one of those rubber things.

Like a Martian or something? This was a new kink.

I guess. Go figure. He cocked an eyebrow at me. Then he was careless enough to leave it behind...left it lying right there on the bed. Must have his fingerprints all over it, all kinds of DNA.

That was pretty stupid.

Elroy grunted. Just one of the things that doesn’t make any sense. Fool must have the I.Q. of a flea to do that.

Maybe whoever was wearing the mask wasn’t the one who killed her.

I thought about that, too. Elroy twisted his lips into a wry grin. In which case, old Pepper must’ve had a mighty busy evening. She’d obviously had sex with somebody late last night, rough sex, maybe with the killer, or maybe with more than one individual. Won’t know until the tests come back. Might’ve been some kind of sex game gone wrong with several people, knowing Pepper…and with no protection whatsoever.

Pepper wasn’t into safe sex, huh? I leaned forward, my elbows on my knees.

Shit. You know Pepper. She wasn’t into safe anything. We found enough dope in her bedside table to give Delmas some competition.

Delmas Flynn, another cousin, was one of the more successful purveyors of illegal substances residing in Ridge County, although he kept his dealings confined to points south, the Gulf Coast, and throughout the Caribbean, not wanting to foul his own nest in Maybelline. His activities were known but pretty much overlooked by local law enforcement. Catching him would be too much trouble, and he’d be free within twenty-four hours anyway. After all, he was a Flynn.

Considering Pepper’s reputation, the drugs aren’t surprising, I remarked. We drank our brews in comfortable silence for a few moments. "Not to speak ill of the dead, but I’ve heard Pepper liked to pick up young men in bars and bring them home with her...and I’m talking about very young men."

That’s not exactly speaking ill. From what I’ve heard, Pepper liked to brag about her stable of young stud muffins. Elroy stretched his legs out and crossed his ankles.

I wonder if one of them killed her…you know, from the sloppiness of the whole thing.

That appears to be the direction the investigation’s taking...although that Halloween mask doesn’t make any sense if he was somebody she knew. We’re trying to find out who she was with last night. As I understand it, she had dinner with one of her realtors and a couple who bought a house in Venetian Village. We’ve already talked to the agent, and she said Pepper was stewed to the gills when she left them at Alfredo’s last night. The woman mentioned that Pepper said something about having to get up early this morning for a meeting.

The agent assumed Pepper went straight home alone?

Um, hmm...and the couple who bought the house told the same story.

So if one of her boy-toys killed her, he must’ve broken into the house, which might mean he’d been an unexpected or even an unwanted guest. Maybe one she jilted. I massaged my wrist some more.

Wrist bothering you?

Yeah. Must be going to rain. I have to keep the kinks worked out, or it stiffens up on me. I held the scarred appendage out and examined it. I really hate that scar. I’m considering getting a tattoo to cover it. I need a new one. I waggled my right foot, making the dainty rose imprinted on the ankle ripple. Elroy was not a tattoo person. He’d been major pissed when his wife, Priscilla, and I had posies etched on our ankles.

He curled his lip. Just be careful if you have a name tattooed on yourself. You may live to regret it.

Maybe I’ll do like Mike Tyson...get my own name put on myself so I can always remember who I am…or somebody can bring me home if I get lost.

Elroy chuckled, then returned to the grim subject. You know, with old Pepper being disliked by so many people, this case is going to be a hard nut to crack.

Yeah, she was about as popular as a pimple on prom night, but it didn’t stop people from doing business with her.

My cousin rocked back and forth. I just don’t understand what that knife was doing in there. That bugs me.

Since she was strangled, it sounds as though there might be two people involved. One who brought the knife into the room...for whatever reason...and the killer, who didn’t know the knife was there. Or she and the killer could’ve fought for the knife, he dropped it and grabbed the bra to strangle her. I gulped my cocoa and put two fingers to my mouth. You didn’t say, but I assume she was naked when y’all found her.

Elroy made a face. As the proverbial jaybird, except for some jewelry. Not a pretty sight. The old girl was a patchwork of plastic surgery, although most of the scars were in natural folds….but still. He shuddered.

Hmpf. I tried to muffle my chuckle. Pepper was too skinny to have much in the way of natural folds…except for her titties and tail, and they were mostly silicone.

Elroy wagged a finger at me. My point exactly. Not something I relished looking at. Don’t know why the hell she’d want to take her clothes off for anybody.

She thought she was still hot. I toyed with my empty cup. So we know she had sex with somebody. Maybe they got into a fight, and he killed her.

But there’s still that knife, Elroy mulled. Why didn’t he use it?

I don’t know. I caught my bottom lip with my teeth. But since he didn’t use it, I have to wonder why he didn’t take it back to the kitchen, unless he panicked and forgot about it…or maybe he was interrupted and had to get out in a hurry.

Hmm. I hadn’t thought of that.

So there might’ve been two people in that room with her at different times; one brought the knife and the other one, the killer, didn’t see it. I made a flapping motion with both hands. "Or maybe she brought the knife in there earlier to use for something."

What would a woman use a kitchen knife in the bedroom for?

I don’t know...maybe she needed to clean the toe-jam out from under her toenails. I gave him a look. Or maybe she was kinkier than we’ve heard.

"Perish that thought."

2

A LOUD CLATTER at the rear of the building interrupted my conversation with Elroy. What the hell. I jumped to my feet and headed in the direction from which the racket had come, Elroy on my heels.

The reverberation of something heavy falling to the old wooden floor was augmented by the sound of an outraged squawk.

Now just a cotton-pickin’ minute, podnah. You can’t leave that lumbah theah on the flo’. Ramon Desjardin’s Cajun accent became even more pronounced when he was agitated. I’m tryin’ to run a bidness heah, and if somebody trips over that pile of boahds they can sue ouah asses off.

I’m going to put something around the lumber so nobody falls over it. A second, deeper voice held the distinct lilt of Ireland.

What the devil is this mess anyway? Ramon again. We’re not runnin’ a lumbah salvage yahd.

The volume and aggravation level of the second voice rose. I’m building some shelves for Miss Flynn, if it’s any of your bloody business.

You bet your sweet tush it’s some of my bidness, and don’t you take that tone with me you…you overgrown Hibernian hillbilly, Ramon snarled. "I’m the assistant manager of Creole Rose."

I rounded the corner formed by two massive Nineteenth Century armoires and headed into the open area behind my home décor display room. I found two men facing off over a pile of wood stacked on the floor. Given their comparative sizes, the six-foot-four-inch Irishman towered over Ramon like a bull mastiff preparing to attack a Chihuahua. But said Chihuahua was giving no ground.

"Who is this behemoth, Seanna? My assistant yapped. He acts like something that just crawled out of the bayou back home in N’Awlins. No goddamn couth."

What the flaming hell does he think he’s doing ordering me around like I’m some bloody servant? The mastiff growled and glowered at me. I’m not putting up with his crap, Miss Flynn.

Just stop this barking and snapping right now, both of you. I positioned myself between the combatants. I’m sorry, Ramon. While you were in Chicago last week, I made arrangements with Drieu here to build some of those shelves we’ve been needing. I’ve been busy and forgot to mention it to you. I turned toward the big Irishman. Drieu, this is Ramon Desjardin, my assistant manager.