Wedding Day and Foul Play by Duffy Brown

Author:Duffy Brown [Brown, Duffy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-02-17T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

“We’ll park the Beemer in the lot behind Jimmy John’s and cut through to Jen’s and Friends,” Auntie KiKi said to me when we passed Johnson Square and made a right onto West Congress. Johnson Square was the largest and oldest of the twenty-three with two fountains, and a monument to William Bull, who helped lay out the city, and where they read aloud to everyone the Declaration of Independence back in 1776. How cool is that!

“People recognize my Foxtrot license plate, so parking on the street is too risky,” Auntie KiKi added. “I’m not taking any chances of getting sent back to jail with Officer Mustache.”

I looked at Auntie KiKi in her pinstripe and fedora. “Uncle Putter wouldn’t recognize you in this getup.”

“He would if I had a dish of pot roast in my hand.” Auntie KiKi pulled into the lot and killed the engine. “I used a Sharpie to give myself a little scruff.” KiKi jutted her chin in my direction. “What do you think?”

“You have waxed eyebrows, pierced ears and a fifty-dollar manicure. You as a guy is a tough sell.”

“Yeah, but I can drink with the best of ‘em.”

We climbed out of the Beemer, and Auntie KiKi clicked the lock button. Streetlight spilled into the lot, and we cut around the other cars to a scraggly row of bushes separating the lot from the back of Jimmy John’s. We wiggled through some dead branches to a dented green dumpster and a stack of cardboard boxes tied up for recycle.

“If something slithers out, I’m screaming my head off, just so you know.”

We took the corner and started down the narrow alley with the back wall of Jen’s and Friends up ahead. Wood pallets leaned against the concrete-block building, and two men stood under a light swarming with insects.

“I think I saw a rat.” Auntie Kiki drew up close, her breath on my neck.

“It was probably a cat.” It was probably a rat. I took KiKi’s hand, and we walked faster. “Almost there.”

The men’s voices rose, with the taller, older guy shaking his finger at the shorter blond one. “You’re thirty next week. Are you ever going to get your act together?”

“I know that guy,” I whispered to KiKi. “I know both of them.”

“Did you just step on my foot? I think there’s more than two of us in here.”

“Is that why you called me?” the shorter guy said. “More lectures? I got a job, I got friends, and you’re not my father, so buzz off.”

“You flunked out of college, flunked out of the police academy, and now you have Pixie Stix straws sticking out of your pocket. What’s next, Simon? Pink bunny ears and a fluffy tail on your butt?” The man waved a handful of papers. “You’re overdrawn at the bank and racking up loans. They repossessed your car that I co-signed for. You’re killing my credit score.”

“Next month I’m getting that big raise, remember. This isn’t your courtroom, and I don’t have to hang around and listen to you.

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