Chapter 12
TWELVE
After Charlie and I parted with curt nods to one another, I started toward the kitchen, where Joe had spent the afternoon with Aunt DeeDee before guests had arrived. Maybe that space held some kind of clue. I just had to find it first.
I wandered through the house, passing various rooms and halls—the solarium, the library, the Color Gallery—that were becoming more and more familiar, before stumbling into the kitchen.
It was as large as any I’d imagine in a restaurant, and it was covered in state-of-the-art, stainless-steel appliances. At the back appeared to be a walk-in fridge, and everything was industrial-sized.
I spotted Aunt DeeDee standing at a long island wearing an apron with red strawberries scattered across it, hand-beating what looked to be whipping cream.
A dishwasher was working a few yards away, the countertops were laden with half-empty trays of canapés and finger foods, and a server was leaving as I walked in.
“Oh, Lord, Dakota,” Aunt DeeDee breathed as she set down the bowl. “I’m half afraid to come out and be carted off to jail like last time.”
I attempted a faint smile. “I think you’re in the clear, though Charlie and the deputy will probably have questions for you at some point.”
Aunt DeeDee raised her eyebrows at the mention of the deputy. “I met her. Seems like a nice enough gal, but very…”
“Pretty?” I finished.
My aunt lifted a shoulder. “You have to trust your man.”
“Right, well, Joe’s in the ballroom now with the other witnesses, detailing what they saw, so I thought I’d take the chance to look around in here.”
Aunt DeeDee nodded easily. “I can tell you this: Brett didn’t have a single thing to eat from this kitchen.
” That matched with what Presley had said about his strange eating habits, but Aunt DeeDee was speaking so quickly that I couldn’t get a word in.
“I already had one of the servers confirm it, which was a relief, and, apparently, that man never ate anything except for a few hours a day. I don’t know how a body can live like that. ”
I knew Aunt DeeDee, who loved to serve any person within a mile a large helping of down-home cooking, would be appalled at such a notion, but in this instance, I was glad she could provide confirmation—albeit second-hand—of his fasting, because that meant that whatever had killed Brett had to have been either in his glass or from some other direction we hadn’t yet considered.
It was still hard to wrap my mind around the reality of Brett’s death.
Not that I was inexperienced with the concept of death—in fact, my entire course of study was how to treat creatures whose bodies were betraying them.
I’d also watched my own mother struggle for breath at the end of her life, and I’d been the one to find Mr. Finch’s body.
Brett’s death felt different though. Someone my age, whom I’d known for most of my life, was gone.
“You okay, doll?” Aunt DeeDee asked, putting aside her mixing bowl and coming to stand next to me. “You need to talk about something?” She put a reassuring hand on my shoulder, and with the other, she stroked my hair out of my eyes, the same thing she’d done to help me fall asleep as a child.
I leaned into her. “It’s just… I don’t know what to do.”
“About?”
Where to start? My future career? Charlie’s odd ambivalence toward me? The fact that I’m Savilla’s illegitimate half-sister?
The last one actually made the most sense.
I hadn’t yet told Aunt DeeDee about it, for two reasons: first, I didn’t want to burden her with news I couldn’t quite process myself, and second, I didn’t want anyone in my life, especially my aunt, to look at me differently after learning I was a member of the richest family in the state.
But how could I say all of that in between watching a man die, suffering a panic attack, and investigating a potential murder? I supposed, as Momma would say, I just had to spit it out.
“I got a letter from Momma soon after the pageant, and in it… she told me some news.”
Aunt DeeDee tilted her head, waiting for me to continue.
“My father was…” I swallowed hard.
Aunt DeeDee’s hand froze in mid-air.
I decided to go for it, spewing everything at once. “Momma told me that my father was Frederick Finch, which means Savilla Finch is my sister. Also, tomorrow is Mr. Finch’s will reading, and I’ve been asked to attend.”
Aunt DeeDee’s cheeks puckered as if she’d bitten down on a lemon. She reached out a hand to steady herself on the steel counter, and nearly a full minute passed before she spoke.
“Mr. Finch was your father,” she said slowly, trying out the information. “And Savilla is your sister.”
I couldn’t tell if Aunt DeeDee was appalled or pleased.
“What are you thinking?” I asked.
She handed me a bottle of water and placed a pecan bar on a napkin in front of me, almost by rote movement. “Eat something. You look peaked.”
I took a small bite and the nuttiness hit my tongue, reminding me of when she’d made the same treats for me after school when I was a kid.
Aunt DeeDee took a tiny bite as well before pushing the dessert out of her line of sight and straightening her shoulders.
“Well, darlin’, that’s big news for a night like this, but I suppose that’s how life comes at you.
All at once.” She breathed in deeply. “I can’t say I’m too surprised, though I have no idea why your momma waited till she was in the ground more than a year to inform you of your parentage. ”
“You’re not shocked?”
“Not entirely.” Aunt DeeDee considered. “Mr. Finch would ask me about you. Check in, I suppose. I thought it was small talk, but I can see now that perhaps he had a distant sort of fatherly interest. As for your momma, she avoided him like the plague—her standard approach to exes—and she never would talk about her one-night stand.” Aunt DeeDee clicked her tongue and gave a slight chuckle.
“The timing makes perfect sense. I don’t know how I didn’t see it all these years. ”
“I know how,” I told her. “It’s because it’s crazy. Momma was everything Mr. Finch was not.”
“Maybe, though people are complicated. And layered.” She motioned toward a tall confetti cake, and I understood the metaphor without her having to spell it out. “Your momma and Mr. Finch had a brief connection and it made you. That’s a pretty good outcome, I’d say.”
Aunt DeeDee touched her forehead to mine and placed a dollop of whipped cream on my nose.
I laughed, relieved that she was carrying the weight of this secret that I’d kept for the past few months so easily. It made me kick myself for not telling her earlier.
“As for the will reading, I wouldn’t expect too much,” Aunt DeeDee said, pulling back. “Mr. Finch was sometimes stingy with family, although… maybe that was just with greedy women who wanted to murder him.”
“I have no expectations,” I said, wiping off the whipped cream and touching her hand. “And thank you.”
“For what?”
“For not freaking out.”
“At my age, I’ve seen too much to even consider freaking out over something as small as an illicit father and a secret sister.”
I smiled before my eye caught the kitchen clock and I suddenly remembered that I’d come down here to find out more about Joe.
“I’d love to talk to you about some other topics,” I said. “Plans for my job, mainly, but that can wait. First, can you show me where Joe put his things when he arrived this evening?”
Aunt DeeDee studied me. “Dakota, hon. You should let the sheriff do the investigating.”
I gave her a mock shocked expression and pointed a finger at her. “That’s not what you said last time.”
“Last time I had no choice,” Aunt DeeDee countered. “I don’t want you getting wrapped up in something dangerous. Men like Brett…”
“What about men like Brett?”
Aunt DeeDee shook her head. “I’m not exactly sure. It’s more of a feeling I got after watching him on that silly TV show.”
“You watched Small Town, Big Romance?” I said, incredulous.
“That’s the one.” Her nose crinkled. “Brett was always just so smarmy.”
That was a word I hadn’t heard her use to describe anyone until now. Still, I wasn’t backing off of the investigation.
“Listen, I think I’m safe, and I’m pretty sure that anyone trying to kill Brett wouldn’t be after me.”
“Unless you get too close.”
“I’ll keep the appropriate distance,” I told her, knowing that this vague promise was a very subjective line. I couldn’t help being involved, though. Brett deserved justice. He might not have been a good person, but hours before he’d had a whole life ahead of him.
And solving the mystery of his death might be the only way to keep suspicion off Lacy.
Aunt DeeDee sighed. Squaring her shoulders, she continued: “When Joe came down here to tell me what happened, I told him that people would be hungry, especially for comfort food, if they have to stay here tonight, so we should keep sending out platters of goodies periodically.”
“Did Joe seem upset?”
Aunt DeeDee tapped her nails on the counter and squinted. “Joe was sad, but I could tell he was trying to keep it together.”
“For you?”
“For himself, and maybe for the gal who was with him.”
“Who was with him?”
“Cute girl. Dark hair and eyes. About your height. Name was… Priscilla?”
“Presley?” I asked.
“That’s it. Like Elvis, not his wife.” Aunt DeeDee turned and dropped a cup of blueberries into a batter of some kind that was in a bowl on the counter. “You know, sweetheart, Joe’s been through some things.”
I had no idea what my aunt meant, unless she was talking about the time Joe got suspended for squeezing super glue in all the locks on the doors to the academic classes—as if he actually thought the administrators would let us only attend our electives the rest of the school year.
“Joe’s always been a sensitive boy, probably wanted to study theater because of that, but look where he is now. Trying to start a business and make ends meet. Life doesn’t always go as planned.”
I knew this to be true.
“Anyway, I guess kids don’t often know other kids’ struggles,” Aunt DeeDee said almost to herself as she added a pinch of salt. “Youth can be very near-sighted.”
Growing up in Aubergine hadn’t been perfect, but I supposed that for me, with Momma and Aunt DeeDee seeing to my every need, it had been kind of idyllic. It made sense that this wouldn’t have been true for everyone.
I waited and when she seemed reluctant to continue, I prompted her. “What happened to Joe?”
“Not one single thing. Just…” Aunt DeeDee looked to the high ceiling before staring back at me. “You had a good childhood, right?”
The question was even heavier now with the recent news about my father.
“Sure,” I answered. “I knew you and Momma loved me, had my back. I didn’t feel like I was missing anything, not really.”
“Right. So… Joe’s was good too until he was about nine and his dad injured his back.
A pain doctor in the city started his father on opioids, and after that, he went the way of a lot of citizens in small-town America twenty years ago.
I heard about it as an ongoing prayer request on the roster of First Baptist. From what I can tell, Joe’s dad still struggles. ”
I winced. That would’ve been when we were in third or fourth grade, my era of The Suite Life of Zack & Cody and hatching baby chicks for a science fair project, not watching a parent struggle with addiction.
“I’m just saying,” Aunt DeeDee continued, “each person has been through something, regardless of whether or not it’s visible.”
“I hear you,” I said. “But the more info I have about Joe, then the faster I can help Charlie eliminate suspects.”
Aunt DeeDee folded her arms and considered my logic. “Joe’s a good kid. I’m sure he’s innocent, but if you want to be certain that you can cross him off your list, then fine, take a look at his things.”
Honestly, I didn’t want to cross him off. I wanted to find out he was guilty. Then I could stop doubting my best friend. For Aunt DeeDee’s sake though, I would give Joe a chance.
Aunt DeeDee lifted a thumb and pointed over her shoulder. “He put his stuff in a locker in the back of the kitchen.”
“Thank you,” I told her, before planting a quick peck on her cheek.