“Frosty the Snowman” was playing on a speaker in the kitchen when I joined Tinkie at the counter for a beautiful omelet, biscuits, grits, and coffee. “Darla, if I don’t stop eating, I’m going to explode.” Tinkie truly had a reason to eat, but I had lost all restraint. There would be wardrobe repercussions.
“It’s the holidays. Enjoy. There’ll be time to diet after the first of the year.”
“I can’t even think about that,” I admitted.
“Diet is just another four-letter word,” Tinkie said. “I’m pregnant, so I can pretty much eat whatever I want.”
I rolled my eyes and Darla laughed out loud. “You two are like sisters more than partners in a PI agency.”
I liked the sound of that. “We are close.”
“I saw Clarissa had you buttonholed at the pilgrimage.”
She didn’t ask, but it was clear she was dying to know what was up, and I figured Darla would be able to help us. “We’re on a case,” I said.
“A case we don’t want,” Tinkie threw in.
“Clarissa hired you?” Darla was a little taken aback. “She’s usually the cause of scandal and disruption. I can’t believe she’s really interested in finding out who pushed Bart down the stairs.”
“So you, too, think he was pushed?” Tinkie asked.
“Of course. Bart was up there with Bricey arguing about that damn Caddy. Bricey doesn’t have the sense of a roly-poly. She wanted Bart to give her another new car because that one got destroyed and she was too busy flitting around town to get insurance for it.”
“Oh, dear,” I said. “That’s a heavy financial loss, then.”
“As it was obviously meant to be.” Darla refilled our coffee cups and I inhaled the wonderful aroma. “Bricey has no one to blame but herself, but of course she’ll end up blaming everyone. I got a call this morning from the committee that handles the Christmas tree lighting. She was trying to intimidate them into buying her a new car.”
“Seriously?” Tinkie said. “She feels the tree decorating committee is liable for the damage?”
Darla nodded. “Bricey believes she is owed that car. She doesn’t care who pays for it. She made the case that since it happened on city property, the Christmas tree committee should pay for the car out of the city coffers. She is just a prostitute.”
“How so?” I took note of Darla’s prickly anger.
“She slept with Bart and she has the prostitute mentality. She wants to be paid for her work. It’s all transactional to her.”
“That car’s a cool seventy grand. She must think she’s thrilling in the sack,” Tinkie muttered.
Darla and Kathleen laughed out loud. “Oh, she thinks she’s better than a ballerina on a trapeze,” Kathleen said. “I heard Bart was so bored with her he’d rather go to the neighborhood association meetings than spend time with her.”
That was a charge of serious brain-numbing boring—I’d been to some of those meetings at Tinkie’s behest. I’d rather go to the dentist than endure another one. “Maybe she wasn’t all that, but once upon a time Bart Crenshaw willingly jumped in the sack with Bricey.”
“Some men are after the conquest. Some like a little strange. Some are morons. I put Bart in all three categories. He can sell the hell out of property, but his real focus in life is chasing women.”
I did my best to study Darla without being obvious. “Who do you think dumped the cement?”
She shrugged. “It could be half a dozen people. Bricey’s made some enemies.”
“Because she sleeps with married or affianced men?”
“That and…” She turned away and went to the sink, where she rattled dishes. Kathleen started to clear our empty plates off the counter.
“Hey, don’t leave us hanging,” Tinkie said. “We have to dig into this, and it would be a big help if you could give us a head start.”
Darla faced us and nodded. “Bricey plays cutthroat with her business deals, too. She’s a take-no-prisoners kind of woman. She runs a private nursing business where she supplies in-home nurses to sick people, the elderly, people in hospitals that require constant monitoring. She’s had … issues. Accusations.”
“What kind?”
“You’d need to check that for yourself. Bricey doesn’t strike me as what I’d call an angel of mercy for sick folks.” Darla brought the coffeepot over for one last refill.
“Bricey seriously has her own business?” I wondered how she found time to hold down a job—or what kind of job could be done from a prone position, which seemed to be her favorite pose.
“Like I said, she owns and runs a home health nursing service. There was some talk a few months back about a client who died … from neglect.”
This put a whole new angle on the case. “Patient’s name?”
Darla shook her head. “I’m not comfortable going any further. I feel that I’m painting her black when I don’t know what happened. I’ve only heard gossip, not facts.”
“We’ll look into it,” Tinkie said gently. “No one is accusing her of anything, and we will check it out. You can just save us some time if you gave us the basic details.”
“It was Jerry Goode’s grandmother. He’s a city police officer. He was at the karaoke event when Tulla was shocked. Anyway, his granny was at Supporting Arms Care Center and Jerry had paid Bricey to send a private nurse over every day to check on her and make sure she was clean and ate a good lunch. Only Bricey didn’t send anyone. I guess she figured the old woman was in a care facility and she was getting proper care.”
“This is going
