"What? Tess, what?"
"Hebrought the hussy."
She threw her polishing rag down on the counter. "The nerve of that man."
* * *
Turned out that the hussy's name was Winifred, Win for short, and she was not, in fact, a hussy.
She was Bill's niece.
"He spent the weekend in Tampa helping me move, and I decided it would be fun to come back to Dead End for the Swamp Cabbage Festival," she was burbling. "I haven’t been here in so long, and I wanted to meet you, Eleanor. Uncle Bill talks about you all the time."
He was in Tampa all weekend, not putting amputated fingers on my porch Saturday night, in case I'd the least doubt after meeting Win, which I didn't.
Guess it was a good thing Brig was still alive, because we were running short on suspects.
Eleanor was relieved and delighted, so much so that she was glowing. "Oh, Win, it's so nice to meet you. You two will have to come to dinner at my house."
"I know," I said. "Why don't you take the rest of the day off, Eleanor? It's slow here, and you can spend time with Mr. Oliver and Win."
She put up a half-hearted protest, but then thanked me, hugged me, grabbed her purse, and headed out the door with Bill's niece, both of them talking a mile a minute.
Bill hung back for a minute to talk to me.
"Tess, I just wanted to thank you. I don't know what you did, but it made all the difference. Thanks so much."
He held out his hand but then quickly remembered and gave me a rueful smile.
"No worries," I told him. "Have a wonderful time. I'll see you at the festival."
When he reached the door, I had a thought.
"Mr. Oliver? Is there any chance Win would like to dress up as the swamp cabbage for the parade?"
His mouth fell open. "What?"
I sighed. "Never mind."
It was only a little more than twenty-four hours till the parade.
I was running out of time.
16
Friday dawned bright and beautiful, with no rain forecast for the entire weekend. Shelley, who'd spent the evening with me making Autumn Spice Cake and then stayed all night, was up at six a.m. bouncing around.
On my bed.
Lou gave me a "fix this" look, but I just laughed. The first day of Swamp Cabbage Festival was a great day to be nine years old.
"Why don't we get dressed and go have breakfast at Aunt Ruby's?"
"Yes!"
Jack had called around nine p.m. to tell me he was staying over in Orlando to follow up on a lead, but that a couple of the guys I called his swamp commandos would swing by to check on my house and shop periodically.
"I feel like he's escalating and it has something to do with the festival," he'd said. "Maybe I'm wrong, but better safe than sorry."
