Dream a Little Scream (10 page)

“Yes, buck up, my dear,” her sister Minerva added. “We're all here for you and we're not going to let anything happen to your shop.”

Ali smiled her thanks and started to ask Etta Mae if she'd like to share anything, but Etta Mae quickly pressed her lips together and shook her head.

The meeting wrapped up shortly after Minerva Harper reported dreaming about a rose garden, which wasn't unusual since she and her sister own a flower shop right down the block. It was a light, happy dream and didn't seem to lend itself to any particular interpretation. Dorien offered an interpretation involving “roses and thorns,” suggesting that danger lurked behind beauty, but she didn't make any headway. Minerva insisted there were no thorns in her rose garden and there was no hidden agenda. Dorien gave a loud sigh, not at all happy to see her interpretation dismissed so readily.

As the group made their way down the stairs, I was surprised to see Edward huddled in a conversation with Persia on the landing. He was leaning close to hear her, and he seemed more animated and engaged than he'd been the whole evening.

I skipped down the stairs to the shop and grabbed a package of root beer licorice off the shelf for the Harper sisters. One of their great-nephews loved licorice and I always tried to set some aside for him. We have a new distributor in Atlanta who sends us wonderful licorice selections, including some new flavors I was eager to try—peach, grape, and candy apple.

I noticed Edward and Persia were continuing their conversation in the foyer. As I drew close, I heard Edward say, “Are you absolutely sure it was ‘
bene
' that you heard?”

“Yes, of course I'm sure,” she insisted. “
Bene
—that's exactly what I heard.” She threw me a puzzled glance as Edward shook his head and took a step backward, a look of astonishment on his face. I could feel the sudden, subtle charge in the atmosphere.

“Is something wrong, Edward?” I asked. I watched as a muscle jumped along his jawline.

“No, of course not. I just realized I overlooked something,” he stammered. A look of consternation flitted over his face, and he quickly said good night and left.

“I wonder what that was all about.” Persia seemed amused with the mild-mannered professor and his abrupt departure. “He's an odd duck, isn't he?”

“I think he's just uncomfortable with people he doesn't know very well,” I told her. “I've heard he doesn't get out much, apart from his classes at the university.” Edward might be socially awkward, but that wasn't the whole picture. I tried to make sense out of Edward's reaction. He had seemed shocked; his face had gone pale for a millisecond when Persia had repeated “
bene
.” There was definitely something going on here, but what?

“The word ‘
bene
' doesn't have any particular significance, does it?” Ali was showing some more guests out the door but moved close to talk to us.

“Not to me, but it certainly got Edward's attention,” I said. I wondered what he was holding back. “In fact, more than interested—I think he was intrigued.” I was having trouble getting a handle on Edward, and I still wasn't sure he'd be a good match for the club. We never exclude anyone who applies for membership, but we insist on a personal recommendation from a current member. Etta Mae, for example, was recommended by the Harper sisters. She was a frequent customer in their flower shop, and they'd been chatting over the power of dreams. Edward had been recommended by Sara Rutledge, our reporter pal, who met him at a university function and thought he would be an interesting addition to our group.

From time to time, a new member decides not to continue with us. In any case, we like to keep the group small because it makes for a livelier discussion and a more intimate gathering. I think people might be hesitant to share if we let the meetings get too big. A dream club requires a high level of trust among members, if it is to be successful. That's probably the only ground rule we have: strict confidentiality. Anyone who breaches that is automatically expelled, and I'm happy to say that has never happened.

“‘
Bene
' can mean a lot of things,” Rose Harper said as I handed her the bag of candy.

“It's supposed to mean ‘fine' or ‘all right' in Italian,” I said, wondering if she hadn't followed the conversation we'd just had upstairs. Rose is slightly hard of hearing but refuses to admit it.

“That's one meaning, my dear,” she said, resting her hand lightly on my arm. “But there's another.” She leaned closer, watching as the last guest departed. “She might have been referring to benne chips.”

“Benny chips?” I was drawing a complete blank. “Benny, like the name?”

“No, not the name Benny. It's
b-e-n-n-e
,” her sister Minvera chimed in. “Back in the day, everyone made cookies with benne chips,” she said. “Take a look in any vintage cookbook and you'll see loads of recipes using benne chips.”

“Really? I've never even heard of them.”

“Today they call them sesame seeds.”

“Sesame seeds! Do you suppose that's really what Persia was dreaming about?”
Maybe Persia had misunderstood. She thought she'd heard the Italian word “
bene
,” but maybe what she really heard was “benne.”

“It's very possible,” Rose said. “Another area to investigate, you know.”

“It certainly is,” I agreed. I mentally ran down tonight's dreams. Lucinda had dreamt about a missing necklace and dark water. Could the necklace be the silver chain with a pendant that Sonia always wore? And we know that dark waters can symbolize death, so no surprise there. Edward saw ships bringing exotic foods to Savannah, and Persia met a woman offering her a basket of benne bits, which are actually sesame seeds.

And sesame seeds are what killed Sonia.

I walked back upstairs to make myself a cup of soothing chamomile tea. No doubt about it; something deadly was afoot in dreamland.

11

After spending a restless night tossing and turning, I jumped out of bed at 7 a.m., listened to my one voice mail message, and called Sara Rutledge. I knew she'd be up and sitting at the computer. She's been hard at work on a true crime novel, blocking out a couple of hours each morning to meet her goal of writing a thousand words a day.

“I hate to disturb you,” I began, and she quickly cut me off with a laugh.

“Disturb me? Don't be silly; you're doing me a favor. I'm beginning to wonder why I ever decided to write true crime. I'm so tempted to chuck the whole thing, but that would mean forty thousand words down the drain.” She groaned. “I could have written a dozen feature articles instead of wasting my time on a true crime novel. How did I get myself into this mess? I'm so stressed out, I can't decide what to do.”

“Then I'm glad I caught you in time,” I said hastily.
“When you're so undecided, it's better not to do anything. The right course of action is to take no action at all. You've got to trust me on this.” She was silent and I pushed the button on the coffeemaker. In a few moments, the kitchen would be filled with the delicious aroma of hazelnut latte, and I was practically salivating at the thought. “You may have hit a bump in the road with your book, Sara, but you can't toss it down the drain. It would be better to step back from it. Take a wait-and-see attitude before doing anything so drastic.”

“It's more than a bump in the road. I feel like I've fallen into a black hole,” she said with her usual flair for drama. “And I'm so ready for a break this morning. What's up?”

“I had an idea about the case in the middle of the night,” I told her. Barney and Scout were winding around my legs, eager for their breakfast. I managed to open a can of Beef Bits with one hand by tucking the receiver under my chin. When I set the two dishes on the floor, the cats pounced on them as though they hadn't eaten in days.

“A new lead?” Sara asked. She immediately jumped into high gear, and her voice crackled with energy.

“It could be. I'm thinking of calling on Jeremy Watts today. Would you like to come along?”

“Jeremy Watts.” A long beat. “Sonia's married lover. That's not a bad idea, but how will we track him down? Do we even know what city he's in?”

“He's right here in Savannah, at the Red Lion Inn.”

“Really? How did you find him?”

“Minerva Harper rises at the crack of dawn, and she left a message on my cell. She had a dream about Jeremy last night. She said a strange feeling came over her and she thinks he could be the key to Sonia's death. She also had a
strong sensation that he was close by, and I took that to mean right here in Savannah.” I trusted Minerva's insights, and she'd been helpful before when we solved the murder of dance instructor Chico.

“That's interesting that she feels that way, but it's not exactly the hard evidence we're looking for,” Sara said. “What did you have in mind?”

“Let's meet for breakfast and we can talk it over. They have a nice coffee shop at the Red Lion Inn. It's on the right as soon as you go into the lobby.” I glanced at my watch. “The Red Lion at eight? That way we can catch him before he goes out for the day.”

“I'm in,” Sara said.

The buzzer on the coffeemaker dinged, and the fragrant aroma of hazelnut coffee was so enticing, I couldn't wait to taste it. I figured Ali was still sleeping, but I planned to leave a cup of coffee on her night table and then jump into the shower.

When I walked down the hall, Ali's door was cracked open and she was sitting up in bed, stretching. She reached happily for the coffee and cradled the mug in her hands. “No eggs Benedict?” she teased. “Not that I'm complaining; coffee in bed is enough of a treat.”

“No time for eggs Benedict,” I told her. “I'm meeting Sara for breakfast this morning; do you want to come along? You'll have to hustle, because we need to leave in half an hour.”

“I can do it!” she said, jumping out of bed. Ali is blessed with blond good looks that require very little maintenance. A touch of lip gloss, a hint of mascara, and she can turn heads, especially when she wears her hair flowing loosely down her back. She usually sweeps it into a French braid in
the shop, but when she's in casual mode, she likes to wear it in a high ponytail. Either way, she's gorgeous.

•   •   •

“Tell me again
why you think Jeremy Watts is registered here,” Ali said as we hurried into the Red Lion. It's a small hotel near the Riverfront, popular with business travelers.

“Minerva Harper saw it in a dream. But I wanted to be sure, so I called and pretended I had a message for him.” I grinned. “He's here, all right. Room two-oh-six. When the desk clerk offered to put me through, I hung up.”

“Minerva saw Jeremy at the Red Lion Inn in a dream?” she asked doubtfully.

“Well, it wasn't spelled out specifically in the dream; it was symbolic. But the key elements were right there, and all I had to do was put them together.”

“What kind of symbolism are we talking about?”

“In Minerva's dream, she saw Jeremy Watts at a red-carpet event. She didn't know what to make of it, but she figured it had to be important, so she jotted down what she could remember and called me early this morning.”

“A red-carpet event? You mean like a Hollywood awards show?”

“Yes, exactly. I know it sounds unlikely, but she was very clear on what she'd seen.” I stepped up my pace. I was wearing a new pair of espadrilles and nearly tripping in them. I hardly ever wear heels since I've moved to Savannah; I tend to wear flip-flops or ballet flats in the store. “And he was standing under a huge poster of the MGM lion and photographers were snapping pictures of him. So I put it all together. Jeremy, the color red, and a lion.” I snapped my fingers. “Only one place in Savannah could fit the bill. The Red Lion Inn.”

“Wow, I'm impressed.” Ali nudged me. “My sister, Nancy Drew.”

“Well, it was all due to Minerva. She led us here. I'll have to call her later and tell her the dream was right on target. Except for the photographers, of course,” I added as we hurried into the lobby.

We spotted Sara sitting at a booth in the coffee shop as we passed an elaborate breakfast buffet along the far wall. Breakfast is an important meal of the day in Savannah, and the Red Lion is known for two signature dishes: French toast crusted with coconut and bread pudding with candied pecans.

Ali and I slid into the booth across from Sara, who was scrolling through her phone messages. She flipped the lid shut and smiled at us. “I picked this booth because it gives us a good view of both the elevator and the revolving doors. If Jeremy comes in for breakfast or if he just wanders through the lobby, we can nab him.”

“We're not going to really nab him, are we?” Ali looked alarmed and I laughed.

“Just a figure of speech,” I told her. “We're going to have a friendly conversation, that's all. As far as he knows, we're running into him accidentally. He won't suspect a thing.”

“I still don't know how you tracked him down,” Sara said. “That was good detective work, Taylor.”

“Not at all,” I said modestly, flipping open the menu. “I'm afraid all the credit goes to Minerva Harper. Like I said, she's convinced he had something to do with Sonia's death.”

Sara raised her eyebrows. “Well, there are some other leads that seem to have more potential, don't you think?” I tried to look noncommittal. I knew she was referring to Etta Mae Beasley.

“Do you mean someone a little closer to home?” Ali asked. I could feel Ali tense as she sat next to me. Ali was
upset at the idea that some people might consider Etta Mae a suspect. Ali was tenderhearted and believed Etta Mae was simply someone who was wronged and was seeking justice, not revenge. I'm sure she didn't think Etta Mae was capable of murder, although Sara clearly felt differently.

Sara made a zipping motion with her finger across her lips. “My lips are sealed. I shouldn't prejudge anyone. I just think, well”—she paused and sipped her ice water—“I can think of someone with a really strong motive, and I bet you can, too.”

When the server came to our table, we all decided to forgo the breakfast buffet and ordered hot tea and scrambled eggs on wheat toast. The buffet looked tempting, but it could easily add up to a day's worth of calories. There was a wide selection of bacon, sausage, hash browns, buttered grits, rolls, and pastries, plus an omelet station and trays of fresh fruit. I vowed to come back someday when we had time for a leisurely brunch.

“So we're just going to pretend this is a coincidence if we see Jeremy?” Sara asked. “How will we engage him in conversation? I'm not even sure I'd recognize him.”

“He was at the television taping, but not the book signing,” I reminded her. “I think you met him but it was very brief and there was a lot going on.”

“What if he doesn't want to be interrogated?” Sara asked.

“Oh, it's not going to look like an interrogation,” I said. “We're just going to offer our condolences and see if he's planning a memorial.” Would Jeremy take the bait and tell us something helpful? Or was this going to be a total waste of time?