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cops?”
    “If she can ask about his private parts then, no, I don’t think he would,” I said. “I need to call Creole. The last thing I want is for him to find out about another dead body from someone else. It would interfere with our relationship bliss.”

 
     
     
Chapter 5
     
     
    Fab and I met up at the house. She parked the Mercedes and practically dragged me from behind the wheel of my SUV so that she could take the wheel. We rarely ever went anywhere in her car and I never got to drive. She worked some kind of suspicious deal with Brick in which he allows her to drive the hottest cars in town. But when he snapped his fingers, he expected it returned, usually with no notice.
    She squealed right up to the picket fence at the Trailer Court, and Crum stepped back holding a broom handle, rifle style. All that intelligence must have robbed his brain cells. Mac needed to run a check on this one. Rumor had it he taught at a prestigious California college that one couldn’t get into without perfect grades.
    I jumped out of the passenger side. “Have you seen Jami?”
    “Who?” he asked, a blank look on his face.
    “Don’t you ‘who’ me. I happen to know she has an unseemly interest in your body. She needs a friend before the sheriff arrives.”
    “You’re impertinent.” He raised his bushy white eyebrows.
    “Haven’t heard that one before. Now stop stalling.”
    Fab whistled. “She’s right here,” she said, and yanked her by the arm into full view.
    “I have my own problem...need to talk to you later,” Crum whispered.
    “Did Edsel do that?” I asked. Jami sported two painful-looking black eyes, both sides of her face a dark shade of purple. “Have you seen a doctor?”
    “Eddie went berserk and beat the hell out of me when I told him he had to return your stuff that he pawned.” She fingered her bruises, a stray tear rolling down her cheek.
    Fab helped her to a patio chair that wobbled when she sat. “Then what happened?”
    “He left me in a heap behind the dumpster at Custer’s. Crum came and got me.” She nodded at him.
    Custer’s is a bar where locals hang out to drink beer and screw-top wine. The health department banned them from selling anything else––too dirty!
    Crum left momentarily and came back with several broken-down beach chairs. After we sat down, he told us, “These were a great find. I got them out of the trash right before pickup.”
    I took a deep breath and tried not to concentrate on the cootie factor.
    “Edsel’s dead,” I informed Jami.
    Her mouth turned up at the sides into a faint smile.
    I hoped she wouldn’t have that reaction when the sheriff talked to her, which would be as soon as they could locate her.
    Crum sat next to her, his mouth a grim line. Fab and I looked at one another and exchanged “What the hell?” looks.
    “What happened between the two of you?” I asked.
    “I told Eddie I was leaving him and going back to my husband. He knew I had car trouble on the Overseas down by Marathon Key, but didn’t know that I called my husband and he came and got me and fixed the car. We spent the night on the beach. I don’t know how Eddie found out, but he did and went ballistic. He threatened that if I left him, he’d kill my husband and make me watch as he fed him to the alligators.”
    Fab made a face, apparently that wasn’t her first choice way to die.
    “I told Eddie it wasn’t my husband who stopped to help but my first husband, Pyle. I figured he could take care of himself. Besides, Eddie didn’t know where Pyle lived.”
    “Do you know that if Edsel hurt Pyle you could be charged with a crime?” It surprised me to find out that there had been a first husband.
    Crum went inside his pink airstream trailer and came out with a pitcher of iced tea and smudged up glasses. I wasn’t sure if they were clean or not, so I passed.
    His trailer was parked in the first slot just inside the fence. He decorated the outside area in an assortment