those.”
I took it from Miss Vivee and handed it over the seat to Mac.
“So, Vivee,” Mac spoke with a chuck of goose liver in his jaw. “Have you come up with a theory on who killed Gemma and why?”
“I’m thinking that it was one of the Becks that killed her,” Miss Vivee said.
“Who are they?” Mac asked.
“We found a letter,” I offered. “It was from a man named Jeffrey Beck to Gemma. In it he said he’d be willing to leave his wife, Miranda, if Gemma would take him back. Evidently she had broken it off with him.”
“Ah,” he said. “A love triangle. Always a good motive.” I watched in the review mirror as he shoved the rest of the sandwich in his mouth and then asked, mouth full, “Got another sandwich up there?”
“You can have mine,” I said and handed him the neatly wrapped package.
”Either a love triangle with both the husband and wife involved,” Miss Vivee explained to Mac. “Or maybe it was just Jeffrey Beck who killed Gemma Burke in a jealous rage.”
“Maybe he killed her because she was a stripper,” Mac offered.
“Who kills people because they strip?” Miss Vivee’s voice had gone up an octave. “Being a stripper is like any other job – archaeologist, cook,” Vivee unwrapped the sandwich she made from the egg salad Viola Rose gave her. “You don’t go around people killing people just ‘cause they work in a diner do you?”
“It was just a suggestion,” Mac said.
“I was a stripper once,” Vivee said matter-of-factly, taking a small bite of her sandwich.
“You were not,” I said.
“I could have been. Times were hard trying to raise my girls after their daddy died. I had a friend that owned a juke joint down in the swamps. And I worked there for a good little piece. Dancing. Had to smile at the customers, keep’em happy, you know. And believe me when I tell you, some of them got right friendly at times.”
“Wish I’d a known you back then,” Mac said.
“That’s not the same as a stripper.” Neither one of us paid attention to Mac’s comment.
“Almost,” she said. “It almost made me a stripper. Sometimes I felt like I was.”
“You can strip for me anytime, Vivee,” Mac said, with a sly grin working its way across his wrinkled face.
“Then I won’t be the blame for just your broke hip, but for that heart attack you’d have,” she said over her shoulder. “You can’t handle what I’ve got to offer, you old goat.”
“At least I’d die with a smile on my face.”
I took my hands off the wheel and covered up my ears. “Please you two. I can’t take any more.”
“He started it,” Miss Vivee said. “I was trying to have a civilized and proper, mind you, conversation about being a stripper.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Atlanta, Georgia
Wednesday Night, AGD
Colin Pritchard had sworn to Miss Vivee that all he remembered about the club where Gemma had worked was its general location. Not its name. Not what it looked like. Not even which side of the street it was on.
I was beginning to see what Miss Vivee meant about him not being so smart.
He seemed hurt about Gemma spurning him, so finally confronting her should have been a big deal. Especially when he saw her in her stripper costume. Something like that should be etched in his memory. Forever. Something he’d share over a beer with friends when they talk about the one that got away.
But when we got there we found that there was a whole row of stripper clubs on Piedmont Avenue south of Main – the directions he’d given us – which presented a dilemma: In which one had Gemma Burke worked?
Miss Vivee checked her notebook twice, reading and rereading from the notes she had scribbled down once we got back from speaking with Colin. She was hoping to find something more specific he’d said about where Gemma worked. Because here we were and with the number of clubs – Nipp-o-lopolis, Kitty City, and Dancing Bare, just to name a few – it looked like we were going to have to go bar hopping the rest of the night. It made me regret agreeing to come to Atlanta. And with names like those I didn’t care to find out which one Gemma had worked in. I was ready to turn around and head back to Yasamee.
Mac, on the other hand, was keen on not wasting any time determining Gemma’s employer. He suggested that he would go into each one