A Cutthroat Business

by Bente Gallagher

  The nurse at the desk—the same one who had allowed Rafe to walk off with me the day before— jumped to her feet with a guilty look. “What can I do for you, Detective?” She threw a panicked glance over her shoulder, probably hoping that someone with more authority would appear.

  “I’d like to see Mrs. Jenkins.”

  The receptionist looked like she was thinking of pretending she didn’t know who Mrs. Jenkins was. “Tondalia Jenkins,” I said. She looked at me. And recognized me. And looked unhappy to see me. Tamara Grimaldi didn’t say anything, just raised her brows. The receptionist, lacking the courage to object, waved her hand in the direction of the hallway. “Your girl there knows the way.”

  Grimaldi smiled, or more accurately showed teeth. “Much obliged. Come along, Ms. Martin.” Once I indicated which room was Mrs. Jenkins, Grimaldi marched down the hall with me trotting behind. By the time I’d caught up, Detective Grimaldi had already knocked on the door.

  “Who is it?” Mrs. Jenkins’s quavering voice answered. Grimaldi nodded to me. I took a step closer to the door.

  “Mrs. Jenkins? This is Savannah Martin. We met yesterday, and the day before. Can I come in?”

  I heard a sound inside, and then the door was opened a crack. Mrs. Jenkins’s black bird eyes looked out at us. “Oh, it’s you,” she said, after a moment. “C’mon in, baby.” She shuffled out of the way. I pushed the door open and walked in, cautiously. Tamara Grimaldi followed.

  The room was not much bigger than my office, and as devoid of charm. There was a hospital bed in the middle of the floor, one metal folding chair—it looked hard and uninviting—and nothing else. No shelf with books, no TV, no table for writing letters or playing cards; not even any family photos or other personal effects. The threadbare blanket was institutional, and Mrs. Jenkins had on the same faded and dirty housecoat and the same filthy, fuzzy slippers as the other two times I had seen her. The only nice thing about the room was a bouquet of flowers on the windowsill, and even they looked droopy and wilted.

  “It looks like your flowers could use some water,” I said brightly, attempting to hide my horror at the small, dingy, depressing room. After a long and probably nonetoo-easy life, she deserved better than this. “Would you like me to take care of it?”

  She waved a vague hand. “Sure, baby.” I grabbed the vase, which didn’t feel like it had any water in it at all, and carried it into the tiny adjoining—doorless—bathroom. Mrs. Jenkins turned to Detective Grimaldi. “Who’re you?”

  “That’s my friend Tamara,” I said brightly.

  “You look like a cop.” Mrs. Jenkins’s voice was suspicious. Grimaldi’s was calm.

  “That’s right. I wanted to talk to you about your house. And about the lady who died there.”

  “Don’t know nothin’ about it,” Mrs. Jenkins said.

  “But you listed your house for sale recently,” I prompted. “Didn’t you?”

  Tondalia Jenkins must be in a fairly lucid frame of mind today, because she seemed to know that she no longer lived in the house on Potsdam. “I ain’t as young as I used to be, baby. When the lady knocked on the door and asked if I wanted to move someplace diff’rent, I figured I’d better do it.”

  “And that was Mrs. Puckett?”

  Mrs. Jenkins looked vague. “Can’t rightly remember her name, baby. Guess it musta been. Big lady. Big hair, big butt, big attitude.”

  “That sounds like Brenda,” I remarked. Grimaldi sent me a quelling look and turned back to Mrs. Jenkins. “Did you ever see the lady again?”

  “She came back once, to tell me she’d found me a place and I had to leave. Next thing I know, I’m here.” She looked around. I pursed my lips disapprovingly. “Do you remember the kind of car the lady was driving?” Detective Grimaldi asked. Mrs. Jenkins was unsure.

  “Big? Dark, maybe? One o’ them big ones they’re allus talkin’ about on the news. UFO?”

  “SUV?” I suggested. She nodded.

  “Big, kinda square car. Saw it when she came the first time.”

  Detective Grimaldi took over the questioning. It occurred to me that in a way, we were doing the old “good cop, bad cop” routine, with only one real cop and no bad cop at all. Nevertheless, I was clearly cast in the role of good cop, jollying Mrs. Jenkins along and making her feel comfortable, while Grimaldi posed all the difficult questions. “Did you ever see a car like that here? Recently, maybe? In the parking lot on Saturday morning, for instance?”

  Mrs. Jenkins shook her head. “Can’t say as I did, baby. Nor another time, neither. She just left me here, and that’s the last I seen of her.”

  “Marvelous,” I said, wishing that Brenda wasn’t dead so I could have the pleasure of killing her myself. Or at least dragging her in front of the Real Estate Commission by her bleach blonde hair and having her license revoked and her professional reputation ruined. It was no more than she deserved.

  “You wanna be careful ’bout gettin’ upset, baby,” Mrs. Jenkins told me kindly. “It ain’t good for the baby.”

  Detective Grimaldi didn’t appear to have any more questions, so we made our excuses and headed for the door. We were almost there when Grimaldi did a Columbo and turned back. “By the way, Mrs. Jenkins. Ms. Martin tells me that you like to go for walks. Did you happen to take a walk last Saturday morning?”

  Mrs. Jenkins looked blank.

  “Not sure? Well, don’t worry about it. I’ll ask the nurses and see if they remember. How about last night?”

  Mrs. Jenkins looked more confident this time. “I didn’t go nowhere last night. My grandson was visitin’ me.” She smiled toothlessly. I opened my mouth to set her straight, looked at her beaming face, and closed it again.

  “Surely you don’t think she’s strong enough to have killed Brenda?” I asked when we were outside in the parking lot again. The receptionist had followed us with her eyes the entire way through the lobby, speaking softly on the phone the whole time, and I had decided to wait until we got outside before I said anything. “She’s tiny. And old. And frail. She would have needed a ladder to reach Brenda’s throat. Unless you think she used a sword.”

  “Actually,” Grimaldi said, “we’ve found the murder weapon.”

  I gaped. “You’re kidding! Where?”

  Shehesitated.“That’sprivilegedinformation,I’mafraid.” “Oh,” I said, disappointed.

  “I shouldn’t have mentioned it, and I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t pass it on, as it pertains to a—two, now—open investigations.”

  “Of course.” I couldn’t stop myself from speculating, though, and after a few minutes of driving—and cogitating—I gasped. “Oh, my God! Clarice killed Brenda!”

  “It’s too early to say that,” Detective Grimaldi answered, without looking at me. In justice to her, she was navigating through the busy intersection at Potsdam and Dresden, and probably couldn’t.

  “But that’s where you found the knife? The knife Clarice used to cut her wrists was the same knife that was used to cut Brenda’s throat?”

  Detective Grimaldi didn’t deny it, which was as close to a tacit confirmation as I could hope to receive. I sat in stupefied silence the rest of the way back to the office, trying to make sense of it all. The only thing I could come up with was that Clarice must have snapped and decided to avenge her husband’s suicide fifteen years after the fact. Maybe the realization that Brenda was up to her old tricks, taking advantage of Mrs. Jenkins, had tipped the scales. Clarice’s appointment last night could have been with someone who knew or had guessed what she had done, and who threatened to report her to the police. Maybe that person had given her an ultimatum—“If you don’t contact the police yourself tomorrow, I will!”—and Clarice had decided to follow her late husband’s example before she could get caught and punished.

  Or maybe there hadn’t been any appointment at all. Maybe her meeting had been with her Maker, and she had geared herself up for it with some liquid courage. Maybe that was why her cheeks had been flu
shed and her eyes bright. And that special envelope . . .

  “Did she leave a note?”

  “I beg your pardon?” Detective Grimaldi must have been deep in thought, too. I repeated my question. She shook her head. “Not everyone does, you know.”

  “I’ll take your word for it. So I guess Brenda and Clarice went to 101 Potsdam together last Saturday. Then Clarice killed Brenda and drove the Lincoln Navigator down to the Milton House and parked it there. Was her DNA among the evidence you collected from Brenda’s car? You mentioned coworkers . . .”

  Grimaldi nodded. “Not that that’s in any way conclusive. They worked together, and I’m sure Mrs. Webster was in Mrs. Puckett’s car on many occasions. We also found Mrs. Puckett’s husband’s DNA, Mr. Lamont’s, Mr. Briggs’s, and Ms. Hoppenfeldt’s, along with the children’s.”

  “It’s hard to believe that Clarice had it in her. But I guess there’s no other explanation, is there? Even without a written confession, the murder weapon is pretty conclusive evidence.”

  Detective Grimaldi shrugged. We rode in silence the rest of the way to the realty office, where Grimaldi dropped me off with a terse good afternoon and an admonition to stay out of trouble this weekend. I said I’d try, and she prepared to drive off. At the last moment, she called after me. “By the way, Ms. Martin, I wasn’t aware that you were expecting. Who’s the lucky man?” “Rafael Collier,” I said, without thinking. “I mean . . . I’m not actually pregnant. Mrs. Jenkins misunderstood. That is . . .”

  “I see,” Detective Grimaldi said.

  “No . . .” But it was too late; she had already put the car into gear and driven off. I groaned. That was all I needed; for that misunderstanding to get around.

  I was still on the road when my cell phone rang. “Savannah?” It was Todd’s voice, and it sounded far away and muffled, like he was calling from the car. “Are you by any chance free for dinner again tonight? I’ve got something I’d like to talk to you about.”

  I hesitated. I had something I wanted to talk to him about, too. His comment to Dix that I was seeing Rafe Collier seemed to have the whole family in a twitter of apprehension; plus, I really didn’t appreciate his taking it upon himself to do a background check on Rafe. It wasn’t any of Todd’s business who I dated, or—in this case—didn’t date, and I wanted to tell him so. But impulse was warring with indoctrination in my mind. Mother had always admonished Catherine and me that we should never appear too available to potential beaus. Poor Jonathan had gotten a hell of a runaround when he first attempted to date Catherine, I remembered.

  Todd’s voice continued, temptingly, “We can go back to Fidelio’s.”

  It was a hard offer to resist. Although the cupboard in my apartment wasn’t quite bare, the microwavable macaroni & cheese I had to look forward to tonight couldn’t compare to the cuisine at Nashville’s premier Italian restaurant.

  “I suppose I could spare a little time.”

  “I’ll pick you up at seven.” He hung up before I had time to say anything else.

  I decided to wear black, to show respect for poor Clarice and her untimely demise, and also because (if I may say so myself) it looks great on me. The cocktail dress was short and clingy, and I piled my hair loosely on top of my head and strapped high-heeled sandals to my feet. I was putting the finishing touches on my makeup when the doorbell rang. I glanced into the kitchen at the clock on the stove, as I made my way to the door. It was a quarter to seven. Todd must have made good time on the road.

  I guess maybe I should have looked through the peephole before I opened the door, but I was so sure it was Todd outside that I just swung the door back. “You’re early . . .” I began, and then fell silent when I realized that the man outside didn’t have Todd’s sandy hair and grayblue eyes. I tried to slam the door shut again, but I was too slow. Rafe simply caught the moving door with the flat of his hand, pushed it back, and shouldered me out of his way.

  “You can’t . . .” I began before I could help myself. He already had, so there was no sense in telling him he couldn’t come in. He arched a brow, but didn’t point out the obvious.

  “Tell me, darlin’,” he said instead, stepping so close to me I could feel his breath on my face, “didn’t I tell you to stay away from the old folks’ home?”

  I tried to retreat, but there was nowhere to go. For the third time in two days, I had my back against the wall— literally—and Rafe Collier leaning over me. I kept my eyes straight ahead, not meeting his eyes, when I admitted, “Um . . . now that you mention it, I think you did.”

  “Wanna explain to me what you were doing there this afternoon, then? With the cops?” His voice hardened on the last word.

  “It didn’t have anything to do with you,” I said.

  “No?” His voice was mild, and quite amazingly scary, considering. I looked up, into a pair of hard, black eyes, and shook my head. I really didn’t want any misunderstandings on this point. I value my life too highly to take any chances with it.

  “No. It had to do with Brenda Puckett and the house on Potsdam. Detective Grimaldi wanted to find out about it, in case it had anything to do with why Brenda was killed.”

  “That old lady ain’t strong enough to cut the throat of a cat.” His voice was flat.

  “I agree,” I said soothingly. “Actually, it seems the police are pretty sure who killed Brenda.”

  “Yeah? Who?”

  He stepped back enough to allow me to draw a deep breath again. I told him about Clarice Webb, a.k.a. Clarissa Webster; her death and the knife she had used to—seemingly—kill herself and her employer. “I don’t suppose you saw a dumpy, middle-aged woman who looked like a hen nearby on Saturday morning?”

  “Can’t say as I did, darlin’. Or I didn’t notice nobody like that, anyway. So this was fifteen years in the making? That’s a long time to wait.”

  “I guess some people are patient.”

  “Some ain’t.”

  That was true. “It looks like the case is closed and the murderer punished, anyway. Poor Clarice. I wouldn’t have thought she had it in her.”

  Rafe shrugged. For the first time he looked at me, comprehensively, from top to toe and back. “Going out?” he inquired, with a quirk of an eyebrow.

  I resisted the impulse to cross my arms over my chest. I hadn’t considered the dress to be too revealing when I put it on, but now I felt practically half-naked. “As a matter of fact.”

  “Who’s the lucky guy?”

  “Todd Satterfield,” I said. “He’ll be here in the next ten minutes, and I don’t think he’d be best pleased to see you, so . . .”

  It was a not so subtle suggestion that he make himself scarce. Rafe smiled. “I imagine he won’t. Where’s he taking you?”

  “Fidelio’s,” I said. He whistled.

  “Swanky. Course, he can afford it.”

  “I suppose you’d be taking me to McDonald’s?”

  He grinned, and I gave myself a hard mental slap. Where had that come from? Now it sounded like I wanted him to ask me out, which was so not true!

  “If youwerewearingthat”—helookedatmydress—“I don’t think I’d bother taking you anyplace except to bed.”

  It took a second, or two or three, of me gaping like a goldfish with my cheeks on fire before I managed to say coolly, “Typical man. You see a woman in a nice dress, and all you can think about is taking it off her.”

  “You telling me Satterfield ain’t thinking the same thing, darlin’?”

  “If he is, he’s too polite to say so.”

  “That what you’re looking for in a man? That he’s polite?” He smirked.

  “It doesn’t hurt,” I said primly.

  “Guess that knocks me right out of the running.” He didn’t sound too upset about it.

  “I guess it does.” When he didn’t answer, I added, sweetly, “By the way, I stopped by Brenda’s storage unit this morning. You didn’t tell me you’re a police officer. When did that happen?”

 
He laughed. “It didn’t, darlin’. I’ve got a record, remember.”

  “So you’re not a cop, just a liar?”

  He shrugged, setting off a chain reaction of muscles under the black T-shirt.

  “Hmpf!” I sniffed. He grinned, but didn’t answer. “So are you going to tell me what you found? Was there anything important?”

  “Depends . . .” Rafe said, but before he could say anything else, there was a knock on the door. I made a face. I had hoped to have Rafe out of my apartment before Todd showed up.

  ForawildsecondIcontemplatedaskinghimtogoout on the balcony and climb down the downspout so Todd wouldn’t see him—it was only ten or twelve feet down to the flowerbeds below, and he looked like he could handle the trip—but I got a grip on myself. I had nothing to hide, and Rafe probably wouldn’t have done it anyway. So I did the next best thing, and put a cheerful, innocent smile on my face when I opened the door. “Hi, Todd.”

  “Savannah.” Todd leaned in to peck me on the cheek while simultaneously handing me another bouquet of roses.

  I smiled my thanks and turned to the kitchen to put them in water, and came face to face with Rafe, who had moved closer, in his usual soundless fashion. He winked. I sidestepped.

  “Oh, Todd,” I said casually, over my shoulder, “you remember Rafael Collier, don’t you? From high school? He was just leaving.” I sent Rafe a look. He responded with an ironic half bow.

  “Of course,” Todd said stiffly. “Collier.” He nodded. “Satterfield.” Rafe nodded back. “How’s the arm?” He smirked.

  “Arm?” I repeated, looking up from the flower arranging. “Is something wrong with your arm, Todd?” “I pulled a muscle a few days ago,” Todd said repressively. “It’s nothing.”

  Rafe grinned. I looked from one of them to the other. Todd hadn’t mentioned getting hurt in the fight between Rafe and Cletus Johnson on Tuesday night, but that must have been when it happened. “Did you have it looked at?”

  “I don’t need a doctor to tell me when I have pulled a muscle,” Todd said. The two of them eyed each other like a pair of dogs in an alley. I sighed.