“We have all night,” I said kindly, and then wished I hadn’t. “I mean, until dinner is over. Or even later, if you wanted to take a drive or something afterwards.”
“I suppose,” Todd said, but he lapsed into silence and didn’t come out again until the waiter arrived with our drinks. Then he roused himself for long enough to ask me what I wanted for dinner, and to order for both of us, before he lapsed back into insignificant small talk.
When our parents walked out of the restaurant about halfway through our meal, he thawed a little bit, but it wasn’t until the waiter had removed our plates and Todd had ordered dessert – cheesecake for him, black coffee for me – that he deigned to get to the reason for asking me to meet him.
“I wanted to talk to you about something, Savannah.”
“OK,” I said.
“Something important.”
“All right.”
“Just a moment. I have something to show you.” He avoided my eyes as he bent over to rummage in the briefcase leaning against his chair leg. My heart started beating faster.
I expected him to surface with a small jeweler’s box, or maybe just a ring, but he didn’t. What he held, was a plain manila envelope. It didn’t bulge, and I started breathing easier. Until he removed a stiff piece of paper and glanced at it for a moment before sliding it across the table to me. I picked it up, and so unprepared was I, that it took me a second to realize what – or whom – I was looking at. But then all the blood left my face and pooled somewhere in the vicinity of my stomach; or at least it felt that way.
“Where did you get this?” My voice was uneven, and deteriorated further when I added, incredulously, “Are you having me followed?”
Todd hesitated. I wish I could say I thought he was quailing under the onslaught of my righteous indignation, but I’m afraid not. He was just weighing his options and deciding how much to tell me. “Not you,” he said finally. “Him.”
I had to take a breath before I could continue. “Why is the district attorney’s office interested in Rafe Collier?”
“They’re not,” Todd said. And added ominously, “Yet.”
“So you’re doing this on your own? Why?”
Todd glanced again at the photograph I was holding, and seemed to draw some sort of strength from it, because he met my eyes straight on. “Isn’t it obvious? Look at yourself, Savannah! Look at the way you’re looking at him. Can you blame me for worrying about you?”
I looked down at the photograph again. And it was mostly to avoid Todd’s accusing eyes, not because I wanted to inspect it in any more detail. Because, believe me, I’d seen enough.
Oh, it wasn’t that I looked bad. Quite the opposite, in fact. I looked pretty darned good, if I do say so myself. Maybe even a little too good. Usually, I’m not crazy about the way I look in photographs. The extra ten pounds the camera adds, coupled with the extra ten I’m carrying myself, tend to make me look tubbier than I like. In this case, however, I had no cause for complaint. I looked great. My eyes sparkled, my skin glowed, my smile was radiant, and my cheeks were becomingly flushed. Even my hair looked good. My only consolation was that I was not, in fact, doing what Todd was accusing me of. “What do you mean?” I demanded. “I’m looking down, not up at Rafe.”
“But you’re smiling,” Todd said coldly. “And blushing. And flirting.”
“I’m not flirting. He’s the one who was flirting!” That’s why I’d been blushing.
“But you don’t look like you minded,” Todd shot back, accurately. I could feel another blush creep into my cheeks, and thanked the Lord it was dark in the restaurant. Maybe Todd would mistake my heightened color for temper rather than embarrassment or residual memory.
“What did you expect me to do,” I demanded, “slap his face?” And what a photograph that would have made!
The idea of it made me smile, and allowed me to calm down sufficiently to add reasonably, “You’re being silly, Todd. Rafe flirts with everyone, even Timothy Briggs. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“He doesn’t have to flirt with you!” Todd said petulantly.
I shrugged. “Well, of course he doesn’t have to.” Although flirting seems to come as naturally to Rafe as breathing, so maybe he did have to. It wasn’t something I planned to put to the test, since his flirtation didn’t bother me the same way it did Todd. For the most part I enjoyed it. I didn’t want it to go any further than it had, but I didn’t mind what he’d done so far.
Thankfully, the waiter chose this moment to appear with Todd’s cheesecake and my coffee, and by the time he had left, I had gathered myself enough to be able to ask, quite calmly, “So is this it, or do you have any other pictures in that envelope?”
Todd nodded. “Plenty. Have a look.” He pushed the envelope across the table toward me. I reached in and pulled out a sheaf of other photographs, starting with Rafe outside Police Plaza at 1:20 pm Sunday afternoon, in the process of putting on his sunglasses. Then there was Rafe and I talking to Connie Fortunato on her front steps at 4:13 pm. He had a proprietary arm around my shoulders, and I didn’t look as uncomfortable as I thought I had. Then Perry Fortunato and Rafe squaring off at 4:16. I hadn’t noticed it at the time, but they were almost of a height, both tall and dark, although Perry was a good ten years older and fleshy rather than muscular. He did his best to make up for it by looking at Rafe down the length of his Roman nose, but the attempt failed because Rafe had him beat by an inch or so in height. Perry had to tilt his head back, which rather ruined the effect.
Then there was a shot of Rafe grinning at the waitress and another close-up of me at the table in the Shortstop, with a half-eaten hamburger in my hand and my mouth open. Not so flattering to me, that one. After that came one of Rafe and his friend talking at the table, and another of all four of them in conversation over by the pool tables. The light was nice and sharp over there – the better to see the all-important game of pool – and the pictures were crystal clear and detailed. It was followed by close-ups of all three men.
Todd had been watching me across the table. “Those are criminals,” he said.
I glanced up. “How do you know?”
“The investigator I hired told me. The information is written on the back. They’ve all been arrested several times, for things like burglary, check fraud, grand theft auto...”
“Nice,” I muttered, reading the back of the photographs. Ishmael Jackson, A. J. Davies, and Antoine Kent, and their assorted crimes, beginning in their teens and carrying through to now. Todd allowed himself a tiny smirk. Usually, he has an appealing smile, one that crinkles the corners of his gray-blue eyes and shows off his even, white teeth. Not now. At this moment he just looked smug and self-satisfied. The temptation to knock him off his high horse was almost irresistible. “So what did your tame P.I. have to say about Rafe? Anything I haven’t heard already?”
Rafe’s criminal history wasn’t written on the back of the photo, and I had a nagging feeling that it might be because it was too extensive to fit.
Todd flushed. “That he’s been in trouble almost as long as he’s been alive. That he was arrested at eighteen and spent two years in Riverbend prison for assault and battery. That while he was there, he was recruited by a crime organization in Memphis, and when he was released, he moved there and went to work for them. A couple of years later, when the Tennessee Bureau of Investigations arrested the leaders, he managed to stay out of jail by the skin of his teeth.”
“Good for him,” I said.
“After another couple of years, the TBI cracked down on the organization again, and made what almost amounted to a clean sweep. Except for Collier, who disappeared before anyone could catch up with him. He resurfaced six or eight months later in Knoxville, with a group of guys who were hijacking tractor trailers and fencing the contents. That lasted a few months, and then the TBI wiped them out, too. They nabbed him, and held on to him for as long as they could, but eventually they had to let him go for lack of proof. He moved on
to Chattanooga and Jackson, and then to Clarksville, where he had something to do with thefts from the military base. Earlier this year, he showed up in Nashville. Where he was on the scene when Brenda Puckett was murdered.”
“He was on the scene 45 minutes later,” I corrected. “We’ve talked about this, Todd. He didn’t have anything to do with killing Brenda. Or Clarice Webb.”
Todd ignored me. “And two weeks before that, my dad suspected him of having had a hand in doing away with his mother.”
“Your dad had no proof that anyone was involved in LaDonna Collier’s death,” I protested. “If he did, he would have arrested someone by now.”
“Just because there’s no proof, doesn’t mean Collier didn’t do it,” Todd said.
Just because Todd wanted Rafe to be guilty, didn’t mean he was, either, but I had no time to say so. Todd added, “All it means is, he’s very good at covering his tracks.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” I answered. “Doesn’t it seem more likely that he’s just not a very good criminal? Everything he’s ever gotten involved in has been shut down by the police after a month or two.”
Todd shrugged. We sat in silence for a moment or two while Todd ate his cheesecake and I drank my coffee.
“So is that it?” I asked eventually, keeping my voice level. “Because it’s interesting, but not really surprising. I already suspected that he had an alternate source of income. One that wasn’t entirely legal.”
Todd looked at me. I could see the wheels ticking behind his eyes. He was debating whether to tell me something, and he wasn’t sure. But was it because he wanted to keep it in reserve for next time, or was it because he wasn’t entirely sure it was accurate...?
Eventually he decided. “There’s more. Do you remember Elspeth Caulfield?”
I wrinkled my brows. “I can’t say I do, no. Who is she?”
“She went to high school with us. You, me, and Collier. My year. Her father was a preacher for some little fundamentalist sect west of Sweetwater.”
A glimmer of a memory was beginning to come to me. “Petite, blond girl? Very quiet? Had some sort of nervous breakdown, and never came back?”
“Her parents took her out of school before senior year, just after you and I started dating.”
I nodded. I remembered now. Vaguely. I hadn’t had anything to do with Elspeth and wasn’t sure I’d recognize her if she walked through the door right now. “What about her?”
“There were rumors at the time that she was pregnant and they were taking her somewhere to have the baby so no one would know.”
I tightened my stomach muscles. I’ve heard it can help someone beat a lie detector test, and I could really use some help in not showing my reaction right then. I had a feeling I knew what was coming, and I didn’t want Todd to guess that I knew, or more accurately, that the idea bothered me.
Todd smirked knowingly. “Would you care to speculate as to whose baby it was?”
“Not Rafe’s,” I said. “I asked him just the other day if he had any children, and he said no.” None he knew about.
“Maybe he doesn’t know,” Todd said, playing right into my secret worry. “He was in jail by then. Or maybe she had an abortion. It’s not difficult to get rid of an unwanted pregnancy.”
His attitude said, very clearly, that any child of Rafe’s would be unwanted by any woman in her right mind. I didn’t answer. I’m not sure I could have spoken even if I’d tried. It’s not something a lot of people know, and Todd certainly didn’t, but at one point during my short and ill-fated marriage to Bradley, I’d had a miscarriage. It had happened very early in what was an unplanned pregnancy, almost before I knew I was expecting, albeit not before I’d had time to get over the initial shock and start looking forward to the happy event. In retrospect, considering the way things turned out between Bradley and me, it was probably just as well it had happened the way it did. Our simple, uncontested divorce would have been a thousand times messier had there been children involved, and a child would have tied me irrevocably to Bradley for the rest of my natural life. All in all, I couldn’t really regret the way things had fallen out. Still, there were times like now, when I was reminded, that I mourned the loss.
“Have you spoken to Elspeth about this?” I asked when I could trust my voice again.
Todd looked shocked. “Of course not. I can’t pry into her personal life.”
The fact that he’d pried into mine, not to mention Rafe’s, didn’t seem to have occurred to him.
“So how do you know she was pregnant? Maybe it was just a rumor.”
“Everyone knows what happened,” Todd said. “But you don’t have to take my word for it. Talk to Cletus Johnson. He was there; he’ll tell you.”
“Marquita’s ex-husband? That Cletus Johnson?”
“Deputy Sheriff Cletus Johnson,” Todd said.
“The same Cletus Johnson who gave Rafe a black eye a couple of weeks ago? And I would trust his word because...?”
Todd flushed. “Just go talk to him, Savannah. He’ll tell you.”
“Fine,” I said coldly, “maybe I will.”
Or maybe I’d talk to Rafe instead. Someone who’d actually be in a position to tell me something definite, and not just rumors and speculation and innuendo and sour grapes.
Chapter Twelve
For a few moments after leaving the Wayside Inn, I thought seriously about driving back to Nashville rather than facing mother. But it was late and in spite of what I’d tried to show Todd, I was upset by what he’d told me, so I turned the car toward the Martin mansion after all. And was rewarded by not seeing Mother. Her bedroom door was closed and the lights out, and by the time I got up the next morning, I was alone. If it had been anyone but my mother, I would have suspected that she’d spent the night elsewhere, because her bed showed no evidence of having been slept in, but knowing her as I do, I didn’t think anything of it. She’s obsessively concerned with appearances, and had just put her bed in apple-pie order before heading out to the spa or hair-dresser or breakfast, that’s all.
I was happy to avoid her. I didn’t want to discuss my dinner with Todd. I didn’t want to ask Cletus Johnson about Elspeth Caulfield, and I was reluctant to look for Elspeth herself. So I did the only thing I could do, and visited the one member of my family who was, at least provisionally, on my side.
The law offices of Martin and McCall are located on the town square, in a turn-of-the-(last)-century brick building with a green canopy. The company was started by my great-grandfather back when the country was young, and my father worked there his entire adult life. Currently, the resident Martin is my brother Dix, while Jonathan McCall, our sister Catherine’s husband, makes up the other half of the company. Catherine also has a law degree, but she doesn’t practice much these days. For the record, I’m the only Martin of my generation who didn’t finish law school. Instead, I dropped out to marry Bradley, and never went back.
Jonathan – bless him – was closeted with a client, but Dix was available to talk to me. When I walked into his office and closed the door behind me, he looked up from the paperwork on his desk and squinted. “You look horrible.”
“Nice to see you too,” I answered, sitting down in one of the worn leather chairs in front of the cherrywood desk that had belonged to my father and his father before him. Dix leaned back in his swivel chair and folded his hands on top of the manila folder on the desk.
“Late night?”
“Not with Todd. Just with worrying.”
Dix sighed. “What’s going on now?”
“Didn’t Todd tell you what he’s been doing? Let me show you.” I dug in my purse and fished out the photograph of myself and Rafe that had started the conversation yesterday. “Look at this.”
Dix looked, and shook his head sadly. “When are you going to learn, sis?”
“I had dinner with a friend,” I said angrily. “It wasn’t even a date. If I sleep with him, or – God forbid! – fall in love with him, t
hen you can give me a hard time, but not for having a meal.” Unless it was breakfast in bed, but we wouldn’t go there. Literally or in discussion.
“Fine,” Dix said. “I won’t give you a hard time. Although mother would, you know.”
“Why do you think I made Todd give me the picture? I know he can probably get another copy, but at least this way, he won’t be showing it to her right away.”
Dix shrugged. I added, “You have to make him stop, Dix. You’re his best friend; he’ll listen to you. He has to understand that he can’t hire private investigators to follow civilians around. I know that he’s worried about me, but Rafe will have a fit if – when – he finds out. And if he gets upset, there’s no telling what he might do.”
“Do you plan to tell him?” Dix asked.
I bit my lip. “Todd brought up some things I’d like to ask him about. If I do, he’s going to ask me who told me about them, and how that person found out.”
Plus, it wasn’t fair to let Rafe go about his – probably nefarious – business with a private eye dogging his footsteps, when I knew about it and could warn him.
“And you can’t just let it go?” Dix wanted to know.
“I might, if I could get the answers I want without having to ask him. Do you by any chance remember Elspeth Caulfield from high school?”
“Just barely,” Dix admitted. “Didn’t she drop out early?”
I nodded. “Although, according to Todd, she didn’t drop out so much as was taken out by her parents, either because she had a nervous breakdown, or because she had gotten herself in the family way and they wanted to hush it up.”
Dix nodded. “I remember now. Quiet girl, but very intense. One of those ‘still waters’ types. A lot going on underneath the surface.”
“Todd intimated that she was pregnant, and that the baby was Rafe’s. Do you remember hearing anything about that?”
“I remember hearing all sorts of things,” Dix said. “But now that you mention it, I think I may have heard something about that, yes. It was years ago, though, so it’s difficult to remember the details.”
[Cutthroat Business 01.0 - 03.0] Boxed Set Page 40