Sam helped turn my attention. “Oh, I almost forgot to tell you. I saw something interesting the other day when I was out jogging.”
I winced, as if him just mentioning jogging was an indictment for me to get out there, too. “What?” I prodded.
“Lucius Kayne’s black Viper out in front of Love Rentals,” Sam returned. “It was early, around 6:00, and I was running by on the boardwalk. Kayne gave Love a package, the two shook hands, and that was it.”
“Huh, that’s odd considering that Dave was ready to rip Kayne’s eyeballs out at the party,” I added.
“I have no idea what was in the packet, but it looked like money,” Sam explained, “a lot of money. I know Love’s been hurting for it.”
“How so?”
“Well, his daughter, Amber, is at Duke, a pretty expensive school. I hear that he’s had to take out a few loans against his business to pay for it,” Sam went on, as I ogled lace doilies at a table. “And he’s behind on his payments.”
“So, you think Kayne was paying him off,” I finished. “Maybe Lucius Kayne feels guilty.”
“He should,” Sam decided. “The Love lawsuit was nothing more than a confirmation to the world that lawyers can be just as sleazy and manipulative as their reputations suggest. I heard Love’s payout was something like $10,000 after Kayne was finished with it. Can you imagine? $10,000 wouldn’t even cover the funeral expenses. It was laughable.”
“Wow, no wonder he was so angry.”
“Might be good information to add to your notebook,” Sam advised. I gave him a confused look. “Haven’t you started your notebook yet?”
I shook my head.
Sam smirked. “Come on, honey. Order and method, right? I’d think that on the cusp of your Agatha Christie party you’d have implemented your tools already and be on the brink of figuring it all out.” I shrugged. In the Chambers case, I used a notebook to record everything that I knew about the murder and the vandalism at Beach Read. Writing down the facts and my feelings helped me put the pieces together.
“Guess I haven’t felt that there was enough evidence,” I reasoned. “I mean, we’re still not sure the redhead even existed and though the robberies were real, there’s been little to go on. I have suspicions about everyone: Jason Kent, David Love, Ricky Wakefield, Lucius Kayne, Ricky’s creepy uncle, Wake but nothing substantial.”
“Start with your suspicions,” Sam advised, “and go from there. And maybe, like last time, you can share your notebook with me, and I can help fill in the blanks.”
My eyebrow cocked up on my forehead. “You make it sound fun.”
“Actually, Delilah, dangerous situations aside, if anything good could have come from the Darryl Chambers murder and your aunts’ vendetta against you, it was that we worked really well together. Teaming up with you was a lot of fun.”
I smiled, couldn’t help it.
“I want it to be like that all the time, whether it’s figuring out a case or picking out curtains. I want to partner up with everything.”
“I admit, it has felt better just to open up,” I returned, holding his hand. “Maybe with practice, we’ll both get good at this whole sharing thing, no more secrets, no more hiding, even when it’s about things that we aren’t proud of.” My panic attacks and nightmares came to mind, crashing down on me like the burdens they were. Sam was silent as we passed through the crowds. The man who sold me Gary gave me a toothless smile as we went by. Molly Tubbs’ table was empty.
“I really need to tell you something,” Sam finally started. I eyed his face. He couldn’t look at me. “I’ve been meaning to-” His voice stopped. Maybe my heart did, too.
After another hesitation, I said, “Tell me. What is it?”
I stopped in the middle of the dirt lane, letting the people filter around us, not caring that they were there. We turned toward each other. He took my hands. “I know how you felt when you moved here with all that crap from your past hanging onto you. It’s like you have this knot in your chest, a rock, and every day it just gets bigger and bigger until you feel you might burst. I feel like that, too.” His words to Aunt Beverly flooded back to my mind. I love Delilah, but it’s hard to move forward when you have to keep looking back.
Inexplicably, he stopped talking. I prodded him again, anxious over what he was going to say as much as I was anxious for him to just say it.
“Sam, whatever it is. You can tell me. I love you, but we’re never going to be true partners if you don’t trust me.”
He met me eye-to-eye, but struggled. Finally, he sputtered out, “I want all the same things you want, even more, but I can’t – I haven’t been entirely-”
“Hey, book girl!” a familiar voice cooed from the busy DVD tables. Sam and I glanced over simultaneously, and spotted Benny, the dishwasher from Mike’s restaurant. He waved us over, and I plastered on a smile. “Haven’t seen you in a while.”
“Benny, do you know Sam?” I introduced dutifully. The two shook hands.
“Seen you around,” Benny noted. Benny was a huge black guy, formerly one of Darryl Chambers’ football teammates. Size aside, his next most distinguishing characteristic was the large, colorful dragon tattoo on his arm.
“What’re you up to?” I asked, though I didn’t want to engage in much conversation.
“Trying to find a wheelchair,” he said, glancing around at the many displays. “Ain’t been lucky yet, though.”
“A wheelchair? What for?”
“Sadie,” he replied. “She done broke her ankle last week at work.” Benny’s longtime, live-in girlfriend Sadie was just as large, white, equally tattooed and worked as a stripper at Via’s, which was where I met her when I was investigating Darryl Chambers’ murder. “Crowd got rowdy, and this idiot rushed the stage, knocked her right off the pole.”
“Oh, my gosh!” I exclaimed, simultaneously trying and not trying to picture it.
“Yeah, she’s a mess,” he reported. “Been cooped up at home, goin’ stir crazy. Thought I’d try to score the chair, maybe some movies. Cheer her up.”
“I’ll have to come by and visit her,” I decided, though I certainly didn’t need to announce it. Benny smiled wide with relief.
“Come tomorrow,” he said quickly. “I’m working all day and she’ll be all by her lonesome.” Benny and Sadie rented a quaint cottage in the Breakers, the poorer, marshier side of town. It was also where I’d had my final showdown with Mavis Chambers, a few streets over. I’d been to their home a few times for BBQs, and socializing with their diversely employed group of family and friends (strippers, day laborers, cooks, pedicab drivers, Henna tattoo artists, fishermen, and street musicians just to name a few of their guests).
Once the plans were made, Benny folded back into the Cotton Exchange crowds. Alone again, I hoped to pick up where we left off, but strangely that didn’t happen. I tried. I prompted him with coaxing words, brought it up at least three more times during our ‘date’, but never got an answer. Sam had turned yellow at the idea of talking about it more.
The comforting part about all my hang-ups (if there was a comforting part) was that I knew what they were; everyone did. Sam’s were a mystery, and that made whatever he was holding back feel darker. As we picked up a few more teapots and waited for the vendor to wrap them in newspaper, Sam stepped away to take a phone call. I watched him from afar. Whatever was said, whoever it was, the call frustrated him. He ran his hand through his hair, turned his back to me twice, and once even rubbed his temples.
When he returned, he said only one thing about the phone call. “I have to go out of town again,” he reported, almost tiredly. “I’ll leave tomorrow and get back Saturday, hopefully in time to help you with the Christie party.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Southern Hospitality
Southern Hospitality originates from the Bible. One hopeful bookstore manager aside, people of the South pride themselves on being Good Samaritans. While the expression has been around since the 1800s,
Southern Hospitality is alive and well (most of the time). On any given morning, a train of casserole-toting do-gooders races to this shut-in or that mourner or to that friend goin’ through a bad spell. This morning, I was doing the same (minus the casserole; I brought her a book), and I wasn’t alone.
As I pulled myself from the Jeep, two houses down, Raina was toting a canvas bag of dishes out of her car. We cast each other odd expressions.
“What’re you doin’ here?” she asked first.
I pointed to Sadie’s house. “Checking up on a friend of mine. Broken ankle.”
Raina chuckled, and pointed to the house she was about to go into. “Visitin’ Molly Tubbs. She got beat up durin’ a home invasion.”
“Holy cow! I thought Sadie falling off the stripper pole at Via’s was a compelling story,” I grinned, “but yours beats mine.” I glanced at the Thirty-One picnic basket she lugged, and then at the paperback copy of Eat, Pray, Love I brought, and shrugged. Raina had me completely beat with the whole Southern hospitality thing, but, of course, she’d been doing it longer.
“Well, least we know this is one excitin’ neighborhood,” Raina smiled.
“Exciting, that’s one word for it,” I grimaced. “Enjoy your visit.”
“You, too.”
We parted ways to deliver our goods and cheer up our friends. As I walked up Sadie’s porch, I remembered that Molly Tubbs’ table had been empty yesterday at the Cotton Exchange, and this new crime hadn’t been the only trouble she’d faced the last few weeks. I recalled the story of Backwoods Buddy and his lost load, her telling us her boxes of Nikes had been “pinched,” and now a home invasion. Seemed like too many coincidences for one person.
“Come in!” I heard Sadie’s voice boom from the living room. Sadie occupied the couch by the window, with her booted leg propped up on pillows. On the coffee table, she had her array of remotes, phones, a pair of binoculars, and crossword puzzles all laid out, as well as a smorgasbord of snacks and drinks – all within arm’s reach. Her long blond hair (blond this week, anyway) was pulled up into a tight ponytail. She wore casual shorts and a t-shirt, but still donned enormous earrings and sequins on her shirt. But, unlike during her work-life, she wore little makeup and looked much prettier that way, in my opinion.
“Oh, Delilah, get a load ‘a me!” she laughed. “Can you believe it? A stripper on her back! I’m fittin’ all the stereotypes these days!”
I chuckled, set the book on her coffee table, and sat across from her. I asked her how she was feeling, and all the regular chitchat that goes along with one of these visits, and she went on to explain her accident.
“Good news is Benny’s been waitin’ on me hand and foot,” she reported, pointing to her foot and laughing. “Bad news is I hate sittin’ ‘round. Bored outta my gourd.”
“Did you know there’s about a hundred different expressions related to boredom?” I asked. “Bored to death, bore the socks or pants off of, bored to tears, bored out of your mind. I like bored out of your gourd because while the others use hyperbole, that expression uses both hyperbole and metaphor, the gourd being a metaphor for head.”
Sadie gave me a raised eyebrow and said, “Yeah, and you ain’t helpin’. Tell me all ‘bout what’s been goin’ on with you.” I wasn’t sure which parts she wanted, so I started talking about Beach Read, but Sadie steered the conversation quickly.
“Sadie is my name, and gossip is my game,” she admitted with a laugh. “You gotta tell me all about that party. Ain’t everyday that normal folks get to go to the Peacock, unless they workin’ there.”
Describing the Peacock party was easy, and Sadie enjoyed hearing all about the exotic dishes, the open bar, the chandeliers and the orchestra. I highlighted the good parts, leaving out anything regarding the ghost woman.
“Ya know, I ain’t never liked those Kaynes too much,” Sadie told me distastefully, “especially the daddy.”
“Me, neither,” I returned, thinking of the way Lucius Kayne spoke to Hugh Huntley. “There was a man at the party who definitely shared your opinion. David Love.”
Sadie nodded. “I know Dave. He comes to Via’s all the time these days. Gotta lonely problem and a drinkin’ problem.”
“That might explain why he caused such a scene.”
“Well, Lucius Kayne screwed him over,” Sadie decided. “No doubt ‘about it. Get ‘em drunk enough he’ll tell you all about it.”
We were interrupted by footsteps on Sadie’s porch. Sadie waved her hands in the air excitedly. “That’s the mail!” she told me. “Grab it, Delilah! I’m s’pecting somethin’.”
I obeyed, opening the front door just as the mailman was about to descend the stairs again. “Oh, hello,” he said softly. He was a mousy, slow-moving man, pale as a ghost against his blue-gray uniform. “How ya doin’ in there, Sadie?” he called out a little louder.
“Fine, Bobby!”
To me, he said, “She finally got her package, though I done told her if she wanted to know about her neighbors, all she’s gotta do is ask. I could tell you anything you want to know about anyone on this street.”
Mailman Bobby’s certainty piqued my interest, but Sadie shut him down with, “Thanks, Bobby. See you later!” And the slight, expressionless man drifted back down the stairs and on to the next house. I brought in the mail and Sadie’s package, which she promptly snatched out of my hands and ripped open to reveal a Listen Up Personal Sound Amplifier.
“Got this off one of those commercials,” she explained. “$14.99 plus shippin’ and handlin’ and now I can listen in on any conversation within a hundred yards.”
“Why on earth would you want to do that?”
Sadie’s eyebrows perked back up on her forehead again. “You kiddin’ me? All that business with that stupid trucker a few weeks back, then Molly Tubbs is robbed and beaten up. Plus I got those shifty fellas living ‘cross the street. I just want to know what’s goin’ on in my neighborhood.”
“What shifty fellows?”
Sadie pointed to a rundown yellow house with a captain’s wheel hanging by the front door. Two junk cars occupied the carport. The grass needed mowing, and there was an overflowing barrel-sized trashcan by the side door, where a squirrel was presently sifting through for scraps.
“I call it the Wheelhouse ‘cause of the captain’s wheel and the fact that there’s a lot of wheelin’ and dealin’ goin’ on there. Ed Wakefield owns the place,” she told me, “and he ain’t a bother considerin’ he don’t talk, but he’s got his nephew and the nephew’s friend stayin’ there and those boys are ‘bout as wholesome as Swiss cheese. People been comin’ and goin’ outta that house at all hours, like it’s a constant party over there.” Sadie grabbed her binoculars from the coffee table, and said, “Speak of the devils.”
The two young men exited the house smoking cigarettes and donning angry expressions, as if they’d gotten up way too early. Sadie fiddled with her new toy, but when she realized she had to install batteries, she gave up trying to listen in on their conversation, this time.
I leaned closer to the window and realized that it was Ricky Wakefield and his friend J.J.
“I wouldn’t be comfortable with those guys across the street, either,” I allowed.
“J.J. Lucas reminds me of that Marilyn Manson character, all dark and evil,” Sadie told me as the two walked toward a blue Oldsmobile parked along the street. They were arguing. Ricky shoved J.J. toward the car, spat a few curses, and soon drove away.
“They’re drug dealers,” I replied.
Sadie shrugged. “Figures. This ain’t ‘xactly Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood. Got criminals across the street and a crazy lady behind us. We’re surrounded, which is exactly why I wanted my new toy.”
Sadie sent me on a battery hunt in her tidy kitchen, and once in the semi-quiet of a different room, I remembered Wake grabbing my arm at the lighthouse, how he didn’t speak, how he grunted. At the Peacock party, Wake had loitered like a bad smell, completely out of place,
and he’d gotten on the elevator just as the four minutes went missing from the security footage. What would a groundsman be doing on the other floors of the hotel?
Wake. Twice I had conjured up images of monsters when I considered him. Could he be the monster who attacked me? Assault against women was part of his repertoire. And maybe I’d angered him that day when I went hunting for clues about the missing girl on what he probably considered his turf.
“I’m gettin’ used to not havin’ to dance every night. Thinkin’ it might be time for me to retire soon.”
“What would you do?”
“Don’t know. Something else. Least I got time to think about it.”
I returned to the living room carrying a package of batteries, and went about installing them in her spying device. “I think sometimes God lets things like this happen to us for that very reason – to give us time to think.”
“Maybe so,” Sadie returned. “It just ain’t fun anymore, and Via’s been such a dick lately. You know, he’s pretty pissed at you.”
“What? Why?”
“Thanks to you he’s down his best bouncer and his best stripper-”
“That wasn’t my fault,” I argued. “Lenny Jackson’s in jail because he was a criminal. Angel chose to leave town, and I don’t blame her.”
“Plus, he’s got that stupid business club breathing down his neck,” Sadie went on. “They’re makin’ him take down all the pink ladies on his windows.”
I smiled. “Glad to hear I’m not the only one they pick on.”
“He says they tricked ‘em into signin’ the papers, and he was fool ‘nough to do it. He’s goin’ to the meetin’ Tuesday to appeal-”
“Appeal?”
“Yeah, he’s goin’ to appeal their orders or whatever,” Sadie explained.
“You can do that?” I insisted, my breath catching in my throat. Sadie shrugged and nodded. If there was a way to fight back against TIBA, I needed to pursue it.
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