The Fixer Upper

by Mary Kay Andrews

  “Oh, noooo,” Bobby said. “Once you put the finish on, you got to let it set and cure for three, four days. Can’t nobody walk on it or nothing. You done a good job on that floor, Dempsey. Now, it’s Saturday night. I notice you got Tee Berryhill and Jimmy Maynard dropping by here pretty regular. I bet one of them boys would be tickled to death to take a pretty girl like you out on a Saturday night.”

  “No dates,” I said succinctly. “Work. If you won’t let me put the finish on the floor, would you do me favor?”

  He looked wary. “Depends on what it is.”

  “Loan me your electric screwdriver. I want to get started on those cupboard doors tonight.”

  23

  When I got out of the shower Sunday morning, I heard my cell phone ringing. Wrapping a towel around me, I hurried down the hall to my bedroom. Fishing the phone out of my pocketbook, I was gratified to see that the caller was Lindsay.

  “Linds,” I said gleefully. “How are you? How’s Stephanie? Do you guys miss me as much as I miss you? Guess what. I’ve spent the whole weekend stripping the kitchen floor. You should see it, Linds. The most beautiful heart pine. I started on the cabinet doors last night—”

  “Who is this?” Lindsay said, her tone flat. “Is this the Dempsey Killebrew I’ve lived with for the past two years? What have you done with my friend Dempsey?”

  “I know,” I said, laughing. “How crazy is this? I haven’t worn a pair of heels since I moved down here.”

  “Demps,” Lindsay said, pausing. “We need to talk.”

  “What’s wrong?” I said, feeling chilled. “Are you in trouble? Is it Stephanie? Don’t tell me she and Greg broke up again—”

  “I’m fine. Stephanie and Greg are fine. We’re all fine, Dempsey,” Lindsay said. “Look. Have you seen this morning’s Post?”

  I sank down onto my bed. I was freezing cold. “No. I don’t have any way to see the Post. I don’t have Internet access at the house. Oh God, Lindsay. Not that reporter. Oh shit. It’s bad, isn’t it.”

  “It isn’t good,” she said, choosing her words carefully. “Especially the photo of you in those overalls. When did you start dressing like Larry the Cable Guy?”

  “Oh my God.” I said. “I told that guy to get off my porch. I should have smashed the damn camera.”

  “You should burn those overalls. And lose the plaid flannel shirt. And the bandanna. Immediately. Look. Have you spoken to Alex lately?”

  I threw myself backward on the bed. “No. No. No.”

  “I knew it,” Lindsay said. “What a shit he is. I’m sorry, Demps, but that man is a total prick.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” I told her. “I have spoken to Alex. But only briefly. After that reporter, Shalani something, showed up here this week.”

  “Shalani Byers,” Lindsay said grimly. “Remember that name, Dempsey. ’Cause I think she’s planning on earning herself a Pulitzer by writing about you. And Hoddergate.”

  “Read me the story,” I told her.

  “Are you sure you’re up for this?” Lindsay said. “It’s pretty brutal.”

  I stood up, gathered the bedspread off the bed, and wrapped it around me, swaddling my still damp, naked body entirely in the bedspread made in a factory I’d been named after.

  “Read it,” I said. “All of it.”

  “Even the headline?”

  “Every word.”

  “Okay. The headline says: ‘Hoddergate Lobbyist Blames Aide for Hiring Hookers for Congressman.’”

  “Oh no,” I whispered. “Is this on the front page of the Post?”

  “Front page, lead story, above the fold,” said Lindsay, who’d been a journalism major as an undergrad.

  “Go on.”

  “Here goes: ‘Sources close to the government investigation delving into charges that a prominent Washington lobbyist bribed Representative Anthony Licata (R-New Jersey) in return for Licata’s support on a crucial energy bill pending before Congress say that the lobbyist has admitted that one of his employees hired prostitutes for Licata.

  “‘Alexander Hodder, founding partner of Hodder and Associates, whose client roster includes half a dozen oil interests, reportedly supplied the federal grand jury looking into the allegations with credit card receipts showing that his top aide, a woman named Dempsey Killebrew, paid two women a total of $5,600 to provide sexual services to Licata during a November junket to Lyford Cay, the Bahamas. Hodder’s name reportedly came to the attention of the FBI during their investigation in to charges of corruption involving Representative Licata.’”

  “My name. On the front page of the Washington Post,” I moaned, pounding the pillows beside me. “Oh God. It can’t get any worse than this.”

  “Oh, but it does,” Lindsay assured me.

  “‘Licata, sixty-two, married, and the father of four grown children, from Rumford, NJ, has denied any wrongdoing, and has publicly vowed to fight his recent indictment on criminal charges. If convicted of fraud and public corruption, the four-time Republican could face a fifteen-year prison sentence for each incident of bribery.

  “‘Hodder, fifty, and married for ten years to Virginia socialite Patricia “Trish” Caldwell, claims he was stunned by his recent discovery of proof that an “inexperienced” associate whom he termed “overzealous in her attempts to impress her superiors” had solicited prostitutes and paid for them with her company-issued American Express credit card.’”

  “Inexperienced? Overzealous?” I balled up my fists and chewed on my knuckles. “That’s just unreal. Lindsay, Alex Hodder is a complete control freak. He wouldn’t even allow me to send a form letter to a client unless he read it, edited it, and initialed it,” I cried.

  Lindsay just kept reading without comment.

  “‘AmEx receipts billed to Ms. Killebrew’s card reportedly show that she signed off on a $4,000 charge from a company called Pleasure Chest Ltd., whose employee, a woman calling herself Mahogany Foxx, allegedly provided Licata, who has undergone two knee replacements, with wakeboard lessons. Later, on that same date, November 29, which was the Saturday after Thanksgiving, Ms. Killebrew also authorized another $1,600 charge for a massage therapist named Tiki Finesse to visit Licata in his $1,288-a-night suite at the Lyford Cay Resort.’”

  Lindsay snickered. “Mahogany Foxx? Tiki Finesse? Dempsey, where did you find those women? Were those really their names?”

  “How do I know their real names?” I shrieked. “Alex told me to call the number and book this girl to give Licata wakeboard lessons. The same thing with the massage therapist. As far as I know, I never talked to either one of them, and I certainly never saw them. I told that to that damned reporter too.”

  “You should see the picture of Mahogany Foxx in the Post,” Lindsay said. “I don’t see how she walked upright, let alone balanced on a wakeboard, with a set of knockers like that. There’s a photo of good ol’ Tiki too,” she added. “Oh wait. It says here that Tiki’s not her real name. Big surprise. Her real name is Thelma Jean Fessenden, and she’s from Belle Glade, Florida. I guess this is her police mug shot. It says she has previous arrests for solicitation, rude and lascivious behavior, and assault and battery. Maybe that’s how she lost her two front teeth.”

  “I don’t feel so good,” I told Lindsay, gripping my belly. “I think I might hurl.”

  “I can stop reading if you want,” Lindsay volunteered. “You could call me back when you feel better.”

  I swallowed the wave of bile rising in my throat. “I’m never going to feel better. Let’s just get this over with.”

  “All right,” Lindsay said, sighing. “Let’s see. Oh yeah.

  “‘Reached Friday at his residence in Georgetown, Hodder said that Ms. Killebrew acted on her own in hiring Ms. Foxx and Ms. Finesse.

  “‘ “I was shocked when I saw the evidence that Dempsey Killebrew had made these completely unauthorized charges for prostitutes,” Hodder told the Post. “I certainly have never condoned or suggested such an action. Unfortunat
ely, Miss Killebrew’s ill-advised and illegal behavior has brought shame and embarrassment to this firm. Naturally, we discharged her as soon as we learned about her involvement in this matter. I have turned over to the grand jury all Miss Killebrew’s credit card records, as well as any other paperwork related to her employment here, and I look forward to cooperating fully with the government in an attempt to restore the good name of Alexander Hodder and Hodder and Associates.” ’”

  “How could he?” I wailed. “He’s making it look like hiring these women was all my idea. All I did was what he asked me to do. What he ordered me to do. Doesn’t it say that I told this Shalani Byers that I was innocent?”

  “Lemme see,” Lindsay said. “Oh yeah. She says you said, ‘No comment.’ Here’s some more stuff about you. Ooh. Ouch. Doesn’t make you look too good, Demps.”

  “Read it anyway.”

  “‘Ms. Killebrew, a 2007 graduate of Georgetown Law School, fled Washington soon after the Hoddergate scandal erupted, and has since gone into self-imposed seclusion in an obscure small town about an hour south of Atlanta, Georgia.’”

  “Fled? She’s making it sound like I was driven out of town by villagers with pickaxes and torches. I had to move out of Washington because Alex fired me and I couldn’t get a job anyplace else. And I am so not in seclusion. Lindsay, do people in seclusion shop at the Piggly Wiggly? Do they go to Home Depot?”

  “I know, baby,” Lindsay soothed. “Do you still want to hear the rest?”

  “You mean there’s more? How much worse could it get?”

  I soon found out just how much deeper Shalani Byers’s wounds would go.

  “‘Neighbors in Guthrie, Georgia, a down-at-the-heels village with one stoplight and an abandoned bedspread factory, describe Miss Killebrew, twenty-seven, as a shadowy figure who dresses in a dead uncle’s work boots and flannel shirts and currently lives in a dilapidated mansion that she shares with an elderly distant relative and an incontinent cocker spaniel.’”

  “Liar!” I gritted my teeth. “I never even touched Norbert’s work boots. That’s a complete fabrication. I borrowed his sneakers, and some overalls and shirts. I bought Carrharts, but it took a while to get them broken in. As for Shorty, Ella Kate walks him three or four times a day. He’s irritating, but I don’t think he’s incontinent.”

  The other end of the line got very quiet.

  “You’re starting to scare me, Dempsey,” Lindsay said. “We’ve got to get you out of there before you go completely native. When are you coming home?”

  “After this thing in the Post? With everybody inside the beltway reading this crap and assuming the worst? Who’s going to hire me? What the hell am I going to do now, Lindsay?”

  “I don’t know,” she admitted. “It’s not a very flattering story, to say the least.”

  “Goooooddd,” I said, flouncing myself down on my wheezy old mattress. “I’m screwed.”

  “You need to talk to Alex Hodder,” Lindsay said. “The dickhead. This is all his fault.”

  “I just can’t believe Alex is doing any of this,” I said. “He knows the truth. He knows I would never have knowingly hired whores for Licata. I never even bought as much as a ham sandwich with that credit card without him okaying it. He would never willingly do this. Not without coercion. The only thing I can figure is, his lawyers are pressuring him to cut some kind of deal with the feds.”

  “Wake up and look at your back, Dempsey,” Lindsay retorted.

  I reflexively touched my right hand to my left shoulder blade. “What are you talking about?”

  “Don’t you see the tread marks?” she asked. “Alex Hodder is throwing you under the bus. And all you can talk about is what a sweet guy he is. Open your eyes, girl.”

  “He’s just protecting himself. And the firm. You can’t blame him for that.”

  “Oh no?” Her voice was mocking. “I was saving the worst for last. Listen to this. And then tell me what you think about good old Alex Hodder.”

  She cleared her throat and read on.

  “‘Although the federal prosecutor’s office is keeping mum about Dempsey Killebrew’s role in the Hoddergate scandal, at least one employee of Hodder and Associates made it clear this week that she believes investigators should take a closer look at Alex Hodder’s closest aide.

  “‘Hodder and Associates executive administrator Ruby Beaubien said the company, at her urging, has hired a forensic accountant to examine “any and all documents and expense records generated by the disgraced junior lobbyist.” ’”

  “Disgraced!” I yelped. “Oh my God, she’s calling me a thief and a liar, as well as a pimp. This is unbelievable. I thought Ruby was my friend.”

  “Wait,” Lindsay ordered.

  “‘ “It was clear to many of us at the firm that Dempsey Killebrew had an unhealthy and inappropriate attraction to Alexander Hodder,” Ms. Beaubien said. “Although Mr. Hodder made it quite clear that her attentions were not welcome, and that he did not reciprocate her affection, Miss Killebrew continued, in a grossly inappropriate manner, to pursue a personal relationship with Mr. Hodder, who is a happily married man. Finally, after hounding Mr. Hodder with dozens and dozens of calls to his cell phone, and a drunken midnight visit to his residence, I insisted to Mr. Hodder, that despite his concern for the young woman’s welfare, she be terminated.” ’”

  “Oh. No,” I whispered. “No way.” I put the phone down and dashed blindly down the hall to the bathroom, where I unceremoniously barfed my brains out.

  I have no idea how long I stayed in the bathroom, hanging on to the cold white porcelain commode like a drowning swimmer. I do know that I heard my cell phone ringing several more times. I heard the doorbell ringing, and then Shorty’s crazed barking. After a while, Ella Kate started banging on the bathroom door.

  “Hey!” she called. “Are you still in there?”

  “Go away,” I croaked.

  “You go away,” she countered. “And take that durned phone of yours with you. It’s Sunday, the Lord’s day, and that phone of yours keeps a-ringin’ and a-ringin’. You got men coming and going and wanting to know where you are and what you’re a-doin’. It don’t look right for a Christian maiden lady like myself to have men hanging around here this way.”

  “Send them away,” I said. “I don’t want to see anybody.”

  “Send them away yourself,” Ella Kate said. “I’m going to church. And when I get back here after Sunday school, there better not be any men hanging around. Or I’ll set Shorty on them—and you.”

  I heard her sensible lace-up oxfords clomping down the hallway, and then down the steps and out the front door.

  Finally, when my legs were starting to cramp, I stood up shakily and looked at myself in the bathroom mirror.

  There were dark circles under my bloodshot eyes, and my face was red and blotchy from crying and retching.

  “You look like a deranged person,” I told my reflection. “Like a stalker.”

  I dressed hurriedly—and this time in my own clothes. Even though it was close to seventy outside, I put on the wool pants and sweater I’d worn the day I arrived in Guthrie. I put on makeup—foundation, powder, blush, eye shadow, liner, mascara, the works. I grabbed my pocketbook and the car keys, and hurried out the back door, locking it behind me.

  The Catfish coughed twice and the engine cut off once, but when I got it warmed up, I backed down the driveway and onto Poplar Street. I sped down the street and through Guthrie’s minuscule business district.

  It was Sunday-morning quiet. The shops on Main Street were closed, the streets abandoned. I drove past Guthrie First United Methodist, where I knew Ella Kate was sitting in the front row. I passed Grace Presbyterian Church, with its stately gray granite bell tower, and the sprawling redbrick complex that comprised Guthrie First Baptist. Across the street from the Baptist church, I saw All Saints Episcopal Church, and I spotted Carter Berryhill’s sedate Mercedes sedan with the Nature Conservancy bumper sticker parked at the
curb out front.

  I was careful to stay under the speed limit until I got out to the state highway. Then I floored the accelerator. The Catfish responded sluggishly at first. Norbert and Ella Kate had probably never driven more than thirty-five miles an hour. Now it was time to blow the kinks out of the Crown Vic’s powerful engine.

  I was doing fifty-five when I hit the I-75 on-ramp, and moments later, was pleased to see how easily the Catfish adapted to seventy and then eighty miles an hour. I didn’t slow down until I started hitting Atlanta traffic. I stayed on I-75 until it merged with I-85, and when I saw the exit signs for Lenox Road, I took the off-ramp and followed the road until I started seeing the high-rise towers of Buckhead, and the congestion around Lenox Square Mall.

  It wasn’t until I pulled into the parking lot of Houlihan’s and parked that I had any clear idea of where I was going and what I was going to do. I only knew I had to get away from Birdsong, had to get out of that “down-at-the-heels village with one stoplight” Shalani Byers had described in the Washington Post.

  I couldn’t be the shadowy figure in the scary dead uncle’s clothes today. I pulled a mirror from my pocketbook and applied a coat of lipstick. I patted my hair into place, and stepped out of the car.

  The Sunday brunch crowd was just starting to stagger into Houlihan’s. I told the hostess I didn’t need a table, so she gestured toward the bar.

  I sat down and ordered a Bloody Mary, and when the salt-crusted tumbler was still half full, I ordered another, along with a cheeseburger, cooked rare, with a side of onion rings. When I looked up and caught sight of myself in the bar-back mirror, I was taken aback. That shadowy figure described by the paper was gone, but so was the Dempsey Killebrew I’d left behind in Washington less than three weeks ago.

  24

  I picked at my food and sipped my drink, but barely touched the second Bloody Mary I’d ordered. To my surprise, I found I’d lost my taste for liquor—or maybe just my desire for a good strong buzz.