The Fixer Upper

by Mary Kay Andrews

  “Baby? You mean my father? Mitch?”

  “That’s right,” Ella Kate said. “Mister Killebrew wouldn’t let Livvy have a pet of any kind. He didn’t allow animals in his house. Never mind that it was really Livvy’s house that her mama and daddy gave her. He said cats were nasty dirty, and she especially couldn’t have a cat after the baby, which was your daddy. He said he’d heard a cat would suck the breath right out of a little baby. Nothing Livvy said could change his mind.”

  “That’s terrible,” I said.

  “He was a terrible man,” Ella Kate said, tossing her head. “Rotten old bastard, and I don’t care if he was your granddaddy. He broke Livvy’s heart when he took that little boy away. She never was right after that.”

  “Ella Kate,” I said, leaning forward. “Why did he take my father away from Guthrie? Wasn’t that pretty unusual back then, for a man to get custody of a child instead of the mother?”

  “I wouldn’t know. Look here,” she said, changing the subject abruptly. “You and young Berryhill. What’s his daddy think about him romancing you, and you being a client and all?”

  I laughed despite myself. “I don’t know that Tee is ‘romancing’ me. And I don’t know if Carter has an opinion either way. Tee and I are just friends. He was helping me strip the kitchen cupboards last night. He’s a nice man.”

  “Looks to me like the two of you were getting good and friendly last night,” she observed, arching one woolly gray eyebrow.

  I blushed and hoped there would be another subject change. But her next topic didn’t make me any more comfortable.

  “Say. What happened to them government agents that come around the house this weekend?” she demanded. “What all did they want with you?”

  I paused. How much did Ella Kate already know? And how much should I tell her?

  “It’s confidential,” I said finally. “The FBI is investigating an elected official in Washington, D.C., and they wanted to ask me a lot of questions about him.”

  “I heard that much at church,” Ella Kate said. “Way I heard it, you’re mixed up with some Yankee congressman, and you and your boss, a married man, were in cahoots to try and bribe him.”

  “They were talking about me at your church?” I was mystified. And mortified. “Nobody in this town knows me.”

  “Huh. People know you better than you think they do. Anyway, they think they do. It’s a little-bitty town. Everybody knows everything, even if they don’t.”

  “What you heard is a lot of lies,” I said hotly. “I did not bribe a congressman. And I certainly did not hire prostitutes for anybody. Those FBI agents, they told me yesterday that if I don’t help them, they’ll charge me with bribery. I could get fifteen years in prison. And be disbarred.”

  “If you’re innocent, why don’t you just do what them FBI people want you to do?”

  I knotted and unknotted my hands. My back was stiff from sitting in the hard plastic chairs. I stood up, stretched, and walked around the waiting room, which smelled of disinfectant and dog hair.

  “It’s not that easy,” I told Ella Kate. “The FBI wants me to call my old boss and get him to agree to meet me, and then trick him into admitting what he did. I’d have to wear a bug so the FBI could record everything he says.”

  “What’s so hard about that?” she asked.

  “Everything,” I cried. “It’s so sneaky. So dishonest.”

  “Ain’t he the one who really did bribe a congressman?”

  I sighed. Maybe it was time to face facts. Alex Hodder was a liar and a cheat, not to mention a man who had no compunction about letting me take the blame for his crimes.

  “Alex took Congressman Licata on expensive trips, which were paid for by our client, an oil company. They were supposed to be fact-finding missions, but as far as I know, the only fact Licata was interested in was what time was tee time, and at what five-star restaurant he was getting a free meal. My boss knew Licata was on the take, so he just kept offering him free stuff, like the trip to the Bahamas. Alex knew that if Licata had a good time, he would vote to support the energy bill the oil companies wanted passed.”

  “Hmmph. Sounds to me like your boss and that congressman were crooked as a dog’s hind leg.”

  “Maybe so,” I admitted.

  “And the FBI wants you to help put them in jail,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “And if you don’t do what they want, they’ll put you in jail,” she continued.

  “That’s about the size of it,” I said glumly.

  “What’s Carter Berryhill got to say about all this?”

  “He’s trying to stall them. But eventually he thinks I’ll have to do what they want, if I’m going to get out of this mess.”

  The door to the waiting room opened, and Dr. Shoemaker walked out. She wore blue paper booties over her shoes, and a blue cap over her hair.

  “Miss Timmons?”

  “Yeah?” Ella Kate sat still. Her face was fierce, but her voice was quavery, and when I looked down, I saw that her time-worn hands were shaking. I put my hand over hers. She didn’t push it away.

  “Is he dead?” she asked, ducking her head.

  “Not at all,” the vet said with a laugh. “Shorty’s a tough little customer.” She held up a plastic bag, through which we could see a bit of bright pink fabric. “But he really shouldn’t be eating women’s panties.”

  I stared. There could be no doubt. Shorty had apparently dined on my thong.

  Ella Kate’s narrowed eyes went from the plastic bag to me. “Hmmph,” she said. She stood up. “Can I take him home now?”

  “Not just yet,” Dr. Shoemaker said. “We’ll want to let the anesthesia wear off, and then observe how he does. He can’t have any food for a couple of days, so we’ll be giving him IV fluids. If he does as well as I expect, he should be ready to go home by midweek.”

  Ella Kate reached into the pocket of her sweater and brought out a worn black leather billfold. “How much?” she asked.

  The vet studied Ella Kate for a moment. “Do you mind if I ask your age?”

  Ella Kate bristled. “I don’t see why that’s any of your business. I’m old enough to take care of a pet by myself, and old enough to pay his doctor bill too.”

  “I see,” Dr. Shoemaker said. “I don’t mean to be rude, but the reason I asked is that we have a special rate for senior citizens.”

  “I’m eighty in September,” Ella Kate shot back.

  “Then it’s a hundred dollars,” the vet said. “Would you like us to set up a payment schedule for you?”

  “No, ma’am,” Ella Kate said. She took a wad of worn-looking bills out of the billfold, and counted out five tens. “You can put that on the bill now, and when we come fetch him later on, I’ll give you the rest.”

  “Fine,” Dr. Shoemaker said.

  Ella Kate held out her hand. “I’ll need a receipt.”

  30

  It was nearly noon when we left the animal clinic and headed home. Ella Kate buckled herself into the passenger seat of the Catfish, and stared resolutely out the window at the passing countryside.

  “Going to be a beautiful day,” I said, trying to make conversation. The narrow two-lane road wound through lush green countryside. Pale pink wildflowers bloomed in shallow ditches along the roadside, and when I rolled down the windows, the smell of wet dirt and new grass washed over me. We passed fields full of horses, and cattle, and once, a grassy pasture that was full of goats. The sun was warm on my face, and despite everything else that was going on in my life, I was suddenly glad to be experiencing a spring day in Georgia.

  “Mighty hot for this early,” Ella Kate said ominously. “It’s that global warming they been talking about on the television. Probably looking at another year of drought too.”

  “But it’s rained several times since I’ve been in Guthrie,” I pointed out.

  “That don’t mean nothin’,” Ella Kate said. She pointed a knobby finger at a field we were passing. Stun
ted-looking trees were planted in rows, their outspread branches spiked with pale green leaves. “Them peach trees there, you see how sorry they look? Greening up early now, but if we get hit with a frost, that’ll be the end. Last year’s drought hit ’em bad. Worst peach crop in years. Lots of folks done give up farming altogether after last year.”

  “That’s a shame,” I said. “I’ve never seen peaches growing on a tree before. I don’t think I knew they grew peaches in this part of the state.”

  “Used to be,” she said gloomily. “Round here was big for peaches. When I was a little girl, peaches was a big money crop in these parts. Your daddy’s people, the Killebrews, I believe they were in the peach business. Not no more. No money in farming nowadays. Not in peaches, nor cotton, nor peanuts.”

  I heard my cell phone ring. I reached for it in my pocketbook, but it wasn’t in the outside pocket where I usually keep it. It rang again, and a third time, before I realized it must have fallen out of my purse and onto the floor of the car. I groped around on the floor and grabbed the phone, answering on the fourth ring. “Hello?”

  “Dempsey?” It was Carter Berryhill. “Where on earth are you? I’ve been trying to reach you all morning.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “Shorty had a medical emergency. We had to take him down to the hospital in Macon. I didn’t realize my phone had fallen out of my purse.”

  “Shorty? Do I know a Shorty? More to the point, how do you know somebody named Shorty? And why didn’t you just take him over to the hospital right here in Guthrie?”

  “Shorty is a dog, Carter,” I said. “Ella Kate’s cocker spaniel. He was really sick, and the vet’s office in Guthrie didn’t open until nine, so we had to take him down to the hospital in Macon.”

  “Ohhh, Shorty,” Carter said. “Right. Is he okay? I know Ella Kate dotes on that critter.”

  “He swallowed, uh, something he shouldn’t have,” I said, blushing again at the thought of the vet holding the pair of panties she’d retrieved from Shorty’s belly. “They did surgery, and he’s fine now. He’ll be coming home in a few days.”

  “Well, that’s good,” Carter said. “When do you expect to be back here?”

  “Maybe forty-five minutes or so?” I said. “Is something wrong?”

  “Our friends from Washington have been by to see me this morning,” Carter said. “I imagine they’ve been by to see you too. They really are an annoyingly insistent presence. I think we should put our heads together and come up with a strategy, if you’re up for it.”

  “Of course,” I said, my pulse racing. “I’ll come over as soon as I get back home.”

  “Well, no big rush,” Carter drawled. “There is one thing you might could do that would be helpful in dealing with these people.”

  “What’s that?”

  “See if you can come up with some kind of timetable that reconstructs all of your dealings with Alex Hodder and the honorable Representative Licata. Anything at all will help us—notes, or files, or memos, anything like that.”

  “I’ll try,” I said, “but I don’t have anything on paper. The feds took the hard drive from my computer, and they seized literally all my files at work.”

  “They took everything?”

  “As far as I know,” I said. “But I wasn’t at the office when the FBI agents showed up, and the next thing I knew, our office manager called to say that I’d been let go. She told me not to bother coming in again. They boxed up all the personal effects from my desk, and had them messengered over to my apartment.”

  “Here’s your hat, what’s your hurry,” Carter said.

  “Exactly.” The memory of it still stung, all these weeks later.

  He sighed. “Well, in that case, we’ll have to rely on your memory.”

  “I’ve got my laptop back at the house,” I told him. “When I get home, I’ll try and make some notes about all my dealings with Licata.”

  “Good,” Carter said. “Don’t worry about form or structure. Just get it down on paper, stream-of-consciousness style, if that works for you. Give me details. What Licata was like, how Alex Hodder interacted with him, all those kinds of things. Think carefully about that weekend in the Bahamas, if you would. And your dealings with those women.”

  “I’ll try,” I promised.

  I closed my phone and glanced over at Ella Kate to see her reaction to my phone call. But I needn’t have worried. Her eyes were closed and her head drooped forward. She snored softly.

  I felt a sudden pang of pity for the old woman. Dr. Shoemaker had assured us that Shorty would heal quickly, but I knew Ella Kate had endured a night of terror, watching helplessly while her beloved pet suffered. He was all she had.

  When we got back to Birdsong, she was still sleeping. I tapped her shoulder gently. “Ella Kate?”

  Her eyes opened slowly. She blinked rapidly. “What time is it?”

  “It’s one,” I told her. “We’re home.”

  “Good.”

  I got out of the Catfish and went around to open the passenger door for her, but she hopped out on her own. She thrust a fistful of dollar bills into my hand.

  “There,” she said.

  I looked down at the crumpled bills. “You don’t have to do that.”

  “I’m obliged to you,” she said stiffly. “Shorty coulda died.”

  “I was glad to be able to help,” I told her.

  She nodded curtly. “Good. You’ll carry me back down yonder to fetch him when they say he’s ready to come home?”

  “Of course.” I bit my lip. “Look, Ella Kate. About those panties Shorty ate. They were mine, of course. I really am so, so sorry. I don’t know how he got hold of them.”

  Her eyes crinkled at the corners. For a second there, I thought I glimpsed something like a mischievous twinkle.

  “You mean you wear them things as drawers?”

  I blushed. “Well, yes.”

  “I ain’t ever! That thing ain’t no bigger ’n a rubber band. No wonder all you gals walk around like you got a hitch in your gitalong.”

  As I set up my laptop on the kitchen table at Birdsong, I realized that it had been nearly a month since I’d used it. The last time, in fact, had probably been the week after I’d been fired. After Alex refused to return my phone calls, I’d e-mailed him countless times, and obsessively checked my e-mail in-box, both on my BlackBerry, and on my laptop, over and over again, to check for any replies. There’d been none, of course, only a slew of messages that first week, from friends and colleagues on the hill, wondering how I was faring in the aftermath of Hoddergate.

  I hadn’t bothered to check my e-mail since arriving in Guthrie. Ruby had asked me to turn in my company-issued BlackBerry. And Birdsong, with its antiquated wiring, certainly didn’t have Internet access, and besides, with the exception of my roommates, and the FBI, nobody else in Washington seemed to realize I was still alive.

  Just out of curiosity, I clicked on the wireless button on the laptop, to see if there were any networks in range. There were two, one called BeeBop and the other SpaceCadet, but both were secured networks requiring a password I didn’t have and couldn’t guess.

  Just as well. There was no time to wade through the month’s worth of spam I surely would have amassed by now. I opened a blank document and paused. Carter wanted me to write down everything I could remember about all my dealings with Licata, especially my memories of that weekend down at Lyford Cay. Stream of consciousness, Carter had said. Fine. I started typing.

  I’d been working at Hodder and Associates for four or five months, in a capacity Alex liked to call “utility girl.” That meant I helped out other staffers when they needed somebody to help draft a policy statement, or work on a speech for one of our corporate clients. Then, last November, one night when I was working late, Alex came out of his office and walked over to my cubicle. “Well, Dempsey Killebrew,” he said, perching on the edge of my desk. “You’re burning the midnight oil. I hope we’re paying you well for all your dedication.�
��

  The next week, Alex e-mailed to tell me how pleased the client was with my speech. That Friday morning, he called me into his office to tell me he was assigning me to work on the Peninsula Petroleum account. I was excited and flattered by the attention.

  Most of my work was pretty cut and dried. I drafted position papers, did research on energy policy, and once or twice accompanied Alex to meetings with Peninsula executives when they came into town, or to subcommittee hearings on the hill.

  Sometime last spring, our company arranged for Peninsula to be a “major patron” for a fund-raising dinner to benefit a children’s hospital in the district. I was given tickets to the dinner, and during the cocktail hour, Alex introduced me to Representative Anthony Licata. Alex was on a first-name basis with “Tony,” as he called him. At one point, before we were seated, Alex pulled me aside and told me I’d be seated at Tony’s table, as would Peninsula’s president, Mel Patterson, and his wife.

  “Tony loves pretty young things,” Alex told me, giving me a big wink. “Now, I’m not asking you to flirt, or do anything improper, I’m just telling you he likes to be seen with pretty girls. Makes him feel like a big stud. At dinner, make sure you get him seated right next to Mel. Ask him how his golf game is coming along. Mel’s a member over at Burning Tree, and I happen to know Tony’s dying to play that course.”

  I did as Alex had asked. Representative Licata hit it off right away with Mel Patterson, and I overheard Mr. Patterson invite him to be his guest the next weekend at Burning Tree.

  My impression of Representative Licata? He is, as Alex said, a man who likes to think he is a ladies’ man. He never really made a pass at me, but I did catch him staring at my cleavage on more than one occasion at that first dinner, and then later, when we were in the Bahamas. He likes expensive Scotch; we always had to make sure we had a couple bottles of Laphroaig for meetings with him. I know he cheats at golf too, because Alex told me Mel Patterson complained about all the “gimmes” he took during their games at Burning Tree.