Savannah Blues

by Mary Kay Andrews

  He grinned. “How’s that truck running?”

  “Good,” I said. “I got the new tires like you suggested. Now it’s my turn to fix something for you. How about some scrambled eggs and grits?”

  Chapter 64

  James fidgeted with his collar. He straightened his tie, coughed to clear his throat. Finally, when he could delay no longer, he called Janet into his office.

  “Are they here?”

  “They’ve been here for ten minutes. Just get on with it, James. You’ve got other appointments this morning, including Tal Evans. If you don’t see them now, everybody else will get backed up.”

  “All right,” he said, sighing. “It’s now or never. Bring them on back.”

  He folded his hands and put them on the desk in front of him. Then he tilted his head back and looked at the streaming dust motes. He liked the dust motes better than cloud formations, which never looked like much of anything to him. Maybe that was his problem. He’d always been a concrete thinker. Abstraction was lost on him. But the dust motes, those had something to show him. Today they were swirling like the sun in one of Vincent van Gogh’s landscapes. It was, he decided, possibly a good portent.

  “Ah-hum.”

  He jerked his head forward, looked at his brother Joe and his sister-in-law, Marian, standing in front of his desk, looking expectant.

  “Hey!” he said, a little too cheerfully.

  He stood up and shook Joe’s hand, gave Marian a sketch of a hug. They both sat down in the chairs Janet brought in, declined her offer of coffee.

  “Are you all right?” Marian blurted out, once Janet left the room. “James, you’re not sick, are you? Nothing terminal?”

  “Oh heavens, no,” James said quickly. “Is that what you thought? That I was dying?”

  “It occurred to us,” Joe said. “You know, calling us to see you here at the office and all. Like it was something official.”

  “No, that’s not it at all,” James said. “I’m sorry if I frightened you. It’s just that I’ve been so busy lately, and with all that’s happened, with Weezie and all…there were some things I wanted to discuss with you.”

  “She’s not in any legal trouble, is she?” Joe asked, his face creased with worry. “She told us all that was over with. They charged that Mayhew woman with murder, that’s what we read in the paper.”

  “It’s not Weezie,” James said. “She’s fine. No problem at all there. In fact, I think she and Tal are going to renegotiate the divorce settlement.”

  “Why?” Marian asked.

  “Tal wants to sell Weezie the townhouse,” James said, smiling despite himself. “He’s, uh, had some reversals of fortune lately.”

  “Meaning what?” Joe said bluntly. “Is the son of a bitch broke?”

  “Not quite,” James said. “But the state has issued a stop-work order at the paper plant out at Beaulieu. Some kind of environmental concerns. There are suits and countersuits. Coastal Paper Products is suing Tal’s firm, alleging malfeasance in the firm’s management of the project. In the meantime, all the negative publicity has hurt the company. The work isn’t coming in. And since he’s not currently living in the townhouse, he’s decided that’s an expense he can trim. He called yesterday and offered to sell the house to Weezie.”

  “I’ll bet he’ll try to soak her for it too,” Joe said.

  “Not necessarily,” James said, smiling again. “I think he’s had a late-breaking attack of guilt. Considering the fair market value of the house, the offer he’s made is extremely reasonable. Favorable, even.”

  “Can she afford to buy it?” Marian asked, the look of concern on her face matching Joe’s now. “On what she makes selling junk?”

  “I wouldn’t worry about Weezie,” James said. “She’s really quite a good businesswoman. Now. About why I asked you to meet me here today.”

  He took a deep breath. Said an abbreviated prayer.

  “I’m gay,” he said.

  “We know,” Marian said.

  Joe shifted a little in his chair. He looked down at his shoes, which were neatly polished, and tugged at the top of his socks. He straightened the crease in the khakis Marian had pressed early that morning.

  James looked down at his own socks. They did not need pulling up, so he looked back at his brother and sister-in-law, who were regarding him with some mild curiosity.

  “You know. How long have you known?”

  “Always,” Joe said. “Since you were a kid. I didn’t know what to call it, but I knew you weren’t exactly like everybody else in the family.”

  “You knew I was homosexual?” James could not believe how easily the word slipped from his mouth. He had never, up until now, used it to describe himself. “But how? I didn’t know myself. Not until recently.”

  Joe shrugged. “It was a feeling I had.” He glanced over at his wife. “I never talked to anybody about it. Not even you, Marian. I just didn’t think it was anybody else’s business but yours, James.”

  Marian patted Joe’s hand reassuringly. “You know how he is, James.”

  James felt his jaw dropping. “What about you, Marian? Did you know?”

  “No,” Marian admitted. “Not until that day in the restaurant Weezie took me to. I saw you with that other man, and I think at some point, I realized that he was your, um, friend.” She blushed. “Even though I was pretty drunk that day, I somehow figured things out. And as soon as I figured it out, I also figured out that I was the last one to know.”

  She forced a little smile. “That’s what alcohol does. It clouds things.”

  “Oh.”

  James scooted his chair a little ways from the desk so that he could get a broader picture of his family. They seemed very calm. No hysterics, no accusations. This was not what he had expected.

  “What made you decide to tell us?” Marian asked. “If you don’t mind my asking.”

  “Several things,” James said. “You’re my family. I don’t want to have that kind of a secret from you. It’s not something I’m ashamed of, you know.”

  Joe nodded.

  “And another thing,” James went on quickly. “Phipps Mayhew, the husband of the woman who murdered Caroline DeSantos, has been going around town spreading stories about me. It’s revenge. Because I figured out his crooked dealings with Beaulieu. He’s told the archbishop that I’m gay. Because he thinks that will hurt me financially.”

  “Will it?” Joe asked.

  “I don’t know yet,” James said. “If it does, so be it. There’s plenty of legal work in this town. I own the house, my car’s paid for. I’m not worried about money.”

  “Good,” Marian said. “Listen, James. One of the women in my Christian women’s group, I was telling her you’re a lawyer. She needs a will. I told her to call you.”

  “Thank you,” James said, touched by her gesture.

  “Her name is Naomi,” Marian said proudly. “She used to be a crack head.”

  Since it was full disclosure time, James decided to go all the way. Get everything out in the open. “My friend,” James said, suddenly emboldened. “His name is Jonathan. He’s a lawyer. He works in the district attorney’s office.”

  “A lawyer! How nice,” Marian said, beaming. “Who are his people?”

  Chapter 65

  Merijoy Rucker’s face was flushed with excitement.

  “Weezie, darlin’,” she said, hopping up and down on the doorstep of the carriage house. “I know it’s awful of me to drop by this time of the morning without calling first, but I just had to rush over here to show you something.”

  I had a towel around my wet hair, and another around my still-wet body. It was only 8 A.M.

  “Come on in,” I told her.

  “It’s out in the back of my Suburban,” she said, grinning. “Hurry up and get dressed. If I don’t show it to somebody, I’m just gonna bust.”

  “Give me a minute,” I said, heading upstairs.

  I slid into a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, n
ot bothering with a bra.

  When I came downstairs, she grabbed me by the hand and fairly dragged me outside to where her car was parked in the lane.

  Merijoy flung open the cargo doors to her Suburban. Inside, wrapped in a faded blue quilt, I could see the faint gleam of dark wood.

  “What is it?” I asked, pulling at the edge of the quilt to get a better look.

  “It’s an antique Empire card table,” she said, yanking the quilt away. “And it came right out of Beaulieu. Could you die? Could you just die?”

  With the quilt gone, I could now see Merijoy’s new prize. A cherry-wood card table, with ebony inlay and neatly tapered legs. But it wasn’t the first time I’d seen the card table. Its exact twin was in that antique store in Bluffton.

  I sucked in my breath.

  “What?” Merijoy said, her smile fading. “Is there something wrong with it?”

  “No,” I said quickly. “Let’s take it out so I can get a better look.”

  Together, we eased the table out of the truck.

  It was an exact match of the other table.

  “Where’d you buy this?” I asked.

  She smiled and showed a dimple. “I’m really not supposed to say.”

  “Not even to me?” I asked, faking a pout. “I thought we were friends.”

  “I know,” she said, throwing an arm around my shoulder and giving me a fond squeeze. “Anyway, I’m awful at keeping secrets. Just promise me you won’t tell Randy Rucker. If he finds out what I spent on this little old table, he will have a conniption fit for sure.”

  “Where did you buy it?” I repeated. “Bluffton? A shop called La Juntique?”

  “No,” she said, looking puzzled. “Bluffton? What made you think of there?” She looked around, checking for spies. “I bought it from Lewis Hargreaves,” she whispered. “Could you just die?”

  It took an entire pot of coffee and half of a pan of Sara Lee cheese Danish to pry the whole story out of Merijoy.

  “You know I’ve been busy trying to raise funds to buy Beaulieu back from Coastal Paper Products?” she asked, taking a sip of coffee.

  I nodded. I’d seen stories in the newspapers about the historical society’s efforts to have Beaulieu declared a historic landmark. I’d even been invited to the fund-raising gala Merijoy chaired. It was held at the Telfair Academy. But at five hundred dollars a plate, the price of admission was a little steep for me. And besides, I didn’t have a date. To be truthful, with Daniel out of my life, I barely had a life. Eat. Sleep. Junk. Obsess. The only good development lately had been that Tal had seemingly disappeared off the face of the planet. The townhouse was empty, and I was sleeping a lot better. But alone.

  “Lewis Hargreaves contributed a thousand dollars to my fund-raising campaign,” Merijoy said excitedly. “So, naturally, I called him up to thank him. And that’s when he mentioned that he might have a piece I’d be interested in acquiring. For when we turn Beaulieu into a house museum.”

  “The card table?” I asked.

  “Lewis told me he bought quite a few nice pieces from the estate sale. And I remembered that cupboard you wanted so badly.”

  I felt my pulse quicken. “The Moses Weed cupboard? Did he offer to sell it to you?”

  “No,” she said. “I asked about it, and he acted like he didn’t know what I was talking about. Which I thought was odd. Because we both saw him that day, at Miss Anna Ruby’s memorial, circling around and sniffing at it like a dog in heat.”

  “Very odd,” I said dryly.

  “Anyway,” she went on, “he sort of hemmed and hawed, and said he had a client ready to buy all the pieces, but he hated to see them go out of Savannah. Because they were made here,” she said.

  “How noble of Lewis. How preservation-minded,” I said.

  “I practically had to beg to see this piece,” she said. “But he called late last night. Very mysterious. Said if I got over to his shop first thing this morning, he would ‘entertain an offer’ for this card table. Did you ever?”

  “I never.”

  “I fell in love as soon as I saw it,” Merijoy said. “Now tell the truth, Weezie, do you think fifteen thousand was too much to pay?”

  I nearly spit out my coffee.

  “You paid fifteen thousand for that card table?”

  Her face fell. “Was it too much? I thought, since I’m going to donate it to the house museum, it would be tax-deductible and all. And Lewis said it was made on the premises. Before the Civil War. And he had another buyer in the wings, he said. Somebody from Charleston. I just closed my eyes and wrote the check. I took the money out of my little investment account. Randy Rucker will kill me when he finds out.”

  My mind was racing. Had Hargreaves really sold her the piece I’d seen in Bluffton? Or had he sold Merijoy Rucker one of his own carefully manufactured copies?

  “It’s a beautiful piece of furniture,” I said finally. “And it would be wonderful to have family pieces in the house, once you’re able to buy Beaulieu.”

  “That’s what I thought,” Merijoy said happily.

  “One thing that’s important though,” I said, hesitating. “A lot of that table’s worth is based on its provenance. You have to be able to prove it came out of Beaulieu. Otherwise, it’s just another nice piece of nineteenth-century furniture.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” Merijoy said. “Lewis told me all about the provenance. He swore me to secrecy, but he finally admitted that horrible Phipps Mayhew let him buy a select few pieces out of Beaulieu before the estate sale. He gave me a copy of the bill of sale and everything.”

  “Good,” I said thoughtfully. “Hang on to that piece of paper, Merijoy. And if I were you, I’d just keep quiet, for now, about where you bought that table. Until the society has the funds raised to buy the house.”

  “Great idea,” she said, beaming. “I knew you’d love that table as much as I do. And nobody else in Savannah could appreciate it as much as we do.”

  “You’re absolutely right,” I told her.

  Half an hour later I was on the road to Bluffton. It was late September, still summer, really, in Savannah, but in places I could see where the marsh grasses were starting to turn copper and gold, and the usual shroud of humidity had lifted somewhat. I left the truck’s windows rolled down, and Jethro hung his head out the window to enjoy the feel of the cool air on his pelt.

  La Juntique had a Closed sign on the door. It was just barely ten o’clock, but there was a van parked in the lot behind the shop, and I could see through the front window that a light had been turned on inside.

  I bit my lip but pounded on the door.

  “Hello?” I called loudly. “Anybody around?”

  Another light came on in the front of the shop, and a middle-aged woman came hurrying toward the door. She was dressed in paint-spattered jeans and a blue work shirt and looked annoyed.

  “We’re closed,” she said loudly. “Come back at noon.”

  “Please?” I asked, smiling prettily. “I saw a piece in here last month and I’ve just been dying to find out if you still have it. I drove all the way over from Savannah to check on it.”

  She shook her head but unlocked the door. “Which piece were you interested in?”

  “It was an Empire card table. Cherry. With ebony inlay.”

  I felt her hand close firmly on my arm.

  “Were you the woman pestering my niece about that table?”

  Her mouth was pressed into a grim line.

  “I asked her to call you and let you know I was interested in it. I left my card, but you never called me. And I’m more interested in it now than ever.”

  She put her hands on her hips. “Why? What’s so special about that table?”

  “I saw that same table just this morning. In Savannah. A friend told me she paid an antique dealer there quite a lot of money for it. She’s even got the original bill of sale.”

  “No,” she said flatly. “That’s not possible. I sold it to a couple from
California. It was shipped the day after you saw it.”

  I crossed my fingers and toes. “If it wasn’t that exact table, it was a really good copy. But the dealer gave my friend a copy of the original bill of sale. It came out of an old plantation house in Savannah. Beaulieu.”

  Her lips twitched. “What are you trying to pull? The table I bought came out of Beaulieu. And I have a copy of the original bill of sale too.”

  “Your name is Liz. Liz Fuller, right?”

  “Right. Who are you?”

  “I’m a picker. My name is Eloise Foley, but everybody calls me Weezie. And I’ll tell you what I think is going on, Liz. I think somebody’s making copies and selling them as the real deal. And I think the somebody’s name is Lewis Hargreaves. You bought your table from him, didn’t you?”

  She sighed and ran her hands through her hair. It was short, dark hair, frosted with paint spatters that matched the ones on her jeans.

  “Look around here,” she said, gesturing to the crowded aisles brimming with knickknacks, crystal, and china. “I’m a junk shop, masquerading as an antique mall. I sell Depression glass, Fiesta ware, discontinued Beanie Babies. Nothing big. I paid the guy five thousand dollars for that table. It’s the most expensive piece I’ve ever handled. A once-in-a-lifetime deal.”

  She shook her head. “I should have known better. Guess I just got greedy. That couple stopped in here the same day I put it in the shop. The Follachios. They paid nine thousand for it, without batting an eyelash.”

  “Hargreaves gave you all the provenance?”

  “Oh yes,” she said bitterly. “I’d never met him before, but I knew his reputation. Big wheeler-dealer. He threw out the bait, and I bit. Hard.”

  “If you didn’t know him, how did he approach you?” I asked.

  “He didn’t,” Liz said. “I was working here late one night. Refinishing an oak dresser. A young gal came in, asked if the owner was around. Then she asked if I ever bought antiques. From estates. She said she had some pieces from an old plantation house in Savannah. She had them in a van, out in the parking lot. I took one look, latched onto the card table. I knew it was something special.”