Sunset in Old Savannah

by Mary Ellis

  Beth was speechless. All the way back to Savannah, she tried to figure out if Curtis just delivered an Oscar-worthy performance or if she just muddied up already murky water. When she reached the parking lot for the Homewood Riverfront Suites, she was no closer to an answer than when she left.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Michael glanced at his watch and then at the clock on his nightstand, just in case one of them was wrong about it being three o’clock. He hadn’t heard from Beth in hours, despite having called and left a message on her voice mail and then sending two texts.

  The longer he waited, the more annoyed he became.

  Since when did partners not tell each other what leads they were following? She could have run into a psychopathic killer, crossed paths with one of the rejected job applicants, or gotten a flat tire. A simple phone call would stop the continuous loop of horror scenes running through his mind.

  He already knew more about Curtis Doyle than anyone other than his wife—and he probably knew a few tidbits even Amy Doyle wasn’t aware of. Michael bounced his stress ball off the wall just as someone knocked on his door.

  “Are you in there, partner? It’s me.” A contrite voice permeated the reinforced steel.

  “Me who?” he demanded.

  “Beth. Please open up. I come bearing snacks.”

  When Michael yanked open the door, she marched in with two overflowing grocery bags. “By all means, make yourself comfortable.” He pointed at the couch.

  “I brought chips, pretzels, salsa, Snapple, Coke, and Dr Pepper.” Beth dumped the contents across the coffee table.

  “I’ve already eaten, but I am curious about today’s adventure. Which lead were you following?” He settled in the room’s sole upholstered chair.

  Beth grabbed a stack of napkins from the counter and ripped open the barbecue potato chips. She took a liberal handful from the bag. “I drove to Jessup, a town ninety minutes from here, to visit Curtis Doyle. I would have asked you to join me, but you were training for your he-man competition.”

  Michael laced his fingers behind his head. “If time was of the essence, I could have come straight back and been ready within an hour. Even when I’m training, I still answer the phone and read my texts.” He let his words hang in the air.

  Beth swallowed a mouthful of chips. “You’re right. I should have called or sent a message. Truth is, I wanted to sort things out before I talked to anyone else.” She reached for another handful.

  “Why don’t you start at the beginning?” Michael opened a Coke, trying to relax.

  “I called Detective Rossi this morning with the information I learned from Evelyn.”

  “Before you even shared it with me?” His attempt at relaxation was short lived.

  “Yes. I wanted to point Rossi in the right direction. But as soon as I did, I got a bad feeling about the whole idea.” Beth reached for the chips bag while still chewing her last batch.

  Michael pulled the bag from her hand. “What’s going on here? You never power-munch like this.”

  “I’m drowning my sorrows in potatoes. This is what people do who don’t drink—they overindulge in junk food until they founder.” Beth dropped her chin. “I plan to eat myself sick.”

  Michael placed a hand on her shoulder. “Tell me the story from the beginning. Then maybe I can help you.”

  Beth took a swig of Coke and launched into a tale that included conversations with Evelyn Doyle, Detective Rossi, and Curtis Doyle in the front yard of his home. Michael had a hard time keeping the three conversations separate. Beth’s tale ended with Doyle being hauled away in a Tybee Island patrol car while insisting Evelyn had it wrong—he never would have hurt Lamar in a million years.

  “Except it wasn’t Mrs. Doyle who thought Curtis was a murderer,” Michael said when Beth finally finished her tale.

  “No, it was me,” she wailed. “And now I’m not so sure. I should have waited until we had a chance to look into Curtis.”

  “Wasn’t that the busywork you gave me to do?” It was a rhetorical question, but Beth answered it anyway.

  “It wasn’t busywork. I wanted to know, but then I let the situation careen out of control. I’m obsessed with getting Evelyn off the hook for murder.” She pressed her fingertips to her eyelids. “I’m supposed to be the veteran detective, yet I’ve been acting like a brand-new rookie.”

  “Hey, I wanted to point that out, and you beat me to the punch.” Michael hoped his teasing would lighten the mood.

  “Give me that bag of chips. This is one train wreck I won’t be crawling away from. At least you won’t have to worry about dating your partner when Nate gets done with me.”

  Michael pulled three chips from the bag and placed them on her napkin. “This is all you get, Kirby. I’m staging an intervention. After you eat, we’ll figure out what to do.”

  One by one she chewed and swallowed. Then she wiped her hands and mouth and sighed. “Don’t you get it? Evelyn trusted me with an intimate family secret that I promptly shared with Rossi. I’m so ashamed of myself. Tell me what you found out.”

  “I discovered Curtis’s years of money mismanagement, including the world’s lowest credit score. Every credit card they ever had was maxed out and canceled. Then on three occasions a mysterious influx of cash saved the family’s cable TV and the daughter’s ballet lessons, not to mention the roof over their heads. No record that the money came from Lamar. I would be shocked if the IRS wasn’t watching Curtis for possible money laundering.”

  “Lamar promised to keep quiet. Hard to imagine Amy Doyle was that naive about finances, but I guess some women don’t want to take responsibility.”

  “That would never be you, Beth.”

  “Nope. I prefer to remain oblivious in other ways.” When she met his gaze, her eyes were filled with pain. “I should have consulted you long before this, but what should I do now? What if it turns out Curtis had nothing to do with his brother’s murder? I’ll have betrayed Evelyn’s trust for no good reason.”

  “You have to tell her the truth.”

  “I know, but not yet. First, I need to figure out where Curtis was the night Lamar died.”

  Michael recapped his drink and rose to his feet. “I’ll leave you to your figuring and the rest of the snacks, if you still need them.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Nate called me about a small case that should only take one or two days.”

  “What kind of case? Do you want me to come with you?” Beth sounded like a frightened child.

  “One of Mrs. Baer’s elderly friends lost her poodle. It dug a hole under the backyard fence and escaped five days ago. The poor woman is upset because none of the local shelters have found him, so she hired Price Investigations.”

  “To track down a lost dog?”

  “I shall go valiantly wherever the boss sends me.” Michael bit back his smile. “I already called the lady’s vet. Unbeknownst to her, the dog was chipped at the original shelter where it came from. When the vet scanned the databases, he found the dog on Hilton Head.”

  “The dog walked all that way?”

  “Not quite. Some couple picked him up along the highway and took him to their vet to be checked out.” Michael finished the rest of his drink. “I’m on my way there to pick up Harold and return him to our client. This might be the shortest case in the history of Price Investigations. While I’m gone, you can follow up with our protégé.”

  “You still trust me to train Kaitlyn?”

  “Of course I do. One mistake doesn’t make you a bad PI.”

  “Thanks, Michael. I’ll have my phone handy in case you need advice with Harold.” Beth leaned her head back and stared at the ceiling. “Who knew you had dog whispering in your long list of talents?”

  Michael closed the door behind him. It seemed as though Beth forgot she was in his room. But after her ordeal in Jessup, Michael saw no reason to tell her.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Kaitlyn couldn’t wait to finis
h her report on the Blankenship investigation for the Industrial Commission. With her eyewitness account and videotaped evidence, the case would be sent for review by her supervisor and then passed to their legal team. Industrial Commission lawyers would show the evidence to Mr. Blankenship’s lawyer and ask if they still wished to proceed with the petition for permanent total disability. If Blankenship decided to go ahead and a court of law found him ineligible, the State of Georgia could file fraud charges. That rarely happened in cases of such blatant falsified complaints. Once the attorney pointed out the available options, such as a partial disability award, along with job retraining provided by the Bureau of Worker’s Compensation, the claimant usually made the right decision.

  Kaitlyn spent the last hour of her workday on the phone with her former boss in Florida. Vicky Stephens wasn’t just the woman responsible for her transfer to the Georgia bureau, she was her mentor, confidant, and friend—something Kaitlyn had few of. It took quite a bit of convincing before Vicky agreed that working as an independent PI was a good idea.

  “Savannah is too close to Pensacola, Kaitlyn. It would be better to keep moving around. And a small firm will make your past their business, especially with partners close to your age.”

  Kaitlyn quickly put her friend’s concerns to rest. A professional PI would have the best shot at covering her tracks in the digital world of nonexistent privacy. At the moment, however, it wasn’t the subterfuge with Michael and Beth she had to worry about. She first had to convince the Tanaka siblings she was fully trained after four scant hours of sushi making.

  Kaitlyn walked into Tanaka’s Culinary Creations at ten till four for her second day of undercover work. The two twentysomethings behind the counter peered at her with thinly veiled disdain.

  Their mother greeted her warmly. “Hi, Kate. Okay that I call you that?” Mrs. Tanaka handed her a starched white tunic on a hanger. The required dress code was black, loose-flowing slacks and a black T-shirt. A white tunic would be provided at the start of each shift to maintain a professional appearance among all employees.

  “Hi, Mrs. Tanaka. Yes, Kate is fine.” Kaitlyn grinned enthusiastically at her new coworkers.

  “This is my son, Jason, and my daughter, Amy.” Mrs. Tanaka hooked her thumb over her shoulder. To them she said, “This is Kate. You be nice to her or I’ll take a stick to you.” Mama Tanaka moved toward the door.

  “Look, Mom, if your wrist hurts that bad, I’ll be happy to make the rolls for tomorrow.” Amy dropped her voice, but it was still easily heard by Kaitlyn. “There’s no need to hire somebody else. Cousin Joan will also help out if she doesn’t have night classes.”

  Mrs. Tanaka turned on one high heel. “I already told you, Amy, that Kaitlyn is my yoga friend’s daughter. She just moved here and ran out of money. She needs a job.”

  “Does she even know how to make Asian food?” Amy arched a brow as her gaze landed on Kaitlyn.

  “Yes. I taught her what she needs to know yesterday.” Mrs. Tanaka pivoted toward her son. “You have anything to say? Now’s the time!”

  Jason held up his hands in surrender. “Nope. I’m good, Ma.”

  The bell over the entrance jingled, signaling customers. “Good. Then everybody get to work.” Mrs. Tanaka marched out the door to her husband’s car, which stood idling by the curb.

  Amy rolled her eyes the moment her mother left the building.

  “I’ll go wash and start the sushi rolls.” Kaitlyn carried her tunic into the restroom. On her way back to the kitchen, Amy blocked her path.

  “I’m sorry. You’re probably thinking I’m a total jerk, but my mother has made lots of bad employment decisions. The last person she hired stayed only one day. Then the man cleaned out the cash register on his way out.”

  “I promise to keep my fingers out of the till.” Kaitlyn’s tone turned frosty.

  “I didn’t mean to impugn your integrity, but it usually works out better when Dad makes the business decisions.”

  “No offense taken. Now if you’ll let me get past,” Kaitlyn murmured.

  Amy stepped to the side with a sheepish expression. “I’ll be waiting tables and handling phone orders. Jason runs the cash register and updates the computer during our slow periods. Just holler if you need anything.”

  “You can count on it.” Kaitlyn tightened the belt on her tunic.

  “My yoga friend’s daughter”? She vaguely remembered the story Mrs. Tanaka had concocted during yesterday’s training session. Kaitlyn hadn’t planned on an elaborate ruse to explain her presence. Couldn’t Mrs. Tanaka hire whom she wanted without consulting her children? She would have a hard enough time as a culinary master without dealing with surly employees, unhappy because she took work from Cousin Joan.

  She’d taken explicit notes about the maki sushi rolls she would be making—those with nori, which was roasted seaweed, on the outside and the vinegared rice and other ingredients on the inside. Mrs. Tanaka had her practice rolling thin rolls, hosomaki, which contained one ingredient, such as raw crab or fish, and medium rolls, called chumaki, containing two ingredients, such as cucumber and pickled plum or eel. When Mrs. Tanaka mentioned “toro and scallion” was a two-ingredient local favorite, Kaitlyn made the mistake of asking what “toro” was.

  “Chopped tuna belly,” answered Mrs. Tanaka without batting an eyelash.

  Kaitlyn didn’t inquire about the origin of ingredients from that point on. Mrs. Tanaka would continue to make the thick rolls, called futomaki, those containing four or five ingredients, along with the Western-style rolls, such as California, dragon, rainbow, and caterpillar, which were often rolled inside out. And the Tanakas would continue to make the exotic types, often done the traditional Japanese way with fermented rice.

  Kaitlyn placed today’s fresh seafood on clean sheets of parchment paper and started chopping the cucumbers, scallions, and other vegetables. Mr. Tanaka had already made the rice in a large batch in the steamer. In keeping with the health-consciousness of their patrons, the Tanakas used organic brown rice instead of traditional white short-grain. Kaitlyn then laid out five sheets of nori she would cut into strips, a bowl of vinegared water for hand dipping, soy sauce, wasabi, and pickled ginger.

  Once she had all her kitchen tools, she whispered a prayer and started cutting, scooping, and rolling on a bamboo mat. After her eighth or ninth roll, her shoulders relaxed and her back straightened. As her mentor explained, it was all in the wrist action, but nimble fingers helped too. With New Age music on the satellite radio station and no one interrupting her concentration, Kaitlyn started to unwind. This could be an easy assignment after all.

  A large rectangular window separated the prep kitchen from the public area of refrigerated displays, soft drink coolers, counter seating, and tables. Customers were able to see what went on behind the glass, while Kaitlyn could watch Jason sitting at his cash register and Amy flitting around like a hummingbird between the tables inside and out. The supper crowd was far lighter than at lunch, yet the courtyard remained full for the next two hours. Jason also rang up the take-out orders.

  Around six thirty, Amy trudged into the kitchen with a tote filled with dirty dishes. “How’s it going? Run into any problems?” She flashed a smile as she loaded plates and cups into the commercial dishwasher.

  “None that I’m aware of.” Kaitlyn made eye contact only briefly. “We won’t know until tomorrow when customers try rolls made by a half-German, half-Dutch wannabe.”

  Amy finished loading, washed her hands, and walked over to inspect. “Well, they sure look good—exactly the same as my mother’s. How many did you do?”

  Kaitlyn didn’t answer until she finished cutting her current roll into pieces. “Close to eighty. I was afraid to count until the end of my shift.”

  “Don’t worry about the number. If you don’t meet quota, my aunt can make more when she gets here tomorrow. She starts work at eight and leaves at one.” Amy pulled up a tall stool.

  “I still have another h
our and a half in my shift.” Kaitlyn focused on the calamari.

  “Tuesday is usually our slow night, so Jason and I close up early.”

  Kaitlyn lifted her chin and frowned. “Don’t you still have customers outside?”

  “Nope. They’re all gone. I closed up the courtyard. This isn’t like a suburban or mall restaurant. We cater to businesspeople in town from nine to five. They might grab something after work or to take home, but by seven o’clock we’re usually deader than a doornail.”

  “It’s odd, then, that your mom hired me to work until eight.” Kaitlyn continued rolling sushi as though her life depended on it.

  Amy dragged her stool to the worktable. “Look, Kate, you and I got off on the wrong foot. Jason and I have recently been trying to coax our parents into the current century. I’m afraid you landed in my crosshairs, and I apologize for that.”

  Kaitlyn placed a perfectly rolled creation with wasabi and tuna on a tray. “Seems to me that if this is your parents’ restaurant, they should be able to run things their way.”

  “Absolutely, especially since I’m just taking a break between undergrad and graduate classes, and Jason is waiting to hear if he got into law school.” Amy popped an oyster that had fallen to the side into her mouth. “But my parents don’t realize how incredibly well they have done. They have saved and invested for years, not only in the restaurant, but with several different financial planners. They don’t need to work at all, let alone this hard.”

  Kaitlyn cocked her head to the side. Considering her parents died long ago, she had little background to call upon, but that didn’t stop her from forming an opinion. “From what I hear, if people enjoy the work, they should keep working even if they don’t need the money.”

  “Jason and I don’t want them to retire. We just want them to ease up on their extreme austerity program.”

  “If you need a raise, why don’t you just ask for one?”

  Amy shook her head. “I don’t need more than minimum wage. As long as Jason and I are in school, our parents pay all our bills. This isn’t about us.”