Change of Heart

by Jenna Bennett

  Did he have a fitting for a cowboy costume? Or did he have a bunch of British friends he was planning to hang out with? Or maybe Chaps was a place?

  I booted up the computer and did an internet search. And bingo: Chaps was located on Church Street, on the opposite side of downtown from where I lived, near the hospitals and universities. Opening hours, 7 PM to 4 AM. Not just a place then, but a nightclub.

  They weren’t open on Mondays. Bummer. I made a mental note to visit tomorrow. Maybe Tim would be there. Or maybe I’d find someone who’d seen him on Friday and could tell me whether he’d been alone.

  “Any word from Tim?” I asked Brittany on my way through the lobby.

  She shook her head. “That Mrs. Armstrong called, though. The widow.”

  I slowed my steps. “What did she want?”

  Brittany shrugged, her huge earrings—big enough to fit around my upper arm—jingling. “She just said she needed to talk to Tim. But his voicemail is full. I said I’d give him the message.”

  “When?”

  “When he comes in,” Brittany said, as if it were obvious.

  “When do you think that might be?”

  But Brittany had no idea. Of course not. Unlike me, however, that didn’t seem to bother her.

  “Why didn’t you give the call to Heidi?” Heidi is by way of being Tim’s assistant. She was Brenda’s dogsbody before Brenda was killed, and then Tim more or less took her over. Or so I’d thought, anyway.

  “She wasn’t here,” Brittany said.

  She hadn’t been here for the meeting, either. I’d been so focused on Tim that it was only now that I realized that Heidi had been missing, as well. Did that mean something?

  “Did you call her?”

  Brittany shrugged.

  I sighed and put out a hand. “Give me the number.”

  “Why?”

  “Because someone has to call Mrs. Armstrong. Tim can’t, since he’s not here and probably won’t call to get the message. Heidi won’t be back until tomorrow, if then. And Mrs. Armstrong shouldn’t have to worry about her house right now. She just lost her husband.”

  Brittany hesitated.

  “You can call her back yourself,” I said. “Find out what she wants. Take care of it. Or you can get one of the other agents to do it. Just as long as someone does. But I’m standing right here, offering. And I spoke to her yesterday. You may as well let me take care of it.”

  “Fine,” Brittany said and handed me the message slip.

  I thanked her as graciously as I could and headed for the back door and the parking lot.

  Once in the car, I pulled out my phone. There’d been no call or text from Rafe, of course, and I was damned if I was going to call him again. And if he thought he could come home tonight and attempt to snuggle up to me without telling me exactly where he’d been and what he’d been doing this afternoon, he had another think coming.

  I thought I might get a voice message, but Mrs. Armstrong answered on what was almost the first ring. “This is Erin.”

  “This is Savannah Martin,” I said. “From LB&A? We spoke yesterday. At the... at your house.”

  There was a beat of silence. I figured she must have expected someone else.

  Then her voice came back. “Of course. What can I do for you?”

  “I understand you called the office looking for Tim,” I said. “I thought maybe I’d be able to help you instead.”

  There was another pause while she, apparently, thought about it. “Where’s Tim?”

  “We’re not sure,” I admitted. “He didn’t come to work today, and he’s not answering his phone or his door. We’re not sure what’s going on.”

  “I see,” Erin said. After another second she added, “I guess you could help me.”

  “I’ll do my best. What do you need help with?”

  “It’s the house,” Erin said, just as a call-waiting buzz echoed down the line. I took the phone away from my ear—what if it was Rafe?—but I saw nothing. By the time I’d put it back, Erin was excusing herself. “...been waiting for this call from my brother. I’ll call you back in a few minutes.”

  She’d disconnected before I could offer to hold.

  “Of course,” I told the silent phone and put the car in gear.

  Part of me didn’t expect her to call back, but she did. And picked up the conversation where we’d left off, just as if it had been a minute or two instead of thirty.

  “Sorry about that.”

  “No problem,” I said. By now I’d gotten home, and was on my way up the stairs to the apartment. I’d parked on the street, since I thought I might be required to go back out again, and I wanted to be prepared. I hadn’t seen any sign of Rafe’s Harley, which only served to make me more annoyed.

  “I’d like to talk to someone about the house. Now that Brian is... I mean, after what happened...” She trailed off, took another breath, and started again. “With everything else that’s going on, I think maybe it would be best if I didn’t try to sell the house right now.”

  “Of course.” It was totally understandable, in fact. She certainly had plenty of other things to think about. “I’d be happy to meet with you and discuss the options.”

  “Oh.” She sounded a bit taken aback. Maybe she’d thought it would be a more difficult task to accomplish. “Now?”

  “If you want. Or later.”

  “I’m at work,” Erin said. “Can we put it off until tonight?”

  Sure. I’m a realtor; I work 24/7, whenever someone wants me. Usually that’s evenings and weekends. On the flipside, I wasn’t sure I’d be working if my husband had been murdered two days ago, but to each their own, I guess. Maybe she found it helped her keep her mind off things. “What time works for you?”

  She hesitated. “Six thirty?”

  “That’s fine.” We arranged to meet at her house rather than my office to make it easy for her—and because I hadn’t had a chance to see much of it the other day, and I was curious—and then I slipped the phone into my pocket and the key in the lock of the apartment door and let myself in.

  The apartment was empty, of course. I had assumed it would be, but that didn’t make it any less annoying.

  Where the hell—heck—was he?

  I’d missed lunch, and by now I was hungry, so I made myself a snack of Brie and crackers. Then I called Tamara Grimaldi. “Do you know where Rafe is?”

  “No,” the detective said, “why?”

  “He isn’t where he’s supposed to be. He isn’t answering his phone and he didn’t tell me he was planning to leave.”

  “Maybe he’s visiting his grandmother,” Grimaldi said.

  Maybe. I hadn’t thought about that. If he were, he probably wouldn’t interrupt the visit to talk to me. Mrs. Jenkins is a bit touched in the head. Some of the time she has no idea who he is. Sometimes she thinks he’s his father Tyrell, whom Old Jim Collier killed more than thirty years ago, and that I’m LaDonna, pregnant with Rafe. Other times she’s perfectly lucid and knows exactly who we both are and what’s going on. If this was one of those times, it was no wonder he’d want to talk to her while she actually recognized him.

  “Any news on the sheets?”

  “It’s too soon,” Grimaldi said. “I dropped them off at the lab. They do match the sheet in question in appearance and scent.”

  “Scent?”

  “Laundry detergent. As if they were washed together.”

  Ah. I wouldn’t have thought of that, which is why she’s the detective and I’m the real estate agent, I guess. “I’m meeting Mrs. Armstrong at six thirty,” I said. “She wants to talk about taking her house off the market.”

  “Hmm.”

  “You can’t blame her. With everything that’s going on, I’m sure she has more important things to worry about than making sure the house looks neat and tidy for showings.”

  “Who said anything about blaming her?” the detective asked blandly. “I’m sure she has more important things to think about,
too.”

  “Do you suspect her?”

  “I suspect everyone.”

  I huffed. “Give me a break. I’m going over to this woman’s house tonight. Alone, since my boyfriend is nowhere to be found. If I’m going to meet someone who might decide to stab me if I say the wrong thing, I’d like to know about it.”

  “Even if she killed her husband,” Grimaldi answered, “and I’m not saying she did, she probably wouldn’t kill you.”

  Probably? “That’s not very encouraging.”

  Grimaldi sighed. “According to the M.E.’s findings, Mr. Armstrong was killed sometime between midnight and 2AM on Friday night, or more accurately, early Saturday. Mrs. Armstrong says she was in bed at that time. She can’t prove it, but most people can’t when they sleep alone. If she had an alibi for that time, it would actually be more suspicious.”

  “Because it would mean she’d made sure not to be alone. At one in the morning.” When most people were alone, unless they were married or involved.

  “That’s right. The security system was armed at 11:30 and wasn’t disarmed until the next morning. She might have gotten around that—the attic windows aren’t connected—but it’s difficult to imagine that she climbed out and down.”

  Indeed it was. I had met Erin Armstrong, and she hadn’t struck me as a gymnast. A tennis player, yes, but not a gymnast.

  “And she spoke to her brother just before 1AM,” Grimaldi added,”which shows on her call log. She was on her cell phone, so it doesn’t prove she was at home when she took the call, but he confirms that he spoke to her.”

  “That’s rather late to be talking to someone, isn’t it?”

  “The brother lives in Los Angeles,” Grimaldi said. “Where Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong lived until two years ago, as well.”

  “An actor?”

  She made a confirming sort of sound.

  That explained it, then. Midnight here is only ten o’clock there. “Any idea where Brian was murdered?”

  “Not at the house in East Nashville,” Grimaldi said. “CSI went over it. There was no blood. And as many times as Mr. Armstrong was stabbed, there would have been something.”

  “Urk,” I said, but I didn’t argue.

  “Nor was he killed at his own apartment. CSI have been over both. He was in someone else’s bed when he was killed, and he was wrapped in someone else’s sheet.”

  A sheet that matched the set we found in Tim’s house. A set with the flat sheet missing. “Have you sent CSI over to Tim’s house yet?”

  “I’m waiting for court approval,” Grimaldi said. “Just because I need it done, doesn’t mean I’m free to invade people’s privacy. Mr. Briggs’s house is private property. I can’t just send a forensic team into it without permission, no matter how much I may want to.”

  “Can you just walk into someone’s house without permission?”

  “Of course not,” Grimaldi said, offended. “That’s why I asked you whether you were afraid for Mr. Briggs’s safety. If there’s concern about someone’s safety and wellbeing, there’s probable cause.”

  “We checked the bedroom, though. There was no sign of blood. And I’m sure it would have been hard to get out of that baby blue shag carpet.”

  “The downstairs bedroom had hardwood floors. No carpet at all. Not even an area rug. I don’t know about you, but that struck me as interesting.”

  It hadn’t struck me as interesting. It hadn’t struck me at all. It had escaped my notice. “Oops,” I said.

  “You were busy in the office,” Grimaldi answered magnanimously. “And I don’t expect you to notice things like that.”

  “Because I’m stupid?”

  “Because it isn’t your job. Not because you’re stupid.”

  “I feel stupid,” I said. “I can’t believe Rafe’s gone again. Why is he doing this to me?”

  “I don’t think he’s doing anything to you, Ms. Martin. He’s probably just visiting his grandmother. Or a friend. His life is different from what it used to be. It’s understandable that he’d be bored.”

  “I don’t want him to be bored,” I said.

  “I know that. So does he. But that doesn’t change the fact that he is.”

  “I’m afraid he’ll get bored with me.”

  “It isn’t you,” Grimaldi said. “He loves you.”

  He did. He’d told me so. He might even have told her so. And I believed him. I just doubted it at times. It helped to hear someone else tell me. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t mention it. Let me know if anything happens tonight you think I should know about.”

  I said I would, and we hung up. And because I had the phone in my hand anyway, I dialed my brother’s number in Sweetwater.

  “Savannah?” he said when he answered. “Something wrong?”

  “Nothing. Everything’s fine.”

  I heard him switch the phone to his other ear. “Collier treating you OK?”

  “Why?” Did he know something I didn’t?

  “No reason,” Dix said. “Just checking. Are you sure nothing’s wrong?”

  I sighed. “I don’t think anything’s wrong. The problem is, he’s not talking to me.”

  “At all?”

  “Of course not ‘at all.’ Don’t be ridiculous.”

  I told him what had happened this weekend, and what was going on now. “I’m not sure I can trust what he told me. What if the TBI thing was just something he made up so I wouldn’t worry?”

  “Where do you think he is?”

  “I don’t know. That’s the problem.” I waited for him to say something, and when he didn’t, I added, “He hasn’t told you anything, has he?”

  “No,” Dix said. “We’re not on those terms.”

  “Speaking terms?”

  “We speak when we meet. But he doesn’t tell me his secrets.”

  “But you get along, right?”

  “Better than I thought we would,” Dix admitted. “Why do you ask?”

  “Mother called me this morning. To ask whether I’m coming to Abigail’s birthday.”

  “Oh,” Dix said. “It’s OK if you can’t make it, sis. I know you’re in a tough situation.”

  “But I shouldn’t be!” My voice was shrill, and I had to stop and take a breath before I could continue. “We’re all adults, and I have the right to live my own life. It’s unfair that I should have choose between my family and my boyfriend!”

  “You don’t have to choose between your family and your boyfriend,” Dix said.

  “How do you figure that? Mother hates him!”

  “I wouldn’t put it quite that strongly,” Dix said judiciously. I would, but I kept quiet. “She just thinks you could have done better.”

  “I think I couldn’t.”

  “That’s because you know him. She doesn’t.”

  Obviously. “That’s not going to change, though, Dix. She doesn’t want to get to know him, and she makes it very clear.”

  “That’s her loss,” Dix said, “but it doesn’t mean you have to miss out. You can come to Abigail’s party.”

  “I know I can. I talked to him about it, and he said it would be fine if I went.”

  “You can come to Abigail’s party,” Dix repeated, “and bring him. If mother doesn’t like it, that’s mother’s problem.”

  “It’s your problem, if she refuses to be under the same roof with him.”

  “She won’t,” Dix said. “She allowed him under her own roof at Christmas. The two of you were upstairs in your room all night, and probably not sleeping either. She didn’t object.”

  “It was Christmas. And I’m sure she knew that if she asked him to leave, I would leave too.”

  “No doubt,” Dix agreed. “But you’re both welcome at Abigail’s party.”

  “I appreciate that. I just don’t think he wants to come.”

  “Afraid mother’s going to eat him?”

  I shrugged, not that he could see me. “I think he just doesn’t want the hassle. And he wan
ts me to be happy. Things get tense when he’s around my family. So he stays away to make things easier.”

  “He’ll have to stop doing that,” Dix said. “Or things are never going to get better.”

  “I’m aware of that. But it isn’t comfortable for him either. Mother is rude to him. In the politest way possible. And I don’t want to make him feel bad.”

  “He’s a big boy,” Dix said. “He can take care of himself.”

  He was. He could. And he was choosing to stay away from my mother. Maybe that was his way of accomplishing the task. Maybe I should just leave well enough alone until he was ready. Assuming he got back. But I didn’t want to think about that. So I said, “I saw Grimaldi today.”

  There was a beat. “Did you?” Dix said.

  “What’s going on with the two of you?”

  The response was quick. “Nothing.” Maybe a touch too quick.

  “She bought your daughters Police Barbies for Christmas.”

  “We’re friends,” Dix said.

  “That’s something.”

  He didn’t answer, and I added, “When was the last time you saw her?”

  “In person?”

  “Yes, in person. Unless you see her in your dreams.”

  “No,” Dix said. “We had lunch a couple of weeks ago.”

  My eyebrows crept up my forehead. “You came to Nashville and you didn’t call me?”

  “I was busy,” my brother said.

  “Is she coming to the party?”

  “No,” Dix said. “She’s working.”

  “How do you know? Did you invite her?”

  “No.”

  “Afraid mother’s going to eat her?”

  He didn’t answer. “She had a new case. Something about a naked guy in a park.”

  I knew all about the naked guy in the park, but it was probably better if I didn’t say so. But it did remind me— “I should go. I have an appointment.”

  “Sure,” Dix said. “Thanks for calling.”

  “I’ll talk to Rafe about the party. If he doesn’t want to come, I’ll drive down by myself.” Abigail was my niece, after all, and Dix my brother. I shouldn’t miss her birthday, especially now that Sheila was gone. And if Rafe didn’t want to come with me... well, as Dix had said about mother, that was his loss.

  “I’ll let Abigail know you’ll be there,” Dix said. “See you Friday.”