As we traveled down Fourth Avenue at a pretty good clip, I reflected that this must be where he had spent so much of his time recently. Hanging out with a stripper. It was too much of a coincidence otherwise. He’d spent most of the weekend with her—while he’d told me he’d been helping Wendell move a witness; hah!—and for the past three days, he’d left the house on Potsdam Street in the afternoon, presumably to go pick her up. And go God knew where with her.
The where was answered just a few minutes later, when the bike rolled up in front of a small brick building in the Wedgewood/Houston neighborhood. Technically it was a house, a smallish early mid-century ranch with a gambrel roof, but someone had turned it into a daycare facility at some point. It had a fenced backyard full of big wheel tricycles and a jungle gym, and a sign in front that said Tot Spot in big, brightly colored letters on a white background.
I parked half a block away, in a church parking lot down on the corner. My chances of going unnoticed in this neighborhood, with no other traffic, were slim to none, so I didn’t dare venture any closer. I could see well enough from where I was, anyway. Better than I wanted to, to be honest.
The bike pulled into the small lot in front of the daycare and parked beside a white Toyota that looked like it had seen better days. The girl got off the bike and shook out her hair. She handed the helmet to Rafe and said something. I have no idea what, but he nodded. When she walked into the building, I thought he might drive away—maybe he’d simply given her a ride—but he didn’t. Instead he got off the bike and hung the helmet on the handlebar, just like last night. I watched as he circled the white car, peered inside, got down on his hands and knees to look underneath the chassis before opening the door.
He waited a moment before getting behind the wheel and shutting the door behind him. After a second, I heard the engine catch. Nothing happened, and I let out a breath I hadn’t been aware I was holding.
Maybe it was watching too many action movies lately, but from where I was sitting, it looked like he’d been checking the car for bombs.
That was ridiculous, though. He’d probably been looking for rust spots or something.
I was so intent on peering out the window that I jumped when my phone started up with the Hallelujah chorus. And although I was too far away, with the car windows closed against the February chill, so there was no way he could hear it, I still scrambled to fish it out of my purse as quickly as possible. Damn Grimaldi; what a terribly inconvenient time to return my call!
Only it wasn’t Tamara Grimaldi’s number on my screen.
“Damn.” I bit my lip. “I mean... darn.” And yes, I was fully aware of the idiocy of changing my swear word to a less objectionable one when I was the only one listening to myself.
I thought about not answering, but if I didn’t, he’d guess why. He was probably sitting in the white car watching me. I’d only be postponing the inevitable by letting voicemail pick up. And embarrassing though it was to be caught stalking my boyfriend—by my boyfriend—I had less reason to be embarrassed than he did. At least I hadn’t been picking up anybody from a strip club.
Or maybe I’d get lucky and he was just returning my call from earlier. Maybe he didn’t realize I was here. Maybe it was just a coincidence that he happened to call just now.
Nonetheless, my heart was beating uncomfortably fast when I put the phone to my ear.
“What are you doing?” Rafe’s voice inquired in my ear. While he didn’t sound excessively angry, or at least not as angry as I’ve sometimes heard him, he didn’t sound pleased, either. It wasn’t an inquiry, as if he truly didn’t know where I was or what I was doing there. His voice was sort of tight, promising a hint of trouble if he didn’t like my answer, although it lacked that icy edge of fury I’d come to recognize.
I didn’t answer. Why compound my offense by spelling anything out, after all?
After a moment’s silence, one that echoed loudly down the line between us, he added, “Go home, Savannah.”
“Don’t tell me what to do!”
There was another pause. Maybe I’d surprised him. I had surprised myself, frankly. Then again, maybe he was just thinking about what to say next.
If he was, he couldn’t have made a better, or more cutting, choice.
“I can’t deal with you right now. I have more important things to worry about.”
Well, that was telling me, wasn’t it? And for a second the pain took my breath away and made it impossible to answer.
Into the silence came movement, as the door to the daycare opened. Miss Knockers came back out on the stoop, and she wasn’t alone. Next to her was a little person, a child a couple of years old, maybe. I couldn’t tell whether it was a boy or a girl. The bright blue jacket, little boots and jeans could have belonged to either gender, and the hair was covered by a red hat. I could see the face, though: tiny and sweet, with caramel colored skin and big, brown eyes.
I didn’t make a sound. I believed the worst, of course—Rafe’s girlfriend and Rafe’s child—but I didn’t say anything. Instead I just disconnected the call with a finger that felt numb. And when he tried to call back, I ignored him. It was all I could do to put the Volvo in gear and pull out of the parking lot and down the street.
I didn’t get far. Two blocks in the direction of the interstate, and my eyes were so full of tears I couldn’t see where I was going. I was a danger to myself and others, so I pulled off the road into an antique mall parking lot, cut the engine, and closed my eyes.
I was still sitting there when I heard the sound of the bike approaching, and part of me wished he’d see me and pull off the road so we could talk. The other part didn’t want him to see me with bloodshot eyes and tears running down my face. As if there was any doubt at all that he already knew just how much I cared about him.
But he didn’t pull off and in. He probably didn’t even notice me sitting there. He just zoomed past, trailing the small, white Toyota. I imagined they were headed for the interstate a half block away. This time I didn’t bother following them. I didn’t want to watch him follow her home and go inside with her. With them. I just waited until I’d stopped crying—mostly—and then I hit the road again myself.
I was a mile or two up the interstate when the phone rang again. I would have ignored it, but I hadn’t bothered to put it back into my purse after hanging up with—or on—Rafe, so I could see the display. And it wasn’t him.
Of course it isn’t him, I chastised myself as I reached out to grab it. He had more important things to do than deal with me. He’d said so.
Like last time, I really wanted to ignore the call. I didn’t need Tamara Grimaldi yelling at me on top of everything else. But I defy most people to ignore the police when they call. I found I couldn’t.
“Hello,” I croaked into the phone.
There was a pause. “Are you ill?” Grimaldi asked suspiciously.
I cleared my throat. “No.”
I felt sort of ill, admittedly, nauseous and sort of woozy, not to mention that my head was pounding. But it was mental anguish, not physical. And my nose was stuffy from the crying, which was what had led her to ask, I imagine.
Her voice softened. “What happened?”
“He has a girlfriend.”
“Who?”
“Rafe.” I hiccupped.
“No, he doesn’t,” Grimaldi said. And added, “Not apart from you.”
“A girlfriend and a child.”
There was another pause. “Have you been drinking?”
I couldn’t help it, I laughed. Darkly. Or maybe hysterically. “I wish.”
Grimaldi hesitated. “Have you eaten?”
Had I? “No,” I said.
“Why don’t we grab a late lunch and you can tell me what’s going on.”
It wasn’t a question. “You don’t have to be nice to me just because you’re dating my brother,” I said.
“I’m not dating your brother,” Grimaldi informed me. “Your brother lost his wife four m
onths ago. It’s too soon for him to date again. And anyway, we’re just friends.”
Sure. “Where do you want to meet?”
“Where are you?”
I told her I was on my way north on I-65 close to downtown, and we settled on a small hole-in-the-wall not too far from MNPD headquarters. I wended my way through the downtown streets to a public parking lot, paid to leave the car there for an hour, and walked the block and a half to the restaurant. She was there before me, seated at a table in the corner with her back to the wall. It was such a Rafe-like thing to do that I wanted to kick her.
“Why do you do that?” I grumped when I tossed my bag and coat over the chair on the other side of the table and plopped my butt down.
“Do what?”
“Sit with your back to the wall. Rafe does it too. Always.”
“Because there’s less chance anyone will shoot us in the back,” Grimaldi said calmly.
“So you’ll let me get shot instead?”
“And also so we can keep an eye on the door and see who comes in. So we can shoot first.” She looked me up and down, what she could see of me over the table. “You look like hell.”
I felt like it, too. “I followed him. To this strip club south of town. It’s called the Booby Bungalow.”
“I’m familiar with it,” Grimaldi nodded.
“It wasn’t even like I was trying to spy on him, you know? I was on my way to Mrs. J’s house when he came tearing out of the driveway like a bat out of hell. So I followed. Across town and down to the Booby Bungalow.”
“What happened?”
I grimaced. “He went inside and came out with a girl. She couldn’t have been more than twenty two or twenty three. They drove to a daycare facility near the fairgrounds and picked up a small child. One that looked like Rafe.”
Grimaldi arched her brows. “You got close enough to see who it looked like?”
Well, no. Not exactly. “She was a fair-skinned blonde. The baby was light brown.”
“Your boyfriend isn’t the only person of color in Nashville,” Grimaldi told me. “This city is full of black men and Hispanic men and even a few Asian and Arabic and Native American men. A brown baby doesn’t mean anything.”
“It’s not like I suspect him of having fathered every light-skinned brown baby I see. Just the ones he has some sort of connection to.” Like David Flannery. And the toddler I’d seen today.
“You’re jumping to conclusions,” Grimaldi said. “Have you spoken to him?”
I made another face. “He called.”
“Let me guess,” Grimaldi said. “He saw you.”
Of course he did. “I’m not as good at sneaking around as he is.”
Grimaldi gave me a look. When I stared back, stonily, she asked, “What did he say?”
“He told me to go home, because he couldn’t deal with me just then. He had more important things to do.”
Grimaldi’s eyes widened. “You’re joking.”
I shook my head.
“He said that?”
I nodded, as tears flooded my own eyes again.
“Christ,” Grimaldi muttered, and pushed a couple of napkins across the table toward me. “Don’t cry.”
“He doesn’t love me.”
“Of course he loves you. How old was this baby?”
I buried my nose in the napkins and sniffed. “Two years, maybe.”
“Nothing to do with you, then. Two years ago, you didn’t know each other.”
Not precisely true. We’d met when I was a freshman in high school and Rafe was a senior. But it was certainly true that two years ago we hadn’t been involved. Two years ago I was in the middle of divorcée blues six months after my marriage crashed and burned. Rafe Collier was, pretty literally, the furthest thing from my mind.
“I’m not worried about what he did two or three years ago,” I said. “I’m not worried about what he did in high school either, that resulted in David. I know he hasn’t been celibate his whole life. I am worried about the fact that he’s lying to me and going to see her every day. He’s been MIA during the same time every single day this week.”
“Maybe there’s something going on you don’t know about.”
Sure. Like, he was getting some on the side. And I had my mouth open to say so when the waitress materialized next to our table. I ordered a Diet Coke. They didn’t have one, so the waitress offered Diet Pepsi instead. Grimaldi told her I’d have sweet tea.
“I don’t need the sugar,” I objected.
“For the shock.” She nodded to the waitress, who arched her brows but withdrew.
No arguing with that, I guess, although I was angry more than I was in shock. It wasn’t worth making a fuss over, however. “Decide what you want to eat,” Grimaldi told me, “then we can talk more when we’ve ordered. She’ll be back in a minute.”
Sure. I opened the menu and perused the various salad options. I had to make up for the sweet tea somehow.
The tea was good, though. And it actually did make me feel a little better. Once the waitress had taken the salad-order—and Grimaldi’s order of a roast beef sandwich with melted cheddar cheese—we got back to talking again.
Apparently the subject of Rafe and his extracurricular activities was closed. “I got your message,” Grimaldi said.
Uh-oh. I’d almost forgotten about that, with everything else that had happened.
I must have paled, because she added, “Don’t worry, I’m not going to yell at you.”
“You’re not?”
She shook her head. “I have bad news.”
My heart started thumping, a dull, heavy feeling against my ribs. “What?”
“We finally tracked down your buddy Riggins.”
Beau wasn’t exactly my buddy, but OK. “Yes?”
“He’s dead.”
Chapter Sixteen
I don’t think I fainted, but things went a bit dark for a few seconds, and when I came back to myself, Tamara Grimaldi was staring at me with a whole lot of worry on her face. “Miss Martin? Savannah?”
“Sorry,” I managed. My lips felt stiff, like I couldn’t quite form the words. But I was still upright on the chair, which was something.
“Have some tea.” She pushed the glass closer to me, close enough that I didn’t have to pick it up, I could just lean down and suck through the straw.
The sugar must have had some kind of restorative quality, I guess—and now I knew why she’d insisted on ordering it. Not because of Rafe, but because of this news.
“Beau...” I swallowed; my voice sounded very far away, “is dead?”
“I’m afraid so.” Grimaldi’s voice came from farther away than the other side of the table, too.
I had more tea. And while I did, images flashed through my mind.
Standing on the steps outside the house where I’d first met him, and watching him get out of his little Mini, in faded jeans and a leather jacket with no shirt underneath. All smoothly tanned skin and white teeth and glossy brown hair. Young. Beautiful. And alive.
“I’m sorry,” Grimaldi said, watching me. “I didn’t know you knew him well.”
I blinked away the tears. “I don’t. I didn’t. I just met him a few times. But I liked him.” Sort of. With reservations about his choice of career and his choice to sleep with Mrs. Fortunato. He’d been charming. Sort of impossible not to like, in spite of his morals, or lack thereof. “What happened?”
“It looks like suicide,” Grimaldi said.
I bit back the instinctive rejection. I hadn’t really known Beau well enough to say whether he might have been suicidal or not. He hadn’t struck me as the type, like he enjoyed life too much, but what did I know?
“I find that hard to believe,” I said instead, neutrally.
Grimaldi’s gaze was steady. “If he had killed Brian Armstrong and knew I was looking for him?”
“Do you have any reason to think he killed Armstrong?”
“They frequented the same club,”
Grimaldi said, “and according to Sally, they were both there Friday night. So, of course, was your friend Briggs.”
My friend Briggs. Right. “I thought the assumption was that Tim had killed Armstrong and asked Beau to clean up after him.”
“That’s another possibility. Or maybe they were together in it. They could have hooked up at the club and gone back to Briggs’s place for a threesome. And then something happened, and Armstrong ended up dead. Briggs dumped the body while Riggins cleaned up.”
It made a certain sort of sense, even as my mind balked at the idea of a threesome. “Why?”
She just stared at me, and I clarified, “Why would Armstrong end up dead? What could have happened to make either of them stab him multiple times? I don’t... I didn’t know Beau well, but he didn’t strike me as the violent type. And I’ve known Tim for a while. He doesn’t seem like someone who’d stab someone to death, either.” Too squeamish by far, I would have thought.
Then again, our one-time boss and broker, Walker Lamont, had been as gay, well-dressed, and elegant as Tim, and it hadn’t prevented him from dispatching several people with the help of a straight razor. He would have dispatched me too and not batted an eye had it not been for Mrs. Jenkins.
“Word at Chaps,” Grimaldi said, “is that Armstrong was a dominant, and not shy about it. His wife claims to know nothing about any homosexual or sadistic tendencies. The picture I’m putting together is of a man who had spent a lot of years suppressing his natural inclinations.”
“He was a dentist. I’m not surprised he was a sadist too.”
Grimaldi’s lips twitched, but she didn’t comment. “There were no marks on him, other than the stab wounds.”
Someone who liked to dish it out but didn’t like to take it.
“I can’t imagine Tim allowing anyone to hurt him. Not like that.” Rafe had mentioned that some people like to be hurt, but Tim hadn’t struck me as that type. He might not be what Grimaldi called a dominant, but he wasn’t a masochist either.
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