Kickout Clause (Savannah Martin Mystery)

by Bennett, Jenna

  “Where’d they sit?”

  Marsha indicated a table over by the wall, as far from the bar as it was possible to get without sitting at the pool table.

  “Did they eat?”

  She shook her head. “Just had a drink each. Didn’t stay long.”

  “D’you hear what they were talking about?”

  She popped a pink bubblegum bubble. She’d done that last time we were here, as well. “Didn’t talk much. Stopped whenever I came close.”

  Rafe nodded. Obviously there was nothing unexpected here. He shuffled pictures. “Was it this guy?”

  I craned my neck. The picture of Nathan Ferncliff was on top of the stack. Marsha leaned in, pressing her more than ample breast against Rafe’s bicep. Since she was about the age LaDonna would have been, had his mother still been alive, I didn’t mind. Much.

  After a few second’s scrutiny, she shook her head, setting the bouffant to swaying. “No.”

  “You sure?”

  “There’s another picture of him,” I told Rafe, who shuffled the stack. “That’s him. In the yellow shirt.”

  Marsha looked at the second picture, the one in the golf shirt with Bradley, and shook her head again. “Definitely not him. This guy, yeah.” She put her finger on Bradley. “But not the other one. Similar type. Age and hair. But not the same face.”

  She sounded so sure we had no choice but to believe her.

  “Thanks,” Rafe said.

  “What else you got there?” She reached past him to fan the photographs out over the counter.

  Rafe put his finger on one of them. “Who the hell is this?”

  I glanced over. “Haven’t you met him? That’s Walker Lamont. My old boss.”

  Rafe nodded. “Thought he looked familiar. And no, I never met him. But I saw him at the memorial service.”

  Brenda’s memorial. Of course. He’d been there. Rafe, I mean. And Walker had gotten up to eulogize, the hypocrite.

  “Why d’you add a picture of him?”

  I shrugged. “It was just a hunch, I guess. Or a wild idea. But he fits the description. And he is running around Nashville causing trouble.”

  The guy on the other side of me slid off his stool and hit the floor with a thump. I watched him hustle toward the door while I waited for Rafe to scoff. He didn’t.

  “Does he know Bradley?”

  I shook my head. At the door, the guy stopped to look at me over his shoulder before disappearing into the night.

  “What?” Rafe said, turning in that direction.

  “Nothing.” I moved my attention from the now empty doorway to him. “I don’t think Walker knows Bradley. We’d been divorced for two years by the time I went to work for Walker. But it wouldn’t be hard to get Bradley to agree to meet him. All he’d have to do is call and say he was thinking of hiring Bradley, and he wanted to meet for a consultation.”

  Rafe nodded and turned back to Marsha. She shook her head. “Not him either.”

  No problem. I hadn’t really expected it to be Walker; I was just eliminating what I assumed was a slim chance anyway.

  “Who the hell’s this?” Rafe wanted to know.

  I leaned over. “Oh. I printed that one out by mistake. His name is Dale Vandervinder. Bradley is representing his wife in their divorce. Either that, or he’s sleeping with her. But she didn’t look like his type, nor he hers.”

  “This her?” Rafe put a fingertip on Ilona Vandervinder, next to Dale. I nodded. “No, I can see that.”

  “That sorta looks like the guy,” Marsha said.

  I shook my head. “It can’t be.”

  Rafe glanced at me. “Why not?”

  “Because Bradley is representing his wife. They’re on opposing sides of a court case. They’re not supposed to talk. Bradley would never violate his ethics like that.”

  Rafe glanced at Marsha, who shrugged. “I ain’t saying it was him. Just that the guy who was here looked more like this guy than the other two. But it wasn’t like I was paying a lot of attention, you know. We had a full house. I had work to do.”

  “Course.” Rafe gathered the pictures together and pushed them in my direction. I stuffed them back in my bag. “Thanks, sugar.”

  “For you, hon, anything.” She winked and sashayed off, posterior swinging in the tight jeans. Rafe chuckled and turned back to me.

  Chapter Thirteen

  We ate our burgers—which were excellent, even if I felt as though the fat and carbohydrates were bypassing my stomach and adhering themselves directly to my thighs as I chewed—and then we left the Shortstop to go home.

  We had learned nothing else. The other waitress hadn’t noticed Bradley last night, so she couldn’t help us at all. And they all said that nothing had happened or gone wrong in any way as to explain what had happened to Manny. I hadn’t expected his trip to the Shortstop to have had anything to do with his murder—how could it, when all he’d been doing was following my harmless and boring ex-husband?—but I could tell that Rafe was disappointed.

  “I’m sorry.” I tucked my arm through his as we navigated the rutted gravel lot in the dark. “This was a huge waste of time.”

  “I wouldn’t say that.” He grinned down at me, his teeth bright in the dusk. “Any time I get to watch you eat like a human being is a good day.”

  “I do eat like a human being. I just don’t work out the way you do. If I keep eating like you, I’ll get fat.” And then he wouldn’t want me anymore. As my mother—and Wallis Simpson—said, a woman can never be too rich or too thin.

  “More to love.” He leered exaggeratedly, and I snorted, halfway between amusement and disbelief.

  “Sure.”

  “Darlin’, if you knew what looking at you in those jeans does to me, you wouldn’t doubt it.”

  Surely not? I twisted to look over my shoulder. “Are you sure they don’t make my butt look big?”

  “Positive,” Rafe said. “Your butt’s just the right size.” He slipped a hand down my back to demonstrate, with a squeeze.

  I swatted at it. “You’re awful.”

  The leer went away and was replaced by sincerity. “I like the way you look, darlin’. Always have. But I love you, not what you look like. So if your butt gets twice as big, I’ll still love you.”

  “I don’t understand that,” I confessed, even as I melted a little inside. “Not the butt thing. I get that. You’re a man. You like women’s butts. But the other part. I’m not a nice person. I spent a lot of time judging you for things you can’t help.”

  His response was easy, and entirely free of recrimination. “You got over it.”

  “It took too long.”

  “It took as long as it needed. I’m just glad you got there. And between you and me...”

  “Yes?”

  We’d reached the Volvo, and he swung me around and up against the side of the car. “Between you and me,” he stepped close enough that there was nothing between him and me but a few layers of fabric, “the way you look don’t hurt, either.”

  “Glad to hear it,” I said—a little breathlessly, as always when he was this close—and looped my arms around his neck.

  I expected a kiss. The look in his eyes promised one, and between you and me—hah!—the way he was pressed against me didn’t leave much to the imagination. He wanted to do more, but of course we couldn’t, not here. But he definitely planned to kiss me.

  I prepared myself, but it didn’t happen. Instead he glanced down.

  “What the hell?”

  So much for the kiss. He dropped his arms from around me and took a step back. I followed the direction of his gaze, while I tried not to pout. “What?”

  “Flat tire.” He pointed.

  No kidding. The rear tire was as flat as a pancake.

  “We must have run over a nail or something.” I looked around, vaguely, while I lamented the fact that now we’d have to take the time to change the tire before driving home, when all I wanted to do was get him into bed.

&nbs
p; “No,” Rafe said, and his voice was dangerous. So was the look on his face. “Damn.”

  He stalked away, to the other side of the car. I watched him, and that’s when I realized that not only was the rear tire flat, the front tire was flat too.

  Before I could ask about the status on the opposite side of the car, I already had my answer.

  “Fuck!”

  “Both of them?”

  “All of’em. Every damn one.” He scrubbed a hand over the top of his head. “How the hell—?”

  It wasn’t really a question. Because it was obvious that we hadn’t accidentally run over four different nails. That was impossible. And if someone had spiked the parking lot entrance, I think we would have noticed.

  “Do you think someone did it on purpose?”

  “Hell, yeah!” He looked around. I did the same. Nothing stirred. Everything was silent. Almost eerily silent, although that could be just my nerves prickling. The only sound was the hum of cars driving by on Nolensville Road, a football field’s distance away.

  “We’d better get back inside,” Rafe said. “C’mon.” He reached for me.

  I let him guide me in the direction of the neon sign outside the Shortstop, with an arm around my shoulders. “Are you carrying?” I asked softly.

  He glanced down for just a second, before answering in the same low voice. “Yeah. But I don’t wanna pull out a gun right now. If someone’s watching, he might take it as a sign I need shooting.”

  I suppressed a shudder. “No, please don’t do that.”

  He gave my shoulders a squeeze. “Don’t worry, darlin’. It’s probably just someone having some fun.”

  “Fun?”

  “Kids,” Rafe said.

  “Is this the kind of neighborhood where teenagers would hang around in bar parking lots with carving knives?”

  “You never know. But it’s better than the alternative.”

  Which was what, exactly?

  I didn’t ask. “What are we going to do? The car only has one spare tire.”

  “We’re gonna call for a ride,” Rafe said, “and a tow truck. And tomorrow, we’ll have a look at your car and see if we can figure out who did this.”

  “I thought you said kids did it.”

  He opened the door into the bar. Light and sound spilled out into the parking lot. “It’s better not to take any chances,” he told me as I passed in front of him.

  So we ended up back inside the bar, while Rafe made his phone calls. Twenty minutes later, Tamara Grimaldi walked in.

  I turned to him. “You called a woman to come rescue you?”

  He glanced at me. “I ain’t proud. A woman can rescue me any day, so long as I stay alive.”

  Sure. Although this wasn’t really a matter of life and death. At least I hoped not.

  “Besides,” he added, “my manhood ain’t in question here. This is her case.”

  Of course. This might have something to do with Manny’s murder. If someone had heard what we’d asked the bartender or waitress, for instance. Like the man who’d sat next to me and who had left while we’d been talking.

  Although how would he know which car in the parking lot was mine? The lot was full; mine could have been any of them.

  Grimaldi came to stand between us. “Good evening, Ms.... Savannah.”

  “Good evening, Det...” I thought better of it. “Tammy.”

  She scowled at me, but there was nothing she could say, of course. I’m sure she realized, as I had, that it would be better not to bandy the title about.

  Rafe, meanwhile, didn’t bother to hide his grin. He also didn’t bother with the niceties. “D’you look at the car?”

  Grimaldi nodded. “They’re hooking it up. I’ll have someone go over it in the morning.”

  “My car’s a crime scene?” I said.

  Both of them turned to look at me with matching expressions of disbelief that I had to ask.

  “Right. Sorry.”

  “Let’s head outside.” Grimaldi made for the door. I slid off the barstool and followed, while Rafe brought up the rear.

  “Any idea what happened?” Grimaldi asked when we were standing outside watching the tow truck slowly winching the Volvo up onto the flatbed. The winch squealed with every rotation.

  Rafe shook his head. “We were inside maybe an hour. Sat at the bar. Ate and talked to a couple people. When we got back out, the tires were flat. We didn’t hear nothing and didn’t see nobody.”

  “Did anyone leave after you came in?”

  He shrugged. “Sure. It’s a bar. People come and go.”

  “I don’t suppose you knew who they were?”

  “No. Nobody here I’d ever seen before. Save the staff.”

  “The guy who sat next to me left,” I said. “While we were in the middle of talking to the waitress. He turned around when he got to the door to look back at us.”

  Grimaldi glanced at Rafe, who shrugged. She returned her attention to me. “Can you describe him?”

  “Forty, very little hair, stocky, thick neck. Dressed in jeans and a T-shirt.”

  “Bald?” Grimaldi queried.

  I shook my head. “Just short. Almost shaved. Like Rafe.”

  Grimaldi turned again to look at him. “Black or white? Or something else?”

  “The guy? White. Medium hair. Could be dark blond or light brown. Hard to tell when there was so little of it. It’s kind of dark inside, too. The T-shirt was blue.”

  “Light or dark?”

  “Navy.”

  “Did it say anything? Or have a picture on it?”

  “It had a logo,” I said, thinking back. “White letters. And a key.”

  “Key?”

  They both said it together, and then exchanged glances.

  I nodded, looking from one to the other of them. “Why? Does that mean something?” Obviously to them it did, but it meant nothing to me.

  “What kind of key was it?”

  What kind of key? “A skeleton one, I guess. The kind with a circle on top, and a long piece coming down. One of the letters was shaped like the circle. An O, I guess. It had something inside it...”

  “Stars,” Grimaldi said, her jaw tight. I blinked, and she added, “Three of them.”

  “Like the Tennessee state flag?”

  The three stars stand for East, West, and Middle Tennessee, in case you’re curious. The mountains in the east, the river delta in the west, and the Cumberland Plateau in the middle. Or to put it more officially: the mountains, highlands, and lowlands.

  She nodded grimly.

  “You know what kind of shirt it was?”

  “I can make a good guess. Did the other letters happen to be a T, a D and a C?”

  “Could be.” I arranged them in my head, adding in the O. TODC? TCOD? CDOT? DCOT?

  “TDOC,” Rafe said.

  Grimaldi nodded.

  I looked from one to the other of them. “What’s TDOC?”

  They both turned to me, but Grimaldi let Rafe answer the question. “Tennessee Department of Corrections.”

  “The prison people?”

  His mouth twitched. “Yes, darlin’.”

  “Did you see Tshirts like that when you were in prison?”

  He shook his head. “The guards wore uniforms. But I’ve seen the logo. More than I’d like to.”

  Tamara Grimaldi looked up from manipulating the buttons on her phone to look at him before going back to what she was doing.

  “So this guy works for the Tennessee Department of Corrections.” Maybe the T-shirt was workout gear, or something. Rafe has a couple of Tshirts with the TBI logo. Grimaldi probably had MNPD ones that she used in the gym. “Did he recognize you, do you think?”

  “From ten years ago? Not likely.”

  Not impossible, though. And it would explain the quick retreat. But— “He couldn’t have known which car you arrived in. He certainly wouldn’t have guessed. You don’t look like someone who’d drive a Volvo.”

  He quirk
ed a brow. “What do I look like I oughta drive?”

  “A Harley,” I said. “Or a truck. Maybe a sports car. Something muscular and sexy. Everything a Volvo isn’t.”

  He grinned, but before he could comment, Tamara Grimaldi lifted her head again. “Is this the guy you saw?”

  She handed me her phone. I looked at the photograph she had pulled up. A prison guard was staring truculently into the camera, his jaw squared and the top half of his face shaded by the brim of a blue cap. It had TDOC embroidered on it in white, the O forming the head of a skeleton key with three white stars nestled within the circle.

  Rafe moved up next to me to look over my shoulder. I felt the heat of him against my side and back.

  “That’s the logo I saw,” I confirmed. “And that could definitely be him. It’s a little hard to tell with the way his face is shaded. And I didn’t get a very good look at him when he was sitting next to me. I couldn’t turn around and stare. But it could be him.”

  I tilted my head to look up at Rafe. “Have you seen him before?”

  He shook his head and cut his eyes to Grimaldi. “Who’s this?”

  “His name is Garth Hanson,” the detective said. “He’s... he was a guard at Riverbend Penitentiary.”

  “Must be after my time,” Rafe said.

  “He’s been there eleven years. But you may not have come across him while you were there. It’s a big place.”

  Rafe nodded. “So how d’you know who he was? You know the guy?”

  “Lucky guess. Or call it a hunch if you want. This is the guard who went missing along with Mr. Lamont.”

  There was a moment of silence while we all digested this piece of news.

  I broke it. “So he isn’t dead.” Walker hadn’t murdered him and left him in a ditch somewhere in Kentucky, in his quest to escape.

  Grimaldi shook her head. “No.”

  “Why?”

  “That’s the question, isn’t it? Off-hand, I can think of a few possibilities.”

  “So can I,” Rafe said with a grin.

  Grimaldi sent him a quelling look. “Obviously, if it was Garth Hanson you saw, he’s neither dead nor under duress. He’s moving around under his own steam and quite possibly following you. Was he inside when you arrived?”