Kickout Clause (Savannah Martin Mystery)

by Bennett, Jenna

  “He’s fine.”

  Tim smacked his lips. “He certainly is.”

  I rolled my eyes. Not at him, at myself. I fall for the same line every single time, and it’s getting old. “I’ll be in my office if you need me.”

  “I won’t,” Tim said.

  Chapter Seventeen

  I stuck around for the rest of the afternoon, making frequent trips to the bathroom and kitchen so I could make sure that Tim was still stationed in his office and hadn’t snuck out when I wasn’t looking. Grimaldi had asked me to keep an eye on him, and I was taking the task seriously.

  He didn’t stir. Just sat in his ergonomic chair doing paperwork and talking on the phone. Whenever I happened to hear him, I walked more slowly to see if I could determine whether it was Walker on the other end of the line, but in most cases it just sounded like business as usual. One time I got an earful of what sounded perilously close to phone sex, and that was the time Tim noticed me eavesdropping—I stopped dead when I heard the things that were coming out of his mouth—and he glanced up and gave me a supercilious look before swiveling the chair around and putting his back to me.

  “Tell me more,” he cooed into the phone.

  I stumbled across the threshold into the bathroom and locked the door behind me. So much for feeling adventurous and daring for having had sex on the kitchen table in the middle of the afternoon.

  I did my best not to hear anything on my way back, and succeeded. And then I sat in my chair for a bit longer and wondered what to do next.

  Nothing was happening. Tim wasn’t going anywhere. I had no work to do. As far as Mrs. Jenkins’s house went, all I could do was wait to hear what the prospective buyers thought of the inspection results and whether they wanted to move forward with the purchase. My gut feeling was that they wouldn’t, but until I knew for sure, I couldn’t do anything about it. Calling the former prospective buyers—the ones with the condo to sell—to tell them that there was a chance the house might become available again, would be grossly unprofessional... and very close to fishing, which is illegal. So while I desperately wanted to do something—anything!—I sat at my desk and twiddled my thumbs and waited.

  The phone rang at a quarter after four. By then I was practically catatonic with boredom, so I almost dropped it when I fumbled it out of my bag. “Yes?”

  “It’s me,” Grimaldi said. “The game’s afoot.”

  “Really?” I hadn’t heard anything from Tim. Not that he owed me a heads up or anything, but I thought he might have mentioned it when Walker called.

  Her voice turned worried. “He’s still there, isn’t he?”

  “As far as I know,” I said.

  “I told you—”

  “I’m doing my best.” It wasn’t like I could camp out in the hallway outside Tim’s door, after all. “I’ve been to the bathroom four times in the past three hours.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Grimaldi said politely.

  I rolled my eyes, but Brittany was just on the other side of the lobby, some twelve feet away, so I refrained from comment. “Just tell me what you need.”

  “Officers Spicer and Truman will be bringing your car by in a few minutes. You have four new tires.”

  “Thank you.” That was certainly going above and beyond the call of duty.

  “Your boyfriend paid. At any rate, one of them will come inside to give you your key.”

  “I already have my key,” I said.

  “He will also give you a microphone for Mr. Briggs.”

  Ah. “Do you think Walker is watching?”

  “I don’t want to take any chances,” Grimaldi said. “When you get the mic, help Mr. Briggs put it on. And then call me, so I can make sure we can hear everything.”

  I promised I would. “Any news on Manny Ortega’s murder?”

  She hesitated, and I wondered whether she’d refuse to tell me anything. She didn’t have to. Sometimes, she’s told me she couldn’t. In this case, I guess she must have reasoned that she might as well, since Rafe probably kept me up to date anyway. “We’re closing in on a couple of suspects.”

  “Really? That’s great! Who?”

  She muttered something I didn’t quite catch.

  “What?” I said.

  “Nothing. You should know better than to ask me that.”

  I guess I should, at that.

  When I didn’t speak, she added, “I have to go. I have an escaped murderer to apprehend.”

  “Of course.” I thought about asking her where the handoff was to take place, but I figured she’d probably just tell me it was none of my business. I’d just ask Tim instead. He didn’t usually have any qualms about telling me things.

  Grimaldi hung up, and I settled in to wait some more. Fifteen minutes passed, and then the front door opened and Spicer came in. He gave Brittany a friendly wave—she shrank back in her seat—and stuck his head through the door into my office-cum-coat-closet. “Afternoon, Miz Martin.”

  “Hi, Officer Spicer.”

  “Your car’s parked out back.” He spoke a little louder than he had to, I guess to make sure Brittany would catch every word. “Here’s the key.”

  He put something in my hand. It wasn’t a key, but I didn’t want to stare at it, so I stuck it in my pocket without looking. “Anything I need to know?”

  “No,” Spicer said. “I have to go.”

  Sure. I waved goodbye and waited for the front door to close behind him, and then I grabbed my purse and jacket. “Since I have a car again, I guess I’ll head out,” I told Brittany on my way past the desk. She nodded, and didn’t even look up from the latest issue of Marie Claire.

  I headed down the hallway to Tim’s office. “I hear the drop-off has been scheduled.”

  He looked startled.

  “Detective Grimaldi called me.” I closed the office door behind me.

  Tim looked from it to me. “Darling,” he bleated, “this is so sudden.”

  Sure. “I have your police issued microphone.” I stuck my hand in my pocket.

  Tim made a face. “Any chance you could get your boyfriend over here for this part? If anyone’s going to tape wires to my chest, I’d rather it be him and not you.”

  “Not to worry,” I said. “You won’t have to get naked. It’s a wristwatch.”

  It was. Basic black, with a cloth band and a bunch of buttons around the edges of the face.

  “Sweetie,” Tim said, looking at it and shaking his head, “there’s no way Walker will believe I’m willingly wearing that.”

  He had a point. The watch had nothing of Tim’s usual style. “I guess they were all out of Rolex. Maybe you can hide it under your cuff.” It wasn’t a camera, was it? Just a microphone. So if it wasn’t seen but only heard, that’d likely be sufficient.

  Tim took it off my palm, gingerly. “I suppose that might be possible. And advisable.”

  “It isn’t that bad,” I said.

  “Speak for yourself,” Tim answered, strapping the cloth band around his wrist and eyeing it with disdain. “At least it fits.”

  “Why wouldn’t it?”

  “I have slender wrists,” Tim said, shaking his arm. The watch stayed in place.

  I reached for my phone. “Tamara Grimaldi said to call her. To make sure she could hear.”

  Tim stopped shaking to stare at me. “Your pet detective has been listening to us?”

  “I assume,” I said, dialing. “And she isn’t my pet detective.”

  Tim muttered something, but I ignored him, because Grimaldi answered. “The watch is here. And around Tim’s wrist.” Tim’s slender wrist. “Can you hear us?”

  “No,” Grimaldi said. “You have to turn on the mic first.”

  Ah. “How does it work?”

  She explained to me about the various buttons on the edges of the clockface. I passed the information on to Tim, who turned the microphone on and held it up to his mouth. “Can you hear me?”

  “Loud and clear,” Grimaldi’s voice said
over the speakerphone. “Put your arm down.”

  Tim looked startled. “How did you—?”

  “Everyone does it,” Grimaldi said. “Just forget about the mic. Pretend it isn’t there. Use your hand the way you usually do. And keep talking. Both of you.”

  Fine. Tim and I spent a few minutes moving around the office, talking. Tim recited Shakespeare, I recited Emily Post. We had been made to memorize swatches of her Etiquette in finishing school, and they were still chiseled into my brain nine years later.

  I have no idea what Grimaldi thought of any of it. She didn’t comment, just let us know whether she could hear us or not. After a few minutes she thanked me. “Keep the watch around your wrist and the mic turned on,” she instructed Tim.

  “Will you call and let me know when you have Walker in custody?” I asked, and Grimaldi promised she would. I disconnected the call, not realizing until it was too late that I had missed my opportunity to ask Tim where the money drop-off was to take place. Now, with the microphone on, I couldn’t. At least not straight out.

  “How long until the meeting?” I asked instead.

  Tim glanced at the watch, without wincing this time. “Thirty minutes.”

  “Do you have far to go?”

  He shook his head. “Just down to the park.”

  Shelby Park, I assumed. Not likely to be very populated at this time on a weekday. “Another deserted place? You remember what happened last time, right?”

  Tim shuddered. “Who could forget?”

  The last time Tim had arranged a meeting in a deserted place—or at least the last time I knew about it—it had been to meet Rafe and me at the ruins of Fort Negley, on a hilltop just south of downtown Nashville. And while we were there, someone took a few potshots at Tim, and hit him. I had once taken a bullet to the shoulder myself, so I understood the reflexive hand he lifted to touch the now-healed wound. Being shot hurts.

  “All I’m doing is leaving the money in a trashcan,” Tim added. “Nobody’s going to shoot at me.”

  I hoped not. “Good luck.”

  “Thank you,” Tim said, and on that note, I opened the door and left.

  As promised, my car was in the parking lot, and had four new tires. I walked around it once before getting behind the wheel, just to make sure that everything was OK. Not that I had any reason to believe that anything would have happened to it in the twenty minutes since Spicer dropped it off, but I was just a little bit jumpy.

  Everything looked normal, though. No flat tires, no strange scratches, nothing out of the ordinary.

  No bloody knife. And no shoebox sized package with wires sticking out of it in the backseat.

  I got behind the wheel and inserted the key in the ignition. The car started right up.

  I did think about hanging around for a while, and following Tim to Shelby Park when the time came. I would enjoy seeing Walker re-apprehended and hauled into the back of a police car, to have visual proof that he was safely out of my hair. But Tamara Grimaldi was likely to be there, and likely to give me hell if she saw me. And I was under no illusions that she wouldn’t see me if I was stupid enough to go.

  Safer to go home. Especially since Walker would be in the park, to take charge of his money. My apartment would be nice and empty, and I wouldn’t have to worry about anyone trying to get in.

  I parked on the street in front of the building. By now it was habit, and besides, there was a chance we’d end up going out again later.

  It was habit to move quickly across the courtyard and into the building too, but that was all it was. Habit. I wasn’t worried. My problems were almost over.

  Or some of them, anyway. With Walker back behind bars, and Garth Hanson presumably right there with him, nobody would vandalize my office, my car, or Mrs. Jenkins’s house again. I didn’t have to worry about anyone taking potshots at me in broad daylight—not that anyone had. Mrs. J’s house would suffer no more indignities, and we could sell it to someone who’d appreciate it, even if this morning’s couple pulled out of the deal—as I suspected they would. It was a great house with some very nice features—including the extra-sturdy kitchen table—and someone was sure to want it.

  After tonight, my biggest concern would be Bradley and Shelby, and to be perfectly blunt about it, whatever was going on there, was none of my business and less of my concern. If Bradley was cheating on Shelby with Ilona Vandervinder, that was between them. And if Bradley was a party to cheating Ilona Vandervinder out of her rightful—or maybe not rightful—settlement from her soon-to-be-ex husband, that was a matter for Ferncliff & Morton, or maybe the Tennessee Bar, but again, not my problem.

  Between them, Rafe and Tamara Grimaldi would figure out who killed Manny—someone with no connection to me or Rafe whatsoever—and things would go back to normal. I was humming when I unlocked the apartment door, stepped through, and locked it behind me.

  I was still humming when Walker stepped out of the kitchen, gun in hand.

  If you’ll pardon the expression, it was like déjà-vu all over again.

  Back in August, he had done the same thing. We’d been in Mrs. Jenkins’s kitchen then, and Mrs. J had been with me. And Walker had pulled out a gun.

  Now I was alone. I wasn’t sure whether that was good or bad. With two of us, we’d been able to distract him. Not deliberately as much as by accident, true, but it had worked out all right. With just me, and being the sole focus of Walker’s attention, I wasn’t sure my chances of survival were very good.

  “I thought we got along,” I said after a second. It was a stupid thing to say, no doubt, but I’d honestly thought that we’d had a good relationship. I could have sworn to it, right up until he pointed the gun at me the first time. And even then, I was pretty sure it hadn’t been anything personal. It was just what he had to do to try to stay out of prison. The whole vandalism thing had frankly taken me aback, and the last thing I had expected, was for him to be here.

  He smiled, showing lots of nice, white, straight teeth.

  He’s a very attractive man. A few years too old for me, at forty five or forty six, and of course he doesn’t swing my way. But he’s quite good looking. Six months in prison had taken its toll on him, though. His hair was too short, his skin and nails not as well-tended as I was used to. I guess the prison authorities hadn’t let him stick with his usual skin care regimen while behind bars. And he had lost weight. The khakis and button-down shirt hung on his thinner frame, but they were as knife-pleated and starched as they’d always been.

  The smile didn’t touch his eyes, even as he assured me, “If you do as I say, we’ll continue to get along.”

  I’d walked right into that one, in more ways than one.

  “What do you want?” I asked.

  Another stupid question. He wanted to get away. Somehow, he thought I could help him. Either that, or he’d decided to tie up loose ends before leaving, and I was one such.

  Since I wasn’t quite ready to hear that I was bound for termination in the next minute and a half, I didn’t give him a chance to answer. “I thought you’d be in Shelby Park.”

  Walker smirked. “Garth is taking care of that.”

  Garth.

  “You’re setting him up,” I said.

  Walker answered, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” The statement sounded palpably false.

  “Is the money for him? Payment for helping you get out of jail?”

  Another smirk. “It was supposed to be for both of us. Getaway money.”

  Supposed to be? “Getaway where? Together?”

  “Costa Rica.” He hummed a few bars of that old Gershwin classic. –where the living is easy.

  “You were planning to go to Costa Rica together?”

  “Garth wanted to go to Costa Rica,” Walker said. “I just don’t want to go back to prison.”

  That was understandable. And since I was trying to build rapport, I figured I might as well say so. “Of course. No one could blame you for that. So you and G
arth were going away together.”

  Walker nodded.

  “Together.”

  “Yes, Savannah,” Walker said. “Together.”

  Right. That explained Rafe’s smirk the other day, when he’d told me he could think of two reasons Garth Hanson might have helped Walker. Money had been one, but he hadn’t gotten around to mentioning the other. I don’t know why it hadn’t crossed my mind that Garth might have helped Walker out of fond feelings, and not simply for a monetary payoff at the end.

  “So Garth is in Shelby Park waiting for Tim to drop off the money.”

  Walker nodded.

  “And you’re here.”

  He nodded.

  “I guess you figured out that your chances of getting out of the park with the money were pretty slim, huh?”

  “Yes,” Walker said. “I’m not stupid, you know.”

  I’d never thought he was. It was sheer bad luck—for him, I mean—that he’d gotten caught for murder, and he’d certainly exhibited considerable ingenuity in getting himself out of prison.

  I said as much, and he simpered. Until I added, “Coming after me doesn’t seem very smart, though. Wouldn’t you be better off making tracks?”

  “Without my money?” Walker said.

  “It must be better than getting caught again.”

  “I won’t get caught. They’ll catch Garth—maybe—but he won’t tell them where I’m headed.”

  “Are you sure about that?” With the prospect of ending up in the same prison where he’d spent years as a guard, I could imagine that Garth Hanson might tell Detective Grimaldi pretty much anything she wanted to know in an effort to cut a deal.

  “He doesn’t know,” Walker said.

  Ah. So I couldn’t count on Grimaldi breaking Garth quickly, and coming to my rescue. And Rafe wouldn’t be coming, either. I realized, too late, that I hadn’t even remembered to call to tell him that I had my car back and had left the office under my own steam and gone home. He’d be going to LB&A to pick me up. But not for a while yet. And when he realized I wasn’t there, he still had to make his way here. There was no chance at all that he’d rush in and save the day. By the time he made it home, I’d probably be dead.