Home Stretch

by Jenna Bennett

  So that was that. They drove off, and I waited until the car had disappeared down Potsdam Street before I went inside and locked the door. Mrs. J was still engrossed in the TV, so I spent the time while she was otherwise occupied taming her hair and getting her ready to go. She frowned when I turned the TV off, but when I told her we were going out for ice cream, she came with me, as docile as a lamb.

  She hadn’t known who I was when I talked her into the Volvo in front of the Milton House this morning. I wasn’t sure she knew who I was now. And yet she came along with no qualms and no protestations. Whoever had killed Julia Poole—and I refused to believe it was Mrs. J—wouldn’t have had any problems getting her into the car for the ride to Shelby Park.

  As Mrs. Jenkins had said, Julia had been hurt. She had to get help for Julia.

  Maybe the killer had told her that. “Help me get her in the car. We need to find help.”

  I could see that happening, only too clearly. They loaded Julia in the passenger seat of the car, and Mrs. Jenkins crawled into the back. The killer—his face in shadow for the moment—got behind the wheel. And off they went.

  It was a good twelve or thirteen miles from the home in Brentwood to Shelby Park. But probably a fairly quick ride in the middle of the night, with the rain and very few other people on the roads.

  Mrs. Jenkins might have fallen asleep. It had been late, possibly well after midnight. The walk from Shelby Park to Potsdam Street might have taken her an hour, maybe a little more, but probably not much more than that. Call it midnight when the murder happened. A nice time for a rendezvous, midnight.

  I imagined Julia sneaking out of the nursing home, into the dark and the rain, to meet someone. A boyfriend? A husband?

  Or did she let him in? Maybe meet him in an empty room? Or an employee lounge or something? She must have a comfortable place to wait out the hours through the night.

  Then the murder. And the discovery by Mrs. Jenkins. The explanation—“Julia got hurt. We need to get help for Julia,”—and the drive to Shelby Park. Close to thirty minutes for the drive itself, probably. That would have put them in the park around one o’clock in the morning, give or take a few minutes.

  I imagined the car rolling down the ramp and into the water. The shadowy figure of the murderer watching to see it go in, but not waiting long enough to make sure it got completely submerged.

  Careless of him. Or her. Julia might be gay. Or just meeting a friend at midnight for no romantic purpose.

  How did the murderer get away from the park? Did he have a friend pick him up? Hail a cab? Walk?

  Did he live nearby? Was that how he knew about the boat ramp?

  Grimaldi would find out the answers to those questions, I imagined. Or she’d try, even though nobody was likely to have seen him. Not at that hour, in the rain.

  But in the scenario I was building, the car was likely to have gone into the water at one, give or take. If Mrs. Jenkins was asleep, the cold water would have woken her up. It would have taken her a minute or two to scramble out, maybe more. The car hadn’t been submerged, but she might not have been able to open the door against the force of the water. She might have had to roll down the window and shimmy out that way.

  Good thing she was as small and skinny as she was. If it had been me, stuck in the back of a half-submerged car, I wouldn’t have stood a chance of getting out of the window. Not the way I looked these days.

  Having to wiggle through the window would explain the bruises on Mrs. J’s legs, too.

  And it would have given her an hour and a half, roughly to make it from the river and Shelby Park, up to 101 Potsdam Street. Which would put her in our front yard close to three o’clock.

  Which was exactly when I’d come back to bed from the bathroom and had noticed her.

  “Do you remember the river?” I asked, as I reached across Mrs. Jenkins’s frail body to fasten the seatbelt.

  She gave a shiver. “Cold.”

  It was, a little bit. Or maybe she was talking about the river.

  “Were you asleep?” I tried.

  She blinked.

  “Were you in the car with Julia?”

  “Julia got hurt.”

  I nodded. “Do you know who hurt Julia?”

  Mrs. Jenkins looked frightened, and when she gets frightened, she has a tendency to shut down. So I gave up. At least for now. We had all day, and nothing to do except shop and talk. I’d get there.

  Normally, when I need clothes, I go to Target, where I can find the kinds of fashions I like without breaking the bank. My days of being married to a lawyer are long gone, and so are my days of buying designer dresses. Having to dress for less in return for Rafe is a negligible price to pay, however.

  I wasn’t sure whether Target carried the sort of housecoats Mrs. Jenkins liked, though. They’re made of thin material, often with flowers printed on them, and they have little snap buttons down the front. I’d never seen anything like that on any of the stylish racks at Target.

  So we headed to the nearest Dollar Store instead. And found a rack of housecoats, as well as several pairs of fuzzy slippers for less than I would have paid for a single pair of shoes at Target. I added some socks and underwear (in Mrs. Jenkins’s size, not mine), as well as a pair of knock-off Keds, since she couldn’t go out to eat in the fuzzy slippers. A warm jacket completed our needs for today, and Mrs. Jenkins looked warm and happy, in clothes that fit, when we walked out.

  (Yes, I made her change in the bathroom. The sooner we got her out of my ill-fitting clothes, that hung like sacks on her much-smaller frame, the better.)

  “How about some lunch?” I suggested when we were back in the car. It was going on for that time, and as usual, the baby couldn’t wait for sustenance.

  Mrs. J was always happy to eat, as well. She nodded, grinning.

  “Are you in the mood for anything in particular?”

  She’s not very adventurous when it comes to things like Mexican or Chinese food, so I figured we’d probably end up at a meat’n three or a diner, searching for soul food or the blue plate special.

  And that was fine. When the baby got like this, I didn’t care what I ate, as long as I put something in my stomach.

  “Hamburger,” Mrs. Jenkins said.

  My eyebrows rose. Hamburger. OK, then.

  Rafe has a favorite burger place, a little hole in the wall on a side street just on the edge of the gentrified part of the neighborhood. I don’t feel comfortable going there without him. If Mrs. J still wanted a hamburger—another hamburger—later, he could come with us then. For now, I chose what I was comfortable with, and headed for the real estate office, at hip and happening Five Points.

  There were two benefits. I’m familiar with the area. I feel safe there. I know the FinBar, just down the street from Lamont, Briggs, and Associates, has good hamburgers. And I could park for free in the LB&A lot. Parking can be hard to find in hip and happening Five Points.

  It isn’t a long drive. Barely more than five minutes later, we had parked outside the brick building that houses LB&A, and were on our way down the sidewalk toward the FinBar.

  It’s the East Nashville version of a sports bar. Lots of brass and dark wood, and big screen TVs showing soccer and golf and bass fishing competitions. And ferns. Lots of ferns.

  It wasn’t quite lunch hour yet, so we beat the rush. The hostess showed us directly to a table, and told us the waitress would be right with us. I shoe-horned myself into one side of the booth while Mrs. J slid into the other. She was about half my size, I noticed. My stomach butted against the edge of the table, while she had to sit on the edge of the seat to even put her elbows up. I gave the table a shove in her direction, which helped a little.

  “Milkshake?” I asked her.

  She nodded, beaming. She likes ice cream a lot, so it seemed a good guess that she’d enjoy a milkshake, too. And the dairy is good for the baby, or so I tell myself. When the waitress came, I ordered two. Chocolate for Mrs. Jenkins and strawber
ry for me. Berries are healthy. I felt virtuous, since between you and me, I really wanted chocolate, too.

  Mrs. Jenkins had already let me know she wanted a burger. While we waited for the waitress to come back with the two milkshakes, I looked at the menu and tried to talk myself into a salad. It didn’t work, so I ended up ordering a burger, too.

  Protein. Good for the baby. Besides, there was cheese. I made sure of it. Dairy. And lettuce and tomato. Even onion. And pickles. Pickles used to be cucumbers. It was almost a salad.

  With the ordering out of the way, I smiled at Mrs. Jenkins across the table. “You look nice. That’s a good color for you.”

  It was. The housedress was sort of a muted turquoise with little yellow flowers. Her hair was neatly pinned back, and she looked rested and mostly well-fed.

  She smiled at me, but didn’t take the straw out of her mouth, just concentrated on slurping up the creamy goodness of the milkshake.

  “They’ve been feeding you,” I said, “where you’ve been living. Haven’t they?”

  She seemed like she couldn’t get enough food. And of course she was as scrawny as a sparrow. But she always had been. She’d looked like this when I first met her more than a year ago, too.

  She nodded. “Yes, baby.”

  OK, then. Good.

  I devoted myself to my own milkshake. The creamy goodness slid down my throat in a glorious way, and I had to hold back a moan. And it was a good thing I did, because a shadow fell over the table, and a delighted voice said my name.

  I swallowed. “Oh. Tim. Hi.”

  I fear my own voice was rather far from delighted.

  It was my own fault, of course. We were just down the street from the office. I should have realized—or at least thought of the possibility—that we’d run into someone from LB&A.

  And of course it had to be Tim. Timothy Briggs, who put the B in LB&A. The managing broker, now that Walker Lamont, the L, was languishing in prison for Brenda Puckett’s murder. And a few other murders. Not to mention the attempted murder of Mrs. Jenkins and me.

  But I digress. Tim was standing next to the table, flashing his unnaturally white, unnaturally straight teeth. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

  I flushed, as I’m sure he had intended. “Sorry I didn’t make it to the sales meeting this morning. As you can see, I’m b... busy.”

  I almost said baby-sitting. That’s what I felt like I was doing. But I didn’t think Mrs. J would appreciate it, and anyway, she wasn’t a baby. It wasn’t fair to imply that she was. Even if this probably was good practice for when I had a toddler.

  “This is Rafe’s grandmother,” I added.

  Tim beamed, blue eyes twinkling. “Mrs. Jenkins! What a pleasure to meet you!” He reached for her hand.

  I had to give him credit for remembering her name. It wasn’t like he had any reason to, other than that he’s had an unrequited crush on Rafe for the past year.

  “This is Tim,” I told Mrs. Jenkins. “My boss.”

  I’m self-employed, and licensed by the state of Tennessee, but since I have to hang my shingle somewhere, and since someone—a broker—has to be responsible for me, Tim is, for all intents and purposes, my boss. He doesn’t pay me a salary, and can’t tell me what to do, but if I screw something up, he’s on the hook, so we have an interesting relationship, especially when you take into consideration that I’ve saved his life once or twice, and that he lusts after my husband. Oh, and that I kept him from being liable for a half-a-million dollar real estate mistake not too long ago.

  Really, on the strength of all that, he ought to stop lusting after Rafe. But I suspect that would be impossible. I certainly can’t do it, so it’s hard to blame Tim.

  And anyway, since Rafe doesn’t seem to mind, and since Rafe married me and not Tim, and since he has never shown any indication of swinging Tim’s way, I probably shouldn’t give it another thought.

  While I wasn’t giving it another thought, Tim kissed Mrs. Jenkins’s knuckles and gave her her hand back. “Delighted,” he told her, while Mrs. Jenkins dropped her hand to her lap, probably so she could surreptitiously wipe it off where he couldn’t see. “We love your grandson!”

  There was no we, unless he was talking about him and me. Maybe he was. And the statement made Mrs. Jenkins look confused. I deduced that at the moment, she might not remember that she had a grandson.

  “How was the meeting?” I asked Tim.

  He gave an elegant shrug of one shoulder. “Oh, you know. Same old, same old. Listings, closings, new clients.”

  None of which I had. “Anything I should know about?”

  Tim pinched his bottom lip between a beautifully manicured thumb and index fingers, and tugged on it. “I don’t think so. Things are slow this week. Thanksgiving, you know.”

  I nodded. “I don’t expect you’ll need me to sit an open house for you this weekend, then?”

  Sometimes, when I didn’t have anything else to do, I’d host an open house for Tim, who had too many clients and too many listings to be able to handle them all himself. It was a way—or was supposed to be a way—to find new clients, but so far, it hadn’t been too successful of an endeavor for me. And lately I’d mostly spent my weekend with Rafe, anyway. But since I hadn’t been at the sales meeting, where such things were usually set up, I figured I should ask. Between you and me, though, I was hoping he’d say no.

  He shook his head. Golden curls danced around his ears. “Like that? No, thank you.” He directed an annoyed look at my stomach.

  “It’s the twenty-first century,” I told him. “We don’t make pregnant women hide out at home anymore.”

  My attempt at humor only made him scowl harder. “If I asked you to sit an open house on Sunday, you’d probably go into labor Saturday night. And then where would I be?”

  Without someone to sit his open house.

  I didn’t say so. “I’m not going into labor on Saturday,” I said instead. “I have almost three weeks to go. And first babies are usually late.”

  Tim shook his head. “Not a chance I want to take. Sorry.”

  “No problem. I didn’t really want to do it anyway.”

  Tim wrinkled his nose. “Let me guess. You’re going to Sweetwater.”

  I was. But I didn’t expect to be there on Sunday. It was just meant to be a quick trip down on Wednesday afternoon, for Thanksgiving on Thursday, and then back up to Nashville again on Friday.

  Although now, with Mrs. Jenkins staying with us and Rafe—along with Grimaldi—neck deep in a murder at the nursing home, I had no idea what would happen. I might end up having a turkey sandwich with Mrs. J at the kitchen table instead of a big party in the mansion in Sweetwater, with all my family around me.

  I didn’t tell Tim any of that. “I’ll be back by Saturday,” I said instead. “In case you change your mind.”

  “I won’t.” He glanced toward the door. “I have to go. Nice to meet you.”

  He gave Mrs. Jenkins another blinding smile and sashayed off, into the back part of the restaurant. I craned my neck and watched him for as long as he was in sight, but I couldn’t see who he was meeting. And since it wasn’t any of my business anyway, I turned around and devoted myself to my milkshake and to Mrs. Jenkins, who was looking around hungrily for her food.

  The burgers arrived shortly, and we both went to work silencing the inner beast. I could almost feel the baby going, “Aaah!” when the first bite of burger went down.

  It’s not like I haven’t been hungry before. When you’re a Southern Belle, brought up by another Southern Belle, you learn early on to eat like a bird, so as not to give your companion the idea that you don’t care about your figure. As my mother’s said, not just once but several times, you won’t catch a man that way.

  So I’ve spent years on an empty stomach. But until I got pregnant, I never felt the kind of hunger where I got light-headed and thought I’d pass out if I didn’t get something to eat soon. And that feeling had been a pretty constant compan
ion the past couple of months. Whoever was in there, had a prodigious appetite. And had inherited Mrs. Jenkins’s metabolism, it seemed.

  It didn’t take long to finish. Mrs. Jenkins practically inhaled her burger and fries, and I wasn’t far behind.

  “Dessert?” I asked brightly.

  But she must have had enough with the milkshake, and burger and fries, because she shook her head. She was half my size, and had eaten as much, if not more, than I had.

  “Check, please,” I told the waitress, who whipped it out. I gave her my card, and she wandered off to put it through the machine. A minute later she came back, and I signed and left a suitable tip and tucked the card back into my wallet. “Ready?”

  Mrs. Jenkins nodded and started to scoot out of the booth.

  “Why don’t we make a stop in the ladies’ room before we leave?”

  I tacked on a question mark, but it wasn’t really a question.

  I had several reasons for wanting to visit the facility. For one, I wanted to wash my hands and touch up my lipstick, and besides, the baby sat on my bladder, so I took every opportunity I could to relieve myself. If there was a bathroom in the vicinity, I used it, since I knew if I didn’t, I’d only have to find another a few minutes later.

  But I was also concerned that Mrs. Jenkins might not let me know if she needed to go. She wasn’t talking much. About anything. And the last thing I wanted, was an accident in the Volvo. It would be embarrassing for her, and uncomfortable for me.

  So I steered her toward the back of the FinBar and the restrooms. We did our business, and when we headed back out, that was when I noticed Tim.

  He’d gone back in this direction after our conversation earlier, but I hadn’t thought to look for him when we were going to the bathroom. Too busy herding Mrs. Jenkins in front of me, I guess. Or too focused on getting to the bathroom quickly.

  But here he was, sitting at a table by the wall, surrounded by ferns, across from another man.

  Lunch date? Or business appointment?

  None of my business, I guess, but I tend to be curious. About a lot of things.

  The man wasn’t anyone from the office. Not unless we had a new agent I didn’t know about, but I didn’t think so. But real estate agents often meet with all sorts of people. Clients, other agents, lenders, reps selling errors and omissions insurance—the real estate equivalent of malpractice coverage—or advertising...