The Savannah Madam

by Tom Turner

  “So, you don’t go ‘round punching out women?”

  He laughed. “Not so far.”

  “Good to know,” Jackie said. “Guess I might even consider a second date.”

  16

  Half an hour later, in front of where Jackie’s car was parked, Harry Bull gave her a delicate kiss on the cheek, explaining that he wanted to be careful not to add to her facial pain.

  She thanked him for the drinks, the music, and the company, said good night, got in her car and looked up Miranda Cato’s daughter’s number. She found it and dialed.

  Sarah Dunn answered. “Hello.”

  “Sarah?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, hi, it’s Jackie Farrell, Savannah Investigations. I have a quick question.”

  “Sure. Ask away.”

  “A source—actually the detective, Harry Bull—told me one of the women told him Miranda might have been blackmailing one of her customers who—”

  “Let me stop you right there,” Sarah said. “That is so not my mother’s style. She was one of the most ethical people in the world—” she caught herself and laughed. “Well, despite the profession she chose. But that’s something she’d never do in a million years.”

  “That was my impression, based on everything I know,” Jackie said. “But I had to ask.”

  “Understood,” Sarah said. “How is it going, anyway?”

  “Good, I think,” Jackie said. “But they’re a lot of moving parts.”

  “I hear you,” Sarah said. “Don’t hesitate to call if you have any more questions.”

  “Oh, and also, we solved our missing-persons case,” she said. “So, we’ll be on your mother’s case twenty-four-seven.”

  “That’s great news. Thanks.”

  Jackie tapped end and headed to the Truman Parkway.

  She had just pulled onto the Truman when she got a call on her cell. She looked down at the number and saw it was her friend Amy.

  “Hey, Amy.”

  “You’re not gonna believe this,” Amy blurted. “A guy was just shot at the tennis courts.”

  “What do you mean? At the Challenger?”

  “Yeah, they were playing on the stadium court under the lights, and in the middle of the match a player was shot in the head,” Amy said. “It was completely surreal except for the fact that the poor guy was lying on the court, blood pouring out of his head.”

  It sounded totally surreal as Jackie tried to get her head around the whole thing. At a tennis match? In her peaceful little development? Where nothing unlawful ever happened? How could this possibly be? Then a million questions flooded into her head. “Any idea who did it? Who the shooter was?”

  “No, everyone was in shock at first, just kind of frozen. Afraid to even move. Then a few minutes later we start hearing sirens. A lot of people started leaving, some of them running. You know, like panic-stricken ‘cause some guy with a gun was somewhere on the loose. First responders showed up first. I could tell from their reaction the player was dead, then the cops got there, then the whole court was covered with people. This helicopter showed up and landed on the court. I was just sitting there watching it all, finally somebody tells me I gotta leave.”

  “That is just so incredible,” Jackie said as she passed the Eisenhower Drive exit.

  “Yeah, it was like a movie,” Amy said. “More like a nightmare. I couldn’t believe it really happened. Still can’t even process it.”

  “And you didn’t see anybody. The guy who did it, I mean?”

  “No, when I was leaving there were cops all over the place. Looking for the guy, for clues, for whatever.”

  It was still so impossible to get her head around it. “Unbelievable,” Jackie said with a deep sigh. “Who was the guy, the tennis player?”

  “His name is Federico Giraldo,” Amy lowered her voice. “Was, I guess that would be. Very cute guy from Argentina. Had like a bunch of teenage fans watching. Older women, too. He played in the tournament last year, too.”

  Jackie got off at the Whitefield Avenue exit. Two cop cars passed her going about forty miles over the speed limit. Lights flashing, no sirens. She wondered if Harry was there, or on his way.

  “There’re more cops on the way,” Jackie said.

  “Probably everyone in the county,” Amy said.

  “Probably,” Jackie said. “Well, talk to you later. Be careful. Lock your doors.”

  “I will,” Amy said.

  Jackie drove another mile, then went up the steep bridge over Mercer River. When she started down, she saw a light show of police car flashers and clusters of cars on both sides of the road. Cluster was actually an understatement. There must have been between twenty and twenty-five. Plus, it sounded, from what Amy said, that there was an equal number at the tennis courts.

  Jackie slowed down but noticed that cars coming onto Mercer Island were moving much faster than those going out. As she approached, she noticed four cops inspecting a Buick as if they were searching for drugs. Three of them were inside the car, looking under the seats, in the glove box, everywhere. The fourth one had the trunk open and was leaning into it. Looking for the murder weapon, Jackie assumed. It dawned on her that she might want to volunteer the fact that she was packing the Glock.

  She didn’t notice the cop come up to her window until he was looming above her. “You can go, ma’am,” he said. “Just be real careful.”

  “I will,” Jackie said, stepping on the accelerator. She didn’t even have time to mention the gun.

  There was a line of about thirty or forty cars going out.

  She dialed Ryder as she went through the gate to Mercer Island. First, she told her about what had just happened at the tennis tournament, then about her drinks with Harry Bull.

  “That’s just so unbelievable. I mean, you’d think that would be the safest place in the world.”

  “I know. I’m totally stunned.”

  “Just promise me you’ll be careful.”

  “Don’t worry.”

  “So, speaking of Harry,” Ryder said, “I was in the office and the phone rings and this guy asks for you and I said you weren’t here, but I was your sister. So, he goes, ‘My name is Marty Shepherd, you probably hearda me, right?’ He’s got this heavy Brooklyn accent and I go, ‘No, Marty, can’t say as I have.’”

  “Marty Shepherd,” Jackie said. “I’ve heard that name before.”

  “Yeah, ‘cause he’s a P.I.,” Ryder said. “But judging from his office, I’d say… a marginal one.”

  “Why’d you go to his office?”

  “‘Cause he says, ‘I saw your sister walking down the sidewalk with that slime ball Harry Bull,’” Ryder said. “Then he goes, ‘I recognized her from seeing her picture in the paper,’ he says, and I go, ‘Exactly why are you calling, Mr. Shepherd?’ And he goes, ‘Marty, call me Marty,’ I go, ‘Okay, why you calling, Marty?’ He says, ‘Come on over to my office and I’ll tell ya. I’m only about five or six blocks from you.’”

  Jackie could hear her sister take a gulp of something. “So, first let me describe his office,” Ryder said.

  “You don’t have to,” Jackie said. “I know he’s kind of a lowlife, so I’d expect a dump.”

  “A dump? A dump would be a huge upgrade,” Ryder said. “First of all, he’s got this old dog with these rheumy eyes that farts every ten seconds and has this halo of fleas buzzing around his head. Then the furniture is this moldy, old wooden crap that if he paid five bucks for the whole lot of it, he got hosed. And on the walls, he’s got four different posters, all of them of The Maltese Falcon. A scowling Humphrey Bogart with a gun in his hand, a scowling Humphrey Bogart with two guns in his hands. A sultry Mary Astor showing cleavage in a red dress. A sultry Mary Astor showing cleavage in a yellow dress. Plus, the whole place smelled like a month of unwashed underwear. It was really disgusting.”

  “How do you know who Mary Astor is?” Jackie asked.

  “Watching The Maltese Falcon was an essential part of my
P.I. education.”

  Jackie had to hand it to her sister: when she got revved up, she could sure paint a picture. “Cut to the chase; what did he want?”

  Ryder took another sip of water. “Told me he was working a cold case a while back—like us—one that Harry couldn’t solve. So, according to Marty, Harry calls him up, all buddy-buddy, takes him out and buys him a couple of drinks, then asks him a bunch of questions. Marty, like an idiot, tells him everything he knows. A week later Harry makes an arrest on the case, which eventually led to a conviction. And according to Marty, it was his tip that lead to the bust. Said he called Harry a bunch of times and Harry never called him back.”

  Jackie pulled into her garage. “Well, the good news is, if there’s anything to Marty’s story, I didn’t tell Harry anything about any suspect he didn’t already know about—” then she remembered mentioning Perrier “—oh shit, except one.”

  “Christ,” Ryder said. “Who?’

  “Perrier. Whoever he may be.”

  “He’s about the only suspect we haven’t ruled out,” Ryder said.

  Jackie sighed. “Damn.”

  “Don’t beat yourself up,” Ryder said. “There’s no guarantee there’s anything to Marty’s story.”

  “Yeah, and from what I can tell, Harry’s got his hands full with that double homicide anyway. Oh also, he gave me two guys we didn’t have on our list.”

  “Who are they?”

  Jackie had a sinking feeling. “Maybe two guys he wanted us to waste our time on”—a long, deep sigh—“while he goes after the guy I gave him.”

  17

  Ryder had shelled out a hundred and twenty dollars to join match.com. The good news was it was tax-deductible, since it was a business expense. She was trying to track down Nick from Hilton Head, the man that Harry Bull had told Ryder and Jackie about at Bull’s gym. The man who had apparently had a fling with Miranda Cato, when she was ostensibly dating a man named Talmadge Bartow.

  Ryder had filled in the questions on the Match questionnaire, sent five recent photos of herself, and in answer to the question about what age man she was looking for, answered “25-65.” She observed that most other woman’s answers to the question tended to fall into a much tighter range. Like 35-45 or 50-60, but she figured she might be able to kill two birds with one stone. That is, locate Nick from Hilton Head and also find a man who she might like to date, since things had been a little thin on the romance front lately.

  Yesterday her profile had gone live and in twenty-four hours, she had had 219 hits from interested men. Must be close to a record, she thought. She had a predisposition to think that all men on a dating website had to be losers, despite all the testimonials on TV ads about women meeting the man of their dreams and marrying them within a week. Her inescapable conclusion was that men, or women, who had to advertise for a companion had struck out in singles bars and dog parks.

  But the fact was, there were a couple of men between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-five who looked like they might indeed be catches. Two in particular: one who was thirty-one and had a nice, natural smile and whose likes included, “movies, art galleries, many sports, dystopian novels, chunky peanut butter, and IPA beer.” She had to look up ‘dystopian’ just to make sure it meant what she thought it did and found out it was basically the opposite of utopian: “an imaginary society that is as dehumanizing and as unpleasant as possible.” Okay, so the guy was a little dark, but she was down with the chunky peanut butter and the IPA beer part.

  The second guy was movie-star handsome. Maybe a little too body obsessed. Where it said, Body Type, his response was Ripped! Then in his profile, it said. “I’m a gym rat looking for a gym rat-ette. If your jiggly or chubby, move on to the next guy.” On second thought…she moved on to next guy. It was more that he had misspelled “your” and coined the lame phrase, “rat-ette,” than him being such a flaming narcissist.

  As far as the reason she signed up for Match in the first place, finding Nick from Hilton Head—the man who had had an “away game” with Miranda Cato, as Harry Bull had described it—she had several candidates. One of match.com’s requirements was that everyone who posted profiles on it had to come up with a handle for themselves. For example, one man called himself Whipper—whatever that was meant to imply— and another was Abman-4. So, Ryder thought for a while and came up with Ryde-into-the-sunset. It wasn’t great but she wasn’t going to spend all day on it. Her second choice was SeaSeaRyder, although she thought that was pretty hokey, even though she could make a case that she did like going to the beach and, thus, it was appropriate. Her third choice, she guessed, probably wouldn’t clear the Match censors, and certainly would give guys the wrong idea: It was RydeMe.

  She quickly nixed that one, so Ryde-into-the-sunset it was.

  The first man Ryder found who might fit the “Nick from Hilton Head” bill was a man who called himself ‘TrickyNick’ who was, in fact, from Hilton Head. Nick professed to be fifty-nine but Ryder had heard that men lied by as much as fifteen years about their ages. Which could be a pretty rude awakening when you met a codger on a walker for the ice-breaking first date at Starbucks.

  The second Nick Ryder stumbled across was, ‘NYCNick’ whose bio started out, “Hey Gal!” —which is probably where she should have stopped, but she plowed on—“If we can stimulate each other intellectually, laugh together endlessly, kiss constantly and at the end of the day feel like giddy teenagers crazy in love... Don't you think that would be perfect? Looking to meet that ONE incredibly intelligent, adventurous, worldly man with endless energy so we can spend time focusing on US—traveling the world, expanding our brains, smooching, and loving life.”

  One thing was quite certain: NYCNick was horny. He talked about “endlessly” kissing and smooching, but a little voice told Ryder he had his sights set on something involving naked bodies in horizontal positions.

  Nick claimed to be fifty-nine, too. But in his pics, he didn’t look to be a day under seventy. Then she noticed that NYCNick lived in a place called Rincon, Ga., wherever that might be. She was certain he was not Miranda Cato’s Nick.

  The third Nick was a man who called himself the ItalianStallion, who was also from Hilton Head. While this Nick was no doubt macho, he wasn’t much for punctuation. Plus, his grammar and spelling were atrocious. In particular, he didn’t seem to realize there should be a space after a period. His profile started out:

  “I love fall, the color change of the leaves, a wood fire,the smell,the warmth,the dancing of the flames on a cold fall day snuggle up with that special someone A walk on the beach , watching the sunrise or sunset as the colors brushes across the ski.Walking in the rain,the smell,the sound as it hits the roof, cook-outs with family and friend's,Gardening,flowers,nature the simple things in life.I don't mine getting my hands dirty,I can wear Jeans and boots,are can dress up in a tucks or my black custom-maid suit from London .For what I'm looking for, that person that will be there through the good and the bad,that honest,caring,love family,passionate.Yes there has to be chemistry and attraction there.someone that wants to share a laugh over a meal are sating on the couch by a warm fire talking,watching a movie ,are just enjoying each other company.We all are looking for that person who will put the sparkle in our eyes,warmth in our heart's and joy in our soul.”

  The Italian Stallion was clearly not a man of few words.

  To the left of Nick’s profile and photos, Ryder hit the ‘Email Him Now’ button and typed. “If you’re the same Nick that my late friend Miranda Cato had such a good time with, please call me. I’d love to meet you.” Then she typed her cell phone number. And waited.

  Ten minutes later her cell phone rang. She didn’t recognize the number on the display.

  “Hello”

  “Is this Ryder?” the voice asked.

  She had heard the voice before but couldn’t place it. “Yes.”

  “Hey, hon, it’s Antwon.”

  Oh, Christ.

  “Hey, Antwon, what�
��s up?”

  “So, dude, I was thinkin’ maybe we hit a club together?”

  Ryder flashed to her former boyfriend: a Harvard graduate and up-and-coming architect at Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill, and wondered, how had her love life hurtled so far off the tracks?

  “That’s sweet of you, Antwon, but I’ve got plans…actually for the next year.”

  Antwon was undeterred. “Can’t you break ‘em?”

  Ryder had an afterthought. “And plus, I’m in a relationship.”

  “With who?”

  Did he really ask that?

  “You don’t know her.”

  Long silence. “Wait. Are you?”

  “Yes,” Ryder said. “But if anything ever changes, you’ll be the first to know.”

  18

  Jackie couldn’t figure out why Ted Minton, aka Grey Goose, seemed like such a familiar name until she opened up her Moonbeam magazine. The Moonbeam was a weekly that catered to the Mercer Island community. It had articles about what people in the community were doing, pictures of those who won golf, tennis, pickleball, and bocce tournaments, along with various ads and always a Sudoku puzzle in the back. One ad that ran weekly was for Geico, the insurance company, and always featured a picture of local insurance agent, Ted Minton. At the bottom of page three, nattily dressed in a jacket and tie, there was Ted, smiling winsomely. He had a face that looked trustworthy and Jackie had absolutely no doubt he could hook her up with a really good insurance policy. If she needed one. Which she didn’t.

  Jackie dialed the number at the bottom of the ad. Minton answered right away, and before Jackie could get out more than, “I saw your ad in the Moonbeam,” Minton had hijacked the conversation. He asked where she lived and, when she told him, he said that his house was no more than three minutes away and volunteered to come right over. (Pretty damn aggressive for a guy in a town that was nicknamed Slow- vannah.)

  Jackie didn’t even have a chance to say she was fully insured before he clicked off.