The Savannah Madam

by Tom Turner

  “You don’t really think he killed Miranda Cato, do you?” Victoria asked.

  “Matter of fact, we do,” Ryder said.

  A few minutes passed. “So, Victoria, when I was having my interview with you, I noticed that stud in your tongue.”

  Victoria turned around and eyeballed Ryder. “Yeah, what about it?”

  “Well, what’s it for?”

  “What do you mean, what’s it for?”

  “‘Cause I couldn’t help but notice it makes you lisp a little,” Ryder said. “Or maybe you lisped before. Now don’t get me wrong, it’s kind of cute. I bet the guys like it. The lisp, I mean. Maybe the stud, too.”

  Victoria just shook her head and cracked open her window.

  A few more minutes passed.

  “Let me ask you another question,” Ryder said.

  “Oh, for Chrissakes, what now? I’m trying to sleep.”

  “So, do you think if my sister sent you some pictures of herself, you would have called and asked her to come for an inter—”

  “Jesus, will you put a lid on it,” Jackie said.

  Bull suppressed a laugh as Victoria turned around in her seat and looked back at Jackie. Then she nodded. “Yeah, she definitely would have made the cut.”

  Ryder frowned. “But not as quickly as you gave me the nod, right?”

  “Okay, Ryder, knock it off, will you, please,” said Jackie.

  Ryder leaned forward in her seat. “And while we’re playing twenty questions”—both Jackie and Victoria groaned—“how’d you get into your line of work anyway?”

  “What line of work?”

  “You know… doin’ guys?” Ryder asked.

  “John’s my boyfriend,” Victoria said, suddenly belligerent. “It okay with you if I spend the night at my boyfriend’s house?”

  Ryder shrugged. “Sure. Whatev.”

  Victoria wasn’t done “What about you, you ever spend the night at that seventy-five-year-old wigger’s house?”

  “That’s kind of a personal question,” Ryder said. “But, just for the record, the old guy’s not the wigger; he’s the Italian Stallion.”

  A few more minutes went by.

  “I was curious about something else?” Ryder said.

  Victoria rolled her eyes. “Jesus, I can’t wait.”

  “How do you feel about John doin’ test drives on all the new bimbos?”

  Victoria’s face turned bright red. “Oh my God, that’s just business.”

  Ryder chuckled and caught her sister’s eye. “And he told you that… with a straight face?”

  40

  Harry Bull parked at the short-term parking lot at Jacksonville International Airport as Jackie texted Redmond on Victoria’s phone. “I’m here. Be inside in a few minutes. Where r u?”

  Almost immediately Redmond texted back. “Delta Sky Club. Got a Bloody Mary waiting for you.”

  “What a sweet guy,” Ryder said, looking over her sister’s shoulder at the text.

  “What?” Victoria asked.

  “John’s got a Bloody Mary waiting for you,” Ryder said.

  Victoria smiled. “Would the wigger do that for you?”

  On the way down, Bull’d had several conversations with the Jacksonville police and told them he had a warrant for the arrest of John E. Redmond. He called his new contact there, a detective named Bolen, and said Redmond was in the Delta Sky Club. They agreed to meet in front of the airport Starbucks.

  After handcuffing Victoria to the BMW’s steering wheel and telling her they wouldn’t be long, Bull, Jackie, and Ryder walked into the airport. As they approached Starbucks, they saw four men dressed in bulky clothes that looked like Overstock.com close-outs.

  “Natty-looking bunch,” Ryder murmured.

  Bull walked up to them. “One of you fellas Bolen?”

  A short man in a brown polyester suit and a yellow tie stepped forward. “That’s me. You Bull?”

  Bull nodded and flicked his head at his partners. “Jackie and Ryder Farrell, Savannah P.I.s.”

  Bolen gave a little snort. “Hello, girls,” he said, “we won’t be needing your services.”

  “They’re in,” Bull said with no equivocation.

  “Is this your turf, Harry?”

  “I said, they’re in,” Bull repeated.

  Bolen looked at the cop next to him and shrugged. “Okay, so I guess we got ourselves a good old-fashioned clusterfuck here.” Then to Bull, “What’s this guy look like anyway?”

  Jackie already had the picture out. She handed it to Bolen.

  Bolen nodded and passed it to the others.

  “Alright, so let’s do it,” Bull said. “What do you know about the Delta Sky Club?”

  Bolen handed Bull his iPhone.

  Bull took a look at the five shots of the Sky Club, then handed it to Jackie, who held it up for Ryder.

  “Looks like the first room is a big bar area, restrooms just past that,” Jackie said to Bull, “then a room with a bunch of chairs, magazines and TVs, then like four work cubicles in back.”

  “What do you know about exit and egress?” Ryder asked Bolen,

  “We don’t,” Bolen said. “We just walk in and arrest the guy.”

  Jackie shrugged. “Well, you don’t need seven of us for that.”

  Bolen gave Bull a look. “That’s what I was trying to tell you.”

  “We’ll just wait outside,” Jackie said, then turning to Bull and lowering her voice, “What if someone’s with him?”

  “Like who?” Bull asked.

  “Someone who was on the chopper with him,” Jackie said.

  Bull shrugged. “We’ll get them too.”

  Bolen looked at his three men. “Okay, boys, let’s go get ‘em.”

  The seven started walking, Bolen and his men in front, Bull, Jackie, and Ryder behind them.

  “Gotta be a back exit,” Jackie said to Bull. “For code reasons, if nothing else.”

  “I’m sure there is,” Bull said. “But I gotta think that when five guys go in with pistols drawn, Redmond’s not gonna have time to exit anywhere.”

  “Yeah,” Ryder said. “Except a guy looking at murder one’s probably not ready to give up too easily.”

  Bolen had spoken to a TSA supervisor earlier who walked the group around security.

  They were approaching a Chili’s. “Makes me hungry,” Ryder said.

  “After we get the bad guy,” Jackie said, seeing the Delta Sky Club sign ahead. “There it is.”

  Bolen put up his hand and they all stopped. “Okay, boys… and girls. This shouldn’t be too tough; we just go in and get him.”

  “I been thinking,” Bull said. “The guy knows me, so I should stay out here.”

  Bolen nodded. “I agree,” he said, walking toward the door of the Delta Sky Club, with his men right behind.

  He and his officers pulled their guns out of their hip holsters. Bolen pushed the glass door and stepped through. “Jacksonville Police!” he shouted as he entered. “John Redmond, on the floor, hands over your head.”

  There were a lot of people in the Sky Club for that time of day, not to mention the space seemed about twice the size of what it looked like on the website.

  Redmond was coming out of the men’s room when he heard the shouted order. He ducked behind the bar, which was unmanned at the moment, and dropped to the floor.

  All four Jacksonville cops rushed past the bar to the rooms and workstations in back.

  “Down on the floor, Redmond!” Bolen yelled again, shoving a man out of his way.

  Redmond crawled the length of the bar to within twenty feet from the front door of the Sky Club.

  Bolen and his men rushed into one of the rooms in back, where two men and a woman were seated in the workstations. A bald man threw up his hands in panic, “Don’t shoot!”

  Redmond made a sudden run for the front door, shoved it open and, going full speed, ran smack into Bull. He gave Bull an elbow to the ribs, knocking him to the floor. Jackie and
Ryder, standing together a few feet away, saw Bull go sprawling then reach for his gun. But the hallway was full of travelers and people who worked at the airport or for airlines. No way to take a safe shot. Bull lowered his gun as Jackie helped him to his feet.

  The two watched the fleeing Redmond knock an old lady down, then Bull almost did a double take: Twenty feet behind Redmond, he saw Ryder in her lime green Nikes sprinting after the suspect. She seemed to be gaining on him.

  “Jesus, what the hell—” Bull said, then he started to run after them.

  Jackie stayed behind.

  They both watched in amazement as Ryder dived for Redmond’s legs as he reached a moving walkway.

  They saw Redmond’s arms fly up in the air, then Ryder hang on like a cowboy bringing a steer to the ground. Then they heard Redmond cry out in pain.

  Jackie turned back to the door of the Delta Sky Club. Bolen and his men came out. “Over there,” Jackie pointed as, in the distance, Ryder cuffed John Redmond.

  The five Jacksonville cops went running toward Ryder and Redmond.

  Jackie hesitated at the front door of the Delta Sky Club. Then she took out a photo, looked at it, and walked inside.

  She went into the bar area, where people were huddled with puzzled looks on their faces. She unholstered her Glock, scanned their faces, then walked up to the men’s room door. She knocked on it and pushed it open a few inches. She knocked again. “Anybody in here?”

  No answer. She walked in. A man standing at the urinal turned his head toward her. “Jesus Christ, do you mind?”

  “Sorry,” Jackie said, then she bent down and looked under the walls of the two toilets. Seeing nothing, she walked out.

  Then she walked into the next part of the sky club. It was filled with green leather and wicker chairs and had a display of newspapers and magazine. There were half a dozen people in it. Jackie scanned their faces, then walked through it into the last room which had the four workstations.

  In the front two she found an Asian man punching away on a laptop. Next to him was a young woman talking loudly on her cell phone. Jackie walked back to the other two.

  And there he was: the man in the photo.

  She aimed her Glock at the man, who was leaning forward, texting. “Hello, Detective Brown,” she said. “Stand up, turn around and put your hands behind your back.”

  The man looked like he’d seen a ghost.

  “Do it,” she said, still as a statue.

  Suggs Brown stood and did as he was told.

  Jackie reached down, pulled out her handcuffs, and slid them onto his wrists. He was the first man she had ever cuffed before and it wasn’t easy to do it with one hand. “Okay, turn around and start walking,” she said. “Your partner Harry’s gonna be awfully surprised to see you.”

  41

  It turned out John Redmond had a fractured right kneecap and badly bruised ego, both from being brought to the floor by a woman. The same woman who had refused his ‘test drive’ offer just twelve hours before.

  Of course, someone had their cell phone out and had taken a photo of what the Jacksonville Times-Union called the “flying takedown,” referring to Ryder’s dive as a “tackle worthy of Calais Campbell”—a defensive lineman for the Jacksonville Jaguars professional football team. A sports announcer on Channel Eight News suggested the Jags offer her a contract and a big signing bonus.

  Jackie, Ryder, Bull, and Victoria drove back to Savannah later that morning. There was a lot less chatter because Ryder slept the whole way. First, they dropped off Victoria at Casa Erotica. They didn’t have anything to charge her with at the moment, but told her, her days as a madam were over. Ryder got out and drove home in her Hyundai. Next, Bull and Jackie went back to Jackie’s house, untied Ronnie Wallace, cuffed him, read him his rights, and then Bull went to his ace in the hole. “You skate on what happened here last night but I’m taking you in for the aggravated assault that took place at Ms. Farrell’s parking lot last week. That’ll put you away for a few years, give us time to get more on you.”

  Wallace started to protest but Bull cut him off. “I don’t want to hear it. Call your lawyer, but even my brother’s not gonna be able to get you off on this one.” Then he added, “Only way you get less time is you give me something that hangs John Redmond.”

  Just before they got to the station, Wallace started to talk.

  Wallace told Bull that John Redmond came to him the day after he stabbed Miranda Cato to death and ordered Wallace to torch the kayak John had used that night and toss his Busse Battle Mistress knife into the deepest part of the Intracoastal. Instead, Wallace had sold the kayak and kept the knife, just in case he ever needed leverage against his boss. Wallace had examined the knife and could see it had Redmond’s prints on it along with traces of blood.

  Wallace also told Bull he once considered holding up Redmond for two hundred thousand dollars with the threat of taking the knife to the cops. But he quickly nixed it knowing Redmond was not someone he should mess with. Even for a million dollars.

  After Wallace finished his story, Bull drove to Wallace’s house. He followed Wallace down to a deep freezer in the basement. Wallace unstacked two layers of frozen venison and there underneath, wrapped in plastic, was John Redmond’s knife.

  Three days after Ryder’s flying airport takedown, John Redmond was extradited back to Georgia, where he was charged with first-degree murder.

  The day after their trip down to Jacksonville, Jackie and Ryder were having coffee in their office and rehashing the case.

  “I couldn’t believe Harry took a back seat,” Ryder was saying.

  Jackie nodded. “I know. Almost like he went out of his way to be invisible.”

  “So much for us worrying about him trying to horn in at the last minute,” Ryder said. “Try to steal credit for Redmond’s bust.”

  Jackie shrugged. “I feel bad for ever suspecting him.”

  Ryder nodded. “What did you find out about Ralston Oldfield?”

  Jackie sighed. “He’s still at the mental hospital.”

  “And you never said anything to anybody about the gun he had?”

  Jackie shook her head. “Nah, he was never a threat. I talked to Kay Lee and we agreed that telling about it would just make the whole thing worse.”

  “Poor guy. Gotta feel bad for him.”

  Jackie’s cell phone rang.

  “Savannah Investigations,” Jackie answered.

  She listened for about thirty seconds, then said, “Ah-huh.”

  She listened for another thirty seconds, then said: “Well, thank you for calling, Mrs. Warren. We’re kind of flat-out at the moment, let me get back to you shortly if we can take the case.”

  She listened again. “Yes, by the end of the day. I promise. Goodbye, Mrs. Warren.”

  Jackie hung up, looked up at Ryder, and shook her head slowly.

  “What?” Ryder asked.

  “Seems a Mrs. Warren of Tybee Island has a straying husband,” Jackie said.

  “Oh, Christ,” Ryder said, shaking her head. “Back to cheating spouses? I kinda got a homicide jones goin’.”

  Jackie exhaled. “I know. After a murder, it’s a downer to think about peeking through keyholes again.”

  “Totally,” Ryder said. “I mean, the idea of putting a bug on some Romeo’s car and following him to a no-tell motel—”

  “Gotta pay the mortgage, though.”

  Ryder nodded. “In my case, the rent,” she said. “You know, I was actually thinking of taking a few days off.”

  Jackie frowned. “And doing what?”

  “Pursuing my love life,” Ryder said. “I mean, you got Harry the stud and I got a seventy-five-year old with glaucoma.”

  “I thought it was alopecia.”

  “Whatever,” Ryder said. “But you wouldn’t believe all the guys on Match.com who I got chasing me now.”

  “I would believe it,” Jackie said. “Hey, the Jacksonville Times-Union described you as, ‘the stunning Sa
vannah P.I.’ And let me tell you, Redmond’s hookers had nothing on you.”

  “Oh, nice,” Ryder said. “Comparing me to a hooker.”

  Jackie shook her head. “So, tell me about these match.com guys.”

  Ryder thought for a second. “Here’s the problem: there always seems to be just one little deal-breaker.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, like this really good-looking guy who couldn’t spell. Like maybe he didn’t graduate from high school.”

  Jackie chuckled. “That is a problem.”

  “Or this other guy, who was a good speller but looked like Keith Richards…in ten years.”

  “That’s not pretty, even though Keith is my hero.”

  “Or another one who looked normal and had a good profile who I actually spoke to.”

  “And?”

  “He had a mommy thing. Told me I was a dead ringer for his mom when she was younger, except she had dimples.”

  “Um, ‘creepy’ comes to mind.”

  “No shit, so I cut that one short.”

  “I don’t blame you,” Jackie said, opening a drawer in her desk. “Hey, I just had a thought.”

  Ryder eyes lit up. “You got a guy for me?”

  Jackie shook her head. “No, sorry, about our next case. That Argentine tennis player who got shot at Mercer Island,” she said. “Still hasn’t been solved, far as I know.”

  “Yeah, but a pair of Savannah’s finest are workin’ it, right?” Ryder said. “Newell and Murphy.”

  “Yeah,” Jackie said, “but something I never told you, the tennis player’s father came to see me a few days after it happened.”

  “And?”

  “He wanted to hire us,” Jackie said. “To work alongside the police.”

  “It’d be good workin’ with Harry,” Ryder said, “but not those two bozos, Newell and Murphy.”

  Jackie opened a drawer in her desk and found Benedetto Giraldo’s card. “Here we go,” she said. “Think I should call him?”

  “Absolutely,” Ryder said. “It’s either that or chasing Mrs. Warren’s husband.”

  Jackie dialed Giraldo’s number. She went to voice mail. “Hi, Mr. Giraldo,” she said. “This is Jackie Farrell with Savannah Investigations. You came to my office shortly after your son’s death. Please give me a call when you get a chance.”