When the door behind Portia closed, Whitney said, “That ball buster would have given Kinley to Eileen if she could have.”
“She’s tough, and, like me, she’s been to a lot of rodeos.”
He folded his arms across his chest and let his head tilt sideways. “I don’t think I should like what you’re implying. My conduct has been, and is, above reproach.”
Could I tell a client to go to hell within an hour of meeting him? Temptation seethed.
I said, “I’m glad to hear that, Mr. Whitney, because when I investigate a case like this, I investigate everyone—back to the time they were in diapers.”
His right eyebrow shot up. “Then I’ll get my money’s worth out of you, Miss Moriah Dru.”
“Indeed, you will,” I said, snapping the check with a forefinger. I turned to go.
He ran to catch up. “Hey, look, I’m sorry.” He spread his arms wide. “This is a tough time. I’m the good guy, remember?”
I nodded without smiling, and we went our separate ways—him out of the courtroom, and me past the bench toward the door into Portia’s chamber. I congratulated myself that I hadn’t looked back to get a look at his gliding movements in the stylish clothes. Earlier, I’d seen his shoes. They were hundred-dollar wingtip tassels. A man of contradictions.
* * * * *
Portia Devon and I go back to second grade at Christ the King Catholic School. I don’t know why I thought of that right now. Perhaps because she was sitting behind her desk in the cluttered chamber, smoking a cigarette that was clasped in a short, black and gold holder. Cigarette smoking had been forbidden in government offices for years now, so maybe that was why I thought of our school days. Forbidden smoking. I remember in sixth grade, gagging my way through half a pack a week.
I unloaded my laptop and briefcase on the floor and sat in a chair facing Portia. Another puff, and she stubbed the cigarette. “You don’t smoke any longer, do you Moriah?”
It was a rhetorical question, and I answered the same as always. “I still don’t know what to do with my fists, now that I don’t cough any more.”
Portia’s lip twitched. She was a thin, nervous woman. Her eyes were set so close together they looked like they had been sliced apart by her scythe of a nose. Before her elevation to the bench, she’d been a state prosecutor—one of those no-plea-deals-from-this-office barracudas.
“What do you think of Whitney?” she asked.
“First impressions can be misleading, can’t they?”
“A disagreeable Ken doll,” she said, rising abruptly. She picked up a bunch of case files representing her morning calendar.
I grinned. “What do you know about Ken dolls?”
“My son has two bedrooms full of dolls. I know every one.” It was easy to forget that Portia had been married. It was a brief marriage, and I was reminded for the millionth time why I, at thirty-three, had never married. Five years ago my cop fiancé had been murdered in a drive-by shooting while handing out Big Brothers/Big Sisters leaflets in a neighborhood of warring drug dealers.
Swallowing the unhappy reminder, I asked, “What can you tell me about the Whitneys’ custody problems?”
“Not much,” she said, plunking the files into her clerk’s file bin. “You’re not an officer of the court. Juvenile files are confidential.”
“You can tell me if you’ve investigated him, can’t you?”
Returning to her chair, she settled, in then answered, “Eileen’s attorney took depositions; we heard testimony.”
“I’m curious about his wealth. Where’d it come from?”
“All he had to prove to this court was that he had sufficient income, and the good credit and character to take care of his daughter. He’s an educator, and he wasn’t paying alimony.”
“C’mon, Porsh, you can do better.”
She fidgeted with her cigarette holder, her mouth drawn in thought. “I can tell you this much. Custody was a typical mudslinging affair. And since he’s had custody, Eileen Whitney Cameron has filed eight petitions to get his parental rights terminated. Her last one was . . . well . . .” If a hawk could grin, it would look like Portia. “I have every confidence you’ll learn for yourself.”
I’d have to be satisfied with that. “I plan on paying a surprise visit to Eileen Cameron’s family in Monroe after I leave here. No love lost between Whitney and his ex-in-laws.”
“Nor Whitney’s ex-in-laws and me. The aunt’s a harridan.”
“Could Eileen have taken the child there?”
“Not in a million years.”
“If you don’t want to be found,” I said, “the last place on earth they’d expect you to be is the place to be.”
Portia rose and came to sit in the chair next to me. “Eileen Cameron’s mama and daddy are dead. So’s an older sister. The family owned a bank. They died in a robbery when Eileen was fifteen. That’s when her drug addiction began.”
“I take it this harridan aunt had custody of her.”
She folded her hands on her lap. “Adele Carter’s her name. Adele has a girl of her own. It was a stepmother-stepsister relationship.”
“You interviewed Carter?”
“Personally—after she’d given a deposition. She didn’t have much good to say about Eileen.” She tossed her head, one of her impatient gestures I knew well, and went on, “I wish her words weren’t on the record, but they are. The family is fundamentalist Christian with a capital F.”
“They speak in tongues?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised.” She leaned forward and put her hand on my arm. “Now you know the drill. Report to me every day. Phone or e-mail.”
“Yes, Your Honor.” Portia stood, and I bent to pick up my briefcase and laptop from the floor. “Do you think Whitney will pay for my cell minutes and carpal tunnel treatments?”
Portia walked me to the door. She looked up and conveyed that motherly quality even skinny hawkish judges can manage. “Moriah, don’t put yourself out on a limb where the son-of-a-bitch can saw it off.”
I nodded, feeling the same unease that disturbed Portia’s dark eyes.
3
Portia went to law school after her bachelor’s degree, and I went to community college, then to the Atlanta Police Academy. That career choice had little to do with civic zeal and a lot to do with money, as in: I had none. Daddy was a marginal stockbroker turned insurance salesman. We lived on an edge that was hidden behind Southern gentility, and then one day I realized that Daddy wasn’t going to work any longer and that he lay around the house nipping at a quart of Jim Beam or Old Crow. It didn’t stop me from loving him, though.
I reached the Saab and threw my things on the back seat. My eight-year-old car was an oven. The mercury had climbed close to a hundred. But that’s the South in August.
It was late afternoon, and Atlanta traffic was at its legendary best. Everyone was out of their offices, and on the move, especially on the interstates. But once I got on the Stone Mountain Freeway, heading east, the going smoothed. Monroe, Georgia, is halfway between Atlanta and Athens—the home of the University of Georgia, Portia’s alma mater.
Whenever I traveled toward Athens, the same old memories popped up. Even the Whitney case couldn’t keep my mind from going back to my affable daddy, who committed suicide when I was a senior in high school.
Before I realized I’d reached the Monroe city limits, I was on Union Street. Monroe is the seat of Walton County. Just to show how my brain lugs around a lot of useless knowledge, I recalled how Monroe got its name and became the Walton County seat. Back about eighteen-fifteen, two plantations—Cow Pens and Spring Place—vied for the site of the county seat. Spring Place won, and to placate the master of Cow Pens, he got to name the city. He named it after Monroe, after the sitting president.
Red brick buildings lined Broad Street, the most prominent being the courthouse with its portico and clock tower. A series of turns brought me to High Prince Road. I made another right. Number 115 was an antebel
lum gem in need of paint. The black roadside mailbox told me A. Carter lived here. Neat flower beds rimmed the gray wooden porch. I climbed the steps. A hot breeze nudged the white swing hooked to the porch ceiling.
Portia’s word came back to me the minute Adele Carter opened the screen door and wiped her hands on her apron. Harridan. Her gash of a mouth didn’t smile, but she nodded briefly to acknowledge who I was and why I’d come. Her sharp chin moved sideways when she said she had an apple pie ready to come out of the oven. I hurried after her, over a threshold and onto the brick-floor of her kitchen. She pulled the oven door open and stuck a knife in the pie’s crust. “Five more minutes,” she said, whirling to a counter. She measured cornmeal in a cup and then poured it into a bowl. My impromptu visit, no matter the reason, was not going to disrupt her kitchen duties.
I sat at an old chrome table that dated to the 1950s, my nose absorbing hot apples riding on sweltering air. No AC, and the fan oscillating on top of the fridge was losing to the oven. Sweat beaded on my upper lip. My clothes would be soaked when I left, and that might not be for hours since Adele’s feisty mannerisms suffered no conversation while she put the cornbread ingredients together. When she went for the buttermilk in the fridge, she brought out a pitcher of lemonade, got a glass, and plunked them in front of me.
With a brusque chin lift, she said, “I’ve spoke with the police. There’s nothing more I can say. Eileen was man-crazy. One was bound to kill her one day.” She whipped the batter like she was trying to kill it.
I kept my face impassive. “I haven’t heard anything to suggest—”
“That Hollywood gigolo ain’t talking the truth.”
“You think Arlo Cameron killed her?”
“Either him or that slinky first husband of hers. Son of the devil. Satan shined out of his eyes ever time he looked at me.”
“What about Kinley? You can’t think—”
“A pawn,” she said, slathering Crisco inside an iron skillet. “That’s all she was. Poor li’l Kinley. Never went to Sunday school a day in her life.”
“Was Eileen raised in Sunday school?”
“I saw to it she was, after her family was shot dead. Money heathens, they were. Went to the country club of a Sunday morning instead of services.”
“How did Eileen take to Sunday school?” As if I had to ask.
“Snuck out, if I didn’t keep an eye on her.” She poured the batter into the skillet. “Went off in the woods with the boys.” She smoothed the batter with a wooden spoon. Taking the pie out of the oven, Adele Carter said, “Give you some, ’cept it’s too hot.” Then she slid the cornbread pan over the oven rack and slammed the door.
“Thanks anyway,” I said, finishing a second glass of too-sweet lemonade.
“They all spoiled Eileen rotten,” she said, flipping a timer. “Pretty is as pretty does. You don’t give in to pretty’s every whim.”
“Nommmm,” I murmured.
“Money. That’s all their daddy thought about.”
“Well, he owned a bank—”
“I thought Eileen’d never stop crying when they was killed,” she said, planting her bony hands on her hips. “The day she stopped, she never cried again. Wish she had of. Drugs got hold of her.”
“Do you have any idea where Eileen would go with Kinley?”
“Nary one.”
“Would she go to a women’s shelter?”
“She’d go to hell first. She’s too in love with herself and all her fine things.”
“I have to ask you this right out, and no offense …” She stood straighter—as if prepared for an onslaught. “Have you, or anyone in the family—her cousin, for instance—heard from Eileen since she disappeared?”
Flashing angry eyes, she said, “I would have told the police if we had.”
“If you hear from her in the future, will you call me?”
“You don’t have to ask that.” She went to the kitchen sink.
I slipped the business card in my hand onto the table. “I’d like your word.”
She pushed the faucet tap roughly. “I would be the last person Eileen would ask for help.”
“You’re family.”
She flipped the water from her hands and grabbed a towel. “The bank wasn’t solvent. It wasn’t my fault.”
“Did Eileen’s parents leave a will?”
“They did. I was made her legal guardian.”
I got it. “Did the court appoint a guardian ad litem, too?”
She snapped the towel and nearly shouted, “There was no money. The bank wasn’t solvent. It made bad loans and lost customers to big banks come to town.”
“Did Eileen think you’d kept money that belonged to her?”
She rushed out, into the hall, expecting me to follow. I did. She opened the screen door and stood back. Once I was through it, she tried to slam it. But I straightened my arm against it. She pushed, but I’m stronger. She drew back, and for several moments we stared at one another. I wasn’t going to break eye contact until she did. When she did, she looked past my shoulder.
“Sit on the swing with me for a moment,” I said.
Her face tightened into a mask of restraint, and she stared into my eyes. I braced for the punch, but she backed away and stepped onto the porch. Her heavy shoes clomped to the double-seat swing. She sat firm and folded her hands on her lap.
I lowered myself next to her and waited while the swing rocked itself quiet. Placing a hand on her arm, I said, “You loved Eileen, didn’t you?”
Tears pooled at the corner of her eyes. She shook her head. “I couldn’t—I couldn’t—I didn’t take her money—there wasn’t any left.” Her watery blue eyes looked out from raw sockets. “She didn’t believe me.”
“She was fifteen,” I said. “No one could influence her any longer. You could only be her caretaker and watch whatever happened.”
She rolled her thumbs against one another. “I did my best.” She looked out across her lawn. “I wanted her to—to—mind me.”
I was certain she wanted to say, “to love me.”
Some people just can’t.
* * * * *
A combination of police training and instinct had me studying the car that followed me down Broad Street, through some turns and onto Highway 78. It was a dark blue Chevy Caprice, less than three years old, no front tag. The person driving wore a cap and had broad shoulders. Man or mannish woman.
At a stop sign in Snellville, he was three cars back. I got off 78 at Mountain Industrial. So did he. I turned right on Ponce de Leon. So did he. I was going out of my way to get downtown He had to know I knew he was following me.
So what was the point? Intimidation? But by whom, and why? Did those God-fearing relatives of Eileen’s have something to hide after all?
But they hadn’t known I was coming to Monroe, and Adele Carter hadn’t made a phone call while I was there. How could they get a tail going so quickly?
Whitney’s smarmy face came to mind, but I was certain Whitney wasn’t driving.
4
When I made a left onto Peachtree Street, the Chevy Caprice went straight across the broad main drag and disappeared down a hill. Good riddance, I thought, and maybe he wasn’t following me. I streamed on downtown when my cell played Mozart. Lake. I adjusted my ear bud and answered. Lake said he could take a break for supper.
I turned off Peachtree onto Marietta—a schizoid of a street. Short skyscrapers housed banks and shops and cafés. Going west, I passed the newspaper building, Centennial Park, CNN, and the Omni Hotel. After that, things got shady fast. Now hundred-year-old warehouses flanked the street. During my last year on the force, in a cotton warehouse, six gamblers holding cards had been shot dead. Down the street, a shoot-out at a motorcycle fix-it shop killed one of my APD colleagues. But the street was going trendy, too, with its chi-chi inner-city restaurants. I parked around back of one of them, next to Lake’s unmarked squad car.
Il Vesuvio’s brick façade was painted to look
like a post card from Italy—boats bobbed at a wharf with a towering mountain in the background. Burglar bars covered the stained glass of the entry door. One of the leaded panes had a neat round hole in it. I slipped inside the small vestibule, then into the bar area.
Ah, the smell of Italian floating on air-conditioning.
Lake sat on a bar stool, one hand jingling change in the pocket of his chinos while he gabbed with the bartender. Lake’s shirt was a dark blue, no-designer polo knit. When he saw me, he grinned and said, “Dru.” When we worked together our last names—M DRU and R LAKE—became our first names. Only old friends like Portia called me Moriah.
Joey the barkeep pulled at a tap and said with a smile, “Officer Dru.” He’d never mentally accepted my resignation from the APD.
I gave my ex-partner a brief kiss on the cheek.
“You can do better than that,” Lake said, threading his fingers in mine.
Winking at Joey, I rubbed my nose on Lake’s cheek and made my alto voice very husky. “Later.”
“Tonight sounds like your lucky night, Ricky,” Joey said, for the millionth time.
A year after my fiancé was murdered, Richard “Ricky” Lake and I were assigned to patrol Zone Two. It was a good thing and a bad thing. The good thing was we liked each other and became lovers too fast for our own good. The bad thing (for me) was he got a promotion to homicide, and I didn’t like my new partners. They thought they should be able to take Lake’s place in my bed, too. Naturally, I bitched to Portia, who was a sucker when it came to old, unhappy friends. She called one day with an idea. “You always liked working with children.” My spirit rose. From the time I was eleven, I was the neighborhood babysitter. I adored every one of those kids. Anyway, Portia’s call instigated a new career.
Lake’s voice brought me back to Il Vesuvio’s. “How’s the new client?”
“Bad beginning,” I said, catching the Amstel Light Joey slid down the bar.
Lake signaled for another Sam Adams, then said, “I ran into Portia when I went to get a warrant. She said her money’s on you when the crap starts flying between you and the Ken doll.” He grinned and pushed back wisps of black hair hanging on his forehead. His face is all angles and irregularities that blend into one delectable whole. “Ricky,” as the lady cops and women of the esteemed press so oozingly call him, has a groupie following. Portia would have been one if Portia ever stooped to groupiedom.
The Last Temptation Page 2
