Collateral Damage: A Savannah Martin Novel (Savannah Martin Mysteries Book 19)

by Jenna Bennett

  “You’re not,” I said. “I just got here, too. Rafe’s around back nailing the door shut.”

  Or on his way around the corner now, with a hammer in one hand and a couple of planks under the other arm. He gave Charlotte a nod in passing. “Evening, Charlotte.”

  “Good evening,” Charlotte said, and scurried up onto the stoop as I pushed the door open and stepped back.

  “Knock yourselves out.”

  I’d already seen it all, so I might as well spend the next couple of minutes canoodling with my husband while they looked around inside and commiserated.

  They crowded through the doorway and exclaimed in shock at the mess inside. I left them to it while I hauled Carrie over to the Chevy, where Rafe was busy dumping the extra lumber and the hammer in the trunk. “Anything going on that I should know about?”

  He straightened and slammed the lid shut before shaking his head. “Nothing other than the obvious, darlin’.” He leaned a hip against the back of the car and faced me. “CSI’s been here and prob’ly left a mess. The place was all over fingerprints, but we won’t know whose until they’re processed, and we’ll only know then if they’re on file.”

  I nodded. “We had at least ten or twelve people come through yesterday, in addition to me and Charlotte, and the Allens, and Rodney, and the renovation guy and his wife.”

  “And all of’em’s gotta be eliminated,” Rafe said. “I don’t think we’re gonna get much from the fingerprints.”

  No. I didn’t, either. “There wasn’t anything else of interest, I guess? Anything we missed this morning?” No one had accidentally dropped a credit card with their name on it, or anything like that?

  Rafe shook his head. “I had a couple of cops go up and down the street here and on the next block to see if anybody saw or heard anything last night. They’re doing it again now, since so many people were at work in the middle of the day.”

  “There aren’t any surveillance cameras or anything like that around here, I guess?”

  “Traffic camera up on the main road,” Rafe said with a nod in that direction. “And there’s a chance somebody could have a Ring. You know, one of those doorbell cameras?”

  “I’ve seen commercials for them on HGTV. Wish we would have had one here.”

  “We can put one in now,” Rafe said.

  “Maybe. At least we wouldn’t have to worry about something like this happening again.”

  He straightened, eyes over my shoulder. “I don’t think it’s gonna happen again, darlin’.”

  “It’s happened twice,” I began, but stopped when I saw that he wasn’t really paying attention to me. He had noticed a car turning down the street, and now he was watching it come closer.

  I looked at it, too. “That’s Rodney Clark’s car.”

  Rafe nodded, as the dark blue Dodge Charger slowly approached, and just as slowly rolled past us. Rodney grinned insolently out the window. Just beyond the next property he turned on his signal, and rolled into the Allens’ driveway on the other side of the street.

  “He’s sure spending a lot of time with the Allens,” I commented. “He was with them at the open house yesterday, too. I mean, it isn’t like his girlfriend—their daughter—is still alive.” And it wasn’t like Mrs. Allen even liked him particularly well. She had told me, just last month, that she thought Natalie could have done better.

  We watched as Rodney turned his engine off and got out. He stood for a second, very deliberately not looking our way, before he slammed his car door and sauntered around the back end of the Dodge and up to the front door. We heard the knock, and a few seconds later he disappeared inside the yellow house.

  Rafe turned back to me. “’Scuse me, darlin’.”

  “You going over there?”

  He nodded. “They were here at your open house yesterday. And the Allens live just up the street. They mighta noticed something last night.”

  “And besides, you want a close and personal look at Rodney.”

  “That don’t hurt,” Rafe agreed with a grin. “This’ll gimme that, without having to pull him in for the other business.”

  The other business being the suspected neo-Nazi affiliation, I assumed.

  “Be careful,” I told him.

  “Darlin’, I’m always careful.”

  I snorted, and he added, “It’s nothing to worry about. I’m just a policeman doing my job and investigating this vandalism that took place just down the street from them.”

  “I’ll see you at home later, then,” I said. “I’m going inside to Darcy and Charlotte. Thanks for fixing the back door.”

  “My pleasure, darlin’.” He gave me a polite nod, and then turned on his heel and sauntered up the street toward the Allens’ house. I watched for a second before I remembered that I wasn’t supposed to be ogling him, and then I turned, too, and headed across the grass to the stoop and the front door.

  Six

  Darcy and Charlotte were standing in the middle of the carnage of the master suite, in the same spot where Arlene Woods had been standing this morning. Unlike then, the noose was gone from overhead, and the fan revolved by itself, with no additional threat.

  Even so, the two of them didn’t look happy.

  “This is a mess,” Charlotte said when I came through the door.

  I nodded. “Maybe it’ll look less bad when all the damaged staging is out of here. I mean, we’ll have plenty to fix. But once all the ripped fabric and stuffing is gone, and all we’re looking at are empty rooms, maybe it’ll look less awful.”

  “Or more,” Charlotte said.

  Well, yes. There was a chance of that, too, of course. That the damaged staging was keeping us from focusing on all the other things that were wrong.

  “Where’s Rafe?” Darcy wanted to know, and I explained that he’d walked over to the Allens’ to see whether they’d noticed anything, either yesterday during the open house or overnight.

  “Rodney Clark just drove up. He was with them when they walked through yesterday. And he was one of the guys at Beulah’s that day when we all had lunch, and—”

  “I remember,” Darcy said.

  “If he had something to do with this, Rafe will figure it out. In the meantime, I think we just have to carry on the best we can. I’ll call Michelle tonight, and tell her she can take her staging away tomorrow. Charlotte, you and I can meet here after lunch… no, wait.”

  “Problem?”

  “I can’t tomorrow. Or at least not until later in the day. Alexandra Puckett, my friend from Nashville, is driving down to have lunch with me.”

  “The pregnant girl?” Darcy said.

  I nodded. “That’s right, you met her.”

  “At a barbeque restaurant in Nashville once, when we were up there.” During the time we’d been trying to figure out who Darcy’s birth parents were, before we’d realized that Darcy’s dad was my dad.

  “Well, she’s coming down to visit,” I said. “I contacted her the other day and suggested I could come up to see her, and she said she’d drive down instead. They’re on spring break this week, apparently.”

  “She’s still in high school, isn’t she?”

  “Until May. Hopefully she’ll be able to keep up for long enough to graduate with her class, so at least she won’t have that to worry about. If it takes her another year to start college, it won’t be the end of the world.”

  “Where are you meeting her?” Charlotte wanted to know.

  “She’s coming to the mansion. She knows where it is. She was down for the wedding. I thought I might take her to the Café on the Square. Show her the law office and Audrey’s place. If Audrey’s there tomorrow.”

  “Why wouldn’t she be?” Darcy wanted to know.

  “I saw her outside the store earlier today. She said Mrs. Jenkins is running a fever.”

  “She was a little under the weather yesterday, too,” Darcy nodded. “I hope it’s nothing serious. Apparently some old friend of hers is coming to Columbia on Friday. I
’d hate for her to miss it.”

  So would I, if she had a friend coming to visit. “Maybe Audrey is just taking extra care now so she won’t.”

  Darcy nodded. “Are we waiting for Rafe to come back?”

  I shook my head. “He has his own car, and I don’t know how long he’ll be. If you two have seen enough, we can lock up and leave. I’ll call Michelle, and then, once she tells me the staging is all gone, we can meet back over here and assess the damage. Maybe around the same time tomorrow?”

  Alexandra would have left to drive back to Nashville by then, and surely Michelle would have had time to remove her property, too.

  They both agreed that that would work, and we parted ways on the stoop. They drove away while I locked the door and hid the key away in the lockbox. And although I took my time walking across the grass to the car and getting Carrie situated in the back seat, Rafe didn’t come back out of the Allens’ house in the time I stood there. Eventually I gave up and drove home, where I made dinner, and—since he still wasn’t there—ate my share and left the rest warming on the stove for whenever he did get there.

  It was almost eight by the time the Chevy finally came up the driveway to the house. I listened to it turn the corner and then disappear into the garage. A minute later, he unlocked the back door.

  Pearl, still sharp-eared on her pillow in the corner, all the way on the other side of the house, gave out a sharp yip.

  “We’re in the parlor,” I called out. “Bring your dinner in here and join us.”

  He didn’t answer, but I heard him moving around in the kitchen.

  “Rafe?”

  “Yeah.”

  It was his voice, and I breathed out. For a second, I’d been worried that someone else had walked in, and what that would have meant, not just for me, but for him.

  Actually, I would probably have been fine. Pearl is protective, and if anyone but Rafe had turned up in the doorway, especially someone acting threatening, I don’t doubt she would have gone for his throat. Rafe, on the other hand, would have been dead in a ditch before he would have let anyone take the keys to his house.

  But it was him carrying a bowl of chili and a bottle of beer through the door a minute later, his stocking-feet silent on the old wood floors. He stepped over Carrie, who was gurgling and kicking on the floor, gave Pearl a nudge with his toe and a “Good girl, Pearl,” that made her wag her tail and show a happy canine grin. Rafe dropped down on the loveseat next to me, put the chili and beer on the table, and leaned back, letting out a sigh. Long, thick lashes fanned against his cheeks for a second.

  “Long day,” I said sympathetically.

  “No shit.” He opened his eyes again, and after a second, straightened. “Sorry.”

  “No problem. I’ve heard it before.” Although not usually from him. He tends to censor his language around me. “Have some food. It’ll make you feel better.”

  “I don’t think so,” Rafe said, but he had some food anyway. And some beer.

  I left him alone until the bowl and bottle were both empty, and he leaned back with another sigh, this one more content. “Would you like me to get you some more?”

  “No thanks, darlin’.” He turned his head on the back of the sofa, so he could grin at me. “I gotta be careful now that I’m an old married man.”

  “So you don’t break wind in bed?” There were beans in the chili.

  The grin widened. “I was thinking, so I don’t start gaining weight and disappointing my wife.”

  “It would take a lot to disappoint me,” I said.

  Not that I didn’t appreciate the six-pack he kept under his shirt, and everything else that lived under his clothes, too. But I’d still love him if it went away. I’d put up with the breaking wind, too, if I had to.

  He smiled. “I’m good, darlin’. But thanks for asking.”

  “No problem.” I got to my feet and gathered up the empty bowl and the bottle. “Another beer?”

  “I’m good. Gotta make sure I keep all my faculties for later.” He winked.

  “It would take more than one beer for you to lose your abilities there,” I informed him. “And besides, we probably have an hour or two before bed. Time enough to burn off another beer.”

  He chuckled. “I appreciate it. But it’s fine. I’ve had enough.”

  “I’ll be back in a minute, then.” I padded out of the room and down the hallway to the kitchen, where I tucked the bowl away in the dishwasher and the bottle in recycling, before packing away the leftovers and making sure the stove was turned off.

  He was still in the same position on the sofa when I got back to the parlor, his head back and his eyes barely open. Carrie was cooing on the floor, but a little less happily than before—it would be time to change and feed her and put her to bed soon. And Pearl was napping on her pillow, her feet and eyelids twitching occasionally as she chased imaginary rabbits.

  I curled up in the corner of the love seat next to Rafe and gave him a smile. “You look tired. You can go up to bed if you want. I’ll take Pearl out and then change and feed Carrie before I join you.”

  He pushed himself halfway up. “I’m OK, darlin’. Just taking it easy.”

  “Rough day.”

  His lips curved. “I’ve had rougher.”

  No question. For him, this was business as usual. “Did anything interesting happen with the Allens?”

  “Not apart from that pissant Rodney’s attitude,” Rafe said. “Nancy and Gary both said they hadn’t heard or seen anything overnight. I didn’t figure they would’ve, since whoever did the damage came through the back.”

  “Same as when Steven Morris was killed.”

  He nodded. “Rodney Clark didn’t see nothing, because he wasn’t there.”

  “Or so he said.”

  “Of course, darlin’. I asked him whether he could prove it, and he gave me this little smirk and said his buddy could vouch for him.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Let me guess. Kyle Scoggins.”

  Rafe nodded. “I took down the name and number, like I didn’t know who he was talking about. But Scoggins’s word ain’t worth any more than Clark’s.”

  No. The two of them would definitely alibi one another, whether they’d been there, vandalizing my house, or somewhere else.

  “Nobody else heard or saw nothing, either. I hit a couple of the neighbors, and heard from the folks who talked to the others. One or two people had security systems, and I’m gonna look at the footage tomorrow, along with the video from the traffic cam on the corner of the Lewisburg Pike.”

  He kept sinking deeper and deeper into the loveseat as he was talking. And it isn’t easy to do on a piece of furniture that’s more than a hundred years old.

  “Did I tell you that Alexandra Puckett’s driving down tomorrow, to have lunch?” I asked him.

  He shook his head.

  “You’re welcome to join us if you want. I’m sure she’d like to see you.” Alexandra had always had a little crush on Rafe, or at least she thought he was hot. Which he is.

  “Dunno if I can get away, darlin’. I’ll try.”

  “It’s no problem if you can’t,” I said, talking fast, since he seemed like he was about to fall asleep right there. “I also saw Audrey. Your grandmother’s under the weather.”

  That perked him up for a second. His eyes opened and grew alert. “What’s wrong?”

  “Probably just a cold or something like that. She’s lethargic, has a fever, and isn’t eating much. I’ll check with Audrey tomorrow, and suggest taking Mrs. J to the doctor if she isn’t better. I wonder if she had a flu shot this winter.”

  “That’d have been while she was living in Brentwood,” Rafe said, about the institution where Mrs. Jenkins had spent her time before she came to live with us and then Audrey. “We can call tomorrow and ask.”

  “I’ll take care of it,” I said. “You have enough to do. But if you can spare a few minutes, she’d probably appreciate it if you stopped by and said hello.”
>
  “I’ll try to get over there. And if I can make it to lunch, I’ll do that, too. But don’t wait for me.”

  I promised I wouldn’t. “She’s coming here around eleven, so just let me know by then. Or I can call you when she gets here and double-check.”

  “I’ll let you know.” He turned to look at Carrie when she suddenly decided she’d had enough tummy-and-back time on the floor and set up a wail. Over on the pillow, Pearl woke up with a strangled snort and a bark. “Looks like nap-time’s over.”

  He pushed himself to his feet.

  “I’ll take her up and put her to bed,” I offered, “if you want to let Pearl out. Or vice versa.” Pearl was less work, but dealing with her involved putting on shoes and a jacket and going outside. Carrie just needed taking upstairs, but once there, there was the diaper and the pajamas.

  “I’ll take the baby. I haven’t seen her much today.” He plucked her off the floor and tucked her into the crook of his arm. “Hi there, pretty girl.”

  Carrie sniffled a couple of times, and then looked up at him, blinking, as he carried her toward the door. Pearl watched them until I told her, “Come on, Pearl. Time to go outside,” and then she bounded to her feet, wagging her tail and the entirety of her muscular backside as she scampered for the front door.

  I pulled it open for her, and then stepped onto the porch as she leaped down the couple of steps to the gravel and grass. Where she stopped dead, lifting her head. It was dark, so I couldn’t see her nose vibrating as she scented the air, but I recognized the pose. I also knew what the low growl meant, when it started rumbling in her throat.

  “No, Pearl—!” I yelped, but it was already too late. She gathered that compact body and threw herself into the darkness, her deep barks echoing back to me as she bulleted across the lawn and into the fields.

  “Pearl!” I shrieked. “No! Come back here! Pearl!”

  There was no answer, of course, just the sound of her barks getting faint as she got farther away.

  “Pearl!”

  I hadn’t bothered to put on shoes or a coat—I was only supposed to stand on the porch for the thirty seconds it would take Pearl to do her evening business—and by the time I had grabbed my coat and was in the process of stuffing my feet into boots, Rafe was on his way down the stairs, two steps at a time, with his gun in one hand and Carrie, buck naked, wriggling under his arm.