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

by Jenna Bennett

  Good point. “In that case, you should definitely take any help you can get.”

  I picked up the car seat with the baby and headed for the door. “I want to stop in the ladies room. I’ll meet you in the hallway.”

  I assumed Wendell probably had questions he didn’t want to ask in front of me, and this way, they’d have a couple of minutes to themselves without actually having to ask me to leave.

  The business must have been quickly concluded, though, because by the time I came out of the bathroom with Carrie in a dry diaper, Wendell was nowhere to be seen, and Rafe was leaning against the wall next to the open office door. “Ready?”

  I nodded. “You know, normal people have normal jobs. She’s probably at work at this time of the morning.”

  “Not everyone works nine to five,” Rafe said, falling into step next to me as we headed for the elevator. “But that’s all right. I’ll be happy to take a look around her place without her there.”

  I glanced at him. “Isn’t that illegal without a search warrant?”

  He gave me a look back. “When did that ever stop either of us?”

  Well, never. But… “You’re a police detective now. Doesn’t that make a difference?”

  “Only in court.” He pushed the button to summon the elevator. “Besides, I don’t plan to get caught.”

  “I didn’t think you were planning to get caught.” I mean, he probably wouldn’t. He can melt through locked doors when he wants to, and not leave any sign that he was there. “If you find anything, won’t it be useless if you didn’t have a search warrant for it?”

  “We’ll deal with that if it becomes a problem,” Rafe said. “And anyway, she’s not a suspect. I just need a line on her husband or boyfriend.”

  “Or brother.” The elevator doors opened, and I stepped in. “Or son.”

  Rafe followed me. “Or the neighbor who decided to borrow her car when she was away at a bachelorette party in Miami this weekend.”

  He pushed the button for the ground floor and shook his head. “We’re just looking for a thread to tug, darlin’. She might be related to this guy, or it could be totally random. She might not know anything about him. Or he could be asleep on her couch or in her bed right now. It’s a place to start.”

  The doors closed and we rode down in silence. It was just a few seconds before we were back on the ground, and on our way across the stone floor of the lobby.

  “What’s happening in Maury County today?” I asked, as Rafe headed into the parking lot toward a creamy Cadillac. It took me a second to remember that the Volvo was still in Sweetwater and that we were driving Mother’s car. “Is anyone doing anything about catching whoever shot you?”

  He unlocked the doors remotely and opened the back door so I could put Carrie and her seat inside. “There’s no real question about who shot me.”

  I clicked the car seat into the base and straightened. “There isn’t?”

  He shook his head as he shut the door. “You know who didn’t go north from Beulah’s? Kyle Scoggins’s truck.”

  That was true. “Kyle and Rodney shot you?”

  “Clay shot me,” Rafe said, opening my door next.

  I stopped in front of it, my mouth open. “Clayton? Clayton shot you?”

  He nodded. “Get in, darlin’. I don’t wanna stand here any longer than I have to.”

  No, I could imagine that. Not that anyone was likely to take a potshot at him in broad daylight in the TBI parking lot. But safer not to take any chances. I slid into the car. “What do you mean, Clayton shot you? How do you know?”

  He shut my door and then walked around the Cadillac and got behind the wheel before he answered. It took a little time and a little swearing, and he was in pain by the time he was situated. I could hear it in his voice when he told me, “All part of the master plan, darlin’.”

  “Maybe you should share this master plan with me,” I said, as he turned the key in the ignition and the Caddy purred to life. My voice was tight, even in my own ears. “Because if you knew that you were about to be shot, and you didn’t tell me, I’m going to be upset. I was really scared last night. I thought you were dead.”

  He shook his head. “I wouldn’t do that to you, darlin’. If I’d known it was gonna happen, I woulda let you know.”

  “So how do you know it was Clayton?”

  He put the car in gear and we rolled out of the parking space. “It’s what makes sense. They were together. They went south. They didn’t have time to drop Clay off. And I’m pretty sure, when he’s able to report in, he’ll say that they told him they were there the night before and shot Pearl.”

  So Rodney and Kyle, without Clayton, had tried to shoot him the night before, too. And had gotten Pearl instead. “I want to kill them,” I said.

  “You’re gonna have to settle for life in prison, darlin’.” He took a left on Gass Boulevard and sent the car rolling down the hill in the direction of the parkway. “We’re gonna put them away, though, and for a long time. Not only does attempted murder of a police officer come with a long sentence, but when you add the hate crime to it…”

  Right. “And then there’s everyone else we think they’re planning to kill.”

  “If we’re right,” Rafe said, slowing down for the light at the bottom of the road. He put his turn signal on. “After last night, Clay should be established with the group, even if he’s only met Clark and Scoggins and the new guy so far. They may wanna introduce him around, so we could see some movement down there soon.”

  And we were up here, missing it.

  “We’ll be back later,” he told me. “It ain’t likely to happen today. I’m sure some of these people are gainfully employed upstanding citizens, who can’t just drop everything and run down to Columbia because they’ve found a new recruit. But at least now we’ve got people keeping an eye on the auto shop and on Scoggins again.”

  Good to know. Although I wasn’t sure how helpful that was going to be, since we also had Clayton on the inside now, and nothing was likely to happen that he didn’t know about.

  Then again, he hadn’t been able to let Rafe know that he was about to be gunned down last night, so Clayton might not be the help Rafe hoped he would be.

  The Cadillac hit the parkway going north, and a few minutes later, we were headed west toward Bellevue. “I’ll find this place on a map,” I said, pulling out my phone, “so we know where we’re going.”

  “You do that. And when you’re done, maybe take a quick look on social media for Jennifer Vonderaa.”

  Good idea.

  As we zoomed down the highway, I found the address and got it placed in my head so I’d know where Rafe had to go once we got out to that part of town. That done, I switched over to Facebook and looked for Jennifer. Her last name was unusual enough that she wasn’t hard to find, and I held up the phone for Rafe’s perusal. “This her?”

  He glanced at the profile picture and nodded.

  I took the phone back. “It says in her profile that she’s in a relationship, but there’s no name for the boyfriend. I’ll check for pictures.”

  He didn’t look right or left as we zoomed through the area where, six months ago, a woman named Carmen Arroyo had died and her newborn baby had gone missing. A newborn baby we had thought, at the time, might be Rafe’s. Either he didn’t realize where we were, or it didn’t bother him. I’m sure he hadn’t forgotten.

  “No pictures of her with anyone in the past couple of months,” I reported as we left the wooded area with the old cabin behind, and rolled down the road toward the garbage dump, on one side of the highway, and the Tennessee Women’s Prison on the other. “A couple of girlfriends, but no guys.”

  I didn’t take my eyes off the phone when I added, sort of off-handedly, “Do you ever hear anything from Carmen’s sister? Or her mother?”

  “No,” Rafe said, eyes on the road as we drove along next to the chain link fence that encircled Southern Belle Hell. It was tall and curved in at the t
op, so anyone who tried to make it over would have to fight gravity not just vertically, but horizontally as well. I didn’t imagine many people made it out of there.

  “It’s got nothing to do with me,” Rafe added. “I didn’t kill her. I didn’t knock her up. It ain’t my baby.”

  “Did you ever figure out whose baby it was?”

  “No,” Rafe said, “and it’s none of my business. Talk about something else.”

  Fine. “I’m back to October, and there’s still no picture of a boyfriend. Have you ever tried to climb a fence like that?”

  “Like what?”

  I pointed, and he looked at it. “No, can’t say as I have, darlin’.”

  “You never thought about breaking out of Riverbend?”

  He grinned. “I guess I can’t say the thought never crossed my mind. But the security there’s better than that.”

  Riverbend Penitentiary is a maximum security prison full of very bad men, and while I’d met a few cold-blooded women in my time—including the one responsible for Carmen’s death—they weren’t the kinds of killers Riverbend housed.

  “Could you do it?”

  He looked at the fence again. “Prob’ly. Although it don’t look like it’d be easy.”

  “I imagine it isn’t meant to be.”

  “I imagine not.” He gave the fence one last look over his shoulder before we got too far away. “Any particular reason you wanna know?”

  “No,” I said. “Just making conversation. Riverbend’s around here too, isn’t it?”

  He nodded. “Over that way.” He pointed past the factories that were coming up on our right as we crossed the river and powered up the hill toward Centennial Boulevard. “I ain’t taking you there so you can look at it.”

  “That’s all right. I have no need to see it.” I dropped the phone to my lap, since looking at it was making me faintly nauseated. Or maybe it was the smell of the dump. “So if you were a woman with a boyfriend, why wouldn’t you have his name or picture on your Facebook feed?”

  “You don’t have mine there,” Rafe said, and continued before I could answer, “We don’t know that he’s her boyfriend. He could be her brother or her neighbor or something else. The relationship could be with one of the women you saw a picture of. But when we get there, you can ask her.”

  “Really?”

  He grinned at me. “No, darlin’. We wanna try to keep this low key as long as possible. Telling her you’ve been looking her up on social media wouldn’t do that.”

  “Are you at least going to let me get out of the car when you talk to her?”

  “Yes, darlin’,” Rafe said, “I’m gonna let you go knock on the door all by yourself. And do all the talking.”

  Oh, really? “Why?”

  “So as I can go around back and take a look around.”

  Ah. “You want me to keep her occupied while you snoop.”

  He nodded.

  “How come I don’t get to snoop?” I mean, I wanted to see, too.

  “One of us has to keep her busy, darlin’, or the other one can’t look around. I’m better at looking around, and you’re better at talking.”

  “She’s female,” I said. “She might like talking to you more.”

  He shook his head. “If she’s hooked up with a guy who’s in a hate group, I’m not gonna be her type.”

  Well, no. Hard to imagine any red-blooded American woman not being attracted to Rafe, but he had a point. If she wanted him—and everyone who looked like him—dead, then she wasn’t likely to be charmed by a hot grin and an overabundance of sex appeal.

  “I’ll talk to her,” I said.

  He nodded. “Much better that way. I’m faster at going through locked doors, and she’s more likely to keep talking to you.”

  I nodded, but a little of my disappointment must have shown, because he added, “You’re gonna have to get her to tell you who was driving her car last night, darlin’. It isn’t just about keeping her occupied, although you’re gonna have to do that. We don’t want her walking in on me tossing the place. And we need information. That’s the real reason we’re here. You gotta find out about this guy.”

  Right. I squared my shoulders. “I can do that.”

  “I know you can, darlin’.” He flipped on the turn signal for the exit on Old Hickory Boulevard and glanced at me. “Where to from here?”

  “Right at the bottom of the ramp and left at the light. Then three-quarters of a mile straight until you take a left on Sawyer Brown.”

  He nodded. “D’you know what you’re gonna say to her?”

  I had no idea, and told him so.

  “Give it some thought. You gotta have a reason for knocking on the door.”

  I guess I did. “Any suggestions?”

  “You hit her car and ran away, and you’re feeling guilty? You thought the guy was hot and you wanna meet him again? He hit on you and you wanna make sure his wife or girlfriend knows what he’s doing when she ain’t around?”

  “He was kind of hot,” I said pensively, and grinned when he arched a brow in my direction. “You know what I mean. He looked like there was a six-pack underneath his shirt. And he had that military look. Some women like that.”

  “I never figured you did.”

  “I don’t,” I said, since the guy hadn’t looked appealing to me at all, and not just because of the skinhead thing. “For me to pull off saying he’s hot, he’s going to actually have to be hot. Or she has to think he’s hot, anyway…”

  “If they’re brother and sister, she prob’ly don’t wanna hear that some woman drove here from Columbia because she thinks her brother’s hot.”

  And even less so if they were married or involved, I imagined.

  “So maybe we just won’t use that excuse,” I said, as Rafe turned the car onto Sawyer Brown Road. “In about half a mile, you’re taking a right on Willow Springs.”

  He nodded. “Maybe you’d best not say anything about yesterday. Come up with some other sort of excuse for why you’re knocking on the door.”

  “I’m a real estate agent,” I said. “I don’t need an excuse beyond that.”

  “Then you’ll have to tell her who you are.”

  Unless I told her I was someone else instead. I dug into my purse and came up with a business card. “Problem solved.”

  He glanced at it. “What’s that?”

  “This is Arlene Woods’s card.”

  He looked blank, and I added, “She’s the agent who showed the property on Fulton on Monday morning, and who called me about the damage after the vandalism. You met her.”

  He slowed down for the turn onto Willow Springs. “You don’t look nothing like Arlene Woods.”

  Thank you. “I don’t have to. She doesn’t have her picture on her card. I’ll just introduce myself as Arlene Woods and hand over the card. Chances are she’ll believe that’s who I am. And then I can talk to her about her house and how many people live there and things like that.”

  “Sounds good,” Rafe said. “That’s it coming up on the left. With the green mailbox.”

  I peered through the windshield at the house with the green mailbox.

  We were on a solid middle-class street of smallish houses that had been built during the building boom in the nineties. The nineteen-nineties. There was a boom in the eighteen-nineties, too—the Victorians. These were not Victorians. Victorian houses, like Mrs. Jenkins’s Queen Anne, can last centuries if they’re well maintained. These had been shoddy when they were put up, and by now, twenty years later, were showing the ravages of time.

  Jennifer Vonderaa lived in a small cottage with a short driveway ending in a front-loading single car garage. The brick exterior only extended to the front of the house. Once you got around the corner in either direction, it was all vinyl, and not nice vinyl, either. It was a yellowy off-white, and looked dingy. Here and there, the vinyl showed the patchy florescent green of environmental staining; it would have been easy to get off with a power washer, but J
ennifer either didn’t have the money or didn’t care enough.

  “No sign of the car,” I said, as Rafe pulled up on the opposite side of the street.

  He shook his head. “Prob’ly in the garage.”

  “It didn’t look like the kind of car that needed garaging.” Unlike Mother’s Caddy, which had never spent a single night outside until last night.

  Rafe glanced beyond me into the backseat. “Baby’s asleep.”

  “We can leave her here. I can’t go inside the house anyway, if you’re planning to be snooping around in there, so I’ll be able to see the car the whole time I’m standing on the front step. Or I can take her with me and if she wakes up, she wakes up.”

  “Just take her. I feel better about that.” He pushed his door open. “I’m gonna go around to the back. You knock on the door.”

  I nodded, and watched him cross the street before I opened my own door and then Carrie’s. With the car seat looped over my arm, I headed up the empty driveway and then along the concrete path to the front door.

  Fifteen

  There was a doorbell on the jamb next to the door handle. I pressed it and waited. It ding-donged deep inside the house, but didn’t bring forth anyone to answer the door, so I added a couple of knocks for good measure. And then another ring and another knock.

  When I heard the lock tumble on the inside, I took a step back and pasted a friendly smile on my face. Only to have it drop off when the door opened and I looked up at my husband.

  “The garage door was open,” he said blandly.

  Sure it was. “Is the car in the garage?”

  He shook his head. “House is empty, too.”

  “Maybe she went to work.”

  “Might have.” He stepped back, into a small foyer with ugly, twelve-by-twelve tan tiles on the floor. “C’mon in.”

  “Are you sure I should?”

  “I just want another quick look around. And I don’t want you standing outside the door, drawing attention, while I do it.”

  I nodded, stepping across the threshold. “What are you looking for?”