Monument to Murder

by Margaret Truman

  “You had no reason to anticipate that someone was out to kill you, Robert,” Mac said. “I’m just glad you forgot your raincoat.”

  Brixton laughed, which also caused him pain. “Flo’s coming tomorrow to drive me home. She’s my lady friend.”

  “Like to meet her,” Mac said. “I have a suggestion. We’ll pick you up tomorrow when they discharge you and take you to our apartment. Your lady, Flo, can meet up with you there and the two of you can swing by the hotel later to collect your things.”

  “I don’t want to intrude,” Brixton said.

  “Robert,” Mac said, laying a hand on Brixton’s shoulder, “you’ve already intruded, and it’s been one of the more interesting intrusions I can ever remember. No arguments. We’ll call you tomorrow.”

  • • •

  The Smiths picked Brixton up the following morning and brought him to their Watergate apartment. Brixton had given Flo directions and she planned to meet him there at two. There was much to talk about before her arrival.

  The Washington Post carried a lengthy story about the fire in Virginia and the man who’d been killed, Emile Silva. According to the reporters covering it, the authorities suspected that the man who had shot Silva, James Brockman, had also set the fire, for reasons unknown. A woman identified as Rose Silva, the dead man’s mother, had died in the blaze. The investigation was ongoing.

  But it wasn’t the article’s words that commanded the attention of Brixton and the Smiths. It was the photo of Emile Silva.

  “That’s the guy,” Brixton said.

  “Looks like him, although we didn’t get much of a look,” Annabel said.

  “But I did,” Brixton said. “That’s him! No question about it.”

  “What’s the link between this gunman, Brockman, and Silva’s attack on you?” Smith mused aloud.

  No one had an answer.

  Smith had invited Willis Sayers to join them and he arrived in time for lunch.

  “You sure you’re really hurt, Robert,” Sayers said pleasantly, “or are you just looking for attention?”

  “Want to see my wound?” Brixton replied as he threatened to remove his shirt and the bandage.

  “No, please no,” Sayers said, “I don’t need you to pull an LBJ on me. So, fill me in, buddy. Tell me what happened.”

  Brixton ran through the events of the preceding evening, including his conversation with Mitzi Cardell.

  “She admitted it?” Sayers said.

  “She admitted that her teenage girlfriend, Jeanine Montgomery, did the stabbing, and that her father, Ward Cardell, arranged to pay off Louise Watkins to go to prison for it.”

  “Whew!” Sayers said. “The first lady of the land a murderer.”

  “Whoa,” said Smith. “I think we should back up a little. Robert is right. Mitzi’s comments and answers to his questions leave little doubt that what he’s been saying is true. But as an attorney I should warn you that none of it would stand up in court.”

  “Even with someone like you corroborating Robert’s claim?” Sayers asked.

  “I’m not corroborating anything,” said Smith. “I wasn’t there as Mitzi’s attorney, but I am a lawyer who’s advised her on legal matters. I may not practice law anymore but I’m still a member of the bar. It would be inappropriate for me to testify to what was said last night.”

  “So that leaves only Robert’s word.”

  “Exactly,” Smith confirmed. “Also bear in mind that before she left she said that she’d deny all of it if asked by anyone who wasn’t in the room.”

  Sayers turned to Brixton. “But there’s the word of your client, Louise Watkins’ mother.”

  Brixton nodded. “Look, Will,” he said, “I told Ms. Cardell that I wasn’t out to turn this into a media event. I meant that. But you’re free to do whatever you wish, and I’ll help in any way I can.”

  “I’m going to give Ms. Cardell a call again,” Sayers said.

  “Good luck,” Brixton said. “If you want to talk with my client back in Savannah, give a yell.”

  “Shall do,” replied Sayers. “I’d hate to see this story die.”

  Brixton handed Sayers that morning’s Post. “See that picture?” he said. “That’s the guy who attacked me last night.”

  “The story keeps getting better,” Sayers said.

  “A story I could do without,” Brixton said as he rubbed his aching arm.

  Flo arrived early and joined them at the table. She, too, wanted a play-by-play, but Brixton declined. “We’ve been through it already,” he said. “I’ll rerun it for you on the drive home.”

  “I know one thing,” Smith said as Brixton and Flo prepared to leave.

  “What’s that?” Brixton asked.

  “I doubt if we’re still on Mitzi Cardell’s A-list.”

  Brixton and Flo gathered his belongings from the hotel and were on their way back to Savannah by four that afternoon.

  • • •

  A few days later, Brockman was arraigned on the charge of first-degree murder, as well as with the torching of the house. He denied the latter, of course, and his court-appointed attorney expressed confidence that evidence was lacking to link him to the arson. Brockman told the arresting authorities that he’d killed Silva on orders from a paramilitary group headed by a man named Dexter—a patriotic group, he claimed—which was met with skepticism and scorn. He directed them to the office building used as a front where he’d received part of his indoctrination, but before anyone visited there in search of the mysterious man called Dexter, word came down from the highest echelons of government that any investigation of the firm Z-Stat was off-limits for national security reasons. Brockman’s attorney was informed that there was no person at Z-Stat named Dexter and that his client was delusional: “Maybe you can get him off with an insanity plea,” the prosecutor joked with the defense attorney, an old buddy, and they shared a good laugh over it.

  As it turned out, there was no need to enter a plea for Brockman. He was found hanging in his cell by a sheet. A few questions were asked about why corrections officers hadn’t taken steps to prevent his suicide, but these queries soon evaporated.

  • • •

  Brixton got up the morning after returning to Savannah and went to the window. It promised to be a scorcher in Georgia’s first city and his adopted home. Everything ached, thanks in part to the long car ride from D.C. He turned and looked at Flo, who slept peacefully, a tiny smile on her pretty face. Brixton smiled, too. He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed her, and made a silent pledge to treat her to a special dinner for sticking by him.

  Showering was a slow, painful process; he had to be careful not to get his bandage wet and accomplished that by wrapping Saran Wrap around it. He dressed in a beige linen shirt, which he didn’t tuck into his blue slacks, and wore a pair of tan desert boots he’d forgotten that he’d left in the back of one of Flo’s closets.

  “I’m going to the office,” he said, kissing her brow.

  She stirred, looked up, and grinned. “I am so glad you’re home,” she said.

  “Me, too.”

  She sat up. “You’re feeling up to going to work?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. I’ll call later. How about dinner out tonight?”

  “Sounds yummy.” They kissed, and she snuggled her head back into the pillow.

  Cynthia was at the office when he walked in.

  “You look like hell,” she said.

  “Thank you, madam. Come on in and I’ll tell you about my adventures.”

  She hung on every word as he recounted what had happened in Washington.

  “So this Cardell character admitted that the first lady stabbed the guy, and that Cardell’s father paid off Louise Watkins?”

  “Maybe not in so many words but it was obvious that that’s how it went down. Anything new here while I was getting sliced up?”

  She handed him a sheaf of telephone messages. On top was a call from the Reverend Lucas Watkins.

 
; “He say what he wants?”

  “No, just said that it’s important that he speak with you.”

  The second message slip concerned Will Sayers. “He called as I walked in this morning,” she said. “He’ll be here in Savannah by one and wants to see you.”

  Brixton had intended to call Sayers and suggest that he come to Savannah to speak with Eunice Watkins and her son, Lucas. Whether the word of the mother and son would be sufficient for Sayers to pursue the story was conjecture—and not Brixton’s problem. He’d meant it when he said he was not out to create a media circus. But there was another side of him that cried out for some form of justice to be dispensed. Would it be enough for Louise’s mother simply to know that her daughter hadn’t committed the act to which she had confessed, and not have the need to share it with the wider world? If so, she was a better person than he was. If it had been his daughter, he’d want everyone to know that she hadn’t killed anyone, and that there were people who’d cruelly used their money to thwart the truth.

  “When are you and Jim leaving?” he asked.

  “Next week. I’ll miss you.”

  “I’ll miss you, too.”

  “Thanks. This place will go to the dogs without me.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

  He spent the rest of the morning returning phone calls and going through the pile of mail, and e-mails on his computer. He promised the restaurant owner that he’d get started on his case within a day or two, and picked up another client, a divorce lawyer who wanted him to document the movements of a husband who the wife claimed was cheating. He hesitated before accepting the assignment, but a pile of recent bills culled from the larger group of envelopes made the decision for him.

  He held off returning Lucas Watkins’s call until last. He’d decided to invite Sayers to join him on a visit to Eunice Watkins. Might as well have him hear what he had to report to her, and be there to gauge her reaction in person.

  “Reverend Watkins,” Brixton said, “it’s Robert Brixton returning your call.”

  “Yes, Mr. Brixton. You’re back from Washington.”

  “That’s right. I’d like to get together with you and your mother sometime today.”

  “I’m afraid that will be impossible,” he said in his deep, officious voice.

  “Tomorrow then? I’ve learned things in Washington that I know you and your mother will want to know.”

  “Mr. Brixton,” he said, “I’m afraid that we’ve misled you.”

  “‘Misled me?’ What does that mean?”

  “You see, Mother misunderstood what Louise had told her. Let me be direct. I believe you deserve directness. We’ve come to learn that it was Louise who fended off an attempted rape that night in the parking lot, and accidentally stabbed her attacker. All I can say is that we are deeply sorry to have put you to all this trouble. Naturally, we will pay any further fees you require, as well as expenses that you’ve incurred.”

  Brixton was speechless.

  “There’s really nothing more to say, Mr. Brixton. If you’ll send me a written breakdown of what we owe you, we’ll take care of it immediately.”

  “Wait a minute, Reverend,” Brixton said. “I want to hear this from your mother.”

  “I’m afraid that’s not possible, Mr. Brixton, She hasn’t been feeling well and has gone out of state to be with another family member. She won’t be back for some time. She’s not to be disturbed.”

  “I’ll be damned,” Brixton muttered.

  “I look forward to receiving your final bill,” Watkins said, “and thank you for understanding.”

  “Yeah, I understand,” Brixton said. “I understand that somebody got to you and your mother and—”

  He was speaking into a dead phone.

  Sayers arrived at one and they went to lunch at the Riverhouse Restaurant on West River Street, where Sayers particularly enjoyed the Savannah crab cakes made with native blue crab and served with a mango chutney and red rice. And there was fudge walnut cake for dessert. The man loved his food.

  Brixton waited until their drinks were served before telling his large journalist friend about the conversation with Lucas Watkins. When he was finished, Sayers snorted and said, “Lovely folks you run with, Robert,”

  “I’m still having trouble believing this,” Brixton said. “They’ve been bought off.”

  “Or scared off. I tried getting to Mitzi Cardell.”

  “And?”

  “I was told to contact her father’s lawyer here in Savannah. I didn’t bother. The Morning News has a piece tomorrow on that convict’s claim that he was hired by Jack Felker to kill Louise Watkins. They got hold of Ward Cardell for a statement. He was all bluster—how dare the media besmirch the good name of a man who isn’t here to defend himself—Felker was an associate and a dear friend who lived an exemplary life—how dare anyone take the word of a convicted murderer, the scum of the earth, in a pathetic attempt to destroy a decent man’s reputation—yada yada yada. You say Felker was murdered. The police say that the ME pegged it as a natural death.”

  Brixton sat with gritted teeth.

  “What are you going to do?” Sayers asked after they’d ordered lunch.

  “What can I do? I’ve been tilting at windmills ever since I got involved.”

  “Want my advice?”

  “Sure.”

  “Bill the good preacher for big bucks. Hell, you’ve earned it, and I imagine he won’t balk at anything you ask for. After that, I’d forget the whole nasty mess.”

  “What about you?” Brixton asked. “Will you pursue it any further?”

  Sayers grinned and looked with happy anticipation at his appetizer, a double order of low-country shrimp and stone-ground grits served with tasso gravy. Brixton was content with a cup of lobster bisque.

  “Me?” Sayers said after tasting the grits and indicating his approval. “I’ll go back and get the bureau up and running in our nation’s capital, keep the folks back here apprised of all the good deeds done for the nation by Savannah’s finest, our first lady and D.C.’s leading social light. Eat up, Robert. Don’t let it get cold.”

  • • •

  Brixton took Sayers’s advice and billed Lucas Watkins twice what he felt was fair. The check arrived in two days. It was drawn on the church bank account and indicated that it was for a “special project.” It cleared.

  As he was about to leave the office that evening, he received a call from Wayne St. Pierre, inviting him to his home for a drink: “Sort of a welcome-back drink, Robert.”

  Brixton arrived at the house at six and found his former colleague listening to the player piano pump out Johnny Mercer songs. He was dressed in a purple robe trimmed in silver and held a large snifter.

  “Robert, so good to see you. I understand you’ve been through quite an ordeal in our nation’s capital. Come in, come in, Let’s celebrate your safe return and the successful completion of your case. Bourbon? Scotch? A cold, dry martini, shaken, not stirred?”

  “Skip the drink, Wayne. You knew everything that was going down, didn’t you?”

  “Pardon?”

  “You told people everything that I was doing with the Watkins case from day one.”

  “What in the world has gotten into you, Bobby?”

  “Knock off the ‘Bobby’ crap. You’re wired in to the elite of this city, aren’t you? You like rubbing elbows with the movers and shakers, slip them a little information now and then to keep them appreciative, relay some gossip when it keeps them close, rich cruds like Cardell and Montgomery.”

  St. Pierre sat in a large red chair and crossed his legs, the snifter held like a trophy. “Sure you won’t have a drink, Bobby—Robert? You’re in a frazzled state. Going back to Washington must have been upsetting for you. Actually, I invited you here tonight with a proposition.”

  Brixton said nothing.

  “I have it on very good authority that a friend of mine is looking for someone like you to head up security for his
various business ventures. The pay would be substantial and—”

  “Who’s this friend of yours, Ward Cardell? Or is it Warren Montgomery?”

  “You’re such a cynic, Robert. I suppose that goes with your New York upbringing. I will tell you this. Savannah is quite a different place from New York. We do things our own way and don’t appreciate outsiders coming here and upsetting the applecart, as the saying goes. It seems to me that you have one of two choices: either become an adopted son of the old South and play by the rules, or go back home where the rules are different. Your call, Robert. Sure you won’t have a drink? Please. Join me. We go back a long way and despite our different backgrounds we have a lot in common.”

  The pianist on the disk launched into Mercer’s “Everything Happens to Me.”

  “The only thing we have in common is that we once wore the same uniform. You were the only one who knew certain things I was doing, and other people knew it because of you. You disgust me, Wayne.”

  St. Pierre got up and leaned on the piano, keeping it between them. “You’re treading on dangerous ground, my friend,” he said. “You come here shootin’ off your mouth, accusing me of God knows what. Well, I will not stand for it, Bobby Brixton. I invited you here with good intentions. Now get your sorry ass out of my home. You hear me?”

  “I hear you, Wayne. You know, I had visions of coming here and shooting you.”

  St. Pierre laughed. “That would have been one dumb thing for you to do, wouldn’t it?”

  “Yeah, it would have been dumb. That’s why I’m not doing it. All your rich friends are more important to you than what I was trying to do for a mixed-up young black kid who deserved better. You’re a whore, Wayne. You’re a disgrace to all the good, honest cops here in Savannah and everywhere else.”

  “Good night, Robert.”

  “No, Wayne. Goodbye.”

  Brixton went through the front door, the piano strains of “Ac-Cent-Tu-Ate the Positive” following him. He pulled a pack of cigarettes from his shirt and started to pull a cigarette from it. He looked back through the open door to where St. Pierre stood posed at the piano. He crumpled the pack and tossed it ceremoniously into the neatly cultivated bed of azaleas that had lost their yearly battle with the summer heat.