Survival Clause: A Savannah Martin Novel (Savannah Martin Mysteries Book 20)

by Jenna Bennett

  He nodded. “I intend to. Sid.”

  He gave my uncle a polite nod. Uncle Sid nodded back, but he looked unhappy. Since there wasn’t anything we could do about it, or anything we could say that hadn’t already been said, we wandered down the garden path and through the gate in the picket fence while Aunt Regina and Uncle Sid took themselves into their little pink cottage for chicken and whatever else Aunt Regina had planned.

  ”A boy,” I said, when Carrie was strapped into the back seat and we were strapped into the front, and Rafe was behind the wheel and navigating the Chevy back in the direction of the mansion.

  He nodded. “I didn’t see that coming.”

  I hadn’t either, although I saw no reason to admit it. “That takes Laura Lee out, if not Frankie.”

  “Plus a whole lotta other boys,” Rafe said. “Frankie wasn’t gay, though. Not if he married Laura Lee.”

  No. But— “He might have experimented. Some boys do.” Some girls, too, at least from what I hear. I’ve never had a single romantic or sexual feeling toward anyone of my own gender, ever, but some people are more fluid.

  I knew Rafe wasn’t. We’d discussed Big Ned before—the cell mate he hadn’t had at Riverbend Penitentiary—and he’d assured me that Big Ned didn’t exist and nothing like that had happened to him.

  “And some boys get raped,” I added. “That doesn’t just happen to girls.”

  My husband nodded. “It woulda been statutory rape either way, if the boy was underage. But if Jurgensson assaulted him, he wouldn’t need to be gay.”

  “And might be struggling with some issues because of it.”

  Rafe nodded again. “Hard to see the progression from that to killing a bunch of women, though.”

  Yes, it was. If he’d gone on to kill a bunch of middle-aged, gay men, that would make more sense.

  “This is confusing,” I said.

  “Tell me about it,” Rafe answered, and zoomed past the entrance to the mansion.

  I looked at it over my shoulder. “What’s going on?”

  He glanced at me. “Did you have something planned for dinner?”

  Well, no. I was here, with him. If I’d had something planned, I’d be home, cooking.

  “You mentioned Beulah’s,” Rafe said. “I got hungry.”

  “And you want to ask Yvonne if she knows anything about Jurgensson.”

  “Yvonne’s younger than me,” Rafe said. “It happened years before she went to Columbia High.”

  “She’s from Damascus, though. She might know something about Frankie and Laura Lee.”

  “Can’t hurt to ask,” Rafe said, and headed for the small cinderblock building.

  Eleven

  Yvonne McCoy is my brother Dix’s age—a year younger than Rafe, two older than me—and in high school, the two of them had a brief fling.

  Yvonne and Rafe, I mean. She isn’t Dix’s type, although she’d like to be. I think Yvonne would like to be everyone’s type. She likes men, has been married more than once, and going on a year ago now, she inherited Beulah’s Meat’n Three after Beulah Odom passed on. There’s still some question as to whether that passing was natural or not, but Yvonne isn’t a suspect, and Todd doesn’t seem inclined to get busy indicting the wife and daughter of Otis Odom, who’d be the guilty parties if Beulah was killed…

  Anyway, we walked through the door, and Yvonne was standing there at the hostess station with her hair—flaming red—piled on top of her head and a big grin on her face.

  “Saw you coming,” she told us. “Evening, princess.”

  That’s her nickname for me, so I answered politely. “Hi, Yvonne.”

  “Hi, precious.” She tickled Carrie’s feet. Carrie gurgled and Yvonne laughed. She doesn’t have any children of her own, and I sometimes wonder if she wishes she did. Or whether she just wishes she had Rafe’s baby.

  She turned to him. “Evening, handsome. Saw a friend of yours earlier.”

  Rafe arched a brow. “Yeah? Everything OK?”

  “Fine,” Yvonne said. “You two here for dinner?”

  Why else would we be here?

  And then the import of that ‘friend of yours’ statement sank in. Clayton Norris had been by, and had reported to Yvonne that all was well, and now she was passing on the message.

  “Yeah,” Rafe said. “I need me some meatloaf and peach cobbler.”

  “Let’s get you to a table, then.” She grabbed two menus and preceded us down the aisle between the booths by the window and the breakfast counter. Her hips were swaying underneath a tight, black skirt, and Rafe grinned at me when I caught him looking.

  “Been there, done that,” he told me, sotto voce.

  “Just as long as you don’t plan to go there again,” I answered, as I slid into the booth Yvonne indicated.

  She tilted her head. “Go where?”

  “Nowhere,” Rafe told her. He maneuvered onto the seat across from me, and Yvonne distributed the two menus.

  “What can I get you to drink?”

  I ordered a sweet tea and Rafe a Coke, since Beulah’s doesn’t run to fine wine or beer. Yvonne nodded and reached for the car seat. “I’ll just take this little bundle off your hands for a few minutes. You can pretend you’re on a date.”

  We had family we could drop Carrie off with if we wanted a proper date, but there was no need to point that out. It was a kind gesture. “Thank you,” I said.

  “No problem, princess.” She whisked Carrie off toward the kitchen.

  I turned to Rafe, who reached across the table and twined his fingers with mine. “Just the two of us.”

  “For the couple of minutes it’ll take her to show off the baby and come back.”

  “We better make the most of it.” He lifted my hand and kissed my fingertips and then the inside of the wrist.

  “That’s getting a little personal for Beulah’s,” I told him, and retrieved my hand. He chuckled, but didn’t try to hold on to it. “So this is one of the places where your friend checks in.”

  Rafe nodded. “He has a couple ways of communicating if he needs to. But so far everything seems slow on that front.”

  “Maybe there just aren’t any others to be rounded up. Maybe once Lance ended up in prison—” And his name hadn’t actually been Lance, but I still thought of him that way, “anyone else who was out there just decided to fade away quietly.”

  “Might could be,” Rafe nodded and glanced at the menu. “You know what you wanna eat?”

  I didn’t, so I spent a minute perusing the specials. We’d been at Beulah’s enough that I knew the standard fare well enough not to have to check that. “Cobb salad.”

  “That don’t sound like it’s gonna be enough fuel for what I have in mind for later,” Rafe said, “but you do what you want.”

  “If you’re looking at other women’s rear ends, don’t you think I should take better care of my own?”

  “Ain’t nothing wrong with your rear end, darlin’,” my husband informed me, “and if you’d been walking in front of me, I woulda been looking at it. Eat what you want.”

  Fine. “What do you have in mind for later?”

  “Nothing we can discuss in public,” Rafe said, and glanced around the interior of the restaurant. He’s adept at hiding his reactions, but I’ve known him long enough now—and have watched him intently enough—that I caught the slight check when he saw someone he knew.

  “Who’s back there?” I made to turn, and he shook his head.

  “Don’t. It’s Tucker.”

  “Sergeant Tucker? From the police department?”

  He nodded.

  “Uh-oh.” This could get ugly. Or so I assumed. Tucker hadn’t been real happy when he slammed away from Green Street and Broad two nights ago, and he hadn’t liked Rafe much before then. “Have you seen him since?”

  “In passing,” Rafe said, keeping his eyes on a packet of sugar he was turning over in his hands. “We haven’t talked.”

  “Grimaldi talked to him, rig
ht?”

  He nodded. “Yeah. I wasn’t there, though.”

  Probably a good thing. “Did he have to go on administrative leave or anything?”

  “No,” Rafe said, still contemplating the sugar packet. “He didn’t do nothing wrong. That’s why he’s gonna be even more angry about me picking him off of Curtis.”

  “Has he seen you?”

  “Not yet. He’s talking to Mo.”

  Mo—Maureen Boyd—is one of the waitresses. A woman into her middle years, with an impressive beehive hairdo, she’s worked for Beulah’s practically as long as I’ve been alive.

  “I’ve seen him here before,” I said. “With Felicia Robinson. A few days before… you know.”

  Before Felicia had been shot and killed in the line of duty, by the same guys who had shot—and failed to kill—Rafe.

  He nodded. “They were friendly. Tucker knows Felicia’s mama.”

  “Well, just pretend you haven’t noticed him. If he wants to acknowledge you, he can. Otherwise, let him be.”

  “Hard for him to get past me without some kind of acknowledgement from either of us,” Rafe said dryly, and of course that was true. There was only the one aisle, and it wasn’t wide. But at least there was no point in calling Tucker out prematurely. If he wanted to cause a scene, he could do it when he left.

  Maureen made her way over to our table and cocked a hip. “Yvonne getting your drinks?”

  I nodded. “She took the drink orders and the baby. I’m not sure where she got to.”

  “Showing her off in the kitchen,” Maureen said, with a glance that way. “I’ll go check on the drinks. You folks know what you wanna eat?”

  Rafe ordered the meatloaf. I went against my better judgment and asked for fried chicken with mashed potatoes and carrots. Salad would have been better for me, but if Rafe had plans for later, and he thought I needed to keep my strength up, I figured I’d better be ready for whatever he had planned.

  Maureen wandered off again, and Rafe lowered his eyes back to the sugar packet. It was unusually coy of him—he doesn’t normally mind confrontation. When I commented on it, he told me, “Tucker didn’t like me to begin with. To him, I’m still that eighteen-year-old punk he arrested for trying to beat the crap outta Billy Scruggs, but now he has to be polite to me. And not just that, but I got Felicia killed—”

  “You did not!”

  If anyone had gotten her killed, other than the man who shot her, it was me. I was the one who had suggested that she could volunteer for the job of keeping surveillance on him.

  He put a finger across his lips. “From where he’s sitting, I did. If it hadn’t been for me, Felicia would still be alive. He ain’t wrong.”

  Perhaps not. But that didn’t make it Rafe’s fault.

  “Don’t make no difference,” he told me. “He don’t like me. What happened the other night didn’t help. And one of these days, Tucker might be the only thing standing between me and another bullet. When that happens, I don’t want him to step outta the way because he’d rather see me dead.”

  No. I didn’t want that, either.

  “I’m trying my best to stay on good terms with him. Life ain’t making it easy.”

  No, it wasn’t. “Just focus on dinner,” I told him. “If Tucker wants to talk to you, he can initiate a conversation. Hopefully it’ll be a polite one. If he just walks by without acknowledging you, then we’ll just be grateful he didn’t cause a scene.”

  “Sounds like a plan.” He looked up when Maureen stopped by the table again, and deposited our drinks. “Food’s coming up in a few minutes.”

  Rafe nodded. “What happened to the baby?” I asked, since she—and Yvonne as well—were still MIA.

  Maureen nodded toward the kitchen. “Still back there. Can I get you anything else while you wait?”

  I had my mouth halfway open to say we were fine when Rafe got in ahead of me. “How old are you, Mo?”

  “What kind of question is that to ask a lady?” I wanted to know, but Maureen just chuckled.

  “Too old for you, sugar.”

  When he just grinned, she added, “I just celebrated the big five-oh back in February. Why?”

  “Just wondering whether you went to Columbia High the year Kent Jurgensson taught Latin there.”

  Maureen’s face closed. “I didn’t take Latin.”

  “But you were there that year?”

  She tossed her neck, so the beehive swayed. “What if I were?”

  “Just wondering whether you remember what happened.”

  “We all remember what happened,” Maureen said. “Old Mr. Wilkins left, we got a new teacher, and he only lasted a year because he and one of the students got up to something they shouldn’t have after hours.”

  “Do you know which student?” Rafe asked. If Maureen’s delivery had bothered him, he didn’t let it show.

  “How would I know that?”

  “It was a pretty big deal. Jurgensson lost his job. I imagine people were talking.”

  She didn’t answer, and he added, “There was no police report filed, though.”

  “Why d’you wanna know?” Maureen demanded. “It’s old news. Ancient history. Why drag it out again now?”

  Rafe’s tone was as calm as Maureen’s was agitated. “It might pertain to a case I’m working on. A murder case.”

  He let that sink in for a second before he added, “I just want to have a conversation with whoever it was. I’m trying to track down Jurgensson. Depending on the relationship, his…” He hesitated, “victim might have some idea where Mr. Jurgensson ended up after he left here.”

  “It was a long time ago,” Maureen said again, but she sounded less confrontational now. Maybe it was the mention of the murder case, maybe the fact that Rafe was doing his best to be reassuring. “But I guess it can’t hurt to tell you. The boy’s name was Trent. Noah Trent. He’s dead.”

  “Dead?” I echoed.

  Maureen nodded. “Dead. Buried at Oak Street cemetery, if you want to check.”

  “That likely won’t be necessary,” Rafe said. “Recently?”

  “Ten years ago or so. Suicide.”

  I winced. So did Rafe, if very faintly. “Thanks, Mo.”

  “Don’t mention it,” Maureen said and walked away.

  I made a face at her retreating back. “Ouch.”

  Rafe nodded. “This job don’t usually make you popular.”

  No, I could see that. “So Jurgensson’s victim isn’t your serial killer. If he’s been dead for ten years, he couldn’t have killed the woman this week. Or the one last year, or the year before that.”

  Rafe shook his head.

  “That’s a dead end, then.”

  “There’s still Jurgensson,” Rafe said. “And Trent’s family.”

  “His father would be too old, don’t you think? And why would one of Noah Trent’s family start killing women because Noah was molested by his teacher? His male teacher?”

  “No idea,” Rafe said. “They prob’ly didn’t. But I still need to track down Jurgensson. Who’d prob’ly be too old, too…”

  I nodded. “And if he’s gay, he wouldn’t really have a reason to go around killing women. He certainly wouldn’t be raping them. The incident with Noah wasn’t the trigger, because that happened fifteen years before the first murder, and Noah’s death wasn’t, because that happened almost a decade after...”

  Rafe nodded. “Chances are this don’t have nothing to do with the case. But I still gotta tie it off.”

  Because loose ends in a murder investigation made it hard to get a verdict later. Right.

  “So if Jurgensson and what happened back then doesn’t have anything to do with the case, what about the…” I hesitated, since the Roman numerals weren’t public knowledge, “Latin connection?”

  He shook his head. “No idea. Who else knows Latin?”

  I thought about it. “Doctors, I guess. But a doctor isn’t likely to be cruising I-65 killing women.”

  �
�No less likely than anybody else if he goes around the bend,” Rafe said, “but he wouldn’t be a truck driver.”

  Probably not. “Doctors have other ways of killing patients, anyway. A doctor would probably be more likely to poison them.”

  Rafe didn’t say anything to that, and I added, “Archaeologists know Latin. They’re always finding those old Roman temples and things…”

  “Not in Tennessee,” Rafe said. “And an archaeologist probably wouldn’t be driving a truck up and down I-65 either.”

  No. “Maybe it’s a way to confuse the issue. I mean, we both know certain Latin letters and numbers, and we aren’t doctors or archaeologists. Everyone who watches movies knows that the year the movie is made is written in Latin at the end of the credits. Most of us try to make it out. And a lot of clocks have Roman numerals instead of regular numbers. I think the courthouse clock on the square in Columbia does.”

  Rafe’s eyes went a little distant as he thought about it. “Pretty sure you’re right.”

  “So Roman numerals aren’t hard to come by. Maybe it’s just a regular guy trying to be fancy. No connection to anything Latin at all.”

  “Maybe.” He looked up as someone approached our table, and his eyes went cool, even as he nodded politely. “Sergeant.”

  Tucker didn’t bother to slow down on his way toward the front of the restaurant and the door, but he did dredge up a sneer. “Collier.”

  I waited for Rafe to say something else, or for Tucker to, but neither did. Tucker moved past, and Rafe kept his eyes on mine as the sergeant stopped at the register to pay his bill before heading out into the gathering darkness.

  “He’s gone,” I said.

  Rafe nodded. “Sorry.”

  “What for?” I went on without waiting for a response. “You aren’t afraid he’s going to shoot you in the back or anything, are you?”

  “Not in here, at any rate. No, darlin’. I think he’d like to be rid of me. He don’t like me. He’s never gonna get past arresting me. And lately I’ve been doing some things that haven’t made him like me any more. But I don’t think he’d do anything to hurt or kill me. Nothing active, at any rate.”