Wrongful Termination: A Savannah Martin Novel (Savannah Martin Mystery Book 16)

by Jenna Bennett

  We lingered in front of the driveway for a moment. “That’s a lot of house for a single guy.” And a lot of money on a law enforcement salary. “Can I assume this guy’s at the top of the list?” Spending money he might not have, working with undercover agents in narcotics, with easy access to all sorts of things, and living alone?

  “For now,” Rafe said, and lowered his foot on the gas. “Let’s go see Grant.”

  “Carrie’s probably going to wake up soon and want to eat.”

  “I could eat,” Rafe said.

  So could I. With the walk and then all the driving we’d been doing, it was past lunch. “We can stop somewhere if you want. Or go home and make something there. Since you’re out of work at this point, maybe we should save our pennies.”

  “It’ll work out,” Rafe said, but since he didn’t specify somewhere he wanted to eat, I figured we’d be going home.

  It’s about fifteen minutes to get from The Nations over to East Nashville. It was about twenty before we were cruising up Holly Street toward Larry Grant’s house.

  Rafe hadn’t been kidding when he called it the nicer part of East Nashville. Out where we live, it’s still a little like the Wild West. Guns go off occasionally, and there’s more than the normal amount of crime, and more than half the houses are still run-down and in need of some TLC.

  Not so over on this side of Gallatin Road. It’s pretty much all renovated and yuppiefied, and has been taken over by people with a lot of money and good taste. There are craft breweries and fancy restaurants where you used to find downtrodden meat’n threes, and everything’s so slick and shiny a lot of the personality’s been taken out of it.

  Grant lived in an old house, but it was easy to see that it had been renovated to within an inch of its life at some point not too long ago. The original wood lapsiding had been replaced with cementboard, and painted a subdued and elegant gray that wouldn’t have been in the palette of the original builder. Craftsman bungalows were originally painted in warm, natural colors, with lots of wood trim. On Grant’s house, the siding was a cold gray, and the woodwork had been painted white. It looked crisp and modern, but the old-house lover in me mourned what it had probably looked like when it was new.

  There was no sign of life. There hadn’t been at Foster’s house, either, but he’d had an attached garage on the first floor of his house. If he was home, his car would be there.

  Here, there was no garage and no off-street parking, and the space at the curb in front of the house was empty.

  “Looks like he’s out,” I said, unnecessarily.

  Rafe nodded. “Stay here.”

  He reached for his door handle. I twisted in my seat. “What are you going to do?”

  “Just knock on the door,” Rafe said. “And take a look through the windows. If he ain’t here anyway, not like he’ll know.”

  “I doubt you’ll see anything incriminating through the windows.” But if he wanted to go up on the porch and knock, I wasn’t going to stop him. If Grant was home, Rafe would get a bit of a surprise—and Grant a bit of a thrill—and Rafe would have to think fast about an excuse for what he wanted, but if Grant wasn’t here, it couldn’t hurt to take a peek through the windows.

  So he left the car running and headed up the walkway to the porch, where he knocked a couple of times. There was no answer, so Rafe moved sideways to the window on the right of the front door.

  A Craftsman bungalow tends to be symmetrical. Or if they aren’t all symmetrical, at least this one was. Door in the middle of the front wall, with sidelights, and a double window on either side. Rafe went to the one I thought must belong to the living room and peered through the window. After a moment he crossed to the window on the other side of the porch and peered in there, too. Then he came back down the walkway, across the sidewalk, and got back into the car.

  “He wasn’t home.”

  “I figured,” I said. “Any signs of a guilty conscience through the windows?”

  He grinned. “No. And no signs he’s living above his means, either. The furniture’s nice, but nothing special. And though he’s got a big TV, it ain’t no bigger than the one your brother’s got.”

  “So if he’s getting money from something nefarious, he isn’t spending it on his house.”

  Rafe shook his head and pulled the car away from the curb. “So far, this has been wasted effort.”

  “I hope you didn’t think we’d find a sign above one of their houses saying ‘It was me, I killed Doug Brennan.’”

  He didn’t answer, and I added, “I don’t think it was wasted. I got to spend a couple of hours with you. That’s always nice. And we took a look at all of them, except McLaughlin. Of the four we’ve seen, I’m leaning toward Pavlova or Foster. Hammond’s setup made him look like a decent family man, and there’s nothing ostentatious about Grant’s place. It’s expensive—everything in this neighborhood’s expensive—but he doesn’t look like he’s living above his means. But Pavlova rescues animals, and that can probably get expensive. And it’s the sort of cause where a murder or two might not matter, if she’s passionate enough about it. If Brennan found out that she was skimming, and threatened to pull the plug, and it would mean that she’d have no more money for more animals, she might kill him. And feel justified.”

  Rafe nodded.

  “And Foster’s living high on the hog, and he’s probably spending everything he’s making on maintaining his lifestyle. As you’ve told me often, you don’t get rich going into law enforcement. And he’s living like he’s rich.”

  “Makes sense,” Rafe said, even if he sounded dissatisfied.

  “Something about it you don’t like?”

  He shook his head. “Just frustrated by the whole thing, I guess.”

  Hard to blame him for that. I was, too. “Goins will figure it out sooner or later. He’ll stop thinking you had something to do with it, and then we can go to Sweetwater and you can work for Grimaldi and help her figure out whatever’s going on in the Columbia PD.”

  “We can hope,” Rafe said, and turned the car off Holly Street and onto South Eleventh for the trip home.

  Chapter Fifteen

  We headed back to the hospital around five. By then, we’d had lunch, and Carrie had taken a nap, and we’d even heard from Lyle Spicer, with the information that according to the official report, Detective Goins had spoken to Supervisory Agent Ben McLaughlin on Friday morning, after Doug Brennan’s body had been found.

  “No surprise there,” Rafe said after he hung up the phone with Spicer. “McLaughlin’s head of the department. And Brennan’s boss. It makes sense that Goins would talk to him.”

  I supposed it did. “Why would he try to make you look bad to Goins?”

  “I dunno that he did,” Rafe said. “On Tuesday, when he gave me the news—”

  “McLaughlin was the one who fired you?” Not Brennan?

  “Nobody fired me,” Rafe said. “The brass decided not to reup the training program for this year. McLaughlin got the job of telling me, since he’s in charge of the department. And I don’t think I behaved in a way that woulda made anybody think I was gonna kill somebody. But I’m sure McLaughlin could tell I was disappointed. Still, it woulda made more sense for me to kill him or one of the higher-ups if I was gonna kill somebody. Brennan was trying to get me my job back. I had no reason to kill him.”

  Right. “So who told Goins that you were angry with Brennan?”

  “It mighta been McLaughlin himself,” Rafe said, “if he killed Brennan, and wanted to put the blame on somebody else.”

  “And if not?”

  “Somebody else coulda told McLaughlin that I was pissed at Brennan, and McLaughlin just repeated what he’d been told. Or maybe somebody else went to Goins separate from McLaughlin and mouthed off about me.”

  “Wouldn’t that be in the report?”

  “Mighta been off the record,” Rafe said. “There are people at the TBI that used to work for Metro. Somebody who was friendly with Goi
ns mighta gone to him and whispered in his ear.”

  “And Goins didn’t put it in the report because it wasn’t an official conversation?”

  “Something like that,” Rafe said.

  “I don’t suppose Goins is likely to tell Spicer or Truman who that someone might be?”

  “No,” Rafe said.

  “Do you suppose Wendell—?”

  But he shook his head. “Wendell’s been standing between me and the brass for thirteen years. And I’m sure Goins knows it. Everybody at the TBI knows it. Ain’t nobody gonna believe Wendell’s anything but biased.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “Nothing,” Rafe said. “There’s nothing we can do. None of this changes the fact that I didn’t do nothing to Brennan and I wasn’t here when he died.”

  He pushed to his feet. “Let’s go see Malcolm. Maybe he remembers who stabbed him. If he does, then we can eliminate somebody.”

  Maybe so. I unwound from the sofa. “I’ll get the baby ready.”

  * * *

  We headed out ten minutes later, because that’s how long it takes to get a baby ready to travel. It took less time to drive to Skyline Medical Center than it did to get Carrie ready to go in the first place. Practically as soon as I’d gotten her loaded into the car, we were there and I had to unload her again.

  This time we didn’t need Wendell to get us through security. Rafe must have taken the time to charm some of the nurses when he was here this morning, because they just waved us through, with appreciative looks his way.

  That ended when we got upstairs. Another young cop, this one female, was standing in the hallway outside Malcolm’s room. She gave Rafe a hard look. “Detective Goins says you can’t come in again.”

  “Detective Goins ain’t in charge here,” Rafe told her. “And unless you’re prepared to shoot me, I don’t see how you’re gonna stop me.”

  I didn’t, either. He towered over her. I’m five-eight in my bare feet, and I often feel small and slender standing next to him. (I’m neither.) She was several inches shorter than me, and wasn’t carrying any extra weight. He could pick her up and move her out of his way without flexing anything but his biceps.

  Not that he would. A smart man doesn’t touch a woman who hasn’t invited him to touch. He especially doesn’t touch one with a gun on her hip and the power to arrest him just for breathing. But to make sure of it, I took a step to the side, so I was halfway between them. The young cop—the name plate pinned to her uniform said her name was Moyer—glanced at me.

  “We just want to see how he’s doing,” I said. “We found him after he was stabbed. My husband kept him alive until the ambulance got there. We have a vested interest. And he’s a neighbor. We just want to see that he’s OK.”

  “Unless Goins is here,” Rafe added, “he’ll never know.”

  “I’m supposed to keep a list of everyone who goes into his room.”

  There was a clipboard with a sheet of paper leaned up against the wall next to her.

  “Then put my name on the list,” Rafe said. “Goins ain’t got no legal right to keep me from going where I wanna go. And if you try to point that gun at me, you won’t like what happens.”

  No question. “We’ll just be a minute,” I told her, calmly, as he ducked through the door and inside Malcolm’s room. “Feel free to come to the door and make sure we don’t do anything we shouldn’t do. But I really wouldn’t recommend trying to keep him out. Especially since Goins doesn’t have a legal leg to stand on.”

  Moyer chewed her lip, but eventually she nodded. I entered the room after Rafe, and Moyer came in behind us. For a second, it crossed my mind that she might try to do something stupid, like pulling the gun and trying to arrest us both for trespassing, but if the thought had crossed her mind, she discarded it. All she did was take up station inside the door and keep an eye on things.

  The room was empty except for Malcolm. Vera must have gone home for a break, or maybe she’d had to go to work today.

  Malcolm was dozing, but opened his eyes when he saw Rafe. For a second, he looked scared, and then he relaxed. “Oh. Ss’you.”

  His voice was slurred, probably from the medication they had him on. I imagined it was strong stuff. He would have been in a lot of pain without it, or so I assumed.

  Rafe nodded. “We just wanted to come back and check on you. Savannah brought the baby.”

  Malcolm tracked his eyes to me, and I smiled and wiggled my fingers. “Hi. I’m sorry about what happened.”

  “Me too,” Malcolm managed, with something resembling a laugh. It must have hurt, because he winced.

  “D’you remember any more about it?” Rafe wanted to know. “Get a look at whoever stabbed you?”

  Malcolm moved his head back and forth on the pillow. “S’all blurry. Can’t remember what I wanted to talk to you about.”

  “You came to the house to talk to me?”

  Malcolm nodded. “Think so.”

  “And somebody was there?”

  “Musta been,” Malcolm said. His brows furrowed as he tried to remember, but after several seconds, he shook his head. “Can’t remember. Sorry.”

  “Don’t worry about it. We’ll figure it out.” Malcolm’s brows smoothed out, and Rafe changed tactics. “You worked late the night before, your grandma said.”

  The brows drew together again, but then Malcolm nodded. “Yeah. Late shift on Friday.”

  “D’you remember driving home in the dark? Past our house?”

  Malcolm’s brows drew down again. He had very expressive brows. I’d never noticed that before. Usually he talked more with his hands, and now he couldn’t, so maybe that was why. “Yeah?” He didn’t sound sure. “Maybe?”

  “There was somebody in our yard. Over by the bins. D’you remember seeing someone?”

  Malcolm’s face smoothed out. “Yeah. Somebody digging in one of the bins. I figured maybe it was a homeless guy, you know? They look for food sometimes. But when I turned the car around the corner, and the lights hit him, he ran.”

  “Are you sure it was a man?” Rafe asked.

  Another few seconds passed while Malcolm struggled with the idea. “Maybe not?” he said eventually. “Looked like a guy. Black pants and a black jacket. But I didn’t see him up close.”

  So it might still be Christina Pavlova. Maybe. Depending on how she looked. Nobody would mistake me for a man, or my sister Catherine, or Yvonne McCoy. But take someone like Detective Grimaldi or our sister Darcy—tall, lean, not particularly buxom women with short hair—and they could probably pull off looking male. Especially in the dark.

  “Pavlova looks like a guy,” Rafe nodded ten minutes later, after we’d left the hospital—Officer Moyer looked quite relieved to see the backs of us—and were back in the parking lot. Rafe had taken the car seat with Carrie from me, and was carrying it toward the Volvo. “She keeps her hair short, and whenever I’ve seen her, she’s been wearing a business suit with pants, the way Tammy does, or jeans if it’s Casual Friday.”

  “The TBI has Casual Friday?”

  “The brass has Casual Friday,” Rafe said with a grin. “It’s Casual Everyday for the rest of us.”

  Then his voice changed, and he added, “Oh, shit.”

  “What?” I followed the direction of his gaze and saw Detective Goins come toward us. “Oh, no. He’ll know what we’ve been doing here, won’t he?”

  Rafe nodded. “Let me handle this.”

  No problem.

  Or at least I didn’t think it would be a problem until Goins stopped ten feet away and pulled out his gun. And pointed it at Rafe. “Hands on your head.”

  “I’m carrying my daughter,” Rafe said, his voice even, but brimming with ice cold fury. “You’re pointing a fucking gun at my six-week-old daughter.”

  “Put the baby down. Now!”

  “Do it,” I said, so scared that my voice was threatening to get caught in my throat. “Put her down, Rafe.”

  He glanced at me. “Ta
ke her when I do.”

  I nodded. As soon as he bent to put the car seat on the ground next to his feet, I scooted over and grabbed it, and scooted back out of range. And was able to draw a breath again.

  Not that it was any more pleasant to have that gun pointed at Rafe, really. Especially as I felt pretty certain that Goins wouldn’t shoot the baby. He probably hadn’t even noticed that Rafe was carrying her until Rafe said something.

  But I wouldn’t put it past him to shoot Rafe. He—Goins—seemed to sincerely believe that my husband was some sort of danger. Goins would shoot him and feel justified. And Rafe would bleed out in the hospital parking lot, just another unarmed black man with a criminal record shot dead by a trigger-happy cop.

  I took a breath. And then another one. And then I put the car seat down, safely out of the way, and stepped in front of the gun. In front of Rafe.

  * * *

  It wasn’t the first time I’d put myself between him and someone pointing a gun at him. It was the first time, that I could recall, that I’d done it when neither one of us was armed. But I was pretty sure Goins wouldn’t shoot me. He might not think much of me—not the way he kept calling me ‘missy’—but I didn’t think he’d shoot me. I wasn’t so sure he wouldn’t shoot Rafe.

  For a second nothing happened. Then—

  “No, Savannah.” Rafe’s hands descended on either side of my waist, and he moved me aside. It might have taken a bit more than just flexing his biceps, but he did it.

  I scrambled back where I’d been, in front of him. “Have you lost your mind? I’m not moving until the gun’s gone.”

  “Carrie,” Rafe began.

  “Is fine. Nothing’s going to happen to Carrie. Or to me. It’s you I’m worried about.”

  Shooting a young white mother and her infant daughter would get a whole different reaction in the media and the courts than shooting Rafe would. No, we weren’t in danger here. He was.