by Liliana Hart
“It’s a dog circus,” I said between sobs. “That’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.”
Chapter Four
It was after noon once I dropped Savage back off at the agency. He’d been unusually silent on the way back, and he’d barely waved goodbye when he jumped out of the van.
I nixed my plan of taking a nap in my office because I’d have to explain why my face was red and swollen from crying and why there was a giant rip in my favorite coat. I decided the best thing to do was regroup, so I headed to Nick’s house. I guess technically it was about to become our house, but I hadn’t gotten used to saying that yet. I’d grown up in a tiny, three-bedroom, one-bath house and from the moment I’d graduated from college I’d been on my own to provide for myself. So it still felt weird to me to walk into Nick’s house and think of it as mine, though he’d told me over and over again we could change whatever needed to be changed so I could put my stamp on it too.
It was just so…big. And out of my league. I didn’t belong with the Nina Dempseys of the world, giving garden parties and wearing pearls to breakfast. I didn’t have the lineage of the Savannah elite behind my name. I had bootleggers and crazy people in my lineage.
Nick’s house was halfway between Savannah and Whiskey Bayou on a private road, secluded from the highway and the rest of the world. I turned into the long driveway and typed the code in to open the gate, and then drove on autopilot until I was parked in the driveway. Nick’s car was gone, and I wondered if he’d managed to get any sleep. And then I wondered how many of our days and nights would be like this for the rest of our lives, waiting for him to come home after working days at a time and not knowing what was going on. It had put a heck of a strain on my parents’ marriage, but I liked to think of myself as more evolved and understanding. After all, I had a busy career and life outside of Nick to keep me occupied while I was worrying about him.
I was so tired I could barely get my key in the door to unlock it, and once I did I just dropped my bag, coat, and keys on the hall table and dragged myself upstairs. I stripped out of my clothes along the way and got in a hot shower to warm my bones. I thanked God for the tankless water heater and might have fallen asleep standing up.
It was a good thing I’d snagged Nick because there were probably plenty of women who wanted to marry him for his bathroom alone. It had heated floors and towel rods, a walk-in shower with multiple pulsating shower heads, and a whirlpool tub that fit two people comfortably.
When I was warm and pruney I got out, wrapped myself in a fluffy towel, and then headed into the bedroom. Nick’s side of the bed was still rumpled from where he’d napped. I crawled under the covers and was out almost before my head hit the pillow.
Something tickled my cheek and I swatted at it before slowly opening my eyes. Nick came into focus. He looked terrible. He was always handsome, it was just in his bones, but there were dark circles under his eyes and an exhaustion there that even sleep couldn’t cure.
“What are you doing here?” I said, placing my hand on the side of his face and leaning in for a kiss.
“Looking for you. Rosemarie thought you might be dead in a gutter somewhere because you haven’t answered your phone and you didn’t go pick up Scarlet like you’d told her you would. She says she hopes you don’t mind, but she might push Scarlet out of the car and into oncoming traffic.”
I winced. I’d completely forgotten about Scarlet. “I left my phone downstairs on the table. What time is it?”
“After three.”
I winced again and pushed back the covers.
“You must’ve had an exciting morning,” Nick said, crawling into bed beside me and pulling me close.
“Pastor Charles came to my office and we made a trade so we could use the church for the wedding. Someone’s messing with him, so I told him I’d investigate as long as we can have booze at the reception.”
“Good thinking,” Nick said, kissing me on the forehead. “We’re going to need it.”
“Then Kate ambushed me and brought my family and Rosemarie into the agency to start planning the wedding. My mom got drunk and Rosemarie ate all the cinnamon rolls. Aunt Scarlet hired me to find out if Savage has a micro-penis so she’s not getting damaged goods when she makes her move. And then I went to a dog circus.”
Nick seemed slightly stunned and just stared at me. “Normally I’d say that you were making all that up, but I know you too well. No wonder you’re tired.”
“Sorry you had to stop working to check up on me.”
“No worries. I missed you. And I’m having to cut through a lot of red tape, which takes time. I put a call in to my grandfather.”
“Always helps to have a senator apply a little pressure.”
“You have no idea,” he said. “But while I’m here, maybe we can take another nap.”
He rolled me to my back and kissed me hard, and then I remembered that I’d only been wearing a towel when I got into bed. And then somehow Nick was naked and my troubles of the day disappeared.
Neither of us had time to linger, so we grabbed a quick shower, dressed, and went down to the kitchen for something to eat. All I’d had that day was a cinnamon roll and frozen trail mix. I wasn’t sure when Nick had last eaten.
I made us peanut butter and banana sandwiches and drizzled honey over the top of both of them, and we ate them standing in the kitchen.
“I’ve got to go,” Nick said, checking his phone. “I’ve got to meet with the mayor.”
“That doesn’t sound good.”
“That’s because we’ve put a halt to the merger for the time being while the investigation is going on. The company is making harassment noises and basically making everyone’s life a living hell. And of course they’re on personal terms with the mayor, so he’s going to make my life a living hell.”
“What are you going to do?” I asked.
“Hopefully arrest someone for murder soon. I’m making people uncomfortable. That’s a good thing.”
He kissed me goodbye and then was out the door. I threw away our trash and then went to find my other jacket. It was the South, so it’s not like I had a variety of coats heavy enough to protect me from this kind of cold. But I did have a ski jacket from my one and only skiing experience. I’m not sure why I’d kept it. Maybe because it had been so expensive. Or maybe as a reminder that I should never get on skis again.
I dug to the back of the closet and pulled out a royal-blue ski jacket with a fur collar. And then I went back upstairs to change my handbag and get another scarf, hat, and gloves, because not matching was against every Southern woman’s sense of decorum.
The good thing about black was it went with everything. So I grabbed a new Kate Spade tote, because having multiples of something you like is important, and the new hat, gloves, and scarf, and I headed back out to the van. I was feeling refreshed, and not nearly as insane as I had earlier. The wedding hormones were under control.
I had a little time before I had to be back in the city for the dress fitting, so I headed to Whiskey Bayou to see what I could find out about Pastor Charles’s mystery stalker. The road was mostly deserted leading into town.
The best way to describe Whiskey Bayou was quaint southern charm with a touch of the apocalyptic. The bayous ran parallel down each side of the highway and surround the town, and big trees with moss made a small cocoon. The population had been at around three thousand people since I was a kid, so growth wasn’t really happening like over at Tybee Island where developers were swooping in to put in luxury condos.
Whiskey Bayou had gotten its name because it had been a whiskey-making town long before the distillery was built. They were making whiskey all the way back to Revolutionary times and hiding it in the bayous so it wouldn’t get taxed. And when prohibition hit in the twenties, Whiskey Bayou boomed because it was the only place to get booze in a hundred miles. There was even a speakeasy that people from the city would come for.
I took the access road off the highwa
y and passed the old railroad graveyard to my left. It was like stepping back in time. The cars parked along Main Street were old, the buildings shabby with age. Mom and Pop shops filled the buildings, and The Good Luck Café sat on the corner. Just past the café was the park and the old whiskey distillery building, which had sat abandoned for almost thirty years, but had such sentimental value to the town no one wanted to get rid of it, and no one could afford to reopen it and use it.
I circled around the distillery and made my way back to the Good Luck Café. Most of the parking spaces down Main Street were empty because of the cold weather, so I didn’t feel so bad when the van took up almost two. I still hadn’t quite figured out how to park the thing yet.
The Good Luck Café had been an institution in Whiskey Bayou since the fifties. Not much had changed since then. The floors were black and white squares, and the tables were white Formica with turquoise chairs. There were a few booths along the back with the same turquoise vinyl seats.
There was a long countertop with red barstools, and three glass cake stands stood in a row with the different pies that had been baked fresh that morning. The heat was working overtime to stay up with the cold, and it was making an awful lot of noise through the vents. I looked around, but there were no customers in at the moment.
I took a seat at the counter and waited, knowing Jolene Meader had ears like a bat and would be out to check on me in a second. It took less than that for her to swing through the kitchen door and look me over.
“Well, Addison Holmes,” she said, her Georgia accent thick. “Aren’t you looking like the city now. All spit and polish. What brings you back home? Saw in the paper you were getting married, but it didn’t say where.”
I decided not to bring up the fact that Savannah was a fifteen-minute drive, and that I was home almost every weekend for horrible pot roast, or whatever else my mother was experimenting on in the kitchen. She was a great mom, but she’d never gotten the hang of cooking.
“At the church,” I told her, smiling.
“Ah, a familiar stomping ground. I remember your first.”
She was making it a challenge to keep a smile on my face. Jolene Meader had inherited the café from her parents. She’d been born to them late in life, and they’d called her their good luck baby, so that’s what they named their café. Her parents had been sweet people, but had passed on when I’d been just a kid. Jolene baked like an angel, but she was mean as the devil. It was an odd combination, and one that had customers coming back for more abuse on a consistent basis. She’d never married or had children, so who knew what would happen to the restaurant when she was tired of it.
“I’ll take a coffee and a piece of that peach pie,” I said.
Jolene was somewhere in her mid-sixties, but she was holding up well. She was thin as a rail, probably from bussing tables for the last forty-five years, and her hair had been a bright shock of red for as long as I could remember. She never wore any makeup except for the bright red lipstick she kept in her apron pocket.
“Business been slow?” I asked.
“No one wants to get out in this cold. Makes the bones hurt. Even my pie isn’t worth that.”
I bit into a piece of peach pie and disagreed wholeheartedly. I would have walked across fire for that pie, and it was everything I could do to keep from licking the plate.
“I’ve got a client who’s being bothered by a stranger in town,” I said. “Takes pictures of him all over the place and then sends them to him. You seen any strangers around?”
She looked at me a few seconds and then said, “You want any more pie?”
What I should have said was no, but I opened my mouth and said, “Sure, one more piece won’t hurt. I probably won’t get to eat dinner.”
“Not many strangers around town this time of year,” she said. “Had a couple in the other day that took the wrong turn on their way to Tybee Island. But not surprising since I don’t think they had a whole brain between them. Saw your aunt come through town the other day. Wouldn’t put it past her to send creepy pictures to someone.”
I pursed my lips and decided to take a sip of coffee. It’s not like Jolene was wrong.
“She’s retired,” I said.
“Woman like that never retires. But I sure wish she’d do something with that whiskey distillery. Make it into a museum or something. Lord knows she’s got more money than Midas.”
“What?” I asked. “What distillery?”
Jolene looked at me like I had the IQ of a garden gnome. “Our distillery. She got it after her husband died. The third one, I think. She always made out like a bandit in her marriages. Smart woman, that Scarlet.”
“I had no idea,” I said.
“I remember Scarlet when I was a kid. She was kind of like the Bogeyman, no one would say her name above a whisper. She worked for the government a long time. Of course, no one was completely sure which government she was working for. Could’ve been all of them.”
I wanted to ask more questions about Scarlet, but that wasn’t the reason I was there. “No one else other than Scarlet and the other couple?”
“Not in the last few weeks. Just the regulars. Back before Thanksgiving I had a fella come in. Older gentleman, maybe in his fifties. Dressed nice. Expensive watch and bag. But you could tell he had some rough edges. Gave me the willies. Had dead eyes. I gave Sheriff Rafferty free pie just so he’d stay in the café while he was here.”
“Anything stand out about him other than the dead eyes?” I asked. Some of the pictures of Pastor Charles were taken in the fall, so it was possible this could be the guy.
“Not really. Don’t remember much else about him other than the eyes. They were brown. He paid cash. Didn’t speak to no one other than making his order.”
“He have an accent? Did it sound like he was from around here?”
Jolene thought about it for a second. “Nope, now that you mention it. No accent, but he definitely wasn’t from around here.”
“You see what he was driving?” I asked.
“Nope, he must’ve parked around back. Never saw him again after that so figured he was just passing through.”
The café still used handwritten tickets, so she totaled me up and put the bill under my coffee cup. I grabbed cash out of my bag and decided not to complain that she’d charged me for four pieces of pie.
“Are you having an open bar?” she asked. “It’d be wrong to issue an open invitation like that and then only offer a cash bar.”
I nodded noncommittally and got out as fast as I could.
Chapter Five
I still had a little time before I needed to head back into the city for the dress fitting, so I drove by the church in hopes that I could catch Pastor Charles again. There were no cars in the parking lot, and his car wasn’t in the spot next to the rectory.
I pulled into the lot and got out his file so I could give him a call, and I went ahead and saved his number in my phone because I was sure I’d have to call him again about the wedding.
The phone rang several times before he picked up.
“Pastor Charles,” he said.
“This is Addison Holmes,” I said. “I’m in Whiskey Bayou checking out a couple of things for your case. Jolene Meador said she remembers seeing a man come in last November. White guy, dressed in new clothes with an expensive watch and bag. She said he looked rough though. Brown eyes that creeped her out. Does someone fitting that description sound familiar at all to you?”
He was silent for several seconds, to the point I wondered if he was still on the line.
“No,” he said. “That doesn’t sound familiar.”
“Would you mind if I had access to any personnel files at the church or any complaints that have been made? Maybe your secretary intercepted someone before they could complain directly to you.”
“That’s a good idea,” he said. “Today is Beverly’s day off, but I had her transfer everything to electronic files when I came to the church. I’ll te
xt her and let her know to give you anything you need. Just give her a call.”
“I appreciate it,” I said. “I’ll be back in touch.” I was about to hang up when I thought about the wedding. “Umm…do you need to meet with me and Nick before the ceremony on Friday?”
“Do I need to?” he asked, sounding surprised. “Is there a problem?”
“No, of course not,” I rushed to say.
“Then we’re good,” he said. “I’ve had lots of practice. And you’ve had practice before too. All’s good.” And then he disconnected.
“Well,” I said, looking at my phone. And then it rang again, but it was my mother.
“Addison,” she said. She sounded like she’d been swallowing shards of glass. “I heard you were parked over at the church. Are you meeting with Pastor Charles about the wedding? Do you need me to come up there?”
I’d been in Savannah too long. I’d forgotten how fast the WB network worked. I looked around to see if anyone was watching me, but I couldn’t see a soul. I grabbed my binoculars from my bag and looked down toward the Good Luck Café. Sure enough, there was Jolene standing at the window watching the van.
“I’m good,” I said. “I’m actually here on business and just needed a place to pull over. You sound terrible. I thought you’d be out the rest of the day.”
“Vince gave me his hangover cure,” she rasped. “I have no choice but to be awake.”
“Did it work?”
“I stopped throwing up. But it feels like I swallowed a sheep.”
“Huh,” I said. “That’s different.”
“That woman drives me to distraction,” she said. “If this wasn’t your wedding I’d run over her with a dump truck. Should’ve done it years ago, but now that your father isn’t around to protect her I don’t have any restrictions.”
“You’d go to jail. Vince would miss you.”
“They allow conjugal visits. I think it’d be worth it.”
