Bad Debt (Savannah Martin Mysteries Book 14)

by Jenna Bennett

  Yvonne made a sound, as if a leaf of lettuce had gotten stuck in her throat. Catherine and I turned to her, concerned. She waved the attention away and reached for her glass.

  “I remember Darrell Skinner,” Catherine said. “I think he was a year or maybe two ahead of me in school. Has something happened to him?”

  “He’s dead.”

  Across the table Yvonne lifted her napkin from her lap to wipe her eyes, and I kept a surreptitious eye on her. “Along with his brothers Robbie and Art, his sister-in-law Linda, his nephew A.J., his niece Cilla, and Cilla’s boyfriend.”

  Catherine stared at me, wide-eyed.

  “A.J. was sixteen,” I added, my voice tight. “Cilla was eighteen. Her boyfriend was probably around the same. They had a new baby.”

  Catherine looked sick.

  “The baby survived. Both parents were killed, but whoever killed them, left the baby there. In bed with its dead parents.”

  “God.” It isn’t often I hear my sister blaspheme, but under the circumstances I couldn’t really fault her. I’d done the same myself. “Who’d do something like that?”

  I thought about sharing Rafe’s thoughts on the matter, but decided I’d better not. It was one thing for him to share them with me. It was something totally different for me to share them with anyone else.

  In fact, I probably shouldn’t have mentioned anything about any of it. “You can’t talk about this to anyone,” I warned them both. “I don’t think it’s official yet. The only reason I know about it, is because I went up to Robbie’s place with Rafe and we found the body.”

  Yvonne made another of those strangled sounds. Her eyes above the napkin were huge.

  “I’m sorry,” I added. I’d been pretty sure my sister hadn’t been personally acquainted with the Skinners. Not on the approved list. But Yvonne might have been. She wasn’t, as Mother might say, ‘our kind.’ “Did you know Robbie?”

  She nodded.

  “I’m sorry for your loss.” By all accounts—those of the sheriff and Rafe, and the young woman from Animal Control—the Skinners hadn’t been much of a loss, but Yvonne might well feel differently.

  She pushed her chair back with a squeal on the concrete floor, and a muffled, “Excuse me.” We watched her weave her way across the room, around the other tables, and disappear into the small hallway in the back, where the restrooms were located.

  “I didn’t realize she might know them,” I told Catherine. “Rafe said Darrell was a couple of years older than him. Yvonne’s Dix’s age.” A year younger than Rafe, if you want to get specific. “And Robbie was older than Darrell by a year or more.”

  “She might know them from somewhere other than high school,” Catherine reminded me. “They’re local. They might have frequented Beulah’s Meat’n Three.”

  Come to think of it, they might. Although it would be a longish drive from the Devil’s Backbone almost all the way to Sweetwater for a piece of chicken fried steak. Then again, it might not have been the food that was the attraction.

  “I’ll have to tell Rafe to have a talk with her. Or the sheriff.”

  “I’m sure your husband would get more out of her than Bob Satterfield would,” Catherine told me. “She might be reluctant to talk to the police about anything she knows. But Rafe doesn’t look or act like the police. And she seems to like him.”

  “What’s not to like?” I asked flippantly. And added, “They slept together once.”

  “Rafe and Yvonne?”

  I nodded.

  “He married you,” my sister told me. “And I imagine, if you’re going to start worrying about all the women your husband has slept with, you wouldn’t have time for anything else.”

  Too true. “I’ll let him know the next time I talk to him. They’ve got their hands full up there, processing multiple crime scenes. I’m sure they won’t get around to doing interviews for a while yet.” Besides, Yvonne was on her way back to the table, more composed now, but with eyes that looked a little more naked than earlier. She must have wiped away some of the makeup along with the tears, and either hadn’t bothered, or hadn’t had what she needed, to fix the damage.

  “We should head back,” Catherine said with a glance at her watch. “By the time we’ve paid the check and walked back to the courthouse, it’ll be time to see the judge again.” She looked around for the waitress and the check.

  “I’ll meet you there,” Yvonne said. “I’m sorry. I just…” She waved at the door. In my mind, I heard Greta Garbo’s voice. ‘I vant to be alone.’

  It didn’t sound so good with a Southern accent.

  “No problem.” Catherine came across calm and unbothered. “Take the time you need. Just don’t be late. It won’t look good.”

  Yvonne promised she wouldn’t, and ducked out. I let Catherine pay the check, since she makes more money than I do. I did make noises about paying my fair share, but I didn’t insist when she told me I didn’t have to.

  We visited the ladies room, and headed out into the street. Yvonne was nowhere to be seen when we got there. Not surprising, perhaps, considering the minutes that had passed between her departure and ours. I just hoped she wasn’t upset enough to blow off the rest of the hearing. It might not make a difference, since it had seemed to me that the judge shared Catherine’s opinion that Beulah had been competent and Yvonne should get the restaurant, and whether Yvonne was present or not, it shouldn’t affect that. But Catherine was right: it wouldn’t look good if she didn’t show up.

  “I should probably call Rafe before we go in,” I told Catherine as we approached the steps to the courthouse. “Let him know about Yvonne. Just in case she has some sort of insight into what happened.”

  Catherine nodded. “I’ll see you inside.”

  She headed up the stairs without waiting for me. While she headed in, I found a quiet spot behind a pillar, where the misty rain didn’t reach me, and dialed Rafe’s number. I could have gone inside, I suppose, and tried to find a quiet corner somewhere, but since I assumed no one else knew about the Skinner murders yet, and since I didn’t want anyone to accidentally learn about them from me, I did the best I couldn’t not to be overheard.

  The phone rang a couple of times, and then Rafe answered. “Darlin’.”

  “I know you’re busy,” I said. “But I wanted to tell you about Yvonne.”

  “Now ain’t really the time, Savannah.”

  “It’s about the Skinners,” I said. “Not the hearing. Although the hearing is going well. I think. Catherine thinks it’s going well, anyway.”

  Rafe waited patiently. So patiently I could hear it, loud and clear.

  “I think Yvonne knew the Skinners. She asked me what you were doing here, and when I told her it was about the Skinners, she started crying. She tried to hide it by pretending to get a piece of lettuce stuck in her throat, but I’m pretty sure she was crying. You should talk to her.”

  “I was planning to,” Rafe said. “She and Darrell had a thing for a while. Long time ago now, but I thought she might have something to add to what we know.”

  “What do you know?”

  “Not a lot more than when you left,” Rafe said. “Seven dead. All of’em shot.”

  “The woman from Animal Control said it looked like they’d been using the dogs for dog fighting. She says it’s illegal.”

  “Very.”

  “I don’t know how much money there is in dog fighting, but it might be a motive.”

  “It might could be.”

  “Did she take the dog with her? Robbie’s dog?”

  Rafe said she had.

  “I hope it makes it,” I said. “I hope they all make it, although she sounded like some of them wouldn’t. So did the sheriff. But I hope that one does. I feel sorry for it.”

  “I’m sure it’ll be all right, darlin’. She seemed like a nice woman. Who liked dogs.”

  “Let me guess,” I said suspiciously, “she flirted with you?”

  He chuckled. “She told
me you’d warned her off.”

  “So if I hadn’t mentioned that we were married, she would have flirted with you?”

  He shrugged. Sort of audibly. “A little flirtation never hurt nobody, darlin’.”

  “In that case,” I told him, “maybe I’ll just check and see if Todd’s around.” Being the assistant DA for the county, he’s often to be found around the courthouse.

  He sounded amused, and not at all threatened. “It’s a little different, ain’t it, darlin’? I never met the dog woman before in my life. Meanwhile, Satterfield proposed to you. Not just once, but several times.”

  “Ancient history,” I said loftily.

  “It don’t sound like it when you tell me you’re gonna go looking for him.”

  Maybe not. “Just stay away from the dog woman, and I’ll stay away from Todd.”

  “The dog woman’s gone, darlin’. Her name’s June, and she took the dog and left. It didn’t take more than five minutes. It’s just the sheriff and me here.” After a moment he added, “And the body.”

  So much for keeping it light. “What happened to the baby?” The dogs got picked up. Surely the baby had been, too.

  “Children’s services came,” Rafe said.

  “There’s no other family?” Surely Cilla’s boyfriend had a mother? Or a sister? Someone who could care for the baby instead of strangers?

  “Not until we know what happened to the baby’s parents.”

  “I’ll let you get back to it. But plan to talk to Yvonne after we’re done in court. She might not know anything about who would want the Skinners dead, but she might. They don’t sound like the nicest bunch of people, but nobody deserves what happened to them.”

  Especially not A.J. and Cilla, who couldn’t have had time in their short lives to do any mortal harm to anyone.

  Rafe told me to let him know when court was over. I said I would, and we hung up. I made my way into the courthouse and back to the room I’d been in earlier.

  Most everyone else was back already. Catherine sat at the table in the front where she’d been earlier, but without Yvonne next to her. Ms. Odom was also back, but without her mother. Hopefully the two of them hadn’t accidentally come face to face outside, and gotten into it. That wouldn’t be good.

  But no, the door opened, and Mrs. Odom arrived, looking just as stylish and pulled together as earlier. Obviously, if there had been an altercation, it hadn’t descended from name calling to fisticuffs. Mrs. Odom made her way to the front, gave Catherine a haughty look, and settled next to her daughter. They got into a whispered conversation, and at the mother’s request, the daughter turned and got the lawyer involved, too. The discussion looked intense, even though I couldn’t hear a single word of what was said.

  As the seconds ticked away toward one-thirty, I started to worry about Yvonne, and that she wouldn’t make it. Maybe Mrs. Odom had caught her after all, had stabbed her with a sharpened nail file, and left her for dead in the alley beside the courthouse.

  But no, with a few seconds to spare, Yvonne made it through the door and down the aisle. She had just managed to plant her posterior on the chair next to Catherine when the door opened and the judge appeared. We all stood again, until he had taken his seat.

  For a long moment, nothing happened. The judge stapled his fingers together on the table in front of him and watched the courtroom. We all watched the judge.

  “This is a bullshit case,” he said eventually, and I don’t think my jaw was the only one that dropped. Not only was he a distinguished old Southern gentleman, from whom one wouldn’t expect that kind of language, but he was a judge sitting on the bench.

  He waited for the whispers and titters to stop, before he added, “You should be ashamed of yourself for wasting the court’s time, Mr. Hamilton.”

  Mr. Hamilton, I assumed, was the plaintiffs’ lawyer. The back of his neck didn’t look particularly chastised, although his face might have told a different story.

  “The court believes that there’s no merit to the case,” the judge continued. “According to her doctor and multiple witnesses, Beulah Odom was not under duress or undue pressure when she made her will, and she had the mental faculties to understand the ramifications of what she did. For that reason, the will stands.”

  The judge smacked his gavel on the desk. As he exited the courtroom in a swirl of black robes—like a giant bat, or Severus Snape—Yvonne turned to Catherine, eyes wide.

  “Congratulations,” Catherine told her.

  “I get the restaurant?”

  “The will has to go through probate. It can take a few months. But the will is valid. So I’d say you do.”

  Yvonne threw her arms around Catherine’s neck with a squeal. My sister grimaced, but squeezed back. At the next table, Mrs. Odom and her daughter got to their feet and headed for the exit without looking left or right. Mrs. Odom’s lips were so tightly compressed they were invisible.

  Five

  “That went well,” I said to Catherine after Yvonne had bounced out with a lot more spring in her step than what she’d come in with.

  Catherine gathered her paperwork together and shoved it into her bag. “It’s like the judge said. Bullshit case. A last and desperate Hail Mary from two people who can’t stand the idea of someone else getting the restaurant.”

  She swung the bag up over her shoulder and added, “I mean, really, Savannah. Could you imagine the two of them running a meat’n three in Sweetwater? The restaurant would go under in a month.”

  Quite possible. The Otis Odoms certainly didn’t look like the type of women who’d worked a day in their lives. Not the hard manual labor of keeping a restaurant going. Although looks can be deceiving.

  “Not that deceiving,” Catherine said when I said so. “If that woman’s ever lifted a finger for anyone but herself, I’ll eat it.”

  The finger, I assumed. And Mrs. Odom, I assumed. As opposed to Ms. Odom, who might well have some sort of degree in restaurant management, or whatnot.

  Catherine shook her head. “I don’t doubt they want the restaurant. But I don’t think it’s because they want to run it. Maybe the land is valuable.”

  Maybe so. Land is increasing in value every day. They just don’t make any more of it. And Nashville is expanding every day, as well. They say that within ten years, the city will be twice the size it is now. By then, Franklin will certainly have been swallowed up. Columbia would be next to go. Maybe the Odoms were planning for a future when the city of Nashville sprawled across most of Middle Tennessee, and when the land where Beulah’s Meat’n Three sat, would be worth millions.

  Or maybe they knew something we didn’t.

  It probably didn’t matter. What mattered was that they’d wanted the place, but hadn’t gotten it. Now they’d have to go back to Franklin empty-handed, their guns spiked. It was worthy of a celebration. But since it was only an hour since we’d eaten, I didn’t say anything about it. At almost eight months pregnant, I can always eat. Catherine probably couldn’t. And had children to get home to, anyway.

  “Are you staying with Mother?” she asked when we were on our way across the street to her car. She’d been here earlier than I, and had snagged a spot closer to the courthouse.

  “I’m not sure. She has the space. Or more of it than you or Dix. But I should probably ask first, before I assume anything.”

  “It’s not like she has anyone else staying with her,” Catherine said. “And she likes Rafe now.”

  “It would still be polite to ask, though. Instead of just showing up and expecting to be housed. What if she and the sheriff are dancing naked on the table in the parlor?”

  My sister grimaced. “Thanks, Savannah.”

  “Sorry.” It wasn’t a mental image I particularly enjoyed, either. After a second, I added, “The sheriff’s probably too busy tonight. Seven dead so far. Hopefully there won’t be any more.”

  “I guess that would depend on how many other Skinners there are,” Catherine said. Rather cold-bl
oodedly, I thought.

  “I’m afraid I don’t know. I don’t even remember Darrell Skinner from high school. I think he might have left before I started.”

  Catherine nodded. “I’m almost four years older than you, so I remember a few more. There was Darrell. Then there was Robbie. Then there was Art. I’m not sure there was anyone else.”

  “Then this might be it. Assuming someone went after the Skinners because they were Skinners, and not for another reason.”

  “It’s disturbing,” Catherine said, unlocking her car door.

  I nodded. It certainly was. And she hadn’t even seen Robbie’s dead body. “Thank God it’s on the other side of the county. If not, I’d worry about going to sleep tonight.”

  “You and me both,” Catherine said. “But at least they left the baby alone. If anything happens to us, will you take care of my kids?”

  “Of course.” She and Jonathan have three: Robert, Cole, and Annie, ranging in age from eight down to three or so. “But nothing’s going to happen to you. The Skinners were probably involved in something bad. If you’re not, nobody would have a reason to want to get rid of you.”

  “Easy for you to say,” Catherine said and opened her car door. “Take care, Savannah.”

  I told her I would, and stepped out of the way as she started the minivan. I waved until she was gone, and then I headed across the square and over to the Martin and Vaughan sign and the Volvo.

  I had unlocked the door and was just about to get in when a voice called my name. When I turned in the direction of the sound, I saw Todd Satterfield coming across the square toward me. And I admit it, my heart sank a little. It had been awkward between Todd and me ever since I turned down his proposal and then married Rafe.

  I did my best to smile naturally. “Hi, Todd.”

  “Savannah.” He gave me a quick up and down. His gaze stopped on my stomach for just a second, but he didn’t comment. “What are you doing here?”