[Cutthroat Business 01.0 - 03.0] Boxed Set

by Jenna Bennett

  “Just fine, thank you. Listen, Todd just called and asked me to dinner tomorrow.”

  “Did he?” Mother sounded like she was smiling.

  “He wants me to drive down to Sweetwater to meet him. I wanted to make sure it would be OK for me to stay the night with you.”

  “Of course,” Mother said. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

  “No reason. I just didn’t want to assume.” It would be impolite, and believe me, if I’d shown up unannounced, Mother would have told me so.

  “No, darling, of course you can stay with me.” Mother hesitated for a moment before she added, “As a matter of fact, we’ll probably be seeing the two of you at the Wayside Inn. I’m having dinner with the sheriff.”

  “You don’t say?” What were the odds? “That’s quite a coincidence, isn’t it?”

  And it made it all the more likely that Todd was planning to propose, if both our parents were going to be present, ready to jump up and congratulate us after I’d said yes. And of course I’d have to say yes, if Mother was sitting right there, waiting. Brilliantly reasoned on Todd’s part.

  “Well, it is the only four-star restaurant in the county,” Mother pointed out. “I mean, darling, you can hardly expect the sheriff to treat me at Beulah’s Meat’n Three, now can you?”

  “I suppose not,” I admitted grudgingly. “I’ll try to stop by the house first, but if I get a late start, I may just go straight to the Wayside Inn.”

  “Whatever you need, darling,” Mother said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  She hung up. I did the same, gnawing the remaining lipstick off my bottom lip.

  Gary Lee and Charlene came wandering out of the house after another few minutes, and notified me that this wasn’t the house of their dreams, either. The master bedroom just hadn’t blown Charlene’s skirt up. But they had another house they wanted to see; this one a renovated craftsman bungalow in the Potsdam Street area, near where Rafe’s grandmother lived. Personally, I didn’t think they would enjoy living there – that particular neighborhood was still a bit too much like the Wild West for my taste, with desperados and guns behind every bush – but first-time buyers have been known to fall in love with unsuitable houses before, and I certainly wasn’t about to deprive Gary Lee and Charlene of the opportunity to do so. We agreed to meet the next day at the same time, and Gary Lee went to the car to make a phone call of his own. Charlene stayed on the porch making small talk while I locked the door and hid the key inside the lockbox hanging from the door handle. “That was quite a house yesterday.”

  “The Fortunatos house? It’s OK, if you like the type.”

  “Great bedroom.” She smiled reminiscently. I shrugged. Perry and Connie Fortunato’s master suite had toe-curling shag carpeting and mirrors all over the ceiling. Personally, I couldn’t imagine a worse mood-killer than having to watch my own imperfect body slide across those black satin sheets, but maybe Connie was made of sterner stuff. And of course Charlene had the nubile body of someone just out of her teens, and nothing whatsoever to worry about. As a matter of fact, she was showing more of it than I’d realized earlier. Her blouse was misbuttoned, and showed her midriff. I was just about to point it out when she added, “That guy that you were with... was he your boyfriend?”

  I shook my head. “Just a friend. He came by to make sure I was all right, what with the robberies the past two weekends and the murder last week.”

  “Oh.” Charlene dug her tiny, white teeth into her lip. “I assumed, with the way you were looking at him...”

  I hadn’t been aware of looking at Rafe in any particular way. Other than that I was afraid he was thinking of tying me to a kitchen chair, I suppose. “What do you mean, the way I was looking at him? I wasn’t looking at him any way.” I would never look at Rafe. Not that way.

  “Whatever you say, Savannah,” Charlene giggled. “See you tomorrow. If something comes up, whether it’s big or small, don’t hesitate to cancel.”

  She skipped down the steps to rejoin her husband, still laughing and with her misbuttoned blouse flapping. And just for that parting remark, I decided not to tell her about it. Walking into society looking like she had just rolled out of bed and put on the thing nearest to hand was no more than she deserved for making me think – even for a second – about the extent of Rafe Collier’s private parts.

  * * *

  By 6 pm, though, any thoughts of Rafe or his body parts were banished from my mind, safely tucked away as if they’d never existed. I was on my way to Cheekwood: historic home, art museum, botanical garden, and special events center. And also the setting for the planning committee meeting for whatever charity Lila had been involved with.

  Back in the early part of the 20th Century, a Nashville man named Joel Cheek developed a superior blend of coffee, which was marketed through the finest hotel in Nashville at the time, the Maxwell House. In 1928, General Foods purchased Cheek-Neal Coffee for a whopping forty million dollars, and in the process made Joel and all the other Cheeks obscenely wealthy.

  Joel’s cousin Leslie and Leslie’s wife Mabel used some of their money to buy 100 acres of woodlands in West Nashville for a country estate. They hired New York architect Bryant Fleming to handle the project and gave him total control over everything, from landscaping to interior furnishings. The result was a 30,000 square foot limestone mansion in the style of an English country-house, surrounded by extensive formal gardens. The Cheeks moved in in January 1933. Leslie died just a few years later, but members of the family occupied the mansion until the 1950s, when Huldah Cheek Sharp and her husband Walter offered the property as a site for a museum and botanical garden.

  I’d visited Cheekwood before – most Nashvillians stop by occasionally, to smell the flowers or admire the artwork or lunch in the Pineapple Room restaurant – and I had no problem finding the small salon where the meeting was set to take place.

  When I walked in at 6:25, the room was abuzz with voices. Mostly female, although the occasional male stuck out like a sore thumb here and there. After a minute or two, I spotted Connie Fortunato on the other side of the room, and started weaving my way through the crowd toward her. When I came closer, I saw that she was deep in conversation with a redhead in a brown suede jacket, and I hesitated just out of hearing, loath to interrupt what looked like a fairly personal exchange. But the redhead looked up and saw me, and nudged Connie, who also turned to me.

  “Oh,” she said after a second, “Savannah.”

  “Hi, Connie.” I smiled brightly. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but I saw you from the door and thought I’d say hello. You’re the only person here I’ve met before.”

  Connie hesitated, but the redhead stuck a hand out. “Hi, I’m Heather Price.”

  “Savannah Martin.” I took the proffered hand and shook. “Your name sounds familiar. Have we met?”

  “I don’t think so,” Heather said. “Although I’ve heard of you. Connie said you might be stopping by.”

  I nodded. “Lila Vaughn was a friend of mine. If this benefit was important to her, I’d like to help out.”

  “That’s very kind of you,” Connie said.

  “It seems the least I can do. I just can’t believe she’s gone, you know. It’s just a few days since I saw her – Thursday – and she seemed so alive, and happy…”

  “Just goes to show we should be careful what we wish for,” Heather said darkly.

  I looked from one to the other of them. “I guess she told you what happened last Sunday?”

  They both nodded, and Connie said, “I imagine she told everyone she knew. The way she went on about this man, he must have been a veritable Greek god.”

  I nodded, and then stopped myself. “He certainly sounds that way. Of course, he may not have been her killer.”

  Heather glanced at me, and something came and went in her eyes, but she didn’t speak. Connie snorted in polite disbelief. “Who else could it be?”

  I shrugged. “I haven’t known her very long, so I don’t kn
ow a whole lot about her. She doesn’t – didn’t – have a boyfriend that I know of, but there was an ex-husband, at least.”

  Lila and I had shared divorce stories over coffee one night at school. She had gotten married fairly young, like me, but unlike Bradley, who had cheated on me with Shelby and then married her once our divorce was final, Lila’s husband had been devoted to the point of obsession, always accusing her of sleeping around on him. He didn’t want her talking to other men, didn’t want her looking at other men, didn’t want her leaving the house, cut her off from watching TV because she was watching other men. When she threatened to leave, he beat her senseless and told her he’d kill her if she tried. One of the neighbors called 911 once, when things got especially bad, and that’s when she finally got rid of the guy. Arrest warrant, restraining order, the whole nine yards.

  Heather nodded. “Bastard,” she said succinctly. “But you know, that’s not a bad idea. I wonder if the police are looking into that nasty piece of dog doo-doo.” (She used a stronger word, one of the sort my mother had warned me would make me sound common. I won’t repeat it.)

  “I’m sure they are,” I answered. “When someone is murdered, the husband or wife or significant other is always high on the suspect list. I’ll…”

  I stopped on the verge of saying that I would ask Detective Grimaldi the next time I spoke to her. It might make Connie and Heather feel uncomfortable to know that I was in pretty regular communication with the police. People tend to be a little leery of folks who can rat them out to the law, even when they don’t have anything to hide.

  “How long did you two know Lila?” I asked instead, looking from one to the other of them.

  “Only a couple of months,” Connie said. Heather nodded. “Since the planning for the Eye Ball started in July.”

  “The Eye Ball?”

  Heather giggled. “That’s the nickname for this event. The Vanderbilt Optometry Department’s Benefit Gala. An Eye Ball.”

  “Funny,” I said. “I guess you wouldn’t know much about the men in her life, then, if you haven’t known her long.”

  They exchanged a look. “Other than this guy on Sunday, she’s mentioned very few,” Heather said. “We always go – used to go – out somewhere for drinks after the meetings on Monday nights, and she was very pretty, you know…”

  “And not attached, like me and Heather,” Connie shot in. Heather nodded. So did I. Lila had been very pretty. A brief impression of her face in the picture Detective Grimaldi had shown me flashed in front of my eyes, and I swallowed hard and forced my attention back to the conversation. Heather continued.

  “She wasn’t above flirting with some of the men who caught her eye, but I don’t remember her ever leaving with any of them.”

  “And she never mentioned any of them again,” Connie added. “I‘d ask once in a while – did so-and-so ever call? – but she never said anything about getting together with any of them later. And she wasn’t promiscuous. Her husband was crazy; she didn’t cheat on him.”

  “I’ve never heard her rave about anyone the way she did about this burglar,” Heather said.

  Connie nodded. “By the way, Savannah, that boyfriend of yours wasn’t exactly hard on the eyes, either.”

  “He’s not my boyfriend,” I began.

  “He said he was her bodyguard,” Connie explained to Heather, “and seeing the way he was looking at it, I think he was telling the truth.”

  Blushing, I explained, “He’s a friend of mine. Because of the robberies and Lila’s murder, my boss suggested that we all be extra careful this weekend.”

  Connie added, “If Lila’s guy looked anything like Savannah’s guy, I don’t blame Lila one bit for asking him to take advantage of her. This guy could take advantage of me any time he wanted.”

  “A pity he’s spoken for,” Heather remarked, with a glance at me.

  “Oh, yes,” Connie said, “they made that very clear. Both of them.”

  She winked. I blushed. But before I could say anything the meeting was called to order. We took our seats around the table, and the conversation was shelved as centerpieces, napkins, and tablecloths took over as the main topics of conversation.

  * * *

  The house near Potsdam Street that we visited on Tuesday afternoon didn’t turn out to be Gary Lee and Charlene’s dream home, either. They went inside and spent a good, long time there, but when they came back outside, they told me that no, this wasn’t it.

  “OK,” I said, figuratively taking the bull by the horns. “Maybe it’s time we set some parameters. You’ve seen a few houses by now. Are you able to narrow down what you’re looking for just a little bit? Is it a certain style of house? A certain age? A certain area? Are there special features you’re looking for, like a fireplace or a Jacuzzi tub?”

  They exchanged a look. “Not really…”

  “How will you know you’ve found it?”

  “Um…” They looked at each other again.

  “I guess,” Charlene said, “we’ll know when we see it. Or experience being in it.”

  Gary Lee nodded. “We’re looking for something that’ll blow Charlene’s skirt up.”

  I arched my brows. “I see. OK, then. If you can’t give me anything more definite, I guess we’ll just continue the way we’ve been going. I can’t show you anything tomorrow – I’ll be in Sweetwater in the morning, and then I have a memorial service to go to in the afternoon – but I’m sure you have something you want to see on Thursday?”

  “Um…” They glanced at each other and then down, sheepishly. “Not really.”

  “I see,” I said, breathing through the nose. After all this, they were just going to fall off the map? I was going to have wasted all of this time for no commission?

  “I think we need to… um… reassess where we stand,” Gary Lee spoke up. “Process what we’ve learned. Decide on the next logical step.”

  It seemed to me that the next logical step was to make an offer on a house they wanted to buy, but of course I didn’t say so. “Fine,” I said instead, my voice strained. “You have my number. When you’ve reassessed where you stand and decided what you want to do, give me a call.”

  They said they would and scurried into their car, peeling rubber pulling away from the curb, as if they couldn’t get away from me fast enough. I allowed myself the satisfaction of kicking the steps of the house, with nothing to show for it but bruised toes.

  Chapter Eleven

  Because of Gary Lee and Charlene and the totally wasted hour I spent with them, I got a late start on the drive to Sweetwater, and ended up in the worst crush of rush-hour drivers, speeding home to the southern suburbs from their jobs in the city. That slowed me down even more, and then there was the three-car pile-up just before the off-ramp at Peytonsville Road. I didn’t have time to stop by the house on my way, and as it was, I arrived at the Wayside Inn ten minutes late, to find Todd drumming his fingers on the tabletop and watching the door. Mother and Sheriff Satterfield were already halfway through their meal, and I stopped beside their table on my way to say hello. The sheriff stood up to greet me, and leaned in to peck me on the cheek. “Evening, missy. Having a bite with my boy, are you?”

  “I am, Sheriff. If that’s OK with you.”

  “Course, darlin’. Course. Couldn’t be happier.” He sank back down at the table. Mother beamed.

  “It looks like he’s waiting, so I guess I should get over there. Enjoy your meal. What’s left of it.”

  “Oh, we’ll be outta here in just a few minutes,” the sheriff promised. “Don’t wanna interrupt the boy’s plans.” He winked at me. I smiled back, politely, while my heart sank all the way down to the floor.

  Todd looked very handsome in his dark suit and tasteful tie, and I found myself wishing I’d taken the time to change into something different myself, even if it would have made me even later than I already was. Not that there was anything wrong with what I was wearing. If there had been, mother would have let me know
. My outfit of tangerine top and pale blue skirt was flattering and appropriate, although I suppose it could have been less wrinkled. I had, after all, been wearing it all day. I had spent the downtime on the road touching up my make-up in the rearview mirror, however, so at least my face looked dewy-fresh.

  Todd rose as I approached – he has beautiful manners – and kissed my hand. “Good evening, Savannah.” He handed me into my chair and walked back around the table to his own.

  “I’m sorry I’m late. I hit traffic, and then there was an accident...”

  Todd waved his hand dismissively. “I’m just glad you could make it. Drink?”

  “Please.”

  “White wine?”

  I nodded, and Todd turned to the waiter and ordered a glass of Sauvignon Blanc for me, and a glass of Merlot for himself. The waiter withdrew, and Todd turned back to me. “I hope your open house on Sunday went well?”

  “Very well, thank you,” I said. “Seventeen visitors – no, eighteen – and no robbers. Or at least none that made themselves known to me.”

  “That’s good,” Todd said. He glanced around, over at our parents, who were now enjoying dessert. “And how did your committee meeting go yesterday?”

  “Fine, thank you. We decided on using the waterfall design for the folded napkins, and since the event is taking place just a few days before Halloween, we’re discussing the idea of a costume ball. I met a couple of women who knew Lila, although they didn’t seem to know anything about what happened to her. Other than what was in the paper, I mean.”

  Todd nodded. He slid another glance in the direction of our parents.

  “Is something the matter?” I asked.

  He turned back to me. “Pardon?”

  “Are you worried that your father is going to fall prey to my mother’s gold-digging charms, or something?”

  “Of course not,” Todd said, his fair skin flushing all the way to the roots of his blond hair. “I’m just... um... it’s difficult to talk about anything important while they’re there.”