The Weekenders

by Mary Kay Andrews

  “Doesn’t look like it from this,” Parrish said.

  “This, this … thing is ten times worse than anything I knew about,” Riley said.

  “I always thought your family owned all the undeveloped land on Belle Isle.”

  “We did, originally. But when it looked like the whole project would go bust, back in the thirties, my great-uncle sold off some plots on that end of the island to a couple of unsuspecting rubes from up in the mountains. Back then, it was considered the equivalent of selling ‘beach-front swampland’ to tourists. Over the years, Granddad and my father managed to buy some of it back, but there were half a dozen holdouts. Some of them eventually built houses up there, others just passed it down in the family, or bought more desirable lots mid-island and on the south end. All of those holdouts lived up in the mountains in western Carolina, or had family from there. The Holtzclaws, the Funderburkes, and the Milbanks. They were pretty clannish. Dad used to refer to them as the Bug Tussle Mafia.”

  “I recognize some of those names,” Parrish said.

  “The Holtzclaws go all the way back to my great-grandfather’s time,” Riley told her. “Porter Holtzclaw was a dentist, but he’s been dead for ages. Mrs. Holtzclaw was a little older than my dad. Every year he’d drive up to the mountains with a whole case of Carolina roasted peanuts, which were her favorite. He’d take her out to dinner and wine her and dine her, then try to talk her into selling out. And every year, she’d just smile and say, ‘Not yet.’”

  “You know, I think I saw a file folder labeled ‘Holtzclaw,’” Parrish said, opening the middle file drawer and riffling through it.

  “Here it is,” she said, flipping the folder open. She picked up a photocopied sheet of paper. “Josephine Holtzclaw?”

  “That’s her.”

  “She died in September. This is her obituary. She was ninety-two years old.”

  “Let me see that,” Riley said, reaching for the paper.

  “I only met Miss Josie a few times, but I remember even as a kid knowing she was a pistol. This says she’s survived by her son, Porter Jr., of Malibu, California. Kind of sad.” She looked up. “You know which house is theirs, right? That big spooky old wood-frame house with the partially collapsed dock at the mouth of Fiddler’s Creek.”

  “Miss Josie doesn’t own it anymore. According to this deed, the house and the land it sits on is now owned by Fiddler’s Creek Enterprises. Wendell apparently bought it from the son not long after the old lady died. That must be some house, because he paid four and a half million for it.”

  Riley’s jaw dropped. “That’s crazy. Four and a half million for that dump? Dad used to say the only thing holding it together was spit and termites. Nobody’s lived there for years and years. He used to bitch and moan because he had to have the driveway mowed and cleared every year, just to keep it from being a fire hazard. At first he used to bill Miss Josie, but since she never paid, he just kept doing it as a public safety precaution.”

  “Wendell probably didn’t care about the house,” Parrish said. She stood in front of the master plan and studied it closer. “Show me where the Holtzclaw house is.”

  Riley slid her finger along the glassed-over map. “Okay. Here’s Fiddler’s Creek, and here’s where it widens into the bay, right at the edge of the nature preserve.” She tapped the juncture between river and bay. “This is about where the Holtzclaws’ place is. How much land did you say came with the house?”

  “Quite a bit. Fifty acres. Which explains why Wendell paid the price he did. That tract looks like it sits right in the middle of his planned phase two.”

  “If you were going to build a marina and some hotels and another golf course, you’d definitely need that chunk of land,” Riley said.

  “What were those other names you mentioned? The holdouts?” Parrish asked, opening the folder again.

  “Um, the Funderburkes and the Milbanks.”

  “Yep,” Parrish said. “They’re not holdouts anymore. Wendell bought their land, too. Let’s see. Looks like he paid two-point-six-million dollars for a house and nine-acre tract owned by the Funderburkes, and just under two million for the Milbanks’s property, which was only three acres.”

  “Unbelievable,” Riley said. “My grandfather used to love to tell how his father and uncle only paid eighty thousand for this whole island. And the locals in Southpoint thought it was hilarious how much they’d overpaid.”

  “Who’s laughing now?” Parrish said.

  “Not me.” Riley yawned widely. “I don’t know about you, but my brain is about fried. And there’s still so much that doesn’t make sense. So Wendell sets up all these dummy companies and talks one bank into loaning him over nine million dollars? Shouldn’t somebody at that bank have realized they were being scammed? I mean, the two of us figured it out, and we’re not exactly rocket scientists.”

  “Maybe somebody at the bank was in on the scam,” Parrish said.

  “Somebody like Melody Zimmerman? I just can’t wrap my mind around her and Wendell—together. Why would she take a risk like that?”

  “That,” Parrish said, snapping off the desk lamp, “is probably what the FBI wants to know, too. Come on, let’s get outta here. I’m dead on my feet.”

  32

  Scott opened the spice cabinet and sighed heavily. He’d designed a state-of-the-art kitchen for the old firehouse during the extensive restoration, and laboriously labeled every drawer, shelf, and cupboard in the room.

  But labels were only a suggestion as far as his chronically disorganized partner was concerned. The spice shelf that he’d spent hours alphabetizing during his last stay a month earlier was a jumble of jars and bottles. Now the allspice was shoved in next to the dill weed, the mustard seed next to the cinnamon and the tarragon—where was his tarragon? And the white peppercorns?

  This was supposed to be a lazy Sunday morning on the island. He and Billy had most of the day ahead of them before he had to catch the 3:30 ferry back to the mainland.

  Although Scott was a much-in-demand commercial kitchen designer, the truth was that he was rarely home long enough to cook, so Billy had assumed that role. Fortunately, Billy brought the same creative flair and sense of inventiveness to his cooking that he’d developed with his music.

  But Billy was still lounging in the living room with the Sunday New York Times that he’d picked up at the Mercantile, and Scott was craving an omelet. Easy enough—if he could just find the damned tarragon.

  Scott padded down the long hallway to the living room in his stocking feet, stopping short of the doorway when he heard Billy’s voice.

  “Yeah, Kenny, I know I told you no gigs this summer, but I’ve changed my mind. Why? Money, of course. Now, we’ve sublet the place in the Village until September because Scott’s gonna be mostly on the road so, ideally, any jobs would be within driving distance of here.”

  Kenny, Scott knew, was Billy’s longtime booking agent. It was news to him that Billy had decided to go back to work.

  “Jesus, Kenny. Here is the coast of North Carolina. Don’t you have a map? Okay, yeah. Just about anyplace in the South would work, but if the job pays air travel, I’d be okay with that.”

  Billy listened for a moment. “Uh-huh. Yeah, I know those guys. I filled in for their piano player at a New Year’s gig in the city a few years back. Corporate work? I guess if that’s the nearest thing available. Exactly what kind of convention are we talking about? So, let me get this straight. The job’s in Charlotte, first week of July. Easy-listening cocktail music, two hours. My regular rate? Plus gas and hotel, right?

  “Okay, so that’s set. You can fax me over the contract. What else have you got for me?”

  “Yeah, yeah. Like I told you, I’m willing to lower my standards. Weddings, deb parties, bar mitzvahs. Road shows? Yeah, I sat in for West Side Story in Atlanta a couple of years ago. The money’s not bad. So you’ll let me know? Thanks, man.”

  “Billy!” Scott yelled, walking into the living room just a
s his partner was putting his phone down. “Where are my white peppercorns?”

  “In the cabinet, right next to the black ones,” Billy said, picking up the Arts section of the paper.

  “Were you on the phone just now?”

  Billy lowered the paper and looked at him. “You were eavesdropping, weren’t you?”

  “Maybe a little,” Scott admitted. “Why didn’t you tell me you were going to go back to work?”

  “I don’t know. It didn’t seem all that important. You’re gone so often, and there’s not that much going on here, I just thought it might be a good idea to keep my name out there, you know, so my public won’t think I’m dead or retired.”

  “That’s the only reason? I heard you telling Kenny you’d do weddings and deb parties. You always said you hate working society gigs.”

  “I still do,” Billy said. He folded the paper in half. “Okay, if you must know, things are a little tight for me, finance-wise.”

  Scott sank down onto the black-leather-and-chrome sofa. “How tight? No bullshit. Tell me the truth.”

  “Truthfully? I’m flat busted.” Billy slouched down on the sofa, not wanting to meet his partner’s searching gaze.

  Scott tipped a finger under Billy’s chin. “Tell me what happened.”

  “Three words. Wendell fucking Griggs.”

  Scott’s eyes widened, but he kept quiet.

  “You can’t tell Riley, okay?” Billy said quickly. “She’s got enough on her mind without worrying about me.”

  “I’d never,” Scott swore.

  “Okay, here it is. A little over a year ago, in early spring, Wendell called and asked if he could take me to lunch. I was curious, of course. I mean, we’ve never been what you’d call lunch buddies. I was here on the island, helping Mama open up the house, so I met him for lunch at the club. I knew he was working on some big deal on the north end, and I knew Riley was dead set against it, but hell, I wanted to see what he had planned.

  “It was beyond anything I would have imagined. I knew he’d been talking to the hotel people, but now there was the hotel, and a whole new retail shopping village, apartments, condos, another golf course, and marina. It was wild. If anybody else had come up with that scheme, I would have told them they were nuts. But it was Wendell Griggs! He had everything laid out, renderings, maps, financing.”

  “But he needed a little more financing,” Scott guessed.

  “He had an eye on a tract of land—it belonged to the Holtzclaws, and he and my dad had been trying to buy that parcel for years. Old Miss Josie had gone into a nursing home, and Wendell told me he had an option to buy the land—but he needed to move fast—faster than the bank would take to free up the financing. It would be an investment for me—a great investment with a guaranteed return of twenty-five percent interest.”

  “So you gave him the money.”

  “Why wouldn’t I? He’s family. It was a sure thing,” Billy said bitterly.

  “How much?”

  “Everything I had left in my trust fund. A million and change. Which is why this piano man is hitting the road again.”

  “I wish you’d talked to me before giving Wendell any money,” Scott said with a sigh. “You know, you don’t have to do this. I’ve still got my work.”

  “No way. I’m twenty years younger than you. I’m not gonna be a kept boy toy.”

  Scott didn’t bother to argue the point. “At least, tell me you had a lawyer draw up some kind of loan document, some kind of promissory note, anything on paper.”

  “Nothing,” Billy said. “Strictly a handshake. Wendell called it a gentlemen’s agreement.”

  * * *

  Of course, there’d been nothing gentlemanly about his financial arrangement with Wendell Griggs. And virtually nothing he’d just told Scott about his meeting with Wendell was true, because the truth would mean the end of everything Billy cared about.

  From the moment he’d sat in that ruined car, faced with the knowledge that he’d caused Calvin Peebles’s death, he’d known he owed a terrible debt to his brother-in-law. There were no nights Billy didn’t grapple with the seeds of the guilt and self-hatred that had been sown that night.

  He’d climbed in and out of the bottle half a dozen times since then, but on that chilly early spring day he was cautiously celebrating three months of sobriety.

  As soon as he answered the door that day and saw Wendell standing there, holding a liter bottle of Stolichnaya, Billy felt his grip slipping away.

  “Hey, buddy,” Wendell said, flashing his huge salesman’s smile. “I was in the neighborhood and I thought I’d drop by and see how you’re hanging.”

  Billy nodded at the bottle of Stoli. “Do you always just happen to have a bottle of vodka when you’re tooling around the island?”

  The smile dimmed only a little. “My mama taught me it’s rude to drop in on somebody empty-handed. You are gonna invite me in—right?”

  Billy swallowed hard. “Do I have a choice?”

  Wendell pretended to look hurt. “Did I come at a bad time?”

  It had taken him a little while to get down to brass tacks. Wendell hadn’t been in the firehouse since the restoration was completed, so now he asked for a tour, feigning interest in every last brass doorknob and hand-forged hinge.

  They’d ended up in the living room. The floor-to-ceiling sheer curtains were open and the sunlight illuminated trees outside just beginning to bud out.

  “I didn’t realize what an unbelievable view you have here,” Wendell said, settling himself on the sofa. “I might want to get the name of the architect you worked with, for when we get cooking on the north end development. There’s an old smokehouse on one of the lots, and seeing this gives me an idea we might just want to save it instead of tearing it down.”

  “There was no architect,” Billy said flatly. “I came up with the ideas and Scott drew up the plans. But thanks.”

  “I didn’t know you were such a talented designer,” Wendell said. “Maybe I’ll hire you to consult on the smokehouse.”

  “I doubt anybody would pay me for my ideas,” Billy said coolly. “But I’d be happy to take a look at it if you like.”

  “That’d be great!” Wendell exclaimed. “In fact, the reason I stopped by here today has to do with the north end. I’ve got a little investment opportunity I think you might be interested in.”

  “I don’t know,” Billy said slowly. “I’ve sunk most of my working capital in the firehouse. Everything cost a hell of a lot more than I’d anticipated.”

  “You don’t have to tell me about construction and development costs. I’m living it twenty-four-seven right now. But here’s the thing, Billy. I really don’t think you want to miss out on this deal. It’s kind of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. You know what I mean?”

  There was no threat, no bullying, nothing so gauche. Everything was implied. And Billy knew the rest was just a formality.

  “I’ve got an option on the Holtzclaw land. You know the house, right? The old lady’s finally gone into a nursing home, and I think I’ve about got her son persuaded to sell. The thing is, I gotta move fast, before he changes his mind. There’s no time to go to the bank, so naturally, I thought about you, thought I’d give you first shot at a sure thing.”

  Billy swallowed hard. “How much?”

  “One point two million,” Wendell said quickly.

  “For that falling down wreck on Fiddler’s Creek?”

  “It’s not the house. It’s the land. It’s the lynchpin for the whole project, especially the new marina.”

  “Marina? I thought you were just talking about a hotel and some new houses.”

  “No, man. This is big. The hotel’s the anchor, then we’ll have the new marina, condos, apartments, a new retail village, luxury estate lots, all of it. It’ll be the biggest thing to hit this coast in the past twenty-five years.”

  “How does all that affect the wildlife sanctuary?”

  “No biggie,” Wendell sai
d. “Your grandfather left it in the family trust. We’ll do a land swap, move the sanctuary to another part of the island. It’s done all the time.”

  “Does Riley know about this?” Billy asked.

  He shrugged. “Your sister and I have a difference of opinion on some of the fine points, but she’ll come around. Anyway, what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her, right?”

  There it was, the implied threat, again. In the end, he’d had no choice but to write the check and swallow his fears. And after his visitor left, as Wendell knew he would, Billy had cracked open the Stoli and swallowed it, too.

  * * *

  “The money’s all gone. You know that, right?” Scott said gently.

  “I do now. Six weeks ago, Wendell came back to me, and he seemed panicky. Not like himself at all. He said the hotel people were threatening to pull out of the deal. He wanted more money, to sweeten the pot, offer them more incentives. I told him I was tapped out, and asked about my investment. He beat around the bush, but finally told me that if the hotel went south, all bets were off.” Billy gave Scott a curious look.

  “You already knew about the hotel thing, didn’t you? I mean, the seafood and steak restaurant, that was going to be your baby, right?”

  “Right. ‘Was’ being the key word. I only found out after Darren Cruikshank, the chef, called me, as a courtesy, to tell me the Belle Isle project was off. He’s putting his steakhouse in a hotel down in Lauderdale instead.”

  “What happened?” Billy asked. “Wendell swore up and down this was a sure thing.”

  “A sure thing is never a sure thing where real estate development is concerned. Darren told me that in the end, the hotel’s finance committee decided the demographics weren’t a good fit. So they pulled the plug. Wendell borrowed millions to buy all that land. The bank that did most of the financing is now out of business, and the bank that assumed that loan portfolio—which includes Riley’s house—is going to auction all of it off.”

  “That bastard Wendell. I swear to God, if he weren’t already dead, I’d kill him myself,” Billy said. “My only regret is that somebody beat me to the punch.”