Driving home, I ran over Lilah's account of the Beemish family weekend in Hilton Head. I wondered if the hot business deal Bo was working on had any connection with the papers Kristee had stolen from him. It was a "sensitive" matter, Beemish had said.
So sensitive he might kill to get the papers back?
Edna was on the phone when I walked into the kitchen. I rattled the Rich's bag at her, but she waved it away and kept talking.
"Yes, ma'am," she said, affecting her most syrupy southern accent. "Oh, yey-yuss. All our workers are bonded and fully insured and all of them have completed our training course in Contemporary Methods in Environmentally Conscious Household Management. That's right, we here at House Mouse are deeply concerned about the earth's precious ozone layer, and we use absolutely no aerosol cleaners."
She jotted down an address on the worksheet in front of her. "Fine. . . . Yes. Tuesdays, then. . . . Right. Seventy dollars for the whole house, and the check is payable to House Mouse.... Fine. 'Bye now."
She hung up and beamed at me. "New client. That woman Neva Jean cleaned in Inman Park referred her. She's looking for an environmentally correct service, and I told her she'd come to the right place."
"You told her an amazing crock of shit," I said, fetching a cold Diet Coke from the fridge. "A, we're not bonded. B, we're not insured. C, you upped our rates by twenty bucks, and D, we've never given the girls a training course in their life."
Edna didn't look up from the new client form she was busily filling out. "A, this ying-yang is so dumb she'll never check to see if we're bonded and insured. B, I told her we'd use only non-ozone-threatening cleaning products, which cost extra to buy. C, our new rate for Environmentally Correct Cleaning is seventy dollars. I'm thinking of taking out an ad. I see this as the wave of the future."
She had me there. My sixty-two-year-old mother is an honest-to-God visionary. And here I'd thought all this time she was just a pathological liar.
I poured the Coke over some ice and sat at the table.
"Well, I guess we can stop looking for Kristee now."
"Where'd they find the body?"
I almost spat out a mouthful of Diet Coke. "How'd you know?" I asked.
She pulled an envelope out of the neck of her blouse and handed it to me. It was still warm.
"A delivery service dropped it by about fifteen minutes ago," Edna said.
I started to open the envelope and noticed that it appeared to have been preopened.
"There's a check for three thousand dollars in there," Edna said. "From Bo Beemish. If that's what private detectives make these days, Jules, we're in the wrong business."
A note was stapled to the check. "Should I bother to read this?" I asked.
"Go ahead," Edna said. "It's not as though I read all your mail, you know."
The note was short.
Thank you for your efforts. Enclosed is your fee for services rendered, plus a bonus to show Lilah's and my appreciation for your discretion.
Best wishes.
"Looks like we've been kissed off," Edna observed. "Now tell me about the body. Who found her and where?"
I rattled the Rich's bag again and pointed to myself.
"You found her in a Rich's bag?"
"No, Ma. Well, actually, she was inside a plastic fur storage bag from Rich's, so I guess you're partially right. We found her in the fur vault while we were looking for Lilah's furs. She'd been strangled, and Lilah's furs were dumped on top of her. The body was locked in this sort of rolling merchandise hamper.
Looks like she'd been there a couple of days, too."
Edna dug around the papers on the table until she found her pack of cigarettes. She lit one, inhaled, and held it up appreciatively.
"Wonder if Lilah will get Rich's to pay for having her coats cleaned again? In the old days, when Dick Rich was running the store, they would have bought her a new coat. Beemish did it, of course," she said. "That's why he gave you that check. He's buying you off. What do you say we go to New Orleans and have brunch at the Commander's Palace? Want to?"
"You think Bo Beemish really believes he can buy me off a murder for three thousand bucks? Ma, you gotta quit watching so much television. He is trying to buy me off, but it's to get me to forget this crooked business deal he's into, not Kristee's murder. And no, we're not gonna use his money for a trip to New Orleans. We'll give back the extra thousand, and with the rest we'll have the van worked on and pay some bills."
"Killjoy," Edna muttered. The phone rang before she could offer any counter arguments. I beat her to the punch and picked it up.
"Callahan, did you get Bo's little note?" a voice said.
"Hello, Lilah," I said. Edna's hand snaked out then and reached for the check, but I snatched it away from her and tucked it into my own bra. Two could play this game.
"Why, yes, I did get the note. But I'm afraid you're due a refund, because Bo made it out for a thousand dollars more than he owes us."
She giggled. "Oh, Bo never makes mistakes when it comes to money. He just wanted to let you know how much we appreciate your help in getting this whole mess cleared up. You know, when the police went to that Ardith woman's motel, they found Big Mama's ring hidden in a box of groceries under the bathroom sink.
Bo says after she's in jail a few days she's sure to tell the police where she put the rest of our things."
"Jail?" I said incredulously. "Are you telling me that the police arrested Ardith Cramer? What's she charged with?"
"Murder, of course," Lilah said in the same tone of voice I'd heard her use with her children. "And robbery, too, I guess, for stealing our stuff."
Her voice dropped then.
"God, I hope she decides to do the smart thing and confess right away to killing Kristee. I suppose if they had a murder trial, we'd have to testify or something, wouldn't we? How incredibly lurid."
"Yes, I imagine there would be a trial," I said wearily. "Especially since Kristee was probably killed at your house, and her body was discovered under a pile of your furs."
"Don't remind me," Lilah Rose wailed. "Can you imagine anything more disgusting? I'll never wear those furs again. In fact, I'm calling the chairman of the board of Rich's right now to tell him I expect them to pay for replacing them. Can you believe their security is so lax that anyone could just waltz in there and dump a body on my furs? Have you ever heard anything so perverted? I tell you, Callahan, things haven't been the same at Rich's since that chain came in."
"Say, Lilah," I said, when she finally calmed down about fine old southern institutions being ruined by Yankee carpetbagger hooligans. "You do still want House Mouse to continue cleaning, don't you?"
There was a dead silence from the other end of the line. "Well, now," Lilah said. "Sugar, that was another thing I wanted to talk to you about. One of my neighbors has this marvelous Jamaican cleaning lady. And her niece just came over here, and she desperately wanted a job, and I thought, Well, it would be a Christian gesture. And actually, she's going to come five days a week and care for the children, so of course I couldn't justify having a cleaning service and Drucilla, now, could I? And I've already given your business cards to the girls on my tennis team, and they swore they'd call you. I knew you wouldn't mind. You don't, do you, sugar?"
I'd felt the brush-off coming from the first time she called me sugar. And actually I didn't mind that much. It really pissed me off to think of me or my girls cleaning Lilah Rose Ledbetter Beemish's pink marble bidet.
"Not at all, Lilah," I said. "I understand perfectly. But we did have a contract, you know."
"Oh," she said in a tiny voice. "I'd forgotten. But we can just tear that up, right?"
I looked up at Edna. She was shaking her head no and rubbing her thumb and forefinger together in the international gesture for "Get the money."
"Normally, I'd do it in a minute, Lilah Rose," I said. "But my business manager is a real bear about these things. Usually she insists that a client who wants to break a contract pa
y for at least half the term of the contract."
Edna nodded happily and pointed to the envelope stuffed in my bosom.
"Tell you what, Lilah," I said. "How about if I just keep Bo's check to pay for the rest of the contract?"
"Oh, fine," Lilah said, sounding relieved. "Callahan, now that this nasty thing's over, let's have lunch at the Driving Club, all right? I'll call you."
"That'd be nice," I said perfunctorily, knowing she'd never make good on the invitation. "Oh, and one more thing. Tell Bo for me that I don't consider myself bought off, will you?"
"Of course not," she snapped. The dial tone beeped in my ear.
"Toodles," I said.
14
Finding Whit Collier that afternoon turned out to be embarrassingly easy. Even Neva Jean could have done it. Well, maybe.
All I had to do was call Orran Underwood, a CPA my sister Maureen used to date before she lost her sense and married the moron ambulance driver.
Maureen's throwing over Orran for an ambulance driver broke Edna's heart. In my family, an accountant is right up there with a plumber or an electrician or a pharmacist in terms of occupational desirability. Edna had fond dreams of Orran's marrying into the family and doing our taxes every year for free and finding thousands of dollars of tax loopholes. As for me, well, Orran was on the short side, and to say his hairline was receding would be charitable. Still, he had a great sense of humor and there was an ineffable sexiness about him. If he hadn't been Maureen's old boyfriend and thus sloppy seconds, I might have gone after him myself. "Orran? Julia Garrity," I said.
"Julia," he boomed. "What's up? Did that beautiful sister of yours get divorced? Does she ever mention me?"
"Forget her, Orran," I said. "She got fat since she got married. She took up bowling. She goes square dancing, for Christ's sake."
"Stop."
"It's true," I insisted. "Her and the ambulance driver wear matching Western shirts and bolo ties. With the names embroidered over the pockets. You're better off single, believe me. Look, here's why I'm calling. I need you to tell me how to find a CPA."
"Look for a guy with a plastic pocket protector and a holster for his calculator," Orran said, giggling at his own joke.
"Yeah, right," I said. "But I really need to track this guy down. All I know about him is his name and the fact that he works for an accounting firm in town. Oh, yeah, he's also a Mormon."
Orran pondered that for a minute.
"OK, here's what you do. Call the state licensing board, it's here in Atlanta, and ask for his address. They should have all that info, I think. Or try the Metropolitan Atlanta Accounting Association. If neither of those ways work, call me back and we'll think of something else. Accountants generally aren't hard to find."
"Thanks, Orran, you're a peach." I made lip-smacking noises into the phone to emphasize his peachiness.
"Yeah," he said. "I know. Listen, just how fat is Maureen? Is she, like, gross?"
"Think over two hundred pounds," I lied. "Circus fat. Shamu, they call her down at Grady."
We hung up after I made up some more stuff about Maureen. Actually, she's not fat at all. She's the skinniest person in our family. But it makes me feel good to fantasize about her as a fat lady, and it seemed to cheer up Orran.
Unfortunately, the state licensing board telephone was manned by one of those career civil service types whose attitude is that they own everything in the computer and the only way they'll give it up is at gunpoint. The woman, who identified herself as Ms. Darnell, sounded like she slept in her pantyhose. You know the kind.
I had better luck with the local accounting association. I simply assumed my snottiest tone of voice and identified myself as Cynthia Darnell of the state licensing board and said we needed an updated address for Whit Collier. The young girl at the association was properly cowed. She found the information immediately and even gave me a home phone number for Collier. Success.
Whit Collier worked for a small private accounting firm near the square in downtown Decatur, a pretty little town just east of Atlanta.
Since I had bad news I decided to go see him in person rather than call. Besides, I'd never seen a real Mormon in the flesh before, unless you count Dale Murphy, who used to play for the Atlanta Braves.
The offices of Kilton, Boore and Fuller were in a tidy nut-brown two-story house on a shady side street in Decatur. I parked the van in a gravel lot behind the house and went around to the front door.
A young harried-looking receptionist was sitting at a horseshoe-shaped desk in what had once been the front parlor of the house. Her voice seemed to echo in the wood-floored room. She was talking on one phone line and two other lines were buzzing. She barely looked up as the door closed behind me.
I held up a fat manila envelope I'd brought along as a prop. It actually contained the owner's manual for the van. "I just need to drop these forms off to Mr. Collier," I whispered to the girl.
She nodded distractedly.
"Is his office back that way?" I asked, pointing to a central hallway that seemed to bisect the house.
She shook her head no and pointed upward, toward the second floor, then turned her attention back to the buzzing phones.
I climbed the uncarpeted stairs slowly. It had already been a long day. At the head of the stairs I saw another hallway with two doors opening off it. One room had the door ajar. Another secretary was inside, running off copies on a Xerox machine. The door across the hallway was open a crack.
I pushed it open without knocking. The room was small and crowded with unpacked cardboard cartons.
Whit Collier was almost hidden behind a stack of thick file folders. His fingers ran nimbly over a calculator and his eyes were glued to the open file on his desk.
"Knock, knock," I said tentatively.
He didn't look up. "One minute. Let me just finish this column."
The minute gave me time to appreciate the benefits of all that clean healthy living the Mormons supposedly swear by.
I was surprised by how young Collier looked, no more than twenty-six or so, I'd bet. He had a headful of thick hair, a burnished reddish-blond color cut a shade closer than was the vogue. I couldn't see what color his eyes were, but his lashes were pale red-blond and he had the freckles that seem to go with that shade of hair.
His suit jacket was hung across his chair back and he was working with his shirt sleeves rolled up. He had strong-looking broad shoulders and the look of someone who worked out a lot.
He finally finished tapping on the calculator, scribbled something on a paper in the file, and looked up. He seemed surprised to see me.
"I'm sorry," he said, rising hurriedly from the chair. "I thought you were Carol, one of the secretaries. Can I help you?"
"Callahan Garrity," I said, sticking out a hand and offering one of my House Mouse business cards. He grasped my hand, shook it firmly, and stuck my card in his breast pocket.
"Have a seat," he said, gesturing toward an armchair facing the desk. Seated behind his desk, he looked at me expectantly. The eyes, by the way, were blue. Sky blue, if you're into Crayola colors. He reached in a desk drawer, got out a new folder, and reached for a blank form from a stack on the corner of the desktop. His pen poised over the paper and he looked at me again. "Miss Garrity, are you here for individual tax preparation, or will we be doing corporate work for you?" he asked.
"Oh, no," I said quickly. "I'm sorry. I'm not here about taxes at all. I'm a private investigator. I've been working for Mr. and Mrs. DuBose Beemish. Were you aware that your friend Kristee Ewbanks was missing?"
He put the pen down squarely on the open file folder. "Missing? Why would you think Kristee is missing?"
I studied his face, but I honestly couldn't read much in it. "She hadn't been seen for four days. And when she left the Beemishes, a good deal of their valuables vanished at the same time. What makes you think she's not missing, Mr. Collier?"
He blushed violently. "I'm not sure that's something I need to di
scuss with you," he said in a low, even tone. "It's a private matter."
"Not any more," I said quickly. "Kristee's dead."
He stared at me for a moment, then buried his face in his hands. His voice was muffled. "No," he said. "I don't believe you."
"I'm sorry. But it's true. Her body was found this morning. The police think she was murdered."
"Where?" he said, looking up. "Utah?"
"Utah? No. She was found here in Atlanta. In the fur vault at Rich's."
Collier flung his arms into the air then and rolled his eyes up toward the ceiling until all I could see was the whites. Then he squeezed his eyes shut tight and I heard strangled-sounding noises that seemed to come from somewhere deep inside his chest. Next came a torrent of thin, reedy-sounding syllables. It sounded like half singing, half sobbing in a make-believe language. This went on for a minute or two, but it seemed more like an hour. I sat riveted to the chair, not knowing if I should attempt CPR or try to slap him out of it. After a few seconds, it dawned on me that he was speaking in tongues. You don't see a lot of that at Sacred Heart, the parish church where I was raised, but I'd seen a television program once where they spoke in tongues. This seemed to be a similar dialect.
The speaking stopped as suddenly as it had started. Collier's chin dropped down on his chest; then his head shot back erect and his eyes popped open again.
"Who did this to Kristee?" he demanded, as calmly as though he hadn't just been possessed of the spirit.
I hesitated a moment.
"I have no idea," I said finally. "The police are handling the murder investigation. I was hired by the Beemishes to find Kristee and recover their property. But as of a few hours ago, I'm no longer working for them."
"Then why are you here?"
The question startled me. I guess I'd just followed up on what I knew out of instinct. Old habits die hard. But Collier was right. My job was done. I had no bona fide reason to be here. So I made one up.
Every Crooked Nanny Page 9
