Now I knew where I stood with my old flame Eddie Shaloub. Nowhere. "I'm surprised you haven't asked me what I was doing out there," I said coldly.
"I don't need to," he shot back. "Beemish called me a little while ago to ask if I knew who you were. He says he paid you for your services in this nanny business, but you persist in believing he had something to do with her death, even though the police have arrested her girlfriend and charged her with the murder."
"Did Beemish tell you he was screwing this girl?" I asked. "Did he tell you she was blackmailing him over something going on out in that subdivision?"
"Mr. Beemish hasn't confided to me what his relationship with the girl was, but from what I hear she was screwing everyone in sight. As for blackmail, I don't know anything about that either. But I've been all over that project with the rest of our council members, and I can assure you nothing funny is going on there. If there was, I'd know about it."
Shaloub was lying. I knew it and he knew it and he knew I knew it.
"Well, fine, Eddie," I said. "I don't guess there's anything further for us to discuss today. Thank you for your time."
"Wait," he burst out. "Don't hang up yet. Listen to me, Callahan. Stay away from that project. Bo Beemish has millions invested out there, and his insurance people are getting antsy about the thefts and vandalism. I happen to know he's hired more security people, and our Kensington Park officers are stepping up patrols too. The next time, that fat guy's aim could be much better."
After I hung up I remembered I'd never gotten to eat my little picnic. I didn't have the energy to go out to the van to fetch my goodies, and besides, somehow warm orange soda and a stale honey bun didn't appeal to me anymore.
I took a long hot shower and washed my hair which was festooned with bits of twigs and leaves left over from my race through the woods. The soap and shampoo stung all the little scratches and cuts I'd suffered in my retreat from the golfers, but it felt good to be clean. Afterward, I changed into a pair of shorts and a clean T-shirt. I padded into the kitchen and looked around for something to eat. The bourbon bottle under the sink was still half full, so I poured myself a Wild Turkey on the rocks. Sustained rooting around in the refrigerator yielded a hunk of sharp cheddar cheese, which I grated over some taco chips I found in the pantry. Over that, I ladled some extra hot salsa, and for a green vegetable I garnished the thing with some jalapeno peppers. Zapped it in the microwave for a minute and there was my lunch. Bachelorette's delight.
There were a bunch of messages on the answering machine, mostly from clients leaving instructions about extra stuff they wanted done or from people who wanted to change cleaning days. I made some notes for Edna. Dealing with the public was her job.
The most interesting message was from Ardith Cramer.
Her sullen voice I recalled from the motel was gone. She sounded panicky, and I could hear shouting, singing, and swearing in the background.
"Miss Garrity," she said. "It's Ardith Cramer. I'm in the Atlanta jail. I've been assigned a public defender. His name is Prahab, Dinesh Prahab. He came to see me today. I told him I didn't kill Kristee. I don't think he believes me. But he thinks I should talk to you, to see if you know anything that could help me. I'm sure Bo Beemish had something to do with this. Could you come see me? Please? I'll leave your name at the front desk. Please? I've got to go now."
The tape ran out. Shit. My nice little missing person case had turned into a big messy homicide.
I'd been paid off by the Beemishes, so that should have been that. It wasn't, of course. Ardith Cramer was just too damned handy as a suspect. That didn't mean she didn't do it. In the real world, sometimes the most obvious person really is guilty. But this time, things were a little too neat.
I replayed the tape because I hadn't caught the name of Ardith's attorney. Then I got out the white pages of the Atlanta phone book and looked up the number for the Fulton County public defender's office.
I got put on hold twice before Prahab finally came on the line.
Although I was expecting someone who spoke the pidgin English of a 7-Eleven clerk, Dinesh Prahab spoke perfect English, albeit with a pronounced southern accent.
He didn't sound happy to be discussing his newest client. "Yeah, I saw Ms. Cramer," he said, emphasizing the "miz."
"Naturally she insists she's innocent. All my clients are innocent. She told me you'd been looking into this Ewbanks woman's disappearance. Is that correct?"
"I was," I said, "until she turned up in the fur vault at Rich's. Look, have you talked to anyone in the DA's office about this case yet?"
"What's your interest?" he asked. "I thought my client said you were working for the family that employed the dead woman."
"I don't really have an interest," I snapped. "But your client called and left a message on my machine, begging me to help her. You don't want to talk to me, fine. I've got other stuff to do. I've got a business I'm trying to run here, and it's not a detective business. My former clients, the Beemishes, have terminated my services. And frankly, I'm not in a financial position to do any pro bono investigative work for you."
"All right," he said, "you've made your point. I'm sorry. Anything you could tell me about this case would be helpful. I didn't mean to be rude, but I had a long day in court today, and if my case load gets any heavier, I'm gonna have to start sleeping in the office. And frankly, from what I could get out of Ardith Cramer today, this isn't going to be an easy case to defend. Would it be possible for us to get together and talk? This evening maybe?"
I looked at the clock on the microwave. It was almost 4 P.M. I still had the House Mouse payroll to do, plus I was in no mood to go out this evening. Still, I had called him.
"Whereabouts do you live?" I asked.
"Virginia-Highland," he said, naming a trendy nearby yuppie nesting ground. "How about you?"
"Candler Park. You know the Euclid Avenue Yacht Club?"
"Is that the biker bar at Little Five Points?"
"It's not a biker bar," I said. "You wanna meet me there around eight?"
"Sounds good. Hey, how will I know you?"
I looked down at my T-shirt. I didn't intend to change clothes for this guy. I was wearing one of my favorites, my Andy Griffith Show Rerun Watchers Club shirt.
"I've got short dark curly hair and Barney Fife on my chest," I said. "What do you look like?"
"I'm sure I'll be the only Pakistani in the place," he drawled. "Look for a guy with a turban and a snake in a basket."
18
Danish Prahab wasn't wearing a turban. He also didn't have a gold hoop earring. Some disappointment.
The guy sitting in the booth nearest the door had dark hair that had gone to salt and pepper. He was maybe forty. With his dark mustache, he looked like a swarthy Burt Reynolds if you squinted your eyes a little. He wore a starched white dress shirt with the shirttail out over a new-looking pair of blue jeans. A frothy drink sat on the table in front of him.
I slid into the seat opposite him. He was making notes in a little leather-bound notebook, and he didn't look up.
"Hello," I said tentatively. "Are you Dinesh?"
He flipped the notebook shut and dropped it into the briefcase that lay open on the seat beside him. He looked up and stared at my chest for a minute.
It took me a moment to realize he was checking for Barney Fife.
"I'm Dinesh," he said, extending a hand to shake mine. "Thank you for coming, Miss Garrity. I'm having a whiskey sour. May I order one for you?"
So that's what the thing with the fruit hanging off it was. I hadn't seen an honest-to-God whiskey sour since college days. When I was nineteen, a whiskey sour was the drink of choice for junior sophisticates.
"Please call me Callahan. I didn't know those guys could make a whiskey sour," I said, pointing my head toward Tinkles and Don behind the bar. "I'll just have a beer, if it's all the same to you."
He got up and went to the bar to fetch my drink. He looked a lot shorter standing u
p, maybe only five-foot-four. Tinkles peered over Prahab's head and raised his eyebrows a couple of times at me. I gave a fair approximation of fluttering my eyelashes seductively.
Prahab returned with a frosted glass of beer and set it squarely on a coaster. Come to think of it, I hadn't known the Yacht Club had coasters either.
"Now," he said, settling himself in the booth. "What can you tell me about Ms. Cramer and this murder investigation?"
So much for small talk.
"I can't tell you as much as I'd like," I admitted.
I filled him in on what Edna and I had discovered about the bogus nanny-placement agency and the burglary ring.
"Amazing," he said, sipping on his drink. "Ms. Cramer strikes me as a fairly intelligent woman. Did you know she has almost enough college credits to earn a master's degree in social work? I called the college she attended. How on earth did someone like her get mixed up in fraud, theft, and murder?"
"It's been my experience that you don't earn college credit for common sense," I said. "Call it love. Ardith Cramer fell in love with the wrong person. From what I've heard, Kristee Ewbanks was a perfect little sociopath. She conned everybody she came in contact with, including, unfortunately, your client."
Dinesh wrinkled his nose in disgust, patting a folded linen handkerchief at his lips. "Lesbians," he said. "Yes. They can get pretty violent at times."
I leaned across the table until my face was inches from his. "Have you defended a lot of lesbians?"
"No," he said. "But I've heard cops tell stories, and my colleagues in the PD's office—"
"What?" I interrupted. "What have you heard? And how do you know I'm not a lesbian?"
He took a closer look. With my short, unruly hair, my faded T-shirt and jeans, I probably looked pretty butch.
"Are you?"
I leaned back in the booth. "No. But I don't think you should go making assumptions about your client and any violent propensities she might have. I met her, you know. She struck me as someone with a chip on her shoulder, but I doubt she's the kind of woman who strangles her lover and stashes her in a department store fur vault."
"I hope she's not," Prahab said calmly. "Despite what you think about my sexual prejudices, I really would like to help Ms. Cramer. But I think I will need your help."
"Fine. What do you need to know?"
He reached into his briefcase and brought the notebook out again. He also slipped on a pair of wire-rimmed glasses, thus destroying any last vestige of Burt Reynolds.
"To start with: Beverly Mayes, the nanny Ardith placed with a family in Savannah. Do you know where she might be?"
"No," I said regretfully. "My associate and I haven't been able to trace her whereabouts. We thought she might have been staying at the motel with Ardith. Did she deny that?"
"Ms. Cramer says Beverly stayed in her room for two days only. One morning she woke up and Beverly was gone. She took what little money Ardith had left and disappeared, apparently. Beverly was someone Kristee knew before Ardith. Ardith says it was Kristee who recruited Beverly for the scheme. She claims only to have met her two or three times before Beverly left for her job with the Savannah family."
"What about that family? Maybe they have some idea where Beverly might have gone."
He shook his head. "The family won't talk to me. And there's not enough money in my budget to go down to Savannah and try to depose them. I think Beverly is a dead end."
"Shit," I said. "Since she knew Kristee from before, she might even be a suspect. All right. What kind of physical evidence do the cops have against Ardith?"
He glanced down at the notebook. "You probably know about the ring that belonged to the Beemishes. The police found it wrapped in tissue paper and hidden under the bathroom sink. Ardith claims Kristee gave it to her to keep. She was going to try to pawn it to pay for the motel room and airplane tickets. After Kristee disappeared, Ardith was afraid to do anything with it. She sold blood at one of those sleazy blood banks to buy food."
"What else?"
"Well, the motel clerk told the police he saw a woman fitting Kristee's description drive up to the motel around six P.M. Sunday. He remembered the car because not too many Mercedes-Benzes pull into that lot. He says Kristee got out, knocked on the door of the unit where Ardith was staying, and went in."
"Did he see Kristee leave again? And did he say he saw Ardith answer the door?"
"No to both questions. The desk clerk said the next time he looked outside, around eight P.M., the car was gone."
"Anything else?"
Prahab smiled sadly. "Unfortunately, there is more. Someone in the unit next to Ms. Cramer's called the desk around six-fifteen to complain about noise. The caller said two women next door were shouting and swearing and screaming and crying and smashing stuff. The clerk says he called the room. Ms. Cramer answered the phone, and he warned her he would call the cops if they didn't quiet down. She apologized and hung up."
"Wonderful," I said. "How does Ardith explain that?"
"She admits she and Kristee had an argument. She says she was furious when Kristee showed up with the bonds and jewelry from the Beemishes. The plan was for her to stick around a little longer. Then when Kristee told her she'd been blackmailing Beemish and having an affair with him, Ardith says she lost it. They had a rip-roaring fight. But she says the only thing smashed was a water glass Kristee threw at her. Ardith says she eventually calmed down after Kristee swore she had broken off with Beemish because she was afraid of him. Kristee even told her she was going to go back to the house, pack her things, and leave that night. The plan was for the two of them to leave town the next morning, go to Miami, and try to sell the bonds and jewelry and coins. From there, Kristee wanted to go to the Cayman Islands."
"When does she say Kristee left?"
He consulted the notebook again. "Around seven-thirty. They ate dinner and Kristee left. She was going to go back to the Beemishes', get her stuff, drop off the Mercedes, and take a cab back. But Ardith says she didn't come back that night. The next day, when Ardith called the house, Mrs. Beemish answered the phone, so Ardith hung up. She thought Kristee had double-crossed her and left town without her."
"Sounds like something Kristee would do," I said. "Did anybody in the restaurant where they ate see Kristee and Ardith together that night?"
"They didn't go to a restaurant," Prahab said. "Kristee got on the phone and ordered take-out Chinese food to be delivered. And Ardith says she doesn't know the name of the place Kristee ordered from."
"Maybe we can track it down," I offered. "If a delivery boy saw Kristee alive that night, that might mean something."
"Afraid not," Prahab said. "I checked the phone book. There are at least four dozen Chinese restaurants that deliver in that area. I had my investigator call some of the places to check it out. She called four or five places but got nowhere."
"This isn't looking too good, is it?"
Prahab picked the orange slice off the plastic spear anchoring it to the side of his glass. He nibbled systematically at the wedge, finally placing the cleaned rind in the ashtray on the table.
"No, it's not," he said. "That's why I suggested Ardith call you. I asked around the office about you. I hear you were with the Atlanta police for a few years."
"But never in homicide," I reminded him. "I was a uniformed officer, and then I worked in property crimes. After I got my private investigator's license, I worked the usual stuff, divorces, skip-tracing. I've never really worked a homicide before."
"I have," he said shortly. "But as I'm sure you know, our office budget for investigation is almost nil. We just don't have the resources. Ms. Cramer insists that Bo Beemish is responsible for Kristee Ewbanks's murder. I have no idea how we could prove something like that. He is, from what I've learned, a powerful prominent person."
"But Ardith could be telling the truth," I pointed out. "Look. Ardith told you that Kristee said she was blackmailing Beemish. And she was afraid of him. Beemish himself t
old me Kristee had stolen some papers concerning one of his business deals. And just today, when I went out to the new subdivision he's building, two guys chased me in a golf cart and tried to blow my head off with a shotgun."
He looked shocked. "Did you report that to the police?"
"I tried," I said. "They seem to think I was trespassing."
"Tell me something," Prahab said. "If what you say is true, why haven't the police questioned Beemish?"
I took a long sip of my beer, which was getting warm. I hate warm beer.
"According to his wife, Lilah Rose, Bo was in Hilton Head with her all that weekend," I said. "They didn't return until late Sunday. I'm going to check it out, but they both have alibis."
Prahab pulled the maraschino cherry off the plastic spear and popped it into his mouth. He chewed silently for a moment. "So much for that theory."
"Maybe not," I said. "Maybe Lilah Rose was lying. She told the cops some story about spending the day in Beaufort alone, but she could just as easily have gone to Atlanta and killed Kristee. Or maybe Bo came back to Atlanta early Sunday night, surprised Kristee at the house, throttled her, and killed her. Maybe he packed her up in his wife's fur coat and stashed her in the fur vault at Rich's the next day."
He looked at me dubiously. "You really think we can prove any of that?"
I looked right back at him. "What's this we shit, Kemo Sabe? I haven't agreed to investigate this thing for free."
"I know," he said. "Look. I think I'm going to suggest to Ms. Cramer that she plead guilty. There are no aggravating circumstances. It was probably just a lover's quarrel. If we plead out, the DA will drop the other charges. She'll get life, do maybe seven years at the women's prison at Hardwick. There are worse deals."
"You're trying to guilt-trip me, aren't you?" I asked. "You think I'll help you because she's a woman, and she's getting railroaded by the establishment, and I'm a sucker for that kind of shit."
He shrugged. Then he picked up my nearly empty glass, which I'd placed on the table, and moved it back to the coaster. He took his handkerchief out and carefully buffed the water ring my glass had left on the tabletop.
Every Crooked Nanny Page 12
