She took a deep breath. "I was nineteen. I met him in college, at the University of New Mexico. I was from a hick town in Colorado; he was from Atlanta. I'd never seen a black guy who wasn't a janitor or a garbage man. He was there on a baseball scholarship. He seemed exotic, I guess. We dated. I was young and dumb and so naive. God. I was too stupid to be real. The first time we screwed I got pregnant. That's the truth. My parents had a fit when they heard. They never even met Geoffrey. We got married, but we both knew as soon as it was legal that it wouldn't work. We broke up before the baby was born, but we didn't get divorced until a year later."
She seemed removed from the story she was telling, as though she was reciting a long-forgotten fairy tale. I wanted to hear how it ended. Somehow I knew it wasn't happy-ever-after.
"What happened to your husband? And the baby?"
She shrugged. "Geoffrey lost his baseball scholarship and dropped out of school. He came back east after we split up. I kept the baby for a while. But it was too hard, trying to go to class and work and take care of him too. And I didn't have any help. Finally, my mother-in-law flew out to see us. She saw the dump we were living in and offered to take Demetrius. It was OK by me. I hardly ever saw him anyway. This way, he'd be living with a family, a black family. He'd get what he needed, and I'd get what I needed."
"Which was what?"
"Enough money to finish school. All I had to do was agree to let Mr. and Mrs. Driggers adopt him."
I'd heard that name before. "Driggers? The people who own Driggers Ford and Driggers Toyota? Wendell Driggers is a pretty big shot in Atlanta."
"I guess," she said. "Geoffrey always had plenty of money while he was in school. When he lost his scholarship and we got married, his parents got pissed off and quit supporting him."
"What happened to your husband?"
She laughed. "Sounds funny to think about having a husband. It was so long ago, I'd forgotten I ever was married. I heard he played some minor league ball around Georgia. He got hurt, though, and moved back home with his folks. Then he joined the army. He was stationed in Germany for a while, but Mr. Driggers said last night that they don't know where he is now. They seem to think he was mixed up in drugs or something over there."
"And the baby?"
"He'd be about seventeen now, I guess. Mr. Driggers said he's OK. He wouldn't tell me too much about him. I think he's afraid I'll want to see him or something."
"You don't want to?"
She was staring at her hands again. "No. What's the point?"
I couldn't answer that one.
She looked up finally, met my eyes with hers. "This is all ancient history. I called Wendell Driggers last night and told him I was in a jam. He almost hung up the phone. Then he said he'd help me. But he said I couldn't see the boy. I said fine."
Ardith reached into the pocket of her smock and pulled out a torn piece of newspaper with a phone number scrawled on the margin.
"That's Mr. Driggers's office number. He said to have someone call him, and he'll talk to you about making my bail. Don't call their house, though. He doesn't want his wife to know I'm in town. Maybe you could give that to my lawyer?"
I nodded in agreement. "Now. Why don't you tell me more about what happened after you got to Atlanta? And no more lies. Or I really will walk this time."
I wouldn't say Ardith spilled her guts after that. She was still distrustful, still reticent about admitting all the details of their scam. What surprised me most was the way she talked about Kristee Ewbanks.
"We had something," she insisted, leaning close to me for the first time since we'd started talking. "I took psychology in college. I dealt with criminals in the diversion center. It was my job. But Kristee was different from those other women. She didn't need a man to make her life work. And she was smart. Too smart, as it turned out. She was ambitious too. For herself, for us."
I didn't say anything. Just kept listening.
"We never planned to keep the nanny business going for long," Ardith was saying. "We could have made a lot of money off it, if we had wanted to. But it was just a way to get some capital. That's what Kristee called it: operating capital. We were going to go to the Cayman Islands after we left Atlanta. You don't need a passport to get in there, you know. We were going to start a bed-and-breakfast on Grand Cayman Island." She laughed bitterly. "A nice fantasy, huh? Too bad Kristee had to fuck it up by getting herself killed."
I glanced at my watch. Visiting time was nearly over, and I still had a lot of things I needed to know.
"Do you have any idea what might have happened to the rest of the stuff Kristee took from the Beemishes?" I asked. "The police still haven't found anything else, the bonds or the coins or silver, and certainly not the business records Bo Beemish told me were missing. Could Kristee have stashed it someplace else? Maybe planning to leave town without you?"
"I've thought of that," Ardith admitted. "Sunday night, when she didn't come back and nobody answered the phone at the Beemishes, I figured she'd gone off without me. I have no idea where she might have hidden the other stuff. The only thing she gave me was the ring." Her eyes narrowed. "Hey, why don't you ask her boyfriend where the stuff is? Maybe he helped her hide it himself."
"Collier?" I said. "I doubt it, Ardith. I went to see him. He's the genuine thing, a real Mormon. When I told him Kristee was dead the other day he nutted up on me, started talking in tongues and crying."
Ardith's face looked blank. "Who the hell is Collier? I was talking about Bo Beemish. I never heard Kristee mention anyone named Collier."
Oops. "What can I tell you, Ardith? Kristee was apparently playing the field. As part of her Mormon gig she went to a Church of Latter-day Saints on Ponce de Leon and got herself an honest-to-God Mormon boyfriend."
She sighed. "I should have known. I bet he was tall and blond and athletic, right? Kristee had a thing for muscles."
"That about describes Whit Collier," I said. "If it's any comfort, she apparently made up some elaborate scenario for him. Even after he figured out she wasn't really Mormon, she had him believing that she was a likely convert and Bo Beemish was a big bad wolf who had taken advantage of her. He told me he saw Kristee Sunday night, and she was packing her bags to fly back to Utah. She was going back there to read Scripture and get right with God so the two of them could be married in the Temple."
"What?" Ardith said. She started to giggle. It was the first sign I'd gotten that she had a sense of humor. "That's great. Kristee as a faithful Mormon maiden. What an actress that girl was!"
"What do you suppose she was up to with Collier?" I asked.
"Kristee liked to mess with men's minds," Ardith said. "It was a game for her, that's all. Does this guy have any money, do you know? Maybe she was running a scam on him too."
I'd considered that possibility myself. "I don't know if he has any money," I admitted. "But I can check that out. And while I'm at it, I'll check to see where he was Sunday night. I think he told me he was out doing the Lord's work."
Ardith shook her head ruefully. "I wouldn't spend too much time worrying about some big dumb Mormon boy," she said. "Find out where Bo Beemish really was that night. I know that bastard had something to do with killing Kristee. He or his friend must have done it."
"Which friend?" I asked quickly.
"Some guy," she said. "Kristee never mentioned his name. Sunday night, when she was bragging about blackmailing Beemish, she said she had something against Beemish's business associate too. That's what she called him, I think, a business associate. It was somebody involved in that real estate deal of his."
Ardith's eyes suddenly misted over and a tear rolled down her cheek. She let it fall.
"I still can't believe any of this is real. When she was taunting me with her affair with Beemish that night, I halfway thought she was making it all up. That's how Kristee was. She'd start telling you something, something that was true, and before long she'd mixed in a lot of lies. little stupid lies. She was so good at
lying, I don't think she knew herself what was the truth and what was invention."
She wiped at her eye with the sleeve of her smock and winced when the fabric brushed her swollen nose.
I reached out and grabbed Ardith by the shoulder. She stared at my hand but didn't push it away.
"Ardith, listen to me. This could be important. What did Kristee say about this business associate? He could be the one who killed her. Or he might know whether Beemish did it."
She sniffed loudly. "Wait. I'm trying to remember. I think she said Beemish and his friend had taken her to the Hilton for a weekend. Could that be right?"
"The Hilton? Why would he take her to the Hilton for a whole weekend?" I wondered aloud. "No. I'll bet it was Hilton Head Island. That's a resort island off the coast of South Carolina. Beemish has a place there. Is that where you mean?"
"Yeah," Ardith said. "If it has a beach, that's the place. Kristee adored the beach. That was one reason we were going to the Caymans. She read somewhere that the beaches there have sand like powdered sugar."
"What else did she say about that weekend? Did she say anything about Beemish's friend? Like his name?"
"No," Ardith said. "I told you, this was all a game to her. She did hint that she'd slept with both of them. I thought she was saying that to make me jealous. She said if Beemish found out he'd kill her and the friend. She thought the situation was hilarious. And the friend must have had money too. Kristee said he'd be glad to give her a nice present to keep quiet about the deal at—what's the name of that subdivision? Some French name?"
"L'Arrondissement," I said.
The jailer came back then. She tapped Ardith on the shoulder. "Let's go home. Visiting hour is over."
Ardith got up from the chair. Her shoulders returned to the slumping position. She seemed inches shorter than when I'd seen her in the motel.
"Call Mr. Driggers," she urged me. "He promised to help."
"I will," I promised. I watched her shuffle out. Her paper booties made a rustling noise as they slid across the tile.
21
I COULD HEAR THEIR VOICES before I pushed open the back door. All the House Mouses were crowded into the kitchen, seated at the table, except Neva Jean, who stood in front of the open refrigerator door with a fried chicken drumstick in one hand and a Mountain Dew in the other.
"Was that the last drumstick?" I asked, knowing the answer already.
"Mm-hmmph," she said, chewing hard to get rid of the answer.
"That was goin' to be my lunch. I've been thinking about that piece of chicken all morning," I said mournfully.
"It was delicious," Neva Jean offered. "Your mama can fry chicken like no white woman I ever knew."
Edna was trying to talk on the phone amid all the commotion, but the din from the girls' chattering made it hard for her to hear. Finally she put her palm over the receiver and held it straight up in the air. "Shut up," she hissed. "I'm trying to conduct business here."
The chatter subsided to loud whispering.
"What's going on?" I asked, dragging a step stool out from behind the kitchen door. "Who called a staff meeting?"
The conversation trailed off to nothing, and the women were strangely silent, with the exception of Sister, who was trying to make herself heard to Baby, seated beside her at the table.
"When Miz Jeanine told me she didn't want us to clean today I 'bout fell out," she hollered. "You know we been doing Miz Jeanine's condo since she sold the big house on Tuxedo five years ago. What you reckon she's so mad at us 'bout?"
Baby reached over and slapped a withered finger up to her sister's open lips. "Quiet down, Sister. Can't you see Callahan's here now?"
Sister's milky eyes squinched up tight. "Hey there, sugar," she said, turning toward Neva Jean, who was now lapping up a dish of coleslaw that had also been earmarked for my lunch. "We been waitin' for you to get here."
"No, ma'am, Miss Easterbrook," Neva Jean said. "This here's Neva Jean. That's Callahan sitting over there by the stove."
Edna hung the phone up then, with a huge pained sigh. She picked up a lit cigarette from the saucer of a coffee cup, took a deep drag, and exhaled. "And where the hell have you been? I've been calling all over town this morning trying to track you down."
I put on my most innocent face. "Oh. Didn't I tell you I was going to the Atlanta jail to interview Ardith Cramer? What's going on here? Why are all the girls sitting around our house scarfing down my lunch?"
"What's going on here is a disaster," Edna said. "At eight o'clock this morning the phone started to ring. It hasn't stopped since. All our Buckhead clients are canceling. This one's going out of town. That one has hired live-in help. This one is mad because somebody forgot to dust the friggin' étagère last week."
She got up from her seat at the table and stalked over toward the stove, thrusting the appointment book at me.
"Look at that," she said, jabbing her finger at the scratch-throughs. "It's a conspiracy, I tell you."
I peered closely at the book. I couldn't read much of Edna's writing anyway, but I certainly couldn't see anything that looked like a conspiracy in our appointment book. "What kind of conspiracy? Who'd want to conspire against a rinky-dink outfit like the House Mouse?"
"I don't think, I know," Edna said, fairly spitting the words out. "It's that little bleached-blond Buckhead princess sorority sister of yours. I just got off the phone with Florence Foster. She says Lilah Rose Beemish called her this morning and chewed her out for referring us to her. Florence said Lilah Rose is claiming some valuable antique snuffboxes went missing after we cleaned over there Monday. Lilah Rose told Florence she was calling everyone she knows who uses us to tell them what kind of cleaning service we're running here."
So that was how the Beemishes were going to deal with me.
"Well, Florence didn't cancel, did she? I thought she was an old friend of yours from the beauty shop."
"Hell, no, she didn't cancel," Edna said. "I told her you personally cleaned the Beemishes' house. She knows how disgustingly honest you are. And not only that, I told Florence that Bo Beemish was a crooked snake who thought a whole pile of new money gave him the right to run the world. She said she never did like Lilah Rose, but since Lilah's on her symphony benefit committee, she's been trying to introduce her around."
I hooked my feet under the bottom rung of the step stool and ran a finger down the day's bookings. The situation looked serious. Neva Jean had two big jobs booked for the day; both were crossed out. The Easterbrooks' steady Friday appointment, old Mrs. Trahern, had also been scratched through. Altogether, two thirds of the day's jobs had been canceled. Obviously Bo Beemish knew I had been out touring L'Arrondissement. This was his way of putting pressure on me to butt out.
"What do you intend to do about this mess?" Edna and the other girls looked expectantly toward me.
I handed the book back to Edna. I was damned if I'd let the Beemishes run me out of business. "We're going to take care of business, is what we're going to do. First we'll try a little good cop/bad cop.
"Girls," I said. "I want all of you to call back your clients who canceled. You tell 'em Edna wants to give their standing cleaning appointment to a new client. Tell 'em you wanted to double-check with 'em before you let Edna give away their spot. And remind 'em if they give up their day and want to rehire us later, Edna's gonna charge 'em the rate for new clients, which is twenty dollars a day more. And tell them you've got to know right away, because Edna's really pissed about their canceling."
"Ooh-whee, I love it. I love it." Jackie tittered. "That snotty Mrs. Whelchell gonna have a conniption when I tell her. She had to wait six months to get my Friday spot, and she said her husband already raises hell about how much we charge. I hope she does drop us. She don't even let me watch my soaps while I'm ironing."
Edna looked doubtful. "Where are we going to get new clients to take the place of these ones Lilah Rose Beemish is scaring off? Just tell me that, Miss Smartie Pants."
"Marketing, Edna, marketing," I said. "I'm appointing you marketing director as of this moment. First, you call back Florence Foster and tell her we're waxing her kitchen floor for free this week. Just a little way to say thank you to our loyal clients. And also tell her that any time she refers a new client who signs on with us that we'll knock ten dollars off her bill that week."
She nodded appreciatively. "What else?"
"Call up all our other regulars who didn't cancel and offer them the same deal. Tell them what days and times we have open and act like you're letting them in on the best thing since sliced bread. Tell them about your environmentally sensitive cleaning deal, too."
Neva Jean was already dialing the phone, trying to get back with her two biggest clients.
"One more thing, girls," I said.
I got up from the stool and stood in the middle of the kitchen floor, so they could see I was in my authority mode. I did a slow 360, my hands on my hips, giving each one of them my most soul-searching stare.
"I've got an idea that some of y'all may be cleaning houses off the book," I said. "I know it goes on in this business: an apartment here, a condo there, you take a referral that should go to the House Mouse and do it nights, weekends, or your off days, using House Mouse supplies and equipment, and you keep the money yourselves. You call it moonlighting. I call it thieving.
"Now, Edna and I have put every penny of our savings into this business, and we can't afford to lose our investment. We've treated y'all like family since we started the House Mouse. Gave you loans to bail your boyfriends out of jail." Jackie stared intently at the spotless white sneakers that were her trademark. "Wired you money when you were stranded, penniless, out of town." Neva Jean had the grace to blush. "Picked up your blood pressure medicine at the drugstore and brought it to you when you were sick in bed." Ruby beamed her thanks; I was sure Ruby was the only one who wasn't moonlighting. "And we have even," I said, raising my voice, to make sure the proper persons could hear me, "paid certain people in cash, thus defrauding the United States government and putting ourselves in peril of being arrested, so that certain people wouldn't lose their social security benefits or get kicked out of their senior citizens' high rise."
Every Crooked Nanny Page 14
