Baby and Sister looked at each other, rolling their eyes up in their heads so all I could see was the red-rimmed whites.
I took the appointment book and slammed it, open, on the kitchen table. Placed a pencil beside it.
"We're gonna call this amnesty day. Edna and I are going to leave the room now. While we're gone, we hope some people will decide to get right with God and put their off-the-book business on the book. If one of you should decide to do this, be sure and write down the day and time and the client's name and phone number. If you've been giving them a cheaper rate than we charge, call them right now and tell them you're turning legitimate and they'll have to pay our going rates. Throw in a refrigerator cleaning or a free day of laundry if you have to, to sweeten the pot."
When I'd finished my speech I turned on my heel and marched defiantly out of the room. Edna followed.
"That was some pretty tough talk in there," she said, sitting on the couch and pulling an ashtray toward her. "How'd you know they were all moonlighting? I never would have suspected the Easterbrooks." She lit up another cigarette, inhaled, and exhaled. I could tell she was regarding me with newfound respect. Edna thinks I'm a cream puff.
"That was one of the things the dingbat who sold us the franchise warned me about," I admitted. "She said they all do it if they can get away with it. It's kinda like union featherbedding. Up until now, we could afford it.
We can't any more. As for Baby and Sister, I've always known they had a touch of larceny in their souls. They never leave this house that they don't stuff a packet of Sweet'n Low in their purses."
"I'm going to watch that," Edna promised. "But if all the girls come across, and we can drum up some new business to replace the people we've lost, I think we'll be all right. That bitch Lilah Rose may have done us a favor."
"Maybe," I said. "I've got a feeling we haven't heard the last of the Beemishes. Especially not if I manage to get Ardith Cramer off the hook for Kristee's murder. There's something rotten going on out at that subdivision of his, and I intend to find out what it is."
Edna had to hear all the details of the jail interview then, and she made me slow down as I tried to rush through the details. She also made me repeat the good parts, like how Kristee had apparently slept with both Bo Beemish and his business associate on the trip to Hilton Head.
"I love it!" She cackled, her head nearly obscured by the haze of blue smoke hanging about her blue hair like a halo. "This is better than General Hospital and Days of Our Lives combined. Lesbian love triangles, mixed marriages, crooked real estate deals, a phony nanny scam, and a body in the fur vault."
I hadn't had time to give it much thought, but this investigation had taken some rather strange turns.
"Don't forget the Mormon boyfriend who speaks in tongues," I threw in.
"Mormons," Edna said, snapping her fingers. "That reminds me. Two of them boys showed up at the front door this morning, wanting to gospelize and proselytize."
"What boys?" I asked.
"The ones in the white shirts and black pants and little skinny ties. The ones that ride bicycles and come to your door in pairs wanting to come in and talk to you about the good news."
Suddenly I remembered having called the Latter-day Saints church and asked for information about Mormonism. "Uh, those were probably missionaries. They might have come because I called up and asked some questions about the Mormon religion," I told her. "But I never told them they could come to our door."
"Well, they came," Edna said. "Bugged the shit out of me, wanting to know what religion I was and did I believe Jesus Christ was Lord and Savior and wasn't I a widow?"
"Why'd they want to know about your marital status?"
"They told me if I converted to their church, then they could baptize your daddy and the two of us could be married forever in heaven."
"Did you tell them Daddy's been dead fifteen years?"
"Yes, ma'am. And they told me they baptize dead people all the time. Said they could baptize your granddaddy and grandmama and everybody else in the family too."
I'd have paid anything to have listened to my mother's conversation with those missionaries. "How'd you finally get rid of them?"
"I told them twenty-five years of marriage on earth to the same man was more than enough for me, and when I got to heaven, if I did, I was looking forward to playing the field."
"That's when they left?"
"No, they wanted to sit here and read me some Scripture from some little zippered-up thing they called the Book of Mormon. They left after Neva Jean came in and started telling what-all she and Swanelle did last night after renting a video called Beat Me, Hurt Me, Make Me Dirty. I guess Mormons got rules against having sex in the flatbed of a pickup. Those two boys' faces got kinda red, and they started squirming like they had ants in their pants. When Neva Jean got to the part about what she and Swanelle did with the Karo syrup, they took off out of here like bats out of torment."
"Good for you, Ma," I said. "Hey, after you get the booking situation under control here, I've got some investigative work for you to do."
Her face lit up as though she'd won the $50 pot at the Sacred Heart Tuesday-night Bingo game.
I gave her the phone number for Whit Collier's church and told her to make up a story to get them to tell her what he'd been doing Sunday night. I also asked her to call the Georgia Secretary of State's office to see if Bo Beemish had any business partners registered in his corporate filings. "Also, call Bucky Deaver at the cop shop. The number's in my Rolodex. Ask him how he liked the cleaning job Jackie did for him and tell him I need one more favor. Ask him to run Whit Collier's name through the NCIC to see if he has any kind of record. While he's at it, get him to check Beemish too.
"If you get done with all that, you might take a drive out to Kensington Park. The city clerk out there is named Wilona, and she thinks I'm too nosy for my own good. See if you can get a look at the minutes for the council meeting for the hearing where the city approved annexation of something called the Harper property. It should be public record. Make sure and write down who voted which way on that, and on anything else that pertains to L'Arrondissement."
"What about you?" Edna asked. "What kind of trouble are you gonna be getting into while I'm playing telephone tag?"
"I'm not quite sure yet," I admitted. "I think I'll go looking for an honest bureaucrat."
22
DINESH Prahab was in a rush. "I can't talk to you now, Ms. Garrity," he said. "I'm due before Judge Bolden in five minutes, and if I'm late again she's going to cite me for contempt. Can I call you back later this afternoon?"
"This will only take a second," I assured him. "I talked to Ardith Cramer earlier today. As it turns out, there is someone in Atlanta who may be willing to help her make bail. I'd suggest you call Wendell Driggers at his office."
"The Ford dealer?" Prahab said in disbelief. "'Drive a little to save a lot with Driggers'? How could someone like Ardith Cramer know him?"
"It's an interesting story. Call him and you'll find out all about it. Gotta run now. 'Bye."
I thumbed idly through my address book. The pages were crammed with scribbled phone numbers and notes about who did what. I knew a guy who cut sun roofs in cars, a plumber who worked Sundays and holidays, a clerk in the De Kalb County coroner's office, and a professor at Georgia Tech by the name of Joo who could find anything in any computer anywhere. I knew the travel agent who makes all Ted Turner's travel arrangements and an FBI agent who'd read the bureau's original unexpurgated file on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. But I didn't know anybody who knew anything about crooked real estate developers.
All I really had was a strong hunch that whatever Beemish was doing with his riverfront land was probably illegal, and that it probably involved the "business associate" that Kristee had mentioned to Ardith. Most local governments adopted stringent regulations in the 1970s designed to protect the corridor of the Chattahoochee River, one of the last wild rivers in the Southeast to ru
n through a large urban area, from rampant development. But for some small towns, like Kensington Park, zoning was considered just another set of rules invented by Yankee planners. Kensington Park held to the theory that what a developer did with his property was his own damn business. There was an umbrella planning agency, the Atlanta Regional Commission, that had some kind of regulatory authority over the river corridor, but I was unclear exactly what it did.
Before the renegade rednecks had run me off from L'Arrondissement I remembered seeing a sign tacked to a tree: RESIDENTIAL MARKETING BY BUCKINGHAM BROKERS, INC.—MARLINDA YOUNG, REALTOR.
I called Buckingham and asked for Ms. Young, identifying myself as someone interested in building a home at L'Arrondissement.
"Yes?" A silken voice came on the line. "This is Marlinda. How can I help you?" When I explained that my husband and I were interested in one of the one-acre riverfront lots, Marlinda's voice grew husky, warm, excited. She would have been great on one of those 900 sex phone lines.
"Why don't you and your husband come to our office for tea today?" she breathed. "I can show you the schedule of lot prices and tell you about the fabulous builders who will be participating in our community."
"Oh, I'm not worried about the lot prices," I assured her. "D.W.—that's my husband—D.W. and I have already seen the lot we want. But D.W.'s afraid there might not be room for the swimming pool, being that close to the river and all. D.W. says I can build whatever kind of house I want, as long as he has his pool. He swims laps. Do you know what the regulations say about pools so close to the river?"
Her chuckle was throaty, intimate. "I'm sure the city of Kensington Park won't give us any trouble about your little old pool," she said. "They've promised to give us any variances we need."
"But D.W. says you have to get approval from the state or somebody," I insisted. "Who could tell me for sure?"
Marlinda was tiring of my annoying little questions. "Just a moment, please, and I'll check with my office manager," she finally agreed.
Five minutes passed. When Marlinda came back on the line she didn't sound quite as sexy. "My office manager tells me he's sure there will be no problem, but to be safe you could call the Atlanta Regional Commission and they could explain the permit procedure," she said smoothly. "Now, if you'll just give me your name and tell me what time to expect you and your husband?"
I hung up quickly. Now that she mentioned it, I remembered reading about a several-years-long running battle the ARC had had with a homeowner who'd built an elaborate dock and boathouse and extended it out into the river. The ARC had been trying for years to make him tear it down.
It took fifteen or twenty minutes to cut through the maze of receptionists, secretaries, and political flunkies to get to a person with any real knowledge at the ARC.
A kindly secretary named Jennifer finally took pity on me and told me I needed to speak to a Mr. Andrew McAuliffe.
"He's not here right now, though," she said.
When I told her how important it was that I reach him, she hesitated.
"Well, it's one o'clock, and it's Friday, and he doesn't have anything scheduled for the afternoon. On a nice day like this, he likes to trout-fish on his lunch hour. If you drive up to the river landing at Settles Bridge Road and see a green Jeep Wagoneer parked there, that's Mac. Walk down the dirt road to the riverbank. If you see a sexy-looking guy with gray hair and a gray beard with a black Lab, that's Mac. But for God's sake don't tell him I told you how to find him. He'll have my hide."
Out in the garage I rummaged around among the lawn tools and coolers and broken sprinkler heads until I found a wadded-up hunk of gray-green rubber. Dad's old waders. Finding the rest of his fishing equipment was trickier. Just as I was about to give up, I glanced up and saw some poles laid across the roof rafters. I grabbed four or five. The lines had rotted and the reels looked rusty, but I managed to find one bait-casting rod I thought would work. Pushed way to the back of the workbench, I spied an old red metal tackle box.
I threw the whole mess in the back of the van and took off. It was one of those gorgeous spring days that always make me wonder why everybody in the world doesn't move to Atlanta. The sky was a gentle blue and the sun was a benediction. Up until now, the early spring weather had been cool, so cool that the dogwood blossoms clung to the branches. The azaleas were making a show too, blazing white and pink and crimson in every yard I passed. The Braves were playing a rare afternoon home game down at the stadium, and their new young pitcher had a no-hitter going in the fourth inning. On the drive out to the river I left the windows of the van down and let the wind have its way with me. This was why I'd quit my day job. I had to restrain myself from breaking into a chorus of "Dixie": you know, "old times there are not forgotten" and all that stuff.
At the Settles Bridge lot the green Jeep was parked where Jennifer said it would be. And the beaten path to the riverbank was easy to spot. I unloaded my gear and headed off. Sure enough, about two hundred yards down I saw a black Lab frisking about with a tennis ball. A few feet away, standing in waist-deep water, was a lone fisherman. He wore a tattered khaki hat on his head, so I couldn't see his hair, but he did have a gray beard.
McAuliffe didn't see me; he was concentrating on flicking his line back and forth, back and forth, toward a small pool on the other side of the stream.
I unrolled my own waders and peered into the legs to check for spiders, rats, or other unwelcome visitors. Seeing none, I took off my sneakers and got into them. Rigging my line was more of a problem. The only lure left intact in the rusted-out jumble of Dad's old tackle box was a ridiculous four-and-a-half-inch red-and-white balsa-wood minnow. One of us kids had given it to him for Father's Day years ago, and though he'd joked about how it even scared off an ugly old alligator gar, he'd named the lure Elmo and proudly tucked it into the tackle box.
Elmo in hand, I waded into the river and was shocked to find quite quickly that the icy water was rushing into my waders. I looked down. The rubber had cracked in places, causing dozens of tiny pin-sized holes to create a colander effect. I gritted my teeth and gently cast Elmo out.
Not too bad, I thought. He plopped into the water with a loud splash. McAuliffe looked over at me and frowned. He stepped a couple of feet downriver and started casting again. I decided to show off my prowess with the rod, slowly playing the tip back and forth with the popping wrist motion Dad had taught me. Amazingly, there were no bites.
I cast Elmo out again. This time, he landed with another splash, inches away from where McAuliffe was flicking his fly rod. He looked over at me with real annoyance. "Go away."
Jennifer was right. McAuliffe was kind of sexy, if you went in for weatherbeaten, outdoorsy types. He probably ate granola for breakfast and slept under red flannel sheets.
"But I like fishing here," I said.
"That hunk of junk you're fishing with is scaring off the trout," he groused. "Haven't you got a spinner or a nice quiet Rapala you could use?"
"Afraid not. This was the only usable lure I could find."
He glared at me. My lips were starting to turn blue and I could feel my teeth chattering. I was soaked up to my waist, and my feet and legs were totally numb. "I'm done fishing anyway," I said brightly. "You must have gotten them all."
With relief I slogged toward the bank. I sat down on a fallen pine log and peeled the waders off, pouring about a gallon of water out of each leg. I yanked my socks off, wrung them out, and laid them beside the waders. I found a large flat rock nearby and stretched out to try and dry off.
The sun glittered off the surface of the river like a sea of silver sequins, and I had to cover my eyes to avoid the glare. I guess I started to drowse off, until I felt someone breathing in my face. I opened my eyes slowly and looked into the friendly brown eyes of the Lab. He dropped the tennis ball at my side and gave a short bark. I tossed the ball a few feet away and he bounded off after it. I drowsed off, but woke when I heard another bark. It was my new friend. This time I
threw the tennis ball as hard as I could, into a thicket of underbrush about fifty feet down the bank. "That ought to keep you busy," I muttered.
When I woke up again, the dog was back and so was McAuliffe. He'd sat down on a nearby rock to remove his waders. I sat up and stretched my legs. The jeans were nearly dry, but they felt stiff and tight. McAuliffe gave me a cursory smile and concentrated on placing flies back in his tackle box. A stringer with three silvery rainbow trout lay in the grass, and the dog sniffed them nosily, wagging his tail in approval.
"Looks like you had some luck," I said.
He glanced at the fish with a shrug. "Not really enough to mess with," he said. "Don't know why I kept them."
I decided to blow my fisherwoman cover. I don't think I'd fooled him anyway. "You're Andrew McAuliffe, aren't you?"
"You the woman who called my office looking for me?"
"How'd you know?"
"Jennifer got to feeling guilty that she'd sicced you on me," he said. "She called me on the car phone, and I just happened to be getting Rufus's ball out of the truck when it rang. She warned me some woman wanted some information about L'Arrondissement."
"That was me," I admitted.
Before he could ask, I filled him in on the murder case I was working and explained why I was interested in Bo Beemish and L'Arrondissement.
"I think there's something crooked going on over there, and I think the dead girl, Kristee Ewbanks, knew about it and was blackmailing him over it," I told McAuliffe. "I think that could be why she was killed."
McAuliffe snapped his tackle box shut and reached for the dog, scratching him between the ears. "Don't you think it's kind of farfetched to think even somebody like Bo Beemish would kill someone over a real estate deal?"
"You know Beemish?"
He nodded his head. "I know him. He was one of the first to build townhouses on Lenox Road in a neighborhood that had always been single-family homes. Talk around Fulton County was that he bought himself a couple councilmen to push the rezoning through."
Every Crooked Nanny Page 15
