She smiled wanly. "Bucky Deaver wants you to meet him at the Yacht Club. Tonight, at eight-thirty," she said. "He sounds nice. Is he married?"
24
AFTER THE DISHES WERE CLEARED I sat at the kitchen table and made notes to myself about the Ewbanks murder. I was determined to find out who Beemish's business associate was. If Beemish really had been in Hilton Head when Kristee was strangled, the associate could have been the murderer.
Right now, Eddie Shaloub was looking like a prime candidate for that role. It was a long shot, but the other council member—what was his name, Edwin Strong?— could also have been the unnamed associate. Hell, given Kristee's history, Corinne Overmeier was even a possibility.
I needed to find out just how watertight Beemish's alibi for Sunday night was. Lilah's too. That story of hers about driving to Beaufort and falling asleep on the way back sounded a little too cute. But how would I find out what Shaloub and the other council members had been doing that night? And to be on the safe side, I meant to check out Whit Collier too.
By the time I looked at the kitchen clock and saw it said eight-thirty, I'd covered a yellow legal pad with a series of names, questions, circles, arrows, and diagrams.
What it all meant I couldn't say. At the bottom of the page I'd sketched a woman's torso, sort of a crude Venus, with only one breast. Funny what the subconscious will do. I scratched through the sketch hastily, grabbed my purse, and headed out the back door.
Edna had gone out right after dinner. She and her best friend, Agnes, had tickets to see Robert Goulet at the Fox Theater in Camelot. Those two never missed any musical starring an over-the-hill movie star. I'd have been willing to bet they'd seen more of Mickey Rooney, Howard Keel, and Mitzi Gaynor in the past few years than they had of their grandchildren.
I'd parked the van at the curb that afternoon because Neva Jean had left her car in my spot in the driveway. Now my windshield bore a bouquet of paper scraps tucked under the wipers. There were three tickets. One for blocking a driveway, which was bullshit. I was maybe three inches in front of Mr. Byerly's, but he never drove at night anyway. The other tickets were valid, on technicalities. My emission control sticker had expired a week ago. And, yes, I apparently had broken a rear taillight, possibly while fleeing L'Arrondissement the previous day.
I tucked the tickets in my purse and pulled the van as far up in the driveway as it would go. Then I started the hike to the Yacht Club. The van was just too damned conspicuous. Anywhere I went in it I was likely to be stopped and ticketed or harassed.
Actually, the cool night air felt good on my face. I'd gotten a little sunburn on my nose and cheeks during my nap at the river that afternoon. I have the kind of skin that burns if I stand too near a toaster. I walked fast and made it to the Yacht Club in ten minutes. I could see people inside pressed up against the windows, and a handful of guys were standing in the doorway, sipping beers.
I pushed through the crowd toward the bar. I had spotted Bucky's spiked blond hair from the doorway. Tonight he was wearing what looked like a white gas station attendant's jumpsuit, unzipped to show a healthy amount of chest hair. Lamar was embroidered in script over his left breast pocket. He was perched on a stool, both arms draped around the neck of a cute young thing. She was dressed in an abbreviated black tank top and a micro-miniskirt. She wore purple and orange eyeshadow and her platinum-colored hair cascaded from the top of her head in an off-center ponytail; she looked like a heavy-metal Pebbles Flintstone.
Bucky was busy whispering into her ear, so he didn't notice my approach. I tapped him on the shoulder. "Buford," I whined in an accentuated southern-white-trash accent, "Junior and Bubba want to know when their daddy's coming home again."
The blonde gave him a disgusted look, disentangled herself from his clutch, and motored to the back of the room where the young studs were gathered around the dart board.
"You again," Bucky muttered. I hopped onto the stool Pebbles had just vacated.
"You were the one who asked to meet me," I told him. "Besides, she was much too young for a man of your vast maturity and experience."
Don brought me a Heineken and Bucky a Rolling Rock. We shot the breeze for a few minutes. When Don moved away to wait on some other customers, Bucky shook his head and sighed.
"Garrity, what in the hell have you got yourself mixed up in?"
I took a deep breath. "Word's out, huh?"
"You know?"
"An Atlanta cop stuck a citation on our door today for running a business in a residential neighborhood.
There were three tickets on the windshield of my van when I came out of the house tonight. This morning, a slew of our regular customers called up and canceled. Did I also mention I was shot at the other day? Yes. It does not take a two-by-four upside the head to persuade me that someone is out to get me. I figure Bo Beemish and his wife are directly responsible for my being shot at and having my customers drop out. For the sudden interest Atlanta's finest has taken in my law-abidingness, I see the fine hand of Eddie Shaloub."
Bucky hunched himself over his Rolling Rock and took a long swig. "Shaloub didn't call me personally," he said slowly. "He knows you and me are tight. But a couple of new guys just happened to mention to me that they'd heard you were after Eddie's hide because of his sudden—uh, disinterest in you."
"And they believed that crock?" I said, keeping my tone conversational despite my rising anger. "It always comes down to that, doesn't it?"
"Waddya mean?"
"I mean that just because I slept with Shaloub a few times in the past, everybody who knows that wants to believe I'm some cock-crazed slut who'd ruin a good man just because he dumped me."
Bucky looked morosely down at his beer. "Aw, come on, Callahan, I never thought that about you."
"Not seriously," I said. "You know me better. But you wondered about it, didn't you?"
He nodded his head. "OK, you got me there. But I wouldn't be sitting here if I wasn't an old friend, would I?"
I thumped him on the shoulder, leaned over, and gave him a quick kiss.
"You're true blue, Bucky. Now why'd you want to meet tonight? Did you have time to run that name Edna gave you through the NCIC?"
"That's what I need to talk to you about, Callahan. I can't be doing this anymore. You understand? They've got new rules. My captain gets a computer printout of all activity on the computer. He knows who's checking what. I can't make up any more stories about this shit to cover my butt, ya know? There's limits, Callahan."
"I know," I said sadly. "I won't ask again. Promise. But did you run Collier?"
"Nothing," Bucky said. "Zip. The guy's clean. He's from some burg called Beechy Creek, Arizona. Got a valid Georgia driver's license and O-positive blood."
He pushed a piece of paper toward me. Written on it were Collier's name, current address, social security number, and phone number.
"Now I wanna tell you something, Garrity. And I want you to listen. Drop this thing you're working on."
I started to protest, but he put the hamlike palm of his hand across my mouth to shush me.
"I mean it," he said. "I talked to Tyrone Singletary, Bohannon's partner. He gave me a peek at the Ewbanks file. He's got a strong case. Your client was the dead girl's spurned lover. They had a fight. Witnesses will say there was a racket coming from the motel room. The Ewbanks girl was strangled, but she put up a struggle. There were traces of your client's flesh under the dead girl's fingernails. They've got color photographs of the scratches on your client's hands, and jewelry stolen from the dead girl's employer was found in her motel room."
I leaned closer to Bucky to avoid being overheard. "Does Bohannon's file explain how Ardith managed to get Kristee's body out of the motel room without being seen? Does it explain how Ardith, who is two inches shorter than Kristee, got that body over to Rich's fur vault? How would someone new to Atlanta know to put a body there?"
He shook his head sadly. "No good. Ardith had applied for a job at the downto
wn Rich's three days before Kristee was killed. Did she tell you that? Bohannon's got all her employment records. She'd worked as a stock clerk at some Salt Lake City department store called ZCMI; it's the equivalent of Rich's. She'd know all about the good places in a store to hide a body. Face it, Callahan, they've got the goods."
"I know it looks that way, Bucky," I said stubbornly. "But honest to God, this woman did not do it. She was conned into this Mormon nanny scam by Kristee. I'm telling you: Bo Beemish paid off Shaloub to help him get his property annexed into Kensington Park, and with two other council members, Shaloub greased the skids to get the deal OK'd all down the line, even though Beemish is building houses in the floodplain and doing all kinds of other illegal shit. Look at how Eddie's living. How do you suppose he can afford dues at the country club he belongs to? This is reality, Bucky. And think about this. Bribing a public official, and taking a bribe if you're an elected official, is a federal offense.
"Kristee Ewbanks knew about the whole deal. She'd stolen a bunch of business documents out of Beemish's safe and was blackmailing him. And Kristee told Ardith she was also going to put the screws to Beemish's partner in the deal. That has to be Shaloub."
Bucky ran his fingers through his hair, spiking it even higher. "Can you prove any of this, Callahan?"
I tasted my beer. It had gotten warm, so I pushed it away and motioned to Don to bring me another. He slid a cold one in front of me. I took a long gulp and felt the cold brew sting as it went down. "I'm working on it," I told him. "But good help is hard to find."
We shot the breeze for a while and I let him beat me at darts before I decided to call it a night.
"Do me one last favor, Bucky," I said. "If you hear any more guys at the cop shop talking about my wanton lust for Shaloub, you tell them that's a joke. You tell them I told you Shaloub was, and you can quote me, 'sad in the sack.'"
Bucky guffawed despite himself.
"Tell 'em I stopped dating him because I was looking for something a little higher in the food chain. Yah. Tell them I said I don't do miniatures."
I winked broadly at him and slid off the bar stool. Tucked a five and a one under my unfinished beer and headed home. I'd suddenly lost my taste for witty banter. I was sick to death of the whole scene.
It was only ten-thirty or so, and Little Five Points was just starting to jump. People were still shopping at the Junkman's Daughter, a funky vintage clothing boutique, and there was a line waiting to get into the trendy new Jamaican eatery. I could hear strains of wild clashing sounds coming from the Point, a little Five Points pub that was a venue for cutting-edge rock bands. That night's featured attraction was a new group, Stiff Kitty. It was unseasonably warm for late April, so there were crowds of neo-hippies, skinheads, punkers, and other counterculture flotsam and jetsam. Cars cruised up and down Moreland and Euclid, looking in vain for an empty parking space.
I'd only walked another block when I realized how still the street had gotten. But I had company. Three black-clad skinheads trailed along about ten yards behind me. I'd vaguely noticed them lounging near the doorway as I left the Yacht Club but had overlooked them as part of the usual scenery.
I quickened my pace a little, but they did the same, matching me step for step. I glanced back. Two of them were young men, their heads shaven clean except for a pelt of jet-black hair cut Mohawk style down the center of their gleaming white skulls. They wore black T-shirts with the sleeves ripped off, tight black jeans, and black boots. Their clothing was crisscrossed with a web of metal-studded black leather straps and ominous-looking chains. The female member of the party was dressed in the same color, except her face was powdered a ghostly white, her lips a slash of greenish black. They couldn't have been more than eighteen, but the boys were big, over six feet, it seemed to me, and they were solidly muscled.
In walking faster I'd left the business district behind. Now I was on a quiet residential street, a mixed bag of two- and three-story brick apartment houses and small bungalows. The only lights seemed to come from the blue flicker of television screens behind locked and barred windows.
Home was less than two blocks away. I tucked my purse under the crook of my elbow, football style, in case my followers were purse snatchers, and broke into a trot, hoping to convince them to quit the chase. In a second one of them was at my side, throwing an arm across my throat to stop me. His friend came up behind me, grabbed my hair, and yanked my head back hard. I started to scream. The first one slapped me hard across the face. My head buzzed and I felt something warm trickle from my nose.
"Not a fuckin' sound, bitch," one of them hissed at me. I heard a series of high-pitched giggles coming from the girl. She stepped close, pushing her face so close into mine I could see the ravages of acne under the rice powder. She spat in my eye and followed up with a series of short, hard slaps that brought tears to my eyes. "Bitch cop," she said shrilly. "We got something to tell you."
The tallest of the three grasped my arms and locked them behind my back. I'd had self-defense training in the police academy, but I guess my reflexes had slowed considerably since leaving the force. I struggled briefly to escape, but the bigger one only twisted my arms tighter, nearly wrenching them out of their sockets. The other two stood behind me, so I was unable to kick out at them.
The shorter boy jerked my hair again. "Leave it alone, bitch," he said, "or next time we come to your house and have a talk with your old lady."
The girl giggled happily. "An old lady. Yah. Let's do an old lady." She slapped me again, on the right side of the face. I heard a ringing in my ears. The next thing I knew, they'd dragged me off the sidewalk and into the gravel parking lot of a darkened, abandoned apartment building.
They shoved me to the ground and took turns kicking at me. The girl, who wore stiletto-heeled black boots, took deliberate aim and stomped me hard on each breast. I did scream then, a loud, ungodly animal sound that I couldn't believe was coming from my body. A dog started barking somewhere nearby, and I heard a door opening from the house across the street. Suddenly porch lights up and down the street were snapping on.
"Let's split," one of the boys hissed. But before they did, each of my attackers kicked me again, savagely but quickly, in the side and the stomach.
They ran off into the darkness.
I lay there for some minutes, my knees drawn up to my chest, rocking back and forth in the dirt, like a mother soothing a fretful infant, only the crying was coming from me.
25
IT WAS MORNING, and the sunlight streaming through the bedroom windows hurt my eyes. Edna was pounding on my door.
"Julia," she bellowed, "go to the door. The goddamn Mormons are back again."
"I'm asleep, Ma," I whimpered. "You're not asleep. You're hung over from staying out at that bar and drinking all night," she said. "You called these little pricks, now you go deal with them."
I heard her walk back toward the kitchen. And I heard the doorbell ringing.
I shot upright, but the pain from my chest and ribs nearly kicked me back flat. God, I'd forgotten how much I hurt. The pain was so intense it was nauseating. But the doorbell kept ringing. I eased out of bed and managed to get into a bathrobe and slippers without throwing up. The clothes I'd worn last night were in a heap on the floor. Last night I'd been so tired and shell-shocked, I'd stripped down and crawled into bed in my underwear.
The mirror over my dresser showed that my injuries looked more alarming in daylight. There were two black quarter-shaped bruises on each of my breasts, and a handful of black wedge-shaped bruises on my chest, shoulders, and upper arms where the skinheads had kicked me. By standing on tiptoe I could see more bruises on my ribs, lower back, and butt. I felt sore all over. My face was the worst, though. My forehead and chin were scratched and scraped from where I'd rolled on the gravel trying to fend off the blows. My left nostril was cut and crusted with dried blood, and a purplish black streak decorated the right side of my face. "Looks like you were shot at and missed, shit a
t and hit," I told my reflection.
I ran my fingers through my hair in a futile attempt to pretty up for company, but the damned doorbell drove me to distraction. I shuffled stiff-legged to the front door and looked out the window.
Two earnest young men, teenagers really, had planted themselves in front of the door. They wore neatly pressed white shirts, thin dark ties, and black trousers. Each had a leather-bound case under his arm. One was tall and skinny, with wet-combed reddish hair. His friend was short, slightly plump, and blond. Their bicycles were lined up side by side on the walkway.
I considered turning the sprinklers on them, but decided to use tact instead. I'm famous for my tact. "Go away," I said helpfully. "We're Catholics. We drink wine in church and worship graven images."
The boys exchanged glances. But the redhead was made of sterner stuff. "We understand someone here is interested in learning more about the Book of Mormon," he said. "We're here to talk about Salvation, not religion."
I opened the door a few inches and stepped out onto the porch. I figured giving them the full view of my battered face and body might scare them away.
But I underestimated the fervor of the young. The redhead looked at me with interest, like a science project on bread mold. "We're sorry to call on you so soon after your hospital stay," he started.
I laughed despite myself. It made my nose bleed a little. "Look, boys," I said. "We had some missionaries here yesterday. They pretty much answered all the questions we have about the LDS church. So thank you for stopping by."
The blond summoned up the courage to unzip the leather case he carried. He thrust a couple of religious tracts at me, then turned to go. Come and See said the top pamphlet. It was the same one Whit Collier had given me in his office. "Excuse me," I said, as they headed for their bikes. They stopped and looked back at me expectantly, hoping they'd brought a wanderer into the fold.
"Do, uh, Mormons ever speak in tongues?" I asked.
Every Crooked Nanny Page 17
