"But did you find anything? That's what I'd like to know," Edna hollered. "Remember, you were supposed to look for the jewelry and papers and stuff?"
"I'll say we found something suspicious," Sister said. "Right there in the kitchen. Stuck way up under a stack of potholders."
"What?" Edna said. "The jewelry?"
"Can of Chock Full o' Nuts," Sister said triumphantly. "Coffee! And him a Mormon. I knowed he was up to something with all that sweet-tongued Scripture talk."
"A can of lousy coffee?" Edna said. "That's it? You spent the whole day there and all you found was coffee? Did you look everywhere?"
"This one here mostly looked at the TV," Baby said. "Sat and watched 'All My Children' and 'General Hospital' too."
The sound of the kitchen door slamming stopped the argument. Jackie dropped a plastic caddy full of cleaning supplies on the floor and sank wearily into the nearest chair. "Callahan," she panted, "you got any iced tea in the fridge?"
I poured her a tall glass and handed it over. She smiled her thanks and drank deeply. Tall and reed slender, with skin the color of milk chocolate, Jackie is one of those women who manages to look cool and elegant in the midst of any disaster. But today she looked like she'd been through hell. The bright turquoise scarf she wore wrapped around her head had started to come undone, her smock was soiled, and her usually spotless white jeans and tennis shoes were covered with stains of every description.
"Tough day, huh?" Edna inquired.
Jackie shut her eyes and leaned her head back. "You don't know how tough. Those Beemishes live like pigs."
"But did you find anything?" I asked gently.
She sipped the tea slowly. "Nothing that could help Ardith. I couldn't get the safe open. They must have changed the combination."
"Shit," I muttered. "Beemish must be hiding something in that safe."
My thoughts were interrupted by another bang of the back door. Neva Jean, Ardith, and Ruby came dragging in. Ruby and Ardith flung themselves onto the chairs, and Neva Jean snuggled in Swanelle's lap.
He whispered something in her ear, and she giggled but got up.
"Gotta go," she explained, heading for the door. "Bowling night. McComb Auto Body versus Buddy's Minit-Lube. It's a grudge match, you might say. Buddy hired away Swanelle's paint-and-trim man, and we think he's fixin' to start diversifying into body work. Swanelle's out for blood."
We waved them out the door. "Well, Ardith." I said.
"How was your first day as a House Mouse? Did you work your fingers to the bone?"
Ardith pushed a strand of hair out of her face. She looked exhausted. There were dark circles under her eyes, and her shoulders were in a permanent slump.
"It's a job," she said. "I think I've got the hang of dusting and vacuuming. Look, can somebody give me a ride to this apartment I'm staying in? I'm beat."
"We're going that way," Sister said. "Baby," she hollered, "we're going to give the new girl a ride. She's staying over to De Kalb Avenue."
Baby struggled to her feet, digging in her smock pocket for her car keys. "Come on, then," she said. "I need to get some food in me and take my water pills. My feet are so swole up I don't know what to do."
Ardith stared intently at Baby for the first time. "Where'd you get that shirt?" she whispered.
"What?" Baby said. "You say your feet hurt too?"
"That shirt," Ardith said loudly, pointing at what Baby was wearing underneath her unbuttoned smock. "That's the shirt Kristee was wearing last Sunday night."
Baby looked down at her chest. She was always showing up in someone else's cast-off finery, stopping at curbside trash heaps to rescue some outlandish hat or pair of shoes or blouse. This afternoon she was wearing a pink sweatshirt with cut-off sleeves. SKI PARK CITY, it said. I didn't recall seeing her in the shirt this morning.
"I tole her not to take that thing, didn't I?" Sister said. "She come out of the garage wearing it. Said she found it in a barrel of trash. Tole her it was stealing. She said no, it's trash. Sinful to throw away good clothes."
"Baby," I said, grasping her arm and leading her back to the chair she'd been sitting in. "Sit down and tell us where you got that sweatshirt."
The old woman hung her head in shame. "Sister's right. 'Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's goods,' the good book says. I was looking in the garage for some cleaning rags, and I seen a big old barrel of papers and trash and such. Reached down in there and come up with something pink. Always did favor pink. Dug way down in there till I got it out."
"What about the other stuff in the barrel? Did you take anything else?"
"No, child. Tell the truth I was too ashamed. They was some typed papers, and some other clothes and stuff, and a big old pile of newspapers and such. Nothin' else pink."
"That's Kristee's sweatshirt," Ardith repeated dully. "She cut off the sleeves because she said they were too long."
Edna gave me a triumphant smile. "Told you it was him."
"Collier told me he saw Kristee on Sunday night," I said. "Maybe she loaned it to him then."
"She was wearing it when she came to the motel," Ardith insisted. "That and a pair of designer blue jeans she said she'd ripped off from Mrs. Beemish's closet."
"Baby," I said sweetly, "how about letting me have that sweatshirt?"
"All right," she said. "I'm right ashamed of taking it. Will you get it back to that nice boy?"
I promised. She slipped the sweatshirt off over her head, revealing a Day-Glo orange Springsteen Tour '88 T-shirt.
"Kinda warm in this stuff anyway," she said, peeling off the T-shirt to reveal a starched aqua blouse with a pert Peter Pan collar. She saw my look questioning the layers. "I'm bad to take cold," she said.
"Can we go now?" Ardith said, leaning against the doorjamb.
I'd assumed she'd want a full report of the progress we'd made on the case, or at least want to know more about Whit Collier, but I was wrong. She had detached herself from the whole situation.
"See you tomorrow," she said.
"No," I said quickly. "I've got a doctor's appointment tomorrow. I'll talk to you Wednesday morning. Jackie promised to pick you up on her way in, so be ready by eight A.M."
After the last of our mice had left the house, Edna crossed her arms expectantly. "Now what?"
"It probably means nothing," I said. "Maybe Collier and Kristee got together after she left the motel. Maybe she went over to his place and they hopped in the sack together. A good Mormon boy like Collier's not going to admit to fleshly pleasures. There are lots of possibilities."
"Like maybe he killed her in some crazy Mormon voodoo ritual," Edna said. "What's our next move?"
"First off, we're going to keep you away from Swanelle McComb," I told her. "I can't believe he's got you thinking some grade B drive-in movie is real-life stuff."
"I said what's our next move?"
"OK OK." I sighed. "Where's that church bulletin you brought back from the Mormon church? Didn't it have a listing of activities for the week?"
35
THE CHURCH BULLETIN said the singles group would have a putt-putt golf outing Monday night, led by group president Whit Collier.
I called his house around 7 P.M., and when he answered, I hung up. Thirty minutes later I called and let it ring fifteen times. He was gone.
For breaking and entering, I like to dress simple. Blue jeans, dark T-shirt, sneakers, and a blue bandanna over my hair. Edna was nowhere to be found when I came out of the bedroom dressed for my expedition.
I should have known. She was sitting in the front seat of the van, wearing her own cat burglar outfit: dark brown polyester slacks, dark brown shirt, orthopedic brown walking shoes.
"Get out," I said, yanking the car door open. "You're staying home."
"Try and make me," she said, poking out her lower lip and clutching her purse tightly to her chest.
"Look, Ma," I said. "I told you at the beginning, I was going to do the detecting and you were going to do the paper
work. Remember?"
"I'm going," she said, staring straight ahead. "You can stand there and argue with me and waste valuable time when we could be tossing Collier's place, or you can get in and drive. Which is it going to be?"
I drove. You don't argue with Edna Mae Garrity when she gets that lower lip stuck out.
"Give me the address again," I ordered, as we pulled out of the driveway.
She pulled her palm-sized spiral-bound notebook out of her purse and scanned the top page. "Twenty-seven seventy-two Peach tree Promenade Way."
I groaned. Half the streets in Atlanta are named Peachtree, and once you get on the Peachtree maze, there's no getting off.
"Don't worry," Edna said. "I know a shortcut."
Famous last words. Edna always knows a shortcut.
"When we get past Peachtree Battle, we're going to take a right, just past the florist's shop where Kevin used to work."
Fifteen minutes later we'd gone a mile past Peachtree Battle and doubled back twice looking for the florist's shop. "Mama," I said suspiciously, "didn't Kevin work at that florist when he was in high school?"
"Yeah," she said. "So?"
"Kevin's thirty-six years old," I pointed out. "It's been twenty years. When was the last time you saw the place?"
"I don't know," she said crankily. "I quit coming over here to Buckhead once the rents got up so high. I could swear that thing was here a couple years ago. . . . Turn right here," she said suddenly. I made a hard right, went over the curb and onto the sidewalk, then back onto the roadway. A loud blast of a horn let me know the driver behind us hadn't appreciated my move.
"You better let me drive," Edna said. "You'll get us killed before we can find the place." I shot her a look and she shut up.
After another two blocks she spotted a street called Peachtree Park. "Left here," she said. "Peachtree Promenade is off here somewhere, I'm sure of it."
We found Peachtree Overlook, Peachtree Summit, and Peachtree Pudge, but no Peachtree Promenade Way. Dark clouds scudded ominously across the sky overhead, and I could hear thunder in the distance. It was nearly 8 P.M.
"I thought you knew the way," I fussed.
"Me?" Edna said. "You're the hotshot police detective. I thought you knew every back street in Atlanta."
"Not too many cuttings or shootings in this zip code," I said. "And all these Peachtrees are starting to make me dizzy."
"Have I mentioned I need to pee?" Edna said offhandedly. "Turn here at Peachtree Prospect," she said. "I'll bet Promenade is up the street."
Peachtree Promenade, as it turned out, was the entry street of a vast English Tudor-style condominium complex. The main artery had numerous cross streets running off it, each with a name on the Peachtree variation.
"Goddamn," Edna said, crossing her legs. "How do these people find their way out of here to go to work every day?"
"I don't know," I said. We'd been in the car for forty-five minutes, and I was getting nervous. It still looked like rain. Who knew how long Collier would be putt-putting? My own bladder was starting to feel full too.
"There it is," she said, pointing to a street sign written in nearly unreadable Gothic lettering. Peachtree Promenade Way was actually a short cul-de-sac, with ten two-story townhouses perched on top of full garages.
"What kind of car did the sisters say Collier drives?"
"Some kind of red Japanese compact was all Baby could tell," Edna said. "There's twenty-seven seventy-two right here." The garage doors on the ground floor were closed, but the light was on and we could see the car was gone. I pulled the van into a row of empty spaces marked "visitors."
"You willing to stay here?" I asked Edna. She had her teeth gritted now. "Get me inside that condo," she said. "I've got to pee."
"Have you got the key?"
She reached in her purse and pulled out a bronze key on a piece of string with one of our House Mouse address tags.
I tossed Edna a smock and got one for myself out of the back of the van. "Put it on. If anybody asks questions, we're here to clean house."
The complex was quiet. We could see the blue flicker of television sets behind curtained windows, and most of the parking spaces were occupied.
We walked briskly to the front steps of the parlor level. I unlocked the door quickly and we stepped inside. The small foyer had a wood floor, but the rest of the condo was a sea of off-white carpet. The tang of Pine-Sol rose up pleasantly and assaulted our noses. Edna and I exchanged glances. We always want our clients satisfied, even if they were potentially homicidal.
The house was spotless, as the sisters had promised, and furnished all in whites and off-whites and chrome.
I looked around for Edna. I heard a toilet flush in the downstairs bathroom, then water running.
She stepped out and shut the light off behind her.
"Let's get busy," I said. "Those clouds out there looked stormy. If it starts to rain, Collier might decide to come home for a rousing game of Parcheesi or something."
We found the stairs to the garage in the kitchen.
Edna reached in her purse and brought out a lethal-looking black flashlight. She snapped the garage light off and the flash light on. The room was pitch black without the overhead light. Edna played her flashlight over it.
The garage was as neat as the rest of the house. A blue racing bicycle hung from hooks in the ceiling, and a tool bench on the back wall was trimmed with wrenches and pliers and hammers, each hanging from its own hook.
Beside the tool bench stood a tall cardboard barrel, the kind professional movers use to pack dishes.
"That's the barrel where Baby found the shirt," I whispered. "Hold the light on it so I can look inside."
The barrel was too tall to peer into and too fragile looking for a healthy-built girl like me to crawl into, so I tilted it on its side and laid it on the floor.
Some of the contents spilled out: greasy rags, used motor oil cans, old aluminum cans, and a big stack of old newspapers. Farther down there were wadded up cleaner's bags and back copies of the same magazines I'd seen upstairs. At the very bottom of the barrel I saw a torn black plastic garbage bag. I hauled it out and away from the other trash.
"What's in it?" Edna said, kneeling beside me and pointing the light on the bag. I could see papers, and what looked like a pair of women's jeans, a bra, panties, and a handbag. "Bingo," I said.
But I could also see the play of headlights shining into the garage.
"Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and all the saints," Edna said, crossing herself before shutting off the flashlight. "He's back."
"Hide," I hissed. But the only sanctuary in the nearly empty garage was beneath the tool bench. Hastily I shoved everything back in the trash can and set it back where it had been. Edna squeezed herself under the bench.
We could hear an engine idling directly outside the garage door and voices, a man's and at least one woman's. The woman was laughing.
"Doggone," I heard Collier's voice say. "This darned garage door opener is on the fritz again. The door is sticking." The lights moved as he started to back up the car.
I ran to the door and tried to yank it open. Collier was right, it was stuck. "Come on," I told Edna. "We'll never get out with this door stuck. We'll have to bluff our way out the front."
We raced up the back stairs, shutting the door to the stairs behind us. "Just keep your mouth shut and agree with me," I told Edna. "Act normal."
The two of us stepped leisurely out the front door, pretending not to notice the three people coming up the walkway behind us. I made a show of locking the door, and we turned to face Collier.
"Can I help you?" he said. He was wearing a pink polo shirt and neatly pressed khaki pants with Docksiders. His face was flushed. Two young women were with him, dressed in shorts and T-shirts and tennis shoes. There was a red Celica in the driveway.
"Oh, hello," I said, deliberately affecting a high-pitched Southern accent. It came out badly, something like Prissy in Gone With the Wind.
"We're with Home Sweep Home. Our girls, the Easterbrook sisters, cleaned your condo today, and when they got back to the office they noticed they'd left some keys at your place."
Edna nodded vigorously and jingled her house keys. Collier and the young women stared at us as though they'd caught us burgling the place, which they had.
"Mrs. Magillicuddy and I were nearby tonight giving an estimate, so we told the ladies we'd drop by and pick up the keys for them. They gave us the key, just in case, so we let ourselves in. Was that all right?"
Collier's eyes narrowed. He stared at me thoughtfully for a moment, then shrugged. I couldn't tell if he recognized me from our previous meeting.
"I'd have preferred that you wait until I was home," he said, not bothering to hide the annoyance in his voice. "No harm done though, I suppose." He held out his hand. "May I have my key back, please?"
I dropped it into his outstretched palm. "Thank you. So sorry about the mix-up. We'll be calling you about our next special," I said.
As we walked down the steps I fought the urge to break into a run.
"Just walk slowly," I said to Edna through clenched teeth. "Nice and easy. I don't think he suspects anything."
We could feel Collier's eyes on our backs as we got into the van. After I started the engine, I glanced in the rearview mirror. He stood there by the doorway, staring straight at our bright pink van—the one that said House Mouse on the side, not Home Sweep Home.
That's when I remembered having given him my business card during our meeting in his office.
"He knows who we are. He must have recognized me."
"Told you so," Edna said. "What are we going to do about it?"
"Time to call the cops, I guess." I dreaded the idea of trying to convince Bohannon that Collier, the Mormon do-gooder, was involved in Kristee's murder, especially after I'd insisted it was Beemish and Shaloub.
"Won't do any good," Edna said. "Collier's probably loading that trash in his car right now, taking it to some dumpster to get rid of it. Time the cops get there, the barrel will be gone and he'll be sitting there drinking milk and cookies."
"You're probably right. But there's nothing else we can do. I'll call Bohannon as soon as we get home. Maybe if he sees Kristee's sweatshirt he'll be more inclined to believe us. Especially if that desk clerk tells him it's what she was wearing the night he saw her."
Every Crooked Nanny Page 25
