“Will you need us?” Brooke asked, not anxious to revisit the death scene.
“Stick around, if you would. I’ll need to talk to you after this,” Goolsby said.
* * *
Brooke and Gabe sat on the stiff upholstered furniture in the living room.
“I feel like I’m living in the middle of an Agatha Christie novel,” Brooke said, clasping and unclasping her hands.
“If Agatha Christie had ever written a book set on the Georgia coast,” Gabe said.
“You don’t think they’ll think something … bad happened, right?”
“I don’t see why they would,” Gabe said. “This is all strictly procedural.”
“This is all just so … bizarre,” Brooke said. “I’m sorry I dragged you into this mess.”
“Don’t be. I’m glad I got to meet Josephine Warrick and see all of this,” he said, indicating the house. “The whole story she told us last night was unbelievably fascinating. And of course, I’m glad to be working with you again, Brooke. I just wish we’d gotten that damn will executed.”
She heard herself say her father’s favorite phrase. One she’d always hated. “It is what it is.” Brooke nodded in the direction of the closed library door. “Yeah. About that. Should we mention Russell Strickland to the sheriff?”
“God, no,” Gabe said quickly. “It’s just a story, right? No need to muddy the water, especially since we have no firsthand knowledge of what happened back then.”
“That’s what I hoped you’d say,” Brooke said. “I also don’t want to drag Varina into any kind of trouble since, as far as we know, she’s the only living witness to … that night.”
The library door opened, and Louette emerged. “They want to talk to y’all,” she said.
* * *
Brooke was relieved to see that a blanket had been placed over Josephine’s body. Kendra Younts was busily dumping Josephine’s medications into a plastic bag, and Sheriff Goolsby was sitting on the chintz wing chair, scribbling in a small notebook.
“Y’all can come in,” he said without looking up from his notes. “Just finishing up here.”
“Okay, Howard,” Kendra said. “I’m gonna bring in the stretcher if you’re all set here.”
“All set,” the sheriff said.
He looked up at Brooke and seemed puzzled. “You look awful familiar. Have we met before?”
“Probably. I’m a lawyer, and I think our paths have crossed at the courthouse.”
He snapped his fingers. “Now I got it. You’re Brittni Miles’s lawyer, right?”
“Afraid so,” Brooke said, laughing. “But please don’t judge me by my clients.”
“I’ll try not to,” Goolsby said. “That is one crazy little gal, though. You know she went on a hunger strike because my deputies wouldn’t bring her a Diet Dr. Pepper?”
“She’s still in your jail? I thought her stepfather was going to bail her out.”
“Not yet. If he doesn’t come get her pretty soon, though, we’re fixing to take up a collection and bail her out ourselves.” He closed his notebook and rested it on one knee. “What’s your connection to Mrs. Warrick?”
“She hired me a couple of weeks ago, in a legal capacity, to help her find the heirs of her oldest friends. And she also wanted me to draw up a new will.”
“And did you do that?”
“We ran into some complications. It turns out that one of the people she wanted to leave a bequest to, the daughter of her late best friend, is my mother, Marie Trappnell. Which is why she hired me in the first place. Once I realized we had a conflict, I suggested she hire Gabe, who I used to work for in Savannah.”
Goolsby nodded at Gabe Wynant. “Savannah, huh? You know Wayne duBose?”
“I know Sheriff duBose quite well,” Gabe said. “We’re in Rotary Club together.”
“Wayne’s a good man,” Goolsby said. “Comes down here fishing with me when he can get away from the big city.” He tapped his notebook with a pen. “I think we’re about set here. I’d heard Mrs. Warrick was terminally ill, and the housekeeper confirmed that. She was on some pretty strong new pain meds, is that right?”
“Yes.”
“And she consumed some alcohol at dinner last night, even though the housekeeper warned her against mixing the pills with alcohol?”
“That’s correct,” Gabe said. “We finished dinner around ten o’clock, and I helped her from the dining room because she was somewhat unsteady on her feet.”
“Did she seem okay, otherwise?”
“She was groggy,” Brooke said.
“And there were some dogs in here? The housekeeper mentioned she might have tripped over them?”
“Two Chihuahuas,” Brooke said. “Teeny and Tiny. You rarely saw Josephine without those dogs at her feet. I guess Louette must have put them in another room now. But they were here this morning when I came down.”
“Okay, then,” Goolsby said. “Kendra and I agree, this is a textbook accidental death, likely alcohol-and-drug-related. Hell of a way for the old lady to go, though. She was pretty much a legend around here. Her family did a lot of good in this county.”
“She told me her father was always very community-minded, even though he wasn’t originally from here,” Brooke said.
“That was way before my time, of course, but my granddaddy used to talk about what a fine person Mr. Bettendorf was. What happens to all of this now?” Goolsby asked. “She never had any kids, did she?”
“No children, no close surviving family,” Gabe said. “And unfortunately, as far as we can tell, she died intestate.”
Goolsby blinked. “I thought you said you did her will.”
“I did, but she died before it could be witnessed.”
The door opened, and Kendra Younts wheeled in a gleaming chrome collapsible stretcher.
“Son of a bitch,” the sheriff said.
Gabe pointed at the stretcher. “That might not be necessary. Mrs. Warrick specified that she wanted to be buried in the family plot here on the island. According to Louette, she even has a handmade casket out in the barn. So why transport the body over to the mainland when it’s just going to end up back here?”
“That’s a pretty unusual request,” Kendra said.
Brooke imagined the coroner mentally calculating the amount of money her family’s funeral home would not be billing to Josephine’s estate. No transport. No embalming or cremation. No bronze coffin, no visitation in the Younts Mortuary’s Palmetto Parlor, no hearse …
“Josephine Warrick was a pretty unusual woman,” the sheriff said. He nodded at Kendra. “We’re agreed it’s an accidental death, but I think we might want to touch base with her doctors to confirm their diagnosis of her illness and all. So we’ll go ahead and take her over to the morgue at the hospital just in case. Afterward, we can release the body to be brought back over here.”
“That sounds reasonable,” Brooke agreed.
“First thing Monday, I’ll petition with the court to be named administrator of the estate,” Gabe said. He stood and handed business cards to the sheriff and the coroner. “Please let me know if you have any questions, and of course, I’d appreciate it if you could notify me when the death certificate is ready.”
Brooke quickly left the room before they began transferring Josephine to the stretcher. The dining room was empty and had been cleared of all traces of breakfast. When she went looking for more coffee, she found Louette and Shug standing in the kitchen. Shug had his arm around his wife’s waist, and Louette’s head rested on his shoulder. Their backs were to her, but she could hear Louette’s racking sobs from where she stood.
She backed out of the room to leave them alone with their grief.
* * *
She was walking back toward the living room when she heard scratching and whining from behind another door.
Brooke opened the door slightly, and Teeny and Tiny came scrambling out, barking indignantly and flinging themselves at her ankles.
On an impuls
e, she scooped them both up and cradled one under each arm. “Hey, girls,” she crooned. “Poor little girls. I guess we sort of forgot about you in all this excitement.”
One of the dogs raised her head up and began licking Brooke’s neck. She read the tag on the collar. “So you’re Tiny.” She held the dog at arm’s length. “How am I gonna tell you apart from your sister? Oh, okay. Your ears are way longer than Teeny’s. And no offense, but you’ve kind of got an overbite. How did I miss that?”
The back door opened, and C. D. poked his head inside the hallway and cleared his throat.
“Hey, uh, Brooke. Can I talk to you for a minute?”
“Of course. Did you already take the sheriff back to the dock?”
“Yeah. Them and Josephine.”
“I probably need to let the girls outside for a potty break,” Brooke said. “Can we talk outside?”
“Yeah. That’d be okay.”
It took her eyes a moment to adjust to the dazzling sunlight after the dim half-light of the house. The moment she set the dogs down, they ran straight for a clump of oleander bushes at the edge of the veranda.
Brooke pointed at a rusting wrought iron table and two chairs. It was the only furniture left on what must have once been a beautiful spot overlooking the ocean. The slate tiles were crumbling, with weeds poking up through the cracks. Still, a fine breeze ruffled the palms at the edge of the low wall, bringing the scent of gardenias blooming in what was left of the garden just beyond.
She studied C. D., who sat stiffly, staring out at the ocean. He still wore his ever-present oversized aviator sunglasses, but today he was dressed in a loose-fitting short-sleeved shirt, tucked neatly into a pair of baggy jeans whose hems just brushed the top of his bare brown feet. This, she realized, was as dressed up as she’d ever seen him.
“What’s on your mind?” she asked finally.
He looked at her now. “This morning, I was out in the kitchen, and I heard y’all talking about Josephine and how she didn’t have no close kin or nuthin’.”
“That’s right,” Brooke said. “If you’re worried about your job, though—”
“The thing is, she does have kin.”
“Yes, we know about the cousins, and they’ll be notified—”
“I’m not talking about the cousins. I’m talking about me.” He thumped his bony chest and raised his glasses to look her straight in the eye. “Me. I’m Josephine’s son. I reckon that’s about as close a kin as you can get.”
38
May 1942
“You’re the doctor? Thank God!” The woman who’d met him at the door was wrapped in a thin cotton bathrobe and didn’t wait for his answer. “She’s having an awful time. Please hurry.”
Thomas Carlyle was getting accustomed to receiving urgent phone calls in the middle of the night. All the younger physicians in Savannah, even the middle-aged ones, had enlisted in the war effort in the immediate aftermath of Pearl Harbor. But he was in his seventies, and his fondness for gin was well known among a certain clientele in the city.
Still, he was surprised to be summoned to this particular address. It was a handsome, pale pink double town house on one of the most fashionable blocks of West Jones Street, so he’d dressed for the occasion; his only black suit, too large for him now and full of moth holes, and a heavily starched white dress shirt, although no necktie. He was poised to ring the bell when the door opened.
He heard the moans and shrieks as soon as he began to climb the narrow stairs, which did nothing to quicken his steps. He’d heard it all hundreds of times before, and in his experience, babies took their own time.
He found the patient stretched out on a bed with an elaborate mahogany carved headboard. She’d thrown off most of the bedcovers and was thrashing around on the mattress, wild-eyed and clearly terrified. Her face, neck, and narrow arms were slick with sweat. Blood pooled on the white sheets.
“How long has this been going on?” Carlyle asked. He removed his suit coat, tossed it onto a chair, rolled up his shirtsleeves, and opened the satchel he kept packed by his front door.
“The labor pains started around two this afternoon,” the woman said, leaning down to stroke the younger woman’s hair. She crooned something inaudible, which seemed to calm the patient a little.
“And how far along is she?”
“Maybe seven months? It’s too early, I know. The bleeding won’t stop. I didn’t know there would be so much blood.”
“She should have been taken to a hospital hours ago,” Carlyle said, frowning down at the patient.
“I told you, that’s not possible.”
“No!” the patient cried. “No hospitals. My mother died in the hospital.” Her eyes widened again, and she cried out as another wave of contractions racked her body.
He sighed and reached into the satchel, bringing out a small clear vial and a hypodermic needle, which he set on the table beside the bed. He rummaged around again and brought out a brown paper packet of cotton balls. “Damn it,” he muttered. He reached for his jacket and extracted a half-empty pint of gin from the inside pocket.
Carlyle uncapped the gin and dribbled some on the cotton ball. He stuck the hypodermic in the vial of liquid, drew back the plunger and flicked the tube once, twice with a forefinger, to dispel any air bubbles.
He nodded at the woman. “I’ll need you to hold her down for a moment.”
“I’ll try,” she whispered, standing to lean across the bed.
“Noooo!” the patient cried.
“Just a small prick,” he said pleasantly. “Then you’ll have a nice sleep, and when you wake up, this will all be over.”
Her body tensed as another contraction began, and she writhed in pain.
“Hold her down!” he barked, and he jabbed the needle into her arm.
* * *
When he emerged from the bedroom, he carried a tiny, squalling infant wrapped in a pillowcase.
“It’s a boy,” Dr. Carlyle said, thrusting the baby into the woman’s arms.
“Healthy?” She looked down at the beet-red infant. “He’s so tiny.”
“Because he’s too early,” Carlyle said. His shirt was sweat-soaked and clung to his chest, his forearms were flecked with blood, and his white hair was plastered to his skull.
“Where’s the bathroom? I need to wash up.”
“Just there.” She pointed to the next door. “And how is she?” The woman gazed anxiously through the open doorway where the patient lay unconscious atop a mound of blood-soaked sheets and towels.
“She’ll live. But there won’t be any more surprise pregnancies, I’ll tell you that.”
“Just as well,” she murmured.
She heard water running. She looked down at the baby, no bigger than an undersized roasting hen. She didn’t particularly like babies, but she felt a strange pang of sympathy for this one. She touched a tentative finger to his fist, and he stopped crying, grabbed hold, and clung on with a surprising ferocity.
Carlyle was wiping his hands on a clean towel. “You’ll want to wash her properly when she wakes up, keep the incision clean, watch that she doesn’t run a fever, which is a sign of infection. If she does seem feverish, call me immediately before she becomes septic.”
“And what about the baby?”
“What about it?”
The woman looked down at the now sleeping infant and then pointed with her chin toward the bedroom. “She’s not married, you know. If anybody found out…”
He yawned, impatient to get home to his bed. “What are you trying to say?”
She bit her lip. “It would be better if she thought … well, if she thought the baby died.”
Carlyle bristled and feigned shock, though in his line of work this was a very old story.
“What if we could find somebody to take care of it?” the woman went on.
“What are you suggesting?”
“Surely there are orphanages?”
“This baby is not an orphan,” he said.
“In any case, orphanages require paperwork. Questions would be asked.”
“Oh.”
He looked at her, waiting, expectant.
She sighed and went for her pocketbook. He took the money without comment.
The woman slumped with exhaustion. He considered her, considered his surroundings. He knew the owner of this house, had even socialized with him, in long-ago, happier times. Money would not be an issue for this family. If he could provide the answers to nosy questions, perhaps everybody’s problems would be solved.
“I know a couple,” he said slowly.
When he left, he took the sleeping infant with him, bundled in a wicker shopping basket. She went into the bedroom and began gathering up the soiled linens. Carlyle’s gin bottle stood on the nightstand, empty now.
39
Gabe Wynant was getting accustomed to the unexpected that day at Shellhaven. But nothing could have readied him for the story he was about to hear in the library-turned-bedroom so recently vacated by Josephine Bettendorf Warrick.
Brooke caught him as he took the last stair. He was dressed and ready to leave, his briefcase again tucked under his arm.
“What now?” he said, noting the grim expression on her face.
She glanced upward, toward the second floor. “Where are the others?”
“I heard lots of cursing coming from Lizzie’s bedroom. And the cat was yowling, so it’s a good guess they’re getting ready to leave. I think Felicia and Varina went out somewhere with Louette.”
“I think you’d better come with me,” she said.
* * *
C. D. had seated himself in the recliner and was idly leafing through a leather-bound book he’d picked at random from one of the bookcases.
“You remember C. D.,” she told Gabe.
“Yes?” Gabe said, leaning against the doorjamb.
“C. D., could you please tell my colleague what you just told me?”
“You mean the part where I tell him I’m Josephine’s son?” C. D. seemed pleased to have a story worth telling and retelling.
Gabe blinked and looked at Brooke for her reaction. She nodded. “Yes. And start from the beginning, please.”
“Which beginning? You mean how she dropped me off at the orphanage in Savannah when I was just a baby? Not even a month old? And bribed them nuns to keep me and not tell anybody she’d had a bastard? Or do you want me to begin when I got too old to stay with the little kiddies, so they packed me off to Good Shepherd Home for Boys?”
The High Tide Club Page 24
