A Done Deal

by Jenna Bennett

  “Tomorrow’s sufficient,” Grimaldi said. “Big night tonight.”

  She hung up. I did the same, and went back to waiting and watching.

  It was boring, and by three o’clock I was ready to leave. There’d been no activity since Miss Thing went inside the warehouse. No one coming or going, no deliveries or pickups.

  Annoyingly, I didn’t even know what sort of place it was. It ought to have a sign on it, something other than just the street number on the corner of the building.

  On impulse I dialed the number for the office. A moment later, Brittany’s perpetually perky voice came on the line. “Thank you for calling LB&A. How may I direct your call?”

  “It’s Savannah,” I said.

  “Oh.” The perkiness slipped right off. It’s reserved for customers. “What do you want?”

  “I need you to look something up for me in the tax records.”

  “Why can’t you do it?”

  “Because I’m in the car,” I said, “and I need the information now, while I’m here. I can’t go home and look it up and then drive back across town once I get it. It’ll take you thirty seconds. Please.”

  She huffed. “Fine. What is it?”

  “A commercial property. I have the address.” I gave it to her. “I need to know what kind of business it is and who owns it.”

  I could hear the tapping of computer keys through the phone. “Belongs to a corporation called BGH,” Brittany said. “There’s a mortgage to the tune of two million on the property. The zoning is CR-10.”

  Restricted commercial. Businesses with CR-10 zoning are away from city center, and they are non-customer related businesses. Warehouses and wholesalers, mostly. Exactly the kind of zoning I’d expect for a warehouse in this depressing part of town.

  “Anything else?”

  “No,” Brittany said, sounding pleased.

  “Can you look up BGH? See if they own anything else?”

  Brittany huffed but did it. “Another commercial property in the same area.” She gave me an address on Nolensville Road, that I scribbled down on the back of an old receipt for coffee I dug out of my purse. “This one has a CPC-10 land use.”

  Commercial property, subject to certain conditions. In other words, a business where, most likely, ordinary people could come and go. Store, clinic, restaurant, hookah lounge.

  “Any idea what kind of business it is?”

  Brittany didn’t. “Why don’t you just drive over there and see? If you’re in that area anyway?”

  “Maybe I will. Anything else?”

  “One more,” Brittany said. “Another CR-10 out here in East Nashville. Looks like it might be on the river.” She gave me an address I scribbled below the other one on the envelope. “Anything else I can do for you?”

  Her tone of voice suggested that the answer had better be no. She was probably overdue for updating her Facebook status.

  “No,” I said. “Thank you.” And then I put the phone away and started the car. There was no sense in sitting here any longer. Rafe’s girlfriend was probably hard at work inside the warehouse and wouldn’t be out until long after I would have to leave to get ready for dinner with Bradley. I might as well head out and take a look at the other properties BGH owned on my way home.

  The address on Nolensville wasn’t hard to find. I took a right and drove six or seven blocks, past the entrance to the Nashville Zoo and past Harding Place, into the Tusculum neighborhood. And there it was, on the left side of the street: a long, low building painted black with purple trim, with no windows and a reinforced steel door. On the flat wall next to the door was a mural: a rather uninspired painting of a couple dancing what looked like a tango, with a palm tree and what I thought was supposed to be the ocean in the background. Curving above them were the words La Havana.

  A nightclub?

  At this time of the afternoon, it was deserted. The parking lot was empty and there was no sign of life. I pulled into the lot, contemplated the building for a few seconds, and pulled back out, in the direction of home.

  Fifteen minutes later I was back in East Nashville and on my way down South 5th Street in the direction of the Cumberland River. It wasn’t the first time I’d driven here, and the closer I got to the address Brittany had given me, the more my sense of déjà vu increased. When I turned a bend in the road and saw my destination up ahead, there was no surprise involved at all. I had once spent a couple hours in my car in the parking lot across the street, watching Melendez Import/Export, hoping to see the boss, Julio Melendez, to determine whether he looked enough like Rafe to be able to pass for him in coveralls and a ski mask.

  That’s another long story. And after all my efforts, Julio hadn’t turned out to be a murderer after all. Someone else had killed my friend Lila. But here I was, back again, and there was a sense of inevitability about it. A feeling of fate, of things coming full circle.

  I pulled into the parking lot across the street, the one belonging to a children’s charity, where I’d spent the time last time. And then I cut the engine and sat there for a few minutes peering over at the warehouse while the air inside the car got chilly.

  The warehouse looked deserted now. Last time I was here, things had been going on over there. A tractor trailer had been backed up to the loading dock on the side of the building, and there’d been cars in the parking lot. Eventually, at the close of business, people had come outside and had gotten into those cars and driven away. All except Julio. I never did see him. Before I got that far something else happened. Namely, I’d sat here a while and then Rafe had shown up and invited himself into my car. We’d spent twenty minutes or so talking, and then MNPD’s finest—Spicer and Truman—had come along and rousted us. They were coming to apprehend Julio, and they wanted us—or at least me—out of the way first.

  None of that happened this time. Nothing changed across the street, and nobody accosted me. After a few minutes, I turned the car back on again and headed for home, enjoying the blast of hot air from the vents.

  It had been a while since I’d thought about Julio Melendez. He was still in jail, or so I assumed. I hadn’t heard differently. Tamara Grimaldi had nabbed him along with several of his cronies back in September, and had managed to scrape together enough evidence to prove that they were behind the open house robberies, even if they hadn’t been guilty of Lila’s death. Rafe had skated through as usual, although he’d been involved in the open house robberies up to his eyebrows. At the time, I’d thought he’d just been lucky. He’d had a lot of that kind of luck over the past ten years.

  Now I knew that it wasn’t luck so much as design. The TBI needed him on the loose; it was the only way he could keep working for them. So they allowed him to be hauled in for questioning once in a while, and sometimes they even let local law enforcement hang onto him for a few days, but he was always let go again for lack of evidence.

  Anyway, it was just a couple of months ago that Julio had been arrested; there was no way he’d have gotten released again so soon. Although I supposed I could call Tamara Grimaldi to check, just to make sure.

  I had the phone in my hand and was dialing by the time I realized that it might not be such a good idea to tip the detective off to what I was doing. If I called and asked about Julio Melendez, she’d want to know why, and then I’d have to explain about BGH and the warehouse in South Nashville. I couldn’t fib, because the detective is almost as good at smelling a lie as my brother Dix. It probably comes with the territory. I would have to confess to having followed Rafe’s new girlfriend from the Green Hills Mall to the warehouse, and that would make me look and feel like an idiot, and the detective wouldn’t hold back when she pointed it out—so perhaps it was better if I didn’t call. I put the phone back down on the seat next to me.

  Julio had had a girlfriend, a professional stager named Heather Price. (A stager is someone who works closely with realtors and people trying to sell their houses. She—sometimes he—helps to decorate, or stage, the home to show
to best advantage.) Heather had staged all the houses where things had been stolen, and Tamara Grimaldi had been pretty sure she’d turned Julio on to the valuables. But there had been no evidence of it. Heather had sworn up and down that she’d talked to her boyfriend in good faith, never imagining he’d use the information she shared to rob her clients, and he had sworn up and down she hadn’t known what he was doing with the information he got from her. There was nothing Grimaldi could do but to let her go.

  Heather and I hadn’t been close, but we’d been casual acquaintances. If I gave her a call, she might tell me whether Julio was on the loose.

  I picked the phone back up and scrolled through my numbers with one hand while I steered the car with the other. I was pretty sure I’d added her name to my address book back then, since as a realtor, I never knew when a stager might come in handy.

  The phone rang a couple of times on the other end, and then the machine picked up. “This is Heather with The Right Price Staging. Please leave your name and number at the sound of the tone, and I’ll get back to you. Thanks.”

  I waited for the beep and gave my name and number, reminding her of who I was. I didn’t mention my reason for calling, since I wanted her to call back, and if she knew it was about Julio, she might not. Better to let her think I might be calling about business. No, I’m not above using subterfuge when I have to. Of course I didn’t actually say I was calling about business—I don’t lie unless it’s absolutely necessary, mainly because I’m so bad at it—but I didn’t say it wasn’t, either.

  With that done, and nothing more I could think of to do at the moment, I headed home to prepare for my date with Bradley while I waited for something to happen.

  Chapter 10

  True to his word, Bradley rang the buzzer at five thirty sharp. By then I was dressed and made up, in the red dress I’d bought for Todd’s proposal and strappy silver sandals. My hair was piled on top of my head with tendrils floating down, and I looked, if I do say so myself, good. Bradley’s reaction when he saw me reinforced the impression. And although I didn’t really care, deep down it gave me a certain level of satisfaction to see his eyes widen and his jaw drop for a second before he pulled himself together. “Savannah. You look lovely.” He bowed over my hand.

  “Thank you, Bradley,” I said demurely, reverting back to the proper Southern Belle I was supposed to be.

  He took my elbow and guided me toward the car. It was a BMW, idling at the curb; new since we’d gotten divorced. “I hope you don’t mind. I made reservations at Fidelio’s.”

  Fidelio’s again. And yes, I did mind. I was sick of the place. If I never saw the inside of Fidelio’s again for as long as I lived, it wouldn’t be too soon. But of course I didn’t say so.

  “Wonderful,” I said instead and let him hand me into the passenger seat and close the door behind me. He has beautiful manners. Mother had always liked that about him. I had, too. Right up until he slept with Shelby.

  We spent the drive mostly in silence. Bradley was battling rush hour traffic through downtown, and had to keep his concentration on the road. And I enjoyed the smooth ride and the smell of the new leather interior, and figured I’d just wait until we were at the restaurant to tackle the question of Uncle Joshua and his wife.

  Of course, there was the small talk to get through first. “So how have you been, Savannah?” Bradley asked as soon as we were seated.

  “Good,” I said. “You?”

  He leaned back and sort of expanded. “Very well, thank you. You said you’ve seen Shelby, so you know we’re expecting.”

  I nodded. “I’m very happy for you.” And happier for Shelby, since—when I’d been married to him and expecting his baby—he hadn’t seemed to care much. The fact that he was excited now boded well, I thought.

  Bradley thanked me, without making reference to the fact that he and I had once been pregnant too. “So what have you been doing with yourself lately? I haven’t seen you around.”

  That was because we’d stopped traveling in the same circles once we got divorced.

  “I worked at the mall for a while,” I said, “right after we separated.”

  Bradley nodded. “I was honestly surprised that you didn’t move back to Sweetwater.”

  “I guess I wanted to prove that I could survive on my own, without help.” And by then I’d started to question my long-held belief that mother always knew best. If she did, shouldn’t my life have turned out differently?

  “And the real estate?” Bradley asked.

  “That came later.” A year and a half later, specifically. I’d gotten tired of the makeup counter by then, and worried that if I stayed there, it was all I’d ever do. Plus, mother was pushing me to go back to school and finish my law degree, and I couldn’t imagine anything I wanted less. Unless it was getting remarried. But I did agree that it was time to do something. I’d always enjoyed architecture, and spent most of my Sunday afternoons, when I wasn’t working, visiting open houses in the neighborhood. That’s where I’d met Walker Lamont, my first broker, who had noticed me coming and going weekend after weekend. At first he thought I’d been looking for a house to buy, but I wasn’t in a financial position to be able to do that. I’d told him I just liked looking. He’d told me I should become a realtor. I’d thought about it and decided he had a point. So I’d gone to night school to get my real estate license, and then I’d sought out Walker and asked if I could work for him. And the rest, as they say, is history. All the way up until I accused him of murder and he went off to prison.

  “And is it working out well for you?” Bradley asked.

  I smiled. “I can’t complain.” Mostly because I didn’t want Bradley to think I wasn’t excelling on my own. The truth was, I could certainly be doing better. But I was keeping my head above water, and that’s all he needed to know.

  “Wonderful,” Bradley said and showed all his teeth in a blinding smile.

  He’s a good-looking guy, if you like the type. Tall, cool, and blond in a business suit and tie, with gray eyes and a very slightly pointy nose. He looked affluent, well-educated, and a little self-satisfied. Marriage to Shelby seemed to agree with him, because I estimated that he’d gained fifteen or twenty pounds since we’d gotten divorced, and he was looking just a little thick around the middle. His forehead might be just a touch higher too, but that could have been wishful thinking on my part.

  Since by this point my idea of male beauty was Rafe—who looks like he’s stepped off the cover of a romance novel about Navy SEALs—Bradley left me indifferent. A good thing too, since he was married to someone else by now and I shouldn’t be thinking about him in those terms.

  I had thought I might, to be honest. Or I’d been worried I would. We’d been married for two years, and had dated for a year or two before that. We’d had good times during those years. We’d been reasonably close and physically intimate. I’d wondered whether, seeing him again, it might be awkward, whether some of those old feelings might come back, just out of habit.

  They hadn’t. I looked at him and felt very little of anything. Being here wasn’t awkward, but it wasn’t particularly comfortable, either. I wasn’t happy to see him, but on the other hand, I wasn’t unhappy. He was just there, something I had to deal with. I guess it’s true what they say: the opposite of love isn’t hatred, it’s indifference.

  “Tell me about your Uncle Joshua.”

  “Right,” Bradley said. “Uncle Josh. What’s going on?”

  I thought I’d already given him this information, but I went over it again. “A couple of months ago, a colleague of mine named Brenda Puckett was murdered. You probably saw it on the news. There was a lot of media interest. I happened to find her body.”

  “I remember that,” Bradley said, diverted. “How horrible for you, Savannah.”

  “It was pretty unpleasant. Anyway, Maybelle Driscoll got herself engaged to Steven Puckett, Brenda’s husband, less than a week after the funeral. Turns out they’d been sleeping toget
her for a while already.”

  And come to think of it, Maybelle had used the same sort of ruse on Steven as she had on Harold seven years earlier. Her husband was dead and she was all alone, a poor, defenseless, helpless widow in need of a big, strong man. And Steven, who’d lived his life firmly under Brenda’s thumb, had taken one look at Maybelle—so different from the strident, bossy shrew he’d married—and fallen like an overripe pear.

  Bradley looked a little uncomfortable at the mention of the adultery, which hadn’t been my intention. The fact that we’d divorced because he’d cheated on me hadn’t even crossed my mind, to be honest. Not that I minded giving him that quick jab. It was nice that he cared enough to feel guilty. He’d never evinced much guilt when we went through our divorce.

  But that was neither here nor there at the moment. “They’ve set a wedding day just before New Year. And Brenda’s daughter is unhappy. She doesn’t want Maybelle for a stepmother.”

  “No one in their right mind would want Maybelle for a stepmother,” Bradley muttered. “She’s the type of woman who’d eat her young. And probably her husband too, after coitus.”

  Interesting observation. “What makes you say that?”

  Bradley opened his mouth, but just then the waiter reappeared with the drinks we’d ordered—white wine for me, red for Bradley; I should have known when we had different tastes in wine that it would never last—and lingered to take our food order. I ordered what I always ordered at Fidelio’s: the Chicken Marsala. Bradley asked for good old-fashioned Chicken Fettuccine Alfredo, and threw in some steamed broccoli, perhaps to help him feel virtuous. The waiter retreated.

  “Eat her young?” I prompted.

  Bradley shook his head. “I probably shouldn’t have said that. I can’t prove anything.”

  “This is off the record,” I said. “Nobody’s going to hold you to anything. I’m just trying to gather some information for Alexandra.”

  Bradley nodded. He grabbed a piece of still-warm bread out of the basket the waiter had left, plunged it into the fragrant oil beside the basket, and lifted it, dripping, to his mouth. I waited while he chewed, trying to contain my impatience.