I put the silver frame back where I’d found it. If her most cherished photographs were to speak for her, they would say there were only two men in Tillie’s life, all her would-be beaus notwithstanding.
I had found myself alone for lunch, the Grogans upstairs with their experiments, Mrs. Goodall downstairs and not in a mood to talk. The general saw me sitting by myself at the dining room table and hastily headed for the door, a sandwich wrapped in a napkin stuffed in his pocket.
“I’d like to talk with you,” I said before he made his escape.
“No time right now. I have to make alternative living arrangements before I’m booted out on my rear.” He disappeared down the hall.
Why a perfectly healthy adult had thought he could impose indefinitely on an elderly woman’s hospitality was puzzling. And why he resented that he would be asked to leave now that she was dead was a complete mystery to me. Tillie had had her secrets, but I didn’t think her relationship with James Pettigrew, such as it was, was the one she wanted me to unveil. Or was I wrong? Pettigrew claimed she had accepted his proposal. Of course, she wasn’t around to confirm or contradict his assertion, but I couldn’t conceive that Tillie would agree to marry such an arrogant boor. But then, why had she taken him in and lodged him in her guesthouse? No more, Jessica, I scolded myself. Much as I wanted to know why Tillie tolerated the abrasive Pettigrew, that wasn’t the mystery I was supposed to address.
I pulled a sheet of paper from my pocket. Mr. Richardson had given me a copy of his list of those attending the reading of the will, and his secretary, Amber, had provided telephone numbers next to each name. I put check marks in the margin alongside those I hoped to interview. But later, when I sat in Tillie’s study and began dialing numbers, I ended up leaving voice mails, rather than reaching anyone directly. The sole exceptions were Dr. Payne, who invited me to dinner to talk over my findings—not that I had any findings yet—and Joseph Jones, Wanamaker’s nephew, who had volunteered his and his family’s remembrances if I needed them.
“My folks will be in town Saturday for the Saint Paddy’s Day parade,” he said. “Uncle Wanamaker was my dad’s brother. He loves to talk about ‘the prodigal son,’ as he calls him.”
We made a date to meet at a café close to the parade route, and I earnestly hoped we could find an undisturbed corner for the interview. Saint Patrick’s Day anywhere is not known as a quiet holiday, and Melanie had told me Savannah’s celebration draws upwards of half a million people to see all the floats and marching units, together with fifty or more bands.
As we drove out to Southside, Melanie gave me a brief tour of the city’s preparations for the coming holiday.
“I thought I’d go by Forsyth Park so you can see the fountain,” she said as she steered the car around a series of squares and up Bull. “Savannah sure likes to celebrate its Saint Patrick’s Day.”
“So I noticed,” I said.
Along our way, we passed houses draped with bunting of green, white, and orange, the colors of the Irish flag. On others, ribbons of the same colors twined around gates or climbed up wrought-iron banisters. Irish flags hung side by side with the Stars and Stripes. And kelly green and gold garlands competed with the Spanish moss in the branches of the oak trees.
“Wait till you see this.” Melanie slowed as she reached Forsyth Park so I could see the huge fountain for which it’s famous. It reminded me of the kinds of tiered fountains I’d seen in Europe with its central figure at the top of a robed woman, her arm raised above her head. At the base, figures of tritons—half man, half serpent—held horns shaped like shells to their lips, and a little farther out four swans raised their graceful necks. However, unlike all the classical fountains with mythical creatures that I’d seen before, this one was spewing bright green water. The cast-iron figures, usually white, had a delicate green glow to them.
“They did the official Greening of the Fountain last week,” Melanie said, driving around the park. “It was on television. The committee members all standing around the fountain with watering cans of green dye. Is this a crazy place, or what?”
“It’s certainly a colorful one,” I said, and we both laughed.
Melanie took Abercorn Street out of the downtown area—“Now you’ll see my favorite part of the city”—so she could point out the mall. We passed shopping center after shopping center along the straight, flat road, until I began to look at my watch. But her promised knowledge of her hometown proved reliable when a half hour later, she pulled up in front of a redbrick ranch on a tree-shaded street some distance away from the city’s major thorough-fare. A car was in the driveway.
“Looks like he’s home,” she chirped. “Can I come in with you?”
“You may,” I said, “if you promise not to talk, just to sit and listen.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m a good listener,” she said. “I am,” she repeated when I raised my eyebrows. “You’ll see.”
We heard bells ring inside when I pulled on the trunk of what I thought was an elephant knocker. The door was opened by a solidly built African American man with a gray beard and a bald pate. He wore half-glasses, and an open newspaper dangled from his hand.
“Mr. Buchwalter?” I asked.
“Who wants to know?” he said, his gaze sliding from me to Melanie.
“I’m Jessica Fletcher. I left you a message on your answering machine. Dr. Payne said you were expecting me.”
“And who is this?” he asked, indicating Melanie with his chin.
“I’m Melanie Goodall. My mama was housekeeper to Miss Tillie Mortelaine. I knew Miss Tillie all my life. I drove Mrs. Fletcher out here. She doesn’t drive.” She paused in her recitation. “Ooh, sorry. I’m not supposed to speak.”
“Seems you don’t follow instructions so well, young lady.”
“No, sir. I guess I don’t.”
“Well, y’all come on in,” the detective said, turning around and leaving the door open for us to follow him inside. He waved at a gray couch, swiping sections of the newspaper off the cushion. “The doc said you would be here, but I wasn’t expecting a crowd.”
“I can wait in the car if you really want me to,” Melanie said, her eyes begging to stay.
“That won’t be necessary,” Buchwalter said, settling into a blue tweed recliner, “but I’ll put you in the kitchen cleaning the birdcage if you talk too much.”
“Ooh, you have a bird?”
He winked at me.
“Go on in and see. His name is Sunshine. He’s a sun conure. Cage’s just over there, next to the pantry. Now don’t scare him, you hear?”
Melanie was around the corner and cooing at the bird a moment later.
“Always keeps the grandkids occupied, too,” he said.
“Detective Buchwalter, I want to thank you for agreeing to see me.”
“No problem, Mrs. Fletcher. Not sure what I can help you with, but I’ll listen.”
“I’m hoping that Dr. Payne has told you about the provision in Tillie Mortelaine’s will.”
“He did, but I already knew about it.” He waved the newspaper back and forth. “It’s in here.”
“I beg your pardon. I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
“Take a look-see for yourself,” he said, poking at the paper as he leaned forward to pass it to me.
I scanned the articles on the page he’d indicated. There was a piece on an auto accident, FATAL DAY ON 95, another on an upcoming concert, TELFAIR AND ALL THAT JAZZ, and a photo of several men standing in front of a building with the caption REAL ESTATE DEVELOPER PLANS HOTEL EXPANSION. But it was the headline of an article beneath the photo that took me aback.
FAMED WRITER HERE TO SOLVE COLD CASE
Mystery writer Jessica Fletcher is in town, but it isn’t to promote her latest book. This newspaper has learned that the author from Maine, who helped establish this city’s literacy program two decades ago, is back in town to solve a murder. A provision in the will of Tillie Mortelaine, one of Savannah’s mos
t popular hostesses before her death last month at 91, requires Mrs. Fletcher to solve, in less than a month, a crime that has stumped the Metro Police for forty years. According to sources who have requested anonymity, the will of Ms. Mortelaine, known to be eccentric at times, is holding up a million-dollar bequest to the Savannah Literacy Foundation until Mrs. Fletcher can name the murderer of Wanamaker Jones, a society bon vivant and then-fiancé of the deceased, who was shot dead in Mortelaine House on New Year’s Day in 1967.
According to a spokesperson at Savannah-Chatham Metropolitan Police headquarters, the case hasn’t been relegated to their cold files. “We don’t ever close a homicide,” she said. “If someone thinks they have new evidence, we’ll be happy to take it under consideration. However, we don’t encourage amateurs to pursue investigations that are clearly the jurisdiction of the police.”
“Oh dear,” I said, handing him back the paper. “This is not good.”
“It’ll certainly shake the nuts out of the trees,” he said.
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
“Then again, you might get a good lead.”
“Or, I’ll get more leads than I can possibly pursue in a month’s time—and most of them apocryphal.”
He let the newspaper fall into a pile on the floor and linked his fingers over his stomach. “So now, what can I do for you?”
“Well, for a start, you can tell me a little about the case. I don’t have any idea of what happened that night other than the fact that Wanamaker Jones was shot. I’m sure you can add to that.”
“I can tell you that there was some cover-up.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I mean that wherever we went, people just clammed up, wouldn’t talk, gave us as little information as possible.”
“I’m surprised to hear that,” I said.
“I was surprised to hear that Miss Mortelaine wanted the case solved, even after her death. She certainly didn’t help our investigation at the time.”
“What did she do?”
“It’s not what she did, Mrs. Fletcher. It’s what she didn’t do. She didn’t cooperate. She didn’t answer questions. She ‘forgot’ to mention things. She lost track of the time. She couldn’t find evidence we requested. Some of my colleagues thought she had an alcohol problem. Others thought she was crazy. Is any of this news to you?”
“I know that Tillie liked to take a drink now and then, but I never saw her overindulge. Of course, I can only speak of the few times I visited with her, and that was twenty years after the murder. As to her being crazy, maybe she was a bit eccentric, as the paper says. I think it was more that she liked to poke fun, play practical jokes, puncture big egos. Perhaps she had an odd sense of humor, but she wasn’t irrational.”
“I didn’t say she was irrational. She was rational, all right. You know what I think? I think she was crazy like a fox. She was sly. Let people think she was nutty, all the while controlling everyone and everything around her. That’s what I think.”
“That’s pretty harsh, Detective.”
“Maybe, but she stonewalled me. I knew it, and she knew that I knew. Of course, just my being on the case may have had something to do with it.”
“What do you mean?”
“Should be obvious. I’m a black man investigating a white murder. Didn’t go over too well at the time. Savannah had eliminated segregated lunch counters only two, three years before I got here.”
“Where had you come from?”
“Philly. Was a Philadelphia cop for fifteen years, but my wife missed her family. I applied here and they hired me. At the time black detectives worked only in black neighborhoods, but things were starting to change. We had the election of the first black sheriff since Reconstruction. Not here. It was over in Macon, in the center of the state. Still, my white partner used to make a production of wiping off the seat when I got out of the car. We changed in different barracks. The white officers had nice perks, card tables, pool tables. We got nothin’. You can bet that if a black officer had something on a white person in Savannah, he’d better have it buttoned up tighter than a snake wrapped around a rat’s neck. Otherwise there’d be mighty big trouble.” He paused, the expression on his face a reflection of those unpleasant memories. “Anyway,” he continued, “that’s neither here nor there. It’s a lot better these days.”
“Do you really think Tillie didn’t cooperate because she was prejudiced against you?” I asked. “I confess I didn’t know her all that well, but what little I did know about her would lead me to think that seems out of character.”
“I wouldn’t swear to it in a court of law,” he said, sighing. “But at the time, there was so much tension on the police force it was the first thing we all thought of. All the colored guys, anyway. But the white guys on the squad didn’t get any more out of her than I did, so maybe I’m wrong.”
“What happened that night? Do you remember? I’d like to get a feel for the sequence of events.”
“You’ll need to get the file from headquarters for the details, but I remember it was New Year’s Eve, and Miss Mortelaine had hosted a big party. Every big shot in the city made an appearance. Didn’t make our job any easier. Must’ve been a hundred people at her house earlier in the night. I know we questioned that many people later on. But when we got there, there was only about a dozen of them left, maybe not quite that many. There was your friend, Miss Tillie, her sister-in-law and brother-in-law. Then the lawyer and the judge.” He counted on his fingers. “The judge’s sister. Doc Payne was there. He’s the one pronounced the victim dead. The pastor who gave him last rites. And then the folks in the kitchen. The housekeeper and two guys they hired on to help serve. It was around three in the morning when we got the call . . .”
“Good evening, sir. We’re Officers Buchwalter and Hadleigh. We got a report of a shooting. Is that right?”
Frank O’Neill’s nostrils flared when he eyed the two uniformed policemen, one black, one white, but his expression was otherwise impassive. “That’s right. I called. Come this way, officers.The body is upstairs.”
“Don’t I know you, sir?”
“I’m Judge O’Neill.”
“Thought I recognized you. We brought a perp up on burglary-one before you last week. Remember, Buchwalter?” Hadleigh elbowed his partner.
“That’s possible,” the judge said. “I see a lot of cops in court.” He crossed the marble foyer, striding past the door to the parlor without looking in on the people who were sitting in front of a fireplace, sober expressions on their faces, drinks in their hands.
A housekeeper in a uniform placed a tray on a table in the hall and started collecting the empty champagne glasses that littered every flat surface.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” Officer Buchwalter said, stopping to speak to the woman. “We’d rather that you didn’t clean up just yet.”
“Oh, heavens!” The woman jumped at being addressed and accidentally pushed the tray against a small lamp with a mushroom-shaped shade.The lamp teetered on the edge of the table and fell onto an umbrella stand.
“Oh, no!” she wailed. “I’ve broken it!” She bent to lift the lamp with shaking hands and placed it back on the table.
“No. I think it looks okay,” Buchwalter said. “Sorr y to startle you.”
“Oh, Lord. I’ll lose my place if it’s broke. I just started here. I can’t lose my place.”
“Buchwalter, what’s keeping you?” Hadleigh called. He was halfway up the stairs.
“I’ll need to speak with you later, ma’am.” Buchwalter said. He heard a voice from the parlor call out.
“Emanuela, get someone to help you with those glasses. I can’t do everything myself.”
The lights in the upstairs hallway were dimmed, but the officers could see the body sprawled on the rug. Someone had turned the man onto his back, or else he’d fallen that way, his arms akimbo, a dark stain surrounding a hole in his pale blue silk shirt right above his heart. There was bl
ood on the fingers of his right hand as if he’d grabbed his chest where the bullet had gone in, and on his forehead where he’d used his bloody fingers to push away his wavy blond hair. Hadleigh knelt by his side and put two fingers on the man’s neck. “He’s dead,” he said, looking up at Buchwalter.
“Of course he’s dead,” the judge said, plainly irritated. “The doctor confirmed that an hour ago.”
“You found the body an hour ago, and we just get the notice?” Buchwalter said.
“Took you a while to get here,” O’Neill said.
Or took you a while to call, Buchwalter thought.
“Who’s this doctor you mentioned, Judge?” Hadleigh said, pulling a pad from his back pocket.
“Dr. Payne. He’s downstairs.”
“Did you call him before you called the police?” Buchwalter asked.
“No. He was a guest here.”
“Do you know this man?” He waved a hand toward the body.
“Of course. He’s Wanamaker Jones.”
“Does he live here? I mean, did he live here?”
“I believe so.”
“Age?”
“I don’t know. You’ll have to ask Miss Mortelaine. He was her guest, or rather her fiancé.”
“Who was the last person to see him alive?”
“I haven’t the vaguest idea.”
“Well, then, who discovered the body?”
“I believe it was the children.”
“Children! Where are they?”
“Their parents took them home. We thought it best. Didn’t want them upset any further. Plenty of time for you to talk to them tomorrow.”
Buchwalter and Hadleigh exchanged glances.
“We’ll need their names and address, sir,” Hadleigh said.
“Miss Tillie can give you that. They’re her niece and nephew, her brother-in-law’s children.”
“Big party tonight, Your Honor?”
“Obviously.”
“How many people were here?”
Murder, She Wrote: A Slaying in Savannah Page 9
