Savannah Blues

by Mary Kay Andrews

  “Including you?”

  He laughed. “I was hoping we could work out a compromise there.”

  “What kind of compromise?” I said, sliding out from under the steering wheel and snuggling up against him.

  “Not here,” he said quickly. “Not with Tal hanging around.”

  I moved back to my side of the seat. “Tell me something,” I said. “All this talk of yours about not worrying about what other people think…”

  “Yeah?”

  “Don’t you have a family? Don’t you worry about how what you do will affect them?”

  “No.”

  “No, you don’t have a family, or no, you don’t care what they think?”

  “I have a family,” he said cautiously.

  “I know you have two brothers. That’s all. Where do they live? Are they still here in Savannah?”

  “They’re around” was all he would say. “They live their life and I live mine. And they don’t get in my business,” he said fiercely. “Now, where do you want this furniture unloaded?”

  Obviously, the subject was closed as far as he was concerned.

  “Let’s put it under the carport,” I said. “I want to get it sanded and painted this afternoon.”

  “Today? Right now?” He seemed disappointed.

  “The sooner I get it done the sooner I can turn it around,” I said.

  “What’s the big hurry?”

  “They’ve rescheduled the Beaulieu sale. For next Saturday. There’s a really wonderful piece there. The Moses Weed cupboard. If I can buy it, it would be a major score. I could maybe make enough money to open my own shop. So I need to raise all the cash I can before Saturday.”

  “A big deal,” Daniel said.

  “A very big deal.”

  He helped me unload the furniture and then glanced furtively around before giving me a chaste little kiss.

  “You don’t want to stay and help me paint?” I asked, knowing the answer without hearing it.

  “Not here,” Daniel said. So I took him home. Reluctantly.

  The message light was flashing on my answering machine when I got home. “It’s Lester Dobie,” the voice said. “Why don’t you come on by and see me this afternoon?”

  I glanced at my watch. It was after three o’clock. If I hustled, I could get the dressers sanded and painted in an hour, and then go see what was up with Lester before he closed the shop.

  The paint got slapped on the furniture with mad abandon. That’s the good thing about this shabby chic look that’s so popular right now. It’s supposed to look old and cruddy.

  When I went back inside the house, Jethro looked up expectantly.

  “Come on, boy,” I told him. “Let’s go see Lester.”

  He bounded out to the truck and jumped in the open window. Jethro loves riding in the truck, and he loves Lester even more.

  “Hey, shug,” Lester said when we walked in the shop. He got up from his stool behind the counter and tossed a dog biscuit to Jethro.

  “What’s up, Lester?” I asked.

  He tugged at the bill of his fishing cap, a sure sign that he was excited. “Come on back in the office,” he said.

  I followed him through the maze of clutter to his even more cluttered office. He closed the door and sat down at the old kneehole oak desk.

  “What?”

  “Shh,” he said. Then he ducked under the desk and brought out a brown-paper wrapped parcel. He handed it across the desk to me.

  “Take a look at that,” he said.

  I ripped the paper off and stared down at my cotton-picking painting. The T. Eugene White.

  “It’s gorgeous,” I breathed.

  The canvas fairly glowed with life now, the formerly muddy colors were transformed to emerald greens and sunflower yellows and rich crimsons and browns. Details that had been invisible before now stood out perfectly; a small dog near a fence that hadn’t been there before, puffy clouds rising in the bluest imaginable sky, even a red tractor was now visible in the foreground.

  “Cleaned up pretty good, wouldn’t you say?”

  Even the frame had been transformed. Dirt caked in the crevices of the carved molding had been painstakingly removed, and chips and cracks smoothed over and regilded.

  “How did you do this?” I asked.

  “I know a fella. Ron Ransome. He used to do all the Telfair Museum’s restoration work. He’s officially retired. Carves Santa Clauses for a living these days. But I thought he might be interested in working on this, since it’s a Southern artist. I didn’t expect to get it back for at least a month, but once Ron got working on it, he said he couldn’t stop. Had to see what was under all that grime.”

  I propped the painting up in the windowsill and backed away to get another view of it. “Fantastic. I never dreamed it would look anything like this.”

  Lester tugged at his cap again. “Ron got pretty excited when he was all done. Took some Polaroids of the painting and sent ’em overnight to a lady he knows in Charleston.”

  “A decorator?”

  He grinned. “Better. This lady works at the Gailliard Museum. She’s the director. Ron knew her because she hired him to clean up another T. Eugene White for their museum. Turns out your painting even has a name. Cotton Time. It’s a companion piece to the one they’ve got in their front parlor, which is called Planting Season.”

  I was holding my breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

  “And?”

  “Weezie, they want to buy Cotton Time.”

  “How much?” It came out with a strangled sound.

  “The figure she mentioned to Ron was fifteen thousand.”

  “Oh. My. God.”

  “You won’t clear that much,” he said cautiously. “I already gave Ron a thousand for the restoration work, out of my own pocket, and it seems like he ought to get some consideration for setting you up with the Gailliard folks.”

  “That’s fine,” I breathed. “What about your commission?”

  “I wasn’t figuring on charging you a commission. We’re friends.”

  “We’re business associates,” I insisted. “Lester, if you hadn’t spotted the T. Eugene White signature, I probably would have sold the painting for a couple hundred bucks. So let’s say a ten percent commission. Fifteen hundred for you, and fifteen hundred for Ron. Does that work for you?”

  “I reckon,” he said, and a slow grin spread over his weathered face.

  “Shame to have to take it up there to Charleston,” he said. “That’s one beautiful painting. Too bad it can’t stay right here in Savannah.”

  “I know,” I said, tilting my head to get another look at it. I handed him the brown paper that had fallen to the floor. “Let’s wrap it back up quick, before I change my mind.”

  “No time to change your mind,” Lester said. He handed me an envelope. “The Gailliard lady is driving down today to pick it up. But she sent the check down yesterday.”

  I opened the envelope. It was a cashier’s check, made out to Eloise Foley, and it was for fifteen thousand dollars. Suddenly, my luck was starting to change. Except for the murder rap hanging over my head.

  Chapter 38

  “Two point five million dollars,” James said, taking off his glasses and wiping them on the hem of his golf shirt. His glasses fogged up every time he walked out of the air-conditioned house on Washington Avenue and into the broiling late-day sun. “That’s what the paper company paid for Beaulieu.”

  Jonathan whistled. “What did Miss Anna Ruby do with all that money?”

  “She endowed the Willis J. Mullinax Foundation.”

  “And what does the foundation do?”

  “Vocational training and community leadership assistance,” James said. “Don’t ask me what that’s supposed to mean. I’m just quoting from the legal documents, which seem to suggest that Gerry Blankenship, as executor of the will and director of the foundation, can spend the money as he wishes.”

  “Gerry Blankenship,” Jon
said, drawing out the name. “I smell a rat.”

  “So you know Gerry,” James said. “Now, if I were assigning him to a rodent family, I’d be more likely to call him a weasel than a rat.”

  “Good point,” Jon said.

  James turned up the air-conditioning in the Mercedes to the setting he thought of as arctic blast, and backed out of the driveway.

  “Did you ever talk to the Flanders girls about Caroline’s mystery boyfriend?” Jonathan asked.

  “I did,” James said. “And I’ve called the owner of the house on Gaston Street. Unfortunately, he’s up in Highlands, North Carolina, and he’s one of those throwbacks who don’t believe in having telephones while they’re vacationing.”

  “Were Anna and Emily any help?”

  “Some,” James said. “Unfortunately, their description of the fella doesn’t fit Gerry Blankenship. He’s a big lard-ass of a guy, hard to miss. The Flanders sisters described Caroline’s friend as average-sized and middle-aged, but with a baseball cap pulled down over his face. And the friend drove some kind of a silver sedan. Gerry drives a fire-engine red Corvette.”

  “Doesn’t Blankensip just have red Corvette written all over him?” Jon asked, and they both laughed.

  “So the mystery man is middle-aged and drives a silver sedan. That certainly narrows it down,” Jonathan said.

  “Piece of cake,” James agreed.

  “What else have you learned?” Jonathan asked.

  “The sale was finalized a week before Miss Mullinax’s death. And the clock is ticking. Coastal Paper Products, as of Friday, has a permit to clear Beaulieu.”

  “Clear—as in tear down the house?” Jon asked, stunned. “How can that be?” he asked. “Beaulieu is the last intact antebellum plantation house on the Georgia coast. The Savannah Preservation League wouldn’t stand for it being bulldozed. If Merijoy Rucker finds out, she’ll personally have a world-class hissy fit.”

  “There’s nothing SPL can do about it,” James said. “And your friend can have all the hissy fits she wants. Beaulieu isn’t in the historic district. It isn’t even in the city of Savannah. It’s in unincorporated Chatham County. And they’re the ones who issued the permit.”

  “So they’re free to just knock down a historic landmark?”

  “For now,” James said. “The state environmental folks and the Army Corps of Engineers still have to rule on the issue of the paper company’s request to dredge on the marsh, and that really is questionable, thank God. And there are some other serious roadblocks they’ll have to clear before they can start building. But I took a ride out to Beaulieu yesterday and saw a surveying crew at work. The foreman said he was told tree-clearing work could start immediately.”

  “All those beautiful old oak trees,” Jonathan said. “Some of them are at least two hundred years old. So why are we going back there? What do you hope to accomplish?”

  “I want to take a look around the house,” James said. “Remember, I didn’t get much done the last time I was out there. And I thought it would be helpful to have your perspective on things.”

  “And Detective Bradley agreed to this?” Jonathan looked dubious.

  “He still thinks he owes me,” James said, a little sheepishly. “I had a long talk with him and filled him in on what we’ve learned about Caroline’s mysterious friend, and the odd way Miss Mullinax’s will was set up. I think he’s beginning to have his doubts about Weezie’s guilt.”

  “There’s something else you’re not telling me,” Jonathan said.

  “Detective Bradley took me into his confidence,” James said. “No matter what I say, he still thinks of me as a priest.”

  “But you’re not a priest, and you don’t take confessions anymore,” Jonathan pointed out. “And I’m trying to help.”

  “It could get him into a lot of trouble, professionally.”

  “What about me?” Jon asked. “If the DA finds out I’ve been poking around out at Beaulieu, my career could be finished.”

  “True,” James said. “Fair enough. Bradley is in the process of applying for a medical disability discharge. That episode at Beaulieu really frightened him. He has a happy second marriage and children, and he doesn’t want to die on the job.

  “I think he’s a good cop,” James continued. “He doesn’t want to leave the job thinking he arrested the wrong person for this homicide. And he admitted to me that his instincts tell him Weezie didn’t do it. Despite the circumstantial evidence to the contrary.”

  They were driving out on Skidaway Road now, past the Bacon Park golf course and the city tennis facility. It was nearly eight o’clock. The brilliant summer sky had faded to a pale blue, with pinkish strands of clouds shot through with orange and gold. They drove along the marsh, where shorebirds picked through tide-exposed expanses of reeds and mud, and closer to the road the live oaks stretched moss-draped branches across the narrow pavement.

  The wrought-iron gates to Beaulieu were chained and locked. A large white billboard proclaimed the property to be the future site of Coastal Paper Products’ Plant Mullinax. A yellow hard hat was painted on the sign, beside the cheery slogan “Watch Us Grow!”

  “Hideous,” Jonathan said, sighing.

  James put the Mercedes in park, got out, and fit a key in the padlock. Jonathan slid across the seat and drove the Mercedes through the open gates, and James closed and locked the gate behind them.

  “Does the paper company know anything about Bradley giving you a key?” Jon asked, when James got back in the car.

  “Don’t ask,” James said.

  The Mercedes rolled slowly down the now-darkening oak alley, the tires crunching the crushed-oyster-shell roadway.

  “Beautiful,” Jonathan said, his voice reverent—the cool green arches reminded him of a cathedral, its stillness marred only by the pink ribbons fluttering from survey stakes along the way. “It’s got to be saved.”

  “You can worry about saving Beaulieu,” James said. “My job is to save Weezie.”

  By the time he pulled the Mercedes to a stop in front of the old house, it was full dusk. Fireflies blinked in the softening haze, and a whippoorwill called out in the darkness.

  James handed Jonathan a flashlight.

  “Isn’t there any power in the house?” Jonathan looked alarmed.

  “It’s an old house. And it seemed pretty dark the last time I was here.”

  “The last time you were here a man nearly died,” Jon reminded him.

  James held up a knapsack. “I brought bottled water and a cell phone. I’m not taking any chances this time.”

  He took out the key ring Bradley had given him, and opened the front door, ignoring the sign posted on a porch column, proclaiming the house to be the private property of Coastal Paper Products.

  Jonathan stepped inside and snapped on his flashlight, searching for a light switch. He found one, and a single naked bulb lit up the foyer’s cracked plaster walls.

  “Sad,” he murmured, walking into one of the twin parlors. His footsteps echoed in the empty rooms.

  “Didn’t you say this place was full of antiques?”

  “It was,” James said. “It was packed when I was here a week ago. I wonder where everything went? There was supposed to be a sale. And there’s a piece of furniture Weezie wants to buy.”

  “I know what happened,” Jonathan said, snapping his fingers. “They’ve moved the sale. I got a flyer in the mail yesterday. It’s going to be held in a warehouse over on East Broad Street. I suppose they’re emptying the house to get it ready to raze.”

  “Not much to see now,” James said, playing the beam of his flashlight around the empty parlor walls. “Just a falling-down old house.”

  Jonathan walked slowly around the perimeter of the room, looking up at the ceiling and down at the floors.

  “I’m surprised,” he said. “All the moldings, light fixtures, baseboards, everything you’d expect to see in a grand old house of this vintage, none of it’s here. It’s really pr
etty unremarkable, at least on the inside.”

  James looked up to where Jonathan’s light was pointed. The plaster ceiling was crumbled and showing gaping holes. He frowned. “There was some kind of stuff up there before, I think.”

  “Stuff? What do you mean?”

  “You know. Doodads. There was a fancy light fixture. Like a chandelier. And sort of decorations, I don’t know what you call them. Like frosting on a wedding cake. But they were there before.”

  “A plaster rosette?” Jon asked. “What about the outside of these walls? Were there other kinds of doodads, as you call them?”

  “Some,” James said. “Painted white. Along the floors too, and there were carved things around the doorways and on top of the doorways.”

  Jonathan walked through the hall into the twin of the first parlor. “James. Were there any fancy mantels or fireplace surrounds?”

  James followed his friend across the hall. “I think so. But so much furniture was piled everywhere, it was hard to see. Not that I paid that much attention.”

  “You’re hopeless,” Jonathan said. He pointed at a fireplace that was little more than a square hole in the wall. “Son of a bitch,” he exclaimed.“They stripped the place.”

  “How do you mean?” James asked.

  “That’s how they got past the county’s historic preservation review board,” Jonathan said, pointing at the firebox. “Somebody came in here and took down all the old moldings, the cornices, overdoors, mantels, everything. Even the period lighting fixtures.”

  “To sell?”

  “Well, yes, the stuff probably could be sold after it was salvaged,” Jonathan said. “Somebody stripped it so the house wouldn’t be certified as a historically significant landmark.”

  “So the house could be torn down,” James said.

  “Were all the moldings gone when you were here with Bradley?”

  “I didn’t notice,” James said. “Bradley collapsed upstairs. I just don’t know.”

  “Let’s go upstairs,” Jonathan suggested. “See what they did up there.”

  The box fan was still in the upstairs hallway where James had pulled it out to cool Detective Bradley down. Another naked bulb’s dim wattage threw little in the way of light, but enough to convince Jonathan that the upstairs, too, had been stripped of its architectural detailing.