Savannah Blues

by Mary Kay Andrews

  He shrugged. I flipped to the Z page of my directory. Only one card, for a Ruth Zofchak, a Pennsylvania dealer who specialized in Bohemian glass.

  Lester had two Zs in his Rolodex, but not KZs, and there were no Z listings in the yellow pages either.

  “Could be anybody,” I said. “I buy and sell antiques from Orlando all the way to Wilmington, North Carolina.”

  “Or it could just be she bought the plates from somebody who happened to have two majolica plates that just looked like the ones you saw out at Beaulieu,” Lester said.

  “No.” I shook my head emphatically. “It couldn’t just be a coincidence. That woman at Annie’s Attic absolutely clammed up when I started asking questions about where she bought the plates. And the owner at La Juntique, she had the same reaction when I asked where that card table came from. No, Lester. I think they both bought stuff from the same person, who swore them to secrecy, because the stuff came out of Beaulieu, and they don’t want anybody finding out about it.”

  Lester scratched his chin. “How are you gonna prove any of this? And even if you could prove the stuff came out of Beaulieu—so what?”

  “It came out of Beaulieu after the memorial service for Anna Ruby Mullinax, but before I found Caroline’s body,” I said. “Don’t you see the connection? Whoever is selling this stuff off probably knows who killed Caroline. Probably killed her himself.”

  Lester rolled his eyes. “Stick to picking, Weezie,” he said. “ ’Cause as a detective, you’re pitiful. You’ve been in this business long enough, you know how things work. People cut corners. They make shady deals. It’s the nature of the business. Just ’cause somebody sells an antique under the table, that don’t make ’em a murderer. Hell, if that was so, we’d all be locked up in the jailhouse.”

  “I know I’m right, Lester,” I said. “Can’t you think of anybody to call? Somebody else who knows everybody along the coast? Somebody who might know a ZK?”

  “Maybe,” he said. “She sure enough likes to gossip, and that’s a natural fact. Let me give it a try.”

  He put his hand over his Rolodex, shielding the card so I couldn’t see the name; obviously this source was his own version of Deep Throat.

  He dialed the number and waited. “Shug? Hey. It’s Lester. You been keeping sweet?” He listened, then chuckled. “Got a little puzzle for you. I’m trying to track down somebody who might be doin’ a little picking, over there in the Bluffton vicinity. All we know is the initials. Either ZK, or maybe KZ. Can you think of somebody like that?”

  He shook his head. “The person’s selling off stuff could have come out of Beaulieu. You know? The old plantation house out there at Isle of Hope?”

  He waited. Then wrote something quickly on his pad of paper.

  “It’s a start. Thanks, shug. Tell your daddy hey for me.”

  He hung up the phone and pushed the pad of paper toward me.

  “Zoe Kallenberg,” I said, reading it. “You know her?”

  “Never heard that name before,” he said, picking up the white pages of the phone book. He leafed over to the K listings. “Lives at two-oh-four and a half Liberty. That’d be pretty close to the intersection there at Abercorn. An apartment probably. Most likely a basement apartment.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said. I opened the yellow pages back up to the antique dealer listings. L. Hargreaves was the first listing on the page. Lewis Hargreaves’ shop. At 206 Abercorn.

  Chapter 48

  James pushed through the door to his office, concentrating on the lateness of the hour and not on the weeping woman who occupied a seat opposite Janet, his secretary.

  “James,” Janet said. “Mrs. Cahoon has been waiting to see you.”

  “Oh,” he said. “I have another meeting this morning. Out of the office.”

  It was uncanny how Janet could read his mind.

  “I explained that to Mrs. Cahoon,” she said smoothly. “That the normal procedure is to make an appointment. But she wanted to see if you could spare her just a moment. Before you leave in five minutes for your appointment.”

  Denise Cahoon poured herself into the chair opposite his desk. “It’s Inky,” she said, slapping a file folder on his desk. “He wants a divorce. A man came to the house this morning and gave me these papers. After twenty-two years of marriage.”

  James scanned the papers. Bradley R. Cahoon Jr. was filing for a divorce from Denise Doheny Cahoon on the grounds of desertion.

  “Desertion,” he said, handing Denise a tissue. “I thought Inky left you.”

  “He did,” she cried. “While I was living at my sister’s house in Waycross.”

  “You were living in Waycross? With your sister?”

  “Just until her nerves settled down. Sheila’s always been very high-strung. So I went over to Waycross to help out.”

  “How long ago was this?” James asked.

  She pursed her lips and thought it over. “It was 1996 probably. Yes, 1996 definitely.”

  James nodded. “You moved to Waycross. In 1996. To stay with your sister. And when did you move back to Savannah?”

  “Months ago,” Denise said. “It’s been months and months I’ve been back.”

  “Mrs. Cahoon,” James said, “you haven’t lived with your husband in five years. Is that what you’re telling me?”

  “He was never home. Always sneaking around with that whore girlfriend of his,” she cried.

  “According to the law, Mrs. Cahoon, you are the one who left the marital home. Five years is a long time for a wife to live apart from her husband.”

  “Sheila needed me,” Denise said, her chin trembling.

  “I’m sure,” James said. He glanced down at his watch. “Well. Sorry to have to rush you along, but I really have to be getting along to my meeting.”

  “What about my problem?” Denise demanded. “This divorce. I want it stopped. I don’t believe in divorce.”

  He had an idea. He flipped through the cards in his Rolodex, scribbled down a name and phone number, and handed it to Denise Doheny Cahoon.

  “Who’s this?” she asked.

  “A former colleague, Father Gower. He works for the archdiocese.”

  “Does he do counseling?” she asked eagerly.

  “No,” James said. “He handles petitions for annulment.”

  “Annulment,” she asked. “Is that legal?”

  “Perfectly legal,” James said, “and if ever I knew of a candidate for an annulment, it’s you and Inky. Good day, Mrs. Cahoon.”

  Janet was shaking her head when James emerged from his office. She’d been eavesdropping, of course. “Annulment. That’s a brilliant idea. Why didn’t you think of that before?”

  “Don’t know,” James said. “I really do have a meeting, you know. It’s out in the country someplace, near Guyton.”

  “Fine,” Janet said. “I hope it’s an appointment that will produce some billable hours. Your sister-in-law called while you were in with Denise Cahoon.”

  “Did she sound sober?”

  “She wasn’t talking to any saints or anything. Just said for you to remember you’re supposed to go someplace with her this afternoon.”

  “I know,” he said wearily. “We’re going to try to get her in a rehab. And move her out of her dead cousin’s house again.”

  “Whatever,” Janet said.

  It had been on one of his mind-numbingly boring walks around Forsyth Park that he remembered the names of Grady and Juanita Traylor, the witnesses listed on Anna Ruby Mullinax’s will.

  Grady Traylor had been a deacon at Christ Our Hope, James’s first little country church. Grady’s wife, Juanita, had been the church’s only catechism teacher. They were elderly back then, probably in their sixties. And Grady Traylor, he finally recalled, was a cousin to Clydie Jeffers, who had worked for many years as Anna Ruby Mullinax’s housekeeper. Grady, he thought, had worked as a sometime yardman at Beaulieu.

  It had taken some digging to find the Traylors. Christ Our Hope
had been annexed into another country church, and the priest there, Father Viraj, was new to the parish and uncertain where the old parish records were kept. It had been Karyl Conners, the church secretary, who finally called James back with the news that she had traced the Traylors to their new address in Guyton, Georgia.

  With the address in hand, Janet had done a title search on her computer and turned up the deed to the house in Guyton, which, it turned out, was owned by the Willis J. Mullinax Foundation.

  Now the white Mercedes hummed over the still-wet pavement of the country road outside Guyton.

  Juanita Traylor had been overjoyed to hear from him, although he’d had to shout to make himself heard.

  “Father Foley!” she’d exclaimed when he called. “Wait ’til I tell Grady you coming to visit. He’ll be fit to be tied. Sure will. And I believe he might recognize you. These days, he don’t know me too good, but he sure does remember folks from a long time ago. Doctor says that’s called short-term memory loss. You come in time for lunch now, Father, all right? I know you be missing good country cooking living in the city all these years.”

  James felt bad about not mentioning the purpose of his visit, or the fact that he was no longer Father Foley, but he reasoned that in this case, the ends justified the means.

  Juanita had given him directions to turn right after he came to an abandoned feed store, and left when he came to an abandoned school bus yard.

  On a quiet road not far from the field full of abandoned yellow buses, he was surprised to find a stout new brick house with the names of Grady & Juanita Traylor painted in two-inch-high letters on the mailbox.

  “Father Foley!” Juanita exclaimed, when she opened the front door. Twenty years ago, she had been a plump woman who favored large flowered hats and flowing dresses. Now she resembled a shrunken little doll, her faded dress hanging from skeletally thin shoulders, her head nearly bald except for a few sparse patches of snow white hair.

  She ushered him inside the house, clutching him by the arm to keep herself upright.

  “This is so nice,” she said, beaming up at him through cataract-frosted eyes. “So nice to get some company.”

  She made him sit at a small Formica table in the kitchen and fed him a plate of home-cooked vegetables. “Them’s field peas from my garden, and sweet corn, of course, and stewed tomatoes and okry. My okry didn’t make this year, but I put up a mess in the freezer last year,” she said, her high-pitched voice trembling with delight.

  He held her papery hand in his and they said the blessing together, but Juanita wouldn’t eat. “Oh no, Father. I don’t eat ’til four o’clock, when I fix supper for me and Grady. He’s having his nap right now, but in a little while, I’m gonna get him up and let him have his surprise. That’s you. You’re his surprise. He’ll be so tickled.”

  The food was magnificent, fresh, simply prepared, with a slab of cornbread on the side, and a jug of iced tea so sweet and cold he could have drunk a gallon of it.

  When he’d finally satisfied Juanita that he’d eaten all he could, James took his time about getting down to the reason for his visit.

  “Your children,” he asked. “Little Grady and Juanette and Boo and Travis, how are they all?”

  She beamed again and filled him in on the number of grandchildren and great-grands she and Grady had helped raise.

  “And Grady?” he asked. “I take it he’s had some health problems?”

  “Oh yes,” she said, patting his hand. “But the Lord didn’t give us nothin’ we can’t bear. He’s real good, Grady is. This house was just a blessin’ from the Lord. Air-conditioning so his emphysema don’t worry him so much, and a big tile bathroom I can get his wheelchair into real easy. Miss Anna Ruby, she done us a blessin’, and that’s a natural fact.”

  James smiled. “Miss Anna Ruby died last month, you know.”

  Juanita nodded. “Yes, Father, I knowed all about that. Boo, you remember him, he was my youngest, his oldest boy cut the piece about her passin’ out of the Savannah paper and brung it over here to read to me. Me and Grady were real sad about that, but happy Miss Anna Ruby went to a better place.”

  “I understand you and Grady had some dealings with Miss Anna Ruby’s lawyer, Gerry Blankenship, a few months before she passed,” James said.

  Juanita looked down at her hands and studied them. James waited.

  “Mister Gerry said we wasn’t to speak about that,” Juanita said finally. “He been so good to us, I don’t like to do him wrong.”

  “The will is a matter of public record, Juanita,” James said, taking some papers from his briefcase. “See here? I got a copy from the courthouse. So you wouldn’t be breaking any secrets talking about it now.”

  “You reckon?” she asked. “I know it’s sinful to be fixed on material goods, but this house here, Miss Anna Ruby made that happen, and I don’t hardly like to think what we’d do if we had to leave it now. First time in my life I ever had air-conditioning, and I just praise Jesus every day when that cool air comes floating across my face.”

  “It’s a beautiful home,” James said, gazing admiringly around the tiny spotless kitchen. “How long have you lived here?”

  “First of May, we moved in,” Juanita said quickly. “At first, I said, no sir, I can’t move to Guyton. That’s too far. None of my people be over there. But Mr. Gerry, he was real firm that me and Grady should have this nice brick house. And he put the furniture and everything in it for us, so we didn’t have to worry about a single thing.”

  “That was very kind of Mr. Blankenship,” James said. “And he told you that the house was a gift from Miss Anna Ruby?”

  “That’s right,” Juanita said. “And I worried and fussed, thinking I’d get a bill or something in the mail, but I never did. It’s been three months, so I reckon the Lord wants us here.”

  “I’m sure that’s right,” James agreed. “I wondered if you would talk to me a little bit about how you came to witness Miss Anna Ruby’s will?”

  He held the papers he’d brought with him out for her to inspect. She looked down at them and back up at him. “That’s right. We done signed that paper good and proper, like Mr. Gerry asked us to.”

  “When did he ask you to sign them?” James asked.

  “Hmm,” she said. “Well now, I recollect he come over to the house, the old house, that is, one day way back in the spring, and he brung me a box of candy. That was sweet, wasn’t it? I didn’t like to tell him I can’t eat candy ’cause I got the sugar diabetes. And he had some papers he needed me and Grady to sign. As a favor to Miss Anna Ruby. So we done that, and Mr. Gerry he was so pleased. And he said Miss Anna Ruby had a house over here in Guyton she was fixin’ to move into, but then she was failin’ and decided to stay put, and so we would be doing Miss Anna Ruby a favor if we moved in over here to take care of things.”

  “That was very kind of Mr. Blankenship,” James said. “And did you get the chance to see Miss Anna Ruby when you signed the papers?”

  “No, Father,” Juanita said. “We never did get to see her sweet face again.”

  “And you didn’t see her the day you signed the papers?”

  “No,” Juanita said, and then she frowned. “Oh, Lord. I wasn’t supposed to say nothing about that, was I?”

  “Did Mr. Gerry ask you not to tell anybody about how you signed the papers?” James asked.

  She stared down at her hands again. “Mr. Gerry been awful good to us,” she repeated.

  “You and Grady are good folks,” James said. “And I sure did enjoy the lunch you fixed for me.”

  “You’re not gonna leave yet,” Juanita exclaimed. “Not before Grady gets a chance to see you.”

  James looked down at his watch. Marian’s appointment at St. Joseph’s was at 2:30. “I hate to have you wake him from his rest.”

  But Juanita was out of her chair and making her way haltingly toward the hallway. “Now you just set right there for a minute or two, Father Foley.”

  Five minu
tes later, she pushed a wheelchair into the living room. The man in the chair had once been a bear of a man, short, but powerfully built, so strong he’d single-handedly cut and hauled all the pine trees that had fallen on Christ Our Hope during a bad tornado. Now Grady Traylor slumped over in the wheelchair, a strap around his chest the only thing keeping his frail body from slipping to the floor. An oxygen mask was fastened to his face and his brown eyes seemed unfocused.

  “Looky who’s here, Grady Traylor,” she called loudly. “You remember Father Foley, Grady. He come to visit with us today. Ain’t that grand? Come all the way from Savannah.”

  Grady Traylor blinked, and James thought he saw a spark of recognition.

  Juanita smoothed the worn fabric of Grady’s cotton pajama top, her thin hands caressing the shrunken shoulder blade.

  “He’s just so pleased,” she told James. “Now, I was wondering if you would do something for us. Something special. ’Cause to tell the truth, this here house is so far out in the country, we ain’t been able to get to Mass.”

  James nodded. He knelt down on the carpeted floor beside Grady Traylor’s wheelchair, and Juanita knelt beside him, clinging to the arm of the wheelchair for support.

  “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,” Juanita began, her eyes tightly shut.

  “And bless me, Father,” James thought, for the sin of wanting to give comfort to these frail but faithful children of God.

  Chapter 49

  James eased himself into a rocking chair and took a deep sip of gin and tonic.

  “Better?” Jonathan asked.

  James took another sip and tipped his head back. “Some.”

  “I’m sure the Traylors were delighted to see you,” Jonathan said. “And they didn’t really have anything to confess, did they?”

  “No,” James admitted. “Grady has had a stroke and can’t speak. And Juanita, poor old soul, the only thing she could confess was an occasional bout of impatience with the doctors.”