Savannah Blues

by Mary Kay Andrews

  “Oh, don’t be so melodramatic. I’m a very good shot,” Diane said assuringly. “Don’t worry. You won’t feel a thing.”

  He swept the crushed pills into the wineglass, then poured the Bordeaux on top of it. He swirled the glass lightly, watching with relief as the powder dissolved. The wine was still a little cloudy, however. Would she notice?

  “Maybe you’d like some crackers?” he asked, ever the good host, tucking a paper napkin around the bowl of the glass in hopes of obscuring the cloudiness.

  “Never mind that,” she said, snatching the wine out of his hand and taking a deep gulp.

  “Would it be all right if I joined you?” James asked. He poured himself a glass, filled it to the rim. Maybe the alcohol would deaden the pain if Diane Mayhew wasn’t the shot she boasted of being.

  Diane held the glass away from her face and frowned. “Did you say this was a Bordeaux?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Funny,” she said. “Usually I don’t like a Bordeaux so much. But this isn’t bad. What kind is it?”

  “Georges DuBoeuf,” he said. “They had a special at Johnny Ganem’s back in the fall.” He handed her the cork. “Here. For your wine log.”

  She tucked the cork in the pocket of her garden party dress. “Let’s go.”

  “One more for the road?” he suggested, stalling now.

  “Not for me. I’m driving.”

  Still, she allowed him to pour himself another glass. He dawdled, sipping, disposing of the bottle, wiping the kitchen counters down, rinsing her empty glass out and placing it in the dish drainer. He took the damp dishrag and folded it precisely, laying it neatly on Bernadette’s towel bar on the back of the kitchen door.

  She glanced down at her wristwatch. “OK, let’s get the lead out now. I have a lot of work to do tonight.”

  His mind raced. “Could I have a last request?”

  “No,” she snapped. “This is not the French Foreign Legion.”

  “Please? My rosary. It was a gift from my late mother.”

  “Get it,” she said. “And hurry up. My God. I should have just shot you when you opened the door and gotten it over with.”

  The rosary was in the farthest corner of the house. It was a miracle he remembered where he’d put it. Diane tramped up the stairs behind him, down the hall to his mother’s old bedroom. He had to get a stepladder to reach the highest shelf of the closet. James took his own sweet time climbing the ladder, shuffling the cardboard boxes, taking down one, then another. The rosary was, as he knew it would be, in the last box on the shelf.

  “Let’s go,” she screamed as he lifted it out of the box. “The gnats will be coming out of the marsh. I told you how I feel about gnats.”

  How long? James wondered, dragging himself as slowly as he dared down the stairs. How long? he wondered, locking the back door, switching on the front porch light, locking the front door behind them, with Diane’s pistol poked in his side.

  Her gleaming white Lincoln was parked in the driveway, behind his Mercedes. “Get in,” she said, pointing to the driver’s seat. Did he detect a slight slur in her speech?

  “You drive. And don’t try anything funny, or I’ll put a bullet in your brain right here in your driveway.”

  “All right,” James said. She stumbled a little as she rounded the back of the car. But then she opened the passenger-side door and slid inside.

  He put the key in the ignition and turned it on. The dashboard lit up and a bell started dinging insistently. He looked over at Diane. Her head was lolled over on her shoulder. Her eyes were closed. She was snoring.

  “Mrs. Mayhew?” he said gently. No answer. Her hands were in her lap, her facial muscles relaxed. He reached over and unbent her fingers from the pistol. “Sweet dreams, Diane,” he said. And he picked up her cell phone and dialed 911.

  Chapter 59

  “Tell me again how this scam of Hargreaves’s works,” Daniel said, turning away from BeBe’s stove, where he was sautéing garlic and shallots in butter. We’d gone back to BeBe’s from the warehouse, still pumped up with excitement.

  Daniel couldn’t be content with opening a bottle of wine and nuking a celebratory Budget Gourmet. Instead, he’d decided to make a batch of crab cakes. “I can’t help it,” he said, assembling his ingredients at the counter. “It’s all this nervous energy. When I get like this I have to burn it off; work out, go for a run, fix something at the house. Or cook.”

  “I know better ways to burn off energy,” BeBe quipped, “and none of them involve knives or hammers.”

  She gave me a meaningful glance and I blushed to the roots of my hair. Daniel saw too, and gave me a wink.

  “Don’t burn that stuff,” I warned him. “I’m starved.”

  I took a sip of pinot noir and went over my theory about Hargreaves.” He buys the very best authentic antique pieces he can find, and he has them copied,” I said. “And the beauty of it is, these are really very simple pieces. The Moses Weed cupboard, for instance, is elegant, but not complicated. It doesn’t have any inlays or marquetry or veneers, things that would be complicated to reproduce.”

  “Why don’t more people make phonies then?” BeBe wanted to know.

  “It isn’t all that easy,” I explained. “For one thing, to make a believable-looking copy you’d have to make the furniture with similar tools to the ones that were used in that period. Antique draw knives, hand-carved pegs, tools that can produce hand-cut mortises and tenons for the drawer joints. It would take a real craftsman, with the right tools.”

  “Probably have to have old wood too, right?” Daniel suggested.

  “Exactly,” I agreed. “The Moses Weed cupboard is burled elm, made of boards cut from trees at Beaulieu. But elms in this part of the country were wiped out decades ago by disease. And it’s not just the wood that’s hard to duplicate. The antique brasses were handmade in the metal shop at Beaulieu. And the glass in the cupboard doors was the old wavy bull’s eye glass. If you look at it closely, it has almost a purplish tint.”

  “Could Hargreaves find that kind of stuff?” BeBe asked.

  “If he knew where to look, which he would,” I said. “Uncle James says Phipps Mayhew and Gerry Blankenship had Beaulieu stripped of all its old moldings and cornices and baseboards, anything of architectural significance that would allow the house to be designated as historically significant. My guess is that since Blankenship had already started skimming off the best pieces to Hargreaves, he also let Hargreaves do the stripping, helping himself to whatever he wanted. He could have found old windows or doors in the basement or attic of the house, or in some of the outbuildings on the property.”

  “That seems like a lot of trouble to go to, just to build a piece of furniture to look old, and risk getting caught,” BeBe said. “Lewis Hargreaves is already filthy rich. I mean, have you ever seen that townhouse of his? On Madison Square?”

  “I’ve seen it,” I admitted. “He’s got a rice-carved poster bed I’d kill for.”

  “Maybe it’s phony too,” Daniel cracked. I looked over and flashed him a smile. He’d taken the frying pan off the fire and was stirring in crabmeat and half-and-half and beaten eggs. Now he was patting the mixture into cakes, his touch as gentle as a baby’s, then dipping the cakes in a saucerful of crushed saltine crackers. His hands were big yet delicate looking, the pale pink nails standing out in stark relief against the deep tan of his long, slender fingers as he deftly transferred the cakes to a plate covered with a paper towel.

  “I don’t know why Hargreaves would take the risk,” I admitted.

  “Maybe he’s just goddamn greedy,” Daniel said, his face darkening with anger. “Rich people are like that. You see it all the time in the restaurant. Big fat lard-ass millionaires come into Guale, order a hundred-dollar bottle of wine and a big dinner, then stiff the waiter. It’s arrogance. They do it because they can.”

  “And the profit margin’s not bad either,” I pointed out. “If he has the righ
t customer, Hargreaves can sell the Moses Weed cupboard for as much as a hundred thousand dollars. If he has two cupboards, he doubles his money.”

  “But won’t people find out?” BeBe asked. “I mean, y’all, this is Savannah. It’s impossible to keep a secret in this town.”

  I’d been thinking the same thing. Hargreaves’s customers were some of the savviest and richest people in Savannah. These weren’t dopes he’d been duping.

  “He probably wouldn’t sell the phony pieces to anybody around here,” I said slowly. “He wouldn’t dare. Anyway, he’s got an international clientele. He probably sells through the Internet. Maybe even has his own Web site.”

  BeBe slapped the countertop with the flat of her hand. “We have got to bring this turkey down.” She crouched in her Honey West pose. “Bust his sorry ass!”

  The doorbell rang and she ran off to answer it. I wandered over to the stove, and Daniel held out his empty wineglass for me to refill.

  “Look who the cat dragged in,” BeBe called cheerfully as Jonathan McDowell came trailing in behind her. He smiled briefly, and for the first time I noticed dimples on both sides of his face.

  “Have you heard?” Jonathan asked, looking straight at me.

  “Heard what?” I asked. “Did you get the restraining order?”

  “Better than that,” Jonathan said. “We got Caroline DeSantos’s killer.”

  “What?” I shrieked. “Not Tal. Tell me it wasn’t Tal.”

  “It wasn’t Tal. It was Diane Mayhew. When James went to see Blankenship today, he blamed Mayhew for what happened at Beaulieu. So James decided to confront Phipps too. Diane eavesdropped and overheard their whole conversation. It must have spooked her pretty badly when James told Mayhew he’d contacted our office about criminal charges. She went over to James’s house a couple hours ago and calmly told him she’d killed Caroline.”

  “You’re kidding,” BeBe said, laughing dismissively. “Diane Mayhew a killer? I don’t believe it. That little gray biddy couldn’t hurt a fly.”

  “She was about to put a bullet in James’s skull and dump him in the swamp for the gators to finish off,” Jonathan said grimly. And now the dimples were gone. “She killed Caroline because Caroline was having an affair with Phipps, and she would have killed James to keep him from spilling the beans about the affair and the crooked deal at Beaulieu.”

  I felt a buzzing in my own skull. “Is James all right?” I asked, clutching Jonathan’s arm. “Where is he?”

  “He’s fine,” Jon said quickly. “Diane Mayhew was completely deranged. While she bragged about how she’d do anything to hold her family together, James remembered his Southern manners and served her a nice glass of Bordeaux. Liberally spiked with your mama’s Xanax. Diane passed out just as she was about to force James to drive out to his intended burying ground.”

  “Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and all the saints,” I said, borrowing one of my uncle’s favorite sayings. “You’re sure he’s all right?”

  “He’s shaken,” Jonathan admitted. “Diane had a forty-five stuck right in his face. I wanted him to go to the hospital, just to have his vital signs checked, but you know Jimmy. Damn stoic.”

  Jimmy? I’d never in my life heard anybody call my uncle anything but James. Maybe I didn’t know him as well as I thought I did.

  “Anyway,” Jonathan said, “I wanted to tell you in person. Before the media started calling. James said you’d probably be here if you weren’t home.”

  “What happens next?” I asked.

  “Diane Mayhew is still at Memorial Hospital. The docs say she should recover fully. When she wakes up, Detective Bradley is going to have a long, serious talk with her. I was by there before I came over here. Phipps is in the waiting room, and Fulmer Woodall is sitting right beside him for moral support.”

  “Who’s Fulmer Woodall?” BeBe asked, beating me to the punch.

  “Biggest criminal attorney in the Southeast,” Jon said, dimpling. “Flew down from Atlanta in his private Gulfstream as soon as he got the call from Phipps. Things are going to get very, very interesting here shortly.”

  “But you’ve got her dead to rights, don’t you?” I asked. “And Phipps and Blankenship too?”

  “Diane told Jimmy the whole story. She was very precise about the details. Especially the one detail only the killer could know.”

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  Jonathan ducked his head and colored slightly. “Caroline wasn’t wearing any panties the night she was killed. She’d gone out to Beaulieu expecting to have an, er, assignation with Phipps. The police kept that part quiet.”

  “I should say so,” BeBe said. “My Gawd. How trashy can you get? Being killed without panties, that’s worse than having a car wreck wearing raggedy drawers. Can you imagine what her mama will think when she finds out?”

  “I think her mama’s dead,” I put in.

  “Diane even kept tape recordings of phone conversations between Phipps and Caroline,” Jonathan went on. “If we can get hold of those, it’ll go directly to motive. Of course, nothing is cut-and-dried.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I demanded.

  He ran a hand through his already tousled hair. “First thing, Fulmer Woodall will claim Diane suffered from diminished mental capacity. That’s a given. And of course, they’ll try to load the jury with middle-aged women who’ll sympathize with her plight.”

  “Her plight?” I said, my voice rising. “She’s a filthy-rich socialite. The biggest drama in her life is whether to take the Beemer or the Lincoln to the golf club.”

  “Her marriage was being threatened by a younger woman,” Jonathan said, his voice toneless, his face expressionless. “She’s menopausal. Her children no longer need her. Her sense of self-esteem was a shambles. Her physician overmedicated her with dangerous psychotropic drugs. She had abandonment issues.” He raised an eyebrow. “Pick a plight. Any plight.”

  I felt my shoulders sag.

  “We’ll give it our best shot,” Jonathan said. “That’s all I can tell you.”

  “What about Lewis Hargreaves?” BeBe demanded. “You guys will at least bust him, won’t you?”

  “For what?” Jonathan asked.

  “He’s got a factory set up over near the Port Authority,” BeBe said angrily. “He’s making phony antiques. That’s why he wanted that cupboard of Weezie’s. So he could make copies and sell them to out-of-town clients.”

  Jonathan looked at me. “Is this true?”

  I nodded. “I found out Blankenship was skimming the best pieces from the Mullinax estate and selling them to Hargreaves under the table. We went to L. Hargreaves today. BeBe was going to make an offer on the Moses Weed cupboard. But the shop was closed and his assistant was leaving. So we followed her to that warehouse.”

  “And Daniel and I bluffed our way inside,” BeBe said excitedly. “We saw the whole operation. Now all we need is for you to bust ’em.”

  Jonathan nodded but said nothing.

  “Hargreaves was in cahoots with Blankenship and Phipps Mayhew,” I said. “He’s a crook, Jonathan.”

  “So you say,” Jon said. “But I need more than that.”

  Daniel was pouring olive oil into a skillet on the stove. “Like what?”

  “Did Hargreaves sell either of you a phony antique?” Jonathan asked pointedly. “Did he make any representations about merchandise that you know to be untrue?”

  BeBe and I just looked at each other.

  “Are you aware of any persons who bought merchandise from Lewis Hargreaves that you personally know are not what they were represented to be?”

  “Give us a break,” BeBe protested. “We just figured it out today.”

  “And you were brilliant to figure it out,” Jonathan said soothingly. “But we can’t just march into some warehouse and arrest him because he beat Weezie on a business deal.”

  I started to say something, but Jonathan looked down at his watch and held up his hand.

  “Look
. I’ve got to go now. I’m going to pick Jimmy up at the police barracks and take him out for a hot dinner and a cold martini. All I’m saying is this: we need more. What I’d like, Weezie, is for you and BeBe to come down to my office Monday morning. I want you to talk to N’Lida Shearwater. She’s one of our assistant DAs. Very sharp. Very aggressive and very good at fraud and white collar crime. The three of you can figure it out, and then we’ll nail Hargreaves within an inch of his life. OK?”

  “Whatever,” I said.

  Jonathan put an arm around my shoulder and squeezed me ever so briefly. His facial hair was scratchy against my cheek.

  “Hey,” he said softly, “I know you want it all tied up in a neat little package. But real life doesn’t always work that way. Look at it this way. Jimmy’s alive and well. Diane Mayhew is under arrest, and Gerry Blankenship and Phipps Mayhew have their dicks in a wringer, pardon the expression. And for now, at least, Beaulieu is safe from the bulldozers. Life is good. Right?”

  “Right,” I said. But if life was so peachy, why did I suddenly feel like shit?

  Chapter 60

  BeBe waited until we heard Jonathan’s car pull out of her driveway.

  “Jimmy?” she said, her hands on her hips. “Jimmy?” She shook her head sadly. “You never said a word. I’m your best friend and you never said a word about this.”

  “I couldn’t,” I said. “Anyway, I just found out myself.”

  “Found out what?” Daniel put the plates of crab cakes on the kitchen counter, along with a platter of sliced tomatoes and cucumbers, over which he’d spooned some homemade vinaigrette.

  “Weezie’s uncle James has a boyfriend. Jonathan McDowell. Honestly, Weezie, this is the juiciest news I’ve heard in years, right after the thing about Caroline being killed with no drawers. I mean, I knew he was gay, but I never said anything because you Catholics are so prissy about that kind of thing. But you knew about Jonathan and you never said a word.”