A Cutthroat Business

by Jenna Bennett

  Todd nodded. “How did you know?”

  “I met her out at the Bog yesterday. She seemed to think that Rafe had brought me out there, and she was quite alarmingly possessive of him. Poor man.”

  “Cletus?”

  “Rafe. Have you ever seen her? She’s as big as a barn. She’d squash him like a bug.”

  Todd muttered something.

  “So how does Cletus look today?” I added maliciously.

  Todd grimaced. “He has a black eye and a split lip, not to mention sore ribs. Collier’s not the kind of guy I’d want to tangle with.”

  I shook my head. Me, neither. In any sense of the word.

  It was late by the time I got home. I was alone; Todd didn’t suggest coming in, and if he hinted, the hints were too subtle for me to pick up on. He did kiss me, but it was a friendly, non-invasive kiss, and I didn’t hold it against him

  “I had a good time,” he said, clutching my hand and looking deeply into my eyes. I nodded. I’d had a good time, too. Or as good as can be expected, considering that I’d had to dwell on my ex-husband and the failure of my marriage. “I’d like to do it again sometime.”

  “I’m available,” I said brightly. “Any time you’re up this way, just give me a call.”

  Todd said he’d take me up on that. I smiled and pecked him on the cheek. “Thanks, Todd. Drive carefully.”

  Todd promised he would. “You be careful, too. Don’t go into any empty houses with anyone you don’t know. I’d hate to see you end up like Brenda Puckett.”

  “That makes two of us. I’ll be careful.” I ducked through the door and into the apartment before my face could give me away. I’m not a good liar, and I was pretty sure Todd wouldn’t consider going back to 101 Potsdam Street in the company of Rafe Collier being particularly careful.

  Morning came all too soon, and I took a shower and brushed my teeth and did my hair and put on make-up and managed to get to Potsdam Street a little after eight. Rafe was there before me, sitting on the front steps in the bright glare of the sun, looking disgustingly awake for this time of the morning. “Big date last night?” he inquired dryly when I stopped in front of him. I grimaced.

  “Do I look that bad?”

  “There are bags under your eyes and you forgot to put on glitter.”

  He tugged one of his ears to show me what he meant. I felt my own earlobes — they were empty — and squinted suspiciously. “Are you a detective or something?”

  That suggestion earned me an honest to goodness, full-throated laugh. “God forbid. No, darlin’, just a man who likes looking at women.”

  “From what I understand,” I said snidely, “that’s what got you that black eye, too.”

  He grinned. “You been asking the sheriff about me?”

  I shrugged.

  “Yeah, ole Cletus got a little carried away. Not the first time, neither. Seemed to mind me talking to Marquita.”

  “That’s what I heard.”

  “As it happens, ain’t nothing going on with Marquita and me. And it ain’t Cletus’s business anyhow. She left him.”

  “So I understand,” I said.

  Rafe squinted at me. “Ain’t no business of yours, neither, come to think of it.”

  “I guess not. So are you ready to go inside?” I smiled brightly.

  He looked at me for a second — debating whether or not to push me further, probably — then got to his feet. “Sure.”

  “Let me just open the door for you, and you can look around as much as you want.” I got the new key out of the lockbox and into the lock. “There you go. Have fun.”

  I pushed the door open and smiled him in. He didn’t move.

  “After you, darlin’.”

  “I think I’ll just stay out here, if you don’t mind.”

  He grinned. “Scared?”

  I shrugged.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll protect you from the ghostly ghoulies.” He lifted his arms and wiggled his fingers suggestively, in the manner of ghostly ghoulies everywhere. Muscles bunched under the tight sleeves of the T-shirt.

  “Did it ever occur to you that maybe I’m afraid of you?” I said.

  Obviously it hadn’t, because he looked stunned. For just a second before his face and eyes were smooth and under control again. His voice was light. “Can’t say as it did, darlin’. But now that I know, I’ll be sure to keep my distance.” He ducked through the door before I had time to answer. I pulled a face. I hadn’t meant it that way, exactly.

  In the end I stayed outside just long enough to — hopefully — give him time to simmer down before I went inside. “Rafe?”

  “In here.” The voice came from the back of the house. I headed that way.

  “What are you doing?”

  “What’s it look like I’m doing?” He was standing in the middle of the kitchen, looking around. I stepped onto the cracked vinyl and did the same.

  Back in the days when the house on Potsdam was built, the kitchen was a separate building at a safe distance from the main house. That way, the house wouldn’t catch fire if the kitchen did. As time progressed and cooking over an open flame became a thing of the past, people decided they liked the convenience of having a kitchen that was part of the house, and those houses that weren’t originally built with kitchens, had one tacked on or inserted somewhere. Back home in Sweetwater, one of the smaller rooms on the first floor has been converted to a kitchen. Here, an extra room had been added to the back of the original structure. From the looks of it, it had happened sometime in the 1930s, and nothing had changed appreciably since then, except for a new stove and refrigerator. ‘New’ being relative terms; they were avocado-green and dated from the -70s

  “This needs a complete overhaul,” I remarked, in my cheeriest, most professional tone.

  Rafe glanced over at me. “You think?” Both voice and glance were hostile.

  “Look,” I said, “about what I said earlier...”

  He shook his head. “No need to apologize. Delicate lady like yourself, ain’t surprising you get twitchety ‘round somebody like me.”

  Twitchety? “You make it sound like I’m a hundred years old,” I said. “I’m not twitchety. And even if I were, I think anyone would agree I have reason to be careful, knowing what I know about you.”

  “And what do you know about me?” He turned his entire body towards me. It seemed I had made the mistake of getting his undivided attention. Not something I wanted. I took an unobtrusive half-step back, and saw his lips quirk. “Scared?” He moved a little closer.

  “Should I be?” My voice was steadier than I felt, but with a slight wobble nonetheless.

  He grinned. “I don’t know. Should you?”

  I hesitated. Probably. Here I was, in an empty house — a house where another woman had been murdered less than a week ago — and I was alone, except for an ex-convict who had had the opportunity to kill her, and who was leaning over me, looking like he wouldn’t mind taking a bite. He was close enough that I could feel his breath stirring the hair at my temple. It took all my self-control to say coolly, “If I thought I was in any danger, I wouldn’t have agreed to meet you. And, of course, I told my office where I was going and with whom.”

  Rafe nodded sagely. “Course.”

  He straightened up and added, “So if anything happens to you, they’ll know I did it. Smart.”

  I nodded. It would have been, yes. A pity I hadn’t thought of it until now.

  He stepped back, giving me the chance to breathe again, and as he did, we could hear footsteps in the front part of the house. Slow, dragging steps, coming closer. My heart started beating faster. Rafe took a step forward, between me and the doorway. It must have been one of those automatic guy-things, for I certainly hadn’t given him any reason to want to protect me.

  The footsteps turned into the hall. I held my breath. Any moment now, we’d be able to see someone through the open door. Rafe shifted his weight, distributing it properly for a fight. His muscles tensed and
he flexed his hands. I could see what Todd had meant when he said that he wouldn’t want to tangle with Rafe. I wouldn’t want to tangle with him either, although there was no denying that the way he moved, smooth and controlled like a predatory animal, was beautiful.

  The footsteps stopped. Then a quavering voice called out, “Who’s there?”

  Chapter 7.

  I started breathing again as a small, shriveled, black woman stepped into the doorway. Her face was so wrinkled she resembled a raisin, but she looked like she might have been pretty in her youth. At the moment, her gray hair was sticking out every which way, as if no one had taken the trouble to comb it for several days, and she was wearing a stained and faded housecoat and fuzzy, blue slippers. She blinked from one to the other of us. Rafe relaxed, although he didn’t move away from me.

  “Morning, ma’am.” His voice was surprisingly polite, with the merest hint of a tremor. Maybe he hadn’t been as unaffected as he had appeared.

  The old lady squinted at him, then shuffled a couple of steps closer. Finally, a toothless smile spread over her face and she put her hand on his arm. Her quavery voice was delighted. “Tyrell! I ain’t seen you in forever. Why didn’t you tell me you was comin’, you naughty boy?”

  “Who’s Tyrell?” I murmured. Rafe didn’t respond. His attention was focused on the beaming ancient in front of him.

  “I didn’t know it myself till just now.”

  “Well, it’s great to see you, baby! And lookit here! Who’s this you brought home to show your mama?”

  She peered around him to me. I smiled politely. She smiled back, widely, before she focused her attention back on Rafe. Or Tyrell, as he clearly was to her. She lowered her voice, and seemed to think I wouldn’t be able to hear. “She’s a looker, ain’t she? But them ain’t breedin’ hips, boy. You sure she’ll be able to get that baby out?”

  I sniffed. This remark was offensive on so many levels I wasn’t even sure I had caught them all. I could see from the tightening of Rafe’s lips that he was suppressing something — a grin, most likely — but his voice was soothing. “She’ll be fine.”

  The woman smiled back. “You’re lookin’ out for her, ain’t you, boy?” She reached up — way up; she was barely five feet tall — and patted him on the cheek.

  A car door slammed outside, and just as quickly as that, the atmosphere in the kitchen changed. The old woman stiffened, and her hitherto vague brown eyes became sharper. “They’re comin’ for me.” She glanced over her shoulder towards the front hall. “Filthy cops. You won’t let’em take me away, will you, Tyrell?”

  Rafe hesitated, for just long enough to make her take another look at him. Something seemed to switch over in her brain, and her eyes narrowed. “You ain’t my Tyrell. What’re you doin’ in my house? Help! Intruders! Help! Help!”

  Rafe took a step back, straight into me. I grabbed hold of him to steady myself while outside in the hallway, someone picked up speed and came barreling through the door, fetching up in the kitchen with a gun in both hands. I did my best to shrink behind Rafe’s bigger frame. The old woman shrieked and crumpled in a heap on the floor. Rafe lifted his hands slowly, in the universal gesture of surrender.

  “Christ!” a disgusted voice outside the door said. “Put the gun away before you shoot someone.”

  Officer Truman flushed and lowered the weapon just as Officer Spicer came trotting through the door. He took in the situation at a glance, and didn’t seem too surprised. I guess a beat cop gets used to seeing all sorts of things. He nodded cordially to me. “Mornin’, Miz Martin. Mr. Collier. Sorry about that. And where’s... damn, she’s fainted. Oh, well; it’ll make it easier to get her in the car. Last time she gave us a hell of a time.”

  He nodded to Truman who, having secured his gun in its holster, bent and lifted the old lady in his arms. He headed for the door with his burden, and I addressed myself to Spicer.

  “Where are you taking her?”

  Spicer didn’t seem to mind sharing the information with me. “Back to the nursing home. She keeps walking off, and they keep calling us to bring her back. Poor old bird.” He shook his head.

  “Who is she?” I asked, although I was pretty sure I already knew the answer. This had to be the homeowner; who else would worry about intruders?

  Spicer’s words confirmed my theory. “Name’s Jenkins. Lived here up till just a few weeks ago. Can’t remember it ain’t her home no more.”

  “Alzheimer’s?”

  Spicer shrugged. “Or she’s just forgetful. Happens to most of us when we hit eighty or so.”

  I nodded. When I didn’t say anything else, Spicer tipped his uniform cap and started to walk off. He stopped after a few steps and turned back. “What happened here, anyway?”

  “Oh.” I glanced at Rafe, who was standing next to me, sunk in thought. “We came back to see the house one more time. We’d only been here a few minutes when Mrs. Jenkins turned up. She must be an early riser.”

  Spicer confirmed that she was. “Old folks don’t sleep so good no more. Nursing home attendant said she disappeared before breakfast. Ain’t but a quarter mile walk.”

  I nodded. “At first she was worried about us being here, but then she seemed to think she recognized Rafe. She called him Tyrell.” I paused, hoping that Spicer could give me some more information, but if he had any, he chose not to share. “Then we heard the car door slam, and she realized you were coming. I don’t think she likes it where she lives now.”

  “Ain’t the nicest place in the world,” Spicer agreed.

  “She asked us — Rafe, really — to help her, and when he didn’t say yes right away, she must have realized he wasn’t Tyrell after all. She started screaming for help, and that’s when Truman came running in.”

  “I’ll have a talk with the boy,” Spicer grunted. “Can’t have him pulling his weapon on innocent bystanders. Though I don’t mind telling you it’ll make it easier with Mrs. J. Last time we did this, we thought we’d have to tase her.”

  “That poor old lady?”

  “Hey, lemme tell you, she can be a handful. She scratched both of us, and bit Truman. I guess I’d better get her back there before she wakes up.” He tipped the cap again and headed for the door. This time he didn’t stop. I waited until I heard the car door slam and the tires crunch before I turned to Rafe.

  “That was interesting.”

  He muttered something. I added, “Do you want to look around some more? We could go upstairs again. Or downstairs. You didn’t see the basement last time.”

  “I think I’m done. Thanks.” The ‘thanks’ was an afterthought. He sent me a distracted glance as we headed out of the kitchen.

  “No problem. So do you want the house?” I smiled optimistically.

  “Who wouldn’t want this?” He looked around at the peeling wallpaper, the dull wood floors, and the sagging ceilings.

  I grimaced. “Right.”

  “I’ll let you know.”

  “You do that. Here, why don’t you take one of my cards? That way you can call me if there’s anything you need.”

  I dug a couple of business cards out of my purse. “In fact, take several. Spread the joy.”

  He accepted the cards with a grin. “When you say ‘anything’...”

  “I mean something vaguely related to real estate. Like, you want to buy this house. Or you want to see it again. Or you want to see another house. Or you’d like the name of a good mortgage broker.”

  “Right.” He pocketed the card, although he didn’t stop smiling. I locked the front door and put the key back into the lockbox in case someone else wanted to see the place. When I straightened up, Rafe was still standing in the same spot. We looked at each other in silence for a few seconds.

  “Well...” I said finally, awkwardly, “it’s been nice seeing you again.” I was surprised to find that I sort of meant it.

  “You too.” That grin still wasn’t going anywhere.

  “I guess I’ll... um... go now.�
�� I gestured towards my car. He nodded pleasantly. “Places to go, people to see. I’ve got to stop by the office to let them know I escaped unscathed. I’ll... um... see you around.”

  “I’ll call you.”

  “Right.”

  He didn’t say anything else, so I did what I’d said I’d do, and went. Down the stairs and over to the car. Into the driver’s seat. Down the drive and through the gate. He was still standing on the porch when I turned the corner. And although I couldn’t see it, he was probably still grinning, too.

  Clarice, Tim, Heidi, and Walker had their heads together when I walked into the office. Walker was stone-faced, and Clarice looked so much like a hen that I slowed down, frowning. “What’s wrong?”

  Tim straightened up. “Well, hello, Savannah. Late night?” He smirked. I muttered something, but didn’t ask for clarification. Tim’s choice of words was bound to be a lot more cutting than Rafe’s. He added, cheerfully, “Have you seen the Voice today?”

  The Nashville Voice is a weekly paper that comes out on Thursday morning, just in time for the (long) weekend. This was the first issue since Brenda’s death, so it wasn’t surprising that they had published something about her. What I didn’t expect to see, was a six page layout with a headline that screamed ‘BRENDA PUCKETT KICKS THE BUCKET!’ in letters three inches high. The accompanying photograph showed Brenda at her worst: taken from below, so all three of her chins were prominently displayed and her elephantine calves looked like tree-trunks. Her mouth was open, as if she were yelling at someone, and she was gesturing with a finger. It wasn’t the middle finger, but it looked rude nonetheless.

  “Ouch,” I said, averting my eyes. Tim giggled.

  “This is terrible!” Clarice was wringing her hands. Heidi nodded fervently.

  “What’s the article about?” I inquired.

  It was Walker who answered, in a heavy voice. “Apparently someone has remembered that Brenda once was investigated by the real estate commission. It’s twelve or thirteen years ago now.”

  “Fifteen,” Clarice said.

  “Investigated for what?” I wanted to know.