A Cutthroat Business

by Jenna Bennett

  “He had me cornered in the library,” I explained. “I guess he thought she was passed out in the kitchen, but then we heard her crawling down the corridor. Walker left me and threw himself on her.”

  “So he killed Miz Puckett, did he? And the other one, too? Miz Webster?”

  I nodded.

  “And said he’d kill you? You’re gonna have to come downtown with us and make a statement. Detective Grimaldi’s gonna wanna talk to you.”

  “My pleasure,” I said. “Just let me lock up here first. Um... how about if I follow you in my car? I don’t really want to share the squad car with Walker. And that way I can drive Mrs. Jenkins home first. Unless you’re going to need to talk to her, too?”

  Officer Spicer glanced at her, sitting there on the floor muttering to herself, with tiny trickles of blood running down her legs and face from the slide along the hardwoods. “I don’t think we need bother with that. Ain’t nothing she can tell us that we can’t get from you. And she oughta have some medical attention, anyway. Them scratches ain’t too bad, but the old bird got the wind knocked out of her pretty bad. You want I should radio for an ambulance?”

  I shook my head. “I think it’ll be faster just to drive her down to the nursing home. It’s just down the street — you know that — and I’m sure they’re equipped to take care of minor cuts and bruises. Would you mind getting her situated in my car — it’s the blue Volvo — while I lock the door? I’ll come back for my things later.”

  “Sure thing.” Spicer grabbed old Mrs. Jenkins under her arms and heaved her to her feet. She was too shook up even to attempt to bite him. While he loaded her into the passenger seat, I blew out the candles before I locked the door and hurried around the car and into the driver’s seat. With Mrs. J dozing beside me, I steered with one hand and dialed the cell phone with the other. (Bad, I know, but I figured Spicer and Truman had better things to do just now than bust me for illegal cell phone use.)

  “Pawn shop,” a gruff voice muttered. I hesitated.

  “Didn’t you say ‘car lot’ last time?”

  “Beg pardon?”

  “Never mind. I’m looking for Rafe Collier.”

  “Nobody here by that name,” the voice said.

  “Don’t give me that,” I retorted. Mother would have quailed. “It’s Wendell, isn’t it? We met yesterday, when you drove me to Fidelio’s Restaurant. I have a message for Rafe. Get hold of him, please, and tell him that his grandmother has had an accident and needs his help. I’m on my way to the police station, or I’d stay with her myself. And while he’s at it, tell him to get her out of that god-awful place and into someplace nicer, or I’ll do it myself. Can you do that for me?”

  Wendell agreed, somewhat reluctantly, that he could, and I reverted to good manners before I hung up, just long enough to thank him.

  Rafe wasn’t there yet when Mrs. Jenkins and I got to the Milton House, but I didn’t really have time to wait around for him — there was no telling where he was or how long it would take Wendell to track him down; he could be in Sweetwater for all I knew! — so I washed Mrs. Jenkins’s scratches and put her to bed. I extracted a promise from her that she wouldn’t leave before he came, although I wasn’t positive she knew who I was talking about. The ordeal with Walker and the gun seemed to have scattered what little wits she had.

  That done, I headed into downtown, back to police headquarters. And things were very different this time around. I found a parking space on the street nearby and went in through the visitors’ entrance. And I didn’t wait for more than two minutes before Detective Grimaldi herself appeared to escort me upstairs. She ushered me into another interview room; friendlier than the one I’d seen last week, and with no two-way mirror. I guess I had graduated from suspect to witness.

  “Would you like something to drink? Diet Coke, right?”

  I accepted the offer of a drink, and she went and got it herself, along with a can of Dr. Pepper. Another sign of approbation, I thought, if she’d unbent far enough to have a soda with me.

  She sat down on the other side of the table and popped the top on the Dr. Pepper. “Officer Spicer tells me I have you to thank for the apprehension of Mr. Lamont.”

  I shrugged modestly.

  “So tell me about it. From the beginning.”

  I took a sip of Diet Coke and began. “Walker Lamont is my boss. He owns Walker Lamont Realty, and has for about 20 years.”

  Detective Grimaldi opened her mouth to say something — probably that she didn’t expect me to begin quite that far back — and I continued, before she could protest, “He grew up in some hick town somewhere in Kentucky, with a redneck daddy who used to take him hunting. He told me about it earlier. And you may want to look into what happened to his father, because I wouldn’t be surprised if Walker shot him. He said it was a hunting accident. Very tragic.”

  Grimaldi shut her mouth and started taking notes. I continued. “At some point he came to Nashville, probably because as a gay man, he wasn’t happy or accepted where he was. Then he discovered that there was money and a reputation to be made in real estate. He started his own company after a while, and became both very successful, and very well respected. He was being considered for a spot on the real estate commission next year, did you know that?”

  “He didn’t mention it,” Detective Grimaldi said, jotting it down on her legal pad.

  “No reason why he would. Especially since it was the reason he killed Brenda.”

  “Is it financially beneficial?”

  I shook my head. “Oh, no. Walker isn’t concerned with money. Not that he doesn’t have plenty, but I think he cares more about his reputation and his standing in the real estate community. Being invited to join the real estate commission is an honor. The rest of the world couldn’t care less, but to those of us in the business, it’s a very big deal.”

  “And Mrs. Puckett was a threat to his realizing that?”

  I nodded. “Walker’s responsible for all the rest of us. His job is to keep the agents under him in line. That only goes as far as we allow, of course, and I can’t imagine that Brenda allowed much interference, but the buck still stops — stopped — with him. When Brenda took 101 Potsdam as a net listing, she broke the law, and even if he didn’t have anything to do with it on the front end, the responsibility was ultimately his, as her boss.”

  “What’s a net listing?” Grimaldi wanted to know.

  I explained how a net listing works and why it’s illegal to take one, while she took notes.

  “So once word got out that Mrs. Puckett had taken this net listing, Mr. Lamont would be held responsible right along with her, and that would put his appointment to the real estate commission in jeopardy?”

  I nodded. “If it had been a one time occurrence, maybe not, but I think that sort of thing may have been going on a lot. Brenda had already been investigated by the commission once. And Alexandra Puckett told me that she had a habit of handling certain paperwork and listings outside the office, to keep the details from Walker.”

  “Why didn’t he just fire her?”

  I shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe he didn’t dare to. If her files are full of illegal deals, she could still cause trouble. And he probably liked the money she brought in. She was insanely successful, you know. Plus, Mrs. Jenkins really isn’t capable of taking care of the house, so in a way, Brenda was doing her a favor. Or would have been, if she’d treated Mrs. Jenkins fairly and paid her what the house was worth.”

  “What changed his mind?” Detective Grimaldi was scribbling busily now.

  I hesitated. It wasn’t really my place to reveal any of this, but on the other hand, it was just a matter of time before it became public knowledge anyway. Grimaldi arched her brows at me, and I sighed.

  “It’s just a guess, but I think that when Rafael Collier called Brenda the Thursday before she died, he may have asked questions about the owner of 101 Potsdam. You see, it turns out that Tondalia Jenkins is his grandmother.”

&n
bsp; I explained the convoluted story behind Rafe’s birth, trying not to feel like I was gossiping. It didn’t work, and I was squirming guiltily by the time I finished.

  Detective Grimaldi fixed me with a steely stare. “How long have you known this? Is it definite?”

  “As definite as it can be, when all the people involved are dead. He showed me a picture of Tyrell Jenkins, the way Tyrell looked at the time he died, and the resemblance is scary. Mrs. Jenkins probably has a photo she can show you, and you can see for yourself.”

  “So Mr. Collier was asking Mrs. Puckett questions about the Jenkins-family when he called her last Thursday?”

  “I think he probably was. He would have been cautious, I think, but he may have dug deep enough to put Brenda’s back up. Maybe she told Walker, or maybe she just told Clarice, and he overheard. There wasn’t much going on in the office that he didn’t know about. Either way, I think he probably realized that Rafe was someone who might cause trouble, and he decided to take care of the problem.”

  “Why not just remove Mr. Collier?”

  “It was probably simpler and easier to get rid of Brenda. Rafe was an unknown entity who wouldn’t have stood still to have his throat slit, plus Brenda might have done it again. Or something else that would ruin Walker’s reputation. He’d be much safer with her out of the way. And I wouldn’t be surprised if he hoped Rafe would be suspected of it. Two birds with one stone, and all that.”

  “Makes sense,” Grimaldi said, writing. I nodded. It did. Unfortunately.

  “Walker may have offered to come with her on Saturday morning, or maybe she asked him to come, for protection.”

  I explained my reasoning with regards to Clarice, Heidi, and Tim. Grimaldi nodded understanding. While she was busy writing, I waited, hesitating over Maurice Washington and the check. In the end, I decided that nothing would be gained by mentioning either. If Rafe and I hadn’t shown up, Maurice would probably have gotten around to reporting the death himself eventually. Anonymously, of course.

  “And Mrs. Webster?”

  “Clarice knew Walker had gone out that morning with Brenda. She tried to blackmail him. See, she blackmailed Brenda fifteen years ago ― that was how she came to be working for Brenda in the first place ― and she was still doing it when Brenda died. I guess with Brenda gone, Clarice wanted to find another source of income.”

  “What did she have on Mrs. Puckett?”

  I explained about the Kress-building and Mr. Webster’s suicide, and Detective Grimaldi nodded. “We know about that. I guess I just didn’t realize that what was happening was blackmail. It seemed like a straight-forward business contract.”

  “It was a straight-forward business contract. That’s the beauty of it. But Clarice should have been working for five hundred bucks a week, not taking home almost half of what Brenda made. Brenda must have been desperate to agree to something like that...!”

  “Not as desperate as Mr. Lamont,” Detective Grimaldi said dryly. “I take it he agreed to meet Mrs. Webster’s demands, and then accompanied her home and killed her, using the same knife he had used to kill Brenda Puckett, to make it seem as if Mrs. Webster had killed Mrs. Puckett.”

  “That’s what he said. And then he probably went over to her house on Friday morning to ‘discover’ her, just in case you came across his DNA there.”

  Grimaldi nodded. “It all makes sense so far. Now tell me what happened today.”

  I explained about the open house. “Then Mrs. Jenkins showed up. She’s in the habit of wandering off from the nursing home and going back to the house. And then Walker dropped by.”

  “Why?”

  I hesitated. “He didn’t have time to say. Although he had a gun with him, so maybe I said something earlier in the day that made him think I knew more than I did.”

  The thought was unsettling. The image of Walker putting bullets into his gun, each and every one of them with my name on it, gave me goosebumps up and down my arms. I hugged myself.

  “Take your time,” Grimaldi said, without a hint of condescension in her voice.

  I explained how Mrs. Jenkins had told me that Walker was a ‘bad man’, and my mistaken belief that she was confused and had mistaken him for Jim Collier.

  “I think Old Jim shot Tyrell, although I don’t know how you’d be able to prove that at this point. I doubt the Colliers were big picture-takers, although Rafe may have found a picture of his grandfather somewhere among LaDonna’s stuff. You could ask him. Or maybe the Sweetwater jail has a mug shot; Old Jim was certainly arrested enough. Mrs. Jenkins may be able to identify Old Jim from a photograph. Then again, I don’t know how reliable her identification would be. And anyway, he’s dead, so it wouldn’t really matter one way or the other. But at least you’d know.”

  I was babbling, and realized it, so I reined myself in. “Mrs. Jenkins told me he’d hurt her, that he’d shown her his gun and told her that if she told anyone she’d seen him, he’d kill her too. I thought she had confused him with Jim Collier, but when I told Walker, of course he realized that she had recognized him.”

  Detective Grimaldi nodded. “We checked with the nursing home, and she was missing for a while on Saturday morning. But they didn’t actually realize that she was gone until she came back, so they never called it in. The nurse who spoke to her said she was muttering about blood and the bad man, but apparently she frequently talks about what happened to her son, so they didn’t realize that this was anything different.”

  “Totally useless people,” I muttered. Tamara Grimaldi shrugged. “Anyway, she locked herself in the house, and when she wouldn’t open the door, Walker brought out a key. He said he’d had a spare at the office. I thought it was strange, because I’d already gotten the spare from Brenda’s desk, but I was worried about Mrs. Jenkins, so I didn’t think too much about it. I should have realized that it was the original key, the one he’d taken with him after he killed Brenda last week.”

  “There wasn’t any way that you could have known,” Tamara Grimaldi said comfortingly. “There was no reason to suspect him. We didn’t. No more than anyone else whose DNA was found in the Lincoln Navigator. He did a very good job of covering his tracks. If you hadn’t caught him for us, I’m not sure we would have been able to.”

  “Thank you very much, but sooner or later you would have gotten around to suspecting him. Or he would have made a mistake. Just out of curiosity, who did you suspect?”

  Her lips quirked. “Not you. There was nothing at all about you that led me to believe you’d be capable of cutting someone’s throat.”

  “That’s nice to know. But...”

  “I’ve been focusing a lot of attention on Mr. Collier,” Detective Grimaldi said blandly. “Like you, I found it suspicious that he had arranged to meet Mrs. Puckett to see the house when he didn’t have the financial resources to buy it. And of course he already has a record for violence...”

  “Billy Scruggs had beaten LaDonna. Rafe’s mother. She was too ashamed, or maybe too afraid, to report it.”

  “None of that is in the arrest report,” Grimaldi said. I shook my head.

  “Rafe wouldn’t have said anything about it. Not if his mother didn’t want it to come out. But I asked and he told me.”

  “And you believed him?”

  I shrugged. “He didn’t have any reason to lie. Anyway, when we got inside, Walker pulled out a gun and threatened to kill us both. I kept him talking for as long as I could because I was hoping that the nursing home had called the police again. When the car pulled up outside and distracted Walker, I pushed Mrs. Jenkins out of the way and ran. He followed me. Just when I thought he was going to kill me, we heard Mrs. Jenkins crawl down the hallway, and he turned around and went after her instead.”

  “I’ve heard Officer Spicer’s report,” Grimaldi nodded, with an expression that might almost have been a smile in someone less severe. “Good job with the lipstick.”

  “It was nothing.”

  This time it was a real
smile, no doubt about it. It transformed her angular face, and made her almost attractive. “Well, Ms. Martin, unless you have something to add, I think that’s it for now. I’ll have a statement typed up for you to sign. How about I contact you tomorrow?”

  I said that that would be just fine, and left. On the way home from picking up my open house paraphernalia from 101 Potsdam Street, I drove by the Milton House Nursing Home, and when I didn’t see Rafe’s motorcycle in the parking lot I stopped and went in, just to make sure that everything was all right. But when I inquired in the lobby, I was informed that Tondalia Jenkins had moved out suddenly, leaving no forwarding address. The nurse on duty this weekend was different from the one who’d been here afternoons during the week. She had no idea who I was, and when I asked if Mrs. Jenkins had left with her grandson, she said she was sure she had no idea, and popped a pink bubblegum bubble in my face. I smiled sweetly and gave her my business card, “in case you have need of a Realtor,” and went home.

  Chapter 21.

  The weekly sales meeting on Monday morning was interesting. Most people had no idea that Walker had been arrested, and for the first few minutes after I imparted the news, everyone was buzzing. Several people refused to believe it, and I guess I couldn’t blame them. I hadn’t believed it myself, until I had no other choice.

  Then Detective Grimaldi appeared and addressed the assembly, explaining that Walker had in fact confessed to murdering Brenda and Clarice. She refused to go into detail, although Tim said, with a malicious gleam in his baby-blue eyes, that he, for one, wasn’t surprised. Detective Grimaldi didn’t dignify his statement with an answer, other than to advise him that if he had something of importance to say, if he would please contact her privately. Tim smirked.

  To my, and I’m sure several of the others’, surprise, Walker had, at some point, arranged for Tim to take over the management of the office if something were to happen to Walker himself. Heidi Hoppenfeldt and I shared an uncomfortable moment of unity as we both contemplated the fact that we would have to work for Tim from now on. I wasn’t sure I had it in me, and from the expression on Heidi’s round face, she seemed to feel the same way.