Sunset in Old Savannah

by Mary Ellis

  Tonight when she said her prayers, she would make sure to pray for Nate to be in an exceptionally good mood when he received the news. After some of his cousin Nicki’s shenanigans in New Orleans and some of hers in Natchez, Nate might not want a third high-maintenance investigator on the payroll, but Beth sure hoped he did. Because from the first time she met Kaitlyn, she liked her. Even if they had to take on the Florida mob to keep her alive.

  Right now, however, she had a murder to solve. Beth punched Crystal’s address into the car’s GPS. If Bonnie took twenty thousand dollars from the Doyles, ostensibly to start a new life, maybe some of it ended up in Crystal’s pocket. After all, if your best friend was providing an alibi for the night your lover was murdered, wouldn’t you want to share some of your newfound wealth? If Crystal suddenly retracted her statement, Bonnie would have both motive and means. Beth wanted to see how much silence cost these days.

  For the next thirty minutes, she inched through congested city streets and crawled along behind a school bus with no opportunity to pass. Traffic didn’t improve until she reached the outskirts of Savannah, five minutes from Crystal’s ramshackle farmhouse. But as Beth drove down the rutted lane, it wasn’t local residents returning home after work who clogged her path. Four police cars, with blue and red lights spinning, sat along the road or cockeyed on the lawn. The crime tech van pulled into the driveway just as Beth parked across the street.

  If she were smart, she would have hightailed it out of there, because one of the police vehicles belonged to none other than Diane Rossi of the Tybee Island Police Department. But after pondering a few moments, Beth decided tomorrow would be a better day to turn over a new leaf.

  “Hi, Detective Rossi,” she called as she approached. “Don’t look now, but we’re on the mainland. Not a single seagull or sandy beach in sight.”

  “If my memory serves, Miss Kirby, you’re from Natchez, Mississippi. So you have real nerve asking what I’m doing here.”

  “That’s an excellent point.” Beth grinned. “Let’s call it a draw. Mind sharing what’s going on?”

  Rossi said something to the uniformed officer on her left, and he wandered off. Then she focused her attention on Beth. “This is called an active investigation at a crime scene. I am police and you are not, so no, we won’t call this a draw. Didn’t I make it sufficiently clear to your partner you’re not to interfere in police business?”

  “Yes, ma’am, you did.” Beth looked appropriately penitent. “But how could I interfere in something I’m clueless about? I’m here to question Miss Callahan about twenty thousand dollars of Mrs. Doyle’s money. I would like to know if any of it ended up in her pocket. What’s the ambulance for? Did something happen to Crystal’s grandmother?”

  With an exaggerated sigh, Rossi pressed her clipboard to her chest. “I’m afraid you’re too late to ask Miss Callahan any questions. If she took someone’s money, she won’t be using it in the hereafter. Someone shot her in the head.”

  Beth felt her gut tighten. She’d met Crystal in the coffee shop and in the alley down the block. The girl had acted haughty and bold in her six-inch platform shoes and violet-streaked hair. But the idea of someone so young dying made Beth sick to her stomach. She staggered back a step.

  Rossi reached out and grabbed her arm. “You all right, Kirby?”

  “I…I knew the girl. I mean, not well, but she gave me pointers on getting a job at Cool Beans. It’s a long story.” Beth looked the detective in the eye. “Tell me what happened…please. I promise not to cross the crime scene tape or mess up your investigation.”

  Rossi pulled her several feet away from the milling lab techs. “We don’t know much yet. Crystal lived in the back of the house. She came and went pretty much on her own. Her mother is dead and her dad’s in jail. Her grandmother lives in the front four rooms, but the woman is almost deaf and walks with a cane. She and Crystal ate one or two meals a week together, but Grandma was asleep in her recliner when the police arrived. She never heard the sirens, let alone any shots.”

  “The grandmother didn’t find the body?”

  “Nope. The next-door neighbor saw Crystal’s cat out in the yard, which isn’t supposed to happen. The cat never goes outside because it’s declawed. So the neighbor caught the cat and brought it home as a favor to the Callahans. She found the back door wide open and Crystal lying facedown on the living room rug. The neighbor called 9-1-1.”

  Beth gazed up at the gabled two-story house. It had a certain charm, despite needing a fresh coat of paint and the bushes trimmed. It was the kind of gingerbread house that storybook characters lived in. But Crystal and her deaf grandmother wouldn’t have a happy ending.

  She refocused on Rossi. “No forced entry?”

  “Nope. Looks like she let the killer in. And nothing was ransacked, either.”

  “Sounds like Crystal knew her killer.”

  “That’s my take on this too. Crystal opened the back door; they chitchatted, and then she went into the living room. She must not have felt threatened or she wouldn’t have turned her back on him…or her. Two shots, close range, from maybe four or five feet. We’ll know more later, but that’s all you’re going to know, which is probably more than you should. I trust you can find your way to your car.”

  “Was she shot with a small-caliber gun—like a thirty-eight?”

  “Like I said, we’ll know more later.” Rossi’s features hardened. “By the way, there was no big pile of cash scattered around the room, so Mrs. Doyle won’t be getting her money back anytime soon.”

  “Do you realize what this means? Crystal was Bonnie Mulroney’s alibi for the night Lamar Doyle died—an alibi I thought was totally phony.”

  “It’s so like you to put two and two together and end up with seven.” Rossi shook her head. “Most likely, whatever this is”—she hooked her thumb toward the house—“it has nothing to do with the Doyle homicide. Probably a lovers’ quarrel that ended badly for Crystal.”

  “If that was really what you thought, Detective, you wouldn’t have shown up. Savannah Homicide could have handled a run-of-the-mill shooting. You and I both know this is connected. We just don’t know how.”

  With her retort delivered, and before Detective Rossi had her hauled off the Callahan property in handcuffs, Beth jumped into the Mustang and drove away. She hoped Kaitlyn didn’t want her car for a pizza run, because Beth needed to make one more stop. She planned to clear up what happened to Mrs. Doyle’s money, and maybe a whole lot more.

  THIRTY-THREE

  Bonnie Mulroney had never seen three hours pass so slowly in her life. Twenty thousand dollars had been in an envelope on her table? Lamar had apparently left it lying around like a few bucks for the babysitter.

  Ever since that Preston guy dropped his little bombshell, all she could think about was one thing: Who came into her apartment after she left in a huff? Because that person was the lowest form of life on the planet. What would she have done with that kind of cash? Buy a pair of shoes that didn’t hurt her feet? Get her hair cut at one of those fancy salons by the river? Maybe get new tires for her Honda?

  The entire time Bonnie ran the cash register at Cool Beans, made lattes and iced coffees, and wiped down tables, she mulled over the list of people with keys to her apartment. Could Lamar have changed his mind and come back for the money? Not likely. The man had never been anything but generous toward her. That building superintendent has a key to everyone’s unit. But lately the woman had been cutting her some slack. So why would she barge in now when they were starting to get along?

  When Bonnie pulled off her smock and punched out for the day, she knew of only one person who could have stolen her money. Lenny Mulroney. That man had taken her keys one day with the trumped-up story of making a copy of her car key just in case she ever locked herself out of her Honda. He probably made copies of all her keys, because that was the kind of sly conniver he was. The first thing she would do if she got her money back was move far away from he
r brother.

  This hadn’t been a good day to save on parking and ride the dot to work. Now she had to ride a crowded bus all the way up Price and then walk five blocks to Bull Street while planning what she would say to Lenny.

  Once she was inside her apartment, Bonnie peered around the decorated rooms. All Lamar had had to do was call a number and people showed up with furniture, bedding, stuff for the kitchen, and even pictures for the walls. Was that what it was like to be rich? Was that how her life would have been? Just pick up the phone and anything she needed would be sent right over? But instead, in six months Cinderella’s gilded carriage would turn back into a pumpkin. Bonnie picked up her favorite vase and threw it at the wall, where it shattered into pieces. Nothing would ever be the same again. She needed to get her money back from Lenny. Then she would have a chance. She and Crystal could find jobs someplace else—maybe Charleston or Myrtle Beach. And she would forget this nightmare with the Doyles ever happened.

  Bonnie changed clothes, loaded the beer Lamar had left in the refrigerator into a cooler, and locked the door behind her. If she hurried, she could get inside her former home before Lenny returned from work. She would make sure no sharp objects were lying around during their discussion. Along the way, traffic moved slowly enough for her to view the subtle change in the neighborhood. Funny thing about old buildings. The Bull Street apartment was in the historic section of town, where real estate cost big bucks and neighborhood associations made sure each blade of grass never surpassed a certain height. Nothing was historic or preserved in the neighborhood Lenny lived in. Clapboard shotguns on narrow lots had peeling paint, tin roofs, and yards with more weeds than grass. Home, sweet home.

  Bonnie parked in the gravel driveway and slipped inside. According to her watch, she had exactly thirty-five minutes to pack up whatever she still wanted from this place. Because when she was forced to leave Bull Street, she’d rather die than come back here.

  When Beth circled the block of the Bull Street apartment and spotted Bonnie’s car, she whispered a prayer of gratitude. It was parked in its assigned spot, cockeyed as usual. Bonnie must be upstairs, maybe packing for a quick getaway. She was someone Crystal would have let inside and turned her back on without a second thought.

  Could this skinny little blonde be a murderer of not one but two people? Hard to imagine, but murderers came in all shapes and sizes.

  Beth unsnapped her seat belt, but before she could climb from the vehicle, Bonnie emerged from the front entrance of Lamar’s former love nest. She ran down the steps and jumped into her car. Considering that she almost sideswiped a Lincoln as she peeled out, the girl was in a big hurry. Beth followed her down Wheaton Street onto Bonaventure Road at a discreet distance. Fortunately, the car’s shade of neon yellow made the Honda easy to keep in sight.

  Soon neat rows of brick mansions behind wrought iron fences or manicured hedgerows gave way to small, unkempt homes interspersed between commercial establishments of various types and condition. The buildings might not be as old, but the neighborhood lacked the charm of the historic section. Some homes were well cared for, while others reflected either poverty or elderly residents unable to do maintenance.

  Bonnie turned into the driveway of a white, two-story house with green shutters and stopped. At least it had been white once upon a time. Now most of the paint had peeled away, leaving bare wood rapidly deteriorating. Two shingles were missing, while a third hung precariously from a single nail. In one upstairs window, tattered lace curtains fluttered in the breeze, the screen long gone.

  Beth pressed the button to lower her window and slouched low as she drove past. Bonnie wouldn’t recognize the Mustang, but she certainly knew her and wouldn’t be happy to see her. With a cigarette clenched between her teeth, Bonnie sprinted up the concrete steps into the house, letting the screen door slam behind her. Beth drove to the end of the narrow street and turned around. Anywhere she parked along the street would make her highly visible as she approached the house.

  A small church stood at the end of the block. Beth parked Kaitlyn’s car under a mercury vapor security light, locked the doors, and assessed the area. The sidewalk offered no more protection than the street, but a set of train tracks ran behind the homes on Bonnie’s side of the street. Climbing over a chain-link fence, Beth started down the tracks. A scant three feet separated the tracks from steep embankments on either side. She hoped these tracks weren’t as busy as those running behind her mother’s house in Natchez.

  Beth counted houses as she crept along the tracks and hopped the fence at what she believed to be the Mulroney backyard. Peeling paint, green shutters, and lace curtains flapping in the breeze told her she counted correctly. At least no vicious watchdog prowled the property on guard duty. When Beth saw a child’s rusty swing set, a sandbox full of water instead of sand, and a bicycle chained to a post, she felt a pang of pity. Does Bonnie have a child from a previous relationship? Is that why she longed for the stability and financial security of Lamar Doyle?

  In the distance, Beth heard a train whistle, doubtlessly on the same tracks she just walked. She picked her way through tall weeds to a metal storage shed filled with gardening implements and cast-off housewares, most of them broken. From this vantage point, Beth had a clear view of the side and back doors, along with the driveway in front of the shed. She didn’t have long to ponder her next move.

  A rusty pickup truck with knobby tires—tires that had to be worth more than the truck—pulled into the drive and screeched to a stop. The man who climbed from the driver’s side made Beth glad she was carrying her weapon. He was tall, with sinewy muscles beneath his T-shirt, and biceps that stretched his sleeves to the limit. He had stringy blond hair halfway down his back, a scraggly goatee, and a pockmarked complexion. When Beth noticed clumps of dried mud on the bumper and wheels, the words of Mrs. Johnson, the nosy neighbor on Bull Street, came drifting back. “I wouldn’t want to run into Scraggly Beard late at night.” Was this Bonnie’s current or ex-husband—Lenny Mulroney? If so, he was quite a step down on the socioeconomic ladder from Lamar Doyle. Although Miss Mulroney’s ethical code left much to be desired, she was at least well groomed and reasonably attractive.

  The man pulled off his ball cap, tossed it into the cab, and slicked a hand through his hair. But before he took two steps, Bonnie bounded out the side door, reaching him in four or five strides.

  “I’ve been waitin’ to talk to you.” She didn’t look happy as she lit up a cigarette.

  “I figured there must be a good reason why you’d come back,” snarled Scraggly Beard. “Now that you got that rich man’s place to live in.” He lifted a soft-sided cooler from the back of the truck.

  “Yeah, well, that rich man also gave me twenty thousand bucks. Me, Lenny, not you!” Bonnie crossed her arms over her chest, her fingers bunching into fists.

  “Is that so? Then what are you doing here? If he gave you that kind of money, you shouldn’t need to borrow ten bucks from me.”

  “You know very well why I’m here. Somebody stole that envelope of cash from my kitchen table. And I know that somebody was you!” Although almost a foot shorter, Bonnie arched up on tiptoes and jabbed a finger into his chest.

  Lenny knocked away her hand. “Keep your voice down, you little fool. You want the whole neighborhood crawlin’ through our windows tonight, trying to rob us?”

  “I don’t care who hears me! I know you copied my house key when you copied the key to my Honda. I want that money so I can get out of town.”

  In plain view of passing cars or anyone out for an evening stroll, Lenny picked Bonnie up by the shoulders and shook her like a rag doll. “After all I’ve done for you, you want to make a fresh start away from me?” He apparently didn’t care who overheard them now.

  From where Beth watched, hidden by an overgrown forsythia bush, she felt a pang of pity for Bonnie. How on earth did she get mixed up with this loser? As much as the two charmers probably deserved each other, she hated to see
a man intimidating a woman. Yet at the moment, Beth needed to withhold compassion long enough to find Lamar Doyle’s killer.

  “All those years I put food on the table, a roof over your head, and bought the clothes on your back!” Lenny shouted. “So any cash that comes your way rightfully belongs to me!” He gave Bonnie another rough shake.

  Possible motives swam through Beth’s brain. Did Bonnie and Lenny plan the murder together? Had they been blackmailing Lamar and then become incensed when he confessed his sins to Evelyn?

  When Lenny released her shoulders, Bonnie staggered back but quickly regained her footing and just as quickly changed her attitude. “You’re right about us not talking about this out here,” she said, soft as a cat’s purr. “Are you hungry? Let’s go inside and I’ll fix you something good to eat.”

  “What’s your idea of ‘something good’? Macaroni and cheese out of a box?” Nevertheless, Lenny’s ugly scowl softened as he stomped up the steps. “How come you never invited me to dinner at that rich old man’s fancy apartment?”

  Bonnie’s reply was lost to Beth as the pair entered the house, the screen door slamming behind them. She turned off her phone so any signals for incoming texts or new emails wouldn’t draw attention to her. Ducking low, she crept around the shed and zigzagged between obstacles to the bushes behind the house. From the gingham-patterned curtains, she surmised her new position was beneath the kitchen window.

  “Would you like a beer?” Bonnie’s question drifted through the open window. “I brought the Amstel Lamar had in the refrigerator.”