We could. “It’s worth taking a look. I’ll call Grimaldi later.” And Alexandra. If I was driving up to Nashville tomorrow, maybe I could squeeze in a visit with her, as well. “I’ll let you know what she says.”
“I appreciate it,” Darcy said, and reached for the check when the waitress dropped it on the table. “Lunch is on me.”
“Thank you.” I reached for my bag. “I’ll call you after I talk to Detective Grimaldi. And tomorrow, we’ll go to Nashville.”
“Works for me,” Darcy said, and we headed for the door.
Five
I met Detective Tamara Grimaldi a year ago, on the occasion of Brenda Puckett’s murder. Rafe and I found the body, and we both had to go into downtown to give statements to the police. Tamara Grimaldi was the detective who caught the case, and she intimidated me at first glance. Tall and severe, in a dark business suit, with short hair, a Mediterranean nose, and a no-nonsense attitude, she was everything I’m not. And I could tell she didn’t think much of me, either.
Somehow, over the next few months, we became friends. And then Sheila was killed in November, and Grimaldi handled that case too, and met Dix. And now she’s a friend to both of us, and maybe something more to Dix. Or maybe set to become something more, when he’s ready to move on.
If he hasn’t moved on already. It isn’t something you can ask your widowed brother. But he has two daughters, not to mention Mother, and I can definitely understand why he’s taking things slow.
At any rate, I dialed Grimaldi. Who greeted me with her usual, “Ms.... Savannah.”
She’s been calling me Ms. Martin for as long as we’ve known each other. I’m Mrs. Collier now, and I guess it’s too hard to get used to, because she has finally, reluctantly, switched over to calling me by my first name. At least when she remembers to do it.
“Detective,” I said. I’m not all that comfortable with calling her Tamara, either, although if she ends up in a relationship with my brother, I guess I’ll have to.
“What can I do for you?”
“I need a favor,” I said.
And that was all I got out. “The gang unit is working with the TBI on your husband’s operation. And no, I can’t tell you anything about it. Nor can I go down there myself to keep an eye on him. I have dead bodies here that need my attention.”
Sheesh.
“I spoke to Rafe this morning,” I said and tried my best to sound dignified. “He’s fine, but he thinks there’s a meth lab next door to the duplex. But there’s nothing he can do about it right now. And that wasn’t the reason I called.”
“What’s the reason you called?”
I explained about Darcy. “You guys confiscated all the records from St. Jerome’s after Sheila died, right? Any chance we can get a look at them? Just in case Darcy was born there?”
Grimaldi hesitated. “I don’t suppose it would hurt. Although I don’t know how you’d know you had found her. Her name won’t be on the original birth certificate, if it exists, and her biological parents’ names won’t be on the amended certificate.”
“We know her birthday,” I said. “Or she does.”
“It might not be accurate, either. Her adoptive parents may have been celebrating the day they adopted her. And that could be days or even weeks after she was born.”
Dammit. I mean... darn it. I hadn’t thought of that.
“Can we still look?” No stone unturned, and so on.
“If you want to,” Grimaldi said. “I’ll have the records brought up into one of the conference rooms on this level. You can’t take them out of the building.”
I hadn’t assumed we could. “Is there a copier, so we can make a copy of something, if we find anything?”
Grimaldi said there was, and we would be allowed to do that. Just not remove any original records.
“That’s fine,” I said. “When do you want us there?”
We settled on a time, one that would give Darcy and me time to make the trek from Sweetwater to downtown Nashville. And then, before saying goodbye, Grimaldi added, “How’s your brother?”
“Dix?”
“Do you have another brother?”
I didn’t. One sister and one brother, and that was all.
“I assume he’s fine,” I said. “I haven’t seen him for a couple of days. He was at Mother’s birthday party, of course, but I didn’t have occasion to say much to him. He was talking to Todd Satterfield, and I tend to avoid Todd. And I didn’t see him yesterday. Or this morning. But if something was wrong, I’m sure Darcy would have said so.”
“She’s the receptionist, isn’t she?”
I said she was. “She’s been working for them for a couple of years. And that’s another interesting thing.” I recounted the story of the newspaper clipping Darcy had received in the mail, for a job that nobody she knew claimed to have known about.
“And no one in Sweetwater has admitted to knowing Darcy before she came to work for your brother?” Grimaldi asked.
“Not that I know of,” I said, “although she only told me that she’d asked Dix. If she asked anyone else, she didn’t say anything about it. I’ll find out.”
“She probably didn’t,” Grimaldi said. “And whoever sent the letter isn’t likely to admit it, anyway. Too obvious. But while you’re at it, you could ask her if anyone in Sweetwater has shown a special interest in her. Anyone who might have had a reason to want to get her there.”
“Like a man?”
“Or a woman. Or anyone at all.”
“I don’t think she’s dating,” I said. If she were, and wasn’t keeping it a secret, surely Mother wouldn’t have worried about Darcy setting her cap for Dix. “So it probably wasn’t a potential boyfriend. They’d be together now.”
“Not necessarily,” Grimaldi said. “It might have been someone who thought of himself as a potential boyfriend at the time, but then things didn’t work out when she got there. She either wasn’t what he expected, or she wasn’t interested. You might ask if she’s been involved with anyone in the time she’s been living there. Or if anyone’s been asking her out, but someone she hasn’t gone out with. Or even someone that she has gone out with.”
All good points.
“That’s why I’m the detective,” Grimaldi told me when I said so. “I know how to ask questions.”
“Yeah, yeah.” I made a face, one she couldn’t see. “I’ll see you tomorrow, OK? Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it,” Grimaldi said, and hung up.
I called Darcy and set up a time to pick her up so we could make the drive to Nashville together. And I didn’t mention any of the questions Grimaldi had brought up, about men and dates and whatnot. It would give us something to talk about in the car, I figured.
With that done, I dialed again. Alexandra Puckett’s number this time.
She picked up on the first ring. Like she’d been sitting beside the phone waiting for it to ring. Or more likely, like she’d had her cell phone sitting right next to her, so she could be sure she wouldn’t miss a call. Mine or someone else’s.
“Savannah!”
“Hi, Alexandra,” I said. “I’m sorry I couldn’t talk earlier.”
“That’s all right. Are you alone now?”
I said I was. “I’m back at the house.” Where it was nicely air conditioned and I could concentrate on talking instead of driving. “So what’s up?”
“I’m in trouble,” Alexandra said.
Not again. “What kind of trouble?”
I wasn’t in Nashville to be able to rescue her from another bad boyfriend situation, and Rafe couldn’t help right now, either. “If you need the police, I can give you the number for my friend Tamara Grimaldi. She’s a homicide detective, but I’m sure she can figure out whatever you need.” Drugs came to mind. Alexandra was seventeen. It’s an age when things like that happen.
“Not that kind of trouble.” Alexandra rolled her eyes. I could hear it. “I thought everybody your age knew that expression.”
/>
“What do you mean, ‘my age?’” I wanted to know. “I’m twenty-eight. That’s only eleven years older than you are.”
Alexandra did another of those audible eyerolls.
“Fine,” I said. “You’re in trouble. You...” And then it clicked. “Oh, my God. You’re not serious.”
She squirmed. I could hear that, too. “I am, sort of. I mean, I think I am.”
“You’re pregnant?”
“I think so. I mean, my period isn’t always... you know...”
“Regular,” I said. “Yes, I know.” It happens to a lot of us. And she’d already told me she was home from school today because she had vomited this morning. I should have caught on much sooner. Especially since it wasn’t that long since I’d stopped throwing up every morning myself. “Have you done a pregnancy test?”
“No,” Alexandra said. “I’m afraid to talk to the nurse at school. She’d have to call my dad. And if I go to another doctor, it’s the same thing. Plus, it’s my dad’s health insurance. He’d know I’d gone to see someone, and he’d ask why. And I was afraid that if I went to the store to buy a pregnancy test, they’d have to call him then, too. Since I’m under eighteen.”
“I don’t think there are age limits on pregnancy tests,” I said. “It’s not like cigarettes or alcohol.”
Although I could understand why she’d been worried. Last year, when I’d accidentally found myself pregnant with Rafe’s baby, out of wedlock, I hadn’t wanted to tell my family, either. And I hadn’t been seventeen and reliant on their goodwill. I’d been an adult, with my own apartment, car, and job.
But it’s hard to admit something like that, even to people who love you. Maybe especially to people who love you.
“Tell you what,” I said. “I’m actually making a trip up to Nashville tomorrow. My friend Darcy and I have to go through some files at the police station downtown. Maybe we could meet for lunch or something, and I can go out and buy a pregnancy test and give it to you, and you can use it and tell me what happens.”
“That would be OK,” Alexandra allowed cautiously.
“Great. We’ll be in downtown. You still have a car, right?” Brenda had bought her a zippy, little red Mazda Miata just before she died—a Sweet Sixteen birthday gift—and I assumed Alexandra still had it. Unless her dad had confiscated it for some reason, or she was barred from driving.
“Why don’t you meet us somewhere in East Nashville? It’ll be convenient for all of us.” Right across the bridge from the police headquarters in downtown, and down the road a couple of miles from where Alexandra lived in Brush Hill. “Do you have cravings yet? What about heartburn?”
“I’m not even sure I’m pregnant,” Alexandra said.
“Why don’t we make it simple and hit the barbeque place on Main. It’s close to downtown, and Darcy might want to get back home quickly after we’re finished at the police station.”
I didn’t have high hopes that we’d find anything at all in the files, let alone anything explosive, but just in case we did, and just in case it was bad news, we might have to make a quick getaway.
That was fine with Alexandra, and we made a date for a time I figured would give Darcy and me enough time to dig through the confiscated hospital records before we headed out, but not so late that I would be starving by the time we got there. The baby gets quite annoyed if it doesn’t get fed regularly. As it was, I’d probably have to pack a snack I could eat while we were going over adoption records.
“How’s Rafe?” Alexandra wanted to know once the arrangements for tomorrow were in place. Like Tim, she developed a crush on him pretty much as soon as they met last fall. He has that effect on women. And girls. And gay men.
And me.
I told her he was fine.
“You said he’s back undercover? I thought he wasn’t going to do that anymore.”
So had I. “It’s just for a couple of days,” I said. “One of the rookies he’s training got himself into some trouble. Different trouble than the kind you’ve got. Rafe’s trying to get him out.”
“Who’s that?”
“A kid named Jamal. Why?... Oh. You met them at the wedding, right?”
The boys had come down to Sweetwater for Rafe’s and my wedding, and of course Alexandra had been here, too. I hadn’t noticed any interaction between them, but then I’d had other things on my mind. And we hadn’t stuck around all that long, anyway, since we had to drive to Florida that afternoon for the honeymoon Catherine and Dix had arranged.
Long story.
“What’s wrong with Jamal?”
“Nothing, as far as I know. He’s joined this gang—the same one his brother was a member of...”
“Gang?” Alexandra said faintly.
“He didn’t really join. They asked him if he wanted to help avenge his brother. Members of another gang killed him. So Jamal said yes, and now he’s working to have them all arrested. And Rafe’s helping him.”
Alexandra didn’t say anything.
“That’s why I’m here and Rafe’s there,” I added. “He wanted me out of the way in case bullets started flying. And if you happen to see him in the next two days, try to remember that his name is Ry’mone. Although you might not recognize him. He has dreadlocks halfway down his back and two gold teeth.”
“Rafe?!”
“He looks awful. Although it’ll all go away again next week, so I guess it isn’t too bad. And it’s not like I have to look at him. He’s in Nashville.”
“Are you going to see him tomorrow?”
I hadn’t planned to. I mean, he’d told me to stay away. If I showed up—especially if I showed up next door to a meth lab—he’d have every reason to be angry. And if I accidentally got in the way of bullets from a gang war, he’d be furious.
“Probably not. Although we’ll see.” I’d probably talk to him between now and then. Either tonight or tomorrow morning. He might be willing to risk a quick visit. If he missed me, too. And if he felt like the visit would be worth the potential risk.
Which he wouldn’t. I knew that without having to ask. He’d put my safety first, and his own desire to see me—if he had one, and I had to trust he did—last.
“But I’m looking forward to seeing you,” I added, brightly. “One o’clock, at the barbeque place. I’ll bring the pregnancy test.”
Alexandra said she’d be there, and we hung up. I headed out to the drugstore.
Thirty minutes later, after choosing a pregnancy test and spending a couple of minutes debating the relative benefits of a Snickers bar over 3 Musketeers or Kit-Kat, I reached the register, where I was greeted with a friendly, “Hi, princess.”
I blinked. “Yvonne?”
Yvonne McCoy was... I hesitated to call her a friend, since we’d never had much to do with each other growing up, but we’d gone to school together and had some friends in common. Including my brother Dix, and Rafe.
Yvonne was two years older than me, and she and Dix had been in the same class in school. She’d always had a soft spot for him, or so she’d told me.
Rafe, meanwhile, had been a year older, but he and Yvonne had been part of the same clique. The troubled and the troublemakers. They hadn’t been in the same class, but they had ended up in the same bed once. Yvonne had also told me she would have been happy to repeat the experience, but Rafe hadn’t suggested it, so she hadn’t either.
It didn’t bother me much. A little, if I thought too hard about it, but there had been a lot of women in Rafe’s life, many of them I didn’t even know about. The fact that he’d slept with Yvonne once in high school hardly mattered. She didn’t act weird about it, and anyway, he had married me.
“I didn’t know you worked here,” I added.
Last time I’d seen her—and several times before that—she’d been a waitress at Beulah’s Meat’n Three. Although she’d had a close brush with death last fall—courtesy of another of Rafe’s old flames—and I guess maybe she’d reassessed her life since then.
/> Not that there was anything at all wrong with being a waitress at Beulah’s.
Her face darkened. “Beulah died. A couple of weeks ago.”
“Oh, wow.” Darcy had mentioned that Beulah’s Meat’n Three was closed, but not that it was because the owner had died. And I guess Mother had thought I wouldn’t be interested in something like that. “I’m so sorry. You worked there a long time, didn’t you?”
Yvonne nodded. “She didn’t have any kids, so she left the place to me. It said so in her will. But her sister-in-law has a daughter, and the daughter wants it. So they’re trying to say I exerted—” She used her fingers to draw quotes in the air, “—‘undue influence’ to get her to leave it to me. Hell, I’d worked there for twelve years! Ever since I finished high school. It was almost as much mine as it was hers. She’d been teaching me to run it.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said again, inadequately.
“And that bitch never set foot in the place for as long as I worked there. And now that Beulah’s gone, suddenly she’s all about saving the family business!”
“What are you doing about it?” If there was a will, duly witnessed and signed, giving the restaurant to Yvonne, she had at least a fighting chance of hanging on to it. “Have you hired a lawyer?”
“Lawyers cost money,” Yvonne said. “They’ve hired a lawyer, to get the will overturned. I’m just waiting to see what happens. They shut the place down while they’re figuring it out, so I’m out of a job. I’m working here while I wait.” She sighed. “By the time they get Beulah’s up and running again, there won’t be any business left to worry about.”
“I’m so sorry. But you really should be represented, too.” Especially if the sister-in-law and niece were.
“I can’t afford a lawyer,” Yvonne said. “They pay minimum wage here. I made good money waiting tables, but I need every bit of what they’re paying me now to make ends meet.”
Understandable. I wasn’t making much of a living myself, so I could definitely relate to counting pennies. I couldn’t have afforded a lawyer when I divorced Bradley, either, if Catherine hadn’t stepped in to help, pro bono.
Uncertain Terms (Savannah Martin Mysteries Book 12) Page 6
