Home Stretch

by Jenna Bennett

  I’m sure it was. “I’ll talk to him,” I said. “And I know you said you’re working. But if you change your mind, you’re always welcome. It doesn’t have to be as Dix’s date. You can just come as our friend.”

  Rafe nodded. He’d been watching the conversation with his lips curved. I guess he thought the girl/relationship talk was funny. “You’re still coming,” I asked him, “right?”

  He looked innocent. “Course, darlin’.”

  “You won’t use this—this break-in, the situation—as an excuse to avoid my mother?”

  “I love your mama,” Rafe told me, as he gestured me toward the door. “I’ll be there for dinner on Thursday. Promise.”

  “I’ll call you tonight,” I told him as we wandered toward the front door. He had appropriated the two bags and was carrying them, leaving me to herd Mrs. Jenkins in front of me. Grimaldi stayed in the dining room, either so she could make the phone call to the crime scene crew, or to give us privacy for our goodbyes. It was probably the former, since with Mrs. Jenkins there, it wasn’t like we’d be engaging in any kind of passionate farewell. And anyway, if I knew my husband, he’d hustle both me and his grandmother into the car just as quickly as he could, while using himself as a shield between us and any potential danger.

  He nodded.

  “And probably tomorrow morning, to make sure you made it through the night.”

  He nodded, opening the front door.

  “And tomorrow night, to see what you’ve found out.”

  He nodded, scanning the yard.

  “And maybe on Thursday morning, to find out when you’re coming.”

  “For dinner,” Rafe said. “C’mon.”

  He headed out onto the porch. “Stay behind me.”

  I stayed behind him, and made sure to keep Mrs. Jenkins in front of me, so she was covered on both sides. She was the one at risk here, not either of us.

  He loaded her into the car, and then walked around to my side. “Drive carefully.”

  “I always do,” I said, squeezing myself behind the wheel. “And I meant it about the phone calls.”

  He leaned down to kiss me. His lips were warm and lingered for a second. “I wanna hear from you. I wanna know you’re all safe.”

  “You don’t think this person’s going to follow us, do you?”

  Rafe straightened. “If I thought that, I wouldn’t send you somewhere where I can’t protect you. But it wouldn’t hurt you to keep an eye out. You remember how to look for a tail?”

  I remembered. “Don’t worry,” I told him. “If something happens, you’ll be the first to know.”

  “Drive carefully.” He shut my door and stepped back. His lips were still moving.

  I rolled down the window. “What?”

  “Love you.”

  “I love you, too,” I said, as I felt all gooey inside. “I’ll call you later.”

  He nodded and lifted a hand. I put the car in gear and rolled down the driveway and onto Potsdam Street.

  Twelve

  The Martin Mansion sits above the Columbia Road on the way to Pulaski, about an hour, hour-and-a-half south of Nashville.

  The time it takes to get there depends on who’s behind the wheel. When it’s Rafe, it’s less than an hour. When it’s me, it takes longer. On top of that, I’d been distracted by the fact that I had to keep an eye in the rearview mirror to make sure we weren’t followed, and with the extra traffic, it wasn’t easy. We’d gotten caught in the beginning of rush hour, and had driven south in a sea of other cars, also headed home to the suburbs. They started peeling off in Brentwood, then Franklin, then Spring Hill, and by the time we got to Columbia we were pretty well alone on the road. The only other car that got off with us—a silver sedan—turned west toward Columbia while we headed south in the direction of Sweetwater and, if we kept going, Pulaski and the Alabama border, so they clearly weren’t interested in us.

  “Have you ever been here?” I asked Mrs. Jenkins. And then changed it to, “I know you came down for the wedding. But I meant other than that. On your own, or with Rafe, to look around.”

  This was where her grandchild had been born and raised, after all. And where his mother had been born and raised, and died.

  She shook her head.

  “Maybe tomorrow we can take a drive and look around. The Bog—that’s the trailer park where Rafe grew up, and where LaDonna and Big Jim lived—it’s gone now. This guy named Ronnie Burke bought it last year, and was going to develop it into a subdivision. But that didn’t work out. It’s a long story. Anyway, there’s nothing there anymore. But I can show you where it used to be. And we can go the cemetery on Oak Street, where LaDonna is buried, and put some flowers on her grave. I know you didn’t know her, but she was Rafe’s mother. And Tyrell’s girlfriend. And there’s a nice little café on the square in downtown where we can have lunch.”

  “Ice cream?” Mrs. Jenkins asked hopefully.

  I grinned at her. “I’m sure we can find ice cream somewhere.” Dix or Catherine would know where to go. They both have young children.

  And I should probably make sure that ice cream was on the menu for Thanksgiving, too. Not everyone likes pumpkin pie. Although Mrs. Jenkins probably did. I hadn’t fed her anything yet, that she’d refused to eat.

  “There it is,” Mrs. Jenkins pointed.

  I nodded. There it was. The Martin Mansion. Squatting above the road like a large, red brick toadstool.

  Although I have to admit I was a little surprised that she remembered. She’d only been here once.

  Then again, the place makes an impression. Big—almost twice the size of Mrs. J’s Victorian, which is a big house in its own right—and with tall, two-story white pillars across the front. A true Southern antebellum mansion of the old-fashioned type. Big double doors in the front, and a wide staircase flanked by urns going up to it.

  I see it mainly as my childhood home. But since I met Rafe, I’ve learned that other people see it differently. He calls it the mausoleum on the hill, and I guess it has a certain fusty old elegance to it. I think he probably also called it that as a remark on my family, and my ancestry, and Southern history in general, and a whole lot of other things. We won’t go into it.

  As we drove up to the door, it occurred to me that I should perhaps have called and warned my mother we were coming.

  Not that she would turn me away. She never has before. Except for that one time she told me to leave because I was trying to stop her from drowning her sorrows in brandy, but there were mitigating circumstances. She never has before. Or since. Not even when I brought Rafe into the house and up to my bedroom and made love to him under my mother’s roof. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d tried to then, but she didn’t. So I didn’t think she’d turn us away now, either.

  But I should probably have called and told her I was coming. A day early. And that Mrs. J was with me.

  Oh, well. Too late now. I pulled the Volvo to a stop in front of the wide staircase and cut the engine. “Here we are.”

  Mrs. Jenkins nodded.

  “I’ll come open the door for you.”

  I walked around the car and opened the passenger side door. Just as the front door to the mansion opened. My mother stood in the opening. “Savannah? What are you—?”

  And that’s as far as she got, because a pale gray blur shot past her and down the steps, barking threateningly.

  Mrs. Jenkins shrieked. I froze. I think my mother said a bad word, but I couldn’t swear to it. “Pearl!”

  Pearl stopped halfway between the steps and me. If that doesn’t sound so bad, like maybe she was far enough away not to be scary, I could feel her hot dog breath on my calves.

  “Hello, Pearl,” I said. My voice shook, but Pearl must have recognized it, because she tilted her head to look at me. “How are you?”

  The last time Rafe and I were in Sweetwater, Rafe was helping Sheriff Satterfield with a case. A bunch of members of the same family had been shot, in their beds, all w
ithin an hour or so of each other. Pearl had belonged to one of them. We’d found her guarding a trailer up in the foothills by the Devil’s Backbone, a range of hills west of Columbia, and for some reason she had taken to me. I’d ended up bringing her here, where she had bonded with my mother. At the end of the case, I had planned to take her home to Nashville with me, but she had indicated her desire to stay here, so Mother had taken her in instead.

  I’d forgotten... not Pearl, but how scary she could be.

  Pearl wagged her stub of a tail tentatively, her tongue lolling. She has a broad face with a big mouth (and strong jaws), and at the moment she looked like she was smiling.

  I extended a hand, carefully. The last thing I wanted was for her to think I was making a threatening move.

  She took a step forward to sniff my fingertips. After a second, her tail wagged again, and kept wagging. I deduced she had recognized me.

  “Hi, sweetheart,” I told her. “It’s good to see you. I need you to meet Mrs. Jenkins, OK? And be gentle with her.”

  I know it sounds sort of crazy to talk to the dog like she’d understand. Robbie Skinner certainly hadn’t. He’d kept her chained under his trailer like an animal. But I swear she understood me. Somehow.

  “It’s OK,” I told Mrs. Jenkins. “She won’t hurt you.”

  Mrs. J looked a little fearful, but when I took her arm to help her out of the car, she didn’t resist. “This is Pearl,” I told her. “My mother named her.” After a Chihuahua she’d had as a girl. “Rafe and I found her last month. She’s been living with my mother since.”

  Pearl gave Mrs. Jenkins a quick sniff, but seemed to realize that Mrs. J was apprehensive and would need some time to get used to her, because she kept her distance after that, and didn’t push. Instead she bounded up the stairs to my mother, who was still standing in the open door.

  We followed, a lot more slowly. As we approached the door, I gave my mother a bright smile. “I should have called and let you know we were coming a day early. Sorry.”

  “That’s all right,” Mother said, in a tone of voice that told me, eloquently, that it wasn’t. At all.

  I lowered my voice. I’m not sure why, when Mrs. Jenkins was standing right next to me. “She’s my husband’s grandmother. My grandmother-in-law. And someone’s trying to kill her. Surely you can spare one of the five bedrooms for a night.”

  Mother looked at me down the length of her nose. Considering that she’s a couple of inches shorter than me, it was quite a feat. So was her tone of voice. “Of course.” The two words dripped with ice cubes, and made me feel guilty for ever entertaining the thought that she wouldn’t be gracious.

  She dismissed me with the flick of an eyelash, and turned to Mrs. J. And turned on the charm. “It’s so good to see you again. I’m sorry to hear you’re having problems.”

  Only my mother would call being hunted by a murderer ‘having problems.’ But since she was being nice to Mrs. Jenkins, I rolled my eyes very quietly. And didn’t complain when she detached Mrs. J from my arm with years of practice—I’d learned to do that too, in finishing school. Of course, the target then hadn’t been a wrinkled old lady, but a personable young man you wanted to get away from another young lady who had sunk her claws into him.

  I let her get away with it, even though I’d also been taught how to hold my own should I be the one originally in possession of the gentleman. They walked into the house, and I headed back to the car to bring in the overnight bags. Pearl dithered, not quite sure whether to stay with me or follow them. After a second’s contemplation, she followed Mother. There was more chance of a snack inside the house than outside, I assumed.

  I grabbed the bags and hauled them up to the door. And took a quick look around. Nobody was hiding in the bushes with a pair of binoculars. There were no cars driving slowly by on the road. I didn’t think anyone had followed us. If they had, they’d stayed so far back that I hadn’t seen them. But just in case, maybe I should pull the car around to the back, and the old carriage house that now serves as the garage.

  I dumped the bags on the floor inside the door, and made sure the door was shut. Pearl must have followed Mom and Mrs. J up the stairs, because she wasn’t anywhere to be seen, but I didn’t want to risk leaving the door open and having her run off. I shut it behind me and went back to the car.

  It took a couple of minutes to park and return. By the time I had, Mother and Mrs. J had returned from the second floor to greet me, along with Pearl.

  Mother gave me a look.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t want to leave the car in plain view, in case someone drove by who shouldn’t see it.”

  “Let’s go to the kitchen,” Mother said firmly. “You can tell me everything.”

  I gestured. “The bags...”

  “You can take them up later,” Mother said. “Right now, I think we could all use some tea.”

  She headed down the hall toward the kitchen, her heels clicking decisively on the wood floors. Pearl’s nails clicked, too, more softly, as she followed. I’m sure she had figured out that the kitchen was where the food was. And the treats.

  I smiled at Mrs. Jenkins. “Shall we?”

  She nodded. We followed Mother down the hall.

  She makes tea the old-fashioned way, by boiling water in a kettle on the stove. Then she pours it into a proper teapot, where it steeps. Once it’s ready, she serves it in paper thin china cups on saucers, with silver tea spoons, and a proper sugar and creamer set, and cloth napkins. The only incongruous thing this time was the fact that we were all sitting around the kitchen island, instead of properly around the table in the parlor, balancing the cups on our knees as befits Southern ladies.

  I watched like a hawk, but unless Mother had laced the cream jug with brandy, she didn’t spike her tea with anything. For a while after she’d found out about Audrey and Dad, there was a lot of spiked tea flowing. Along with mimosas for breakfast and milk with rum for bedtime.

  But not today.

  “Tell me everything.” She fixed me with a steady stare over the rim of the flower-painted cup, pinky elegantly extended.

  I filled her in, much as I had done Grimaldi a couple of hours ago. Everything from waking up at three in the morning on Sunday to pee, and seeing Mrs. Jenkins under a tree in the yard, until we’d crawled out of a hole in the backyard this afternoon.

  “Dear me,” my mother said when I was done. That’s her version of something more expletive. “Are you all right?”

  She included Mrs. Jenkins in the glance.

  I nodded. “We’re fine. But Rafe and Detective Grimaldi thought it would be a good idea for us to get out of town a little earlier than planned, so they can focus on the investigation. They have a pretty good idea who the bad guy is.”

  At least it seemed that way to me. Doctor Fesmire had known Julia Poole. He had something to lose—like his cushy job—if it came out that Beverly Bristol had died because Julia had been negligent. That gave him reason to kill Julia. And if he’d killed Julia, and had tried to kill Mrs. Jenkins, on Saturday, he had every reason to want to eliminate Mrs. Jenkins now. The fact that he was in the wind—not at work, not at home, when José and Clayton looked for him earlier today—was an additional indication that he might be guilty. At least if you asked me.

  Mother didn’t, though. She just took my word for it and moved on. “Rafael will be coming down for dinner on Thursday, I hope?”

  My mother is the only person in the world, with the exception of Tim, who calls Rafe by his full name. And where she had a real problem with him before we got married, now she adores him as much as I do, if not more.

  “He’s planning to,” I said. “Unless something goes wrong, I’m sure he will.”

  Mother smiled, pleased. “And you don’t think anyone followed you here?”

  “I didn’t see anyone. And I looked.” I glanced at Pearl, who was lying on the floor watching the proceedings. In case something should happen to fall like manna from Heaven, I g
uess. “If anyone shows up, I’m sure Pearl will let us know.”

  Mother glanced at her, too. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you,” she said.

  My heart sank. “You don’t want to get rid of her, do you? She seems happy. Although I can take her home with me, if you insist.”

  “No, darling,” Mother said. Unlike Rafe, she pronounces the G at the end. “I love Pearl. She’s wonderful. Very gentle.”

  “Good.” She hadn’t been so gentle with a small, stuffed toy I’d bought her just after we got her, so I hoped Mother was keeping small animals away from her. “Have the children interacted with her? Abigail and Hannah and Catherine’s three?”

  Abigail and Hannah belong to my brother Dix. Catherine’s children are Cole, Robert, and Annie.

  “She’s very patient with them,” Mother nodded. “Of course, I’m careful. But she doesn’t seem to mind at all. She sits perfectly still while the girls tie ribbons around her neck and decorate her ears.”

  I looked at Pearl and tried to imagine her with decorated ears. It didn’t quite compute, but good for her on sitting still for it.

  “And the boys roughhouse,” Mother added, “and she doesn’t seem to mind that, either.”

  Excellent. Of course, Robbie had had a daughter—twelve year old Kayla—and I’m sure he would have made Pearl feel it if she’d done anything to her. So she might have learned to be nice to children the hard way.

  “You’re a good girl,” I told her. She slapped her tail against the floor a couple of times, and smiled at me.

  “I’d like to have her fixed,” Mother said.

  Fixed? As far as I could tell, she wasn’t broken.

  “Oh. You mean spayed. Robbie didn’t do that?”

  “She isn’t very old,” Mother said. “Maybe he was planning to breed her.”

  I wouldn’t put it past him. “Yes, I think that would be a good idea. Does she have a tendency to run off?”

  And maybe hook up with a handsome mongrel from the wrong side of town?