A Slaying in Savannah (6 page)

“And what relationship was that?” I nodded at Pettigrew, encouraging him to continue, and took a sip of the drink I’d been holding all this time.

“I believe we were fulfilling our destiny. I had asked Miss Tillie to be my wife and she had consented.”

That took me by surprise. Plus, the drink was very strong. I gasped and started coughing. Samantha jumped up and pounded on my back. I put my hand up. “I’m all right,” I managed to get out.

She took the snifter and put it on the glass-topped cart. “That stuff is too powerful,” she said, as she returned with a glass of water. “Really, General, why did you give it to her?”

“Wanted to see what stuff she was made of,” he said. He raised his glass. “Welcome, Mrs. Fletcher.” He consumed the drink in a single swallow.

The water soothed my burning throat, but I was afraid to speak in case the effort would set off another paroxysm of coughing. I drank it slowly, eyeing Pettigrew and wondering what I had done to gain his animosity so quickly. Mr. Richardson owed me a lot of explanations and I intended to get them from him.

As if I had conjured him by thinking of his name, a small man, easily in his eighties, limped into the doorway, leaning on a cane. He wore a three-piece suit and a bow tie, just as I had pictured him in our telephone conversation.

“Ah, the cavalry has arrived just in time,” Pettigrew said. “Mrs. Fletcher, have you met your sergeant at arms? Say hello to the esteemed Roland Richardson the Third.”

Chapter Five

The dining room table had been set for six. Two tall chairs upholstered in a floral tapestry were drawn up to either side of the oval table, with matching armchairs at the head and foot. Extra chairs had been pulled back out of the way and lined one wall. For some reason they reminded me of the row of chairs outside the principal’s office when I taught high school English, except these were much prettier.

The room had a sparkle that the parlor lacked. Mrs. Goodall had placed silver candlesticks on the mahogany sideboard with a matching pair flanking an ormolu clock on the mantel. A gilded Cupid rested on the clock, his head cocked at a little bird perched on his hand. Light from a crystal chandelier above the table was reflected by Tillie’s good china and glassware, lending the room a warm glow.

Mr. Richardson, the attorney whose phone call had lured me to Savannah, indicated the chair at the head of the table—it must have been Tillie’s—and nodded at me. He rested his hand on the top until I took my seat; then limped around to the other end and claimed his spot. The tenants of the guesthouse sat in what I presume were their usual chairs, with the one between the general and me left empty.

Once we were seated, Mrs. Goodall arrived with a tray containing the first course. The kitchen was downstairs on the basement level, which was not uncommon in many of the houses in the landmark district.

“We’re missing one,” Richardson observed.

“The doc says y’all go on ahead and eat without him,” Mrs. Goodall said. “He’s still at the hospital, but he say he join you when he can.”

“What do you have for us tonight, Mrs. Goodall?” Artie Grogan rubbed his hands together in anticipation.

“Shrimp and grits,” she replied, pointedly circling the table away from Grogan and his wife even though Samantha’s seat was closest to the butler’s pantry and the back stairs.

Samantha stretched her neck to see what was on the tray. “Isn’t that traditionally a breakfast dish?” she asked.

“Up north, mebbe. But not this ’un,” Mrs. Goodall said.

Richardson smiled. “By ‘up north,’ she means South Carolina. Don’t you, ma’am?”

Mrs. Goodall chuckled, and came to my side.

I took a small plate from the tray. On it were three large shrimp, sprinkled with lemon and bits of bacon and onion. Accompanying the shrimp was a triangle of deep-fried grits.

“I made this special for you. I remember you liked it last time.”

“I’m sure I did,” I said, marveling that she could remember what dish I had liked so long ago.

She brought the tray to Attorney Richardson next and announced, “I’ll serve the appetizer; then y’all jus’ help yourselves to the rest I be putting on the sideboard: baked buttermilk chicken, green beans, hush puppies.”

“And biscuits?” Artie Grogan asked.

“And biscuits,” she growled. “I know what y’all like.”

The housekeeper took the tray back downstairs to the kitchen and emerged a minute later with a silver basket piled with biscuits. She surveyed the table in search of some space and decided to leave the basket next to me. There wasn’t a lot of room. Mrs. Goodall had draped cream-colored lace over a white damask tablecloth. A trio of Delft bowls filled with pale pink roses was complemented by blue and white ceramic figures of a shepherd and shepherdess. At opposite ends of the table, crystal swans, their silver wings drawn back, held the salt and tiny spoons for serving it. Each place setting included multiple plates, and glasses for water and wine, as well as a silver napkin ring in which squares of linen had been arranged to resemble an open flower. Tillie may have liked to entertain and had been known as a gracious hostess, but she’d unquestionably been aided by Mrs. Goodall, who clearly enjoyed setting a beautiful table, even when she wasn’t pleased with all the guests.

Mr. Richardson concentrated on his food, and all conversation halted. The clinks of forks and knives on china sounded especially loud in the lingering silence. I looked around at my dinner companions. All eyes were narrowly focused on their plates.

I used this moment of quiet to process the circumstances of my being seated at this table with these people whom I’d just met. No one seemed aware of the reason for my being in Savannah, which led me to believe that Mr. Richardson hadn’t shared it with them. I hadn’t volunteered information, and although Samantha had guessed I was there to help the resident ghosts find their eternal peace, they hadn’t pursued the subject. Did they assume that because Tillie and I had worked on launching the literacy center years earlier, I’d traveled to Savannah to memorialize her life and contribution to society? I somehow doubted that. Of course, they may have known my mission and considered it impolite to inquire further. Or it was possible that they were reluctant to bring up the subject of Wanamaker Jones’s murder so close on the heels of Tillie’s demise. They may have feared that my investigation would get in the way of their own self-interest. That was more likely. Whatever the reason, my motivation for having arrived in Savannah would become public knowledge the following morning when Richardson gathered all interested parties in his office and read Tillie’s last will and testament.

I looked at the general and contemplated what Tillie might have seen in him. He had nice features and could have been a handsome man were it not for the disagreeable expression on his face. Would Tillie really have gotten married at ninety-one? And to a man easily twenty years her junior? I hated to think it, but it was possible of course that by now Tillie had been more than pixilated. Was her mind starting to go? The provisions of her will could have been the work of someone off balance or perhaps with undiagnosed dementia. Would Mr. Richardson have recognized the symptoms?

I put that unpleasant thought aside and took a biscuit, passing the basket to Artie Grogan. “Tell me about your institute, Artie. Is it here in Georgia?”

A strange look came over his face. He held his napkin to his lips as though buying time before answering. Finally, he lowered the napkin and said, “Actually, we’re kind of in between permanent locations at this moment.” He shot a look at Richardson, who ignored him, before going on. “We traveled around quite a bit until founding the institute, doing research, of course. We did have an office in Durham at one point, but not during the heyday of paranormal research at Duke University. But still, those were the days, huh, Sammy?”

His wife gave him a small smile.

“Um. Then we moved to New Jersey, to Princeton. Unfortunately, that program closed, too, but we met Miss Tillie at one of the sponsored lectures. The rest is history, as they say, and so here we are.” He smiled broadly, seemingly pleased at his response to my question.

“Not a very lengthy history, is it?” General Pettigrew said. It was more of a dismissive grunt than a clear statement. He’d been silent during the early stages of the dinner.

“I beg your pardon,” Grogan said.

“Just stating the obvious,” the general said.

“I don’t attack your credits, Pettigrew,” Artie said, and “I’ll thank you to keep away from mine. General, indeed!”

“Come now, Grogan, don’t be so touchy,” Pettigrew said. He had a remarkably large, prominent Adam’s apple that sprang into action each time he spoke. “Your so-called institute is not exactly at the forefront of paranormal research, now, is it?”

“How dare you, sir. I’ll have you know that . . .”

Although Richardson appeared to be entertained by this budding confrontation, I rarely find dinner-table arguments beneficial to anyone’s digestion. I interrupted Grogan before he could finish. “Artie,” I said, “how did you become interested in paranormal research to begin with? Did you see a ghost as a child?”

“Huh?” His eyes swiveled back to me. “No, not exactly.”

“Tell me how your interest developed. This is a whole new area for me.”

“No one’s ever asked me that before,” he said. “I imagine I always had an interest in the spirit world, and in parapsychology, too. My grandmother always knew who was calling before the phone rang.”

“And she was forever talking to her dead ancestors,” Samantha added. “Before she died, of course.”

“Did she
see
those ancestors as well?” I asked.

“I never asked her,” Artie said, sounding surprised that it hadn’t occurred to him. “But it’s entirely possible. If you go back in history, there has never been a society without a mention of spirits, or ghosts of some kind.” He was warming to his subject. “Although there is a great deal of skepticism these days, spirits were an established part of civilizations going far back in time. Today, people want ‘proof,’ but not everything falls neatly into a scientific category. You can’t produce a ghost on demand. They exist in a different dimension.”

“Yet don’t you use all kinds of scientific instruments?” I asked. “Those things exist in this dimension.”

“Yes, of course. We have your basic recording equipment in place—audio and video—extraordinarily sensitive cameras. We have several EMF meters to measure electromagnetic fields.”

“What does that tell you?”

“It’s more a rule-out than a rule-in device,” he said. “Sometimes your strong electromagnetic fields set up false sensations that people interpret as spirits, when actually it’s the charge in the air that makes them think something is there. I had a lady who was sure she was being watched every time she went down to her basement. Come to find out she had a strong electromagnetic field set up around her fuse panel, which was hung exactly where she was feeling those ‘eyes’ on her coming from.”

Artie’s explanation of his view of the supernatural and the paranormal was interrupted by Mrs. Goodall, who placed the platters of chicken, green beans, and hush puppies on the sideboard. The Grogans sprang from their seats to fill their plates, followed by General Pettigrew, Attorney Richardson, and me. The food was, of course, superb; Mrs. Goodall had the same deft culinary hand as I remembered from previous visits.

As we ate, there was little conversation, only innocuous chitchat about myriad subjects that did not include the supernatural. Pettigrew and Artie Grogan avoided each other during the discussions, but Samantha exchanged pleasantries with the general. Curling a lock of hair around one finger, she was almost flirtatious, which seemed to feed into Pettigrew’s ego.

Richardson, so soft-spoken that it was difficult at times to hear what he was saying, offered a number of observations about Savannah and the upcoming Saint Patrick’s Day celebration. “They come from all over the United States for our Saint Paddy’s weekend,” he said, “bringing their tourist dollars and enriching our merchants. You are welcome to watch the parade from my office, if you like, Mrs. Fletcher. It’s quite a good view.”

“That’s very kind of you to offer,” I said, a bit embarrassed that he hadn’t extended his invitation to the others at the table.

“Personally, I tend to avoid all the festivities,” he said, scraping up gravy with a hush puppy. “They can become raucous at times. The criminal attorneys in our fair city pick up many cases over the weekend, and the police are out in droves. A good weekend to lock the doors and engage a good book.” He turned to me. “I must admit, Mrs. Fletcher, that I had not had the pleasure of reading one of your works prior to your coming here, but I have rectified that grievous omission in my literary life. You write quite well, although I must admit that I identified the killer in the first few pages, undoubtedly because of my legal training and experience.”

I smiled but didn’t respond. The particular book of mine he’d read was devoid of any information in the first three or four chapters that would allow any reader to pinpoint the murderer. But I didn’t challenge him. During my writing career, I’ve experienced others making similar claims, undoubtedly to bolster their self-esteem in my eyes. Who am I to rain on their parade?

Mrs. Goodall had quietly come to take away the dinner plates. She put a crystal bowl of banana pudding on the sideboard together with smaller bowls of blueberries and whipped cream. Mr. Richardson was first up for the dessert, which he seemed to know was going to be on the menu. The rest of us followed, and again conversation lagged while the next round of food was consumed.

“Mrs. Fletcher—er, Jessica—you were asking earlier,” Artie said through a mouthful of pudding and cream, “about the times when Samantha and I are able to point to natural physical reasons for the presumed presence of supernatural fields.”