Savannah Breeze (5 page)

“BeBe?”

“Hmm?”

I was right on the edge of sleep. Not awake really, not asleep, just in that delicious twilight place between the two.

We were aboard the
Blue Moon,
in the stateroom. I'd arrived late, and exhausted after a long night at Guale, and two glasses of Reddy's champagne, along with the gentle rocking of the boat at its moorings, had the combined effect of knocking me out almost instantaneously.

For more than a week, I'd been racing back and forth between my house, the restaurant, the hospital, and Magnolia Manor. My grandmother had finally been moved to a rehab ward, but on the other hand, Granddaddy, without his wife of fifty-two years, was like a ship adrift at sea. He ate only when I insisted, slept mostly, sitting up in front of television. I was already feeling guilt gnawing at the edges of my pleasure at being with Reddy.

Between the demands of taking care of each of my grandparents, I'd given up trying to make it in to work on a daily basis. My erratic schedule irritated Daniel, as it did me, but I was all out of options.

Reddy, bless him, had turned into my hero. He had a knack for knowing what needed to be done, and a gift for doing it with a minimum of fuss. In the short time we'd been together, he'd gotten the West Gordon apartment fixed up and rented out again—at a $150 a month increase in rent—gotten the wiring fixed in the Victorian district house, and had even found me a great little bungalow on East
Forty-eighth Street to buy for a steal—and cut me in as a full partner on the deal. We sold it a week later, and split a $20,000 profit for a week's work. He'd even taken to going into my office at Guale, to take a look at our books for me, a situation Daniel really resented.

“Who
is
this guy?” Daniel asked—more than once. “He doesn't know squat about the restaurant business, yet he's trying to tell me we need to switch produce vendors, and he brought in this cheap-ass coffee, which he claims you approved.”

“I did approve it,” I said sharply, looking up from a stack of bills on my desk. “We were paying an insane price for those Kona blue beans of yours. The new coffee is fine—and it's half the price.”

“It tastes like sludge,” Daniel muttered. “But hey, I'm just the chef here. Don't go by my opinion.”

“Fine. I won't.”

Tension between us was high, and it didn't help that Weezie was down in Florida on a buying trip for her antiques shop. Daniel could be really moody on the best of days, but without Weezie's softening influence, he'd accelerated from moody to downright cranky.

I missed Weezie too. She was my sounding board, somebody to laugh with, shop with, and bitch to. Besides, I couldn't wait for her to meet Reddy.

Who was, in the meantime, nibbling at my ear and rubbing my back and just generally making himself indispensable.

“Mmm,” I sighed. “Don't stop. Okay? I'll give you a million dollars if you'll promise to never stop doing that.”

“Throw in another million and I'll do this too,” he whispered. And for what he did next, a million was definitely a bargain.

“Mmm.” I kissed him lazily. “But I've got to get some sleep now. I promised Granddad I'd pick him up at eight for his appointment with the eye doctor, which means if I'm not there by seven-thirty, he'll be calling the cops to report me missing.”

Reddy got up and brought a sheaf of papers back to bed. “I just need you to sign some stuff for me,” he said, nuzzling my neck and
handing me a pen. “We're going to make an offer on the house next to the one you already own on Huntingdon Street.”

“Now?” I yawned and squinted at the tiny type. “My reading glasses are up on deck. Can't it wait till morning?”

“I've got an early meeting too,” Reddy said. “Some investors are coming in from Oklahoma, and I'm picking them up at the airport. I want to drop the contract by the broker's office first thing. If that house gets on multiple listing, it'll sell in a skinny minute.”

“Okay,” I relented. He put his finger on a line, and I signed there, and three or four more places, and then I couldn't keep my eyes open for another minute. “Get some sleep,” Reddy said.

In the morning, he was gone, but he'd made a fresh pot of coffee, and a banana muffin sat on a plate next to a paper napkin. I smiled as I sipped my coffee and nibbled at my breakfast. This one, I told myself, was a keeper. The sun shone weakly on the gray-blue waters of the yacht basin. A single seagull perched on the mast of a sailboat tied two slips over, squawked noisily as I stepped from the deck of the
Blue Moon.

I'd overslept, so there was no time to run home and change clothes. Instead, I raced over to Magnolia Manor, where my grandfather was busily pacing back and forth on the sidewalk in front of his unit. He was dressed in his best: neatly pressed dark slacks, a white shirt, wide-striped tie, and straw fedora.

“Where were you last night? I was worried when you didn't come home.”

I'd called him from the restaurant to tell him I wasn't coming, but obviously, he'd forgotten as soon as he'd hung up the phone. “Remember, I called to tell you I had a late night at work? I was so beat I just went straight home to bed.” I crossed my fingers mentally at the lie, at the same time chiding myself for not having the nerve to admit to my grandfather that, at thirty-five, and thrice married, I was no longer a virgin.

“Sorry!” I said, coming around the car to open the door for him.

He tapped the face of his wristwatch and frowned at me.

“It'll only take me five minutes to get to the doctor's office,” I said, deliberately underestimating.

“Time is money,” Granddaddy said pointedly, fumbling for the seat belt. I leaned over and fastened it for him, and bussed him on the cheek.

While he was in with the doctor, I went outside and called the hospital to check on my grandmother, as I did every morning. The unit's visiting hours didn't start until three o'clock, but Granddaddy insisted on getting a progress report first thing every day.

I dialed the extension for my grandmother's room. She picked up on the fourth ring.

“Spencer?” Her voice was a whimper. “I want you to come get me right this minute. These waitresses here are terrible. I never been to a hotel as sorry as this one.”

“Grandmama, it's me, BeBe.”

“Who? What'd you say?”

“It's BeBe,” I said loudly.

“Put Spencer on the line,” she demanded.

“I can't right now. He's with the eye doctor,” I said. “Grandmama, do you know that you're in the hospital? You're in the rehab unit at Memorial. Remember?”

“I want to check out of this hotel,” she said, her voice weak. “Right now. Tell Spencer.”

And then she hung up.

When we left the doctor's office, I took my grandfather through the drive-in window at McDonald's for his favorite breakfast, hotcakes and sausage. “Doctor says I've got the eyes of a young kid,” he reported in between chews. “You know why that is?”

“No,” I said. “Why?”

“Good genes,” he said. “All the Loudermilks have great eyesight. My grandfather? He lived to be ninety, and he never did need eyeglasses. It's the genes. And buttermilk.”

“Really?”

He glanced over at me, and pointed at the reading glasses I'd pushed on top of my head. “You never did drink any buttermilk, did you?”

“Not much,” I admitted.

He nodded thoughtfully. “Explains a lot. Plus, your mother's people were weak-eyed. Nice enough, but weak-eyed, the whole lot of 'em.”

We pulled up in front of Magnolia Manor. “I better get going,” he said as I unlocked the door to his villa. “Got a lot to do this morning. It's Thursday, you know. Grocery coupons.” He made a scissoring motion with his hand. “I gotta get my coupons clipped. Thursday is double-coupon day for seniors at the Kroger.” He glanced around the parking lot and frowned at the sight of his old Buick Electra, parked where the Lincoln had been parked only a few days earlier.

“What did you say happened to my new white Lincoln?”

“I told you. Remember? The, uh, Lincoln was recalled, Granddaddy. Yeah. The dealership called me and said that the new models had faulty, uh, defibrillators and the government was making them take them all back. See, if you accelerated too quickly, with that doohickey thing, you could have spontaneous combustion.”

Granddaddy took off his fedora and ran his fingers through his thinning white hair. “That's a bunch of bull hockey, young lady. You telling me somebody called you up and handed you that line and you believed it?”

“Yes, sir,” I said meekly. I was afraid to look him in the eye. “I didn't want to worry you over it, with Grandmama sick and all. So I just took the Lincoln in and they gave me back your old car.”

He thought about that for a while. “Defibrillator, huh?”

“Something like that.”

He sighed. “All right then. You get my money back?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Damn shame,” he said, shaking his head. “The American automobile industry ain't what it used to be. I'll tell you that right now.”

“Yes, sir. I'll pick you up at six to go to the hospital. Don't forget to take your pills this afternoon.”

But I didn't make it back at six. Guale was packed with lunch business, and at four that afternoon, when we should have been breaking down the kitchen to get ready for dinner, a tour bus from Milwaukee rolled up and disgorged sixty-eight starving Rotarians. Their lunch reservation had been for one o'clock, but their bus driver had gotten lost somewhere north of Charleston. By the time we got the group fed and out the door and I got back to Magnolia Manor to shower, it was more like seven-thirty.

Granddaddy glowered at me the whole way up in the hospital elevator. “Lorena likes me to have dinner with her,” he said accusingly. “Now we've missed
Wheel of Fortune
and
Jeopardy
.”

The two of them watched television together, and after I dropped Granddaddy off at the home, I tried Reddy's cell phone number again, but there was still no answer, and unlike the other times I'd called him in the past, I didn't get a recording directing me to leave a voice-mail message.

This was not like Reddy. He was never without his cell phone, and was constantly checking voice-mail messages. I was starting to worry. Maybe he was in trouble. Maybe he was sick. I'd been so overwhelmed with my own problems lately, I'd barely paid any attention to this new, wonderful man in my life.

I sped down Victory Drive, toward the yacht club, even tempting fate by running the red light in Thunderbolt, where there was nearly always a traffic cop lurking nearby. I parked the Lexus and trotted out to the end of the dock where the
Blue Moon
was tied up. I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw that the lights were on in the master stateroom and on deck. But as I walked alongside the yacht's port side, I noticed for the first time a sign tacked to the bow.
FOR SALE: AVAILABLE IMMEDIATELY
. And there was a phone number I didn't know listed below.

Available? Had Reddy decided to sell the
Blue Moon
? Impossible.
He adored the yacht. Spent every Saturday polishing and washing it, like a teenager with his first car. I pulled on the bowline as he'd shown me, kicked off my shoes, and stepped lightly onto the deck.

“Reddy?” I called. “Permission to come aboard?”

The boat rocked from side to side. A man's head popped out of the pilothouse. Not Reddy. Not even close. He looked to be in his late fifties, balding, with only a fringe of snow-white hair around the ears. Although it was dark out, he wore gold-rimmed sunglasses, and a frown.

“Ma'am? Can I help you?”

He took a step closer. I took one backward. “Who are you?” I demanded, feeling my scalp prickle. I'd read about people hijacking boats, about modern-day pirates, violent criminals who stole yachts to use in drug-running schemes. “Where's Reddy?”

“Who?” He pushed his sunglasses to the top of his head. He was wearing a faded Hawaiian shirt and baggy white shorts. He was barefoot, and probably unarmed. On closer inspection, I had to admit to myself that he didn't look much like a drug runner. But then again, maybe he'd aged out.

“Reddy. Reddy Millbanks,” I said loudly. “He owns the
Blue Moon.
”

The man chuckled softly, but he didn't seem all that amused. “That what he told you?”

“Of course,” I said. “What did you say your name was? And what did you say you were doing here?” I took my cell phone out of my pocketbook. “I'm just going to check with my friend to see if you have permission to be aboard this boat tonight.”

“Check away,” the man said. He turned to go back into the cabin. “The police should be here pretty soon. Then we'll get this all sorted out.”

The cop arrived
in a white-and-blue-striped Thunderbolt Police Department cruiser, lights flashing and siren blaring. He bounded out of the car with his radio clasped in one hand and his nightstick in the other, ready to wage war against whatever crime wave was afoot in the marina.

“Oh, hey, man, that ain't necessary,” called out my would-be pirate, who'd introduced himself to me as Jimmy Yglesias, still insisting that he was the
Blue Moon
's rightful owner. Yglesias set his beer down on the deck table and stood up. “It ain't like somebody was killed or anything.”

The cop blushed, but holstered his nightstick and clambered aboard the yacht. He was slightly built, in his mid-twenties, with a scraggly mouse-colored mustache and small brown eyes that blinked nervously as he asked his questions. His official badge indicated that he was “D. Stonecipher.”

Yglesias told his story, and I told mine, and the cop still wasn't getting it.

“Tell me again how you met the suspect,” he urged, leaning forward in the deck chair, the red-and-white-striped canvas one where Reddy had held me on his lap the night we met. But now Reddy was gone, and this kiddie cop sat there instead, pen poised over his spiral-bound notebook.

“He's not a suspect,” I said, bristling. “That's what I keep trying to explain. His name is Ryan Edward Millbanks the third. We met at the
Telfair Ball. He's a financial consultant. From Charleston. Very successful.”

“Successful con artist,” said Yglesias. “He fooled me, and I don't fool easy.”

I glared at Yglesias, then back at Stonecipher. “I'm sure this is all some kind of misunderstanding.”

“No misunderstanding,” Yglesias said, taking a long pull on his beer. “You say your boyfriend's name is Millbanks. He told me his name was Mariani. Joe Mariani. Joe Scumbag is more like it. He was leasing the
Blue Moon
, with an option to buy. His rent was two weeks overdue. I called him about it, but he kept ducking me. I finally drove out here early yesterday. He was just leaving in that fancy Jag of his. I told him then, pony up my money or get the hell off my boat. He gave me some song and dance about an important business meeting, and like a jackass, I let him off the hook. Later on, I got to thinking about it, and I decided the whole thing was fishy. So I came right over, and took some precautions.”

“Precautions?” the cop said, stroking the end of his mustache.

Yglesias grinned, showing even, white teeth that glowed against his deep tan. “I disabled the engine. There's a manual stop switch that supplies air to the diesels, so I pulled that. Figured if he tried to take off, that would slow him down some. I would have waited around for him to come back, but I had to drive over to Hilton Head early this morning for a golf tournament I was playing in. I came straight over here as soon as the banquet was over. Good thing I did. Mariani, or whatever his name is, had cleared out. And this lady came looking for him. That's when we called you.”

The cop nodded gravely. “Good thinking. How much money did the suspect owe you?”

“He's not a sus—” I started.

“I hate to say,” Yglesias said, shaking his head. “Thirty-six hundred in back rent to start. And he ripped off all my electronics. We're talking about a Furuno model 962 split-screen GPS plotter, with
radar, autopilot, and color depth finder. That's another thirty thousand, easy. I could kick myself in the goddamned head for letting him get away with this stunt. I knew there was something wrong about the guy.”

“You said he was fishy?” Stonecipher said, looking up from his scribbles. “What was so fishy?”

Yglesias looked pained. “He, uh, paid in cash. Both months. All twenties.”

“You said the rent was thirty-six hundred? That's a lot of twenties. Did he say why?” Stonecipher asked.

“Said his ex-wife was squeezing his balls for alimony. So he did everything on a cash-and-carry basis. Hey, I been there myself. At the time, it sounded reasonable. But then, things got a little weird. See, when he first approached me about leasing the boat, I wasn't even interested. I was down here on a Sunday afternoon, piddling around up here on deck, and he came over, introduced himself, told me we had a mutual acquaintance. Somebody he'd met at a bar down in Lauderdale. Only he couldn't think of the guy's name. Hell, he knew the bar. The Compass Rose. Local dive. All the boaters hang out there at one time or another. I been there dozens of times. He described the guy. Late forties, thinning gray hair, real lady's man. ‘Spoony?' I say. ‘Bert Spoonmaker? Has a seventy-two-foot Hatteras?' And Mariani, he says, ‘Yeah, Spoony. That's the guy. I mentioned to him that I was thinking of relocating to Savannah, and he suggested I look you up. So here I am. And I'm looking to buy a yacht. You looking to sell?'”

Yglesias took another long pull on the beer, then crushed the can with his bare heel. “I just laughed him off. Told him I wasn't looking to sell. He took it pretty well, gave me his card, asked me to call if I changed my mind. I never had any intention of selling the
Blue Moon
. Not at first. But then, I got stupid. Greedy. I called Mariani back, asked him, just out of curiosity, what he had in mind. The price he offered me was ridiculous, $900,000. I told him you could get a new boat for that. This one's got a couple hundred hours on it. But he said
no, he liked the
Blue Moon
. He met me for dinner at Elizabeth's on Thirty-Seventh. Made me this lease-to-buy offer. We had a great dinner. Lot of wine. The guy threw money around like it was water. And at the end of the night, I thought, What the hell. I had a knee replacement last March, didn't take the boat out more than half a dozen times last summer. So maybe this was meant to be.”

Yglesias spat over the side of the railing. “So much for intuition. I ran into Spoony down in Jacksonville a couple of weeks ago. Told him thanks for the referral. You know, from Mariani. He looked at me like I was crazy. He'd never heard of a guy named Mariani.”

Stonecipher looked at me. “Ma'am? How about you? Did the suspect steal anything from you?”

My mouth was dry, but my hands were wringing wet. I felt sick. “He's…it's the wrong man. It must be.”

“Good-looking guy, am I right?” Yglesias said. “Five-ten, maybe five-eleven? Pale blue eyes, mustache, brown hair, fading at the front? And a diamond earring. Jesus! What was I thinking? The guy had a diamond earring, for Christ's sake.”

A cement-blocklike weight crushed my chest. I couldn't breathe. I stood up so quickly the boat pitched violently beneath me, and I had to grab hold of the brass handrail to steady myself.

“Ma'am?” Stonecipher said. “Did this individual steal anything from you? Are you okay?”

“No,” I said finally. “I have to go.”

All the way into town I told myself what I had told that cop and Yglesias. It was a mistake. A misunderstanding. This was not Reddy. Not my Reddy. I had heard all about identity theft. One of our customers at the restaurant had had his identity stolen and it had been a nightmare. That's what must have happened to Reddy. Some scumbag was passing himself off as Reddy Millbanks, committing crimes under Reddy's name. I tried calling his cell phone again, but now the recording said the number was no longer in service.

Where was he? I was past frantic. West Jones Street, I told myself.
He was probably at West Jones Street. It was after midnight. He'd be fast asleep in my bed on West Jones Street. Nude, turned on his left side, with his right arm thrown across to my pillow, his clothes folded neatly on the Chippendale chair by the door. I felt a twinge of panic when I pulled into my parking slot in the lane behind the house. No sign of the Jag. But there was a battered, rusted-out blue pickup parked in Reddy's usual slot. I cursed in annoyance. The Arrendales, a pushy Yankee couple who'd made a killing on dot-coms had bought the town house next to mine a year ago. They had a bad habit of allowing their guests to park in my slot when they thought I'd be away. And I'd been away so much lately, they'd probably just assumed I was out of town. Reddy had probably been forced to park somewhere on the street out front.

Fuming, I banged open the wrought-iron gate to the courtyard. First thing tomorrow, I promised myself, I would let the Arrendales know in no uncertain terms that I didn't appreciate them poaching on my parking slot.

The courtyard was dark. I'd been meaning to replace the bulb in the light fixture over the door, but things had been so hectic lately that the burned-out bulb was only one thing on my long to-do list. I bumped my shins against something hard and metallic and cursed out loud. “Shit!” I groped the item with my hands and finally concluded that it must be my wheelbarrow. Which should have been in the toolshed.

I picked my way carefully to the back door, groped for the doorknob, and fiddled around with my keys for a minute. But the doorknob wouldn't turn. “Shit,” I muttered. Add another item to my to-do list.

I tried banging on the door, to see if I could rouse Reddy from his sleep. But after knocking and calling his name in a low voice, I gave up and walked down the lane and around to the front of the house.

The light was out on my front stoop too. But the streetlight bathed the street and the front of my brick town house in a cold, unforgiving light. What I saw then froze me in my tracks. A heavy mul
tilock box was threaded through the polished brass door handle. A small but tasteful sign was perched in my front bay window, which should have been draped in the swagged and fringed sea foam green damask drapes I'd paid a small fortune to have made six months ago. But the windows were bare. And the sign said it all:
SOLD
.

In a minute, I forgot all propriety. I banged the brass door knocker as hard as I could, then gave that up to pound on the heavy wooden door. “Reddy!” I shrieked. “Reddy! Reddy! Reddy!”

The Arrendales' Pekingese started barking next door. I saw lights snap on in their upstairs window. I didn't care if I woke up the whole damned block.

“Reddy!” I screamed, over and over, pounding and kicking at the door. I didn't stop kicking until Steve Arrendale came over, bare-legged, barefoot, wrapped only in a terry-cloth robe, shivering in the cold, with the Pekingese clutched in his arms.

“BeBe! For the love of God, be quiet,” he urged, setting the dog down on the sidewalk and climbing up my stoop to join me. “What's wrong? Got seller's remorse?”

“My house,” I screamed. “This is my house.”

Arrendale ran his hands through his dark, thinning hair and pointed at the sign in the window of my town house.

“But you sold it. Your boyfriend told us you'd decided to buy something closer to your grandparents. We didn't even know it was on the market,” he added petulantly. “If you'd told us, we would have made you an offer. Gretchen's pregnant, and we need more room, and if we bought your place, we could break through that common wall and—”

“I didn't sell my house!” I screeched. “I would never sell my house.”

“But you did,” he said stupidly. “Your boyfriend told us. I've never seen movers pack a house that fast.”

“Movers!” I turned and pressed my face against the parlor window, but it was too dark to see anything inside.

“Three of 'em,” Steve Arrendale said. “Mexican, by the looks of them. I didn't know those fellas moved that fast. Usually, you see them lolling around on a job site, leaning on shovels, eating their tacos or whatever, but these guys really hustled. In and out in three hours, and I told Gretchen maybe we should get their number, because—”

I grabbed Arrendale by the collar of his bathrobe. “What did they take? Did they take my furniture?”

He brushed me away. “Hey. That's uncalled for. I was just telling you. Of course they took your furniture. That's what movers do. As far as I know, they took everything. Except for that painting over your mantel. And I have to tell you, Gretchen was so thrilled that you would sell it to us. We've always wanted a Maybelle Johns. Have you any idea what her paintings will be worth once she's dead? Gretchen's already planning to paint the front parlor…”

He prattled on like that. I sat down on the steps. My steps. I didn't care what anybody said, these were my damn steps and nobody could sell them without my permission. This was all a horrible mistake, I told myself.

“Wait,” I said, looking up at him. “Did you say you bought one of my paintings? The one over my mantel? Which mantel?”

“The Maybelle Johns portrait over your living-room mantel,” Arrendale said. He was hopping up and down, trying to keep warm, and he looked so comical there, with his skinny bare legs, so pale against the black of the night. “The painting of the little red-headed girl in the blue dress? Gretchen saw it listed in a book about Savannah artists. But I told your boyfriend, just because a painting has been appraised for a price doesn't mean anybody will pay that price.”

“The Maybelle Johns painting. Of my aunt Alice. He sold that to you?”

“Oh, the little girl was your aunt?” Arrendale said, looking fascinated. “Wait till Gretchen hears. She's been wondering about its provenance. She says that's really important for resale value. Not that
we'd sell it. Not until Maybelle Johns dies. I heard she's in a nursing home. After she dies, the value will really skyrocket.”

I leaped up and grabbed him again. “That painting is of my mother's baby sister, Alice. She died two years after it was painted. She was only eight. You can't buy that painting. He had no right to sell it to you. It's a family heirloom. It's the most valuable thing I own. It isn't for sale.”

Arrendale backed away quickly. “Not anymore it's not.”

And he shot inside his own front door and I heard the bolt slide shut.

That night, I slept in the Lexus, parked outside the town house. At first light, I got up and peered in the front window of my town house. Steve Arrendale hadn't exaggerated. From what I could see, Reddy's movers had taken everything. My oriental carpets, paintings, furniture, everything, down to the chandelier that had once hung over the dining-room table. I tried all the ground-floor windows and doors, but they were all locked tight, and my keys no longer worked.