The Fixer Upper (16 page)

“N
o,” I said flatly. “That’s a bug, right? You want me to wear a bug and talk to Alex and get him to admit he bribed Licata? So you can send him to jail? Forget it. I won’t do it.”

“Dempsey,” Carter said. “I think perhaps you should let the agents explain what they want before you turn them down.”

He crossed his arms over his chest and turned to the woman. “It is a recording device, is it not?”

“It’s a bug,” Camerin Allgood said. “We’d like Miss Killebrew to contact her former boss, set up a meeting, see if she can get him to talk about that trip down to the islands with Representative Licata.”

“No,” I said. “No way.”

“Dempsey.” Carter put a warning hand on my arm.

“Talk to her, Mr. Berryhill,” Harrell suggested. “Explain how these things work.”

“You’d give her immunity from prosecution, I’m assuming?” Carter asked, looking at Agent Allgood.

“That’s not up to me,” she said, flipping her hair over her shoulders. “You’d have to talk to the U.S. attorney about that. I’m just authorized to suggest that the government would look very favorably on working out an arrangement with your client, should she be of assistance to us in our investigation.”

“Alex isn’t stupid,” I said, pushing the black plastic case away. “Even if I did agree to wear this thing, why would he be dumb enough to meet me, and if he did meet with me, which he won’t, he’d never talk about Licata, or about what went on down in Lyford Cay. So you guys are just wasting your time.”

Camerin Allgood gave a tight smile. “We never waste the government’s
time, Dempsey. Because we don’t have a lot of it. I’ll tell you what. You think about our conversation here. Think about what’s at stake. As in your future. You may be naive when it comes to men, but I don’t think you’re dumb. I think you’re a smart cookie. And I’ll bet a smart cookie like you can come up with a way to keep from going to jail.”

She uncrossed her legs and stood up. “You’ve got my card. Call me. Sooner would be better than later.”

Jackson Harrell stood too, and shook Carter’s hand. I didn’t offer him mine. I let them out of the house, and stood on the porch watching as they drove away down the street.

“Shiiiiiit,” I said, letting the word out in a long, deep exhale.

“My sentiments exactly,” Carter said.

I leaned against one of the porch columns and closed my eyes. “This is all such a mess. How in the hell do I get myself out of it?”

“Keep doing what you’re doing. Telling these people the truth.”

“I did. They don’t believe me.”

“I think they do. Otherwise you wouldn’t be standing here right this minute.”

“You think I should do what they want.”

He nodded. “I don’t see any other way out.”

“I don’t even have Alex’s phone number,” I said, my face reddening. “I called him, after that reporter showed up here. I left a message on his voice mail, and he called me back.”

“What did he say?” Carter asked.

“Nothing, really. He told me not to talk to any reporters, and not to call his cell phone number again. And when he hung up, I saw that he was calling from ‘unknown caller.’”

Carter sighed. “Well, I’m sure the FBI can get a phone number for Alexander Hodder. That’s one of their specialties.”

“And then what?” I asked. “Do you really think I can just trick him into meeting me? Oh hi, Alex, how’s tricks? Did you really bribe Representative Licata to vote our way on that energy bill? And could you just talk into this phony red flower on my lapel?”

Carter laughed. “I’m sure you could be much subtler than that.”

I felt better. But only a tiny bit.

Tee drove up in the Prius. He hopped out and crossed the yard, coming toward us.

“Hey you,” he said when he got to the porch. “I’ve been trying to call you all morning. And then I got home and spotted your car in my slot in the garage.” He looked from me to his father. “What’s going on? You two planning an armed insurrection?”

“Sorry,” Carter told his son. “I’ve got to cite attorney-client privilege.”

“Oh,” Tee said. “For real?”

“My past caught up with me today,” I said finally. “Your dad is trying to help me out of this fix I got myself into.”

“You didn’t get yourself into it, you were dragged in,” Carter corrected me. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to go over to the office and start doing a little research. Call me if you need me, or if those agents get back in contact.”

He clamped a hand on his son’s shoulder. “Dinner tonight?”

Tee glanced at me. “I was hoping to take Dempsey to dinner.”

“Of course,” Carter said quickly. “Great idea. Get her mind off her troubles. I’ll talk to you later then.”

We watched him drive off. I felt a wave of despair wash over me.

Tee saw the expression on my face change. “Dad showed me the story in the
Post
. You feel like talking about it?”

“No. I don’t know. Maybe. God, I’m an idiot.”

“Then let’s talk about something else,” he said. “How’s the house coming along?”

I shot him a grateful smile. “Not too bad, actually. You want to see?”

Tee was suitably impressed with the kitchen floor, once he raised the paper Bobby had taped down over it. “Amazing,” he said. “You did all this yourself? Pulled up the linoleum and stripped and sanded it? All in one weekend?”

“I got a little crazy,” I admitted. “That’s how I get when I start a project. I can’t stop once I get started. Stupid, huh?”

“Not at all.” He gestured toward the pile of cabinet doors stacked in the corner. “What’s going on with those? You getting new cabinets in here?”

“Nope. Can’t afford new,” I said. “Bobby says they’re good, solid heart pine. Like the floors. He’s going to take down the cabinet boxes and strip them. My job is to strip the doors. Or, that was my plan.”

I sat down at the kitchen table, suddenly overwhelmed by everything that had taken place that day.

Tee sat down beside me. He picked up my right hand and examined it. “You’ve got calluses, did you know that? Blisters too. I’d say your manicure is shot.”

He lifted my hand to his lips and gently kissed the palm. He took my left hand, examined it gravely. “This one’s shot too,” he announced, giving it the same treatment. “And you’ve got a splinter.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“You can tell me to stop,” Tee offered, holding both my hands in his. “Send me packing.”

“Or?”

He leaned forward and kissed my forehead. “Or you could let me hang around for a while.” He grinned. “Let me finish what I’ve started. I’m crazy that way.”

“Tee.” I’d begun to say something, but he was pulling me closer. A moment later, I was in his lap, with my arms around his neck. Tee was kissing me, so sweetly, so tenderly, I felt all my troubles fall away—if only for a little while.

Then I heard the front door open, and heavy orthopedic shoes clomping down the hallway, followed by the skittering of Shorty’s toenails. I jumped up, red faced and embarrassed, like a teenager caught raiding her parent’s liquor cabinet.

Tee looked just as startled, but then he started to chuckle. “Dad’s right,” he said under his breath. “We really do have to do something about that old lady.”

Ella Kate burst into the kitchen. “FBI!” she cried. “You got the law down here after you, girl. And the whole town knows about it.”

Shorty sat down on his haunches and gave a short, angry bark, echoing his mistress’s tone.

“It’s a misunderstanding,” I said.

“It’s a good thing your grandmama isn’t alive to hear about this,”
Ella Kate said, her face shriveled with anger. “Dragging the family name through the mud. She’s turning over in her grave, is what she is. And your uncle Norbert too. None of them ever got so much as a parking ticket in their whole lives. Killebrews!” she snorted. “Trash. That’s what your daddy’s people are. Nothin’ but trash.”

“Now wait just a minute,” Tee said. “Miss Ella Kate, you’ve really got no call to talk to Dempsey this way. Especially since you are living under her roof, essentially without any right of your own to be here.”

She wheeled around and looked Tee up and down. “Young Berryhill,” she snapped. “Think ’cause you’re a lawyer you can talk to an old lady any way you please. I’ll bet your daddy would take a switch to your behind if he knew you were sassing me like this.”

Tee just laughed. Ella Kate turned and stomped off down the hall and up the stairs. Shorty followed in her wake.

We heard her door open, and then close with a slam, and the loud click of the lock echoing in the high-ceilinged hallway.

“Oh, God,” I wailed. “Everybody in Guthrie knows about this mess.”

“Well, they think they do,” Tee agreed. “It’s a small town. There’s not a lot going on, now that the school superintendent’s in jail for downloading kiddie porn on his county computer.”

“You made that up,” I said.

“If I’m lyin’, I’m dyin’,” Tee said, crossing his heart. “We got nearly two hundred new subscriptions to the paper out of dear old Dr. Winship’s troubles. Scandal’s a real circulation builder, you know.”

I looked at him. “So, you’re saying next week I’ll be on the front page of the
Guthrie Citizen-Advocate
?”

He had the good grace to blush. “No,” he said. “You haven’t been arrested, haven’t been charged with anything. You had a visit from law enforcement. That’s all. No news there.”

“Yet,” I reminded him.

He sighed. “I just came over here to see if I could take a pretty lady to dinner. I had no idea I’d end up having a face-off with a crazy old woman.”

“You asked me if I wanted you to go away,” I said.

“I did,” he agreed. “And if I remember correctly, I seemed to be mak
ing some headway in convincing you to let me stay, until we were so rudely interrupted.”

“You really want to hear all about my troubles?” I asked. “It’s a big, nasty, dirty mess, Tee. As your father pointed out, the FBI isn’t kidding around. They basically threatened to throw me in jail if I don’t help them.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously,” I said. “They cited me chapter and verse. Public corruption. I could get fifteen years in prison for each count. Plus disbarment.”

“So do what they want you to do,” Tee said. “That’s what Dad advised, right?”

“It’s not that easy,” I said. “They want me to wear a wire, to set up a meeting with Alex Hodder and get him to admit, with the FBI listening in, that he bribed a congressman. It’s ludicrous. Alex won’t return my phone calls. He’d never do it. Anyway, I don’t have the nerve. My stomach hurts just thinking about it. I’m screwed, Tee. I told you before, run away.”

“Naw,” Tee drawled. He slipped his hands around my waist. “It’s too late. I’m already in too deep. I’m not going anywhere. We’ll figure it out, Dempsey. Together.”

I
took a deep breath and looked around the kitchen. I had no idea how to save myself from the disaster that threatened to ruin my career as well as my reputation, but it turned out I had accidentally stumbled upon something I was actually good at: fixing up this broken-down old house.

Tee cocked his head and observed me. “About that dinner?”

“I just…can’t,” I said. “I’m a coward, I know, but with the FBI sniffing around town I just don’t feel like facing everybody in Guthrie.”

“Not everybody knows,” Tee said.

“Name one person who doesn’t.”

He gave it some thought. “I’m almost positive Oliveann Dismukes hasn’t heard about your troubles.”

“Who’s she?”

“Oliveann is head cashier at the Family Dollar store out on the bypass,” Tee said. “I happen to know that she’s down in Flovilla this week because her daughter just had twins. So Oliveann definitely does not know or care about your troubles.”

“I’m still not going out to dinner,” I said. “For one thing, I’ve got absolutely no appetite. And for another, I really want to get started on stripping these cabinet doors.”

He gave a deep, martyred sigh. “Very well. If I can’t tempt you to dine with me, can I at least talk you into letting me help with the stripping?”

I handed him a pair of rubber gloves. “Be my guest. But don’t blame me if you get hooked on the smell of chemical stripper.”

He gestured toward the pile of tools in the corner. “I thought I’d use the heat gun.”

“Uh-uh,” I said. “I’ve only got the one gun. So it’s stripper and gloves for you, buddy boy.”

He looked wounded. “But…guns aren’t for girls. Guns are for boys. This is the South. Ask anybody.”

“My house. My rules.”

We unrolled a heavy rubberized canvas tarp over the paper-covered floors, and then Tee dragged in two sets of sawhorses Bobby had dropped by earlier. We divided the stack of cupboard doors in half. I picked up my iPod and was about to plug in the earbuds.

“Hey!” Tee said sharply. “You get tunes and not me? No fair!”

“Are you always this whiny and demanding?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said. “Are you always this bossy and territorial?”

“Always,” I told him.

“Okay then,” he said, pulling me toward him. “At least we know where we stand with each other.”

I returned his kiss with a laugh and then pushed him away. “Work first, play later. If you go upstairs to my bedroom, you’ll find the docking station for my iPod. But I warn you: I don’t want to hear any complaints about my playlist. You don’t like Michael Jackson or Sheryl Crow, you’re outta luck.”

When he came back downstairs with the iPod station, he looked bemused.

“What?” I asked, setting the speaker system up on the kitchen table.

“I love what you’ve done with your bedroom.”

I blushed. Earlier in the week, I’d gone back up to the attic to rummage around some more. I’d come across what looked like an old army foot locker. Instead of the pile of moth-eaten military uniforms I expected, the locker turned out to hold unexpected treasures.

Folded across the top was a beautiful hand-stitched quilt in soft pastels, pale pinks, peaches, aquas, yellows, and greens. I didn’t know very much about quilts, but I thought the pattern, of interlocking circles, was probably double wedding ring. From the look and feel of the still-crisp fabrics, the quilt had never been used. Right beneath the quilt was a stack of yellowing bed linens, two sheets and four pillowcases, all with delicate lace tatting on the hems, the pillowcases bearing an elaborate
flowing monogram, its letters so intertwined I couldn’t quite make out any letter. The stack was tied with a wide, faded pink satin ribbon.

At the bottom of the trunk, I’d found a large cardboard box. The flowing script on the pink-and-white-striped top said “Beedle Bros. Department Store,” and the lid literally fell apart in my hands when I lifted it off. Inside the box, nestled in tissue-paper wrapping, was a set of delicately detailed pen-and-ink sketches and watercolor drawings of wildflowers, trees, and birds. I’d been so utterly charmed by the drawings, I’d lifted them out of the box, one by one, spreading them across my bed. There were a dozen drawings in all, none of them signed, each more enchanting than the next.

I knew the watercolors deserved to be matted and framed and protected under glass, but there was no money in my budget for such extravagance. Instead, I’d carefully pinned them to the wall opposite my bed, with sewing pins I’d discovered in a pin cushion in the bottom of the same trunk.

Thrilled with all my discoveries, I’d carefully soaked the sheets and pillowcases in a bathtub full of hot soapy water and bleach before running them through the clunky washing machine in the basement. Then I’d hung them out on the clothesline stretched from the back mud porch to the trunk of a pine tree, hoping that the sun would whiten them further. I’d hung the quilt out on the line too, to dispel the last traces of mustiness from all those years in the footlocker.

I’d even borrowed the flowered rag rug I’d found in Uncle Norbert’s bedroom. It too had gotten a soaking and some time on the clothesline, and now, every morning when I swung my feet onto that hard wooden floor, I was happy to have the rug’s welcoming warmth.

My bedroom was my one refuge in this house—the one place I’d been able to clean up and fix up enough to take pride in. It was my happy place.

“Thanks,” I told Tee. “I still want to paint the walls, and get rid of those nasty old ruffled nylon curtains, but I had to buy a new mattress first, and that cut into my budget. Bobby, God bless him, picked up the mattress for me and dragged it up the stairs. And, of course, eventually I want to frame those watercolors. Aren’t they lovely?”

“Very pretty,” Tee said, plugging in the docking station. “And well done. Where did you get them?”

“They were in a box in a footlocker I found up in the attic,” I said. “Along with the quilt, and the bed linens, and some damask dinner napkins. They’re all monogrammed, like the sheets, but the design is so intricate, I can’t make it out.”

“Hmm,” Tee said, not really listening. “That’s nice.”

“None of the stuff in that trunk has ever been used,” I added. “It’s like somebody was anticipating needing them, packed them away, and never came back. I’d love to know who did the tatting, and the watercolors, of course.”

“One of your Dempsey relatives, no doubt,” Tee said. “Nobody else has ever lived here but Dempseys.”

I gestured toward the doorway. “Do you think that stuff belongs to Ella Kate?”

“No way,” Tee said quickly. “I don’t think Ella Kate has a domestic bone in her body. Anyway, if it was hers, why would it be up in your attic? Ella Kate didn’t move in over here until the last year or so your uncle Norbert was alive.”

I turned on the iPod and plugged in my heat gun. Tee laid a cabinet door across his sawhorses, and made a show of snapping on the rubber gloves. When he uncapped the can of chemical solvent, I opened the back door to ventilate the room. The night air was surprisingly mild. Maybe spring really was on its way to Guthrie.

“I guess the trunk and its contents will just be another of Birdsong’s unsolved mysteries.”

“You could ask your dad, couldn’t you?” Tee suggested.

“I could, but he knows even less about his mother’s family than I do.”

Tee shook his head. “I just find that so hard to believe. Doesn’t he have any curiosity about his family? Don’t you?”

“Mitch is an ‘of the moment’ kind of guy,” I said matter-of-factly, aiming the heat gun at my first cabinet door. I watched with fascination as the old layers of paint began to loosen, then bubble up. “He’s not the least bit sentimental about family stuff—unless, that is, it involves him and Pilar and the boys.”

Tee winced. “Does that hurt your feelings?”

I placed the scraper’s blade at the edge of the cabinet and applied even pressure, pushing away a long, thick ribbon of softened paint, scraping all the way to the opposite end of the door. Then, I wiped the gummy paint from my scraper and applied the heat gun to the next edge.

“Dempsey?”

“I know my dad loves me,” I said finally. “He’s just not very demonstrative with me. Not the way he is with the twins. And I’m okay with that. I think he regrets that he didn’t have a closer relationship with me, and maybe, with Gavin and Garrett, he thinks he’s getting a second chance at being a better parent. Or a different one, anyway.”

“That’s a remarkably mature attitude to take,” Tee said.

I laughed ruefully. “Well, maybe I just talk a good game. Things aren’t all that rosy between my dad and me right now.”

“Why’s that?”

“We had a fight,” I admitted. “He called me up this morning, after that reporter called him about the story in the
Post
. He was absolutely livid that I’d dragged his good name through the mud.”

“Did you tell him your side of the story?” Tee asked.

“I tried. He didn’t really want to hear.”

“I’m sorry,” Tee said. He stared down at the cupboard door. He’d only managed to scrape away a few inches of the paint.

“Do you realize what a great dad you have?” I asked. “I really envy the relationship you guys have.”

“We weren’t always this tight,” Tee said. “I was your typical pain-in-the-ass teenager. Dad rode me really hard—he didn’t like my friends, my grades, or most of my choices. When I went away to college, I swore I’d never be anything like my old man. I was never going to be a lawyer like him, and I definitely was never coming back to live in a backwater like Guthrie.”

“You’d never know that now. Anybody can see that he adores you, and is insanely proud that you’re his son. What changed things?”

“My mom got sick,” he said. “And when it was clear that she wasn’t going to get any better, I guess Dad and I both decided our differences
were pretty petty. Going into practice with him was sort of a last gift to Mom.”

“That’s so sweet,” I said, blinking away sudden tears.

“Well, don’t go getting all sloppy on me,” Tee said. “I think you have a pretty idyllic notion of us. We’re not perfect. We fight and fuss and cuss just like any other family. And he’s still pissed that I want to spend more time running the paper and less time practicing law.”

“But he won’t stand in the way of your running the paper.”

“No,” Tee said. “He just likes to give me a bunch of grief about it, every chance he gets.”

Tee put his scraper down and walked over to where I was working. “You’re almost done with this door,” he said accusingly. “And I’ve been hacking away over there with that smelly stuff, and I’m not even halfway finished.”

“I’m quick on the trigger,” I said smugly. “So sue me.”

He held out his hand. “It’s my turn now. Gimme the gun.”

“No way.”

He stood behind me and nuzzled my ear. “Please?”

“If I give you the gun, what do you give me?”

He switched to my left ear. He needed a shave and his stubble tickled my neck.

“Go away,” I said, swatting the air ineffectively. “I’m very busy here. I have no time for your tomfoolery.”

He wrestled the heat gun away from me with very little effort, then turned me around to face him. He carefully placed the gun on the saw-horse. “Seriously now. No tomfoolery, as you so quaintly put it. I have an important question to ask you.”

I put my arms around his neck. “Okay. Ask away. But I am not giving you my heat gun. You’ll have to get your own if you want one that badly.”

“I will,” Tee said. He kissed me.

“What’s the question then?” I asked.

He kissed my forehead. He kissed the tip of my nose. He kissed the hollow of my neck in an exquisitely leisurely way, while his hands closed around my butt, pressing us together.

The next thing I knew, something sharp and prickly was slashing at my shoulders and my head.

“Stop that!” Ella Kate hollered, smacking me on the back with a broom. I broke away from Tee, and he ducked, just barely missing Ella Kate’s next swing.

Instead, she landed a blow on my right cheek. “Trash!” she screeched. “I won’t have such trashy behavior under my own roof. You hear? I won’t have it.” She swung again and smacked me on the right arm.

“Ow,” I protested, rubbing my arm. “That hurts.”

“Ella Kate!” Tee cried, grabbing for the broom. “Cut it out!”

“You cut it out, you little pissant,” Ella Kate replied, clutching the broom to her chest. “Get out of my house, right this minute, or I’ll call the police. I’ll call your father too, Tee Berryhill. Don’t think I won’t tell him about your behavior.”

“What behavior?” Tee asked, his face reddening. “I was kissing a girl. She was kissing me back. We’re not teenagers, Ella Kate. Anyway, this really is not your house. It belongs to Dempsey and her father.”

“This is a respectable house,” Ella Kate whispered. “Respectable! If you two want to cat around, you can just go to a motel. I won’t have the two of you he-ing and she-ing under this roof. If Norbert knew this was going on here, he would be spinning in his grave. Killebrews!”

She took the broom and hit me squarely on the top of the head with it. She turned to Tee and gave him a vicious slap in the crotch, and then she calmly strolled out of the kitchen, broom in hand.