To Live and Die In Dixie (12 page)

He had indeed. The photo was in color and showed a smiling hard-hatted Vickers wielding a huge pair of scissors in front of a new-looking brick building.

“Memorial Library?”

“After my father,” he said quickly. “P. G. T. Junior. I'm P. G. T. the third; ‘Pete' to my friends. Daddy gave part of his personal library to start the first Stone Mountain library, and then he left them money in his will to provide for a new building.”

“Philanthropy seems to be a family tradition for the Vickerses,” I said. “How nice.”

He snorted. “Shrewdness is what runs in my family, as I'm sure you're aware. We're in the book business here. Just makes good sense to have our name connected with a library.”

I looked down at the newspaper photo again. Vickers
and the others in the crowd appeared to be squinting in the face of strong sunlight. “Looks like the ribbon-cutting took place in the morning,” I said. “Bridget was killed sometime in late afternoon. And Mr. Littlefield mentioned that you'd been in his home before for social functions. Did the police ask you about that?”

He snatched the newspaper away. “I been trying to treat you like a lady, like my mama brought me up, but you keep on asking a bunch of snotty, smart-alecky questions. You remind me of my first wife. She had an attitude just like yours.”

“Does that mean you're not going to answer my questions?” I asked innocently.

He pushed his chair back from the desk, bumping into the gun case. “That means I've given you all the time you're getting,” he said. “I got a meeting to go to.”

With great deliberation I dabbed daintily at the corners of my mouth and set my plate and glass of tea squarely on the newspaper, deliberately spilling a little in the process. “Good-bye, Mr. Vickers,” I said, holding out my hand to shake. He grasped it, shook once, and dropped it. “Thank you for the lovely lunch,” I added. “I'm sorry you find uppity women so intimidating, but I'm afraid that's often the case with men who have unresolved questions about their own virility. I understand your hero, Robert E. Lee, had the same problem.”

I might have flounced an imaginary hoopskirt as I swept out. He deserved it.

I
SAT IN THE VAN OUTSIDE the Rebel Yell offices and fumed. There was no real satisfaction in sniping at somebody like Pete Vickers, and I felt unsettled and confused.

If the diary wasn't in the hands of a serious collector, what then? I ticked off the possibilities in my head: that the burglary and murder had been a random act of violence by a crack-crazed junkie; that Littlefield had killed Bridget, just as he'd killed before; that Kyle Jordan had killed his lover to keep his family together; and the scenario that Littlefield was pushing, that the crimes had been committed as part of a plot to destroy him.

None of the choices pleased me. To be honest, I'd have to admit that my enthusiasm for finding Lula Belle Bird's diary was waning fast. The real crime at Eagle's Keep had been the murder of Bridget Dougherty. Despite my protests to the contrary, that was the case I was itching to solve.

I was still sitting there cogitating when Pete Vickers walked out the front door of his office and got into a big black Oldsmobile parked three spaces down from me. I waited until his car had turned the corner, then hopped
out of the van and walked back into the Rebel Yell lobby.

Miss Kate had propped a tiny portable television on the edge of the reception desk and she was addressing two on-screen actors who appeared to be indulging in some afternoon delight. “Oh my,” she said, looking away, her hand to her mouth. “And here that little April is just back from her honeymoon, climbing into bed with that no-good Dack.”

“Miss Kate,” I said, loudly.

She jumped, and looked around guiltily.

“I'm Callahan Garrity,” I reminded her. “I was just here to see Mr. Vickers. I'm, uh, with the Stone Mountain Historical Association and he, uh, mentioned you might know whether anyone photographed the library dedication last Saturday.”

She turned down the volume on the set. “What's that?”

I repeated my question.

She scrabbled around on the desktop, opened some drawers and briefly ducked under the desk to look there.

“No'm,” she said. “I seen some photo fellas snapping pictures that day, but young Pete never gave none of 'em to me.”

“You were at the dedication?” I asked casually.

“Sure was,” she said proudly. “Young Pete picked me up himself, brought me an orchid corsage to wear too.”

“He's quite a guy that Pete,” I said. “Tell me, was the ceremony a long one? Sometimes these things drag on and on.”

“No, not too long,” she said, glancing toward the television. “Mr. Pete took us to a nice reception at the Magnolia Plantation afterward. Then he had Miss Vicki, that's the youngest sister, take me home.”

“He didn't take you himself?”

“No'm. He had to be in Atlanta that afternoon for his study group. War Between the States, you know. Young Pete's always studying on that. He's a real scholar.”

“I could tell,” I lied. “Say, you know, I believe I must have left my notebook in Mr. Vickers's office when I was here just now. I'll just run up and get it if you don't mind.”

She reached over and turned the volume back up. The soap opera lovers were rolling around on satin sheets. She didn't look back at me. “Can't get up those stairs my own self any more. You go on ahead.”

I took the stairs two at a time. Vickers's office door was open, but his desktop was disappointingly clear, holding only a telephone. I peeked out into the hallway. Nobody there. His appointment calendar was in the top right-hand desk drawer. Pete Vickers was a thorough kind of guy. Each page of the calendar was marked off in hour increments, with appointments and reminders neatly inked in. I leafed backward to Saturday. He'd marked the library dedication time, eleven
A.M.
, and the reception time at one
P.M.
If he'd left after an hour, he'd have had plenty of time for a trip to Eagle's Keep. There was no notation about a Civil War study group. I turned the page to Sunday. There were no notations, but he'd stuck a yellow Post-It note to the page.
Darryl, 555-2303
, it said. I took a pen out of the drawer, helped myself to a piece of paper and jotted the information down. Then I slid the drawer shut and sauntered down the stairs.

Miss Kate was so involved with April and Dack she barely gave me a nod when I got back to the lobby.

There was a Starvin' Marvin down the street from Rebel Yell. I decided to pull over and make a phone call. I dialed the
Constitution
newsroom and asked for Brownie Brownell. After five minutes of being switched from phone to phone, the veteran crime reporter came on the line.

“Brownell,” he said. Brownie sounded old and slightly feeble, but I knew he couldn't have been sixty yet. He said he remembered me from the cop shop, but I could tell he didn't have a clue who I was. He did, however, remember the Sunny Girl murder case.

“Big story,” he said, relishing the memory. “I got pulled off the James Earl Ray murder trial to cover Sunny Girl. Never did find out who that little gal was, or where she was from. My own little girl was a teenager at the time, and I'll never forget how bad I felt for that girl's folks, whoever they were, that their daughter ran away from home and never came back. That's a terrible thought, isn't it, not knowing what's happened to your kid?”

“It is,” I agreed. “I know Littlefield's conviction was overturned, but what happened to the retrial?”

“There never was a retrial,” Brownell said. “Jim Barchie, the district attorney, stalled and stalled, then finally announced that there wasn't enough evidence to guarantee a conviction. Barchie was up for re-election that year, and there was no way he wanted people to remember how badly he'd screwed up that case. He let a rookie cop take the blame for fouling up the evidence, but I always maintained it was Barchie's own fault for not having tighter control of the investigation.”

“What happened to the rookie?” I asked. “Who was he?”

“Calvin Shakespeare,” Brownell said promptly. “Funny kind of name for a cop. He got put on administrative leave and was fired later. He appealed it, but nothing ever came of it.”

“You sure remember a lot about this story,” I remarked.

“It always bothered me,” Brownell said. “Back in seventy-nine, on the tenth anniversary of the murder, I did a big investigation. Best story I ever wrote. I went back and
talked to everybody. Hell, I even turned up a witness who was in the next bedroom at the time, heard screams and later saw Littlefield coming out of the bedroom alone.”

“You're kidding,” I said. “Why didn't the cops reopen the case then?”

He laughed bitterly. “The story never ran. We had a hotshot young city editor who thought nobody cared about a ten-year-old murder. The story got canned. I nearly quit over it.”

“That sucks,” I said, mostly to myself.

“It was a long time ago,” he said quietly.

A series of short beeps interrupted Brownell's train of thought. “Whoops,” he said, “call holding. Gotta go.”

“Wait a minute,” I said, “who was the witness?”

“I don't guess it matters now. At the time it was a big secret. It was a young doctor named Koteras,” Brownell said. “He and some stewardess were screwing in the next bedroom. They never came forward because the stew was in the middle of a divorce and was afraid she'd lose custody of her kid if it came out in court. Bye.”

Koteras. The doctor who made house calls. No wonder he didn't like to socialize with Littlefield. He'd covered up a murder for the sake of convenience all those years ago, and now it looked like his old buddy had pulled it off again.

I got back in the van, but I wasn't going anywhere in a hurry. Traffic had gotten worse while I was on the phone. The street was clogged with MARTA buses, overheating cars, and darting in and out of traffic, bicyclists. There was no way I would voluntarily wade into that mess. I felt in my pocket for more money for a phone call, but all I found was a crumpled five-dollar bill.

Inside the Starvin' Marvin I treated myself to a kiwilime wine cooler and got a handful of change for the phone.

Hunsecker was away from his desk at a meeting, but his new partner, Linda Nickells, said she expected him back soon. She acted friendly on the phone, a somewhat encouraging sign. “Ask him to call me at home tomorrow, will you?” I said. “And tell him I'm sorry I ran off at the mouth.”

Nickells had a nice laugh. “He's used to mouthy women,” she said. “Don't worry. I'll make him call.”

I dropped another quarter in the slot. “House Mouse—ask about our summer savings super special,” drawled a female voice.

“Neva Jean,” I said, “let me talk to Edna.”

“Hey,” I said, when my mother came on the phone.

“Hey your own self,” Edna said tartly. “Where are you?”

The wail of a police siren drowned out my reply.

“Where are you?” she repeated. “A drunk tank?”

The police cruiser was trying to inch its way through the clogged traffic, but with traffic blocked both ways, it was slow going. I could feel the sweat dripping down my back. With the heat coming off the asphalt and the fumes from overheating engines it must have been over a hundred degrees.

“I'm on Ponce,” I said patiently. “Traffic's all snarled up, so I stopped to use a pay phone and while I was on the phone it's gotten worse. Now it's not moving at all. Either way.”

“Too bad,” she said. “The air-conditioner blew a compressor right after you left this morning and the repairman says he can't get the parts till tomorrow, if then. It's a hundred and ten degrees in this kitchen right now and Ruby's blood pressure is up again so I spent two hours sitting with her at the clinic at Grady today before they'd see her.”

“She okay?” I asked anxiously.

“She's home sleeping, but now my own blood pressure's sky high, thanks for asking.”

“Other than that, how's it going? Any messages?”

“Nothing urgent,” she snapped. “I'll talk to you later.”

I was almost home when I remembered the blown air compressor, so I decided to take a detour to Inman Park. I took a left on Dolan Avenue, and from there I could see the redbrick turrets of Eagle's Keep. Might as well give my client an update, I reasoned.

The Rolls was parked in Littlefield's open garage, but his van was missing. I parked on the street and walked up to the front and rang the doorbell, just in case. On the other side of the door I heard loud mewing and scratching. “It's me, Ping-Pong,” I called. “Where's the boss?”

The cat mewed pathetically again. “Surprised you haven't been packed off for a permanent catnap,” I muttered to the door. I'm no cat lover, but I felt sorry, even proprietary toward Bridget's abandoned pet.

“I'm surprised he hasn't drowned her,” said a voice from behind me.

Jake Dahlberg looked as good in a dress shirt and unknotted tie as he had in shorts and no shirt.

“Actually, I hate cats,” I said apologetically. “Or I'd take her home with me.”

“Allergies,” Dahlberg said, pointing to his eyes. “Only pet I can keep is a goldfish.”

We smiled at each other in a goofy kind of silence, fresh out of meaningful things to say to each other.

“Littlefield left an hour ago,” he volunteered. “Want to come over and have a cold beer?”

I hesitated. I was hot and cranky. But Dahlberg intrigued me. “Make it something nonalcoholic and you've got a deal,” I said finally. “If I have any more liquor in this heat, I'll positively swoon.”

“I like the sound of that,” he teased. “How does iced tea sound?”

“Nice.”

I sank gratefully into a dark green painted rocker on Dahlberg's porch. It was cool there in the shade, and it felt like the first time that day that I'd had a minute of peace. I sank my head back and closed my eyes. I sat like that for five minutes or so, not sleeping really, but not really alert, either.

When I opened my eyes again, he was standing over me, a frosty glass of tea in his hand. He'd changed back into shorts and a T-shirt.

“You've got nice skin,” he said casually. “Creamy. It reminds me of the women I saw in Ireland. Not like women here who stay out in the sun until they look like a hunk of Slim Jim.”

I yawned to cover my embarrassment. For some reason I felt silly and slightly giddy around Dahlberg.

The tea was cold and scented with mint and lemon. I smacked my lips appreciatively. “Good,” I said. “I feel better already.”

He sat down beside me and opened his Kronenberg. “How's the investigation?”

“So-so,” I said. “Lots of possibilities, very few real leads.”

Then he wanted to know how a nice girl like me got into something as seedy as private investigation. He wanted to know all the stuff other people always ask when they meet a woman whose work they consider unusual.

Normally I hate talking about that stuff. Like anybody else, I do what I'm trained to do—what I'm good at. Besides, for the most part what I do is run a cleaning business, a distinctly unglamorous career.

“The House Mouse?” he said when I told him about my business. “You're a maid?”

I bristled at his tone of voice. “I run a business,” I said testily. “We employ six people full-time. I own my own home, pay taxes, and we make a small but respectable profit. I myself am college educated and I even watch ‘Masterpiece Theatre' occasionally.”

“Okay,” he laughed. “Sorry if I acted like a snob. Actually, after you mentioned the cleaning business it occurred to me that you might be able to give some work to some of our tenants.”

“Tenants?” I said innocently. “Are you running a rooming house here?”

“Not exactly. I'm the founder and president of the board of Home for Hope. Maybe you've heard about us. We're a nonprofit outfit. We buy abandoned houses in in-town neighborhoods, rehab them, and sell them for a very low price, with no down payment to the working poor.”