To Live and Die In Dixie (4 page)

A tall, slim, olive-skinned man in a tightly belted trench coat stood at the steps to the mansion, just outside the tape, holding a hand mike to his lips. “Ricardo Hill for News Center Six,” he was saying. “And so,” he added, in the hushed tones of a golf match announcer, “once again tragedy stalks the historic halls of Eagle's Keep.”

Edna leaned forward, the better to absorb every nanosecond of the unfolding television drama.

Ricardo Hill tilted his head up slightly, to give the audience a better look at his adorable $200,000-a-year dimpled chin. His black eyes snapped with excitement. “Sources tell us that a maid, employed by the owner of the mansion, prominent Atlanta antiques dealer Elliot Littlefield, found the nude body of…”

“It's a cleaning service, you twit,” I commented to the television. “You could at least give the House Mouse a plug.” I lurched across toward my mother. “Give me that remote control, Ma, let's check the other channels.”

“Shut up, dammit,” Edna hissed. “I'm trying to watch
this. You can go in the kitchen to watch if you can't be quiet in here.”

While the two of us argued over the remote control, the camera switched to a scene that appeared to be a teenage party that had spilled onto the lawn of a typical suburban ranch house. A toothy blonde in a sedate black suit stood in the midst of a ring of weeping teenage girls and obviously embarrassed boys.

“Heather Hathaway live from Dunwoody,” the blonde was saying, adjusting her face to properly reflect the tragedy of the moment. “All Saints Prep School students attending a birthday party of a classmate at the exclusive preparatory school were shocked and stunned tonight to hear of the senseless death of their former classmate, sixteen-year-old Bridget Marie Dougherty.”

“She was seventeen,” I started, but I shut up when it looked as though Edna might bludgeon me with the ashtray she held in her lap.

The two of us watched silently then as the earnest young newscaster interviewed teary-eyed girls who recited the predictable elegy to a fallen classmate.

“Really a sweet girl…loved animals…never had a bad word to say about anyone.”

With difficulty, I pushed myself off the couch. “I can't stand any more of this, Ma. I'm going back to bed,” I said, stretching and yawning. But I stayed standing, staring at the TV.

The news didn't get any cheerier. A bag boy at a supermarket on Covington Highway had been shot in the head trying to stop a shoplifter from leaving the store with six dollars' worth of frozen perch and the Dodgers had blanked the Braves, six-nothing.

“If you're done watching the news now, how about switching it to The Movie Channel? I think
The Thin Man
festival is still going on.”

Reluctantly, she handed the remote control over to me. “I thought you were going to bed.”

“I was, but it's a waste of time with this headache. I think I'll stay up and watch Nick and Nora for a while.”

Edna got to her feet and moved toward the hall. “I'll get you some aspirin, then I'm going to bed. Myrna Loy depresses me. She never got old.”

“Thanks,” I told her departing form. “There's a new bottle of Tylenol in the medicine cabinet in my bathroom.”

I let my head sink into the sofa cushions and tried to remember the relaxation exercises I'd learned to try to help with my headaches.

My toenails and kneecaps were loosened and I was working my way toward the bellybutton when I heard a clicking noise in front of my nose. I opened my eyes and focused on a large brown plastic pill bottle, which my mother was rattling in rage.

“And just what are these?” Edna said, her speech clipped.

“You know what they are,” I said, closing my eyes in the hopes of avoiding an argument.

“Yes, I know it's the pills your oncologist prescribed on your last visit,” Edna said. “What I want to know is why are there so many pills in this bottle? It's nearly full, Jules, and it says on the label that you're supposed to take three a day.”

I opened my eyes again and returned my mother's hostile glare.

“Look, Ma. I'm a big girl now. Nearly thirty-five. I don't need my mama to make me take my medicine. Just leave me alone, all right?”

“Just tell me why, that's all I ask. Why do you refuse to listen to your doctors? Do you want to have your breasts hacked off like mine were? Is that what you want?” She was in tears now, but she wouldn't back away.

I rubbed my eyes tiredly. “The pills make me sick. I mean really sick, Edna. I was having hot flashes, my mouth was dry, I was nauseated and dizzy all the time. I can't run a business that way.”

“Did you talk to Dr. Kappler about it?” she demanded. “What did he say?”

I laughed bitterly. “‘Some mildly unpleasant side effects,' he said. Mildly unpleasant, my ass. I'd like to have someone give him a monster dose of hormones and God knows what all and see him function. I told him the pills make me sick; he told me the pills are necessary to keep my blood count right and that lots of women take them. End of story.”

She folded her arms across her chest and started to say something, but I cut her off. “I don't need the pills, anyway. My last blood test was fine. Perfectly normal.”

“Fine,” Edna snarled. “You're such a smart girl. You know more than doctors with what, twenty years of education and training? You, Miss four years of University of Georgia, know more than doctors from Emory and Duke and Vanderbilt. I don't know why we ever bothered to send you to college. Should have made you stay home and learn a trade.”

I tossed the remote control onto the coffee table and eased my way out of my armchair, off toward the hall, away from my mother's insistent voice. “I changed my mind again, I think I will go to bed after all. Guess I'll get my own Tylenol.”

Halfway down the hallway I felt something strike my shoulder, then I heard a rattling sound as the plastic pill bottle fell and rolled down the wooden floor.

In the doorway of the den, Edna was silhouetted in the blue light of the television set. “Night night,” she called. “Don't let the cancer bugs bite.”

T
HE WELCOMING SCENT of bacon grease and hot biscuits wafted out the steamed-up door of the Korner Kafe. I pushed open the door, grabbed a Sunday paper from a wire rack near the door and plopped myself down in a wobbly wooden chair at a table by the window.

On most weekends, the KK, as it's known in the neighborhood, is jam-packed for breakfast, with the waiting overflow spilling out onto the curb outside. For some reason, the Kafe's stained linoleum floors, chipped Formica dinette sets and grease-and-cholesterol-laden menu seems to exert some kind of reverse snob appeal charm on the Volvo and BMW set.

Fortunately, it was raining out, a fine chilly mist, and the yupsters had apparently decided to fire up their espresso machines at home. Two or three other tables were taken and the counter was occupied with a handful of silent types seated with empty seats on either side. Everybody was quiet, slurping his or her runny eggs, sipping coffee, minding his or her own business.

Which suited me fine today. Ever since the doctors had diagnosed the small lump on my right breast as
malignant a year ago, my mother has nagged at me like a canker sore that won't go away. My surgeon had done a lumpectomy and the diagnosis had been very early ductal carcinoma. The cancer hadn't spread, hadn't touched my lymph nodes at all; and my doctor and I were optimistic that things were going well. I'd been getting radiation therapy; no picnic, but then it wasn't chemo either. The only cloud on the horizon was the drug he'd recently prescribed: cyclo-something. I'd told him how awful the stuff made me feel, but my complaints were getting me nowhere.

“It's a highly effective drug,” Dr. Kappler had assured me. “Thousands of women take it with no problems at all.” But I was having problems. The pills were playing hell with my hormones. I was having hot flashes, the works. And the drug was starting to affect my sex life. Dr. Kappler, my oncologist, is in his early sixties. Rich Drescher, my family doctor and an old friend, had recommended him as a medical genius, an authority on breast cancer. Kappler's medicine might have been up to date, but he didn't have a clue about how women live in the 1990s. Since I was unmarried, he didn't see why it was a problem that sex had become painful. But Mac and I thought it was a big problem. He'd been understanding and patient, but voluntary chastity isn't Andrew McAuliffe's idea of a good time. Nor is it mine.

After weeks of my bitching and moaning, Dr. Kappler had finally admitted that since my most recent blood test had been normal, I could forgo the hated cyclo-whatever. I'd felt much better since then, and things were back to normal between Mac and me. Now Edna was the problem.

She was on my case all the time. Clipping articles from women's magazines about breast cancer, asking
whether I was still doing daily breast self-exams, and always second-guessing the choices I'd made about living with my disease. It's understandable, in a way. My grandmother had died of breast cancer when Edna was just a teenager; she herself had undergone a mastectomy before she was forty. So when the lump was found to be malignant, she'd begged me to go ahead and have a mastectomy. “Let 'em take it,” she'd urged. “It's just a boob. You don't want to be worrying about the cancer coming back for the rest of your life.”

But my breast surgeon, Rich Drescher, and Dr. Kappler had all agreed: the cancer was early, microinvasive, and the lump was small. The best course was the most conservative; even if it did make my mother crazy with concern.

Edna was already gone when I woke up that morning, probably to one of my brothers' or sisters' houses. She does that when she's ticked off at me—takes off and doesn't come back till she's ready.

“Coffee, hon?” The voice startled me. Karol, the Kafe's owner-manager-chef-waitress, flashed me something close to a smile.

“Yeah, thanks,” I said, pushing the newspaper aside so she could fill my thick china mug.

“You eatin'?” she asked.

I flicked my eyes over the wall-mounted menu, even though I always end up ordering the same thing. “Two eggs with cheese, scrambled, bacon, home fries, biscuits. You got any orange juice?”

She rolled her eyes in exasperation. “I'll see,” she said, but her voice promised nothing.

The scalding coffee burned the tip of my tongue. I let it cool while I worked my way through the newspaper, only half-paying attention to the Saturday rundown of the previous day's mayhem.

And then the headline caught my eye. C
ONTROVERSIAL
B
REAST
C
ANCER
D
RUG TO BE
O
FFERED IN
E
XPERIMENTAL
S
TUDY
.

I scanned the story quickly, my excitement mounting. The story said that the National Cancer Institute was launching a massive drug trial to see if a drug called tamoxifen could prevent breast cancer in women at high risk.

The story sounded too good to be true. Here was a drug already being used for women over sixty who'd had cancer, and now researchers thought it might also prevent at least one-third of expected breast cancers from ever developing.

Unconsciously, my hand went to my right breast, to the tiny line of scar tissue.

I'd been lucky. My kind of cancer had a 95 percent five-year survival rate, good news since I still had another twenty-five years to run on my mortgage. I'd gone through six weeks of radiation therapy immediately after the surgery, and I'd suffered little or no side effects, I'd been ecstatic when my doctor told me I could skip chemotherapy. My hair, thick, black, and curly like my father's, is one of my few vanities. Privately, I dreaded losing my hair almost as much as I did a breast. Silly, stupid woman.

Somewhere along the way, Karol brought my food. I guess I ate it because when I'd finished reading the paper, all that was left of my breakfast was a greasy egg-colored smear on the heavy china plate.

I went back over the newspaper story, slowly this time, reading aloud the important parts. The study would involve sixteen thousand women, some of whom would be premenopausal women ages thirty-five and older. I'd be thirty-five in July. And I was damn sure premenopausal, the last time I'd checked. They wanted
women who'd already had breast cancer or a family history of the disease. I was a double-dipper. Lucky, lucky me.

Tamoxifen. I folded the paper against the edge of the table and tore the article out. According to the newspaper, this drug did everything for women except take out their garbage and rotate their tires. It was an estrogen-blocker and was also effective for developing stronger bones and in helping reduce cholesterol levels.

When I stepped outside the café, the rain had stopped and the sun was making a weak attempt to poke through a gray-edged cloud cover. On the walk home I tried to pick up the pace, striding briskly and swinging my arms in a half-hearted attempt at physical fitness. Tomorrow, I told myself. I'll think about that tomorrow.

Back at home, a boat-size white Chrysler LeBaron was parked in the driveway behind my van. The prodigal mother had returned.

She didn't look up when I walked into the kitchen; just bent her head and acted like she was fascinated with the Dentu-Creme coupon she was clipping out of the paper.

“You not talking to me?”

“That's right,” she said evenly.

“Okay. Just checking.” If she wanted to be that way, I wouldn't tell her about the wonder drug I'd just discovered.

I felt at loose ends. Mac was gone, Edna was pissed at me, and Paula, my best friend, had gone down to St. Simon's Island with another friend to lay in the sun and slurp margaritas.

“You wanna catch a show with me?” I asked Edna, who was lighting up a cigarette and studiously avoiding my eyes. “The new Michael Douglas flick is on at the
Plaza. Two bucks if we go before two
P.M.
, senior citizens get a fifty-cent discount.”

“You forget I'm not speaking to you,” she said.

“Perfect,” I said, trying to stay pleasant. “It's a movie. You're not supposed to talk. I'll buy the popcorn.”

The phone rang before she could reconsider my offer.

“Miss Garrity?”

I recognized the voice at the other end of the line as the master of Eagle's Keep.

“Mr. Littlefield?”

“Very good,” he said dryly. “I'm impressed. I'm calling for two reasons. First, I'd like to apologize for last night. It was a horrible shock for me, and I'm certain for your girls, too. But if you're not violently opposed to the idea, I'd like to have you come back and finish the work. I'll pay extra, of course, for your inconvenience.”

“What about your party?” I asked.

“Naturally, I had to cancel,” he said, permitting himself a small sigh. “But one of the other women in the neighborhood, whose house is also on tour, agreed to move the whole thing over to her house. I just finished taking the last of the petit fours over there.”

“How nice,” I said. “But I'm afraid we've got a full schedule booked this week. I really don't see how we can fit you in….”

Edna pushed the appointment book across the table toward me, and jabbed a finger at Monday. She'd penciled through Neva Jean's standing Monday morning job at the Cataldos'. “They're in Florida,” she mouthed.

“Wait,” I said reluctantly. “Actually, my office manager just pointed out that Neva Jean has a cancellation tomorrow. I suppose if we called in one of our part-time girls to help her we could manage to finish up.”

“Fine,” he said, interrupting. “Now about the other matter. Captain Hunsecker mentioned in passing last
night that you're also a private investigator. And it looks as though I'm going to be needing some help.”

“I'm sorry,” I said, taking my own turn at interrupting. “I can't get involved in an active homicide investigation. If the cops found out I was messing around in their case, I could lose my state certification. Besides, I'm not really taking any new cases right now.”

Actually, I wasn't really being offered any new cases. My most recent foray into the wonderful world of private detecting had been helping an old friend gather evidence against her ex-husband, who'd been welshing on his child-support agreement all the time he was building a lake home with his twenty-two-year-old second wife. I'd been trying to get out of investigating and back to grime fighting for the past year, but shit kept happening.

“I'll pay you very, very well,” Littlefield said, appealing to my baser nature. “And anyway, it's not the homicide I'm worried about.” He paused for a second. “That sounds terrible, doesn't it? As though I don't care who killed poor Bridget. What I meant to say was that I understand how these things work. I've been through this before, you know. What I meant to say was, I'd like your assistance regarding the burglary.”

“That's still a matter for the police, not me,” I said.

“Miss Garrity, you were a detective in the burglary squad. I checked you out,” Littlefield said. “You know from your own experience that the detectives will have nothing to go on to look for my property. These are Civil War—era antiques. Weapons, military artifacts, and an incredibly rare and valuable diary. I believe I mentioned it to you before. The homicide detectives are going to be concentrating on finding Bridget's murderer. Fine. Nobody wants this animal caught more than I. But it is imperative that I recover my property.
The diary; it's the most important piece I've ever handled. It could change the way historians look at the social history of the war…”

“Yes,” Edna was saying in a loud stage whisper. “Tell him yes.”

“I'd like to meet with you, as soon as possible, to discuss this,” Littlefield was saying.

“All right,” I said, caving in. “When?”

“This afternoon,” he said. “Would four o'clock work for you? We've got the final skirmish of the Battle of Kennesaw. I'm the general so it's not something I can get out of, not that I want to. We've been looking forward to this for months now. Why don't you meet me over here then?”