To Live and Die In Dixie (5 page)

W
HAT?” EDNA DEMANDED, as I put the receiver back on the hook.

“Are you on speaking terms with me?” I inquired, as I headed back down the hallway to change out of my drizzle-dampened jeans.

“Shove it,” she said sweetly. “What's Littlefield want besides his house cleaned? Are we gonna do a little detecting?”

“Me. Julia Callahan Garrity. Not you,” I said. “Not House Mouse. He wants me to find the stuff stolen during last night's burglary.”

“Such as?” She lit up a cigarette and managed one deep, unhealthy drag before I crossed the room in a single stride, yanked the cigarette out of her fingers and stubbed it out in an empty coffee cup on my bedside table. “For Christ's sake, Ma,” I said. “I can't keep you from smoking in the rest of the house, but you know I hate smoke in my bedroom.”

“Don't get your panties in a wad. So what kind of stuff is missing? Jewelry, antiques, bonds, what?”

“I'm supposed to go over there this afternoon, around four, after he gets done playing Civil War
games with the other boys,” I told her. “As soon as I know, you'll know,” I promised, running my fingers through my hair in an attempt to tame the tangle.

“Now what about the movie? Are we on or not? The show starts in fifteen minutes, and Paula says if you miss the beginning you might as well not go. It's a suspense thing.”

She looked down at her watch. “Why not?” she said, shrugging. “I'm still not talking to you, though.”

“Good,” I said, picking my purse up from the dresser where I'd tossed it the night before. “For once maybe I'll be able to follow the story line without you jabbering in my ear.”

“I'm not even sitting in the same row with you,” she retorted, following me down the hall toward the front door.

As I was turning the lock in the key, she dug furiously in her purse. “Hey,” she said, a trace more friendly than she had been. “You got any cash? I'm short.”

I handed her a crumpled bill. “Here. That's five dollars. And don't be running to me for more when your popcorn runs out.”

She snatched the five out of my fingers and crammed it in the pocket of her slacks. “Ungrateful little snot. I shoulda put you up for adoption when I had a chance.”

For a Sunday matinee, the fare was long on naked romping and short on suspense. Edna was standing in the lobby finishing off a cigarette when I came out of the darkened theater.

A wave of humid heat greeted us once we left the air-conditioned lobby.

“Whew,” Edna said, fanning herself. “It must be about a hundred degrees out here. Let's get in the car and get that air-conditioning cranked up.”

“Sorry,” I said. She grimaced. “I can't wait till we
make some real money and you can trade in that piece of crap van.”

She bitched and moaned about the heat the whole way home, fanning herself furiously with a folded-up newspaper.

“We'll have something cold for dinner,” she said, as I unlocked the back door. “It's too hot to turn on the oven.”

I left her in the kitchen, debating to herself about chicken salad versus a nice fruit plate.

It was 3:45. Just enough time to dab a cold wet washcloth on my face and the back of my neck before time to head over to Littlefield's.

Inman Park was eerily quiet for a Sunday afternoon. The unseasonable heat had driven the lawn mowers, flower planters, and garden putterers back inside their homes. Two young kids rode by me on their bicycles, but they were the only ones out on the street.

I got out of the car and rang the doorbell at Eagle's Keep. No answer. I'd been punctual, but maybe Littlefield's period war games were running late. Maybe he'd rewritten the script and the Rebels were whipping Yankee butt clear back to Lookout Mountain in Tennessee.

I sat back in the van to wait. The kids rode by again, and then again a third time. It finally dawned on me that Eagle's Keep had become a murder scene, making it instantly fascinating to any kid over the age of six. I looked around in the van for something to read, but I'd cleaned it the previous week in an uncharacteristic fit of tidiness.

I was hot. My blouse was sticking to my back and the backs of my legs were sticking to the seat. Bored, I shut my eyes and decided to take a short nap.

Right at the gates to dreamland, I heard a car's
engine, followed by the sound of slamming doors. I opened my eyes and saw a knot of gray-uniformed men emerging from a beat-up gray pickup truck parked in Littlefield's driveway.

Two of the men went around to the bed of the truck where two more were lifting something up. “Careful,” one of them roared. “If you drop this sumbitch we'll all have hell to pay.”

“Get his legs, Ray,” ordered one of the men in the truck bed. Grunting, the men lifted the slackened body of Elliot Longstreet Littlefield out of the truck, and began carrying it around to the back of the house.

“What happened?” I asked when I caught up to them at the back door.

“Heat stroke,” said the Johnny Reb who was rifling through one of Littlefield's uniform pockets. The man was short and squat, with a full grizzled gray beard and frizzy gray hair that hung down to his shoulders. His uniform was grease-spattered and sweat-drenched, and he smelled like the loser at a day-long goat-roping. “Sumbitch passed out cold right in the middle of our charge up the mountain.”

I looked down at Littlefield. The laird of Eagle's Keep wore a splendid blue wool frock coat with double rows of brass buttons and three gold stars on the cream-colored stand-up collar. His tight-fitting trousers were wool too and he wore soft black-leather knee boots. His face was pale and damp and his breathing shallow. In the fierce midday heat, he'd simmered in his own juices just like a Sunday pot roast.

The grizzled Reb looked at me with interest. “Say, lady, are you a neighbor? We need to get the general here in the house, where it's cool, but I can't seem to find his house key.”

I shook my head. “Sorry, no. I'm an, uh, business
associate. I had an appointment with Mr. Littlefield. Did you check the pockets of his coat?”

The Reb patted Littlefield's waist until he felt a slight bulge. He smiled triumphantly as he dug out a small ring of keys. A large brass key glittered from the smaller, more modern ones. “Try that one,” I suggested.

As the door swung open, I remembered the burglar alarm. Looking quickly around the kitchen, I spotted a nondescript white control panel beside the refrigerator and turned the key that had been left in it to disarm the system.

The men stood dumbly in the center of the kitchen, their patient's bottom sagging on the floor. “What'll we do with him?” the group's spokesman wanted to know.

I looked around helplessly. A white-painted door near the butler's pantry was slightly ajar. I pushed it open. The room was small, with faded floral wallpaper and a quilt-covered iron bed. The former maid's room, no doubt.

“In here,” I gestured.

The men filled the small room quickly, unceremoniously dumping their general on top of the quilt.

“Gotta get back,” the grizzled veteran said. “We'll call later to see how he's doing. Tell him Billy Dobbs was the one brought him home. Ought to be good for a citation or something.”

The men left as quickly as they'd come.

Back in the kitchen, I bit my lip and called my younger sister Maureen.

Maureen is a registered nurse. She works in the emergency room at Grady Memorial Hospital, the city's biggest charity hospital, and she's married to a jerk of an ambulance driver.

Our relationship is not what you could call close. Still, she is a nurse.

Fortunately she answered the phone. “Quick,” I demanded. “What do I do for somebody who has heat stroke?”

“Hello, dear sister,” she drawled. “I'm fine thanks. Steve sends his love too. Who's got heat stroke? That old man boyfriend of yours? Were you two doing the nasty out in the back of your van?”

“Cute,” I said. “You're too cute for words. But it's too complicated to get into right now. Just tell me what to do.”

She sighed. “I should charge you for this, you know. How's his color?”

I glanced into the bedroom. “He looks like something out of Madame Tussaud's museum. Is that bad?”

“Not good,” she said. “Breathing steady?”

“Shallow and jerky,” I said.

“Okay,” she said briskly. “Get some cold wet cloths and put them on all his pulse points; forehead, neck, inside of his elbows and his wrists. Keep the cloths cool and wet and get him out of his clothes if possible.”

“That's it?” I said. “I thought you were supposed to put people in a tub of ice or something.”

“Do something that drastic and you can put them into shock,” Maureen snapped.

“How about something to drink? Should I pour some Coke or something down his gullet?”

She laughed. “Only if you want it barfed right back up in your face. See if you can put some ice chips in his mouth. Chips, not cubes. And call a doctor. You're no Clara Barton. Gotta go now.”

I followed orders. Maureen may be a sniveler and a whiner, but she knows her stuff as far as emergency medicine. I was trying to pry Littlefield's lips open for the ice chips when his eyes fluttered open.

“What happened?” he asked, looking down at his nearly naked, washcloth-draped form. I'd managed to remove the sweat-soaked frock coat and the boots, but the trousers were a tight fit.

I'd had to settle for just unbuttoning the fly.

“Heat stroke,” I said, getting up from the bed. “Your men said you passed out cold during the charge up the hill. They brought you back here and dumped you. I'm supposed to call a doctor for you. Got any suggestions?”

The old iron bedsprings creaked loudly as Littlefield eased himself under the quilt. “Ow, goddamn,” he said.

“What?” I asked in alarm. I'd come to Eagle's Keep for a business meeting, not sick call.

“I must have done something to my back,” he said. “I had a ruptured disc a few years ago. It hurts like hell again.”

“Who should I call?” I asked.

“In the night stand in my bedroom, there's a bottle of pills, some painkillers from the last time I had this thing. Bring me the bottle and a glass of water. While you're upstairs, look in the Rolodex, it's on the desk in my office, and get the number for my doctor. George Koteras, with a
K
. Call and tell him what happened and ask him if he can come over.”

“It's Sunday,” I reminded him. “I'll only get his answering service.”

“His home number is on the card,” Littlefield said. “He's an old friend. He'll come. While you're at my desk, you'll see a manila file folder on top of a stack of papers. Bring it downstairs. It's what I wanted to talk to you about in the first place.”

“Please,” I muttered, as I picked my way past the clothes and papers strewn in the stairway. “And thank you.” Apparently Littlefield's imitation of a Southern
gentleman extended only to appearances, and not petty matters of etiquette.

I tried to avoid touching the smears of fingerprint powder on the stair banister and the walls, which meant walking in the middle of the staircase, an odd feeling.

On the second floor, things had been tidied a little bit. The quilted maroon satin comforter on the bed had even been pulled over the sheets in a quick attempt at neatness.

The pill bottle was where Littlefield had promised it would be. My fingers itched to go through the rest of the stuff in the drawer; envelopes, a couple other pill bottles, and a slim book that looked like some kind of appointment diary, but I forced myself to pay attention to the job at hand.

The mess in the office hadn't been touched. It took me five minutes of digging to unearth the Rolodex.

George Koteras was home, fortunately. “Passed out on Kennesaw Mountain?” he bellowed into the phone. I could hear laughter and the clatter of dishes in the background. He'd been having Sunday dinner.

I repeated the details of Littlefield's problems and described the first aid treatment I'd supplied.

“Now he's saying his back hurts. He wants me to give him some of the painkillers he had after his back injury.”

Koteras didn't seem terribly concerned that his patient might perish from heat stroke. “Elliot Littlefield is the luckiest bastard in Atlanta,” he boomed. “All right. Give him a couple of those pocket rockets. Tell him to sip some fluids. Slowly. The pills should numb up his back for a while. I'll be over as soon as the birthday candles are blown out. It's my grandson's fourth birthday. Give me an hour. You gonna hang around until I get there?”

I looked at the brass ship's clock on Littlefield's desk;
it was nearly five. But someone would have to be around to let the doctor in, and after last night, I felt uneasy about leaving Littlefield there, drugged and suffering the effect of heat stroke, with the door unlocked.

“I'll be here.”

Littlefield took the pills gratefully, along with a glass of water, and nodded his approval when I told him I would stay to let Koteras in.

“You bring that folder?”

I showed it to him.

“Good. There's a list of the things taken in the burglary, along with a description and an appraisal value.”

I opened the folder. The typed list was short, but full of expensive goodies.

I read aloud. “One Cofer revolver, brass trigger guard, percussion pistol, twenty thousand dollars.” I raised my eyebrows in disbelief. “Twenty thousand? This isn't a typo?”

“An extremely rare piece,” he said calmly. “Museum quality. But then, most of what I handle is.”

I read on. “One Cook and Brother carbine long arm. Value seven thousand five hundred. One W. J. McElroy Confederate cavalry officer's saber with etched blade and scabbard, made in Macon, Georgia, twelve thousand. One presentation shooting trophy, coin silver, inscribed to Captain Frederick Reaber, CSA, bearing the seal of the state of Georgia, twelve thousand. One Oglethorpe Light Infantry cartridge box plate, five thousand.