To Live and Die In Dixie (8 page)

“Work world's full of assholes,” he agreed.

“Sounds like you've had some experiences yourself,” I said. “If you don't mind my asking, what do you do for a living?”

“I'm an architect,” he said.

I turned around for a closer look at his house, surprised that a contemporary architect would choose such an old relic for a home.

He caught my look. “Oh, I don't do residential,” he said. “It's all commercial, mostly government work. County courthouses, hospitals, that kind of thing.”

An uneasy silence fell over us. I glanced down at my watch. It was after six.

“I better get going,” I said reluctantly. “I want to talk to some of the other neighbors before dark. See if anybody saw anything Saturday evening.”

“Like what?” he said. The belligerent tone had crept back into his voice.

“Strange cars, strange faces, noises. Anybody walking around who doesn't belong.”

“Are you kidding?” he said. “Yesterday was the preview of the tour of homes. Tour buses loaded down with old ladies from as far away as Alpharetta and Covington, cops, trucks making deliveries, workers finishing up stuff on the houses that are on tour. All kinds of people were coming and going, all over the neighborhood.”

“That's right,” I said. “I'd forgotten. And you didn't hear or see anything unusual either?”

He shook his head. “I shut myself in my office and worked on a proposal for a new municipal building for the city of Valdosta most of the afternoon. All I saw was the four walls of that room. Then last night I treated myself to dinner out with friends. When I got home, the police were swarming the neighborhood.”

I scanned the block while Dahlberg spoke. The lawn mower had quit buzzing. “Is there a resident busybody on the block who might have seen something?”

He grinned and jerked his head to the right, gesturing toward a tiny, dark green bungalow next to his.

“That'd be Mr. Szabo. If he was home, he'd have been right on the front porch, sitting in that glider there. His house doesn't have any air-conditioning. You could try talking to him. Tell him I sent you.”

“Thanks.” I stroked one of the rose petals with my finger. It made velvet feel like burlap. “And thanks for the flower.”

I was cutting through the side yard over to the neighbor's house when Dahlberg called after me.

“I forgot,” he said. “It's Sunday. A church bus picks him up in the morning and he spends the day fellow-shipping and dodging the advances of horny widow ladies. He usually gets home around nine.”

“I'll try some of the others,” I said. “There's always an off chance somebody saw something.”

“Suit yourself,” Dahlberg said, heading back toward his own porch. “But you're wasting your time. Littlefield killed her.”

“We'll see about that,” I muttered to myself.

The house on the other side of Dahlberg's could probably be described as a handyman's special. Paint peeled from the three wooden columns that leaned across the front porch. The fourth column was actually a pair of two-by-fours braced in place. The front door was laying horizontally across a set of sawhorses, and a tall thin man in overalls was running an electric sander back and forth across the blistered surface of the wood. A pair of plastic safety goggles made him look like a giant dragonfly.

He didn't see me standing there and didn't hear me calling “excuse me,” until I tapped him on the shoulder.

Startled, he looked up and shut off the sander.

“Sam Burdette,” he said, after I'd introduced myself. “Excuse the mess. We've been in the house a year this month. Seems like we'll never get done.”

I repeated my anything-unusual questions.

“Let me think,” he said, pushing the goggles into a nest of graying frizzy red hair. “Susie and I were home all day yesterday too, and most of the time we were out here, scraping paint. I remember there was a Federal Express truck parked over there in the morning, but I saw Littlefield come to the door for that. I saw him leave too. You can't miss that Rolls of his. There were lots of people walking around, all day, because of the tour preview, I guess. I went out to Sears sometime around three to get more sandpaper and run some other errands, then I stopped off to pick up a pizza for dinner. Got back around six. I remember seeing a white panel truck with some writing on it, parked at the curb.”

“That would have been the florist's truck,” I said. “Anything else?”

“Oh yeah,” he said, “there was a funky pink-and-gray van parked over there a little while later. It's out there again right now,” he said, pointing.

“I know about that,” I said. “Nothing else?”

“Nothing specifically,” Burdette said. “Like I told the policewoman who came over here to ask questions, there were people all over the block Saturday.”

I gave him my business card and asked him to call me if he remembered anything else.

“By the way,” I said. “How is Littlefield for a neighbor?”

Burdette glanced around, as though checking for eavesdroppers. “He's a pain in the butt, but don't tell him I said so. He's always loaning his house out for these huge charity parties. People park on lawns, and block our driveways. It's a mess. But the neighborhood association won't do anything about it because he always puts his house on tour every year, and it's a big
draw. And I guess you've heard about the Nazi flag incident.”

“I just talked to Jake Dahlberg,” I said.

“Did Jake tell you Littlefield filed a grievance about the color of Dahlberg's house with the association?”

He hadn't.

“Jake had painted the house this cool shade of purple, mauve, Susie calls it. But mauve wasn't on the approved chart of colors for historic homes in the neighborhood, so the association made him repaint it. Jake hired a lawyer and everything, but he lost.”

“What happened next?”

“Jake reported Littlefield to the city zoning board for the parking and fire violations from the parties. I heard they socked Littlefield with a fine, but he's had at least one other party I know of since then. The last time, Jake called a towtruck and they towed every single car on the street. Jesus, was Littlefield mad.”

Sam Burdette was getting to be a regular fountain of information. I decided to pump him a little more.

“Did you know Bridget, the girl who was killed?”

Burdette nodded. “Cute kid. She used to come over and play with Emma, that's our baby, sometimes. Susie asked her a couple times about baby-sitting, but Bridget was always busy, so we stopped asking.”

“Did you ever see anybody coming to visit her, or did she ever mention anybody who might have been mad at her? Any trouble she was having?”

From inside the house a phone rang once, then twice. I could hear bare feet slapping down a wooden hallway. Then a woman called out, “Sam, phone.”

Burdette unplugged the sander and wrapped the electrical cord around it.

“Gotta go,” he said. “We didn't really know Bridget all that well. Besides, you can't see the carriage house,
where she lived, from here, so we wouldn't know who came or went over there.”

“But you could see some of the comings and goings from the main house?”

“Sam,” the woman called again.

“I'm coming,” he hollered back.

“Yeah, we could see who was coming or going, if we were interested, but we've got a new baby, and a life of our own,” Burdette said. “Hell yeah, there were plenty of people in and out over there. But I wouldn't know who any of them are, because we don't travel in the same social circle.

“See ya,” he said, then he disappeared inside the house.

T
HE FAINTEST PROMISE of a breeze wafted down the street, and I felt the stream of perspiration trickling down my face cool and dry. While I'd been busy detecting, twilight had descended on Jasmine Way. Fireflies filled the treetops along the darkening street, their lights flickering on and off in some mad, urgent mating call. A chorus of crickets competed with the trill of one die-hard mockingbird who sat and sang his heart out from the highest branch of the crepe myrtle tree in front of Eagle's Keep.

Those so-called sensible shoes I'd slipped into hours ago at home had raised blisters on my feet. I took them off and walked barefoot across Elliot Littlefield's side yard, sinking my burning toes into the dew-soaked grass, breathing in deep lungfuls of the hot, damp honeysuckle-scented air swirling around me.

Time to check on my patient. Regretfully, I shoved my feet back into my shoes and let myself in the back door again, pushing my way past Ping-Pong.

Littlefield was still in outer space, snoring loudly. Ping-Pong, who'd shadowed me into the room, leapt nimbly onto the bed and settled himself across
Littlefield's chest. Maybe he planned to suck the breath out of his drugged master. Maybe Littlefield hated cats too. I checked my watch again and sighed. It was still only seven forty-five. I thought back to that blood-splattered room at the top of the house.

Littlefield's key ring jangled in my skirt pocket. Maybe I'd check Bridget's permanent quarters before calling it a night.

A tasteful pair of brass carriage lamps threw a pool of yellow light onto the front window of the two-story brick carriage house. The front door had a plaque over it:
Eagle's Keep Antiques, Prop. E. L. Littlefield. By Appointment Only
. The window had a deep gray painted backdrop and contained a single piece of furniture, a fancifully grain-painted blanket chest that fairly screamed big bucks. I fiddled with the key ring, trying every key on it before concluding that Littlefield must have had a separate set for the shop.

Just in case, though, I circled around to the back, stopping beside a weatherbeaten wooden door. Pots of marigolds were clustered on the brick stoop, and a purple ten-speed bike leaned against the wall. A bare bulb hung from a rusted fixture, moths batting about it. This time it took only two tries to find the right key, and a few seconds more to switch on the light and deactivate the alarm.

Bridget Dougherty had been an orderly little soul.

The old white iron bed was neatly made, with a faded yellow and white Sunbonnet Sue quilt smoothed up to a pile of pillows covered in scraps of old forties chintz. A battered stuffed monkey, the kind made out of old men's wool socks, nestled among the pillows. I'd had a monkey like that as a child; Pookie, I'd called him, until my baby brother Kevin had gotten revenge for some
childish offense by field dressing Pookie with my dad's Swiss army knife.

Most of the other furniture in the room looked like the stuff I'd had in my college/first apartment days: a cast-off painted white dresser, a coffee table made from a cut-down wooden cable spool, and tables and storage cabinets fashioned from plastic milk crates.

One crate was Bridget's kitchen, turned on its side. It was stacked with her groceries: boxes of herbal tea, Cup-A-Soup, crackers, Froot Loops. On top of the crate was a tiny one-slice toaster and a hot plate.

Two more crates held her library. Lots of New Age paperbacks, some schoolbooks, and a pamphlet describing the requirements for a high-school equivalency diploma. There was a
Norton's Anthology of Poetry
. She'd dog-eared the pages with the mushiest poems: Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Byron, Shelley, Keats, all the swoon in moon in June specialists. Someone's love was like a red, red rose. I wondered whose.

The schoolbooks held nothing of interest, until I opened her Geometry textbook and a slip of blue-lined notebook paper fluttered to the floor. The printing was bold and black and masculine looking.

Who was “Me”? And what was he practicing? Band? Baseball? Knife throwing? I toyed with the idea of taking the slip, but decided against it. The note was evidence in a murder case, I reminded myself, and my job was to find a missing diary.

The rest of the room contained basic teenage stuff, but no more notes from Me and certainly no missing
Civil War goodies. There were blue jeans and T-shirts, gym shorts, some foil-wrapped condoms. Bridget had gotten wiser, but she hadn't had a chance to get older. Under her bed I found a suitcase. Folded inside were hunter green jumpers in what I like to call parochial school plaid, a pretty cotton print dress, a pair of high heels, and a framed photo of the Dougherty family. It must have been two or three years old. The older sister, Jocelyn, looked straight into the camera, defying the photographer to make her smile. Her cheeks were fuller in the portrait. Jocelyn had lost a lot of weight. A lot. The younger sister, Bridget, smiled wide, showing a mouthful of braces. A whisper of blue eye shadow made her look like a little girl dressing up in mommy's makeup. Both girls were pretty in a quiet, unspectacular way.

I looked around for a bathroom, and opened the only other door in the room. Instead of a tub and sink, I found a hallway that lead to a series of locked doors; probably storerooms for the shop. The bathroom was at the end of the hall—a claustrophobic closet holding only a shower stall, a sink, and a commode. A wall-hung cabinet held a few toiletries, but nothing of interest.

I sighed. Time to go.

George Koteras had been right on the money about the effectiveness of his pocket rockets. Littlefield was sitting up in bed, shaking his head and rubbing the woozies out of his eyes when I got back to the house.

“What's the time?” he said groggily.

“Little after eight.” I dug in my pockets and handed him the pills. “Dr. Koteras left these for you. Antibiotics. Take two now, two more with meals tomorrow. You're to call him in the morning. You okay by yourself tonight?”

“I'm fine,” he said, yawning hugely. “Back's stiff.
Guess I'll have to go back to physical therapy. My mouth's dry from those pills, too.”

“Shall I get you some water before I leave?” I couldn't believe how solicitous I was being to this pompous asshole.

“Never mind,” Littlefield said, swinging his legs slowly to the side of the bed. “I've got to go to the bathroom anyway.”

“All right then,” I said briskly. “I've been talking to your neighbors, and I've gone over the house again. A couple more questions, then I'll leave. Why was Bridget sleeping in the house instead of her apartment in the carriage house? And who knew she was staying here?”

He gathered the sheets around his waist and gingerly touched both feet to the floor.

“She'd been getting harassing phone calls in the last week or so. A voice, whispering, threatening to kill her; warning her to get out of town. I don't know who she'd told about where she was sleeping.”

“Was the voice anybody she recognized?”

“She said not,” he said, standing now, with the sheet wrapped around him toga-style. “I figured it was just kids, you know how they are. But the threats scared her. She asked if she could move into the house and I agreed to it. I guess she'd been staying here since last Tuesday or Wednesday.”

“Did you tell the police about the calls?”

He looked sheepish. “No. In all the confusion I completely forgot about it. Should I have mentioned it?”

“Yeah,” I said. “The cops might not have believed you, but at least it might provide motive for somebody else to have killed her. If I were you I'd call my lawyer tomorrow and let him know about the calls. Now I've got to go if you really are okay.”

“I appreciate your staying this long,” Littlefield said.
“I'll let you see yourself out, and I'll be in touch tomorrow.”

Out in the moonlight, I took another gulp of night air as an antidote to the stale smell of Eagle's Keep. Once in the van I resolutely mashed the door lock and headed toward McLendon Avenue, and home.

I'd been mugged walking home on a dark street not far from here a little over a year ago and had the living shit kicked out of me courtesy of a trio of paid sociopaths. It hadn't been a random act of violence, but since then I'm especially wary when I'm alone at night.

Lights blazed in my little bungalow. Welcome home. Mac's Blazer was parked in the driveway. I let myself in the front door, dropped my bag, and headed for the kitchen, where I heard voices and the sound of fat sizzling in a skillet.

Mac stood at the stove, dropping flour-covered fillets into the black iron frying pan. Edna was seated at the table, a long-neck beer in one hand, a lit cigarette in the other. They stopped talking when I walked in.

The room was heavy with the scent of fish and a guilty silence.

“You've got that fire turned up too high,” Edna pointed out. “You'll burn that trout.”

“Well look what the cat dragged in,” Mac said, a little too heartily. I kissed him lightly on the lips and took a swig of the beer he held out to me. It was ice cold and I drank half the bottle before handing it back, burping delicately to show my appreciation.

“You were talking about me,” I said. “Fill me in.”

“Don't flatter yourself,” Edna drawled. “But it's about damn time you got home. We were fixin' to call out the National Guard to hunt you down.”

I was too worn out to argue. While Mac fried the trout and hush puppies, Edna mixed up a bowl of her
coleslaw. Watching her grate the cabbage on a worn metal grater, then knead sugar into the slaw, was comforting after the long day I'd had. She poured vinegar over it, stirred the stuff with a fork, then added some grated carrot and a little purple cabbage for color. I filled the cooks in while they prepared supper.

“This Littlefield character sounds like a prime asshole,” Mac said, mopping up the last of the coleslaw on his plate with a hush puppy. “How come you keep hiring yourself out to do investigative work for clowns like Littlefield and Bo Beemish?”

“Maybe I'm a glutton for punishment,” I said wearily. “All I know is their money spends real good. And I've got it figured that with what I'll make off Littlefield I might be able to buy a second van, secondhand. In a nice boring shade like silver or beige, or anything but pink and gray.”

“That reminds me,” Edna said, rising and starting to clear away the plates. “I saw the funeral notice for Bridget Dougherty in today's paper. Services at ten tomorrow at Christ the King.”

“I thought her folks looked like high church,” I said. “I wouldn't mind checking out the crowd at that funeral, but I've got a full day tomorrow.”

“You don't know the half of what you've got to do tomorrow,” Edna said. “C. W. Hunsecker called. He wants to meet you for lunch. Call him in the morning to set a time. And don't forget, it's your turn to pick up supplies at the wholesale house. I've made a list, it's in the appointment book.”

“All right,” I said. “We'll give the funeral a miss.”

“Nothing doing,” Edna said. “I'll get the girls going first thing then hop over to Christ the King.”

I'd have objected to her pushing her way into the investigation side of the business, but to tell the truth, I
was just plain tired. And it wouldn't hurt anything to let Edna enjoy a little funeralizing.

Mac stood up, cleared off both our plates and put them in the dishwasher. “I'm gonna hit the road my own self,” he said. “Thanks for dinner, Edna.” He kissed me again, a proper good night kiss this time, adding an affectionate squeeze to the fanny, since Edna's back was turned to us. “Walk me to the car?”

I waited until we were outside, leaning our backs against the Blazer. “So what were you and Edna talking about before I came in?”

“Stuff,” he said, swatting at a mosquito. “Nothing important.”

“You were talking about me,” I said flatly. “You're a terrible liar, MacAuliffe.”

He sighed. “Only when I'm lying to you. Okay. We were talking about us.”

“As in you and Edna? I'm sorry I missed that.”

“As in you and me,” he said, reaching for my hand and giving it a squeeze. “Your mother can't understand why we don't get married or something.”

I turned to face him, amazed. He grinned crookedly. “What?”

“Did it ever occur to you that I might want to take part in this debate before my mother settles the matter?”

“Wait,” he said. “Hold on. It wasn't like that. We were shooting the breeze, and somehow we got to talking about how comfortable we are together, and I guess I said something about wishing we were old married folks. And your mother said she didn't know why we didn't just do it. You know, get married or something.”

“Unbelievable,” I said, wrenching my hand away from his. “It's not bad enough Edna meddles in my business life. Now she's running my love life too. And you encourage her.”

“She wasn't meddling,” Mac said. “Just offering an opinion. You're blowing this way out of proportion, Callahan, really. It was just a chance remark, is all.”

“What other chance remarks did she make?” I asked, fuming.

He put his hand on my chin and turned my head to face him, then stroked my cheek softly.

“She's really worried about your decision not to take the cancer drugs,” he said. “She just knows the cancer will come back unless you do.”

“We've been over this, Mac,” I said. “I thought you agreed with my decision. Now the two of you are ganging up on me, when I really believe I've made the choice that's right for me.”

I'd meant to show Mac the newspaper clipping about tamoxifen, but now I'd be damned if I'd bring it up.

“I'm not ganging up on you,” he said, his voice getting louder. “And if you'd stop flying off the handle every time the subject came up, maybe you could make your mother understand.”