[Cutthroat Business 01.0 - 03.0] Boxed Set Page 14

  I blinked. “After I left here, you mean? I waited for Clarice to leave, then I drove home, called my brother, spoke to him for a few minutes, and went to bed. Why?”

  “Alone?”

  “Did I go to bed alone, you mean? Yes, I did.” I’d been going to bed alone for almost two years, not that that was any of the detective’s business.

  “So no one can verify your whereabouts after you got there?”

  My stomach did a weird back-flip. “Not after I hung up the phone with Dix. Why? I thought she committed suicide. Why do I have to have an alibi?”

  She didn’t answer. “What would have happened if Clarissa had told Mr. Lamont that she had caught you going through Mrs. Puckett’s office?”

  I drew a (shaky) breath. “Not a lot. I told him myself, this morning. Before I realized that Clarice wouldn’t ever get a chance to. He took it better than I expected. But then I guess he had other things on his mind.”

  Poor, sensitive Walker, going to check up on an employee and finding her dead in a pool of blood. He must have been absolutely sickened. No wonder he had locked himself in his office after telling the rest of us the news.

  “But if he hadn’t had other things on his mind, how would he have reacted? What did you expect would happen, when Clarissa told you that she’d have to tell him?”

  “I wish you’d stop calling her Clarissa,” I said irritably. “Her name was Clarice. And I guess I expected a reprimand if I was lucky, and if I wasn’t, that he’d tell the real estate commission and they’d give me an official warning and flag my record.”

  “But that didn’t worry you?”

  “Not enough that I’d kill Clarice to shut her up, if that’s what you’re implying. My God, what is wrong with everyone?! I’m a nice person! I don’t do things like that!”

  Detective Grimaldi looked at me, unemotionally, for a moment, before she said calmly, “I think that’s it for now. But stick around, will you? I may have something else I want to ask you.”

  I promised — grudgingly — that I would stay in the office until she gave me leave to go, and headed for the door.

  “By the way, Ms. Martin,” Detective Grimaldi said as I reached for the door knob, “her name was Clarissa. Not Clarice. Clarissa Webster. Just thought you ought to know.” She smiled sweetly. I grimaced.

  * * *

  I was almost to my office door when Detective Grimaldi’s words penetrated. By then she had asked Heidi Hoppenfeldt into Walker’s office and was busy interrogating her. I wondered if I ought to knock on the door and tell her what I knew, or thought I knew, but I decided that it could wait a few minutes. It might just be a coincidence anyway. There are a lot of people named Webster in the world, and just because Brenda had had a brush with a man named Webster fifteen years ago — just about the time Clarice went to work for her, a tiny voice in my head reminded me — there wasn’t necessarily a connection there. It was a suggestive idea, certainly, but by no means a sure thing.

  And then I realized that if I told Detective Grimaldi about Graham Webster, she’d ask where I’d gotten the information. She had read the Voice article, so she’d know it wasn’t mentioned there. I could say I’d checked the newspaper archives, of course, and actually come up with Graham Webster’s name, but what if she wanted to know how I knew that Graham Webster was the person in question, instead of Joe Shumaker or Mr. Bigelow? Or I could say that I’d asked Dix’s help and he’d told me, but then she might call and verify it with him. I’d be forcing my brother to lie, and although he might, if I begged and pleaded and promised to baby-sit every Saturday from now until his youngest daughter was in college, it wasn’t right to put him in the middle of a police investigation.

  The thought of Dix made me wonder if he had discovered anything about Tyrell Jenkins, and I decided to use the time until Detective Grimaldi wanted me again to give him a call. He hadn’t contacted me, so he was either busy with work or didn’t have anything to report, but it gave me the illusion that I was doing something. I had no clients (except Rafe, and he didn’t really count), no leads to follow, and no business to conduct, but maybe I could do my good deed for the day by tracking down Tyrell and trying to right the wrong that Brenda had done his mother. And it was better than sitting in my office with nothing on my mind except the realization that the police seemed to believe me capable of slitting Clarice’s — Clarissa’s — wrists and leaving her to die.

  The phone rang a couple of times on the other end, and then my brother picked up. “This is Dixon C. Martin, and I can’t come to the phone right now. Please leave a message at the sound of...”

  “Come off it, Dix,” I said, tilting my office chair back, “don’t you think I can tell the difference between the real you and a machine? What’s the matter? Don’t you want to talk to your baby sister?”

  “Not particularly,” my only brother answered candidly. “I found what you want, and you’re not going to like it.”

  “You found Tyrell Jenkins?”

  “I found out what happened to Tyrell Jenkins,” Dix corrected.

  I frowned. “He’s dead? Or in prison?”

  “Dead. More than thirty years ago.”

  “Damn. I mean, darn. How did it happen?”

  “He was shot,” Dix said. “A couple of times in the chest, outside his house late one night. The police had no suspects, and no one was ever arrested. The only witness was his mother, who claimed he was shot by a white man in a pick-up truck, but you can imagine how much credence was given to that piece of evidence. So I guess that takes care of Tyrell.”

  “I guess it does. There’s no help to get from him. Poor Mrs. Jenkins.”

  We sat in silence for a moment. Then Dix said, “I’ve also got some information about your new boyfriend.”

  “Oh, God! Dix,” I said. “He’s not my boyfriend, and you didn’t have to check him out. There’s nothing going on between us. Why did you bother?”

  “I didn’t, actually.” I could hear the shuffling of papers. “It turned out Todd had already started a background check of his own. So he gave me what he had and said he’d add to it as he got more.”

  I didn’t respond for a moment. “You know,” I said finally, “I’m not sure how I feel about that.”

  “What? That your family and friends care enough about you to want to be sure you’re not getting involved with someone dangerous?”

  “That my family and friends don’t believe me when I say I’m not involved with him! Dix, please, listen to me. There is nothing going on between me and Rafe Collier. Zip. Zilch. Nada. I’m not seeing him, dating him, interested in him. He’s not my type. You know Todd. You remember Bradley. That’s the type I get involved with. Conventional, settled, respectable. Those bad-boy alpha males are all well and good in fiction, but I wouldn’t know what to do with someone like Rafe Collier even if I could get him!”

  I stopped, panting.

  “I think you’re protesting too much,” Dix said coolly.

  “Aargh!” I answered.

  Dix added, “So does this mean you don’t want to hear what Todd discovered?”

  “No!”

  “You do want to hear what Todd discovered?”

  “No, I don’t. I don’t care what Todd discovered. Rafael Collier is a client, nothing more. All I’m interested in, is whether he can afford to buy the property he’s looking at.”

  “He can’t.”

  “He can’t?!”

  “Not with what he’s got in the bank.” Dix shuffled more papers. “And Todd wasn’t able to find anything about a job. Looks like he’s unemployed. Sorry, Sis.”

  “So why is he interested in the house?”

  “Maybe he’s planning to burglarize it,” Dix suggested.

  “He must be going for the brass door knobs and the fireplace tile, then. Those are the only nice things in the house. Oh, and the avocado stove and fridge. I suppose he could get twenty bucks for those at a yard sale.”

  Dix didn’t answer. “All right,
” I said, “since Todd’s taken the trouble to gather the information...”

  “Yes?”

  “What happened twelve years ago?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Rafe left high school, and left town, and a couple of months later he came back and was arrested. Mother said it was for assault. Does Todd’s research say anything about that?”

  Dix shuffled papers. “Todd must have asked his dad. I’ve got a copy of the arrest record here. I’m sure that’s not supposed to be floating around—”

  “It helps to have friends in high places,” I commented. “What does it say?”

  Dix’s voice took on the cadences of someone reading. “The incident took place at Dusty’s Bar in Columbia. The injured party was one Billy Scruggs. And I do mean injured; there’s a hospital report attached, and Scruggs had a broken nose, broken ribs, a punctured lung, two black eyes, and numerous contusions and abrasions.”

  “Bruises and scratches,” I translated.

  “Apparently Billy Scruggs was LaDonna Collier’s boyfriend. She must have been pretty upset about the whole thing, because she didn’t even come to the sentencing two days later.”

  “Yikes.”

  “It says here that Collier didn’t get off unscathed either. He had cuts and bruises, a split lip, a black eye, and a sprained wrist. No wonder his wrist got sprained, the way he was using it. Scruggs was a big guy, in good shape for his age — he was 45 — and this wasn’t his first fight. He’d been arrested a couple of times before, for the same type of thing. Drunk and disorderly conduct, brawling, domestic assault on his ex-wife...”

  “Did he have to serve time, too?”

  “Not on this occasion,” Dix said. “All the witnesses agreed that Collier started the fight. He pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of assault and battery, in order to avoid being tried for attempted manslaughter, I guess. There was certainly a case for it. He was sentenced to five years and got out in two.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “So what happened back then doesn’t seem to have had anything to do with Brenda Puckett.”

  “Not really. I’ll let you know if I find out anything else.”

  “About Tyrell Jenkins, right? I don’t need to know anything else about Rafe.”

  “I’ll talk to you later, Sis,” Dix said and hung up. I did the same, shaking my head. It shouldn’t be this difficult to convince my family that there was nothing going on between me and Rafe.

  My cell phone rang again before I had the opportunity to put it down. “Savannah? This is Alex.” Alexandra Puckett. I recognized the voice this time.

  “Hi, Alexandra,” I responded. “What can I do for you?”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Just sitting in my office waiting to talk to the police again.”

  I made a face when I realized I had, once again, spoken out of turn. Open mouth, insert foot. Mother had frequently admonished me not to move my mouth so fast that my brain couldn’t keep up, but apparently I hadn’t learned my lesson yet. Alexandra turned frantic.

  “Is it about my mom? Has something happened?”

  “No, no,“ I said soothingly. “It’s Clarice. Clarissa.”

  “Clarice Webb is dead?! Oh, my God! Was she murdered too?”

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “It sounds like she committed suicide.” Alexandra didn’t answer. “I’m sorry,” I added. “She and your mom worked together for a long time. You must have known her pretty well.”

  “Um... not really.” It sounded like Alexandra was regretting her outburst and was trying to seem calm, so I wouldn’t think anything was wrong. “She and Mom weren’t friends, you know.”

  “Really?” I’d always gotten the impression that that they were inseparable. Brenda was high-handed and demanding and Clarice was a sour-puss; still, Brenda had relied totally on Clarice, and Clarice seemed to have adored and admired Brenda.

  “Nuh-uh. Clarice made my mom give her a job like a thousand years ago, when I was a baby, and she worked really hard, but Mom said she had to pay her way too much. And they didn’t hang out or anything, except when they were working.”

  “Oh,” I said. That probably shouldn’t surprise me. Brenda must have hired Clarice — Clarissa — after Graham Webster died, either to make Clarice drop the lawsuit or because Brenda actually felt guilty and wanted to be helpful. Or both. But I could understand why there was no love lost between them. If I’d been Clarice, and I was holding Brenda responsible for the death of my husband, I wouldn’t have wanted to hang out with her either.

  “You know,” I said, in an effort to change the subject, “you never told me what the big announcement was, that your dad was going to make yesterday.”

  “Oh, that.” Alexandra sounded disgusted. “It wasn’t anything exciting. Just that he and Maybelle are engaged.”

  I managed, narrowly, to convert a shocked expletive to a ladylike cough. “Already?” His wife had only been in the ground for a couple of days. Wasn’t this rather precipitous?

  “He says he’s waited long enough and he doesn’t want to wait any longer,” Alexandra said. After a second she added, reluctantly, “My mom and dad didn’t always get along that great.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, for lack of something better. She gave an audible shrug.

  “They argued about stuff, you know. Money, and Austin’s grades, and my boyfriend... stuff like that.”

  “Parents do that,” I agreed, although I couldn’t actually remember mine ever doing so. That was probably because I never did anything they wouldn’t have approved of. Until I divorced Bradley and declined to move back to Sweetwater and into the bosom of the family, of course. And until they somehow got the impression that I knew Rafe Collier better than I did. “Especially the boyfriend. If you get involved with someone they don’t like — or even if they just think you are — they’ll never let you hear the end of it.”

  Alexandra agreed wholeheartedly. “My mom was usually too busy to notice what I was doing, but then Clarice saw me with Maurice one day, and told my mom, and she just freaked!”

  “What’s wrong with Maurice?”

  “Nothing,” Alexandra said promptly.

  “If there wasn’t something wrong with him, why would your mother freak out?”

  She blew out another of those gusty sighs. “Maurice is black, OK? My mom tried to tell me that it was because I’m too young, and that she hadn’t given me permission to date, but the real reason is that he’s black.”

  “I see,” I said. “Um… are you sure she wasn’t telling the truth? I mean, I know… knew Brenda, and I never noticed that she had any prejudices to speak of. As far as I could see, she treated everyone the same.” Not necessarily very nicely, but the same. It didn’t matter if we were black or white, gay or straight, men or women; we were all subjected to Brenda’s magnificent condescension.

  Alexandra didn’t answer. I wasn’t sure whether she believed me or not, but it didn’t seem as if she wanted to argue about it, at any rate. I added, “So tell me about Maurice. Where did you meet him? How long have you dated?”

  It turned out that Alexandra had met Maurice about four months ago, when he had brought the family a pizza. After that, Alexandra had gotten in the habit of ordering a lot of pizza so she could keep seeing him. They had started dating exclusively at the beginning of the summer. She was obviously head over heels in love with him, and couldn’t stop talking about how handsome he was, and how smart, and how sexy.

  “So what happened when your mother found out that you were dating?” I asked. Alexandra’s voice turned poisonous.

  “That witch Clarice saw us in Maurice’s car last week. She told Mom, and Mom totally lost it. I thought she was going to have a heart attack. She threatened to ground me until I’m eighteen unless I agreed to stop seeing him. So I told her I would, just to get her off my back, but I didn’t, really. I just had to be more careful, and see him when they thought I was doing other things.”

  “Like sleep
ing?”

  “Huh?”

  “Is that what you were doing the morning your mother died? Seeing Maurice? You said you were home alone, sleeping. But I called your house when I couldn’t get hold of your mom on her cell phone, and no one answered.”

  “Maybe I just slept through it,” Alexandra said defensively. “Maybe I don’t have a phone in my room.”

  “Yes, that’s likely.”

  She sighed. “All right. Yes, I went over to Maurice’s. I had to wait until Mom was gone, so it was after seven when I left the house. But when I got to Reinhardt Street he wasn’t there, so I drove home again.”

  I felt a frisson down my back, as if someone had dropped a millipede with cold feet under my blouse. “Maurice lives on Reinhardt?” Reinhardt Street is in the same area as Potsdam and Dresden, a stone’s throw away from the Milton House Nursing Home. “What kind of car does he drive?”

  “A green Dodge with lots of chrome and zebra seat covers,” Alexandra answered promptly. “Why?”

  “No reason. Just curious. Listen, I’ve got to go. The detective is ready for me again.”

  “Oh.” She sounded disappointed. “Give me a call later, OK? Let me know what happened to Clarice? Nobody ever tells me anything.”

  I promised I would, and hung up the line. And leaned back on my chair contemplating what I had just learned. (No, Detective Grimaldi wasn’t ready for me again. I had fibbed, in order to get off the phone before I said something else that my brain hadn’t vetted.)

  This was interesting information. Alexandra was dating a black youth in a green car, of whom her mother disapproved. Surely it had to be more than a coincidence that a black youth in a green car had driven by 101 Potsdam Street when Rafe and I were standing in the drive on Saturday morning. Twice.

  Was it possible that Alexandra’s boyfriend, tired of Alexandra’s mother telling her daughter that she couldn’t date him, had taken matters into his own hands and gotten rid of Brenda?

  And then, because Clarice had been the one to tip Brenda off about the relationship, he had revenged himself on her too?