A Done Deal Read online

  Instead, it sounded like he was out somewhere. There was the low buzz of voices in the background, and the occasional clink of glasses.

  “Are you on a date?” I asked suspiciously.

  “Of course not,” my brother answered.

  Good to know. It was less then a month since Sheila had died, and she and Dix had had a good marriage, from all I knew about it; I’d hate to think he was out there searching for her replacement already.

  I waited for him to elaborate, since it sounded very much like he was in a restaurant somewhere, even if it wasn’t on a date, but when he didn’t, I said, “Well, can you do me a favor when you get home?”

  There was a moment of silence. “Does this have to do with Rafe Collier?” my brother asked.

  I blinked. “No.”

  “Oh,” Dix said, sounding relieved. “Sure. What do you need?”

  “You have access to marriage records, right?”

  “I do,” Dix said.

  “Can you look someone up for me?”

  “He’s never been married,” Dix said.

  I rolled my eyes. “I know that. Todd looked it up back in August. I told you, this has nothing to do with Rafe. Why do you keep bringing him up?”

  “No reason,” Dix said and sounded a little guilty. “Whose marriage is it you want me to look up?”

  “A woman named Maybelle Hicks.” I told him who Maybelle was, and that I wanted to know where the last name Rowland had come from.

  “How do you know all this?” Dix wanted to know.

  I hesitated, but eventually told him the truth. He was quiet for a few seconds and then he asked, “You broke into her house?”

  “Of course I didn’t break in. I had a key.”

  “Right,” my brother said, with what I was pretty sure was an eyeroll. “This is Collier’s fault, isn’t it?”

  “It is not!” I was damned if I’d give Rafe that much power over me, even in conversation with my brother. “I did it for Alexandra. She doesn’t want Maybelle for a stepmother. I don’t blame her. I don’t like Maybelle either. So I’m trying to do what I can to help. Now listen: She lived in Florence, Alabama, when she was a child. Now she’s in Nashville. She married Harold Driscoll seven years ago. It’s the time between I’m interested in.”

  “Fine,” Dix said. “I’ll look it up. But it won’t be until tomorrow. I’ll be home late.”

  Uh-huh. “Where are you, anyway?”

  “Dinner,” Dix said.

  “Alone?”

  He hesitated. “No.”

  “Who are you with? Todd? Jonathan?”

  “No,” Dix said.

  “Catherine?”

  “No.”

  “Someone else? A woman?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “I thought you said it wasn’t a date.”

  “It isn’t a date,” Dix said. “It’s a business dinner.”

  “Sure.” The same kind of business dinner Rafe had had last night, no doubt.

  “Just leave it alone, sis. Everything isn’t always what it looks like.”

  I was aware of that. “Yvonne? Are you on a date with Yvonne?”

  “Yvonne who?” He sighed. “I told you, Savannah. It’s not a date. But this conversation is making me look stupid, and I don’t want to. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  He hung up. I did the same, more slowly.

  When the phone rang five minutes later, I figured it was Dix calling back. It wasn’t, and for a second my heart stopped when I noted the name on the display. Why was Tamara Grimaldi calling me? It rarely betokened good news, and right now—with everything that had happened over the past twenty four hours—it was more likely than ever to mean something horrible.

  “Detective. Is something wrong?”

  “You tell me,” Tamara Grimaldi said. “What are you doing breaking into Maybelle Driscoll’s house?”

  My heart stuttered. “How did you... oh.”

  Spicer and Truman, of course. For a second there I’d had the crazy idea that my brother and Detective Grimaldi were having dinner together. But of course that was insane. “Spicer and Truman told you?”

  “Of course they told me,” Grimaldi said. “They answered a call about a break-in and found you on the premises. It was an official call, so they had to file an official report, and because they know I know you, they copied me on it.”

  “Don’t you ever stop working?”

  “Yes,” Grimaldi said, “I do. More to the point, don’t you ever stop getting yourself in trouble?”

  “I’m not in trouble. Am I?”

  “I don’t know,” Grimaldi said, “are you?”

  “Not as far as I know. Although...” I hesitated, but since I had her attention anyway, “did you know that Rafe’s back in town?”

  “Is he?” Her voice was absolutely neutral.

  “I saw him last night,” I said. “At Fidelio’s restaurant. Having dinner with someone.”

  “A date,” Grimaldi said.

  “He said it was a business dinner. I’m not sure I believe him.”

  “You spoke to him?” She sounded surprised.

  “Not then. I pretended I hadn’t seen him and made Todd take me home. I didn’t think he’d seen me either. But he stopped by later.”

  Much later. A part of me, the not so nice part I endeavor to keep silent, wondered if he’d rolled out of her bed to come talk to me.

  “He did?” Grimaldi asked.

  “He said he wanted to clear the air.”

  “And did he?” Her voice was back to neutral again.

  That depends on what clearing the air meant. “Not as such,” I said. “He said he was back in town, working on something, and that if I saw him again, I should continue to pretend I didn’t know him.”

  “That’s probably a good idea,” Grimaldi agreed.

  “He knew I’d been shot. But he didn’t say a word about the baby.”

  There was a moment of silence. “I’m sorry,” Grimaldi said, sounding like she meant it. “Do you want me to talk to him?”

  “No.” I shook my head. “God, no. If he doesn’t care enough to ask, I certainly don’t want anyone telling him he should. I just wish he’d stayed away. In Atlanta or wherever it was he went.” Dealing with the fact that he didn’t want me would be much easier if we were in different states.

  “Maybe he’ll finish what he’s doing and leave again,” Grimaldi said. “So tell me what you were doing in Maybelle Driscoll’s house this afternoon.”

  “Didn’t Spicer and Truman tell you?” I didn’t wait for her answer, just took a breath and launched into the same excuse I’d used with the officers, one hand sneaking up to twist a tendril of hair around my finger. I do that whenever I fib.

  “Right,” Grimaldi interrupted, before I’d even gotten halfway through the spiel. “That story might work on Spicer and Truman, but I know you better. And between you and me, it didn’t work that well on them either. Officer Spicer just happens to like you, and he knew you weren’t breaking in to steal anything. But he also knew you weren’t there to water the plants.”

  Great. I had escaped arrest not because of my eloquent lies but because Lyle Spicer had a soft spot for stupid blondes.

  “Fine. Alexandra doesn’t like Maybelle. She doesn’t want Maybelle to marry Steven. She thinks Maybelle killed her first husband.”

  “Any evidence to indicate that she did?” Grimaldi wanted to know.

  “None I could find. But it isn’t like she’d keep it sitting around her house, is it?”

  Grimaldi conceded the point.

  “He had a million dollar life insurance policy with Maybelle as the beneficiary. But she wasn’t exactly suffering before he died, either. And it seems he divorced his ex-wife for Maybelle, just a few months before they got married.”

  I didn’t mention the photographs and the conclusion I’d drawn about their marriage from the way he’d held her and the way she’d avoided touching him. It was spurious evidence at best, and
said rather a lot about me and my personal life, things I didn’t necessarily want the detective to know.

  “That doesn’t mean anything,” Tamara Grimaldi said.

  “I’m aware of that. There was one interesting thing, though. When she was born, her name was Maybelle Hicks. When she married Harold Driscoll, it was Maybelle Rowland. But there was no information in her filing cabinet about another marriage. I’ve asked Dix to look into it. My brother, remember?”

  “I remember your brother,” Grimaldi said. “How is he?”

  “About as well as can be expected, considering that he lost his wife last month. He’s hanging on.”

  “That’s good,” Grimaldi said. “If he comes up with anything you feel I should know, inform me.”

  It wasn’t a request.

  “Can you do anything about it?”

  “That depends on what it is,” Grimaldi said. “If I have ten free minutes on Monday, I’ll pull the files on Harold Driscoll’s death. Just to see if there’s any reason to suspect foul play.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  “Sometimes you have good instincts, Ms. Martin. If you think something might be going on, you may be right. It’s worth a second look. And if it can keep you from getting yourself arrested, so much the better. No more breaking and entering, please.”

  “I didn’t technically break in,” I said, “I had a key—”

  “Of course you did. But did you have the home owner’s permission?”

  She paused politely as if waiting for me to respond. I didn’t, of course, which she had known very well that I wouldn’t.

  “Don’t do it again, Ms. Martin. I don’t want to come in to work tomorrow morning and find you in jail. Your mother would have kittens.”

  I shuddered. Mother wouldn’t just have kittens, she’d have a cow. “I’ll be good. And I’ll let you know if Dix comes up with anything interesting.” Or if I did. Because she hadn’t forbidden me to drive over to Carolyn Driscoll’s house and talk to her. Then again, I hadn’t exactly told her that my plans, either.

  “Do that,” Grimaldi said. “Stay away from Maybelle Driscoll’s house. And if you see Mr. Collier again, it would probably be best if you took his advice and pretended you didn’t know him.”

  She hung up without saying goodbye. I rolled my eyes. What was with everyone I knew and their lack of manners?

  Chapter 6

  I met Aislynn Turner in November, two days after my sister-in-law Sheila died. When Sheila’s body was fished out of the Cumberland River and her last debit card purchase was for lunch at Sara Beth’s Café in Brentwood, I went there to see whether anyone knew anything about what she might be doing in Nashville that day. Aislynn was my waitress, and had been Sheila’s, as well. At the time she told me that she and her girlfriend were thinking about buying a house, and she called me a few weeks later to talk more about it. So far I’d shown them three properties, none of which had been just right, and now we were going back for two more.

  Neither Aislynn nor Kylie—or Kyle, as Aislynn called her—looked anything like Todd’s worst nightmare. There wasn’t a pair of camouflage pants or a crew cut between them. Aislynn has dreadlocks and piercings and enough eye-makeup to make Cleopatra—and Alexandra Puckett—weep with envy, but Kylie looks a lot like me. Susie Whitebread, with shoulder-length blonde hair with streaks and a bit of wave to it, blue eyes, and no visible body art. She even drives the same kind of car I do: a blue Volvo a couple of shades darker than mine. She’s a banker in her daily life, so I guess a certain amount of decorum is to be expected. And the job ensured that they were prequalified for a loan and knew exactly how much they could afford. Thanks mostly to Kylie’s job, it was a comfortable amount. I didn’t have to search the real estate equivalent of the bargain racks, and it was a good thing too, because they wanted to live on the south side of town, near Brentwood, and that area doesn’t come cheap.

  Today, we were looking at a mid-century ranch in Crieve Hall, a nice forested neighborhood not too far from the Travelers Rest historic home—quite similar to Maybelle and the Pucketts’ neighborhood, Brush Hill, on the north-east side of Nashville. After that we’d be heading over to Nolensville Road and Lenox Village, a recent planned development of townhouses and shops. My money was on the townhouse, since an established neighborhood of ranches and tree-lined streets didn’t seem like it would be Aislynn’s speed. Her reaction to the Crieve Hall house was about what I expected.

  “This is nice, I guess.” She looked around at the towering trees, bare of leaves so close to Christmas, and the yard full of hibernating grass and spiky, dead plants.

  “It looks a lot more inviting in the summer,” I offered. “I’ve seen pictures. The yard’s lovely.”

  “Big,” Aislynn said and measured it with her gaze.

  “Half acre. Yards are a good size around here.” I smiled.

  “Who’s gonna cut the grass?” Aislynn wanted to know, turning to Kylie.

  “Not me,” Kylie said. “We can hire a service.”

  Aislynn nodded, chewing on her bottom lip. Her lip ring was moving up and down, and I averted my eyes.

  “It’s a good price for the area. Well within your price range. And an easy commute to work for both of you.”

  They nodded. “It’s just very...” Aislynn hesitated, “woodsy.”

  Woodsy tends to be a good thing. A lot of people who live in the city want woodsy. Obviously Aislynn wasn’t one of them.

  “Why don’t we take a look inside,” I suggested, “and then we’ll drive over and check out the townhouse in Lenox Village. That might be more to your taste. Not so much yard, no trees to speak of, and practically no mowing required.”

  They nodded. I unlocked the door and we headed in.

  As soon as the door closed behind us, my phone rang, and I excused myself to take the call while they wandered on their own. Unlike a pair of my previous clients—a young newlywed couple who had spent their time trying out each master bedroom to see which would give them the biggest bang for their buck before deciding which house to buy—I wasn’t worried about letting these two explore on their own. They wandered off, and I put the phone to my ear.

  “This is Savannah.”

  “It’s Alex,” Alexandra Puckett said. “How did it go yesterday?”

  “That depends. The neighbor on the left called 911 and the police showed up just as I was leaving.”

  Alexandra breathed a word of the kind Maybelle—and my mother—would not have approved. “Were you arrested?”

  “Luckily, no. I told them that you’d asked me check on the place, and they believed me. Although they did write up a report. So it’s on record that I was there.”

  Alexandra said it again—that same word—and added, “I’m sorry, Savannah.”

  “It’s all right,” I said. “Could have been worse. They didn’t arrest me.”

  “So did you find anything?”

  I hesitated before saying, again, “That depends. Maybelle’s first husband’s name was Harold. He died from a heart attack. He had a million dollar life insurance policy and a wife it seems he divorced to marry Maybelle. And I think Maybelle may have been married before, too. A friend of mine is checking to see whether there were any suspicious circumstances around the heart attack, and my brother is trying to find out about the first husband, if there was one.”

  “I remember Harold,” Alexandra said. “I think I even remember the wife he had before Maybelle. What happened to her?”

  “I’m trying to find her,” I said. “So far, my best bet is an address in Madison.”

  “When are you going there? Can I come?”

  “I don’t know yet,” I said, in response to the first part of the question. “That depends on when I have time. I’m showing houses right now. Then I have to sit an open house for Tim. Tonight?”

  Alexandra thought for a moment. Maybe she had to work around Maybelle’s schedule. “What time?”

  “The open house is over at four. How a
bout five?” Having her along might not be a bad idea. If she remembered Carolyn Driscoll, Carolyn would probably remember Alexandra as well, and she might sympathize with Alexandra’s desire to get rid of Maybelle.

  “I’ll meet you there,” Alexandra said. “What’s the address?”

  I gave it to her. She hung up without saying goodbye. Again.

  “So what do you think?” I asked Aislynn and Kylie when they came back into the living room after their exploration of the house.

  Aislynn glanced around the living room. “It’s nice, I guess.”

  There was still a marked lack of enthusiasm in her voice. I turned to Kylie, who shrugged. “I like it. But the neighborhood is maybe a little sedate for Aislynn.”

  Kylie was my age or just above, pushing thirty. Aislynn was younger; maybe not even twenty five yet. I guess it made sense that she’d want something a little more fun than this conservative, settled neighborhood of older people and families.

  “On to Lenox Village, then?”

  Kylie nodded. “Let’s go,” Aislynn said, with more enthusiasm than she’d shown so far.

  So we piled into the Volvos—the two of them in Kylie’s, I in mine—and drove the fifteen minutes over to Nolensville Road. Where Aislynn took one look at the pristine beauty of the planned neighborhood and rebelled. Her mouth turned down at the corners and her nose turned up.

  “We can’t live here.”

  “It’s a nice place,” I said, looking around at the walking trails running along the gently winding creek, the fenced playground, the ruler-sharp, postage stamp sized front yards, and the doggie stations with free plastic bags in dispensers, and tiny trash cans with tight lids.

  “I can’t live on Hobbit Lane,” Aislynn said. “This place looks like that town in the movie where all the women were robots. Except the eyes.”

  Stepford. Right.

  “Do you at least want to go inside?” I looked from Kylie, who didn’t seem to mind the neighborhood, to Aislynn, who looked like I had taken her into the worst of Nashville’s ghettos and left her there. She shook her head.