Wrongful Termination: A Savannah Martin Novel (Savannah Martin Mystery Book 16) Read online

  But it was none of my business unless she wanted to tell me about it, so I just nodded. “See you around, then.”

  Charlotte nodded back, and slipped through the door and out. The chimes tinkled one final time, and then quieted.

  “That was strange,” Audrey commented.

  No question. “Sounds like she’s left her husband and is looking for a job.”

  Audrey nodded. “There’s not enough work here for anyone but me. This business isn’t exactly a money-making venture. I do it because it’s fun, and because it serves a need, and because I can keep it in the black, mostly, from month to month. If that ever changes, I’ll close up shop. But I’m not looking for employees.”

  I imagined most businesses around here weren’t. That’s usually the way it is in small towns. Charlotte might find it hard to get a foothold, after ten years away.

  And so might I, for that matter. Although maybe my real estate career would get a boost from being back here, where everyone knew me. Unless I’d negated any clout the Martin name had ever had by marrying the last of the Colliers, and it was likely I had.

  Oh, well. I could always write that bodice-ripper romance I’d been toying with in my head for the past year and a half.

  I turned on my heel. “I’m going to go back and check on Rafe and Mrs. Jenkins.”

  “Right behind you,” Audrey said, and we headed back to the office.

  * * *

  We took our leave another twenty minutes or so later, after Mrs. Jenkins had had her fill of both Rafe and Carrie. She went back to coloring while Rafe carried the car seat with Carrie through the store and back into the nippy winter afternoon. Audrey closed the door behind us with a wave.

  I looked around. “I guess we should probably say hi to Darcy and Dix while we’re here. And Jonathan and Catherine, if they’re there.”

  “No reason not to,” Rafe agreed. The law offices of Martin and McCall are literally within spitting distance of Audrey’s boutique, just on the other side of the Café on the Square.

  As we walked the couple of yards, I looked around for Charlotte, but didn’t see her. “Did you hear what was going on outside the curtain while you were back there with Mrs. J?”

  “Charlotte came in,” Rafe said, “looking for a job.”

  I nodded. “She must be back in Sweetwater to stay. Maybe Richard cheated on her, and she left.”

  “Or maybe Charlotte cheated and Richard kicked her out,” Rafe answered.

  I stared at him.

  He arched a brow. “Didn’t think about that, did you?”

  I hadn’t. I had jumped to the conclusion that it was Richard’s fault. It’s my default setting. When a marriage breaks up, it’s the husband’s fault. “You think she’d do that?”

  He shrugged. “I dunno, darlin’. Didn’t have much to do with her when we were kids. I have no idea whether she’s the type to do something like that or not.”

  I wouldn’t have thought so. But in thinking about it, I realized I didn’t really know one way or the other anymore.

  I had sensed tension back in May, during the class reunion. I’d gotten the impression that Charlotte wasn’t happy with herself, with the way she looked—and after ten years and two kids, she couldn’t expect to fit into her cheerleader uniform anymore, but maybe she did, anyway—and I’d also formed the idea that Richard was pressuring her to change. He was a cosmetic surgeon, so it seemed like something he’d do. Try to turn his wife into some work of art he was responsible for. But that could all be just supposition on my part. I didn’t really know.

  If Richard was making Charlotte feel inadequate, she might have sought approval somewhere else. And I knew just what that felt like. Not that I’d cheated. It had been two years between the time I divorced Bradley and when I took up with Rafe. But being with someone who liked me the way I was, and who didn’t try to change me, and who loved me in spite of all those imperfections I’d always thought I had to hide, was a powerful aphrodisiac. If Charlotte’s marriage was unhappy and her husband was a jerk, she might have ended up looking for love somewhere else, too.

  “I told her to call me,” I said, as we reached the door to the law office. “If she does, I guess I’ll find out what happened then.”

  “Don’t hold your breath,” Rafe advised, and he was probably right. If I held my breath waiting for Charlotte to call, I had a feeling I’d suffocate before the phone rang.

  * * *

  Darcy was manning—or womanning—the desk in the lobby inside Martin & McCall. She’d been doing that for a couple of years before we even knew we were related. Now that I knew, I could see a little of Audrey in her face—the high cheekbones, the shape of the jaw—but the severe bone structure was less dramatic in Darcy’s younger face. If I looked closely, I could also see hints of my dad, and of Catherine and Aunt Regina, who both take after the Martins.

  She looked up with a polite smile, that turned welcoming when she saw us. “Savannah. And Rafe. And you brought the baby!”

  Everyone was so delighted to see Carrie again, it was as if we’d been gone months instead of days. Darcy left the desk and came around to coo at the baby, as leggy as her mother in a tight gray skirt and crisp blue blouse.

  “Dix is in his office,” she told me over her shoulder as she bent over Carrie. “You can go back. I’ll keep the baby if you want.”

  “We didn’t come here specifically to see Dix,” I began, but Rafe had already put the carrier on the floor and moved in that direction. Maybe he had something he wanted to talk to my brother about.

  I shrugged. “I’ll catch up.”

  He nodded and kept going. I waited until the door from the lobby to the back of he building had closed behind him before I turned back to Darcy. “He lost his job.”

  She sat back on her heels to stare at me. “At the TBI? That’s awful.”

  It was. “At least he has options. Grimaldi offered him a job with the Columbia PD over Christmas, remember? Effective whenever he wanted, after she’d taken over the job of police chief down here. We came down to talk to her about it.”

  “Is he going to take it?” Darcy wanted to know, getting to her feet again and moving back behind the desk.

  “He’s not sure.” I turned along with her as she moved. “We figured this way, at least, he’d know exactly what she was offering.” And what he was turning down.

  “And what exactly is she offering?” Darcy asked.

  I perched a hip on the edge of the desk. There was a waiting area with a couple of chairs on the other side of the room, but while it’s a small room, it was too far away for comfortable conversation. “She originally wanted him to be a detective. Investigator. She was thinking criminal investigations rather than narcotics.”

  Darcy nodded.

  “But then Rafe decided he’d rather join the SWAT team.”

  Darcy’s brows arched. “The SWAT team?”

  “Special Weapons and Tactics. The guys in black who come over in their armored car when something especially bad is going on. You remember the SWAT team that came to my house in Nashville that day we were up there, when we found the dead gang banger.”

  Darcy nodded, and a shadow crossed her face. She had fainted at the sight of the dead gang banger, and Rafe had had to carry her out of the room. It probably wasn’t a happy memory. I’d had the same thing happen to me when I saw my first dead body—including being carried by Rafe—so it wasn’t like I had any room to criticize.

  “I think he’s afraid being an investigator wouldn’t be as much fun as driving fast and shooting at people,” I said. “And he’d look good in the uniform.”

  Darcy’s lips curved and she nodded. “Yes, he would.”

  “I guess we’ll see what happens. There’s a chance the TBI might change their minds, I think. His immediate supervisor—the guy above Wendell—said he’d see if there was anything he could do. If not, I’d rather have Rafe on the SWAT team, and happy, than doing something he doesn’t enjoy.”

&n
bsp; Darcy nodded. “Patrick’s trained for SWAT, if they need backup. Maybe Rafe could do both, too.”

  Maybe. “How’s Nolan?” I asked.

  “You saw him at Christmas, didn’t you?”

  I had. And he’d looked the same as the last time I’d seen him. “You two doing OK?”

  “Fine,” Darcy said. “We’ve only been dating a few months, you know. It isn’t all that serious yet.”

  Although the ‘yet’ made it sound like it had the potential to become more so.

  But she mustn’t have wanted to talk about it, because she changed the subject. “Your friend Charlotte was just here.”

  “She stopped in at Audrey’s, too,” I nodded. “Looking for a job. What—?” And then it hit me. “Oh, no.”

  Darcy nodded. “She spent most of her time talking to Dix. In his office. But after she left, he told me she wanted him to give her my job.”

  My eyes widened. “She asked for your job?” Not only was that fairly rude, but also very forward of Charlotte.

  “Maybe not in so many words,” Darcy admitted, “but Dix said he had to explain to her about the relationship,” that Darcy wasn’t just an employee, but his sister, “before she’d stop talking about it.”

  “I guess her parents must have neglected to tell her about that.” The big reveal had taken place since the last time Charlotte had been here, or at least since the last time I personally had seen her. And I hadn’t felt the need to mention it to her long distance. It wasn’t like we talked that often anymore, anyway.

  “I’m not sure word’s gotten around,” Darcy said. “None of us who are involved feel a need to talk about it, I think. Everyone who matters, knows. And it’s not like the rest of the county needs the details.”

  I guess not. Both Mother and Audrey would probably be happier to have a few of the finer points stay quiet.

  “I should go back and see Dix,” I said. By now, whatever Rafe had wanted to talk to him about—if anything—had probably been covered, too.

  Darcy nodded. “I’ll keep the baby.”

  By all means. “Speaking of… I think Audrey could use a grandbaby of her own. You may want to keep that in mind as you date Nolan. Neither one of you is getting any younger, you know.”

  And God, could I sound any more like my mother?

  “Yes’m,” Darcy said, as a dimple appeared and disappeared in her cheek.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know where that came from. And it’s none of my business, anyway. Forget I said it. Please. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  “Take your time,” Darcy said and turned her attention to Carrie.

  Chapter Six

  Dix and Rafe had indeed finished whatever Rafe had wanted to talk to Dix about, if anything. When I got back to Dix’s office, they were discussing dinner.

  Unless that was what Rafe had wanted to talk to Dix about.

  “Six-thirty at Beulah’s. You’re welcome to come, but it’ll prob’ly be a lot of shop talk.” Shop being the business of law enforcement, I assumed.

  “I’ll pass,” Dix said. “I’d have to bring the girls, and I’m not sure they ought to hear that conversation.”

  I wasn’t either. Although— “Couldn’t you ask Catherine to take them for the night?”

  “I did that on Saturday,” Dix said. “Not like I can impose on them every night.”

  No. And tomorrow was a school day, anyway. Abigail and Hannah should probably stay home and do their homework.

  “Well, we’ll miss you,” I said, perching on the arm of Rafe’s chair.

  Dix looked around. “Where’s the baby?”

  “I left her with Darcy. She volunteered.”

  Dix nodded.

  “She also told me that Charlotte stopped by. Angling for her job.”

  The tips of Dix’s ears turned a little pink. Like Mother and me, he’s fair skinned and blushes easily. “I had to explain that Darcy isn’t just the receptionist, but our sister. She hadn’t heard the news.”

  “I was kind of surprised that her parents hadn’t told her,” I admitted, “but Darcy said she didn’t think word had gotten out around town.”

  “Prob’ly just a matter of time,” Rafe muttered.

  I smiled at him. “You may be right.” He’d certainly never had much luck hiding anything as a teenager. On the other hand, Audrey had managed to hide Darcy’s existence, and Oneida had managed to hide her racial background, both of them for decades, so maybe it wasn’t impossible.

  “Rafe says you’re thinking about moving back here,” Dix said, with a glance at him. “You sure you want to deal with life in Sweetwater again, Sis? You got out.”

  The look on Rafe’s face said that he agreed.

  “I’m fine with staying gone,” I said. “It’s up to Rafe. If he wants to work for Grimaldi, we’ll come back. If he doesn’t, we’ll find something to do in Nashville.”

  Dix nodded. “I’m sure Tamara would appreciate having you. It won’t be easy for her to take over the Columbia police department after Chief Carter. It wouldn’t be easy for a woman to do that in this town anyway, in spite of her experience and the fact that Sheriff Satterfield approves of her.”

  I shook my head. No, indeed. There are still some misogynistic attitudes lurking, and as I had surmised after meeting Sergeant Tucker, there were probably a few of the old guard who would try to patronize her and maybe not take her seriously because she was A) female, B) young, and C) not from around here.

  The fact that she was a highly experienced and respected homicide detective from Nashville would do nothing to change that.

  “But then there’s how Carter left,” Dix added, “and how far into the department that kind of behavior stretched.”

  That kind of behavior…?

  Between you and me, former chief of police Carter had been slightly insane. That wasn’t the official description, of course, but I’m sure there’s one that means the same thing. How else would you describe a police chief who commits crimes so he can solve them and look good?

  There’d also been some talk—some of it from me—about how maybe Carter was a bit too chummy with Beulah Odom’s sister-in-law and niece, and how he might have helped them cover up Beulah’s murder. Which was what had led to the conversation with Patrick Nolan I mentioned earlier, about whether Detective Jarvis was ethical or not.

  Was there some question that Carter hadn’t been doing what he was doing alone? Or that that type of behavior from other members of the department was still going on? Were there, in fact, more bad cops in Carter’s—or what had been Carter’s—command, beyond Carter himself?

  It would explain why Sheriff Satterfield had pushed for Grimaldi to take the job. And why the city council had voted to offer it to her, in spite of her being female, and young, and not from around here.

  It would also explain what she wanted Rafe for. Not just someone she could trust to have her back and be in her corner, but someone who’d help her figure things out, with no loyalty to anyone or anything in the existing police department, except Grimaldi herself.

  And it certainly explained why Dix didn’t want to bring his daughters to dinner, if that was the kind of conversation we’d be having.

  “Did you know about this?” I asked Rafe a bit later, after we’d finished making small talk with Dix, and with Jonathan, who also stuck his head in to say hello. We were back in the Volvo headed toward the mansion and Mother, and I added, to clarify my first question, “That there was an ulterior motive for Grimaldi getting, and taking, the job here?”

  And an ulterior motive for the job she’d offered him, as well.

  He shook his head. “Not to say know. I wondered.”

  I hadn’t. I’d just assumed that Grimaldi wanted the job because it was close to Dix and she wanted to give their relationship a chance. It hadn’t had much of one while he was a single father with a law practice in Sweetwater, and she was a homicide detective with a job she enjoyed in Nashville.

  “The sheriff
offered me the job first,” Rafe added, “remember?”

  Now that he mentioned it, I did remember. It hadn’t been a serious suggestion, or at least I hadn’t thought so at the time, but Bob Satterfield had floated the idea that maybe Rafe wanted to become interim chief of police for Columbia after Carter was hauled off in handcuffs. It had been a pretty crazy idea, and Rafe had turned it down flat. I’d mostly figured that the sheriff was joking, or making some sort of half-joking good-will gesture with no expectation that Rafe would actually say yes.

  But now the suggestion made more sense, and so did the sheriff approaching Grimaldi when Rafe said no.

  “Did you realize what he wanted? Back then, I mean.”

  Rafe shook his head. “I didn’t think about it enough to figure that out. And he didn’t say nothing about it. But it makes sense now.”

  It did. And put a different complexion on Grimaldi’s job offer, too.

  Rafe nodded when I said so. But before he could answer, his phone rang, and he dug it out of his pocket instead. And pushed the speaker button. “Collier.”

  “Rafe,” a male voice said. It could have been my imagination, but I thought it sounded strained. “Doug Brennan. Any chance you could stop by sometime this afternoon?”

  “No,” Rafe said. “My wife and I took the baby down to her family in Sweetwater.”

  “Oh.” Brennan deflated. “When are you coming back? Not until after the weekend?”

  It was Thursday afternoon, and under other circumstances, we might have made a weekend of it. But we had the pizza party with Wendell and the boys to host tomorrow night.

  “In the morning,” Rafe said.

  Brennan sounded marginally happier. “Could you stop by when you get into town? Just tell them in the lobby that you want to see me, and I’ll leave word for them to send you up.”

  “Sure thing.” Rafe dropped the phone into the console between the seats. In the back Carrie snoozed, not at all bothered by the noise.