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

  So he’d gone up there, and we’d come all the way back from Sweetwater, for nothing.

  “Maybe he meant that he wanted you to stop by his house?” I suggested. “Not the TBI.”

  “He shoulda said that, then.” After a second he added, “You heard what he said yesterday. He didn’t mention nothing about his house, did he?”

  He hadn’t. Not at all. And if he’d left word in the lobby to send Rafe up, that made it pretty clear he’d been talking about Rafe coming to see him at the TBI.

  “I left a message saying I’d been there, and to call me again when he got it. Guess I’ll just wait to hear from him.”

  There wasn’t much else he could do. “I straightened up,” I said, looking around.

  He nodded. “I saw. You didn’t have to do that, darlin’. Nobody’s gonna care if there’s dust in the corners.”

  “I’d care.”

  His mouth quirked. “Your mama’d care. You only care ’cause you think your mama would.”

  Guilty as charged. You can take the girl out of Sweetwater, but you can’t take Sweetwater—entirely—out of the girl.

  “Anything else we need to do before they get here?”

  “No,” Rafe said and stood up. He took his plate to the sink. “I’ll call in the pizza thirty minutes before they get here. That way it oughta be here right after they show up.”

  I nodded.

  “Other’n that, we have the whole afternoon to ourselves.” He smiled. “Carrie asleep?”

  “For now.” But probably not for a whole lot longer. Even at six weeks, I’d noticed she slept a little less than she used to just a week or two ago.

  “We better take advantage while we can,” Rafe said. “Pretty soon she’ll be walking, and the kitchen table’ll be off limits till she’s eighteen and off to college.”

  And at that point we might be too old to think sex in the kitchen in the middle of the day was anything to get excited about.

  “I’m up for it if you are,” I said.

  “Darlin’…” He advanced toward me, his eyes intent, “I’m always up for it.”

  I giggled, and then he scooped me up and deposited me on the table, and nudged my knees apart so he could step between my thighs, and then he leaned in and kissed me… and the rest, as they say, is history.

  * * *

  The doorbell rang again just before four. Rafe glanced at the clock and arched a brow. “Somebody’s early.”

  I nodded. “Maybe one of the boys wants some extra time with you before the others get here.” Clayton and José were leaving, after all, and Rafe was leaving the TBI, so it made sense.

  “I’ll get it.” He uncoiled from the sofa and headed for the door.

  “Mind the fringe!”

  He gave me a jaundiced look over his shoulder, but stepped over the edge of the carpet rather than mess up my handiwork.

  There are only a few feet from the sofa in the parlor to the front door, so I had a good view of what happened. Rafe glanced out through the window in the top of the door, and I saw his brows arch. When he swung the door open, I deduced he wasn’t worried about who was outside, but it wasn’t anyone he was happy to see, either. “Yeah?”

  “Rafael Collier?” It was the same voice I’d heard earlier, except this time it was a whole lot less polite. I removed myself from the sofa and made my way toward the foyer, while the voice continued. “Grab your jacket. You’re coming downtown for questioning.”

  There was a pause. “You arresting me?” Rafe asked. His voice was level, but I didn’t think anyone could have mistaken the warning in it. “’Cause if you ain’t prepared to put me in handcuffs right now—and you better make sure you have a damn good reason, and some solid evidence to back it up if you do—I ain’t going nowhere.”

  By now I had reached the open door and stuck my head around it to peer out. “Hello again. You didn’t tell me who you were earlier.” Although if he wanted Rafe to come downtown for questioning, and not up to the TBI, he was probably MNPD. A former colleague of Grimaldi’s. They have their offices in downtown.

  “I showed you my badge,” the gentleman said dismissively, like the tenth of a second he’d waved it under my nose was supposed to be long enough for me to make out his name and rank.

  He turned his attention back to Rafe, but before he could say anything more, my husband told me, still in that same very smooth, very even tone, “This is Detective Goins, darlin’. He wants to talk to me about something.”

  “What might that be?” I asked.

  Goins’s eyes—small and muddy brown—glinted with resentment, but he said, “The death of Doug Brennan.”

  There was a beat. “Brennan’s dead?” Rafe said. “Since when?”

  “I’m the one asking the questions here,” Goins answered. “Where were you last night between eight and midnight?”

  “That when he died?”

  Goins didn’t answer, and Rafe added, “Not in Nashville. I was in Sweetwater, Tennessee, having dinner with the chief of police for Columbia, and then going home to my mother-in-law’s house. She’s sleeping with the sheriff of Maury County.”

  Goins looked at him like he wasn’t quite sure whether he could believe it or not. And to be honest, it wasn’t the kind of alibi most people serve up when they’re asked.

  I smiled apologetically. “It’s true. I was there, too.”

  Goins gave me a dismissive look. Followed by a grunt. “Not like you wouldn’t lie for him.”

  He had that right—I would absolutely lie for him—but in this case there was no need. That’s not to say the suggestion, and the tone it was delivered in, wasn’t offensive. “We were more than an hour away all night, Detective Goins. Feel free to call Chief Grimaldi in Columbia or Sheriff Satterfield in Sweetwater to verify. Or my mother. I’d be happy to give you the number.”

  “I wouldn’t,” Rafe said, “at least not till I know why I need an alibi. And why some detective with the MNPD is accusing my wife of lying. What happened to Brennan? And what’s it gotta do with me?”

  “Mr. Brennan met with an accident last night,” Detective Goins said coldly. “Going home from work.”

  Rafe folded his arms across his chest—nice arms, very nice chest—and leaned a shoulder on the door jamb to listen. Cold air was seeping into the house, but I guess he didn’t feel like inviting Goins inside to continue the conversation. “And you don’t know if it was at eight or midnight?”

  “He ran off the road a few miles from his house,” Goins said. “The car wasn’t discovered until this morning. When I spoke to his colleagues at the TBI about anyone who might have wanted to hurt him, your name came up.”

  Rafe’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t speak. Goins smirked unpleasantly. “I understand he fired you recently?”

  “They eliminated his position,” I said. “It isn’t quite the same thing.”

  Rafe shot me a look before he turned back to Goins. “What if he did?”

  “Couldn’t have been much fun,” Goins said, in what was probably supposed to be an understanding tone, but which just came across as insinuating and oily. “Might be hard to find another job, what with your background and all.”

  I opened my mouth to tell him that Rafe already had a job offer, and that it had been in place a week or more before we had any idea that he’d be losing his job with the TBI. But then I thought better of it. This was Rafe’s business. I should let him handle it.

  He gave Goins a nod. “Might be. But killing Brennan wouldn’t improve my chances.”

  “You might not have thought about that,” Goins said. “Your type often acts first and thinks later.” He sounded pleased.

  “Oh, sure.” Rafe did fake pleasant much better than Goins did. “The stupid type, I guess? Too dumb to realize that killing the man who fired me wouldn’t get me another job, unless I wanted to spend another couple years making license plates?”

  Goins was either extremely stupid in his own right, or he lacked the ability to recognize
sarcasm when he heard it. “Exactly.”

  “I ain’t that stupid,” Rafe said. “And I wasn’t in Nashville last night. I was nowhere near Brennan’s house. I don’t even know where he lives. Not like we were friends.”

  “Your wife said you went to the TBI to talk to him this morning.” Goins glanced at me and then back at Rafe. “Why was that?”

  “He wanted to see me,” Rafe said. “He called yesterday afternoon. I couldn’t make it, seeing as I was in Maury County yesterday. So I told him I’d stop by when I got back to town this morning.”

  Goins looked doubtful.

  “If I knew he was dead,” Rafe asked, “why’d I waste my time going to see him?”

  Goins sounded triumphant. “To make it look like you didn’t know?”

  “Sure.” Rafe shook his head. “I had no reason to want Doug Brennan dead. It wasn’t his choice to do away with my job. Doing away with him wouldn’t get me the job back either way. And I wasn’t nowhere near Nashville when he drove off the road.”

  “Why is that even something you investigate?” I wanted to know. “It sounds like an accident. You even called it an accident. Why are you here asking my husband questions about it?”

  “That’s for me to know,” Goins said. And turned back to Rafe. “So you deny having anything to do with Doug Brennan’s death?”

  Rafe nodded. “And you can’t prove I did. ’Cause I wasn’t here.”

  “You could have compromised his brakes before you left town yesterday.”

  “I woulda had to be out early,” Rafe said, “seeing as we left around eight-thirty. Brennan prob’ly wasn’t even at the TBI yet.”

  “And we were together all morning,” I added. Not that my saying so was likely to matter much to Goins. He’d already made it clear what he thought about my honesty. “Is that what happened?”

  Goins didn’t answer. Another thing that was for him to know and the rest of us not to question, I guess.

  “Are you sure he didn’t just drive off the road by accident? Maybe a car swerved over in the wrong lane and he had to dodge, or a deer ran across the road, or something. The headlights of an oncoming vehicle blinded him for a second or two. Or he just lost control of the car. It’s winter. The roads can get icy.”

  Especially outside of town, and if Doug Brennan had run off the road and died, it sounded like it might have happened somewhere that wasn’t exactly the urban core. Anyone running off the road in our neighborhood would have hit somebody’s lawn furniture, or maybe a picket fence or mailbox first, but the chances of getting up enough speed so that something like that would be fatal, were slim to none. And there was no way the car wouldn’t have been discovered until daylight the next morning. We get police drive-bys all the time around here, and regular people come and go all day and night, too. What happened to Doug Brennan sounded more like it had taken place in a suburban or even rural setting.

  But Goins wasn’t likely to give us any of the details. Wendell might know where Brennan lived, though. We could ask him when he got here.

  “Anything else?” Rafe wanted to know. Goins looked like he’d bit into a lemon wedge. But since he wasn’t willing to arrest Rafe on the evidence he thought he had, there wasn’t much he could do except shake his head.

  He couldn’t resist a parting shot, though. “Don’t leave town.”

  “That ain’t how it works,” Rafe said, and shut the door.

  We watched Goins as he made his way down to the driveway.

  “Is that true?” I asked Rafe. Outside, Goins hesitated at the bottom of the steps instead of making for the Toyota.

  Rafe glanced at me. “What’s that?”

  “That he can’t tell you not to leave town.”

  “Sure.” He nodded. “It’s a free country. I can go anywhere I want.”

  Outside on the driveway, Goins had made his way over to the Volvo and was walking around it, inspecting the fenders and lights. A total waste of time on his part, since the car had been in Sweetwater when Brennan went off the road. Not that I’d gotten the impression he’d believed me when I said so.

  “Even if you’re a suspect in a crime?” Not that he was. Since he had an alibi. “Or a person of interest, or whatever?”

  “Yeah,” Rafe said, as Goins left the Volvo to make the same inspection of the Harley. After a second he added, “Why?”

  “No reason. Back when we discovered Brenda Puckett’s body, Grimaldi told me not to leave town. I was going to Mother’s birthday party in Sweetwater, so I had to negotiate with her.”

  Rafe smirked. “It works with some people. Not people who know better.”

  Of course. “I don’t expect she told you that? Not to leave town?” When I got to Sweetwater, he’d also been there, cleaning out his mother’s trailer in the Bog.

  “Can’t recall. But if she did, I woulda said no, ma’am, and left anyway.” He shrugged, as Goins left the bike and headed for the Toyota. The detective directed one final displeased look at the house before he got in and turned the engine over. We watched as the Toyota maneuvered past both the Volvo and the Harley on its way toward the street. On Potsdam it made a right turn and was gone.

  Rafe pushed off from the doorjamb and headed back to the parlor.

  “Is this something we need to worry about?” I asked him, as I trailed behind.

  He glanced at me over his shoulder. “Can’t imagine why. We were in Sweetwater. We can prove it. And I had no reason to want Brennan dead.”

  “Was there no hint of this when you were at the TBI earlier?”

  He shook his head. “Nobody said a word.”

  “That’s a little weird.”

  “Wendell and the boys’ll be here soon,” Rafe said. “Maybe they know something we don’t.”

  Maybe they did. Because I had a feeling this wouldn’t be the last we heard of it.

  Chapter Eight

  Wendell showed up at six-thirty sharp. Before he’d even made it up the stairs, José’s truck, with the Virgin Mary on the back window, turned into the driveway and headed for the house.

  José is a short, Hispanic guy with an accented voice and biceps that almost rival Rafe’s. The difference is that José is half a foot shorter and looks like a fireplug. He favors polo shirts, and keeps his sleeves rolled up almost to the shoulders, not because he’s trying to show off—at least I don’t think so—but because his biceps are so big that I doubt the fabric would stretch far enough.

  Wendell, meanwhile, is African-American and in his fifties, and the closest thing Rafe’s ever had to a father. His own dad died before he was born, and while he grew up with his mother and grandfather in the Bog, the trailer park on the south side of Sweetwater, Old Jim Collier wasn’t any kind of father to a growing boy. He’s the one who shot Tyrell Jenkins, for the crime of knocking up LaDonna, and he had no compulsions about taking his fists, or his belt or anything else that was handy, to both his daughter and his grandson. When he stumbled out the door one night when Rafe was twelve, and didn’t come back in, neither Rafe nor LaDonna took the trouble to go look for him. He was found the next day, drowned in the Duck River.

  But I digress. Wendell waited for José, and they walked in together. Clayton Norris, scrawny and white, with a skinhead buzz cut and tattoos up and down his arms, turned his Camaro up the driveway a few minutes later, and Jamal Atkins showed up at the same time as the pizzas. Jamal’s black, almost as tall as Rafe, but with at least thirty pounds less muscle.

  They descended on the pizzas like a horde of barbarians, and for a while, nothing was heard but chewing and swallowing and ribbing.

  Rafe waited until the feeding frenzy had abated before he said, “I had cops on the door earlier.”

  Wendell shot him a look. Jamal swallowed the bite of pizza he’d taken and said, “What you do now?”

  “It wasn’t what I did,” Rafe said, and added, “though he wanted to pin it on me. But it was something somebody else did. Y’all know Brennan’s dead?”

  There was
a pause. The boys all looked at one another. “Our Brennan?” Jamal said.

  Rafe nodded. “Detective named Goins came to the door and wanted to know where I was last night from eight to twelve.”

  “What happened to Brennan?”

  “Apparently he ran off the road,” I said, from where I was standing in the doorway holding the baby. “On his way home last night. A couple of miles from where he lived.”

  “Lives in Ridgetop,” Wendell said. After a second he added, “Did.”

  Rafe glanced at him. “D’you know about this?”

  Wendell shook his head. “I’ve been offsite today, working with the boys. None of us been at the TBI today.”

  So at least it wasn’t a case of everyone else knowing what was going on and just not sharing it with Rafe. That thought had probably crossed his mind.

  “Ridgetop is north of here,” I said, “isn’t it? Up toward the border to Kentucky?”

  Wendell nodded. “He had a cabin up there. Drove in every day.”

  And back out every night, I assumed. “Hilly?”

  “Only been there a couple times,” Wendell said, “but yeah. If he ran off the road, he coulda had a long drop.”

  “That’s terrible.” And sad to contemplate the idea that he might not have died right away, but might have stayed in his car, at the end of a long drop, dying slowly.

  But no, that was probably just my imagination. He’d have had his phone with him, surely. If he’d been alive and aware, he would have used it to call for help.

  “The detective share what happened?” Wendell asked Rafe.

  My husband shook his head. “Suggested that maybe I’d ‘compromised his brakes’,” his tone made quotes around the words, “but when Savannah asked, he wouldn’t say for sure that that’s what happened. So something made Brennan drive off the road, but I’m not sure anybody knows what.”

  Or if they did, they weren’t telling.