The Martin Mansion sits above the Columbia Road on the way to Pulaski, about an hour, hour-and-a-half south of Nashville.
The time it takes to get there depends on who’s behind the wheel. When it’s Rafe, it’s less than an hour. When it’s me, it takes longer. On top of that, I’d been distracted by the fact that I had to keep an eye in the rearview mirror to make sure we weren’t followed, and with the extra traffic, it wasn’t easy. We’d gotten caught in the beginning of rush hour, and had driven south in a sea of other cars, also headed home to the suburbs. They started peeling off in Brentwood, then Franklin, then Spring Hill, and by the time we got to Columbia we were pretty well alone on the road. The only other car that got off with us—a silver sedan—turned west toward Columbia while we headed south in the direction of Sweetwater and, if we kept going, Pulaski and the Alabama border, so they clearly weren’t interested in us.
“Have you ever been here?” I asked Mrs. Jenkins. And then changed it to, “I know you came down for the wedding. But I meant other than that. On your own, or with Rafe, to look around.”
This was where her grandchild had been born and raised, after all. And where his mother had been born and raised, and died.
She shook her head.
“Maybe tomorrow we can take a drive and look around. The Bog—that’s the trailer park where Rafe grew up, and where LaDonna and Big Jim lived—it’s gone now. This guy named Ronnie Burke bought it last year, and was going to develop it into a subdivision. But that didn’t work out. It’s a long story. Anyway, there’s nothing there anymore. But I can show you where it used to be. And we can go the cemetery on Oak Street, where LaDonna is buried, and put some flowers on her grave. I know you didn’t know her, but she was Rafe’s mother. And Tyrell’s girlfriend. And there’s a nice little café on the square in downtown where we can have lunch.”
“Ice cream?” Mrs. Jenkins asked hopefully.
I grinned at her. “I’m sure we can find ice cream somewhere.” Dix or Catherine would know where to go. They both have young children.
And I should probably make sure that ice cream was on the menu for Thanksgiving, too. Not everyone likes pumpkin pie. Although Mrs. Jenkins probably did. I hadn’t fed her anything yet, that she’d refused to eat.
“There it is,” Mrs. Jenkins pointed.
I nodded. There it was. The Martin Mansion. Squatting above the road like a large, red brick toadstool.
Although I have to admit I was a little surprised that she remembered. She’d only been here once.
Then again, the place makes an impression. Big—almost twice the size of Mrs. J’s Victorian, which is a big house in its own right—and with tall, two-story white pillars across the front. A true Southern antebellum mansion of the old-fashioned type. Big double doors in the front, and a wide staircase flanked by urns going up to it.
I see it mainly as my childhood home. But since I met Rafe, I’ve learned that other people see it differently. He calls it the mausoleum on the hill, and I guess it has a certain fusty old elegance to it. I think he probably also called it that as a remark on my family, and my ancestry, and Southern history in general, and a whole lot of other things. We won’t go into it.
As we drove up to the door, it occurred to me that I should perhaps have called and warned my mother we were coming.
Not that she would turn me away. She never has before. Except for that one time she told me to leave because I was trying to stop her from drowning her sorrows in brandy, but there were mitigating circumstances. She never has before. Or since. Not even when I brought Rafe into the house and up to my bedroom and made love to him under my mother’s roof. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d tried to then, but she didn’t. So I didn’t think she’d turn us away now, either.
But I should probably have called and told her I was coming. A day early. And that Mrs. J was with me.
Oh, well. Too late now. I pulled the Volvo to a stop in front of the wide staircase and cut the engine. “Here we are.”
Mrs. Jenkins nodded.
“I’ll come open the door for you.”
I walked around the car and opened the passenger side door. Just as the front door to the mansion opened. My mother stood in the opening. “Savannah? What are you—?”
And that’s as far as she got, because a pale gray blur shot past her and down the steps, barking threateningly.
Mrs. Jenkins shrieked. I froze. I think my mother said a bad word, but I couldn’t swear to it. “Pearl!”
Pearl stopped halfway between the steps and me. If that doesn’t sound so bad, like maybe she was far enough away not to be scary, I could feel her hot dog breath on my calves.
“Hello, Pearl,” I said. My voice shook, but Pearl must have recognized it, because she tilted her head to look at me. “How are you?”
The last time Rafe and I were in Sweetwater, Rafe was helping Sheriff Satterfield with a case. A bunch of members of the same family had been shot, in their beds, all within an hour or so of each other. Pearl had belonged to one of them. We’d found her guarding a trailer up in the foothills by the Devil’s Backbone, a range of hills west of Columbia, and for some reason she had taken to me. I’d ended up bringing her here, where she had bonded with my mother. At the end of the case, I had planned to take her home to Nashville with me, but she had indicated her desire to stay here, so Mother had taken her in instead.
I’d forgotten... not Pearl, but how scary she could be.
Pearl wagged her stub of a tail tentatively, her tongue lolling. She has a broad face with a big mouth (and strong jaws), and at the moment she looked like she was smiling.
I extended a hand, carefully. The last thing I wanted was for her to think I was making a threatening move.
She took a step forward to sniff my fingertips. After a second, her tail wagged again, and kept wagging. I deduced she had recognized me.
“Hi, sweetheart,” I told her. “It’s good to see you. I need you to meet Mrs. Jenkins, OK? And be gentle with her.”
I know it sounds sort of crazy to talk to the dog like she’d understand. Robbie Skinner certainly hadn’t. He’d kept her chained under his trailer like an animal. But I swear she understood me. Somehow.
“It’s OK,” I told Mrs. Jenkins. “She won’t hurt you.”
Mrs. J looked a little fearful, but when I took her arm to help her out of the car, she didn’t resist. “This is Pearl,” I told her. “My mother named her.” After a Chihuahua she’d had as a girl. “Rafe and I found her last month. She’s been living with my mother since.”
Pearl gave Mrs. Jenkins a quick sniff, but seemed to realize that Mrs. J was apprehensive and would need some time to get used to her, because she kept her distance after that, and didn’t push. Instead she bounded up the stairs to my mother, who was still standing in the open door.
We followed, a lot more slowly. As we approached the door, I gave my mother a bright smile. “I should have called and let you know we were coming a day early. Sorry.”
“That’s all right,” Mother said, in a tone of voice that told me, eloquently, that it wasn’t. At all.
I lowered my voice. I’m not sure why, when Mrs. Jenkins was standing right next to me. “She’s my husband’s grandmother. My grandmother-in-law. And someone’s trying to kill her. Surely you can spare one of the five bedrooms for a night.”
Mother looked at me down the length of her nose. Considering that she’s a couple of inches shorter than me, it was quite a feat. So was her tone of voice. “Of course.” The two words dripped with ice cubes, and made me feel guilty for ever entertaining the thought that she wouldn’t be gracious.
She dismissed me with the flick of an eyelash, and turned to Mrs. J. And turned on the charm. “It’s so good to see you again. I’m sorry to hear you’re having problems.”
Only my mother would call being hunted by a murderer ‘having problems.’ But since she was being nice to Mrs. Jenkins, I rolled my eyes very quietly. And didn’t complain when she detached Mrs. J from my arm with years of practice—I’d learned to do that too, in finishing school. Of course, the target then hadn’t been a wrinkled old lady, but a personable young man you wanted to get away from another young lady who had sunk her claws into him.
I let her get away with it, even though I’d also been taught how to hold my own should I be the one originally in possession of the gentleman. They walked into the house, and I headed back to the car to bring in the overnight bags. Pearl dithered, not quite sure whether to stay with me or follow them. After a second’s contemplation, she followed Mother. There was more chance of a snack inside the house than outside, I assumed.
I grabbed the bags and hauled them up to the door. And took a quick look around. Nobody was hiding in the bushes with a pair of binoculars. There were no cars driving slowly by on the road. I didn’t think anyone had followed us. If they had, they’d stayed so far back that I hadn’t seen them. But just in case, maybe I should pull the car around to the back, and the old carriage house that now serves as the garage.
I dumped the bags on the floor inside the door, and made sure the door was shut. Pearl must have followed Mom and Mrs. J up the stairs, because she wasn’t anywhere to be seen, but I didn’t want to risk leaving the door open and having her run off. I shut it behind me and went back to the car.
It took a couple of minutes to park and return. By the time I had, Mother and Mrs. J had returned from the second floor to greet me, along with Pearl.
Mother gave me a look.
“Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t want to leave the car in plain view, in case someone drove by who shouldn’t see it.”
“Let’s go to the kitchen,” Mother said firmly. “You can tell me everything.”
I gestured. “The bags...”
“You can take them up later,” Mother said. “Right now, I think we could all use some tea.”
She headed down the hall toward the kitchen, her heels clicking decisively on the wood floors. Pearl’s nails clicked, too, more softly, as she followed. I’m sure she had figured out that the kitchen was where the food was. And the treats.
I smiled at Mrs. Jenkins. “Shall we?”
She nodded. We followed Mother down the hall.
She makes tea the old-fashioned way, by boiling water in a kettle on the stove. Then she pours it into a proper teapot, where it steeps. Once it’s ready, she serves it in paper thin china cups on saucers, with silver tea spoons, and a proper sugar and creamer set, and cloth napkins. The only incongruous thing this time was the fact that we were all sitting around the kitchen island, instead of properly around the table in the parlor, balancing the cups on our knees as befits Southern ladies.
I watched like a hawk, but unless Mother had laced the cream jug with brandy, she didn’t spike her tea with anything. For a while after she’d found out about Audrey and Dad, there was a lot of spiked tea flowing. Along with mimosas for breakfast and milk with rum for bedtime.
But not today.
“Tell me everything.” She fixed me with a steady stare over the rim of the flower-painted cup, pinky elegantly extended.
I filled her in, much as I had done Grimaldi a couple of hours ago. Everything from waking up at three in the morning on Sunday to pee, and seeing Mrs. Jenkins under a tree in the yard, until we’d crawled out of a hole in the backyard this afternoon.
“Dear me,” my mother said when I was done. That’s her version of something more expletive. “Are you all right?”
She included Mrs. Jenkins in the glance.
I nodded. “We’re fine. But Rafe and Detective Grimaldi thought it would be a good idea for us to get out of town a little earlier than planned, so they can focus on the investigation. They have a pretty good idea who the bad guy is.”
At least it seemed that way to me. Doctor Fesmire had known Julia Poole. He had something to lose—like his cushy job—if it came out that Beverly Bristol had died because Julia had been negligent. That gave him reason to kill Julia. And if he’d killed Julia, and had tried to kill Mrs. Jenkins, on Saturday, he had every reason to want to eliminate Mrs. Jenkins now. The fact that he was in the wind—not at work, not at home, when José and Clayton looked for him earlier today—was an additional indication that he might be guilty. At least if you asked me.
Mother didn’t, though. She just took my word for it and moved on. “Rafael will be coming down for dinner on Thursday, I hope?”
My mother is the only person in the world, with the exception of Tim, who calls Rafe by his full name. And where she had a real problem with him before we got married, now she adores him as much as I do, if not more.
“He’s planning to,” I said. “Unless something goes wrong, I’m sure he will.”
Mother smiled, pleased. “And you don’t think anyone followed you here?”
“I didn’t see anyone. And I looked.” I glanced at Pearl, who was lying on the floor watching the proceedings. In case something should happen to fall like manna from Heaven, I guess. “If anyone shows up, I’m sure Pearl will let us know.”
Mother glanced at her, too. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you,” she said.
My heart sank. “You don’t want to get rid of her, do you? She seems happy. Although I can take her home with me, if you insist.”
“No, darling,” Mother said. Unlike Rafe, she pronounces the G at the end. “I love Pearl. She’s wonderful. Very gentle.”
“Good.” She hadn’t been so gentle with a small, stuffed toy I’d bought her just after we got her, so I hoped Mother was keeping small animals away from her. “Have the children interacted with her? Abigail and Hannah and Catherine’s three?”
Abigail and Hannah belong to my brother Dix. Catherine’s children are Cole, Robert, and Annie.
“She’s very patient with them,” Mother nodded. “Of course, I’m careful. But she doesn’t seem to mind at all. She sits perfectly still while the girls tie ribbons around her neck and decorate her ears.”
I looked at Pearl and tried to imagine her with decorated ears. It didn’t quite compute, but good for her on sitting still for it.
“And the boys roughhouse,” Mother added, “and she doesn’t seem to mind that, either.”
Excellent. Of course, Robbie had had a daughter—twelve year old Kayla—and I’m sure he would have made Pearl feel it if she’d done anything to her. So she might have learned to be nice to children the hard way.
“You’re a good girl,” I told her. She slapped her tail against the floor a couple of times, and smiled at me.
“I’d like to have her fixed,” Mother said.
Fixed? As far as I could tell, she wasn’t broken.
“Oh. You mean spayed. Robbie didn’t do that?”
“She isn’t very old,” Mother said. “Maybe he was planning to breed her.”
I wouldn’t put it past him. “Yes, I think that would be a good idea. Does she have a tendency to run off?”
And maybe hook up with a handsome mongrel from the wrong side of town?
“She hasn’t yet,” Mother said. “But if she does, I’d rather make sure I won’t end up with a litter of puppies.”
I didn’t blame her. I liked Pearl, but I didn’t want five of her. Or more. “Sounds good. Why are you asking me?”
“Because she’s technically yours,” Mother said. “You found her.”
“I gave her to you. That makes her yours.”
“You didn’t give her to me,” Mother said. “She chose to stay here.”
“That makes her even more yours.” I shook my head. “Do whatever you want. Just make sure she’s healthy and happy.”
Mother nodded. She took a sip of tea and avoided my eyes. “What plans did you have for this evening?”
I arched my brows. “We didn’t really have any. Are you going somewhere?”
“I made plans to have dinner with Bob,” my mother said.
She’s been dating the Sweetwater sheriff for a while now. A couple of years, maybe? Or maybe more. It took me a while to catch on, to be honest. My brother and sister, who live here in Sweetwater, might have known before me, but I think Mother and the sheriff kept it pretty quiet.
“Of course. Don’t let us cramp your style. Mrs. Jenkins sleeps pretty well, and I don’t wake up until someone stands over me and shakes me these days.” Or until I have to pee. Whichever comes first.
Mother flushed. “If we’re planning to do anything like that, we’ll go to Bob’s.”
I guess ‘anything like that’ probably meant sex. I hadn’t mentioned sex, and I didn’t plan to. “Isn’t Todd there?”
“He spends a lot of time with Marley,” Mother said primly.
Todd—the assistant DA for the county—tried to prosecute Marley Cartwright for murdering her baby once. Around this time last year. It’s very nice of her to overlook that, I think. Although she has her baby back now—he must be around three at this point—so I guess she can afford to be magnanimous. And I’m happy for them. I like Marley. And for a while, I was afraid Todd was never going to move on from asking me to marry him.
“They don’t live together, do they?”
Mother shook her head. “He comes home every night. But they do spend a lot of time together.”
“How does Bob feel about that?”
“Now that we all know that Marley didn’t do anything to that sweet baby,” Mother said, “I don’t think anyone minds.”
Good to know. “Sure,” I said, “go to dinner with Bob. Stay out as late as you want. Is there anything to eat here?”
If not, we could always order a pizza. Or maybe not. In the movies, the bad guy often pretends to be a pizza delivery person.
Not that there was a bad guy. Not here in Sweetwater. Nobody had followed us.
“The fridge is full,” Mother said. “Don’t eat the turkey.”
As if I would. “Any ice cream?”
“Help yourselves,” Mother said, and slipped off the stool. “I should go get ready. I gave Mrs. Jenkins your sister’s room.”
“That’ll work.” I got up, too. “We’ll take the bags upstairs and get situated. And figure out something to eat. And we’ll probably end up watching TV for the rest of the night. You have cable, right?”
“Of course,” Mother said.
“HGTV?”
“Of course,” Mother said.
“Then we’re all set. Don’t be surprised if you come home and find us both asleep in the parlor.”
Mother said she wouldn’t, and we all headed out of the kitchen and down the hall with Pearl’s nails clicking on the hardwoods behind us. I snagged the two overnight bags from beside the door, and carried them upstairs. Mother disappeared down the hall toward the master bedroom, and I dropped my own bag next to the door to my room, and carried Mrs. Jenkins’s over to Catherine’s old room. “Would you like some help unpacking?”
“No thanks, baby.” She patted my arm.
“I’ll just go wash up and put away my own things. I’ll see you downstairs in a few minutes, I guess. The bathroom’s across the hall, if you need it.” I pointed to the door. Mrs. J nodded. “Once Mother leaves, we’ll take a look at what’s in the fridge and see what we can do about dinner.”
While the tea had filled the empty spot inside, it wasn’t going to be long before I needed something more solid. Mrs. Jenkins must be hungry too, because she looked cheered at the prospect.
So I left her bag on the bed, and went into my own room and put away my own clothes. My back hurt, so I curled up on the bed for a few minutes—on my left side—to see if I could get it to go away, but it didn’t. Too much time sitting in the car, maybe, on top of crawling through the tunnel earlier. It had been a long and exhausting day.
I was almost asleep by the time I heard Mother clicking down the hall on her high heels, followed by the softer clicking of Pearl’s nails. Forcing myself awake, I got myself upright and padded downstairs after her.
She was standing in the middle of the foyer putting on her coat, with Pearl sitting at her feet gazing adoringly up.
My mother is pushing sixty, and looks great for her age. She’s a little shorter than me, and at the moment at least, a lot smaller around. Like the rest of the Georgia Calverts, she has blond hair and blue eyes. Dix and I do, too, while Catherine has inherited our father’s dark hair and more sallow skin. So has Darcy, to even more of a degree. Darcy’s coloring is really more like Rafe’s than any of ours. Of course, Audrey also has jet black hair, but I don’t know how much of it owes its hue to nurture versus nature. I imagine she was born with very dark hair, and as she’s gotten older, she’s chosen to keep it dark. Same with Mother. I can’t imagine her hair is quite so naturally blond anymore. But I’ve never even seen a hint of gray.
“You look wonderful,” I said.
“Thank you, darling.” She finished tightening her belt around her waist. Unlike me, she still has one. “We’ll be at the Wayside Inn, if you need me.”
“I figured.” The Wayside Inn is the nicest restaurant in town, and my mother’s favorite. “I doubt we’ll need you, though. We’re just going to find something to eat and then crash in front of the TV. We’ll be fine.”
“I’ll take the dog out when I get home,” Mother said. “Or make Bob do it.”
It would probably be ‘make Bob do it.’ “I don’t mind,” I began.
“Bob doesn’t, either.”
Sure. “How about we just figure it out later.”
“I won’t be late,” Mother said, just as a pair of headlights flashed across the wall in the foyer. Tires crunched their way up to the door.
“Stay as long as you want. We’re both adults. And I’ll make sure the dog is walked and the doors are locked if you’re not home at a decent hour. Does Pearl have the run of the house at night?”
She did. She had a bed in the master suite, and a bed downstairs. She could choose to sleep in either. Or on the sofa, if she preferred. Or anywhere else her little doggie heart desired.
“If I’m not here,” Mother said as she opened the door, “she’ll probably choose to be downstairs to wait for me. That way she can keep an eye on the door.”
And keep a look out in case someone other than Mother should show up, too. Not that we have a lot of crime in Sweetwater. The mansion isn’t a target of burglars very often. But I won’t say it hasn’t happened.
Mother made her elegant way down the stairs toward Bob’s truck. I gave him a wave from the open door. “Evening, Sheriff.”
“Evening, darlin’. I didn’t know you were gonna be here tonight.”
“Change of plans,” I said. “Mrs. Jenkins and I came down a day early. Mother can fill you in. It’ll give you something to talk about over dinner.”
“We always have something to talk about over dinner.” He opened the door for Mother and helped her up into the seat before closing the door behind him and giving me a wink. “Don’t wait up.”
“I wasn’t planning to,” I told him, and stood on the porch and waved until they’d navigated the long driveway. Once I couldn’t see them anymore, I went inside and locked the door and looked around for Mrs. Jenkins.