Weezie’s uncle James has the kindest eyes I’ve ever seen. They’re a dark blue-gray, and when he smiles, the crinkles reach all the way to his ears, and when he doesn’t smile, his eyes still seem to say, “There, there. It’ll be all right.”
Today wasn’t one of those smiling days. We were sitting in his law office, which was in an old cotton-broker’s loft on Factor’s Walk, overlooking the river. A heavy gray rain was falling, and outside, on the river, the shadow of a freighter loomed ghostly in the mist, as though it were peeking inside the window at us. James Foley looked worried. He had a yellow legal pad on the desk in front of him, covered with scribbles, and a file folder full of official-looking documents. “You don’t look so hot,” he told me. “When was the last time you slept?”
I looked down at my wrinkled corduroy slacks, at the sweater with the coffee stain at the neck, and the grungy sneakers I’d tossed months ago into the trunk of my car. These were the only clothes I had now other than what I’d been wearing when my life fell apart. I knew without looking that my hair was a wild tangle of curls, and that my nails were bitten down to the quick. I wore no makeup.
“I go to bed,” I told James truthfully. “But I don’t sleep. I can’t.”
James sighed. “I don’t have much in the way of good news.”
“Tell me anyway,” I said, sitting up straight in the chair, the way my mother taught me to. I folded my hands in my lap and kept my chin up. What would mama say? I kept thinking. What would she say if she knew what I’d gotten myself into?
“Ryan Edward Millbanks the third doesn’t exist,” James began. “Of course, you already knew that much. There is a Ryan Edward Millbanks Junior, as you know. He has some official-sounding title at the family’s business in Charleston, but he doesn’t actually work there. He’s never married and he’s certainly never had any children. He’s what people of my generation would call a ‘confirmed bachelor.’ Or, as my sister-in-law Marian would put it, ‘He’s gay as a goose.’”
We both had a good laugh at that one, considering that James is gay. I was out of practice with laughing, but it felt okay, considering. And I got to see James’s eyes crinkle, which was worth a lot that gray, awful day.
“I’ve been talking to Jay Bradley. Remember him? The Savannah police detective? And he’s done some checking around. Unofficially. The man you knew as Reddy is actually named Roy Eugene Moseley. Born in Hardeeville, South Carolina. He’s twenty-eight years old. Never married, that we know of. Previous convictions for bank fraud, forgery, theft by deceiving. He gets around, but up until this year, he was mostly a small-time crook. Jay talked to a police detective in…”
James peered down at his scribbled notes. “Vero Beach, Florida. They’d like to catch up with Roy Eugene Moseley and talk to him about some questionable business transactions he entered into down there. They figure he stole $300,000 from a fifty-four-year-old widow who winters in Vero. But the victim has refused to press charges.”
Victim. I winced at the word. I’d never been a victim before. Never allowed myself to think of the word “victim.” But I sure as hell felt like one today, sitting there in clothes I’d meant to donate to the Junior League thrift shop, living day to day out of the backseat of my car, sleeping on the sofa at my grandparents’ apartment.
My car and the clothes on my back were virtually all I had left, except for Guale, which I’d had to shutter because I couldn’t afford to pay my staff. Reddy had taken everything else. There was no palatable, socially acceptable word for me. I was a victim, all right.
“He used the same approach with the Florida woman that he used with you,” James went on. “He scammed his way into some charity function, introduced himself, and very quickly charmed his way into her life.”
“And her bed,” I said.
James blushed and looked away. He’d been a priest for a long time before becoming a lawyer, and he was still pretty old fashioned. I guess he’s not used to women talking about their sex lives.
I leaned over and patted his hand. “It’s all right, James. I’m embarrassed. Humiliated. I slept with the guy, and he turned around and swindled me out of my life’s savings. I’m a big girl. I’ll get over the sex part of it. But I’ll never get over how pissed off I feel about the rest of it. Pissed off at him. And at myself.”
He took a sip of coffee.
“In Florida, Moseley called himself Randall Munoz. There is a real Munoz family living down there. They’re old-time sugar barons from Belle Glade. Moseley was passing himself off as a dot-com boy genius who’d made a killing on tech stocks before cashing out to live the good life. He somehow talked this woman into allowing him to ‘look over’ her investment portfolio. Before she knew it, he’d liquidated everything, taken the money, and left town. This was in late January.”
“And he met me just a few weeks later,” I said. “The guy doesn’t let any grass grow under his feet, does he?”
James shook his head. “Bradley says that’s how these con men operate. They work fast so that the victim doesn’t have time to ask questions or check up on their claims. You shouldn’t feel so bad, BeBe. You’re not his first victim.”
“Just his most generous,” I said bitterly. “And the stupidest. So don’t bother trying to make me feel better about myself, James, because it won’t work. Just tell me what my legal situation is. Bottom line.”
James shuffled the documents on his desktop until he had the one he wanted.
“These,” he said, patting the file folder on his desk, “are copies of the bills of sale for your home on West Jones, as well as your other real-estate holdings. According to the clerk’s office, all the sales were executed three days ago. Apparently, you gave this Reddy person a power of attorney to allow him to make the sales.”
“No!” I exclaimed. “I never did anything of the sort.”
James held up his hand. “We’ll get to that part later. The buyer of all the properties is a single entity, a corporation called St. Andrews Holdings.”
“I’ve never heard of them,” I said, near tears again.
“I’ve got Janet doing some research on them,” James said. “But the court documents look genuine. St. Andrews Holdings paid a little over two million for the entire package.” He looked over his glasses at me. “Cash.
“The paper he had you sign that last night aboard the Blue Moon, the one he told you was a purchase agreement for the house on Huntingdon Street, was actually a power of attorney,” James went on.
He held the document up. “Does this look familiar? Is it your signature?”
I put on my reading glasses and scanned the document, paying particular attention to the bottom of the document where “BeBe N. Loudermilk” was signed with its familiar loops and whorls. Too damned flamboyant for my own good, I reflected now, too late.
“This is my signature, all right,” I said. “But I couldn’t tell you whether this is the paper I signed that night. It was late. I’d been drinking champagne and I was dead on my feet. And I wasn’t wearing my glasses. Reddy, I mean, Roy, or whatever his real name is, had to show me where to sign. I did it, I fell asleep, and the next thing I knew, he was gone.”
James nodded unhappily. “It could be that he slipped some kind of drug into your drink. We don’t know, because he cleaned everything on the boat very thoroughly. But that’s what Bradley thinks happened.”
“What about this paper?” I asked, flicking it with my fingertips. “It’s not legal, right? I mean, he had me sign it under false pretenses.”
“But it’s your signature,” James pointed out. “There’s no question about that. And the thing is, you gave him power of attorney, which allowed him to legally sell your house on West Jones, as well as the other properties.”
“He lied to me!” I cried. “I never would have sold my house. Or the other houses. And what about all my stuff? My furniture, my paintings, my great-grandmother’s silver? And all my clothes. James, all my good jewelry was in the little safe in the floor of my bedroom closet. My mother’s engagement ring was in there. And her mother’s engagement ring, and oh God, Grandmama’s rings. And her earrings and the pearls Granddaddy brought her back from Korea.”
Despite all my promises to myself, I broke down in tears again. When I found out that Grandmama had gone into the hospital, I’d talked my grandfather into letting me put all her jewelry in my safe. With the strain of her illness, I’d worried that he might hide her jewelry in the same “safe” place he’d hidden the Buick spare keys, which we still couldn’t find. And now it was all gone. Along with everything else.
James stood up, walked around the desk and stood there, awkwardly thumping my back. “It’s not your fault,” he kept saying. “Don’t blame yourself. You couldn’t have known.”
But we both knew it was all my fault. If I hadn’t been so blazing mad at Emery Cooper for dumping me, if I hadn’t been so eager to jump into bed with the first man to give me a friendly nod, if I hadn’t been such a blind, stupid idiot, none of this would have happened.
It had been three days since I’d discovered the truth about Reddy Millbanks. Three days since I’d gone home and discovered that I no longer had a home.
I felt numb all over. So tired. My eyes burned and my head throbbed. I was cold. I looked out the window at the long, gray freighter that seemed suspended on a bank of fog.
“Did you hear me, BeBe?” James leaned across his desk. “Can I get you anything?
“We’ll find out who this St. Andrews Holdings is,” James said. “We’ll explain what happened. Tell them you were victimized. It should be obvious that they bought the properties at a fire-sale price. If they’re a reputable outfit, they’ll understand that you’ve been defrauded, and they’ll nullify the deal.”
“And if they’re not reputable?”
“We can take them to court. This was not a good-faith transaction. You’ve signed a complaint with the police, and Jay Bradley says there will be an investigation. I talked to Jonathan about it…”
He blushed again. Jonathan McDowell was the chief assistant in the Chatham County district attorney’s office. He was also James’s significant other. I would have enjoyed James’s discomfort, if at that moment I’d been capable of enjoying anything.
“And Jonathan’s going to have somebody from the DA’s white-collar crime unit contact you.”
“What about my house?” I asked dully. “When can I get back into my house?”
James sighed. “You can’t. Not for a while yet. I’m sorry, BeBe. But until I track down somebody with St. Andrews Holdings, I don’t have any way to get you into that house. Or any of the others. They’ve been sold.”
“And my stuff? The furniture? My jewelry?”
“Bradley will be calling you. You need to give him an inventory of everything that was taken. If you have any photos, that would be really helpful. The police can check pawnshops and places like that. Bradley will be calling your neighbor to see if he can give a better description of that moving truck.”
“Steve Arrendale,” I said, my eyes blazing. “That pretentious prick. Reddy sold him the Maybelle Johns portrait of my aunt Alice. He won’t return my phone calls. He won’t even come to the door when I knock. Can you get my painting back, James?”
“Probably, but we’ll have to take him to court,” James said. He coughed and stared out the window. “Look, BeBe. The thing is, Arrendale has already filed a complaint against you for harassment.”
“Me! Harassment? He doesn’t know what harassment is. He stole my painting. He’s lucky I haven’t had him arrested.”
“Stop calling,” James said flatly. “Stay away from his house. You’re not helping matters. We’ll deal with Arrendale when things calm down.”
“And when will that be?” I asked, sinking down into the chair. “James, this sucks so bad. And it just keeps sucking. It doesn’t get any better. I’ve lost everything.”
“Well,” he said, looking down at his notepad again. “Actually, not everything.”
“Yeah,” I said, gesturing toward myself. “I’ve still got my looks. Right?”
“That and the Breeze Inn,” James said.
“Say what?”
“The Breeze Inn. From the legal descriptions it appears to be a fifteen-unit motel on Tybee Island. Which you bought last week.”
“I never bought anything out at Tybee,” I said. “I haven’t been out there in years. I hate the beach. And Tybee.” I shuddered. “Talk about tacky.”
“All I know is, the deed to the place is in your name. You, or somebody representing you, paid $650,000 for the Breeze Inn. Actually, this could be a blessing, BeBe. Tybee real estate prices have gone through the roof in the past few years. Even if this Breeze Inn place is a falling-down roach motel, it’s got to be worth a lot more than $650,000.” He looked down at the pad again. “It’s on 1.6 acres. On Chatham at Seventeenth Street. That’s the south end of the island.” He smiled. “Maybe, just maybe, you’re back in business.”
“I’ll never be back in business,” I said glumly. “I’ve had to close the restaurant. I don’t have the money to keep it open and make payroll. That’s sixteen people who are out of work. Because I couldn’t keep my britches up.”
James winced, but then he smiled that smile of his. “You know what my mother used to say?”
“Something relentlessly cheerful, I’m sure. But I don’t need cheer right now. I need my painting back. I need my house back. I need my life back.”
James rocked back in his chair. “Still. She used to say, ‘God never closes a door that he doesn’t open a window.’”
“And my mother used to tell me, ‘Vulgarity is the crutch of the weak and the ignorant,’” I snapped. “But what the fuck did she know?”