James Foley was sporting a Hollywood tan and an expensive-looking new silk-blend sport coat. His old oversize eighties-era eyeglasses—the ones that always made him look like a younger version of Mister Magoo—had been replaced with tragically hip new frames. He leaned back in his office chair and guzzled a bottle of spring water.
“You’ve changed,” I said, looking him up and down. “Is that Jonathan’s doing?”
He blushed. “And Janet’s. The two of them went through my closet and purged it of everything except the tweed sport coat I bought before I entered the seminary. They said it’s been out of style so long, it’s come back in.”
“I liked you better when you were sweet and geeky,” I said. “You were unique. Gay, and yet hopelessly clueless.”
“Yes, well.” He coughed and tapped the open file folder on his desktop. “I called Steve Arrendale this morning, right after I talked to you.”
“What did he say?” I asked, leaning forward in my chair. “Where’s the painting? Will he sell it back to me? Why did they move? And how did my house get sold again?”
“One question at a time,” James said, laughing. “First of all, the Arrendales have your Maybelle Johns painting. I’m sorry, BeBe, but Arrendale says he has no intention of giving it back to you.”
“I’ll buy it,” I said fiercely. “It’s my painting, James.”
He held up one hand. “We’ll get back to the painting in a minute. As to why the Arrendales have moved, it has to do with Mrs. Arrendale’s pregnancy.”
“Gretchen,” I said bitterly. “Social-climbing carpetbagger.”
“They’ve recently learned that she’s expecting triplets,” James said.
“Appropriate,” I said. “The bitch is having a litter. I hope they all have colic. Simultaneously.”
“Tsk-tsk,” James tsk-tsked. “Gretchen Arrendale is currently unable to walk up stairs. And as you know, both your town house and theirs have all the bedrooms on the upper floors.”
“That explains why they’re selling their place, but why was my house being sold again?”
“The Arrendales had actually bought your house from St. Andrews Holdings,” James said. “They’d even started knocking through the walls that separate the town houses. But then they found out about the babies, and decided they needed something more modern, and convenient for a family with three infants. They found a spec house being built in that new community out at Turner’s Rock, bought it, and put both town houses on the market last week.”
“So, I could buy back my house?” I asked. “And theirs too? I wouldn’t have to live next door to the Arrendales anymore?”
“I think they’ll entertain any reasonable offer. Jonathan says the talk around town is that their finances are overextended right now.”
I sat back and let that sink in. The Arrendales, bless their status-grubbing little hearts, were offering me what I’d wanted. My house. And if James was correct, I could probably name my price. I had the money. I could do it. So why wasn’t I jumping on the bandwagon here?
“I just want the painting of my aunt Alice,” I said. “That’s the most important thing.”
“Since when?” James asked, looking over the rims of his stylish new glasses. I was pleased to see he hadn’t done anything about the crow’s-feet. Thank God for that.
“Since right now,” I said. “There are other houses, as somebody pointed out to me last night.”
“Other paintings too?” James asked.
“Not like mine,” I said. “Look. Can we use the town houses as a bargaining chip? Tell the Arrendales I’ll buy my house and theirs—for their asking price—if the Maybelle Johns painting of my aunt is included in the deal.”
“I’ll ask,” James promised.
“If she sells me back the painting, I’ll see that Gretchen gets invited to be on the Telfair Ball committee,” I said rashly.
“I’ll mention that,” James said.
“Speaking of the unspeakable Arrendales,” I said, “what kind of progress have you made with our injunction against Sandcastle Realty?”
“The judge granted our motion for a temporary restraining order,” James said.
“That happened before I left town,” I reminded him.
“There’s been an interesting development while you were gone,” he said. “I told you the Arrendales’ personal finances are stretched thin, but I’ve also heard that the money people behind Sandcastle Realty are getting antsy about having so much money tied up in a project that’s in limbo.”
“Good,” I said, smiling. “Excellent.”
“They’ve authorized me to make you what I think is a pretty interesting offer,” James said.
“Offer away.”
“They’ll pay you $2.6 million to walk away from your claim to the Breeze Inn.”
“That much? For real?”
James nodded. “Roy Eugene Moseley paid $650,000 of your money for the place. They’re offering to quadruple that, and to forgive the option money they paid Moseley. But they want an answer immediately. Ideally, they could finish construction of the first units before the end of summer. The meter’s running, BeBe.”
I stood up and walked over to the window behind James’s desk. The sun was shining and it made even the greasy industrial water of the Savannah River look green and inviting.
A chunky black tugboat was chugging past on the river. From the name on the tug’s stern, the Barbara Jane, I knew the boat belonged to Waymire Towing. The Waymire family had owned and run tugboats on the Savannah River ever since I could remember, and ever since I could remember, all their boats had been named for company founder Ray Waymire’s daughters: Barbara, Alice, and Helen. I knew if I went outside and walked farther along Factor’s Walk, I could see the Waymire docks, could see the Helen III and the Alice II tied up there too.
This was a Savannah thing. In Atlanta, bustling, maddening Atlanta, nothing stayed the same. Companies were formed and went bust, corporations transferred families in, then back out again a few years later. It all came down to money and expediency. But Savannah was different somehow. In Savannah, we cling tenaciously, foolishly, even, to a sense of continuity.
The old joke goes that it takes three Savannahians to change a lightbulb: one to screw in the bulb, and the other two to form a committee to save the original lightbulb.
I thought about the Breeze Inn. The existence of the Breeze wasn’t really vital to a lot of people. It wasn’t historic, wasn’t a Revolutionary War battleground. It wasn’t even all that attractive. I would probably never get rich running it. On the other hand, if I walked away from it right now, I’d come away a wealthy woman. I would have my old life back.
“BeBe?”
James swiveled around in his chair to look at me.
“I think I’ll keep it,” I said.
“Excuse me?”
“I’m not selling the Breeze,” I said, firmly.
I sat back down in the chair facing my lawyer. “Can you work out the details? I can pay Sandcastle’s option money back now.”
He frowned. “It might get a little tricky, but if that’s what you want…”
“It is,” I said.
He nodded and wrote something on the legal pad in front of him. “I’ll get Janet working on the deal right away. In the meantime, I had a call this morning from an attorney down in Vero Beach. Owen Techet.”
“Techet?”
“He represents Sandra Findley,” James said. “He thought you’d want to know that Roy Eugene Moseley was arrested in Fort Lauderdale on Friday. He’s being held without bond on a variety of federal and state charges, including theft, fraud, burglary, forgery, and resisting arrest.”
“Hmm,” I said, trying to sound noncommittal. “How fascinating.”
“Very,” James said drily. He reached into the center drawer of his desk and pulled out a padded courier envelope, which he pushed across the desk toward me. “This came by messenger this morning.”
I opened the envelope, and a thick braid of yellow gold slid into my lap. “My Daddy’s watch!” I cried.
“Roy Eugene Moseley was wearing that when he was arrested,” James said. “Jay Bradley sent the Lauderdale cops the theft report you filed after Moseley disappeared. Techet persuaded them that they should return it to you.”
I fastened the watch around my left wrist. It hung there like an oversize bangle bracelet, but I didn’t care.
“After Moseley’s arrest, they discovered he’d been illegally squatting in the model apartment of a high-rise condominium project called La Dolce Vita, right there in Fort Lauderdale,” James said. “When they searched the premises, they found his luggage, which contained quite a few other pieces of jewelry. Owen Techet says the Findley woman’s emerald and diamond earrings were in his shaving kit, along with two diamond engagement rings, one white gold, the other rose gold, an opal and diamond ring, some pearls, and assorted other pieces.”
“My jewelry,” I said, twisting Daddy’s watch. “Grandmama’s jewelry. I never thought I’d see any of it again.”
“You still haven’t,” James reminded me. “Techet says the Fort Lauderdale police will arrange a showing of all the recovered pieces for Moseley’s victims, just as soon as all the charges against him are sorted out.”
I winced at the word “victim.”
“Techet tells a pretty entertaining story about how Moseley was apprehended,” James went on. “He was on an eighty-six-foot yacht called the Reefer Madness, which he’d apparently grounded on a sandbar about a mile from the marina the boat was stolen from.”
“Really?”
“The Coast Guard found the yacht.”
“‘Semper Paratus,’” I said brightly.
“I beg your pardon?” James said.
“The Coast Guard motto. It means—”
“Always prepared,” James said. “I was a priest for twenty-five years, you know.”
“Right,” I said.
“When the Coast Guard boarded the yacht, they arrested Roy Eugene Moseley, who continues to insist that his name is Rory. And after they boarded, they did a thorough search of the yacht. They found the boat’s first mate, a man named Liam McConnell, tied up and handcuffed and stuffed in a gear locker. They also discovered a large cache of drugs aboard the yacht.”
James folded his hands on the top of his desk.
“Should I ask any more questions about your trip to Florida?”
“Probably not,” I said.
“Mr. Techet says his client, Sandra Findley, would like to talk to you, when you’ve had a chance to rest up from your trip.”
“I’ll give her a call,” I agreed, standing up. “We’ve got some unfinished business. Is that all?”
“Just one more thing,” James said, glancing down at his folder. “I got a call from a restaurant broker while you were out of town. He has a client who’s looking for restaurant space in the historic district. They’d be interested in talking to you about Guale. Either leasing the space from you, or buying it outright.”
Funny. For years my life had revolved around Guale. There had rarely been a day I didn’t spend at Guale. I hadn’t given a lot of thought to the restaurant in the past few days. But I had promised Emma Murphey a job. A restaurant job.
“I’ll have to think about it,” I said. Then I went over and kissed the top of James’s head.
“James!” I said, drawing back. “Are you wearing hair product?”