Chief Lewis and James Bradshaw stood inches apart in the doorway leading from the dining room to the hall. If anyone else had tried to get into or out of the room, they’d never have succeeded. James was taller by half a head, but the chief had twenty pounds on him, mostly around his middle.
Bradshaw gave Buddy an icy look. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“You really wanna talk about it here?” Buddy asked, glancing at the faces turned in their direction.
“No, not here, not anywhere. I’m calling my lawyer.”
“We aren’t charging you with anything, just asking questions. Why get your lawyer involved—waste of good money if you ask me. If you had nothing to do with this man’s death, then why don’t you tell us what you do know?”
Bradshaw was silent as he apparently mulled this over. “I’ll talk to you, but if it looks like you’re trying to pin this murder on me, I’m calling my lawyer.”
I stood at the doorway to the dining room and watched the men disappeared down the hallway toward the central stairs. Mason joined them and waved Danny away, so Danny sat back down beside Lurleen. I joined them and sat on the other side of Lurleen. Anna’s helpers began bringing in large platters of pork chops smothered in gravy as she announced the menu. “Pan-seared pork chops with pear and Vidalia onion gravy, wild rice, green beans from the garden, and for dessert, Rose’s banana pudding.”
Rose blushed with surprise.
It was clear that Anna loved to cook and was a natural in terms of presentation. She wasn’t Southern but she had a soft cadence to her voice that was very appealing. I had no trouble imagining her on television.
Lurleen obviously had the same thought. “When will you have your own cooking show?” she asked.
Anna frowned for an instant and then regained her composure. “You are so kind, Lurleen. Someday perhaps. For now, it’s a pleasure to serve food enthusiasts like yourselves.”
The words sounded rehearsed, as if she’d had to explain herself more than once. She was a lovely young woman with enormous poise and great skill as a chef. How could she be content to play second fiddle to Savannah? Could she really have so little ambition?
Half an hour later, Mason and Buddy returned to the table.
“Anything left for us boys?” Buddy asked. “James said he wasn’t hungry. Could you send up something later to his room?”
“Of course.” Anna brought in two plates for Mason and Buddy. “I kept your dinners in a warming drawer in the kitchen,” she said. “I gave you a double helping, chief. I know your appetite.” She looked around the table and sideboard. “There’s a lot left anyway. People aren’t eating much tonight.”
I looked at the table, curious to see whose appetites had been affected by the recent news. George Kirkwood’s plate was clean, and he was reaching for another pork chop. Unlike her husband, Rose ate very little. Was it my imagination or did she seem uncomfortable when Buddy returned to the table? She looked repeatedly in his direction.
Peter and Pepper Young barely touched their servings. I’m sure Peter anticipated further interviews with the chief after dinner about his role as an employee of Quinn Nelson. Pepper probably never ate much, not with her concern about how she looked. She verified that by leaning over to Lurleen. “How in the world can you eat all that gravy and rice and keep your figure? I look at gravy and gain five pounds.”
Lurleen couldn’t resist. “It wouldn’t hurt you to gain five pounds, Pepper, if you don’t mind my saying so.”
Pepper clearly did mind. She turned away from Lurleen and began a stilted conversation with Rose about how delicious her banana pudding was.
Lurleen gave me a wink. It was obvious Pepper was annoyed that anyone might think she was too skinny. Particularly someone like Lurleen, who was also thin but with curves in all the right places.
“I hope I didn’t hurt your feelings,” Lurleen said when she caught Pepper’s eye.
“Of course not.” Pepper frowned and turned away to join a conversation between her husband and Savannah. I was sitting across the table from them and could hear only bits of what was being said. Savannah seemed to be reassuring Peter, something along the lines of—he had nothing to worry about, he’d done nothing wrong. He didn’t appear to be all that reassured and excused himself without eating his dessert.
“All delicious, Anna. I’m just not very hungry tonight,” he said.
Pepper stood when he did, and the chief caught both of them on the way out. “Don’t go to bed early, Mr. Young. I’ll need to talk to you some more this evening.”
The party, if that’s what it could be called, broke up promptly after people finished dessert. Lurleen and I stayed put with our coffee while we waited for Mason and Buddy to finish eating.
Danny stopped after his third helping of banana pudding.
“Man, that was good!” he said to Lurleen.
She smiled sweetly. “I could tell you liked it.”
The dining room was empty except for the six of us. Savannah stood saying she was exhausted and needed to go to bed. Buddy told her there would be an officer outside her bedroom door.
“I’m not too worried. Saffron will protect me.”
“Labs are so loyal,” Lurleen said. “The ones I’ve known wouldn’t leave their master’s side at night.”
“I’m sure it was Saffron I heard crying last evening,” I said.
“It was Saffron who led us to the bedroom where the man was killed,” Buddy said. “Do you know what time you heard her crying, Dr. Brown?”
“Sometime around two, I think. I always have a little trouble sleeping in a new bed, so I’d been reading. I heard the crying for maybe a minute, and then it stopped as abruptly as it started.”
“It’s odd she would have left your side,” Lurleen said, “if she was worried about something, Labs stick with their owners when they sense trouble. You didn’t go with her to see what was wrong? That’s the only way I can imagine she would have explored the house or suddenly stopped whining.”
“I said I stayed in my room!” Savannah sounded angry, said nothing more, and left the table.
I leaned over to Lurleen. “Is that true about labs, Lurleen?”
Lurleen shook her head. “Not as far as I know, but it certainly got a rise out of Savannah.”
She looked at me intently for a moment. “I do know that a lab would do anything for its owner.”
“How do you know so much about them?” I asked.
I thought she might lay her knowledge at the foot of another boyfriend, a dog trainer or breeder perhaps, but she didn’t do that.
“I worked for a vet in middle school,” she said, “and I had a lab—a dog the vet treated and no one claimed. That dog saved my life.”
It was a strange sensation—I knew she was telling me the absolute truth, and I knew I wouldn’t hear another detail at the moment.
Danny hadn’t been listening. He remained focused on current events. “Can you fill me in on the interview with Bradshaw?” he asked Mason.
“I’d like to do that in private,” Mason said. He didn’t look at me or Lurleen, but his message was clear.
Chief Lewis nodded at me. “I told you he was a stickler. Look, Garrett, this is not your jurisdiction. In the South, the real South, we do things a little differently. We’re not so uptight, and we let people help. This little woman of yours is a damned good detective. I want her working with us. Got that?”
I flinched at ‘little woman of yours’ and waited to see how Mason would react.
“It’s your investigation here, Chief, but it’s mine in Atlanta. I think we both know the murder of Quinn Nelson and the murder of Nick Davis are likely to be connected.”
“Yes, we do know that, so let’s get all the help we can. You don’t mind sharing the limelight, do you, Garrett?”
Mason frowned in my direction and said nothing more.
Lurleen was clearly delighted. “You know Ditie and I come as a package, Buddy. I see and hear things and Ditie helps sort out what they mean.”
The chief smiled at Lurleen. “I can imagine a man would tell you anything you wanted to know. I’m not sure most women would feel that way.”
Lurleen laughed. “All right then, can we hear what happened in the interview with Mr. Bradshaw and what you know about the dead man?”
The chief nodded at Mason to start talking.
“As it turns out Nick Davis was a meticulous note taker,” Mason said. “We have his day planner from work. He believed in putting things in writing and left the planner in his home office. That included three phone calls and two meetings with Bradshaw.”
“That information upset James,” Buddy said. “Bradshaw called Davis a damn fool for writing everything down.”
“At that point Bradshaw decided to tell us what was going on,” Mason said, “or at least that’s what he claimed. ‘You two have me over a barrel,’ was the way he put it, and ‘you’ll have me up for murder.’ He said he called Davis when he heard Quinn hadn’t died of natural causes.”
“Look, Garrett, this will take all night,” Buddy said, “and we don’t have all night. We’ll listen to the recording. It’s in Quinn’s office. He had a lot of elaborate recording devices. We used one of them to interview James.”
Buddy led us upstairs and locked the door once we were all inside Quinn’s office. “For some reason, this office is sound-proofed. Perfect for our investigation, but I can’t imagine why Quinn needed that. He was an odd fellow, paranoid about everything.”
Buddy waited until we’d all found a seat, leaving the desk chair for him.
“Everyone comfortable? Here we go.”
He turned on the recording.
It was Bradshaw’s voice we heard.
“I knew this whole organization of Savannah’s was a scam. She’s a lousy cook if you’ve ever tried to eat anything she’s prepared. Anna can make a decent meal, but there is no way Savannah deserves the reputation or money she seems to have. And Quinn? He was a buffoon. He never sold real estate. He just talked about selling it.
“I brought in Davis because he was always wanting to make a name for himself by breaking the big story. I thought if he could poke through the house, go through Quinn’s office he might find something important. Quinn was sloppy about his affairs, and no one had cleaned up after his death as far as I could tell.”
“What exactly was Nick Davis supposed to find out?” Mason asked.
“He was supposed to find out where they got their money, where they really got it, and what Quinn Nelson was up to when he was supposedly selling real estate. I wanted Davis to expose them and maybe catch a murderer in the process. Not get himself killed, damned idiot.”
“I’ve known you a long time, Jim.” It was the chief’s voice. “I’ve known your family, your daddy.”
“Don’t bring my family into this.”
“Can’t avoid it,” Buddy went on. “Your daddy was the town drunk. Savannah’s daddy was the mayor. You couldn’t stand that. You got something against her because she didn’t live the life you did. She lived in the big house that your family used to own.”
“This isn’t about revenge if that’s where you’re headed.”
“Sure sounds like it, boy. Don’t it sound that way to you, Garrett?”
Mason didn’t comment.
“Where were you between the hours of one and four am two nights ago?” the chief asked.
“I was in bed, asleep, like any damn fool would be.”
“That’s not what Dorian Gray says. He says he saw you wandering the house about that time. Making enough noise to wake him.”
“Then he’s a liar. You want your murderer—maybe you should look at Gray and his past. He’s always simpering around Savannah, and he hated Quinn.”
That was the end of the recording.
“It’s going to be a late night.” Chief Lewis said as he heaved himself up from the chair. “I ain’t used to this kind of excitement unless it’s on TV, and the Georgia Bulldogs are playing. I’ll take a break and get my men working on what Bradshaw said, starting with this mess of a desk. Who knows what’s in here? Good thing Bradshaw bought the stuff about the notes under the mattress—he thought we knew a hell of a lot more than we did.”
“Could you get anything else from the page Davis left behind—other than Bradshaw’s name?” Mason asked.
“No.”
“Mind if I take a look at it?” Mason said.
“Why? You think I can’t read?” The chief caught himself. “Maybe later. It’s scratched notes—things to investigate, nothing useful. Right now, I want you to interview Peter Young once more—keep him off balance.
“And you, Danny, you should interview the women—they’ll take to you as a handsome Southern boy. See if you can find out where everyone was when Davis was killed. No offense, Garrett, but you have big city cop written all over you—no one will talk to you without their lawyer present. Let’s meet back here in two hours. Better yet, let’s meet in the kitchen for a beer.”
Buddy seemed to remember there were ladies present. “I hope the tape didn’t offend you with its rough language—our interview got under Bradshaw’s skin. You two should go get your beauty rest.”
Lurleen led me out of the room. “We’ve been dismissed. What shall we do next?”
“Sleep isn’t a bad idea,” I said.
“Nonsense. We can’t go to bed yet—it’s not even ten. We’ll talk to Savannah.”
Savannah seemed happy to see us, as did Saffron, once she’d sniffed us thoroughly and convinced herself we were friends and not foes.
“I’m sorry I left so abruptly,” Savannah said. “I thought for a moment you were accusing me of something, Lurleen, but I suspect I was simply tired like everyone else.”
Savannah did look exhausted, and I didn’t have the heart to push her on anything. Besides, that would be Danny’s job later.
We talked about other things. Savannah reminisced about how she’d started the business. She’d gotten some old Southern recipes from her grandmother, and they’d inspired her to create a cookbook. That led to a local show in Beaufort that went national.
Savannah said Quinn was enthusiastic about anything that made her happy, and he encouraged her every step of the way.
That’s as far as we got. Mason knocked on her door. “I was in search of Ditie. Mind if I borrow her?”
“Not at all,” Savannah said. “You’ll stay with me, Lurleen?”
“Yes,” she said, but I could see she was desperate to know what Mason might want from me.
He took me to Quinn’s office, poured himself a cup of coffee from the Keurig machine that was sitting on the credenza. He offered me one, and I declined. One cup of coffee at this hour, and I’d be awake all night.
“What do you make of Savannah?” he asked.
“That’s a big question,” I said.
“Let’s start with what you think of her as a chef.”
“I think she’s a bit like Madonna, like a lot of famous people, self-made, self-promoted. It’s not her talent as a cook that’s made her famous—not from what people have told me. It’s more her personality, her drive. Some people are determined to be famous. I think Savannah is like that. It didn’t hurt that she had her grandmother’s recipes and Quinn’s money to get her started.”
“Interesting you should say that. You heard what James Bradshaw said—that Quinn didn’t actually make a lot of real estate deals, so where did he get his money?”
“I can’t help you with that, Mason. I don’t run in those circles, but Lurleen might know someone who does. All her work at Sandler’s Sodas—she probably knows some folks who could fill you in.”
At that moment Lurleen breezed into the room. “Hope I’m not disturbing anything, chéris. Savannah wanted to go to bed and insisted I get some rest as well.”
“Perfect timing. We have some questions for you,” I said, patting a place on the sofa. “It seems Mason wants to know more about Savannah’s skills as a chef and Quinn’s work in real estate.”
“Ooh, la la, the plot thickens. I like Savannah, I really do, but she doesn’t know her way around a kitchen. Izzy Moran asked for an ingredient that Savannah had never heard of. Anna stepped in and pointed her in the right direction.”
“It’s true,” I said. “On her shows, she never does anything that requires finesse. Everything is pre-chopped, pre-measured, pre-sifted. Your mother pointed that out to me, Mason, but then it’s a thirty-minute show.”
“What about Quinn and his real estate deals?” Mason asked. “Know anything about that, Lurleen?”
“When I worked at Sandler’s Sodas, there were always real estate deals going on, not my department. I was an accountant with central administration, but I had a friend who worked in that area. It seems to me Quinn Nelson’s company was often involved. Funny thing, now that I think about it, my friend who worked there said it was Quinn’s company but she never met the man. She assumed he was too busy. There was something else she said. What was it?”
Lurleen paused to push back a strand of wavy hair and stare into space.
“I know. She said the deals often weren’t well executed. Sandler’s lawyers grumbled about the way Quinn’s company handled things. They wondered if they even had legitimate closing attorneys on staff. In the end they stopped using his company. That was ten years ago, something like that, right when Savannah was getting started with her local show.”
Mason nodded. “Thanks, Lurleen.”
I turned to her. “You got a chance to talk to Quinn before he died. Did you get an impression of him?”
Lurleen was good as sizing people up in a hurry.
“He wasn’t feeling well, so it’s a little hard to say.” Lurleen closed her eyes briefly. “He was slick, that’s how I would describe him, slick in a charming way. He told me how much he enjoyed my company, and he wanted me to stay beside him—a smooth talker in between his need to catch his breath.”
“I got the impression that Quinn and Savannah really did care for each other,” I said.
“D’accord,” Lurleen said. “I thought so too, at least from Quinn’s perspective. He talked about how beautiful she was, how the fine clothes and jewels set off her loveliness, how she deserved to be surrounded by the best. If I’m not mistaken, that’s when he appeared to get a little morose. He started telling me how much effort it took to keep up appearances. Then he laughed it off, but I think he meant it.”
“And Savannah?” I asked. “She keeps talking about how he was the love of her life.”
Lurleen nodded. “She says all the right words, but when I’ve seen people in mourning, they take to the bed—they don’t plan how to take advantage of a terrible situation to improve their ratings.”
“You make a good point,” I said. “When I’ve worked with parents who’ve lost a child, they can barely function. Sometimes they’re angry and look for a person to blame, but beneath all that they are hopelessly sad. We’ve never seen any of that with Savannah. When it was appropriate she’d cry, but otherwise she’s been full of energy.”
“You’ve both given me a lot to think about,” Mason said. “It seems as if Chief Lewis knows Savannah well. He’s talked about her being theatrical. Maybe he knows more about Savannah and Quinn’s relationship.”
Mason looked at his watch. “It’s after eleven. You need your sleep.”
“I haven’t seen you all day,” I said. “I suspect we’re both too wired to sleep.”
Lurleen nodded and glanced at me. “I’ll see if I can find us some hot chocolate, and you two can have a moment.”
I nodded gratefully. When Lurleen left, I gave Mason a quick kiss.
“I know you’re on duty, but I’ve missed you,” I said. “I spoke to Lucie and Jason this afternoon. They’re having the time of their lives.”
“I’m glad to hear it. I’ve missed you too,” he said. He stood up and pulled me up beside him. One very long kiss and then another made us both feel better. “I don’t want you or Lurleen anywhere alone, got that? I’d like you to share a bedroom for the rest of the week.”
“I think we can manage that. I’ll go check on her right now.”
“We’ll go together,” Mason said. “You two need to get to bed, and I need to get back to work.”
We found Lurleen in the family kitchen, not the one used as a set, chatting it up with Anna as Anna stirred cocoa on the stove. The family kitchen was a far more intimate affair with a double stove, refrigerator, dishwasher, and stools surrounding a modest island. A walk-through pantry separated it from the grander kitchen where demonstrations were held and cooking episodes were shot.
Anna smiled at us when we entered. “This is really my home base,” she said. “This is where I experiment with new recipes.”
“Anna insisted on making the hot chocolate for us,” Lurleen said, “a secret recipe but without the liqueur. I told her you had to work, Mason.”
Anna poured cups for the three of us.
“Won’t you join us?” Mason asked.
She smiled, poured herself a cup, and perched on a fourth stool around the island. “Is this part of your investigation?” she asked.
“More part of getting ready for bed,” Lurleen jumped in.
“However, if you know something, I need to hear it,” Mason said.
Anna lowered her voice and lost her smile. “I do know something. I’m afraid to talk about it, but I’m more afraid not to.”