“Thank goodness,” Savannah said. “I was so worried about him.” She looked at us. “I can’t answer any more questions right now. I have to go. I have to see Olivier.”
“You don’t go anywhere without us,” Mason said.
Savannah rushed to the fireplace, depressed a brick and a door opened to an elevator. “Lurleen and Ditie, you may ride with me,” she said. “The rest of you can hoof it.”
Mason nodded at Danny and indicated that Peter and Frank were to come with them to the third floor.
Lurleen and I slipped into the elevator beside Savannah. It was a tight fit, but we all made it. We had a quick ride. The elevator opened into a closet of Savannah’s office. She slid open the door to her room and called in French to the handsome young man who sat on the couch before us. The young man, undoubtedly Olivier, jumped up when he saw us. He was very good-looking with curly brown hair. He had Savannah’s smile. He looked American, but more than that, he looked familiar. Not so much like Savannah, more like—-
“He’s the spitting image of Buddy—without the gut,” Lurleen whispered to me.
“My thoughts exactly,” I said.
Savannah was all over him. “You are safe, my dearest.” She ran her hands over his shoulders and face as if to make sure he was unharmed. “I was so frightened when I couldn’t reach you. Why did you disappear and how did you get here?”
“So many questions, maman, but you can see I’m here, safe and sound.”
At this point the men came thundering into the room.
“The cavalry, maman?” Olivier asked.
Mason spoke up. “I’m Mason Garrett, a homicide detective from Atlanta.”
“Homicide?” Olivier asked. “Someone has been murdered?”
“Quinn,” Savannah said.
“I knew he died, but murdered? He had a bad heart, and I know you worried about that. Are they sure it was murder?”
Savannah nodded and began to cry.
“I am sorry, maman.” Olivier placed a protective arm around his mother’s shoulder, and that seemed to make her cry harder.
“A reporter was also murdered,” Mason said.
Olivier gave him a blank look.
“We suspect the reporter discovered something the killer didn’t want anyone to know,” Mason said. “How long have you been in the US and how did you get into the house?”
“I was met at the airport and brought here a half hour ago. As a surprise.”
“Picked up by whom?” Savannah asked.
“Mr. Bradshaw was supposed to pick me up, but it was someone else, someone British who said that Mr. Bradshaw had had an accident and that he was sent instead.”
“Dorian,” Savannah, Lurleen and I said in one breath.
“You called, madam?” Dorian entered the room with a cup of coffee and a brioche for Olivier. He smiled.
“Dorian, you said you couldn’t find him when you went to France. You didn’t know where he was,” Savannah said.
“That was the truth, madam. Later, Mr. Bradshaw informed me that he’d found out where Olivier was staying and that he’d made arrangements to bring him here as a surprise for you. Before Mr. Bradshaw left for the hospital, he asked me to pick up Olivier at the airport, and that’s what I did. Mr. Bradshaw said I was to bring him to your office without anyone seeing.”
“Thank you, Dorian.” Savannah took Olivier’s hand. “I was so worried about you, Olivier. Was it James Bradshaw who also told you to disappear with your family?”
“No, that was Chief Lewis. He came to visit me in France, and when it was obvious I really was his son, he told me to disappear with my family—that I could be in some danger. He said he’d notify me when everything was cleared up. He didn’t say there had been a murder, only threats against you, maman, and me.”
“I suppose you all see the resemblance,” Savannah said to the rest of us. “Buddy Lewis is Olivier’s father. He didn’t know anything about Olivier until a year ago. I felt I had to tell him then because I had plans to bring Olivier to the US to work with me. Buddy was furious and worried about his reputation and his marriage. His wife believes in fidelity above all else. He didn’t think she’d forgive a transgression, even one from years ago.”
Lurleen’s mouth was agape. “You had a relationship with Buddy Lewis? When and why?” She didn’t do a good job of keeping the disbelief out of her voice. While she could imagine Savannah with Quinn, Buddy was a different story apparently.
“I’d rather not discuss this with Olivier present,” Savannah said.
“What, maman? I’m not to know your history even when it relates to my biological father? I know you didn’t love him enough to marry him, and I’m grateful for the life I’ve had.”
I wondered if Olivier had gotten therapy to deal with the trauma of adoption. On the other hand, he’d had contact with Savannah throughout the years, so perhaps for him it wasn’t a trauma.
“I can hear all of it, maman. It will not embarrass me or make me think less of you, but if you want me to leave I will.”
Savannah looked torn. “I don’t want you to leave.”
She sat on the sofa beside Olivier and held his hand as she spoke. “It was a long time ago, Lurleen. I was different then. I was wild in those days, and Buddy was fun and very handsome. I was sick to death of toeing the line as the daughter of the mayor. I wanted adventure.”
“You didn’t tell Buddy you were pregnant?” Lurleen asked.
“No. Buddy was about to be married when we met at a bar. I think he was nervous about that. It was one night. We both had too much to drink. The usual story. I had no desire to interfere with Buddy’s plans and certainly no wish to marry him myself. I never told anyone, including my parents, until it was necessary. I don’t know how my cousin James found out—maybe Buddy told him.”
Savannah took a deep breath. “James said he’d ruin me—tell the world I had a child out of wedlock and then deserted him. He demanded compensation for his silence.”
“Bradshaw blackmailed you,” Mason said.
“Not the term he used. He said he was having a hard time getting by. I owed him. I had to put him on my show, talk him up as a chef and food critic, get his career back on track.”
“So, it wasn’t altruism that got him on the show.” Lurleen spoke softly to me. “Savannah never struck me as the altruistic type.”
“And you agreed to that?” Mason said.
“What choice did I have?” Savannah held Olivier’s hand more tightly as she spoke. “Quinn wasn’t ready to accept Olivier into our lives. James knew enough people to ruin my reputation. I couldn’t have that.” She squeezed Olivier’s hand and then released it. “More than that I couldn’t have Olivier involved in a scandal, not at the start of his career, not ever.”
“The French are used to this sort of thing,” Lurleen said.
“The French may be, but South Carolina is not,” Savannah said.
“Haven’t you watched ‘Real Housewives of South Carolina’?” Lurleen persisted.
I looked at Lurleen. “That show doesn’t exist!”
“It should.”
“Enough,” Mason said. “Buddy confronted you about Olivier?”
Savannah nodded. “When I first told him he was Olivier’s father, Buddy was enraged. He wanted me to promise I’d never bring Olivier here. I couldn’t promise that.
“After Quinn died, when I told Buddy that Olivier was coming here possibly to stay for a while, he got angry again. Then he seemed to do an about face. He said he wanted to meet this person who claimed to be his son but that it needed to be a private meeting. The last thing he wanted was for his wife to find out, and I promised to do everything I could to keep that from happening.
“After that conversation, I never heard another word from Olivier. Buddy, of course, denied that he was responsible in any way for Olivier’s disappearance. Obviously, that was a lie.”
“Do you think he sabotaged the contest to keep Olivier away?” I asked.
“What exactly are you talking about?” Savannah asked.
“The peanuts in the hors d’oeuvres, the stove top blowing up,” I said. “According to Rose, Buddy was behind the dangerous pranks on the set. I heard them arguing about it.”
“It’s the kind of thing Buddy would do,” Savannah said. “I think he was responsible for the pranks a year ago. He wanted to unnerve me. He wanted to make it seem unsafe to bring Olivier here, but I was determined to have him come. I assume that left Buddy no choice but to pretend to be concerned about Olivier’s welfare and urge him to go into hiding. Surely, he must have known Olivier would contact me eventually.”
Olivier nodded. “I would have done that.”
Mason turned to Olivier. “James Bradshaw told you the coast was clear?”
“The coast, it is clear?” Olivier said to his mother.
She translated and he nodded. “He did. He contacted my French mother. He said the danger was past, and I was to come immediately—as a surprise for you, maman.”
“We know Bradshaw brought the reporter here,” Mason said, “from the scribbled notes we found under the mattress in the room in which Nick Davis was killed. Davis was to dig up as much dirt as he could about you and Quinn. Olivier would be another pawn—providing lots of publicity about the son you abandoned.”
“James hated Quinn and me so much,” Savannah said. “He not only thought we cheated him out of this house but that we were responsible for his losing his license as a pharmacist.”
“Losing his license?” I said. “That’s a big deal. In the bios for the contest it said he’d retired.”
“James got drunk one time too many at work,” Savannah said. “He gave the wrong prescription to a patient, and she nearly died. We had nothing to do with that but if anything went wrong for James, we got blamed for it.”
“We have two men, Bradshaw and the chief, who were furious with you,” Mason said, “but with very different desires regarding Olivier. Bradshaw wanted Olivier here to discredit you, and the chief wanted him to stay away.”
Mason continued to think out loud.
“The chief would not have been happy to know that Nick Davis was in the house digging up information about Olivier. That sets him up as an obvious murder suspect, but I wonder who else might have worried about what Davis could discover—someone with their own secrets.”
Mason scanned the room as he spoke. I did the same. Dorian remained by the door with no emotion on his face. When he saw me looking at him, he nodded and smiled. Savannah stared straight ahead, but it seemed she held Olivier’s hand more tightly. Peter remained cool, like a block of ice, while Frank fidgeted and looked at the floor.
“The murderer turned off the recording equipment before he killed Davis,” Mason said. “Who knew about the system your husband had in place?”
Savannah shrugged. “I’m not sure.”
“We all knew,” Peter said. “It was a joke really, Quinn, thinking he could spy on us. We used it to spy on Quinn and everyone else.”
“And what did you find out?” Mason asked.
“We knew when Bradshaw let the reporter into the house,” Peter said. He realized immediately that he’d said the wrong thing. “Look, I have nothing to hide.”
“There’s a rumor you and Savannah are having a relationship,” I said.
“It isn’t true,” Savannah said. “I was loyal to Quinn until the end.”
Peter’s complexion deepened. “Who said that?” He didn’t wait for my reply. “You think I killed Quinn and then the reporter to keep some imaginary involvement with Savannah quiet?”
“People have killed for less,” Mason said. “We’ve checked backgrounds. You’re a medic in the Reserves. Do I have that right?”
“Yeah, so what?”
“So, you would know how to start an IV and use a syringe. You might even know where to get doxorubicin.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Peter said.
Apparently, Mason was done asking questions. “No one is to leave the premises. Is that clear?”
He turned to Savannah. “I’m going to have an officer stay in the room with you and Olivier.”
Savannah nodded. “I understand.”
He looked at Frank and Peter. “I’ll talk to you two individually this evening. Go to your rooms and stay there.”
The men were only too eager to leave.
I followed Mason, Danny, and Lurleen into the hallway.
“Let’s regroup,” Mason said, “in Quinn’s office. We seem to have more than enough suspects who might have wanted Quinn dead.”
“Like Murder on the Orient Express,” Lurleen said, “maybe they all did it.”