“How’s the potpie, Weezie?” Randy boomed from his end of the table.
“Delicious,” I said, keeping my hand poised delicately at my bosom.
“You gotta give me this recipe, Randy,” Daniel said. “I’ll call it Bluffton potpie. Put it on the menu for nineteen ninety-five, and those tourists will lap it up.”
“No deal unless you call it Rucker’s Bluffton Potpie,” Randy said. He was passing around another bottle of wine. By now I’d lost track of how much wine I’d had, but it was a lot. It seemed like every time my glass got close to being empty somebody would come around and refill it.
“Is it an old family recipe?” I asked.
“Maybe in Martha Stewart’s family,” he said. “Merijoy copied it out of that magazine of hers.”
“But Martha Stewart doesn’t have access to Bluffton shrimp,” Daniel pointed out.
“Or Silver Queen corn from Merijoy’s daddy’s farm,” Randy said. “So hers can’t possibly be as good as this.”
“We have to go,” I said to Daniel under my breath. “Before this dress splits completely in two.”
“I know you can’t wait to get me alone so you can perform unspeakable acts on my body, but it’s rude to leave in the middle of dinner.” Daniel didn’t even move his lips as he said it.
“Hurry up and eat then, damn it,” I said.
“Calm down, or you’ll pop another stitch,” he whispered.
“Listen, y’all,” Merijoy was saying. “You know I am not one to engage in idle gossip—”
“Ha!” Jonathan McDowell shouted. “We love you, Merijoy, but face it: you’re the gossip queen of Ardsley Park.”
“I’m just an amateur,” Merijoy said, protesting. “But this whole thing with Caroline DeSantos is so fascinating. I mean, I’m sorry, Weezie, that you accidentally got mixed up in it, but really, it’s all so juicy. What I want to know is what was Caroline doing out there at the plantation house at that time of night anyway?”
She looked around the table for agreement. I hoped nobody would ask what I was doing inside the house when I found her. Especially with the chief assistant district attorney sitting right next to me.
“Wasn’t she supposed to be the architect for the new paper plant?” Doug asked.
“Supposed to be,” Merijoy said sarcastically. “I just find it hard to believe some little scrap of a girl got a huge commission like that, only a few months after she moves to Savannah and starts shacking up with Talmadge Evans.”
I winced, but it was another matter I’d wondered about.
“Sorry, Weezie,” Merijoy said. “But honestly. Didn’t Tal’s firm do mostly residential work?”
“They did a lot of residential,” I said, “and some commercial stuff. A few banks, a couple of churches, and some multifamily housing. I don’t think he’d ever done much industrial design.”
“How do you think a hot little number like her got that job?” Doug asked.
“Look at who hired her,” Merijoy said.
“The paper company? Phipps Mayhew?” Judy Hunter said.
“Phipps would have done the hiring,” Randy said. “But he probably just went on the recommendation of somebody locally.”
“Gerry Blankenship,” Merijoy said. “He’s Miss Anna Ruby’s attorney. And he’s the one Caroline was with at the memorial service. The old fart couldn’t take his eyes off her.”
“You gotta admit she was easy on the eyes,” Doug said. His wife shot him a dirty look.
“Gerry Blankenship,” Miss Sudie said, tsk-tsking. “I had him in my six-year-old Sunday-school class. What a rascal. He seems to have his finger in a lot of pies, doesn’t he?”
“It’s called being well connected,” Doug said. “And old Gerry is hooked up in ways I’ll never understand.”
“His mother’s people were Cargills,” Miss Sudie said. “Wonderful old Savannah family. I don’t know much about the Blankenships. I believe his daddy was a salesman or something.”
“The guy doesn’t even have a real law degree,” Doug griped.
“He doesn’t?” Merijoy said breathlessly. “Maybe Miss Anna Ruby’s will isn’t legal then.”
“Nah,” Doug said. “I guess it’s real. He didn’t go to Emory or Mercer or University of Georgia, though.”
“Doug thinks anybody who isn’t a Bulldog is a card-carrying shyster.” Judy laughed.
“Guess that makes me a shyster,” Jonathan said. “I went to Emory.”
“You know what I mean,” Doug said. “Blankenship got his degree from the old Ben Franklin University. That diploma mill that used to operate downtown. The state ran ’em out of business in the early seventies, but there’s quite a few fellas around town who got their law degrees there.”
“Perfectly capable fellas,” Jonathan pointed out. “We’ve got a couple Ben Franklin grads in our office. They don’t advertise the fact, of course.”
“I’d like to know what’s going to become of the furnishings, if they tear the old house down,” Miss Sudie said. “I remember Miss Anna Ruby had beautiful things. There was an Aubusson rug in the dining room. It was shades of rose and cream and peach. A beautiful rug.”
“Weezie’s the one to ask about the furniture,” Merijoy said. “The place was full of antiques when we were there for the memorial service. But then the sale was cancelled after, you know.”
All eyes seemed to turn in my direction. I had borrowed Daniel’s jacket, but I could feel a definite draft on my chest.
“Will they reschedule the sale?” Emily Flanders asked, looking at me.
“I haven’t heard,” I said, trying to negotiate a bite of potpie with one hand while clutching at the jacket with the other hand.
“I’ll tell you what I heard,” Judy Hunter volunteered. “Supposedly whoever is in charge out there at Beaulieu has started selling off the really good furniture.”
My fork froze in midair. “To who? I mean, whom?”
Judy made a face. “Do you know Lewis Hargreaves?”
“Yes.” I said a little silent prayer. Please don’t let them sell him the Moses Weed cupboard. Not that.
“I was at the hairdresser’s last Saturday, and Vivian Chambers was sitting under the dryer next to where I was getting my hair cut. She was talking on her cell phone—you know how bad reception is downtown, so she was talking real loud. I gather she was talking to her interior decorator. Because she was saying she’d had a call from Lewis Hargreaves about a Sheraton sideboard that came out of Beaulieu. She was asking the decorator to meet her at Lewis’s shop, to look at the piece and tell her if she should buy it. And I heard her say the price too—eighteen thousand dollars. Can you imagine? For one piece of furniture?”
“Don’t even think about ever goin’ in that guy’s shop,” Doug told Judy, pointing an accusing finger.
“Who? Me?” Judy batted her eyelashes. “Don’t worry. I think he’s kind of creepy. And his prices are absurd.”
Merijoy put her elbows on the table and leaned forward. “Jonathan, doesn’t this all sound mighty strange to you?”
Jonathan thought about it. “Murder’s always strange, Merijoy.”
“Seriously,” she said. “This whole business of a paper plant coming in out at Beaulieu. I knew Miss Anna Ruby. I talked to her several times this year before she died, about leaving the house to the preservation league for a museum. She didn’t say yes, but she didn’t flat out say no either. And she certainly never hinted that she’d sell it for a paper plant. She loved that place, and she was the last of the line, so it wasn’t as though she were planning on leaving the money to her relatives or anything.”
Sudie McDowell was shaking her head. “Another paper plant. Just as we’re finally getting the air and water cleaned up after all those years of pollution from the paper-bag plant.”
Doug cleared his throat. “Now, none of this is for publication,” he cautioned. “But what I’m hearing around the courthouse is that this Mayhew character may have run into a roadblock with the state environmental folks.”
“What kind of a roadblock?” Merijoy asked.
“Something about an environmental impact statement,” Doug said. “I’m not up on all these state environmental regulations, but I’ve heard their proposal calls for dredging out all those old rice canals out there. And you know how these bureaucrats are when it comes to anybody messing around with wetlands.”
“Maybe this is one time the bureaucrats are on the right track,” Randy said. “That’s beautiful marsh-front property out there. I hate to think about some factory mucking up the water out there. When I was a kid, the best crabbing spot on the river was that old dock at Beaulieu. Good fishing out there, hunting too. Miss Anna Ruby used to let my daddy keep a duck blind there.”
“Yes,” Daniel said gravely, again running his bare foot up and down my leg. “There was some wonderful wildlife out there when we were kids, isn’t that right, Weezie?”
I started to slap at his foot, but when I leaned forward I heard another stitch popping.
Everybody was looking at me now. I took a large gulp of wine.
“I am so sorry,” I said, blushing again. “What were we talking about?”
“Daniel was just agreeing that it would be a shame to lose such a historical landmark as Beaulieu,” Merijoy said.
She got up from her chair. “Everybody ready for dessert? The Otwells fixed it, but their babysitter canceled at the last minute, so Sally Ann brought it over earlier. They send their regrets. Now, I thought we’d have dessert and after-dinner drinks in the library,” Merijoy said. “And I imagine Randy has some of those nasty old cigars of his, if anybody feels like poisoning their lungs.”
Now was my chance to escape. Everybody was getting up from the table and helping to clear the dishes.
“Let’s go,” I said, grabbing Daniel’s arm as he walked toward the doorway.
“So soon?” he said, staring right down into my rapidly expanding cleavage. “But things are just starting to get interesting.”
Ignoring him, I caught up with Merijoy.
“Thank you so much for inviting us, Merijoy,” I said. “It’s been a lovely evening. But we’re going to have to bow out early. Daniel’s pager just went off. Some little emergency at the restaurant.”
“Oh no,” Merijoy said, pulling a pouty face. “That’s no fun. But you stay. Randy can run you home after dessert.”
“No, no,” I said hastily. “I’ve had a long day, and I have to get up at five in the morning. It’s estate sale day, you know.”
“All right,” Merijoy said, “but you have to promise to come to supper again.”
“I promise.”
Daniel came up and kissed Merijoy’s hand. I thought she would swoon. “Sorry to have to go,” he said, “but Weezie’s dog got out, and we’ve got to rush home and look for him.”
I could have kicked him.
Merijoy got a funny look, and then she smiled. “Stop with the silly stories,” she said. “I remember what it was like to be young and in love. And I can tell you two want to be alone. So just run along.”
He draped his arm over my shoulder. “Can I have my jacket back now, sugar? I’m feeling kind of chilled myself.”