A Slaying in Savannah (20 page)

“But honest,” said his mother.

“You don’t know some of the accountants I know,” he said playfully.

I insisted upon paying the check, and thanked Joseph for getting me together with his parents. “The more I can learn about Wanamaker,” I said, “the better my chances of solving his murder.”

Joseph offered to drop me at the house on his way to bringing his parents to their hotel. In the car, I voiced what I’d been thinking during our conversation: “I wonder if there might have been others who were vying for Tillie’s attention?”

“And money?” John said, rubbing his chin in thought. “Wouldn’t surprise me. Before the woman in San Francisco shot my brother, I remember him complaining that there were scoundrels after her money.” He laughed heartily.

Mabel added her editorial comment. “He should talk.”

I thanked them all again as I got out of the car in front of Tillie’s elegant house.

“We’ll be in town for another few days,” John Jones said. “You’re welcome to call anytime if you think of more questions we can answer for you.”

I assured them I would and waved good-bye as they drove off.

Mrs. Goodall was polishing the dining table when I came through the front door. I stopped to talk with her.

“Any chance of getting a bag of ice from you?” I asked.

She looked at the shillelagh in my hand, then down at the leg of my slacks, which had a smudge of dirt and an unsightly tear from the incident at the parade. I was more aggravated about that than the knee, which by now was sure to be turning a gruesome black, blue, and purple. The knee would heal, but the slacks of my favorite pantsuit would need to be repaired.

“What in the world?” she said.

“A silly accident,” I replied.

“Do you need help getting upstairs?”

“No, thanks. I’m sure I can manage.”

“You get on up to your room. I’ll be there with the ice in a minute.”

I sank gratefully into the upholstered chair in the corner of my room, slipped off my shoes, and gingerly lifted my leg onto the ottoman, raising the pant leg to expose a nasty bruise surrounding the original gash.

Mrs. Goodall walked in a few moments later with a tray holding the ice pack, a cup of tea, and two cookies cut in the shape of a shamrock and sprinkled with green sugar. She arranged a towel on the ottoman, draped the ice pack across my knee, and lectured me about the need not to move for twenty minutes, when she would be back to draw me a hot bath, which she said was a necessity if I didn’t want to be sore tomorrow.

To make certain I didn’t get up, she took my book from the bedside table and dropped in it my lap. I thanked her for her consideration and promised not to budge from the chair until she returned.

Since I’d just finished lunch, I didn’t need a sweet, but the tea was welcome. I set the book aside, sat back and sipped contemplatively, allowing the events of the day to run through my mind.

So Wanamaker Jones had been a rogue, romancing wealthy older women. No surprise there, given the age difference between him and Tillie. Although there have been some famous and long-lasting marriages between younger men and older women—and vice versa, for that matter—more often than not, people view a large age gap as a signal that the younger partner is a social climber or, worse, a gold digger. Not that Tillie was naïve by any means. She was a pretty shrewd judge of character. And not that she wasn’t capable of charming men of all ages. Hadn’t Dr. Payne been “smitten” as well, according to Mrs. Goodall?

John Jones had said that one of Wanamaker’s inamoratas had tried to kill him. Perhaps there were others. Could another former lover have sought and found revenge during a New Year’s Eve party at Tillie’s house?

I shifted in my seat and felt a twinge of pain that reminded me I’d now fallen twice on that knee. The first time, in the tunnel, had been my own fault for keeping my eyes on the ceiling and missing the obstacle on the floor. Had someone deliberately pushed me at the parade? It seemed so unlikely, and I tried to erase it from my consciousness. But I couldn’t. One thing was obvious. If someone
had
tried to harm me, it could only be because that person didn’t want the murder of Wanamaker Jones to be solved. Who that might be was a question beyond my ability to answer at the moment.

I chided myself for my lack of progress. Time was going to run out before I knew it, and I was no closer to a solution than the day I arrived. I resolved to visit the police to see if the original report held any clues, assuming the authorities would let me take a look at it.
And you’d better step up the interviews of those who were at the fatal party,
I told myself.
No more allowing them to avoid your questions.
There were pieces of the puzzle that I needed to get filled in. And I was going to find them, sore knee or not.

By the time Mrs. Goodall returned, my teacup was empty and somehow the cookies had disappeared along with the beverage.

Chapter Sixteen

Although I’d vowed to talk to all the people I could find who might be able to shed light on the killing, I spent the next two days with my leg elevated, per Dr. Payne’s instructions. Mrs. Goodall had taken one look at the expression on my face in the morning and insisted upon calling him. Despite my protestations that even a doctor deserved a day of rest, Warner had stopped by to check out my injury, prescribing what he called “RICE,” rest, ice, compression, and elevation. He had wrapped my knee in an Ace bandage and left a cardboard sleeve with little yellow pills in foil pockets in case the pain required medicating. Even though the day was a wash as far as my investigating the Wanamaker Jones case, I did get him to promise that he would call his friend Judge O’Neill and pave the way for an interview.

Mrs. Goodall spent Sunday and Monday hovering over my discolored leg, fussing with pillows for my back, and admonishing me not to rise from my seat for any reason and to call her for assistance. She plugged in an intercom right next to my chair—an action that had the Grogans squawking that it would interfere with their equipment and tarnish their data, but the housekeeper prevailed. All my meals were brought in on a tray. I finished the book I’d brought with me as well as another that Mrs. Goodall fetched from the library, and started reading the report on Mortelaine House that Melanie and her friend LaTisha were working on for their architectural history class.

After two days’ rest, my knee was much improved and I was itching to get moving again. I’d telephoned the police station, and was granted an appointment for an interview with Captain Mead Parker. In the meantime, I would visit Charmelle, and see if she or her brother could contribute to my understanding of the murder.

“Melanie will drive you,” Mrs. Goodall said when I came into the kitchen to announce my intention to visit the O’Neills. She was washing the breakfast dishes, even though a dishwasher was next to the sink.

“That’s really not necessary,” I said. “It’s only a short walk. I looked it up on the map.”

“You put too much pressure on that knee, it’s goin’ to swell up again.”

“But if I don’t exercise it, it will stiffen up even more,” I countered.

“I can see I’ll be callin’ Dr. Payne again for more medicine,” she said with a sniff. “But you suit yourself.”

“I’m very grateful for all the care and consideration you’ve given me these past few days,” I said. “I hope I’ve thanked you.”

“You have.”

“And I certainly don’t want to do anything that will lead me to impose on you again.”

“I’m not sayin’ you imposed.”

“I know. You’re just concerned and I appreciate it. How’s this? I promise to bring along the shillelagh for support, and to call Melanie to pick me up if the pain starts up again.”

Mrs. Goodall wiped her hands on a dish towel and eyed me with suspicion. “I expect you know how to sweet-talk the bees out of the flowers, don’t you?”

We both laughed.

“Go on. Get out of my kitchen. And make sure you say how-do to Miss O’Neill for me when you see her.”

“I will.”

I was happy to have the opportunity to get outside, even given the chill in the air, or perhaps because of it. It was still cold at home. March in Cabot Cove, as the snows melt, heralds the beginning of mud season, not our most attractive time. But everyone loves it all the same because it means that spring is on the way. I’d been cooped up in Tillie’s house with its dark rooms, stuffy furniture, strange sounds, and leaky ceiling, not to mention the trying presence of Tillie’s guests—or “tenants,” as Mrs. Goodall insisted upon calling them—but turning my face to the sun and taking a deep breath, I could feel the tension ebb away. I reviewed the tourist map Melanie had given me and set off, sure that this day would bring something helpful.

The O’Neills lived on another of Savannah’s famed squares, this one a simple park shaded by live oaks with crisscrossing paths leading to the surrounding streets, and benches on four sides of a low flower bed. Their house was an imposing edifice with a whitewashed cement facade and black shutters framing the tall windows. It had a stern, no-nonsense appearance, an apt reflection of its owner, or at least of one of them. Its only softening feature was a pair of curved staircases with delicate wrought-iron rails leading to either side of the stone portico, which was supported by simple tapered columns. I knocked at the front door. It was opened by a middle-aged lady wearing a white uniform, white shoes, and stockings.

“I’m here to see Judge O’Neill,” I told her. “I believe I’m expected. My name is Jessica Fletcher.”

The nurse, if that’s what she was, invited me in and waved toward a straight-backed wooden chair against the wall. “The judge just got a call,” she said. “If you’ll wait here, I’ll let him know you’ve arrived and see when he’ll be available.”

I thanked her, placed my shoulder bag on the chair along with a book I’d brought as a gift for Charmelle, and looked around the formal entrance. Except for the chair and its match on the opposite wall, the area was devoid of furniture or artwork. A staircase ahead on the right led up to an intermediate landing before continuing on both sides to the second floor. The walls of the stairwell and the hall were covered in ocher paper with a moss green fleur-de-lis pattern. The wallpaper provided the only spot of color in the otherwise unadorned entry.

I watched as the nurse walked down the long hall, the rubber soles of her shoes squeaking on the marble tile floor. She stopped before a carved wooden door, knocked, and slipped inside the room, leaving the door ajar.

“Dammit, Warner, you had no right to say I would talk to that woman,” I heard the judge shout.

Apparently Dr. Payne had forgotten to telephone until now. He’d assured me he could talk his friend into seeing me and I’d come on the assumption that he’d been successful. Perhaps not. I edged down the hall, cocking my ear to catch more of the one-sided conversation.

“You give me one good reason why I should cooperate with that pen pusher,” the judge was saying. “The Savannah detectives spent months on the case, followed procedure, and they had the full facilities of the department behind them. If they think there’s nothing more to find, then that’s all right with me. Jones was an interloper to begin with.” There was a pause, and then I heard, “Don’t tell me some amateur from up north is going to know more than our Savannah police.”

He had a point, of course. Had she been alive, I would have told Tillie the same thing, perhaps phrased a bit differently. She’d put me in this prickly situation by threatening to disinherit a program we’d established together, and at the moment I was feeling quite annoyed with her. If I was able to make headway where the police had been stymied, the newspapers would have a field day. My efforts would publicly embarrass the professionals in the department, who would be rightfully indignant, and I would appear to be an egotistical know-it-all. If I failed to find anything new, a valuable program I believed in would lose out on an important donation, and I would be made to look foolish for having taken a bite of something that was too big for me to chew. Either way, my reputation would suffer. What could Tillie have been thinking? She was playing with people’s lives and this wasn’t a game. What could
I
have been thinking? Rose Kendall had put her finger on it. I was on a fool’s errand. It would serve me right if the judge refused to talk to me.

Irritated for allowing myself to be drawn into such a no-win predicament, I walked back to the chair and shouldered my bag. I would leave the book for Charmelle, of course, but I needed to rethink this whole situation.

“Mrs. Fletcher?”

I turned at the nurse’s voice.

“His Honor will see you now.”

“Nuts!” I muttered to myself.

I strode down the hall and through the door into a well-appointed legal library. The nurse hovered in the doorway behind me. Judge O’Neill was sitting in a black leather wing chair behind a large walnut desk. His wheelchair had been pushed into a corner next to a gun case with a glass front. It held three shotguns. Tall bookcases behind him were filled with volumes of lawbooks with colorful leather bindings.

“Mrs. Fletcher, please excuse me for not rising,” he said, extending his hand for me to shake.

“Of course,” I said, leaning over the desk to take his hand and wincing slightly when his fingers crushed mine. “It was very kind of you to see me. I know what an imposition this is.”

“Not at all. Have a seat. You’re welcome in my home. May I offer you some coffee or tea?”

“No, thank you,” I said. “I won’t take up too much of your time.”

“Bring us some iced tea, Beverly,” the judge said. “And some of those praline cookies.”

“Yes, sir,” the nurse said and closed the door.

The judge nodded at me.

“How is Charmelle?” I asked.

He seemed surprised at the question. “Sister is as well as can be expected,” he said cautiously. “She’s been failing for some time now. Doesn’t have as strong a constitution as mine. She suffered a shock when she was told Miss Tillie had passed on, both emotionally, of course—they’d been friends since childhood—and physically. She injured herself falling against a table.”