George, Anne (26 page)

"You know anything about her and Judge Has-kins?"

"I know she was fond of him."

"Reckon there was any reason she might want to kill him?"

"Not that I know of. Why?"

"They found the murder weapon. It was a pistol registered to her."

"To Georgiana? Georgiana had a gun?" I was so startled, I almost dropped the bottle of Pine Sol I was holding. "Where did they find it?"

"At the house next door to the judge. In the swimming pool."

"My Lord!"

Bo folded her hands over the end of the mop and propped her chin on it. "You like her? Georgiana?" she asked, looking at me.

"Very much."

"Well, don't stay awake tonight worrying. The gun in the swimming pool? Doesn't fit."

Sixteen hether Georgiana's gun being the weapon that had killed Judge Haskins and being found in the swimming pool next door fit or not, it was something to worry about. At home, fixing the salad, moving around the familiar kitchen, I worried about it. Georgiana's words, /
loved him so
and
He loved women, truly loved them,
echoed in my thoughts. Surely she hadn't loved him so much that the thought of him dinging a twenty-four-year-old Jenny Louise had driven her over the edge. From what I had learned, dinging twenty-four-year-olds had been a hobby of Judge Haskins. Because "he loved women, truly loved them." Bullshit. He was a horny old bastard who was lucky to have lived as long as he did without a bullet between his eyes.

I slapped the food on a tray and headed for Georgiana's apartment. Trinity opened the door before I knocked. "Good," she said, "I'm starving."

I handed her the tray with the chicken tetrazzini, tossed salad, and a piece of Sara Lee cheesecake I had found in my freezer. "Hello, Trinity."

"You're out of shape," she said. "Just huffing."

··· 227 ···

"Steep steps." The back steps that led to the outside doors of the apartments were, indeed, steep.

"Come in a minute and get your breath."

"Thanks," I said. I pulled out a kitchen chair and sank down. Georgiana's kitchen was small, but bright and airy. The cabinets and appliances were white, and the floor tile was white with a peach-colored geometric design. The table where I was sitting was made of heavy glass atop two pieces of humorous garden statuary, two rabbits with their arms uplifted. The four cane bottom chairs, which had probably been purchased at a thrift store, had been painted in a dozen bright triangles, circles, and stripes. It was the kitchen of an artist.

"I love this room," I said. I wondered if Trinity knew Georgiana had a gun.

"The whole place is spectacular," Trinity was already sticking the chicken in the microwave. "The office downstairs is, too. I keep telling Georgiana she missed her calling."

"She decorated this?"

"She did it all." Trinity reached in a cabinet for a plate. "You want some iced tea?"

"That would be great. Have you heard from Georgiana this afternoon?"

"Cassie Murphy called and said she was about the same. Maybe a little better. She had to leave, so I'm going over there after a while." Trinity brought me a glass of iced tea and some lemon.

"Did Cassie say she was coming here to the office, by any chance?" I explained to Trinity about Heidi Williams, leaving out the Bo Mitchell part, and saying that perhaps Cassie or Georgiana knew a relative.

The microwave dinged and Trinity got up to retrieve her chicken tetrazzini. "She said she was going to the library first. Georgiana's address book is in the living room by the phone, though. Maybe there's something in there."

"I'll go look," I said.

Granted, the apartment was new and the paint was fresh and the carpet clean, so even I could have made it look okay. But what Georgiana had done to that room was, indeed, spectacular. I wandered around, admiring the subtle blend of antique and new. The old wicker library table with the Lucite lamp, pictures by Birmingham artists whose names I recognized, and a poster of a music festival. Above the fireplace was a small Wild Goose Chase quilt done in bright shades of peach and green. Trinity was right, I thought. Georgiana was a decorator.

Even the address book was not the same one everybody has from the Metropolitan, the Mary Cassatt painting of a woman licking an envelope. Georgiana's was a photograph, a close-up of the back of a pink shell that took a moment for me to figure out what it was. I was admiring it and the pillows on the sofa so much that I almost forgot who I was supposed to be looking up.

"Find it?" Trinity called.

"I'm just admiring everything."

"Told you she missed her calling."

"You're right." I opened the shell book to Williams and found the same number and address that Debbie had given me from the city directory. "It's not here," I said, carrying the book back to the kitchen, where Trinity was sitting at the table eating.

"This is wonderful," she said, holding some chicken tetrazzini up on her fork.

"Thanks." No use explaining Mary Alice's caterer had done it.

"Maybe there's something down in the office. A work file," she suggested.

"Can we go down there?"

"Right out the living-room door and down the steps."

"There's no burglar alarm or anything?"

"There is, but it's not on. Cassie said she would come by later and set it. Just the office part. It's locked from the outside, but from here, you can walk right down."

"The records are probably all on computer," I said.

Trinity poured some more ranch dressing onto her salad. "There's some file cabinets and a rolodex."

"I'll go look," I said. "Right out the living room?''

Trinity nodded, her mouth full of lettuce.

The office was neat and attractive, decorated in the same shades of peach and green as the apartment above it. The three desks were white, as were the bookcases and filing cabinets. A small sitting area held a wicker love seat and a couple of wicker rockers with coordinating cushions. Comfortable. Pleasant. On the wall above the love seat was a collage of antique valentines.

"Oh, my," I said admiringly.

"It's lovely, isn't it?"

I jumped guiltily. I hadn't heard Cassie come in behind me. "Trinity said it was okay to come down here," I explained, feeling like a kid without a hall pass.

"Sure it is. What are you looking for, Mrs. Hoi-lowell?"

"I promised Georgiana I'd find Heidi Williams, and I located where she lived, but she's not there and, according to a neighbor, hasn't been for several days."

"Let's see." Cassie had her hands full, a large purse, a small computer, and a briefcase. She put them on a desk and flipped through the rolodex. "This just has her address."

"What about her application for a job? Don't you have to put next of kin on Social Security?''

"I don't remember. Let me see if I can find it." She went over to a file cabinet and pulled out a drawer. "Williams. Williams. Nope." She came back to the desk. "Maybe it's on the computer." She turned a computer on that was on a side counter. The usual groaning and humming ensued. "Williams. Williams. Here's a Brenda Williams. Most of this is stuff we're working on, though. Georgiana has a CPA who does the books."

"He'd send the records back to her, though."

Cassie turned the computer off. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Hollowell. I have no idea where Georgiana keeps stuff like that." She rolled her shoulders backwards and rubbed her neck. "I'll look harder tomorrow. I just came by to set the alarm system."

"You look exhausted," I said.

"I am. I need to go to the library, but I think I'll stop by Subway and get a sandwich and head home." She gathered up her purse and small computer.

"Here," I said, "let me help you." I picked up the briefcase, followed her into the hall, and tucked it under her arm. "How was Georgiana when you left?"

"Her temperature has shot up." Cassie shrugged. "They're switching to another antibiotic. I guess we'll just have to keep our fingers crossed." She turned toward the alarm panel beside the door. "You need to go back upstairs before I set this," she ex-

plained. "The sensors include the foyer. Tell Trinity I'll talk to her later."

"I will. You go home and get some rest."

Trinity was eating her cheesecake and drinking a cup of coffee when I came back into the upstairs apartment. "Want some?" she offered.

I shook my head and said I needed to get home, that Fred would be home soon for supper.

"Men!" she said.

"I like them."

"Oh, I do, too. I just hate to feed them."

I sat back down at the kitchen table. ' Tell me about Judge Haskins," I said. "And Meg."

"Nothing to tell. They met in college. His family was trash, honey. I mean trash. But he'd pulled himself up by his jockstrap and was in law school."

"You mean his bootstrap?"

"I meant what I said. I think he was the first guy Meg ever slept with, and she thought she had to marry him. She adored him. Bobby used Meg as a stepping-stone, but, in a way, I think he loved her, too. Always did. He was just screwed up. Smart, but screwed up."

"How long were they married?"

"Seven years? Eight?" Trinity shook her head. "She finished putting him through law school and taught him manners. But, I swear, Patricia Anne, trash will rise to the surface. You know it."

"But he got to be a judge."

"Tell me about it." Trinity got up and rinsed her coffee cup.

"Do you really think he killed Meg because of the bastardy papers?"

"At first I did. Bobby set a store by that trashy family of his, Lord knows why. But Georgiana says Meg knew something Bobby was mixed up in. I don't have any idea what. But whatever it was got both of them killed."

"But she ran into him accidentally at lunch."

"Hah. Whose idea was it to have lunch there? You didn't know my sister very well."

"I think it was Mary Alice's idea."

"You want to bet? I'd stake my life on the fact that Meg knew where he was having lunch. She just 'accidentally' ran into Bobby every time she came to Birmingham."

"And Georgiana loved him, too." This was a statement, not a question.

Trinity shook her head yes. "There's just no accounting, is there? Even I had a hankering for the old fellow at one time."

The phone rang while I was thinking about this. Trinity didn't answer it. Instead, Georgiana's voice came on with The Family Tree message. We heard a woman asking Georgiana to call her when she got a chance. But while the woman was leaving her message, I remembered the voice that had sounded like Meg's saying, "Help me!"

"Have you listened to the messages?" I asked Trinity.

"No. I figured they were all that genealogy stuff."

"Well, there's one here I want you to listen to." I ran the tape back, but I couldn't find the "Help me!" message.

"What is it?" Trinity asked as I wandered through "that genealogy stuff."

"Just a message I thought you might be interested in. Nothing, really."

She was getting her things ready to leave and didn't question me any closer, for which I was grateful. How do you explain a dead sister's voice saying, "Help me?" And how do you explain the initials MMB on a briefcase that obviously had a small computer in it and which was being carried by Castine Murphy?

After supper I startled Fred by telling him I was going over to Sister's for a while.

"Why?" he said. "Just wait a while and she'll show up. What do you need to see her for, anyway?''

"About the trip to New Orleans."

"Why don't you just call her?" He looked at me over the paper. He would be dozing in ten minutes; he and I both knew it. But while he was dozing, he wanted the television on and me reading or sewing across from him.

"I did. I want her to check out the dress I'm going to wear. Besides, her masseuse is there."

"Her what?"

"The woman who gives Sister massages. She says she can work me in one."

"I'll give you a massage," Fred said. "I don't want you out running the streets at night, Patricia Anne. It's too dangerous."

"Old coot," I said, "I'll be home by the time you finish your paper." I kissed him and went out into our crime-ridden neighborhood, which was filled with joggers and neighbors talking over fences in the late twilight. I forgot to bring a dress to show to Sister, but fortunately, Fred didn't notice.

Mary Alice met me dressed in a terry-cloth robe. "You're late," she said. "Francine had to go."

"That's okay. I can't stay long, anyway. I just needed to run something by you."

"What? Come on back to the kitchen. I haven't had supper yet."

I followed her and sat on the stool by Bubba Cat's heating pad. I laid the manila folder I had brought from home beside him, and he looked up and yawned a greeting. "I think," I said, "that I know who has Meg's computer and briefcase."

"Who?" Sister opened the refrigerator door and looked in. "I guess I need to eat this chicken tetraz-zini. They made enough for an army. Does that Pri-tikin food come already fixed, or is it recipes you fix yourself?"