Gone South (14 page)

“Yeah.” Calv stared into the distance. “You know, if she hadn’t practically stolen the place from Si, I’d see a little less resemblance to her ancestors.”

George’s defenses rose a bit. “There’s nothing wrong with finding a bargain. It’s business. It’s capitalism. You know that.”

“But it seems worse when it’s somebody’s home instead of a car or an antique, you know?”

“It’s the same principle, though. A desperate seller makes the buyer happy.”

The reverse was also true. A desperate buyer made the seller happy. George had taken full advantage of the Nelsons’ eagerness to own the place, and
because his mother hadn’t owed anything on it, he’d made out like a bandit. He still felt like one too.

Wondering if even his own uncle realized how much money he’d made on that deal, George walked into the kitchen and lifted the lid of the dutch oven. Red beans and scraps of ham simmered gently in a garlic-rich broth.

His phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket, checked the display, and winced. “Oh boy. It’s her. Letitia.”

“Be brave,” Calv said from the living room.

George took a deep breath. “Hello, Letitia. I hope you’re calling about the garage.”

“We’ll get around to that eventually,” she said. “First, someone told me you’re fairly well informed about local history.”

“Well, yes. I’m afraid I am.”

“Good. I’d like to get your opinion about my ancestors. Nathan and Letitia McComb.”

Unaccustomed to such directness, he floundered for an answer. “Oh. Right. I—I’ve been wanting to … to talk to you. Why don’t you come over? I have a book you should read.”

“There’s a
book
about them?”

“It’s not all about them,” he said hastily. “But they’re in it. The shop’s closed for the night, but you can come around to the back and up the stairs.”

He held his breath, listening to a short silence backed by muffled whispers. She must have covered the phone with her hand while she conferred with somebody. Maybe she wasn’t quite sure she wanted to visit his apartment.

It didn’t take her long to decide. “I’ll be there in three minutes,” she said in a grim tone, and ended the call before he could answer.

He returned to the living room. “She seemed pretty sweet when she brought Daisy back. Now she sounds like a Yankee and a McComb.”

“That’s exactly what she is.”

“How did I get in the middle of this mess?”

“Blame it on the dog,” Calv said. “If Daisy hadn’t introduced you, so to speak, you wouldn’t have asked about the garage, and you wouldn’t feel obligated to be nice.”

George glared at the dog. She whined and hid her nose under her paws.

He sighed. “Common human decency obligates me to be nice,” he said.

“Get off your soapbox, Zorbas. You know what I mean.”

“Yeah. We both want that garage, and we want it bad.”

Calv stood, putting his cap on his head. “I’ll start unloading.” He walked out.

“Coward,” George muttered.

He started to straighten the apartment, then realized he didn’t have time to make a dent in it. Living above the shop meant he was always bringing his work home with him.

He pulled the book off the shelf and flipped to the fourth chapter where he’d already left a bookmark. He was as ready as he’d ever be.

Tish parked the Volvo in a small, unpaved parking area behind the shop, where security lights shed their stark glare over the Antiques on Main cargo van and a blue pickup truck. George’s uncle looked up from the rear doors of the van, most of his face hidden by a red-and-white ball cap with an oversized bill.

Upset as she was, she managed a smile as she climbed out of her car. “Hi.”

“Hey, Miss McComb,” he said. “George is upstairs.” He pulled a large cardboard carton out of the van and hurried toward the back door of the building.

The door at the top of the stairs swung open, and George stood there. “I’d planned to talk to you sometime soon,” he said. “Come on up.”

She climbed the stairs quickly. He stepped aside, and she entered his
homey but cluttered living room. The little white dog crouched on the floor, and she twitched at the shutting of the door. No friendly wiggles. No happy tail-wagging.

“Is that the same dog that turned up on my doorstep?”

“Yes,” George said. “That’s Daisy.”

“She doesn’t look like the same cheerful little dog.”

“No. She has issues.”

Savory smells drifted in from the kitchen. Tish hadn’t eaten since noon, but she wasn’t hungry anymore.

“Why don’t you sit down.” George indicated the couch. “Can I get you anything to drink?”

She waved away the offer but sat on the couch beside the January issue of
Hemmings Motor News
. That had been one of her dad’s favorite publications, although he’d never owned an expensive car. “I’m fine, thanks.”

Piles of old magazines covered a coffee table six inches from her knees. The cover photos dated them from the late sixties or early seventies. Vietnam, Ed Sullivan, Woodstock. An era she was glad to have missed. The fashions were horrendous, maybe a reflection of the age.

George sat in a chair across the room and placed his hands on his knees. “All right, then. Let’s get to it.”

“Yes, let’s. Tell me everything you know about the McCombs.”

“Everything?”

“Please.”

“They—” He blew out a breath. “They weren’t well thought of by … by most folks. Around here.”

It was true, then, what Melanie had said. Tish fought the impulse to stand up and walk out, to pretend there was no truth to it.

“Why?” she asked.

“After the War, they came down here from somewhere up north. Ohio, Pennsylvania, something like that.”

“Ohio,” Tish said.

“Ohio? Right. And … they were carpetbaggers.”

Tish’s mind recaptured a page from some middle-school history textbook: an old-fashioned caricature of a man whose carpetbag overflowed with loot as he traipsed happily through a war-ruined town.

Carpetbaggers. It was a comical word. A caricature, like the picture.

“Opportunists show up after every war,” she said.

“That’s a mighty kind way to describe Nathan McComb. He built his fortune on the misfortunes of others. The book brings up some stories of his lying, cheating, and stealing. According to some accounts, his wife was worse than he was.”

Tish stiffened, hit with a pain that was nearly physical. “You must be exaggerating. My grandfather on the McComb side knew some wonderful stories about them, and he was proud to hang their wedding portrait on his wall. I am too.”

“You and your grandfather didn’t grow up in Noble. Here, most folks have a story or two about their great-greats and how Nathan or Letitia did ’em wrong.”

“Excuse me? People hold grudges over things that happened generations ago?”

“You hold on to your grandfather’s stories, don’t you? We still have our stories too. It’s just that in ours, Nathan and Letitia are the villains.”

Tish swallowed hard, wanting to argue but unable to forget Melanie’s reaction when she realized the people in the portrait leaned against the wall were the McCombs. She’d actually shuddered.

“I had no idea,” she said. “I thought my roots here would help me fit in.
I thought the McComb name was something to be proud of.” A sigh escaped her. “You’d think the seller would have spoken up as soon as he learned who I was.”

“The way ol’ Si tells it, you’re the one who did the blindsiding. If you thought the name was so special, why didn’t you mention it right away?”

She studied the carpet, trying to remember how that had happened. “I wanted to stay anonymous because it would’ve been hard to explain my connection to the house. I only wanted to see it, not to buy it. Once I decided to make an offer, everything happened so fast. I didn’t take time to explain.”

“And you gave him the wrong first name because …?”

She looked up. “That wasn’t intentional. He thought I said Trish, not Tish, and I just let it go. It didn’t seem important.”

“I can understand that.”

“Okay, so I’m Letitia McComb. Does the whole town hate me? The whole county?”

“No, not at all. Folks from outside Noble aren’t likely to be aware of the town’s history. Even here, young people don’t know or don’t care. It’s mostly the older folks who do.”

“If most people don’t care, why does everybody glare at me when I pick up an order at Bag-a-’Cue? Why does the neighbor across the street slam her door shut when I say hello? Why did the woman at the bank in Muldro act as if she’d rather slit my throat than let me open an account?”

“Muldro National? A tall woman with gray hair?”

“Yes. Marian Clark-Something.”

“Clark-Graham. She’s a descendant of the Carlyles, the folks who … well, the details are in the book.”

“Whatever happened, it was bad enough to go into a book? But nobody had the guts to tell me until tonight?”

He frowned. “How did you learn the basics? Who told you?”

“A girl named Melanie.”

He gave her a blank look. “Melanie?”

“Hamilton.”

His dark eyes widened. “Mel? She’s in town then?”

Tish tried to smile. “Melanie Hamilton. A character from
Gone with the Wind
.”

“Sorry, but this Melanie is a character from the police blotter. No, that’s too harsh. As far as I know, she has never been in jail. Yet.”

Tish shook her head, remembering the friendly exchange between Melanie and the young policeman. Being on a first-name basis with local law enforcement wasn’t necessarily a good sign. “She’s sweet, though. And she was half starved. I left her back at the house, tucking into an order from Bag-a-’Cue.”

His eyebrows shot up. “You left Mel alone in your house?”

“She needed a place to stay. I met her in the park, and I liked her.”

George ran a hand over his face. “I like her too, against my better judgment. She’s staying with you? Why isn’t she staying with her parents? They wouldn’t let her in?”

“That sounds about right.”

“Yes, it does. You’d better run home and lock up your valuables.”

“But she seems so nice. Down on her luck, that’s all. She even offered to help with the unpacking and organizing tomorrow.”

“I bet she did. Mel has some bad habits—or at least she used to. Stealing, for one. A couple of years ago, she slipped out of town with her grandpa’s gold watch. Used it to finance a trip to Vegas, apparently.”

“When I was a teenager, I did a few things I’m not proud of now.”

“I’m not talking about typical adolescent mistakes, Letitia—or would you rather be known as Tish now?”

She raised her head a little higher. “Letitia’s fine.”

“Even knowing how some folks around here remember the original?”

“Yes. It’s like Melanie told me tonight. Sometimes people misjudge other people.”

“That sounds like something she’d say. She’s slick.” He shook his head. “If she’s staying with you, I’m not sure I want to keep my car in your garage.”

Tish stared, unable to speak for a moment. If half the town hated McCombs, she’d be hard-pressed to find a job. Farris would never hire her at the bank. She needed George’s rent money—and more besides. She fought the urge to panic.

“Oh, come on,” she said. “Do you really think she’d steal your car?”

“I wouldn’t put it past her. She took a vintage Corvette for a joyride when she was only fifteen.”

“That’s hard to believe. How do you know so much about this girl?”

“She has an older brother, Stuart. Stu and I were good friends in high school.”

“I see.” Tish pulled her keys from her purse and started hunting through them. “The garage doors are padlocked. How could she get in?”

“The kid’s smart.”

“Smarter than the two of us put together?”

“Let’s hope not.”

“All right, then.” She found the twin keys to the padlock and pulled one of them off the ring. “You need a garage. I need some income—especially now, because I might have a hard time finding work around here.” She held up the key. “Let’s talk about the garage.”

“Yes.” He stared at the key the way a starving man might stare at a steak dinner, opened his mouth and shut it again, then nodded. “A hundred and fifty a month ought to be about right.”

“Three hundred,” she shot back.

He didn’t even blink. “Deal. Can I deliver the car tomorrow morning?”

“Any time.” She should have asked four hundred.

He reached into his hip pocket for his wallet and pulled out three hundreddollar bills—and his wallet was still fat. Now she wished she’d asked five.

“Do you need a receipt?” she asked.

“At some point, sure. I’m easy.”

They made the trade, the key for the cash. She stashed the money in the inside zipper pocket of her purse. He slid the key into his front pocket and returned his wallet to his hip pocket.

“All right,” he said. “And I invite you to check on my project anytime, so you can rest assured I’m not running a meth lab or any such thing.”

“I’m not worried about that.”

“I’m worried about a few things. Don’t let Mel get anywhere near your copy of the key.”

“That’s ridiculous. She’s sweet.”

“I never said she wasn’t sweet. Seriously, though, get home and make sure she isn’t helping herself to anything she could pawn.”