Serendipity (Southern Comfort) (24 page)

“Even the best of us can be caught unawares.”

“Tell me about it.” As the last of his students faded out the door, Jordan tossed the towel toward his duffel.  “I’m assuming you didn’t stop by because you wanted to watch me get poked in the eye.”

“Well, that was a nice bonus, but no.  We found Leslie Fitzsimmons’ cell phone.”

The words, the tone, struck Jordan like another kick.  Found her phone, but not Leslie.  “Maybe you’d better explain.”

Coleman stepped into the room, and Jordan scanned the hall before closing the door. A couple of the women tended to linger, and this wasn’t a conversation he cared to be overheard.    He’d been honest about his own assault, using it as a – rather humbling – touchstone for that night’s class, but saw no need for them to be privy to the gritty details.

“Ms. Fitzsimmons’ mother has been adamant that her daughter wouldn’t just take off without a word, and certainly wouldn’t, and here I quote, ‘allow some fool of a man to cause her to lose all sense.’”

“She never liked me.  The old witch.”

Chip’s grin was wry.  “I think that’s more of a gender thing than a specific comment on your lack of attributes.  But anyway, because she doesn’t have to worry about little niceties like probable cause and convincing a judge to sign a warrant, she hired a company to track the GPS chip in her daughter’s phone.  Turns out it’s in some house out on Tybee, so once again ignoring the finer points of the law, she drives out there and bangs on the door.  A teenaged boy answers, accusations fly, the kid’s mother calls the police, and what comes out is that he does indeed have the phone.  Claims he found it behind a dumpster on River Street.”

Because a nasty sort of bile wanted to rise in his throat, Jordan grabbed his water. “I’m assuming you checked her call record.”

“Oh yeah.”  Chip’s Mayberry face went grim. “Filter out the calls that the kid copped to, and it showed nothing outgoing between seven p.m. on the night in question and around one-thirty a.m., when our boy says he picked it up.  But when one of the tech guys brought up the phone’s internal call log, he discovered an aborted 911 originating from her cell in between the time of her last call and the time the kid started calling his friends.  The numbers were punched, but never sent.”

“Because someone got to her before she could.”  Jordan scrubbed both hands over his face, swore viciously as he pieced the timeline together.  “Leslie witnessed my assault.”    

“Speculation.”  Chip rattled his change again.  “But yeah, that’s what I’m thinking at this point.  You two argue, you exit through the stairwell toward your car. She waits maybe a minute or two before she decides to follow, get in one last word, and stumbles upon something she shouldn’t.  Like you getting your head cracked open.” 

“Hell.”  Feeling the weight of the uncharitable feelings he’d suffered toward Leslie that week, Jordan sank onto one of the plastic chairs lining the wall.  Shock started to fill the space in his bones worn hollow from fatigue.

“On another happy note, Mrs. Fitzsimmons has demanded we look at you as a prime suspect in her daughter’s disappearance.”

If he wasn’t so sick at heart Jordan might have laughed.  “So I fabricated my assault, complete with concussion, to cover up the fact that I’d, what, killed Leslie to get her off my back?”

“Grief and worry don’t leave much room for reason.”

The detective had no idea how true that was.  “Why spare me?” Jordan wondered aloud.  “Why drop me off in front of the emergency room, for God’s sake, and not Leslie.  Unless… hell, what if Leslie was the target?  But if that were the case, why not just leave me where I fell? What –”

“Jordan.  We’re pursuing all those avenues.” 

“I know.  And I know that you know how to do your job.  The, uh, list of license plates I gave you…”

“We’re checking them out.  And checking traffic cameras for the area near the hotel, see if we can place a car matching that description in the vicinity any time that night.”

“She’s dead, isn’t she, Chip?”

“We don’t have enough evidence to treat this as a homicide as of yet, but… okay, okay.”  Coleman held up his hands when Jordan’s eyes went to slits.  “My personal opinion?  Yeah.  The lady’s probably done.  I’m sorry, Jordan.  I know this isn’t how you hoped this would shake out.”

AVA’S landlord stood on the porch under a circle of buttery light when Jordan pulled to the curb. The air had gone soft with twilight, but her white smock shone with smudges and bursts of color, like a toddler’s finger painting gone awry.  As he watched, she stabbed her brush toward an enormous canvas with the aggressive grace of a veteran fencer.

Then dunked the brush in what looked like iced tea.

When Jordan rolled down the window, Finn let out a greeting bark.

“Well, well.”  She looked up with a grin.  “Look what the canine dragged in. Hello, lover.  You come to pay me a visit?”

Jordan dug deep and came up with a smile.  “You know I’m only using Ava to get to you.”

Lou Ellen laughed, delighted.

“Finn, stay.”  Ignoring the dog’s pitiful whine, Jordan grabbed his peace offering off the back seat.  “And since she’s not answering her phone and her car’s not in the drive,” he said as he climbed the brick steps to the porch “I’m deducing that she’s not around, leaving me free to have my wicked way with you.” 

“Seems you’re as clever as you are good lookin’.  She’s gone out of town for the night.”

That stopped Jordan in his tracks.  “Where?”

A moth danced in front of the spotlight she’d set up, and Lou Ellen batted it away.  “I’m afraid that’s for Ava to share, darlin’.”

Recognizing a rock solid wall of loyalty when he hit it, Jordan glanced toward the carriage house.  Its windows were dark, shuttered eyes that refused to look his way.

He’d sat outside for hours last night, and someone had broken in after he’d left.

He wondered if they’d seen him, and waited.

Not knowing what he was up against burned his ass. 

“In case you’re wondering about the window, I had it replaced today.”

Having nearly forgotten the older woman’s presence, Jordan drummed up another smile.  But it fell flat after the first beat.  “I could stand here, shoot the breeze, and pretend there’s not an elephant sitting right on this porch between us, but I’m too tired for cajoling.  Who’s messing with her, Lou Ellen?”

To his surprise, she reached over the easel and patted his cheek.  “I knew you weren’t a pansy-ass.”  And before he could even begin to figure out how to respond, she picked up the glass, brush and all, and drank.  “And look at you, too well
-
mannered to gawk at me like I’m crazy.  I might be.”  She lifted the glass high. “But it speaks to your breeding that you didn’t point it out.  And just to calm your mind, I decided to paint with alcohol tonight, instead of the confounding contents of these tubes and jars.”  She gestured toward the paints scattered like discarded toys at her feet.  “It makes the whole process more appealing.”

“Lou Ellen –”

“Don’t interrupt, lest I’m forced to retract my good opinion.  You’re not a
pansy-ass,” she continued, green
eyes clearer than they should be.  “And while I would sincerely love to be more forthcoming in regards to your question, I can only repeat, that’s for Ava.  But have a care how you handle her, darlin’.  She’s got a hard-ass shell, but inside, she’s bruised.  And her heart?  It’s gold.  So you remember that, and this: things aren’t always what they seem.”

Feeling like he’d just been battered by a velvet-gloved fist, Jordan could only stare.  “It’s nice,” he finally said “to hear what you didn’t say.  You love her.”

“Like my own,” she agreed.  “Now, are you going to explain why you’re carrying that big ole’ stuffed whatever?”

“It’s Donkey.”  He turned the animal around.  “You know, from Shrek?  Cute and lovable, despite the fact that he’s an ass.”

“Oh.”  She pressed a hand to her heart, then bent over and simply laughed.  “Oh.  That does it.  Aren’t you just the sweetest thing.”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure Ava doesn’t think so right about now.  I was frustrated with her this morning.  I had a right to be,” he said darkly “but probably could have handled it a little better.  Not everyone’s drawers are open.  And wow, that didn’t come out right.” 

Jordan shook his head as Lou Ellen broke up.  “Since exhaustion has robbed me of the ability not to sound like an idiot, I’m going to bid you goodnight.  Is it okay if I leave this here?  Maybe you could sit it on Ava’s doorstep, or whatever?”

“Darlin’, I’d be happy to give Ava your ass.”

“Saved by the bell,” Jordan said as Finn started to howl.  “I’m not even going to attempt a response.  Thanks, Lou Ellen.”      

“Oh, child.  It’s my pleasure.”

BECAUSE guilt and anxiety had tangled to form a nasty ball in his stomach, Jordan found himself driving toward his parents’ house.  And wondered that no matter how old a person got to be, when they were sick, were hurting, there was an almost primal yearning for home. 

Turning Finn loose in the backyard, where he immediately streaked toward a squirrel that muttered irritably from a loblolly pine, Jordan let himself in through the back door.  The heady scent of something baking – brownies.  Hot damn. – made him doubly glad he’d stopped by.  The smell, the sound of his mother humming in the kitchen brought childhood back in a flash of sensory memory.  Here was continuity, and comfort.

The tangle in his stomach eased.

“Something sure smells good.”

His mother, her blonde hair tied back in a red ribbon, beamed a smile as he dropped a kiss on her head. “Baby boy. What a nice surprise.”  And in an echo of Lou Ellen’s gesture, Addison patted his cheek.  But when he reached for one of the brownies arranged neatly on the plate, she deftly swatted his hand.

“Oh no, you don’t.  These are for a party tomorrow at Grace’s preschool.”

Jordan eyed the plate with avarice.  Chocolate and caramel and fat.  Oral gratification in a three-inch square.  “There have to be two dozen brownies on that plate.  Surely they won’t miss just one.”

Addison bumped him with her hip when he edged closer to the plate.  “There are two and a half dozen, precisely, which is one for every child.   And just in case you have any notion about cutting a couple in half so that I won’t know one’s missing, I’ll just warn you that your father has already tried that particular trick.  He paid for that by watching me eat the last of the Thin Mints he’d hidden.  Imagine my surprise and delight to discover them in a package of whole wheat Triscuits.”  She blinked her big blue eyes.

Jordan leaned against the counter with a mock frown.  “You’re a cruel-hearted woman, Addison Wellington.”

She licked chocolate from her finger, secured plastic wrap over the flute-edged plate.  “Flattery isn’t going to score you a brownie.  And if you’re looking for your father, he’s in the study crying in his coffee while he does Justin’s taxes.  The boy’s so overworked in that ER he didn’t even realize it was April until we reminded him to come home for Easter.  So your father’s trying to make sense of Justin’s dubious record keeping and illegible scrawl.  I guess that’s one physician stereotype he managed to succumb to.”

“Well, he’s not quite thirty.  Give him a little time and I’m sure he’ll develop an enormous ego and an eighteen handicap.  Peddle some prescription drugs on the side.  Probably find himself in a shaky marriage, start knocking down nurses like bowling pins.”

His mother’s fingers stilled on the plastic.

“Need I remind you, Jordan Nathaniel, you might be past thirty yourself, but you’re never too old for a good swat.” 

“You wouldn’t let me have a brownie,” he grumbled.  But when her eyes flashed, he pulled away from the counter.  “Okay, okay.  I’ll just go see Dad, since I’m not feeling the love in here.” 

He was almost to the door when his mother called him. 

“Guilt won’t get you a brownie, either.  But you’re my baby, and there’s something more than fatigue in your eyes tonight.”  She pulled a single brownie from behind the toaster.  “Here. I have my secret stashes, too.”

“You’re the best mom ever,” Jordan smiled as he bit in, then strolled over to pull her into a hug.  “Seriously, Mama.  You set the standard.”

“I lied.”  And she sniffled.  “Flattery will get you everywhere.  Go on now.  And be sure to leave a few crumbs to torment your father.”

Jordan found his father, bleary-eyed behind his glasses, holed up at his massive walnut desk. 

And like coming upon his mother baking in the kitchen, found comfort in the familiar scene.  How many times as a kid had he come in here, whether in excitement or shame, to talk things over with his father?  To be praised, or scolded, in turn?  To simply shoot the breeze?

Too many to remember.

Jordan stood in the hall and studied the room, in so many ways the typical southern gentleman’s office. Richly paneled wood, window and floor coveri
ngs in shades of navy and
green.  Masculine paintings of shrimp boats adorning the walls.  Heavy leather furniture.

And there, mixed in with the law books that had helped steer both he and Jack into their father’s profession, a child’s unskilled drawing, dozens of family photos.  The baseball that Jordan had caught at his first Braves game.  A clay pot – James’ work, if he wasn’t mistaken – that would leak like a sieve if it ever held water.  Five bronzed pairs of baby shoes.