To Live and Die In Dixie (23 page)

F
RIDAY MORNING I WAS UP and out early. We'd been asked to bid on the cleaning of four model homes in a new subdivision in Gwinnett County. The job would be a piece of cake; some mopping, a little vacuuming, our girls could take care of it in thirty minutes a week.

When I got home, Jocelyn was in the den, poring over a Georgia State University catalog I'd sent away for. I'd been toying with the idea of going to law school. The only flaw in my plan was that I didn't much like lawyers, and didn't really want to practice law. I just wanted to know what lawyers know, to get the upper hand.

She put the catalog down hastily when I walked in.

“Any calls?”

“A couple of your cleaning clients called. I left their names and numbers on the notepad in the kitchen.”

“No word from Hunsecker?”

“Nope. I've got my car taken care of. They're going to tow it to the garage my dad always uses.”

“Good. Did you have some breakfast?”

“Cereal and orange juice,” she said proudly. “No
Correctol. I ran too, but only a mile or so. I got kind of nervous that I might see that gray car again.”

In the kitchen, I stared at the phone, willing it to ring. To distract myself, I fixed a ham sandwich. And ate it standing up, staring at the phone.

When I turned around I saw Jocelyn standing in the kitchen doorway. I recognized the faded T-shirt and cut-offs she wore. They were mine from the days when I could still squeeze into a size eight. They were miles too big for Jocelyn, of course.

“I'm going bonkers just sitting around your house,” she complained. “Can't we do something?”

“Like what?” I asked. “Hunsecker already threatened to throw my butt in jail if I don't keep out of his case.”

“I don't know,” she admitted. “How about going back to Coach J's? They won't recognize your van.”

I shook my head. “No way. They know somebody's been watching their house. Besides, we haven't gotten one damn thing out of all your surveillance.”

She walked over and nibbled at a potato chip on my plate. “What about my finding out that Mrs. Jordan is screwing Zak Crawford? That's something, isn't it?”

I thought about it for a while. “Might be.”

“Maybe it was Zak Crawford,” she said.

I smiled indulgently. “Why would he kill your sister? Did they even know each other?”

“They both played soccer. Coach J could have paid him to kill her,” she suggested. “He thought Bridget was pregnant. He knew it would wreck his marriage. So he killed her, or he had her killed, and made it look like a burglary.”

“Maybe.” I wasn't convinced.

I gave Hunsecker another call. I was already regretting tipping my hand to Dahlberg. No telling what he might do now. “He came in and got his messages and
left again,” the secretary said. “He told me if you called, to tell you he's in a meeting all day with the district attorney.”

“Please just have him call me,” I said, and hung up.

“Well?” Jocelyn said, expectantly.

“I'm thinking,” I told her. “Do you know where Zak Crawford lives?”

She picked up the phone book and flipped it open to the C listings. “All the kids at All Saints have their own phones,” she said, running her finger down to the end of the page of listings for Crawfords, all the way down to the Zs.

There was no one home. “Did you say he works somewhere?” I asked.

“I think he does lawn maintenance at the apartment complex where they live,” she said.

This was not good news. We wouldn't want Zak coming home for cookies and milk while we were tossing his apartment. While Jocelyn was writing down the address, and calling to see if anyone was home, I went into the supply closet and got us two fresh, pink smocks. I tossed one to her. “This is totally against my better judgment,” I said. “Put it on.”

“Gross,” she said, holding the smock with her fingertips, as though it carried a contagious tacky germ. “I'll look like a stick of bubblegum in this.”

“Stay home,” I said casually. “I'll go by myself.”

She buttoned the smock and handed me a piece of paper with the address.

 

We drove every street, every cul-de-sac in the Willoughby Woods apartment complex, looking for the rusted out green Vega, or signs of ongoing lawn care. But the complex was quiet, parking spaces mostly
empty. Not a creature was stirring except for the House Mouse.

The rental office was beside the community club, which was beside the pool and tennis courts and the weight room.

I tied a bandanna around my head and got out of the van. “Are you sure they'll buy this?” Jocelyn asked dubiously.

“If they don't, they don't,” I said. “What are they going to do, arrest me for impersonating a cleaning lady? Besides, you said Zak's father travels a lot. He's probably out of town right now. And Zak doesn't seem to be around either.”

The rental agent on duty wasn't much older than Jocelyn. She had blond hair, swept back in a severe knot at the nape of her neck, and Kewpie doll lips. Her eyes swept over my charwoman ensemble: pink smock, white slacks, orthopedic shoes, and a stupid, self-effacing smile.

“Uh, I'm Julia Kidd from the maid service,” I said, humbly. “Mr. Crawford was supposed to leave the key to his apartment. Is this the rental office?”

She squared her shoulders, pulling a small index file box from the edge of the desk. “Let me check,” she said. She leafed through the cards, frowned, then did it again.

“You must have the wrong complex,” she said, rewarding me with a sympathetic smile. “There are several other large complexes along Chamblee-Dunwoody. Try Winston Woods or Verdant Valley, why don't you?”

“No, ma'am,” I insisted. “My work order says Mr. Alex Crawford's apartment, Willoughby Woods, building 300, unit D. He ordered our Neat as a Pin special, the $49.99 one where you get the complimentary pine potpourri bathroom freshener.”

She shook her head and showed me the file box and the C section. “I know Mr. Crawford, his son Zak works for us. But you can see, he didn't leave you a key.”

“Uh oh,” I said woodenly. “He paid in advance, and I'll catch holy you-know-what if it's not done when he gets back.”

She gave my plight some thought, then got up and walked into an inner room. I heard her unlocking, then opening a cabinet, then heard the musical jingle of many keys. She came back and pressed one into the palm of my hand. “Bring it right back when you're done,” she said sternly, “or I'll be the one to catch holy you-know-what.”

I decided to press my luck. “Is Mr. Crawford's son home today? I wouldn't want to disturb him or anything.”

“Don't worry,” she said. “He's edging and trimming today at Mountain Manor, our property in Stone Mountain.”

“Thanks,” I said fervently. “You saved my fanny.”

We parked the van in an unobtrusive spot by the building next to the Crawfords' just in case.

Alex Crawford obviously spent a lot of time on the road and very little at home. Unit D had a stale, musty bouquet, with undertones of sweaty gym socks. In the living room, mini-blinds covered the windows and the sliding glass door that lead to a small balcony. The furniture was serviceable brown plaid; the kind men rent when they're outfitting their first post-divorce apartment. A large smoked glass coffee table wore a thin veneer of dust and a stack of unopened mail.

Jocelyn stood in the entryway and gaped. “I've never broken into a place before,” she whispered. “What happens if somebody comes home?”

I walked over to the sliding glass doors and unlocked them. “We're on the ground floor here. If you hear somebody coming, run out here, hop over the balcony railing and make yourself scarce. I'll be right behind you. But don't worry, we're not staying long.”

The galley-style kitchen was a mess; overflowing trash can, the sink full of dirty dishes. A long hallway lead toward the back of the apartment.

The father's bedroom was neat and impersonal, the bed made, closet arranged just so. We gave it a cursory glance.

Zak's bedroom had that cruddy, lived-in look. One whole wall was a collage of
Playboy
pin-ups. The other sported heavy metal rock concert posters with images of screaming rockers, death heads, writhing serpents, and the like. A compact disc player was hooked up to a pair of speakers that looked like they could blow the walls down.

The waterbed had no sheets, only a wadded up blanket. The floor was littered with clothes, CDs, shoes, and empty beer cans. More clothes spewed from open dresser drawers.

“Geez,” Jocelyn said. “My mom would kill me if my room looked like this. Where do we start? And what are we looking for?”

“Just look,” I said, lifting the clothes in each drawer. “We'll know when we find it.”

We found a small plastic bag of moldy-smelling marijuana tucked on the floor under the dresser, and approximately nine pairs of filthy blue jeans scattered around the room. Everything else seemed pretty routine.

“Look, Callahan,” Jocelyn said, finally. She'd unearthed a footlocker from a mound of dirty clothes in one corner of the room. “It's locked,” she said.

“Not for long.” Most cheap footlockers have locks a
baby could open. I myself perfected the art in my college dorm, so that I could borrow my roommate's clothes.

That locker was the only orderly object in Zak's room. He'd arranged things in stratas. The top layer consisted of carefully folded woolen sweaters. The middle layer was made up of old soccer jerseys, baseball caps, team photos, and other mementos of the sporting life. The good stuff was on the bottom. It always is.

“Oh my God,” Jocelyn said, as the bottom layer was unearthed. She reached out a hand to touch, but I slapped it back.

“That's the Civil War revolver taken from Littlefield's house,” I said. “It's evidence in your sister's murder.” I looked around and found a T-shirt on the floor nearby. Gingerly, I picked up the revolver and lifted it out of the trunk. Then I picked up the cavalry officer's saber and the carbine longarm and laid them beside the revolver. The only thing left was a package wrapped in pink silk.

“Get me the rubber gloves out of my cleaning caddy,” I told Jocelyn. I pawed through the sweaters and the soccer jerseys one more time to be sure, but I was fairly certain Lula Belle Bird's diary wasn't there.

With the gloves on, I unfolded the pink silk, which turned out to be a lace-edged Frederick's of Hollywood teddy. Inside was a framed photograph of Lissa Jordan, in a considerably more risqué pose than the boudoir shot she'd presented her husband, half-wearing what looked like the same teddy that the photo was wrapped in. There was a small stack of letters too, five in all, written in a childish handwriting on cheap pink stationery.

Lissa Jordan should have spent more time in English class and less time in cheerleading. The spelling was
egregious, the grammar abominable, the contents chilling. The gist of her correspondence with Zak was concerned with her growing desire for his taut (spelled tot), hot body, and for her desire to gain revenge on Kyle, to make him sorry that he'd ever screwed around on her with that scheming little bitch Bridget.

Jocelyn's lips pressed together firmly, but she kept reading.

Kyle Jordan apparently hadn't been nearly as clever with his affair as he'd thought. Lissa Jordan had followed him twice to his assignations with Bridget, once at her parents' home, on a schoolday when both were playing hooky, another time at a Motel Six just off I-75.

She'd stalked Bridget too, her three little kiddies tucked in car seats in the back of the Camaro. She'd followed her from Eagle's Keep to Little Five Points, to Sevananda, to the neighborhood pizza joint. “Tonight I nearly made roadkill out of the bitch,” she wrote. “I'd have done it too, but I was afraid it might screw up the paint job on the Camaro, and piss Kyle off.”

Another night, Lissa had followed Bridget into a multiplex cinema at the mall, sitting behind her during a midnight showing of
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
, fantasizing about stabbing her rival, there in the dark.

The last note seemed to be a pep talk of sorts. “We will be strong and silent for each other,” she told him. “For Megan, Jessie, and Trevor, we will do what must be done.

“Remember what the Led said,” she urged. “If you listen hard, the truth will come to you.”

I recognized Lissa's scrambled version of “Stairway to Heaven” immediately, and so, apparently, did Jocelyn, who was reading over my shoulder.

“What a moron,” she said, pointing to Lissa's next verse:

“If there's a butthole in your hedgehog, don't be alarmed now; it's just a sprinkling for the May Queen.”

“How do you know the words to ‘Stairway to Heaven'?” I asked.

“I listen to the oldies station,” she said. “Besides, it's sort of like a classic, you know?”

“I know,” I said. “I just didn't think someone like Lissa Jordan and Zak Crawford would know anything about Led Zeppelin.”

“They killed Bridget,” she said, her face pale, serious. “Why?”

Carefully, I wrapped the letters back in their pink silk envelope. “Reading between the lines, I'd say it looks like Lissa was obsessed with keeping Kyle. She thought Bridget was a real threat to the family. She probably seduced Zak just to get him to help her kill Bridget.”

Jocelyn stood up slowly, and stretched. She was dry-eyed. “I'll get a bag to put this stuff in.”

“No. We leave it here.”

“What if Zak finds out we were here? He'll burn the letters and get rid of the guns and stuff. We'll never be able to prove they did it.”

“We leave it here,” I repeated. “We entered this apartment illegally, without a warrant. I'm talking breaking and entering, Jocelyn. None of this stuff would be admissable as evidence during a trial, because we found it by breaking in. The cops have to find it, and they have to get a judge to give them a search warrant to look for it first. That's how the law works.”