Strange Brew Part 21

"She won't stay home," I said. "And the thing with the black truck is for real. I saw it myself tonight, Bucky. It definitely had an FOP sticker on the window. I think these guys are connected to Jackson Poole. And to Wuvvy."

"How about the missing-and-murdered kids?" Bucky goaded me. "And the Olympic Park bombing? Maybe you can connect up all of this stuff, Garrity. Come down, look through my files, really give my clearance rate a boost."

"s.h.i.+t," Cheezer said, disgusted. "I'm outta here. This cop ain't no different from any other cop." He got up and stormed out of the diner.

Bucky looked immensely amused and pleased with himself as he watched Cheezer go.

"Seems like your boy's kinda thin-skinned," he commented. "Not to mention he's got a bad att.i.tude about law enforcement. Now, what was that you were telling me?" he asked, turning his attention back to me.

I considered following Cheezer out. Bucky loved to pull his macho cop c.r.a.p on anybody he thought it might impress. It didn't impress me.

"Wuvvy didn't kill Jackson Poole," I said flatly. "And she didn't kill herself either. I think whoever killed Poole made her death look like a suicide."

"Since you know so much, tell me whodunnit," he suggested. "I'm all ears."

"For starters, I think Poole deliberately forced Wuvvy out of YoYos. She was doing fine until about three months ago-coincidentally the same time Jackson Poole decided to open Blind Possum Brewing in Little Five Points.

"Poole was involved with Anna Frisch. Remember her? The brewmaster we met at the Blind Possum in Roswell? They were living together in his condo in Midtown." I felt it unnecessary to mention that Anna had hired me to find Poole's killer.

"It turns out that Poole and Anna had only a minority owners.h.i.+p interest in the Blind Possum. It's actually owned by TES, the big conglomerate."

"TES-they own a minor league baseball team in Memphis," Bucky said.

"Among other things," I said. "Jackson Poole was in charge of site selection. He came to Atlanta and decided on Roswell, and on Little Five Points. Anna says Poole thought L5P was the hot place to be. And the very hottest place in L5P just happened to be the shop owned by his stepmother."

Bucky reached in his jacket pocket and brought out a sheet of folded paper. "I almost forgot. Here's the crime stats you asked me for. The a.n.a.lyst said she charted it out for the past year. Wuvvy definitely had a crime wave going on, but she wasn't the only one in the neighborhood. A couple other places were hit hard, too. Take a look at the stats for Lolita's, for example. Somebody broke in and stole their cash register in June, then they had a fire in July. The place has been empty ever since. So it wasn't just Wuvvy. h.e.l.l, you're a crime stat yourself. You gonna blame that on Jackson Poole?"

"I'm gonna blame it on whoever killed Poole," I said. "Somebody doesn't want me rocking the boat. None of this stuff that's happened to us, the Peeping Tom or the mugger, is random, Bucky. It's somebody trying to shut me down, scare me off."

"You're too stupid to scare," Bucky said, chewing on a piece of toast.

"Suppose Poole did try to put Wuvvy out of business. Did Poole ever talk to his girlfriend about anything that had happened in Hawkinsville? About his father's murder? Did he ever talk about wanting revenge?"

"No," I said. "Anna says he was too busy working on opening the Blind Possum on time. He never talked about his childhood."

"Crazy," Bucky said. "His stepmother murders his father, and he just clams up about it all these years?"

"Something weird went on down there in Hawkinsville," I told Bucky. "n.o.body wants to talk about Broward Poole's murder. When Wuvvy finally confessed to killing her husband, she said it was in self-defense. Yet the rumor is that he beat her because he caught her with another man."

"Sounds right," Bucky said.

"Then who's the other man?" I asked. "n.o.body will say. It's a small town. I don't think that's the kind of secret people keep all these years. You remember that lawyer down there, Catherine Rhyne? The one who made Wuvvy's funeral arrangements?"

"Yeah," he said.

"She's the woman I saw at the Yacht Club the night Poole was killed," I said. "She was there, Bucky. And she admitted to me that she gave Wuvvy the money to try to pay her back rent. I think she's mixed up in this whole thing."

"Because she loaned money to an old friend?"

"There's more to it than that," I said, and I told him about Gail Samford's recollection that Kitty Rhyne had lobbied to have Wuvvy's prison sentence commuted.

"Somebody's hiding something," I said. "And I think those Rhyne women are involved somehow. They're a couple of operators. I think Poole knew something and tried to use it against them. And it got him killed. Then it got Wuvvy killed."

"Nothing you've told me connects up to anything else," Bucky said. "You think-you don't know. And what's this c.r.a.p about Wuvvy being murdered? It's a suicide and you know it."

"I don't know it," I said stubbornly. "I talked to the gas station attendant over at the PitStop. The one who sold Wuvvy the full tank of gas that night."

"So she could kill herself."

I shook my head violently. "So she could leave town, get away from the heat. She bought winds.h.i.+eld wiper blades and a sandwich. Does that sound like somebody who was planning to kill herself?"

"The attendant never told me about any food," Bucky said.

"You didn't ask, did you?"

He ate quietly. "Will you at least take a look at what I've come up with?" I begged. "Catherine Rhyne shares a law office with her mother down in Hawkinsville, but she's got an office in Atlanta, too. Come on, Bucky. At least look at whether or not she was in town when Wuvvy supposedly killed herself. I'd do it myself, but Catherine's a lawyer. She's smart. She knows she doesn't have to talk to some rinky-d.i.n.k private investigator."

He made no promises. We finished our food and chitchatted about nothing. His new girlfriend. My old boyfriend. Politics. We talked about the weather. There was a raw wind blowing and streaky white clouds were in constant motion in the ink-dark sky outside.

In time-honored Southern tradition, I asked about his mama and he asked about mine.

"I was gonna tell you before you and your buddy jumped all over me about this so-called cop in the black truck," Bucky said, trying to sound casual. "Kaczynski told me Edna ID'd the mugger. He's a dips.h.i.+t named Stahlgren. Josh Stahlgren. Only nineteen, but he's got a sheet. Burglary, auto theft, theft by taking. He did twenty months for the last car theft, then was released to his uncle. Supposed to be living with him and working on some tree-tr.i.m.m.i.n.g crew, but the uncle claims he hasn't seen the kid lately. The uncle lives in Kirkwood. On Hooper Street."

Only a couple miles from our house. "He's got Edna's gun now," I reminded Bucky. "Is he likely to use it?"

"He might," Bucky admitted. "There's a warrant out for him. Aggravated a.s.sault. He got in a beef with a guy in the parking lot at the Austin Avenue Lounge, bashed the guy's head in with a tire iron."

I winced involuntarily. The Austin Avenue Lounge was a blue-collar beer-and-shot joint on the fringes of our neighborhood. Josh Stahlgren was becoming a neighborhood menace.

"Kaczynski's looking for him," Bucky said, offering cold comfort. "And I've got him checking around to see if any Atlanta detectives own a black pickup with an FOP sticker."

29.

Monday morning's staff meeting, such as it was, had already started when I saw Cheezer's mail truck come lumbering up the driveway. It was windy and drizzly outside, but I threw on a raincoat and ran out to meet him.

"How's your mouth?" I asked.

He grinned. "Doesn't even hurt."

"I don't want you telling Edna what really happened last night," I told him hurriedly. "The cops know the guy's name. It's Josh Stahlgren. They know where he lives, so it's just a matter of time until they pick him up."

"What about St. Christopher?" he asked. "Aren't you going to give Edna back her medal?"

I took it out of my pocket and showed it to him. "See? The chain is broken. I'll have it fixed, then you can give it back to her as a surprise, after this whole thing settles down."

"If you say so," he said, ducking his head. I could tell he was disappointed. He'd been looking forward to regaling the girls with his tales of derring-do.

Edna and Ruby were looking over the day's schedule, trying to fit all Ruby's jobs in, when we went into the kitchen.

"Look who's here," Edna said, rolling her eyes at him. "Where did you get off to last night? You had us worried, young man."

"Sorry," Cheezer mumbled. "I saw a chick I know."

My sharp-eyed mother saw the gap in Cheezer's mouth immediately.

"Your tooth!" she exclaimed. "That must have been some chick. Did she knock that tooth out last night?"

Cheezer blushed. "No. Uh, that was her old boyfriend who did that. I guess he's the jealous type."

"I guess he is," Ruby said, patting Cheezer's hand. "And shame on him for ruining your pretty smile. Did you put the tooth in some milk? You know, they can make a tooth take root again if you keep it in a gla.s.s of milk until you get to the dentist's office."

"Not milk," Edna corrected her. "Alcohol. You're supposed to keep it in rubbing alcohol."

"Never mind," I said. If Ruby and Edna got started debating old wives' tales, we'd never get any work done. "We're covered up in work," I reminded them. "We've still got to make up for all the jobs we canceled because of the tornado, plus all the new business Edna's got us lined up with."

I heard a car door slam. A few moments later, Neva Jean, Baby, and Sister came bursting through the back door.

They were out of breath and drenched to the skin from the rain.

"Hey there," Neva Jean said, panting. "The girls wanted me to bring them by so they could pick up their paychecks."

I looked at Edna. Hadn't we just paid the girls last week?

Baby was fumbling with the snaps on her yellow vinyl slicker. "We are fixin' to get evacuated again," she said. "The police come to the high-rise this morning and tell everybody we got to get out 'cause the roof got a bad leak and might collapse and kill every last one of us. So we are fixin' to go to the hotel again tonight," she said, smacking her lips in antic.i.p.ation. "We just wanted to get us a little draw on our paycheck before we get home and pack our valises."

Sister had managed to get out of her raincoat, but she was tugging ineffectively at her gray rubber boots. Finally she plopped down on a kitchen chair, thrust her legs out in front of her, and said to me, "Take these off, please, Callahan."

I knelt down and slid the boots off. She wore another pair of shoes underneath, black Converse All-Stars, with thick red wool hunting socks pulled up over her k.n.o.bby knees.

"Ask Miss Baby what she's fixing to take to that hotel and strut herself around in," Sister said, flexing her feet.

Baby tossed her head and preened a little. "Can so get my b.u.t.t in it," she replied.

"In what?" I asked loudly.

"My new one-hundred-percent nylon, midnight-blue baby-doll pajamas," Baby said, flicking her fingers down her tiny stick-straight torso. "Size six, ain't that right, Neva Jean?"

Neva Jean blushed. "They were just sitting in my dresser drawer, Callahan. She said she wanted lingerie for Christmas. And Swannelle, he paid good money for 'em at Victoria's Secret. I never had the heart to tell him I ain't been size six since I was six."

"That's the kind of Christmas present Miss Negligee likes all right," Sister said, still scandalized. "Not writing paper or dusting powder or a nice box of handkerchiefs like a decent girl wants. Oh no. Miss Boudoir asks for lingerie."

"Whose fiancee?" Baby asked. "I never told that old man I'd get engaged to him. If he said that, he told a lie."

Edna went to the old metal bread box where we keep petty cash, got out two twenties, and handed one to each of the girls. "Y'all want to do some work before you check into Sin City?" she asked.

Between the two of us, we dealt out a full day's worth of jobs to everybody, including me and Edna, who insisted she was feeling strong as an ox, and that if she went along with Baby and Sister their many hands would make light work.

I had a couple of Edna's storm specials on my docket, but first, I pulled out the file I'd started on Virginia Lee Mincey, a.k.a. Wuvvy. Somebody was hiding some dirt somewhere, I knew, and if the cops wouldn't clean it up, then it was up to me. I owed it to Wuvvy to find out the truth.

I read over the crime statistics for Zone Six that Bucky had given me the night before. For months, it looked like, the area had been plagued with petty crimes: burglary, purse s.n.a.t.c.hings, theft by taking. Then, in April, when the weather had gotten warmer, the crime rate seemed to slack off a little. Except for a couple of exceptions in Little Five Points. YoYos, and the now defunct Lolita's. Every week, it seemed, there was an incident reported at 362 Euclid, the address for YoYos. It was no wonder Wuvvy hadn't been able to pay her bills. She'd been picked clean by thieves. Had Jackson Poole been behind Wuvvy's run of bad luck?

The phone rang. It was Anna Frisch. She was agitated, upset. It sounded like she was making an effort not to cry.

"I'm at the Blind Possum," she reported. "I went through the condo this morning, like you asked me to do." She sniffed. "Jackson loved beautiful clothes. He had so much! Expensive shoes, so many s.h.i.+rts. I don't know what to do with all of it."

"Give it to Goodwill," I said. "What about papers, letters, anything personal?"

She hesitated. "Oh, G.o.d. There's a checkbook. I found it in a s...o...b..x at the back of the closet."

"Was it his regular account?"

"We had separate accounts, but at the same bank, so I could deposit his check for him and do his banking because he was always so busy," Anna said. "I didn't know he had another account." Silence. "There's a balance of twenty-five thousand dollars. Where would Jackson get that kind of money? Why would he keep it in a checking account?"

I felt my pulse quicken. "And why would he hide it from you?"

She was crying again. "I don't understand any of this."

"It's hard," I said, trying to be sympathetic. "What else was with the checkbook? Were there any statements or canceled checks?"

"A computerized statement," Anna said. "Deposits and withdrawals. Not that many. Two deposits of ten thousand, another for five thousand, between September 15 and October 15. And there's a withdrawal, for five thousand, on October 15."

"No canceled checks or other statements?" I asked. "You're sure? You looked everywhere?"

"There's nothing else," Anna said. "I swear. My G.o.d, what was he doing with all that money?"

"Blackmail," I said softly. "Somebody was paying Jackson to keep their secrets."

"Wuvvy?" she asked wildly. "Where would she get that kind of money? And why? I don't understand any of this."

"I don't think it was Wuvvy," I told Anna. "I think it was somebody else down in Hawkinsville. Somebody who knew the truth about who killed Broward Poole. But the five-thousand-dollar withdrawal is kind of odd. Unless he was paying off somebody himself."

Somebody, I thought, like the thieves who'd driven Wuvvy out of business. Somebody like Josh Stahlgren and the cop in the black pickup truck.

Anna sniffed and cried a little bit more.

"I'm sorry," she said finally. "You think I'm a jerk because I knew so little about somebody I was supposed to be in love with. But you don't understand the restaurant business. There's so much money on the line. The compet.i.tion is unbelievable. Only one out of every five restaurants that opens stays in business past its first year. Everybody's out to screw everybody else. Brewmasters steal each other's recipes, restaurants hire each other's chefs away, the vendors demand kickbacks. You have to be tough to survive. Jackson knew that. He was good at what he did."

So she realized her lover's ethics were somewhat elastic. "Would Jackson pay bribe money?" I asked. "Do you think he was capable of blackmail?"

It was a question she wasn't ready to deal with yet. She knew the truth about Jackson Poole, but it would be a while before she'd be able to speak it.

"You didn't know him. He could be wonderful sometimes. So funny. He was a great mimic. We loved to cook together, just the two of us, on our nights off. Jackson had a horrendous childhood. I know that now. It explains so much. I don't think he trusted people. He didn't like having a lot of people around him."