A Slaying in Savannah (19 page)

But why would he have any reason to put me in danger?
I asked myself.
What motive could he possibly have? He was flirting with me last night. He wanted to kiss me. Didn’t that indicate that he had some kindly feelings toward me? Could I have misjudged him so badly?

“Jessica, did you hit your head when you fell? You seem a little disoriented.”

His voice was filled with concern, and I felt ashamed that I had doubted his account of how he’d found me. “It’s the pain,” I said, grimacing. My knee was throbbing.

“You must have reinjured the joint when you fell. Would you like me to take a look at it?”

“Certainly not here,” I said, forcing a smile.

“What were you doing standing with the spectators anyway?” he scolded. “Rollie told me he offered you a perfect view of the parade from a comfortable chair in his office.”

“He did,” I said, thinking that if I’d wanted to watch the parade, sitting in front of the picture window in Attorney Richardson’s office was certainly preferable to fighting for a space on the parade route along with thousands of others. I explained that I’d considered walking all the way around the parade, but it was too far, and that I was simply trying to find an opportunity to cross the street. “I have an appointment at the City Market.” I looked at my watch. “I’m afraid I’m going to be late.”

“There is such a thing as taxicabs in this town,” he said gently. “And with your bad knee, that would have been a wise decision.”

“I’m embarrassed to say it didn’t occur to me,” I said.

“If you’re okay walking, I’ll show you how to get across Abercorn now.”

“I’ll be in your debt,” I said, gingerly placing my weight on the injured knee.

Warner hailed one of the vendors, peeled off a few bills from a roll in his pocket, and shortly presented me with a beautiful shillelagh. I would have rejected a cane, but the gnarled stick was right in keeping with the festivities, and I gratefully leaned on it. Warner waited until a group of marchers bearing a banner from the Shenanigans Society came in sight. When they drew abreast of us, he stepped into the parade with me on his arm. Nodding and smiling at other marchers, he maneuvered so that we took an angled path starting from one side of Abercorn, arriving a block later at the other. At the next intersection, he waved to his colleagues and deftly guided me out of the parade, past a police barrier, and onto the street heading west.

“Now why didn’t I think of that?” I said. “I was worried the police would give me a ticket if I tried to cross.”

“And they would have,” he said. “The trick is to look as if you’re one of the marchers and leave the parade the way you would a bus when you reach your destination.”

I laughed. “You’re a devious fellow.”

“I’ve been called worse,” he said.

We found a hotel on the next corner, arriving just as a cabbie pulled up to deposit his passenger. Warner held the door for me and gave the driver my destination. “Put up your foot when you get back to the house and have Mrs. Goodall give you an ice pack. It should help.”

“I will,” I said, and thanked him.

“And please call me if you need anything for the pain.” He blew me a kiss as the cab pulled away from the curb.

I sat back against the leather upholstery and ran my hand over the knobby wood of the shillelagh. A line from a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta floated into my mind. “Things are seldom what they seem. Skimmed milk masquerades as cream.” I hummed the refrain. “Very true, so they do.”

Chapter Fifteen

The African American driver wore a green straw hat. He dropped me in front of the City Market and wished me a good day, which I returned. The famed historic market once was just that, a place to which, more than two centuries ago, farmers and fishermen hauled their produce and brought in the day’s catch to sell to the city’s residents. At the time, the market was the commercial and social center of life in eighteenth-century Savannah. Today, the popular destination draws tourists and natives alike to the art galleries, boutiques, and restaurants that crowd either side of a pedestrian walkway. I walked with difficulty down the center of the market, leaning on the shillelagh Warner Payne had given me and trying not to trip over all the youngsters around me. A Dixieland band was playing down the street and several children were dancing, their parents clapping hands in time to the music. Other children licked big green puffs of cotton candy. Still others chased each other around the easels set up outside by artists who were making charcoal sketches or pastel portraits of Saint Patrick’s Day visitors.

I’d visited the market on previous trips to Savannah but had never eaten at the café. A long line snaked out the door into the public space. I limped around the waiting diners and pressed my way into the restaurant. The young man greeting me looked at his watch and said, “It’ll be about forty-five minutes till I can seat you. Want me to put you down for lunch for one?”

“No, I’m meeting some people,” I said. “I believe Mr. Jones made a reservation.”

He consulted his reservation list. “Your party is already here.”

Joseph Jones, Wanamaker Jones’s nephew, was at one of the tables in the lovely outdoor section framed by a green hedge. Sitting with him was an elderly couple who, I presumed, were his parents. The alfresco location was the perfect place to watch the city’s enthusiasm for its Irish heritage played out in the costumes and makeup of the people who’d dressed up for the occasion. Those who had chosen not to brave the throngs along the parade route still gave a nod to the holiday by wearing something to indicate they were in tune with the festivities. But I was more interested in what Joseph Jones’s parents had to say than in the expressions of Hibernian allegiance that Savannah had on display. Fortunately, although there was much animated conversation around me, it was easy to hear Joseph Jones, who stood as I approached on my game leg and extended his hand. “So glad you could make it,” he said, “but what happened to you?”

I took a seat and forced a laugh. “Wrong place at the wrong time,” I said.

He introduced me to his mother and father, John and Mabel Jones. John was of medium height and trim in build, a handsome man who was not without a measure of vanity—the orange tint in his curls was probably a result of hair dye. His angular face was pleasant, his smile quick and natural. His green eyes belonged to a man who missed little. His wife, Mabel, appeared to me to be a high-energy woman—not unlike myself—and as lunch progressed, her mentions of the activities in which she was involved confirmed it.

“Your brother had an unusual name,” I said to the father.

He grinned. “Yeah, but Wanamaker wasn’t his given name.”

“So I understand,” I said.I turned to Joseph, who hadn’t said anything after the introductions. “Are you named for your uncle? I understand his real name was Joseph.”

His mother answered. “That’s right. We named him after John’s brother, although I admit I wasn’t for it.”

Her husband laughed as he said, “She and my brother, Joe, didn’t always get along. He was sort of a wild type, always getting into some scrape or other.”

“Fights?” I asked.

“No. Joe was a lover, not a fighter, as the saying goes. But he often seemed to get involved with the wrong type—gamblers, con men, people like that. Still, he could usually charm his way out of trouble. There weren’t too many times I had to bail him out of a mess.”

Mabel raised her eyes and slowly shook her head.

“How did he come up with the name Wanamaker?” I asked.

John shrugged. “It was memorable, and different enough to please him, I suppose. He always needed to be different from other people.”

“That was important to him?” I asked. “Being different from others?”

“Oh, yes,” John Jones said. “Joe could never stand conformity or routine. That’s why he left home when he did and lived his way.”

“What way was that?” I asked.

The answer was interrupted by a waitress seeking our order. We quickly took up our menus and scanned the list of dishes offered. Joseph opted for the New Orleans-style fried oyster poor boy, and we all fell in line except for Mabel, who preferred a grilled cheese sandwich with artichoke hearts. John ordered a beer; the rest of us chose Hank’s Philadelphia Root Beer.

“You were saying, Jessica?” Mabel said.

“I was asking how Wanamaker Jones lived his life. You see, I’m here in Savannah to—”

“Oh, we know why you’re here, dear,” she said. “It was in the papers.”

“And Joseph has told us all about it, too,” John said. He snorted. “That Miss Tillie was some character. Doesn’t surprise me at all that she included something like this in her will.”

Joseph said, “She must’ve been a good match for Uncle Joe, or rather Uncle Wanamaker, although I don’t think of him with that name.”

“Because they were both different?” I asked.

He nodded. “I liked his style. I was only a little kid when he died, but I remember hearing the stories about his adventures. He’d come to visit driving the biggest car in the world, always sharply dressed, and loaded with gifts.” He turned to his mother. “Remember, Mom?”

“I certainly do. He did have style. I’ll give him that.”

Our lunch was served and our conversation was put on hold as eating took center stage. The poor boy was delicious, a spicy Creole mayonnaise adding zest to the sandwich.

“Where were you and your brother brought up?” I asked John.

“We bounced around a little. Our dad was in the oil business, a pipeline worker, so we moved to where the jobs were. We were living in Oklahoma when Joe left home. He was eighteen.”

“And did you leave, too?”

“I was more of a homebody. I got a scholarship to a little college in Tulsa and put in four years there, graduated with a degree in business. I’ve been sort of a glorified bookkeeper ever since.”

His wife scolded him. “Don’t say that, John. You’ve done very well.”

“My biggest fan,” he said, patting her hand on the table.

“As it should be,” I said. My knee ached, and I quietly rubbed my fingertips over it beneath the table.

“Here we are talking about ourselves,” Mabel said, “and you’re a famous writer. We should be listening to you.”

“Actually,” I said, “I wanted to meet you because you knew the true Wanamaker Jones. I need your help. I’m determined to carry out Tillie Mortelaine’s wishes in her will and find out who killed your brother-in-law, Mabel.”

She fiddled with the food on her plate, then raised her eyes to mine. “We’d all like that to happen, too,” she said, her voice soft. “A murder. It’s such a lowering thing. Joe could be irresponsible—lots of times he disappointed us. He was always broke, couldn’t hold on to a penny for more than a few minutes, but when he had money, he was the most generous man around. I can’t see why someone would want to kill him.”

Her husband laughed. “You wanted to kill him plenty of times yourself,” he said.

“Did you know Tillie Mortelaine?” I asked.

“Not at the time,” John replied. “We didn’t even know Joe was in Savannah until we learned that he’d been shot. Last time he’d gotten in touch with us, he’d been up in New England, romancing some lady in Newport, Rhode Island.”

“What happened with that relationship?” I asked.

He shrugged. “He never told us, but my guess is she got wise to him. She was older than Joe, a
lot
older.”

His wife’s expression turned stern.

“I know what Mabel’s thinking, and she’s right,” her husband said. “Joe liked older women with money, lots of money. He studied them, knew what they liked. He could be whatever was needed at the moment, a good dancer, poker and croquet player. He was a lot more sophisticated than me.” He winked at his wife, who sighed.

“John’s always putting himself down,” she said, “but he has what Joe never had. Integrity. And that stands for a lot more than being good at golf or playing the piano.”

John laughed. “I got a tin ear, anyway.” He turned to me. “Joe told me he learned to play piano by working in some houses of ill repute down in New Orleans. Of course, I didn’t swallow all of his tales whole. He was very entertaining, but he had a habit of stretching the truth now and then.”

“More often than that,” Mabel muttered.

“Right,” said her husband. “Anyway, after the police found us, they told us Joe had been engaged to Miss Tillie Mortelaine. We called her up to introduce ourselves and console each other over Joe’s death. Miss Tillie confirmed they were planning to get married. I was relieved his fiancée wasn’t the one who’d shot him. It had happened before.”

“Oh?” I exclaimed.

Mabel picked up the thread. “One of those poor rich ladies he got involved with tried to get even.”

Joseph, who’d sat passively while his father told tales out of school about his uncle, sat back, shook his head, and laughed.

“It wasn’t funny, Joseph,” his mother chided. “The poor woman lost most of her money to someone she knew as Gimbel Jones, and she almost killed him. The bullet grazed his face, made a path right through his eyebrow. Frankly, I can’t blame her.”

“Where did that happen?” I asked.

“San Francisco,” John answered. “They charged her with attempted murder, but when the judge heard Joe’s background, he threw out the case, said he considered it justified attempted homicide.”

“I must admit,” I said, “that your brother was fascinating, if in a somewhat negative way.”

The younger Joseph said, “My uncle was always the topic of conversation at every Thanksgiving dinner. That’s the way it is, isn’t it? The black sheep of the family gets the most attention.”

“For the wrong reasons,” said his mother.

“I know, I know,” her son said, “but you have to admit it’s true.”

“What do you do for a living?” I asked him.

“I’m an accountant, like Dad. Not an especially exciting way to live your life.”