Murder at the Bellamy Mansion (2 page)

I gave my head a shake. OK, Wilkes, lose the negative mindset. Drop it. Be thankful for your blessings and enjoy them.

As we parked our bike and walked into the stately Victorian Carolina Hotel, I said, “We’ll have to coordinate our repairs on the belvedere with the Bellamy Museum’s schedule. They’ve closed the belvedere to the tour, so we can work up there when the museum is open, but we’ll have to arrange to bring tools and materials up the stairs early in the morning before they open to the public.”

“
They have a caretaker who comes in early to unlock the doors and clean up. But we’ll set up a schedule with the site manager just as soon as we get back,” Jon said, and we stepped on the elevator. We were alone, and he gave me a quick squeeze. “Come along, young lady, this tired old man needs his bed.”

Brian and Jackie Hudson were waiting for us in the Ryder Cup Lounge. Jackie looked sleek in a sapphire blue satin sheath evening gown that was fabulous with her golden brown skin tones. Would anyone ever describe me as sleek, I asked myself. I eat too much. I like food too much. Then I have to diet to lose the extra pounds, but they have a way of creeping right back around my middle. I vowed to take it easy on the calories tonight, but that would be difficult. The cuisine here was legendary.

“
Happy New Year!” the Hudsons sang out when they saw us. Brian and Jon were handsome in tuxedoes. I had on a red gown with a sheer chiffon ruffle that flared out below my knees and that would show off my legs during dancing.

The Hudsons held martinis in their hands and Jon and I ordered two for us. We found a table and settled in. Jon grabbed a handful of peanuts and not wishing to tempt me, pushed the bowl toward Brian and Jackie.

“
Not for me,” Jackie said. “I’m saving my appetite for better things. And Brian cannot eat peanuts.”

A group near our table burst into loud laughter.

“
I’ve got news worthy of celebrating,” Brian shouted.

“
Let’s hear,” Jon shouted back.

“
Our firm has landed an important contract with Citigroup. You know, they’re getting that three hundred billion dollar bailout from the government. But they’re cutting staff. So they are contracting out some of the work that will be necessary to ensure they get the bailout money.”

“
What do you have to do?” I asked.

But the crowd was in high spirits, the bar noisy with laughter, and I couldn’t hear Brian’s reply. “Later,” I said. It was going to be a noisy but fun night.

At eight we went into the dining room for a four course gourmet dinner. True to my New Year’s resolution, I ate small portions of the lobster bisque, filet mignon, and the sweet potato Napoleon, having lugubriously submitted my resignation to the “Clean Plate Club” for all eternity.

“
Brian, tell us about the Citigroup contract?” Jon asked as a busboy cleared away our plates.

“
It’s all he can talk about,” Jackie said with a yawn.

Brian braced his elbows on the table and leaned forward to confide, “I’m sure you’ve heard how the government is bailing out the big banks.”

Jon and I nodded.

“
Well, as a requirement to collect the funds, the banks have got to clean up their books.”

“
Have they been cooking the books too?” I asked, reminded of the Enron scandal.

Brian flashed a smile. “No, that’s not what I meant. They’ve got to clear their books of old loans. The more they can show they are cleaning up on bad debts, the more money they get.

“
But . . .” and he paused to remove a cigar from his inside jacket pocket.

“
You can’t smoke in here,” Jackie warned. “Save that for later. I’m sure Jon will join you outside.”

Brian returned the cigar to his pocket and gave it an affectionate pat. “Sure. I’m just so excited about this big deal. As I was explaining, they’re trying to clean up the old notes they’ve been holding, but at the same time, they are cutting staff drastically. So they’ve decided to outsource the collection process to various local law firms. And our firm got the job for New Hanover County. We’ll trace the borrowers, enforce liens on properties, foreclose when necessary, and rake in a fat fee on what we collect.”

“
Are there many debtors in this situation?” I asked.

“
More than you’d think. Some of the notes they’ve been holding are so old you’d be amazed. Even the Bellamy Mansion is involved.”

“
The Bellamy Mansion!” I exclaimed.

“
How can that be?” Jon asked, disbelieving. We did not approve of the methods financial institutions had been using in their greedy quest for more and more money.

And I couldn’t help thinking: take out liens? Foreclose? Haven’t we had enough of that?

Later, we strolled into the South Room for the dessert buffet. “The food here sure lives up to its reputation,” Brian said.

“
I’m passing on dessert,” I told Jon as we eyed the display of rich confections. “Select something chocolaty and I’ll have just one bite.”

“
I’m skipping dessert, too,” Jackie said. “I don’t care for sweets.”

So that was her secret for staying slim. I couldn’t imagine not caring for sweets. What must that be like?

“
We’ll dance off the calories,” Jon said.

We drifted into the Cardinal Ballroom where the Band of Oz was playing. And just as Jon promised, we danced until midnight when we raised our champagne flutes in a toast to the New Year. Everyone was kissing everyone else, and everyone was wishing everyone else a happy new year. But most importantly, I was kissing Jon.

The next morning we slept in. The ringing of the hotel telephone jarred us awake. Jon picked up. His voice was groggy but then he shouted, “What?” in a fully charged voice.

I sat up against my pillow and watched him as he listened. His eyes never left mine, as if he was trying to telegraph what he was hearing. “We’ll be there as fast as we can.”

I knew something would go wrong. I had just been thinking yesterday that things were too good to be true. Something bad had happened. To someone we cared about. But who?

“
What?” I cried as he replaced the receiver. “Please tell me nothing has happened to Melanie. Tell me quick.”

“
It’s Willie,” Jon blurted. “Willie’s been shot. He was up in the belvedere, working on the windows just like he said he was going to do. And someone shot him. Shot him from an upper window at the Carolina Apartments across the street.”

Jon looked bewildered. I felt bewildered.

“
Is he dead?” I asked faintly.

“
No. No. Thank god for that. But he’s in bad shape. He’s having surgery right now. Come on, we’ve got to pack and get back home.”

2

“
What a way to start a new year!” Melanie wailed. Her honeymoon had been cut short, as had ours.

Jon and I had driven straight home to Wilmington to anxiously pace the floor at the medical center, in a lounge crowded with Willie’s large extended family, waiting for word from the neurosurgeon who was operating on Willie’s skull. Esther, Willie’s wife of fifty-three years, remained an island of tranquility in a roiling sea of frantic children and grandchildren who were beset with fear that “grandpop” was going to die.

“
He’s gonna be fine. He’s gonna be fine,” she told her family repeatedly.

“
How can you know that?” her grandson Dwayne asked, struggling hard to hold back his tears.

“
Why the good Lord told me so,” Esther declared fiercely. “Now y’all stop this bawling and you give thanks. Thanks that the good Lord sent that skilled surgeon to save your grandpa’s life. That’s what I’m doing. I’m giving thanks.”

“
And what about the sorry bastard that shot my pa?” Willie’s son Mason argued. “What does the Lord tell you about why he ain’t been caught?”

“
Don’t you show that kind of disrespect, boy,” Esther said, even more fiercely than before. “You’re a Christian, son, you act like one.”

“
Sorry, Mama,” Mason said.

“
He won’t get away, don’t you worry none about that. They’ll catch him,” she said.

And that settled that. Mama Hudson was never wrong.

“
She’s never wrong,” her other son Lonnie affirmed. “If Mama says something is so, then it is so.”

We learned that by the time the police and ambulance had arrived, in all the commotion that ensued as the paramedics squeezed their equipment up into the belvedere to work over Willie’s unconscious body, and while the police calculated the trajectory of the bullet that had felled him, some thirty minutes had elapsed before it was determined that the shot had been fired from a fifth floor window in the Carolina Apartments across the street. By then, the shooter was long gone, having dismantled a high-powered rifle into smaller components, and carried them away in something as innocuous as a gym bag. No one had reported seeing the shooter or witnessing anything suspicious. No doubt the Crime Scene Unit was still at work in the vacant apartment, processing it for forensic evidence.

As the Hudson family huddled together for comfort and strength, a weary surgeon dressed in green scrubs appeared in the doorway. “Mrs. Hudson?” he asked. Esther Hudson rushed forward to receive word from this saintly being whom she believed her lord had sent especially to save her husband’s life.

“
We won’t know for sure until he awakes, Mrs. Hudson, but I think he’s going to be OK. The surgery went smoothly. The bullet grazed the left side of his skull. He’s very lucky the bullet did not penetrate his skull, otherwise he would not have made it. And the path the bullet took missed important nerves and arteries. It’s a miracle, but I’ve seen these things happen before. He will have one whopping headache though. And he might experience some short term memory loss.”

Esther squeezed her hands together and now the tears rolled down her wrinkled cheeks. “Bless you, sir,” she said. “Be all right I give you a hug?”

“
Sure,” he grinned. “Come on over here.”

“
See,” Lonnie said. “I done told y’all, Mama’s never wrong.”

Mama Hudson hugged the surgeon in a ferocious bear hug. And the whole huge Hudson clan moved in to claim a part of him. They surrounded the surgeon in one giant embrace so that we couldn’t even see the top of his green-capped head. When they parted, Jon settled for shaking the man’s hand. I kissed his cheek. Then my tears fell.

“
Willie Hudson has worked as our general contractor for the last two years,” I told the surgeon with a sob. “He’s like family to us.”

Briefly his eyes twinkled. “Looks to me like he’s got more family than any one man deserves.”

Then he shuffled off wearily, dragging his green-bootee feet. How did the man manage to retain a sense of humor, I asked myself. He’d been in surgery for hours. And so had Willie, I reminded myself. Suddenly the whole tragedy which had seemed like a dream, or an episode from House, became very, very real.

On Friday evening we met a frantic Melanie at the Brasserie du Soleil. We’d all been absent from our homes for ten days; none of us had any food in our kitchens. We were hungry. And most especially thirsty.

On Saturday, December 22, Melanie and Cameron Jordan, Jon and I, had been married in a double ceremony at St. James Church. Followed by a lavish reception at Melanie and Cam’s spectacular historic hunting lodge on the Intracoastal Waterway which, I could proudly claim, Jon and I had restored for them.

Then we’d left for our honeymoons: Jon and I to Pinehurst, Melanie and Cam for a cruise on Cam’s yacht, the Hot Momma.

Jon and I had our honeymoon cut short by Willie’s shooting. But why was Melanie back home in Wilmington instead off on a cruise with Cam? And where was Cam?

“
What happened?” I asked. “Where is Cam? What’s going on?”

Jon signaled the bartender and ordered a bottle of wine. Just in time, because I was in need of a very large glass of rich red wine to get my blood flowing. I was starting to shut down.

Before Melanie could reply, the proverbial light bulb went off in my head. You see, Cam absolutely worships the ground Melanie walks on. I’ve never seen a man so smitten with a woman – well, except for Jon with me. Cam would never have gone off during their honeymoon. There was only one explanation – that is, only one person who could make him do so.

“
Nelda!” I exclaimed.

“
The Sweetheart of the Silver Screen,” Melanie said with rank sarcasm.

Cameron Jordan’s mother was a Hollywood legend, known as the “Sweetheart of the Silver Screen” during the fifties and sixties, when Cam’s now deceased father had directed her films. Nelda did not like Melanie. Nelda would not like any woman her only son chose to marry.

“
She managed to track us down all the way out in the Atlantic,” Melanie explained, “with our cell phones turned off. We wanted peace and quiet, and no intrusions. No crisis calls from his production studio. No deals falling through at my real estate office. But Nelda, being the drama queen that she is, twisted someone’s arm until they contacted the Coast Guard to send out a search party for us. And sure enough they found us anchored off the Bimini Islands. Then they delivered the urgent message: Nelda was on her death bed! There was not a second to waste: Cam had to fly to her in New York at once. We had to berth the yacht in Bermuda so that he could fly to New York, and I back here to Wilmington.”