Peaches And Screams (A Savannah Reid Mystery) (23 page)

 

W
hen Savannah returned with Tom to Gran’s house, she was greeted at the door by an excited Alma, who practically pulled her into the kitchen.

“We’ve got something, Savannah,” she said. “We’ve got more of that autopsy report thing and another couple of pages, too. Dirk says it’s good stuff. He said it was nails in Goodwin’s coffin.”

Savannah glanced back at Tom, who was following close behind, and saw the mixture of excitement and apprehension on his face.

In the kitchen, none of the gang appeared to have moved from their chairs. Dirk sat, as he had been, at the head of the table, with Tammy on one side and Gran on the other. The cardboard sheet in front of them held several blocks of paper strips, taped together to form pages.

Dirk gave Tom only the briefest look, tinged with something resembling petulant jealousy, then turned to Savannah. “You were right, Van. It’s the coroner’s report on a young guy who died by strangling.”

“And it says he had ropes around his armpits, too,” Gran said. “Why do you suppose somebody would do something like that? I mean, if you’re hanging a guy, why put ropes there?”

Savannah sat down at the table and looked at the fruits of their long night’s labor. One of the pages they had reconstructed bore a diagram of the ropes’ ligature marks around the victim’s neck and upper arms.

“It was supposed to be a joke,” she said, suddenly overcome with a deep sense of sadness. “A stupid, cruel joke. The ropes around his arms were probably intended to support his weight and keep him from actually strangling. But, as we can see, they didn’t.”

Dirk pointed to another of the partial pages they had reassembled and said to Tom, “Take a look at that, Stafford, and tell me what a fine, upstanding citizen your Mack Goodwin is. How would the voters in this county feel about their handsome, charming prosecutor if they read that?”

Tom leaned over Savannah’s shoulder and read aloud, “Victim’s face has been smeared with an unidentified black substance with white around the mouth in a crude imitation of minstrel makeup.”

Dirk leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “Those rich frat boys took one of their own, and in part of a hazing ritual, they made him up in black face and then strung him up, lynch-style, from an oak tree there on the family plantation. Nice, huh?”

Tom buried his hands deep in his slacks pockets and closed his eyes for a long moment. “They were stupid kids. It was years ago.”

“It was a horrible crime,” Savannah said. “And this autopsy report was suppressed. In spite of all this, the coroner ruled the death a suicide. All this time, they’ve let that poor kid’s family think he’d killed himself.”

Gran stood, walked over to the refrigerator, and got herself a glass of water. “I can’t imagine Mr. Goodwin doing something so awful as that. I don’t imagine his political career in these parts would be worth a plugged nickel if folks knew what was in those papers.”

“Do you suppose,” Tom said, “that’s why he killed the judge . . . or had Alvin do it? Patterson was going to let this out?”

“I think so,” Savannah told him.

“But why? After all these years, why would the judge want to expose Mack now?”

“Because Patterson’s daughter was dead; she couldn’t be embarrassed by the scandal, like she would have been if it had come out before. And because the judge wanted to get his hands on his granddaughter. He saw her as some sort of substitute for Katherine. He wanted her to come live with him so that he could raise her, mold her as his own. And Mack wouldn’t have it.”

“Okay.” Tom nodded thoughtfully. “But where do Alvin and Bonnie fit into all this?”

“I think we’re going to have to find Bonnie before we’ll know that.” Savannah sighed. “I guess I could go talk to Elsie again. She’s been pretty helpful so far.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t bother her,” Gran said. “She’s kinda under the weather.”

“What’s wrong with her?”

“I saw her at church last night, and she said she was feelin’ poorly on account of worryin’ about his honor.”

“The judge?” Dirk asked. “He’s the last person we have to worry about now. He’s layin’ dead out in the cemetery.”

“That’s just the problem,” Gran replied solemnly. “He’s not restin’ easy. Elsie says he’s been causin’ her a heap o’ grief, hauntin’ the mansion there. Especially at night. She’s thinking of having Pastor Greene come out and pray over the house, see if they can put him to rest.”

“A restless haunt, huh?” Savannah raised one eyebrow and looked across the table at Dirk. “Yeah . . . an exorcism might be exactly what the Patterson mansion needs.”

 

 

After an extremely vigorous argument, Tom and Dirk had decided to allow Savannah to “ghostbust” the Patterson mansion alone. Not because they had been eager to acquiesce to her wishes, but because she had yelled the loudest and the longest, and had threatened physical violence if they didn’t see things her way.

Too much human activity in the form of heavy-stepping males would be enough to scare off any self-respecting haunt. And she was determined to catch this one.

Armed with her Beretta, Dirk’s large flashlight, and a detailed map of the interior of the mansion—courtesy of Tom and the local library’s historical section—she entered the back door of the house at just past midnight.

Thanks to a full moon, there was enough light coming through the windows that she could see well enough to move about without bumping into walls and furniture.

It sure looks different in the moonlight,
she thought as she crept through the kitchen and into the hallway.
Feels different, too
. She had to admit, she regretted her decision to have the guys stay behind and let her do this alone.

You don’t believe in haunts, do you, Savannah girl?
she asked herself.

She was grateful no one could hear the multiple personalities warring inside her brain. And she was equally glad that Dirk and Tom weren’t around to hear her teeth chattering on this hot summer night.

Every ghost story that she had heard as a child at her grandmother’s knee, every tale of Civil War atrocities . . . some happening within these very walls . . . came back to her with unsettling clarity as she walked up to the library door and quietly pushed it open.

Perhaps Elsie was right. Maybe the judge was a restless presence inside this house. She had to admit that the room didn’t feel empty, as it should have. The air seemed charged, rather than still and peaceful, as it should.

But Savannah wasn’t searching for the judge’s ghost. She was looking for the reasons behind his murder.

As she walked on down the hallway and into the dining room, she thought of the deaths that had occurred in this room, a temporary surgical ward for wounded Confederate soldiers. There, on that very table, amputations had been carried out, some without anesthetics, and boys had died before they had become men.

They can have their mansion
, Savannah thought
. They can keep their antique silver and their gilt-framed mirrors.

She would be glad to be back at Gran’s humble house again, snuggled safe beneath the handmade quilt.

But for now, she had work to do.

She hadn’t expected to find anything on the ground floor of the house. And, likewise, nothing seemed out of order on the second. One by one, she checked the bedrooms and the baths. Other than some dampness in one of the tubs, everything appeared undisturbed.

She had memorized the map, which was now tucked into her pants pocket. And she knew where the servants’ staircases were—the one that led from the ground floor to the second story, and the other one that went from the sewing room at the far end of the hall up to the attic.

“Nobody ever uses those stairs no more,” Elsie had told her an hour earlier when they had talked to her. “And nobody’s been in that dusty old attic for years. I told the judge, he couldn’t get me to go up there for love nor money. There’s rats up there, ones the size of cats. And you know I can’t
bear
rats!”

Savannah wasn’t fond of cat-sized rodents, either, but that was where she was headed. The unused attic.

What better place to find a restless spirit . . . or a fugitive wife, who had her own reasons for not wanting to be found?

And Savannah was more interested in those reasons than she was in the woman herself.

The stairs
were
dusty, Savannah decided as she crept up them, shining her light only one step above her. And someone was, indeed, stirring in the attic.

Someone too big and too heavy to be a rat, even an oversized one.

Someone walking on two feet.

And if that someone was a ghost, he was a particularly fastidious one, because he was using something that sounded suspiciously like a hairdryer.

Savannah smiled. “I got you, Miss Bonnie Prissy Pants,” she whispered as she hurried up the steps. “I got you cold.”

She managed to get to the top of the stairs before the dryer stopped. Thank goodness Bonnie Patterson had a lot of hair.

Slowly, her hand on her pistol’s grip, Savannah opened the door and stepped into the dimly lit, cavernous attic.

A jumble of household artifacts were scattered around the room and hung from the open-beamed ceiling. Chests, shelves of books, cardboard boxes, tables and chairs, an ancient sewing machine, a child’s sled and rocking horse all collected the dust of years gone by.

At the far end of the room, Bonnie Patterson stood before a cracked mirror that was propped against the wall and dried her hair. She had plugged the appliance into an electrical socket that dangled from the ceiling.

The dim light was coming from a small Tiffany-style lamp suspended over a makeshift cot. On an old dressing table, Bonnie had set out her makeup, along with some potato chips and sodas, pilfered from the kitchen downstairs.

In spite of the mythical rats, Bonnie had made herself a snug little nest up here.

She was still drying her hair when Savannah approached her and tapped her on the shoulder.

She screamed and jumped away.

“Oh, my God! You scared me to death!” She turned off the hair dryer and dropped it to the floor. “When did you . . . ? How did you . . . ?”

“Just now. And it wasn’t all that hard after Elsie told me she’d heard ghosts running around the house after dark. You should have been quiet.”

Bonnie plopped down on the cot, looking disgusted and exhausted. She was wearing a tank top and shorts, and her feet were bare. Her mascara and liner were smeared under her eyes, and she looked as though she hadn’t eaten a meal in several days.

Since Friday night, Savannah figured.

“When you touched me just now,” she said with a shudder, “I thought you were . . .”

Savannah sat on a crate across from her. “The cops? Or Mack?”

She shrugged. “Take your pick. It’s trouble, either way. I’m telling you, I’m screwed.”

“Why don’t you tell me?” Savannah pasted on her most sympathetic face, the one that sometimes worked, even with hardened criminals. “Maybe I can help.”

“I need some help. I’ve been hiding out up here, trying to figure out what to do. But I’m dead,” she said, tucking her bare feet under her. “No matter what I do, I’m dead meat. He killed Alvin, and as soon as he finds me, he’ll kill me, too.”

“Mack?”

Bonnie hesitated, then nodded. “Yeah, Mack.”

“What did Alvin do, ask for more money?”

A flicker of surprise passed over Bonnie’s face; then she sighed, her shoulders sagging. “I told him not to ask for more. The $35,000 was enough, but he had to get greedy.”

“That’s not a lot of money—I mean, for committing murder for hire.”

Savannah knew her dart had missed its mark when Bonnie looked confused. Then angry.

“What are you talking about? Alvin didn’t kill anybody! He wouldn’t do a thing like that. Al was a sweetheart.” Tears welled up in her eyes, and she sniffed loudly.

“So why was Mack paying him? Just because of what he knew?”

Bonnie nodded. “Alvin lucked out. He was in the right place at the right time. He overheard my husband and Mack arguing about Caitlin coming here to live. He threatened to expose Mack—that thing that happened when he was in college—if he didn’t give her up. Then he showed up dead. Alvin went to Mack and told him he’d keep quiet if the price was right.”

“And Mack paid him?”

“Not until Alvin broke in here and got some stupid file out of the library desk. Alvin figured that should be worth something, too. But Mack just told him to do that so that he couldn’t go to the cops. He’d done something illegal, too, see? He was like an accessory or something.”

“Did Alvin plant those medals under my brother’s bed?” Savannah held her breath, hoping for the right answer.

“No, Mack did that.” She laughed, a nasty, bitter laugh. “That dog of your grandma’s, the old hound . . . he bit Mack. Bit a plug outta his ankle. Mack said he tried to kick him in the head, but the hound bit him again. Mack was really pissed about that! Alvin and me laughed our butts off about it later.”

“Did you see Mack kill Alvin?”

“No. But when I came home late Friday night, to Alvin’s place, I saw Mack driving out of our alley. I recognized that big black car of his. And I’m pretty sure he saw me, too. Then Alvin turned up dead the next day and . . . ”