Savannah Breeze (36 page)

I must have
dozed off somewhere between Daytona and St. Augustine. When Harry shook me awake, we were just crossing the bridge over the Back River. It was dark, and I could hear Granddad's soft snoring from the backseat.

“What time is it?” I asked, not bothering to suppress a yawn.

“Nearly one
A.M
.,” he said quietly. “I dropped Weezie off at her place, but you didn't even move a muscle.”

“Sorry,” I said. “I should have offered to drive, but I was so tired. I don't think I've slept more than three or four hours at a stretch in the last couple days.”

“It's all right,” he said. “Listen. I'm going to let you drop me off at Mikey Shannon's place at Tybee Terrace, if you don't mind.”

“Mikey's? Why? You're not coming back to the Breeze with me?”

“I'll be by later,” Harry said. “Mikey's been keeping Jeeves for me. I called him earlier and he said he'd just leave the door unlocked for me. Cheri and her daughter are probably sound asleep in my unit, so I'll bunk on Mikey's sofa tonight, and spend some time with Jeeves in the morning. Poor old hound must think I've abandoned him.”

“Okay,” I said slowly. “Sounds like you've got everything all worked out.”

“It's late,” Harry said. He glanced in the rearview mirror at Granddad and chuckled. “That Spencer, he is really a piece of work, you know that?”

“I do now,” I said. “He likes you too. A lot.”

“'Cause I paid for his Scotch,” he said.

“More than that,” I said, reaching for Harry's hand. “He told me he approves.” I blushed and looked away. “You know. Of us. He told me not to screw it up this time.”

“Nice of him,” Harry said. He moved his hand to flip the turn signal.

“So, this is it,” he said, turning right into the single-story concrete-block bungalow village that made up Tybee Terrace. He pulled up behind a unit where a red bicycle was chained to a bike rack, and put the Buick in park.

Harry jumped out of the driver's seat, went around to the trunk and got his suitcase. He came back around to my side of the car. I rolled the window down and leaned out. The air was soft and sweet, and there was no traffic, and I thought I could hear the roll of the waves on the beach across Butler Avenue. Almost home, I thought.

“So,” I said, turning my face up toward his. He bent down and kissed me, his lips barely grazing mine. “I'll see you tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Absolutely. See you tomorrow.”

I watched him lope off around the back of the cottage, and when I heard the bang of a screen door, I scooted over behind the steering wheel and drove on down the beach to the Breeze Inn.

The
NO VACANCY
sign was lit up, which made me smile. When, I wondered, was the last time, other than St. Patrick's Day, the Breeze Inn had had a full house?

“Granddad,” I said, going around to the backseat. “Granddad. Wake up. We're home.”

“I knew that,” he said, sitting up. “I was trying to give you kids some privacy.”

“Turns out we didn't need it,” I said, sliding in beside him on the backseat. “So what about it? Can you drive back to town tonight? Or do you want to sleep here?”

“Home,” he said simply. “Lorena's expecting me.” He got out of the car and stood gingerly, groaning as he straightened his back.

“I'm too old for this foolishness,” he said.

“Never!” I told him. “You are the man. You're my hero.”

He planted a quick kiss on the top of my head. “I'm proud of you too, young lady. I always have been. Of all the grandkids, I think you're the most like me. You've got a good head for business. You know what you want, and you're not afraid to go after it.”

“I wish that were true,” I told him. “We both know I'm a big screwup. But thanks anyway. Thanks for believing in me. And for being there when I needed you.”

“Anytime,” Granddad said. He opened the trunk and handed me my suitcase.

“Tell Grandmama I'll call her this week,” I said. Then I blew him a kiss, and he slowly backed the Buick out of the parking lot and pointed it toward home.

The light was on in the manager's unit, so I decided to see if Cheri was still up, to let her know I was back.

Cheri answered the door before I had a chance to ring the bell. She was barefoot, dressed in an oversize black T-shirt that said “My Other Car's a Hawg,” and holding a lit cigarette and an open can of Michelob.

“Hey there!” she said brightly. “I saw the headlights of the car and saw you coming in. Everything go okay down in Florida?”

“Yeah. Great,” I said, wondering why I didn't feel so great if everything had gone so great.

“You found the guy who ripped you off?” she asked.

“We did,” I said.

She stepped out onto the front porch, and looked around. “Where's Harry?”

“He's spending the night at Mikey Shannon's. Didn't want to disturb you this late at night.”

“Hah!” she brayed. “Harry Sorrentino knows I don't go to bed till three or four in the morning. All those years of bartending, I can't get used to a nine-to-five kind of life.”

“And he wanted to see Jeeves,” I added.

“Right.” She nodded.

“Everything go okay around here?” I asked. “Any problems?”

“None I couldn't handle,” she said. “Y'all have got the place fixed up so cute, it's like playing house. Me and my daughter have had a ball running it.”

“And you're full up!” I said. “I can't believe it.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Bunch of schoolteachers come down here from Atlanta for the weekend. I never seen women party as hard as they have. They've had themselves a good old time.”

“You didn't rent my place, I hope.”

“Nope,” Cheri said. “I figured you'd be back before Monday, so I just left it vacant. Stephanie cleaned it good for you, though. We think it's the cutest unit out here. Hope you don't mind us taking a peek.”

“Not at all,” I assured her. “I can't thank you enough for everything you've done here. Harry said you'd be great, and it turns out he was right.”

“Well,” she said. “Harry's a good friend.”

“Hey,” I said. “Would you be interested in a job working here?”

She took a drag on her cigarette. “Might be.”

“I desperately need help. And I can afford to hire it now. I could use you in housekeeping, and probably working the front desk too.”

“I can do that,” Cheri said proudly. Then she frowned.

“Wait a minute. When Harry called, he said you'd be selling this place soon as you got back.”

“He told you that? What else did he say?”

“Just that you were wanting your old life back. You know, in town, and all that. He said you didn't wanna mess with nothin' as rinkydink as runnin' an old motel out at Tybee.”

“It's an inn,” I corrected her. “And I never said Tybee was rinkydink. Anyway, it'll take me a while to get all my affairs straightened out. In the meantime, I need help.”

Cheri stuck out her hand. “You got it. When do I start?”

“You already have,” I said. And we shook on it.

My room was, as Cheri promised, empty and neat as a pin. I stood in the doorway for a minute to take it in. It was even smaller than I'd remembered. But the enameled floor was shiny from waxing, the bed was made up with snowy white sheets and coverlet, and the place smelled of Pine Sol and bleach. Cheri had opened the window in the kitchen nook, and the cotton curtains rippled in the breeze coming off the ocean. I set my suitcase down and flopped onto the bed.

Mattresses, I thought. I would buy all new, high-quality mattresses for every room in the Breeze. My guests would never again have to endure the cheap, wafer-thin mattresses we'd slept on at the Mango Tree. I'd buy new linens too. Velvety-thick oversize bath towels. Down pillows. High-thread-count sheets. The ones we had now had probably been bought when the Breeze was built. Televisions too, I thought, drowsily, with cable hookups. And DVD players. We could keep a small library of movies in the office. And while we were at it, I'd buy an espresso machine for the office. To go with Daniel's muffins. And fresh fruit. We'd put fresh fruit baskets in every room. There would be nothing rinky-dink about the Breeze Inn, I vowed. If. If I decided not to sell. If Harry were here to help me run it. If Harry were here….

But Harry wasn't there.
By the time I got up the next morning, his station wagon was gone from the parking lot, so I knew he'd been by to pick it up. I hung around the office Sunday morning, catching up on paperwork and dealing with guests during check-out, but there was still no sign of him. I paid Cheri, and her daughter, and we agreed on a schedule that would allow them to take turns as housekeepers.

At noon, I placed the call to Sandra Findley.

“Sandra? It's BeBe Loudermilk.”

“BeBe!” she exclaimed. “Where are you? It's been all over the news down here. You did it, didn't you? You caught that son of a bitch!”

“Not me,” I said modestly. “The Coast Guard. All we did was work it so the Coast Guard
could
catch him. Actually, I'm back in Savannah.”

“And the money? What about the money?”

“I think you'll be pleased,” I said. “Where shall I send it?”

“Unbelievable,” she kept saying, while giving me her banking information. “You really did it. I can't believe you conned a professional con artist.”

“I had a lot of help,” I told her. “And some dumb luck. And of course, without your persistence, none of this probably would have happened.”

“Wait till I tell my brother,” Sandra crowed. “Hey! You never did come by for that drink. I owe you that and a lot more, now.”

“Another time,” I told her. “For now, I've got a lot of business to catch up on.”

By two o'clock, I'd drunk a whole pot of coffee, read the entire Savannah and Atlanta newspapers, had a leisurely phone chat with my grandmother, and made out a lengthy, and extravagant, shopping list.

At three, I could stand it no longer. I got in the Lexus and cruised past Doc's Bar. No sign of Jeeves, no sign of Harry. I checked Mikey Shannon's unit at Tybee Terrace where I'd dropped Harry the night before, but the station wagon wasn't there.

Screw it, I thought. I'd drive into town, treat myself to a late lunch, and drive past my house on West Jones, just to reassure myself it was still standing.

I meant to go straight downtown. But a funny thing happened when I hit the U.S. 80 bridge, and the Lexus, apparently with a mind of its own, made the turn into Marsden Marina. I didn't know whether to be glad or concerned that Harry's car wasn't there.

The
Jitterbug
was there, however, mounted on a trailer, with a
FOR SALE
sign on the bow. On an impulse, I pulled the Lexus up beside it, got out, and walked around.

It was just a boat, as far as I could see. Certainly nowhere near as shiny and impressive as the yachts lined up along the dock at the Bahia Mar. What was it about boats, I wondered, that made men so crazy for them? Reddy had been just as compulsive about owning a Sea Urchin as Harry was about regaining custody of the
Jitterbug.
Both of them had been willing to lie, steal, and cheat to get their hands on their respective obsessions.

I let my hand trail over the faded yellow fiberglass hull of the
Jitterbug.
How long, I wondered, would it take Harry to buy her back? He'd have the $4,800 I owed him, just as soon as he showed up at the Breeze to collect it. But from what he'd said, that wouldn't go nearly far enough toward paying off his debt to the marina owners.

Why not? I thought. Why not pay it off myself? I could certainly afford it now. And Harry was the reason I could do that. He'd gone
down to Fort Lauderdale with no real promise of any kind of reward, and performed like a champ. If it hadn't been for Harry, I knew we never could have scammed a world-class scammer like Reddy. I owed Harry. I owed him big time.

I found Tricia Marsden at a desk in the marina office, elbow-deep in paperwork, her fingers nimbly racing over the keyboard of an adding machine.

“Hi there,” I said, pushing open the screen door.

“Do something for you?” She didn't glance up from her calculations, which gave me a little time to get a good look. Tricia wasn't what I'd expected. A mass of dark wavy hair had been swept off her neck and into a ponytail. She was trim, tan, wearing a white open-collared shirt and a pair of pink-framed glasses that slid down her nose.

“I'm interested in the
Jitterbug.
”

That stopped her cold. She looked up. I stared. Harry had told me that Tricia Marsden was a stone-cold bitch, a shrewd businesswoman. He'd neglected to mention that she was stunningly beautiful, with bright blue eyes, thick black lashes, and a full, pouty mouth.

“Interested how?” she asked.

“Interested in buying it,” I said. “What's the price?”

She smiled. “You're kidding, right?”

“Not at all. It's for sale, right?”

“Oh, yes,” she said, “$32,500.” She raised an eyebrow, waiting to see how I'd react.

“Fine,” I said, reaching for my checkbook.

“Fine?”

“That's right.”

She frowned. “Can I ask what you want with a fishing boat like the
Jitterbug
? She's not exactly a sport cruiser, you know.”

“I know.” I looked up at her. “Do I make it out to Marsden Marina, or to you personally?”

“I've got a stamp,” she said. “You don't want to have her checked out by a mechanic, anything like that?”

“Won't be necessary,” I said, filling in the check. “I'm told it runs just fine.”

“Who told you that?” she asked, standing up.

“Harry Sorrentino.”

She sat back down again. “How do you know Harry?”

“We're friends,” I said, tearing the check out and handing it to her.

She took the check and studied it. “BeBe Loudermilk. Aren't you the woman who bought the Breeze Inn?”

“I am.”

“So, actually, you're his boss.”

“And his friend,” I said.

“A very good friend, apparently.”

“Just settling a debt,” I said, turning toward the door. “I'm going to take the
FOR SALE
sign off the
Jitterbug
now, if you don't mind. And I'll tell Harry he can pick it up, when? At his convenience?”

“The trailer's mine,” she said, the pout turning sour.

“Is it for sale?” I asked.

“Not to him.”

I turned back around. “Look. What is your problem with Harry? I know he's owed you money, but I should think a lot of other fishermen owed you money too, after the bad weather we had last year. You've been paid. Isn't it time to get over it?”

“My problem with Harry?” She shook her head. “Get over it? Why don't you ask him what my problem is with him.”

“He told me you're not exactly friends.”

“Not exactly.” She laughed. “That's one way to put it. Did he happen to mention to you that we were married?”

“No,” I said quietly. “He didn't mention that.”

“He wouldn't,” she said bitterly. “It was a long time ago. And it's not something he likes to discuss. But then, that's Harry.”

“I'll let him make the arrangements to take delivery on the
Jitterbug,
” I said.

“You do that. And tell him if it's not out of here within the next twenty-four hours, I'm going to start charging him for storage.”

“Bitch,” I said, under my breath. I let the door slam behind me. I yanked the
FOR SALE
sign off the boat and flung it onto the backseat of my car, and I sped out of the marina parking lot, in the general direction of downtown Savannah.

None of your business, I told myself as I tooled down Victory Drive, oblivious to the pink and purple beauty of the head-high azaleas in full bloom. She was married to him a long time ago, I rationalized as I turned north toward downtown on Drayton Street.

There is something very wrong here, I was thinking when I turned onto West Jones. I'd told Harry all about my three unfortunate marriages. He'd been sympathetic, even understanding, but he'd failed to mention his own past with the beautiful and bitchy Tricia Marsden.

Holy shit!
I stopped the car in the middle of the block, right in front of my town house. Or, technically, Steve and Gretchen Arrendale's town house now. I had to stop, because a moving van had the street blocked. The Arrendales' front door was open, and men in white coveralls were busily trundling furniture out of the house and into the back of the van.

I jumped out of the Lexus and ran over to the sidewalk. There was a
FOR SALE
sign propped up in the Arrendales' parlor window. And a matching one in the window of my town house.

“Hey,” I called, running after the two men who were coming out of the Arrendales' with a massively ugly pseudo-Georgian mahogany china cabinet. “What's going on here?”

“Moving,” said the man on the dumb end of the cabinet. He had a red do-rag wrapped around his head, and forearms the size of tree trunks.

“The Arrendales? Where are they going?”

They got to the van and started up the metal loading ramp. I followed them right up and into the van, which was half full of cardboard boxes and furniture wrapped with padded moving quilts.

“New house out at Turner's Rock,” one of the guys said, grunting as he let down his end of the cabinet.

“Are they here? Are they still in the house?”

“No, thank you, Jesus,” said Do-Rag. “She's already over at the new house. So she can supervise,” he said, making a face about the supervise part.

I looked around the van, searching for the Maybelle Johns painting.
My
Maybelle Johns painting.

“Have you already packed up all the art in the house?” I asked. “I'm looking for a painting. It's an oil painting of a little girl.”

“
She
packed up all the art,” said the guy in the plain white baseball cap. “Doesn't trust us ignorant apes to touch her valuable art collection.”

“But the painting of the little girl. Did you see it? Before she packed everything?”

Do-Rag shrugged. Baseball Cap shrugged. “House was full of pictures. They all look the same to me,” Do-Rag said.

I climbed down out of the van, then darted inside the open door at the Arrendales'.

The place was a mess. Cardboard boxes were stacked everywhere. Rugs were rolled up, furniture was padded and taped. The walls were bare. I ran upstairs to double-check, but it had been cleared first.

When I got downstairs, I went out the kitchen door, into the courtyard garden. I let myself out the wrought-iron gate and into the lane that backed the town houses, and then let myself in through the gate that opened onto
my
garden. At
my
town house. I hauled an empty trash can over to the kitchen window and climbed up to peer inside. Empty. The kitchen was as empty as it was the last time I'd seen it.

I climbed down and went out to the Lexus. I picked up my cell
phone and called James Foley's cell. No answer. I called the office, just in case. Still no answer. Out of desperation, I called Weezie.

“Hey,” she said, answering after the first ring. “Are you out shopping with all your ill-gotten gains?”

“No,” I said, my voice grim. “I drove over to West Jones Street. To make sure it hadn't been knocked down. But it's worse than that.”

“What?”

“It's been sold again. To the Arrendales. And now they're selling it and their house.”

“Why? Where are they going?”

“The movers are there right now. They said they've bought a big new house out at Turner's Rock. But they haven't seen my Maybelle Johns. I need to talk to your uncle, right away, but I can't get hold of him. Do you know where he is?”

“As a matter of fact, I do. James and Jonathan went on some kind of field trip with the historical society, to Charleston. Mama said they're not due back until tonight.”

“This is a nightmare,” I said. “And I can't wake up.”

“Just relax,” Weezie advised. “James will get it all straightened out. Go back out to the beach and kick back and relax. You remember relaxing, don't you?”

“Only vaguely.”

I decided to skip the late lunch. Ditto shopping. I wasn't in the mood. And as I drove back toward the beach, I could see charcoal-edged clouds skittering across the horizon. So much for a walk on the beach.

Harry's beat-up station wagon was parked in front of the office at the Breeze. I exhaled slowly. Relax. Kick back. And for God's sake don't ask why he never mentioned being married before.