The Fixer Upper (15 page)

The Catfish coughed twice and the engine cut off once, but when I got it warmed up, I backed down the driveway and onto Poplar Street. I sped down the street and through Guthrie’s minuscule business district.

It was Sunday-morning quiet. The shops on Main Street were closed, the streets abandoned. I drove past Guthrie First United Methodist, where I knew Ella Kate was sitting in the front row. I passed Grace Presbyterian Church, with its stately gray granite bell tower, and the sprawling redbrick complex that comprised Guthrie First Baptist. Across the street from the Baptist church, I saw All Saints Episcopal Church, and I spotted Carter Berryhill’s sedate Mercedes sedan with the Nature Conservancy bumper sticker parked at the curb out front.

I was careful to stay under the speed limit until I got out to the state highway. Then I floored the accelerator. The Catfish responded sluggishly at first. Norbert and Ella Kate had probably never driven more than thirty-five miles an hour. Now it was time to blow the kinks out of the Crown Vic’s powerful engine.

I was doing fifty-five when I hit the I-75 on-ramp, and moments later, was pleased to see how easily the Catfish adapted to seventy and then eighty miles an hour. I didn’t slow down until I started hitting Atlanta traffic. I stayed on I-75 until it merged with I-85, and when I saw the exit signs for Lenox Road, I took the off-ramp and followed the road until I started seeing the high-rise towers of Buckhead, and the congestion around Lenox Square Mall.

It wasn’t until I pulled into the parking lot of Houlihan’s and parked that I had any clear idea of where I was going and what I was going to do. I only knew I had to get away from Birdsong, had to get out of that “down-at-the-heels village with one stoplight” Shalani Byers had described in the
Washington Post
.

I couldn’t be the shadowy figure in the scary dead uncle’s clothes today. I pulled a mirror from my pocketbook and applied a coat of lipstick. I patted my hair into place, and stepped out of the car.

The Sunday brunch crowd was just starting to stagger into Houlihan’s. I told the hostess I didn’t need a table, so she gestured toward the bar.

I sat down and ordered a Bloody Mary, and when the salt-crusted tumbler was still half full, I ordered another, along with a cheeseburger, cooked rare, with a side of onion rings. When I looked up and caught sight of myself in the bar-back mirror, I was taken aback. That shadowy figure described by the paper was gone, but so was the Dempsey Killebrew I’d left behind in Washington less than three weeks ago.

I
picked at my food and sipped my drink, but barely touched the second Bloody Mary I’d ordered. To my surprise, I found I’d lost my taste for liquor—or maybe just my desire for a good strong buzz.

As it grew close to noon, the restaurant began to fill up and the noise level rose. Families dressed in their Sunday best arrived and took the larger tables, and couples and singles drifted in too, dressed in their designer blue jeans and T-shirts with ironic slogans. Finally, I had to move my pocketbook from the vacant bar stool next to mine to make way for another solitary drinker.

After I’d dawdled for nearly two hours, the harried bartender arrived with my check and lingered in front of me, willing me to drink up and get out.

And go where? I wondered, rifling through my pocketbook for cash to pay my check.

I was just pulling out of the parking lot when my cell phone rang. I took it out and answered, “Hi, Dad.”

“What the hell have you gotten yourself involved in, Dempsey?” Mitch demanded.

My heart sank. I’d been hoping to call both my parents to warn them about the latest development in the scandal, to give them my side of the story, before things got blown all out of proportion. Obviously, I was too late.

“You saw the
Washington Post
?”

“No, I haven’t yet had the pleasure of seeing my daughter’s name being written about in connection with hookers and crooked congressmen,” Mitch said.

“Then, how…?”

“A reporter called the house at seven a.m., wanting to know if you were my daughter,” Mitch broke in. “Pilar is furious. Sunday is our only day to sleep in. The call woke the boys, and now they’re bouncing off the walls.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t even know what to say.”

“You could start by telling me that you didn’t hire hookers for that man.”

“Of course I didn’t!” I cried. “Do you even have to ask?”

“But the charges were made to your credit card,” he said. “That doesn’t look good.”

“Alex asked me to book wakeboard lessons, and then a therapeutic massage for Representative Licata. I never knew anything about prostitutes. I never saw the amount charged to the credit card.”

“You see!” he cried. “That is total and absolute fiscal irresponsibility. Which is why you’re saddled with all this damned loan debt. You’re twenty-eight years old—and you don’t even own a car. When I was your age, I’d bought my first home and had already established a college fund for you.”

I felt my blood start to boil. How many times had I had to listen to my father’s rant about fiscal responsibility? It was true that he’d been successful in business at an early age—but it was also true that as the only child of two only children he’d been a trust-fund baby who’d come into his inheritance at the age of eighteen.

“Dad, if you’d just let me explain.”

“And this…pathetic crush you had on your boss. A married man! It’s so…disgusting. Good God, Dempsey, what were you thinking? He’s what—fifty? Jesus. He’s twenty-two years older than you!”

Maybe it was the Bloody Mary. Or maybe it was just that I didn’t give a damn anymore. “Oh, right, Dad. I’m twenty-eight. You’re sixty. And how old will Pilar be on her next birthday?”

“That’s different and you know it,” he said.

“Yes. It’s different because you say so. Because you’re the dad.”

“Don’t take that tone with me, Dempsey. Remember, it’s my name you’re dragging through the mud. Mine and Pilar’s and the boys.”

“Fine,” I said, clutching the phone so hard with my right hand that my fingertips were cramping. I felt a stabbing pain between my eyes.

“Look, Dad. This isn’t getting us anywhere, so I’m going to hang up now. I don’t expect you to understand any of this. But I do think it would be nice if you’d at least give me the benefit of the doubt.”

“Wait. Don’t you dare—”

I flipped the phone closed and tossed it onto the seat.

M
y cell phone rang again, just as I was hitting the Guthrie city limits, but I didn’t want to answer it. The confrontation with my father had left me feeling battered and shaken. But when a minute passed and it started ringing again, I picked it up to see who was calling.

BERRYHILL AND BERRYHILL
flashed across the readout screen.

I pressed the connect button. “Tee?”

“Sorry,” came the buttery Southern drawl. “You got the old man this time.”

“You’re not so old,” I told Carter Berryhill. “Anyway, after the morning I’ve had, the sound of your voice is a welcome relief.”

“You might not think so when I tell you why I’m calling.”

“Uh-oh.”

“Where are you, by the way? I know you’re not at Birdsong.”

“I’m in the car. I took a run up to Atlanta for lunch, but I’m on my way back home right now.”

“Maybe you should take a detour,” Carter suggested. “Why don’t you pick me up at the house and I’ll catch you up on some things.”

“All right,” I agreed. “I’ll be there in five minutes.”

My heart was pounding and my hands were shaking as I pulled up to the Berryhills’ home. Carter met me at the curb. He opened the door and slid into the front seat.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“I want you to pull your car into my garage,” he said. “You can park beside my car. Tee’s over at the newspaper office.”

“Carter, you’re starting to scare me,” I said, my voice shaky, steering the Catfish into the slot he indicated in the garage beside the house.

“We’ll talk inside the house,” he said. I followed him in the back door to the kitchen. “Sit down,” he said, indicating a wooden ladder-back chair at the kitchen table.

He sat down beside me. “I’m sorry to have alarmed you,” he said. “But I thought it best to handle things this way. You’ve had some company looking for you this morning.”

“Company?”

“Two FBI agents,” he said. “An African-American gentleman and a lady.”

I felt the blood drain from my head. “Oh no. How did they, I mean, why?”

“I suppose they went over to Birdsong this morning. And when they found nobody home, they knocked on some doors. I think one of your neighbors told them I might know how to reach you.”

“Oh my God,” I whispered. “The FBI!”

Carter patted my hand. “I must tell you, I’ve read the
Washington Post
story. Dempsey, I’m so sorry you’ve been dragged into this mess. These agents wouldn’t tell me why they wanted to speak with you, but I’m sure they’re looking into this matter with the congressman.”

My face grew hot with embarrassment. I couldn’t bear to look my new friend in the eyes. “You must think I’m awful.”

He laughed easily. “I think the situation is awful. You, on the other hand, are a delightful, forthright, and honest young woman who seems to have unwittingly gotten mixed up in a very serious situation. If you’ll let me, maybe I can be of some assistance.”

I looked up. “You don’t believe what Alex Hodder is saying?”

“Of course not,” Carter said. “I never believe everything I read or hear on the news. This man Hodder is obviously attempting to shift blame to you so that he can extricate himself from this scandal.”

“I can’t believe he’s doing this,” I said. “Maybe the newspaper got it all wrong.”

“Maybe,” Carter said, his voice dubious. “But in the meantime, those FBI agents are camped out in front of your house, waiting for you to get home. I think we’d best do something about that.”

“What? Carter, I don’t want to talk to the FBI.”

“Nobody does,” he said, standing up. “But I think, in this case, it’s unavoidable. So, let’s go on over to Birdsong, and get it over with. I’ll let them know I’m your attorney, and that you won’t be talking to them without me present.”

“I can’t afford an attorney,” I said. “I’m broke. That’s why I moved down here, Carter. Alex Hodder fired me. I’m broke, I’ve got no place else to live.” I bit my lip. “I’m twenty-eight years old and had to go running home to my father for help. I’m a one-woman disaster. You should run the other way.”

“Nonsense,” he said. “It’s agreed then. I’m your attorney. We’ll discuss fees later. But for right now, let’s go see what these folks have to say.”

We drove over to Birdsong in Carter’s Mercedes. He asked me questions as he drove, focusing on the Bahamas trip. His responses to my answers were slow and measured. And by the time we pulled up behind the silver sedan parked in front of Birdsong, I felt an unnatural sense of calm settling in.

The agents did not look pleased to see Carter Berryhill. The woman, who introduced herself as Camerin Allgood, seemed to be in charge. She was tall, with a dancer’s slender build, and had shoulder-length blond hair and piercing blue eyes. She introduced her partner, Jackson Harrell. He was an inch shorter, which put him just under six feet, with mocha-colored skin and unusual hazel eyes with light flecks. She wore a somber navy pantsuit; he was dressed more casually, in charcoal slacks, a yellow golf shirt, and a blue blazer.

“Shall we go inside to chat?” Carter asked. Harrell looked to Camerin Allgood for guidance.

“We’d prefer to do this interview in the Atlanta field office,” she said. “That’s procedure.”

“Miss Killebrew has some appointments this afternoon,” Carter said smoothly. “It would be more convenient for her to speak to you here. Or at my office, which is only five minutes away, whichever suits you better.”

“Here is fine,” Agent Allgood said. They trooped up the front walkway after me. As I struggled with the front-door key, I was thankful for having cleared away the worst of the clutter at the front of the house.

“You’ll have to excuse the way the place looks,” I said, swinging the door open. “My father just recently inherited this house, and I’ve only started working on the restoration this past week.”

“Nice place,” Jackson Harrell said, running his hand over the leaded glass sidelights. “How old is this house?”

But before I could answer, Camerin Allgood interrupted.

“Miss Killebrew, let’s get this started, shall we?” Her voice was icy.

“All in good time,” Carter said. He looked around the hallway. “Very nice, my dear. You’ve done wonders with the place already.”

I flashed him a grateful smile. “There’s not a lot of furniture in these front rooms, so I guess we’ll have to talk in the kitchen.”

“Fine, kitchen, basement, whatever,” Agent Allgood snapped.

I opened the kitchen’s swinging door and gestured for them to sit around the wooden kitchen table.

No sooner were we seated than Agent Allgood unsnapped her briefcase. She brought out a small silver tape recorder, and flipped open a file folder. “Sign here, please,” she said, indicating a line on a sheet of paper. “This will indicate that you’ve agreed to having our discussion tape-recorded.”

“Maybe you could tell us what it is you’re going to be discussing,” Carter said evenly.

“Let’s start with public corruption,” Agent Harrell said. “Bribing a United States congressman in general, specifically Representative Anthony Licata. Is any of this sounding familiar to you?”

My mouth was dry as dust. I swallowed. “I never—”

“Miss Killebrew,” Agent Allgood broke in, “let’s put our cards on the table here. I’m sure you’re aware that we executed a search warrant on Representative Licata’s office some weeks ago. I’m sure you’re also aware that we have the hard drives from the offices of Hodder and Associates. That would include the hard drive from your computer. Containing documents and communications among you, Mr. Hodder, and Representative Licata. In addition, we are in possession of certain other documents that were voluntarily surrendered by your employer Mr. Hodder. That would include the records of purchases charged to an American Express credit card, issued to you by Mr. Hodder.”

“Alex told me that woman was a wakeboard instructor,” I cried. “I never met her. Or the masseuse.”

Agent Harrell snickered. “You tellin’ us a woman named Mahogany Foxx sounds legit? And her working for a company called Pleasure Chest? We’re talking about surfing lessons for a man in his sixties, with two bum knees? You tellin’ us you weren’t curious about charges to a credit card—your credit card—amounting to nearly six thousand dollars? And you’re a lawyer? Georgetown Law School?”

“I’m a lobbyist, for God’s sake,” I cried. “Part of my job was to entertain clients. Business dinners. Tickets to ball games, concerts at Wolftrap, those kinds of things were legitimate business expenses for our clients. Alex instructed me to use my company credit card to pay for the wakeboard lessons,” I said. “He never told me the woman’s name. He just gave me a phone number to call. He said, ‘Set it up.’ And I did. I didn’t know that’s how much they charged to my AmEx card. The bills were sent directly to the office manager. I never saw them.”

“Riiiight,” Agent Harrell said. “Listen—”

“Enough,” Agent Allgood said, slapping her palm on the top of the kitchen table.

She leaned forward, so that her face was only a few inches from mine. “Miss Killebrew, do you know who you’re dealing with here? Do you understand what’s at stake here?”

“She understands,” Carter said dryly. “We both do. But I don’t appreciate your trying to intimidate my client.”

“Trying to intimidate?” Harrell said. He laughed softly.

“I don’t think Miss Killebrew understands at all,” Agent Allgood said. She sat back in her chair, and crossed her legs. She was wearing gorgeous navy blue crocodile pumps with three-inch stacked heels. I never knew feds had good shoes.

“Fifteen years in a federal prison,” Agent Allgood said. “That’s for every count of bribery she’s convicted of. Plus a hefty fine. Disbarment, of course. And that’s just for starters.”

“Fifteen years!” All the blood drained out of my head. I felt faint.

Carter squeezed my hand under the table.

“What is it you want from her?” Carter asked. “She’s told you what
she knows. She was instructed to call a phone number, to make arrangements for surfing lessons and a therapeutic massage. You obviously have the AmEx records. You have Mr. Hodder’s version of what happened, and Representative Licata’s version. And now you have my client’s.”

“Cooperation’s the name of the game,” Agent Harrell said, giving me an understanding smile.

“I have cooperated,” I said. “I’m telling the truth.”

Agent Allgood stood up and walked over to the back door. She opened it and looked out into the yard, at the bright green buds leafing out from the trees crowded up against the back door. “This is a nice place down here,” she said when she turned around. “But it’s gotta be pretty boring after leading the party life up there in D.C.”

“I didn’t party that much,” I said. “I had a life. An apartment. Friends. A job. Up until recently.”

“Yes,” she said. “But Alex Hodder took care of all that. Didn’t he? As soon as things started to heat up, he fired you. Didn’t he? Or, should I say, his office manager fired you?”

I shrugged. I didn’t know what she wanted from me.

“He’s playing you, Dempsey,” she said, giving me a pitying smile. “You know that, right? He probably set everything up from the very start, so that if anything went wrong with the payoffs to Licata, you’d be the one to go down. Not him.”

Carter squeezed my hand again. This time it felt like a warning.

“Dempsey, Dempsey,” she said, sighing softly. “You were in love with Alex Hodder, weren’t you?”

“No.” It came out with a squeak.

“Dude’s good lookin’,” Agent Harrell said. “Got that whole silver-fox thing going on. Takes good care of himself. Dresses nice. You believe he’s fifty? I would have said more like forty, but that’s what the driver’s license says. I was a young girl, I might get a crush on him too.”

Camerin Allgood shot him an annoyed look. “Jackson?”

“I’m just sayin’.”

“We took a look at your cell phone bills, Dempsey,” Agent Allgood
said. “The day Licata was indicted? The day you and your boss were all over the news? You called Alex Hodder’s cell phone nineteen times.”

“I was trying to find out what was going on,” I said. “The FBI came in, they took our computers, shut the office down. CNN was saying Alex was mixed up in this vote-buying thing. I was concerned.”

“I’ll bet,” Harrell said. “Especially after they fired your butt.”

Carter was squeezing my hand again. So I shut up.

“What is it you want from my client?” Carter repeated.

“Assistance,” Harrell said. “A little help. So we can nail Alex Hodder’s ass to the wall. Nail him up good, right beside that slimeball Licata. Yeah. We want us a congressman, and a big old lobbyist.”

“Spell it out, would you please?” Carter said.

Camerin Allgood opened her briefcase again. She picked up the little tape recorder and stowed it inside the case. Then she brought out a small black plastic box, about the size of a pack of chewing gum.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“That’s your get-out-of-jail-free card,” Agent Harrell said jovially.