The Fixer Upper (28 page)

Bobby came over to the bed and took the drawer out of the nightstand. He set it outside in the hallway. He stacked the framed photographs on another dresser, and leaned down and unplugged the lamp.

When he stood up again, his face was solemn.

“I told you Miss Olivia had a hard time in delivery, right? The doctor gave her some pills to help her sleep. And when she was so depressed, after your granddaddy took the baby away, he give her some pills to help calm her down. The wife’s aunt, she did the washing and ironing over here, and some housecleaning too. One morning, when she come to work, she went upstairs to ask Miss Olivia something. Only Miss Olivia wouldn’t wake up. Auntie, she shook her and shook her, but it was too late. She was dead.”

“Oh my God,” I breathed. “She killed herself. With an overdose.”

“The doctor told the family it was heart disease,” Bobby said staunchly. “But they give Auntie a train ticket to Mobile to visit her cousin the very next day.”

He picked up the nightstand and took it out to the hallway. I took the hand-knotted quilt off the foot of Ella Kate’s bed, and then, carefully, stripped the bed of the thick white chenille bedspread, the same spread my grandmother’s family had been making for decades. I folded it into quarters, and then carried it and the rest of Ella Kate’s bedding downstairs, to her new room.

T
rey drove the last truckload of papers and magazines and kitchen debris to the dump just as the sun began to dip down below the horizon.

I saw the truck pull away from the house from the window in what had been Uncle Norbert’s study, and what would now be Ella Kate’s bedroom.

Bobby unrolled the worn pastel hooked rug with its faded pattern of pink roses on the freshly mopped floor. Then we placed the bed facing the window so she could watch the comings and goings on the street outside. I’d washed the curtains from her old bedroom, and hung them now in her new room. Her bed linens were freshly laundered too, and I’d dusted and polished the furnishings so that they gleamed and the whole room smelled like lemons and beeswax.

I re-created Ella Kate’s old room as best as I could, minus the warehouse full of furniture.

She’d still have Olivia’s dressing table with the sterling-silver brushes and combs and jars, and she’d have the dressers too, the ones with her things and the one that held Olivia’s clothing. I brought down all the framed photographs and arranged them around the room, along with a representative collection of the porcelain cats. I prayed Ella Kate wouldn’t notice the absence of the cat I’d broken the night of the storm.

When we’d finished, we stood in the doorway surveying the day’s work.

“This looks real nice, Dempsey,” Bobby said. “Real homeylike. Ella Kate is gonna love it.”

I snorted. “She’s going to hate it. And she’ll hate me for doing this. She’ll be furious that I trespassed in her old room, even angrier if she
figures out I roped you into helping me out.”

“Had to be done,” Bobby said. “She might get her bowels in an uproar at first, but she’ll get over it pretty quick. Long as Shorty’s here, she’ll be all right.”

As if on cue, Shorty ran through my legs and into the room. He was still sore from his surgery, so I had to lift him up and onto the bed, where he immediately curled up on Ella Kate’s pillow as though he owned the place.

“See? Shorty likes it just fine,” Bobby pointed out. “And soon as Ella Kate gets used to the idea, me and Trey will move them sofas and chairs back downstairs where they belong.”

After he’d gone, I wandered into the kitchen to check out our progress there. We’d had to put the tiling project on the back burner while we moved Ella Kate’s things, but before we’d started on the bedroom, Bobby and Trey had slotted the junkyard sink into its place on the cabinet base, and hooked up the faucet.

Without thinking, I went to my bucket of cleaning supplies, found a can of scouring powder, and began working on the stained porcelain.

It took me a good half hour, but I managed to scrub away most of the old stains and caked-on debris. There were some minute chips in the porcelain in a couple of places near the top of the sink backsplash, but to my mind they were hardly noticeable. I was working on polishing the nickel faucet and handles when my cell phone rang.

The caller ID screen told the tale. Mitch. I felt my gut clench. We hadn’t talked since that angry exchange over the
Washington Post
story.

I let it ring three times before answering, wondering how I would handle him.

“Hi, Dad,” I said. Wow, way to put him in his place, Demps, I thought.

“Now listen, Dempsey,” he started.

Uh-oh.

“I just had a visit from a woman named Camerin Allgood. Does that name ring a bell with you, young lady?”

I winced. He hadn’t called me “young lady” since discovering I’d
blown all my freshman year meal money on a spring break road trip to Key West.

“The FBI agent. Yes, we’ve met.”

“She showed up at my office and announced she was with the FBI. My secretary nearly had a coronary!”

“I hope your secretary is all right, Dad,” I said.

Especially since if she did have a heart attack, he would blame it on me.

“She’ll live,” he said. “The point is, this Agent Allgood woman says you are refusing to cooperate with the FBI. I told her in no uncertain terms that I thought she was mistaken. I told her I was sure you wanted to clear up this whole shameful episode and get it behind you, and that of course you would want to do anything in your power to help the government bring this slimeball congressman to justice. That’s right, isn’t it?”

“Uh, Dad,” I said. “I do want to get it cleared up. And I have been cooperating. The thing is, I’ve given them concrete proof that I hired those women at the direction of Alex Hodder. They have this crazy idea that I should wear a wire and get Alex to incriminate himself, which is ludicrous. He’d never do that. I told them that, Dad. I gave them the evidence. They have everything they need already.”

“That’s not what Agent Allgood told me this morning,” Mitch huffed. “This woman is a veteran at these kinds of investigations. And if she says she needs you to wear a wire, I say you damned well better do as they ask.”

“Dad—” I started.

“This whole thing has gotten completely out of control,” Mitch went on. “I think you need some solid legal advice.”

“I have a lawyer, Dad,” I interrupted. “Carter Berryhill and I have met with these agents twice. And he told them that I’m not going to do anything until they bring me a signed agreement from the U.S. attorney’s office, stating that they won’t pursue charges against me.”

“Carter Berryhill?” Mitch bellowed. “You mean that country-bumpkin lawyer handling my great-uncle’s estate? For God’s sake, Dempsey, use some common sense, for once. Now look. I’ve talked to somebody in our Atlanta office, and they’ve recommended an ace criminal attor
ney. He used to be a federal prosecutor, and he’s handled dozens of cases like this. I’m calling him tomorrow.”

I felt the blood pounding in my ears. My gut clenched and unclenched. I held my breath, let it out.

“What, Dad?” I said. “I can’t hear you. I think my cell phone battery is dying.”

I punched the disconnect button. If the phone hadn’t been my only link to the outside world, I think I would have stomped on it with the same disgust I’d used earlier on the silverfish.

And now the doorbell was ringing. My day was complete.

I glanced down at my attire, hoping that my visitor wasn’t Tee. My overalls were caked with grime and dead silverfish, and my hands were rubbed raw from all the cleaning compounds I’d tortured them with.

When I opened the front door, I immediately wished I hadn’t.

Jackson Harrell leaned up against the door frame, gazing around the porch with frank curiosity. He was dressed in starched and pressed blue jeans, a starched yellow dress shirt, shiny white Nikes, and a dark blue baseball cap with FBI emblazoned across the bill. He was the face of the new FBI. I wanted to slam the door in that face, but I restrained myself.

“How ya’ doin’?” he asked.

“What do you want?” I said stonily.

He looked taken aback. “Hey now. You call that Southern hospitality?”

“I don’t feel particularly hospitable right now, to tell you the truth.”

“Bad day?” he asked, starting to step inside.

“I’ve had better.” I stepped in front of him to keep him from going any farther. “No offense, Agent Harrell, but I’m kind of busy right now. So, if this is a social call, I’m going to have to ask you to give me a rain check.”

His easygoing smile vanished. “Oh, it’s not social,” he said. “This is business. All business.”

I felt the blood drain from my face. “In that case, I’ll ask you to wait out here on the porch until I can get my attorney over here.”

“You do that,” he said, folding his arms across his chest. “I can wait.”

I slammed the door and went for my cell phone.

“Tee? Is Carter there?”

“No,” Tee said. “I’m down at the newspaper. He’s at home, as far as I know. What’s up?”

“The damned FBI is here again,” I said. “It’s that Agent Harrell. And he says he means business. I wouldn’t let him in. I’m not talking to him until your father gets here.”

“Good thinking,” Tee said. “I’ll get hold of Dad and send him over there right away. Did the guy give you any idea of what he wants?”

“I didn’t give him a chance. But I do know that that woman, Agent Allgood, showed up down in Miami at my father’s office today. They’re pressuring him to pressure me to wear the damned wire.”

“Jesus!” Tee said. “These guys don’t give up.”

“Neither do I,” I said grimly.

After I hung up the phone, I ran upstairs and jumped in the shower, fuming. I had no intention of meeting with Harrell while looking like a fugitive from a pest-control convention.

Did he think he could just drop in and scare the crap out of me with his big, bad FBI self? Uh-uh. No more. I was done being intimidated, patronized, pushed around. I nearly scrubbed the skin off my body while I plotted my revenge on all those who’d done me wrong. Leading the list were Alex Hodder and Congressman Anthony Licata, with Agents Harrell and Allgood right behind. And my father. I wouldn’t mind showing him up while I was at it. As I scrubbed, a plan began to form. It was evil, vindictive, and manipulative. It was a thing of real beauty.

I washed my hair and blew it dry, then pulled it back in a semisevere French twist. I put on makeup, including enough black eyeliner to give me the feeling of a warrior queen. I dressed in my best pants suit, the black wool Dolce & Gabbana one with the tight-fitting jacket—what Lindsay always referred to as my “Power Ranger” suit. I put on pearl earrings and the gold Piaget watch Mitch had given me when I graduated from law school. For the first time since I’d arrived in Guthrie, I found the need for heels, my black Jimmy Choo boots.

When I’d dressed, I stood in front of the wavy mirror on the back of
the closet door and assessed the look. Hair: professional, not too dykey, not too girlie. Clothes: excellent. The pants suit, which had cost an un-godly sum, gave me a tall, slim, stripped-down silhouette. Jewelry: also excellent. The pearl Tiffany earrings had been my mother’s graduation gift. They were precious to me because I knew she’d chosen something she thought I’d like, rather than the funky, ethnic jewelry Lynda herself favored. As for the watch, I knew Mitch had bought it in a deliberate attempt to outspend Lynda, which he’d managed, in spades. He’d given me a piece more suitable for a Wall Street hedge funder than a junior lobbyist, because that’s what he secretly hoped I would someday become—the gift was aspirational rather than inspirational, but no matter. I’d noticed that Agent Harrell wore a Rolex. My Piaget would trump his in any contest. Shoes: double check. The wicked two-inch boot heel, along with my hairdo, would give me what I estimated was a one inch advantage over Agent Harrell.

The doorbell was ringing again. I marched carefully down the stairs, clinging to the banister with both hands to avoid tripping and falling in the now-unaccustomed high heels. When I got downstairs, I could see three men through the front-door sidelights: Carter, Agent Harrell, and yes, Tee Berryhill. I took a deep breath and squared my shoulders. Showtime.

J
ackson Harrell did a double take when I opened the door. I like to think he was astonished by my thirty-minute transformation.

“Agent Harrell,” I said coolly, motioning him inside. “I can’t say it’s a pleasure to see you again.”

“My dear,” Carter said, kissing my cheek and giving me a malicious wink. “You look lovely tonight.”

Tee trailed in the door last, giving me a long, searching look. When Harrell and Carter were out of earshot and eyesight, he kissed me too—only with a little more passion and a lot more tongue. “Love the outfit,” he whispered in my ear.

I dragged the dining room chairs into the parlor, choreographing the seating so that Harrell was seated closest to the drafty windows.

“Well now,” Harrell said, looking from me to the Berryhills. “Now that the whole choir is assembled, I guess we should just get down to brass tacks.”

“Oh. Isn’t Agent Allgood joining us tonight?” I asked.

Harrell shifted in his seat. “She’s out of town on business.”

“Yes,” I said. “I understand she’s been down in Miami. I spoke to my father just now. He mentioned that Agent Allgood paid him a call. Unannounced. At his place of business.”

Carter’s fluffy white eyebrows shot up. “What?”

“Yep,” I said, making a show of crossing my legs. “I guess it’s a new tactic. Maybe something you guys learned from the Department of Homeland Security? Pressuring family members to get a witness to cooperate? Or maybe just trying to embarrass them by showing up and announcing to everybody within shouting distance that a federal agent
wants to speak to them about ‘government’ business? Personally, I think it’s pretty tacky.”

“Tacky? It’s unconscionable,” Carter said, his face coloring. He turned to Harrell. “You people have no business involving her parents. Miss Killebrew has told you she’ll cooperate. We gave you proof that Alex Hodder instructed my client to hire what she reliably believed was a massage therapist and a surfing instructor.”

“Wakeboard instructor,” I told Carter. “Apparently there’s a difference.”

“I don’t care if she was a mambo teacher,” Carter said. He was really getting himself worked up on my behalf. It was wonderful to behold. He leaned toward Harrell. His ears got quite pink when he was angry. “These efforts to intimidate Miss Killebrew must stop. Immediately. After our last discussion with you, we were assured that you would take the evidence we gave you—Alex Hodder’s golf scorecard, with his handwriting on it—and in return, we’d receive a written agreement from the U.S. attorney’s office that no charges against my client would be pursued.”

“Hey!” Harrell said, holding up both hands as though to fend off a physical attack from Carter Berryhill. “Don’t get your boxers all bunched up at me, Mr. Lawyer. I’m the good guy here. I made the case for leaving Miss Killebrew out of this thing. My partner and I went to the wall for your client. We even took it to the SAC.”

“SAC?” Tee said, looking puzzled.

“Special agent in charge,” Carter explained.

“Right,” Harrell went on. “The thing is, the U.S. attorney is another story. You can’t quote me on this, but the thing is: Congressman Licata is a Republican. And he happens to be on some key subcommittee that’s been jerking the Justice Department around on the matter of appropriations for nickel-and-dime stuff like travel and continuing education. You believe that? This motherfu…excuse me, allegedly corrupt public official, is telling us we can’t buy a coach ticket to Sheboygan to interview a suspect, and in the meantime, he’s taking under-the-table blow jobs in exchange for a vote on an oil bill.”

Carter’s pink ears officially turned red. “Really, Agent Harrell, what’s that got to do with Miss Killebrew?”

“My boss, and his boss, they want this case watertight. They want it signed, sealed, and delivered to a jury with a pretty pink bow on top. So, while the scorecard is good, excellent even, we’re gonna need just a little bit more.”

He picked up the briefcase at his feet and laid it across his knees. He unsnapped the latches and brought out the plastic case he’d shown me on his last visit. It was the box with the bug.

“Miss Killebrew,” he said, turning his back on Carter, “my instructions are to tell you that we will need you to get Alex Hodder, on tape, and on camera, discussing how he—using you as a dupe—hired prostitutes to service Representative Anthony Licata during your trip to Lyford Cay, Bahamas, last year. We’re gonna also need for you to get him to tie that into the fact that Hodder’s oil industry clients paid for that trip, with the intention of bribing Licata in exchange for his favorable vote on an energy bill that stood to make them billions in profits. And in exchange for that, of course, we will not be looking at prosecuting you for public corruption.”

“Would you like anything else?” Tee asked. “Maybe while she’s at it she should get Hodder to confess to how he cheated on his taxes and provided a hideout for Osama bin Laden? That way she could score a hat trick—working for the FBI, the IRS, and the CIA all at the same time.”

“Tee?” Carter said quietly.

“Fine,” I said.

“Absolutely not,” Carter said heatedly. “We had an agreement with you folks that Miss Killebrew would not be expected to try to entrap her former boss.”

“You people are unbelievable,” Tee went on. “It’s an abuse of power, is what it is. You bully, you threaten, you intimidate, all in the name of ferreting out crime. Dempsey’s a private citizen. She’s committed no crime.”

“Well, now,” Harrell started. “The crime thing, that’s still under investigation. We do have her American Express receipts, and we have statements from the prostitutes that she was the one who procured their services.”

“Fine,” I repeated, a little louder this time. “I’ll do it. Okay? I’ll wear the friggin’ bug. I’ll call up Alex Hodder, and I’ll lure him down here, and somehow, I’ll get him to admit what he did. All of it. Okay?”

“Say what?” Harrell said.

“Now, Dempsey,” Carter said. “You absolutely do not have to do this.”

“Yes,” I said. “I’m afraid I do have to do it. I want this thing done. Over with. I’m sick of having these charges hanging over my head. I’m sick of wondering if I’ll ever get another decent job, of wondering how I’ll support myself…I’m sick of that feeling of dread I get when my phone rings or there’s a knock at the door, of wondering if it’ll be Agent Harrell here, or his sidekick, or God knows who else.”

Carter was shaking his head in sorrow. Tee was rolling his eyes. Harrell was practically jumping up and down for joy.

“I’ll do it,” I told Harrell. “But in my own way, and in my own time.”

“See,” Harrell said slowly, “we got a deadline on this thing—”

“I said I’d do it,” I repeated. “But I do have a pressing family commitment that has to take precedence. Once that’s taken care of, I’ll set it up. Myself,” I emphasized. “I’ll get Alex to agree to meet me, and then it’s up to your people to make sure you get it all on tape or video or whatever. Because I am only doing this one time.”

“Great!” Harrell said. He stood up, beaming. “The SAC is gonna be very pleased. And of course, Agent Allgood, I’ll call her tonight and give her the good news.”

“You do that,” I said sourly, standing up and straightening the crease in my trousers.

He looked around the room with interest. “Say, how’s that kitchen project of yours coming along? I’d love to see it. I watch all those home handyman shows on television, you know. Always got a little project of my own goin’. Kinda my hobby, you know? Maybe we could exchange restoration tips, like that.”

I drew myself up to my full height and rested my fingertips ever so lightly on the sleeve of his starched shirt. “I don’t think so, Agent Harrell,” I said. “My kitchen is closed for the night.”

Tee laughed out loud. “Come on, Jackson, old buddy,” he said. “I think the lady has had enough of you. I’ll show you to the door.”