To Live and Die In Dixie (16 page)

I felt chilled. Bridget's tenderheartedness might have been what got her murdered. “Shit,” I said. “Maybe he didn't wander away at all. Maybe he followed her back to Eagle's Keep, broke in, and when she caught him, he stabbed her to death.”

“That's what we're thinking,” Nickells said. “Say
now, what about a little sisterly sharing, as long as I've let you pick my brains?”

“I'm not looking into the murder, just trying to recover the diary,” I told her.

“Keep sayin' it, maybe you'll believe it. What do you know that we don't know?”

“All right. I did find out who Bridget's boyfriend was. Kyle Jordan, her soccer coach at All Saints. Bridget told him she was pregnant, but she forgot to mention it when she found out it was a false alarm. He's married, got kids. I thought he looked good for it. I've got somebody checking his alibi for Saturday.”

“Good,” she said, writing Jordan's name on a pocket-size notebook she'd fished out of her purse. “What else?”

“Well, Littlefield's theory is that whoever did the murder and burglary was someone out to get him. It's wacky, but he thinks his neighbor, Jake Dahlberg, could be behind it. They had kind of a feud going.”

She nodded. “We've talked to Dahlberg. We'll talk to the other neighbors about it too. Anything else?”

“Not really. I've been looking into the people who wanted to buy that diary. They're kind of a spooky crowd, especially this Vickers character, the right-wing nut, maybe you've heard of him? But that's all preliminary, and there's nothing solid to tie them to the diary.”

She put the notebook away. “All right, girlfriend,” she said. “Let me go talk to this shelter lady. I got miles to go before I sleep tonight.”

J
UST FOR THE HELL OF IT, I decided to cruise over to Inman Park to see what was happening. For a Wednesday afternoon, the joint was jumping. Police cars were parked on every block and uniformed officers and dark-shirted police cadets tramped uneasily through the kudzu-covered vacant lots that dot the area; with one officer swinging a bush hook to ward off snakes and the other wielding a metal detector.

Housewives, kids, and retirees stood around their yards in knots, watching the cops fling hubcaps, beer cans, and other rust-encrusted goodies onto a growing pile. The kids were having a dandy time pawing through the pile looking for souvenirs. An old man stood on the front porch of the house next to Dahlberg's, staring intently at all the activity. Mr. Szabo, the neighborhood busybody. I'd meant to go back and talk to him about the day of Bridget's murder, and I hadn't gotten around to it. I made a mental note to go back and pick his brain.

As I rode slowly past Eagle's Keep I spotted Elliot Littlefield standing on the front step of the house, leaning heavily on a cane with one hand and training a camcorder at the officer who crisscrossed his front yard,
poking a beeping metal detector into the hydrangeas and azaleas. He spotted me too, and flagged me to a stop.

Reluctantly, I pulled into his driveway. He may have been paying me for this investigation, but I was in no mood to talk to my client, who'd probably be wanting a report on all my activities.

He walked stiffly over to the side of the van, leaned up against the door and looked in at me. “Did you see the news this morning? I should have known one of those bums was behind this. This Madison fellow, I've seen him around the neighborhood. He always wears green army fatigues. Probably stolen. Dahlberg over there,” he said, pointing with his cane to the house across the street, “he encourages these people by giving them handouts all the time. And of course, these types are like rats; you feed one and pretty soon you have an infestation.”

“The news report I heard said they haven't charged the man with anything except the mugging,” I reminded Littlefield.

He pointed the cane toward the police officer, who'd crossed the street and was working the hedge in Dahlberg's front yard. “Use your head, Callahan. Obviously the police believe this Madison person has hidden some of the loot in the underbrush over here. What else would they be looking for?”

I'd thought about that. “The murder weapon for one thing. The preliminary autopsy said Bridget was stabbed with a short-handled knife. You told the police there was a dagger missing from the house, but there was no dagger on the list of antiques you gave me.”

He shrugged. “Oh that. It's a silly little Korean Army thing I got in an estate sale. Not at all in the same category as my Civil War things. It's hardly
worth a hundred dollars. The police have a description of it. Maybe they are looking for it, but I still believe they're searching for the rifle and the silver cup and the other things.”

Littlefield's ebullient manner irritated me. “Do you really believe they'll find those things in one of these kudzu patches? Besides, we had a hard rain here Monday night. Wouldn't the diary, for one, be ruined? Understand, I'm not trying to be a pessimist, but I do think you should be prepared for the possibility that the diary may be lost. The police think the man is mentally unstable. If he did kill Bridget and steal those things, he may have thrown them away or done who knows what with them.”

His face darkened. “I hadn't thought of that. But maybe he sold the things in one of these shoddy pawnshops or so-called antiques shops around here. That's what I want you to do, by the way, check all the pawnshops. And those cutesy little ‘grandma's attic' places. This Madison person probably isn't as deranged as he looks. He probably sold the stuff and hid the money somewhere.”

Even if Linda Nickells hadn't warned me against confiding in Littlefield about their discovery of the cartridge box plate, I would have kept it to myself, just out of spite.

“All right,” I said evenly. “I was planning on typing up a progress report for you by the end of the week. That's my usual procedure, but if you like, I'll fill you in now on what I've learned.”

“No, no,” he said impatiently. “The end of the week is fine. Shane Dunstan and Pete Vickers both called to say they'd spoken to you, so I know you've been earning your fee. Just slip an invoice in with your report and that'll be fine.”

I nodded curtly, and started the car.

“Just a minute,” Littlefield said. He walked stiffly to the front door of the house, opened it, reached in, and pulled out a small beige plastic box.

He walked around to the side of the van, opened the door, and tossed the box on the seat. A loud protesting mew came from the box.

“That's the damned cat,” Littlefield said. “Drop it off at the pound, will you? The damned thing pissed all over my Heriz.”

“Wait a minute,” I said, “pet disposal isn't exactly my line of work.”

“Do what you want with it,” Littlefield said, turning his back on me. “If you don't take it I'll just call animal control to come get it. Either way the cat's not coming back on my property.”

I started the van and shot away from the curb. If I stayed within sight of my client for one more second I knew I'd throttle the bastard.

Another loud yowl came from the box, then the lid fell off and Ping Pong stuck his flea-bitten head out, giving me an inquiring, one-eyed glance.

“We can't let the bad man gas the nice kitty,” I told the cat. “Looks like you're in for a change of address, Ping-Pong.”

I was so irritated, I ran the red light at the next intersection. Littlefield had that effect on me. Or maybe it was this damned investigation. Only a few hours ago I'd thought I was getting a grip on this case. I'd developed what I thought were decent leads on Bridget's murder and resigned myself to the fact that I'd become involved in that investigation. Now the cops had a schizophrenic homeless man under investigation and I was no closer to the truth.

My mood didn't improve when I saw the cars parked in the driveway at home. All the girls appeared to be
sitting around my kitchen when they should have been out working.

“God damn,” I said, grabbing the cat's box with one hand and slamming the van door with the other. It never failed; as soon as I took my eyes off the House Mouse to try to conduct some other business, things seemed to crumble to pieces.

I let the cat out in the backyard. No need for Edna to know just yet that we had a house guest.

“All right,” I announced, stomping into the kitchen where they were all gathered. “What the hell is going on here?”

“What the hell has gotten into you?” asked Edna, their designated spokesman. “The girls are done for the day.”

Neva Jean got up and went over to the refrigerator to help herself to another Mountain Dew. She got the drink and set it on the counter, then continued rooting happily through the fridge.

“Say ya'll,” she said, holding up a dish of leftover macaroni and cheese and scooping some of the cheese topping off with her fingernail, “wanna hear what Swannelle told me about his Civil War reenactment unit?”

“What are they gonna do, get hoods and robes and have a bonfire over at the Martin Luther King grave site?” Jackie asked.

Neva Jean flipped her friend the bird. “I told you a hundred times, Jackie, this is not about racism, this is about preserving our Southern heritage. In fact, it might interest you to know that there are several very highly regarded all-black reenactment units in Atlanta.”

“Heritage my ass,” Jackie muttered. “Black folks got heritage too, but you don't see no George Washington Carver or W. E. B. DuBois carved up there on the side of Stone Mountain.”

“Anyway,” Neva Jean said, popping the top on her soda can, “Swannelle says the Gate City Old Guard is fixin' to have a Civil War of its own.”

“I thought they did that all the time, Neva Jean,” I said. “Isn't that their hobby?”

“Nooo,” she said, relishing her tale. “This time they're fixing to make their general secede. They're gonna kick his tail right out of the unit.”

I looked up in surprise. “What are you talking about? You mean they're going to force Elliot Littlefield to resign?”

“Fire him is more like it,” she said smugly, sitting back down at the table with a pint jar of fig preserves and a handful of saltine crackers. I grabbed the preserves away from her and put them on the shelf behind me.

“See,” she said, “Tommy Jack Dawson's wife, Marvella, she's the unit historian, does all the research and looking up to make sure everything is authentic? Well, she was down in Savannah for a historical meeting and she went over to the Georgia Historical Society archives, and when she told the librarian there that her husband was with the Gate City Old Guard, the lady mentioned that somebody had just given them a handwritten unit history for the Old Guard that they'd found in a garage sale in Pooler. The lady wouldn't let the book out of her sight, but she did let Marvella sit and read it and make notes and you know what?”

“No, what?” Edna chimed in. She'd gotten up to pour us both a glass of iced tea and had gotten as engrossed as I had in Neva Jean's long-winded story.

“Elliot Littlefield's great-great-granddaddy wasn't no kind of officer at all. Eustis Littlefield, that was his name, he was a private, and he never fought at
Kennesaw Mountain at all because he had been thrown in the brig for stealing from the unit paymaster.”

“Son of a bitch,” I said.

“Amen to that,” Edna said. “I knew all along that man was all hat and no cattle.”

“Oh, before I forget, call Dr. Kappler,” Edna said. “His office called right after you left this morning. What's he want?”

Now was not the time to discuss experimental cancer drugs with my mother. “Nothing,” I said quickly. “I'll tell you later. Now before I forget—what did you find out about Pete Vickers's study group?”

She flipped open the appointment book in front of her and plucked out a pink telephone message slip. “I spent the whole morning on the phone, and nobody knows anything about a study group that met in Atlanta that Saturday. I called and called that phone number too, but nobody ever answered.”

“Maybe it's a pay phone,” Neva Jean piped up.

Edna glared at her. She hates for anybody to beat her to the punch. “I thought of that already.” Deliberately turning her back to Neva Jean, she added, “I put a call in to Alan Jerrolds. He's the boy just bought that cute bungalow up the street. Does something with computers for Southern Bell.”

“You don't even know him,” I said. “I can't believe you called and asked a favor of a total stranger.”

“He's not a total stranger now,” Edna said sweetly. “I told him about the House Mouse New Neighbors half-off special. Ruby's going down there in a little bit. He said he'd get right on it this afternoon.”

“Well, keep calling the number,” I said. “I want to know who Darryl is and what he is to Pete Vickers.”

“You don't need to tell me what to do,” Edna snapped. “I got the number on redial. Now do you want
to hear about Jocelyn, or do you have any other instructions for me?”

Jocelyn. I'd forgotten all about her. “What did she say?”

“She and her mother had a talk. Her folks want her to move back home for the rest of the summer, but Jocelyn wants to stay put, and her shrink is backing her up. Oh yeah, she also said she'd gone ahead and made some phone calls about that soccer camp.”

“She's probably wasting her time,” I said.

“Why?”

“Linda Nickells told me it looks like they are going to charge the homeless guy with Bridget's murder. They know he saw her Saturday morning. He hung around Inman Park all the time. And get this, they found a Confederate cartridge box plate in a stash of the guy's stuff. The cops are swarming Inman Park right now, looking for the rest of Littlefield's missing antiques.”

“So Littlefield's off the hook.”

“Looks like it,” I said. “It's just as well. He is my client. If he gets thrown in jail, I might not get paid.”

Her eyes narrowed. “If you're so convinced this Madison did it, why are you still poking around with Pete Vickers and all that other mess?”

“I'm being paid to recover Lula Belle Bird's diary,” I reminded her.

“You don't believe this homeless guy killed Bridget any more than I do,” Edna said flatly. “Admit it.”

“I don't know what to believe,” I said slowly. “But I've got to cover all the bases. That's the only way we'll find out who killed Bridget. That's why I've got you making all these phone calls. Understand?”

She lit a cigarette, inhaled, and let a long thin stream of smoke whistle through her lips. “What do you want me to do next?”

I opened my Eagle's Keep file folder and handed her the list of items taken in the burglary. “Madison told the cops he found the cartridge plate in some tall grass in the neighborhood. I think he's telling the truth. But I want you to check the antiques shops, especially all those ones along Highland Avenue and within walking distance of the shelter and Inman Park. Madison doesn't drive, so if he did sell any of the stuff, he wouldn't have gone far.”

I watched idly as Baby and Sister struggled out of their chairs to get ready to leave. Baby had on a pink cotton print dress, thick elastic Supp-Hose, and her favorite black lace-up oxfords with metal cleats on the soles. Sister, as usual, was dressed in layers. Under the black warmup jacket she had on a white Atlanta Braves T-shirt that had been placed over a red cotton turtle-neck shirt. She wore baggy green surgical scrub pants with “Property of Grady Hospital” stamped all over them, and white orthopedic nurse's shoes.