To Live and Die In Dixie (7 page)

“Then what?”

“Two days later, she was all teary-eyed again. The pregnancy had been a false alarm. She'd started her period. I couldn't understand why that upset her, but it did. I told her, ‘You should be glad, you're too young and smart to be saddled with a baby.'”

“And when did all this happen?”

He considered for a moment. “I guess it was last month.”

“Did she tell the boyfriend it was a false alarm?”

“Come to think of it, I don't know. I've been so busy with the tour and the battle reenactment, I don't think I asked. And she didn't volunteer.”

“And you have no idea who her boyfriend was?” I repeated.

“No,” he said. “I told you. She kept her social life to herself.”

“No phone calls or visitors?” I asked incredulously. I have a fourteen-year-old niece myself, and my brother's house seems to have a revolving front door and a telephone that never stops ringing.

“She'd only been here about six weeks,” Littlefield said testily. “There was a phone in her room, so I don't know who she talked to. And I made it clear from the beginning that I was operating a business here, so I couldn't have some pimply faced heavy-metal head bangers hanging around all the time.”

“How'd she get around?” I asked. “You said she went to estate sales every weekend.”

He laughed. “She had a car, if you can call it that. One of those ridiculous Korean hunks of junk. Cherry red.”

“A Hyundai?” Obviously a man whose idea of a
clunker was a Range Rover couldn't be bothered to learn the name of every silly little import that hit the streets.

“That's it.”

“Where is it now?”

“I haven't given it a thought,” Littlefield admitted. “I use the garage for my cars, and the van I use for business takes up the driveway. The parking lot in the back of the carriage house is reserved for customers. She usually parked on the street, wherever she could find a spot. Sometimes she had to park a block or two away, especially on weekends.”

“I wonder if the cops impounded it? I don't remember seeing a car like that the other night.”

“Does it matter?” he asked. “What's Bridget's car got to do with her murder and my burglary?”

“I don't know,” I admitted. “I guess I'm just trying to put the pieces together.”

“It seems to me that you should be wondering who took my belongings and where they are now,” he said peevishly.

“Leave me alone now, will you?”

“Don't worry, I plan to,” I said.

G
EORGE KOTERAS WAS SHORT and stocky, with a shiny bald head and a pair of hornrimmed glasses that kept sliding down his nose. He wore baggy khaki slacks and a green-and-white awning-striped dress shirt. I'd put him in his late forties or early fifties, but it was hard to tell without seeing his car. Doctors over fifty always drive Mercedes or Lincolns, younger than that and it's usually a Beemer, unless they're a surgeon. Surgeons like the jazzy stuff: Jaguars, Ferraris, like that.

“How's the patient?” he asked, looking around the foyer for a trail of blood or some other evidence of the recent violence that had befallen the House of Littlefield. He wrinkled his nose in distaste at the state of Eagle's Keep.

“He's out like a light,” I said. “Sorry about the mess. Mr. Littlefield's between housekeepers right now, and then the house was ransacked during the burglary and all…”

“No problem,” Koteras said. “Where'd you stash the SOB?”

“Back here,” I said, leading the way through the dining room and into Littlefield's improvised sickroom.

The patient's eyelids fluttered heavily when Koteras greeted him. “Those Dilaudids pack a punch,” Koteras said. “He won't feel any pain for another three hours or so.”

As he spoke, Koteras slipped into the kitchen, washed his hands at the sink, and moved back into the bedroom.

He poked a white plastic probe in Littlefield's ear and waited. A few seconds later it beeped and some numbers appeared on a digital readout screen. “Temperature's back down to normal,” he said, glancing at me. “What'd you do?”

“Put some cold wet cloths on his pulse points, gave him some ice to suck on, and stripped him,” I said. “My sister's an emergency room nurse, she told me what to do.”

Koteras had his fingers on Littlefield's wrist, taking his pulse. “Pulse is all right,” he said, not looking up. He reached in the bag he'd carried in, brought out a blood pressure cuff, and proceeded to take the rest of the patient's vital signs.

“So what's the story?” I asked. I was getting itchy to get out of Eagle's Keep.

“He'll probably be fine,” Koteras said. “He needs to keep drinking fluids, and to stay quiet for the next twenty-four hours.”

“What about scotch?” we heard a weak voice asking. “There's a new bottle of Chivas in the kitchen. I'd like three fingers. You two help yourselves, of course.”

Elliot Littlefield was struggling to sit up. Koteras helped.

“No booze,” Koteras said. “Come on, I want you to try to stand while I take your blood pressure.”

“You already did that,” Littlefield protested. “I felt it.”

“Now we take it standing to see if there's a difference that we should worry about,” Koteras said. “Swing your legs over the side of the bed here, can you?”

Littlefield gathered the sheet around his middle and slid his feet to the floor, wincing. “Goddamn, my back hurts,” he complained. “I feel nauseous too.”

“Don't be such a fucking baby,” Koteras said. “This'll just take a minute. You've probably pulled something playing those ridiculous games of yours,” he added.

Littlefield shot me a quick glance. I wanted to tell him he didn't have any equipment I hadn't seen, but I thought better of it.

“I'll, uh, just be out in the kitchen if you need me,” I said, backing out of the room.

I found paper towels, rags, Spic and Span and Windex under the kitchen sink. I was scrubbing away at the fingerprint powder on the kitchen door when Koteras came in a few minutes later.

He washed his hands again and dried them on the paper towel I offered.

“By the way,” I said. “I guess you're wondering who I am and what I'm doing here.”

“You're not Elliot's girlfriend?” He seemed surprised.

“Not hardly,” I said. “I'm Callahan Garrity. I'm a private detective.” Given the sorry state of Littlefield's house, it didn't seem prudent to mention I was also his new cleaning lady. “Mr Littlefield hired me to try to recover some of the antiques that were stolen here Saturday. I take it you know about the murder and burglary?”

He nodded. “Saw it on the eleven o'clock news. I couldn't believe Elliot'd gotten himself in another mess.”

“Did you know him during the first murder investigation?”

“I knew him,” Koteras said, methodically rolling his shirt sleeves down and buttoning the cuffs. He picked up his bag then and got ready to go. He paused, then pulled a small pill bottle out of his breast pocket.

“These are antibiotics,” he said. “Along with everything else, Elliot picked up some kind of a puncture wound on his leg, probably while he was playing Robert E. Lee today. I've washed it, but I want him to start on these right away to make sure the wound doesn't get infected. He's gone back to sleep right now. When he wakes up, make sure he takes them after he eats something.”

“Wait a minute,” I said, startled. “I wasn't planning on hanging around any longer. Like I said, I'm not his girlfriend. And I've got stuff to do tonight.”

Koteras looked annoyed. “Well, somebody needs to be here when he wakes up. I'd stay myself, but I'm on call tonight and I'm already late to see a patient at Georgia Baptist.”

He started for the door as though matters were all settled. Doctor's orders.

“I can't stay,” I said loudly.

He shrugged but kept walking. “Not my problem. Make sure he starts those antibiotics. Two tonight, four tomorrow.”

The front door thudded shut.

There was a mewing sound in the vicinity of my ankles. The Siamese again. It rubbed up against me, looked up, and winked with its one good eye, then flopped over on its belly, offering itself up to be scratched.

“Beat it,” I hissed. The cat squirmed in a fit of happiness. Cats can always tell a cat hater. And that's the first person they attach themselves to in a crowd. It's positively Freudian. Grudgingly, I rubbed the toe of my
shoe against its fur. The resulting mew sounded strangely orgasmic.

“Now what?” I asked it. The cat probably had one of those revoltingly cute Chinese names like Me Lei or Ping-Pong or something.

I poked my head in the door of Littlefield's room. At least Koteras had covered him up. The quilt was pulled around his chin and he was asleep, snoring gently.

It was five o'clock. My client's estimated time of arrival from the ozone was around eight. How to kill three hours in this mausoleum? Hell, it was still light outside, and would be for three more hours. I decided to make them billable hours.

After checking to make sure the front door was locked, I retrieved Littlefield's key ring from the kitchen counter, pocketed it, and headed out to canvass the neighbors.

Ping-Pong followed me to the door, cocking his head as if to question my intentions.

“Don't wait up,” I told him.

The house directly across the street from Littlefield's was also Victorian, but on a much smaller scale, and it was gray clapboard instead of rose brick.

A man knelt in a flower bed in the front yard, working the soil with a hand trowel. Uninvited, I crossed the lawn to have a chat. He was so engrossed in attacking a clump of weeds he didn't see me standing there.

Which gave me time for a quick assessment. I liked what I saw. A fringe of thick dark hair poked out from beneath an Atlanta Braves hat. So he was a sports lover. He wore baggy white dirt-stained shorts and no shirt. The deep tan looked good, and the muscles in his shoulders moved smoothly as he dug. A man of the earth, too.

“Excuse me,” I said finally.

He sat up, startled by the interruption.

“I'm Callahan Garrity,” I said. I felt awkward, too tall, too fat, with him sitting on his haunches coolly looking up at me.

“Jake Dahlberg,” he said, not unpleasantly. “Whatcha need?”

He had me there. What did I need? “Uh, I'm a private detective,” I stammered.

“And?”

“I'm trying to find out if anybody in the neighborhood saw anything unusual Saturday afternoon or early evening.”

The beginnings of a smile disappeared. “You mean over there?” he said, pointing with a dirt-encrusted finger at Littlefield's house.

“That's right. Were you home Saturday?”

Dahlberg abruptly threw his trowel in a weed-filled bucket at his side, and got to his feet. He looked good from the front, too. Nicely muscled chest, not too furry.

“You're working for Littlefield?” he said incredulously. “Bastard's getting smarter this time around. Hiring private detectives to help beat a second murder rap.”

Call it women's intuition, but I had a feeling Dahlberg and Littlefield weren't the closest of friends.

“The police are investigating the murder,” I said. “Mr. Littlefield hired me to try to recover the things taken in the burglary. That's why I was wondering if you saw anything out of the ordinary yesterday.”

Dahlberg wiped the sweat from his forehead with his forearm, leaving a dirty streak that reminded me of Indian warpaint. “That's a good one,” he said. “A burglary. If you want to recover what was allegedly taken, check around in his shop, or in his safe deposit box. He
killed Bridget and then made it look like a burglary to cover his tracks.”

“That's an interesting scenario you've come up with,” I said. “But where's the motive? Why would Elliot Littlefield kill this girl? Besides, he was way across town at the time of the murder. And the house had been ransacked. I saw it myself. Hell, one of my employees found the body. I doubt that someone who was due to give a big party would deliberately murder somebody and then wreck the house just hours before his guests were due to arrive.”

“Littlefield doesn't need a motive. He's killed before. He's done it again,” Dahlberg insisted. “You don't know the man.”

He picked up his bucket and headed up his driveway toward the backyard, with me following.

“And you do know him.”

Dahlberg shrugged and kept walking. “I've put up with his Fascist crap for nine years. He's the neighborhood menace. Stuff has been happening in this community lately. Ugly stuff. A woman and her baby, living only a few blocks from here, died in a fire the same night Bridget was killed. I can't prove anything, but I'm certain Littlefield's behind it.”

“If you suspect him of crimes, why not go to the cops?” I asked. “They'd love to pin something on Littlefield.”

“If I could prove anything, I would,” Dahlberg muttered. He unlocked a wooden gate and stepped into the backyard. I was right behind him.

The garden was pocket-size and perfect. The narrow band of lawn was closely clipped and emerald green, with not a weed or a bare spot. Everything else was flowers, mostly roses. They were dazzling, pale pink, white, yellow, peach, lavender. Roses climbed on the
white rail fence at the garden's perimeter, clambered over a small wooden garden shed and nodded from beds on three sides. The air was heavy with their sweet summery perfume.

“Wow,” I said in a breath, forgetting the contentious nature of our conversation.

“You like roses?” he asked. He drew a pair of snub-nosed clippers from the pocket of his shorts and clipped a pale pink specimen, then handed it to me.

I buried my nose in the soft pink petals and inhaled.

“Mmm. Love 'em, but my yard doesn't get nearly as much sun as yours. I've got a couple of straggly bushes that were in the yard when I bought the place.”

“I don't get what it is with roses,” Dahlberg said. “These are my dad's hobby, not mine. He took care of them until he had the stroke. When I put him in the nursing home he made me promise to keep them going. Now I'm a prisoner to the damn things.”

“Not a bad prison,” I said, glancing around. “Is your father still alive?”

He swatted at a mosquito that had landed on his bare shoulder. “Yeah, if you call that living. No thanks to Littlefield.”

“What's that mean?”

Dahlberg slipped the flower clippers back in his pocket. “Follow me,” he ordered.

We walked back to the front of the house and around to the front porch. We stopped in front of his door and he pointed, across the street, to Eagle's Keep.

“See those flagpoles? Right now Littlefield's flying the Stars and Bars. But three years ago, there was a movie company in town, shooting a period picture set in the 1890s. They were using a couple blocks here in Inman Park for exteriors, so they shut off traffic on the street for a weekend, got the police to make the
residents park over in the MARTA parking lot two blocks away. There were all kinds of inconveniences. Littlefield was annoyed that the movie company wouldn't pay some exorbitant amount for the privilege of shooting here. So on the morning shooting was supposed to start on our block, Littlefield hung two huge Swastika flags from those flagpoles. Blanket-size flags. I'm sure he was terribly pleased with himself for having outfoxed the movie people.

“Pop came out of the house that morning to get the newspaper. He's a Holocaust survivor. His parents, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, everybody was gassed at Treblinka. When the Temple was bombed, back in the sixties, he was one of the first ones on the scene, afterward. He saw those flags fluttering in the breeze that morning. I found him right here where we're standing. He'd had a mild stroke. Two days later, another series of strokes. His mind is still keen, but his left side is paralyzed and he has problems speaking and swallowing.”

I looked over at Eagle's Keep again. The Confederate flag hung limply now, not a ghost of a breeze was stirring. A house or two away, a lawn mower buzzed in the near-dusk quiet. What do you say to something like that?

“I'm sorry,” I said finally. “I agree with you. Totally. Elliot Littlefield is a racist, anti-Semitic jerk. Unfortunately, that doesn't automatically make him a murderer. And also unfortunately, I can't afford to turn down clients because they're jerks. If I did, there'd be nobody to work for.”