Monument to Murder (14 page)

“You just forget everything,” Louise said. “Just forget it, you heah?”

“Yes,” Mitzi and Jeanine affirmed.

They watched Louise get out of the Caddy and go into the building.

Jeanine started to cry. “I’m freezing,” she said, her teeth chattering.

Mitzi ignored her and drove to the Montgomery house, where she parked the car where it had been earlier in the evening. Jeanine, wearing her bra, sat shivering. “Come on,” Mitzi said. “Get out before anyone sees you.”

They went inside. Jeanine got out of her clothes and took a shower. Mitzi followed. Wearing bathrobes, they put what washable clothing there was in the washing machine and sprayed other items with air freshener in an attempt to rid them of the odor of cigarette and marijuana smoke.

“What are we going to do?” Jeanine asked as they sat in her bedroom.

“I don’t know,” Mitzi said. “Nothing, I guess. Nobody knows what happened. I mean, nobody knows it was you and him.”

“Somebody knows,” said Jeanine. “That girl, whatever her name is—”

“Louise Watkins.”

“She knows. You think she’s going to say anything?”

“Don’t be silly. She’s a drug pusher, probably a prostitute. She doesn’t want anything to do with the police.”

“But other people in the bar. The bartender. People sitting near us.”

“Look,” Mitzi said, grabbing Jeanine’s wrist and looking her in the eye, “nothing will happen if we just stay calm. Try to forget about it. You said he tried to rape you. He’s was a bum, trash. Good riddance.”

They stayed up talking for most of the night. Mitzi left at noon on Sunday; Jeanine’s parents returned at six that evening.

“Had a good time with Mitzi?” Mrs. Montgomery asked.

“Oh, sure,” Jeanine said. “We just hung out.”

Her father had settled in his favorite reading chair in the living room and started to go through the Sunday paper. “Look at this,” he said, referring to a short article on the slaying at Augie’s the night before. “It was bound to happen. That place should have been shut down months ago.”

Mrs. Montgomery took the paper from him and read. The reporter had little to report—a man, Allan Resta, twenty-five years old, a resident of Atlanta, had been found stabbed to death next to his car in the parking lot of Augie’s. The weapon was missing and no suspects had been identified. Witnesses said a young woman had accompanied the victim from the club just prior to his murder, and officials were seeking this individual. The victim’s mother in Atlanta had been informed of her son’s death by phone.

The next morning, Mrs. Montgomery asked Jeanine if anything was wrong.

“No. Why do you say that?”

“I don’t know, dear, you look worried about something.”

Jeanine manufactured a dismissive laugh. “No, Mother, everything’s great.”

Everything
was
great in the Montgomery household until five o’clock that afternoon when two Savannah detectives arrived at the door. Mrs. Montgomery answered.

“Ma’am, we’d like a word with your daughter, Jeanine Montgomery,” one detective said.

“My daughter? Why?”

“Just a routine inquiry, ma’am. Is she at home?”

Jeanine was summoned from upstairs. The detectives got right to the point: “Were you at Augie’s Saturday night?”

“Augie’s?” She made a face. “I never go there.”

“One of the people we interviewed said that she thought she’d seen you there.”

“I hesitate to intrude, Detective,” Mrs. Montgomery said, “but I assure you that my daughter doesn’t frequent places like that.”

The two men looked at Jeanine, waiting for an additional comment from her.

“No,” she said, “I wasn’t there. My mother is right. I wouldn’t be caught dead in a place like that.”

“Sorry to have bothered you,” said one of the officers. “The witness said she wasn’t sure that she’d seen you but we had to follow up. I’m sure you understand.”

“Of course we understand,” Mrs. Montgomery said. “You’re doing your job, and you do it very well, all of the Savannah police. Would you like coffee or a soft drink?”

They declined the offer and left.

Jeanine’s father was, of course, told of the police visit when he returned home that evening. “Glad you straightened them out,” he said after his wife had recounted the reason for the visit and its outcome. “Ridiculous thinking someone like Jeanine would be involved in anything as tawdry as that.”

The following day, Jeanine was home alone when a call came.

“Hey, this is Louise,” Louise Watkins said.

“Who?”

“Ah, come on, don’t play dumb with me. Louise, from Saturday night. Remember?”

“Yes, I remember. How are you?”

“Not so good. I need to talk to you.”

“I don’t think that would be such a good idea,” said Jeanine.

“Better you talk to me than to the cops.”

Jeanine felt as though she’d been hit in the stomach. The message was clear. This girl named Louise was going to blackmail her. Where would she get the money? From her parents? She’d rather die than tell them what had happened.
Please, dear God, make this go away
.

Louise told her of a street corner where she wanted to meet later that afternoon.

“Please don’t do this,” Jeanine said, aware as she did so that she sounded pathetic. She summoned her control, steadied her voice, and said, “I’ll meet you there.”

Louise hung up.

Jeanine called Mitzi and told her about the call.

“You aren’t going to meet her, are you?” Mitzi said.

“What am I supposed to do?” Jeanine countered. “She knows everything that happened and can tell the police.”

Mitzi paused in thought. Finally she said, “Jeanine, it was an accident. The guy tried to rape you. Maybe it would be best to just tell what happened.”

“Tell
who
? My parents? They’d kill me. I’d never be able to go out for the rest of my life. Maybe this Louise isn’t looking for money to keep quiet. We can meet and find out what she wants. No harm in that.”

“
We
meet her?”

“Yes! You were there with me. I need you, Mitzi.”

Another pause before Mitzi said, “All right. This stinks.”

“I know. I’ll meet you there at four.”

The street corner was in a shabby part of the city. Louise was waiting when they arrived. She was dressed like a streetwalker and had obviously been using drugs. The flesh around her left eye was discolored, black-and-blue.

She led Jeanine and Mitzi into a small, weed-choked park with two broken benches. Jeanine noticed three young black men loitering near a fence separating the park from a junkyard. It was stiflingly hot but she was chilled by the circumstance of the meeting and its location.

“What do you want?” Jeanine asked Louise.

“I need money. I need money bad.”

“I’m sorry that you do,” Jeanine said, “but I don’t have any money to give you; maybe a few hundred dollars but—”

Louise snickered. “That not what I mean. Things are bad for me, got to get away from here.”

“Again, I’m sorry but—”

“Your family got money, big bucks, right?”

“Leave my family out of it!” Jeanine was surprised at the strength in her voice.

“I took care of you,” Louise said, “got rid a’ the knife and all. You owe me. You don’t pay me, I got to go to the police.”

“No, don’t do that,” Jeanine said. “Please.”

The three men approached. One said to Louise, “Hey, bitch, come on. What you hangin’ ’round with these white chicks for?”

It was as though Louise didn’t have any choice except to go with them. She said to Jeanine, “You be back here tomorrow, same time, and bring a thousand dollars with you. You hear me?”

Jeanine and Mitzi watched Louise leave with the men.

“What can I do?” Jeanine asked, tears beginning to roll down her cheeks.

“I don’t know,” Mitzi said, “but maybe I can talk to my father and see what he suggests.”

“Tell your father?”

“You have a better idea?”

“My parents will know then.”

“It looks to me like they’re going to know anyway, at some time. My dad’s a pretty cool guy. We’ll talk to him together and ask him not to tell your folks. There’s no other choice, Jeanine.”

The thought of sharing with Mitzi’s father what had happened on Saturday night was terrifying to Jeanine. But Mitzi was right, and she didn’t see any alternative. Maybe Mr. Cardell would put up the money to satisfy Louise. Jeanine hung on to that thought as they drove to the Cardell home, where Mitzi’s father practiced putting on the back lawn.

“Daddy, we have to talk to you,” Mitzi said. “Jeanine’s in trouble.”

Jeanine bristled for a moment at being painted as the only one in trouble. After all, Mitzi had broken the rules, too, by going to Augie’s, and she had been involved in the cover-up. But she was in no position to quibble about relative guilt.

They sat in the Cardell kitchen, where Mitzi’s father poured glasses of sweet iced tea. “Now, Jeanine,” he said, joining them at the table, “what’s this trouble you’re in?”

It took Jeanine time to compose herself and to form her thoughts. When she was ready, she said, “Mitzi and I went to Augie’s Saturday night. My parents were away overnight and we—well, we decided to go.”

Cardell fixed his daughter with a harsh stare, which she avoided by casting her eyes down.

Jeanine continued recounting the events. She hadn’t gotten very far when Cardell stopped her. “You were there when that fellow was murdered?” he asked.

Jeanine nodded.

“Don’t tell me that—”

“It was an accident. He tried to rape me. It was his knife and he threatened to kill me. It just happened. He held the knife and we fought and it went into him.”

“Jesus!” Cardell muttered, shifting in his chair and looking out the french doors. He turned to his daughter. “You were there when it happened?”

“No, Daddy. I was with the black girl who—”

“What black girl?”

Jeanine answered his question, ending with, “She wants a thousand dollars or she’ll go to the police.”

“My God,” he said, again diverting his gaze to the outdoors.

“I don’t want my parents to know,” Jeanine said.

“Oh really?” Cardell said. “A little late for that, isn’t it?”

Jeanine started to cry.

Cardell ignored her tears and asked, “Who is this black girl you were with?”

“Her name’s Louise Watkins,” Mitzi replied. “She’s a drug dealer and a prostitute.”

“And you hung out with someone like that?”

“I didn’t ‘hang out’ with her, Daddy. I met her at the bar and—”

“And she wants a thousand bucks to keep quiet.”

The girls nodded.

“What makes you think she’ll stop at a thousand?” he asked. “You give in to blackmailers and they keep coming back for more.”

Another set of nods.

Jeanine said, “She said she has to get away. She looked like somebody had beaten her up. I think she’s in trouble and will take the money and leave Savannah.”

“You can’t count on that. When are you supposed to meet her again?”

“Tomorrow afternoon.”

“Where?”

“Downtown.”

A last look at his private putting green outside the french doors preceded his next and final response to their situation. “I want to meet this girl named Louise but I don’t want to do it downtown. Can you convince her to go with you to a place I name?”

Mitzi and Jeanine looked at each other.

“I suppose so,” Mitzi said.

CHAPTER   20

The following afternoon, Jeanine and Mitzi drove to where they were to meet Louise Watkins. She looked even worse than she had the day before. A cheek sported a new bruise and she walked at an angle, as though to straighten up would be painful.

Jeanine, who was behind the wheel, pulled to the curb by the run-down park and motioned for Louise to come to the car. She balked at first and indicated that they were to come to her. Neither Mitzi nor Jeanine made a move. Mitzi repeated Jeanine’s hand motion. Louise looked around and slowly, tentatively approached. She stood beside Mitzi, who sat in the passenger seat.

“What’s going on?” Louise asked through the rolled-down window, her words affected by drugs.

“Get in,” Mitzi said.

Louise frowned as she tried to gather her thoughts. “You got the money?” she asked.

“No, but we’re going to someone who does,” Jeanine answered.

Louise was visibly conflicted. She hadn’t expected this change in the scenario she’d written for herself and the meeting.

“If you want some money, Louise, you’ll have to come with us,” Mitzi said.

The girls in the car waited while Louise processed this.

“Who?” Louise asked.

“You’ll find out,” Jeanine said. “We can’t sit here all day.”

Louise looked up and down the street and saw two of the young black men who’d been there yesterday heading her way. Jeanine wondered whether Louise was afraid that they were about to take her to some secluded spot and kill her. They would be going to a secluded spot but murder wasn’t part of the script.
Maybe it should be,
Jeanine thought.

Louise opened the rear door and tripped as she got in. She slammed the door shut and sat wedged against it as though seeking refuge.

Jeanine drove south, reaching Victory Drive and continuing until she took a right onto Waters Avenue. Louise said little except to ask a few times where they were going. “You’ll see soon enough,” Mitzi responded.

They crossed the Diamond Causeway from the Isle of Hope and entered the Skidaway Island State Park, a 533-acre preserve bordering a stretch of the Intracoastal Waterway called the Skidaway Narrows. Jeanine and Mitzi had been there many times on family outings. Jeanine followed a narrow roadway leading to an area where large earthwork fortifications built as Confederate defenses during the Civil War shared the land with abandoned moonshine stills. It was an overcast day with rain looming in the forecast, which had kept down the number of visitors. Jeanine parked and she and Mitzi got out. Louise remained in the backseat, taking in her surroundings, fear etched on her face.

“Come on,” Mitzi said, opening the door for her.

The three young women walked along a path bordered by Savannah holly and magnolia trees and azalea and firethorn shrubs.

“Where the hell we going?” Louise demanded.

“We’re here,” Jeanine said as she saw a man standing alone near an entrance to one of the Civil War entrenchments.

Louise stopped. “Who’s he?”

“Somebody who can help you,” Mitzi said.

“This is Louise,” Jeanine said when they reached the handsome, well-built young blond man in a tan suit, yellow shirt, and green tie. His name was Jack Felker; he was Ward Cardell’s personal assistant and PR man.

“Hello,” he said, and smiled.

Louise said nothing.

“You have nothing to be afraid of,” Felker said, “but maybe I can help you.”

“‘Help me’?” Louise said.

“Yes. I understand you’re looking for money in exchange for forgetting something that happened last Saturday night at Augie’s.”

Louise cocked her head defiantly. “So? You got the money?”

“Yes,” Felker said, “but first I need to talk to you. I’m told that you’re looking for a thousand dollars to remain quiet about what happened at the club.”

“That’s right. Seems to me what I know is worth it.”

Felker noticed that the battered black girl was starting to shake, probably because the drugs she’d taken earlier were wearing off.

“I’m told that you want the money to get away from the life you’ve been leading in Savannah,” he said.

Louise kept her eyes on the ground as she said, “I’m all messed up, that’s all. I got to get me straightened out.”

“And I’d like to help. Of course, you know that a thousand dollars won’t go very far. It’ll be gone before you know it and you’ll end up back the way you were.” When Louise didn’t react, he continued. “What someone like you needs is a nice, long vacation where you can get yourself straightened out.”

Louise nodded and shuffled her feet.

“I’m sure your mother and brother would be very proud of you.”

The mention of her mother and brother caused her to look up at him with eyes now moist. Felker had done his homework before the meeting and knew about Eunice Watkins and Louise’s preacher-brother, Lucas.

“You need to go to a place where they’ll take care of you,” he said, “make you healthy again, put you in classes that will teach you skills you can use later on in life. I know that your brother, Lucas, is a minister. You need God in your life, young lady, and there are places where God will be brought to you and made a part of your life.”

“I—I just need the money.”

“How would you like ten thousand dollars?” Felker asked.

Louise was stunned by the question; her fingers fluttered to her mouth.

“Did you hear me?” Felker asked.

“Yes, sir, I heard you.”

“Well?”

“Ten thousand. You got to be joking with me.”

“No, I’m not joking. But you have to do something in return.”

“What I have to do?”

“Go to the police and tell them it was
you
who stabbed the man in Augie’s parking lot.”

“I didn’t do that. It was her.” She pointed at Jeanine.

“It doesn’t matter who actually did it,” Felker explained. “It was obviously an accident. The man tried to rape you. He used a knife. You grabbed the knife and in the struggle it killed him. By confessing to the crime you’ll be given leniency. I assure you that the right judge will see it that way and will go very easy on you, give you just a few years in prison, where you can find yourself and find God, get off the streets, and become the sort of good young person your mother and brother want you to be. Believe me,” he concluded, “what I’m offering you is a gift from God. We don’t often get second chances in this life. I’m giving you a second chance, and so is God.”

“I don’t know. I—”

“The police will believe you. You threw the knife in the water and you know where that is. Your fingerprints will be on the knife unless the water has dissolved them, which I don’t think will be the case in such a short period of time.”

Felker sensed that she was softening.

“The women’s prisons aren’t there to punish. The facilities at Metro State Prison in Atlanta or the Lee Arrendale State Prison in Alto are there to help you forge a new life. Just think about it—free of drugs, maybe your GED diploma, and a bright future ahead for you.”

When there was still no response, Felker said, “This is your one and only chance. You’ve obviously made some bad decisions in your young life. Don’t make another one. And if you think you can go to the police with your story about someone else having done it, they’ll laugh you out of court. You’re a druggie and a hooker. How do you think that will play with the police and a judge?”

Finally Louise spoke. “You give me the money now?”

Felker chuckled. “I don’t think so,” he said. “Here’s what I suggest. Tomorrow you go to the police and tell them that you were the one who stabbed the man in the parking lot. I’ll spend time with you tonight to help you come up with your story. Once you’ve been arrested, I’ll arrange for ten thousand dollars to be delivered anywhere you say.”

Louise turned her back on him and looked up into the gray sky. The initial raindrops of a storm that would soon become full-blown landed on her face. The wind suddenly picked up and blew Felker’s blond hair into a swirl above his head. That, coupled with a dramatic flash of lightning behind, gave him an almost messianic quality. Jeanine and Mitzi waited. Louise slowly turned and said to Felker, “You promise about the money?”

“Yes, I promise,” he said above a sharp clap of thunder.

“You give the money to my mother?”

“If that’s what you want. Ten thousand dollars will be given to her anonymously. But you have to promise that you won’t tell a soul about this. If you break that promise, you’ll wish you were back on the Savannah streets.” His tone had turned rock-hard.

Louise Watkins agreed. She would, of course, eventually tell her mother how she ended up in prison, but she would never reveal the source of the payoff. Nor would she ever know that the young woman for whom she’d sold out would one day become the first lady of the United States of America.