Mug Shot (10 page)

I barely slept, switching off between worrying about Pete and having horrific nightmares about Cecilia and Pete and Stan. As much as I wanted to sleep in, I knew I had to get up and go see Gertie before she read the Sunday morning paper, because there was sure to be a story about Pete being arrested for Cecilia's murder. It would be big news. The story was probably on the late evening news last night, but Gertie went to bed well before nine, so there was little chance of her finding out that way.

First, I went over to Pete's house to get him a suit for his arraignment. I found a nice gray one and a crisp white shirt. After grabbing a dark blue tie, I went to his dresser to get socks and underwear. Feeling a little ambivalent about going through Pete's underwear drawer, I plucked out the pair on top and quickly shut the drawer. Being elbow-deep in his sock drawer didn't bother me nearly as much, so I waded around to find a pair that would look nice with the suit. In the bottom of the drawer, my hand bumped into a strange object. When I looked to see what it was, I nearly fell over.

After I had graduated from Belmont and decided to stay in Nashville permanently, Pete had gone home with me to Indiana to help pack up my things. My mother had kept way too much stuff from my childhood—every horrible art project I ever did, all of my report cards, a physical copy of every photo anyone had ever taken of me (good or bad), and countless other pieces of crap that didn't need to be saved. For some reason, she expected me to take all of it with me to my new place. I wasn't having it. But as fast as I could toss things in the trash, Pete was grabbing them out, insisting I save the junk.

“Jules, this is what's left of your childhood. You can't just throw it all away.” Pete held up a battered contraption made of Popsicle sticks and yarn. “Look at this. It's adorable.”

“I can't keep everything,” I complained, not intending to keep any of that old junk. “Besides, you've seen how small my apartment is.”

“But these things are memories,” he argued.

“Things aren't memories. Memories are in your head,” I pointed out, pitching a horribly misshapen clay bowl toward the trash can.

Catching the little bowl before it hit the trash, he said, “I know, but…maybe you'll want this stuff someday. You could show it to your kids.”

“I'm not having kids. I'm going to be a famous musician. I won't have time for drooly little crying babies,” I scoffed.

He regarded me for a moment. “You don't want kids?”

“Not especially. Do you?”

Pete smiled. “Well, yeah. I mean, someday.”

I laughed. “You're such a girl.”

“Am not!” he fired back, picking up the nearest pillow and slugging me with it. A major pillow fight ensued, and we ended up laughing until our stomachs ached.

I never knew he had pocketed the bowl that day, nor did I ever imagine he would have kept it all these years. I suddenly realized I'd been sitting on Pete's bed, hugging his pillow and crying the whole time I was thinking about the stupid clay bowl. My pity party was not doing him any good, so I dried my tears, put the bowl back where I found it, and left his house.

I zoomed over to Gertie's place and snagged her newspaper, which was thankfully still on her doorstep. It would probably give the old girl a heart attack to get a knock on her door this early on a Sunday morning, but I had to do the task Pete had given me. It wasn't going to be pretty.

Knocking tentatively, I called, “Gertie? It's Juliet.”

After a few minutes, Gertie appeared at the door in her nightgown, sporting a length of toilet paper bobby-pinned to her head to protect her hairdo from getting mussed while she was sleeping. She looked adorable, except for the sour expression on her face. “What in damnation are you doing knocking on my door at this ungodly hour of the morning? I nearly shit the bed when I heard all the racket.”

“I'm sorry, Gertie. I need to talk to you.”

“Hell's bells! Why didn't you call me on that damn cellphone you fart around with all the time? You didn't have to scare a poor old woman to death by trying to break down her door.”

Gertie could be a real ballbuster. I replied contritely, “Next time, I'll call. This is important, and I didn't want to tell you over the phone.”

She peered behind me uneasily. “Is Pete with you? He's not hurt, is he?”

“No, but…I think we need to go inside so we can sit down and talk.”

“Okay,” she replied uncertainly, opening the door. We went in and sat in her living room. I loved her house. It reminded me of my grandmother's house—tiny and crammed full of antique furniture and family photos. “You're making me nervous, Juliet. What the hell's going on?”

“I don't know if you heard, but Friday night Cecilia was murdered.”

“I heard,” she said, frowning. Gertie couldn't stand Cecilia, but like me, she would be worried about how Pete felt. “Pete came over and told me last night. He wasn't taking it too well. Have you talked to him this morning? How's my Pete holding up?”

“Not great. He…um…The police seem to think he had something to do with it.”

“WHAT?” she exploded, tearing into a stream of cursing that I could never in a million years repeat.

I waited until she was finished. I took her hand as she sat there breathing heavily from the shock of my revelation. “Gertie, he's in jail.” She opened her mouth to start another tirade, but I put my hand up to stop her. “He's fine, for now. You remember Seth, from the coffeehouse?”

“Yes, but what in the hell—”

“You remember that I told you he's actually a cop?”

She nodded uncertainly. “Yes.”

“Well, he's promised me that he'll look out for Pete while he's being held downtown at the metro precinct. Pete is in a private cell, so he's safe, and we don't have to worry about him getting hurt.”

“All I care about is how we get him out of that hellhole.”

I sighed. “I agree. He's going to be arraigned tomorrow morning, and Ryder—that's Seth's real name—says that's when the judge will set bail,
if
he's going to allow Pete out on bail. His bail will probably be pretty high, so we need to discuss how and if we're going to be able to pay it.”

A tear rolled down her cheek. “I'll sell my soul to the devil to get my baby out of jail.”

“I know. Me, too.”

After wiping her nose indelicately on her nightgown, Gertie straightened up and announced, “I want to go see him.”

I nodded. “I figured you would. I called the station on the way over here and made arrangements for us to see him at nine.” It turned out that the police were really accommodating about letting you see your loved ones when you asked nicely and refrained from calling them pigs. Who knew?

I ushered Gertie into the police station, and luckily my friend from my previous visit was not working the front desk. We were shown to the same room where I saw Pete last night. After a few minutes, the door opened, and a uniformed officer led Pete into the room. The moment he saw his grandmother, his eyes filled with tears. Gertie started crying, and then I started crying, so the officer had to raise his voice to let us know that we could only have fifteen minutes with him.

Pete looked horrible, but I had never been happier to see him. His clothes were wrinkled and he desperately needed a shave. His poor eyes were red and had deep, dark circles under them. The man was a wreck.

He reached out his shackled hands to Gertie, and she grasped them. “Gertie, I'm so sorry—”

“Don't you dare apologize to me, young man. I don't know who killed your bitch-ass girlfriend, but I know it wasn't you. Now let's talk about getting you the hell out of here.”

He smiled through his tears. “Thanks, Gert.” He turned to me. “And thank you, Jules, for bringing her here. I take it you didn't have to get yourself thrown in jail to see me this time?”

“No, I used my nice words and my inside voice today. Worked like a charm.”

Gertie turned to me, perplexed. “You were in jail, too?”

Pete said proudly, “Someone wanted to keep me company last night, so she had the bright idea of getting herself a cell next to mine. Her evil plan might have worked, only they put her in with the general population and me in a different cell block.”

“Juliet, I thought you were smarter than that,” scolded Gertie, then she smiled. “I would have done the exact same thing.”

I shook my head. “It was definitely an experience. I saw a dude peeing on another dude.”

Gertie guffawed. “That's nothing. In the sixties, I—”

“Whoa,” Pete interrupted. “I've already got enough problems without a bad visual of my grandmother from the sixties.”

“Agreed,” I said. “And I hate to be the one to bring this up, but we need to figure out a game plan for paying your bail. Pete, did your lawyer say anything about how much it might be?”

He winced. “He said it would be pretty ridiculous.”

Gertie interjected, “On
Matlock,
the judge once set the bail for a murder suspect at two million dollars.”

Pete and I groaned. Old people and their
Matlock
references. I said, “Surely it won't be that high. And can't you get a bail bond and only pay a percentage?”

He sighed. “My lawyer said bail bonds are generally for ten percent. If my bail gets set at a million, that's still a hundred grand I'd owe. I don't have anywhere close to that. I'm screwed.”

“Pete, we'll find a way,” I said.

Gertie turned to me. “You said you haven't given it up to your rich boyfriend yet. Think he'd be willing to pay for it?”

“No,” Pete said emphatically, pointing at Gertie. He then turned and pointed at me, too. “No!”

I leaned closer to Gertie and murmured, “Talk about selling your soul to the devil.”

“There will be no selling of anything to anyone, you two,” Pete ordered.

I said, “Fine. Look, I'll talk to Ryder and see if he knows of any other options.”

“Why is he being so nice to me all of a sudden?” asked Pete suspiciously.

“He thinks you're innocent, Pete.”

“Then why in the hell isn't he trying to get me out of here?”

“He's doing what he can. It's not his case. He promised to ask Cromwell to take a good look at Stan.”

“Your boyfriend?” asked Gertie.

“Stan is
not
my boyfriend.”

She waved her hand. “I can't keep all of your men straight.”

Before I could object, the officer returned and said, “Your visit is over.”

I caught the tearful look that passed between Pete and Gertie. It nearly ripped my heart in two. She reached out one of her wrinkled, shaking hands and patted him on the cheek. She whispered, “You hang in there. I love you.”

“I love you, Gertie,” Pete choked out as the officer was putting the cuffs back on him. “You, too, Jules,” he added as he disappeared out the door.

Gertie was unusually quiet on the ride back to her house. I kept trying to start a conversation with her, but it was obvious she didn't want to talk.

I pulled up in front of her house and asked, “Can I at least take you to breakfast or something?”

She looked over at me and placed her hand on mine. “No, dear. Thank you. I'd like to be by myself for a while.”

“I understand. I'll come and get you tomorrow morning for the arraignment, okay?”

“I'm not a damn invalid. I can drive myself,” she retorted grumpily. At least the old Gertie was still in there somewhere.

“Okay, then. I'll see you there.”

I drove back to my apartment, lost in thought. I had no freaking clue how I was going to go about proving Pete's innocence. The evidence they had on him was bad. However, other people had pretty decent reasons for killing Cecilia, some even more so than Pete. Stan was an obvious suspect, because he got her share of their grandmother's inheritance in the event of her death. Hollingsworth Industries was a multimillion-dollar company. But what about Cecilia's mysterious baby daddy? What if he didn't want to be a daddy? That was the perfect motive for murder—get rid of the baby and the nagging girlfriend both at the same time.

How in the hell was I going to find out who this guy was and also gather information on Stan? I needed to infiltrate the Nashville social scene, but there was no way I could do it on my own. I couldn't very well use Stan to break into the clique. He wasn't too popular with the rich folk at the moment, plus I didn't feel it was right to use him that way, killer or not. To go deep into Cecilia's socialite world, I needed a wingman—or rather, a wing
woman
.

Savannah had called me several times the previous night to find out what had happened to Pete, but I had missed her calls, having been in jail myself. I called her, hoping she would agree to my harebrained scheme.

“It's about time you called me back!” she huffed into the phone.

“I'm sorry. Last night was insane.”

She asked worriedly, “How's Pete? Are they really going to charge him with murder?”

“It would seem so. He's hanging in there, for now at least.”

“Did he meet with the lawyer Carl sent over?”

“Yes, and tell him thank you from us.”

“Oh, sweetie, he wanted to help. I do, too. Is there anything else we can do?”

This was my opening. “Now that you mention it…could we talk about it over lunch?”

“Sure! Want to meet at the club at noon?”

“I'll be there.”

“The club” was the exclusive country club that Savannah and the Hollingsworths and all of their wealthy friends belonged to. Stan had taken me there for lunch a couple of times. I would much rather have gone to the seedy diner Ryder took me to last night. However, the club was the perfect place to start my snooping. It would be packed with gossiping socialites, and the topic of the day should be Cecilia.

After changing into the nicest dress I owned, I headed over to the club to meet Savannah. She was waiting for me at the front door. When we walked into the dining room, I could feel people staring and began to hear murmuring.

Once we sat down and ordered our food, I whispered to Savannah, “I feel like I'm being watched.”

She laughed nervously. “It's not every day that someone goes running off the stage and vomits at a big fundraiser gala…”

I covered my face with my hands. “Great. I'm
that
girl.”

“Until they find something more interesting to gossip about, yes. Plus, you're dating Stan, who's
persona non grata
to this group after Abigail's little accident.”

“
Casually
dating,” I said to clarify. Going out on a “date” last night with Ryder maybe wasn't exactly kosher, but if Stan turned out to have something to do with Cecilia's death, our “casual dating” would be over anyway. “I'm not happy with him at the moment. I think I need to take a step away from Stan.”

“Well, it's about time.”

“Yes, but after his behavior lately, I'm afraid to make a big deal out of breaking things off. I'm hoping that if I don't return his calls, it'll kind of fizzle on its own. He left me several messages last night, but I ignored them.”

“I know,” she said exasperatedly. “He was bothering me all evening, asking if I'd heard from you. I don't think he's ready for you two to fizzle just yet.” She looked around to see if anyone was listening and lowered her voice. “Juliet, I think you're right to distance yourself from Stan. Carl and I were talking about it on the way home, and we think…oh, how do I say this without sounding horribly judgmental?”

I said it for her. “You think Stan may have had something to do with Cecilia's murder. Pete and I were thinking the same thing.”

Her eyes got wide. “I hate to think that about Stan. I've known him for years, but after what happened with Abigail…”

“I know. I'm angry with him for pointing the finger at Pete; and you have to admit, he did have a lot to gain from Cecilia's death. But I can't seem to wrap my mind around him committing the act itself.”

“He could have paid someone to do it.”

“True, but it would still bother me to see him locked up. At the same time, I don't want Pete rotting in jail for something he didn't do.” I said softly, “I have to try to prove his innocence.”

She gasped. “You want to put your sleuthing cap back on again, don't you?”

“Yes, and this time I need help.”

Startled, she replied, “Wait, are you asking
me
? Well, butter my butt and call me a biscuit!”

“Is that a yes?” I asked, unsure of what butts and biscuits had to do with investigating a murder.

Taking a large, unladylike gulp of her white wine, she replied shakily, “That sounds way too dangerous for me. I'm kind of a scaredy-cat, in case you hadn't noticed.”

It was true. Savannah always worried about me getting myself into dangerous situations, but also loved the stories resulting from my antics. I tried to downplay the possibility of danger. “Oh, we'll probably mostly be talking to Cecilia's friends, and maybe a few people from the 5K. How dangerous could that be?”

“Oh, girl. Her ‘friends' make the
Real Housewives
look like nuns. You do not want to tangle with them.”

“That's why I need you. You know how to deal with their crap.”

She cocked her head to the side and looked thoughtful. “Well…I reckon it would be exciting…”

“So you'll do it?”

She took another gulp of her wine. “Oh, what the hay! Carl's going to be out of town for a couple of days for one of his gambling trips. I need something to do.”

“Thank you, Savannah!” I said, relieved. “Now what we need is a game plan. Besides Stan, I have another person I'd like to check out, but I have no idea what his name is,” I said.

“Then how are you going to find him?” asked Savannah.

“That's where you come in.”

“Do I know him? Who is he?”

Leaning in, I whispered, “The guy Cecilia was cheating on Pete with.”

Savannah's eyes grew as big as saucers, and her mouth dropped open. “Cheating?” she squeaked. “On Pete?”

“That's what Pete and Cecilia were arguing about before she died. She had just told Pete that she was leaving him for this other guy,” I explained.

“That little hussy. Pardon my language.”

“Oh, it gets worse. Cecilia was pregnant.”

Both of her hands flew to her mouth. “Shut the front door.” A look of realization dawned on her face, and she immediately cringed. “It wasn't Pete's baby, was it?”

I felt a little ill hearing the term “Pete's baby,” but I shook it off. “No, thank goodness. She told Pete it belonged to the other guy.”

“Whew,” Savannah breathed. “I bet you were glad to hear that. I can't imagine how it would have affected your relationship with Pete if the baby had been his.”

“I don't even want to think about it. But if we can't figure out who really killed Cecilia, Pete will be in jail forever and that really
would
affect our relationship.”

“So we start now. Someone has to know that Cecilia was sleeping around.”

“I thought you were one of her closest friends. I assumed if anyone would know, you would.”

Savannah shook her head. “Cecilia didn't open up to me much. I just figured that's how she was and didn't ever push it. Abigail might know, though. And I think there was a girl Cecilia kept in close touch with from college. Her roommate…or maybe a sorority sister? Jenny Vaughn.”

“Right. Jenny Vaughn. I'd nearly forgotten about her. They were always joined at the hip in school.” I thought for a moment and added, “Oh, and here's one for you: did you know that Jenny Vaughn was the one who relieved Stan of his virginity? When he was seventeen…and she was twenty.”

Her mouth formed a little O. “That's…”

“I believe the term you're looking for is ‘statutory rape.' ”

She nodded, biting her lip.

“Yes, Jenny went to Cecilia's house for Thanksgiving their sophomore year instead of going home. Stan was a junior in high school, and evidently at that point wasn't a hit with the ladies—except for Jenny, who never met a guy she didn't do.” I frowned as the rest of the story came back to me. “Then when they got back to campus, Jenny laughed about nailing Cecilia's baby brother. It was sad, actually. No wonder the man has issues.”

Savannah looked over my shoulder. “Speak of the devil.”

I twisted in my seat and spied Stan sitting at the bar, his back to us. Sighing, I turned around and said, “You know, the quickest way to find out information is to go to the source. Maybe I can figure out a way to get Stan to talk.”

Savannah shrank back in her chair apprehensively. “Oh, no. That is a bad idea. If he did it, and you start sniffing around him, he'll kill you, too!”

“True, he might. But,” I said, flipping my hair, “if I use my feminine powers of persuasion…”

“Ooh, that's wrong on a whole lot of levels.”

“I'm just saying that sugar catches more flies than vinegar.”

She winked at me. “Now you're starting to sound like a real Southerner.”

“Take that back!”

“I'll convert you sooner or later.”

“Never.” I threw a glance over at Stan again, reminding myself that I was doing this for Pete. “I'm going to talk to Stan.”

“I want to go on the record saying—again—that this is a bad idea.”

“Duly noted,” I replied as I headed his way.

Stan was quite possibly pissed at me after last night. I pretty much broke our date to the gala at the last minute, worked instead of hanging with him while we were there, and left without saying goodbye. Oh, and I didn't return any of his five messages from last night. I would be pissed at me.

Standing right next to him, I said quietly, going for an apologetic face, “Hi, Stan.”

He glanced my way and said flatly, “Juliet. I thought you dropped off the face of the earth.”

“I know, and I'm sorry.” I sighed. “It's just that…my life got turned upside down last night.”

“What happened? Did your sister get murdered?” he asked petulantly.

I looked down. “I guess I deserved that. I think we need to talk.”

“About what?” he snapped.

He was not going to make this easy, but I had to keep my eye on the prize—Pete's freedom. I would do anything for him, and that included “selling my soul to the devil,” as Gertie had put it, or at least sitting down to have a conversation with him.

“Not here.” I had a lot of probing questions for Stan, and although it was probably a bad idea, we needed to be alone. I figured I'd be okay if we were on my turf. “How about I make you dinner at Java Jive tonight? I think we could both use someone to talk to.” I had a tentative date with Ryder, but he might have to wait if it meant I could get some useful information out of Stan.

He relented, “Well, I guess it would be nice to talk to someone. No one's been terribly friendly to me lately.” Ouch. I was one of those people, and even this dinner was more about getting information out of Stan than being a friend to him. Maybe he wouldn't notice.

“Meet me at Java Jive at five.”

I went back over to my table with Savannah and dropped down into my chair. “That went better than expected. I'm cooking him dinner tonight.”

She threw her hands up in disgust. “Alone? Cheese and crackers, Juliet. That's crazy talk! What if he tries to hurt you?”

“I have to do this,” I said emphatically. “I don't know of another way.”

She whispered, “While you were over there talking to a possible murderer, I made myself useful. I spoke to a few people here, and I think I may have a lead on the boyfriend.”

“No way!” I squealed. “What did you find out?”

Looking around to see if anyone was listening, she said, “It seems that Cecilia's housekeeper has loose lips. She evidently walked in on them one day, and she let it slip to another one of her clients, who of course told her friends.”

“No,” I said, shocked.

“I told you it was worse than a reality show around here.”

“So did you get a name?”

She frowned. “Unfortunately, no. No one heard who it was, just that it wasn't Pete.”

“Then how do we get the whole story?”

“I say we start with the housekeeper.”

“Let's do it.”

Savannah got the housekeeper's name and phone number from one of the ladies at the club, and she called and was able to talk the woman into meeting us at Java Jive later in the afternoon. When Savannah walked into the coffeehouse, I could tell she was agitated. She sat down on one of the stools at the counter.

“How are we going to get her to talk?” she asked nervously, tapping her perfectly manicured nails on the counter.

“From what you said the ladies at the club told you, it shouldn't be a problem,” I replied, putting on a pot of coffee.

“By the way, I told her you were looking for someone to clean here at the coffeehouse. That's how I got her to come.”

I smiled encouragingly at her. “See? I told you that you could do it. You're really doing well at this sleuthing stuff. Asking Cecilia's housekeeper for a quote is a perfect way to lure her into trusting you so she'll spill her guts.”

Wrinkling her nose, she asked, “Isn't it a little underhanded, though?”

“Maybe, but I don't care. Pete's in jail. I'm not above any tactic if it will get him out.”

She looked at me questioningly, but I didn't have time to explain, because just then a beautiful woman dressed in colorful robes walked through the door.

“Greetings, sistahs,” she said in a heavily Jamaican-accented voice.

I approached her and held out my hand. “Hello, I'm Juliet Langley, and this is my…uh, business partner, Savannah Worthington. The two of you spoke on the phone.”

She shook my hand, saying, “Yah, mon. I am Talicia Alleyne.”

Savannah flashed her brightest smile and shook hands with her as well. “Pleased to meet you, Talicia.”

“Why don't we have some coffee and get to know one another a little?” I offered, gesturing for Talicia to have a seat at the counter next to Savannah and filling three cups for us. “We got your name from…” I looked blankly at Savannah.

She jumped in. “Beth Greenwalt. She said you do a wonderful job.”

“Ah, Sistah Greenwalt. Lovely woman. I clean her home fa nearly five year now. She has a fine home. Many children. Much love in dat home. Much love in her heart. She leave inna di morrows fa a mission trip to Africa.”

It would seem that we would have no problem getting Talicia to talk. Getting her to shut up might be another story. “How nice,” I said, trying to cover my horror at the fact that this woman had just told two perfect strangers that someone else was going out of the country. What if we had been cat burglars waiting for an easy target? “We were also dear friends of Cecilia Hollingsworth, who I believe was another of your clients?”

Talicia's face fell. “Ohhh,” she moaned, as if in pain. “Sistah Hollingsworth. I cannot believe she a dead. She a good woman, too. Always raising funds fa sufferers.”

Jumping in, trying to steer the conversation where I wanted it to go, I said sadly, “And her with a child on the way. It's such a tragedy.”