Savannah Breeze (19 page)

The waitress came over
to refill our iced teas. I was beginning to think I needed something stronger than tea, but I've found that drinking during the daytime, while running a motel, is not a good thing. So I went a little crazy and had sweet tea.

“Why can't the police arrest Reddy?” I asked. “He's a con artist and a thief. Even in Florida, that's considered a crime—right?”

“Only if you have a victim who's willing to press charges,” James said. “And Polly Findley simply isn't willing to do that. Her lawyer and her children have begged and pleaded with her, but she just won't budge. Their hands are tied.”

“What about the crime he committed against me?” I asked. “I'm a victim. Why can't Detective Bradley go down to Florida and arrest Moseley?”

James laughed. “When was the last time you read the newspaper, BeBe? Or watched the evening news?”

“I don't watch the news,” I said. “It depresses me. I look at the headlines on CNN so I can find out who we're currently at war with, but other than that, I mind my own business—which keeps me plenty busy.”

“Jay Bradley isn't going anywhere anytime soon,” James said. “He's in the middle of the Los Locos murder trial. Remember those four gang members who shot up a rival gang's apartment, over in Port Wentworth, last fall?”

“No,” I said. “Should I? I don't think I've ever even been to Port Wentworth.”

“You really should get out more,” James said. “It was all over the news in October. Six people were killed, including a two-year-old boy and one of the gang member's fifty-eight-year-old grandmother, who was baby-sitting the child. There was so much publicity here in Savannah, the defense asked for, and got, a change of venue. The case is being tried in Macon. And each defendant is being tried separately. Since Jay Bradley was the chief investigator on the case, he'll probably be tied up for months in Macon.”

“So send another cop,” I said. “Savannah's not Mayberry. And Jay Bradley's not the only detective on the Savannah Police Department force.”

James shook his head. “With Bradley spending most of his time in Macon, they're shorthanded. And you have to look at it the way the cops do. Moseley didn't kill anybody. He didn't physically harm anybody. And he's no longer in their jurisdiction.”

I pushed my chair away from the table. “So, what? You're telling me he's just going to get away with everything he did to me?”

James put his hands on the tabletop. “I'm just telling you the facts, BeBe. And asking you to be more realistic about your expectations. We'll get the real estate mess straightened out, I feel sure. But frankly, I'm not so sure we'll ever bring Moseley to justice. Or get back the money and other things he stole from you. So I'm suggesting you get on with your life. You've got an enormous amount of talent and brains and energy. I think you can make a success of running the Breeze Inn. Concentrate on that, why don't you? Instead of Roy Eugene Moseley.”

“You don't understand, James,” I said, my voice low, my cheeks flaming from the heat of outrage. “It isn't just the things he took. It isn't just the money. It's what he did to me. He took my home, he took my livelihood. He stole my dreams. He made me a victim. When I found out he'd gone—I can't even describe how I felt. It was
like I'd been violated. You're right. I
am
good at business. I'm smart and hardworking. And yes, I had a little family money to start with, but I built my businesses from scratch, with no help from anybody. And now I'll be
damned
if I'm going to just walk away from the life I worked so hard to create.”

“What do you propose to do?” James asked.

I'd known all along what I had to do. I stood up and got my pocketbook. I put a five-dollar bill down on the tabletop for the tip. That much I could afford. I silently vowed to myself that it would be the last time anybody would have to pay for my meal.

“BeBe?” James said, getting up too.

“I'm going to go down to Florida and find the bastard.”

“And then what? Assuming you can find him, what do you plan to do next?”

I stood up very straight. “Oh, I'll find him all right. But don't worry, James, I'm not the pistol-packing type. And I'm not gonna run him down with my car, 'cuz it would mess up the paint job. I'm going to find Reddy, and when I do, I'm going to do to him the same thing he did to me.”

I pecked James on the cheek and gave him my sunniest smile. “All right?”

“God help him,” James said, with a shudder. “I don't suppose there's anything I can do to help?”

“Well, yes,” I said. “And it won't cost you a dime,” I assured him. “I just need phone numbers for those two women, Sandra Findley and Sabrina Berg. And, oh yeah, I almost forgot. I want a copy of that videotape of Reddy.”

It was late afternoon
by the time I got back to the motel, but for the first time in two days, Harry's station wagon was parked in the lot, right beside a big black Mercedes with Atlanta license plates, and Jeeves was stretched out in a patch of sunlight in front of the office, so I didn't feel too bad about being gone for so long.

Jeeves picked up his head momentarily at the sound of my footsteps on the crushed-shell paving, yawned, and then went right back to sleep.

“Thanks, pal,” I said, bending down to scratch his ears. “I missed you too.”

I found Harry sitting at the front desk, frowning at the reservation book.

“You're back,” I said. “How was the fishing?”

“Okay,” he said. “Couldn't get the
Jitterbug
. I think Tricia suspects something. She's got it on a trailer now, parked right in front of a big window of the marina office. There's no way I can get anywhere near it without somebody seeing me. I had to borrow a buddy's boat. Once I'd paid for gas and ice, and given him a cut from my catch, I didn't quite clear a thousand.” He shook his head. “At this rate, it'll be months before I can pay her what I owe her. And in the meantime, with the weather warming up, my regular charter customers are already starting to call to book trips, and I'm having to make up excuses for why I'm not available. I can't make any real money this way. And God, I hate asking for favors.”

“Me too,” I said fervently. “What's shaking around here? Whose Mercedes is that in the lot?”

“Some guy from Atlanta. He checked in an hour ago. I gave him the Sunflower Suite. He didn't have a reservation that I could find, but it's not like we're all booked up. Anyway, he paid cash for two days.”

I reached over and turned the reservation book so I could see how our new guest had signed in. “John Smith” was printed in heavy block lettering. He'd listed a post office box for an address.

“You're kidding,” I said. “John Smith? With a post office box? Harry, what were you thinking?”

“I was thinking, ‘Hmm. Cash money.' You got a problem with that?”

I walked outside and jotted down the Mercedes's license-tag number, then came back inside.

“Will you relax?” Harry said. “So what if the guy's using a phony name? It's no skin off my nose.”

“I don't like it,” I said, fuming. “This is a respectable inn, not some hot-sheet, no-tell motel. I'm the owner, and it's my reputation that's at stake here. Ask yourself who checks into a motel with an assumed name and a phony address? Who pays cash, in advance? A criminal, that's who.”

“Relax,” Harry said. “That Mercedes out there isn't stolen. I checked.”

“How? With whom?”

“I've got a buddy on the Tybee police force,” Harry said, grinning a little. “He ran the tag through the division of motor vehicles for me. See, I'm not a complete idiot. I even know the guy's real name and address, if you must know.”

“Write it down,” I said, tapping the registration book. “If something goes bad with Mr. John Smith, I want to know who he really is and where he lives. What if he damages something in the unit? We just put telephones in all the rooms. What if he runs up some hideous
long-distance bill? We don't have a credit card on file to charge him for it. There's no telling what could go wrong,” I said, sputtering.

“All right,” Harry said, caving. “I'll write it down. But I'm telling you, it's nothing sinister. He's just a guy trying for a little action on the side, without his wife finding out.”

The bell on the front door chimed then, and two young couples walked in, each looking to rent a unit for a long weekend. Things were suddenly looking up. I registered them, ran their credit cards through the machine, then offered to show our new guests around the property.

“Gotta go,” Harry said, standing and stretching. “Gotta pick up the parts I ordered for the air conditioner in SeaGlass, and then I'm gonna finish repainting the windowsills in Palmetto.”

With a pang of envy, I watched Harry drive off. Right now, I was innkeeper, manager, housekeeper, and bellman. Until I could afford to hire some part-time help, I was permanently tied to the place. I'd been promising my grandparents a visit for several weeks, but had felt unable to make it into town to see them. Every time I left the property myself, I was keenly aware that I might be losing business.

For the next two hours, business was what I concentrated on. The young couples, friends from Birmingham, came bouncing in again, wanting suggestions for dinner reservations, a place to rent bikes, and directions for a place to launch the kayaks they'd brought along. I had a mound of paperwork to attend to, and when I'd finally cleared it all away, I stole over to my laptop computer, open on the registration desk.

I hadn't forgotten my pledge to track down Reddy. I got on the Internet and looked up BUC, the boat-sales site James had told me about. I found three listings for Sea Urchin yachts being offered in South Florida, including one in Fort Lauderdale. I was printing out the listing information when the front door chimed and opened.

My visitor was middle-aged, wearing dark glasses, khaki walking
shorts, a golf shirt, a visor, and deck shoes. “Hey there,” he said, looking surprised to see me. “I'm, uh, John Smith. In the Sunflower Suite,” he added. “And who might you be?”

“BeBe Loudermilk,” I said coolly. “I'm the innkeeper. And the owner. Welcome to the Breeze Inn.”

He flashed a set of perfect white teeth and grasped my hand, a little too firmly, making no attempt to hide the fact that he was checking me out. “Delightful little place you've got here,” he said. “Very unusual. I was wondering about a place to get a late lunch nearby. And maybe pick up a bottle of Scotch.”

“It's nearly four,” I pointed out. “A lot of places stop serving around three so that they can start setting up for dinner customers. But there's a list of restaurants in the folio in your room. You might try Fannie's. They serve all day. And there are liquor stores at both ends of the island.”

“Great,” he said. “Maybe you'd like to join me for a cocktail, when I get back.”

I felt the skin on my arms prickle. Not a good sign. It suddenly occurred to me that Harry had left without writing down John Smith's real name and address.

“Sorry,” I said, not feeling sorry at all. “I've got guests to check in, and paperwork to do. I'm sure you understand how it is with a small business.”

“What about the guy who checked me in earlier?” John Smith asked. “Surely he can mind the store while you take care of your guests.”

“Mr. Sorrentino is busy with his own projects,” I said. “He was only filling in on the desk for me earlier while I was at a meeting off-site.”

“All right,” Smith said. He gave me a broad wink. “You know where I am, if you reconsider.”

“I certainly do,” I told him.

When the Mercedes was out of the parking lot, I copied John Smith's tag number underneath his registration in the guest book. Just in case.

At five o'clock, Weezie bounded into the office. “I've got it!” she exclaimed, slapping a padded manila envelope down on the reception desk. “It just came this afternoon, and I had to bring it out here with all the rest of the stuff for the last unit.”

The last unit, technically, was our former storage room, which had, once upon a time, been a rental unit. But for years it had been home to an assortment of rusted-out beach chairs, obsolete plumbing supplies, and miles of rotted garden hoses.

At my insistence, Harry had hauled all the junk off to the dump and cleaned the room out, and now, Weezie was transforming it to our one and only “luxury suite.”

I tapped a fingernail on the envelope. “And just what is this?”

She snatched the envelope away. “It's the inspiration for the whole suite. The theme, you might say. But no peeking. Not until I'm done installing everything in the unit.”

“What if I don't like it?”

“You'll love it,” Weezie said. “Did Harry finish painting it?”

“He did,” I told her. “Lime green? Are you sure that's what you had in mind?”

“Margaritaville,” she corrected me. “Don't you love the names of paint colors? I can't wait for you to see it. It's going to be beyond divine.”

“And just when do I get to see it?”

She looked at her wristwatch. “Give me an hour to get everything in place, and I'll come get you for the big reveal. Just like they do on
Trading Spaces
.”

The phone rang then, and she blew out the door before I could ask for any more information.

“BeBe? This is Janet, in James Foley's office. He asked me to call you with the phone numbers for Sandra Findley and Sabrina Berg.”

“Perfect,” I said eagerly, writing the numbers down as she gave them to me. “Did James say anything about a video he was expecting?”

“It came five minutes ago,” Janet said. “I'm going to make a copy for our files. Shall I courier it out to you when I'm done?”

In the old, plush days, when Guale was making money faster than I could spend it, I would have easily agreed to paying the forty bucks for the convenience of having something couriered over to me from across town. Now though, I was all too keenly aware of what forty dollars could buy. And I didn't have it to spare.

“Never mind. I'll pick it up tomorrow, when I come to town,” I told Janet.

As soon as I'd hung up from Janet, I dialed Sandra Findley's number in Vero Beach, but only got her answering machine. I left my number, with a request that she call me immediately, and dialed Sabrina Berg's number.

When I got a second answering machine, I nearly cried with frustration. I was tired of sitting around, tired of waiting for somebody else to find Reddy. I wanted to get on a plane, fly to Fort Lauderdale, and track him down. I wanted action. All right, I wanted revenge.

For now though, I forced myself to tend to business. Shortly after six I checked in a family from North Carolina who'd reserved the adjoining Sea Horse and Hibiscus Suites for four days. At six-thirty, while I was on the phone booking them a dolphin-watching tour for the next day, I watched “John Smith's” Mercedes roll back into the parking lot. He got out of the car with a brown paper sack in hand, and strolled toward his room.

Fifteen minutes later, the phone on my desk rang. It was our Mr. Smith.

“Hello? Who's speaking please?” he demanded.

“This is BeBe Loudermilk,” I said.

“Listen, BeBe, there's a huge cockroach in my bathtub.”

“Oh no,” I said, cringing. “I'm so sorry. I don't understand how that could have happened. We have the exterminator spray regularly.”

“He must have missed my unit,” Smith said. “Christ! I just saw two more of the little fuckers scurrying across the bathroom floor. I think you'd better get over here and do something about this. Damned if I'll stay in a place that's infested with bugs. On second thought, never mind. I'm packing up and getting out.”

“Don't do that,” I urged him. I stood up and looked out at the lot. Harry's station wagon was parked over by the unit Weezie was working on. “I'll send the maintenance man over right now to take care of it.”

“Maintenance man? BeBe, this is pretty serious. I'm calling the health department. They need to be notified of the conditions in this place.”

“Please don't do anything like that, Mr. Smith,” I pleaded. “I'll be right over to take care of it myself.”

I grabbed a can of Raid and a plastic flyswatter from the utility room, gritted my teeth, and headed across the parking lot toward the Sunflower Suite. I knocked sharply on the door.

“About time,” Smith called. “Come on in.”

I opened the door and stepped into the dimly lit room. He'd closed the curtains. The only light in the room came from his bedside lamp. The room appeared empty. “Mr. Smith?” I called tentatively.

“In here.” The voice came from the bathroom. The door was slightly ajar.

“I'm so sorry,” I repeated, walking toward the bathroom. “We can move you to another room if you like. This is the first bug complaint we've ever had. I just don't understand…”

But now, as I stood in the bathroom doorway, I was beginning to understand. John Smith was stretched out in the bathtub in a couple of inches of bubble bath, wearing nothing but the same pair of dark sunglasses he'd worn earlier in the day. He was holding a glass of Scotch in one hand, and his fully erect penis in the other.

“Hey!” he said warmly. He gestured toward his crotch. “Meet my friend.”

And then he did it. He wagged it at me.

“Son of a bitch!” I screamed. I held out the can of Raid and blasted him full throttle.

He screamed, covering his face with his hands. He was choking and coughing, and trying to get out of the bathtub, but he slipped and fell backward, sending a wave of soapy water over the edge.

“Goddamnit, cut it out,” he croaked. “I think I've got a concussion.”

“I'll give you a concussion, you freakin' pervert,” I cried, hitting him with another blast of Raid. He lunged toward me and batted the can out of my hand. I flailed at him with the flyswatter, raining blows on his head and arms before he managed to grab the swatter away from me.

He was standing up now, one foot out of the tub. “Little bitch,” he said, his voice low. “Fucking bitch. I'll teach you—”

The bathroom door exploded off its hinges. Harry Sorrentino stepped into the room, and thrust a splintered baseball bat directly in my tormentor's face.

“Teach her what, Mr. Peyton Hausbrook?”