The Cantaloupe Thief (26 page)

Malachi had no idea what the young man was getting at. But he seemed to have a problem with Pastor Liam, and quite frankly that aggravated Malachi.

“No, Mr Chan. I got plenty to worry 'bout besides that. None of my fam'ly is livin'. Maybe you best count your blessings like your daddy say.”

Chan looked at him, stung. Malachi was right. He shouldn't be complaining, least of all to someone like Malachi, who lived alone on the street, without family, without a dad in the picture at all.

But Malachi wasn't finished. “You afraid of endin' up a good man, a man who helps people, a minister of God?”

Chan shook his head. He didn't answer, but no, that wasn't his fear at all.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Liam, Jody and Branigan walked down Conestee Avenue to the site of Sunday night's hit-and-run that killed Rita. Jody knew most of the policemen and pointed Liam to the senior ranking officer.

“I think I may have the vehicle responsible,” he told the policeman.

Thirty minutes later, Liam and Branigan were sitting in Chief Warren's office, along with Chester Scovoy, the detective in charge, and three other officers. Per Tan's instructions, Branigan didn't intend to tell them all of her suspicions about the pool house and Rita's attendance at the Fourth of July party. But Liam was right: they couldn't withhold Rita's deathbed charge that the church van had run her over, a charge that still had Branigan shaking her head in disbelief. And now that the police had the van in custody, they could smell the bleach.

“You know we had another hit-and-run in late May,” Liam said. “Will you be able to tell if our van hit Vesuvius Hightower too?”

Detective Scovoy looked startled. “Why would you think that?”

Liam shrugged. “I don't, exactly. But I couldn't have imagined our van hitting Rita either. Since V's death hasn't been solved...” He trailed off.

“We'll get everything we can from the bumper,” Scovoy said. “But between the bleach and the rain and the time elapsed, I'm not hopeful.” He stopped for a moment, looking at Liam. “Are we looking for someone inside your organization who has a vendetta against the homeless?”

Liam looked miserable. He held up his palms. “Believe me, I'm as confused as you are.”

“Well,” said Scovoy briskly, “I'll need a list of everyone who has access to the van key. We'll start questioning your staff this afternoon. And then volunteers and whoever else has access.”

“Branigan,” said Chief Warren, “I know you were looking into the Alberta Resnick murder. You told me you were going to be looking at the possibility of a homeless person with no real motive. Now a homeless woman turns up dead on the same street. Any connection?”

“I wish I knew, Chief,” she said. “I'm talking to Mrs Resnick's family and Liam's guys at Jericho Road, and trying to track down gossip. Something somebody overheard. Something somebody remembered. But I don't have anything nailed down.”

He and Scovoy looked at her intently. She braced for a scolding about withholding information. But the chief surprised her.

“In my experience, Branigan, it's not when things get nailed down that they become dangerous. It's when they are shaken loose. I would caution you to keep Detective Scovoy in the loop. This is not about who gets the credit. I like to think we're bigger than that. This is about safety. Your safety. And from the looks of things, maybe the safety of our homeless citizens.”

Branigan let Liam answer the questions about the van and the key. He explained that Jericho Road's reception office was open seven days a week, with staff, volunteers and even shelter residents coming and going freely. Dontegan was in charge of the sign-out sheet, but the van hadn't been signed out on the nights of Vesuvius's or Rita's death. No surprise there.

Branigan had no choice but to leave that angle to the police. Her focus needed to be on the Resnick murder story scheduled to run on the upcoming weekend.

But she had heard Chief Warren loud and clear. Things got dangerous when they were shaken loose. That was pretty much what the psychics had said: someone thought he got away with murder. Now he — or she — wasn't so sure.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Chester Scovoy wasn't a native of Grambling. He'd started out as a police officer in Charleston, South Carolina, and had proved quite adept. After he made detective, he moved on to Atlanta, the murder capital in the most violent country in the world, to his mind. Oh, the FBI would tell you that Baltimore, Detroit, Cleveland, St Louis, Kansas City, Newark, Oakland, Philadelphia and New Orleans — especially post-Katrina New Orleans — were worse. But if you were going to live in the
real
South and work homicide, you wanted Atlanta. Or Memphis.

After eight years, however, Chester decided that wasn't what he wanted any longer. He was losing the stomach for the senseless gang-style shootings, the drug-related killings, the grim domestic abuse that underlay so many of his cases.

He counted it one of the great misfortunes of his life that he'd reported to his new job in Grambling the week
after
the Fourth of July ten years previously. He entered the Grambling Police Department at a time of upheaval. He liked — more importantly, he respected — the man who'd hired him, Chief Marcus Warren. At the time, Warren himself had been on the job only a year, brought in to professionalize the growing city's force. It wasn't a bad group of men and women, and there was no corruption, as far as Chester could tell. It was simply that Grambling was changing from a small town to a mid-size city. The New South, as people liked to call it, was a reality. Money was moving in. Retirees. Bank headquarters. All sorts of industry alternatives to the textiles that had ruled this town through the middle of the twentieth century.

It was a measure of Chief Warren's and Detective Scovoy's competence that every ensuing homicide on Scovoy's nearly tenyear watch had been cleared. He'd have to look it up to make sure, but he thought the number was approaching forty.

And so the murder he'd missed by days was all the more galling. He'd worked it, of course. There was no getting around it as an incoming homicide cop. But he'd always chafed at the sloppy work at the crime scene, the overly deferential treatment of the family, the allowing of refreshments, for Pete's sake, during the initial questioning. He never got traction on the case; he was always playing catch-up.

But to be fair, the crime scene might have been unnavigable in any event. Mrs Resnick's kitchen had been the site of a holiday party just hours before, with four overnight guests and another sixty partygoers. It would have been a challenge for a top-flight forensics team, much less Grambling's undertrained investigators of a decade ago.

The upshot was that Chester Scovoy, at forty-six, had nothing to prove, no turf to defend. Would he like to solve the Alberta Resnick murder? Damn straight. But he had never had the time nor the resources to handle it the way he'd like. Like now, for example. He had to turn his mind to these hit-and-runs, apparently committed by a church van, no less.

So he minded the intrusion of Branigan Powers into the Resnick case less than she'd suspect. After all, it'd been ten years. There was nothing she could do to hurt anything.

Well, except maybe herself.

CHAPTER FORTY

It was still light outside when Branigan headed home, badly needing a run to clear her head. She had no illusions of solving Mrs Resnick's murder by Sunday, but now there were so many holes in the story that she couldn't write a decent narrative. She thought Rita's hit-and-run was connected, but what if it wasn't? She would so muddy the waters that no reader could follow the story.

She still needed to talk to Malachi and Demetrius, Heath and Ramsey. Oh, and Max Brody. She had to make headway on them tomorrow. Meanwhile, she went over some of the things that were needling her.

Why did Amanda Resnick seem disingenuous when talking about her mother's possible dementia and sending Amanda to buy gifts for her “favorite” grandchildren? Such silly things to lie about. And yet her “to be honest with you's” rang false.

Why had Heath Resnick gone to the Isle of Palms to sit in on daughter Caroline's interview? An overly protective father? Or something more? Did he know his mother had intended to cut him from the will, even though his brother and sister insisted he didn't?

Why was Ramsey Resnick volunteering at Jericho Road?

And what about Ben Jr's connection to Rita Mae Jones? Was it a coincidence that the one person who almost certainly saw something the day of the murder was Ben's drug buddy at the party? Wouldn't he be the family member she'd most likely approach with a blackmail scheme?

Lastly, who was the mysterious reader living in the pool house? Did the psychic sense the killer living there at the time of the murder? Or more recently?

Branigan had to admit that recognizing the back of Mrs Resnick's pool house in the psychic's drawing had unnerved her. For one thing, it was awfully close to her parents' house. For another, it meant the killer had spent some time in Grambling.

She'd been working under the assumption that Mrs Resnick's murderer was in and out — and long gone. To think that someone had been living in the victim's pool house, perhaps blending in with Grambling's populace, was disturbing. And of course there was the more obvious conclusion: that the psychic's intuition, or whatever it was, was based on a family member who didn't
live
in the pool house at all, but came and went freely.

As Branigan neared the farmhouse, she badly wished that Davison was there to meet her. Which reminded her: it was check-in time. She rummaged, one-handed, in her purse for her phone, and called his number. When he answered, she began singing Amy Winehouse's “Rehab” in a sultry snarl.

Davison laughed. “Don't quit your day job, Miss Winehouse.”

“I'm about ready to. This Resnick story is kicking my butt.”

“What's up with it?”

“It's too complicated to go into. You'll read all about it Sunday morning. Tan-4's pushed it up.”

“Can you make that deadline?”

“I have to. It may not be complete, but it's going to run. But enough of that. How are you doing?”

“Not bad. My head's clearer every day. I forget how my brain starts to function better. My body, that's another story.”

“Got the shakes?”

“More like the volcanoes. But it's not like I ain't been at this rodeo before.”

“I'm sorry. Hey, is it okay for me to come for visitation this weekend?”

“I can do better than that. I have a twelve-hour pass on Saturday.”

“Really? That surprises me.”

“Well, it's only if I'm with a reputable family member.”

“That counts you out. You don't have a reputable family member.”

“Ha ha. I'd like to come to the farm.”

“That
is
better! Want me to invite Mom and Dad?”

He was silent for a moment. “Let's wait on that a bit. I'd hate to get their hopes up again, you know?”

“No, I don't know. You are going to make it this time. But I won't say anything to them until you give me the go-ahead.”

“Thanks, Brani G. See you soon.”

“Love you, Davison,” she said, but he'd already hung up.

 

The conversation with her brother calmed her down a bit. But her anxiety returned when she pulled into her driveway and saw a vehicle.
No, wait a minute, that's Charlie's Jeep Cherokee.
Then she saw the girl, leaning up against it, dressed in khaki shorts and a brown-striped rugby shirt, her red-gold hair streaming down her back. Cleo sat beside her, tail pounding the driveway. Charlie raised a hand.

“You didn't forget I was bringing dinner, did you?” she called, as Branigan pulled the Civic alongside her.

“Yikes, I did! But that's okay. You're a welcome sight! What you got?”

“Tacos,” she said. “Yummy, messy tacos.”

Charlie and Branigan tried to have a girls' night every other month. Branigan must have said yes to this evening then promptly forgotten it. It would do her good to turn her mind to something else, she thought. She'd get back to work when Charlie left.

Cleo followed the women up the steps, and Charlie unpacked dinner from a cooler. “Tacos are ready when you are,” she said.

“Get the plates and I'll change clothes,” Branigan said. “You know where everything is.”

She was back in minutes, her skirt and heels exchanged for a tank top and shorts. Charlie had the places set at the kitchen island, ice in the glasses.

“Tea or water or juice or Diet Pepsi?” she asked. “You're pretty well stocked.”

Branigan chose water, and settled in to eat the fragrant tacos the girl had laid out, with chips and salsa on the side.

“Tell me what's going on with you,” she said after a few bites. “Getting ready for UGA country?”

“Yeah, Mom and I are shopping for curtains and bedspreads and rugs to match my roommate's. Chan's making fun of us. Apparently guys don't do that.”

Branigan laughed. “I imagine not.”

“Speaking of Chan.” she said, none too subtly.

Branigan waited for her to continue, but she didn't. “What?” she asked.

“I'm wondering if you can tell me what's going on.”

“Going on with what?”

“Everybody in our house is acting weird. At first I thought it was Impending Empty Nest.”

Charlie always made Branigan laugh, and she did so now.

“But it's not that. Chan is all moody and secretive, and Mom and Dad are holed up behind closed doors.”

Branigan thought she did know what was going on. “Are the three of them meeting in private?”

“No. Chan is hardly speaking to Dad at all. Mom looks worried. I've asked all three of them what's wrong and nobody will tell me. So I thought I'd ask you.” She looked at Branigan expectantly.