The House on Tradd Street (11 page)

I
slammed the lid of the suitcase and was in the process of sitting on it while trying to latch it closed when the doorbell of my condo rang. I wouldn’t have heard it except for the fact that the tracks on my CD were in the middle of changing from “Waterloo” to “SOS,” so there was a lull in the music.

I peered through the eyehole in the door and stepped back quickly, hoping Jack hadn’t seen me.

“I heard you, Mellie. You’re going to have to let me in now.”

“You’re too late,” I said. “And stop calling me Mellie. My name is Melanie.”

“I’m not late. You said to come over this evening to help you move some of your stuff over to the house. So here I am.”

“Well, you’re too late. It’s my bedtime and I’m already in my pajamas. Evening to most people means before nine o’clock. It’s officially night now and no longer evening.”

“But it’s only nine o’clock now.”

“That’s right. And that’s almost my bedtime.”

I heard a slight thunk on the other side of the door, and I pictured him hitting his forehead against the doorframe. “I did some research today that I think you’d be interested in hearing about.”

I paused, considering.

“We can go get dessert somewhere, and I can tell you all about it.”

“Dessert?” I pretended to weigh my options for a moment. “Oh, all right.” I quickly scrubbed off my moisturizing mask with the sleeve of my pink terry cloth bathrobe and opened the door. “And on the way back, we can drop off my suitcases.”

Jack took in my robe and fluffy bedroom slippers with a mock look of horror. “You didn’t need to dress up just for me, you know.”

“It’s my bedtime, remember?”

He raised his eyebrows. “Oh. Well, in that case, we could just stay in.”

I put my hand on my hip. “Can’t you have a conversation with a woman that doesn’t contain sexual overtones or innuendos? It’s comments like that which will prevent you from ever having a serious relationship with a woman, you know.”

His smile remained on his face but the light in his eyes dimmed for a moment. “Been there, done that, bought the T-shirt, thank you very much. Have no interest in a repeat performance.”

So that’s how it is,
I thought to myself.
Damaged goods
. As if I needed yet another reason to stay far away from Jack Trenholm.

He looked toward one of the Bose speakers I had mounted in the corner of the living room and narrowed his eyes. “What’s that noise?”

“It’s ABBA.”

“ABBA?”

“Sold more albums than the Beatles. But maybe you haven’t heard of them, either.”

Jack scratched his chin. “I’m familiar with both. It’s just that I don’t think I’ve heard an ABBA song since I was sitting in the backseat of my mother’s car while she listened to her eight-tracks.”

I walked over to the stereo and flipped it off. “No need wasting good music on unappreciative ears, then.” I headed toward my bedroom. “Let me go change. I’ll just be a minute.”

“Don’t change too much,” he called after me. “I kinda like you the way you are.”

I didn’t turn around until I’d reached my room so he couldn’t see me smile.

When I returned he’d made himself comfortable on my black leather sofa and had his feet up on the glass coffee table while he thumbed through a recent issue of
Psychology Today
. I dropped my suitcases, then slapped my hand against his shoes. “Off.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, sliding his feet to the floor before standing up. He held up the magazine. “Pretty heavy stuff.”

I took the magazine from him and placed it back on the coffee table, aligning its edges with the other three already there. “Sophie bought me a subscription for some reason. I just use them for coffee table decoration.”

He shoved his hands into the front pockets of his jeans and looked up at the ceiling as if he were trying to recall something. “Oh, that’s right. What did she say about you yesterday? Something like ‘your pent-up sexual tension that you wear like a chastity belt?’ ” He winked. “Don’t think this is the right kind of magazine to help you with that.”

“Can we go now?” I asked, making a mental note to kill Sophie later.

“After you,” he said, holding his arm out to allow me to go first before picking up both of my suitcases.

I headed toward the front door. “Hang on. I have to get my purse and my BlackBerry.”

After dropping the heavy suitcases, he stood in the small foyer and glanced in to the kitchen, from where I’d already set up my cereal bowl and spoon for the next morning next to where I’d placed my BlackBerry so I’d be ready to answer messages first thing.

As I was sliding it into my purse, Jack said, “I love what you’ve done to the place.”

We both looked around at the blank white walls, white carpeting, and sparse ultramodern furniture. I wasn’t sure if he was being sarcastic or not; it was hard to tell with him. I simply said, “Thanks,” and pulled my purse strap over my shoulder. “It’s home.”

“Guess it will be pretty traumatic leaving this place for the old house, huh? No ghosts here.”

I looked at him, suspicious. “What do you mean?”

“Well, you know. Your sixth sense. There’re bound to be ghosts in a house as old as the one on Tradd.”

I jerked open the door. “Look, I told you before. Regardless of what you read about my mother, I haven’t inherited anything from her—sixth sense or otherwise. I don’t see dead people, okay? And I’ll thank you not to bring it up again.”

He held the door for me. “Okay, truce. I won’t mention ghosts again. For tonight anyway.”

He had unnerved me and I couldn’t bite back my next words. “Great. And as long as you keep your word, I won’t mention your old girlfriend, either.”

Jack raised his eyebrows but didn’t say a word as he picked up my bags again, then shut the door behind us.

 
 
I picked the restaurant this time. Even though we were only going out for dessert and coffee, I felt the need to eat off of something other than paper plates. We drove into town to Cru Café on Pinckney Street, where I was on a first-name basis with their famed molten chocolate torte. Most of the diners had already left, so there was no trouble finding a small table and ordering just coffee and dessert. I thought Jack would order a beer or scotch, and was surprised when he asked for a decaf coffee instead.

He must have noticed my look of surprise because he said, “Have to keep my wits about me when I’m with you. Don’t want you taking advantage of me or anything.”

I rolled my eyes, then ordered my cappuccino and chocolate cake. I must have been feeling magnanimous because I asked for two forks although most friends knew that sharing a dessert with me put their extremities in direct peril of being impaled by my fork.

As we sipped our coffees—his black and mine with two packets of sugar—and waited for the cake, I asked, “So, what did you find out today?”

He leaned forward, his coffee cup between long, tanned fingers. “Remember I told you about Joseph Longo? How he had this thing about Louisa and that everybody thinks they disappeared together?”

“Yes. You mentioned that he even pursued her after she was married.”

“Right. Although from everything I’ve discovered so far, his affections weren’t returned. By all accounts she loved her husband and son.”

“I’ve heard that before,” I said under my breath as I fiddled with the napkin on my lap.

He considered me for a moment before continuing. “I couldn’t believe how much stuff was written about Mr. Longo. He was a very connected man here in Charleston in the twenties and thirties. Owned a few businesses—construction mostly but also a couple of restaurants and a beauty salon. His name was all over the newspapers for this and that: openings, ceremonies, ribbon cuttings, that sort of thing.”

The waiter appeared at our table and refilled Jack’s cup. He continued. “Interesting thing, though, is that he rarely appeared in any of the society pages. Like he wasn’t accepted in Old Charleston because of his new money. Or maybe people knew something about his business practices and didn’t want to mingle with that sort of person. Not that old-money Charleston didn’t know anything about nefarious business practices—it’s just that they had the good manners not to go around flaunting them.”

Jack put a hand over his mouth to stifle a huge yawn. “Excuse me,” he said, sounding sheepish. “I was at the library at the crack of dawn, and I’m exhausted.”

“I didn’t know the library was open that early.”

“It’s not.”

“Then how . . . ?”

He smiled and then I wished I hadn’t asked. “I know somebody who works there,” he said. “She owed me a favor.”

“A favor, huh?”

“Yeah, a favor. So she let me in early so I could have access to sensitive documents without having to go through all the red tape.”

I crossed my arms across my chest and continued to silently appraise him. According to Nancy Flaherty, Jack was constantly seen in the social column of the paper with one gorgeous woman after another. Apparently, he had a lot of friends.

The waiter chose that opportune moment to reappear with my torte and laid the massive piece of cake with a flourish in the middle of the table.

“Wow,” said Jack. “That could feed a family of six for a week.”

I picked up my fork and grinned. “Or just one very hungry woman.” Reluctantly, I offered the extra fork to him.

He shook his head. “No, thanks. Don’t think I could afford the calories.”

I recalled his flat abs and slim hips. “Really?”

“Okay, not really. I’ve just learned by experience to never come between a woman and her chocolate.”

I took a mouthful and pointed my fork at him. “Smart boy,” I said after I swallowed the first heavenly bite and took another.

“You’re one of those people who can eat anything you want without gaining a pound, aren’t you?”

I nodded. “I’ve been like this since birth. Don’t know how, but I don’t second-guess it.”

He watched me put another forkful into my mouth. “You know, if I were a woman, I would probably hate you.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not my fault and I take every advantage of it.”

He leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms across his chest. He raised an eyebrow in a gesture I was beginning to recognize as his “I’m about to say something you’re not going to like but I’m going to say it anyway” look. I paused in my chewing and waited.

“Did you ever think it’s your fidgety-ness that burns all those calories?”

I took a sip of my coffee and swallowed. “My ‘fidgety-ness’?”

“Yeah. I don’t think I’ve ever known a more fidgety woman. You’re always moving about or shaking something. Like your leg. Can’t you just sit still?”

I made a conscious effort to still my leg and took another bite. After swallowing, I wiped my mouth. “Can we get back to business, please? You were talking about Mr. Longo, I recall, before your mind strayed and you started uttering inanities.”

Jack took a slow sip from his coffee before grinning back at me. “Inanities, huh? I don’t think I’ve ever heard that word used in a sentence before.”

“That wouldn’t surprise me.” I smiled. “Now, about Joseph Longo?”

“Well, as I mentioned, he was quite the businessman. It was widely believed that he controlled the booze in Charleston during Prohibition, supplying speakeasies and private homes—which is probably the reason why he was never busted. Kinda hard to arrest the guy who’s supplying the police chief with his dinner wine.”

“So what’s this got to do with Louisa’s disappearance?”

He leaned forward. “Here’s the kicker. All accounts—including the eyewitness report of Joseph’s son—say that on the same day Louisa vanished, Joseph was last seen on his way to the Vanderhorst house at Fifty-five Tradd Street.”

A biteful of chocolate cake stuck in my throat. I took a sip of my tepid cappuccino. “To get Louisa. So they could go away together.” That wasn’t the answer I had been looking for.

“It would certainly seem that way, wouldn’t it? And it must have certainly looked that way to her husband. He was very vocal in his condemnation of her for deserting him and their child.”

I pushed away my half-eaten piece of cake. “But Nevin Vanderhorst was so hopeful . . .” I started, but was unable to continue as I pictured Mr. Vanderhorst showing me his growth chart on the drawing room wall and the initials MBG. “My best guy,” I said aloud, unaware that I’d spoken.

“What?”

“Oh, nothing really. Just something Louisa called her son: ‘my best guy.’ ”

“How do you know that?”

“It’s written on the wall in the drawing room, by the grandfather clock. It’s part of his growth chart.” I shook my head. “It doesn’t make any sense: the chart, all of the pictures of Nevin and his mother. But the fact remains that Joseph Longo was last seen going to her house and that was the last day anybody saw either one of them. It certainly points to them running away together.”

Jack crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back, his expression thoughtful. “It’s been my experience that the most obvious answer is rarely the right one.” He sat forward, putting his elbows on the table. “Did you ever see a magician take a coin in his closed fist and pass his other hand over it? And then you had to guess what hand it was in? I always picked the one I least expected to hold the coin. I was right about ninety-nine percent of the time. It’s just sleight of hand. That’s all. A sleight of hand.”

“But Louisa disappeared. The husband and child she supposedly loved so much never saw her or heard from her again.”

He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a quarter, holding it out in his right hand with both palms up. “Don’t always look for the obvious, Mellie.” He closed both hands into fists and then moved each hand over the other several times before holding each fist out in front of me. “Which hand is it in?”