Unfinished Business (5 page)

Grimaldi had her mouth open—probably to tell
me that she was always right—but her cell phone rang, and she
excused herself to answer it.

As she walked toward the back of the
restaurant, phone at her ear, I turned to Dix. “I love her.”

He nodded. “I know. I heard you.”

“You should marry her. Since I can’t.”

Dix blushed.

“I know it hasn’t been very long since
Sheila died. But Grimaldi’s great. And I’m not just saying that
because she believes Rafe is coming back. She bought your daughters
Police Barbies for Christmas!”

“Darling...” Mother protested weakly. “Dixon
can’t marry Detective Grimaldi. They barely know one another.”

I opened my mouth. And I wouldn’t have said
that they obviously knew each other a lot better than Mother
realized. I really wouldn’t have. But Dix must have thought I was
going to, because he interrupted. “We all believe Collier is coming
back, Savannah.”

“Mother doesn’t,” I said. “She believes he
ran off and left me, so she has to marry me off to someone else.
Like a man I’ve never laid eyes on before. Dix knows Detective
Grimaldi better than I know Detective Mendoza, Mother. And you
asked him if he wanted to marry me!”

Mother pressed her lips together. “He seemed
like a nice man,” she said. “Handsome, well-dressed, gainfully
employed...”

“Rafe is gainfully employed!”

“But he isn’t here,” Mother said, “is
he?”

No, he wasn’t. And there was absolutely
nothing I could do about it. Launching myself across the table to
strangle my mother would have felt good, but wasn’t a good idea
either, especially with a homicide detective in the party.

And speaking of which... Grimaldi came back
to the table and sat down.

“What happened?” I asked. “Did you get
called in to work?”

She shook her head. “The call was about Mr.
Collier.”

“About Rafe?”

She nodded. “Wilson County reported a John
Doe this morning.”

“A John Doe?” Mother asked, while I could
feel all the blood drain out of my head. Wilson County is just east
of Davidson, and Davidson County is Metro Nashville. Wilson County
is close, in other words. Twenty minutes, maybe a half hour. And a
John Doe...

“Unidentified male DB,” Grimaldi said. And
added before Mother could ask, “Dead body.”

“Oh, dear.” Mother glanced at me. I lifted
my glass of sweet tea—my hand was shaking, so the ice cubes clicked
together—and took a healthy swig. I didn’t think we were talking
about Rafe—surely, if we were, the detective wouldn’t drag out the
news like this? Unless maybe she thought she needed to work up to
it—but I wasn’t a hundred percent certain.

“The general description matched,” Grimaldi
said. “So I sent over a picture and was told it might be him.”

Oh, God
.

“But I wanted to be sure before I said
anything. So I told Spicer and Truman to drive out there to see if
they could make an identification. Since they know Mr.
Collier.”

I nodded. Lyle Spicer and George Truman are
two police officers who work the neighborhood where Rafe and I
live. When we’d stumbled over Brenda Puckett’s body in Rafe’s
grandmother’s house last year—before we knew Mrs. Jenkins was
Rafe’s grandmother—when we’d called 911, Spicer and Truman showed
up. And that wasn’t the last time I’d seen them. They crop up in my
life on a regular basis. The last time was just a few weeks ago,
after the aforementioned prostitute had been strangled in my old
apartment. They’d gone door to door in the complex, knocking on
doors, to see whether any of my neighbors knew anything. And they’d
caught me breaking and entering before, as well as making out with
Rafe on a street corner.

Hell—I mean, heck—they’d hauled Rafe in for
questioning more than once last fall.

Yes, Spicer and Truman knew Rafe well enough
to be able to identify him. If there was enough left to
identify.

“The sheriff out there must be old school,”
Grimaldi said with a grimace. “The type who thinks they all look
alike. Truman said there wasn’t much resemblance, really.”

“So it wasn’t Rafe.”

She shook her head. “I didn’t want to tell
you about it before I knew for sure.”

“I appreciate it.” And I did. If she’d told
me this two hours ago, I’d have been a nervous wreck this whole
time.

Hell—heck—I would have insisted on going to
Wilson County to do the identification myself.

No, much better to learn this way that some
other wife or girlfriend, mother or sister, had lost a loved one.
But it wasn’t me.

“Thank you,” I told Grimaldi.

She shook her head. “Don’t mention it.”

“Tell Spicer and Truman thanks, too.”

She nodded. “We’ll find him, Savannah.”

“I know,” I said. But what I thought was,
would we find him alive or dead? And would we find him soon?
Because as of right now—I checked my watch—it had been just over
three hours since I’d woken up and realized he was gone. If I had
to go through the rest of the day, and tomorrow, and the weekend,
and next week, or next month, like this, I wasn’t sure how I’d be
able to stand it.

“We should think about getting home,” Catherine said apologetically
after the food had been served and consumed, mostly in silence.
“I’m sorry, Savannah. But it’s over an hour’s drive. And Jonathan’s
been home alone with all five kids since we left.”

I nodded. “Of course.” She had a husband and
children to take care of at home, and there was nothing she could
do here. Except hold my hand, but while that might make me feel
better for the time it lasted, it wouldn’t actually help me figure
out what was going on. “There’s nothing any of you can do. You
might as well go home.”

There was a moment’s pause. Then—

“I’m not leaving,” Dix said.

Catherine stared at him. “You drove us
here!”

“Call your husband,” Dix said. “Have him
come pick you up. And take Mother home while you’re at it. Will you
keep my girls for a day or two?”

Catherine blinked at him. Then she said, “Of
course.”

“I don’t know that there’s anything I can do
here,” Dix said. “But I want to be on hand, just in case.”

He didn’t say in case of what, but I could
guess. In case the body in Wilson County turned out to be Rafe
after all, and I had a nervous breakdown when I heard the news. Or
if not that body, then another.

“You don’t have to,” I told him. “There
really isn’t much anyone can do, and you have responsibilities in
Sweetwater. And I don’t need my hand held while I wait to find out
whether Rafe is dead or alive.”

I’d need someone’s shoulder to cry on if it
turned out that he was dead, but that was a worry for later. For
right now, I was still waiting, and still keeping my hopes up, and
Dix had better things to do than sit around and hold my hand.

Just as I had better things to do than sit
around and have my hand held.

“Why don’t you call Jonathan?” I told
Catherine. “It’s only an hour’s drive. Although the car might be a
bit crowded, with five kids in the back.” And three adults in the
front.

They did have a minivan, so their three and
Dix’s two would fit in the back. Catherine often takes care of
Dix’s girls, since the two of them and Catherine’s daughter Annie
are good friends. At the time when Sheila was murdered and Dix was
grieving, it was Catherine who kept Abigail and Hannah going and
distracted.

“Why don’t you give him the address to the
house?” I added. “We can’t stay here. And I want to see whether
Rafe has turned up. You can see the place. You’ve never been there,
right?”

Catherine shook her head, the phone already
at her ear. “Hi, honey,” she said as Jonathan picked up on the
other end.

“You don’t mind,” I asked Dix, “do you? You
have been there before.”

He nodded. “No, I don’t mind. I want to see
if Collier’s turned up, too. And if he has, I want to punch him for
making you worry like this.”

“That wouldn’t go over well,” I said, while
across the table, Catherine continued to murmur into her phone. “He
hits back.”

Only if he’s able to
, hung in the
air. Nobody said it.

“What about you?” I asked Grimaldi. “Do you
want to come back to the house with us?”

She shook her head. “I’ve got the day off.
I’m going to hook up with Spicer and Truman and ride along. See
what the three of us can get up to. I’ll let you know if we learn
anything.”

“That’s a hell...” Rafe was obviously
rubbing off on me. I shot a guilty look in Mother’s direction and
amended, “—a heck of a way to spend your day off.”

“Your boyfriend’s missing,” Grimaldi said,
as if I needed reminding. “I want to be available if Mr. Craig asks
the MNPD to do something. And I’m not going to spend my day on the
couch relaxing when I know a fellow law-enforcement officer might
be in trouble. Let alone a friend.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it,” Grimaldi said. “I’ll let
you know if I hear anything. You do the same.”

I promised I would, and she left, with a nod
at Dix and a polite, “Safe travels,” to Mother. Catherine was still
on the phone, but winding down. “What’s the address?” she asked me,
as Grimaldi walked away.

I gave it to her, and listened as she
repeated it to Jonathan.

“Potsdam. P-O-T-S-D-A-M. Yes, like the town
in Germany. One-zero-one.” She shook her head. “No, I don’t know
where it is. I’ve never been there.”

“East Nashville,” I said.

Catherine glanced at me. “Just put it in the
GPS, Jonathan. Are you leaving now?”

Jonathan quacked, and Catherine nodded.
“I’ll see you then. Drive carefully.” She dropped the phone in her
purse. “He’s on his way.”

“I guess we should adjourn to the house.” I
glanced at Dix. “Do you remember how to get there?”

“I’ll follow you.” He got to his feet. “We
parked in the same lot.”

We had. And ten minutes later, we were
behind the wheels of our respective cars and traveling across the
Jefferson Street Bridge, with the Nashville skyline on our right
and the Cumberland River below.

“Is this where Sheila drowned?” Catherine
asked, with a glance at the muddy water below the bridge.

I shook my head. “It was the same river, but
we’re north of downtown right now. Sheila went in on the south
side, five miles or so from here.”

Catherine nodded. She was silent for a
minute, until we’d gotten across the bridge and down onto solid
ground again, and then she said. “I don’t mean to upset you,
Savannah.”

But she was going to anyway? “Sure,” I
said.

She grimaced. “I’m sorry. But I know you’re
stronger than Mother... than any of us ever give you credit
for.”

“Thank you.” That was nice of her to say,
and under different circumstances, I’m sure I would be quite
touched by it. But at the moment I didn’t feel very strong at all.
And it wasn’t like I didn’t already know what her question was
going to be, or what the answer was.

And here it came, just as expected.

“Are you sure Rafe is still alive? I mean...
Mother seems sure he ran off because he didn’t want to get married.
But he always seemed committed to me. To you, I mean. He seemed
committed to you. To me.”

“I thought he was,” I said. “I still don’t
know that he wasn’t. Isn’t. I mean... I’d like to think something
or someone is preventing him from coming home. That he didn’t just
leave.”

Although... No, actually. I didn’t want to
think that at all.

“What I mean is, I don’t want to believe he
just left. It’s easier to believe that something happened to him.
Even if I don’t really want to believe that, either.”

“Of course not,” Catherine said. “Because if
he wants to come home, but can’t, he’s either hurt, or—”

Or dead. Right.

“So I guess I’d really rather believe he ran
away. At least that way he’s safe, and not hurt.”

Catherine nodded.

“But I’m not sure what to think. I thought
he loved me. There was nothing he said or did that made me think
otherwise.”

I signaled to take a right onto Dresden.
Behind me, Dix did the same thing. I wondered what he and Mother
were talking about, and whether their conversation was as
uncomfortable as this one.

Most likely they were saying much the same
things we were, with Mother insisting that Rafe had to have left of
his own free will, because he was a rolling stone that wouldn’t
want to be tied down. Meanwhile, Dix probably—hopefully—came down
on the side of hoping—or fearing—that someone or something had
prevented Rafe from getting to his own wedding.

“It’s not like he had to run away, you
know,” I told Catherine. “If he’d come to me and said, ‘I’m not
ready for this; can we put it off awhile?’ it’s not like I would
have said no.”

Catherine shook her head.

“I’m not desperate to get married again.
Mother’s concerned about the baby being born out of wedlock, but
I’m not. Rafe was born out of wedlock, and he turned out OK. It’s
not the end of the world anymore. Single women have children all
the time. People live together for years without getting married.
And I would rather live in sin for the rest of my life than scare
Rafe away because he thinks he has to marry me and doesn’t want
to.”

Catherine nodded.

Potsdam Street was coming up on the left,
and I switched on my turn signal. On our right was the Milton
House, the horrible institution where Brenda Puckett had stuck
Rafe’s grandmother after she—Brenda—had cheated Mrs. Jenkins out of
her home. The first thing Rafe did once he could prove that he was
Mrs. J’s grandson and next of kin, had been to get her out of
there.

God, if he didn’t come back, I’d have to
tell her he was gone. She’d already had to live with the death of
her son. Now I might have to add a dead grandson to the mix. And
with her habitual confusion, she might not realize Rafe was her
grandson, but might think she’d lost Tyrell all over again.