The Cantaloupe Thief (15 page)

She smiled now at Amanda. “Yes, I do know what you mean.”

Branigan prompted Amanda to continue with details from July 4.

She ticked off the family members who had come for the party — Ramsey, his wife Dale, his grown son Armand, and teenage daughters Carlisle and Ashley; Heath, his wife Serena, and their thirteen-year-old daughter Caroline; herself, Bennett, Bennett Jr and Drew. “Twelve of us, plus Mother.”

“And the guests?”

“Oh, my Lord! Who knows? I'm sure the police had a guest list. There were probably fifty or sixty people — neighbors, Father's old business partners, other mill owners, Mother's bridge ladies. In the old days, we had pool parties, but the pool area wasn't nice enough for that any more — even without Billy,” she added with a laugh.

“How late did the party go on?”

“Not terribly late. So many of the guests were older. We all went outside to watch fireworks around 9:30. A lot of people left after that. Some of the grandkids' friends stayed late and braved the pool. I remember Drew telling me later that they found a snake in it.”

“Yikes. But the whole family didn't stay overnight?”

“Oh, no. Bennett would never stay there. We had two hotel rooms, one for us and one for the boys. But I did end up spending the night at Mother's. She asked me to.”

“May I ask why?” Branigan knew this was the point that had stuck in Jody's mind.

Amanda didn't hesitate. “She wanted to talk about her will.”

“What about it?”

“Well, she had been going on about making a new will. She first told me on the afternoon of July 4. I guess I didn't respond quickly enough because she asked me to stay overnight and had another run at me the next morning. She said she was eighty, her heart was weakened, and she knew she didn't have much time left. And she wanted to cut Heath out.”

Jody had told Branigan this much, though the information didn't make the stories that
The Rambler
printed. “Did she say why?”

“She did, but I thought it was more of her paranoia. She said Heath was trying to get her to sell the house and move her into a nursing home. She accused him of everything from trying to ruin her landscaping to wanting to develop her two acres as an apartment complex — as if the city would allow that.”

“What did you say?”

“I told her I didn't think she should do it. And if she did, she didn't need me. Her lawyer was right there in Grambling. To be honest with you, I thought I was seeing signs of dementia.”

To be honest with you.
The words of Branigan's first editor came back to her. They'd been sitting over beers on a long-ago election night. Someone had already uttered the well worn, “How can you tell when a politician is lying? [Pause.] His lips are moving.”

Over the laughter and groans that followed, her editor leaned in. “Seriously,” he said, “watch it when someone looks you in the eye and says, ‘To be honest with you. To be honest with you, Branigan, I did not sleep with that woman.'”

She paused now, thinking maybe Jody was on to something. This was the first statement that didn't ring true. She couldn't picture Amanda Brissey brutally stabbing her mother to death. But why would she lie about a suspicion of dementia? That was innocent enough. Wasn't it?

“So what happened next?”

“Nothing, really. Ramsey took her to the doctor. I ran by that store on South Main that sells crafts made by women in Third World countries. Mother asked me to pick out earrings for Caroline and Ashley. I did and left them there to be wrapped and held for pick-up.”

Branigan had read in the files that police had indeed found the gifts at the store, purchased by Amanda at 2:10 p.m. on July 5. Officers had followed her timeline carefully.

“Was it the girls' birthdays?”

“No, they had spent the night, and Mother liked to give them little treats. To be honest with you, they were her favorites. It was fine. The other grandchildren were old enough not to mind.”

There it was again.
To be honest with you.

Amanda continued. “Then I got the boys from the hotel and we drove home to Atlanta. Bennett Sr stayed to play golf with some clients. He had barely left Grambling when I reached him on his cell to tell him to turn around and meet me at Mother's. We'd gotten word of her... death.”

“When did you tell Heath about your mother's plan to cut him out of her will?”

“Late, late, late on the night of the murder. I tried to reach him right after I talked to the police. I wanted to tell him myself before they questioned him. But they whisked him away. In retrospect, I'm sure it was on purpose. They wanted to see his reaction.”

They talked for another thirty minutes. As Branigan suspected, she wasn't getting new information so much as a feel for the players before writing her story. Amanda had “reluctantly”, according to one detective, shared her mother's comments about Heath, which made the younger brother a prime suspect for a few days. Officers had investigated the finances of all three Resnick children. Alone among them, Heath's fortunes had been up and down. Being cut from his mother's will would have been a blow. But Heath swore he had no idea his mother intended to disinherit him, and Ramsey and Amanda backed him up.

Branigan was no detective, but it was hard for her to picture Jody's scenario. He contended that the police had only Amanda's word that Mrs Resnick intended to cut Heath from her will. What if Mrs Resnick really confided that she was cutting Amanda out of the will? That left Amanda — not to mention Bennett, Bennett Jr or Drew — in town to stab Mrs Resnick before she had the chance to do so.

Branigan knew that Jody had floated his theory to the police, who had looked into the Brissey family finances. But Bennett Brissey, an Atlanta attorney, wasn't having money troubles. The family seemed quite comfortable even without inheriting the Resnick fortune.

Of course, she thought, you can't measure greed. How much is enough? That varies from person to person. Heaven knows she'd heard Liam preach that message often enough. Bennett Jr and Drew had been in college, headed to law school, a decade earlier. Their grandmother's early death meant graduating debt-free and living a non-student-like lifestyle. And from everything she'd heard, Ben Jr was quite the party guy.

She took one more look at the photo of Amanda's handsome family, and repacked her purse. As Amanda showed her out, she asked her parting question. “Anything else that I forgot to ask?”

“I was surprised,” Amanda said promptly, “that police suspected the family. You know that from books and movies, but it honestly shocked me that anyone could think that.”

“Who do you think killed your mother?”

“Some kind of hobo,” she answered. “It had to be.”

 

Davison was leaning against the car as Cleo nosed around the Brisseys' front yard.

“How'd it go?” he asked. “Catch your murderer?”

“I'd be very surprised,” Branigan said, kicking off her heels and removing her jacket for the ride to the beach. “But something's up with her.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Malachi gazed at the painting he had tugged from the trash pile underneath the bridge. There were a few coffee grounds on it, but they wiped off easily.

He had liked Vesuvius, and he liked this painting — oil on a piece of thin plywood. He propped it against the fabric wall of his tent. Its colors were muted, realistic. The brooding landscape showed a pond at night, the moon lighting its surface to a creamy yellow, encircling trees in shades of darkest green and brown and black.

Malachi knew V had a gift for painting, despite his mental disabilities. Heck, maybe because of his mental disabilities. Maybe part of his brain was on fire because of something missing in another part.

Malachi had first seen this particular piece in the dining hall of Jericho Road. He saw it again during a Sunday morning service, when Pastor Liam leaned it on an easel beside the pulpit. He was always doing that: calling out the artists and having them stand and accept applause.

He'd even gotten him, Malachi, to lead the responsive reading once. Malachi surprised the pastor with his easy mastery of the words, he could tell. Pastor Liam clapped him on the shoulder as he left, and mouthed, “Well done.” Malachi knew what he was up to, but it made him feel good just the same.

What puzzled him was the journey this painting had taken from Jericho Road to the trash pile beneath the bridge. It didn't make sense. Pastor Liam worked hard to publicize the artwork of the homeless, whether they were shelter residents or not. Malachi attended every art show held at Jericho Road — not to buy art, of course, but for the food and hot coffee. Once he stood behind the table where volunteers were taking money, and he saw what the paintings went for: $30 to $50 mostly, but some as high as $400. Two of V's eerie nightscapes topped $200.

So what was this one doing at the bottom of a trash heap?

He thought back to the conversation with V, the one he'd tried to tell that Branigan woman about at breakfast. He could tell she had no idea what he was talking about. But she wanted information about V's life and death, and this particular piece didn't fit.

It was early last week, and Malachi had been sitting hunched on a bench at the courthouse, after dark. V rode past on his bicycle, coming from the direction of Jericho Road, where he stayed. “Why you not at Jericho?” Malachi called out.

V stopped and came closer. “I missed lock-up,” he said. “You know that's one rule Pastuh Liam don't be messin' with. Nobody get in past 9 o'clock.”

“Where you gonna stay?”

V shrugged. “Don' know. I got me some money. Thinkin' about a mo-tel.”

“Good for you.”

“Malachi? Would you look at my money and see if I gots enough for a bottle and a mo-tel?”

“Sure,” Malachi said. V handed him a wad of cash. Malachi walked over to a streetlight and counted out $130. “Whoo-eee! Where'd you get all this money? You got enough for a mo-tel room and the fines' bottle they make.”

“Then I might have some to share.” V grinned, his remaining teeth flashing under the streetlight. “Come wit' me.”

“Okay,” said Malachi. “I be glad to share yo' bottle. But don' waste yo' money on no mo-tel. You be back in Jericho tomorrow. You can stay in my cat hole tonigh'.”

V pushed his bike as the two walked to a bootlegger's house in Randall Mill. They asked the man who answered the door for a bottle of his “finest likker” and paid $45 for a $25 bottle of bourbon. Then they made their way to Malachi's two-man tent under the Garner Bridge.

“Where'd you get you a tent?” V asked.

“Mexican had it, and got put in jail. Shame to let it go to waste.”

Malachi produced Styrofoam coffee cups borrowed from Jericho Road and poured each of them a hefty splash of bourbon. “V, you need to be careful with that money,” he said. “Don't be flashin' it 'round. Where'd you get it, anyway?”

V gave him a sly smile. “Sold a paintin' I done. Sold it to a dude who saw it at Jericho. I asked Pastuh Liam and he took it right off the wall.”

“What kinda dude be having $130 for a pitcher?”

“Can' tell. I promised I wouldn' tell.”

Malachi didn't pry. But two nights later his friend had been killed crossing Oakley Street. And now the painting he'd sold had turned up in the trash pile under the Garner Bridge.

Malachi wished he had pried.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

The new guy didn't know her. That much was obvious.

Actually, no one in this town did. Even the ones she'd known in her other life; even the ones who knew her parents. Sometimes that bothered Rita, how far she'd fallen. Most times, it suited her fine. Kept down the questions:
Oh, how could you let this happen? Do your parents know where you are? Blah, blah, blah.
She didn't need to hear it.

Some days she could hardly believe she'd ever had a comfortable bed behind a locked door, taking for granted that no one was going to assault her body, steal her booze, leave her with diseases. Could hardly believe she'd ever woken to an alarm clock, climbed into a car, gone to work.

That was the thing about being homeless.
We know how other people live because we've lived it. But they haven't lived like us.

So really, when you thought about it, the homeless had a much wider world view. They knew more. They'd seen more. So where did the others get off being so disrespectful? Being so dismissive? Being so downright superior?

Yeah, I know big words,
she felt like saying to those social workers who spoke to her as if she was eight years old.
I graduated high school.

Even the folks at St James and Jericho Road who fed you — those meals didn't come without strings. They all talked about helping the homeless; Lord, did they talk. But what they meant was they wanted to help you not be homeless. They came right out and said it. No one wanted to help you get what you really needed. Which was basically oblivion.

The only people who understood were other people who needed oblivion. It looked like the new guy needed it.

He knew his way around a homeless encampment, the way he'd invited himself into her shack. She'd been nervous at first that he'd recognize her from the mall. But if there was anyone as invisible as a homeless person, it was a retail clerk. She didn't want to think what a decade of crack and meth had done to her appearance, how it might have made her unrecognizable even to her parents.

No, that didn't merit thinking about. That was the kind of thinking that brought on the need for the curtain, the need for oblivion.

That was why she'd let the new guy stay. He'd had a little money, enough to buy some oblivion.

Too bad his uppity sister had swooped in and taken him away.