The Cantaloupe Thief (21 page)

“Could be. Let's see what the lovely Rita has to say. I want to go with you.”

“I thought you'd never ask,” she said.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Malachi Martin didn't know it, but people on the street looked up to him. They marveled at his calm, his kindness, his dignity. He managed to live without lying, without hustling, without stealing — well, if you didn't count the occasional sugar packets and cantaloupes. And he'd been out here longer than any of them.

Sometimes, when they were “flying a sign” — holding up a handwritten sign that said “Homeless. Please help!” at an intersection — or when they were spinning a story about getting to Florida for their mother's funeral (her sixth), Malachi would slip, unbidden, to mind. Malachi was famous for refusing to panhandle. Ever.

Malachi didn't know this either, but it was his acceptance of Pastor Liam that enabled the inexperienced minister to turn Jericho Road around so quickly. The church's previous three pastors had tried to build a traditional church and bend a homeless congregation to fit it. The red-headed former reporter came in like a... well, like a reporter. He admitted he knew nothing of homelessness and wanted to learn all he could. He spent time asking questions. Lord, could the man ask questions. But when you answered, he listened.

He didn't try to impose
his
ideas so much as listen to yours. So when Malachi told him the homeless had a hard time keeping their clothes clean, Pastor Liam found funding to build two showers and a laundry room. But then he required the homeless folks to run them. They took responsibility or they didn't use the facilities.

Dontegan, for one, was so dependable that he worked himself into a paying job.

Malachi could probably do that too. Pastor Liam sure asked him enough times if he wanted a room at Jericho Road. He knew lots of folks would kill for a steady job and a room with running water and heat and air. But that wasn't him.

Still, he liked Pastor Liam. Respected him. And so when someone from the street joined him on a bench in front of the courthouse or passed a bottle under the bridge late at night and asked what he thought of that very white, freckle-faced preacher, Malachi said he thought he was just fine. People listened, and began attending Sunday worship, talking to the church's counselors, helping around the shelter.

On this late Monday morning, it was growing too hot to be on the courthouse lawn. Malachi relinquished his bench and headed for the cool of the Cannon County Public Library. At this time of day, he was able to claim an entire table. He selected a current
Sports Illustrated
and settled in to read.

“Hi, Mr Malachi.”

He looked up to see Pastor Liam's son Chan, wearing a T-shirt with the sleeves torn out, baggy shorts and a backward baseball cap. Under his arm was a bike helmet.

“What you doin' here on summer vacation?” he asked the young man.

“My mom sent me to see if I could find my college reading list before we hit a bookstore. Okay if I sit for a minute?”

Malachi nodded. “You in that Volkswagen I heard your daddy talkin' about?”

Chan smiled. “Nah, it's not ready yet. Not sure it ever will be. But we're trying. Charlie and I share an old Jeep, and it's her day. I'm on my bike.”

“That's nice — you and your daddy fixin' up a car. You lucky to have a daddy like that.”

A shadow passed over Chan's usually open face. “Did you know your dad, Mr Malachi?”

“No. But I knew my granddaddy. He and my grandma raised me. We had a farm outside Hartwell. Raised hogs. Chickens. Vegetables we sold at a stand ever' Friday and Saturday.”

Chan asked tentatively, “You didn't want to go on living there?”

“Wasn't a question of ‘want'. They was rentin' the property. They died while I was in service. I got back and the farm was gone, rented to somebody else.”

“Is that when you became homeless?”

Malachi shrugged. How to explain to this young white boy all the threads that made up that tangle? Most days, Malachi wasn't sure he understood it himself.

“No, not right away. I had some military pay that lasted awhile. I moved to Atlanta, worked construction. Drank a little too much. Worked some in Hartwell. None of them jobs lasted. I finally ran out of money. In Hartwell, we always heard about the construction goin' on in Gramblin'. So I took the Greyhound and here I am.”

“And did you work construction here?”

Malachi paused. Chan was a nice kid. But he wasn't about to get into the nightmares and the panic attacks and the long nights in the woods when the only sleep he got came from a bottle of Jim Beam. So all he said was, “Nah, didn't work out.”

Chan looked embarrassed. “I'm heading to college in August — Furman, in South Carolina.”

“Your daddy done told us that in church. He's mighty proud. Proud of your sister too.”

“It's just that my dad...” Chan paused, looked away. Then he stopped, apparently coming to a decision. “You're right,” he said, standing. “I am lucky. Or, as he would say, blessed.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

JULY 5, TEN YEARS AGO

Amanda woke with a strange sense of déjà vu. It was her old bedroom all right, but she hadn't spent a night in it in twenty-four years. In fact, she didn't know why she'd spent last night in it. It was the first five minutes of the day, and she was already irritated at her mother.

She sighed, and dressed in the solid colors she favored — black capris, black sandals with a half-inch wedge, and a sleeveless yellow top. She dampened her auburn hair and re-blew it dry. Her expensive cut settled into its deliberately tousled shape.

She paused for a moment at her mother's bedroom door, but hearing nothing walked downstairs. There she found Ramsey in the dining room, already on his second cup of coffee, and Tabitha in the kitchen, making blueberry pancakes.

“I'm sorry. Did I keep everyone waiting?”

“Not at all,” Ramsey said. “The girls asked for Tabitha's famous ‘face' pancakes, so she made them with blueberries. We haven't seen Mother yet. Ashley, do you want to run up and make sure she's awake?”

Ashley scampered up the central staircase. They heard her pounding on Alberta's door and shouting, “Grandmother? Are you up?”

“You're a braver woman than I,” Amanda murmured. She drifted into the kitchen to cut up a pineapple, strawberries and cantaloupe.

“Ashley, that's quite enough.” The regal voice wafted downstairs.

Alberta soon joined them, dressed for her doctor's appointment in a short-sleeved pink dress, belted at the waist, hose and ecru-colored pumps. “Ramsey, we need to leave the house at 10:45,” she said. “Amanda, I'd like to talk to you before we leave.”

“Fine. Do you want to give me a hint?”

“Little pitchers,” Alberta said, with the faintest of nods toward Ashley and Caroline.

“Big ears, maybe, but little interest,” said Ramsey.

Amanda turned to her nieces. “Did I hear I'm to take you to the country club?”

“Yes,” Caroline fairly shouted. “We're old enough to stay there by ourselves this summer.”

“You have to be thirteen,” Ashley explained, looking up from a pancake with a line of blueberries that formed an exaggerated smile.

“Look, I made mine frown,” Caroline said, moving the berries around the face.

For goodness' sake, aren't they a little old for this?
Amanda gave what she hoped was an indulgent smile for Ramsey's benefit. She hadn't been all that fond of Ben Jr and Drew at this age, much less other people's adolescents. Her nieces were all kinky hair and knobby knees and screechy volume.

She looked up to find her mother's eyes on her. “When you've finished, Amanda, please join me in my sitting room.”

“I can come now,” said Amanda, ready to get this morning over.

She took her coffee with her, and followed her mother's straight spine up the spiraling staircase to the second-floor bedrooms. Her mother's master bedroom suite included a smallish bathroom — the house was built in a time before luxurious baths became a selling point. But the attached sitting room with its matching floral chaise lounge, wing chairs and ottomans was lovely. Amanda took a wing chair, and waited. She wasn't prepared for where her mother started.

“I always tried to be equal with you children. I spent the same on your birthdays, Christmas, back-to-school clothes.”

“I've heard you say that,” Amanda agreed.

“But when it came to Heath, your father didn't always agree.”

Amanda cocked her head, interested now.

“You and Ramsey were away at college, and your father, to my mind, indulged Heath more than he should have.”

“That Mustang?” Amanda laughed. She and Ramsey had had plenty to say about Heath getting a brand new Ford Mustang at sixteen when they had inherited their dad's used sedans. It had been a source of kidding, but she — and, she presumed, Ramsey — had not really minded. They were out of the house by then and not terribly concerned if their younger brother got a few extra perks.

“That was the first manifestation, yes,” said Mrs Resnick. “But hardly the last. Heath got into some trouble as a teenager. I thought he needed to make restitution, but your father took care of things.”

This was the first Amanda had heard of it. “What kind of trouble?”

“He was a lifeguard at a community pool on the Eastside. There were accusations that he stole from a lockbox.”

“You're kidding!”

“Then there was an accusation by a young woman that he had... been inappropriate.” Mrs Resnick's vocabulary faltered as she forced herself through this most unpleasant conversation.

“Sexual assault?” Amanda asked.

“Yes, something like that.” Her mother looked acutely uncomfortable.

“Mother! How did we not know this?”

“Your father,” her mother said again. “He took care of everything. He didn't want Heath's future ruined over what he called ‘youthful indiscretions'. And for awhile, I have to admit, Heath seemed to straighten out. He graduated from college, married Serena and moved back here. Then he began buying those mills for renovation.”

“And did great,” Amanda inserted.

“Yes and no,” said her mother. “The last two did well, I believe. They were close enough to downtown to benefit from its cachet. But there were another three on the Westside you probably never heard about. Your father loaned — or as he said ‘invested' — a great deal of money in them. They went bankrupt.”

“Does Ramsey know all this?”

“I'm sure he knows that Heath had some failures. He doesn't know of your father's involvement.”

“Is Heath broke?” Amanda asked. “Or is he okay now with those new mill condos?”

“I really don't know. And that isn't my concern in telling you this now.” Alberta Resnick paused. “I'm telling you because I sensed you didn't believe me yesterday. The reason I want to cut Heath out of my will is not maliciousness on my part. Or dementia, as you seemed to think.”

Amanda reddened slightly.

“The fact is that your father already gave Heath his portion of the inheritance in all those loans that were never repaid. So I want to change my will simply to reflect what has occurred.”

Amanda blew out a long sigh. “Mother, I'm sorry. I had no idea. But you were talking yesterday about Heath wanting to sell your house and sending in a crazed piano player to help him do it.”

“Actually, that's true as well,” said Alberta. “He's pushing hard for me to sell this house. That makes me wonder how well those mill condos are doing. I think he may be trying to get the estate into a more liquid form before I die. But that doesn't change the fact that he has already been through his portion of the inheritance.” She looked at her daughter. “So will you drive me to my attorney's office this afternoon?”

Amanda gazed at her mother for the first time with empathetic eyes. “Certainly,” she answered slowly. “You and Ramsey and I probably need to discuss whether we want to tell Heath. But we can decide that later.”

Her mother stood. “Yes. I should be back from the doctor's office around 12:30 or 1 o'clock. Give me time to eat lunch. Can you come back at, say, 1:45? My appointment with the lawyer is at 2 o'clock.”

Amanda nodded absently. “I'll arrange for a late check-out at the hotel.”

 

* * * 

 

Rita Mae Jones realized her mistake the minute she awoke. She wasn't sure which hurt more: her head or her feet.

She rolled over to look at her clock, and saw it was past 10:30. She threw back her lightweight duvet and crooked her knee so she could look at the bottom of her feet. Yep, scratches and bruises. They looked as bad as they felt.

Why the heck had she left her shoes at the party? Come to think of it, where the heck had she left her shoes? And did she drive home barefoot?

She padded on bruised soles to the bathroom, brushed her teeth and tried to remember. She'd not had that much to drink — five bourbons on the rocks, but that wasn't unusual. And then she'd followed Ben Brissey Jr to the pool house and they'd...
Oh my gosh, the high. The best high ever.

She forgot her feet for the moment, forgot the beer she'd intended to open. Was there any of that crack left? This was a holiday weekend, and she had no commitments today. What was wrong with firing up one of those babies?

The cotton sack wasn't on her bedside table. Nor was it on her faux granite kitchen counters. Her pockets. That was it. Rita Mae found last night's capris tossed over the footboard of her bed. She reached into the pocket and pulled out the little sack. One rock left.

Ah

 

What the heck is she doing?
Ramsey Resnick wandered from room to room of his mother's house. Caroline and Ashley were banging on her piano in the living room. He let them continue, though the noise jangled his nerves. If that didn't get her down here, nothing would. She didn't allow anyone on that piano who hadn't had
mus-i-cal in-struc-tion.