The Cantaloupe Thief (34 page)

“Charlie! Charlie! You up?”

She began to stir, looked at him blearily. “What are you doing?” she hissed. Charlie was not a morning person. “If you want the car, take it.” She pulled the covers up and turned her back to him.

“Charlie, it's not the car. Can we talk?”

She turned back, looked at him incredulously.

“I thought you've been wanting to talk,” he said innocently.

“In daylight hours.” But she sat up, shoved the red-gold hair out of her face. “What do you want?”

He pulled her desk chair over so that his knees touched her mattress. He didn't want to wake their parents.

“We're having a family meeting tomorrow to talk about my adoption,” he said.

“Mom and Dad are getting rid of you? After all this time?”

“Very funny. I'm going to meet my real dad. Well, my biological dad.”

That got her attention. “No kidding? Is this what's been going on, with all the whispering?”

He nodded. “I think so.”

“Well, that's good, I guess. Are you excited?”

“The thing is, Charlie, I've already met him.”

Her eyes widened, but she waited for him to speak.

“He's Davison Powers, Branigan's brother.”

“What?!
”

“Once you see him,” Chan said, “you won't be too surprised. I'm not sure I look like him, but our coloring and build are the same.”

“But isn't he a drug addict?”

Chan nodded. “Which explains what the big secret has been all these years. He wanted me to know before I go to Furman. How susceptible I'll be to drinking — and anything else. He's in rehab at the Grambling Rescue Mission right now.”

“Wow.” Charlie was shaking her head in wonder. “Did he say anything about your mother?”

“Yeah. It gets worse. Remember that picture we found that time at Grandma and Granddad's house? Grandma said it was their daughter Shauna, who'd gotten hooked on drugs as a teenager? That's my mom. Another drug addict.”

Charlie covered her mouth. “Now we know why Mom and Dad didn't want to tell us.” She thought for a minute. “Branigan knows.”

Chan looked up. “She would. And Grandma and Granddad. And probably Mr and Mrs Powers too. Everybody but me.”

“And me,” she said. They sat in silence for a few minutes. “I know this is awful and a lot to take in all at once. But there's definitely a bright side. Look where you landed.”

“Yeah, I'm not upset with Mom and Dad. It's just that...”

“What?”

“I'm not quite sure how to tell them I already know.”

“How
do
you know, anyway? Where did this Davison guy find you?”

“At the library.”

“I mean, did he just walk up and say, ‘Hi, I'm your dad'? Or what?”

“To begin with, he wrote me a long letter and left it on a library table where my stuff was. He said he was getting ready to contact Dad and Branigan, but wanted to see me first. We've been talking for three weeks or so.

“It took me awhile to get used to the idea. But he's a really nice guy, Charlie, and he's honest. You'll like him. He told me all about himself — everything from messing up so bad at college to giving up a dream of law school to working carnivals and being homeless. He wants to get clean and buy a little cabin on Lake Hartwell where I can visit. You too. He really wants to meet you.”

“Why didn't you tell Mom and Dad?”

“Davison didn't want me to until he could prove to Mom and Dad and Branigan that he was serious about getting sober. But that's been bothering me more and more — keeping it from them. That's why I told Dad I wanted to have this family meeting tomorrow. He actually brought up that my real dad — or my biological dad — would join us.”

Charlie gave him the steady look he was accustomed to: the look he trusted, the look that led him to wake her.

“You know, Davison may be a great guy,” she said. “I hope he is. But the fact is, he started off by asking you to lie to Mom and Dad.”

“I don't think we should wait 'til tomorrow,” she continued. “I think we need to tell them. Right now.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

Malachi Martin waited across the street from the
Rambler
building, on a bench that faced its Main Street entrance. He would never sit on the sidewalk. That looked too much like begging, whether he held a cup or not. But he did allow himself to sit on a bench.

Miz Branigan had told him what Gerald Dubois looked like. Malachi hoped he would recognize the newspaper's arts writer.

A few women entered the building, then some men in suits. Then a man in chinos and a dress shirt, his black hair curling over his collar, walked down the street, a Bea's coffee cup in hand. Malachi stood, jaywalked, and approached him as he pulled open the heavy glass door bearing the
Grambling Rambler
logo, an entwined G and R. Gerald Dubois hadn't noticed him, so he spoke softly to avoid startling him.

It didn't work. Gerald jumped, came very near to screaming. It came out as something of a squeak. He skipped away from Malachi.

“Mr Dubois, I'm a friend of Branigan Powers. I'm helping her with a story.”

The reporter relaxed. “Oh. Her story on homelessness?”

Malachi nodded. “Vesuvius Hightower, the man kilt by a hit-and-run driver, was an artist.”

“Yeah, that was in Branigan's story,” Gerald said. “Interesting.”

“I've got one of his pieces I'd like to show you. Over at the bench.”

Gerald's apprehension seemed to return, but the bench was sitting in broad daylight, a piece of plywood propped against it. He followed Malachi across Main Street. When he looked at the moonscape, the last of his unease vanished.

“My word!” he said. “What a gorgeous example of outsider art!”

He checked his watch, then asked Malachi if he had time to accompany him to a folk art gallery. With a single phone call from Gerald, the owner came down from his apartment above the store and let them in. He propped Vesuvius's painting on an easel, studied it closely, then from across the room, then up close again. Malachi was glad to see that the moonlit pond mesmerized these men as thoroughly as it had him.

The gallery owner offered Malachi $2,000 on the spot, provided he could prove he owned the painting.

“I could get Pastor Liam at Jericho Road to vouch for me,” Malachi said. “But I'm not sure I'm sellin'.”

Gerald stepped in and told the gallery owner that Malachi most assuredly wasn't ready to sell. He wanted to take the piece to some Atlanta galleries to make sure Malachi got top price. The man upped his offer to $3,000.

“No,” Gerald told him. “This painting is part of an ongoing story
The Rambler
is doing. I just wanted your take on it.”

He thanked the man and pulled Malachi away, whispering about getting an appraisal from a national folk art museum too. Malachi wasn't terribly concerned about that. Anything he got, he intended to donate to Jericho Road anyway. But he did want two things: recognition for his friend V, and confirmation that discarding this painting was as strange as he thought it was.

He was no art critic, but throwing this work away seemed to cry out against anyone with education or breeding or...
what,
exactly, Malachi wondered?

Then he had it:
heart.

No one with heart would throw this painting away.

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

Chan needn't have worried about waking his parents. His mom was sitting at the breakfast table when he and Charlie came down, but his dad was already at the church.

“With the police there, he left early,” Liz said. “What do you need to talk about?”

Chan hesitated. “I'd rather tell you together. Could we all have dinner tonight?”

“Of course,” said Liz. “We'll skip pizza at the church and I'll whip up something. How's that sound?”

“Thanks, Mom. That'll be great.”

“So can I go back to sleep now?” Charlie asked.

Liz looked mystified.

 

Liam poured himself a cup of coffee when he entered Jericho Road, but the men had only just started cooking breakfast. He could smell muffins baking. “Save me one of those,” he called as he passed the serving window.

“Sure thing, Pastor,” Jess answered.

Liam deposited his briefcase in his office, then continued down the hall to the latest addition he'd requested from a partner church's mission team — a prayer room. The room was small, pieced together from remnants of a renovation at Jericho's mother church. A floor-to-ceiling stained-glass window of Jesus in Gethsemane took up an entire wall. Because it was an interior wall, the construction team had installed lighting behind it. Liam flipped the switch, causing Jesus' robe to glow ruby red, his tormented face bronze. Behind a rock, almost comically out of proportion, huddled three tiny figures: Peter, James and John.

Rows of pew segments, wide enough to seat three abreast, faced the window. The staff used the space for weekly devotions, but more often for individual contemplation and prayer.

Liam sat on the front pew, head bowed, hands hanging between his legs.

“God,” he said helplessly. “Chandler. Please help Chan when he gets this news. God, he is such a good boy. Don't let this destroy him. I pray for Davison and Shauna, but as you know, my heart is not right about them.”

He paused a moment, regrouped his thoughts. “And God, this church. You have been with us every step of the way, blessing, protecting, loving this place. Help me know how to deal with this evil, Lord, to understand how and why evil has crept into this place. Help me know, Lord, the right way to respond to the police and the media. Give me wisdom and courage, as You had during Your time in the garden.”

Liam was silent for awhile, trying to listen for a word, but aware his mind was ricocheting from Chan to Vesuvius to Rita to Max.

“I'm sorry I failed them,” he whispered. “All of them. Help me make it right.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

Branigan drove past the
Rambler
building and straight to Jericho Road. Heaven knew she didn't need more coffee, but she took a cup anyway. She was too upset to eat, even though the banana-walnut muffins smelled delicious.

Dontegan greeted her as she turned from the urn. “You gettin' to be a regulah, Miz Branigan.” He smiled. “I think Pastuh Liam back there in the prayin' room. Or with the po-lice.”

“That's okay. I'm looking for someone else.”

She spotted Malachi's distinctive dreadlocks and headed for his table.

“I brought you something,” she said coldly, pulling a cantaloupe out of her purse and rolling it across the table to him. “Do you want to tell me why you've been sleeping in my barn?”

He didn't answer.

“Malachi, what's up? I know Liam has offered you a room here a dozen times. Why would you bike ten miles out of town to eat my cantaloupes and sleep in a cattle stall?”

“I can assure you, Miz Branigan, your cattle stall holds no attraction for me.”

She was too angry to be amused at his language. “So what's up? Clearly you haven't tried to break in and kill me. Yet.”

Malachi looked startled. His next words were so low she had to lean in to hear. “Maybe that's what I'm tryin' to prevent.”

At least, that's what she thought he said.

 

She stomped out of the Jericho Road dining hall, and turned her car toward the police station. She needed to get the latest from Detective Scovoy on the interrogation of Heath Resnick. As she pulled into the parking lot in front of the station, she saw Heath slam through the front door. She slunk down in her seat, hoping to avoid him. He jumped into a black Range Rover and squealed out of the parking lot, raising eyebrows among the police officers reporting for work.

Detective Scovoy met her in the hallway, dark circles under his eyes.

“You didn't hold him,” she said.

“Couldn't,” he said, rubbing his face. “We went at it all night. I called Ben Brissey Jr and their stories matched up. They both say Heath took the hat from Ben Jr at the pool house. Heath says he wore it, as a joke, for the next hour or so at the party. Then he doesn't remember what he did with it — probably just laid it on a chair.

“When I told him Amanda found it on the laundry room floor, he didn't blink. Said he could have left it on a kitchen counter and it got tossed into the laundry room. He just doesn't remember. And Tabitha, Mrs Resnick's maid, died last year, so we don't know if she could back up his story.”

“So after that huge web of lies by Amanda, nothing's different?”

“We're not stopping,” he said. “The investigation is officially reopened. Amanda Brissey also told us more about her mother's plan to revise her will. She said it wasn't simply a case of cutting Heath out. She claimed that Heath had already spent his portion of the inheritance in the form of unpaid loans from Mr Resnick.

“We looked into Heath's finances at the time, but loans from his father didn't surface. Now we know what we're looking for.”

Branigan pulled out her recorder and took the quotes Detective Scovoy was willing to give on the record. At least she could write that the investigation was being reopened on the basis of new information from Amanda Brissey.

“One other thing, off the record,” Scovoy said, as she was packing to leave. “We're also looking into any relationship Heath Resnick had with the homeless community. You've been right about a lot. If you're convinced his mother's death provoked these homeless murders, I'm willing to listen. I suppose it's even possible Heath Resnick paid a transient to do his work for him.”

That was something Branigan hadn't considered. “Heath owns a lot of property. If some of it is abandoned, I guess he could have run into homeless folks.”