Page 28 of Tell Me (Savannah 3)

For a second, it seemed that remark got Beauregard’s back up, but if so, he disguised it quickly. “Don’t think so, but I’ll check with my mother. She still lives in the same house, and Dad used the second bedroom for an office once my brother moved out.”

“Flora, right?” Morrisette said. “The place on Stevenson, a few blocks off Victory Drive?”

“Yeah.” The skin over Beauregard’s face tightened a bit. “How’d you know?”

Morrisette’s gaze was icy. “Been around the block a couple of times.”

He eased into his smooth-attorney attitude again. “I’ll check with her, and please, keep me up to date. Anything I can do to help.”

Morrisette said, “Find us the murder weapon.”

“What?” Beauregard glared at her.

“It would help if we had the damned gun,” Morrisette clarified. “The .45.”

Beauregard looked at her as if she were nuts. “I don’t have any idea where—”

“She’s kidding,” Reed cut in. “We’ll keep you abreast of the investigation.” He started for the parking lot.

“Do that.” Obviously irritated, Beauregard stormed into the building, and Morrisette caught up with her partner.

“Just because he’s a prick doesn’t mean you have to make him show it to you every time you say something,” Reed observed.

“A prick and then some. He’s already shoving his nose in our business. I’ll drive,” she added, keys already in hand as she headed to her aging Chevy Impala, th

e upholstery on the back seat showing the impressions of her kids’ car seats.

“Beauregard’s still an ADA,” Reed reminded her as she unlocked the car and slid behind the wheel.

Morrisette made a retching noise.

Reed half-smiled as he sat down in the passenger seat. Their doors shut in unison, and before he’d snapped his seat belt into place, she’d started the engine with a flick of her wrist.

She said, “Beauregard’s like his old man, only a little more polished, the rough edges smoothed out, but still rough underneath.” She adjusted the rearview mirror. “Deacon goes to great pains to look smooth and refined. All an act. He’s a bully. Just like Flint.” Backing out of the parking space, she added, “I don’t trust him.” Throwing the car into drive, she eased out of the lot, and as soon as there was a break in traffic she gunned it. “As I said, too damned slick. Too concerned with appearances. At least Flint didn’t give a crap about that.”

“But you didn’t like him, either,” Reed said as she changed lanes and headed west on Liberty Street.

“I’m definitely not a member of the Flint Beauregard fan club, which puts me in the minority at the station. The way you hear Red DeMarco or Bud Ellis tell it, Beauregard was second only to Jesus Christ in working miracles, at least when it came to solving cases for the PD.” Still working her gum, she shot Reed a knowing look as she drove out of town and, once past the city limits, hit the gas. “Sometimes I wonder how the department keeps running now that Beauregard’s gone. Again, a goddamned miracle!”

Alfred Necarney’s trick knee was acting up again, his arthritis throbbing. The damned docs at the VA said there was nothing much they could do about it, and he figured they probably were right. He’d had the bum knee for forty-odd years, ever since he took some shrapnel from a land mine in Vietnam.

A pisser, that’s what it was, but then again, most things were. Like the way Mandy-Sue hadn’t waited for him back then. While he was on a tour of Southeast Asia for Uncle Sam, she’d taken off and married Bobby Fullman, just like that. Alfred had come home to a hero’s welcome, a knee that never worked quite right, and no bride waiting for his return.

He’d driven up to this cottage in the north Georgia hills, outside of Dahlonga—the one his granddaddy had left him while he was out of the country—settled in, and never left. As for Mandy-Sue, good riddance to bad news. He’d heard from Nola-Mae, his flap-lipped sister, that Mandy was a grandma now four times over and that Bobby, that son of a bitch who’d been one of Alfred’s best friends at Tyler High, had died two winters ago of pneumonia.

Couldn’t of happened to a nicer guy, Alfred thought for the two hundredth time. What a cocksucker Bobby Fullman had turned out to be.

But that was all ancient history; Alfred had settled into this three-room cabin, made it his own, made a few “improvements” to the place, and had his own thriving, if not exactly legit, business on the side. That is, when he wasn’t logging. Which, just three months ago, he’d given up completely, even sold what equipment he’d collected over the years.

But he was set, at least money-wise. Social Security had kicked in just this past April, so times were good. He still worked a little, but that was about over too, and he wasn’t sorry to give up rising before dawn to clear-cut a hillside with a bunch of damned kids, none of ’em past thirty-five or so. Besides, the damned environmentalists were gettin’ in the way of that too. Just like everything else.

This evening, the rain had quit just before darkness had descended, and the forests surrounding his old cabin smelled fresh and clean. Yep, he loved it up here and had quit thinking how his life would have been different with Mandy-Sue in the suburbs of Atlanta. Shitfire, he’d have hated that. Probably that prick Bobby Fullman had done him a favor.

He was about to turn on the news when headlights splashed against the windows of his house. At about the same time, old General, his hound of indeterminate mix, sent up a ruckus that set off the chickens, who’d just roosted for the night. Now they were squawking, making a helluva racket.

Checking to see that his shotgun was propped near the front door, Alfred climbed out of his recliner, his nightly nip of whiskey waiting on the nearby table. It was his ritual: not a single drop would pass his lips until the six o’clock news came on the tube.

So who the hell would be stopping by? Alfred was, and had been, a loner all his life. People considered him odd, and he did nothing to discourage that opinion. The way he figured, the fewer people who knew him, the better. Absently scratching his beard, he stared out the window.

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