The Cantaloupe Thief (14 page)

She put on a pot of coffee and packed a small suitcase and Cleo's leash and dog food. Davison came out of his room with his Salvation Army clothes in the same plastic bag he'd brought them home in. For some reason, that wrinkled grocery bag brought the ache back to Branigan's chest. She grabbed a soft-sided overnight bag in a Burberry plaid from the guest room closet, and tossed it to him.

“Dad keeps swim trunks at the beach house,” she told him. “And sunscreen.”

He nodded. He'd been asleep when she left each morning, so she hadn't seen him like this. He seemed subdued, a little shaky. He poured himself a cup of coffee, and dumped in four teaspoons of sugar. Then he put two Pop-tarts in the toaster.

He noticed her noticing, and grimaced. “I know. Why don't I just hook up the sugar IV?” He shrugged. “It helps. A little.”

“Whatever,” she said. “I want one of those Pop-tarts too.”

They ate silently at the kitchen island, passing sections of
The Rambler
back and forth. Fridays meant entertainment, so Gerald and Lou Ann had the
Style
front with stories on the opening of
Les Mis
at the Grambling Little Theatre and the start of a bluegrass series that brought classic bands down from the mountains of north Georgia and Tennessee.

“A bad weekend to leave town,” she said.

“No such thing as a bad weekend to leave Grambling,” Davison muttered.

“You really think that?”

“I know that.”

“Why?”

“Brani G, look at me. You're the star. Everything you've touched has turned to gold. Everything I've touched has turned to crap.”

She didn't respond for a moment, just looked into his tortured green eyes. “You don't think I've had disappointments? You think I really wanted to be past forty and single?”

He looked surprised. “That bothers you?”

“Sure it does. I see Liam with Liz and Charlie and Chan. I always wanted that. And it's too late.”

“I figured you wanted to be single,” he said slowly. “Because of your work.”

She shrugged. “The work's fine. It really is. But I see Chan, and I know how much I've missed.”

Davison looked stricken. “I know how much I've missed too. I'd give anything for another chance. We're quite a pair, aren't we?”

She smiled ruefully, came around the island and gave his shoulder a quick squeeze. “Yes, we are.”

 

They placed their skimpy luggage into the trunk and invited Cleo to jump onto the sheet-shrouded back seat. As they pulled out of the driveway onto the empty country road fronting Pa and Gran's house, Davison said, “I know where we're going. But I don't know why.”

“I didn't tell you about my story?”

“Nope.”

“Sorry. It's the Resnick murder.”

Branigan glanced over and saw the surprise on his face. “That's
your
story? I heard some street guys talking about it. Liam had a meeting and asked if anybody knew anything.”

“Did you even know she'd been killed?” she asked. “You were gone then.”

“Yeah, I did hear, but not 'til much later. Why are you doing an old story like that?”

She explained about the tenth anniversary of the murder and Tan's impatience with the police investigation. She told him how they'd never dismissed the possibility that the killer was a transient who had skipped town immediately afterward.

“A transient? How would you ever prove that?”

“That's just it,” she admitted. “We probably can't. But we got Liam to ask among the homeless community. Ten years ago, we didn't know anything about those people. Now he does.”

“I'm not sure I get it. What are you asking Liam to do?”

“To ask around among people on the street. Ask them if they heard anything at the time or since. I know it's a long shot, but it's the only thing we've got. At the time, Jody — he's our cop reporter — was convinced it was a family member. But I think the police would have found that out. And I sure don't believe the other family members would have covered it up.”

Davison was silent for a moment. “That sounds pretty farfetched. Has Liam found out anything?”

Branigan told him about Liam's call earlier in the week — that a man named Jess remembered Max Brody's statement that “this evening's drunk was courtesy of an old lady who had the good taste to get stabbed”.

“And so you're going to talk to this Jess?” Davison asked.

“And I hope Max.”

Davison shook his head. “Brani G, you really do have an interesting job.”

“There was another man who lives at Jericho who mentioned a drunk woman talking about an old lady who got murdered. In fact, I think it's your drunk woman.”

“
My
drunk woman?
What?”

“You know, that Rita, with the shack under the bridge.”

Branigan turned to find Davison staring at her, horrified. She burst into laughter.

“Believe me, Rita isn't ‘my woman'.” He shuddered. “I didn't touch her. I'd be afraid to. Do you know how many men she's been with?”

“Then why were you in her shack?”

“It had two beds — if you could call them that — and I slept in one. It's not even Rita's place. It was built by someone who's in jail now. I went up there and fell asleep and she didn't even come in 'til the middle of the night. And believe me, she doesn't give sex for free. I was safe.”

“I have to say, I'm happy to hear that. I was worried about your... um... health.”

Davison shook his head again. “Sheesh. Please don't share your overactive imagination with Mom.”

 

Branigan took the back roads to gargantuan Lake Hartwell, the reservoir playground shared by Georgia and South Carolina. It was only a forty-minute ride from Grambling to the cove where Amanda Resnick Brissey had a second home.

Of the Resnick family, she knew Amanda least. Amanda had been in college by the time Branigan entered kindergarten. She married right out of school — a private one, according to Jody's notes — and then moved with her husband to Atlanta. Branigan knew from her parents that the couple traveled a great deal, had two children quickly, and Amanda, at least, spent half her time at their Lake Hartwell home. According to Branigan's mom, Mrs Resnick and Amanda had a tense relationship. After her father's death, Amanda came home only once a year — for the Fourth of July party. Branigan wouldn't know her if she passed her on the street.

A couple of minutes outside Grambling, the two were in the countryside. Zoning was unheard of outside the city limits, so they passed lovely farms with decrepit trailers next door. They passed peach orchards and wildflower fields and shacks with high-flying Rebel flags. News of the Confederacy's demise hadn't reached every household in Georgia.

They crossed expanses of the sprawling lake twice. Davison and Branigan — and just about everyone who grew up in Grambling — were raised with boats and water skis, so the terrain was familiar.

Following the directions Amanda Brissey had emailed, Branigan pulled onto a bumpy road lined with pine trees, cedars and underbrush on one side and wooded lake lots on the other. Grand houses of stone and stucco sat beside fishing shacks with lavish sundecks. But there was no mistaking the only house on the cove owned by a Grambling heiress.

The Brissey house was three stories, with a circular driveway and fountain. Brick steps, twenty feet wide at the bottom, swept up to a second-floor entrance, where double oak doors were framed by windows of leaded glass. Whereas even the rich neighbors had used stone and stucco and vinyl siding, the Brisseys had chosen a reddish-purple brick. If this is what faced the humdrum road, Branigan couldn't wait to see the house's lake-facing side.

Davison agreed to walk Cleo while Branigan interviewed Amanda. The two of them started out on the rural road the way they had come, while she vigorously shook Cleo's hair off her navy summer blazer. She pulled it over her cream-colored slacks and red-and-white-striped top. She had driven barefoot, so she stepped into her off-white mules. Straightened and ready, she slung a slouchy red purse over her shoulder and climbed the steps feeling like a character in a movie.

According to her
Rambler
buddy Jody, this was the daughter who had killed Mrs Resnick.

 

Amanda Brissey had to be fifty-five, but looked fifteen years younger. She answered the door in jeans that had a slight rip in one knee, a white tunic and black flip-flops. Her hair was a tousled auburn, cropped short: there wasn't a trace of gray. She greeted Branigan warmly, handing over a mug of coffee without asking.

“So you're the Powerses' daughter,” she said. “Where did you get those stunning eyes? I don't think I've ever seen that shade of green.”

Branigan heard such comments frequently, and never knew how to answer. “Thank you,” she said weakly.

Amanda stepped aside to let Branigan enter. “I can't believe we've never met.”

“From what Mom told me, you've been traveling a lot.”

“Yes, and now I'm ready to sit tight for awhile,” she said with an airy wave to indicate her choice for sitting tight. She led Branigan into a lakeside sunroom that ran the width of the house. The sofas, chairs and valences sported vibrant fabrics in blue, white and yellow, but it was the view that caught Branigan's breath. An impressive lawn sloped to the water's edge. A double-armed dock stretched far into the water, with a pontoon boat moored in the middle, and a speedboat tied to one side. The lake was peaceful and smooth this time of the morning, with none of the weekend boat traffic that would churn it up tomorrow.

“The boys are grown,” she continued, “and Bennett can get up here only on weekends.” She reached for an ornately framed photo on a side table. Bennett Brissey was older than Amanda, Branigan could see at once. Or at least his silver hair made him look it. He had one arm around her. The couple were flanked by two handsome sons in their early thirties.

“That's Bennett Jr,” she said, pointing to one. “He practices in New York. And that's Drew. He works with Bennett Sr's firm in Atlanta. All attorneys, all the time.”

She drew in a breath, as if bracing herself. “So. Mother?”

Branigan gave her practiced speech, never sure if family members would welcome this story or find it an intrusive reminder of a horrible time.

“As you may know,” she began, “this is the only unsolved murder in the city of Grambling — if you don't count the recent hit-and-run of a homeless man. The newspaper wants to explore how it could have gone unsolved this long.”

Amanda looked skeptical, so Branigan dialed the rhetoric down a notch. “There's a lot of interest in this,” she said more frankly. “I grew up two blocks away. My brother Davison and I really liked your mother.”

Amanda Brissey nodded. “How can I help you?”

“Let's go over that July 4. Tell me about the entire day, and I'll interrupt if I don't understand something.”

“Father and Mother always had a Fourth of July party — since before I was born. When Father died — that was eight years before Mother — we children persuaded her to carry it on.” She looked thoughtful for a moment. “I don't know how much you know about my mother's later years, Branigan. But she had... problems.”

Branigan kept quiet, but looked up attentively.

“She was depressed about my father's death. Nothing odd about that. But then she developed symptoms of paranoia. We couldn't tell if it was due to the anti-depressants she was taking or if it was something else. Did you know she wouldn't let Ramsey and Heath do any pruning or cutting back in her yard?”

Branigan nodded. “I did know that.”

“She said the landscapers were in cahoots with a realtor who wanted to get her house. They wanted to butcher the landscaping so she'd be forced to sell.”

“That doesn't make sense.”

“Tell me about it. It was that kind of stuff all the time. People were listening to her phone conversations. People were walking through her property at all hours. People were sneaking into her house and garage while she was at church.” Amanda raised her shoulders in an exaggerated shrug.

“I had no idea,” Branigan said. “Poor Mrs Resnick.”

“Poor Mrs Resnick nothing,” Amanda said vehemently. “Poor Ramsey. He was the one who had to listen to that. And Heath, to some extent.” She laughed suddenly. “But I have to admit — we were wrong about the guy in the pool house. At first, we assumed it was more of Mother's imaginings. When Ramsey found that man actually living in her pool house, you could've knocked me over.”

“Did you ever see him?”

Branigan pulled the photo of Billy from her purse. Amanda studied it closely.

“No,” she said, handing it back. “The police showed me a picture too, but I'd never seen him. I came to Grambling only once a year after Father died. I'm not proud of that. But I... I... my mother and I weren't close. She was....” She closed her eyes, searching for a word. “Imperial,” she said finally. “Do you know what I mean?”

Branigan had a sudden memory of a sultry summer day when she and Davison were nine. They were riding bikes in front of Mrs Resnick's house, and Branigan hit a piece of raised sidewalk where an ancient oak had buckled it. She pitched over her handlebars, dragging her right arm across the sidewalk, ripping skin, before landing in Mrs Resnick's hostas. A wail rose to her throat.

Mrs Resnick was getting into her car, dressed in a yellow summer suit, white gloves, and straw hat.

“My lands, child!” she said. Branigan waited for her to bend down and comfort her, as her mom or gran would have done. Instead, she turned on her heel and called, “Tabitha!”

Tabitha came running, and she and Davison helped carry Branigan, still bawling, to the front porch. There Tabitha bathed her arm in warm soapy water, then applied antiseptic and a large gauze bandage, murmuring gently the whole time. Mrs Resnick got into her car and drove away. Branigan could imagine her lunch companions tsk-tsking about the inconsiderate child who had almost made her late.