Every Crooked Nanny Read online

  The missionaries exchanged puzzled glances. They'd clearly been coached to answer all kinds of questions and challenges, but I don't think they'd heard this one before.

  "Well, ma'am," said the blond. "Sometimes an LDS member might speak in biblical phrases unfamiliar to Gentiles. But in the mainstream church of LDS, no, ma'am, I don't believe most of us do that, under normal conditions."

  "Wait right here a moment, please," I told them. With difficulty, I made my way to my bedroom, dug in my purse, and found the scrap of paper Bucky'd given me the night before. Outside, the boys were astride their bikes, handy-like, in case they needed to make an emergency escape.

  "By the way," I said casually, "where did you fellows say you were from?"

  "Bountiful, Utah," said one. "Arizona," said the other.

  "Would you know anything about a place called Beechy Creek, Arizona?"

  They exchanged shocked glances. The blond started to speak up, but the one with glasses interrupted. "No, ma'am," he said. "Never heard of it." He jerked his head imperceptibly and started pedaling down the walk. The blond shrugged and followed.

  I slipped the paper in the pocket of my robe and shut the front door. And locked it, recent occurrences in mind. I could smell bacon frying in the kitchen, and Edna was humming. Suddenly I was starved. "Hungrier than a bitch wolf with twelve suckling pups," as Neva Jean might have said. But the memory of my appearance propelled me back to my room.

  I stood under the shower, as hot as I could stand it, for a long time. After I blew my hair dry, I got out my old makeup bag, the one I used for heavy-duty dates. Hoped the stuff hadn't passed its expiration date. I smeared some beige base over my face, gently working it over the bruises and scrapes, and added a coating of the kind of concealer intended to cover up under-eye dark circles. I followed that with a layer of beige powder and some blusher. Porcelain Rose. The warpaint took the rawness off my injuries, but not even a layer of spackle would have covered them altogether.

  I found an old boyfriend's striped rugby shirt in the closet, put it on and buttoned all the buttons, and slipped into my loosest pair of jeans.

  In the kitchen, Edna was draining bacon on a platter covered with paper towels. "Stir the grits, would you?" she said, not looking up from her chore. I did as I was told, adding more salt, since she wasn't looking. I poured myself a cup of coffee and sat down at the kitchen table, burying my head behind the front page of the morning Constitution.

  She pushed a plate, covered with bacon, scrambled eggs, toast, and a mound of grits, swimming in a pool of butter, under my paper. Cholesterol city. That's what I love about the South. I had to put the paper down to eat.

  Edna chewed quietly for a while, turning the pages of the paper as it lay flat on the table. She cleared her throat. "You get in a bar fight last night?"

  I looked up sheepishly. "I feel so stupid about it, I hated to tell you. I was walking home from the Yacht Club. It was late. Two punks must have been following me. They were babies, really. Probably just wanted money for a Happy Meal. They jumped me and tried to grab my purse, and for some idiotic reason I decided to fight them off."

  A look of horror crossed her face. "Babies didn't do that to you, Julia Callahan Garrity. You could have been killed. Do you know how many rapes there have been in Candler Park already this spring? And me captain of the Neighborhood Watch. Why didn't you just give them the money?"

  I shrugged. It hurt. "It doesn't hurt, Ma. I guess I got mad. It's no big thing. Somebody's dog barked and they ran away. And I kept my purse."

  She reached over and touched the bruise on my cheek, then ran her fingers over the scrapes. "Did you wash your face with antiseptic?" she demanded.

  "I used a whole bottle of Bactine," I said dutifully.

  She pulled the telephone toward her, dialing rapidly.

  "Don't call the cops," I said, alarmed. "It won't do any good."

  "I'm calling your sister Maureen," she said. "And I don't want to hear a word out of you."

  "Uh huh.... OK.... Yes.... Yes, she did.... Scrapes and bruises, it looks like .... All right." I sat helplessly back in my chair, as my mother discussed my injuries with my sister the nurse, as though I were a stray dog hit by a car.

  She hung up the phone with a look of satisfaction. "Maureen's coming right over to look at you," she said. "And she's bringing a tetanus shot just in case you got any dirt in those scrapes."

  Before I could protest, the phone rang. I beat her to it on the second ring and she glared at me.

  "House Mouse."

  There was a confused pause at the other end of the line. "I beg your pardon?" a man's voice said. It was Dinesh Prahab.

  "House Mouse is the name of my cleaning service," I explained. "You know, the business that allows me to take on pro bono cases?"

  "Oh, yes," he said, coughing politely. "Ms. Garrity, I'm sorry to call on a Saturday, but it's somewhat of an emergency. I spoke with Wendell Driggers last night, and he has made arrangements to put up bail for our client."

  "Your client," I corrected him.

  "Whatever. But as a condition of his assistance, he wants to see you."

  "Why?"

  "He didn't say," Prahab said. "I assume he wants to ask you for more details about the case. All I know is that he'd like you to go out to his home at ten o'clock this morning."

  I craned my neck to see the wall clock. It was right at nine. "Impossible," I snapped. "Who does this guy think he is? I'm not dressed. And did I mention that I was mugged last night?"

  "Mugged?" he said with genuine alarm. "I hope you weren't hurt. Do you think it has something to do with the Ewbanks murder?"

  I glanced over at Edna, who was pretending to work the crossword puzzle.

  "Ah, yes," I said carefully. "Yes. That's the general idea."

  "My God," Prahab said. "I had no idea. You must tell me all about what happened later. Right now I must go. I'm meeting some people for brunch."

  He gave me Wendell Driggers's address, which was in Cascade Heights, an area west of town long favored by Atlanta's black elite.

  "Where are you going?" Edna asked me, as I headed for my room to change. "Your sister will be here any minute to give you your tetanus shot."

  "Tell her to use it on herself," I called over my shoulder. "Sleeping with Kusic, she's bound to have picked up cooties."

  It was another picture-book spring morning. People walked their dogs, jogged, and puttered in their front yards. In Cascade Heights, the yardmen were doing the hard work. As I cruised Cascade Drive, I recognized the homes of the president of the city's largest black-owned bank, the chairman of the board of a huge Atlanta-based insurance company, and the new chief of staff at Grady Memorial Hospital. The new-money buppies—black urban professionals—were building subdivisions on smaller lots in the area, but Atlanta's finest, oldest black families clung tenaciously to their hillside mansions.

  High on a hill, at the end of a winding driveway, I saw an imposing white frame mansion with green shutters. Massive Greek columns marched across the front porch, and a burly young man rode a riding mower back and forth across the spreading green lawns. A small sign at the foot of the drive said EVELYNWOOD. PRIVATE RESIDENCE.

  By downshifting to first and stomping on the accelerator as hard as I could, I managed to power the van up the steep driveway. At the top of the hill I followed the drive around to a large garage.

  If the sign hadn't told me, I'd have known by the lineup outside the garage that I had the right house. Parked in a row were a sporty white Mustang, a sedate gray Taurus sedan, and a long, gleaming navy blue Lincoln Continental.

  A powerfully built black man played a hose over the hood of the Lincoln. He looked to be in his early sixties. He was wearing one of those expensive silky warm-up suits you'd never dare to wear for actual sweating, and what looked like hand-sewn black loafers on his sockless feet. He had a broad forehead, deep-set eyes, and a fringe of tightly curled gray hair.

  The van continued to knoc
k for a full minute after I cut the engine and hopped out. Wendell Driggers shot a squirt of water on the van's dusty hood. "Chevy," he said, as though uttering a profanity. "Oughta come see me about one of our new Aerostars. Fine vehicle. Not like this piece of crap."

  I stuck out my hand. "Callahan Garrity, Mr. Driggers. How do you do?"

  "Let's go inside," he said. "Can't hear over the lawn mower."

  He opened a door in the garage and led me into the kitchen. Although Evelynwood was an old house, dating probably to around the 1920s, the kitchen looked like the galley of the Starship Enterprise. The appliances were all black glass and polished chrome, the counter-tops a gleaming gray granite. The chrome downlights hanging over the work counter looked like futuristic hubcaps.

  He led me over to a black glass-topped table and motioned me to sit down in a black leather pilot's chair.

  "Grapefruit juice?" he asked, pouring himself a glass from a beaker on the counter.

  The chair was hard, reminding me of my bruises. "No, thanks," I said.

  Driggers seated himself at the table and studied me for a moment. "How much do I owe you?" he said abruptly.

  "Excuse me?"

  He pulled a checkbook out of the pocket of his warm-up suit. "What is your fee for investigating this murder case?" he said patiently. "How much time do you have in it already, and how much more work do you think you'll need to prove Ardith innocent?"

  I figured up in my head the hours I'd spent on the case, not counting any of the work I'd done for the Beemishes but starting with my meeting in jail with Ardith. I told him what it amounted to.

  "About proving her innocent, though, I can't tell you that," I said. "It's ... complicated."

  "Do you believe she is innocent?" he asked.

  "I do," I shot back. "What about you?"

  He sipped his juice. "I'm not familiar with the particulars of this case. Nor do I want to be. I don't really care about any of that. But I don't want my grandson's mother standing trial for murder in this town. I won't have it coming out in the news. My wife couldn't stand the scandal."

  I'd seen photographs of Evelyn Driggers in the society pages of the newspaper. She was one of the few black women in town who moved easily through both Atlanta's black and white social circles. Her love of exotic footwear had earned her the nickname of Bootsie.

  "Can I ask you something?"

  He looked up from his checkbook "Yes?"

  "Does your grandson know anything at all about his mother? Has he seen Ardith? Does he knew she's here in Atlanta?"

  Driggers set the pen down on the open checkbook.

  "Let me tell you about my grandson," he said coldly. "We were never consulted about that marriage. My son didn't even tell us we were grandparents until Demetrius was a week old. And then they split up. My wife flew out there to Arizona when the baby was only fourteen months old. He and his mother were living in a trailer. No hot water, nothing but a hot plate to cook on. Ardith was so busy working and going to school she had no time for the baby. When Bootsie got there, he had a cold and his ears were so infected the doctor said he'd have permanent hearing loss. That girl was no kind of mother. She was only too glad when Bootsie offered to bring him home to us in Atlanta. We gave her some money to get her a decent place and to finish school. She gave us Demetrius."

  "Gave him to you?" I said, raising an eyebrow.

  "We legally adopted him," Driggers said. "My son, his daddy, hasn't been around in years. We don't know where he is now. And, yes, Demetrius knows his mother is white. If you see him, there's no denying it. He thinks she lives out west somewhere. That's all he knows, and he's never asked us about her in all the years since we explained it to him. If you do your job right, he won't know she's in Atlanta.

  "That boy is everything to us," Driggers said proudly. "He's on the dean's list at Westminster Academy," he said, naming the city's top private school. "He's on the soccer team and the debate team and is president of his class. Colleges call every week. I want him to study law at Princeton. His grandmama wants him to stay home in Atlanta and study medicine at Morehouse."

  He leaned across the table. "We're not gonna let this fool white girl screw things up for Demetrius like she did his daddy. You think she's innocent. Fine. Prove it. I told her lawyer to call my attorney. I know the magistrate judge. We'll get her out of jail. But there's just one thing. Ardith Cramer is not to come anywhere near my boy. She is not to call him and she is not to see him."

  He ripped the check out of the checkbook, then, and handed it to me. It was enough money to get a valve job on the van. Hell, it was enough money to trade in the van on a new Ford Aerostar. One with an air conditioner and a CD player.

  As usual, I couldn't let things alone. "Don't you think you should let Demetrius meet his mother?" I asked. "Don't you think Ardith deserves to at least see him?"

  Driggers stood up, walked to the sink, rinsed out his juice glass, and set it in a chrome rack to dry. He turned to face me. His face was calm, but his voice was angry.

  "She doesn't want to see him," he said. "Told me so herself, first thing, when she called me from the jail. Said she couldn't even remember what he looked like.

  "Can you imagine that?" he asked, his voice incredulous. "A mama not remembering what her only baby boy looks like? I'll never forget what he looked like. He was the prettiest thing I'd ever seen. Light-skinned, the color of cafe au lait, like you get in New Orleans. Had freckles like his daddy did, long curly black lashes, and silky red-brown hair. Me and Bootsie played with him like a little play toy. You never saw such fools in love with a baby." He shook his head in disbelief. "Ardith doesn't deserve to see my boy. She knows it too."

  We heard a car roar up the driveway, then, and the sound of doors slamming. Driggers frowned. "They're home early. You better go on now."

  Before he could say anything else, the kitchen door opened and a smiling woman with short-cropped white hair bounced in, her hand affectionately ruffling the hair of a teenage boy. They were laughing about some shared joke, but they stopped when they saw the stranger standing in their kitchen.

  Demetrius Driggers was still beautiful. He was tall and slender, long-legged in his baggy soccer shorts. His hair was damp, a mass of ringlets, and his eyes were a surprising shade of green.

  "Bootsie, this is Miss Garrity," Driggers said to his wife, as he propelled me by the shoulder to the door his wife had just entered. "She's trying to sell me a new security system for the house."

  "That's nice," I heard her say.

  Driggers gave me a gentle shove out the door and into the garage. "Call me at the office when you get that price worked up," he said. "We'll see if we can't dicker a little on it."

  26

  FOR SOME REASON, Wendell Driggers's check didn't make me feel much better than Bo Beemish's had. I kept seeing images in my head of that beautiful teenager, Demetrius Driggers, with a price tag hanging from his hand. And me with a sales receipt.

  When I got to the interview area at the jail, Ardith was waiting for me. She'd washed her hair, and there were no fresh battle scars. I pushed a paper bag across the table to her.

  "What's this?" she said warily. "Open it."

  Wordlessly, she pulled out a pair of running shoes, socks, a hairbrush, some deodorant, shampoo, and a crossword puzzle book. "Thanks," she said.

  "The shoes are generic," I said. "The store I went to doesn't carry New Balance. And I didn't know what size you wore, so I bought eights. I hope they'll fit."

  "I'm a seven," she said. "They'll do."

  Ardith hadn't been a barrel of laughs during my other encounters with her, but today she seemed spacier than ever.

  "Did Dinesh tell you the news?" I said excitedly.

  "Wendell Driggers knows the judge in your case. They're gonna set bond at a hundred thousand dollars, and Dinesh thinks he can have you out of here by sometime Monday."

  "Great," she said. "That's good news."

  "What the hell is bugging you, Ardith?" I ex
ploded. "I tell you we're gonna get you out of jail in two days, and you react as though I told you Dan Quayle was coming to town. I don't expect you to pin a medal on me or anything, but a little enthusiasm might be a nice change. Do you have some problem you want to tell me about?"

  She fiddled with the running shoes, making a big thing of running the laces through the eyelets. "No," she said. "You've been decent to try to get me out of this jam. I guess I'm just tired. You don't get much sleep in jail. Half the women howl all night."

  "What else?" I asked.

  She looked up at me, her face paler than I'd remembered. There were dark circles under her eyes, and her cheekbones seemed pronounced. She'd lost weight already.

  "It's hard for me to get excited, you know? I get out of jail Monday, but I'm still charged with murder, and they're still going to go after me for the nanny thing. I don't expect you or the cops to understand this, but Kristee and I really did have a relationship. I cared about her. Now she's dead. What have I got to look forward to? I've got no one in this town. No place to stay, no job, no money. I'll have to stay in Atlanta until the trial. And they'll still probably find me guilty and send me to prison. Dinesh warned me about that himself. As far as I can tell, the only thing that's about to change for me is my address."

  I hadn't considered things from her viewpoint. What did she have to be thrilled about?

  "Look," I said, "I told you I think we can prove you're innocent, and I meant it. I've got some decent leads now, and I'm working hard to follow them up.

  Your father-in-law paid my fee this morning, plus some extra money. I think it was meant as a bribe to keep you away from Demetrius."

  She bit her lip at the mention of her son. I plowed ahead.

  "There's enough money here to pay your back rent at the motel, plus at least another week's rent. After that, you'll need to find someplace cheaper, and of course you'll need to find work. If you're interested, you can clean houses for me. It ain't brain surgery, but it's honest work, and the pay is fair. We can look into it. Now I need some more information."

  She took off the paper jail slippers she'd been wearing, folded them, and stuffed them in the paper bag with the toiletries I'd brought. Then she sat up and squared her shoulders. "What else do you want to know?"