“Absolutely. I’ll see you there,” she said and felt a sense of elation mixed with trepidation. Salty’s was located in an alley, one block off the waterfront, and was a real dive. But so be it. She didn’t blame Holt for wanting to keep their meeting under the radar, considering his family ties to the case. She just wondered what it was he was so afraid of.
She remembered him at the trial, where, as Judge Gillette’s daughter, she’d been able to get into the courtroom and watch the proceedings. Holt and Deacon had both been there too. Deacon was intent and interested, his face chiseled even then, revealing the man he would become. Holt, blonder and more boyish, had seemed uncomfortable, as if he’d rather be anywhere else in the world than in the audience of the Blondell O’Henry trial. He was the wilder of Flint’s two sons, but in the courtroom, any hint of his rebellious swagger had disappeared, and she’d thought she’d seen him more than once rubbing a worry stone between his finger and thumb during some of the testimony. She’d caught his eye, and when their gazes had locked, a dozen questions had leapt to her mind, only to disappear when he’d quickly looked away.
Of course, she hadn’t known then that he’d been seeing Amity before her death, that his interest in the case, like hers, had been personal. Now she understood why he might have been so worried.
“Good news?” Trina asked as she dropped a can of diet Coke onto the corner of Nikki’s desk.
“Maybe.” Nikki opened the can and took a long swallow. “How could you tell?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe it was the ‘cat who just swallowed the family’s favorite canary’ smile that you can’t quite hide.” She opened a second can for herself. “I heard you stole Norm Metzger’s story while he was home sick, poor thing.”
“Untrue. Fink handed it to me.”
“I’m just reporting the gossip floating around the office,” she said with a lift of an already-arched eyebrow. A tall and willowy black woman, Trina had been a model just out of high school, then had sent herself to college and, eventually, after a couple of years in Los Angeles, had landed back in Savannah, where she’d been born and raised. “We good for that drink you owe me?” she asked.
Nikki glanced at the clock and saw it was nearly four. “Sure,” she said automatically. “At Catfish Jake’s?” A cozy bar with an open mic and hot New Orleans Cajun cuisine located about midway between Nikki’s place and Trina’s apartment, Catfish Jake’s was their favorite meeting place.
“Perfect. But I’ll have to miss happy hour. Antoine’s leaving town, and I want to stop by the apartment to say good-bye. How about six-thirty or seven?”
“That works.” Nikki had a few errands to run as well.
“You’re on for the cosmos, er, no, I think I’ll have a mint julep. Or maybe a mojito?”
“Tell ya what, I won’t order until you arrive,” Nikki promised as Trina headed out of the building.
“Good. See you there,” she said and belatedly realized that Effie Savoy, who’d been walking back from the break room, had been within earshot. Effie’s gaze held Nikki’s for a second, and once again she reminded Nikki of someone. Who? she asked herself, but again couldn’t place it. Well, she would re
member in time.
So far she’d found nothing in her uncle’s files that surprised her, no hidden evidence that hadn’t come out in the trial and certainly nothing that would be dangerous to her, but what she had noticed about the computer notes was that they were neat and concise, nothing abstract included, no theories or suppositions. It was almost as if these notes had been compiled after the trial, that the pertinent information was elsewhere, maybe elsewhere on the computer’s hard drive, or even more likely, given her uncle’s old-school ways, written down in some form and stored in a filing cabinet or box or crate, locked away somewhere.
She hated to think she’d done all that skulking around and thievery for nothing, nearly giving herself a heart attack when Aunty-Pen had returned, but so it seemed.
That was the trouble—she felt as if she were spinning her wheels. And all of Reed’s talk about working together hadn’t added up to much.
Somehow, she had to ram this investigation into high gear, and that would start, she was certain, with Blondell. She had to get an interview with her.
After putting the finishing touches on the next article in her series about the mystery surrounding Amity O’Henry’s death, Nikki swallowed the last of her soda, grabbed her jacket, purse, and computer case, and headed outside, where dark clouds, their bellies swollen with rain, were scudding across the sky. The air was thick, heavy with the scent of the river and the coming rain.
Flipping up the hood of her jacket, Nikki walked to the parking lot, where a few cars remained, including Norm Metzger’s Chevy Tahoe. Norm himself was in the idling SUV, talking on his cell phone.
Spying Nikki, he threw open the driver’s door and said into the phone, “Call you back in a few,” before clicking off. After hauling his bulk out of the car, he stalked across the parking lot to Nikki’s car. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he snarled, his cheeks reddening above the graying goatee he always kept clipped and neat.
“I don’t know what you mean, Norm.”
“Yes, you do!” he roared and hitched up his pants. “The O’Henry story should be mine. I’m the crime writer here!” He jerked an angry thumb at his chest.
“You were sick and—”
“And so you swooped in and took it. Just like you’ve been doing from the minute Fink hired you. Jesus Christ, Gillette, isn’t it enough that you can work part-time at the paper and write your books? Do you have to steal my job too?”
Her back was up. “When I started with this paper, I made it very clear I wanted to concentrate on crime. Hell, I was raised on it, with my father being a judge and all.”
“Big Ron has nothing to do with this,” he said, grabbing at the air in frustration. “I’m talking about my job, the one that supports my family. You know, Della and my kids? The oldest are already looking at colleges. Do you know how much that costs?”
Nikki clamped her lips closed. Better to say nothing than have his argument escalate.
“Probably not. The judge probably paid your way. Shit!” He glared across the parking lot, his eyes following traffic on the street, but she doubted he saw any of it as he tried to compose himself. A little more in control, he said, “What happened to you quitting and taking a job somewhere else? I heard that’s what you planned after the Grave Robber case blew up in your face.”