CHAPTER NINE
Vic's hotel room looked out over a courtyard with a large magnolia tree in it.
The hotel was a narrow, four-story building on Liberty Street, the kind of place that had been a boarding house at some point in its history.
It had been renovated and redesigned without losing the settled quality of old Savannah construction, the thick plaster walls and the wide-planked floors and the windows that sat deep in their frames.
He looked like he had slept, technically.
He was showered and put together, but there was something behind his eyes that still looked troubled.
It went beyond simply being tired, but somewhere deeper.
She’d seen this same weariness on him several times over the course of the past few months as Kane had become more and more of a nuisance.
She had asked Miles about it on two separate occasions—once coming directly after they’d wrapped the case in Austin—and he’d brushed it off.
One time, he had mentioned that he was having nightmares and it was sometimes hard for him to sleep, but that’s really all she’d gotten out of him.
That had been immediately after leaving Los Angeles, and he had not brought it up since… so neither had she.
They grabbed breakfast from the small café alcove off the lobby, neither of them bothering to sit. Vic took a bagel with cream cheese and Miles took a cheese Danish and they ate standing at the counter while Vic pulled up an email on her phone.
“Did you look over the customer list Pruitt sent over?” she asked.
“Yeah, the list of regular customers at Hale’s, right?”
“That’s the one. I flagged three last night based on proximity and contact frequency. Standing orders, weekly arrangements, people who actually knew him…. all that."
Miles finished the Danish. "Who's first?"
"Cecelia Marsh. She runs a tailoring shop on the east end of Broughton. From what I could tell, there’s a four-year standing order, weekly arrangement for her front counter.
Pruitt's notes say she and Desmond were friendly.
" Vic set her phone on the counter and picked up her coffee.
"Then there’s a Philip Okafor, who co-owns a framing shop two blocks west. After that, a bookstore called Wren and Ink. "
“Let’s get to it then,” Miles said, tossing his napkin into a nearby trashcan.
Outside, the morning was genuinely beautiful in a way that felt almost pushy.
It was one of those days where the weather seemed to be reminding all of the Savannah residents just why they’d chosen to live here.
The air was warm but not yet heavy, the sky a pale, clear blue above the canopy of oaks that lined the block.
The streets were quiet at this hour, the city not yet fully in motion.
The drive to Cecelia Marsh’s tailoring shop on the east end of Broughton took under fifteen minutes.
She had just opened for the morning, literally turning the sign in the window when they approached.
When Vic broke the news of Hale’s death, Cecelia cried immediately.
Ceceilia was in her early fifties or so and, on trembling legs, sat down on a small stool next to a workspace taken up by a large sewing machine.
"He delivered the arrangements himself, most weeks," Cecelia said once they got her to talk without hitching for breath.
"He didn't have to do that. He had part-time staff.
But he liked to see where the flowers ended up.
He had opinions about which arrangements worked in which spaces, and he wasn't shy about sharing them.
" She smiled at something she could see in her memory, a look that made Vic’s heart feel warm for a moment.
"He rearranged my front counter once without really asking.
Just started moving things around and explaining why as he went. I wasn't even annoyed. He was right."
"What was his relationship like with the other merchants on the street?" Vic asked.
"Good. Genuinely good. He wasn't the type who was friendly because it was good for business.
He was just…just friendly." She sniffled and blew her nose with a tissue from a box under her counter.
"He organized a collection two years ago when the man who runs the shoe repair place on the corner had a health scare and had to close for six weeks.
Desmond put a jar on his own counter and told every customer who came in about it. That was just him."
"Did he ever mention anyone he was having trouble with?" Miles asked. "Professionally or personally?"
Cecelia looked at him as though she was waiting for the real question to follow.
When it didn't, she shook her head. "In twenty years on this street," she said, "Desmond Hale is the last person I would expect you to be asking that about.
Desmond was the person you called when something went wrong.
He wasn't someone things went wrong with, if you follow me. "
They thanked her for her time and were out of the alterations and tailor shop at 8:15.
The second visit was Philip Okafor; his framing and art supply shop was just two blocks to the west. According to Pruitt’s research, he had a twice-monthly order from Hale's and had known Desmond for going on seven years. He was more contained than Cecelia Marsh, and more measured in how he spoke. And the portrait he offered was pretty much identical to Ceceilia’s.
"Seven years," he said, when Vic asked how long he'd known Desmond.
"Give or take. He's been on this street longer than that, but that's when we started doing business together.
" He leaned against the counter with his arms loosely crossed.
"He's on the merchants association board.
He organized a fundraiser a couple of years back when one of the other shop owners had a medical situation and had to close for a while. That's the kind of man he is."
"Any chance you knew who his part time help was?" Vic asked.
Philip nodded. "Yeah. An older lady named Agnes Parson was helping up until a few months back. The poor thing was almost ninety years old. I think Desmond gave her the job just to keep her busy. Last I heard, she had moved into an assisted living facility in Atlanta. I think there’s also a high school kid that helps clean up and do deliveries here and there. "
"Did you ever see him in any kind of argument?" Miles asked. "With a supplier, a customer, anyone?"
Philip was quiet for long enough that Vic thought he was working toward something.
"I've never seen him raise his voice," he said.
"Not once. Not with a supplier, not with a difficult customer, not about anything.
And to be honest with you, I'm not sure I can say that about anyone else I do business with. "
He walked them to the door and stood in the frame as they left. Vic glanced back once to see him still standing there, looking at nothing in particular.
The third stop was Wren and Ink, a used and independent bookstore on the west end of the block.
It was housed in a building with a faded green awning and a window display that had been arranged by someone who cared a great deal about the visual weight of paperback spines.
The door had a small brass bell above it that rang when they pushed it open.
The interior was narrow and deep, the shelves running floor to ceiling on both sides with a reading area at the back furnished with two worn armchairs and a lamp on a side table that someone had left on.
The air smelled of old paper and coffee, and the light inside was soft and slightly amber from the lamp and the filtered morning light through the front window.
A small water-filled vase on the front counter held a cluster of pale-yellow dahlias.
Vic wondered if they had come from Hale's shop.
The owner was a woman named Margot Finney who looked to be in her early sixties, with silver hair cut short and reading glasses pushed up on her head.
She was organizing the Middle Grade Fiction section when they came in.
She had already heard the news about Hale earlier in the morning through a Facebook post, so she wasn’t quite as emotional as Cecelia.
"He came in twice a week," she said, settling onto a stool behind the counter and looking at the dahlias without quite meaning to.
"Tuesday and Friday. I didn't always need a new arrangement, but I always let him bring one anyway, because I liked the visit as much as the flowers.
" She looked back at them, shaking her head sadly.
"I assume you already know he was a good man and that nobody who knew him would have wanted anything to happen to him. "
"That seems to be the story, yes," Vic said. "We're actually hoping you might be able to tell us about something specific, though. Did you ever see him involved in any kind of dispute? Any confrontation, even a minor one?"
Finney was quiet for a moment as took the glasses off her head and set them on the counter. “Yes, actually,” she finally said. "And it was pretty recently.”
“How recent?” Miles asked.
“Oh, I guess it’s been about two weeks ago…
maybe a little more. I was in the back unpacking a shipment, and I happened to look up through the window.
" She gestured toward the large front window that faced the street.
From where Vic was standing, the sight line ran almost directly to the entrance of Hale's Blooms, which was visible from the bookstore at an angle.
"Desmond was outside the shop, on the sidewalk, and there was a man with him. They were arguing about something."
"Arguing how?" Miles asked. He had moved slightly, positioning himself so that he could see the same sight line Margot was describing.
"Not shouting, exactly, but close. There was a lot of gesturing, you know?
Desmond had his hands up, not aggressively but defensively, like he was trying to calm the other person down.
The other man was leaning into him, into his space, and at one point, he put a finger up in Desmond's face.
Honestly, I thought about going over there to intervene if I could.
" She said this with the directness of someone who had actually evaluated the option and not simply mentioned it as a figure of speech.
"I almost called the police. I didn't because it seemed to de-escalate after another minute or two.
The man walked away and Desmond went back inside. "
"Did you know the man?" Vic asked.
"No. I'd never seen him before."
"Can you describe him?"
Finney looked at the dahlias again as she concentrated.
"Well, he was a white man. I'd say he was in his forties—surely no older than fifty.
On the slight side, not heavy. He was wearing a canvas hat, the kind with a wide brim.
It was pulled down enough that I couldn't get a clear look at his face.
Medium height, maybe a little under, actually.
He had on a dark jacket, but that's about all I can give you. Sorry.”
“No need to apologize,” Miles said, already wondering if there might be store cameras in the vicinity that they could look at. “Do you recall how Desmond seemed after the man walked away?"
She nodded right away and said, "Unhappy.
Not frightened, I don't think. He looked more like someone who has just had a conversation they didn't want to have and is trying to just ignore it.
" She looked at Miles sincerely, near tears.
“I saw him twice after that and I never bothered to ask what that was all about…if he was okay. I figured it was none of my business.”
“I think that’s the same way most people would have handled it,” Vic said.
They thanked her, and Vic gave her a business card. Finney put her glasses back on and walked them to the door. She held it open for them, the brass bell ringing again as they stepped out onto the sidewalk.
Back outside, they stepped to the side of the awning. Without realizing they were doing so, they both looked to the left, toward Hale's Blooms half a block down.
“What do you think?” Miles asked.
Vic took out her phone and said, “I think we give Pruitt the description of the man Hale was arguing with…maybe put some calls in to see if there are security cameras in the area that might have caught something. How about you? What's your read?"
She watched Miles think through it for a moment, his eyes still looking in the direction of the flower shop.
“My read is simple: somebody had a reason to be angry at Desmond Hale two weeks before he died. And whoever it was knew enough to leave before someone called it in. Whether or not that means it’s our killer… that’s anyone’s guess for now."
She ended the call.
Miles turned from the curb. The morning was still beautiful, the oak canopy over the street moving slightly in a warm breeze.
Spanish moss on a nearby tree trailed gold in the early light.
Neither of them said anything as Vic placed the call to Pruitt, though Vic looked once more to Miles and it seemed that the unsettled look she’d seen in his eyes in the hotel lobby was even more pronounced… and maybe a bit darker.