Chapter 14
The someone turned out to be Clemmie Fairburn, one of the women Ingrid had met at Sailor’s party the previous night.
When Ingrid unlocked the inner door, then pushed the outer iron one open, Clemmie, dressed in a crisp, pink striped shirt, white jeans, and espadrilles, threw out her arms and crushed her into a sweet-smelling, bosomy hug.
A huge, quilted Chanel bag slung over the woman’s shoulder dislodged itself and swung forward, hitting Ingrid squarely in the ribs, knocking the fuzz from her brain.
“Whoops,” Clemmie said, corralling the purse and drawing out a tall, round zippered case made of shiny brown patent leather. It had a scrolled monogram, CFQ, embossed in gold on the front. Clemmie waggled the case. “Precious cargo. Sorry for trying to break in. Edie used to keep her door unlocked.”
Ingrid’s head was pounding now. Maybe from the spell, she wasn’t sure. “Did we … did I …?”
Clemmie pushed her teased, sprayed auburn hair back from her face. “Oh no, no, darlin’. I don’t have an appointment. I just thought I’d pop by and see if you could fit me in. For a reading, just a tiny little baby one, that’s all … and maybe a cocktail or two, to get the juices flowin’.”
Waggle, waggle went the patent leather case, and Ingrid suddenly realized that what she was looking at was a portable bar. She motioned Clemmie back to the parlor.
“Oh. Okay, sure. Would you like to sit?” She checked the clock on the wall. It was almost noon. She’d been lost in her work for hours.
Clemmie bustled past her and sat at the pink marble table like she’d done it a hundred times before, and before Ingrid could light her lavender smudge stick, Clemmie had slapped three crisp hundred-dollar bills on the table.
“Now, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea or anything,” she said in a honeyed tone. “I only ever came here once or twice when it was your grandmother’s.” She leaned forward, hand to her mouth. “Good Christian girls don’t mess with the occult.”
She burst into gales of laughter then busied herself unzipping the leather case and pulling out three pie-shaped flasks inside.
They fit together neatly and were labeled COGNAC, WHISKY, and GIN.
Each had a small silver cup, monogrammed, as well, that fitted over the top of each bottle’s lid.
She set out the cups, unscrewed lids, and concocted two drinks.
When she was done, she pushed one silver cup toward Ingrid.
“Bottoms up.” She tossed back her drink. Ingrid stared mistrustfully at the one in front of her.
Clemmie burst out laughing again. “Oh, darlin’, no. It’s not all that nasty stuff.” She pointed to each flask. “Gin, pear liqueur, and dry vermouth. It’s called a Poire Iver.” She pronounced it Poy-eye-ver. “We really should have tumblers.” Tuuumbluhs.
Ingrid found a couple of glasses in a cabinet and brought them back to the table, which pleased Clemmie immensely. “Now that’s the stuff,” she said as she expertly concocted another batch of the cocktail in the glasses. She lifted hers. “Come on, now. Chin-chin.”
Ingrid chinked her glass against Clemmie’s and sipped dutifully. It was a really nice drink. Refreshing and sweet.
Clemmie swirled her drink and gave Ingrid a conspiratorial look. “Ask me anything. Go ahead. Now that we got the talky-juice flowing.”
“Oh,” Ingrid said. “It’s just that usually in a reading I usually do most of the talking.” She gave Clemmie a polite smile, which was meant to show she wasn’t trying to be rude.
Clemmie leaned forward. “Honey, Sailor Loeffler’s officially adopted you as her psychic, so you’re gonna need the lowdown.
And nobody better to get you up to speed on all the people, places, and things you need to know than me.
We’re going to be good friends, I bet. And you can give me a reading after I’m done. How’s that?”
Ingrid nodded and Clemmie proceeded to tell her literally everything about herself: that she was seventy-six, the heir to Savannah’s wealthiest banking family, and had been married at age twenty to an heir of the largest oil company in Savannah.
They’d had three children, all girls, who had married, even the one who was “just a darling lesbian” (Clemmie’s words).
After her beloved husband died at a very young sixty-four, she found herself romanced by a widower in town, the heir of the largest shipping company in Savannah and apparently hot stuff in the sack (also Clemmie’s words).
After six years of wedded bliss, he died as well, and now, the recipient of major portions of three family fortunes, she was definitely the wealthiest unmarried woman in Savannah, possibly in all of Georgia.
People might say she’d never done a day of work in her life, but Clemmie liked to say she’d raised two husbands and that was the hardest job in the world.
Ingrid sat immobile with awe. She imagined a cave, an enormous mountain of gold coins, a dragon curled on top, guarding the treasure with a wary eye.
She pictured Clemmie in her white jeans and precarious espadrilles wobbling up and ordering the dragon to scootch over so she could sweep a mountain of coins into her giant Chanel purse.
Clemmie then recounted for Ingrid the story of the creation of Savannah Sauce by Rill’s grandfather—its success and diversification into a global concern that had elevated the Loefflers from a respectable middle-class family to some of Savannah’s most illustrious and wealthiest denizens.
Laura “Scoot” Fair-burn, a cousin of Clemmie’s, had met Rill when they were children, had begun dating him their senior year in high school, and it was always understood the two would marry.
Their wedding had been written up in Town & Country.
After a Hawaiian honey moon, Scoot had immediately gotten pregnant with Sailor.
Sailor had attended Vanderbilt University, graduated with a 4.
0 in business, and returned to Savannah to work in Savannah Sauce’s marketing department.
Cas had been less of a golden child, struggling through high school then, after five or so years, barely snatching a diploma from the jaws of Georgia College and State University up in Milledgeville.
Interesting. Ingrid could’ve sworn he’d told her Amherst.
Clemmie said Rill was severely disappointed in Cas’s academic accomplishments, but he seemed unwilling to promote Sailor to anything higher than her current director status and continued to try to lure Cas into working at the company.
Ingrid nodded along, saying nothing. She remembered Rill’s finger on his lips. The way he had looked at her.
“You must give me a tour of your house.” Clemmie was mixing another round of drinks. “I’ve always loved this one, ever since I was a girl. And you know what they say about all the houses around this square.” She pushed a full glass back toward Ingrid. Her eyes flashed mischief and mayhem.
She meant that they were haunted.
Taylor Square was two blocks northeast of Forsyth Square and rumored to have been a burial site for enslaved African people.
It had been desecrated, and re-desecrated, dug up, and built over numerous times.
Formerly called Calhoun, the square had been recently renamed for Susie King Taylor, a woman born enslaved, who later became an educator, civil rights activist, and the first Black nurse to serve during the Civil War.
On the west side of the square, the Methodist Church was rumored to have been involved in a bootlegger-romance-gone-awry ghost tale.
On the east side, the house at 432 Abercorn Street was a font of endless grisly rumors of child murders, suicides, and ghostly presences.
None of the tales had any basis in truth, but that didn’t stop the tourist trolleys and horse-drawn carriage drivers from parading tourists past the house, much to the chagrin of the current, long-suffering owners.
Throw in the various bloody Revolutionary War battles, yellow fever epidemics, and deadly fires that the spot had seen, and it was no surprise that Taylor Square held a certain morbid fascination for both locals and tourists.
But Clemmie had clearly moved on from thinking about haunted Taylor Square.
She was up now, gathering her supplies, organizing the flasks back into the leather holder and dumping everything back into her capacious purse.
Her eyes danced around the room, until they finally landed on their intended target: the stairs.
“Shall we?”