Monument to Murder - Margaret Truman [127]
“Who’s this friend of yours, Ward Cardell? Or is it Warren Montgomery?”
“You’re such a cynic, Robert. I suppose that goes with your New York upbringing. I will tell you this. Savannah is quite a different place from New York. We do things our own way and don’t appreciate outsiders coming here and upsetting the applecart, as the saying goes. It seems to me that you have one of two choices: either become an adopted son of the old South and play by the rules, or go back home where the rules are different. Your call, Robert. Sure you won’t have a drink? Please. Join me. We go back a long way and despite our different backgrounds we have a lot in common.”
The pianist on the disk launched into Mercer’s “Everything Happens to Me.”
“The only thing we have in common is that we once wore the same uniform. You were the only one who knew certain things I was doing, and other people knew it because of you. You disgust me, Wayne.”
St. Pierre got up and leaned on the piano, keeping it between them. “You’re treading on dangerous ground, my friend,” he said. “You come here shootin’ off your mouth, accusing me of God knows what. Well, I will not stand for it, Bobby Brixton. I invited you here with good intentions. Now get your sorry ass out of my home. You hear me?”
“I hear you, Wayne. You know, I had visions of coming here and shooting you.”
St. Pierre laughed. “That would have been one dumb thing for you to do, wouldn’t it?”
“Yeah, it would have been dumb. That’s why I’m not doing it. All your rich friends are more important to you than what I was trying to do for a mixed-up young black kid who deserved better. You’re a whore, Wayne. You’re a disgrace to all the good, honest cops here in Savannah and everywhere else.”
“Good night, Robert.”
“No, Wayne. Goodbye.”
Brixton went through the front door, the piano strains of “Ac-Cent-Tu-Ate the Positive” following him. He pulled a pack of cigarettes from his shirt and started to pull a cigarette from it. He looked back through the open door to where St. Pierre stood posed at the piano. He crumpled the pack and tossed it ceremoniously into the neatly cultivated bed of azaleas that had lost their yearly battle with the summer heat.
One month later to the day, Robert Brixton drove away from Savannah—destination New York.
Flo Combes joined him there months later after she’d sold her shop and house.
And in Washington, D.C., and Savannah, business went on as usual.
About The Author
MARGARET TRUMAN has won faithful readers with her works of biography and fiction, particularly her ongoing series of Capital Crimes mysteries. Her novels let us into the corridors of power and privilege, and poverty and pageantry, in the nation’s capital. She is the author of many nonfiction books, most recently The President’s House, in which she shares some of the secrets and history of the White House, where she once resided. She lives in Manhattan.
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Table of Contents
Monument to Murder
Dedication
PART ONE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
PART TWO
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
PART THREE
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
PART FOUR
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
CHAPTER 43
CHAPTER 44
CHAPTER 45
About The Author