A stuffed animal, worn threadbare, might have been the most treasured item in the world, but without the owner to give it value, it was either Goodwill or garbage.
2:00 p.m.
After my visit with Clarice yesterday, I scoured Georgia’s room for any kind of evidence that she had been as wild as Clarice suggested. Nothing. No sign of that necklace, either. I finished packing the room into boxes about 8:00 after Grover ordered in some Chinese food. It’s sad to see a room that held so much of a woman’s life all put into boxes. They were labeled neatly with either Goodwill or Attic. Anything that had no market or sentimental value was already sitting in the alley in black plastic garbage bags. The boxes labeled Attic contained photographs, awards, and keepsakes that had specific, identifiable meaning to them, like a high school achievement award. If it was just a stuffed animal, it either went in Goodwill or the garbage. It could have been the single favorite item that Georgia owned, but without its owner it was meaningless. It reminded me of how much stuff of Dag’s I still needed to go through, and that depressed me even more. I’ll be spending the next couple of weeks putting Georgia’s soul to rest and still need to find peace myself.
In a way, though, I understand Lars insistence that I come to Savannah and that I put on Peg Chester’s persona. Savannah is one of the most beautiful towns that I’ve ever seen. After I left Grover last night I took a cab down to River Street. Wow. I wandered through Emmet Park and stopped in a rib joint to eat real food. (I could only choke down a few bites of Grover’s Chinese takeout at dinner. I don’t think he minded because I expect he’ll be eating from those cardboard boxes for the next three days.) Along the waterfront I saw the Olympic Torch. Yes. Savannah hosted the 1996 Olympic Yachting events. Again—who knew?
I went on the ghost tour at 11:00 at night, meeting a guide who was dressed like a ghoul in a cemetery. If there hadn’t been 10 others in the tour group, I would have run away in the first five minutes. As it was, all night long when I got back to the B&B, I kept imagining people were coming into my room and marching through to the bathroom. Mrs. Teasley told me this morning that she was surprised I hadn’t noticed it earlier. My bathroom is where the stairway to the servants’ quarters used to be. Apparently every house and hotel in Savannah (at least in the historic district) is haunted. I know that when I opened the bathroom door this morning I looked in carefully before I actually went in. My face looked a little more tired this morning; I’m keeping that look as I head for the airport.
Grover was genuinely sad to see me leave. He wanted to drive me to the airport, but I told him that I had already arranged a shuttle. I am not getting into a car with him again. I’m actually feeling pretty comfortable in my body, so we’ll see how it goes at the airport, then I’m off to Cleveland.
10:30 p.m.
I’m not sure that anyone even recognized that I was at the airport in Savannah. I walked through the checkpoints and the security scan without even being spoken to. Just waved along.
I caught a cab and paid $40 for a ride to my apartment building. I’ve never actually been here. Frankly, I can’t wait to get back to Seattle where I can drive a car, which reminds me I need to make a rental reservation tonight.
I stood at the apartment door with the key in my hand and decided to be polite and knock. I waited a moment and a woman about 25 answered the door.
“May I help you?” I stood there silent for a moment and let her look into my eyes. I saw the dawning revelation. “Peg? Is that you?” I smiled and said hi. I asked how my favorite niece was doing. She laughed and ushered me into the little apartment.
Back when we were developing our aliases, Lars insisted that we figure out how to verify where our personas lived. Peg has to have an address, and if someone sends a letter there, it can’t come back “Address Unknown.” What’s more, if someone shows up at the door and asks for Peg, the person who answers can’t say, “Who?” Enter Joan Redford. I roomed with Joan at the U while I was doing my undergraduate work and we got along pretty well. She lived in Indianapolis with her parents and came out to Seattle to get as far out of their house as she could. But she wanted to go back to the Midwest. We were talking one night and she said her parents were kind of sickly. I asked her what she planned to do when they go. She said, “Go? Go where?” “To Cleveland, Silly,” I answered. “When they die.” Well, it was the silly kind of thing that roommates say and all of a sudden, going to Cleveland became our equivalent of dying. When Joan got a job offer at Sherwin-Williams in Cleveland we both about went to Cleveland. But she took the job and we stayed in touch. When Lars told us to find out where our aliases lived, Peg Chester moved in with Joan.
“Your accent sounds a little Southern,” Joan said, “but you look fantastic. Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”
“I sent you an email,” I said. “You’d probably better look in your junk mail.” Of course she hadn’t recognized an email from Peg Chester. She’d deleted it without even reading it. But the fact was that I paid a portion of her rent here in this little two-bedroom apartment and I had a key.Joan showed me to my room.
“I put everything you wanted in the room,” Joan said. “There’s clothes in your closet, but I don’t know if any of them will fit you. Is everything all right? I always suspected you’d show up here some rainy night and it would be because the Mob was after Deb Riley and she’d had to drop out of existence.”
“It’s a training exercise,” I said. “Actually I have a client who couldn’t relate to Deb Riley and so Deb introduced him to her more mature partner. So I am on a case.” The room looked lovely. I’d supplied the photographs, bedding, and some of the clothes. Joan had supplemented things with a trip to the local Goodwill store. Walking into the room I truly felt like a maiden aunt living with her niece. I’d only made one trip to Cleveland during which I’d taken utility bills and mail to the DMV and got a Drivers license. I parlayed that into a passport. I even opened a bank account from which I paid my share of the monthly expenses. In Cleveland, Peg Chester was a real person. I began to feel at home.
“What’s on the agenda?”Joan said. “I work in the morning, but I could get some time off for a family emergency.”
“Thank you, dear,” I said in a matronly tone. “I shouldn’t need much. I just want to go to my bank and make a deposit and get a new credit card. I need to renew my drivers license, too.”
“And change the address, I bet,” Joan said. “Isn’t this apartment much nicer than the first one we moved into? I hope you didn’t mind that I upped the rent a little.”
“It’s perfect. But I am truly exhausted. I’d like to take my shoes off and get a good night’s sleep before all hell breaks loose. I might not sleep again until this case is over.” Of course we sat up for a couple more hours saying good night and then asking how things were. Whether her boyfriend ever came over to spend the night. How she was able to maintain the fiction of a maiden aunt that lived with her. Joan was doing so well and had developed her story so thoroughly that I couldn’t help but think she would make a great PI.
Well, a little banking in the morning and Peg Chester will fly from Cleveland to Seattle tomorrow afternoon. Now for some sleep in a house I’m pretty sure isn’t haunted.
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