I voice-to-texted my message to the reporter asking to speak again.
His response came quickly.
“He’s recording an on-location segment for tonight’s news program,” I said to Reed, giving him the text details. “We need that Uber now.”
“Where’s he at?” Reed asked, opening the Uber app on his phone.
I organized the scattered articles into a neat pile. “Bonaventure Cemetery.”
“Wonderful,” he replied but scheduled the ride.
“This place is…” Reed said as we walked down a dirt road in the middle of Bonaventure Cemetery searching for our meet-up point with James.
I scanned a gravesite with a large overgrown Oak Tree covered in weeping Spanish moss as the backdrop highlighting a white marble statue of a kneeling woman. “Hauntingly beautiful.”
“Yeah, that fits,” he said and abruptly turned right. “There’s the news van.”
We followed the path to where James and his mole stood off to the side while a tall woman panned out her camera into the cemetery.
“Before we leave, I want to find the Bird Girl statue,” I said to Reed. It wasn’t part of the case, but I’d read about a previous murder in the city and the book about it that made the statue famous. That murder case was technically solved, although the offender never did jail time.
“They moved the bird statue,” James said, turning toward us.
I scuffed my shoe on the walkway. “This city moves all the good stuff.”
He nodded. “Tourists ruin everything.”
What did they have against tourists in this town? Why did every time someone say that word they make it feel like an insult?
“I’ve already filmed my part of the video segment. Janet is getting B-roll now. It’s a magnificent piece about the volunteer grave cleaners. You should watch it tonight on the ten o’clock.”
We’d be on our way to a haunted theater by that time, but I told him we’d tune in. “I read through your report, and I’m curious why you don’t think the robbery theory has any claim to it?”
He snorted. “Who robs an old woman in a bar but doesn’t take her purse? Someone trying to make it look like a robbery. Casey had the means to kill his mother, knew where she’d be, and wanted his inheritance early. It’s that easy.”
“What about the waterfront apartments on Bay Street? Lisa had real beef with them. You don’t think it could have gotten out of hand between her and the developer?”
James gave me a loud scoff. “No. Sure, Lisa was pissed, but the garden ladies lost, fair and square. They were more than halfway finished with the building at the time of her passing. Half the town loves them and the other half hates them. That’s life in Savannah.”
Reed moved a few paces away, checking out a different marble statue on top of a grave.
“She never argued with a construction worker or anyone on the board?” I had visions of a fiery woman involved in a screaming match with a worker while she stood on the sidewalk waving a protest sign.
He shook his head. “The company is really just one man. You want to know the biggest horror about him?”
“Yes!” My eyes brightened and my hope blossomed. That’s the entire reason we’d made the Uber trip.
James’s camerawoman started packing up her gear. “The developer is from… out of town.” He said “out of town” like it was its own curse word. His expression even fell at my lack of reaction. Did he expect me to fall over in dismay?
“The garden circles hate out-of-towners. I’m sure Lisa was angered about the building blocking the view, but she was most upset he wasn’t born in Georgia. She’d lost her husband to a stroke five years ago, and the rumor is the ER doctor was also a carpetbagger.”
“That’s kind of weird.” That was weird. Right?
Reed nodded from his position a few feet away. At least he agreed with me.
James tipped his head and puckered his lips before answering. “Not when you’re from the South.”
The sun just descended the tops of the trees outlining the cemetery, and I shivered with the loss of heat. Even if it was only mentally. I did not want to be caught in the historical cemetery after dark.
