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and bulky, a dyed blond with a scraggly reddish blond beard, wearing a faded blue-and-white short-sleeved shirt open to his navel, and jeans. His face and massive arms were sunburned, an outdoors kind of guy. He scowled at Brixton.
    “Why do I get the feeling that you’re interested in me?” Brixton asked, widening his smile.
    “Get lost,” the driver said.
    “For some reason I’ve seen you too often where I’ve been,” Brixton said, taking note of the shotgun rack over the driver’s seat.
    “What the hell are you, some fag trolling for queers. Get lost!”
    “Oh, you shouldn’t talk like that,” Brixton said, maintaining his pleasant disposition despite wanting to reach in and smack him.
    The driver started the engine, snapped the gearshift into Drive, and burned rubber as he spun away from the curb, almost dragging Brixton with him. Checking the truck’s license plate was second nature to Brixton and he wrote it down on a receipt he pulled from his shirt pocket. It was at times like this that he wished he were still on the force, whipping out his badge and weapon and taking the blond hulk down a peg.
    The brief confrontation snapped him out of his dark mood. After a quick cigarette, he went to the office, poured himself a thimble-size shot of scotch from a bottle he kept in a desk drawer, put his feet up on the desk, and processed what had transpired over the past two days. A few things nagged at him.
    The first was the series of phone calls Eunice Watkins had starting receiving.
    The second was the moron in the red truck.
    She hadn’t received such calls until she’d visited him the day before.
    And the pickup and its driver had started showing up at the same time.
    Coincidence?
    Possibly.
    Then again …
    The ringing phone interrupted his introspection. It was Wayne St. Pierre.
    “I’m callin’ to invite you to a soiree at the old homestead,” St. Pierre said.
    “What’s the occasion?” Brixton asked.
    “Do I need an ‘occasion’ to throw a party? Just havin’ a few friends over for cocktails and thought you and your lovely lady, Miss Flo, might like to join us. Day after tomorrow. I know, I know, it’s last minute but spur-of-the-moment invites are always the most fun. Seven o’clock? Elegant casual dress. No need to bring anything except your charming selves.”
    Brixton’s first reaction was to question why he and Flo were on the invitation list. St. Pierre was known to throw parties at the mansion his parents had left him, and Brixton had been to a few when he was still a cop. But he hadn’t been invited to one since his retirement.
    “Not sure about Flo,” Brixton said, “but I’ll be there.”
    “Splendid. There’ll be a gracious plenty of top-shelf whiskey, and I’m bringing in a chef for the occasion who’ll take you back to that Savannah we knew before all you interlopers from the north invaded.”
    “I’ll let you know about Flo,” Brixton said.
    “You’re a fine gentleman, Robert Brixton. I think you’ll enjoy the other guests I’ve rounded up. See you then.”
    “Wait, Wayne, I need a plate run.” He read it off the paper in his shirt pocket.
    “First thing tomorrow,” St. Pierre said. “Got to run. Bye.”

CHAPTER   6

    Brixton stayed in his office until nine, closing time for Flo’s shop. They went to dinner at Vic’s on the River, one of his favorite Savannah restaurants, and lingered over after-dinner drinks in the bar. He’d told her little about the Watkins case the preceding night. Now, with shimmering snifters of brandy in their hands, he filled her in.
    “And you believe the mother’s story?” Flo said.
    “Yeah, I do.”
    The skeptical expression on her face said volumes.
    “You don’t buy it,” he said.
    She wrinkled her nose, a sure sign that it hadn’t passed her smell test.
    “I know it goes back a long way,” he said, “which makes it tough to nail down. But yeah, I do believe the mother. Where the hell would the girl get ten