“Yes. Our apartment repair project should be finished day after tomorrow. We’ll be here tonight and possibly tomorrow night, depending on how quickly they wrap up the repairs,” Mercedes said.
“Then I’ll see you at dinner.” Patrick smacked his lips. “I hear Mrs. O’Brien is making shepherd’s pie, my favorite.”
“She’s your aunt,” Carlita said.
“That she is.” Patrick grinned. “More like a mother.”
“Mother hen,” Tori joked. “We’ll see you at dinner.”
The rain had stopped and all that remained were some stiff southeasterly winds blowing across the inlet.
“We lucked out on the hurricane,” Tori said as she eyed the sky. “We probably won’t get power back tonight, maybe tomorrow.”
“I wonder if we have power at home,” Carlita said. “I need to call Tony.”
When they were safely inside, Carlita thanked Tori for lunch and the tour, and the women made their way upstairs where Carlita had left her cell phone on her dresser.
She’d missed two calls. One was from Tony. She dialed his cell phone first. He answered on the first ring, reassuring his mother that they had weathered the storm and from what he could tell, there was no damage to their property.
He’d decided to close the pawnshop as soon as he found out the storm was headed their way and had sent Josh home. After that, he secured the courtyard furniture and hunkered down in his first floor apartment with Violet and Shelby.
“What about Cool Bones?” Carlita asked.
“I knocked on his door, but no one answered. I don’t think he’s home.”
“I hope he’s safe.”
“I’m sure he is. He may have gone to visit family for the holiday. Oh, before I forget. As I was putting the courtyard furniture up, Elvira cornered me. She was looking for you.”
“She was? I wonder what she wants.”
“I dunno. She said she was going to try your cell phone.”
“That must be my other missed call. Stay safe and call me if you need me. We don’t have power, and Montgomery Hall is running on generators.”
“We lost power a coupla times, but it’s already back on.”
Carlita heard Rambo bark in the background.
“I better get going. I promised Rambo I would take him outside and he’s not letting me forget.”
“Thanks son. I’ll call you later.”
Mercedes waited until her mother ended the call. “So they have power and everyone is safe?”
“Yeah. Tony closed the pawnshop early, so Josh could get home. He even took care of our courtyard furniture. Elvira was looking for me.” Carlita squinted her eyes and stared at her phone. “I missed a call and someone left a message. I bet that’s her.”
Carlita punched in her access code and turned the speaker on before listening to the message. “Yeah. Carlita. It’s me Elvira. I need you to call me as soon as you get this message. I’m working on the Ava Torrez investigation and I have a few questions to ask you.”
Chapter 15
Carlita quickly dialed Elvira’s number. “EC Investigative Services. Elvira Cobb speaking.”
“Elvira, it’s me, Carlita.”
“I stopped by your place to ask you a few questions about Ava Torrez’s death and Tony told me you were staying at Montgomery Hall. I don’t need you nosing around, messing up my investigation.”
“Your investigation? First, Tori asked for my help. Second of all, no one hired you to investigate Ava’s death.” Carlita paused. “And thirdly, I would think you investigating your own security company is a conflict of interest.”
“I admit, EC Investigative Services hasn’t technically been hired, but my company’s reputation is on the line. We were on the clock when the woman died.”
“I planned to ask you a few questions when I got home. You and your people were all over this place the day before the party, not to mention the day of,” Carlita said.
“I can assure you, it wasn’t one of my employees who murdered Ava Torrez. We run a complete and thorough background check on each of them.”
“Including your own sister, Dernice?”
“Dernice doesn’t count.”
“Because you never would have hired her if she wasn’t related to you. She has a criminal record. Wait until the investigators find out she’s been in prison.”
“That may be a problem,” Elvira admitted. “It’s another reason I’m trying to get a jump on the investigation. Have you been able to find anything out?”
“Yes. There are a whole lot of suspects and little evidence. Ava was not particularly popular. Everyone here is a suspect.”
“For good reason. Hang on a sec.” Elvira covered the phone and Carlita couldn’t make out what she was saying. “I’m back. This case is important to me. My reputation is on the line, not to mention Dernice’s neck.”
“We can compare notes when I get back. We’ll be staying here tonight and maybe tomorrow night. It depends on how much investigative work we still have to do.”
“You’re stealing my job,” Elvira whined. “I don’t understand why Mrs. Montgomery asked you to help.”
“Because the Garlucci family has a nose for solving crimes, not to mention the fact that we’re a lot cheaper than hiring a professional investigator and I do use the term ‘professional’ loosely.”
Elvira ignored the comment. “Call me when you get home. Oh, wait. While I was snooping around online today, I found out that Montgomery Hall is one of the most haunted sites in the Savannah area. Apparently, when the construction crews began excavation to build Montgomery Hall, the workers unearthed an ancient Indian burial ground.”
“You don’t say.” Carlita shot her daughter a glance, wondering if she’d overheard. “I’ll keep that in mind.” She assured Elvira she would call her when she returned home and then disconnected the call. “Elvira is investigating Ava’s murder too. She wasn’t happy when she found out that we were staying here and conducting our own investigation.”
Mercedes flopped down on the bed. “That doesn’t surprise me. I’m
