CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

I look George up and learn that he is an antique dealer and amateur historian who runs a shop near the historic district. I'm not able to find out much more than that. I come across a few articles he wrote for a Civil War blog some years ago where he talks about how the war shaped Savannah's future. They're not particularly well-written, but they're not terrible.

What he is definitely not is the premier expert on antebellum architecture. I find his name nowhere among lists of such experts, not that I'm surprised. I know the moment I meet him that he's a narcissist who sees himself as far more important than he actually is.

None of this tells me why he's so obsessed with the document that's allegedly on the property. He's an antique dealer, not a museum curator or a professor.

Upon further reflection, that tells me exactly why he's interested in the document. He only claims to care about posterity. What he really wants is the money.

And he admits to Clara that he doesn't have the money to buy the item. Then Annabelle taunts him, and he sees red. I can't help but wonder what would have happened if Christopher and James weren't there.

What I'm missing is the connection to Lila. The few notes I find from Lila all say she knows. That either means that Violet knew that Lila was looking into Deirdre McCoy, or—as I now feel is more likely—that Elizabeth knew that Lila was looking into the surrender document.

But how does that lead to Lila's murder? And does it involve George at all, or is George simply another irritant?

And if the document is somewhere on the property, why not just hire someone to look for it? Why not look for it themselves? I've been here for over a month, and George and Father Doyle are the only strangers the family has entertained. If they tear up the gardens and Glens looking for the document, who will see it but the servants? Are they worried, perhaps, that one of the servants will find it and keep it for themselves?

Maybe my mistake is that I'm trying to find logic in their actions. Maybe there is no logic. Perhaps the madness that afflicts Violet and Elizabeth is shared by all of them in some way. Maybe it's not even that complicated. Greed can drive even the sanest of us mad.

In any case, I need to find out if there's any connection between George and Lila. The first step is to find out when George first came to the family's attention. If he showed up within the past four years, then he couldn't have known Lila. On the other hand, if he's been a thorn in their side for a while, then it's possible that he and Lila encountered each other. It's even possible that Lila was working with George. That could explain the hatred between George and the family. She may have been on the verge of discovering where the surrender document was when she was caught by Elizabeth and James and either asked to leave or made to disappear. Or, she was working for herself and George killed her to get her out of the way but can't risk such a drastic action against the wealthy, connected Greenwoods.

I wait patiently for my chance. Well, I wait chafing with impatience, but what can I do about it? Annabelle is the only member of the family I can talk to about George since she is the only one who knows I witnessed the fight the day before. I need to get her alone, and that opportunity doesn't come until the next night.

I take my dinner in my room. Not surprisingly, the family isn't looking for company right now. But after dinner, I head to the balcony, banking on the chance that Annabelle will need fresh air as she usually does.

My gamble pays off. Ten minutes after I step outside, the door to Annebelle's room opens, and she steps into the night. She smiles and approaches me. "Hey, Mary."

"Hello, dear. Are you all right?"

She shrugs. "I'm all right. I'm more worried about Mom than anything. She's been so… fragile lately."

"Because of Baumann?"

She sighs. "Because of a lot of things. But George definitely isn't helping."

"Yes. I'm sorry for what happened last night. I can't believe he actually threatened you."

Annabelle laughs. "Oh please, I could take him in a fight if I needed to. If he was a real threat, Dad would have killed him before he had a chance to beg for forgiveness."

Was Lila a real threat, I wonder? "Has he been like this for long? George, I mean?"

Annabelle sighs again. " I think he has. Mom insists he was a good man once. They've been friends for a while, you know."

"Really?"

"Surprising, right? Yeah, they met at some Civil War convention in the historic district. Mom has a minor fascination with history, so they struck up a conversation. Since it's not possible to have a conversation with someone here without inviting them to dinner, Mom invited him to dinner. Thus began a warm and lasting friendship."

She delivers the last sentence with a great deal of sarcasm. "When was this?"

"The dinner? Um… I think… like eight, nine years ago? It was just before we hired Lila, so something like that."

My ears perk up at that. That lends some credence to the hypothesis that Lila and George may have worked together. At the very least, they definitely knew of each other.

"It didn't get bad until a few years ago," Annabelle says. "George found out about the document that Mom's looking for and he insisted that the right thing to do was to turn it over to him for safekeeping. Mom refused, and he's been gradually getting more and more insistent about it. It's now progressed to… well, to last night. Needless to say, they aren't friends anymore."

"Why is he still allowed here?" I ask. "I mean, surely she doesn't have to put up with him."

Annabelle sighs. "Mom wanted to believe that he was going to come around. She really liked him for some reason. As a friend, of course. Definitely no romance there."

"Not from her side, of course," I agree. "Perhaps from his?"

She cocks her head. "I don't think so. Mom's a good-looking woman for her age, but I don't think George is into that. Not that I care what he's into, but I get the impression that sex is low on his list of priorities in life. Anyway, no, I think Mom just liked talking to him. Dad's a good husband to her, but he's hard to talk to sometimes. He's very rigid in his opinions."

I recall the tension between the couple during my first dinner with them. That tension isn't always there, but it lingers more often than not. I can't help but wonder if their marriage is weaker than Annabelle believes it to be. I very much doubt George has anything to do with that tension, though. Unless perhaps James warned her about him early on, and she didn't believe him.

I decide to follow up on that. "Did your father ever think of banning George from the property before?"

"No. None of us saw that coming. That was… scary…" She bites her lip and looks pensively out at the stars. She catches herself after a moment and says, "I still don't think he could have done anything to me, but still… anyway, no. Dad tolerated their friendship because he knew Mom valued it and obviously she wasn't going to cheat on him with George or anything stupid. But yeah, after last night, I think it's safe to say George is done."

We fall silent for a while. I want desperately to ask if Lila knew anything about George or if that might have been why she "disappeared," but Annabelle's made it clear that there's a line between nosiness and curiosity, and I don't want her to think I'm too interested in what happened to Lila. I am certain Annabelle had nothing to do with it, but word might get around to someone who did, and that would leave me in terrible danger.

I need to find out if George was connected to Lila, but I'll need to learn that another way. I think it's time I returned to Detective Donnelly. If I can convince him to look into this case, then he might be able to learn something without alerting either George or the Greenwoods to his investigation.

It's a long shot. He was clearly reticent about investigating the Greenwoods for any crime. But the answer lies on an island surrounded by crocodiles, and I don't have a boat. Donnelly does.

Annabelle sighs and smiles at me. "Thank you for talking to me. I know you were probably hoping not to get embroiled in another family's drama again, but I really appreciate you having a listening ear. I can't really talk to anyone else about all this. Dad doesn't know how to listen, and Christopher just gets stressed. I talk to Grandma sometimes, but I don't know how much she understands. Mom… well, Mom's hanging by a thread. Between you and me, I kind of hope we find this document and it turns out to be worthless just so she can let this whole thing go."

"How long has she been looking for it?"

Annabelle scoffs. "Years. Since I was in high school. Almost as long as she's known George. I think he was the one who told her about it. I think that's part of why he thinks it should be his. He feels like she owes him or something. Anyway, she figured out somehow that it's supposed to be here on the property."

"Why doesn't she just dig for it? Is she worried about ruining the landscaping?"

"I think she's worried about people stealing it. I'm kind of surprised she told you about it to be honest." She smiles at me. "She trusts you."

"That's good to hear."

"Well, you're a good person."

I feel a pang when she says that. "Not always. But I try."

"That's all we can do, right? Don't worry too much about it. Mom'll be okay. She just needs some… separation… from all of this. Maybe she should go on vacation. I'll talk to Dad. He's always talked about taking her on a cruise somewhere. Maybe he should follow through on that. And don't worry about George. He'll never set foot on this property again."

"I certainly hope you're right about that," I say.