Tin Roof

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Lilly returned home at 7:30 and collapsed on the living room couch, exhausted from her eleven-hour workday. She kicked her shoes off and looked at the bright side--at least she hadn’t worn high-heels all day. For the first time in her career, she second-guessed her desire to work. She loved working as a reporter, just not fifty hours a week.

Her hectic workday kept her from securing her house for the hurricane. She looked around the yard, furious at all the debris--hammers, power tools, sheets of plywood and two-by-fours littering her front lawn. The wind gusts of a hurricane would turn anything left outside into lethal projectiles.

“Thelma, did Jimmy and his crew even bother to work today? Everything looks exactly the same as it did yesterday?” Lilly asked.

“No, ma’am. He called this afternoon, sounded strung out on crack if you ask me. He rattled off some lame ass excuse, but I only heard, ‘blah, blah, blah,’” Thelma said, mimicking Jimmy’s annoying voice.

She wanted to fire him in person, just to see the look on his face. Infuriated, she knew the mere sight of him would repulse her.

The combination of Lilly’s exhaustion, hunger, and stress equated her crankiness. She needed to yell at somebody. She wanted to yell at Jimmy for lying about the immigrant workers. She wanted to yell at Grier for leaving her alone for almost a year and then running away from her yesterday. She wanted to yell at her brother to snap out of his funk. She wanted to yell at Britta for driving her so crazy with all the wedding drama. And she wanted to yell at Joe for acting so sweet towards her even though she’d just crushed his heart.

Although they all drove her nuts, Lilly couldn’t yell at Grier, Luke, Joe or Britta because she loved them too much. But she knew just the thing to cheer her up. She picked up her cell phone and dialed Jimmy’s number.

“Hello, Miss Allen, did Thelma relay my message?” Jimmy asked.

“Jimmy, you’re fired,” Lilly said, finally smiling.

“But, Miss Allen, you can’t fire me. We have a contract,” Jimmy said.

“I can do whatever I please. Besides, you broke your promise. You hired those immigrant workers,” Lilly said, trying to keep her composure. Firing Jimmy over the phone was for the best. The sight of the lying scumbag would drive her to commit murder.

“It’s a lie. Whoever told you I use those workers is full of crap. They just want to see me get fired so they can take over the renovations and rip you off. Who told you such nonsense?” Jimmy asked.

“It doesn’t matter why. I’m firing you. I drove out to the farm last night,” Lilly said.

“You didn’t see anything. It’s your word against mine.” Jimmy talked a mile a minute. “Wasn’t me, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Please don’t fire me. I need this work. My business is bad, and I’m running out of money.”

“Please stop, Jimmy. You’re embarrassing yourself. You’re fired. I never want to see you again.” Lilly smiled and hung up the phone, feeling better already.

Jimmy’s paranoia concerned her. Perhaps his drug use caused him to worry, but his reaction made Lilly think Jimmy was up to something far worse. What did she miss?

She retrieved the digital camera out of her purse and removed the memory card. Running upstairs to the office, she turned on her computer. Rain pounded on the tin roof just outside her office window. The wind whistled through the nearby oak trees. Their branches battered against her house. The initial winds of Hurricane Frances had arrived.

A knock sounded on the open office door. Lilly looked up from the computer. Thelma entered with a tray of food.

“Miss Allen, I brought your dinner up. I figured you must be starving.”

“Thank you so much, Thelma. You’re a lifesaver,” Lilly said. She dove into the tomato bisque, humming as it warmed her starving belly.

“I bought a bunch of hurricane supplies at the store today. Good thing, too, I got the last of the C batteries for the flashlights, and they almost ran out of bottled water,” Thelma said.

“What would I do without you?” Lilly asked.

“Luke came by and hung most of the plywood on the windows not covered by the plantation shutters. He said he’ll be out tomorrow morning and do this last one here in the office and pick up the yard for ya,” Thelma said, pointing to the unprotected window.

Lilly felt stupid for sitting by a glass window when she spent the day preaching to her viewers to avoid windows. The one-hundred-mile-an-hour winds could hurl objects through the windows, easily killing someone on the inside.

“I’m sure my mother didn’t give Luke much choice, but I’m glad he took care of it for me. Thanks again, Thelma.”

“Don’t thank me yet. I’m fixin’ to run back out because I forgot my own hurricane supplies. This is my first hurricane, but I watched your news on the television and knew to get canned food, bottled-water, and flashlight batteries. We can live off of green beans and Spaghettios for a month,” Thelma said.

“What else do we need? Did I forget to mention crucial hurricane supplies on one of my nine live broadcasts today?” Lilly asked.

“Well, don’t take it personal, Miss Allen, but you didn’t tell the viewers to stock up on booze, and I hear the liquor store is closed tomorrow. I need to run out and get your red wine and my Wild Turkey Kentucky Bourbon,” Thelma said.

“How could I forget? Please be careful outside, Thelma. It looks nasty out there,” Lilly said, looking out the only unsecured window.

“You be careful, too, ma’am,” Thelma said.

“I’ll be safe inside.”

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Thankful Thelma’s minimal culinary skills often yielded her favorite comfort foods, Lilly inhaled her grilled-cheese and tomato sandwich. She inserted the digital camera’s memory card into the desktop and checked to be sure that the computer’s surge protector and back-up power supply glowed with its red “on” light. The hurricane could disrupt her power, and she’d hate to lose her pictures if that happened.

The pictures revealed nothing out of the ordinary. She clicked on the ones she took with Jimmy and shook her head. How could he blatantly lie? And how could anyone deny it was Jimmy in these pictures? One picture was of the back of his truck and included the license plate. She zoomed in on the plate and jotted down the number. Hopefully, someone at the news station could search the DMV database for her.

Lilly loved the flexibility of her digital camera. The ease of cropping and enlarging pictures of her and her friends beat the old film cameras. She clicked on one of the pictures showing Jimmy in the cab of his truck from the side. She’d forgotten Jimmy had a girl with him when he arrived last night. What kind of girl hangs out with Jimmy? And at an immigrant worker camp? What could he possibly offer anyone?

Then the answer hit her--drugs. Maybe this girl could lead her to Jimmy’s source of narcotics. Luke’s theory about Jimmy obtaining the drugs from the evidence locker via Captain Potts made perfect sense, but Lilly needed proof. With Potts now behind bars, Jimmy’s narcotic source could shrivel up and die. No wonder Jimmy sounded so desperate on the phone.

One of the pictures showed a profile of the girl. Unfortunately, the picture caught only an enormous mass of long, black hair with a tiny, tanned face protruding though the girl’s long locks. A chill ran down her spine. Captain Potts had snorted cocaine off of Vanessa’s naked breasts the other night at the Gold Club. Jimmy had sneaked out the backdoor before Joe and the police arrived. Did Potts and Jimmy share more than a drug connection and a corporation? Did they share intimate relations with the same girl?

Lilly held her breath and enlarged the area of the photograph containing the girl’s face. She zoomed in through all the black hair. It resembled the beautiful black hair floating around Vanessa’s corpse in the river this afternoon. A tear rolled down Lilly’s cheek. The photo on her computer screen revealed the identity of Jimmy’s companion--the beautiful, recently murdered, Polynesian stripper named Vanessa.

The evidence on her computer screen pointed to one conclusion--Jimmy photographed with Vanessa just a few hours before her death. Jimmy most likely killed her. No wonder he sounded so worried. Hitting the print button, she listened to the whirl of her printer as it spat out the crucial evidence against Charleston’s serial killer.

Perhaps Jimmy acted on Potts’s orders because the stripper knew too much. But if Vanessa died from the same piece of tin roofing that killed Archie, then Jimmy was the serial killer and not Potts. Potts just tried to cover up Archie’s murder to protect his income stream from Jimmy’s construction company. Bastards!

Lilly stared at the last photograph of the poor girl’s life. She needed to call the police. She possessed crucial evidence in a double-murder investigation. She dialed 911 and waited, it took her several seconds to realize her home phone was dead. Shit!

The wind howled outside, and rain poured down on her tin roof in sheets now. The sky appeared ominously pitch-black outside. Lilly hoped it was only the hurricane which disrupted her home’s telephone service.

She grabbed her cell phone and dialed 911. With the cell phone towers operating at full capacity during the hurricane, she couldn’t get through. Everything went black as the house lost power. She looked around for a flashlight and tried to remember where Thelma put it. She heard a noise and yelled, “Thelma, is that you? I’m upstairs in the office. Can you please bring me a flashlight?”

A beeping sound came from the computer’s backup power supply. Her computer flashed back on, the brightness of the computer screen partially illuminated the office. Lilly looked up. Jimmy stood in the doorway.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

“Well, well, well, look who we have here--Miss Allen, all alone,” Jimmy said. He approached Lilly, wearing a yellow rain jacket and a look of pure evil.

Lilly took an instinctive step away from him towards the window. His smile scared her, but the shiny metal object he held in his right hand scared her more: a jagged piece of tin roofing. Shit!

“Jimmy? What are you doing here? You better not try and hurt me because my fiancé is in the bedroom cleaning his shotgun,” Lilly said, feeling proud of her cool lie.

“Don’t bullshit me, Miss Allen. Everyone in Charleston knows Grier Garrison left you. You’re the joke of the town,” Jimmy said, slowly stepping towards his prey, looking like he enjoyed every moment of taunting his next victim.

“That’s what we want everyone to think. He came back yesterday. Do you remember the mysterious yacht in the harbor? It belongs to him. He even named it after me--the Lilly Beth.

“Well, la-ti-da and ti-ta-ti. We both know you’re full of shit, Miss Allen. Grier’s not coming to save you. Watch this, ‘Grier? Where are you? You better come and save your woman because I’m about to stab her in the heart, just like you did.’” Jimmy laughed and held up his weapon.

“Why do you want to kill me? I don’t know anything,” Lilly said, playing the “dumb blonde” card.

“I wanna know what you saw at the camp. Tell me now, and I promise to kill you quickly. Otherwise, I’ll tie you up and take you back to the immigrant worker camp. Those losers will add a full day’s pay to their exorbitant debt just to fuck your high-class ass,” Jimmy said.

“I didn’t see anything. I never even drove out there. I made up the whole thing for an excuse to fire you,” Lilly said, backing towards the window while Jimmy approached her.

Jimmy’s gaze shifted. Too late, Lilly remembered the picture she’d printed before the power went out. Unfortunately, it printed face up and lay right next to the illuminated computer screen. It boasted the key picture of Jimmy with the stripper, Vanessa. The picture was time-stamped late last night, just a few hours before the coroner’s estimate of Vanessa’s time of death.

“You lying, little bitch. I can’t wait to watch you suffer,” Jimmy said, grabbing the printed picture from the printer.

“You’re too late. I already emailed the picture to the police. Even if you kill me, they’ll know you murdered Vanessa, Archie, and me,” Lilly said, scrambling to buy herself time. Thelma should arrive home any minute now. And everyone in Charleston knew Thelma packed a 9mm in her enormous purse.

“You’ve lied to me since I got here, and now you expect me to buy your latest line of bullshit?” Jimmy asked.

“Go ahead, look at my computer. You can see the email to the detective in my ‘sent items’ box,” Lilly said, pointing towards her desktop.

“I’m not falling for your tricks, little lady,” Jimmy said and advanced with the jagged edge of his weapon aimed at her.

Lilly kicked him in the nuts and ducked away from his striking blow. At the same time, the window exploded from a projectile. Glass flew everywhere, and Lilly covered her head to protect her skull and eyes from flying shards of glass.  

Lilly backed away into a corner, removing her hands from her face long enough to see a man stood at the window, holding Jimmy’s wrists to restrain him from taking another strike at Lilly.

A wet, yellow rain jacket covered the man. Although she couldn’t see the man’s face, she recognized the tan, strong hands holding Jimmy’s struggling form.

“Grier?” Lilly asked.

Grier yanked Jimmy’s body through the window and out onto the tin roof covering the sunroom below. Lilly ran to the window. The two men struggled on the slippery tin roof, facing the strong forces of Hurricane Frances, and each other.

With both men wearing identical rain slickers, Lilly couldn’t tell who won. She watched in horror as the men slipped on the roof’s surface and rolled towards the edge, falling off the roof into the pitch black night.