“But Chatham Avenue?” Hattie scoffed. “Come on, Zen. Those houses are all on the Back River, with docks and boathouses. Even a shack would be way out of our price range.”
“Maybe not,” Zenobia said. “Hang on. Let me look it up in the county records.” Her long acrylic nails flew across her laptop keyboard, clicking with each keystroke.
“Mhmm. Here it is. Fifteen twenty-three Chatham Avenue. Owners are listed as Mavis Creedmore, Reeves Creedmore, and Holland Farrell Creedmore. This isn’t one of those big ol’ beach houses you’re thinking about, Hattie. Built in 1922. Only eighteen hundred square feet. Okay, two stories, wood frame. Four bedrooms. One bath.”
“Must be some hobbit-sized bedrooms,” Cass observed. “And only one bathroom for four bedrooms?”
“It’s a beach house, baby,” Zenobia said. “Back in my day, when you went to stay at the beach, you stayed on the beach. All you needed in your room was a bed, maybe a nightstand, and some hooks to hang up your clothes.”
“What else does it say about the Creedmores’ house, Zen?” Hattie asked.
“Mmm. I see a tax lien. Oooh. They really are fixing to lose their house. Latest appraisal is $425,000. All the value’s in the lot, not the house. Here’s the survey. Looks like there’s some kind of outbuilding. Maybe a boat shed, something like that?”
Hattie fiddled with a paper clip, bending and twisting it as she thought. “Can’t believe a lot on Tybee isn’t worth way more than just that. Zen, are you friends with Mavis Creedmore?”
Zenobia shrugged. “We’ve served on altar guild together at Blessed Sacrament for a long time. We’re not friends, but we been knowing each other for years.”
“What’s she like?”
“She’s in her eighties. Cranky, and opinionated. You know that generation. They always think their way is the only way.”
“Huh,” Cass said, grinning at her mother. “Who does that sound like?”
Zenobia picked up a plastic Kavanaugh & Son promotional flyswatter and flicked it at her daughter. “Remember who writes the paychecks around here, little girl.”
Hattie pushed her chair away from the desk and it made a screeching noise on the worn linoleum tile floor. “Come on, Cass. Let’s take a ride out to Tybee and check it out.”
“But that house isn’t even for sale,” Cass protested.
“Yet,” Hattie said. “Anyway, we can cruise around and check for new listings or for-sale signs that aren’t on the Zillow radar yet.”
* * *
Hattie was quiet on the long drive out to Tybee Island. The tide was out. Traffic was light. It was late spring, and the marsh grasses on either side of US 80 were a brilliant chartreuse green. Cass glanced over at her.
The temperature was mild for Savannah, mid-eighties, but Hattie’s face was pale and beaded with perspiration and she seemed to have a death grip on the steering wheel.
Hank’s accident had happened on this stretch of what all the locals called Tybee Road. The highway narrowed to two lanes after you left Whitemarsh Island, and anytime there was a wreck, especially on one of the four bridges you crossed to reach Tybee, traffic could be tied up for hours.
“Hey,” Cass said softly. “You okay?”
Hattie nodded.
“We don’t have to do this,” Cass pointed out.
“I have to,” Hattie said. A pink blotch bloomed on her cheeks. “It’s stupid. I mean, it’s just a dumb bridge. The bridge isn’t what killed Hank.”
She had a point. A drunk driver, coming from a day-long binge at one of the numerous bars on the island, was the cause of Hank Kavanaugh’s death. The drunk, a teenager, had veered into the oncoming lane of traffic to avoid hitting something on the roadway, and struck the motorcyclist head-on. As soon as he saw what had happened, the kid took off running, abandoning his car—and the mortally wounded Hank—in the middle of the Lazaretto Creek bridge span.
A physician’s assistant, who happened to be approaching the scene when the crash happened, called 911, then ran from her car to try to help. Hank was still breathing, she later told police. But it had taken more than an hour for emergency responders coming from Savannah to weave through the snarled traffic to reach the accident site. And by then, Hank Kavanaugh, age twenty-nine, had succumbed to his massive head and chest injuries.
“I can drive if you want me to,” Cass offered, but Hattie shook her head.
“How come you’re suddenly hot to trot on this Saving Savannah thing? I thought you hated the idea.”