What Margaret Handles
Chapter 07 - What Margaret Handles
Tommy chose a coffee shop two neighborhoods away from the Whitfield Palmetto.
He arrived ten minutes early and still looked late. His shirt was untucked beneath a linen jacket, and he had bitten the skin beside his thumbnail until it reddened.
Elena sat across from him with tea she did not want.
"Margaret doesn't know I'm here," he said.
"I assumed that."
"I just wanted to check on you."
"You had three days."
He looked down at the table.
A blender roared behind the counter. Someone dropped a spoon into a metal sink.
"I know," he said.
Elena waited.
Tommy had spent his life filling silence with surrender. She wanted to see what happened if she did not help him.
"I just want everybody to get along here," he said at last.
"That requires everybody to behave like getting along matters."
"Margaret thinks she's protecting the family."
"By breaking into my apartment?"
His head came up.
"She did what?"
"Used the landlord's key. Searched my things."
"No."
"Yes."
"She wouldn't..."
He stopped before finishing.
Elena placed both hands around the paper cup.
"You called me. Why?"
Tommy rubbed his jaw.
"Walter told me the house was yours. Margaret said it had to be fraud. Then she told me not to speak to you without counsel present."
"And that made you speak to me?"
"It made me wonder why she was afraid I would."
A small beginning.
Elena let it stand.
"Tell me about the hotel after your father died."
Tommy leaned back.
"It was bad before he died. We just didn't say that."
"How bad?"
"Occupancy down. Renovations delayed. Two loans David argued against. Dad kept saying the next season would fix it."
"And Margaret?"
"She took over everything. Payroll, vendors, lenders. She'd come to Sunday dinner with binders and leave before dessert."
"Did you review the accounts?"
He gave a brief, embarrassed laugh.
"I taught sailing lessons for six months and called it a career plan. Margaret didn't want me near accounts."
"David did."
"David asked questions. That's different."
"Different how?"
Tommy looked toward the window.
A city bus stopped outside, releasing three passengers into the heat.
"He didn't let her end the conversation."
Elena heard David in that answer.
Quiet, patient, impossible to distract once he decided a fact mattered.
"Did they fight?"
"Near the end."
"About money?"
"I think so. Margaret said he was making accusations while sick. David said being sick didn't make arithmetic stop working."
Elena looked down at her tea.
That sounded like him too.
"Do you remember Corinne Ashby?"
Tommy's fingers stopped moving.
"Of course."
"Who was she?"
"Dad's private nurse. Before that, she ran housekeeping at the Palmetto. She knew every room, every employee, every family secret."
"When did she leave?"
"A few months after Dad died."
"Why?"
"She got sick."
"With what?"
"Cancer, I think."
"Did the family help her?"
Tommy frowned.
"Margaret handled it."
"What does that mean?"
"It means Margaret handled it. She handled the hospital bills, the funeral home, the hotel pension. All of it."
Elena pressed her thumbnail into her palm.
"Did you attend Corinne's funeral?"
Tommy's eyes shifted.
"No."
"Why not?"
"Margaret said it was private."
"Was David there?"
"I don't know."
"Did Corinne have family?"
"A son. Older than us, maybe. They weren't close."
"Name?"
"Adrian, I think."
Elena opened her notebook.
Tommy watched her write.
"What does Corinne have to do with the house?"
"Possibly nothing."
"That means something."
"Invoices under her company name were filed after the company license expired."
His face lost color.
"How much?"
"Enough to notice."
"Elena, Margaret moves money between accounts all the time. It doesn't mean..."
"What doesn't it mean?"
He looked around the coffee shop as though the answer might be overheard.
"It doesn't mean she stole it."
"I didn't say she did."
"You didn't have to."
A barista called a name near the counter.
Tommy leaned forward.
"You need to understand something. The hotel was Dad's whole life. Margaret gave up everything for it. Her marriage, children, any chance at having her own life. She believes if it fails, he failed."
"That explains fear. It doesn't explain false invoices."
"Maybe Corinne authorized them before she died."
"For repairs two years later?"
He closed his mouth.
Elena softened her voice.
"Tommy, when exactly did Corinne die?"
"Two years ago this winter."
"The invoices continued through last month."
He stared at the table.
For several seconds, he said nothing.
Then he whispered, "Margaret handles everything."
This time it sounded less like praise.
---
They walked two blocks after coffee because Tommy said he could not sit still.
Savannah's afternoon heat pressed between the buildings. A sprinkler clicked across a narrow garden, darkening the brick path one strip at a time.
"Did David ever mention my father?" Elena asked.
Tommy shook his head.
"Why?"
She told him about Mateo Reyes's painting contract and the old injury claim.
Tommy stopped beneath a live oak.
"Margaret knows?"
"She hired someone to investigate me. I'm assuming she does now."
"Your father worked at the hotel before you met David?"
"I was a child. He never spoke about it."
"What happened to him?"
"Lung disease. Years later. He painted interiors for most of his life."
Tommy looked back toward the direction of the Palmetto, though the hotel was hidden beyond several blocks.
"Dad hated claims. Said people saw a family name and smelled money."
"My father didn't get money."
"I didn't mean..."
"I know what you meant."
They resumed walking.
A bicycle bell rang behind them. Tommy stepped aside too late and muttered an apology after the rider had passed.
"There was an accident," he said.
Elena turned.
"At the hotel?"
"I was a kid. A painter fell from scaffolding in the west ballroom. Dad was furious because an inspection got delayed. Margaret handled the paperwork with Corinne."
"Was it my father?"
"I don't know."
"Think."
Tommy rubbed both hands over his face.
"I remember paint on the floor. Green. Dad shouting about ruined carpet. Corinne told him the man could've died."
Elena pictured her father at their kitchen table years later, rubbing his left shoulder during cold weather.
He had always said the injury came from a ladder at a rental house.
Maybe that had been easier than telling his daughter a grand hotel valued carpet above him.
"Did Corinne keep records?" Elena asked.
"She kept everything. Receipts in envelopes, shift notes, old keys with labels. Margaret used to tease her about it."
"Where?"
"At the hotel, probably."
"What happened to her things when she left?"
Tommy's expression tightened.
"Margaret handled it."
Elena stopped again.
"What happened to Corinne?"
Tommy looked at her with open shame.
May you like
"I genuinely don't know. Margaret handled it. Margaret handles everything."
Keep reading Part 8 — because Margaret will turn Elena's grief into evidence and attack David's mind to erase the deed.
