Chasing the Son Read Online Free PDF Page B

chose the night to be out there. She would never be caught out on the porch during daylight any more, not when some yahoo tourist from Ohio with a camera could capture her image. Whether it was from a sense of privacy or vanity was up for debate. That and the fact that three years ago one of the tour guides who drove the carriages that clopped through the streets was regaling his captive audience with a tale of the Battery so inelegantly false in historical accuracy, belittling the bravery of the men who’d fired the cannon, that Mrs. Jenrette had gone inside and brought one of her deceased husband’s guns out and fired a load of bird shot at the poor young man. No one was hurt, but Mrs. Jenrette had begun a retreat into the cloak of darkness.
    “What is the status of Sea Drift?” Mrs. Jenrette asked, touching on her final project, her legacy to the Low Country.
    “It will be in three days, on Saturday. All is as I briefed you yesterday.”
    “And the Bloody Point Course?” she asked, referring to one of the three defunct golf courses on Daufuskie Island.
    “Ownership is still buried under several shell companies, but I’m getting closer to finding out the true owner so we can proceed.”
    “It has to be completed by Saturday. You don’t have much time.”
    “I know. But even if it isn’t completed, we can go to our alternate plan. Block off easement to the course, which will make it worthless. The owner will then have to show themselves and sell.”
    “One would think so,” Mrs. Jenrette said. “But the true owner has not showed themselves yet, and we’ve put good money on the table. Perhaps this mystery owner knows more than they should?”
    Rigney had no answer to that speculation.
    Another silence played out.
    “Mrs. Jenrette . . .” Rigney began, a bit uncertain, which he knew was a mistake as she snatched on that like a cobra.
    “What is it man? Speak.”
    “There’s been a development.” Rigney had thought this over on the short walk from his house (not waterfront) to her’s (owning the waterfront). “Someone has been making inquiries concerning the whereabouts of Horace Brannigan, whom we know as Harry Brannigan.”
    “I assume you mean someone other than us,” Mrs. Jenrette said.
    “Yes.”
    “So what is the development?”
    “It’s on Hilton Head. As you know, his mother, who had nothing to do with him since birth, disappeared a few months back. We checked into it and couldn’t track her, which is suspicious in and of itself. But now a man named Farrelli is making inquiries about both the mother and the younger Brannigan.”
    He continued, not giving her a chance to ask questions, and knowing her dislike of having to ask.
    “Farrelli has connections with New Jersey. Organized crime connections. He launders money for New Jersey through several restaurants on the island and has been trying to expand his operations as much as possible. Protection. Gambling. Escort services.”
    “A gangster.” Mrs. Jenrette’s voice dripped derision for the criminal element; conveniently ignoring her own family history and the truism in America that behind every great fortune lay criminal activity somewhere in the past.
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    “Why would he be interested in Brannigan?” Mrs. Jenrette asked.
    “We suspect he’s asking on behalf of someone else.”
    “Who?”
    “We don’t know.”
    Mrs. Jenrette tapped her finger on the arm of her chair, a sign of extreme agitation those who were close to her would recognize, except there were few of those. Rigney was one.
    “We knew Brannigan was of poor blood,” she finally said. “Why the Institute would allow such a person in to the Corps, is beyond me. And, as usual, your news is not news. I also have heard rumors that someone is asking of Brannigan. I believe we must pursue that angle further.”
    “Of course,” Rigney said, not surprised that she’d already heard. Whispers came to the old woman, even though she rarely left the house,