Detour

by Lorena McCourtney

  “Do you have any idea where we might find Ron?” I asked.

  “Why?” NancyLou’s tone suddenly had a wary edge and her eyes narrowed. Protective, I decided. She didn’t want us making trouble for him.

  Mac pointed to our names in the article. “Because we found Renée’s body.”

  “Oh!” She backed off and touched a fingertip to her lips as she gave us a startled inspection. Two nice but insignificant older folks who’d suddenly taken on an aura of celebrity. “I didn’t realize that was you.”

  I thought about adding that we seemed to be under suspicion ourselves, but then I decided that might just make her suspicious of us too, so I stuffed a crouton from the salad in my mouth instead. Excellent croutons, nicely crisp and garlicky.

  “We think we may know the man who was in here with Renée,” Mac added. “But we need to talk to Ron before we mention this man’s name to the authorities. It wouldn’t be fair, you know, to involve the man if we’re mistaken and he really wasn’t involved at all. We have a photo we’d like to show Ron.”

  “Okay, well, sure. That’s very conscientious of you. Let me think.” NancyLou’s narrowed gaze turned into a squint and she tapped a finger on her cheek before giving Mac a sideways glance. “Maybe I’d recognize him if I saw the photo.”

  I wasn’t sure if she really thought she could be helpful or if this was just an excuse to get a peek at the photo. Mac hesitated, but finally he nodded, and I pulled the manila envelope out of my purse. I like to carry a big purse. I mean, who knows when you may need a screwdriver or a bag of Hershey’s Kisses? The 8x10 print of the photo fit in it nicely.

  NancyLou opened the envelope and studied the photo for a long minute. Finally, she shook her head regretfully. “He may have been in, of course.” She smiled a little ruefully. “But unless he was a regular customer or a really big tipper—or a really lousy tipper—I might not remember him.”

  She handed back the photo, and I stuck it in the big envelope and in my purse again, pushing it down between a calendar for next year and the new pocketknife I’d bought from Sheila.

  “Do you know Ron’s last name or where he lives?” Mac asked. “If he hasn’t left town, of course.”

  “His last name is Sweeney, but I don’t know where he lives. But I see a bunch of biker guys hanging out at a motorcycle shop near the highway out south of town. Maybe someone there would know him.”

  “What kind of bike did he have?” Mac asked.

  NancyLou touched her chin thoughtfully, and I thought she was going to come up with a brand name or something technical. But finally, she gave the kind of answer I might have given. “A big red one. Cranberry red. With big thingies on the side.”

  “Saddle bags?” Mac suggested.

  “Yeah, I think that’s what they’re called. Saddle bags.”

  We finished our salad and Mac left a generous tip for NancyLou. We waved to her on our way out.

  ***

  The motorcycle shop was easy enough to find. Several motorcycles with high handlebars were parked around it, and a green pickup with rusty fenders and an orange tailgate stood off to one side. Fancy script painted across the rear window of the pickup identified it as a Redneck Cadillac. A handful of guys clustered around a dismantled bike spread on the ground, like 3-D pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. I know it’s a mistake to stereotype anyone, but several of these guys did have a stereotyped big-belly, leather-jacket, bandanna-tied-around-the-head, tough-biker look. We got out of the pickup and strolled over.

  “We’re trying to locate a young man named Ron Sweeney.” Mac spoke to the cluster in general, his voice louder than normal because no one seemed to notice us. Was my invisibility expanding to cover Mac too? “He worked at the Hideaway restaurant for a while. A friend said someone here might know him.”

  The biggest-bellied guy with a stubby gray pigtail sticking out from under a blue bandanna tied around his head turned and eyed Mac. “What you want him for?” The question wasn’t threatening, but his tone and the frosty look in his blue eyes sent a message. Do we look like guys who’d give information to someone who looks like you?

  Several of the other standing-around guys, apparently interested in what might be shaping up as a confrontation, drifted over to cluster around us. I warily wondered if they came as observers or if they were participants in something we didn’t yet know about but involved us.

  “We just need to talk to him,” Mac said. He didn’t sound or look intimidated by the cluster, but I felt like an undersized mouse surrounded by a herd of feral cats. Hungry feral cats.

  “About what?”

  “We need to discuss that with Ron.”

  “You don’t look like nosy cops, but you sound like nosy cops.” Biggest-Bellied Biker eyed me over his bulbous nose and big mustache as if trying to decide if I could be undercover in disguise. I found that somewhat flattering, although I really prefer invisibility. “We don’t much like nosy.”

  “Ron said someone might come around looking for him,” one of the feral cats offered.

  “That couldn’t be us. We’ve never even met him.” That statement didn’t seem to endear me to anyone, and I felt an interior panic button beginning to self-activate. “All we know is, he rides a red motorcycle. Cranberry red. With—” I broke off, at the moment unable to remember the word I wanted. “Big thingies on the side,” I added lamely.

  One guy snickered and said his bike was police-uniform blue and it had big thingies on the side too. “And what’s yours, Bo? Lilac? Or maybe it’s mauve?” They laughed as they drifted back to huddle around the bike bits, which were apparently more interesting than we were.

  Biggest-Bellied Biker laughed too. “I’m afraid your description may have been too technical for the guys.” It was obviously a facetious comment, but he said it with a straight face. He unexpectedly gave me a rather kindly look, and I guessed I may have sounded like his mother or grandmother.

  “Ron wasn’t a regular here, but he did mention someone might come looking for him,” he said. “But I kind of figured it’d be someone a little more . . .”

  “Intimidating?” I supplied.

  Biggest-Bellied Biker laughed again. “Yeah, something like that. You family or something?”

  I wouldn’t have claimed a family relationship that didn’t exist, but I might not have denied it, either. Mac surprised me by laying out more of the truth. “Actually, we need Ron’s help. We seem to be under suspicion in the murder of a woman Ron may have known.”

  I guess that old adage about honesty being the best policy was right in this situation because Biggest-Bellied Biker cocked his head. “I can’t believe anyone’d be suspicious of you two,” he scoffed.

  “Well, you know. Everyone’s a suspect to law enforcement,” Mac said.

  Biggest-Bellied Biker nodded, as if Mac had hit on some universal bit of wisdom. “Ain’t that the truth.”

  “We heard Ron may have left town,” Mac added.

  “Might be a smart thing for him to do.”

  “Why is that?” Mac asked.

  “He knew that chick that got herself killed a few days ago. She rode around with him sometimes. I figured she was just slummin’ and Ron would figure that out too, sooner or later.”

  “You mean Ron might have killed her?” I gasped.

  Biggest-Bellied Biker squinted at me, as if I’d made some baffling, little-old-lady leap in logic. Maybe I had.

  “Nah. He was all shook up about her getting offed. What I mean is, I think someone didn’t like him associating with her. Dude told him he’d better find himself another chick. With kind of an ‘or else’ on the end of it.”

  “But he didn’t say who this person was?” Mac said.

  “No. He just said if someone came looking, don’t tell ’em anything. And I wouldn’t. Ron was an okay guy. Trying to save up enough money to get back in college at San Diego State. But, since I don’t know anything anyway, I don’t have to worry abou
t making trouble for him by saying something.”

  “That’s too bad. We could really use his help.”

  “We found her body,” I added impulsively. “I guess that’s why the police are suspicious of us. Ron was apparently the last person to see her alive, and a man was with her then, and we just thought Ron might help us figure out who the man was. It might help us out of a bad spot.”

  Biggest-Bellied Biker shuffled his boots with what I thought was uncharacteristic uneasiness. “You look like good people and I wouldn’t want to see you get hurt or dragged into something.” Good people? Or harmless ones? Another foot shuffle. “Actually, Ron may still be around. Maybe holed up with a friend up around Orick.” He paused. “Maybe not.”

  Mac nodded and thanked him, and we returned to the pickup. Mac sat there twiddling the key but not turning it in the ignition. “He thinks someone might take a dim view of our snooping around in this.”

  “Deputy Hardishan wouldn’t like it.”

  “Right. But I think our biker friend out there is thinking more of someone not on the side of the law.”

  We considered unpleasant consequences for a few minutes. A guy came out of the motorcycle shop and got in the Redneck Cadillac. The vehicle looked as if it might not make it out of the parking lot, but it gave an impressive roar of hidden power when the man pulled onto the street.

  “I’d guess it almost had to be the ex-husband or Brian who threatened Ron. Someone who didn’t like Renée chasing around with some other guy,” Mac said.

  “If someone actually threatened him,” I suggested reluctantly.

  I didn’t like to think that. Ron Sweeney had voluntarily come forward with the information about seeing Renée and a man at the Hideaway. A decent kind of guy, probably scared, but trying to do what was right.

  But there was a different, less admirable possibility. Maybe Ron killed her, and the threatening caller and/or the bearded man in the Hideaway were inventions to try to turn suspicion away from himself. I could picture a midnight ride out to Kate’s Kabins, two people on a red motorcycle, laughing, enjoying the night and the speed and the adventure, the metal studs on Renée’s black shoes flashing in the moonlight. And then, only one person riding away from the burned-out cabins . . .

  But why? What reason would motorcycle-ish guy Ron have to kill her? Maybe because she was in the relationship just for a lark and he had a meltdown when she made that clear?

  I didn’t like any of these thoughts. Okay, I’d rather the killer was wife-cheater Brian, or if not him, the felonious ex-husband.

  But truth is what it is, not what we’d prefer it to be.

  “Now what do we do with the photo?” I asked.

  “I suppose we could go up to Orick and see if we can locate Ron. Or we could take the photo directly to the sheriff’s department and suggest this might be the man who was with Renée at the Hideaway.”

  “We could just send them the photo with an identifying name and let them take it from there,” I said. “You know. An anonymous tip. Non-involvement.”

  “Yeah, I guess we could.” Mac still fiddled with the key in the ignition without turning it on. “Law enforcement gets lots of anonymous tips whenever there’s a sensational murder.”

  “I think they investigate all but the freakiest of them.” I sighed. This was an irrelevant conversation. We are not anonymous-tip type people.

  We asked at a nearby service station and got directions to the sheriff’s office, which was in a wing of the county courthouse. I was expecting something grim and old-timey, but the courthouse turned out to be a modern building of several stories. We got out of the pickup and started toward the door to the wing on one side.

  And met someone just coming out of the building.

  Chapter 12

  IVY

  “Well, if it isn’t our famous writer and spouse.” Brian looked from Mac to me with a smirk that I interpreted as both condescending and smug. “What brings you two to our local bastion of justice?”

  “We found Renée Echol’s body out at those old burned cabins,” Mac said. “Maybe you heard.”

  “Yes, I did. I also saw in the newspaper that the last time she was seen alive was with a bearded man at a local restaurant, so I came in to let the authorities know I was that person.”

  “You did?” I said. Dumb thing to say, of course. He’d just told us what he’d done. But sometimes dumb, meaningless things come out of your mouth when you’re flabbergasted. It certainly had never occurred to us that Brian might come in and volunteer this information.

  “Kathy and I have been thinking about investing in local real estate, and Ms. Echol had been looking into some properties for us. That’s why I met with her at the Hideaway that day, to discuss several places she thought might be good investments for us. So it was a real shock to learn that I was apparently the last person to see her alive. At least the last one admitting it. There’s a killer running loose out there somewhere.”

  Brian peered around as if expecting to spot a hooded killer scurrying among the parked cars, but I figured what he should do was look in a mirror.

  Anyway, there was no point in our providing the sheriff’s office with that photo now. And perhaps Brian’s relationship with Renée was simply a business matter. Maybe Sheila had been mistaken about a personal relationship between them, and I was being unfair in my suspicions of his guilt.

  Mac surprised me by saying, “I’m glad we happened to run into you. The editor of the travel magazine publishing my article about the dinosaur park is also interested in that old tale about a treasure and bodies buried in the park. He’d like me to do something lighthearted about it for the magazine. If you don’t object, of course.”

  Brian hesitated, as if he were weighing something in his mind. I figured he was framing a nasty comeback, but finally he said, “No, I don’t object.”

  “Duke said you could show me where he dug a hole looking for the treasure up on the hill somewhere.”

  Brian’s answer wasn’t enthusiastic, but it was compliant. “It’s kind of a wild-goose chase. You’re as apt to find buried treasure in your left shoe as anywhere out there. But sure, I can do that.”

  “Tomorrow morning? Maybe ten o’clock?”

  Brian nodded.

  So we left the sheriff’s office without ever entering it. We sat there in the pickup and ate the fig-filled cookies Duke had given us, and I tried to applaud Brian for both his responsible-citizen move in voluntarily identifying himself as the man with Renée at the Hideaway and his unexpectedly cooperative attitude about the buried-treasure article. But it was the old one-hand-clapping thing, a little short of audible. Or authentic.

  “I suppose Brian wouldn’t identify himself if he had anything to hide.” Although, even as I said it aloud, I wasn’t convinced.

  Apparently Mac wasn’t convinced either, because he said, “Maybe that’s exactly why he did it. Because he has a lot to hide. An affair. Murder. He figured the sheriff would find out about his relationship with Renée sooner or later, so he made a preemptive move to explain it.”

  Preemptive. Exactly. “Trying to pull off a good-citizen act. Helpful. Responsible. Also, he’s now established a business reason for anytime someone else may have seen them together.”

  “Right.”

  “I guess there’s no point in locating Ron Sweeney now that Brian has identified himself to the sheriff,” I said.

  “I suppose not.” Mac tapped the steering wheel reflectively. “Although it would be interesting to know who scared Ron enough that he quit his job and tried to make it look as if he’d left town. I’m under the impression he didn’t share that information with the sheriff’s office.”

  “Are we going up to Orick?”

  “Does Koop like tuna in a can?” Mac asked by way of an answer. Yes, of course we were going to Orick.

  We drove back up the highway to the small town. Orick was north of the dinosaur park and we’d passed
through it when we came down the coast to get to the park, but I didn’t remember it. Maybe because, although it looked like a pleasant little place when we got there, it wasn’t particularly memorable. Several motels, an RV park, a market, gas station, post office, tavern, restaurant, and some modest houses. Small town, USA.

  We described Ron to a couple of guys at the gas station, but neither remembered him or his motorcycle. Same results at the restaurant and two motels. It seemed the flashy bike, if not Ron himself, should have been noticed by someone, but apparently not. At least not by anyone who felt inclined to pass the information along to us.

  By the time we got another negative response at the tavern flashing a neon beer sign, this definitely felt like a wasted trip. I reminded myself that a non-response said something too, in this case probably telling us that Ron had roared off to Sacramento or other destination unknown and had never even come up here to Orick.

  We drove around on some side streets with the thought that we might spot the bike parked at a house somewhere. No bike, but we unexpectedly came on a surprise sight, a herd of elk grazing in a green meadow. All were fat and sleek, and some had horns like intricate sculptures that looked almost too big and heavy for a head to hold up. Magnificent animals! Like something out of a medieval painting, the kind of creatures that remind me of what a creative Lord we have. I tried to count them, but it was difficult the way they kept moving around. Mac offered helpful advice.

  “Just count the legs and divide by four.”

  He grinned when I swatted him on the shoulder.

  We watched and took photos for a good twenty minutes, and I decided that getting to see that herd of elk turned this trip from wasted time into something special.

  We were just about to leave Orick when Mac decided to drive through the RV park. And there it was, a flash of red tucked behind a travel trailer. Mac braked and backed up a few feet for a better look. Yes, a cranberry-red motorcycle with saddlebags. Which looked as if someone was trying to keep it as far out of sight as possible. A welcome mat lay below the step up to the trailer, but a printed sign with shooting stars and lightning bolts in the trailer window said The Zombie Apocalypse Starts Here.