Half Past Mourning

by Fleeta Cunningham

  “That’s just it. He went to get the car. And didn’t come back.”

  Betty looked up. “Why didn’t he?”

  Nina stared at the woman, shook her head helplessly. “I’ve asked myself that a million times. Earlier he’d planned to run away, to skip out on the wedding and me. He had another woman, someone he planned to take with him, but he changed his mind and married me after all. He didn’t go back to her. But he didn’t come back to me, either. He left. I know what he did, but I don’t know why. Peter thinks he went away with Jeff Davis. Maybe he had changed his mind again. I just don’t know.”

  Folding her arms across the table, Betty Andrews frowned. “Yes, you do, girl. You know why he didn’t come back. He couldn’t.”

  “He...couldn’t? You mean...?” Nina fought to push aside the idea, but the absolute rightness of it held her.

  “Think, hon. Think about what Peter Shayne found. What was inside the lining of that trunk?”

  “Danny’s license and his pocket knife.”

  “Now how did those very personal items get hidden like that?”

  Nina swallowed hard. “I guess...Danny had to put them there.”

  “Where were they? Back near the trunk latch? Or up close to the seats?”

  Nina thought a moment. “Peter found them inside a slit cut into the lining near the driver’s seat.”

  “Your boy wouldn’t reach in to cut that slit if he was standing on the ground, would he? Would that make sense?” Nina shook her head. With inexorable logic Betty continued, “So to put them there, Danny himself was probably inside the trunk, wasn’t he? Would he be in that trunk by his own choice, Nina? A young man with health problems? A fella who wasn’t athletic and probably didn’t climb into tight spaces as a general thing?”

  “N-no, no, but why would he get into the trunk, Betty? It was full of luggage, well, his bag, anyway. He left mine behind, but he had one suitcase, and it must have been in there. There wasn’t any reason for him to get into the trunk, and no room for him, either. The T-Bird’s trunk isn’t that big.”

  Betty Andrews played with her pen for a moment. “I don’t think he had any choice, Nina. I think somebody forced him into that trunk, and I suspect he figured there wasn’t much chance of him getting out, so he cut that slit and hid the license and the knife. Probably hoping somehow somebody would find it and know he’d been there. I think somebody took the car from Danny, dumped out your bags, put Danny into the trunk, shoved Danny’s bag inside the car, and drove away. Your Peter is probably right about it being that man Davis. I’m telling you, Nina, sure as God made little baby ducks, Danny Wilson was in the trunk of his car, used his pocket knife to cut a slit in the lining, hid his license inside, and then pushed the knife in with it. He took the only way he had to let somebody know where he was. But he didn’t live to tell anyone why. The sheriff is hunting for evidence, but I think he’s going at it hind part before. He’s looking for what happened after the car showed up in Dallas. I think he needs to look at what happened before it left Santa Rita. I’d bet money Danny never left the county.”

  Nina sat in frozen silence for a moment. Betty’s assessment made a chilling picture when she looked at things from that angle. Nina shuddered when she thought of what Danny’s last moments must have been, trapped in the trunk of his own car, leaving a mute appeal to anyone who might find his last communication.

  “It could have happened that way,” Nina admitted. “But how could it be Davis? He’s from Dallas, bought and sold the car in Dallas, and whoever took Danny has kept up the fiction that Danny is alive. His mother gets telegrams that keep her believing he’s following auto races. Davis couldn’t know enough about Danny’s life to do that.”

  Betty put the cap on her pen and dropped it and the notepad back into her capacious purse. “That’s not too hard to figure out either, is it? Davis doesn’t live in Dallas. He has to be somebody local. Doesn’t it seem that way to you?”

  ****

  Peter found Nina at the car museum, taking one last trial run with the Princess. Once she’d garaged the classic beast in its own stall, she relinquished the wipe-down duties to the young man in black denim beside her. So this is Tinker. As Nina introduced them, Peter looked the younger man over with a curious eye. Bright, anxious to please, but it seems like he turns up at strangely convenient times. Peter was relieved when Nina said she was ready to leave the shop and invited him back to her house. He could see something weighed on her mind. Once settled in the front room of her house, Nina told him of her encounter with Betty Andrews.

  “So you’re thinking that Danny went to get the car, found Davis...and then what, Nina?” Peter took both her hands in his. They were clammy to the touch, chilled, as if the ideas filling Nina’s head were affecting her whole being. “What do you think happened, sweetheart? Danny tried to stop Davis, they got into some kind of fight, is that it? Then Davis panicked, shoved Danny into the trunk thinking he was dead, but Danny was able to get to his knife and leave a clue in the trunk lining?”

  “Put like that, it doesn’t sound as reasonable as it did when I was talking to Betty Andrews,” Nina admitted.

  “It also doesn’t account for Jeff Davis selling the car in Dallas. If Davis was local, there wouldn’t be any need for him to sell the car in Dallas. He didn’t need to drive two hundred miles; he could have arranged to get it to Andrews in Barlow or Pueblo, lots of places more convenient than Dallas. It just seems logical that Danny sold it to Davis in Dallas because that was where Davis lives. Andrews picked it up there, too. I don’t know why the license and knife were in the trunk, but I don’t think Betty’s idea is the answer. I don’t think Davis could be a local man.” Peter felt Nina relax at his words.

  “I hope you’re right. I don’t think I could handle being suspicious of my friends and neighbors in Santa Rita.” She hunched in her chair and raised fretful, shadowed eyes to him.

  Peter had to admit Betty had an interesting theory, but he didn’t think it likely. Still it was as good as any of his. “Maybe it happened that way, Nina. It could have. It’s at least worth passing along Betty’s ideas to Sheriff Hayes, just to get his views. If Danny never left the county, where are his personal things—wallet, bag, watch, rings? No matter what Davis did with Danny, it stands to reason some of his personal things, valuable things, should have turned up by now.”

  Nina lapsed into a silence Peter couldn’t follow. “Something else is worrying you, Nina. Tell me. Maybe I can help.”

  Nina paced the length of her small living room, stopping to rearrange a stack of journals on the table, to stroke the glowering cat in the window, and generally fidgeting around the small room. She turned and Peter saw deeper shadows etched in the planes of her face.

  “It’s just the not knowing, not having any idea where my life stands.” She shrugged with resignation. “You said it. I’m married but not a wife, not fish or fowl, matron or maid. I let you kiss me and feel guilty because I’m not a free woman, but I don’t feel married, either.”

  Peter’s immediate reaction to her pain and confusion was a flash of his own guilt. He might love this valiant tomboy with the tousled brown curls, but he’d added to her burden by revealing his feelings for her. “I don’t believe you are married, Nina. And you have a right to love and be loved. I’m sorry if my presence gives people reason to gossip, but I’ll be here every inch of the way till your life is your own again. Unless you tell me to leave. I’ve told you that.”

  She turned away from his protest. “I know you said that, Peter, but it doesn’t help, does it? This is something only I can work out. I have to find out where things sit from the legal point of view. And decide what I need to do about it. I want to have my life back, not live in the grey area of not married but not single.” She straightened and faced him. “I called the law firm to talk to Mr. Borman. I wanted to know whether I could start annulment proceedings or even file for a divorce without knowing what’s happened to Danny. Can a woman end a marriage
to a man who may or may not be dead?” Her eyes were dark with tears that threatened to spill over. “At least, if I did that, Marigold would be out of my hair. And I could...”

  “You could explore other possible options?” Peter followed the thought she hadn’t quite been able to voice. Her call to the lawyers could only mean she was at last willing to let go of her unresolved marriage to Danny Wilson. A warm ember of hope caught in Peter’s heart. “What did Borman say?”

  Nina shook her head. “Nothing. He’s out of the office, sick, and won’t be in for some time. The associate I talked to said I should call back in a week or so, when they’ve had time to see who is taking over his files. It sounded as if his condition is pretty grave.” She gave him a weary smile. “I can’t tell you how hard it was to make that call the first time. Now I have to do it again.”

  In two steps Peter had his arms around her, tucking her head against his chest. “But you did make that call, Nina. You made it once, and I think you’ll find it easier the second time. You’ve made up your mind to do something. That’s half the battle. And you’ve made a move, started things rolling. It’s going to get better, sweetheart. I promise it will.” He pressed a careful kiss into the rumpled ringlets against his shoulder. “I promise.”

  “I hope you’re right, because these last months have been too hard. I don’t think I can live with it for much longer.” She pulled back from his embrace and squared her shoulders. “You said you thought we should tell Sheriff Hayes what Betty Andrews said about Danny being inside the T-Bird trunk. Should we go do that now?”

  Peter tilted her face up so he could brush her lips with his. “I think so. Maybe it will fit in with something he’s learned. Or point him in a worthwhile direction.”

  “I’ll do it,” she agreed. “Now that Uncle Eldon has lured Tinker Downs back to work in the museum, I have one less worry. Ron says Uncle Eldon has been going out to the paint shop on his own. Uncle Eldon doesn’t admit there’s anything he can’t do, but he could pull something down or try to move something unstable. If it was after hours, it could be ages before anyone knew he was hurt, or found him. I’m relieved that Tinker’s going to keep an eye on him, run his errands, and generally be useful.”

  Tinker Downs? Remembering the thin, dark shadow wiping down the Princess, Peter made a mental note to look closer at that young man. He still thought it a little too convenient for someone with a slightly shady past to be in the area when so many valuable cars were disappearing. Tinker Downs was definitely worth a second look.

  “That must be reassuring to you,” was all he said to Nina. He’d keep his own counsel until he had better information. No point in upsetting Nina further with suggestions that yet another man she trusted had ulterior motives. “Let’s go find Sheriff Hayes and see what he thinks of Betty’s point of view.”

  Chapter 15

  Sheriff Hayes expressed little interest in the scenario Nina put before him. He brushed a trace of dust from his Stetson, tilted his chair back, and gave her a look of annoyance, narrow wrinkles fanning at the corners of his eyes.

  “You best just leave the theorizing and detecting to the trained professionals, young lady. I’ll admit Danny might—just might—have climbed into that trunk to hide his belongings, but that don’t suggest he was pushed, forced, or otherwise persuaded to do it. Might have just done it ’cause it was a good hiding place. I do think the boy’s dead, mind you. Not spending any money, nobody seen or heard from him, those telegrams to Marigold which don’t sound like any kind of personal message, all of that is pretty suggestive. Says to me the fella’s not living in this world. But I don’t think whatever happened came to pass in Santa Rita. The car was sold, and Danny sold it. No getting around that. If your idea about this Davis fella taking it was sound, ain’t any sense to him taking the risk of the car winding up back here and calling attention to a missing man, not if the man had died right here in Santa Rita.” The sheriff shrugged. “Anything’s possible, I s’pose, but it’s just not likely to have happened that way, Nina.”

  Peter saw the stubborn lines form beside Nina’s mouth and knew she wasn’t going to let the sheriff’s dismissal change her opinion. “I think you’re wrong, Sheriff,” she answered, confirming Peter’s guess. “Danny put his things in the trunk, and there’s just one way he could do that: he had to be inside the trunk to cut into the lining. While you’re rejecting the idea, remember that Danny had every allergy in the book and always avoided anything with dust. He kept the T-Bird clean, but any trunk gets a certain accumulation just from being on the road. He’d never get into that trunk without a powerful reason. He was way too careful about avoiding any kind of irritant. Think about it.” Nina picked up her purse and headed for the office door. “Peter, I have some things to do. I can walk home, so you needn’t worry about driving me back. Thanks for bringing me over.” She left the office without looking back and shut the door behind her with bristling firmness.

  “I think the lady’s a mite ticked at both of us,” Sheriff Hayes commented as the sound of Nina’s footsteps faded.

  Peter shoved his fingers into the pockets of his jacket. “Can’t say I blame her, Sheriff. She’s living with more torment than we can possibly imagine. Just when she thinks she’s found some answers, they disappear in a puff of smoke. Marigold Wilson’s carping doesn’t help.” Peter shifted in his chair, took his pen from his pocket and toyed with it. “Nina’s doing one thing that should please her mother-in-law. She’s contacting the Dallas lawyers to see what she has to do to end this farce of a marriage.”

  Al Hayes sat up straight, his chair rolling with the force of his movement. “Is she now? Even though she thinks he’s dead? Givin’ up any claim to his estate if we somehow can prove Danny’s passed on?” His stern glance made Peter wish he’d not mentioned Nina’s plans. “You have anything to do with that?”

  Peter shrugged. “I couldn’t say, Sheriff, but I most certainly hope so. I’m not suggesting or directing, but then I’m not going to tell her not to do it, either. I don’t think the money means as much to Nina as getting her life back. She’s not the mercenary sort.”

  The sheriff nodded. “I sorta thought that was the way the wind was blowing.” A narrow grin creased his face. “Hope it works out for you, young fella. She’s a nice girl who’s had more than her share of trouble. Be good to see her take up with a decent man who’ll appreciate what he has. Danny Wilson never did.”

  Before the conversation could get more personal, Peter took it in another direction. “This business about the car thefts, Sheriff. Seems like there’s been a rash of sports cars gone missing.”

  “Got some ideas on that, all right. Not ready to talk about it, just looking at some of the reports from ’round about, seeing some things that bear a second glance.” The sheriff seemed ready to drop the subject, but Peter had a point to make.

  “I guess you know Tinker Downs is working out at the Lassiter place now? Working as personal assistant to Nina’s uncle.”

  The sheriff ran a slow finger along his upper lip. “You making a point here? Suggesting something specific?”

  Peter hesitated, then went on. “Nina told me her uncle takes a special interest in youngsters who seem to be heading for trouble, and that Tinker was one of those. He’s got some mechanical ability and, from what Nina said, has a pretty hardscrabble background. I know he’s supposed to have just come back to town, but does anyone really know where he’s been all these months?”

  Hayes looked up at the ceiling, his eyes on the lazy fan turning above, but his expression, one eyebrow raised and lips tightening, suggested he was weighing his answer.

  “Tell you the truth, Shayne, I didn’t know Tinker was back. Knew he passed through, but I hadn’t heard he was staying. I’ve known the boy since he was a little shaver, and I had my concerns. No-account family, not much in the way of raising, but bright, a really bright kid. Got crossways with the law, a little, when he was in grade school, because he’s always been able to
do most anything mechanical. If it’s got an engine, Tinker can make it run. Got caught out with some older boys joyriding in a neighbor’s car. He wasn’t driving, you see, wasn’t more than nine years old, but he’d hot-wired it so the older kids could. Working his way toward being a juvenile delinquent like it was the highest ambition he had. But the kid had this genius for anything that’s got wheels and gears. So I took him out to Lassiter. And between us we kept the kid on the right path even if he did bail out the minute he finished high school. Couldn’t blame him, though. Figured he’d find his way.” Hayes shoved his chair away from the desk. “Wouldn’t want to think the boy’s taken up bad ways, got off on the wrong foot despite our efforts. But it can happen. Reckon I’ll take a drive out to the museum and see what’s what.” He looked back at Peter. “You coming along? Or maybe you’re planning to hang around town and see if you get a chance to drive Nina Kirkland home after all?”

  Peter grinned. “I think I have some business here in town, Sheriff. And if Nina happens to cross my path, maybe I’ll talk her into dinner and a movie. At least I think I’ll give it a try.”

  “Wish you luck there. Just convince her to let my office do the investigating and theorizing, will you?”

  Peter shook hands with the sheriff and left the office wondering how he’d go about locating Nina and convincing her that dinner and a movie wouldn’t create all kinds of speculation and discussion by the good folks of Santa Rita. Two blocks from the courthouse, he noticed the drug store and the flow of people in and out. A good place to make a plan, have a cool drink, and think about how I’m going to find Nina.

  Peter pushed back the tall, glass-paneled doors. Across the shop, sitting in one of the red-and-white striped booths sat a slight, dark-haired fellow, his black eyes bright and intent on his companion. Tinker Downs again. Peter stepped behind the magazine rack to watch the couple for a moment. The girl, young, pink, and blonde, sat opposite, laughing at something Tinker had said. She was the original of every idealized cheerleader, homecoming queen, or prom princess to ever dance through any young man’s fantasy. Her ponytail swayed with the motion of her head. Her delicate hands fluttered to punctuate her words, and her crisp sundress and frilled petticoats completed a pretty picture. If this girl was the reason Tinker Downs was staying in Santa Rita, he didn’t need a stronger one. What he might need was the ready money to keep her interested. A girl like that had to have a string of beaus that wrapped around the block. Peter backed out of the shop before he attracted attention, but he continued to speculate. If Tinker had an eye on a girl like that, he’d need more than a grease monkey job to keep the romance afloat. To all appearances the girl was interested, so Tinker had funds enough to hold her for the moment. Would another car go missing to keep Tinker in her focus? Peter was still imagining the temptations and frustrations a young man with no family and little income would incur in pursuit of the pretty blonde in the drug store, but as he turned to cross the courthouse green, he caught sight of Nina coming toward him. The romantic intrigue of any other party left his mind as he adjusted his path to meet the slender girl with her short curls blowing in the breeze.