Bait & Switch (Mayfield Cozy Mystery Book 1)

by Jerusha Jones

  An embarrassed, sheepish look crossed his face. His hair looked like burnished copper in this light.

  It was too much to ask. “I’m sorry. You don’t have to—” I blurted.

  “It’s fine.” Walt stepped closer, those blue eyes intense. “It’s just that the clutch is about shot. You know how to drive a manual transmission? It’s four on the floor.”

  I sort of knew what he was talking about. I had memories — ones I’d tried to erase — of an urgent need to get to a friend’s house for Thanksgiving dinner during my sophomore year of college and all of us piled in another friend’s car that kept rolling backward on San Francisco’s steep hills while we squealed and I tried grinding the thing into gear. We were stupid, and it wasn’t nearly as funny as we thought it was at the time. My face squinched up involuntarily.

  Walt chuckled. “You need lessons?”

  “I should keep it in first all the way to the county road, right? And from there on, it will be easier?”

  “Theoretically. Want me to take you wherever you need to go?”

  “You can’t.” I shook my head hard. “Separation, remember?”

  “And yet here you are.” Walt took another step closer.

  I scowled and backed up to maintain an arm’s distance. “Because I need the cargo space. The Subaru’s not big enough.” I turned away. “Forget it. I’ll rent a truck in Woodland.”

  “Hey.” Walt’s hand closed over my elbow. “What kind of cargo? Will you need to strap it down?”

  I bit my lip. “Probably.”

  “I take it you don’t want the FBI to know you’re going on a road trip.” A tiny crease appeared between Walt’s brows. I was giving the man wrinkles. “I’ll have the truck parked behind the mansion by 6:00 a.m. with the load straps you’ll need behind the seat.” He squeezed my arm, then released his grip. “Don’t take it the wrong way, Nora. I just wish I could ground you to your room the way I can Eli. Seems that would be better for your long-term health.” His eyes narrowed.

  “I’ll be careful.” My tone came out more flippant than I meant it to be. I pivoted and strode out of the barn.

  CHAPTER 17

  I stepped into the kitchen, sweaty and nose dripping from my speed walk back from the barn, Walt’s words still bouncing around in my mind — and did a double-take.

  The stranger sitting at the table was obviously a woman, or else I would have taken off at a sprint straight for the safety of the FBI confab in the woods. Random people just appearing and making themselves at home in my world was starting to get on my nerves.

  “You don’t have to stare like that,” she grunted.

  I squinted, still clutching the door handle. “Clarice?” The body shape and size were right, but the head, including the face, was entirely wrong. The voice was unmistakable, though.

  “Come in and close the door,” she muttered, slinging back another glug from her coffee mug. “I’m not gonna bite.”

  “Not even my ankles?” I knew before I said it that I shouldn’t, but at the moment there was no speed bump between my brain and my mouth. I retracted my neck into my shoulders, doing my best impersonation of a tortoise, ninety-percent expecting her to fling the mug at me.

  Instead she burst into a deep, throaty laugh that tapered into wheezing and her hacking cough. “Sit.” She pointed to the chair opposite. “Does that mean I look rabid?”

  “No. You actually have a lot of Judi Dench panache with that — that—” I waved my hand toward her head. One couldn’t really call it a haircut. More like a clipper job.

  Clarice’s hair, what was left of it, was perfectly silver, even sparkly, and stuck up all around, no more than an inch off her scalp.

  “What happened?” I was envisioning some sort of catastrophic accident with an ancient washing machine or mangle or bellowing vacuum cleaner — or something. What could possibly consume or irreparably damage Clarice’s hair that she had to shear off the glorious bouffant? And change the color? My brain was a little slow out of the gate as I continued staring at her.

  But that was just the thing — her face was different too. Wrinkles everywhere. I’d known they were there, of course — pancake makeup not being as effective as the wearers usually think it is. But it was all gone. I saw real skin. Saggy in places but completely natural and, well — real.

  I grinned.

  “Decided to quit pretending. Face the music.”

  “Is this because of Gus’s comment? He’s sorry, by the way.”

  Clarice’s brows — the real ones — arched quite expressively. “And you know this how?”

  “Small town.”

  “Good grief,” she muttered. “Should have done this earlier, before any of them ever met me.”

  “So you cut your hair to make a statement?”

  “Girl.” Clarice sounded exasperated. “Don’t you know anything? It’s a wig. I’ve worn that darn wig, or versions of it, for nearly fifty years. It was the trendy thing back in high school, and I just kept at it. My mother had expectations.”

  “Yours too?” My shoulders slumped.

  A wicked grin crinkled Clarice’s face, lighting up the wrinkles. “Why do you think I don’t let you talk to yours?”

  I was developing a bad habit — staring.

  Clarice shrugged. “Figured since we’re on the lam, sort of, I might as well ditch the masquerade. We have enough to worry about as it is. No sense in insisting on pretenses.”

  I nodded slowly. “I like it. Classy.”

  “A healthy dose of reality never hurt anybody.”

  Even if it was newly acquired. My cheeks were hurting, I was grinning so wide. “I think we’ll need to go into town again soon, show you off. How do you feel about motorcycles?”

  Clarice muttered something I won’t repeat.

  “Well, not tomorrow. At least not for me. I need to make an excursion. I’m borrowing Walt’s truck.”

  Clarice sat up straighter and thunked her mug on the table. “Not without me, little Miss-Secret-Pants. Whatever you’re doing, you’ll need a navigator.”

  “Look who’s talking,” I muttered. “It’s a secret because I want everyone to be able to honestly tell the FBI they don’t know, in case they’re questioned.”

  Clarice snorted.

  And that was my answer. “Then we’re leaving at 6:00 in the morning. Or after the FBI team departs, whichever is later.”

  Clarice rose and placed her mug in the sink. “Guess I’d better be getting my beauty sleep then.” She cast a gleaming-eyed scowl at me and shuffled out of the room.

  oOo

  Clarice had the right idea. I needed to be mentally sharp and alert tomorrow.

  My tiny bedroom reeked, in the best sense, of roses. I’d stashed them on the bedside table in my scramble to clean up before Violet and her team arrived. I dreaded trying to explain them to the FBI. I would — in time — but I had some thinking to do first.

  I stripped to my underwear and burrowed under the covers, pulling my laptop in with me. The florist’s address printed on the card was in Longview, the closest town big enough to also have a hospital per Sidonie. The roses had probably been ordered over the phone, or maybe online. I wondered if I could sweet talk a clerk into sharing that information.

  The FBI mole was bugging me too, and I realized I hadn’t gotten his name from Violet. I pulled up the main San Francisco news outlets, but reports about a traitorous agent were notably absent.

  Who did I know who knew everyone? Clarice was patently incapable of sweet talking. My mother, on the other hand—

  I rooted around for other options — friends I knew from college; foundation supporters; social climbers; Skip’s business associates, at least the ones I thought were probably legitimate — and kept coming back to my mother. If you absolutely must know the latest, juiciest gossip, the place to go in San Francisco is my mother. The problem is, her shutoff valve is leaky, and my situation, if she knew it, might also become part of the rumor stream.

&n
bsp; On the other hand, at least one of Skip’s enemies already knew where I was and had found Leroy too. No doubt the rumor mill worked just as well on the other side of the law. I heaved a deep sigh. If I wanted information, I’d have to take the risk.

  It was late, but my mother is a night owl. I rummaged in my tote and pulled out one of the new prepaid cell phones. My mother also always answers the phone, even if she doesn’t recognize the caller ID. She hasn’t met a telemarketer or pollster yet with whom she can’t have a decent conversation. And by conversation I mean thirty minutes of trading life histories. I dialed.

  “Hi, Mom,” I said when she answered.

  “Nora. Why didn’t you tell me you were selling the townhouse? I know of at least four couples who would love, love, love to buy it. I could have saved you the realtor’s commission, darling. Of course, there’s a bidding war, so maybe you’ll recoup your expenses.”

  “Great,” I muttered. I wondered where my realtor friend had stashed my stuff. I really was going to be homeless, in fact as well as feeling, in a matter of days. My mother was still talking, but I interrupted her. “I need a favor.”

  The silence on the other end of the line was like someone had left the door to a walk-in freezer open — cavernous and hollow and yawning. I could even hear my mother panting, trying to catch her breath. I guess maybe I’d never asked my mother for a favor before.

  “Are you all right, honey?”

  “No.”

  At her sharp inhale, I scrambled — that’s not exactly what you tell your mother, especially not a mother like mine.

  “I mean yes. I’m alive and healthy—” I blurted. Slippery slope. I needed to distract her. “There’s been a bit of a mix-up. I need to contact one of Skip’s friends, but I don’t have his information.”

  I explained, in the sketchiest terms because that’s all I had, about a friend who’d been helping Skip and consequently had lost his job with the FBI. Clearly, the FBI wasn’t going to trumpet the fact, so there wasn’t any information in the public realm. I envisioned my mother licking her chops at the prospect.

  I also sicced her on the florist’s shop in Longview. They didn’t stand a chance.

  “Mom,” I finished, “please be careful. There’s a lot going on that I don’t understand. I have to hope Skip’s okay, but I haven’t seen him for a few days.”

  “Isn’t this exciting?” Mom gushed.

  I blinked. It was not the response I’d been hoping for.

  “So you’re saying Skip is some kind of outlaw?” She sounded thrilled.

  “It’s not a romantic notion like in the movies, Mom.” I scowled at my rumpled pillowcase. I could tell her about the finger and bring her back down to earth, but I quickly vetoed the idea. “Just be careful, okay?”

  “Sure, sure, honey.” But her voice had that distant quality. She was plotting her approach already.

  “Give Dad a hug for me.” I clicked off and flopped onto my back.

  A jagged crack ran from the hanging light in the center of the plaster ceiling to the corner over my head. Just like the fault lines San Francisco was built on. Just like my life, suddenly crumbling to pieces with my marriage as the turning point.

  oOo

  Clarice and I were in the kitchen, forcing down our third mug of coffee in the past hour and tapping our watches to make sure they were still ticking when the FBI caravan pulled up outside. Violet stuck her head in the kitchen door, her eyes bleary and the chic hairdo drooping, flipped her card on the table and muttered a cursory good-bye.

  “Results?” I called.

  “Lab first. We’ll let you know.” She was already climbing back into the passenger seat of a behemoth sedan that was a twin to Matt’s. They made a noisy exit, engines rumbling and gears grinding over our driveway.

  Clarice packs like Mary Poppins. Indefatigably prepared. She was dressed in a snazzy pair of jeans, low leather boots and a zip up yellow windbreaker with a stocking cap pulled over her short hair and ears. She looked like a hip grandmother, spry and ornery, but there was no way I would make that comment out loud. I was just glad Violet hadn’t met Clarice yesterday, or there’d be time-consuming explanations to make about the absence of the ubiquitous beehive.

  When the exhaust from the last vehicle dissipated, I stepped away from my post at the kitchen window. “Clear.”

  We trotted around the mansion.

  And there was Walt’s pickup as promised, in all its rusted-out glory.

  “I hope you weren’t planning on a high-speed getaway,” Clarice said.

  “We just need to blend in, not arouse suspicion,” I puffed. The driver’s door was stuck. I jiggled the handle, gave it a few thumps with my fist to break the thin layer of ice and tried again. Worked like a charm. I was starting to like this truck.

  “A couple of cute girls in a redneck clunker ought to blend in fine.” Clarice rolled her eyes at me.

  “I haven’t told you yet where we’re going,” I replied with a grin. “I’m pretty sure no one will give us a second glance.”

  Clarice hoisted herself onto the bench seat from the passenger side, picked an ice scraper off the floorboard and thrust it my direction. “Hurry up. I haven’t got all day.”

  Walt had also left a pair of gloves — far too big for me, but I wore them anyway. They certainly made scraping the windshield more tolerable. There were a few things I hadn’t packed for a Cozumel honeymoon that would have come in handy in my new situation — like a parka and mittens.

  I jumped back into the cab, flicked the windshield wipers, checked the turn signals and made sure I could reach the pedals.

  “So?” Clarice grunted.

  “Here goes.” I took a deep breath and latched my seatbelt. “It’s been a while.”

  If it was at all possible, then I did it — made the pickup’s clutch even sloppier. But we lurched the potholed distance to the main road and picked up speed on the smooth pavement.

  “Good thing I didn’t eat breakfast,” Clarice groaned, one hand pressed against her stomach.

  “That’s exactly how I feel every time you drive,” I gritted through clenched teeth as I wrangled the gear stick into fourth.

  When the truck settled into the irregular, vibrating chugging that was its normal purr, I pointed to my tote bag. “Directions are in there, but I won’t need navigational help until the last few miles. Once we get through Woodland, it’s a four-hour straight shot north on I-5.”

  Clarice seemed to forget her gastrointestinal trouble and peered at the page. “Bellingham? What are we doing there?”

  “It’s a secret, remember? I’m saving you an unpleasant interrogation.”

  “I’m going to figure it out eventually, you know.”

  I flashed her a frown. “Let’s put that effort into something else. I want to know exactly who we’re up against. Those names Matt mentioned are a start, but I’m sure there are more. Feel like picking through Skip’s journal to make a comprehensive list? If we have time, maybe we can find wi-fi somewhere and do some research. Figure out which one of his cronies is most apt to send a finger.”

  Clarice pulled out a notepad and pencil and began tallying, calling out new names as she came across them. An hour later, we had a list of twenty-seven potentially disgruntled former clients of Skip’s. Clarice ranked them by the number of transactions noted in the journal.

  “The names at the bottom of the list — can you tell if their accounts were cleared, if their funds were returned?” I asked. “I expect they would get their, well, deposits — for lack of a better term — back, but in smaller chunks over time. Do you see a pattern?”

  Clarice swiped the hat off her head as if her brain was in immediate need of oxygen and bent over the photocopied pages of the journal. I wondered how she used to think at all, suffocating under the bouffant wig. She ticked pencil marks next to entries and flipped quickly through the pages.

  Her soft grunts increased in frequency and excitement. I kept glancing over at her while
trying to keep the truck at a steady 70 mph rumble in the slow lane. We sure didn’t need the attention of a patrol cop just now, but Clarice was making noises like she might explode.

  “Ha! Simple!” She tossed the pages onto the seat between us with a fierce smile on her face.

  “Care to elaborate?” I swerved back between the lane lines and renewed my grip on the steering wheel. Was it my imagination or was the pickup developing a tendency to veer right?

  “He used Roman numerals, nothing less than X or ten, and I’m guessing that’s ten thousand.”

  “Peanuts,” I muttered.

  “I was only looking at the small accounts, remember? But the answers to your questions are yes, yes and yes. I need a spreadsheet to make sense of it all, but yes, some of the accounts look as though they’re closed. He has this little symbol — see this?” Clarice waved a page under my nose with her finger angled toward a black dot. “Looks like this marks the final payment to a client.”

  I bit my lip. “Could you count the black dots, please? I want to know just how many accounts weren’t resolved before I had my little fling.”

  “How many enemies we made, you mean.”

  “That too,” I whispered.

  Clarice took her time, checking and double-checking. I tried to enjoy the scenery — greens and more greens even though the deciduous trees’ limbs were bare. They weren’t kidding when they named Washington the Evergreen State. White frost lingered on the grass in the shadows cast by the trees.

  Semi-trucks barreled past us. I was having trouble keeping the pickup at the speed limit. The tired old girl just didn’t have the ooomph — maybe she was only good for short sprints. So we hunkered in the slow lane and watched interstate commerce zip by. The log trucks gave me chills, their grills like gaping maws in the rearview mirror. When they pulled around us, they buffeted us with that same sweet, sappy odor that Dill had brought to my attention, although probably not as strongly as the sawdust haulers he favored.

  “Eighteen,” Clarice announced. “That leaves nine active accounts.”