“Are you going to call McQuaid, too?” Ruby asked.
I hesitated. “Yes, but maybe I’ll wait until we get there, so he can’t tell me not to go.” Or rather, he could tell me and he probably would, but it wouldn’t do any good, since I’d already be there. Anyway, he wanted me to spend the evening with Ruby, didn’t he? So I was spending the evening with Ruby—in Lake City.
“Good plan,” Ruby said with satisfaction, “but we’ll need a cover story.”
“A cover story?” I asked warily.
“Well, yes,” Ruby replied in a sensible tone. “You don’t expect us just to barge into the Lake City police station and tell the cops that we’re there to investigate Leslie’s death. That’ll get us nowhere fast. Kinsey Millhone would have a reason, you know. A cover story.”
I regarded her suspiciously. “What do you suggest?” Ruby has roped me into more than one crazy adventure. “And it had better be a reasonable reason,” I added. I wasn’t eager to try out another of her idiotic schemes.
“Give me a minute,” she said, casting her eyes to the ceiling, as if inspiration might be waiting somewhere above, in the loft. And maybe it was, for within thirty seconds, she had concocted a plan. We would drive the Party Thyme van and take a couple of boxes of Cass’ Thymely Gourmet dinners to go, with Leslie’s name and address written on the boxes. That way, we could say we were delivering a special order.
“A couple of boxes of takeout, all the way to Lake City?” I scoffed. “Come on, Ruby, get real.”
“I am real,” she insisted. “It’s a surprise, you see. One of Leslie’s friends wanted to give her a holiday gift. And you and I just happened to be going up to Temple, to cater little Mickey Hitchcock’s afternoon birthday party. We told Cass we’d deliver her dinners to Ms. Strahorn on the way back.”
I regarded her. “Temple?” It’s a small city halfway between Austin and Waco, on I-35. “And who’s Mickey Hitchcock? I’ve never heard of him.”
“Of course you haven’t. I just made him up. The decorations from the party Cass and I catered for Janine Kelly’s little boy’s birthday are still in the van. If somebody—a nosy cop, say—wants to check us out, he’ll find boxes of crepe paper, a dartboard, a couple of piñatas, and the railroad caboose we made to hold the gifts. How’s that for a cover?”
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes, which I often do when Ruby comes up with one of her wild ideas. But since I thought the Lake City cops had better things to do than check us out, and I couldn’t come up with anything better on such short notice, I nodded, humoring her.
“Good.” Ruby reached for the phone. “You call Justine. I’ll call Amy. I always let her know when I’m going somewhere. Oh, and we also have to do today’s deposits.”
A half hour later, phone calls completed and the cash deposits readied, we were in Big Red Mama, with two Thymely Gourmet boxes we had filled with Cass’ croissant sandwiches, salad, chips, and cookies. Mama is the red shop van that replaced our beat-up old blue van two years ago. Her former owner was a hippie artist named Gerald who lived in Wimberley until he was arrested for running a crystal meth lab, and the Hayes County Sheriff ’s Office impounded and sold his van. Ruby and I bought Mama primarily because of the imaginative, Art Deco designs of blue, green, and yellow that Gerald painted on her sides, probably under the influence of a certain hallucinatory herb. Mama looks like a cross between a Crayola box scuttling down the road and a Sweet Potato Queen float in a Mardi Gras parade.
Mama rolled out of the alley, and we turned left. “I need to go to my house and change,” Ruby reminded me. “We’re headed in the wrong direction.”
“We have to go to the bank first,” I said, nodding to the deposit bag, although the deposit wasn’t the only thing on my mind. Five minutes later, we were there, and in luck. Bonnie Roth was working the drive-through window. I dropped the deposit bag into the automated box below the window. Bonnie zapped it inside and got to work.
When she had counted the cash and was noting the amount on the deposit ticket, I said into the mike, “Oh, I almost forgot, Bonnie. Remember that check you mentioned yesterday? The one Sally cashed?”
“Sure,” Bonnie said absently, turning to the checks in our deposit. She began keying them rapidly into her adding machine. “What about it?”
“McQuaid was curious. Did you happen to notice whether it was drawn on her bank up in Kansas? Sanders is the name of the town.” I was only telling part of the truth. I hadn’t mentioned the check to McQuaid, but if I had, I knew he’d be curious. And if I mentioned McQuaid to Bonnie, she’d be more likely to answer the question.
“Not Kansas,” Bonnie said, concentrating on her work. “It was a Texas bank. Lake City, I think. Her brother’s bank.”
“Her brother?” Then it dawned, and I felt my stomach clench. This wasn’t what I wanted to hear, but I couldn’t let Bonnie know that. “Oh, sure. Leslie. That’s her sister.”
Bonnie looked up and rolled her eyes. “Don’cha just hate those names that can be both? I have this second cousin—my mother’s brother’s daughter’s daughter—who sent me a baby announcement for their second. Taylor.” She went back to her adding machine, fingers flying. “They named their first one Logan. Logan, for pete’s sake!” She snorted. “How am I supposed to know whether to buy blue or buy pink? This is a big thing with me. Parents ought to name their kids so you know whether they’re boys or girls.”
“I agree a hundred percent,” I said. “Listen, Bonnie, I hope you don’t think we’re prying, but McQuaid thought he ought to know how big the check was, just in case.”
Anybody else might’ve asked, “In case of what?” or “What makes you think I’d give out private financial information?” But not Bonnie.
“Well, I’m glad Mr. McQuaid is thinking about this,” she said, jiggling the checks into a neat stack. “Five thousand dollars is a lot of money to be carrying around, and of course, the bank manager had to approve it. I believe she called the other bank and found out that there was enough money in the account to cover it. Of course, if it had been someone else, we’d probably have held it. But seeing that it was covered, and that it was Mr. McQuaid’s ex-wife, we figured it was okay.” She stamped the deposit ticket with vigor and tucked it in the bag. “I’m just concerned for safety. These days, you just never know.”
“Oh, right,” I said. “Better safe than sorry any old day of the week. I’ll let Mr. McQuaid know how helpful you’ve been. Thanks a bunch.” The automatic box slid out, and I took my bag. “You have a great day, Bonnie.”
“You, too, China.” She might think later that she shouldn’t have been so generous with that information, but by then, it would be much too late.
But as we drove away, I was frowning. Five thousand dollars. Surely Sally wasn’t carrying all that cash around with her. But if she wasn’t, where had she stashed it? And the check itself—had Leslie actually written it? Or was Sally—or Juanita—practicing her forgery skills on a stolen check? There had been one other instance of forgery in Sally’s checkered past. I corrected myself. There was only one that I knew about, but that was because she got caught. There might have been more. McQuaid and I didn’t know all that much about Sally’s life.
Ruby had been listening, naturally. “Five thousand dollars?” she asked incredulously, as we drove away. “Sally’s sister wrote her a check for five thousand dollars? And I thought Sally told you she was broke. What is she planning to do with all that money?”
“I don’t have a clue. But I’m wondering whether Leslie actually wrote that check.”
I told Ruby as much as I knew about the check and then about Sally’s phone call to McQuaid, asking him to go to Sanders to talk to Joyce Dillard. I finished the story just as we pulled up to Ruby’s house, where I waited in the van—still thinking about Sally—while she went in to change into something “more appropriate,” as she called it. The fact that Sally had one of Leslie’s checks—legitimately or not—suggested to me that she had been wi
th Leslie in Lake City before she came to Pecan Springs. Since this was definitely something Justine ought to know about, I phoned, got the Whiz’s answering machine, and left a message. I added that Ruby and I were on our way to Lake City to dig up the facts and promised to call again when—no, make that if—I had news.
It didn’t take long for Ruby to change. She came back wearing yellow jeans, a Big Bird canary-yellow sweatshirt, and a Big Bird hat, crocheted in yellow wool and complete with a brown beak and big round eyes. Her jacket and sneakers were yellow, and she carried a yellow Big Bird tote.
“That’s some getup,” I said. “Especially if you’re fond of yellow.”
“I’m glad you like it,” she said, pleased. “I wore this costume when Party Thyme catered PattiAnn Parker’s birthday party last summer. The kids loved it, especially because I’m tall. One of them said I was almost as tall as Big Bird himself, and that I should eat lots of worms so I could grow some.” She adjusted her hat. “Anyway, I thought it would be more appropriate.”
I cleared my throat. “More appropriate than what?” I turned the key in the ignition. Mama coughed once, politely, and began humming.
“More appropriate than plain old everyday street clothes. You know what Kinsey says. ‘Being a private investigator is made up of equal parts ingenuity, determination, and persistence, with a sizable dose of acting skills thrown in.’ I act better when I’m in costume.”
“I suppose there’s something to that,” I said.
“I have a hat for you, too.” Ruby reached into the tote bag and held up a shaggy electric-blue hat with two large eyes, the size of Ping-Pong balls, the black pupils pointing off in different directions. “There’s more to the Cookie Monster costume, of course. There’s a shaggy blue oversize shirt and pants. Blue mittens and booties, too. But I didn’t think you’d want to wear those.”
I shuddered. “You got that right, Ruby.”
She put the Cookie Monster hat back into her tote. “I figure the hat alone will be enough to convince them,” she added complacently, fastening her seat belt. “You won’t need the rest of it. They’ll know who you are.”
“Convince them?”
She gave me a look that said she was surprised that I wasn’t smart enough to figure this out for myself. “The Lake City police. With me dressed up as Big Bird and you wearing your Cookie Monster hat, they’ve got to believe we’ve been catering a party, instead of on our way to solve a crime.” She pulled down the visor mirror and adjusted her hat. “Nobody in her right mind would go out looking like this unless she got paid for it.”
“You have a point there.” I shifted into first gear. Mama hummed louder and began to move. “But we are not going to come anywhere near the Lake City police, Ruby. In fact, we are not going to solve a crime. We are only trying to find out what kind of crime was committed.” I pushed down on the accelerator, and Mama got rolling. “I have to tell you that I’m not optimistic, though. I doubt that we will discover any significant facts.” I wanted to add, Particularly with you looking like Big Bird.
But that would have been cruel, so I didn’t. I love Ruby dearly, even though I sometimes wonder if she isn’t almost as loopy as Doris.
Anyway, as things turned out, I was wrong. We were going to learn quite a few facts, although not all of them would be helpful in Sally’s defense, if it came to that. In fact, most would not.
And Big Bird herself was going to unearth the most crucial fact of all.
Chapter Eleven
McQuaid: A Body in the Snow
McQuaid followed Jamison outside, shrugging hurriedly into his coat as he ran. The snow had lightened a bit, and the flakes were no longer blowing horizontally. They were falling lazily now, swirling like white moths through the blue light cast by the single mercury lamp at the edge of the parking lot. The deep marks left by McQuaid’s tires when he drove in were already softened by a fluffy white layer.
Jamison jammed himself into his cruiser, put on the red and blue strobe and siren, and blasted out of the lot, spewing snow and shattering the quiet night. McQuaid followed, knowing that the cop was already on the radio, calling for EMS, for backup, for all available officers. Joyce Dillard was the town’s librarian, the daughter of a councilman. If that was her in the ditch, she’d be big news, probably the biggest news of the year.
The road had been plowed a couple of hours ago but was already drifted heavily on the curves, narrowing it to one lane. Driving was hazardous. The cruiser had snow tires, and Jamison knew where the hell he was going. All McQuaid could do was keep the taillights in view and stay as close as he could, even though it meant pushing the Chevy harder than he should in these marginal conditions.
The wind was whipping, the snow came in brief, hard spurts, and yet the full moon rode through the broken clouds, lighting up the silvered fields and woods like an intermittent beacon, throwing everything into a glittering patchwork of bright and dark, dark and bright. In better weather, when he didn’t have to keep his eyes on the road, McQuaid would’ve enjoyed seeing the snow-covered landscape: the bare, ice-coated willow trees lining the river that wandered through the fields to the west; the snow-clad sycamores marching single file along the east side of the road; the old red barns, stalwart shelters against the glacial sweep of winter winds. He had liked it here in Kansas, had liked the seasons, even the winters. In early times, in the first days—the youthful, hopeful days—of his marriage to Sally, he had even entertained the thought of coming to Sanders to live. He and Sally could settle down, buy a house with enough room for a garden, and have a passel of kids and a couple of dogs. He would become a small-town cop, or maybe he’d go into business with Sally’s dad. They would hunt and fish together, play poker, run the horseshoe tournament at the Fourth of July picnic every year.
But Sally had made it clear that while she didn’t mind coming back to Sanders to visit every now and then, she had no intention of leaving the city. And as far as being mom to a gang of kids and wife to a small-town cop—well, forget that, buster. No garden, that wasn’t her thing. And no dogs, either. She was allergic, she said, which of course wasn’t true.
So McQuaid had tabled his hopes—regretfully, because he’d thought Brian would be happier in Sanders. He’d never really given up the idea of living in a small town, though, and it came back in a warm flood when he met China Bayles and learned that she was planning to leave her law firm and open some sort of shop in Pecan Springs, not far from another small town—Seguin—where his parents still lived. A few months later, with Brian and their newly acquired basset hound, Howard Cosell, he had left the Houston PD and moved to Pecan Springs. Never regretted it. Not once.
He was less than a half mile from town when the cruiser ahead of him swerved to an angled stop, blocking the road, and McQuaid made himself focus on what was in front of him. Off to the right, in the bright pool of Jamison’s headlights, he could see the red pickup blocking one lane of the two-lane road, its back wheels in the ditch, its lights punching holes in the sky above the trees. Jamison himself was out of the cruiser and running toward the truck, where a girl, probably Meg, was hunched over, throwing up into a snowbank. The other girl, Annie, was still back at Joe’s, probably also throwing up. Teenage girls were a helluva lot tougher than they were when McQuaid was their age, but they didn’t find dead bodies every day of the week. Chicago, L.A., maybe, but not out here in the middle of Kansas, in the middle of winter.
McQuaid got out of the Chevy and went toward Jamison and the girl, the wind pushing at his back. Straightening up, hand over her mouth, she was pointing to a heap of red wool, some strings of dark hair, loose. A pale, empty face, upturned, framed by mounded snow.
McQuaid stopped. Jamison turned to look at him. “You stay back,” he said gruffly.
“Not a problem,” McQuaid said. He stopped where he was and shoved his hands in his pockets. “That her?”
“We didn’t touch her, honest,” Meg cried. “Just enough to brush off the snow and see who it wa
s. Ms. Dillard’s dead,” she added unnecessarily. “Froze to death.” Her hand went over her mouth again and her shoulders heaved.
“That’s okay, Meg,” Jamison said. “How about if you go sit in my car? I left the engine on, and the heater’s goin’. Except don’t throw up in it. You gotta throw up, get out, d’ya hear? Do it in the snow.”
“Yessir,” Meg said.
“I had the dispatch call your mother and tell her to come and pick you up,” Jamison added. “We’ll hafta get Pete out here with his tow truck to pull your pickup outta that ditch. It’s in there pretty good. Axle’s hung up.”
“Yessir,” Meg said again and stumbled past McQuaid.
Jamison yanked his cap down. “I want you outta the way, McQuaid,” he said again, roughly. “But don’t you leave. You and I are gonna have a talk. Unnerstand?”
McQuaid understood and nodded. “Might as well wait in my car,” he said, and turned into the wind.
The usual things happened in the next hour, while he kept the Chevy’s motor running and the heater going. Not much on the radio but some gospel music, and after a while McQuaid turned it off, wanting a cigarette. He’d stopped smoking years before, but the wish for it still plagued him, particularly when he was alone, with nothing to do. He thought it probably always would. After a few moments, though, he remembered the snacks and the beer in the backseat. He wasn’t hungry, but a beer would go good about now. He located a can of Michelob, as cold as if it had been in the fridge. He popped the top, propped his boot up on the dash, and surveyed the scene.
It was like watching a movie he’d seen countless times before, where he already knew the plot and was familiar with all the actors. The EMS arrived first, parking on the far side of the red truck, bright emergency lights illuminating the scene, spilling black and blue shadows over the snow. McQuaid knew what would happen next. The medics were supposed to stand by until the police established the perimeters and took photographs. But in this case, five would get you ten that they wouldn’t. They’d start digging out the dead woman hurriedly, as if there was a chance of saving her, which there clearly wasn’t, and in the process they would destroy whatever evidence there might be.
Holly Blues Page 18
