Easy (A Flap Tucker Mystery Book 1)
Page 14
“Really?”
“What’s-her-name? The girl that borrowed it. Do you know her?”
“No. She was leaving, I know that. Going to Florida.”
“Yeah.”
“Beano’s the one everybody knows.”
“She’s a card.”
“She’s a drug addict, and she’ll be dead before she’s thirty.”
Well, of course that put a damper on the conversation. I cleared my throat. “Why do you say that?”
“Those girls — what chance have they got?”
“Everybody’s got a path in life, you know?”
“What happened to her? The one in the parking lot. Boyfriend beat her up or something?”
Despite everything, honesty is the best policy. “She’s dead.”
She didn’t believe it. “He killed her?”
“Somebody did.”
Her voice was very soft. “She’s dead.”
“Uh-huh. You actually see the guy?”
“No. No, in fact I was only assuming there was a guy. She just said she wanted to get some tapes out of her car.”
“So it could have been something other than…a ‘lovers’ quarrel.’”
“I can’t believe this.”
“I know.”
“And those two just recently — I mean, is somebody stalking those girls? What kind of a sick mind…”
“Speaking of which, why’d you wanna get into psychology anyway?”
She settled back, adjusting to the changing direction of the talk. Maybe she was wise to my motives. Maybe, also like me, she just didn’t want to talk about dead people. “I assume you’re familiar with some of my problems?”
I nodded.
“It’s common for a person in my situation to think that a study in the problems of the mind can be beneficial to humankind and still be of some help personally so that the duality of the benefits is very appealing especially when you’re an adolescent girl trying to figure out what’s going on in reality out there and you’re looking for a career that also has some obvious financial possibilities but you’re afraid that a normal life is out of the question because of some quite apparent difficulties only you’re hoping to change all that in so many ways.”
And that was the first indication, to me, of her true personality. She was almost afraid to stop the sentence before she’d crammed everything she was thinking into it. She was simultaneously touching reality and testing it.
I took a quick look at her profile. “But your…reading problem got in the way.”
“Yes.”
“And now you’re on the lam from Lenny, who, incidentally, thinks he’s married to you.”
“He is. But I don’t want to talk about Lenny.”
“I bet.”
“I mean it. I’ve got some confusion there.” She tapped her forehead.
“Uh-huh. Like what?”
“Like I made a mistake.”
“Mistake?”
“I must have gotten hold of some…erroneous information.”
“Such as?”
“Such as I think he’s trying to kill me.”
“Lenny?”
“Yeah, I know that Lenny’s not really capable of that, which is why I know I got hold of something incorrect, which is why I really don’t want to talk about it, okay?”
“So you musta read something about a murder.”
“Maybe I saw a newspaper about the two girls at the Tip Top and the connection with Tony made me look and I somehow got mixed up about Lenny…”
“…because of his diary or whatever it is that he keeps open in his den.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“So, like, now that you’ve been told, it doesn’t clear the smoke?”
“I wish it did, but it doesn’t work that way. I can see logically and intellectually that what I know to be true in my heart is, in fact, fiction — but I can’t seem to convince my solar plexus.”
I started to argue, but I suddenly remembered what it was like to know with every fiber of my being that Neena was a wrong deal and still not believe it for a good long while. That’s the issue: the power of belief. Doesn’t matter what’s really true, just matters what you believe to be. And I didn’t have the problems that Augusta did.
I just nodded. “So it doesn’t help to talk?”
She seemed to move deeper into confusion. “Sometimes.”
“Look, Lenny wants you back. You know he’s just a little kid in some ways. He doesn’t understand why you’re gone; he doesn’t care why you left. He wants you to come home. What’s so wrong about that?”
“I know, I know. I just can’t get out of the feeling…”
“…that he wants to kill you? I don’t even think he’s capable of accidentally hurting you.”
“I know. Still — there’s a demon after me.”
She wouldn’t budge. There was a lot more wrong with her than I’d imagined. We drove the rest of the way across town in silence.
The Colonnade is next to a motel and across the street from a new topless joint. It used to be the place to go for Sunday dinner after church. Maybe it still is, but the neighborhood is certainly stranger. We pulled into the parking lot.
It was still a little early for the supper crowd, so we got a table right away. I didn’t have to think twice about which busboy was Tony’s friend. He even winked at me. I told the waitress we were going to take our time and that someone would be joining us later for dessert.
“Okay by me, hon, you stay just as long as you like.”
“Really? How about we find a nice cot then? I’ll just eat till I can’t move, roll over and go to sleep, and get up for breakfast around ten.”
“Better make it nine, hon: Biscuits’ll be gone by ten.”
“Nine it is. And I’m now thinkin’: really big tip for you.”
“You all want sweet tea?”
We nodded. She left.
Augusta put her napkin on her lap. “You can tell a lot about a man by the way he flirts with a waitress twice his age.”
“I wasn’t flirting, I was just polite — and she’s not nearly twice my age.”
“Still.”
“Okay, I give: What can you tell?”
“I can tell you’re a nice guy.”
“Ah, well — that’s true.”
“So go ahead and ask me what it is you really want to ask me.”
“Okay, let’s take our time. We got tea, we got food, we got dessert, we got Tony — all that’s gonna take awhile.”
“So?”
“So tell me about Teeth.”
“He’s a good guy. He didn’t kill Ruby.”
“I agree.”
“He and I used to talk about tantric Taoism, believe it or not.”
“As it pertained to your clinical beliefs.”
“Oh, you know about that?”
“People love to gossip.”
“I guess.”
I looked away. “You knew Neena?”
“Sure. You can’t be in the same city as Neena and not know her, can you.?”
“Probably not.”
“I think it was Dr. Schlag’s fault that she left you.”
“I know you think that, but honestly it was all for the best.”
“Oh, I agree.”
“So you and Teeth used to talk about the healing practices of the ancients.”
“He talked about sex. I talked about science.”
“Uh-huh. It all amounted to the same thing in the dark, didn’t it?”
“More or less.”
“Okay, look — excuse me for askin’, but how is your dancin’ little Lenny around the X-ray room that much different from Dr. Schlag jazzing Neena when she was…under his care, and I use the phrase advisedly.”
She looked down. “Maybe it’s not.”
“And you both got fired.”
“But Lenny got better. Neena got weirder.”
“If possible.”
“Uh-huh.”
I leaned back in my chair. “Okay, here’s the question: What made you leave Lenny — really?”
She sunk down a little in her own chair. “I don’t know. I somehow got it in my head he was trying to kill me. And knowing what I know about Lenny, it was in my head, not his, don’t you think? So it must be the demon.”
“Demon, yeah. I’d say so. You musta read something else.” But I couldn’t help the creepy sensation I was getting. Images of Ruby in a pentagram, and the Golden Potala family saying some kind of Buddhist prayer to keep away the demon — they kept crawling up the back of my neck.
“I guess. I never know.” She picked up her tea; I could see her hand was shaking. “Do you think I’m a fictional character?”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“Yeah, but I’m not playin’.”
“Sorry?”
“I’m not buyin’ the helpless poor-little-me-I’m-so-confused-maybe-I’m-a-made-up-story-and-not-a-real-live-girl thing. You know what your story is. You got a little memory problem, is all. I got pals I knew in the hospital who came back from the war lots worse off than you. They still think they’re in some little hole in the ground and they can’t get out and they probably never will. You get to have a job and a life and a rich boyfriend, so excuse me if I don’t buy how awful your life is.”
“I guess it’s all relative.”
“So tell me again why you left Lenny.”
She didn’t look at me, and she put her hands in her lap. “I got the idea he was in on some big scheme or something.” She lowered her voice. “He was performing hideous rituals.”
“Well, that’s Lenny all right.”
“I know, I know. It’s obviously something I got hold of in some crummy paperback or article, but I don’t remember. The knowledge that it’s not real does nothing to keep me from being, like, completely spooked.”
“Jeez.”
“Plus, all your disdain aside, you can’t imagine what it does to your self-esteem to think that it’s possible somebody else made you up. You can’t imagine being so disoriented all the time that it’s just possible that all your life is a play. That any minute the director’ll stop everything and come over to you to talk about what’s wrong with the scene or your accent…”
“…or your motivation?”
“Go ahead. Make fun. You can’t make me feel worse.”
“And what about your phony accent?”
“You go live in London for six years. Why are you being like this?”
“I just don’t believe you, is all.”
“Yeah, well, maybe that makes two of us. Maybe I don’t believe me either.”
For a second I thought she’d cry. The waitress came back with a basket of rolls and soda crackers, a plate of butter, and some extra lemon for the tea.
I buttered a cracker; she sipped her tea. All of a sudden she sat up straight as a tombstone. “Look, I can’t just ignore the fact that I’m worried about getting murdered and a girl dressed in my raincoat was just killed right in the parking lot of the place where I was sitting patiently waiting for her to come back and she was just as redheaded as the day is long and about my size. I didn’t make that up, did I? I mean, didn’t you tell me all that?”
I set my cracker down. “As it happens, I myself was just turning over those events in my mind. I have several possibilities: a) Somebody’s stalking girls at the Tip Top. b) Somebody’s following you — I agree with the raincoat/hair theory as you’ve just proposed it. Or c) somebody’s tryin’ to get me in trouble.”
She raised one very beautiful eyebrow. “Why would anybody want to do a thing like that?”
“Believe it or not, it often happens when I’m working. Somebody gets the idea I’m a wise guy, and they try to cause me harm. Generally, however, I follow my own path and avoid trouble.”
“You don’t always know when trouble’s ahead.”
“I always have a feeling.”
“That’s what Tony says.”
“Tony doesn’t realize the extent of his gifts.”
“Maybe.”
“That’s what makes him all the more gifted.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Plus, I hear he’s a great gardener.”
“Perennials mostly — he’s nothing with spice.”
“So I’m told.”
She relaxed a little. “So you think it’s possible that I’m not completely paranoid?”
“Oh, I think you’re pretty nutty. You’re much worse off than most people think you are, including your brother. And I still think you’re out for Lenny’s money. Plus, you remind me a little too much of Neena for me to trust anything you say. But the facts are fairly strange. You don’t see a dead body in the parking lot every day of the week.”
“So what are you saying?”
“I’m saying the jury’s still out.”
“On?”
“On nearly everything.”
“Except for the fact that I’m into Lenny for his money.”
I picked up my cracker and bit it. “Okay, I’ll even suspend that one. Maybe you are and maybe you’re not. Maybe it’s true love ways. I’ll wait and see. I’ll live and let live. I’ll laissez-faire — at least until dessert. But I got my suspicions — about you and your brother.”
Dinner came. The pork roast was superb. She had the chicken. We ate slow and didn’t talk. We were just ordering coffee when Tony came in. He was in a different suit. He waved at the busboy.
When he sat with us the waitress didn’t even ask him what he wanted. She just brought him the key lime pie and a bourbon on the rocks. Did I mention that the Colonnade has a bar? He didn’t say a word either. He ate his pie in three bites, and the bourbon was gone a second later.
I sipped my coffee, damned if I would speak first. Finally Augusta couldn’t stand it. “So what happened?”
Tony pushed the plate away from him and sat back. “Cops came. They thought it was the same guy as before because she was strangled the same way: some kind of very silky cord around the throat.”
That got the better of me. “You’re kidding.”
“And they found no fingerprints.”
I tried to sip my coffee, but I wasn’t as cool as I wanted to be. “Tony — what the hell’s going on?”
“Somebody’s killin’ my girls.” He seemed genuinely dazed.
Augusta lowered her voice. “I know I’m paranoid and I’m certainly not in my right mind at the moment, but has it occurred to you that this girl had red hair and was wearing my raincoat and it was a little dark outside and maybe the guy thought that was me out in the rain?”
Tony looked like somebody had told him the Pope was wrong. “Jesus, Aggie, that’s right.” I think he actually started to sweat.
And odd as it was, fate had cast me, for a brief moment, as the voice of reason. “Who knew you were there, Aggie? How would anyone have known you’d be there and wandering around in the parking lot? Doesn’t make any real sense.”
They both relaxed. Tony nodded. “Yeah. Don’t make any sense.”
But I wouldn’t let it go. “Not with the facts we got now. Although I suppose there could always be someone stalking you for other reasons. Some nut you took care of at the GIMH, some drunk Tony may have offended at the Tip Top. And you do look a lot like her. Only I guess this absolves Teeth for the moment. At least from this one, you know, since he’s already in jail. However, as I was saying, the jury’s still out on you” — I turned to him — “my good friend Tony. You’re the one with the opportunity all over the place to kill the poor kids. Motive? I dunno. But everybody’s nuts at least one day outta the week. So how come you’re not the killer? Tell me that one.”
That did it. They were both nervous again. Always keep things up in the air if you can. It gives you an edge. I had no idea if I meant all that or not, but it was good to shake things up. Plus
, I didn’t trust anybody at that moment.
I finished my coffee in a gulp, before Tony could think of what to say. “Well, if there’s nothing more, I’ve had a longish day. I’d just as soon be going.”
Tony looked at Augusta. “He say anything to you?”
“He said a lot of things to me, but he was right about most of them. And at least I’ve gotten him to reserve judgment on me until all the facts are in.”
I leaned forward. “Except I waited for this one until Tony got here: What’s the possibility somebody could slip you something and get you to read it before you knew you were reading it?”
She was baffled. “What are you talking about?”
“I mean, like, could someone, if they knew your problem and wanted to, could they slip a paragraph or two into, say, a patient’s chart, for example, or something innocuous that you’d have to read?”
“Why would they do that?”
“Is it possible Teeth played a little joke on you getting you to read about tantric sex practices — and that’s what got you interested in that stuff?”
“Why would Teeth do that?”
“Why do people slip stuff into other people’s beer at parties? It’s a kind of twisted notion of fun. Plus, Teeth was bored and he liked to talk — especially about that. What’s the harm? You had a lot of long nights together with nothing better to do.”
She squinted. “I guess it’s possible, but I don’t think it happened.”
I pressed. “Do you remember a night when Lenny and Neena and some guy got into a fight around a chess game and Neena bopped the guy pretty good and he went wacky and Teeth bit him and you came in with a sedative and it was a big ruckus afterward because the guy got a lawyer and Teeth got fired?”
She had no idea why I was bringing it up, but she nodded just the same. “I remember. That’s the night I met Lenny, I think.”
“What was Lenny trying to get Neena to do?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t hear.”
“But you think that was the cause of the fight?”
“No, the other guy caused the fight because he made a pass at Neena. I saw that part.”
“So after that, when Teeth was finally dismissed, you called Tony?”
“Uh-huh. Tony needed help; Teeth needed a job.”
“And it was around that time that you got fired because Nurse Donna thought you were working too hard — excuse the term — on Lenny.”