Once I’d filled out the application and been approved, it was my turn to have a truly awful photograph saved for posterity on my brand-new plastic member card—my ticket to overconsumption on a massive scale. I had to admit, however, that the places I shopped could take a lesson from the bare cement floors and unfinished ceilings. Might bring the price of a little black dress down to within reason.
Getting around to the tire section took me about a week, or so it seemed. But if I thought I wouldn’t recognize Billings, I was wrong. I spotted him leaving through a back door that led out to the garage area, where I assumed tires were changed. No one could miss that hair. His considerable long fuzz was sticking out from his cap like a clown wig.
Okay. There had to be an entrance for the cars somewhere around the building, and I hurried back the way I came, unswayed by the lure of hot pretzels, pizza or fresh popcorn. In my rush, I practically knocked over a poor woman who must have been seventy years old who was trying to offer me a mini sample of peach cobbler.
Another senior citizen was standing guard at the exit, checking people’s purchases. I didn’t know if I had to show my card to get out of this place, so I held it up like it was an EZ Tag as I rushed through the automatic doors. When no alarms went off, I figured I was okay.
I briefly considered walking around to the back of the building, but decided that might seem odd. No one bought tires on foot. Better to look like a customer. I jogged to my car—another long trek, since I’d had to park about a mile away. At least I got my exercise for today, I thought as I slid behind the wheel.
I’d just made it around the building when I spotted Billings climbing into a battered navy Pontiac. I pulled my car behind his, blocking his way. I didn’t want to chase him on the freeways. If he was going home, no problem, since I’d also learned where he lived, but if he headed anywhere else I could easily lose him.
I got out, calling, “Mr. Billings?”
He went from looking pissed off to looking confused. The DPS photo might have actually been complimentary, now that I saw him up close.
“Do I know you?” he said.
“My name is Abby Rose, and I’d like to talk to you.”
“Not on my lunch break. Get your car out of my way.”
“I only need a few minutes of your time.”
“Are you some nut wantin’ to convert me to your crap religion? ’Cause the bosses here don’t let none of you people on the—”
“I’m a private investigator, and I’ll make it worth your while.”
He almost smiled. Now I was speaking his language. “I only get thirty minutes.”
“Fifty dollars,” I said. “And I’ll buy you lunch.”
He squinted at me, fighting the late-morning sun. “You got yourself a deal.” He climbed in beside me and directed me to the Sonic Drive-In on the other side of the huge lot.
A moment later I pulled into an angled parking spot. Billings shouted his order into the speaker and had to lean close to me to do this. Though I smelled no alcohol on his breath, it might have been better than his halitosis. Didn’t he know they sold mouthwash by the gallon right where he worked?
I checked out the menu and skipped the Tater Tots smothered in processed nacho cheese that I so wanted and settled for a cherry limeade.
Then I handed Billings my business card. “As I said, I’m a private investigator.”
He stared at it and said, “What’s this about?”
“You tipped the police back in 1997, said that you recognized a woman whose picture appeared in the paper—an artist’s reconstruction of a murder victim’s face.”
“You’re here about that? I didn’t get a penny, if you’re coming to take it back—but wait ... that don’t make sense, since you said I’d get fifty bucks. Were you lying about the money?”
I removed two twenties and a ten from my wallet, but held on to the cash. “You knew that woman, didn’t you?”
“What if I did?” he said.
A teenager roller-skated up to the car window with Billings’s order and my drink. I paid and tipped her generously. Anyone who could skate and hold a tray of food at the same time deserved a few extra bucks.
Billings picked up his foot-long chili dog with both grimy hands.
“Tell me who you thought she was or you only get the free lunch,” I said.
“Christy O’Meara,” he mumbled around his mouthful of food.
I wanted to smile. He did know her. “Why’d you back off on the identification, Mr. Billings?”
“It was her, wasn’t it?” He jammed three onion rings into his mouth.
“Why didn’t you tell the police you recognized her?”
It seemed to take an eternity for him to suck down half of his Brownie Blast milk shake. “When you’re drinking as much cheap wine as I was back then, hard to tell if seeing is believing.”
“I’m not buying that, Mr. Billings. I compared a photo of her to the picture that appeared in the Chronicle. The resemblance was remarkable.”
He eyed the money in my hand, maybe worried I wouldn’t pay up if he didn’t come clean. “So?”
“Then why not claim the reward?”
He crammed more onion rings into his mouth and chewed for several seconds. “My stupid ex, that’s why.”
“Your ex-wife told you to keep quiet? Why would she do that?”
“You don’t get it. She wasn’t getting anything from me. Not then, not now. But I had my dumb-ass kid for the weekend and he heard me talking about the reward, so he calls and tells her. Then she turns around and tells me she’s taking every cent for back child support. Said the police would be happy to turn the money straight over to her.” He sucked on his straw, then added, “Bitch.”
“You allowed a dead woman to remain unidentified rather than let your ex have a few dollars you owed her anyway?” I couldn’t hide my distaste for Jerry Joe Billings.
He dropped his half-eaten hot dog into its paper boat swimming with chili. Some splashed onto me, onto him and onto my car upholstery. His sallow skin had flushed with anger. “Christy was dead, wasn’t she? Nothing I said was gonna raise her up. Now take me back to work. I got nothing more to say.”
I’d let my feelings about Billings contaminate the interview. Big mistake. Time for damage control. I calmly said, “A hundred dollars more if you’ll tell me everything you knew about Christine O’Meara.”
He wiped mustard off his chin with a knuckle—made me wait. But I could tell he was hungry for more than fast food. His gaze never wavered from the fifty dollars in my hand. “You mean tell you more than she was a drunk like me?”
“You two hung out, right? You were friends?”
“Yeah, you could say that. We were both down on our luck, you know? World don’t give you no fair shake when you got a problem. They just throw you in jail every chance they get.”
“She talked to you about her problems?”
“Maybe.” He checked his watch. “I need some time to think about it.”
“You mean time to fabricate a hundred dollars’ worth of information? I prefer we finish this conversation now.”
“That’s a risk you gotta take. I’m in the program, and lying ain’t my thing no more. Right now I have to get back to the job, ’cause I can’t afford to get fired. And you know what? I’m thinking a hundred isn’t enough. I got debts to pay off. I say five is more like it.”
“Sorry, that’s a little much for someone with a faulty memory. I can do two-fifty—but only for something I can use to help me find out what happened to Christine.”
“What about the baby? You want to find out what happened to the kid? Is that what this is about?”
He had me now. I held out the fifty. “Tell me.”
Billings took the money and stuffed the bills in his overalls pocket. “Show me the rest of the money.”
I didn’t have that much cash, and I was sure he didn’t take MasterCard or Visa. “There’s an ATM in your store. I can—”
He licked his lips, glanced across the parking lot. “I’ll get my ass fired if I don’t get working again, and I can’t afford to lose another job. You bring me four hundred dollars later and you get everything I know.”
“You say where and when.”
“My place. Gotta meeting tonight, so it will have to be around ten.”
“Give me your address.” I didn’t want him knowing that I knew where he lived.
He recited the street and apartment number that matched what I already had.
I drove him back to the store and he got out, patting his overalls pocket and smiling. I dumped his trash at the adjacent gas station, then used a sample bottle of Clinique makeup remover I found in my purse to clean chili off my upholstery and my shirtsleeve. Then I took off for my next stop, Murray Motorcycles on Houston’s north side. I checked for a tail often, but freeways are tough. Every car looks almost the same at sixty miles per hour.
On my way there, I called DeShay and told him about Billings.
“I don’t like this, Abby,” he said.
“I don’t either. That’s why I hope you’ll come with me tonight. But not with your badge on your belt or your gun bulging. I get the feeling he won’t say anything if he knows you’re a cop.”
“I’m your boyfriend then, or I’m your brother—no, that won’t work, will it?”
We both laughed, and I said, “Not unless I spend the rest of the day at a tanning bed. But seriously, can you wait outside?”
“Only if you’re wired, and that would take some paperwork and the agreement of one irritable, temporary partner named White.”
I sighed. “Okay, you’re my boyfriend, but you’d better be good at playacting. I mean, Billings tells me you cops threw the poor man in jail time after time when all he needed was a little love to get over his problem.”
DeShay said, “Then please give me a chance to apologize for the entire department and the city of Houston after he spills what he knows about Christine.”
I laughed again, and DeShay said he would pick me up at nine thirty that night.
17
I arrived at Murray Motorcycles forty-five minutes later. First I noticed the sign saying Murray’s was in the repair business, but they offered used sales as well. On the door of the storefront, the words THESE PREMISES PROTECTED BY SMITH AND WESSON were painted on the glass. I peered inside, but the small showroom and sales counter were deserted. The door was locked, too, but the garage doors were raised and I walked in there. A man with braided gray hair and massive muscles knelt by a bike in the garage.
He greeted me with “Are you wanting a new ride?” without getting up.
“I’m looking for Rhoda.”
“Did you talk to her on the phone about a bike?”
He didn’t take his eyes off whatever he and his wrench were doing.
“Um, no. My name is Abby Rose and I’m a private investigator. I’m hoping Rhoda can help me with a case I’m working on.”
The man stood and focused amazing blue eyes on me—eyes almost as wonderful as Jeff’s. Then he stared past me at the street. “I’m Larry Murray, her husband. She’s out test-riding a bike I repaired. Did you bring a partner in another car?”
“What are you talking about?” I said.
“The person who seems to have followed you here—Oops. They’re gone.”
I turned to check the street, thinking how this man’s perfect grammar and soft-spoken manner were smashing some of my “biker guy” stereotypes—though he did have the leather vest, tattooed arms and multiple ear piercings.
“No one followed me.” I sounded defensive and hated that I did. I’d been constantly checking my rearview and side mirrors. Besides, for some unexplainable reason, I didn’t want this man thinking I learned to wave good-bye only yesterday.
“I’m commenting on what I observed,” Murray said with a smile.
He was probably right, too. I remembered Jeff’s words: If a follower knows where his target is headed, tailing someone is pretty easy. Kravitz did have me followed.
“White Ford Focus,” Murray went on. “Driver wore sunglasses and a cap. Hard to tell gender.” His demeanor was in no way condescending. He wasn’t showing off, just offering information. I decided I should be grateful, not defensive.
I smiled. “Thanks for telling me.”
He grinned. He grabbed a filthy rag and wiped his hands. “Let’s go into the office, see what this is about.”
I followed him, saying, “Rhoda’s who I need to talk to.”
He opened a door smudged with oily fingerprints, allowed me to enter the store first and said, “After thirty years together, Rhoda’s business is my business. But if you’d rather wait on her, have a seat.”
A row of connected molded chairs sat against one wall. Two shiny motorcycles took up most of the floor space—those and a stack of tires.
“Maybe both of you can help me,” I said.
He went behind the counter, picked up a container of waterless hand cleaner and squeezed some into his palm. “I’m an agreeable person and am more than happy to answer your questions. Rhoda is a horse of a different color. You might test your luck with me first.”
“Okay. I’m working a cold case. A woman was murdered in 1997 and her body was identified only this week. Her name was Christine O’Meara and—”
“Christy was murdered? That’s terrible.”
“You knew her?” I said.
“She came into the icehouse we owned every day for years. Rhoda had a soft spot for a few of her regulars like Christy. But one day the woman stopped coming in. I think Rhoda told me Christy’s friends quit the place, too.”
“Friends?”
“Rhoda will have to help you with the friends. I only knew Christy because she made herself known when I would come into the icehouse after work. She always had a greeting, was always so ... present, so loud and lively. Rhoda said she felt guilty for supplying Christy with Old Number Seven all those years. She decided that when the woman disappeared, a bottle of Jack was probably all she took with her.”
Always so present? Her friends quit the place? Who was this guy? “I have to ask. What planet are you from?”
He laughed. “Academia. I took the next outbound rocket as soon as I figured out there was life on earth.” Then his smile faded. “You’ve brought sad news.”
I walked over to the counter, the strong scent of the hand cleaner tickling my nose. “Mind if I make sure we’re talking about the same person?” I pulled out a photo of Christine O’Meara.
“Yes. That’s her,” he said.
“She was found murdered, left in a field off Highway 290. I guess neither of you recognized her from the photo in the paper back then.”
“Her picture was in the newspaper? I never saw it. I was too busy writing papers to read anything, and Rhoda sticks to cycle magazines. If we’d seen the picture we would have made sure she was identified. I suppose with all the time that’s passed, the police will have a hard time finding out who killed her.”
“Yes. But I’m hoping—” The roar of an approaching motorcycle startled me, and I turned to look out the window. A shiny blue-and-chrome machine came to a skidding halt. A large woman parked the bike and came into the showroom, shaking her white-blond hair after freeing it from her helmet.
“Hi, there,” she said, nodding at me before addressing Larry. “Smooth ride. Nice job, baby. I’ll call the customer to pick her up.” She put her helmet on the counter and kissed her husband.
Rhoda’s raspy voice and the lines around her lips spoke of heavy tobacco use, and when she passed me to go behind the counter I smelled smoke clinging to her hair and clothes.
“Rhoda,” Larry said, “this young woman came to talk to you about Christy O’Meara. She’s a private detective.”
“Don’t tell me Christy’s asshole husband finally decided to hire someone to find her after all this time.”
“Her husband?” I said, surprised.
“Yeah. Lopez, I
think his name was.”
“Xavier Lopez?”
“That’s the guy.”
“Um, no, he didn’t send me. I’m sorry to tell you that Christine O’Meara died in 1997.”
“You’re kidding, right?” Rhoda said.
“Sorry, no,” I answered.
“Did that jerk beat her to death?” Rhoda’s voice had risen, and anger hardened her weathered features.
“I’m not sure what Christine told you, but Xavier Lopez died in 1983, and they were never married,” I said quietly.
“No way. She was pregnant with his baby the year we first met. Then right after she delivered, he stole the kid and took off. Christy didn’t have the money to find him and—”
“I promise you, Mrs. Murray, Xavier Lopez was in the military, and he died in the line of duty. The baby you’re talking about couldn’t have been his. He only fathered Christine’s first child, Emma.”
Rhoda looked at Larry. “Is she telling the truth?”
“I think she probably is, sweetie,” Larry replied.
How did soft-spoken academic Larry and tough-talking Rhoda ever hook up? Looking at them, seeing their obviously strong and loving bond, I felt a little guilty for questioning Kate’s attraction to Clinton Roark. When people follow their heart rather than do what’s expected, sometimes they hit the jackpot.
“Do you have time to talk to me, Mrs. Murray?”
“Rhoda. Everyone calls me Rhoda.” She still seemed bewildered by the news I’d delivered.
Larry said, “Rhoda, take Abby—you said Abby, right?”
I nodded.
“Take Abby to the office, pour both of you a shot of that bourbon your father sent us for our anniversary and then you two sit and talk.”
Shoot from the Lip Page 15
