Stalker (9780307823557)

by Nixon, Joan Lowery

  Appearing satisfied, he gripped the edges of the podium and turned to the small congregation. The expression on his face slid into one of sympathy and compassion. “Dear friends of the deceased,” he began, but stopped, his mouth slightly open, as Elton Krambo strode into the room.

  There was no mistaking that Elton and Darryl were brothers. They scowled at the world from eyes that were dark and shielded by secrets. Elton was taller and huskier than Darryl, but their narrow features and unruly black hair were almost identical.

  Slowly, Elton walked down the aisle. He seemed to pause for a moment as he stared at Jennifer, and she shivered. He studied the others in the room, then took a seat in the front pew, motioning with a quick thrust of his hand for the minister to continue.

  The man cleared his throat, then stammered quickly into a smooth recitation he must have given over and over again. “We—uh—come to pay our last respects to a dear mother—”

  He nodded at Elton, who sat with arms tightly folded. Jennifer muttered, “She’s not his mother,” and Mark poked her into silence.

  “—and good friend.” On the minister went, but Jennifer tuned him out. Bobbie should be here. She had to talk to Bobbie. Maybe Lucas could work things out so that she could visit Bobbie in jail. She shivered again. When would this be over?

  Mark pulled at her arm, and she realized that people were standing. The coffin was being wheeled through the side door. “Come on,” he said. “We’ll go to the cemetery.”

  In a few minutes Mark had steered his car into line, fourth and last behind the hearse and limousine. An officer on a motorcycle preceded them, holding traffic at the intersections as the procession drove through.

  “I always wondered what it would be like to drive through all the red lights and have a cop—”

  “Stop it!” Jennifer said.

  “Hey, I know you feel bad, but don’t take it out on me,” Mark said.

  “Sorry,” Jennifer mumbled. “It’s only that this is unreal. It’s awful!”

  “It’s just one more thing to get through,” Mark said. “You can do it.”

  The officer directed them into parking slots beside a shaggy lawn. They trooped over the grass, avoiding stepping on the tidy, rectangular grave markers and the round holes at each site, some of them filled with faded clumps of plastic flowers, most of them empty. They followed the coffin. It was carried by attendants to the side of a pit that had been camouflaged with a grass-green canvas.

  Two brown metal folding chairs for family members had been set up at the side, but Elton avoided them and stood off, behind the others, who grouped into an uncomfortable, stiff semicircle, their faces glistening under the hot sun. The blondes murmured quietly to the middle-aged woman and the man with her. He ignored them, but she answered them.

  A car came slowly down the road, nosing into an empty slot. Jennifer gasped as Bobbie and two policewomen climbed out. Instinctively she stepped forward toward Bobbie, but Mark gripped her arm, stopping her.

  The minister, who held an open prayer book in one hand, looked up at Jennifer and followed her gaze. He waited until Bobbie and the women with her had joined them, then began to read the prayers for the dead in a monotone.

  A brightly colored van from one of the television stations pulled up with a screech of tires, and a cameraman hopped out. He hurried with his camera, tossing it to his shoulder, angling until he could see Bobbie’s face, and zooming in with his special lens.

  Bobbie didn’t look at him. She didn’t look at Jennifer, either. Her face was as expressionless as though she were asleep. She didn’t seem to notice that the warm breeze was whipping strands of her yellow hair across her eyes and mouth. Jennifer wondered if this was Bobbie’s defense—to let her mind escape even though her body couldn’t.

  The minister stopped speaking and turned to talk to one of the blond women who stood near him. Her lacquered hair moved only as she nervously nodded her head and began to edge away from him.

  Jennifer pulled from Mark’s grasp and ran toward Bobbie.

  “Sorry,” one of the policewomen said, and she held out a restraining hand. “Please don’t come any closer.”

  Jennifer stopped. “Bobbie’s my friend. I want to talk to her.”

  Bobbie looked up at Jennifer with dull eyes. “Hello, Jennifer,” she said. “Thanks for coming.”

  “Bobbie, I’ve found someone who will help. Remember the man who came to see you—Lucas Maldonaldo? He believes in you, too.”

  The policewomen took Bobbie by the shoulders and turned her toward the road. Briskly, they walked with her to their car.

  “Bobbie!” Jennifer cried. “We’re going to find out who killed your mother! Bobbie! It’s going to be all right!”

  Mark came up behind her and gave her a quick shake. “Stop shouting,” he grumbled. “Everybody’s staring at you.”

  “They wouldn’t let me talk to her.” Jennifer rubbed the back of her arm across her eyes.

  “Calm down. Your ex-cop friend didn’t show.”

  “He wasn’t sure that he could.” She watched the police car drive off. Bobbie didn’t even look back at her. “He told me to pay attention to who came to the funeral.”

  “Did you?”

  “Well—yes.” She watched the other cars leaving the cemetery road. “Elton was here, and Mrs. Aciddo, and those two blond women.”

  “And that couple who came in before Elton got here.”

  “Yes. That’s it.”

  “So who were they?”

  “What do you mean, who were—Oh, no! I should have found out.”

  “They’ve all gone. We’re the last ones here, besides the guys over there at the grave site.”

  “I’m doing everything wrong. You’re right. I should have got their names.”

  Mark shrugged. “You insisted on doing this. I think you should give up. You don’t know the first thing about being a detective. It’s just a waste of time, and you’ll end up being more hurt than you are now.” He took her hand. “My offer’s still good. Padre Island would be beautiful this weekend.”

  “Don’t think up excuses,” she said. “They won’t make it right.” She walked toward Mark’s car. “Will you drop me off at Chaparral?”

  “What’s at Chaparral?”

  “The LaSalon beauty parlor.”

  “Since when have you started going to beauty parlors?”

  “Since it occurred to me that those blond women probably work there. Maybe I can find out who they are and do something right for a change.”

  “You weren’t paying attention to what I said. All the time I was talking you were thinking about those women.”

  “I heard you. Of course I did. But right now I’ve got a job to do.”

  “You act like you’re a cop.”

  “Is that so bad?” Jennifer shrugged. “I suppose I could think of lots worse things than being a policewoman.”

  There was a small curl to Mark’s lower Up, as though he wanted to pout, but he kept his voice matter-of-fact and asked, “Don’t you want to get some lunch and go back to school?”

  “Not now.” Jennifer opened the car door and looked up at Mark. “It’s funny, but the hardest part of all of this is doing all the same ordinary things that have to be done, like going to school and eating meals and going to bed at night and all the everyday things. Life keeps going on when it ought to be frozen in place, so I can work on what needs to be done for Bobbie.”

  As Mark stopped the car in front of LaSalon, Jennifer stretched up to kiss him. The kiss landed at the corner of his mouth, but Mark, his neck stiff with stubbornness, did nothing to help correct it. Jennifer breathed in the familiar warmth and sweat of his skin and for a moment yearned to forget everything but being held in his arms, but she straightened, shaking her thoughts back into place, and said, “You were kind to come to the funeral with me, Mark. You’re a real friend.”

  It was the wrong word. She saw that she had hurt him even more than before. She didn’t know ho
w to make it right again, so she turned from the pain on his face, saying lightly, “I’ll call you,” and scrambled from the car.

  It wasn’t until she was directly in front of the door of LaSalon that she noticed the small CLOSED card, with the scrawled notation Back at one.

  Jennifer’s watch said twelve thirty, so she wandered down to the corner, bought an egg salad sandwich to go from a lunchroom drenched in the sizzle and smell of its greasy griddle, and walked two blocks to Shoreline Drive.

  Gulls swooped at the bay, trying for a fish dinner, and she watched the quiet water, a pale blue reflecting the sunlight. She sat and yawned at the wavelets that gently flicked the seawall steps and felt her taut shoulders soften under the heat of the sun. She began to relax.

  One ten. She broke the uneaten sandwich into pieces, tossing them to the gulls, who swarmed over and around her head. She left them to their greedy, screeching arguments, their frantic, flapping complaints, and walked briskly to LaSalon.

  The CLOSED sign had vanished, and people were in the shop. She was so glad to see the pair of lacquered blondes, she smiled as though they were friends.

  The nervous one was teasing a client’s hair with trembling energy. She glanced up and down and up again at Jennifer with suspicion. The other woman sat behind a desk, slowly painting her fingernails.

  “Do you have an appointment?” she drawled.

  “No,” Jennifer said. “I saw you at the funeral. Remember?”

  The woman squinted to stare at her. “Oh,” she said. “I thought you looked familiar when you came in. I guess you knew Stella.”

  “Yes.” Jennifer kept herself from babbling too much. She was here to ask questions and get answers.

  “Nice funeral,” the woman added. “I guess you noticed those purple flowers. They came from the salon—from us.”

  “They were beautiful,” Jennifer said, not remembering the flowers at all.

  “We weren’t too happy about them being purple, because Stella wasn’t crazy about purple, but Margo here said she thought the purple looked kind of elegant.”

  She stopped and looked at Jennifer, waiting for her answer. “Oh, yes,” Jennifer said, nodding enthusiastically. She didn’t give the woman a chance to continue. “Are you the owner of LaSalon?”

  The woman painted her thumbnail and held her hand close to her face, studying it critically. “Yeah.”

  “And you’re—?”

  “The owner, I said.” She looked puzzled.

  “I mean, what’s your name?”

  “Alice LaFleur,” she said. “Really. I mean, it sounds so stagy and glamorous, but it’s really my name. Margo tells me with a name like that I should have been a movie star.”

  Jennifer turned to Margo. “I’m Jennifer Lee Wilcox. You’re Margo—?”

  “Ouch!” Margo’s customer cried as Margo teased with even more vigor.

  “You’re asking a lot of questions,” Margo said. “How come?”

  “Mrs. Trax’s daughter is my best friend,” Jennifer said. “I’m trying to get some information that might help her.”

  “We haven’t got anything to tell you!”

  “Oh, come on,” Alice said. “It’s a slow day. We haven’t got anything else to do. We can answer a few questions.”

  “Thank you,” Jennifer said.

  Margo pressed her lips together tightly. When she didn’t answer Jennifer’s question, Alice giggled and said, “Margo’s name is Smith. Now, everyone knows you can’t be a movie star with a name like Smith.”

  “There’s Roger Smith,” Jennifer said.

  “Huh? Well, I suppose, but he never got to be really, really famous.”

  “There was a couple at the funeral,” Jennifer said. “You talked with them. Could you tell me who they were?”

  “Sure. She comes here regular on Thursdays. Mrs. Potter. She’s nice but real fussy about her perms. She tips good, though.”

  “Did she know Stella?”

  “Ouch!” Margo’s customer complained. “What’s got into you today, Margo? You’re taking my scalp off!”

  “It’s nerves, honey,” Alice explained. “Margo and I just got back from a funeral this morning, and I mean there is nothing harder than starting the day by going to a funeral.”

  “It was Stella Trax’s funeral,” Jennifer said.

  The woman’s eyes opened wide. “Oh, my gosh! I saw all about it on television. Murdered by her daughter!”

  “No!” Jennifer cried. She willed herself to calm down and said, “I mean, some of us don’t think Bobbie did it. We think it was someone else.”

  “Ouch! Will you quit pulling!” the woman shouted at Margo. “I respect your right to have a case of nerves, but you’re killing me!”

  “I’ll be more careful,” Margo mumbled. She poked with the end of a rattail comb into the raised mass of curls and waves she had created, patted and shaped a few stray hairs. Then she picked up a can of hair spray and shot a mist that enveloped her customer, causing Jennifer to cough and turn away.

  It didn’t seem to bother the woman. She gave herself a last, satisfied look in the mirror, discreetly placed a tip on the counter, and waited while Margo untied the plastic cape around her neck.

  “Did you know Stella?” Jennifer asked the woman.

  “My, no,” the woman said. “I’ve only been coming here twice a week for a month. She wasn’t working here then.”

  “Comb-out on Fridays, wash and set on Tuesdays,” Alice recited.

  Jennifer waited until the woman had left. Margo disappeared somewhere into the back room of the shop, but Alice placidly began painting the nails on her right hand. “You wanted to know about Mrs. Potter,” she said. “Sure, she knew Stella. She came to her ever since Stella started work here two years ago. She lives down the street from Stella, too.”

  “She has a son in high school?”

  Alice examined a fingernail. “Yeah, she has a son. His name is Cody. I guess he’s a good son, because we never heard much about him. Women talk about the problems in their families but not the others, unless it’s about throwing a wedding or giving a big party or something like that. We usually hear about husbands.”

  Jennifer held on to the edge of the desk and asked in a rush, “Do you know anyone who might have murdered Mrs. Trax?”

  Alice leaned forward to stare myopically into Jennifer’s face. “How would I know anything about that?”

  “I thought maybe you’d know if someone was threatening Mrs. Trax or frightening her.”

  “Nope. Her life was going okay, far as I could see. No real problems.”

  “Why did she quit her job here?”

  Alice laughed. “Oh, honey, she didn’t quit. I fired her. She was off more than she was on. Always calling in with some excuse. I mean, if she’d been sick or something I could understand that, but she felt fine. I think she just had something else going on that kept her so busy she didn’t want to come to work.”

  “You mean like another job?”

  “Maybe. It could have been another job. Or it could have been a man. We’ll never know, will we?”

  Jennifer sighed. “I’m trying to find out.”

  “Well,” she said, “if it’s any help, I’d bet it was a man in her life. If it was a job it would have to pay awfully good money—more money than Stella was worth, because Stella liked to shop. Oh, lordy, did Stella shop! Why, one of my customers came back from a trip to Houston, and what do you think? She ran right into Stella in one of those big shopping malls! No, I’m sure. It had to be a man, one with a fat wallet.”

  “Thanks for your help,” Jennifer said. “If I have any more questions, could I come by again?”

  “Sure,” Alice said.

  She went back to her fingernails, and Jennifer walked to the corner and sat on the bench at the bus stop. She took a spiral notebook out of her handbag and wrote down the names of the people at the funeral and everything she could remember that might be important.

  She was aware that s
omeone had sat at the end of the bench, but it wasn’t until she stretched to tuck away her notebook and pencil that the person spoke. “What’s in this for you?”

  Jennifer jumped. “Elton!”

  “Answer my question.” His skin was the deep mottled red of someone with sunburn upon sunburn, the creases around his eyes and mouth making him look much older than his twenty-four years.

  Jennifer wasn’t afraid of Elton, but she was wary. She had talked to him on brief occasions when she was with Bobbie, but she didn’t know him as well as she knew Darryl. He had always been reserved and quiet and had seemed to be a part of the adult world.

  “I’m trying to help Bobbie,” she said. “I don’t believe that she murdered her mother. That’s all I’m trying to do—help.”

  “Give it up,” he said. “Don’t get in the way.”

  Jennifer’s back stiffened. “Is that a threat?”

  “It’s a warning,” he said. He stood, and Jennifer scrambled to her feet, facing him.

  “You don’t scare me,” she said.

  “Too bad,” he said. “You might wish I had.” He turned abruptly, walked to an old, dented pickup truck parked in the middle of the block, and drove away.

  A bus swooped down with a cloud of choking exhaust. Jennifer shook her head at the driver, who had opened the front door and was waiting for her, and walked quickly through the downtown area toward her home. This time when Lucas called, she’d have some positive news for him. But she couldn’t wait for his call. She phoned his number four times, eager to reach him, wanting to tell him about Elton, and desperate to move ahead, to learn something else, but his telephone rang on and on and no one answered.

  She was sitting at the kitchen table next to the telephone, trying to keep her mind on her English homework, when Lucas finally telephoned.

  “I’ve got some information for you,” she said, and she read off her notes about Margo and Alice in a rush.

  “Very good,” he said. There was a pause. “I don’t hear you complaining that now there are only more questions to answer.”