by Penny Warner
“Ms. Morris, we’re investigating a homicide that occurred in Flat Skunk recently. The victim received a message from you on her answering machine sometime after her death. We’d like to ask you a few questions if you don’t mind. Did you know Lacy Penzance?”
Arden Morris’s brow pinched a little. It might have been the sun. “No, I didn’t. Why?”
“Did you telephone her earlier this week?”
“Well, yes. I got a letter from her, then she called me a few days ago and left a very strange message on my machine. I called her back because I was curious. But apparently I was too late. I read about her death in the newspaper after I left the message.”
“What was her message?”
“She said she knew something about my husband and wanted to meet with me. She sounded so odd. I was kind of afraid to call her.”
“You never spoke to her?”
“No. No one answered when I called so I left a message. Then I found out she had died.”
“Exactly what time did you call, Mrs. Morris?” Dan asked.
“Uh, Tuesday night. I didn’t hear about her death until the evening news. I was out all day boating on the Delta.”
“When did she call you?” Dan continued.
“Uh, Monday afternoon, I believe it was.”
She sat down in her white wicker chair and guzzled the rest of her drink. Dan and I helped ourselves to seats nearby.
“Is your husband home, Ms. Morris?” I said.
“No. He’s …” She looked us over before she continued. “… at work.”
“Do you know if he knew Lacy Penzance?”
“I … I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
“I’d like to give him a call. Do you have his work number?”
She hesitated. “He’s away. I don’t have the number where he is …”
I looked at Dan, then back at her. “Are you and your husband … separated?” I said gently.
“Oh, no. Nothing like that. He’s just not home very much. I don’t like people to know I’m home alone a lot. We just moved here a couple of months ago and I don’t know that many people. My husband works as a foreign correspondent for National Geographic and right now he’s in a politically sensitive area in Latin America. He’s gone for long periods of time. It’s not easy, but we make it work.”
“Do you happen to have a picture of him, Ms. Morris?”
Arden Morris didn’t speak for a few minutes, as if trying to puzzle things out in her head. She looked up. “I’d sure like to know what this is all about. Is my husband …”
“We’re just checking everything we can. Do you have a photograph of him that I could see?” I persisted.
“What for?” she said slowly. “Is he … involved in this somehow?”
“To be honest, we don’t know. But if you could show us a picture, we might be able to tell you more,” Dan added.
Arden got up and went into the house, returning a few moments later with her purse. She opened the wallet and pulled out a photograph of a couple, standing at the side of a road, arm in arm. The picture was fuzzy and the features were difficult to make out. I could barely distinguish Arden Morris, only that the woman had red hair like hers. The man next to her looked like a zillion other men on the planet.
I passed the picture to Dan who gave it a once-over and returned it to me. On second glance I noticed something I hadn’t spotted when I’d been trying to make out the features of the couple. They were leaning against the side of a small car.
A red Miata. Just like the one that had run me off the road.
“Do you have a better picture of him, Ms. Morris?” I asked. “This one is difficult to make out.”
“That’s all I’ve got. He doesn’t like to have his picture taken much. He prefers to be behind the camera.”
“No wedding picture?”
She shook her head. “We just went to Vegas. He didn’t want to make a big deal of it. It was a second marriage for both of us.”
“How long have you been married?” Dan asked.
“Eight months next Saturday.”
“You were divorced before?” I asked.
“Widowed. Both of us.”
“You said you recently moved here? Where did you live before?”
“Angel’s Camp. It’s a small town in the gold country.”
I glanced at Dan then looked back at Arden Morris. “What’s your husband’s name, Ms. Morris?” I asked, scratching a growing patch of poison oak on my wrist that seemed to irritate me more when I was under stress.
“Del.”
I returned the photograph to Arden Morris and thanked her for her time. Dan and I left her sitting bewildered, sipping what was left of her drink on the front porch. “We’ll keep in touch,” I called back, but she didn’t respond. She was staring at the photograph.
“What do you think?” Dan asked, after we got back in the car and headed away from the expensive spread.
“I don’t know. Both Risa and Arden have husbands whose jobs keep them away for long periods of time. They’ve both been married only a short time. And they were both widows. They lived in the gold country. And both women have money, just like Lacy. I wonder if Risa Longo’s husband drives a red Miata.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Just a hunch.” I smiled mysteriously. “Now then, Lacy contacted both of those women, inquiring about their husbands. Why?”
Dan turned toward me as I drove through the main part of town. I could tell he was saying something but I couldn’t take my eyes off the winding road long enough to read his lips. I pulled the car over at a turnout. “Here, you drive.”
“Why?”
“I can read your lips better if I don’t have to watch the road too.”
I slid over the red-and-white tuck-and-roll as he walked around and got into the driver’s side.
“Okay, what did you say a moment ago?” I sat facing him and watched his mouth as he spoke. Sideways made it challenging, but not impossible.
“I said, you’re squeaking.” He tapped his ear.
I touched my hearing aid. It had come loose from its tight tuck inside my ear. This causes a high-pitched squeal that apparently annoys hearing people. I pushed it back in. He said something I couldn’t make out.
“What?” I said, puzzled by the way his lips were moving.
He glanced at me and smiled. “Nothing.”
“What? Tell me!”
“Nothing. I was just … singing.”
I looked at the radio. The light was on again.
“Oh.” My thoughts returned to Lacy. “Okay. How about this. How about Lacy, for some unknown reason, suspected her new boyfriend might already be involved—or married. To Risa Longo. It wasn’t her sister she was looking for. It was the other woman. That’s why Lacy went up to Whiskey Slide and demanded to see a photograph of Risa’s husband. A husband who doesn’t spend much time at home.”
Dan didn’t exactly nod in agreement, but he did comb his beard with his fingers, which made me think he was considering this.
“And what if, through her own investigation—or with the help of Boone—Lacy found out there was yet another wife, Arden Morris. A woman, also well-to-do, who also lives with a man who doesn’t spend much time at home.”
The beard combing turned into a vigorous brushing. I was onto something.
“What if Arden and Risa are married to the same man. The same man, in fact, who was courting Lacy Penzance, a recent widow—and also very wealthy. Both Risa and Arden, also widows, were well-off financially. So was Lacy. What if he were your ordinary con man, romancing lonely wealthy women for his best interest.”
Dan pressed his lips together.
I went on. “The question is, who is this guy?”
“The man in the red Miata?”
I raised an eyebrow. “I think we’d better stop by the Mark Twain and check out the guest who’s driving the red Miata. He may very well be the one who’d been seeing Lacy while trying to
keep a low profile.”
Dan stopped the beard grooming and placed both hands on the steering wheel. “If all this is true, isn’t it possible that one of the other wives might have killed Lacy when it was discovered Lacy might have been ‘the other woman’?”
I paused, sorting it out. “Well, then, why wouldn’t she kill both of the other women?”
Dan shrugged one shoulder. “Maybe because she doesn’t know about the other one. Maybe she only knew about Lacy, because of Lacy’s visit or phone message.”
“Or maybe she, whoever she is, simply hasn’t had time to kill off the other one. Killing people takes time and planning. Maybe Risa is planning to kill Arden or Arden is plotting the same thing about Risa, as we speak.” A sick feeling filled my stomach as I imagined the possibilities.
Dan interrupted my thoughts. “Maybe this mysterious husband is the killer. After all, he probably inherits once the wives are dead.”
My stomach tightened. I could feel my heart beat double time. “But then, why kill Lacy before he marries her? And why hasn’t he killed his other wives?”
I sat scratching my poison oak and consciously trying to keep my stomach from flipping over. I was going to make myself sore and sick if I didn’t stop.
“Do you think Sluice Jackson has anything to do with all this?” I asked, taking a deep breath and slumping against the back of the seat.
Dan turned his head to be sure I could see his lips move. “And what about my brother? Where does he fit into all this? Where the hell is he?”
“Mind if we stop off here for a few minutes?” Dan asked. He was pulling up to a rustic, windowless tavern in the middle of Rio Vista.
“You want a drink now?”
“Just want to see if maybe Boone stopped off while he was in town looking for Arden Morris. He did have a file folder with her name on it. Maybe somebody around here remembers him.”
I followed Dan into the dark country-western-style den of smoke and spirits. This was not one of the many California towns where smoking had become illegal. I inhaled two cigarettes worth as we headed for the polished oak bar. After questioning the bartender for a few moments, we returned to the car and fresh air.
“Nothing?” I asked, fanning my cotton top to get the smoke out.
Dan shook his head. “Mind if we check a few more?”
I didn’t, and we did. We hit several other saloons along the main street until we got to the far end of town. The Alibi Saloon greeted us with yet another “No Weapons, No Spitting, No Tank Tops,” sign as we entered. I hoped I could control my spitting.
The bartender wore a T-shirt with the words “Elvis Is My Personal Savior” written across the front, stretched to capacity over his straining gut. Once again Dan asked about his brother. The bartender glanced down at the picture of Boone.
“I think so. Yeah. Yeah, I think he might’a been in here. Had a double vodka on the rocks. Yeah. In fact, he had several. I never forget a drink. You can tell a lot about a man by his drink. Bet he was a cop, or an accountant. This guy was serious about his booze. Sat over there. Didn’t say much, until that other fellow arrived.”
“There was someone else?” Dan asked.
The bartender looked at Dan and smiled, revealing crooked, smoke-stained teeth. “What can I get you?”
I started to say “nothing,” but Dan interrupted. “Two beers. Red Dog.” He placed a ten-dollar bill on the counter. The bartender snatched it up and returned with two frosty bottles featuring an ugly red bulldog on the label, opened and ready to drink. He didn’t offer mugs. And he didn’t return the change.
“Yeah, there was another guy. But I don’t remember much about him ’cause he didn’t order nothin’ to drink. I always remember that, too.”
“Can you describe him at all?” Dan asked intently.
The bartender scrunched his eyebrows, rubbed his prickly chin, cleaned out an ear, and wiped his diggings on the front of his shirt.
“Nah. Looked regular, you know? Got a picture of him, too?”
Dan said no. The bartender thought another moment. Dan pulled out another ten and asked for a couple of bags of chips. Once again the bartender kept the change.
“Well, let’s see. I don’t think the other guy stayed very long. Bought your friend a drink but didn’t have nothin’ himself. They talked awhile, then the two of them took off. I do remember one thing. When he paid for your friend’s drink, he pulled out a fancy gold ring with the money. I remember ’cause he dropped it and swore when it rolled under the bar. He was almost panicky about losing it. Must have been real valuable. Too bad he found it.”
We’d had enough smoke to take five years off our lives. It was time to depart or get oxygen masks. We thanked the bartender for the half-drunk beers and unopened chips and left in search of a place to take a real food break. The bartender had recommended a restaurant called Al the Wop’s, located in the neighboring ghost town of Locke. Once a Chinese camp for the railroad workers, Locke now featured little more than the restaurant, a couple of Chinese museums, and a handful of antique stores.
“Mind if I make a couple of phone calls before we eat?” Dan asked. “I don’t want to leave Rio Vista without checking the hospital and sheriff’s office.”
I waited in the car while Dan stopped at an antique-looking pay phone and made the calls. I watched his lips repeat the same questions to the phone receiver; he seemed to get the same responses to each call.
Until the last one. Dan’s body language changed dramatically after he asked if there had been any unidentified men who had turned up recently. He stiffened abruptly, placed his finger in his other ear, and turned away so I couldn’t see his lips.
I got out of the car.
“What is it?” I mouthed the words through the glass when I caught Dan’s attention. He turned away from me again. I sat down on the fender of my car and waited, my stomach in knots.
After a few minutes Dan hung up the phone, then paused a moment before leaving the booth, his hand still on the receiver. I got to my feet and moved to the door. Dan slowly pulled open the shattered shatterproof glass door and stepped out.
“That was the local sheriff. They’ve got a floater, a John Doe, pulled from the Delta a few days ago. Sheriff says he’s pretty far gone, but I think we ought to take a look. Are you up for it?”
How do you get up for something like that? I got into the car.
We drove to the next town of Isleton and located the sheriff’s office between a secondhand thrift store and a video parlor. It was definitely a small-town operation, with a main room for greeting the public, a couple of offices, and a one-body morgue located at the back, where we were led.
“You think this might be your brother, huh?” Sheriff Cosetti asked matter-of-factly. “He doesn’t look like much, so prepare yourselves. A body floating in water for a few days can really be a mess. Putrefaction, it’s called. They get kind of bloated, and their skin turns a yellowish white and pasty, and it’s hard to make out the features …” I stopped watching his lips at that point and fell in behind the two men as we walked to the end of the building.
“Well, here we are. Take your time, now. There’s an emesis basin over yonder if you feel queasy, little lady.”
The sheriff opened the door and swept his hand forward, gesturing for us to lead the way. He followed us in, opened up the small refrigerated compartment, and pulled out a body, covered in a translucent plastic body bag. The sheriff unzipped the bag. The blurred features were indistinct.
I almost lost it at the smell, a reek of chemicals and decay forming a sickly sweet odor. I had smelled a variation of it when a mouse had died in my diner and I couldn’t locate it for days. Where was that emesis basin?
The sheriff spread the bag open to reveal the rest of the dead man’s mottled body. “He didn’t have a wallet or anything else that could help us identify him. We figured he must have been a drifter, ’cause nobody in town reported anything. His clothing’s in that bag over there. That’
s all that was left.”
“He wore a gold ring—” I started to say, but the sheriff cut me off with a shake of his head.
“No jewelry. The guy was cleaned out, except for his clothes. They even took the earring out of his ear. And his shoes.”
I watched Dan as he braced himself for a thorough viewing. I didn’t want to look anymore than I already had. But I almost couldn’t help myself. It was like peeking through fingers at a horror movie climax.
The face looked like it had been shaped from gray clay, soft, moist-looking, and mostly colorless. The body was bloated, bluish-white at the top of the chest and abdomen, and dark purplish underneath, where the blood had collected. There was a small bruise above his right nipple. I’d have nightmares for weeks. I started to turn away when Dan grabbed my arm for support.
“It’s him,” he said. I knew.
I could feel nearly the whole of Dan’s weight on my shoulder. I put my arm around his back in my feeble attempt to hold him up.
“It’s him,” he repeated. He lowered his head and covered his eyes.
The sheriff gave him a moment before he spoke. “The tattoo?” He was pointing to the bruise, which on closer inspection was actually a small black-and-red engraving of a heart pierced by a knife.
Dan pressed his eyes.
“I didn’t know he had a tattoo,” I said, surprised. “He never showed it to me. I guess I never saw him without his shirt.”
Dan dropped his hands to his side. His eyes were red-rimmed and welling. “He got it right after … his father died …” I thought he was going to continue but he turned abruptly and walked out of the room.
I met him in the hallway, took his arm, and walked with him to a chair in the main office. He pressed his eyes again with his fingertips, then raised his head. “I’m all right. Sheriff, I’ll … make arrangements for him when I get back to his, uh, the office.”
