Invisible

by Lorena McCourtney

  This struck me as more peculiar than enlightening. I don’t know much about cars, but I doubt an engine would even run if the spark plugs were in backwards. Or if it was even possible to put them in backwards. I also recalled seeing Kendra competently change a flat on the car herself one time, which suggested she probably wasn’t totally ignorant about the workings of other parts of the vehicle.

  But one word jumped out at me.

  Backwards.

  I got a peculiar little vibe of my own that had nothing to do with spark plugs.

  Had I been looking at Kendra’s reason for being here backwards?

  15

  What if Kendra had not been running away, as I’d been thinking, but had instead been running to someone?

  From what Detective Dixon had said, it looked as if she’d headed for Bottom-Buck Barney’s like me racing for a dollar sale on Sara Lee cheesecake at the supermarket. Thinking back, I again remembered Kendra saying she had something to do here, something that should be finished within a few days or weeks.

  Could she, rather than hiding from the man in the photo, have been searching for him? A lost love and a foolish quarrel or misunderstanding she wanted to rectify?

  But if that was the situation, why was she using a phony name and background and dyed hair? Why would searching for this man get her killed?

  Magnolia reached over and shook my arm. “Ivy, are you okay? You look as if you drifted off to some other world.”

  The S-word world, no doubt. “I’m fine,” I assured her. I stood up. “I was just thinking about some things I should be doing.”

  I wasn’t exactly sure what they were, but I did feel a sudden urgency. Kendra was dead, her killer was still out there somewhere, time was flying, and I was sitting here looking at Mac’s magnolia vase.

  On the way across the street, a different and more chilling twist on the possibility that Kendra was searching for the guy in the photo occurred to me. What if she’d wanted to find him not because he was someone dear to her but because he’d done something unscrupulous, even horrific, to her or her family? Had she been trying to run him down and bring him to justice? But when she found him, he killed her?

  Yes, that fit with a phony name and dyed hair and eyebrows.

  I intended to go over to Bottom-Buck Barney’s the next morning, but Detective Dixon called and said they did want my fingerprints. He met me at the station, and we took care of the interesting process of rolling my fingers in ink and pressing them on a little card. Then he gave me a map he’d drawn so I could find the church on Sunday.

  “Did they find many different fingerprints in the apartment?” I asked as I tucked the map into my purse.

  “Actually, no. Lots of Kendra’s prints, of course. Plus some blurry smudges. But only one other clear set, which I suspect will turn out to be yours.”

  “Which means that Kendra either removed the apartment’s contents herself, or whoever did it was wearing gloves.”

  “Right.”

  We didn’t have to exchange more words to know we both leaned toward the glove theory. So where was all that stuff from her apartment? And where was her car?

  I walked over to Bottom-Buck Barney’s about midmorning on Saturday. The used cars gleamed brighter than my Pledge-enhanced tomatoes. Flags waved, balloons bounced in the breeze, and a banner draped over the entrance read a tongue-boggling “Bottom-Buck Barney’s Blow-Your-Mind Blowout Sale!” A scent of chili drifted from a big pot simmering over a gas stove set up along one side of the building. Behind the paper-covered counter a young guy in a white chef’s hat stirred the pot, and two girls in short skirts vivaciously handed out soft drinks. A four-dinosaur merry-go-round for the kids tinkled carnival music. Very festive.

  The lot wasn’t crowded with customers, but a few were wandering around. As soon as a car pulled into the parking area, a salesman would break out of the vulture congregation around the main door and rush to greet the occupants. The salesmen, a couple of whom I tardily realized were women, wore identical dark pants, white shirts, spiffy little straw hats, and big smiles.

  I tried to think of something appropriate I could say if one of the salesmen cornered me. I wasn’t even sure what I was doing here, except that Kendra and Bottom-Buck Barney’s somehow seemed ominously intertwined. I finally settled on the old “I’m just looking” standby, although I suspected Barney’s salesmen were experts at transforming lookers into buyers. I reminded myself that no matter how convincing they were, I was not going to become the new owner of a ’92 Buick.

  I needn’t have worried, however. No salesman rushed to greet me. No one asked if I was looking for some specific vehicle. No one inquired if I’d like to take a test drive. They were, so far as I could determine from a stroll past one salesman studying his fingernails, totally unaware of my existence. LOL Ivy Malone was not even a blip on the screen of their potential buyer radar.

  I resisted an urge to stick my fingers in the corners of my mouth and cross my eyes to see if I could even make myself visible to them. Instead, I reminded myself to enjoy my freedom as I wandered unnoticed among the bright rows of cars and pickups. Yet after some fifteen minutes of this, I still didn’t know why I was here. The day was also getting uncomfortably hot, and I decided with some frustration that I might as well just pick up a bowl of free chili and head for home. It was then I spotted the car. I stopped short.

  It was a Corolla. Red. Exactly like Kendra’s car. A double take assured me it was Kendra’s car. Same gray upholstery. Same rearview mirrors. Same radio antenna.

  But then I also realized that I was surrounded by Corollas; it was as if a wagon train of them had moved in and circled up for the night. And, except for color, I couldn’t see a smidgen of difference among them.

  So perhaps this wasn’t Kendra’s car. Maybe it was just another red Corolla.

  But then, maybe it was her car.

  An easy way to find out. Detective Dixon could check the license plate numbers.

  Except the red Corolla had no license plates. The metal-rimmed oblong squares were empty.

  This was definitely a situation for Detective Dixon, but I was reluctant to bother him with something totally off the wall. He was a generous-minded young man. He thought I had guts. But I also suspected he viewed my spending nights in a cemetery of overturned tombstones as borderline eccentric, and I didn’t want to cross over that border by coming up with some goofball idea about a look-alike red Corolla.

  Then I remembered. The key! Kendra had said she always kept a spare key in a really out-of-the-way space behind the front bumper. Someone could have found and removed it, of course. But if the key was there, I’d know this was Kendra’s car.

  I got down on my knees and felt around the metallic underpinnings of the car. No luck. I couldn’t even find the hiding space Kendra had mentioned. I scrunched lower, until I was lying on my side half under the bumper. Now my arms wouldn’t bend right for the search. I turned over on my back and scooted further under.

  And that was when I learned that while I might in total be invisible, the lower half of my body sticking out from under a Corolla was not.

  “Hey, what’re you doing under there?” a male voice yelled.

  While I was trying to figure out an appropriate answer to that question, another even more excited female voice yelled, “You idiot! Maybe she fell and broke something. Maybe she’s had a heart attack! Get an ambulance.”

  With a screaming ambulance a complication I definitely did not want, I hooked my elbows in the asphalt and shoved. I shot out from under the car like an oiled pig.

  So there I was, flat on my back on the asphalt at Bottom-Buck Barney’s, with my derrière feeling like shredded cheese and a flower-petal arrangement of salesmen and curious customers peering down at me. “I’m fine,” I croaked hastily. “I don’t need an ambulance. I was just …”

  Just what? In the mystery and detective books I read, the clever characters have no problem with blithe lies or pretenses to gain inf
ormation or get out of awkward situations. But I’d always had a squeamish relationship with untruths.

  “Just looking for a lost key,” I finished on a surge of mild elation for holding to my standards. No need to be specific about what key or where I was looking for it.

  Although, when I tried to get up, I had to admit I’d stretched the truth about how I was feeling. Definitely not as fine as before I’d started squirming around on hot asphalt.

  The saleswoman rushed to help me to my feet. She brushed my backside. I scraped at what felt like permanently embedded asphalt in my elbows.

  “You’d better come inside and rest for a few minutes,” she said.

  I started to decline the offer but changed my mind. Perhaps a few minutes with Tiffany, the eager young woman I’d talked to who did “receptionist stuff,” could prove profitable.

  The saleswoman solicitously walked me inside and handed me over to a young woman with exuberant blond hair and curves. This was a Tiffany if ever I saw one.

  “Oh my, are you okay?” The young woman guided me to a chair by her desk. “My grandma fell like that once and broke her hip, and it was just awful. Oh, and it looks as if you have a stain on your pretty blouse.”

  With unexpected efficiency she produced a spray can of something and worked on the back of my blouse with a paper towel. “Would you like a Mountain Dew or bottle of spring water? I can get one from the machine right over there.”

  “A plain glass of water would be nice.” Do young people know plain old tap water exists anymore?

  She brought a paper cup of water she’d located somewhere. “Do you feel faint or anything?” Little furrows of concern appeared between her baby-blue eyes.

  “No, I’m fine.”

  “You know, your voice sounds so familiar,” she said. She perched on the corner of her desk, her short skirt revealing unexpectedly sturdy legs, and studied me. “I’m very sensitive to voices. I’m taking acting lessons, so I try to listen to everyone I hear to catch the nuances of voices so I can use them myself.”

  I was surprised that she knew what a nuance was. And then I felt guilty for making a prejudgment about her just because she was young and cute and bubbly. “That’s very interesting.”

  “This is my southern voice.” She slid off the desk and draped her hand on a jutted hip. “‘Ah don’t mind makin’ a fool of ma-self ovuh you, Brick.’ That’s Maggie the Cat. You know, from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof?”

  I recognized the title, if not the quotation. A word I thought might be appropriate came to mind. “Awesome.”

  “Hey, now I remember where I heard your voice. You’re Kendra’s friend. You called up and asked about her when she quit!”

  I was astonished. And impressed. This really was rather awesome. Also a bit unnerving. I’ve never been inclined toward anonymous crank calls, but I’ll certainly think twice before making one if my voice is that identifiable. Although probably few people shared this voice-sensitive talent of Tiffany’s.

  “Ummm …” I demurred.

  Tiffany didn’t wait for me to confirm or deny her identification. “I’m the one you talked to that day, Tiffany, remember? And now Kendra’s dead,” she said. “Isn’t it terrible? That anyone could do something like that to her? Or to anyone. I suppose her body has been sent to her family somewhere for a funeral?”

  “I believe there’s been some … delay there.” I thought about mentioning that the Corolla on the lot looked like Kendra’s, but I decided to be more circumspect. “I was looking at a nice little Corolla out there when I had my … incident. I notice it has no license plates. I was wondering what that meant.”

  “Oh, some of our cars come from wholesalers in other states, but when they’re sold here they have to have new license plates from this state.”

  If this was Kendra’s car, it shouldn’t be lacking Missouri plates. But still, it looked so much like Kendra’s car. “Could you find out where this particular car came from?”

  “Kendra probably could have done it on the computer. She knew how to do all that stuff. But I don’t.”

  “Has someone taken Kendra’s place now?”

  “Jessica Holt is Mr. Retzloff’s assistant now. She’s no Kendra,” Tiffany added with a roll of eyes.

  “You mean she isn’t as competent?”

  “Oh, I’m sure she’s competent enough. She’s been working at some big new car dealership on the other side of town. I think we’re just a bunch of used-car peasants to her.”

  I stood up and thanked Tiffany for the water and the cleanup on my blouse. Then I remembered something. I dug in my purse and pulled out one of the photocopies of the snapshot I’d found in Kendra’s apartment.

  “Is this anyone you know?”

  Tiffany studied the black-and-white copy. “No, but I wish I did. He looks … nice.”

  The word was generic, but the hint of wistfulness in her voice impressed me. No oohs and aahs about the guy’s hunky good looks or the snazzy convertible. I could appreciate a young woman attracted to a man because he looked nice.

  “Is there some reason I should know him?” she asked.

  “I’m not sure. Maybe. Kendra may have known him.”

  “I could make a copy of this and show it around.” Tiffany motioned to a copy machine in the corner. “I haven’t been here long, and maybe somebody else will recognize him if he used to work here.”

  “You can keep this one. And give me a call if you find out anything.” I scribbled my phone number on the back side of the photo.

  Tiffany put the photocopy in her desk. “Did you come in a car?”

  “No, but—”

  “You shouldn’t be walking in this heat. How about if I drive you home?”

  “Mr. Retzloff would just let you leave?”

  She gave me a conspiratorial wink. “I’m entitled to a coffee break.”

  I declined the offer, but again I was impressed with Tiffany. Willing to use her coffee break to take me home. A very nice young woman. It was none of my business, but I asked her where she lived.

  “I’m still at home with my folks. My sister was killed in a car accident last year, and I think they need me at home for a while yet.”

  Yes. A very nice young woman.

  *

  It wasn’t until I was back home that it occurred to me that putting my phone number on the back of the photocopy wasn’t a wise idea. If this guy had put a bullet in Kendra because she’d found him, how would he react if he realized I was on his trail?

  Too late to do anything about it now, however. And probably nothing to be concerned about anyway. The guy obviously wasn’t working at Barney’s now, so there was no reason to think he’d find out I was asking about him.

  *

  That evening, the newspaper reported a surprising development in the vandalism case at Country Peace. The subdivision developer who was worried about vandalism spreading to his equipment, a man named Drake Braxton of Braxton Building and Development Corporation, had offered his construction crew to dig up each of the graves, all thirty-six of them. He’d then donate a quarter-acre on the back edge of his subdivision in which to have the bodies reinterred, and he’d supply a secure fence as well. The cemetery could then be turned over to some appropriate organization for maintenance, and donations could be accepted to furnish a bronze headstone for each grave.

  “I think we all want to see these loved ones where they will be safe,” the reporter quoted him as saying. There were two photos, one of the desecrated cemetery and another of the proposed new site on the far side of his subdivision.

  An expensive undertaking, and a most generous offer to rectify an unpleasant situation. Mr. Braxton was surely to be commended.

  Yet I didn’t really like the idea of scrunching all the graves into a quarter acre of ground. The spaciousness of Country Peace was part of its charm, as if each gravesite had a country place of its own. And it would be a shame if all those wonderful, individualistic headstones were replaced by flat look-alike
s.

  On impulse I sat down and wrote a letter to the editor thanking Mr. Braxton for his generous offer but suggesting that some local organization take over restoration and maintenance of the cemetery where it was now located. I pledged a hundred dollar donation toward the project.

  *

  That evening I scrubbed more asphalt stains out of my elbows and set out clothes for church with Detective Dixon the following morning. Navy blue skirt and matching heels, pale blue, bow-at-the-neckline blouse, diamond stud earrings Harley had given me.

  But church with Detective Dixon was not to be.

  16

  Actually, I did go to church.

  The location was in the triangle of a three-point intersection, and the sign stuck on a minuscule plot of grass identified this modest brick building as Tri-Corners Community Church. People clasped my hand and asked my name, and the congregation claimed an eclectic mixture of young and old, suits and jeans, pearls and funky earrings.

  The music was a mixture too, old hymns and lively praise choruses, and yes, one voice definitely boomed off-key. Made me feel wonderfully at home. The message, delivered by a lean young pastor who looked as if he might run marathons in his spare time, was from Romans 10:9. As I listened to the sermon, I noted the image of Christ centered on the lone stained glass window behind the pulpit.

  I also made mental excuses for Detective Dixon all through the service. Car trouble. Sudden illness. Police emergency. But by the time I was back in the Thunderbird, my ears still tingling with invitations to return, it was obvious he wasn’t coming.

  I sat there with disappointment puddling around me. Some of the puddle was simply because he’d stood me up, of course. I’d looked forward to this morning with him. In spite of murder being our connection, he lifted my spirits. The bigger disappointment, however, was for Officer Dixon himself. Apparently his interest in church was merely a passing impulse. I pictured him sleeping late, snoring off a late night out, and thought of the conversation Magnolia and I had shared about where the world was headed in a handbasket, young people leading the pack.