The Fault Tree

by Louise Ure

  “Why do you think it’s the man who ran you down?” Like he was talking to a dangerous idiot.

  “It could be the same kind of car that my neighbor described—it’s a tan Chevy Lumina—and it smells like antifreeze—”

  “Ah, antifreeze again. Do you have the plate number?” Humor the poor woman is what it sounded like to me. I repeated the license information. “I’ll make a note of it. Thanks for calling.”

  Oh yeah, it was loud and clear: I’m just being polite but I have absolutely no intention of making this a priority. It was just one more unlikely avenue of investigation for him and he already had too many “possibles” and not enough “sures.” Or maybe it was just one more complaint from a silly blind lady whose judgment he didn’t trust much in the first place.

  “Is he still here in the parking lot?” I asked Juanita.

  “No, he headed west on Grant.”

  “Let’s follow him.”

  “The cops have got the number now, Cade. Let them find him.”

  I knew she was right, but I still felt a shiver move up my spine as if the killer had reached out a dark, horny hand and placed it on my shoulder.

  Chapter 31

  “Hand me that screwdriver, Lolly.”

  He’d waited until the movie theater parking lot was full of matineegoers, then knelt down to unscrew the plates from an old Nissan in the back row. They were the reddish-brown plates that were supposed to be reminiscent of Arizona copper mines but instead looked like peanut butter left too long in the sun.

  Now that they were back at his house, he could swap them for the original plates on the van.

  “They look right at home there,” she said, handing over the screwdriver.

  She was right. The stolen plates looked just as dusty and banged up as the car did. He screwed the plates in place and kicked up a little dirt to cover the fresh tool marks.

  “We need to talk, Lolly.” He sat down on the bare earth, leaned back against the rear tire, and patted the shady patch of dirt next to him. She scootched over.

  “Nobody was supposed to get hurt,” he said.

  “What did you expect me to do? She was coming after you!”

  “I guess, maybe, we should have just run away.”

  She glared at him. “Run away? Easy for you to say. You don’t have to put up with all the shit at home like I do. And she was asking for it, the bitch.”

  “We’ll find a way to be together—”

  “Not without money, we won’t. And that old woman was the best source of money I know. Didn’t she go on and on about all her treasures? Egging me on all the time?”

  Money. It was all he could think about. It shouldn’t be up to Lolly to get the money so they could leave. That was his job. He was the man, and he should be providing for her. Protecting her.

  “You know, what you did back there—”

  “What we did,” she corrected him.

  “We. I’d never let you go to jail for that, Lolly. If we get caught, you tell ’em you had nothing to do with it. I planned it all. I killed her. Okay?”

  She draped her arm across his shoulders. “We won’t get caught. And we’ll be smarter next time.”

  Next time? His stomach recoiled at the thought. But what other choice did they have? Leave Tucson in the dead of night with a half tank of gas and no plans? Beg for money in front of the McDonald’s when they got hungry? And that’s only if he could get her away from her old man. He wouldn’t put Lolly through that. He had to find a way to get some money and get her out of that house.

  “What time do you have to get back?” he asked.

  “Pretty soon. He’ll be getting up to go to work.”

  He rose and dusted off the seat of his pants, then helped her up and wrapped his arms around her. If they could only stay like this—just the two of them, with no one else in the world to interfere. And soon they’d have even more reason to be together. He breathed in the sweet scent at the nape of her neck.

  “C’mon. I’ll give you a ride back home,” he said.

  The old Econoline started without complaint and he turned right to join the interstate heading north into town. Maybe he could rob a bank. Hit a convenience store. Just one score like that would give them enough money to get out of town. And maybe it wouldn’t involve killing.

  He’d always thought that loving Lolly was a good step in his life. He’d never felt so whole. Together, they could do anything. But killing, and a life on the run, was not what he’d thought their life together would be.

  He unrolled a pink wad of Bazooka and popped it in his mouth. He ought to be using sugar-free gum. He hadn’t checked his blood sugar for days, and worrying about Lolly and the killing had thrown his levels out of whack. He pulled into the Walgreens parking lot, leaving Lolly in the car while he went in to get testing supplies.

  “Can I see you again tonight?” he asked when he got back in the car.

  “I don’t know. He’s started checking up on me. Calling from work.”

  He pulled to the curb at the corner, out of sight of her front door, and tugged her toward him. “I’ll take you away. I will. Please believe that. It won’t be long now.”

  Chapter 32

  “August, wait till you get a load of this.” Dupree looked up as Nellis bustled across the room, shoved a pile of papers to the side, and plugged in the portable tape deck. The tape spun lazily from one side of the cassette to the other. The woman’s voice was scratchy but audible.

  “Randy? It’s Priss.”

  Dupree raised an eyebrow and leaned in closer. “What the hell is this?” He turned off the electric fan he’d plugged in next to his desk, in order to hear the tape more clearly.

  “It looks like Ms. Grieving Granddaughter of the Murder Victim is dumber than we thought. She made this call from your desk phone yesterday afternoon after her interview. Mowray thought he overheard something weird when he walked over to escort her out, so he got Communications to make him a copy of the call,” Nellis said.

  “Hey, Good-Lookin’,” the tape continued. A male voice. Deep but young.

  “How about if we get together tomorrow night instead of Thursday? I’ve been so uptight, what with the police and all.”

  “The police?”

  A whispered reply. “1 can’t talk right now. I’m down at the police station.”

  Dupree paused the tape. “Any idea who this guy is?”

  “Randall Owner, according to the number she dialed.”

  The voice on the other end of the line erupted. “Priss, are you fucking nuts? Calling me from the police station?”

  “Hey, I don’t have a cell phone, and it’s easier to call you from here than from home. Relax, they don’t know anything about you. So, what do you say, tomorrow, same time as usual?”

  There was a pause and then, “Fine.”

  A dial tone. No good-bye.

  “Get a tail on that woman right now.”

  Dupree pulled to the curb behind the unmarked car. They were four houses away from Priscilla and Arlen Strout’s house but with a clear view of the front door and driveway.

  “What have you got?” Dupree asked the young undercover cop, Heidi Rodriguez. Nellis pulled out a piece of nicotine gum.

  “The husband left at six-thirty, on foot. A radio car said he got the bus out to the airport from the next block over.”

  “Yeah, he’s on the night shift.”

  “The missus got back here at seven o’clock and carried three big Kmart bags into the house.”

  “Spending money like somebody who expects to come into an inheritance, huh?”

  “Clothes shopping by the looks of it. She pulled a red blouse out of one bag on her way to the door.”

  They sat silently as the darkness settled around them. All the lights were on in the house. Dupree made himself a note to have the Strouts’ old Chrysler checked for a radiator or hose leak. It didn’t exactly fit the description of a tan minivan or station wagon, but eyewitness accounts were oft
en wrong, and in the right light or in a stressful situation, that could be how you’d describe the big white beast.

  It was a damn shame he couldn’t make the same leap of faith and morph Stephanos’s blue BMW into a tan minivan. Everything they were getting back said this lousy pharmacist got his bachelor’s degree in criminal conspiracy and fraud instead of health administration.

  Nellis trigger-flipped his Zippo.

  “Not here. She’ll see you,” Dupree said.

  Nellis groaned and shoved the lighter back in his pocket.

  It was almost nine o’clock when Priscilla Strout finally made her move, wearing tight jeans and what Dupree guessed was that new red blouse. She left one light burning inside but extinguished the porch light as she slipped out the front door. She drove straight to the Bum Steer bar with the detectives’ surveillance vehicle tucked into the same lane three cars back.

  Dupree gave her a head start, then sent Rodriguez inside to handle surveillance. He could hear the band’s bass amplifier from here; it shook the two-story wooden building like a series of well-timed earthquakes. He wiped a hand over the dome of his head and tugged at his earlobes. It had been a long day and looked like it was going to be a longer night.

  He tried his daughter’s number again. “Bitsy, honey, you know I just want what’s best for you. Call me. We can talk about this.” Was she going to keep screening her calls for the next decade just to spite him?

  A few minutes later, Heidi Rodriguez slipped into the seat behind him. She was in her late twenties and wore her dark hair in a loose ponytail. The white jeans and spaghetti-strap top made her look more like a college student than a cop. Dupree hung up the cell phone and half turned to the backseat.

  “Whew, that’s one noisy bar,” she said. “I had to wait to get the stool right next to Strout before I could hear anything.”

  “Who’s she meeting with?”

  “A young guy. Light brown hair, six one, two hundred pounds. His name is Randy, so it’s gotta be the right guy. And based on the amount of tar on his boots and under his nails, I’d say he works as a roofer or on a paving crew.”

  Nellis groaned under his breath.

  “Does it look like business or pleasure between them?” Dupree asked.

  “Can’t tell. I heard him ask her if she was alone tonight. She said, ‘Yeah, for the first time in a long time.’”

  “We’ll stop them on the way out and take him downtown. Find out what he and Strout have going.”

  Rodriguez unfolded herself from the backseat and retraced her path to the front door of the bar.

  Nellis let out a long sigh.

  “What’s all the whining about?” Dupree asked when Rodriguez was out of earshot.

  “Shit. It sounds just like Carole. Remember when I told you that she said I was never home and never talked to her? Then she declared Wednesday night girls’ night out, only I find out that Carole is the only girl involved.” He paused. “And that the paving crew she was hanging with at the bar was laying more than asphalt.”

  Dupree shook his head in commiseration, then turned his attention back to the front of the bar. He’d been hoping for proof that Priscilla Strout was involved with her grandmother’s murder and that she would lead them to her accomplice. Was it Arlen, who was already pushing for information on the will? Or maybe this Randy Owner? Owner was tall enough to have left that nose print.

  Had Owner been convinced by love or by money? Was he a hired thug Priscilla Strout had found to do the dirty work, or was there something going on between them? He imagined Owner’s car coasting to the curb in front of Wanda Prentice’s house. Mrs. Prentice would have recognized her granddaughter, but did she put up a fight because she didn’t know the man? Did she threaten to tell Arlen about his wife’s nighttime activities?

  A splash of music brightened the air when the door to the bar opened. Priscilla Strout and Randy Owner came out together, walking hand in hand toward a black truck in the back corner of the lot. Rodriguez was on them like a beagle on a rabbit.

  “Gotcha,” Dupree said under his breath.

  Chapter 33

  A tan Chevy Lumina with California plates. At least my bogeyman was gaining definition. I wondered if the detectives had been successful in tracking it down. Or if they’d even tried.

  I’d have to tell Kevin and the guys at the shop about it. Have them keep an eye out for the car. And I ought to alert my neighbors too.

  I shivered, even though the evening temperature was almost ninety.

  I didn’t want to be alone with my thoughts tonight, and I had the perfect solution. At my request, Juanita had asked for one of the tapes of Wanda’s Story Hour that had been delivered to the police station.

  I tapped it into the slot on the VCR and pushed Play. Jewelry box-ballerina music came through the speakers, then a soft, sweet voice asked all the children to gather around to hear a story.

  I pictured a dozen pajama-clad children plopped on cushions at her feet. She would have been dressed like a princess.

  Wanda Prentice’s tone had changed over the years, but that decades-old tape held the essence of my friendly neighbor’s voice. Lilting. Honeyed. Smile-curved around the edges.

  I spent the night with Wanda Prentice and The Little Engine That Could. They made me feel better, even though, more often than not, I was The Engine That Was Too Scared to Even Try.

  Chapter 34

  Nellis waited until Officer Rodriguez had put Randy Owner in her car, then tucked Priscilla Strout in the back of his Crown Vic. He and Dupree remained silent during the trip from the bar to police headquarters, letting the specter of jail and culpability take shape in her mind.

  “Does Arlen have to know about this?” she whined as Nellis escorted her to an interview room.

  He didn’t answer.

  Dupree shoved Randy Owner into a separate room. While he fidgeted, Nellis did a computer check for wants and warrants. The records indicated a conviction for grand theft auto when he was twenty-one. Nothing since then.

  “Looks like he specialized in Corvettes,” Nellis said “Maybe Randy’s been a good boy for the last five years, but it’s more likely that he’s learned not to get caught.”

  “Ah, the things you learn in prison,” Dupree agreed. “You take the lead with Priscilla Strout. Maybe she’ll be a little more forthcoming tonight.”

  “Tell me about Randall Owner,” Nellis said to Priscilla as they entered the room.

  “Is that his name? He told me to call him Randy, but I didn’t know if that was his real name.”

  She twirled a lock of hair around her index finger and pleaded with Nellis from under downcast eyes. “You don’t have to tell Arlen, do you?”

  “You mean the same way you didn’t tell him about stealing your grandmother’s ring?” Dupree asked from the back of the room.

  “Steal it! She gave it to me!” Priscilla Strout twisted the ring again and ricocheted between their unresponsive faces. “Well, she would have given it to me if I’d asked.”

  Nellis herded her back to the original topic. “How long have you been meeting Randy Owner?”

  “A couple of months. It’s not really an affair, not like that. I was just looking for a little excitement.” Her crossed legs twined together like a man-eating vine. “Sometimes we’d get a room or go back to his place. Sometimes we used the back of his truck or some other car.”

  Nellis kept his eyes on the notepad in front of him, waiting for her to fill the silence.

  “Randy always gave me a present, and I made sure no one ever saw me.”

  “A present?” Nellis looked up, but Priscilla avoided his eyes.

  “Usually about forty bucks. Please don’t tell Arlen. You don’t know what he’s like.” Dupree couldn’t tell if she was more afraid of Arlen’s fists or of losing her extracurricular income.

  “You have any other boyfriends, Mrs. Strout?”

  “Not really. Well, nothing regular. Sometimes if I meet somebody nice I’ll mayb
e make out with him. But that’s not really—”

  Nellis leaned back in his chair and linked his hands behind his head. “I see. You’re hooking.”

  “Well, I don’t have enough money to go out on my own. Do you have any idea how long it’s been since I even got to buy a new pair of shoes? And it was perfectly safe…”

  “Yeah, up until the point where you and one of these boyfriends decided to rip off your grandmother. What was it? Did you just get tired of waiting for her to die? Did she wake up while you were ransacking the kitchen?”

  “I swear. I was with Randy last Thursday. I never went to my grandmother’s house.”

  “Prove it.” Nellis shoved the legal pad toward her. “Write down every place you went on Thursday night and every person who can verify you were there.”

  Nellis joined Dupree at the wall. He flipped to the page in his notebook where he had written the tag number that Cadence Moran had called in, underlined it twice, and pointed it out to Dupree.

  If that plate number had anything to do with Randall Owner or any of Priscilla Strout’s other boyfriends, Dupree knew they were going to have to do a full-on Catholic-style-bended-knee mea culpa to the blind woman.

  Chapter 35

  I jerked awake, but having my eyes wide open didn’t help. I could still imagine the demon-racing engine and spinning tires that had pursued me in my dream. The phantom face in the car was in silhouette, but bright lights had cut like knifepoints through the darkness.

  I’d fallen asleep after the ten o’clock news and it was barely midnight now, but I felt like the nightmare had lasted for days.

  Someone wanted me dead. And in the still-air silence of the night, I heard his approach with every breath. Did that short, sharp sound come from a neighbor’s house, or was it the squeal of my rusty screen door? Was that muffled clunk a stray dog in the garbage can, or the footfall of a predator in the next room?