by Louise Ure
There was no noise of search dogs or police walkie-talkies on the block now, but it had already been five days since Wanda Prentice’s murder. I hoped the information on that California license plate would help them. I didn’t want to think about more sleepless nights, wondering if I would be the next victim.
Nellis had sounded so dismissive about the license plate. Had he ever checked into it? Maybe I should call Dupree when I got home. Maybe he’d be open-minded to following up on it.
“Whoa. What happened to you?” Turbo greeted me.
“Another run-in with a car. The police think it has something to do with that murder down the block. Think maybe the guy’s after me too.”
“Yeah, right. Because you’d make such a good witness.”
I ignored him and headed for Walt’s office but got the same treatment there.
“What do you want me to work on today, Walt?”
“The way you look, you ought to be working on yourself! I’ve junked cars with less damage on them.”
That sounded so much like the day he’d hired me that I had to laugh. Although it was years ago, I could still remember the desperation in my voice. Walt had heard it too. I was practically begging. “Give me a try. Any car you have in here. I’ll do a full tune-up and have her singing ‘Back Home Again in Indiana’ in thirty minutes flat.”
Walt had guided me to the carcass of an original VW Bug and I traced its rounded contours with shaky hands. There was more rust and Bondo than there was paint. I touched and tapped and breathed in the scent of every part of that car, from the pitted chrome around the headlights to the rough ovenlike surface of the tailpipes. When Walt started it up, I heard the wheezing and rales of an engine on its deathbed. This was a landscape I recognized, a territory I could explore even without my eyes.
A half hour later, when I turned the key and the engine gave that unmistakable VW growl of a healthy sewing machine on megavitamins, I knew I had a job.
“I’ve got some stitches in my knee,” I told Walt, coming out of my nostalgia, “so I can’t do much kneeling down but—”
“How about you just pack wheel bearings for Turbo? You can do that without moving around much.”
“Thanks.” I hadn’t realized how weak I really was. Even the walk to the shop had taken a lot out of me. By the time Turbo and I had repacked the bearings on an old Pontiac and mounted new tires for the car, I was about done in.
I told Walt I’d try to make it back in the next day, but he brushed aside my good intentions. “Don’t come back until you can do the work, Stick. I’ll pay you for the next couple of days, anyway. You were kind of on the job when you got hit Thursday, you know? Just consider it my civic duty.”
I smiled my thanks, wormed out of my overalls, and baby-stepped back home. It was only midafternoon, but I felt like I’d been on my feet for a week.
I tapped up to the gravel driveway at the house and breathed in the honeysuckle smell at the edge of the property. Yeah, I was tired, but maybe I’d take just a moment to spray the plants and savor that special Arizona blend of airborne water and dust.
Juanita had always insisted that she would only plant things that the Arizona Highway Department grew in the medians of the state’s freeways. “If the Highway Department can’t kill ’em, then I can’t either.” But I loved to garden, to get my hands deep into good soil, and I mostly chose plants for their texture and fragrance. This year I had planted pots of lavender, soft velvety lamb’s ears, sweet-smelling pineapple sage, and Mexican feather grass, as delicate and brushlike as its name. Almost two dozen pots were clustered into fragrant families across the gravel in my front yard. Most of them wouldn’t last more than one season in this heat, but if I was religious about watering them, they might have a chance.
I breathed in the scent of my next-door neighbor’s struggling imported roses and once again laughed at the incongruity of an unsighted person wanting to garden in a land of thorny bushes and cacti.
A car idled just down the street. Going nowhere fast. I didn’t hear the ca-chunk of a misfiring engine like the car that had run me down, but I still didn’t like the notion that somebody—somebody silent and unmoving—was watching me from that car.
“Cadence!” My neighbor, Mr. Lotz, called from behind the roses.
I jumped, then cleared my throat to mask the nervousness.
“Mrs. Arnold down the block said you’d been hit by a car. What are you doing out of bed? Can I help you with anything?”
“I’m okay. Just banged up my knee.”
“Can I bring you some chicken soup?”
His wife made a mean chicken soup. “Absolutely. I’ll trade you for some fresh green corn tamales. Come on in.”
He followed me to the front door and took the house keys from me when my trembling fingers missed the lock.
As tired as I felt, it was still nice to have someone around to keep the bogeyman away.
Chapter 42
“Why’s she staring at us?” Lolly whispered.
“Shhh.”
They hadn’t waited on the Mount Lemmon highway to watch the van burn. Better to be far away if anyone noticed the flames. But he couldn’t leave town with that one thing dangling. He’d promised Lolly. The woman who had talked to the cops was the only thing standing between them and a safe new life.
He’d seen her twice in this neighborhood now. Once on Thursday night when they went into Mrs. Prentice’s house, and then again on Sunday when he’d almost been able to get rid of her. He knew his chances of finding her again were good, and there she was, right there in the front yard watering plants. Just like she was waiting for him.
“Cadence!” A balding head peered around the rosebush next to the driveway. He couldn’t hear every word, but he got the gist of it. “Mrs. Arnold down the block…hit by a…out of bed? Can I…?” The neighbor came around the hedge and toward the woman with the hose. The woman replied and pointed to her knee. Then the bald head followed her to the front door.
He wasn’t worried. He knew where she lived; he could take all the time in the world.
Chapter 42
After Mr. Lotz left, I took a quick shower, not so much to get the grime off as to cool down. The doorbell rang as I stepped out of the tub. I pulled on a T-shirt and sweatpants, gave my wet head a rub with the towel, and approached the front door, my nose close to the jamb. That earthy scent of aftershave again.
“Hello, Detective. Are you alone?”
He gave a grunt of surprise. “How did you know it was me?”
“Your aftershave.”
“No, I mean, before you opened the door.”
“Your aftershave.” I smiled, but he didn’t laugh in response. “That’s a joke. I heard your police radio. Come on in.”
I ushered him in and offered a cold drink. Using my forefinger to gauge how full the glasses were, I added ice and returned to the living room.
“I have a favor to ask of you, Ms. Moran. Something that may help us with this investigation.”
I didn’t encourage him, knowing how flawed my help had been so far.
“I want you to meet with Mrs. Prentice’s granddaughter.”
“What good is that going to do?” She was probably already blaming me for not calling the cops when I heard that muted scream.
“We think she knows more than she’s telling us. If she was there, just having her see you at the station may make her think you’re there as a witness against her—that you can identify her. Or maybe you’ll catch her in something that you know was a lie from that night.”
“You think being blind gives me special powers of ESP, Detective?”
“Please. She might have been one of the people you heard running from the house. You owe it to Mrs. Prentice.”
I wished he hadn’t said that. I hugged my elbows and ducked my head.
“Please, Ms. Moran. You’re all I’ve got.”
“I’ll do it.” And heaven help us all if I’m your only hope.
Dupree
took me down to the station. In the car, he filled me in on Priscilla Strout’s story about going barhopping on Thursday night.
I recognized the route through the lobby to the elevator but lost my sense of direction on the way to the interview room.
Priscilla Strout was already seated when we got there, drumming her fingernails on the table. It must have been a different room from the one they had taken me to the night after the murder. This table sounded like metal rather than Formica.
“There’s a small table three feet in front of you, Ms. Moran,” Dupree said. “And an empty chair on its left. Mrs. Strout is seated on the right side of the table.” I took two steps into the room and Dupree shut the door behind us.
“Mrs. Strout? This is Cadence Moran, the witness who came forward the night your grandmother was killed,” he said.
“Call me Priss.” Her voice came from waist level, almost in front of me. She wore an overwhelming fragrance of gardenia with undertones of vanilla, much too liberally applied. I moved forward until my fingers brushed the edge of the metal table.
Priscilla Strout was silent, maybe uncomfortable around people with disabilities, or maybe wondering whether I knew she had a part in the murder. Finally she said, “I know who you are. I saw your picture in the paper.”
I waited, wondering where to start. I knew so little about that night—the car, the killer. How did Dupree think I could trip her up?
“What kind of shoes are you wearing?”
There was a pause while both Strout and Dupree wondered where I was going with this.
“High-heeled sandals. Red,” Strout said, as if the color could possibly make a difference to me. “I always wear high heels. I have trouble with my Achilles tendon and they’re the only shoes I’m comfortable in.”
“Do you always wear the same perfume you have on today?”
Priscilla was happy with the change in topic. “Isn’t it wonderful? It’s called Camellia Nights and I’ve worn it for years. I think it’s just about the sexiest thing I’ve ever smelled.”
At last, we’d found a topic she could get excited about, although I bet that the name was really Gardenia Nights.
I thanked her and tapped my way to the door. Dupree joined me, then made sure the door was closed behind us. He led me over to his desk and I sank into the guest chair, my hands resting on the dogs-head cane.
“It’s not Priscilla. She wasn’t there.”
“How do you know?”
“Two things. First the shoes I heard were not high heels. The footsteps were different from the sound high heels make. These sounded thinner, like a flat leather sole. But you’d have to confirm that she only has high-heeled shoes at home. Otherwise, who knows what she was wearing that night?”
“What’s the second thing?”
“The perfume. I didn’t smell it the night I heard Mrs. Prentice scream. And as heavily as she wears it, it would have been obvious if she was anywhere nearby.”
“Well, that fits her story of being out on the town that night.”
I was feeling a grim satisfaction in at least clearing one suspect, until Dupree added, “Now we just need to prove she didn’t get somebody else to do her dirty work.”
Chapter 43
When Nellis returned to the squad room, Dupree told him about Cadence Moran’s scent memory and the confirmation of flat-soled shoes running from the murder scene.
“I wish you’d stop believing every damn word that comes out of that woman’s mouth, August. She hasn’t been right about anything yet.” His ruddy cheeks ballooned with his sigh.
“Oh, I take some of it with a grain of salt. But she might be worth listening to every now and again.”
Nellis didn’t seem willing to give her that much credit. “Just because she didn’t smell that woman’s perfume doesn’t mean Priscilla Strout wasn’t involved in this. We’ve only found Randy Owner so far. Who knows how many other guys she’s fucking? And get this…I checked car thefts for the night Mrs. Prentice was killed. A ’67 Corvette was stolen from a bar on Wilmot about eight o’clock that night.”
“Maybe that’s why Randy Owner doesn’t want to fess up to being with Priss. I wonder what he was driving when he met her that night? Let’s swing by her house and ask her. And make sure she doesn’t have any flat-soled shoes.”
It took almost two hours to get a search warrant and retrace the route to Catalina.
They stopped at the wheeled plastic garbage can at the curb in front of the Strouts’ home before they approached the house. Taco Bell wrappers and a pizza carton. “If she threw those shoes away, she didn’t do it here,” Nellis said.
Arlen Strout answered the door, bare-chested and with a can of Coke in his hand. A Cardinals game was blaring from the TV in the living room.
“We have a warrant to search the premises, Mr. Strout,” Dupree said, handing him the paperwork.
“Help yourself.” Strout opened the door wider. “But where’s Priss? Isn’t she with you?”
“What do you mean? An officer brought her home more than an hour ago.”
Strout shook his head. “I’ve been here all day.”
Dupree turned to his partner. “Check with Ogilvy. He was supposed to bring her home. Maybe they had car trouble.”
Nellis moved off to the kitchen, his cell phone at his ear. Dupree and Strout remained standing, glaring at each other like hesitant duelists, each unwilling to take the first shot.
“Tell me, Mr. Strout, did your wife ever get a prescription filled for her grandmother? Ever do any shopping for her at the Best Aid?” Randy Owner wasn’t the only candidate to be Priss’s accomplice. Maybe she and John Stephanos had already talked about how hard it was to wait for her grandmother to die. Maybe that’s why Stephanos blew up at Mrs. Prentice at the pharmacy.
“I don’t know. You’d have to ask her.” His arms were locked and loaded across his chest.
“Where’s my wife?” Strout snarled when Nellis returned to the living room.
“Officer Ogilvy dropped her off here a little after three o’clock. He didn’t stay to watch her go in, but she was walking up the driveway when he pulled away.”
“Your Chrysler is still here,” Dupree said. “Do you have any other vehicles?”
Strout shook his head.
“Maybe she just walked up to the corner store?”
“An hour and a half to go to the corner store?”
“It’s too early to file a missing person report,” Dupree said. “But we’ll tell all mobile units to be on the lookout for her. In the meantime, let’s check around here and see if there’s any clue where she’s gone.”
Strout followed Nellis as he searched the kitchen and living room. Dupree headed straight for the bedroom closet.
Turquoise sandals with a strap between the toes. Cowboy boot mules with high stacked heels. Black stilettos that he would have loved to see his wife in.
“Doesn’t your wife have any flats, Mr. Strout? Any sneakers?”
“She’s got problems with her feet. Said it was gonna have to be either high heels or orthopedic shoes.”
“Are there any suitcases missing? Any toiletries?”
Strout checked under the bed, where two canvas suitcases collected dust, then the bathroom. He came out carrying a toothbrush in one hand and a bottle of perfume in the other.
“Everything’s still here.”
They checked the trunk of the Chrysler in the driveway before they left. No Priscilla Strout and no flat shoes.
“Think she ran?” Nellis asked.
“Either that or that jealous husband in there just wants us to think so. We might be looking for another body.”
Chapter 44
Dupree returned from the taco wagon on the corner with a greasy paper bag in his hand. Five-fifteen and they still hadn’t had lunch yet.
The phone rang, interrupting his first bite. He answered and listened. “We’ll be right there.”
“What’s that about?” Nellis asked.
<
br /> “We’ve got another body. A man this time—a James McDougall—but it might be the same MO. Killed with a knife and nothing but the kitchen was touched.”
“Let’s go.” They rewrapped their almost-lunches and dropped them in the trash.
It was six o’clock by the time they got across town to the tan-colored brick house on the quiet cul-de-sac on the north side of the city. Crime scene tape was strung from the prickly pear cactus on one side of the yard to the six-foot saguaro on the other. They ducked under the tape and Dupree greeted the officer at the front door.
“Who found him?” Dupree asked.
“A guy from his job.” He chin-gestured to a man in a denim shirt just outside the crime scene tape. “McDougall was supposed to help him do some work on his house today.”
“Keep him there. We’ll want to talk to him later.”
Dupree preceded Nellis into the house. The curtains were still drawn and it was cool and dark in the living room.
“Do people really live here?” Dupree muttered. Everything was a pristine, icy white. Clear plastic casings covered the white sofa and two side chairs, ivory lamp shades retained the clear acetate ribbons that were wound around them at the store, and a two-foot-wide strip of heavy-duty plastic covered the pale shag rug in a trail that led from the front door to the kitchen.
A large wooden crucifix, complete with the thin, tortured body of Christ, hung over the sofa. There was a well-thumbed Bible on the coffee table, along with a bowl of wrapped chewing gum and candy, but Dupree didn’t see any other books. He also didn’t see a television. Had the thief taken it? Or was this a household that disdained that kind of blasphemy? It would have been difficult to see the picture if the television had been plastic-wrapped anyway. “The body’s in here,” a second officer said, waving them into the bedroom.
