The Murder Motif: An Austin, Texas Art Mystery (the Michelle Hodge Series Book 2)

by Roslyn Woods

  “What if he just goes to a grocery store or something?” asked Margie.

  “Not likely at this hour. My guess is he’s going home, but where’s home?”

  After twenty minutes, the Mercedes took the Onion Creek exit, and Margie followed at a distance. “You think he’s noticed us?”

  “Not with this kind of traffic. There’s not much, but there’s enough.”

  They went over an overpass to the east side of the interstate and pulled into the neighborhood. Even in the dark, it was a beautiful place with large homes and expansive lawns. To the south Shell could see that the golf course was only lit up along the walking trails. They turned right on Pinehurst.

  “Okay. Now there’s nobody between us and him,” said Margie.

  “When he stops we just keep going. We can turn around and come back after we’re out of sight.”

  In a few minutes the Mercedes pulled into a driveway on the west side of the street, and Shell could see the garage door opening.

  “Eureka!” she said. “Let me write down the number.” It was a ranch style house with white rock siding and a three-car garage. The number was clearly painted on the curb. 1717.

  “Oh Jesus!” said Margie, “Where do I turn around?”

  “Anywhere. It doesn’t matter.” As Shell looked back she could see the garage door closing. “He’s not leaving any time very soon.”

  They drove a half-mile further down the street and turned around. When they came back Shell said, “Park here. If we get too close he might spot us. We just need to be able to see the garage door.”

  “What about security?” asked Margie. “I hear security at these golf course neighborhoods is pretty ‘down your neck.’”

  “Let’s don’t worry about it till a security guard comes by and asks us why we’re here.”

  “Okay. I guess I’m borrowing trouble,” said Margie. “Could you hand me a Dr. Pepper?”

  “Sure,” said Shell, “but I’m not sure we need you to be any more hyped-up than you already are.”

  It was almost 11:30. They were just watching the garage door in their stocking caps when Margie’s cell buzzed. It was Donald.

  “Oh hi, Honey!” she answered. “Yes. Everything’s great…How about you?…Shell came over and we’re having a movie night…I know, but it’s going to take a few days for them to hook up the cable…Pride and Prejudice…Keira Knightley…Probably five times…I know but it’s one of Shell’s favorites…Oh that’s okay. We’re just making popcorn…Okay, Baby…I love you, too.” She hung up. “Donald says hi.”

  “Wow,” said Shell. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you lie before.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I see what you mean. Well, you can handle Dean if he calls.”

  “It’s harder with him.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Donald will forgive me when I tell him the truth on Sunday. He’ll understand why I didn’t want him to worry. Dean is more demanding of other people about their forthrightness. He demands consistency.”

  “He’s probably right to be that way.”

  “Yeah, but we’re doing this for his own good,” said his sister. “And he won’t let us tell him the truth without giving us a shitload of his wrath. I think we’re doing the right thing.”

  “Okay, now you sound like me.”

  “I know, huh? But I seem to cuss more.”

  “Just a little.”

  They stared at the garage door for a few more minutes.

  “You know,” said Margie, “Kojak might be in for the night. He might be just going to bed, taking the night off.”

  “I know. I don’t want to sit here all night while he sleeps. Let’s just wait a little while—Oh, look at that!”

  The garage door was opening. “Yikes!” said Margie.

  “Just don’t turn on your lights. Start the car and wait a minute.”

  Margie waited while the Mercedes pulled out of the driveway and headed back toward the entry to Onion Creek. She pulled out and didn’t turn on her lights till she entered traffic at the frontage road. There were only a few cars at this hour. She followed till they entered I-35 north.

  “Do you think we’re going back to the bar?” asked Margie.

  “I don’t know. It seems kinda weird to go back at this hour. Maybe,” said Shell.

  It didn’t take long to reach a turnoff. “He’s going to Bastrop!” said Shell as they followed him east onto the 71. “Why Bastrop?”

  “Maybe just that direction,” said Margie.

  She was right. In a few minutes he took the 183 north, back toward town and the river.

  “We’re probably headed back to the bar,” said Shell.

  “Then why didn’t he just stay on thirty-five?”

  “Good point. There aren’t many cars. You can stay back. The taillights are pretty distinctive. They look like cat eyes.”

  They continued following at a distance until the Mercedes exited at Levander Loop. There were more trees and fewer buildings in this area. Kind of secluded, thought Shell with a little shiver.

  “Oh, my God,” said Margie. “I think we’re going down to the river!”

  They were. The road wound around and descended in a circle and led past a parking lot under three bridges. “That’s the 183 over our heads,” said Shell. “One goes north, and two go south. Oh, God! He’s stopping here. Keep going! We can’t let him think we’re following him.”

  The Mercedes had pulled into a parking lot under the bridges. Shell guessed it was a spot where fishermen might come. It was overgrown down there, and even in the dark, Shell could see the river’s reflection from the lights on the bridges overhead.

  “There’s nobody down there but the Mercedes. No other cars,” Shell said softly. “Turn around and park on the shoulder up the road. And turn off your lights.”

  “Why are we whispering?”

  “Because we’re a little bit scared, I guess,” Shell answered with a smile Margie couldn’t see.

  Margie turned off her lights and pulled the car over into the tall grass on the side of the road and parked. “I am feeling scared, Shell. This is a deserted place. If something happened to us down here, no one would know for a long time.”

  “Nothing’s going to happen to us. Keep your phone handy. I’m going to go down there and see if I can get a look at anything.”

  “No, Shell! That’s not a good idea.”

  “Maybe he’s just going down there to smoke a joint. Maybe he’s just sitting there looking at the water. Or maybe he’s doing something we need to see to help Dean. I’ll be careful. Look, my clothes are dark, my hair’s in this dark cap, and I’ve got all that foliage to hide in. I just want to see what he’s doing.”

  “Turn the sound off on your phone.”

  “I just did. Lock yourself in.”

  “Be careful!”

  Shell got out of the minivan and ran across the road and into the tall grass and bushes. Margie could see that she was right. It would be nearly impossible to see her in there. She rolled her window down just enough to listen for any sounds while she sat in her locked car with her heart racing and tried to see her friend in the vegetation.

  While Margie worried, Shell was making her way toward the river in the darkness. It was extremely dark. She tripped over a broken limb and landed in deep grass and broken branches. Getting up again, she felt a cut near her eye. A little stream of blood was already making its way down to her chin as she continued forward through the branches. She heard the sound of a trunk or a car door closing. In a few minutes she found she had hiked down to a spot where the Mercedes was visible through the leaves. There was barely enough light to see that Kojak wasn’t there any longer.

  Please don’t let there be snakes, she thought as she sank to a sitting position in the grass. Just sit here and wait. It was a good hiding place. The car was visible, but even so, it was just too dark to see much else. In the distance the water bubbled along. Occasionally she heard a tr
uck or car passing noisily on the bridge overhead. She thought of her mother then, and how she wouldn’t want her to be doing this. Help me, Mom. Help me, Lana. She sat there pondering over the fact that she didn’t really believe in the supernatural but that she always seemed to pray when she was scared or worried.

  It seemed an eternity before she heard the squishy sound of wet feet trudging near her hiding place. Don’t find me. Don’t find me! She could see him by the light of the bridge overhead now. Kojak. He stopped in the darkness and looked intensely into the brambles for a moment. Shell held her breath while her heart thudded against her ribs.

  “Who’s there?” he called. Surely he could hear her heart beating. Surely he would see her in a moment.

  Suddenly someone large stepped out of the trees, and Kojak jumped backward. “What the hell?!” he shouted.

  “It’s not me! It’s not me!” shouted a man with huge hair. He was in complete silhouette, but Shell could see he was large, and he was waving his arms. “There’s ghosts in there! There’s ghosts and bodies in there!” he said, pointing with what appeared to be a large bottle. “I seen ‘em, and I heard ‘em. They’re in there, and they’re in the water!”

  “Asshole!” shouted Kojak. “Get back in your hole!”

  Even though he sounded angry, he ran to the Mercedes. In a moment his door was opened and Shell could see him clearly as he got in. His lights went on and he pulled out of the parking lot in a surge of spinning wheels and gravel.

  She didn’t wait to see what the homeless man would do. She jumped up out of her hiding place in the branches and ran through the parking lot under the bridge to the embankment that she fairly flew over. When she reached the road she realized she was still quite a ways from Margie. She ran across, pulled her phone from her pocket, and texted. Come to the parking lot. I’m on your side of the road.

  It didn’t take Margie thirty seconds to get there, but it felt like a long time to Shell. Margie could see her standing in the tall grass. Kojak was long gone by now. She stopped and Shell jumped in the car.

  “Oh my God, what happened to your face?”

  “Nothing. It’s just a scratch. Get us out of here Margie!”

  “Where to?”

  “Home! I think we should go home.”

  Chapter 40

  It was 1:15 a.m. when they headed for Margie’s house. They were rattled, and they were about to discuss what had happened when the sound of a text came in on Margie’s phone.

  “Would you look at that?” asked Margie as she turned north on Chicon. Shell picked up the phone from its place in the dash. Where are you?

  “Oh shit!” said Shell. “Dean’s discovered we’re not at the house.”

  “How?” asked Margie.

  “He must have called your land line.”

  “I never thought he’d do that!” said Margie. “I guess he knew we’d be up late and thought he’d check on us. You’d better answer him.”

  “With the truth?”

  “Yes. Tell him we’re on the way home. We went for a drive. Just let him think you’re me.”

  “Okay,” said Shell. Went for a drive. Almost back to my house.

  When he didn’t respond for a while, Shell thought maybe the answer had placated him. They turned in on 16th Street feeling tired and drained, but as they got closer to the house their hearts sank. In the glint of Margie’s headlights they could see the olive green of Dean’s jeep in the driveway.

  “Shit, shit, shit!” said Margie, hitting the steering wheel with her palms.

  “Ditto,” said her friend. “Time to face the music. I’ll take the blame.”

  “No.”

  “Yes,” said Shell as she opened the car door. “Where is he?”

  “He’s inside. He has a key.”

  At that moment Dean opened the front door. He didn’t speak but held the door open as the two women walked in. The living room lights seemed bright after hours in the car and the darkness, and Shell squinted as she walked in. She was completely unconscious of how they looked with their hair tucked under knitted caps. She herself was covered with bits of grass and leaves, and her face was smeared with blood.

  “What the hell’s happened?” he asked as he took in the picture of the two women, the little dogs yapping around their feet.

  “We’re okay,” Shell said. “We’re fine.” She pulled off the cap and her blond hair tumbled out.

  He reached for her then and took her face in his hands as he examined the cut beside her eye. “How?” he asked.

  “It’s just a scratch. I’m fine.”

  “More like a gash. It looks deep. There’s a lot of blood.”

  Shell reached up as he released her and felt her sticky neck and collar. It was worse than she thought. “You know what they say about head and face wounds bleeding. It’s no big deal.”

  “What am I,” asked Margie, “chopped liver?”

  “I can see you’re fine,” said Dean, as Margie pulled off her cap. “Look at your friend!”

  Margie did look then. “Oh, Jesus, Shell! It does look really bad.”

  “Well it isn’t. It doesn’t even hurt,” she lied. It was starting to hurt quite a bit.

  “I need to know what the two of you have been up to,” Dean continued, hands on his hips.

  “Actually,” said Shell, “I don’t like the feeling that I have to defend my actions to you. I actually make my own decisions.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means we don’t have to tell you what we’ve been up to.”

  “For God’s sake, Shell! I’ve been frantic! I’ve been picturing you two out drinking with dangerous people at Danny’s Place, and you have no idea how close I came to storming into that bar! Now I see you with blood on your face and you won’t tell me what’s going on?” He stared at her for a moment, then added, “Went for a drive, my ass!”

  She dropped onto the couch. “Okay,” she said as she gingerly touched the cut on her face for the first time since she had fallen in the darkness. “We followed Kojak when he left the bar,” she confessed. “It was my idea, so don’t blame Margie.”

  “But I thought it was the right thing to do,” added Margie, lifting her chin defiantly.

  “Oh, Lord Jesus!” he said, looking from one to the other and stopping on Shell’s blood-streaked face. “What were you thinking?”

  “We were thinking,” Shell answered, “we’d find out something about the criminal activity that’s going on over there. We wanted to try to figure out what they’re doing and who killed your wife. I know it sounds ridiculous, but we were hoping to find something that would help you.”

  Dean walked into the kitchen without speaking.

  Margie looked at Shell with big eyes and whispered, “We’re in deep shit!”

  They could hear him running water at the sink. In a minute he came back with wet paper towels and a box of tissue and sat next to Shell on the couch. He dabbed gently at the cut beside her eye and cleaned the blood from her face. Shell felt tears aching behind her eyes. Dean was all gentleness now. She had a sudden flashback to her father taking care of her after a bike spill when she was ten. She could see his plaid shirt and hear his soothing words. I’ve got you. You’re okay. Everybody takes a spill now and then. Spills make you strong.

  “Margie, do you have a first aid kit?” Dean asked.

  “Uh, yeah,” she said, and she went to get it.

  Then looking back at the cut on Shell’s face he said, “This could leave a scar. There’s actually quite a bit of blood. Your shirt’s probably ruined.”

  “I can soak it in cold water. Please don’t make it into a bigger deal than it is.” And stop being kind to me.

  “You’ll need to see a doctor in the morning,” he continued.

  He wasn’t even addressing the issue of their following Kojak. He wasn’t acting angry. Shell felt a lump at the back of her throat as tears filled her eyes. She looked away.

  Margie returned and hande
d him the first aid kit. He opened it and took out disinfectant and antibiotic ointment. “This is going to sting,” he said, and he dabbed the cut with cotton wool as two big tears spilled from Shell’s eyes.

  “Am I hurting you?” he asked, pulling back a little. But Shell shook her head and he continued. It was his kindness that hurt, and she almost wished he would say something mean.

  “You really make me feel helpless,” he said quietly, brushing the tears away with the tissue. “I talk to no avail. You just do whatever it is you two think is best and completely disregard my wishes as if this whole thing had nothing to do with me. I have no idea how to handle you.”

  “Then don’t,” said Shell softly. “I can’t speak for Margie, but I’ve never wanted to be handled.”

  Neither Shell nor Margie wanted to talk, but Margie sat watching her brother and her best friend with a dawning awareness that there was something beyond attraction between them.

  “Tell me what happened,” said Dean, as he put ointment and a large, square band-aid on Shell’s face.

  Margie looked at her friend before she began relaying how the trip went

  “We waited on Comal till Kojak pulled out of the alley,” she said. “And we followed him to a house in Onion Creek.” She proceeded to tell him about everything that led up to parking near the river. She stopped speaking and looked at Shell with a question in her eyes.

  “So I got out,” said Shell, quietly. “I ran through the bushes and trees down toward the water.”

  “Oh, Lord!” said Dean, running his hand through his hair. “Is that how you got hurt?”

  “I was hurrying because I didn’t want to miss anything. It was pretty dark. That’s when I fell. Anyway, when I got to the edge of the parking lot, I couldn’t see much, but I could barely see the Mercedes from the light of the bridge above me. He was gone for a long time. It was probably only twenty or twenty-five minutes, but it felt like hours. Eventually, I heard him returning to the car with sloshing, wet feet. He looked in the bushes and asked who was there, but I just stayed still. Then a homeless man jumped out of the trees and started screaming that there were ghosts and bodies in the woods and the water. And Kojak shouted and called him a name, and he ran to his car and drove away.”