“Look, I’ve got to be in Kingman by two. It’s noon now.” He motioned to the half-filled rack. “I’ve got a living to make.”
Laura handed him her card. “If you have anything more to share, you can call my mobile.”
“Like what?”
“Anything—maybe something you forgot about Dan and Kellee.”
As she turned away, she heard him snicker.
A block away, on Seventh Street, was Jimmy Davis Ford. Half the lot was taken up by humongous sport-utility vehicles, most of them navy blue, black, or tan. Triangular flags shivered on lines stretched around the lot—red, white and blue, to go with the large flag high up on a pole next to the office.
Laura was looking for Dave Lonigan, the assistant manager. He had been the one who first saw the fire from his home and called the fire department. According to his account, the SUVs were engulfed in flames by the time he reached the dealership.
An overweight, thirtyish man with wren-brown hair and plain features approached her. Kmart shirt and tie combo, small gold name tag that said, DAVE LONIGAN.
“May I help you, ma’am?” he asked.
She introduced herself. “Is there a place we can talk?”
“Sure.” He led the way into the showroom, mostly plate glass, past another shiny black behemoth and into a small office that barely held a desk and two chairs. Lots of olives and purples, fabric walls.
Laura asked him several questions about the SUV arson, and he answered her patiently, although he kept one eye on the parking lot. It must have been her day for swivelers; he swiveled back and forth in his purple chair and tapped the pencil of his pen and pencil set against the blotter, a closet drummer. He basically told her things she already knew from the report.
“You were first on the scene?”
“I saw the glow—I only live a few blocks from here.”
Everybody lived a few blocks away from everybody else in this town.
“I called 911, and then I jumped in the car and headed over there.”
“Did you know it was the dealership?”
“I had a pretty strong feeling.”
“Why was that?”
Swivel. “Location—where the fire was coming from. And—” He reached into the top desk drawer, withdrew a sheet of paper, and pushed it across the desk at her with a flourish that she suspected he used to get people to sign on the dotted line. Laura noticed he wore a Williams High School class ring and had manicured nails.
She looked at the paper, a photocopy. It was a memo from Jimmy R. Davis, the owner himself, warning his employees to report anything or anyone suspicious on the grounds.
“Somebody sent Mr. Davis a note basically threatening to do something like this,” Dave Lonigan said.
“Do you have a copy of the note?”
“No, ma’am. Mr. Davis does, but he’s not here right now.”
“Where is he?”
“He’s got another dealership in Pinetop. He’s there right now.”
Laura made note of that.
Dave Lonigan’s sharp eye caught a potential customer looking at a new Mustang. “Is that all?” he asked.
“For now.”
They both stood up, Lonigan eager to get out there. She followed him through the door, saw him stride in the direction of the lone woman. The woman took one look at him, made an about-face, and hurried to her car.
Lonigan stopped, looking resigned.
“That happen often?”
“With women it does. Some of them like to poke around for a while without anyone looking, get their bearings first.”He shook his head. “She didn’t look like the type, but who knows?” He looked at her. “You’re investigating Dan Yates’s murder, am I right?”
She nodded.
“Does that have anything to do with this? The arson?”
Laura was about to answer when he added, “The reason I asked, Dan Yates was here not two weeks ago, asking me about the same thing.”
“Dan Yates was?”
“Yes, ma’am. He wanted to talk to Mr. Davis. I think he wanted to see the note Mr. Davis got.”
“Do you know if he got to see him?”
“Not really. Mr. Davis wasn’t here, but he could have come back.”
Laura had put away her memo pad, but brought it back out again, turned a fresh page. “What did he say to you exactly?”
“He just wanted to know about the fire. He asked if we had any warning, and I told him we did. You don’t think someone shot him because of this?”
She ignored that. “Did he say anything else?”
“No. I had a customer.”
“What was his demeanor like?”
“He seemed, I don’t know, grim? Determined. Come to think of it, I bet he did talk to Mr. Davis. He had that look in his eye like nothing was going to get in his way.”
18
Tickled Pink, a clothing boutique on Aspen Street in downtown Flagstaff, was squeezed in between two other shops in a row of storefronts. The store on the right was called the Cliff’s Edge, an outdoor/sporting goods store catering to mountain climbers. The shop on the left was a soda fountain, tourists wearing shorts and flip-flops on this Indian summer day. Laura noticed a whole crew of girls about nine or ten years old, taking up the four wrought-iron tables and ice-cream-parlor chairs, chattering animatedly. Most of them wore tights and leotards under short skirts that barely skimmed their behinds. The girls who were standing seemed to naturally splay their feet out. They had unusual grace; most of them slim but not haggard. Hair pulled back. From their name tags Laura assumed they were part of a dance class on an outing, probably at NAU. There were also several women Laura assumed were their mothers, in their thirties and forties, looking like older versions of their daughters.
In between the young dancers and the specialized clientele of the Cliff’s Edge, the Tickled Pink staked out its own territory.
In the windows were translucent mannequins wearing pink—tank tops, low-riders, mini-skirts. All shades of pink interspersed with other colors in paisleys, plaids and flowers. One of the short skirts flying above the waist, in a racier version of Marilyn Monroe on the grate.
Everything that wasn’t translucent pink was mirrored, creating the effect of a hall of mirrors at a carnival. It gave Laura a headache.
According to her roommate, Heather Olson was supposed to be working today. A college-age girl sat behind a tall counter, wearing a pink blouse that that showed off a large bust. Laura wondered if wearing pink was a requirement of the job. The girl’s face was pretty but forgettable, her dark hair parted in the middle, healthy and shiny as a seal’s coat.
She held up pink-lensed cardboard glasses. “Want to wear these? They make everything pinker.”
“That’s the last thing I want.” Laura glanced around the store. Empty. Maybe this place wasn’t as cool as advertised. “I’m looking for Heather Olson.”
“That’s me.”
Laura approached, showed her shield.
Heather’s expression changed to pained. “Is this about Dan?”
“About Dan and Shana. Has Shana contacted you?”
“No.”
Something about the way she said it. A coolness?
“I understand you’re a friend of Shana’s?”
“Actually, I’m not.” Her voice a little high, her breath a little quicker. Not agitated, but it was clear that Shana’s name affected her—adversely.
“You’re not friends? I got the impression you were.”
“How’d that happen?”
“Her mother gave me a list of six or seven or her closest friends.”
“I doubt she’s got one friend, let alone six.”
That surprised her. “But you were friends, right?”
“In high school.”
“Is there anybody you can think of who she’d go see if she were in trouble?”
Heather jumped on that like a pouncing cat. “She’s in trouble?”
“I’m not saying that.
She’s certainly upset over her brother’s death. I just need to talk to her.”
“God, that’s awful about Dan. He was such a good guy.”
“But Shana wasn’t so great?”
“She’s a backstabber.”
“She backstabbed you?”
“Me and everybody else.”
“Can you tell me what it was about?”
“Oh, why not? There was this guy I really liked. She knew how I felt about him, but she went after him anyway. Even though she was living with someone—”
“The someone she was living with, was that her husband Ronnie?”
“Yeah, before they got married. I know she got pregnant just to get him to marry her.”
“I thought kids today were beyond that kind of thing.”
“Williams is a small town. Lots of white-bread people there, you know what I mean?”
“So she took this guy from you.”
“She didn’t take him. He wasn’t mine. She threw herself at him and he responded—what are you going to do, someone flaunts it in your face? That was the thing about Shana. Everything was a competition. She only wanted something if she couldn’t have it.”
“Did you ever meet Bobby Burdette?”
“Who?”
“A guy she’s seeing. You’ve never heard her talk about him?”
“I haven’t talked to Shana in three and a half years.”
Laura produced her list of names and numbers. “Do you know any of these girls?”
“All of them.”
“Would Shana go stay with any of them?”
Heather hunched over the book, her brows knitted together. “Maybe Jillian.”
“Jillian?”
“Jillian North. They were pretty thick, after she and I had our fight. Shana always found somebody. She went from friend to friend—like they were interchangeable. As long as she had someone to get through the day with. And when she got a boyfriend, she’d just leave you hanging.”
“Sounds like she put you through the wringer.”
“I’m not the only one. The school halls were littered with the bodies of ‘friends’ she walked over. I mean, I lasted longer than anybody else, but I’ve got eyes. She’d make friends with someone, spend all her time with them, and then she’d dump them and it was on to the next one.”
“But you think she might still be friends with this Jillian.”
Heather Olson shrugged. “Jillian lives in Tucson now, so if they were still friendly, it wouldn’t have the wear-and-tear, you know? Shana really builds you up, makes you feel like you’re the most special person ever, but after a while, it’s like she realizes you’re human and you make mistakes like everybody else.
“When she starts to see you as a real human being, you’d better watch out.”
Leaving Tickled Pink, Laura reflected that Heather Olson wasn’t over her experience with Shana Yates. She was about to try Jillian North’s number when she heard a sudden commotion next door—the screech of a wrought iron table being pushed back against the flagstones, someone saying “Give her room!”
One of the girls sitting on the ground, head down to her knees, gulping air.
Laura said to one of the mothers, “Do you need any help? I’m a police officer.”
The woman spun around. “I think we’re okay. She just needs to catch her breath—it’s happened before.”
Suddenly there was a loud whoop, and an ambulance glided up to the sidewalk.
Laura stepped back and watched as the paramedics approached the girl. She was now sitting on a chair. Head down, but she was nodding as they crouched beside her.
She looked familiar. It took Laura a few moments to realize where she’d met her before: Erin, Barbara Wingate’s granddaughter.
Barbara Wingate was crouched down alongside the paramedics, her face drawn with concern. Hard to believe she was a grandmother and not a mother—she fit right in with the mothers.
The woman beside Laura—blond ponytail, white Capri pants, a shell with small horizontal stripes—said something.
“I’m sorry?”
The woman looked to be in her mid-forties. The only thing that showed her age were her lips, which were tight and crimped under a cake of peach-colored lipstick. “I said, it’s a shame, but I don’t know if Erin is cut out for this. It seems like every time there’s a little excitement, it gets to her.”
Laura watched as the paramedics helped Erin to her feet and walked her toward the ambulance.
“This has happened before? Like this?”
“She’s got some kind of illness—Barbara has told us what it isn’t. The doctors don’t even know. Lately it’s been pretty scary—I heard she actually vomited blood. Poor thing.” She shivered. “I don’t want to sound uncharitable, but this is the third time this has happened, and it spoils—” She stopped herself. “It doesn’t spoil it, but the girls were supposed to have a good day, and then this happens …” She trailed off, giving up on trying to explain it, shrugging her muscled, tanned bare arms. “It’s just frustrating, that’s all.”
Barbara Wingate was talking to the paramedics outside the ambulance, the diesel engine vibrating, too loud to hear what they were saying. The planes of her face cut into sharp lines of concern, arms folded.
Finally, one of the paramedics nodded, and led Barbara around to the back. They closed the doors behind her and slowly drove away.
“Well, that’s that,” said the woman beside her.
“Are you here from Williams?”
“How’d you know that?”
“I’ve met Barbara Wingate before.”
“Oh. We’re here for the day—there’s a master class at the university. In fact it was Barb who arranged it. She knows some high muckety-muck on the board at NAU, so they invited our class. Julie!” she called. “Over here. You need money for lunch?”
A tall girl waved gracefully and toed her way through the crowd.
The woman flashed a nervous grin at Laura. “Don’t think I was being mean-spirited about Erin. She’s a nice girl and everyone really likes her, and Barb’s been fantastic. The moment just kind of got to me.” She walked over to meet her daughter.
As Laura walked back to her 4Runner, she tried the number Louise had given her for Jillian North in Tucson. An answering machine picked up. A man’s voice said that she had reached a certain number and added, “We can’t come to the phone right now, but if you leave a message …”
Smart enough not to identify themselves for potential scammers or telemarketers. Smart enough to have a man’s voice on the machine.
Laura left a message asking Jillian North to call her, hit END, and immediately punched the number in again. The answering machine came back on. The speaker sounded older, like a man in his forties or fifties, but the human voice could be deceptive.
She heard the ambulance pull out into traffic, no lights. Looked like Erin would be all right. It must be tough on a little girl, trying to get on with her life, do things that other girls did, and then have this happen.
She thought of the mother in the striped top and wondered if the rest of the mothers and the girls resented Erin’s health problems for getting in the way.
Laura found one of Dan’s roommates, Steve Banks, washing his car in the driveway of an old Craftsman bungalow fenced by a low wall made of volcanic rock. The car was small and black with a decal on the back window—Calvin urinating on the word Dodge.
Steve Banks was a tall guy with short dark hair, wearing only a pair of long shorts and Teva sandals. His pale skin was turning pink, and even at his age, he already had a little roll over the rucked waistband of the shorts.
He talked as he sprayed the car with a hose. “I already talked to you guys.”
“Humor me.”
He sighed, turned the hose off. “I don’t know anything about what happened with Dan. We hardly saw each other.”
Laura went through the same questions Richie had asked, and some new ones of her own. “Were you here t
hat Friday when he left?”
“No, I was at my girlfriend’s. You’ll have to talk to Brandon about that.”
Laura glanced at the notes Richie had left with her. Brandon Terry. “When can I reach him?”
“He’s around most afternoons. He has a lot of early classes this year.”
“Did Brandon say anything to you? About that day?”
“Nuh-uh.” He scratched at a white bump on his ankle—an ant bite. He looked down, saw the line of ants on the driveway, hopped backwards. “Oh, man!” Stepped onto the grass, pulling off his sandals, shook them.
Laura waited while he slipped his sandals back on. She circled her cell phone number on her card and asked him to have Brandon call her.
He was still scratching his toe when she left.
Bobby Burdette walked out of Tickled Pink and into the sunshine, but he did not feel it. He did not feel much of anything, except numbness.
He should have tended to business. Instead he’d diddled around, lounging by the pool in Vegas, coming back here, acting like the bread job was his real job. Like he was content to subsist by making sure Joe Blow had enough hotdog buns for his cookout. And because he didn’t prioritize, he had almost blown it.
He should have gone to see Shana first thing when he got back, but he had gotten busy. The date had been moved up, which had caught him flat-footed. He’d hit three different feed stores in three towns to get the fertilizer. Thinking that the amount of ANFO he had probably wouldn’t make a dent, but knowing if he bought more he’d have to rent a U-haul to tow on the back. That was too complicated, especially since the whole idea was not to use it at all.
He’d go with what he had and not worry about it.
But now Shana had taken off, and he’d missed running into that smart-ass female detective by twenty minutes.
Twenty minutes earlier, and they would have had a nice little conversation. You looking for Shana?
The Laura Cardinal Novels Page 46
