Death Takes a Ride (The Cate Kinkaid Files Book #3): A Novel

by Lorena McCourtney

  Hmmm. Why would Candy think a private investigator was a threat if she hadn’t done anything?

  “You threatened him with a lawyer,” Cate pointed out.

  In a mercurial switch of emotions, Candy laughed as if she were delighted with herself. “I did, didn’t I?”

  Cate didn’t laugh with her. Bluntly she said, “Maybe what really upsets you is that you figured Kane would be forking over that thirty thousand by now, and he isn’t. Why was Kane getting the money for you?”

  “He wasn’t! I didn’t know anything about—” Candy broke off and thrust her head forward as if she might go into earring-attack mode. Instead, she straightened and offered another smile. “I have questions. You have questions. Maybe we can help each other out here.”

  Cate hesitated. There were questions she’d like to ask the ex–Mrs. Blakely. But Candy’s suggestion smacked of underhanded collusion between them. “I don’t think so.”

  “Matt and Radine told you a lot of unflattering stuff about me, didn’t they?”

  “They didn’t tell me all that much, but I don’t think you can count on a helpful reference for a résumé from either of them.”

  Candy’s second big sigh struck Cate as melodramatic. “Maybe we could just back up and start over?” Her nicely shaped eyebrows lifted hopefully. “I know I’ve come off as the Wicked Witch of the West here, but I do have some redeeming qualities.”

  Maybe a snake had redeeming qualities too, but Cate wasn’t inclined to get close enough to the forked tongue to figure out what they were.

  Candy smiled again, and now the smile was rich and warm as a fresh cappuccino. “I brush my teeth and see my dentist regularly. I make great lasagna. I dote on babies and kittens and puppies. I even like that big, hairy mutt of Kane’s. In fact, the dog must have been down here with Kane, and I’m worried about what’s happened to him. I don’t suppose you’d know?”

  Candy’s concern about the dog made a small dent in Cate’s antagonism toward the woman. “A friend of mine is taking care of the dog temporarily. I’d have done it, but my cat and Clancy didn’t get along.”

  “Really? He and my Persian do fine together.”

  Several surprises in that offhand statement. One, that Candy had a cat. Two, that the cat and Clancy got along. Three, that this must mean Candy and Kane had some relationship close enough to involve her cat and his dog.

  Was it possible Candy Blakely wasn’t quite the obnoxious, money-hungry witch that Halliday, Radine, and Shirley had made her out to be? Although, if she wasn’t, she’d certainly done a credible impersonation of one back there in the office.

  Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to see what information she could glean from Candy.

  10

  “I could use a cappuccino,” Cate said tentatively. “How about you? The Valley River Center mall isn’t far from here. Are you familiar with it?”

  “Does a duck know where the closest water is? Of course I know where the mall is! One of my favorite places when I lived here. I’ll meet you at the food court in fifteen minutes.”

  At the food court, Cate spotted Candy already in line at the espresso stand. Cate got in behind her. They both ordered caramel cappuccinos. With their drinks in hand, Candy wound through the maze of tables to a far corner. She draped her fur jacket over the back of a chair. Cate decided she’d let Candy take the lead in this unexpected discussion and see where she ran with it.

  “So, are you a Eugene native?” Candy asked. She spooned a fluff of whipped cream off the cappuccino.

  The ask-you-about-yourself approach, no doubt to be followed by a good-listener response.

  “I came up from California a couple years ago, but I was raised down in southern Oregon. Gold Hill, to be exact.”

  “Gold Hill! Oh, I’ve been there. Kane and I went to some funny celebration down there once. They had outhouse races!”

  Right. Perhaps not one of the small town’s finer moments. “How about you?” Cate asked.

  “I grew up in Beaverton, started college at Oregon State, got married and never graduated. Got unmarried, had a few jobs, started modeling in Portland, and came down to Eugene to do a fashion show here at the mall. Met Kane and got married six weeks later. Where we became Candy and Kane. Say that fast and you get visions of sugarplums dancing in your head.” Candy wrinkled her nose as if the combination was not one of the more appealing aspects of the matrimonial merger.

  Cate tried to make her “um” sound thoughtful.

  “We lived here for a while and then moved up to Salem when Kane and Matt decided to expand H&B to a second city.”

  “Did something happen to precipitate the animosity between you and Mr. Halliday?”

  Cate expected Candy to downgrade the open hostility, or perhaps even reveal some pre-Kane relationship with Halliday that went down in flames, but Candy just frowned.

  “I didn’t even meet Matt until after Kane and I flew down to Vegas to get married, but he seemed to dislike me from day one. I guess I have to admit the feeling is mutual. The man is boring as an old car-repair manual. Picky as a disinfectant salesman with a germ fetish.”

  Cate didn’t encourage this line of criticism, but Candy didn’t need encouragement.

  “Finding a transmission for a Model A is his idea of big excitement. He’d rather spend his time putting a carburetor in an old Mustang than do anything fun. Kane and I went out to dinner with Matt and Marilee a few times, and he was so nitpicky it was embarrassing. He’d practically get out a magnifying glass to inspect the silverware, and then he’d dip a napkin in a water glass and start scrubbing. Then he always found something to argue about on the bill.”

  “Kane isn’t boring or nitpicky, I take it?”

  “He at least reads a book occasionally, and can talk about it, and he likes to play tennis and golf and go to a movie or dancing. He’s fun, always joking and teasing. We learned scuba diving together. Kane had his flaws as a husband, but being boring wasn’t one of them.” Brief hesitation before she added, “I loved him.”

  “There was some friction between you and Kane’s son and daughter?” Cate asked.

  Candy tilted her head. “Let’s see—you’re pointing out that I don’t get along with Matt. That there were problems with Kane’s son and daughter. You make it sound like I’m as prickly as a porcupine with a personality disorder!”

  “Sorry.”

  Candy leaned forward, arms on the small table. “Yes, there was ‘friction.’ Having your new stepdaughter call you a tramp who seduced her dad into marriage can do that. Having a stepson make a pass at you behind his father’s back, and then, when you won’t play, threaten to tell his father you made the pass, that’ll generate some friction too. Especially when he did make that pass.”

  All of which would tend to produce some family discord, Cate had to agree. Although the be-suspicious-of-everyone trait that had rubbed off on her from Uncle Joe made her add to herself, If she’s telling it the way it really happened. “You must not be much older than the son and daughter.”

  “Marrying an older man isn’t a crime!”

  True. Kane had led Shirley to believe the family split with his son and daughter was Candy’s fault, but maybe his children’s attitude was a big part of the problem. Although six weeks from meeting to wedding might make some people think someone was railroading a rush to the altar. But, if you didn’t make a prejudgment, maybe that someone was Kane.

  Two sides to everything.

  “So what broke up the marriage?” Cate asked.

  Candy shrugged. “We started getting on each other’s nerves. We had money problems. Kane didn’t like my interest in politics. I got tired of his obsession with watching every one of those CSI shows on TV.”

  “He got boring?” Cate suggested.

  “Or maybe I did. I don’t know. Even though we were short on money, he started spending most weekends over on the coast. Without me.”

  “Another woman?”

  “I figured there might be, bu
t I never really knew. I probably should have hired someone like you to investigate or follow him.” Candy frowned as her appraising inspection took in Cate’s red hair and old green sweater, as if she wasn’t convinced Cate could find pickles in a pickle jar, let alone a straying husband. “Do you do that?”

  “Occasionally.”

  “But I didn’t do it. So I still don’t know.” In a sharp change of subjects, Candy added, “The hair color’s real, isn’t it?”

  “Would I dye it this color?” Cate asked.

  Candy laughed. “You could touch it up, you know, just so it wouldn’t be so tomato-on-fire looking.”

  Apparently the buttering up was over.

  Candy fumbled in her purse and dragged out a pack of cigarettes. Then, apparently remembering the Oregon law about smoking in restaurants, she shoved the pack back in the Coach bag. “I’ve been trying to quit, but I’m so upset about Kane I can’t do it now.” She put a mint in her mouth instead.

  “I understand that you pretty much took him to the cleaners in the divorce.”

  “You don’t pull any punches, do you?” Candy said. It was not a compliment. “Okay, I admit it, I grabbed everything I could get my hands on. Kane didn’t want me modeling after we got married, so I dropped that, and it isn’t something you can step right back into. I had something coming to make up for giving up my career for him, didn’t I?”

  Cate pressed the mental voice button that turned on her all-purpose “um.”

  “Although there wasn’t all that much to get. Kane was a big spender. He liked to impress people with something like sending a hundred-dollar bottle of champagne over to their table at a restaurant. Treating everybody in a bar to drinks. Making a big event out of donating money to some charity. But, as you may or may not know, the Salem branch of H&B has been floundering financially. They’ll probably close it. That’s what Kane and Matt were having their big powwow about.”

  “You knew about the meeting ahead of time?”

  “Kane told me he was coming down here to meet with Matt.”

  “But he didn’t tell you about the money?” Cate didn’t try to keep a hint of skepticism out of the statement.

  “No, I didn’t know about the money.” Candy gave an exasperated roll of eyes.

  “The car you drive isn’t exactly a low-budget model.”

  “No, but it’s a hybrid. Good for the environment.” Then as if she were annoyed with herself for responding to Cate’s comment about her vehicle, she snapped, “And what does my car have to do with anything anyway? I’m paying for it, not Kane. I’m working for Mark Gillerman. He’s in the state legislature now, and he’ll probably be our next senator in Washington DC. I can’t rattle around in an old junker.”

  Cate murmured the all-purpose “um.”

  “I got the house. Big deal.” Candy threw up her hands. “The mortgage payment is a killer.” She stopped short, as if thinking that wasn’t the most sensitive way to put it, under the circumstances. Then she shrugged. “I love the place, but I’d unload it if I could. But the real estate market is in the pits. I may wind up losing it to foreclosure.”

  So Candy needed money. Big money. Car payments. House payments. Pink Coach handbags. Maybe she’d eyed that $30,000 too? If it wasn’t intended for her, had she been ruthless enough to go after it with a hired gunman?

  “How did Matt get ahold of you anyway?” Candy demanded. “Just look in the yellow pages under private investigators? Or maybe you tack flyers on doors or advertise on TV?”

  “Belmont Investigations is in the yellow pages, but no, that isn’t how—” Cate broke off as she realized what this question meant. “You didn’t know I was there at H&B when Kane was shot?”

  Candy’s blue eyes widened. “No, I didn’t know that! The newspaper didn’t mention you. And Matt didn’t tell me. You mean you saw Kane get shot?”

  Cate explained about being out in the warehouse, although not on PI business, and running in when she heard the gunshots.

  “So now you’re working with the police investigating this?”

  Well, no. The police and Cate were not exactly on BFF status.

  “The police have their investigation. I have mine,” she said with a lofty inflection, as if the separation were her choice. She sat back and purposely dropped an out-of-the-blue subject into the conversation. “So, how do you know Mace Jackson?”

  Candy sloshed cappuccino on the table, apparently startled by the abrupt question. She busied herself wiping up the puddle with a napkin, but she didn’t pretend not to recognize the name. “The gunman Matt shot and killed after the guy shot Kane? All I know is what I read in the newspaper. Why would you think I know him?”

  Maybe because you hired him? “He’s from Salem.”

  “You’re from Eugene. Do you know every scumbag who lives here?” Candy challenged.

  Good point. Although, since becoming a PI, Cate had gotten to know more of the local scumbag population than she’d ever expected. Candy saying she didn’t know Jackson didn’t necessarily mean she didn’t know him. Cate jumped subjects again.

  “I haven’t met Matt’s wife. Marilee, that’s her name?”

  “She isn’t his wife now. Didn’t I mention that? Matt was pretty broken up when she picked up and left. Which surprised me. I didn’t think he had that much emotion in him. Maybe he didn’t realize what he had until she was gone.”

  “What was she like?”

  Candy leaned back and sipped her cappuccino thoughtfully. “I didn’t really know her very well. They didn’t have kids, but she was, you know, housewifey. And I’m not. She was into arts and crafts, painting, that kind of thing. She hardly ever said anything. Of course, if she did say anything, Matt just put her down, like her thoughts or opinions were worthless.”

  “Did she resent that?”

  “She never seemed to. But sometimes I thought, maybe she was one of those meek, quiet women you hear about who finally has had enough and just up and poisons or shoots her husband. And everyone is so astonished, because she was such a sweet little wife.”

  “Did she get a big settlement in the divorce?”

  “As far as I know, she walked away with nothing.”

  A vengeful ex-wife hires a gunman to storm in and get rid of the ex-husband who wronged her, and pick up a $30,000 bonus? Except that wasn’t what happened. Mace Jackson shot Kane Blakely, not Matt Halliday. Unless he made a mistake and got the wrong guy?

  “Where is she now?”

  “I have no idea. I don’t think Matt does either. Hopefully, she’s living it up with someone more exciting than Matt.”

  “That’s your standard of excellence in a husband, then, how exciting he is?”

  Candy let the unflattering question go unanswered. Her mouth pinched. “Oh, I know. I’m probably being unfair to Matt. In his own boring, pompous, nitpicky way, he’s steady, dependable as an old Volkswagen Bug.”

  “Being boring, pompous, and nitpicky aren’t exactly in the top-ten sins.”

  “I suppose not. And Matt has no bad habits, no vices. He’s loyal, responsible, and trustworthy. Punctual too. You could set your clock or calendar by Matt. He must have a bundle socked away for retirement. He sure never spends anything now.”

  Cate remembered how Halliday had described himself. Stodgy. “But when Kane needed money, Mr. Halliday was quick and generous enough to provide it for him.”

  Candy didn’t bother with applause. She leaned forward, and Cate saw a distinctly predatory gleam in her eyes.

  “So, what about the money?” Candy asked. “Thirty thousand, isn’t it? Who gets it?”

  “I presume it’s in police custody now. But I should think Kane would get it back eventually.”

  “If he lives.”

  Cate nodded, at the same time thinking that Candy didn’t sound all that concerned about her ex’s well-being now.

  “But if he doesn’t live, who gets it?” Candy prodded. “His kids, as part of his estate? Or does it go back to Matt?”r />
  “That may be a question for lawyers to squabble about. Mr. Halliday seemed to think Kane needed the money for some obligation to you.” Cate tossed out a possibility. “So maybe you’re entitled to it.”

  Candy nodded, but Cate couldn’t tell if the nod was agreement that the money should be hers, or wild hope.

  “What does Mr. Halliday have against you?” Cate asked.

  “At this point, I think he figures I had something to do with Marilee leaving him. That I encouraged her, maybe even helped her do it.”

  “Did you?”

  “I would have helped her, if she’d asked me. But she just up and left, all on her own. But even before that, I think Matt figures I led Kane astray. That I lured him into doing something besides taking care of H&B business 24/7. We spent ten days in Vegas on our honeymoon.” She rolled her eyes and slapped her hands to her cheeks, as if in imitation of Halliday’s horrified reaction to the time away from H&B.

  “Mr. Halliday didn’t approve?”

  “You’d think we’d taken a six months’ vacation on company money while he labored back here in the salt mines. We didn’t start out intending to stay that long, but we were having such a run of luck and such a great time that we almost couldn’t leave.”

  “A run of luck at gambling, you mean?”

  “Kane played blackjack and poker, and he must have come out at least $5,000 ahead. Card games aren’t my thing, but I just kept hitting the jackpot on slots. I came away with $1,742. It was like we couldn’t lose.” Candy’s face lit up at the memory.

  What Cate also noted was that Candy knew right down to the dollar how much she’d won. A woman who kept track of money. A woman who’d had her eyes on $30,000 and now insurance money? Except Kane wasn’t dead. Yet.

  “Kane is Mr. Halliday’s friend. He feels protective about him. He may have been concerned Kane was going to get hurt in a relationship with you,” Cate suggested.

  Halliday was also protective enough to whip out a gun when Kane was attacked.