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

by Lorena McCourtney

  There was no good way to break news of a death, of course, but it sounded as if Kane’s son had been particularly unfeeling about this announcement to Shirley.

  “I asked about services, but he’s having the body shipped to California for burial. That’s where Kane’s first wife, the son’s mother, is buried, and Kane will be buried beside her. No services here or there. All of which took Warren about three sentences to say, and then he walked off.”

  Blakely’s son was under no obligation to tell Shirley anything about Kane, of course. He didn’t know any relationship between them existed and might have been even more unfriendly if he had known.

  Actually, Cate reflected, there wasn’t any real relationship, only what Shirley had hoped for.

  “It’s almost like … he never was.” Shirley dropped to the sofa and rubbed a hand across her eyes. It came away with a smidgen of wetness, but no big flood of tears. Clancy came over and laid his big head on her leg.

  “His son didn’t even seem particularly upset. More like having to come here was some big inconvenience. Somebody ought to care more than that!”

  Cate patted Shirley’s shoulder. “You did all you could.”

  “But somehow I feel more … let down than sad,” Shirley admitted.

  Cate heard a hint of guilt in the words, as if Shirley thought she ought to feel worse. She repeated what even to her own ears sounded like a banal platitude. “You did all you could.”

  Shirley’s slumped shoulders straightened and she asked an unexpected question. “I wonder if his ex-wife knows? I don’t think Kane’s son would ever bother telling her. Maybe not Mr. Halliday either.”

  “I saw her while I was up in Salem. I just got back from there this afternoon. She asked me to let her know if there was any news about Kane. So I’ll do that.”

  Mitch cleared his throat. So far he hadn’t said anything, but now, with an uncomfortable glance at Cate, he asked Shirley, “What about Clancy?”

  Shirley looked down as if only then realizing the dog’s head was still on her leg, and her hand was absentmindedly stroking him. “I’d take him, but I can’t because of the trailer park regulations. But Jerry might do it. I’ll ask him.”

  “I could keep him,” Mitch said. He strengthened the statement. “I’d like to keep him.”

  “You would?” Shirley looked surprised. Cate wasn’t. She’d seen Mitch’s attachment to the big hairy animal growing day by day. “But I thought he was a real inconvenience for you.”

  “We’ve kind of gotten used to each other.”

  “Then I’d say, just keep him.” Shirley nodded firmly. “Kane’s son isn’t going to care.”

  “I’d rather be sure. I wouldn’t want something to come up later about him.”

  After thinking about it for a moment, Shirley said, “Mr. Halliday must know how to get in touch with Warren.”

  “I’m going out to H&B in the morning. I want to give Mr. Halliday a report on my trip to Salem. I can ask him then,” Cate said quickly.

  “Good. I’d appreciate that.” Mitch ruffled the dog’s shaggy hair. “Is there anything we can do to help you?” he added to Shirley.

  “No, I’m okay. Jerry’s coming over this evening. My kitchen sink faucet went bad, and he’s going to fix it. Maybe I’ll see you out at H&B tomorrow,” she added to Cate.

  Cate nodded, and another plan for tomorrow also plunked into her head.

  23

  After Shirley went home, Cate called Candy. Candy didn’t burst into tears when she heard the news about her ex-husband, but neither was her reaction indifferent. Her voice went scratchy, and Cate suspected tears would come later. Cate passed along the third-hand information she had about Kane being buried next to his first wife but no services. Candy just muttered, “Typical Warren.”

  “If I hear anything more, I’ll let you know,” Cate said.

  “Thanks. I guess I should tell you something.”

  “Oh?”

  “I went back over to Kane’s apartment today and got that address book. I wanted to know about his girlfriends.” Candy’s statement held a note of challenge, as if daring Cate to object to her taking the address book, but then her voice wilted. “Which seems … kind of sleazy now that he’s dead, doesn’t it?”

  “I guess it doesn’t matter now.”

  “What I thought I should tell you is that I found a name in there that really floored me. Marilee.”

  “As in Matt Halliday’s ex-wife? That Marilee?”

  “It doesn’t have a last name with it, so it could be a different Marilee. But I don’t think so.”

  “Why would Kane have her phone number?”

  “That’s what I can’t figure out.”

  “You were looking for girlfriends,” Cate pointed out.

  “You mean, maybe there was something going on between Kane and Marilee?” Candy sounded flabbergasted and immediately answered her own question. “No way. Marilee was sweet, in her own mousy way. But Kane liked women the same way he liked cars. With a lot of flash and glitter. You know, hot.”

  “Are you going to call and tell her Kane is dead?” Cate asked.

  “I figure if she wanted any contact with me, she’d have initiated it before now. No address, but it looks like a Portland area code. I thought you might like to have it. For PI purposes. But I’m not giving it to you if you’re going to pass it on to Matt!”

  Cate said no, telling Matt wouldn’t be necessary. She wrote down the number Candy read off, and thanked her.

  “You will call me if you hear anything?” Candy asked.

  “About what?”

  “Kane. Matt. The end of the world, whatever.” Candy laughed, softening the snap in her words. “I don’t know. I just feel as if everything is still … unfinished.”

  “If I hear anything, I’ll let you know. You do the same, okay?”

  Cate did a quick Google of the name Marilee Halliday but found nothing. With sudden inspiration, she did a reverse search on the phone number. That brought immediate information. The number was for an M. Hardee, with an address in Portland.

  Cate was at H&B shortly after 9:00 the following morning. Radine said Mr. Halliday was already working out in the shop. Cate found him with his head buried in the engine of a hood-less Oldsmobile that looked a long way from full restoration. Feet, probably Jerry’s, stuck out from between the front wheels.

  “I went up to Salem,” Cate said to the back of Halliday’s head. “I thought you might want to know what I found out there.”

  “Did you find out who has me next on their hit list?”

  “No, not yet,” Cate admitted.

  “Then just put it in a written report. We’re running behind here.”

  If Halliday was mourning his partner’s death, he wasn’t letting it interfere with work. Was it possible he didn’t know?

  Tentatively she said, “You know Mr. Blakely passed away yesterday, don’t you?”

  “Yes.” Halliday lifted his head out of the engine compartment, wrench in one hand. “Terrible thing. Jerk just crashing in and killing a good man like Kane. Earlier I was all shook up about shooting the guy, but now I’m not sorry I exterminated him on the spot.”

  He swiped a hand across his forehead, leaving a streak of grease in one of those permanent frown lines. “Something happened the other night.”

  “Happened?”

  “I’d stopped in at Walmart to pick up some groceries. I was crossing the parking lot to get to my car when a pickup came out of nowhere and practically ran me over. Tried to run me over. It didn’t work as well as the driver probably hoped, but it knocked me down in the middle of a mess of smashed eggs and milk.”

  “You think it was someone trying to make good on the threat in the note?”

  “They didn’t stop to draw diagrams about their intentions, but that’s what it felt like. But you’re the investigator.”

  “Have you told the police?”

  “Sure, I told them. But I didn’t have a license
number, and all I could say about the pickup was that it was an older model and light colored.”

  “So … ?”

  “So I got a mini-lecture on how parking lots can be dangerous places and how everyone has to be careful, both drivers and pedestrians.” Halliday tapped his palm with the wrench. “So maybe it was an accident, just another stupid driver.”

  Maybe.

  “There’s something else I wanted to talk to you about,” Cate said hurriedly. She doubted Halliday was going to give her much time. “It appears Mr. Blakely may have had a gambling problem.”

  “A gambling problem? Oh, I don’t think so. Kane enjoyed his poker, and he liked putting a few bucks on a horse race now and then. But gambling was never a problem for him. Unless Candy dragged him into it. Besides, what’s that got to do with anything?”

  “Gambling losses may have been why he needed the money you were loaning him.”

  “You know, I don’t much appreciate your dumping on Kane when he can’t defend himself.”

  “I wasn’t—” Cate broke off. Halliday obviously wasn’t going to think badly of his partner no matter what. She didn’t want him to, of course. That wasn’t her intention. But if Kane’s gambling activity was what had gotten him killed …

  Halliday leaned forward and fastened his wrench on something in the engine again, obviously not in a chatty mood, and Cate hurriedly asked her other question.

  “I hate to bother you further, but a friend has been taking care of Mr. Blakely’s dog. Now he needs to talk to the son about the dog. Could you tell me how he can get in touch?”

  “I think Radine has a phone number. Warren’s his name. Check with her.”

  “Okay. Thanks. I’ve also been wondering, did Andy Timmons ever get in touch with you about his Indian motorcycle?”

  “No. I haven’t talked to him. Like I told you, it doesn’t matter now.” Halliday sounded impatient, but he managed to add, “But I appreciate your good work in locating him. Look, if you’ll excuse me … ?”

  Cate left him to his engine restoration. Maybe work was how he was coping with the loss of his friend and partner. She intended to stop and see how Shirley was holding up, but Shirley was on the forklift, maneuvering cartons on a shelf, so they just exchanged waves. Out in the office, she asked about Kane’s son. Radine wrote both a cell phone number and an address in Georgia on a page from an H&B pad.

  “Do you know him?” Cate asked.

  “Only time I ever met him was yesterday, when he came in asking if Kane had any life insurance through H&B.”

  Kane Blakely’s insurance. Everybody was interested. Cate already knew the situation with the insurance, however, and she was curious how Warren took the news.

  “Harder than he took the news of his father’s death, I think,” Radine answered.

  As Candy would probably say, typical Warren.

  The night before, Cate had made up a list of the bicycle shops in the Eugene area, and, back in the car, she studied the list. There were over twenty names and addresses, more than she’d expected. Bicycling was big in Eugene. She picked the closest address and headed for it.

  The shop was small. Neither of the two clerks remembered anyone of Mace Jackson’s name or description coming in to purchase a bike within the last couple of weeks. Similar results at the next half dozen places. It reminded Cate that while the crime itself might be remembered as a shocker, killing and getting killed in a shootout did not elevate your name to a memorable place in local history.

  Cate took a break for lunch with salad at a Wendy’s and called Mitch at the same time. She gave him Warren Blakely’s phone number, and he said he’d contact him about Clancy. After the quick lunch, Cate started on the list again. Finally, at a larger shop with a creative décor—vine-y green plants trained to grow in bicycle shapes on the walls—one of the endless blank dead ends in her own PI maze cracked open.

  “I don’t remember the name. I probably wouldn’t have gotten it unless he actually bought or ordered a bike,” the middle-aged clerk said. “But I remember those knuckles. As I recall, he had a specific brand and model of bike in mind, but we didn’t have it in stock. I offered to order it, but he said he was from out of town.”

  Yes! It all fit. “Did he say where he was from?”

  “He either didn’t say or I don’t remember. But he wasn’t alone. I think Monica knew the other guy. She was talking to him.” He looked across the bicycles to a section of women’s clothing, where a woman and another male clerk were in an animated discussion. “That’s her over there.”

  Cate could hear the subject of the discussion as she approached. Twenty-six versus twenty-nine-inch wheels on mountain bikes. Fascinating. Right up there with a government info sheet on eradicating bugs in cauliflower fields.

  The woman, another walking advertisement for the benefits of bike riding, broke off and smiled at Cate. “Sorry. Friend Aaron here is kind of a fanatic on certain subjects.”

  “You are a fanatic,” Friend Aaron stated loftily, “whereas I am a learned authority on the subject.” He grinned at both of them and headed off to the bicycle parts area.

  Cate presented her business card to the woman and once more repeated Mace Jackson’s name and description. “The other clerk”—she motioned back to the man now with another customer—“thinks the man I’m seeking information about may have been in here not long ago, and someone you knew was with him.”

  Monica, with an identifying name tag on her T-shirt, studied the card. “And you’re looking for these guys because … ?”

  Cate once more repeated the basic facts about that night at H&B.

  “You’re telling me that guy with Andy was the one who shot someone and then got shot himself?” the woman interrupted. “I remember seeing that on TV and thinking how awful, but I never realized—was Andy involved in that?”

  “Andy?”

  “This guy I hung out with a while back.” Clerk Monica smiled. “My very short walk on the wild side. He was kind of fun, but I backed off when we went in a store and he shoplifted a can of bean dip to go with the tortilla chips I bought.”

  “This Andy,” Cate said. She felt an odd little tightening across her midsection. Maybe anticipation. Maybe dread. “Andy who?”

  “Andy Timmons.”

  “Could you describe him?”

  Monica described exactly the guy with the motorcycle whom Cate had tracked down for Halliday.

  “Do you know anything about his relationship with Mace Jackson?”

  “Not a thing. I’m sure I’d never met the Jackson guy before they came in here that day. Andy didn’t even introduce us then. I know he had some friends who were pretty sleazy. Andy himself was on the sleazy side.” She lifted both her hands and shoulders and smiled, as if her relationship with him was a puzzle to her too. “That was my rebellious stage, when I was practically looking for someone my folks would disapprove of.”

  “Where was Andy living then?”

  “No idea. Just kind of hanging out here and there, I guess.”

  “Anything else you can tell me about him? Was he into gambling?”

  “Gambling? You mean like buying lottery tickets or playing slots at a casino?”

  “Maybe something less legal. Like betting with a bookie, something like that.”

  “Bookie? I thought the only place guys like that existed was in bad movies. There really are bookies right here in Eugene?”

  “I don’t know,” Cate admitted.

  “If Andy was into anything like that, I never knew it. He was definitely into buying and selling a little pot, but it’s scary to think he had friends like this—what was his name again?”

  “Mace Jackson.”

  “I’m just glad I dumped Andy when I did. It feels creepy even now, thinking I was standing right next to a killer.”

  Cate asked her to call if she thought of anything else, and the woman nodded. Cate went back to the car, undecided what to do next. Talk to Andy? That night at his and Lily’s a
partment, he’d made some comment about the shootings at H&B, but he hadn’t indicated he knew the dead man. Why had he omitted that information? What would he do if Cate confronted him with it? Would Lily know anything? Even if she didn’t know Mace Jackson by name, she might recognize the description. But Cate needed to talk to Lily without Andy present to monitor every word.

  Cate glanced at her watch: 3:15. Lily would still be at the housecleaning job she worked on weekdays. But if Cate went to the apartment in the evening, Andy would probably be there.

  New and disturbing thought. Had Andy Timmons sent that threatening letter? And Halliday had said the vehicle that ran him down in the parking lot was a light-colored pickup. Lily’s pickup was light-colored, and Andy often drove it. Had Andy been good enough friends with Mace Jackson to be into payback for Halliday killing him?

  Cate went home to find Octavia on her desk looking at the phone. About five seconds later, it rang. “So sometimes you’re right,” she grumbled. She glanced at the caller ID. “Hi, Uncle Joe.”

  “Hey, Becca and I were thinking maybe you and Mitch would like to come over for a celebration dinner tonight.”

  “You have something to celebrate?”

  “Not me, you. Something came for you today.”

  “In the mail?”

  “Yes indeed. First class, definitely not junk mail.”

  “From?”

  “Well, let’s see …”

  Uncle Joe was enjoying stretching this out, Cate could tell. Her own heart did a little salsa dance. There was only one thing that could have come in the mail worthy of celebration.

  “Department of Public Safety Standards, it looks like,” he said.

  “Did you open it?”

  “Of course not. It’s addressed to you. So you two be here for dinner at 6:30 and we’ll see what’s in it then. Becca says she’s making your favorite carrot cake.”

  “We’ll be there.”

  Cate’s call to Mitch caught him helping the people at the bakery, where he’d set up a new computer system, so she just gave him a quick message about dinner. A half-second later, she gave herself a mental slap. She’d told Uncle Joe they’d come to dinner, but she should have checked with Mitch first. She and Mitch were together several evenings a week, but their relationship had subtly altered since the future of Computer Dudes was up in the air. Because that uncertain future meant the future of their relationship was drifting in the unknown too.