Just Add Water (Hetta Coffey Mystery Series (Book 1))

by Schwartz, Jinx

  Jan dropped her Texas Monthly onto a sun-warmed flagstone and nodded. “Fine by me. But let’s take your daddy’s pickup, ‘cause we’ll stand out like a sore toe in the Beemer.”

  “Did you bring your drankin’ tee?”

  “Is there a cow in Texas? I have my T-shirt, but dang it, I seem to have misplaced my chaps and spurs.”

  * * *

  When Saturday night rolled around, we loaded ourselves into Daddy’s Ford F-350 (complete with gun rack) and did a dos-si-doed on down to the Lil’ Bitta Tejas Beer Hall and Cantina.

  Live Country Western twanged through the parking lot. When we opened the heavy mesquite door, a rush of ice-cold air, Lone Star Beer fumes, and mesquite smoke rushed out. About a jillion cowboys were bellied up to the bar.

  The barn-like structure was packed to capacity with beer drinking two-steppers in Levis, Tony Lama boots, and Texas Hatter’s chapeaux. We found a table and ordered nachos and beer.

  When the band struck up Cotton-Eyed Joe, Jan jumped to her feet. “I’m gonna grab me a cowboy and dance,” she announced as she headed for the bar.

  I opted to sit this one out and made a bet with myself as to which guy she’d pick. I was right. Jan grabbed onto the one with the biggest hat, belt buckle, and beer gut. She and I had concluded long ago, after extensive empirical research, that the hefty ones are the smoothest dancers. Perhaps something to do with dense centers of gravity.

  Jan’s choice, at first taken aback by being asked to dance, was soon gliding and guiding her across the floor, entranced by this Melanie Griffith look-alike who had fallen into his arms.

  After everyone stomped their boots and hollered “Awww shit” one last time, the band moved on to a waltz. I roped me a bronc buster by his belt loops, and for the next half hour we danced our little hillbilly hearts out. After a lively Beer Barrel Polka, we were plumb done and staggered back to the table for a beer or six.

  By mid-evening, we’d attracted a herd of admiring Bubbas as well as the narrow-eyed scrutiny of several skinny Bubbettes wearing life-threateningly tight jeans. This bevy of hillbeauties, who all seemed to evolve from some special gene pool that breeds women whose thighs never touch, twirled loose strands on the fringes of their bouffants extraordinaire and scowled. They didn’t take kindly to city gals poaching the local talent.

  “Don’t go to the little heifer’s room alone,” I warned Jan. “You might come back with claw marks.”

  The band took a break. During the lull, one of our fan club decided it was time to get chummy. “You say y’all are from San Francisco?”

  We nodded. It was too much trouble to explain about Oakland.

  “Well, hell,” he said, “we hear you got queers on your po-lice force.”

  “We do have gays on the force,” Jan said, sounding very prim and liberal. “They represent a certain percentage of the population.”

  “So,” our new friend drawled, and I could tell the way he paused he was getting ready to entertain his buddies, “when a Frisco cop says he’s gonna blow you away, it takes on a whole new connotation.”

  Guffaws exploded around the table, along with knee slaps and hoots. I was amazed. Not by the fact that the guy told the joke, but that he used a word like “connotation.” Ah, the wonders of Texas.

  One of his fellow revelers pointed his Lone Star long neck at the T-shirts Jan and I wore. “Whut kinda beer is that on them shirts? Jap?” Obviously we had attracted a man of the world.

  “How very astute of you, Jim Bob,” I said. “Yes, it’s Sapporo Beer. I got these shirts in Tokyo.”

  “Whut was you doin’ in Tok-yo?”

  “I was there on business.”

  “Bidness? Whut kinda bidness?”

  “I’m an engineering consultant.”

  He smirked for the benefit of his fellow Bubbas, took a gulp of beer, and turned a bleary eye towards Jan. “And, li’l lady, I reckin you to be a brain surgeon?”

  “Nope,” Jan said with a toss of her head. “You reckon wrong, cowboy. I’m a computer consultant.”

  Silence fell like stars over Alabama as Jim Bob filtered this information through the grits he had for brains. “Well shee-ut,” he said, “jest how in the hey-all do wimmin git jobs like that?”

  Jan and I looked at each other. “I just remembered why I don’t live in Texas,” I told her. “It’s not the heat, it’s the stupidity!”

  29

  “Hetta Honey, phone,” Mother shouted. Actually, she didn’t really shout, she never does. It just sounded that way.

  I bear hugged several pillows over my head, trying to block out the noonday sun. Mom tugged them away, shoved the phone in my face, and clucked about the room picking up discarded clothing and a half empty beer bottle. A white ring marred the surface of the wooden bedside stand, but I knew from experience it wasn’t permanent.

  “ ‘Lo,” I rasped.

  “Hetta?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “This is Morris. From the yacht club? I guess you’re call forwarding. Your mother sounds real nice. When are you coming home? You aren’t thinking of running out on our deal, are you? I made you one hell of an offer on Sea Cock.”

  “Oh, hi, Morris. I still haven’t gotten anywhere with the financing. I can only come up with half and the damned banks think I’m the leper of the financial world.”

  “Bankers are idiots. You give me the half and I’ll finance the rest myself.”

  I sat up, suddenly wide awake and feeling much, much better. “No, shit?” Mother frowned. “I mean, oh, really? Oh, Morris, I think I love you.”

  Jan and mother left the room. They hate it when I love someone.

  Morris chuckled “Don’t tell my wife. So far she likes you. I’ll have the papers drawn up. Don’t forget, this deal is kept between us. I’ll see Garrison today, let him know what’s happening.”

  “Tell him ‘hi’ for me. And the only other person who knows I’m buying Sea Cock is my best friend, Jan. I told her not even to tell her boyfriend, Lars.”

  “Lars Jenkins?”

  “Yeah, they’ve been dating.”

  “Can she keep a secret? Lars is a friend of Garrison’s, you know. I wouldn’t want Garrison to find out from anyone but me that I’ve sold the boat to you.”

  “She can and will. Besides, she’s here in Texas with me. We’ll be back later this week. And thank you.”

  I hung up, threw off the covers and bounded into the kitchen where Jan and Mother sipped coffee. My mother had, of course, overheard some of the telephone conversation and was grilling Jan, who was filling her in on Lars.

  “Oh, Miz Coffey, he’s the nicest guy,” Jan babbled, then went on to list Lars’s attributes until she caught me sticking my finger down my throat.

  “Now, Hetta,” Mother chided. “You should be happy your friend has found such a nice young man. Does Lars have a brother?”

  “Arrgghh!” I grabbed my neck, trying to choke myself. Mother ignored my antics and got back to more important matters. “What was that call about?” she asked. “And who is this Morris you love? Or do I want to know.”

  “Morris is a happily married man whom I simply adore,” I chirped.

  “Oh, no, Hetta,” she said with a little sigh, “not another married one.”

  * * *

  For the record, I’ve never knowingly dated a married man. It just turned out that way. But then, there was a great deal I didn’t know about Hudson until after he disappeared. Little things. Like the wife and two kids he had back in Boston.

  Oh, and years before there was that Trinidadian, but shoot, he got married while we were dating, so I don’t think that should count.

  Anyhow, mother need not worry about my love life anymore, since I didn’t have one. Also, I hadn’t deemed it necessary to bother my parents with some of the more recent and squirrelly events in my life. Like the fact that I was not gainfully employed and was being terrorized by a mad lock changer.

  Nope, as far as mère et père Coffey knew, I was
headed back to the Bay Area to start a new adventure as a boat person. A boat person with a whole case of SPF 700 sunscreen that Mom insisted I take with me. With a goodly slather of that goop, a vampire could go out in broad daylight.

  In case there wasn’t a single restaurant between Texas and California, Mother loaded us up with road essentials: a basket of fried chicken, potato salad, pecan pie, a cooler of soft drinks, and a dime for the phone. Evidently mom hadn’t used a pay phone in several decades. Before she could check us for clean underwear, we drove west.

  “The sun has riz, the sun has set, and here we are in Texas yet,” I chanted as we entered the El Paso city limits. “Blimey, I thought we’d never get out of the Lone Star State.”

  “New Mexico coming up,” Jan encouraged. “Maybe we should get a Tex-Mex fix before we cross the state line.”

  “We could, but I was thinking chicken fried steak with cream gravy.”

  “Yes, yes, yes.”

  Jan and I have so much in common.

  We grazed through four western states and, per Jan’s insistence, we didn’t make the detour through Laughlin. As we rolled along I-10 for miles and miles of nothing but miles and miles, we whiled away the time thinking up boat names. I was kidding about Hetta-row .

  “How about, “Hi, Sailor?”

  “Hetta, get serious. This is a very important decision. As you well know. Think of what we thought of folks when we saw some of those boat names on the bay. Absolutely nothing with “sea” in it and certainly not Seaducer or anything like that. Crude and unimaginative.”

  “Cirrhosis of the River?”

  “Apt, but gross. Maybe something dreamy, like Wanderin’ Star.”

  “Too . . . sailboaty. No Forwarding Address?”

  “No, Hetta, it’s not you. How about Country Girl? The problem there is figuring out which country.”

  I nixed it and munched on a chicken leg.

  Jan contemplated for a while, finished off a thigh, gave me a wicked grin and said, “Hetta, I’ve got it. It’s you. Bullship.”

  I gave her the look she deserved. “Cute, Jan. Have you ever hitchhiked?”

  Jan looked at the barren roadside stretching for miles into parched desert. “Maybe I can come up with something a more apropos. Hydrotherapy?”

  “Gag. I’ll think of something. But I wasn’t kidding about the no forwarding address. I’m gonna change all my addresses. I’ll get a post office box, change my e-mail address, and everything. That way, whoever is bugging me can’t find me after I move onto the boat.”

  “Good thinking. Maybe you should get an answering service for your business, too.”

  “What business? But you’re right. I do have a few proposals out, so I’d better keep the old phone number and put a service on it.”

  “Anything from Allison about when Seattle will reach a decision regarding your undeserved sacking?”

  “Naw, not yet. But she hasn’t let me cash their check, so there’s still hope. Also, I’ll call the Trob when we get back, see what he’s heard. I need to talk to him anyhow, because I’m thinking of having a memorial service, kind of a delayed wake, for RJ. I want to invite Fidel. For RJ, the Trob might come out of his treetop. Allison went over to meet him not long ago to get info, and she said she actually had a conversation with him that lasted more than five minutes. I think the Trob might be coming around to understanding us lesser mortals.”

  “Good. He can’t spend his whole life in the tower of Baxter. A wake for RJ, huh? No funeral?”

  “Nope. Maybe a little get together at the house before the new owners take over, then I’ll do something creative with RJ’s ashes later. Maybe cast them upon the bay from my own boat. Save myself the grand demanded by Critter Cremains. Besides, I hate funerals and weddings for the same reason. I prefer to think of folks as they were when still alive.”

  30

  We arrived in Oakland a day earlier than planned due to an overwhelming desire for a decent vinaigrette. Someone needs to tell America that salad should consist of more than chopped up iceberg lettuce topped with gooey substances and flanked with stale saltines.

  My determination to never spend another night in the house went down the tubes, overridden by the deep fatigue of fifteen hours on the road. The good news was Jan had another day of vacation and we could sleep in. The other good news was I’d arranged to move aboard Sea Cock the very next day.

  The bad news started when we got to the house. The alarm was off. Again. By now we were so used to it that, after a half-hearted search for lurking bad guys, we shrugged it off to equipment malfunction. After opening all the windows to air the house, I pushed the HEAT button on the hot tub and whipped up a red meal.

  Sun-dried tomato fettuccini marinara, a salad of red leaf lettuce, radicchio, arugula, red bell peppers, and red onion topped with a red wine vinegar dressing, accompanied by, what else? Valpolicelli. Strawberries for dessert satisfied both our pallet and palates. A girl can take just so much road food.

  We’d finished our banquet rouge when Martinez called. A passing patrol car had seen lights in the house.

  “So, anything new on your jewelry?” Jan asked when I hung up.

  I shrugged. “Martinez said it could have been some punk that took advantage of the situation and stole the jewelry box. I mean, the place did look a little deserted. And the alarm was off.”

  “You should have told him the alarm was off, again, Hetta. And this time I am absolutely sure we set it when we left. And last time, too. I distinctly remember, right after Craig took RJ’s, uh, RJ away. We left and we set it on the way out.”

  “God, I’m glad this joint is sold. Let us retire to the hot tub for one final boiling, drink a lot of really good wine, and bid adieu to Chez RJ.”

  We iced down my last bottle of 1998 Chassagne Montrachet, grabbed towels, and went up the steps to the hot tub deck. I was gratified to see steam billowing out from under the cover of the tub. We stood at the deck rail and took in the panorama. The Bay Area sparkled below us as Oakland's city sounds rose on a light breeze: A siren's wail, a waft of music from the Coliseum, and the occasion report of a gunshot.

  “I will miss this view,” I said.

  “Yeah, I remember the first time we sat up here. Before you left for Tokyo. I sure did miss you while you were gone.”

  “I should never have gone. I knew I would hate it. I mean, I’m single. All the women over there are short and cute and all the men short and ugly. What was my first clue? And then the unkindest cut of all: Hudson. To paraphrase W.C. Fields, the bastard drove me to drink and I forgot to thank him. It was a piss poor time, my worst. At least that’s what I thought then. What with losing RJ, I now know things can get worse.”

  “It’ll get better. I’m sure of it. Heck, it already has. Let’s get wet.”

  We clinked glasses, toasted the night. I walked a few steps, grabbed the hot tub cover and threw it open as I smiled back over my shoulder at Jan. “You’re right. Things are getting better. I mean, what else can go wrong?”

  Evidently, from the horrified look on Jan’s face, a great deal. I reluctantly turned my head and saw, floating in the steaming water, two things: my jewelry box and Hudson Williams.

  I was really glad to see my jewelry box.

  * * *

  “Maybe you really should rent me a room,” Detective Martinez grumped.

  “You can have the whole damned house.” I was sitting next to Jan in the living room. We’d sunk to tapping a boxed wine. No flowery, pear-y bouquet like the Montcharet, but by now our taste buds were as dead as Hudson Williams.

  Cops crawled all over the place, a helicopter whomped the night air above, dogs howled, and neighbors lined up outside a yellow police tape in the yard. The new owners would probably get letters from the NFL, ABL, and the NBA.

  “Oh, hell,” I whined, “I wonder if the buyer will try to back out now? Do we have to tell them about the, uh, body?”

  “I believe,” Martinez said dryly, “there’s som
e law about disclosure.”

  “Great. Just great. Hudson wasn’t content to mess up my life once, he has to do it again. Inconsiderate bastard.”

  “Ms. Coffey, I need to ask you some questions,” Martinez said, suddenly sounding all formal and officious. “Perhaps you’d prefer to have a lawyer present?”

  “I don’t need no stinkin’ lawyer. Wait a minute. You don’t think I killed Hudson, do you?”