I’m bold, but I’m not stupid. I figured if I parked and crossed the tape line in broad daylight, somebody would be on the horn to the station house quicker than I could say “mobile home.” Being top cop, Sonterra would be among the first to get the word, and I would be in a world of hurt. I decided to bide my time.
I made a stop at the town library, which was about the size of Loretta’s favorite purse, applied for a card, and checked out the most current volume on child care. Dr. Spock, circa 1962. Guess they didn’t get government funding.
By the time I got home, Emma was back from school, looking sullen, and Esperanza had clocked out for the day.
Emma had breaking news. “You’re going to get a call from the principal,” she announced, leaning against the kitchen sink and swilling chocolate milk.
I laid Dr. Spock on the table and looked her in the eye. “Great, Emma,” I said. “You’re there one day, and already you’re in trouble.”
“She started it,” my niece said.
“Who, pray tell, is ‘she,’ and what, precisely, did she ‘start’?”
“Her name is Kathy Wilson, she’s a junior, and she said you were shacking up with the chief of police.”
I felt a peculiar jiggle in the pit of my stomach, reminiscent of the bad old days in Tucson, when kids used to make remarks about my mother on the playground. It shouldn’t have mattered, that feeling, but it did. “And you responded by—?”
“Shoving her into her locker.”
I hung my purse over the back of a chair and sat down with a plop. “You know better,” I said.
Color climbed Emma’s elegant neck and swelled in her cheeks. She spread her hands, soliloquy style, and I thought, Here it comes. The bullshit. The tap dance.
She learned it from me.
“Of course she was right. You are shacking up with the chief of police.” Her gaze fell, heated, on Dr. Spock. She had eyes like a hawk, and I knew she’d taken in the title, even from that distance. “Did you check that out at the public library?”
I bristled. “As opposed to the private one, reserved for my personal use? Yes, Emma, I did. What of it?”
“Well, if everybody in town didn’t already know you’re pregnant, they will now!”
Before I could come up with an answering shot, Sonterra was on the scene, looking spiffy in a fresh uniform. He whistled through his teeth. “Time-out,” he said. “Back to your corners.”
I bit my lower lip, fighting tears.
“What’s going on?” Sonterra asked, looking from me to Emma and back again.
“Emma’s just discovered one of the many wonders of small towns,” I said evenly. My temper was cooling, but I still felt as though I’d been crammed into a cage and poked with a stick.
Emma folded her arms. Her face was rock-hard, and I knew she wasn’t going to give an inch. “I’ve got detention all week,” she told Sonterra, “because you guys aren’t married!”
“You’ve got detention all week,” I pointed out icily, “because you pushed Kathy Wilson into her locker!”
Sonterra whistled again, put up a hand to both of us. “Clare and I are getting married Saturday,” he said.
Sure, we’d made a plan. But we didn’t even have a license, or a church lined up, and Loretta was still away, so I hadn’t thought about it much. I dropped into a chair.
His gaze pinned me there. “Aren’t we?”
“Whose side are you on?” I snapped.
“Did we or did we not agree to get married?”
“Yes,” I admitted, after unlocking my jaw.
“Well, then, I don’t see a problem,” Sonterra said reasonably.
I gave Emma a scathing glance, and she flung it right back.
“I want Loretta to be here,” I said. “Furthermore, I don’t like the idea of being steamrolled!”
Emma threw up her hands and stomped past Sonterra, headed for the stairs. The dogs followed, uncertain but loyal.
“That certainly went well,” Sonterra said.
I hadn’t intended to cry, but my face was already wet. “Damn it, Sonterra, this is my wedding we’re talking about. Emma might as well be forcing me down the aisle with a shotgun!”
Sonterra approached me cautiously. All those weekend seminars with the bomb squad were finally paying off. “Easy,” he said, and pulled me close. He smelled deliciously of aftershave, deodorant soap, and the starch in his uniform shirt. “Take it easy, Babe. Nobody is going to strong-arm you into anything.”
I looked up at him, searching his face. “It wouldn’t be right without Loretta,” I said. I wasn’t stalling then. I meant it.
He dried my tears with the heel of one palm. He spoke gently, but his words went through me like a spear. “And if Loretta shows up, you’ll think of another excuse.”
“No,” I protested, sniffling. I wanted to bury my face in his shoulder and bawl at full throttle, but there was his clean shirt to consider, and the snot factor. “I love you, Sonterra. I want to get married. I do.”
“Okay. We’ll get a special license tomorrow, and you can call Loretta in New York.”
I’d forgotten my appointment with Eli Robeson at 10:00 the next morning. I wondered if Sonterra had, too. Not likely, I decided. He was probably hoping the whole job subject would blow over if he just didn’t bring it up.
“What about the church?” I fretted. “What about the dress?”
Sonterra kissed the tip of my nose. “We can be married by a justice of the peace,” he said. “And I don’t care if you wear a feed sack.”
“You’ve got murders to solve. Coyotes to catch. Call me crazy, but I was sort of hoping for a honeymoon.”
“Excuses,” Sonterra insisted quietly. “The average wedding is over in twenty minutes, and once I wrap things up here, we can go anywhere you want. Paris. Honolulu. Timbuktu. You name it, Counselor, and I’ll buy the tickets.”
I gnawed at my lower lip. “Do you solemnly swear that you won’t turn out to be a rotten husband, like Kip Matthews and about a hundred other men I could name?”
Sonterra chuckled, and his eyes shone. “I do,” he said.
For all my misgivings, I sort of liked the sound of that.
It was easy enough to sneak out after supper. Sonterra had gone back to the cop shop and Emma, still not speaking to me, had locked herself in her room for the evening, after nuking a frozen dinner.
Even the dogs had defected, throwing in their lot with my niece.
I was persona non grata.
I waited for dark, snagged a flashlight and a pair of disposable gloves from under the sink, and let myself out, locking the back door behind me and crossing the yard like a stealthy shadow. After taking a careful look around, to make sure Emma wasn’t watching from her bedroom window—in her present mood, she’d tattle to Sonterra in a heartbeat—I went over the fence.
Since a flashlight in a cemetery might attract unwanted attention, I made my way around the headstones and markers as best I could, given that there was only a sliver of moon. I dodged sprinklers and silently chided myself for acting like the heroine of a bad Gothic novel—all I needed was a snow-white nightgown, an ax murderer, and a candle.
What did I expect to find in Micki’s trailer, anyway?
Damned if I could say. All I knew was, I felt compelled to go there, pick the lock, and toss some drawers. It wasn’t just curiosity, either. It seemed urgent.
A few dogs barked halfheartedly as I made my way along the cemetery fence, on the other side, and finally came to a gate. The hinges creaked, of course, and I gritted my teeth, waiting for somebody to jump out of the shrubbery and demand to know what I was doing, prowling around the neighborhood.
I would have been stuck for an answer, a rare thing for me.
For once, luck was on my side. Most of the trailers were dark—maybe it was bingo night at the American Legion—and the curtains were drawn on the few lighted ones.
I stayed close to the fence until I spotted the telltale crime-scene tap
e. Unless there had been yet another murder, I was in Micki’s backyard.
I almost fell over Suzie’s bike, lying on its side in the tall grass. The last time I’d seen it had been at Judy Holliday’s, before the murder. How had it gotten here?
I stood still, drying my damp palms on the legs of my jeans, sucking in deep breaths, and remembering Esperanza’s account of her daughter’s nightmare.
If it was a nightmare.
A man’s voice called out, in cheerful, heavily accented English, and every muscle in my body seized with tension. Sweat broke out on my upper lip, and between my breasts and shoulder blades.
Another man answered.
My brain kicked in, made sense of the exchange.
First man: Going to the poker game?
Second man: No. Lost too much last week.
I let out my breath, and the release left me limp as the proverbial rag doll.
Maybe I was losing my edge.
“Bullshit,” I whispered, and put on the disposable gloves Esperanza had bought that morning at the supermarket.
Somebody ought to do something about locks. They’re entirely too easy to manage, especially on trailers.
I was inside in less than thirty seconds.
The place smelled of rancid cooking oil, stale cigarette smoke, and despair.
I waited for my eyes to adjust to the darkness and my nerves to stop bouncing off the underside of my skin. The curtains were drawn, so I crouched a little and switched on the flashlight, praying the few neighbors at home were too preoccupied to notice.
For one instant, I was back in Gram’s double-wide in Tucson, a mouthy little kid, hurting big-time, with two scraped knees and a screw-you attitude. The sensation passed with the next heartbeat, but I would have given my law degree to hear my grandmother’s voice. Wash your hands and face, Clare. It’s time for supper.
“Focus,” I told myself.
I went through the junk drawer in the kitchen first. It’s funny how they’re all in pretty much the same place, in every kind of house, a grubby little universe of diverse information—matchbooks from restaurants and bars, loose batteries, usually double-A, bills and receipts, subscription cards from magazines, outdated raffle tickets, Suzie’s most recent report card.
Three A’s and two B’s.
That made my breath catch. The kid had a good future—if she had a future at all. Don’t be dead, I pleaded silently, remembering her delight in meeting Waldo and Bernice. Please, don’t be dead.
I moved on to the first bedroom, a tiny cubicle smelling faintly of urine. The flashlight played over the bed under the high, narrow window, with its familiar little plastic crank. Pink-and-white-checked comforter, tossed back, and a telltale stain on the sheet. Suzie was a bed wetter.
Odd that Micki had left without changing the sheets. I barely knew her, but she certainly hadn’t struck me as a neglectful mother.
The closet and built-in dresser drawers were empty.
I went on, checked out the bathroom—cosmetics scattered on the counter, ring in the bathtub. Micki wasn’t a housekeeper. So maybe the wet sheets hadn’t been a big concern.
Most likely, she’d left the makeup behind on purpose, when Judy Holliday picked her and Suzie up on Saturday morning. Given the state of her face, after Bobby Ray got through with her, that wasn’t surprising. I checked the medicine cabinet.
Birth control pills. Half a bottle of aspirin. No toothbrushes, no paste.
Very odd that she hadn’t taken the pills, even if she didn’t plan to have sex anytime soon. Maybe Judy had promised her samples.
The only remaining room was Micki’s, and it shot down the bad-housekeeper theory. It was as neat as Suzie’s was messy. Nothing in the closets or drawers. I couldn’t be sure, of course, that she’d taken all her belongings with her when she left. The police could have bagged and tagged any remaining items as part of their investigation.
I was chewing on that thought when I heard a car door slam in front of the trailer. A couple of moments later, somebody was walking across the porch.
Damn, I thought, thumbing off the flashlight and scrambling under the bed. It was a tight fit, and there were dirty socks and dust bunnies to keep me company.
Even you can’t be this unlucky, I told myself. I had visions of Doc Holliday’s killer showing up, pissed off at my interference, followed by thoughts of Sonterra or one of his deputies catching me in the no-no zone. One scenario was only slightly more attractive than the other.
My heart thundered in my ears as I waited, every cell in my body suddenly freeze-dried. Dust tickled my sinuses, and I closed my eyes for a moment, fighting a visceral urge to sneeze.
The front door opened and closed. More time passed.
Finally, footsteps sounded in the short, narrow hallway. I caught a whiff of familiar perfume and peeked under the bedskirt to see a pair of high-heeled shoes and, in a stray glimmer of moonlight, a gold ankle bracelet with a dainty “D” suspended provocatively from the chain.
Danielle Bickerhelm? If the visitor was Danielle, she wasn’t being particularly subtle. She hadn’t turned on the lights, but I’d distinctly heard her car door click shut, which meant she was parked in the street and, like me, she’d ducked under the tape barrier.
She sat down on the edge of the bed with a sigh, and the mattress springs dug into my back. I swallowed a grunt, along with more dust, and fought the sneeze battle all over again.
She sighed once more.
I waited.
She got off the bed, and I heard her opening the dresser and closet. The fact that she hadn’t done that first thing was a clue that her visit wasn’t primarily investigation-oriented.
I peered from beneath the dust ruffle. It was Danielle, all right.
I felt a surge of irate energy. I wanted to confront her, demand to know what she was looking for, but I was hardly in a position to do that. My own presence would be tough to explain.
I did some more waiting, and my nervous bladder began to fill.
Danielle came back to the bed, but this time she kicked off her shoes first and stretched out full length on the mattress. In the midst of all that motion, I heard the front door open again, and more footsteps. Danielle laughed, a low, throaty sound.
“Don’t be shy,” she said.
It was no great leap to work out that the newcomer was a man. He said nothing, but I felt the floor sag with his weight and smelled his aftershave. The cheap stuff, from the drugstore.
The mattress wriggled, and I figured Danielle was hiking up her skirt.
I lodged a silent protest with the heavens. Not that. Please. Not that!
“I’m a very bad girl,” Danielle crooned.
No answer, but I heard a zipper give way, then the mattress springs came down on me again, hard, forcing all the air from my lungs in an audible rush.
I tried the universe again. Instant redial. Get me out of here.
Zip from the celestial realm. Guess it was busy spinning off new planets and blowing up stars. Or maybe it was a cosmic comment on my tendency to get myself into situations like that one.
I became conscious of my cell phone, which I’d tucked into the front pocket of my jeans just before I left the house, and tried to remember if I’d switched it off. Hell of a note if I got a pathos call from Loretta, or an olive-branch ringy-dingy from my niece.
Pretty likely on the first.
Fat chance on the second.
Meanwhile, Danielle and Mr. Strong and Silent went at it. Fortunately for me, Mr. S & S was no Sonterra. The whole thing was over in about a minute and a half. Slambam, but evidently, no “thank you, ma’am” was forthcoming.
I decided to deal with the emotional trauma of the experience later and lifted the bed ruffle again when I felt him rise off the bed. I wanted a look at Danielle’s boyfriend.
It was dark, but I could make out a pair of scuffed running shoes and the cuffs of his jeans.
Say something, I urged Lover Boy silently, hoping I�
��d recognize his voice. I didn’t dare stick my head out from under the bed, but the temptation was overwhelming.
“See you around,” Danielle said, when the debacle was over.
Damn the luck, he didn’t say a word. I heard him walk back down the hallway and leave the trailer. Cross the porch. No car door, so he must have come on foot.
Danielle began to cry.
I wasn’t sympathetic. My bladder was screaming for relief, and images of what had just gone on directly over my head seeped into my brain. Nausea kicked in, overdue.
What the hell would prompt a woman to choose somebody else’s bed for a tryst, especially when that someone else might well be the victim of a brutal crime? It was flat-out weird.
It was probably only a couple of minutes before Danielle arose, put her shoes back on, and left, but it seemed like an elephant’s gestation period. I was vaguely surprised that my stomach hadn’t grown.
As soon as I heard her car start, I was out from under the bed. I made a pit stop in the bathroom, took a chance on flushing, and crouched back to the front door. Then my cell phone rang.
I answered, simply to silence the thing. I guess I was too flustered to simply turn it off.
“Where are you?” Sonterra demanded. He rarely bothered with formalities like “hello.”
“Just out,” I answered.
“Emma said she saw you climb over the back fence, into the cemetery.”
My jaw clenched. “Stool pigeon,” I muttered.
“Funny thing,” Sonterra went on, “but I’m sitting right in the middle of Peaceful Meadows. No sign of you.”
“It’s dark,” I offered. My palms were sweating inside the plastic gloves. I wanted to work the latch on the trailer door, let myself out, and boogie, but I was afraid Sonterra would catch the sound and somehow figure out where I was.
“Front and center, Counselor. Come out, come out, wherever you are.”
“Give me five minutes,” I bargained.
“I don’t have much choice, do I?” Sonterra countered.
“Just go home. I’ll meet you there.”
“Like I’d fall for that one.”
One Last Look Page 13
