by Ross Thomas
“Who doesn’t?” Fork said, again looked at the dead woman, then back at Huff. “See if you can find out who she is.”
As Huff squatted beside the woman, his expression now detached, almost clinical, Fork recognized the throaty burble of an Aston Martin being driven in second gear. He turned and saw one of the uniforms bending down to look inside the British car. The uniform straightened up with a jack-in-the-box snap and waved it on.
The Aston Martin stopped just behind Ivy Settles’s Honda, whose headlights no one had yet turned off. Dixie Mansur emerged from the driver’s side, Mayor B. D. Huckins from the passenger side. Dixie still wore her blue cotton sweater and white pants. The mayor wore a navy-blue suit that wouldn’t have been out of place at either a wake or a funeral.
Fork noticed that Huckins’s full lips-devoid of all lipstick-were clamped into a thin stern line. But it wasn’t her mildly aggrieved pothole complaint look. Instead, it was what he recognized as her total disaster look that she used to confront mudslides, raging brushfires, ruptured sewer mains and political treachery.
Both Wade Bryant and Joe Huff also recognized the look; murmured to Fork that they might as well go see if the uniforms had turned up anything useful, and slipped away into the night. Sid Fork decided he might as well try to preempt the mayor’s attack.
“I forgot to call you again, B. D., and I’m awful sorry.”
Stopping a yard away from Fork, the mayor first examined him carefully, then used a cold and formal tone to say, “That’s perfectly all right, Chief Fork. Others called. UPI, AP and Reuters among them. They seem anxious to know all about our four murders in two days. Mrs. Ivy Settles also called after she heard about her husband’s death on an L.A. radio station. She was extremely-what’s the word?-distraught. But by then I could at least answer some of her questions because I’d been filled in and brought more or less up to date by Sheriff Coates. You know how diligent Charlie Coates is.”
The chief of police decided a nod would be his wisest answer.
“Sheriff Coates is wondering if he should send in what he calls a task force to help us out,” Huckins continued. “He seems to think our police department may be inadequate or, as he said, ‘spread too thin’ to deal with four homicides in two days. Sheriff Coates thinks that if Durango keeps this up, it’ll soon be on the five o’clock CNN news, sandwiched in between east L.A. gangs and the Israelis and Palestinians. Sheriff Coates is not at all sure Durango deserves that kind of notoriety. What d’you think, Chief Fork? Should the task force be invited in?”
Obviously confident of Fork’s answer, B. D. Huckins strode past him to the body of Ivy Settles. She stared down at it for several seconds, biting her lower lip, then walked another five or six feet and stared down at the dead woman. “Who is she, Sid?”
Fork looked at Kelly Vines. “Tell her,” he said and walked back to the Honda Prelude, reached through its open window and turned off its headlights.
“You knew her?” the mayor asked Vines.
Vines shook his head. “She was the one who took the pictures of Adair and me in Lompoc-and probably of you and Fork.”
“The mysterious photographer.” She looked down at the dead woman again. “Do they know who killed her?”
“They think it’s the same short fat guy who was a priest when he killed Norm Trice, a plumber when he killed Soldier Sloan and God knows what when he killed these two.”
“Teddy,” she said.
“Teddy Smith or Jones. Whatever he’s calling himself.”
The mayor looked out across the failed industrial park, closed her eyes, took a deep breath, moved her lips slightly, let the breath out and said, “I was just counting the funerals I have to go to next week-thanks to Teddy.”
“Three,” Vines said, gave the dead woman a brief look and added, “Maybe even four.”
“I wonder how many reporters there’ll be?”
“As always, too many.”
“We don’t need that-their prying.”
Vines studied the mayor, reached a conclusion and said, “Dixie didn’t tell you, did she? If she had, you and I wouldn’t be talking about public relations.”
“Didn’t tell me what?”
“That Parvis Mansur’s made contact.”
The mayor turned quickly and almost yelled at her sister, who was standing near the Prelude, talking cheerfully to a glum Sid Fork. Dixie Mansur turned slowly and, accompanied by Fork, strolled over to Huckins and Vines, giving the dead Ivy Settles an incurious glance and altogether ignoring the dead woman photographer.
“Mr. Vines tells me Parvis made contact,” the mayor said.
Her sister nodded.
“You forgot to tell me. Or Sid.”
“I didn’t forget,” Dixie said. “Parvis told me to tell Vines and Adair. Adair was out of town, so I told Vines. I like to do exactly what Parvis says. It makes life simpler.”
“He didn’t tell you not to tell Sid and me?”
“No. Why?”
Instead of replying, the mayor turned to the chief of police. “You and I have to decide right now if we’re going to invite Charlie Coates and his task force in.” Sid Fork turned away to look across Noble’s Trace at the same young uniformed policeman who had waved on the Aston Martin. The policeman was now bending over to lecture a dedicated gawker in a Thunderbird.
“Well?” the mayor said.
“If you invite Charlie Coates and his task force in, B. D.,” Fork said, still watching the young policeman, “I quit.”
“Don’t threaten me, Sid.”
“That’s a guarantee, not a threat.”
Before the mayor could make some possibly irrevocable decision, Kelly Vines interceded. “Like some professional advice?”
“From you?” she said.
Vines gave her his crooked, boyish grin, full of charm, the one Jack Adair knew to be a disguise. “My body’s disbarred, not my brain.”
“I’m sorry,” she said and looked around. “Where?”
“My car,” Sid Fork suggested.
“You want me along?” Dixie Mansur said.
“No,” the mayor replied. “We don’t.”
“Good,” Dixie said and started across Noble’s Trace toward the young uniformed policeman who was again directing traffic.
The mayor and the chief of police sat in the rear of the four-door sedan. The disbarred lawyer sat in front, half-turned behind the steering wheel, his right arm resting along the top of the front seat’s back.
“Don’t turn the sheriff down cold,” Vines said without preamble. “Stall him. When the media show up, give them your ten-minute scenic tour and make it last half an hour. Express grief, shock, horror and outrage about the murders. When they ask about motive, express bewilderment, but hint that arrests are imminent. Invite them to the funerals. Mention Durango’s growth and investment potential until they’re sick of it. Finally, call a press conference for the two of you and tell them again what you’ve already told them.”
“Bore ’em to death, huh?” Fork said.
Vines nodded.
Huckins, after nodding her unenthusiastic agreement, said, “We can’t stall Coates forever because he’ll insist on a deadline. And unless we come up with the killer before it expires, we’ll have to let him and his task force in.”
“What about jurisdiction?” Vines asked.
“We’re two blocks past the city limits,” Fork said. “So it’s my dead detective but his jurisdiction.”
“Tell the sheriff he can send in his task force on the fourth of July,” Vines said. “A week from Monday.”
“Why the fourth?” Huckins asked.
“Because if Mansur hasn’t closed the deal by then, it’s not going to be closed. After that, even if he swears it’s still on, neither Adair nor I will touch it.”
It was obvious Sid Fork didn’t like the date of the deadline. He glared at Vines, then at the mayor, gave his gray mustache a hard brush with his thumb and said, “You let a sheriff’s task fo
rce in here on the fourth of July, B. D., and you can forget about being reelected on the eighth of November.”
“Christ,” Vines said. “Make it the fifth then.”
Fork nodded, satisfied. “The fifth’d be a whole lot better.”
B. D. Huckins turned to gaze out the car window at her sister, who was talking to the young uniformed policeman. “It doesn’t really matter if it’s the fourth or the fifth, Sid.”
“The hell it doesn’t.”
The mayor turned to him and spoke in a voice that was slightly weary and extremely patient. A teacher’s voice, Vines thought. “Charlie Coates doesn’t want to send in a task force to help us find a killer. He wants to send in a task force to lift up the rocks and peek into our dark corners.”
“Let ’em,” Fork said. “You and me, B. D., we never took a dime from those hideout deals. The city got every last cent.”
She smiled at him sadly. “Is that what you plan to tell Charlie Coates and his task force, Sid?”
Chapter 32
Kelly Vines sat behind the wheel of the Mercedes at the end of the abandoned Durango Municipal Airport’s crumbling runway, waiting for the sound of the Cessna’s engine and wishing he had brought along the Baby Ruth candy bars.
A 9:58 P.M. he heard the Cessna’s engine as it made a low pass over the airport. Guessing its altitude at 250 or 300 feet, Vines switched on the car’s headlights and flicked them up to bright. At 10:02 P.M. he watched Merriman Dorr make another perfect landing.
The Cessna taxied to within seventy-five feet of the Mercedes and stopped, but Dorr kept the plane’s engine running as Jack Adair climbed out, made a wide berth of the spinning propellor and walked quickly toward the Mercedes, swinging the black cane. Before Adair reached the car, the Cessna had turned around, raced down the runway and disappeared into the night.
After Adair settled into the passenger seat, Vines switched off the headlights and asked, “How was she?”
“About like you said.”
“She recognize you?”
“No.”
“What else?”
“She thinks you’re a very silly man,” Adair said, unscrewed the cane’s handle, removed the cork and silently handed the glass tube flask to Vines, who sighed before taking a swallow.
As he passed the glass tube back to Adair, Vines said, “Mansur made contact.”
“He say who with?”
“He sent word by Dixie but she didn’t seem to know much more than that.”
“What else?”
“Well, there’s Teddy, the plumber-priest.”
“They caught him?” Adair asked, sounding less than hopeful.
“No, they didn’t catch him, but he killed Sid Fork’s bunco and fraud guy from Dallas, Ivy Settles.”
“When?”
“About an hour ago. They also say that while he was at it, Teddy killed that woman photographer who took our pictures in Lompoc.”
“Well, shit, Kelly,” Adair said and lapsed into silence. Vines also seemed to have run out of things to say and the silence continued until Adair said, “From the beginning. Everything.”
“All right.”
It took Vines fifteen minutes to tell it. He began with his purchase of candy bars, mixed nuts, whiskey and the paperback novel, and ended with B. D. Huckins’s gloomy assessment of the real purpose behind the sheriff’s proposed task force.
Adair listened, asking no questions, until he was sure Vines had finished. Then he asked, “You know what I’m having?”
“Second thoughts?” Vines said.
“Exactly.”
“Tell me about Dannie and we’ll come back to your second thoughts.”
“Well, she didn’t know me from Adam’s off ox and she thinks you’re some silly but harmless gentleman caller.”
“What about Soldier Sloan?”
“I made the mistake of asking her about Soldier P. Sloan and she immediately wanted to know what the ‘P’ stood for. I told her Pershing and suddenly she was back in junior high school, reciting the first verse of ‘I Have a Rendezvous with Death’ and asking whether I’d also like to hear the one about how poppies blow in Flanders fields.”
Vines closed his eyes and said, “Which doctor did you talk to?”
“Pease. He thinks Dannie’ll do just fine as long as we keep sending the six thousand a month. When I asked him what would happen to her if the money ran out, he said he’d see that she was placed in one of the state’s better mental hospitals where they might keep her for a week or ten days. I believe I told him Dannie wouldn’t make a very good bag lady.”
“No,” Vines said, opening his eyes, “she wouldn’t.” He drummed the fingers of his right hand on the steering wheel and asked, “Anything left in the tube?”
“Sure,” Adair said and passed it to him.
Vines had another swallow of bourbon, coughed and passed the glass tube back to Adair. “So you think there’s no possible connection between her and Soldier Sloan?”
“None,” Adair said.
“Then Dannie’s obviously not the DV in Soldier’s ‘C JA O RE DV.’”
“Obviously.”
Vines again drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as he stared out at the night that began just beyond the Mercedes’s three-pointed star atop the radiator. Finally, he stopped the drumming and said, “What about Venable?”
“Who?”
“Dixie Venable.”
Adair bit his lower lip to keep from gaping, then opened his mouth just wide enough to say, “Jesus. Her maiden name.”
“And the name Soldier first knew Dixie by.”
Adair looked at Vines with total suspicion. “When did all this dawn on you?”
“Just now,” Vines said.
“Who do we share this brilliance with?” Adair asked. “Dixie’s sister? Her husband? Maybe with the chief of police?”
“With nobody,” said Kelly Vines.
When Virginia Trice came over to their booth and said, “You got a call,” Vines was drinking a draft beer and eating a bowl of chili that he thought had too much cumin in it and not enough chili pepper. Adair, his mouth full of a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich, shrugged helplessly at Vines, who asked, “Who’s got a call?”
“Either one of you.”
“Who’s calling?”
“He wouldn’t say,” Virginia Trice replied, turned and went back to preside over the bar.
When Vines reached the bar, she had already moved the phone down to a spot in front of the last stool, which was four stools away from the nearest customer. Vines nodded his thanks, picked up the phone and said hello.
“Mr. Adair?”
“This is Vines.”
“Good. It is I, Parvis Mansur.”
“Right.”
“I’m calling from a pay telephone in Santa Barbara so please bear with me should I have to drop in more quarters.”
“How’d you know we were here?”
Vines could hear Mansur’s deep sigh. “Logic and luck. This is the fourth number I’ve called.”
“Just curious.”
“Did Dixie give you and Mr. Adair my message?”
“Yes.”
“Did you inform B. D. and Sid?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Approximately twenty-one minutes ago I received a call on my secure line, which obviously is no longer secure, hence this call from a pay telephone.”
Wondering when he last had heard anyone say “hence,” Vines said, “This call was from the same person?”
“Yes. This time a date was proposed or rather, I should say, insisted upon.”
“When?”
“Four July. Is that satisfactory to you and Mr. Adair?”
“The date’s okay. What about the place?”
“As we discussed, it must be a place to which, logically, the two of you could be lured. By that, I mean, it can’t be under a tree in the middle of nowhere.”
“Right.”
“Do you have a sug
gestion? If not, I do.”
Vines already had given considerable thought to where he and Adair were to be sold for $1 million. The place he had in mind featured a back door with an aluminum core sheathed in steel, but after deciding it would be prudent to listen first to Mansur’s proposal, he said, “What do you suggest?”
“Cousin Mary’s, primarily because of its location and its excellent security.”
“Sounds okay.”
“Good. I’m glad you agree.”
“Who called you, Parvis?” Vines said, using Mansur’s given name for the first time.
“The same man called both times. Obviously an American with a rather reedy tenor voice and no regional accent-at least none I could detect.”
“How’d he get your phone number?”
“I thought it best not to ask.”
The telephone buzzed and a recorded operator’s voice interrupted, requesting the caller to deposit an additional fifty cents. Vines listened to the quarters clank down into the pay phone. When the clanking was over, Mansur said, “Are you still there?”
“Still. Did you talk to him about the price?”
“Yes, of course, and he agreed to it with a minimum of grumbling.”
“No serious bargaining?”
“None.”
“That’s strange.”
“I thought so, too, which is why I stressed there would be no sale until the exact, specific amount was confirmed.”
“Until you’ve counted the money?”
“In essence, yes.”
“What’d he say?”
“He said no problem.”
“Anything else?” Vines asked.
“Did Dixie by any chance say where she was going after she left you?”
“When I last saw her she was with her sister.”
“Good,” Mansur said, sounding relieved. “That’s splendid. You might call B. D. and Sid and inform them of these new developments.”
“All right.”
“Good night then, Mr. Vines.”
“Good night,” Vines said, broke the connection with a forefinger, caught Virginia Trice’s eye and used a nod to invite her down to his end of the bar.
“You have the mayor’s home phone number?” Vines asked.
