by Vicki Lane
“Interesting but not conclusive” was the reply. “We don’t want to start making assumptions.”
“How right you are,” she agreed, remembering Blondie. “Phillip, a weird thing happened this morning….” and she recounted the story of the man in the black car and the advice that wasn’t a threat.
He listened without comment, then said at last, “Tricky. Warning Ben off is just going to make him stick all the closer to that little girl. By the way, Aidan and his mother have dropped off the map entirely and his court date is coming up. It’s looking more and more like there’s not going to be sufficient evidence for a murder charge but they’ll still forfeit a big wad of money if they don’t show. On the other hand,” he went on in a thoughtful tone, “maybe they just feel safer staying out of sight till time for the hearing.
“And just to complicate things a little more,” he added with a note of satisfaction, “when I went back to what’s-her-name, Willow’s house, I asked the girl who’s taking care of the cats what kind of car Aidan was driving that last time she saw him, the same afternoon you found Kyra in the corncrib…”
Elizabeth noted that he had carefully not said “the afternoon Kyra was attacked.” “Oh, let me guess, was it a white SUV?”
The rich chuckle filled the earpiece. “Got it in one, Sherlock.”
Suddenly, inspiration struck. “Phillip, there’s a studio stroll in the River District tomorrow. Laurel’s studio will be open and Kyra’s and probably Rafiq’s. It might be a good chance to, I don’t know, hear what’s being said about Boz. We could just kind of troll— and see what we catch.”
“And maybe keep an eye on Ben?”
“That too.”
* * *
It was almost five. The sun had finally dropped behind Pinnacle Mountain and the air was cooler. Elizabeth was hauling the last of the evicted lotuses to her compost pile at the edge of the garden when she heard a car coming slowly up the road. With a rueful look at her filthy clothes, she stood and waited.
The vehicle was out of sight below the barn and it didn’t sound like Ben’s truck. Neighbors rarely visited at this time of day and it was too late for the meter reader. She wiped her dirty face on the filthy tail of her T-shirt.
The white SUV came into view on the curve below the barn. Majestically and effortlessly it negotiated the newly deepened water breaks, moving relentlessly toward her. She stood there as if hypnotized, unable to move as the big vehicle stopped by the compost pile. The window slid down and a harsh voice said, “Ms. Goodweather, I presume? Marvin Peterson. We have a problem.”
CHAPTER 15
SUGAR PIE AND THE GOOD OL’ BOY
(SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 10)
…AND THERE I STOOD, COVERED IN MUD and pond scum, my mouth hanging open, while this very handsome, very suave silver-haired guy, in a navy blue blazer with monogrammed gold buttons, for god’s sake, is telling me that we have a problem. He’d said ‘Marvin Peterson’ but it simply did not register at first. I mean, after my phone conversation with Marvin Peterson the night Kyra’s house burned, I had a totally different picture of the guy— more…what can I say without being offensive? More nouveau riche, more…more tacky. This guy looked like a bloody British aristocrat! Or at least, my idea of one.” Elizabeth slumped back in the car seat. “I suppose if I ever met an actual British aristocrat, he’d turn out to look like one of the made men on The Sopranos.”
“So what happened?” Phillip’s eyes were fixed on the road as he pulled into the passing lane. They were on their way to the studio stroll in the River District with a planned stop at the junkyard where Boz’s body had been found. Elizabeth had driven in to Phillip’s rented house in Weaverville— the first time she’d ever seen his place, a somewhat shabby Arts and Crafts–style bungalow— and he had insisted on taking his car.
She always found it a little disconcerting being a passenger; since Sam’s death it was a rare occurrence for her and she was trying hard to relax. As Phillip slid the car into a marginal gap between two speeding eighteen-wheelers, she had to bite her lips to avoid making that sound dear to all backseat drivers: the long, slurping intake of breath between clinched teeth that said one would die, horribly mangled in a car crash, rather than give driving advice, no matter how badly needed.
“So did you invite him up to the house for tea and crumpets?” Phillip persisted, one eye on the rearview mirror.
“Not exactly; I did manage to ask if he’d like to come up to the porch, but the dogs were leaping about and I suspect he feared for his trousers. No, he stayed in his car and we had our little talk right there by the garden.”
* * *
Marvin Peterson had cut the motor and pulled on his emergency brake. “I have to be back in Asheville,” he had said, glancing at the slim watch on his wrist, “in less than an hour, so I don’t have much time. But it was important enough that I came out myself to ask for your help, Ms. Goodweather.”
“My help?” she had echoed, sounding half-witted, even to herself, and resisting the urge to lean against the spotless white vehicle. “About what?”
Peterson had pulled off his sunglasses and fixed her with a candid, blue-eyed gaze that took in the entirety of her sweaty, mud-soaked person. “I know you have my daughter’s best interests at heart. And, as I told you when we spoke earlier, I’m concerned about her mental state. The doctor who works with her was quite clear— she should not get entangled in another relationship at this point in time.”
“That’s what your guy in the black car said,” Elizabeth had countered, instantly irritated at the smug superiority of the man. “Only he made it sound like a threat.” She had begun to feel both indignant and reckless. Putting a muddy hand on the spotless car door, she leaned in closer to Peterson. The rich aroma of the car’s leather interior, coupled with the scent of subtle cologne, had only heightened her annoyance and she had heard herself sputtering, “So, Mr. Peterson, are you going to have your…your goon break Ben’s legs if he goes on seeing Kyra?”
* * *
“And then Peterson looked at me like I was a raving idiot. He got a little huffy and said he didn’t know what I was talking about— what goon? what black car? Then he said some more about Kyra’s mental state and that Ben would be safest staying away from her— for his own good. It sure sounded like a threat to me; what do you think?”
“I think Peterson’s too sharp to do anything that could be construed as actionable. He’s got a daughter with a history of mental instability—” Phillip glanced over at Elizabeth, then continued, “I checked into it: after her mother’s death, Kyra had a little time-out in an expensive private clinic up in New England. And since her boyfriend has just been murdered—”
“She told us about the clinic that afternoon you were at the farm. Remember? The day I went with you to Aunt Omie’s? But what if it’s not true, the mental thing? What if she got sent to that clinic because she suspected her father of being responsible for her mother’s death? What if that was his way to shut her up, as well as discredit everything else she ever said from then on?”
At first Phillip made no reply, but as he turned the car into the entry of Hensley’s Salvage, he nodded briefly. “There may be something in that. I guess we both need to keep open minds.”
They pulled to a stop in front of an old trailer that boasted the sign Office by its crooked metal steps. A tiny, dripping air conditioner hummed and rattled in one of the windows.
“I’d prefer not to identify myself here,” Phillip told her as he cut off the engine. “I have no authority and no right to ask any questions.” He glanced at Elizabeth and winked. “No, I’m just a good ol’ boy looking for an alternator for a ’82 Chevy Chevette and you’re my lady friend, along for the ride.”
“Along for the ride? Phillip, I was one of the witnesses when they took that car out of the crusher. I know middle-aged women are more or less invisible to young men, but don’t you think there’s just a chance ol’ Travis might remember me as the lady wi
th the wild-looking redhead the day they found Boz?”
“You got a point, there.” He considered. “Okay, I’m the good ol’ boy looking for the alternator and my lady friend told me about what happened here and I’m curious. Can we go with that? At least it has the advantage of being partly true.”
“ ‘Merely corroborative detail intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative,’ ” Elizabeth muttered, then, seeing Hawkins’s puzzled look, added, “Gilbert and Sullivan— The Mikado.” The metal door of the trailer squeaked open and the same young man with the same greasy Caterpillar cap and, Elizabeth noted, possibly the same greasy T-shirt ambled down the steps. He sauntered around to Phillip’s open window and inquired in a disinterested drawl, “What kin I do you for?”
“Reckon I might could find me an alternator for a ’82 Chevy Chevette? The one on my mama’s car is all burnt to hell and the dealer wants an arm and a leg. And that’s just for a rebuilt one.” Phillip got out of the car and stood leaning against the door in a nonchalant attitude. Elizabeth was fascinated by how easily he had slipped into the mountain speech and manner. The summers he had spent with Aunt Omie had served him well, she thought. At any moment now, he would probably spit.
It was Travis who spat, a long stream of amber liquid. “Might could be there’s one out there. I kin show you where there’s some Chevettes.”
“Son, just point me in the direction and you can go back in the cool.”
“Can’t do it.” Travis glanced wistfully at the air conditioner. “Insurance. My daddy’d tear me a new one if I was to let you go roamin’ around on yore own.”
“Okay, then, we don’t want to rile up your daddy.” Hawkins leaned down and looked in the window. “You gone come with us, Liz?”
* * *
“Liz!” “Rile up your daddy!” The man’s having a ball with this, she thought as she trudged behind Travis and Hawkins through the rows of wrecked cars. The two men were like long-lost buddies, discussing the merits of Chevys as opposed to Fords; hunting dogs (Travis inclined to redbone hounds while Phillip favored Plotts, going on at tedious and improbable length about the exploits of Ol’ Clyde); NASCAR legends (they both agreed on the superiority of the late great Number 3, aka Dale Earnhardt); the iniquity of liability suits; and the general low-downness of lawyers.
The alternator for the mythical ’82 Chevette was found and removed from a rusting car, its rear end compressed accordion-like and its windshield marked with two spiderwebs of cracks. “Didn’t nobody walk away from this one.” Travis wrenched open the driver’s-side door and pointed to the ugly stains on the rotting upholstery. “You see some mean things in this line of work.”
Phillip peered into the car and grimaced. “Speakin’ of mean things, what about that old boy they found in your crusher? Now that beat all.”
Travis’s eyes gleamed. “You want to see the crusher? It’s just over yon, behind all them tires.”
* * *
The three of them stood looking at the boxlike structure in a reverent silence. Phillip was first to speak. “Son, I tell you what: that’s a hell of a way to die. Reckon why he got in there in the first place?”
“I reckon someone must of put him there. He had a bullet hole in the back of his head.” The young man’s reply was smug.
“You didn’t tell me that, Liz,” Hawkins reproved Elizabeth. “I guess you didn’t get that close.” He turned to Travis, who, for the first time, was looking straight at Elizabeth. “Liz was here when they found that feller.” Hawkins stepped closer and threw a burly arm around Elizabeth’s surprised shoulders. “Near ’bout made her puke, didn’t it, Sugar pie?”
Caught off-guard—“Sugar pie!”—Elizabeth forced a weak smile and said, “It was pretty awful, all right.”
Travis looked at her hard and with an immense effort of recollection said, “You’re the one was here with that redheaded hippie chick.”
“That’s Liz’s little girl and it like to worry us to death, her runnin’ around with crazy foreigners like that Ray-fiq and all that crowd the dead feller was in with.” The arm slipped down to Elizabeth’s waist and hung there. “There’s talk out in Marshall County that some of ’em was runnin’ one of them meth labs.”
“You two from Marshall?” Travis was suddenly suspicious.
“Liz has her a farm right across the hard road from where that feller in the crusher used to live.” Hawkins’s face assumed an insinuating leer and he squeezed her waist in a proprietary hug. “I just visit whenever I get the chance.”
They walked back to the trailer, Phillip solicitously keeping his arm around her. “I shouldn’t have taken her back there; she was all to hell after she come here before— like to bust out cryin’ when first she told me about it.” He leaned toward Travis to confide. “You know how women are.”
“That feller in the crusher prob’ly got what he had comin’,” Travis replied. “Way I heard it, he’d been layin’ up with some sweet thing and he was treatin’ her bad. They say her daddy was out to get him.”
He spat again, this time in the direction of the rottweiler that had just emerged from under the trailer. “But it could of been that Ray-fiq. He knows more about it than he lets on, that’s what I think.” He started up the steps. “Lemme ask Daddy what he wants fer that alternator. He’s in here watchin’ wrasslin’. Ever since he had his stroke, he can’t do much, but he’s got all the prices in his head. I try to get him to retire and go stay with my sister, but he won’t do it. This place is home to him.”
The rottweiler advanced step by cautious step, its stump of a tail wagging. Elizabeth put out her hand to be sniffed, at the same time disentangling herself from Hawkins’s arm and muttering, “You know how women are!”
He said nothing, just hummed, almost under his breath, the first few bars of “Your Cheatin’ Heart.”
Travis was back out in a few minutes, carrying a grease-smudged invoice. Hawkins paid from the fistful of wadded bills he pulled from a pocket. “Glad we caught you— I come by couple of weeks back of this and the place was closed up tight.”
“Yeah, I had me some business to take care of and I couldn’t leave Daddy here— he’s bad to try to do things he oughtn’t to. Had to take him over to my sister’s fer a few days.” Travis chuckled. “He like to had a fit; them young uns of hern kept pesterin’ him to let ’em watch cartoons when his wrasslin’ show was on. Said he just hid the remote and told ’em it was busted. Only thing is, he done hid it and then he fergot where it was. I had to buy my sister a new one ’cause couldn’t none of us find it. Son, I tell you the truth, old folks can be a pain in the butt.”
“I hear you, good buddy.” Phillip nodded in heartfelt agreement. “You’ll likely be seein’ a lot more of me; my mama aims to hang on to that car till she can’t drive no more. And I’m the one she calls when anything tears up.”
“You uns come back when you need anything,” Travis said. “Nice doin’ business with you.” He started back up the steps, then turned. “Daddy says Ray-fiq might could be one of them terrorists.” He spat again and fixed Elizabeth with a somber gaze. “Was it me, I’d keep that redheaded gal away from him.”
* * *
“That was fun.” Phillip was grinning from ear to ear as they drove away. “I was afraid for a minute that you were going to slug me when I called you Sugar pie.”
“Or at least draw myself up to my full height and say, ‘Sir, I’ll thank you to remember that my name is Mrs. Goodweather.’ ” Elizabeth smiled. “No, I was probably more surprised by the ‘Liz’— Sam’s the only one who ever called me that.”
There was a brief silence and she glanced at Phillip. “You do a great good ol’ boy impression.”
“I was pretty convincing, if I do say so. I’ll probably come back another day and spend a little more time with Travis— maybe Mama’s Chevette’ll need something that takes more time to get at. I might bring along a six-pack and ask a few more questions.”
“About Rafiq being a terrorist?” Elizabeth frowned at Hawkins. “Surely you don’t think…?”
“Nah, what I think is Travis’s daddy probably watches too much television. But we did learn one interesting thing….” He waited a beat.
“I wondered about that,” Elizabeth answered the unspoken challenge. “He knew about the bullet hole!”
“Yep, and—”
“And there’s been nothing in the news about how Boz actually died…has there? Just that he was presumably dead before he was put in the car. And the police were the ones who removed the body and they had the area cordoned off…. So how did Travis know there was a bullet hole?”
CHAPTER 16
STROLLING AND TROLLING
(SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 10)
THE NARROW STREETS AND REHABILITATED BUILDINGS of the River District were teeming with visitors. Art lovers, tourists, and the idly curious were drawn to the twice-yearly studio stroll, and their cars crowded the parking area nearest The Wedge. Just as Elizabeth and Phillip had resigned themselves to continuing on to one of the outer lots, a champagne-colored Lexus driven by a harried-looking man with four chattering women as passengers pulled out of a shady parking spot near the oddly shaped building where Laurel had her studio.
“I thought we’d go up and see Laurel first, and find out where Rafiq’s studio is. And then go to Kyra’s studio; Ben said he’d get some sandwiches and we could eat there,” Elizabeth told Phillip as they made their way past an impromptu jam session on the sidewalk. An upright bass plucked by a bespectacled man in a beret was flanked by two rapt drummers and a thin teenage girl who was tormenting a washboard into a syncopated rasp.
The narrow doorway was blocked by a tall, handsome African-American man with thick dreadlocks almost to his waist. Dark red dancer’s tights were his only clothing. His bare chest glistened with oil and he gesticulated wildly as he spoke to a statuesque blonde wearing gold and purple belly-dancer garb. “I cannot work under those conditions. I told Sorayae that if the fire dancers—” He broke off his tirade and courteously moved aside, allowing Elizabeth and Phillip to pass.
