Odd Partners

by Mystery Writers of America

  “How is Frank?” she said.

  “We’ll let a doctor decide,” I said.

  She burst out crying. She sounded like a banshee. Leonard said something soothing, then wheeled them out of there, leaving me beside the road, standing in the moonlight, smelling the heat from the Lincoln’s engine as steam rose up the hill in thinning white plumes.

  * * *

  —

  I went back down the hill, hoping I was wrong about him being dead. Nope. He was so dead there needed to be two of him.

  As I walked around the car, I noticed there was a mark on the back end of it, and as I continued around it, I saw the front left tire was blown. On the passenger seat, there was blood. I hadn’t noticed any on the woman, so I presumed it was the man’s, thrown there by impact and gravity. I noticed too that some of that blood had got on my pants when I crawled across the seat.

  By the time I climbed up to the road again, something was itching at the back of my brain.

  * * *

  —

  Leonard came back not long after, but the ambulance and the emergency crew got there first, followed by the law. It was that county’s sheriff’s department, and we didn’t know any of them. We are usually detained or arrested by someone we know.

  The entire hill was lit up by emergency lights. It looked like a nightclub up there. I answered some questions, gave the deputy, a stout black woman named Celeste Jones, all the information I had. She didn’t look down the hill at the car. I guessed she wasn’t the one for that. She made it easy for us and let us go.

  Going home, Leonard driving, I said, “How was she?”

  “Said she was Terri Parker, and she seemed to be rolling with the punches pretty good. She’s twenty-seven, and the dead man is her husband, Frank Parker.”

  “You have that curious tone,” I said. “Like the one you get when you realize you have on mismatched socks.”

  “I’m thinking I got another pair just like them at home. Hell, I don’t know, Hap. I got a funny feeling is all.”

  “You and me both, brother.”

  When Leonard dropped me off at home, the porch light was on. I used my key, slipped in quietly. My daughter, Chance, had stayed over. She was sleeping on the couch. It actually folded out, but the thing was far more comfortable if you didn’t bother with the fold-out bed, which could feel a bit like a torture instrument from the Inquisition.

  Her long, dark hair was hanging off the couch, touching the floor. I couldn’t see her face. I had only known about her for a short while, never realized I had a daughter until she was an adult. It was pretty wonderful.

  I went quietly into the kitchen, got the milk, poured myself a glass, found some animal cookies on one of the shelves, sat down at the kitchen table to snack on them in the dark.

  After a while, I crept upstairs to the bedroom, slipped into the bathroom to brush my teeth, pulled on my pajama pants, and climbed into bed.

  Brett rolled over and put her arm across my chest. I could smell the sweetness of her hair, strawberry shampoo.

  “Catch any fish?” she said.

  I thought she was asleep and was surprised when she spoke.

  “We caught them, looked them over, and sent them home. There was something else, though.”

  She rolled over again and stacked her pillows behind her head, sat up against them. She didn’t turn on the light.

  “Like what?” she said.

  I told her about the woman, the car, and the dead man, ended with, “Something didn’t seem right.”

  “You said the passenger seat was bloody?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Did she have blood on her dress?”

  I thought about that for a long moment, remembered the shimmering whiteness of it. “I don’t think so.”

  “She had her purse, but left the high heels at the bottom of the hill?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Shock can make you do all kinds of funny things, but why didn’t she carry the shoes with her is my first thought? Seems staged.”

  “That’s pretty good for not being there,” I said.

  “I’m amazing. Now I’m sleepy again. Good night.”

  Brett readjusted her pillows, put her arm across my chest again, and went back to sleep.

  I lay there thinking, which can be pretty painful on most occasions, but at that time of night when I should have been sleeping, it was akin to an injury.

  I eventually slept.

  * * *

  —

  I didn’t go into the office of BRETT SAWYER’S INVESTIGATIONS until ten. By that time Brett had already gone to work and Chance had gone home. Chance left a note.

  DADDY. YOU ATE MY ANIMAL CRACKERS.

  LOVE YOU. BUY MORE.

  When I got to the agency, Brett and Leonard were there. Leonard was having his morning vanilla cookies, dipping them gently into coffee. Brett had her long red hair clamped back and she was sipping from a mug of coffee about the size of a fish pond.

  When I closed the door, Leonard said, “Brett asked me about the blood, and I got to say, like you, I didn’t see a drop on her.”

  “I think she didn’t want to sacrifice the dress,” Brett said.

  “Yeah,” I said, “something about this whole thing stinks.”

  “Did you shower this morning?” Leonard said.

  “You know what you can do?” I said, and then I told him. It was anatomically impossible, but I told him anyway.

  * * *

  —

  We spent the day tapping pencils against things, looking out the window, wondering what we would have for lunch. No one came in with a job. No one came in to ask our opinions on anything. There was nothing outside the window but a parking lot, and across the street some houses, and in the oak by the lot a squirrel jumped about now and then, but it was more like it was squirrel duty, no real enthusiasm there.

  Brett made another pot of coffee and we sat looking at one another some more, saying nothing. Arguing politics wasn’t going to cut it. We’d been there before. Leonard was the only black, gay Republican I knew who was a Vietnam War hero and only listened to country music. There are others I didn’t know, of course.

  Talking religion wouldn’t work either. We were all atheists. So, we talked about the night before, kicked that around a bit, and since it was really none of our business, we got right on looking into it.

  Leonard drove me out to the wreck site while Brett stayed at the office and looked into the dead man, Frank Parker. Out at the hill, we parked off the road and made our way down to where the car had been.

  It had been hauled off, but in the daylight we could see clearly where the tires had made deep marks in the earth as the car jetted off the road. My phone may not have had service there, but it took good photographs and I took a lot of them.

  “One thing I realize now is the tree impacted on her side,” I said. “But it was Frank who was all messed up. She came out pretty unscathed. And as has been noted, she wasn’t covered in blood, even though the seat where she would have been sitting was. It was a hard-enough crash to make the bag pop, but was it enough to kill him? He had quite a lick to the front of his head, where the bag would have protected him.”

  “It do be curious,” Leonard said.

  “Let me add something else,” I said. “The back bumper, I could see well enough last night to see it was banged up.”

  “Like someone had used a car or truck to push it?”

  “Could have been a bang from a previous accident, but…And another thing, there are tire marks as the car goes off the road, but no skid marks.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Add it to the other stuff, it starts to paint a different picture. And you know what else I think?”

  “She had help.”

  “Bingo.”

&
nbsp; * * *

  —

  Back at the office Brett said, “Frank Parker founded Sad Onions.”

  Chance worked with us part-time and she was there, too, her pretty face alight with youth, framed by that lovely hair, dark as the far side of the moon.

  She said, “Sad who?”

  “It’s a chip company,” Brett said. “They dry out onions into chips, and the chips are in a kind of…I don’t know. Droopy shape. Anyway, Frank called them sad onions, because they’re droopy. It’s stupid, but hey, it caught. Company also makes chips out of other vegetables. Get this, after the onions, their biggest seller is made from a dried turnip.”

  “Who eats that crap?” Leonard said.

  “I’ve had them,” Brett said, “better than you think. Some of them are salted, some are peppered, and some are straight dehydrated vegetables with no frills. Frank Parker started out an onion grower, over around Noonday. Soil there is supposed to be great for onions. Makes them sweet. Anyway, he figured out how to dehydrate them and turn them into chips before every other company was doing it, and he got rich. And he got married.”

  “Terri,” Leonard said.

  “Yep. He was seventy, and she’s twenty-five,” Brett said.

  “And a hottie,” I said.

  “Watch it, Buster,” Brett said.

  Chance snickered. She liked it when I was in trouble.

  * * *

  —

  On the way to the sheriff’s department that had investigated the crime, Leonard said, “I don’t think that woman was ever in the car, that’s what I think. She was down there waiting for someone to come by. Standing down there today, a car went by, and I heard it a long time before it got there, because that’s how sound is at the bottom of that hill. She left the shoes there to support the idea she had been in the car, and to climb the hill faster.”

  “I think you’re right.”

  “That’s a first,” he said. “Next thing you’ll learn to love guns and quit supporting liberal politics.”

  “I don’t think so,” I said.

  * * *

  —

  At the sheriff’s department they let us cool our heels in an interrogation room, something we were professionals at. It was a full thirty minutes before Deputy Celeste Jones came in.

  “You wanted to see me?” she said, and took a chair at the table across from us.

  “We don’t think that wreck was just a wreck, and we don’t think the lady fair is true and blue,” I said.

  Celeste turned her head and cracked her neck. I almost expected it to fall off.

  “Yeah,” she said. “Why are you thinking that?”

  We gave her our thoughts on the matter, showed her the photos on my phone. She got out a pad and wrote down some notes, then it was over and all three of us were walking toward the front door.

  Celeste said, “Something stinks, gentlemen, but the sheriff thinks it is exactly what it looks like. He’s not the sort to disbelieve a pretty, blond white woman.”

  “But you are?” Leonard said.

  “Sometimes,” she said. “But I’ll tell the sheriff what you said, how you feel. Up to him to figure out what to do about it.”

  * * *

  —

  It was about nine the next morning when we heard someone coming up the outside stairway to the office. I went to the window that overlooked the lot and took a gander. There was a sheriff’s car from the next county in the lot, with a crunched front end. The law showing up is seldom good, even if they’re out of their jurisdiction.

  There was a gentle knock. I opened the door. There was a young, lean, black man standing there holding his white cowboy hat. He wore a sheriff’s outfit and a deputy sheriff’s badge. He had hound-dog eyes and a soulful look, a smile with enough fine teeth an alligator would have envied him.

  I invited him in. He shook hands with all of us, sat in front of the office desk, and looked across at Brett, which was a view I envied. I sat in a chair at the corner of the desk, next to Leonard, who had his butt parked on the edge of the desk.

  “My name is Journey Clover, and really, that’s my name.”

  I figured that was remarked on a lot and he wanted to clear up questions right away.

  “Okay, Deputy Clover,” Brett said.

  “I came over to tell you that the whole thing with the wreck, the thing you fellows came across, has been wrapped up.”

  “You came all the way over here to tell us that?” Leonard said.

  “Seemed the polite thing to do, considering you came by yesterday to voice some suspicions. I’m here to tell you we have done a thorough investigation, and it was nothing more than an unfortunate accident.”

  “That’s a quick investigation,” Brett said.

  “We have good people,” he said.

  “They must be damn good,” Leonard said. “Two days later and it’s done?”

  “Simple case,” he said. “Listen, I don’t want to be impolite, and we appreciate your concern, your ideas about this, but people, it’s done. It was nothing more than an accident.”

  “And you’d rather we not poke our noses into it?” Leonard said.

  “I suppose that’s right. I knew Mr. Parker well, by the way, liked him. I used to be an insurance salesman before I went to work at Sad Onions. Sold him some insurance. He seemed like a really nice guy, did lots of charity work.”

  “What insurance company did you work for?” Brett asked.

  “Regency Mutual,” he said. “I wasn’t much of a salesman. Sold Parker a policy, liked him, and went to work for him in the office. I have an accounting degree. But it didn’t suit me, so I ended up in the sherriff’s department.”

  “That means you knew his wife as well?” Leonard said.

  “Not much, a little. On sight, that sort of thing. She came into the office, of course, went to lunch with Parker. But, hey, that’s all I got. Celeste wanted to keep you in the loop. She said she had suspicions, too, but the investigation closed them out. She feels it’s all been answered. Well, got a bit of a drive, so nice to meet you. Just wanted you to know.”

  * * *

  —

  After Deputy Clover left, Brett said, “Tell me I’m not the only one that found that odd.”

  “You’re not the only one,” Leonard said.

  I nodded. “Yeah. Drives all the way over here to tell some civilians how things turned out. Usually you can’t get a thing out of the law, even if you’re the victim.”

  “It do be peculiar,” Leonard said.

  “Yes, it do,” Brett said. “Follow the money. Meaning I’m going to talk to some insurance folks I know, then see what I can find out about Mrs. Parker. You and Leonard check up on Clover?”

  Me and Leonard drove over to Clemency, which was the town where Clover’s office was located. Leonard was at the wheel and I was sitting in the passenger seat watching the scenery rush by.

  “Front end of Clover’s car was smashed in,” I said. “Wonder what the story is on that?”

  “You’re thinking like me. What if Clover gave Parker a little push from behind, sent him down that hill into those trees.”

  “I was thinking what if Parker was dead before he went over the edge in the car. His head was really bashed in, and it seems to me the airbag would have prevented a wound that bad. I think they killed him and stuffed him in his car and he bled like a stuck hog. Also thinking since Clover knew him and his wife, maybe Clover wanted to be in the clover, decided to help the wife bump the hubby for some insurance money, and she came with it?”

  “But why would he leave Sad Onions, become a deputy, if he wanted to be near her?” Leonard said.

  “Husband could have got suspicious, so Clover needed to put some space between them.”

  “Maybe,” Leonard said.

  * * * />
  —

  We stopped in at a greasy spoon that looked like a railroad boxcar. We had caught it at a time when no one was there but us. We bellied up to the counter, ordered coffee and burgers.

  The server who brought us our food was a middle-aged white lady with a tired face, but a sweet attitude. She wore an old-fashioned waitress hat that was precariously perched on her hairdo, which was intended to be blond, but looked like an enormous wad of pink cotton candy.

  If anyone knows the citizens of a town, it’s a café worker, a barber, or a bartender. I gave her my most heartwarming smile.

  “We’re wondering about an old friend of ours, Deputy Clover. You know him?”

  “I do,” she said, “and if you’re such good friends, why are you wondering to me?”

  “Touché,” I said.

  “Thing is,” Leonard said, “we’re insurance investigators.”

  “Yeah?” she said. “So, not old friends.”

  “There was an accident outside of town, on that high hill. A man was killed,” I said. “We’re looking into some possibilities.”

  “Possibilities?”

  We didn’t respond to that.

  “Cutting to the chase,” Leonard said, “you ever see Mrs. Parker come in with Clover?”

  “Nope, not once, but she didn’t act like much of a wife.”

  “No?” I said. I tried to say it like the idea of infidelity was something I had never considered or even heard of.

  “Way she hung on that woman when she was in here, in the back booth there….I just don’t get it. Two women?”

  “What woman?”

  “The black deputy at the sheriff’s department.”

  Click.

  * * *

  —

  Outside in the car I said, “So, what did we learn?”

  “We learned that waitress doesn’t like two women together, so I have to make sure to bring my Pookie here for lunch someday and rub up against him, see how she likes two men.”