Chill Factor (19 page)

As she gained speed, a driver ahead slammed on his brakes. Dixie braked behind him, and the newspaper flopped open. Officer E. Arthur Harris stared up at her—the same officer she’d yelled at after Edna was killed. Dixie hadn’t realized it was the same man.

Harris dead, after she’d singled him out.
At random?

No, something had drawn her to him. Something in his eyes that differed from the other officers’. The realization sent a worm of uncertainty into her thoughts.

She snatched up the paper.

According to Rashly, the names of the officers involved in the shootings had not been made public. She scanned the article—

Damn.
Now
traffic moved.

Tossing the paper aside, she shifted gears and accelerated into the stream. From what she’d read, Dixie didn’t think the reporters had made the connection. Had it been merely a fluke that the sniper picked Arthur Harris? Not very damn likely—not with some five thousand HPD officers to choose from.

Recalling the citizens who’d stopped to rubberneck—some with cameras—Dixie couldn’t help wondering if her verbal attack on Harris had led to his being targeted. Too much coincidence, otherwise.

Don’t squat on your spurs, lass
, Barney would say. Dixie needed another patch of guilt like a tomcat needs a trousseau.

Yet, as she broke free of traffic and sped toward home, stealing glances at Art Harris’ photo, the guilt phantom curled into the back of her mind and settled. Either her impulsive attack had tagged the officer to be killed, or the same unknown quality that caused her to single out Harris had also drawn the sniper.

An hour later, her black funeral suit exchanged for jeans, boots, and a pale yellow camp shirt, Dixie headed back to town, armed with a thin leather folder containing Edna’s photo, the November newspaper article on the group Meanstreak, and the ticket Edna had saved from Club Cato. The article represented the earliest date in Edna’s records that suggested a change in behavior. After that date, she had made purchases at Unique Boutique, Artistry Spa, and Fit After Fifty.

The address on Washington Avenue near Heights Boulevard placed the club about thirty miles from Edna’s house. Dixie located Club Cato in a narrow building, originally a cartographer’s shop, according to the bronze plaque beside the door. For a ten-dollar cover fee, she received a ticket exactly like Edna’s but stamped with today’s date.

Even with the air conditioning cranked to chill and three enormous fans whirring near the high ceilings, the long room smelled faintly of smoke, beer, and sweat. Maps, old and new, covered every surface. A framed five-by-seven-foot aerial of the Texas Gulf Coast hung behind the bar. On closer inspection, she discovered the photograph was compiled from overlapping eight-by-ten prints, pieced together and hand-colored. Dixie liked the effect, and wondered about getting one for Parker’s bare walls. Brokering yachts, he spent a lot of time up and down that coast.

A map of a different Texas town, signed by Calvin Cato and protected by layers of clear varnish, embellished each tabletop. Nautical tin candle holders lighted table cards that announced
the band currently belting out “Wheel of Fortune.” Dixie vaguely recognized the song from Kathleen and Barney’s audiotape collection.

Grabbing a stool at the bar, she ordered a Shiner Bock.

“Is that Meanstreak playing?” she yelled above the music to the bartender.

He nodded. A silver feather dangled from his left ear. “Wouldn’t think a group that young could do such fine retro. Forties, fifties, sixties—wail it like they were born to it.”

She followed his appreciative gaze to the players. The woman at the microphone wore a metal-studded leather corset, fishnet hose, and knee boots—a teenage dominatrix. She sat draped over a dentist’s chair. Jet-black hair, fringed in scarlet as if the tip of each strand had been dipped in red paint, swung away from her angular face as she appeared to battle a runaway dentist’s drill in her other hand. Her antics with the drill seemed totally unconnected to the song’s plaintive words or to her sultry voice.

Two guitar players flanked her. The bald man playing lead stood naked to the waist, unless you counted the tattoos covering every inch of skin below his ears.
LIFE IS PAIN
in four-inch letters snaked across his muscular back through a tapestry of flowers, birds, and zoo animals. He gaped at the woman fighting the drill as if he’d never seen her act.

The bass man ignored her as he concentrated on the strings at his fingertips. His black pearl-buttoned shirt, tight black jeans, and black felt hat came straight out of every old western Dixie’d ever seen. She hoped the shiny revolver, holstered low and tied to his thigh with a leather thong, was as fake as it looked.

Almost ordinary in comparison, the young woman on keyboard flashed a friendly smile at the audience, revealing half-inch fangs. The drummer, hidden behind his cymbals, might’ve been a ghost. Or just exceptionally pale-skinned and bashful.

Dixie envisioned Edna at one of the tables, watching this strange band with their weird antics. Closing her eyes, listening to the fabulous music, the vision became clearer. The mid-1950s would’ve marked the beginning of Edna’s life with Bill Pine—a much happier time for her.

The bartender returned with Dixie’s Shiner and a dish of bar crackers. As Dixie paid him, they watched the singer bring the dentist’s whirling drill dangerously close to her breast.

“That girl’s like a wildcat in heat,” he said.

“Do they play here nightly?”

“Yep. Own the place. Or most of it, anyway.”

Dixie jotted
Join me during the next break?
on a business card, folded a twenty-dollar bill around it, and threaded her way among the tables to the bandstand. She handed the card to the tattooed guitarist.

He glanced at the twenty, then leaned close. “What would you like to hear, babe?”

“Surprise me.”

Deftly sliding the bill aside, he read the message. Nodded. Slipped the card in his jeans pocket. Before he could make the money disappear the same way, Dominatrix snatched it and, grinning devilishly, pushed it down her ample, leather-encased cleavage.

Near the bandstand, Dixie claimed a table big enough to seat the entire group. The Shiner hit her stomach with a chilly explosion, a reminder that she’d skipped dinner.

Finally winning the battle against the drill, the woman turned a knob on a tank labeled “nitrous oxide” and took a campy, mind-numbing whiff. The band segued into “Java Jive,” with Tattoo singing lead, Dominatrix and Tex singing harmony. Out of time, out of place—yet the Ink Spots themselves had never sounded better. And their vintage audience appeared to enjoy the show.

At the break, the three leads joined Dixie at her table. Tattoo made introductions. He turned out to be Rick, Dominatrix was Corinne, and Tex was Walt. Dixie liked her own tags better.

“What’re you drinking?” she asked them.

With a whirl of his finger, Tattoo signaled the bartender to bring their usual. Then he whipped a chair around and straddled it.

“Now, D. A. Dixie Flannigan, to what do we owe your generosity?”

“DA?” Corinne blinked. “We’re having drinks with suit fuzz?”

“Not ‘District Attorney,’” Dixie assured her, though at other times she allowed the confusion to stand. “My initials.”

“Don’t tell me.” Tattoo placed her business card on his forehead and focused in the distance. “Debbie Ann.”

“Rick,” Corinne admonished, slapping his shoulder. “C’mon, does this woman look like a Debbie Ann?”

They both studied Dixie. Tex—Walt—had been staring at her since he sat down, but Dixie wasn’t certain he actually saw anything. His hazel eyes had a blank glaze that the room’s bad lighting couldn’t quite account for.

“I prefer Dixie,” she said.

But Tattoo wouldn’t give up. “Daphne Alison.”

Dixie shook her head.

“Delia Amelia?”

“Here, dodo.” Corinne, with long, crimson-nailed fingers, pulled the twenty from between her breasts and pitched it at him. “Give the money back, maybe she’ll
tell
you her name.”

A waitress appeared before he could answer. She passed bottles of Heineken for Rick and Corinne, another Shiner for Dixie, and a double Scotch rocks for Walt—whose glazed gaze remained stuck on Dixie even as he drank.

Dixie unzipped the thin leather folder she’d brought and took out Edna’s recent glamour photo.

“Do you recall seeing this woman in the club?”

Corinne pulled the photograph closer to her side of the table. “Lots of old folks come in here.” She passed the picture to Rick.

He shook his head and pushed it toward Walt, who took a full two seconds to swivel his eyes downward.

“Maybe this one’s better.” Dixie replaced the photo with an older one, taken before Bill Pine died.

“Maybe.” Corinne wrinkled her forehead and tapped the photograph with a red talon. “Was the man with her?”

Dixie started to say no, then stopped. Who was to say Bill and Edna hadn’t discovered this place together, then she returned in November to rekindle the memory?

“Not in the past year,” Dixie replied. “But the woman may have come in alone last fall.”

Rick positioned the photograph for a better view, shook his
head, and then tossed the photo across the table for Walt’s slow scrutiny.

“Uh-huh, she was here,” Walt drawled. “Sat here through all four sets. Alone.”

Maybe the alcohol had lubricated his jaw.

“What made you remember her?” Dixie asked.

“Spittin’ image of my aunt. Bought her a drink. Wine, I think. White. She looked sad.”

“Did you talk to her?” From the corner of her eye, Dixie saw Tattoo start to slip the twenty into his pocket. Corinne snatched it as fast as a wink, and it disappeared again into her cleavage.

“She weren’t into talking,” Walt said. “Requested ballads, though. ‘Smoke Gets in Your Eyes,’ ‘Tennessee Waltz.’”

“I remember her now!” Corinne squealed. “She kept staring at you, Rick. At one of the breaks, she asked me if your tattoos were real. When I said yeah, she asked if you rode a motorcycle or if you’d been in the navy. Like one or the other had to account for you painting yourself up like that.”

“Hey, she don’t like my body art, she can take her trade elsewhere.”

“She came back, too! When, Walt? The next week or so?”

“Uh-huh, came back a buncha times. Quiet lady.”

“Did she ever talk to anyone else?” Dixie asked. “Another woman, maybe?”

“Not at first.” Walt’s eighty-proof breath wafted across the table. “Sat right there alone until closing. When she left, I’d walk her out, make sure she got in her car all right.”

“What make of car?”

“Little blue Subaru.”

That was Edna. Bill’s last major purchase, about nine months before he died, had been the new car. “You said, ‘Not at first.’”

“Round Thanksgiving she got to talking with this other old bird. Little bitty thing.”

Dixie wished she had a photograph of Lucy Ames, but the only chance she’d had to get one was at the funeral. The
Chronicle
hadn’t run a photo. She knew only one person crass enough to photograph a corpse in a casket—

And come to think of it, Casey James, stringer for the sort of tabloids people pretend to ignore at grocery store checkout counters, might be a damn good contact. The mystery of the Granny Bandits wouldn’t set Casey’s heart to pounding, but she’d find it amusing.

“Do you recall if the two women left together?” Dixie asked. “Or sat together after that night?”

Walt took a long drink of his Scotch, then stared down at the naked ice, with Dixie, Tattoo, and Dominatrix hanging on his next words.

“Nope,” he said finally. “Never saw either of ’em after that night. Shame. Seemed like nice old birds.”

Seventeen minutes after Dixie’s phone call, Casey James settled her squatty body in the chair Rick had vacated. The reporter’s piggish black eyes locked on the lead guitar player.

“Truth, Dixie, if you’d told me I could ogle such a colorful hunk of masculine muscle, I’d’ve been here sooner.” Casey grinned and fanned herself with the tent card advertising the band. “Wonder what artistry is hidden under the pants. Think he’s got little snake eyes on the end of his tool?”

“Ask nice, maybe he’ll show you.”

“You think?” Casey widened her eyes and grinned salaciously.

Dixie brought the conversation back to business. “Did you consider my question?”

“Honey, there’s not a sane and sober mind in this city that isn’t ruminating over what happened to the stolen bank loot. Treasure hunters have combed the terrain from both branch locations to the sites where the women were blown away. And you
know
the cops tossed both houses, searching for the dough from the first robbery.”

“Yes, Casey, but what I want is your own needle-fine take on it. You have a mind that slides around corners.”

“I heard the description of the woman who got away, honey. Straight from the man who soiled his pants when she threatened to shoot off an important part of his anatomy. Her
description wouldn’t fit Lucy Ames or Edna Pine, even after the world’s best makeup job.”

“That’s exactly how I heard it, but the cops don’t seem to be spending much energy finding her.”

Casey hooted. “Don’t ask me to figure cops. Here’s that picture you wanted.” She dropped a close-up of Lucy Ames onto the table.

Dixie strode to the bandstand, showed it to Walt, and waited for his nod that Edna and Lucy had indeed sat together once. Back at the table, she studied the thin-boned face. “Where do women of a certain age go in this town to dispel loneliness?”

“Same places they’ve always gone—church, nightclubs, or sewing circles.”

“You mean that literally?” Dixie figured Edna had come to Club Cato for the music.

“If they want the company of men, they go to bars. If they want to be around other women, they take up a craft—pottery, jewelry, quilting. If they’ve had it with mortals and want to fill that emptiness with a higher light, they go to church.”

Dixie thought about that. Edna’s visits here and to Fortyniners suggested searching for a man. Yet she’d apparently struck up an acquaintance with Lucy Ames. And she’d made a sizable bequest to the Church of The Light. Maybe she had no idea what she was searching for. Dixie could relate, having drifted out of law into whatever came along.