Chill Factor (30 page)

“This woman talks about
me
getting in trouble,” Marty told him. “Can you believe we broke into a
cop’s
house?”

“We didn’t break in. The door was open.” Dixie explained what she’d discovered about Art Harris and Ted Tally. “I’m thinking Art Harris logged a coffee break, then drove into town for a chat with his friend Ted. While he’s here, the squeal comes in for a seven-car pursuit from Richmond, and Art couldn’t resist joining in—even knowing he’d have to grovel to his supervisor afterward.”

“Especially if he missed out on the one in his own backyard,” Parker pointed out.

Dixie opened an envelope that she’d stuffed with the book and papers from Ted’s coffee table.

Parker leaned closer. “What’s all that?”

“Maybe nothing. But considering the laws we broke to have it in our possession, let’s hope it’s not Ted’s golf scores.”

Parker slid the book across the table and opened it. The four sheets of notepaper were covered with drawings rendered in colored markers.

“Looks like graffiti,” Marty said.

“That’s exactly what it is.” Dixie spread the pages side by side. “Only these aren’t the innocent drawings of street artists. They’re gang tags.” Dixie recognized a crown for the Kings, a pitchfork, dice, a 187, and a lot of purple. One symbol, drawn on a page by itself, featured a gold “P” in the center of a red triangle on a blue background. Dixie’d never seen that one before.

“Great book,” Parker said. “But why were those pages stuck inside it?”

“Looked like Ted slept on the couch the night before he died. He was probably reading the book and stuffed the papers in to mark his place.”

“What do those drawings mean?”

“Maybe nothing. A neighbor told us Art Harris wanted to join a gang task force. Maybe he and Ted tracked some gang activity between their two beats.”

“I don’t see how any of that helps me,” Marty grumbled. “And it sure isn’t art.”

Parker moved the pages around, as if they were puzzle pieces he was trying to decipher. “Is one of these different from the others?”

“This one I’ve never seen before.” Dixie pointed to the triangle. “Why?”

“The page marked in the Poe book is where Auguste Dupin finds the purloined letter.”

Dixie didn’t understand his point. “So?”

Parker waved it off. “Guess it’s nothing.”

“What?”

“Okay. The purloined letter was hidden in plain sight in a card rack above a writing desk. Maybe Ted took a hint from Edgar and hid an important drawing among the others.”

Dixie studied the triangle, with its blue and red background. “Or maybe Ted found this one painted on a building
among other tags and recognized it as … I don’t know, a new gang in the area?”

Parker grinned. “Or like you said, Sherlock, maybe he just used them as a bookmark.”

With a glance at her watch, Dixie slid everything back in the envelope to think about later and pushed aside her unfinished burger. She was about to be late for her “therapy” session with Vernice Urich, the woman who reputedly knew everyone’s secrets.

A small brass sign that read
VERNICE URICH, PH.D., M.S.W., A.C.P.
hung beside the psychotherapist’s front door. Vernice worked out of her home, a modest 1950s bungalow in a neighborhood of newer, more pretentious two-story constructions.

Before ringing the bell, Dixie paused to clear away any hostile thoughts. She innately distrusted people who poked around in other people’s minds. She was here to find out why Aunt Edna had sought psychotherapy. Although Marty no longer seemed interested in how his mother became armed and dangerous, Dixie couldn’t let it go.

“Here you are, exactly on time,” Vernice Urich greeted her. “I do appreciate punctuality, Dixie. Don’t you?”

“Especially when I’m paying for it.”
Whoops, was that a hostile thought?

But Vernice smiled, with even white teeth too precise to be the version she was born with. In the bright afternoon light, her wrinkled face appeared sunken. Yet her eyes held the sparkle of youth. Maybe that’s why Dixie believed the woman wasn’t as old as she first appeared.

“Follow me, dear.”

The home’s modest exterior gave way to more gilt and chintz than Dixie’d seen except in magazines, as Vernice led
the way to an office immediately off the entry. Originally, it would’ve been a formal living room, Dixie supposed.

“Would you like tea? I have Apple Spice and Earl Grey.”

In the dim lighting, Dixie squinted to see an ornate cart with china cups and saucers, hot water, tea bags, sugar, cream, and packets of artificial sweetener. A massive carved desk in a style her uninformed eye decided was baroque occupied half the room. A brocade chair with delicate claw feet perched in front of it.

“Earl Grey sounds good.” Dixie eyed the antique, certain it would collapse if she sat down.

Vernice gestured toward a pair of wingbacks in the corner, wearing the same classy fabric.

“A woman as attractive as you, Dixie, I’m frankly amazed you escaped matrimony all these years,” she commented once they were seated, Dixie’s teacup balanced on her knee.

The praise sounded false, perhaps because Dixie had heard better flatterers recently. She made no response.

Vernice opened a stenographer’s tablet. “When were you born, dear?”

“I’m thirty-nine.” For a few more months.

“You don’t look a day over thirty. But let’s be more specific. First, your birth date. Including the time, if you know it.”

“November third. Four-twenty on a Tuesday afternoon.”
Pain you wouldn’t believe
, Carla Jean had told her.
Like pulling teeth out through your navel.

“When did you reach womanhood?”

“Pardon?”

“When did you start menstruating, dear? It marks the time that boys rightly begin to occupy one’s thoughts more frequently than dolls.”

“I don’t recall ever thinking about dolls.” Not that Carla Jean hadn’t supplied a few. Dixie’s birth mother loved the ones with fancy dresses and curly hair, dolls that sat on a shelf or a dresser, big glassy eyes, painted cheeks, vacuous smiles. Dixie preferred books, which Carla Jean considered a waste of money.
Once you’ve read one, what good is it?
she’d ask.

“Just a figure of speech,” Vernice amended. “Meaning
childish things. At onset of menstruation we trade toys for boys. How old were you?”

“Ten. But that’s not what I wanted to talk about—”

“We’ll get there, dear. Let’s take care of a few more questions. When did you first kiss a boy?”

None of your damn business.
Dixie had never consulted a psychotherapist, but she’d taken the standard college courses, plus criminal psychology in law school. Vernice’s technique struck her as offbeat and pushy. Or was that just another hostile thought?

“I was in high school. About fifteen, I guess.”
If you don’t count my mother’s sicko boyfriends.
Dixie scanned a bookcase near the desk:
Astrology for Everyone, What’s Your Number, A Guide to Numerology, Sex Signs, The Modern Woman’s Book of Wicca.
Vernice’s choice of reading material lent a different slant to her questions.

“A special night? A holiday, perhaps? I’d prefer the exact date, if we can burrow down and find it.”

“May first.” Until that moment, Dixie hadn’t remembered. The PTA had sponsored a fund-raising bazaar to buy uniforms for her high school baseball team. She and Marty slipped away early to see an afternoon showing of
Elmer Gantry.
He’d kissed her in the dark.

“And the first time you fornicated.”

“What?”

“Sex, dear. When was your first unmarried encounter?”

“Did you ask Edna Pine these questions?”

“Edna Pine?” Vernice’s toothy smile vanished.

“What sort of questions did you ask her?”

“I can’t imagine why you’d want to know that. You’re no bigger than a minute—you can’t possibly want to lose weight.” When Dixie remained silent, Vernice continued. “But I
can
tell you we create very successful programs for weight loss, through hypnotic suggestion. Was Edna a close friend, dear?”

Hypnotic suggestion? Interesting.
“A neighbor. I grew up with her son.”

“Ah-ha! And was he the first boy in your young life? The one who broke your heart?”

How did she know that?
Dixie loathed having her thoughts read as if every line were written on her face.

“Was he the one who broke your cherry, dear?”

“No!” What was this woman, a verbal voyeur?

“I can see this was a painful experience, but once we get those old tapes played out, we can help you assume a more satisfying alliance with your sexuality.”

Oh, really? Hocus-pocus pop psychology, with numbers and star signs and witchcraft?
Dixie scanned the walls for a diploma.

“My friend Edna—”

“I can’t talk about another client. Surely you realize that would be most unethical. You wouldn’t want me revealing
your
deepest secrets, would you?”

“But Edna’s dead.” Dixie decided to cut to her real reason for this meeting. “What you discussed could have some bearing on … events that led to her death.”

“I don’t see how.”

“She robbed a bank at gunpoint. She shot a police officer. The Edna Pine I knew growing up couldn’t harm a gopher. She used herbs to discourage pests from eating her plants. Something happened within the past few months to change that gentle chubby woman into a trim, sleek, very ungentle thief. And you’re the person who poked around in her mind. What did you do in there?”

“My goodness, you have a distorted view of psychotherapy. Even if I could effect such a change, why
would
I?”

But Vernice’s hand had started moving over the tablet page—making meaningless doodles, from what Dixie could see.

“Money, for starters. Edna paid you a healthy fee.” Actually, Dixie had no idea what Edna paid, if anything. She’d found no checks issued to Vernice Urich. “But your fee’s nothing compared to the unrecovered money stolen from Texas Citizens Bank.”

Vernice smiled. “Me, a female Svengali? Too much film and television, dear. Hypnosis doesn’t turn people into helpless drones.”

But her hand kept moving, drawing circles and stars and arrows, with Vernice never glancing at the page.

“Keep your incompetent hands off of this, Wanamaker. Let the FBI handle it.”

As he spit the words, Gib Gibson’s hawkish nose hovered beside Ed’s cheek. Ed itched to reach up and twist it.

“If we sit back and do nothing,” Banning argued, “the media will crucify us all.” Banning had summoned Ed to his office after Gib dropped by with his usual meddling demands.

Ed didn’t care about the media. But he thought the FBI might be headed in the wrong direction. Third-world terrorists? Those letters had looked homegrown to Ed.

Gib turned his pointy nose at Banning.

“I say we provide
any
support requested, but otherwise stay out of their way. What we don’t need is a bunch of bumbling locals muddying the trail.” The greenish-brown suit he wore had been tailored to fit his trim, muscular body and, the way Gib stood, stiff as a general issuing orders, Ed could imagine brass stars on the Councilman’s shoulders.

“What trail?” Ed asked mildly.

“If you understood professionalism, Wanamaker, perhaps the FBI would take you into their confidence.”

“I suppose you think they’ll confide in you?” Ed hoped The People turned up in an FBI database, but he wouldn’t put
money on it. And he didn’t want his own men sitting on their thumbs while a bunch of wrongheaded punk assassins snuck around in the shadows with rifles.

“What about protection?” Banning suggested. “Ed, can you put a couple of officers at each house? The feds didn’t say—”

“Are you scared, Avery?” Gib grinned, even more snidely than usual. “Must be soiling your britches if you think a bodyguard could stop a sniper’s bullet. Be a waste of taxpayers’ money.”

Ed had to agree. The Mayor’s twenty-four-hour guard came with the job, but it wouldn’t be enough. No way could the department spare enough men to sweep three neighborhoods around the clock. And the FBI boys were too busy punching their keyboards.

“Unlike you, Councilman,” Banning replied evenly, “I can’t hide inside my house for thirty-six hours. The Memorial Day Commemorative—”

“Another monumental waste!” Gib turned his nose back toward Ed. “I’m telling you, Wanamaker, stay out of the way on this, or I’ll see that your every stupid move makes headlines!”

He snatched the door open and stalked out.

As an army noncom, Ed had taken plenty of bullshit orders from officers, but this was civilian life. Gib could cram his demands up his Marine-tight ass.

But when the latch snapped shut, Ed said, “Gib does have a sympathetic ear on all the local news teams. Loud and irritating gets lots of attention.”

Banning tugged at his trouser knee to keep the stretch out before crossing his legs. He always looked like someone had rolled him off an inspection line, cleaned, clipped, pressed, and Scotchgarded.

“What
are
you planning to do, Ed?”

“When you think about it, thirty-six hours isn’t a helluva lot of time. Maybe you and Gib should lay low. Let the feds dig.” Ed raked a hand through his wiry hair. “We’ll roust all the usual gangs, give ’em a chance to tell what they know.”

Banning turned his deliberate politician’s gaze at Ed.

“Chief, ‘laying low’ is not what I want to hear from you. I have a job to do. And so do you.”

Ed found a sunflower seed in his pocket and cracked it. Banning was an okay guy until he pulled this control crap. But Ed wasn’t buying his tough act this time. The Mayor was more concerned than he wanted to let on.

In the subdued lighting of Vernice’s office, Dixie watched the psychotherapist’s hand move across the page, making circles, squares, triangles, and wondered if the marks were more than mere doodles. Dixie’s gaze flickered to a mahogany cabinet she had first thought to be a buffet; now she recognized it as an executive file cabinet. Somehow, she needed to arrange five minutes alone with those files.