Dead Red Cadillac, A (3 page)

Too annoyed to deal with the antique, I hung up and bounded up the stairs. Sitting on my bed, I fiercely punched more numbers on my cell phone and started calling people. I called Ricky first. Of course, no answer there. Then I called everyone else I could think of who might know the whereabouts of my car and/or Ricky.

Twenty minutes later, I gave up, punched in the sheriff's office and Caleb's direct line. The ring lasted less than half a sparrow's croak before it was knocked off its perch by a deep, if preoccupied, male voice. "Sheriff Stone."

I bawled into the phone, "Ricky stole my Caddy!"

"Lalla? How's your dad?" he drawled, irritating me no end with his ploy to get me to slow down.

"Working on inner enlightenment. Now will you please focus on me here—I said, Ricky stole my Caddy!"

He sighed into the phone. I could hear his old office chair creak as he sought a more comfortable position. "You don't have to yell."

I did feel a little guilty for yelling at him. After all, he hadn't stolen my car. I started again, slower this time. "It's either at his house, his car lot, or his latest girlfriend's."

"Miss Bains," he said, the humor sneaking into his voice, "don't tell me you've misplaced that cherry red Cadillac. It's kinda hard to hide, you know." The chair creaked again, and I thought of Caleb, his phone to ear for anyone who would need a careful, considerate listener. Caleb owed the chair and his job as Sheriff of Stanislaus County to his dad, who died in a shootout about the same time my mother died. I love Caleb Stone as my best friend in the whole world. He's a veritable Job of patience to my frequently irritable nature. But right now, I wasn't up to patient or considerate. I wanted Caleb to find the bastard for me. Now!

I tried begging. "Caleb, please? I've called everybody I can think of. I've got people looking from Ripon to Merced."

"Mmm-mm."

"I'm telling you, if he takes it as far as Fresno, he's dead meat."

"Awright, settle down, Lalla. You want to report it stolen? Come in and we'll write up a report."

Uh-oh, this could get complicated. Ricky and I had history, and it wasn't pretty. The Caddy was my trophy from our divorce, and though I secretly enjoyed being the butt of jokes locally, I didn't want to see this most recent escapade get ratcheted all the way up to the nightly news.

"Uh, do we have to do it so formally? Can't you just tell some of the guys to be on the lookout for it?"

Caleb, being one of the few who knew my angry history with Ricky, also liked to rib me about it. "So, that's a no-go on the wanted posters?"

"Just tell the guys to look for it, will you?" I hung up on him.

Still restless, I went downstairs to finish telling my dad the bad news.

He slammed his napkin down on the table and glared up at me. "Can't we go a whole week without you on the front page of the newspaper?"

"My missing Caddy doesn't warrant two lines and nobody cares but me, so what're you all grumpy about?"

"Not that you would care, but I'm a sick old man, and I'd like to die with what's left of my reputation intact."

"What's left of your reputation? Are you saying my plane crash or my ongoing tug of war over Ricky's prized possession is hurting your reputation?"

He pushed back his chair and stood, the expression on his face somewhere between sadness and disgust. He didn't have to say anything more. I'd once again disappointed him, because no matter what I did, how hard I tried, I seemed to stumble across trouble. I had to admit he was right. After all, I was the one who'd found my mother's body, burned her suicide note, and neglected to tell my father or my brother. And I was still paying for that guilty sin.

"I can't tolerate infidelity," I said, hoping to have the last word.

He turned at the door. "You don't have to prove it to me."

"Believe me, I wasn't trying to prove anything to you."

He tipped his bushy eyebrows at me, the gesture saying words about what I was trying to prove—that I didn't need New York or modeling or a husband to fulfill my life, that I was good enough to run a crop-dusting business for my old man, that I measured up to the son he lost, and that neither of us was at fault that my mother chose to end her life.

Ten minutes later, the phone rang.

"I have good news and bad news," Caleb said.

"Hurry up and tell me, I can take it." I was picturing Ricky hightailing it for Mexico with his latest honey in my Caddy. But that wasn't what I got.

"Ricky says he didn't take your car, and I have to believe him."

I took back every kind thought I'd ever had about Caleb. "And that's the good or the bad news?"

"Well, I'm afraid that it's the good news."

Oh, God, I hate it when he does this. Typical Caleb, succinct to the point of anguish. I groaned at this latest round of vague innuendo.

"Ricky doesn't have your car, because we found it out at Turlock Lake."

"Turlock Lake? What—"

"Wait a minute, and I'll tell you. The Caddy's big fins were seen sticking up out of the muck."

"In the water? Oh no! She'll be ruined!"

"Lalla, are you sitting down? 'Cause that's still not the bad news."

I held onto the phone by its long curling extension cord and slid down the wall until my butt was settled on the polished oak floor.

"Lalla? You there?"

I ran a finger along the groove of the scarred and battered floor that once held up a crowd of thirsty miners. Noah liked to tell visitors he found gold dust in the cracks when he salvaged the boards from a "forty-niner" hotel being torn down to make room for a highway.

"Yes," I said, "I'm here."

A small portable radio my dad kept tuned to a weather channel on the kitchen counter cheerfully announced the time and temperature. It was seventy-eight degrees and rising. Then the announcer encouraged us all to have a nice day.

By the time Caleb told me the rest of it, my teeth had started a rumba and my shoulders were quaking as if I were sitting in a blizzard. Caleb's steady voice brought me back to my feet. "You'll need to verify that it's your car and talk to the investigating detective."

"Detective? Why a detective?"

"Can you drive here, or do you want me to come out and pick you up?"

"Don't you mean, bring me in?"

"Either way, you've got an appointment. You need to make a statement, and if you're this feisty, I'll wait for you outside the county jail downtown and go with you."

I hung up, and with palsied hands, grabbed the nearest set of keys and drove our old farm truck into Modesto. I ignored the familiar rattle of the loose drive shaft, the torn vinyl headliner, the missing door handle, and the growing spider web of broken windshield on the passenger side.

The drive was a no-brainer, one where I could easily divide my attention between the road and work schedules before hitting the outskirts of the nearest mall. But not today. I couldn't stop thinking about Caleb's words. Of all the answers to the whereabouts of my car, not in a million years would I have guessed that my Caddy would be found tailfins sticking out of the shallow end of Turlock Lake.

And behind the wheel, neatly buckled into her safety belt, was none other than the blue ribbon winner in this year's county fair's jam-making contest, Patience McBride.

Chapter Four:

Modesto's prosperity has been memorialized in a permanent arch across I and Ninth Streets. Its cryptic message,
Water Wealth Contentment Health
, means that if you're a farmer and have water, you are more than likely to be wealthy, if not healthy. Fine with me, except that they rerouted the highway and nobody drives under the arch except those taking this freeway off-ramp to Modesto's jail or county courthouse, which was where I was going.

I pulled into a parking space close to where Caleb, his Stetson tipped down over his brow, stood in quiet contemplation under the leafy shadow of sycamores. Caleb's khakis still held a razor pleat against the rising morning heat. Lucky him. I was already a sweaty mess in jeans and yesterday's T-shirt.

I honked, and his face, bronzed by his love of the outdoors, creased into the familiar and endearing smile that he kept for the likes of puppies, lunch, and me.

He strolled over to lean on the open window of the truck. "Hey. You okay?"

I tried to keep my voice from cracking. "Can we get on with this, Caleb? Where's my car?" My day was ruined. My car was certainly ruined. A woman, though not exactly a friend, was found dead in it, very ruined indeed. Then I thought of something and grabbed at his shirt sleeve. "Good God, Caleb, she's not still in it, is she?"

"No, of course not," he said, offering me a hand out of the truck. "I'm sorry, I forgot to tell you. Poor old girl is at the county morgue, waiting her turn with the medical examiner. Come on, the impound lot is just around the corner. I'll tell you what I know while we walk. A camper saw it sticking tail-end up in the mud at the lake's edge about six a.m. Homicide will—"

"What do you mean, Homicide?"

"If it's a suspicious death, Homicide gets involved. As of now, it looks like she was driving it when she hit the tree."

"What? Patience couldn't see past the hood ornament! How in God's name could she have been driving?"

He nodded. "I told them."

"What is it you're not telling me?"

"Nothing, honest," he said, not looking me in the eye. "I'm going to introduce you to the detective and bow out."

I gasped and pulled away from the firm clasp he had on my elbow. "I'm a suspect?"

"Don't panic, Lalla. It's only a formality. I have rules to follow too, you know."

I couldn't think of anything else to say, and we glumly trudged around the corner of the grim cement four-story government building. To say I was pretty shook up was an understatement. I was working my way into a full-grown migraine. It got worse when we walked into the impound yard, and I saw my Caddy. Seven layers of red lacquer were no match for the green slime growing at the edges of the lake during the summer. It clung like a fur coat to the back half of my car; the front end was covered with gray mud where it had come to rest in the shallow end of the lake.

Detective Gayle Rodney was an out-of-shape, overworked minion of our local police system. He hadn't quite finished his Sunday breakfast and was still picking at it with a toothpick while he absent-mindedly shook my hand. "Miz Bains."

The detective wasn't any better at making eye contact. I suspected he'd rather be sitting somewhere with his feet up, digesting his bacon and eggs, than interviewing murder suspects. Me too.

Introductions over, I was warned not to touch anything as we did a slow shuffle around the car. I bit at my trembling lip and commented on the insult of damage. It wasn't a pretty sight, but then, I imagine, neither was Patience. The fender was crunched up almost to the engine block. The impact to its steel frame alone would have been enough to kill any driver, especially without the requisite shoulder strap seat belt, much less an airbag.

"Well, it didn't look anything like this yesterday, that's for sure." I pointed to the obvious. "The right front headlight is busted, and, of course, the front right fender is dented, uh, badly." I gulped and looked across the car at Caleb, who still wouldn't look me in the eye. I gave up and went back to surveying the damage to my once-beautiful car.

"When can I get her to a garage, Detective?" I asked, watching weeds drip water off the wheel wells.

"Well," drawled the tooth picker, "we need to let her dry out. I don't hold out much hope for prints, not when she's been in all that wet silt. When she dries out some, we'll vacuum her, see if we can pick up anything." He shrugged. "They don't make 'em like this anymore, but with the water, sludge and mud, she sure took a hit."

I winced. "What about Mrs. McBride? I'd say she didn't take the ride so well, either." My mouth felt like cotton, and the headache was crawling up the back of my scalp. Soon it would cover my left temple and carve out a shallow tunnel for my vision.

He moved the toothpick to the other side of his mouth and gave Caleb a look over my head that said he'd had enough. "I could let you have it tomorrow, maybe next day." He handed me a card and, turning it over, wrote down a number. "You call this guy and he'll let you know if we're done with it. See she gets over to my office in half an hour, Sheriff."

Caleb gave the detective a little nod, squeezed my elbow, and pulled me away. "You okay? You look like you're going to faint or something."

"I'll be all right. I just wish I could have picked a better time to quit smoking." I still thought smoking bit off the start of a migraine, though the doctors didn't agree. "I've got my pills in my purse if I could get some water."

"Come on, I'll walk you over to the police station. They've got a cooler by the exit. Oh, I almost forgot. You remember Patience saying anything about a nephew?"

"Yeah," I said, listlessly watching the sun crawl across the Caddy's hood, leaving behind gray-green spots of dried algae on an otherwise dull red exterior. "Lives in Oklahoma."

"Well, I got a message he's trying to reach you."

"Okay, I'll call him when I get home," I said, miserably turning away.

Steering me by the elbow out of the police impound lot, Caleb said softly, "He's in the county jail, and he's asking for you."

"Who?" I asked, holding onto my aching head.

"Patience's nephew. After you complete your interview with Detective Rodney, of course."

I blanched, cold again in the summer heat. "Are you joking? Her nephew's in jail? What for?" Then I remembered the detective and asked, "Did he kill his aunt?"

"That hasn't been determined. Police found him asleep in his RV outside her home. You can ask the detective why he's now behind bars. Come on, we'll get you some water for your headache medicine." His voice was as noncommittal as any deadeye dick's. It was beginning to worry me.

"Tell me you don't think I had any part of this. Come on, Caleb, I wasn't that jealous of her winning the damn blue ribbon. Besides, it was really bad jam, just ask my dad."

"Lalla, I know you didn't," he said, still dragging me along by the elbow. "Now stop fussing. Just answer the detective's questions, then stop by the jail and see Patience's nephew."

We arrived at the police station, Caleb holding me up by the arm and me holding a soggy paper cup of water. "When you're ready, go straight back to the elevators, second floor, third door to the right."

At the entrance, I dug in my heels, resisting all further efforts to push me inside. "Tell me, am I their first or second choice for a suspect?"

"Go on," he said, as if my being a number on a list for murder was amusing. "I'm going back to your place to watch the Ident team try to get prints on those cracked, unpainted wood doors on your barn. That should be fun."

"You'll explain it all to my dad?" I said, holding onto the doorframe as if actually stepping through his office door was an admission of guilt. "That someone stole my car and somehow Patience ended up drowned in it? You'll tell him so he won't worry, right?" I giggled nervously and then bit at my thumbnail. It sounded incredibly dumb, even to me. Though my life had been relatively trouble-free since my divorce from Ricky, if there was going to be trouble, my dad wouldn't be surprised to find that I was in the thick of it—again.

"I got it covered," Caleb said. "It's a courtesy call because of your dad's health." He pecked me on the cheek and patted my shoulder before abandoning me to my fate, not in the least bit worried I might be charged with a murder I didn't commit. I could've asked to have a lawyer attend the meeting, but knowing Caleb had my back, what could go wrong?

I spent the next hour with Detective Rodney and his sidekick playing good cop, bad cop. The upshot of their routine was a big fat zero; I couldn't prove I'd been at home all night, and they couldn't prove I hadn't. But neither could I explain how Patience and my Caddy ended up in the lake.

I was thoroughly relieved when the detective finally put down his pen and closed his little notebook.

"You're free to go, Ms. Bains." I was up and all but sprinting for the stairs. Free and no longer a suspect, what could be sweeter, right?

I was finally released and pushed through the double doors to stand under a hot cerulean sky clinging to the tops of the buildings.

In my eagerness to slide out from under the steely-eyed suspicions of the local police detective, I might have been a bit hasty.

Damn. I think I've just been set up.
I was the odd piece in an apparent homicide, someone who wasn't going to immediately work out as a suspect, but obviously I had my uses. That's me, usable.

Patience's nephew had better be real cute.