Fool's Puzzle (9 page)

I jerked the cab door open, grabbed the tire jack from behind the seat and was on my knees attempting to work it under the rear axle when gravel crunched behind me.

“Looks like you have a flat,” Ortiz said.

I didn’t turn around. “I can certainly see why you were hired as chief of police.”

Inserting the handle in the jack, I pushed as hard as I could. Not a budge. The truck was heavier than I thought. To be honest, I’d watched Jack change tires on the Chevy more times than I could remember in the fifteen years we’d owned it, and I’m sure at one time I must have changed one myself. I just didn’t recall it being this difficult.

“Need any help?”

“No.” I felt a flush start up my neck.

“Truck’s pretty heavy.”

I whipped around, thinking about what else I could do with a jack handle. He wore that self-satisfied look men get when they know they can do something you can’t.

“Look, Ortiz, I castrated my first bull when I was ten years old. I doubt that changing a tire is beyond my limited female abilities.”

He looked down at me with an amused expression. “Suit yourself, Ms. Harper. Had I known, I would not have presumed to offer help to a person of such prodigious capabilities.”

He walked past me, hands in his pockets, whistling softly under his breath. It took all the social proprieties I’d ever been taught not to stick my foot out and trip him. Halfway across the parking lot, he stopped and turned around.

“The starter,” he called.

“What?” I snapped.

“Why your truck was having trouble turning over. It sounds like the starter. You probably need a new one.”

That was just great. One minute he’s threatening to arrest me, the next he’s giving me engine advice.

“Anything else, Mr. Goodwrench?”

“I don’t know.” His blue eyes lit up. “I guess I’d have to pop the hood and find out.”

Without warning, behind my eyes, a match flared. The familiar words sparked a memory of Jack in grease-stained jeans, tanned back dripping, bent over the open hood of a truck....

“Are you all right?”

I started at the suddenly close, throaty sound of Ortiz’s voice. My head felt thick and woolly, as if I’d run a fever for days. Somewhere a door slammed open. Wood against wood. A tumble of gusty voices filled the parking lot. Instinctively, my ears searched them. I closed my eyes and thought I felt the ground tremble.

“Ms. Harper? Is something the matter?”

I looked with dazed surprise at the hand gently gripping my upper arm and felt my cheeks grow warm.

“I’m fine.” I ducked my head and stepped back. For a split second, his hand hung in empty air. “I’m sure you must have better things to do than harass honest citizens.” I gave a small, embarrassed laugh.

“Yes.” He gazed at me thoughtfully. “I certainly do.”

Before stepping into the beige, unmarked police car, he turned and called in the confident voice of someone accustomed to being obeyed.

“Don’t forget that starter.”

I lifted a noncommittal hand in reply.

After he drove out of sight, I turned back to the deflated tire and gave it an aggravated kick. Then I picked up the jack handle and tried again. And again. Twenty minutes and a bruised thumb later, I stood up, brushed off my muddy knees and dug through my purse for the last birthday present my ever practical and mothering friend, Elvia, gave me.

The Auto Club was there in ten minutes.

“SO, HOW DID this Chief Ortiz find out you were checking out Rita’s place?” Elvia asked. We sat in her unofficial office, a round oak table in the corner of the coffeehouse. Stacks of purchase orders in dinner-mint pastels made a patchwork of the tabletop.

“Floyd told him.” I sipped my hot chocolate and gave her a who-cares look.

“Why is he spending so much time questioning you?” She pulled a shiny pencil, the color of her buttercupyellow silk suit, from behind her car and pointed it at me. “As chief of police, it seems to me he would relegate that task to someone less important.”

“I don’t know.” I shrugged. “I didn’t think to ask.”

“Just like an only child. You never question special treatment. After all, it’s only your right.” She examined the tip of the pencil and frowned. Elvia’s major in college had been psychology and the bookstore gave her the resources to pore through every new self-help book that hit the stands. Her latest fascination was birth order.

“I love it when you categorize me. Makes me feel so special.”

“From how you’ve described him, he sounds like an oldest to me. Does he have any siblings?”

“Honestly, Elvia, between the threats of arrest and engine advice, it didn’t come up.” I drained my mug, stood up and pulled on my jacket. “I have to go. Those quilts won’t hang themselves, and I have a feeling I won’t be seeing much of Eric over the next few days.”

“Do you think he had anything to do with Marla’s murder?”

“It’s hard to imagine, if only because killing someone would actually take some physical effort. Maybe he’s just running scared. Who knows what kind of illegal activities he’s trying to hide from the police.”

“What are you going to do about Rita?”

“Keep looking for her.”

“Even after what the chief said?” She frowned and tapped the end of the pencil against her cheek. Elvia was a rule-follower, as was I—most of the time anyway, unless there was a valid reason not to.

“What am I suppose to do? I don’t want to tell Aunt Garnet that her precious granddaughter is missing and is possibly connected with a homicide. That scares me a lot more than Ortiz’s threats. When I find Rita, this whole thing will be straightened out. She’ll give her statement and that’ll be that.”

The folds between Elvia’s eyes deepened.

I reached over and rubbed them with my forefinger. “You’re going to get wrinkles.”

She pushed my hand away. “Rita’s been nothing but trouble since she got here. You don’t need that in your life right now.” She stood up and for a moment looked me straight in the eye. Slipping on her tiny black Italian pumps, she rose three inches. At the bottom of the stairway, she laid a pink-nailed hand on my arm. “Are you going home for Thanksgiving?”

“No, and it’ll give Dove something to complain about until Christmas.” I held up my hand before she could ask the next question. “And I feel funny going to the Harpers‘. They always have a bunch of family come in from Texas and it just doesn’t feel right.”

“You shouldn’t be alone on Thanksgiving.”

“Spoken like a true oldest,” I said, teasing. “Always telling people what they should do. Really, I’d rather not be around a lot of people.”

Her delicate, coppery face was sober. “I mean it. You shouldn’t be alone. Come over to our house. Mama’s been asking about you.”

“I don’t know.” Being around Elvia’s six brothers and their families seemed as overwhelming as the family Thanksgivings I was trying to avoid.

“Fine,” she said. “Then I’m coming over to your house. We’ll make chile rellanos and chocolate no-bakes just like we did in junior high. I’ll iron your hair. Straight hair is back in style, you know.”

“Okay, okay.” I held up my hands in mock surrender. “Anything but that. Last time you ironed my hair—what was it, 1973?—you almost gave me a cheek tattoo.”

“We were crazy, weren’t we?” she said. “Dinner’s at one.

On the way back to the museum, I stopped by the police station and signed my statement. A tiny, bleached-blond female officer expertly rolled my fingers across the fingerprint pad as she chattered about her ten-year-old son’s scout badges. As she gabbed and rolled, I couldn’t help but feel vaguely criminal. Techno-cynic that I was, I worried my fingerprints would show up in a computer somewhere with the information that they were found at some liquor store crime scene in Modesto.

I drove back to the museum and spent the rest of the day making quilt frames and attaching Velcro to the backs. I called Eric’s house and left a terse message on his answering machine. “You are dead meat, buddy. I’m holding Dack and Cassandra hostage. You know who this is.” Then, just for spite, I stuck the computer disk containing his novel in my purse. He’d have to find me now.

At eight o‘clock, after the last of the artists had left, I locked up. As I was walking out to my truck, a small blue Toyota sedan pulled up and a husky young man in a denim shirt and navy tie printed with white peace symbols hopped out, a gold Blind Harry’s gift bag in one hand and a maroon garment bag in the other. I recognized him as one of Elvia’s clerks. His freckled face flushed a soft pink when he handed me the bags.

“She told me to hum the theme song from
Mission Impossible
when I gave you this,” he said. “I didn’t want to tell her I didn’t know it. Do you think she was kidding?” His face wrinkled in distress.

“No, but don’t worry about it. Just tell her I got hysterical with laughter.” He hurried back to his truck, a perplexed look on his broad face.

I opened the gold bag and pulled out a small paperback book.
How to Become a Successful Private Detective—Earn While You Learn.
A pink Post-it note stuck to the front commanded in Elvia’s large, loopy handwriting: “Check out page 67, and the dress is an early Christmas present. If you wear anything besides this on Friday night, I’ll personally burn all your jeans. E. P.S. Wear your black heels and your hair in
something
besides that braid.”

I zipped open the garment bag to find an almost weightless Kelly-green silk dress with a lower neckline and shorter skirt than I probably would have chosen. But, knowing Elvia, it was the latest fashion and cost a bundle. I had to admit I was grateful; I hadn’t even thought about what I was going to wear to the auction Friday night. I looked from the book to the dress and wondered which mission she considered more impossible.

I closed the bag, sat down on the bumper of my truck and flipped to the page Elvia indicated. Missing Persons Investigation. I smiled as I scanned the chapter. She meant it as a joke, but she might have helped me more than she realized. I tucked the book into my purse, grabbed my dress and went home.

I was getting ready to search the refrigerator for some sort of edible plant or animal life, when the phone rang. I glanced at the clock. It was eight-thirty, about the time Dove settled down with the newspaper. Gossips’ heads were going to roll. Dove hated hearing anything last.

“Your daddy’s worried,” Dove said in a crabby voice. She always ascribed any sentimental feelings she had to someone else. “I ought to whip your butt for not calling me. I hope you’re packing an iron.”

“Watching the Humphrey Bogart Film Festival again, are we?” I said. “I found the body but I don’t think I’m in any danger.”

“You shouldn’t be alone. Can’t count on that trampy cousin of yours to be around. I could send Garnet out. She took a karate class once. Back in ‘71, I think. When all that women’s lib stuff was going on.”

“Good try, Dove.” I laughed at the thought of Aunt Garnet in her J.C. Penney spectator pumps, legs spread in a karate stance, protecting me from an assailant. “But, no go. I’ll be fine.”

“You coming tomorrow?”

“No, but tell everyone ‘Hi’ for me.”

I waited in silence for her lecture. But, as she is apt to do, she feinted, and brought up an even touchier subject.

“You find Rita?”

“Yes,” I said, hesitantly. “I gave her the message.”

“And she ignored it as usual.” Dove groaned loudly. “Another night of Garnet’s whining. She’s driving me crazy as popcorn on a hot skillet.”

“Well, good luck,” I said.

“You sure you’re going to be okay there alone?” Dove asked. “I think Garnet made it to a belt in that karate class.” Dove’s voice was hopeful. I guess raising six kids and one grandkid taught you to never say die. “Red or green or some color. She was pretty good, I hear. Especially with the yell.”

“No, Dove.”

“Rats,” she spit out and hung up.

I regarded the buzzing phone with humor and tried to remember a time when Dove actually said the word “Good-bye” to me.

I kicked off my boots and settled down on the sofa with the book Elvia sent me. I read the Missing Persons chapter three times. The information seemed obvious—“Learn a person’s habits and the types of people they associate with. Find those people and you’ll find your missing person.” It sounded so easy. But the only person I knew Rita hung around with on a regular basis was dead. I tossed the book on the floor in disgust and wondered if I should try Floyd one more time. Maybe he’d be more open without the chief of police sitting in his bar.

I lay on the sofa trying to decide whether I should go to Trigger’s or see if any food had mysteriously appeared in my refrigerator, when the phone rang. A nervous, whispery voice took care of those problems and handed me a whole new one.

“Benni?” said Rita. “Thank goodness you’re home. I need some money. Fast.”

TO SAY I lost control would be an understatement.

“Where have you been? Do you realize what kind of trouble you’re in? Do you realize what kind of trouble I’m in? I need to know what happened. Why did you drive away? Are you okay? What do you mean, you need money?”

“Benni,” she said, when I finally inhaled. “Calm down. No need to pitch a fit.” Her sleepy Arkansas drawl made me want to yank her through the phone, pouty lips first.

“Easy for you to say,” I snapped.

“Well?” she asked.

“Well, what?”

“Can you get me some money?”

“You’re not getting anything until you tell me what happened last night.”

“Just a minute.” I heard her put a hand over the receiver and mumble something.

“Who’s with you?”

“Skeeter.”

“Who?”

“You met him. Tall, blond mustache, good-looking in a scroungy sorta way.” I heard a grunt, then a giggle.