Footprints in the Butter (14 page)

Chapter Fourteen

Mesa’s tiny plane hop-scotched mountains all the way to Denver, where I switched planes.

Fortunately, the Continental pilot was in a solicitous mood. Heading toward Texas, he flew above the clouds, even managed to avoid turbulence. Which was more than I could say for my choppy mentality.

Why was I wasting my time on this ridiculous odyssey? In all likelihood, the fortune cookies had nothing to do with Wylie’s murder. Yes, they did. Forget woman’s intuition. I’ve known men who have more intuition in their genitalia than a woman has in her little finger. But I couldn’t forget that Wylie had recommended the take-out restaurant. He had mentioned it during Alice’s Cheyenne Mountain Resort cocktail party, and his manner had been urgent. Typical Wylie. He couldn’t just say, “If perchance I get my bald pate pulverized, there’s this fortune cookie clue.”

I knew I was acting squirrelly again. Rather than winging my way toward Houston, I should have been searching for the perfect way to trap perfect Patty. And I should have been mourning the loss of Ben, the only man I’ve ever loved.

However, to be perfectly honest, I had begun to experience relief. Ben made me feel too dependent, too Hitchcockian. Sit, Ingrid! Stay, Ingrid! Chase the cat rather than a killer, Ingrid!

Ben was also assuming Hitchcock’s persona—the director, not my dog. As in, stop behaving like such a smartass, Ingrid. As in, this scene plays better if the audience suspects foul play while you act unaware, Ingrid. As in, remember
Notorious
? Remember Ingrid Bergman’s performance? Remember how the audience knew she’d been poisoned long before she did?

In other words, Patty Jamestone was
friend
. She didn’t kill Wylie. How can we be so sure? Easy. She said so.

Yeah, right. Allow the audience to suspect Patty. Then, later, Ben can come to my rescue, just like Cary Grant. But first Ben has to come to his senses. Which might be difficult since he’s probably “buffing” Patty.

Did I say choppy mentality? A better word might be tumultuous. Because I began to play a game called WHAT IF?

What if Ben wasn’t boffing Patty? What if Patty wasn’t guilty? What if there was a simple explanation for her lie about Ben’s jacket, just like the crème, milk and pie? What if Stewie had returned from Nam? What if Tad had fabricated that story about Alice and Wylie? What if she hadn’t, and Dwight found out, and Dwight killed Wylie? What if Wylie had met Alice Sunday morning and insisted they quit messing around? What if the Continental pilot had forgotten to take his No-Doze and the plane crashed?

It didn’t. We landed safely.

“Have a nice day,” said the clean-cut discount car rental kid as he handed me my receipt and a map.

He didn’t have any discount Jeeps handy so I settled for a nondescript blue compact, totally devoid of personality. Except it coughed a lot when I keyed its ignition. The ashtray was filled with cigarette butts, so the car probably suffered from second-hand smoke inhalation.

Have a nice
day?
My plane had landed at 5:24 p.m. and by the time I reached Clear Lake City it was 8:30. Due to incredible rush-hour traffic snarls and an automotive marathon led by several mechanized tortoises, I had established a rapport with my rental car. For instance, I knew that her steering wheel pulled to the left, her seat belt chafed, and her radio was stuck on Kenny Rogers.

Upon reaching Clear Lake City, I gassed up and washed the bugs off my windshield while Texas-style humidity bathed me in sweat.

According to my mental
Colorado
clock it was only 7:30, a respectable hour to visit. Should I eat something first? Was Woody a night person or a morning person? I’m a morning person, which means my wits are razor sharp around dawn.

Unfortunately, my return flight took off at 10:58 a.m. Which might limit my mousing. Rats!
Procrastination, thy name is Ingrid Beaumont
.

Street lights and house lights helped me decipher Have a Nice Day’s map. The address inside my purse—which didn’t match my boots, my laundered jeans, or my gray PROPERTY OF THE BRONCOS sweatshirt—was The Four Leaf Clover Company’s address. But the name on the mailbox read Diane Jamestone.

Home run!

A brand new yellow Prelude squatted inside Woody’s carport, and her mailbox was illuminated by a street lamp. But her house was as darkly ambiguous as Ben Cassidy’s eyes.

Could Woody hit the sheets when the moon extinguished the sun’s light bulb? Some people did. My mother did.

Never visit without phoning first, my mother insists. And never visit someone’s house without toting a token gift.

I didn’t have a gift, I didn’t have a phone handy, and I didn’t have the nerve to knock on Woody’s door and piss her off. Anyway, if she had reacted in a positive manner to my answering machine message, wouldn’t she be anxiously awaiting my arrival?

I was procrastinating again, bathed in sweat again. What the hell had happened to Mickey Spillane, not Mouse?

She was hungry, thirsty, exhausted, that’s all.

A motel was the obvious solution. Dinner, sleep, an early wake-up call.

I drove to the nearest motel, dumped my one piece of carry-on luggage atop the room’s double bed, yanked the paper strip from the toilet seat, flushed, ran a comb through my tangled hair, locked the door, then found a corner table inside the motel’s pseudo-western restaurant, which, thank goodness, had a bartender. And a piano. And a fifty-something piano player, who glanced toward my table.

“I’ll be damned!” he shouted. “You’re Rose Stewart!”

He attempted an off-key rendition of “Clowns” while all eyes turned in my direction.

The lounge entertainer’s loud voice prodded the lounging waitress. She scurried to my side and said, “What can I get cha, Miz Stewart?”

“A steak,” I replied. “Very rare, almost mooing. And a double vodka on the rocks.”

She returned a few minutes later with two double vodkas. Happy hour?

“Buddy,” she said, nodding toward the piano player, “told me to bring you this here second drink, his treat.”

“Give Buddy my thanks.”

The first drink soothed. The second anesthetized every butterfly inside my stomach. By the time my burnt-to-a-crisp steak arrived, I had gulped down a third vodka.

The inside of the baked potato looked like buttered grits. Tempted to send the whole meal back, I simply ordered one more drink with lots of olives. After all, I desperately needed food and a balanced diet included vegetables.

“Pimientos are really sweet peppers,” I told Buddy, who toted the drink to my table. “And sweet peppers are veggies, right?”

He said, “What the hell are you doing here, Rose? Slumming?”

I said, “What do you mean?”

He said, “This motel ain’t exactly the Ritz.”

I said, “It’s better than a jail cell.”

He said, “How many jail cells have you visited recently?”

“None,” I said. “Ben almost went to jail, though.”

He said, “Who’s Ben?”

I felt the vodka slosh inside my cranium, above the bridge of my nose. “Ben’s a vet,” I said.

“I’m a vet, too.” Buddy’s voice sounded bitter. “I had myself a nice concert career started before they shipped me off to Nam.” He held out his hand, missing two fingers. “Landed near a land mine, but I was lucky. Could of lost more than fingers, if you get my drift.”

Could
have
lost more than fingers, I mentally corrected, but I certainly understood his belligerence. I had encountered it many times before. After all, I had protested the war while my buds had fought for freedom, apple pie, John Wayne and robinhood.

Not robinhood. Motherhood. I was definitely feeling the vodka. “Hey, did you meet Stewie over there?” I slurred.

“Who’s Stewie?”

“Rain.”

“Yeah, I remember rain. And mud. Jeeze, the mud!”

“I think Stewie died but maybe he didn’t.”

“Lots of guys died, Rose.”

“We all die by bits and pieces, Buddy.”

I had by-passed uninhibited and reached maudlin. Maybe I hadn’t by-passed uninhibited. Buddy was looking good. His leg muscles bunched beneath his butt-tight jeans, and his mustache reminded me of Tom Selleck’s. Although I had often fantasized sleeping with Selleck, I didn’t want to boff Buddy. And yet I wanted hugs. From a stranger? Buddy wasn’t a stranger. After all, he’d known me as Rose Stewart for twenty-plus years.

Buddy sensed my need, probably because I had moved my chair closer to his and was resting my dizzy head against his blue button-down-collar shirt. No dummy, Buddy. His hand explored beneath my sweatshirt, and I soon discovered that a man didn’t need five fingers to caress a woman’s breast. One thumb did nicely. I moaned.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said.

I didn’t want to get out of here with Buddy, but I had responded to his touch. Bothered, I blurted the first thing that came to mind. “Don’t you have to play the piano?”

“Who’s gonna listen?”

I glanced around. The room was empty. Even the bartender and waitress had disappeared. “Where’d they go, Buddy?”

“It’s Wednesday, Rosie. We don’t get crowds till the weekend.”

“I meant the bartender and waitress.”

“They hit the kitchen. It’s chow time for the staff.”

Buddy’s thumb continued stroking, and I had the insane notion that I was being unfaithful to Ben, who was probably at this very moment boffing Patty. Shaking myself free from Buddy, staggering upright, I realized that everything was out of focus, and it wasn’t just the vodka. Tears blurred my vision. If Ben and Patty were having an affair, would sleeping with Buddy even the score? I flipped an imaginary coin. Heads, I’d sleep alone. Tails, we’d chow down inside my room. The imaginary coin spun, landed. “Goodnight, Buddy!” I said.

“I have condoms, Rosie.”

“I love you, too.”

Laughter dried my tears, until I reached for my purse.

“Where’s my purse? Damn! I left it in my room. How can I pay for that overcooked steak and gritty potato?”

“They’ll put it on my tab, Rosie.” Circling my waist with his good hand, Buddy’s fingers patted my bulging front pocket. He fished the room key out and winked. “Gonna take a sentimental journey,” he sang. “Gonna fly you to the moon.”

I remembered Bingo’s long-ago accusation and my denial. I remembered the Vegas piano player who had sung about sentimental journeys and flying to the moon. In other words, why worry about Ben when I was still married to Bingo? Overcome by another laughing fit, I let Buddy guide me to my room, insert the key, kick open the door and flick the light switch.

I screamed. Granted, my scream wasn’t a piercing scream. However, it was loud enough for Hitchcock to chow down some butt, if he’d been there. Except Hitchcock would have barked, growled, frightened the intruder away before he or she could search my one piece of luggage, pull drawers from their runners, smash the bedside lamp, slash the mattress, and empty my purse. Before
she
could leave her lipstick-printed message across the mirror—a rather cryptic message that read: IT’S TIME TO STRAY.

Why she? Because, although my purse and luggage had been ransacked, this aging hippie didn’t wear lipstick. So the officious intruder was a woman.

Or a clown.

Chapter Fifteen

My head no longer sloshed with vodka. It now sloshed with the alternative rock theme I had composed for last year’s macho movie detective, and the hoe-down I had written for his sidekick, a country-western singer making his film debut.

After giving the movie two thumbs down, way down, movie critics had praised the score, which had led to my present assignment.

How I wished that my Clear Lake City cops were Tango and Cash, or even Turner and Hooch, but God was playing one of his/her practical jokes again because
my
cops were an old crusty buffalo named Butler and a young buck-toothed rabbit named Morgan.

Butler couldn’t care less about my trashed motel room, especially after Buddy introduced me as Rose Stewart.

“Ingrid Beaumont,” I corrected, staring at the broken lamp and ruined shade with its dumb depiction of Roy Rogers and Trigger. Once upon a time, I had carried Roy to school. He was on my lunch box, strumming his guitar, singing an anthem to my mother’s peanut-butter-banana sandwiches. Later, older, I toted a plain olive-green lunch box, shaped like a meatloaf. Patty toted Elvis. Often we traded—sandwiches, not lunch pails.

My thoughts wandered because I was scared. In fact, the echo of my scream still rested between my throat and my tongue.

“I’m sorry you were frightened, Miz Beaumont,” said Morgan, who, except for his buck teeth, could have doubled for my car rental lad.

“Damn Jane Fonda!” Butler shouted. He was approaching retirement age and apparently recognized my name if not my face. “Damn all you Jane Fondas!”

Was he putting me in the same league as Jane? I was flattered. I was also puzzled. Why would somebody scribble it’s time to stray across my mirror. What did it mean?

Was the message a sexual innuendo? But how could the intruder know that I’d be tempted to stray? Had Ben followed me and discovered my lounge tête-à-tête? Had Bingo flown to Texas and then flown into one of his jealous rages? Neither theory made any sense. Ben and I were, unfortunately, finished. Bingo and I had been finished for years. Why turn my motel room upside down? Where did the lipstick come from?

Who wore red lipstick? Patty. Alice. Tad. Cee-Cee. And millions of other women. But would millions of other women write that message?

No. Because it suddenly occurred to me that the message wasn’t necessarily a sexual innuendo. It might have come from the Clover’s theme song.
Farewell every old familiar face. It’s time to stray, it’s time to stray
.

So that narrowed the field considerably. Patty. Ben. And Alice, who knew the song like the back of her ring-laden hand. Any one of them could have disguised themselves, trailed me to the Colorado Springs airport, and boarded my planes. I was so consumed with turbulent thoughts, I hadn’t noticed the other passengers. It would be difficult to make connections so spur of the moment, but not impossible.

Furthermore, I was in the tourist section while Ben, Patty, and Alice could easily afford first class.

What about Dwight, our newest Clover?
Stupid, Beaumont!
I would have noticed Dwight’s wheelchair. You can’t disguise a wheelchair with hats and wigs and nondescript clothing. In any case, Dwight needed a special gizmo on his dash or he couldn’t drive. So he couldn’t have followed me from Houston to Clear Lake City.

Dwight didn’t wear lipstick. Neither did Ben.

And yet some sneaky individual had trailed me like a damn bloodhound, pillaged my room, and written the message. Why? The answer was obvious. Wylie’s murderer didn’t want me to decipher Wylie’s clues.

“Maybe it’s a code,” said Butler, staring at the mirror. “That message could mean you skipped town with the goods.”

“What goods?”

“Drugs.”

He glared at me as if my luggage had been searched because I might have hidden ludes, smack, or worse inside my emergency tampons. At which point, the motel manager burst into my room.

“Dear lord above,” she said, raising her eyes toward the ceiling, where a water stain that resembled Zorro’s logo graced the cheap, off-white paint. “I run a respectable motel, Miz Beaumont, not some sleazy dive. I should have guessed when you checked in, but the American Express card fooled me. Whores don’t usually carry ’em.”

“Yes, they do,” I said dryly. “Also
Master-
card,
Diner’s
Club, and
Discover
.”

It went way above her head, like a Hail-Mary pass.

“Well,” she huffed through the gap between her front teeth, “I’ll just put these here damages on your bill.”

“What? Are you crazy? I had nothing to do with this conglomeration of luminary splinters and foam rubber. I was in your restaurant when the thief—”

“Can you prove it?”

“Certainly. The waitress and bartender—”

“Have gone home. It’s well after midnight, Miz Beaumont.”

“Look, I ordered a rare steak, which came burnt to a crisp, and a couple of drinks. Vodka.”

“Did you pay with cash or credit card?”

“Neither. Bud…” I swallowed the rest of my explanation, aware that her eyes shot daggers toward Buddy, who looked guilty. “Buddy,” I pleaded, “tell her.”

He said, “Tell her what?”

Oh, God! Like a bolt from the blue, I realized that Buddy’s sensitive thumb had tweaked more than one breast. I also understood why he was allowed to play the piano, even though he had mangled “Clowns,” not to mention “Feelings.”

“I heard your screams and came running,” said Buddy. “You were hysterical. You yelled something about a fight with your boyfriend and how he threatened to kill you. I calmed you down and called the police.”

“Why didn’t you tell us all this before, Buddy?” asked Morgan, who apparently had more than a modified crew cut between his wet-behind-the-ears ears. “And,” he added, “how did Miz Beaumont know your name?”

“She was scared, out of her mind, didn’t trust me, wouldn’t have trusted any man. I had to tell her who I was, repeat my name over and over, especially when she threatened to kill
me
.”

“With what? Her fingernails?”

Buddy pointed to a knife that lay on the floor, its blade almost hidden by the slashed mattress.

Butler retrieved the weapon, and I understood why, at his advanced age, he had remained a beat cop.

“If there were any fingerprints,” I said with a groan, “you’ve smudged them.”

“They were probably yours,” he muttered. His eyes sought his partner’s and his expression seemed to suggest that he was only months away from his retirement pension.

“How could that knife be mine, you bumbling, hobnailed idiot? There’s my plane ticket receipt and my rental car receipt, right there on top of that pseudo-western bureau. How could I carry a knife on to the plane? Do you think I smuggled it through security?”

“Now just a minute, lady! You coulda bought the knife after you arrived here with your boyfriend.”

“I don’t have a boyfriend. And I’m not responsible for your stupid screw-up, you provincial, chawbacon lummox.”

I took a deep breath, which didn’t help. “The intruder bought that knife. Look at its handle; cheap wood, shaped like a guitar. The lobby has a souvenir counter. This is a one-story motel, and the window’s wide open. Somebody was ransacking my stuff when she heard Buddy sing. Buddy was planning to fly me to the moon, but first he had to insert my key. So she, the intruder, dropped her knife, then hit the happy trails to you until we meet again, thanks a lot Roy Rogers.”

I received four different reactions to my outburst.

Butler looked as if he wanted to thrust the guitar-handled knife between my ribs and claim self defense.

Morgan, lost, said, “What has Roy Rogers got to do with anything?”

Buddy placed his arm around the motel manager’s bony shoulders. “Don’t let her upset you, sweetheart,” he said. “Christ, she drank two double vodkas and two single shots, so she’s not exactly sober.”

The motel manager shook him off. “How did you know the exact amount Miz Beaumont drank?”

“Well,” he said, and you could practically see the rusty wheels in his head turning. “I was in the lounge. Singing. And playing the piano.”

“Then how’d you hear her scream?”

When he couldn’t gather enough smarts to respond, she said, “You’re fired, Buddy-boy.”

Oh, what a baddog! I watched Buddy boy slink from the room. If he had possessed Hitchcock’s tail, it would have been tucked between his legs.

The motel manager turned toward me. “I’m still gonna put the damages on your credit card if your story don’t check out.”

“Credit cards! Oh, no!” I raced over to my open purse. My return plane ticket lay in the mess of spilled items. So did my wallet. Which, I quickly discovered, was minus twenty-seven dollars, my useless Visa, and my American Express card.

Morgan retrieved a small spiral notebook from his pocket. “Anything missing, Miz Beaumont?”

“Yes. My credit cards and my sanity. Happy trails. Until we meet again. What if the thief meant to slash
me?
What if she comes back?” I gathered the spilled items, including a package of matches, and stuffed everything back inside my purse. “How about some protective custody?”

Butler laughed.

“Okay,” I said, “forget protective custody. Aren’t you going to check out the souvenir counter and see who bought that knife?”

Before he could reply, the motel manager said, “After you arrived, Miz Beaumont, I stood behind the counter.”

“Did you sell any knives?”

“Yep. One.”

“Can you describe the woman who bought it?”

“Nope.”

“You can’t or you won’t?”

“Can’t. A
man
bought the knife.”

“What did
he
look like?”

“A cowboy.”

“Could you be a tad more specific?”

“He was standing in front of the counter. I saw him from the waist up. He wore a black Stetson and paid cash. That’s all I remember.”

“Thanks. Would you give me a different room, please?”

“Sorry,” she said, lying through the gap between her front teeth. “No vacancies.”

“But my credit cards were stolen, so I can’t check into another motel.” I stared at the slashed mattress. Then I stared at Butler. “How can I sleep? Where can I sleep?”

“Don’t sleep,” he said.

* * *

I didn’t.

Once upon a time I had watched a
60 Minutes
segment about divorced, homeless society ladies who lived in their cars. They had not only adjusted to discomfort, but they looked as fresh as the proverbial daisy. Not me. I looked like skunk cabbage.

Just before leaving the Motel from Bloody Hell, I called the Broadmoor and asked for Ben. I didn’t really expect him to be there, but he was.

“You said to call if I needed you, Cassidy.”

“What’s wrong, Ingrid? Where are you?”

I told him about Woody and the fortune cookie, and fibbed about the loss of my credit cards. Pride, I guess. Mickey Spillane wouldn’t have left his purse in the room.

“Could you wire me some money, Ben? I’ll pay you back, I promise, and the mugger didn’t steal my return ticket, so—”

“When do you return?”

“Tomorrow. One-forty-five, Colorado time.”

“Do you want me to meet your plane?”

“No. My Jeep is parked at the airport, thanks anyway. I just need some money for emergencies, like, well, food.” The scream in my throat had become a lump.

“Jeeze, Ingrid, do you have a local phone book handy?”

“Yes.”

“Look up the nearest Western Union office.”

“Hold on.” I flipped through pages. “They don’t seem to have one, Ben.”

“Give me your number. I’ll call you right back.”

Right back took thirteen minutes.

“I contacted Western Union,” said Ben, “but there’s no outlet in Clear Lake City. You’ll have to knock on Woody’s door and wake her up. Okay? Okay, Ingrid? Answer me.”

“I’ll play it by ear.”

“Don’t you always?”

“What do you mean by that? My music? Our on-again, off-again relationship? Sorry, Ben, I’m hungry, exhausted, frightened—”

“Frightened? Ingrid, you said the mugger grabbed your purse outside the motel and then ran away. Did he hurt you?”

“No. Honest. I think the elephant stole my credit cards to keep me from charging. I’m sorry I bothered you, Ben.”

Then I hung up.

Now I was hanging out. Once upon a long time ago, we used to hang out at the football field during practice sessions. We prayed that we’d catch Dwight Cooper’s eye, Junior Hartsel’s eye. We wanted their fame to rub off on us, and we silently suggested that they rub against our tight cardigan sweaters, buttoned down the back, emphasizing our pointy Maidenformed breasts. We’d hang out at the drugstore, scrutinizing boys around the soda fountain, scrutinizing the makeup counter, checking our reflections in our mirrored compacts.

My rented compact sat on its rubbery haunches alongside Woody’s curb, and my game plan was to wait until sunrise then punt. Driving to Woody’s, I had scanned my rearview mirror, but, as Old Mother Hubbard might say, the streets were bare, and I had a feeling the intruder had done her job by frightening me. Even her knife had been a scare tactic. Why would she kill me and leave a mirror message that might be traced back to the Clovers?

As the hands on my watch crept toward three, I tried to forget tonight’s events. Yeah, right. Sing, sing a song.

Cowboy
. The intruder might have disguised herself as a cowboy, hiding her hair beneath a black Stetson, scorning makeup, donning a loose shirt and vest. Tad could never disguise her big breasts, but she wasn’t really a viable suspect. Would Patty scorn makeup? Not in a million years.

Unless she played a role—the quintessential actress.

Alice could play a man. She didn’t have a jutting bosom, she could hide her platinum Q-tip hair beneath the Stetson, and she possessed the kind of face that melted into a crowd. If Alice masterminded a crime, witnesses wouldn’t be able to describe her features. “She’s medium,” they’d say.

And wasn’t the guitar-handled knife an Alice weapon?

I tried to doze. But my brain scrambled like quarterback John Elway looking for an open receiver. Why did I leave the motel as if I were some spineless mouse? Why had I called Ben? What had happened to Ingrid Independent? After I solved the riddle of Wylie’s death and the conundrum of Bingo’s reappearance, I’d have to get my act together.