Go, Ivy, Go! (6 page)

Mac and I drifted together to watch what was going on. An officer came out of the house with a video camera and panned the outside area, including us in the cluster of people standing around. Were they thinking a killer might return to the scene of the crime?

I rejected that question.
No killer. No crime.
Just a dead woman who happened to expire and tumble into my tub. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

“Did you find out anything while you were being questioned?” Mac asked.

“No, it was all questions, no answers. Although Officer DeLora did let slip that the dead woman had a library card and some mail with the name Ivy Malone on them. And I already know that someone ran up some utility bills when there wasn’t supposed to be anyone living here.”

“She was passing herself off as you?”

“It looks that way.”

Mac gave that some thought while an officer came out of the house carrying an armload of items individually packed in plastic evidence bags and placed them in a police car. Mac nodded thoughtfully.

“At least now you know why the Braxtons haven’t been trying to kill you for the last few months,” he said.

“Why’s that?”

“Because they thought you were dead, of course. They thought they’d already killed you. And dumped you in the bathtub.”

Chapter Five

“You don’t know that!” I objected. Too vehemently.

Because what Mac said made all too much sense. Tasha had said the dead body had a “big hole” in it. There was that stain in the bedroom, which I now realized was more likely blood than wine.
The ominous circling of crime-scene tape was a plain indication of how the police viewed this. And the Braxtons hadn’t made any threatening moves on me in the last few months.

The Braxtons had discovered someone living in the house, someone identifying herself as Ivy Malone, and then they’d done what Braxtons did when they encountered an Ivy Malone. They finished her off. Why did they put her in the tub? Maybe something about taking longer for the body to be discovered or to contain the odor? Or maybe just some morbid Braxton whimsy?

Guilt hit me like an avalanche. This unknown woman had wound up dead in a tub and then a body bag because of
me.

I tried to squirm out from under that weight of guilt and responsibility. Passing herself off as me had been the woman’s choice; it had nothing to do with anything I’d done. Maybe the Braxtons hadn’t killed her. Maybe someone had tried to burglarize the place and killed her in the process. Maybe the zombie uprising had started here.

Yeah, all kinds of possibilities. But the biggest possibility by far was that the Braxtons, thinking I’d probably come back to Madison Street sometime, had kept an eye on the place. They didn’t do an intensive investigation when someone using my name started living in the house; they just killed her. Did she look like me? There may have been some resemblance. Tasha had thought we were the same person. But being generically older and gray haired was probably close enough to get her murdered.

A follow-up jolt: if I’d been here that could have been me in the bathtub.

None of which lessened the guilt I felt for the death of the woman who’d fatally entangled herself in my identity. It was dangerous to be Ivy Malone.

“Did you tell them about the Braxtons?” Mac asked.

“No.” I’d been so shocked by discovery of the body, Eric’s swoon, and my misguided determination to keep this out of the murder category, that I was still a little numb. “I guess I’d better do that.”

“And then you can pick up and leave town before the Braxtons realize they made a mistake and come after the real you.”

I managed to catch Officer DeLora’s eye when she came out of the motorhome. I motioned her over and told her I’d thought of something that might be helpful. She kept me on the far side of the tape, but we moved away from the curious crowd. I told her about the Braxtons, how I’d helped catch and convict one of the clan in a murder case, and how the others had vowed to make roadkill out of me. How they’d first tried to do it with a fire right here at the house and then a bomb under my old Thunderbird down in Arkansas, how I’d been running ever since. She surreptitiously flexed her left hand a couple of times while we were talking. I wondered if she’d recently injured it in line of duty.

“So what you’re saying is—?”

“I think the Braxtons killed this woman thinking she was me.”

“That’s a very serious accusation.”

“She was murdered, wasn’t she?”

In spite of the conspicuous crime scene tape, Officer DeLora refused to confirm or deny that. Instead she asked, “And this person you say you helped convict was—?”

“Beaumont Zollinger, usually known as Bo.”

She pounced on that. “But you said
Braxtons
were out to get you.”

“It’s a big family. The man who threatened me after the trial was Drake Braxton. Bo Zollinger is his half brother. I don’t know what the aunts and uncles and cousins and in-laws may be named. But they’re united in an effort to get me.
A family project.”

“You’re saying the whole family is in on some big conspiracy to kill you?” Officer DeLora was as skeptical as Koop is when I’m creeping up on him with a tuna tidbit in one hand and a worm pill hidden in the other.

“Yes, that’s what I’m saying. My grand-niece down in Arkansas calls them a mini-Mafia. They seem to have tentacles everywhere. I think they got my original forwarding address because one of them worked for the postal service. Another time they managed to track me through credit card purchases, which probably means they have a spy in the banking system. Which is why I never use a credit card any more.”

“Using information obtained as a postal or bank employee for personal purposes would be illegal and have serious consequences.” She sounded very righteous about that.

“Bank robbery isn’t legal. Neither is hijacking cars, shoplifting Cheerios, or stealing an identity. All can have serious consequences. But it’s
done
.” And, like all crimes, no consequences if you aren’t caught

Her frown and tap of pen on notebook acknowledged the possibility of some person in a responsible position using that position to accomplish a nefarious goal. Which still didn’t mean she thought the Braxtons had done it to me or the woman in the tub.

“You think I’m paranoid, don’t you?” I grumbled. “Or cruising in the senile lane.”

Officer DeLora didn’t comment on my mental condition, but her sideways glance suggested she was giving these possibilities serious consideration.

“At the very least, eccentric,” I added.

“We’re all a little eccentric in our own way.”

Which implied an eccentricity of her own? What was it? On impulse I tossed out a question. “Why do you keep looking at your hand?”

“I don’t!” She fisted the hand, then rested her fingers on the gun at her hip and gave me The Look.

I got the message. No questions.
Which had never stopped me before, of course.
I tossed out one on a different subject. “Why did you want to know if my teeth are real or false?”

That question apparently caught her while she was still off-balance from the hand question, and she answered this one. “The body has false teeth.”

Which connected with what Tasha said about the teeth being “all strange.
” As the body deteriorated, the false teeth had loosened and gone awry. I started to tell Officer DeLora that she could check with Dr. Sorenson, who could tell her the real Ivy Malone had her real teeth. But then I remembered Dr. Sorenson had retired and moved to Florida even before I left Madison Street. The world keeps changing.

“Look, whether or not I’m paranoid, senile, or eccentric, there’s something you can check out. The records from the trial. They won’t tell you about the Braxtons threatening me, but they will tell you what Bo Zollinger did and how I helped convict him.”

“I’ll do that.” This time the pen moved up to tap her jaw. “The Braxton name sounds familiar. I know I’ve seen or heard it somewhere. . .”

“On an FBI Most Wanted List?” I suggested.

She didn’t realize the question was at least semi-facetious.
“No, something local. But I just can’t remember. . .”

“You don’t have any idea yet who the dead woman really is?” I asked.

“At this point she’s Ivy Malone.”

Would I see an obituary for Ivy Malone in the newspaper? A startling thought. But hey, maybe not a bad idea! Then the Braxtons really would think they’d finished me off. Maybe I shouldn’t be trying so hard to prove my identity. Let the dead woman
be Ivy Malone. I could change my name to something more interesting. The name India had always appealed to me. I instantly added a glamorous sounding last name. India Cristobal!

“If you are the real Ivy Malone, and you’re convinced this ‘mini-Mafia’ is out to get you, why did you come back?” Officer DeLora challenged.

A good time to tell her I was mistaken. That I wasn’t really Ivy Malone. That my saying I was had simply been a temporary identity crisis, one of those senior moment things. Give her my “real” India name. But, as usual, the truth is what comes out of me. Besides, I’d need a whole new wardrobe of filmy, swirly things, maybe even castanets, to be India Cristobal.

“Because this is home,” I said simply. “I wanted to come home.”

She considered this for a moment and then nodded. “I can understand that.” A far-off look in her eyes unexpectedly said that
home
meant something to her too.

“You’re not from around here?” I asked.

“No, I moved up from Texas a few—” She broke off and grabbed back her usual stern demeanor.
No questions.

Only then did I realize Mac had followed us and was hiding more or less discreetly behind a dead bush in the yard. He came out when Officer DeLora snapped her little notebook shut.

“I’ll include all this in my report,” she said “But don’t leave town. We may need to talk to you again.”

“I’m sure you know that isn’t an enforceable order,” Mac said affably. He clasped an arm around my shoulders. “If someone isn’t under arrest, she can come and go as she pleases. We’re both headed for Montana.”

I blinked.
Both
headed for Montana? Since when? Officer DeLora gave a frustrated huff. Because the other point Mac had said was true. I’d had enough experience with law enforcement in recent years to know that even though people are often told they can’t leave an area, that wasn’t enforceable if they weren’t under arrest.

Officer DeLora didn’t admit Mac was correct, but neither did she argue with him. Unfortunately, at least from her viewpoint, she didn’t have enough reason to arrest me to keep me here. Unless maybe she could make a case out of my impersonating Ivy Malone?

She apparently decided to appeal to our nobler natures now. “I’m sure you’re both as eager as we are to find out who killed this woman.” To me, “Your presence could be very helpful.”

What hit me in that statement was the bottom-line fact about this dead body.
I’d been doing mental gymnastics trying to detour this ever since I’d first seen those toes in the tub, but there was no getting around it now. Officer DeLora had made it fact. This wasn’t just a dead body. This was a
murdered
dead body. In my bathtub.

Sometimes it seems as if there’s an inexorable link between murder and me. Like macaroni and cheese. Salt and pepper. Jekyll and Hyde. Ivy and murder.

Mac and Officer DeLora were still discussing the situation. She was emphasizing how helpful my sticking around would be. Mac was saying my life might be in danger if I did.

I held up a hand. “I’d be more inclined to stay if I could be in my own motorhome, but it’s inside the crime scene tape. So is Mac’s. If I could occupy mine and Mac could leave in his—? They have already been searched.”

“You intend to leave the area?” Officer DeLora asked Mac.

Mac gave me a glance that put Officer DeLora’s stern look in the amateur category, a glance that said
We both need to leave. Now.
I started to deny that. Just Mac would be leaving. Although I had to admit zipping out of town right behind him might be the smartest and safest thing to do. I could follow him up to Montana or head for the Oregon coast.
Leave the Braxtons behind again.

Mac gave a noncommittal shrug, and Officer DeLora said, “I’ll see what I can do about getting the motorhomes released. Until then both of you stay outside the tape.” Officer DeLora gave Mac The Look. “And that
is
enforceable.”

#

Processing of the crime scene went on. Officers came and went. A few lookie-loos remained, but most of the small crowd drifted away. Somewhere along the way Tasha and Eric also got away. An officer came out and rearranged the yellow tape so that the motorhomes were outside it.

“You’ll be leaving now?” I asked Mac.

“You’ll come with me?”

I dodged a decision by saying, “I’d like to visit the cemetery while I’m here.” I hadn’t been to Harley’s grave since I left Madison Street.

“I can hang around for a day or two. I’ll pull the motorhome out on the street so you can get in and out of the driveway.”

I started to say something about the city not allowing RVs on the street but realized that might not be true now. It used to be, to park an RV here, it had to be in a garage or out of sight behind a house. But the city also used to get nasty about overgrown weeds, and a car up on blocks in a yard would earn an immediate citation, so apparently they weren’t paying much attention to enforcement on Madison Street these days. Maybe a shortage of personnel because of budget problems? Or maybe Madison Street had just been written off by city authorities.

The crime scene people still weren’t done by the time Mac and I shared a salad for dinner in my motorhome. It was too hot to cook anything. Afterward we took a stroll over to the shopping center where I’d always gone for groceries when I lived here. I picked up a local newspaper to see what they were reporting about the bathtub body, but it was only a small item on the third page. Much bigger news was a convenience store robbery in which both a clerk and a bystander had been killed.