Merry Wives of Maggody (31 page)

The bathroom counter was a pharmacy of vitamins, supplements, antacid remedies, heating pads, ankle and knee supporters, and amber prescription vials. It took me a while to spot a bottle that matched the one found behind the Flamingo Motel. It had the same label, but its seal was intact. Tommy was clearly a fan of Dilaudid, or quite possibly addicted to it. According to my little golden book of narcotics, Dilaudid had a high potential for abuse and posed a risk for respiratory failure. Taken with alcohol, it could be deadly. But it hadn’t killed Tommy.

I was looking through dresser drawers when I heard the front door open. I thought I’d locked it, but Officer Davies could pick the lock in seconds. It was time for a game of hide-and-seek, to be concluded when I snuck up behind his sanctimonious backside and scared the holy shit out of him.

Footsteps moved toward the back of the house. I eased down the stairs and peered along the hall that led to the kitchen. The refrigerator door opened. I had no idea what Officer Davies was up to, unless he was hoping that I’d been stuffed inside it. The refrigerator door closed and a floorboard squeaked. Maybe he thought he’d frighten me into a display of maidenly distress. Well, he was in for a shock that rivaled the San Francisco earthquake of 1906.

The kitchen was unoccupied, leaving the office as my ground zero. I crept across the kitchen, took a deep breath, and burst into the room. “Kaboom!” I screeched.

Amanda Gilbert fainted.

This was not my desired scenario. I stood over her for a few minutes, my arms crossed, as I waited for her eyelids to flutter.

They did not. Eventually I lugged her into the living room and dumped her on the sofa. I sat down until my heart stopped pumping like a wildcat strike, and then got up to fetch a damp washcloth. She saved me the bother by opening her eyes.

“Chief Hanks?”

“So it seems,” I said.

“What are you doing here?”

“Getting ready to ask you the same question,” I said. “You’re supposed to be at Estelle’s house.”

Amanda took several deep breaths. “She’s very kind, I guess, but she insisted on treating me like a helpless infant. She kept trying to persuade me that I needed a trim. My last haircut cost ninety dollars. I wasn’t about to let her come after me with a pair of scissors from Wal-Mart.” She wiggled into a more upright position and touched the back of her head. “Sheesh, I have a lump the size of a golf ball. Why on earth did you come up on me like that? Is that some kind of police procedure?”

As good an excuse as any. “You haven’t explained what you’re doing here in Tommy’s house,” I said.

“I stopped by to see if the house plants need to be watered.”

“There aren’t any house plants, Amanda. Besides that minor problem, you were in the office. The only thing growing there is mold. What were you looking for?”

“It’s going to sound screwy,” she said. I did not disagree. after a lengthy moment to make up a story, she gave me a rueful look.

“Tommy’s address book. I want to notify his family as soon as possible. Dennis was going to handle it, but now it’s up to me, I guess. Except for Dennis, Tommy didn’t have any close friends. He had golf partners, drinking buddies, and old frat brothers. He must have relatives somewhere, but I have no idea how to get in touch with them.”

“A touching story, but with a low credibility factor. The address book is on the desk, hard to miss. You were searching the top drawer.”

“I must not have seen it.”

“Your husband was murdered this afternoon, Amanda. Shouldn’t you be overwhelmed with grief, or at least trying to get in touch with
his
family?”

She lowered her eyes. “I warned you it would sound screwy. I just couldn’t sit there at Estelle’s house and gush over her display of fingernail polish bottles any longer. When she went to the bathroom, I grabbed her car key and left. I couldn’t bear the idea of going home and seeing all of Dennis’s things scattered around. The newspaper on the table, the dry cleaner’s receipt under a magnet on the refrigerator, the photograph of him accepting a trophy at a tournament in Palm Beach.” She squeezed out a few tears. “The funeral, the reception. Is there somebody I can hire to do all this?”

“Try the yellow pages. You’re claiming you came here to escape Estelle, which I admit is plausible. Then it occurred to you to find Tommy’s address book. Why did you think it was in his office?”

“I wasn’t thinking,” Amanda said sulkily. “I was in shock—and it’s a helluva lot worse now, thanks to you.”

I studied her for a moment. “You’re welcome. Were you looking for Tommy’s stash of Dilaudid? It’s in the bathroom upstairs.”

“Does this drug have something to do with his murder? Whoever it was could have broken into this house over the weekend. Everybody knew Tommy would be out of town for the tournament. He’s been chortling about it for weeks. But if the bottle was in plain sight, why didn’t the addict take it? I mean, why go all the way to Maggody to murder Tommy—and Dennis? I don’t get it.”

Neither did I. Rather than continue the pointless dialogue, I said, “You’d better get Estelle’s car back before she reports it stolen to the state police.”

She slunk out of the house. I returned to Tommy’s office and flipped through the address book. Most of the entries were women, but I found the name of a Ridner in Florida and copied down the information. I set the book aside and poked around for what ever Amanda wanted so badly. All I came up with was utility and credit card bills, bank statements, appraisals, bids from contractors, and other fancy things. Tommy had been in decent financial shape, especially if he overlooked income from his golf bets. after I completed my search upstairs, I called the Farberville PD and went out to the porch to wait for Officer L. Davies.

• • •

“I call the meeting to order,” Mrs. Jim Bob said, lightly tapping the gavel on the dinette table. She felt much better, having had a glass of gin to settle her nerves. “I have to decide whether or not to cancel the tournament. I will entertain your opinions before I make the call.”

The members of the Missionary Society were oddly quiet. Most of them were watching Mrs. Jim Bob’s face for any lingering signs of remorse. She wasn’t glowing—or glowering, for that matter. She was darn near placid, Eileen thought from a corner. Millicent opted for the word “mellow.” Elsie and Eula exchanged uneasy looks. Even Bopeep, who was usually too busy thinking about her own problems to pay attention, was unsettled.

“No point in canceling it,” Audley said bravely.

“Unless it looks like another storm is coming in,” Crystal said.

“I jumped out of my skin when lightning hit that dead oak tree this morning.”

Lucille raised her hand. “What about the killer? I don’t aim to be on the golf course if he’s on the loose, especially since I’ll be providing the weapon.”

“He’d better not try anything with me,” said Joyce. “When Larry Joe got the flu last winter, I split a rick of wood and stacked it in the carport by myself. Nobody’s gonna sneak up on me. I got three wily children.”

Eileen stepped forward. “If I don’t win the bass boat, Earl’s going to sleep in the barn ’til hell freezes over. I say we finish the round in the morning.”

“If it’s not overcast,” amended Crystal.

Mrs. Jim Bob smiled benignly at them. “Shall we have some coconut cake after we have a show of hands?”

• • •

Officer Davies kept his lips pursed as he drove me to the PD. His chin stuck out, and his fingers on the steering wheel were bloodless.

I pitied the next jaywalker he spotted. Said pedestrian could end up in prison, or as flat as a paper doll in the middle of the street. His mother must have been worried when he began pulling wings off flies in his playpen.

I went inside the PD. The blond woman sniffed as I approached her desk. “Excuse me,” I said. “Can I see the arrest log from last night?”

“I’m too busy to track it down. Come by in a couple of days.”

“Too busy reading a romance novel? Gee, that’s a new one. Where’s Chief Turbutt’s office?”

“He ain’t here today. He ate pizza last night and it didn’t agree with him. He knows better than to eat pepperoni and jalapeños.”

She turned a page and resumed reading.

“Shall I track it down myself?” I asked. “I’d hate to make a mess of your… mess.”

“Hold your damn horses,” she grumbled as she ripped off a corner of a form and used it as a bookmark. “You want anything in particular?”

“Traffic violations,” I said. “Cars towed, parking tickets.”

“Based on what I’ve heard about Maggody, people should roll up their car windows and lock their doors before they drive through town. I wouldn’t live out there if my life depended on it, which I guess it would. Must be all that inbreeding.” Her lower lip extended, she pecked on the keyboard until the printer began to hum. “Saturday is prime time. There was a street fair yesterday. Thurber Street was blocked off, and vendors sold beer on the sidewalks. Lots of drunk-and-disorderlies, property damage, fights in alleys. A good two dozen cars were towed. You don’t want to know how many traffic and parking tickets were issued.”

“I’m interested in a Chrysler Imperial Crown,” I said.

She rolled her eyes and turned back to the computer. “You should have said so, instead of letting me print out all the citations. How do you spell the kind of car?”

I spelled the kind of car very slowly. When a page slithered out of the printer, I picked it up. I felt a tingle as I spotted the pertinent words. Same make, same license plate number. Frederick Cartier had not lied when he said he was in Farberville the previous evening. His only crime was parking too close to a fire hydrant.

I wrote down the location, thanked the woman, and left.

The street turned out to be in a neighborhood that was the opposite of Tommy’s. Houses were small and unloved. Screen doors were torn, windows cracked. The lawns were no better than the fairways at the Maggody golf course. Frederick’s tryst had taken place in a dingy white house. Even the fire hydrant, streaked with spray paint, looked depressed.

I kept an eye on the children in the next yard, who might have been Fagin’s latest recruits, as I went to the front door and knocked. I was taken aback when it was opened by a man clad only in faded plaid boxers and flip-flops. His chest looked like a bear pelt, but his head was shiny. As was a prominent gold tooth.

“You looking for me, little lady?” he said. “You’re in luck, ’cause I’m ready and willing. Come right on in and make yourself at home.”

“No thank you,” I said. “Does anyone else live here?”

He stuck out his lower lip. “Nah, just me and Oliver.”

“Oliver Twist?”

“Oliver, my shih tzu.” He noticed my badge. “You really a cop, or are you a spy for the American Kennel Club?”

“I’m really a cop. I’m looking into the whereabouts of Frederick Cartier last night. Was he here?”

“Never heard of him.”

His credibility rating was lower than Amanda’s; she’d at least attempted to come up with a story. “Maybe you know him by another name,” I suggested tactfully. “I know he was here. He was issued a parking ticket at eleven o’clock. His car was parked in front of this house, a teeny bit too near the fire hydrant.”

“Frederick Cartier.” He screwed up his face, pretending to think. “There were some fellows over last night. One of ’em could have been this Cartier you’re asking about. It was a poker game, not a tea party, and I didn’t check IDs at the door. No name tags or introductions, just cards, booze, and dollar bills. I hear Oliver stirring in the kitchen, so if we’re done here…?”

“Not yet. Cartier is six feet tall, with silver hair. Expensively dressed, driving a vintage Chrysler Imperial Crown, black.”

“He could have been here. Like I said, I didn’t pay attention to names. I was down on Thurber Street all afternoon, drinking beer. I was feeling no pain when I got home. All I remember about the poker game is that I lost seventy dollars to fuckin’ trip nines. I had kings and fours.” He shut the door in my face.

“I’m very sorry for your loss,” I said to the rusty door knocker, then returned to my car and flipped through my pad of notes.

Frederick had three alibis thus far: the professor, the anonymous paramour, and the poker game. He could have skipped the first two, if he’d been playing poker. There would be witnesses to verify his story, albeit reluctant ones. The man in the boxers, for starters. He had failed to ask why I was tracking down Frederick.

Disinterested people could still be interested; it was almost instinctive.

The man had shown no curiosity. If he’d said that Frederick was there, I would have accepted it as an inelegant alibi. It didn’t explain why Frederick hadn’t simply said so to begin with.

I pulled out a street map and located the Gilberts’ address. They lived in what must have been one of Farberville’s first subdivisions.

The houses were small, with carports instead of garages. Some had partial brick veneers. I drove around for a few minutes until I spotted their house. It could have belonged to a retiree on a pension, a police officer, a teacher, a firefighter, or a midlevel factory worker.

Or, I amended, a newscaster in a small town who spent his salary on a country club membership, golf tournaments, and a Mercedes.

Since Amanda had intended to search Tommy’s house, I assumed what ever she sought was not in her own house.

I had one more stop before I headed home. I drove up a winding road to the country club. The mini-mansions on the hilltop were disturbingly similar, right down to the spindly trees that would provide shade in the next decade. I parked between a Hummer and a Porsche and went inside the club house. The bar was nearly deserted. Two couples shared a table, and another couple was bickering with a different one. I sat on a stool and waited until a waitress emerged from a back room.

“Sorry, honey,” she said as she put a cocktail napkin in front of me. It was beige, with a green border that matched the immaculate course. “What would you like?”

“Just information. Have you heard about Tommy Ridner’s death?”

Her smile faded. “Such a nice man. He pinched my butt whenever he had a chance, but he was generous with tips. Most of these rich people leave a dollar or two, then drive their expensive cars home to their six-bedroom houses so they can swim in their heated pools. The only pool I have is under the kitchen sink. The roaches swim laps in it.”