Mistletoe Man - China Bayles 09 (18 page)

"Yes," I
said. "Early this morning. Before we got out of bed." I smiled.
"But I don't think we're limited to once a day."

"I hope not. I
love you. Consider yourself kissed in all the right places."

I grinned. "I'll bet you're just saying that
because I told you about Corinne Tuttle's car being in the shop."

"How'd you
know?" I could hear the answering grin in his voice. "Hey. I'll do
anything to get away from this damn book for a couple of hours."

Chapter
Eight

It is laid down as a
rule in various parts of Europe that mistletoe may not be cut in the ordinary
way, but must be shot or knocked down from the tree with stones. Thus, in the
Swiss canton of Aargau, the peasants procure it in the following manner.
"When the sun is in Sagittarius and the moon is on the wane, on the first,
third, or fourth day before the new moon [late November-early December], one
ought to shoot down with an arrow the mistletoe of an oak and to catch it with
the left hand as it falls."

Sir James George Frazer
The Golden Bough

Amy is doing an internship at the Hill Country
Animal Clinic as part of her graduate studies in veterinary medicine at Texas A
& M. And since the clinic was on my way out of town, I decided it would be
better to talk to her in person, rather than on the phone.

I know the inside of
this clinic quite well, since it's the place Howard Cosell and Khat go for
their regular checkups. The waiting room held the usual assortment of animals
and their human companions. I gave my name and asked for Amy, and there was a
short wait while somebody went to find her. Behind the desk, the clinic's
resident parrot, Poirot, was giving the weather forecast. "No rain
today!" he screeched. "Hot and dry! Hot and dry."

The door opened and I
saw Amy, dressed in her white lab tunic and pants. "China!" she
exclaimed. "I'm so glad you came!"

Amy has grown up a
great deal since the day she walked into the Crystal Cave in search of the
birth mother who gave her up for adoption in the first week of her life. Over
the intervening few years, Amy and Ruby have sorted out their relationship and
what they mean to one another. After some initial uncertainty about her life's
direction, Amy has included both her birth mother and her adoptive mother in
it. And me, too. As Ruby's best friend, I have a special status with her
daughter, something like an aunt or an older sister. Amy listens to my advice,
then does exactly as she pleases.

"It's raining, it's pouring," the parrot
remarked. "Hot and dry!"

"Let's go in
here," Amy said, drawing me into one of the treatment rooms. "That
parrot drives everybody crazy."

She shut the door,
turning to lean on it. Like Ruby, Amy is tall and thin, with the same coppery
hair, gingery freckles, and intense hazel eyes. When I look at this spirited,
energetic young woman, I imagine I am seeing Ruby twenty-five years ago.

"When was the last time you
talked to Mother?" she asked without preamble.

"Saturday, at
the shop," I said. "I've been calling her house, but the answering
machine is turned off. I stopped by this morning. She's not home, and her
suitcase is gone. Do you know where she is?"

Amy shook her head unhappily. "I
wish I did. She hasn't been herself for a couple of weeks. I'm getting awfully
worried about her, China."

"She hasn't
given you any idea about what's bothering her?"

"No.
What has she said to you?"

"Not a word. In
fact, I thought maybe I'd done something to make her upset with me." I
sighed ruefully. "I don't seem to have as much time for friends as I did
before McQuaid and I got married."

"I don't think that's the problem." Amy
crossed her arms over her chest. "We had dinner together last Wednesday,
and she seemed—I don't know, really weird. Spacy. Like, she wasn't there. I
mean, she carried on a conversation and everything, but her mind wasn't on it.
A couple of times she didn't even seem to hear what I said to her, and even
when she heard, she just sort of half responded." She stopped, cleared her
throat, started again. "When I got ready to go, she gave me an enormous
hug. You know, the way you do if you're going away somewhere and won't be back
for a while. A long while."

Both of us thought
about the implications of that for a moment, not saying anything. The treatment
room had an antiseptic smell, like a hospital. It was chilly, and I shivered
inside my coat.

"I'm
sorry," Amy said finally, uncrossing her arms. "I'm probably
overdramatizing this. Mother doesn't
...
I mean, she isn't—" Her smile was crooked. "She may dress like an
exotic dancer out for a night in Paris, but inside, she's still a mom. If she
was planning something really crazy, she'd tell me. Or Shannon."

I nodded, agreeing. "Speaking of Shannon, has
she told you that her father has come back to Pecan Springs? Or did Ruby
mention it to you?"

"No!" Amy's
eyes widened. "Do you think that has anything to do with the way Mother
is acting?"

"It might,"
I said. "I thought maybe—" I left the sentence unfinished. "But
he called while I was there this morning and claimed to be as much in the dark
as we are. I also talked to Hark Hibler. Hark says he thinks Ruby might be
seeing somebody new."

Amy pulled her coppery eyebrows
together. "A new boyfriend?"

"Yes," I said shortly,
nettled at her tone. She sounded disapproving, as if she thought that her mother
was getting too old for a new romance. Old, hell! Ruby is a year younger than I
am.

There was a long
pause. Amy pursed her lips, considering. "Well," she said slowly,
"I suppose that explains the negligee."

"The
negligee?'

"Gown and robe. Ivory satin trimmed in heavy
lace. Very sexy, like something Garbo might have worn. I don't think Mother
intended for me to see it. I was using the upstairs bathroom, and it was in a
box on her bed, packed in tissue paper. I couldn't resist peeking."

I frowned. A nightgown? Ruby has
always claimed that it's healthier and more fun to sleep in the buff. And a
sexy satin negligee isn't her style. It was beginning to look like Hark was
right, and Ruby had fallen in love with someone—we didn't know. Someone out of
town. But why was she hiding the truth? Why wasn't she telling us?

Amy clasped her hands
behind her and began to pace. "There's something else, too. I didn't think
much about it at the time, but the phone rang while I was at her house last
week. I don't know who Mother was talking to, but whoever it was, she seemed
almost furtive. I overheard her saying that she'd be ready on Saturday evening
after work. So she must be spending the weekend with somebody."
"Shannon, maybe?" I hazarded.

Amy reached the end
of the room and turned. "Uh-uh. Shannon and I talked on the phone this
morning. She and Mother had dinner together on Tuesday night, and she had the
same feeling about it that I did. Mother didn't pay attention and seemed to
barely listen. Shannon has no idea what's going on, and she's worried
too." Amy looked at me and shook her head, frowning. "I don't like
this, you know. Peeking and prying into Mother's private life, talking about
her behind her back, trying to dope out what she's up to. I don't feel right
about it."

"I don't
either," I said, guiltily recalling my invasion of Ruby's house.
"She's entitled to her privacy."

Amy stood still. "Yeah, sure. Everybody's
entitled." Her voice grew angry. "But there's a flip side, damn it.
Doesn't she have a responsibility to us? We're her
family,
for
Pete's sake! Shannon and me and you. She's not being fair to us, treating us
this way! Where's she gone? What's she up to? And why all the mystery?"

I didn't have any
answers. "I guess we'll just have to wait until she gets around to telling
us," I said.

"Well,
I wish to hell she'd hurry," Amy muttered.

The crime-scene tape was still strung
along the edge of the gravel road when I drove past the spot where Carl Swenson
had died. The body was gone, of course, bundled off to the morgue by the EMS
crew. The ladder was gone and the truck too, probably to the county impound
yard. Other than the tape, there was no sign that somebody had died at this
spot. I wondered if Swenson's relatives, if he had any,

would put up a cross here, the way
people sometimes do in Texas, decorated with plastic flowers and a little
inscription: "Gone to God" or "With the Angels." But maybe
he didn't have any relatives. Maybe there was no one to honor the place where
he'd died, or even remember that he had lived or what he had done with his
life. It was a sad thought.

Fifty yards further along, past the
curve and on the right, I saw Corinne Tuttle's mailbox and her house, a
white-painted, metal-roofed farmhouse that stood well back from the road. I
slowed the truck and pulled off to the side to get a good look. In the summer,
the house would be screened by low-hanging branches and an unruly mass of
yaupon holly and roughleaf dogwood. Now, most of the leaves were gone and I
could see through the tangled brush to the graveled area in front of the house.
A red Camaro was parked there, a recent model with spoilers on the rear end and
a cutesy leather bra across the front. Corinne had said she didn't have
visitors, so I could only assume it was Marvin's car.

Which posed several interesting
questions. I didn't keep up on the price of sports cars, but it was a good
guess that this one had cost the buyer upwards of thirty thousand dollars,
depending on the extras. And Marvin had no job, according to Corinne. Where
did he get the money? And if he could afford a Camaro, why the hell was he
hanging out here? Why wasn't he chasing girls in Austin or San Antonio?

I downshifted and was
pushing the accelerator when I saw a slim, angular young man in jeans and a
leather jacket open the screen door. He paused to say something over his
shoulder, then ran to the Camaro and jumped in. I turned in the seat to watch
him back out of the driveway, fast, spinning his tires on the loose gravel. I
couldn't see the front end—anyway, it was covered with leather—but as the
Camaro swung onto the road and raced off in the opposite direction, I managed
to catch the first three letters on the license plate: HOT. It figured. I
watched the car until it was out of sight, then jotted down the letters on a
scrap of paper, thinking that Blackie might be interested. An unemployed kid
who could afford a pricey car and vanity plates was worth a hard look.

I pulled back on the
road again. Another fifty yards further on and also on the right, I saw the
small house trailer that belonged to Clyde McNabb, the man Corinne Turtle had
accused of reckless driving. I slowed again, giving it a once-over. The trailer
was propped up on concrete blocks and a crooked tin flue pipe stuck through a
broken window. The yard was littered with trash, beer cans, and piles of rusted
junk. A surly looking brown dog, chained to a pecan tree, had retreated into a
fifty-gallon oil drum turned on its side to serve as a doghouse. In the pasture
adjacent to the house, a flock of goats browsed among a half-dozen abandoned
cars and trucks. There was no vehicle parked out front, though. It didn't look
like Clyde was at home. I made a mental note to pass along Corinne's hints and
innuendoes to Blackie, so he'd have them in mind when he interviewed the man.

But Clyde, Corinne,
and Marvin were Blackie's problems, not mine. I was here to talk to the
Fletcher sisters and Aunt Velda. I put the truck into gear and drove on.

This time it was Terry who came out of
the house in response to Max's barking. As I got out of the truck, she strode
down the path to meet me, wearing a heavy corduroy jacket and jeans stuffed
into scuffed leather boots. A black knit cap was pulled down over her ears.

"Donna said you
were here this morning," she said shortly. She shoved her hands into her
pockets. "With the sheriff."

"That's
right," I said. I smiled, being nice. "Maybe you and I could talk for
a few minutes."

She didn't smile
back. "What about?"

We weren't going to
be nice. "About Carl Swenson's death," I said.

"If you're here
to take up a collection for flowers, you can forget it." She wiped her
nose on the sleeve of her jacket. "We're not in the mood to
contribute."