Mourning Gloria (9 page)

I looked in my rearview mirror when I drove off. Blackie was sitting in his car, talking on the radio. My night was about to come to an end. His was just beginning.

 

 

HOWARD was waiting for me when I unlocked the kitchen door and went in. He wore a reproachful look (bassets are recognized champions in the canine reproach division), and thumped his tail accusingly on the floor.

“The sheriff says you get more regular meals than he does,” I told him. He was not impressed. I apologized, made his dinner, and added a few slivers of leftover chicken to atone for my dereliction of duty. While he ate, I fixed myself a stiff gin and tonic, thinking that I could use a little more Dutch courage. Then I sat down in my favorite chair in the living room, put my feet up on the hassock, and called McQuaid.

“You found
what
?” he yelped, so loud that I might’ve been able to hear him without the phone, all the way from Memphis. “Jeez, China. Can’t I leave you alone for three days without your looking for trouble?”

“I wasn’t looking for it,” I protested. “I was just driving along the road when I saw it. The trailer, just past the Cedar Creek bridge, on the right. Up the hill, behind the trees.”

He paused. “Oh, yeah? I know that place.” He sounded more reasonable now. “It belongs to Scott Sheridan.”

I was surprised. “You know the owner?”

“Yeah, sure. Scottie owns A-Plus Auto Parts, just past the Dairy Queen on your way into town. That’s where I get truck parts for the Beast.” McQuaid’s ancient pickup is affectionately named the Blue Beast. It’s a genuine antique, but it still runs, thanks to a lot of tender loving care—and enough replacement parts for a full rebuild. “He asked me not long ago if I knew any students looking for a place to live. Said he’d just bought the place and evicted the pair that had been living there. They were into drugs. So what happened when you saw the trailer on fire?”

“I stopped and ran up the hill and banged on the door. That’s when I heard—”

“Why the hell didn’t you just call 9-1-1? You know better than to go running up to a—”

“Hush up and listen,” I snapped, and managed to get the whole story out with only a couple more interruptions. I didn’t exaggerate any of it, either. The situation was grim enough without trying to make it sound grimmer.

“You’re okay, I hope,” he said when I was finished. I could hear the relief in his voice and loved him for it. “You’re back home?”

“I’m back home and I’m okay,” I said. I got up and went to the mirror over the table in the hallway. It was the first time I’d seen myself since the fire, and my scorched face, looking oddly bereft, stared back at me. “Except that my eyebrows are gone. And my hair is singed.”

“Thank God it wasn’t worse,” McQuaid said. “Was Caitlin with you?”

“She’s sleeping over at Amy’s house. She won’t be home until tomorrow morning.”

“That’s good. The poor kid’s had enough trouble.” He paused. “You can take the day off tomorrow, can’t you? Stay home for a change? Get some rest?”

I thought of the meeting at Donna’s farm tomorrow night. I didn’t want to miss it—and anyway, I’d promised Ruby I’d pick her up. “I’m sure I’ll feel better.” I paused. “How’s the investigation going?” I asked, adroitly switching the subject.

“Not bad, actually.” He began a lengthy tale about the day’s activities, none of which sounded very dangerous. I’ve been uneasy ever since McQuaid first hung out his shingle as a private investigator a couple of years ago. He insists that he’s only interested in investigative work—none of the shoot-’em-up, knock-’em-down action you read about in private-eye mysteries. But once a cop, always a cop. If trouble comes his way, he’ll run to meet it. So far, though, his work hasn’t involved anything very dangerous, for which I am grateful. So far. There’s a first time for everything.

We talked a little more, then said good night. I went upstairs and was filling the bathtub when the phone rang again. I shut off the faucet and went into the bedroom to pick up. It was Sheila. She had talked to Blackie and he had asked her to pass along some news. Not for public consumption, but because I’d been the one who discovered the fire. He thought I’d earned the right to what little information he’d gathered so far.

I sat on the bed to hear what Sheila had to say. She was succinct, as usual. A search of the burned structure had turned up no bodies other than that of a woman on the sofa—on what had once been a sofa—under the window in the small living room. The foam cushions of the sofa had been highly combustible. The body would be difficult to identify from physical appearance, and no identification had been found. No purse, no wallet, nothing. And aside from some minimal furniture and the usual appliances, the place had been empty. No personal effects.

“The victim’s hands and feet were tied and she was doused with an accelerant,” Sheila added.

“Oh, hell,” I said, under my breath. And that’s what it must have been. A vast, unfathomable, fiery hell. I shuddered.

“One other thing,” Sheila went on. “Blackie says he won’t be sure until he sees Harkins’ autopsy report.” Tom Harkins, an MD at the hospital in Pecan Springs, is the new county coroner—an improvement over the previous situation, where Adams County autopsies were done in Bexar or Travis County. “He says it looks like she was shot. The shooter must’ve figured she was dead and set the fire to obliterate the evidence. The plan might’ve worked, too, if you hadn’t come along.”

Bully for me, I thought sourly. Sure, I’d come along, but too late to help the victim. “Any idea how the fire was triggered?”

“At first glance, it looks like a homemade setup at one end of the trailer,” Sheila said. “Nothing fancy, but it would’ve given the arsonist four or five minutes to get outta Dodge. Something else may turn up, though. The investigation isn’t finished.”

Which reminded me. “Oh, hey, Sheila. Tell Blackie that McQuaid knows the owner of that trailer. His name is Scott Sheridan, at A-Plus Auto Parts. Sheridan bought the place fairly recently, apparently. McQuaid said he evicted the people who were living there. They were into drugs.”

Drugs. That’s probably what had happened tonight. A drug deal went bad, and a woman ended up dead. That kind of thing doesn’t happen here as often as it does in the cities, and the arson-homicide was an unusual twist. But like everywhere else in the country, we have our share of bad drug deals.

“Scott Sheridan at A-Plus,” Sheila repeated. “Thanks, China. I’ll pass it on.” She paused, and her voice became warmer, less official. “Sorry you had to be the one to discover this. I know it wasn’t pleasant.”

Howard appeared in the doorway, assessed his opportunities, and jumped up on the bed beside me. Bassets, even elderly bassets, are more agile than you might think. I didn’t have the heart to make him get down.

“I just wish I’d happened along sooner,” I said, low. “Maybe I could’ve gotten her out of there. Or caught the killer in the act. Or at least seen him driving off.” How long before I showed up had he left? A minute? Five minutes? Ten? And why did I automatically picture the killer as a man? Women do drugs. Women kill. Women commit arson, too.

“Yeah, well, maybe you could’ve gotten yourself dead, too,” Sheila said. “You did what you could, China. Don’t beat yourself up. Forget about it—as much as you can.”

“Thanks,” I said wearily. “I’ll try.”

I said good night and clicked off. I guess I wasn’t surprised to hear that the victim had been shot. Tied up and shot, which accounted for the fact that she couldn’t get out of the trailer. I had read recently that arson-homicides were on the increase, and that in a growing number of cases, the victims were killed or left for dead before the fire was ignited. In fact, there had been a similar case in Florida not very long ago. A prostitute had shot the victim—another prostitute, a former friend—and set the fire in an attempt to conceal the dead woman’s identity. The motive: jealousy, pure and simple. The victim had replaced the killer in their pimp’s affections. Of course, the jealousy might have been compounded with an economic motive. The pimp was sending more traffic in the victim’s direction.

I shivered, suddenly grateful for the safety and comfort of our house, the love of a good man and fine children, wholesome work, the kindness of friends, the safety—the relative safety—of a small town. What had happened tonight in that trailer was incomprehensibly vicious and ugly beyond words. But I didn’t have to comprehend it or explain it or even describe it. Sheila was right. As far as I was concerned, the whole thing was over. Blackie and his deputies would do their usual competent work, and I’d hear all about the investigation when it was finished.

Howard pushed his cold nose against my arm, telling me he had forgiven me for not being home when it was time for his dinner. He added a raspy lick, expressing the wish that I’d allow him to sleep with me tonight, since McQuaid wasn’t there to take up half the bed.

I bent down and kissed one soft brown ear. There’s something about a basset that makes me want to smile. And it didn’t matter whether I “allowed” him or not, Howard would be sleeping with me. He considers it his right and his obligation to occupy the empty half of the bed.

But despite a luxurious hot bath (scented with the lavender salts Ruby gave me for Christmas) and a generous smear of aloe salve on my burned hand, I didn’t sleep well. I dreamed that I was scrabbling up the hill toward the burning trailer, the shrieks of the dying woman echoing through the fire-torn night. It was one of those awful dreams where the faster you run, the slower you go. The harder I tried to scramble upward, the farther back I slipped, until at last a huge, volcano-like explosion ripped the sky, and the trailer vanished in a great gush of fire, showering me with searing flame.

I woke, crying. Howard was licking the tears from my cheeks.

The promised drizzle turned into a steady rain after breakfast the next morning, one of those sweet, gentle rains that do so much to refresh early summer gardens and restore the fields and pastures. At midmorning, Amy and Kate dropped Caitlin off and stayed for a cup of coffee and my report (brief, objective, and lacking in detail because I didn’t want to alarm Caitie) of what had happened the night before. They had seen the burned trailer as they drove past and noticed several county vehicles parked along the road. Obviously, the investigation was still going on.

After they left, Caitie went upstairs to her tower room to practice her violin, carefully running a scale, slowly at first, then more rapidly, moving back and forth and up and down the strings in melodic repetition. When she made a mistake (there weren’t many), she went back and corrected it. I could imagine her frowning, concentrating on her finger position and her bowing technique. It seemed to me that there was something intensely personal—sometimes reflective, sometimes playful—in the way she played the simple scale, searching for color and tone, making musical what might be purely mechanical. After a while, she stopped playing scales and began to practice the piece Brenda, her teacher, had given her—Pachelbel’s Canon, much simplified, but beautiful.

I puttered in the kitchen, listening to Caitlin while I made several kinds of cosmetic vinegars—a big seller in the shop and something I could take to the market, as well. I was making lavender, floral, and mint vinegars in gallon jugs, which I would strain and rebottle into pretty glass containers when the herbs had steeped for a month or so. After I finished that project, I made a batch of carrot cupcakes to take to the Local Food Society meeting that evening. I had bought the carrots at the Farmers’ Market and we had gathered the pecans under the tree by the creek and cracked them ourselves, so that much was local. The other ingredients, though—flour, sugar, cream cheese, vanilla, and so on—came from heaven-knows-where. The work reminded me that eating entirely locally would be a very difficult thing to do. However, I could add some of my own locally grown edible flowers, so I went out into the garden and collected enough blooms to decorate each cupcake.