She's Gotta Be Mine (33 page)

Had Mavis said Beau drank as well as spit tobacco juice? Just as she’d started to sniff for the odor of alcohol, the door was wrenched open.

“What the hell do you want?” Beau’s grizzled cheeks were sunken, and his pupils, the size of saucers, shrank in contact with bright sunlight. “Oh, Miss Bobbie, sorry, I didn’t know it was you.” He looked around as if someone else might be lurking. “Thought it might be those damn kids getting their kicks. You know, leaving a burning bag with a pile of crap in it, so you get it all over your shoes when you try to stamp it out.”

“Isn’t that just an urban legend?”

He rolled his eyes. “Around here, nothing’s an urban legend. You know that one about the hook on the car door, well, that was old Dieter Rumple—” He stopped
midstory
and peered at her with penetrating gray eyes. “But you didn’t come here for any old stories, you came about new ones.”

Bobbie, wanting to appear reticent, toyed with the strap of her purse. “I want to extend my condolences about your brother.”

“Bastard. Got what he deserved.” Gruff, uncompromising words, but Beau turned away quickly. Bobbie knew his eyes were hiding something, maybe sorrow. Or glee?

“Is that what you told the sheriff?”

“Sheriff already knows it.” Then, before she could ask another question, he held the door wide, his gaze now clear of any mistiness that might have been there. “You want some coffee? I just made a pot.”

As if the words conjured the smell, the rich scent of freshly brewed coffee drifted through the open doorway. She lifted her nose to sniff. Tanzanian. Expensive stuff. She followed Beau to the aroma as if he were the Pied Piper.

“Here, let me clear the chair.”

The only chair had six holes and sixteen grease spots. He covered it with a towel that wasn’t much better. The sun struggled through grimed windows, sparkling in the floating dust motes. Shiny clamps of all sizes hung from hooks along the wall over a workbench. A two-burner stove and small microwave decorated the bench opposite, above which hung a rack containing two plates, two bowls, and two mugs. Two sets of eating utensils sprouted from a coffee can. The working area of the garage—or nonworking if you considered the number of customers she’d seen stopping at Beau’s—lay in cool shadow through a door to the left, lift, compressor, toolboxes, all monstrous yet silent.

There was a neatness to everything, an order, and a chivalry to the way Beau dusted off her seat, placed the towel, then handed her coffee. He poured milk and sugar into small paper cups so that she could fix the brew the way she liked. With Tanzanian, she opted for black so as not to dilute the flavor.

Beau hoisted himself up on the tool bench opposite. “I don’t think you’re here for my charming company. So let’s talk turkey.”

She pursed her lips. How to be subtle? “Well...”

“You’re trying to get your husband out of jail, and you want to know if I’ve got any idea who killed
Jimbo
.”

Subtlety wasn’t necessary. “Yes.” Then she went for broke. “What about his wife?”

Beau laughed, phlegm rattling through the sound. “
Jimbo
was Cookie’s cash cow. Why do you think she got rid of me? She wanted it all. She’d never kill him.”

“But that’s exactly why she would kill him, isn’t it, to have it all?”

“She wouldn’t know what the hell to do with it minus him. She hasn’t got a worthwhile brain between her ears.
Jimbo
managed everything. The only way she’d get rid of him is if there was someone who could manage it better.”

Bobbie sipped the delicious drink, considering. The problem was that Warren was darn good at managing money. Another nail in his coffin if anyone found out about the affair.

“I could manage it better,” Beau ventured.

She looked around at the austere surroundings.

“I know what you’re thinking. I live in a goddamn garage, and my wife comes over a couple of times a week for sex. What do I know about managing?” He wagged a finger. “A
helluva
lot. If
Jimbo
hadn’t undercut me at every turn and used dirty tactics, I’d be up in that big house instead of him.” Beau glared at her from beneath craggy, bushy brows, and took another sip.

“So, you’re telling me you’re a suspect, too.”

He laughed, phlegm starting a truly horrible cough that had her searching for the phone in case she needed 911. “You really should have that checked, you know,” she said when he recovered.

He waved the comment aside. “If I was going to kill the bastard, I’d have done it ten years ago.”

“And the sheriff buys that?”

“Don’t know what the hell that damn sheriff thinks. He’s cagey, never letting on what’s perking behind those sneaky eyes.”

Sneaky eyes, she wasn’t sure, but she agreed one could never really tell what was going on in
Brax’s
head. Did he or did he not believe Warren had done it? That was the question.

Beau continued on without her one-hundred-percent attention. “I was really pissed
then
, when he ripped the business right out from under me, stole my livelihood, all on that bitch of a wife’s word. Now I’m just bitter.”

Well, that caught her ears. Bitterness sometimes translated to action. “Maybe it was some sort of festering thing.”

“That would require my investing emotion in the whole thing. I don’t give a flying fu—excuse me, flying elephant’s behind what
Jimbo
does anymore.”

“Right, it’s Mavis who really pissed you off.” Bobbie remembered that from their first conversation.

He harrumphed. “She should have stuck by me, believed in me.”

“Hmm, somehow I think she did. She pays for your teeth, doesn’t she?”

“Screw my teeth, screw
Jimbo
, and screw Mavis. Maybe you should be looking at that damn
minimall
as motive.”

“The
minimall
?”

“Yeah. It’s killing this whole damn town. Squeezing the life from it. And you know who owns all these buildings, who everybody but me and Mavis pays their goddamn rent to?”

“
Jimbo
.” Warren had imparted that information days ago.

“Right.” He graced her with a satisfied smile.

Bobbie didn’t get it. “Well, he certainly didn’t bash in his own head.”

Beau snorted. “He wanted to tear down all these old stores and build cutesy boutiques. Turn it into a goddamn
Mendicino
or something. Tourist town.”

Sacrilege, even Bobbie knew that. Then she focused on something he’d just revealed. “Why don’t you and Mavis pay?”

“I got the garage and The Cooked Goose for Mavis”—he bared his perfect, white,
dentalized
teeth—“when
Jimbo
cut me out of the partnership.”

“You own The Cooked Goose?”

He smiled. “Yup.”

Ooh, Mavis must hate that.

Beau went on with his musings. “So, James Beaumont, dignitary and dickhead of the Cottonmouth, could have thrown anyone out on their ear at any moment.”

“
Ahh
. Yes?” Sort of a statement, sort of a question, another way of egging him on, because she still didn’t really get his point.

“Which gives them all a motive for murder.” The eye roll added,
you idiot
.

She thought about how it must be to run a business that had been in your family for years, like Bushman’s or
Dillings
’ or Johnson’s, any of them up and down Main Street, only to see it all slipping away. To know one man was responsible.

Beau stared at her, an avid spark in his eye. “You like that one, don’t
ya
?”

That the list of suspects included just about the whole town of Cottonmouth? Her newly adopted town? “No. I don’t. And I bet the sheriff doesn’t either.”

Beau picked his teeth with his tongue. Could Mavis really have sex with this man? Bobbie shuddered.

“The sheriff’s already got his confession,” Beau went on after a moment’s thoughtfulness. “He doesn’t give a rat’s behind about what I say.” He stroked his grizzled beard, shooting her with that penetrating gaze he’d used when he’d first answered the door. “Think about it a minute. Everybody had something to lose.”

Bobbie felt like she was being mesmerized by a wizard.

He dropped his voice a note. “Maybe they all got together and did it.”

“Now I know you’re crazy.”

A laugh wheezed out. “Maybe yes, maybe no. But
someone
did it.”

Yes, someone had killed
Jimbo
. Did she really know these people well enough to say that
one
of them hadn’t done it?

Out in the bright morning sunlight again after leaving Beau, Main Street suddenly seemed filled with shadows she’d never noticed before.

* * * * *

Lunchtime in downtown Cottonmouth. Nick was doing exactly what Bobbie had wanted, scouting the town for gossip. It was the middle of June, it was noon, it was hot, that was all to be expected. What wasn’t ordinary, at least since the advent of
Jimbo’s
minimall
, was the number of cars lining the road and the crowded nature of the sidewalks themselves. Women with strollers, grannies with walkers, old men with hats who usually stayed out of the sun, preferably on their own front porches. Little kids and dogs and Patsy and Eugenia, and every blinking store owner out there sweeping down his or her front walk. All of them gathering or contributing to the latest scandal.

Murder in a small town brought every rat out of its hole.

Bertha
Swurtz
laid on her horn, though how the hell she could tell anyone was in her way, he didn’t know. Politely put, Bertha couldn’t see very well. A screech of tires ripped through the air as she fumbled over the yellow line, then back again. Down the street, lights flashed and a siren blared. Bertha didn’t actually make it to the side of the road, but, thanks to the grace of God, she did miss the mayor’s parked car. The old lady hadn’t hit a single man, woman, child, or object, stationary or otherwise, in the five years since the DMV yanked her license, but
Brax
usually hauled her in for a few hours when he caught her, just to make the point.

The deputy climbing from the patrol car, however, wasn’t
Brax
.

Nick made an about-face, almost sideswiping Mrs.
Burtleson’s
wheelie cart. He righted her, she grumbled, and backed up into one of the mayor’s newly refurbished light poles bearing an advertisement for the upcoming Accordion Festival. Nick almost made a face like a gargoyle, but that was going too far. He didn’t want to give the poor old woman a heart attack.

He’d heard quite enough gossip about himself this morning. In five different conversations, he’d learned that if Warren Spivey hadn’t killed
Jimbo
, Nick Angel certainly had. Nothing new there, he already knew that, right from the horse’s mouth, Sheriff Tyler Braxton.

But what other juicy stuff would Bobbie want to hear? He almost rubbed his hands in anticipation. He couldn’t drop by The Cooked Goose to see her later without something to report. Christ, he actually felt jaunty.

As he headed back to
Harry’s
place, a hand anchored his shoulder. Shit. The sheriff. But when he turned, it was Kent.

“Just the person I wanted to see.” Now why hadn’t he thought of Kent first? Working for
Jimbo
probably gave him all sorts of information access.

Kent cocked a brow. “Why so, buddy?”

“Tell me everything you know about
Jimbo’s
murder.”

“That’s a tall order. But hell, don’t make me say it twice.
Harry’s
damn near ready to shit his pants down there.” Then Kent dragged Nick with him. Cocky and sure of himself, he crossed his arms and leaned against the brick wall of
Harry’s
store.

Harry leaned his broom against the wall of the shop, the scrap of dirt he’d been sweeping back and forth small enough to disappear into a crack. “I can’t believe the old goat’s dead.”

Kent slashed Harry a look. “Christ, don’t let anyone hear you say that. They’ll be looking at you next.”