A Matter of Malice

by Thomas King

  “Trudy got the ticket in Randall,” said Thumps. “The place is famous for its speed trap.”

  Ethan turned his palms up in frustration. “So?”

  “When she got the ticket, she was travelling east to west. She wasn’t heading to Belly Butte. Belly Butte is in the opposite direction.” Thumps paused for a beat. “So, where was she going?”

  Adele stiffened. “And I suppose you know.”

  “As a matter of fact,” said Thumps, “I do.”

  Forty-One

  It was Rattler who broke the silence, his voice soft, almost apologetic. “Black Stag,” he said. “She was going to Black Stag.”

  Adele held her ground on the sofa, still as stone.

  “That’s my guess,” said Thumps. “Nothing much else out that direction.”

  “I’m afraid you’re mistaken, Mr. DreadfulWater,” said Ethan.

  “Trudy had no reason to return,” said Adele. “That question had been settled.”

  “She wasn’t coming to stay,” said Thumps. “She was coming because of the money.”

  “Trudy hardly needed money,” said Adele. “She already had more than she deserved.”

  “I’m not talking about her money. I’m talking about the money you gave Mr. Rattler.”

  Adele turned on Rattler.

  “No,” said Thumps. “He didn’t tell me. Maslow figured it out on her own. I was a little slower.”

  “I don’t see how any of this is relevant,” said Ethan. “So what if my mother gave Mr. Rattler a little money.”

  “I don’t know the exact amount,” said Thumps, “but it would have been mid–five figures.”

  “Ridiculous!”

  “Not that it matters how much.” Thumps kept his voice even. “What matters is . . . why?”

  Adele turned away. “Surely the why isn’t all that difficult.”

  “A bribe,” said Thumps. “An inducement, a payoff. The means by which to get Tobias Rattler out of your stepdaughter’s life.”

  “And you disapprove?”

  “I don’t care,” said Thumps. “But Trudy did.”

  “Trudy was emotional,” said Adele. “Probably disturbed if you want to know the truth. The booze, the drugs, the promiscuity. She was not a nice person.”

  “Did you tell her about the money?”

  “Of course not.” Adele’s mouth snapped open and shut. “Why would I tell her?”

  Thumps turned to Ethan. “Then it had to have been you.”

  Ethan looked at his shoes, looked poised to deny it. And then he didn’t. “So what?”

  “You told her?”

  “Come on, Mom,” said Ethan. “You know how she was. She thought she could have anything she wanted. Nice clothes, fancy apartment, a fast car. She needed to understand that she couldn’t have it all.”

  Thumps waited for a moment. “And when you told her, she exploded.”

  “Oh, boy, did she ever,” said Ethan. “Should have seen her. She was ready to kill someone.”

  Thumps nodded at Rattler. “That was what the fight was about. Earlier in the day. About your taking the money. Off to Dartmouth, jiggety-jig, while Trudy stays in Chinook.”

  “We were friends,” said Rattler. “Good friends. She had everything she wanted right here. She wanted me to stay here.”

  “And here was where you were never going to stay.”

  “Maybe I should have.” Rattler rubbed his hands together. “But I didn’t.”

  “Remorse?” snorted Adele. “Really? Back then you were happy enough to take my money and run.”

  Thumps held up a hand. “So, Ethan tells Trudy what Adele has done, and Trudy finds you.”

  “Yeah,” said Rattler. “She did.”

  “And you fought.”

  “I’d never seen her like that.”

  “So there was no movie,” said Thumps.

  “I waited for her at the theatre,” said Rattler. “Hoped she would show up.”

  No, thought Thumps. At some point the betrayal had overwhelmed her, and she got into her car and drove to Black Stag. Along the way she got a speeding ticket. 7:15. In Randall.

  “When did Trudy arrive at the estate?”

  “Don’t remember,” said Ethan. “What does it matter?”

  “Not another word, Ethan,” hissed Adele. “We’re done here.”

  “It’s over, Mom,” said Ethan. “Mr. DreadfulWater knows.”

  Thumps reached into the bag. “When the coroner examined Trudy’s body, he noticed a set of fresh scratches on her right palm that didn’t seem to be related to the fall. So he took a closer look.” Thumps held up the evidence bag and gave it a gentle shake. “And removed these,” he said, looking at Ethan. “Splinters. Just like the ones you have in your hand.”

  Ethan drew a deep breath. “Wood houses.”

  Thumps waited.

  “Mom was upstairs. I was downstairs in my room, watching television. I didn’t hear Trudy come in. And then the screaming started. By the time I got there, my mother was on the floor. Trudy had her hands around her throat.”

  “So you stopped her.”

  “I wasn’t going to let her kill my mother.”

  “Ethan . . .”

  “No, Mom,” said Ethan. “We didn’t do anything wrong. It was self-defence.”

  “Trudy stumbled,” said Adele. “She stumbled and went over the balcony.”

  “Stumbled?”

  “There was nothing we could do.”

  “You could have called an ambulance.”

  “She was already dead,” said Adele.

  “You could have called the police.”

  “And what,” said Adele, “let them arrest Ethan? For protecting me?”

  “So you took her body to Belly Butte and dumped it.”

  “If you want to blame someone,” said Adele, “blame Mr. Rattler. He had no business with my daughter.”

  “Mom . . .”

  Adele wavered in the television lights like a dying heroine. “Where’s the sheriff?”

  Duke slipped out of the shadows. “Here, ma’am.”

  “I certainly hope you’re not stupid enough to think of arresting my son.”

  “I guess that depends,” said Hockney. “I’m going to need him to come to the office and make an official statement.”

  “And if he chooses not to comply?”

  “Then I’ll have to arrest him on suspicion of murder.”

  “Ridiculous,” said Adele.

  “Your choice,” said Duke.

  “We’re going home now, sheriff.” Adele was already at the stairs. Ethan trailed behind. “You know where to find us.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Duke called after her. “I do.”

  It was Calder who broke the silence.

  “Holy hell,” he said. “Now that was something.”

  “Yes, it was,” said Pearl.

  “Shit,” said Calder, “were the cameras running? Tell me we got all that on film?”

  Pearl looked back at the cameraman, who held up a thumb. “Yes,” she said, “we did.”

  Rattler leaned back in his chair. “I’m sorry about lying to you. Maslow and Pearl were both adamant that no one else could know.”

  “Adele Samuels had to think that Maslow was coming after you.”

  “Only way this could have worked,” said Pearl. “You were magnificent.”

  “I was never the rehearsal,” said Thumps.

  “No,” said Pearl. “You were always the main event.”

  “Don’t much like being used.”

  “No. I suppose you don’t.” Pearl faced the sheriff. “So now what’s going to happen?”

  “We’ll talk to the both of them,” said Duke. “But I’m guessing by this time tomorrow, Adele is going to have half a dozen high-priced lawyers in harness. Doubt the DA will even try for manslaughter. Moving a dead body is the most we’re going to get. Maybe interfering with a crime scene.”

  “So,” said Pearl, “Adele Samuels and her son get a
way with murder?”

  “You know what happened that night at Black Stag?” Hockney waited a beat. “’Cause I sure as hell don’t.”

  “The only problem here,” said Calder, “is that I wasn’t in the scene.”

  “We’ll do some cutaways,” said Pearl. “Match you to the critical moments. Movie magic.”

  Calder slapped Thumps on the shoulder. “You got the moves. You could have been an actor.”

  “Let’s reset,” Pearl shouted to the crew. “Thirty minutes. Then we shoot with Calder.”

  Pearl led Thumps off to a quiet corner. “So now what?”

  “You’ve got your episode,” said Thumps.

  “You know what I mean.”

  “When do you leave for Vegas?”

  “We have more shooting to do tomorrow,” said Pearl. “Then we pack it up.”

  “A couple of days back, Maslow called an airline. WestAir. You know why?”

  “WestAir?”

  “Yeah,” said Thumps. “She made a twenty-minute call to an airline that does not operate in this part of the country.”

  “You think this is important?”

  “I was hoping you might know.”

  Pearl worked her lips. “You seem to have a whole lot of nothing.”

  “Not even that,” said Thumps. “But I’m guessing it has something to do with Amelia Nash.”

  “Because it’s the only thing that makes sense?”

  “Yes,” said Thumps. “Because it’s the only thing that makes sense.”

  “I expected more,” said Pearl.

  “Trouble is,” said Thumps, “I don’t see the profit in her death. She dies and the remake of Streets of San Francisco gets flushed. Calder loses his big break. You lose a prime-time production. The network loses money.”

  “So, if it’s not about money . . .”

  “It was about something else.”

  “Nina had found something,” said Pearl. “This last week, when she talked about Amelia and that night in Vegas, you could hear it in her voice, see it in her eyes.”

  “And someone went through her room, looking for it.”

  Behind Pearl, the set lights came on. “I have to get back,” she said. “You got any helpful ideas?”

  “Shake a tree. See what falls out.”

  “You got any trees?”

  “Maybe.”

  “That’s what Nina liked to do,” said Pearl. “Just try to make sure whatever falls out doesn’t land on you.”

  Forty-Two

  The sheriff and Rattler were leaning against Duke’s cruiser. Thumps wasn’t sure if they were waiting for him or if they were just enjoying the moment, relaxing in the low warmth of the autumn sun. If he had any sense, he would walk on by, climb into Stas’s truck, and leave them to annoy each other.

  “That was pretty impressive, DreadfulWater,” said Duke. “Lady Macbeth meets Columbo. Almost Shakespearean.”

  Thumps could feel his blood sugars begin to drop. Rawat was right. Insulin was an art form. Too much, and things went south. Too little, and they went north. Neither direction was any better than the other. As appalling a thought as it was, he might have to get serious about his diet. And his eating habits.

  “How about we grab a bite,” said Duke. “I know just the place.”

  Thumps could hear little alarms go off. “Does this place happen to feature a giant squirrel?”

  “Dancing squirrel,” said the sheriff.

  Rattler came to his rescue. “Don’t know that fast food is good for diabetics.”

  “It’s not all that fast,” countered Duke. “Sometimes they let the burgers sit under heat lamps for hours. Burns away the excess fat and carbohydrates.”

  “You guys can go,” said Thumps. “I’m heading home.”

  “You can’t go home,” said the sheriff. “We have to celebrate.”

  “Celebrate?”

  “We solved Trudy Samuels,” said Duke, “and we cleared Mr. Rattler.”

  “I feel like celebrating,” said Rattler.

  “Course we still don’t know who killed Nina Maslow,” said Duke. “But I think we can rule out Adele and Ethan. Neither of them knew Maslow had solved the case or that she was going to ambush them on the episode.”

  “If they had known,” said Rattler, “they would have refused to be on the show.”

  “Drop me off on the way.”

  “That sounds like coward’s talk,” said Duke. “You can’t go home. You haven’t solved Maslow yet.”

  “Not my job.”

  “What about your deal with Pearl?” said the sheriff. “You figure out who killed Maslow, and you get all her research on that California case of yours.”

  “You know,” said Thumps, “as an officer of the law, you could subpoena those files as part of your investigation.”

  Duke walked around the front of the cruiser and opened the door. “That’s an interesting idea,” he said, “and I’m willing to hear arguments over a burger at Skippy’s.”

  SKIPPY’S WAS THE newest offering in the fast-food epidemic that had hit Chinook in the last decade. McDonald’s, Burger King, Sonic, Taco Bell, and Wendy’s had all popped up in town like pimples at a junior prom.

  “You got to admit,” said the sheriff, “that’s one great rodent.”

  The entrance to Skippy’s was dominated by a giant squirrel with large buck teeth and neon feet that flashed back and forth as though the animal were dancing. Thumps slid down in the back seat. Maybe no one he knew would see him.

  “1950s retro,” said the sheriff. “Just like the old-time drive-ins.”

  “Some of those drive-ins had roller-skating waitresses,” said Rattler. “Did you ever see American Graffiti?”

  Duke eased the cruiser into a parking slot, rolled down his window, and tapped his finger on a touchpad that was attached to a steel post.

  “Watch this,” he said.

  The touchpad lit up with a menu and began playing a jingle that sounded like a dog food commercial from Thumps’s childhood.

  “Welcome to Skip-Skip-Skippy’s,” said a disembodied voice. “May I take your order?”

  “Cute, huh?” said Duke. “If you order the combo, you get a Skippy’s scratch card.”

  “Great,” said Thumps.

  “Chance to win a hundred dollars,” said the sheriff. “So what do you guys want?”

  Rattler had a Skippy’s salad with ranch dressing. Duke ordered a double Acorn burger with cheese and guacamole, a basket of onion rings, and a small lemonade.

  “Don’t tell Macy.”

  Thumps read through the menu twice without finding anything that resembled food. “Is the chicken breast roasted or pan-fried?”

  “Our chicken breast is broasted.”

  “Broasted?”

  “Deep-fried under pressure,” said the voice.

  “I’ll just have coffee.”

  “Would you like fries with that?”

  The neon squirrel at the entrance began moving, and now Thumps could see that the red and green and yellow critter wasn’t dancing at all. It was trying to run away.

  “Okay,” said the sheriff. “So. Maslow.”

  “We should look at Maslow from the perspective of a mystery writer, and work the plot backwards,” said Rattler. “For example, we know that both Trudy Samuels and Nina Maslow were found dead at Belly Butte, which would suggest that the two deaths are connected.”

  “Except there may not be a connection,” said Duke.

  “And if they’re not connected,” said Rattler, “then whoever killed Maslow is using Trudy to throw us off their trail.”

  “Still doesn’t tell us who killed her.”

  “What else was she working on?” asked Rattler.

  “DreadfulWater.” Duke turned around in the seat. “You waiting for a written invitation?”

  “I’m waiting for my coffee.”

  “Nobody likes irony,” said the sheriff. “You find anything in Maslow’s files or phone records?”
/>   “Odds and ends.”

  “Such as?”

  Thumps had liked it better when Rattler and the sheriff were playing Sherlock and Watson. “Maslow was looking at three possible stories. Three women murdered and tattooed in Key West, the Amelia Nash murder-suicide in Las Vegas, and a serial killer in Northern California.”

  “Someone tattooed dead women?” said Rattler.

  “But if you look at her phone records,” said Thumps, “the only story she was actively pursuing was Amelia Nash’s murder-suicide.”

  “And we know this how?” said Duke.

  “She made a number of calls to Vegas but none to Key West or to Northern California.”

  Rattler nodded. “So what do we know about this Amelia Nash?”

  “Hit the pause button,” interrupted the sheriff. “Here comes the food.”

  The smell of the hot fat filled the car. The sheriff’s burger was enormous, the size of a softball. The onion rings came in a shipping container, and the small lemonade was in a quart-size cup. Thumps took a deep breath and held it. He didn’t think there was any nutritional value in vapours. Still, the greasy aromas were disturbingly satisfying. No wonder Skippy was running as fast as he could. The squirrel had to burn off all the calories.

  “Good value,” said the sheriff, his mouth full of grilled cow. “How’s your coffee?”

  Thumps was thankful to be in the back seat, where he couldn’t see the sheriff eat. Hearing him tear at the carcass was enough.

  “You want some onion rings?”

  Thumps took two. They tasted great. Warm, crisp, oily. And it only took a moment for his heart to right itself.

  “Lemonade?”

  Rattler leaned against the door. “So, you’re thinking that Maslow discovered something about Amelia Nash and that something got her killed?”

  “Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that Amelia Nash wasn’t a murder-suicide,” said the sheriff. “Let’s say that someone came into Nash’s hotel room, shot her, shot her boyfriend, and made it look like love gone wrong.”

  “And since Maslow was killed here in Chinook,” said the sheriff, “our chief suspects would, of necessity, be the folks associated with Malice Aforethought.”

  “Which doesn’t make a lot of sense,” said Rattler. “Why kill Maslow here? Why not wait until they got to Vegas, where there would be more suspects?”