by Tracey Quinn
“I found out more than I wanted to know about those rust buckets,” he replied, pointing to the stain on his shirt. “But the part you'd be interested in is that they're not Savage cars, they're salvage cars.”
“Salvage cars? You mean cars that have damaged badly enough to be totaled by the insurance company?”
“That's right. Not that Sammy Brown actually tells prospective buyers about that; I only found out when Bildad was trying to harass me into test driving one of the junkers. When he slammed the door, the paper clips holding the glove compartment shut came loose and some paperwork fell out onto the floor. While everyone was shouting at each other I sneaked a look at it and found out that the title had been left in there and sure enough, it was a salvage title.”
“Typical Sammy; always another underhanded scheme. Still, I can't imagine who would be dumb enough to buy a car from him.”
“Well, I did see Cooter James driving off the lot in what looked like a repainted ambulance when I first arrived.”
“Forget I asked,” I said, shaking my head.
“Anyway, I called Bob as soon as I left and told him what I found out,” Mark continued. “I have a feeling Sammy's car lot won't be in business much longer. I guess that gives him a good motive to murder Olivia Quinlan, though, if she found out what he was up to.”
“Er, yes, I guess so,” I said. “Have you had breakfast yet?”
“No, I went down and looked in your fridge before I left but you didn't have anything there that I was interested in. Then I remembered that it's chocolate waffle day so I decided to swing in here on my way back.”
“Well, of all the nerve!” I cried. “What about my privacy? What if I'd been there half naked trying to get dressed for work when you waltzed into my kitchen?”
“Then I would have postponed the waffles,” Mark grinned.
At two o'clock sharp when my shift was over, I jumped in the Firebird and headed straight for the Old Bucket Road and the Dry Bed Motel. Mark had gone home to change clothes and then he was supposed to be going to the fire station after that, but I wanted to make sure I was gone from the Breezy Spoon in case he decided to come by again. I was pretty sure he wouldn't be a big fan of my plan to investigate the sketchy guys that had broken into Olivia's apartment.
It was about a 20 minute drive to the motel so I turned on the radio to listen to one of the four stations that broadcast in the area. There was static on two of them, the farm report on another and on number four was Discourse with Dr. Dolly. A station from Kettletown runs three hours of questions for “advice doctor” Dolly DuPont in the afternoons, and sometimes I like to listen to hear the interesting questions people have about situations in their lives. It's better than the farm report, anyway. When I tuned in, Dolly was just taking her first call.
“Hi, Dr. Dolly, my name is Melanie and I called you six months ago about my husband's cheating and alcoholism.”
“Oh, there's no need to thank me, my dear. Helping couples repair their relationships with my advice is its own reward.”
“Well, you told me that his affairs and drinking were caused by my lack of trust in him. You said that as a child his parents probably didn't trust him and that if I could give him unconditional trust he wouldn't feel the need to seek solace from other women. The thing is, I let him know that I would trust him no matter what, and I did, but since then he's been arrested twice for driving drunk and the last time he had a hooker in the car with him. What am I doing wrong?”
“Well, first of all, Marsha-”
“Excuse me, my name is Melanie.”
“Now, look at what you just did; the first thing that came out of your mouth is a criticism! You don't even know me and yet you start criticizing me, a perfect stranger! What must you be doing to your poor husband! Constant criticism in a marriage can be poisonous to any relationship. Why, even I have been subjected to toxic criticism from my husband before. And it's always the same thing: 'Why did you forget to pick up the kids from preschool again? Why do you and the radio station manager have to have business meetings that last till three in the morning? Why haven't we had sex in six months?'”
“Er, yes but-”
“Stop criticizing and start listening, Mindy. Let him tell you what you're doing wrong. In my own marriage I often have to let my husband know how his behavior affects me. For example, I can call and simply ask him to leave work early and bring me a carton of cigarettes because the station manager and I are down to the last pack, and he blows it off with some excuse like, 'I can't leave when I'm in the middle of surgery.' This makes me feel that he considers his little neurosurgery thing more important than me and the important work that I do on this show! So take my advice and stop nagging your husband about taking out the trash and leaving the toilet seat up in the bathroom. Give your marriage a chance! Thank you for your call, Martina, and don't be a stranger.”
I decided to go ahead and listen to the farm report for the rest of the trip. Apparently cattle futures are up seven percent.
As I approached the Dry Bed Motel I saw that the old rusty sign that stood out by the side of the road had been replaced by a new one which read “Happy Rest Motor Lodge”. I pulled into the parking lot and drove down to the end, checking out the few cars in the lot. The old rattletrap car that the two guys drove was nowhere to be seen.
Nick Havers stepped out from the office and waved as I got out of my car. “Hey, Dani, I hope you came up here to open another diner next door and bring in more customers for the new Happy Rest Motor Lodge.”
“Sorry, Nick, I'm still trying to outrun the mortgage company on the one I've already got,” I said. “So you're changing the name? Donna said that you wanted to.”
“Oh, you bet I am. The paperwork for the name change should be approved in about a week. And I don't mind telling you it was quite a headache to get to this point.”
“I know what you mean. Getting county approval takes forever.”
“Oh, it's not that. I'll take bureaucrats over in-laws any day of the week! Donna's Uncle Dick, who sold us the motel still loves the old name, and he insisted that if we tried to change the name he could cancel the sale. He claimed that, because the name in the bill of sale was The Dry Bed Motel and that name would no longer be the legal name of the property, the sale could be judged null and void. Even though he ran the motel into the ground, he still thinks he knows best and acts like he owns the place.”
“He can't do that, can he?” I asked. “That sounds pretty bogus to me.”
“Nope, but we had to pay a lawyer to write a letter to tell him to go to hell, or words to that effect. Then he suggested that since the creek bed behind the motel has water in it these days, we should just change the name to The Wet Bed Motel. Old Uncle Dick is still just as good of a businessman as ever!”
“I thought Donna's uncle's name is Elmore.”
“It is. What did I say?”
“Hey, do you have a couple of guys staying here that drive an old orange and green beater? One is big and shaggy and the other is short and has a tattoo of a horse on his neck?”
Nick laughed dryly. “Not anymore, thank heaven! They were nothing but trouble and I had a hell of a time getting them to leave! After I kicked them out with the threat of calling the sheriff out after them, I found that the room was trashed and the smell of marijuana was so strong that I had to air it out before I could even send the maids in to clean it!”
“Well, that's some nerve,” I said. “Do you know where they went when they left?”
“Don't know, don't care. I've been busy all day getting rooms ready; I'm booked solid for tonight thanks to the rodeo in Kettletown.”
“I didn't know they had rodeos in Kettletown,” I said. “Where do they have room for a rodeo?”
“In the parking lot of the shoe horn factory. It was closed for at least a decade and about a year and a half ago a company bought it, fixed it up, enlarged the parking lot and started churning out shoe horns again,” Nick explained.<
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“There's a big market for shoe horns these days?” I asked.
“Well, their records claimed that they had sold more than ten million dollars worth of shoe horns in 18 months.”
“You must be kidding!”
“Come on, Dani, aren't you like everyone else when you do your grocery shopping? Don't you pick up paper towels, toilet paper, and a couple dozen shoe horns every week? Actually it turned out to be a money laundering operation and after the owners were hauled off to prison, the bank that was stuck with the property let some promoters lease the parking lot for bi-monthly rodeos. Brings great business for us.”
“So the shoe horn factory's loss is the Happy Rest's gain,” I said.
“You got it,” Nick said. “Come to think of it, the only person I've ever seen use a shoehorn is Uncle Dick- er, Elmore.”
I said goodbye to Nick and headed back to the Firebird. Those two guys had probably left town, which was good for the town but not so good for Jolene if they had killed Olivia. I'd have to look for another way to find out if they knew Tony Powell or Chuck Bailey, or even Jordan Burns.
I was about half way to the car when a door to one of the motel rooms opened up in front of me, and out walked Chuck Bailey! I could hardly believe it, but there he was, plain as day. He was barefoot, dressed in jeans and an undershirt, and his pudgy cheeks were unshaven. He carried a small bucket and was walking toward the ice machine, but when he spotted me he spun around and started walking quickly back to his room.
“Hi, Chuck!” I called.
He turned and smiled weakly. “Oh, uh, hi Dani,” he said. “I was... I was just... I'm staying here for a- I'm on a business trip.”
“Not a very long trip,” I said. “You're about twenty minutes from the hardware store. How long have you been staying here?”
“Look, it's not... you see,” he stammered. Finally he said, “You gotta promise not to tell anyone, okay? Me and the missus had a big blowout and she kicked me out of the house! I've got no place to go!”
“Was it because of your relationship with Olivia Quinlan?”
His eyes flew wide. “You know about that?! Oh, it's all over town, isn't it? I'll never live it down!” His shoulders slumped and he wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.
“She was blackmailing you, wasn't she?” I asked.
“I don't wanna talk about it out here,” he whimpered, turning toward the open door to his room. “Let's go inside.”
I hesitated to follow him; going into Chuck's room didn't seem like a great idea. He was still the front runner in the “Who murdered Olivia” stakes, and I didn't want to end up dead in a kale salad. Of course he wasn't likely to have a kale salad in his room, but that's not the point. Chuck shambled into the room and sat on the edge of the bed with his head in his hands. I walked as far as the doorway and stopped there.
“Close the door, will ya?” he said.
“Um, I can't stay long,” I replied, staying where I was. “Once Olivia broke off the affair, she started blackmailing you, didn't she?”
“Yeah, she threatened to call my wife and spill the beans,” Chuck grumbled. “I had to sneak out and bring her money every week! I asked her how long she was gonna keep it up, and she said 'As long as you want to keep your wife and your job,' the witch!”
“You couldn't keep that up for long,” I said. “She'd bleed you dry, or even worse, your wife would find out that the money was missing. You had to find a way to put a stop to Olivia permanently.”
“Yeah, I couldn't-” Chuck stopped and stared up at me. “Hey, what are you getting at? Are you saying I killed her?!”
“You were supposed to bring her money just a couple of days before she died, but you didn't show up. It's almost like you knew she wouldn't be able to tell your wife anything. Dead men tell no tales, after all.”
Chuck sat up and crossed his arms. “You got it all wrong!” he snapped. “The fact is, I had no reason to pay her anymore and I had no reason to kill her! The missus kicked me out of the house and it didn't matter what Olivia said at that point!”
“How did she find out?”
“She didn't; not about me and Olivia, I mean. You see, well.... you were right that I needed to find a way out from under Olivia's thumb for good, but I didn't kill her! I went to see a lawyer, Penny Bowman. She said she could help me get free of the blackmail.”
Penny Bowman could have her picture in the dictionary next to the entry for “dishonest lawyer”. She had been fired from the city attorney's office in Pumpkin City for taking a bribe, and since then she established herself as the most shameless ambulance-chasing lowlife attorney in East Spoon Creek City. I had a hard time imagining how Penny Bowman would have made Chuck Bailey's situation any better.
“Well, I went to see her and told her about the jam I was in,” Chuck continued. “She seemed real nice and she wanted to help me out. We had a few meetings over dinner and then one thing led to another....”
“You had an affair with Penny Bowman?” I asked incredulously.
“I didn't mean for it to happen! But then the missus found out about me and Penny and she turned it into World War 3! And after I get thrown out, Penny sends me a bill for her services! She said one way or another, she solved my blackmail problem! Ooh, I could have killed her right then, but I didn't kill Olivia; why should I care about what Olivia would say anymore?”
“It was still Olivia's fault that your wife found out about your affair. It's only natural that you'd want revenge. Where were you on Wednesday afternoon?”
“Hey, leave me alone!” Chuck snarled. “I don't have to answer your questions! You can talk to my lawyer if you wanna know where I was!”
“Take it easy, Chuck,” I said. “I think your lawyer has gotten you in enough trouble!”
I kept turning the case over in my mind as I drove back to town. It seemed like I had a lot of pieces, but I wasn't sure they all fit into the same puzzle. Chuck didn't sound like he was lying about the trouble he had gotten himself into, but he had no one to vouch for where he was when Olivia was murdered. It would have been easy for him to swipe Olivia's auburn wig on a previous visit to pay her the blackmail money and then come back disguised as Jolene when he knew he would be seen. He wasn't much taller than Jolene, either, so from a distance he could have fooled Monsieur Rene.
Still, I had nothing solid to connect Chuck to the murder, and nothing that would get Jolene out of jail. I needed to find something that would break the case open for me. That was what I was thinking when the bullet shattered my windshield.
Chapter 11
I wasn't sure where the bullet landed, but it hadn't hit me and I wasn't going to give the shooter a chance to change that. I jammed on the gas pedal, crouching as low as I could behind the dash while still being able to see the road. I had glass in my hair and on my lap, but that was the least of my worries now. I couldn't tell where the shot had come from; there were thick woods on either side of the road at this point and the shooter could be hiding behind any tree.
I almost jumped out of my seat when I heard another shot ring out behind me, then two more. I thought when I got out of the Army I was through with war zones! No sooner had the echos of the gunshots died away than I heard squealing tires and a harsh metallic whining sound. Sneaking a peek in my rear view mirror, I saw the old beat-up orange and green sedan belonging to those two shady guys lurch out onto the street from one of the dirt driveways that ran out from the trailer park in the woods, fishtailing wildly.
I didn't know who had put them onto me, but I was darn sure they weren't going to catch me. I had the gas pedal flat to the floor, and the Firebird sped away from the old rust bucket. I stayed hunched low in the seat, waiting for another gunshot, but none came. Soon even the clanging sound of their engine had faded away, and by the time I got to town I couldn't see them in the mirrors at all.
I wasn't taking any chances, though, and when I spotted the sign for Tammy's Bakery at the next corner, I slammed on the bra
kes and veered down the alley behind the bakery. The alley runs all the way down to the back of the Breezy Spoon and I planned to follow it all the way there, but once I turned in I saw that it was blocked by Tammy's van, which sat at the back door of the bakery with the back gate open. As I screeched to a halt behind it, Tammy emerged from the back door with a stack of cake boxes in her arms.
“Dani, what's going on?!” she cried. “What happened to your windshield?! And what happened to your hair?!”
“Never mind my hair!” I shouted. “Those guys from the yarn shop are trying to kill me!”
“The yarn shop?”
“Just call the sheriff!!”
I jumped out of the Firebird and ran into the bakery, slamming and locking the door behind me. We went into the little back room where there were no windows, and Tammy called 911. Almost as soon as she had hung up the phone, I heard sirens in the distance getting closer and then they were blaring right outside the bakery.
“Wow, that was fast!” Tammy said. “There must have been a deputy in the area.”
We stepped out of the back room and saw through the front window, not a police car but a fire engine. An instant later Mark burst through the door, still in his firefighting gear.
“Dani! Are you okay?” he called.
“Mark! I'm fine, but what are you doing here? Did the sheriff call you?”
“No, Charlene. She and Jimmy saw you racing down the street with no windshield and called me right away. She said someone should tell you that it's dangerous to drive like that, but thought it would be better if I was the one to tell you since Jimmy said that I'm your commanding officer.”
“If you don't stop with that General bit, there's going to be some corporal punishment in your future,” I said.
“That sounds like fun, but right now I'd like to know what happened. I assume you were out shaking trees to see if a murderer would fall out of one, and you found out that murders don't play nice again? How many times do you have to learn that lesson?”