Josie Tucker Mysteries Box Set 2

by E M Kaplan

  “Eventually, Mary Clare’s mother forced him into filing a missing person’s report. But since it was so much later, details were fuzzy in people’s minds and nothing was investigated in that essential first 48 hours after she went missing.”

  “So you don’t think Billy’s notoriously bad temper came into play?”

  Skip rubbed his narrow chin, eliciting a noise like fine-grit sandpaper. “You know, for as much as we’ve all learned about his fiery temperament, I’ve never once heard about him raising his voice to his wife. Or any woman, for that matter. In fact, most of his tantrums have been directed at inanimate objects. He’s punched the wall at Smiley’s two or three times, also kicked a hole in his office door there. Threw a garbage can around. Yelled at a busboy or two. But never at a female—God bless the chauvinism of a Southern gentleman in this case—and never at a customer, as far as I’ve heard.”

  Pies and bread, too, had met their demise at the hands of Billy Blake, if Josie remembered what Georgia from Ruby’s had told her correctly. Depending on the quality of the bakery, that was a major crime in her book. A guy so out of control of his rage that he could ruin perfectly beautiful pies was a danger to anything defenseless and lovely. Probably.

  She didn’t like to think about people—anyone—getting hit or abused by other people. She hoped it wasn’t this situation in Mary Clare’s case. Josie had complete, body-racking empathy for situations where a big man beat a smaller, more vulnerable person.

  And maybe a flashback or two.

  Chapter 19

  After a couple hours chatting with Skip, Josie decided she wanted his file—needed it with the fiery heat of a thousand suns. If only she could snatch it out of his dry, withered grasp and bolt down Lavaca Street, trailing Mary Clare’s report cards all the way back to the hotel. Josie felt as itchy fingered as a nine year old girl in a drug store in front of a lip gloss display. It was the brass carousel ring she wanted to grab—no, it was the prize that yanking the ring would get her. It was the open back door of an armored truck, money bags fat with bills just within reach.

  If she was going to find out what happened to Mary Clare, it wasn’t going to be through communing with the dead woman’s spirit. If any scrap of evidence existed that pointed to her whereabouts, Josie had a feeling it was in Skip’s file. Something had to be there.

  She eyed Skip as he clutched it to his sweater-covered chest, the criss-cross java stains on the folder neatly lining up with the argyle pattern on his pullover.

  No, she wasn’t going to steal it. Taking it from him without his permission when he was a fellow subversive would be utterly dishonorable. Even she couldn’t stomach the thought. But how could she convince him to give it—lend it—to her? Use some kind of flirtatious voodoo on him?

  He set his folder in his lap and took a swig from his coffee cup, slurping loudly as if he were a customer at a noodle cart on a Hong Kong street corner. She cringed.

  Yeah, no.

  Also, even if she hadn’t given Drew his ring yet—hadn’t presented him with the physical token of her commitment to him—she still intended to honor their bond no matter what. That included role playing in the course of an investigation for the sake of the job.

  Job? Non-paying past-time. Perilous hobby. Exercise in stupidity. Whatever. She wasn’t going to start out their official relationship pretending to flirt with someone just to get some information.

  But that file, though…

  “Want a treat?” Skip asked her.

  “Huh?”

  “Cookie or a muffin, maybe? You’re not gluten-free, are you? They have them here, but I call them ‘vampire muffins.’” He looked at her expectantly, but she didn’t know how to respond. “When you bite into them, they crumble into dust. Like when you stab a vampire and it turns to ash. Right? Because the gluten holds everything together. Makes it yummy.”

  “Oh, right.”

  He stood. “So that’s a no on the muffin?”

  “Ah, no, thanks. I’m good.” She’d lost her taste for food just then, especially when he stood and left the folder on the table.

  “Keep an eye on that, would you?”

  Left alone with Skip’s pride and joy, the spark of Josie’s moral dilemma flared to a roaring inferno. What if she replaced some of the pages with…something…and tucked a few important ones into the front of her jacket? She wasn’t wearing her denim jacket at the moment, but she could probably slip it on with the pages tucked inside.

  Skip turned his back turned toward her as he navigated the line in search of his not-vampiric snack. She placed her hand on the top of the folder, half-expecting lightning to strike her. She flipped it open and paused, then turned the first page. The papers lay nearly two inches thick. Studying them would take her weeks, more time than she had left in the rest of her Texas stay.

  And what did she expect to learn that Skip had not uncovered in decades of the feeding, nurturing, and care of the file? She was being ridiculous to think she might glean some mind-shattering conclusion he had neglected to come up with after all this time.

  He’d said she could copy some of the pages. But she didn’t have the time to rifle through them, traveling well-trod ground, inserting coins into a library copy machine like a grad student research assistant when she could be finding answers in avenues as of yet unexplored.

  She glanced again at Skip’s back as he reached the counter and placed his order, pointing through the glass at his choice.

  Stealing, scamming, cajoling, and flirting were out. What if she took photos of some of the papers with her phone? She patted her pockets, but to her dismay, she didn’t have her phone with her, remembering belatedly that she’d left it plugged into the charger in the hotel room. Drew would kill her if he found out she’d gone out—driving around in a strange city without her phone’s GPS and a way to call for help if she got into trouble. She didn’t intend to, but it certainly would have been helpful in taking a few snapshots of Skip’s papers.

  She stroked her hand over the papers, sliding a few more over so she could skim the ones underneath. No way was she going to be able to speed-read fast enough to get through them.

  “I know you said you didn’t want anything, but you have got to see this monstrosity,” Skip said. “I bought you one just for the heck of it. You don’t have to try it, but I wanted you to have one. Take it home. Varnish it. Make a doorstop out of it. I don’t care…Behold.”

  With a heavy thunk, a white plate came down on top of the file, nearly catching her hand as she drew it away, but also effectively pinning the file to the table at the same time. A muffin about six inches in diameter across and about the same shade of gray as Skip’s hair sat in the center of the plate in a paper baking cup. Across the top of the muffin, chia and sunflower seeds jutted out like gravel in a concrete aggregate mix. Josie was sure it would scrape off the roof of her mouth if she tried to bite into it.

  “Undead, am I right?” he asked, nodding his head, eyebrows bobbing.

  #

  “So, Skip,” Josie said, as they were gathering up their things to depart, “I know how much Mary Clare’s file means to you. Will you lend it to me for 24 hours?”

  She barreled ahead before his inevitable and probably emphatic no, but she had to at least try her worst and last-ditch attempt to get it—honesty. Like math and taxes, it was not her strong suit. She would have preferred to go with a strength, but her last resort was all she had at the moment.

  “I’ll take good care of it. I’m not going to say ‘you can trust me’ because people who say that are usually the least trustworthy ones out there. But I know what you’ve put into this file, this investigation. I know it’s near and dear to your heart.”

  She patted her pockets until she located her wallet, which she flipped open. “I’ll give you my driver’s license as collateral until I return the file.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” he said.

  “Wait—before you say no—I’ll give you…”

&nb
sp; She flipped past her P.I. license. That thing wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on in her mind. What about her I.D. card for a self-insured blogger with outrageous premiums and co-pays? He probably didn’t want that.

  She reached the last flap of her wallet where a black card lurked. Her limitless credit card from Greta Williams. Josie’s friends had been impressed by it—jaws dropping, actually—but Josie wasn’t as wowed by it as they were. She had forgotten it was in her wallet. As she started to pull it out, Skip stopped her.

  “I meant, it’s crazy to think I’d ask you to drive around without I.D. Have you ever met member of the Texas law enforcement? Those dudes do not mess around. They’re all ‘ma’am’ and ‘sir,’ but they mean business. Next thing you know, you’re being frisked and tossed into the tank with a guy with a Confederate flag tattooed on his butt. Not that it’s happened to me.”

  As a matter of fact, she had just met the local law yesterday, but she wasn’t sure where Skip was going with his hesitation, so she didn’t bring it up. He seemed to be mulling over her question and she wasn’t inclined to interrupt him.

  “Just one day,” she reiterated. She nodded, as solemn-faced as she could manage.

  “I know what room you’re staying in at your hotel. In fact, I know your home address. I’m not worried I won’t be able to track you down. I trust you.” He took the coffin-ready muffin off the table and shoved the file in her direction. “You can take it. What’s one day going to hurt after years of it sitting in my desk drawer? And you know what? I’m not afraid of you absconding with it. To be honest, I’m just worried I’ll get my hopes up that you’ll find Mary Clare.”

  Chapter 20

  “Hey, where are you?” Drew’s voicemail said. “Did you forget your phone again? Sorry to leave a message like this. A bunch of us are taking off early from the conference and going to this movie theater place where you can order a burger and a beer while you’re watching a movie. I don’t even know what’s playing, but it sounds awesome. If you get this message and want to meet us, it’s called The Alamo Drafthouse. Otherwise, I’ll see you later tonight. Sorry about this…I’ll make it up to you.”

  Ugh, this is going to be tricky.

  Back in the hotel room with Skip’s file spread out across the comforter, Josie sat on the edge of the bed pinching the bridge of her nose. If Drew got back after ten, she wouldn’t be in the room, but if he got back before ten and was still awake by the time she had to meet Lizzie downstairs, she’d still have to explain what she was doing.

  Is this what being in a committed relationship is all about? Guilt and subterfuge?

  She didn’t think so, but she didn’t really have anyone to ask. All the same, she was reluctant to tell him about her plans for the evening. First, she was slightly embarrassed about going on a wild ghost chase. Second, she’d have to admit that she’d once again stuck her nose into someone’s—Mary Clare’s, Billy’s, all of the town of Leandro’s—business where it didn’t belong. And how many times had he admonished her about her inability to keep herself out of harm’s way? This wasn’t the best plan to stick to that agenda, even she could see that.

  Drew had helped her on the last investigation—the field trip to Bader College. He’d said he understood it was a part of her to be…well, nosy, and he was learning to accept it. However, that was less than three months ago. He probably didn’t expect her to jump back into the investigation fray so quickly.

  Maybe.

  She had a second message on her phone from her police friend in San Francisco, Maxwell Lopez. After a suggestive greeting that was in true form to his somewhat pervy flirtatious nature, he said he’d read on her blog that she was in Texas and reminding her that his cousin, Juan Pablo, owned a restaurant in San Antonio called El Chino if she was in the area. She and Drew had a couple extra days after his conference was finished. Maybe they could drive south, see the Riverwalk, and try the restaurant while they were in Texas. She’d heard it was nice, that you could ride in a boat up the river and see the sights that way.

  In the meantime, she had 24 hours—less time now—to get through Skip’s file. As she stared at the mass of paper spread across the bed, she realized she didn’t even have time to think of a better way to approach the sheer number of details other than to wade directly into—and through—them. Time to buckle down and do some hardcore speed reading.

  And there was no time like the present.

  #

  Two hours later, her head was pounding and her stomach growling. She picked up the phone to order something to eat—maybe another round of those fried green beans off the bar menu downstairs. She continued avoiding the meat leftovers in the mini-fridge. The Ghost of Barbecue Past and Present were menacing her. She certainly didn’t want to invoke BBQ Future if it meant worshipping the porcelain god at 3:00 in the morning, huddled on the bathroom floor.

  Been there. Done that. Ruined the t-shirt.

  “What else can we tempt you with this evening?” the room service guy, Gary, asked after she requested her beans.

  She scanned the in-room menu and picked a small label root beer, and then asked, “Do you have any brownies?”

  The guy scoffed and gave an abbreviated snort, which she appreciated. His snarky banter made her feel right at home. “Would you prefer the Mexican chocolate with a little bit of a hot pepper kick, or the double-dark molten lava brownie?”

  She picked the volcano thingy. Duh. It probably had more of a kick than a double shot of espresso, though. She was going to need it if she wanted to get through her Mary Clare cram-slash-study session this evening. Sugar and chocolate might propel her through ghost hunting all the way until morning, but until then, she had some more grocery store receipts to peruse. So far…her research had been fruitless. All she knew was that someone had been partial to limes and tequila.

  Throw in some chips and salsa, and you’ve got a party.

  But she intended to keep going until her time was up. She didn’t want to fail Skip. Or Mary Clare. There had to be something…

  “One more question,” she said. “Do you know where I can borrow a cassette tape player?”

  As it turned out, he did. Or rather, Manny, the receiving man down in the facilities and maintenance part of the hotel owned one. Apparently, he liked to record movies and then listen to the just the audio tracks while he was logging deliveries. Even better, he was on vacation for the week, so Josie was able to borrow his ancient Sony boombox.

  “Good lord. How old is this thing?” Josie asked when Gary delivered it on the rolling cart with her dinner.

  “Older than you, so be super careful with it, if you don’t mind me saying. If anything happens to that, I’ll not only be out of a job, I may also have to enter the witness protection program. Manny is kind of…intense.”

  “Is he going to dust it for prints when he gets back?” Josie was joking, but Gary’s expression said he considered it a possibility.

  “Just go easy on it. And call my direct extension when you’re done with it. I don’t want it to go missing. Someone would take one look at that thing and pitch it in the dumpster.”

  “Or sell it online,” Josie said. “This old beauty is rare. A true antique.”

  “Kind of irreplaceable. Kind of like me, so let’s make sure nothing happens to either of us.” He gave her a pointed look and opened the lids of her dinner with a flourish.

  She only needed it to listen to the message on the tape—and it wasn’t an issue of burning curiosity, but she felt obligated to give it a whirl since Skip had treasured it so highly.

  So when Gary left after one last admonishment, Josie popped the cassette tape into the player and pressed the Play button as she took a sip of root beer.

  “Hi, you’ve reached Mary Clare and Billy’s. We can’t answer right now. Please leave a message after the beep. We’ll return your call shortly.”

  The woman’s voice was medium-range, not too high, not too low, and a little smoky—not Kathleen Turner. Mor
e like Katharine Hepburn, but slightly Texan. Very pleasant, actually.

  Josie set down her bottle and waited for more, but after the greeting, there was nothing. Not even a beep. But the tone was on the machine itself, wasn’t it? Josie tried to remember when her parents had had a voicemail machine.

  She sighed and forked her hands through her already messy hair, massaging her scalp, and paced the edges of the mattress where the papers were scattered. She shuffled through the stack, reading paper after paper.

  What do I know about Mary Clare based on these papers from various periods of her life?

  Upper class. Overbearing mother. Full dental work. Cultured. Classy. A reader, but not good about returning her books to the library on time. The Austin Public Library had sent her a notice just a short while before she’d gone missing. What books did she like to read?

  Josie skimmed the form letter to the bottom where it had been personalized with the list of Mary Clare’s overdue books. John Grisham, Patricia Cornwell, Sue Grafton. The girl liked a good mystery. At the bottom of the list were three books on container gardening and The Bartender’s Black Book. Maybe Smiley’s had been intending to beef up their bar offerings. After all, nothing had a bigger profit margin than alcohol. She set the letter down and sorted through more, one after another.

  Unfortunately, no invoices for psychiatric care. No red flags. No receipts for large amounts of pseudoephedrine or whatever else they used to cook drugs from home. Everything seemed fairly normal. Even a life insurance premium was for a modest quarter million. Probably not enough to rebuild the restaurant after the fire. Nothing stuck out.

  She racked her brains. In this heap of details, this mountain of paper, what didn’t fit?

  “Kiss me, daddy. Like you used to do. That mean way I used to like,” a woman said. Josie stared at the wall where it sounded like the occupants of the room next door had returned. The woman’s voice was so faint and slurred, she could barely make out the words. “What do you want from me? I don’t even know what you want from me.”