by Joan Hess
When he finished talking to a man with a drooping mustache, I approached him. “Hi,” I said, “I’m looking for Bud.”
The man grinned affably at me. “Old Bud, Bud Junior, or Buddy, who’s Bud junior’s boy? Buddy works in the stockroom.
Well, he’s supposed to work, but he ain’t got the balls to do more than push a broom. Most of the time he hides out on the dock, reading some fool comic book.”
“Whoever’s in charge of hiring,” I said.
His grin dissolved. “I hate to break it to you, little lady, but we ain’t looking for no one right now.” He took his time studying me, letting his eyes wander down my chest to my admittedly attractive legs. “Damn shame, although I don’t reckon this sort of place is what you’re looking for. Lot of our customers want advice about transmissions or whatever they’re working on.”
“I’m interested in a previous employee.”
“You from the government?”
I shook my head firmly. “No, I’m not. I’m trying to help the family of a women who worked here a couple of months ago.”
He did not look as though he believed me. He took a handkerchief from his back pocket and wiped his neck while he decided whether or not to throw me out onto the parking lot gravel on my derriere. “I reckon you can have a word with Bud Junior. He’s in the office. Should be, that is. If you’ll pardon me, I got a customer waiting.”
“Thank you,” I said to his back, then went down an aisle and eventually found the office in a far corner. I had no idea what to expect as I opened the door. File cabinets dominated the walls, all piled high with ledgers and catalogs. Framed certificates citing the employees of the month hung on the wall. The majority of them were slightly askew. The man seated behind the desk was wearing a pastel blue suit and a striped green tie. His hair was slicked down, his chin far from prominent, his eyes alarmed. “Yes?” he gurgled as if no one had ever dared to breach his sanctuary.
“Are you Bud Junior?” I asked.
“Who are you?”
I felt as if I’d shown up with an assault rifle. I quickly sat down and crossed my ankles. “I’m trying to help the family of Rosie Neely. I understand you gave her a job earlier in the summer?”
“Is there a problem?”
Good heavens, I thought, maybe there was some sort of blackmarket scene in progress, and I was suspected of being from the FBI or the 1RS. “Not that I know of,” I said. “I was hoping I could speak to some of her coworkers.”
“About what?” he squeaked. “We didn’t fire her, you know. She just stopped coming to work. Has she filed some kind of claim or grievance against us? Surely not sexual harassment? Some of the fellows call women ‘hon’ and ‘sweetpea,’ but they don’t mean anything by it. She and I worked late a few nights, but I swear I never laid a hand on her. It’s her word against mine, you know, and I’m a family man and a deacon at my church. Are you a lawyer?”
I wished I’d changed into jeans and smeared oil on my face. “I am not a lawyer, Bud Junior. Rosie was killed in an accident. All I’d like to do is talk to any friends she might have made while she worked here.”
“Oh,” he exhaled, rocking back in his chair. “Why, I’m real sorry to hear about her passing away. She was a good worker, and polite. I was thinking after a year or two I might move her up to the accounts receivable department. All the time she was here, she never was late or took a sick day.” He pressed his fingertips together as if preparing to pass judgment from the bench. “I suppose you might talk to Toffy Sue in the parts department. The two of them used to eat lunch together in the break room.”
“Thank you very much.” I stood up and headed for the office door.
“Any time you need auto parts, give me a call. I can give you a ten percent discount,” he called before I could close the door.
I found the counter of the parts department and waited while various men transacted business for unknown items that were designated solely by long numbers. Heads were scratched. Cigarettes were stabbed out in an overflowing ashtray. Receipts were studied. Thick spiral notebooks were consulted. I received a few looks, but apparently auto parts were more intriguing. I was about to disrupt the flow of activity to inquire about Toffy Sue when a short, rotund woman with fiercely bleached hair came out from the narrow metal aisles and slapped down a small box.
“This should do the trick,” she said to an emaciated young man with a pony tail.
They examined it more closely, then he nodded and left with it. “Help you?” the woman said to me.
“I hope so. Are you Toffy Sue?”
“I reckon I am. And yourself?”
“A friend of Rosie Neely’s family,” I said in a low voice. “Is there somewhere we can talk for a few minutes?”
“Rudy, I’m taking five,” she said, then came around the counter and motioned me to follow her.^Once we were in a room with battered couches, vending machines, and a coffeepot with a thick layer of crust in the bottom, she said, “What’s this about her family? Is some relative taking an interest in her after all these years? That brother up north somewhere?”
I told her what had happened and why the police believed they had identified the body. “It’s not official yet, but there isn’t really much doubt,” I concluded gently.
Toffy Sue lowered her head for a long moment, then blotted her eyes with a tissue and met my gaze. “Yeah, she used to swear her jaw ached whenever it was about to rain. That’s how she knew when to bring an umbrella when she came to work. Nice woman, never said a bad word about anybody. We used to have lunch in here when we had the chance. Poor, sweet Rosie. God bless her.”
“I know she quit working here rather suddenly. Do you know why?”
“She told me that she’d been offered a better job. She was gonna get room and board, along with a decent salary, all for looking after some disabled woman. Not bathing or feeding her, just doing the housework and shopping. It sounded too good to be true, and I told her as much. Said she ought to check out this woman before she gave up her job here. But Rosie wouldn’t listen.”
That explained the finances—someone other than Rosie had paid the deposit and rent. “Did she say anything about this disabled woman? Did she mention how they met, or where?”
“Not much,” said Toffy Sue, her brow crinkling. “Rosie was at a café, and this woman just sort of struck up a conversation. The woman insisted on treating her to lunch, and got around to offering the job. Rosie was so excited when she told me that I thought she was gonna pee in her pants. This boardinghouse where she lived was noisy and dirty, and she was afraid of a couple of the men who lived there. Rosie wasn’t a looker, if you know what I mean, but she was pretty in her own way. I kept urging her to try some lipstick and mascara, but she wouldn’t.”
“Did Rosie say anything else about the woman? What she looked like? Where she was from? How she could afford the house and Rosie’s salary?”
“Nothing that I recollect.” Toffy Sue got to her feet. “I’d better get back. Rudy gets real pissy if I take off more than a few minutes. Of course, it doesn’t matter when he takes the parts catalog and spends half an hour in the can. Men!”
“You mentioned that she was afraid of some men at the boardinghouse. Did she have a reason?”
Toffy Sue sighed. “No, she was too timid for her own good. One of them glanced at her in the hallway, and the other held open the front door one morning when she was going to work. That’s all it was.”
“You’ve been a great help, Toffy Sue,” I said. “One last question, please. Did Rosie ever mention being interested in the Renaissance?”
“Say what?”
“There’s a group that likes to dress up in medieval costumes, long gowns and armor, things like that. There was a Renaissance Fair this last weekend.”
“I saw something on the news about that. No, Rosie liked to read romance novels and watch game shows. That’s one of the reasons she was so pleased about her new job. Damn shame, just when things were look
ing up for her.”
I returned to my car and considered what I’d learned. Rosie was not using the name Angie for some nefarious purpose. She had most likely not called Lanya, since she could scarcely carry on an intelligent conversation about ARSE. She was not the woman Edward had met in California four years earlier. Rosie was pretty much summed up by what was in her file at DHS.
So who was Angie and where was she?
Edward and the fairies were the only people who might have seen her. Tracking down Rhonda Maguire and her cohorts would require Caron’s assistance, and I wasn’t ready to go to the bookstore. I still didn’t know Edward’s address, but Lanya might.
I stayed on the bypass and turned down the highway to Anderson and Lanya’s farm. The only vehicle parked in the yard was the mud-splattered station wagon. There were no shrieks or whoops, intimating the children were not yet home. I knocked on the front door, waited a few minutes, then knocked more loudly. The house remained silent. This meant that no one was home—or that Lanya was still locked in her bedroom. The latter seemed more likely. I went around the house and onto the screened porch. The kitchen was vacant. I opened the door and called Lanya’s name. There was no response. A vague uneasiness kept me from going inside the house, although I realized I might have to do so sooner or later.
I went back across the porch and sat down on the top step. The sun was hot, but not unbearably so. Insects and butterflies fluttered over the vegetable garden, and bees were enjoying the hollyhocks alongside the house. Blue jays battled at a bird feeder. A deflated plastic wading pool was surrounded by oddments from the kitchen cabinets. In the pasture, all traces of the Renaissance Fair were gone, except for trampled paths and a few paper cups caught in the weeds.
It was past noon, and Caron would be taking out her frustration on unwary customers. I was not leaping from one brilliant deduction to the next with the grace and agility of a gazelle. I was confident that Rosie Neely had been living in the blue house on Willoughby Street at the time of the fire, but I couldn’t come up with a reason why such a quiet woman with few friends and no enemies might have been the intended victim. Angie had disappeared. It seemed more logical to think the fire had been set to frighten her badly enough to convince her to leave town. It would have been nice to know what the police thought, but I doubted Lieutenant Rosen would fill me in on the details.
I decided to go in the house on the pretext of picking up the clothes I’d left there on Saturday. I would knock on Layna’s door but not persist, and if I happened to see a box of ARSE material, I could have a quick look for Edward’s address. If I came up empty- handed, I would slink back to the bookstore and spend the afternoon rearranging the window display with beach books. And, when I rallied the courage, call Peter and meekly invite him over for dinner. We would eat steaks, drink wine, and discuss potential honeymoon destinations.
The floors creaked as I walked through the kitchen. Dirty dishes were piled next to the sink, and bread crumbs were already attracting a thread of ants. Empty bottles and jars cluttered the counters. I continued into the living room. The door of the room in which I’d changed clothes was closed. I tapped softly. “Lanya?”
“What?” demanded a hoarse, snuffly voice.
“It’s Claire Malloy. I came by to pick up my clothes. Shall I come back later in the week?”
“No, wait there.” Footsteps thudded across the room and a key turned in the lock. Lanya opened the door and glared at me.
I tried not to grimace. Her unkempt hair hung down her back. Her bathrobe was haphazardly buttoned and badly stained. Her face was pasty, accenting her red, swollen eyelids. Her nose dribbled steadily, leaving her chin glistening with moisture. “Are you ill?” I managed to say. “Can I get something for you?”
“Are you alone?”
I nodded. “I don’t want to intrude, Lanya. I should have called first. Why don’t I come back-”
She caught my arm and yanked me inside the bedroom. After she’d locked the door, she turned around and said, “Did Anderson send you?”
“No, I was just driving out this way and-”
“Sit down,” she said, pushing me toward a chair. “It would be like him to find someone else to spy on me. He’s a coward. That’s why he likes to put on his armor and bash people with his sword. He knows he looks manly and brave, but he won’t get hurt. If he accidentally gets a bruise, he stays in bed the rest of the week, whining like a damn baby and making me bring him ice packs.” She shoved her hair out of her face and began to pace around the room with such fury I was surprised the glass didn’t rattle in the window frames “The noble Duke of Glenbarren cries when I have to remove a thorn from his foot. He’s afraid of the bees and won’t go anywhere near the apiary. When he saw a snake in the pond, he wouldn’t go out in the yard for months.”
“Was he like this when you married him?” I asked.
“I don’t know.” She flopped down on the bed. “Not as bad, anyway. As long as he can control things, he oozes confidence and charm. I wouldn’t have married him if Benny hadn’t...”
“Betrayed you?”
“Exactly! The very night before Benny and I were supposed to get married, he went after some tramp at the camp. They snuck into the woods, but they were making so much noise that all of us could hear them. I was humiliated. Anderson took me to his tent to calm me down, and—well, we decided to get married. Anderson admitted later that he’d only done it to get back at Benny.”
“Would you have been happier with Benny?”
“No,” she said, her shoulders sagging. “Neither of them is worth a puny pence. I should have finished my degree in agronomy and bought a vineyard. Salvador told me it wasn’t too late. He promised he’d back me-” She fell back on the bed and covered her face with her hands. “It doesn’t matter now, does it? He’s dead, and so are my dreams. Anderson will walk out on me one of these days. He’ll send child support payments and see the children once a year. I won’t be able to afford to sell this sorry place. I’ll just get older and fatter and lonelier.”
I would have said something encouraging had anything come to mind. I sat for a long while, listening to her whine. “Maybe,” I said hesitantly, “Edward might be persuaded to invest some money in a vineyard, especially if you tell him what Salvador promised.”
“Why should he believe me?”
“Anderson did, didn’t he? Wasn’t that what you two were arguing about Saturday afternoon in the backyard?”
She sat up and looked at me. “How do you know about that?”
“Several people overheard you,” I said, hoping she wouldn’t demand a list or specifics. For all I knew, they’d been arguing about the laundry.
She smiled wryly. “Yeah, Anderson believed me. Salvador found a vineyard listed for sale on the Internet. He said that if I’d take a six-week course in viticulture and enology at a college in California, he’d go into partnership with me. I think he was smitten with the idea of having his own label. Something classy to mention ever so casually at cocktail parties. Anderson exploded when I told him I was leaving in September and that he could do the cooking and cleaning and help with homework.”
“I suppose he was angry at Salvador, too.”
“Of course he was, but that doesn’t mean ...” Her bloodshot eyes widened. “I didn’t see him again until the final battle of the day. Someone would have seen him go down to the archery range— unless he changed clothes after our argument. He prefers to wear shorts and a T-shirt under the armor so he doesn’t get his royal garb all sweaty. The dry cleaners don’t take proper care with it.”
“They don’t get much practice,” I said. “You know Anderson better than I, but I can’t imagine he’d kill Salvador just to avoid six weeks of drudgery. Wouldn’t he be more likely to hire a cleaning service and a nanny?”
Lanya shrugged. “He wasn’t thinking that clearly when I told him. I thought for a moment that he was going to hit me. I turned my back on him and went to warn Salvador. I don’t kn
ow what he did after that.”
“And did you warn Salvador?”
She yanked a tissue out of a box and blew her nose. “Yes, but he didn’t take me seriously.”
“Were you angry?” I asked, remembering what Inez had said.
“I wasn’t so much angry as frustrated. I expected him to be proud of me for telling Anderson about the vineyard, but he just shrugged. He was acting so peculiar that I gave up and left.”
It struck me that although the Renaissance Fair was all music and gaiety on the surface, it had been a bubbling cauldron of acrimony (as well as eye of newt and tongue of frog). “I need to ask you about Edward,” I murmured.
“What a tragedy,” she said automatically. “Spending all those years searching for his father, and then—well, to lose him. He must be heartbroken. Have you spoken to him?”
“He’s distraught. I’m hoping you have his address. I’d like to find him and make sure he’s okay.”
She seemed much more cheerful now that she’d tacitly accused her husband of a brutal murder. “Yes, somewhere. Let’s go in the kitchen. You can have a glass of mead while I look for my notebook. It’s so hard to keep track of things because of the children. They’re forever moving things and forgetting to put them back. One day I found Anderson’s razor in the sandbox. They’d tried to shave one of the cats.”
I spotted my clothes in a heap in the corner and scooped them up. Lanya sighed when she saw the disarray in the kitchen, but fussed around until she found a jelly jar and a gallon jug of what I presumed was mead.
“Now you sit here and enjoy this while I find my notebook,” she said. “It should be in a drawer in my little office.” She bustled away, humming like one of her bees.
I couldn’t bring myself to sample the mead on an empty stomach. I was painfully aware that it was well into the afternoon. The last thing I needed to do was show up at the bookstore with alcohol on my breath. I poured a few drops in the jelly jar and swished it around. I heard Lanya chortle in triumph and was waiting in the living room when she came out of a hallway.