A quick smile of understanding lit Mrs. Andrews’ face. “I’m getting there, honey. Just bear with me.” She shifted in her chair, dusted cookie crumbs from the table, and went on. “Yes, we were planning to leave on Sunday, right after church. The girls were packed and spending the evening with friends, and Ed and I were in the living room, me reading and him opening his mail from the office. He opened one of those letters, jumped up, and tore off to make a phone call. He was grinning like a cat in the cream when he came back. I knew he was up to no good. Finally he spilled it. He told me we’d hold off leaving till Tuesday because he had some ‘business’ and had to go back to Dallas. He was meeting up with somebody there, somebody bringing one of those Thunderbirds for Ed to try out. Not a new one, he says, but almost new. Young feller was getting married and his bride didn’t like the car. He’d be selling it reasonable, and Ed was thinking to buy it.”
“Your husband bought the car in Dallas?” Could this be the thread of the story she’d been hunting? Nina wondered.
Betty held up her hands to ward off questions. “Ed’s company always got rooms for him at one of those big hotels when he was in the country. He’d been staying there, reporting to the bosses, when he first started dickering for that fool car. And that’s where he was supposed to meet up with the feller and see about buying the thing.” Betty Andrews gave an apologetic glance across the table. “I was so plain mad, I told Ed if he planned to go hotfootin’ it back to the big city to buy himself an expensive play toy, he could just take me and the girls along. We’d stay at the hotel, too. Get a little pampering, maybe do a little shopping ourselves. At Neiman-Marcus. Ed grumbled, but he agreed it was only fair. So the girls and I never actually met the feller with the car. I never knew the ins and outs of the deal they made. Didn’t care. All I saw was that Ed was about to spend a whacking big chunk of money, then go off halfway ’round the world and leave me a car I couldn’t drive. We had some words at that hotel, I’ll tell you, when he insisted we had to turn around and bring the darn thing back here before we could really start our trip. Still weren’t on good terms when we finally left on Wednesday morning.”
“But your husband just met the man in Dallas, drove the car, and bought it right then?”
“He did.” The color in Betty Andrews’ face deepened. “And I wasn’t one bit gracious about it. I was still pretty worked up.”
Nina sat forward on her chair. “But did you see him? The man who owned the car? You did see him?”
Smoothing a wrinkle in her pink-striped dress, Mrs. Andrews cast her eyes down. “Well, I did and I didn’t, Nina. I saw him there in the lobby of the hotel, talking to Ed. Not a good look but just sorta noticed in passing. His hair was more light than dark. I’m sure of that. And he was dressed decent, not a suit or anything, but a good shirt and pants. But I only saw his back and a little of the side of his head. And not up close, anyway.”
Peter had taken a photograph from his pocket and put on the table in front of the woman. “Is that the man you saw?” Nina recognized the wedding picture of Danny she’d given Peter weeks before.
Betty picked up the picture and held it cupped in the palm of her hand. She gave it her complete attention, examining the features one by one. Finally she passed it back. “It could be, Peter, but I just don’t know. I didn’t pay attention, didn’t really look. I can’t say fairer than that.”
So close, but not an answer. Nina sank back into her chair. It didn’t appear this visit was going to bring anything new to light.
“Now, I haven’t been much help, have I?”
“It’s more than we knew before,” Peter assured her.
Nina sat quietly, pondering the story, trying to see something more than another dead end.
“That’s about all I can tell you,” Betty Andrews said with a resigned sigh. “I did go back through Ed’s letters, those last ones he sent me, to see if there was anything more. It won’t amount to anything, I guess, but in his last letter, when he was getting ready to come home, he said something a little funny. We didn’t talk about him buying the car after that one time. I wasn’t going to bring it up, and I guess he didn’t want to hear me fuss, so he didn’t either. But in that last letter, he said when he got home he wanted to talk to the sheriff. He was thinking there might be something wrong with the way he bought that car. He wondered if just maybe he’d bought a car that had been stolen. Thought he’d check and see if somebody reported it.”
Nina and Peter exchanged looks. “No, it wasn’t stolen, Mrs. Andrews,” Nina assured her. “I’m sure of that. Do you know the day Ed bought it? The day you went to Dallas so he could get it?”
“Now, that I do know. The girls had just finished school, and we were planning to leave on Sunday. Come the first weekend in June, it’ll be two years.”
“The weekend of our wedding,” Nina murmured trying to take in the tight chain of events. “Are you certain?”
“I’m sorry, hon, but I can’t be wrong about the day.” Betty Andrews patted her hand with a sympathetic touch. “We were gone a month. In fact, Ed sorta tried to make things up with me by taking a few extra days and seeing some family I have in Atlanta. Had to wind things up pretty fast when we got back, because Ed was due at his job overseas in July. Then he was home for Christmas, but that was the last time. He thought he’d be back for good by the next fall. He was, but not the way he thought. His heart just gave out. I finally got so I couldn’t look at that car without bawling. That’s when I sold it to you, Peter.”
The room, scented with cinnamon and spice, was silent except for the ticking of an antique clock on the wall. “I’m so sorry to bring this all back to you,” Nina began.
“Now you’ve had a loss, too, hon, and I think Ed would want me to help you if I can. Is any of this untangling the puzzle for you?”
Nina shook her head. “No, the Monday your husband bought the car was after my wedding. You say Ed had been corresponding with the owner about buying it for a while before that. It sounds as if my husband planned to sell the car, advertised in a place no one at home would be likely to see, and made his arrangements with Ed. Somehow he got to Dallas and met Ed after the wedding, and then he—he just vanished. Went away.” She sighed, suddenly too weary to go on. “I guess that’s what happened. It was just one of those tricks of fate that I happened to see the car and run into Peter along the way.”
“It may be just a quirk of fate, Nina, but I have a question.” Peter turned to the older woman across the table. “Even though Ed bought the car in Dallas, he must have registered it at the courthouse in Santa Rita. Why didn’t the sheriff see that the title had changed hands? Surely somebody checked that.”
Betty Andrews sat still and silent. “Registering the darn thing? I’d forgot all about that. I really had. We were in such a hurry to get off on our trip that Ed just didn’t get that paperwork done. And then we were gone longer than we planned. So when we got back and Ed was hurrying to make his flight connections, we didn’t think of it. Right before he left, he remembered, and do you know, I had to go down and file all the papers. Me, the woman who didn’t want that flashy little toy car in the first place, I had to go down and make it legal.”
Peter frowned, his coppery hair falling forward, head tilted in confusion. “Even so, I’d think the Santa Rita sheriff would have checked the courthouse for anything about a yellow T-Bird.”
Pink lips pursed, salt-and-pepper curls wagging, Betty Andrews shook her head. “Oh, I’m sure Al Hayes checked things at the Santa Rita courthouse, Peter. But you really can’t blame him for not finding anything.” She waved at the meandering road outside the window. “Folks are always getting confused. You drive through Barlow to get here. If you come up the old highway, and that’s the way we tell everybody to come, you don’t see the marker for the county line. About two miles back you cross over. This place isn’t in Santa Rita County. It’s in Willburn. I filed those papers for Ed over in the Willburn County courthouse. Don’t guess there’s any way Al Hayes wou
ld have thought to come clear over here. If your young man took off, most folks would expect him to head far from here. Probably did, but a good-sized city like Dallas is a better place to start getting lost than a rural county. Got shut of the car there and headed on. It’s just bad luck that Ed only got to drive that bright yellow eyesore around here a couple of times. Otherwise somebody might have seen it and let you all know.” She reached across to take Nina’s hand. “I don’t guess I’ve helped you a bit, have I, child? I’m so sorry.”
Nina felt they’d learned as much as their hostess could tell them. Danny had planned to leave, arranged to sell the car, and made his getaway from Dallas two days after the wedding. She’d never know why, or where he went, but given what Betty had told them, Danny’s actions were pretty clear. “I guess I really didn’t know Danny Wilson at all.” Nina stared down at the pink print tablecloth, unable to look across the table at her companions. She’d been such a complete fool about Danny.
“Danny Wilson?” Betty’s confusion barely registered on Nina.
“My husband, Danny. He sold the car to Ed. Somehow he posted that ad, and an hour after our wedding he was on his way to meet Ed and give him the car. I just don’t know how he could do that to me.”
Betty Andrews sank slowly into her chair. She ran plump fingers through her silvery hair. “That beats all. I never thought.” She shook her head as if to clear it. “The name on the title wasn’t Danny Wilson, child. It was Jeff Davis. You know, like the president of the Confederacy? I was standing in line to file the title change and waiting like that, you get fidgety. I looked at the papers, just passing time, and the name caught my eye. Name like that kinda sticks with you.”
Nina couldn’t move, couldn’t think. How could Danny’s car be in Dallas, registered to someone else, when it had been in Santa Rita only hours before? The situation was impossible. They were no closer to finding Danny than before.
Betty Andrews left her chair to put an arm around Nina. “Maybe Ed’s worry had some basis, child, and that car was stolen—stolen from your young man. Maybe he caught the thief when he went to get it. I don’t want to make things worse, but honey, have you thought that the reason your Danny didn’t come back was because he couldn’t?”
“You mean that Danny might be dead?” Nina rejected the idea, pulling away from the motherly woman but grabbing the ladderback chair for support. “Oh, no, no, I’d know if he were dead. Somehow I’d know, wouldn’t I?” She drew a ragged breath. “And anyway, his mother hears from him. They’re in contact, and she knows he’s all right.” She raised her eyes to Peter Shayne. “He has to be alive if Marigold is hearing from him, Peter. You can see that?”
Chapter 9
Nina hadn’t slept, and she knew it showed in her face. The drive back from Barlow had been silent, not a comfortable silence that fell between friends but a broody, pained silence that absorbed every aborted attempt at conversation. Instead of easing the strain, the visit with Betty Andrews had confused Nina further. Through the night the new questions ran through her mind in an endless daisy chain, leaving her depressed and more bewildered than ever. Now, sitting in the sheriff’s office, facing the man’s disapproving glare, his brows knitted in a beetling frown, Nina’s anguish knotted tight lumps in her throat.
“You tellin’ me that this infernal yella car was sitting forty-odd miles down the road all this time? Danny sold the damn thing to some feller named Jeff Davis who then, within hours, it appears, sold it again in Dallas to a man who brought it right back here? And we never cottoned on to the sale since it was registered in Willburn County? How in the Sam Hill did we miss it? Dang thing sitting right here in our own back yard?” Sheriff Hayes slapped his Stetson down on the desk in disgust.
Nina pushed an unruly curl back from her face and drooped in her chair. “Nobody was driving the car, Sheriff. Ed Andrews died, and his wife couldn’t drive the Thunderbird, so until she sold it to Peter, the car dropped out of sight.” She didn’t remind him that no one had been looking very hard to find Danny or the car.
Al Hayes tilted his chair back to stare at the cracked ceiling. “I s’pose that’s right, Miss Nina, but who the devil is Jeff Davis, and when did he buy the car from young Wilson? Do you see how close the timing is? Wilson has the car on Saturday morning—Saturday, mind you—and by Monday night the dadblasted thing’s had two more owners.” He shook his head. “No, ma’am, I don’t rightly know what happened, but sure as chiggers bite, I know what didn’t happen. That car didn’t get sold twice in twenty-four hours, not in Santa Rita, not in Willburn, and certainly not in Dallas.”
For the first time Peter stirred in his chair. Nina didn’t understand why he’d insisted on coming with her this morning to tell Al Hayes about their trip to Barlow, but she blessed him for doing so. He leaned forward to catch the sheriff’s attention.
“I’ve been thinking on that, Sheriff Hayes, and I might have an idea.”
“Well, don’t hold out on me, boy. Speak up. I need some answers here.”
Peter pulled a sheet of paper from his jacket pocket. “I was trying to see where there could have been time for all those transactions to have taken place, and the fact is, like you said, it just couldn’t happen that way.” He unfolded the paper and pulled a pair of reading glasses from his shirt pocket. “I tried making a timeline based on where Danny Wilson was, where Ed Andrews was at the same time, and what that man Davis would have to do to get the car from one place to the other. I can’t see any way except this. Danny sold the car to Davis earlier, maybe a week or ten days before, and to keep anyone from suspecting he had something besides a wedding on his mind, Danny got Davis to agree to let him keep the car a few days more. Maybe Davis didn’t want the car right away or got a special deal somehow, but whatever the reason, I think the sale went through long before the day Danny Wilson disappeared.” He took off his glasses and shoved them back in his pocket. Nina registered the rueful, almost apologetic note in his voice. “He got to the wedding, married Nina, and then he arranged to pass the car on to Davis out by the church, and had some woman waiting there to drive him out of town to make good his vanishing act. No sense to it, but that’s the only way I see for him to make the time work for him.”
Hayes rubbed his finger along his cheek, nodding, his lips clamped down tight and hard until he spoke. “Sold the car first? Yeah, I can see that. Maybe made a sweetheart deal with this Davis just to make the car less of a problem.” He turned back to Nina. “And had some gal under wraps, waiting for him. That what you’re thinking, young lady?”
Nina caught the hint of a sympathetic gleam in the older man’s eye. She nodded. “I can’t see any other way, Sheriff. I don’t want to believe it, but is there any other explanation?”
Sheriff Hayes reached across to pat her hand. “If Danny Wilson walked out of his own wedding to take off with some other woman, hon, he picked about the hardest way he could find to vanish. Why not just slip out of town in the middle of the night? Lots easier than ducking out on the one day you’re guaranteed to have a bunch of folks watching ever’ move.” His chair creaked as he leaned back. “You’re sure Marigold Wilson is talking to that son of hers? She knows where he is for certain?”
Nina nodded slowly. The sting of Marigold’s betrayal had stayed with her. “She says she hears from him, Sheriff. She wouldn’t say anything more, but she’s clear about hearing from Danny. I’m sure Marigold would be raising all kinds of fury if she didn’t know where Danny is.”
“He calls her, I take it?” The sheriff hesitated. “Sends her birthday and Christmas presents, maybe?” Al Hayes slapped both palms down on the desktop. “Don’t think so, Miss Nina. He was too all-fired anxious to get away from that woman’s tyrannical hold on him, and he talked to too many people about it. He wanted free of Marigold more than he wanted to draw his next breath. Everybody but Marigold agrees to that. Now why in the name of peace would he run out on a beautiful young wife with never a word and stay in touch with the suffocatin
g mother who made his life a squirrel cage? He was fightin’ to get away from her, and now she’s all the one he’s contacting?” Al Hayes clapped his Stetson back on his head and stood up. “No, ma’am, I don’t believe that, and I am, by golly, going over and talk to that woman. If she’s got a phone number, an address, or even a campsite where that boy of hers can be found, I want it, and I want it right now.”
Shoving the office chair back with a thrust that sent it into the wall, Sheriff Hayes stomped to the door of his office. Nina and Peter hurried to follow him. He glanced over his shoulder. “Miss Nina, I’d appreciate it if you’d keep yourself close to home this afternoon. After I get through with Marigold Wilson, you and I may need to talk a little more. It seems to me a wife takes legal precedence over a mother in most cases, and as I was at your wedding, I know damn well Danny Wilson was lawfully and properly married. And high time he lived up to those vows he took or gave you reason why not.”
“Crusty old codger, isn’t he?” Peter said in a low tone as the sheriff stormed out of the office and out of sight.
“Slow to get started, but a bulldog if he thinks he’s caught somebody in a lie,” she answered.
“Look, sweetheart, I know you’re knotted up inside from all of this. The trip to Barlow seems to have created more questions than answers. The sheriff won’t need to talk to you for a while, if at all. How about lunch? A quiet drive along the river? A break from the case of Danny Wilson for a few hours?”
Nina felt the weight of the last few days pull at her. Weary beyond measure, disillusioned and dispirited, she couldn’t summon the energy to deal with any of Peter’s suggestions. She shook her head and sighed. “You’re sweet to suggest it, Peter, but I don’t think I’d be decent company for a polecat, much less a good friend. Thanks anyway. I’ll go home and talk to Sinbad. His life is much less complicated than mine.”
She could sense Peter’s reluctance to accept her choice. He rested his long fingers on her shoulders, his grey eyes darker in the afternoon shade. “Listen, you, you’re a pretty important person to a bunch of fourth graders and to a man whose life is lived from a wheelchair and to a stodgy professor who has just discovered how much fun life can be. So go home, talk to that fleabag cat if it will help, and let everything go for a while. You’ll probably hear from the sheriff soon. He may solve this whole mystery for you, once he wrings Mrs. Marigold Wilson out like a wet towel. I hope so. Whatever comes of the visit to the Wilson household, I’ll be at your door at seven this evening. You put on a pretty dress, powder your nose, and decide where we’re having dinner.”
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