Except the horn, which was now being punctuated into shorter and longer blasts. Made me wonder if it was Morse code. I never was a Girl Scout or Brownie or member of whatever youth league you learn that sort of skill in, so the meaning was lost on me.
I rolled off the table and staggered to the door. I pushed it open far enough to get a welcome glimpse of a silver Subaru station wagon with California plates. And stooped in the open driver’s door, punching the horn, was a stout, wrinkled woman with the biggest mushroom-colored bouffant I have ever seen.
Clarice is indispensable to me. I brought her with me from my last job when I started at the foundation. Twice widowed and childless, she’d essentially adopted me as her own personal project, and I’d never have developed so much professionally — or personally — without her. If I’d lived in pre-war England, she would have filled the role of a spinster great-aunt — the surrogate nanny who ruled with an iron glare, stayed on well past when her job was completed, and who would take my side against all adversity. In this day and age, she was the fixer on my staff and my most honest friend. Who needs a pet bulldog when you have Clarice?
“Nora,” Clarice hollered. “You’re in there? Good heavens. If you had any sense, you’d have slept in the Tahoe last night. If I’d known this place was so rundown, I’d have sent you to the chalet in Aspen.”
“It’s not so bad.” I stepped out onto the cracked concrete of what used to be a patio and yawned. “There’s a chalet in Aspen?”
“Among others.” Clarice waved a paper in the air. “I compiled a list of Skip’s private properties.”
“How about coffee?”
“Yes, please. I’ve been driving all night.”
My shoulders slumped. “I’m sorry. I meant, did you bring some? There’s definitely no coffee here.” I ran a hand through my tangled hair. “All night? You just got here?” Boy, it was taking me a while to catch up. “Thank you.”
“Here, lady.” Something nudged my thigh.
I jumped and glanced down into clear sea-blue eyes in a small face that was more freckle than not.
“Mr. Walt says he’s sorry he didn’t come back last night. We got a leak.” A nervous tick, like a half-wink, interrupted his train of thought. He sniffed and bumped the edge of the paper plate against my leg again. “Here’s your breakfast.”
“Thank you.” I knelt beside him and gave him my best smile. “You live here?”
The boy nodded then tipped his head toward Clarice. “Who’s she?”
“My friend.”
“She’s crabby.”
I chuckled and whispered. “And she’s always like that. It never gets better.”
The boy’s eyes widened.
“Oh, phoo,” Clarice huffed, walking up to us. “I’m a grouch until I’ve had coffee, then I’m sweet as pie.” She hacked the terrible smoker’s cough she still had.
“We’re not allowed coffee. Only Mr. Walt, but he didn’t have time this morning,” the boy said.
“’Course not,” Clarice announced. “The caffeine would stunt your growth.” She leaned down until her face was inches from the boy’s. “And we wouldn’t want that now, would we?”
I grabbed the plate from the boy’s shaking hands. “Please thank Mr. Walt for me.”
The boy stood, transfixed, staring at Clarice. Her face is like a roadmap of Canyon Country covered with half an inch of pancake foundation. It had survived an all-night drive without fissure. I could understand the boy’s fascination.
“There a town around here?” Clarice barked.
The boy flinched, then pointed. “That way. We go twice a month for supplies.”
I gently squeezed his shoulder. “Thank you. You can go now.”
He glanced at me, and I nodded encouragingly. He disappeared as silently as he’d come.
“You scared him.” I frowned at Clarice.
“Huh.” Clarice raised the paper towel with a gnarled but perfectly manicured fingertip and glared at the plate’s contents. “Refined carbohydrates and saturated fat. We gotta find a grocery store.”
I stuffed the better part of a cinnamon roll — the kind that comes in a pressurized cardboard tube — in my mouth and mumbled around it. “Now?”
“You got something better to do?” Clarice replied over her shoulder as she marched back to her car. “Get in.”
The return trip to the paved road was much easier when it wasn’t pouring buckets. Clarice navigated around boulders and inexplicable pits with amazing dexterity. It was as though one of the boys’ camp activities had been handing each child a shovel and giving them the go-ahead to dig to China.
A few blue patches appeared between floaty clouds that no longer had heavy underbellies. I kept my mouth packed with sausage links and additional cinnamon roll in order to protect against the teeth-jarring I’d experienced last night. Besides, the rutted track required all of Clarice’s concentration and was not conducive to conversation.
Clarice pulled through the automatic gate onto the county road. Steam rose off the pavement in wispy waves.
I swallowed and cleared my throat. “I heard from Robbie.”
She shot me an arched brow glance and stomped on the accelerator.
“He’s been informing the FBI — of what, I don’t know — for a year. It sounded like he was on the run. Again, I don’t know why.”
Clarice turned toward me, her drawn-on brows flattened in a fierce line above her narrowed eyes. “That weasel.”
“Well, I don’t know. If there was something illegal going on, he had to—”
A flash of mangy brown fur and antlers crossed the windshield.
I screamed.
Clarice stomped on the brakes, and we both slammed against our seatbelts.
The animal — like a deer, but bigger, with its neck stretched uncomfortably by the weight of its antlers — stood straddling the yellow line and slowly turned its head our way. It blinked in a leisurely fashion, its nostrils flaring.
“What is that?” I breathed.
“Stupid—” Clarice rasped, “—elk, I presume, never having seen one in person before. Stupid!” she yelled and cranked her window down. “Shoo. Shoo.” She flapped her arm out the window.
The elk was unimpressed — and unmoved.
Clarice honked, long and loud.
The elk took a step toward us, its head lowered.
“You’re scaring it.” I patted Clarice’s shoulder, then squeezed as the elk swung its head in a menacing gesture.
With a terrific charge, the elk nailed the grill with its rack. The station wagon rocked back on its heels, jouncing us in our seats. The elk backed up, shuffling his feet for another attack.
Clarice pulled her arm in and rolled the window up. “Scared? I don’t think so.” She revved the gas pedal.
“Oh, no. No, no, no. You are not taking on the wildlife.” I clutched the dashboard.
“Evasive maneuvers, girl. He’ll never know what swept right past him.” She let the car roll forward then jerked the wheel hard to the right. The tires spit gravel and balked for a second before we got traction and shot down the shoulder and bounced back up onto the pavement.
I twisted and glanced out the back window. The elk was still standing in the middle of the road, ready to challenge the next car to intrude on his territory. “You’re making friends left and right this morning,” I muttered.
“Low blood sugar,” Clarice gritted between clenched teeth as she hunched over the steering wheel.
I closed my eyes against the blur of trees whirring by and concentrated on breathing. At the word ‘town,’ I’d been anticipating a series of light-controlled intersections, several choices for grocery shopping, banks, a library, an ice cream shop. I’d even settle for strip malls populated with nail salons, questionable sushi bars and laundromats. There had to be at least one drive-through espresso stand.
When the car rocked to a stop and I cracked my eyelids open, I saw trees — more trees. Actually, I saw the trunks. A
t least they weren’t moving. I had to tilt way back to see to their tops. Their needled branches rippled like feathers in the stiff breeze.
“Come on,” Clarice grunted and popped open her door.
A weather-beaten building with a covered porch along the front occupied one corner at a crossroads. The opposite corner boasted a dilapidated service station with a U.S. Post Office sign in the dirt-streaked front window. A teetering gingerbread Victorian house — probably technically a mansion when it was built, but no longer extravagant — spread her flanged porticoes in the third corner. The painted lady’s trim had merged into worn shades of taupe. The fourth corner was filled with hip-high weeds.
“I’m guessing this is it,” Clarice panted as she clumped up sagging steps next to a rusty ice cooler with a faded bait sign taped to the front.
“Maybe we should go a little farther. Maybe there’s a Safeway.”
“You want to be cooped up in the car with me for another hundred miles?” she growled.
We pushed through a glass door into a cramped, dim space. I bumped a display of Corn Nuts and Skoal chewing tobacco. Together — in one display. I was stuck for a second wrapping my head around that marketing concept.
Clarice grabbed my arm and propelled me past the chips, jerky, infant formula and canned goods to the bank of buzzing coolers in the back. She pulled my forearms into a platform and loaded me up with eggs, half and half, frozen concentrated orange juice and Canadian bacon. For such a small store, they had an amazing selection.
Clarice darted down an aisle and returned with a jar of instant coffee.
“But—”
“It’ll do for now. We should have checked the cupboards before we left. Any idea if there’s a coffee maker? Frying pan?”
I shook my head dumbly.
“Toilet paper,” Clarice muttered and disappeared again.
I stood patiently while my personal shopper scoped out the store, ticking through her be-ready-for-any-emergency mental checklist. I slowly rotated, taking in the hand lettered signs advertising specials with prices I hadn’t seen in San Francisco in years, the crates full of gigantic, fresh from the orchard, unwaxed and unstickered apples in the far corner, the fat calico cat that ambled out from behind the as yet unattended cashier’s counter. Who lived in a town like this? The floor squeaked under my weight as I shifted.
A pair of sharp dark eyes — and a lean, swarthy man stepped out from behind an endcap display of Rainier beer. He stared straight at me, his smooth cheeks unflinching, taut body, shiny brass belt buckle the size of a salad plate, uplifted chin, perfect line of a black mustache. Mexican, he had to be.
And suddenly I knew — they’d sent an emissary, someone to negotiate Skip’s release. Maybe someone who’d been there, on the beach, someone who knew.
My arms went numb, the groceries weighing on them, and blood surged in my ears and throat. I opened my mouth but nothing came out.
The man’s gaze changed from frank appraisal to a concerned scowl, then he looked down — to a little girl in a pink tutu and Hello Kitty sweater tugging on his jeans. She held a bag of Skittles in her open palm with a wordless plea in her eyes. He smiled at her and nodded.
The instant grin of delight on her face brought my breath back. I sagged against a cooler door. Just a father and his daughter. Just doing what I was doing — grocery shopping. I panted like a marathon runner.
“Miss?” He was at my elbow.
“I’m okay,” I whispered.
He held my gaze long enough to let me know he didn’t believe me. Then he grasped his little girl’s hand and led her to the counter.
“What was that about?” Clarice layered a couple more items on me.
“Felt like a panic attack. Which I’ve never had before. For a second I thought — I thought he might know about Skip — might be able to tell me—” I inhaled shakily.
“Nonsense. We’re in the middle of nowhere, which is exactly why I picked this place. No way they could get here that fast. Besides, panic attacks are for sissies. Get angry. It’s easier and more productive.” Clarice pushed me toward the checkout counter. “I know what I’m talking about.”
The man and his daughter were gone. I’d heard a bell clank while Clarice was lecturing me and realized it was the signal attached to the front door in the form of a cluster of small cowbells dangling from the handle. A beat-up blue pickup eased out of the parking lot and through the intersection after a rolling stop. I just caught the top of the little girl’s head and a dash of pink tulle in the passenger seat.
“Mornin’.” The flannel-clad woman behind the cash register nodded a greeting, then slanted a second look at Clarice.
Due to my facial asymmetry, I’m accustomed to receiving short, awkwardly polite stares, but Clarice usually gets the full head swivel double take. I suppose it’s not every day a Margaret Thatcher lookalike shows up at an American place of business, especially now that Margaret Thatcher is dead. Having Clarice around is a kind of guilty blessing because she takes the attention off me. I dumped our groceries on the counter.
I dug through my purse and pulled out my wallet while the woman rang up the items by punching keys — no barcode scanner here. I flipped through my credit card selection, trying to decide which one to use. I carried a couple company cards and one foundation-issued card, but I still had my personal Bank of America Visa which I slapped on the glass-topped counter over the slide-out tray of scratch-off tickets.
The woman looked distinctly uncomfortable. The corner of her mouth twitched. “We don’t take plastic. Just cash. Or a check if it’s not out of state.”
“Oh.” I darted a glance at Clarice who was also shocked into open-mouthed silence — a rare occurrence.
We both dove back into our purses hunting for the green stuff. We came up with a few crumpled bills but nowhere near enough.
“Looks like you’re buying necessities,” the woman said.
“Up the road about twenty minutes.” I pointed, as if that was helpful. “Walt — um, Walt Neftali works there, and there’s a boys’ camp.”
“Oh, you’re staying at the poor farm. Hope they came through the storm last night okay. I’ll start an account for you. Name?”
I provided the details and signed her form. “When do I pay?” I stretched to the side and snagged a few packages of cookies off a nearby display. I shoved them into the grocery lineup still waiting to be tallied, pretending I didn’t see Clarice’s scowl.
“End of the month, or thereabouts. I’m Etherea Titus, by the way. Own this place with my husband, Bob. Pleased to meetcha.” She wrote our total on the account form and shoved four bulging paper sacks across the counter.
Back in the car, it took me a few minutes of flying trees and dashed yellow line whizzing under the fender so fast it appeared solid to gather my thoughts. “Do you want to talk about this?”
“No.” Clarice polished off the last of a banana and stuffed the peel in the cup holder in the Subaru’s console.
“My husband of short duration is missing. He may or may not be alive. He may or may not be on the FBI’s most wanted list. I’m waiting for a phone call demanding ransom. My current residence is a poor farm.” I ticked each problem on my fingers. “I don’t know how much longer I’ll have the right to stay there — and then what? I may or may not have access to any money. I hope Etherea isn’t disappointed at the end of the month, but I’d pay my last penny just to get some answers.” I bit my lip at the reemergence of a thought that had been nagging me, and I turned toward Clarice. “What if I’m under suspicion too?”
Clarice tore open a Clif bar while steering with her knee. “You’re right. It can’t possibly get worse. But you’ve got me. That counts on the plus side.” She swerved back into the right lane and stuffed the end of the energy bar in her mouth.
From the depths of my purse, my phone rang. Heartbeat in overdrive, I bent in half and rummaged until I snagged the phone.
I groaned when I saw the caller ID. “
My mother.”
“What?” Clarice screeched. “For all she knows you’re still on your honeymoon. You didn’t call her, did you?” She grabbed the phone and tossed it over her shoulder into the backseat. “You have enough problems.”
“What if it’s about Dad?” I stretched my arm between the seats.
“Stop.” Clarice smacked my leg. “Listen to the message later. Then decide if you should call her back.”
I sighed. She was right. Describing my mother as high-maintenance would be a compliment compared to some of the other things I could say. And if Dad had had another episode, it was too late already.
“The way I see it — on all those points you listed — we’re waiting. I don’t know what you could do to make anything better. Agreed?” Clarice shoved the wrapper next to the banana peel and daintily wiped the corners of her mouth of any errant lipstick.
I pressed my fingertips to my forehead. “So we’re camping — indefinitely.”
“Might not be so bad. I picked the remotest of Skip’s properties. No one will bother us. We’ll get the call. And in the meantime you’ll do what you can to keep the car wash business running.” She slowed and pulled into the indentation to our secret gate.
I peered hard at the sentry trees. I was going to have to establish landmarks in my mind, or I wouldn’t be able to make a grocery run by myself. Self-sufficiency was suddenly of the utmost importance.
“I forgot.” Clarice pointed a burgundy-tipped finger at the glove compartment. “I brought one of those wi-fi hot spot thingies. We’ll be connected, even if we are in the boonies.”
We bounced through the gully, and a few of the larger rocks were starting to look familiar. I wondered how hard it would be to get a road grader out here. Probably would need a backhoe first.
The main house came into sight, as did a navy blue sedan parked next to my Tahoe. It was the kind that police use — a big, beefy thing with black wheel rims and a push bar bolted to the front bumper. It had U.S. Government license plates.
“You know what I said about things not getting worse?” Clarice muttered. “I take that back.”
Bait & Switch (Mayfield Cozy Mystery Book 1) Page 3