Scot Free

by Catriona McPherson

  “Jesus,” said Kathi, watching him, “he’s coming for you, Lexy.”

  He drew up and twirled his hand to tell me to wind down the window. “Ms. Campbell?” he said. “I saw you passing. Just a word, won’t take a minute.”

  “Right,” I said. “Got it. Kathi, bring me some clean knickers if I’m still there on Sunday, will you?” I undid my seatbelt.

  “No need to get out,” said Soft Cop. “I just reckoned Molly wouldn’t have told you how it went down. She’s got a real hard-on for you and she’s as stubborn as hell.”

  “Who’s Molly?” I said.

  “Detective Rankinson,” he said.

  I blinked. “You mean Mike?”

  “I don’t like that name,” said Mills of God. “I mean, yeah. Mike the Dyke. That’s her station nickname and she never says a word about it.”

  “Oh. My. God,” I said.

  “I don’t like it, though. It’s not nice to talk to a lady that way, or put all that crap all over her desk every day.”

  “Kids’ toys and kitchen equipment?”

  “They’re good guys, but they’ve got a sick sense of humour.”

  “Oh God,” I said. “And … when you say she’s got a hard-on for me?”

  Mills blushed from his over-tight collar to the roots of his pale ginger hair. “I didn’t mean anything dirty,” he said. “I mean, she won’t tell you to stop and won’t show she cares, but you are getting to her.”

  “And that stopped her from telling me something?”

  “Oh! Yeah. We found a Marco Poggio, flew in Saturday, hired a car from the Hertz at the airport, stayed at the Great Northern, and tried to leave yesterday. We picked him up. He said it was a free trip from an anonymous benefactor. To Cuento. Not L.A., not even Yosemite. Cuento. So the DA charged him and dropped the case against Mrs. Bombaro. Couldn’t have done it without you.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “Officer, do you think you could maybe give me a parking ticket or something so I’ve got an excuse to come in and say ‘Molly’ about ten thousand times?”

  “Don’t worry ’bout that,” he said, with a laugh. “You been lying low but now that you’re back on the streets you’ll get plenty of chances. Now I’m gonna go. It’s too damn hot to be out here.”

  We said our goodbyes and drove away. Kathi said nothing for a while and then: “Molly. I prefer ‘Mike.’”

  “I am absolutely mortified,” I said.

  Kathi was looking in her rearview mirror. “There he goes,” she said. “Okay, let’s see what this baby can do!”

  It could do lots. We shot like a rocket through the endless I-80 strip malls, up and over the hills into the Bay, all the way down through the Berkeley bottleneck and the bridge chaos, skirting the skyscrapers and spaghetti flyovers, and arrived at the airport turnoff in just over an hour.

  “International,” said Kathi, sliding across four lanes while the anxious tourists pottering along in their rental cars braked and swerved to get out of her way. She parked outside the terminal in the no parking zone, slapped a DOCTOR ON EMERGENCY CALL sign on the dashboard, and jumped out. “I looove borrowing the docs’ cars,” she said. “Come on, Lexy.”

  We ran into the terminal, dodged the check-in queues, and pelted to the security line that was snaking along so sluggishly, taking Visalia away. I prayed we weren’t too late.

  But that’s prayers for you. After all we had gone through, we didn’t make it. We were indeed far too late to say goodbye.

  Twenty-Five

  But we saw her.

  And we saw her travelling companion too.

  “Father Adam?” I said. And I’m glad they were so far away, because I said it really quite loud.

  They were shuffling forward, just at the slipping off their shoes and emptying their pockets stage. At least, Visalia didn’t take her shoes off. Little old ladies of eighty-six who’re too old to be any danger to anyone don’t have to. Father Adam put his flip-flops and all his rubber concern bracelets in a basin and then waited his turn in the scanner with one of his elegant, gentle, priestly hands firmly cupping Visalia’s octogenarian butt.

  “What?” said Kathi. “That’s not Father Adam. Father Adam is seventy. That’s Father Adam’s gardener.”

  “But, but, but,” I said.

  “Need a kick start there, pal?” said Kathi. “The heart wants what the heart wants, Lexy.”

  I stood staring at them and then at the place where they’d been and then at Kathi.

  “What the … ”

  “No big mystery,” Kathi said. “He dropped off some of Father Adam’s clothes just the other day and he said the old guy would be picking it up himself because he was headed off on a vacation.”

  “But,” I said, “why did he pretend he was a priest?”

  “To get in and see his honey without causing a scandal, I guess,” Kathi said. “I pretended I was Nolly’s sister for ten years when we went on trips.”

  “But.” The tannoy announced that the Alitalia flight was boarding.

  Kathi took my arm. “Come and grab a cup of coffee,” she said. “And of course when I say coffee, I mean tea. Or have a bite to eat. You look kinda waxy. Come on. All the good joints are at the gates in this place, but there’s a Red Raccoon off the next exit.”

  “Alitalia,” I said. “Dead raccoon.”

  “Red Raccoon,” Kathi said.

  I didn’t argue. I let her lead me back to the car, put me in it, drive me to the diner, and order me meatloaf. By the end of all that, I had marshalled my thoughts and I laid it out for her.

  “Visalia killed Clovis,” I said. “And the gardener took the cable ties off him and removed the switch. I was handpicked, Kathi. But not as a therapist, for my wisdom and training. I was handpicked because I was wet behind the ears and didn’t know anything. I was handpicked as a … ”

  “Stooge?” said Kathi. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes!” I said. Again, quite loud. A few customers looked round and I stuffed my mouth with a big chunk of meatloaf and chewed until I had calmed down. “She was rattled when Bilbo screwed up and made it sound like two different people were involved. She got right back to him and told him to abandon the handcuff story. And she was really rattled when she thought I had started watching crime drama and knew about investigation. And she guessed that the dead raccoon was there as a host for flies. Who would guess that?”

  “Uh, no one,” said Kathi. “How did she guess that?”

  “Because she knew it was a Poggio. That must be how they sent messages in the old days when the Bombaros were their neighbours and ha!” Another few looks and another mouthful of meatloaf. “She was supposed to believe a Poggio killed Clovis, right? But it was when she heard about the pranks at the Last Ditch that she got really angry. She said they were stupid feelios of putta-something.”

  “Sons of bitches.”

  “Exactly! Do you see? Stupid sons of bitches. Not evil—stupid. Because she was an anonymous benefactor who sent a mysterious ticket to Marco Poggio. He was supposed to come here, do nothing, and leave. And who would believe him when he said that? Two things went wrong. One: the only reason he came was to mess with your head while he was here. And two: I didn’t tell the cops about him because I thought it sounded crazy. She nearly went crazy waiting for me to say something.”

  Kathi chuckled. “You messed with her worse than Marco messed with me.”

  “And!” Meatloaf. “Visalia made two mistakes.”

  “Killing her husband and killing him with a firework?”

  “No.”

  “Let me guess. The raccoon and … what else?”

  “Okay, three. Guessing about the raccoon, naming an airline she shouldn’t have been thinking about. Wait, four! She shouldn’t have agreed to go to the morgue. Hang on! It’s five. She looked forward, out loud, to living on the same i
sland as the guy who was supposed to have murdered her husband. She shouldn’t be going to Sicily at all, should she?”

  Kathi let out a massive breath. I had finally convinced her. “Nope,” she said. “No indeedy. So what do we do?”

  I clapped my hands. “I go and tell Molly!” I said.

  “And Marco Poggio walks?” said Kathi. “Or he goes down for a newsworthy series of nasty tricks that’ll close the Last Ditch down. And Barb doesn’t get the house.”

  “But Visalia can’t get away with a murder!” I said. “I saw his face, Kathi. I saw the look on his face and I saw the marks on his wrists and ankles.”

  Kathi nodded and pushed her plate of fish tacos away. I looked down at the thick gravy congealing on my meatloaf and pushed it away too.

  We were quiet on the way back, sitting in silence in the epic San Francisco rush hour, chugging along at twenty, watching the heat shimmer off the roofs of the snake of cars ahead.

  It was dusk when we got to the Last Ditch and a groan escaped Kathi’s lips when we turned in and saw the cop car parked outside the office.

  “Molly!” I said, when we got inside. “Or do you prefer Detective Rankinson?”

  “Sticks and stones,” Molly said. “I came to talk to Mrs. and Mrs. Muntz, Ms. Campbell. In confidence.”

  “She’s family,” said Noleen.

  Molly turned to me. “The postmortem came back.”

  “Postmortem?” I said

  “Clovis Bombaro died of a heart attack,” Molly said. “He fell on his left side and cracked a rib. The restraints were applied immediately after death and the firework too.”

  “He was already dead?” I said. “Why the hell did they go through with it then?”

  “They?” Molly said. “They who?”

  Kathi had gone very still.

  “The Poggio guy,” I said. “Oh right. You don’t say ‘they’ like that here, do you? Strunk and White, right? Yeah, I feel like a right old Charlie when I make an arse of trying to say something that should be a skoosh.” Kathi pressed her hand down, telling me to cool it.

  “As to why he went ahead,” said Mike. Molly! “That’s for him to know. He still denies the whole thing. He won’t admit to any of it. Not even the plagues of Egypt.”

  “So … you want Kathi and Noleen to testify?” I said. That would sink the Last Ditch.

  “No,” said Molly. “We’ve got him on desecration of a corpse, B&E, breaking the terms of his tourist visa, and resisting arrest. I’d love to get him for the ten thousand felonies it took to give you guys those boils, but with such a shortage of credible witnesses … ”

  “What?” I said. “What shortage of credible witnesses?”

  “His wife, his wife’s wife, two former gangbangers, and you?” said Molly. “No jury in the land … as they say.”

  “What did I do?” I said.

  “I’m not saying I agree,” said Molly.

  “You’re not exactly breaking the system from the inside either though, are you? Mike,” I said.

  “That mouth of yours,” she said and was gone.

  We were standing like three pillars of salt when Todd came in.

  “Have you forgiven me?” he said. “Because I want you to come and help me get Diego’s fishes.”

  “I’ve forgiven you,” I told him. “Mostly because I want to tell you something and it’ll kill me if I don’t.”

  I regaled him on the way to the pet shop and I discovered that Teodor “Todd” Mendez-Kroger was hands down the most rewarding tellee of juicy scandal I have ever met in my life. He shrieked, he gasped, he gagged, and then he went kind of crazy. I did too.

  Long story short, we bought Diego three clownfish, three angelfish, and a seahorse. And a bunny. And two white kittens.

  “I’ll square it with Noleen,” Todd said, on the way back.

  “You’ll have to,” I said. “I’m leaving.” My heart sank to my feet, then down through the floor of the Jeep to lie on the road behind us where it got flattened by a Peterbilt.

  “You could stay,” Todd said.

  “I can’t afford to stay,” I told him. “I know you’re coping with life in a motel room, but it’s driving me a bit nuts already. And I need an office to see clients in, if I’m going to afford the rent on a flat. Even a tiny one. And I can’t afford the rent on the office. I can’t even afford the Last Ditch. I’m still using Branston’s credit card and he’ll cancel it sometime.”

  “Right,” said Todd. “Well, you can visit.”

  “Yeah,” I said. We took a corner and the kittens woke up and started crying. Making three of us in all.

  Even the quality of deliverymen had dropped to match my mood. That pool guy from the other day was going to feature in my quiet moments for some time to come, but the man who was standing in the darkening forecourt with a clipboard and a logo on his cap was your garden variety …

  “Is redneck a rude word?” I asked Todd.

  “What do you think?”

  “I honestly don’t know,” I said. “I haven’t been here long enough to learn your ways.”

  “So stay,” said Todd, which wasn’t helpful.

  The man with the named shade of neck pushed his cap back and shouted over. “Are you”—he looked down at his clipboard—“Lee…?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Sign,” he said. He handed over the slab of board and I caught the pen swinging at the end of a length of grubby string.

  “What am I signing for?” I said.

  “Present from a Mrs. V. Bombaro,” he said. “Either she’s a nice lady or you’re a good friend.”

  “What did she give me?” I said.

  “Title deeds and keys are in the office there,” the guy said. He licked a finger and ripped off a pink copy from under the white top sheet I’d signed. “And I am out. Got a cold beer waiting for me somewhere. There must be a bar in this town.”

  “Title deeds to what?” I said. Todd was aquiver. He took the pink slip from me and studied it.

  “Property, name of Creek House,” said the delivery man. “And that information was me being a good guy. My job ended when you took the customer copy of my delivery note.”

  “A house?” I said. “She’s given me a house?”

  “Heh heh heh,” he said, a little puzzlingly.

  “Where is it?” I said. “Are there directions with the title deeds?”

  “It’s here,” he said. “It’s just out back.” Shaking his head and laughing, he waddled off. I looked after him for a while and then I heard the ding of the office bell as Noleen and Kathi came out, turning the sign to closed.

  “We can’t miss this,” Noleen said. “Here’s the paperwork.” She held out a fat envelope, but Todd took it before I had a chance to.

  “I’ll just crack a window in the Jeep,” he said. “Wait up.”

  “Crack a window?” Noleen said. “For a fish?”

  I was already following Kathi as she made her way, her phone turned to flashlight mode, round the side of the motel. There was a narrow access strip of concrete, but the branches of the scrubby bushes plucked at us.

  “Careful of those shrubs,” Noleen called ahead to Kathi. “Oleander. You thought the boils were bad.”

  As we turned the back corner, we heard the slough gurgling and chuckling. Kathi held her phone high as we gathered at a gap in the trees.

  “Creek House,” Noleen said as Kathi played the beam of light around.

  I stared. It wasn’t a villa, or a flat, or an ex-council semi. Or a cottage or, God knows, a motel room. It wasn’t a ranch, or a McMansion, or a condo, or a duplex.

  “It’s a boat,” I said. I took Kathi’s phone, picked my way through the undergrowth, and hopped onto the bottom of six shallow steps. They led up to a deep porch, stretching right along the short end that faced th
e bank of the slough. It rocked. Like a cradle. I peered in at the open door and stepped inside. The living room had a dark wood floor and wood-panel walls. It had two bowed windows facing the porch and a woodstove in one corner. In a daze, I walked on and entered the corridor. On one side was a little bedroom with a built-in cabin bed. And on the other side, another one, for guests. Beyond them was a kitchen, tiny. Just a stove and a fridge and a sink and about a foot square of worktop, as well as a midget table. Behind the kitchen was a bathroom. Kind of. I’d have to dry the toilet after I showered, but I’d never have to dust the cistern. And finally at the back corner there was a … Well, probably a dining room, but I could already see the comfortable chairs and the soft lighting and the troubled souls who would feel better as soon as they stepped aboard. There was even a back door for them to come in and out of. I stepped through it onto the deck.

  As I did so, I heard a click and felt something give under my foot. I looked down and saw a pad with a wire leading from it. Before I had time to wonder what it was, the first of the rockets went off.

  Seven of them fired high into the air and then fell, fizzing, into the slough. A rig of sparklers spelling L-E-X-Y crackled into life on the back banisters and three silver chrysanthemums burst open just over my head.

  I stood with my back pressed against the wall of the boat, breathing high and fast, trying to stop my legs from buckling. When the sparklers were no more than smoking husks and I was sure there was nothing more to come, I peeled myself free and tottered along the side to where my friends were squawking my name.

  Roger had arrived and joined the others.

  “What the hell was that?” he said.

  “There’s quite a mysterious note here, Lexy,” said Todd. He had opened the envelope. Of course he had. “Creek House is a thank you for all your help,” he read. “My little display is in payment for all your other contributions.”

  It wasn’t mysterious to me. Those bloody fireworks were payback for failing to tell the cops about the Poggios like I was meant to.