I felt even sicker. “What do you think?”
“What do I think?” He sighed. “I don’t know what the hell to think, China. Myers could have done it. Sally could have done it. They could have done it together.” He paused. Behind me, the Quilters Rule door opened, and the two women customers came out, clutching shopping bags and chattering happily. Molly had obviously made a sale.
“I guess,” McQuaid said finally, “I’m leaning toward together. I somehow can’t bring myself to buy the notion that Sally pulled the trigger on her parents, but I’m willing to entertain the possibility that she might have hired Myers—or seduced him into doing it. Jamison said she was sleeping with him before her parents were killed. I also think she might have spotted Joyce Dillard walking along the road and run her down—impulsively, maybe, without prior intent. Having done that once, she might have done it again—in Lake City. Or she might have gotten Myers to do it. Or she and Myers might have done it together.”
“Wait a minute,” I objected. “Wasn’t Sally the one who insisted on your going to Sanders? Why would she do that if she knew that Dillard was dead?”
“Maybe she was trying to cover her tracks. Play innocent.”
I tried again. “I can’t believe that Sally could have sat at our table with the kids and acted like nothing was wrong if she’d just killed her sister—not to mention this woman in Sanders and her parents? Do you?”
“Do I? I don’t know.” He sounded tired. “Yeah, I guess maybe I do. Sally isn’t always Sally, you know. Sometimes she’s this other person, Juanita. When she’s Juanita, all bets are off. And maybe there’s a third character, somebody like Bonnie, of Bonnie and Clyde. I’m sorry, but that’s a fact, and we have to face it.”
I ran quickly through the rebuttal arguments and didn’t find one that seemed persuasive, even to me. McQuaid was right, of course. Sally’s dissociative disorder made anything possible, even the murder of her sister and her parents. But we were looking for an answer to a question that neither of us wanted to put into words.
“You’re staying in Sanders tonight?” I asked.
“Yeah. There’s a motel down the road. The Sycamore Court. The KC airport isn’t that far away. With luck, I’ll be able to rebook my flight from there. Should be home by midday. You’re going back to Pecan Springs tonight?”
“As soon as I can connect with Ruby. That is, unless she’s dug up another lead we ought to follow. We have to get something to eat, too.” As I said that, I realized that I was hungry.
He grunted. “I don’t suppose there’s been any word from Sheila or the Pecan Springs cops. They haven’t picked Sally up?”
“They hadn’t when Ruby checked, an hour or so ago.” I shivered. “You have no idea where Sally might have gone?”
“Are you kidding? I don’t pretend to know what goes through that woman’s mind. She could be in El Paso by now. Or Juarez.” He sounded disgusted. “Call me when you get back to Pecan Springs. I don’t want you to go home, remember. If this Myers is a threat, he might show up there.”
“I am going to Ruby’s,” I gritted.
“Good girl.” He paused, and his voice dropped. “Be careful, China. Joyce Dillard is dead. Leslie is dead. Sally is missing. This isn’t a game.”
Damn. I understood his intention, but “good girl” irritates me. I bit back a terse response and said only, “Yes, I know. I’ll be careful. I promise.”
“Good,” he said. “Love you.” He clicked off.
Chapter Thirteen
McQuaid: The Sycamore Court Motel
The Sycamore Court may have changed hands, but it still looked as seedy as it always had: a long, low, L-shaped brick-veneer building, with the office at the long end of the L. The roadside sign was still lit, with a red-neon Vacancy declaration beneath it. Optimistically, someone had used an ATV with a blade to scrape the snow from the parking lot, but if it was an effort to attract business, it hadn’t been very successful, for there was only one car, parked beside the office. The desk clerk, maybe. Or the owner. When the Clarks owned the place, they had lived in the two units next to the office. On call twenty-four/seven, and never took a vacation. McQuaid shuddered. He couldn’t think of a more restricted life.
The office was too warm. When he opened the door, the heat hit him like a blast from a tropical wind, heavily scented with perfumed air freshener. A woman was sitting behind the desk, reading a book. She was dark-haired, painfully thin, with a lined face, bright red lips, and sad, dark eyes rimmed in black pencil. Her heavy red sweater sported a green plastic holly leaf and a little gold bell pinned to it, over her name badge. Darnella, it read. A sweater? McQuaid thought in disbelief. The place was stifling.
Darnella put down her book, a paperback romance with a cover featuring a muscular man, half-naked, with long blond hair, entwined with a top-heavy raven-haired beauty wearing the barest minimum.
“Help ya?” she asked, in a tone that suggested that she would really rather go back to her book.
“Single, one night,” McQuaid said and took his drivers’ license and credit card out of his wallet.
“Smokin’?”
His cell phone rang. He shook his head at Darnella, flipped his phone open, and saw that it was Sally. “Where the hell are you?” he snapped into the phone, angrily disguising the thankfulness he felt. “People are looking for you.”
“What did Joyce tell you?” Her voice was thin, anxious.
“Pets?” Darnella asked.
He shook his head again. “Sally, I need to know where you are. Tell me.”
“I don’t have much time. What did you find out from Joyce?”
“Turns out you got a dog or a cat in your car, we’ll know, and you’ll get a bill.” Darnella slid a card across the counter. “Name, Address. Make, model, license. Sign at the X.”
“Hold on a sec,” he said to Darnella, and turned away, walking to a corner of the office, facing the wall. “I couldn’t talk to Joyce, Sally.”
He couldn’t read anything into her pause. “Why not?” she asked.
“Because she’s dead.”
“No!” A small cry, a sudden intake of breath. “How? When?”
“How do you think?” he countered.
“How should I know?” she replied plaintively. “I’m not there, am I? How did she die, Mike? For God’s sake, tell me!”
There was something in her voice that made McQuaid want to give her the benefit of the doubt, but he couldn’t. Not yet. He’d already given her too much, maybe. And there was Juanita, always Juanita. “I don’t know, Sally. She’s . . . dead, that’s all.”
“You’re lying,” she said harshly. “She can’t be dead. It’s not possible. She can’t . . .” She took several deep, hard breaths, as if she was trying to steady herself. “Tell me what you know, Mike.” Her voice rose. “Tell me.”
And then he didn’t have a choice. He’d been a cop for too long. He’d spent way too much time interrogating people. He could taste a lie, and Sally wasn’t lying, at least about this. She didn’t know that Dillard was dead—although (he reminded himself) Juanita might know, or Sally might be involved with the situation in some other way. But still—
“She was found dead in a ditch by the side of the road,” he said without inflection. “No word on whether it was hit-and-run or something else.” He listened for a reaction, anything that would suggest that Sally was making a connection to Leslie’s death. There was only silence. He went on. “Jamison is handling the investigation. Remember Jamison?”
“I don’t . . .” She gulped. “The police chief?”
“Used to be. He got demoted when he couldn’t clear your parents’ murders.” He toughened his voice, used what China called his cop voice. “Where the hell are you, Sally?” He didn’t want to tell her that Leslie was dead and that the police were looking for her. He didn’t think she knew, but part of him was still a cop, on the cops’ side. He was playing fair. He settled for something else. “You know that Jess Myers
is looking for you, don’t you? Have you hooked up with him?”
She didn’t answer. “Sally?” he said. “Sally? Damn it, Sally—” But it wasn’t any use. She was gone. Maybe she was in a moving vehicle and had driven out of signal range. Or maybe she was with Myers and—He didn’t want to complete the thought.
“Look, mister,” Darnella said in a complaining voice, “if you’re gonna check in, I wish you’d hurry up and do it. I’ve just got to the good part in this book. I wanna get back to it.”
McQuaid pocketed his phone, finished the check-in, and was given the key to his room, with the disconcerting instruction to turn up the electric heater to high to warm up the room, but be sure to turn it down before he went to bed, or else it might cause a fire. “Old wiring,” Darnella said and picked up her book again. “Shorts out sometimes.”
“What time’s breakfast?” McQuaid asked.
“Breakfast?” Darnella laughed sarcastically. “That’d be down the road toward town, place on your left. Open about seven, dependin’ on whether ol’ man Perkins gets his truck started. This morning, he didn’t open up ’til after nine. Last week, it was noon.”
The room was cold as the inside of a meat locker, and McQuaid could see his breath. He turned the heater up to high and flicked on the television. There were three network channels and that was it. No CNN, no Weather Channel, no NatGeo, and the reception wasn’t all that great. He turned off the set and, still wearing his coat, sat down on the bed and looked around. The standard 1950s cheap motel room: a too-firm, unwelcoming bed; dresser, mirror, chair; dinky bathroom. Green-painted walls, water-stained tile ceiling, dark green carpet, not recently cleaned.
He opened his carry-on bag, got out his plane ticket, and spent the next twenty minutes on the phone, rebooking his flight out of Kansas City and arranging for the return of the rental car there, rather than Omaha. He called Charlie Lipman’s office answering machine to let him know that he was coming home early because of a family emergency, then called Peter Kennard to tell him that they’d have to wrap up the interview another time.
The room was finally beginning to warm up, and he took off his coat, glancing at his watch. Eight forty-five. One more call. He punched in Sheila’s number. She picked up after five rings, sounding tired.
“McQuaid,” he said. “Sorry if I’ve caught you at a bad time.”
“You’ve caught me in the bathtub,” Sheila said. “We haven’t found her yet, if that’s what you’re asking. Sally, I mean.”
“I know,” he said. “I just talked to her. She wouldn’t tell me where she was or whether she’s with Myers.”
He heard the sound of water sloshing and pictured Sheila sitting up straight in the tub. He smiled a little. Beautiful woman. Naked woman. Blackie was a lucky guy.
“Is she in Pecan Springs?” she demanded.
“No idea,” he said. “She wouldn’t tell me where she was, and the call was broken off. I don’t know whether she was on the road and moved out of range, or—” He let that drop. He didn’t want to think of the alternatives. “You might try putting a trace on her cell.”
This would be easier in a few years, when cell phone carriers were finally required to have the capability of tracing the location of cell phone calls. But for now, it required expensive hardware and software and trained personnel. He wasn’t surprised when Sheila said, “That’s Lake City’s responsibility, not mine. If they want her bad enough, they’ll do it.”
“Right.” He paused. “Have the police up there told you how Leslie died?”
“Haven’t checked in with them,” Sheila said. Her voice was wry. “We’ve had a little situation here this afternoon. Domestic violence. Two dead, the shooter and his wife. Murder, suicide. Shooter had enough of an arsenal to take out the Dallas starting line and start on the coaching staff.”
McQuaid sighed regretfully. Pecan Springs was still a small town. But that didn’t mean that they were immune from big-city violence. They didn’t have the drive-by or gang stuff, but there were guns. Too many of them.
“Understand,” he said. “Well, maybe I can fill you in. It seems that my wife has taken it on herself—aided and abetted by Ruby Wilcox—to drive up to Lake City to find out what happened with Leslie Strahorn.”
“Really?” Sheila laughed without amusement. “If I’d known they were going, I would’ve called the Lake City police and told them to duck.”
McQuaid chuckled. “Here’s what they’ve come up with—so far, anyway.” He relayed what China had told him about Leslie’s death.
Sheila made the connection without being prompted. “Uh-oh,” she said softly. “Two vehicular homicides, huh?”
“Both women were found dead beside the road,” McQuaid corrected her. “There’s been no ruling on a cause of death for either. I learned about Leslie after I left Jamison, the investigating officer here in Sanders. He’s probably on the phone to Lake City right now, getting the news.”
“What’s his take on the case?”
“He’s leaning toward Bonnie and Clyde,” McQuaid replied ruefully. “But talking to Sally, I’m of the opinion that she knew nothing about Dillard’s death. She seemed shocked, disbelieving.”
“An emotion easily portrayed,” Sheila reminded him. “And from what China tells me, your ex has a split personality thing. She is your ex, remember? You might hate to admit it, Mike, but you aren’t exactly unbiased.”
He sighed. “Yeah, there’s that, too, damn it.”
He put the phone down with deep misgivings.
Chapter Fourteen
In Norse mythology, the sun god Baldur had become invulnerable because of the magical spells of his powerful mother, the goddess Frigga. But the mischievous prankster Loki discovered that Frigga had neglected to protect her son from the mistletoe. He crafted a dart from the wood and gave it to the blind god Heder to use in a game. Heder threw the dart and Baldur was killed, sending the world into winter-dark. After the other gods restored Baldur to life, Frigga pronounced the mistletoe sacred, ordering that from thenceforth, it would bring peace and love into the world, not strife and death, and that all enemies should come together once a year to exchange a kiss of peace.
Thus began the tradition of kissing under the mistletoe.
Norse myth
I finished talking to McQuaid and tucked my cell phone in my purse. It was time to find Ruby and hear what she had been able to learn, if anything. Then, as if I had conjured her up, I saw her coming toward me on the sidewalk, a six-foot-plus Big Bird, carrying her tote bag.
“Don’t you think you can take off that hat now?” I asked mildly. “You’ve probably already established your cover.”
She yanked off her yellow bird-billed hat and tucked it under her arm. “You’ll never guess what I’ve learned,” she whispered, in an excited I’ve-got-a-secret voice.
“That Leslie’s body was found out on Wildwood Road?”
“Oh, you heard it, too?” She made a disappointed face. “It happened two mornings ago. She was jogging, apparently, before school. The book-keeper for Jansen Plumbing found her. She hadn’t been dead very long. Hit-and-run.”
“Well, maybe. I don’t know if that’s official yet.” I looked around. “Listen, Ruby, I’m starving. Let’s find a place where we can eat.”
She nodded across the street, toward a sandwich shop with its window encircled in colored Christmas lights that blinked on and off. “There’s Sandy’s Wiches. Shannon and I ate there a couple of times. They have really good soups.” She hefted her tote. “Or we could sit in Big Red Mama and eat Cass’ sandwiches. I’ll bet they’re better than Sandy’s.”
A young woman walked past us with a miniature white poodle wearing a red and green crocheted sweater and a ruff of holly leaves. Ruby turned, looking at it. “Isn’t that a cute sweater? Maybe I should get myself a poodle for Christmas. Oh, and I have something to tell you,” she added. “About Sally and Leslie. I’m still waiting to get more of the details, but while we’re eating,
I can fill you in on what I already know.”
At that moment, something occurred to me that I might not have considered under other circumstances. At heart, I am a law-abiding person who resists getting seriously crosswise of the authorities, except in exceptional circumstances. This qualified as an exceptional circumstance. We were here to dig up all the facts we could find for Justine. There was one more place we ought to check out—if it was accessible. And from what I knew, it just might be.
“I have another idea, Ruby,” I said quickly, before my better angel could order me to get into Big Red Mama and head for Pecan Springs. “Come on. Let’s check it out.” I started off, and Ruby fell into step beside me. “What is it that you have to tell me about Sally and Leslie?”
“Well, as I said, I’m still waiting for the details. I went into this really cute toy shop—you should see it, China! Lots of great educational toys.” She plunged into her tote bag and pulled out a shaggy blue doll. “I bought this cuddly Cookie Monster for Baby Grace. Which gave me a chance to start talking to the owner.”
“A Cookie Monster.” I grinned. “Sounds like Big Bird found the right place.”
“Oh, you bet.” Ruby skipped and flapped her wings. “Erin Staples—she owns the shop—and I hit it off right away. When I told her we were trying to find out what happened to Leslie, she started telling me all kinds of stuff.”
I wasn’t surprised. The Big Bird costume was no doubt an appropriate entrée into a toy store, but I was sure it went beyond that. Ruby has a way of getting strangers to tell her things they’d never reveal to their closest friends. I don’t know how she does it—empathy, I guess. Ruby is one of the most empathetic people I know.
“Anyway,” Ruby went on, “when I asked about Sally, I really got an earful. Erin and Leslie have been friends for a long time, so she knows all the down-and-dirty. Apparently, Sally and Leslie have been having some really serious arguments. When Leslie found out that Sally was coming to stay for a while, she told Erin that she dreaded the thought of it.” She sighed and shook her head. “That is totally too bad, isn’t it?”
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