Hearse of a Different Color (Hitchcock Sewell Mysteries)

by Tim Cockey

  “Joe Donofrio. He used to … run one of the tugs. Years ago. Retired. He died. The other day. Shoveling snow.” (Might as well toss one bit of half-truth into this sham.) “We had him cremated. His wish was that his ashes be spread in the harbor. That’s where I was.”

  Bonnie’s eyes narrowed. “You never mentioned anything about this.”

  “With everything that’s been happening, it just slipped my mind. Besides, it’s shoptalk. You don’t want to hear about every corpse that walks through the door.”

  Bonnie softened. “I don’t know, Hitch. The cremation of a tugboat captain and a burial at sea? That’s sort of interesting. I mean, I could see a human interest story in that. If it has the right elements. Did he leave behind a widow? Maybe I could interview her.”

  “No widow,” I said quickly. Too quickly. “No family at all. In fact, Joe was pretty much an old crank. He didn’t have many friends. It was a pretty bleak event all around.” The beast was pawing at my throat. It wanted to elaborate. It always wants to elaborate. That’s why the beast is not your friend. I bit down on my tongue.

  “I should have called you,” I said. “I’m sorry. I got caught up.”

  Bonnie smirked. “I forgive you. Which means I own you.” She slipped her arm through mine. “What’s that noise?”

  “My stomach.” The beast lumbering back to its lair.

  “Let’s go eat.”

  “Honeybunch, whatever you say.”

  Bonnie and I parked it at Frazier’s, a low-ceiling dive of exquisite repute in Hampden. We ordered the spaghetti special. Their garlic bread is a killer. I put away an entire loaf. Penance. And insurance against the temptation to run off and kiss the wrong girl again.

  It is a known fact that the wronged woman becomes all the more beautiful, especially to the eye of the bastard who has foisted that status upon her. But not exclusively to him. Guilt can gild, so to speak, and certainly it was doing so at Frazier’s. Bonnie glowed. Most everyone in the small restaurant recognized Bonnie Nash from TV. She even signed a few autographs while we waited for our spaghetti. Sometimes her celebrity bothers her, but tonight she positively shimmered at the fawning. I had ordered a half carafe of Frazier’s lousy red wine—Bonnie was abstaining due to her need for clarity at the weather map in a few hours—and, when it seemed to empty too swiftly, I ordered the second half. As our waitress was making the switch, I noted, “Half empty, half full.”

  About midway through our spaghetti I told Bonnie my idea. I didn’t bother to tell her that it had germinated from the cloud of oily smoke coming out of Pops’ backhoe. “So here’s the question,” I said.

  “Where is her car?”

  “Whose car?”

  “Helen Waggoner’s. Where’s her car?”

  “I don’t know. What are you saying?”

  “She had to get back and forth from home to work. Right? There’s no convenient bus that I know of that runs to the airport from Woodlawn. Plus she had a child to tote around and another one on the way. The woman had to be able to get around. Where is her car?”

  Bonnie shrugged. “Who says she didn’t have a car?”

  “I didn’t see one.”

  “Didn’t see one where?”

  I looked across the table at my lovely friend. No beast. I crawled out onto the limb all alone.

  “Vickie Waggoner and I met at Helen’s place this afternoon. We were looking for something that might tell us what obstetrician Helen was seeing.”

  Bonnie’s voice carried no inflection. “You didn’t mention this.”

  “No. I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry?”

  “I just … There’s so much going on.”

  “I see. Did you and Miss Vickie find what you were looking for?”

  “It was a bust. But it occurred to me later, this thing about the car.”

  “Hitch, how important is it whether or not Helen Waggoner owned a car?”

  “I don’t know. It might not be important at all. But a car is a large thing to go missing.”

  “If it has.”

  “If it has.”

  Bonnie was looking just a tiny bit less like an angel by the time we finished our dinner and paid up and left. She was not sounding like one either. We were on the sidewalk out in front of the restaurant.

  “I’m so fucking sick of my goddamn job. Hitch, we’ve got to figure out this murder. I have to bring in a scoop to the station, I just have to. I can’t grow old spitting out the goddamn barometric pressure. And the fact is, I won’t. The shelf life for a female television personality is pretty goddamn short.”

  “We’ll come up with the killer.” I sounded about as confident as I had when I’d said the same thing to Vickie earlier in the day. Which wasn’t saying much. Bonnie must have been reading my mind.

  “Who will? You and me? Or you and the sister?”

  Before I even had time to form the thought, I blurted, “You told Jay Adams about Gail.”

  “What?”

  “Going out to Sinbad’s.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “The Jaybird himself. I went to see him this afternoon.”

  “Well, so what if I did? Jay is a colleague. We share information.”

  Then she blushed. She blushed! Bonnie held her gaze on me, but I could tell that she wanted to turn away. Well son of a bitch.

  “Are you sleeping with Jay Adams?” I asked.

  Her answer was immediate. “I don’t have to answer that. Are you sleeping with Vickie Waggoner?”

  “I don’t have to answer that.”

  Now neither of us dared turn away. But it was too damn cold—and ridiculous—to stand there on the sidewalk in front of Frazier’s and have a staring contest. It was Bonnie who blinked first.

  “I’ll withdraw the question,” she said.

  “Good.”

  “Aren’t you going to withdraw yours?”

  “If you’d like.”

  “I’d like.”

  Cautiously, we holstered our weapons. But we were still circling.

  “Maybe I’ll come see you after I get off work,” Bonnie said. She was using a testing-the-waters tone.

  “Uh-huh. Maybe I’ll be there.”

  “Maybe you’d better.”

  “Is that a warning?”

  “Maybe it is.”

  CHAPTER 21

  The following morning, while Bonnie was taking a shower, I phoned Vickie Waggoner. Alcatraz sat on the floor in front of me giving me his disappointed look. Vickie wasn’t in. I left the vaguest of messages—“I’ll call you later”—and hung up. When Bonnie stepped into the room some minutes later, rubbing her hair with a towel, Alcatraz let out a pair of bubbly barks. It’s a good thing Bonnie doesn’t speak dog. My hound was telling on me. Anything to ingratiate.

  I am the King of Breakfast. My general philosophy is to front-load your day with as much of the good stuff as you can manage so that if and when the day slips away from you later, at least you have something worthy to look back on. I bombarded Bonnie with a colossal fruit smoothy, orgasmically perfect coffee, Belgian waffles—which I understand are no more Belgian than French fries are French or English muffins are English—and Jones’s little link sausages, plump and bursting. My array of jams included boysenberry, huckleberry and plum; my syrup was 101 percent pure maple from the Green Mountain State; and my plates were authentic Ming Dynasty wannabes from the Wal-Mart in Glen Burnie. Bonnie’s eyes went wide as she stepped into the kitchen.

  “Hitch. I’m not really hungry.”

  And that’s why we have dogs. Bonnie took a cup of coffee and the corner of a Belgian waffle. Alcatraz pigged.

  I put the pans and dishes and cups and the rest in the sink, filled it with hot water and left it. God forbid a bus runs you over and you wasted your final morning washing dishes you’d never again use.

  Our pillow talk had included a plan of action for the day. After I showered and dressed I phoned the number on a cocktail napkin that I had left on my desk
several days before. Bonnie was watching me closely as I arranged a rendezvous with the person on the other end of the line.

  “You’re a pretty smooth operator,” she said after I hung up.

  “You knew that already.”

  “It’s different when you get to see it in action on somebody else.”

  I fetched my car keys. Bonnie was sliding into her coat. “I notice you didn’t mention that you weren’t coming alone.”

  “Sometimes it’s better to catch people off guard.”

  “I guess we’ll see.”

  We caught Tracy Atkins off guard. Luckily I hadn’t been so “smooth” that the woman was waiting for me in a lace teddy. Still, her disappointment at seeing that I was accompanied by some blond chick registered immediately as she pulled open the door. It lasted only a second—the disappointment—and was quickly replaced with hostility.

  “Who’s she?”

  “You don’t recognize Bonnie Nash? From TV?”

  “No.” It was probably a lie.

  “Can we come in?” I asked, smiling my biggest we’re-all-happy-here-aren’t-we smile.

  “Why not.”

  Tracy lived in a dump. I felt immediately as if I were in a wing of the Gary and Gloria house. The wall-to-wall carpet was snot green and severely tufted. The walls were beige—or simply dirty—and unadorned. The furniture looked vaguely bacterial. Tracy had straightened up in anticipation of my arrival, if shoving loose junk into the corner can be called straightening up. She was wearing lime green shorts, a blue tank top and a fresh patina of makeup. I hadn’t noticed in the crab house how full and loose her breasts were. I noticed now. Tracy had teased her fiery red hair into a feathery cascade. Her nails were freshly painted. As I perched lightly on the edge of the couch, I caught a glimpse of a flickering candle out of the corner of my eye. Through an open door. Next to a bed. I seriously doubted I’d have gotten out alive had I arrived solo. Bonnie alighted next to me. I hoped Miss Atkins didn’t keep a shotgun handy. We were sitting ducks.

  “We want to ask you a few questions about Helen,” I said.

  “You did that already.” Tracy crossed her arms over her bouncy breasts and dropped into an armchair. A puff of silvery dust leaped from the cushions.

  “I know. I’m just trying to get the clearest picture.”

  “How clear do you want? Someone killed Helen. You don’t know who. I don’t know who.”

  “Well, now, you see, that’s not a very clear picture.” I pulled the torn photograph of Terry Haden and his lawyers from my pocket and leaned across the coffee table to hand her the half showing Haden. “That’s Terry Haden.”

  She glanced at the photograph. “Okay. So?”

  “You do recognize him, right? That’s Helen’s ex-husband.”

  She looked at the photograph again. Or pretended to.

  “If you say it is.”

  “Just how close to Helen were you?” Bonnie asked. I would have preferred that she let me do the talking. The redhead stiffened.

  “Better than you, I guess.”

  “This guy in the picture, Tracy, did you ever see him at Sinbad’s?” I asked. “Did you ever see him and Helen together?”

  “No.”

  I pointed at the front door. “So, if he were to come walking through that door right now, would he recognize you?”

  If she were lying I’d know it. As far as she knew I had Terry Haden cooling his heels right outside. She answered immediately.

  “Nope.”

  I believed her. I stole a glance at Bonnie. She did too. Good … we had a liar telling the truth. Progress. I asked my next question. My real one. “Did you steal Helen’s car?”

  Tracy answered slowly, “What do you mean?”

  Bonnie attempted to clear it up for her. “He means did you steal Helen Waggoner’s car after she was killed?”

  “You can just shut up, lady!” Tracy snapped. “I don’t have to listen to any of your crap.”

  I leaned forward, partly blocking her view of Bonnie. I lowered my voice. “Then you listen to mine, lover girl. Withholding information from the police is a crime. And you’ve done it. Withholding it from me is just general state-of-the-art lying.”

  “Who says I’m lying?”

  “Where’d you get that nifty, vintage MG of yours?”

  “What about it?”

  “I asked, where did you get it?”

  “I bought it. What’d you think?”

  “How much did you pay for it?” asked Bonnie.

  Tracy turned a sneer on her. “How much did you pay for those earrings?” Bonnie instinctively raised a hand to one of her ears. “It’s none of my business, is it?” Tracy continued. “Same thing with my car. How much I paid for it is none of your damn business.”

  “How about if you paid nothing for it, Tracy?” I suggested.

  “What does that mean?”

  “How about if someone bought that car for Helen, paid to have some of that recent bodywork done? How about if, after Helen was killed, a certain redheaded waitress … a ‘good friend’ of Helen’s just happened to know where she kept her keys?”

  “I didn’t steal that car. That’s my goddamn car!”

  “Paid for with all that good tip money you make at Sinbad’s?” Bonnie piped up. “Or should I say, next door to Sinbad’s?”

  I caught Tracy Atkins before she got her claws into Bonnie. She came right across the coffee table. I had her by the arms and I kept a firm grip on her as I guided her back to the armchair. Her nostrils were flaring.

  “You’re a goddamn son of a bitch aren’t you?” she murmured. I released her arms and she fell back into the chair. She crossed her arms over her chest and glared up at me.

  “I’m not looking to get you in trouble,” I said simply. “I could care less if you took Helen’s car. It won’t do her any good now.”

  “Then what’s this all about?”

  “We’re trying to find out who killed Helen. I need to find out just who it was that was showering her with stuff like clothes and a car. You can keep the damn car for all I care. But I want to know who actually paid for it. Who gave that car to Helen?”

  “I don’t know, and I don’t care.”

  I turned to Bonnie. “Truth?”

  She was nodding her head. “I think so.”

  Tracy sneered across the coffee table. “Well, thank you.”

  I turned back to her. “Where were you the night Helen was murdered?”

  “With someone.”

  “Does that someone have a name?”

  She glared at me. “You’re a total prick, aren’t you?”

  “It’s just a question.”

  “I was with Gary.”

  “That’s your alibi?”

  “I don’t need an alibi! I didn’t do anything.”

  “Except steal the car of a dead woman.” She said nothing. She just glared. “Where are the keys to the car, Tracy?”

  “You’re not taking my car!”

  “I didn’t say I was. And it’s not your car. Now where are the keys?”

  She whined a bit more but eventually came up with the keys. I tossed them to Bonnie who scurried out the front door.

  “Is that your girlfriend?” Tracy asked, making certain that I caught her disapproving tone.

  “Look, I’m sorry I had to play the heavy with you. I want to find out who killed Helen. So level with me, do you know anything about this guy she was seeing? Anything at all.”

  “I don’t have to tell you a goddamn thing.”

  “Tracy, I’m holding a stolen MG over your head. If you want, I can get heavy all over again. I can give a friend of mine down at the police station a call. Now, do you know something about this guy or not? I promise I’ll just keep harassing you if I think you’re holding out. I’m good at being a pain in the ass, believe me.”

  “I got that part.”

  “Good. So, is there anything you’re forgetting to tell me that might help?”

  “Wel
l. Maybe just one thing.”

  “And that would be?”

  Just then Bonnie came back in. In one hand she had the keys to the MG, which she tossed to me. In the other she was holding the FOR SALE sign that I had noticed the other day on the floor behind the driver’s seat.

  “It’s got a phone number on it,” Bonnie announced triumphantly. I turned back to Tracy, who was smiling her bad-teeth smile.

  “Same thing,” she said. “That phone number. That’s what I know. That’s where Helen got the car.”

  Then she stuck her tongue out at me.

  “Sure man, I remember her. She was a real piece of ass.” The guy was looking over at Bonnie, whose upper half was invisible, as it was poked into the driver’s side window of a bottle-green Valiant. “That’s the girl from TV, isn’t it?”

  “That’s her.”

  The wolf was giving a lamb-chop look. “Cool.”

  The phone number from the FOR SALE sign on Tracy’s—Helen’s—MG had led us to this garage near the intersection of Joppa and Belair Roads. The guy’s name was Johnny. He had told me on the phone that I couldn’t miss the place, and he was right. Johnny and his wife, Shirley, ran a lawn ornament business out of their home. All your plaster deer, lawn elf, balsa windmill, pink flamingo, stone Madonna, fake water well, ceramic rabbit needs could be met at Johnny and Shirley’s. The quarter acre out in front of their little ranch house was choked with the stuff. Maybe it was just the time of year, but the leisurely pace of this sort of business seemed to suit the couple’s other interests, which for Johnny was the restoring of vintage automobiles in his garage, and for his wife it was the watching of the daytime talk shows. A rousing dustup between serial infideliacs could be heard through the open garage door, coming from the television set in the room just off the kitchen.

  “That MG was a sweet car,” Johnny said, his gaze not yet wandering too far from the rear end of the TV celebrity in his garage. “Piece of shit when I got it too.”

  “So you did what to it? Bodywork?”

  “The whole thing. The engine needed a ton of work. Pretty much had to rebuild it. Then, you know, new brake pads, universal joint, new clutch. The real trick is finding the parts. You’ve got to go to a lot of junkyards and shit like that to dig up some of this stuff. Most of the parts on the new models don’t fit the old ones.”