by Tim Cockey
Bonnie popped back out of the Valiant.
“Are you selling this one?” she asked.
“I’ve still got some more work to do to it,” Johnny said. “That’s a hell of a car. It’s a ’64. V-6. Push-button automatic. She can really cook.”
I asked, “How much are you asking?”
“You interested?”
“I could find a way to be.”
“What are you driving now?” Johnny asked.
“An old Chevy.”
“How old?”
“Not old enough.”
“You got a number? I can call you when its ready. I’m waiting for one more part, and then she’s pretty much done. You can come back out and take a test drive.”
I dug out one of my cards and handed it to him. I almost got away with it, but at the last minute he glanced at it.
“You bury people?”
“Only dead ones.”
Bonnie rolled her eyes. She had only been with me several months but that was long enough to have heard that one more times than she could count. Johnny shook the card several times, as if he was drying it off.
“I’ll call you.”
We were way off the track. “Look, about this MG, Johnny. The woman who bought it. How did she see it in the first place, did she say?”
“I had that car running for about a week or so before I put the For Sale sign on it.”
“Then what? You parked it out front with the sign?”
“No. Shirley doesn’t like when I do that. A used car out in front of the business. She says it looks cheap.”
Bonnie and I tied for the Poker Face Award. The lawn ornament impresario continued.
“I just drove it around about a week with the sign on it. I must’ve gotten like a dozen calls in no time. Those were great-looking cars, those old MGs. The best thing they done for the vintage car business is put out the pieces of crap they’re selling now.”
“So you said you drove it around about a week before you sold it. Was that mainly just around here?” We were nowhere near the airport or the neighborhood where Helen had lived. I was wondering how she would have seen the car in the first place.
“Pretty much, yeah. Here. Towson. Timonium. I took it out on the Harrisburg one time, to open her up. See how she did.”
“How’d she do?”
“She did me a hundred-dollar speeding ticket, that’s how.”
“How fast were you going?” Bonnie asked.
Johnny smiled. “A hundred miles an hour. A dollar a mile. The trooper who pulled me over was asking about buying it too.”
“Can I ask how much you sold it for?” I asked.
“What is this?” Johnny suddenly said. “Is someone in some sort of trouble?”
“No. But I—”
“Like did that chick hit someone with the car? Man, I’ll kill her if she messed it up that quickly.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Bonnie said softly.
Johnny was looking at us suspiciously now. “What is this? Is this about insurance or something? I’m telling you right now, that car was in excellent shape when it left here, man. Nobody’d better be trying to say I sold her a bum car, man. She had a mechanic check it out and everything before she bought it. He said it was fine.”
“Look,” I said. “It’s not about the car, the car’s fine. We’re not trying to set you up for anything. We’re interested in the woman who bought it, that’s all. Was anyone with her when she came in to look at the car?”
“I wasn’t here the first time she came by. She talked to my wife.” He turned toward the open door. “HEY SHIRLEY!”
A chorus of boos were sounding from the television studio audience. A few seconds later, a large woman in a housecoat and a head full of curlers appeared at the open door. I would have guessed her to be Johnny’s mother, not his wife.
“That woman came by to look at the MG. She have anyone with her?” Johnny asked.
The question seemed to annoy Johnny’s wife.
“You gonna fix the flagpole?”
“Did she have anyone with her?” When Shirley continued to glare, Johnny pointed at Bonnie. “Do you know who this is?”
Shirley sucked on the question a few seconds. “I don’t remember if she did or she didn’t,” she said, then turned around and retreated to her television. Johnny’s gaze lingered on the open door.
“She remembers,” he said. “That means no. She came by herself.”
“But she was here more than once,” I said. “You said that she brought a mechanic.”
“Yeah. He went over the car from head to foot. Told me I did a great job on her.”
“But no one else, huh? Like a boyfriend?”
“Nope.”
“How did she pay for the car?” I asked.
“Cash. And lots of it. I told you I got a lot of calls about the car? Well, I had one guy all set to give me a couple hundred dollars more than I was asking for it. I was going to sell it to him. Then this woman you’re talking about calls me up. I tell her it’s sold. I tell her about the guy offering me more money. She says hold on. I can hear her talking to someone. Then she offers me five hundred more. Hey. Money’s money. I said sure. She said she had to have a mechanic go over it first, but otherwise she was ready to go. Cash and carry, you know.”
I glanced over at Bonnie. She was thinking the same thing. When Helen had asked Johnny to “hold on” she had consulted her First National Boyfriend, who must have given her the okay to outbid the other guy.
I thanked Johnny for his time. I had only one more question. So did Bonnie. Mine yielded me a piece of paper on which was scribbled the name of the mechanic Helen had brought along to go over the car, as well as the address of the place where he worked. Hunt Valley Motors, on York Road. Johnny was pretty sure that the guy owned the place.
The yield from Bonnie’s question sat on her lap as we drove back into the city. She said that she bought it for Alcatraz, to put next to his food bowl.
“I don’t know if I could eat with that thing staring at me,” I said as I took the ramp onto the beltway.
“You don’t think it’s cute?”
I thought the little lawn elf looked like a pervert. Especially nestled there in Bonnie’s lap.
“He’ll grow on you,” she said.
“I hope not.”
Bonnie had to get back to the station. She didn’t even come inside to deliver her gift in person. I rapped my hand against the roof of her car and away flew the chariot. I went inside and presented the lawn elf to Alcatraz. He sniffed it, then looked up at me as if to ask, Do I pee on it? I stuck it on the floor in the kitchen, next to his food bowl. He growled. Alcatraz almost never growls. I was relieved to see that he shared my taste. I took the elf into the bathroom and set him in a corner on the floor.
I had a message from Constance Bell on my phone machine. Hitchcock, it was nice running into you. What do you say we get together? I’ve got tickets to the symphony for this Saturday. Would you like to be my date? Don’t know if that’s tempting or not. You’ve got my work number. Let me give you my home number.
I scribbled the number down on the same piece of paper where I had scribbled down the name and number of Helen’s mechanic. Yes, that was tempting. A shot of culture never hurt no one.
I took Alcatraz out for his walk. The Yuletide ice sculpture was taking on a life of its own. Alcatraz and I popped into the Oyster to get warm. Sally was manning the bar. She was wearing a flower-print muumuu.
“Aloha,” I said, sliding onto a stool. “Don’t you have the wrong season here? You’re dressed for summer in the middle of Baltimore’s new Ice Age.”
“Damn straight. Why do you think I put this on? I’m pining, young man.”
I thought of Sally’s daughter, lounging on her wicker divan, dreaming of island getaways. I could see where she got it from.
“Why don’t you and Julia hop on a plane and fly off somewhere warm and exotic? You could take your muumuu with you.�
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Sally set me up with a Turkey and put out a plate of Kahlúa for Alcatraz. For as many years as I can remember, there had been an old, weathered dinghy that hung from the ceiling over the bar. Regulars at the Oyster had become so accustomed to tossing their empties up into the dinghy—which is what eventually brought it down—that they still occasionally launch a lazy hook shot up, up, up … down, down, crash. Anyone who is an Oyster regular is used to it, though I suppose it looks damned peculiar to a newcomer. I take the time to explain all this only to give a context. As Sally was setting my drink down in front of me, an elfin old coot down at the end of the bar polished off his beer and instinctively gave the bottle a toss up over his head. It came down behind the bar, landing harmlessly on the black rubber runner on the floor. “Sorry,” he muttered, raising a finger to ask for another beer. Sally popped a brew and delivered it. I took a sip of my Turkey. Perfect. Good bourbon moves through your body like warm electricity.
“So, have they learned anything yet about that gal who showed up on your doorstep?” Sally asked, sliding onto the stool that she keeps behind the bar.
“Nothing yet.”
Sally was eyeing me closely. “You wouldn’t be sticking your nose into that business, would you?”
“Why do you ask, barkeep?”
Sally’s flowered muumuu rippled in a shrug. “I’m just remembering the last time you tried to help a pretty woman track down a killer.” She glanced up at the dangling chains overhead. “You nearly got killed yourself.”
I took another sip. “That was different.”
“Of course it was. And you didn’t get killed. It all worked out. I’m just thinking of your aunt. If Billie ends up burying you, I’ll kill you.”
“And you would be saying … ?”
“You know damn well what I’m saying, Hitchcock. Why are you running around trying to solve the murder of a total stranger?” She pointed her chin at Alcatraz, who had lapped up his Kahlúa and was still licking the plate. “He needs a father. If you run off and get yourself killed, he’ll never speak to you again either.”
“Sally, your arguments aren’t terribly compelling.”
“Don’t give me that compelling garbage, young man. Can’t you just be satisfied doing what you do? I would think you get your fill of death as it is. Look at my daughter. There’s a person who knows how to make the most of her life. You don’t see any dark streaks running through my little girl.”
“Have you seen some of the stuff she paints?”
“Oh, she’s just having fun. The point is, that girl grabs after life like there’s no tomorrow.”
I looked up from my drink. “There’s a tomorrow?”
“You know you’d piss me off if I wasn’t already on to you.”
“That’s why I love you, Sally.”
“So, do I have the pleasure of your progressively drunken presence for the afternoon?”
I finished off my drink and slid the glass into her hand. “Sorry. I’ve got to go out and track down a killer. It’s what I do between funerals.”
“Have I told you you should get out more?”
“That’s what I’m doing.” I was reaching for my wallet. Sally waved me off.
“On the house. If that was your last drink, I’d hate to think you had to pay for it.”
I leaned over the counter and planted a wet one on her cheek. “Thank you, muumuu.”
Hunt Valley Motors is just north of the town of Timonium, on York Road. York Road is one of those roads that started life way back, as a bridal path, and hung in there over the centuries to become a multilane speedway connecting the city and points north. Car dealerships, mattress barns, shopping centers and fast-food joints line the boulevard now. The former firewall of Shawan Road, running perpendicular to York, was leaped a few decades ago; fields where Herefords once grazed are now being parceled into easy cheesy housing developments with names like Foxcroft, Horse Trail Homes and Cedar Pine (who in hell thought of that one?). With all the traffic on York Road, I had to wait a full five minutes in the left lane to take my turn into Hunt Valley Motors.
Hunt Valley Motors proved to be a relatively small though extremely efficient operation. Four lifts. Two mechanics in addition to the owner, the chief grease monkey. His was the name that Johnny the lawn ornament king and part-time restorer of old cars had scribbled down for me. Chris Cochran. I was directed by one of the mechanics to the lot behind the shop. The shop itself might have seemed small, but the number of cars parked out back waiting their turn was staggering. And not just car cars. Mercedes, BMWs, little Italian jobs, a couple of Jaguars … Nothing but foreigners. It was like an automotive Ellis Island for the rich. I found Cochran standing alongside a blue Mercedes, listening patiently as the car’s owner—a blustery, red-faced man in a hat and a camel hair coat—went on and on about why his need to have his car worked on immediately superseded the need of those who happened to have brought their cars in earlier. Cochran was in work boots, greasy overalls and an insulated hunting jacket. He looked to be in his late thirties. Dirty blond hair. Dirty white skin. Dirty fingers puffing on a cigarette as he listened to the song and dance. I pegged the car owner as a doctor, a lawyer or a banker. Not exactly a brain sprain to come up with those options. Cochran was nodding his head, showing full empathy and understanding of the man’s dilemma. I waited at a polite distance. When the man finally concluded his lecture, the mechanic nodded one more time, then said, “Friday.”
The owner of the Mercedes bellowed, “Didn’t you hear what I just said?”
Cochran nodded again. “Yes sir, I did.”
“Well?”
“Friday.”
“I should just take it somewhere else!”
The mechanic rubbed his jaw and looked down at the car. “Okay. If that’s what you want to do.”
“What I want is for you to do the work. And I want it done before Friday. Can’t you help me out?”
“Will you buy me a third bay and help me hire an extra mechanic?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
Cochran took his last pull on his cigarette and flicked it away. “Friday then.”
“Fine! Okay. Friday. By noon!”
“No problem,” Cochran said. The man marched off to an Audi that was idling just outside the lot. A woman was behind the wheel. Cochran turned to me.
“If he’d asked nicely I could have had it for him by Thursday. What can I do for you?”
“I’d like to ask you about a car you looked at a few months ago.”
“I look at a lot of cars.”
“Of course. This one was an MG. An old one. You looked at it for a woman who was thinking of buying it. Up near Parkville?”
“Sure, I remember that car. The body was kind of banged up. But mechanically it was fine. The guy rebuilt the engine. He did a good job.”
I pulled my photograph of Helen and Bo from my pocket and handed it to him. “Is that her?”
Cochran glanced at the picture. “That’s her. What’s up? Look, you want to go inside?”
“This shouldn’t take long.”
“Fine.” He pulled out another cigarette and lit it.
“How did that woman get a hold of you?” I asked.
“What do you mean?”
“To check out the MG. You didn’t know her from before or anything, did you?”
“I never saw her before.”
“So, did she call you? Did she stop in?”
Cochran started to answer, then he paused. His face had taken on the same look of suspicion that Johnny’s had.
“The car is fine,” I said, to reassure him. “I’m not with an insurance company. I’m not with the police. It’s nothing like that. The woman in the picture there is … missing. I’m just trying to find her. I’m a family friend.”
“So where does the MG fit into this? Is this about that guy they bought it from? Did you see all that crap in the front yard?”
“Yeah, I did. It was kind of … hold on. They
?”
“What?”
“You just said ‘they bought it from.’ Who else do you mean?”
Cochran shrugged. “Her boyfriend. That’s what I was about to say. If she’s missing, why don’t you ask him?”
Boyfriend? “I, uh, I don’t know how to get hold of him.”
A light of understanding flashed in the mechanic’s eyes. “Oh … I get it. He’s the one you’re looking for.”
“Well … sure. I’d like to talk with him.”
“So what’s the deal here? Are you sure you’re not a cop or something?”
“I told you. I’m a family friend.”
“Yeah, but what family?”
“What do you mean, what family?”
Cochran flicked his cigarette away. “You see the kind of cars I work on? I get a pretty good clientele in here, you know? Like that guy who was just here? The car-by-Friday guy? Hell, the guy could buy a new Mercedes by Friday. Cash. I deal with these guys all the time. They come in here with their trophy wives and their trophy girlfriends and try to throw their weight around. I don’t even pay attention to it anymore. These guys trying to impress their women by bossing me around.”
“Was this guy trying to impress her?”
“You mean the girl in the picture? Not really. Not like that.”
“So, what are you saying?”
“I was just asking which family are you a friend of? I don’t want to go getting anybody in trouble here.”
“I’m not following you.”
“He ran off with this girl, didn’t he? That’s why you’re here asking these questions. Old rich guy and a young chick. I see this shit more times than you can think. Except she didn’t really strike me as trophy material, if you get what I mean. Usually they’re all this perfect hair and these clothes and the jewelry and everything. I mean even in the middle of the day they look like they’re going out to some fancy dinner, and they might just be going out to buy dog food or something. But this girl in the picture. I’m not saying there was anything wrong with her. Looker. But … I just figured the guy was slumming, you know? No offense or anything. But they don’t usually leave their wives for a girl like that. This girl here … she was just a regular girl, you know?”