She recrossed her legs and rubbed at her temple. “Anyway, all that’s beside the point. I don’t care about the house. Earleen has got a new man now, Frank Quinn, and has been on a rant about being unable to collect the insurance money so she can rebuild. And the insurance company has dug in its heels, claiming fraud, saying they’re not paying a dime.”
“The fact that your father disappeared the same day isn’t helping matters, I take it.”
Tears welled within the rim of dark lashes. “They think he set it up. They’re saying he set the gas on the stove so the house would explode. I know he didn’t do it. My father would never have done that.” Her voice became urgent. “But it looks bad. He went away that day and he’s never come back. If we could just find him and get him to come back, he could explain it all—that it was an accident—and we could all get on with our lives.”
My doubt-meter went up a whole bunch of notches. “Amanda, I guess we have to ask ourselves, why didn’t he come back? Let’s say the insurance people are wrong, the whole thing was an accident—wouldn’t he have come back right away to file a claim and try to find out what really did happen?”
“Earleen handled all that,” she said. “She did file a claim. That’s what she’s so furious about now. Dad was going out of town on business. We knew that because he and Jake were working together on a project. Maybe he heard the news about the house and it was too much for him to handle. When it came out that Bettina had died in the fire, maybe he felt so awful that he couldn’t face the people in town.”
She was grasping at straws, that much was plain, but something inside me felt a strong tug of pity for this girl. She looked so fragile, sitting there in the depths of that big chair, like a small child almost.
“If you can provide me with some basic information about your father—full name, Social Security number and such—I’ll be happy to run some background and find out if he’s turned up somewhere else.” I quoted her our hourly rate for such work and cautioned her that the police had probably already done the same. She didn’t seem to care. She pulled a checkbook from her purse and wrote a check for a five-hundred dollar retainer.
“I was hoping you’d agree,” she said, a night-before-Christmas anticipation brightening her face. “Here. I brought the information with me. And this is the license number of his car.” She handed me a sheet of notepaper and pointed out the vitals.
When she left there was a new bounce to her step and I stood on the porch watching her get into a mid-sized white SUV and drive off. Back in the cabin I picked up my cell phone, dialed Ron in Albuquerque and read off the data to him. The background check would blend so easily into the work he was already doing that it shouldn’t disrupt his day. I imagined that he’d have answers for me within twenty-four hours and we’d end up refunding more than half of Amanda’s money.
I’d no sooner ended the call than the little instrument buzzed in my hand. Drake, wondering if I’d be interested in a mid-afternoon lunch so he wouldn’t be starving during his fishing expedition later. I agreed, he picked me up, and we went to the Burger Shak, a little place we’d noticed earlier. We took a booth along the wall and I noticed only one other couple in the place. They sat at the table nearest the window, their heads together, voices low. Drake likes to sit facing the door so I’d taken the opposite side of the booth and now I spaced out all other thought but the picture of the yummy-looking burgers on the menu.
We ordered—mine with grilled onions and mushrooms, his with green chile and cheese—and Drake talked enthusiastically about the great finds he’d come across at the bait shop. With the fervor of a woman who’d located a shoe sale, he went on about lures and spinners. Men are so cute.
Our food arrived and we were just a few bites into it when I noticed his attention pulled to the front door, behind me. Voices rose as the newcomer greeted the couple by the window.
“I’m going to find him,” said a female. “I’ve got an investigator on the job right now.”
With a gulp I realized the voice was Amanda’s and she was talking about me.
“And then what?” asked the second female voice. “You’re not getting the money, anyway.”
The man spoke up. “Yeah, kid. Forget it. Your mom’s the one listed on the policy, not you.”
I risked a peek around the high edge of the booth. Amanda stood with her back to me. The older woman was half out of her chair. My quick glance registered that she stood a few inches taller than Amanda, wore shiny black leggings and a zebra-striped top, and a cascade of blond curls that fell to her shoulders. She faced Amanda with a look of pure poison. Earleen.
“Dad wanted Jake to have that money for their research. You know he did.”
Earleen scoffed. “I know no such thing. That was my home. Your father would never leave me homeless. The money is for rebuilding.”
“Well, you’re hardly homeless now, Earleen. You’ve got Frank the sleaze keeping you warm at night.”
The slap contacted with Amanda’s cheek so quickly I hardly saw Earleen’s arm move. Amanda retaliated with one of her own, shattering the image I’d had of the helpless little waif who’d sat in our cabin only an hour ago. I spun back to face forward, my eyes wide. Drake half rose from his seat but I put a hand out to restrain him.
“What’s going on out here?” The man who’d taken our order emerged from the kitchen.
I heard Amanda whip the door open and stomp out.
“Little bitch,” grumbled Earleen, not too quietly.
“Come on.” Behind me I could hear Frank’s chair scrape back and I turned in time to see him throw some bills on the table and take Earleen’s arm. They shook off the insults and managed to leave with a modicum of dignity.
“Whoa. What was that?ont> Drake asked, reaching for a thick-cut fry.
“That,” I said, “was my new client.”
Chapter 2
Drake gathered his fishing gear, stacking everything neatly on the little porch of our cabin. Within minutes, his guide pulled into the driveway and they were off, looking like two school kids on a Saturday. He’d left me with the keys to the truck, a blessing, as I had plans of my own.
Watson’s Lake was a town with one main drag, the highway that led, eventually, southbound toward Albuquerque or northbound, very quickly, toward the Colorado border. The section of the highway in the middle of town was called, quite creatively, Main Street. Two or three decent-sized side streets were home to the town’s main facilities—elementary school, fire station, town government offices, and a community center. The architectural style was predominantly rustic, lots of rough hewn cedar, with the occasional stucco for variety. Metal roofs with steep pitches attested to the likelihood of winter snows.
Off those side streets branched a network of meandering dirt roads with picturesque Western names that comprised the residential areas. As one drove deeper into the latter sections, the forest thickened and the roads became more winding. The terrain rose sharply, affording those with more money and, presumably, more prestige to live in large log homes set on impressive outcroppings with windows that gave inspiring views of the lake itself and their humble fellow citizens below. I discovered all this in roughly twenty minutes, by simply driving around.
Actually, my plan was to learn a bit more about the dynamics I’d witnessed an hour earlier, and to see what other clues I might pick up about my client and her missing father. Toward that end, I made my way down the hillside and parked in front of the municipal building, which claimed to house the town clerk, town council chambers, the planning and zoning office, and the county sheriff. A glance at the dashboard clock told me it was a little after five-thirty, but three cars sat in the parking area, one of them a sheriff’s cruiser. I instructed Rusty to wait in the truck while I went inside.
A cramped lobby featured two straight chairs with orange plastic seats and a dismal-looking rubber plant. The poor thing had enough dust on its leaves to prevent any small ray of sunlight from nourishing it. Behind a gl
ass partition a cubbyhole housed a desk and two file cabinets, probably where a receptionist sat during the day, although the space was dark and quiet now.
“Hello?” I called, hoping some random person would emerge from one of the other three doors that opened into the lobby.
A man in plaid shirt and worn jeans stuck his head out the one with the brass placard that said, LeROY BROWNDOR, MAYOR. “Help you?” he asked.
“I was hoping to catch the sheriff,” I said.
“Michaela!” he bellowed. “Got a visitor.” He finished pulling a denim jacket on, closed the door of his office, and scooted past me. He offered a weak smile as he pushed open the front door, not one of those huge politician’s grins that they give constituents.
“Yes’m.” The voice caused me to whip around, and I found myself facing a stocky woman of about sixty. She wore brown denim jeans, a twill shirt in the same shade of brown with a microphone attached to the shoulder, and western boots. A set of handcuffs and a Smith & Wesson .357 hung from her belt. The law enforcement attire seemed at odds with her fluffy white hair, plump rosy face and first impression of somebody’s grandmother.
“I, uh . . . I’m Charlie Parker, RJP Investigations, from Albuquerque.”
“Michaela Fritz, Segundo County Sheriff. How can I help you?” The set of her mouth and terse words dispelled the grandma image right away.
“We’ve been hired to look into the disappearance of David Simmons.” I felt awkward and stiff and it wasn’t working with her. “Look, I’m sure your department has covered this a hundred times. And I really doubt I’ll find anything new. But I have this client—”
“Amanda or Earleen?” she asked, the first hint of a twinkle showing in her cool, blue eyes.
“Amanda.”
“Not surprised.” She shifted to the other foot and hefted the gun belt to take the weight off her back and hips. “Come in my office. It’s been a long day.”
I followed her through one of the doorways and down a short corridor, into an office slightly bigger than a walk-in closet. Stuffed inside were a large desk and chair, one visitor’s chair and a bank of file cabinets that lined the back wall.
“Welcome to the sheriff’s department,” she said with a wry curl at the corner of her mouth. She unbuckled her heavy belt and set it on the desk, breathing an audible sigh as she did so. “Ah, well, can’t really complain. I’m actually just a deputy out of the county seat in Segundo. Ain’t much crime here, anyway, and they can’t really justify much in the way of elegance.”
“Whatever works, right?” I settled into the visitor’s chair as she sank into the high-backed one.
“Well, Roy never did complain about it. Just did his job, right up to that Monday morning when he woke up with chest pains.” She shrugged. “I kinda slid into the job, probably because a small town sheriff tells his wife more about his cases than anybody else. I sorta knew what to do, nobody else did. Election came around, they re-elected me, kept on doing it two more times. So, here I am.” She shifted in her seat and discreetly undid the top button of her jeans. “What can I tell you about David Simmons?”
“Anything. Everything. Amanda seems convinced that he went away on his own accord, probably got scared to come back when it turned out that someone died in the explosion.”
“Sounds about right,” Michaela said. She leaned forward with her elbows on the desk. “Guy drives out of town one afternoon. Next morning his house blows up. He never comes back to find out what happened? Never contacts his wife or daughter? Insurance people were pretty convinced that he set it up to collect on the loss of the house. If that was the case, intentional fire, when somebody dies it becomes murder. Seems like the best explanation why he wouldn’t come back.”
“Was there physical evidence that might point to anybody else?”
She leaned back in her swivel chair with a deep sigh. Tapped a pencil eraser rhythmically on her desk top. “Arson team comes in, we don’t get a lot of the evidence processed through our department. Kitchen stove had the knobs turned to the On position. That tells you something right there. They found a couple of propane tanks with valves open, too, out in the garage. What was left of the garage. Basically, the whole place turned into planks of two-by-four and sheets of metal. Scraps of it flew outward for more than fifty yards.”
“Wow. Must have been a mess to sort through it.”
“You ain’t woofin’. We spent weeks.”
“I don’t know much about the details of an arson investigation. Were they able to get fingerprints from anything?”
“Some. A few surfaces that weren’t exposed directly to the fire, a table here, an appliance or two. They dusted that kitchen stove like crazy. Nothing turned up that couldn’t be accounted for within the family. There was a small safe, the kind that’s supposed to protect your important papers from fire.”
She emphasized the word ‘supposed.’
“It hadn’t been locked. Explosion probably popped the door open and poof—crispy papers.”
“Does any of this evidence still exist?”
“Well, the crime lab folks took everything of value. Eventually, Earleen Simmons had some laborers come out and haul away the sticks of furniture and most of the loose stuff. It took a couple of dump trucks.”
“Did anyone—your department or the insurance people—run a check on David’s Social Security number? See if he’d gone somewhere else and started working again?”
“Sure. Years ago. I don’t know if those insurance people are still following it or not. I think they might have closed the case with a denial of payment. Course a murder case never closes, so that’s still out there.”
“So David was your prime suspect.”
“Yep.”
“Any others?”
“One. George “Rocko” Rodman. Bettina’s boyfriend. I assume you know who Bettina was?”
“Bettina Davis. The victim. Any relation to the town’s founder?”
“Way back, yeah.”
“Amanda told me about that. She was David’s housekeeper, arrived that morning to clean?”
“That’s the story.” Michaela fixed a steady gaze on me. “We had witnesses to a fight between David and Rocko the night before all this happened. Down at the Owl Bar. Rocko got to throwing accusations, then he graduated to throwing punches.”
“Accusations of what?”
“That David and Bettina were fooling around.”
“Were they?”
A shrug. “Who knows. It wasn’t the first I’d heard of the rumors, but rumors come cheap in little towns like this. Him married, her with a steady boyfriend—a foul-tempered steady boyfriend. An affair wouldn’t have been too smart. But it wouldn’t have been the first time for that kind of thing here.”
“So, Rocko might have had motive to demolish David’s house, maybe take out David in the process.” I could suddenly see this getting complicated.
“Or he might have been mad enough to kill Bettina, and David’s house gets it in the process.”
More complicated.
“So, what’s happened to Rocko in the meantime? He still around town?” I asked.
“Only recently,” she said. “He got caught on an auto theft charge, got sent to Santa Fe for three to five. Guess he’d earned enough brownie points to get sprung about a month ago. He’s been staying pretty low key, but he’s around.”
I pondered all this.
“Trail’s gone pretty cold now,” she said. “Not enough evidence to bring Rocko back into it, and we’d have to find David to bring him in. We’re one of the smallest counties in the state and we just don’t have the resources to conduct a national manhunt. If somebody can find him for us, we’ll prosecute.”
I told her about the background check Ron was doing, but ended up leaving her office without much hope that David Simmons was going to turn up.
The sun hung low in the sky as I drove back to the motel, wondering exactly what evidence the sheriff had against Rocko Rodman. I felt m
yself being pulled toward the huge number of unanswered questions, the ones that went far beyond my assignment from Amanda—finding David Simmons.
Chapter 3
The phone was ringing when I walked into our room and I grabbed it up.
“Charlie, is Drake there?” It was Billy, the mechanic who was performing the annual inspection on the helicopter.
I glanced around the room, as if I’d spot Drake in some quiet corner I hadn’t noticed before, realized the foolishness of that. I told Billy he’d probably be back within the hour. I couldn’t imagine that fishing could go on much past dark. I’d no sooner hung up the receiver than headlights flashed in the driveway outside. Rusty bounded to the door, vigilant about his new home-away-from-home turf.
Boots stomped on the wooden porch and boisterous guy-talk came through, moments before Drake opened the door holding up a stringer with two nice trout on it.
“Dinner!” he announced.
I gave a skeptical glance around the room, emphasizing the fact that we had no way to cook the things.
“Woody says Jo will cook ‘em for us,” he said. “Just get your jacket.”
We left Rusty with instructions about guarding the cabin and not destroying anything. Jo didn’t bat an eye at the request to cook the two trout, just took them, stringer and all, into the kitchen.
Twenty minutes later we had lovely plates of trout almandine before us, and I had to admit it was the best fish I’d ever eaten. I filled Drake in briefly on my tour of the town and my visit with Sheriff Michaela. “Oh, and Billy called. Just before you walked in the door. Didn’t say what it was about.”
He got a little preoccupied at that news and we decided to take our slices of apple pie, along with two coffees, back to the cabin so he could find out the bad news. We’ve learned through experience that maintenance on an aircraft is an expensive proposition, and Drake holds his breath with each inspection that some major component costing tens of thousands won’t need replacement. I knew this was the explanation for the firm wrinkle that formed between his brows.
Obsessions Can Be Murder: The Tenth Charlie Parker Mystery Page 2