For Whom the Limo Rolls

by Lorena McCourtney

  Plant these dirt-spotted jeans on that lovely beige sofa? No way. “Thanks, no. I’ll just stay a minute. We, Fitz and I, have been concerned about you. Did you know Mr. and Mrs. McClay have been out of town since Mary Beth’s murder?”

  “I don’t know him personally. Just from the bank.”

  “So that means even if he saw you there at Mary Beth’s door, he may not have recognized you?” I asked hopefully.

  Amy’s eyes enlarged in her wrinkled face as realization dawned. “You’re thinking if Mr. McClay recognized me, and knew I’d heard him threaten Mary Beth, I might be in danger?”

  “If he’s the killer, it’s possible.”

  “But if he’s out of town—”

  “He’ll be back in town on Monday. And I think it’s suspicious that he rushed out of town right after Mary Beth was killed.”

  “But if he’s guilty, wouldn’t he just stay out of town?”

  “Not if he decided he needed to come back for a particular reason.” Like getting rid of a dangerous witness.

  “But if he recognized me, wouldn’t he have come after me before he left town?”

  I could see she was trying to talk herself out of acknowledging she could be in danger. I admired her independent spirit, but it also worried me.

  “It’s possible he doesn’t know your identity. In which case he’ll try to find out who you are. Or your identity may not have registered with him at the moment he rushed by you, but he might have thought of it later. That can happen.”

  “Oh, my.” Amy dropped to the edge of the sofa as if her knees had just weakened. “I’ve done that. Just the other day I walked right by bran flakes in the store, and they didn’t even register. But then I remembered later where I’d seen them and went back. Just like he might remember me.”

  Bran flakes and a killer didn’t exactly balance out, but if this illuminated the danger for her, good. Then I wondered, was I hearing more about bran flakes lately, or were they only now registering with me? Did this mean I was rapidly waltzing into the Bran Flakes Generation?

  A worry I’d put off until later. “I’m thinking, if he should show up here, that you just not answer the door. Don’t let him inside. Don’t let yourself be alone with him. Don’t even let him know you’re home. Because I don’t think if he does show up that it’ll be to discuss your bank account.”

  “I guess I can peek out the side window and see who’s at the door before I open it.”

  “Good.”

  “But this might be a good time to visit my daughter down in Vancouver for a few weeks.”

  “Even better!”

  “I’ll call her today and arrange it. But I suppose I should talk to that detective and tell him what I heard before I go.”

  Before she could change her mind, I whipped the cell phone out of my jacket pocket and dialed Detective Molino’s number. Wonder of wonders, he was in the office, and when I told him I had someone with possible information about Mary Beth Delaney’s murder, he said bring her in. He sounded more resigned than enthusiastic, but at least he was willing to listen to her.

  So a few minutes later, even though it wasn’t a limousine ride, we were at the sheriff’s office. Amy in her polyester pants suit, me looking like I’d been hauled in for vagrancy. Detective Molino’s expressive eyebrows lifted when he came out to meet us.

  “New limo uniform?”

  I could be facetious too. “It’s my special costume for redneck clients.”

  “In that case, you really should have a wad of chewin’ tobacco in your jaw too.”

  “Maybe next time.”

  “I never can get the best of you can I, Mrs. M?” he muttered. But he also gave me a smile and a thumbs-up gesture before he took Amy down the hallway for her interview.

  The interview didn’t take long. I was afraid Detective Molino might scoff at any danger to her from Anderson McClay, and she’d change her mind about leaving town and visiting her daughter. But on the way home, she said he’d told her he thought an out-of-town trip was an excellent idea.

  Which I was reasonably certain meant he wasn’t passing Amy off as just a little old lady who’d been watching too many episodes of CSI.

  Back at Amy’s house, I went in with her while she called her daughter in Vancouver. The daughter was apparently delighted to have her come for a visit and would drive up tomorrow to pick her up. Great! That got Amy safely out of the way. I was just sorry I’d have to wait until Tuesday to dig for any further information about McClay, because I figured we were onto something here.

  Although he and Slick Sloan couldn’t both be guilty, so one of my big suspicions must be wrong. Question was, which one?

  ***

  When I got back to Secret View Lane, India was standing at the front of her pickup in the driveway, the hood up. I parked the Toyota behind the limo and went around to where India was standing.

  “You know anything about engines?” she asked.

  “Oh, sure. I can open the hood and identify one every time. There it is, an engine! Is something wrong?”

  “The engine sounds funny. Kind of a squidgy-thunky noise.”

  I nodded. This was my level of engine technology. I, too, had noticed a noise when I was with her in the pickup, definitely a squidgy-thunky noise. Although mechanics are dense about these things and tend to want a more precise description of an unusual noise. “You don’t know anything about engines?”

  “Connor taught me quite a bit about motorcycles, but we never even owned a car. How about Fitz?”

  “Fitz is a fantastic guy and knows lots of things. Unfortunately, the interior workings of an engine isn’t one of them.”

  “I’m thinking about getting rid of the pickup and getting a motorcycle. Gas is so high, and I’d get a lot better mileage with a bike. But I figured I’d better check with you first.”

  “Me?”

  “As I recall, one of the things you mentioned when I rented here was that you wouldn’t allow a herd of motorcycles parked in the yard.”

  “Unless they follow you home like stray puppies, I don’t think having just one will be a problem.”

  “Good. There’s a little Honda 250 advertised in the Vigland newspaper. It would be really economical on gas. I’ll go look at it.”

  I saw the pickup leave a few minutes later, and just as I was later about to leave to pick up the anniversary clients, a motorcycle roared into the driveway. I don’t know anything about motorcycles, but it didn’t sound “little.” I went out to see.

  “This is the motorcycle you went to look at?”

  “No, it’s a Harley. A 1999 Road King model. It’s a classic. Isn’t it gorgeous?”

  She toed the kick-stand into place, dismounted, pulled off her helmet, and draped it on a handlebar. She clasped her hands together and eyed the old motorcycle the way some women look at a diamond necklace. Low-slung, black, with a flicker of red and orange flames for decoration, big chrome pipes. It looked powerful enough to jump over the moon, bad enough to lead a gang of motorcycle rebels into the hills. And with a few dents and scratches to suggest maybe it had.

  Gorgeous is definitely in the eyes of the beholder.

  “Harleys have a special sound all their own,” India added. “Don’t you just love it?”

  “You got hit with bait and switch? This guy advertises a low-priced little bike, but sells you this instead?”

  “On the way out to look at the Honda, I saw this one in a yard with a for sale sign on it. I got a great deal on it. The guy’s wife was making him get rid of it. And he took my old pickup in trade for part of the price!”

  “The wife preferred the old pickup to this?”

  “They could at least stuff the kids in the pickup. I feel so lucky. I just happened to take an out-of-the-way route to where I was going, or I wouldn’t even have seen it. Kismet!”

  I don’t believe in luck or kismet. God is always in control. I also had to believe God was working on India. Although it was hard to see where he was go
ing with this bad-biker looking motorcycle.

  “You still like motorcycles in spite of. . .”

  “What happened to Connor? Yeah, I do. He’d have loved this bike. I don’t blame the motorcycle for what happened to him. Want to take a ride with me on it?”

  I eyed the seats. The one for the passenger sloped up higher than the driver’s seat, and there was a backrest. But wasn’t a motorcycle really just an over-powered bicycle, and I remembered a lot of bicycle spills I’d taken as a kid.

  “Didn’t you tell me you learned to skateboard a while back?” India asked. “You ought to love this, then.”

  The connection escaped me, other than that neither was probably on any recommended list for living a long life.

  “But I wasn’t taking the skateboard out in traffic with 18-wheelers, SUVs, and drivers who consider road rage a form of entertainment,” I pointed out. Besides, although I’d long yearned to try skateboarding, I’d never had any desire to be a motorcycle mama.

  “Maybe some other time?” she said.

  “Maybe some other time,” I agreed. Which didn’t make it a promise.

  ***

  Fitz came over that evening. India had put the Harley in the garage, but she happily revved it into the driveway so Fitz could see it better. He was properly admiring, though I was reasonably certain he’d have been hard put to identify anything beyond the basic parts, such as handlebars and wheels. Afterward, we drove out to an old-time fiddler’s contest at the fairgrounds, where we saw everyone from a 10-year-old girl to a 92-year-old man fiddling their hearts out. There were tables selling a variety of goods, and we strolled through them during an intermission. Fitz picked up a fiddle for sale and, after a couple of false starts, whizzed through Blue Moon of Kentucky.

  “Where did you learn that?” I asked in astonishment.

  “An old neighbor taught me when I was a kid. We had a great time playing together. I suggested using it on the detective show, make fiddle playing one of Ed Montrose’s idiosyncrasies. I practiced up, but the producers said the idea was ‘cornball,’ so that ended that.”

  Fitz, always coming up with something new to surprise me. Like a book, with any number of interesting pages yet unread. So he was no mechanical hotshot, so what! The man had many other talents, probably some I didn’t even know about yet. I asked if he’d like to come along for the reunion-anniversary limo trip tomorrow, but Matt had picked up another last-minute sail for the Miss Nora this weekend.

  Fitz called the next morning, just before they left the marina.

  “Be careful driving out there in the woods,” he said. “There are lots of old logging roads out that way, and it’s easy to get on a wrong one. Family got stranded in the snow on an old mountain road down in Oregon a few years ago, and the husband didn’t make it out alive.”

  “It’s too early for snow, and this client has a map, so we’ll be fine. So I’ll see you later. I’ll miss you.”

  “I’ll miss you too.”

  “Oh, hey, before you go, I wanted to ask— How did Matt’s date last night go?”

  “You didn’t hear the explosion? They went to dinner at The Log Cabin, got into a political argument, and wound up ready to stab each other with the shrimp kabobs.”

  “So they won’t be seeing each other again?”

  “Matt said her final words were something about not going out with him again if he were the last man in this and all alternate universes.”

  The most devastating line in my younger days was ‘not if he was the last man on earth.’ Apparently women thought in larger terms these days. “Maybe you’ll give up matchmaking now?”

  This wasn’t Fitz’s first matchmaking fiasco. He’d tried to get a woman from the meat department in Wal-mart together with a radio disk jockey acquaintance, a match that crashed when her Chihuahua bit the disk jockey and he filed a lawsuit.

  “Of course I’m not giving up. Matt needs a wife.”

  Fitz is a sweet man. Lovable, even. I admire his determination as well as his optimism about relationship possibilities.

  But he’s never going to win an award for marksmanship in the Cupid Olympics.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  I filled the ice bucket, tucked it into its spot in the limo, and arrived at the modest house on a couple of acres just outside town promptly at 1:00 Saturday afternoon. The day, as promised by the weather forecast, was fall-crisp but warm. A handful of bunny clouds decorated the blue sky, and a tang of wood smoke hung in the air. A perfect day to celebrate sixty years together.

  I jumped out and opened the rear door of the limo to be ready for the happy couple. Joni, in white capri pants and sandals, came out alone first, bringing an overnight case and a sack presumably holding the non-alcoholic apple juice. And maybe bran flakes. She confided that things weren’t going too well so far. Her mother’d had a bad night with indigestion and gas, and her father had taken out his dentures and now couldn’t find them.

  She rolled her eyes in a gesture of frustration. Okay, there were undoubtedly drawbacks to an anniversary at this age, but I still envied their getting to sixty years together.

  “The reunion and limo are still going to be a surprise to them?”

  “They know there’s a surprise, but they have no idea what it is. Mom kept dropping hints about Red Lobster last night. But I’m sure everything will work out just fine.” Joni closed her eyes and passed a hand across them as if trying to erase some worrisome vision. Her lips moved as if she were repeating some soothing mantra to herself. Then she said it aloud, firmly. “I am serene. I am very serene.” She opened her eyes. “Oh, and if I didn’t tell you before, their names are Frank and Dottie Mackie. She’s 86, and he’s 89. And I’d probably better warn you. When Dad gets mad he tends to take out his teeth and throw them.”

  “Is that why they’re missing now?”

  This time it was a roll of eyes. “Yeah.”

  She went back to the house. I did a double take when she herded her parents out the front door a few minutes later. They were already blindfolded, small, wiry people with big black blindfold-masks that almost covered their faces. And staring out from the masks were painted-on, ghoulish white eyes. Apparently Joni had shopped the Halloween costume section at the dollar store for blindfolds.

  Their steps were uncertain in the blindfolds. The older woman wore a dark blue dress and low black heels, the man slacks and a tie, neither outfit exactly reunion-in-the-woods type gear.

  “Okay, you can look now!”

  Joni helped her mother with the blindfold, the father yanked his off.

  “Surprise!” Joni yelled.

  To my relief, they’d apparently found her father’s dentures, because a full supply of teeth gleamed when he grinned. “Hey, Dottie, lookit! A lim-o-zeen!”

  Hopefully he wouldn’t find reason to take the teeth out and throw them again. I gave my best bow and motioned the couple toward the limo. “Welcome, Frank and Dottie. Your chariot awaits! Happy anniversary.”

  The wiry little woman beamed. “We are going to the Red Lobster!”

  Uh-oh.

  “Oh, this is much more exciting than that,” Joni assured her. She nudged the couple toward the limo door, and I helped the woman inside. “But now you have to put your blindfolds on again. Because where we’re going is a very special surprise.”

  The older couple grumbled about the blindfolds, but finally everyone was settled. Joni pulled out a ragged scrap of notebook paper and pulled me away from the door so her parents couldn’t hear the conversation.

  “This is the map my brother-in-law Bob drew. I figured we’d better have something since it’s been years since I’ve been up there. We just go out the main road to here, then turn right, and then up in here turn left.”

  I knew enough about the area outside town to follow her moving finger to the first turnoff, but I told her that when we got out in the woods she’d have to provide directions as we went. “No problem,” she assured me.

  The partiti
on was open, so I could hear the festivities in back as I drove. Which were not all that festive, unfortunately. Joni poured apple juice. Dottie said it wasn’t as sweet as the kind they usually bought.

  “That’s because it’s sparkling apple juice, Mom. Just try it.”

  “This blindfold hurts my ear,” Frank grumbled.

  “I get car-sick when I can’t see where I’m going,” Dottie said. “If I get dizzy, I throw up.”

  I was feeling a little dizzy myself, seeing those ghoulish eyes every time I looked in the rear view mirror. Dottie and Frank might not be looking at me, but those bloodshot eyes in the masks glared at me with ghoulish precision.

  We turned right off the main road, and soon made another turn. Brother-in-law Bob apparently had a lower standard of what constitutes a road in “good shape” than I do. The rain had left mudholes on almost every shady corner, but I resolutely edged through them. If a motor home had made it, surely the limo could too.

  There were more roads than I expected up in here, apparently the old logging roads Fitz had mentioned, none of which appeared on Bob’s map. Most of the roads had only signs with forest service numbers, no destinations given, others had no signs at all. A couple times I simply guessed which way to take at a fork in the road, choosing the one that looked as if it might be the more traveled.

  Then, when the limo bounced over a mound of bedrock I hadn’t seen, Frank yanked off his blindfold. He took a look at the dark canopy of woods on both sides of the road. “Where are we?” he demanded.

  So then Dottie snatched her blindfold off too. “This isn’t the way to Red Lobster,” she accused.

  Joni tried to salvage the situation, though she had to give away the surprise to do it. “We’re on our way to your most favorite place in the whole world, where everyone is waiting to celebrate your anniversary. Serenity Springs Campground!”

  “This isn’t the way to Serenity Springs,” Frank announced.

  “But Bob drew a map, and Andi’s following it—”