“How’d you know to come here looking for me?” he demanded. “Do the police know where I am?”
I juggled that one. If I said they did know, he could squirrel out of here and be long gone before I could get turned around. Say they didn’t know, and what was to keep him from offing us and burying our bodies back in the woods? Were we already on that waiting vulture’s to-do list?
“You chased me down, didn’t you? Because you think I had something to do with Mary Beth’s murder.”
Oh-oh, this was where the fertilizer hit the fan. “We’re just, you know, going to some yard sales.”
India helpfully held up her cheese grater.
“I almost bought a chain-saw sculpture of a bear.”
He leaned back against the pickup seat, arms stretched out against the steering wheel. I was surprised to see the scowl relax. Good looking guy, as I’d concluded before, in a dandruff-ad kind of way.
“Actually, I’m glad you found me. I’ve been wanting to call you, but I didn’t know where to get hold of you.”
My first thought, after being momentarily dumbfounded by the statement, was that he wanted to call India for a date. But then I realized he was looking at me, and all I could do was croak, “Call us? About what?”
“You said something that night about having a limousine service, the one Mary Beth and that guy went out in. I need a limousine.”
The idea of this guy needing a limo struck me about as likely as my needing a sequined ball gown and gold eye shadow. “For what?” I asked bluntly.
“Isn’t your limousine for hire? What difference does it make for what?”
“Let’s just say I have a hard time believing you’re a . . . legitimate customer.”
“Why wouldn’t I be? Anyone can need a limousine. Look, I’ll go down to the main road and turn around, and you can follow me up to the house. We can talk about this there.”
Said the spider to the fly. Said the wolf to Little Red Riding Hood.
Said this nervous limo driver, “I don’t think so.”
“Look, I know you’re suspicious of me. I suppose, in your position, I’d be suspicious of me too. I admit I’m—”
He paused, so I filled in for him. “A swindler? A con-man? A shyster car salesman? A—”
“I admit I’m not lily-white,” he interrupted. “But I’m no killer. And I know who killed Mary Beth. I found something in her house that night that identified her killer.”
“You told us that night that you hadn’t found anything, that you were just picking up a few belongings.”
“I’d never seen you before. Why would I tell you anything?”
I made a rash suggestion, considering our circumstances here, bottle-necked on an isolated road. “Maybe you found something in the house that identified you as her killer.”
My fingers clenched the steering wheel as I waited for his reaction. If India hadn’t brought her gun, that cheese grater was our only weapon. Watch out, tough guy, or we’ll grate you to death.
“I wouldn’t kill Mary Beth. I loved her.”
“What about the wife down in California?”
His head jerked in surprise that we knew about her, but he recovered quickly to say, “We’re separated. What I found in Mary Beth’s house was proof about the person who killed her.”
I decided not to point out that this separation seemed to be one-sided, something only he knew about, and concentrated on what he’d found in Mary Beth’s house. “Then you’d better contact Detective Molino with this information right away.”
“That won’t work. To me, what I found proves who killed her. But it might not prove it to the cops.”
“So you want to go out and haul this killer in yourself with a limo?” I asked, not making any effort to sound any less skeptical than I was.
“I need to go where I can get the evidence that will be proof enough about who killed her to take to the cops. But I can’t go there in this old junker, not and get what I need from this person. Look, I’m telling you the truth. I know who killed her.”
“I still think you should just go to Detective Molino.”
“He’d laugh at me. Tell me I was out of my mind, because this isn’t your usual, small-time crook. Not someone anyone would suspect as a killer. He’s big-time, very big-time.”
“So why would he kill Mary Beth?”
“Look, do you want to catch her killer, or do you want to sit her haggling like some bad detective show?”
Bad detective show made me think of Fitz. I wished he were here. Not that his old TV show was bad. It was, in fact, great. And he’d surely have some helpful thoughts on what Slick Sloan was proposing here.
“Is this person you want to go see the killer, or someone who has evidence about the killer?” I asked.
“I’ve told you all I’m going to. But I’ll pay your regular rate for the limo trip.” He pounded his steering wheel with a fist. “No, I’ll pay you double. It means that much to me to get the goods on Mary Beth’s killer.”
“When do you want to make this trip?” I asked even more warily.
“I’m not sure. I’ll have to get it set up and call you.”
I fished a business card out of the ashtray, which is what I use the ashtray for. I handed it to him across the space between the two vehicles. Two seconds later I gave myself a mental whack. What was I thinking? Now he knew exactly who I was and where to find us if he decided we were a threat.
He looked at the card. “That’s a strange way to spell limousine.” He did it by letters. “L-i-m-o-u-z-e-e-n.”
We’re talking murder, and he’s questioning my spelling technique? I didn’t feel like giving him the long explanation about inheriting the limo from a spelling-challenged, eccentric uncle, so I just shrugged. So he thought I couldn’t spell. I figured that was the least of my worries at the moment.
He narrowed his eyes at me. “Don’t tell the cops about this.”
“It looks to me as if they’re exactly the ones who should know.”
“No. I don’t want anything to do with the cops until I have the goods on the killer. I’ve just been kind of camping out with a friend here, and I’m leaving right now. So it wouldn’t do any good to tell them where I am, because I won’t be here.”
“But you have to be in touch with me. You need a limo, and I have one.”
“There are other limousine services.”
True. “I still don’t see why you need a limousine for this.”
“Because I just do. Like I said, this isn’t your . . . average crook.”
Which suggested Sloan Delaney knew “average crooks,” and I believed that much anyway.
India leaned across me. “Rent a fancy car.”
“Look, I’m runnin’ this show. You want to be in on it and help catch Mary Beth’s killer, or not?”
I tapped the steering wheel with nervous fingertips. I didn’t believe Sloan Delaney had been actively thinking about getting in touch with me. He could have looked up limo services in the phone book and found the only one listed in the Vigland area, me. I figured the idea of using a limo for whatever he had in mind popped into his head right while we were staring at each other like a couple of rivals at a chili cook-off.
“Does this have anything to do with a guy named McClay who’s running for county commissioner?” I asked. “Was he why Mary Beth was interested in politics?”
I thought I saw a flicker of uneasiness, but all he said was, “You want the job or not?”
“Sure. Why not?” I tried to sound blasé. “A job’s a job. How long do you want the limo for?”
“Better figure on five or six hours anyway. Or maybe just make it half a day.”
“To where?”
“I’ll tell you that when you’re on the job.”
I quoted him a price for a half day with the limo. “Payment in advance.”
“Okay. I’ll give you a call.” He held up my card and squinted at it. “Though I may not be able to give you much advance
notice.”
“I have other jobs—”
“Like I told you, double pay.”
Apparently I still looked skeptical, because he whammed the steering wheel again. “Triple pay.”
“I can probably rearrange my schedule.”
Chapter Thirty-One
I expected the Miss Nora to be back at the marina by that evening, but Fitz called to say their clients had decided to extend the sail for another day or two. Since business with the charter sailboat was sketchy this time of year, Matt was glad to accommodate them.
I told Fitz about our encounter with Sloan Delaney.
“You’re not going into this alone,” he said in one of those male, no-arguments-allowed voices. “I’m coming along.”
This was something of a problem. I didn’t know what I might be getting into with Sloan, and I wanted Fitz along. But India had located Sloan, and I knew she wanted to be in on whatever was in the works with him. Three, however, is definitely a crowd in the front seat of a limo.
“Well, we’ll see,” I said. “The guy may never call. He may have been just feeding us some kind of line.”
“To keep you from going to the cops.”
Actually, that hadn’t occurred to me. But Fitz could be right. So should I go to Detective Molino with this anyway?
I decided I should. But when I tried to call him the next morning, I learned he was out of town attending his brother-in-law’s funeral. I don’t know why . . . detectives are people too . . . but I’m always surprised to find Detective Molino has another life beyond chasing down killers and chastising me for also getting involved. The woman asked if someone else could help me, but I said no. Detective Molino may have some attitude problems concerning me, but we know where we stand with each other.
I didn’t have a limo job until a midday trip to Sea-Tac, so I spent the morning catching up on bookkeeping. India came over for mid-morning coffee, and the phone rang right after she left to go back to some hot stock deal she had going on the internet.
“Hi Andi,” the woman’s voice said. “This is Judee Hanson, Mary Beth’s cousin. Remember me?”
“Of course. How’s the clown business?”
“I’m learning to juggle! I’m working up this act where I take off my shoes and juggle them, along with a polka-dot purse and maybe my nose too.”
“Sounds great!”
“But what I called for is this. I had to go back to the house when the moving people were there, and I did a little more prowling around. And I found all this stuff about the Caribbean in a box under Mary Beth’s bed. Jamaica, Guadalupe, Barbados. And a couple more islands I never heard of.”
“She was planning a vacation?”
“I think she was doing more than that. This is information about living there. Details about mail and utilities and taxes and driver’s license, things a tourist wouldn’t need to know. I think she was planning to pick up and leave the country.”
Scam everyone with the investment scheme, pool the proceeds with that bundle of money she had coming in, and then take off for a life of sunshine, sand, and palm trees?
“I wonder if this was a getaway she and Slick Sloan were planning together?” I asked.
“I don’t know. And I don’t know that it has anything to do with her murder. But it just struck me as odd, and I thought you might be interested.”
“I’ll give it some thought. Thanks for calling. Keep on clowning!”
“And you keep on limo-ing. We’ll get together for that lunch one of these days.”
“Right.”
My immediate thought was that Judee was right. Mary Beth was planning to skip the country. Maybe she’d long dreamed of an island paradise, and she’d soon have the money to finance it.
And what about Sloan Delaney, now that Mary Beth was dead? Would he carry on solo with some Caribbean exit? Although, more important at the moment, what plans did he have that included me and my limo?
Could Slick Sloan have some really outrageous scheme in mind? Has anyone ever pulled off a bank heist or a liquor store robbery with a limo as a getaway car? Slick Sloan just might have nerve enough to try it.
I made the nicely non-eventful trip to Sea-Tac, dropping off a couple who’d won a free trip to Hawaii. By that time I was definitely hoping Sloan might never call.
So who’s on the other end of the line when the phone rings a little after four o’clock that day? Not Elvis.
He didn’t give his name, but I knew who he was.
“Tonight’s the night,” he said. “It’s all set up.”
“You want me to pick you up out there on the road where we bumped into you?”
“I want you to meet me at the marina—”
“The marina!”
“What’s wrong with that?” he demanded, the edge in his tone suggesting he was afraid I knew something he didn’t.
“Nothing. Nothing at all.” It was just that in my mind the marina was connected with Fitz. Maybe the Miss Nora would be there by the time we met Sloan there. Would that be good or bad? “The marina is fine. It just . . . surprised me.”
“Not much activity there this time of year. Good place to park my pickup until we get back.”
“Back from—?”
He ignored the question. “Meet me there in forty-five minutes. Five o’clock sharp.”
The short time frame startled me. Fitz would not be happy about this, being left behind. But no time to worry about that now. I ran over and pounded on India’s door. When she answered I gave her a fast rundown on what was up.
She didn’t ask if I wanted her to come along, just said, “I’ll be ready in five minutes.”
I ran back to my side of the duplex, changed into a uniform, said a prayer, and had the limo engine running when India came out in dark jeans and motorcycle boots.
She didn’t have the little gun strapped to her boot this time. I knew because she pulled it out of a pocket and held it out to me. “Here, you take this one. I’ve got my—”
“No! I wouldn’t have any idea how to shoot it. I’d probably shoot my own knee by accident. Or you.”
She gave me a one-minute lesson in where the safety was located and how to shoot the gun, but I stuffed it in the junk box of the console, not in my pocket. “Where’s the other one, your, what is it, Glock?”
She patted her own jacket pocket where I now saw a hefty bulge.
“India, this isn’t some wild west shootout we’re going to.”
“You sure about that?” I couldn’t answer that question, and she added, “Where are we going?”
I couldn’t answer that either, although it apparently wasn’t somewhere here in Vigland, since Sloan had specified several hours with the limo.
It was only half an hour after Sloan called that I turned the limo into the marina parking area. No reassuring presence of the Miss Nora at the end of the dock. No beat-up green pickup.
Was Slick Sloan setting us up for something? I shivered.
We waited.
At two minutes to five, the old green pickup edged into the parking lot. I stayed put. Let Sloan make the first move.
He parked the pickup at the far end of the parking lot, near where Fitz always left his car. He strode toward us purposefully, dressed casually but rather nicely in dark slacks and light windbreaker. And carrying an expensive-looking briefcase. Brown leather, with square corners, a handle on top, and a brass fastener. Big enough to almost qualify as luggage. For the first time I wondered if this was a one-way trip for Sloan, and he’d packed everything he’d needed for a getaway.
I opened my door when he approached, but I didn’t get out to do my usual bow and “your chariot awaits” welcome. He pulled cash out of his pocket, the exact amount I’d quoted him for a half day.
I was about to remind him of his promise about the triple amount, but he said, “You’ll get the rest when the job is done.”
“You think I’m going to back out along the way?” I asked.
“I figure it�
��s like building a house. You pay some down, the rest when the job is completed.”
“Isn’t it time you told me where we’re going?”
“Seattle. The Magnolia area. I’ll give you the address when we get closer.”
“Why all the secrecy?”
He smiled. Your normal, friendly, shyster smile. “I’m a cautious man.”
I decided to hit him with a surprise challenge. “After this little jaunt, you’re taking off for the Caribbean like you and Mary Beth planned?”
One look at his startled eyes and I knew Sloan had not been included in Mary Beth’s plans for sand and sea.
I thought he might ask questions, but he recovered from his shock quickly and challenged back, “You interrogate all your clients?”
No, just the ones I think may be up to their elbows in murder.
“Let’s get going. I don’t want to be late for the appointment,” he said.
“What time is your appointment?”
“You just get me there as fast as you can. And no phone calls to anyone along the way. I’ll be watching.”
Traffic was rush-hour heavy from the time we passed through downtown Vigland. Sloan sat incommunicado in the back, though the partition was open, and I figured he was watching both of us. In Seattle, when I took the exit for the Magnolia area, he moved up to the partition and read an address off a slip of paper.
I wasn’t all that familiar with Seattle streets, and I had to pull over and study the map on my phone. I really should get one of those GPS things. Sloan kept his head halfway through the partition opening to watch what I was doing. Fast breathing, jittery glances at the surroundings, nervous sweat scent that overrode any known deodorant. This was one tense guy.
“Have you been here before so you’ll recognize the place?” India asked him when we were moving again.
“No.” He made a trip to a side window to peer out, then returned to look through the windshield from the open partition.
India spotted the address number first. “There it is!”
The place had a great view of both the Space Needle and Elliot Bay, with a look of money in an elegantly dignified, not ostentatious way. Two stories, impressive white columns out front, lots of windows, angled roof lines. The lot was oversized, landscaped with a pleasing arrangement of trees, rocks, and shrubs, none of them painfully scalped into precise shapes.
For Whom the Limo Rolls Page 24