Chapter Eighteen
Back on his assignment from Goddard, Link began his questions with Mitzi's aunt, Drady Francis. She lived on Mulberry Street, about three blocks south of Akridge House. She answered the door and her red-rimmed eyes looked as if she had been crying.
Her dark hair was cut short, and she was a small woman. He knew her to be near the age of his own mother. She wore black slacks and a gray knit shirt with black stripes. And a red apron similar to those Maggie favored.
When he explained why he had come, Mrs. Francis asked him in and seated him on the sofa. She sat in a chair across from him and asked, "Aren't you Katherine and Lamar's boy?"
"Yes, ma'am." Link figured he'd still be called “the Dixon's boy” when he was sixty if any of his parents' friends were alive by then. "I'm real sorry about Mitzi, but I need to ask you some questions about her."
Mrs. Francis dabbed at her eyes with the corner of her apron. "It's such a tragedy, but I knew that girl was coming to a bad end. She was wild right from the start, just like my sister."
Link tried to keep an impassive face. "When did you last see her--your niece?"
Mrs. Francis pursed her lips a moment before answering, "Let's see, I guess it was a couple of nights before she, um, you know."
"Did she date anyone local?"
She gave a shrug. "Probably. I don't know who, but she wasn't the sort to stay home alone."
Link shifted his weight and leaned forward. "Please tell me everything you know about her since she came back to town."
Mrs. Francis took a deep sigh and leaned back in the armchair. "Well, Mitzi came back for her father's funeral two months ago. She and her father were never close, though. He never seemed interested in her."
She raised her hand and added hastily, "I don't mean he was mean to her or abused her in any way. He just didn't pay her much mind. You know, he let my sister do all the raising of her. Mitzi came back for Jimbo's funeral--Jimbo was what we called her father--and stayed. I don't know much about what she did all day."
"What about her mother? Were they close?" Link tried to remember Mitzi as she had been in high school, but only a smiling face came to him.
"Oh, they were close--unless they were fighting. They were both high tempered, you see, so they were either thick as thieves or feuding." Mrs. Francis dabbed at her eyes, "Mitzi took it real hard when Ruby--that was her mother--died four years ago. She never came back to visit after that, not until Jimbo's funeral."
"What sort of mood was she in the last time you saw her?"
A pensive look came over Mrs. Francis and she seemed almost hesitant to answer. "She was in a real good mood, cheerful and talkative, real talkative."
"Was there anything different about her this time from her previous visits?"
"Well, you see, she'd been asking me a lot of questions lately." She looked hesitant, embarrassed.
The hairs on the back of Link's neck prickled. "What sort of questions?"
She twisted the corner of the apron and refused to meet Link's gaze. "About her parents."
"What exactly did she ask?" His kept his voice soft, but prodded, "Please try to remember everything, Mrs. Francis. It could be very important."
Mrs. Francis looked away from him, as if she were embarrassed. "She wanted to know about when she was a little girl, and before she was born, too. You know, did her parents fuss, who her parents' friends were, if her mother had any, um, boyfriends her father didn't know about. Things like that."
Now she turned her head to look at him and her gaze met his. "Actually, you see, they were embarrassing things. Well, Ruby was a tramp.” She dropped her hands into her lap. “There. I said it, and it's true, even if she was my own sister." Link's eyebrows furrowed. Little things he'd heard growing up drifted through his mind. Things better left forgotten--unless you investigated murders for a living.
"Did you tell her what she wanted to know. Honestly, I mean?"
"Oh, yes. I would never have volunteered the information, because I would never want to hurt her. To have hurt her." She paused to dab the apron to her eyes again. "Once she asked me so many pointed questions, I figured she knew the sort of woman her mother was. I saw no reason in lying to protect either of them." Mrs. Francis chewed her lip now and continued to twist her apron.
"Did you give her what she wanted to know? Were there names of men?" He wondered if Mitzi could have tried to blackmail an old boyfriend of her mother's after all these years.
The woman shook her head slowly and shrugged. "No, I didn't know any of them for certain. Ruby was sly, she was. I always suspected it was because the men were married. I was never sure of the names any more than I was sure if there was just one man or a dozen."
Too bad, thought Link. "What about Mitzi's friends since she's been back? Think hard. Do you know any of their names?"
Mrs. Francis shook her head. "No, I'm afraid not. She was so much like her mother, you see. I think she must have been seeing a man, but she was very secretive about him." The woman sobbed into the apron she brought to her face. Her body shook with the wracking sobs.
Awkward as he felt, Link waited patiently while Mrs. Francis gave in to the bout of tears. When the sobs ceased, he probed again, "Any idea who this man might be?"
She shook her head. "He's probably married. I tried to warn her time and time again."
Link asked, "What about girl friends, coworkers?"
"I don't think she had any female friends here. She didn't have a job, either. There was a good bit of money from her father's insurance policy, forty thousand. Plus the house and car. So, you see, she was okay for now."
She tilted her head, lost in thought. "She kept saying she was settling the estate. She said it over and over again. 'I'm going to settle Papa Jimbo's estate,' she'd say just like that. Then she'd laugh. She made it sound like Jimbo was wealthy or something, but he wasn't. Maybe it made her feel important to say it that way."
Link handed her a business card. "Thank you, Mrs. Francis. Please call me if you remember anything else, no matter how trivial it might seem."
As he climbed into the car, he dialed his mom. "Have you paid a condolence call on Mrs. Francis?...Figured you would...Yeah, she's taking her niece's death hard. I expect she could use a cheerful face right away."
Chapter Nineteen
By the time he checked with Eddy at noon, Link felt no closer to knowing the dead woman than when he left her aunt's house. The two men decided to try the house where Mitzi had lived.
"What did you find out from the ex-husband?" Link asked as they left the Justice Center.
Eddy looked anything but satisfied. "Not much, except the divorce was not final--apparently it takes longer in California than in Texas. He wasn't devastated by her death, but seemed shaken. Said she wasn't a faithful wife. He talked to her as recently as last week, though."
"Really? What about?"
"He said she was talking about how she was on to a good thing here. Said she was going to settle her father's estate and retire on the proceeds." Eddy shrugged as the car stopped in front of a modest brick home. Each of the homes in the neighborhood sat far back from the road on parcels of land ranging from one to five acres.
Eddy glanced around the neighborhood. "Don’t get me wrong, this place is okay, but it’s not what I’d call plush. Wait until you see the inside. Doesn't look like Morrison had all that much money.”
Link nodded. “Aunt said the insurance policy was only forty thousand.”
“Yeah, and Zach said he knew Mitzi barely had enough money to pay for the gas to drive back to attend the funeral. Doesn’t look like that much of an estate to settle."
Link shook his head and opened the car door. "That's the same thing the aunt said. Mitzi kept telling her she was settling her father's estate. Those words exactly." He stood near the front walk looking at the home. "What do you figure this would run on today's market?"
Eddy answered, "Let's see. This is about an acre here, don't you reckon? That
house is older but it would be run to 2000, maybe 2500 square feet, wouldn't it? My guess would be about two hundred thousand--maybe two fifty or so if they got a buyer from California or the East Coast."
Link nodded and added, "Mitzi was thirty-three. You can't retire at that age on forty G's and the proceeds from the sale of this house, can you?"
"No, even if the interest rates were better than they are now. Maybe the father had bonds or stocks, something like that."
“Zach coming back for her funeral?”
“Wants to but he’s broke. I think he’s seeing dollar signs in front of his eyes. Said since the divorce wasn’t final, her estate should go to him.”
Link thought of Drady Francis and knew where he hoped the estate went. That woman actually mourned Mitzi’s death. Link stepped up the walk and fished the door key from his pocket, the same key found in Mitzi's handbag.
Inside the house, Eddy peered around. He looked forlorn. "Goddard and I went over this pretty thoroughly yesterday. Found nada. Of course, we were mainly looking for evidence she was murdered here."
"Let's give it another go. The aunt gave us permission to look all we want until after the funeral and this can be sold."
"What're we looking for now?"
"Anything that might have been overlooked yesterday. The ex-husband didn't know of anything there in California, did he?" Link asked.
Eddy shook his head. "According to him, when she heard her father died she just loaded everything in her car and moved back here in a flash. Said she lived in a furnished apartment there. Guess there wasn't that much to move. Got the impression they'd always had money problems. If she has any stuff left out there in storage or anything, he doesn't know about it."
"No safe deposit key with her handbag,” Link asked.
“Nope.”
Link glanced around the dreary living room. “She must have saved all her important papers in here somewhere."
The men started in separate rooms and worked through the house. They met in the hall.
Eddy said, "We took in anything even remotely of interest yesterday. I don't have even a paper clip today."
"All I have is this photo. Shows Mitzi, but the other person has been torn off." Link pounded his fist against a doorframe in frustration. "Damn, there has to be something else here we've missed."
Back at the Justice Center, Link assured Goddard, "I'm sure there's something in that house we've overlooked." By now, Link wished he'd listened to Maggie and used that antibiotic ointment with painkiller on his shin.
Goddard clamped his jaw, then said, "We can't spend days searching that damn house. What else have you come up with?"
Eddy and Link reviewed the fruits of their respective investigations.
Goddard snorted at their efforts.
“What about her car. It ever turn up?” Link asked.
Goddard nodded. “On the WalMart parking lot, clean as a whistle.”
Link said, "So, we're still nowhere with this thing. There has to be something we're missing here. She talked to someone besides her aunt and the murderer."
Goddard snapped, "Damn right. And first thing tomorrow you two find out who she talked to and what she talked about."
Chapter Twenty
On the way home from work, Link stopped by Timeless Treasures, his sister's antique shop. Of his four sisters, Gwen was nearest his age and the one with whom he had most in common. They shared their father's dark coloring, lean build, and facial features.
It was closing time. Gwen let him in and locked the door behind him.
"Careful. Step around this stuff here. I just got these pieces from an estate sale."
"Nice."
She paused to point at one of the new finds. "Look at this old traveler's lap desk. It has a secret compartment." She moved her hand along the base and a small drawer slid out. "Don't you love it? And this drop front desk is a real find."
"Yeah, it's great." He ran his hand along the hand carved desk front before he followed her to the sales counter. "Why didn’t you tell me Coy moved from his old house on Madison Street?"
Her expression of surprise answered his question. "I had no idea. Why would he move? And when did he?"
Link leaned his elbows on the counter near the cash register to watch Gwen make out her bank deposit. "Right after Christmas--of the year before last."
Gwen put aside the money she'd been counting and gave Link a look of bewilderment. "Link? Are you sure? I mean, Madison Street is a dead end so I never go by the house, but I see Coy often. For heaven’s sake, the man eats breakfast with us at least twice a week. He's never said a word about moving."
"Look, Gwen, keep this quiet, will you? Something fishy is going on here. He said he had to move because his mother never paid taxes on the place. Gary Don lets him live in a place he owns just north of town. Man, it's a real rat trap. I could bust Gary Don in the mouth for parking Coy there."
"Hmm. You mean Gary Don Clayton, our esteemed Sheriff?" She rolled her eyes. Link knew her low opinion of the sheriff.
She continued, "Do you remember their mothers were either first or second cousins? Gary Don is some sort of executor or conservator or something for Coy since Mrs. Cox died."
Link shrugged. "Yeah? Well, he's doing a lousy job of managing Coy's estate."
"Do you think Coy gets money from being disabled?"
"I don't know if he's ever been tested.” He paused a moment to think about it. “Surely he was when he was in school.”
“Maybe he fell through the cracks—you know, I.Q. too high to be classified retarded, but not high enough to be truly functional."
"Yeah, guess that's possible."
Gwen chewed her lip, then added, "You'd be surprised, though. He's learned a lot about which items are valuable and which aren't. Some days when there are no customers in the shop he comes in and asks questions about various things. You know, why is this here, what makes people want it, that sort of thing."
"Hmm, I always suspected you bought things from him just to help him out." Link let his index finger idly revolve a weather vane depicting a running horse.
The blush spreading across her face confirmed his speculation. "Maybe most of the time. He's brought in some real finds, though. For instance, that weather vane you're manhandling."
He gave the horse another spin. "I have someone looking into the records on Coy's old house--you may have met the new attorney in town, Vince Bertolli."
"Oh, yes. Charming man--I wish Kathy or Beth could date him. He was at the last Chamber of Commerce meeting." Gwen shot him a sly look, her blue eyes twinkling. "Have you met his sister, Anna, too."
Link gave her a stony glare. Best to nip this matchmaking attempt in the bud. "No, and I'm in no hurry to, especially when you have that look on your face."
Gwen pretended to pout, but her good humor burst through in a laugh. With a toss of her black curls, she said, "Oh, Link, she's the prettiest woman in town. I know it's cliché, but she looks like Maureen O'Hara.”
“Hmm, wouldn’t that make her a little old for me?”
“You know very well I mean when Maureen O’Hara was young--dark red hair, sparkling green eyes, alabaster skin, tall, thin but shapely."
She reached across the counter and pinched his cheek. "She'll knock your socks off."
Link leaned back out of her reach, but smiled. "My socks are just fine where they are, thank you very much. What is it with you married women, anyway? You want everyone else in the world paired off."
Gwen looked contrite. "I'm sorry, I guess it's a little soon after Terri's death to start matchmaking. I just want you to be as happily married as Forrest and me."
Link fixed his eyes on the weather vane he gave another twirl with his finger. "I've been married, and I didn't find it the happy experience you and Forrest apparently share."
"Oh, Link." Gwen moved over to place her hand on his arm. "I knew things weren't going well with you two, but I never knew whether or not to say anything. You nev
er mentioned it, so I decided you didn't want to talk about it."
She sighed and returned to her previous spot at the counter as she continued. "Terri could be difficult, but I really tried to like her, honest I did." Gwen blushed again. Apparently she gave away more than she intended.
Link walked around the counter to give her shoulders a quick hug.
"I know you did, Gwen. The truth is, though, that if she hadn't been in that accident, we probably would have gotten a divorce pretty soon. Never would have married her in the first place if she hadn’t been pregnant with Jason. She admitted she did so on purpose. Wanted me to find a job making more money with better hours."
His mind wandered, acrid memories surfacing. He stepped away and pretended to examine glass paperweights on a nearby shelf.
Not usually one to talk about his private life, even to Gwen, he confided, "We knew Nana A. hadn't much longer to live, and we discussed moving back here to live in Akridge House. Terri hated the idea, wouldn't even consider it. Then, when Nana died, I brought it up again.”
He shook his head and looked at his hands. “The day of the wreck, we’d argued about it and she stormed out of the house. She was so furious she probably didn't even see the red light she ran or the truck that hit her car."
He leaned his elbows on the counter and rested his forehead in his hands. "Damn, no matter how I fight it, I can't help feeling my wanting her to move here helped cause her death."
"Oh, no," Gwen said. "Her own poor judgement and bad temper caused her accident." She grasped his hands in hers and forced him to look at her. "Please don't let one bad experience sour you on women, Link. There are so many nice women your age here in town."
He forced a smile. He had not meant to reveal his personal demons. "Like this redhead? Man, you just never give up, do you? How did we get so far off the subject?"
"Were we off the subject?" Her cheeks dimpled and her dark blue eyes sparkled. Damn. He'd be hearing more about this Anna woman or he was mistaken.
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