by Ann Charles
“Where is Butch?” Mac asked, wondering what she meant by his “adventure.”
“In Phoenix. He’s starting another business.”
“You mean the greenhouse business?” Claire asked.
“No, another one. Buying old cars, fixing them up, and selling them.”
“He’s a busy guy.” Mac wouldn’t mind seeing some of the old cars Butch was buying or selling. Harley’s 1949 Merc, nicknamed Mabel, made him itch to get some old Detroit steel of his own to polish and stroke.
Kate frowned. “Yeah, you could say that.”
“It’s kind of ironic,” Claire said.
“What?”
“Butch dabbling in antiques. It seems to be a common hobby among the desert dwellers in these parts. He must have picked up the bug from Joe.”
“Joe who, darlin’?” Arlene tucked a stray hair into her hive.
“Joe Martino,” Kate said. “He used to be married to Ruby.”
“Ruby is your new grandmama, right?” At Kate’s nod, Arlene continued, “Joe fiddled with old cars?”
“No, just antiques in general. He was fencing th—” Kate jerked in her chair, her face tightening. “Ouch!” She glared across at Claire. “That was my shin, you big dope.”
“Oh, was it?”
Leaning down, Kate rubbed her leg. “First you punch me, then you kick me. Keep it up and I’m going to give you a buzz cut in your sleep, brat.”
Kate turned back to Arlene. “As I was saying, Joe was fencing stolen—”
“Kate!” Claire leaned across the table, clapping her hand over her sister’s mouth. “Arlene doesn’t need to know our family history, so ixnay on the blabber-mouthing-aye.”
Kate pushed her sister’s hand away, wrinkling her lips and nose. “Yuck, where was that hand last? You better have washed after you went to the bathroom.”
“It was socking you in the mouth. Now zip it.”
“Relax, Claire. It’s just Arlene. She doesn’t give a rat’s ass about Joe and his checkered past.”
“She’s only been here a few weeks. She could be a serial killer who likes to cut blonde waitresses into bite-sized pieces for all you know.” Claire’s gaze moved to Arlene. “No offense, Arlene. I’ve just had bad luck with strangers in the past.”
Bad luck? Mac leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest. More like bad decisions with near deadly results.
“Claire’s paranoid,” Kate said. “She thought those two guys she picked a fight with tonight were here fishing for information about something Joe stole.”
Claire looked like she wanted to punch Kate in the mouth again. “Would you shut up, Kate?”
“I’m telling you, Arlene is one of us. Matter of fact, I was thinking about introducing her to Manny. He might be fun company for her.”
Mac glowered at Claire, stuck on something Kate had said a moment before. “You picked a fight with two strange men?”
“No, I picked a fight with one man. The other got in the way.”
“Haven’t you learned anything about fighting in bars? In this bar?”
“I didn’t intend to get into a brawl, just find out why they were watching Ronnie so closely.”
“Maybe they liked her.” Kate offered. “Since she cut her hair, she has that sexy, sophisticated woman thing going on.”
Really? Mac had trouble seeing her face with the angry frustration blurring his vision whenever she came around.
“I don’t think so,” Claire said. “It wasn’t your typical leering drunk kind of stare. They wanted something from her, I could tell, and when I asked them ever so politely what they were looking for one of them told me to mind my own business.”
“Why did you grab his hat?” Arlene asked.
“Because I was making a point.”
Mac groaned, scrubbing his hand down his face. “What point?”
“That they were fakes. His cowboy hat didn’t even have sweat stains in the rim.”
Kate crossed her arms. “Maybe he’d just bought it. Had you thought about that?”
“Along with his brand-spanking new boots?”
“He was dressing up for a night on the town,” Kate shot back.
“Bullshit. You don’t dress to the nines to come to The Shaft on a Saturday night. You’d go to Tucson and hit one of those urban cowboy bars if you were going to do that. Those two are up to something, and Ronnie came in driving Ruby’s pickup.”
Huh? Had Mac missed something there?
“What’s Ronnie driving the pickup got to do with the two strangers?” Kate asked the question on Mac’s tongue.
“They’ve probably been watching Ruby’s place, and figured out that Ronnie was an easy mark. She’s always been naïve when it comes to men, never catching on when a guy was giving her a little extra attention.”
“An easy mark for what?” Mac wasn’t really sure he wanted to hear the answer.
Claire wiggled her index finger for him to come closer. When he obliged, she whispered, “They’ve come to collect what’s theirs—that gold pocket watch.”
“Oh, Christ.” Mac covered his eyes. “Here we go again.”
Chapter Five
Sunday, September 30th
Claire shut the basement office door behind her and locked it. Alone at last.
After a crappy night in the Skunkmobile with Nat and her two sisters, she was contemplating dragging a sleeping bag down here and camping out on the floor. It would be a lot more comfortable than that damned table-turned-torture-bed she’d ended up on, tossing and turning long past the wee hours this morning.
Crossing the olive shag carpet, she grabbed the far side of the floor-to-ceiling bookcase full of first edition classic books like Treasure Island and Moby Dick. Her back ached at the thought of even trying to lift the sucker to move it away from the wall.
She had started the night sharing the new sofa bed with Kate, but after three long hours of putting up with Kate flopping around, groaning and mumbling, and kneeing her back, Claire had taken a blanket and pillow and curled up on the torture bed. Her left hip still ached from the hours there, counting and recounting sheep.
The bookcase would not budge on her first try, not even with some grunting and a mouthful of swearing. Claire put more of her shoulder into the job for heftier lift and move, getting a close-up whiff of the fumes from the fresh coat of yellow paint Ruby had rolled on the walls last week.
The paint smell did not fully hide the stale odor of cigarette smoke—Ruby’s dead husband’s signature scent. Claire had a feeling the only way to exorcise Joe’s ghost from the basement office would be to rip up the carpet and sell off all of the antiques he’d fenced or stolen that filled the room from floor to ceiling.
Claire stepped back from the bookcase. She rubbed the ache twanging in her lower back, trying to remember from her Human Anatomy 101 class where the spleen was and how easy it was to rupture it.
Ruby had suggested they buy those furniture moving disks to make the bookcase easier to move, but Claire had told her she would rather suffer from a sore back and shoulder to keep their secret safe—and by “safe,” she was referring to the fireproof steel box that Joe had installed flush with the drywall behind the bookcase. The safe’s treasures, such as the gold pocket watch and the chunk of Nazi gold Jess had found under the floor in Ruby’s closet last month, were better protected thanks to the shag carpet making it harder for some thief in a hurry to move the heavy bookcase.
Gramps was too cheap and ornery to buy a security system for the place. He claimed a couple of shotguns and a guard dog were all they needed. Claire hated to piss in his daily bowl of prunes, but Henry was no guard dog. She knew that from firsthand experience when she’d had to face down a double-barrel shotgun with Henry by her side a couple of months back. The damned mutt had run off with his tail between his legs.
Claire wedged herself behind the bookcase and kneeled down, punching in the combination to the safe. The door popped open. The pocket watch sat on the midd
le shelf, front and center. As always, its polished gold and enamel casing called to her, but this time she donned a pair of leather work gloves before picking up the watch. She’d cleaned all fingerprints off of it weeks ago, wanting to keep the oils from her skin from damaging it.
Clutching the watch with her gloved hand, she double-checked the rest of the contents of the safe. The derringer still lay on the top shelf jammed in its matching miniature holster. The box of .22 caliber cartridges and the leather carrying strap filled the shelf along with the gun. As big as she imagined Joe had been thanks to all of those years of greasy spoon dives and bags of even greasier potato chips, she had no idea how he had ever managed to get his fat finger in around that little trigger. Maybe he found the whole getup cute; or he stole it from Gulliver after the traveler returned from Lilliput.
The black box on the second shelf next to where the watch had been still held the piece of Nazi gold. Claire could only imagine the shady dealer from whom Joe had gotten it. She’d had a nightmare weeks back about a platoon of Nazi zombies trying to break into the house to get to it. She’d woken in a pool of sweat, vowing never again to chase red velvet cake with peach schnapps.
The bottom shelf where last month she’d found the mummified hand inside a woven bag now held rolled up Copper Snake stock certificates bound by a thick rubber band.
Ruby and Gramps had decided to store them in the safe rather than in a safe deposit box in Yuccaville’s only bank. Ever since the vice president of Cactus Creek Bank in Yuccaville had tried to steal Ruby’s R.V. park out from under her, she’d had a bit of a chip on her shoulder when it came to financial institutions.
Unfortunately for Claire, Gramps, and Ruby, Jess knew all about the safe’s contents. However, she still didn’t know the new combination, which was something the three of them made doubly sure not to leak. It wasn’t that Jess was likely to steal anything—more that she couldn’t keep her lips sealed most of the time.
Claire closed the safe door and dropped into the leather chair behind Joe’s antique, Queen Anne style desk, placing the watch on the coffee stained desk calendar.
Her mother had drooled over the desk when she’d first seen it. After years of religiously watching Antiques Roadshow, Deborah was a know-it-all about eighteenth and nineteenth century furniture. She had run her fingers over the finely carved legs and edges and gone on and on about the curves and lines like it was a souped-up hot rod.
Claire had an equal appreciation for Joe’s desk ever since the first time she’d had sex with Mac—smack dab on top of it.
Just thinking about Mac made her smile. She’d missed sharing sheets with him the last week. On the way to the General Store this morning, she’d passed Chester’s old Winnebago Brave and had paused to peek in the windows. Mac lay on Chester’s couch with both legs hanging half off the end of it. The sound of Manny’s whistling in his Airstream next door spurred her to hurry on her way.
Laying the pocket watch on the desk, she skimmed her gloved fingers over the tiny flowers and ovals that rimmed the gold case. Just as she did every time she held the watch, she paused to admire the workmanship of the artist who had painted the enamel cover. Pale green trees dotted the landscape while small, sixteenth century buildings rose in the distance. Finally, her two college classes on Art History were paying off. She mentally thumbed her nose at her mother, who never stopped making snide remarks about how much schooling Claire had with so little to show for it.
Claire shook off the tension that came each time she thought of her mother’s voice and returned to the watch. A carriage was the focal point. The two dark horses hitched to it had tiny, glittering eyes—something Claire had confirmed with a magnifying glass during a previous inspection. The crowds of people filling the foreground gave the appearance of a fair or some festival in progress.
Initially, she’d thought the watch might be a nineteenth century piece. But with what she’d learned recently from an article Kate had found at the library, Claire now suspected it was quite a bit older.
She’d considered showing it to her mother, the expert, but the last thing she wanted was her mom catching wind of one of Joe’s felony-inspired mysteries. Not only would it give Deborah more ammunition as to why Ruby was a bad choice as a wife for Gramps, but also it would mean Deborah would have her nose shoved even further into Claire’s life and business. Claire would sooner have her colon inspected in front of an auditorium full of pre-med students.
Someone knocked on the basement door. The locked knob turned partially back and forth several times.
“Who is it?” Claire asked, wondering if someone had seen her sneak down here this morning. Ruby had been rattling around in the kitchen when she had tiptoed down the stairs.
“It’s Kate. Open up.”
“I’m busy.”
“Is Mac in there?”
“No.”
“Then open the door.”
“How’d you know I was down here?”
“You’re obsessed with that damned watch. Where else would you be? Now open the door or I’m going to go tell Mom what you’re up to.”
Claire growled in her throat. Kate always played dirty. She crossed the room and opened the door a crack, peeking through it. “What?”
“I have something for you. Let me in.” Kate pushed on the door.
Claire held firm under Kate’s muscling attempt, her butt weighing a good twenty pounds more than Kate’s scrawny ass at the moment. “Just give it to me.”
“No.” Kate shoved hard, knocking Claire back several feet.
“Jeez,” Claire said, “for a stick insect, you have a mean shoulder.”
Kate shut the door behind her. She looked a little pasty around the gills under the fluorescent lights. “Mom is looking for you.”
Ah, Kate had been talking to Medusa. That explained why she looked ill. Actual face-to-face conversations with the pinch-lipped woman who birthed her usually made Claire’s armpits sweaty and her stomach cramp. “Why me?”
“I didn’t ask.”
“Well, I’m busy.”
“Doing what?” Kate looked at Claire’s gloved hands, then over at the desk. “Playing with that super-mysterious pocket watch again, Sherlock?”
“Poke fun, but I’m telling you this thing is way more valuable than you think.”
“Like five thousand dollars valuable?”
“I’m thinking like ten times that.”
Kate snorted. “I’m thinking you’ve been smoking some of that happy weed you used to score back in high school from the nude hippie down our street.”
“He wasn’t a hippie, just an old vet who got confused after too many joints and thought his invisibility suit hid his bits and pieces from view.”
“Thank God Chester and Manny don’t smoke weed,” Kate said. “They’re already ‘one toke over the line’ without even touching the stuff.”
“Thanks, dork. Now that song is in my head.” Claire walked around the desk and dropped into Joe’s chair. “I need more information on the pocket watch to pinpoint a year. When can you get back to the library?”
After having been kicked out of the Yuccaville library for fighting, Claire was still on their suspended list for another few months. She held firm in her position that the old broad double-tapped her with that damned cane before Claire took it upon herself to push back. Unfortunately, the librarian remained unsympathetic.
“I’m not going back.” Kate planted her hands on her hips, her back getting ramrod stiff. “I have a life, you know. One that doesn’t revolve around your warped, fictitious world full of criminals and murderers.”
“Fine. Calm down.” Claire sat back in the chair, frowning up at Kate and her flared nostrils and suddenly pink cheeks. “Jeez, Princess, what crawled up your ass and died this morning? Was there a pea under the cushion of your side of the couch bed last night?” That would explain Kate’s restless slumber.
“Sorry,” Kate said, waving away Claire’s raised brows. “I woke up
on the wrong side of the bed this morning. Why were you sleeping on the table, anyway?”
“Because you were kickboxing in your sleep.” Claire had the bruises to prove it. “Where did you go at the butt crack of dawn?”
Sleep was a pipe dream when it came to that damned table. A bed of nails would have been more comfortable or at least therapeutic. Kate’s attempt to sneak out had been a temporary distraction from the ache in Claire’s left hip.
“I felt like taking a walk.”
“You wanted to exercise early in the morning? Have we made a free right turn into a parallel universe and nobody told me?”
Kate’s jaw jutted. “What? I’ve turned over a new leaf.”
“A new leaf would mean a darker shade of lipstick for you, not something that involves the potential to actually produce sweat.” Kate was allergic to anything that made her leak from her pores. “Did Butch get you on this health kick?”
“Butch has nothing to do with it.” The sharpness in Kate’s tone made Claire lean forward.
“What’s going on with you two?”
“Nothing,” Kate said, her tight lips making it clear she was not going to share a peep.
“Fine, if it’s nothing, then you’ll help me get access to his home computer so I can get online and do my own research on this pocket watch.” Claire tapped the gold casing with her gloved finger.
“I’m not going back there.”
“Listen, whatever this fight between you two is about, I’m sure he doesn’t want you to move out. You’re overreacting.”
“Said the kettle.”
“I do not overreact to a fight—unnecessary drama is Ronnie’s song and dance routine.”
“That’s right,” Kate said. “You just tuck tail and run.”
After waking up to another morning with the impending doom of motherhood still a possibility in the forecast, Kate’s words struck way too close to the truth. It had taken Claire five minutes of whispering to herself in the Skunkmobile’s bathroom mirror and a few self-inflicted smacks to the face not to grab the car keys for Mabel and flee the state. Instead, she had grabbed her hidden pack of cigarettes on her way out the door but then had remembered why she needed a smoke and cursed, stubbing her stress-aid out as soon as she had lit it. She had settled for stuffing her face with Twinkies upon reaching the store.