I shook my head to reorient my thoughts.
“Well, I did have this really dreamy chemistry teacher so I’m sure that helped,” she said with a languid smile and a deep sigh as the memory flickered the old flame in her heart. “I’ll bet the boys in your class felt the same way.”
“How did you know I was a chemistry teacher?” I wondered if there was a scarlet C emblazoned on my forehead.
“Oh, I helped Arnie do the background research on you for Mr. Travis.”
Welcome to the twenty-first century, where privacy is just an illusion. Soon even our genetic make-up will be an open book.
Kristi’s features puckered into a look of pain. “Oh, Molly, I am so sorry about your husband.” She shook her head, patted my arm and the furrows faded even quicker than they had formed. “But I know you’re going to get that poor boy out of jail. I just know it. Now that Bobby’s fate is in your hands, everything will turn out just right.”
I looked at her eager, glowing face and longed to share her faith in my abilities. I smiled back at her but inside I grimaced. The weight of the burden I’d sought and acquired now fell on my shoulders with a thud. I had a job to do, and I hoped to God I was up to it.
Chapter Fourteen
By the time I escaped from downtown, Interstate 10 in Houston had transformed from a highway into long stretches of rush-hour parking lots. I oozed through town, crawled through the suburb of Katy and finally broke loose. I-10 was still crowded, but at least movement was perceptible. A few exits west, I was up and over the seventy-mile-per-hour speed limit. To break up the monotony of the miles home, I slid in a Tracy Nelson CD recorded live at a women’s prison. By the time she hit the cut with her old classic about Mother Earth, I was singing along and oblivious to the ugly scenery that flew past my windshield.
At the house, I slapped together a sandwich and plopped down in front of my computer with my passwords to the magical world of Internet privacy invasion. I ran reams of reports on each of the members of the band. I was disappointed to discover no criminal records, except for a few traffic violations and a couple of bounced checks. Of course, there was no telling what could be contained in sealed juvenile records. I’d ask Arnie if there were any legal—or not so legal—way to get into those.
Next, I ran Mike Elliot, manager of Solms Halle, through the databases. Mike was a local boy and I thought I knew all I needed to know about him. We were never close, but I had known him most of my life. Surprise! Surprise! Mike showed up with a criminal record. While out in Lubbock attending Texas Tech, Mike was busted for attempted robbery. My, my, my. I’ll have to have a talk with Mike about that. He was found guilty but served no time, except for the few days he spent in jail until he could post bond. He paid a fine and court costs and did community service. Obviously, the authorities did not deem him to have a lifelong inclination to commit acts with felonious intent. Sure would be easier if they had. On the other hand, I would just as soon find out that someone I did not know killed Rodney Faver and framed Bobby Wiggins.
The sudden onset of small stabs of pain in my shoulder blades reminded me of the toll of the last couple of days. I signed off the Internet and climbed into bed.
*
I hadn’t set my alarm the night before and woke up a little later than usual. I clambered out of bed about ten past eight, feeling a little guilty but quite rested. After downing a dose of hot, liquid caffeine, I called Thelma Wiggins.
“Good morning, Mrs. Wiggins. This is Molly Mullet . . .” Slam. Damn, I sighed. Travis must not have informed her about the latest developments.
I scooted by the printer’s office and dropped off the disk for my business cards and then drove to Thelma’s house. In the car, I scratched out a short note to Thelma explaining that Dale Travis could confirm that I quit the police force and was now working on Bobby’s case. I went up to the front door and knocked. The curtain in the window twitched but, as I expected, the door did not swing open in welcome. I knocked again and heard only the sounds of silence. I did catch a whiff of baking bread sliding around the edges of the front door, causing my mouth to water and my ire at Thelma to reach a new high. I stuck my note between the wooden screen door and the jamb and went home.
I ran a few more possible suspect names and found nothing of interest. Then I ran Rodney Faver. Here was a colorful background. Faver had a long list of traffic violations, including driving while intoxicated charges in a number of states. He had also been charged with misappropriation of funds, fraud and assault and battery. The charges never mounted to more than a speed bump in Faver’s life, though. A few convictions were settled with a small fine; the rest were dismissed.
In another database, I found a long list of civil cases. Some were charges brought against Faver, but a much longer list was of suits he initiated. He was a litigious little guy. He must have accumulated a lot of enemies with that practice.
I made a round of phone calls to the numbers for the band I had uncovered on the databases. Most numbers dialed reached an answering machine promising a prompt response. I suspected that all were hollow promises, but I left a brief message about the reason for my call. When I called Happy Parker, though, someone answered the phone. It was a woman who sounded half asleep, under the influence or both. She mumbled, dropped the phone with a thud and went off hollering “Happy” in a long-suffering whine.
“ ’Lo,” Happy said after fumbling with the phone.
“Happy Parker?”
“Yep. Who’s this?”
“Happy, I’m Molly Mullet. I am working for Dale Travis on Bobby Wiggins’ case.”
“Bobby who?”
“Wiggins. The boy who has been accused of killing Rodney Faver,” I explained.
“No. No comment. Nothing to say. Bye.”
Once again, someone hung up on me. It was getting more than a little annoying. I called back. The phone rang and rang. After twelve times, I gave up. I hoped he was hungover and each signal drove a spike through his brain.
I needed to expand my list of people I could use as suspects or sources of information. Research of media coverage of the band would provide a wealth of that kind of information. That required a trip to the main public library in San Antonio. We had a public library in New Braunfels but for in-depth access to periodicals, San Antonio was the place to go. If I had a San Antonio library card, I could look at a lot of that material on-line at home. But I always balked at paying the huge annual fee required for a non-resident card. Besides, I loved visiting the library downtown.
A half-hour drive down Interstate 35 and I was there. The second I spotted the library building, a grin of appreciation stretched, as always, across my face. I loved its massive enchilada-red structure at first sight. When the stuffy Anglos of the town shrieked and sniveled at the ostentatious color and design, I was delighted. Those elitists stayed worked up over the library until writer Sandra Cisneros was kind enough to distract them with a powerful purple paint job on her house in the historic King William district.
I paused outside to absorb the power of the colors and the emotions they evoked. The structure rose up from its bland institutional urban surroundings, making a statement that could not be denied. The brilliant cream-of-tomato-soup hue had dramatic accents of Aztec gold. Around the grounds huge geometric sculptures were tossed in the grass as if they were the abandoned toys of the children of a race of giants. The library and its grounds shouted: “Here I am. Come inside. I am an exciting place to be.”
The interior reflected the same demand to be noticed and an in-your-face defiance of subdued Anglo tradition. Everywhere I looked, my eyes captured splotches of sunny yellow and royal purple with highlights of Aztec gold. The vaulted ceilings created a sense of grandeur that said here was a place where the exploration of human knowledge was as vast and limitless as the human imagination itself.
I made my way up the stairs to the periodical section and camped out at a computer catalogue. By working in the computer files, I was limited to t
he past ten years. The band had not been around quite that long, so I probably wouldn’t need to dig farther back in the paper indices.
I was making a list of names and jotting down any pertinent information I could harvest from the feature articles I found when I felt an odd and startling sensation on my leg that catapulted me out of my chair. My heart was pounding and my breathing disintegrated into gasps before I recognized the source of the odd feeling. I had forgotten I had set my cell phone on vibrate and slipped it into my pocket.
By the time I extracted the phone, the caller was gone. I swung my gaze around the space hoping no one had noticed my startled gyrations—either no one did or no one cared. Grateful, I went outside to return the call. When the phone answered, I recognized Thelma Wiggins’ voice right away.
“Hi, Mrs. Wiggins. This is Molly Mullet. Sorry I didn’t get the phone out in time to catch your call.”
“Well, I’m sorry I hung up on you this morning and didn’t answer the door when you came calling. I talked to Mr. Travis, and I’ll talk to you now if you want to come on by. I was fixing to brew up some fresh iced tea and I got some banana nut bread just baked this morning.”
The memory of that escaping aroma caressed my nose again and induced another round of excessive salivation. “I’m down here in San Antonio just now but I’d be glad to stop by this evening after supper.”
“You know you can’t do that, Molly Mullet,” she snapped. “It’s Wednesday night.”
Oh, yes. Wednesday night. Prayer meeting night at the Baptist church. Thelma was as devout in her attendance there as the average Texan was with Friday night football games at the high school. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Wiggins. I forgot it was Wednesday.”
She sniffed, but she was mollified and continued the conversation in a more pleasant tone of voice. “Come on by in the morning, Molly—say about 7:30. I’ll fix you up some breakfast and we’ll talk a spell.”
“That would be real nice, Mrs. Wiggins. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Don’t be late, now. I’d rather eat cardboard than cold eggs,” she warned.
“Yes, ma’am. I’ll be on time.”
At last, one person was willing to talk to me. On my way back, I’d stop in and see if Mike Elliot would give me the time of day. First, though, let’s see what the archives here reveal about his unsavory misadventures out in West Texas.
Chapter Fifteen
On the way into town, I picked up my business card order and then headed out to the historic community of Solms. I parked in the big lot across the street from the gray, weathered boards of the building that housed Solms Halle. I found Mike inside talking to the driver of a beer delivery truck. I flipped one of my new cards in his direction and said, “Hi, Mike.”
“Well, well, well. This is very interesting. How are you, Molly? And just what are you up to with The Agency?”
“I’m doing fine, Mike. And my job right now is to find the information necessary to get Bobby Wiggins out of jail.”
“More power to ya, Molly. Bobby doesn’t belong behind bars.”
“I’d like to talk to you for a few minutes about that night.”
“Not a good time,” Mike objected. “I’ve got a lot to do.”
“C’mon, Mike. It’s Wednesday night. It’s not like I dropped by on a weekend.”
“C’mon yourself, Molly. You were here that night. You saw everything I did—maybe more. I don’t have anything new to offer. And I’ve answered the questions of cops and nosy neighbors till I’m sick of it.”
“I really need to scratch you off my list, Mike.”
“List? List of what? Suspects?” He gave me that you-lost-it-now-Molly-Mullet look. I’d recognize it anywhere. I just nodded.
“Oh, give me a break. I’m about as suspicious as a piece of road kill. I was so busy that night, I didn’t have time for a threat, let alone follow through. You know that. You were there. See you around, Molly.” He laughed and turned away.
“Your criminal record automatically qualifies you as a suspect,” I snapped at his retreating back.
He swung around and faced me. “Damn it, Molly.” He prodded my shoulder with the knuckles of one hand. “Take it outside.”
On the sidewalk, he continued his harangue. “That was uncalled for, Molly. What did I ever do to you?”
“You turned your back on me, Mike. You didn’t leave me a lot of options. I, for one, care about what happens to Bobby Wiggins. I thought you would, too.”
“I do care about Bobby. I’m sick about it. But I don’t know anything. My stupidity in the past has nothing to do with Bobby. My staff is unaware of my record and I want to keep it that way.”
“I’m not trying to cause problems, Mike. I’m trying to find answers. I suppose you haven’t told your employer about Lubbock, either.”
“Well, you supposed wrong,” he spat back. “I was totally up front with him.”
“Really? Then why would he give a thief a position of such responsibility and authority? Explain that, Mike.”
“Because the whole thing was just so stupid.”
“Felony charges go beyond ‘stupid’ in my book, Mike.”
He blew his exasperation through his lips like a horse. “It was all reduced to a misdemeanor in the end. I’m not proud of it. But it happened. And it’s over.”
“What happened?” I asked.
He shook his head as if in refusal but then he began. “Me and a couple of buddies were screwing around one night. Too much to drink. Too little to do in that dusty outback we called home for four years. Somehow, we thought it would be funny to pull off a gag robbery. I tied a bandana around the bottom of my face while the others waited outside peering through the windows.
“I pulled out a water gun, struggled to keep a straight face and an upright position and drawled, ‘This here’s a stick-up.’
“The guy behind the counter was not amused. He pulled out a real shotgun and said, ‘Yeah. And I’ll blow a hole in your empty head big enough for a dozen dust devils to dance.’
“I dropped my plastic pistol and put my hands on top of my head. I focused my eyes on the barrel of the gun and concentrated on not wetting my pants until the police arrived. My buddies were so shit-faced, they were still doubled over giggling in the parking lot when the flashing lights pinned them in place.”
“You’re right, Mike. ‘stupid’ is an apt description. What were you all thinking?”
“We weren’t, Molly,” he said with a sigh. Tugging on the right sleeve of my T-shirt, he added, “We all did stupid things when we were younger.”
“Okay, Mike,” I said brushing his hand from my arm. “Let’s just say, for the sake of argument, that you concealed this stupid incident from your employer . . .”
“But, I didn’t, Molly.”
“Yeah, but just for the moment, let’s say that you did.” He started to object again but I waved him quiet. “So your employer doesn’t know. But, somehow, Rodney Faver finds out and he blackmails you.”
“Aw, c’mon, Molly.”
“That would be a good motive for murder.” I looked him straight in the eye and watched the color drain from his face. Then bright red patches appeared on his cheeks and anger flashed in his eyes.
“Yeah, it would be a good motive. But it didn’t happen. I just can’t believe you, Molly Mullet. How could you possibly think I’d do such a thing? Now, don’t get me wrong. I can see how you would think I could kill some lowlife blackmailer. But, damn it, Molly, how could you possibly believe I’d sit around twiddling my thumbs while they hauled off poor old Bobby Wiggins and slammed him into jail.” In his agitation, Mike’s voice rose in volume and pitch. He fidgeted in place. He was drawing stares from passersby.
I moved closer and placed a hand on his arm as I spoke. “You really do care about Bobby?”
The nervous energy lifted from his shoulders and his arms slumped by his sides. “Bobby is a bit older than me, but in a way he’s like a little brother. I fought to get him
this job—not many people want to hire somebody like him. But he’s a hard worker, he follows instructions and he never misses a day of work. He even put waders on and trudged in here after the last flood. He’s a simple but good man. There’s no way he killed that weasel Faver.”
“You didn’t like Faver, I take it?”
“He was scum. Good riddance. I guess that’s not a smart thing for me to say under the circumstances. But I never liked him. I can’t believe Wolfe did not dump that garbage a long time ago. Faver was probably blackmailing somebody—it wasn’t me—and maybe it was more than one person. Figure out which chicken he was plucking and you’ve figured out who killed him. And it sure wasn’t Bobby Wiggins.”
“Thanks, Mike. I’ll have to check and make sure your employer is aware of your background. But as long as that pans out, I’ll be moving you to the bottom of my list.”
“Let me make it easier for you.” He whipped out one of his business cards and jotted the name and phone number of the owner of Solms Halle. “Just do me a favor. Don’t ask for any passes in the same conversation.”
We turned away from each other and a question popped into my head; I spun back around. “Say, Mike, one more question.”
His shoulders slumped but he turned back to face me. “What, Molly?” he sighed.
“There was an orange rain poncho lying over the body when I opened the closet. Could it have belonged to anyone who worked for you?”
“Yeah,” he laughed. “Any one of them. We buy those things in bulk and keep a stack in the closet for rainy days.”
“That’s interesting.”
“Interesting. Yes. But it also points the finger right back at Bobby. Besides me, he is the only employee with a key to the closet.”
*
When I got home, I made notes about my talk with Mike and cruised the Internet for contact and background information for the names I uncovered at the library. I came up empty on some of them and would have to turn to the databases. But that could wait till tomorrow.
Bite the Moon: A Texas Hill Country Mystery Page 7