“What did you say when the police asked you if you had any idea who did kill him?”
“I said I didn’t know,” she replied, “and that’s God’s truth.”
She said it firmly enough, but there was something about her answer that made me think she was holding back. “No phone calls, no death threats?”
She gave a brittle laugh. “Those? Oh, hell, yes. Every week or so, somebody would storm in here, yelling and cussing. But it was all just talk. They were afraid to try anything for fear he’d come after them.”
“That would include most of the City Council?” Sheila asked.
Iris’s glasses had slid to the end of her nose, magnifying her eyes. She pushed them up. “What do you know about that?”
“We may have missed a few of the details, but we have the general outline,” I said. “He threatened to tell the voters that he and Pauline Perkins had had a sexual relationship. He offered to blow the whistle on Winnie Hatcher’s brother. He doubled Darla McDaniels’s rent. He bought a new car from Ken Bowman. He volunteered a rent-free shop location to Billie Jean Jones. He threatened to disclose that Phyllis Garza’s husband had forged immigration documents. He withheld a contract from Wanda Rathbottom.” I paused. “In return for his cooperation, he expected these people to vote his way when the annexation proposal came up again.”
Iris’s lower jaw sagged. “My God,” she said. “How in hell did you dig up all that?”
“It’s a small town. People know one another, and they talk. It’s tough to keep a secret.”
“No shit.” She leaned forward and tapped her cigarette into the marble ashtray. “Well, I’m not going to try to defend him. Eddie had a certain way of working, a style, you might say. If a piece of useful information happened to land in his lap—and a lot of it did—he filed it away for future reference. He was always talking about leverage. Always saying he’d be a damn fool if he didn’t use whatever tool came to hand.”
“And sometimes he created the tool himself,” I said. “Like Pauline.”
Iris smiled slightly. “Yeah, she’s a good example. He wasn’t really involved with her, emotionally, I mean. He didn’t jump in the sack with her more than once or twice.” She chuckled. “Pauline isn’t exactly a sex goddess. But when it was all over, she was in his pocket, so to speak. He had her right where he wanted her, you know what I mean?”
Sheila looked as if she was ready to gag. “And you approved?”
Iris lifted her shoulders, let them fall. “Pauline’s a grownup, isn’t she? Most of his women were like that. More than willing, I mean. Capable of making choices.” She pulled on her cigarette and leaned back, blowing the smoke out to one side, speaking reminiscently. “Eddie was a real nice-looking guy, you know? A cool dresser, sexy. It was laughable, really, the way they’d beg to be had, like that real estate woman who lives down the street from his house. He just gave them what they were asking for.” She frowned. “Although I’ve got to say that every now and then he’d come up with something downright malicious. For instance, one of his ideas involved a kid, would you believe?” She gave a snort of disgust. “I mean, a kid, for crissake. You’d think he’d be smarter than that, wouldn’t you? Or have more heart, or something.”
“You’re not talking about child pornography, are you?” Sheila asked.
Iris shook her head. “Nah. He wasn’t into that, far as I know. But it was bad, just the same. I said to him, ‘Eddie, this is just gonna cause a lot of heartache. I’m telling you, Eddie, don’t do it. Don’t be a horse’s ass.’ So he backed off and I took it on myself to set things straight. But that was the worst. The rest of them, they asked for it.”
As Iris leaned forward to stub out her cigarette, I thought again about Edgar Coleman’s habit of using people. Had he ever been genuinely emotionally involved with anyone? Had his entire existence been a history of manipulations, exploiting people for what they could give him or bring him or do for him? Had he never done a moment’s worth of good for anyone? If that was true, it was a sad waste of a human life.
Iris sat up straight, dropped her head back, and lifted her hair. She went on, half-sadly. “You know, you might not like Eddie a whole lot, but you had to admire him. He was so damn shrewd. If he wanted something, he wouldn’t just go for it. He’d sit and scheme and figure out the best way to get it—and how to get something else he wanted in the bargain. Like buying those two Lincolns from Ken Bowman.”
“Two?” Sheila asked.
Ah, I thought, remembering the Lincoln parked out front.
“Yeah,” Iris said. “One for Letty and one for me.”
Sheila’s eyebrows arched. “Excuse me, but wasn’t that being, well, pretty obvious?”
Iris shrugged. “Eddie was a pretty obvious kind of guy. ‘If you’ve got it, flaunt it,’ he always said.” She grinned. ”It was one of the things we saw eye to eye on. What’s the point in having something if you can’t use it to get people’s attention? Anyway, he killed two birds with one stone with those Lincolns, so to speak. He got fleet price on the cars and Ken’s vote into the bargain.” Now that Iris had started with the details, she seemed to find a certain satisfaction in them, almost a pride. ”The deal he offered to Billie Jean was the same kind of thing. He had a strip center that was in trouble—you know, the location wasn’t any too hot, the utility company was digging up the road, plus he lost his anchor. He needed to get a new tenant in there fast to keep a couple of others from bailing out. So he propositioned Billie Jean. It was a good deal,” Iris added thoughtfully. ”I know, because I put the numbers together for him—free rent, fixtures and finish already in, plus six months’ utilities. I honestly don’t know why she didn’t take him up on it. All she had to do was stick with her vote. It was no big deal.”
“Wrong,” I said. “It is a big deal. Didn’t Eddie clue you in?”
She stared at me.
“Coleman’s beyond prosecution,” I said, “but it’s open season on a couple of those Council members. And if I were you, I might be afraid that my employer’s extortion attempts might be connected to me.” I let the remark hang for a moment, and then added, “Because if that’s true, things might get ... well, a little nasty. Bribery of a public official is a third-degree felony—two to ten plus a five grand fine on each count.” I heard her quick intake of breath. “By my reckoning, there are at least seven counts.” I paused to let that sink in. “I’ll let you do the arithmetic.”
“Just a damn minute here,” she said, indignant. “I didn’t bribe any—”
I cut in. “The county prosecutor is a guy named Dutch Doran. Dutch is a bright guy, and very aggressive. He’s coming up for reelection in the next few months, and he’d love to make a public example of a couple of corrupt Council members. Ken Bowman, for one.” I grinned. “Dutch has had a grudge against Ken ever since he tried and failed to get him on the Lemon Law a couple of years ago.”
Iris sounded desperate. “But that was Eddie’s deal. It doesn’t have anything to do with me.”
“Oh, yes, it does,” I said. “Dutch will be extremely interested in those two Lincolns. In fact, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if he impounded both of them.”
“Impounded?” Iris shrilled. “But Eddie paid cash, and signed it over to me! It’s my car, and I’ve got the title.”
“Cash?” I chuckled. “Boy oh boy, will Dutch love that. And if you’ve done any paperwork or left a trail he can sniff out—notes you made for Coleman, messages, anything like that—Dutch will drag you into it. He won’t be able to stick a bribery charge on you, but he’ll probably try for accessory.”
Sheila threw me a questioning look, and I gave her a brief nod. There was some truth to what I’d said. If Dutch figured he had even a glimmer of a chance at getting Ken Bowman on a charge of accepting a bribe, he’d go for it like a big bass snapping at a plastic worm.
Sheila added her weight to the argument. “Dutch won’t go after you directly, Iris,” she said, “but I’m afraid you stan
d a good chance of losing that Lincoln, at least until after the trial. He’ll keep you here, too, to testify.”
It took only a second for Iris to come to a similar conclusion. “Well, shit,” she said again, definitively. “That does it.” She shoved herself forward on the sofa and stood up. “I can’t sit around here all day talking. I’ve got things to do. Plans to make.”
“What sort of plans?” I asked, getting to my feet.
“Moving plans.” She was emphatic. “The cops said I could leave when I felt like it, and I’m taking them up on the offer. I wasn’t in a tearing hurry, but this stuff about bribery makes me nervous. And now that Letty’s dead—” She gave an involuntary, visible shudder. “I don’t mind telling you, I’m afraid.”
“Who, Iris?” Sheila’s question was urgent. “Who are you afraid of?”
“If I knew who, maybe I wouldn’t be afraid,” Iris said grimly. “Letty had nothing to do with Eddie’s business, but now she’s dead too. I don’t intend to hang around and make it three.”
This wasn’t going quite the way I planned. “But you must have some idea,” I protested. “Some piece of gossip, some hint, some indication that Coleman was afraid of somebody. Did a guy named Garza ever show up here?”
She frowned. “Garza? I don’t think so.”
“Keep thinking,” I urged. “You must know—”
“If I knew,” Iris said, slowly and distinctly, “I’d know what to do about it, wouldn’t I? I wouldn’t let some filthy son of a bitch get away with killing Eddie, would I? Quite apart from how I felt about him—which is nobody’s goddamn business but mine—he was my boss. The gander that laid the golden egg, so to speak.” She flashed a crooked grin. “But don’t worry. I’ll stop by the police station on my way home and volunteer my alibi for this morning. I sure as hell don’t want the cops standing in my way when I’m ready to leave town.” She reached over, picked up her cigarettes and lighter, and put them in the pocket of her slacks. Her fingers touched something else and she brought it out. A slip of paper. She studied it for a moment. “You two seem decent enough,” she said finally. “Maybe you can use this.” She dropped the paper into my hand. On it was handwritten three sets of numbers. 9R-11L-24R. A lock combination.
“Are you going to tell us where to look for the safe, or do we get to guess?” I asked.
“In the floor behind the desk,” Iris said. “Pull out the chair mat and lift up the rug.”
“What’s in it?” Sheila asked.
“Just about anything you can think of and some things that would never occur to you.” Iris laughed harshly. “Eddie called it his funny-business file. That’s where he kept the dirt he dug up.”
“Why didn’t you tell the police about it?” I asked, putting the slip of paper into the pocket of my denim skirt.
Her shrug was eloquent. “I could lie and say I meant to be generous and give all that stuff to the people involved, but what the hell. Like I said, Eddie and I saw eye to eye on a lot of things. I thought I might find a use for some of the stuff. I was going to go through it this evening and see what opportunities it offered. But now that you’ve told me about Letty, I’m thinking that wouldn’t be smart.” She gave me an oblique glance. Her surprise was over, her grief for Letty and Edgar—if she’d felt any—was gone, and she was back in control. “I’m thinking maybe you’d like to take a peek, since you’re so interested in Eddie’s affairs. But if you’d rather hand the combination to the cops and let them paw through all that sordid stuff, be my guest.”
“Thank you,” I said. She was moving around the coffee table, going to the desk, picking up a large shoulder bag. “How about a key?”
“A key?”
“To the front door.” I grinned. “Breaking and entering isn’t my favorite sport. And we don’t have time right now to inventory that safe.”
“Oh, yeah. Sure.” Iris pulled a key chain out of her bag, disengaged a key, and handed it to me. “Drop it through the mail slot when you leave.”
“Thanks. One more thing, Iris, if you don’t mind.”
“What?” She slung the bag over her shoulder, opened a drawer and banged it shut, opened another. She was obviously looking for something.
“Letty said that Edgar had a relationship—she implied that it was sexual—with a woman named Jean. Does the name ring a bell?”
She looked up, rolling her eyes in mock astonishment. “When in God’s name did he find time for another one?” But the surprise was mild and momentary. She opened another drawer and found what she was looking for, a carton of cigarettes. “The only Jeans I remember are Darla Jean McDaniels and Billie Jean Jones.”
“How about an address book?” Sheila asked. “Or an appointment book?”
“The cops took his Rolodex,” Iris said. “Eddie didn’t keep a diary.” She glanced around the office, her face betraying something close to sadness. But only for a moment. She stuck the cigarette carton under her arm, straightened her shoulders, and said gruffly, “What the hell. It was fun while it lasted.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
It is sometimes said that the habit of dressing children in daisy chains and coronals comes from a desire to protect them from being carried off. Daisies are a sun symbol and therefore protective magic.
A Dictionary of British Folk-Tales
K. M. Briggs
“Well,” Leatha said, “I wondered when you were coming home.”
The scene in my kitchen did not inspire confidence in my mother’s skill as a cake baker. The counter was heaped with sacks of flour and sugar, cartons of eggs, cellophane bags of coconut and walnuts, and boxes of raisins and currants and confectioners’ sugar. The sink was full of dishes and on the drainboard sat three cake racks, each holding a cratered and crumbling cake layer about the color and thickness of a waffle. The table was crowded with bowls and cups and beaters and cake decorating paraphernalia, and the plastic garbage can in the comer overflowed with discarded wrapping and containers. At one point, there had clearly been an accident with an egg, and my clean kitchen floor was decorated with a delicate tracery of floury footprints.
“It looks like you’re having fun,” I said, avoiding the sight of the crumbling cakes.
“Oh, I am!” Leatha exclaimed, in her honey-and-magnolia drawl. She had changed into slacks and a red roll-sleeve shirt and had topped herself off with McQuaid’s black barbecue apron, which proclaimed in red letters that she was Smokin’ Hot. Her face was smudged with flour, her eyebrows and lashes were dusted with it, and her arms were white to the elbow. “It feels so good to be doing something useful.”
“Wonderful,” I said. I headed for the broom closet. If the flour wasn’t swept up, it would get tracked into the rest of the house.
The door banged open and Brian came into the kitchen. “Did you see the cakes Grandma baked?” he asked excitedly, heading over to the drainboard to point them out. He was carrying a shoebox with holes punched in the lid. His shoes bore traces of dried mud, and his dirty shoe prints mingled with Leatha’s floury ones.
“Next time, take your shoes off at the door,” I said, taking out the broom.
The door banged again. “Did you see your wedding cakes?” Melissa asked. “Brian’s grandma made them.” She, too, went to admire the sad-looking layers, Howard Cosell trudging behind. Now there were two pairs of smudgy shoe prints, plus a quartet of doggie paw prints. “But she’s making a couple more, just in case,” Melissa added. She turned to grin at me and in her face I saw the unmistakable likeness of the woman I had met this afternoon, the woman who claimed to have given birth to Melissa—to Elena—in prison.
Leatha wiped her hands on McQuaid’s apron and frowned at the box. “What have you got in there? Nothing that hops, I hope.”
“It’s only a little green snake,” Brian said. “We found it in the garden. Want to see?” He began lifting the lid off the shoebox.
“Heavens, no!” Leatha backed up, making a face. “Get that slimy creature out of my kitchen!”
>
Her kitchen?
“But he’s not slimy,” Brian said earnestly. He opened the box lid. “Here. Feel, Grandma. Snakes are really very dry.”
Leatha put both hands behind her back. “Put that lid on,” she commanded, “or you won’t get any of the extra cake.”
“If you don’t mind my asking,” I said, “why are you baking multiples? In case of what?”
Leatha made an effort at nonchalance. “My first effort wasn’t ... that is, it didn’t ...” She sniffed. “I think I left out the baking powder. And your oven is terribly tricky, China. I don’t know why you don’t buy yourself a new stove.”
“Because I like the one I have,” I said. “I know how to manage it.”
“But there’s plenty of time,” Leatha went on, as if I hadn’t spoken. I thought I’d just keep practicing until I get it right. The children will be happy to eat the extra, or I can take it home to the ranch.” She gave me a defiant look. ”Now, don’t scowl, China. The cake will be fine. I promise.” She paused, and a furrow appeared between her brows. ”I wonder, though, if you’ve heard about the storm.”
“Yeah,” Brian said enthusiastically. “We’re going to have a hurricane. Her name is Josephine.”
I sighed. “Yes, I’ve heard. We’re making contingency plans in case it rains.” I began sweeping. “Speaking of plans, shouldn’t we give some thought to dinner?”
“Dinner?” Leatha asked innocently. She looked at the clock, which showed half past six. “Oh, for heaven’s sake. Just look how late it’s gotten! I’ve been so involved and busy, I didn’t even think about dinner. Well, let’s see. Who’s going to be eating?” She gave me a bright smile. “Why don’t we call up and get something delivered?”
“That would work,” I said, “if you want pizza. This is Pecan Springs, remember? We don’t have much in the way of gourmet takeout.” I pushed the broom under the stove—my old green Home Comfort stands up on legs—and swept out a dead mouse.
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