Death Takes a Ride (The Cate Kinkaid Files Book #3): A Novel

by Lorena McCourtney

  Cate and Mitch had tentatively planned to watch a DVD at his condo that evening, but he called to say he had to do an emergency virus removal job for a client.

  “What about Clancy?” Cate asked.

  “I’ll take him along. He’s okay with waiting in the SUV. Actually, he’s kind of useful. I don’t think anyone’s going to break into it when he stands up in the seat and looks them in the eye.”

  Shirley called from the hospital to check on Clancy too. She’d gotten there by cab, but she said she’d have transportation by the following day. Her mechanic friend Jerry was loaning her a pickup he’d acquired as a basket case and put back in running order.

  “How about if I take you home tonight, then?” Cate suggested.

  “I don’t want to bother you—”

  “No bother. What time?”

  “Oh, 8:30 or so would be great. By that time, there’s no possibility I’ll get in to see Kane.”

  “You didn’t see him today?”

  “No. But neither did his ex-wife.” Was that a hint of satisfaction in Shirley’s voice?

  “She’s there?”

  “Oh yes. High heels. Blonde hair. Earrings down to her elbows. Fur jacket. She’s running around crying and carrying on, but she isn’t letting it mess up her mascara, of course.” Shirley gave a muffled gasp. “Oh my, that was really catty, wasn’t it?”

  Oh yes. Catty, with claws and sharp teeth, Cate agreed, although Shirley sounded so appalled with herself that Cate felt no comment was needed. “Did you talk to her?”

  “Me? Oh no. She and Mr. Halliday were arguing about something. He’s usually so calm and even tempered, but he looked ready to rip that fur jacket off her and stuff it down her throat.”

  “I wonder if she’s staying here in town.”

  “She yelled something at Mr. Halliday about him not getting rid of her by being a bigger jerk than ever.”

  Cate picked Shirley up at the hospital just after 8:30. Shirley hadn’t personally been able to find out anything more about Kane, but she said Halliday had managed to get some information. The bullet hadn’t stuck in Kane’s brain, but it had hit a critical place or gone deep enough that his condition was considered a coma now.

  Back at Shirley’s trailer, an older gray Toyota pickup was parked in the driveway.

  “Oh, Jerry brought the pickup over early!”

  “He must be a really nice guy.”

  “He is. Mr. Halliday says he isn’t much good on the fancy details with restorations, but he can fix anything. Sometimes parts for old cars just aren’t available, and Jerry can make them.”

  Jerry hadn’t gone in for cosmetic details here. The small pickup had a dinged-up rear fender and dents in the tailgate, and splotches of darker gray paint looked like stray continents migrating across the doors and hood. But the tires were crisp and new.

  Shirley opened the car door. “Thanks so much for everything.”

  “Keep in touch. Even though you missed that first Fit and Fabulous meeting, I’m sure you can still get in on the coming weekly sessions,” Cate reminded her.

  “I really can’t afford to go buy a lot of fancy makeup and hair and fingernail stuff, so maybe there isn’t much point in it anyway.”

  “You could come to see what the faith part is about.”

  “Well, I’ll, uh, think about it.”

  Cate didn’t expect to hear from Shirley again until Kane was well enough to get his dog back, so she was surprised when Shirley called the very next morning.

  “I’m here at the hospital again. I intended to stop in just for a minute before going to work, but there was a fire here last night, right there on the floor where Kane is—”

  “Is he okay?”

  “They caught it before it got beyond the restroom.”

  “Maybe someone was smoking in there, even though they’re not supposed to, of course. Accidents—”

  “This was no accident. The door had paper towels stuffed under it to brace it open so smoke and fire would get out in the hallway. But I don’t think anyone was actually trying to burn the hospital down.”

  “But you think someone deliberately set it?”

  “I think it was a, what do you call it? Diversionary tactic. Someone wanted to distract people and keep them busy so he—or she—could sneak into where Kane is without being noticed in the confusion.”

  “For what reason?”

  “It wouldn’t take an expert to finish Kane off. Just yank out some wires and tubes and stuff, and he’d be gone.”

  “Shirley, you’re talking about murder!”

  “That guy at H&B tried to kill him. Maybe someone wanted to finish the job.”

  “You’re suggesting it wasn’t just a robbery at H&B? That the gunman was actually out to kill Kane?”

  Shirley gave a combination sigh/groan. “Sounds pretty wild, doesn’t it? I guess I’m not sure what I’m thinking. I’m just so worried and scared!”

  “Do you have someone in mind who might do this?”

  “The fire was in the women’s restroom,” Shirley added in a way that said the location was meaningful.

  “In Kane’s condition, he must be in an area that’s under constant observation.”

  “Yes, but he isn’t under guard. And maybe that’s what he needs. A guard. Protection.”

  Under the current circumstances, Cate doubted the police would expend their limited financial resources on a guard for Kane. Especially when this might well be some paranoid imagining of Shirley’s. “Did anyone see someone trying to get into where Kane is?” she asked.

  “I heard a couple of nurses talking about one of the patients being upset because he thought he’d seen someone in his room last night. Maybe she just blundered in there while trying to find Kane.”

  Shirley didn’t have to spell it out. She. Ex-wife Candy.

  “Are the police there?”

  “Oh yeah.”

  “Have you talked to them?”

  “Not yet, but—”

  “Shirley, I don’t think you should be throwing around unsubstantiated accusations. I mean, maybe Candy isn’t exactly Miss Congeniality, but why would she want Kane dead? As you said, she already managed to get almost everything in the divorce. And according to Mr. Halliday, she has her eye on a new husband candidate.”

  “You think I’m silly, don’t you? Getting all worked up about a man I barely know. Lonely older woman desperate to latch on to any available male, alive or half dead, right?”

  “Oh, Shirley, I didn’t mean it like that—”

  “Yeah. Okay, I’m going to work now. I’m sure they’re tired of seeing me around here anyway.”

  Cate repeated what she’d said before. “Keep in touch.”

  Back home, Cate checked the newspaper’s website for more information about the shootings at H&B and found that the gunman at H&B had been identified with the name Mace Jackson. Identification on the body showed an address in Salem, and fingerprints from previous offenses confirmed the identification. The gun used in the shooting had been stolen in a Salem burglary a few weeks ago. The victim in the shooting was listed as being in a coma from the gunshot wound. No mention of a fire at the hospital.

  As far as Cate could tell, Shirley might be the only person connecting the fire with Kane’s presence in the hospital. Which didn’t mean she was wrong about a connection.

  But the new information sent several thoughts skittering around in Cate’s mind. Did guys with robbery and/or murder in mind usually carry identification to the scene of the crime? Was that meaningful? Jackson was from Salem, where both Kane and his ex-wife lived. Had he come to Eugene with information about, and a deliberate plan to go after, the $30,000 at H&B? The stolen weapon and previous offenses pointed out that this wasn’t a first-time foray into crime for Mace Jackson.

  Cate didn’t have a dog-hair itch now, but she definitely had an itch. Maybe this was the real occupational hazard of being a PI. The itch of curiosity.

  9

  U
ncle Joe called to tell her he and Rebecca were heading up to Corvallis to look at a motor home. The third one this week.

  Cate spent some time on the internet doing a background check on a potential employee for an accountant’s office. Octavia’s catwalk didn’t extend to Cate’s office, but the cat took her usual place in a wire basket atop a file cabinet to oversee Cate’s work. Once she came down to sit beside the computer and after a while inserted a paw that clicked on a site Cate had decided to pass over. Which turned out to have some incriminating and helpful information on a company the potential employee had formerly worked for.

  “Coincidence,” Cate scoffed at the white cat. “You’re always batting at something, and you just lucked out this time.”

  Octavia gave a condescending “whatever” flick of tail.

  Cate realized she was almost out of paper for the printer and decided to run out to Staples and get a box. Which was when she discovered an envelope on the floorboard on the passenger’s side of the Honda, apparently fallen out of Shirley’s purse. Nothing mysterious, just a power company bill, but, after picking up a ream of paper at Staples, she decided to go on out to H&B and return the bill to Shirley.

  There were several cars in the parking area this day. Kane Blakely’s Corvette, Shirley’s borrowed Toyota pickup, Halliday’s SUV, and a sleek burgundy Lexus. Knowing it was a Lexus was not a leap in Cate’s vehicle recognition skills. She read the name on the rear of the car when she parked behind it.

  This time Cate went through the front door at H&B. A dark-haired, thirtyish woman sat at the computer behind the counter, cup of coffee beside the keyboard. This must be office manager Radine. The door to Halliday’s office was closed.

  The woman started to stand up, but Cate waved her to go on with her work. “Is Shirley out in the warehouse? I need to give her something she left in my car.” She held up the envelope.

  The woman pointed to the door that led out to the warehouse. “Sure. Just go through that—”

  The door to Halliday’s office burst open, and a blonde tornado in black denim, high-heeled boots, and gray fur stormed out. She headed for the front door but spun and aimed for the counter instead. Cate knew who she must be. The infamous ex-wife. Definitely trophy-wife material. Cate had to admire the spin. In those heels, she’d have gone down like a sack of potatoes.

  “I want to see your insurance file,” the woman snapped at Radine. She didn’t appear to notice Cate’s presence or to consider that Cate might be a customer who’d been there first. “Everything that you have on insurance. Now.”

  Radine stood up, her back stiff. “I’m sorry, but I don’t have—”

  “I know there’s insurance. A lot of it.” Candy tossed her head, long earrings flashing like Star Wars weapons. “I remember very well Kane telling me when we got married that the business was set up for a half-million-dollar payoff if anything happened to him, and I want—”

  Radine picked up her cup of coffee and regarded Candy with ice in her eyes. “As I’m trying to tell you, Mrs. Blakely, I don’t have an insurance file.” A lift of her chin suggested that even if she had it, Candy was more likely to get that cup of coffee thrown in her face than the file.

  Insurance. Interesting. So maybe ex-wife Candy did have a motive for murder? Although you’d think she’d be a little more discreet about displaying her interest. Had she also been sneaking around the restroom and hallways at the hospital with accelerant and match in hand? At the moment, she looked fully capable of pulling a gun out of that pink Coach handbag—a gun fully color coordinated with handbag and fur—and blasting away.

  Cate almost injected a comment. You’re divorced. Kane wouldn’t have kept you as his beneficiary. But she managed to clamp her jaw shut. Not her case. It was also possible Kane had neglected to change the beneficiary, and Candy actually had grounds for demanding information.

  Halliday stepped around the corner of his office. “Aren’t you getting a little ahead of yourself, Candy? Kane’s not dead. No matter how much you might wish he were.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Halliday smiled, not pleasantly. “Exactly what you think it means.”

  “I don’t want him dead! I just want … whatever I have coming.”

  “That’s what I think you should get too. Exactly what you have coming.”

  The snarky implication was clear. Whatever Halliday thought Candy had coming, it wasn’t a big insurance payoff.

  “I’ll have my lawyer—”

  Halliday lifted a hand and motioned toward Cate. “Candy, meet my private investigator, Cate Kinkaid. Cate, this is my business partner’s ex-wife, Candy Blakely.” Halliday’s smile was a home-run winner now. “Cate will be looking into the details of the shooting. And the fire at the hospital last night.”

  I will? Cate blinked. Now, for the first time, Candy noticed Cate’s existence.

  She was not, Cate could see, instantly intimidated. She looked Halliday’s investigator up and down as if Cate were a scruffy mannequin in a secondhand thrift store. Cate owned a pair of high-heeled boots. She wished now that she’d worn them instead of her jeans and old Reeboks. She yanked out a business card and handed it to the woman to affirm that she was indeed a private investigator.

  Unfortunately, Candy instantly picked out the incriminating word on the business card. “Assistant private investigator? What does that mean? You’re the bargain-rate substitute because Matt was too cheap to hire the real thing?”

  Cate had been willing to give Candy the benefit of the doubt, but apparently she was fully as obnoxious as Halliday and Shirley had said.

  “I have full confidence in Ms. Kinkaid,” Halliday said.

  “And I have full confidence in my lawyer,” Candy snapped. Another spin—how did she do that in those heels?—and she clacked to the door on the hard-surfaced floor.

  The three of them watched her slide into the Lexus. Radine rolled her eyes and turned back to her computer. Halliday looked at Cate. He smiled ruefully.

  “I’m sorry to put you on the spot like that. But that woman always makes my blood pressure go up like a rocket blasting off.” He shook his head. “So, how about it? Do you want to be my private investigator?”

  “I’m not sure there’s anything to investigate,” Cate said. Yes, she was curious about several aspects of the situation, but still, it was basically a cut-and-dried case. No mystery about who killed whom to solve.

  “My feelings exactly,” Halliday agreed. “What’s to investigate? But Candy apparently intends to keep everything as stirred up as possible. There’s no telling what she may try to pull or what trouble she may cause.”

  Radine leaned against the inside of the counter. “Maybe what should be investigated is her.”

  “As you can probably guess, we’re not exactly charter members of the Candy Blakely fan club here,” Halliday said. “In any case, I’d appreciate knowing I have you on my side if something does come up.”

  “I can send over a rate sheet on how Belmont Investigations charges for services.”

  “Yes, do that. I’m uneasy about this fire at the hospital last night. It never occurred to me until Shirley brought it up earlier that the fire might have something to do with Kane. First the attack right here, now a fire. Maybe somebody is out to get him.”

  Before going out to the warehouse, Cate showed Radine the photo of the dead man on her cell phone. “Any chance you’ve seen him around? It’s possible he came in to check things out sometime before charging in with a gun.”

  Radine studied the photo. “The police showed me a photo too. I didn’t recognize him. But someone lying there dead maybe looks different than a live person.” She shivered and looked up from the cell phone. “Are you going to work for Matt and investigate this?”

  “I’ll have to discuss it with Uncle—with Mr. Belmont.”

  Cate took the power company bill out to Shirley but didn’t stay to chat. A tall string-bean of a guy in the standard H&B coveralls leane
d on the counter while Shirley packaged a car part for shipping to a customer. Shirley introduced the guy as the mechanic Jerry, the one who’d loaned her the pickup. A guy who was interested in more than car parts, Cate suspected, from the way his eyes followed Shirley’s every move.

  Cate was surprised when she went out to her Honda to see that the Lexus hadn’t actually left the parking lot. Candy had pulled around behind Halliday’s SUV. She tapped on the horn to get Cate’s attention, then slid out of the Lexus and purposefully high-heeled it toward Cate’s car. Those dangling earrings flashed like sharpened knives.

  Cate warily touched the button to roll down the window. Candy was smiling, but those elongated silver earrings winked warning signals.

  “I want to apologize for what happened in there.” Candy shook her head, creating a charming flurry of tousled blonde hair. “I’ve just been so upset about Kane, and then Matt always can push my buttons. It’s a good thing there weren’t any sharp car parts lying around, or I’d probably have thrown some at him.” Another smile, this one winningly rueful. “You really are working for him?”

  Cate didn’t smile back. “Our client information is confidential.”

  “I stuck my foot in my mouth in there, didn’t I?” Candy put a hand on the window frame, as if suspecting Cate might raise the glass barrier between them. “I’m sorry. Actually, before you handed me the card, I thought maybe you were Matt’s girlfriend, and he was trying to scare me by making me think he had a private investigator poking around.”

  “Girlfriend!”

  Candy grimaced. “Okay, ghastly thought, right? I’d be horrified too, if someone thought I was Matt’s girlfriend. But I realized right away, of course, that you’re much too bright and attractive to be a girlfriend of his.”

  Bright and attractive. Now Candy was trying to butter her up?

  “It’s just so hard to get my head around this whole situation.” A brightness in Candy’s blue eyes suggested imminent tears, although Cate had to wonder if they were real or if she had an instant supply of them at her disposal. “Matt dislikes me so much that he isn’t about to give me a clue about what’s really going on. I wouldn’t put it past him to threaten me with a private investigator even if you were a termite inspector or spark-plug salesman.”