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

by Lorena McCourtney

  “Protective,” Candy reflected. “Yeah, I suppose so. Another of Matt’s admirable traits. I told Kane once that I wouldn’t trust his good buddy Matt any farther than I could throw him. But that was no doubt unfair. Sometimes I wonder, how can the guy have all these admirable qualities and still be such a jerk?”

  Maybe jerk-ness, like beauty, was in the eye of the beholder.

  Cate changed the subject. “You asked Radine about insurance.”

  “And you saw how far I got with that. She closed up like a bank when you need a loan.”

  “I would think, given that you and Mr. Blakely are divorced, that he’s probably changed the beneficiary by now.”

  “Maybe he has. But maybe he hasn’t. I want to know. I have a right to know.”

  “That may be something for your lawyer to investigate.”

  Candy leaned back in her chair. Her eyebrows, which Shirley probably envied for their graceful shape, twitched in a frown, and she gave an unladylike snort. “I don’t have a lawyer. The one I had for the divorce got kicked out for appropriating money from some client trustee accounts. I just threw out the lawyer thing to Matt because … oh, you know. He’s such an overbearing, know-it-all jerk.”

  Cate made no comment on that.

  “Okay, now I have a question for you,” Candy said. “Matt said something about a fire at the hospital. What was that about?”

  Candy didn’t know about the fire? Or was this question a diversionary tactic designed to make herself look innocently ignorant of the fire?

  “All I know is that there was a small fire on the same floor that Kane is on at the hospital. I don’t think it affected him or any of the other patients.”

  “Knowing Matt, he probably thinks I set it,” Candy said with a sour smile.

  “I presume you’re staying at a local motel?”

  Candy gave Cate an odd glance at the apparently unrelated question. She named a chain motel over close to I-5 and the hospital.

  “Were you in your room all night?”

  “What kind of question is that? Where else would I be?” Candy looked puzzled, but then realization kicked in. “Oh, I get it. That’s a PI question. Make all the suspects account for their whereabouts during the time of the crime. Which means you suspect I set the fire. And my point in doing that would be … ?”

  “It appears Kane may be worth more dead than alive to you.”

  “Okay, maybe I wasn’t in my room all night. My nerves were jittery, and I went over to a little bar for a drink. But I never went near the hospital.”

  “You and Kane are still seeing each other in Salem?”

  “Why would you think that?”

  “You mentioned your cat and Kane’s dog get along.”

  Candy shrugged. “We see each other occasionally, but we aren’t seeing each other. You know what I mean. Sometimes Kane comes over to the house to look for something he forgot when he moved out. Sometimes I let him keep one of the restored cars in the garage if they run out of room at the shop. He always has Clancy with him. We’re on good enough terms that I don’t meet them with a shotgun or a blast of pepper spray, and I keep some doggie treats around for Clancy.”

  “You’re seeing someone else now?”

  “Maybe you should just give me a questionnaire to fill out!”

  “Actually, I just happen to have one with me …” Cate reached for her purse, and Candy swung her booted feet around as if ready to run.

  Then she laughed, a laugh that for the first time sounded earthy and genuine. “You’re kidding, right? But I made a mistake. I thought I could pull information out of you, and instead I’m answering your questions. I guess I should have known better than to try to match wits with a private investigator.” She clapped her hands lightly. “Bravo, Ms. Kinkaid. Job well done.”

  In spite of an occasional slip, Candy was also doing a good job of buttering her up, Cate decided. In fact, if the butter got any deeper, Cate might whoosh right out of the chair. A sweet-talking tactic Candy had borrowed from her politician employer/husband candidate?

  “Okay, another question,” Cate said. “Why are you here in Eugene now?”

  “I’m not wholly indifferent to what happens to Kane.”

  “Or maybe it’s because of the insurance. So if Kane does die, you’ll be right here to stake your claim.”

  Candy lifted those groomed eyebrows. Cate wondered if she knew about Shirley. Although there wasn’t actually much to know. Shirley’s relationship with Kane hadn’t gone beyond long-distance chats and something of a crush on Shirley’s side.

  “Apparently, Tact and Sensitivity 101 isn’t required for assistant private investigator status,” Candy said. “You just dig right in.”

  “Yeah, I got an A in Digging In 101.”

  Candy abruptly stood up. “This has been a lovely conversation, but I think we’re done now. Nice meeting you.” She did the spin on her heel thing—Doggone it, I should have asked her to show me how she does that!—and headed for the exit.

  Cate grabbed their empty cups and napkins and dumped them in a trash can. As she also headed for the exit, her thoughts about Candy jumped back and forth, like Octavia chasing after a moth. Cate saw a possibility that Kane hadn’t turned out to be as financially well-off as Candy had first thought, and her trophy-wife status had developed a layer of tarnish. She’d decided to do a delete on the marriage and then make a grab for whatever assets Kane had. Maybe she’d also hired a gunman to go after that $30,000. Shooting Kane may not have been part of her plan. Or maybe it was. With Kane dead, she could go for the big prize, his insurance. Maybe she’d lucked out with Halliday shooting the gunman, because now the dead guy would never be able to incriminate her with the revelation that she’d hired him.

  Or was she an innocent woman wrongly labeled and maligned as a gold-digging trophy wife? Candy’s profession of love for Kane had sounded sincere, and her concern for Clancy was a check in the plus column too.

  Maybe a ten-page questionnaire would have been helpful.

  Outside the mall, Cate momentarily lost track of Candy. Then she spotted the slim figure in fur jacket just off to the side of the main doors. She had a cigarette in her mouth now. She put a flame to it, and a thought occurred to Cate.

  A cigarette lighter. A handy accessory for someone engaged in midnight fire-setting in a hospital restroom.

  11

  Cate finished up the day at home still working on the background check of the potential employee for the accounting office. He looked a little doubtful to her after she found he’d worked for a company that got in trouble for not turning over to the IRS some payroll tax deductions they’d made. But Belmont Investigations just offered facts, not recommendations.

  Just out of curiosity, she looked up another name. Marilee Halliday. She found a couple of references, but they were from back when she was still married to Matt Halliday. Nothing current. Which meant what? That she was using her maiden name? Remarried? Moved out of the country?

  She called Uncle Joe and gave him a report on the status of the incidents at H&B, including that Matt Halliday might be interested in hiring the services of Belmont Investigations.

  “You know how I feel about jobs that involve murder,” Uncle Joe said.

  Cate started to argue that this case wasn’t really about murder. The victim wasn’t dead, and the man who was dead had been killed in self-defense. Before she could say anything, Uncle Joe continued.

  “Of course, you’ve managed to circumvent my stand on murder cases a couple of times already,” he grumbled.

  “It wasn’t on purpose,” Cate protested. “Those cases just kind of … dragged me in.”

  Although that might be like claiming those fantastic boots at Macy’s just dragged you into the store to buy them.

  “Anyway, you’ll be running Belmont Investigations, or whatever you decide to call it, before long. We’re really interested in this motor home we looked at in Corvallis. We may be waving good-bye from our home on
wheels very soon. So I think it’s time you start deciding on your own what cases you want to accept or decline.”

  “Even murder?” Cate asked.

  “I have to admit, I’d rather not see an ad in the yellow pages with a picture of a skull and crossbones and the motto ‘We specialize in dead guys,’” Uncle Joe said.

  Fair enough. “You think I can handle a PI business on my own?” Cate asked.

  “I’m counting on it.”

  Cate took a deep breath. “Thanks, Uncle Joe.”

  “We’ll get the legalities taken care of when your PI license gets here.”

  Cate looked up H&B’s website and found an email address to send the Belmont Investigations’ information sheet to Matt Halliday. A website that could definitely use some jazzing up. It was mostly hard-to-read text about car parts, the occasional photo so tiny that it was difficult to tell if the item was a wiring system or a dish of spaghetti. Dull. Boring. She could almost hear Candy saying, “Well, what would you expect from someone like Matt?”

  Mitch came over for dinner that evening. Cate fixed shrimp tacos. He left Clancy in the SUV, although Octavia prowled around as if she suspected the dog was lurking somewhere nearby. After dinner, Cate suggested Mitch bring Clancy in for a few minutes with the hope the animals might have a change of attitude.

  The meeting was semi-successful in that it didn’t involve any steeplechases over furniture, but there were still hisses as Octavia proclaimed her territorial rights. With responding barks from Clancy to show he was not intimidated. They did not appear to be heading toward a pastoral era in which the lion lay down with the lamb.

  After dinner, they took Clancy out for a run under the yard light in the backyard. This house was not as large as the big old Gothic monster that had once stood here, so the oversized yard was great dog-running territory.

  Mitch tossed an old tennis ball for Clancy to chase, and the dog seemed inexhaustible in his enthusiasm for retrieving it. Between throws, Cate pointed out the corner area where she’d like to put in a garden.

  “I can borrow a rototiller from Hank Bowman at church. I’ve used it before on a Helping Hands project,” Mitch said.

  “That’d be great!”

  “Will you plant carrots? I love those little baby carrots.”

  “Sure.” And peas and lettuce too, like her mother always planted in an early garden. With tomatoes and green peppers and cucumbers for later. “Of course, Clancy couldn’t run back here if there was a garden.”

  “We could fence it in. But it doesn’t matter anyway,” Mitch said. “He’ll be going back to his owner before long.”

  Cate kept waiting for Mitch to mention the offer on Computer Dudes again. When he didn’t, she finally asked about it. They were standing by the corner of Octavia’s screened-in playroom, the sky above clear but rain clouds looming off to the west. Octavia watched Clancy’s antics as if she were a newscaster giving a play-by-play description of tennis action.

  “We’re still talking about the offer,” Mitch said in answer to her question. He threw the ball for Clancy again. The dog caught it in midair.

  “What does Robyn think?”

  “She’s all in favor of Dallas. But Lance thinks we should counter with a higher offer.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I wouldn’t object to getting more money out of the deal.”

  “A higher counteroffer might make them back off entirely.”

  “I wouldn’t object to that either.”

  Cate fist-tapped his shoulder. “Sometimes you can be as dense as Octavia.”

  “Maybe that’s because I’m not sure myself what I want. God isn’t offering any definitive instructions.”

  Yes, that was the way God sometimes worked. And God had his own timetable.

  Clancy brought the ball back and dropped it at Mitch’s feet. An abundance of dog drool on it didn’t deter Mitch from picking it up and throwing it once more. He just wiped his hands on the grass at his feet between throws. This time a bounce dropped the ball next to the screen around Octavia’s playroom.

  Clancy ran up to retrieve the ball. Cate expected Octavia to hiss and retreat, but she stood her ground. The two animals touched noses with the screen separating them before Clancy bounded off with the ball. Octavia stood at the screen as if she’d like to follow and get in on the fun. Then, flicking her tail with haughty indifference at being excluded, she headed for the kitty door to the interior of the house.

  If Octavia were a person, Cate decided, she could definitely execute that spin-on-a-heel thing that Candy did so well.

  Next morning, Cate had just started to make French toast for breakfast when Octavia looked at the phone expectantly. “You do not know when the phone is going to ring,” Cate said firmly.

  Oh yeah?

  Cate picked up the phone when it rang. “Belmont Investigations.” She made a face at her cat. “Cate Kinkaid, Assistant Private Investigator, speaking.”

  “Cate, this is Matt Halliday at H&B Vintage Auto Restorations. You may remember me.”

  Was that a hint of dark humor from Halliday? Yes, one did tend to remember a person holding a gun over a dead body on the floor.

  “Yes, I remember you, Mr. Halliday.”

  “Call me Matt.” The suggestion was businesslike, definitely nothing flirty about it.

  “Thank you.” He’d already called her Cate, so she didn’t have to mention that.

  “Why I’m calling, I’m not sure you do this kind of work—I don’t have any experience with private investigators—but I thought I’d ask. It doesn’t have anything to do with Kane or his wife or the man who shot Kane.”

  “Okay.”

  “What I’m hoping is that you can find someone for me.”

  “That comes within our scope of operations.” Scope of operations. Cate was pleased with that professional-sounding phrasing. She drew a line in the air, giving herself a point. “You received that Belmont Investigations information I emailed you?” she asked. It had more than rates, of course. There were also various details of their business operations and specifics about their not engaging in illegal activities of any kind in the course of an investigation. Uncle Joe said he’d had potential clients ask him to do everything from break into an office to tell them how to conceal an embezzlement.

  “Yes, I received it. Everything looks fine.” He sounded impatient to get on with it.

  “So, what can we do for you?”

  Cate expected him to tell her he wanted to locate the long-gone wife Marilee, but he surprised her with a totally different business-type request. No doubt proof, as Candy had indicated, that Halliday was business 24/7.

  “What I need,” he said, “is to find a guy who came in a while back and wanted to sell me an old Indian motorcycle—”

  “An Indian motorcycle?” Cate repeated doubtfully. Her knowledge of Indian culture was minimal, but none of the Native Americans she’d seen on TV westerns had been roaring around on bikes.

  “It’s a brand name of motorcycle. Oldest motorcycle outfit in the country, I think, though it’s owned by some other company now. This kid had a ’48 Chief model. It needed restoration, of course, but it was in pretty good shape considering its age. He rode it in here. The ’48 Chief is a real classic, and you don’t often run across one.”

  “I didn’t realize H&B did motorcycle as well as car restorations.”

  “We don’t often do bikes, but they’re kind of fun.”

  Halliday’s idea of fun, as Candy would no doubt point out. Working 24/7.

  “But you didn’t buy it?”

  “No. They’re worth a bundle, but this kid had about a three-bundle price on it. He was also scruffy and looked like he had issues with getting too cozy with a bottle of shampoo. The kind of person you figure you’d better not get too close to or you’ll find your wallet missing. And probably into drugs. Buying, selling, using, whatever. At the time, I suspected the bike might be stolen, and I didn’t want to get involved with t
hat.”

  Commendable. “But now?”

  “I checked with the police a few days ago, and they have no record of any stolen bike of that description. It just happens that a customer called the other day looking for that particular brand and year of bike. He’s a collector with money to burn. If I can find the kid and get him down on his price, H&B can make some good money on a restoration and sale to this collector.”

  Business went on, even as his partner lay in a coma in the hospital. Cate scratched that critical thought. Yes, business did go on. As it would with Belmont Investigations, even with Uncle Joe leaving. At least she hoped she could keep it going. For a mini-moment, Kinkaid Investigations blazed across her mind.

  She doused the blaze. “What can you tell me about him?”

  “His name is Andy Timmons. He’s probably twenty-five or twenty-six.”

  Not exactly a kid, then, from Cate’s thirty-year-old perspective. But older people often seemed to have a different view on “kid.”

  “He’s scrawny, wiry build, about five foot five, maybe 135 or 140 pounds. Dark hair, long and straggly. A mustache, like something out of a costume store.”

  “You mean it looked phony?”

  “No. Just too much mustache.” Halliday’s impatience was showing again. “Sharp features, kind of weasel looking. Nervous eyes. Like I said, probably a druggie.”

  “Do you have an address for him?”

  “At the time, he gave me an address over on Jefferson Avenue. A rooming house, I found out when I went there myself a couple days ago. But he’d moved and didn’t leave any forwarding address, and I have no idea where to go from there. I’m hoping you can do better.”

  Cate jotted down the address he gave her. “Hiring a private investigator may be an expensive way of finding him,” she warned.

  “No problem.”

  “I have a couple of other small cases I’m working on, but I can get on this right away.”

  “Good. And when you locate Timmons, you don’t need to talk to him or approach him in any way. In fact, I’d rather you didn’t. I just need to know where to find him.”

  “Are you saying he could be dangerous?”