Twistered

by J. L. Wilson

  "I'm in deep trouble. I think I forgot to close the Escape Hatch. I'm afraid the monkeys got out. You know King gets scared during storms. Did they go into the Tube?"

  Damn. I forgot all about the storm tunnel that ran from the basement in my home to the old farmstead. The Escape Hatch in the barn led into the tunnel. The so-called Tornado Tube came in handy during bad weather. Mel and Hank kept it in good repair and Mel occasionally allowed the monkeys into the Tube to exercise and play. "I'm not sure," I said worriedly. "Where are you?"

  "I'm with friends. Is Auntie M mad at me?"

  "I don't think so." I glimpsed Tinsley's annoyed expression. "I'm kind of busy now and haven't had a chance to check. Did you call Mel and let her know you're okay?"

  "Miss Gaylord, I have a few more questions." Tinsley sounded pissed.

  "Who's that?" Baby Dot demanded.

  "I have to go. Call your aunt and let her know you're okay."

  "I'll probably be late tonight. If you see Auntie M, tell her for me, okay? Bye." She hung up before I could protest or say, I'm not your message service.

  "Is Baby Dot okay?" Leo asked. When Tinsley shot him an annoyed glance, he said, "We just had a tornado. People are worried about their loved ones." Leo turned back to me. "All okay?"

  "The kids hid in the basement at school. She sounded fine." I set down my phone and regarded Tinsley. "What questions?"

  "Perhaps you should come to the police station. There are fewer distractions there." Tinsley started to cross the room to the front foyer, his erect posture radiating displeasure.

  I didn't arise and follow him. Drew regarded me, his pale green eyes concerned. "The FBI think Wade was involved with a serious drug operation. If you know anything that could help with the investigation, we need to know about it."

  I met his gaze steadily. "I don't know anything, Drew. Wade left town and my life. I never heard from him again." I hesitated. "Okay, I did hear from him once, about a year ago. He sent me a postcard."

  Tinsley stopped as though I had him on a short chain. "So you have been in contact with him?"

  "No, he sent me a postcard. I don't think that constitutes contact."

  "Do you still have it?" Drew asked softly.

  I squinched my face as I considered it. "If I do, it's in my E.T.C. basket."

  Drew and Leo both rolled their eyes. My Every Thing Combined basket was the repository of those items I wasn't sure where to file. Both men had seen me paw through the large wicker basket in search of theater tickets, warranty cards, and other effluvia of life.

  "Perhaps you can find it for us." Once again, Tinsley wasn't asking. He was demanding.

  I decided I'd had enough. "Perhaps." I took another sip of my drink and acted surprised when I saw him still staring at me. "Oh, you mean I should check for it now?"

  "Miss Gaylord, this is a Federal investigation. You don't want to obstruct a Federal investigation." His voice was cool and level, with no hint of threat except for the words themselves.

  "I don't?" I blinked widely at him, ignoring Leo's little headshake which was his way of telling me to back off, girlfriend. "Let's see, how important is a Federal investigation? Is that like divine intervention? Is it like brain surgery or a lung transplant or--"

  "Dorothy." Drew's quiet, amused voice silenced me abruptly. "It's important. If you can find the postcard tonight, please bring it to the station. We'll fingerprint you and you'll be done with it."

  Tinsley stiffened. "That's not for you to say, Chief Strawn."

  "This is my town and these people are my responsibility." Drew tensed, his eyes narrowing as his left shoulder undoubtedly sent a burst of pain through his body.

  "That sounds like you're choosing sides," Tinsley said quietly.

  "There aren't any sides to choose. Dorothy has told you what she knows. If she can provide any other information, it will be a bonus."

  "Are you sure you're an impartial judge, Chief? After all, you and Miss Gaylord have a history together."

  "Dorothy and I are friends, just like I'm friends with many people in this town. My friendships don't affect my judgment."

  Thank you, Drew, I silently applauded. Leo raised his glass in a toast.

  "It might be wise for all concerned if you let me handle the people involved." Tinsley watched us from the doorway, his bulk silhouetted against the fading daylight that streamed in through the foyer glass.

  This has gone on long enough. I set my drink down and got to my feet. My key fob in my pocket chose that moment to blare "How 'bout a little fire, Scarecrow?"

  "Oh, damn." I dragged the thing from my pocket.

  "What the hell is that?" Drew asked, his voice somewhat choked as he fought to hide his grin.

  "It's a key chain thing," I muttered. "I got it at one of those weird gift stores. It yells different Wicked Witch sayings." I jammed the little plastic cover over the fluorescent green buttons that played the various phrases. "The cover keeps sliding off."

  "Why don't you take it off the keychain?" Leo asked, getting to his feet.

  "If I had a pair of metal snips, I would." I cautiously tucked the small rectangle into my back pocket. "I can't get it off the key ring."

  "We've got metal snips at the station," Drew said. "Have someone cut it for you when you drop off that postcard." He winked at me before turning to Tinsley.

  I drained my drink with one long swallow. "I'll do it now and have done with it. You have more important things to do than babysit a visiting dignitary." Tinsley shot me a glare that would have chopped me off at the knees if he had laser vision. I smiled sweetly as he headed for the front door.

  "You handled that with your usual tact," Drew muttered.

  "It's the truth and you know it."

  He leaned closer to me. I caught a whiff of his aftershave, a warm, spicy aroma. It made me tingle all the way to my toes. "I'll take any babysitting help I can get." He smiled, his eyes full of laughter as he passed me on his way to the front door to join Tinsley, who stared at us from the entryway.

  Leo and I followed him. "I love the smell of testosterone in the morning," Leo murmured. "Heavens, I thought they were going to come to blows over you."

  "Over me or over their little patch of turf?"

  He raised an arch eyebrow. "Maybe a little bit of both. Don't underestimate your womanly charms, my dear. Not to me, of course, but I believe Drew and our G-man have noticed them." He nudged me companionably as we joined Drew at the front door.

  "You're crazy." I smiled at Drew. "I'll get that postcard and come to the station." I peered past him to the street. "If I can get out of my driveway, that is." The Winnie was being hoisted onto a flat-bed truck as an ambulance drove past. "Is that...Was that...Wade?"

  Drew nodded. "They'll do an autopsy." He turned to face me, his back to Tinsley, who stood a few feet away. "Come to the station soon, okay? Don't give him anything else to get pissed off about." He strode down the sidewalk to join Tinsley.

  The Fed stared past Drew to me, his face hard. Then his mouth tugged upward in an impish, flirty smile that softened the craggy lines of his face. It honed years off his age and sent a flash of warmth through me that was startling with its intensity. He gave Drew an assessing glance, his eyes dwelling briefly on the crinkly scars on Drew's face. Then Tinsley followed Drew to the curb.

  "Well, that was interesting," Leo said.

  That was the understatement of the year.

  Chapter 5

  I beat a retreat to my house, Leo in tow. While I searched for the elusive postcard, he placated SoSo with tuna and a good brushing, which always brought on purrs and affectionate claws in the knee. I finally found the postcard of the Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City stuck into the back of a playbill for Anything Goes, which I saw in Kansas City two years earlier.

  I flipped the postcard over and read the words in Wade's scrawled handwriting. Hey, Dorothy, Thought you'd like this. It's the one place I always wanted to visit as a player, not a fan. Oh, well. I still hav
e my Glory Days. Wade. I shook my head at his idea of 'glory days'--one year starting in football for the Jayhawks and a win in a minor bowl game during his junior year in college.

  With the so-called evidence in hand, we headed for the police station, housed in a small block building near the courthouse. Leo insisted on driving. "I don't care what you say. Finding Wade like that is a shock. You shouldn't be driving around."

  "I need to go to the library. I want to make sure nothing was damaged in the storm."

  "We'll swing by on the way. I'm driving." It was impossible to argue with Leo when he went into his protector-mode, so I didn't try. He kept up a distracting barrage of gossip as we drove the few miles to town. "Honey told me that Ginger Majors is going to run for mayor against Charlie Becker this fall. Apparently Ginger asked Honey's advice and Honey said it couldn't hurt to have a woman running things for a change."

  Honey Tyson, a retired teacher, ran the Benevolent Co-op, a health food store specializing in free-range animal products and organic produce. She and Leo were always exchanging recipes and opinions.

  "Look at what a good job Judge MacKendrick does," he continued. "Everyone says Judge Mac is about the best judge in the state. She's probably going to be tapped for the State Supreme Court."

  "Says who?" I managed to wedge in the question as we rounded the corner at Main and Third Street.

  Leo waved a cavalier hand. "Lawyer Sawyer Hornsby told Honey who told me."

  "Lawyer Sawyer is in love with Judge Mac. Of course he'd say that."

  "Maybe we should ask Judge Mac for legal advice regarding your run-in with the law." Leo leaned forward, peering through the windshield. "Everything seems okay." He drove sedately around the library, a square building at the corner of Third and Elm.

  I anxiously eyed the exterior. A jagged tree branch lay in the lot next door belonging to the Methodist Church and the lawn was littered with smaller debris, but otherwise everything appeared fine. "All the windows are still there and the roof is okay." I breathed a sigh of relief. "I wonder if I should go inside."

  "Old buildings like that were built to withstand fire, flood and tornado. It's fine. Let's get this police stuff taken care of." Leo turned right on Elm and drove down the hill. I turned in the car seat, keeping the library in sight until he turned another corner. He parked his Mercedes E-Class sedan in the Visitor parking lot in front of the police station and gestured toward the courthouse across the street. "Lawyer Sawyer would help us, I'm sure."

  "Lawyer Sawyer is semi-retired and besides, I don't need legal advice. All I have to do is the fingerprint thing, fill out a form or two, and I'm done."

  "And you have to dodge the amorous G-man. Don't forget that." Leo turned off the engine and regarded me with a critical smile. "We should do your hair. Add a few highlights. I wish you'd let me update your 'do. Although I have to admit, I don't know anyone else who could wear a 1940s style and make it look good."

  "It's not a style. It's how my hair behaves. I like it." I touched the barrette which pulled back the bangs but still covered the small red lip-shaped birthmark on my temple.

  "You're too self-conscious about that. It's barely noticeable."

  I decided not to argue. "That Fed is not amorous. He's rude." I opened my passenger door and prepared to leave but Leo's next words stopped me.

  "Drew saw the look that Fed gave you. You'd better be careful, Dorothy. It's one thing to make Drew jealous, but you don't want him to get the wrong idea."

  "What wrong idea?"

  "You're in love with Drew and always have been. It's okay to play hard to get, but you shouldn't throw a rival in his face."

  I fell back on the leather seat. "You're crazy."

  "And you're in denial." Leo regarded me imperturbably. "Drew hasn't had any competition for your affection until this agent came along. Who knows how he'll react?"

  There were so many outrageous statements flying around, I wasn't sure which one to grab onto first. Leo didn't give me the chance, but just plowed ahead. "Heed my warning. I know how men think." He winked at me and bounded from his car.

  "Leo, you're crazy, I'm not in love with Drew." I slipped out of the seat. "He and I are old friends. That's all."

  "You and he were so hot and heavy in high school you almost melted the upholstery in his car. Don't tell me you haven't harbored lust for him after all these years." Leo regarded me over the top of the chocolate brown Mercedes, his dark eyes amused.

  "That's nothing," I stammered. "I mean, I don't have any lust."

  "Ha!" Leo slammed a hand on the roof of his car. "Got you!"

  "Oh, for heaven's sake." I dragged my handbag from its spot on the passenger seat. "You're reading way too much into a little mild curiosity."

  "Mild curiosity?" He peered past me. "Isn't that Mina's car?"

  I checked over my shoulder. "Looks like it." I turned back to Leo. "You're not getting out of this conversation so easily. I don't want you gossiping about me pining over Drew. I'm not. And I don't want you spreading rumors about a Federal agent mooning over me." I narrowed my eyes and stared at him over the top of his sedan.

  Leo put a hand over his heart. "Moi? Gossip? About you?"

  "Yes, you." I shut his car door and headed for the police station. "Don't you dare go spreading rumors about me, you hear?"

  "Dorothy, I've known you since high school. Believe me when I say I know how to keep a secret." He beat me to the door and pulled it open for me, smiling blandly.

  "You don't know any secrets about me worth telling," I muttered as I stomped past him.

  "Oh, really?"

  I was ready to deliver a scathing retort but shut up when I saw Mina standing in the lobby glaring at the clerk, Mandy Williams, who glared back at her from the confines of a bullet-proof-glass-protected desk.

  When Mina saw us, she snapped, "It's about time you got here. Is it true that Wade is dead?" She sounded angry, not sad, that her step-brother lay crushed under a Winnebago. Of course, Mina and Wade had a problematic relationship so I suppose her reaction wasn't unusual.

  "You saw the RV," I said. "That was Wade's."

  "But no one said Wade was inside." She crossed her arms and pursed her lips, anger making her long oval face even thinner. "Why was he there?"

  I tossed my hands in the air. "I have no idea. All I know is that I came out of my house and found the RV there. Wade was inside." I brushed past her to regard "Handy" Mandy, who sat at a desk crowded with electronic equipment, most of which had dials, knobs, and blinking lights. Behind her a wall full of file cabinets was broken up by one gray metal door in the center with a keypad lock next to it. I suppose it led into the jail but since this was my first visit, I had no idea what was behind it. "I'm supposed to give Drew this and be fingerprinted." I held out the postcard.

  "What's that?" Mina tried to take the card from me but I jerked it away.

  Mandy peered at me, her fuzzy red hair an electric halo around her pale face which, like mine, was liberally sprinkled with dark brown freckles. "I know. Chief Strawn called it in. If you'll wait there, I'll see who we have to do it." She picked up a phone from the array of equipment in front of her and spoke into it.

  I turned back to Mina, tucking an unruly curl behind my ear and envying Mina's straight-as-a-rail hair, which always seemed tidy and in place. "What are you doing here?"

  "I called Mother and she said Wade was found in that Winnebago." Mina sniffed disdainfully. "A Winnebago? You don't suppose he was living in it, do you?"

  "I have no idea. Why are you so concerned about Wade?"

  Mina appeared pained. "He's my brother. With my father gone and his mother gone, I'm all he has left." She sighed dramatically.

  "You and Wade argued before he left town, didn't you?" Leo asked. "Is that why he left? Was he in business with you?" He smiled innocently when Mina dropped the Grieving Sister pose, her dark green eyes almost sparking with anger.

  "My father insisted I take Wade on as a partner when I inherited Wi
ckman Properties. You know what he was like, Dorothy." Mina smiled at me, inviting me to share in her disdain for Wade's faults. I met her smile with a frown. Mina sighed dramatically. "My father promised Wade's mother that he would take care of her son and that meant I had to take care of him, too. But Wade and I didn't see eye to eye on policy issues, so I bought his share of the business before he left town. We didn't argue. We just..." She waved an airy hand. "We disagreed."

  I was on the receiving end of Wade's side of the story when he and I were married so I knew what some of those "policy issues" entailed. Mina ran her real estate and property management business with an iron fist, scrimping on material and equipment where she could and barely meeting the letter of the law in other areas. Wade used to complain about it to me, but he and I divorced before his final argument with Mina, so I never got the inside scoop on that one. I'm sure it was a doozy, though.

  "Maybe Wade was in town to visit you," I said. "I'm sure he wasn't coming to see me, no matter what the police say."

  "What? They said he was coming to see you? Why?" Mina pounced so fast on my words they were barely out of my mouth.

  "They didn't say that. They implied it." I glared at a picture of a cartoon dog in a trench coat on the wall who was taking a bite out of crime. The dog smirked back at me. "That's why they want to fingerprint me."

  Mandy hung up her phone and spoke through the little air hole in the middle of her bullet proof wall. "Officer Tolliver will be here in a minute to help you."

  I breathed a sigh of relief. Miranda Tolliver was a grandmotherly woman who was part-time jailer, part-time cook at the Wizard's Wand Café and Coffee Emporium. I would be in capable hands if she did my fingerprinting and evidence gathering. Plus I'd get some gossip into the bargain.

  "Fingerprints?" Mina looked from me to Leo, who nodded. "You're not serious? They think she killed him?"

  "Of course they don't think I killed him. It's only a formality."

  "It must be more than that," Mina pointed out. "Why do you have to be fingerprinted if they don't think you did something?"