A Nose for Justice

by Rita Mae Brown

  “No. Absolutely nothing.”

  Pete saw the on-air reporter checking his gorgeous mane of hair in the mirror before approaching them.

  Michael Carruthers wore a heavy short jacket with the station numbers embroidered on it. His haircut was perfect, his dental work blindingly white. For all that, he didn’t seem like too much of a twit.

  “Deputy.” Michael walked toward Pete, camerawoman right behind him. “May I ask you a few questions?”

  “Of course. And this is my colleague Officer Lonnie Parrish,” Pete said, nodding at Lonnie, who looked alarmed at the attention. “You can ask him questions, too.”

  “You look better on TV than I do.” Lonnie demurred.

  Focusing on Pete, Michael inquired, “We’ve been informed that this is the second pump bombing. Any suspects in this string of crimes?”

  “No. We are still gathering evidence. It’s too early in the investigation to draw conclusions.” Pete prudently turned toward the three working in the pump enclosure. “As you can see, there is a fair amount of damage.”

  Taking his cue from Pete, Michael walked over to get footage of the men at work. Oliver, useless as tits on a boar hog, stood idle beside the rig.

  Much as Oliver wanted to appear on camera, he had the sense to stay put.

  Pete and Lonnie slipped back into the squad car.

  George W. looked up and noticed the journalist. “Mike, you can ask anything you want but we have to keep working. We’re going to start losing sunlight soon. We’ve got to repair this as fast as possible. It is the holidays.” He blew air out for emphasis.

  “Right.” Mike motioned for his camerawoman to circle the pump site.

  “How much damage is there?”

  George W. replied, “The pump is completely destroyed as is part of the outtake pipe.” His pants and shoes were ruined. It was cold in his workday clothes but the sight of a Silver State department head working with two well-equipped servicemen would be decent PR for the company. Darry and the Board of Directors would be grateful, too. But that wasn’t why George W. was down there.

  The growl of the approaching big rig caught their attention. The camerawoman swung around to catch the large truck lumbering toward them, huge worklights on the bed.

  “Thank God!” Twinkie exulted.

  “Who is that?” Mike asked.

  “Twinkie Bosun.” He identified himself and smiled at an imaginary TV audience. “That means we’ll get this pump repaired much faster.”

  “Any ideas who might do such a thing?” Mike asked all three.

  Bunny piped up. “The Grinch who stole Christmas. Trying to ruin people’s holiday. We won’t let him.”

  The other two laughed, as did Mike.

  “Mike, can you move your van?” George W. requested. “Our driver is going to need a wide arc to get to us.”

  “Sure. We’ll shoot all this, if you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all. Perhaps Silver State can purchase your footage since I know only a bit will be televised. I think our corporate officers should see the damage and what it takes to repair it.”

  “Hey, no charge. I’ll email you the digital file.” Mike left, then walked back to move the truck.

  George W. yelled out, “Oliver, call Christina. Ask her to call my wife and have her bring a change of clothes to the office. I’ll make it just in time for the emergency meeting. Oh, when you’re done, bring us those rubber seals, will you?” George W. knew Oliver didn’t have his home number in his head but he knew all the company numbers, had them stored in his phone.

  Reduced to a gofer, Oliver did as told.

  Another SSRM vehicle churned toward the site. Parking out of the way, Craig Locke hopped out of his SUV.

  He identified himself to the newsman. “Craig Locke, Development. I have nothing to say. This isn’t my department. I just happened to be driving up from Wellington. My secretary called and told me about Pump Twenty-two so I thought I’d stop by. It’s not my department,” he repeated.

  George W. called out, “Craig, come here.”

  Craig hurried over. “Jesus Christ, George W., you’re soaking wet.”

  “Yeah. I’m still hoping to make that meeting but if I’m late, make my apologies and tell me what happens, will you?”

  “Of course.” Craig then asked Twinkie and Bunny, “Can I get you all coffee or anything? There’s a convenience store a few miles back.” He turned to the reporter. “What about you?”

  “No, thank you,” Michael Carruthers answered.

  “Craig, we got a hot thermos in the rig, but thanks,” Twinkie called out while twisting a wrench around a big lug nut.

  “All right, then. I’ll leave you to it.”

  That night watching the news together in the living room, Jeep and Mags moved toward the edge of their seats when the story came on about Pump 22.

  “Not another one!” Jeep exclaimed.

  “He’s good on camera.” Mags petted Baxter in her lap.

  “Who is?”

  “Pete Meadows.”

  “Yes, he is. Handsome, too.” Jeep smiled. “Good people, his family.”

  “Married?”

  “Divorced. You can watch her on the other channel, Lorraine Kaine, she never took his name when they married.”

  “Standard practice in the biz,” Mags said.

  “I suppose.”

  “Know why?”

  “Why what?” Jeep’s mind had returned to the pump explosions.

  “Why they divorced.”

  “The usual. Ambition trumps love.”

  They watched the rest of the news, King snoring loudly as he lay in front of the fireplace.

  “Aunt Jeep?”

  “I hear an important question coming my way.” She laughed.

  “Were you ever in love?”

  The old lady threw up her hands in delight. “You’re thirty-two years old and only now you ask?”

  “Well”—Mags blushed—“you aren’t exactly someone who invites personal questions. My mother told me to never bother you about anything really—not just this particular subject.”

  “Yes, I was in love. High school crush. In Sweetwater, Texas, I fell in love with an airplane mechanic. Didn’t last long. That’s pretty much the sum total ’til you get to Dot and Dan. Loved them both deeply, and in different ways. Satisfied?”

  “Uh—”

  She laughed. “You want to know if I slept with those two, is that it? Mags, come out with it.”

  “We all wondered.”

  “I see. So I was the hot topic of discussion at the Rogers dinner table?”

  “I wouldn’t put it that way, but—”

  “I’m not a total fool. Dot was gorgeous, Dan was divine. Of course I slept with them.” She held up her hands for silence. “Not at the same time.”

  “And they knew about each other?”

  “Yep. There were a few dicey moments. He suffered more, really. Dan was a sweet, rather conventional man. He was sure sooner or later I’d come to my senses and marry him. He asked me over and over.”

  “And?”

  “I’d patiently explain that if I married him I would still keep Dot as my mistress.”

  “And what about her?”

  “Same explanation, sort of. Well, after five years Dan understood I was telling him the truth. That’s when he married Renata. I adored her. We all did. She bore me no ill will nor I her. I’d had my time with him. He needed a wife, the kind you stand with in front of a minister or at the courthouse, the sort to have children. She gave him all that. In the end, he came to see I loved him truly. Had I married him, eventually both of us would have been wretched. I could be a Mrs., but I couldn’t and can’t be a wife. I say can’t because you never know, now do you?”

  Mags laughed. “No, I suppose not.”

  Mags’s cell rang. She got up and left the room so as not to disturb Jeep. Returning five minutes later, she cheerlessly dropped in the chair.

  “You look like you’re s
uffering a severe gas pain.”

  “That was my dear sister, Catherine.”

  Jeep immediately straightened up. “And?”

  “She’s in Reno.” Mags held up one hand, palm outward. “She knows you won’t let her on the ranch. She’s not even asking to come out, but she wants to see me.”

  “What on earth is she doing in Reno?”

  “She has a boyfriend in Las Vegas and they were coming through to check up on one of his businesses. She says she’ll tell me about it tomorrow. I said I’d meet her for lunch.”

  “She has all the appeal of a puff adder, but she is your sister, I can understand why you’d agree to lunch.”

  “Noon.”

  “Take a stiletto.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  “You’re driving a Camaro?” Catherine’s flawless features registered shock.

  Mags, one long leg out of the car, swung out the other, and got out of the good-looking muscle car. “What of it?”

  “Well, it’s, it’s so working class.” Catherine kissed her sister on the cheek and took her hand to lead her into the small, chic Beaujolais Bistro. “This is on me. Heard about your crash.”

  “You don’t have to pay.” Much as she wanted to hate her older sister, Mags couldn’t quite do it. But that sure didn’t mean she’d trust her one bit.

  After being seated in their booth, Catherine folded her hands in front of her on the table, the deep green of a five-carat emerald ring announcing this was a woman of means. “You look great, Mags. It’s been a long time.”

  “Thanks. And you always look great. Like Nanna,” Mags said, referring to their grandmother Sarah, Jeep’s sister.

  “What a compliment. Nanna was so beautiful. Did you ever see photographs of the Empress Elizabeth of Austria, Sissy?” When Mags nodded that she had, Catherine continued, “Don’t you think Nanna looked a lot like Sissy?”

  “I never thought about it, but yes, I guess she did.”

  “How’s Aunt Jeep? She was pretty much a looker, too. Not as glam as Nanna, of course, but no slouch.”

  “She’s herself.”

  “Still hates me?”

  “You’re not her number one relative.”

  “And you are?” The jet-black eyebrows arched over the green eyes; same eyes as Mags.

  “Oh, we get along, but Enrique is closest to her heart and now she has great-grandchildren. Carlotta, as always, is terrific. How one woman can wear so many colors at the same time and pull it off, I’ll never know.”

  “I miss Carlotta.” Catherine sighed a practiced, dramatic sigh. “Miss the Old Dragon, too. She taught me so much and after all, she did manage us when Mom and Dad died.”

  “You were at Skidmore and already unmanageable,” Mags teased.

  “Well, you were in your senior year at Westlake.” Catherine named the tony private school in Los Angeles. “When Jeep transferred you to that private school in Reno, I remember the letters I got filled with angst and the fact that no one knew how to dress.”

  Mags flushed. “What a little snob I was. Got over that, thank goodness.” She glanced up at the young, pleasingly plump waitress waiting to take their order. The woman did not give her name and utter those fateful words, “I’ll be your server today.”

  “Martini, olive please.” Catherine motioned for her sister to order.

  “Tonic water with lime.”

  “Be right back.” The waitress placed two menus before them that had been handwritten that morning, always a sign that the fare was original. Well, one was supposed to think so anyway.

  “Still drinking?” Mags said, trying to keep the judgment out of her voice.

  “Yep, however, I don’t take smack anymore. That was a major mistake.”

  “Learn anything from it?”

  “Sure.” Catherine’s eyes sparkled. “It worked wonders for Louis Armstrong but didn’t do a damn thing for me except make me nod out. Ruined my acting career.”

  “And?”

  “And what?”

  “Any jobs on the horizon? Are you going to auditions?”

  Catherine waved her bejeweled hand. “I got a small part on ‘Flame Out.’ It’s a sitcom about stock car racing. I don’t know if it will turn into anything bigger or not. I’ve got a lot to overcome.”

  “So do the bosses at ‘Flame Out’ know about the movies you made using the name Camilla Littleton and wearing the worst red wig imaginable?” Mags shook her head.

  “Was a fright, wasn’t it?” Catherine said as the two sisters laughed.

  “Catherine, how could you do it?”

  Taking another sip of one of the best martinis she’d ever tasted, Catherine leveled her gorgeous eyes at Mags. “Look, Shortcakes, I was in big trouble. I’d blown what Mom and Dad left us. I was making good money, had no idea it could ever run out. I had gofers, hairdressers, masseuses. Buyers were calling on me from department stores, jewelry stores, car dealers, telling me what great deals they had just for me. And all the while I sat in my trailer waiting for the next scene. I was going to be the next Sandra Bullock. Maybe I was a fool, but I’ll tell you one thing, I have fabulous, fabulous memories. To be young and rich, fawned over by sultans, famous baseball players, and too many politicians to shake a stick at, I loved every minute. Totally, completely, loved it! Unfortunately, somewhere along the way, I lost all common sense.”

  Mags leaned back in the restaurant’s comfortable booth. “I did, too, but in a different way.”

  “Great sex in the Wall Street world?”

  “Ha!” Mags exploded. “Great egos who think they’re God’s gift. Most of those boys who think they’re men are soft as the Pillsbury Doughboy. Baldness I don’t mind, but spare tires turn me right off. You can bet they all made passes at me, especially the married ones. Unlike you, I didn’t fall for it. But then you had better material.”

  “Didn’t I? Revolting as Bobby is”—she named her ex—“he was gorgeous, well hung, and knew what to do with it. Other than that, he’s my candidate for all-time slimeball. Okay, maybe I exaggerate. I guess Hitler and Stalin were a bit worse.”

  “Funny you should mention Stalin. Last week, Aunt Jeep said something about Trotsky. They were all monsters, that was her word, ‘monsters.’ ”

  “We don’t seem to spawn that sort of evil pathology over on this side of the pond. I can’t decide if it’s lack of imagination or if Americans really are more stable. Well, I’m hardly a good example of a stable American, am I? Born to privilege, grew up with a wonderful family, movie stars were our parents’ best friends. We had every advantage in the world. I wound up in porn. Easy money. I could have afforded a better wig.”

  “Why red?”

  “Lucille Testicle Red.”

  Mags laughed until the tears came. “What would Desi say? Poor Lucy. I doubt she would have wished to be your inspiration for those roles.”

  “Remember how good-looking she was?”

  “Yeah, Dad took us to meet her and she must have been seventy. We were so excited. I truly loved Lucy. Great bones, carriage. Ah.” Mags smiled when the food arrived for she was hungry.

  “Are you done with it?”

  “Porn?” Catherine raised her eyebrows, something she did often. “Never say never, but I hope I am. Fast money. Paid off my creditors. At least now I’m not wallowing in debt. Sometimes I drink too much to forget. I don’t incline toward uppers. I prefer ‘the soothers.’ It’s in the family genetically, you know.”

  “I know. Dad’s side seems to be an unbroken string of drunks. We’re hardly doomed. Not everyone falls victim to it. Dad didn’t.”

  “Well, I did. There isn’t a substance I’m not willing to ingest or inhale.” She smiled, suddenly embarrassed. “In moderation, of course.”

  “Who’s the boyfriend?”

  Catherine put down her fork to use both hands for effect. “Not handsome but sweet, hardworking, and built. Really fantastic shape. Jorge Batista.”

  “Batista Funeral Homes?” Mags menti
oned a large chain throughout Nevada.

  “He inherited the business from his father. It’s a rags-to-riches story. Aunt Jeep would adore him.”

  “Where’s the rags?”

  “Migrant workers, the Mexicans. When they died, they wanted to be buried in Mexico. So Miguel, Jorge’s father, who was working as a mop-up boy in a funeral parlor in Las Vegas, volunteered to accompany the caskets to wherever they would be shipped into Mexico. He learned a lot, was good with bereaved people, saved his money, and went to school to be an undertaker. When he started his business with a tiny chapel, the Mexicans came to him. As they say, the rest is history, but like so many business success stories, it started with a need that was unanswered. Now the traffic goes both ways across the border. Some Mexican citizens want to be buried near their family up here.”

  “That is remarkable.”

  “Look at Aunt Jeep. Discovering the gold seam was a combination of luck, her sharp eye, and her sixth sense—she really has one. Anyway, it was the salvage business that answered two needs: deconstruction and cheap materials for people. The Old Dragon is a genius. Dan was smart, but we all knew she was the real brains.”

  “Few people have vision and even fewer the determination to see it through. She still has dreams.”

  “Aunt Jeep?”

  “You’d better believe it. She wants to find a way to feed the poor, to remove the middleman.” Mags did not trust her sister with any more details than that.

  “I’ll be damned.”

  “She thinks you are.” Mags leveled her gaze at her sister.

  Catherine remained silent a moment. “I don’t think you’ve ever been as desperate as I was. And I was a fool.” She paused, eyes welling up. “I burned so many bridges. I don’t know if I can ever repair that damage and I can’t even promise that I won’t be stupid again, but I just hope the only person I hurt this time is myself.”

  “I forgive you, if that’s any help.”

  “It is. It so totally is.” Catherine reached over to grab her sister’s hand, tears spilling over.

  “Here.” Mags offered her napkin.

  “Got my own. Right here in my lap.” She dabbed her eyes with the burgundy cloth napkin. “God knows, enough else has been in my lap.”