A Dead Red Oleander (The Dead Red Mystery series)

by RP Dahlke

  She stood and then sat down again. "You know, Jim, until this minute, I thought I didn't have a choice. But I do, don't I? Now that—that Arthur is—is gone. My testimony isn't worth diddly, is it? And I'm not a threat to the guys you have in custody, right?"

  The marshal blinked, folded lips around his very white teeth, and did a hand waggle to indicate it could go either way.

  "I thought so. I'm staying. Thanks, anyway."

  "It was Arthur's testimony that counted, but you could still be in danger," he said.

  I looked from one to the other. "Who's Arthur?"

  "Then why didn't they kill me, too?" She held up a finger to stop the marshal before he said anything more. "No, Jim, the only friends I've got left in the world are in this room, and Lalla even offered to post my bail."

  The marshal's dark brows bunched together in consternation.

  "Sure will," I said. How could I leave a perfectly innocent woman in jail, especially one who'd been in the witness protection program? I'd never met one before and I had questions.

  The door opened and Modesto's police chief slipped inside to be introduced all around. Of course, the chief and I were on friendly terms, since last year I helped him stop a killer.

  The marshal fidgeted while he stared at Nancy. "The chief can still hold you as a person of interest, you know."

  Nancy looked at the police chief. "He did tell you the whole story, didn't he? About how Arthur was going to testify against the crooks who murdered my godfather?"

  "Who's Arthur?" I blurted again.

  The chief ignored me and answered Nancy. "The D.A. has agreed to drop the assault charges. You're free to go, Mrs. Treat."

  I opened my mouth to start again, but Caleb pinched the inside of my elbow. Right where it would do the most good and nobody else would see.

  Awright, awright, I signaled with my brows screwed together.

  "That settles it then, Jim," Nancy said, calmly looking up at him. "I'm out of the program. I'm not going, and you can't make me."

  The marshal's wide mouth puckered like he was about to spit out something nasty. I almost laughed. That was my favorite thing to say to my parents when I was little. Of course I had to grow big enough so that no one could pick me up and make me. I wanted to high-five Nancy with an "Atta girl," but no one was paying any attention to me.

  Nancy may have been smaller than the marshal, but she was now showing a heretofore unseen stubborn side.

  The chief interrupted the two combatants. "Ah, Marshal? We don't have much interaction with witness protection here in Modesto, but is it true? If her husband was the one to testify, she can drop out of the program?"

  As if memorizing her face for later, Jim Balthrop was still staring at Nancy. "It'll be a matter of some paperwork to do, but yes, she's right, Arthur was the one who was slated to testify."

  Arthur? Was this Dewey's real name? Then how about Nancy? I started to raise my hand to ask, but Caleb pinched me again.

  Nancy got out of her chair and went around the table to stand in front of the marshal. She held out her hand and said, "I was wrong to say what I did earlier. You've been a real friend to Arthur and me, Jim, and it's been a pleasure to have known you. But it's over now. Send me whatever paperwork you have, and I'll sign it."

  He ignored the offer of a handshake, his mouth turned down in a grim line. "You'll have to come up to Sacramento to sign off on the program," he said gruffly. Then his voice softened, and he took her small hand between his two big paws. "I wish you'd change your mind, but if this is what you want, I'll do what I can to minimize the paperwork."

  He let go of her hand and turned for the door.

  Just as Marshal Balthrop was about leave, he turned around and said, "Good luck, ma'am.

  Something passed between them in that last look. Was she shocked to hear that he would let her go so easily? This was what she wanted, wasn't it? Or was there more to their relationship?

  I looked at the chief and then at Caleb. "Then if that's all, is she free to go?"

  The chief thoughtfully rubbed his chin. "There is still the investigation into her husband's death. She needs to stay until the inquest is finished. I'll release her, Lalla, if you'll take responsibility for her until we get this investigation cleared up."

  Caleb's eyes narrowed. I knew what he was thinking. No, Lalla. Don't get involved. But what else could I do? She didn't have anyone else to turn to, her husband worked for us, and he died at our ranch. Besides, with recession cutbacks nipping at his annual budget, the chief was seeing a move to save the city some money. No need to keep Nancy in the city jail as a person of interest, when she could be babysat by the county sheriff's fiancée.

  "Great," I said, "she can stay at our place until the inquest, and the time it will take to clear this up."

  "Aren't you forgetting something?" Caleb asked.

  "What?"

  "Your Aunt Mae and cousin Pearlie, they're staying till the wedding, aren't they? Where're you going to put her?"

  I'd completely forgotten about Aunt Mae and Pearlie still waiting downstairs in the lobby. I mentally ticked off the inventory of our bedrooms at the ranch: three spacious bedrooms upstairs, but only one bathroom. Aunt Mae and Pearlie had taken over my brother's old bedroom with its two single beds. That left my room and Dad's. And my dad preferred to spend most of his nights at his lady friend's house. If I did this right, I could move her into his room for the duration. Yes. This would work.

  "We've got plenty of room, Nancy. Come on, let's go to your house and pick up some clothes."

  Seeing that his plan to wrangle me into staying with him had failed, Caleb looked as disappointed as Marshal Balthrop had when Nancy turned him down. And there it was, right in front of me—all that official gruff talk was just for show; the marshal was sweet on Nancy. But what about Nancy? Did she feel the same about the marshal? If that were true, then that could mean she and Dewey/Arthur weren't happily married after all.

  With the chief's approval, Caleb and I left with Nancy to pick up Aunt Mae and Cousin Pearlie.

  Aunt Mae stood and hugged Nancy. "I'm so glad to hear those silly policemen were mistaken."

  Nancy didn't correct my Aunt Mae, and I decided it best to leave it as it was for now.

  My two relatives hooked arms with Nancy, and Pearlie said, "Now don't you worry, Lalla. You run along with Caleb. We'll see that Nancy gets some clothes before we take her out to the ranch."

  Aunt Mae consulted her watch. "Then we'll get a bite to eat downtown and meet y'all at home—say, around four?"

  I had no intention of allowing them to hijack the poor girl. Besides, I wanted first crack at the answers, and it had taken every ounce of control—and a few pinches from Caleb—to keep me from firing them at her in the interview room. "Gee, lunch sounds great, Aunt Mae. I haven't eaten since last night."

  I kissed Caleb and said, "I'm going with the girls. You call me if you hear anything, okay?"

  He nodded and backed away, happy to leave me to deal with my relatives. Police work he could handle. Me and my kinfolk were another matter.

  "Shall we go?" I asked, and without waiting for an answer, marched Nancy toward the exit.

  Pearlie called after me, "I can sit in the back with Nancy if you'd like to have the front seat."

  I waved a dismissive hand and kept walking.

  The minute Nancy and I got into the back seat, I started asking questions.

  Aunt Mae leaned into the car and said, "Lalla Bains! Where are your manners?"

  "Sorry, Aunt Mae," I said, thinking I'd offended her southern dignity. "But I need some answers."

  "Of course you do, sugah, but the polite thing to do would be to wait until we're all in the car."

  To hell with good manners, Aunt Mae and Cousin Pearlie didn't want to be left out of any of it.

  When we were all inside the car and headed for the parking attendant's booth, I opened my mouth and got shushed again.

  "Not yet, Lalla," Aunt Mae said.
"I still have to pay the fee, and as we all know, they tend to cheat us old people."

  Pearlie giggled as Aunt Mae slowly rolled up to the attendant's booth and handed him the exact change. I would've thought it funny, too, but I was busting a gut trying to hold on to my questions.

  Nancy, surprisingly enough, looked to be having a good time here in the back seat.

  Finally, on McHenry going north, Aunt Mae said, "Thank you for your patience, Lalla. I'm an old woman and easily distracted. I certainly don't need to get in an accident because I wasn't paying attention."

  Pearlie giggled again. "You mean another one, don't you?"

  "Hush, now. Let Lalla have her questions."

  I'd waited all this time and had questions rolling around in my head like pinballs: Why were they in the witness protection program? Who were these bad guys? Were they both using aliases?

  So many questions, where to start? When my stomach growled, I had my first question. "I guess I'd better start with the obvious—where do we eat?"

  Chapter Seven:

  We ate at Marie Callender's out on Coffee Road, and because Aunt Mae deemed it impolite to talk about Nancy's troubles over a meal, I had to wait. Then waited again while Pearlie insisted we stop at Safe-Mart. Pearlie decided Nancy would need comfort food, and she needed fresh vegetables and chicken for her chicken potpie. I had to agree. Even with a full stomach from lunch, my mouth watered at the thought of Pearlie's homemade, flaky crust chicken potpie.

  With groceries stashed into the miniscule trunk of the Mustang, and a quick stop at Nancy's to allow her to pack a bag, we were finally on our way to the ranch.

  "So, can I ask questions now, Aunt Mae?"

  "Of course, fire away."

  I turned in my seat and took Nancy's hand in mine. "Now that it's all in the open, I guess I'll go with the first question: Is Nancy your real name?"

  "My last name got changed when Arthur and I married, but I wouldn't let them change Nancy. Arthur had to change his first and last name. His real name is Arthur Einstein. Bet you were surprised when you met him, weren't you, Lalla?"

  "Well …." I was thinking back to that first day when he walked into my office. His slight build, thin shoulders, the myopic squint were an even trade for someone with his genuine enthusiasm for flying and hard work.

  Pearlie put her arm over the back of her seat and hooted. "I'll bet you a hundred dollars Mad Dog Schwartz won't be surprised."

  Nancy smiled at Pearlie. "Arthur's best friend was Dewey Treat and everything Arthur wasn't: tall, handsome, and hell on two wheels."

  Pearlie giggled. "Arthur Einstein! Now there's a handle you don't see every day. He wasn't a physicist, was he?"

  "No, but Arthur was plenty smart. I just wish my mom had lived long enough to see me married to a brainiac."

  I said, "Didn't the real Dewey Treat mind the borrow of his name?"

  "Dewey wasn't using it. Died of cancer five years ago. He willed Arthur his Harley, and in a letter, insisted he go out and do something dangerous."

  "So what did he do that was so dangerous it got the two of you into witness protection?"

  "Arthur was my godfather's casino's chief accountant, and I worked as a dancer in another casino. We were best friends. Nobody could make me laugh like Arthur. That is, until he told me his suspicion that my godfather's partners were using the casino to launder their mob money. He wanted me to stay away from the place, and disassociate myself from the only family I had left. Of course, I couldn't do that, and like an idiot, I told my godfather everything. And I'll never forgive myself, because two days later they murdered my godfather.

  "I thought we should run, but not Arthur. He hid me in a downtown motel, went to the feds, and made a deal. Unfortunately, they insisted they needed an airtight case or they wouldn't help us. They wanted him to get a recorded confession. It was crazy, stupid, dangerous. He told them he would wear a wire only if they promised to relocate us together, and they had to pay for aero-ag training, and he wanted the guarantee in writing. They agreed. He wore the wire and the rest is history."

  <><><><>

  At our ranch, I directed Aunt Mae to park under the shade of the chinaberry tree next to the back door and we each carried bags of groceries into the kitchen.

  My dad, more concerned with tonight's dinner menu than with how many women were now in his house, zeroed in on the important stuff. "Looks interesting. Wha'd'ya have planned for supper?"

  Pearlie, pleased that her cooking skills were appreciated, said, "Chicken potpie, homemade."

  He smacked his lips. Pearlie's homemade and flaky piecrust, instead of the tin of frozen gray goo I was likely to bring home. The carrots and peas and celery and potatoes would be parboiled and mixed into precooked diced chicken and swim in delicious gravy.

  Satisfied that dinner would be another winner, he pursed his lips and counted heads—two blondes, one gray-blonde, and one cute young brunette, her ponytail bobbing as she helped unpack groceries. When his eyebrows signaled the question, I thumbed over my shoulder and we slipped into the TV room where we could have that talk I was hoping to avoid.

  In case it got loud, I closed the door behind us and explained it all—how Nancy had grabbed Caleb's gun, been arrested for assault, and how a federal marshal showed up, offering her a relocation, and that Nancy had refused the offer on the grounds that with her husband dead, there was no longer any point.

  "How come you didn't call me, tell me all this sooner?"

  "If you'd break down and get a cell phone like everyone else in America, we could've had this conversation a lot sooner," I said, looking at the wall connected to the hallway and the kitchen where, no doubt, my relatives were grilling Nancy on her past. I so wanted to be there instead of in here going over it all again.

  "Then she's just here for supper, right?"

  "Uh, yes, but she's also going to be staying with us for a few days."

  "She has a house to stay in, doesn't she?"

  "It's been a traumatic couple of days, Dad, and we're the only friends she has."

  Looking for backup, he asked, "What's Caleb say?"

  "You can ask when he gets here. He's coming for supper."

  "I will. And if he thinks she's dangerous, you'll be driving her home tonight."

  That brought my dander up. "You were the one who insisted we could take Burdell Smith's recommendation for Dewey Treat aka Arthur Einstein."

  "Burdell has always been a man of his word, Lalla. I don't think he did anything other than give us an opportunity to hire a new pilot."

  "I told you Mad Dog was suspicious of his flight time."

  Dad heaved a sigh and pulled on his lower lip, perhaps reconsidering his estimation of Burdell's recommendation. "If Burdell faked anyone's flight time he'll hear about it from me, not you, and certainly not from Mad Dog. I gotta call him about Arthur's death anyway."

  "You do that. In the meantime, we have an obligation to do something for Arthur's widow, and as you like to tell everyone, the Bains family always honors its obligations."

  He grumbled something about how he was pretty sure his obligations were going towards housing his Texas relatives, then shifted the conversation over to more neutral territory. "So Mad Dog was right, huh? There was something hinky about Dewey after all?"

  "Arthur, Arthur Einstein." I let it sink in a minute and got a tiny smile out of him at his newest pilot's real name.

  "Mad Dog will love that. Arthur Einstein. Any relation to Albert Einstein? Was he a scientist or something?"

  "He was the CFO for a hotel and casino in Las Vegas. Nancy said—"

  "Is that her real name?"

  "She wouldn't let them change it. As I was saying, Arthur uncovered corruption with his boss's crooked partners, but instead of reporting it to his boss, he told Nancy. Unfortunately, Nancy told her godfather and it got back to the partners and they murdered him. Arthur took the evidence to the FBI and into the program they went."

  "Mafia types? You're not going
to put our family in the middle of Nancy's problems, are you?"

  "No, no. She's out of the program because it was Dewey's—er, Arthur's, testimony that counted, not hers."

  "So she's off the hook?"

  "Right."

  "Uh-huh. So there won't be any knuckle draggers showing up at our house in the middle of the night, no submachine guns shattering the windows, no Molotov cocktails thrown to smoke us all out so they can kill us and get to Nancy?"

  I gulped. "Gee, thanks for the visual, Dad, but I sincerely doubt that's going to happen."

  I just recently heard that exact same snort out of my Aunt Mae. Must be in the genes.

  "The marshal promised." At least, I thought that was what he said. "No Arthur, no case, and no real reason for Nancy to stay in the program."

  Unfortunately, every time I thought about the marshal and his "promise" I kept thinking bogus should've been attached to it.

  Dad glowered, arms crossed over his chest. "I don't need the grief."

  I might have my own trepidations about this deal, but I couldn't let him see my hesitation. "Was that a yes?"

  "This house is already filled to the rafters with womenfolk. More than I've seen in my whole lifetime. The wedding is one thing, but this—where you gonna to put her?"

  "You've been staying at Shirley Hosmer's every night."

  "To hell with that—not my room, not for Dewey Treat, or Arthur Einstein, or his wife."

  "But Dad, you're never here."

  "It's my room, my house, my rules. Besides, I may spend some nights at Shirley's, but I always come home to shower—my shower in my room."

  "Why don't you shower at Shirley's?"

  "She's only got one bathroom and it's full of bottles and potions and whatnot." He paused for a minute. "And I can't put my clothes in her closet 'cause that's where she keeps her dead husband's ashes, so the answer is no."

  Great, just what I needed right now, my dad and Shirley in a Mexican standoff. I held up my hands and feigned surrender. "Fine, fine. She can bunk in my room then. I've still got a cot in my closet."

  I have to say that I learned many skills from my great-aunt Mae, not the least of which was "How to move a stubborn man over to your side."