Moomph. He cocked an ear. I wanna see couldn't have been clearer, if he'd clamped a pencil between his teeth and written Hannah a note.
"Sorry, big guy. We're both out of luck. I could bring up the Web site's home page again, but that's it. The sneaky old fart typed in the password himself, and I doubt it's 'open sesame.'"
Or even Leo's version, "the open says me."
Hannah swiveled around and grabbed the mouse. It was worth a shot, though.
* * *
What better place to hold a pity party, David thought, watching a roach stumble across the Outhouse's shag carpet. We ought to rent it out. Twenty bucks an hour. Could fetch thirty, after dark.
Josh Phelps had loaned him his desk chair, sparing David the discomfort of that plastic patio crap. The rookie investigator sat on his desk, facing Marlin's. Junior Duckworth had availed himself of Cletus Orr's swivel chair, after Marlin sent Cletus home to sleep off a sinus headache.
Kimmie Sue Beauford and Rocco Jarek had been cut loose. Marlin wanted to hold Jarek to the legal limit, essentially because he could. David demurred.
The detective's arms were winged behind his neck, his feet crossed on the desk. "Police work just doesn't get any better than this, gentlemen. Bust your ass for pretty much thirty-four hours straight building a case, then sit back and bond after it all goes to shit."
He grunted. "Present company excepted on the 'goes to shit' part."
"Don't let the mule drive the wagon," David said. "I didn't believe Kimmie Sue's alibi, either. Truth be told, it kind of pisses me off that it all checked out. That fingerprint, in particular."
"So they had dinner with Bev in Kansas City," Marlin argued. "BFD. It doesn't prove that's when Jarek left the print."
David planted a boot on the floor and crossed the other one over it. "It's not logical that he wore gloves to toss the house, adjust the thermostat, strangle Bev and open her car door, then took one off to check his hairdo in her rearview mirror."
Phelps nodded, then caught himself. Rookies don't side with the opposition when the chief is looking. It tends to lead to evidence-recovery assignments in Dumpsters and crawl spaces.
"Okay," Marlin said, "it might be a red herring. It doesn't exclude Jarek from the crime scene, though."
David allowed that it didn't. Trouble was, it didn't put him there, either.
Junior Duckworth sighed and shook his head. "Bev pawning her own jewelry to pay her bills. That's just wrong." He fiddled with his tie tack, as if it were a one-bead rosary. "I tried to dissuade her from that huge, expensive funeral she wanted for Larry. She wouldn't listen. Said she didn't care how long she had to make payments on it, he deserved the best money could buy."
"Seems she felt the same way about that worthless daughter of hers." Marlin leaned forward and riffled a pile of bank, credit card and loan statements. "Bev was sliding toward bankrupting herself, supporting Malibu Barbieand her plastic surgeon. As far as we can tell, Kimmie Sue hasn't held down a real job since she flipped burgers during high school."
Phelps said to David, "Doesn't that contradict Ms. Beauford's statement? She told you she was here to talk her mother into selling the house and moving to an apartment." He spread his hands. "Between Bev's first mortgage and the second, there wouldn't have been enough equity left to pay the deposit and first month's rent."
"Kimmie Sue could have been lying," David admitted. "Or she didn't know the house was already mortgaged to the chimney cap."
"House or no house, Kimmie Sue still has a money motive," Marlin pointed out. "Homicide doubles the indemnity on Bev's insurance to fifty large."
"Follow the money." Phelps grinned. "I wish I had some for every time I've heard that."
"Damn right, Grasshopper. Name two homicides, since the day I started wishing you were never born, when the perp wasn't trying to keep his cash or was after somebody else's."
David mentally reviewed the recent closed cases and realized why Marlin asked for two examples, not one. The incident that had triggered the excessive-force lawsuit against David was in self-defense, not money-motivated.
A glare indicated how little David appreciated being included in the pop quiz. It missed its target, who was squinting up at the security monitor wired to the front door's videocam. "Screw that friggin' buzzer," Marlin muttered, and pressed a button to disengage the lock.
Nicole Ng, the department's summer intern, walked in carrying a file folder as though it might bite. The criminology major's white slacks were as dirt-streaked as her blouse. Her clean face and hands suggested she'd washed up in the ladies' as best she could.
"This is the only one I found," she said, handing the folder to Marlin, "and I looked through every carton in the basement."
His scowl softened. He may have smiled. "Good job, Nicole. I appreciate it."
"Is there anything else I can do?"
At the detective's curt no thanks, David said, "It's nearly quitting time, anyway, Nicole. Why don't you get a head start on the weekend?"
Junior Duckworth stood and said, "I'd better be going, myself. My brother's on a house call and I don't like leaving Mother alone too long at the funeral home."
After Marlin buzzed them out, he said, "Alone? From what I hear, LaVada Duckworth talks to dead people. And thinks they talk back."
David eyed the folder Nicole delivered. The stock was thicker, brown and had a sheen to it, unlike the flimsy manila kind he was accustomed to. The label on its tab was so old, the edges were ragged where pieces had crumbled away.
"Who's R. J. Modine?" he asked.
"Damned if I know." Marlin flipped it open, scanned a page, snorted, then threw the file on the desk. "Some drone who went missing the day after Christmas, 1951."
He lit a cigarette and took a drag, like a thirsty man sucks water up a straw. The first, David noticed, since Junior Duckworth stopped in for a progress report. Why he ceased chain-smoking when the county coroner was present was a mystery. Or maybe not.
"You had Nicole grub around in the courthouse basement for a file you don't even need?" David said.
"No, I asked her pretty please to look for a file on Royal Moody, when she had time. This Modine dude must be the closest thing to it she found."
"And you wanted the file on Moody because "
"Hannah tried to bribe me with lunch for information on Moody going AWOL. She'd already talked to Les Williams at the PD. I told her Moody wasn't our case, but she insisted we had the file. It got me curious."
David propped an elbow on the armrest, then his jaw on a fist. "Golf, fishing, clubs, a theater group, day trips, casino junkets You'd think with all the stuff to do at Valhalla Springs, the Mod Squad would quit playing detective."
"Toots is as bad as they are," Marlin said, then conceded, "Okay, okay. It's five against one, and she doesn't know what they're up to most of the time." He flipped an ash worm in the general direction of the plant saucer. "But she was all fired up this morning."
Phelps chuckled. "Yeah, and she was torqued when she left, too."
Another effect Marlin often had on people, David thought. Usually not Hannah, though. She prided herself on getting in the last zinger.
"Just so long as Bisbee and crew stay away from Beauford." Marlin's tone inferred a warning to David, as if it were necessary. "Which is back at square one, if you take Jarek and Kimmie Sue out of the picture."
"They aren't out," David said. "At this point, she could be the killer as easily as him."
"Using Jarek as her alibi." Marlin snuffed out his cigarette. "Guilty or not, those two deserve each other. She leeched off Bev. Jarek leeches off her. Deduct the bills from the estate, and they may hit us up for gas money to get back to California."
David would give it to them, too, if they signed an affidavit saying they'd never step foot in Kinderhook County again. "Want me to start on Bev's telephone records? Luke isn't meeting me at the office for another half hour or so."
Phelps said, "Ma Bell is experiencing a system upg
rade. No records available till late tonight, possibly tomorrow."
Bev had canceled cell phone service and landline Caller ID about the time she pawned her jewelry. Either one would have supplied contact info. Punching star 69 on her home phone at the scene had connected with Glo-Brite Dry Cleaners, but no date or time the call was initiated.
David rolled his eyes. "What ever did we do before computers were invented?"
"The same thing I'm gonna do after I reintroduce myself to the wife and eat a home-cooked dinner." Marlin folded his sport coat over his arm. "Meet you at the Beauford house about five o'clock and see if we missed anything."
He shoved the accordion file under his arm. "Look, I don't want it to be Bev's daughter. For a lot of reasons. But strangulation is personal. Kimmie Sue's got a major sense of entitlement. If she popped the question about the house and Bev told her about the mortgages "
"I know." David grimaced. "The capability's there. It's the culpability I want sewn tight."
"That's why I'm recanvassing the neighbors," Phelps said, less than enthusiastically. "Marlin's convinced somebody saw something, besides the stoner who thinks maybe there was a white car in the driveway sometime that week."
"Aka Bev's sedan. I want a Jeep." Marlin caught the phone in mid-ring. "Yo, Andrik." He looked at David. "Lemme see if he's here." Receiver clapped to his shoulder, he said, "Chase Wingate's on hold, asking after the statement for next week's paper."
"He'll get it tomorrow, like I told him."
Marlin relayed the message. "Oh, really? Hang on." Receiver muffled again, he said, "Wingate's also e-mailing Jessup Knox's remarks about the homicide, in case you care to respond."
"Nope." David made a mental note to delete the e-mail without reading it. With advance notice, Chase knew he would. Darned decent of him to give it.
"How about letting Wingate quote me? 'Marlin Andrik, chief of detectives, suggested that Elvis stick his head up his ass and sneeze.'"
David laughed. "Thanks, but no thanks."
"You sure?" Marlin shrugged. "I'll save it till after the election. And say it to his face."
Assuming I win, David thought. Or maybe not. Even Elvis wasn't stupid enough to fire Marlin.
13
From the great room, Hannah heard IdaClare say, "I wish I could, Rosemary. Tomorrow is Jack's birthday and he'll be here by ten." A derisive snort, then, "Though it'd serve him right to spoil the surprise and be gone."
IdaClare looked at the doorway as Hannah walked through it. "Oh, there you are, dear. We were beginning to think we'd have to go on without you."
"Been trying to," Delbert grumbled, "for the past half an hour."
"Is everything all right?" Rosemary asked.
"Everything's fine and dandy," Hannah said. Which was true, now that Madame Rue, the supposed psychic medium who leased office space above Oliver's Apothecary on Main Street, had been evicted for an unauthorized séance. What began as a group reading had turned into something of a riot, with Mme. Rue the target of multiple deadly pocketbooks.
Doc Pennington had sedated the woman who was told that her beloved grandfather was a vicious horse thief and a hired gun, then revived the two participants who'd fainted, and dispensed cold compresses to the bruised.
Just another day in the neighborhood, Hannah thought, pulling on a cardigan and accepting the coffee and apple cobbler Marge offered her.
"I thought Jack had to be in Michigan tomorrow," she said to IdaClare.
"He fibbed so I couldn't throw him a surprise party. I called his pilot to ask if the jet was available, in case my friend in Tucson had surgery in the morning." IdaClare chuckled. "Just as I suspected, the plane's free till next Tuesday."
"I'll keep Itsy and Bitsy if you need to go," Marge said.
"That's sweet of you, but I don't have any friends in Tucson." IdaClare waggled her penciled eyebrows. "That boy thinks if he whispered in my ear, he'd hear an echo."
"Nah," Delbert said. "It'd blow out the other side."
Dipping into her cobbler, Hannah asked, "Have I missed anything interesting?"
"No," Delbert said emphatically.
Rosemary fingered a pixie-cut sideburn. "IdaClare and I got a shampoo and set at the Curl-Up & Dye this afternoon. The gossip about Beverly Beauford was thicker than the hairspray."
"Dixie Jo Gage thinks Cesar Montenegro did it," IdaClare said. "Everybody in town knew he had a crush on Mrs. Beauford, even before her husband died."
Hannah wondered if "everybody" included David and Marlin Andrik. By now, the latter had tattled to the former about her visit to the Outhouse. A tip about Cesar Montenegro might shorten another rant about running with the wrong crowd of senior citizens.
Rosemary said, "Cesar owns Aunt Chiladas and delivered take-out orders to Mrs. Beauford personally if you know what I mean. Then a couple of weeks ago, she stopped ordering, but he kept going to her house, anyway."
"You know what they say about Latin men," IdaClare intoned. "Hot-blooded and hot-tempered."
"Oh, for cryin' out loud," Delbert howled. "Can we"
Marge shuddered. "He's also fat, smells like taco grease and smokes those big, stinky cigars. Ick."
"Maybe that was the attraction," Rosemary said. "Larry Beauford was fat and smoked cigars, too, and Beverly must have been lonely. When she came to her senses and dumped Cesar, he was furious."
"The crime of passion, it would be," Leo mused. "Many of those there are, sad to say."
"Well, I think the woman was " IdaClare paused, as though amending a harsher adjective. "A flake. Dixie Jo told me in confidence that Beverly begged her for a loan to go to cosmetology school. Then she was going to have a huge garage sale to pay her tuition. Next anyone knew, she'd up and donated everything to charity and was bragging about taking a cruise."
Hannah recalled the travel guide checked out from the library on Marlin's desk. Cash-strapped widow sails away from stalker plying her with free quesadillas? Consider the source, she warned herself. The Curl-Up & Dye's owner and clientele made supermarket tabloids look unimpeachable.
Delbert sneered, "Those gabby old hens are fulla bull. The likeliest scenario is a parolee from the Big House was after Sheriff Beauford for sending him up the river. When he found out Beauford had already kicked the bucket, he killed his widow, instead."
"Hey, I saw that movie." Marge snapped her fingers repeatedly. "The title's right on the tip of"
"Leave it there."
"No, no. It was something like "
Delbert commanded, "Zip it, and start taking notes. This meeting's about Code Name: Epsilon and by God, I'm calling it to order."
Rosemary's arm shot up. Leo whimpered at her bosom's tectonic shift. Ach, such a boob man, he was. "Question, please."
After Delbert confirmed it was pertinent, she inquired, "If the 'hens' at the beauty shop are 'full' of 'bull,' why did you send us there for gossip about Chlorine Moody?"
"Because," he replied, drawing it out, as if the answer were as elusive as Marge's movie title. "The truth is, a Sub Rosa Team Reconnaissance Deposition is tricky, and you and IdaClare are the best SRTRD operatives I've got."
"Really?" IdaClare blushed and touched three fingertips to her chin. "Why, Delbert, how sweet of you to say so."
Hannah and Marge looked at each other. They silently agreed that if the old fart put his mind to it, he could sell an extension ladder to a giraffe.
Rosemary was also smitten with her newfound status. "There are some ugly rumors floating around about Chlorine."
"Not a whisper about her doing away with her husband, though," IdaClare remarked. "But everyone was shocked that she refused to hire an attorney or post her son's bail, after the sheriff arrested him."
Rosemary's hand pantomimed a bird's beak. "Cheap, cheap, cheap," she cheeped.
"Mean, is more like it," IdaClare said. "What choice did Rudy have but to plead guilty to the charges against him?"
Not much, Hannah thought. Rudy had been caught with a cache o
f illegal guns, days after David confiscated Rudy's sidearm for accidentally shooting out a florist's plateglass window.
Even before that, the unpaid reserve deputy hadn't had a future as a full-fledged law enforcement officer, regardless of how much patrol duty he assigned himself, or how many crime scenes he intruded on.
The spoon clinked in Hannah's spotless bowl as she set it on the bar. "I was there when Rudy confessed to every charge against him. He could have recanted and pled not guilty, but that usually doesn't work out real well."
"Rudy always was a brown-nosed, mealy-mouthed little shit," Rosemary said. Evidently noticing the sudden stillness in the room, she chuckled and waved a sheet of notepaper. "The manicurist's opinion, not mine. She also said Sheriff Beauford took Rudy fishing and riding around in the squad car when he was a kid, but Rudy and Chlorine were conspicuously and unforgivably absent at Beauford's funeral."
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