Mistletoe Man - China Bayles 09

by Susan Wittig Albert

  Again that emphatic shake of the head. "She's in San Antonio. She left early this morning. Really early, when it was still dark. A friend has loaned us a car to use until our car is fixed. That's what she drove. She—"

  "Thank you." Blackie took out a pen and a small notebook and flipped it open. "What vehicles do you own?"

  "Vehicles?" The color came and went in Donna's face. "Our van, of course. But it's out of commission. Somebody put sugar in the—" She stopped. "We've been having a lot of trouble with it lately."

  "Where is the van?" I asked.

  "It's in the barn," Donna said. "Terry didn't want to work on it in the rain."

  "It was parked beside the shed when I saw it on Saturday," I said. "Did Terry get it running enough to drive it into the barn?"

  Donna shook her head. "We towed it in with the tractor." I relaxed a little, but Donna didn't. "What are all these questions about?" she asked, her voice rising. Her eyes went from me to Blackie. "You can't possibly think that we had something to do with—" She stopped. "You can't possibly, that's all."

  "It's just routine," Blackie said. "We'll be talking with all the neighbors." He didn't look at me. "However, China told me you've been having some trouble out here, and that you suspected Swenson might have something to do with it. Is that true?"

  Donna threw me a glance that was at once angry and pleading, but she didn't have a chance to speak.

  "Damn right we been havin' trouble," said a shrill, parrotlike voice. "But if you're here to settle ol' Carlos Swen-bug's hash, you're a day late and a dollar short. That boy got took yestiddy. Them folks up there don't mess around."

  I pulled in my breath sharply. Got took?

  Donna stood. "I thought Terry told you to stay in your room," she said tightly. She took the old woman's arm and began to tug. "Come on, Auntie. You're not well."

  Blackie had risen too. He smiled invitingly and pulled out the chair beside his. "From all I hear," he said to Aunt Velda, "Mr. Swenson was a hard man to deal with. He gave you a bad time, did he, ma'am?"

  "A bad time?" Aunt Velda hooted. She shook off Donna's restraining hand and sidled, crabwise, toward the table. She seemed to be limping badly, and I saw that she was wearing one black sneaker and one crocheted bootie. "Hear that, Donna? This good-lookin' young feller wants to know did Carlos Swinster give us a bad time?" With a sarcastic cackle, she sat down in the chair and wrapped her red, white, and blue shawl (this one was knitted in the design of the American flag) around the shoulders of her field jacket. "You wanna know the truth, sonny, he screwed us six ways from Sunday. He deserves to be cleanin' latrines fer as long as them Klingons'll have him."

  "Aunt Velda," Donna said desperately, "please watch your language. This is Sheriff Blackwell." She leaned closer, trying to command her aunt's attention. "He's come to tell us that Mr. Swenson is—"

  "They got ol' Carlos, that's all I care about," Aunt Velda said in a celebratory tone. "Bully for them, is whut I say!" She banged her fist on the table. "Where's my coffee, girl? How come I ain't got no coffee?"

  Wordlessly, her face as white as the tablecloth, Donna got up to pour another cup of coffee. It was clear that she had wanted to get Swenson's death on the record before the old lady had a chance to say something she shouldn't. But Aunt Velda had beaten her to the punch.

  Blackie leaned forward, intent. "They got ol' Carlos?" he repeated.

  The old lady clapped her gnarled hands. "See there!" she crowed. "This feller's a smart'un. He knows all about 'em."

  She hoisted her bootied foot, which seemed to have been injured, onto a chair. "While you're up, girl, why don't you cut us a piece of that chocolate cake? You cain't make pie worth a durn, but your cakes ain't bad."

  "They are the Klingons," I said quietly to Blackie, and pointed to the plastic badge on Aunt Velda's knit cap. "Their spaceship is parked upstairs. They've been waiting to snatch Carlos—er, Carl Swenson. Aunt Velda knows about this because she has been a guest on the ship herself. They took her on an extended intergalactic voyage."

  Blackie nodded, and I could see him processing the information. When he leaned forward again, his voice was casual, interested. "How do you know the Klingons got Mr. Swenson?" he asked. "Did you see it happen?"

  Aunt Velda shut her eyes. "Well, not quite. But they borrowed the truck and—"

  There was a loud crash and a cry. Donna had droppedthe coffeepot into the sink, splashing hot coffee over her right forearm from wrist to elbow. Blackie jumped up, turned on the tap, and held her arm under the cold water. She resisted at first, but then stood quiedy, biting her lip.

  "That's a bad burn," he said, after several minutes. He turned off the tap. "You'd better get medical attention."

  Donna shook her head and reached for the aloe plant on the windowsill. "I'll put some of this on it," she said, and broke off a fat, succulent leaf. "It'll hurt for a while, but it'll be okay."

  I took the leaf from her, stripped off the tough outer skin, and smeared the gel on the burn. I worked as gently as I could, but she still winced at the touch, and made a little sound. The burn wasn't as bad or as extensive as it had seemed from her reaction, I thought.

  Blackie had gone back to his chair. "I was asking whether you had seen them take Mr. Swenson," he said to Aunt Velda, "and you were saying—"

  But the old woman had closed her eyes, her chin had dropped onto her chest, and she was snoring, her bootied foot still propped on the chair.

  "She falls asleep like that all the time," Donna said, sitting down at the table again. Her tone was at once relieved and embarrassed. "You can't tell when she'll wake up, or what she'll say when she does." She looked straight at Blackie. "You can't believe a word she tells you, about Carl Swenson or anything else. She's crazy."

  "What is your aunt's name?" Blackie asked, picking up his pen.

  "Velda Fletcher."

  "Her age?"

  "Seventy-five. Before she came to live with us she left her apartment and wandered around lost for several days.

  She couldn't be trusted to live alone any longer, so we take care of her."

  "When was the last time she was out of the house?"

  "The last time?" Donna said quickly. "Oh, it must have been a couple of months ago. That was to go to the doctor." Her smile was small and tight. "We can't allow her to go out, Sheriff. We have to watch her all the time to keep her from wandering off and getting hurt. You can see for yourself that she's not mentally competent."

  I looked up quickly. Aunt Velda was a couple of bricks shy of a load, as we say here in Texas, but I didn't believe she was as disabled as Donna made her appear. On Saturday, the old girl had been eager to claim the credit for discovering the arrowhead cache up at the spring and was proud of herself for helping her nieces haul out the debris in the farm truck.

  The farm truck. I pulled in my breath. Aunt Velda's old red Ford that couldn't be driven on the highway because it didn't have current plates. But the old lady was allowed to drive it around the farm, to make her feel she was doing something useful. Had she driven it yesterday?

  "What is her social worker's name?" Blackie was asking.

  "I'll get her card," Donna said. Cradling her burned arm, she got up and opened a cabinet drawer, fished for a moment, then came back to the table. "Here it is," she said. "Shirley Cowan. You ask her, Sheriff, she'll tell you that Aunt Velda is delusional. A couple of years ago, she got up one morning claiming that she'd been abducted by the Klingons. Since then, she sees an alien behind every bush." She laughed a httle, sadly. "She even sees them watching her through the windows and stealing her underwear. She's convinced that they set a trap for our dog, and she thinks they intend to capture Mr. Swenson." She appealed to me for confirmation. "You heard her talking about that just a couple of days ago, didn't you, China?"

  "When I was here on Saturday," I said slowly. If I was going to say something about that damn truck, now was the time.

  Blackie finished copying the information from the card
into his notebook. "So your aunt didn't leave the house yesterday?"

  "Oh, no, sir," Donna said. "Absolutely not."

  "And your sister?" Blackie asked.

  "We were all three right here together, all day and evening. If you don't believe me, you can ask Terry." She laughed a little. "In fact, we can't go anywhere until she gets the van working again. Our friend was nice enough to loan us her little white Geo. We don't want to abuse the privilege."

  I wanted to believe her but I was finding it difficult— and of course, if we asked Terry to confirm, we'd get the same story, true or false. Belatedly, I opened my mouth to ask about the farm truck, but Blackie was closing his notebook and standing up.

  "Thank you, Miss Fletcher," he said. "I think that's all the questions I have for you at the moment." He glanced at Aunt Velda, snoozing comfortably in her chair. I knew he'd like to wake her up and ask her what she had seen. But it was clear that he wasn't going to get any more information out of her just now, and if he did, it wouldn't be reliable. She might know something, but it would take a lot of perseverance—and luck—to dig it out of her confused memory.

  "Oh, there is one more thing," Blackie added, as if it were an afterthought. "Do you mind if I take a look at your van?"

  "Of course," Donna said, with so much alacrity that I knew we wouldn't see anything out of the ordinary. She shrugged into her down vest, clearly anxious to get us out of the house before Aunt Velda woke up.

  "What about that burn?" Blackie asked. "Shouldn't you bandage it?"

  Donna gave him a brave smile. "It'll be all right," she said. "That aloe works wonders."

  Leaving the old woman snoring at the table, we went back outdoors and down the path to the barn. I looked for the red Ford pickup, hoping it would be parked where I had last seen it, beside the van. The space was empty. Both vehicles were gone.

  But the van was in the barn, just as Donna had said, its essential parts spread out on a canvas tarp on the dirt floor, both headlights intact. A couple of Rhode Island Reds were roosting on the roof of the van and Max crawled out from under it, wagging his tail, happy to have company. Donna lifted the lid off a metal garbage can and took out a handful of corn for the chickens, while Blackie walked around the van, inspecting it. I scanned the barn for Aunt Velda's truck, but it wasn't there.

  Blackie came around the van. "Thank you, Miss Fletcher," he said, putting out his hand to Donna. "Please tell your sister that I may have some questions for her. If I need any more help, I'll call."

  And that was it. We said our goodbyes, climbed into McQuaid's truck, and drove off.

  I had swung out of the lane and was headed back down the gravel road toward Swenson's place when Blackie put his hand on the wheel. "Pull over," he said.

  When the sheriff speaks to you in that tone of voice, you pull over, immediately. "What's up?" I asked.

  "You tell me," Blackie said. "Cough it up, China."

  I sat for a moment, wrestling with my conscience. On the one hand, I liked and admired the Fletcher sisters for their guts and determination. They had put their hearts into their flower farm and I wanted them to succeed. I was also glad that Carl Swenson was no longer going to make their lives difficult, although I would have preferred him to back off voluntarily. I liked Aunt Velda too. She wasn't a whole lot nuttier than the thousands of Trekkies who show up at the Star Trek conventions outfitted in bizarre galactic masks and costumes.

  On the other hand, I liked and admired Blackie. And not for nothing had I been educated and trained to respect the law. In this case, Blackie was The Law, and I had an obligation to tell him what I knew. I also had an obligation to the truth, whatever that meant.

  "They own another vehicle," I said. "A beat-up old red Ford pickup with the right side smashed in. It's not tagged or inspected, so they don't take it off the place. They let Aunt Velda drive it around." I made a face, not liking to give him this information. "In fact, she drove it when they were cleaning out the spring, not very long ago."

  He took that in, obviously measuring it against Donna's statement that the old woman hadn't been out of the house for a couple of months. "Where is this truck? Have you seen it?"

  "When I was out here on Saturday, it was parked beside the barn, next to the van. It's not there now, though. I looked. It's not in the barn, either."

  "The old girl is a half-quart low," Blackie said musingly,

  "but she might have seen something yesterday. Or done something."

  "You think she might have been involved in Swenson's death?"

  "That boy got took yestiddy," Blackie quoted. I frowned. "That doesn't necessarily mean—" "Come on, China." Blackie gave me an impatient look. "You know what it means as well as I do. The old woman knew Swenson was dead. And what's more, her niece knew it too. Before we got there. That oh-dear-I'm-so-shocked act didn't fool me. Neither did that little business with the coffeepot."

  I had to agree. Donna's imitation of surprise hadn't been very convincing. "So what do you think happened yesterday?"

  Blackie slid down in the seat and tipped his Stetson over his eyes. "Could've been an accident. Say the old lady hops in her Ford and goes out for an illicit Sunday-afternoon spin. Say that Swenson is standing beside the road when she comes around the curve and she knocks him a good wallop. What happens next?"

  I squeezed my eyes shut, not wanting to think about it. After a moment I opened my eyes and said, unhappily: "I suppose she goes home and tells Terry and Donna what she's done." I frowned. "No, I don't think so. I think maybe she tells them that their problems are over, that the Klingons have beamed Carlos Swenson up into their spaceship. That she saw him being snatched, just the way she predicted." I remembered something else Aunt Velda had said. "Or that the Klingons borrowed the truck and ran him down."

  "Whatever. Doesn't matter."

  "Of course it matters," I said sharply. "It goes to competence. If Aunt Velda struck him with the truck but believes that he was abducted by aliens, she's incompetent. She can't be charged with his death."

  The brim of Blackie's hat was riding on the tip of his nose. "You lawyers make it so damn difficult to get a conviction," he growled.

  "That's the way it's supposed to work. It's not called an adversarial system for nothing."

  "Don't include me in that adversarial shit. All I have to do is get the evidence. The rest of it's up to the district attorney and the grand jury." He pushed up his hat with his thumb and turned to look at me. "But I'm afraid there's more here than just a hit-and-run, China. Say the old girl comes home with her story—accident, little green men, whatever. The nieces check out the truck, discover the broken headlight, and come looking. They find Swenson dead. Obviously, there aren't any witnesses, or it would have been reported. In fact, they're positive that nobody else has even seen the body. So they go back home and hide the truck somewhere on their property and try to get the old lady to keep her mouth shut."

  I couldn't fault Blackie's logic. I'd been harboring something of the same idea since Donna's clumsy performance in the kitchen. I just hadn't wanted to put words to it.

  "So you think Donna and Terry are shielding their aunt," I said reluctantly. If this was true, they were both in serious trouble—more trouble, probably, than their aunt, who was clearly certifiable. Once the judge read the psychiatric evaluation, Aunt Velda would never see the inside of a jail, although she might think that being confined to a nursing home wasn't a very attractive alternative. But if Donna and Terry had done what Blackie was suggesting, they could be charged with hindering apprehension—usually known as obstructing justice. It's a Class A misdemeanor, with a fine of up to four thousand dollars, a year's jail time, or both. A high price to pay for protecting their aunt.

  "I don't know about Terry, but Donna is sure as hell covering up for somebody," Blackie said. He shook his head. "She was nervous as a mail-order bride. She didn't want us in the house where her aunt might pop in on us, and when the old lady showed up, she did everything but stuff a
dishrag in her mouth to keep her quiet. Even dropped the coffeepot to distract us."

  "I can't argue with you," I conceded. "So what are you going to do?"

  Blackie sat up and stared out the windshield. "Need to find that truck," he muttered. "Can't prove anything without it."

  "I suppose you could get a warrant and search the place," I said.

  "How many acres did you say they've got?"

  'Two hundred, I replied. "And most of it's pretty rough. Might be hard to locate that truck, unless you use a helicopter."

  "A helicopter?" Blackie snorted derisively. "Hell, I'm lucky if I can buy gas for the squad cars. This isn't Bexar County, you know. If you don't count the jailer, I've only got two deputies and a half-dozen patrol officers. Helicopter." He snorted again. "Even if I had one, I wouldn't have anybody to fly it. And if I had somebody to fly it, I wouldn't have anything to pay him with."

  "It was just a thought," I said. "Guess you'll have to haul Donna and Terry in and put them through the third degree. Or you might try questioning Aunt Velda again, and see how far you get."

  "I've got a better idea." Blackie looked at his watch. "I need to interview the other neighbors. How would you feel about going back to the farm by yourself and talking to those Fletcher women? Both sisters, I mean, and the aunt. You could let them know the downside to what they've done and encourage them to come clean. If they've done it," he added hastily. "Innocent until proven guilty."

  "Thanks, Sheriff," I said dryly. In my experience, most police (and this includes even the good guys, like Blackie) see it the other way around.

  "Well, I mean it," he said, frowning. "Except for the fact that Donna withheld information about the existence of the truck and lied about her aunt's not having left the house in the past few months, there's no evidence to suggest that their truck was involved." He paused. "Not yet. But you know damn well what's going to happen when we get the report back on that glass. And on any paint flecks on Swenson's clothing."

  I knew. Somewhere in the bowels of the FBI there is a computerized database that provides profiles for the paint of every vehicle manufactured in the United States in the last couple of decades. If it turned out that a red Ford truck was involved, the sheriff would be out at the flower farm with a search warrant faster than forked lightning. It would go a lot easier for Donna and Terry if they came forward voluntarily and confessed the cover-up—if they had anything to confess. But something else—my curiosity—was urging me to do what Blackie asked. I wanted to know what Aunt Velda had done or seen. I wanted to know what Donna was hiding. And where did Terry fit into all of this?