by Ben Rehder
As soon as Rick put his hand on the door Traci said, “This isn’t about Rob, is it?” She paused a moment. “It’s about Captain Jack.”
Rick stopped, wondering if he could trust her. He went back to the reception desk. “You first. When was the fire?”
“About six months ago.” She folded her arms, waiting for Rick to reciprocate.
Rick hesitated before he said, “How about dinner at Kitty’s?”
“Nope.” Traci shook her head and said, “Steak ‘n’ Surf.”
29.
When the librarian asked Rick for the date range of his search, something new occurred to him. Had Captain Jack’s disappearance been treated as a news story? Had anyone filed a missing persons report? Clay had made it sound as if he had contacted the police about the mysterious disappearance of an employee. This, according to Clay, went to explain why the trailer had been ransacked. But if Rick’s blackmail theory was correct, it seemed more likely that someone involved in Jack Carter’s disappearance had been at the trailer looking for the tape. If that was true, it meant Clay had lied about the police and was, therefore, involved.
So maybe the cops didn’t even know about Captain Jack’s disappearance. Since he didn’t have any local family, it was possible no one had contacted them about it. Rick remembered something else. Clay had said that Captain Jack’s brother was coming to collect his personal effects, so clearly someone in the family knew he had gone AWOL.
Rick was standing at the reference desk trying to sort through all this when the librarian said, “Sir? What dates do you want?”
Rick made two requests. One for the month following Captain Jack’s disappearance and one beginning six months earlier and going back two months. The good news for Rick was that the McRae Monitor was a small town paper. World and national news stories were secondary to headlines like ‘Deckern Elementary Plans Fall Festival’ and ‘Safe Driving for Seniors Meeting Rescheduled.’ Obviously it didn’t take much to make the front page so Rick figured a missing media personality or a fire destroying a local business would merit banner consideration.
Rick found no mention of Jack Carter but he did find a headline from seven months earlier: Sunday Fire Damages Furniture Outlet. The story was short and sweet: McRae City and Deckern County Firefighters responded to a call early Sunday morning at the Three Pines Shopping Center atBilbo Avenue and Broadway. The fire was contained to Moore Furniture, a retail business at the east end of the center, said Capt. Virgil Boggs of the McRae Fire Department. The cause of the fire had been not been determined, Boggs said.
Rick wondered if ‘the cause of the fire had been not been determined’ was Fire Chief code for ‘it looks like arson but I ain’t gonna tip my hand in the press’. Rick figured there were a couple of ways to find out. One was to call Virgil Boggs and ask. At worst Virgil would say he couldn’t comment on the investigation. Another way would be to ask someone at the insurance company. But how would he find out who the insurer was? The only way he could imagine was if there was a mortgage on the property. If there was, that information would be on a deed of trust at the county courthouse. And while the insurer probably wouldn’t be named on a deed of trust, the lender would be, so maybe he could get them to say who insured it. Then it dawned on Rick that Moore Furniture was in a shopping center, so they probably had a lease, not a mortgage. And with that, he was back where he started.
He went to the library’s computer and looked for The Complete Idiots Guide to Being a Private Detective but didn’t find anything. So he did a periodical search on arson and found a couple of magazine articles on arson investigations, including a useful list of arson-for-profit indicators: phony or missing receipts for big ticket inventory, insurance policy about to expire, financial distress indicated (bankruptcy or other legal problems) and several more. He compared the newspaper article with the list of indicators and found two matches; (a) that the fire happened in the early morning hours and (b) during a three-day weekend.
The library was about to close. Rick was supposed to meet Traci at the Steak ‘n’ Surf in fifteen minutes. He had time for one last bit of research. He pulled the phone book off the shelf and looked up Donna Moore’s address.
30.
The Steak ‘n’ Surf was everything Rick feared it would be. It started in the parking lot. He was greeted by a guy in a cow costume. Following a script that must have been deemed hysterical when it was adopted at the Steak ‘n’ Surf Restaurant Image Committee meeting, the cow opened the door for Rick and – big cow tongue in cheek – urged him to order the seafood platter.
At the hostess stand Rick encountered a woman wearing Steak ‘n’ Surf’s trademarked big red lobster mittens which she snapped playfully at whoever approached. Kids loved it. Rick stood out of reach as he looked for Traci. He saw her and managed to slip past the hostess, unpinched.
Traci had changed from work clothes into black jeans, cowboy boots, and a soft blue denim shirt. She was seated in a booth between two delightful families. A man at one of the tables was shoveling fried shrimp, drowned in ketchup, into his mouth at an astonishing rate while saying, “I swaaare. I’m ‘onna be there for ya, baby, forever. You know that.” He wiped his greasy fingers on the front of his shirt then reached across the table to hold her hand. “I just got this thing, see? I met this guy. And we gonna do this deal.” Like that explained everything. He cast his eyes down, as if he was about to invite the woman to pray over the matter with him. Then he said, “You gunna finish them onion rings?”
A woman at the other table was ignoring her two screaming babies while she wagged a slippery beef rib at the man with the hangdog face sitting across from her. “You go near ‘at bitch again and I will tear the hair RIGHT outta your skull! You hear me?”
The man shrugged in defeat as he tried to suck some meat out of an anemic king crab leg.
Traci looked at Rick and said, “Isn’t this great?”
“Truly fabulous,” Rick said as he looked around at the red Naugahyde and fake brass railings. Makeup
Traci used her menu to pop Rick on the head. “Stop acting so damn superior and tell me what you think that fire’s got to do with Captain Jack.”
Rick looked at Traci for a moment before he said, “I love your eyes.” He pointed toward her and made small circles in the air with his finger. “The way you do your catalog, it’s sexy as hell. I hope you don’t mind.”
Traci smiled, flattered. “I don’t mind at all.” She leaned forward, batting her lashes. “Now spill me an earful,” she said. “I am dying to know what you’re up to.”
Rick told her about the tape, describing it as “Clay talking to some guy at a bank, bragging about his infidelities and talking about other people committing some serious crimes.”
“Like what?”
“Well, like a woman named Donna Moore who Clay accuses, well, more or less accuses, of committing arson for profit.”
Traci stopped him and said, “That’s the fire at Moore Furniture? Oh my God, they used to advertise on the AM,” Traci said. “And I think it was Clay’s account.” She gave Rick’s arm a flirty nudge. “This is great. Go on.”
Rick gave a few more specifics. Traci treasured every word. “Ohhhh, maaannnn,” she said, keeping her voice down. “This is unbelievable.” She rubbed her hands together like a mad scientist. “When do I get to hear it? You know what we should do–” She paused a moment before she said, “Wait, what’s it got to do with Captain Jack?”
Rick was about to explain his theory when the waitress arrived singing the Sizzling Shrimp Skillet Sensation song, which was mercifully brief. When it was over she said, “Whooo’s hungry?” She put the food on the table. “Plates are hot, hot, hot. So don’t touch ‘em.” She handed Rick a faux steer’s horn, then pointed to the mouthpiece at the small end. “If you need anything, just toot your horn and I’ll come a-runnin’!”
Rick had another idea about they could do with the horn but he kept it to himself. After the waitress was gone he s
aid, “Captain Jack tried to blackmail the people on the tape. My bet is, somebody took exception to that and made him disappear.”
Traci said, “Are you guessing all this? I mean, how do you know?”
“I’m only guessing about what happened to Captain Jack. I know for a fact he tried to blackmail one of the people on the tape. Seems fair to assume he tried the others, too.” Rick told her about his chat with Lisa Ramey adding that he didn’t think she had anything to do with whatever happened to Captain Jack. “But if Donna Moore committed arson for profit and got away with it, Captain Jack could’ve threatened her. She could be looking at twenty years along with whatever civil judgment the insurance company might win.”
Traci swallowed a shrimp and said, “But women don’t usually commit violent crimes, do they?” Rick glanced over her shoulder at the woman in the next booth who had threatened to snatch bald-headed her wandering mate. “Okay,” Traci said, “Let me rephrase that. I don’t think women kill men who ain’t currently cheatin’ on ‘em. Besides, Captain Jack wasn’t a small guy. It’d take some work to stuff him in the trunk of a car, if that’s what you’d do.”
“I think you’re right,” Rick said. “If Donna Moore had something to do with it, she probably had help.” He pulled a piece of paper from his shirt pocket. “That’s her address. You know where it is?”
Traci looked. “Yeah,” she said, pointing east. “Go down Bilbo about two miles. Right on Lynwood and I think it’s the second street on the left.” She handed it back to Rick and said, “So what’re you gonna do, knock on her door and ask if she torched the place?”
“I haven’t figured that out yet,” Rick admitted. “The newspaper article didn’t mention arson, just said the cause was under investigation.”
“So at least it’s a possibility.”
“Yeah,” Rick said. “But she’d have to own the place, right? I mean she wouldn’t benefit otherwise.” He looked up at the ceiling. “I’m trying to remember what Clay said. I think he said she ran the place, like she was a manager, not the owner.”
“She coulda been in cahoots with the owner or been pissed off at him, either one,” Traci said. “Or maybe both, I mean, maybe she’d been sleeping with the owner and that went sour. You know he coulda been making her all kinds of promises about leaving his wife, buying a boat and headin’ off to the islands and who knows what all? Then maybe he tells her one day that all bets are off and they’ve got to stop seein’ each other. And her sense of betrayal gets to her and next thing you know she’s dropping cigarettes in the wastepaper basket. I could see that.”
Rick took a bite of his dry nine dollar hamburger and said, “Viable as that scenario is, it brings in too many new variables. Let’s just assume Clay was telling the truth about what he and Miss Moore were doing back in the mattress warehouse. Now if Captain Jack had tried to blackmail her, she might have turned to Clay for help. And if Clay was also being blackmailed, well. . .” He shrugged. “There’s your cahoots right there.”
“Yeah, Clay’s strong enough to stuff somebody in the trunk and that Crown Victoria is big enough, too.”
Rick nodded, thinking. He remembered that he hadn’t talked about the last part of the tape. He said, “You know a woman named Holly Creel?” Traci shook her head. “Okay, what can you tell me about Bernie Dribbling?”
Traci’s mouth dropped open and the words “Bernie Dribbling” fell onto the table and lay there for a moment before she said his name again. “Bernie Dribbling is mentioned on the tape? Accused of something?”
“Yeah, Clay pretty much accuses him of, I don’t know what you’d call it, maybe bank fraud. . . among other things. You know him?”
“What does that mean, ‘among other things’?”
Rick shook his head as if embarrassed on Bernie’s behalf. “Wait’ll you hear the tape,” he said. “What do you know about him other than he buys lots of air time for Universal Financial Services?”
Traci lanced a sizzling shrimp with her fork. “I’ve met him,” she said in a tone that didn’t speak well of the man. “He’s one of those guys who’d probably be recruitin’ for the Citizens Council if it was still around.” She dragged the shrimp through the butter that had pooled on her plate. “You know, he’s probably just like Clay.” She went down the grocery list. “Trustee at his church, active in the service organizations, huntin’ buddies with the business and mid-level politicians around the state. So he’s one of those guys, very old school.” Traci thought about him for a moment, wrinkling her nose in the process. “And he’s a creepy old shit. Always makes really crude sexual comments when he comes to the station. You know, I don’t mind a little flirting, even with older guys, but this one? A truly sorry example of your gender.”
“You think he’s. . . I don’t know. . . violent?”
Traci watched the butter drip off her shrimp for a moment before saying, “I could see him hiring someone to do it but I don’t think he could do anything like that by himself, I mean physically.” She scrunched her nose and shook her head. “He’s old and fat. But he’s got money,” she said. “And I bet he could be a pretty mean old cracker, so, I could see it happening that way.” She was about to put the shrimp in her mouth when she stopped and said, “And you know what else? I just realized this.” She waved the shrimp at Rick as she spoke. “He’s always advertised on the both stations, you know, for his finance company? But he just bought a huge run-of-schedule. Way more than usual. He spent a lot of money.”
“Just recently?”
“Yeah, I remember because Clay came in bragging about his big commission on the deal.” Traci looked at the buttery shrimp glistening on the end of her fork. She smiled and said, “I just love these things.”
Rick was captivated watching Traci eat, her teeth and tongue provocative as they drew the pink crustacean into her mouth. He unconsciously licked his lips and he wondered if her kiss was as soft as powdered sugar or if it just looked like it would be. His mind was starting to wander in more erotic directions when the waitress dropped by with their bill. They both reached for it but Rick was quicker. “I’ll get it next time,” Traci said.
“Fine,” Rick said. “But next time we’re going back to Kitty’s.”
“I got a better idea,” Traci said. “How about I pick something up and bring it over to your place?”
31.
After his shift that night, Rick walked out to the parking lot and glanced at the sky. There was a quarter moon struggling behind thick clouds. A perfect night to drive over to Donna Moore’s and sneak up to her house. And do what? he asked himself. Peep in her windows? Suddenly realizing the flaw in his plan, Rick went back inside the station.
He sat at Traci’s desk and turned on a small lamp. He hummed along with Theme From An Imaginary Western which Uncle Victor was playing as part of a Youngbloods, Mountain, and Cream set that Rick was trying to figure out. It finally struck him that the connective tissue was songwriter Gail Collins. The Youngbloods had recorded a few of her songs. She was also co-writer of Cream’s Strange Brew as well as another on the Disraeli Gears album which was produced by her songwriting partner and husband, Felix Pappalardi who formed Mountain in 1969 with Leslie West and whom she shot in the neck and killed on the night of April 17, 1983.
It turned out that Felix had been having a long-standing affair with a younger woman and that Gail knew about it. The jury bought her story that it was an accident and they convicted her of criminally negligent homicide instead of second degree murder. Rick was doing mornings at a station in Texas when he got the news. He remembered thinking, What a drag to have to pay your taxes and, two days later, get killed by your wife. As he sat there, Rick entertained a thought: What would Lori Stubblefield do if she heard Clay on that tape?
Rick got up and walked down the hall to Stubblefield’s office. The door was locked. He went back to the front desk and picked up the phone. He called Traci, waking her up. “Sorry,” he said. “I need to get into Clay’s office, is ther
e a key somewhere?”
She was groggy. “Uhhhh, no.” She cleared her throat and said, “But do you see the letter opener on my desk?”
“Yeah.” Rick could see how you might use it to pick the lock.
“What you need to do is take that and stick it somewhere that hurts really bad, like an eye or something. What time is it?”
“I said I was sorry at the top.”
She cleared her throat again. “What do you need in his office?”
“I want to look at his Rolodex.”
“Where are you?”
“At your desk.”
“Then it’s right in front of you.” She made a sleepy moaning noise that Rick liked. She said, “You think the lazy bastard makes his own calls?” Then she hung up.
Rick flipped to the M’s and found Donna Moore. Under her name, Moore Furniture Store had been scratched out and replaced by McRae Tool and Equipment Rental.
32.
Rick woke up at nine the next morning and had coffee while listening to Rob. “. . .Thinking about a weekend trip to the casinos? Universal Financial Services is your ticket to the tables.”
Rob came out of the spot set and did a live station promo pushing the thousand dollar giveaway. “There’s still plenty of time to enter,” he said. “Just send your name, address, and phone number on a postcard or drop by T-Bone Records on Bilbo Avenue, or any Steak & Surf location in greater McRae and enter in person. You don’t have to be present to win but we’d sure like to see you there. We’re gonna be rockin’ Riverside Park next Sunday starting at noon. Come on out and meet the WAOR staff,” he said. “Drawing’s at three with the beee-you-tee-ful Miss Loblolly Pine, Joni Lang. We’ll also have lots of give-aways, so come on out to Riverside Park, next Sunday. All that cash just might be yours from WAOR-FM, where we’re gettin’ at the roots of classic rock.”