“What’d you do?” I asked
“Dropped down on all fours and pretended to be looking for a contact.”
“She was great,” Patrice declared.
“Right. Now we discover my true talents.”
“I’m glad to hear you say that because I’ve got one more thing for you to do.” I handed Cara the envelope along with a twenty-dollar bill.
“Mom…”
“We’ll be out of here in less than ten minutes. Give the envelope to the person working the cash register. Ask her not to announce it over the PA system, but to check with people as they pay their bills. The twenty is for her trouble.”
Cara shook her head at me. “I’d better not go to hell for this.”
“If you do,” I assured her, “it won’t be the only reason.”
She stuck out her tongue at me but went back into the restaurant. We’d already wasted too much time. Patrice climbed into the backseat of the Pontiac with Odin, reached into the front seat and released the latch to the driver’s side door. I slid behind the wheel.
“It’d be nice if we had keys.”
“True,” I agreed, pulling wires down from the steering column, “but we don’t.” It took two tries before I got the engine running.
“How’d you learn to do that?” Patrice asked.
“From Stephen,” I told her.
“Any particular reason why you thought you might need to know how to hotwire a car?”
“Just in case.” I backed out of the space.
“In case of what?”
“In case my daughter, my friend and her dog needed a ride.”
Cara came out of the restaurant’s door, head down, walking fast. I swung the car around, and she jumped into the passenger seat.
“Go. Now!” she insisted. “I don’t know what that woman’s going to do.”
Chapter 11
We headed north on Highway 15 and then west on the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
Concrete barriers separated us from oncoming traffic on our left and a steep mountainside on our right, much like a pinball spinning down a chute. My hands were shaking so hard I could barely keep the car on the road. I never would have attempted that highway except for two reasons: I didn’t want to take the Pontiac across state lines, and at Breezewood there was a truck stop that offered hot showers.
Thank God it was still early enough on a Saturday morning that traffic was relatively light. The only thing that saved what little nerves I had left was my conviction that the stolen license plate on the Grand Prix would prevent our being pulled over, at least for a while. We found the truckers’ plaza some seventy or so miles down the road. I pulled to the far end of the lot and backed into a space.
The showers, as the sign promised, were indeed hot. So was the food at the Burger King. So was the car we were driving.
When I got out of my shower, Patrice greeted me with a sweatshirt she’d purchased in the gift area. She’d turned it inside out and clipped the tag, which left it a nice gray color with light-blue thread accenting the seams.
“No need to advertise where we’re coming from,” she said. On the inside was a Pennsylvania logo. Not exactly my style, but it was clean and it was warm and I would have put on most anything not to have to don the sweater I’d slept in the night before. I threw it away in the restroom’s trash bin.
By then it was almost nine o’clock. Odin needed one more walk before we took off again, but first he had to have a second hamburger. I’d bent over to unwrap it for him in the grassy area near a picnic table when Cara knelt down next to me. “Smoky at three o’clock.”
Out of the corner of my eye I watched as a state highway patrol car turned into the parking area and started past us, cruising at an especially low speed. We watched as he stopped directly in front of the Grand Prix and got out.
“Damned car owners,” Cara cursed.
“Hush,” I told her. “It is their car.”
“I suppose you think they told the police about the money you gave them. Hah! I say they pocketed it and then turned us in.”
“Stay focused, you two, and follow my lead,” Patrice directed, shortening Odin’s leash, another addition from the gift shop. “Don’t talk and don’t look back.”
If she intended to walk out cross-country, I wasn’t sure but what I’d be willing to turn us in. We’d been wise enough to keep our bags with us, but the maps, the flashlights and the tarps were all in the car.
But she didn’t lead us into the trees. Instead she headed across the pavement toward the big rigs. It took every ounce of control I had not to break into a run. She pulled us up short at a white tractor trailer, with the word SUNRISE written in all caps, and banged on the door.
“What the…” I started.
“Yeah?” A huge, shaggy-bearded creature stuck his head out the window.
“Big Mac, meet my friends. You said you could use some company….”
“When the heck did you meet him?” I whispered.
“Coming out of the showers,” she whispered back. “He thinks I have a nice ass.” Then in a normal voice, “Got room for the lot of us? We could sure use a ride about now.”
The beard lifted into a smile. “Hell, yeah.”
He got out and helped us up, and I could tell where he got his name. He was huge. Cara and I crawled into the sleeper, leaving Patrice and Odin to deal with Big Mac. We swung out of the parking area toward the road, and I heard Odin let out a low growl and then settle back down. Good for him. He’d keep Mac in line.
Cara snuggled down at one end of the mattress and was out as soon as her head hit Mac’s spare pillow, but I couldn’t help playing scenarios in my head about what might have happened if that patrol officer had spotted us. Or Big Mac turned out to be half as sinister as he looked. I listened in on a little of the conversation up front as the big rig looped back around onto the turnpike.
“Where you folks headed?” Big Mac asked, slurping coffee from an oversize Dunkin’ Donuts mug. He was a smoker. I could tell by the rasp in his voice.
“West,” Patrice offered. He could assume that much since that was the direction he was driving. “Ohio,” she added.
Ohio was as good a place as any right now. But we couldn’t keep running forever. We needed a plan, a goal that would eventually allow us to make our way back to our real lives. I’d promised Cara.
“You in trouble?” Big Mac asked, taking another slurp of coffee.
Patrice let out a titter of a laugh. “No. Just broke.”
I heard him grunt. “If you need help, I’m offerin’. No strings. You don’t owe me an explanation, but you didn’t walk to that rest area and you don’t strike me as the sort of dame that’s wantin’ for money.”
“Our car broke down. Actually, my friend’s husband’s car. She left him and he threatened to come after us. He’s probably reported his car stolen by now.”
“That your car Smoky was all over back there?” he asked.
Patrice must have nodded.
“Why not call the police yourself?”
“She’s tried that before.…”
I didn’t hear the rest. My mind wandered off to that place where exhaustion dulls all senses. Patrice was telling Big Mac some convoluted story of domestic abuse and it was rolling off her tongue as though it were the truth.
Was that how it had started with Stephen? After those first few words he’d spoken to me that were untrue, did the rest simply flow? Had it become so easy that he would just as soon tell a lie? Or did he hate them as much as I did? What had chased him?
At that point I didn’t care, at least not enough to keep myself awake. I burrowed into Big Mac’s down-stuffed pillow, ignoring the stale smell of cigarettes and cheap cologne, and allowed myself the luxury of sleep. Cara’s head was at the other end of the cab. Her foot stretched and caught against my shoulder. I grabbed it and hugged it to me. We were safe, if only for the moment. No one could see her or me hidden in that cab, and anyone looking for us would b
e expecting to see three women together.
“Elizabeth, listen!” Patrice rattled the partition between the cab and the sleeper. I sat up to see thick fog shrouding the truck. We must be well into the mountains.
She turned the radio up, and it suddenly blared through the truck.
Cara pulled the pillow tighter around her head and snuggled deeper into the covers.
“—report finding drug paraphernalia near the body. An autopsy will be performed later today. The dead woman had been identified as Jayne Donovan, wife of Judge Edward Donovan, who is presiding over the Nicholas Ackerman witness intimidation and bribery case, and the mother of missing law student Will Donovan. She was found this morning in the Denver mansion she shared with her husband, an apparent suicide.”
I closed my eyes. I felt nauseous. First the son, now the wife. How many more people were going to die? What kind of hellish world were we living in?
Patrice snapped off the radio and turned her eyes back toward the road.
“Did you know—” Big Mac began.
“Me? Heavens, no. It’s just horrible that a woman like that would do such a thing, but I guess with her son missing… Grief causes people to lose all reason.”
“I pass through Denver sometimes, taking a load on down to Albuquerque.” He drew a card out of his pocket and handed it to Patrice. “Here’s my cell phone number, just in case. Maybe we could have a drink.”
“That would be nice. But we’re not going to Denver,” Patrice insisted.
I noticed she stuck the card in her pocket all the same.
And it occurred to me to wonder if maybe we should be going to Denver. That was near where Stephen had died. Now Jayne Donovan was dead, too. Edward Donovan was a judge. Surely we could trust him. He’d lost both his son and his wife. Maybe he’d known Stephen. Maybe he knew what I should do with the packet Stephen had sent me.
The fog continued to thicken, but for once it seemed more a blessing than a curse. I didn’t sleep anymore. Once we got to Ohio, we would have little time to lose. We’d catch a bus and head for Denver. If whoever had killed Stephen was there, maybe he’d killed Jayne Donovan, as well. No matter how careful the killer had been, he had to have left a trail.
Chapter 12
The air in Denver was thinner than we were used to. It took its toll, especially on Patrice. So did the two-hour time difference, the all-night and all-day bus ride from Columbus and caring for Odin, who was more stoic than any animal should have been.
They don’t allow dogs on buses or in most hotel or motel rooms, but seeing-eye dogs are an exception. Odin’s harness wasn’t regulation—it had no handle—but fortunately no one seemed to notice—at least, they didn’t question us. Wearing the sunglasses, all day and all night, that Patrice had bought at the bus terminal to complete the ruse added to her misery. So Patrice had one royal headache by the time we got off the bus in Denver and walked to the trolley that carries passengers up and down the main street.
It was almost ten o’clock at night by the time I checked us into the Hyatt under the name of Marie Whitcomb. Cara and Patrice waited for me near the gift shop. The name matched one of my IDs, and the credit card in that name was linked to an account with sufficient funds to carry us for a number of months.
The tightness in my chest began to ease as I unlocked the door to our room. I was confident we were safe, at least for the moment. Of course, I couldn’t forget that I had thought we were safe at Patrice’s home, too. We collapsed into bed, thankful to be anywhere on solid ground.
The next morning, after Patrice and I had our showers, and Cara finally finished her hour-long bath, I gave Patrice the Marie Whitcomb credit card and sent her and Cara shopping for themselves and for me. I requested something dark and somber, a dress, not slacks, and a pair of black hose. Something that befitted a widow. As soon as the door closed behind them, I began flipping through the yellow pages.
The place started with an F. That was about all I could remember. Frawley’s Funeral Home was the only F in the book. On Kalamath Street. That had to be it. I intended to get to Donovan, but that would be more difficult. So I’d start where it was easier, with the people who’d shipped Stephen’s body home. I called and made an appointment for early in the afternoon.
Patrice and Cara woke me when they got back—that is, Odin woke me from my nap with a big sloppy lick across my cheek. “Get him off me,” I wailed before I was sufficiently awake to realize what was happening.
“Dogs’ mouths are far cleaner than humans’,” Cara insisted, dumping her bags next to the captain’s chair she collapsed into.
“That’s a myth perpetuated by dog lovers,” I told her. “Which we all are,” I added, hoping not to offend Patrice. “I just prefer being awakened—”
“By a more disciplined animal,” Patrice finished.
She said something to him in Dutch and he immediately went to her side, lay down and looked thoroughly ashamed of himself.
“Found you the perfect dress,” Cara said. She pulled off the bag that went over it. It was black, with a bodice that wrapped to form a low V in front, a flared, mid-calf skirt and elbow-length sleeves. It had a matching scarf. Some kind of crepe fabric.
I pushed myself up on the bed. “You think a widow would wear that?”
“I told her you wouldn’t like it,” Patrice stated, “but we did, and we were the ones doing the buying.”
For once I was the one rolling my eyes. With a little makeup help from Cara, I was transformed into a grieving widow, which, I suppose, on some level I actually was.
“Mrs. Larocca.” He seemed properly sympathetic—a short, slight man with thinning hair and bony hands that tended to rest one inside the other. He looked more like a mortician than I would have liked. And the old Victorian home with its antique hearse on the wide porch was the perfect image of a funeral parlor. Death had been in business for a long time in Denver.
I’d wrapped the scarf around my neck to make the dress a bit more modest, but I saw his gaze drift to the low point of the V, anyway. I pulled the scarf over it.
“My assistant said you had some questions about the handling of your husband’s body. I assume it made its journey intact.”
Intact. I’m not sure but what any word that came out of that mouth would offend me. “Yes.”
“Then how may I help you?” He pulled out a chair and settled next to me. For a moment I thought he was going to touch me with those skeletonlike hands. I drew back.
“Mr. Frawley, I need to know the specifics of my husband’s death.”
“Oh, my. I thought my assistant had made that plain to you when she called. He died in a skiing accident at a resort in the mountains.”
“Yes, I understand that. How exactly did you obtain his body? Was it brought to you? Did you pick it up? Who authorized you to handle it?”
He squinted at me and then excused himself. In less than three minutes he was back with an open file in his hands.
“We were called to the scene of death. I’m afraid he’d been lying exposed in the snow overnight.”
Frozen and alone.
Stephen, I’m so sorry. Whatever you were doing, you didn’t deserve that.
“The coroner didn’t order an autopsy?” I asked.
Frawley shook his head. “Apparently not, although, now that you mention it, that would be highly unusual. Unattended deaths, as a rule, are investigated by a medical examiner. But we do have a signed death certificate, and I see here that the charge for embalming was the standard fee. It would have been more if the body had been autopsied. Of course the angle at which the head…related to the torso made the cause of death obvious. He died of a broken neck.”
“So it was the coroner who phoned you.”
“No, the coroner has no authority to select a funeral home. It was Mr. Larocca’s brother.”
“His brother,” I said evenly. Stephen had no brother.
“Yes. He identified the body and then called us to pick it up. He as
ked that you be notified and that we take care of the cremation. He even paid in cash for our services.” He checked his notes. “We notified you of the arrangements and you agreed, but then you called back shortly and asked that we ship the body to Maryland instead.”
I’d talked to Cara, and, through her tears, she’d asked that I have her father brought back, not just his ashes. I’d been in such shock, it hadn’t even occurred to me to ask who had made the arrangements.
Again, the birdlike man looked at his files. “I see here that we have yet to refund that money.” His face reddened. “That should have been done immediately. I’ll have a check cut for Mr. Larocca’s brother right away. Of course that’s why you’re here. I’m quite embarrassed.”
“Don’t be,” I assured him. “I’d like to know the name of the person who found him. I’d like to thank him.”
“Oh, that would, again, be his brother. But surely you’ve spoken with him.”
“My husband and I were separated.” That much was true. “His family and I don’t speak. I’m dealing with my husband’s death without any support from his siblings. Any information you can provide me would be most appreciated. I have a daughter who would like to know what happened to her father.”
Mr. Frawley cleared his throat. “Yes, of course. Family situations can make these matters most difficult. My understanding is the brothers were on a skiing trip together. Apparently Mr. Larocca went out for a late-night ski alone, and his brother found him missing the next morning. When he discovered the body, it was too late.”
“I see. I’d like a copy of the arrangements that were made, please, and any other information you might have. And, Mr. Frawley, Stephen’s brother—he has two. They were all together on the trip. Which one came in? Tall, blond, tan, young? Or the one with dark hair and the hint of an English accent? He spent some time in London, a Rhodes Scholar.”
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