by Kit Frazier
“I’m the groomer. Bringing the new dog.”
The guy looked through the side-view mirror at Marlowe, who was staring back at him from the front seat of the Jeep. He shrugged, reached past me to punch in the numbers, and motioned me to follow him.
I silently repeated the numbers as I climbed back into the Jeep and followed him up the drive in case I needed them again. He pulled off to an outbuilding, and I waved. He didn’t wave back.
The house was designed to impress, and it did. Tuscan turrets; wide, looming arches; a front courtyard that looked like a tropical island. I parked under a cool, leafy arbor and gave Marlowe a ham sandwich, which he promptly accepted, and he jumped into the back cargo area to enjoy it at his leisure. Hooking his leash onto the rollbar, I headed up the brick driveway toward the house.
I rang the bell, inhaling the scent of tropical flowers and listening to the sound of water trickling from the tiered fountain. The place was so green it was creating its own atmosphere, like a big terrarium.
An aging Latina answered the door. She was tall and thin and hollow-faced, and wore an honest-to-God maid suit straight out of a 1930s movie, black from neck to shins, white collar and apron. She did not seem pleased to see me.
I was getting used to it.
“Good morning. My name is Cauley MacKinnon. I’m here to speak with Mrs. Ainsworth.”
She didn’t look like it was a good morning at all. “Mrs. Ainsworth is not taking visitors.”
I nodded. “Will you at least ask her? I want to talk to her about her daughter.”
There was a subtle change in her face, and for a moment I thought she might cry.
“Ah, la buena Fe,” she said on a breath, and I smiled. “Yes,” I said. “Faith.”
The woman’s angular face softened, and she opened the door. Inside, the air conditioners were cranked up to Polar Ice Cap.
The ivory-colored floor was Italian marble, the cream-colored dome foyer ceiling frescoed in a pale abstract of blues and greens. A large spray of oversized white lilies presided over a marble table in the middle of the circular room, reminding me of a high-end funeral home.
The woman wrung her hands. “Is Fe all right? Have you found her?”
“We’re looking,” I said, coming into the foyer, which was the size of my living room. “They’ve got the dogs out,” I pointed out the window to Marlowe, who was savoring his sandwich under the arbor. “I’m trying to find out as much as I can any little thing that might help.”
She stared at me. “How can I help?”
“Is there anyone she’d go to? Any friends or a place she feels safe?”
The woman shook her head. “This is a sad house,” she said, and crossed herself, her eyes skyward. “Pobrecito Wylie and now Fe.”
“It would really help if I could talk to Mrs. Ainsworth.”
She nodded. “She’s not well,” she said, dipping her long fingers into her white apron pocket and fishing out a string of pale, worn beads. “Un momento.
I heard the clicking of sensible heels and the murmuring of liturgical prayers down the long corridor, and after a time, she returned and led me into the bowels of the big house. Her heels slapped at the stone tile as we walked down the corridor and into an office that had wide windows and high ceilings that had been decorated so tastefully that it was generic in its splendor.
The only personal possessions in the place were scatterings of photographs, all facing outward, none toward the chair where Kimmie Ray Ainsworth sat.
Appearances, apparently, were very important to her.
There were photos of Kimmie and Cullen II in various poses and places. They cavorted on a yacht, in a coliseum, and on some exotic, sandy white beach that could have been anywhere.
The photos couldn’t have been more than five years old, and the pair looked happy and very much in love a lifetime from where she was now.
Mama had taken Daddy’s death hard, but she was living her life. Kimmie was still caught in the grasp of the ghost of her husband and the life she thought she wanted.
Kimmie Ray Puckett Ainsworth was seated behind a large, marble-topped desk like she’d been propped there.
The room was swathed in ivory. Ivory carpets, ivory walls, ivory curtains. Kimmie had a fire blazing in the fireplace with a heavy glass front, so that the fire was contained and at odds with the cold room and the ongoing drought that loomed beyond the wide window.
Kimmie was probably in her early forties. She had high cheekbones like Faith, with pale skin made paler by trauma. Everything about her was drawn, her eyes large and almond-shaped, showing a little green around her very dilated pupils. Her hair was expensively cut and brushed the shoulders of her ivory silk blouse. She had probably once been very beautiful, but something inside had eaten away at her, leaving her an empty chrysalis.
I try not to make snap judgments, but I could already tell Kimmie Ray and I would never get together for a cold beer down at Deep Eddy’s.
She looked at me through dark, blurry eyes. “Have you found her?” she said, and her voice was careful and small, like a breeze pushing at a heavy curtain.
Her desk was nearly bare. There was no blotter, computer, or any hint of productivity. A lovely silver tray with a martini shaker and a glass took up most of the surface.
Not looking at me, Kimmie Ray tipped the glass and drank the contents like it was milk.
“I’m with a search team working on finding your daughter. I came to see if you could help.”
Behind her, the fire danced ineffectively, and in the cold room I had to suppress the urge to shiver.
Kimmie nodded. “Do you think someone has abducted her?” Her voice was careful and pronounced, but the martini betrayed her Rs and Ss.
“What would make you think so?”
“Wylie…he was…in trouble.”
She was looking at the expensive area rug on the floor and blinked, very slowly. She poured herself another drink. “Would you like a drink?” she said as an afterthought.
“No, thank you,” I said. “And I’m sorry for your loss.”
A tear fell over her dark eyelashes and slipped down her hollow cheek.
“Do you know you’re the first person who’s said that to me?”
I nodded, and we sat in silence, watching the ineffective fire and the window and the single tear plop to the ivory carpet.
“You don’t know what it’s like to be poor,” she said. “I’ve worked very hard to provide for my family. Sometimes things don’t work out the way you thought they would.”
Looking around at the photos, I hadn’t noticed any family provided for outside of Kimmie Ray and Cullen, but I decided not to comment. Perhaps being the Kitty Litter Queen is a heavy crown to wear.
“Your husband was very handsome,” I said. “How did you meet?” Her eyes got soft, and her face relaxed a little. “His wife was very sick. He hired a string of nurses to care for her, but she wasn’t the easiest patient. And then I came, and she seemed to like me, so I stayed.”
I nodded. “Did Wylie and Faith come with you when you married?”
“Oh, yes. Tres, that’s Cullen’s son, was off at college. Wylie was fourteen and Faith was eleven. It was perfect.” She smiled a little. “They used to run around here like demons. Cullen was sixty-two, and he tolerated them. But Pilar,” she sighed. “Pilar loved them—their youth, their energy, their mischief.”
“Pilar is the woman who answered the door?” Kimmie nodded.
I wasn’t sure how to ask, so I took a flying leap.
“Faith said you sent her away when she was thirteen.”
Kimmie’s expression didn’t change, but she took a big hit on her martini. “To school. I…we worried that she wasn’t getting the right kind of education.”
“Isn’t the Eanes district one of the best in Texas?”
Kimmie shrugged. “They were having a hard time fitting in. The children and I aren’t from this area, and it’s very closed very cliquish.
&nbs
p; We were looking for more…spiritual development. New Hope Girls” Ranch. They’re very good.”
“And you didn’t send Wylie to a different school?”
Kimmie looked out the window and didn’t say anything. “I don’t see how any of this could possibly help you find my daughter.”
“One of the things we do in search and rescue is gather all kinds of information and see where the connections lead,” I pressed, wondering how to word the next question. “Did Wylie or Faith have insurance or a will?”
There was a long silence, and I tried not to cringe at my own boldness.
“I’m very tired now,” she said. She poured another drink and rang a bell on the martini tray.
I was about to get the boot. Get kicked out of enough places and you start to notice a pattern. Besides, I was starting to get a contact high off of her martini fumes.
I rose and offered her a card. “If you want to talk, I’ll be here,” I said.
She didn’t take the card.
I set the card on the silver tray next to the martini shaker so she wouldn’t miss it.
The sound of Pilar’s sharp steps snapped down the hall, and then she appeared.
“Thank you for your time,” I told Kimmie Ray as Pilar prodded me out the door. Behind me, ice clinked as Kimmie Ray poured herself another drink.
Down the corridor and into the foyer, Pilar opened the door, her dark eyes unreadable. There were things unsaid skittering around in the air, and I didn’t know how to reach out and grab one.
I fished a card out of my purse and offered it to her.
She stood at the door, her breath audible as she looked at the card. “Pilar,” I said, and she shook her head.
But she took my card and slipped it into the apron pocket where she kept her rosary.
I nodded, and she shut the door quietly behind me.
On the porch, I looked out over the rolling lawn, where the man who’d let me in was trimming branches from a low, sprawling pecan tree. Marlowe was in the driver’s seat, gnawing on a big, gnarled stick. The end was freshly cut.
I smiled at the man as his chainsaw continued to spit chips of wood into the still, hot air. He shot me a wide grin.
“All right, tough guy. Scoot,” I told the dog. He took his stick and, grumping low in his throat, hopped into the passenger seat.
“Where to next?” Marlowe’s mouth was still full of stick, so he wasn’t a lot of help.
We rolled down the driveway of the Ainsworth estate. As the gate closed behind us, I sat for a moment, looking at the street in front of us. “Right or left?”
I took a deep breath, wishing I had my father’s compass. I’ve heard that life’s a lot easier when you’ve got some direction.
I’m planning to try it sometime.
I pointed the Jeep back to Faith’s burned-out trailer at the back of Blackland Ranch to rejoin the search. Somewhere along the way, I just might trip over a clue.
Chapter Twenty
The rest of the day was a total bust, and I manned the coms at the search site until Cantu chased me home at midnight. I hit the sack without taking a shower. The phone woke me at six.
“Hey, kid, how you holding up?”
I stretched in bed with the phone between my shoulder and ear. I figured I’d wake up with Logan one way or another. The phone was the second-best thing. A distant second, but still.
“Tired,” I said, and flinched when I rolled over. “Turns out I’ve got muscles I didn’t even know I had.”
“Media went well yesterday. You do that?”
Smiling, I said, “Most of it. I tried to hit the road running. Media’s got attention deficit disorder, and fifteen’s the magic age.”
“Magic age?”
“Media attention span shrinks exponentially if the missing kid is older than fifteen. They figure after fifteen they’re a runaway. And speaking of that, how come FBI’s not involved? Is this the age thing?”
“That, and we haven’t been asked.”
“Yeah, I don’t see Junior Hollis asking for help. I think the only reason he’s got Six in is because he’s leading the search.
“Any word on the other girl?”
An image of the girl and the smell of burning flesh turned my stomach. “I called Brooke’s burn unit. It’s not good.”
“I’m sorry about that, kid,” he said.
“What are you doing?”
“Got a tip on Obregon. I’m on a stakeout.” “You can talk on the phone on a stakeout?”
“Yeah, but I might have to hang up real quick. If I do, no offense.” “None taken.”
We were quiet for a moment, and then he said, “Are you going to the funeral today?”
“Holy hell,” I swore, jumping out of bed, rolling the dog and cat on top of each other. They untangled themselves and stalked off to the living room, grumbling between themselves to make sure I knew I was being ignored.
“You okay?” Logan said, and I sighed.
“I am living with two passive-aggressive animals, and one of them is yours.”
He laughed at that. When Logan laughs, it makes everything inside me settle, and no matter how bad things get, there’s always hope.
“Mia and I are going. I figure if Faith is alive and able, she’ll be at her brother’s funeral. He’s the only person she cared about.”
“You’ve been doing your homework.”
“I’ve been watching To Catch a Thief.”
“Ah, crime-busting by noir,” he said, and it was my turn to smile.
He said, “Did you know there’s a Cary Grant festival going on at the Paramount?”
With the phone shrugged between my shoulder and ear, I went to the closet, trying to figure out what I had that could be interpreted as funeral attire.
“I did know that. I didn’t know you liked Cary Grant.”
“He’s okay, but I figure if I sit through that with you, you have to sit through a John Wayne retrospective at the Bob Bullock museum with me.”
“That sounds fair,” I said, and a small thrill zipped along my nerve endings.
“So, you’re okay? No more maniacs in the closet, dead birds, or stalky photos?”
“No, but it’s still early.”
I chose a black linen dress that Beckett brought back from Dallas Market Days. It wasn’t too short, but it had a nice enough scoop that Logan would have something to keep his mind off the funeral. I knew he felt responsible for Puck’s death, even though a pair of marshals flanked Puck when he went down.
I threw the dress on the headboard, careful not to get pet fur on it. “Logan?” I said. “Are you all right?”
There was a long silence, and I knew that he was not all right.
“The family’s meeting at the funeral home and then there’ll be a short graveside service,” he said. “I’ll probably be a little late, depending on how this thing with Obregon goes.”
I accepted that for an answer, because in Logan’s way, it was. “Message received,” I said. “See you there.”
Mia insisted on driving because she said the Jeep messed up her hair. I decided not to mention the fact that her long, dark, curly hair looked the same whether she was sitting in the salon or shooting photos in a hurricane. She arrived in her little yellow Beetle, which reminded me of a rolling yellow cupcake.
She was decked out in funeral attire Mia-style, with a short black skirt and a black jersey knit top, her smaller Nikon tucked tastefully away in her big black purse. The news never sleeps. Or mourns.
The black linen number I was wearing turned out to be hotter than I thought it would, but nobody ever said fashion was easy. If it were, everyone would do it.
Mia would take photos, and if I was lucky, I would get background for my obituary. If I was very lucky, I might run into Faith. But I kept getting the creeps. Not regular funeral creeps, but the Selena Obregon kind of creeps.
“I did your horoscope this morning,” Mia chirped, passing me a cup of green tea that smelled like
feet as I folded myself into her Beetle.
Jostling the tea, I buckled up. “We’re going to a funeral. I don’t want to know if something bad’s going to happen. Something bad already happened hence, the funeral.”
She had pulled out of the driveway and onto Arroyo Trail when she took her hands off the wheel to dig in her purse.
“Hey!” I yelled, grabbing the steering wheel.
“No, listen. This is good news,” she said, unfolding a piece of paper. “Someone important from your past will resurface.”
“Well, I hope it’s Faith.”
“No, see, it’s a man,” she said, waving the page under my nose.
I groaned, thinking of Hollis and Tres and Deke and Josh, for that matter. Not to mention Puck, who was now dead. “I’ve got too many new men in my life to have to put up with old ones.”
“I’m just saying, chica, it helps to be prepared.”
“These days, prepared means stocking up on pepper spray.”
Mia left-turned into the parking lot so fast we nearly went on two wheels. I took a deep breath in the parking lot. “Ready?” I said.
Mia gave me the thumbs-up.
The viewing was at the Flight of Angels Funeral Home out by New Hope Church of the Second Coming.
Flight of Angels is located in an ornate limestone building with stained-glass windows and a high, arching entryway with wrought-iron, Mexican-style double Cantera doors.
Inside, the ceilings were high, the colors muted linen, the low-piled, dark red carpet meant to suppress sound and probably clean up well in high-traffic areas. Elaborately carved mahogany chairs were padded with red velvet, which matched the large table and console in the lobby.
There were three viewing rooms, two on opposite sides of the hall and a smaller room in the back. Two other funerals were in progress, and the smells of roses and lilies were giving me a headache. The muted sounds of familiar hymns drifted from under heavy mahogany and brass doors, lilting songs about amazing grace and gathering at the beautiful, beautiful river.
A solicitous old woman urged us to the back room for Puck’s viewing, giving us programs. Her hair was bottle black and pulled into a bun so tight it looked like it was holding up her face. She smelled like fresh gin and the Old Testament, and had a personality that matched.