by Chris Rogers
“Marty, where does she keep her address book?”
“The desk in the dining room.”
He led the way. Opening a drawer, he removed a well-thumbed, spiral-bound book. A bouquet of sunflowers decorated the cover. Years of use had abraded the edges and softened the colors.
Dixie opened it to A. No Ames listed. Then to B, for Bacon, in case Edna’s attack on the bank had been directed at Len in particular. No dice. No “Texas Citizens” listed under T, no gun shop under G. She hadn’t really expected to find anything that easily. Scanning the pages one by one, she did notice a difference in the writing over the years. Bill had no doubt made some of the entries. Erasures, with new information penciled over, indicated new addresses or phone numbers. Some erasures hadn’t been reentered. Numbers no longer needed? Deaths? You couldn’t live to be nearly seventy without people around you passing away.
“How about going through this and jotting down any names you don’t recognize?” she asked Marty. “I want to look through her canceled checks.”
“Yeah, okay. But shouldn’t I help you?”
“We can cover more ground quickly working on separate tasks.”
He gave her a grudging nod, then turned over a paper-clip holder, removed a key, and opened a locked drawer. Dixie wondered if people really expected burglars to be fooled by such tactics. Boxes of checks filled the drawer.
“Here are the more recent ones.” Marty indicated a date scrawled on a box lid.
“Okay. I can take it from here.”
He shrugged, grabbed a pencil from a cup on the desk and a tablet from one of the drawers. Dropping onto a chair at the dining table, he bent diligently over his task.
Edna’s checks, carbonless duplicates, the same kind Dixie used … with a blocked-out signature on each copy … a diligent forger with a single checkbook would have dozens of examples to practice …
With a mental nudge, Dixie turned her thoughts from her own account problems to Aunt Edna’s records. The current checkbook was probably in her purse, now in the hands of the police. The most recent checks in the drawer, dated eleven days earlier, were written to the grocery store, health food store, drugstore, a gasoline credit card payment. Apparently, Edna had gone into Houston on May tenth to shop. On that date, she wrote several checks to department stores and one to a Terrence Jackson, for consultation. Dixie jotted the name down, along with Artistry Spa and the Unique Boutique. Any new people and places in Edna’s life could be revealing.
On May third Edna paid for six months’ car insurance. Dixie wondered if the comprehensive covered bullet holes. In December and January, Edna issued four checks to “Fit After Fifty,” a popular health club chain. The notation on a November payment to Southwest Airlines read “Dallas, Marty’s art show.”
Closing the last box, Dixie dropped it back in the drawer. The desk blotter had shifted, and now a folded newspaper clipping peeked from beneath it. The article, dated the previous November, featured a band called “Meanstreak” playing at a club in the Heights. Folded inside the clipping, a ticket bore the club’s name and address.
Meanstreak? Curiouser and curiouser. She added the health club and nightclub to her list.
Edna’s calendar started with January of the current year. The letters “FAF” marked every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday through February. May fifth was circled without an explanation. She’d circled Marty’s upcoming show in red. The only other marked date, May tenth, bore a penciled notation: Vernice Urich, four P.M. The same day as Edna’s shopping trip to Houston. No address or phone number. Dixie wrote down the name. She glanced through the other desk drawers, meticulously running her hands over the backs and bottoms, and then moved to the bookshelf.
The Zen of Eating. Fit for Life. A booklet titled An Ounce of Wheat Grass. Recalling the chef’s salad Edna had served Parker, Dixie thumbed the Zen book to a recipe section about halfway back. Spinach, shredded apples, bok choy?
These cookbooks were all new, compared to Fanny Farmer and Good Housekeeping. Another new book, Work It On Out, stood behind three framed five-by-seven photographs.
The first snapshot, of Edna, Bill, and Marty in front of a Christmas tree, had been taken the Christmas before Bill died. The second picture, one of those glamour photos Dixie’d seen advertised at malls, with professional makeup and soft focus, showed Edna as she’d looked at the bank, hours before her death.
“Seeing the changes in your mother before and after her new fitness regimen, I’d say she was on to something,” Dixie said.
Marty rose from his chair and snatched the glamour shot from Dixie’s hand.
“That’s Mom?” He plopped back down like a deflated balloon.
“That’s not the way she looked last time you saw her?”
“No. But I guess I didn’t realize … I mean, she dressed nice for the art show, and she looked great, but she didn’t stay over, flew right back that night … I mean, how often had I seen her in party clothes? She and Dad never went places as upscale as my gallery … except that one time, when we first opened.”
The third photo, at least twenty years old, had been taken on a golf course. Bill, curled over a putter, had apparently sunk a winning ball. Marty held the flag, while Edna and two men applauded.
“Your mother looks as trim in this recent photograph,” Dixie said, “as she did way back then.” She studied the men with Edna on the golf course. “This is your father’s old army buddy—what was his name? And his son.”
“Hager,” Marty said quietly. “J. Claude and Derry Hager.”
“That’s right—Bill always called him J. Claude, never just Claude. And Derry caddied for them—although you and I usually chased the balls.”
“Yeah, that was Derry.” Marty abruptly stacked all three photographs on the desk. “And his father.”
His eyes had turned evasive. Dixie recalled hearing whispers in the Flannigan household that Bill’s old friend had a crush on Edna. Dixie looked back at the photograph. Edna and J. Claude were standing together.
“We didn’t exactly come here to dig up old memories,” Marty said. “Did you find anything useful?”
“Won’t know until we follow a few trails.” She checked her notes. “Do you know a Terrence Jackson? Or Vernice Urich?”
“No, but I saw Jackson’s name in her book, a financial consultant.”
“What about this date?” Dixie pointed to May fifth circled on the calendar.
Marty’s face tightened.
“Aw, nuts.” Stiff-lipped, he turned away. “Her birthday. I forgot it.”
They continued to search, including the box of photographs and mementos in the closet, but found nothing else “useful.” Dixie pocketed her notes and strolled back through the house, one last sweep for anything they might’ve missed. This time, she particularly noticed the dichotomy between the colorful, flowered decor in the living room and the white, un-embellished decor in the kitchen, bedroom, and master bath. This difference, more than anything she’d seen, epitomized Edna’s personality change, from a warm and caring country mother to a cool sophisticate who could dispassionately commit armed robbery.
Dixie departed for the walk home. With a distracted wave, Marty flipped open his cell phone.
Chapter Sixteen
When Dixie entered her house, the phone was ringing. Mud met her at the door with a single bark, then pranced toward the instrument as if to hurry her along. The clock suggested it would be Parker calling—this was their usual time to talk.
“How’d the snooping go?” His baritone voice resonated with restrained sexuality.
Or maybe that was her own hormones backing up. Whichever, it sent a shudder of longing through her.
“I didn’t find a picture of Edna’s boyfriend,” she admitted. She heard a TV commercial playing in the background.
“Like I said, could’ve been a salesman.”
“You don’t believe that, Parker. The man didn’t strike you that way at the time.”
�
��No.”
Mud put his front paws on the kitchen counter and whined softly at the phone.
“Is that my good buddy?” Parker asked.
“He misses you.” And so do I.
“Let me talk to him.”
“Parker! He’s a dog. He does not do telephone.”
“Sure he does. Just lay the receiver down.”
She did as he asked. As soon as it thunked on the Formica, she heard him say, “Hey, boy!”
Mud chuffed happily.
While her two best friends conversed, Dixie hooked a Shiner Bock from the fridge and drank half of it. Finally, Mud dropped back to his feet and chuffed at Dixie.
“Oh, it’s my turn again?” She looped an arm around his great ugly head and gave him a smooch, then picked up the phone.
“So, tell me what you did find at Edna’s,” Parker said.
Dixie gave him an abbreviated rundown on the clothing and cosmetics, the checkbook notations, the photographs—including Marty’s peculiar reaction to the snapshot of J. Claude Hager—the fitness books, and the circled birth date on Edna’s calendar.
“What a guy. Forgets his mother’s birthday … doesn’t notice she’s become a glamorous Ma Barker.” The fierceness in Parker’s words seemed excessive.
“How long since you called your mother?”
“Too damn long. And I can’t remember if I sent a birthday card.”
“So you and Marty have something in common.”
“Yeah. We loved the same woman.”
“Come again?”
“You and Marty made a handsome couple. I saw the prom photo on Edna’s bookshelf.”
A duplicate of the photograph in Kathleen’s album—Dixie had scarcely noticed it tonight.
“That was taken a long time ago, Parker, and Marty was only a minor-league boyfriend.” Parker’s mixed messages were damned confusing. For three months it’s “let’s just be pals.” Yet now he’s jealous of a high school sweetheart? And Dixie hadn’t missed the past tense, “… loved the same woman.”
“Guess I don’t like anybody you kissed before you kissed me,” he grumbled, as if surprised at his own words. “Or maybe I don’t like him on general principles—like being an inconsiderate son.”
Or maybe Marty’s oversight reminded Parker of his own maternal neglect. Please pass the guilt. Nothing to do with Dixie at all. Not really.
“Hey, what’s that on the news?” Dixie’d heard the words “Texas Citizens Bank.”
He turned up the volume, and Dixie finished her beer as they listened.
“… all managers have been briefed on new procedures in the event another branch is targeted by the Granny Bandits. In a related interview, Houston Police Chief Edward Wanamaker stated that police response to the robberies was neither reactionary nor unnecessarily violent.”
The newscast cut to an interview with Wanamaker.
“Chief, the first robbery occurred in HPD jurisdiction and did not result in an exchange of gunfire. Do you care to comment on that?”
“The suspect of the first robbery was not apprehended.”
Wanamaker’s tenor voice, which Dixie admired when she’d heard him sing in Christmas presentations, sounded pitifully immature on television.
“Would you say then, Chief, that the shootings were justified?”
“I can’t speak for the Webster Police Department. In yesterday’s incident, a Houston officer was critically wounded. The other officers had no recourse but to return fire.”
When the newscast switched to a commercial, Parker lowered the volume.
“What does that idiot reporter expect cops to do when they’re shot at?” Dixie demanded. “Call time out?”
Mud responded to her indignant tone by nudging his head under her hand for scratching.
“She’s doing what all reporters do these days,” Parker said. “Playing to the audience.”
“Well, I hate it.”
“I know.” Their bedtime ritual while Parker lived with Dixie had been watching and arguing over the news together. “So what’s next? Will you follow up on those names from Edna’s records?”
“Might as well. I might stumble on something interesting.”
“Or dangerous.”
Now they’d hit the point where their conversations usually ended. Dixie refused to respond this time, allowing silence to stretch the moment. She spied the invitation she’d received from Mike Tesche, folded tent style near the phone.
“Seriously, Dixie, will you call me if—?”
“If I get another .38 pointed at my face—absolutely.” She opened Mike’s invitation to the map inside.
“I know he’s an old friend—”
With her thoughts on Mike, Dixie felt confused for a second before realizing Parker meant Marty.
“—but this time maybe you should consider letting the cops handle it. Edna got herself involved with a radical bunch of women, these Granny Bandits, and whatever her reason, she paid for it with her life. I don’t want that to happen to you.”
“I don’t plan to rob a bank, Parker.”
“I’d bet my next sale that Edna didn’t plan to rob a bank when I saw her last. Anyway, you know that’s not what I meant.”
“Yeah, I know. What happened to, ‘This time I won’t try to talk you out of it’?”
“I reneged.” He sighed. “But you will call if you need help?”
“Yep.”
After they said good night, Dixie stared at the phone awhile, Mike’s invitation still in her hand.
Chapter Seventeen
Thursday morning
The baby was crying.
Officer E. Arthur Harris shoved his cereal bowl into the dishwasher and listened for his wife’s footsteps. Hearing no sound from the bedroom didn’t surprise him—she’d been socked in pretty hard. Ann liked her beauty sleep.
Checking his watch, he saw that he could spare a few minutes this morning before leaving for his shift. He sprinted down the hall toward Peggy—christened Margaret, after her paternal grandmother, but much too small and feisty for such a heavy handle. They’d been arguing—discussing, as Ann insisted—whether to call her Maggie or Meg when the old Buddy Holly song “Peggy Sue” came on the radio. Then they’d looked at each other and started laughing.
He peeked in at Ann as he passed the bedroom. Though the baby’s cry sounded louder on the monitor than here in the hallway, his wife hadn’t stirred. Art worried about that at times, worried that he’d be gone and Ann would sleep right through an emergency.
“Honey, Peggy’s awake,” he called. “And I have to get out of here.”
The doctor said a mother’s instinct kicked in when her baby really needed her, but Art had a hunch Ann’s genetic mix didn’t include motherly instinct.
The instant he leaned over the crib, Peggy stopped crying.
“Hey, kiddo, what are you fussing so hard about so early in the morning?”
A tiny bundle of energy, she responded with one of her heart-melting smiles, waving and kicking like he’d just told the best joke in the whole world. She liked her daddy.
The crib sheets were printed with bunnies wearing eyeglasses and reading storybooks. A brightly colored “busy” toy hung from each corner of the crib, and a mobile of baby seals danced overhead. Art lifted her out and carried her to the changing table.
Somebody should have told him what a joy babies could be; maybe he’d have given in years ago—well, a couple of years, anyway. He and Ann were approaching the big five, anniversary-wise. He cherished their first years together, when they couldn’t get enough of each other. But with Peggy, the days seemed fuller, even more satisfying than before.
Ann, on the other hand, seemed to resent these months away from her career. Art almost wished he was the one to take time off and stay home, especially considering these past couple days.
He wiped the sleep from Peggy’s eyes with a damp cloth and changed her wet diaper. Then came the good part.
Tossing a blan
ket over his shoulder to protect his fresh uniform shirt from her slobbery mouth, he snuggled her on his shoulder, next to his heart, which she’d stolen the moment she popped into the world squalling and bloody and full of life. Hearing about it from other guys, he hadn’t thought it possible to feel anything but relief that the ordeal was over and he hadn’t done anything to screw up. And now, nuzzling her soft baby hair, smelling that sweet, distinctly Peggy smell, feeling the silken skin and the five perfect fingers of her hand clutching his big thumb, he figured he’d done damn good.
Ann had managed her part pretty well, too. It was afterward that wasn’t going so well for her.
“Honey! I need to go.” He’d be screwed for sure if he didn’t leave soon. After the shooting, and the endless interviews, they’d put him on desk duty—standard practice—but he knew Internal Affairs wasn’t through. No matter that his wasn’t the only bullet that had taken down Edna Pine.
And Lucy Ames.
Damn, that’d been freakish. Even when she got out of the car with the gun in her hand, Art had thought sure they could talk her down. Nobody wanted to shoot—
Except Ted Tally had charged out of his unit like the lady was one of America’s most wanted.
And then she’d started firing. How could that happen twice?
He carried Peggy in and laid her in the crook of Ann’s arm. Ann stirred, frowning.
“Why don’t you call in sick?” she asked sleepily.
“Can’t.” He kissed them both, Peggy still holding tight to his thumb. “You have a good day, pretty Peggy, you hear?”
She smiled and kicked, and he brushed his lips across the tiny fingers.
Minutes later, in the driveway, as he opened the door of his Cougar, Officer E. Arthur Harris felt a blow to his head. He hadn’t heard the sniper’s bullet, and he didn’t feel a thing as he fell to the concrete.
Chapter Eighteen
Dixie entered her Thursday morning classroom frustrated, irritable, and late. After a restless night reliving a troublesome day—reclaiming her financial identity, snooping through a dead friend’s personal effects, and feeling a whole lot like Parker’s emotional yo-yo—she’d scarcely dropped off when the alarm sounded. Slapping it silent, she closed her eyes for a few extra minutes … and when she finally stumbled out of bed two hours later, there was no time left for her own workout.