Redemption Lake

by Susan Clayton-Goldner

“I know,” Matt said. “But do you know the boyfriend’s name? Maybe he could help us understand.”

  “Crystal was pretty private about him. She wouldn’t want me talking behind her back.”

  “Look. I’m just trying to help Travis figure out what happened to his mom. She was your friend and that makes it your business. Didn’t you ever get a look at his face or hear his name?”

  Matt sensed the presence before he saw Radhauser standing beside the table, listening and obviously furious. “You need to leave.” He shot Matt a look that could have melted stone.

  “I’m not finished talking to Gracie.”

  “I’m equipped to handle it,” Radhauser said. “Get out of here. Now.”

  “You talked to Mrs. Lawrence. You know Crystal had a fight with some man earlier last night.”

  Radhauser glared at him. If someone lit a match, the space between them would blow up. “You have no business questioning my witnesses.”

  “I’m just trying to help Travis. He had a fight with his mom. And he never got to say he was sorry.”

  “It’s my job to find out what happened,” Radhauser said. “Now get the hell out of here before I arrest you for interfering in a police investigation.”

  Matt didn’t respond. He felt a thousand miles of desperation inside, stretching out like a long, dusty road with no gas stations in sight. But he’d keep walking if it meant he might find the truth. What choice did he have?

  * * *

  After Matt drove away, Radhauser opened his Levi jacket, took his badge out of the inside pocket and introduced himself. Gracie was in her early twenties, he guessed, and wore a short denim skirt, a low-cut sleeveless white blouse, with a red bandanna around her neck and scuffed red cowboy boots that rose almost to her knees. Just like the clothing he’d found neatly folded on the chair in Crystal Reynolds’ bedroom. He thought about what Travis had told him. If Crystal didn’t make the bed or empty the ashtrays, would she have been so careful with her clothes, placed her boots so precisely under the chair?

  “I can’t believe she’s dead,” Gracie said. “I have to tell Millie and Baxter.”

  “I’d appreciate your waiting until after I’ve talked with them.” With homicides, some witnesses were eager to talk, while others clammed up. “Is there a place where we can talk in private?”

  “I’m on duty,” she said.

  The Silver Spur smelled like beer, peanuts, and beef grilling over open flames, and something sweet, brown sugar melted in butter. It smelled damn good. Much better than the fast food places Radhauser usually frequented for lunch. “Ask someone to fill in for you while we talk.”

  “It’s Sunday morning,” she said. “And only Millie and I are working. I’m already behind because of Matt.”

  “This won’t take long.” He nodded toward Millie. “Ask her to help you out.”

  Gracie led him around a horseshoe-shaped bar with about thirty chrome-based swivel stools, their seats covered in red vinyl. The bar, along with a dance floor, occupied the entire center of the restaurant, with seating areas for dining on either side. It was just about noon and already half the stools were filled with jeans-clad men watching a baseball game and drinking beer from frosty mugs, their elbows planted on the bar.

  “Millie,” Gracie said to the older woman who tended bar. “I need you to watch my tables for a few minutes.”

  Millie shot her a look that could have wilted cabbage. She was dressed just like Gracie, except her red cowboy boots looked brand new. “What am I, college girl, the babysitter?” she asked, her face half hidden behind her teased blonde hair. Though she appeared to be in her fifties, she had one of those irritating, high-pitched little girl voices and a slight southern accent. She poured Jim Beam into an oversized shot glass.

  Radhauser took out his badge. “I’ll need to speak with you, too. When I finish with Gracie.”

  Millie stopped pouring, raised her left hand to her mouth for an instant, then returned her attention to the bar.

  At one end of the counter, a knot of sports enthusiasts stood arguing over an umpire’s call. The floor by the bar was littered with peanut shells. When one of the men, wearing a white baseball cap, took a step forward to pick up his beer mug, the shells crackled like insects under his boots. None of the bar’s patrons glanced up at Radhauser as he maneuvered past their stools. The murmur of their conversations continued uninterrupted.

  Gracie stopped in front of a small booth in the far corner, away from the customers.

  Radhauser slid across the bench. The window overlooked the parking lot.

  Gracie took the seat across from him and put her hands on the table. Her nails were manicured, polished bright red to match her bandanna, and she wore a class ring on her right ring finger.

  The table was covered with red and white checked oilcloth, already set with a red napkin wrapped around silverware and a wooden lazy susan that housed condiments. An old-time jukebox hung on the wall, just below the window frame.

  “So, you’re a college student?” Radhauser asked in an attempt to break the ice.

  “Millie likes to make fun of me, but I take classes at Pima College,” she said, looking up at him through a dark fringe of bangs. “I’m studying to be a nurse.”

  “Good for you. I hear there’s a shortage.”

  She nodded, but said nothing more.

  “When was the last time you saw Crystal Reynolds?”

  “I see her often,” Gracie said. “She is, I mean she was, my friend and she worked here.” Her dark eyes pooled with tears. It was pretty obvious she cared about Crystal.

  “Did you see her last night?”

  Gracie clamped her eyes shut as if she didn’t want to see herself talking to a detective about her friend. “In the parking lot. A little before six. Travis dropped her off, before his dance. It was a big night. Even that guy she used to—” She stopped abruptly and brought her hand to her mouth. Color rose on her cheeks.

  Radhauser leaned forward in the booth. “That guy? Crystal was with a guy in the parking lot last night?”

  “Please, I didn’t mean to say that.”

  “But you did say it.”

  “It was just an old friend of Crystal’s. Someone she lived with when Travis was a baby.”

  “Does this old friend have a name?”

  “She didn’t say.”

  “Lying to the police is perjury and it could put you in jail.”

  “Crystal swore me to secrecy.”

  “I won’t tell her,” Radhauser said.

  “And you won’t tell Millie or Baxter?”

  Radhauser shook his head. “So, this old friend of Crystal’s was in the parking lot on Saturday night?”

  She nodded. “He came by Friday and he wanted to see Travis, but Crystal was adamant. She threatened to get a restraining order. But he kept begging, and finally she agreed he could see Travis when he dropped her off yesterday, but she made the guy swear not to say anything to him.”

  “Did she tell you his name?”

  “No.”

  “Did the person who’d wanted to see Travis wait?”

  “He sat in the cab of his truck. An old Ford, black with one red fender.”

  “What happened after Travis drove away?”

  Across the room, a customer clicked his spoon against his coffee cup and glared toward Radhauser and Gracie. “I’m not paying for cold steak fries,” he said.

  Gracie stood.

  “We’re not finished,” Radhauser said.

  Millie shot Gracie another of her cabbage-wilting looks, then took a plate from beneath the warming lights and delivered it to the disgruntled customer’s table.

  “I need to get back to work,” Gracie said. “This job pays my tuition.”

  “The quicker you answer my questions, the sooner you’ll do that. Now, what happened when Travis drove away?”

  She slid back into the booth. “Crystal was dressed for work, but she didn’t come inside and start setting up her tables lik
e usual. She just stood there—leaning against the building so Baxter, he’s our boss, wouldn’t see her. When she spotted me crossing the parking lot, she put her finger to her lips and beckoned me over. She looked happier than I’d seen her in months. That’s what makes this so…”

  “What was she happy about?”

  Gracie wrung her hands and stared at the tabletop. “She didn’t tell me. But I could tell by the way she behaved.”

  Radhauser got the distinct feeling she was lying. “Are you sure she didn’t tell you?”

  “Listen, Crystal and I were friends. We shared some of the same dreams. And we told each other things in confidence.”

  “She’s dead, Gracie. And if she was murdered, you’d want justice for her, wouldn’t you?”

  Gracie’s eyes widened, then filled with tears.

  Radhauser gave her a moment to compose herself.

  She wiped her cheeks and then blew her nose on a napkin. “Crystal didn’t have time to say very much. Someone came to pick her up. She asked me if I’d cover her shift, waved and was on her way.”

  “Did you recognize the driver?”

  “No. But it was a very nice car. Big. And expensive-looking.”

  “Are you sure you didn’t recognize the driver of the car?”

  “No. He had on a cap, like a chauffeur wears. But I’ve seen the car before.”

  “Where?”

  “Here, in the parking lot.”

  “Describe it for me.”

  She talked with her head in her hands, the way someone might cradle an aching jaw, as she described what had to be a white Lincoln Continental, one of the Marks, with the tire well on the back and a blue Landau roof. Radhauser knew the car. His father, a World War II vet, had considered it his dream car.

  “It had a little oval window on the side.”

  He nodded, realized he was closer to answering the question of how Crystal had gotten home last night. “Did her friend in the truck leave then, too?”

  “He followed them out of the lot.”

  “Which way did they turn?”

  “Both of them turned south, towards Tucson.”

  “You’ve been very helpful, Gracie. Would you ask Millie to join me now?”

  Gracie slid out of the booth and stood. She brushed her bangs away, her brown eyes wide beneath them. As she walked away, someone put quarters in the jukebox and the Mamas and the Papas sang California Dreaming.

  Millie slid into the booth. “What’s this all about, sugar?”

  “Crystal Reynolds,” he said, showing her his badge.

  Millie leaned across the table, exposing her ample cleavage. “Has something bad happened to her?”

  Radhauser hadn’t anticipated that question. “Why would you think that?”

  “I don’t know. It just popped into my head. But Crystal had a way of pissin’ people off.”

  “When was the last time you saw her?”

  “Is she missing?”

  “I’m asking the questions,” Radhauser said.

  “My policy is to always cooperate fully with law enforcement, especially when he has blue eyes as dark and pretty as yours are.”

  Radhauser had no trouble imagining Millie chatting up law enforcement. “When did you last see Crystal?”

  “I see her all the time. She works here. Well she’s supposed to, anyway.”

  Radhauser waited.

  “All right. I saw her Friday night. We both had the 6pm to 2am shift all weekend. Not that she hung around for hers last night. You can tell me, sugar, is she in some kind of trouble?”

  “Did Crystal seem upset to you? Angry or depressed in any way?”

  “No, she was happier than she’d been in a long time.”

  “Do you know why?”

  “I suspect it had something to do with getting back together with her hot-shot boyfriend.”

  “Did you ever meet this boyfriend? Hear his name?”

  “No, but she claimed he had a lot of money and would take care of her, send her to college so she could make something out of herself.”

  “Claimed? You didn’t believe her?”

  Millie smiled. “You never knew with Crystal. She used to watch reruns of Perry Mason when she was a kid. I reckon that was where she got her big dream of being a lawyer.” Millie rolled her dark eyes. “Fat chance. She never even graduated high school. Not that she isn’t smart as a whip, especially with men.”

  A group of about eight people entered. One of them rang the bell at the hostess podium.

  “I have to seat those folks,” Millie said, sliding to the edge of the booth.

  “Gracie can seat them.”

  When Millie saw Gracie heading toward the podium, she settled back into the booth.

  “How did Ms. Reynolds get along with your boss?”

  “If you ask me, she should have stuck with Bax. He was plum crazy about her. And he would have helped her go to college, too.” She waved her right arm, encompassing the restaurant and bar. “He owns this joint.”

  “So, Ms. Reynolds and Mr. Baxter were lovers?”

  “I doubt she loved him, but they did the nasty, if that’s what you mean.” She grinned and looked up at him as if waiting for a comment on her cleverness.

  “Does Mr. Baxter have a first name?”

  “Yeah. It’s Thomas. But we all call him Bax.”

  “Did he work last night?”

  “Yeah, he was here.”

  “What time did he leave?”

  “A little before 10pm. It was supposed to be his night off, but when Crystal didn’t show, he worked a few hours until the rush was over.”

  “Was he angry she didn’t show up for work?”

  “Bax was used to being disappointed by Crystal. She broke his heart about fifteen different times. But he had perspective. Bax had real tragedy. His little girl, Becka.”

  “What happened to her?”

  She held a pencil in her hand and twirled it in her fingers like a miniature baton. “I don’t much like talking about the dead. My momma used to say it was bad luck.”

  Radhauser was glad he hadn’t told her about Crystal. “How did Becka die?”

  “Oh, all right. Bax didn’t see her in the rearview mirror. Can you imagine? And then his wife just up and left him. For a while afterwards, we all thought his cheese had slipped plum off the cracker.” Millie shook her head. “That poor man won’t even park at the K-mart unless he can drive straight out of the spot. It’s like one of them fetishes or something.”

  Jesus, Radhauser thought, realizing he could at least blame the drunk driver for the loss of his family. He wondered how a man could live, knowing he was the one responsible. But people were resilient. He’d had a breakdown after botching the Tyler Mesa case, spent a couple weeks in Palo Verde Psychiatric Hospital, but somehow he’d gone on. He still thought about it a lot—a little boy dead because of him. He couldn’t imagine how much worse it would be if it had been his own kid. He sometimes thought God had paid him back by taking Laura and Lucas.

  “Earth to Detective Radhauser,” Millie said. “Where’d ya go, sugar?”

  “Sorry,” Radhauser said. “Do you know where Baxter went after he left?”

  “He claimed he was going right to bed, but I heard his television blasting when I emptied the trash around 11pm. So, if Bax needs one of those alibi thingies, I can give him one. He has a motion light over his garage. It shines right on the cash register for at least five minutes. Bax don’t go nowhere at night without me and Gracie knowing about it.”

  Radhauser slid out of the booth. “Why would he need an alibi?”

  She gave him a big smile. “In case Crystal pulled a heist at the 7-11 with some ex-boxer dude sporting a comb-over.”

  He laughed. “Where is Thomas Baxter now?”

  She looked around the restaurant. “He was horsing around with the guys at the bar, but he left. He lives in that brown house right next to The Spur. Ain’t that convenient?”

  Chapter Fourteen
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  Radhauser rang the bell.

  Thomas Baxter answered the door, wearing a tank top and a pair of navy blue sweat pants. He was about fifty, olive-skinned with a barrel chest, a hard belly, and arms that bulged as if they were stuffed with small cantaloupes. His feet were large and bare, and his toes had little tufts of black hair growing out of them. He looked like the kind of man who swaggered when he walked.

  Radhauser silently cautioned himself not to judge too harshly. He and this man were in the same fraternity. I survived a dead kid.

  “I’m not buying anything,” Baxter said. “I don’t care if you’re selling Girl Scout Cookies in drag.”

  Radhauser showed him his badge. “I’m here about Crystal Reynolds.”

  “Maybe you should offer that worthless bitch a job in the Sheriff’s office doing the donut run, because if she doesn’t show up again today, I plan to fire her ass.”

  Radhauser studied Baxter’s face. Either he was a very good actor who’d practiced his script or he had no idea Crystal was dead.

  “When did you last see Ms. Reynolds?”

  “Is the bitch missing?”

  “Answer the question, Mr. Baxter.”

  “Go home, Detective Radhauser.”

  “You can either answer my questions here or you can answer them at the Sheriff’s Department.”

  Baxter stepped aside.

  Radhauser entered. It was one of those modular homes, delivered to a site in two pieces—sparsely furnished, but neat and orderly. On the long bar between the living room and the kitchen, a nearly finished dollhouse occupied most of the available space. It looked like a replica of a southern plantation, with white wooden siding, six white pillars in front, an upstairs balcony, and black shutters at all the windows.

  On an orange towel spread out beside the house, tools lined up as neat as surgical instruments. He’d used different wallpapers for each room and covered the floor with carpet. A miniature staircase, complete with a polished mahogany banister, led to the top floor.

  “That’s a real work of art,” Radhauser said. “Is it for sale?”

  Baxter shook his head. “It’s for my daughter.” He smiled then, as if the mere thought of his daughter made him happy. It was a warm and likeable smile.