Almost haughtily, Mother said, “I could ask the same of you, young man.”
His response was a smirk.
Mother approached him tentatively, her tone turning pleasant. “You wouldn't by any chance be Big Jim Bob's partner? From Texas, isn't it?”
“Mebbe,” he said, but the way he drawled it said yes.
“Vivian Borne,” she announced, “a close personal friend of Big Jim Bob's.”
Mother drew near enough to him to stick out her hand for a shake.
Which he wordlessly declined.
“I'm Brandy,” I said lamely. “Her daughter? Didn't really know the man.”
For this effort, I received an awkward silence.
Then, grudgingly, he said, “I'm Travis. Travis Taylor.”
“Travis,” Mother said, putting music into the name, “would there be somethin' to drink around here?” I cringed as she went all folksy. “I'm so dry I'm spitting cotton.” (That was her favorite Bette Davis lineâthough “What a dump” would have been more fitting.)
Travis, still blocking the doorway, studied us for a long moment, then shrugged. “What makes you think I'm stayin' here or somethin'?”
“Well,” Mother said, gesturing grandly to the mess, “you just walked in like you owned the place!”
As had we, but never mind.
“Well, I'm not.” Then: “Knowin' Big Jim Bob, there's gonna be beer in the kitchen.”
He turned, apparently to go there, and Mother and I wasted no time in getting out of the bedroom, following him into the front room, which at least gave us a shot at the exit.
While Travis was in the adjacent galley kitchenâgetting beers, I reckoned (sorry), and not a sharp knifeâI replaced the couch cushions so Mother and I had a place to sit.
He returned with three cans of beer (whew!), which we took, even though Mother and I had a mutual dislike for the beverage, me partial to white wine, and her up for nothing stronger than a Shirley Temple, because of her medication.
But Mother popped the top on the can like an old pro, took a greedy, slurpy sip, then produced the tiniest, ladylike burp.
While Travis had his back to us, righting a table chair for himself, I gave Mother's shin a quick kick with my foot so she would stop trying so hard. But she didn't seem to get it, mouthing a frowned, silent, “What?”
To which I could only roll my eyes.
Travis, seated with hands on knees (ready to spring?), said, “So ... what did ol' Jim Bob have to say about his pardner Trav?”
Mother took another swig, then said, “Jest that you'd steal the stripe off a skunk.”
Yes, she said “jest.” Sue me.
Hairy eyebrows arched over the shark eyes. “That right? Sounds about like him.”
She nodded, burped again, more naturally this time, then said, “That's why he left Texas, isn't it? Because you robbed him blind?”
Where was she getting all this?
“That's a damn lie,” Travis said. “
He's
the one who stole from
me
, then hightailed it up here.”
Mother shrugged. “Young man, I have no dog in this huntâI am only reporting to you what Big Jim Bob told me. Because you inquired.”
Tired of waiting for my cue, I asked, “What kind of business were you two in, anyway?”
Travis, tight-lipped, stared at me, then turned the tiny dark eyes on Mother. “Y'know, I don't feel much like jawin' with the two of you no more. You ain't explained what
you're
doin' here.”
Ignoring that, I twisted toward Mother, giving her a wink Travis wouldn't see. “Didn't your friend Big Jim Bob say they ran an antiques shop together?”
“No, dear. It was an auction house.”
“No, Mother ... I'm sure you said
he
said an antiques shop.”
Travis blurted, “Weren't neither of those! We was pickers.”
Mother, feigning ignorance, asked, “Pickers? You mean like on the banjo or git fiddle?”
Yes, she said “git fiddle.”
“No, Mother,” I said. “Antiques pickersâlike that TV show.”
“Oh, yes,” she said, and nodded. “That's where them city slickers go around and swindle good folks out of valuable antiques.”
A scarlet flush was creeping up under the tanned leather face, turning him into a literal redneck. “
We
didn't swindle nobody. We paid good money for that junk.”
I asked, “So what happened? Did Big Jim Bob run off with all the proceeds?”
“No!” Travis yelped in frustration. “It was
later
he diddled me ... when we went into the storage unit game ... and that ain't
all
he done.”
“Do tell,” Mother exclaimed, beer can on its way back to her lips. She was getting loosey gooseyâthe old girl could get looped on bourbon cake.
Travis, whose own beer had been left untouched on the floor, now reached for the can, and downed the whole thing in a series of interconnected gulps.
Well, chug a lug! I was impressed.
“You were saying?” Mother prompted.
“Huh?” Travis belched, putting Mother's efforts to shame, then crumpled the can in his fist.
“About the storage unit game?” I prodded.
“Oh. Yeah. That's where Jim Bob made off with the money in our checking account.”
I said, “Did you go to the police?”
“No,” Travis said glumly. “We was both signed on the account, so technically it weren't really stealin'.”
“Oh my,” Mother said. “Married couples who break up have that same problem, all the time. Still, I can hardly believe that about Big Jim Bobâhe always seemed like such a good ol' boy.”
Travis snorted. “That's what
I
thought, when I went into bidness with him. But that weren't the worst of it.”
“Oh?” Mother asked.
“Yeah, he looted stuff from the renters' lockersâunbeknownst to meâan' fenced it.”
I frowned. “How could he get away with that?”
“He was crafty 'bout it,” Travis said. “Gotta admit. Hittin' the units of dead people that couldn't exactly bitch. Sometimes, if some relative got wind, he'd tell 'em a burglar broke in and done it.” His eyes narrowed. “What really sucks is he done all that without cutting his own pardner in!”
“What a crook,” I said with a straight face.
Mother, having drained the last of her beer, asked, “Do you think Big Jim Bob was up to those same crafty tricks here in Serenity? Stealing from the storage units, that is.”
Travis nodded like a bobble-head doll. “And I bet he didn't work alone, neither.”
I asked, “Why do you think that?”
“Too small a townâcouldn't risk fencin' things on his own. Jim Bob was a cautious dude, if nothin' else. That's how come I didn't see him stealing from me, in my rearview.”
I said, “Is that why you trashed this place? To get even? Or were you looking for something?”
“Who says
I
trashed it?”
We just looked at him.
“Ladies, place was like this when I come in. Okay, I did poke around a bitâI got bills back in Texas for that storage business, debts Jim Bob owes just as much as me.”
Mother said, “Then you
should
get some restitution. Do you have a lawyer?”
“I'm supposed to see a fella this afternoon.”
Mother said, “So you'll be around the Serenity area a while longer?”
“Not too long, I hope.” He stood. “Any good barbecue to be had?”
I said, “The Pitt on University. Across from the car wash.”
“Thanks.” Travis headed for the door, then turned with a sly smile. “Ah hope you girls find what
you
was lookin' for.”
Moments later I was at a side window watching him climb into an unmarked van.
A white one
.
Mother, watching also, said, “What do you think, dear? Is he our killer?”
“Travis certainly had the motive and opportunity ... but he's not the only one. He
does
have a white van... .”
“Plenty of white vans in the world, dear.”
“Why was he so chatty, do you suppose?”
“Obviously, because I had him twisted around mah little finger!”
“Stop talking that way. Maybe he got as much out of that conversation as we did.”
“Mebbe.”
“Stop it!”
On the drive back to Serenity, as I approached a familiar side road, I asked Mother, “Mind if we take a quick detour?”
“Not at all, dear. Perhaps it will improve your overall disposition. Anyway, I wouldn't mind seeing Tony Cassato's old homestead myself.”
The “homestead” of my ex-boyfriend (and Serenity's ex-police chief) was a modern log cabin whose location had been privy to only a select few.
I took my eyes off the road. “How did you know?”
“How did I know
what
, dear? That you wanted to drive by and reminisce? Or that I knew its location?”
“Both.” I slowed down for the turn.
She laughed with the merry abandon a can of beer brought her. “I can see through you like a book, dear.”
“Right, and read me like glass. Spill.”
“Oh, I've known where Chief Cassato lived for quite some timeâeven though he guarded its location like a hound-dog does a ham bone.”
This folksy thing was hard to get out of her system.
“
How
did you find out, Mother?”
“Oh, I followed you once.”
“What, on foot?”
“Don't be ridiculous, dear. In my car, of course.”
Mother did have a carâstored in the garage among the other trash and treasures, an old pea-green Audi that had seen more action than a military tank. What she did not have (anymore) was a driver's license.
“But ... but I had the
tires
removed!”
After her third moving violation.
She laughed again, as if to say: S
illy you
.
“Dear, tires can go back onâit just takes a little time, and a few dollars to enlist a neighborhood youth. Now, if you make a left at the next gravel road, we can get there faster.”
And Mother's route
was
shorter than mine, and before long we were bumping down a narrow dirt lane secluded by tall undergrowth, some of which had advanced boldly inward now that the cabin stood vacant.
Or was it?
Perhaps in the short time since Tony had gone, someone new had moved in. He might have sold it, after all, or rented it out. But as the cabin came into view, no vehicles were visible, nor any other sign of human life.
I parked close, got out, then took two steps up to the low wooden porch, and peeked in a window. What I saw brought a lump to my throatâeverything had been cleared out, the cabin-style furniture, the fishing gear, Tony's collection of snowshoes, even the ancient rifle that had hung over the fireplace, in front of which we had spent many a cozy hour... .
But who had cleared out his belongs? And where did they go? Tony certainly hadn't had time to do all that before being whisked into WITSEC. I felt an awful emptiness, like a ghost haunting the place.
Mother was heading toward the barn; from the porch, I could see its weathered red door ajar. She disappeared within, and as I left the porch to join her, she reappeared.
“Brandy!” she shouted. Her urgency was real, and not at all theatrical. “Come quickly!”
Since just about the only thing in a barn that might excite Mother would be an antique thresherâfor which I had no interestâI took my good sweet time getting there.
“Hurry, dear,” she beckoned again from the barn door, disappearing once more.
As soon as I entered, I saw him.
Not Tony (much as I might wish), but his trusty dog, Rocky, a black and white mixed breed with a distinctive black circle around one eye, K.O.-style, like the mutt in the
Little Rascals
. The animal looked half-dead, prone on his side in a small pile of hay.
Astounded, I said, “Surely Tony didn't
leave
him.” I bent and stroked the dog, who began to whimper.