Candy Apple Red (21 page)

“Where to?”

“Home. Seattle.”

My heart sank. Seattle wasn’t near far enough away. Three to four hours depending on how seriously you broke the speed limit on I-5. “It was nice of Uncle Dwayne to have you stay with him.”

“Yeah…well…his boat’s really crappy.” She lifted a shoulder dismissively toward the back of the house. I could see the tail end of his red and white boat through the opened sliding glass door. “I like those Master Crafts,” she said. “With the skiing tower. I want to wake-board. The tower gives you a better angle for jumping over the wakes.” Her face clouded. “But Seattle’s crappy, too. It’s shitty weather there practically all the time. Do you know we have one of the highest suicide rates in the country? How long have you been doing this?”

“Working with Dwayne?” I guessed.

“Uh-huh.”

“Just getting started.”

“Do you like him?” She eyed me closely. “Do you think he’s sexy? I think he’s sexy. I mean he’s my uncle and lots older and stuff, but I could see where someone your age would think he’s sexy.”

It was all I could do not to point out that thirty wasn’t exactly geriatric. “He’s got a nice ass,” I responded.

“Y’think? I’m not sure there’s enough of it. I like a little more than that flat cowboy thing.”

I was trying to think of a comeback for this when I heard Dwayne’s truck rattle into the carport. My little friend skipped toward the door, greeting him with a bright smile and a little swish of her hips. I was gratified to see he barely noticed her. “Oh, so you met Tracy,” Dwayne said, hauling a couple bags of groceries inside. I could see he was trying not to break out into a big
hardy, har, har
. He really felt he’d pulled one over on me.

“We’ve been discussing your ass,” I said.

“Oh, yeah?” Dwayne looked surprised, then half-twisted around as if to get a look at it.

“It’s the cutest!” Tracy gushed. She made a point of not meeting my eyes.

I wasn’t exactly sure what Tracy’s game was, but I was getting that radar that said: Alert! Alert! Manipulative female on the premises. There are two kinds of females in my book: the good and the bad. The good are normal, self-aware and I could spend hours in their company. The bad are screwed up, full of insecurity and a really lethal self-doubt that makes them machines of destruction, both to themselves and others. A few moments with the latter and I’m ready to consider a gender change.

It was a bitch that she was Dwayne’s niece. She was high-powered trouble.

Tracy started babbling to Dwayne about all the things important to her. I realized she was about to start high school and she seemed to think she had some say about where that might be, Seattle or…someplace else. I fervently hoped Lake Chinook wasn’t on her list. If so, it would be
hasta la vista
baby to me working for Dwayne. I could see Dwayne tune out. A veil seemed to drop over his eyes.

“What’s so funny?” he suddenly asked me.

I wiped the satisfied smile from my face. You can’t whine to a man—any man, unless maybe a gay man because he at least understands—about another female, especially if she’s related to him, because it’ll boomerang back on you. They don’t get it. They either don’t want to, or they can’t. I said earnestly, “I want to talk to you about the Reynolds case.”

“What case? Didn’t you get paid in full?”

“Yeah. But it’s…not over.”

“The fat lady’s sung, Jane.”

I really, really, really didn’t want to talk about this in front of Tracy. Though she was pretending hard not to listen, she had that tense, avid body language that said she was soaking in every syllable. Luckily, Dwayne seemed to realize this and said, “What time do you have to be back after lunch?”

“I’m not going back. That class is stupid.”

“You’re going back, darlin’,” he said with quiet authority. “It’s your last day. Your mom’s coming for the performance.”

“Performance,” she sneered. “We stand around acting like morons. Making noises and jumping around.”

“What time?”

“I’m not going Uncle Dwayne! What? Are you deaf?”

Now, Dwayne rarely gets angry. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him be more than mildly irritated. But I could see his temper rise. Though he looked the same, there was a quiet menace building inside him that I wanted to cheer for.

“I’m not going,” she said, settling into a whine. “Don’t make me,” she added tearily.

“I’ll drive you,” he said, and opened the door for her to step outside and get in his truck.

Tracy thought about defying him. Her body was rigid with fury. My being there wasn’t helping the situation, though I have to admit I was enjoying myself thoroughly. If I’d had a beer and some jalapeno chips, I’d be settling down for a damn good time. Who cared about her upcoming performance? This one was four-star.

She flounced out toward Dwayne’s truck.

“Nice girl,” I said.

“She’s a goddamn pain in the ass, and you don’t know the half of it.” He shook his head as if to rid himself of scary parental-type thoughts and said, “I’ve got a little thing I want you to do for me.”

“A little thing.”

“When I come back I’ll tell ya all about it. What about the Reynolds gig? You wrapped that up?”

Though I’d managed to keep from blurting out my unsupported theories, I’d told Dwayne about my interview with Cotton and all he’d intimated about Tess and himself and their involvement with Bobby. Dwayne had been noncommital. In fact, at the time I’d wondered if he’d been even listening. Now, I saw what his distraction had been and she was currently in his pickup, leaning on the horn.

“Fuck,” he said succinctly, heading outside. I heard his truck thrash to a start and grind gears up the road. Lake Chinook’s community center, the Chinook Center for the Performing Arts, (which is lofty in name only) is only a stone’s throw from his cabana, so I decided to step onto his newly sealed dock and enjoy a few moments to myself.

I turned my face into a hot little breeze. At least here on the water it wasn’t as beastly as it was a few blocks inland. I could use a beer. Or a glass of wine, the glass so chilled it was sweating.

My cell phone broke into my thoughts. It was Murphy. “Cotton died at two o’clock this afternoon,” was his terse report.

D
wayne returned from dropping Tracy at her class but I couldn’t hear anything he had to say. Since Murphy’s call, my ears were blocked. I could only hear my heartbeat and I was faintly conscious of the sun’s heat on my exposed skin.

Dwayne gave me a hard look in the eyes, then hauled me from the dock to his couch where he plopped me down with rather more force than necessary, I felt. Through a distorted lens I watched him slip off my sandals and when he handed me a tumbler with a half-inch of amber liquid swirling in the bottom, I shook my head. He insisted, holding the glass to my lips. I complied, feeling the liquor’s scorch all the way down my throat. Sputtering and gasping, I came half out of the chair. Jesus. People drink this stuff for entertainment?

Dwayne’s voice returned. “What happened?” he demanded tersely.

I cleared my throat. “Cotton…died.”

“Drink some more.”

“No.”

“Drink it all.”

I felt a moment of rebellion, but the look in Dwayne’s eyes said he was ready for battle. Grudgingly I took another swallow. Tears burned my eyes and the bourbon flamed all the way down to my stomach. Dwayne’s piercing examination of me was unnerving. “Stop looking at me,” I ordered.

He shook his head. “You got to get a lot tougher.”

“
I’ve
got to get tougher? Bobby’s dead, and now Cotton’s dead. I think I deserve an emotional moment.”

“You told me Cotton was in the hospital and that he made some half-hearted deathbed confession to you.”

“Yeah. So?” I was being stubborn but I didn’t care.

“You thought he was pretty sick…that he might not make it.”

“I know that, but it’s still a big shock.”

“I don’t see why,” he said maddeningly.

I wanted to retaliate with “you wouldn’t” but decided things would only deteriorate from there. “Being sick doesn’t mean you’re at death’s door.”

Luckily, Dwayne didn’t point out I was arguing against everything I’d already said. “You’re getting some color back,” he observed.

I did feel better. The medicinal properties of 80 proof. “I’ve got to talk to Tess,” I said. I rose from the chair but my legs were rubbery. Dwayne put a finger at my sternum and gave a teensy push. I sank back as if made of wax. Annoyed, I glared at him.

“I thought you were coming over here for more work.”

“I’m too
weak
for this business.”

“Why are you talking to Tess?”

“Geez, Dwayne. I don’t know. Maybe because her ex-husband just died.”

“Is she a personal friend now?”

He had a point but I didn’t want to hear it. I wanted to talk to Tess for a variety of reasons, all selfish. This probably wasn’t the time for me to call. Wherever she was, she was going to be dealing with the upheaval of Cotton’s death, right on the heels of Bobby’s.

“Are you still working on that insurance scam?” I asked, trying to put my mind on something else besides the Reynolds.

“Nope, it’s finished. Turned over the information I had to the authorities.” A faint smile of satisfaction crossed his face. “They’re done with their game for good. Headed for jail. The derelicts aren’t being tortured anymore. Vicious bastards.”

“Good.” I was glad he’d helped bring about justice. I really wished I could jump on board wholeheartedly, embracing something else. “What’s the little thing you wanted me to do?”

“Are you hungry?” he asked.

I lifted my brows. “You have some food around here?”

He laughed. “No. Let’s walk over to the village. I’ll fill you in there.”

It took a lot for me to get my legs in gear and walk with Dwayne to a little soup and sandwich shop about five blocks from his place and near the new shopping center known as Lakeview Village. The village is a block of two-story buildings centered around a parking structure hidden in its center. The fronts of the stores face the street and the structure is designed to look as if the four corners are four different buildings, the architecture ranging from Swiss chalet to northwest lodge.

Dottie’s wasn’t actually in the village; it was across the street in a glass and brick facade building from the sixties that is bound to be torn down, rebuilt and house something new. It used to be Dottie’s Diner, but it sold out to one of those places where you take a plastic-laminated sheet with a checklist and mark off what you want on your sandwich and/or salad with a wax pen. The new owners shortened the name, and the food’s actually better now.

I chose a tuna sandwich with sweet pickles, lettuce, onions and tomatoes. Dwayne was strictly roast beef with lots of horseradish. He had a beer and I worked on a diet cola. More restorative properties. While we munched he quizzed me further about my hospital visit with Cotton. I thought of the last time I’d seen the man and it made it hard to swallow.

Dwayne eyed the quarter of my sandwich I’d left on my plate. “Gonna finish that, darlin’?”

“Yes.” I chomped it down just to make a point. I wasn’t weak. I was tough. I was not a hatchery fish.

He pushed his plate aside and rested his arms on the table. I could tell he was thinking about what he was going to say which was unusual because with me, Dwayne is blunt to the point of infuriating.

“What?” I asked.

“I’ve got a situation.”

“What kind of situation?”

“My sister Angela sent Tracy here to get her away from a bad crowd.”

“How bad a crowd? She just left junior high. My experience is junior-high kids are all mean-spirited bitches, gawky nerds or obsessive jocks hoping to make the high school team. They’re all bad.”

“There’s this older boy who was hanging around the school. He kept waiting around for Tracy when class got out. Started walking her home from school and she got home later and later.”

“How much older?”

“Angela was vague on that. Then summer came and Angela thought it might all go away, but she’s caught Tracy in some lies.”

“Angela hasn’t met this kid?”

Dwayne shook his head. “He stays just out of range, just out of sight. But Angela found a couple of joints in Tracy’s backpack. Tracy swore it was some other kid’s and she’d forgotten about them. Said she’d hidden them for a friend so that he didn’t get in trouble, then she forgot about them. She claims she hasn’t used the backpack since school. Maybe it’s the truth, maybe not.”

I thought of Tracy, the way she turned on for male attention. “Where’s Tracy’s father in all this?”

“A workaholic. He’s never paid much attention to her.” Dwayne grimaced. “However, my sister’s made Tracy her life project. Every class, every opportunity, anything she wants. She’s tried to be Tracy’s best friend.”

“Sounds like Tracy’s rebelling.”

“Tracy’s always been interested in acting. She’s been the center of attention all her life and intends to stay that way. So Angela sent her to this acting camp. I figured I could handle her for a couple of weeks.” He shrugged. “It’s been okay. But I saw a kid the other day, waiting outside the Chinook Center. Tracy came out, took one look at him and started to wave, then she saw me and ignored him. I asked about him, but she said he was just someone from class. He looks older.”

I sighed. “Sounds like you want me to scope out the junior high crowd.” I’d expected Dwayne to give me a real job. I know, I know. All I’ve done is bitch and moan and wring my hands over the idea of becoming an information specialist, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to hear how perfect I’d be for the job.

“I want you to go to the performance. See if he shows up.”

“And if he does?”

“Try to gauge how much of a threat he is.”

“Give me a ballpark on how much older you think he is.”

“I didn’t really get a good look at him. Eighteen or nineteen. He has Elvis sideburns.”

“Ugh.” I’m not a fan of facial hair. Watch just one guy leave half his meal within his beard’s whorls and coils and it’s over forever. “Whatever the case, he’s way too old for Tracy.” I tried to picture myself lurking in the background while Tracy and this mystery man sought to get together. “What about Angela? Is she going to the performance?”

“That’s another problem.” It was Dwayne’s turn to sigh. “I told her not to freak out but she’s just waiting to. She wants this kid arrested, even though, so far, there’s no crime.”

“But you both think he’s followed a fourteen-year-old from Seattle to Lake Chinook.”

Dwayne’s expression was hard. “That’s what Angela says. Anyway, Tracy’s too young.”

“And he has to know her age because he was hanging around the junior high.”

“Yep.”

I grimaced, not liking it. And there was the matter of the dope. If not his, then whose? I didn’t want to say so, but I thought there was a whole lot more to the story than Tracy was giving out. Yes, she was only fourteen…going on thirty.

“Basically what you’re telling me is that this is a personal matter,” I said, balling up the remains of my sandwich wrap and tossing it in the trash. “You don’t have any real work for me. You just want me to quit obsessing about the Reynolds case.”

“I’m going to pay you, darlin’.”

“Well, of course you are.” Like that was ever an issue. “Okay, he’s got Elvis sideburns. Anything else?”

“Pants that barely stay on. Attitude.”

Sounded like some of my last few dates.

“Angela said she saw piercings. There’s bound to be tattoos.”

“So, I’ll hang around the performance. See if this guy shows. Call you if I do. Anything else?”

“Try to keep my sister from making an ass out of herself. If she spots him, she’ll go crazy.”

I had a feeling Dwayne had turned this over to me simply because he didn’t want to be involved. Who could blame him.
I
didn’t want to be involved. But there was money to be earned.

I gave myself an internal check. I was over my shock. I just hadn’t wanted to believe Cotton was really gone. It seemed so wrong. But maybe something like this, where I could focus on the fact that this guy was a baddie and needed to be removed from Tracy’s life would be a form of therapy for me. No second-guessing. No wondering who was good and who wasn’t. “Okay, I’ll look for Elvis. I’ll call you if I see him.”

“If he shows, I’ll follow him. I won’t be far from the center.”

“And when you find out where he goes…?”

“I’m going to have a serious talk with the man.” Dwayne faintly stressed the word
talk
and I was glad I wasn’t the one he was gunning for.

“I’ll do it on one condition: stop razzing me about the Reynolds case. I’m not looking for money on that one. I’m looking for answers.”

“I prefer to look for both.”

“Dwayne…” I warned.

He lifted his hands in surrender. “Go home and put something better on. Believe it or not, the women dress for these arty events.”

“I don’t have anything better.” I wanted to be offended but just didn’t have the energy.

“Buy something.”

Like, oh, sure. I had disposable income enough to treat myself to a shopping spree. “I’ll make sure I look the part.”

It was Friday night, hot as Hades and I was wearing an aqua camisole over a black skirt short enough to see France, as they say. I’d twisted my hair into a clip and left a few tendrils down my neck. Sandals? Yes. I’d pulled out my trusty black, strappy ones. The camisole I’d bought a few months ago to go under a black jacket. More of a Cynthia look than a Jane Kelly. The price of it had made me gasp, especially since it was basically a thin piece of lingerie. But hey, it was what was in all the magazines, so I figured I had to pay to be on the cutting edge of fashion. Doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt.

Binkster watched me dress with a definite lack of interest. If I wasn’t in the kitchen, hanging on the refrigerator door, wondering if food might somehow materialize, I wasn’t nearly as exciting.

I expected Murphy to call back with more information, but when that didn’t happen I phoned him—and ran into his voice mail. I left him a message, saying if he needed anything to call. After I hung up I was kind of pissed with myself. Had I sounded needy? God, I hoped not. We were doing that “are we or aren’t we” dance about whether we were “together.” I didn’t want to screw things up.

I could picture him trying to comfort a wailing Heather, who I suspected was dividing her time between lusty grief and her all-purpose calculator, kept handy to tot up her potential inheritance. My cynical viewpoint couldn’t be dislodged. Cotton had known she’d married him for his money. It wasn’t anybody’s secret.

Despite Dwayne’s warning to back off, I tried Tess again to no avail. As I drove myself to the Chinook Center for the Performing Arts—a lofty title for a one-time elementary school with bad heating and the possibility of asbestos inside every acoustic tile—I called Cynthia. I was desperate for information. She answered in a bored tone. I could tell she was driving.

“Have you been to the Black Swan recently?” I asked. “I’m looking for Tess and she’s M.I.A.”

“I’m pretty sure Tess hasn’t been to the gallery.” Cynthia turned the radio down so she could pay closer attention. “What’s going on?”