“Nope,” I said. “But you can’t wear your cowboy hat. We have to draw the line somewhere.” I shifted my mouthful of spaghetti to the other side. I’d already called the dentist and managed to get an appointment for early the next morning. Until then, I’d just have to be careful not to break off what was left of my tooth.
“Jeans and boots,” McQuaid said happily. “What a woman.” He grinned at Brian. “Hey, do I know how to pick ’em, or what?”
Brian shrugged. “She’s okay. But I’m not gonna get married till I find somebody who’ll let me wear Reeboks.”
After dinner, Brian went upstairs to do his homework and consult with Melissa on the phone about their project. When he had gone, McQuaid helped me with the dishes and cleared up some of the mystery about Edgar Coleman’s murder—not much, but some.
“The autopsy report won’t be back until tomorrow,” he said, rinsing a plate and loading it into the dishwasher, “so we don’t have an official time of death yet, but it’s a pretty good guess that it happened between six and midnight. Coleman’s wife thought he was supposed to spend the night in Houston. Anyway, he wasn’t home when she went out, and if he’d been shot after she got home at midnight, she would’ve heard it. The bedroom is behind the garage, and the windows were open. She found the body early this morning.” He bent over and set the spaghetti dish on the floor, and Howard Cosell undertook his part of the cleanup chores with much enthusiastic tail-wagging. When you move in with a man, his son, and his dog, there are some things you have to accept whether you approve of them or not. At least there wasn’t enough spaghetti sauce to do any further damage to Howard’s liver.
“Poor Letty,” I said. “This is going to be hard on her.”
“Oh, you know her?” McQuaid took the dish away from Howard, rinsed it off, and put it into the dishwasher. Personally, I find McQuaid very handsome, in a rough-cut way. Very rough. His nose was broken by an Aggie right tackle about twenty years ago, his forehead was slashed by a knife-wielding crack dealer in a Houston parking lot, and the bullet that did a job on his spine also left a sizable white scar on his neck. He looks a little the worse for wear.
“Not very well.” I shook out the place mats. “She drops in at the shop a couple of times a month. She and her husband have always struck me as an odd match,” I added, thinking of the timid, uncommunicative woman who buys several bottles of kava and St. John’s wort every few weeks. Kava helps to relieve anxiety and St. John’s wort is the herb of choice for the treatment of depression. People who purchase that much, that often, are probably using the herbs instead of Prozac.
McQuaid stuck a handful of forks into the silverware basket. “She’s what—a dozen years older than Coleman? Not that I have anything against younger men marrying older women, of course,” he added with a grin. McQuaid is eight years younger than I am. “I heard, though, that he married her for her money. He bought the Blessing property right after they got married seven or eight years ago.”
“Her first husband died and left her a nice stash,” I said. “He made his money in gas and oil.” I paused. “I wonder what Letty was doing out so late on a Sunday night in Pecan Springs.” At that hour, the only thing open are the all-night convenience stores.
McQuaid dried his hands on a towel. “She was visiting her sister in New Braunfels. She left at ten-thirty and had a flat tire on the way home. Most of her story checks out,” he added. “She changed the tire herself, but the emergency spare was still on the car, and the flat tire was in the trunk. The sister corroborates her claim about the time.”
“But if Edgar was lying dead in the garage, why didn’t Letty find him when she came home?”
“Because the batteries in her garage-door opener were out of juice. She parked in the drive and went straight to bed, thinking he was in Houston on business.” He filled the dishwasher with soap, shut the door, and turned it on.
“More shady dealings, no doubt,” I said wryly. “That guy seems to have played every angle in the book. The neighbors didn’t hear anything, I take it.” I put the milk back in the refrigerator, carefully ignoring a saucer containing three dead frogs, a gift from Melissa to Brian. When I was Melissa’s age, girls baked peanut butter cookies for their boyfriends. Dead frogs may signal a new and welcome phase in female-male relationships. “What kind of gun was it?”
“There was a cartridge on the floor near the body,” McQuaid said. “Thirty-two automatic. And the nearest neighbor is about a hundred yards away.”
A mouse gun, only slightly louder than a Roy Rogers cap gun. “Any suspects?”
“Suspects?” With a short laugh, McQuaid grabbed his canes and made his way to a chair. “How many would you like? Coleman was having an affair with his secretary, a feud with his neighbor, and a fight with the City Council. And of course, there’s always the wife. Her alibi isn’t unimpeachable.” He sat down heavily and stretched his braced leg out in front of him.
An affair? Knowing Edgar’s reputation as a con man, I wasn’t surprised. I was troubled on Letty’s account, though. It’s bad enough to have your husband blown away in the garage without having to face the distressing fact that he was unfaithful-and that you’re a suspect in his murder. But there was another potentially troublesome aspect to this business, quite a bit closer to home.
I poured a cup of decaf and set it in front of McQuaid. “I hope you’re remembering what day this is.”
He picked up his cup. “Monday, the last time I looked.”
“Which means that there are only five days left until Sunday.” I sat down opposite him. “You
are
planning to wind up this murder investigation before our wedding, I trust—no matter how many dozens of suspects you have lined up.”
“Hey, wait.” He put the cup down. “You’re telling me it’s
this
weekend?”
“Uh-huh.” I ticked the days off. “Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Then comes Sunday and the wedding, immediately following which we are scheduled to hop a plane for a one-week Hawaiian honeymoon.” I gave him a meaningful look. “With nonrefundable tickets, dear heart, meaning that we pay even if we don’t go.”
“I can’t believe this,” he muttered, his face pained. “I somehow got it into my head that the wedding was next week.” He paused. “Listen, China, this is a big investigation. I mean, there are a lot of angles to cover and a long list of suspects to—”
“McQuaid, my love,” I said softly, “I am not disparaging your competence in conducting a homicide investigation, but I do hope you haven’t forgotten that you are an
interim
police chief.”
His face tightened. “Yes, I know, but things have been quiet all summer, China. All I’ve done is shuffle paper and keep the staff morale up. And whether you like Coleman or not, he was a big player in this town. I can’t just walk out on—”
“Of course you can,” I said reasonably. “Appoint a backup who can take over if you haven’t collared the killer by Sunday afternoon. And don’t forget the party on Saturday night.”
“A backup?” He snorted. “Like who, for instance? You know the situation in that department. With Bubba gone, there’s not a trained homicide man in the lot. That’s one of the problems with this dinky little police force. They need new blood. They need somebody who can—” He stopped, pulling his black brows together. “What party?”
“The dinner your parents are giving for us at the Pack Saddle Inn. Your mother has reserved tables for thirty, hired a mariachi band, and conned her bridge club into making crepe-paper palm trees. Shall I tell her that the groom may be off playing Columbo?”
He growled something indistinguishable.
“Okay, I apologize. That was tacky,” I said. “Well, if there’s nobody on the force who can help, how about asking Bubba to back you up? He may be mad at the City council, but he’s not mad at you.” Bubba Harris, who had been Pecan Springs’s police chief for nearly thirty years, had quit in a huff over the sensitivity training the Council mandated for the police force.
McQuaid shook his head. “Bubba and his wife got a new RV and went to California to see their grandkids.”
“Then ask Blackie. He’s the county sheriff.”
Another shake. “Pecan Springs isn’t Blackie’s turf. Anyway, he’s in the wedding, too. He’s my best man.”
“Yes, but he’s not going on our honeymoon.” I scowled. “Well, I suppose you can always call in the Rangers.” The Texas Rangers are available to lend a hand when the local police don’t have the resources to handle a case.
McQuaid looked at me. “What would you think about possibly postponing—”
It was a very,
very
good thing that Pauline Perkins chose that moment to knock at the kitchen door. Otherwise, there might not have been a wedding. Pauline, who works as hard for Pecan Springs as if she were working for real money, is the town’s four-term mayor. She was still wearing her mayor’s uniform, a tailored navy suit with a yellow jewel-neck blouse, pearl choker and earrings, and sensible navy shoes. She also wears about thirty extra pounds, including a spare chin and a pair of love handles. In spite of this tendency to chubbiness, she is usually briskly confident and brimming with mayoral authority and civic pride.
Not tonight, however. Tonight, she looked as if she’d just lost the primary.
“Is Mike here?” she asked. “I need to see him about a ...” She swallowed and tried again. “A personal matter.”
I generally think it’s a good idea to stay on cordial terms with your boss. As mayor and head of the City Council, Pauline is McQuaid’s boss. And I like her, although she’s sometimes a teapot tyrant. “Of course, Pauline,” I said warmly. “Come in and have a cup of coffee.”
While McQuaid greeted her, I poured coffee. “I’ll leave you two,” I said, picking up my kitchen shears and a basket and heading for the door. “I want to cut the basil while it’s still light enough to see.”
Pauline put out her hand. It was trembling. “No, stay, China, please. You’re awfully good at solving ... well, problems. Maybe you can help.”
McQuaid nodded and I sat down. But while Pauline obviously had something urgent on her mind, we had to wait while she fumbled incoherently through several false starts, trying to decide what part and how much of it she was going to tell.
Finally, McQuaid leaned forward and said, “Does this have anything to do with what happened this morning, Pauline?”
Pauline set her cup down hard enough to slosh coffee into the saucer. “Well, yes,” she managed.
McQuaid’s face was very serious. “Do you know something about Coleman’s murder?”
Pauline jumped as if somebody had dropped a firecracker down the back of her yellow blouse. “No!” she cried. “Whatever makes you think I—”
“Well, then, what is it?”
“I ... well, you see—” She swallowed, bit her lip, and finally got it out. “Well, to put it bluntly, Edgar Coleman was threatening me. He said that if I didn’t do what he wanted, he would—” She stopped, gnawing on her lower lip. “He said he would tell—” She stopped again, stuck.
If somebody didn’t prod her, we might be here all night. “Threatening you?” I asked gently. “You mean, he was blackmailing you?”
She flinched at the word, but it brought her around. “Well, yes, I suppose you could call it that. Only he wasn’t after money. It was ‘teamwork’ he wanted.” Her round cheeks were bright as fire and her chins trembled. “That was his word. ‘Teamwork.’ ”
“He was after your vote on that annexation project?” McQuaid asked.
“I ... suppose,” Pauline said. Her voice dropped to just above a whisper. “Actually, he hadn’t yet told me what he wanted. That was Edgar’s way, you know. He’d never come straight out with anything. He was always so devious. He’d hint and insinuate and promise and ... and—” Her bosom began to heave and her words dissolved in huge, gulping wails. “Oh, what a fool I’ve been,” she sobbed, pulling out a yellow hanky. “What a stupid, idiotic, romantic
fool!”
McQuaid made a high sign. I got up, took a bottle of brandy and three small snifters from the cupboard, and poured. Pauline snatched hers and tossed it down. I poured again, and after a moment she was calmer.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ve had this on my mind for an entire week, you see, ever since he phoned me and told me what he would do if I didn’t—” She shook her head heavily, her pearl tear-drop earrings swinging against her mottled cheeks. “Then when I heard he was dead—well, I know it’s not Christian of me, but I was actually relieved. The longer I thought about it, though, the more nervous I got, so I decided I had tell you.” She drew a deep breath, tanking up for a long confession. ”You see, it all began when—”
McQuaid held up his hand. “Wait a minute, Pauline. Before you say anything else, we’d better call Charlie.”
She looked at him blankly. “Charlie? Charlie Lipman?”
“He’s your attorney, isn’t he?” McQuaid asked.
Pauline stiffened her spine. “Of course he is. That is, he’s Darryl’s lawyer.” Darryl Perkins is Pauline’s husband. “But I don’t need to pay Charlie Lipman good money to listen to—” Then it dawned on her. Her eyes grew as round as daisies and her voice was freighted with offended dignity. “You can’t mean that I ... that you suspect me of ... Why, I’m the
mayor
of this town! I would never stoop so low—”
McQuaid looked at me. “Maybe you’d better tell her, China.” He reached for his canes and hoisted himself to his feet. “I think Brian needs some help with his homework.”
“Homework!” Pauline smacked the table furiously. “You just sit your fanny right back down in that chair and listen to me, Mr. Michael Acting Police Chief McQuaid. I’m going to get this Coleman nonsense off my chest tonight, and you’re going to hear me out.” The two large red spots on her cheeks made her look like a belligerent clown. “That’s an order, do you hear? An order!”
But Pauline was talking to McQuaid’s retreating back. As he stumped out of the room, she turned to me. “I could fire him for failure to follow a direct order,” she snapped. She narrowed her eyes, liking the idea. “And by golly darn, that’s exactly what I’m going to do! He doesn’t need to think he can get away with flouting my authority. First thing in the morning, I’m calling an emergency meeting of the Council. We’ll just see who’s the boss in this town.”