Murder Take Two (8 page)

Parkhurst sat quietly, his hard gaze playing over her face. She had no idea what thoughts were behind the silence that stretched out. This case was going to be a bitch no matter which way she turned it.

“Have you kept in touch with her over the years?”

“No.” He looked perfectly relaxed, except for the little knot of muscle at the corner of his jaw.

“God damn it. I know this is awkward, but we have an investigation going on. You're involved, simply by your relationship to what may be the intended victim. At this point I don't even know which side of the fence you're on. It doesn't help any when you answer emotionally loaded questions with yes or no. I can see there's all kinds of stuff here you'd rather not go into. I'd like to respect your wishes”—the hell, she would—“but that's not possible. You will talk to me or I will put you on suspension until this case is cleared.” She kept her voice calm and low with no hint of challenge. Challenge would set him off like a rocket.

“You're the boss.”

Yes, and she didn't like to hear that response. It meant he wasn't going to cooperate, he was going to be combative, and that made her angry.

He continued to look at her, then to her great surprise, he smiled. A quick, apologetic “you're right and life's a pie in the face” smile that disappeared fast, but nevertheless a smile. That was such a rare occurrence she immediately got nervous.

“I'm sorry,” he said. “You don't know what I'd give for this film company to be shooting their damn movie somewhere else.”

She could make a good guess. “You didn't leave town.”

He gave her a sour look. “The thought crossed my mind. It seemed cowardly. Besides, they're probably going to be here too long. And she had no idea where I was. With a little care, there was no reason our paths should cross.”

“Sometimes life is interesting that way.”

“Oh, yeah.” He studied the cola can as though he were memorizing it. “We were from different worlds. Me, slums and street gangs. She lived in a nice middle-class house with a nice middle-class family. Her father was an accountant. He used numbers and pencils. My father used curses and fists.”

“How did you meet?” If the question wasn't strictly pertinent, it was one she wanted answered.

“It was a dark and stormy night.” He took a drink. “She was on the highway with a flat, drenched to the bone. I changed the tire.”

Susan waited for him to go on. He didn't, but she could imagine how it went. Laura damply grateful, intrigued by this dark man in uniform. It probably started with coffee somewhere first, moved up to a drink, and then dinner. From there everything took off.

“I courted her,” Parkhurst said with mocking humor. “Flowers and chocolates. Very traditional. Very unoriginal. We were married two months later. Her father gave her away in the family church while her mother wept and her brother looked manly.”

“Do you feel any bitterness?” Susan emptied her can and set it silently on the desk.

“After twelve years?” He tipped up his can, drained it, and sailed it to the wastebasket with a little more spin than he intended. He picked up Susan's—held it easy. Lots of other stuff maybe, but no bitterness. It clinked when it hit.

*   *   *

Laura had been swept away by the idea of marrying a cop, especially a hard-ass like him. She'd never known anybody like him, he smelled of danger and violence, she could pretend to dance close to the edge. He was crazy in love with her. Laura was all that was good and kind and warm and clean; everything he wanted and assumed he'd never have.

She was a drama student, going to be a star someday. And so were all her friends. They liked classes, they liked each other, they liked to party. They didn't like him. They thought he was a dead brain and they couldn't understand why she had saddled herself with him. He was a rookie then, finding it difficult to play all night and function on the job. He kept going with it until the drugs finally tore it. Her friends, used to him, got more and more open about what they were smoking, shooting, or snorting. Finally, they got so blatant, he couldn't turn his head anymore. His job put him on the other side of the fence. One evening he lost patience and dragged her out of there. They slung words at each other that ricocheted around the enclosed car.

That night he came close to hitting her, close enough it scared the shit out of him. He had a temper, legacy from a drunk, abusive father, about the only inheritance he got. And at that exact moment he knew he was losing her. Anger and frustration grew in his belly and built a hot rage so fierce it roared through his head. His mind flashed on the old man, face red, fist raised. He lit out and walked for miles, then walked some more, solemnly promising himself it would never happen again. Never would he get that close, never would he become his father.

He and Laura had stayed together a few more months, shouting at each other, inflicting pain, but he didn't ever come near to hurting her with his hands. Feelings ran high between them. They rolled around in bed with a hot passion, then lay dripping and spent, not speaking a word. Through it all, he had the sense she was standing to one side and observing: this is the way tragic, doomed love is played.

*   *   *

“Another dark and stormy night,” he said to Susan, “she had enough of my mundane character, my repressed personality, my provincial thinking, and my exceptionally closed mind. She took off for California.”

“You have any unfinished business?”

“No.” Before today he'd have bet his life on it. He shouldn't be so careless with his life.

“Anything else you need to tell me?”

“What do you want to know?”

“Whether you have any reason, real or imagined, old or new, for trying to harm Laura Edwards.”

“No.” Embarrassment. He'd known when he heard she was rolling into town that someday she'd land him in a shitload of embarrassment. And she came through like the trouper she was.

“No conflicts? No, she took your collection of baseball cards and you vowed to get them back?”

“No.” Laura took her dancing and dazzling and curious and exciting self and left him sad and ashamed and failed and relieved. “We didn't have anything except our clothes. She took hers and left mine.”

Susan let her feet drop to the floor and leaned forward. “As I see it, we have two paths to explore. Someone tried to kill Laura Edwards and we need to prevent another attempt and find out who.”

She picked up a pencil and threaded it through her fingers, tapped eraser end and sharpened end alternately. “Or Kay Bender was the intended victim. In which case the perp could be Laura Edwards. She didn't show up when she was supposed to. Who better than Laura could manage that?”

Parkhurst took a breath, let it out. “Yeah,” he said, “I realize that.”

“You realize that because of your relationship with Laura Edwards I have to consider you a suspect?”

7

It was after eight, with only an hour or so of daylight left, by the time Yancy turned in the squad car and got into his own vehicle. Rolling his shoulders to work out the knots left by the fourteen-hour day, he cranked the windows down to let the hot air inside mingle with the tepid air outside and fired up the Cherokee. It idled rough. He needed to take care of that.

Shoving the gear in reverse, he backed out and took Eleventh Street for a block, then swung right on Vermont to get out of town. He was late. Beyond the city limits, he accelerated past barbed-wire fenced fields of buffalo grass and wild flowers, a few dark green cedars dotted over the hills.

What should he do about the little nugget Clem Jones had tossed him? Ask the lieutenant? Yeah, right. With all due respect, sir, what were you doing at the barn just before the stuntwoman got killed? Forget about questioning Clem. She'd tell him whatever suited her fancy at the moment, with no relationship to the truth.

Drop it on the chief's desk? Bad idea. Ratting out a superior was never a good idea. Anyway, he liked the lieutenant, would trust his life to the man. And Clem was some kind of nutcase. Okay, then what? Ask questions? See what turned up. If Parkhurst was there, somebody else might have seen him. Maybe Yancy's teamster buddy Mac would know something. A crow sat on the mailbox, and as Yancy made a left, it fixed him with a bright malicious eye, uttered a jeering “caw,” and took flight.

“You're probably right,” Yancy muttered as he jounced toward the house. A white wood frame, in this kind of light, it didn't need paint so bad. Small, one-story, it had a quiet pitch to the roof, wide windows all around, and a porch that extended the whole length of the front. Trees reached up behind, flowers—snapdragons, bluebonnets, poppies, hollyhocks, and God knew what else—ran unchecked front and back. Tall structures like birdhouses sprouted here and there, looking like they'd simply grown taller than the other plant life.

He backed up the drive and parked the car ass end against the garage door. As late as he was, it couldn't hurt to have a fast getaway in the making. Joke.

“Finally decided to show up?”

Startled, he turned. The hammock strung between two walnut trees sagged under the solid weight of Dallas Walsh, all spiffed up in suit and tie. A suit and tie kind of guy he wasn't.

“Hi, Dallas. Sorry I'm late.”

With a polished shoe tip, Dallas shoved at the ground and swung the hammock. “Tell it to your sister, buddy. Last I saw her she was crying at the kitchen table.”

“I had to work.”

Dallas waved a beefy hand. “Take it to Serena.”

Yancy found his sister sitting at the table in the graying daylight taking lemons, one by one, from the blue pottery bowl in the center and carefully placing them in a circle around it. He flicked on the ceiling light. She squinted at him. She wasn't crying, but she had been, eyes red and watery.

“Serena—” He sat across from her and took both her hands, they had a strong citrusy smell. “I'm sorry.”

“You might have called.” She jerked her hands away and went back to lemons.

“I didn't have a chance. I'm sorry.”

“Sorry won't do it. I've been looking forward to this evening for weeks. Dallas and I had plans. It was all arranged. I bought a new dress, for heaven's sake.” She touched the high neck of the green dress and stood to shake the folds from the flared skirt, a pretty green that matched her eyes and set to advantage her auburn hair.

“You look fantastic.”

“Frankly, Peter, it wasn't you I was trying to impress.” She tip-tapped across the wood floor to the stove in the center. With its copper hood, it was the only modern touch in the old-fashioned room. Open shelves packed with supplies lined two walls above the counters, and glass-fronted cabinets took up the third.

She clicked on the burner under the teakettle, then went to the window, turned to face him, and crossed her arms. “This can't go on.”

“Why didn't you go to your party? You knew I'd get here as soon as I could.”

“Haven't you heard anything I've said?”

“Serena—”

“She's your mother too, and right now I'm feeling like you don't fully appreciate that, because if you did you'd give some consideration to the fact that I'm still living here. I've been doing it for a long time now and I haven't voiced many complaints.”

She stared at the three glass flycatchers on the counter, ran a fingertip over the middle one. “I'm trapped here, Peter. And I'd like to move out. Dallas and I—we want to move in together.”

“That's great.”

Serena spun around. “She set herself on fire today.”

“What!”

“Sit down. She's okay. She's asleep.”

“What happened?”

“I was a little late getting home and she decided she would fix supper. She was making an omelet and her sleeve caught on fire.”

“You're sure she's all right?”

“Yes, Peter, she's all right. This time. Fortunately, I came home and managed to get it out before she got burned. Since the stroke, she's just not—”

A stroke didn't seem right, not at forty-six.

“She can't be left alone, Peter. When I came to fix her lunch today and make sure she was okay, she wasn't here. I was frantic.”

“Where was she?”

“I have no idea. I drove around looking for her as long as I could. I had to get back. I called and called and kept calling. Finally, she answered the phone.”

“Where had she been?”

“Who knows. She couldn't remember.”

Scooting the chair to a slant, he stretched out his legs and rested one arm on the table. “What do you suggest we do?”

“You know perfectly well what we have to do. I can't be here every minute. I have a job. And don't tell me to quit. Maybe it's your turn to quit.” She glared at him. Tears ruined it; you can't glare effectively through weepy eyes.

He went to her and folded his arms around her, rested his chin on the top of her head. He couldn't quit, even if he wanted to. While his salary wasn't diamonds and caviar, it beat hers by a country mile, and they needed the money.

“This can't go on,” she said.

“I know,” he murmured. “I'll think of something, I promise.”

“Oh, Peter.” Hands flat against his chest, she gave him a push, went to the towel holder next to the sink, and yanked off a paper towel. She ripped it in half and blew her nose. “Thinking won't do it. There's only one solution and you know it. We have to find a place for her to live.”

“This is her home.”

Serena started crying again. “I know.”

“Okay.” He smoothed her hair back. “I'll look into it. We can't do anything tonight. Why don't you and Dallas go—”

“Peter!”

“I know it's too late. Isn't there something? I don't have to be back till six in the morning. I could stay here tonight.”