Ben sounded equally gruff. “People needed their cars.”
“You didn’t see or hear anybody out front here, did you?”
He shook his head. “No, we had a radio on.” He looked over at Charlie Muggins again, then checked his watch. “Listen, I’ve got some paperwork to catch up on, so I’ll be in the back a while. Give a holler if you need anything.”
“They may want you to come give your fingerprints, since you’ve been in the front office this past week.”
He nodded shortly. “Let me know when.” He pivoted on one heel. “Come on, Scout.”
She murmured as we watched him go, “He may be carved from oak, but I truly do not know what I would do without Ben. If they could clone him—”
I interrupted. I’d been thinking while she and the pup were fooling around. “What about Nicole? She’s was in and out of your daddy’s office all the time. She might have picked up the combination to the safe if he left it lying around.”
Laura shook her head. “I doubt she’d know how to work a combination. She’s not long on mechanical skills.” Her voice was indulgent, not critical. But she sighed as she took her seat. “The problem is, I like my folks. I don’t want to think any of them would do this to us.”
“Why did you hire Nicole?” I’d wondered that since I first saw the young woman prance into Skye’s office.
Laura slid down in her chair and stuffed her hands in her pockets with the thumbs sticking out. “I didn’t hire her. I went away for a couple of days to a meeting, and when I got back, Daddy had hired her. She’d come in with a real hard-luck story—her mother’s terminally ill and she’s got a younger brother and sister to support—and Daddy said we’d been needing a secretary around here.” Laura gave me her lazy grin. “As you saw, that’s not what she’s best at, but it turned out she’s real good with customers.”
“Particularly men?”
“Oddly enough, no. I mean, she flirts with the men, but she’s even better with women. She starts talking hair; then they tell her their life’s story, and the next thing you know she’s sold them rust protection, calmed them down about their car not being serviced yet, and even persuaded them to trade in their old car and lease a new one. She earns her pay.” From Laura, that was high praise.
One word puzzled me, though. “Hair?”
“Yeah. She went to cosmetology college before she started here. She says she wants to own her own shop someday. She might even be good at it. I’ve heard her giving a couple of women advice about their hair that they followed, and they’ve all looked great. It was Nicole who persuaded Mama to cut her hair. Told her she’d look younger with it short and soft around her face, and she was right, too, wasn’t she?”
“She looks beautiful,” I agreed.
Laura chewed her lower lip, then blurted, “Nicole wants to cut this mane of mine real short. What do you think?” Her voice was casual, but her eyes were anxious for a second opinion.
I’ve never been fond of grown women with hair streaming down their backs like little girls or college students. But I’ve also never been fond of other people telling me what to do with my hair. “I think you only ought to do it if you think you’d like it, but if you try it and don’t like it, it will grow back. Hair is like grace. It’s real forgiving.”
“I’m thinking about it.” She tugged on a hank and gave it a dubious look. “I’ve kept it long because it’s so easy to fix, but Nicole says—”
Charlie Muggins finished his telephoning and called over to us without waiting to see if anybody was talking. “I’m goin’ outside to wait for the fellows. We’ll be back real soon.”
“You are going outside to smoke, and two of your fellows are women,” I said after he’d pushed his way out the heavy front door. Laura swallowed a snort of laughter.
“You were saying that Nicole wants her own beauty shop,” I prompted her. “But if that’s true, why is she working here?”
“She told me it’s hard to get started as a beautician, and she needs a steady income right now. Does that seem a bit flimsy? I mean, other beauticians start out and make a living at it.”
“Honey, just like you, I got out of college and went straight into a family business. I’ve never had to find a job before I starved.”
“In other words, we don’t have a clue how the rest of the world lives. That’s one of the few things Ben ever said to me before today that wasn’t related to work. His dog’s cute, isn’t it?” She wiggled in her chair to get more comfortable, but I suspected her fidgets were internal. “You know, Mac, Nicole looks ornamental, but there’s a woman under all that fluff who knows what she wants and goes after it. Sometimes I envy her.”
“Don’t be silly. You’ve already done more with your life than she’s likely to ever do with hers. In a year she’ll have a husband, in two years she’ll have her first baby, and in ten she’ll have three kids and a spreading waistline and still probably be working for somebody else.”
“Where will I be? Tell me that.” Her voice was clogged with unshed tears. “Skell’s going to sell this business. I know he will. But I can’t buy it. I thought I’d have years to save—”
“Maybe your daddy left it to both of you.”
“He wouldn’t. Daddy didn’t think a ‘woman alone’ ”—her hands sketched the parentheses, but I already knew it was Skye’s phrase; I could hear him saying it—“ought to own and run a business. Said next thing we all knew I’d get married, move out of town, and sell the whole shebang.” A tear glistened on her lower eyelid and spilled over. She swiped it away, angry. “I don’t want to move out of town. I like it here. And Daddy never stopped to consider that Skell might sell the business because he hates it.” She ducked her head and glowered at her toes, angry and brokenhearted.
I had no idea how to comfort her. Laura had never even had a beau, that I knew of, so I couldn’t assure her in good conscience that she’d meet a man and marry him anytime soon. I couldn’t defend her daddy’s position, because it made me mad enough to spit. And I sure couldn’t say anything against her daddy with him lying across town waiting to be buried. The best thing I knew was to keep quiet while she pretended not to cry.
After a while she heaved an enormous breath, swallowed, and slid up so her back was straight. “So, you think I ought to call anybody who’s been in Daddy’s office this week, to come get their prints taken?”
“Ask Chief Muggins.”
She got to her feet with resolution and strode to the front door. Chief Muggins was sitting in his car with the windows cracked. Wisps of smoke floated regularly through the cracks and rose above the car like little signals. Laura didn’t go out into the drizzle, just put her head out and shouted the question. I saw him take two quick puffs, then nod.
“He says yes,” Laura called over to me. “I’ll need to get the directory from my office—no, Daddy’s got one.” She hurried into Skye’s office, but came out to Nicole’s desk to make the calls. “You need anything?” she asked before she began. “More coffee? A Coke?”
“I’ll be fine right here.” I’d rather have a week on a Greek isle, but a snooze would do.
Charlie’s crew arrived before Laura finished. Then her employees straggled in, one by one, dabbed prints on the deputy’s cards and left. I watched everything from my chair, proud of Laura. As hard as it was for her, she stood right there and greeted everybody. Most of them—deputies and employees alike—said, “I sure was sorry to hear about this,” or “Is there anything I can do?” Like a trooper, Laura accepted their sympathy and told them she’d call if she needed anything.
Nicole pranced in wearing black ski pants that left little to the imagination and a tight blue sweater under a black parka she’d left open. Every man in the place stood up straight and sucked in his stomach while she was there.
“I wish I could stay,” she told Laura after she’d had her prints taken, “but I’m in the middle of giving a perm.” Given how long she had taken to drive over and back and flirt with the deputy (he took twice as long getting her prints as he spent on anybody else), we’d all recognize whoever was getting that perm.
Laura finally came back and dropped into a chair beside me. “Want me to run you home?”
“I’m kind of stuck,” I told her. “I’ve got the cell phone in my pocketbook, so I can’t call Joe Riddley to let him know I’m leaving. I’ll just have to wait for him. But I’m fine. Go do what you have to.”
“I don’t have anything to do.” I had never seen her at such a loose end. Again she dragged a hank of hair to her lips.
“The sooner you cut off that hair the better,” I told her. “But what will you suck instead?”
As I’d hoped, she grinned. “Heaven only knows. Maybe I’ll become a nail biter.” She held out her big hands and considered them.
“Don’t. You’ve got lovely nails. I wish mine grew in ovals. Bite your toenails, instead. At least you’ll know when you’re doing it.”
We laughed together, then Laura stopped. “It doesn’t seem right to be joking when—”
“When your daddy’s dead, your business has been robbed, and your brother’s vanished? Honey, that’s when you’ve got to laugh. Now, listen to me a minute. I’ve been thinking, and I’ve got some questions I want to ask you.”
She lowered her voice so the deputies couldn’t hear. “You don’t think Mr. Garcia killed Daddy, do you? I don’t, either. I can’t imagine why he should. Are you going to try to find out who did?”
“Joe Riddley would kill me if he heard I’d said yes to that question, and Ridd would kill me a second time if
he
came home and found out. No woman ought to die twice, so let’s just say I hate to see a customer who bought a truckload of plants go to jail before his check has cleared the bank.”
She gave me the faintest of smiles, then looked out the plate-glass window where the dark clouds had faded imperceptibly into twilight. As we watched, streetlights flickered, then started to burn a steady yellow glow.
“That’s what we need—light on this subject.” I leaned closer and murmured, “I hate to pry, but what did you take from the safe? You know better than to remove anything from the scene of a crime.”
“Yeah, but—” She fumbled in the pocket of her blazer, brought out the little white box, and held it on her palm. “I think I know what this is, and I don’t want them confiscating it for evidence. Today’s the thirtieth anniversary of when Mama and Daddy got engaged, and this is a jeweler’s box. Let’s see what’s inside.” From the white box she took a black ring box. When she opened it, we both gasped. A large white solitaire lay on a bed of soft blue velvet. She looked at it for a long time without making a sound. Her eyes reddened, but she didn’t cry. “It’s the last thing Daddy ever bought her. Do you see any harm in taking it home to her?”
I turned away. “Don’t ask me, Laura. I’m an officer of the court. Get rid of that before I look at you again.”
“Okay, it’s gone.” She sighed. “I hope I’ll never live through another weekend like this. Where the dickens is Skell when I need him?”
That made me real sorry to have to bring up my next subject. “I know you don’t want to hear this, honey, but we have to face the possibility that Skell may have killed your daddy and run. Maybe it was an accident, maybe he’s off his rocker, or maybe it’s a little of both. At the very least, he seems to have been trafficking in drugs.”
“Drugs?”
She stared like I’d started speaking some ancient tribal language.
I wriggled in my chair, which felt lumpy with everything I had to tell her. “Maynard and Selena were arrested this morning down in Orlando, because somebody called the police and reported that the car your daddy sold Maynard Friday had drugs under the fenders.” Her eyes widened, but I went right on. “The police found them, and Maynard and Selena are both in jail.”
“Oh, no.” She pressed a hand to her cheek.
“Oh, yes. Walker is on his way to Orlando right now to see about getting them out. Remember how frantic Skell was to get that car back before Maynard drove it away?”
“Skell wouldn’t—”
“Honey, since I became magistrate I’ve seen things that have straightened my perm. You can’t say for sure what anybody would or wouldn’t do when drugs are involved. And if Skell is trafficking in drugs, and your daddy found out—”
She shrank back in her chair like she couldn’t get far enough away from me. “He wouldn’t
kill
Daddy. He
wouldn’t.
” Her voice rose.
“What’s going on?” Ben Bradshaw stood over me before I knew he was coming. His frown was like thunder. Scout stood stiff-legged beside him, fangs bared, looking hopefully at my throat.
“Call off your dog,” I said with what voice I could muster.
“Mac thinks . . . Mac thinks Skell may have been dealing drugs”—Laura’s voice was equally strangled, but from outrage, not fear—“and that he could have killed Daddy when Daddy found out. And then he robbed the safe—”
She ran out of air and story at the same time, and sat looking up at Ben with a white, stricken face.
“I didn’t say he
did
all that,” I reminded her. “I said we have to consider the possibility.”
Ben glared, his expression no friendlier than Scout’s. I hurried to explain. “Drugs were found in the car Skye sold Maynard. I’m just pointing out to Laura that the drugs, coupled with Skell’s disappearance and the missing money, raise some questions. That’s all.”
“That’s enough.” If I’d thought he would agree with me, I could think again. “Don’t bother her. She’s had all she can stand.” He dropped a big hand on Laura’s shoulder, snatched it away like he’d been burned, and shoved the hand in his pocket. “Lock up and go home. You don’t need to be down here right now, in the middle of all this.”
He glared at me, making it clear that I was a big part of the “this” he had in mind. Scout growled his agreement low in his throat.
Laura looked from Ben to me, then back again. It was clearly not the time to continue our conversation.
15
I asked one of the deputies to run me home, figuring I could get my car and go find Joe Riddley. Instead, his silver Lincoln shone wet and glistening under our halogen light, next to my Nissan. “Parked me and forgot where he left me,” I joked as I wriggled down from the truck.