Mistletoe Man - China Bayles 09 Read online

  "Yeah. Here it is." He gave it to me and I jotted it down on the corner of an advertising flyer. "I'll call when I've finished at Gus's," he added, sounding much happier than he had at the beginning of our conversation. "Have I told you today that I love you?"

  "Yes," I said. "Early this morning. Before we got out of bed." I smiled. "But I don't think we're limited to once a day."

  "I hope not. I love you. Consider yourself kissed in all the right places."

  I grinned. "I'll bet you're just saying that because I told you about Corinne Tuttle's car being in the shop."

  "How'd you know?" I could hear the answering grin in his voice. "Hey. I'll do anything to get away from this damn book for a couple of hours."

  Chapter Eight

  It is laid down as a rule in various parts of Europe that mistletoe may not be cut in the ordinary way, but must be shot or knocked down from the tree with stones. Thus, in the Swiss canton of Aargau, the peasants procure it in the following manner. "When the sun is in Sagittarius and the moon is on the wane, on the first, third, or fourth day before the new moon [late November-early December], one ought to shoot down with an arrow the mistletoe of an oak and to catch it with the left hand as it falls."

  Sir James George Frazer The Golden Bough

  Amy is doing an internship at the Hill Country Animal Clinic as part of her graduate studies in veterinary medicine at Texas A & M. And since the clinic was on my way out of town, I decided it would be better to talk to her in person, rather than on the phone.

  I know the inside of this clinic quite well, since it's the place Howard Cosell and Khat go for their regular checkups. The waiting room held the usual assortment of animals and their human companions. I gave my name and asked for Amy, and there was a short wait while somebody went to find her. Behind the desk, the clinic's resident parrot, Poirot, was giving the weather forecast. "No rain today!" he screeched. "Hot and dry! Hot and dry."

  The door opened and I saw Amy, dressed in her white lab tunic and pants. "China!" she exclaimed. "I'm so glad you came!"

  Amy has grown up a great deal since the day she walked into the Crystal Cave in search of the birth mother who gave her up for adoption in the first week of her life. Over the intervening few years, Amy and Ruby have sorted out their relationship and what they mean to one another. After some initial uncertainty about her life's direction, Amy has included both her birth mother and her adoptive mother in it. And me, too. As Ruby's best friend, I have a special status with her daughter, something like an aunt or an older sister. Amy listens to my advice, then does exactly as she pleases.

  "It's raining, it's pouring," the parrot remarked. "Hot and dry!"

  "Let's go in here," Amy said, drawing me into one of the treatment rooms. "That parrot drives everybody crazy."

  She shut the door, turning to lean on it. Like Ruby, Amy is tall and thin, with the same coppery hair, gingery freckles, and intense hazel eyes. When I look at this spirited, energetic young woman, I imagine I am seeing Ruby twenty-five years ago.

  "When was the last time you talked to Mother?" she asked without preamble.

  "Saturday, at the shop," I said. "I've been calling her house, but the answering machine is turned off. I stopped by this morning. She's not home, and her suitcase is gone. Do you know where she is?"

  Amy shook her head unhappily. "I wish I did. She hasn't been herself for a couple of weeks. I'm getting awfully worried about her, China."

  "She hasn't given you any idea about what's bothering her?"

  "No. What has she said to you?"

  "Not a word. In fact, I thought maybe I'd done something to make her upset with me." I sighed ruefully. "I don't seem to have as much time for friends as I did before McQuaid and I got married."

  "I don't think that's the problem." Amy crossed her arms over her chest. "We had dinner together last Wednesday, and she seemed—I don't know, really weird. Spacy. Like, she wasn't there. I mean, she carried on a conversation and everything, but her mind wasn't on it. A couple of times she didn't even seem to hear what I said to her, and even when she heard, she just sort of half responded." She stopped, cleared her throat, started again. "When I got ready to go, she gave me an enormous hug. You know, the way you do if you're going away somewhere and won't be back for a while. A long while."

  Both of us thought about the implications of that for a moment, not saying anything. The treatment room had an antiseptic smell, like a hospital. It was chilly, and I shivered inside my coat.

  "I'm sorry," Amy said finally, uncrossing her arms. "I'm probably overdramatizing this. Mother doesn't... I mean, she isn't—" Her smile was crooked. "She may dress like an exotic dancer out for a night in Paris, but inside, she's still a mom. If she was planning something really crazy, she'd tell me. Or Shannon."

  I nodded, agreeing. "Speaking of Shannon, has she told you that her father has come back to Pecan Springs? Or did Ruby mention it to you?"

  "No!" Amy's eyes widened. "Do you think that has anything to do with the way Mother is acting?"

  "It might," I said. "I thought maybe—" I left the sentence unfinished. "But he called while I was there this morning and claimed to be as much in the dark as we are. I also talked to Hark Hibler. Hark says he thinks Ruby might be seeing somebody new."

  Amy pulled her coppery eyebrows together. "A new boyfriend?"

  "Yes," I said shortly, nettled at her tone. She sounded disapproving, as if she thought that her mother was getting too old for a new romance. Old, hell! Ruby is a year younger than I am.

  There was a long pause. Amy pursed her lips, considering. "Well," she said slowly, "I suppose that explains the negligee."

  "The negligee?'

  "Gown and robe. Ivory satin trimmed in heavy lace. Very sexy, like something Garbo might have worn. I don't think Mother intended for me to see it. I was using the upstairs bathroom, and it was in a box on her bed, packed in tissue paper. I couldn't resist peeking."

  I frowned. A nightgown? Ruby has always claimed that it's healthier and more fun to sleep in the buff. And a sexy satin negligee isn't her style. It was beginning to look like Hark was right, and Ruby had fallen in love with someone—we didn't know. Someone out of town. But why was she hiding the truth? Why wasn't she telling us?

  Amy clasped her hands behind her and began to pace. "There's something else, too. I didn't think much about it at the time, but the phone rang while I was at her house last week. I don't know who Mother was talking to, but whoever it was, she seemed almost furtive. I overheard her saying that she'd be ready on Saturday evening after work. So she must be spending the weekend with somebody." "Shannon, maybe?" I hazarded.

  Amy reached the end of the room and turned. "Uh-uh. Shannon and I talked on the phone this morning. She and Mother had dinner together on Tuesday night, and she had the same feeling about it that I did. Mother didn't pay attention and seemed to barely listen. Shannon has no idea what's going on, and she's worried too." Amy looked at me and shook her head, frowning. "I don't like this, you know. Peeking and prying into Mother's private life, talking about her behind her back, trying to dope out what she's up to. I don't feel right about it."

  "I don't either," I said, guiltily recalling my invasion of Ruby's house. "She's entitled to her privacy."

  Amy stood still. "Yeah, sure. Everybody's entitled." Her voice grew angry. "But there's a flip side, damn it. Doesn't she have a responsibility to us? We're her family, for Pete's sake! Shannon and me and you. She's not being fair to us, treating us this way! Where's she gone? What's she up to? And why all the mystery?"

  I didn't have any answers. "I guess we'll just have to wait until she gets around to telling us," I said.

  "Well, I wish to hell she'd hurry," Amy muttered.

  The crime-scene tape was still strung along the edge of the gravel road when I drove past the spot where Carl Swenson had died. The body was gone, of course, bundled off to the morgue by the EMS crew. The ladder was gone and the truck too, probably to the county impound yard.
Other than the tape, there was no sign that somebody had died at this spot. I wondered if Swenson's relatives, if he had any,

  would put up a cross here, the way people sometimes do in Texas, decorated with plastic flowers and a little inscription: "Gone to God" or "With the Angels." But maybe he didn't have any relatives. Maybe there was no one to honor the place where he'd died, or even remember that he had lived or what he had done with his life. It was a sad thought.

  Fifty yards further along, past the curve and on the right, I saw Corinne Tuttle's mailbox and her house, a white-painted, metal-roofed farmhouse that stood well back from the road. I slowed the truck and pulled off to the side to get a good look. In the summer, the house would be screened by low-hanging branches and an unruly mass of yaupon holly and roughleaf dogwood. Now, most of the leaves were gone and I could see through the tangled brush to the graveled area in front of the house. A red Camaro was parked there, a recent model with spoilers on the rear end and a cutesy leather bra across the front. Corinne had said she didn't have visitors, so I could only assume it was Marvin's car.

  Which posed several interesting questions. I didn't keep up on the price of sports cars, but it was a good guess that this one had cost the buyer upwards of thirty thousand dollars, depending on the extras. And Marvin had no job, according to Corinne. Where did he get the money? And if he could afford a Camaro, why the hell was he hanging out here? Why wasn't he chasing girls in Austin or San Antonio?

  I downshifted and was pushing the accelerator when I saw a slim, angular young man in jeans and a leather jacket open the screen door. He paused to say something over his shoulder, then ran to the Camaro and jumped in. I turned in the seat to watch him back out of the driveway, fast, spinning his tires on the loose gravel. I couldn't see the front end—anyway, it was covered with leather—but as the Camaro swung onto the road and raced off in the opposite direction, I managed to catch the first three letters on the license plate: HOT. It figured. I watched the car until it was out of sight, then jotted down the letters on a scrap of paper, thinking that Blackie might be interested. An unemployed kid who could afford a pricey car and vanity plates was worth a hard look.

  I pulled back on the road again. Another fifty yards further on and also on the right, I saw the small house trailer that belonged to Clyde McNabb, the man Corinne Turtle had accused of reckless driving. I slowed again, giving it a once-over. The trailer was propped up on concrete blocks and a crooked tin flue pipe stuck through a broken window. The yard was littered with trash, beer cans, and piles of rusted junk. A surly looking brown dog, chained to a pecan tree, had retreated into a fifty-gallon oil drum turned on its side to serve as a doghouse. In the pasture adjacent to the house, a flock of goats browsed among a half-dozen abandoned cars and trucks. There was no vehicle parked out front, though. It didn't look like Clyde was at home. I made a mental note to pass along Corinne's hints and innuendoes to Blackie, so he'd have them in mind when he interviewed the man.

  But Clyde, Corinne, and Marvin were Blackie's problems, not mine. I was here to talk to the Fletcher sisters and Aunt Velda. I put the truck into gear and drove on.

  This time it was Terry who came out of the house in response to Max's barking. As I got out of the truck, she strode down the path to meet me, wearing a heavy corduroy jacket and jeans stuffed into scuffed leather boots. A black knit cap was pulled down over her ears.

  "Donna said you were here this morning," she said shortly. She shoved her hands into her pockets. "With the sheriff."

  "That's right," I said. I smiled, being nice. "Maybe you and I could talk for a few minutes."

  She didn't smile back. "What about?"

  We weren't going to be nice. "About Carl Swenson's death," I said.

  "If you're here to take up a collection for flowers, you can forget it." She wiped her nose on the sleeve of her jacket. "We're not in the mood to contribute."

  "And about that red Ford truck I saw here on Saturday," I said quietly. "When the sheriff and I were here this morning, it was gone." I glanced around. "Looks like it's still gone. I wonder what happened to it."

  Terry's tongue came out and she ran it over her lips, already chapped from the cold and wind. Her eyes were fierce. "Now you look here, China Bayles. You don't have any right to come onto our property and accuse—"

  I raised my hands. "I'm not accusing anybody of anything. And I'm not the one you should be worried about."

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "It's the sheriff who's breathing down your neck, not me. He wants to know what happened to that truck."

  Her jaw jutted belligerently. "Yeah, but you're the one who brought him out here. You told him about that truck. And now you're back to harass—"

  I sighed. "Look, Terry, I'm your friend."

  "Oh, yeah?" Her voice dripped scorn, her eyes were accusing. "Some lousy friend. Bringing the damn sheriff out here, pestering a poor old lady—"

  I went on as if I hadn't heard her. "I want to be sure you know what you're doing. If you've hidden that truck, the legal consequences could be pretty serious."

  Terry's gaze slipped away from mine. "I don't know what you're talking about," she muttered.

  "I think you do," I said evenly. "Look, if you're not going to invite me into the house to talk, how about the barn? It's damn cold out here."

  Terry hesitated, then wheeled suddenly and stalked off down the path, Max hobbling at her heels. The barn wasn't any warmer, but at least we were out of the wind. The innards of the brown van were still spread on the floor, and the chickens were still strutting and preening on its roof. When they saw us coming, they clucked an alarm and scattered into the shadows. Max slipped under a sawhorse and settled into a nest he had made in a pile of loose hay.

  Terry turned to face me, her eyes dark, her mouth set. "You wanted to talk," she said fiercely. "So talk. And make it fast. I've got things to do."

  "The sheriff is looking for the vehicle that hit Swenson," I said. "He'd like to examine your red truck."

  "He's out of luck. The truck isn't here."

  "Where is it?"

  "I have no idea," she said stonily. "Neither does Donna. End of story."

  I didn't believe her. "Let's talk hypothetically for a minute," I said. "Let's say your aunt was out for a Sunday afternoon drive—"

  "You can forget that shit! Donna told you that Aunt Velda's not allowed to touch that truck."

  "Let's say she took her eyes off the road for a minute," I continued, "and accidently hit Carl Swenson. If she turns herself in and tells the sheriff what she did, she'll be charged with failure to stop and render assistance. Given her mental condition, though, it's not very likely that she'll be convicted or serve any time."

  Terry was silent for a minute. "If she says she did it, they'll put her in an institution," she said finally, her voice flat. "It would kill her. It would kill Donna, too. Aunt Velda is the closest thing to a mother we have." The tongue came out again, took another swipe at her cracked lips. "Don't get me wrong, China. I'm not saying she's guilty. I'm just saying—"

  "It's not a certainty that she'd be institutionalized," I said. "Your aunt is an old, sick woman. Any psychiatrist who examines her will find her incompetent. Under the circumstances, the court might remand her into your custody, with supervision by the appropriate authority. I'd be glad to help make that happen, if I can." I stopped to let the offer sink in, then hardened my voice.

  "But there's more to this hypothetical. Let's say that Aunt Velda came back home and told you what happened. You went outside, took a look at the truck, and saw that the right front headlight was broken and the fender damaged. At that point, you—meaning you or Donna or both of you—decided to conceal the truck, hoping to keep your aunt out of trouble."

  "That's not the way it happened," Terry said passionately. Her jaw was working. "I swear to God, China!"

  I shook my head. "Let's also say that the sheriff runs an FBI check on the paint flecks found at the scene and comes up
with a match for a red Ford truck. He brings out a team of deputies, searches your two hundred acres, and eventually finds the truck. After the work and expense of beating the bushes for a couple of days, everybody is mean and short-tempered and nobody feels much like being lenient. The district attorney upgrades the charge to manslaughter, and also charges you and Donna with hindering apprehension and prosecution. Aunt Velda will still be declared in-compent. You and Donna could pay a fine and go to jail."

  Terry made a noise deep in her throat.

  "Yeah, right. It's a tough world." I gave her a hard, straight look. "If I were you, I'd hand the truck over and concentrate on getting the best deal you can for your aunt. You'll have help. You won't have to do it alone."

  Terry ducked her head. "We're not protecting her," she said in a muffled voice.

  "Where's the truck?"

  "I don't know."

  "Does Donna?"

  Her head came up. "Neither of us has a clue. Aunt Velda drove it out of here sometime yesterday afternoon and walked back about six o'clock. Donna thought she was with me in the barn, working on the van. I thought she was with Donna in the workroom, making wreaths. We didn't even miss her until Donna put supper on the table. That's when she came in from outside, wet and cold. She'd hurt her foot, too." Her voice thinned, and I heard a note of panic. "It's God's truth, China. Honest!"

  Maybe, maybe not. But I had the feeling we were getting closer. "What did she say about where she'd been?"

  "Her usual crazy stuff. That the Klingons had taken Swenson to the ship, and she was afraid they were after the truck too. So she parked it where they wouldn't think to look for it." She made a little grimace. "It was already dark by that time, no point in going out to look for the damn truck then. Anyway, we didn't figure it was urgent. Why should we? We had no idea that Swenson was dead."

  "When did you find out?"

  She took a breath. "This morning, a little after seven.