Angel Sleuth (18 page)

She knew Caroline was eager to get started right now, but it was Saturday night, and she wanted to use the school as a launching point for their search. Tomorrow would have to do.

“Let’s take Caroline to Kenny’s House of Billiards,” Kaitlin said.

If pool loosened her up, it could do the same for Caroline, allow her to forget her worries for a few hours and concentrate on chasing colorful balls around a field of green felt.

* * *

Mary Jane kissed Jeremy goodnight and tucked the covers around him.

“Donna is right next door if you need her,” she said.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“Oh, just downstairs for a drink.”

Jeremy sat up in bed. You are not. You’re a terrible liar, Mom.”

“I’m taking a drive. I won’t be gone long.”

“Where?”

She sighed. She
was
a terrible liar, especially when it came to her son.

“It’s kind of a mission. For Kaitlin. I need to talk to someone who may have some information about what happened to that advice columnist lady.”

“Who?” His child’s voice grew higher in pitch and more insistent.

“Just an old boyfriend of hers. He might know something.”

“A boyfriend?” he asked. She’d said the right thing. He sounded reassured. And tired. She kissed his forehead and left the door open to the next room in the suite.

“Jeremy will be fine. Try not to run into anything,” said her friend. She handed Mary Jane the keys to her car.

Mac would kill her if he knew what she had in mind, but Mac didn’t even know which hotel the conference was in, so she was safe for the night. He’d never find out about her escapade.

An idea had been plaguing her for most of the day, and it wouldn’t let go. It wasn’t a job Kaitlin could do. It was up to Mary Jane.

She pulled into the gravel driveway. She shouldn’t be here, that she knew, but there were no lights on in the house and no car in the driveway. Saturday night. Maybe Hiram had a hot date. She doubted it.

She wasn’t sure what she was looking for, perhaps a closer inspection of the Corvette, which she didn’t believe belonged to him. The detached garage was locked. She took her flashlight and shined it through the windows. No vehicle there either.

She used the flashlight to peer in the window of the welding shop behind the garage but saw few signs of productive work. Most of the metal parts were old and rusted, and the acetylene tanks were shoved to the back of the work space. She couldn’t see any evidence of repaired parts awaiting an owner to pick them up. If Hiram could afford a Corvette, he must have another money source. Cash flow in his welding business appeared non-existent. And that’s one thing she could look for—some indication of how Hiram got his money or how he was paying for his fancy car—assuming it belonged to him. He was just the type to be a petty thief, and his character suggested he might like to prey on elderly, infirm, confused folks. The problem was she had no idea what he could be stealing from residents at ARC, if he were guilty of lifting anything from them.

This was just a silly, wild goose chase.
She chided herself for thinking she could play sleuth, but someone needed to take charge here. Talking to the people at ARC wasn’t producing any results. And she felt Kaitlin was getting sidetracked by Caroline’s presence in town.

If Hiram hit Kaitlin over the head that night at ARC and tried to run her down in the city, then he must be convinced Kaitlin knew something. He was trying to scare her off. Or even kill her. Mary Jane thought about that possibility. If Kaitlin was in danger, then so was she. So were they all. Hiram might use anyone near her to get to Kaitlin. He wouldn’t care if it was a young boy or an elderly woman.
Better hustle. Get the goods on hunky—or was it chunky—Hiram and get out of here.

The shop was locked, but the doorknob to the back door of the house turned easily when she tried it. She wanted to locate Hiram’s business papers or his checkbook and give a good look around the place to see if anything odd turned up. She flipped on the light switch in the kitchen.

The house was small, a one story ranch-style design with a kitchen-dining room combination, tiny living room and one bedroom. In the kitchen, dirty dishes filled the sink. Take-out boxes, plates with drying food on them, and beer bottles, empty except for cigarette butts in the bottom of most of them covered the table. A large fly with iridescent green wings landed on a dried out donut and began his late night snack.

She used her flashlight to guide her down a hallway past a small bathroom and entered the bedroom. The bed was, of course, unmade. The soiled sheets hung off the mattress onto the floor. She moved the light around the room.

Aha! What’s this?
A desk piled high with papers on top of which sat a checkbook. She thumbed through it. Interesting. No checks written for car payments or to any credit card company. Hiram apparently preferred to do his business in cash. A good thing. The current balance in his checking account was less than ten dollars.

A quick run through the papers on the desk revealed a number of unpaid bills—electric, phone, cable. Most were overdue by at least a month. A letter from the gas company warned that his gas would be cut off in two days.

She moved toward the closet and shined the light into it.
Very interesting. An Armani shirt, a set of Ping golf clubs, Ralph Lauren knit shirts, Tommy Bahama slacks, and tropical print shirts. Hmm. Pretty spiffy stuff for a poor welder with no visible assets.

The moon moved from behind the clouds and illuminated the tiny bedroom. She flipped off her light and turned from the closet to leave the bedroom. Blocking her exit was a man, tall and skinny with a smile on his acne-pocked face. And a gun in his hand.

He flipped on the bedroom light.

“Uh, huh,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

“What are
you
doing here? I was supposed to meet Hiram, not some broad.”

“I’m his landlady. I’m here for the rent. He’s behind, you know.” She began to slip past him in the doorway.

“Wait a minute. I thought he owned this house.”

“Yeah, and I’ll bet you thought he owned that Corvette, too. Aren’t you a little old to believe in fairy tales? Or to play with guns?”

“Oh, this. I saw the light from the road and came to find out what’s up. Might have been some cops. Hiram wouldn’t like that. Say, what are you doing in his bedroom?”

“Well, we’re a little more than just landlady and tenant, if you know what I mean.” She winked at him, and he put the gun into the waistband of his jeans.

“Wasn’t loaded anyhow,” he said.

Just like his brain, she thought, grateful for his gullibility. “Know where he keeps his money? I’d sure like to get my back rent.”

He shook his head no, his long, unwashed hair swinging in front of bloodshot eyes.

“Guess I’ll just come back another time, then.” She walked around him and down the hallway toward the back door.

“You could wait for him. I’ve got money with me, and once I pay him, he’ll have cash for his rent.”

“Pay him. For what?”

“For some welding I did for him on a car part.” Hiram spoke from behind her, blocking her exit through the door. Her heart stood still, and she began to sweat profusely.

“Naw, that’s not what I came for…”

“Shut up, Jake, and get out of here.” Jake hesitated. “Now!”

“Ah, but I was hoping we could…”

“He could stay a while,” said Mary Jane.

“No he couldn’t. Beat it, Jake. The lady and I have important business to talk about. You come back later. Shove off.”

Hiram appeared not to be in any mood for an argument. Jake muttered something under his breath and slammed the door after him. Mary Jane waited, trying to think of a plan for escape.

“I know you like my car, so let’s take a little ride, and we can finish what we started the other night.”

He grabbed her arm and shoved her through the door toward the Corvette now parked beside the house. She reconsidered her earlier assessment that Kaitlin’s all talk and no action approach was too cerebral. There was something to be said for just sitting around in the safety of one’s own living room and thinking a lot. Or picking the brains of the residents at ARC.

“I don’t think she wants to take a ride with you, Hiram.”

Brilliant moonlight illuminated the figure of Mac leaning against the door of his Buick, a cigarette dangling from his lips, looking for all the world as if he had been there for hours waiting for just such a moment to present itself. Maybe he had.

“What’re you doing here?” The relief she felt registered in her voice. Right now he looked like more than a cop. To her he was Robert Redford, Brad Pitt, and Mighty Mouse all in one.

Mac ignored her question and focused on Hiram, who dropped his hand from her arm and shrugged his shoulders.

“Didn’t mean to cut in on your territory.”

“You didn’t. She can decide who she wants to ride with. We’ll let her make up her own mind. How about it?” Mac shifted his eyes to her.

“Thanks all the same, Hiram, but I have a previous engagement with Mac. So sorry.” She practically ran to Mac’s side.

“Next time…” A growl crept into Hiram’s voice.

“I doubt there’ll be a next time,” Mac growled back.

Mac opened the driver’s door for her, shoving her across the seat and getting into the car himself. He threw the cigarette out the window and spun gravel as they shot off down the driveway.

Mac was silent for a long time, and she knew he wasn’t concentrating on his driving.

“The car,” Mary Jane said. “It’s my friend’s. She’ll need it tomorrow. And I need a ride back to the hotel.

“I’ll take care of all that. Don’t worry.”

“How did you know where I was?” she asked.

“I was a detective and a good one. You think I can’t find someone if I want to?”

“And you wanted to?”

“I wanted to say good night and realized you hadn’t given me the name of your hotel, but I found it.”

She wanted to ask how, but he interrupted her before she could speak.

“That’s not the point. I got your friend to awaken Jeremy. Actually he wasn’t asleep. You may think you had him fooled, but he was worried about you. Did you forget he knew about your “date” with Hiram? Kaitlin had mentioned only two men in her life in front of Jeremy and neither of them inspired any kind of warm feelings in the kid. You should have taken a cue from him. You could have gotten yourself killed.”

Mac pulled into Kaitlin’s drive.

“I like you, Mary Jane, but I can’t trust you. I think we may need to cool this relationship for a while.” He looked into her eyes for a long moment, then reached over and opened the car door. “We leave early tomorrow. We’ll pick up the car and you can return to Albany. I’ll let you explain all of this to Kaitlin.”

Just what she did not want to do. If Mac’s reaction were any kind of indication of what her nighttime work had accomplished, she could only imagine what Kaitlin would say.

“Call Jeremy. He’ll want to say goodnight to his mom.”

Mary Jane stood on the porch steps and watched Mac back down the driveway and leave. Something told her he wouldn’t be too far away.

She flipped the porch light off and tiptoed up to her room. Explanations could wait for the morning.

* * *

Kaitlin wanted to say many things, but with Mac there in the morning, she could only whisper her frustration in Mary Jane’s ear.

“What are you doing? You’re supposed to be a guardian angel, or so you say. This is not guardian angel behavior.”
Was it?
Kaitlin didn’t know how guardian angels behaved but she doubted they put their own lives in jeopardy unless it was in defense of the person they were angeling or whatever. She was confused.

All of them, Caroline, Mac, Mary Jane and Kaitlin piled into Mac’s car. Caroline seemed to know something had happened during the night. After all, here was Mary Jane supposedly at a conference in Albany being driven out to pick up a car. It was more than that, however. Kaitlin knew no one could miss the tension in the air between Mac and Mary Jane. Once sensual in nature, now it had turned to ice from Mac and something that was a cross between regret and agitation from Mary Jane. It made Kaitlin uncomfortable, and she knew it was affecting Caroline the same way.

On the way out of town, they stopped at Hiram’s to pick up Mary Jane’s borrowed car. No one was around. Mac inspected the vehicle to make certain Hiram hadn’t sabotaged it during the night. He declared it drivable, and Mary Jane got in. Mac stood at the driver’s side window, and the two of them exchanged words. Kaitlin couldn’t hear what they said, but it couldn’t have been good because Mary Jane sped off without a backward glance, and Mac returned to the car with a closed look on his face.

“So what’s our plan?” he asked.

Mac obviously had a lot on his mind, and he seemed to want Kaitlin to take the lead. Fine. She had a plan. Not a big plan, but a little bitty plan-to-plan plan.

“Let’s stop by the high school and ask to see the old yearbooks. Maybe we’ll get some clue about who Leda’s friends were, and we can go from there. Let’s just hope that whomever she palled around with is still in the area.”

With school on summer hiatus, the parking lot held only a few cars, so Mac pulled into an empty spot near the door. He waited in the car while Caroline and Kaitlin stepped into the school corridor. The smell of floor wax and onions and peppers cooked weeks ago assaulted Kaitlin’s nostrils, bringing back memories of her own high school days, memories of Hiram. She quickly dismissed his smarmy smile from her mind. Caroline smiled at her as if to say she remembered high school too.

The woman in the school office was about Leda’s age. Her wide smile and bouncy white curls invited Kaitlin to take her into her confidence. The plan was unfolding as she went along, smooth enough to fool Caroline at least.

“Did you go to school here?” she asked.

“Oh yes. Born and raised here and lived here all my life. Graduated in the fifties from old Woody High. That’s what we called it then.”