Bad To The Bone (27 page)

"Yes," I explained. "Cocaine. Blow. Bump.
Whiff. It's a white powder and you sniff it. It makes you jumpy and
irritable and you talk too much." Kind of like they were making me
act right then.

They exchanged a look.

"What?" I demanded.

"She was very irritable with her daughter
most mornings," the woman admitted. "Short-tempered. Nasty. I felt
sorry for the poor thing. Her mother picked on her about
everything. Her hair wasn't brushed, she had chosen the wrong
clothes to wear, she wasn't sitting up straight, she didn't smile
enough."

Oh, boy. That was Tawny all right. Screaming
at her kid for not smiling. Appearance is all-important, so smile,
by god, or I'll beat it out of you.

"There were phone calls, too," the wife
offered, having made up her mind that Tawny Bledsoe was the devil
her minister had been warning her about all these years. "From men.
Late at night. The calls woke me up but he slept right through
them." She aimed another glare at her sheepish husband. "Of course,
she was never there when they called. She was always out...
gallivanting around."

"Did the men ever give a name or leave a
number?" I asked.

She shook her head. "I was afraid her
husband had tracked her down, so I refused to talk to them.
Although I did ask a man one night how he had gotten the number.
All he said was that he was a friend trying to help her, and that
Tawny had given him the number herself. I think he called himself
Hank."

Hank, my ass. Clarissa looked like she was
trying to bore a hole through the picture window with X-ray eyes.
It was my ex-husband Jeff who had called her, and Clarissa knew it.
Was she in touch with him after all?

I shook my head in disgust. “Tell me about
last night, when she disappeared with your car."

"She got a phone call," the man said. "I
don't know who it was. She grabbed it before either one of us could
get to it."

"She'd been waiting for it," the wife added.
"She was sitting on that phone like she was waiting for it to
hatch."

"When she hung up, she was in a good mood,"
the man said. "She'd had good news from up north. She said that her
husband was in jail."

Sounded more like old news to me. What had
she really been happy about?

"If it had been me, I would never have
talked about my husband like that in front of my child," the wife
said. "Saying he was in jail and deserved it. It upset the little
girl. I could tell. But she cheered up when her mother offered to
take her out for ice cream."

"And they never came back?" I guessed.

From the grim look on the wife's face, I
knew there was more.

"Tell her," the woman ordered her
husband.

"I got a call from my bank this morning," he
said. "Someone cashed a check on my account at a branch across
town. When they processed it, security kicked it out because the
signature looked funny. They called to verify it."

"She had forged your signature?"

He nodded, miserable. "She took twelve
hundred dollars, half of all we had in our account."

"What name did she use for identification
purposes?" I asked, knowing Tawny probably had IDs in every one of
her zillion married names.

"I don't remember. I think Tawny or Tammy. I
was too upset to remember what the woman at the bank said," the man
replied. "But I knew it had to be her."

"She'd have taken more if she'd known about
it," his wife added. "But I'd forgotten to post my last paycheck in
our check register. I know she went through my pocketbook. That's
how she got the checks. Looking back, I realize she'd been taking
money from me. Five or ten dollars here and there. I thought I was
just getting careless. I never thought it might be her."

"No one ever does. But consider yourselves
lucky," I told them.

"Lucky?" The man was indignant. "How can you
say that?"

"She killed the last guy she fleeced."

After giving me the license plate number of
their missing car, the two sad sacks left in an even more miserable
state. They couldn't report the car stolen without admitting their
involvement in the underground safe house network and so, like a
sucker, I'd promised to do what I could to get it back for them.
They didn't look too impressed with my offer.

Clarissa tried to hustle us out the door the
moment we were alone again. “There. Are you happy?" she snapped at
me. "You've gotten what you came for. The woman you're looking for
is gone. Now get out of my life."

"Not so fast," Bill said, rising to his full
height. Normally, I wouldn't be caught dead having a guy stand up
for me, but Clarissa was terrified of Bill being a cop and I was
enjoying her discomfort.

"What more could you possibly want?" she
asked, her voice faltering.

"I want Jeff's phone number," I said. "I
know he's been in touch with you."

She looked away.

"Come off it, Clarissa. Jeff's the one who
sent them to you in the first place. He's the one who called her
late at night at those poor people's house. And I am absolutely
sure that he's the one who warned Tawny that I was closing in on
her—after you let him know I was in Tampa. So don't play Miss
Innocent with me."

"I hadn't talked to him in days," she
protested.

I stared at her.

"Not until he called last night," she
insisted.

"Your son is aiding and abetting a
murderer," Bill said. "And so are you."

It was enough for Clarissa. She'd try to
keep Jeff out of jail, but she sure as hell wouldn't go in his
place. "Are you going to arrest him?" she asked, marching to a desk
in one corner of the room.

"If Jeff is hanging out with Tawny Bledsoe,"
I told her, "getting arrested is the least of his worries."

She took out a note pad and copied a phone
number scrawled across it. "Did that Bledsoe woman really kill that
man?" she asked, handing me Jeff's number.

"Yes, she did," I told her. "Jeff is in real
danger. When she gets done using him, she'll kill him, too. She
doesn't want any witnesses."

A tremor passed across Clarissa's face. I
almost felt sorry for her. She was the kind of person who had never
let herself love anyone in her life. Then her son had come along,
and she had loved him all the more to make up for the lack of it
until then. But it wasn't the right kind of love. She loved her son
more for herself than for him, and Jeff had always known it. He had
used her in retaliation, he was still using her, and the cycle
would never end in this lifetime.

"I'm sorry, Clarissa," I said. "For what
it's worth."

"Just get out of my life," she repeated
wearily. She had to hate me, I understood that, and I didn't hold
it against her. Because if she didn't hate me, she'd have to hate
her son or, worse, admit that she hated herself.

"The tape and photographs." I held out a
hand.

She retrieved them wordlessly from a lower
desk drawer and handed them over. I stuffed them in my
knapsack.

"I want you to understand something," Bill
said suddenly.

"Yes?" she asked in a voice that had lost
all pretense at poise.

"The only thing standing between your son
and a long prison term is this woman." Bill pointed at me. I smiled
gamely. I suspect the effect was more ghastly than reassuring.
Clarissa looked away.

"If not for Casey," Bill explained, with
total disregard for such minor details as jurisdiction and proof,
"I'd have your son in custody right now. So if you warn him in any
way that we have his telephone number, I will personally see that
he spends the next decade behind bars and that you are arrested in
full view of your friends at the country club."

Her Florida tan lost its luster. I thought
she might bite her lower lip off, so I cut her some slack. "If you
keep up your end of the bargain, I promise to do my best to keep
Jeff out of this mess," I said. "You have my word."

"Your word?" she repeated tonelessly.

"It kept him out of jail once already," I
reminded her. "It's the best I can do."

"All right," she whispered. Her composure
cracked and a tear slid down one cheek. I never thought I'd live to
see the day when Clarissa Jones broke down and cried. But the taste
of victory was more bitter than expected. She was just another one
of Tawny's victims.

I exchanged a glance with Bill. He
shrugged.

"Your house is being watched," I told
her.

She looked up, eyes wide. "What do you
mean?"

'Two men have been watching it, at least
ever since I've been here in Tampa. I saw them on my first
day."

“Two men?" Her voice was faint.

I nodded. "You better let Norman know."

She nodded numbly and moved to the telephone
to call her husband. Just another disaster created by their son to
report.

We found our own way out.

"What are you going to do now?" Bill asked.
We were sitting in my car in front of the airline terminal.

"I'm going to find Jeff. He'll know where
Tawny's gone." I patted my pocket, where I'd stored the phone
number that Clarissa had given me.

"He may not be at that number anymore," Bill
said. "It sounds like he's on his way down the 1-95 corridor from
Raleigh. He could be headed back to here."

Maybe. Bill had made a phone call and traced
Jeff's current telephone number to a motel at South of the Border,
a tacky tourist trap that straddled the state line between North
and South Carolina. Most people only stayed a few hours. Jeff was
staying longer. I knew this because I'd already called the number
from Bill's hotel room while he showered. Jeff answered and I hung
up after pressing the "9" button long enough to make it sound like
a fax gone astray. I saw no reason to burden Bill with the news.
He'd only worry more. Or, worse, try to babysit me.

"Maybe he's not there anymore," I conceded.
"But what else am I going to do?" I thought it over. "Of course, I
could check out some of the bars Tawny's been hanging out in down
here. I'm not going anywhere else tonight."

The more I thought about it, the more I
liked the idea. Someone might know where Tawny was headed. No doubt
she'd used and abused some new schmuck for help in getting
away.

"I wonder why your ex would stop in South
Carolina?" Bill said. "It's only about four hours from Raleigh.
That's hardly a day's drive." "I'll beat it out of him when I see
him. Trust me." He glanced at his watch and his expression grew
serious.

"Be careful, Casey. I don't like leaving you
alone on this one.”

"I'll be fine. I'm ready to solo. Your
version of backup was great." I smiled at him. "But from here on
out, I want to take it alone."

He glanced away and mumbled something about
thanking me for taking his mind off his ex-wife.

It would be the next morning before I
figured out why he'd felt the need to change the subject.

"You're not carrying, are you?" he asked. I
shook my head.

"Then I'm going to leave this with you, just
in case." He reached into the back seat for his duffel bag and
removed a metal box. "This is very special," he told me. “Take good
care of it."

He raised the lid slowly, building suspense,
like a guy opening a jewelry box to show his girlfriend an enormous
diamond engagement ring inside. "I am not worthy," I murmured.

"Wait until you see it." He pulled back a
black velvet cover.

"Holy shit. What is it?" I stared at the gun
nestled in the box. It looked a lot like a Colt semi, except it had
a double-stacked, staggered magazine.

"A custom-built .40-caliber Strayer-Voigt,"
he said reverently. "I had a guy in Atlanta build it for me. It
took forever, but it was worth the wait." He stroked the barrel.
"It holds fifteen rounds of ammo."

"Double the shooting satisfaction."

"I just hope you won't need it." He took the
Strayer-Voigt from its molded compartment and handed it to me.

"I don't know what to say," I admitted. I
hefted it, admiring its balance. It was heavier than I was used to,
but I liked the wider grip. I'm the kind of girl who really likes
to wrap her hands around something and squeeze.

"You sure you want to give me this?" I
asked. "What if I have to use it?"

"I'll deal with it then," he promised. "Just
don't stick it in your pants. That's a bad habit you have there,
Casey."

"I won't," I lied. No point in rubbing in
the fact that, unlike him, I didn't have to worry about shooting my
pecker off. Besides, where the hell else was I supposed to carry
it? In a purse? No fucking way. I could see it now: "Please excuse
me while I open my red plastic purse and extract a gun so I can
shoot you."

"Just be careful where you point that
thing," Bill warned me.

"Hey, I've been telling you that for two
days. But did you listen? No."

He smiled, but it seemed sad around the
edges. Tired and sad. "I guess this is it." He glanced at his watch
again. “Time to return to our real lives."

"Afraid so." I smiled back. "But it's been
great while it lasted." I am truly a perverse individual at heart.
I had loved every second with him, but suddenly I wanted him to go.
The gun in my hand only made it worse. I had Tawny in my sights and
I didn't want to lose her.

"If you ever need another tune-up, give me a
call."

"You bet," I promised, knowing from his tone
of voice that this was the end of our latest truce, at least for a
long time to come.

"Be careful," he whispered just before I put
my hands on the back of his head and drew him to me. I kissed him
hard. The kiss lingered. I slipped my tongue in his mouth and
flashed back to the night before. So did he, apparently. I started
to wonder if there was another Strayer-Voigt in his pocket or if he
was just happy to see me.