Cash & Carry (Mayfield Cozy Mystery Book 4) (6 page)

CHAPTER 8

Highways and byways. I needed to wrap my head around a bunch of stuff. Which is why I’d added a stop at the freight terminal to my list of errands.  Loretta and Emmie waited in the pickup while I ran inside.

There was a huge map of the United States with all the interstate highways marked in red on the wall in the office entry area, and I wanted to borrow it. And even though I owned the place, I thought I’d better check with Hank Gonzales, the terminal manager, if he minded if I stripped the wall bare of its only ornamentation. It wasn’t like they used the map, GPS having long ago replaced those giant unwieldy sheets of paper that tore, got folded wrong, and ended up stuffed into glove boxes.

Hank is rarely, if ever, behind his desk. He laughed when I found him out on the warehouse floor amid the bustle and revving engine noise of an extremely busy day and shouted my request. But every day was busy for Hank, including weekends. Freight transport along the I-5 corridor waits for no man.

The difference between my efficiently managed terminal and the trailer repair business I’d just visited was palpable, literally—I could feel the vibration of the forklifts rolling along the concrete floor all the way up into my chest cavity, and I was pleased to see just how many people were working the current shift.

“No problem,” Hank shouted back. “But it’ll be ugly. Who knows how long that map’s been there. Probably out of date. I’ll have to get the wall painted to hide the unfaded spot it’s covering.”

“I’ll call my decorator,” I yelled. “Maybe get you some fake ficus trees too. Spruce up the place.”

But he knew I was joking and waved good-naturedly when he turned away to help a truck driver who had a clipboard stuffed with papers that needed signing.

Back in the worn entry area, I stood on my tiptoes and yanked thumbtacks out of the wall. The map really was huge, probably meant for display in a classroom. I was grateful I didn’t have an audience as I fought through cobwebs to roll the thing up into a tube. My entire body objected to the exertion, but I gritted through it.

Then I hurried down the hall and left a note on Hank’s desk. It wasn’t urgent, but since Hank had been managing the freight terminal for the past year, he’d have more information about what really went on at the trailer repair business than I did. Maybe what I’d seen today was completely normal, although I doubted it.

Loretta dropped Emmie and me off at the mansion with a cheerful wave and a promise to show me the lace shawl she was knitting next time we met up.

oOo

Clarice passed on the news that Gus had called with an encouraging prognosis for Lentil. No bent rims. However, he was going to keep the old girl—his words—for the weekend in order to do a little preventive maintenance. Clarice narrowed her eyes behind her burgundy cat’s eye glasses while she reported, and I knew two things—she didn’t appreciate the fact that my beater pickup was taking priority over her Subaru in Gus’s life and that preventive maintenance was really Gus’s euphemism for a badly needed major overhaul.

I shrugged. “He’s probably still waiting for parts for your station wagon. I’m sorry.”

“Huh. Gonna have to get myself a pickup to get any sort of appreciable attention around here,” Clarice grunted.

“You don’t think his invitation to ride into the wilds on the back of his Harley was attention? Then you are missing every clue out there, and I know you’re more perceptive than that,” I retorted. “Tell me again how many bird species you saw on your date.”

Clarice grumbled something incoherent.

I reached for one of my phones. “Never mind. I’ll just ask Gus. I’m sure he’ll remember. Besides, it’s also notable that he called
you
to tell
me
about
my
truck.”

“Forty-eight,” Clarice shouted. “Falcons, eagles, ospreys, scrub jays, starlings, robins, and whatsits-whosits flittery things. Oh, and ducks. I am paying attention.”

“The whatsits-whosits were probably ruby-crowned kinglets,” Emmie said. “I saw one the other day. Or maybe bushtits if they were in a flock. They’re so cute and tiny.”

Clarice spread her palms in a gesture of irritated supplication. She doesn’t really do cute or tiny. In fact, she doesn’t really do wildlife either, so it was a wonder she’d recalled so many avian species names. Gus had certainly rubbed off on her, in a positive way. But I was a little worried about what might come out of her mouth next.

“So,” I blurted, “guess who’s starting school, officially, on Monday?”

Clarice scowled at the sudden change in subject, but it was Emmie’s expression that gave me the most delight. Her big golden-brown eyes got even bigger and very hopeful.

“I think you’re too old for school,” she whispered toward Clarice, “so it must be me. Is it me?” She was hopping now. “Me?”

I nodded, bouncing with mostly silent chuckles, and quickly took Emmie by the hand for a self-imposed exile in the attic. There are facts, and then there are facts that should never, ever be said out loud. Which I’m sure Emmie will learn in school.

oOo

The attic basically functions as my think tank. I pinned the map on loan from Hank to the wall. Then I stuck more pins in the locations where Skip had either been spotted or from which he’d sent gifts—San Antonio, Texas; Luling, Texas; and Silt, Colorado.

The map was bordered by all fifty state flowers and state birds. Emmie settled on the floor beneath the map, copying the Washington state bird, the American goldfinch, into her notebook with her colored pencils. She was also flipping her loose tooth back and forth with her tongue, inhaling in a sort of semi-whistle through the gap. Six-year-old priorities. I cringed and continued with my own work.

Skip’s visit to Luling looked like a side trip, an afterthought. But an easy-to-identify landmark—a water tower painted like a watermelon—had been in the photo behind Skip, and I couldn’t get past the idea that including it in the Polaroid shot had been intentional. Maybe just to let me know he was on the move.

Take I-35 north to the outskirts of Kansas City, then I-70 west and you end up in Denver, then on to the tiny town of Silt. Skip was using major highways, but seemed to be holing up in out-of-the-way places—at least the ones he’d let me know about. Which is exactly what I’d done too, as soon as he’d disappeared—found a rural, leave-me-alone spot next to an interstate freeway.

I chewed my lip and pondered this innate hideout tendency. Was it common to criminals? Why had I instinctively followed the same procedure? Clarice had given me Mayfield’s address, but I couldn’t blame it on her. I’d thought it was an excellent idea at the time.

And still did. It was almost as if Skip had purchased the abandoned poor farm for this very purpose. A sort of refuge for the boys’ camp, and now for me.

A refuge with a dead mobster secretly buried on it. That definitely threw a wrench in the works.

One of the phones in my omnipresent tote bag rang. I dumped everything out and found it.

“Nora?” Arleta said.

“Oh, no,” I murmured.

“It’s not too bad. Your dad’s safe. We always knew where he was because of his ankle monitor. But it took a while for Antonio to coax him out of the hedge. He has some scrapes on his face and arms.”

“A hedge?” I eased my creaking joints into the chair behind the wobbly desk. “What was he doing in a hedge?”

“It’s actually pretty logical. Alzheimer’s patients like sidewalks or other obvious paths. They know, deep in the more instinctual parts of their brains, that sidewalks go somewhere, so they’ll follow them, even if they can’t remember why they were on the sidewalk in the first place. Except your dad was on the sidewalk that dead-ends at the sundial at the bottom of the garden—you know the one? I guess he thought the sidewalk should keep going, so he was forging a new path into the arborvitae.” Arleta actually giggled a little. “Too bad we don’t let the patients have machetes. He was doing a great job of bushwhacking. I have to report the scrapes.  But a little Neosporin ointment, and he was good to go.”

I sighed. “Poor Dad. I wonder if he feels like he’s in jail sometimes.”

“It’s hardest on the ones whose bodies are still strong and mobile,” Arleta admitted. “I do think they have a lurking dislike for being here, but they don’t know why. It has to be like living with a nagging worry all the time, something you can’t quite put your finger on but which disrupts your whole outlook. Except in their case, the something missing is everything or just about everything.”

There was a low buzz of muffled conversation in the background, and then Arleta came back on the line. “Your dad’s never tried to escape before, and I’m not even sure that was his motivation this time. But he’s still agitated.” She paused a moment. “He wants to talk to you again. Nora—” now she was rushing ahead, her words tumbling into each other, “he’s been frustrated all afternoon since the incident, saying the same thing over and over to anyone who will listen. Well, actually, to everyone, whether they’re listening or not. He’s not making sense, but whatever it is, it’s very important to him. Okay? I just wanted to warn you.”

“I understand. No expectations.” I rose and went to lean against one of the dormer windows. The single pane of glass was frigid to the touch, but the cloud ceiling outside was high enough to allow for a peek at Mt. Adams and the tabletop flatness of Mt. St. Helens, both of which stood out in stark white relief against the growing twilight.

“Nora?” Dad said as he picked up the phone, and my heart did a little flip-flop. Twice in three days he’d known my name.

“Hi Daddy.”

“Ramos. You know Ramos?” Dad’s voice was harsh, raspy, and then I recalled Arleta’s comment that he’d been talking incessantly all afternoon. It sounded as though he’d worn himself hoarse.

“I don’t know him, Daddy. Is he a friend of yours?”

Emmie had crept up silently, and she tipped her head against my hip, leaning against me, and placed a palm flat on the window glass—almost mirroring my posture.

Comfort. She was there to comfort me. She reads body language like no one else I’ve ever known. Probably a skill honed by her tenuous childhood. What little she’d had of it so far must have been rich in the need to anticipate what others were feeling. I stroked her hair.

Dad choked a little, then cleared his throat. “Boss. Long—” He gulped a breath and tried again. “Long—working. We were working.”

A twinge started in the vicinity of my belly button and spread upward toward my throat. “The longshoremen’s union, Dad?” Because if I remembered correctly, one of the Simons on my mother’s contact list had a last name of Ramos. And if they’d worked together, then it must have been as union organizers or in some related way.

“Union,” Dad muttered as if he’d just discovered the word. “Union.” He was breathing easier now.

Clearly, his brain was ferreting out an association, as much as he was able. And it had been causing him distress. I needed to give him confidence, make him feel as though he’d obtained his objective so he could relax.

“Simon Ramos, of the Inlandboatmen’s Union, a branch of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union?” I tested the names for Dad’s reaction to their accuracy.

But he just continued breathing heavily into the phone.

“Daddy, can you sleep now? It’s okay. I’ll take care of it.”

More breathing and a regular soft thumping as though he was plucking at his shirt collar.

Emmie shifted and glanced up into my face, her eyes questioning. I knelt and wrapped her in a one-armed hug.

Then I tried a different tack with Dad. “Tell me about Antonio. You know, Arleta’s friend.”

“He has a gun,” Dad whispered.

Now things were clicking. I grinned. “Does he know how to use it?”

Dad snorted. “I’m not letting him know I know, you know? It’s a secret between you and me, baby.”

“Then I have a secret for you.” I leaned into the phone and snuggled Emmie closer at the same time. I whispered conspiratorially, “He’s an FBI agent. I think he wants to ask Arleta out on a date. Do you think he’ll be successful?”

“Ooooh,” Dad said knowingly. “So that’s how it is, is it? Well that explains a lot. Heheheh.” And then he hung up on me.

I chuckled. “Are we running a matchmaking service or what, kiddo?”

Emmie wrinkled her nose. “What’s matchmaking?”

“I’ll tell you when you’re thirty-five.” I let out a painful ooof when I pushed to standing. Going down to floor level had not been a good idea.

Emmie followed me to the desk. “I’ll probably learn what it is in school.”

“That’s a distinct possibility. Hmmm. Maybe I should reconsider the school idea.”

“Noooo.” Emmie shook her head so hard her hair fanned out in a circle around her head. “No reneging.”