Chill Factor (31 page)

“My dear, you are unfailingly loyal, aren’t you?” Vernice asked, still scribbling. “Even to your mother—who doesn’t deserve it, you know. She didn’t provide a decent childhood.”

How could she even guess that?
Dixie’s natural mother, Carla Jean, lay in a long-term care facility, an invalid who no longer recognized her only daughter. As a mother, Carla Jean had struck out miserably. Never married. Entertained a string of lovers and never acknowledged that some of them found their way into Dixie’s bedroom before the Flannigans adopted her. But after decades of separation, Dixie rarely missed a Sunday visit. Maybe that was loyalty. Dixie didn’t always know why she did things that seemed to need doing.

She cleared her throat. “Did Edna ever mention her son?”

“My dear, eating habits are so complicated, and family situations always figure in, don’t they?”

Was that a yes?

“Like your situation,” Vernice continued. “You shouldn’t be alone so much. It isn’t healthy, and you haven’t missed the childbearing years completely. There’s still time. A son or daughter would bring so much joy to your life. Scorpios are sexual creatures. I’m sure you’ve had your share of fornication, Dixie, but let a man get close enough to make nesting noises and you scramble away like a frightened crab. Why do you suppose that happens?”

“I don’t scramble.” At least, not from Parker.
He
created the distance.

“Color it with your own crayons, but you can’t abide any infringement on your privacy. That’s Scorpio. Yet your Taurus moon craves intimacy and, my dear, this aspect pulls you in opposite directions at times, doesn’t it? You desire that closeness, that deep understanding and familiarity and tenderness that you’ve brushed against. But it’s frightening to let someone get near enough to really know you.”

Terrifying.

“Cows,” Vernice said.

“Pardon me?”

“Cows walking to their death. Peacefully. Because a woman, a scientist, discovered the magic of hugging. Hugging the cows calmed them as they neared the slaughterhouse. We all need hugging, dear. Even a privacy-loving Scorpio.”

“Did you and Edna talk about astrology?”

“Astrology is a tool, Dixie, merely a tool, but an extremely useful tool that digs deep with sharp little teeth. Edna, with her Pisces conjunction, was a sponge that had been squeezed dry by her family and tossed aside to desiccate. She found astrology fascinating. You do, too, don’t you? Secretive Scorpio can’t stand anyone else having secrets. When we know a person’s planetary signature, their secrets are like stamens on a morning glory, exposed in the sunlight.”

“Edna’s husband
died.
He didn’t toss her aside.”

“Didn’t he? What is death but the ultimate abandonment for those of us who remain behind? You’ve experienced it, Dixie.”

Kathleen and Barney.
In the space of eighteen months she’d lost them both. Kathleen battled the cancer right to the
end, but Barney practically packed his bags and waited for the Grim Reaper to beckon. She’d watched him disappear a little each day, fading like an old snapshot.

Was that what happened to Edna? Had she missed Bill so much she found her own way to follow him?

“Vernice, was Edna on a suicide mission? Do you counsel your patients to seek death?”
Hypnotic suggestion, maybe?

“What else is death but deliverance? I counsel my patients to explore the destiny they’ve been dealt. You’ve drawn a difficult star path, Dixie, filled with obstacles and disappointments. Every time you knock one of those Scorpio boulders out of your way, every time you smile in the face of your Pisces disillusionment, don’t you feel stronger for it?”

“Pisces? You said Edna was Pisces.”

“Sun
and
moon, double the compassion, double the illusion, born to view the world through rose-colored glasses. But you, Dixie, have Pisces rising, softening your Scorpio-Taurus crust. When you want to be oh-so-tough, Pisces draws a curtain aside and forces you to see human frailty. When you want to be oh-so-perceptive, Pisces fogs your vision. Neptune, the Piscean ruler, loves to expose your vulnerability. A dastardly bastard, isn’t he, dear?”

“Are you saying Edna’s loss—and her planets—left her vulnerable to illusionists?” Terrence Jackson. Lonnie Gray.
Vernice Urich.
“And to misjudgments?”

“Were we talking about Edna, dear? I thought we were discussing you.”

Dixie sat in her Mustang, fingering Vernice’s appointment card and trying to decide whether to toss it into her plastic trash bag. No matter how she approached the question, the woman had refused to admit
or
deny having Lucy Ames as a patient. If she’d never counseled Lucy, why not say so? She’d owned up to hypnotizing Edna into weight loss—more or less. How many other Fortyniners had the woman seduced with her pseudo-psychology?

A good word, “seduced.” Lonely people attracted charlatans of all types. Telephone scam artists made fortunes, promising riches from a “small” investment, or soliciting donations to the “Police Officers’ Widows Fund,” or threatening arrest for some imaginary offense unless the person put up a cash “security” bond. A silver tongue and a stone conscience were all the tools a good con needed.

And the only difference between a con and a sale is the value of the product.

Had Dixie received value for the consultation fee she paid Vernice? The woman’s insights had hit damned close to home.
Let a man get close and you scramble like a frightened crab.
Eerie.

Dixie’s insistence on clinging to a lifestyle that kept distance between her and Parker
might
be considered scrambling.
Parker
had
tried to get close. When the danger he saw in Dixie’s work made him back off, she’d refused to consider setting the work aside. Bounty hunting wasn’t even a true career choice—she’d merely landed there after turning away from her real profession. With her income from the pecan farm, she certainly didn’t need the big fees she earned. She
could
choose to practice law again. Not as a prosecutor—she’d lost her stomach for it. And she’d never jump to Belle’s side of criminal law—a guilty client had a right to a decent defense, but not from Dixie. That left plenty of options in civil law. Why had she dismissed those without a passing consideration?

Two o’clock Monday.
Keeping the appointment would mean another chance to look in the psychotherapist’s files. The hour had passed so fast today that Dixie was out the door before realizing she’d never come close to snooping in the files for Lucy’s name.

The appointment card’s raised lettering announced:
VERNICE URICH, PH.D., M.S.W., A.C.P. PSYCHOTHERAPY—HYPNOTHERAPY.
No mention of astrology, numerology, witchcraft, the topics of the books on Vernice’s shelves. She probably hadn’t listed those on her license application, either. For fun, Dixie read her daily horoscope, and the vague generalities could apply to anyone. But Vernice’s observations hadn’t been so general.

Did she really believe the psychotherapist could answer her relationship problems? Did the woman
really
have a license to practice psychotherapy?

Dixie crammed the appointment card into her trash bag. Vernice’s creepy insights hit too close to home. She’d rather get at those files through an open window.

A quick phone call told her Marty and Parker were still gallery hopping, which gave her time to drop in on Smokin and Pearly White. They’d been hacking out information for her since early morning.

When she reached the Heights, a near-town community, genteel Victorian mansions shoulder to shoulder with crumbling apartment complexes, Dixie turned down a dead-end street, passed through a gate posted with bogus
HIGH VOLTAGE
signs, and entered an alley behind a shipping company. A set of stairs opened into a narrow, musty-smelling hallway that
turned twice before arriving at a plain wooden door, identical to others along the hall.

Dixie heard voices raised in argument as she started to knock.

“You
have
to tell her.” Smokin’s voice.

“No, I don’t, old man. I don’t. We made no promises to tell her anything.”

Dixie frowned, listening, but heard nothing more. She rapped on the door. Seconds later, Smokin’s voice asked, “Who is it?”

“Dixie.”

He opened the door a crack, seemed reluctant, but finally drew the door wide enough for Dixie to enter. A delicious coffee aroma overpowered the cigarette odor Dixie expected.

“Got a mess of stuff to show you, Dixie. Yep, yep.” Smokin’s enthusiasm sounded forced. “Pearly, where are those printouts?”

Pearly White sat at her keyboard, rigid as a mannequin. “Get ’em yourself, old man.”

Smokin shook his head, exasperated, and waved a hand toward his wife. “Pearly’s got a bone in her craw. Don’t pay her no mind. Take a gander at these while I pour the coffee.”

He patted the recliner on his own side of the black tape line, which extended the length of the room, computers at one end, television and recliners at the other. Everything on one side of the tape was duplicated on the other, except the big-screen TV-VCR, which straddled the line. As much as they squabbled, Dixie wondered how the couple ever agreed on a program to watch. When she sat down, Smokin handed her a stack of paper from the laser printer.

Uptown Interdenominational Church, she discovered, was thirty-seven years in business and had recently acquired a new pastor. Church of The Light had been founded only four years ago. None of the board names was familiar.

Considering the volume of information represented in the stack of printouts, Dixie merely scanned for names, laying aside the pages that referred to Marty and his Dallas gallery, Edna, Lucy Ames, Vernice Urich, Terrence Jackson, Lonnie
Gray, and Jessica Love. She itched to look into those, but first she needed the information on Art Harris and Ted Tally.

The printouts showed the standard graduation announcement for their police academy class, a wedding announcement for Art Harris, Peggy’s birth announcement, and a short piece about Ted Tally catching a bullet in the leg while capturing a burglary suspect. Nothing suspicious in the mix. Dixie noticed that Ted, twenty-six, was three years younger than Art. Both were too young to be dead. Ted had a bachelor’s degree in psychology.

Smokin returned carrying a bright green tray with mugs of coffee, cream, and sugar. Legs unfolded under the tray, turning it into a snack table that he placed beside Dixie’s chair. The aroma drew her attention from her stack of papers.

“Smells delicious. Vanilla?”

Smokin beamed. “A teaspoon in every pot.”

She sipped it, burning her tongue. “Did you give up cigarettes?” she asked him.

“Hah!” Pearly hooted.

“Nah, the old woman bought me one of those ashtrays that sucks up the smoke. Find what you wanted?” He indicated the pages Dixie held.

“Not yet. What about financial records? DMV records? Military service?”

“No military time for either of ‘em. Clean driving records—you should have the printout there.”

Dixie shuffled through the pages and found it. Neither officer had any traffic tickets during the past three years—no big surprise. Ted drove a new Chevy pickup and Art owned a four-year-old Cougar.

“Nothing exciting here,” she told him.

“Pearly’s the one can get the financials for you.” Smokin rose abruptly and headed back toward the kitchen. “If she’s not too peevish.”

“I have the bank records up,” Pearly said primly. “No printout, but you can pull that stool over and read them on-screen.”

Dixie moved the wooden stool and perched on it, a good ten inches too high to comfortably see the monitor. Scanning
the meager sum in the Harris account gave her an ache in that place around her heart she reserved for tear-jerk movies. Art Harris provided for his entire family for a month on less than smooth-talking wizards like Terrence Jackson spent on private club fees.

“If the Mayor’s new budget includes an HPD pay increase, it’ll get my support,” she told Pearly.

The hacker glanced at her, then as stiff as ever, looked back at the monitor.

Dixie scrolled through Ted’s bank records. He spent more freely than Art, saved less, and suffered an occasional overdraft. Nothing the least bit suspicious.

When Pearly keyed up financials for Jackson, Urich, Gray, and Love, Dixie whistled and jotted notes on the respective printouts to review later. Edna’s records held no surprises. Lucy Ames had made a modest salary, spent everything she earned, and paid her bills promptly.

“Go back to Urich’s file,” Dixie said. When Pearly brought it up, she asked, “What does ACH mean?”

“Automatic checking. Electronic debits and credits—no paper.”

Dixie understood the concept—marginally. She paid toll fees and property maintenance fees by automatic transfer.

“Those all look like credits.” Columns of transfer amounts in one-hour-fee increments marched across the screen.

“That’s correct,” Pearly snapped.

Apparently, Vernice had set up her clients on direct-transfer payments. Her total monthly income was startling. “Can we see how far back these go?”

Pearly scrolled backward four years; the same account numbers appeared over and over. Recent months showed payments for more hours than a psychologist could physically handle. Either Vernice had an associate, or she worked twenty-four hours a day.

“Can you find out who these payees are?”

Pearly patiently accessed each account. One that began in December and continued to the present belonged to Edna. Lucy’s name didn’t show up. Dixie jotted down a few names
whose accounts had been paying consistently for the full four years—LeRoy Haines, Beatrice French, Dolly Mae Aichison, Rose Yenik. Dixie recognized none of them.

Terrence Jackson’s numerous bank accounts ran into the millions, but because he invested the sums, Dixie didn’t find that surprising. With her meager financial skill, she noticed nothing unusual. Jessica Love’s business account at the Unique Boutique had acquired a sixty-thousand-dollar ACH transfer during the past month, just in time to avoid overdrafting her account.