Choke (10 page)

The only good thing about the great quantity of garbage was that the high level made it easy for Immy to climb out. She threw a leg over the top of the bin, hung from the edge, and dropped to the ground.

She shook potato peelings from her hair, swallowing the bile swimming toward the top of her throat, and swiped at the disgusting bits of foul-smelling refuse clinging to her clothing. She doubled, then tripled her determination not to throw up.

It worked. Despite the way she knew she looked and smelled, she felt good. She had the key. She could carry out her mission.

After she unlocked the back door, she crept through the hallway and into the kitchen. Why hadn’t she brought a flashlight? On TV the crime scene inspectors always had flashlights. She didn’t dare turn on any overhead lights. Emmett and Ralph did occasionally patrol the streets of Saltlick.

Think, Immy, think. What would a detective do at a dark scene?

Probably bring a flashlight. But a brainstorm occurred to her. She felt proud to think of cracking open the refrigerator door an inch. That hadn’t been in her book, but it should have been. She would have to write to the editor. Maybe she should write her own book.

The dim bulb did a surprisingly good job of illuminating the kitchen. She examined the floor, looking for any evidence of the exact place Uncle Huey had died, not wanting to step there. She couldn’t tell where it had been, though. Whoever cleaned it up had done a good job.

In fact, the kitchen didn’t look any different than usual. Nothing was out of place. Immy shrugged. It stood to reason there wouldn’t be any evidence here. Being open for business today would have destroyed it. She had almost forgotten about that.

Maybe there would be some clues remaining in Hugh’s upstairs office. She mounted the stairs noiselessly.

The shade was pulled down in the one window over Hugh’s desk, but the streetlamp outside gave her more than adequate light when she reeled the shade up a foot. She was able to read the papers on his desk, but they were all order forms for supplies and groceries. There was nothing that indicated he was afraid or that his life was in danger, nothing that said, “If you find me dead, X is responsible.”

Immy started to panic, thinking she wouldn’t find any clues. Her whole ordeal was going to be wasted.

The desk drawers held old-fashioned ledgers, but Immy suspected they were from the days when her grandparents ran the restaurant. Hugh kept his records on his computer, and that was gone, probably confiscated as evidence.

Discouraged and stinking like a landfill, she slunk down the stairs. Hugh’s parsley plant caught her eye, drooping in the window of the dining room. She had watered it her last day there, but that was four days ago. The poor thing needed water at least every other day. She stuck a finger in it to check the soil. Yep, it was dry, but her finger ran into something else buried in the dirt.

A cigarette butt. She pulled it out and examined it. If she squinted in the dim light, she could make out the logo on the filter: Virginia Slims. She didn’t know anyone but Frankie Laramie who smoked Virginia Slims.

A clue? Had she found a clue? She bounced up and down a couple of times on the balls of her feet. She would be a detective yet. She stuck the butt back in the dirt but left it sticking out so it could be found. She didn’t want to destroy the evidence she had found.

Now she needed to remain calm and cool. And casual. It was important she do this just right. Her whole body vibrated. She picked up the kitchen phone using a dishtowel so she wouldn’t get fingerprints on it and dialed 9-1-1.

When the operator asked her to state her emergency, she flipped the corner of the towel over the mouthpiece to disguise her voice. She was coming up with all sorts of clever ideas.

“Important evidence at Huey’s Hash. Overlooked by police. Clue in parsley pot. Check out Frankie Laramie.”

She had done it! The police had all the evidence they needed to nab the perp. She dropped the phone in her excitement, then put it back in its cradle. Picked it up again and wiped off the prints she had just put on it.

Then she danced out the door, locked it, and sped back to the motel before she could be nabbed red-handed at the scene of the crime.

As soon as she walked into the motel room, Immy locked herself in the bathroom, stripped off her disgusting clothes, and stood under the stream of hot, clean water, grateful she had been able to secure more clothing the night before. She toweled off and, lacking pajamas which she had unfortunately forgotten all about, put on lovely, fresh garments: clean underwear, jeans, and t-shirt.

She came out of the bathroom to get her shoes on. Then she remembered she hadn’t gotten any extra socks. Damn.

Feeling suddenly weary and sodden, she sat on the edge of the cot to pull on the same pair she had been wearing for days now. The left one had spots of blood from the places Larry Bird had pecked her ankle. It had bled off and on all day. She lay back and held her foot up. Did it look infected?

Before she could worry any more about it, she heard Mother’s voice. Immy had fallen asleep on the cot with a filthy sock in her hand.

“Are you going out to get breakfast?” asked Mother.

Immy rubbed her eyes. That had been a short night. “Maybe we could wait a while and get brunch.”

Hortense’s face fell. Did she look thinner today? Immy knew her mother could stand to miss a few meals, although she never did, but they were both under so much stress now, running from the law, Hortense was probably even hungrier than usual.

Immy felt sorry for her and gave in to her sad eyes. “I’ll go get something, Mother.”

“Please be very careful, dear. Take extra precautions. If you should be apprehended, I don’t know what I’d do.”

Immy also didn’t know what she would do, what either one of them would do. There was no use thinking about it. She must not get caught. That’s all there was to it.

Hortense watched Immy count the bills she had left. “We can’t afford to keep getting take-out food,” she said. “Maybe you could pick up a hot plate and something we can cook here in the room.”

“Hey, that’s a great idea.”

Hortense beamed, the first smile Immy had seen from her since they became desperadoes.

“I’ll get some soup and some canned ravioli, maybe some SpaghettiOs.”

Hortense sighed with a dreamy look. She loved SpaghettiOs. “That would be quite lovely.”

Immy regretted the rash impulse that had compelled her to jettison the wig inadvertently, but she still had two more hats and the oversized sunglasses. She tucked her clean, straight hair up under the blue hat and set the sunglasses on her nose. She thought she could chance the All Sips in the neighboring small town of Range City for the supplies. She didn’t go there often and hadn’t been there in disguise at all. It was full daylight, though. If she saw any people she knew she would have to try to avoid them.

“Wait, dear,” said Hortense. “Isn’t that Xenia’s boyfriend?”

Immy stared at the television screen where Hortense was pointing. Frank Laramie was being led into the Saltlick police station in handcuffs. “Turn it up,” Immy said, perching next to her mother on the bed.

“…in connection with the recent bizarre slaying in this quiet town. The anonymous informant has not been identified to us, but the authorities have told us they are certain of his identity.”

“How did the Wymee Falls station get a camera person to Saltlick in time to film Francis Laramie being taken into custody?” said Hortense.

No one but Mother would ever call Frankie Laramie Francis. He probably hated that name, too. Who wouldn’t? “How do they know who the caller is?” said Immy. “I don’t think they know his identity. It’s not a him
.
”

Hortense turned from the screen and gave Immy a speculative look. “And how do you know that?”

“I’ll be back as soon as I can, Mother.” Immy jumped up and left the room.

When she drove around the motel building and onto the hard top, she saw that Baxter’s pickup was gone. Maybe he had moved out. Why on earth had he been staying in the motel to begin with? He lived in Saltlick, and it was close, only one town over. Had he come here to meet a woman at Cowtail’s Finest? A similar establishment was where Nancy Drew Duckworthy had gotten her start, so Immy knew about places like this. A streak of rebellious adolescence, too many longnecks, and a dark-eyed, smooth-talking truck driver had been Immy’s downfall. If only some men didn’t have such dark eyes and talk so silky.

After she found out she was pregnant, she had tried to track down the truck driver. This was well before she had serious ideas about being a private eye, and she had neglected to get his name. She never saw him again. Immy’s pregnancy had taken a lot of the starch out of Hortense, as well, but, after the adorable baby was born, Hortense fell in love with her granddaughter and never said another word about Immy’s egregious lapse, as she had been terming her daughter’s ill-advised behavior until then.

Immy knew she was lucky Hortense had continued to support her and hadn’t kicked her out of the house to fend for herself. Two of Immy’s high school classmates had gotten pregnant much too young and much too unmarried, and their parents had turned their backs on them. They had it rough, still did.

After Hortense’s retirement, her pension from the library supported the three of them adequately enough for their basic needs. Imogene had taken whatever jobs she could until she graduated from high school, and Uncle Huey hired her as a waitress. After a few years of that, though, Immy began to picture herself working there forever, growing old, shuffling and still waiting on tables. Bringing people their orders with a shaky hand, mixing the orders up, and making zero tips for being such a bad waitress. What would her dear, departed, sainted father think of her, working a dead-end job her whole life? Not that she would ever phrase her question that way to her mother.

It was about time to hang a shingle and solve cases, to be a PI.

She got a library card before she could read, since her mother was a librarian. As soon as she could read, she started through the mysteries and thrillers in the crumbling little local library where Hortense worked. When they were exhausted, she wrangled a card from the much bigger Wymee Falls institution and was now about two-thirds finished with the mysteries that graced the metal shelves in those cool, lofty rooms. That had been the extent of her preparation for her life’s work of detecting until she found the
Compleat Guide
.

The shopping trip was uneventful. No beauty spots came unglued, her hat didn’t blow off, and her glasses, though they made it difficult to read the labels when she was inside the store, enabled her to see well enough to buy her supplies and get back to Cowtail’s Finest. Maybe she was getting the hang of the disguise thing.

Immy drove around to the back of the motel and carted in her purchases. Baxter’s truck was back, so he hadn’t moved out. She would have to find out what he was doing here.

Hortense acted like it was Christmas, and she was unwrapping gifts.

“Oh, look, Cheetos!” She clapped her hands. “Goody, you got the hotplate, and how about this? Crunchy peanut butter!”

“Well, I figured we could have crunchy since Drew isn’t here.” Drew ate only creamy.

Hortense paused, a can of beef stew in each hand. “Do you think we should check on her?”

“I called Clem from the car. He said she’s doing fine. He took her to daycare.” Immy made a mental note to call again tonight, though. She would like to talk to Drew in person and make sure she was all right, not that she didn’t trust Clem. “Tomorrow’s Saturday. Maybe he can bring her somewhere, and we can have lunch together.”

A dopey expression stole over Hortense’s broad face. “Clem’s a sweetheart, isn’t he?”

Immy wouldn’t exactly call him a sweetheart. His temper in the kitchen was legendary, but fiery explosions seemed to be the norm for cooks, from what waitresses who had worked at other places told her. She was sure he’d take good care of Drew, though. She had tried to warn him about Frankie’s Uncle Guido over the phone. What if Clem was the target? Did he understand the implications?

“Clem, you should be careful for a while,” she had said.

“Why is that?”

“There may be a contract out on you.”

“Huh?”

“Did you talk to Xenia just before her accident?”

“Nope, didn’t see her that day,” he’d said.

Immy hadn’t seen any grilling techniques to use over the phone in her
Compleat Guidebook
, so she had dropped the subject. Maybe someone else had upset Xenia, but who? Hugh had been dead, and Clem said he hadn’t seen her. Who would have been at the diner but Clem?

“Has there been any more news about Frankie or the murder?” Immy asked Hortense, setting the last can on the desk to make a mini-pyramid.

“It seems he was interrogated and released.”

“Released? Why would he be released?” Immy crumpled the empty plastic bags and stuffed them into the wastebasket.

“Perhaps because he didn’t commit the crime?”

“But what about the cigarette butt?”

“What cigarette butt?”

Pounding shook the door, and both women jumped.

“What should we do, Imogene?” Hortense whispered.

Immy whispered back. “We should see who’s at the door.”

For some reason, Hortense squatted behind the bed, emitting a loud “Oof!” as she fell off her haunches and her rear end slammed onto the thin carpeting.

Immy peered out the peephole but couldn’t see anyone. She made sure the chain was on and cracked the door open.

“Hey, babe.” Baxter stood to the side of the door and tilted his head to see through the narrow opening. “Let me in.”

Immy unhooked the chain, and Baxter slipped in. “Where’s your Ma?”

“She’s, um…”

Her mother’s voice came from the floor behind the bed. “Imogene, assist me, please.”

It took both of them to haul Hortense to her feet. She smoothed her checked pants and sat on the bed with as much dignity as she could muster. “I’m grateful to you for your timely assistance, Baxter.”