Choke (4 page)

The next morning Immy saw Emmett Emerson pull into the yard as she returned from dropping Drew at preschool. Drew had wanted to take one of her Barbies to school today, and Immy had decided it was time to put her foot down. She had won, too. Immy knew she should be stricter with Drew, but Hortense did a good job of keeping Drew in line.

On the short trip back she had paid scant attention to her driving, proceeding on automatic pilot. She imagined instead what furnishings her office would have, wondering how and when she would get herself an office and where it would be. Not here in Saltlick. Not enough business in such a tiny town. Most likely Wymee Falls. She didn’t want to get too far from home.

Hortense appeared on the front porch, frowning down at the chief’s car. It must have just pulled up, because the chief was still in the driver’s seat, and the door was just opening.

Immy grabbed the offending Barbie from the car seat and climbed out to put herself between the chief and her mother. Emmett nodded at Immy as he got out of his vehicle but didn’t smile. He turned to Mother, looking through Immy.

“Hortense, Officer Ralph just let me know what Cathy from over to the Kut and Kurl told him yesterday. I’m gonna have to ask you some more questions.”

“Pertaining to what?” Gosh, Mother sounded belligerent. “Immy, you can go inside.”

There Mother went again, treating Immy like a child. Immy complied, though, stomping up the steps to make her point. She pulled the drape aside a couple inches and peeked out the window to watch them.

They spoke a few quiet words, then Hortense climbed into the chief’s car.

Immy watched the shiny Saltlick cruiser disappear around the corner. Emmett was driving, but her mother was in the back seat. Immy clutched the thin drape at the window as she staggered back. The curtain rod clattered to the floor.

Was Hortense being arrested for Huey’s murder? If not, why take her away in the back seat? If anyone saw her, and you can bet someone would in this town, it would look like she was being treated like a common criminal.

Think, Immy, think. Think like a detective.

Immy tried to marshal her jumbled thoughts. The chief had said Huey was found dead yesterday morning, but he had asked them where they’d been the afternoon before. The afternoon before was when Immy had quit and when Hortense had gotten into a screaming match with Huey, then lied about.

This raised several questions. When had Huey been killed? They must think it happened that afternoon. That matched the thawed sausage evidence. Had Emmett found out her mother lied? Had someone seen her at Huey’s Hash? What on earth had Cathy said to Ralph, the other officer?

But the main question was, how could Immy convince the chief that her mother had not killed Uncle Huey? She wouldn’t let herself think of the possibility that her own mother had done it. Could Immy cast suspicion on someone else? Was anyone else being questioned? Had Emmett investigated Clem, the cook, or the busboy, or the other waitress? This town was too small for all of that questioning to go unnoticed. Gossip should be flying. Maybe it was flying, and she hadn’t heard it. She hadn’t been out today except to drop Drew off.

After Immy put the drape back up, she got her jacket on and got ready to do some real, live detective work. She snatched the pad of paper and pen by the house phone in case she needed to take notes. The pad was an order pad from the diner, she noticed. They used to come home in her pockets often. A shiver ran up her spine at the unbidden thought of Uncle Huey dead, murdered.

Before she could get out the door, her cell phone rang. A raspy-voiced man told her he was Detective Mallett, Mike Mallett.

“You applied for a job at my office?”

Immy held her breath. Was this her big break? “Yes? I mean, yes, I did.”

“Your paperwork looks good. If you still want the job, I’d like to do an interview next week, say, ten o’clock Wednesday?”

A scream tried to escape her throat, but she strangled it until after she had hung up.

“Yes, yes, yesss! I’m working in a PI’s office. Yes!” She pumped her hands skyward toward her ascending fortunes.

Now, should she tell her mother? Hortense probably wouldn’t take it well. Immy would decide later about when to tell her—and exactly what.

As she fired up the van she wondered just where she was going to go to investigate, but when she cruised down Second Street, the main artery of Saltlick, the van seemed to know what to do. It nosed into the curb in front of Cathy’s Kut and Kurl. A glance at the clock told her it was after nine-thirty. The shop should be open now.

Yellow tape festooned the door of Huey’s Hash across the street. How could such a bright, happy color look so gloomy?

The Pepto Bismol pink exterior of Cathy’s lent a festive gaiety to the block, though. Immy pushed through the glass door with its tinkling bell and asked Cathy if she had time to do a shampoo. That was the cheapest thing Immy could think of on the spur of the moment as a cover for her inquisition.

“Sure, honey, not too busy this time of day. C’mon back.” Cathy, rail thin with bleached white straw on her head where most people had hair, scurried to the back room and motioned Immy to a seat in front of the first of her three black sinks. Immy sat, and Cathy ran a quick brush through Immy’s straight locks, whipped a plastic cape around her shoulders, tilted her onto the spongy sink lip, and sprayed her head with scalding water.

“What’s goin’ on with that mama of yours, Immy?”

“What do you mean?” She had read in her PI guidebook that answering questions with questions elicited information from informants.

“Well, that
po
-liceman Ralph, you know, that big deputy or somethin’, came around and axe me if I seen her day before yesterday. You know, Ralph? That ex-jock. Kinda cute.”

Of course she knew Ralph. Everyone did. Immy shivered under Cathy’s strong fingers, which were digging into her scalp. Another question, she reminded herself. “What did you tell him?”

“I tole him what I seen.”

Another tactic Immy had read about was that of remaining silent. Suspects, the book said, will sometimes give information to fill the gaps in conversation. So she tried that next. She closed her eyes and kept her mouth shut. It worked.

“Your mama went in there and then ran out like a bat outta hell not fifteen minutes later. Then Hugh was found dead the next day.” Cathy’s fingers gouged into Immy’s scalp harder. “I didn’t know what to think, but I hadda tell him. I’m sure Hortense wouldn’t hurt a fly, but I hadda tell Ralph. He’s the
po
-lice.”

Somehow, Immy kept her eyes closed and kept from flinching under Cathy’s death grip massage. Had Cathy seen her in the doorway of the library or entering the diner? She would say so if she had, wouldn’t she?

“That floozy waitress, what’s her name?” said Cathy.

“Xenia?” Xenia Blossom was the one who had quit the same day Immy did, in the morning, the one who actually had quit because Uncle Huey pinched her bottom.

“Yeah, her and that gangster-lookin’ boyfriend of hers was there a little before your mama was. They left like they was all steamed up about somethin’.”

“Do you know if Ralph talked to anyone else?”

“Can’t say I do.”

“You see any other cars or people there yesterday?” Immy cringed, waiting for the answer to include herself.

“Nope. I was back and forth from front to back all afternoon.”

So if Xenia was there before her Mother, Xenia and Frank, her boyfriend, hadn’t killed Uncle Huey. She had heard Hortense and Huey arguing with her own ears. He had been alive when Mother was there.
Mother
, Immy thought,
made a big mistake lying to Emmett like that.
I wonder how much trouble she’s in. Why in the hell did she lie to him if she didn’t kill Huey?

Half an hour later Immy left the shop with clean, shiny hair and no idea where to go next. Maybe she should talk to Huey’s longtime cook Clem. The diner, directly across the street from Cathy’s, was closed indefinitely, of course, with that yellow tape stretched across the doorway, but through the alleyway between the buildings Immy spied dark metal behind the diner. She crossed the street and walked around to the back. Sure enough, Clem’s dark blue pickup was parked beside the dumpster bin. She was a little surprised. What would he be doing there today? On the other hand, Clem had practically lived at the place for many years now, spent most of his waking hours there on a normal day, which today wasn’t.

Yellow tape hung down one side of the back door, not fastened to the other jamb. Had Clem pulled it down to get in? At any rate, she wouldn’t be trespassing if the tape was down, she reasoned. She pulled her jacket sleeve over her hand and, protecting the knob from her fingerprints, tried it. The door swung open.

“Clem?” she called softly. The lights in the back hallway were off, but a strip of brightness showed beneath the door to the kitchen. “Clem?”

She knocked lightly on the kitchen door, not wanting to startle him.

His gruff voice answered her. “Who the hell is it?”

Immy cracked the door open and showed her face. “It’s me, Clem. I wanted to see if you were all right.” The familiar smells of the diner drifted into the hallway, but they were old, stale odors. No cooking was going on today.

He perched on his stool at the counter where he usually made out the menus for the week, but no menus were in sight, just an empty countertop. What was he doing here?

“What do you mean?” he said. “Why shouldn’t I be all right? You mean the stolen stuff?”

He didn’t exactly look all right. His large, puppy dog eyes were troubled, and his jowls seemed to droop more than usual.

“Well, I mean with Uncle Huey being dead and the restaurant being closed.”

“Yeah. Damn shame about Hugh.”

“I know he wasn’t your favorite person.” Immy leaned her elbows on the cool countertop, lacking another stool, and contemplated Clem across its broad, shiny, stainless steel surface. Clem would be a good match for Hortense in a contest for who weighed the most. His Santa Claus cheeks didn’t glow with their normal ruddiness, but maybe that was because he wasn’t standing over a stove or a grill. Those dewlaps of his swung as he slowly shook his head.

“What do you mean about stolen stuff?” asked Immy.

“Didn’t you hear? There was a robbery when Hugh was killed. Hugh’s wallet got stolen and all the cash from the safe. Damn thief even took the new shipment of sugar packets. Several boxes, too. If that don’t beat all.” He shook his head again. “I wasn’t here right then, by the way.”

“No, I didn’t hear anything was stolen.” So maybe a robber killed Huey? Taking the cash and the wallet made sense, but sugar packets? Maybe Clem was mistaken about that.

“It was nice of you to send flowers to Mother yesterday.”

“Oh, hell, she deserves ‘em. Her and me both hate what Hugh’s done to this place. You remember when it was the Duckworthy Diner, when your grandparents ran it?”

“Just faint, early memories, and I think I mostly remember pictures of my family that were taken here.”

“The old Double D was a fine eating establishment. People came from all the towns around to eat at the Duckworthy place. Those were good times. When your pa and Hugh ran it together, it was still good. But when Louie left to be a cop, Hugh wasn’t up to runnin’ it himself.”

Clem shook his head. “I always wondered if Hortense and I could run this place together or maybe another one somewhere else, but she always says she doesn’t want to.”

“Clem, she retired from the library. She’s never worked in a restaurant.”

“I know, I know, but we’d make such a good team.” Clem’s goofy grin, incongruous on his hangdog face, was testament to his longstanding pursuit of Immy’s mother. He looked at the grease-splattered ceiling with a faraway look in his eyes. “What a woman.”

Immy walked back toward the van, still in front of Cathy’s Kut and Kurl, wondering if anyone else could be a suspect. She had to admit that she hadn’t really grilled Clem. He was kind of mourning. It didn’t seem polite.

A tall, slim man, dressed cowboy style in boots, hat, and belt, leaned against the door to her van as she approached.

“Baxter, how nice to see you.” When would it not be nice to see Baxter? No one in Saltlick was as good looking as he was, for sure.

“Same here, Imogene.” He shifted the toothpick in his mouth to the other side. “Hey, damn shame about your uncle.”

“Thanks.” Those dark eyes and that curly hair peeking out from under his cowboy hat brim made her pulse quicken as usual. He looked even better in street clothes than in his busboy apron, and he always looked pretty good in that, too.

“What’s gonna happen to the place?” He moved closer, and she could feel the warmth of his body.

“What place?”

“The diner, of course. You gonna run it?”

“Baxter, I haven’t even thought about that. Chief Emersen has Mother at the station.” Her voice threatened to crack.

“Your mother? What for?”

Now why did I blurt that out? Damn those deep, dark eyes of his.
“I’m not sure. He came by and picked her up a couple of hours ago.”

“Probably just wants to ask her some questions about Hugh. I guess you and her are his closest relatives. Who owns the diner now, you?”

“Do police usually take people to the station just to ask them questions? And for two hours?”

Baxter squinted at her. “How would I know a thing like that?”

Immy stuttered a few words to the effect that she didn’t know how he would know, sorry for asking. She yanked the van door open, backed out, and headed down the road, glad to escape his accusatory glare.

She hoped Baxter hadn’t thought she was implying he’d had trouble with the cops, because she was pretty sure he had. Must have been something Hugh or her mother had said, maybe before he came to Saltlick.

Now where?

Maybe her PI guidebook would hold some answers.

The pages of
The Moron’s Compleat PI Guidebook
blurred. Reading it wasn’t doing a good job of taking her mind off Mother. Immy, feeling comfy on the plaid couch, and guilty for doing so, kept trying to picture her at the police station. Immy herself hadn’t been inside the building since her fourth grade field trip. It wasn’t a place Hortense encouraged her to frequent, although Immy often wanted to drop in. She always thought she might feel closer to her father there.