Choke (6 page)

“I know you know I did. I saw you as I was arriving. You were trying to hide in the library doorway. Where were you when I exited?”

Why did her mother not ask her what she overheard? Maybe she didn’t know Immy had entered the building while she was there. “I left. I saw you go in and I left.”

“So you know I did not harm Hugh.”

“Of course you didn’t, Mother.”
I hope you didn’t. That’s exactly what I’m so afraid of.

“And you didn’t either?”

Immy shook her head and turned away from her mother, burying her face in her book. Did her mother suspect that she had killed him? Had she lied to protect Immy? So she wouldn’t have to say she saw her there? Or did Mother kill him? Was she asking these questions now to make sure Immy didn’t see or hear the murder? This was her mother. Immy’s head swam. Her mouth felt dry. She was going to refuse to believe her mother could have killed anyone.

* * *

THE BLUE NORTHER THAT HAD KEPT the temperatures down for the past week or so blew itself out during the night, enabling the sun to rise unencumbered by clouds. Daylight shot through the thin curtains at the window of Cowtail’s Finest, Room 205, hitting Drew first. She had slept curled up beside her grandmother in the double bed, Immy taking the cot they had gotten delivered from the office.

Immy watched the light creep across her daughter’s soft, lax face, suddenly loving every inch of her even more than she always did. They had all slept in their clothes and gone to bed without bathing. Drew had been delighted about not brushing her teeth, but living like this wasn’t fair to her. It couldn’t go on too long.

Immy hitched herself off the cot and tiptoed into the bathroom with her cell phone. Clem answered after several rings, just as she was about to give up.

“Clem?” she whispered. “Can you do me a favor?”

“Imogene! Where are you? What’s the matter? Sore throat?”

“No, I’m whispering because everyone is sleeping.”

“Have you seen the news today, Imogene? Is Hortense all right?”

Oh, no, had they made the news? “Why? What do you know?”
And enough with the questions! Someone say something!

“They’re looking for you, for you and Hortense.”

“Is it the FBI? Scotland Yard? We’re on the lam.”

“You’re on the what?”

“I need you to do me a favor, Clem. Can you watch Drew for me for a few days?” A roach scuttled across the tile floor and disappeared behind the toilet. She swallowed a shriek. It was only a small roach, but Immy was barefoot. She climbed onto the toilet seat.

“Sure. I guess I can take her to the restaurant with me. I was thinking I might try and open up today or tomorrow.”

She wondered how on earth he could do that, and why, but right now she had to get something on her feet and something to whack the roach with.

“Bring her on over to the diner, Immy,” he said.” I’ll be here all day even if I don’t get it opened up. You want to come wait tables?”

“Are you crazy? We’re wanted. You just said so. I’ll bring her around the back in about an hour, two at the most. Don’t tell anyone you talked to me.”

Sitting on the cot, she pulled yesterday’s dirty socks back on.

“Imogene Duckworthy.” Mother was awake. “I am so fatigued I can barely open my eyes. I’m utterly exhausted. What are you doing, skulking about?”

“I’m not skulking, Mother, I’m trying to let you get your rest.”

Drew bolted up. “I’m hungry.” She began sobbing.

Immy sighed. “We’ll get something to eat in a minute, sweetie. Mother, I just called Clem and asked him to watch Drew for a while until the heat’s off.”

“Quit speaking in that manner. You sound like an idiot. Why did you ask Clem?”

Why did she? “Well, I knew he’d do it.” She knew he’d do anything if it involved Hortense or her relatives. The man was so besotted.

Immy picked up Drew, still sniffling, and headed out the door.

“And I don’t think he’ll rat us out.”

She didn’t wait to see her mother’s reaction.

Hortense looked as wrung out as she said she was, so Immy left her mother in the room and bundled her daughter into the van. After snatching a Cowtail morning paper from the front desk in the motel office, she headed for Saltlick.

“Where are we going, Mommy?” asked Drew.

“Uncle Clem is going to watch you for a while.” Clem wasn’t really an uncle, but Immy had always called him that.

Drew pondered this for a moment. “Watch me do what?”

Immy knew she couldn’t use the babysit word. Drew did not like to be referred to as a baby. “You’re going to stay with him at the restaurant today. Won’t that be fun?”

“Why will it be fun? Does he have Barbies?”

The damn Barbies again. Immy smiled as broadly as she could and deflected Drew from Barbie thoughts. “He might let you help in the kitchen. Wouldn’t that be fun?”

“There aren’t any Barbies at the restaurant.” Immy’s deflection didn’t work.

The highway was bordered on both sides by grazing pastures. “Look, Drew, cows!”

Drew gave them a glance, then returned her attention to her Barbie’s shoes, which would be the equivalent of hooker four-inchers if Barbie were full sized. Another deflection fell flat.

As they approached Saltlick, Immy wracked her brain to think of all the alternate routes she knew to the diner. She couldn’t just brazen her way down Second Street in her own vehicle, being a wanted criminal and all. Deciding on one of the less-traveled routes, she took a barely paved road that left the highway a half mile outside of Saltlick and wound around the Go Kart race track, which was one of the Friday night hot spots of the town when it wasn’t football season.

The van meandered cautiously down alleys and through the grade school parking lot and finally arrived at the back door of the diner.

“Now we have to be very quiet, Drew,” Immy said, unbuckling her daughter from her car seat in the alley.

“Why, Mommy?”

Immy searched for an answer. “The people at the library next door might be reading.”

Drew gave her a doubtful look, probably figuring out that wasn’t the real reason, but she remained silent for the short walk to the kitchen.

Clem jerked his head around when he saw them. He sucked in his breath and tightened his grip on the small cell phone in his massive fist.

“That’s all I can tell you,” he said into the phone and snapped it shut. He looked past Immy and Drew to the hallway. “Isn’t Hortense with you? Is she all right?”

“She’s fine, Clem, just tired today from all the excitement of yesterday, I think. She’s resting.”

His face relaxed a little. “Poor thing. It’s on TV that the police are looking for her and for you, too, of course. What can I do?”

“You said you’d watch Drew, right?”

“But isn’t there anything else I can do to help? Can I bring you some food? Is Hortense getting enough to eat?”

“We’ll be fine, Clem.” Immy crossed her fingers behind her back and hoped it was true.

Drew had already jumped onto Clem’s stool. She reached into the box on the work counter and pulled out a handful of sugar packets, laying them out to form what looked like a Barbie bed. At least there wouldn’t be a battle getting her to stay with him.

“Where are her spare clothes?” asked Clem.

“Spare clothes, right. I guess there is something you can do. We didn’t get a chance to take any clothes with us. The heat was on our tail. Could you go to the house and get her some?”

“Sure can.” He grinned at being able to be of service to his beloved’s granddaughter.

“You know about the loose screen in the back kitchen window?”

“Sure do. I’ll send Drew in through the window, and she can let me in through the door. Do you need me to cook something for you?”

This gave Immy pause. Clem didn’t often offer to cook when he wasn’t working. In fact, she had never known him to. Immy would love for Clem to bring them some of his wonderful chicken salad, but then he’d know the location of their lair. “I guess not. Please just make sure Drew gets fed. She hasn’t had breakfast yet today. Hortense and I will be very grateful for that.”

Clem beamed, glad to be of service.

“Clem, you didn’t happen to notice anything that day, did you? The day of the, well… Where were you around that time, the time Huey bought it?”

Clem frowned, looking like a troubled basset hound. All he needed was a pair of long ears. His were pretty large, but they didn’t hang down. “I had left shortly before. I wasn’t here when Hugh was killed.” He fiddled with the cell phone, still in his mitt. “We were out of cabbage for the coleslaw. I had to drive into Wymee Falls.”

“Hey, my pitcher! That’s my school pitcher!” Drew pointed to the Saltlick newspaper Clem must have left on the counter.

Immy came to the stool and looked over her daughter’s shoulder, then swallowed, feeling she had a wad of cud in her gullet. “Yes. It looks nice, doesn’t it?”

“Does it say anything about me?” asked Drew. “Your pitcher is there, too, and Geemaw. Look, there’s Geemaw.” She poked each figure with her index finger as she identified them.

“Yes. We’re all there, aren’t we? You don’t need to shout, Drew.”

The headlines were not good: Local Duo on Crime Spree.

The article was worse: Hortense Duckworthy, who was being questioned in connection with the death of Hugh Duckworthy, local business owner, managed to set fire to the jail in Saltlick and flee from there yesterday afternoon. Her daughter, Imogene, may have assisted her in the crime. It is believed they have a child with them, Nancy Drew Duckworthy, Imogene’s daughter and Hortense’s granddaughter, who may be in danger.

“Who wrote this?” Immy tore her eyes away from the paper and paced the length of the kitchen and back. She couldn’t resist reading the rest of the article, though, and returned to peer over Drew’s shoulder again. The reporter hinted that Mrs. Duckworthy had been elevated to the level of suspect in her brother-in-law’s death, along with Imogene, and the article warned everyone to be on the lookout for them. There was something else about child endangerment.

Child endangerment! She’s my daughter. I’m not endangering her. Jeez!

“It’s all lies, Immy,” said Clem, “obviously.” He must have read the whole article already.

“Yes, obviously.”

After Clem and her daughter left in his truck to get Drew’s clothes, Immy considered her next move. She had wanted to pursue a career that involved catching criminals, not a career of being one. She had never even contemplated a life on the run and wasn’t at all sure what to do. She needed another book. That meant a visit to the book store in Wymee Falls.

The only thing she knew she couldn’t do was show her face in public. Maybe she could concoct a disguise, scout the territory incognito. Would there be anything usable in the van? She opened the back passenger door and rummaged through the collected debris beside Drew’s car seat. She found several Barbie shoes and one tiny cardigan. There was also a full-sized cardigan, very full-sized. It was her mother’s and said size 3X on the tag. A woolen cap was left over from winter. It had been bought so that it would fit Drew now and for several years in the future, and it was quite stretchy. Immy found she could stuff all her hair up under it. With the huge sweater wrapped around her, maybe she could get by without being made if she kept her head down. But what if she had to look up? She needed something more.

She crawled back to the storage space in the rear and hit the jackpot, a pair of Groucho Marx glasses with a mustache that Clem had given to Drew. Immy returned to the front seat and tried them on. No, the mustache looked a little too plastic. She broke it off and tried the glasses again. Pretty good, unless you looked closely enough to see there were no lenses. It would have to do. She was a desperado, after all, and they are desperate people.

Immy drove into Wymee Falls and went straight to the book store. She parked in the alley behind it so no one would see her van. Maybe the police had her license number and had put out an APB, or maybe they used a BOLO. Either one would form a dragnet that might reel her in.

She walked to the front of the store with tiny steps, hunching her shoulders forward and keeping her head low. She hoped to look nearsighted. No one would be looking for a nearsighted person. Her eyesight was excellent, after all. Everyone knew that.

She knew she couldn’t loiter. Her heart hammered as she zeroed in on the How To aisle and grabbed a book called
Criminal Procedures
, then picked up a copy of the Wymee Falls newspaper. When she paid at the front counter, she tried to fumble her money a little like an old person. That proved easy with the way her hands shook. She didn’t dare look up to see how her disguise was going over. She handed over the money, glad she still had enough left for a few more days, picked up the book and the paper, and turned away.

“Wait a minute, ma’am.” The clerk was calling her back. Was she made?

Immy froze for a moment, then turned back toward him, slightly, still keeping her head down.

“Your change. You forgot your change.”

Whew. Her secret was safe.

“OK,” she said. Damn! She hadn’t been going to say anything so they couldn’t hear what her voice sounded like. “OK,” she repeated in a low, hoarse tone.

“Are you all right, ma’am?” He lowered his head, trying to peer into her eyes. She wasn’t going to show him what color they were, no matter how hard he tried. She nodded, took the change, then fled.

“Oh, shoot.”

“What is it, Imogene?” Hortense tore her attention away from the blaring quiz show for a few seconds.

“This stupid book.” Immy waved
Criminal Pursuits
at her mother. “This is a stupid, stupid book.”

“Books can’t be stupid. Authors and readers can be, but books cannot.”

“OK, so it’s me that’s stupid then. I thought this book would tell me how to be a criminal. Instead it tells how to pursue them.”

Hortense shook her head. She glanced at the screen and said “What is triangulation?” to Alex Trebec.