Deadly Gamble: The First Charlie Parker Mystery (19 page)

The girl was on her feet now, giving me the
evil eye, like I had romantic intentions toward her man. Please.
I'm old enough to be his . . . his much older sister.

"I'll at least stick the potato salad in the
fridge so it doesn't go bad," I said. "If you don't eat soon, you
better put the rest of it away, too."

"Okay." The two of them went back to the
other room.

"You doing all right?" I asked when I
returned to the living room.

He shrugged. "Okay, I guess."

"At the risk of sounding like everyone else,
I'd say you can call me if you need anything. But maybe I
shouldn't. Just know that you can." I pulled a card from my jacket
pocket and laid it on top of the TV set. He smiled but didn't
acknowledge the card.

"So, what will you do now?" I asked.

"Whatta you mean? Same as ever, I guess."

"Look, not to put a real damper on things,
but I doubt if the welfare people, or whoever has a say in these
things, are gonna let you just live alone. You're still under
age."

"Hey, I can take care of myself just fine,"
he protested.

"I'm sure you can. But I know how this is. My
parents both died when I was sixteen, too."

He looked straight at me. "No shit!"

"No shit. Killed in a plane crash coming home
from Denver. It was just a quick weekend trip. I'd stayed over with
a girlfriend." Stacy. "I thought I'd just go home and run the place
by myself, but I didn't have the say-so in it."

"So, what'd you do?"

"Well, I was real lucky to have a neighbor
who's like a grandmother to me. She took me in until I was out of
school. Luckily, my folks left the house to me, so I moved back
into it when I was in college."

Josh was quiet for a couple of minutes.
"Well, I sure as shit can't stay here," he said finally. "Not
unless I can come up with a month's rent by the first."

The girl had wound both her arms around one
of his and stared up into his face now, like she'd love to kiss it
and make it all better. He seemed oblivious to her.

"I've got an aunt," he said glumly. "Here in
town. She lives up in the northeast heights. I guess I'd have to go
to Eldorado." He mentioned the name of the other high school like
it was in Iran or somewhere equally friendly.

"It might not be so bad," I said, trying to
make it sound better than it really was. Having to transfer to a
new school near the end of one's junior year had to be pretty
disheartening. "Or wait, what about seeing if they'd let you stay
at Highland? I think they do that now. If you've got your own car,
which you do, I'll bet it can be arranged."

He cheered up a little at that and decided
maybe he was hungry after all. We went into the kitchen and found
clean plates. He stacked on four pieces of fried chicken and close
to a pint of the potato salad. We carried our plates back to the
living room. They took the couch and I perched on the edge of the
vinyl recliner.

"Josh, I want to help find out what
happened," I said between bites off a chicken leg.

He shrugged, chewing. "Gangs, probably," he
mumbled with his mouth full.

"Are you sure? Don't you think this seems
awfully coincidental, both your parents so close together? Think.
Did your dad have enemies? What about your mom?"

"Maybe some of those guys my dad hung around
with," he suggested.

I glanced over at the girl, who had still not
said a word in my presence. Josh had not bothered to introduce us.
I had no idea what her name was. Maybe it wasn't such a good idea
discussing all this in front of her.

"Well, I'll do some checking on it," I said,
getting up to take my plate to the kitchen. I put it in the sink
and ran water over the sticky places.

Josh sat on the sofa with his plate on the
coffee table in front of him. Still packing away the chicken.

"Look, I've gotta go now," I said. "Stay in
touch. Let me know when you're moving."

I retrieved my jacket from the back of the
vinyl recliner and my purse from the floor behind it.

"I'll talk to you later, Josh." He waved,
still chewing.

Chapter 17

Back at the office not a lot was happening.
Sally bustled about in an effort to clear her desk. Nearly one
o'clock already. She handed me two pink message slips and her
outgoing mail. The messages were for Ron. Sally's jacket hung over
her arm, car keys in hand.

Rusty heard our voices and trotted down the
stairs to greet me. I scratched his ears while listening to Sally's
last-minute explanations.

Upstairs, Ron sat at his desk with the phone
jammed against his ear, pinned in place by his shoulder. I noticed
a sheen on his head where there isn't much hair. He jotted notes
with his right hand while reaching for his coffee cup with the
left. He spends so much time this way that he probably doesn't even
realize how many things he's doing at once. I dropped the two pink
slips in front of him. He raised his eyebrows at me, the only
available means of waving he could manage.

Across the hall, my own desk was beginning to
resemble a tornado path. Today's mail lay on top of the burgeoning
pile. Sally had probably set it there with reasonable care but the
whole thing was so unbalanced that it had slid, coming within a
quarter inch of falling to the floor. I tossed my purse and jacket
on the sofa and pulled out the trash can. I have to confess that
I'm not very tolerant of junk mail and three-fourths of the stack
went into the can unopened.

Of the remainder, I sorted it into stacks:
bills, correspondence and incoming money. I listened to the sound
of Ron's voice across the hall, although I couldn't make out the
words, while I applied the incoming checks to their respective
accounts and filled out a deposit slip. This felt like routine—Ron
on the phone, me working on the books.

I posted the receivables to the computer,
then ran a past-due report. The usual. A couple of the law firms we
work for are notoriously slow in paying. I'd have to send
statements. It only took a few minutes to update the records and
print the statements.

By three o'clock I'd paid the bills, stuffed
the customer statements into envelopes, and run a preliminary trial
balance of the general ledger accounts. I made a copy of this for
Ron in case he wanted it. He normally just glances at it and leaves
it up to me to be sure it's correct. Rusty planted himself on the
rug between me and the door, making sure he wouldn't be left behind
again. I worked without paying much attention to him until he
perked his ears toward the doorway.

Ron stood there stretching. He rubbed at his
neck and shoulder where the phone had rested, probably without even
realizing he did it. I handed him the trial balance pages.

"I'll probably work on this tomorrow," I told
him, "so if you see any problems with the numbers, speak up
soon."

"Okay." He glanced at the pages quickly.
"It'll make interesting reading while I'm on surveillance
tonight."

"Surveillance, huh? Your very favorite part
of the job."

"Yeah. Right."

"What? Another errant husband?"

"Nah, this is insurance fraud. Guy who's
suing for auto accident injuries. Claims he's totally
incapacitated. Company thinks he's faking it. Get this—they think
he may try to go bowling tonight."

I gave him a look.

"Yeah, the guy's crazy about bowling. His
league's forming up again and they think he might not be able to
resist."

"So you get to hang around the bowling alley,
or what?"

"Yup. Hell, the guy's learned to spot my car
in his neighborhood, so he's real careful what he does around home.
So, Joey and I are gonna put on our old bowling shirts and hang
around. I might get lucky. If the guy shows up I've got this little
no-flash camera and I'll try to get pictures of him in the act.
That oughta pretty well cinch the case."

"You and Joey, huh." He knows I can't stand
his buddy, Joey. He lives in Ron's decidedly tacky apartment
complex and somehow latched onto my brother as his best buddy. Two
divorced guys, commiserating about the exes and their kids.

"Well, have fun," I said drily. "Oh, before
you go, have you heard any more from Kent Taylor on the Detweiller
case?"

"As a matter of fact, I did. Ballistics
confirmed it. The same gun killed both of them. Now they sure would
like to find your friend, Stacy." He turned back toward his own
office, waving one hand in my direction. A minute later I heard his
voice on the phone again.

Stacy. I'd like to know where she was,
too.

I finished a couple of other printouts and
backed up my data on disk. Ron left and the office got quiet now
with him gone. I felt better about getting my own work under
control. The past week had seemed disorganized to me. Tomorrow I
could take care of the correspondence stack and get started
balancing the month-end books.

Rusty and I made the rounds, locking the
front door and checking the windows. I unplugged the coffee maker
and rinsed out the filter basket and pot. When I shut off the
water, I heard Rusty's low growl. I looked down to see the hair
rising on his neck. He was staring at the back door.

Behind the sheer white curtain in the upper
glass panel I saw a shadow. The glass coffee decanter was the only
weapon handy. I clutched it by the handle.

The shadow moved closer, toward the doorknob.
Rusty barked and it jumped back. Then a tentative knocking sounded.
I tiptoed toward the door. Pushing the sheer drape aside, I saw who
it was.

"Stacy!" I jerked the door opened. "Where
have you been?"

Rusty relaxed and came toward her, his tail
waving slowly back and forth. He sniffed at her pants leg.

"Come in," I said, pulling at her. "You
almost got clobbered by a coffeepot," I told her, realizing how
ridiculous I probably looked clutching the decanter like a
club.

She stumbled slightly over the doorsill.

"Stace?"

Her face didn't look right. Her makeup was
faded. The clothing which had been so stylish Saturday morning was
limp and wrinkled now. She seemed dazed.

"Stace, tell me what's wrong," I pressed. I
led her to the kitchen table and pulled a chair out for her. She
fell into it, her shoulders drooping, her expression blank.

I opened another chair out to face her and
took both her hands in mine. "Stace. Listen, you need to tell me
what's happened."

She swallowed hard and took a deep breath.
"I've been hiding out," she said.

"From the police? Oh, Stace, that's a
mistake. You need to tell them what happened."

"The police?" She focused on me, confused by
what I'd said. "No, Charlie. From Brad. I had to get away from
Brad."

"Wait a second. Maybe we better start over.
Tell me what happened with Brad. No, tell me everything that
happened since I saw you Saturday morning."

She leaned forward, more alert than she'd
been. "Saturday morning. I left your house thinking about what
you'd said, about how I'd built walls around myself. I decided to
find someplace to stay alone that night, to think about it. I found
this little bed and breakfast place. It was really peaceful."

"Did you tell Brad where you were?"

"I called, but remember, he was out of town.
So I left a message on the answering machine that I just needed to
be by myself for awhile. I didn't want to tell him where I was. He
would have found the place."

"Go on."

"I guess he came home Sunday morning. I
wasn't there and he didn't believe the part about my wanting to be
alone. He's very jealous." Her voice got thick at this point. She
took a minute to get under control again.

"When I got home that afternoon, he was in a
rage. He . . . well he was very angry." She just couldn't let go
with the details. "I got so scared. I grabbed my purse again and
took off. I went back to the place I'd stayed Saturday night. I
spent last night there again. Today, I've been wandering around
trying to figure out what to do next."

"You mean you weren't aware that the police
are looking for you?"

"Police! Why? Charlie, what's happened? Did
Brad . . .?"

"It's nothing to do with Brad, Stacy. Jean
Detweiller, Gary's wife, was murdered Sunday night."

"Murdered?" She said it like she was trying
to remember the definition of the word.

"They want to ask you some more questions," I
explained.

"I didn't even know her. How would I know who
killed her?"

"Stace, they think you might have done
it."

"Me! That's crazy, that's . . ."

"I know, I know." I had to grasp her arm to
keep her seated. "But you have to remember, they still think you
might have had something to do with Gary's death."

"Charlie . . ." Her voice trailed off. Her
eyes were wide with disbelief.

"They've run ballistics tests, Stace. Both
the Detweillers were killed with the same gun."

"Well, I don't know anything about any gun,"
she protested. "I don't know about any of this. This whole thing is
a nightmare, Charlie." Tears flowed like streams now. "My whole
life is a nightmare."

I located a box of tissues and handed them to
her.

"Stace, this place you stayed the last two
nights. Surely the people can testify that you were there. Last
night, did you stay there all night? You didn't go anyplace else,
did you?"

She was already on her third tissue. She
pulled another from the box and blew her nose.

"No, I stayed right there. The people were so
nice. We visited a little while after dinner, then they went to
bed. I stayed in my room and read a book. It was so peaceful, so
quiet."

I wondered whether the people who ran the
place would testify that she'd been there all night. If they went
to bed early, how would they know she hadn't left around midnight
and come back? I didn't say this to Stacy.