Half Past Mourning (21 page)

Nina steeled herself to answer. She wished Al Hayes were there to deal with what was sure to be an agonizing revelation. He wasn’t, and Nina knew she must tell Marigold what had transpired.

“Actually, the lawyer, a Mr. Borman, was pretty forthcoming once he learned Danny and I were married and that no one had had any direct contact with him since the wedding.”

Marigold sat up sharply, her head tilted, to issue an arrogant denial. “That isn’t true! You forget, Nina, that
I
have been in constant contact with my son. He may not choose to get in touch with you, but he’s certainly not ignored his duty to his mother.”

Irritating as Marigold was, Nina couldn’t help feeling pity for the woman who held so tightly to an illusion. “The lawyer looked at Danny’s files, Marigold. He examined the financial reports, the bank statements, everything.” She tried to reach out to the woman beside her, but Marigold drew away from her touch.

“I can’t believe the attorney would share confidential information with you, Nina. It’s a breach of trust or a violation of ethics or something. Lawyers just can’t talk about their client’s affairs. Why, Borman wouldn’t even give me information, back when Danny was still a child, even though I was his mother!”

“Marigold, the only thing the attorney told me was that Danny’s money went to a bank where it has never been touched. Not a single dollar has been withdrawn in over two years.” Though the woman resisted her touch, Nina put her hand over Marigold’s thin fingers. “If Danny hasn’t used the money in his account, what has he been living on for the last two years? The law firm doesn’t have an address for him. The bank says he’s not spending any money. And the only word you’ve had from him has been telegrams, impersonal telegrams, and a call from a friend you can’t identify. No one has heard Danny’s voice, seen his face, or had his handwriting in over two years, Marigold. That’s what the lawyers said to me.” Nina sat back. “We have to think of possibilities other than that Danny just didn’t want to be married to me. We have to think there are other reasons he’s dropped out of sight.”

Marigold’s face paled under its perfect pancake makeup. She shook Nina’s hand away. “You’re trying to say my boy isn’t alive.” She stood, the hem of her skirt snapping as she turned. “Let me tell you something, Nina Kirkland, I’d know,
I’d feel it in my soul,
if something had happened to my boy. You’re either making a mountain out of some little thing the lawyer let slip, or that fool lawyer palmed a story off on you just to keep Danny’s affairs private. Danny isn’t dead! He couldn’t be.” She snatched up her handbag and marched to the door, each step marked by the sharp click of her impossibly high heels. “You have a lot of nerve, Nina, coming up with this story. Trying to cover your own misbehavior with a lot of wild speculation about Danny. Going to see the lawyers, creating this awful tale, all that was just misdirection. Whatever else went on, the lawyers and the sheriff and all that, what you really did was spend the night with a man. No matter what story you pull out of thin air, everybody will know you had an illicit tryst while still claiming to be Danny’s loving and faithful wife. People will talk, Nina. People with schoolchildren, parents of your students, are going to hear of this. I wonder if you’ll still be teaching once this story gets around.”

“Marigold, think what you’re saying!” Appalled, stricken with the implied threat, Nina hurried after her mother-in-law. A word or two in the right ears could impact Nina’s place on the faculty, and Marigold had enough influence, knew enough people in positions of authority, to speak those words. Nina could only guess what would happen if Marigold lashed out in that way. “Listen to me. Sheriff Hayes thinks Danny might be dead, too. He was in the office the same as I was. I’m sick to think something might have happened to Danny, but the possibility is real. You must see that.”

“I see that Al Hayes is an old fool who goes in whatever way the wind blows.” Marigold flew out the door and all but ran to her car. “I don’t know what to think of you, Nina. I’m shocked by your behavior and your callous disregard for my feelings! Your mother would turn in her grave if she knew.” Marigold swept into the car and slammed the door. With a spatter of wide-flung gravel, she pulled away from the curb, executed a sharp, three-step turn in the road, and drove away, bits of stone still settling in her wake.

Shaken from her harrowing encounter with Marigold, Nina cast an anxious glance up and down the street. Her neighbors could have heard almost everything, she realized. What would they think? What would get back to the school board? Nina couldn’t believe Marigold would carry out her unspoken threat, but in a small town rumors moved quickly. Nina realized she could be facing two crises—Danny’s almost certain death and the loss of a job she loved.

Her quiet house felt unsettled, as if a residue of Marigold’s outburst remained. Nina unpacked her overnight bag, put her things away, and puttered about the house. Sinbad, still annoyed at being cast out of his own living room, took up a disdainful position on top of the fridge and ignored her.

Unable to find comfort in her house or refuge in a book, she finally changed into red capri pants and a bandana print shirt, got her keys and bag, and rolled Woody out of the garage. Too restless to sit at home, at least she could make a run out to Uncle Eldon’s and get those rally directions from him. She needed to catch him up on the happenings of the day before.
Wonder if he’ll make the same connections, reach the same judgment I have?
Uncle Eldon was the most sensible man she knew. If there was an error in her thinking, he’d see it. He could look at the evidence and tell her if she was leaping to conclusions.

Driving always took her mind off her troubles. Nina relaxed a little, drew an easier breath, as she turned onto the highway. Though the day was hot enough to make the highway shimmer before her, a welcome breeze came off the river and made the afternoon bearable. Still, Nina was relieved when she pulled into the parking lot beside her uncle’s office. The asphalt stuck like liquid glue as her canvas flats touched the ground. Heat seemed to bond to their thin soles.

“Hey, Nina,” a voice called, and she saw Ron Reeves crossing the lot to join her.

“Hi, Ron, how are you? And your parents?”

He caught up with her at the door and held it a moment so she couldn’t proceed inside. “I’m fine and the folks are doing as well as we can expect for people with all the troubles of old age,” he answered. “But I’m glad I saw you. I need to talk to you about something.”

Nina caught an odd tone, a concern, in his voice. “Something wrong, Ron? Uncle Eldon?”

Ron nodded, a long crease forming wrinkles across his forehead. “Remember I told you I was worried about him, Nina? While I was gone to see the folks the last time, he rolled himself out to the paint shop. Moved some equipment around, stuff too heavy for him to be trying to shift. This place belongs to him, and he can do anything he wants, I suppose, but
dammit,
if he gets hurt while he’s here by himself, there’s nobody to hear him or come see about him. Can you talk him into staying out of there, at least when I’m gone and there’s no one else around?”

Ron all but vibrated with anxiety, and Nina was touched by his concern. “I don’t know if it will do any good, Ron. You know how hard he tries to stay independent. But I’ll talk to him. I promise.”

Shrugging and shaking his head, Ron opened the door for her. “I guess that’s all I can ask. Just try to make him see he’s taking risks he doesn’t need to take.”

Nina nodded, acknowledging his worry, and hurried along the cooler hallway to her uncle’s custom-made lair inside. She found him sitting behind his desk rather than in his shop surrounded by the cars he loved and lovingly restored. He was thumbing through a handful of pages as she came in.

“Hey, Snookie.” His smile lit his worn face as she came in. “I was just going to call you. Had a long visit with Al Hayes this morning, wanted to see how you’re doing.” The brightness of his smile dimmed. “I’m sorry, Nina, I know that trip didn’t turn out the way you hoped.”

“The sheriff told you?” In a way Nina was glad she didn’t have to go through the story again to fill in the details for her uncle.

Lassiter nodded and pushed the pages aside. “He did, and he told me how he added it up.”

“You agree that it looks as if Danny’s dead?”

“I’m afraid so, Snookie. I know you wanted to believe he was coming back, but I’ve been sorta wondering if something bad hadn’t happened to him. Looks like the end of the search for him, doesn’t it?”

Nina took the visitor chair opposite him and drew it closer. “That’s the only way it can be, as far as I can see. Only thing that makes sense. Danny’s dead and has been since, oh...” She struggled to say the words. “Has been since he walked away from the church, more or less, within hours, anyway. You think it’s that way? You see anything that says he’s alive?”

“I wish I could say otherwise, but I can’t.” The fan whirring above was the only sound for a minute. “Don’t know what it’s going to do to Marigold when she finds out. Sure don’t envy the sheriff having to tell her, either.”

Nina flinched at the memory. “He won’t have to tell her. She came to see me this morning, five minutes after I got home, to give me what-for for my indecent behavior and lack of respect for the Wilson name. She thinks I’m having an affair with Peter.” The ugly accusations still rankled. Nina went on. “So I told her what happened in Dallas.” Leaning her elbows on the desk, Nina massaged her tight temples. “She doesn’t believe it, refused to look at anything that might suggest Danny died.” The long sigh that escaped Nina’s lips betrayed her emotional turmoil. “She’s determined to think the worst of Peter and me, even threatened, in an indirect way, to talk to the school board about my indiscretions.” Nina shrugged. “I suppose she might do it, but surely the board wouldn’t take her somewhat biased viewpoint, would they?”

Eldon Lassiter snorted. “Not by the time the sheriff and I got through taking them over the jumps. I don’t think they’d be that foolish.” He shifted the angle of his chair. “I’m sorry the sheriff didn’t have a chance to head her off before she tackled you, Snookie. He planned to get over there early, but a spot of trouble at the inn in Barlow took him off course.” Lassiter picked up the sheaf of pages and handed it across the desk to her. “Take a look.”

Nina fanned the pages and found herself looking at a half dozen reports of stolen cars. She glanced up at her uncle. “What’s this? The sheriff is taking on investigations from all the counties around here? He needs more work for his deputies?”

Rolling his wheelchair back a few inches, Lassiter turned to hand her a typed list. “Nope, he’s got work enough. What happened at the inn last night was that a couple of guests came out to go to dinner and found their MG gone. Seems they’d only had it a week or so, and they didn’t take well to finding their brand-new toy had vanished.” A wrinkle of sympathy creased the retired driver’s face. “I’d be pretty ticked myself to find somebody’d taken off with my new plaything.”

A slight breeze stirred the papers on the desk. Nina picked them up. “And this missing MG brought the sheriff to all these other stolen cars?”

“In a manner of speaking,” Uncle Eldon agreed. “You remember a few weeks ago a certain Jaguar somehow got out of its garage and went missing while the owners were out of town?”

Nina thought a minute and then did recall there had been talk of the Jag one day when she ran into the sheriff at the museum. “I think I did know about that.”

Lassiter pointed at the stack of pages. “The sheriff remembered, too, and it got him to thinking. If you look at that pile of theft reports, you’ll notice that every one of them is some kind of flashy sports car. Not that there haven’t been a few other cars boosted from this area over the last thirty-six months, but it just seems like the proportion of snazzy cars to sedans is a bit high. And when that report on the MG came in, all kinds of bells went off in Al’s head. Too damn many thefts of the showy stuff for him to buy coincidence.”

“Does that mean the sheriff is going to put Danny’s disappearance on the back burner while he looks for all these cars, cars taken from as much as a hundred and fifty miles away and three years ago?” Nina didn’t think she could endure letting things sit again.

Lassiter held up helpless hands. “Don’t know what Al’s thinking on that is right now, Snookie. He keeps his cards close. He just asked me to put those descriptions out where the guys could see them. Men who work with cars for a living, they see things the average Joe doesn’t. If one of those stray sports cars comes along, my guys would notice. They just need to be told to look.”

Nina fanned the pages again. The cumulative value of the stolen cars totaled a staggering sum. She could see where the sheriff would be concerned.

“I was about to go put those out in the shop,” Uncle Eldon continued.

“And going to the paint shop to post one, too, I suppose?” Nina caught the guilty gleam in her uncle’s eye. “I heard about you trying to move things out there while Ron was gone. You’ve got to stop that before you get hurt, Unc. We need you around here.”

Her uncle squirmed a little in his chair. “You don’t know what it’s like, Snookie, having to wait for somebody to be where they can help you do the littlest thing. I know I shouldn’t be traipsing out there, but goldurn, it’s a pain to be so helpless.”

“Maybe it is, but I don’t want Ron to call me some morning and tell me you knocked yourself in the head trying to move a pile of scrap or buried yourself in a bin of bolts. Maybe you could hire somebody to be sort of a personal assistant? Get somebody you could train, who’d want to learn the business. Maybe?’

“Are you nagging me, Snookie?”

Nina laughed. “I am, and I think I’ll keep at it till you do something. Ron’s worried about you being here by yourself and getting hurt. Now that he’s mentioned it twice, I think I should be concerned. You’re all the family I have, remember? Think about it, will you?”