Hide & Find (Mayfield Cozy Mystery Book 3) (7 page)

“I’ll be back at one o’clock,” I called.

But Loretta only waved — more like a twitch, really — and passed through the small cluster of people taking the last drags on their cigarettes outside the basement entrance to the fellowship hall.

oOo

Selma had been spot-on in her speculation about the nature of the key and the location of the safe deposit box. The teller I approached at First Pacific Bank didn’t bat an eye when I made my request and produced the key. She went to fetch the manager.

If appearance was any indicator, there was no way I’d be able to pull a fast one on Mr. Sykes. He was a bit of an oddity for Woodland — precisely parted and gelled black hair and compression wrinkles at the corners of his downturned mouth, dandruff sprinkling the shoulders of the navy suit jacket that was too broad for his shoulders.

In running Skip’s charitable foundation, I’d had lots of experience with the customer service staff of large, international banks. Without exception, I had well established, even amicable, relationships with them, no doubt greased by the long extension of digits in the accounts under my control. They’d always offered coffee or tea and ushered me into their interior, leather-clad offices — the ones with spectacular views of San Francisco Bay.

Mr. Sykes was under no such constraints. He sidled up to me on the public side of the partition and breathed on me with an audible nasal whistle as I explained that I thought my husband had rented a safe deposit box at this particular branch.

He scowled but turned on his heel. “Come through.” He whipped a card passkey on a stretchy lanyard from his pocket — the epitome of financial geekiness — and swiped it through the reader on a heavy metal door.

He stood in the doorway while holding it open, forcing me to squeeze past him into a cramped room. One wall was lined with little hatches, the numbered doors double-keyed.

Mr. Sykes unlocked and pulled out a drawer, like an old-fashioned library catalog system. “Name?”

“Nora Ingram-Sheldon. Box 127.”

He flipped through cards, paused, backtracked, partially lifted a card out and narrowed his hard brown eyes at me. “That’s not what it says here.”

“We’re recently married. My husband rented it before the wedding. Perhaps it’s still under my maiden name? His full name is Sanford Paul Sheldon.” I omitted the part about his friends always calling him Skip. Bank managers are notoriously unappreciative of non-legal nicknames.

Mr. Sykes left the card cocked at an angle and held out a sweaty hand. “ID.”

I dug in my tote bag and proffered my driver’s license with a flourish.

He matched my ID to the card, then slid an admission ticket onto the table between us. “Sign please.”

I tried to relax, let the pen flow, but not have the result so sloppy that it wouldn’t match. I left a healthy space between my maiden and married surnames. Clearly, Mr. Sykes was a diehard rule-abider.

When I’d finished, he lined up all three documents and analyzed them one more time. Even upside down, I could tell the signature on the original registration card was mine — on a piece of paper I’d never seen before in my life. I’d been right about the registered name being only Nora Ingram.

Skip must have copied it onto the rental agreement at some point. It would have been easy enough to do — my signature was all over the place on foundation paperwork. So I could add forgery to his list of crimes. But why?

Mr. Sykes skirted around the table and stuck a different key — a real key this time — into one of the locks for box 127. He presented his palm, and I dropped my key into it. Then he repeated the process.

When the little door was open, he withdrew his own key and backed out of the room. “Take your time,” he said, sounding almost conciliatory now that I’d passed all the tests.

I waited until the door closed solidly behind him then slid the inordinately long but shallow box out of the slot and rested it on the table. I struggled for a deep breath. What a bizarrely anticlimactic moment of truth in this stuffy room.

Which got even worse when I pried open the lid to find only one item in the box — another flash drive. I know we live in a digital age, but little black plastic doohickeys aren’t that exciting, at least not to look at. Whoop-tee-do. Frankly, naked cubist women were better surprises.

I shoved the flash drive in my pocket and tipped up the box just to confirm it really was empty. Then I replaced the box and clicked the little door closed.

I didn’t know what I’d been expecting, but this surely wasn’t it. I guess I’d hoped for a sheaf of pages — a transcribed confession. Or maybe the address of a safe house where I could find Skip. Plane tickets to Brazil. Keys to a turbo-charged getaway car. Apparently, my imagination was far more resourceful than reality.

I’d grasp at any information that felt productive or at least offered some resolution. Instead I got a gadget that I’d have to wait to decipher. The last flash drive, the one from the pouch Selma had guarded, hadn’t offered anything I didn’t already know.

Waiting — over and over and over again. It was driving me crazy.

I glanced at my paper trail lying on the table then quickly checked the corners of the ceiling. No cameras.

Of course not. Safe deposit boxes were supposed to be private. Not even the bank employees knew what was in them.

What were the odds the FBI would be aware of my visit to the bank? No matter how sneaky there were, they couldn’t have planted a tracking device on Lentil yet, could they?

I snatched up the registration signature card and admission ticket and stuffed them into the bottom of my tote bag next to my stash of burner cell phones. I’d love to conceal the date I had access to the box, or even the fact that Skip had planned in advance and procured a box at all. Perhaps I could take advantage of Mr. Sykes’s minor procedural omission before he scanned the evidence of my visit into the computer records, if they even did that kind of thing. Maybe their system was so old it really was paper-only. Better luck for me.

I tossed the key in my bag too. I wouldn’t be returning, but there was no need to inform the staff of that fact. I was more than happy to let the rent lapse on an empty box.

CHAPTER 8

When I pulled up next to the First Presbyterian Church to retrieve Loretta, she was waiting on the steps with a woman dressed in a twin set and smart slacks under a boiled wool coat, a string of pearls around her plump neck. I recognized her immediately — Maeve Berends, the county clerk who was helping me work through the documents needed to establish a legal identity for Emmie.

I hopped out of the truck and trotted over to them.

“Nora.” Maeve pulled me in for a quick hug. “It’s been a pleasure to meet your mother-in-law.”

“I didn’t know—” I gestured vaguely toward the church’s heavy wooden door.

“That I’m an alcoholic? Most people are tired of hearing about my problems, so I save the details for when they seem pertinent, for when they might help others.” She nodded toward Loretta. “We’ve been having a good chat.”

Loretta shivered and hugged her arms around herself, her face the same sickly pale shade it had been earlier. I suddenly realized just how ill-prepared she was for the frigid weather. Her thin layers of clothing did nothing to block the cutting breeze.

“Ready?” I asked her.

After Loretta managed a pinched smile and headed for the truck, Maeve grabbed my hand and leaned in to whisper, “Hear her out. She has a good idea. Tarq’s one of us, but he would never ask for help.”

Of course, Maeve would know Tarq, at the very least from his days as a practicing attorney when he frequented the courthouse where she worked. Maybe he’d even joined AA, because as far as I knew he no longer drank, but he’d done enough damage earlier in his life to be suffering the fatal consequences now.

I squeezed Maeve’s hand in reply and hurried after Loretta.

We buckled up, and I got the heater vents aimed her direction. “Okay. Spill.”

Loretta cast a tentative glance at me, and I gave her the raised eyebrow sign of tell-me-or-else.

“Tarq has more work to do for you, right? You need him? That’s why we stopped by his place earlier?” she ventured.

I shifted Lentil into gear. “Yeah, I really need his expertise — and his boldness. He has a fearlessness because of his condition. In order to help me, he has to confront scary people and do reputation-damaging things, tasks most other lawyers would turn down flat. I don’t think I’d be able to find anybody else who’d be willing to take me on as a client.”

She exhaled loudly. “I thought so. I might be fuzzy-headed sometimes, but I’m not dumb. I know more than you think I do, Nora, and I know you’re trying to shield me. But here’s the thing—” she bent her knee and shifted on the seat so she faced me, “I don’t have anything left to lose either. Tarq and I — we’re in the same boat.”

“You’re sick?” I gulped.

Loretta’s laugh stuttered out. “No, not that I know of. I’ve just come to the conclusion that I don’t have any dignity left that’s worth preserving. I lost it years ago, drank it away. But if I could give myself for someone else—” Tears tracked down her cheeks. “It would be a form of redemption for me. Please, Nora, let me do this.”

“Do what?” I had to force the words past the tightening in my own throat.

“Live with Tarq.”

Gravel spun up inside the wheel wells, and I yanked Lentil back onto the pavement.

“Close your mouth.” Loretta braced herself against the dashboard and giggled through her tears. “Not like
that
. He clearly needs someone to look after him. Around the clock, not just sporadically. Cooking, cleaning, making sure he sleeps and doesn’t overexert himself, driving him to appointments. I probably wouldn’t be as agreeable a companion as his old dog was, but I’d do my best. If he needs someone to nag him, I can do that too.”

I nodded slowly. There really was no question about Tarq’s need. It was glaringly obvious with just a single glance at him or his living arrangements.

“Yes?” Loretta’s face brightened.

“You know he’s going to hate it. And become even more obstinate and grouchy. Two women ganging up on him and telling him what to do.” I shook my head. “He’ll resent the intrusion, the assumption he’s not able to care for himself, the — well, the whole situation. And he’ll have every right to feel that way.” I slanted a worried look at Loretta. “I don’t know how he’ll treat you, what he’ll say.”

“I’m tough,” Loretta piped. “If the path you’re on doesn’t have any obstacles, then it probably doesn’t lead anywhere.”

“Uh-huh.” I choked back a chuckle, imagining Tarq’s response to an onslaught of Loretta’s snappy quips. The irascible lawyer versus the incorrigibly chipper mother-in-law. Let the battle begin.

Loretta and I stopped at the general store and went on a mega shopping spree. I wasn’t going to release her into the wilds of Tarq’s cabin without proper survival gear.

Etherea Titus, store proprietress and encyclopedic archivist of all things May County, bristled with undisguised curiosity, but I managed to pay out of my dwindling supply of cash without revealing the intended destination of all the new goods. I couldn’t avoid Etherea and Loretta chatting it up, however, but it was probably too late to prevent their exchange of juicy tidbits anyway because of Gus’s earlier taxi service for Loretta. There’s not a person or vehicle that passes through this shared four-way stop that isn’t observed and speculated upon.

I was pretty sure Loretta would fall under the same protection umbrella I had, though, with my nosy neighbors looking out for all of us and ready to lend a hand at a moment’s notice.

When Lentil’s bed was loaded to the gills with mops and buckets, chemicals of the sanitizing variety, even a couple gallons of paint, and warm bedding and pillows, we made our way home where we bolstered ourselves even further with a heavy pot full of Clarice’s fragrant stew, Loretta’s small travel case, and Emmie.

I wrapped an arm around Emmie’s shoulders as she snuggled into my side and we bounced back over Mayfield’s cratered driveway. I’d missed her. When would I be able to stop doing grown-up things and spend the day playing with her?

Although she didn’t know it, Emmie was along for moral support. I figured Tarq wouldn’t yell at us in front of the child. I’d also slipped Loretta one of my burner phones and given her the number to reach me at if she needed reinforcements in the future. I didn’t want her to think we’d abandoned her to her fate out there in the boonies.

oOo

Tarq was surprisingly docile, and I think it was because he was in incredible pain. His breathing was shallow, and his skin even more yellow than this morning.

Emmie sat at the kitchen table with him while Loretta and I shuttled in the supplies. She’d drawn a picture of Ollie for him — a younger, happier Labrador next to a gurgling stream with butterflies circling his head. Maybe it was her idea of doggy heaven. Made me wonder what kind of conversations Emmie and Clarice had had during my absence this afternoon.

Tarq cleared his throat — the ripping, phlegmy sound that was starting to really scare me — and patted Emmie on the head with a trembling hand.

Loretta and I made a massive pile in the living room, dug out the air mattress and inflated it. She spread out her new sleeping bag and plumped a pillow.

Then she gave me the eye, and I nodded agreement. We tiptoed down the short hallway to the inner sanctum of Tarq’s bedroom, keeping our ears pricked for Emmie’s light voice. She seemed to be explaining the plot of a Clifford, the Big Red Dog book to Tarq.

The first thing Loretta did was fling open the window, letting in a blast of welcome fresh, if frigid, air. We stripped the bed in a flurry.

“There must be a washing machine somewhere,” I muttered, trying not to inhale. The odor wasn’t gross — yet — just oppressively stale and, for lack of a better word, old — probably the way the pyramids smelled the first time an archaeologist cracked them open.

“I’ll find it later,” Loretta gasped. She slipped the new sheet set out of the package, and we tucked the corners around the mattress, working in rapid tandem. New pillows, a down comforter in a very masculine brown color, and a couple hot water bottles completed the ensemble.

“Take it easy,” I whispered to Loretta. “This is a massive disruption for him, and he’s obviously not good with change. I know you’ll need to make the place livable enough that you can survive here, but don’t go foofy on him — no fuzzy toilet seat covers, no ruffled curtains, nothing pink.”

Loretta giggled. “I hate that stuff myself. I’ll settle for clean.”

“Nora?” Emmie called from the doorway, her eyes wide at the piles of linens and wrappers. “Mr. Tarq wants to talk to you.”

Loretta and I shared a grimace. Then Loretta took Emmie’s hand and said something about checking the bathroom. I scooted down the hall wondering which task was worse — facing Tarq’s wrath or scouring his tub.

“I know this is presumptuous—” I started when I slid into a chair across from Tarq, but he waved his hand, cutting me off.

“I greased the cogs,” he said, his voice rough.

It took me a long moment to realize what he was referring to. “The gold?”

“One bar at a time, and you’ll need to have a big gap between them, six months or more, in order to not arouse suspicion. I’ll arrange the first transfer. If the transaction goes well with my contact, I’ll give you each other’s information.”

I nodded. Tarq was surely protecting me. His contact was probably on the wrong side of the law and not someone I should have on speed-dial just yet. “Thanks. I just need to cover the boys’ camp renovations for now. Did you have a look in the storage unit?”

“Not yet,” Tarq grunted. “I’d have been too much of a road hazard today.”

I winced at his self-assessment, but plunged ahead while pretending not to notice. “Loretta could drive you — when you’re ready. I’d like your opinion on what else is in there.” Tarq pitched a bushy eyebrow at me, but I hurried on, hunching into a whisper over the table, “Speaking of Loretta, I need to stash her somewhere. I don’t think the FBI knows where she is, and I want to keep her location secret from the mob too. She’s a tempting target for both of them, for different reasons, obviously. And she’s pretty fragile. Do you mind terribly if she camps out with you?”

Ha. Preemptive strike. Tarq looked a little taken aback, but he mumbled something that sounded moderately hospitable.

“She’s fidgety when she’s nervous,” I continued whispering. “So she might drive you a little crazy, but I think she can cook.”

Tarq’s eyes narrowed, turning his face into an unreadable mask.

“She might be OCD about cleaning too. I think it’s because she’s never really felt at home anywhere,” I added for good measure, just to give Loretta a psychological excuse for the scrubbing she was going to need to do to make the cabin healthier for both of them.

It was a minor fabrication, but I imagined it could be valid. Maybe they would more readily tolerate each other’s foibles if they both thought the annoyances were caused by various forms of infirmity. Even though, in reality, they were two of the strongest people I knew. I could only hope they wouldn’t kill each other, and I didn’t feel bad about a couple white lies to that end.

We ate with Tarq. It was a quiet meal, but I was pleased to see he emptied his bowl and took a second roll to swipe up the remaining traces of sauce.

When Emmie and I left, Tarq was reviewing notes at the kitchen table — my case probably, since I was his only client — while Loretta washed dishes and stacked them on the drainboard.

It was a sweet domestic scene. My diplomacy seemed successful. Maybe when this was over, I could get a job at the United Nations.