R.P. Dahlke - Dead Red 04 - A Dead Red Alibi (15 page)

Pearlie stood and put a hand on Mac’s arm. “I’m a pretty good judge of
character, and if her boyfriend is guilty, Reina is as much a victim in this as you are. She loved Bethany.”

His nostrils flared with distaste, and
Pearlie removed her hand. “Reina loves living here rent free.”

“She doesn’t pay rent?”

“I do the books for my daughter, so no, she hasn’t paid a dime. Bethany said they had some kind of agreement. But push come-to-shove, she’ll cover for her no-account boyfriend. I don’t need to put up with the likes of her on my property anymore.”

Mac got up, indicating that our conversation was over.

“Please Mac,” Pearlie said, seeing trouble. “Let us do our job before you make that decision.”

Mac’s jaw clenched. “Then you’d better find another suspect and soon. Or Reina Schmidt gets the boot.”

.

Chapter Twenty-four
:

I lifted a leg over the low-slung Bugatti and plopped into the passenger seat.
“We keep getting different stories. First Mac says he installed the No Trespassing signs, then Jason said he did, and before Bethany ever got here. Then Reina said she pays rent, and now Mac says she doesn’t.”

Pearlie,
ignored my comments, closed the driver’s door, causing it to squeak. “Your daddy should’ve oiled this Italian door along with the Italian engine.”

“So, who’s lying?” I asked.

Pearlie shrugged. “Didn’t I tell you folks lie to cover up secrets? Anyway,” she said, pointing at the bright light from Jason’s welding torch, “cute as he is, I’d like to see how Jason reacts when I tell him we know about his manslaughter conviction.”

“You read my mind,” I said, getting out again and following
her into the barn.

He was waiting for us, legs spread, helmet snugged up under his arm like a spare head.

He put the helmet and gloves on a high work bench and pointed us to a couple of nearby stools.

Pearlie pitched him the hard questions while I crossed my legs and pretended indifference.

“Your last comments about Bethany led us to believe that you could barely tolerate her,” she said.

His dark eyes went from Pearlie to me. Suspicion at our motives etched in his downturned mouth.

Pearlie flipped open her notebook. “You said, ‘I can get along with the devil himself if it means I can continue working here.’”

He shrugged. “So?”

“Reina says different.” Pearlie added. “She says you were in love with her.”

“Reina said that, huh? Her new meds must be interfering with reality again.”

“What kind of medications are you on?” Pearlie asked.

He shrugged again. “Unlike Reina, I’ve been completely honest with the detectives about
my
drugs.”

I started to ask what drugs he took when Pearlie nodded at his
workbench. “And maybe a little pot now and again?”

Jason laughed and switched on fluorescent lights. “That’s for a job.”

I got off my stool to peer at his sketches.

“A pharmacy for marijuana?
” I asked. “It’s legal here?”

“For medicinal purposes it is, but it won’t be long before it’s legal everywhere. It should be; it helps manage chronic pain, especially when nothing else works.”

So, Jason thought pot should be legal. I wondered if he also arranged the drop-off and pick up of bundles in the cavern.

“All right,” Pearlie said. “But you also did time in prison for manslaughter.”

His lips tightened but he didn’t deny it, either. “I was drunk. I hit a kid on a bike. I did two years, and now I attend daily meetings at the nearest AA. Anything else?”

“Yeah. What did you really think of Bethany?”

Irritation flashed in his eyes, then Jason looked down at the calluses on his hands. “She was good with people, especially broken people.”

“Like who?” she asked.

“There was this artist and his wife living in the cabin Reina has now. The old man’s dementia was getting to be too much for his wife so Beth found them a facility that would keep the couple together. And because she cared, she visited every week until they died.”

“And what did she do for you?”

“She was kind, and patient, and funny. And she listened,” he said, quietly. “Now if you’re finished asking stupid questions, I have work to do.”

As we walke
d out of the barn, I heard the flame of his acetylene torch fire up. A quick glance over my shoulder confirmed his helmet and gloves were back in place and Jason’s metal artwork would take the brunt of his temper.

“We should go home,” I said.

“What for?” Pearlie released the brake and stepped on the gas. “I got a hankerin’ to talk to Darlene again.”

“The Bugatti is unlicensed, remember?”

“Ah, come on. Live a little!” she yelled over the engine noise. “Besides, we’re only going into Wishbone.”

“You don’t have to take it out on me!” I yelled back. “I wasn’t the one who said Jason was in love with Bethany.”

Pearlie jammed her foot on the gas pedal and any further conversation about Jason Stark was left in a cloud of dust.

~~~~~~~~~~

Darlene was absent but Suzi was finishing up a haircut on an old man. I liked the music she had on, but she turned it down when we came in.

I elbowed Pearlie. “Isn’t that—?”

“Yeah. Deputy Dumb-Ass’s granddad. The one with the shotgun.”

Pearlie stepped up to the chair to thank him again for his help.

The old man squinted at Pearlie and chuckled. “Eh? Say, blondie, fancy meetin’ you here.”

“Will Darlene be back soon?” I asked Suzi.

“Why?” Suzi asked, a smile on her lips. “You looking for another bouffant hairdo?”

She had me there. I touched my ponytail t
o make sure it stayed that way.

“I’d like a manicure,” Pearlie said.

Suzi shrugged and whisked the drape off the old man. “Sorry, Darlene’s making funeral arrangements, and I’ve got appointments up to seven tonight.”

With her arms exposed in her salon wrap, I couldn’t help but notice the tattoos on her right bicep. Men’s names, like a shopping list gone wrong, were inked one on top of the other with lines drawn through all but the last name.

Noticing my stare she lifted her arm and explained. “When husband number one turned out to be a dud, I decided to have my tattoo artist draw a line through it. Might as well keep it where I could remind myself not to make that mistake again. But I seem to go through one skunk a year, con-artists, idiots, and deadbeats, and as you can see, I’m now up to number five.”

I leaned in to inspect the last name. “No line through his name?”

Suzi laughed. “He has yet to disappoint me, but the year isn’t over yet. Want to make an appointment for another day?”

“Pearlie?” I asked, “Do you want to make an appointment for later?”

Pearlie waved at us as she and Deputy Dumb-Ass’s granddad went out the door, leaving me to make excuses. “Um, I guess they’re catching up.”

“We should talk,” Suzi said.

“Do you have something to add about Darlene?”

“I do, but I’d rather not talk about it here. I’ll call you after work.”

Annoyed that Pearlie had left me on my own, I marched outside. She was waving at the departing rear end of an ancient Ford station wagon, then turned around and grinned at me.

“Suzi’s too loyal to talk about her boss, but gramps sure didn’t have that problem.”

“That’s what you think. Suzi’s going to call me after she gets off work.”

“Oh good. More dirt on Darlene?” she asked.

“I sure hope so,” I said. “What’d Mr. Abel have to say?”

“
I learned a couple of things. One: His grandson is ashamed of the family name. The name’s not Abel, it’s Dick.”

That explained the old man’s confusion when I called him Mr. Abel and the hand-printed
nametag over his grandson’s uniform pocket.

“So it’s not Deputy Abel,” I grinned. “It’s really Deputy Dick?”

“If this is the one you nick-named Deputy Dumb-Ass, I guess so.”

“Yes, but this is way better. I can’t wait to tell Dad and the K-9 rescue lady who helped us. He really got under her skin.”

“Don’t you want to hear what else he told me?”

“There’s more?”

“Oh yes, and you’re gonna love this. Guess which married hair dresser has a secret lover?”

I thought of Suzi and her tattooed bicep, and decided she wasn’t one for keeping
her lovers a secret.

“Darlene?”

Pearlie shot me a look of triumph. “And you know what I like better’n a handsome brown-eyed man?”

“No, but I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”

“I like finding out he’s a skunk before I fall in stupid love with him.”

My cousin had fallen for our pilot, Mad-Dog Schwartz, and though he’d proven that she could trust him with her life, Mad-Dog was, and always would be, a hound-dog.

“Okay, I’ll bite, tell me.”

Smug satisfaction gleamed in her eyes. “Why, Jason Stark of course.”

“Really!”

“Is that all you got to say? I’d lay bets Darlene thought Jason was slipping out of her grasp, went to confront the girl, and instead found her husband with Bethany.”

“And strangled Bethany then hit her own husband over the head and dragged him by the heels down the stairs, lugged his body into the backseat of her car, then threw his body into that mine pit?”

Pearlie’s nose twitched. “I didn’t get that far.
But she could’ve got Jason to help.”

“Do you
really
think Darlene would be jealous of Bethany?”

“I get it. Darlene’s a nice looking woman, so maybe Reina had it wrong about Jason’s attraction to Bethany. But that don’t mean Darlene wasn’t jealous. And jealousy seems like a mighty fine reason for murder to me.”

Murders, I’d come to find out, were usually acts of passion, but if planned, most women did their killing from a nice clean distance. Guns, poison, broken brake fluid hoses, killers for hire, that sort of thing. Which left me with the last question.

“Why would Jason go along with it?” I asked.

“To save his lover, Darlene, from a murder conviction, or maybe he was scared of being accused along with Darlene. He’s already done time for one manslaughter conviction.”

“I don’t see it. He
liked and respected Bethany. You heard him talk about her, and I’ll bet he was another one of her broken people.”

“Right now, I don’t know who’s lying about what. Let’s go home,” she said.

I got into the passenger seat and vowed to look for goggles to wear when riding in the open car.

~~~~~~~~~~

Pearlie and I found my dad and Caleb cheerfully saluting each other with beer bottles.

“What’s the occasion?” I asked.

My dad’s bushy eyebrows danced with excitement. “I hope to God you brought back the Bugatti in one piece.”

“Pearlie drove but she managed not to sideswipe anything.”

My cousin snorted. “Excuse me, but I’m not the one who rolled your dad’s Jeep.”

I ignored Pearlie’s snarky remark, and asked, “So what’s this about?”

My dad tipped his beer bottle at Caleb and grinned. “You tell her, Caleb.”

We flopped down onto the leather sofa and waited.

“It seems that that little race car you girls are using for daily transportation could be worth a million dollars.”

I shot to my feet. “What?!”

Pearlie’s jaw dropped. “Y’all tellin’ me that thing is valuable? But it’s old. Or is it more valuable on account of being old?”

Caleb said, “I got on the internet this afternoon. From the owner’s manual, it appears that this Bugatti is a 1931 Type 51. Noah confirmed that the engine is 160 horsepower with a single overhead cam straight-8. It has cast wheels instead of bolted on rims, and it all looks to be original, which would make it very valuable.”

“You might as well be speaking Greek,” Pearlie said. “What’s it all mean?”

“There were only forty or so built,” Caleb explained. “One was sold in 2010 for two million and seven hundred thousand dollars.”

My knees gave out and I collapsed onto the couch. I tried to speak, but something was caught in my throat—it felt like a big wad of money.

Pearlie smacked my back a couple of times until I waved off the assault. “I think it’s time we called Aunt Mae.”

.

Chapter Twenty-five
:

When Great-Aunt Mae answered, I put the phone on speaker so Caleb, Dad, and Pearlie could hear.
When I brought up the subject of the Bugatti being worth a small fortune, she just laughed.

“My goodness. I’d completely forgotten about that old thing. I guess your great
-uncle Ed knew his cars, didn’t he?”

“Yes,
” I said. “But surely you didn’t intend for it to be part of your gift to me. Don’t you want it back?”

“What am I going to do with an old race car?”

“You could sell it,” I said. “Caleb says it could fetch well over a million dollars at auction.”

“Dear girl, I don’t need the money or the hassle. You sell it. Or keep it. It’s loads of fun to drive.”

“Pearlie seems to think so too, but it’s too valuable to drive around.”

Pearlie opened her mouth to interrupt, but I held up a
cautionary finger.

“Aunt Mae,” I said, “one more thing—I heard that you used to
own property behind this place.”

“Why yes. I sold a few acres to a young artist. Well, he was young at the time.”

“Was it an artist by the name of Coker?”

Her voice went soft with the memory. “Yes. But Galen Coker and I lost touch many years ago.”

Here was a link that apparently stretched across the years. “His granddaughter was an artist too,” I said. “She inherited the place from her grandfather.”

“You said,
was an artist.
Is she deceased?”

“I’m afraid so. She was murdered in her home a few days ago.”

I could hear Aunt Mae’s quick intake of breath. “Galen’s granddaughter—murdered, you say? How awful!”

“Yes, it is
tragic, but we were wondering, do you know anything about Galen’s son, Mac Coker?”

The line was ominously silent.

“Aunt Mae?”

Still nothing.

I thought the line had gone dead, but waited.

“I guess I should start by telling you the history between me and Galen Coker.”

Pearlie shrugged. Clearly this was news to her as well.

“Galen was from a prominent Chicago family. Politics and a c
onstruction business, or as Galen liked to say, persuasion and cement boots. But Galen escaped all that when he graduated from art school and fled to Wishbone, Arizona. No one had any reason to connect him with the name Coker, and I knew his art would go up in value, so I bought six of his paintings.”

Pearlie nodded. “That’s my granny.”

“Is that you, Pearlie?” Aunt Mae said.

“Yes, Granny. So what about the son, Mac Coker? Is he in the family business?”

“I wouldn’t know anything about their family now, my dear. I left Arizona and never spoke to him again.”

The way she said it made me wonder if there had been something between them. Pearlie, on the other hand was wondering about the paintings.

“What’d you do with Galen Coker’s paintings?” she asked.

Aunt Mae sighed. “
Pearlie, your granddad had a hissy fit and burned them all.”

Pearlie nearly swooned. “He burned all those
valuable paintings? Boy-howdy, that must’ve been some hissy fit!”

Aunt Mae laughed. “
Lalla, do you remember when I told you I’d only loved two good men?”

How could I forget? It was the day she handed me the deed to this property as my wedding present.

“Yes, I remember.”

“One of them,” she said, “was your
great-uncle Ed, and the other was Galen Coker.”

Pearlie butted in. “Did you marry Galen Coker too?
”

“Oh, no, dear. After Ed burned those paintings, he up and died on me. I felt so guilty I just closed up the house, locked his fancy little race car in that barn, and took his body home to Texas.”

“There’s a picture of Galen Coker’s house on your mantel,” Pearlie said.

“Galen built that house because he wanted me to leave Ed and marry him. I was young and in love with him, but I wouldn’t have left my husband
and I told him so.”

“You always said I should marry a handsome brown-eyed man,” Pearlie said. “Did Galen have brown eyes, too?”

“Yes, dear, and he sure was handsome, as well as passionate and poor. But Ed loved me too, in his own way. Trouble is, I was angry at his destruction of the paintings right up to the day he died, and I never got to tell him how much I loved him. I’ve had to live all these years with that regret. Now tell me, have they caught that poor girl’s killer?”

“Not yet,” I said, looking at Pearlie. “But your granddaughter has been hired by Galen Coker’s son to look into it.”

“Oh, no,” Aunt Mae said. “Pearlie Mae Bains, you promised!”

Pearlie flinched at the dismay in her grandmother’s voice, jerked the receiver out of my hand and clicked off the speaker to have a private chat. “Now Granny, I’m a grown woman, and yo
u know I been working on gettin’ my license. Yes, okay, it’s not legal yet, but just the same—Yes’m, I will,” she said, and handed the phone back to me. “She wants to talk to you.”

Aunt Mae sighed. “
Lalla dear, I never came back to the Arizona property because there were so many painful memories. I really thought if it was yours, that you could make new ones. Good ones. But now it looks like that place is cursed for you as it was for me. You should just sell it.”

“Please don’t think like that, Aunt Mae,” I said. “This property and the Bugatti are more than I ever expected.”

Pearlie grabbed the phone out of my hand. “That’s all well and good, your gift of the property to Lalla, Granny,” she said, “but that race car shouldn’t be …. Yes’m, I know. Yes’m, I’m sorry.”

Pearlie tucked her chin to her chest, resembling a defi
ant ten-year-old. I knew how that lecture went; my father was famous for them. It usually started with my impetuous behavior, and ended with how my need to do as I pleased was only going to come back and bite me.

Surprisingly, Pearlie’s cloudy expression broke into a sunny smile. Her glance slid over to me, then back to listen to her granny. “Oh? Okay, that’s … I know, Granny, thanks. I love you, too. Yeah, I’ll tell her.”

“What was that about?” I asked.

“Granny said to keep her posted on what happens in the murder case and whatever you want to do with that race car should be fine with me.”

I would’ve thought that was all of it, except she couldn’t keep the grin off her face.

“What else did she say?”

“I got a lecture about envy and greed, but the upshot is, you have to let me drive it until it’s sold.”

My very wise
great-aunt Mae was doing her best King Solomon, granting Pearlie what she desired most, driving the Bugatti in exchange for helping find the killer of the granddaughter of a man she once loved.

Hopefully, Pearlie wouldn’t kill herself in it.

Caleb and my dad were amused.

“Well, I’m not surprised,” my dad said. “She was a beauty in her day, you know. You favor her,
Lalla. Of course, Pearlie’s got her granny’s money sense.”

I watched mixed emotions slide across my cousin’s face. Pearlie didn’t know whether to bristle at the notion that she wasn’t the beauty in the family or blush at the idea that she was good with money.

“And,” she said, unable to let go of her good mood, “I’ve got my Granny’s luck at blackjack. Too bad we’re so far away from Vegas.”

I patted her shoulder. “There’s an Indian casino near Tucson if you get the urge.”

Pearlie primped at her blond shoulder length curls. “I’m more of a Vegas kinda girl, if you know what I mean.”

I certainly did. Pearlie always insisted on staying at the high-end casinos where she could rub elbows with professional gamblers who flattered her
ego and flattened her pockets.

“I think it’s interesting that Mac Coker has ties to a crime family in Chicago,” Pearlie said.

“He may be on the shady side of the law,” Caleb said, “but he’s clean of any convictions and his alibi stands. Now, Julio Castillo is a much better fit for the crime. Detective Tom is confident his former
compadres
are thick with the Mexican cartel and that shipment matches his recent visits to his girlfriend.”

“But, Caleb, Julio has a perfectly good reason to be there. He’s engaged to Reina.”

“That doesn’t mean he didn’t take advantage of his girlfriend’s living arrangement,” he said. “Julio will be arraigned on a murder charge tomorrow.”

I looked at Pearlie. She nodded, indicating I should tell him. “We know about Julio’s arrest, Caleb, but we think Homicide should also consider Jason Stark.”

“Why?” Caleb asked.

Pearlie huffed. “Because Jason Stark is sleeping with the police chief’s wife.”

“Where’d you hear that?” he asked.

“The beauty parlor, of course,” Pearlie said, warming to her subject.

“And what’s that got to do with the murders?” he asked, taking out his notebook and jotting down the connection.

“It’s possible that the chief’s wife suspected him of cheating,” I said. “Darlene told us that the chief kept a police radio in his personal car and the story is that he took a detour to Bethany’s home because he responded to a 9-1-1 call. We think Darlene followed him to Bethany’s, found him in another woman’s bedroom, whacked him over the head with something heavy, and then terrified of what she’d done, got Jason to help her cover it up.”

“The mine pit,” Dad said, “would be a place no one would think to look.”

“Because the whole town knew the chief was leaving for his annual fishing trip,” I said. “They might find his car, and people would think he’d wandered off and died, but they would never find his body.”

Caleb shook his head. “There’s only one problem with your theory.”

“What?” Pearlie and I asked.

“Jason Stark couldn’t have carried a twenty-pound sack of potatoes down those stairs. He’s on full disability from the Navy. He hurt his back in a night jump.”

“Then how does he deliver all those heavy sculptures?”

“A hoist and a lift fitted to his truck, I checked.”

So that was why we never saw him sitting. He admitted using prescription drugs
, and the pot he championed probably helped with the pain.

Not one to let go of a perfectly good scenario for murder, Pearlie said, “Okay, then maybe the police chief found out about the affair with his wife, and went there to confront Jason and Jason killed him and used that fancy hoist to dump his body in the mine pit.”

“It could’ve happened like that,” Caleb said.

“Will you tell Detective Tom?” I asked.

“About Jason Stark and the police chief’s wife? That’s what you want, isn’t it? To get this killer?”

“Well, yes, of course.”

“Uh-huh. Just asking, ‘cause for a minute there, I thought you were going to say you and Pearlie were going to interrogate Jason Stark on your own.”

“Oh, no,” Pearlie said. “He’s not likely going to want to talk to us again.”

Caleb shook his head and put the notebook away. “Again?”

Pearlie crossed her arms. “Yes, we talked to him.”

“Anything else?” he asked, his glum expression indicating that we were one strike away from going out.

Seeing a way to lighten the mood, I said, “Well, this will amuse you, Dad. Remember that annoying deputy? The one you nicknamed Deputy
Dumb-Ass? His last name isn’t Abel, it’s Dick,” I said. “So from now on you can call him Deputy Dick.”

My dad hooted. “I’d feel sorry for him if he weren’t such a dumb-ass.”

“Well,” Pearlie said. “We may not have solved this case yet, but I’m hungry. How ‘bout I make lasagna for supper?”

My dad rubbed his hands together. “Sounds great. I’ll grate the cheese.”

Dinner was easy. My dad was happy with another excellent meal, and Pearlie was pleased to know that she could drive the Bugatti until I sold it.

When my cell phone rang, I answered. It was Suzi calling as promised. I caught Pearlie’s eye as she was clearing up from dinner. She nodded, the message being that she would expect a full report.

When I hung up, I decided that Caleb should hear this as well and went into the kitchen. “I have something new to add about the dead police chief.”

Pearlie, Dad, and Caleb left their kitchen duties and gathered around the table. When we were all seated, I said, “That was Suzi on the phone. She works at the beauty parlor that the police chief’s widow owns.”

“I remember,” Caleb said. “You came back with the Dolly Parton hairdo.”

“Well,” I said, automatically reaching up to make sure it was now nothing more than a bad memory. “Suzi decided we should also know that the chief had a vicious temper and whenever
he was in a mood he took it out on Darlene.”