The Yellow Packard (2 page)

Meeker glanced back over her shoulder. She had read enough about the company to also know that Packard’s record was exemplary in this area, but those facts weren’t going to mean much to the family of the man who’d just been killed by that bright yellow Packard. Nor would it improve the spirits of the eight grim men who had now managed to lift the car body from their fallen comrade.

Chapter 1

A
s she lay on the floor struggling for breath, she knew her time on earth was numbered in minutes. Accepting that fact was much easier than Abigale Watling had imagined. Death, after a life well lived, was not something to fear. So there were no tears in her blue eyes, nor was there a frown drawn on her thin lips. She was ready to see what was next. If it was anything like her adventures on earth, it was going to be a wild ride. Yet as her mind began to cloud and her body started to shut down, the irony of dying in the same room with her beloved books was not lost on her. Those volumes that gave her so much enjoyment in life—that took her to so many places and introduced her to so many people—were now watching over the last chapter in her life. And that chapter would never be finished to her satisfaction.

As she quietly waited for the inevitable, she considered all she’d done in her almost eight decades of life. She’d seen the world. She’d been all over Europe and Asia many times and even trekked to Africa once. How many people could say they heard Big Ben chime, climbed up the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and jumped on a pachyderm named Sally all in the same trip? She’d met three presidents, including the one currently in the White House and even flown once with Amelia Earhart as her pilot. She’d seen Babe Ruth hit a home run in Yankee Stadium and watched Red Grange roam the gridiron in Champaign. And while she’d never had children, she had been the guardian angel of more kids than she could count. And of course she’d become like a mother to her niece, and what a wonderful experience that had been. So there were really very few regrets—very few at all!

Even the way she was dying was something she could fully embrace. While most of her deceased friends had gone with a heart attack or cancer, she was greeting the grim reaper through very unnatural circumstances. The man digging through her desk drawers at this very moment had seen to that. And she had to admit he’d been clever, much more clever than she would have predicted. So there was a very good chance no one would ever know he’d been responsible for her untimely exit. Yet, by the same token, she doubted he’d find what he so badly wanted to find. Thus he would likely spend the rest of his days frustrated, knowing he’d murdered someone for nothing. So all things considered, there was a bit of justice in it.

As her vision dimmed, she smiled. Maybe her memory would haunt him. Maybe he’d see her face everywhere he went. Maybe he’d hear her death groans in his sleep and they would drive him mad. Yet there was a problem. She hadn’t moaned, much less groaned. In fact when she’d figured out what he’d done, she’d just smiled the same smile she was smiling right now. So haunting him was probably out of the question.

Now with the mantel clock ticking out her final seconds, what was left for her to do? What kind of clue could she leave as to why she was killed and by whom?

Then just as if Raymond Chandler’s pen had scribbled it into the deep recesses of her mind, it came to her. Taking a deep breath, she used what little focus she had left to slowly and silently raise her right hand from the floor. Concentrating as hard as she could, she moved it inch by inch to the right-side pocket of her yellow, floral-print dress. Finding the pocket, she pushed two fingers in and felt what she needed. Would she have the strength for one final act?

Pulling her hand, she lifted it for the final time. It hovered in the air just above her body for a moment then fell gently to the place where her heart had just one beat left.

He looked down at the woman. Smiling, he bent over and plucked the one-hundred-dollar bill from her hand. He studied it for a few seconds, grinned, and slipped it into his pocket. He turned then and walked out of the room and into the night without even noticing the keys that she still clutched in her fingers. A second later the air rushed from her lungs for the very last time.

Chapter 2

July 7, 1937

S
tepping off the 1936 Packard’s wide, rubber-ribbed running board, Janet Carson swept her auburn hair from the side of her face and lifted her blue eyes to the familiar three-story Victorian home. In a block filled with small, cookie-cutter houses, it was as imposing as it was unique. Even though the paint was beginning to peel from the faded yellow clapboard siding and the windows needed a good cleaning, with its myriad of gables, stained-glass windows, upper and lower porches, and more than six thousand square feet of living space, the house seemed to have jumped directly off the pages of a child’s fairy tale. In fact, it was so unique that just seeing it once brought back a lifetime of memories.

As her gaze slid from one window to the next, the memories of time in the Watling home so many years before poured through Janet’s head like water from a pitcher. She was unable to completely focus on any of them until her eyes locked onto the round, three-story tower on the house’s far right corner. It was then that one memory drew suddenly into sharp focus, and for an instant time stood still. Two decades may have passed, and during those years Janet had grown into a woman, gone away to college, and launched a career, but now that long-dismissed moment in time was as fresh and alive as the summer breeze that pushed her shoulder length hair once more back onto her cheek. For a second she was an energetic six-year-old, pigtailed girl playing with dolls inside that glorious round turret. That was the room where her aunt kept her doll collection and the one place in the home that was reserved just for fun. It was a magical place, a place where time stood still and where childhood wasn’t measured by age, but by games. And anyone of any age could be a child again if she just stopped to play. Aunt Abbi had taught her that and so much more.

“She was a really strange woman. I mean just plain weird.”

Her cousin’s words tore Janet from her long lost recollections and to the tall figure sliding out from behind the Packard’s steering wheel. Though Abigale Watling had also been Jim’s aunt, he’d never been close to the woman. His eyes were not filled with wonder or nostalgia; his was the grim, impatient, almost nervous glance of a person who couldn’t wait to be somewhere else.

Janet had little in common with Jim. She never had. So talking to him always seemed to be an ordeal. Still, in order to take the raw edge off the moment, she posed a question that demanded a response.

“When was the last time you were here?”

“I don’t know,” he replied, his tone as flat as the Illinois prairie that surrounded the old place. “Maybe ten years. What about you?”

“About three weeks ago.” Her voice lifted with the thoughts of that recent visit. “Aunt Abbi and I got out the old dolls. As we talked about the days so long ago, we played with them, sitting in the turret over there. We also spoke about all the summers I spent here and all the times I drank lemonade under the old sugar maple.” She paused for a moment, relishing another memory, before adding, “I’ve never known anyone who was kinder. She so wanted to make everyone’s dreams come true.”

“To you she was a fairy godmother,” the heavyset, pasty-faced man cracked, “but to me she was just a weird old lady. She was always prying into my life. Always asking questions! Poking her nose in places it didn’t belong.”

“She wasn’t strange,” Janet shot back, “just different. I liked that about her. She didn’t feel the need to be just like everyone else. And she was never boring or predictable. And if she was asking questions, it was just because she wanted to know what was going on in your life.”

As he strolled up behind her, Jim groaned, “Whatever stirs your drink! Why don’t we just compromise and call her eccentric?”

Ignoring the jab, Janet walked slowly through the gate of the yellow picket fence that separated the yard from the street. With a quick, determined stride she stepped up onto the eight-foot wide wraparound front porch. She was studying the gingerbread railing when she heard Jim’s footsteps behind her. Without turning her head, she sighed. “I think she would have loved the funeral.”

“She’s dead, so what difference does it make? Personally, I thought it was too long. We should have just had a graveside service. After all, she never married, and you were about as close to a kid as she ever had. What a waste! I wonder how much she dropped on that fancy coffin. And why did everything have to be yellow? Yellow casket, yellow flowers. They even dressed her in a bright yellow dress. Who does that? Her friends died years ago. So who was really left to care?”

Janet twisted to stare deeply into her cousin’s frigid, gray eyes. She’d never really understood him. He’d always been so bitter and aloof. Now, even in the minutes after they placed Aunt Abbi in the ground, he was as cold as a gravestone. Pushing sincere words from the depths of her heart, she whispered, “
I
cared. And you know how she loved yellow.”

“Well that’s your loss then,” came the terse reply. “And I hate yellow because whenever I came here it is all I ever saw! If something wasn’t yellow, she painted it yellow.”

Janet shrugged. Not only did she not understand Jim, she didn’t like him. At this moment she felt like telling him that, too, but his words stopped her before she had the chance.

“What tees me off is her will. She left everything of any value to that orphans’ home downstate. All she gave me was a stupid old desk. All the stuff she had, and she gave me one worthless hunk of wood.”

“Well it did belong to your father,” Janet argued as she lowered herself to the porch swing. She was already gently rocking by the time he answered.

“And he’s dead, too, so what good does that do me? I don’t want it. It’s just an old piece of wood. I mean who uses rolltop desks anymore? Not me. They just take up space and collect dust. I told her attorney—what was his name?”

“Johns.”

“Yeah, old man Johns. Anyway I told him he could put it in the estate sale and send me whatever it brings. She could have at least given me that Packard. Don’t like that yellow color, but it still would have made an impression when I drove up to work.”

“Sounds like you,” she quipped. Wrapping her hand around the swing’s support chain, she added, “It’s not like she didn’t give you anything. After your folks died, she was the one who paid for your college. You wouldn’t have a degree if it weren’t for her.”

He shrugged. “I’d a figured out a way. I never needed her. Besides, you’ve got nothing to complain about. She left you all her cash.”

Janet almost laughed. “Well don’t feel like she shortchanged you too much. I got $75.04. That was all there was in her checking account. Her savings account was empty. So when they sell that desk, we’ll be about even.”

He leaned his full form into the porch railing, a look of astonishment framing his face. “Then what happened to the old bat’s money? When we were growing up she was loaded. She paid cash for everything. She never had a loan in her life.”

Janet shook her head. “Mr. Johns said she was heavy into the stock market when it crashed.”

“Doesn’t that just beat all,” he snarled. “Our aunt has to be the one woman in the state who played the market. If I didn’t have bad luck, I wouldn’t have any at all. I hated her and I hate this town!”

Shoving his hands into the pockets of his gray wool slacks, the tall, rotund thirty-year-old ambled back across the yard, out the gate, and to his light blue, 1931 Plymouth coupe. Without a word he opened the door, slid in, and hit the starter. As the flathead roared to life, he hollered out the window, “I’m headed back to Springfield. No reason to stick around. Don’t spend all that money in one place.”

Janet casually observed the car as it swept around a corner and headed out to Highway 150. He had never cared about anything but himself. It was as though he’d been born without a heart. Yet rather than hate him for his selfishness, she pitied him. He’d probably never known a truly happy day in his life.

Pulling her lithe sixty-two inches off the swing, she resolutely walked to the front door, turned its old brass knob, and strolled into the old home’s parlor. The house was crammed with antiques. Her aunt simply couldn’t resist adding more and more fine pieces. They were arranged in a semblance of order, but the house was so crammed full it was difficult to slide between the chairs, couches, love seats, and tables just to get to the library. And it was the library, complete with its floor-to-ceiling, twelve-foot-high bookshelves that contained Abigale Watling’s most prized treasures. This was the room where she’d spent most of her time. Sliding open one of the oak pocket doors, Janet smiled and stepped into a place that smelled of lilac perfume and musty pages.

“She did love to read,” Samuel Johns announced from behind the room’s large center desk.

His deep voice caused her to stiffen in shock. He must have noticed because he immediately lowered his tone and said, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”