And a Puzzle to Die On (18 page)

Stacy Daigue didn’t look at all like her brother. She had high cheekbones, a Roman nose, shaggy auburn hair. It was only when Stacy talked that she resembled Darryl at all. Her lip curled slightly in that same unmistakable sneer.

“So what are you doing here?” she demanded.

Here
was a truck-stop diner outside of New Haven, where Stacy Daigue was working the counter. Evidently, the job ran in the family, along with the facial expression. Stacy lived just down the road in a third-floor walk-up. Her landlady had guided Cora to the diner.

“I’m a private eye looking into your brother’s case.”

Stacy’s face showed alarm. It was mid-afternoon, and the diner was hardly crowded, but there was a customer just a few stools away. “What’s that, Miss? Coffee? Just a sec.” Stacy grabbed a Pyrex pot off the hot plate, filled a cup, and slid it in front of Cora. “You wanna keep your voice down?” she muttered. “Why don’t you look at the menu as if that’s why you came?
Better still, why don’t you
order
something off the menu. Eat it, and get the hell out of here. I got a job to do.”

“And I don’t wanna jeopardize it,” Cora said. “But there’s some things I need to know.”

“Well, I’m the last person you should ask,” Stacy retorted. “ ’Cause I got zilch.”

“You might think so, but you might be wrong. You might know things without knowing you know them.”

The Daigue sneer was in full force. “Lady, you’re insane. You gonna order or not?”

“I’ll have a piece of apple pie. But, please, go on writing things as we talk.”

“If I write things down, you’re gonna pay for ’em.”

“I think you’re missing the point.” Cora jerked her thumb. “Why don’t you give that guy his check? Then you won’t have to whisper.”

Stacy totaled up the bill, slapped it on the counter, cut a piece of apple pie. “You want ice cream with the pie?”

“Doesn’t everybody?”

“Vanilla?”

“Chocolate.”

Stacy scooped the ice cream onto the plate, presented it to Cora. The man at the counter paid his check. Stacy swept up his tip, which was all coins, and afforded it a sneer. “Big spender,” she scoffed, as the man went out the door.

“Talk to me. I tip well,” Cora said.

“What do you want to know?”

“I’ve been looking into ways to get your brother out of jail. Frankly, it seems a lost cause.”

“I could have told you that.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t. Anyway, that’s how it looks to me. Now, the question is, does it look that way
because he’s guilty, or does it look that way because someone is going to great lengths to make it look that way?”

“Are you kidding me?”

“Not at all. Your brother claims a counter boy named Ricky Gleason murdered Anita Dryer while Darryl covered his shift. This is difficult to verify because Ricky Gleason died last summer.”

“That’s inconvenient.”

Cora stared at her. “That’s a rather awful understatement. Were you aware that Mr. Gleason was dead?”

“I don’t even know the name.”

“Your brother never mentioned him?”

“My brother mentioned many things. Some of them might have been true. After a while, you stop listening.”

“You doubt your brother’s word?”

“Who didn’t?”

“You’re not making this very easy.”

“I’m not making anything. This is your show. What’s your point?”

“My point is, there are a lot of discrepancies in your brother’s case that bear looking into. I’m wondering if you could help me with any.”

“You can stop wondering. I don’t know anything at all. You looking for me to bail you out, you might as well give up.”

Cora sighed. “You want to hear what I got?”

Stacy leaned on the counter, gave Cora her best Daigue sneer. “Go ahead. Make my day.”

“The parole board recently heard your brother’s case.”

“Wait a minute. Darryl doesn’t get parole.”

“Right. But his case still gets reviewed. Why, I don’t know, but it does. Anyway, two of the parole board members are Ida Blaine and Dr. Jenkins. Dr. Jenkins is also the doctor who signed the death certificate for Ricky Gleason and determined the cause of death to be accidental.”

“Was it?”

“Hard to say. Ricky Gleason was in a one-car accident. He missed a turn he should have made, even with the amount of alcohol in his system.”

Stacy frowned.

“Dr. Jenkins also happens to be your brother’s doctor. The doc sees him at the prison. Prescribes your brother’s medicine. Lately, he’s been giving him aspirin tablets, telling him they’re aspirin with codeine. This is probably hazardous to your brother’s health.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your brother’s been getting beat up lately. I’d say it’s a good bet he’s been selling pills and someone’s not happy they’ve been buying aspirin.”

The scowl deepened into the familiar Daigue sneer. “You think this doctor’s trying to kill Darryl?”

“Hard to say. I don’t know if he’s malicious or just plain stupid. But he happens to be having an affair with parole board member Ida Blaine. They’re both married, by the way.”

“I’m shocked.”

“That’s it in a nutshell. It doesn’t seem like much, but everyone from the warden on down is trying to get me to drop the case.”

“Why?”

“That’s the question. You want me to try to find the answer?”

“I don’t give a damn what you do.”

“You wanna pay for it?”

“What, are you nuts?”

“Well, I don’t wanna work for nothing. Becky Baldwin’s taken this as far as she wants to go. She’d tell you herself, but you don’t have an answering machine.”

Stacy frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“Your lawyer. She couldn’t reach you, so she sent me. Authorized me to give you this report. As far as she’s concerned, the job is incomplete. But she’s done all she feels she can without further authorization. Not to mention money. If you don’t wanna tell me, just give Becky a call and tell her what you’d like to do.”

“Are you mental or something? Give who a call?”

“Miss Rebecca Baldwin. The lawyer you hired to get your brother out of jail.”

“Yeah, sure,” Stacy said. The Daigue sneer was mocking. “Listen, lady: I never hired any damn lawyer.”

Cora’s gaze was withering. “You never met her?”

“Not personally.”

“You never met your client?”

“I talked to her on the phone.”

“Oh, like telemarketing? I didn’t know lawyers did that.”

“She called me. She hired me.”

“She says she didn’t.”

“I can’t understand that.”

“You and me both. Didn’t it strike you as strange she didn’t come in person?”

“She lives in New Haven. It’s not that near.”

“Tell me about it. So, she hired you over the phone. What’d she do, give you a credit-card number?”

“She sent me a check.”

“A personal check?”

“No, money order.”

“That figures. A personal check would have a name and address. Whereas a money order is blank.
You can fill in anything you want. I presume this money order purported to be signed by Stacy Daigue?”

“That’s right.”

“According to her, it wasn’t. According to her, she wouldn’t pay a nickle to get her brother out of jail. According to her, he probably did it.”

“This is most unfortunate.”

“Well, there’s a brilliant analysis of the situation. You accepted a two-hundred-dollar cash retainer in the mail. On the basis of it, you hired me to do some work. Now, I admit, not everything I’ve done has been on your direct instructions. But going to New Haven was. Would you like to take a guess how much of that two-hundred-dollar retainer my bill is going to chew up?”

“There must be an explanation.”

“Indeed, there must. Would you like to hire me to find it?”

“Cora!”

“I’m sorry. I understand. You were taken in. It’s an unfortunate situation. We have to make the best of it. But the best is looking none too good. So what do you know about this woman?”

“Only what she told me. Which clearly wasn’t true.”

“How many times did you talk to her?”

“Just once.”

“She never called back?”

“No.”

“And you never called her?”

“I never got an answer. Which is why I sent you.”

“Uh-huh,” Cora said. “According to Stacy Daigue, she
has
an answering machine. How come you never got it?”

Cora would not have thought Becky Baldwin could look more embarrassed, but she did.

“What now?” Cora demanded.

“I called information, double-checked the number she gave me. One of the digits was wrong.”

“You think you wrote it down wrong?”

“Not a chance.”

“So,” Cora said. “This woman gave you the wrong number so you wouldn’t get through. But she changed only one digit, so if you realized it was wrong, you’d think it was just a typo.”

“It would appear so.”

“This woman looks a lot smarter than we do. You say you only spoke to her once. What did she sound like? Old? Young? Hip? Square? Urban? Rural? Any sort of accent? A lisp, maybe?”

Becky shook her head. “Nothing at all. It’s been a while, and there was no reason for me to notice.”

“So you didn’t. Wonderful. What do you wanna do now?”

“I can’t see doing any more work.”

“Oh,
you
can’t see doing any more work. What work have you done so far? Aside from hiring me. Have you even met Darryl Daigue?”

“I haven’t gotten out there yet.”

“You gonna go now?”

“Not under the circumstances.”

“The circumstances aren’t gonna change. Not if we’re dropping the investigation.”

“You wanna work for nothing?”

“I have so far,” Cora said pointedly.

Aaron Grant’s Honda was parked in the driveway, so Cora called out, “Hi, guys,” as she came in the front door.

There was no answer.

Cora admired the plywood patch over the living room window, then went in the kitchen and poured herself an iced tea.

Moments later Aaron and Sherry joined her.

“Hi, Cora,” Aaron said.

“Hi, Aaron.” Cora’s eyes twinkled. “You two been canoodling?”

“Canoodling?” Sherry said.

“Well, Aaron’s hair is mussed,” Cora pointed out, “and I can’t believe he got up this morning and buttoned his shirt wrong. You’re a button off, Aaron. Gives you a delightful lopsided effect, but probably wouldn’t do to interview a congressman.”

Aaron Grant grinned good-naturedly, and rebut-toned his shirt. “So what’s new with Darryl Daigue?”

“Nothing. Becky’s dropping the case.”

“What?” Sherry exclaimed incredulously. “She can’t do that.”

“Why the hell not? Turns out she was never hired in the first place.”

“What are you talking about?”

Cora gave Sherry and Aaron a rundown on the Stacy Daigue situation.

“She never hired you?” Aaron said. “How the hell does that make any sense?”

“It doesn’t. And we’re never gonna find out because no one’s paying us to do it.”

“So you’re just gonna let it drop?”

“Becky’s already dropped it.”

“How could she do that?” Sherry said. “Maybe the sister
didn’t
hire her, but
someone
put up the money.”

“Right,” Cora said. “And if they wanna put up some more, Becky will stick with the case. But two hundred bucks does not go a long way.”

“Two hundred bucks?” Aaron said.

“Right.”

“I didn’t even know you could retain a lawyer for two hundred bucks.”

“Well, it wasn’t like she was gonna
do
anything. Just evaluate the case and see if there was reason to proceed. Only she didn’t do that, she hired me.”

“Okay, what’s your evaluation of the case?”

“You can’t print it in your paper.”

“No, I don’t suppose I can. So, are you gonna quit?”

“That depends.”

“On what?”

“Whether people keep shadowing me and throwing rocks through my windows.”

“It could be coincidence.”

“Coincidence?”

“Don’t get her started,” Sherry warned. “You don’t wanna hear a lecture on coincidence.”

“Okay,” Aaron said. “You got a private eye following a woman in Danbury on the parole board who’s friendly with a doctor who’s also on the parole board who happens to be Darryl Daigue’s doc. Who also signed the death certificate on the guy Darryl Daigue says committed the crime?”