Bad To The Bone (23 page)

"I have no idea what you're talking about,"
Clarissa insisted. She picked up a brush and began jamming it
through her hair. But she didn't call for the maid and she didn't
tell me to get out. She wanted to hear what I had to say.

"Clarissa," I suggested. "Let's just accept
that you think I'm a white trash social climber who married your
precious son so I could horn in on your position at the country
club."

Startled, her eyes darted to mine before she
looked away.

"Let's also accept," I said, "that I think
you are a Class A parking lot lizard who is as phony as her 34B
tits."

She dropped the brush and glared. "How dare
you?" she spat out, unconsciously wrapping her arms around her
breasts.

"How dare I what?" I asked. "Are you telling
me those babies are real?" I nodded toward them. They looked like
two pink puppies trying to escape her embrace. "Give me a break.
You've got more saline in your chest than in the entire Gulf of
Mexico."

Okay, so insulting her wasn't the smartest
thing to do. I had an uncontrollable urge to let her know I wasn't
the scared kid she had terrorized in the past.

"What's your point?" she asked through
clenched teeth.

"My point is that hating each other doesn't
change the fact that Jeff is facing two ugly choices right now. He
could be sent to jail for aiding and abetting a murderer, or he
could be shot dead by the drug dealers he's ripped off."

Her body wavered slightly, as if she finally
heard what I was saying.

"You did help hide her, didn't you?" I
asked. "Jeff fed you some line about her trying to escape from a
brutal husband."

"She had nowhere else to go!" Clarissa
screamed at top volume, scaring the ever-loving shit out of me. I'd
never seen Clarissa lose control before, and the fact that she was
losing it now made me more nervous than a cat on a hot griddle.

"Her husband is one of the most powerful men
in North Carolina," she said angrily. "He'll come after her if he
finds out where she is. He'll take her child from her. He's already
taken her family money."

"She's not from money," I said quietly. "And
her husband's in jail for something she did. He can't possibly do
anything to her. She's running away because she took a life,
Clarissa, not because she fears for her life. She's a liar and she
knows that Jeff is a fool. Just like you know he's a fool. He'll
believe anything a woman tells him. She's using him."

I waited out the subsequent silence, hoping
my words would penetrate her self-deluded facade. But she would not
look at me. I tried again.

"Clarissa," I pleaded. "I've never given you
credit for really believing in anything but your charge cards. I
always thought that all that fundamentalist, anti-abortion activism
was just to make you feel morally superior and balance out all the
selfish things you did in life."

She looked away, but she was listening.

"Maybe I was wrong," I continued. "Maybe you
do care about the women and kids you help. Maybe it does mean
something to you to help them escape."

And, maybe it did. I'd never seen any
bruises on her, and Clarissa sure seemed to rule the roost, but she
and Norman went through some hard times before they struck it rich.
He liked to talk about it; she didn't. Isn't that always the way?
Every once in a while I'd seen her wince when he raised his voice,
an automatic reflex from the early years, I figured, when Norman's
frustration at being poor had not yet turned to pride—and when his
aggression had focused on her, instead of a business competitor. So
maybe there really was a human being lurking inside her pampered
facade, someone who connected with others.

"If you do care about the people you help,"
I warned her, "or the people who are part of your network, they
need to know that this woman is a killer. She's going to be brought
down and she'll bring all of you down with her."

"What does this have to do with you?" She
stared out a window at the bay.

"She set up a friend of mine," I said. I
didn't want Clarissa Jones knowing that I had a new life as a P.I.
"She killed a man and made it look like my friend did it."

"Why did she involve Jeff?"

"Because he was convenient," I explained.
"Because he believed her lies about what her husband did to her.
Because he probably bragged that he could hide her through you, and
she knew she might need your help one day. Or maybe she involved
him because she just wanted to stick it to me."

"How do I know you're telling me the
truth?"

"You don't. But do you really think I would
have come all this way, suffer through seeing you again, if I was
lying? What do I have to gain? Listen to me, believe me, and tell
me where she is. I'll be out of your life forever."

She thought for a moment, then looked at me.
"I don't believe you."

“Then watch this tape," I suggested, pulling
the video of the press conference from my knapsack and setting it
on the massage table. "See if you really want to become part of a
public search for her. Then I suggest you call your friends in the
underground who are hiding her and ask them a few questions. Listen
carefully to what they say."

"What kind of questions?"

"Ask them if Tawny disappears late at night.
That's her real name, by the way. Sort of. Ask them if she pays
attention to her daughter or just tolerates the kid, letting other
people do the work required to take care of her." I was counting on
Tawny's lack of a maternal instinct to show up fast, and hoping
that it was as appalling to others as it was to me.

"Ask them if Tawny acts like she's entitled
to the world on a silver platter," I continued. "Or if she has an
endless repertoire of stories where she's always the victim, so
many stories, in fact, that it seems as if the whole world is after
her. Have they caught her in lies? Has she tried to borrow money?
Is her story changing? Do they sense something remote about
her?"

"Why those questions?" Clarissa asked,
probably because she'd flunk them if she asked them of herself.

"Because if they're good people, in their
hearts they'll know the answers to them. And they'll realize that
Tawny Bledsoe is not what she pretends to be."

"It's not enough," Clarissa said. She walked
over to a cabinet and opened the doors on a fully stocked bar. She
poured herself a tumbler of red wine and didn't bother to offer me
anything.

I'd have to give her some of the photos.
"Show them these," I said, pulling the blackmail photographs from
my knapsack. I selected three of them, two with men and the one
remaining shot of the schoolteacher. I didn't want to do it and
hoped no one in Florida would know the subjects. But if the people
hiding Tawny were the Christian fundamentalists I suspected they
were, the only thing that was going to change their minds about her
was visual proof. Maybe a few shots of some gal treating Tawny like
a box lunch at the Y would bring them around to my way of thinking.
Homosexuality was probably not on their list of acceptable traits
for a devoted Christian mother—and I doubted that knowing Tawny was
only going through the motions for blackmail would make them more
tolerant.

"Here." I placed the photos facedown next to
the videotape of the press conference. Clarissa stared but did not
move. “Take your time," I offered, knowing she'd fall on them like
a hyena tearing at a carcass the second I walked out the door.
"I'll call you tomorrow. You tell me what you want to do."

"If I decide to tell you where she is?" she
asked, turning her back on me.

"Then that's all you have to do. I take it
from there."

"If I don't?"

"Then I'll dog your ass until you do."

For a split second, I thought she might
throw the wineglass in my face.

"At least call the people hiding her," I
said. "Ask them to talk to me."

"I'm not promising anything." Her voice
sounded far away, but that was par for the course. I don't think
Clarissa Jones ever really liked being where she was, she always
seemed to want to be somewhere else.

"I know you'll do the right thing," I lied.
In reality, Clarissa Jones would do the right thing for herself. It
was all I could hope for.

I was almost out the door when I heard her
voice behind me.

"Is he okay?" she asked.

"Who?"

"Jeff. Is he safe?"

I shrugged. "I couldn't tell you. I don't
know where the hell he is."

And neither, her question told me, did
she.

I've always loved cheap motels. They neither
ask for nor offer any promises. Even the furnishings seem
temporary, creating a sense of impermanence that's exhilarating.
There is a lot to be said for just passing through.

That afternoon, though, the usual magic was
gone. My room seemed murky and incomplete. Something about the
sunlight that leaked through the curtains made me feel trapped,
unhealthy, paranoid. I tried to take a nap, but failed in finding
rest. Instead, I dreamed about a mirror with a crack down its
middle. When I tried to see my image in it, I failed, as if I were
blind. I made myself lean closer and closer—aware I was dreaming,
but feeling as if I was awake. Every inch of progress seemed to
take hours of effort on my part. Finally, the outline of a woman
began to materialize in the mirror. Her back was to me, but she
started to rotate slowly, like a marble bust on a stand. The figure
turned completely around to face me. I was desperate to see her
face, but her features remained invisible, obscured by a gray fog.
Then, slowly, like a photograph developing in a chemical bath, her
head and shoulders emerged.

Who was she? I cried out in my dream at the
sight of her. The woman was completely frosted over with a
bluish-silver sheen, trapped in a permanent cry for help. She had
huge blank orbs for eyes, and a mouth that gaped open in dismay.
She was trying to speak, I knew, but could not, was trying to see,
but was blind. The terror of emotional exile radiated from her.

I woke, sweating, frightened by the image,
my mind racing with sudden doubts: I was wrong about Tawny. Jeff
was involved. The whole thing had been a setup. Robert Price was
using me. I was walking into a trap.

I worried over each possibility like a sore
tooth, until I could stand it no longer. I sat up and considered
the chance that Boomer Cockshutt had known Jeff all along. They
could have been involved in moving drugs together. Maybe that was
why Jeff had showed up in Raleigh, not because he needed somewhere
to hide, but because he had met Tawny while dealing drugs with
Boomer—and she had convinced him to kill her lover, so they could
take over his business together. Were they both now using me in
some way? When Jeff had failed to involve me with his sob story,
had Tawny moved in with hers?

I picked up the phone and called Boomer's
widow. She could help, willingly or not, by providing information
on his personal or business connections.

"Hello?" she asked briskly, in a tone people
reserve for telemarketers.

'This is Casey Jones," I explained. "The
private investigator looking into your husband's death?"

"Of course," she replied, her voice warming.
"Have there been any new developments? I saw you on television at
that news conference. Now I know who you're working for. Do you
really think that woman might be involved?"

"It's possible," I said. "Would it surprise
you if she had been?"

"A bit," she said. "Boomer liked women who
would roll over and play dead. Or, at least, roll over. I'd be
surprised he was seeing someone with enough backbone to kill. I
suppose all my cold speculation makes me sound terrible to
you."

"Not at all. You had to put up with a lot
when he was alive."

"You have no idea."

I paused. "I'm really calling to see if
Boomer ever took any business trips to Florida? Or, if he mentioned
friends or associates there?"

"Florida?" she asked, a catch in her voice.
"What's Florida have to do with it?"

When I didn't answer, she filled in the
blanks on her own.

"Boomer wasn't doing anything illegal, like
selling drugs, was he?" she asked. "Because I need every penny he
left me, and if the cops are saying he was—"

"Probably not," I interrupted, though it was
interesting that her mind had also leaped to the possibility of
Boomer moving drugs. "I'm just covering all the bases." Hell,
considering her lack of sentiment about Boomer, why not tell her
more?

"Actually," I admitted, "I am following up
on the possibility that your husband was involved in drug
smuggling. It would have been easy for him to move the stuff. I'm
sure he transported cars a lot as a dealer."

"I see." Amanda Cockshutt paused, thinking
it over. "He did bring cars up from Florida quite a bit, for the
used car portion of his business. He said they stayed in good
shape, thanks to the lack of salt on the roads down there. But..."
her voice trailed off. "I'd really have to think about it. Maybe
look over some old phone bills. I'd be glad to check for you, if
you like."

"Would you?" I was grateful for her offer,
but wondered what had prompted her change of heart. She'd gone from
being a cold fish to being human.

She could sense my
hesitation. "Look," she said. "I know I came off as uncaring at our
first meeting. But you have to understand that Boomer put me
through a lot. It was humiliating. And with the news of his affairs
plastered all over the newspapers, I didn't know how to react. I've
had time to think it over now and there's no point in staying mad
at a dead man. I've decided there are big sins in life and then
there are little sins. Boomer's affairs were pathetic, a bad habit
like biting his fingernails, something his aging male ego needed.
They don't seem so important now that he's gone. I've started to
remember some of the really great things we shared. Like how good
he was with
the kids. What it was like in
the early days. I'm not a robot. I do want to see his killers
caught. I'd like you to keep me informed on your progress, in
fact."