Bye Bye Bones (A CASSIDY CLARK NOVEL Book 1) (18 page)

“What’s on the card?”

“It’s what’s not on it. A generic card. No name but for the business.”

“What’s on the card, Cassidy?”

My breathing labored. Now, very shallow. I could feel my fingernails dig into the skin of my crossed arms.

“All right. It’s time to bring you out.”

Within seconds I as wide awake and refreshed, with a vague idea of what had transpired.

“It’s those business cards you saw back at the cabin,” Clancy said.

“Yes.”

“You need do nothing, but I suggest you go back and look at those cards.”

“I have copies of all of them.

“Wait! I only have copies of the front of the cards. There was something scribbled on the back of one!”

The late May desert sun failed to intimidate me, even though I didn’t bother to put the top up on my car and the blazing hot leather seat sizzled my thighs.

My cell phone rang through the Bluetooth. Not exactly an ideal thing when the Mustang’s top was down.

“Schlep?”

“I finally got around to checking out your spy camera in that brooch of yours. I think you might have captured more than Marks on the lens.”

“I’m almost home. Call you back.”

Looking through the files on Marks, I highlighted some findings. No car. I knew that. No car keys. A small key ring was found in the deceased’s jeans with one house key to a slum residence on the south side, along with one unidentifiable safe key, or safety box key, most likely fitting a home safe, only no safe was found at his property. The wallet was complete with a driver’s license and a debit card. Thirty-one dollars. Forty-two business cards. Twenty-three were those of the vic’s. Since he had no business, I could presume they were CFM calling cards. The additional cards belonged to various businesses. Exterminator. Doctor. Strip Clubs. Plumber. All the usual.

I printed out the scan of the business cards and the report on the tire tracks on the side of the house. Everything Manning had shared with me. The sand on the hard earth provided only a partial. Not enough to reveal any evidential findings of a tire treadmark.

I changed clothes into what I thought might be befitting of a bonsai person. A little tree person. An old tree person. A crooked tree?

I ended up with jeans, a tailored top and a straw hat, and walked into the modest building that housed the bonsai society.

After a brief tour, the membership recruiter asked if I would like to join.

“I’d like to do a little research. It’s quite a drive for me to get here. A commitment for me. Is it possible you have some materials for me on classes, resources, maybe other members?”

“We can’t really afford printing, but everything is on our website. You have been to our website, right?”

“Of course.” In all my years as a private investigator I always hated even the smallest white lie. “I’d like to know if any of my friends are members.”

“Well, you’ll have to ask your friends. Our membership list is confidential. Once you become a member you can access that information.”

“I didn’t realize this is a secret society.”

“The membership fee is $45.00. You’ll need to fill out the application form and your membership will be confirmed via email, along with your password.”

“I’ll just take care of that now. You can get me set up”

“The board reviews the applications. It will take a few days.”

“For bonsais?”

The good news was that I never gave the snot my name. A waste of my time. Schlep could get me that membership list in five minutes.

“Who’s watching Vickery?” I asked.

“Giles and Silva took a much needed vacation. We’re off the case for two weeks per Giles. Meanwhile, I have a couple resumes for you to replace—”

“Of course. We need more shadows on our team.”

“But we come with good news,” Carson said with her melodic whisper of a voice.

“I could use some.”

“First, we have the list of all the members in Tucson’s illustrious bonsai society. A couple names popped up. Scores, for one. And Sandra Vickery is some mucky-muck on the board.”

“Confirms those two must know each other,” I said.

“Seems like everyone knows everyone around here. That camera in your pin?”

“The brooch?”

“Yup.” Schlep turned his tablet so that I could see the images of Karl Marks the night at The Dancing Saguaros.

“What am I looking for?” I asked.

Schlep zoomed in.

“Holy shit!”

“Exactly. Now it’s not like this dive is a hotspot in town. Why would a guy like Michael Scores be hanging out here? And baby, he seems to only have eyes for you.”

“I’ll give you it’s creepy. What else do you have?”

“Between Carson and me, we have three computers running lists. I developed my own algorithm program a few nights ago, based on our work,” Schlep said.

“And?”

“Nothing yet. It’s going to take some time. We started out with no dots. Now it’s like we have too many. The program will identify patterns. Bits and pieces. It will develop quickly, like honey combs, and with all of the perfect spaces and places.”

“This is for the white van?” I asked.

“And the salon’s private parties, and for what it’s worth, the owners of that cabin, and all those business cards found there. Anyone that knew anyone, several degrees out, should show up.”

“But six degrees of separation means the entire population on this earth, remember?”

“Aha! But this is different. It has a built-in weeding out factor. We’re excited about it, Cass.”

I sighed. “Then I am, too.”

“We’ve turned up one small piece, but whether or not it’s relevant we don’t know,” Carson piped in.

“Do tell,” I said. Sometimes I liked it when someone told me it might be nothing.

“It’s the list of owners of the cabin. I did some probing, pretended I was a buyer and wondered why it went off the market. When I reached the wife of the couple that holds an interest in it, she let something slip. I asked if it was ever leant out to persons and she hesitated. Then she told me she has a stand-up guy that sometimes comes in. Usually when she’s there.”

“An affair? Who’s the guy?”

“That’s where I defer back to you. I was just an interested buyer, after all.”

She stopped me at the door with a flat voice, “I really want to sell. So does my husband. The other partners don’t want to put it on the market so you would be representing only our partial ownership.”

She had one hand on a cane. The other arm came up toward me, with her palm facing up, as if to show indifference. Her smile was warm, and totally fake.

“I understand. It’s perfect. Lots of snowbirds dream of getting a small piece of a cabin up here, let alone Tucson’s residents that have the most primal zest to escape the summer heat.”

“Right. It’s called Summerhaven for a reason,” she said, opening the door and gesturing me in toward her kitchen.

Wearing black yoga pants and a tight white top, the cane didn’t suit her as a physically fit woman in her forties. She took a seat in an equipale chair. A brown liquid filled the glass next to her. I’d already spied the opened can of diet coke with an almost empty rum bottle next to it.

“Where are my manners? If you’d like some lemonade it’s fresh and in the refrigerator.”

“No thanks. May I ask why you are thinking about selling?”

“The property as recently been—what’s the word? Stigmatized?”

“Excuse me?” I answered.

It didn’t take much to break her, once she believed she had my utter confidence. She was dying to tell someone that wouldn’t care what she had to say.

“I don’t know much about real estate law, but in case you have to disclose it, a man was found dead there.”

“These things happen,” I eased.

“Not murder.”

“Someone you knew?”

She nursed her drink as if it were a perfectly prim and proper thing to do at eleven in the morning. I remained silent, watching her fidget with her wedding rings.

“With our collective ownership we decided not to allow any non-owners to stay at the cabin without one of us present. We don’t even have maid service.”

“No one?”

Casting her eyes to the Saltillo tile floor, she mumbled, “I may have given someone a key. He’s a close friend. A confidant. He shares things with me. I share things with him. He really wasn’t involved, I can tell you that.”

“You know you don’t have to tell me any of this,” I said.

Her blue eyes raised to meet mine. “My friend is well-known around town.”

“Well, then I’m sure he wasn’t involved in any of this. Do you mind if I get that lemonade now?”

“Help yourself.” She waved me away.

I took my time, with my back turned away from her. I didn’t have to say another word.

“I appreciate that you didn’t ask me about the cane. I told my husband that I hurt my back during a Pilates class. My friend can be a bit feisty in the bedroom.”

Playing dumb, I gave her a backward glance and said, “Your friend?”

“Michael Scores. You know, I’m going to leave my husband. I feel like something magical is about to happen in my life, and it won’t be with him. Michael is so much different.”

“I’m sure you are right. Listen, I need to run. I’m sorry.”

She stared at me, her mouth open.

“By the way, if you ever want someone to talk to, here’s my card.”

I placed my P.I. card on the table next to her. She didn’t even look at it. I think she was worried she had told me too much.

She did.

Now I had a problem. Scores name had come up again. I had to pursue what my gut told me was some involvement on his part. And I didn’t know what to divulge to Tracy.

He peered around the bar. Every corner. Was someone watching him? Ever since the police had questioned him about his energy drinks at the television station, and then entered his home to have him reveal the secret recipe, he knew. They were on to him. Ridiculous. Let them spin their wheels. They had nothing.

He wondered, in an inaudible voice under his breath, “Did anyone notice the twitch in my eyes when I did this evening’s news?” Even Jessica Silva wouldn’t have seen his knees shaking under the news desk, but who saw the tremors in his fingers?

He hated that he’d been the one to insist on covering the missing sisters in 2013. Dumb.

He had to clean up his act. Abandon the paranoia.

He ordered tequila, neat. A double. It was last call.

I had nothing on him but a bad feeling. And Tracy beamed with happiness of late. She had told me that her new beau had hinted at a trip away. Just the two of them. He told her to make sure she had a valid passport.

Against a tide of opposing emotions, I elected not to say anything to her. For the time being.

There were four of them. Two had QR codes. One, a phone number. Of course, that one went to a strip club. The fourth one had something scribbled on it.

“Schlep. Enlarge this, please.”

“The one from Vickery Pools?”

“That very one.”

Schlep put it on the big screen in front of us at the station. A discretionary courtesy David Manning granted me.

“What do you see, Schlep?”

“Nu. M. Sigs.”

“Enlarge it.”

He brought it up a notch. “This is as big as she’ll go without blurring.”

“Look at it. That looks like an ‘n’, albeit a piss poor one, in the ‘sigs’. It’s
signs
.”

“Where does that leave us, Cass? We have an ‘m-sig’, and now an ‘m-sign’. A sign of something?”

“Only it’s plural, Schlep. It reads signs.”

“We’re charging you, Mr. Scores,” he hedged his bet.

“What the hell? For what?”

“Poisoning. The attempted murder of Jessica Silva.”

“That’s ludicrous. You don’t have anything.”

“We have motive. Jealousy is one of the seven deadly sins, and you won’t find many folks around here that don’t think you are jealous of Ms. Silva.

“And you had opportunity. Ms. Silva didn’t ingest much that day prior to the broadcast. In fact, she had some green tea at home, some of her own lemon bars, and your magic shake.”

“That’s right. You didn’t find anything in the staff kitchen.”