Candy Apple Red (4 page)

I glanced at Dwayne. Full disclosure would have to be later when I had his complete attention. Besides, I didn’t have time to waste. Dwayne crumpled his leftover wrapper into a ball with one hand, listening hard to whomever was on the other end of the line. I gave him a high-sign good-bye, popped open my soda and headed out. The answer to Dwayne’s mystery woman would have to wait.

Sucking down the ice-cold root beer, I whipped the Volvo up Taylor’s Ferry Road and curved through neighborhoods perched on hills. The house where I was to deliver the 72-hour notice was a seedy little ranch style with a cracked driveway near the I-5 freeway. I suspected the land value alone would soon make it worthwhile to initiate a complete demolition; the residence wasn’t much to write home about.

But my thoughts were on Bobby Reynolds as I pulled to a stop in the driveway, my wheels in ruts, the Volvo’s undercarriage tickled by a foot-high swatch of weeds and grass. For four years there had been relative silence about Bobby’s homicides. Now, suddenly, the tragedy was right in front of my face. Was Bobby still alive? I wondered. And if so, where was he?

Stowing the empty can in my cup holder, I climbed from the car and trudged through more knee-high weeds to the front door. Knocking on the screen door, I automatically held tight to my small purse. Its strap was slung over my shoulder. I was poised. If I saw even one whisker of a broom I was out of there. After waiting a few moments I rapped again, hoping against hope that she wasn’t home and I could just post the notice. Greg could mail the 72-hour notice but because of the extra mailing time the tenant was allowed six days’ leeway instead of three. When rent was late, sometimes that just didn’t pan out, especially for Greg who wasn’t known for his patience anyway.

Relieved that no one was there, I dug in my pocket for my Scotch tape. As soon as I stuck the tape on the paper and reached for the screen door handle I heard shuffling footsteps on the other side. I dropped my hand and waited. A woman with a tired face and a well-smoked cigarette dangling from her lips swam into view from the darkness beyond. The screen door was still between us. There was a big rip in the mesh down by my knees but I didn’t think I could hand her the notice from that angle. It just didn’t seem polite. I could drop it through the hole, but it was always better to actually see the notice in their hands. No questions later. If she took it, then the deed was done. I’ve always liked things wrapped up neat and tidy.

“Gail Mortibund?” I asked.

“Yeah?” She waited as if expecting bad news. I got the feeling she’d received a lot of it in her life, and I hesitated.

One moment I was debating whether to even give her the notice, the next a pit bull was charging toward the door at full bellow, heading straight for the rip in the screen. I pivoted and ran before my brain even locked into gear. The woman screamed at the dog to no avail. I pounded toward the Volvo. The beast was barking its head off and sounded right at my heels. The eviction notice flew from my hands. I leapt for the car. The dog snapped at my jeans, brushed my ankle and caught a piece of my left Nike as I hurled myself atop the hood of my car. Arms flailing, I landed in full sail. My stomach hit with an
oof
and all the wind burst from my lungs. I sprawled in classic starfish position for one heartbeat, then yanked up my legs at the knees while the monster snapped and snarled beneath me. With an effort I pulled myself to safety on the center of my hood.

My heart hammered like a woodpecker on steroids.

So, where was Gail The Tired now?

I glared at the house. The front door was solidly closed. She’d left Woofers out here to bark and lunge and bare his nasty teeth. I snarled back at him, and that sent him in paroxysms of dancing around and clawing at my paint job.

“Stop that!” I yelled in fury.

His wrinkled mouth revealed canines that sent visions of ripped, bloody tissue across the screen of my brain. I shivered, hugged my knees tighter and considered.

Five seconds of intense thought ensued. A lightning bolt of remembrance. That hard pain against my hip bone was my cell phone. Jammed into the pocket of my black pants. I pulled it out and examined its LCD, tracking the battery life. Only one little miniature battery icon was left. I had enough time for one, maybe two, calls. I mentally castigated myself, telling myself to plug the damn thing into the portable charger as soon as I was back inside my car.

First I called Marta’s office. Her receptionist snottily told me she was, as ever, in a meeting. I sighed inwardly, wondering what drives me to piss people off. Certain personalities just beg me to annoy them. I told her that I wanted to leave a message and was snottily told to go ahead. Meanwhile, Woofers prowled and growled somewhere along the edge of the car. My heart still thundered in my ears.

“Tell Marta I can’t make the three o’clock with her today. Something’s come up.”

“Could you be more specific?” she asked in a tone that held a world of judgment.

“Why won’t ‘I’m busy’ just cover it?”

Woofers began barking furiously again, having trotted back a few feet to spot me on top of the hood. The receptionist couldn’t help but hear. “Is that a dog?” she asked.

“Could be.”

“Just a moment.”

I was clicked off for a second. Woofers was really going to town. I was going to have a headache before this ordeal was over and the hood was blistering hot. I shaded my eyes, glancing toward the door again. Gail was back. Her figure stood like a wraith in the deepened shadows behind the screen door. I waved at her, but it was more an acknowledgment. She had me treed with her miserable, vicious dog.

Marta snapped on. “I’m in a meeting, Jane.” She sounded totally irritated.

“I didn’t ask to be put through. I was just leaving a message.”

“Yes?” she said tensely.

“I’m sitting on the roof of my car. There’s a vicious beast barking its head off—”

“I can hear.”

“—and until its owner decides to CALL IT OFF!” I yelled, “I’m stuck.”

“Fine. I’ll tell the client you can’t make it. That’s what you want, right?”

“As soon as I’m free, I’ll be there,” I said, growing irritated myself. “Trust me. I’d much rather be with you than here.”

“You need to be here on time, Jane.”

“Do you get that I’m in a bind?”

“Well, figure it out,” she ordered and hung up. I clicked off with a certain amount of righteous indignation, pushing a few extra buttons in the process. The phone beeped at me as if in distress before the deed was done. I sat cross-legged, debating what to do next. Should I call someone else? There was still some battery life left.

The only person who came to mind…the only friend I knew who would really drop everything and help me out…was Cynthia Beaumont. Cynthia worked in an art gallery in the Pearl District in northwest Portland. She was a sometime artist, specializing in watercolors of evil cats peeking through dense forests thick with red, blue, mustard yellow and violent purple flowers and fanglike hovering grass. I considered it a plus, given my current situation, that she seemed to understand the animal mind.

“Cynthia! It’s Jane. I need some help.”

“Jane?” Her voice came in stuttered cell phone static.

“Yes! It’s Jane! Can you hear me? I’m stuck on top of my car and I need you to come help me escape.”

“What?”

I repeated my words, debating on whether to mention the dog at this juncture. Despite her drawings Cynthia wasn’t exactly the model of heroism when it came to ferocious animals. Neither was I, come to that. Muzzles were invented for a reason and this slavering monster now lying in silent wait somewhere over the edge of my car sure needed one.

“I can’t hear you,” Cynthia said in fits and starts. I heard more static. There was a bit of whining in her tone so I had to get stern.

“I need your help!” I yelled directions into the phone, praying she’d hear them. “And don’t get out of the car. Just pull up beside me.”

“Okay…”

I sighed and turned off the phone. Woofers was challenging my paint job again. “Call off your dog!” I yelled to the front door but Gail The Tired seemed to have blended back into the house. Probably having one hell of a belly laugh at my expense. I could picture her doubled-over, struggling for breath, the stub of the cigarette dropping to the floor in her fit of hilarity.

Three-quarters of an hour later Cynthia’s battered Honda pulled into the rutted driveway and slowly bumped its way toward me. As soon as she stopped she opened her door and I screamed at her as the Pit Bull charged her car. She yanked her foot back inside and slammed the door. Woofers leapt upward, jaws snapping at Cynthia’s surprised white face behind the window.

I should have warned her about the dog.

Motioning her to edge her car next to mine so that they would be side by side, making it possible for me to jump from one to the other, I stood up on the top of my hood and glared at the closed front door. There was a twitch of ragged curtains at Gail’s front window.

Cynthia aligned her car with my Volvo. I leapt to her hood, trying not to make too much of a dent as I landed. Woofers also leapt and spun but could make no purchase against the Honda’s slick exterior…except for a few nicks that is. Actually, it was a couple of rather deep scratches. Luckily, her car was hardly the latest model. Luckier still, I’d managed to keep from dishing in her hood with my weight although my ribs felt bruised.

I turned over and lay spread-eagled on my back, staring upward into the dusty blue heavens. Why was I so determined to stay out of the information specialist business and keep up with process serving? Today hadn’t been exactly good for my health.

Cynthia rolled down her window. Her mouth was set. “Want me to back up?” she bit out.

“Hell, no. I want you to move forward. Right through her front door!”

Cynthia took me at my word, although mostly I was just railing at the sky. As the Honda jerked forward, Woofers trotted along beside us, barking so hard that I wondered if he might actually tear a lung or something. When Cynthia stopped just short of the porch Woofers gave up the call. His tongue lolled out and he glanced at the door of the house. He seemed lost in indecision. Apparently this was as far as his little pea brain could take him. Gail The Tired stepped outside—still with the cigarette between her lips—and made a shooing motion. Woofers suddenly scurried inside the house. I slid off the top of the car, found the 72-hour notice which was marked with a dog paw print and slapped it into her hand. She just looked at me and smoked.

I slammed into the passenger side of Cynthia’s car. She turned to me, her spiky short dark hair standing straight up, as if in surprise. As this was her normal hairstyle I couldn’t blame it on the events with Woofers. She said dryly, “You forgot to mention the dog?”

“I’m just sorry we didn’t get a good run at him.”

She snorted, knowing me too well. She wore a black suit coat over a black camisole and one of the shortest skirts on record. I have to admire a woman with that kind of moxie; I’d be showing the world things not meant to be seen in the light of day even if you gave me a couple of extra inches. She shot me a look that could curdle milk.

I would pay for my omission about Woofers.

We backed down the drive to where I’d parked my car. Climbing out of Cynthia’s Honda, I checked the paint job on mine, swore, then opened the driver’s door and slid inside. Examining my watch, I swore again, and then I saw the small tear in my right Nike and I swore a third time.

Cynthia gave me a look that warned the issue wasn’t finished as she drove away. I mouthed, “Thanks.” I would thank her more concretely later—with food and alcohol.

As soon as I was behind the wheel I drove straight to Marta’s office, punched the elevator number to her floor, then burned into her outer office. The receptionist raised an eyebrow at me, but I sailed by as if I owned the place. I realized belatedly that my black top and pants were covered with dust, so I steered myself to the bathroom for a quick once over. “Shit.” I looked as if I’d been treed by a wild animal, which wasn’t that far from the truth.

A few moments later I was knocking on Marta’s door. I heard her call for me to come in. When I entered she was sitting at her desk, hands behind her head. Though her expression was neutral, I could tell she was grinning to herself. Bobby Reynolds had single-handedly delivered Tess to her, no matter what his crimes, and Marta was counting greenbacks in her head. Marta, it now appeared, had become a full-service divorce lawyer. Need someone to chat up your husband in case he’s been secretly aiding and abetting your murderous son? Just ask Marta. She could find you an information specialist, or a facsimile thereof. And payment to Marta Cornell did not hinge on Jane Kelly—said information specialist’s—success. Marta simply delivered someone to help—and her clients paid her for her trouble.

I sat down in one of the two cream, faux-suede client seats on the opposite side of Marta’s Brazilian cherry desk; Tess Reynolds Bradbury sat in the other. I recognized the tight lips and blue eyes from her pictures in the paper and television interviews. I also recognized the pink scarf, now lying across her shoulders and down the front of her suit. She’d had it on this morning in the Coffee Nook. Wrapped around her blond hair. I hadn’t recognized her behind the Audrey Hepburn sunglasses.