Invisible (29 page)

Okay, I know you think I should run to the cops with what I know. But I’m not going to do it. You know why? Well, for one thing, why should I? The way I look at it, why not just get in on it? There’s big money here, but all Danny and I are getting out of it is peon wages. But I think I’ve figured out the system, and there’s no reason we can’t do this on our own. Although we’d have to figure out the selling angle, of course. And our oh-so-respectable, big shot boss would probably go into orbit if he figured out we’d latched on to his scheme. But I can handle it.

There’s no point moralizing at me about this, Sis, so don’t bother, okay? I love you. If you want to stick to the straight and narrow, fine. Just don’t tell me what to do.

It’s beginning to tie together,
I thought uneasily. Ray’s job at Thrif-Tee Wrecking concerned something illegal. The “selling angle” sounded like a possible link to Bottom-Buck Barney’s. I couldn’t tell if Debbie, at this point, knew the details of what was going on, but she apparently knew enough to upset her.

Did Ray and friend Danny decide to go out on their own? Had their “big shot boss” gotten wind of it, with a reaction far more violent than going “into orbit”?

There was a long interval between that letter and the postmark date on the next one. This one, after some talk about possibly getting together with Debbie over the Labor Day weekend, had a different tone, as if Ray were developing doubts. Or disgust.

Maybe all that old work-hard, honesty-is-the-best-policy stuff that Dad tried to instill in us runs deeper than I figured. Because this is beginning to get to me. Part of it is what goes on here, of course. But there’s also knowing what else our oh-so-respectable boss is doing. Pulling phony deals with wrecked cars is bad enough, but it’s just “stuff,” you know? But knowing how he cheats on his wife with his bimbos really gets to me. (More of Dad’s principles rising to the surface here?) I’ve never seen the guy, did I ever tell you? He keeps his connection with us very much under-the-table, though I think he comes over and checks things out after hours. To make sure no one’s cheating him, I suppose. But he isn’t as anonymous as he thinks he is. The wife of a guy who works here used to do housecleaning at his fancy house. She works in a motel now, and she says she’s seen him in there several times. Not with his wife. But not alone, if you get my meaning.

Well, I suppose it’s none of my business. For all I know maybe his wife is playing the same sleazy game. But right now I’m feeling pretty full-up with sleaze.

I opened the last letter with mixed feelings of hope and dread. Ray had recognized that whatever was going on at the shop was wrong, and he was no longer talking about getting into it himself. Yet I knew there was no happy ending.

The letter started out on an upbeat air. Debbie had apparently driven up to see him in Missouri over the Labor Day holiday weekend. It sounded as if they’d had a good time, but there had also been serious talks. Ray got very serious in the last paragraph.

Okay, Sis, you and Dad have finally gotten to me. It’s time to get out. The last straw hit a couple days ago. It isn’t just cars getting stolen and numbers getting switched and insurance companies getting ripped off. It’s people dying. An elderly couple in Alabama were killed in the theft of this Camry we got in last week. I’m sure this isn’t the first time something like that has happened, and it’s too much for me. So I’m going to the cops. It’s going to take some undercover work to get the proof to take to them. I’m sure everything on the office computer is squeaky clean. No help there. Although that’s one of the beauties of this operation. Ol’ Bo may be crooked as, to use one of Grandpa’s old sayings, a dog’s hind leg, but he isn’t dumb. They do enough legitimate business that it’s easy to hide the not-so-legit stuff. But I’m sure there are records somewhere. Probably in the wall safe. Big problem, you say? Oh no. Because I’ve seen Benny putting the key right there in the file cabinet.

So, wish me luck, Sis. Dad would be pleased, don’t you think?

But Ray had never made it to the authorities.

27

I’d just gotten the boxes back on the shelf when Letitia rang the doorbell. I unlocked the door and let her in. Her wispy hair had wilted around her face, and she immediately stepped out of the high heeled sandals. I could almost see the lumpy bunion on her right foot throbbing. I pulled out a chair at the dinette set. She plopped into it with a small groan of relief.

“Did the doctor decide anything?”

“More expensive pills. More tests. Come back next week.” She rolled her eyes. “How about you? Have you found anything?”

I showed her the birthday card signed by Aunt Chris.

“Are you going to contact this Aunt Chris and tell her about Debbie?” Letitia asked.

“So far, I don’t have her last name or address. Can you use a computer?” I waved toward the blank-eyed machine. “It might be in there.”

“Mitzi knows as much about computers as I do.” Letitia shook her head. “It’s just so hard to believe someone I knew was murdered. The world isn’t the same, is it?” She sounded as much wistful as horrified.

“I guess there have always been murders.”

“Not to people I know.”

We silently contemplated the changed world for a minute.

“Do you ever feel invisible?” I asked.

She looked at me as if I’d asked if she ever flew around the room on a broomstick. “Invisible? No one is invis—” She broke off, her tired eyes widening. “Oh, but that’s it exactly, isn’t it? It happened today! The doctor’s office was crowded, and these three young women wound up squeezing onto the sofa where I was sitting. I felt awkward, because they were talking about some birth control thing, and I couldn’t help overhearing. But they didn’t even realize I was overhearing, did they? They weren’t any more aware of my existence than they were of the jade plant on the end table.”

“Not truly
invisible
—”

“But not
visible
either,” she said. “I guess it’s an age thing.”

“Don’t let it bother you.” I patted her shoulder. “I’ve discovered it’s really quite useful.”

“Useful?” She sounded doubtful. Then she tilted her head, eyes narrowing. A nod and unexpectedly foxy smile followed. “Yes. I’ll remember that. Quite useful, indeed.”

“Well, I’d better get started home. I’ll have to stop in a motel somewhere along the way.”

“It would probably be okay if you stayed here overnight.”

We both looked around. The apartment was clean and unoccupied, and Debbie surely couldn’t care. But the idea gave me too much of a walking-across-someone’s-grave feeling.

“I think I’ll just head on home,” I said, and she nodded as if she understood. I realized I was still holding the bundle of letters. “I found these. They’re letters Debbie’s brother wrote to her. Would it be all right with you if I take them along to give to the authorities investigating the murder?”

She looked undecided for a moment, again considering legalities, I assumed. Then she cast aside whatever her worries were and nodded firmly. “If they can help catch Debbie’s killer, by all means, take them. And the birthday card too.”

Letitia picked up her sandals, and together, she in her pantyhose feet, we walked around to the front porch.

“I’m going to have to do something about the apartment,” she said. She sounded worried. “I need the income from the rental.”

“I’ll talk to the police about getting Debbie’s body identified right away. I’ll give you my address.”

Once more I scribbled everything on a scrap of notebook paper. Maybe I should have business cards made: “Ivy Malone. Invisible Lady. Specializing in Neighborhood Murder Investigations. Cemetery Stakeouts, and Oddly Shaped Vegetables.” I handed her the scrap and hugged her. “I wish we’d met under happier circumstances.”

* * *

I stayed in a motel just across the Missouri line, but I didn’t sleep well and felt frazzled with heat and weariness by the time I got home. Maybe I should trade the Thunderbird in on something compact, with working air conditioning? Although that would mean dipping into a CD, and I need all the interest I can get in these times of miserable interest rates.

I was also rather stiff from that fall I’d taken from the chair, with a blue bruise developing on the inside of my left knee. I tried not to notice that it was shaped like Australia.

I was relieved to see the shades were pulled in Magnolia’s house, which meant she and Geoff were away. Dearly as I love Magnolia, I’m not always up for her flamboyant energy.

Even though I was tired, I tried to call Dix right away. I wanted to discuss the letters with him. But there was no answer at Dix’s apartment all afternoon and evening, not even when I tried one last time a little before 11:00 p.m., after I’d soaked my sore bones in the tub. Not like him to be out so late these days. I was worried enough that I called the hospital to see if he’d been readmitted. No, no Matt Dixon there. I couldn’t call Haley because she had only a cell phone, no home phone, and I didn’t know the number.

Next morning I tried Dix’s number several times. No answer. I called the community college library and learned that Haley wouldn’t be in for several days. Unlikely as it seemed, it almost looked as if they’d gone somewhere together.

Reluctantly, thinking the letters and information about Aunt Chris were too important to delay, I called Detective Harmon. He didn’t sound particularly interested but said that when he had time he’d come out to see what I had. When I pinned him down, he reluctantly agreed to maybe later today.

While waiting for him, I called Tiffany. She recognized my voice, of course. Before I could say why I was calling, she said, “Oh, I’ll bet you’re wondering about Detective Dixon and Haley, aren’t you?”

“I did try to call him . . .”

“Ronnie said Detective Dixon’s brother called—he’s been in the Mideast, you know? And he was going to be passing through Chicago, just a layover there at the airport for a few hours. Detective Dixon hasn’t seen his brother for over two years, so Haley is driving him up to Chicago.”

Chicago! Well, Dix had better appreciate that. Above and beyond the call of duty, I’d say.

“They left just yesterday, so it’ll probably be at least a couple of days before they get back. They were going to stay with some relatives of Haley’s along the way.”

I appreciated the information, even though this wasn’t why I’d called. “Tiffany, I wonder if you could do me a special favor?”

“Sure, Mrs. M.,” she said promptly. “What is it?”

“Could you find out if a Benny or a Danny work at that Thrif-Tee Wrecking place where you get used auto parts?”

“Does this have something to do with Kendra’s murder?”

“Possibly. Dix—Detective Dixon—keeps telling me to keep my nose out of this, but it seems as if nobody’s doing anything, and I think this could be important.”

“Remember that old saying, ‘Whatever a woman does, she has to do twice as well as a man to be thought half as good’? I figure a woman’s nose belongs wherever she wants to put it,” Tiffany said.

This was not an old saying I was familiar with, and I wasn’t sure I got the connection, but I wasn’t going to argue.

“Anyway, I can tell you right now that there’s a Benny out at Thrif-Tee,” Tiffany said. “He handles the office work, if you can call that greasy hole-in-the-wall an office. I had to run some papers out there one time. Girlie calendars on the wall, old tin cans for ashtrays, dog ugly as a stomped-on Halloween mask, oil stains everywhere. Yuck.”

“Maybe you can think of some casual reason to ask him if they have a Danny working there?”

“Sure. I have to call out there every once in a while anyway.”

“Do any women work there?”

“I think the guys there are all those macho types who figure no woman can tell a carburetor from a spare tire. I doubt if they’d hire a woman, even if she could tear a car apart and put it back together with her eyes closed.”

Which perhaps explained why Debbie investigated her brother’s death from a position at Barney’s instead of at Thrif-Tee.

Tiffany giggled. “But Benny sounds an awful lot like a woman. He got really mad the first time I called out there and mistook him for one. But I recognize his voice now, of course, and try to keep him buttered up.”

“One more thing. Do you know who owns Bottom-Buck Barney’s?”

“No, but if it’s important I can try to find out.”

“It might be important.” The boss at Thrif-Tee had “bimbos,” according to Ray. Debbie had seemed to be trying to pretend she was one. Connection? “The owner never comes around?”

“If he does, he’s doing it incognito. Although I think I’ve talked to him on the phone a few times.”

“A nice man?”

“I don’t think he calls here unless he’s mad about something. Mr. Retzloff always jumps up and closes his door when this guy calls. I got the impression somewhere that he owns some high-class business and would rather people not know he’s associated with a grubby used-car lot like Barney’s.”

Which sounded a lot like Ray’s comment about the “oh-so-respectable boss” at Thrif-Tee. “Let me know what you find out, okay?”

* * *

I’d been neglecting my garden, so I went out and watered everything. My tomatoes, without attention, appeared to be taking on odder shapes than ever. Remember Jimmy Durante? I could definitely see his nose on one. The cucumbers had taken the opportunity to expand to small dachshund size. One even had beginnings of a tail.

The phone was ringing when I went back inside. I expected it to be Officer Harmon telling me he couldn’t come after all. Instead, an unfamiliar voice identified himself as Jordan Kaine.

The name fell into a blank hole before I finally managed to drag it out. “Oh yes, I remember Charley Mason mentioning you. You were looking into some legal aspect of the problems out at Country Peace.”

“Yes, that’s right.” He had a deep voice, youthful sounding for a retired man. A voice that had undoubtedly impressed many a jury with its authoritative depth.