Lake Charles (16 page)

The vain Mrs. Cornwell removed her glasses. “I can take you but only for a minute. I’m a one-woman crew, so I can’t run as fast as most. Managing an inn alone after Ike passed sorely tests the limits of my endurance.”

“As a widower, I can understand your loss.” Mr. Kuzawa nudged back his cuff to bare the strap watch he wore on the front of his wrist, a habit of the war vets. “Time also runs short for us.”

She fished a passkey from a cigar box she kept under the counter and ushered us into the courtyard. Heat waves shimmied off the blacktop, and we reached Room 7. Its scarred door swept in to let the others enter, and my first glimpse of the familiar wormy chestnut paneling, zinc bed, and green baize curtains triggered the replay of Ashleigh’s saucy entry.

That girl glided in on pockets of air. The clingy fabric rustled over her sleek haunches. I thrilled. Pop the bubbly. Brendan is getting his ashes hauled tonight. It took long enough. The purple gown, sheeny as Christmas tinsel, unzipped at the back, but as I tugged at the gown to shuck it off her shoulders, she fussed at me.

“Brendan, whoa there. You pull it over my head. That off-the-shoulder crap is for skanks and strippers. You’ll ruin my favorite party dress by stretching it out of shape.”

When I did, her hair crackled with static. “My bad. I had better fess up. This is my first time. My first time in a motel, I mean.”

“Then it should be special. That’s why I wanted clean sheets, not the car seat upholstery. Now be a love and skin us a joint. Grass is a natural aphrodisiac.” She doffed her panties like a fig leaf and lounged her tanned curves on the stale blue bed sheet.

“Oh yeah, let’s get it on. Where’s your nickel bag?”

“Oops, I forgot it. Check in my Jag. Let me dig out the keys. First, look in the glove compartment.

“Good dope, too. What strain is it?”

“Columbian Gold.” She arched a sophisticated eyebrow at me. “God’s weed.”

“Oh yes, damn straight, you Yellow Snake crowd party hearty.” The prancing James Brown fired with soul on TV rapped out the bawdy lyrics to “Hot Pants.” His horn section blew the tightest arrangements on the rock scene.

“Brendan, I’m frittering away.” She drew up the sheet to show a dimple of cleavage. “Just ignore the Luger. I scam shit off Ralph all the time.”

“You steal from father?”

She smiled, predatory and cunning enough to throw a fright in me. “Why not? He can afford it.”

“But it’s not yours to take.”

She pitied me as if I was a rube. “Sure it is.”

“I’d never steal from my father,”

“You’d be surprised what you’re capable of doing if push comes to shove. Are you circumscribed, by the way?”

“I’m a Gemini.”

“No, you’re hopeless. Go get us my dope, please.”

“Yo, Brendan.” Mr. Kuzawa was juggling my elbow. “Is Room 7 the right joint?”

“Yeah, we’re good,” I replied, back with them.

“Don’t muss up anything. I just got done all the dusting and vacuuming,” said Mrs. Cornwell.

“Just one more moment, please,” said Herzog as we bunched at the foot of Ashleigh’s deathbed. “What did you observe that morning, Brendan?” he asked in his cross-examination mode. “Take us through it, start to finish.”

“Except for the dead gal in the sack, it was no different than waking any other morning.”

“Well then, that makes it different,” said Mr. Kuzawa.

Herzog prompted me to tease out the details. “Which side of the bed—right, middle, or left—did you sleep on? Was the window blind up or down? Was the deadbolt on or off?”

“She lay on the dark side the closest to the window and bathroom. I slept by the door for a fast getaway. It looked dim so I assume the bed table lamp was off, and the blind was down. No background chatter meant the TV had to be off. Or maybe we put on a movie and used the mute. I forget. The shower ran. See the water stain on the carpet?”

“Right. Where’s the phone?”

Herzog’s barrage of questions was a pain, but my night here in question came alive.

“I told you the room had no phone.”

She sighed. “The phone broke, and I took it out.”

Herzog’s hand latched to my shoulder. “Recast it in your imagination. Okay, you ducked outside to get her pot. Look around you. Are any other vehicles in sight?”

I reclaimed my shoulder. “The lot was vacant. Wait … I did spot a sedan in it. I believe it was wine-colored, but at night, it’s tough to know the color. It was definitely bigger than Ashleigh’s compact Jag. The sedan had a whip radio antenna fixed to its trunk.”

“Interesting.” A memo pad emerged from Herzog’s game pouch, and he scratched down the notes. “Why didn’t this item surface before now?”

“Obviously returning to the crime scene has jogged his memory,” said Mr. Kuzawa.

“Mrs. Cornwell, do you recall the sedan?” asked Herzog.

“I better go eat, or I’ll faint from hunger.”

“I’ll mark that as a no,” said Herzog.

“Can you get us to Ralph Sizemore’s estate?” Mr. Kuzawa’s next twenty-dollar bribe primed her.

“If it gets rid of you any faster, you bet I will.” Gesturing, she described the roads to reach Sizemore’s place, and Herzog took it down.

I’d frisked the green matchbook off the dead archer, and I asked our last question. “Do you keep a supply of matchbooks in the office?”

“My niece works in a match factory and gets them in bulk,” she replied.

I was tempted to describe the dead archer and Edna and ask if they’d ever been motel guests. I also wanted her read on Ralph Sizemore, the local capo fond of his palm sap and cracking skulls. But she showed an old woman’s leaky memory, and I wasn’t convinced of her allegiance, so I stuffed my questions, and she guided us back to her smelly office.

“Might we step in off your porch? Your neighbors might get the wrong idea about us,” said Mr. Kuzawa.

She toed out the screen door. “Hurry. You’re letting in the stink bugs and deer flies.”

Her foyer hemmed us in as a cozy trio. Surveying her mismatched furniture in the segment that I saw of her living room, I also smelled they’d eaten burned pork chops for last night’s dinner. Mr. Kuzawa eyes cutting over cued me to go first.

“Is J.D. at home?”

“Who’s J.D.?” She sent me a guarded once over. “If you’re smashed like Kerns gets, I don’t smell any booze on your breath.”

“Brendan means your boy,” said Mr. Kuzawa.

“My boy? My son’s name is Victor. What’s it to you?”

“Murder,” replied Mr. Kuzawa.

“Murder? Jesus, what has he stepped in now?” Mrs. Nelson, belching, retightened the belt knot to her sack dress. She lifted her chin and bellowed. “Victor! Out here on the double.”

A heavy object in a back room thumped on the floor. A door opened before a blade-featured boy surfaced from the corridor. Victor with his jaw-length blonde hair looked younger than I did. He didn’t appear stoned, just drowsy from just waking up.

“What’s this J.D. stuff I hear? Named Victor ain’t good enough for you?” she asked.

“Aw, get off it, Mom. J.D. was Ashleigh’s nickname for me.”

“Ah right, Miss Rich Britches. I should’ve known. Your Uncle Kerns called and said you can lend these guys a hand.”

Victor’s finger jab accused me. “Why isn’t he behind bars? The sheriff busted him for her murder.” He kept on pointing at me. I itched to bury my knuckles in his rodent teeth. “I never knew what she saw in him. Goat didn’t either. We don’t like him.”

Goat had been the dude sucking on the ice hookah. “The feeling cuts both ways,” I said.

“Her liking Brendan pissed you off, huh?” said Mr. Kuzawa in a leading way.

“I never cared for it, no,” replied Victor. “She and I went steady until she dumped me.”

“Did it anger you enough to kill her?” asked Mr. Kuzawa.

Victor’s tent of hair couldn’t veil his shiny eyes. “Don’t put that on me. Brendan did that. Why is he free as a bird?”

“He’s out on bail,” said Mr. Kuzawa. “He also didn’t kill her.”

Anger at Victor crackled in Mrs. Nelson’s face. “We’ll take up later why you chauffeured Miss Rich Britches in my van. I guess you won’t anymore, but I’ll lock it in the garage just the same. For now, finish answering these questions. My patience is ready to snap.”

Mr. Kuzawa bore in. “Did Ashleigh supply your dope?”

“Everybody knew she was always solid to cop a score,” replied Victor. “Not that I ever did.”

“Who was her dope pimp?” I asked. “Paco? Goat?”

“They’re just pals. Her dope comes from her rich daddy,” replied Victor, eager to shift any blame. “Wasted one night, she told me he grows the ganja by the bushel up at Lake Charles. She crowed how she had all we’d ever want to smoke.”

That news juiced my pulse rate, and a sweat not from my detox lined my palms. Mr. Kuzawa shot me a pleased nod. The pieces were starting to fit and lock in together because we’d just identified the big bug.

“Why did you kill her?” asked Victor, back to surly.

“Brendan didn’t harm the girl, and we’re trying to prove it.” Mr. Kuzawa eyed Mrs. Nelson. “That is if we can get a fair shake.”

“You can ride easy because we won’t fink on you,” she said. “I hate Sizemore. This is the thing. You don’t come back here again, and you also accept Victor had no role in Ashleigh’s death.”

“Deal,” said Mr. Kuzawa.

“Meanwhile Victor or J.D. or whoever he is now is grounded for two weeks. No, make it a month for smoking dope again.”

“Aw, Mom …”

We left them to jaw over it. Back in the cab truck, we sat with the engine stuttering on the cut-rate gas. We repeated our conversation with Mrs. Nelson to Herzog.

“Do Victor’s claims merit any credibility?” he asked.

“Victor tells it straight,” said Mr. Kuzawa. “I’m convinced Sizemore is who grows the pot at Lake Charles. Brendan, your take?”

“It’s pretty ballsy of him, but I can buy it, yeah.”

“We’ll assume Sizemore took Edna and killed my boy. You and I
both
want to take him down.”

I nodded. “Wrecking his precious plants was a good start.”

My cab truck taxied out to the blacktop, and Herzog gave me the correct route numbers to Sizemore’s place. I thought I’d keep an eye out for Ashleigh’s red Jaguar parked there, but it was still probably in the sheriff’s impoundment yard. That brought up a question. “Did the police report list a Luger recovered from Ashleigh’s car?”

Herzog’s reply was a negative headshake.

Mr. Kuzawa was surprised. “Did she carry a Luger?”

“She took it from her father and kept it stashed in the glove compartment, but I didn’t find the Luger in there.”