Mistletoe Man - China Bayles 09 (33 page)

"Damn," I said, under my
breath. I sat back in my chair.

The information wasn't really news,
but it had a note of finality.

"Yeah," Blackie
said. I could hear the suppressed excitement in his voice. "But where the
prints are concerned, we came up with something unexpected, China. The only
ones we found on the steering wheel and the gearshift were Terry's."

I
frowned. "The
only
ones?"

"Well, not quite. There were
three unidentified prints on the inside of the driver' s-side door, as if
somebody had put a hand through the window to pull the door open. But that was
it. Terry was the last person to drive that truck."

My frown deepened.
"You didn't find any of Donna's prints? Or Aunt Velda's?"

"Oh, you bet. All over the dash, on the
plastic seat, on the passenger-side door. But not on the steering wheel or the
gearshift—where you'd expect, if either of those women had been driving that
vehicle recently." He paused, then said grimly: "Donna is covering
for her sister, China. And I know why, thanks to McQuaid's phone call last
night."

"You
found a criminal record?"

"More than that. I've just
learned that Terry served three years of a six-year term in the Women's State
Prison in Sacramento, California. Then she went over the fence."

"She
escaped!" I exclaimed.

"Yeah—she and
three others. They were captured, she got away. Surprise, huh?"

God,
what a mess. I chewed on my lip.

Blackie went on.
"It's clear that Donna was willing to take the rap to keep her sister from
going back to jail in California—in addition to whatever time she'd get for
Swenson's death. Which could turn into a pretty stiff penalty, especially if
she'd been drinking when she hit him."

"Drinking?"
I asked sharply. "What makes you say that?"

"There's no
evidence, of course. But the more I study the situation, the more it looks like
drunk driving—either that, or a deliberate hit. Swenson was working along the
fence, China, almost ten feet off the road. Visibility was good, and there's no
underbrush in that area. No sign of braking, either. It's hard to make a case
for a simple accident. Either the driver was drinking—which explains the
hit-and-run—or it was intentional." He paused and added: "Meaning
vehicular homicide."

This was not what I
wanted to hear. If there was a suspicion of drunk driving or an intentional
hit, Dutch Doran would jump on it, especially since Terry was a prison escapee.
As far as he was concerned, he couldn't lose on this one. I gave a resigned
sigh. "What was Terry doing time for?"

"Growing and selling marijuana.
While she was in prison, they put her in charge of the garden." Blackie
chuckled. "It makes a certain kind of sense, I suppose."

Marijuana.
Damn!
That
threw the affair into an entirely different context. Doran never missed a
chance to showboat on a pot case. He wouldn't just jump on this, he'd fling
himself into it with wild enthusiasm.

"Terry's name hasn't turned up in
connection with Swenson's pot-growing activities, has it?" I asked apprehensively.

Blackie hesitated so long that my
stomach knotted. When he finally spoke, he sounded disgusted. "What makes
you think that turkey Talbot would tell me anything material? I'm not one of
his inner circle. But I've formally requested that he keep me informed on the
progress of his investigation and specifically that he include me in the action
if he busts any locals. If I haven't gotten anything from him by this
afternoon, I'll give him another call."

I thought for a
moment. "What about the prints on the truck door?"

"What about
them?" Blackie replied dismissively. "Like I say, they're
unidentified. Could be anybody's." "Did you try for a match?"

"What'dya think?
On a hunch, I even had them compared to Swenson's. No dice." He paused
and added hopefully, "They aren't yours, are they? You didn't pull that
door open when you found the truck in the shed?"

"Hey, I know
better than that. I looked through the window to see if the key was in the
ignition, but I didn't touch the door."

"How
about Ruby?"

"She
didn't even go into the shed."

"Oh, well. They
probably belong to one of Talbot's crew. Or the guy operating the tow truck.
They're all supposed to know better, but they don't always follow strict
procedure."

"Wait a
minute," I said, frowning. It didn't seem to me that Blackie was taking
the fingerprint evidence as seriously as he should. "Doesn't it strike you
as odd that Terry's are the
only
prints on the steering wheel or
the gearshift? Donna drove that truck regularly, and her aunt occasionally.
You'd think their prints would be all over it, not just on the dash or the
seat."

"Who knows? Maybe somebody
cleaned up the truck recently. Maybe Terry wiped them off."

"That
truck?" I laughed skeptically. "It's a ranch truck, for Pete's sake.
It hasn't been cleaned in the past decade. And Terry wouldn't have wiped
Donna's prints—if anything, she would have wiped her own, after she parked that
truck in Swenson's shed."

"Not if she was
convinced that nobody would find it," Blackie said. A stubborn tone had
come into his voice. The sheriff is a very nice guy, but he's still a cop. He'd
come up with a solution to his crime of the week, and he was going to stick
with it.

"Look,
China," he said flatly, "I'm letting you in on all this as a
courtesy, because you were the one who told me that the Fletcher sisters were
having trouble with Swenson, and because you located the truck. I also thought
you'd want to notify Wyzinski that her client's prints aren't on the
vehicle." That last sentence was spoken with some sarcasm. Blackie is not
one of Justine's fans.

I hesitated.
"Have you had any communication with Terry today?"

"Not since last
night. She visited her sister here at the jail about eight o'clock—that's when
we took her prints."

I was beginning to feel very uneasy
about this. When Terry was asked for her prints, she probably figured the game
was up. I wouldn't be surprised if she'd already fled. Come to think of it,
though, she didn't have a vehicle— unless she'd finished repairing the van, or
was willing to steal her friend's car.

"When
are you picking her up for questioning?" I asked.

"I'm heading out
there as soon as I can get hold of a social worker who can make some
arrangements for the old lady's custody. We can't leave the aunt alone at the
farm, not in this weather. They're forecasting freezing rain. If we get much
more ice, there's no telling how long the utilities will hold up."

"How about
sending Donna home to take care of her aunt?"

"I sure as hell
would if I could," Blackie growled. "If I could get her to recant her
confession. Which is why I want you to talk to Wyzinski. She needs to instruct
her client to come clean. Until that happens, Donna's staying right where she
is, and that's that. Damn, I wish that social worker would call."

I thought for a
minute. "How about if Ruby and I go out to the flower farm with you? We
can stay with Aunt Velda until the social worker gets there."

Blackie didn't hesitate. "Best idea I've
heard all day. Stay where you are, China. I'll be there in ten minutes."

Chapter
Sixteen

In Teutonic
mythology, it is believed that if mistletoe is found growing on a hazelnut
tree, a golden treasure trove will be discovered nearby.

German folklore

"So Terry was running from the law,"
Ruby said sadly, when I'd told her the whole thing. "That explains why she
was so fanatical about privacy. And why she refused to involve the police when
Swenson was giving them trouble at the farm."

"Yes. It also explains why Donna was willing
to take the blame for Swenson's death, and why she was so insistent on
avoiding trial." I wondered whether Donna had known all along that Terry
was a fugitive. It was my guess that she had, for I couldn't imagine how two
sisters could live with a secret like that between them. But maybe not. Maybe
Terry hadn't told Donna anything about the escape until after she'd hit
Swenson, panicked, and hid the truck.

For that was what had happened, I'd concluded.
Unless Terry chose to make a clean breast of things, no one might ever know
exactly what had occurred on that lonely stretch of road on Sunday: whether she
had been drinking, or was full of rage at Swenson, or had somehow lost control
of the vehicle. And I couldn't guess whether Terry had been involved in
Swenson's marijuana operation. I wouldn't have thought so—but then I'd never
suspected her of being a prison escapee, either.

However, it certainly
wasn't hard to figure out what happened after Terry had hit Swenson. Believing
that she'd go to jail for manslaughter in Texas and then be extradited to
California to serve out the rest of her prison term, she'd decided that she
couldn't get help for the victim or confess that she'd struck him. Panicky,
scared, not thinking very straight, she'd run through all the possible places
she could dump the old truck and hit on the idea of concealing it in Swenson's
shed.

Once the truck was safely disposed of, she'd hiked
home across the ridge to tell her sister what had happened—and perhaps, for the
first time, the truth about her prison escape. Together, the two of them had
cooked up that absurdly improbable story about Aunt Velda taking off with the
truck and appearing later that afternoon without it—the same explanation they
gave to Blackie and me when we went out to the farm on Monday. On Tuesday, when
Donna learned that the truck had been found, she realized that their story
would never hold up under scrutiny, so she had impulsively taken the blame for
herself. A brave and generous act—but very, very dumb.

I frowned. I had constructed a reasonable theory,
but it left two things unexplained. The perplexing fact that Terry's were the
only prints on the steering wheel and the gearshift, and the troubling fact of
those unidentified prints.

But there wasn't time
to think about that now. I reached for the phone and dialed Justine's number.
She was in court, so I left a detailed message with her secretary, summarizing
what Blackie had told me and suggesting that she talk to her client as soon as
possible. She needed to convince Donna to retract her confession so she could
go home and take care of her aunt. It was a lost cause, anyway. Donna would
have to be crazy to stick to her story, in the face of the fingerprint evidence.
And once Blackie had booked Terry, Donna would be released, whether she wanted
it or not.

Ruby had gone to change into jeans and
a sweater and lock up her shop. Returning, she said: "The sheriff's car
just pulled up out front. Ready?"

"Tell him we'd better take two cars," I
said. "He'll be taking Terry back to town, and we don't want to be
stranded."

"I'll
drive," Ruby offered.

"Okay. I'll finish locking up." I picked
up Mrs. K's reference guide. "I'll take this home with me. We've got to
figure out how to handle the cooking."

I was getting my
parka and muffler when the phone rang. I almost didn't answer, figuring that it
was only a customer calling to see whether we were still open. On the other
hand, it might be Justine, checking in. I picked it up.

The gruff voice on
the other end of the line was Terry's. "We've got big trouble out here,
China."

You don't know the
half of it,
I thought. But at
least she was still at the farm—she hadn't hightailed it. Or had she?
"Where are you? What kind of trouble?"

"I'm at home,
where else? Aunt Velda's gone."

"Gone?"
I asked blankly. "Gone where?"

"How the hell
should I know?" Terry was brusque and angry. "If I knew, I'd go find
her, wouldn't I? I've searched every damn place I can think of. There's not a
sign of her."

"When
did she leave?"

"Some
time between ten and twelve." There was a brief silence, and when she
spoke again, the anger was gone and in its place was a quiet desperation.
"I went out to the barn to work on the van. When I came back, her coat and
her boots were gone. I've been searching ever since."