"N" Is for Noose (6 page)

The door was opened by a young woman in jeans with a sleeping baby propped against her shoulder. The child might have been six months old; sparse golden curls, flushed cheeks, flannel sleepers with feet, and a big diapered butt.

"Mrs. Tennyson?"

"That's right."

"My name is Kinsey Millhone. I was hoping to have a word with your husband. I take it he's the one who works for the CHP."

"That's right."

"Is he at work?"

"No, he's here. He works nights and sleeps late. That's why the doorbell's turned off. You want to come in and wait? I just heard him banging around.so it shouldn't be long."

"If you don't mind." I held up the newspaper. "I brought this in. I trust it's yours."

"Oh, thanks. I don't even bother until he's up. The baby gets into it and tears the whole thing to pieces if I'm not looking. Cat does the same thing. Sits there and bites on it just daring me to get mad."

She moved aside to admit me and I stepped into the entrance. Like Selma 's, this house seemed overheated, but I may have been reacting to the contrast with the outside cold. She closed the door behind me. "By the way, I'm Jo. Your name's Kimmy?"

"Kinsey," I corrected. "It was my mother's maiden name."

"That's cute," she said, flashing me a smile. "This is Brittainy. Poor baby. We call her Bugsy for some reason. Don't know how that got started, but she'll never live it down." Jo Tennyson was trim, with a ponytail and bangs, her hair a slightly darker version of her daughter's. She couldn't have been much more than twenty-one and may have become a mother before she could legally drink. The baby never stirred as we proceeded to the kitchen. Jo put the newspaper on the kitchen table, indicating a seat. She moved around the room, setting up her husband's breakfast one handed while the baby slept on. I watched with fascination as she opened a fresh cereal box, shook some of the contents in a bowl, and fetched a spoon from the drawer, which she closed with one hip. She retrieved the milk carton from the refrigerator, poured coffee into three mugs, and pushed one in my direction. "You're not in sales, I hope."

I shook my head and then murmured a thank you for the coffee, which smelled great. "I'm a private investigator. I have some questions for your husband about Tom Newquist's death."

"Oh, sorry. I didn't realize it was business or I could have called him first thing. He's just fooling around. He likes to take his time in the morning because the rest of his day's so hectic. Let me see where he's at. If you want any more coffee, help yourself. I'll be right back."

During her absence, I took the opportunity to engage in a little sit-down observation. The house was untidy I'd seen that in passing-but the kitchen was particularly disorganized. Counters were cluttered, the cabinet doors hung open, the sink piled with dishes from the last several meals. I thought the vinyl floor tile was gray with a dark mottled pattern, but on closer inspection it turned out to be white overlaid with an assortment of sooty footprints. I straightened up as she returned.

"He'll be right here. I didn't peg you for a detective. Are you local?"

"I'm from Santa Teresa."

"I didn't think you looked familiar. You should talk to Tom's wife. She lives in this subdivision, over in that direction about six blocks, on Pawnee. The snooty street we call it."

"She's the one who hired me. You know her?"

"Uh-unh. We go to the same church. She's in charge of the altar flowers and I help when I can. She's really good-hearted. She's the one who gave Bugsy her little christening dress. Here's James. I'll leave the two of you alone so you can talk."

I got to my feet as he entered the kitchen. James Tennyson was fair-haired, clean-cut, and slender, the kind of earnest young man you want assisting you on the highway when your fan belt goes funny or your rear tire's blown. He was dressed in civilian clothes: jeans, a sweatshirt, and a pair of sheepskin slippers. "James Tennyson. Nice to meet you."

"Kinsey Millhone," I said as the two of us shook hands. "I'm sorry to bother you at home, but I was over at the Newquists and it seemed so close. I saw your name on a report I picked up from the coroner and looked you up in the book."

"Not a problem. Sit down."

"Thanks. Go ahead with your breakfast. I didn't mean to intrude."

He smiled. "I guess I will if you don't mind. What can I do for you?"

While James ate his cereal, I laid out Selma 's concerns. "I take it you knew him personally?"

"Yeah, I knew Tom. Mean, we weren't real good friends… him and Selma were older and ran with a different crowd… but everybody in Nota Lake knew Tom. I tell you, his death shook me. I know he's kind of old, but he was like a fixture around here."

"Can you tell me how you found him? I know he had a heart attack. I'm just trying to get a feel for what happened."

"Well, this was… what… five, six weeks ago… and really nothing unusual. I was cruising 395 when I spotted this vehicle off to the side of the road. Hazard lights were on and the engine was running so I pulled in behind. I recognized Tom's pickup. You know he lives here in the neighborhood so I see the truck all the time. At first I thought he might be having engine problems or something like that. Both the doors were locked, but once I got close I could see him slumped over. I tapped on the window, thinking he'd pulled over and fell asleep at the wheel. I figured the heater was running because the windshield was covered with condensation, windows all cloudy."

"How'd you get in?"

"Well, the window on the driver's side was open a crack. I had a wire in my car and popped the lock up with that. I could see he's in trouble. He looked awful, his eyes open, muck in the corners of his mouth."

"Was he still alive at that point?"

"I'm pretty sure he was gone, but I did what I could. I tell you my hands were shaking so bad, I couldn't make 'em do right. I nearly busted the window and would have if I hadn't managed to snag the lock when I did. I hauled him down out of the truck onto the side of the road and did CPR right there. I couldn't pick up a heartbeat. His skin was cool to the touch, or at least it seemed like that to me. It was freezing outside and even with the heater turned on, temperature inside the truck had dropped. You know how it does. I radioed for help…got an ambulance out there as fast as I could, but there was nothing for it. Doc in ER declared him dead on arrival."

"You think he knew what was happening and pulled over to the side?"

"That'd be my guess. He must have had some kind of chest pain, maybe shortness of breath."

"Did you happen to see Tom's notebook? Black leather, about this big?"

He thought back for a moment, shaking his head slowly. "No ma'am. I don't believe so. Of course, I wasn't looking for it. It was in his truck for sure?"

"Well, no, but Selma says he kept it with him and it hasn't turned up yet. I thought maybe you spotted it and turned it into the department."

"I'da probably done that if I'd seen it. I wouldn't want my notes circulating. A lot of it looks like gibberish, but you need 'em when you type up your reports and if you're called on to testify in court. Wasn't among his personal items? The coroner's office would've returned all his clothes and anything he had on him. You know, his watch, contents of his pockets, and like that."

"I asked Selma the same thing and she hasn't seen it. Anyway, we'll keep looking. I appreciate your time. If anything comes to mind, you can reach me through her."

"I can't imagine there's anything to investigate about him. You couldn't meet a nicer fellow. He's the best. A good man and a good cop."

"So I gather."

I went back to the motel. I couldn't face another minute of sitting in Tom's den. For all we knew, Tom might have been suffering from a chemical depression. We'd been assuming his problem was situational, but it might not have been. My problem was situational. I was homesick and wanted out.

I let myself into the cabin, noting with approval that the room had been done up. The bed was made and the bathroom had been scrubbed, the toilet paper left with a point folded in the first sheet. I sat down at the table and rolled a piece of paper in my Smith-Corona. I began to type out an account of the last day's activities. Selma Newquist was just going to have to make her peace with Tom's passing. Death always leaves unfinished business in its wake, mysteries beyond fathoming, countless unanswered questions amid the detritus of life. All the stories are forgotten, the memories lost. Hire anyone you want and you're still never going to find out what a human being is made of. I could sit here and type 'til I was blue in the face. Tom Newquist was gone and I suspected no one would ever know what his final moments had been.

I found myself that night in a place called Tiny's Tavern, one of those shit-kicking bars so many small towns seem to spawn. Cecilia had indicated this was a popular hangout for off-duty law enforcement and I was there trolling as much as anything. I was also avoiding the cabin, with its frigid inside temperatures and depressive lighting. Tiny's had rough plank walls, sawdust on the floor, and a bar with a brass footrail that stretched the length of the room. As in an old Western saloon, there was a long mirror behind the bar with a glittering double image of all the liquor bottles on display. The place was gray with cigarette smoke. The air was overheated and smelled of spilled beer, faulty plumbing, failed deodorant, and cheap cologne. The jukebox was gaudy green and yellow with tubes of bubbles running up the sides and stocked with a strange mix of gospel tunes interspersed with country music, the latter dominant. Occasionally, a couple would clomp around mechanically on the ten-by-ten dance floor while the other patrons looked on, calling out encouragement in terms I thought rude.

I wasn't sure about the unspoken assumptions in a place like this. A woman alone might look like an easy mark for any guy on the loose. For a week night, there seemed to be a fair number of unattached fellows in the place, but after an hour on the premises no one seemed to take any particular notice of me. So much for my fantasy of being accosted by cads. I perched on a bar stool, sipping bad beer and shelling peanuts from a brass bowl that might have enjoyed a previous life as a spittoon. There was something satisfactory about tossing shells on the floor, though sometimes I ate the shells too, figuring the fiber was healthy in a diet like mine, burdened as it is with all that cholesterol and fat.

The bartender was a guy in his twenties with a shavedhead, a dark mustache and beard, and a tattoo of a scorpion on the back of his right hand. I flirted with him mildly just to occupy my time. He seemed to understand there was no serious chance of a wild sexual encounter in his immediate future. I put some quarters in the jukebox. I chatted with the waitress named Alice, who had bright orange hair. I made trips to the ladies' room. I practised a little balancing trick with a fork anda burnt match. If there were any off-duty cops on the premises, I realized I wouldn't recognize them in their off-duty clothes.

At ten, Macon Newquist came in. He was in uniform, moving through the bar at a leisurely pace, checking the crowd for drunks, minors, and any other form of trouble in the making. He spoke to me in passing, but didn't seem inclined to make small talk. Shortly after he left, my idleness paid off when I spotted the civilian clerk from the sheriff's substation. I couldn't for the life of me remember her name. She came in as a part of a foursome with a fellow I assumed to be her husband and another couple, all of them roughly the same age. The four were dressed in a combination of cowboy and ski attire: boots, jeans, Western-cut shirts, down parkas, ski mittens, and knit caps. They found an empty table on the far side of the room. I stared at the clerk with her dark hair cropped short above her ears, dark brown eyes glinting behind her small oval glasses. The other woman was auburn-haired, top-heavy, and pretty, probably plagued with unwanted suggestions about breast-reduction surgery. The clerk's hubby held a consultation and then headed in my direction, pausing at the far end of the bar where he ordered a pitcher of beer and four oversized mugs. In the meantime, the women shed their jackets, took up their purses, and left the table, heading toward the ladies' room. I signaled for another beer just to hold my place and then made a beeline for the facilities myself. My path intersected theirs and the three of us reached the door at just about the same time. I slowed my pace and allowed the two of them to enter first.

The clerk was saying, "Oh, honey. Billie's taken up with that trashy fellow from the video store. You know the one with the attitude? I don't know what she sees in him unless it's you-know-what. I told her she ought to think a little more of herself…"

The two continued to talk as they passed through the door and into the first two out of three toilet stalls. I entered the third and eavesdropped my tiny heart out while the three of us peed in a merry chorus. What the hell was her name? She and her companion discussed Billie's son, Seb, who suffered from genital warts so persistent his penis looked like a pink fleshy pickle according to someone named Candy who'd dumped him forthwith. Three toilets were flushed in succession and we reassembled at the sinks so we could wash our hands. The other woman skipped her personal cleanliness and moved on to the ritual of combing her hair and adjusting her makeup. I was tempted to point out the sign on the wall, urging us to curb the spread of disease, but I realized the warning was intended for tavern employees. Apparently, the rest of us were at liberty to contaminate anyone we touched. I tried to set a good example, lathering like a surgeon on the brink of an operation, but the woman didn't follow suit.

Miraculously, just then, my brain supplied the clerk's name in a satisfying mental burp. I caught her eye in the mirror and flashed her a smile as she was pulling out a paper towel so she could dry her hands. "Aren't you Margaret?"

She looked at me blankly and then said "Oh hi" without warmth. I couldn't tell if she'd forgotten me, or remembered and simply didn't want to be engaged in conversation. Probably the latter. She crumpled the paper towel and pushed it down in the wastebasket.

"Kinsey Millhone," I prompted, as if she'd recently inquired. "We met this morning at the office when I was talking to Detective LaMott." I held out my hand and she was too polite to decline a handshake.

She said, "Nice seeing you again."

"I thought I recognized you the minute you came in, but I couldn't remember where I knew you from." I turned and gave a little wave to the other woman.

"We'd best be off, too," Margaret said, glancing at her watch. "Oh, geez. I have to be at work at eight and look what time it is. Eleven forty-five."

Earlene reached for her jacket. "I didn't realize it was that late and we still have to drop you off at your place."

"We can walk. It's not far," Margaret said.

"Don't be silly. It's no trouble. It's right on our way."

The four of them began to gather their belongings, shrugging into their parkas, scraping chairs back as they rose.

"Catch you later," I said.

Various good-bye remarks were made, the yada-yada-yada of superficial social exchange. I watched them depart, and then returned to the bar where I settled my tab. Alice, the orange-haired waitress, was just taking a break. She pulled up a stool beside me and lit a cigarette. Her eyes were rimmed in black eyeliner and she had a fringe of thick dark lashes that had to be false; bright coral lipstick, a swathe of blusher on each cheek. "You a cop?"

"I'm a private investigator."

"Well, that explains," she said, blowing smoke to one side. "I heard you're asking around about Tom Newquist."

"Word travels fast."

"Oh, sure. Town this small there's not much to talk about," she said. "You're barking up the wrong tree with that bunch you were talking to. They're all law enforcement, loyal to their own. You're not going to get anyone to say a bad word about Tom."

"So I discover. You have something to add?"

"Well, I don't know what's been said. I knew him from in here. I knew her somewhat better. I used to run into the two of them at church on occasion."

"I gather she wasn't popular. At least from what I've heard."

"I try not to judge others, but it's hard not to have some opinion. Everybody's down on Selma and it seems unfair. I just wish she'd quit worrying about those silly teeth of hers." Alice put a hand to her mouth. "Have you noticed her doing this? Half the time I can hardly hear what's she saying because she's so busy trying to cover up her mouth. Anyway, Tom was great. Don't get me wrong… I grant you Selma 's abrasive… but you know what? He got to look good by comparison. He wasn't confrontational. Tom'd never dream of getting in your face about anything. And why should he? He had Selma to do that. She'd take on anyone. Know what I mean? Let her be the bitch. She's the one takes all the heat. She does the work of the relationship while he gets to be Mr. Good-Guy, Mr. Nice-As-Pie. You see what I'm saying?"

"Absolutely."

"It might have suited them fine, but it doesn't seem right to hold her entirely accountable. I know her type; she's a pussy cat at heart. He could have pinned her ears back. He could have raised a big stink and she'd have backed right off. He didn't have the gumption so why's that her fault? Seems like the blame should attach equally."

"Interesting," I said.

"Well, you know, it's just my reaction. I get sick and tired of hearing everyone trash Selma. Maybe I'm just like her and it cuts too close. Couples come to these agreements about who does what… I'm not saying they sit down and discuss it, but you can see my point. One might be quiet, the other talkative. Or maybe one's outgoing where the other one's shy. Tom was passivepure and simple-so why blame her for taking over? You'd have done it yourself."

" Selma says he was very preoccupied in the last few weeks. Any idea what it was?"

She paused to consider, drawing on her cigarette. "I never thought much about it, but now you mention it, he didn't seem like himself. Tell you what I'll do. Let me ask around and see if anybody knows anything. It's not like people around here are dishonest or even secretive, but they protect their own."

"You're telling me," I said. I took out a business card and jotted down my home number in Santa Teresa and the motel where I was staying.

Alice smiled. "Cecilia Boden. Now there's a piece of work. If that motel gets to you, you can always come to my place. I got plenty of room."

I smiled in return. "Thanks for your help."

I headed out into the night air. The temperature had dropped and I could see my breath. After the clouds of smoke in the bar, I wondered if I was simply exhaling the accumulation. The parking lot was only half full and the lighting just dim enough to generate uneasiness. I took a moment to scan the area. There was no one in sight, though the line of pine trees on the perimeter could have hidden anyone. I shifted my car keys to my right hand and hunched my handbag over my left shoulder as I moved to the rental car and let myself in.

I slid under the wheel, slammed the car door' and locked it as quickly as possible, listening to the locks flip down with a feeling of satisfaction. The windshield was milky with condensation and I wiped myself a clear patch with my bare hand. I turned the key in the ignition, suddenly alerted by the sullen grinding that indicated a low charge on the battery. I tried again and the engine turned over reluctantly. There was a series of misses and then the engine died. I sat there, projecting a mental movie in which I'd be forced to return to the bar, whistle up assistance, and finally crawl into bed at some absurd hour after god knows what inconvenience.

I caught a flash of headlights in the lane behind me and checked the source in my rearview mirror. A dark panel truck was passing at a slow rate of speed. The driver, in a black ski mask, turned to stare at me. The eye holes in the knit mask were rimmed with white and the opening for the mouth was thickly bordered with red. The driver and I locked eyes, our gazes meeting in the oblong reflection of the rearview mirror. I could feel my skin prickle, the pores puckering with fear. I thought male. I thought white. But I could have been wrong on both counts.