A DEAD RED CADILLAC

BY RP DAHLKE

Dedications:

Dedicated to my son, John Shanahan, whose cheerful advice and stories about the Aero Agricultural business in California made this series about a woman Ag Pilot possible.

Daniel John Shanahan II: 1964-2005

And to my husband, Lutz Dahlke, who has read every version and has always encouraged me in each and every way.

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Credits:

Cover art: Allen Chiu

Edits: Christine LePorte, Ellis Vidler

Songs:

"She Works Hard for the Money" Copyright 1998 Mercury records, sung by Ms. Donna Summer

"One of Us" Written by B Andersson & B. Ulvaeus, sung by Abba/copyright 1981

“The Sulphur Bag Song” as sung by Fitz, the pilot, was created by my son, John Shanahan.

Note: A Dead Red Cadillac was published in 2004 under the title Flying Through Forty. It has been updated and edited to its current format. Vers. 4.22.13

Twice-divorced NY model Lalla Bains now runs her dad’s crop-dusting business in Modesto, California, where she’s hoping to dodge the inevitable fortieth birthday party. But when her trophy red vintage Caddy is found tail fins up in a nearby lake, the police ask why a widowed piano teacher, who couldn’t possibly see beyond the hood ornament, was found strapped in the driver’s seat.

Reeling from an interrogation with local homicide, Lalla is determined to extricate herself as a suspect in this strange murder case. Unfortunately, drug-running pilots, a cross-dressing convict, a crazy Chihuahua, and the dead woman’s hunky nephew throw enough roadblocks to keep Lalla neck-deep in an investigation that links her family to a twenty-year-old murder only she can solve.

Chapter One:

"Can you hear me, Miss Bains?"

"Yeah, I can hear you." I was lying on the ground, my shoulder hurt like hell, and when I tried to get up, my leg buckled under from the pain. I looked up at my Ag-Cat, its fat nose cone planted deep into a row of tomatoes like some giant burrowing beast.

I groaned at the conflicting emotions—I didn't make it as far as that restricted airstrip I was hoping to land on, I'm alive, but when my dad sees this he's going to kill me.

Then I passed out.

The voice intruded again. "Do you know where you are?"

"On your nice private airstrip? Took you long enough to make up your mind. So shoot me or wait till Noah Bains sees this and he'll do it for you."

The guy chuckled. "You're going to be okay. You're on your way to the hospital, Miss Bains, but we'll see that your dad is called the minute we get there."

I was in an ambulance. The speaker was an EMT, and we were bouncing along a road, sirens and all.

"Can you cut the siren?" I asked. "It's giving me a headache." Then I passed out from the pain in my shoulder and leg, oblivious to the sound of sirens or the memory of rude airstrip owners.

My dad came in to stand by my bed and quietly pulled the sheet down over the white cast on my foot.

"Hi, Dad. Did you get the Ag-Cat pulled out of those tomatoes yet?"

"This morning. How're you doing?" He took a peek at the card on the bouquet of daylilies, snorted, and then moved them over to set down my book, West with the Night by Beryl Markham. At sixteen I  wanted to be just like her. Subtlety not being his best suit, Dad thought it would help me recover quickly.

I wiggled my toes in the cast. "Doctor says I have to take this home with me, but the shoulder won't need surgery. So, how bad is she?"

"Fixable. It was nothing you could've foreseen. Cylinder’s cracked. Must've opened up during your flight home."

It was as near as Noah Bains was ever going to get to saying it wasn't my fault. I breathed a sigh of relief. As a pilot, I always do my own pre-check on my plane, and I'd missed it.

"Caleb and Roxanne were here earlier, but you were still asleep."

I nodded, picking at the sheet. "That airfield I almost got to land on yesterday, you know that guy?"

"Machado? Why do you ask?"

"He wasn't very friendly, considering that I was coming in on a wing and a prayer."

"The hell you say!" His mouth tightened and his bushy gray eyebrows lowered. "What was he thinking?"

"I have no idea. It was marked private strip. But I was kind of running out of airspace while he considered whether he should let me land or not. Is he still in the industry?"

Dad quietly pulled on his lower lip, then said, "Kind of a spoiled kid as I remember. I think he took over when his dad retired. I don't keep up with who's doing what since that's your end of it now, but I'll have a word with him."

"Don't. Please. We don't need to make enemies with anyone in the business. When I get on my feet again, I'll go out there, thank him for offering to let me land on his airstrip."

My dad tipped a gray eyebrow at the irony. He knew I could handle John Machado. I'd handled worse characters since becoming a pilot for my dad's outfit, and with only the occasional minor correction to my work orders, critiques, and reshuffling of customers to suit his own preferences, he pretty much allowed me to run the business all by myself.

I'd earned my seat the hard way, and if the pilots and farmers we worked with didn't like me, they at least respected me. I wasn't so sure my father actually respected me, but I was the next best thing he had to a son and heir.

Taciturn, irascible, and laconic by nature, he'd withdrawn like a hermit crab into his shell when my mother died. Not till Leslie, my brother, hotfooted it to San Francisco to live his dream as a set designer for the Civic Light Opera did Noah Bains believe his only son would refuse his rightful place with his dad. I, on the other hand, was just another cross the old man had to bear.

I was studying my unpainted toenails sticking out of the cast when I realized he was talking.

"Lalla?"

"Huh?"

"You asked about Machado? I said he bought Hollander Chemical Company a few years back."

"Oh, we use them, don't we?" I was only half listening because my childhood friend, Caleb Stone, was standing in the doorway, tension and relief skimming across his face. His sheriff's uniform was wrinkled and sweaty, his face flushed from the summer heat, but he was here, and the sight of him instantly lifted my spirits.

Noah was still talking. "I wouldn't know who you deal with these days, because as you well know, I'm a convalescing heart patient."

I ignored his complaint and motioned that he should move over and make room for Caleb. I forgot all about Machado and Hollander Chemicals as Caleb and I kidded with each other about who was the biggest klutz.

Later, much later, I would wish I hadn't let the question about John Machado slide.

Chapter Two:

I leaned awkwardly on my cane, listening to a balding traveling salesman who blocked my path into Roxanne's Truck Café and my first cup of coffee of the day. Standing on a casted leg, I've discovered, is harder than it looks. Seeing I was impatient to get about my business, he hurried to make me an offer I couldn't refuse.

"No thanks," I said. "Got her in a trade. You wouldn't want her anyway. Air conditioner's busted and the radio only gets AM." Like admiring an unavailable girl, it helps to know her beauty is only skin-deep. I ticked off a few more flaws, eventually disconnecting another unhealthy fantasy for my vintage red Caddy. He got into a company car and took the on-ramp for the long stretch of Highway 99 that ended at our state capital. I patted my belted jeans for the cell phone I naturally forgot to wear and the digital recorder I did manage to remember, then lugged my accordion folder of county papers through a parking lot full of step-side pickups toward the door.

A white Prius, the windows cranked halfway down, barely contained Patience McBride's psychotic, ankle-biting Chihuahua as he baptized innocent passersby with ear-piercing doggy-curses. Wise to his antics, I detoured two cars over and hobbled for the front door.

The café's air-conditioning is always blissfully on overdrive, which accounts for the packed parking lot. Farmers, chemical salesmen, and ag pilots like me, having coffee, breakfast, and gossip. It isn't gourmet, but on any given day Roxanne Leonard holds court, dispensing wisdom and admonishments alike, while her husband works the kitchen. Whereas breakfast dialogue at my house consists of monosyllabic work-related instructions issued from behind the wall of the morning paper. Obviously, I'd rather eat wadded between the locals at Roxanne's than suffer the terminal silence in my own home.

My godson was Roxanne's oldest, and Terrill, head bobbing to the earbuds attached to his head as he mopped a sticky floor, presented his cheek for the requisite godmother kiss. I patted his muscled, coppery shoulder as it rippled in the sleeveless T-shirt.

"Keep your day job, college boy."

Terrill detached one of the buds, flashed me the famous Leonard dimples, and said, "I'm still your favorite, right?"

I smiled. "You bet. Just don't tell your sister."

He laughed, knowing I regularly told each of them the same thing. He nudged the pail toward the kitchen and executed a few more sensuous dance steps with his stringy-haired partner before sliding the bucket through the door.

The girls at Berkeley had better watch out. Though Terrill's parents had effectively blocked the NFL scouts and extracted Terrill's promise to graduate before turning pro, I always figured nobody argued because both his parents are the size of linebackers.

I took a worn green vinyl stool at the counter and stuck my casted foot sideways, then wound the other around the stem in an ancient habit to keep my big feet out of the way. Roxanne deftly positioned a hot cup of coffee so I wouldn't miss the handle. Black, no cream, and wonderfully fresh.

Just as I was thinking kind things about her, she leaned her elbows on the counter and said, "Sure you don't want to reconsider that birthday party? It's not too late to change your mind, you know."

"Thanks, but no. If I get to change my mind about anything, it'd be about my last plane ride. Or about the last two husbands—that would help a lot."

"As for that plane wreck, at least you made it out with only a cast on your leg. And as for your two failed marriages, you didn't bother to ask my opinion, but…"

Roxanne kept the framed degree for her PhD in Psychology nailed to the wall in the kitchen, but I wasn't in the mood for analysis. "Yeah, yeah, I know, lyin', cheatin' written all over those two. Did I ever tell you I've sworn off men? Never getting married again?"

"They don't all leave, you know," she said, looking over her shoulder at her husband happily up to his elbows in sudsy dishes.

I saw what was coming and held up a hand to stall the lecture. "We've been over this before, Roxy. I know the difference between dying and leaving. Can't we just leave it that I like bad boys and move onto something else?"

"Sure, sweetpea, but someday we're gonna talk about that chip you got ridin' for free on your shoulder."

I looked out the window at the same view I'd seen for the last ten years and counting. I was bored with Modesto, bored with being Noah Bains's loser daughter, two loser marriages, loser modeling career, and anything else I might try my hand at—but what else could a loser like me do? I was about to turn forty, right foot in a walking cast, cane on the left, a nonexistent love life, living with a monosyllabic father who had enough of his own hangups to put mine to shame.

To get my attention, Roxanne waved her dishtowel at me. "You missing New York City? I hear the older models are cleaning up these days."

"I'm too young for that gig and too old for anything else."

"You still got that fancy penthouse from your first divorce, don't you? If there's nothing keeping you here, you could find something to do in New York."

"Jeez, what do I have to do to get in a whine around here that doesn't come with a lecture?" I didn't miss modeling and I sure didn't miss New York City. I didn't know what I wanted, I just knew I didn't want to be forty, and if I couldn't get some sympathy from my best friend, then what was the world coming to?

Her big, dark hand crept over mine. "Don't mind me, I'm just premenstrual. Or maybe this summer is simply outlasting my patience. I can't believe I used to counsel restraint to parents threatening to murder their teenagers. One more month of these two and I'm going to be in the loony bin."

"Better than being an over-the-hill model, forty and getting fat."

She withdrew her hand and wiped both hands down her own ample hips. "You don't got a spare ounce on that bony hide and you know it."

Uh-oh. Roxanne had a lot of very good qualities, but my whiny mood was wearing thin on her nerves.

"I'm sorry, Roxy, you know I don't mean it. I'm just feeling blue."

She bared her teeth at me. "Forty ain't so bad. Been there and then some. I'm forty-eight and look at me—I'm still hot," she said, fanning her face with her dishtowel. She was looking a bit pink.

Her husband, Leon, leaned over the pass-through in the kitchen and laughed. "Yeah, that girl hot awright. We up all night wid dat."

Roxanne threw the dishtowel at Leon, then turned back to me. "You planning on reading that paper or shall I pass it down the counter?" She ducked behind the counter to take out another dishtowel.

Something was up, I could smell it, and it wasn't just the plates piled high with eggs, sausage, and bacon, or the fact that my friend wasn't so much premenstrual as she was menopausal. Leon was still hanging onto the counter, watching us both.

"What?" I asked, narrowing my eyes at them.

Roxanne lifted her big shoulders and shrugged.

"You're a lousy liar, Roxy," I said, sipping my coffee and watching her face. Sure enough, she couldn't take her eyes off the paper I was holding. I looked down at it—lower right-hand corner, second page. A black-and-white photo someone had purloined from my third grade class album. It was me all right, pigtails and that big space that used to be between my front teeth.

I groaned. The caption read, "Lordy, Lordy, look who's forty!"

The entire café, which until then had been holding its collective breath, erupted into laughter.

"Whose bright idea was this?" I yelled, holding up the paper and giving it a good shake in hopes the print would slide off the page.

"This your idea?" I waved the paper under Roxanne's nose as if cornering a puppy that had piddled on my morning news. That is, if you could imagine Roxanne as a very large Rottweiler. She laughed, the dimple in her right cheek flashing humorously. My friend was having fun with her gullible buddy again, to everyone's amusement but mine.

"Why so touchy? I canceled the party, didn't I?"

"And this was way better, how? I don't see Caleb's mug anywhere on this page." I felt a hand clamp onto my shoulder and jerked around, ready for battle.

"Sure am," he said, smiling broadly, and reached over my shoulder to flip the page.

It was Caleb all right. Though Caleb's blond buzz cut was the same as third grade, it now showed some tanned scalp through the blond. People tended to accept us as kin, Caleb and me, though we are not related by anything other than the tragedy of losing one parent each at age eleven. We're both tall, with the light eyes and flyaway blond hair of the Nordic tribes. On Caleb, the light blue eyes look like chips off an iceberg, and the flyaway blond hair has been subdued by the tight crew cut. My eyes are sea green and the blond hair used to be infinitely photogenic, or so I was told. It worked out okay, I guess: I got to work under some of the best fashion photographers while Caleb stayed in Modesto and became sheriff, using his icy stare to scare the bejesus out of questionable suspects.

"Come on, Lalla. Take it like a man. It's only a birthday." Caleb grinned, the corners around his blue eyes crinkling.

"Easy for you to say. Forty is prime for you guys." He was all buffed from daily workouts, while I had the excuse of a cast on my leg to keep me out of the gym.

I gave them all my best phony, perfect-for-the-camera smile and hoped they'd go back to their own business of comparing crop prices. "Don't you have bad guys to pick on, Sheriff Stone?"

"Sure I do," he said, reaching over me to collect a breakfast sandwich from Roxanne. "Good guys gotta eat too, you know."

"No offense to Roxy's cooking, but since when did scrambled eggs between two slices of bread take precedence over sausage and eggs at home?" Roxanne, I noticed out of the corner of my eye, was giving me sour looks. "What? Did I offend Leon's cooking?"

Roxy gave me another dirty look, smiled kindly at Caleb, and then turned away to rinse dishes. The quiet coming out of Roxanne might as well have been the roar of a diesel in a tunnel.

I stuck my head in the paper and thought about it. Caleb had a wife to cook his meals, though now that I thought of it, between his daily breakfasts at Roxanne's and weekly dinners at our house, maybe things weren't so good at home. I gave myself the excuse that I'd been preoccupied lately, rebuilding the broken Ag-Cat, doctor's visits, and I was behind with billing and such, but still…

Roxanne hadn't mentioned anything, but then, why would she start now? She wasn't one to gossip, and she wasn't likely to talk about Caleb unless I asked the right question.

"Roxy, is everything all right between Caleb and Marcy?"

"Not my place to speak about that, but feel free to ask Caleb, if you're so interested."

What she meant was, interested all of a sudden. Okay, I would get to Caleb when I could. And since there was nothing I could do about it now unless I wanted to pick a fight with Roxanne, I changed the subject, reading aloud while Roxanne dumped coffee grounds. "It says here the Stanislaus County Fair is coming up at the end of the month. 'Exhibit and rodeo entries will be accepted in one week for the—' Think they allow an Ag-Cat to run barrel races? Maybe not. Okay, how about floral arrangements—nah, brown thumb. Oh, here's one: 'Ribbons will be given in the jam and jelly category.' I'll bet I could resurrect one of my mother's recipes. Maybe experiment on my own. How about rhubarb jam?"

"Jam?" Coffee pot in midair, her heavy bosom rumbled with laughter at the thought of her friend mixing it up in a competition for which she had no experience, no talent, and certainly no previous inclination. "Oh, girl, that I will have to see."

"You mock me now, but it could happen. Maybe the judges are bored with the same old apricot and pineapple jam. Maybe I'll experiment with a recipe and come up with something that will win. Maybe I'll come back here with a blue ribbon." This was just what I needed. Something to do, rev up the old competitive juices, and take my mind off the inevitable birthday

Boyd Lincoln, from his usual place two seats down, stopped slurping his coffee and hooted. "Yeah, right. My cow got one of them at the fair. Been meaning to bring it in and show it around. I guess if a cow can get a blue ribbon, so can you, Lalla."

Snickers broke out amongst the regulars. The row of plaid shirts quivered in a wave of amusement, though this time they had the sense to keep their heads down. I made a one-armed swipe at Boyd, but missed. Boyd Lincoln had been causing me grief since kindergarten.

The laughter only yanked up my competitive spirit that much more. "Come on, who wants to go up against me in the jam-making contest?"

I felt pretty safe in this mostly male crowd, and then I noticed Patience McBride at the end of the counter, her recently permed bottle-blond locks bouncing with amusement.

"You want to do this, Patience?" I asked sweetly.

She primped at the curls and adjusted her heavy glasses up a notch. "Who, me? Oh, I don't know, I have my piano lessons and all." Patience was in her late sixties, widowed, her only son dead of a drug overdose, or so the story went at Roxanne's. And, except for her piano teaching and the sophomoric entertainment at Roxanne's Café, she was alone.

I leaned over the counter and around the amused spectators to encourage her. "Oh, come on, it'll be fun. You've got a whole week before the fair. It'll give you something to work on besides those smart-ass kids." And reason to think about something besides my fortieth birthday which was going to happen in another couple of weeks whether I liked it or not.

Certain that I had the grand prize sewn up with my mother's recipes and some noodling I intended to do on my own, I was not a bit concerned when she fluttered her piano-playing fingertips in the air and giggled, "Oh well, if you insist."

Patience's enthusiasm made Roxanne smile, and because it pleased Roxanne, I was pleased. Teaching me a bit about tolerance, Roxanne had broken me of more than one bad habit. Not the least of which was mashing my wad of Nicotine chewing gum into the butter dishes she kept on the tables. At least I'd quit smoking. She was still hard at work on the rest of my bad habits.

"There, it's settled. I'll see you ingrates in a week with my blue ribbon." Since my boredom had taken a small dent, I got up to leave.

Roxanne just rolled her dark eyes, picked up another dish to be deposited onto the growing pile from the noisy breakfast crowd and went back to wiping the worn countertop with a clean, damp rag.

When I got up to leave, she waved her dishrag in benediction. "I'm sendin' up a prayer for you, sweetpea, 'cause nothing else is going to help you win that contest."

That was it, of course. No amount of blessing, short of a personal appearance by the Pope, was going to suddenly allow me to become a chef. And jam? What was I thinking? Lately, it was one bad idea after another with me, and this jam contest was just one more in a long list.

I was standing outside the front door under the bright, hot sunlight when a surge of strange karma ran under my skin like so much dark ink. It tightened in a band around my chest and I felt disaster looming somewhere just around the corner.

Chapter Three:

The week went as it always did during the summer months; busy work, long hours, cranky pilots, frustrated ground crew, and annoyed farmers. Still, I managed to whip up a jam recipe for the county fair. I got to drive the blue ribbon home too. Only problem was it got out of the car with Patience McBride and into the repertoire for the jokesters at Roxanne's.

On the desk inside my office at the ranch were flowers in a vase, with a florist's card sticking out of the ribbon. The card said Happy Birthday and was signed Robert.

A few minutes later our pilots, Brad, Robert, aka Mad Dog, and Fitz, our resident Englishman, sauntered into the office. Brad made a beeline for the showers, Mad Dog on his heels. Only Fitz lingered to sniff and admire the bouquet.

"How lovely. Who died?"

I tapped the walking cast with my cane. "Well, barring the one foot I seem to have in the grave, I believe they're an unhappy reminder that I'm about to have another birthday soon."

He lifted a rose out of the bouquet, sniffed and intoned, "'The report of my death has been grossly exaggerated, 'Samuel Clemens." He handed me the rose. "Happy Birthday and many more."

"No wonder you and Noah get along so well. If he isn't quoting Euripides, it's Mark Twain."

"Ah, yes. How is Noah? Are you two almost finished with that engine you broke?"

"I broke? Okay, yeah, you got me. We still have some strut work to do, but she'll be ready soon, and Noah's ticker is due for a checkup. I'll tell him you asked."

He gave my leg a quick appraisal. "Then I suppose you'll be back to flying soon?"

I avoided his very direct gaze and sniffed the bouquet. "Soon as this cast comes off."

Fitz grunted amiably and sauntered for the showers. Fitz didn't mind the extra work or money it paid, and the longer I stayed in this cast, the better his paycheck. Mad Dog came back in, rubbing his crispy ginger curls with a towel, the motion hiking his shirt up to show a very white jelly roll. The rest of him was reddened and freckled skin cracked from sun and wind. I'm sure he thought of himself as ruggedly handsome, but all I saw was an overblown ego. I ducked my head back to writing work orders and ignored him.

Seeing I wasn't going to look up, he buttoned and tucked in the shirt.

I said, "It was very sweet of you, the flowers I mean. My leg's busted, Mad Dog, not my brain, and I haven't changed my mind."

"Nothing meant by it either. Just thought someone ought to give you flowers for your birthday."

There it was. His blatant and not very subtle dig at a woman's right to choose to remain single and the very reason why I could never admire, much less love, this man. That my own father had immediately recognized Mad Dog for what he was said volumes about my ability to size up a man in twenty seconds or less.

I think I fell into my second marriage as a way of dodging yet another unwanted proposal from Mad Dog. I limped home from New York and a philandering Puerto Rican baseball player right into the hands of yet another bad boy, Ricky Halverson, heir to a string of car dealerships. Ricky sealed the deal with a five-carat ring and a string of affairs that he managed to keep under wraps for a whole six months until I found out in a very unexpected way.

Two years ago, I was stranded in the hot afternoon shade of Ricky's car lot, and my childhood friend Caleb, who was then Deputy Sheriff Stone, turned in and offered to give me a ride home. I was embarrassed and annoyed to be caught waiting for my no-show husband, but Caleb serenely refused to acknowledge that there might be a problem. In a serendipitous moment, he said, "Let's go out to the ranch and see your dad. If we're lucky, Juanita's serving taco pie tonight."

"Sure, why not?"

We were about to take the highway exit for my home when his radio squawked. "Deputy Stone? You there?" It was Dispatch asking him to check on a car parked along the levee next to a farmer's orchard on Sylvan.

"Okay. Probably a couple of kids, but if you don't mind, it's on the way," he said to me.

With night fast blotting out what was left of a long hot summer's day, we bounced along the bumpy levee to where Ricky's classic El Dorado was tucked like a dark shadow between almond trees.

"What the hell?"

"It might not be Ricky," he said, eyeing me for seismic reaction, remembering another Lalla, the one who used to have a backbone. "And if it is, we don't know why he's out here."

"I'm not that dumb," I growled, and lifting Caleb's flashlight out of its holder on the dash, I exploded out of the cruiser.

Shining the flashlight into the car, I saw Ricky come off his secretary's heaving breast like a cork from a bottle. I waggled the light around and onto Charlene's exposed, young, perky twenty-three-year-old breasts and was disgusted when she didn't have the decency to cover up.

Unable to see beyond the blaze of light, she probably thought I was just another admiring male deputy.

I said, "Nice tits, Charlene."

Ricky's mouth silently formed the words "Oh shit!" His Adam's apple started to slide. "Lalla?" he yodeled. "Honey? What're you doing here?"

I didn't bother to answer that one. "This is it, Ricky," I said. "One sweet-young-thing too many." Then I pulled my head back from the funky smells that were making me dizzy.

His head followed me out. "Now, Lalla," he called, "don't let's do anything foolish. We can talk about this like adults … Lalla?"

Ricky simply didn't understand. I'd reached my limit and somebody was going to pay.

Caleb put a hand on my arm. "Let's go, Lalla."

Ricky, thinking Caleb still in uniform would block my murderous intentions, struck with all the force of a cornered hound. "Well, if it ain't the freak show," he sneered. "It's the Bains twins, honey. Lalla and Caleb separated at birth. One's a girl and one's a boy, you just don't know which one's which." Then Ricky made a second mistake. "You been porkin' my wife, Sheriff? That why you're so anxious to snitch on me?"

I restrained Caleb's instinctive grab for his nightstick. "Let me," I said, taking the nightstick out of his hand. I didn't have a sheriff's oath of honor to keep me from damaging Ricky or his cowardly ego.

"Lalla, don't," Caleb warned as I took careful aim.

Charlene's high-pitched squealing was beginning to annoy me. I yelled, "If you don't want to get hurt, stay in the car!"

I drew back and struck hard. The first glass headlight shattered. I crushed the second thick dual glass headlight and almost, but not quite, missed the fender. I went at the windshield like a tornado, taking a breath long enough to admire my handiwork and stopping only after the nightstick chewed up every piece of glass on the car.

"That's enough," Caleb said, his hand on my wrist. "I'm serious, now, that's enough."

I was breathing hard and wishing for a lot more reckless justice toward this soon-to-be ex-husband. "Okay, okay, I'm done," I said, relinquishing my weapon with regret. I wiped my forehead of the dust. "I'll just say good-bye and then we'll leave."

"Uh-huh," he said, but he must have been remembering the smirk on Ricky's face, because he shrugged and turned his back to the rest of it.

I smiled grimly, then pulled out my small but very sharp pocketknife and sunk it into all four white sidewall tires.

"I'm leaving now!" I yelled, and jogged back to join Caleb, who was trying hard not to smile. I hopped into his car and slammed the door.

Caleb jammed the car in reverse, and in a swirling cloud of dust Ricky disappeared from my life.

"I still can't believe I let you commit battery with police equipment—on your husband's car no less."

"Oh, save it, will you? You were ready to punch him out."

He acknowledged my comment with a grunt. "And if he files a complaint?" He was just looking for affirmation that he'd done the right thing, bringing me out here, letting me lose my temper.

"Don't be ridiculous, Caleb. What's he going to say, 'I was making out with my secretary on a back road, when my wife caught us and single-handedly destroyed my vintage Caddy? Nope. Not if I know Ricky."

"Yeah, you're right. I'd almost forgotten what you're like when you get your nose oughta joint."

I shook my head as the adrenaline melted into heartache. "I can't believe it. I mean, did Ricky really think he could keep screwing his secretary and I wouldn't find out?"

He stopped the car on the side of the road. "I wasn't planning this."

If that were true, then why was he giving squashed bugs on the windshield all his attention?

"You knew? You did! And you didn't tell me? I see you almost every day at Roxanne's. Hell, you're at our house once a week shoveling down food and swapping jokes with my old man, and not one word! You didn't think I deserved to know?"

He chewed on his lower lip and then stared at the dotted line in the road ahead like it was a homing beacon. "No one, and believe me I've become an expert on the subject, appreciates being the first to tell a friend they've got a cheating spouse."

I retrieved a tissue from my purse and blew my nose. "Can this get any worse? Oh God, does everyone know?"

He reached over and gave my shoulder a quick shake. "Lalla, when have you ever cared what other people thought? Besides, the ones that do, care enough not to rub it in your face. And the rest of them, well, they don't count."

I looked away. "I just want to go home."

"Then I'll take you home," he said, putting the car and pulling out onto the road.

We drove the rest of the way in silence, and when he turned into the driveway at the ranch, I got out and said, "Don't come in, Caleb. As a matter of fact, I'd rather you stayed away from me for a while."

He rolled down the window and called after me, "That's right, shoot the messenger!" Then he spun the big cruiser around, and laying gravel and dust out the back of his tires, headed for the highway.

The memory of Ricky's duplicitous nature, and the embarrassment he caused that day chimed like an off-key tuning fork.

I stacked my paperwork on the desk, gave Mad Dog's birthday flowers a bit more water, and left for the house. I showered with the cast in a plastic garbage bag, toweled off and peered in the mirror at ten years of neglect. From a hundred eight to a hundred thirty pounds in ten years isn't bad. Most people say I'm still a rail, but for a New York fashion model, I am fat, old, and forty is twenty years past my prime. My hairdresser says I look good for my age. Sure I do, as long as you don't take off my clothes.

While I practiced stuttering "Fo-fo-fo, forty," I glared at the little lines forming at the side of my mouth. Poking at a drooping fold of skin above my eyes, I considered making an appointment to have something done about it. It could be my birthday present, I told myself cheerfully. Oh, just forget it, Lalla. You're forty and falling apart. How will I ever be able to make it through my birthday if I can't say forty in the same sentence with my own name?

Wrinkles on Caleb's bony face just made him look more rugged. Where's the justice in that?

I dismissed my disappointing image for something that would make me happier. Dressing in my standard uniform of jeans, boots, a white T-shirt, and, because it was Sunday, I added a heavy silver Concho belt. I headed for the barn.

People are surprised at my slavish devotion to this car, but the heavy steel frame, powerful muscle of the V-8 engine, and sleek lines are far sexier than most men I know. I love this car, and besides, with only a little oil and gas, it's still there in the morning.

On the way to the barn, I raised my face to the morning sky. It was going to be a hot one, but I didn't care. I wasn't even bothered that I still hadn't fixed the air-conditioning. It was still morning, the paperwork was finished, and I was going to take my "baby" out for a ride.

I slid back the doors of the barn and gawked at the empty space where I'd left my Caddy. The canvas car cover lay on the straw floor like a discarded magician's prop. There was nothing inside but a lone moth gently circling in a dusty sunbeam. I waited for the trick that would make my Caddy reappear. But no amount of magic was going to pull all that muscled steel out of an empty piece of cloth.

"Ricky! You thieving rat!" Though the car was mine by decree of our divorce two years ago, Ricky was obviously still having a hard time letting go.

I turned on my heel and stomped back to the house, cursing at his duplicitous, underhanded, sneaky… Finishing with an expletive, I pushed through the back door and passed my dad, BP cuff on his right arm and bulb dangling, dutifully entering the results of his morning routine into a journal.

"What's caught in your craw this morning?" he growled as I attacked the kitchen phone.

"Ricky stole my Caddy!" I growled back, dialing numbers into the old yellow rotary. Dad thought number pads were part of the fast lane and should be avoided at all costs, never mind cell phones.

Too annoyed to deal with the antique, I hung up and bounded up the stairs. Sitting on my bed, I fiercely punched more numbers on my cell phone and started calling people. I called Ricky first. Of course, no answer there. Then I called everyone else I could think of who might know the whereabouts of my car and/or Ricky.

Twenty minutes later I gave up, punched in the sheriff's office and Caleb's direct line. The ring lasted less than half a sparrow's croak before it was knocked off its perch by a deep, if preoccupied, male voice. "Sheriff Stone."

I bawled into the phone, "Ricky stole my Caddy!"

"Lalla? How's your dad?" he drawled, irritating me no end with his ploy to get me to slow down.

"Working on inner enlightenment. Now will you please focus on me? I said, Ricky stole my Caddy."

I could hear his old office chair creak as he sought a more comfortable position. "You don't have to yell."

I did feel a little guilty for yelling at him. After all, he hadn't stolen my car. I started again, slower this time. "It's either at his house, his car lot, or his latest girlfriend's."

"Miss Bains," he said, the humor sneaking into his voice, "don't tell me you've misplaced that cherry red Cadillac. It's kinda hard to hide, you know."

The chair creaked again, and I thought of Caleb, his phone to ear for anyone who would need a careful, considerate listener. Caleb owed the chair and his job as Sheriff of Stanislaus County to his dad, who died in a shootout about the same time my mother died. I love Caleb Stone as my best friend in the whole world. He's a veritable Job of patience to my frequently irritable nature. But right now, I wasn't up to patient or considerate. I wanted Caleb to find the bastard for me. Now.

I tried begging. "Caleb, please? I've called everybody I can think of. I've got people looking from Ripon to Merced."

"Mmm-mm."

"I'm telling you, if he takes it as far as Fresno, he's dead meat."

"Awright, settle down, Lalla. You want to report it stolen? Come in and we'll write up a report."

Uh-oh, this could get complicated. Ricky and I had history and it wasn't pretty. The Caddy was my trophy from our divorce, and though I secretly enjoyed being the butt of jokes locally I didn't want to see this most recent escapade get ratcheted all the way up to the nightly news.

"Uh, do we have to do it so formally? Can't you just tell some of the guys to be on the lookout for it?"

Caleb, being one of the few who knew my angry history with Ricky, also liked to rib me about it. "So it's a no-go on the wanted posters?"

"Just tell the guys to look for it, will you?" I hung up on him.

Still restless, I went downstairs to finish telling my dad the bad news.

He slammed his napkin down on the table and glared up at me. "Can't we go a whole week without you on the front page of the newspaper?"

"My missing Caddy doesn't warrant two lines and nobody cares but me, so what're you all grumpy about?"

"Not that you would care, but I'm a sick old man and I'd like to die with what's left of my reputation intact."

"What's left of your reputation? Are you saying my plane crash or my ongoing tug of war over Ricky's prized possession is hurting your reputation?"

He pushed back his chair and stood, the expression on his face somewhere between sadness and disgust. He didn't have to say anything more. I'd once again disappointed him, because no matter what I did, how hard I tried, I seemed to stumble across trouble. I had to admit he was right. After all, I was the one who'd found my mother's body, burned her suicide note and neglected to tell my father or my brother. And I was still paying for that guilty sin.

"I can't tolerate infidelity," I said, hoping to have the last word.

He turned at the door. "You don't have to prove it to me."

"Believe me, I wasn't trying to prove anything to you."

He tipped his bushy eyebrows at me, the gesture saying words about what I was trying to prove—that I didn't need New York or modeling or a husband to fulfill my life, that I was good enough to run a crop-dusting business for my old man, that I measured up to the son he lost, and that neither of us was at fault that my mother chose to end her life.

Ten minutes later, the phone rang.

"I have good news and bad news," Caleb said.

"Hurry up and tell me, I can take it." I was picturing Ricky hightailing it for Mexico with his latest honey in my Caddy. But that wasn't what I got.

"Ricky says he didn't take your car, and I have to believe him."

I took back every kind thought I'd ever had about Caleb. "And that's the good or the bad news?"

"Well, I'm afraid that it's the good news."

Oh, God, I hate it when he does this. Typical Caleb, succinct to the point of anguish. I groaned at this latest round of vague innuendo.

"Ricky doesn't have your car, because we found it out at Turlock Lake."

"Turlock Lake? What—"

"Wait a minute and I'll tell you. The Caddy's big fins were seen sticking up out of the muck."

"In the water? Oh no! She'll be ruined!"

"Lalla, are you sitting down? 'Cause that's still not the bad news."

I held onto the phone by its long curling extension cord and slid down the wall until my butt was settled on the polished oak floor.

"Lalla? You there?"

I ran a finger along the groove of the scarred and battered floor that once held up a crowd of thirsty miners. Noah liked to tell visitors he found gold dust in the cracks when he salvaged the boards from a "forty-niner" hotel being torn down to make room for a highway.

"Yes," I said, "I'm here."

A small portable radio my dad kept tuned to a weather channel on the kitchen counter cheerfully announced the time and temperature. It was seventy-eight degrees and rising. Then the announcer encouraged us all to have a nice day.

By the time Caleb told me the rest of it, my teeth had started a rumba and my shoulders were quaking as if I were sitting in a blizzard. Caleb's steady voice brought me back to my feet. "You'll need to verify that it's your car and talk to the investigating detective."

"Detective? Why a detective?"

"Can you drive here, or do you want me to come out and pick you up?"

"Don't you mean, bring me in?"

"Either way, you've got an appointment. You need to make a statement, and if you're this feisty, I'll wait for you outside the county jail downtown and go with you."

I hung up, and with palsied hands, grabbed the nearest set of keys and drove our old farm truck into Modesto. I ignored the familiar rattle of the loose drive shaft, the torn vinyl headliner, the missing door handle, and the growing spider web of broken windshield on the passenger side.

The drive was a no-brainer, one where I could easily divide my attention between the road and work schedules before hitting the outskirts of the nearest mall. But not today. I couldn't stop thinking about Caleb's words. Of all the answers to the whereabouts of my car, not in a million years would I have guessed that my Caddy would be found tailfins sticking out of the shallow end of Turlock Lake.

And behind the wheel, neatly buckled into her safety belt, was none other than the blue ribbon winner in this year's county fair's jam-making contest, Patience McBride.

Chapter Four:

Modesto's prosperity has been memorialized in a permanent arch across I and Ninth Streets. Its cryptic message, Water Wealth Contentment Health, means that if you're a farmer and have water, you are more than likely to be wealthy, if not healthy. Fine with me, except that they rerouted the highway and nobody drives under the arch except those taking this freeway off-ramp to Modesto's jail or county courthouse, which was where I was going.

I pulled into a parking space close to where Caleb, his Stetson tipped down over his brow, stood in quiet contemplation under the leafy shadow of sycamores. Caleb's khakis still held a razor pleat against the rising morning heat. Lucky him. I was already a sweaty mess in jeans and yesterday's T-shirt.

I honked, and his face, bronzed by his love of the outdoors, creased into the familiar and endearing smile that he kept for the likes of puppies, lunch, and me.

He strolled over to lean on the open window of the truck. "Hey. You okay?"

I tried to keep my voice from cracking. "Can we get on with this, Caleb? Where's my car?" My day was ruined. My car was certainly ruined. A woman, though not exactly a friend, was found dead in it, very ruined indeed. Then I thought of something and grabbed at his shirt sleeve. "Good God, Caleb, she's not still in it, is she?"

"No, of course not," he said, offering me a hand out of the truck. "I'm sorry, I forgot to tell you. Poor old girl is at the county morgue, waiting her turn with the medical examiner. Come on, the impound lot is just around the corner. I'll tell you what I know while we walk. A camper saw it sticking tail-end up in the mud at the lake's edge about six a.m. Homicide will—"

"What do you mean, Homicide?"

"If it's a suspicious death, Homicide gets involved. As of now, it looks like she was driving it when she hit the tree."

"What? Patience couldn't see past the hood ornament! How in God's name could she have been driving?"

He nodded. "I told them."

"What is it you're not telling me?"

"Nothing, honest," he said, not looking me in the eye. "I'm going to introduce you to the detective and bow out."

I gasped and pulled away from the firm clasp he had on my elbow. "I'm a suspect?"

"Don't panic, Lalla. It's only a formality. I have rules to follow too, you know."

I couldn't think of anything else to say, and we glumly trudged around the corner of the grim cement four-story government building. To say I was pretty shook up was an understatement. I was working my way into a full-grown migraine. It got worse when we walked into the impound yard, and I saw my Caddy. Seven layers of red lacquer were no match for the green slime growing at the edges of the lake during the summer. It clung like a fur coat to the back half of my car; the front end was covered with gray mud where it had come to rest in the shallow end of the lake.

Detective Gayle Rodney was an out-of-shape, overworked minion of our local police system. He hadn't quite finished his Sunday breakfast and was still picking at it with a toothpick while he absent-mindedly shook my hand. "Miz Bains."

The detective wasn't any better at making eye contact. I suspected he'd rather be sitting somewhere with his feet up, digesting his bacon and eggs instead of interviewing murder suspects. Me too.

Introductions over, I was warned not to touch anything as we did a slow shuffle around the car. I bit at my trembling lip and commented on the insult of damage. It wasn't a pretty sight, but then I imagine neither was Patience. The fender was crunched up almost to the engine block. The impact to its steel frame alone would have been enough to kill any driver, especially without the requisite shoulder strap seat belt, much less an airbag.

"Well, it didn't look anything like this yesterday, that's for sure." I pointed to the obvious. "The right front headlight is busted, and, of course, the front right fender is dented, uh, badly." I gulped and looked across the car at Caleb, who still wouldn't look me in the eye. I gave up and went back to surveying the damage to my once beautiful car.

"When can I get her to a garage, Detective?" I asked, watching weeds drip water off the wheel wells.

"Well," drawled the tooth picker, "we need to let her dry out. I don't hold out much hope for prints, not when she's been in all that wet silt. When she dries out some, we'll vacuum her, see if we can pick up anything." He shrugged. "They don't make 'em like this anymore, but with the water, sludge and mud, she sure took a hit."

I winced. "What about Mrs. McBride? I'd say she didn't take the ride so well, either." My mouth felt like cotton, and the headache was crawling up the back of my scalp. Soon it would cover my left temple and carve out a shallow tunnel for my vision.

He moved the toothpick to the other side of his mouth and gave Caleb a look over my head that said he'd had enough. "I could let you have it tomorrow, maybe next day." He took out a card, and turning it over, wrote down a number. "You call this guy and he'll let you know if we're done with it. See she gets over to my office in half an hour, Sheriff."

Caleb gave the detective a little nod, squeezed my elbow, and pulled me away. "You okay? You look like you're going to faint or something."

"I'll be all right. I just wish I could have picked a better time to quit smoking." I still thought smoking bit off the start of a migraine, though the doctors didn't agree. "I've got my pills in my purse if I could get some water."

"Come on, I'll walk you over to the police station. They've got a cooler by the exit. Oh, I almost forgot. You remember Patience saying anything about a nephew?"

"Yeah," I said, listlessly watching the sun crawl across the Caddy's hood, leaving behind gray-green spots of dried algae on an otherwise dull red exterior. "Lives in Oklahoma."

"Well, I got a message he's trying to reach you."

"Okay, I'll call him when I get home," I said, turning away.

Steering me by the elbow out of the police impound lot, Caleb said softly, "He's in the county jail and he's asking for you."

"Who?" I asked, holding onto my aching head.

"Patience's nephew. After you complete your interview with Detective Rodney, of course."

I blanched, cold again in the summer heat. "Are you joking? Her nephew's in jail? What for?" Then I remembered the detective and asked, "Did he kill his aunt?"

"That hasn't been determined. Police found him asleep in his RV outside her home. You can ask the detective why he's now behind bars. Come on, we'll get you some water for your headache medicine." His voice was as noncommittal as any deadeye dick's. It was beginning to worry me.

"Tell me you don't think I had any part of this. Come on, Caleb, I wasn't that jealous of her winning the damn blue ribbon. Besides, it was really bad jam, just ask my dad."

"Lalla, I know you didn't," he said, still dragging me along by the elbow. "Now stop fussing. Just answer the detective's questions, then stop by the jail and see Patience's nephew."

We arrived at the police station, Caleb holding me up by the arm and me holding a soggy paper cup of water. "When you're ready, go straight back to the elevators, second floor, third door to the right."

At the entrance, I dug in my heels, resisting all further efforts to push me inside. "Tell me, am I their first or second choice for a suspect?"

"Go on," he said, as if my being a number on a list for murder was amusing. "I'm going back to your place to watch the Ident team try to get prints on those cracked, unpainted wood doors on your barn. That should be fun."

"You'll explain it all to my dad?" I said, holding onto the doorframe as if actually stepping through his office door was an admission of guilt. "That someone stole my car and somehow Patience ended up drowned in it? You'll tell him so he won't worry, right?" I giggled nervously and then bit at my thumbnail. It sounded incredibly dumb, even to me. Though my life had been relatively trouble free since my divorce from Ricky, if there was going to be trouble, my dad wouldn't be surprised to find that I was in the thick of it—again.

"I got it covered," Caleb said. "It's a courtesy call because of your dad's health." He pecked me on the cheek and patted my shoulder before abandoning me to my fate, not in the least bit worried I might be charged with a murder I didn't commit. I could've asked to have a lawyer attend the meeting, but knowing Caleb had my back, what could go wrong?

I spent the next hour with Detective Rodney and his sidekick playing good cop, bad cop. The upshot of their routine was a big fat zero; I couldn't prove I'd been at home all night, and they couldn't prove I wasn't. But neither could I explain how Patience and my Caddy ended up in the lake.

I was thoroughly relieved when the detective finally put down his pen and closed his little notebook.

"You're free to go, Ms. Bains." I was up and all but sprinting for the stairs. Free and no longer a suspect, what could be sweeter, right?

I was finally released and pushed through the double doors to stand under a hot cerulean sky clinging to the tops of the buildings.

In my eagerness to slide out from under the steely-eyed suspicions of the local police detective, I might have been a bit hasty.

Damn. I think I've just been set up. I was the odd piece in an apparent homicide, someone who wasn't going to immediately work out as a suspect, but obviously I had my uses. That's me, usable.

Patience's nephew had better be real cute.

Chapter Five:

Directed to the visitation room, I sat down in front of the green tinted glass separating the free and the brave from those who were not. Still, if the next suspect should prove to be innocent, I would be feeling less than brave while I begged a lawyer to find a loophole in a murder charge.

The door opened and I forgot about feeling sorry for myself as Patience's nephew sat down across from me. Dark curly hair spilled over a high forehead; the brown eyes crinkled at the corners with what might have been amusement. He would be taller than me, and the chest and shoulders I noticed nicely filled out the standard issue orange jumpsuit. Cute. Oh my God, Lalla, give it a rest, will you? Your choice for dating material has gone to an all-time low.

He sat down and picked up the phone. I picked up mine. Twining large, square hands around the phone, he said, "You Lalla Bains?" The voice came through the electrical conduit in a tinny, hollow sound.

"Uh-huh," I answered, still numb from my own recent foray with the law.

His eyes wandered over what little he could see beyond the glass. He didn't look unhappy with what he saw. "Damn. She said you was pretty, but she was always matchmaking, if you know what I mean." He saw my confusion and said, "My aunt Patience? I'm Garth Thorne, her nephew. I'd offer you my hand, but I guess it'll have to wait. This is all embarrassing," he said, waving a hand at the glass between us. "I wanted to speak to you as soon as possible because I didn't want my aunt's best friend to think I'd been arrested for killing the old girl."

I had no idea why Patience's nephew would think I was her best friend and that certainly had to be corrected. "Whoa, sorry, but you must have me confused with someone else." I do my best backpedaling when terrified I might become a murder suspect. "I knew your aunt as one of the regulars at a local café, but we barely knew each other. I mean, I gave her a ride to the fair the other day, but that was the first time I'd spoken more than three words to the lady."

"Lemme start over, darlin'. I'm not a bum nor some criminal." His smile cocked ruefully. "I was looking forward to meeting you. Maybe I misunderstood your relationship to my aunt, but all the same, her last letter said she wanted us to meet."

"She did?"

He gave me the benefit of those incredibly perfect teeth. "But not like this."

Now that I thought of it, I remembered Patience, sitting primly beside me on the ride home from the fair, chattering on and on about her nephew. This nephew. My nephew's coming out from Enid, Oklahoma. He's five years younger than you, but you two would make such a handsome couple.

"Honest, I wasn't arrested for the murder of my aunt, if that's what you're thinkin'," he said, stepping into my reverie. "I came in to ID the poor ol' girl's remains, but while I was viewing the body, they must have run a check on me and come up with some bogus old warrant. Child support, which I have been paying. So as you can see, this thing here is totally bogus. But like I said, I got the bail covered and they're about to release me. But I was wonderin', my rig is at my aunt's house, and I could get a cab, but if you don't mind …"

I thought his eyes were beginning to look moist with tears, but then again, it could've been the green wavy glass, and reminding myself of the detective's instructions to find out as much as I could about the nephew, I said, "I'll be out front in half an hour."

Besides, it was obviously some stupid misunderstanding that would, in the end, prove Patience's nephew blameless. Of course there had to be a simple explanation. Something less horrifying than Patience drowning in my car, and her favorite and only nephew, her murderer.

Garth stood patiently leaning against the balustrade of the county courthouse, smoking a cigarette. He got enough second looks from passing women to confirm my initial impression. The guy was a hunk in a pair of tight 501s, and I would've bet my lunch money thirty-two by thirty-six was stamped on the leather patch of his jeans. A western shirt snugged across the broad shoulders and a couple of open snaps showed a few dark, curly chest hairs. His rock-hard jaw was shadowed with a day-old beard, and he carried some serious dark circles under his eyes. All of which said he'd probably not had much sleep the last day or so, but otherwise he was a perfect candidate for a Marlboro ad. I may not be in the market for husband number three, but I wasn't totally immune to a good-looking man. I found my mouth silently forming the words, "Saddle up, cowboy."

He crushed the cigarette under his heel, pushed off the corner of the building, and loped in my direction. I barely had time to reach across the truck to open the door when he hopped in.

With the easy familiarity of one who is happy to be riding in a truck, he stuck out a big square hand. The tinny voice from the jail phone was now a deep and resonant baritone. "Garth Thorne, Esquire, at your service, ma'am." He winked to show me the esquire was only for fun. The handshake was firm but not bone crushing, and in spite of his well-trimmed nails, I felt calluses on his palm. If nothing else was right about this cowboy, at least he was familiar with hard work.

"Lalla Bains," I said, looking down at his hand still holding mine. I managed to slip out of his grasp and nervously snagged the gears into reverse, backing the truck out onto the street and barely missing a Pepsi truck. "Sorry. It's this darn cast."

He nodded. "My aunt said you busted up your leg flying. Pardon me if it sounds like a pickup line, but what's a classy lady like you doing flying crop dusters and driving a dumpy ol' truck like this?"

I couldn't help but smile. "It's the farm truck. I drive it, though my dad gets annoyed because I grind the gears." I demonstrated by lurching the stick shift into first. "And the short version on the flying is that I sort of fell into it. So when was the last time you saw your aunt?"

The crease he'd been wearing between his eyebrows faded in obvious relief. "Thanks."

"For what?"

"Well, for starters, for believing I'm who I say I am. I'm her nephew, for Chrissake, but you'da thought I was the Hillside Strangler by the way I've been treated by the local police. Sorry, but it's been so damn frustrating. Cops thought they could grill me till I confessed something I didn't do," he said, running fingers through dark wavy hair. It was a little long for my taste, but I knew it had that uncombed look women adore. "I used my one call to my lawyer in Enid," he said. "He set up such a stink, they ran like the pack of mangy coyotes they are."

"When did you get here?" I asked sweetly. He might be cute, but I'd rather have a complete stranger in the radar of the local cops than me.

He pulled out the ashtray, and seeing it was empty, asked, "Mind if I smoke?"

"No problem," I said, rolling down my window.

"You want one?"

I laughed. "Does it show?"

"I'm trying to quit myself." He grinned and flicked the unlit cigarette out the window. "So you asked—oh yeah. I drove straight here with a quick stop in Reno. I had some friends to catch up with. I got here, oh, sometime 'fore sunup this morning, must've been around five."

"Did you see your aunt then?"

"Nah. I was beat. Besides, it was too early, so I pulled my rig into her driveway and took a nap. That turned out to be a mistake."

"The police?"

"On some crock about non-support for my kid."

"Oh? Boy or a girl?"

"A daughter. You got kids?"

"Bad timing, wrong men, the usual issues."

"Too bad. I owed my aunt a visit, but the trip out here was to see my kid."

"Here in Modesto?"

"Stockton. She turned sixteen a couple of weeks ago, so I'm overdue on the visits but not on my child support." He frowned and went back to examining the road.

If this guy weren't so cute, it would be a waste of my time. He was here to see his kid and got put in jail for old child support issues.

"Were you and your aunt close?"

"We were." You know how an expression flickers across someone's face, but you can't read it because you either don't know the person well enough or you think you forgot to ask the right question? I was feeling that way now and only hoped something would fall out sooner than later.

"Times change people. I got married, opened a business, had a kid. It all went to hell when I started drinking. That'll mess with your life. When the checks started bouncing, my wife got me to sign papers for stuff I don't even remember, and I think I signed away custody of my kid. So with no reason to stay, I hitched a ride with a sympathetic trucker friend. Poor ol' boy must've got tired of hearing my sob story, 'cause I got tossed somewhere near the Texas panhandle. After that everything went downhill." His deep chuckle belied the next statement. "I'd guess you'd call it downhill, since I woke up in a dumpster."

"Dumpster?" He had to be kidding. I snuck a peek at his handsome head and tried to imagine those dark curls matted with garbage, his manicured nails grimy with dirt.

"You have no idea how cold it can get in Texas till you spend a winter's night outside. Trust me, darlin', that dumpster saved my ass. I hitched another ride and woke up in a whorehouse outside Enid and couldn't tell you how I got there."

"A whorehouse? Really?" This was entertaining. "I'll bet they're a lively bunch. Kinda like a full-time pajama party, huh?"

The eyes crinkled with amusement. "Oh, it was fun, all right," he added dryly. "Getting sober in an Oklahoma whorehouse was a hoot, scrubbing toilets during the day and AA every night."

Unlike my own ragged digits, which had more than a nodding acquaintance with the underbelly of an airplane, his very clean nails said he no longer hung around Dumpsters. I curled my neglected nails around the wheel to hide them.

"I didn't leave under the best of circumstances, grabbing a bag and hitching a ride out of Stockton, but I made a good living for us in Stockton, and I thought leaving her with all of it would mean she wouldn't do without, but she figured otherwise. So, part of my program is to apologize to the people I've hurt. I've tried to make amends, but I guess she doesn't think apologies, or the support checks are enough."

It must have been hard to confess so much to a stranger. I almost felt guilty about prying into his private life. Almost. "So, she's lying about the back child support?"

"Darlin', AA taught me that lyin' went with drinkin', and I've long since given up both. She got the business, the house, the cars, and money for my kid. It took me awhile to get back on my feet, but me and John, he was managing the cathouse, we got us a truck repair shop, and now we work on trucks. Nothing as big as I had in Stockton, but it keeps us going, and I pay all my bills."

"So this is your ex's punishment for you leaving?"

"I can't think of anybody else who'd go to this kind of trouble. Maybe I'll go back to court, get joint custody like I should've in the first place. I could take my kid to Oklahoma for the rest of her summer vacation."

"At sixteen?" I thought of my goddaughter, Maya, at two years older. "Do you have any idea how hard it would be to tear a sixteen-year-old away from her friends and the local mall?"

"You know, they have malls in Enid."

His dark brows settled into a stubborn line. Then he looked over at me and grinned. "Oh, hell, I'll work it out with the ex soon enough. So you feel better knowing I wasn't in jail 'cause I was a murder suspect?"

"Sure do," I said. "I already trucked home my share of criminals today."

He slapped his thigh and laughed, sending shock waves through the cab of the truck. "I gotta tell you, darlin', you're a sight for sore eyes. This trip's sure been a doozer." Then his tone turned serious. "I can't believe the old girl went and drove herself into a lake. What was she thinking?"

I wasn't sure how I felt about being addressed as darlin', but maybe it's what they all did in Oklahoma. "I'd like to know myself, since she did it in my car."

All his lighthearted sunshine disappeared again. "It was your car she was driving?" He shook his head. "Well, bump my ass and call me an Okie! Don't this beat all. So, what happened? Girls' night out? Whoop it up in town and you were too drunk to drive home?"

"'Fraid not. I wasn't in the car."

He gave me a quick and concentrated once-over. "Please, darlin', don't tell me they're fixin' to size you up for prison wear?"

I peeked at him over my sunglasses. Since little and I are seldom used in the same sentence, I wasn't sure if he was kidding or not. But then, he hadn't seen me standing either. From what I'd seen of his big frame, I'd say his chin could easily rest on my five-foot-nine frame.

"Not if I have anything to say about it. I have absolutely no reason to do in someone I barely knew."

"Nobody else did neither, but the cops're desperate to hang this on somebody, and I guess I look good for it."

My sentiments exactly. "If it makes you feel any better, I was also cautioned not to leave town. I've got to run a crop-dusting business, so where did they think I was going to go?"

He quietly digested that little tidbit of news while I cut across three lanes of traffic and jumped the off-ramp for home. As I nosed up to the intersection, I felt Garth tense.

"I find it hard to believe the cops're thinking somebody murdered my own kin," he said.

I shot through the stopsign, but if he had an opinion about my driving he kept it to himself.

"That ol' girl didn't have an enemy in the world. As a matter of fact, if anything, her worst problem was that she liked every one. Anybody who paid the slightest bit of attention to her was her newest best friend. I told her it could be dangerous, and maybe that's what happened."

"You think she might have taken up with a stranger?" I asked.

"Can't see what else it could be."

I turned off Hatch onto Whitmore, and we pulled into Patience's driveway.

"Well," I said, "she couldn't have been driving my car, because…"

Garth wasn't listening and I couldn't blame him. He was staring at the yellow police tape surrounding the perimeter of her house. Occupying the last half acre of land carved out of its original eighty acres, the house looked like a lot of the old two-bedroom farmhouses.

A sleek, black, forty-five-foot custom diesel pusher loomed over much of the parking space and almost dwarfed the house. Gold pin-striping rippled from front to back. A mountain scene, complete with wolves baying at the moon, was expertly painted on the stern. It was the same type of custom rig that ferried country/western singers around. I also knew, from friends who had them, they started at close to a million dollars.

"Nice land-yacht," I said.

"If you like I'll give you a tour, but first I want to take a look inside her place," he said, hopping out of the truck.

I called at his back, "I think the yellow tape means keep out?"

Garth's long legs stepped over the yellow tape, and while I was still dithering over unauthorized entry, he went inside. Since both of us were already under suspicion, what could it hurt, right?

Just inside the door, I asked, "Shouldn't it have been locked? Or at least shut? Shouldn't there be a patrolman here to keep out the curiosity seekers like us?"

Garth hooked his thumbs in the loops of his jeans and leaned close enough so that his twinkling gray eyes settled onto mine. And with a wink he said, "Nobody's ever gonna accuse you of being dumb, are they, darlin'?"

Chapter Six:

The interior of Patience's country cottage was almost as dark as the lingering summer twilight. But even in the dim interior, I was distressed to see two floral print chairs were upended, looking like chubby schoolgirls with their white panties showing. And except for her big heavy upright piano, everything had been dumped over or tossed against the wall hard enough to break. The sofa's cushions were slashed, the cotton stuffing pulled halfway out.

Garth stood muttering at the disaster inside. "I've seen Oklahoma tornados do less damage than this."

I answered something about my own housekeeping skills and stepped around him. Whatever happened here was not the work of sloppy housekeeping.

"Cops do this?" Garth asked, bewilderment turning to anger. "Tear up her house like this?"

"Of course not. They must have found it this way."

"Then why was the door left open? Something ain't right here."

I was still fumbling along the wall feeling for a switch when Garth disappeared into the next room.

"Hey! Where're you going?" I shouted into the void. The dark interior had that violated feeling and it was beginning to creep me out. "I should call Caleb!"

"If he's a cop, you can count me out," he called back. "Gimme a minute. I wanna see how bad it is." His voice faded as he went into another room.

Unwilling to stumble around a dark room, I anxiously held my post by the front door and waited for Garth to rescue me, that is, if he would stop his exploring every room.

I was about to holler at him to stop fooling around when I felt the hair on the back of my neck tingle. Someone was standing close enough for me to feel his breath on my neck. I saw Garth go into a back room, didn't I? Then who was standing behind me?

I could feel my knees start to buckle. Taking a shaky breath, I squeaked, "Something I can do for you?" I was sure someone was behind me, and to prove my point, a cool, round, cylinder was pressed firmly into the small of my back.

"Don't turn around," said a rusty whisper. "You and your boyfriend took what's not yours, so where is it, girly?"

With my heart hammering in my chest, I squeaked, "What do you mean? Who are you anyway?" I was babbling, hoping to stall him until Garth came back. What was taking Garth so long? Didn't he realize someone was out here holding me at gunpoint?

The whisperer hissed, "Don't play cute with me, sister. You know what I'm talking about."

"I most certainly do not!" I was incensed at the idea of being accused of theft. Murder maybe, but not theft. I pointed a shaking finger in the direction Garth went and croaked, "That's Patience's nephew back there, and if I scream he's going to come out, and if he does, he's going to come out swinging."

"Don't even think about it," he snarled, pushing the tip of the gun harder into my spine.

Until now, no one had ever pointed a gun at me, much less backed it with such intense emotion. I couldn't have screamed if I wanted to. The glue that held me so well to this spot had spread its way up to my arms, and I found myself unable to move, much less call for help.

He poked me again. "What's he doing in there?"

Anger knocked against my better judgment. "Making me a tuna sandwich!" I snapped. "Why don't I call him and we can find out." There was a crash from the other room, and I felt the wisp of air as the door opened behind me. I started to turn around, but he poked me again in the back. "Don't turn around. I know who you are, girly, and where you live, so don't think this is the last you'll hear from me."

The door softly closed and my gun-toting whisperer disappeared as quietly as he entered.

Suddenly, a wall light and three lamps in the living room came on. I stood where my captor left me, standing in front of the door, small sounds coming out of my mouth.

"Hey, hey, darlin', what's wrong? You look like you been chased by a herd of crazed armadillos."

"Arma—di—dillos?" I stuttered, my nerves disconnecting. "Just a minute, I have to sit down."

He managed to reach me as I collapsed on to the ruined couch. "Somebody here? What'd they want?"

"I-I don't know," I said. "He kept saying we took what doesn't belong to us."

"Like what—money? That's a hoot. I mean, look at this house. Anything here say imported wine cellar to you? Whoever he was, he sure did a number on this place."

I thought of Caleb's calm reasoning and said, "Don't touch anything. I'm going to call the sheriff." But before I could get to the truck, Caleb rolled up in his sheriff's car.

"Don't you look at me like that, Caleb Stone," I said, thrusting out my chin. "We found it this way. And I presume by the look on your face, you didn't leave it like this either."

He made a noise in the back of his throat, taking in the damage, then giving Garth and me a sour look. "The place had double bolts on front and back doors, I checked. Both doors were locked when we last checked."

I ignored the two gawking deputies and went on the offensive. "Speaking of which, why isn't there a patrol car out here to watch the place? Your guys let some scumbag waltz in here and vandalize the house of a dead woman. It's a good thing the poor woman can't see this mess."

To his credit, he took the tongue-lashing and then barked over his shoulder, "Where's Jerry?"

The deputy visibly quivered. "Uh, don' know, but I'll find out," and scurried out to call headquarters. He was back in a minute. "Dispatch says someone called in a barn fire at Jerry's dad's. He wouldn't have left for any other reason… Sir."

Caleb set his mouth in a grim line. "I'll deal with Jerry later." He jerked a thumb at the door. "You and Dan are in charge of perimeter, and yes, it's a crime scene. Go on." He waited until they were out of hearing and then turned to me.

"Where were you two when the intruder came in?"

I pointed at the doorjamb. "Will you look at this? Whoever he was, he had a key. And it also means he didn't find what he was looking for, or he wouldn't have stuck around to point a gun in my back and threaten me."

"Turn around."

"What for? You're not going to arrest me, are you?"

"Don't be a ninny. Close your eyes. Where did you feel the gun, about here?"

"Lower," I said, feeling the ghostly pressure again. "At my waist level."

"Mm-mm." I'd heard that hmm enough to know he was now mentally sorting through faces and profiles, names and crimes, while he stood holding a finger at my midsection.

"Now think back to the moment when you realized someone was behind you, before he or she spoke. Could you describe any smell or odor about the person? Perfume, aftershave, body odor? Anything at all?"

I took an experimental sniff, filtering memory through my nose, but shook my head when nothing floated to the surface. "Sorry, no."

He hmmed again, as if I'd given a reasonable answer. "Your visitor must have been a very cool customer. Stress usually causes people to sweat profusely and then perfume or aftershave really gets strong. Sometimes a witness can identify the perp by smell if not sight. Did he say anything else?"

"He said we took something that wasn't ours."

"Did he mention Garth by name?"

"No, I think we interrupted his ransacking. I guess he either decided he didn't want to tangle with Garth, or he believed me when I said I didn't know what he was talking about. Of course, I was shaking so badly I couldn't tell, and I never did turn around in time to see him." Then I remembered something. "He whispered."

"Could it have been a woman, disguising her voice in a whisper?"

"It was a guy." I frowned. "Had to be. He called me 'girly.' My granddad used to call me girly. He also seemed pretty sure of himself, like we were the intruders, not him, though he took a powder when Garth dropped something in the kitchen."

"Could he have mistaken you for someone else? After all, you came in with Garth."

"Like who? The only other person Garth knows in this town just died."

"Anything else?"

"The whisperer? He told me he knew who I was and where I lived. Caleb, what's to keep this guy from coming to our house?"

"There's a pretty big crowd of people who know where you live, Lalla, but I'll put a deputy out on your road, and you really should get a security system."

"Noah doesn't like the shiny wires, or the beeping of anything electronic, and he wouldn't stand for an unsightly keypad. He says a shotgun is all the deterrent he needs."

"Fat lot of good that'll do you, since we both know your dad could sleep through the Second Coming."

"Just as well," I murmured. "He's too mean to be anywhere I'd want to be for eternity."

Two more police cars rolled up, blue lights churning. Doors slammed and someone laughed at a joke.

I looked at Garth, his arms crossed, leaning against a wall. I didn't have to know the guy very well to know we were both thinking the same thing: Here, in the victim's ransacked house, stand the two main suspects.

Detective Rodney walked through the door and huddled with Caleb and his deputy, while Garth and I stared at the floor. Caleb tapped me on the shoulder and nudged me away from Garth's hearing and said, "Don't, whatever you do, tell Garth Thorne a thing."

I pulled back to look him in the eyes. "You can't be serious!"

"Yes, I am," he whispered. "How'd he get here?"

"You know how he got here. You and your buddy Rodney set it all up."

His frown deepened. "Fast work, even for you, Lalla."

I gasped. My cheeks flamed and then I reached out and slapped him.

He pursed his lips, and turning on his heel, snapped at his deputy and the two stepped outside. Detective Rodney followed, but not before adding a wink at me over his shoulder.

I had managed to whip myself up into a white-hot mad and needed to take it out on the first person who lit my match. Couldn't seem to help it. Unfortunately, Caleb had been it.

Caleb came back inside, walked over to Garth and said something. Garth did a negative headshake and a disinterested lift of his big shoulders. After being hauled in for questioning and then detained on a bogus warrant, he had a right to be wary of the police, I thought.

Caleb glared at the two of us and thumbed at the door, indicating that we'd been dismissed. Stepping outside, Garth took my elbow and gently guided me away from the knot of police toward his rig. I thanked him in a shaky voice.

He grinned. "Mind letting me know how you get away with slapping a sheriff?"

"We're friends—at least we used to be. I shouldn't have. I'm not myself."

"He deserved it," he snapped. "But remind me not to get on your bad side, darlin'."

"This has been just about all I can take for one day," I said, turning to go.

He caught my arm and said, "Wait up a minute. Your sheriff friend said my aunt's body won't be released for burial yet. What's that all about?"

"Caleb says they'll do an autopsy. They have to when cause of death is unclear."

He frowned, not happy with the explanation. "But it's obvious. She somehow got your car busted up and drove it into a lake. I hate to speak ill of the dead, but alcoholism runs in my family. By the way, am I missing something here? Are you two an item?"

"Caleb and I go back to the third grade, if that counts. But we're not romantically involved, if that's what you mean."

"Somebody forgot to tell that ol' boy. The look I got when he came in the door and saw the two of us together made me feel like a kid with my hand in the cookie jar," he said, reaching out to stroke my arm. "And a purty damn near perfect cookie jar it is, darlin'. Which reminds me, can I buy you dinner?"

"Sure," I said, and scratched my number on a card I found in my purse. "We're going to have plenty of time since we've been advised not to leave the county."

"What about tonight? I clean up good," he said, sticking the tips of his thumbs in the top of his tight jeans. His humor was back and so was the slow, sexy smile.

"Sorry, not tonight. If I had that gun pointed at my head again, I'd have to say go ahead and shoot. I'm that tired and I have to get up for work at the ungodly hour of three a.m."

"Okay, I'll take a rain check then. You drive careful, hear?"

He stood perfectly still next to the door of his rig as I backed out of the driveway. Perhaps he couldn't see past the light reflecting in the windshield, or perhaps he was too shocked from today's revelations to do anything but hang onto the door of his motor home while I drove away.

I turned right onto Hatch and headed for the freeway. What was it the intruder whispered? That we'd taken something that wasn't ours? Could there have been money in Patience's house? Even more disconcerting, could the gun-toting whisperer be the one responsible for her death?

And what was it with Caleb? I, too, had felt angry vibes zipping across the room. Never mind cookie-jar metaphors, I had one of my own. I felt like I was in kindergarten again, and I'd been caught making a mess.

Instead of taking the on-ramp to the freeway, I turned left at the frontage road and headed for the safe warmth of Roxanne's Café. I needed to talk to someone I trusted.

Still on her first marriage, Roxanne hadn't experienced the joys of divorce lawyers, and from the contented smiles between her and her husband of twenty-five years, she wouldn't be getting one anytime soon. They both cheerfully worked the café day and night to keep two kids in college. Terrill was at Berkeley, and Maya, the baby, was at the local City College studying her bellybutton. That is, until she discovered the secret of the universe, or until I succumbed to her constant entreaties and introduced her to the world she craved—modeling.

Roxanne didn't think much of my last job. Look where it'd gotten me, she said, two broken marriages and an unreasonable fear of aging. Lately, though, Roxanne was beginning to thaw a bit. She no longer referred to the Eileen Ford Company as those "White Slavers," but she still didn't take to the idea of her precious baby surviving on a concentration camp diet, and for once, I couldn't disagree.

Roxanne was my friend and her daughter was the nearest thing I was ever going to have to a child of my own, but Roxy was going to lose her baby girl to the first strong gust blowing through town, with or without my help. Maya had a hunger for the big city, and if any child was born for the spotlight, it was Maya. Tall, graceful and lovely beyond words, everybody who came into contact with her knew it wouldn't be long before she found a way to make her dream come true. Roxanne still held the vain hope that botany, history or even belly dancing would jump up to strike her daughter's fancy. However, Maya was eighteen, and nothing had deterred me at that age.

I flopped onto a stool at the counter and waited until Roxanne, coffeepot in hand, turned and saw me.

"Leon heard it on the scanner, huh?" Daytime kept Leon busy building houses, but he still managed to cook the delectable pies that had people like me coming in on a daily basis. He also kept a VHF radio tuned to police and fire frequencies while he made those pies. Between Leon's radio and a coffee klatch of off-duty cops, nothing stayed private.

"Nobody died this time, thank God, but I need to talk to you," I told Roxanne.

"Go sit in a booth—I'll be right with you."

More cracked vinyl, but at least it was easier on my butt. I played with the salt and pepper shakers and thought about the day's troubling events. Was the house trashed by our intruder, or had he come in thinking we'd done it? And why did he leave before Garth came in? I was exhausted from the whirligig of unanswerable questions.

By the time Roxanne finally eased into the seat across from me, my nerves were frayed and I was running on empty. I eyed Leon's latest pastry creation mirrored in the display case. "Think I could have a piece of that peach pie?"

"Sure, honey," she said, signaling a passing waitress. "Coffee's fresh. Want some?"

I nodded and told her everything I could remember; the Caddy found in the lake with Patience McBride behind the wheel, and how Ricky's alibi checked out, and I got a gun stuck in my back. Oh, and the cute guy I found in jail and how his ex was intent on persecuting him.

When I was through, Roxanne Leonard, who has the softest, brownest, most comforting eyes in the universe, did what she does best—put everything into perspective.

"You aren't going to start dating this guy, are you?"

"I should say not! I was coerced into it by the investigating detective."

"Lalla, Lalla, Lalla."

"That's my name, don't wear it out." I was running low on wisecracks, so it's always nice to know I can fall back on the trite.

"Another winner," she said, screwing up her face in mock horror.

"That depends. Did you say 'winner' or 'wiener?'"

"You tell me, honey chil'," she said, mangling her Mississippi roots again. "What kind of father, especially if he is a card-carrying member of AA, would wait five years to come see his only daughter? They supposed to do the twelve steps sooner than that."

Roxanne ought to know, as her father had been a struggling alcoholic who recovered only long enough to see his daughter graduate from college and then died. She attended Al-Anon and knew it wasn't her fault. As opposed to me. I'd come to realize that my mother's death wasn't my father's fault, but the lie I'd been holding for the last twenty-nine years was all my fault, and I wasn't going to let any amount of psychobabble or self-help books talk me out of that burden. It was all mine.

"All I did was give him a ride back to his aunt's house where he'd parked his RV. We talked about his aunt and his kid. How was I to know we'd come on some burglar robbing her place?"

"Caleb know about this nephew?"

"Of course he did. He was the one who set up the interview with the detective, and he was the one who told me Garth was asking for me and where to find him. I'm really hurt that he would allow that detective to push me into being a despicable snitch."

She opened her eyes wide, the whites looking like the sidewalls on my Caddy. "That don't sound right. Caleb's better'n that."

"I used to think so."

"Look, think about it from his point of view, he has to appear unbiased. It can't look like he's taking your side."

"Oh, yeah? He was awful to me tonight," I said, remembering Caleb's heated spark of antipathy and his spiteful accusation. "I shouldn't have to explain myself to Caleb. He was the one who set me up with the detective."

"Apologize for taking Garth home? I should say not."

I wasn't about to tell Roxanne that I'd slapped him.

"Okay," I said, "let's leave Caleb out of this for a minute. Garth says he let his ex know he was coming out to see his daughter, so why stick around if he knew his wife was going to have him thrown in the pokey the minute he showed up? Besides, so far, there's no real evidence that Patience was actually murdered."

Roxanne tsked. "No evidence? Somebody helped her into that car. Either before or after they killed her. Did Caleb say she was alive when she went under?"

Suddenly I wasn't hungry any more. I put down the fork holding the tender crust of the peach pie. "Caleb won't tell me a thing. If they find any prints under all that mud on the car, they're bound to be mine." I threw up my hands. "And why not me? I have no particular alibi. Will you visit me in prison?"

She patted me on the shoulder. "Maybe that homicide detective knows Garth did it. Though it's a low-down skunky thing to do to a girl like you."

I tried to reconcile myself to the idea of this handsome man murdering his elderly aunt. He had been reckless with his life, but no matter how late, he honestly appeared to be working to reconcile with his daughter. "I don't see him as a killer. He was just as shook up as I was." Or too vulnerable, or too cute. Okay, cute. "Let's say Garth came out here and killed his aunt. Why? And why put her in my car? And who held the gun on me in her house and kept asking me about taking what wasn't mine?"

"That intruder, do you think he killed Patience?"

"He must've seen us drive up in my dad's truck. I tell you, the minute Garth left the room he was right behind me with that damn gun in my back, making threats. Said he knew who I was and where I lived, too."

"Sweetpea, everyone in the county knows who you are and where you live."

"That's what Caleb said. He said I should convince my dad to get a security system, but I think I'm going to have to sleep with Noah's shotgun from now on."

"Who would want to kill her for the piddly little cash she got from her piano students and Social Security?"

"Tell me about it. If she was killed in my car, I may never be able to drive it again."

"It's late. You go on home, get some rest. I gotta think on this some."

I yawned and rubbed at my eyes. "Her house is down the road some, just off Hatch. Would you ask any of the truckers if they noticed that big forty-foot motor home of Garth's before yesterday?"

"So is the nephew a suspect?"

"Unless I can provide a better one, I still might be fitted for an orange jumpsuit, and I don't fancy the color or the length of time I might have to wear it."

With that, I dragged my skinny, tired butt to the truck for the bumpy ride home. I desperately needed new shock absorbers for this truck. I had a growing list of things to fix, besides the suspicions of the police.

Chapter Seven:

I reached the long private driveway to our ranch and imagined I was in the Caddy instead of my dad's old farm truck, and drifting out the way I was coming in. I turned off the lights, shifted into low, and rattled along in the truck. Every few minutes, I'd give the truck a little gas and then let off till we came to a stop in front of the house. I put on the brake and turned off the engine.

I kept the Caddy's engine tuned to be as quiet as a kitten. Neither Dad nor I would have awakened to the soft purr of the car being eased out onto the road. Last night the full moon washed the countryside in shades of blue so there was enough light to see without headlights. Yes, it could have happened like that. Everybody from Caleb to the pilots and ground crew, and certainly the gang at Roxanne's, knew I kept the Caddy in an unlocked barn. Had the theft started as a lark that ended tragically wrong? The police would have to be looking for two people, one to drive out to the ranch and the other to leave with my car. It may have been Patience on a toot with some boyfriend, neither of them sober, stealing my car for a joyride. Who knew? It held as much water as any other theory.

Locking the truck, more because of my own edgy nerves than from habit, I stood on the porch and examined the possibilities. During the season, or at least for the months of June through September, my days were boringly predictable—upstairs and in bed by eight or nine for a much-needed six hours of sleep. Downstairs my dad would be snoring through reruns and late night talk shows. Neither of us would have heard a thing. Though any number of people knew our habits, I would be shocked that any of them would be the sort to pin a murder on me.

I opened the front door to hear a sharp high-pitched barking. Tiny nails skittered across the wood floor of the foyer, and with a toothy snarl, a small brown dog launched itself at my leg. I kicked out, trying to dislodge its hold on my pant leg, then realized that this slathering miniature Cujo was really a tiny Chihuahua and I knew him—not that we were ever on speaking terms.

"Spike? Spike. Let go now, that's a nice doggy." He growled, working his teeth deeper into the material.

How on earth had this hateful dog come to be at our house? Caleb! He had made a special trip all the way out here to interview my dad. A courtesy call, he said. That he managed to drop off Patience's psychotic Chihuahua must have slipped his mind. I shook my pant leg, then leaned down to work open his jaws. "Stop it, you stupid mutt. Let go of my—ouch!"

He let go long enough to snap at my hand, then latched onto the leg again.

We danced around like this for another couple of minutes while I tried to dislodge him without waking my dad. Damn thing wouldn't let go.

"Come sneaking into the house this late at night gets him all riled up. He doesn't like it." My dad, shotgun in the crook of his elbow, barked a command and Spike let go and ran back to my dad, his tongue lolling and his tail wagging.

"Neither do I,"I said. "The little bugger bit a hole in my pants. Why would Caleb bring this mutt out here?"

"Caleb said we could use an alarm system, and since I don't like the idea of feeding a German shepherd, Spike here has got himself a new home."

"Noah, that damn dog hates everyone. He's got mental problems."

"You don't know what you're talking about. Nicest little dog I've ever met, minds really well and he loves Juanita's cooking. Besides, he ran right out to greet you, didn't he?"

"Sure he did," I said, holding up my bleeding thumb.

I couldn't imagine why Caleb would stiff us with Patience McBride's hellhound, but since my dad liked him, I'd let it go until tomorrow.

Noah cleared his throat. "Caleb says you're off the hook with the police, so where've you been?"

The answers to that would take most of the night, and I was tired beyond words. "I was at Roxanne's."

"Well, Caleb called a couple of times. You got that cell phone, why don't you answer it?"

"Because right now I don't want to talk to him."

He hefted the shotgun over his shoulder and pointing at the dog, said, "Well, leave me out of your squabbles, will you? Me and Spike got the security covered, so you get some sleep. I'll start the ground crew tomorrow."

As if I could sleep. I got a beer and a can of tuna. Standing over the sink where I wouldn't make too much of a mess, I watched clouds chase the moon across the sky. Eating alone made me wonder if I would be standing here in another ten years watching a night sky filled with too many questions. Two unsuccessful marriages may have done it for me, but did it mean I was destined to become just another eccentric old lady standing at the sink, eating out of tuna cans?

I turned away from uncomfortable thoughts, went to shower, and then, brushing my teeth, drooled toothpaste over the sink and looked up in the mirror.

The very act of putting a woman, dead or alive, in my car made this crime very personal. Was it only a joyride gone bad, or was it something to do with me? Who would harbor such unmitigated hatred that they would murder a woman and think, "I'll pin this on Lalla Bains."

Nothing I'd learned so far made sense, except for one nagging thought: three times today I'd been told that everyone knew who I was and where I lived. My work habits were an open book, so was it someone who knew me and had a grudge big enough to frame me for murder? Or was it simply a side benefit? Tomorrow I would see if I could find some answers.

Chapter Eight:

My cell phone chimed from the bedside table. I poked at it and heard Caleb say, "Hey, you. You can have your car back now."

"That's nice," I said, still exhausted from yesterday, and I wasn't too thrilled at being awakened from my all too brief snooze. "I'll have Noah drive me in tomorrow."

"No, I'm coming out to pick you up."

"Now? Don't you sleep?"

"Get up, sleepyhead, it's seven a.m. I'll be there in half an hour. I have something to show you."

"What—now?" I sat up in bed, pulled the sleep-shade off my head and looked at my bedside clock. He was right, I'd slept through the early morning shift and didn't hear a thing. Planes roared down the runway and took off, trucks rumbled out of the yard, and I slept through all of it. Was it any wonder I hadn't heard my Caddy going out?

I groaned. "Can't this wait?"

"Sooner we get this over with, the sooner we can clear your good name," he said. "So get up and get decent, or not. Either way, I'll be there soon."

Left with an ear full of air, I slapped the phone down and rolled out of bed. He must be calling from his car. Hearing voices from downstairs meant that Noah was finished with the morning paperwork and was now seated at the breakfast table. I might be expected to report in, if not for business, then certainly an explanation for yesterday was required.

I stood at the kitchen door and took in the scene—my father eating a plate of pancakes, a small brown dog at rapt attention. Juanita, seeing the little dog's empty plate, picked it up and whittled his next pancake to bite-size. Finished, she put the plate down next to Noah's feet and smiled as the dog gobbled up the bites. It was a regular Rockwell memory and one for the record. Spike had my grumpy father and his small bossy housekeeper wrapped around his little brown paw.

My dad put down his fork. "You're up. I got Northrup's peaches started, but you need to fire Brad."

"Brad? Why would I do that? He's top producer and doing the work of two pilots."

"If you'd get back into the saddle, we'd have two pilots."

"I have to get this cast off first."

"See to it, then. You're wasting this season sitting on your butt."

That hurt. When I didn't say anything, he looked up and blinked.

"That kid is gambling, and now he's taking pills, and I'm not talking vitamins. They're the kind that keep him awake so he can do the work of two pilots."

"I keep track of his hours," I said. "He isn't flying any more than allowed."

"He's going to be trouble."

"Okay, don't go all cranky on me again. Where'd you hear this?"

"I got my sources. A fool and his money are soon parted, I always say."

Since my dad and a nickel were seldom parted, the idea of gambling was as alien to him as wearing his underwear outside his overalls. "He's pushing his luck with more than cards, and I'm of a mind that I don't need the problems that will go with it, so do us all a favor and fire him, or I will."

"I see your point, but I can't do without him just yet, and in any case, until you can give me some proof, I don't see firing him. And don't tell me again that I can get back in the seat. I can't get into it, not with this cast, I've tried. Let me think about this, okay?"

I turned to go then said, "As you can see," I pointed at the front page of the morning paper, "I've been a bit preoccupied."

"Yes." Something wistful passed behind the faded blue eyes, but I let myself think it was simple regret at having his daughter's name in the newspaper again.

"I gave her a ride to the fair and home, and this is how she pays me back," I said, my voice doing flip-flops. "I think my reputation in the 'Good Samaritan' department is going to be shot after this."

"Yes," he said, nodding thoughtfully.

We're not the sort to be caught crying, being a tough lot of third-generation Germans by way of Brownsville, Texas, but when my dad stood and held out his arms, I swallowed my pride and threw myself onto his chest.

"Don't cry, Lalla. I know you didn't kill her," he said, handing me a clean hanky from his pocket.

"Thanks a lot," I blubbered. "I know your opinion will carry oodles of weight with an unbiased jury. That is, if there's one left in the state."

"What's Caleb doing about it?"

"Doing about it? Absolutely nothing to help me, that's for sure."

"There, there, don't cry," he said, awkwardly patting my shoulder.

I told him the rest of it, about the burglar, and how he seemed to know who I was and where I lived. "That burglar obviously killed Patience."

"You're not alone on this, you know. Don't worry," he said. "I'll see what I can find out."

Then he left me to my misery.

I sat on the porch waiting for Caleb. What was he up to that he couldn't tell me on the phone? Was he coming out here to read me my rights? Bring us another psychotic dog? I sniffed and punched down my fears, willing myself to let go of this crazed foreboding. I put my feet up on the rail and tried to let go of the tension. In spite of my commitment to relax, I felt my fingers digging into my palms.

Within another five minutes I had him in my sights between the V I'd made of one boot and a cast. I watched the dot grow from a spot with a dusty tail to a white Ford Crown Victoria as it bumped down our long driveway, his Stetson bobbing with each hit of the potholes.

Caleb took a wicker chair next to me, worked himself into a comfortable position and said, "Do you know how much I enjoy sitting here? I love this place. It's like an oasis."

"Yeah, and just like an oasis, its edges are being eaten up every time another real estate agent comes out with an offer that Noah can't seem to refuse. At this rate we'll have nothing to fly out of and my inheritance will be that row of tacky tract houses you see over there. Barbecues in every backyard stinking up my country air." It was an old tape I replayed out of frustration when every year my dad sold off another chunk to developers, and there was nothing I could do about it.

Caleb ignored my harangue. "Do you remember the summer we picked grapes? How old were we then? Fourteen?"

"I'd rather talk about why you chose to bring Spike out here to us."

"They don't have a no-kill policy at the pound, and your dad likes him. Besides, Patience didn't have any relatives other than Garth, and no friends except you and the bunch at Roxanne's."

I threw up my hands. "So we're stuck with him?"

"Maybe Garth wants to take him back to Oklahoma."

"About Garth…"

"Let's leave him out of this for the time being, okay?"

Since I had no intention of apologizing for slapping him, it worked for me. "So why else did you come out here?"

Caleb reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out two small baggies, the kind I used to hold Juanita's leftovers, which were generally better the next day anyway. In Caleb's case, he used the baggies to hold bits and pieces of evidence; fingernails, hair and little bloody body parts, appetizing stuff police use to connect a long line of pieces that make a puzzle complete.

He opened a bag and upended the contents into his hand. A chunk of smashed gold glittered in his palm. I took it from him, and held it up. "What's this?"

"That's what I was hoping you could tell me. Is it yours?"

He leaned back and away from me. I was sorry to lose the nearness of his familiar fragrance and the light whiff of some lemony soap but the remains of what appeared to be a small gold pendant called for attention. Turning it around in the light I could make out the tiny pattern veins that must have run through a cluster of leaves.

He noticed my inspection of the piece and said, "See? Each leaf was a different color: gold, pink and yellow. It's called Black Hills Gold."

"I know what it is, but it's not mine. A wedding band every few years or so, but other than that, you know I don't wear jewelry. Heck, I don't even have my ears pierced. I have to keep something virgin on my body. Besides, stuff like this gets caught in machinery. Where'd you find it?"

"We found it jammed in the door of your Cadillac."

I went still. "What was it, an earring?"

"No, too big, our desk clerk thinks it was a pendant. We're thinking it got jerked off when the person leaned over the door as it was closing."

"You mean woman, don't you? And Detective Rodney asked you to come out here and see if I'd lie about it? Like maybe I was the one who buckled her into her seat, drove into that tree, got out and then pushed the Caddy into the lake?"

He saw that my hands were fisted in my lap and rubbed a hand over his face. "Lalla, I have to ask, or would you rather do it downtown with another officer?"

"Tell him to get stuffed!"

"Okay, calm down. It was your car, and you're either going to help me or go back to the police station, your call," he said, slipping the mangled gold back into its plastic baggie and zipping it shut.

I folded my arms across my chest and slouched down into my chair. "Anything else?"

Seeing I conceded this round to him, he held up another bag. "How about this."

"A cigar?" I said. "On the record? Tell the detective I made a pact with the Dalai Lama, we both quit cold turkey. No cigars, no thank you, no matter which president offers them."

He stood up. "I don't suppose it would do any good to tell you that you've got a major chip on your shoulder."

"Not from you, it doesn't."

"I'll give you a ride to the impound lot."

"Great, let's go."

But Caleb was occupied with some silent interior musings.

"Now what?" I asked.

"Well, though the department is still stumped as to why Patience was in your car, we did find something that puts a new spin on the whole thing."

He was still gazing at the crepe myrtles.

I glared at him. "Earth to Caleb, can we do this in the car? I'd really like to leave, you know—excited to get those estimates on the Caddy, get her all cleaned up and shiny again. So, can we go now?"

"Did you know that Patience McBride wasn't a widow?"

"Of course she is—was. She told all of us … Wait, what're you saying?"

"I just remembered where he's been for the last twenty years."

"I'm all ears, where?"

"In Folsom, twenty to twenty-five for second-degree murder."

"I'll be damned. And we all thought she was a widow."

"Not any more, she isn't," he said, stepping off the porch. "What I can't understand is why, with barely a month of his sentence to go, he would escape?"

"The husband? He escaped?"

"Well, more like walked off the premises. It's not that hard to do. That's why they call it an honor farm."

"Uh-oh," I said, now aware of who called me girly and held a gun in my back. Maybe staying up on the porch where I could feel the safety of home under my feet wasn't such a bad idea after all. "He was in for murder? Maybe Spike and my dad's shotgun will need more backup."

"There's a twenty-four-hour patrol here, but since everyone's looking for him, I think you're safe for now. C'mon, let's go."

I stood, opened the front door and called back into the cool recesses of the house. "We're going into town to pick up my Caddy!" I quickly closed the door to keep out the rising heat and any requests for groceries … or dog food.

Driving into town, we sat in silence, thinking our own separate thoughts, sentimental things, like guns, drowned cars, dead bodies in the lake and appropriate murder suspects.

Caleb said, "I'm going to stop by the office and pick up the old boy's police record. Then we'll see what's up with his trial and conviction." He put a little more foot to the pedal, and in no time at all, we pulled up and parked in front of the county offices.

While Caleb was getting his information, my stomach spoke to me in no uncertain terms. In my worried state I'd forgotten to eat breakfast. And since I get all wobbly and disjointed when I'm low on blood sugar, I went looking for a quick fix. I recalled someone saying being in love is much the same feeling. Nothing, I had decided, that a candy bar wouldn't cure.

I stood in front of the candy machine outside Caleb's door, trying to come up with enough change. Finding none, and knowing Caleb frequently kept snacks in his desk, I asked in a voice loud enough to be heard all the way through his office, "Hey, Caleb! You got anything good to eat in your drawers?"

Caleb's head shot up liked he'd just been goosed. He blushed crimson and then ducked again to hide behind the folder he'd been reading at his desk.

I stood there wondering why he was ignoring me and his office mates were chuckling behind their papers. He stacked the pile of messages, came around the desk, handed me a wrapped, if slightly crushed, candy bar and pushed me out the door. I wasn't sure, but I think our departure was accompanied by the muffled laughter of his co-workers.

I bit at the wrapper to get at it, grumbling about its doubtful heritage when Caleb grabbed my arm and propelled me down the hall and out of the building.

He shoved me into the passenger side of his cruiser, got in and buckled up.

"Hey," I gripped, "what was that all about? You were kinda rough there, chum."

Caleb, with a bland expression on his face, said, "Fasten your seat belt."

"I know that look! It's your Batman-laser-beam stare. Garth and I got it last night, and I have to tell you, I didn't appreciate it. Not then, and certainly not now."

He harrumphed and, turning on the air-conditioning, gunned the big engine into reverse, then slammed the gearshift into forward and we tore down the street.

"You going to put your siren on?" I asked sweetly.

Nothing.

Well, two can play this game, I thought silently. I sat munching stale peanuts in the candy bar and ignoring his lead foot while the scenery whirred past in a blur.

In a few minutes we were out of the city limits and turning onto a country lane. He pulled over, shifted into park, unbuckled the seat belt and eased around to face me. In his best Officer-Stone-voice, he said, "Lalla, we need to talk."

"Now what? I thought you said we weren't going there," I said, prodding at a nut lodged between my back teeth with a fingernail.

I could see that Caleb was trying to keep his cool. That's when his lue eyes go to a colder shade of iceberg, and the side of his neck looks like somebody with rosy red lips had taken a swipe at it. It obviously wasn't my idea of a temper tantrum. No knives thrown, no doors torn off, not so much as a dewdrop of sweat broken.

Instead, he used words that cut right through the quagmire of preamble, like right now when he said, "You take me for granted, Lalla. I'm just another useful appendage for you. You're selfish, self-absorbed and vain."

"And your point is?" All I could hear was "selfish, self-absorbed and vain." It cut me to the core, but I wasn't about to let him know it.

"Back there in the squad room, that was just embarrassing."

"Really? How'd I do that?"

"Let me see if I can spell it out for you—'Do you have anything good to eat in your drawers?'"

"Oh," was all I could manage. I was mortified and tickled at the same time. I rolled my eyes and bit at my lower lip to keep the two opinions from outright collision. My eyebrows wormed up and down in counterfeit anxiety as my voice quaked with all of the mirth I didn't dare show. "I'm so sorry, Caleb. You're right, you know. On every count."

I could see a crack of a smile zigzagging its way up his face to lift the tired pouches under his eyes. Finally, humor won out, and he chuckled. "You—you…" He waggled his finger at my nose, trying to get the words out, but I'd gotten to his funny bone, and it was impossible for either of us to hold a straight face.

We grinned, giggled and laughed outright until we collapsed against each other from the strain. Then we fell away to point at each other and laugh again.

"It's your fault," I said, wiping away the tears of mirth. "You know I can't be taken out in public without making a fool out of one of us."

"Never a dull moment, I'll say that for you."

I reached across the seat and touched his cheek. "I'm sorry. Truly. Sometimes I just open my mouth to change feet."

He surprised me by catching my hand and kissing the knuckles. "I wouldn't have it any other way."

Suddenly embarrassed, I snatched back my hand. His words were those of brotherly affection; but it was the delivery that left buzzing sounds in my ears.

Then Caleb's expression changed again, and he seemed to search for something else he needed, wanted, or had lost. He looked down at our hands lying on the seat between us. Lifting a finger of my hand as it lay on the seat and rubbing his thumb along the edge of my nail, he said, "I do love you, you know."

One minute we're fighting and the next, oh boy! Could Garth have been right? Was Caleb jealous? Whatever this was, I wasn't going there, not yet, anyway. Anyway, I wasn't ready to let go of my mad, so I said, "You think that's going to make up for why I slapped you last night?"

"Not working for you, is it? Come on, you can't stay mad at me, can you? Besides, I've already forgiven you for last night."

"Well, I haven't forgiven you! You were way out of line, buster. There I was, my nerves slinging five ways to Sunday, but did you care?"

"What're you talking about? Of course I care!"

"You set me up with damn Detective Rodney. You got what you two wanted, and then you didn't like what you saw? You weren't thinking of me at all. All you could see was Lalla having a good old time with Patience's nephew."

He jerked back as if I'd slapped him again.

"You're denying it? You called me and said to come in for my scheduled appointment with Homicide. You were there to show me the car, see my reaction to it, and you told me Garth was asking for me and where I should go to find him."

"It's not like that, Lalla."

"Until you can prove to me otherwise, I can't see it any other way. Now, if you please, I'd like to pick up my car."

He silently put the car in gear and pulled onto the road. Then his radio scratched on with a call from the office.

"Let me call you back on the cell phone, Judy," he said, switching off the radio, picking up the handset and auto-dialing the office. I knew he did it to beat the snoops listening on police scanners. But I also think he just didn't want me to hear. He scribbled down what Dispatch said, then asked Judy to repeat it, and looking at me, wrote again. Tearing off the small note from the clipboard, he slid it into a breast pocket.

I felt sure it had something to do with me, and if not me, at least Patience's death, which had a lot to do with me. "Well? What is it?"

"I'm going to Stockton. Garth's ex-wife has agreed to an interview. I'll drop you off at the impound lot."

"Take me with you. It'll go better with the woman's touch." But from Caleb's stiff posture, I thought maybe I'd already screwed up any chance of a ride-along.

"I'm picking up a female officer downtown."

"Please, Caleb? I'll wait in the car," I said, hoping he would find it too troublesome to take me all the way to the impound lot.

"No," he said, his expression void of anger, amusement or anything that might be mistaken for affection. "You're not a suspect, remember?"

"There's still my reputation to consider," I pleaded, watching him for a sign he was even considering the idea.

But he held onto his poker face, avoiding any further conversation until he pulled into the police impound lot and ordered me out of the car. "This is as far as we go."

I did as I was told and got out, then leaned down to talk to him through the window. "But I didn't tell you what I learned about Patience's nephew, Garth."

"What for? We already know that the guy's a drunk, mooched off his aunt, and that he's a pathological liar."

My breath caught in my throat. The first of it sounded a little over the top, but it was the last part that caught my attention. "What do you mean, pathological liar?"

"Get your car fixed, go home. I've already heard all I want to know about Garth."

"He couldn't have done it. He wasn't the one sticking the gun in my back."

"What makes you think it wasn't Garth? He was conveniently out of the room, wasn't he? That house is like every other farmhouse in the Valley; the back door goes right out through the kitchen."

I was ready to pull out my hair—or what was left of his. The man could be so damn exasperating. "Impossible! He'd have to be the quickest multiple personality in the West. I'm telling you, there was nothing alike about those two voices."

He tilted an eyebrow at me. "Whispered, didn't he?"

I sucked in a breath. Satisfied to have had the last word, he looked over his shoulder and put the big cruiser into reverse.

"Not fair, Caleb!" I yelled at the hood of his car as he backed out of the driveway and onto the street.

What was that little hand kiss all about?

Chapter Nine:

My mechanic, was having a hard time holding onto his delight.

"Don't worry, Lalla, we'll have her right as rain in no time," he said, grinning so wide I could see his back teeth. "You got insurance, right?"

"How much, Sonny?" I asked, thinking of the deductible.

"Well now, besides the obvious fender problem, you got some major damage to the underbody." He took a minute to bend over, giving me his opinion along with a good deal of butt-crack. "We're going to have to work the kinks out of the frame or she'll dog-track." He cocked his right elbow in front of the other to demonstrate the serious responsibility of a proper repair. His jeans were in danger of falling off, but it was pointless to tell Sonny. He was a hell of a mechanic with the fashion sense of a raccoon.

"How much?" I asked through gritted teeth.

"Well now, why don't you let me give you a ride to the car rental agency and I'll tell you."

Sonny was enjoying himself. Between McHenry and 17th Street, he came up with a number. It was the most expensive three-mile ride I've ever had.

The car rental company had one medium-sized car left on their lot; the rest were compacts. "Last one," the spiked orange haired teenager handed me the keys to a Ford Tempo. He smelled faintly of patchouli and something else I couldn't quite name. Next week the hair would probably be green. I thought of telling him if he kept dyeing it strange colors it would fall out, but if the pierced eyebrows were any indication, what would be the point? I took the keys and went to look for my ride. It was an unwashed blue Ford Tempo, looking shabby, dented and all alone in the big empty lot.

Opening the door, I noticed the seat was smeared with something that looked suspiciously like dried blood, or maybe it was ketchup. This was customer service? I did a U-turn and pulled into the rental lot.

In the office, Mr. Customer Service met my complaint with a slow shrug. "Sorry, the cleaning crew has gone for the day, and that's all we got left."

"I had a reservation for a full-sized sedan. This can't be all you've got."

"They all went for some winery hotshots."

"I had a reservation too."

"Last clean one went to a redhead. She was younger and prettier, you know?"

I retrieved the key and left.

"Have a nice day," he called after me.

I think he added "bitch" as I was closing the door.

I decided to spend the remaining hours of the hot day where an air conditioner did work.

The old library up the street is now a museum, and the new library is an entire block of eye-stunning white stucco and glass. White-hot concrete steps flowed into sidewalk with no place for the shade of trees. Not like the old library, where spreading sycamores shaded the steps and grass grew next to the building.

Entering the Modesto County Library, I was rewarded with a blast of cold air. I wasn't going to complain, since good air-conditioning makes up for any architectural sin in my book.

I bellied up to the bar under a sign that said Magazine & Newspaper Desk. The sign on the desk said Darlene Hobbs, and there she was, all in pink, right down to her earrings and pink nail polish. I greeted her as if we saw each other daily, when the truth of it was I avoided her whenever I could. I asked for the Modesto Bee and a range of dates. Somewhere in the old newspaper archives there had to be more information about Patience's convict husband and the murder trial.

"We've had a lot of requests for those back issues in the last couple of days." Darlene leaned her considerable girlish figure over the counter and whispered, "You're lucky it's available."

"Oh, really? Who'd want to look at this old stuff—I mean, besides me?"

She batted her cowcatcher eyelashes at me. "Well, for one, that nice sheriff friend of yours." Darlene was a great fan of romance novels and any man in uniform. Thinking I might have a direct line to Caleb's heart, she pumped me for information every time I saw her.

I ignored the hint. "Anybody else?"

She giggled, her mouth forming a cupid's bow. "I guess I can tell you, if you won't tell Sheriff Stone on me." She should save the act for Caleb. "Jan Bidwell from the Bee came in yesterday, went through the back issues and then hurried out of here," she said, putting her hand up to push back the veil of black hair threatening to fall in her eyes.

I wondered what Jan had found that would cause her to be in such a hurry. "Don't the newspapers have their own archives?"

Darlene took her time, sure now that she had my attention. I got to watch as she smeared a dollop of red lip gloss across her thin lips and then daintily wiped at the corners of her mouth. "Nah, we do it all, but the old stuff is still on microfiche if you can stand dealing with that stuff."

"Fascinating. Can you give me the ones she requested?"

"Sure, Hon, let me get them and I'll be right back."

Darlene was soon back with the microfiche pages, but covered them with her dimpled hand. "Do me a favor?"

Yup. I knew this was coming.

"Tell Caleb to ask me out to lunch sometime?"

I laughed. "You want to add to the soaring rate of adultery in Modesto?" It had the odd metallic sound of hysteria even to my ears. "He's still a married man, last time I checked."

"Why, Lalla Bains, I never. Everybody says Marcy left him for good this time." Then she gave me a shrewd look through her long eyelashes. "Are you telling me you didn't know she went back east to her folks?"

I was floored. "When?"

Darlene looked at me as if I was the sad result of a bad makeover. "Where have you been? Oh, gee, hon, I'm sorry, I forgot. I guess you've had a lot on your mind lately, huh? What with your friend driving your car into the lake and all. I heard she was pretty drunk. You wouldn't see me loaning out my Miata, it's too precious. But about Caleb. Gosh, I guess I heard about two weeks ago. Everybody says you two are still tight as ticks, I would've thought you of all people …." Then a little thought lit up behind her eyes like twin Christmas candles. "Well, now. That's all right, hon." She patted my hand and smiled broadly. The girl was jumping for joy, doing hand flips behind the reference desk. Or maybe I just imagined it.

I thanked her and went to find a machine marked microfiche and an empty chair. Then I stuck my head into the cowling and while I figured out how to scroll around through the listings, I thought about Caleb. He didn't tell me Marcy had left, did he? That explained why he was at Roxanne's every morning for breakfast and Roxy's sour face at my comment about his eating at home instead of at her place. Nobody tells me anything.

Parts of page three popped in and out of the screen. Then I took a stroll down memory lane. I was so engrossed with who was doing what to whom at what social function, how much gas didn't cost then, I almost missed the blurred photo in the society column. It was a very young Lalla Bains entering an award ceremony on the arm of a well-known movie star and womanizer. The caption read “Local Model Goes Hollywood!”

What a glamorous event! What exciting people! What a bore. I was in L.A. for a modeling gig, hired out to a local production company to escort a very single and very famously drunk movie star through the front door, and I was about as glamorous as the paper towels in the ladies' room. When we entered the building, I untangled my arm from his, and handing him over to the next poor sucker, left by a side door. I got my picture in the papers, which added to my reputation as a party girl. The movie star was already a party animal and didn't need any help in that department.

I found the front page and saw a much younger Patience McBride decked out in a smart and stylish suit and heels, her blond hair swept back in a neat chignon, standing on the courthouse steps, looking stunned and helpless at the newspaper people crowding around her. Patience was being asked to consider the improbable: what was she going to do if her husband was convicted of murder? Nothing in the photo could explain the plastic flower barrettes and white Nikes she sported at Roxanne's café. So when did she descend into fashion hell?

The headline was delivered in bold staccato style: "Brutal Murder of Successful Stockton Business Man by Bookkeeper's Husband."

The copy read “Sensational murder trial begins today. Bill Hollander, successful owner of a local farm chemical business south of Stockton, was strangled in his own office. In a love triangle, police say the bookkeeper's husband, Edward McBride, brutally murdered her boss. District Attorney Terrance Benn seeks the death sentence in this brutal slaying.”

I sat back and rubbed around my itchy contacts. Hollander Chemicals. I'd vaguely heard that name while I was in my hospital bed, happily distracted from what Noah was saying about the company when Caleb walked in. But what if Hollander Chemicals, Eddy McBride and his wife's death didn't involve me at all? That would be nice. I pushed the microfiche out and put in the next film. The next headline read, "In Shocking Reversal, Eddy McBride's Attorney, Sidney Griffin, Suddenly Requests His Client Plead Guilty by Reason of Temporary Insanity."

Sidney Griffin. Sidney …Griffin, attorney. Wait a minute. I squinted at the photo of the attorney comforting a glassy-eyed and obviously stunned Patience McBride. I put my thumb over the man's dark hair. Bigger gut, same suspenders, but in all the years I'd known him, he only wore a threadbare short-sleeved dress shirt and a pair of sawed-off khakis; that is, when he bothered to dress for company. Long-time retired county judge and reclusive widower, Sidney Griffin could be found in tattered bathrobe and slippers in the summer, by the pool reading, or in the winter, reading by the fire.

I met him as a teenager, delivering Noah's latest real estate documents to our house. His specialty before retiring was real estate, but he'd always been simply Judge Griffin to me and I didn't remember anything about him being with the public defender's office. Private practice, then? And Patience McBride hired him to defend her husband? I broke away from the photos long enough to read the last headline: “Jury Decides! It's Murder!”

The presiding judge sentenced Eddy to prison for second-degree murder—twenty years with the possibility of parole in ten. I looked back through the pages to see where I missed it, but nowhere did I see Sidney Griffin listed with the public defender's office—just the words defense lawyer.

From my bus-yellow kid-sized chair, I looked up at the round wall clock with big black numbers. Half past four. Time to check for messages. Nothing from Caleb, but there was one from Garth.

"Say, darlin', how 'bout that dinner I promised you? I've moved my RV from Aunt Patience's place to an RV park near town today, and I could use a night out with a pretty girl. You've got the number. Well, I guess that's all. Bye now."

Garth's voice held a peculiar balance between hopeful and arrogant. I didn't think I actually promised dinner. Well, maybe I did.

I looked at my watch again. I could decline, or I could go. Noah always says no decision is a decision.

Noah. My dad had made a decision not to fill me in on what he knew about the Hollander murder, but then maybe it wasn't the time. Of course, it would be logical that my father was acquainted with the owner. But then what was the connection between all of them—Patience, her husband, an Ag chemical company owner, a retired real estate lawyer who just happened to be my dad's only friend, and my father. It would be just like Noah to withhold crucial information from the police because he saw it as none of their business.

I called my house. The phone rang seven times without answer. He'd turned off the answering machine, avoiding news reporters, nosy neighbors and maybe me. I closed the phone. Ever since a dead woman was found in my Caddy my father had become exceptionally irritable.

I guess I shouldn't have been surprised. He was probably feeling guilty that he'd neglected to tell me about the Hollander murder. Or that his fly-fishing buddy and real estate pal was also the defense lawyer for Patience McBride's convicted husband.

I remember my dad mentioning Hollander Chemicals when I was in the hospital, and distracted by my visitor, I'd let the moment pass. "Don't worry, Lalla," Noah had said. "You're not in this alone."

Something told me there was a whole lot more he wasn't telling me. Time to find out for myself.

I opened my cell again,  scrolled down the list of names and punched in a number. "Hi, Judge Griffin. It's Lalla Bains."

"Lalla. How's your daddy these days."

"Noah's fine. Could I come by for a bit? I won't take up much of your time, I promise."

"Of course my dear. I'd love to see you again. Catch up."

"Thank you, I'll be there in ten minutes."

He didn't have to ask what I was calling about; he still read five or six newspapers every day, where the salient details of my latest disaster could be found.

I waited till Darlene's back was turned, slipped the microfiche sheets onto her desk and hurried out of the library.

If Jan Bidwell had already connected the dots, true or not, my reputation, and now maybe my father's reputation, was back in the hot seat. And when Darlene came out of her hormonal stupor over Caleb, she wouldn't be above selling her version to the tabloids. If I wanted to head off tomorrow's shocking headlines, I was going to have to hurry.

I jaywalked and unlocked my Rent-A-Wreck, got in and put on my seat belt, thinking so Caleb chose not to tell me about his breakup with Marcy? Well, why should he, Lalla Bains? You didn't exactly ask his permission to get married and divorced. Twice. I guess he thought it was none of your business.

Adjusting my mirror, I looked over my left shoulder for any oncoming traffic and pulled out. In my side mirror I saw another car pull out from its parking place half a block back. It was a twin of my Ford Tempo but cleaner. I couldn't see the driver, but the hairs on the back of my neck started to tingle. Maybe I was imagining things, but it looked like a man driving, and he was still behind me when I reached Magnolia Ave. The air conditioner in my rental sputtered and died, and so did my self-confidence. I was being followed.

Chapter Ten:

The pokey driver behind me was still behind there, slouched down, the white head barely over the steering wheel. I slowed to thirty and then twenty-five, figuring he'd have to pass me and then I'd see if the face matched the mug shot I'd seen of Eddy McBride. Exasperated drivers passed us with one-fingered salutes and I was left crawling along, with the car stuck to my bumper like cockle burrs to socks. I thought about slamming on the brakes and causing a fender bender. Then he'd have to get out of the car, I'd call the police, he'd be arrested, and my worries would be over. That was my plan in a nutshell. But while I fantasized, my part-time stalker turned right.

I got a glimpse of an old lady in oversized earrings peeking over the steering wheel.

Twenty miles an hour was probably her cruising speed.

Retired Judge Sidney Griffin's home was a two-story federal style. Time had not been kind to the judge's home. The house could barely been seen for the wild growth of bushes in front. I got out and walked up to the door, stepping over weeds pushing up through the brick walkway. Sycamore leaves overflowed the gutters, and paint was peeling off the shutters.

I pressed the bell and the door was opened by the same happy-go-lucky judge I've known most of my life. White hair fringed his freckled scalp, a pair of dusty reading glasses perched on his red-veined nose, and his dressing gown looked like something Hugh Hefner would wear if he were going to impersonate Santa Claus. When he saw me, he chuckled and beckoned me inside. "Come in, come in. I had a bet with myself as to when you'd show up."

"Who won?"

"What? Oh, figure of speech, so to speak."

I stepped into his living room, thinking the inside was even more decrepit than the outside, then wandered over to the fireplace mantel and looked at his collection of dusty photos.

He pointed to a woman and two children. "That was when my Lexy was alive. She couldn't have any, but she did love children. The two on her lap are her sister's boy and girl. They named the girl after my wife. Cute, but spoiled, not that Lexy cared—she doted on that girl

The girl gazed into the camera with a serene smile on her lips. I'd seen that look on glossy magazine covers. It was a look of complete confidence that said she was loved and petted and told she was a beauty and always would be. I touched at my own straight hair and thought again how I would have liked to have had a daughter.

"I can see the family resemblance."

"Lexy's family, not mine, thank God. Too bad her temperament didn't go with that pretty face." He gave the silver-framed photo a swipe with his sash and invited me to sit.

We settled into a pair of threadbare Queen Anne chairs next to a blackened and quiet fireplace still holding onto its sooty winter smell. He put an ashtray on the table next to me.

"Thanks, but I quit," I said, giving a quick touch to move it out of my reach. Hopefully, it wouldn't follow me out the door, begging to be used.

"Me too," he sighed. "Seems like that's all I do these days, give up the things I used to love. But that's not your problem. So I suppose you'll want to know how I came to be involved with the original case. Did Noah tell you?"

"Noah? I wish. I had to read about it at the library archives." He took off his glasses and dropped his gaze while he gave the lenses a once-over with the sash of his robe. Exasperated that the moment was dragging on, I blurted, "I'm pretty spooked here, Judge. Patience's husband broke out of prison, and I don't know if he murdered his wife or not, but there's a good chance he's tagged me for taking the loot he stole when he killed Mr. Hollander."

He put his glasses back on his nose, and with amusement in his voice, said, "And did you?"

"Are you asking if I killed Patience McBride? You're joking, right? Before today, I didn't know Patience had a husband, much less that he was convicted of murder."

"You really should leave the investigation to the police, my dear. They'll find Eddy McBride."

I sat on the edge of my seat, ignoring the faint smell of stale cigars, thinking. "They aren't looking at a twenty-year-old murder. I am."

"The investigating detective has already been here, my dear. It'll all be cleared up very soon, you'll see."

I ran my hand over my eyes, remembering the whisperer's warning that he knew where I lived, and said, "But Judge, you're my father's best friend and you were also this guy's attorney.  If there's a connection, I need to know—because none of this makes any sense to me."

"Well, it's understandable, since I'm at a loss as to how that poor woman's body ended up in your automobile."

"Well then, if you weren't with the PD's office, how did you come to represent Patience McBride's husband?"

Apparently, that question caught him off-guard. "That should be obvious," he said. "His wife retained me to represent her husband."

"How could Patience afford a private attorney? Were you friends with her?" I was now hanging onto the edge of my seat cushion.

"Friends, or are you asking if I was romantically involved with Mrs. McBride? The answer is no. After the trial, I never saw the woman again."

The judge had a real talent for side-stepping my questions. I tried another tack. "So did you think he was guilty?"

"No, I didn't." He paused for a moment, then said, "At least, at the time, I didn't. The evidence was circumstantial; Bill Hollander was rumored to keep a great deal of cash in his office safe, though why he chose to do that is anyone's guess. Patience would have had knowledge of his movements, but I wouldn't allow her to testify. A wife doesn't have to, you know, and her nerves were such that it would've been counterproductive. Anyway, when Eddy and I heard that the prosecution was considering charging her as accessory, he changed his plea to guilty. Whatever Eddy was, he loved his wife, and rather than see both of them on trial for murder, he pled guilty to second-degree murder. He told the jury he killed Bill in a fit of husbandly jealousy, but he denied ever seeing any money or stealing it."

"But could she have been guilty as well?"

"There was no evidence for it. She wasn't on the security tape that night, Eddy was. Going in and coming out ten minutes later. He wore a jacket, so there was nothing to say he'd removed anything from the office. Of course, this would have been cash and therefore unaccounted for, but I objected every time it was brought up as biased and unsubstantiated."

I thought of a what a secretary's wages might have been in those days, her part-time work as a piano teacher, her Social Security, her modest home and her lifestyle. If she had that stolen money, she hadn't spent any of it. It didn't add up, and it was becoming an itch on the back of my brain that I couldn't ignore.

"The burglar at Patience's house. I'm sure now it was Eddy poking me in the back with that gun, insisting that Garth and I had taken what wasn't ours. It has to be the stolen money."

The judge shrugged, bored with the subject. "I think you're confused, my dear."

"But the paper said Hollander was involved with smuggling drugs up from the border; that could've accounted for the amount of money he was holding."

The judge gave the sash on his robe a hard twist. "Alleged drug smuggling. Bill's involvement was never proved. I certainly never saw any evidence of it. Yes, yes, I knew Bill, like I knew your dad. Modesto was a small community of businessmen, just as it is today. Trust me on this, if there was money from any drug deals, his two children, who later drifted back home, would've found it. I tell you, there was nothing. His children talked their mother into selling his business and that was the end of it."

I thought of something else. "What about the way he was killed; strangled with a piano wire?"

The judge leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers. "Garroted, not strangled, my dear, as a piano wire between two sticks is called a garrote. The newspaper referred to it as Eddy's calling card. But there were no prints on it, and I clearly demonstrated that Eddy couldn't have had the strength to get the upper hand on a two hundred fifty-pound man like Bill Hollander and subdue him long enough to strangle him to death."

"Then what about the gangster connection?"

Amusement twinkled behind his glasses. "I did tell you that this was a small town, didn't I? Perhaps someone at the news room was led to consider it a mob hit." He leaned forward and winked. "I was counting on the morning paper, you see. The jury wasn't sequestered, only admonished not to read any news accounts or listen to radio or TV. This was the biggest murder case we'd had in years." Looking at a space over my shoulder, he seemed to see the final words that would send his client to prison printed on the wall. "We should've gotten an acquittal!" he said, slamming his fist into the other palm.

"So he loved her too much to implicate her then, but a month shy of being released from prison, he breaks out of jail to come home and murder her? It doesn't make sense."

"Who knows what drives a man to murder? Eddy's wife was an attractive, but not a very sensible, woman. She should have divorced the man and left town long before this tragedy."

"If you weren't friends with either Patience or her husband, then why take Eddy's case?"

"You don't know?" He leaned forward, looking into my face, like he wasn't sure if I was hiding something from him to make him slip up and say something foolish. I, however, only had a sinking feeling that his next words were going to make me wish I'd never asked.

"I'm sorry. I thought surely by now your father would have told you."

"My father would have told me what?" I asked, my breath anxiously hitching up a notch.

"It was your father who paid my retainer."

I knew my mouth was hanging open, but I couldn't seem to help it. "What?"

He shook his head wearily and stood up. "I'm sorry, my dear."

I remembered my dad, thoughtful at the mention of Patience McBride, as if it had brought back an old, if not unpleasant, memory. I'd never known my father to date. If anything, his gloomy demeanor would scare off most women. But I'd been wrong about men before.

"Noah paid for their attorney?"

He held up a wrinkled finger. "Only the retainer. Mrs. McBride mortgaged their house to pay the rest of my fee, which included the private investigator, not that we came up with much."

"So Noah did this for Patience?"

He avoided looking me in the eye, and instead, went to stand at his fireplace mantel and gazed at the picture of his dead wife holding someone else's children. "I'm sorry, my dear. I'd rather you asked your father. It's simply not for me to say."

I glanced down at a scrapbook that he'd left open to a page with a yellowed column at the bottom left. It was the photo of an old Stearman, the bi-wing airplanes my dad started with. This one had ended up one wing torn off, nose burrowed deep in the fragrant dirt of an onion field. The caption said, Bob Norquist¸ Major Witness in Murder Trial, Plows into Onion Field.

A snoot full of onion … Greedy pilots … Where had I heard this before? Noah. Brad reminded him of another pilot who got in trouble from greed. Doubt twitched its ugly tail around my thoughts. I could feel my face flush with the knowledge of it.

The judge gently took the offending scrapbook out of my hands and closed it. He was eyeing me carefully over his glasses as if afraid I might faint. "Terrible thing, that incident. I suppose it reminds you of your own recent forced landing. Poor man wasn't so lucky."

"When …when do you think this will all come out?"

"You mean the connection between your father and the McBrides?"

"Yes." I swallowed. "What will you say to the police?"

"I've already spoken to the police. I've said nothing, nor will I, that would incriminate your father. I'm still his lawyer." A light twinkled behind his glasses, or maybe it was the glittering reflection from the late afternoon sun. "Now that Cadillac of yours; there's an interesting coincidence for you. Bill bought his wife a new model every two years, just so she could keep up with the Joneses."

"You aren't saying …?"

"Yes. I know that Bill's widow sold it to Halverson Motors because I offered to buy it. It on his dad's back lot for most of twenty years before Ricky got his hands on it. I could've told that boy it was bad luck, but Ricky never let a little thing like parental advice get between him and something he wanted."

If I had to pile on one more coincidence to this mystery, I was going to run out of room to move. I shoved out of the chair, and with slow, measured steps, made it to the door.

"How long do you think I have before the police come looking for my dad?"

Judge Griffin quietly took my hand between his own wrinkled paws. "I really don't know, my dear, but even if they do, try not to compound this tragedy with any more digging. It can only bring you heartache."

He opened the front door to let me out then quietly closed the door behind me.

I clung to the railing, shock racing through my veins as I tried to get my balance. Stumbling blindly for my car, I fumbled the keys and finally got into the rental. Not generally a superstitious person, I wondered if perhaps someone beyond the grave wasn't trying to send me a message: Perhaps Bill Hollander, or Eddy's wife, Patience? If McBride really killed Bill Hollander, why was my dad involved? I shivered in the heat and glanced back at the judge's house. He was standing at the window, holding back the edge of the curtains and looking out at the car. Feeling foolish that I was still sitting in front of his house, I put the car in gear, crunched over the leaves rotting in the gutter, and hoped that if a ghost was sending me messages, it was at least benign.

Chapter Eleven:

I drove away from the judge's home, sure that I was going home to confront Noah and demand that he tell me the answers to this damnable mystery, except I simply couldn't point the car in that direction. I got as far as the city park on Sycamore, where I left the rental and hobbled around the perimeter of the park, matching my off-beat stride to my own cockeyed thoughts. Finally, sweaty and breathless, I leaned against the cool and soothing weight of the block bandstand and thought about what I would say to my father. How to start? Should I have been surprised that he hadn't confided in me? I was one to talk, as I was by no means guilt-free here. After all, I still carried around my own heavy guilt of omission.

Instead of going home, I drove aimlessly through the city streets, down McHenry, the four corners, where four streets actually met and the city fathers erected a monument to hometown boy George Lucas for putting Modesto on the map with American Graffiti. Except for the monument in his honor, George stayed mostly in Marin, where he kept busy with his production companies. I wandered down J Street, glancing at the fading sun gleaming off store windows. It was close to closing time and dinner would be waiting for me at home, but before I could go there and talk to Noah, I thought it would be best to run some of it by Roxanne.

The windows of Roxanne's Truck Stop Café vibrated as the air conditioner tried to keep pace with a twenty-four-hour parade of truckers, farmers, and crop dusters. And since August is our month for sidewalk cooking, today had been hot enough to melt American cheese slices on the pavement.

I sat down at the counter and waited until Roxanne drifted my way.

"Did Caleb come in today?" I asked, hoping I'd catch him on his way back from interviewing Garth's ex-wife.

"He asked the same thing about you. I wish you two would text each other like the kids do and leave me out of it."

"Sorry." I would have to remember to add Roxanne to the growing list of people mad at me. "Can we talk?"

"I got time," she said, softening somewhat at the plea in my voice. "Take a booth at the back and I'll be right there." She put the coffee back on the burner, saying something to Leon as she passed the kitchen and, wiping her hands on her apron, settled her big bottom comfortably on the bench seat opposite me. She gave me that very expectant look, the one demanding immediate response.

I opened my mouth, closed it and tried again. "Today I found out two things. One: Patience McBride isn't a widow, which may explain who was holding me at gunpoint yesterday. He's been in prison for killing her boss, and I also learned that my dad's old fly-fishing buddy, Judge Griffin, was Mr. McBride's attorney, who suggested I leave it all alone, but after the bombshell the judge dropped in my lap I doubt that's going to be an option."

Roxanne put her hands on the table and said, "Slow down."

I put my face in my hands. "It turns out my Caddy may be the connection to the whole thing. Patience's boss used to own it, and then Ricky had it, and then I had to go and take it away from him, and then Eddy McBride escaped from prison murdered his wife, and used my Caddy to dump her body in the lake. And guess who paid for Eddy's lawyer?"

When my chin started to quiver, Roxanne reached across the table to cover my hand. "Uh-huh, it's okay, sweetpea."

I couldn't get the words out without blubbering. "Bill Hollander may have sold more than chemicals to crop-dusting companies, and I don't know how I'm going to keep all of this from the police without one of us Bainses going to jail."

"One of you? You mean your dad? Why?"

I looked up, tears in my eyes. "My dad paid his fly-fishing buddy to defend Eddy McBride. So how do you think that's going to look when that smarmy detective gets wind of this connection?"

"Whoa. That's a leap you don't want to take. Not yet anyway. So your dad paid for Eddy McBride's defense, but you don't know really know why? What'd the judge say?"

"He wouldn't. But he did imply my dad was sweet on Patience. As soon as I can pull myself together, I'm going to go home and ask him. Oh boy, I'm almost afraid to ask."

She patted my hand. "Some of what you just told me was in today's paper. Not the part about the judge being Eddy's attorney, and there's nothing linking your car to Patience's boss."

I thought of Jan Bidwell, the newspaper woman. "It'll only be a matter of time until the police connect the dots and it leads back to my dad. Drug smuggling ag pilots, a dead chemical company owner, Eddy McBride. And my dad was smack dab in the middle of it."

Smoothing the Modesto Bee out on the table between us, she tapped a finger on the front section. Squared nice and neat in the middle of the front page were two photos. One was a fuzzy publicity photo of me from my heyday in New York. Next to it was a clearer picture of my Caddy up to its windows in the shallow end of Turlock Lake.

"The newspaper has been busy throwing out all kinds of silly stuff," she said, turning to the back page. "Might as well include alien abduction. Of course, Boyd Lincoln says you look like a good suspect since it is well known you're a sore loser."

"That's pathetic. When this is over I'm going to make Boyd Lincoln eat those words!"

"It was a joke, Lalla. An itty-bitty joke. You can't take all this to heart or you're going to keel over, girl."

"Pardon me if my sense of humor has left the building, but right now all I can think of is how to keep me and my dad out of jail," I said, scrubbing at my sore neck. "I thought you might have some ideas."

Turning her head to make sure we weren't being overheard, she leaned forward. "I should tell you something."

Roxanne hated gossip. You couldn't pry a secret out of Roxanne with a tire iron, since she still held to all that doctor/patient privilege she only practiced in the café, but I could see something was making her reconsider. She cleared her throat, looked up at the ceiling, at the cracks in the upholstery, at her husband happily scrubbing pots in the kitchen—anywhere but at me. I followed her wandering eyes, worried she was winding up to tell me something else damaging about my dad.

She said, "I met Eddy and Patience about a year before his troubles. They were looking to buy a home around here, maybe with a little land. He was a sweet little guy, very attentive to his wife. They sat on the same side of the booth and he had his arm around her."

She sighed and continued, "I always thought that sort of thing cute. Leon and I never could sit in the same booth and actually eat; we're too big.

"They finally bought something in Stockton. But when the trial was over, Patience moved here. She begged me not to tell anyone, said she was afraid no one would hire her if they knew about Eddy being convicted of killing her boss, and then there was his …"

"His—what?" I asked, twitching my shoulders.

"I'm getting to it, don't be so impatient," she said. Roxanne went back to examining the walls for cobwebs.

I started to prod her with my fork, but she got the hint before the tines touched her skin.

"Eddy McBride came in here, I can't seem to recall if it was before or after Bill Hollander was found dead. Certainly it was before Eddy was charged with the murder."

By this time I picked up a paper napkin and was doing a twisty thing with it, wishing I could stick her with the fork, a spoon, a knife, anything to hurry up this story. Not likely. Not without the chance of her smacking me with that big square hand. I've seen her use it very effectively on kids' bottoms, her husband's big shoulder and waitresses' backsides. So I waited, and twisted, trying not to let her think anything she said would upset me.

She looked down at my hands, worrying the napkin. "It must have been around ten at night. We were well into a heavy evening of hungry truckers, so I wasn't paying much attention to who was coming or going. Eddy walked in and took a seat, over there, on a stool right by the register."

I followed her finger back to the place and imagined the small, well-groomed man from the newspaper clipping sitting at the counter, waiting for his coffee.

"I didn't recognize him at first and it was not because he didn't have Patience with him."

I twisted the napkin some more, making it into a little white rope.

"I wanted to tell you about this sooner, but what with your brother and all, I thought better of it. But then, with everything happening …."

My brother, having reached the height of his ambition to become a set designer for the San Francisco light opera died far too soon, the result of a hit-and-run. But what did my brother have to do with Eddy? "Roxanne, spit it out, will you?"

"Eddy McBride was dressed in women's clothing."

I flinched, as she probably knew I would. My brother, much to my father's distress, was gay.

She was in a hurry now, as if speed would lessen the blow. "He had on a really nice outfit. Something I would have liked to wear, if I had the figure for it. You'd be too young to have worn those cute little Jackie Kennedy suits, but you know the kind?"

"Chanel," I said. "I'm not that young, and vintage Chanel is considered very cool."

"If you say so. Well, there I was and I say to myself, 'Sumpin's up here. The girl's white and dressed like a sister.' If you went to church with me on Sundays you'd know what I'm saying. Sisters like their shoes, purse, gloves, hat, even their nail polish to match. But I almost spilled the pot of coffee right there when this dainty li'l ol' thing speaks and I realized who it was. Are you okay with this, sweetpea?"

"I'm fine." I was as uncomfortable with this subject as with popcorn kernels between my teeth, but except for the napkin strangling one of my fingers, I thought I almost didn't show it. "What did he say to you?"

"Not much. Just thanks for the coffee, and no thanks, I won't need a refill. Then he opened up his purse on the counter to rummage through it for his wallet, and I have to say, I peeked to see what a guy would put into a woman's purse. It had all of the usual stuff we all put in ours—a trim wallet, a lacy blue hanky, a tube of Revlon lipstick, and a smart little jeweled compact, to check his powdered nose, I suppose. He paid for his coffee and tottered out on those damn high heels. I could tell the shoes were made special. I was scared to death for him. If the truckers got wind that this cute little lady with the blond streaked pageboy was a man, they'd have torn him to pieces. Where do you think he got all that stuff?"

I knew, but I didn't feel like going into it. "Did you tell Patience?"

"Oh, Patience knew all about it. We had a nice long talk. She said it was because he wanted to see if he could trust me with his secret. I was touched by the gesture. Then Eddy went to prison and Patience became a regular and I saw no reason to say anything to anyone. Wasn't nobody's business. At least, not until now."

"Did you ever see her with anyone else?" I asked, hoping she might have taken on a lover or at least a gentleman friend of some kind. Someone involved with her besides my dad.

"All alone, poor thing, and always here. Imagine that," she said, lifting her broad hand to encompass the café and its contents. "We're all she had. She sat right over there on that stool, not that anyone took notice. By the way, it was really sweet of you to take her on, even if it did turn out bad. Nobody else ever offered."

"Well, as Noah would say, 'No good deed goes unpunished.'"

Roxanne' mouth twitched as she looked down at my hands. The paper napkin was a tidy little noose worked around my index finger, and the finger was numb and losing circulation. I smoothed the noose back into most of its original shape, feeling miserable. Roxanne was trying to help, but it could also give the police just one more reason to seriously look at my father.

"Eddy was gay?" I asked.

"No, he isn't gay," she said. "Transvestite, not transsexual, sweetpea. They like to dress up in women's clothes, but they're still heterosexual. Many are happily married family men. Patience understood that when she married him, and they obviously cared very deeply for each other. I don't know what happened with her boss, but I don't believe Eddy would kill Patience; he couldn't do it."

That might explain why a little old lady in a rental car was following me from the library. Eddy in drag again.

"Twenty years in prison can change all that," I said. "And it certainly wasn't any gentle soul who shoved a gun into my back. Well, that's some news, all right."

It also explained why Patience's fashion sense had bombed since the photo of her on the courtroom steps. Eddy probably picked her Chanel suit and accessorized it for his court date.

Roxanne frowned. "It's that nephew of hers I'm worried about. That man is trouble on two feet. You shouldn't be seen with him anymore. It doesn't look right, if you know what I mean."

"What? You don't think we make a nice couple? Patience thought we would. We could have matching orange jumpsuits and visit each other through the bars."

"What is it with you and guys like that?"

I pulled back from the truth of her words and said what I knew was the truth about my bad choices. "There's no fear of betrayal in taking on another bad boy, because I already know exactly what to expect. Never let it be said that I don't understand the mind of a lyin', cheatin' man-whore. And whether I like it or not, I have to continue to be seen with Garth. Detective Rodney says so."

"Huh. You still mad at Caleb?"

"What do you think? I'm faking a relationship with a murder suspect and hoping the police will pin it on him instead of my dad. That is, if the judge is telling the truth about why my dad paid for Eddy's attorney."

"Now, sweetpea, the judge is probably just trying to keep you out of it."

"Too late," I said. "I'm going to get to the bottom of this as soon as I get home."

"So when did Garth tell you he got into town?"

"He said he arrived the morning they found Patience. That was Sunday, why?"

"Boyd Lincoln thinks he's seen him before that. Of course, Boyd's still got a problem mixing up photos and people he actually knows. I'm thinking it part of the Parkinson's he was diagnosed with last year. Or the Parkinson's masking a case of prosopagnosia. "

"His prosa…what?"

"Facial recognition. He still fumbles with names of folks he should know after twenty years. Haven't you ever noticed that he insists on the same seat at the counter? That way friends come to him, say hi, and he never has to connect a face to a name." Roxanne thoughtfully tucked her lips under and patted my hand. "Well, you got a lot to think on. Go home, talk to your dad, or better yet, wait till morning. You're all done in."

She was right, as usual. I was ashamed that I'd been a wise-ass to her, and taking her advice, I headed home. I sank the gas pedal to the floor and sped down the highway, my heartbeat starting to catch up with the speed of the exit signs as I passed them. Noah Bains, Judge Griffin, Bill Hollander, Eddy and Patience McBride. Were they all connected in some secret that had turned sinister? I had to find out what the link was between them all before whoever killed Patience turned their attention to the remaining participants: my father and me.

The house was dark and quiet. When I looked in the TV room and saw both my dad and Spike sound asleep, I quietly closed the door. Relieved that I wouldn't have to confront Noah until tomorrow, I went upstairs and put on my birthday gift from Roxanne of two years ago.

The gown had about as much "come hither" as the sweat suit I wore to bed in the winter. I thought it ironic; Roxanne, who couldn't be bothered with the likes of silk teddies and sexy garter belts, would expect me to actually buy something lacy and sheer, like I might want to make another run at a man and get married again.

No way. Well, at least not until meeting Garth Thorne and I got my engine sparked. If I listened to Roxanne or Caleb I would hold off on that dinner date, but I had a nagging feeling that if I put my head in the sand now this mystery was only going to get messier.

Sleep wouldn't have me, so I lay there and listened to the sounds of a summer night in the country. A nightingale sang his heart out, calling for a mate with a heart full of hope that one would hear his plea for love and companionship. I wasn't looking for anything remotely like love. Love had dumped me twice and I'd had enough. Meeting someone whom I hadn't gone to grade school with was flattering. He was just so darned attractive. Who knows, I might be willing to ignore those minor little details that tend to trample a meaningful relationship, like that he was in jail when I met him, and that I'd already caught him in one lie.

I slapped the sheets down to my ankles and watched the steady ceiling fan as it slowly marched around in circles. The gentle thucka, thucka matched the pace of my heartbeat, and at last I fell asleep.

Chapter Twelve:

At three a.m. my alarm clock kicked on. I was fuzzy brained and disoriented from strange dreams that left my jaws clenched. But since going back to sleep wasn't an option, I rolled over to the edge of the bed and let my casted foot drop to the floor. The rest of me was a natural, if awkward progression. Turn on the lights, bathroom, brush my teeth, pull a T-shirt over my head, yank my hair back into a ponytail and slip into a pair of softly faded jeans. Adding a light jacket against a cool dawn, I picked my way down the stairs, avoiding the squeaky risers.

Noah, having set the coffee pot on, left a note with a wish list for groceries and the underlined words, We have to talk.

He took the words right out of my mouth.

I slipped out the kitchen door, careful not to let the screen slap behind me and wake him. It was way too early for that talk.

The pilots and ground crew shuffled in at four, sipping at steaming paper cups and pretending my picture hadn't been in the papers these last two days. All except Brad, who sipped from a hefty quart-sized clear bottle as he waited for me to hand him his work slips. I didn't want to think about what was in the bottle, not after my dad suggested that Brad should be fired; besides, the safety of my crew and airplanes was my responsibility. "Water?"

"Yeah, want some?" he said, his eyes challenging me.

"No thanks. We got coffee on if you want." I pointed my pen at the brew trickling into the carafe. "I hear it's going to be a hot one, so you can top off that water bottle if you like." A five-gallon water bottle sat atop a cooler by the shower doors and I always kept cans of soda in an ice chest for the guys to take with their lunches.

He smirked at the size of the list I gave him, still sure that he was cock of the walk, picked up his work orders and walked out the door. I divvied out the rest of the crew paperwork and they all left, except for Mad Dog, still reading the small pile of work orders in his hand.

Outside, suited up and masked against the invading poison, the ground crew joshed each other and poured bags of sulfur dust into hoppers. When they were finished, they removed the wood chocks from under the front wheels and signaled to the pilots with a pat on the wing.

I stood at the office window watching the big Ag-Cats hunkered in a line until their cylinders revved and shuddered in the morning air. All conversation was dropped while the ground crew chief signaled a go-ahead and another plane roared away to soar over the treetops.

I turned back to Mad Dog, who was hovering in some kind of anxious anticipation.

I looked up. "Something on your mind, Mad Dog?"

He cleared his throat. "I could be wrong, but I think Brad might be popping pills, or at least doing some wacky-tabacky."

If this was true, it would be automatic and immediate grounds for dismissal. "Can you prove it?"

"After Iraq, I did some flying for Special Ops in South America. Down there, pilots did whatever they could to stay awake for their night runs. If you made it, fine, if you didn't, you crashed. My proof is what I'm seeing all over again in Brad."

"Thanks, Mad Dog. I'll look into it."

"He keeps it in his locker."

I bounced my pencil up and down on the desk. "Okay," I said, wanting him to leave so I could think about this next fire I would have to put out.

He stood with hands on hips, seething. "You got an extra key to get in—if not I can jimmy it for you."

"I got it," I said, figuring the source of his anger was more likely the smaller share of the work orders.

"Aren't you going to look?" he asked.

I sighed, reached into the desk and pulled out a second set of little brass keys. He almost stepped on my heels in his eagerness to follow me into the locker rooms. The lockers were numbered in black and marked with pilot and crew names on duct tape. I found the key and opened Brad's. Inside was a wadded-up brown lunch bag, a pair of dirty socks and an old flight book. I opened the brown paper sack and found a bottle of ibuprofen. Opening the bottle revealed exactly what was marked on the outside—ibuprofen. No white papers, no odd-shaped pills of any kind. I groped into the corners, daring to touch the dirty socks, and then pulled my hand out and closed the door with relief.

"The sun's coming up. You got peaches to do, right?"

"It could be in his car."

"The lockers are our property, cars aren't. So, unless you have evidence that I can actually see, you've got work to do and I need to go see about getting this cast off my foot."

The pinched set of his mouth gave me pause. I might yet have to fire Brad, and business would suffer if we lost a good pilot. "Sit down a minute?"

He huffed out a breath, as if now I was now wasting his valuable time, and slouched down in the metal chair next to my desk.

"You said you were in South America?" I asked.

His big freckled hands locked together on his knees. "Yeah, six years ago."

"What do you know about smuggling drugs in airplanes?"

It wasn't about Brad and how to get rid of him, but I had his attention. "Not as much as some. Not anymore, but think about it; a smuggler in a car gets pulled over, he runs for it, and if they don't catch him, all he loses is his car or truck. A pilot lands, gets picked up, loses his plane or somebody else's very expensive airplane, his license and his freedom. No amount of money could make me want to run that risk, no sir."

I picked up a letter opener and twirled the blade on the tip of my finger. "So you've never been tempted."

"Sorry, Lalla. I know where this is going and I know my job here is dependent on your good graces, but I really don't want to get involved with bad-mouthing another operator."

But he didn't mind bad-mouthing his competition.

"Then he's still in the Aero Ag business?"

Mad Dog struggled up out of his chair, gave his bum knee a squeeze and sighed. "Yes, he's still in the business. Now if you don't have any more questions of me, I got work to do."

Knowing that neither Mad Dog nor Noah would be satisfied until I fired Brad, I said, "I'll set up Brad's yearly exam tomorrow. It comes with a drug test, so if you're right about him, do you have anyone in mind for a replacement?"

His sandy brows tucked together in perplexed disappointment that I didn't see his meaning. "Why, you, of course.

"Yeah, sure I will, but not for couple of weeks."

Mad Dog gave me a lazy, if somewhat predatory smile and walked out. Noah was right to call him opportunistic. If he couldn't tie me and the business up in one nice package, he'd work hard to keep me on the sidelines and replace Brad with himself.

Dinner with Garth was the last thing I felt like doing. But with the specter of my father's involvement looming over me, I needed some answers. Besides, I could only dodge the deadly duo at the police station for so long before they pinned me to the wall and demanded more tidy tales.

"Come on in, darlin'," said Garth, waving at me from the door of his road warrior. "Sure glad you decided to call," he said, reaching to pull me up into the motor home. "I'm running a bit behind. Got cornered by my shop manager and we've been at it since noon. It's all good news, though, and now that you're here, my day is perfect."

He drew me over to a corner set up as an office, complete with computer, printer with fax, and phone. "My partner transfers the spreadsheet to me by e-mail," Garth said, combing back his dark hair with the blunt ends of his fingers. A curl had escaped to lie on his high forehead and for a moment my fingers itched to draw it back.

"Look here," he said, draping an arm around my shoulders to draw me closer to the screen, "this tells me who buys tires and how many scheduled truck repairs we got for the week. And when it exceeds our monthly projection …." He punched a key and fireworks sparkled onto the screen, canned applause emanated from the speakers and some singer warbled, "Thank God for a country boy!"

The whole thing was cheesy, but I nodded and smiled.

He grinned as if he'd caught me staring at more than the computer.

I blushed. Guilty as charged.

He slid his hand along my back, idling it at the bare skin on my shoulder, then reluctantly stepped back. "If you don't mind waiting for a few minutes?" he said, rubbing the five o'clock shadow.

I nodded and swallowed hard, trying not to stare at the tight glutes in faded jeans as he moved to the rear of the motor home. I could hear an electric razor making lawnmower sounds over his five o'clock shadow. Water ran for a minute, then he moved from the bath into his bedroom.

A full-length dressing mirror on the outside of his bedroom door was tilted open and I peeked as he took off his shirt, lifted a muscled arm to roll on deodorant, and then slipped a dark blue knit shirt over a well-defined chest. I liked the way the muscles moved across his back and thought, so what if watching him makes my mouth go dry and my heart rate kicks up a notch? Does he think his sexy smile, twinkling gray eyes and great body are going to bowl me over? If so, I might just let him.

I haven't had a date, much less one that might involve getting laid, in longer than I can remember, and he's tempting enough to make me forget all the reasons why I shouldn't. So what's the worst that can happen—our reputations would be shot to hell?

I tore my eyes away from the object of my growing lust and ran sweaty palms over the armrest of the chair. For something to do, I stuck my fingers down the sides of the cushion and felt around. I found two old peanuts, some sandy lint and a small metal key. It was the right size for the door to his motor home and I was about to say something when he walked down the hallway. "Thanks for waiting."

I fingered the key, and since he was preoccupied tucking the shirt, I pocketed it and stood up. Yup, he sure did clean up good. "Which one, do you think?" he asked, holding up a buttery soft suede jacket and a blue blazer.

Well, as Garth would say, "Bump my ass and call me an Okie." But nothing about Garth Thorne reminded me of any Okie I'd ever met. The guy looked like he just stepped out of a glossy page from a men's magazine.

Forgetting all about the purloined key in my pocket, I said, "Too hot for a jacket and too nice for the restaurant I had in mind. The place is pretty much come-as-you-are."

He tossed the jackets on a chair, grinned and said, "Then I'm all yours for the night."

I stood up, and in the cramped space between us, he reached across to open the door and our bodies collided. My blood pressure took a jump. There I was, sophisticated ex–New York model, standing dry-mouthed and giddy, waiting for the possibility he might bend down and touch my lips with his.

My breath was coming in rapid little chuffs and an unaccustomed warmth galloped up my neck to bloom my cheeks. I felt like a teenager on a first date. Our eyes locked, and as the seconds stretched into a warming heartbeat, I stood close enough to gaze into the gold-ringed, deep brown depths of smoky, darkly lashed and seductive eyes. It would have all been oh so right if I hadn't noticed that instantaneous and quickly snuffed flash of superior male confidence, the one with just the slightest touch of cruelty around the edges. Over the years I'd been tripped up by enough dangerously handsome brown-eyed men to have memorized the moment and the look.

With a sigh of regret, and before I entirely lost my senses, I turned the knob on the door handle and stepped down. A warm breath of evening air whispered across my cheek, icing down the last tremors of my foolishness. In the murky and darker corners of Garth's expression, I'd clearly seen all I needed to know about Garth Thorne. I could see that he'd already determined that his flirtation with me was intended for his advantage.

Never mind the logistics between New York and Oklahoma; I understood men like Garth because I'd worked with them, dated them and in two cases married them. The end result was that I also have this one very powerful rule: she who rules home court advantage wins.

I smiled all the way to the truck. Garth hummed softly at the passing scenery while the little key I'd palmed lay warm in my pocket.

Chapter Thirteen:

We got as far as the stop sign to the freeway, but instead of taking the on-ramp, I made a left and pulled into Roxanne's. Since I'd already crushed the illusion of any blooming romance between us, my intention was to see if Boyd Lincoln was in his usual seat at the counter and could ID Garth.

Garth nodded at the heavy droplets trickling down the inside of the café windows. "Darlin', I'm sure the food is good, but you don't have to go cheap on my account."

I smiled, unbuckled my seatbelt and opened the door. "This was your aunt's favorite diner, and mine too. Come in and meet the owners, I'm sure they'd like to offer you their condolences."

Without the least bit of reticence on his part, he hopped out and followed me into the café.

Inside, I momentarily tensed, waiting for the pitying glances, but it was dinner time and the place was full up with itinerant truckers and tourists, not locals. I relaxed.

"How do, Miz Leonard," Garth said, his eyes twinkling as he took Roxanne's big hand in his as if it were dainty and small.

Roxanne didn't roll her eyes, or sneer or anything. She did, however, gently remind me of the reason I was going on this impromptu date. "I'm awfully sorry about your aunt. She was a really sweet lady." She eased out of Garth's handshake and said, "You'll want to say hello to my husband, Leon. He's over there putting out the pies. Tell him to cut you a slice. Go on, you're young enough not to let it ruin your supper."

She gave him three steps out of hearing, then shot me full of holes. "Don't tell me you're going out on a date with that man."

Now that I'd made up my mind about Garth, I wasn't about to let any hormones get in the way of my investigating, so I was indifferent to her insinuations. "Not really. Well, dinner, but don't worry, I'm working here. So, is he the guy Boyd Lincoln saw or not?"

I was watching Garth out of the corner of my eye. He was passing the time making small talk with Leon while tasting the lemon meringue. Garth said something and the two men laughed.

Roxanne followed my gaze. "You'll have to bring him back when Boyd is here. He saw him, not me. I gotta say one thing for him, he's about as cute as they come. Reminds me of my Leon, before he started eating his own cooking."

Giving her a reassuring hug, I said, "Don't think I don't get what you're implying, Roxy. Trust me, I can handle this guy."

She pulled back from the hug, holding me by the elbows, and whispered, "That's what you said last time you brought a hunky man to my place, and look how that turned out."

I tipped my forehead to hers and replied, "I promise you, I got it."

"You be careful, girlfriend," she said quietly, and then went over to join her husband.

"What'd you say to Leon that got to his funny bone?" I asked Garth when we got in the truck.

"I told him his lemon meringue was so light it should get him a green card right through to Heaven."

Barring Roxanne's warning, I relaxed. Since I'd never encountered one before, I guess he could be a sociopathic serial killer, but it was more he was more like our pilot, Mad Dog—running neck and neck as opportunistic womanizer of the year. That didn't mean he didn't also murder his old aunt, but my instincts told me it was less than likely.

Settled into a booth at the steakhouse, I peered hopelessly at the tight little script on the wood board menu. "I forgot how dark it is in here."

"It's a plot, you know," Garth said. "We can't read the damn things in this light so we'll gratefully order whatever they tell us is 'special.'"

He put down his own billboard-sized menu and pulled out a pair of half-glasses. "Here, try these. They're just drugstore cheaters, but they do the trick for me. This place oughta give 'em out at the door."

"Thanks. I thought I was going blind there for a minute." I should've been grateful for the glasses, but instead I felt self-conscious and every bit my age.

He didn't seem to notice. "I know it sounds corny, but you look cute in glasses. Mentioning glasses, did I hear you right when you said my aunt was going blind?"

"Yes, she depended on the bus or somebody gave her a ride to Roxanne's."

"I remember playing with the colored ink stamps she used for Bingo."

"She read the menu with a magnifying glass. Maybe she did the same with Bingo."

He pushed his menu away, signaling his impatience with the subject. "I'd rather you told me about you. Is Lalla your given name or does it come in a longer version?"

"You'd prefer Eula May? My big brother called me Lolly-Pop, but my mother put a stop to that when I was nine. Aunt Eula May is my father's aunt. I guess they were hoping the old girl would leave me her oil stock. Aunt Eula May, being on my father's side, is ten years older than my dad, and will probably outlive all of us. Every September, she drives all the way out here from Brownsville, Texas, and gets in our hair."

"And you're a pilot. It's not every day I meet a beautiful woman who can fly airplanes. You really like those flying tin cans?"

"I sort of fell into the job more from need than inclination. I got my pilot's license at eighteen, and, well, one thing just led to another."

"Now don't go makin' it sound like nothin', darlin'. I've seen those guys working—looks dangerous to me."

"It can be. Every year at the national convention, there's another empty seat."

"Empty? As in dead? Then why do it?"

"I haven't, at least not for the last couple of months." Even with a cast on my foot, my reticence for flying may have had more to do with my own fears than anything else. "I still have my A&P, that's the mechanics license to work on them, and I don't mind getting my hands dirty, so at least I have a job."

"You still use those old bi-planes?"

"The Stearmans? I suppose someone does. We now use the Grumman model G-164 Ag-Cat; it’s a bi-plane. They carry the bigger loads. With suburbs eating up all the farmland around here, some applicators find helos quieter. They're expensive, but they don't get complaints from irate housewives for noisy planes interrupting their soap operas. The hours are long, the work is dirty, and the pay seems to get smaller every year."

"So what keeps you here?"

"Me? To tell you the truth, I sometimes think I'm just on a long rubber band. I always seem to go only so far before I bounce back to this ranch. I came home after a disastrous marriage and an unremarkable career in New York, thought I’d jump back into the job as an Ag-pilot. Now I've got this leg in a cast, so at least for now, I'm grounded."

"Kids?"

"No," I said, reprimanding myself for automatically glancing at his ring finger. "I never had much luck finding daddy material. And now it's a little late." I was thinking of the photo from a couple of days ago. Gap toothed and in pigtails with the line underneath that said, Lordy-Lordy! Look who's forty!

Garth smiled, nodding attentively at the annotated version of my life's story. Either he'd swallowed Valium before our date or he was fascinated.

"I’ve called my father by his first name since I was eleven. At first just to annoy him, and then it got to be a habit. My mother died of cancer when I was eleven, and my older brother was killed in a motorcycle accident when he was twenty-seven." All of which was true, except how my mother died. But that secret stayed hidden, in much the same way I wasn't about to tell him tomorrow I'd be reporting this conversation to a police detective.

We chatted idly about nothing until the bill came and he reached for it.

I said, "Sure you don't want to split that?"

"Not a chance." He grinned, laying a credit card on the tray. When the girl came back, he signed the tab and said, "It's a business expense, courtesy of Four Corners Truck Stop and Repair. Too bad you got a hitch in your get-along. I sure would enjoy takin' you for a whirl around the dance floor. Another rain check?"

"The only stepping I'm likely to do is on your feet," I said, looking at my watch. "I hate to cut this short, but I've got an early morning."

Our evening ended up back at his RV, with Garth collecting my hands from the steering wheel and holding them between his big paws. "Wouldn't you like to come in?" he asked, his intentions obvious.

I could smell his aftershave and the undertone of maleness that made me feel like a twelve-pointer on opening day of hunting season. "Can't. Sorry. Got an early morning crew to get out, remember?" But I let him hold my hands.

"Sure I can't convince you to be a bit late?" he murmured, his breath closing in on my neck.

"Sorry," I said, allowing his mouth to scatter light kisses along the tender skin. He got as far as my ear before I found my breath again. "Not unless you want a herd of irate farmers knocking at your door at three a.m."

I said that? Oh, well, we both knew what would come of it if I got out of this truck.

He sighed and reluctantly got out of the truck and crossed over to lean against the open window on my side. "I got an idea. How about a tour of that crop-dusting business of yours tomorrow?"

"Call me," I said, and pinching the gearshift until it yelped for mercy, shifted into first, then second, then third, all the while wishing I was wrong about him.

No, that wasn't it. If I've learned anything it's that you can change their socks, but you can't change them.

I was wishing I had someone to go home to, someone who would drift warm kisses down the side of my neck and whisper sweetly into my ear until I gave up on all sensible objections and let that someone take me to bed and love me until I couldn't think anymore.

By the time I turned into the driveway, my lighted Timex said ten thirty p.m. My initial reaction to seeing Caleb's truck in the driveway was a sweet and tender feeling that blew away when I remembered I was still mad at him. The warm fuzzy was probably a leftover from my romantic moments with Garth, though I wasn't about to share that with Caleb.

Anyway, what was he doing at my house? Lights were on in the living room, so maybe he'd had dinner with my dad and they were watching a game. I dragged myself up the porch steps only to be scared out of my wits.

"Don't you guys ever lock your doors?" said a voice in the dark. "I could've walked right in and murdered your dad in his recliner."

"Caleb! What are you doing here in the dark scaring defenseless women, anyway?"

"Defenseless, my ass. Will you give it a rest? You aren't in New friggin' York anymore, you know. Nobody cares."

"Whoa! What bug jumped into your pants?"

"Well really, Lalla. I found the door unlocked, your dad and the dog in front of the TV sound asleep. Anybody could've walked right in and helped himself to a beer, which is what I did."

We both knew to whom he was referring. It could've been Patience's killer on the porch with a gun in his hand instead of Caleb with a beer. Adrenaline gone, I collapsed into a wicker chair.

Caleb put the bottle down. "Your message said you wanted to talk, so what's up?" He sounded grumpy, or maybe he was just as tired as I felt.

"Why should I be the first to offer information?" I grumbled. "I know that trick you do. I tell you everything I know, then the subject gets changed, and you go home, and I'm left with my finger in my ear."

"I couldn't take you to Stockton with me. Jesus, Lalla, at least I can draw the line somewhere, as opposed to you. Why on God's name would you go out on a date Patience's nephew?"

Boy, howdy, news sure traveled fast. "Well, excuse me, but I've got to eat sometime," I said. Probably the first thing he heard when he walked through the door at Roxanne's tonight. But unless Roxanne had changed her tightlipped ways, it was one of the gawkers who, unable to resist, had taken it upon themselves to report my indiscretion.

"You go out with him just to get back at me for not taking you to see Garth's ex in Stockton? If I'd taken you with me there's no telling how that interview would've gone."

"That's not fair." And it wasn't, since by now his trip to Stockton was not as important to me as my dad's potential involvement. "So, how is Garth's ex?" I asked sweetly.

But he had no intention of letting it go just yet. "I came back in time to take you out to dinner. I left a message on your cell. Why didn't you wait for me? Why are you always so…oh, forget it!"

"What's this all about? It was just a simple meal."

"Not that you would have noticed, but he's still a suspect in his aunt's murder."

I was getting mad again. "And so am I. So what does it make me—his accomplice?"

"Jesus, Lalla, you're so impulsive. I'm surprised you didn't marry the guy while I was in Stockton."

I collapsed into the wicker chair, too hurt to come up with a proper retort. "That—that was just mean, Caleb Stone."

"I'm sorry. But really Lalla, can you just not date the guy till after this is solved?"

"I'm not dating him!" Still hurt, I decided to do a little stabbing of my own. "And it's not like you share. Why didn't you tell me Marcy left?"

"I was working up to it. Know what your dad said when I told him? 'Birds of a feather fly together.' What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"You know I've never been able to make sense of my father's little homilies," I said, accepting the beer he handed me as apology. "So, why did she leave this time?"

"She said now that the boys are grown and gone she was through playing second fiddle, and I don't have to tell you who she was talking about. At least this time, she was sober when she said it."

I chewed on my lip for a minute remembering Caleb's wife drunk and stoked on a frustration she couldn't control, spitting her drink at him at our last party. "Happy Birthday to the Siamese twins!" she said, throwing her drink at Caleb. "Jus' don't know it yet, do you, you son-a-bitch?"

I was fed up with Marcy long before Caleb saw her for what she was. "Oh, for crying out loud," I said. "Did she lay that crap on you before or after she emptied your bank account and left?"

He ignored the dig, still plumbing the depths of our lost childhood. "She's right, you know. Except for the few years you were gone, we've been friends longer than either of us has been married. What do you think is the matter with us?"

"Well, if it's my opinion you're after, I already had one therapist confirm the theory. I'm not marriage material," I said, upending the bottle and finishing it. "Don't know about you," I said, tossing my empty in the general direction of the encroaching neighbors.

A thicket of oleander absorbed the bottle but I could still see house lights through the vegetation. It was depressing so I sat down again.

"I'm through getting married," I said. "So do you miss her?"

"Marcy? Only when I can't find something she hid."

He leaned forward and worked the bottle around between his hands. "I guess the answer is no, I don't miss her. Not like when you up and left for New York City, and all I got was an e-mail once a month till you married Jorge, and then even that stopped."

"Did you really miss me?"

"You were my best friend, what do you think?"

"I gave up New York and came home, didn't I?"

"Then you married Ricky. Dumb to dumber."

"Ah, yes, the old proverbial frying pan into the fire. Like I told you, I'm not getting married any more. I'm cured, so you don't have to worry," I said, still thinking he was concerned about Garth.

"Do I look worried? At least I'm mature enough not to go crazy chasing after younger women."

I decided to ignore his reference to the age difference between Garth and me. "Hey, don't sell yourself short," I said. "Darlene Hobbs still thinks you're hot."

"Darlene Hobbs? Wasn't she a couple of years behind us in high school?"

"And still drooling over the uniform—high school football to sheriff's uniform—it's all the same to Darlene."

"She's not my type."

"You might want to check your calendar, bubba. Maybe it's about time for you to let loose and go for some good old middle-aged craziness."

His voice brightened. "You mean now that I'm forty I get to dress like I'm twenty, wear my hair long and chase girls half my age?"

"Sure, though you'll have to grow one side real long." I reached over, and letting my fingers comb through his soft buzz, said, "It'll lay over that bald spot you hide under your Stetson. In fact, you do all that, I can guarantee Marcy'll be calling long-distance, begging for a second, or is it third, chance."

"In that case, I guess I'll just lay low for a while longer."

I leaned back to look at his profile. Strong, high forehead, aquiline nose, the wide, full lips relaxed from the thin line of our earlier battle. No beginning of sag below the stubborn chin. His chest was broad and his stomach flat from daily workouts at the gym. All in all, he was a very attractive man. No wonder Darlene lusted after him. "Well, you've got your pick of women from here to Stockton."

"I don't know, will you promise not to get married again until I've had a chance to look at all of them?"

"Why, Caleb Stone," I teased, "are you suggesting I'm to be put at the tail end of the line?"

He rolled his tongue around the inside of his cheek for a minute, and then said, "You can be first in line, Lalla Bains. Just say the word."

I blinked at the idea, then brushed it off. "You're just being gallant, but thanks anyway."

We were quiet then, allowing the silence between us to lengthen. From above the oleanders, the North Star hung like a lantern, and I decided my time was better spent examining every star in the night sky instead of where this conversation might be going.

Finally, I broke the silence with a question. "So what did you find out from Garth's ex?"

"Our interview lasted all of five minutes and her end of it was held up by four-letter words. It was a waste. Though I wouldn't mind being a fly on the wall when Garth finally does show up."

"You mean he hasn't been to see his daughter yet?"

He snorted. "His ex said the only way he was going to see his kid again was if he came up with the back child support he owed her, all seventy-five grand."

"What did you mean earlier when you said Garth was 'a mooch and a pathological liar'?"

"I hope you aren't falling for that 'good ol' boy Okie' routine of his. He's California born and raised, and the only reason he got a second chance at a business is because his aunt Patience loaned him the money."

"Okay by me," I said. "So he's a local boy and his aunt loaned him some money to start a business. Is that the worst of it?"

"Did he tell you he ruined his ex's tire shop with his drinking, or that he left her with a pile of debt when he deserted his family for the open road?"

"Okay," I said. So it wasn't quite the version Garth gave me, but I didn't think it would do any good to defend Garth, not with Caleb's attitude. If I didn't know better, I'd think he was jealous.

"But does it have to mean Garth murdered his aunt? What motive could he have had?"

"Motive? Garth had it in spades. His ex-wife says he's in debt up to his eyebrows. His trip to California was for another loan from his aunt Patience."

"So says the ex," I countered. "She has got an ax to grind. Do you really think she's a reliable source on the murder?"

"It's a matter of record. He hasn't seen his kid or paid child support since he left Stockton."

"Oh. What about Bill Hollander's kids? Vigilante justice?"

He chuckled sadly. "After I read his file, I kind of felt sorry for Eddy McBride. Those two made sure he would never get parole and they both have airtight alibis."

Caleb circled his fingers. "This all revolves around you, doesn't it?"

"Yeah, yeah, I know, there goes Lalla again, being all inconsiderate and selfish."

"No, Lalla, you misunderstand. I'm agreeing with you. This case wouldn't have caught second page if you hadn't been part of it. A home burglary gone bad? Unfortunate, but it happens twice a week in this valley."

It was as if all the odd bits had finally coalesced into one concrete thought. I sat up. "But with a dead woman found in a classic car owned by a former New York model turned crop duster, this case gets the front page for three days running. It's been picked up by NBC, ABC and Katie Couric. Everyone's paying attention. Not something a killer would actually want, is it?"

"Maybe not, but—"

"That could be why Eddy McBride broke out and walked off the honor farm a month shy of his release! He found out something that scared him enough to make a break for it."

"Well, that part may be a stretch."

"Maybe he knew she was in danger, or maybe he knew who killed her."

"Don't get ahead of yourself, now. That's not to say he's not guilty. There's the Hollander murder and the evidence is irrefutable."

I told him Roxanne's opinion that Eddy McBride was too nice of a guy to have killed Bill Hollander or his wife, but since Caleb wasn't warming to the idea that Eddy might be innocent, I left out Roxanne's story that Eddy was a cross-dresser.

"When we find Eddy McBride we'll confirm it, but if you're right, I'm mad as hell that he thought he had to involve you in this."

"But—"

"No buts, sweetheart." Caleb reached over and stroked the back of his hand lightly across my cheek. I warmed to his touch and felt all the anxiety sigh out of me.

"Oh, by the way, bet you forgot. Happy birthday to us."

I popped up out of my chair. "Oh my God, Caleb! I'm so sorry, it was today, wasn't it?" After all my whining about my upcoming birthday, I'd not only forgotten the entire day, but our standing date for dinner, with spouses, when we had them. Not only had I had dinner without him, I'd had dinner with Caleb's number one murder suspect.

His lips quirked in a half smile. "It's okay."

I reached out to hug him. "I'm still a dope."

He tensed for a minute, then folded his arms around me and whispered, "You're irresponsible, impetuous and careless." The words were spoken with all the gentleness of a caress. I would have pulled away, but he tightened his arms around me and looked into my eyes. "And I wouldn't have you any other way." Then he thumbed a path across my bottom lip, kissed me, picked up his hat and clomped tiredly down the porch steps to his cruiser.

Watching the red dots of his taillights flash once as he signaled his turn onto the main road and left, I touched my mouth where he'd drawn a line and crossed it. Boy, howdy! Did he say he still liked me? Most of the time, I didn't even like me. What on earth was going on? Was he simply lonely now that Marcy was gone again?

Do you miss her?I'd asked. Not unless I'm looking for something, I don't.

He liked me. He liked me.

I closed the front door behind me and walked through the foyer. Passing the living room, I could see the flickering blue of the TV, Spike contentedly curled up on my dad's lap in the Barcalounger. Once again, I quietly closed the door.

Taped to the curved oak banister were a card and a cloud of helium-filled balloons. I took the card off its ribbon and let the cloud rise on its own up the stairwell. I reached the landing just as the brightly colored bouquet was drifting into reach. I recaptured it by its slender red ribbon and pulled my balloons into my bedroom, where I sat on the bed and read Caleb's card. When I read the message I thought, Caleb is right, Lalla Bains. You're selfish, self-absorbed and vain. I would have to find a way to make it up to him. Did Caleb really forgive me? Or did "I wouldn't have you any other way" mean he agreed with me—that I was a dope? The card had a picture of a bi-plane soaring in the clouds. He'd drawn a little picture of me in the seat of the plane, smiling and waving. The inscription said, "May you fly right through this birthday and many more." And then, "Love you, Caleb." Was that like as in I love you? A sweet wave of thankfulness washed over me. Having Caleb in my life was sweet. He was kind and thoughtful in ways I'd forgotten a man should be.

Yup, I'd flown right through forty and maybe a lot more.

Chapter Fourteen:

Unlike my dad, who claims he can't sleep in a regular bed anymore, I feel most comfortable in my own bed. Usually, two punches of the pillow release a soporific drug that knocks me out for the rest of the night. Tonight's playbill was running across the ceiling in neon lights, all without sound; that is, until I heard a noise. Not the expansion of the house doing its nighttime contractions, nor the arthritic oak planks settling against each other in the cooling air. And our house wasn't old enough to be haunted. Then why was I wide awake and listening for a sound I couldn't identify and waiting to see if I could hear it again?

Nothing? It must have been something. Somebody might as well have thrown cold water on my face. I sat up and listened again as the numerical disk flipped over on my clock radio.

2:30 a.m.

It may be old-fashioned, but without my contact lenses, the red numbers on digital clocks blend into fuzzy little balls. The big numbers flop over like grammar school flash cards asking for the capital of Peru, but it works.

Another number clanked over.

2:31 a.m.

I slipped my bare feet to the floor and tried to steal across the room to listen at the door. Not so easy with the cast still on my leg. My tiptoe was more like thump, slide, thump.

I kept my back to the wall and moved out onto the landing, trying to see or hear a sound.

Nothing.

When I limped out to the landing, the oak floor under my feet complained. Now I was making all the noise.

There! Someone was downstairs, stalking shadows in the foyer. My dad?

I felt my breath catch and put a hand protectively up to my neck. My pulse hammered an uneven rhythm.

"Noah—that you?" I called, still hoping it was my dad heading for the bathroom across from the TV room. No answer. If it was my dad, why didn't he answer me? Backing into the shadows, I felt the thick oak of the table and touched the cool bronze of a metal bookend. Even in the dark, I knew it by heart—a matching set of horse head bookends, a Christmas gift from my brother to his thirteen-year-old horse-crazy sister.

I hefted one, stepped up to the stairwell again, and squinting into the black, croaked, "Who's there?"

The footsteps I'd heard, skittered to a stop.

"Who's there!" I squeaked again.

A flash of light—a pop, and the stucco and wood wall behind me exploded.

Another pop, and the banister splintered, bits of it spitting at my ankles.

Shock rattled through my veins.

Son-of-a-bitch was shooting at me!

Furious, I wound up and pitched the bookend in the direction of the last flash.

I heard it connect with a thunk—bull's-eye! There was a groan and a heavy thud as the shooter hit the floor. But before I could hobble down the stairs, the lights went on and my dad was yelling and waving his shotgun around. Between my dad yelling and Spike barking,there was enough racket to raise the dead.

I got to him and pushed down the barrel of his gun, reached over and pulled his glasses up on his nose, then swatted at Spike, who was trying to bite me again.

"Not me, you idiot! Over there!" I pointed at the crumpled body by the wall.

A single lady's show lay on the floor and a woman in a pink linen suit slumped against the wall, a hand covering a curly blond head.

I rushed over and felt for a pulse. Her wrist was cold and I couldn't feel anything. "My God, Noah! I've killed her!"

My dad sank down on his knees, pulling the arm away to expose her face. A flutter of eyelids and she groaned, then pushing up onto an elbow, tipped the blond curls up over her forehead, exposing a light grey crew cut. It was a wig.

My dad studied the face below the blond wig. "Well, I'll be damned. It's Eddy McBride." He poked at him with his shotgun, "Eddy! What in Sam Hill do you mean breaking into my house in the middle of the night and shooting off a loaded gun at my daughter?"

The little man sat up, rubbing his head. "You don't have to shout, Noah, can't you see I'm injured? Besides," he said, pointing a pink-tipped nail at me, "She tried to kill me."

Even if his nylons did have a tear in them, I was no longer feeling magnanimous toward Eddy McBride. "What are you talking about, you little rat, you shot at me."

Looking up at me, he said, "Sorry, I was nervous and I think it sort of went off by itself."

"Twice?" I glared at him.

He looked to my dad. "I didn't know she was your daughter."

I poked at Eddy with my foot. "Like it would be okay to shoot me if I weren't his daughter?"

"No, of course not," Eddy replied, his voice a weak tenor. "I didn't mean to shoot at you at all. I only wanted to scare you off. I shouldn't have brought the gun anyway. I've bungled this all so badly. Please, may I stand up?"

"I think you'd better stay where you are," I said, not trusting this polite version.

I found that my sympathies for Eddy McBride were at an all-time low. I looked around for the pistol he'd dropped and noticed the broken sidelight. So that was the sound I heard, the sound that had caught my attention in the first place—breaking glass. I gingerly picked up the small-caliber pistol lying under the entry table and pointed it at our intruder. "Before I call the police, I think you need to explain a couple of things."

He looked up at me, pulled his knees up to his chest and held his sore head. "Could I have some ice first? Please?"

"Noah, you get it, I'll hold the gun on him."

My dad started to object, then shuffled toward the kitchen and ice.

"If you didn't come here to murder us," I asked,"then why bring a gun?"

"I saw you get out of Garth's bus and I thought—I thought maybe you and he were in on it. Though now that I think of it, you're not the one I saw, you're too tall."

It always came back to that. Not the long nose with the bump high on the bridge, nor the shoulder-length blond hair, or the fact that I had football-wide shoulders, but my height.

"Wait a minute, what girlfriend?" I asked.

"A redhead. Wearing all the wrong colors for that bird's nest of hair. The little alley cat was going in and out of Garth's bus the day after they murdered my Patience. I followed her out here, but she must've seen me following her, 'cause she only slowed down at the turn off, then sped up again. Figured she was here to shake down your old man. "

My dad came in with a wad of ice in a dish towel. "Me? With a redhead? That'll be the day. Why didn't you ask me instead of shooting at my daughter?"

Eddy didn't seem to have an answer for that question and I was fast losing what was left of my kind feelings for him.

"Forget about the redhead for a minute," I said. "What were you looking for when you trashed your wife's house?"

"I didn't …. Oh, never mind. I'm not saying anymore, not now, anyway."

"No? You certainly had something on your mind when you shoved a gun at my back."

"That was before," he said, looking up at Noah.

"Okay, then explain about the redhead you saw at Garth's motor home."

"She had a key to his rig, so they must've come together. I was too late to save her," he said, rubbing at the knob on his head. "The bastard murdered her."

"You mean the redhead?"

He cradled his sore head between his hands and sobbed. "The self-centered little shit never gave a moment's thought to anybody and now she's gone."

That threw me off. Was he talking about the redhead or his wife? But this business with the gun was not going in his favor.

I reached down and shook him. "Eddy, tell me! What is it you're trying to say? Who killed Patience? Was it Garth?"

My questions were met with painful groans and incoherent mumbles.

Dad squatted down to pat the little man's shoulder, then looked up at me and said, "He's got quite a bump on the head, Lalla. That bookend must've concussed him pretty bad."

"You watch him. I'm going to call Caleb."

When Caleb didn't pick up his cell, I called Dispatch at the county Sheriff's department. I told the deputy that we'd had a break-in. He offered to send a patrolman, but I told him I wanted Caleb Stone to come. I assured the deputy not to worry; the burglar was not going anywhere.

"Yes, my dad has his shotgun trained on him as we speak."

At least that's what I thought until I went back to see my dad, shotgun under his arm, the front door open and Eddy McBride gone.

I sighed. "Don't tell me, you felt sorry for him again."

He nodded, fingering the stock of his shotgun. "We let him go and we kill two birds with one stone."

"No, no, no! It's 'A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,' remember?"

"Then how will we be able to prove Garth killed Patience?"

"And where's the ‘we’ in this?"

"Eddy and I struck a deal. If he can find where Garth stashed the money, it'll prove Garth murdered Patience. Eddy will turn over Garth and the loot, and he'll be clear to go to Mexico."

"Mexico? Good God, Noah. He isn't doing this so his name will be cleared, he wants that loot you so casually think is up for grabs."

I walked around in circles, scratching at my scalp. "How on earth do you expect me to explain this to Caleb now?"

"I know he's a thief. He's just not a murderer. It's not his fault he's got identity problems. Besides, he needs a break."

"I think he's had his share of breaks," I commented, nodding at the shattered glass of our sidelight. "And you told me not to get involved."

I went to sit on the porch and wait for Caleb, my dad trailing behind me.

"Why did you give a retainer to Judge Griffin to defend Eddy?" I asked.

"You were just a child, Lalla. It wasn't anything I'd be talking about to kid," he said.

I was stung. "Dad, I was twenty, living in New York and married to that baseball player, remember?" Then I was sorry I brought it up. My brother Leslie died that year. So I should forgive him if he lost count. Dad never could remember how old I was, much less my birthday.

He blinked. "Yes. I forgot. Eddy McBride. I hadn't given him or his wife a second thought in years. Not until you lost the jam-making contest to her."

"I don't get it. Why pay for Eddy's defense?"

"You appear to be on familiar terms with the man." He looked down his long nose at me.

"The up close and pointy end of Eddy's gun makes up for the lack of a formal introduction. Now talk."

He tilted back his head and regarded the stars. "'Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God.'"

"Huh?" Sometimes my dad's little quips went right over my head. "Is that like, 'What doesn't kill you, should'?"

"You've got the quote wrong, it's 'Whatever does not kill me makes me stronger.' Friedrich Nietzsche. I paid for his retainer because I believed Eddy McBride was being framed, and that's all there is to it."

"Framed? Did it ever occur to you someone intends to make you pay for your generosity? Look at the facts: He tried to frame the daughter of the one man who paid for his attorney. While I'm at it, why didn't you tell me, or at least try to stop me, when I took that Caddy away from Ricky?"

The dour look he gave me spoke volumes.

"Oh, all right, so it wouldn't have done any good. But now it's so convoluted and messy."

He held up a finger. "Bill Hollander and his car was old news by the time you came home. I didn't even realize it was on Ricky's car lot until after you brought it home. Besides, you're off the hook. Caleb said so."

Exasperated, I dug my nails into my palms and took a deep breath. "I may be off the hook, but knowing Detective Rodney, you'll be up for questioning next."

"My donation to Eddy's defense fund was done on terms of anonymity. Eddy knew, of course, and so did his wife. I paid Sidney Griffin a nominal fee to keep my secret, as any lawyer to client would."

"Client-lawyer privilege isn't going to help when they serve Judge Griffin with a warrant." Had I stumbled on an old gang of drug runners, my father included?

"Dad, can't you see what it looks like? You, Bill Hollander and Judge Griffin had your own gang back then. I want to know, were you guys doing more than baiting hooks and gutting fish?"

"We were fishing buddies, that's all."

"And using your crop-dusting company as cover for a little importing of drugs from Mexico?"

"Don't be ridiculous."

"Okay, then. Was it because you were in love with Patience that you paid for her husband's defense?"

His eyes narrowed angrily, then he threw back his head and laughed. It was an odd sound, the laughter, probably because I seldom heard it anymore. "Oh Lord, and you thought …. That's a good one." He held onto his sides while the laughter rolled around his insides. When I thought he was done, another rusty chuckle erupted.

Finally wiping at his cheeks, he said, "Lalla, I wasn't in love with her, I swear. If you recollect, that was a tough year. I helped Eddy McBride because he was Leslie's friend."

"Leslie? My brother, Leslie? How would you know who Leslie's friends were?" I was challenging him now as my own feelings of neglect resurfaced.

"I met Eddy McBride at Leslie's house."

"You never told me," I whispered.

"Just the once. It was the spring before he died. I called his apartment and asked if I could come. I was trying to get past the disappointment of his lifestyle and just be his dad, like you said I should."

"I remember, go on." I had my own painful memories. I had barely made it home in time for Leslie's funeral. And only because I promised Jorge I wouldn't stay longer than two days. At the funeral, seeing my dad in tatters, I decided it was time to slip Jorge's velvet chains and spend more time visiting my dad.

"It was awkward. Your mother understood him in a way I never did. And I was so angry. The only son I would ever have was …." Unfinished, and unable to say the words that made his son different, he pursed his dry lips together.

I bit at a hangnail and watched my dad work at the crease in his old khakis as we climbed back into uncomfortable memories.

He tilted his head back and, watching the stars, said, "He had a small apartment up on a hill past the university, on Clement Street. It was clean and tidy, just like he always kept his room at home."

Unlike me, I thought. I still kept a pile of discarded clothes in one corner, while in the other corner lay the clean clothes to be folded, hung up or worn. Juanita had long since given up on my housekeeping skills.

"The art and architecture books I bought him were on a coffee table. He probably put them there just to please me. Neither architecture nor flying was ever going to be his life's work, any more than flying Ag-Cats should have been yours."

"Dad, I—"

He held up a hand. "Never mind. We'll get to that subject some other time. He told me about his work at Berkeley Repertory Theatre."

I asked, "Did he show you the pictures of the scenery he did for A Midsummer Night's Dream?"

"No, we didn't get to that." Noah blinked twice, and then plunged unsteadily into the rest of it. "He said you saw each other occasionally. At least you went to his plays. It didn't make up for my lack of interest or enthusiasm, but I know it helped that you did."

In a gesture meant to remind us of our connection, I stretched across the distance between us and touched the back of one arthritic and scarred hand. He smiled, looking a little less cranky, and continued his story.

"We were having coffee when the doorbell rang. Leslie was annoyed at the interruption but said he'd send whoever it was away. The man was dressed nicely enough; pressed slacks, polished shoes, the collar was up, not to my taste, but I believe it was the style at the time. Leslie introduced him as Eddy McBride, a friend, nothing else. It was the smile I remembered, same as the newspaper photo, turned up at the corner of his mouth, like the other side didn't work at all. There was an awkward moment, and then Leslie told Eddy he'd get him the costumes and left the room.

"I was surprised when Eddy sat down and spoke so enthusiastically about Leslie's work, sharing with me as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Yet, he knew—I know he did it because I'd never been to any of Leslie's plays."

"So, you gave him defense money simply because of Leslie?"

"That's right."

It was incredible to think my tightwad father had done such a generous thing. Only problem was, that kindness had now come back to bite him.

"What did I care if he was guilty or innocent, it had nothing to do with me." He sighed and said, "'Violence is good for those who have nothing to lose.' Sartre."

"But didn't it occur to you that the police might see you as his accomplice?"

My father snorted his contempt. "I don't know who killed Bill Hollander twenty years ago, and I don't know who killed Eddy McBride's wife and I don't care. What I do care about is you. This is a dangerous game you're meddling with. You don't begin to know what you're doing."

"And you do?" I asked, my fears rising again. "I know you thought you were doing the right thing, helping Eddy escape, but I've got a bad feeling about this."

He leaned back in the wicker chair, admiring the expanse of stars glimmering across the sky. "I'm not sorry I let Eddy McBride go. Let him make it right, not you, Lalla. You stay out of it. We're going to work a way to prove Garth did this, you'll see."

Then I thought of something else. Cigars. What was it? Oh, yeah, Caleb had a stub of one in a baggy. It was found next to Patience's step. If I could put a voice to the elusive thought floating around in my brain, maybe I could make some sense of it. "Noah, do you ever smoke cigars?"

"I have. On occasion," he said. "There have been a few times when a cigar has been appropriate. You know, like weddings, the birth of a grandchild?"

"Enough. Can we keep this on Eddy?" I said, putting up a hand to stop the direction this was going. "Will you please just consider something for me?"

"What?"

"You and I might as well have a big bull's-eye painted on our backs since we are now the gifted recipients of a once very tight little secret—a secret for which one person has already been murdered."

"Here comes Caleb," he said, patting my hand in the dark. "We'll talk about this tomorrow."

"What are you going to tell him?"

"I'll think of something. 'Truth is rarely pure and seldom simple,'" he said, winking at me. "Oscar Wilde."

I watched the lights of Caleb's cruiser bounce over the potholes in our road. Poor Caleb. He'd been here three times today. I wasn't looking forward to telling him his sore backside was for nothing.

Chapter Fifteen:

I walked into the kitchen to see my dad at the breakfast table drowning Juanita's pancakes in syrup, Spike quietly pleading for something to fall off the plate.

Last night I'd crossed my heart and promised not to reveal that after catching a cross-dressing, gun-shooting intruder, Noah Bains, once again felt sorry for Eddy McBride and let him escape.

It made me ill to watch the recent and fragile trust between Caleb and me go down the tubes with the lies we told him last night. There we were, two artful dodgers, squirming at questions we didn't want to answer. The evidence wasn't in our favor, and our story was too easily dismissed. If I wasn't disappointing my father, I was disappointing Caleb. Talk about a rock and a hard place.

And just a few hours earlier he was telling me how much he liked me. Well, I could forget about any future with Caleb after that fiasco.

Our housekeeper offered me a plate. Maybe food would help. I demurred at the size of the stack Juanita placed in front of me but refusing to clean my plate would have offended her, so I ate. They weren't the elephant and teddy bear shapes of my mother's, but they were fluffy and substantial. Before I knew it, the plate was clean and I was left with nothing to do but stare at my dad as he slowly cut each pancake into small squares, forked up two bites, dipped them into the syrup, and ate. At this rate, I could make it to Paris and back, bought clothes I would never wear living here in bum-luck California. I sighed.

With chin in palm, I turned away and watched the easterly sunshine fill the big kitchen with a rosy glow. Our kitchen was big enough to accommodate a schoolhouse full of laughing, squabbling children, but the modern white refrigerator was bare of childish artwork. For our own reasons, neither my brother nor I had produced any of the expected grandchildren. I peeked over my coffee cup at the last of the Bains men. The Nordic heritage of blond flyaway hair sat on father's head like gray, watered silk. The long bony face and wide-set eyes easily identified us as relations, though my father carried his long nose in front of his face in a slightly predatory fashion. The hooded folds of skin above his faded blue eyes only added to his hawkish look. I knew he was harmless. Others, meeting him for the first time, weren't so sure.

I nodded my thanks to Juanita, ignored the dog and glowered at my dad. "I kept my promise, Noah, but you didn't see Caleb's face when I told him it was too dark for us to see the intruder. He saw the bullet hole in the wall on the landing. He didn't believe a word of it, and I'll bet my lunch money he'll be back later today to tackle me with some more embarrassing questions."

He pushed his plate aside."What's your point?"

I'd spent most of last night worrying the covers off and on with the unanswered questions. "I have a theory about Eddy."

"Shoot."

"Please! Any figure of speech but that one."

"Sorry, I'm listening."

"If you don't mind, here's what I know so far; Roxanne said after Eddy was convicted, he and his wife wrote to each other, so could account for how he knew who I was and where I lived. Roxanne also admitted to knowing that he was a cross-dresser, only without the gun."

"No shocker there, not if he was a friend of my brother's. So, what was his point?"

"I think last night was staged for our benefit." I held up a hand to keep him from interrupting. "After you paid for his defense, did you write letters, drop him a Christmas card, that sort of thing?"

"No, but—"

"Until last night, when you let him go, Eddy didn't know who he could trust."

"But I was the one who got him the lawyer, he knew he could trust me."

"Yes, and look how well that went. Did you ever tell him why you got involved in the first place?"

He tucked his chin and said, "I told you last night, it was nobody's business."

Why was I not surprised? This was typical Noah Bains; iconic man of the decade for stoicism.

"Well, perhaps you should have. All these years, Eddy's been sitting in jail wondering why he ever trusted your generosity. Your gesture may have been altruistic, you did it in memory of your son, but Eddy got prison. Don't you see, Noah? He broke into our house not because he was looking for Garth's girlfriend, but because he wanted to see your reaction to his prank. He was making enough racket to wake the dead, but when that didn't work, he shot off his gun. For that matter, I kinda wonder why he didn't shoot you."

His gray brows went up in surprise. "Why would he want to shoot me?"

"Oh, yeah, now I remember—it's because you're such a great guy and hired him that swell lawyer."

"Don't be a smart-ass. It's unbecoming."

Maybe the worry was getting to me—I giggled. "I swear, could I possibly do anything more to ruin my already ruined reputation? So tell me this, whose idea was it to let him go?"

"Well, mine, I think. Or maybe …. Well, maybe it was his idea. But if it proved he has one person in his corner, I'm all right with it." He scraped back his chair. "It was a stupid stunt, coming out here dressed like a woman. But so far the man has had no luck at all, so why should he trust any of us? If all you say is true, then I'm also satisfied he's not a danger to this family. By the way, it's going to rain."

He called to Spike, who almost neglected his duty, thought better of it, growled at me, and ran after his master.

Only the ghost of my brother remained. We sat at our usual places at the breakfast table. The corn silk hair of my father's stood on his head in its usual morning disarray. The brown eyes of our mother crinkled with amusement. Ten years older, Leslie taught me to ride a bike and catch frogs. He was my biggest fan, and after our mother died, he was the nearest thing I had to a mom. It never occurred to me why his mothering skills were so good and mine were so poor. At least I didn't until it was too late for all of us.

"So what do you think, big brother? Did Dad get his money's worth? Or was he sucker-punched?"

The ghost of my brother laughed. Without any real answers, I assuaged the gnawing unrest with more breakfast pancakes, blinking salty tears of regret into the syrup.

By seven a.m., I was out of the house and ambling toward the office. I lifted my nose to the air and sniffed. Dad was right. Though the sky was still an innocent blue, I could smell moisture in the air. And to prove my point, from out of the south came the deep, droning sound of an airplane. What looked like a squat bumblebee grew into a big yellow Ag-Cat. It was lumbering north with a full load of chemicals and desperately trying to outrun the dark squall rolling up behind it.

As if on cue, the outside office bell signaled phone calls needed answering. That would be the anxious farmers worried that this new weather front meant impending doom. I ran into the office and picked up the receiver, and pencil and pad ready, spent the rest of the morning silencing frantic calls. By mid-day, chemical trucks rolled into the yard, and my spindle was full up with work orders. August was harvest for way too many crops and it was going to rain.

I keyed the mike on the VHF radio and called the pilots still working, alerting everybody that it was going be a longer day than expected. With a combination of threat and the promise of a bonus, I shanghaied two more off-duty pilots. Since pilots are paid by the acre, everyone was happy to have the hours.

Everyone except Brad, who swaggered into the office, pulling off his gloves and grumbling about the extra-long hours cutting into his plans for his day off. For once, he wasn't thrilled about the extra time? Why not? At twenty-eight, I could understand his having the energy to go out at night, but after one more day like this one, I would be prostrate on the bed at seven instead of eight. His youth could account for some of that boundless energy, but I wasn't convinced. I was beginning to wonder if he was doing the pills Mad-Dog suggested.

I'd already written up the notice for his annual and put it into his bin. He was duty bound to comply but so far I didn't see any evidence of either drug use or that he'd been to the doctor.

I looked from Brad to the pile of work orders spread across my desk. "You finish those peaches yet?"

"Been pulling that money handle all day, babe," he said, strolling toward the bathroom.

"Don't call me babe," I muttered, thumbing through the pile of work orders. "So if you've finished the peaches, then you can start on Montecello's almonds. It's the northeast corner of Nonpareils. Here's the map."

He stopped at the bathroom door, then turned back to smirk at me. "But babe, I'm not through with the peaches."

"Then what are you doing back here?"

"Getting fuel and taking a pee," he said, grinning.

I was tired, irritable and out of patience with this boy's lip. I followed him into the bathroom where he twisted the combination of his locker.

"Here," I handed him a stapled invoice with its attached coordinates. "Here's your next job. Don't come back till you're out of fuel or you've got those peaches done."

He grunted, looking at the pages. "Man, that's tight. When am I supposed to take a pee?"

"We're all behind, Brad. Pee off the wing," I said, pushing him out the door and in the direction of his fueled and waiting aircraft.

Brad got up on the wing, unzip his flight suit and send a long yellow stream arching over onto the ground. The ground crew thought it hilarious. He zipped up, took a bow and started his engine. As he lifted off, I wondered how I was going to replace him.

By four p.m. I was sprawled out on the office couch, an empty Burger King box and Coke can on the floor, and my cast propped up on the armrest. I was just drifting into a nice little nap when the door opened. Oh, please, God, not another farmer. I lifted my arm away from my eyes. "Yeah?"

"You the secretary?" asked the male voice in a blue work shirt.

"No, but I'm looking for one," I mumbled from my couch. "How's your coffee making? Nobody here does coffee worth a damn."

When he didn't snap that he was here to give us some work, I decided he was one of the chemical company salesmen. "Look, whatever it is you're selling, it's got to wait till tomorrow. Ten a.m. would be good." I put my arm over my eyes again.

"Oh, gosh, I'm sorry. They told me a lady ran this place, I forgot. I'm new with Hollander Chemicals."

I removed the arm draped over my eyes to see the blue shirt backing out of my office

"Hollander Chemicals?" I sat up and swung my legs onto the floor, putting my foot into the Burger King box. "Hey, don't leave," I said, shaking the box hanging off my foot. "Wait up."

He turned around, smiled at the Burger King logo gracing one shoe and a cast on the other. I reached down and removed the box. "Have a seat and I'll go splash some water on my face to wake up, okay? Be right with you."

I went into the bathroom where we had showers, toilets and a line of sinks along the wall with spray fountains that squirt water upwards. These little squirt guns were our first line of defense against chemical leaks through a respirator. I let the cool water spray my face and then reached for a paper towel. The paper towel dispenser was empty again, the sinks were filthy, and the floor was littered with paper and bath towels. The men expected the "woman" to do it for them. Tired of telling them to pick up after themselves, I had every intention of hiring a "woman." First thing tomorrow, Juanita's cousin would clean, scrub and pick up. Her fee would be divided between pilots and ground crew.

I looked up from the sink at my reflection in the mirror. Two months ago, Hollander Chemicals was just another name that went with the industry. I should have paid attention when my dad mentioned Hollander Chemicals and Machado, the guy who now owns it. I knew Hollander Chemicals, and their reputation indicated stingy with extras and quick to invoice. How did a crop duster find the bucks to buy another business when most of us in the industry were stretched to the limit running one business?

I closed the door on the mess behind me and smiled at the salesman. He jumped up from his chair and extended a sweaty hand. He looked as wrung out as I felt.

I said, "They gave you Stockton to Merced, didn't they?"

"Yeah, how did you know?"

"'Cause that's why the last guy left. Look, take my advice and go back and tell 'em you can only handle Merced to Modesto. Or Modesto to Stockton."

"Oh no, ma'am. I couldn't do that. They gave me an opportunity on the best route, and I'm not going to let them down now."

"Uh-huh." I was thinking it more likely that Hollander Chemicals was too cheap to pay another salesman. I motioned him over to a map of Stanislaus and San Joaquin counties and pointed to the red pins. "These pins show the companies who service the farmers of three counties. The green are our clients." I swept my hand over the colored dots and then let my forefinger trail down to the middle. "Our central location accounts for work that extends east as far as Hughson, south past Turlock, and west just short of Patterson. That's where Patterson Flying Service starts. If it's a really busy season, we have to depend on our chemical salesperson to get us what we need. It's a tight relationship that works both ways. So I'm telling you this for your own benefit. This is where your territory should be—here," I said, stretching my fingers to cover a reasonable amount on the map. "When it's busy you will be able to handle about thirty farmers who control all this acreage and two aerial applicators. When you fail us, and that's when, not if in a busy season, we won't be bothering to pick up the phone and call Hollander Chemicals, we'll be calling another company."

He swallowed, his Adam's apple dipping. "You're right. I haven't seen my wife and kids for more than two hours this week. All I seem to do is drive."

Pretending I didn't know, I asked, "By the way, who owns Hollander Chemicals these days?"

"Uh, guy by the name of Clark hired me, but I think he said the owner's name's Machado. I've never met the guy. Not that I would, being on the road all the time. I call in the orders anyway."

I shrugged, like it didn't matter to me. "You take Merced to Modesto. Fill that in with Patterson Flying on the west side and Hawk Dusters on the east and you've got a full-time job and our loyalty."

We shook hands, and he left looking a little less exhausted than when he came in. He wasn't out of the yard before I had the book of California Aero Ag Owners and Operators on the desk, looking for an address. I found John Machado still listed as being in the industry.

I went to the house, showered and dug into the back of my closet for something more feminine to wear. I pulled out two hangers covered in thin plastic. Choosing the taupe linen knee-skimming sheath over the other, more brightly colored dress, I put it on and shoved my foot into size nine sandals, grabbed my wallet and keys and left.

Bobby Norquist was working for Machado when he died. And Norquist was the murder witness for Eddy McBride's defense. Did he die by accident or design? I decided it was time for me to find out.

A "No Trespassing" sign dangled from a chain-link fence in front of the work yard at John Machado's Aero Ag Service. I drove around the fence and parked next to a huge WWII Quonset hut. Stepping between buildings I saw men on forklifts moving equipment and supplies around. I'd let all of my crew go home by four p.m. today because tomorrow it would all start again at three-thirty a.m. It made for one very long day. Machado was either working two shifts or he only worked nights. Which was odd since nobody north of Merced flew nights. Cotton is flown at night as that's when the wind is down and the bugs are out.

I followed the driveway to an airstrip where two helicopters and three Ag-Cats lined up. The planes looked like dark, grumpy elephants shuddering behind the motion of their huge propellers. A pilot with an orange helmet in the crook of his arm passed by me, giving me a leer that said, "I would've slapped you on the butt, lady, but I'm busy right now," and then he disappeared around the corner of the building.

A screen door slammed and a heavyset man in overalls lumbered over to me. He wasn't smiling, but he didn't carry a club either. I suspected I wasn't going to stun him with the hundred-watt smile I kept for the old codgers, but a corner of his mouth did quirk up a bit.

"Hi," I said.

"Afternoon," he said, looking at his watch, grudging the time. "What can I do for you?"

I held out a hand. "John Machado?"

He ignored my offering. "No, he's in the office. I don't mean to be rude, ma'am, but if you're from the newspaper, he's not giving out any more statements, and as you can see this is a real busy place." He waved his arm in the direction of the loaders filling a tank with familiar and noxious chemicals. The loaders were wearing the requisite coveralls and masks, but no respirators. I looked away quickly before the surprise registered on my face and before he suspected I might be a county inspector. Good thing I wasn't from county or he'd be in for a big fine.

Mr. Overalls stood guarding the office door. "Like I said, this is an awfully dangerous place to be about now. Chemicals, airplanes and a very tired crew can be a dangerous mix."

"Got that the first time, but I am not with the newspaper, I just want to speak to Mr. Machado for a minute." I tried again to move around him toward the screen door.

He blocked me. "If you have a complaint about the noise or the chemicals, take it to County."

"That's not it either," I said, feinting to the right I slipped by him on the left. He lumbered after me as I walked through the front door.

In his late fifties, graying hair combed over a balding pate, John Machado sat behind the vintage metal desk. His beefy face reddened when he looked up.

"Mr. Machado?" I asked, sticking out my hand and giving him my hundred-watt smile. "Could I have just five minutes of your time? I'm not a reporter." That was certainly true, and I hoped I could pull this off before he connected me to my daily dose of fame in the local newspaper.

"Gimme ten minutes?" he said, stacking papers. "I gotta get this ground crew on their way."

"Sure," I said. It would give me a chance to snoop.

He motioned to the guy I brought in with me, and they went out together.

I watched them walk a few feet from the office, stop and talk. I was just paranoid enough to worry. Were they talking about me? Of course they were. The guy in the overalls glanced back and caught me staring. He quickly looked the other way, then nudged his boss further from the door. What? Like I'm going to read your lips? I wish I had been able to read their lips. Save me some questions.

Mr. Overalls went on out to the crew and John Machado, with his back to the office, started waving his hands in the air and shouting after him. Overalls was right, this might be more dangerous than I thought. While they were still shouting at each other, I did an about-face and rifled through the papers on his desk. Nothing that could tell me what he was doing tonight. No work orders with today's date on it and no recent invoices for chemicals. I tried a couple of drawers, but they were locked. When I heard footsteps, I turned away from the desk and pretended to be studying the set of photos on the wall behind his desk. In a line of old black-and-white photos, guys in soft leather caps and jackets stood in front of their Stearmans, goggles lifted to show raccoon faces and watery eyes rimmed with sulfur.

The door opened and a voice behind me said, "That one was taken in the fifties, when we spread sulfur over everything, cows, kids and crops. See the people in the field waving? Today they shake their fists at us and call county." Mr. Machado and I stood shoulder to shoulder while he tapped the glass on another picture. "Poor Bud was so allergic to the stuff, watery eyes, skin rashes, he finally just gave it up and bought a bar down the road. You may have passed it? Big old Stearman with a neon dust trail? Bud's happier running a bar than he ever was pitching chemicals out of an airplane."

"Who's the guy on the right, the one with the funny haircut?"

"That's not a haircut, that's burn. It got the whole right side of his face."

"Was he a bad pilot, or just unlucky?"

"Unlucky, but thankfully not on my dime. I needed a hand and Bob was helping out for the season. I don't think his wife even had a photo of him after he got burned. He didn't like pictures of him around, so I put this one up after he died."

"Died?"

"Yes, Ms. Bains. Bob Norquist crashed and burned to death just before he was going to testify twenty years ago on behalf of Bill Hollander."

"Okay, you got me."

"Yes, the question is, what am I going to do with you? Just kidding. Want some coffee?"

"Thanks, but I'll pass. By the way, I never thanked you for clearing me for landing at your strip. And I presume it was you that called the ambulance?"

"You're welcome, Ms. Bains." He poured the coffee, then topped it off from a bottle of Jim Beam and put the bottle back in his desk. "Odd that this is the first time we've actually met. I thought I'd have a chance to speak to you before they hauled you off to the hospital, but I’m glad that I could help." He came around to my side of the desk and perched on the desk. "How's the leg doing?"

I followed his glance down to my walking boot-cast. "Coming off this week, I think."

He pushed off the desk, now closer to me than I liked. He was inside of that precious eighteen inches of space that anthropologists say is essential to Americans, though not to Orientals, or so I'm told. He didn't look Japanese, but then I was in his office so I let it go, for now.

He pointed a finger to another frame, brushing his arm across my chest. Annoyed, but not quite ready for a showdown, I bit down on my lip and moved out of range.

At my withdrawal, a flicker of amusement crossed his face. "This here bunch are boys from twenty years ago. Jeff Sperry, Bobby Norquist, the guy with the burn, and John Shanahan." He leaned into me again, and the pointing arm made another swipe at my chest. I ignored the arm, letting him think what he would, and just when his lips twisted in something like a grin, I leaned into him and stepped hard on his left foot and then quickly backed off.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Did I step on your foot? It's this darn cast."

His mouth slammed down into a thin line of pain, but he did look at me with renewed respect. He folded his arms over his substantial gut and said, "So, what can I do for you today, Ms. Bains?"

"I was hoping you could help me figure out why Eddy McBride would be running around pointing a gun at people, though so far, mostly at me." I wasn't going to mention last night, not if I wanted to keep my father's relationship to Eddy separate. Luckily, Machado didn't seem interested in specifics.

His face lost all of its ruddy color. "Eddy McBride? The guy they convicted for killing Bill Hollander? I thought they already caught the little bastard."

"Not that I've heard. Not yet anyway."

"I always thought he did his wife's boss and tried to weasel out of it by fingering poor old Bobby Norquist. You say he's going after people with a gun?"

"He has one, all right. He held it on me, twice. So, can you tell me exactly what it was that Bobby Norquist was supposed to testify about? "

His reply was a guttural whisper. "I thought they'd found him."

"Eddy? Does he have any reason to come here?"

The color in his face dropped another shade. The blood probably went to puddle where it could do some good, like close to his pounding heart. He leaned his hairy arms on the metal desk and swallowed, then he pushed off, and crossing his arms over his chest again, said, "Lady, if Eddy McBride walked through this door right now, I'd call the police. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to do a report for the county and it's due yesterday."

He turned his back to me and proceeded to rummage in a file cabinet, but I could see he was leaning on the open drawer for support. Though the air conditioner was on high, dark sweat stains were soaking through the back of his shirt. Here was another person who had underestimated Eddy McBride. If Eddy had been framed, then was John Machado involved? Was Machado responsible for Bob Norquist's death? If that was so, then was he also involved in Bill Hollander's murder? Either way, I now had something to share with Detective Rodney—and someone more interesting than me or my father.

Chapter Sixteen:

I drove back the way I came, down Geer Road, then into the strip mall where a replica of Bud's bi-plane soared above the bar in green neon. I left the rental car unlocked, hoping maybe someone would steal the damn thing. The air conditioning was driving me crazy. It came on intermittently, long enough to turn my knees blue. And no amount of insults or banging on the dashboard would stop the cussed thing unless I turned off the engine. That's what I get for wearing a dress.

The interior of Bud's Place was similar to most, maybe a little cleaner from a frequent and substantial use of Lysol. I sat down on the nearest stool and waited for the bartender to notice. The guy behind the bar wore a white dress shirt buttoned up to his bow tie. His chin, or what there was of it, was draped in wattles down to the top button, the bow tie an X-marks-the-spot where his chin left off and the shirt began. When he dragged his cloth along the bar and in my direction, I smiled and nodded a friendly greeting.

Spaniel eyes in the stoic face calmly appraised this latest client. "Good afternoon. It's still afternoon out there, isn't it?"

"It's going down fast, so I guess I'll have a beer."

"Coors, Coors Light, Heineken, Lowenbrau, Miller, Miller Light? We also got your Mexican labels, Dos Equis, Pacifico, Modelo, Tecate. Or how about ale? We got—"

"Whoa, that's way too much already. Whatever's on draft."

"We got Coors, Coors Light, Heineken, Lowenbrau, Miller, Miller Light— "

"Now you're just having fun with me," I said, and ordered a Coors Light, the same beer Noah kept in the fridge.

The bartender went to pull the tap and brought it over in an icy mug.

Looking for an opener, I remarked on the heat.

"Supposed to cool down," he replied, his sad brown eyes bouncing from the cocktail tumblers he was rinsing under the counter to the two guys at the end of the bar and back at me again.

If there was a secret password, handshake or code, I wasn't going to get it, so I came right to the point. "Are you Buddy Rutland, the owner?"

"Selling something?"

"No. This," I said, grabbing a paper from the counter and turning it around so he could compare an old publicity photo with the real thing, "is me."

He nodded, then mopped at the bar. "Noah Bains's daughter, right? I knew your dad. You look better in person."

"Thanks."

He pulled thoughtfully at the sagging flesh at his neck. "What can I do for you?"

"I was led to believe you were a friend of Bob Norquist."

"Bob's wife died of cancer yesterday." He lifted a calming hand at my expression of concern. "That's okay, Miss Bains, I know your family has been preoccupied. Funeral will be in a few days, so I thought I'd mention it. Your dad would remember Bob's wife Isabel from the Aero Ag conventions. Bob couldn't abide the pity stares. Burned face of his always kept him away, so Isabel went instead."

"I'll make sure we send flowers. Could I ask you a couple of questions?"

When he nodded, I thought for a minute, then said, "Tell me how Bobby Norquist died."

"Huh. You want to know something funny? Nobody else has thought to ask my opinion, not since the accident that killed him and not now. I decided poor Isabel already had enough grief. Insurance don't pay up if there's suspicion of foul play, you know."

"You think it wasn't an accident? How? Why?"

He looked suspiciously at the guys at the end of the bar.

The two men gave us a bored look. One of them held up his empty and said, "When you get a minute?"

Bud nodded and, secure in the knowledge that there were no hovering spies, said, "Don't you believe what that Port'age Machado told the press in that last interview. Bobby wasn't careless with his equipment."

I leaned closer and nodded for him to continue.

"Oh, he had a couple of forced landings all right—neither were his fault. He went over every one of the planes before he took 'em up. He had his mechanics license as an A&P: that's Airframe and Powerplant. It's the FAA license required to work on these babies," he explained, then blinked. "Oh, yeah, sorry. I forget. I don't mean to sound sexist or anything. It's just that not many women are ag pilots, much less mechanics."

"My A&P was purely meant for my own self-preservation." I dismissed the apology with a wave of my hand. "You think somebody did it to shut him up so he wouldn't be able to testify? But he was a witness for the prosecution, and Eddy was already in jail. Oh. Machado?"

Bud's eyebrows rose a fraction as he swiped at the counter and waited for me to make the connection.

"You think Bobby Norquist was going to change his mind and implicate Machado?"

"Look at the facts: Machado let some of his guys go before the end of the season. I had to quit anyway, allergies were giving me fits. I bought this place, and then the rumors started. Machado's having a turnaround, he's got new Ag-Cats, business for Machado is good, better'n anybody else's."

"Did you know John Machado now owns Hollander Chemicals?"

"Yeah, and I know he sells more than Benlate."

"Want to clarify that statement?" I asked, thinking of Machado's suspicious manager, the loaders without respirators, and the late hour they were working.

Bud shook his head. "Look, I try real hard not to care anymore. Bob's dead, and now so's his wife. I figure nothing I got to say is going to change that."

"I hate to think this guy's giving all of us a black eye if he's running drugs. If it made a difference now, would you give a statement to the police?"

"I already asked a lawyer when all this came up again. It wouldn't do any good coming from me. But," he added shrewdly, looking at me with those spaniel eyes, "you come up with something to pin a tail on that donkey and I will. Yes indeed, I sure will."

"Thanks for your help, Bud." I laid down a five for the beer, but he pushed it back toward me.

"It's on me, young lady. I put in a bid on that Caddy you got when it came up for sale. At the time I thought it was just bad luck since I lost it to some hotshot car dealer in town. But now that I think of it, it seems to me I'm the one who got off lucky. That Caddy seems to be nothing but bad luck."

I thanked him for the information and the beer. Unlike some people I knew, Buddy didn't seem to see anything wrong with me working on the investigation. If John Machado was Bill Hollander's partner in drug smuggling, then he also was the most likely person to sabotage Bobby Norquist's Ag plane to keep him from testifying. And if the police had completely missed interviewing Buddy Rutland, they surely missed out on the potential connection to John Machado.

I got back into the rental, slapped at the vents on the AC and hoped to God I got home before my kneecaps iced up. When I pulled out of the parking lot, I noticed another car pulling out onto Geer Road behind me. With the westerly sun in my eyes, I couldn't make out the driver, but I could see the car. It was white and, from where I sat, looked like a Ford Tempo. Was it my part-time stalker? Or somebody sent by John Machado to silence the nosy-girl crop duster who should be minding her own business? Either way, my antenna was up.

Gunning the engine, I pushed the sluggish accelerator down and maxed out at fifty-five, whizzing past Stanislaus State College and several new subdivisions at warp speed of thirty-five miles-an-hour. I charged up the freeway on-ramp and then got stuck behind a daisy chain of bored commuters, every single one of them looking for that elusive one-car advantage.

When I looked again, the white car seemed to be keeping its distance two cars back. Who was following me? I knew, and Machado knew, OSHA would have something to say about his crew working without respirators. But OSHA might be the least of his worries if the authorities caught him running drugs at night. Would he send someone after me to silence the witness? You betcha!

I called the sheriff's office. Caleb wasn't in, nor could Dispatch find him. When asked if I wanted to leave a message, I told them never mind. Not yet. At least, not until I was sure I was being followed and by whom. I could try his cell, but decided I'd see what happened next.

At my exit, I peeled off the freeway, taking the ramp at sixty and causing a wrinkle in the line of cars as they slammed on their brakes. Behind me, furious that their tight formation was broken, commuters honked and waved fisted digits at me. At the stop sign, I noted the number of cars patiently waiting, held my breath, and flew through the intersection. Exhilarated that I'd made the leap unscathed, I hunched over the wheel and aimed for the long stretch of road to home.

I looked in the rearview mirror and almost lost my grip on the wheel. The white car was nosing up to my bumper.

"No!" I cried, frantic for a way to get away from this car crowding me. But I couldn't get away and I couldn't pull off the road, either. In preparation for crop irrigation, a low wall of earthen dikes had been run up parallel to both sides of the road. It cut off any chance of an emergency roadside stop. I couldn't leave the road without hitting an embankment or flipping the car. It went on like this for miles, forcing me to stay right where I was. There was no escape. I looked back to see the car's left turn signal calmly beating a steady rhythm.

How stupid could I get? He only wanted to pass. This entire exercise was due to nothing more than another exhausted commuter not paying a lot of attention to his driving.

I eased off the accelerator, rolled down the window, and indicating it was safe, waved him ahead.

When he pulled out into the passing lane, I breathed a sigh of relief. "Yeah," I said out loud, "that's it, pass me up."

But instead of leaving me in his wake, he pulled up to my rear bumper and stayed. There was no one in the opposite lane, so why didn't he pass?

"Come on, don't be a dweeb, pass!" I was beginning to sweat, and those bees were starting up again in my ears. I swiveled around to glare at the driver. It looked like a man, cowboy hat pulled low over his brow. "Get away from me, you nutcase!" I yelled, motioning for him to go around.

He must have seen my nervous wave and decided it was safe to pass.

I huffed out a sigh, and motioned him to pass. I took my eyes off the rear view mirror and that's when I felt the impact. My wheel jerked, pulling it out of my sweat-slicked hands, and then he backed off to hang on my bumper.

"You asshole! You hit me!"

Did he expect me to pull over? Exchange insurance cards? I wasn't liking the prospect of this scenario; deserted road, no one else around, and not enough time between a call for help and what he might do to me before the cops showed up. Besides, I couldn't care less about the little dent in this rent-a-wreck. I punched the gas pedal and watched the car get smaller with the distance. When I looked again, it was back, hugging my bumper. I couldn't believe it. Then he swept into the passing lane, yanked his wheel to the right and hit me again, but this time I was ready for him and though the wheel jerked under my grip, I was able to keep it under control.

Again, another direct hit at my rear bumper, harder, and I felt the car spin out of control, whirling in circles like a dog chasing its tail, again and again, kicking up dust, until everything outside the windows of my enforced mad carnival ride disappeared behind a wall of choking brown dust.

Suddenly, with a jolt strong enough to knock my back teeth loose, the car struck something solid, the air bag smashed into my face and I was choking and coughing and waving away the fine, powdery dust seeping through the doors. With trembling hands and tears streaking down my dirty face, I reached out for my purse and cell. Where is the damn thing? Hot and dizzy and feeling the migraine digging in, I gave up on the cell phone and fought my way out from behind the exploded air bag.

Suddenly claustrophobic, I felt the strongest need to get out. Right now!

I shoved at the door. Stuck. I pushed again, felt it give a bit, then stick.

I shoved harder—nothing. I was sweating and shoving against the door when it gave a little more.

I heard a voice through the dirt-smeared window. A dark shape was pulling at the door from the other side and I thought I could hear his swearing through the buzzing painful headache that was fast becoming a roar inside my head.

A cowboy hat. He was wearing a cowboy hat, like the driver who hit me.

Was he here to finish me off? I could feel, rather than see, my vision begin to tunnel as the migraine started to peel away from the back of my head and take over. I could hear him swearing as he pulled at the door, rocking the car and jarring my screaming nerves.

Blindly reaching for my purse, I found it under the seat, and clutching it tightly, I shoved while he pulled.

The door flew open and I swung my purse at him. Still tethered to my seat belt, I fell halfway out, uselessly flailing at him.

A man's voice snarled, there was a glint of a knife, and I cringed away, holding the purse protectively in front of my face.

I felt an iron grip and the voice growled, "Dammit, hold still. I'm trying to help you, lady!" I couldn't make out the rest of what he was saying through the machine gun firing in my head.

Then I was falling, falling down a long dark tunnel.

I came to on the ground beside the car with someone shaking me and trying to force water down my throat.

Looking up at the man as though through a long tunnel, I blinked. It was Garth. All I could manage was a weak ugh, spitting dust and gurgling water out of the side of my mouth. I pushed him away and struggled to stand.

He reached down to give me a hand. "Jesus H! Lalla, I couldn't believe it. You had a major blowout there, darlin'."

He helped me up, brushed off the dirt, ran his hands over my shoulders and down my wrists. Then he turned my trembling hands over in his. "Nothin' broken," he said, giving me a crooked smile.

"Where'd you come from?"

"I was fixin' to come out to see you. You want to go to the hospital?"

"No, I'll be all right. Did you see the car that hit me?"

"Nobody and nothing to see but this car kicking up a cloud of dust. I didn't even know it was you until I got out of the car. I expect you got the stuffing knocked out of you by that tree, yonder. I think the tree won, though."

I would have to call my insurance tomorrow. Tell them I took out one of Richard Johnston's prime eight-year-old peach trees.

"I already called the police," he said, confirming the sound I heard was not the shriek of the migraine. Sure enough, a sheriff's car and an ambulance pulled up behind us. Thankfully, the sheriff's cruiser wasn't Caleb's. I could deal with the EMTs.

"It's not necessary," I replied to their offer of a ride to the hospital. I wasn't concussed, I told them as they flashed a penlight across my pupils, just shook up. The EMTs only released me when I showed them my prescription for Imitrex, tapping out one of the distinctive triangular-shaped tablets and tossing it back with the water the ambulance crew offered.

With the EMTs satisfied I was not a druggie, I signed for the tow and accident report, then let Garth lead me to a seventies model yellow Ford Pinto. He opened the door and gently lowered me into the seat. "It has fifteen thousand original miles, and I can just about fit into the driver's seat, as long as I don't mind sitting in the trunk."

"Where did you find this thing?" I asked, examining the plaid cloth seats.

"It was in my aunt's garage. The keys were under the floor mat. I guess she didn't mind if it got stolen. Guess I don't much care either, except it's better than driving my rig around town. Let me take you home."

"That would be nice," I said wearily. "It's been a long day." I was still feeling a little shaky and paranoid. Who tried to run me off the road?

Twenty minutes later, we stood on the veranda. I held a bottle of my dad's light beer, and Garth had a glass of iced tea.

"Better?" he asked, giving my shoulder a little squeeze.

"Yes, thanks," I said, twisting my head around on my sore neck. "At least my hands have stopped shaking. No lack of excitement around here the last few days. How're you holding up? Any word from the police?"

"Nothing yet." He put down the iced tea and worked at the bunched muscles on my neck. "You said somebody ran you off the road. Do you think it was a drunk, or just some kid in a hurry to get Dad's car home before it got dark?"

"I'm not sure what it was all about," I said, knowing it was a mistake to stand there and accept the soothing work he was doing on my muscles, but I was still too shaky to bother to object. "I do have some news for you. Did you know your aunt was not a widow?"

"Yeah, I'm afraid so. He was in prison, but the news last night said he escaped. They say he's now wanted for questioning in my aunt's death."

"He broke into our house last night."

"That ol' coot's a dangerous criminal! So you hog-tied him and he's now in custody?"

"Not exactly. Unfortunately, he got away."

"You let that little weasel get away, or did the sheriff let him slip again?" His sour look said he thought it more likely the sheriff.

"I'm afraid it was my father who let him go."

He threw back his head and laughed. "Your dad? Well, darlin', I sure wish I'd been there to see it." Then his voice went serious. "That ol' boy was nothing but a lot of trouble to my Aunt Patience. I sure hope they catch him soon."

My brother's voice whispered in my ear, "The pot calling the kettle black." I shook my head and brushed away the ghostly laughter. "At least the cops now know he's still in the area."

Garth didn't seem particularly upset that Eddy was loose. Nor that Eddy might be looking for him. Instead, he seemed to have something else on his mind. He rubbed a hand across a freshly shaved chin and said, "You remember when I told you someone turned me in? I been thinkin' it ain't my ex, why put me in jail when she gets child support, right? Autumn coulda done it, it would be like her to create trouble for me."

"Autumn?"

"Yeah, like the season, but not near as gentle. We were engaged for a while, till I caught her wrapped around a trucker. So, before I went off half-cocked like I woulda done before I got sober, I decided to let it ride till I could decide how to break it off. Then one morning I woke up, and this is stupid, I know, but I could hear this voice in my head sayin', 'Autumn leaves, Autumn leaves.' That was all I needed. I told her I was going to California to see my aunt and I expected her to clear out while I was gone."

"So, you think she took it hard and called the cops to get back at you?"

"Well, I did cancel the credit card I gave her, and I had her new Mustang picked up. It was leased, thank God."

"Wow! I can understand how she would be upset…a new Mustang. Now me, I'd've trashed your house, sprayed bad words all over your truck and told the girls in town you were a switch hitter." His intake of breath made me laugh. "I know, I know. Could there be anything worse than having a cute young thing accuse a red-blooded heterosexual male like you of being gay?"

"Man, oh man, you sure are a pistol, darlin'," he said, amusement twinkling in the brown eyes. "I think I'd rather be tossed in jail than have that rumor go around."

Then I remembered Eddy and his comment about a redhead coming out of Garth's RV and asked, "Would she follow you out here?"

"I don't think she'd come all the way out here simply to make a point. The girl's bone-lazy. No, she's more'n likely to pick up the phone and make a call. That would be more her style." He looked at his watch. "Changing the subject, I know you got to get up early, so how 'bout we go into town for dinner?"

"Oh, gosh, I wish I had the time. I've put off my paperwork all day. Maybe tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow then," he said, and giving me a meaningful look, took my face between his hands and kissed me. It was quick, a friendly overture that said he knew I was exhausted, but the invitation was there all the same.

I stood on the veranda, looking out at the twilight, thinking about Garth. There was enough of his story to be believable and I could empathize; I had had my share of wayward lovers. Jorge, being Latin, considered it his duty to seduce my girlfriends when I was on assignment. Ricky, however, was the worst, and revenge being my middle name, look where it got him.

Chapter Seventeen:

The western Sierras were edged crisp with reds and purples from a sun long gone over the other side.

I patted the cool radial engines and checked the tread on the tires, then meandered between the other aircraft, quietly waiting for tomorrow's workday. I uncapped the gas tanks, sank a fuel stick down into the holes, swished it around, and satisfied that my ground crew had done their job, went inside the office. I stacked work orders for the next day and blew some dust off the desk. Calling it a night, I locked the office door and walked to the house.

It must be dinnertime because Caleb's truck was parked in front. He'd be here because of today's mishap—a single-car accident, I'd told the deputy. Must've hit a pothole. It was a rental car, steering was iffy. More than likely, Caleb didn't believe any of it.

Sure enough, they were at the dinner table, shoveling in Juanita's seven-layer Mexican casserole. Caleb looked to have been carrying a trunk load of worries while I had just one.

"We don't have another dead body, do we?" I asked, calmly loading up my plate.

My dad grunted at my rude behavior.

"Sorry, Noah. Seeing a sheriff's car in front of my house, even if it is Caleb's, puts me on edge. Let me try again: Good evening, Caleb. Collect any gunslingers, jaywalkers or library book rustlers today?"

Noah's bushy gray eyebrows went up a notch. "Wouldn't hurt to mind your tongue, either, young lady," he said, wiping his mouth and getting up from the table. "Come on, Spike."

The dog perked up his bat-sized ears and trotted after his best friend.

"Who'd have thought my dad would taken to this dog?"

"With Noah's heart condition, he needs something, or someone. I think they both got a good deal."

"You're not the least bit curious about my day?" I asked, sarcasm making my point. It didn't help my growing anxiety to think Caleb might have also come out to interrogate my dad.

"I don't know how I'm going to get through this week," he said. "Seems every time I turn around you're in some sort of trouble."

"I'm fine. Really. Except for ruining my rent-a-wreck and scaring the hell out of me, it was a totally uneventful single-car accident. You didn't have to come all the way out here to check on me."

Two red spots bloomed on Caleb's cheekbones. "You want me to leave?"

Horrified that I'd stepped my foot into it again, I grabbed his wrist. "No! Don't go. I'm sorry," I said, holding a hand up to my forehead. "I've got this headache, and I'm just a little out of sorts."

Caleb threw down his napkin and shoved the plate away. "You do not have a headache. Your pupils aren't dilated and your color is good. So that excuse won't fly. Know what burns my hide?" he snapped, pointing one of his long fingers at the general direction of my nose and waggling it. "I'm off duty, okay? Did it ever occur to you that your dad might actually want some company?"

"Oh," I said, my voice echoing my need to tone it down. "So what did you talk about?"

"What do you think we talked about?" he said, rolling up his shirtsleeves and turning on the hot tap. "What were you up to today when you ran off the road and slammed into Richard Johnston's orchard?" he asked, adding soap and holding out a hand for the dish.

He was trying to be casual, but I could tell his blood pressure was soaring. I'd never seen him this emotional. Of the two of us, I was the one who was impetuous, the hothead, the one who flew off the handle.

The question was: Should I tell him my suspicion that I'd been broadsided by either my part-time stalker or one of John Machado's henchmen? I took a deep breath and went with the easier answer. "I went to see another Ag operator on some business."

"Whose business, yours or Machado's?"

"You followed me?"

His hands went still under the soapy water and he snorted. "Not me, but I promised you surveillance, remember?"

"Did he follow me all the way home?"

"His shift was over, and Jerry's not one to miss out on his supper, so he missed out seeing your car plow into the trees."

"If you'd just throw me a crumb once in a while, maybe I wouldn't have to go asking for trouble." I slid another plate into the sink. "I didn't step on your toes, did I?"

"Not mine," he answered, rinsing the plates and putting them in the rack for me to dry. "The FBI’s maybe. The government has a hard-on for Machado. Interestingly enough, his file starts about the time of Eddy McBride's trial."

I bit at the corner of my lip. "That explains a few things."

"Okay, spit it out. What'd you find?"

"My dad mentioned that Machado had bought Hollander Chemicals, which got me thinking: Where'd his money come from to be able to buy a company like that? Of course, it may have been a fire sale forced by Hollander's two kids, but I was curious, so I went to thank him personally for giving me permission to land on his airstrip. Even if I did crash into that field of tomatoes, he should know I was grateful. I also talked to a guy who worked with Machado and thinks he's running drugs."

"What guy?"

"Machado's office has a photo gallery that's a running history of pilots. Bobby Norquist and Buddy Rutland, who Machado said owns Bud's Place in Turlock. So I went there and asked him about Norquist."

"Yes, Norquist was supposed to testify against Eddy McBride in the Hollander case. What else?"

I told him about Bud and how the police had never questioned him and what Bud had to say about the likelihood Norquist had plans to turn on both Machado and Hollander, so Machado sabotaged his plane.

"You got it almost right. I hope you didn't corner Machado," he said. "You didn't flash that little fake badge at him, did you?"

Caleb, against his better judgment, once showed me how to kludge one together. I found a police supply company, bought a simple badge with no number on it, a leather case for it, and added a photo from a line of snapshots taken at the booth in the Greyhound station. At a distance it looked official. I needed it, I said, to flash it at guys who messed with me on the freeway, though these days it may have more to do with my erratic driving than the blond hair.

I lifted my chin. "I don't need to use that old badge anymore. And what do you mean, almost right?"

He wiped his hands off on a kitchen cloth and motioned me outside to the porch. Once we settled into the wicker chairs, he said, "None of what I'm going to tell you was ever in the morning papers because it was part of an original and ongoing FBI and DEA investigation. Bob Norquist wasn't going to testify because the Feds got to him first. In exchange for immunity, he wouldn't testify that Hollander and Machado were running dope out of Mexico, a win-win situation for Norquist and the Feds, but a sorry end for Eddy McBride. Loose ends all neat and tidy, except that Norquist was killed the day before his testimony was recorded."

"Couldn't they arrest Machado?"

"Machado had an alibi for Bill Hollander's murder. And after Bobby Norquist conveniently bought the farm, so to speak, the case went on the back burner. Hollander was dead, end of story. Except that now Machado is back in the cross-hairs of the DEA and the investigation is on again."

"Marijuana?"

"Not pot, Lalla. Black tar heroin. It's transported in small, compact and sometimes heavy packages. A small aircraft like a Cessna can't carry the load. But a souped-up Stearman, or for that matter, one of those Ag-Cats sure could."

"Uh, wait a minute. Are you accusing me, or my dad, of drug smuggling?"

"No, but I am saying, who's going to notice a working crop duster moving up from the Imperial Valley to here? It makes smuggling as a sideline to crop dusting look like a natural. So you see, you walked into a potential hornet's nest with Machado."

"Do you think it's possible? Machado killing both Hollander and Norquist, then setting Eddy up for the fall?"

"It's been suggested that Eddy might have been in on it with these guys."

"But if Eddy's guilty…." I almost added, then my dad could be guilty, too, but instead, I said, "When I told John Machado Eddy was out of jail and packing a gun, he broke out into a cold sweat. I think he now has something else to worry about besides getting arrested for trafficking dope. What if Machado killed Hollander, picked up the cash that Hollander was going to pay Norquist, pinned it on Eddy and then killed Norquist?"

Caleb rubbed his jaw. "Maybe. I'll talk to Homicide tomorrow. It'll go to the Feds and then we'll see."

Considering the subject closed, I said, "Roxanne has volunteered her place for Patience's wake. She said there may be people showing up from Stockton."

"That's nice of her."

"Can't say I feel much enthusiasm for a party," I said. "Is there anything else you can tell me?"

"Did you ever see Patience wear high heels?"

"Never. She always wore white high-tops. Patience was a fashion disaster, but she knew how to be comfortable."

He shrugged at my answer and scratched a path across his day-old beard. "That makes sense then. The prints on the windowsill at Patience's house belong to none other than Alexandra Graham, aka Autumn O'Sullivan."

"Autumn is Garth's girlfriend?"

"You know about her, huh?"

"He said they were engaged and when he broke it off she called the cops."

"Garth certainly manages to piss off the women. We got lucky with the prints 'cause she's  had aun-in for illegal nude dancing. As soon as we can locate her, we'll pick her up for questioning." He yawned loudly, and stretched. "We traced Garth with cell phone records for these last four days. Though nothing yet confirms he was in Modesto before his aunt was murdered, he certainly was in California. I'm going to hypothesize here, so don't jump on this. It's obvious Patience had a soft spot for her nephew. Besides Eddy, Garth was her only beneficiary. Suppose she lets it slip she's been hiding all that loot her husband stole from Hollander?"

"Then how did he drive her, the motor home and my Caddy to the lake?" I asked.

"His girlfriend, of course. Remember Autumn, the nude dancer? If that money hasn't been found, I'll bet she's still around waiting for it to show."

"That gold pendant you brought me. It's hers! There's just one little hitch. Garth doesn't appear to be the least bit nervous that Eddy is on the loose and carrying a gun, certainly not like Machado was—that guy all but lost his lunch at the mention of Eddy with a gun. Garth thinks Eddy's a nutcase, but if Garth killed his aunt, why isn't he jumpy at the mention of Eddy?"

Caleb stood up and yawned. "Okay, let's just pin it on the Hollander brats. If I were Eddy, I’d hate them enough to commit murder. They kept him in prison without parole for the entire twenty years. I have to get some sleep. We'll get an arrest warrant for Autumn and see if we can't get her to talk."

He kissed the top of my head and stepped off the porch. As he opened the door of the cruiser, he turned and said, "Lock your doors, Lalla Bains."

I assured him I would, and after sliding the deadbolt on the front and back doors and closing the TV room door where my dad and his dog were contentedly sleeping, I headed upstairs.

I crawled into bed, uneasy nerves rattling around with more questions, and it wasn't just because I had a growing list of people I had pissed off. I was a terrible friend to Caleb. I hadn't done anything to make it up to him for forgetting our birthday. I hadn't gotten him a present, certainly not like last year when I stuffed so many balloons into his cruiser he couldn't get into the car. I'd forgotten our birthday, not without reason of course, but still, what sort of friend had I been to him lately?

Tomorrow I would send flowers to Isabel Norquist's funeral and then I intended to get busy, do something, something that would steer suspicions of the police away from this family. I was going to do what I'd promised Caleb I wouldn't do. I was going to bend the rules again, which would really annoy him, should he find out.

Then I tucked my pillow under my head with a resolve for courage over fear, closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep.

Chapter Eighteen:

I awoke to a mouth full of fuzz and a sun smudged with gray. It went with my jittery dreams. All night long, Eddy McBride stood in the foyer of our home dressed as a man, then as a woman, the outfits growing progressively more bizarre as I was introduced to yet another new Eddy McBride. When Brad appeared wearing designer outfits from the sixties, I figured it was time to wake up. Brad—what was it about Brad I couldn't put my finger on?

I got up, scrubbed the sleep out of my eyes, stepped into my jeans and a T-shirt and sighed at the emotional letdown. Why couldn't I just happily stick Garth with the murder and be done with it? Caleb could. But then, I was getting the idea that Caleb would happily use any old excuse to send Garth to jail.

I passed through our kitchen, grabbing a cup of coffee, and was relieved to see that there were no blinking lights on the answering machine, but then my father could have either answered or deleted them before listening. Knowing my dad, it was the latter. I went to watch him tunelessly whistling as he kneeled by the jagged narrow broken sidelight with a putty knife, chipping out the last of the broken glass. Was it only two nights ago that Eddy broke into our house? My dad seemed to be enjoying himself, so I patted his bony shoulder and said nothing about Eddy McBride.

He looked up. "Judge Griffin says hello."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yep. Said to tell you, 'Leave the investigating to the police. That's what they get paid for.'" His bushy eyebrows bounced up and down in agreement. "I told him I'd pass it on."

I made agreeable noises and left through the kitchen door for the office. I needed the routine of work chores to sort out my plan. I would spend the next few hours moving paper around, clearing out old order tags and billing while I worked up my nerve. Then I intended to do something that would tip the scales of mounting evidence away from my dad. I had yet to decide if Eddy McBride was guilty or innocent.

The phone rang. I picked it up. "Hello?"

Nothing. Must be a wrong number. I hung up and it rang again. This time, I tried a louder, "Hello?"

Maybe the connection was bad.

A whispering voice asked, "Is this Lalla Bains?" Was this the whispering Eddy from the other day at Patience's house?

"Eddy?" I whispered back. When there was no answer, I wondered if he'd hung up on me.

The receiver coughed at me a couple of times, and then a clear soprano said, "This is Autumn O'Sullivan."

The hairs stood up on the back of my neck. "Garth's girlfriend?" Caleb would want to talk to this young lady and I had a few questions of my own.

I heard the hissing intake of breath and then she spit out, "You mean Garth's ex-ex-ex-girlfriend."

"What can I do for you, Miss O'Sullivan?"

"You can call me Autumn, ever'body else does," she said. But then her hold on phone etiquette dissolved into tears. "You gotta help me—if he finds out I'm here, he's gonna kill me!"

The handprints at the windowsill, the high-heel impressions next to it, and the gold pendant caught in the door of my Caddy.

The police would love to talk to Autumn, but seeing I had first dibs, I said, "Of course I'll help you. I'll pick you up and we can go to the police together."

"It won't do any good," she bleated into my earpiece. "I tried to get the police to p-p-pay attention to him, but he wiggled his way outta that too. He finds out I was the one who turned him in, he's gonna get me now fer sure!"

Garth had been right about one thing—she'd been the one who called the cops.

"Look," I said, "I have a friend in the sheriff's department. He's very sympathetic. He'll listen to you."

Not that I could see Caleb allowing me along for the interview, but if this girl was involved, it could clear my dad.

"No! No cops, not yet."

"Then let me come to you, and we'll come up with something to do for you, okay?"

"I'm in a phone booth in Turlock. I gotta get me a lawyer, find some way to put that cheatin' bastard away before he fi-finds me."

I would talk Autumn into turning herself into the police, and get that thanks Caleb owed me. "I can help you, Autumn. Just tell me where you are."

I patted the little digital recorder I kept clipped on my jeans. "I'll record your story, take it to the police. I'll even get you a lawyer."

She sniffled and giggled. The girl was close to hysteria. If only I could get to her before she bolted.

She gave me the name of a pancake house in Turlock and I grabbed the truck keys and raced the clock down the freeway. Even if every other word was a lie, she knew something that could help me break the stalemate on this case. It also meant that I, and not that bonehead Detective Rodney, had the scoop on Patience's killer.

I parked the car and went in the front door.

She sat alone in a booth hunched over a steaming mug of coffee, doing her best to look inconspicuous. Not like it helped. There wasn't a man in the place with a drop of testosterone in his veins who wasn't leering at her.

Autumn O'Sullivan was a looker, all right. A curvy little pigeon, with artfully tangled red hair falling in a curtain around bare shoulders, the décolleté on her sleeveless blue dress deep enough for most of the crowd to watch her bosom jiggle in time to a nervously swinging foot. She also wore very high, white heels, the kind Playboy models wear in centerfolds when they don't wear anything else.

"Hi, Autumn," I said gently. "I'm Lalla Bains."

She jumped, but then smiled, the nerves showing in the tremor of her voice."Oh, thank God," she said, patting pink nails over the deep curve of her breast and somewhere close to her heart. The clear skin and round face was remarkably devoid of tears, and I was beginning to wonder if she had one—heart, that is.

Leaning across the table, she said, "I forgot to describe myself. I was afraid you wouldn't know what I look like."

I had to work at keeping a straight face at the idea that I wouldn't have been able to recognize her in this place. "Garth gave me a brief description."

She gave a little shudder at the mention of his name.

I sat down across from her and pulled out the small recorder. "Do you want to do this here or in my car?" I said kindly, but not giving her the option to back out.

She looked around at the twenty or so drooling men and decided to chance the seating arrangement here. The tip of a pink tongue flicked out to lick the corner of her red lips. A reflexive little gesture entirely wasted on me, but I doubt if she gave it much thought. "This will do, I guess."

I hit the on button. "So, tell me again what your name is, for the record." I'd seen this done on TV and knew I needed to get her to say her name first.

If it was fear that glued her to this spot, her green eyes looked like they would like to jump up and run. She swallowed, bent toward the recorder and in her breathy voice said her name. "And Garth Thorne is my ex-ex-ex-fiancé."

She was doing it again, as if repetition would wipe away the association.

"Why do you think Garth would hurt you?" I asked.

Behind the heavy mascara the green eyes sparkled with unshed tears. "Because I know he kilt his poor old aunty. I wasn't part of that," she added quickly. "I'm not even supposed to be here. I drove all the way from Oklahoma in a busted old Chevy after he kicked me out. I been shadowing him ever since. When I saw you coming out of his motor home, I thought…" She dimpled and flashed her pearly whites. "Well, I thought he had hisself another girlfriend, but you're not his type. So I feel like I can trust you. You'll help me, right?"

I started to say something about Garth and his eclectic tastes in women, but realized she was probably referring to my advanced age. "Fine, fine," I said, "but you said he killed his aunt. Did you see him do it?"

She shook the red curls. "He told me he was coming out to see her. Not that I believed him for a minute. I just didn't know he was going to kill her."

I tried again. "Did you actually see him do this, or did he tell you he killed his aunt?"

Her green eyes went from sex kitten to catty slits. "He don't know I'm here yet, but he's going to find out soon enough."

Autumn's revenge on her former fiancé might not happen if she wasn't a credible witness. I tried another angle. "Was it for the money?"

"Money?" She blinked, then tilted her head, the green in her eyes going sharp with interest. "He never said nothin' about no money."

"Never mind," I said quickly. "The police thought perhaps her murder was a botched burglary."

"Oh. Well, he did it, not some burglar. I saw him," she huffed. "It was getting dark and I'd followed him out to this old farm house, hopin' I'd catch him with the hussy he'd dumped me for. I parked down the road and crept up to the house and looked in the window. I had to dive into the bushes when I heard the door opening. I got the surprise of my life when I seen him carrying this old lady out of the house."

Here was confirmation of Autumn's fingerprints Caleb found on Patience's windowsill. "How did you know it was an old lady? Maybe it was groceries. It was dark wasn't it?"

"Are you kidding? Groceries don't wear Nikes over knee-high support hose."

"Oh, okay."

"So he's carrying this old lady over his shoulder, an' he opens the door to the motor home and dumps her right in. She had to be out cold. Or dead. Then he just drives off."

"Did you follow him?"

"Not me! I knew he was up to his ass in alligators. I waited a bit and then went to look inside the house. I was curious, you know? I was raised in one just like it as a kid. Nothing I ever intend to live in again, I can tell you."

Of course she did. But her story didn't explain how Patience ended up in the driver's seat of my car, six feet under water. "Then what did you do?"

"He's already done kilt her, right? An' I'm thinking, now what could I do? He was up to no good. I knew that, so I left."

"Then what?"

"I thought I'd call the police from the motel, tell them what I saw, but I don't have a cell phone, on account of him turning off my service, the bastard. But how could I just lay there and sleep, knowin' he's a criminal and all? Still, I didn't want the police to trace the call to the motel, so I turned around and went back. "

There were big fat holes in her story, but I did little winding motions with my wrist to show her that she should get on with it.

She nodded. "His motor home was parked in the driveway and the lights were out. I couldn't figure, you know? Had he gone back to clean up his fingerprints? What had he done with her body?" She slapped her hand on the table. "That's when I remembered there was a warrant out on him for back child support. So I got to a pay phone and called the police—least they could do was pick him up on that warrant. Then maybe some smart detective would ask him where his aunt had disappeared to. But nothin' happened! And now he's out, and he's fixin' to kill me for talkin'."

Autumn may not be the brightest bulb in the room, but I was pretty sure I was looking at  double-cross. Gone and come back, my eye. Garth and Autumn were cold-blooded killers. But with Garth in jail, she could safely grab the money he stole from his dead aunt and take off to Hollywood.

I had one more question and then I would call Caleb. "Autumn, do you have a Black Hills gold pendant?"

In a reflexive gesture her hand fluttered to her unadorned breast. "I never took it off, all the time we were together. But he must've taken that too." Tears began to fill her green eyes and her lower lip quivered.

Hoping to avoid a stampede of male patrons coming to her rescue, I quickly handed her a tissue and pleaded with her. "Autumn, sweetie, don't cry. You've got to tell the police what you know. And then they can arrest him. In the meantime we'll find a place to hide you from Garth." I was thinking a nice quiet jail cell would do the trick.

"Hide?" She sniffed and blew her nose. "I got a contract to do hair commercials in L.A. I could be a movie star in less than a year. That is, if I can ever get there. Can't you do it—tell 'em what I said and they can arrest him? Look, I even changed my name for this deal. Sandy sounded too much like a kid. But I'm never going to get that contract if this Garth problem don't go away and soon." She waved the pink-tipped nails at my recorder. "You take that recording to the cops. You said you would help me," she whined. The tears had miraculously dried up.

Damn, my accessory to murder was starting to slip through my fingers. She would crack, I was sure of it, if only I could get her to talk to Caleb.

I reached across the table and squeezed her hand. "I promised to help you, Autumn, and I will. But you have to trust me. If what you say is true, sooner or later the police are going to come looking for you, here or in L.A. You might as well do it here," I said, with a wave of my hand. "Come on, Autumn, let me call my sheriff friend. He'll help you clear your name so you can get on with your life."

She bit around the side of a thumbnail and swung the foot a little faster. "I guess I could do that. Okay, you call him."

I fished around in my bag for my cell phone, but remembered I'd left it plugged into the cigarette lighter. I didn't want her out of my sight, so I said, "Come with me out to my truck, I'll phone him from there."

"I gotta go to the bathroom. I get the squirts when I'm nervous," she said and bolted for the ladies' room.

Figuring she would be safe for at least three minutes, I headed for my car and the phone.

I punched in Caleb's private cell number and he answered in one ring. I breathlessly told him I was holding onto a very nervous Autumn O'Sullivan, who just might be an accessory to Patience's murder. It was with a great deal of satisfaction that I heard his quick intake of breath as he quickly surmised it would be in his best interest to get here, and fast.

I could hardly wait till he got here and then at last, to hear him say my three favorite words—You were right!

The waitress pointed out the ladies' room, and pushing open the door, I called her name.

No answer, no toilets flushing and no white heels lined up under a stall.

Why did I think I could hold her? I hadn't been but a minute. Damn, and double damn. There went my credibility. Nothing like a little humility to bring things into perspective.

I hurried out the back door to where the usual assortment of pickups and SUVs were parked. There was only one sedan in the entire lot, and it wasn't a busted up old Chevy. It was a Ford Tempo, automatic, the upholstery jam free, and it was all white. The door was unlocked, so I got in and read the plastic ID tag dangling from the key ring in the ignition. Here was the last good car "rented by a redhead" at the rental agency in town. Now I could see it: Autumn in a white wig tailing me from the library to the judge's house. She said she was an actress, or at least, going to Hollywood to become one, wasn't she? She also could've been the one who tried to run me off the road.

I punched in Caleb's number from inside Autumn's rental, while sticking my other hand into the glove compartment looking for clues to where she might have disappeared.

"Caleb? Oh, good, you're still there. Um, about Autumn?"

He listened without comment, took the license plate number in case she or someone came back for the car.

"Um, and maybe have someone start calling the local motels and see if she checked into any of them? I'll wait out front for you."

I stood by the curb, feeling foolish that once again I'd let my enthusiasm get ahead of my better sense. This was not the kind of girl to think much beyond her own selfish interests. If she couldn't convince me to see that he was arrested and out of the way while she stole his share of the money, then at the very least she could smear Garth's reputation and keep him out of her way while she would hit the road for Hollywood. That's when I looked across the street and saw a phone booth, and behind it, a motel. She hadn't been gone but a few minutes. She was probably still there, tossing things into a suitcase, thinking about the quickest route to Los Angeles.

She probably figured I'd give up and leave. Then she'd come back and retrieve her car, hit Highway 99, cross over to Interstate 5, and punch the gas pedal for all she was worth.

When Caleb pulled up, I yanked open the passenger door and pointed. "I think she might still be at the motel."

Caleb parked and we jaywalked to the motel office. The day clerk raised his eyebrows at the sheriff's uniform, but confirmed that the "fancy redhead" hadn't left yet. Cautioning us not to break anything, he handed Caleb a key.

We sprinted up the flight of stairs to room 203. The draperies were tightly closed.

Caleb pulled his weapon from the holster and held out a protective arm.

I whispered, "Let me do it. She knows me, she'll let me in."

He nodded, and I knocked. "Autumn? It's Lalla, honey. Can we talk? Open the door, please."

After several more louder knocks, Caleb shook his head and used the key. He opened the door cautiously, motioning for me to keep up the banter. I pushed around him and stopped in my tracks. Nothing about the room was out of place—a double bed, sheets turned back on one side, a woman's lacy red panties and bra left on a chair. But there was the thick smell of sweat overlaid with something else and it coming from the bathroom.

I instantly identified one of the smells from barbed wire gash to my hand. Blood.

Caleb holstered his gun and put a hand on my arm. "Don't go in there, Lalla. Whatever has been done is not going to be pretty."

But I was irresistibly drawn to the bathroom door. At the edge of the white tile were dots red followed by a trail of red leading back to a body. Two small hands, the pink-tipped nails so lively an hour ago, lay folded together in an odd gesture of supplication. I moved closer and let out the breath I was holding. The hands were attached to an even paler, and very dead, Autumn O'Sullivan.

Chapter Nineteen:

Caleb and I retreated to the downstairs parking lot to wait for the team of investigators. It didn't take long. We followed what appeared to be half of Modesto's and Turlock's police departments, and the Stanislaus County Coroner, back to the motel room, where it appeared that they had all tried to crowd into the small bathroom. The smell of blood was soon overlaid with more sweat, stale cigarettes and staler cigars.

I stood close to the door, where I could watch the crime scene investigators. The coroner pulled on his latex gloves and, addressing the young assistant holding a recorder close to his face, noted the date, time and location, and began a cryptic dictation: "Deceased stabbed high in thorax area." Lifting up a hand and bending a middle finger, he said, "Rigor mortis has not set in, so death was probably within the last hour, tops."

He moved over to squat close to Autumn's head, and lifting her hair away, pulled out a rag that had lain hidden under the tangled red curls. "Rag is saturated with"—he brought the gray rag to within an inch of his nose and grimaced—"chloroform? God, haven't seen anybody use this in eons."

His knees cracked when he stood and pulled off his gloves. "Clothing is intact. No immediate signs of sexual molestation. Les, take a shot from this angle. Danny, hand me that jar, will you?" Then he squatted again, and rested the pink-nailed fingers in his palm. "One nail is broken. Les, look around for a fake nail, then bag her hands."

This was all I could take. I couldn't watch any more. I knew they were going to examine under her nails for evidence that she fought for her life.

She had been subdued with chloroform and then stabbed. I told the police everything she said; that because they didn't put Garth in jail he'd found a way to silence her. Now it was too late. He followed her here and murdered her. Then why didn't they turn on their heels and run back to their shiny police cars and go arrest him? What were these people waiting for, a sign from God? Hello—I think we just had one.

Outside, I sat on the concrete steps and watched the flow of traffic moving around me in slow motion. CSI folded up shop, leaving the rest to the coroner's crew, who unfolded their body bag for the collapsible gurney. Caleb was next to me, talking to another police officer, giving yet another version to my story. I pulled on his pant leg and he squatted down next to me.

"What's going on here?" I asked. "Why aren't the police, the sheriff's department, somebody going there to arrest him?"

"Garth? There's a twenty-four-hour watch on his motor home. That little yellow Pinto of his aunt's hasn't moved from the trailer park."

"Oh. But couldn't he have…?"

"Nope. Which leaves us with Eddy. Unless you have another suspect?"

"Oh, no. Not him again, Caleb. Are you sure Garth is there? I mean did the police actually see him in the motor home? Talk to him personally?"

"They could see him moving around inside. Somebody's talking to him now."

"I thought she was close to breaking, that's why I pushed so hard to get her to talk to you. If I had called you in the first place, if you had picked her up, she'd be alive right now and maybe confessing her involvement with Garth."

"Don't beat yourself up about it, sweetheart. She said no police. You did what you thought was right. Too bad she'll never be able to testify."

"I still have her recording."

"What recording?"

I patted the little gizmo on my belt. "That was our agreement. No cops, but I could record our conversation."

"Oh yeah? Is it something you can play back in the car?" He was considering the proximity of a certain police detective.

"It's digital," I whispered. "It'll play anywhere, but your car will be out of earshot."

He turned me away from the dark gray body bag being hoisted onto the gurney, and we hustled down the stairs for his car.

I pulled the small voice recorder off my belt. Over pots and pans banging in the background, a dead girl's voice came out of the recorder. I shivered and gritted my teeth but listened in silence.

When it was finished, I sat back. "You said you got a print at Patience's house, and though she didn't know you found it caught in the car door, she admitted that the pendant was hers. It's obvious she was trying to double-cross Garth."

"Play that one part back. Yeah, where she talks about hiding in the bushes."

I had to dive back into some bushes when I heard the door opening, and got the surprise of my life when I seen him carrying this old lady out of the house.

"Bushes. Lalla, that's the one place I didn't look. Let's get going."

"But you aren't taking me home, are you? Come on, Caleb, not after I gave you the recording?"

"Okay, okay. You can come with me. I guess you've earned it. Besides, I'll need your help to look in the bushes."

"Arm-wrestling thorny bushes. Sounds great," I said, buckling up for the ride. "Glad to see you've finally come to your senses."

He grabbed me by the arm and, shaking me for emphasis, said, "My senses have been trained to expect the worst in people. You, on the other hand, jump blindly into dangerous situations with the worst sort of characters. Your body could be lying with Autumn's back there. Did you think about that?" His voice was rising with each tug of my arm. "You scare me, Lalla. I honestly don't know what to do with you. Tie you up? Put you under protective custody till this is all over? Tell me, what am I going to have to do to keep you safe?"

I jerked away from him to hug the door. "You're overreacting, Caleb. If this is the way you're going to behave, I'm going home." I unbuckled my belt, but I was bluffing. I wanted justice for Autumn as much as he wanted to nail Garth.

His jaw momentarily ground against the futility of this argument, but then I got a bigger surprise when he unbuckled his seat belt and reached over to pull me against his chest.

"Okay, it's okay," he said, rubbing my back and kissing my ear. He'd seen beyond the bluff and bluster, because in the moment it took for him to envelop me in his warm embrace, I was shaking and sobbing. I let out a shuddering breath and put my head in the hollow of his warm neck and let the tears I had been holding inside run all over his nice clean uniform.

He murmured against my ear, "I was so scared, so scared. I couldn't bear to lose you, Lalla. Not when I've just found you again."

I pulled back, sniffing, and finding a tissue, honked a couple of times. Then I peered into the depths of his eyes. "What do you mean, just found me again? I haven't gone anywhere."

Still holding onto me, he ran a thumbnail lightly over my chin. "The first time I realized what you meant to me, you were gone to New York. Then, when you came back, I thought we could take our time, get to know each other again. But before I could say 'Hello, Lalla,' you married Ricky."

"You were already married to Marcy," I added, hiccupping.

"If it hadn't been for the boys, I would've, and probably should've divorced her a long time ago."

I said, "I'm not going anyplace, Caleb. And if you want, we can spend the time to explore more with each other. But you have to promise me something first."

"I'll consider anything about now."

"Don't shut me out of this investigation. Wait a minute," I said, tightening my hold on him as he started to let go. "You said so yourself, I could be in danger. I promise to tell you everything I find out if you'll keep me in the loop."

He eased out of my grasp and looked down his nose at me. "Why?"

Now, Lalla, tell him now you're worried sick that all of this is going to snake back around to your father. Tell him! But I didn't—I couldn't, not yet. Not until I, or someone, found Patience's murderer and cleared my family.

"Perhaps because my reputation is already ruined? Or because neither Patience nor Autumn deserved to die?"

"Not because you want to see Garth Thorne proven innocent?"

"Hell no!" I said, planting a smacking kiss on his mouth. "Are we square now? Can we go?"

He smiled and touched my cheek. Then he said, "What's black and white and read all over?"

"Caleb Stone, this is no time for riddles!"

He laughed and started the car. "I'm sorry. It just popped into my head, Lalla. And when you played that recording, I remembered. If it's still there."

"What—where are we going?" I said, buckling up before he thought to remind me.

"To Patience's house," he said, as we swept north onto the freeway.

I knew better than to ask any more questions, but I was pleased when he sneaked a glance at me every once in a while, the corner of his mouth tilted up with what could only be described as happy thoughts.

I was pretty happy too. Was he the Ying to my Yang, and I'd just never let myself go that far to consider it? That he was jealous of Garth was evident. For that matter, could I also describe the queasy feeling I got when I saw Darlene lusting after Caleb? Oh yeah, I am well-experienced with that virus and should have been able to diagnose it sooner, except that I'd been too dumb to see it for what it was—jealousy.

We would need to work out the parameters, make sure we didn't completely destroy our friendship, in case this romance thing didn't pan out. He pulled into Patience's driveway and explained. "We were searching the yard for footprints, and the paper guy drove by and tossed the damn thing at us. It landed at my feet and I picked it up, thinking she wasn't going to need it anymore."

"So why is Sunday's newspaper important?"

"Not Sunday's, Friday's, and if we can find it, I'll tell you why."

The bushes in question were a spiny, densely packed growth of green leaves in a riot of colorful red and pink flowers. Requiring little water in the summer valley heat, their blossoms attracted aphids and dust. In the stifling heat, I stumbled through the dense growth, kicking up dust that mixed with the sweat and pasted my face a muddy brown. I could barely move without raking my face with another aphid-infested branch, so using my hands to push through the bushes, I toed at the dirt around the roots with my foot. I felt like one of my resident quail, raising more dust than reward—and to think, an hour ago anything besides watching a body of a young woman being loaded onto a gurney sounded like a good idea. Then something solid shifted under my shoe. It was a dusty, faded, still tightly wrapped and rubber-banded newspaper.

I held up the paper and edged out of the thorny bushes. "Now tell me what it means," I said, handing it to him.

He shook the paper and rolled off the rubber band. The chewed end of a stubby cigar fell at his feet. He leaned over and picked it up. Holding it by two fingers, he said, "We picked up all the papers from last week until someone finally called the paper and told them not to deliver any more. Know anyone who smokes cigars?"

My dad and a couple of his fishing buddies did, but perhaps out of habit, or in the hope that I could still keep my dad clear of this investigation, I decided to leave it. "Garth smokes cigarettes, or at least he did the first time I met him. I haven't seen him smoke since then. One of the detectives? The coroner? They all smelled like either cigarette or cigar smoke."

"No one on the case would be so careless around a crime scene."

"It could have been the paper guy. It's the country, so who's to care if he throws his butts out the window, and what's so special about this one anyway?"

"This newspaper is what wasn't here last Saturday, because Garth ran over it with his motor home. His tire tracks are on the paper. See? He picked it up, threw it into the bushes either going in or out of his aunt's house—Friday, not Sunday morning like he told us."

"So the timing is right to put him here on Friday, and with Autumn's recording, you're going to arrest him?"

He put his arm around me and led me back to the car. Opening the door, he said, "Sit inside and I'll turn on the AC."

I did as I was told and waited till he turned the AC up to max. He reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a folded hanky.

"You've got dirt on your face." He tilted up my chin, licked a corner of the hanky and gently wiped at the grime. "We were talking about it, Detective Rodney and I, when you interrupted, and since Autumn was murdered, we might be able to use that recording in court. The problem is Garth has an alibi. I think we got him for killing his aunt, and it's likely Autumn was in on it, but the only one left with cause to get Autumn is Eddy McBride."

"Not Eddy again! Didn't we already agree Eddy was innocent?

"I don't think he killed his wife."

"So what would be his motive for killing Autumn?"

"Eddy was following the money, remember? It led to Autumn."

"But Autumn was jilting Garth. She was going to take it all and run." I groaned. "How could Eddy possibly know about all that? Not Eddy. He couldn't have done it."

He shrugged. "I guess we'll find out when we pick him up."

Defeated, I asked, "Do you really think he'll show up at the funeral?"

"If he does, we'll get him."

"If you're sure that he'll be there, you'd better look for him in hat and heels."

The ride back to the pancake house was entirely too quiet. Before I got out, I said, "I told you I'd tell you everything, and then when I do, you give me the silent treatment. If that's your way of saying thank you, Caleb Stone, it's a pretty miserable start."

I exited his car and flounced back to mine.

Across the road, yellow crime scene tape fluttered at the second-story balcony—mute testimony that someone was a liar.

Chapter Twenty:

I walked into the kitchen at the ranch and told my dad that Garth's girlfriend had been murdered.

He shook his head sadly and offered to hire me a lawyer.

"I'm not a suspect this time, Noah, and I'm too tired to eat. I think I'll just go on up to bed."

But I didn't sleep much. And when I did, my dreams were weirder than Eddie showing up in women's clothes. I woke up at the sound of my alarm. It was three a.m. I stumbled into clothes, gulped down a cup of coffee and shoved myself out the door for along day of work.

Crop dusters start working at the first hint of sun tracing the eastern Sierras. Unable to see over the nose of the big Ag-Cats, pilots gauge the distance before lift-off by aiming the aircraft down the middle of the runway, and with that innate timing of a trapeze artist, adjust throttle, stick and rudder, and wheels up, they're released, and free of terra firma.

Over the roar of the last departing aircraft, I slumped back into the office, depressed. Was it because I wasn't part of them anymore? My license was current and my leg was better. So why wasn't I "back in the saddle," as my dad liked to call it? Probably because I still carried around the sense of looming helplessness as I plowed through a field of tomatoes. I wasn't ready to chance it again. Besides, there hadn't been any time, what with people dropping dead every few days.

When I returned to the house and my late breakfast, Noah was already at the table, fork poised over his plate, the morning newspaper in his other hand. He tapped the photo on the front page. "You're in the funny papers again, missy. So what do you know about this young woman killed yesterday? She from around here?"

I looked over his shoulder at what was obviously a driver's photo from Autumn's driver's license, the long curls, wide-set and innocent round eyes. "I'm sorry to say, yesterday was our one and only meeting."

"Huh. Alexandra Graham, also known as Autumn O'Sullivan. She puts me in mind of someone. Seems to me I ought to know her," he said, laying down the paper again to pick up his fork.

"Rings a bell does it? How about Alexander Graham Bell?"

He looked up and blinked. "Oh. I guess that's it. Caleb said it could've been you as well as this poor girl in the photo. Why can't you leave it to the police, Lalla?"

"I know it's hard to believe, but I was minding my own business when she called asking for help. She said she had vidence that Garth killed his aunt, and I thought if I could ensure her safety, she would let me call Caleb."

But Noah wasn't interested in murder suspects. "Well, if I'm not going to see grandchildren in my lifetime, I think the least you could do is outlive me."

"Is that why you're selling off your property in bits and pieces, because there are no grandchildren?" His look said I'd struck pay dirt. "And here I thought you were selling off your land because you didn't want to deal with the paperwork. How can I run a crop-dusting business if we're getting pushed out by developers?"

"You don't get it, do you, Lalla? I don't need someone to run the office, I can do that myself if I have to. But I couldn't pass the physical if I wanted to, and if you won't, this year's profits may not be enough to keep us afloat for the next season."

"You mean we'll go under unless I'm flying again? Fine, fine. I'll get the cast off Monday and put myself back into rotation. Will that be enough to keep you from selling off the rest of the farm?"

He shook out the newspaper and turned to the sports page. "I'm thinking about taking a cruise this fall, and I don't intend to have to worry about either the farm or a crop-dusting business."

I looked at the wall of newsprint separating us. "A cruise? What brought this on? Or was this Caleb's idea?"

The paper rustled angrily as he turned a page. "I don't need Caleb or anybody telling me when I need a vacation," he said. "I can do that all by myself, thank you. Besides, Caleb's idea of a vacation would be you tied to a bedpost."

I was thinking of yesterday's fiasco, not really paying attention. "I know."

He mumbled something else I didn't quite hear.

"What did you say?"

"I said, 'If Caleb had his way, the bedpost would be his.'"

"His bedpost—why, Noah Bains!" I gasped. In all my adult life, I'd never heard so much as an off-color joke out of my dad. And now, salacious comment about me and Caleb.

"What?" he grunted, putting down the paper. "You didn't know that boy has designs on you? I thought by now he'd have told you his intentions."

"Well, yes, but not exactly in those terms, at least not yet." We hadn't had the time to have that exact sort of conversation before. Of course, after yesterday's argument, maybe he no longer wanted me .

He snorted. "He better hurry up, before you run off and marry some other fool."

I grinned. "I think I can manage to stay single until then. You like him, don't you?"

He moved the paper up between us. "You could do worse, and have. He's here all the time anyway." Then he put it down and scratched at the back of his neck. "Okay, that's not fair, and it's not what I really meant to say. I like him, he's a good man, Lalla, and I think he'd be good for you, though I don't know what you'd do for him, other than drive him crazy."

I smiled at the off-center recommendation on Caleb's behalf. Then I noticed the front page photo of Autumn staring at me, telling me to find her killer.

"I have some stuff to do."

"What stuff?" he asked, his face now behind the paper.

"Work stuff." I wasn't about to tell him I was determined to see if I could either prove or disprove Garth Thorne murdered his girlfriend. Eddy was innocent, he had to be. Or I might yet have to hire a lawyer for this family.

Garth's ex-wife, Cathy Thorne-Levorwosky was his alibi and his reason for a trip to California, or so Garth said. It took three tries before I located her phone number. When she cautiously acknowledged that I'd reached the right person, I asked to see her in person.  "I'm part of the investigating team" I said, and holding the phone to my ear, fished around into my purse to make sure I still had my fake police badge

"Make it snappy," she said. "I start work at noon, and I have to get my kid to summer school."

Stepping into Cathy Thorne-Levorwosky's neighborhood felt like crossing the Prozac county line. I could almost hear the faint sound of quiet desperation as anxious mothers dealt with kids who must be schlepped everywhere and dads who commuted round-trip to work in the bay area. Her one-story ranch had newly installed landscaping. Outside a three-car garage was a Chevy truck with a Louie's Electric decal on the side. Next to it was an old Mercedes 450SL coupe with a ragtop held together with duct tape.

I walked up the brick steps past a well-manicured yard with bright green plants and flowers strategically placed amongst newly spread redwood chips, and a real estate sign leaning against the side of the garage.

A barefoot and sturdy tyke in a scruffy jam-dyed T-shirt and shorts answered the door.

I looked down at the boy and said, "Hello. Your mom is expecting me."

"Mom!" he bellowed in a husky voice. "Someone's at the door for you!"

A minute passed while we stood eyeing each other like two stray alley cats, until the slap of sandals on the entry tile signaled the approach of an adult. The kid eyed me one last time, then eased back toward the cacophony of morning cartoons.

Caleb's description of Garth's ex-wife was right on, she looked like a predatory bird. She even held her head to one side like a quizzical bird.

"What? Jehovah's Witness? Soccer pool? Hurry up, I'm busy," she said, irritation showing on her narrow face.

"I called this morning? About the investigation?" I said, holding up my fake badge for an instant.

She looked me up and down, at the neatly pressed slacks and conservative white shirt, and through lips thin as knives, said, "Oh. Yeah. Okay, come in."

She opened the door wide enough for me to slip inside without letting too much of the interior cold out. "The living room's that way," she said, pointing a long, red-lacquered fingernail at a distant beacon of light. "I'm going to get my husband."

Before she turned away I noticed the telltale lines around her mouth saying she was a smoker and had been for some time, but not in this house. This house smelled like fresh paint.

"Leave your shoes by the front door," she said, and left.

I did as she instructed and inched along the dark hall till I stumbled into a room flooded with morning light. The room reeked of new paint and I was standing on a traffic lane of plastic. From a mirrored wall, a tall blond woman in pants and white shirt gawked back at me. I could hear my dad say, "A closed mouth gathers no feet," and snapped my mouth shut. I chose a fat leather sofa, the newness of it squeaking under me as I sat down.

She was back in a minute towing Godzilla.

"This is my husband, Dan," she said, meaning the oversized man filling the doorway. "Our last name is Levorwosky, in case you need to write it down," she said, eyeballing the purse sitting next to me in case I wanted to start acting like an investigator and take some notes. "You said your name's Lila?"

She twitched a finger at her husband and he obediently sat. She took the other chair and waited.

"You—you have a lovely home," I said, stumbling in my attempt to find an opener. "I saw the sign outside. Are you selling? Or did you just move in?"

The two of them exchanged meaningful glances. Then Cathy squinted doubtfully at me. "The cops've already been here. You doing some kind of follow up? I mean, like since Garth's latest whore got whacked?"

The shock of hearing Autumn's death mentioned almost brought tears to my eyes. "Uh, yes, You knew about that?"

"Well, duh. It was in the papers."

I reddened at the hostility, but I was determined not to let her rattle me. I crossed a leg and continued. "I don't believe her relationship to Garth was mentioned."

"He told about her. Autumn, right?"

She looked to her husband to back her up, but Godzilla just shrugged. "Mind you, I never met the bitch, but they're all the same, Garth's girlfriends; young, stupid, and their bra size bigger than their pea-brains. So are the cops going to arrest him for her murder?"

Using a line from Caleb, I said, "I'm not at liberty to say. I'm sure he's being questioned. I wanted to ask you about something else: Apparently someone turned him in on an outstanding warrant for child support."

I knew the answer to that question, but I had to look like I was hoping she'd make a slip and tell me something different.

"Don't look at me. Knowing that alley cat, he's probably spawned half a dozen bastards and they're all trying to collect." She narrowed her eyes at me and then sniffed. "So what are you here for? If he's looking for an alibi, I sure ain't it."

I said, "You told the detectives that he hasn't been here to see his daughter, is that right?"

She gave me a hard-eyed squint. "Garth called Friday, said he was pulling into Reno and wanted to see his daughter. Reminded me he had a right to see her now that he was paying child support. No notice, nothing. I could have refused, but what would have been the point, you know? The bastard hasn't seen her in years."

"Did he come see her then?"

A thin eyebrow lifted. "The lazy bastard didn't roll into town until Sunday." Her husband was either a saint or a knucklehead to put up with this bird. "But now I don't think I'll let him see her." The bitterness glittered in her eyes, and her voice picked up an edge as words spit out of her mouth like BBs. "We both work all the time so we can raise these two kids. The boy's Dan's and mine. But do you think Garth would lift a finger to help his daughter? She's had dental work, school clothes and skating lessons, but he's never contributed a dime 'cept his court-approved child support. Eighteen hundred a month doesn't go very far these days, you know."

"Then he's been paying his support check on time?" I asked, wondering what it'd be like to have eighteen hundred a month tax free.

"For the last six months, but he still owes me a bundle. He ran my dad's shop into the ground, you know, and I had to go through bankruptcy just to keep this house."

Dan's ham-sized hand patted her shoulder in time to her diatribe.

"I'm sorry," I said, looking down at the spiral notebook. "Did he promise to pay you all of the back child support?"

"Sure he did. All seventy-five grand."

That confirmed what Caleb said. "And did he pay it?" I asked.

"You're kidding right? I've never been able to depend on him."

"No direct deposits?"

"Not a penny. The bank called and said your people already checked. So why're you asking again?"

The front door slammed shut and a girl's voice called from the hallway. "Mama?"

Cathy and Dan exchanged looks. Something was going on with these two.

I said, "Well, that's all I have," and snapping my notebook shut, I stood up. "You've been very cooperative and I appreciate being able to take your valuable time."

They were passing each other more silent messages, but Cathy Thorne-Levorwosky ducked past me to make sure she got to the front of the line as we paraded down the narrow hallway for the front door.

She nodded at the sound of her child's footsteps coming down the hall. "Don't think about trying to talk to my kid on your way out. She's a minor, and you don't have my permission."

At the front door, she pulled the girl behind her and opened the door to give me a little shove outside. "You want to do something useful, why don't you squeeze him for the back child support he owes me?"

I had to work at keeping a neutral expression. Otherwise, I was sure this bird would see my suspicions, drag me back into her lair and pick my bones clean.

As the door closed behind me, I had the very clear impression that the girl knew exactly when her dad had come to town and it didn't match her mom's version. The question was, what did Garth have to offer that would convince the mother to say otherwise? Some of that seventy-five grand sounded about right.

In the car, I called the realtor listed on the discarded sign at Cathy's house.

"Oh, sorry," she chirped. "That property has been put on hold right now."

"You mean it's under contract?"

"Not exactly. They are holding off selling. But we've got other hot listings in that neighborhood. Shall we make an appointment to see a few tomorrow? Or would you rather see something today?"

I told the pushy realtor "no thanks" and hung up. So she was about to sell her house but something or someone had changed her mind. She wasn't worried about her bank account showing a recent deposit. Not if Garth could offer cash for her silence.

I couldn't wait to tell Caleb. My news sat like a newly discovered coin in my pocket waiting to be spent. When he came on the line, I asked him what I thought was a simple question. "Has anyone thought to talk to Garth's daughter?"

He sounded miffed. "Let me guess. That was you at her house just now? No, don't deny it. Detective Rodney got a call asking if we had sent a woman police officer."

"I didn't tell her I was with the police. I said I was following up on the investigation."

There was silence for a minute, as his father's antique chair protested its age. "All right. The answer is no, we haven't talked to the daughter. Why do you want to know?"

"First of all, Garth never said he was here to pay back child support, those were his ex's words."

"What's your point?"

"I think he's bribed her with the promise of cash if she plays ball. She's his alibi that he didn't make it on Friday as promised. Engine trouble or something, and he didn't arrive in town until Sunday morning. Oh, and I almost forgot, their house was for sale, but now it's off the market."

"So?"

Caleb's succinct style was beginning to rub me the wrong way. I said, "No explanation, she just took it off the market. I think Garth promised her a split of his aunt's money in exchange for an alibi. She gets what he owes in one lump sum, but only if what she says confirms that he came into town Sunday and not Friday."

"That would keep her quiet? Somehow I thought she'd rather see him fry."

"She's greedy, not stupid. I think the daughter will talk. She had been conveniently out of the house when I got there, but when she came home Mommy suddenly got very nervous and told me she wouldn't give her permission for the girl to talk to me." I gave him some meaningful dead air time.

He did that hmming thing for a minute more, then said, "Where will you be? I'll want to talk to you later."

"When?"

"Meet me at Roxanne's by five. Be there. We'll talk."

Then he hung up. Once again I got no thanks and no respect for my efforts.

I decided to call Garth. Okay, so it was a knee-jerk reaction to getting left with a dial tone instead of the "atta girl" I was expecting.

Garth was apparently rushing for an appointment to finish up the arrangements on his aunt's funeral but agreed to meet me at his RV park by six. We had a lot to talk about and we could do it over dinner, he said. The thought of eating another meal with Garth gave me the willies. I said yes but with every intention of canceling after my meeting with Caleb at five.

Frustrated that I wouldn't be able to immediately quiz Garth, I came up with a brilliant alternative. I'd search his motor home. Being a private citizen, I didn't require a search warrant, and I didn't have to worry about ducking past a cop either, since the police were tailing him, not his motor home.

I got into the rental car and fished around the bottom of my purse for my cell phone. GTE kindly did a direct dial for the Modesto Mortuary.

I asked the woman who answered if Mr. Thorne had arrived for his appointment regarding his aunt's funeral. She was unsure. "Can you hold a moment please? Mr. Jones, our director, is in conference with a client."

I could hold and drive. If he wasn't there, I would dive into Roxanne's and eat an early lunch before proceeding with my skullduggery.

"Sorry for keeping you so long, dearie, but the director Garth was apparently rushing for an appointment to finish up the arrangements on his aunt's funeral but agreed to meet me at his RV park by six. We had a lot to talk about and we could do it over dinner, he said. The thought of eating another meal with Garth gave me the willies. I said yes but with every intention of canceling after my meeting with Caleb at five.

Frustrated that I wouldn't be able to immediately quiz Garth, I came up with a brilliant alternative. I'd search his motor home. Being a private citizen, I didn't require a search warrant, and I didn't have to worry about ducking past a cop either, since the police were tailing him, not his motor home.

I got into the rental car and fished around the bottom of my purse for my cell phone. GTE kindly did a direct dial for the Modesto Mortuary.

I asked the woman who answered if Mr. Thorne had arrived for his appointment regarding his aunt's funeral. She was unsure. "Can you hold a moment please? Mr. Jones, our director, is in conference with a client."

I could hold and drive. If he wasn't there, I would dive into Roxanne's and eat an early lunch before proceeding with my skullduggery.

"Sorry for keeping you so long, dearie, but Mr. Swartz has a very distraught mother to contend with, such a pity, a sixteen-year-old son who insisted on having a motorcycle, and now he's gone. It just breaks your heart."

I hate funerals, hate funeral homes and everything and everybody who goes with them. I was still looking for a way to avoid attending Patience's funeral but so far without any luck.

"Could I ask you to look and tell me if Mr. Thorne is perhaps in your waiting room?"

"Oh, my. Is this an emergency, dearie?"

"Well, you might say that, if you can find him." If he answered, I intended to hang up.

She was back in a flash. "No, there's nobody waiting." I could hear pages from a date book flipping. "Let's see now, nine, uh, that was the mother, poor thing. We like to leave plenty of time between appointments so as not to rush the bereaved. Ten-thirty, yes, here it is. That's Mr. Thorne's appointment time, but I think we're running a bit late so it's a good thing he's not here yet. Would you like me to have him give you a call when he arrives?"

Garth was telling the truth, at least this time. "No, he's probably still at home, I'll give him a call there." And hung up before she could ask my name.

If I had been her, I would have had the caller's name and phone number before drawing a second breath, but then some folks are just naturally nosier. Then again, the receptionist might have been a mother with a motorcycle-driving teenager.

I had time for that early lunch after all and, remembering to put on my turn signal, looked over my shoulder before changing lanes and took the exit to Roxanne's. My exit was uneventful: no horns honked, no tires squealed as irate drivers were forced to brake at my passing. Not one middle finger salute accompanied my exiting the freeway. Gee, maybe I should drive like this more often.

I ordered a BLT, no mayo, with an iced tea, and watched the ebb and flow of hungry patrons. Roxanne was gone, running errands. Leon was at his construction job, no doubt sawing someone's house in two. Maya was out of school for the day, bussing tables. She sidled over to my perch at the counter and grinned at me. Her grin made me smile and forget all my problems, if only for the moment.

She removed my empty plate and swished at the counter with a damp rag. "Have they caught that lady-killer yet? I guess he got somebody else besides poor Mrs. McBride," she said, nodding toward the empty stool at the end of the counter.

"The police are looking into it," I said, wiping the crumbs off my mouth.

"And what are you doing to catch him?"

"Me? What makes you think I'm doing anything?"

She giggled, leaned over the counter and whispered, "Mom says you do whatever you set your mind to, and probably should be wearing a straightjacket for all the wild stunts you've pulled." Then she winked. "I want lessons."

"Very funny, and I can honestly say there are plenty of others who would agree with her." Of course, I was thinking of one person in particular. "Caleb is doing his best to find the person or persons as best as he knows how, and he would shit a brick if he knew I was snooping on my own."

"I bet that doesn't stop you." She grinned. "So, where are you doing this snooping?"

I froze. "Uh, wait a minute. I didn't say I was doing anything illegal."

"'Course not. Can I come?"

I shook my head. "No, It's too dangerous. Besides, what would your mother say?" I added, looking around, hoping Maya's mother wasn’t anywhere around.

"She's not here," Maya said, shivering with delighted anticipation. "And I promise not to say a word. This is gonna be good!" she said, throwing off her apron and skipping out from behind the counter. At six-foot even and skinny as a pole, she still managed to yank me off my perch. "You need a posse and I got a free hour. Come on, let's get going."

I dug in my heels, stalling while I tried to dissuade her from joining this posse. My clearcut answers were getting nowhere. Exasperated, I tried one last time. "You're going to piss off your mama, leaving your job like this."

"Don't let Mama hear you say pissed." She dimpled, totally untroubled at the thought of her mama's wrath. "You can say shit, Daddy does every time he drops a dish. But he mumbles so Mama pretends she doesn't hear him. Besides, Mama says if I'm going to live in New York, I got to start thinking for myself."

"I doubt this is what your mama had in mind," I said as she gave me a push toward the front door. "Roxanne will skin me alive."

I said no one more time, but she was out the door and in the passenger side before I could get into the truck and buckle up.

Getting rid of Maya was going to be harder than I thought. "No, you can't go and that's final!" I tried shooing, then nudging at her, but she wouldn't budge.

"But, Aunt Lalla, I can help," she said, long arms and legs clinging to the upholstery.

"Listen, kid, if you want to get to New York alive, you'd better get out of this car now." Kid, my ass, she was an octopus; and for every limb I pushed out another one climbed back in with yet another reason why she should be allowed to help me with my investigation.

Chapter Twenty-one:

Maya, now secure in her position as shotgun, clipped on her seat belt. "There's a rumor going around that Patience was hiding stolen money," she said, her eyes sparkling in excitement. "Is that true? And the girl found murdered yesterday? The papers said she was from Oklahoma. Garth's from Oklahoma, isn't he? Was she Garth's girlfriend?"

I unbuckled my seat belt and got out. I walked around to the passenger side, opened her door and answered her quizzical look. "You drive," I said, hoping she'd be too busy driving to batter me with questions. But if teenagers were multitasking athletes, Maya would have a gold medal by now.

"And no texting to your friends while you're driving."

"I never text when I'm driving. Oh, boy, this is so exciting," she gushed. "North? South? Freeway or frontage road?" She took her eyes off the road to look me over. "Mama says Garth likes you. I don't suppose you would like him though, not if he has a girlfriend. Oh, she's dead. So that wouldn't be a problem. Do you suppose—"

When I groaned, she got the hint. "Okay, I'm cool. Where we going, anyway?"

"Take the downtown exit at 9th Street."

"What's—"

"I have a hunch I want to follow up on," I said. What I didn't say was that so far handing out freebies to Caleb had garnered not one single "Thank you." I was going to think like Caleb, look to uncover that last clue that would help me find who killed Patience and Autumn.

She turned into the car rental lot and agreed to wait in the truck. Inside, the customer service zombie from my last visit was leaning on the counter, watching dust collect on the window. I waved a hand in front of him to get some attention. He woke up and gave me a noncommittal nod. "Oh. Didn't see you there. Can I help you?"

I pulled out my fake badge and held it up. It worked. He grabbed at the counter.

I reached out to steady him, but he flinched away from my touch as if I might burn him.

He was whimpering about his buddies and how it was their weed, not his, and he couldn't lose this job because his folks said it was his last chance.

I put the badge into my pocket. "Stop. I'm not from Juvy; I could care less about you or your weed-smoking buddies. I'm investigating a murder."

I knew better than to say I was from the police department. Later, when he was sober, he might recall this conversation. "You may have read about it in the papers? The lady in the car that they found in the lake?" I hated to give credence to the sensationalist style of news reporting, but if it penetrated his foggy thinking, I was all for it. He gave me a blank stare. Nobody under thirty read the papers anymore; they texted. "Okay, how about this?" I tried. "I came in Monday and rented a car. It was the last one on the lot."

The glazed eyes begged me to disappear. Since that wasn't going to happen, I tried again. "I'd like to see the customer list for this date," and wrote it down on a piece of paper.

His eyes rolled around in their sockets, looking for an escape. "Yeah. Like, I can do that." Goody, I could almost hear the synapses firing up, in gear again. I only had to hold up the note with the date on it in front of him one more time before he stepped over to the computer and punched it in.

"Okay, so let me just print this out, and you can have it," he said.

I picked up the computerized list and, starting with my name, worked backwards. There were only three for that day: mine and two others. I tapped on the paper and showed him the company name, then took out a copy of the newspaper photo of Autumn and held it up. "Is this the woman who signed on this?"

"Oh, yeah. That's her. She paid with a credit card. It wasn't stolen, was it? Did she wreck the car? I wouldn't want to get into trouble for that."

"No," I said, looking at the name on the credit card. It was a truck repair shop in Oklahoma. If the card Autumn used was stolen, Garth would've reported it by now. Another reason to believe Garth had lied.

"I can get you a copy of it," he said, suddenly helpful. "I gave her the last good automatic we had."

"I'll take that copy," I said. "Sounds to me like you've got parents who care about you. Get some new friends, get a hobby, 'cause jail isn't where you want to spend your summer vacation."

Out in the car, Maya was squirming with excitement. "Well?"

"It would have been a snap if I were talking to more brain and less drugs. Don't let me ever catch you doing that shit!"

She giggled. "Are you kidding? My parents, my brother, heck, all my aunts and uncles would kill me if I did 'that shit.' So what did you find?"

"While waiting for the garage to fix the Caddy, I got a rental here. When I complained about the quality of the vehicle, the customer service kid said he rented the last good one to a redhead."

Maya made an appreciative sound. "That was her? Alexandra Graham, right? She was the redhead? So what's it mean?"

"The credit card she used is from a truck stop called Four Corners in Enid, Oklahoma. It's Garth's. She used his credit card to rent a car. At the very least, it means he knew she was here. Her prints were on the windowsill outside his aunt's house, and her little gold pendant was found crushed in the door of my Caddy. She was there with him when he dumped his aunt into the lake. I think she planned to double-cross him and take off with the money Patience has been hiding for the last twenty years."

She shivered. "So Garth killed her?"

"I'm thinking he did, and I think I know where we can find that money."

Maya sat in the RV parking lot with instructions to call me on her cell should Garth come back. Under no circumstances was she to get out of the car or do anything else. Wide-eyed, she nodded. When I opened the car door, she suddenly grabbed my hand. "If he's a suspect, won't the cops be watching his place?"

"Good thinking. Except that yesterday I helped Caleb crack this case, so they're too busy following him around to make sure he doesn't leave town to watch his RV." I didn't add that Caleb hadn't been particularly grateful.

I got out and went into the office. The manager, a petite, elderly woman, smiled and helpfully walked me outside so she could point out the motor home. All the while eyeing the car, Maya and me. Great. She'd no doubt tell Garth about his visitors the minute he stuck his head in her office. Hopefully, it would be too late.

I hustled along the narrow paved road to his motor home.

The little key I'd pilfered that first night from his chair cushion fit perfectly. Inside, I tried to think where he might've been able to escape without being seen. All the windows and the door could be easily watched by one bored patrolman. But could he have gotten out by another exit?

I went directly to the rear of the bus, opening closets, checking windows. The bathroom and all the towels were neat and tidy, and the mini window above the shower was too small for anything but steam. The bed was made up with a spread matching the window curtains over mini-blinds. The windows might allow someone smaller than Garth to slip out of, but I imagined he would have figured out something better. I opened the mirrored closet door and looked inside. Then closing the closet door, I saw the neatly made up bed in the mirrored doors, and turning around to face the bed, I wondered, what kind of a frame does a motor home bed sit on? Getting down on my hands and knees, I pulled back the spread. The mattress sat on a platform, the carpet bending up to cover the sides. I tapped on the short walls. Hollow. I scooted along, pulling at the top edge of the carpet until a large square piece came away in my hands. The carpet was backed with plywood that matched the rest of the platform. The opening was big enough for someone of Garth's size to crawl into, if he were so inclined. But what was below?

I heard the outside door open. Someone was coming into the rig? Why didn't Maya page me? Had she missed seeing Garth driving in? Or did he sneak in from another direction?

I slid through the opening, down into the dark hole, and feeling my feet touch bottom, I pushed the panel back into place.

As I listened to the movement above me, another stab of fear suddenly prickled at the back of my neck. Did I remember to pull the bedspread down over the panel before I disappeared?

I held my breath as footsteps moved across the floor. It was the light-footed scurry of a mouse gathering crumbs, tiptoeing into the bathroom and then back to the bedroom. It couldn't be Garth. He had a heavier footfall and he was in his own home. No, there was nothing about this person that said Garth.

Eddy? It had to be him, that little rat. What was he doing here? Probably the same thing I was doing—looking for the lost loot. What was this, open house for cat burglars? If I could be sure it was Eddy, I would bust out of my hiding place, grab him and shake him by the shirt until his teeth rattled.

Then again, it might be someone else. I was breathing nervously through my teeth. I sounded like a deflating tire. Could I get out of here without him seeing me? If this was Garth's escape route, there had to be a way out—one that would fool the cops.

I tried to forget I was crouched in a space not meant for human habitation and pried a key ring from my jeans pocket. I found the attached penlight and flashed it around. I was in a storage compartment. An old TV antenna was shoved onto a shelf with a plastic cleaning bucket, brushes and a rolled-up hammock. Behind the hammock, the light glinted off something shiny.

I flashed the beam at it again. It looked like a small suitcase. I edged myself sideways to get a better look. With faded brown and beige cloth stripes, rotting leather carrying handle, and metal corners turning to rust, it was an ugly stepsister to the handsome luggage piled next to it. This was it. Eddy hadn't bothered transferring Hollander's drug money to another container, and neither had Garth. It was here, still in the little suitcase just like he must've found it. I stretched my arm as far into the cubbyhole as I could, reaching until I thought my arm would come out of its socket, but I still couldn't get to it without making a racket. Damn. I would have to leave it for Caleb. Disappointing, since I so wanted to be the one to hand him that suitcase full of money.

Now, to get out of here. I scooted around on my butt looking for an opening to the outside. There had to be one, since all compartments like this would have some kind of exterior access.

I found the answer under my feet. It was a pull latch in the floor. I gave it an experimental tug and cracked the hatch, just enough to let in some fresh air, then wider.

The sound reverberated in the compartment like a metal garbage can lid being tossed down a quiet street. I held my breath. Nothing. If he didn't hear me, it was only because I was the one in the garbage can.

I yanked it back, put my feet down first and then rolled out onto the ground, thinking I'd run back to the car, call Caleb and tell him I'd found the money. I peered out from under my hiding place; no black police-issued shoes. Safe at last.

I rolled out from under the coach, then got slammed to the ground, a foot on my back forcing my face onto the gravel. I turned my head to the side.

"Stay put," the voice said.

It was light tenor and I knew who had me pinned to the gravel next to Garth's motor home. Eddy McBride.

"Well, girly," he said, "we meet again. Find anything interesting?"

"Uh, no," I said. "You?"

He giggled, a merry sound, obviously enjoying our reversal of fortune. If he was happy about it, fine by me. As long as he didn't shoot me.

"If you'll allow me to stand up," I said, "we can talk about it."

He giggled again. "Seems to me, now that the shoe's on the other foot, I oughta keep you here for a while, just to teach you a lesson. So, what else have you learned from that sheriff friend of yours?"

Raising my head a bit, I wiped some gravel off my cheek and said, "The cops think you killed Garth's girlfriend."

"Why would I do that?"

"I didn't say I believed it, I just said they do. I almost had her convinced to turn herself in when she ran off and somebody killed her. And since you seem to be following me around lately I was rather hoping you were there to see who snatched her."

He was quiet a moment, then said, "I was obviously watching the wrong person."

He let off the foot and kneeled down beside me to look me in the face. "I know your dad believes in my innocence; any chance you do too?"

What was it about this gun-wielding, cross-dresser that would convince my shotgun-toting dad to trust him? That my dad trusted him, that Roxanne believed him, said a lot. So if Noah Bains and Roxanne Leonard thought Eddy was innocent, perhaps they were right.

I spit out a piece of gravel and nodded.

"I'll take that as a yes," he said, holding out his hand. It was slim and cool, and he easily levered me into a standing position. Standing, I towered over him. The bald spot in his graying crew cut was the same as when he'd broken into our house and taken a pot shot at me. This time, however, he was in a conservative gray suit, skinny black and white shirt. A beat-up briefcase lay on the ground next to him.

"Insurance salesman," he said, amused at my perplexed face.

"How'd you get into Garth's motor home?" I asked.

"I learned a lot of things in prison, not the least of which was how to use a set of jimmies. How'd you do it?"

"I had a key. By the way, are you going to your wife's funeral this Saturday?"

"Wouldn't miss it for the world," he said, a little smile playing around his mouth.

"You know the security will be tight. They're going to be looking for you."

"Don't tell your sweetheart I said so, but they won't find me. You won't either, so don't try."

"If you're referring to Garth, that slime bucket is not my sweetheart." I sounded a bit like Autumn and hoped it didn't mean I would end up the same way.

His light eyes crinkled into a smile. "I should hope not. Patience always said you were a little dense when it came to men. I meant the sheriff, girly."

Opening my mouth to argue, I changed my mind. He was absolutely right. I was pretty dense, at least when it came to Caleb.

I thought for a minute, looking for a cohesive thread. "Your wife wasn't killed in a botched burglary. But how to convince the police?" I was thinking out loud, mentally stacking logical blocks on top of each other. "A convicted felon, they'd toss you in jail and throw away the key. Leverage is what you needed, something which would get the press going and force the cops to pay attention. So you did Pin the Tail on the Donkey—namely me and my Caddy—even if it didn't stick. Thank God it didn't. But why involve my family? Why not just leave her where you found her and let the police sort it out? And what if the police hadn't believed that I was innocent? Did you really think it was fair to frame me for killing your wife?"

"Now you wanna talk about fair? I was framed for a murder I didn't commit, spent twenty years in the pen, lost my wife and all that money she'd been holding for us, so don't ever use that word in any conversation with me!"

I backed up with each forceful declaration. "Yeah, but did you have to use my Caddy?"

"Why not? She was already dead when I found her. I tore that place apart looking for the money, but it was gone. That money was ours. It was all that gave us any hope at all. But Garth shows up, my wife is murdered, and I couldn't say a damn thing about any of it, now could I?"

I put out my hand, palm up. "How do you think you were framed?"

"All right." Eddy rubbed at the back of his neck as if tamping down his bitter anger. "Patience was Bill Hollander's secretary. Every so often Bill handed her a package of cash to put into the safe. He never considered she'd question where he got it. He just assumed that because she was shy and blond that she was also submissive. Sometimes she'd see pilots came in and Bill would give her the eye and close his door; something she said he never did otherwise. The only son Patience and I ever had died from a drug overdose, and she and I both came to the same conclusion—Bill Hollander's drug smuggling had to be stopped. But then she found out he had a couple of cops on the take, so there went our idea to report him to the law. Then one day she overheard a conversation between Bill and that pilot Bob Norquist. A shipment of drugs from Mexico was coming in. None of those crooks would ever see the inside of prison if somebody didn't do something. I wanted to confront him, but she said we should wait, she'd think of something."

I interrupted. "What about the FBI or the FTA—they'd be interested in international smuggling."

"We weren't sure the suits coming out of his office weren't some of those guys. I was so angry that I went to his office to confront him. Bill was already dead and the rest is history."

"Then where did the money come from that Patience had been hiding all these years?"

He chuckled. "Patience was one smart woman. Just like always, he gave her cash for the safe. Only this time she switched bags on him and brought it home. She was going to give it back to him the next day with the threat that she'd turn him in. Of course, she wasn't counting on someone murdering Bill that night."

"Your lawyer told you to plead temporary insanity?" I asked.

"Yes, and ruined any chance for an appeal. I learned that in prison. That guy was a jackass. I might as well have defended myself, I could've done better. I got framed for that murder, and if you turn me in before I can prove that Garth killed my girl, then they'll throw me in the slammer and pin another murder charge on me. Not that it matters anymore. With Patience gone I might as well be back in prison—or dead."

"Back to the night Patience was killed. You must have had help. Who drove you out to the ranch?" I asked.

He shook his head. "A motorbike," he said. "One of those useless little contraptions hanging off the back of a camper that says, 'steal me.' Thankfully, they'd left me a tank full of gas. I got there in time to see the damage that SOB had done to my poor girl. I promised Patience I'd get in a lick for her if it was the last thing I ever did. So I put the motorbike in the trunk of the old yellow Pinto she couldn't drive anymore, and I drove out to your place. I took your Caddy, drove out to the main street, walked back, got the Pinto, then parked it in the orchard next to yours. From there, I took her out to the lake.

"God, it was hard letting her go, watching that water slide over her head. I used the motorbike to return to the Pinto. By the time I pulled into her carport, the sky was getting light. I guess I should apologize. I am sorry for the trouble I've caused you and your dad. Do you forgive me?"

"Couldn't you have just left it on the bank? Why did you have to drown my Caddy too?"

"No one would've given it a second look if it was parked there all day, and the heat has been into the hundreds. Not a pretty thought for what she'd look like when the cops finally got around to checking it out."

"Why not leave her there where you found her, call it in and let the police figure it out?"

Eddy giggled again, "And miss out on all the fun we've had? I can't apologize for what I did. That's when I thought of Noah. I was going to leave her in one of his airplanes, but worried he might not work Sundays, and remembered that Caddy of yours. It was better than a billboard with red tailfins."

"There was a pendant of Autumn's found smashed in the door of my Caddy. How'd it get in there if she wasn't involved?"

"I found it in Garth's RV the first time I saw her come out of his rig. I knew if I gave that girl enough rope she'd hang herself. I didn't know Garth would kill her, too."

"It's too bad you couldn't come clean with me and my dad sooner. Maybe we could've prevented another murder."

His expression was exasperation mingled with amusement. "Girly, that wasn't likely to happen. They'll shoot holes in any story you come up with, too. There's no helping me now. No, sorry, this way Patience will get her revenge, and so will I.

"I'm leaving now," he said, "before somebody watching decides to get nosy. Turn around," he said, gripping me by the shoulder. "I don't want you to feel obligated to tell them you saw which way I went."

I did as he said, instinctively hiking my shoulders up to protect my neck. I waited. Nothing happened for a minute, then I could feel his breath close to my ear as he whispered, "Unlike Lalla Bains, some of us only get one chance to make things right. Don't let the ones you love slip away, remember that, will you?"

I wanted to tell him I'd discovered how Garth sneaked out and murdered Autumn without being detected. But he was goneI was getting used to this guy disappearing while my back was turned.

I brushed the dirt off my slacks and started toward my truck. From behind the steering wheel, Maya was frantically pointing to my right.

I looked to where she was pointing and at the same time my pager went off.

Yeah, I see him, Maya.

Garth reached me in three long strides, his welcoming hug sliding to a halt at the expression on my face.

Damn. Why didn't I just blurt, "Guilty!" and be done with it. But I did manage to pull myself out of a tailspin when I blurted, "I just saw Eddy McBride!"

He pivoted around. "Where? Is he still here?"

"No, thank God. But I saw him coming out of your motor home." I pointed to the hatch door hanging open under his motor home.

He ignored it and grabbed my arm. "You okay? He didn't hurt you, did he?"

"I'm fine." But his reaction was a surprise. Why wasn't he dropping my arm to run over to the motor home and see if the little brown suitcase was still in its hiding place?

What was it I was missing? Everything had fallen into place. He'd obviously murdered his aunt, extracted a promise from his ex-wife not to talk if he gave her a cut of the money, and then found a way to murder his girlfriend before she ran off with it.

All I had to do was call Caleb.

Caleb strolled around the corner, followed by Detective Rodney.

Detective Rodney sneered. "Speak of the devil."

Seeing me in Garth's arms, Caleb stiffened, his jaw working as he tried to get his emotions under control.

I shook my head at him, mouthing the words, "It's not what you think."

He glared at me to keep quiet. Then he took out a pair of handcuffs.

For a minute there, I thought they were for me.

But instead, he turned the unresisting Garth around and clamped the cuffs on him. "I'm arresting you for the murder of Patience McBride and Alexandra Graham."

Garth's mouth dropped, then he looked at me. "I didn't do it, Lalla," he said through clenched teeth. "Let's get this over with, Sheriff. My lawyer will have me out in five minutes, and then I'm going to sue your department for harassment."

Caleb grunted. "You do that."

I stood watching Caleb and the detective march Garth to a waiting police car. Not taking any chances of losing their quarry, two more cars with flashing lights blocked the exits.

When the police left, Caleb came back, his hands hanging by his side.

"What made you change your mind about arresting Garth?" I asked. "I thought you wanted to use him for bait to get Eddy. What happened to that idea?"

"Garth's daughter talked."

"What did she say?"

"Garth was there Saturday, not Sunday. The ex-wife saw reason. That and the tire tracks on last Friday's newspaper, and Autumn's recorded testimony, we got him. We couldn't chance that Garth might not get antsy and run off before the funeral." He looked around as if just now realizing where we were standing. "What were you doing here?"

"I know you told me to stay away from him, but I wanted to confirm an idea I had. And I found how he slipped his surveillance."

He tipped his chin down, waiting.

"There's a trap door to the ground under the bus. It's how he escaped to find Autumn and kill her before she could testify against him. And I found you a bonus. The money he stole from Eddy is in an old brown suitcase behind an awning."

He gave me a disapproving look. "You opened it?"

"No, of course not. Come on, I'll show you," I said, trying to drag him along to the open storage door.

He stayed where he was, pulling me back into his arms and, brushing the hair whipping around my face out of my eyes, said, "You shouldn't be here. Go home. If you're right, I'll let you know. Now go. Please?"

I still needed Caleb to verify my theory that I'd crushed Garth's alibi. "But he still could've gotten out through the storage compartment, right?"

"Maybe. Not your problem anymore. Now scoot," he said, turning me around and giving my bottom a little pat.

I glared at him, shaking a finger for emphasis. "Not fair, Caleb Stone." Where it didn't work on Eddy, I still held fairness in my arsenal with Caleb. "I was right, and you can't even say thanks."

The warmth in his eyes melted, leaving only steel in its place. "It's not fair that the entire department thinks I need to spend my time keeping you out of trouble."

"Oh, yeah. Sorry. You know I never meant to cause you trouble."

"I know, Lalla. Now go home."

Head down, I trudged back to the truck.

Seeing my long face, Maya said, "Did I mess up?"

"No, sugar," I said, all perky again since I had what I came for anyway. "You did fine. Let's go home." Garth had been arrested, and as far as I was concerned, Eddy could come back and pick up that damned suitcase and get out of town. Case closed.

Maya was talking. "Then how come Caleb came out and arrested Garth? Did you find what you were looking for? Any evidence?"

"Not unless you count being a pain in the ass to Caleb," I said. My goddaughter was still giving me worshipful looks. "Oh, Maya, I shouldn't have brought you out here."

"Why do you say that? This was way cool. You got out without him catching you and he got arrested. What's next?"

"There is no next," I said. "Caleb said to go home."

"But you don't think it was Garth, do you? Me neither. He's way too cute to be a murderer."

"Of course he could be a murderer! Any cute guy could be a murderer," I snapped. "Ever hear of Ted Bundy?"

She recoiled from my words as if I'd struck her. Now why did I do that?

"Oh, Maya! Don't cry, baby, I'm sorry." I dredged the bottom of my purse for tissues, and finally found a handful. I'd struck out at her because I was furious at myself. Mopping her tears, I rocked her against me, crooning. "I'm so sorry, baby. I didn't mean it." What was I thinking, yelling at Maya? I was going to be in enough trouble with Roxanne for putting her daughter in this mix, much less if Maya showed up at home with eyes red from crying.

She sniffled and then grinned. "I guess it's not easy being a super hero, huh?"

For one lovely minute I imagined myself basking in the glow of heroine worship, but I knew the minute Roxanne heard the words Wonder Woman, she'd bust that myth off its tracks.

At the café, I told Maya if she wanted to get to New York she wasn't to breathe a word of this little adventure to her mother. The mere mention of losing out on that city of fashion doused the teenage high she'd been on for the last hour, and with a quick kiss to my cheek, she slid her long wiggly limbs off my upholstery and out of the truck.

On the way home I got to thinking about my reaction to Maya. What was it she said that set me off? “But you don't think it was Garth, do you? Me neither. He's way too cute to be a murderer.” Was it the "way too cute" part that set my teeth on edge? Hadn't I thought he was cute when I first met him?

Chapter Twenty-two:

My dad was crowding me in his enthusiasm to hear what Caleb had to say.

"This isn't a conference call, Noah. Let me talk to Caleb and then I'll tell you."

His eyebrows were dancing up and down, but he held up his hands in surrender and retreated a few steps.

Caleb said, "We've already gone through his motor home with a fine-tooth comb. That case is on the list of items we already looked at. It holds tools he uses for repairing the engine."

"Oh," I said, disappointment evident in my voice.

"You did good. The detectives are still talking to him, but he won't get bail this time. I have to go, but I'll talk to you later tonight, okay?"

"Okay," I said.

"Hey. I love you."

I giggled and told him I loved him too. Something was going to have to happen to cement this budding romance. Maybe a real date with dinner and wine and kissing.

When I hung up, I told my dad that Garth was being held for arrangement.

His smile was kindly, but his voice mocking. "You're lucky the police won't be charging you for breaking into Garth's motor home."

"I had a key. Maybe he didn't exactly give it to me, but I proved how he was able to elude his keepers, and I helped them uncover his ex's lie about the timing. They should give me a medal."

"Mentioning angry women, do you think it was the redhead who ran you off that road?"

"Maybe in a pique of jealousy," I said, and recounted my conversation with Eddy beside Garth's motor home. "At least Eddy apologized for pinning the whole thing on me, then sitting back to watch the fireworks. I, and my Caddy, was a means to an end to find the real killer."

So why wasn't I satisfied? Perhaps those nagging loose ends could only be answered at Garth's trial.

My dad thoughtfully pulled on his lower lip. "It was arrogant to think that I could pay for Eddy's lawyer then expect that the secret wouldn't come back to haunt me, or hurt you. I'm sorry."

I put my hand on his shoulder. "There's no way you could've known that twenty years later it would all come back on you. As for Eddy, he did what he thought was right. Otherwise, the police would've thought Patience had died at the hands of a burglar. Love or money, Caleb always says." I was thinking of Autumn lying dead on the cold tile. "Love certainly doesn't seem to be a problem for Garth, so I don't think murder has been either."

"I wonder what Eddy will do now?"

"I'm still puzzling over Garth's reaction to seeing his trap door open," I said. "He didn't act like it mattered. And he never did seem overly concerned that Eddy might be after him. It proves how he dodged the cops, killed Autumn and then got back inside with nobody the wiser."

"I think this calls for a celebration. I'm going to call our good friend Judge Griffin to come over and have dinner with us tonight, what do you say? He'll be glad to hear they caught the bastard." Noah's enthusiasm was contagious, so I said I would join them. I went off to ask Juanita to double the casserole she was building. What the heck, let the old boys have their back-slapping, congratulatory meal.

The thought of Eddy McBride lay on my mind like a sliver of metal under my thumbnail. It was sad to think his escape hadn't saved his wife, but if Eddy showed up at the funeral and tried to shoot Garth, the courts would tack on another ten years to the time he'd have to do for the escape.

I probably should've invited Caleb to dinner, but I didn't know if I could make it through the salad without doing a face plant in my soup. The exhaustion I'd been ignoring was catching up with me, and tonight I intended to get my first real sleep this week.

I was lighting the last dinner candle when I heard the slam of the front door and the judge's voice cheerfully announcing his arrival. My dad shuffled out to greet his guest, in slippers instead of socks, and because it was a special occasion, a shirt with all the buttons in their holes. I passed Juanita in the kitchen dropping small morsels into Spike's mouth as she cleaned up. Spike gulped down a piece of chicken and almost choked as he hurried to snap at my heels. Like I was going to take away his handout. Spike snarled, growled, yapped and barked at every person who came into the house. Juanita was exempt only because she coaxed him with goodies from the fridge. As for his subservient devotion to my dad, it was more than likely because he was a fashion doppelganger to Spike's last owner. Or maybe they were soul mates—cranky soul mates.

I shooed Juanita out the back door for home, promising to remember the casserole. I was taking it out of the oven when I almost tripped over Spike.

I looked down at him hugging my ankles.

"Hey," I asked, hoping he'd let me put the casserole on the counter before taking a bite out of me. "Did Juanita forget to feed you?"

But Spike wasn't his usual devilish little self. He was as still as a small brown rock, his ears cocked forward in the tense posture of a guard dog quivering at alert. Did guard dogs quiver? This one did; he looked about to fall off his corner of the earth. From the hallway, I heard laughter, and with it the smell of cigar smoke drifting on the air.

The hair on the back of Spike's neck bristled, the brown eyes bugged, the ears flattened.

"What is it, Spike?" I asked, confused by his behavior. "You're starting to scare me."

I questioned the sanity of trying to get him outside. Spike never went anywhere I asked, so why bother now? What should I do with him?

The two men, laughing, walked into the dining room next to the kitchen where I'd left crackers and cheese and a bottle of champagne to open. What was it my father had said about cigars? Oh yeah, he smoked them on the rare occasion when it called for a celebration. If it was a celebration, Spike was the only one not enjoying the party. His brown eyes were jumping from the door to me, telegraphing some message in doggy language. Unfortunately, I was going to need a translator because I still didn't get why he was so upset.

"Dad?" I called. "I need your help in the kitchen for a minute, please."

With a murmured excuse, my dad came into the kitchen where Spike was backed up as far as he could get against the lower cupboards.

"What's wrong with him?" I asked, pointing.

Spike, glad to see his friend, kept his rump to the ground where it was safe, and wagged his tail.

"What do you mean? He looks fine to me. Maybe hungry? Are you hungry, little buddy?" Dad asked.

Immediately Spike stood, did a bow stretch, apparently recovered from his jitters.

Dad put down a bowl of doggy chow and went back to his guest.

"Crisis over?" I muttered, exasperated with his odd behavior. "Well, good. I'm glad we've got that sorted out so I can get back to serving dinner."

I put on the oven mitts to carry the hot dish to the table. But once again there was Spike, one paw on my foot, big brown eyes darting between me and the dining room.

"Now what? You've been fed, so what is it?"

He'd never behaved this way. Not even when he'd arrived scared, hungry and trembling from the experience of roaming the countryside until a neighbor found him on her porch. He probably ran out of the house to hide from Patience's attacker. So why now, and why the judge? I started thinking. When was the last time the judge had been here? Not since Spike arrived. I thought about the photo from the judge's mantel.

My wife and I could never have children. These two on her lap are her niece and nephew from Texas. The little girl had hair just like my wife's.

Red. The judge's wife had beautiful red curling hair. The faded photo of a little girl with long curls of a light color. Not blond, not brown—red. Just like Autumn's. What was the diminutive for Alexandra? Lexy, the judge said. But it could also be Sandy—which sounded too much like a kid. She'd changed it to Autumn O'Sullivan for Hollywood. She was the judge's niece. I held onto my head and reached for the edge of the kitchen counter to steady my trembling nerves. The judge had been Eddy's attorney, and a bad one, according to Eddy.

Garth might be guilty of a lot of things, but murder wasn't one of them.

Spike wasn't going to wait around to see what I was going to do. He shot out of the kitchen, skidded once in the hallway and rounded the corner to scramble up the stairs. I couldn't say I blamed him. It was all I could do to stay where I was instead of galloping after him. I just hoped I'd be able to hold onto my growing suspicions, keep my mouth shut until I could make that call. Oh, brother. How was I going to convince him that Spike had just given me the name of his mistress's killer?

I had to hold it together until I could make that call, but in the meantime, I needed to put on my brave face. Quelling my mounting fear, I went to greet our guest.

He had a jacket over one arm and a champagne bottle extended in the other. "Well, well, Lalla, I hear you did us all proud. I've brought champagne to celebrate." A freshly starched and clean shirt stuffed into dress pants with suspenders completed the ensemble. Jolly old Judge Griffin. And he'd shaved recently too, a piece of tape covering a knick.

I smiled weakly. and accepting the bottle, waved them to the dinner table while I backed through the swinging doors to the kitchen. "I'll uncork this bottle and get us some glasses. You fellows have a seat."

I couldn't do it. I couldn't sit there with my growing suspicions and eat. I'd throw up all over our nice white table cloth. I put the bottle on the counter and took the stairs two at the time, looking into corners for Spike. I'd take him with me. We'd hide him in a bathroom and I'd call Caleb.

I tried my dad's room, then Leslie's old room. Finally in my room, I heard the rapid tattoo of little nails. I knelt down and pulled back the bedspread.

"Don't worry. I won't let him hurt you."

His eyes bugged and he retreated even further into the nether regions under my bed.

I gave up on Spike and collapsed onto the bed. With one ear on the conversation below, I picked up my cell phone to call Caleb. I was hoping that, unable to resist the fragrant casserole cooling on the kitchen counter, they'd start without me.

One ring… The conversation seemed to have died … Two rings … I hoped it was because they were snacking on crackers … Three rings…

"Sheriff Stone here."

"Put the phone down, please," the judge said.

I jerked to my feet, guiltily dropping the phone onto the bed. "I, uh, had to make a phone call," I said. Even I thought it sounded lame.

"We both know there's a perfectly good phone in the kitchen. Where's the dog?"

He looked around the room while the setting sun sent light rays shooting off his glasses like laser beams.

"Spike?" I asked woodenly. I swallowed and tried again. "The little Chihuahua?"

The mask dropped and his friendly manner disappeared. "Yes! Patience's little brown dog, Spike, where is he?"

Hoping Caleb was listening and I wouldn't have to explain later that a Chihuahua was the main witness to Patience's murder, I asked weakly, "Why—why is he afraid of you, Judge?"

He unclenched the fists and, taking a deep breath, tried unsuccessfully to put back the mask. "Now, now, Lalla, my dear. Give me the dog. Patience wanted me to have him, you see. I didn't know where he'd gone, that's all."

Patience wanted the judge to have him? The dog obviously had other ideas about that. He'd done everything he could to telegraph his fear of this man. It was obvious—Spike, because of his size, had gone unnoticed until, taking his cue from an open door, he escaped. Smart dog.

I felt the blood leave my head and drop down to my toes. I didn't know if I could lift a hand to defend myself, much less defend Spike. I gulped, peeked at the open cell phone I'd dropped on the bed and prayed that Caleb was still listening while he signaled for a SWAT team, one with sirens blasting, lights whirling, racing to our rescue.

Then I took a shaky breath and, hoping I was right about Caleb, said, "So, when you say you mean to take Spike, you really mean that you're going to get rid of the only witness to your murder of his mistress, right?"

The judge looked at me like I'd lost a few marbles. "Of course. Why else would I want the little monster. Everyone knows he's too dangerous to keep. He'll have to be put down."

If I was going to die, I thought, envisioning friends and family gathered at my funeral, at least Caleb would finally admit who solved this mystery. Maybe my tombstone would say, "Forever Grateful."

I gulped down my fear and, dry-mouthed, asked, "Wha—what did that nice lady ever do to you?"

Satisfied we were alone, and evidently unaware of the cell phone connection, he waggled a judge-like finger at me. "Now you're doing it again. You have to ask the right questions, Lalla. Oh, all right then. Every answer to the whereabouts of that money went back to Patience McBride."

"The money," I echoed agreeably, wondering if they would allow a color guard at my interment, since I was better at solving crimes than the idiot detectives Rodney and sidekick. I pushed around the cotton I had for brains and tried to think of ways to keep him talking until the cavalry arrived. "How—how does your niece figure into all this?"

"See? I knew you were a clever girl. Figured that out from her photo at my home, did you? The long, red curly hair, like my wife's? She was my wife's namesake, Alexandra. So as not to have two Lexys in the family, my niece was Sandy."

"You put her and Garth together?"

"Playing Cupid, you mean? Seduction was a way of life for our lovely Alexandra. And with her abundant charms, it took her two days. All I needed was for her to confirm that Patience still had my money, and I'd do the rest. But naturally, Autumn got bored, as she always does, and when he caught her fooling around, he kicked her out. I told her to leave well enough alone, go to Hollywood, I'd take care of the rest and send her share. But of course, she didn't want that. She had to have it now. The now generation, that was our Sandy."

By the time I met her, Autumn's nerves were unraveling faster than a ball of string. But it wasn't Garth she was terrified of, it was Judge Griffin.

"It was your plan for her to call me and pretend that she was a witness to Garth murdering his aunt. But why kill her?"

"Why? Because she was a greedy little bitch, that's why!"

He rubbed a hand over his face, scrubbing at the rage threatening to undo his equilibrium. "I used to have such a temper. Spent years getting it under control."

Then, in a voice used to instruct twelve-year-olds, he said, "You don't understand. I was trustee for my family's estate and it was my responsibility to make sure it was well invested. Most of it was lost when the stock market tanked, and that bastard, Eddy McBride, stole the rest."

His voice picked up a whine. "It was my money. Losing it killed my sister. God rest her soul, died of a broken heart—well, cancer actually—but the same thing, really."

I don't think he knew that Patience had taken Bill Hollander's money, but I wasn't going to be the one to tell him now. "You were Bill Hollander's silent partner."

"And why not?" he asked, calmly pulling at his suspenders. "Someone had to bankroll his enterprise. Better a friend than an enemy."

If my tongue wasn't stuck to the roof of my mouth I would've laughed. I swallowed hard and plunged on. "Then you knew Eddy didn't do murder his wife."

He dismissed my comment with a wave of his hand. "Bill drank, you know. Disgusting vice, alcohol. The lout was too drunk to tell me who had taken the money. One simply can't let that sort of behavior go unpunished."

"You used the garrotte, knowing it would incriminate Eddy because he repaired pianos for a living. So Bill called you and told you the money for the deal had been stolen. You made up the weapon you used to do it before you got there. You planned to kill him."

"Drunks make lousy business partners. I saw it as an expedient solution. I made up that garrote and left it in a dumpster outside. For a while I thought I might have to leak is location to the press, but then someone finally noticed, and Eddy's fate was sealed."

"I wondered why you did such a lousy job defending him."

"Not that it did me any good. It took me twenty years to find my money."

"But why involve my dad?"

"I needed to be the one to handle the case. I knew their paths had crossed, because of your brother. And if I hinted that the poor boy wouldn't get a proper defense with a public defender, Noah wouldn't be able to help himself."

He thought my dad an easy mark. Boy, my dad was going to be so mad.

Oh, my God! Noah! "What—what did you do to my father?"

"Nothing for you to worry about, my dear. He's taking a nap." He produced a small vial, and uncorking it, he shook a few drops onto a hanky. The chloroform he'd used to subdue Autumn!  And probably why dad was "napping."

My knees knocked and I raked damp hands across my jeans, searching wildly for a way around him.

He took a step closer, his voice low and soothing. "It's not painful. Don't be frightened." I took a step back from the hand holding the cloth.

"Not painful?" I squeaked. "Like it wasn't painful to Autumn when you stabbed her?"

"If she had done as she was told instead of trying to double-cross me, she'd be alive today. Well, maybe not."

Like something out of a horror movie, he seemed to glide toward me on rollers, and, of course, I played my part as the scatterbrained, wide-eyed cord of dead wood. I was disgusted with myself, but I couldn't seem to help it. My knees turned to jelly and I dissolved onto the bed, where my arms hung limply at my sides. I looked down at the cell phone, hoping Caleb had gotten all of this and was now on his way. But I was horrified to see that somehow the phone had snapped shut and was now disconnected. I could only hope and pray that Caleb had heard enough to know I was in trouble. A lot of trouble.

A voice from below called my name. I hadn't heard the door open, but then we never actually locked the front door anyway. Anybody could walk in, neighbors, farmers, friends—and murderers. The last thing Maya would ever think to do before entering our house was ring the doorbell.

"Yoo-hoo! Aunt Lalla? You up there?"

She must have heard our voices from downstairs.

Maya. My sweet god-daughter was in the house. Now what was I going to do?

He turned toward her voice. He still had the vial and hanky in his hand, but now he was poised to grab Maya and give her the first dose.

I heard her feet on the stairs.

"Aunt Lalla? What's going on? Did you know your dad is sound asleep at the dinner table? Where are you?"

Then she was standing with hands on hips, pretty head cocked, staring at me and the judge. "What on earth is going on?"

He took a step toward Maya and I jerked out of my stupor.

I couldn't imagine a better wakeup call for my miserable cowardly quaking .

With his attention on our newest arrival, I pushed off the bed, and with my head down, I ran at him, knocking him off his feet.

His arms windmilled, the rug flipped out from under him, and with a resounding thud, he hit the polished oak floor and was out cold.

Maya stood open-mouthed, looking down at the fallen judge. "What the—?"

I stepped over the inert form to hug her. "It's okay, honey. The judge is the bad guy," I said. "That should keep him out of commission for as long as it will take to call the cops. You go downstairs and see if you can wake up Noah, and I'll—"

Maya's eyes grew wide and she gasped, "Look out!"

I felt a smelly rag pressing against my nose and mouth.

I struggled under the saturated cloth, then slipped out of his grasp and fell ungracefully to the floor.

My last thoughts were for Maya.

Maya—what would he do to Maya?

Chapter Twenty-three:

Just like old times, my mother, dad, brother and I are snuggled together under plaid blankets in front of a campfire. We're roasting marshmallows and singing silly campfire songs. My mother starts a round of "Scotland's Burning."

"Come on, everybody. You too, Lalla."

"Mom?" She's wearing the diamond earrings my dad bought her the Christmas before she died. The little suitcase is there, the one I used for sleepovers. The one she had by her side when I found her. It also looked suspiciously like the one I found in Garth's motor home. "Is that Eddy's stolen money?" I ask.

"That doesn't matter now," she says, calmly unconcerned about the past. "We're having fun, aren't we, dear?" She looks fondly at my dad as he pushes another gooey burned marshmallow off a stick and pops it into his mouth.

My brother nudges my dad and dutifully they begin the first round. "Scotland's burning, Scotland's burning, look yonder, look yonder, fire, fire! Fire, fire! Pour water, pour water!" They jerk up out of their folding camp chairs, arms waving in mock alarm, singing, "Pour water! Pour water."

"But, Mom," I try again. "You never said why you did it. Why you left us. And your note—what did it mean?"

My mother smiles sadly at me. "The note was for your father, Lalla. Ask him."

The judge said the same thing. Ask your father. Why can't anyone give me a straight answer?

My mother's singing voice disappeared into black clef notes woven into the twining roses on her bedroom wallpaper. Wow. I never noticed that before.

Now I'm eleven years old, standing by her bed, looking down at her peaceful face. My mother is at rest at last. I'm holding the note in my hand, the one I later destroyed, knowing that her being sorry wasn't going to be enough for the rest of us. Opening the suitcase, I put her silk underwear back into her drawer, slid the small case under the bed and go downstairs to wait for my dad and brother to come home.

My mother waves to me from where she sits beside the campfire. I give up on the unresolved heartache and gamely croak along with the next stanza. "Pour water, pour water."

Then my mother does something really strange. She cups her hands around her mouth, and as if from across a deep crevasse, yells, "Lalla! Get up! The house is on fire!"

What? Who said that? And why am I choking on campfire smoke?

Sitting up, I sucked in a lungful of smoke-filled air and then coughed. How did I get here and what am I doing on my bed fully dressed?

Rolling over to get up from the bed, I almost stepped on Maya lying face down on the floor next to the bed. I put an arm under her, lifting her head. "Get up, Maya. We've got to get out of the house—it's on fire!"

Smoke was oozing under the closed door of my bedroom. We didn't have a minute to waste.

She responded by throwing up on me.

"Ya shoulda ducked," she muttered.

I wiped her mouth with a corner of my shirt, and glancing around, noticed smoke seeping in under the door .

We could climb out my bedroom window and jump, but I wasn't willing to risk breaking my newly healed foot, and become a liability to Maya. If the stairs were already engulfed, we'd chance the window. Dragging her off the floor, I said, "Come on, Maya. We got to get out of here, or we're going to be toast."

I pulled the bedspread off, ran into my bathroom, and shoved it under the shower. Swaddled like Siamese twins under the damp cover, we staggered out of my bedroom to the landing.

He must have used the antique sofa and upholstered chairs for kindling, piling all our furniture for a bonfire. That explained my dream about campfires, but not how my dead mother could be yelling at me from the grave.

Maya cringed in my arms. "Can't we go out the window? It looks dangerous below."

The fire was already chewing up the furniture, the old cotton batting adding a thick, blue smoke. I coughed. For every passing minute I stood dithering, the fire sucked up more oxygen. Already one flaming trail crawled across the dry floor and was licking at the wainscoting. If I didn't hurry, we could die here.

With our wet bedspread over our heads, we limped down the stairs. At the bottom, I pushed Maya toward the door.

"Take the blanket. Stay clear of the bonfire, but don't hesitate. Run. When you get to your car, call 9-1-1!"

She was hanging onto my arm, pulling me with her. "You have to come too!"

"I have to get my dad. Go on, now, hurry!" I shouted.

Thankfully, she ran.

Maya said he was at the dining table when she came in. I put the blanket to my mouth and moved through the smoke-filled hallway to where I thought the dining room should be, only to have a beam break loose, crash to the floor and block my way. I looked up to see flames chewing into the ceiling. The house was coming apart. If I expected to find my dad and get us out, I'd better find a way quick. Inching around the threatening blaze, I called to my dad, hoping he would hear me and get out.

"Noah! Noah, answer me, please!" There was a sound mixed in with the crackling and hissing, a hoarse, coughing sound. It was Spike, but I couldn't see him through the smoke. "Spike!"

He barked again.

Spike kept up his barking while I inched through the smoke. In another minute, I was thrilled to see my father in the doorway. In the wavering reflection of the fire, it looked like there were two of him, but at least he was standing.

"Dad!" I called. "Hurry! Take the kitchen door! I'll meet you outside!"

The dark image wobbled and seemed to double in size. An arm raised and signaled, message received, and then he stumbled out of sight.

I turned, and holding my blanket up over my head, dashed for the front door. Outside, I ran around to see two men lurching toward the trees, Spike dancing at their heels.

Who was with him? Caleb?

At my call, they turned. Noah was coughing into his fist, his arm over a smaller man's shoulder. It was Eddy McBride.

How he'd come to be here I didn't know, but I would be forever grateful. \He waved at me, then eased my father into Maya's waiting arms.

I rushed up to them, crying my relief. "Noah! Maya! Are you okay?"

His voice was raspy from inhaling some of the smoke, but my dad was conscious. "I'm going to be all right. Thanks to Eddy."

I took the little man's sooty face in my hands and kissed him on the mouth. "I never thought I'd say this, Eddy McBride, but I'm happy to see you."

"Sorry I wasn't here sooner. I saw the flames and  thought I'd better make sure everyone was out. So how did Garth escape from the police?"

"It wasn't Garth, Eddy. It was your lawyer, Sidney Griffin. If it hadn't been for Spike, well, the little guy did everything but stand up and shout, 'Killer!'"

"Sidney Griffin? What's he got to do with it?"

In the few minutes it took to tell Eddy the story, fire trucks were turning into our driveway.

Eddy saw them too. "I suppose your sheriff friend will go after Sidney now."

"If he has the money, it'll prove he killed your wife," I said.

"Oh, he's got it all right. Now maybe my Patience will finally rest in peace." He smiled at my dad. "Sorry about all this, Noah. You were good to me in a way I probably didn't deserve. I just want you to know I did it all for her, and I'd do it again if I had to."

Noah rasped, "I understand, Eddy. But thanks for the apology."

Then Eddy turned to me and said, "Well, as they say in the movies, 'I'll be seeing you, kid.'" Then he took two steps back and melted into the dark.

Caleb didn't speak as he crushed me to his chest. Then he turned me in his arms to rest his chin on my shoulder, and we watched the lights from the fire truck chasing patterns across the dying fire. "God, Lalla. The son of a bitch was going to burn you and your dad alive."

"Did you arrest him yet? He didn't get away, did he?"

"Judge Griffin? We got him, all right. Thanks to Maya's call."

"You weren't listening when I called you? He confessed to everything."

"No. I thought it was a wrong number and hung up. On the way out here, I got a squad car to the judge's house as he was packing to leave town. Want to guess why he had a suitcase full of musty-smelling old cash? I'm sorry," he said, squeezing me tighter. "I almost didn't get here in time."

"That's okay." I sniffled, then sneezed. I was still somewhat disappointed that he hadn't heard the confession I'd worked so hard to get.

"So what did he do, come out to mop up loose ends?" Caleb asked.

"Something like that. I didn't think anything of the first aid tape on his face. I'm sure they were scratches from Autumn." I told him everything: that Autumn was his wife's niece, and how he had set up Autumn with Garth and then killed her so that Garth would take the blame for her death.

"If only I'd insisted she come with me to the car," I said.

"Just as well you weren't in the judge's way," he said, hugging me closer to quiet my shivering nerves. "He was probably lurking nearby waiting to snatch her the minute your back was turned. I don't want to think what might have happened if you’d been there."

"That old buzzard probably started the fire with one of his damn cigars. You could do DNA to confirm it all, right?"

"Come on, don't go beating yourself up with this. You couldn't have seen it coming any better than I could. Sometimes we get our man right away, and sometimes we just have to keep at it until all the cards, hopefully not another murder, stack up right."

Caleb wrapped me up tight in a blanket, then said, "Are you going to be all right for a minute?" When I nodded, he said, "Good. Sit down with your dad before you fall down. I'll talk to the fire chief, then take you and your dad home with me."

As much for the warmth I didn't need as to stop my chattering teeth, I gathered my father and Maya with me under the blanket and hugged them. I couldn't stop touching them in my joy that we were all alive. Turning to my dad, I said, "Noah, I'm sorry to tell you this, but the judge is Patience's murderer."

His voice quaked from the aftereffects of the chloroform. "Oh, hell, I already figured that out."

"But, how did you—?"

"Well, something's wrong with a fella's table manners when he tries to kill you instead of eating the lasagna."

I rubbed my dad's singed hair off his forehead and laughed at his eyebrows. They were going to take a while to grow back to their usual lofty status. With my other hand I wiped at the soot on Maya's cheek.

"But why would Judge Griffin want to kill us?" she asked.

"Not necessarily you, Maya. You just happened to be here at the wrong time. He knew we had Spike and that the dog would recognize him and, well, if things went wrong, which they did, he came prepared."

"I noticed Spikes' reaction too," Noah said, scratching his head. "Took off like his tail was on fire. What am I saying? We all could have died tonight."

I said, "The judge was secretly romancing Patience. She broke it off with him when Eddy got parole. But he wasn't letting her go till she told him where she'd hid the money. I don't know if she ever did tell him, but he got it, then he killed her."

Maya said, "He killed Patience for her money? Why? Wasn't he rich anyway?"

"He used his family's money to buy into a drug-running scheme. It backfired when Patience lifted it in an attempt to ruin their most recent purchase. And so started a chain reaction with the judge first killing his partner, then Patience and finally his own niece."

"Then did the judge put Patience in your Caddy and dump her in the lake?"

"No, Maya. Eddy was heartbroken to find that someone had murdered his wife and taken the money she'd been hiding all these years. He was sure they'd arrest him first and forget to look for any other suspects. He needed help, something that would get headlines, start the police asking questions."

I told her about the borrowed dirt bike, stuck in the back of Patience's old Pinto, and how he used my car and the lake to get the attention he needed from the police. "He even used Autumn's pendant, slamming it in the car door, to give us a clue that she was involved.

"The judge must have been fit to be tied when they found Patience in your Caddy at the lake," my dad said. "All these years, I really didn't know the man."

The fire chief came to us with bittersweet news. "Well, it isn't all bad. The worst of it is on the first floor where it was started and there's a hole in the ceiling where that beam fell down. Your furniture is going to smell bad for a while. Most folks leave theirs outside for a bit, or get new, but that's between you and your insurance guy. All in all, your house will stand."

I could feel the tears streaking a vertical path on my cheeks.

Caleb squeezed my shoulder. "I'll get one of the guys to get Maya home and then you and your dad can stay at my house. We can sort out the house problem tomorrow."

"No. I'll take her," I said.

"You sure? It's no trouble."

"No, Caleb. As Maya's godmother, I have to explain myself to her mom."

"Then I'll take your dad to my house. I'll wait for you."

With Spike in his arms, Caleb and I supported my dad to the cruiser, and then Maya and I left for her home.

To Roxanne's credit, she listened without interruption, then grabbed both Maya and me in a tight hug. When I was finished, I kissed them and left for Caleb's house.

"I put a terry robe on the bathroom door for you," Caleb said pulling me inside and guiding me down the hall to the bathroom. "Take a long shower and we'll talk in the kitchen."

I plunged myself under a cool shower, then in my panties and his robe, I wobbled on bare feet into the kitchen, where Caleb was making tea.

"I hope that's herbal," I said, fighting to keep my eyes open. "Have the police released Garth?"

He held up the box as confirmation of herbal tea and said, "Lalla, you've been incredibly brave, but do me a favor? Retire the fake badge and take the rest of the year off."

I winced at the mention of my fake badge. "Yeah. Well, I'm happy to give up the badge and my amateur sleuthing. You turned Zack's old room into an office? I'm fine with the couch."

"Your dad is already asleep on the couch. I made up the hide-a-bed in the office for you."

"Thanks. Just point," I said, yawning.

He steered me down the hallway to the room. An antique brass lamp converted from kerosene to electricity cast a soft light on a line of photo frames marching across the wall. The pictures showed his two sons from six months through the Marines, where his oldest, Zackary, had made the Marines his career. I noticed there wasn't one photo of Marcie, either on the wall or on his desk. And he'd left me one of his old T-shirts to sleep in.

When he later tapped at the door, I wrapped myself in a blanket and patted a space next to me on the edge of the bed. "Sit. For just a minute. No more talk about bad guys."

I clutched his hand for the reassurance I knew without asking would be there for me. "You saved my life, you know. Old Indian proverb says you now own me. Like a squaw. I'll have to follow you around in pigtails and bare feet. What do you think? Do you need an old squaw?"

He was looking straight into my eyes. One sandy lash had come floating down to attach itself to the smooth ledge above his shaven cheek, and I noticed little shards of green in the iris of his very light blue eyes. I reached up to flick off the lash, and my eyes were drawn to his very intense gaze. For a moment, I didn't blink, I didn't breathe as I took in every minute detail in his face; the shaving nick at his cheekbone, the little hairs on the ridge between his straight brows, the road map of wrinkles that made up his hardworking face, and the wide mouth with their deep commas that softened into a smile whenever he saw me.

In answer to my silent questions, he kissed me on the forehead, got up and softly closed the door on his way out.

I woke the next morning with my face in his neck, his arm draped around my shoulder. I don't remember going to his room, much less crawling under the covers, but it felt right.

Except for waking in Caleb's bed, last night seemed like a bad dream and my head hurt something terrible, though I suppose it was the result of a chemical hangover from the judge's chloroformed hanky.

Nothing stays the same, I thought, drowsing. I should tattoo that on my palm, then I could tell people I was a palm reader.

I snuggled closer to Caleb's warm body and went back to sleep.

By the time I woke again, the sun was poking holes in my eyelids and Caleb was gone, his side cold to the touch.

I peeked in at my father sleeping on the couch with Spike curled at his feet. The dog's ears tipped, but otherwise he stayed quiet. I tiptoed into the kitchen. Even though the wall clock said eight- thirty, Caleb had found time to leave a note saying for us to help ourselves to anything we might need. Mi casa es su casa. I would have preferred a hug. Or a kiss.

I picked up the full carafe of really good coffee and snagged the biggest empty mug on the counter. A note under the mug said, "I love you."

Caleb knew I'd pick up the biggest cup. I smiled, poured a second cup of coffee for my dad and went to roust the "boys" out of bed. We needed to visit our burned-out home with the insurance people, and the sooner the better.

Noah and I stood next to the charbroiled exterior of our home while the insurance guy clucked and made scratch marks on his padded clipboard.

I thought my dad would burst into tears at the bedraggled sight of his beloved home. So I was surprised at his cheerful response to what I viewed as a complete and total disaster.

"It looked much worse last night," he said. "I'll have to replace the porch roof. See," he said, pointing out the sagging remains above our heads. "I liked it when I built it, but now I think it kept the interior too dark. I'd rather tear it off, start over."

I followed him through the front door and we looked up at the hole in our ceiling.

He said "sure" to everything the insurance adjuster proposed while doing his tuneless whistle. I walked behind him, setting up water-logged furniture as we went. Hands in pockets, he kicked at charred walls and overturned furniture. Taking his penknife, he prodded the occasional piece of wood.

"Floors're still good, Lalla. They don't make planks like this anymore. That old saloon had the thickest oak floors I'd ever seen. A little sanding and a polisher, that's all it'll take."

At my dour expression, he said, "Look, I'll show you." He bent his knees and bounced up and down on the floorboards, grinning. "The floors are solid as the day they were cut. They'll stand up just fine."

"What about all that black stuff on the wood? The staircase looks ruined." I sniffled, close to tears at the sight.

"Nah. That's just wet soot." He took a rag out of his pocket and rubbed at the railing. "See? Now don't get weepy on me, Lalla."

I looked up the staircase to the landing. The thirty-year-old yellow-and-blue-striped wallpaper my mother put up was soaked, blackened and ruined. "I heard Mama calling to me last night," I said. "She told me to wake up and get out of the house because it was on fire."

"Really? That's nice to know." He lifted one hand out of his pocket and put it around my shoulder, giving me a quick pat before removing it. "I've been talking to her for years, but so far she's never responded. Lucky for me, Eddy was there to get me out. Well, we have a lot to be grateful for. Now, Lalla, don't give me that look. It was her decision and I've forgiven her. You should too."

"I have forgiven her, Dad, I have. I just … I just wish …." I wanted to tell him what I'd done, that I'd torn up the note she'd left for him, and that I'd unpacked her suitcase, putting her things back into the drawers, shoving the little suitcase under the bed. I'd done everything I could to wipe away her effort to leave us. Still, swallowing a bottle of sleeping pills managed to be her final goodbye.

His hand tightened on my shoulder. "We all wish she hadn't done it. But your mother had been sick for a long time, and she didn't want you to be raised under that dark cloud. I suppose she chose her time because she knew, in the end, I wouldn't be able to let her go.

"You were her pride and joy, you know that, don't you, Lalla? She would want you to be happy. Now," he said, rubbing his hands together. "Let's see if we can get a list together for the insurance company."

"Can we afford to fix up the house, even with the insurance?"

"What my claim won't cover, there's plenty of money in savings."

"You mean from the land you've been selling? Why, Dad? Why do you keep selling it?"

"'Cause money in the bank feels good, that's why. Besides, you'll need it when I'm gone."

Panic-stricken, I cried, "Noah! You're not sick again, are you? I mean, that triple by-pass worked, didn't it? There's not something you haven't told me about, is there?"

"No, no. Nothing like that. The damned place is worth so much more than when I bought it, well, I thought it would be a burden if you were already moved away by the time I die."

I waved my hands in front of his face. "I don't need it! I don't want to think about it! For crying out loud, quit scaring me to death."

He chuckled. "You really think you want to hang around this old place? Not hightail it back to New York?"

"No. So will you stop selling off my inheritance? Caleb and I might need a place to live someday."

He grinned. "Is it too late for grandkids?"

"One thing at a time, Noah Bains. I have yet to get used to the idea of having Caleb Stone as more than my best friend. And we've got Patience's funeral today and I've still got to find a dress that doesn't smell like it's been roasted over charcoal."

When we were finished with the list, he hurried to his truck.

"Where are you going?" I called. "You've got to get into your suit."

"Why, to town, of course, to price out lumber. I'll meet you at the funeral home."

Now I understood his enthusiasm. He had something to look forward to.

Chapter Twenty-four:

The parking lot for Patience McBride's funeral was filled to capacity. Spectators were held behind some hastily erected barricades. While a long line of mourners slowly filed through the door, a camera crew from the local TV station was setting up for a shoot. After all, this was a sensational story. A twenty year old mystery that included the arrest of a retired judge.

A woman reporter saw me and scurried across the lawn, leaving her cameraman struggling to catch up. Curious heads turned as she screeched, "Ms.Bains! Oh, Ms. Bains!"

I flinched. My God! That voice could be heard in the next county.

When she tripped on the trailing mike cord, she jerked around and chewed out her cameraman, as if he was to blame for her clumsy behavior. Then she turned and shoved the mike under my nose. "Is it true you captured the dead woman's killer at your home? Tell us, Ms. Bains, did you know all along retired Judge Sidney Griffin was the murderer?"

I stayed only long enough to glare her down and wink back at the cameraman, then ducked into a side entrance. A suit with an earphone and NRA lapel pin wrote down my name and handed me a pamphlet. Behind me, I could hear the woman reporter reciting her spiel for the camera.

"Lots of friends of the McBride family are here to pay their respects to the much loved Patience McBride, victim in a murderous rampage that goes back twenty years. Just a moment ago we spoke to ex-model Lalla Bains, now retired at forty and living in seclusion at her father's ranch. That interview will be on tonight's…"

Oh brother, I knew I would have to pay for that glare. Why didn't she say over-the-hill and get it done. The station would probably show a video of my widening backside with a voiceover detailing my brief modeling and flying careers, two briefer marriages, and, of course, another mention of the fact that I'd just turned forty.

I was led to the front pew where my dad, Roxanne and her family were all together.

I whispered a greeting to them and again apologized to Roxanne for almost getting her baby killed.

"That's all right, sweetpea," she said as I sat down. "All that excitement and she has yet to step foot in New York City."

"You're not mad? You're still going to let her go? After everything that happened?"

"Are you kidding? She had the time of her life. If she can handle everything that went on here, New York sure isn't going to give her any trouble." She winked to show there were no hard feelings. Then she nodded at the five women to our right. "Notice the excess of flowery hats and veils?"

Leon snickered. "Maybe a little more than the usual amount of chin hair."

Roxanne added, "Remember what I said about sisters wearing matching everything? Get a load of their shoes."

I followed her nod and saw matching suits, hats, and bony ankles in pumps the size of bathtubs.

My mouth formed an appreciative O. "All of them? They're all guys in drag?"

"Eddy has thrown the cops more than a few red herrings. It'll keep 'em guessing."

Apparently, the police weren't entirely through with Garth Thorne. Something to do with the Internal Revenue wanting to have a serious chat with him about taxes. He sat across the aisle, staring straight ahead and wedged between two stout and grim-looking detectives.

A bearded priest took the podium above the open casket, said a prayer for the dead, and as no one else offered, gave the eulogy. I didn't even know she was religious, much less Catholic.

When he was finished, he encouraged everyone to come forward to say good-bye and then he stepped back from the podium and, sweeping through the heavy velvet draperies, disappeared. A sliver of light, a sudden breath of air billowing the drapes, then I heard the soft click of a door closing. Hoping to have a word with him, I followed his example and exited the same door.

I hurried around the corner in time to see him, head down, hands in his pockets, walking away. Although he didn't seem to be in any particular hurry, I matched his steps with my longer stride and caught up with him as he was getting into a gray sedan. Just as he was putting the key into the ignition, I knocked on the passenger side window. Startled, he looked up, then smiled and leaned over and rolled down the window.

"I thought that might be you behind me, Lalla. I'd just as soon not attract attention, so if you don't mind getting in, we can talk here."

I opened the door, looked around to make sure no one was watching, and slid into the seat.

"You did a really nice Irish priest, Eddy."

"Did I now? Best performance of my lifetime and my brother wouldn't have recognized me. "

"Caleb says the judge will be behind bars for the rest of his life. What are you going to do now?"

"I'm not going to stick around while the law decides if I should spend some more time in jail, if that's what you mean. I did what I came to do, see justice for my dear Patience. We had plans to go to Mexico. I think I'll head down there anyway. That is, if you don't have to tell your sweetheart.

His quirky little smile was back, and the tilt of his head said he was willing to bet I wouldn't have to tell anyone.

I gave him a quick hug and then watched him drive for the freeway that would take him south to Mexico and freedom.

I made my way through the milling crowd to Caleb.

Caleb, awkward in his dark dress suit, put an arm around my shoulders and hugged me gently. "The wake will be at Roxanne's."

"Your car or mine? I got the Caddy back. It's still primer gray and I'm kind of thinking I should paint it something besides red."

"Of course you'll paint it red. What would you be without that bright red Caddy?" He smiled down at me, then grinned at the news people lined up like racehorses at the starting gate. "They're going to mob you the minute you get in that car, red or not."

"After this week, I can handle anything, even turning forty."

"By the way, what are you doing tomorrow?"

I looked up into his warm friendly face and said, "Well, after I get out of your bed, I'm going to fire a pilot."

"Isn't it a bit late in the season to replace a pilot?"

"That's what Brad thinks. But I'm going to replace him with somebody who doesn't need drugs to fly an airplane."

"And who would that be?"

"Me, of course. Time I got back into the seat of my own Ag-Cat. Then I'm going to serve breakfast at Roxanne's."

"Uh-huh. Something special, I presume. Like an order of crow to Boyd Lincoln and Marlon Whitaker? You planning on working up an appetite for that breakfast?" He kissed my mouth once, and then again, taking my breath away.

We ignored the stares, and with our arms around each other, watched plainclothes detectives nervously sidle up to elderly matrons in big shoes and picture book hats. In the next few minutes, more than one detective got slapped for manhandling an old lady.

Caleb laughed softly. "Somehow, I don't think they'll find him, do you?"

I thought of Eddy McBride, heading for Mexico and freedom. "Nope. Don't think so."

The End

If you liked this book, I know you're going to love the next two in the Lalla Bains mystery series.

A Dead Red Heart at Amazon/Kindle and Amazon/print. Link: http://www.amazon.com/DEAD-HEART-Lalla-Bains-ebook/dp/B004W9NIOU/

Chapter One

"Billy Wayne? Wake up! Come on now," I said in disgust. "This is getting out of hand. You've got to stop this nonsense."

I like having a man at my feet. Tough guys who grovel are my favorite, though I'm not averse to a little toe kissing when appropriate. I leave the toe kissing for those uneven date nights when my sweetie, Sheriff Caleb Stone, is not on duty and I'm not neck-deep in summertime work as a crop duster. None of which had anything to do with the man presently draped across my feet. Dead drunk, I figured, looking down at the patriotic red, white and blue ribbons binding his ponytail. I was too late for that heart-to-heart I'd come for; he was already out cold.

Caleb warned Billy that his continued attentions toward me would be ill-advised and considered harassment—his words, not mine. Caleb's belief that a fellow Marine should always be able to pull himself out of the fire didn't take into consideration that Billy's alcohol-doctored post-traumatic stress disorder was not conducive to any such persuasion.

His obsessive interest in me stopped for about a week. Then, in the Save-Mart parking lot, I had to shove my way through a crowd surrounding my car. I stood with the rest of the slack-jawed gawkers ogling the fluttering, white paper snowflakes acting as a second skin to my vintage Cadillac. With one hand I swiped up a handful and with the other, I waved off the spectators. "Practical joke, folks, nothing special."

I didn't have the heart to report this latest infraction to Caleb. Billy Wayne, I knew, was shy and easily startled and would panic if Caleb should feel compelled to make good on his threat of a restraining order. Instead, I decided I would confront him myself. Make him understand that his attraction to me, though flattering, was never going to go anywhere.

So that's why I was now in the alley behind Mr. Kim's Chinese restaurant trying to figure out how to wake this guy up.

I held my breath against the smell of garbage and knelt down to shake his shoulder. He rolled away and onto his back, murmuring, his eyes drifting down to where his dog tags were chained to a dark stain spreading across his nearly new white T-shirt, and finally to where his hands clutched the blue-handled scissors sticking out of his chest.

In the gusty twilight, his paper snowflakes whirled up into the air and cartwheeled merrily down the dark alley toward freedom. I leaned in their direction, aiming for flight, for help, for anything that would get me away from this horror, and I would've succeeded had Billy not had a tight grip on my ankle. I squatted down next to him. "Billy, please, let me get you some help," I said, gently pulling his fingers off my ankle.

He was trying to speak, his breath choppy gasps as he struggled for air. "Too late," he said. "The more there is, the less you see."

A speck of light shifted into shadow, crept across the dirty walls and disappeared. I jerked to my feet, thinking to call out for help, but when I knelt down to touch his neck for a pulse, it was there and then it was gone.

And with a strangled sob, I struggled to my feet and turned to go for the help he wouldn't need any longer.

END of Sample

Get it on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/DEAD-HEART-Lalla-Bains-ebook/dp/B004W9NIOU/

#3 in the Dead Red Series: A Dead Red Oleander

"Janet Evanovich meets aero-ag pilots." The Kindle Book Review

When a late in the season emergency forces Lalla Bains to accept a greenhorn ag pilot for her dad's cropdusting business, she sighs in relief . After all, he comes highly recommended, his physical is spotless, and with a name like Dewey Treat, what could possibly go wrong?

Then her quirky relatives arrive from Texas and things go south in a hurry: Dewey Treat drops dead, his tearful widow claims he was murdered, clobbers Sherriff Caleb Stone with his own gun, and makes a run for it. Lalla, convinced the widow is innocent, sets out to prove it—against the express wishes of fiancé Caleb Stone.

Her daddy's new sidekick, Bruce the goat, nutso relatives, and the Las Vegas hit man trailing her moves, make life a living hell for Lalla. Will her nosey nature solve the crime and save the day? Or put them all in mortal danger?

"I'm so happy that Lalla Bains is back! This is was my favorite book of the three and it's all there: crime, mystery, suspense and great characters! I really liked the glimpses into Lalla's thoughts as she goes back and forth with new theories. Her dad completely lost in a house full of women as Lalla's great-aunt and her cousin (Pearlie) come from Texas for her wedding is hilarious. I Matos, Amazon review

"This author is an exceptional talent bringing her characters to life--you feel like you've met them before! My only regret--I am finished reading and have to wait who knows how long for my next "fix" from this author! Read it and enjoy!" Tech Teacher, Amazon Review

Amazon/Kindle and Amazon/print: http://www.amazon.com/Oleander-Lalla-Bains-mystery-ebook/dp/B008ALR6GC/

Let's meet up at the following reader sites:

GoodReads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4714290.R_P_Dahlke

Facebook Author Page:http://www.facebook.com/RPDahlke

Shelfari: http://www.shelfari.com/rpdahlke

website & blog: http://rpdahlke.com