Masquerade in blue, p.16
Masquerade in Blue, page 16
“I guess I just wanted to see for myself.”
Peanuts had his nose buried in the long grass, scratching and making soft growling sounds. A small frog jumped straight up, probably hitting Peanuts’s nose on the way. He leaped back, head up, ears perked. Elaine and I laughed at the look of utter shock that came over his doggie features. Then, to save face, he crouched, front legs splayed, and barked at the little green creature. It didn’t move from the blade of grass – an act of either incredible bravery or overconfidence in his camouflage.
“Have you seen enough, yet? Your dog is being a brat.”
As we walked the half mile back to my car, I wondered what Julia Ellison would do now that the Army Corps of Engineers had handed down the sentence to these wetlands. I hadn’t spoken to her last night. Figuring we’d seen the best part of the show, Elaine and I had decided not to go back to the fund-raiser. Instead she told me how she’d witnessed a scene between David Reaves and a woman with dark hair wearing a navy dress who I was certain had to be Julia Ellison. Julia had been upset and Reaves was trying to comfort her – “without laying a hand on her, but still being very effective” – was how Elaine put it. As soon as Elaine was within earshot, Julia had shut up and given her a “what in the hell are you doing here” look.
I’d played dumb when Elaine said she thought the woman with Reaves was the Blue Fox, telling her that I saw any number of dark-haired women with dark dresses at the fund-raiser. “Name one,” she said and I countered by asking how Julia Ellison could have been terrorizing polluters twenty years ago. She admitted that had stumped her, but plastic surgery was a possible explanation. I admired her perception, still, I wasn’t about to tell her that she’d guessed right, based solely on one of those “feelings” she gets.
As I opened the car’s back door for Peanuts, I made a mental note to make time to stop at Valley Glass and Mirror and get the new window put in.
On the way back to the apartment, I didn’t feel like talking. The morning had burned a bad mood into me and I was wallowing in it. Elaine tried to start a conversation or two, then gave up. I kept thinking about the marshes.
We were driving down Ridgeland, coming into Foxport from the west, when Elaine tried again. “Quint?” I responded with a grunt.
“Quint,” she spoke sharper this time and I glanced at her.
“What?”
“Are you scared of snakes?”
I shrugged, not wanting to admit that I went along with Indiana Jones when it came to the snakes, but wanting to be honest. “What sane person isn’t? Why?”
“I don’t know. That place reminded me of snakes.” After a few seconds she said, “There’s a Convenience Mart up ahead. Could you pull in there? I need something.”
I was in a hurry to get home and out of my wet shoes. “Can it wait?”
“I need tampons,” she snapped, and I felt like a clod.
“Sorry.” I slowed and switched on the left turn signal. In the middle of the turn, I reached down to scratch my thigh and heard Elaine moan. Instead of feeling the denim, what my hand touched was cool, dry, and slender like a rubber tube. And it was moving. I gripped the steering wheel, glanced down, and saw that its eyes were looking into mine and its forked ribbon of a tongue was draped over its open jaw. “Holy Shit!” I think I screamed. I know I slammed my foot down on the accelerator instead of the brake because we lurched forward, crashing into something. The shoulder restraint jerked me back into the seat. Peanuts tumbled over the arm rest and I grabbed him before he hit the dashboard, pulling him to my chest. That was when he saw the snake trying to burrow down somewhere under my seat. He tried to follow it under the steering wheel, which would have been all right, except parts of me were in the way. I groped for the release on my seat belt and Elaine was yelling for me to grab Peanuts. His front half was under the dashboard and his butt was on the driver’s side of the steering wheel, back legs delivering a series of sharp kicks to my crotch. With all his squirming and kicking, I couldn’t get a grip on his haunches. “Push him all the way!” Using both hands, Elaine pushed his back half down with his front half. I found the release on my seat belt and bailed out.
Elaine came around the car with Peanuts’s leash. He was still barking and clawing at the carpeting under the seat. I decided it was time to take control of the situation and took the leash from Elaine, hoping she didn’t notice my hand shaking. “C’mon, kiddo. Fun’s over.” Peanuts continued to bark as I clipped the leash to his collar and hauled him out of the car, closing the door behind him.
We’d missed the Convenience Mart’s entrance by only about four feet and had been stopped dead in our tracks by a steel guard rail. As I stepped to the front of the car, I saw that the Honda’s fender had taken most of the impact and the guard rail looked pretty good.
“What in the hell happened?” I looked up and saw that the incident had attracted a small crowd, maybe seven people. A big guy with a beer gut that strained at his black “Born to kick ass” T-shirt had stepped forward. A small blond woman who might or might not have been with him was standing a couple feet behind him. “You were turning in here normal-like and then you go nuts.”
Before I could answer, a skinny kid with acne came out of the store and told us the police were on their way. I didn’t thank him, but turned to the big guy. “It was a snake. I’m making the turn and there’s this big snake on my leg.”
He shot a look at the woman behind him. Then he turned back to me, smiled slowly and completely before he said, “You sure it was a snake?”
Everyone except the blond woman, whose lips seemed in a perpetual pout, had a good laugh. When it was quiet again, I said, “Yeah, I’m sure.”
“It had sort of a ribbon or a stripe down its back,” Elaine said. “Where’d he go?”
“Under the seat, I think.”
He made a face and shrugged but didn’t move. The blond’s pout had blossomed into a taunting smile and she stepped up to the big man. “Go ahead, Mickey. Get the snake out of the guy’s car.”
He looked at her, then at the car.
“Hey,” I said, “why don’t we wait for the cops. They’re good at stuff like this.”
Mickey looked relieved until he turned back to his little friend who was still smiling, her arms crossed over her chest. With a burst of resolution, he threw his hands up and said, “Ah, what the hell, sounds like one of them garter snakes. Let me at it.”
I moved in front of him. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. You see, no one knows if it’s harmless. Two days ago someone tried to shoot me and did shoot the back window out on my car.” I gestured toward the cardboard as proof. “Now, I don’t know how a snake would get in my car unless someone put it there. So, I don’t know that we can assume it’s a garter snake.”
He stared at me for a moment and backed off. Apparently an attempt on my life moved me up in his estimation. Turning to the woman, he said, “We’ll wait for the cops.” Her smile dwindled back into a pout.
The police were there within five minutes and while one officer wrote up a citation an animal control officer arrived and pulled the garter snake out from under the driver’s seat. Just about everyone was disappointed that it wasn’t some kind of Asian viper that might have left me dead and bloated.
It was almost noon before we drove back to my apartment and by then I’d decided that I didn’t mind the fact that I wouldn’t be around in a million years. There was no way I’d fit in.
As we pulled into the driveway, Elaine and I were arguing about whether the snake had been planted or not. I wanted to believe it had just crawled into the car, through one of those secret openings that only snakes know about. Elaine said that was ridiculous and, besides, why would a snake want to get in a car? I suggested that perhaps he was trying to evolve.
“Try another one, McCauley. And, by the way, why didn’t you tell me someone was trying to kill you?”
“Well, we’ve been so busy it just didn’t come up. You know, if someone were trying to kill me, why did they use a garter snake instead of some obscure viper who comes without an antiserum?” I kept Peanuts on the leash, much to his disappointment, because I didn’t want to take him down to the river right then. “When’s the last time a garter snake killed someone?”
Without hesitation, she said, “Probably when it surprised some guy driving seventy-five miles per hour, wedged between two semis.”
We were about to climb the stairs to my apartment when Louise came around the side of the house. I was grateful for her interruption.
Peanuts was greeting her and she leaned down to pat him, then stopped and wrinkled her nose up. “Nothing like the smell of a wet dog.”
“Going to the shop?”
“Yes, then I saw you. I just heard the most horrible news and I thought, well, you’d want to know, seeing as you’re involved in this investigation and all.”
My head flooded with images that ranged from Jeff Barlowe hanging himself to Julia Ellison throwing herself in front of a back hoe.
But when she said, “David Reaves was murdered last night,” I was not prepared.
After a beat I said, “State Rep. David Reaves?”
Louise murmured a confirmation. The clouds closed in on me for a second. Somewhere a lawn mower whined and something shifted imperceptibly. I tried to focus on it, but couldn’t quite make it.
Louise lowered her voice and said, “You’re not going to believe where they found him.”
“Where?”
She glanced at Elaine, then back to me. “The Cedar Street Inn.”
I wasn’t sure I’d heard right. “No.”
“What’s the Cedar Street Inn?” It was Elaine.
Louise gave me a solemn nod. “Yes.”
“How’d it happen?”
“Shot. Twice.”
“What’s the Cedar Street Inn?”
“Well, one thing you pay for at Cedar Street is discretion.” Then I quickly added, “Or so I’ve heard.”
Louise confided to Elaine, “It’s rumored to be the base for a call girl operation.”
“No kidding.” Her eyes widened. “Here in Foxport?”
“Actually,” I said, “it’s in an unincorporated area. Sort of a mini sin strip. There’s a drive-in that shows movies like Ninja Chainsaw Massacre and a couple porn shops that morally outraged citizens are always trying to close down.” My mind was charging ahead with possibilities. “When did you hear?”
“Only a half hour ago.” Then she added, “They’re holding a press conference this afternoon at two.”
“Do you know where?”
“The police station, I believe.”
“We may give it a try.”
Louise glanced at her watch. “Well, I hate to drop a piece of news like that and leave, but I do have to be getting to the shop. Joleen has to leave early today. Again!”
As soon as Elaine and I got into the apartment, I turned on the radio, moving the dial to the local station, and stood there, waiting. I learned there was a cold front aimed right at us that would start by dumping some rain on the area, and that Pollack Ford was offering five-hundred-dollar rebates. Then the news announcer came back on, recapping the story and saying little was known at this time, but there were leads.
Elaine had liberated Peanuts from his leash and was sitting in the director’s chair. “That press conference should be interesting.”
I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye. She was watching me like a kid waiting to hear it was time to leave for the zoo.
“Why don’t you change into something that will make you look like a reporter?”
She jumped up, startling Peanuts who seemed oblivious to the situation from his station beneath the coffee table. He had taken to sleeping under things – the coffee table, the bed – the way someone in an earthquake-prone area might. Maybe his instincts were better than ours.
If Elaine was going to pull this off, she’d need more than a convincing costume. I called Tim Skillman, Jeff’s editor, to see if he’d come through with a press pass for us. He hesitated, and I didn’t blame him.
“Who’s going to use it?”
I told him Elaine was.
Another pause. “What makes you think there’s a connection between Novotny’s death and Reaves’s?” he asked.
“I guess I don’t know that right now, but they were two people who were on opposite sides of the wetland issue.”
“Yeah,” he sighed, and I figured he’d already thought of that. I reminded him that it was his reporter we were trying to get out of jail and he finally agreed to supply us with a press pass, though I had to swear it would be Elaine, not me, who used it. I told him we’d stop by within the hour.
I called my office and there were two messages from Julia Ellison. In both recordings she sounded upset and impatient with me for not being there. But, of course, she didn’t leave a number. I tried to find her phone number but realized that all I knew about Ms. Ellison was the fact that she taught at Abel County College, tended bar part-time at The Den, and was an environmental terrorist. I called the college. Then I remembered it was Saturday. Well, it wouldn’t hurt her to wait. I gathered Elaine’s translation of Jeff’s notes, folded, and slipped it into my jacket pocket. Not that I wanted to wait. Julia was so indifferent about my involvement, if she was trying to contact me, it must be big. And given the timing of her calls, I had to believe it had something to do with Reaves. I managed to come up with one place where I might be able to get in touch with her. Fortunately, you could eat lunch there too.
Elaine emerged from the hall wearing a tan jacket over a black skirt. She’d pulled her hair back and secured it with combs. “No matter how authentic I look, I’m not getting in anywhere without a press pass.”
“We’ve got that handled.”
She held up her empty hands. “I’ll need something to write in. A notebook.”
I gave her one of Jeff’s that wasn’t full. She hesitated, then took it. “He’s going to hate me for this. I’ve never met the guy and I’ve invaded his code and his notebook.”
“You help me get him out of there and he won’t complain.”
She dropped the notebook into her black leather shoulder bag. “You got a pencil?” I asked.
“I use a pen.”
“Don’t be silly. All reporters use pencils.” She didn’t respond so I added, “Don’t they?”
“I don’t care.” I held the door open for her. “I don’t like the feel of a pencil.” As she walked past me onto the porch, she added, “I even do crosswords in pen.”
A moment later I followed. “I didn’t know that.”
Stopping on the third step down, Elaine turned to look up at me. “When I’m feeling really dangerous, I use a red pen.”
“How do you correct mistakes?”
“I don’t make them. Either that or I write over.”
“What a reckless woman.”
I stopped at the Foxport Chronicle and got the press pass for Elaine. Skillman made me swear again that I wouldn’t use it. I promised. He gave me a skeptical look. “If you’re lying, do me one favor. Leave me gagged and tied to a chair so I can say it’s not my fault.” When I got out to the car, where Elaine was waiting, she asked where mine was.
“I can’t go. There’s people who will be there who know I’m a P.I. and not a reporter.”
She looked puzzled. “Ed Carver knows who I am. Won’t he be there?”
“Yeah, but I’m betting on him being so busy he’s not going to take the time to hassle you.” I paused and added, “If he asks what you’re doing there, just tell him you’re freelancing.”
The waitress at The Den put us next to a window. The wind had picked up and somewhere a cloud was blocking the sun. From where Elaine sat she could see the river spilling over a small dam. “This is pretty,” she said, and I watched her adjust one of her combs. I had to agree.
After we ordered, I went into the bar. I didn’t hold out much hope that Julia would be working, but maybe someone could tell me how to get in touch with her.
Even though it was almost one o’clock, the bar was practically empty. Just the bartender and a woman perched on a stool at the far end. The bartender was the same guy who’d relieved Julia that day I talked to her. Rob. He was talking to a woman who was dark-haired, attractive, and wore a short dress that was almost the same color as the blush wine she was drinking. Her head was tilted back and she was laughing. Rob was watching her, possibly admiring the curve of her throat. Then he turned and saw me settle on one of the bar stools. His eyes narrowed slightly, then he looked back at the woman, excused himself, and moved toward me, one hand in the pocket of his black jeans, the other dragging along the bar. I lit a cigarette.
“What can I get you?”
I shook my head. “Nothing, thanks. I’m looking for Julia Ellison.”
“She’s not working today.”
“You know where I can reach her? It’s real important.”
He studied me for a moment, drumming his fingers against the bar’s surface. I glanced at his hand and he stopped.
“Why don’t you try the college?” He took a towel from below and began wiping the bar’s shining surface.
“It’s Saturday.” While that concept registered, I said, “Could you give me her home number?”
He shook his head as if he thought I had a lot to learn about life. “Hey, lots of guys ask for Julia’s phone number. She’d kill me if I gave it out.”
“Yeah, well I’m not trying to hit on her. And I’m not exactly giddy at the prospect of talking to her. Thing is, she’s the one who wants to talk to me.”
His shrug said: What do you want me to do about it?
“Do you think you could call her for me?” I tried, without much success, to keep the sarcasm out of my voice. Still no response. “Tell her Quint McCauley needs to talk to her. If she says Quint Who? you can apologize for disturbing her, and I’ll be on my way.”
He eyed me carefully but when I returned the look, he turned away. Finally he balled up the rag and tossed it under the bar. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
