Fool's Puzzle by Earlene Fowler (reading eggs books .TXT) 📕

Jack had to die before me, the last voice he heard should have been mine.

Floyd’s cross voice brought me back. “Is there something you want, lady?”

“My cousin Rita.” I forced myself to focus on him. “She works here. Have you seen her lately?”

“Sure.”

“When?”

“Two nights ago?” He phrased it like a question. His scraggly eyebrows intersected in a frown.

“Sunday night?” I prompted.

“Yeah, I guess so.” He pulled out a can of Copenhagen and stuck some behind his bottom lip. “She’s supposed to work tonight.”

“I need to get in touch with her,” I said. “It’s extremely important. Can you tell her to call Benni when she comes in?”

“If she comes in. She ain’t all that dependable.”

“You heard about Marla, didn’t you?”

“Yeah.” He nodded and folded his towel in half, in quarters, then stuck it under the counter. “Tough break for me. She was a good bartender. Never cheated me once. Least, far as I could tell. She’ll be hard to replace.”

I looked at him in amazement. Tough break for him? What about Marla? Nice guy. One of his employees is murdered and all he can think about is her replacement.

“Well, Rita was with her that night and I think she might have gotten scared and taken off. Do you have any idea where she might go?”

“Ain’t she living with Marla? You check the house?”

“Yes, no one answered.” When he didn’t offer anything more, I decided to take a chance. The worst he could do was say no. “Maybe there’s something in the house that will tell me where she’s gone. Have the police been here asking for a key yet?”

His expression became irritated. “No. You think they will?”

“Probably. I’d like to see the house before them. Do you have a key?”

“I don’t want any trouble,” he said with a scowl.

“Just give me five minutes. Please. I want to see if her clothes and stuff are gone. Her grandmother is worried. Please.” I gave him my best pleading look. Being short and somewhat adolescent-looking can have its advantages. It’s harder to pull off the helpless female act if you’re over five-six or carry a briefcase. I hated using it, but your resources are your resources. It doesn’t always work, but this time it did.

He eyed me sourly and reached under the counter. Pulling out a huge set of keys, he twisted one off. “Make it fast.”

“Thanks.” I smiled widely, feeling a bit proud of myself for finally accomplishing something concrete in my search for Rita, even if I did set women’s lib back a game point or two.

My feeling of triumph lasted until I entered the house. I purposely stayed away from anything of Marla’s, knowing the police would be looking through her things soon, if they hadn’t already. Rita’s room was empty except for an old bed, a couple of pasteboard boxes and a lone fly two-stepping across the window screen. I sat down hard on the saggy mattress. My options were few. Nonexistent, actually. I locked the back door and drove back to Trigger’s, rehearsing what I would tell Ortiz. None of it sounded plausible. I’d withheld important information on a homicide investigation. There was no dancing around that.

By the number of pickups and motorcycles crowding the parking lot, Trigger’s lunch rush had begun. When I walked back up to the bar, Floyd was filling a pitcher from the tap with one hand and picking up a wad of bills with the other.

“Find anything?” He set three mugs and the full pitcher on a large tray. A gray-pig-tailed man in a blue “Built Ford Tough” tee shirt winked at me as he picked them up.

“She’s gone.” I tossed the keys on the bar. “Thanks. If she happens to come in, tell her to—”

He interrupted me. “You got a visitor.”

“What?”

“Cop.” He spit into a white mug and gave me an annoyed look. “Had to tell him where you were. Told you I didn’t want no trouble.”

“Thanks for nothing.” I turned and searched the noisy room for Ryan’s stomach or Cleary’s calm, dark face. How did they find me? No one could possibly have known where I’d been going.

“Okay, I give up,” I said. “Where are they?”

“He.” Floyd jerked his head toward a corner booth where a dark-haired man wearing a conservative gray suit, a crisp white shirt and a furious expression, stood up and crooked his finger at me.

The epithet I muttered caused the skinny cowboy standing next to me to burst out laughing. I was, obviously, going to be given the privilege of explaining myself earlier than I’d anticipated.

Walking slowly toward the man in the gray suit, I decided on the casual approach.

“Chief Ortiz,” I said. “I hardly recognized you in your grownup clothes.”

His facial impersonation of a mannequin impressed me, though I decided not to share that particular thought. He pointed to the seat across from him.

“Sit down.”

So much for the casual approach. I slid across the slick brown vinyl, avoiding eye contact. After he sat down, we played more of the silence game. While he worked at intimidating me, I occupied myself with studying his hands which were tapping a soft cadence on his thick white coffee mug. They were huge, strong-looking, with short, neat nails, and though clean, stained black in rough crevices no soap can reach. A mechanic’s hands. I looked up at him in surprise.

The expression on his face was unreadable. I refused to give in and look down, hoping my face didn’t show the dog-caught-in-the-garbage-can look I suspected it held.

Finally, he spoke.

“Just what do you think you’re doing?”

An excellent question. One I’d asked myself several times in the last twelve hours. I looked him straight in his peculiar gray-blue eyes and told him the truth.

“I have absolutely no idea.”

For a moment he appeared stunned. Not the answer he expected. Not the answer I expected. His mouth made a sharp downward curve.

“You can tell me about it now,” he said. “Or we can go down to the station. Your choice.”

My day had been full of