“Do you remember anything else? A car parked out front…”
“I don’t know. I didn’t stay long. I took one look at that shit and I was gone. I could smell all these gasoline fumes or something and…”
He hesitated briefly. “Wait a minute, yeah, there was a brown grocery bag in the hall too. I don’t know what it was doing there. I mean, I didn’t know what the fuck was happening, so I just backed away real quiet and came on down here and made sure people saw me.”
I took a sip of wine, running through his story. The chablis tasted like fermented grapefruit juice. “Tell me about the grocery bag. Was it empty, full, crumpled?”
“It had stuff in it, I think. I mean, I didn’t see anything in particular. It was one of those brown paper bags from Alpha Beta, standing just inside the door to the right.”
“Did it look like she’d been shopping? Is that what you’re trying to say?”
He shrugged. “It just looked like junk, I guess. I don’t know. Maybe it belonged to whoever was down in the basement.”
“Too bad you didn’t make an anonymous call to the cops. Maybe they could have gotten there before the place went up in smoke.”
“Yeah, I know. I thought about that later and I was bummed I didn’t do that, but I wasn’t thinking straight.”
He polished off his soft drink and rattled the ice in the cup, tilting a cube into his mouth. I could hear the ice crunching in his teeth. It sounded like a horse chewing on a bit.
“Do you remember anything else?”
“No, I guess that’s it. Once I figured out what was going on, I back out of there and hightailed it down here as fast as I could.”
“You have any idea what time it was?”
“Nuh-un, not exactly. It was quarter of nine when I got here and it probably took me ten minutes on the motorcycle by the time I found a place to park and all like that. I had to walk the sucker for two blocks so nobody would hear me start it up. It was probably eight-thirty or something like that when I left Uncle Leonard’s house.”
I shook my head. “Not eight-thirty. You must mean nine-thirty. She wasn’t killed until after nine.”
He took the cup away from his mouth, looking at me with puzzlement. “She wasn’t?”
“Your uncle and Mrs. Howe both say they talked to her at nine and the cops took a call they think was your aunt at nine-oh-six.”
“Well, maybe I got it wrong then because I thought it was quarter of nine when I got here. I looked at the clock when I walked in and then I turned around and asked this buddy of mine what time it was and he checked his watch.”
“I’ll see if I can check that out,” I said. “By the way, how’s Leonard related to you?”
“My dad and him are brothers. Dad’s the youngest in his family.”
“So Lily Howe is their sister.”
“Something like that.”
The purple neon tubes began to blink out in succession and the pink ones went dark after that. The owner of the place called over to the table. “Closing down in ten minutes, Mike. Sorry to break it up.”
“That’s okay. Thanks, man.”
We got up, moving toward the back entrance. He was not much taller than I and I wondered if we looked like brother and sister or mother and son. I didn’t say anything else until we got to the parking lot.
“You have any theories about who killed your aunt?”
“No, do you?”
I shook my head. “I’d get that shed cleaned out if I were you.”
“Yeah, sure. That was the deal, wasn’t it?”
He got on his cycle and did one of those jumps to start it up. “Hey, you know what? I don’t remember your name.”
I gave him my card, then got in my VW. He waited to make sure I was under way and then he roared off.
I intended to let the case sit for the weekend because I wasn’t sure what else to do. Saturday morning, I went over the police reports again at home, added note cards to my collection up on the bulletin board, but for the time being, I simply had to sit it out. Come Monday, it was possible I’d get
a response from the classified ads I’d placed in the Florida papers or maybe I’d hear from the DMV in Tallahassee or Sacramento. I was still waiting for the plane ticket Julia Ochsner had mailed, hoping it would give me information of some kind. If nothing new came to light, I was going to have to start all over again and see if I could develop a few new leads. I still had local vets to check, trying to get a rundown on the cat.
I took a few minutes to do recalls on the three cab companies. The dispatcher I’d talked to at Green Stripe said he hadn’t had a chance to dig through his files yet. The owner of City Cab had looked and found nothing and Ron Coachella at Tip Top wasn’t in yet, but the dispatcher on duty said he’d be in shortly. So much for that.
I went down to the office. I hadn’t meant to, but I couldn’t help myself. I was feeling itchy and restless and dissatisfied. I don’t like not succeeding at things. California Fidelity was closed for the weekend. I unlocked my door and picked up the mail that had been shoved through the slot. There was an envelope with Julia Ochsner’s return address on it. I tossed it on the desk while I checked my messages. There was only one and it had apparently just come in.
“Hello, Kinsey. This is Ron Coachella over at the cab company? I got the information you want. Tip Top did pick up the fare at 2097 Via Madrina… let’s see-on January the ninth at ten-fourteen P.M. Driver’s name was Nelson Acquistapace at 555-6317. I told him you’d be in touch. I’ve got the trip sheet down here and you’re welcome to stop by and pick up a copy so he can look at it. Twenty bucks might help his memory, if you know what I mean. Aside from that, just remember… ‘If you want the top ride in town, call Tip Top,’ ” he sang and hung up.
I smiled, making a note of the driver’s name and number. I put on a pot of coffee and opened the note from Julia. Her handwriting was of the old school, surprisingly firm, a clear cursive with grand flourishes and well-formed capital letters. She said she was enclosing the ticket, that the June rains were in full force, and that Charmaine Makowski had given birth to a nine-pound nine-ounce boy the night before and wanted everyone to know that she never expected to sit down again. Charmaine and Roland had not yet named the child but were accepting suggestions. Julia said that most of the appellations proffered so far were not fit to repeat. Julia thought it was a hoot. Warmest regards, said she.
I studied the ticket, which was tucked in a TWA folder. It looked like it had been generated at the Santa Teresa airport, round-trip from Santa Teresa to LAX and from LAX to Miami. All four flight coupons had been removed but the carbon remained. The ticket had been paid for by credit card. Four flight coupons torn out. Now, that was interesting. Had she come back to town at some point? If so, why had the carbon been down in Boca Raton in Pat Usher’s trash? I went back to my list of travel agents, trying to figure out which one Elaine Boldt ordinarily used. I decided on Santa Teresa Travel which has an office within easy walking distance of the condominium on Via Madrina. It was just a guess, but I had to start someplace. I put in a call, but there was no answer and I assumed the agency was shut down for the weekend.
I made a list of leads to pursue on Monday. I checked the ticket again. I didn’t see any indication that she’d had the cat in tow, but I wasn’t sure how that worked. Did kitty cats get tickets like everybody else? I’d have to ask. There were some luggage tags still stapled to the back of the folder, but that doesn’t mean much. At the airport here in town, you can pick up your bags without anybody verifying the tags. I remembered Elaine’s luggage as fairly distinctive anyway, dark red leather with the designer signature writ large on the fabric trim. I’d priced that stuff once and decided to open a Keogh account instead.
I put a call through to Nelson Acquistapace, the Tip Top cab driver. He was home in bed with a head cold, but said Ron had told him what I needed. He had to pause and blow his nose twice. “Why don’t you pick up the trip sheet and bring it over here? I’m on Delgado, just half a block down from Tip Top,” he said. “I’ll be outside around in back.”