Thelma Nettro had opened the door and was standing there, leaning on her cane, beaming at all of them, the pumpkin peach lipstick smeared, some of it on her false front teeth.
“Hello, Thelma,” Quinlan said and rose to go to her. He leaned down and kissed her cheek. “You’re looking like a French model. How’s tricks?”
27
“YOU’VE GOT A smart mouth on you, boy,” Thelma said in high good humor. She patted Quinlan’s cheek. “Help me to my chair and I’ll tell you all about my tricks.”
Once Quinlan had her settled, she said, “Now, what’s this I hear on CNN-that Sally’s father killed a man he’d paid some plastic surgeon to make look like him? He locked you up, Sally? Then he skipped out?”
“That’s about it, Thelma,” Sally said. “My father is still free, more’s the pity, but they’ll catch him. His face has been all over the TV. Someone will spot him. He didn’t leave the country, his passport isn’t missing.”
“He could have gotten another passport,” Thomas Shredder said. “That’s never a problem.”
“Shit,” Quinlan said. “Excuse me, Thelma. I didn’t think of that. You’re right, Thomas.”
“I’ve heard worse things than a little shit in my lifetime, Quinlan. So, you got some more FBI agents here. You want to solve those murders, huh?” “Yes, ma’am,” Corey Harper said. “We all thought Doc had killed himself, but that woman from Portland said it wasn’t so.”
“The medical examiner,” David said. “I was lucky she’s so well trained and was available. Otherwise it might have passed as a suicide.”
“Poor Doc,” Thelma said. “Who’d want to stick a gun in his mouth? It isn’t civilized-you know?”
“No, it isn’t.”
“As for that young woman with the three children, well, that was a pity too, but after all, she wasn’t one of us. She was from that wretched subdivision.”
“Yeah, Thelma, she lived all of three miles away,” Quinlan said, seeing his irony floating gently over Thelma’s head. “Fact is, though, she did die right here.”
Quinlan sat himself back down beside Sally on the brocade sofa. When he spoke again, Sally immediately recognized that voice of his, low and soothing, intimate. That voice would get information out of a turnip. “Now, did you ever meet that rich uncle of Doc Spiver’s, Thelma?”
“Nope, never did. I don’t even remember where he lived, if I ever did know. But everyone knew about him and how he was older than God and how if we could just hang on a bit longer then he’d croak and Doc would get the money.
“Of course, I have money, but not as much as that rich uncle had. We were all afraid that the old codger would use it all up on nursing homes, but he just died in his sleep, Doc said, and then Doc got that big fat check. More zeros than anybody in this town had ever seen before, I’ll tell you.”
“Thelma,” David said, “do you know of anyone in town who could have met this uncle?”
“Don’t know, but I’ll find out. Martha!”
The screech hurt Sally’s ears. She winced even as she smiled because Corey had jumped and dropped her pen and notebook.
“Healthy set of lungs,” Quinlan said.
Martha appeared in the doorway, wiping her hands on her apron.
“What are you making for dinner, Martha? It’s getting on toward four o’clock.”
“Your favorite eggplant parmigiana, Thelma, with lots of Parmesan cheese on top and garlic bread so snappy it will make your teeth dance, and a big Greek salad with goat cheese.”
“The uncle, Thelma,” Quinlan said easily.
“Oh, yes. Martha, did you ever meet Doc Spiver’s rich uncle?”
Martha frowned deeply, then slowly shook her head. “No, just heard about him for years. Whenever things were looking real bad, we’d talk about him, discuss how old he was, what kind of ailments he had, try to figure out when he’d pass on. Don’t you remember, Thelma? Hal Vorhees was always telling us we were ghouls, that it surely had to be a sin to discuss that poor old man, like we were holding prayer meetings for him to die.”
“We were,” Thelma said. “I’ll bet Hal did a little praying when none of us were around. Well, I wasn’t praying for myself because I wasn’t poor like the rest of the town, but when Doc got that check, I was shouting along with everyone else.”