But from the time I’d dated Arthur, I knew Paul was unpopular among his fellow officers who saw Paul as being secretive, self-righteous, and charmless. Paul didn’t drink or smoke, and barely had tolerance for those who did; he didn’t hunt, or watch football, or even buy nudie magazines. His brief marriage to Sally had been his only one. Apparently, law enforcement was Paul’s life, as it had been for his former boss, Jack Burns.
“I told you it was my car,” Angel said with barely maintained patience.
Since I was keeping a sharp eye on Paul, I could see rage roll over his face like a tidal wave. He was so angry I was surprised to see there wasn’t a gun in his hand, that he wasn’t ordering Angel down on the ground.
“Paul!” I said sharply.
He blinked and looked at me. I put myself right by Angel. His eyes went from Angel down to me, back up to Angel, with the strangest expression.
Being weighed and found wanting was never a pleasant experience, even being found wanting by someone you didn’t give a flip for. I sighed before I said, “Could you explain why this purse is here?” It seemed safe to talk now; Paul’s face had resumed its normal color and his eyes were focused and sane again.
“I was just about to ask this woman the same thing,” Paul said, in a much calmer voice.
“I’m Angel Youngblood,” she said, in an equally cool way. “I found this purse on the hood of my car when I came to get in after coming out of the Law Enforcement Complex, and then the convenience store.” She nodded her head toward the Shop-So-Kwik about thirty feet from the end of the Spacolec parking lot. She had a little bag in her right hand. She waved it.
Paul made a gesture, and in response, Angel opened the bag. Inside was a little package of Tostitos, a Diet Coke, and a giant cookie in its own cellophane wrapper. “Hungry,” she said by way of explanation.
I had never seen Angel eat food like this; tasty junk, but junk.
“So the purse was exactly like this when you returned?” Paul asked. His voice resumed its normal flat, faintly sour tone.
“No, I opened it and poked in it to try to see who it belonged to,” Angel said with perfect logic. “I looked around the parking lot first to see if I could spot a woman who might have put it here, but when I didn’t see anyone, I looked inside. I was just about to open the snap on the wallet when you popped out of your car.”
Paul pulled a pencil out of his shirt pocket, turned the purse over on the hood of the car, and levered out the wallet. He stuck in the end of the pencil to work the snap, and unfolded the wallet with it. It fell open to a driver’s license. The picture and the name were that of Beverly Rillington.
I wasn’t surprised, since I’d been sure I recognized the purse. But Angel drew in a sharp breath, the equivalent of a scream for those of us who don’t count on danger as a way of life.
“Maybe we’d better go in and talk,” Paul said, and I didn’t think he was making a suggestion.
“No.” My mother would be arriving with troops if I didn’t get home and call her, and there was no sense in making more of this than necessary.
“What?” Paul had a puzzled expression, as if he hadn’t quite understood what I meant by “No.”
“When I drove into the parking lot and stopped by Angel’s car, the purse wasn’t there. When Angel went by my car, the purse wasn’t there. And what a senseless thing for either of us to do, put Beverly’s purse out. We might as well go on and put the handcuffs on ourselves! Gee, here we are at the Law Enforcement Complex, let’s put incriminating evidence on the hood of a car?”
Paul’s thin mouth curved in a reluctant smile. It was the first time I’d had a glimpse of what Sally had seen in him.
“Okay, Roe. But if you didn’t leave the purse on Mrs. Youngblood’s car, and Mrs. Youngblood didn’t, who did? Why?”
Angel looked down at me, and I knew our blank gazes were a match. But Angel could see when a thought reached my brain, and shook her head, a tiny gesture as firm as a hand clapped over my mouth.
“We’re not detectives,” I said, looking at Paul. Angel unwrapped the cookie from the bag and started to eat it. Since her mouth was full, she had to shrug.
Though Paul fussed at us some more, he eventually hooked a pencil under the purse strap and carried it into Spacolec. Angel had finished the cookie and opened the Tostitos and the Coke.
“Someone has it in for you,” I observed.
“How do you figure that?” Angel asked around a Tostito.
“The flowers, sent to get you in trouble with your husband. The ribbon around the cat’s neck, to let you know you weren’t secure. The beating of Beverly Rillington after you had a standoff with her in the library. The placing of the purse on your car.”
“That’s the oddest thing,” Angel said. She gave me a look full of significance. And I couldn’t read it.
“Hell, it’s all odd!” I said, puzzled. “But you mean, because putting the purse out here was so open? Everything else could be done in the dark or long distance, so to speak.”
Angel looked away and finally nodded.
I had to restrain myself from asking her to explain all this Enigmatic she was giving me. We’d known each other for two years now, been neighbors for that time, and I thought we were as close friends as we could be, given the fact that she was my employee and we had very different characters. I did at least know Angel well enough to be sure that she would tell me what she was thinking when she was good and ready, and not a moment before..
By the look she was giving me, I could tell Angel thought I was being as dense as I thought she was being secretive. Mutually baffled and exasperated, we got in our respective cars and went home, Angel obeying the speed limit meticulously all the way. I followed behind her, driving automatically. My state of mind might best be described as confused.
I couldn’t help but remember Arthur’s long absence, his return with the coffee. Had Arthur Smith planted that purse on the hood of Angel’s car while she was in the market? If he thought discrediting Angel and perhaps by extension her husband and mine would somehow induce me to think more kindly of him, Arthur was not just mistaken, but seriously deranged.
I trailed slowly into the house, just in time to hear the phone ring. I dashed down the hall, past the stairs, to the second door on the right leading to our study/ library/television room.
“What now?” my mother asked in her cool voice. But I could hear the mixture of anxiety and exasperation underlying it, the two emotions that seemed to dominate in her dealings with me.
I glanced at the desk clock; of course, it was four on the dot.
“It’s okay. I just got in from Spacolec.”
“I think it’s outrageous, them asking you to come in to that place. They should have driven out to your home or talked to you in that new wing you gave the library.”
“Mother!” No one was supposed to know I’d given the kickoff donation for the new staff area. “How’d you find out?”
“I have my ways,” she said calmly, without a trace of humor.
“Well, don’t you ever tell anyone else,” I said hotly. If my gift became common knowledge, it would be pretty hard for me to keep working at the library; that wasn’t logical, but it was true.
“Did that woman really get hurt badly, Aurora?” My mother was back on track, even if I wasn’t.
“Sam told me that she might die.”
“What a terrible thing. And since you had an argument with her the same day, I know what you must be feeling.”
She did, too. It was a milder version of having a fight with your spouse, who subsequently drives off and has a car wreck. That had happened when Mother was still with my father, when I was twelve. He’d left soon after, neck brace and all.