“Which dirty remarks?” I asked. “Or should I try to guess?”
—Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye, 1949
WHEN I ARRIVED on the selling floor, I saw Sadie had taken over the register. Mina stood by the new-release table, wringing her hands as she peered at Chief Ciders speaking to Bud on the sidewalk.
I rolled the handcart up to Mina and asked her to help me arrange the titles—a task I’d hoped would get her mind off what was to come. Within five minutes, however, the bell over the front door tinkled and Chief Ciders came swaggering in.
“Mina Griffiths,” he called.
The pale, freckle-faced girl seemed to go even paler.
“Take it easy, Mina,” I said softly. “He’s just going to ask you a few questions.”
“You know why I’m here?” asked Ciders, striding up to her.
“Yes,” said Mina.
“You want to come to the station to talk to me about Johnny or answer my questions here?” asked Ciders.
“There’s no need for Mina to have to go to the station, Chief,” I interjected.
“That’s right,” agreed Sadie, rushing up like a mother hen. “There’s plenty of privacy in the Community Events room. You can talk to Mina in there.”
“I’ll take care of it,” I told Sadie. “You cover the register.” Sadie nodded and I led the way into the adjoining room, set up two folding chairs, and gestured for Mina and the Chief to sit down.
I took my place, standing behind Mina, and the Chief looked at me the same way he had back at the Finch Inn—like a wad of chewing tobacco had just gotten stuck in his esophagus.
“You can go now, Mrs. McClure.”
“Oh . . . um . . . but couldn’t I stick around?” I threw a worried glance at Mina.
“No,” barked Ciders. “Please give us some privacy.”
“Oh, okay . . .” I sighed. At least he’d said please, I thought, feeling my spine stiffen. I spun on my heel, but then slowed my movements and drifted ever so languidly toward the archway that led to the main store. I lingered there, trying to eavesdrop. Unfortunately, there was nothing to hear. When I turned around again, I found the Chief squinting at me with open hostility.
“Mrs. McClure, you’ve already given me your statement. If you don’t leave the premises, I will have to take Mina to the station—”
“No, don’t do that,” I said. “I’ll go. I just have to get my purse and car keys upstairs, okay? It’ll take a few minutes.”
“Fine, you do that.”
Cursing silently, I snagged the Stendall file before ascending the stairs. Then I dropped the file on my bed and grabbed my purse and car keys. I told Sadie I’d be back in an hour and, in the words of Chief Ciders, left the premises.
A brand-new All Things Bed & Beautiful superstore had opened recently on the highway and I had yet to check it out. I decided to spend an hour away from “the premises” there. We needed a new shower curtain, Spencer would love a set of Spider-Man sheets, and I hadn’t been able to find imported English lavender shampoo since I’d left Manhattan. If the superstore carried it, I’d probably indulge myself with one bottle of the obscenely expensive product—if only to use as a once-a-week treat for the next six months.
Behind the wheel of my used blue Saturn, I powered down the windows to enjoy the warm summer day. I drove along Cranberry, past the outlying suburbs, and through the thick Quindicott woods where an occasional clearing would reveal a small farm. The radio, which would normally be blaring Radio Disney’s hip-hop “light” for Spencer’s amusement, stayed off as I tried to consider Johnny Napp and whether or not he was capable of murder.
I came to the highway on-ramp and joined the relatively sparse traffic pattern. The thick Quindicott woods flanked the four-lane road. Oaks, pines, and maples flew by as I sped along. After a few miles, I noticed the sunset-orange Comfy-Time Motel sign looming up ahead and got to thinking about what Eddie Franzetti had said—that Victoria Banks and her friends had been staying there last night when Victoria disappeared.
“Jack thinks Victoria had a strong motive to kill Angel,” I muttered. “Which I suppose she does . . . especially if she thinks Johnny killed her sister and got away with it. She could have killed Angel out of spite and revenge and simultaneously set up Johnny as the killer . . . the perfect crime . . . if she gets away with it . . .”
As I considered that maybe Victoria’s two friends were still at the motel, my heart beat a little faster, and my foot pressed a little harder on the gas pedal. “I’m sure if Jack were here, he’d have me stop,” I continued to mutter. “I mean, what harm could it do to check out the parking lot for a black Jag with a blue and white bumper sticker?”
Good idea, baby.
I jammed on the brakes and swerved to the shoulder. A surprised driver laid on the horn behind me.
“God in heaven! Jack?! Is that you?”
It ain’t the Easter Bunny.
I exhaled, my hands shaking as if I’d just been spooked. Then I realized—I had.
“I don’t understand!” I cried, automatically searching the empty confines of my Saturn. “I’m not in the bookstore, I never heard you outside the bookstore—you said you couldn’t leave the bookstore!?”
Ya got me, doll. All I know is I was back there, bored to tears with Ciders’s less than ingenious questioning of freckle-face, thinking about what you’d have to say about it, and suddenly I’m in your head again . . . but this isn’t exactly like the store . . . something’s different . . . I can’t explain it worth a plugged nickel.
“Nickel . . . Jack . . . the buffalo nickel from your files.” I reached into my pants pocket and pulled out the dull silver coin, running my thumb along the grooves of the engraved bison. “You must be attached to it somehow . . . either that or you’re still trapped in the store and you’re . . . I don’t know, transmitting through it, like some kind of cosmic cell phone.”
Your chatter sounds crazy to my ears, dolclass="underline" but then I used to think this whole life-after-death thing was a coffee-and-doughnuts grift. I’d always trucked with Harry Houdini on that score: ghosts were just a carnival racket. I’d say this whole spirit thing was a buffalo, too . . . if it weren’t me who ended up the spirit . . .
I gathered my wits and pulled back on the highway, then quickly turned off again into the paved parking area of the newly built Comfy-Time Motel. The place was part of a national chain of budget lodgings that provided clean, affordable rooms for travelers—just the sort of place you’d find on a highway outside of Anytown, U.S.A., its design and décor exactly the same whether you were standing under the blistering sun of Albuquerque, New Mexico, or the threatening snow clouds of Erie, Pennsylvania.
The white-and-orange-trimmed structure was basically U-shaped with an office at the bottom of the U, breaking the wings in half. There was parking on the outsides of the U, and a large swimming pool tucked between the wings. The model of stark, modern efficiency, the Comfy-Time was the antithesis of the charming and eccentric Queen Anne Victorian that was the Finch Inn, which is why I hoped its existence wouldn’t hurt Fiona and Barney’s business.
I coasted slowly around the lot, squinting at the parked cars in the bright afternoon sun. I counted only seven. That was good news for Fiona and Barney—not many guests—but bad news for me. Most of the cars were American made: a red Buick; two Ford pickups, one green and one blue; a beige Chevy van; and two SUVs, both white. No black Jaguar. The only black car in the lot was an Audi.