Death of a Garage Sale Newbie (6 page)

“Keaton, you’re as white as a, how you say, a ghost.” Her accent sounded stronger than usual. It always returned when she visited with Gwen. Keaton vowed that he would find a way to ship Gwen back to France before the summer was over. She had too much influence on Renata.

“Renata, it’s the box. That minivan you passed on the way up here. That woman has my box.”

“Uhn, Keaaaaatooon.” The salsa fell to the floor, splattering across tile and cupboards. “I am tired of hearing of the stupid box.” She narrowed her gorgeous eyes. “Gwen did not know. I did not know. It look like junk. We try to get it back.”

“And that was a big disaster, wasn’t it?” He pointed a finger at her. “You could go to jail for what you did.”

Renata flinched. “You put the pressure on me.”

“I didn’t ask you to break the law.” Keaton squeezed his eyes shut. He wanted to be angry with Renata. He wanted to tell her to put that sister of hers on a boat, a plane, in a barrel. “I know the license plate of the minivan—momof3. I have a friend at the DMV.” He rubbed his fingers together to indicate money. “You know, my friend. He can match it to an address.”

He stepped through the salsa and grabbed her soft hands. Tomatoes stained his expensive shoes. It didn’t matter. He’d walk through gallons of salsa to keep her, his jewel. “We’ll get the box back.”

Curly golden brown hair piled atop Renata’s head revealed a long neck, which matched her long arms and legs. Everything about her was lovely and foreign and exciting.

She was the jewel in his crown of success.

He was twenty years her senior and required frequent workouts and hair transplants to maintain the illusion of youth. Despite all his pretense and money, he was just a ranch kid from eastern Montana who happened to make a good living as an environmental lawyer and speaker.

He had to get it back. If he didn’t retrieve that box, he’d lose everything, including Renata and his livelihood.

Tammy had been down
to the holding cells of the city jail a thousand times, but never to retrieve her son.

“He needs a positive male influence in his life, Tamela.” Hannah Krinkland trailed behind her daughter as they made their ways up the justice center steps.

The sun shone down from a marble blue, clear sky. The temperature hung around seventy. Midsummer in Montana would be the most pleasant time of the year if she didn’t have to spend it keeping her son out of trouble.

“The only men who want to mentor my son want to date me, Mother. I just think that complicates things.”

“If only Larry—”

Tammy stopped abruptly halfway up the stairs. “Larry? I hardly think that’s a realistic solution.”

Ironically, her first exposure to the law hadn’t been at the police academy. She had married Larry Welstad when she was seventeen and pregnant. Among other things, he had several narcotics and auto theft convictions. After three frightening years of marriage, Trevor’s father had gotten into a car he borrowed from a friend and driven off the face of the earth.

The abandonment had been a blessing in disguise. Tammy completed her GED, started attending church again with her mother, and entered the police academy within a year of her husband leaving. She was pretty sure the outstanding warrants would keep dear Larry out of Montana, hopefully forever. The last thing she needed was Larry around to influence her fifteen-year-old son.

Mom touched her forehead. “I’m fishing at the bottom of the pool, sweetheart; I’m sorry. I’m starting to feel a level of desperation. If only Daniel were still alive.”

At the mention of her father, Tammy sighed and headed up the remainder of the stairs. She wasn’t sure what God was doing leaving two women to raise a boy alone, but she had to trust His wisdom.

“We can’t live on ‘if onlys,’ Mother. We’ve got to deal with what we have to work with.” Which was close to nothing. If her parenting resources had been a poker hand, she would have folded a long time ago. But that wasn’t what motherhood was about. You played the game to the end even if it looked like you were going to lose. Trevor had said plenty of mean things to her, but the one thing she did not ever want him to say was, “You gave up on me, Mom. You bailed. You wrote me off.”

Tammy opened the doors and turned left down the long hallway. The administrative-interview wing, where the officers spent most of their time, was at the opposite end of booking and holding.

“Tamela Jane, slow down. I can’t keep up with you.”

Her legs had been moving at the speed of her thoughts. Maybe lawlessness was genetic. Maybe Trevor was doomed to live his father’s life.
Don’t go there, Tams. Don’t go there.
She slowed her pace. “Sorry, Mom.”

Her mom had a short, turned-under hairstyle that she dyed chestnut brown. Like Tammy, she was tall and big boned. She dressed mostly in matching outfits she ordered off the shopping channel. Today she wore head-to-toe lavender peachskin.

“I’m not a young woman.” Hannah lifted her chin and stroked her neck.

Tammy nudged her and winked. “You could pass for forty.” At least she had Mom, and that was a true blessing.

“Ha. Forty? Maybe in a dark room filled with blind people.”

“Come on, Mom. This way.” They opened the door that led to the jail. The processing room was a counter with a bay of video screens behind it. Tammy recognized Ryan Vicher, an officer who had moved up from Wyoming. He was the one who had told Bradley Deaver to push the work on the Parker woman through and the one Captain Stenengarter had sent up to question the archery range members. Tammy clenched her teeth. Why was her mind always returning to that case? It was over and done with. She needed to let it go.

Vicher nodded. “He’s down the hall.” He held up the police report. “This can disappear if you want.”

“Trevor doesn’t get breaks because he’s a cop’s kid.”

Her mother stood beside her. “We agreed he had to suffer the consequences of his actions.”

“He’ll have to appear before a judge, probably pay restitution.” Vicher placed the police report in a manila folder.

“What did he steal?”

Vicher glanced at the report. “Little miniature tool kit. Some wheels. Under fifty bucks’ worth, so it’s a misdemeanor.”

“Wheels?” What on earth was he going to do with stuff like that?

“Little ones.” He made a circle with his fingers. His fair features suggested Scandinavian heritage. “You want me to bring him out?”

Tammy and her mom nodded in unison. Vicher pressed a button and spoke into a microphone. “Trevor Welstad’s mother is here.”

Her eyes went to the video monitors. An officer appeared at the corner of the screen ambling past the first two cells. He leaned into the third cell, which Tammy noticed had not been locked. Trevor had opted to meet her at the jail, rather than at the store where he’d been caught, probably because it was too embarrassing.

Watching her kid be escorted by a police officer was like pouring salt in a gash. She looked away from the monitors. She needed to focus on something else…anything but this. “You remember about a week ago? The night the Parker woman was brought in?”

Vicher looked up from his paperwork and blinked several times. He shook his head. Apparently, the case hadn’t made an impression on him like it had on her.

Tammy touched her back. “Arrow.”

“Oh yeah, yeah.”

She had hoped Vicher would give up the information without her having to pry. He struck her as a consummate people pleaser, desperate to get off desk work and patrol.

Tammy stared at the video screen. The other officer led a hunched-over Trevor up the hallway. She averted her eyes from the monitor and kept her tone casual. “You told Deaver to rush the postmortem. No need for a full autopsy?”

“Captain asked me to. It was obviously an accident.” Vicher squared his shoulders. “Didn’t you think?” He tapped a pen on the counter.

Tammy nodded. “Captain said you weren’t able to trace the arrow back to a specific user—too generic.”

Vicher stopped tapping his pen. His face paled. “The captain said that?”

“That’s what he told me.”

Vicher touched the side of his nose and then patted his buzz cut.

Nervous little Nellie, aren’t you?

“The captain must have meant a different officer.”

Tammy leaned a little closer to him. “I’m pretty sure he said you.” Vicher was obviously not the mastermind behind the coverup. In an effort to please Stenengarter, the young officer had been turned into a patsy.

The security panel buzzed. “Looks like your son is here.” The tone of triumph in Vicher’s voice was a little over the top. He hit a button. The click of metal releasing from metal echoed in the empty admin room. The large steel door opened, and a red-eyed Trevor escorted by an older officer stepped into the room.

Sudden fatigue seeped into Tammy’s body. She was tired of the constant psychological pummeling raising a teenager required. She gazed at her boy. He wasn’t a big kid. The oversized T-shirt and pants he wore made him look even smaller. His hair was the same shade of brown as her own, but wavy, like his dad’s. He stared at the floor.

“Trevor, where are your glasses?” Mom took a step toward her grandson.

The fifteen-year-old looked everywhere but at his mother. “I lost them, Grandma.”

Tammy lifted her arms and then let them fall at her side. She really wanted to hug her son. Even though she was parenting by the seat of her pants, instinct told her this had to be a tough love moment. “You’ll have to earn the money to pay for them and for any court costs.” She attempted to use the same emotionless tone she adopted when she stopped speeding motorists, but her voice cracked.

Mom gave her a sidelong glance but said nothing. If her mom thought she was making a poor parenting choice, she would tell her later in private. Right now, they were a united front in the battle to push Trevor into adulthood.

Tammy’s fist hit the counter. Vicher flinched. “Why, Trevor? Why?” Now her voice was nothing but emotion.

He seemed transfixed by the pattern in the linoleum. “Me and Kevin found this really rad little motor just lying on the side of the road. We were going to put it on my skateboard.” He lifted his head and gazed at his mother. “We just needed some things.” His eyes steeled and his lips tightened. “So there!”

Whatever regret Trevor had had about his life of crime had been replaced by rebellion. Inwardly, Tammy shuddered. She knew that look—the cold, unwavering eyes and the expression that was like a mask of concrete. She’d seen it on a thousand faces right before the handcuffs went on…and she’d seen it in Larry.

Panic stretched and compressed her stomach like Silly Putty. A memory of two-year-old Trevor running through a field of dandelions, the light playing on his curly hair, flashed through her head. Tammy squared her shoulders.

I will
not lose this kid.

She placed her feet shoulder-width apart and tilted her head. She was still two or three inches taller than him.
Two can play this game, Trevor.
“I think we better go home.” The ominous tone in her voice implied that she had a medieval torture chamber in her basement that she wasn’t afraid to use.

Trevor’s shoulders drooped. Though his jaw remained tense, the coldness in his eyes melted. He fiddled with the zipper of his sweat jacket.

“The car is in the side lot. I suggest you hustle.”

Trevor scowled at her and shoved his hands in his pockets, but he made his way past the counter and out into the hall.

“He looks half starved to death.” Her mother readjusted her purse on her arm. “I’ll make him soup when we get home.”

“Mom, he’s only been in jail for four hours.”

Her mother waved her hand in the air. “I am his grandmother. It’s my job to feed him.”

Tammy took a deep breath. “You’re right. That is your job.”
And my job is to find Trev a mentor who doesn’t think dating me is part of the deal.

As they left short-term lockup, Tammy glanced back at Vicher, who tapped the keyboard at a furious pace. Even though she gazed at him for some time, he didn’t make eye contact or even look up from the computer.

Ginger had never seen a man’s eyes turn quite as big and round as the man named Frank’s did. That phrase “eyes like saucers” really did have some truth to it. She waited for spirals to appear in his eyes like they did in the cartoons.

Frank shook his head. His cheeks and forehead reddened, making him look like a giant strawberry in a T-shirt. “I can’t believe Beth did that.” He tugged on the waistband of his green and black checkered shorts. “I just can’t believe it.” Frank picked up the Mickey Mouse fishing pole and set it back down in the box with the other garage sale stuff.

“So the pole is yours?” Kindra cocked her head and crossed her arms. Her eyes veered subtly toward Ginger in an “aha” expression. Frank was probably too busy turning red and clenching his fists to notice Kindra signaling Ginger.

They had laid out the box of four items on the hood of Frank’s truck, the door of which said The Housewife’s Helper in solid, manly letters. There was a lawn mower, toolbox, and floor buffer in the bed of the truck. Ginger shifted her weight to the balls of her feet. This was only their second stop on Mary Margret’s chronological list, and already they had scored.

Frank was a fortysomething man with a head full of black hair. His skin, when it wasn’t red with anger, was rich dark brown, probably from the outdoor work he did. His tan stopped midforehead. A white strip of skin jutted up against dark bangs. Ginger pictured a baseball hat with a reference to a sports team or beer on his head. Pasty skin was also evident on his upper arms. A large stomach caused his shorts to droop.

“This is my lucky fishing pole.” His index finger jabbed toward the reel that sported Mickey Mouse dancing with an elated Pluto. “It’s got the extra large reel, and the rod collapses in on itself so you can fit it in a small space.” Frank shook his head again. “Beth!” His feet pounded on the concrete driveway as he lumbered toward the open garage. “Beth!”

A woman’s high-pitched voice drifted out of a window. “What?”