Death on Heels (30 page)

“Do you think Tucker killed those women?” she asked.

He considered her question through bloodshot blue eyes. “I never woulda thought it. But let me ask you this. You think I coulda done it? ’Cause that’s what your buddy Donovan here thought. Chief here had his eye on me for that murder. Little Rae Fowler, Little Miss Silver Heels.”

“What did you call her?” Lacey snapped to attention. Vic tensed, but Yancey didn’t seem to notice. It was the first time anyone else had mentioned the silver bootheels.

“Silver Heels. That’s what Grady called her. She wore the prettiest boots you ever saw. Sexy. Little Miss Silver Heels thought she was something else.” His voice rose. “Too good for the rest of us. I hate them snobby girls. But what do you think? Am I a damn killer?”

Vic stood up. “You tell me, Yancey. Are you?”

Lacey realized she was holding her breath. She reached out for Vic’s arm.

“No, I ain’t no killer. I just like having a good time. I never hurt nobody, ’less they’re throwing a bottle at me. I never killed nobody. Not Little Miss Silver Heels, not anyone.”

“Do you know anyone who did hurt her?” Lacey asked.

“You got yourself a murder suspect already. Cole Tucker. That’s all I know.”

A younger version of their crusty bartender plopped down heavily on the barstool next to Zeke Yancey. Jillie Maycomb’s resemblance to her mother Aggie was fierce, though she was large and slow while Aggie was skinny and fast. Jillie had the same facial profile, small eyes and receding chin, though none of the bright-eyed energy. Her hair was dishwater blond and she’d made a stab at makeup, but a heavy hand on the black eyeliner managed only to make her look like she was bruised. On closer examination, Lacey realized Jillie
was
bruised. She had a crescent-shaped bruise on her face, inexpertly covered over with makeup, and only made worse by the Cleopatra eyes.

Zeke hung one arm around her shoulder.
Are they a couple again?
Lacey wondered. Neither one looked very happy about it.

Aggie pulled a Diet Coke out of the cooler for her daughter. Jillie smiled vaguely at Vic as if she were trying to place him. She gazed at Lacey with more curiosity. Her jaw suddenly dropped open.

“Damn, girl! You the one Tucker hauled out of the courthouse, ain’t you?”

It’s going to be a long night,
Lacey thought.

“Your mom can catch you up on the details, Jillie. I want to ask you about something else. About Ally Newport. She worked here, didn’t she?”

“Ask Aggie,” Zeke Yancey said. “She’s the boss lady.”

Aggie heard her name and rematerialized with her wet rag. “Ally worked here ’bout a year before hauling
ass over to the Red Rose, ’cause she said they had a better clientele. Hell, it’s the same damn clientele. They just come here already drunk after the Red Rose closes down for the night, so they can get a little drunker. And some of them are drunk before the Red Rose even opens.” She cast a sidelong glance at Yancey.

“Hey, it’s not my fault I’m always here, Aggie. The plant cut my hours, and I don’t go to the Red Rose no more. Their beer costs too much anyway. Bunch of damn snobs with their noses in the air over there.”

Lacey was unaware that there were snobs in Sagebrush, but anything was possible. “But Ally worked here for a year? Were you friends, Jillie?”

“’Bout a year. We weren’t friends. She was real popular.” Jillie looked glum. “Always flirting with the guys. She didn’t have so much interest in female customers, you know. Thought she was the only woman in the room, when it came right down to it.”

“I found an article about Ally,” Lacey said, pulling the story and photo from her bag.

“That damn Muldoon and his
Daily Press
would write stories about dirt,” Aggie said. “‘This here dirt’s been in town for twenty-five years. Fell off’n a dirt truck passing through on its way to a dirt farm in Vernal, Utah. But it’s been real happy dirt, making a home here in Sagebrush, home of all the best dirt in Yampa County.’” Aggie laughed and wiped the bar. Lacey winced. There was nothing more painful for a reporter than a slow news day, and there were many days in Sagebrush when she felt she was writing stories about little more than dirt.

“You ought to be a comedian, Aggie,” Yancey said. “Open up one of them high-class comedy clubs.”

“Maybe I will,” Aggie said. “The Little Snake Saloon and High-Class Comedy Club.” She took the article from Lacey and looked it over, nodding her head. “Ally was real proud of that thing. ‘Best Bartender.’ Readers’ favorite. Ha! Had it framed and put it behind the bar here. Took it with her when she went to the Red Rose.”

“Did she have a lot of boyfriends?” Lacey asked.

“Usual number, I guess.” Aggie handed the clipping back.

“The ‘usual number’?” her daughter asked, apparently feeling slighted. “Just what the heck is that supposed to mean? If Ally had the usual number of boyfriends, what about me? How many would I have, Mama? The usual number?”

“Now, Jillie, I guess I’d have to say you have had yourself a few boyfriends. The usual number. And then there’s Zeke here, of course. Not sure he counts, usual or otherwise.”

Lacey waited for the mother-daughter fallout to subside. She too wondered what the “usual number” of boyfriends might be.

Zeke put his arm around Jillie and kissed her with a loud smack. “Don’t let your mama get your goat, Jillie. You and me, she just probably means, we’re like old married folks.”

“But we ain’t married! We ain’t nothing.” She glowered at Zeke and at her mother. Aggie rolled her eyes for Lacey and Vic’s benefit.

“I guess you could say Ally lived up to her name,” Aggie said. “Alley Cat. That’s what we called her. She wasn’t a bad sort. She just had a lot of boyfriends, you know, maybe a little
more
than the usual number. She wasn’t a stick-to-’em kind of gal. She told me once she didn’t like to be alone. New boyfriends all the time. Met a lot of ’em right here at the bar, or at the Red Rose.”

“Maybe that’s why she turned up dead,” Jillie shot at her mother.

“This picture of her.” Lacey showed it to Jillie and tried to get the conversation back on track. “Did she dress like this all the time?” Jillie shrugged and sipped her Coke.

Aggie studied the picture. “Pretty much. That’s Ally all right. Big smile. Customers like a big smile. Secret of my success,” she said, baring the many gaps in her smile. “Try telling that to
some
people.” She cocked her head at her daughter.

A few customers filed through the door and Aggie hustled off to pull more drafts, saving Lacey from hearing another mother-daughter set-to on the importance of smiling.

“Did Ally always wear jeans and boots?” Lacey asked Yancey.

He looked as baffled as if she’d asked him a math question. “Far as I remember,” he said. “Everybody wears jeans and boots.” His gaze lingered on Lacey. “You got some tasty boots on yourself.”

“Stick to the question, Zeke,” Vic said.

“These are pretty nice boots Ally is wearing in this picture,” Lacey said, trying to get back to her subject.

“Oh, Ally had a big thing for cowboy boots,” Aggie cut in again from behind the bar. “All she ever wore here. You ain’t catching me in no cowboy boots back here, standing on your feet all damn night and day. I wear me some running shoes, because I run my ass off working here.”

“Do you remember these boots, Aggie?”

“Yep. Red and white, they were. She had others, but I think these were her favorites. That’s why she’s wearing them for the picture, even if it was only
The
Daily Press
. Not every day you get called best bartender in town. Even in that rag. Nobody ever called
me
that, I can guaran-damn-tee you.”

“Now, Aggie,” Vic cut in, “I bet you can out-bartend anyone around here.”

“Did she wear any other kind of shoes?” Lacey asked.

“Nope. Just cowboy boots. She was no cowgirl though. Just playacting.”

“What are you doing in here, asking us all these questions ’bout Ally all of a sudden?” Yancey asked, his voice rising. “And boots! What the hell is all this stuff about Ally’s boots and Little Miss Silver Heels’ boots? You writing a story, Miss Reporter? Didn’t you get enough stories from Tucker? I heard you spent the night with him. Mighty cozy. Why don’t you go ask him what happened to Alley Cat?”

Vic stepped between them and looked down into
Zeke Yancey’s bleary eyes. “I don’t think you meant any disrespect to Ms. Smithsonian,” he said quietly. “I’d hate to think you did, Zeke. Convince me you didn’t.”

Yancey’s shook his head, and backed away unsteadily, spreading his hands in surrender. He draped his arm around Jillie and they wobbled together toward a dark booth past the pool table. Vic put some money on the bar for their beers and escorted Lacey to the door of the Little Snake.

This interview was over.

“Happy now, darling?” Vic looked bemused. “Did you get what you wanted? Because I can’t remember the last time I enjoyed the Little Snake quite so much.”

“Testy, isn’t he?” Outside the Little Snake Saloon, the sun was sinking behind Vic in the west, turning him into a looming silhouette. The air was rapidly cooling. Lacey zipped her jacket, but she still felt chilled. “Zeke Yancey gives me the creeps. But is he a killer or just a creep? He makes a good suspect though, don’t you think?”

“Suspecting is not proving. I wonder how tight he really is with Grady. That’s troublesome, even in a town as small as this.”

“And Silver Heels?”

“First time I heard that.” He looked unhappy. “You get what you wanted?”

“Just more questions. Could Zeke be the killer?” She wrapped her scarf around her throat.

“You confirmed that cowboy boots are one common thread among the victims.”

“Not just any cowboy boots, Vic. Beautiful, eye-catching ones.”

“The question is, where are the boots?” Vic zipped his own jacket and turned toward Sundance Way.

“The killer has them. Find the boots, you got your killer. Or vice versa.”

“That’s what you get from watching cop shows on television. Remember, darlin’, other things were missing from those women. And no, I don’t know what all the
sheriff found on Tucker’s ranch. But the boots? Killer might have burned them or buried them where we’ll never find them.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” she said.

They marched past storefronts that were closing for the evening. Lacey stopped in front of the Westward Ho Realty. A green and white sign over the front window proclaimed Virgil Avery was the real estate agent and Homer Avery was a notary public. Decorating the window was a miniature Conestoga wagon drawn by plastic horses. A large man sat at a small desk absorbed in some task. He didn’t seem to be aware of Lacey and Vic looking in the window.

“He must be the brother Tucker told me about,” Lacey said.

“Can we go to dinner?” Vic asked. “I’m tired, I’m hungry, and you are too.”

Virgil Avery came into view and spoke with the large man. Lacey opened the door, and a bell jingled.

“This will just take a minute, okay?” Lacey said. Vic groaned and followed her in.

Virgil straightened up. He smiled and his eyes crinkled. “Lacey Smithsonian. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Just passing by and saw your sign. You’re not out with the posse?”

“No, but I’m always ready if I’m needed. Sheriff Rexford seems to think Cole Tucker’s left the state. He’s called back most of the posse. They’re staking out some of the back roads along the state line.”

“Where do you think he is?”

“No idea.” Leaning against a desk, Virgil appeared relaxed. He stretched his legs out and crossed them at the boot-shod ankles. He was wearing a khaki outfit similar to the one she’d seen him in the day before, his personal uniform that showed Lacey a desire for order. Or a lack of imagination. He tapped his fingers on his brother’s desk. “How’re you doing there, Homer?”

“Don’t distract me, Virgil. Now I have to. Start again,” Homer said, in a slightly halting voice, as if he had once
had a stutter. Homer was dressed in a blue paisley button-down shirt with red suspenders and brown slacks. He was middle-aged and his short brown hair was thinning, slicked back with a sharp part. Where Virgil was angular, Homer was pudgy. Even sitting down, he looked large, broad as well as tall.

Homer also wore a pair of dark brown cowboy boots.
This is ridiculous
, Lacey thought. Everywhere she turned, men, women, and children were wearing cowboy boots. Well, not
everyone
. Dodd Muldoon, for example, was a local good old boy, but he fancied himself a city boy, and he never wore cowboy gear.

“Homer is very particular about his work. But he is never wrong with numbers,” Virgil explained.

“That’s right.” Homer barely looked up. “I’m never. Wrong.”

Lacey didn’t know what Homer was working on, but it seemed to involve numbers, graphs, and maps showing the surface features of the land. She recognized the outline of Yampa County.

“Why are you stopping by at this time of night, if I might ask? Most everyone’s closed up by now. You interested in relocating to Sagebrush?” Virgil pulled out a brochure and offered it to her. “We got some mighty fine properties here. I’m sure you know what a nice place this town is. For hunting, fishing. Raising a family.”

Another comedian
. “Actually, no. I saw your lights on, and I remembered the sheriff spoke highly of you and all your work with the posse.” Everyone liked to be flattered, and Lacey was betting Virgil Avery was no different.
Okay, Lacey, take one for the team, even if it makes you gag.

His chest seemed to swell a bit. “Just doing my civic duty.”

Lacey couldn’t believe what she was saying, but maybe she could ease into what she really wanted to ask. “It’s good to know there are people willing to volunteer their time and leave their jobs to hunt for an escaped prisoner.”

Homer finished his work and put it in a folder. “I’m finished, Virgil.”

“That’s great, Homer. Now I want you to meet our visitors. This is Lacey Smithsonian, used to be a reporter here, and you might remember our former chief of police, Vic Donovan.”