Motion for Malice (9 page)

Curt stared at him a tick longer than politeness allowed. He stuck out a hand. "Curt Emerson."

Wally winced a little when they shook. "Wallace Randall. Esquire."

"Yeah." Curt looked at him some more. "Here." He slapped something into Wally's palm. "Go here and get this. On your arm." He eyeballed Wally's blond hair and slapped something else into Wally's palm. "Then make an appointment here and get that fixed. Your hair is brown." He narrowed his eyes. "You wear a raincoat?"

Wally nodded.

"Don't." Curt looked at me. "See you tonight. Diner good?"

I stared at him, not quite sure what had just happened. Missy was smiling when Curt left through the front door. A moment later I heard Curt's truck fire up and watched it roll past the front window.

Wally glanced down at his hand, looked up at me and Missy, turned on his heel, and went back upstairs without saying a word.

"That man," Missy told me, "is
magic
.
"

I felt better than I had all day when I went back to slogging through Wally's complaint. His eighteen-year-old client had wrapped his car around a telephone pole after a six-hour marijuana bender at his cousin Floyd's house. Wally had decided the telephone pole was in the wrong place and was squeezing everyone from the utility company to the loggers who'd cut down the tree.

The phong rang while Wally was wherefor'ing his way to asking for big bucks. "Parker, Dennis," I told it.

There was a pause, punctuated by sniffling. "This is Weaver Beeber calling."
I glanced at the clock, surprised that he wasn't at a luncheon of some sort after the funeral. "Mr. Beeber." I gripped the phone tightly, wondering why I felt guilty when I hadn't done anything. Except make a spectacle of myself at his wife's funeral. I could only hope he'd been one of the few who hadn't noticed me. "Again, I'm very sorry for your loss."

"Thank you, Miss—?"

"Winters," I said. "Please, call me Jamie."

"Thank you, Jamie. My beloved thought a lot of you too."

That was news to me. I heard Chandler yapping in the background, which made me think of the little bone-shaped flower arrangement at the wake. Which made my throat hitch again. I really had to get a grip. It wasn't as if Chandler had actually ordered the thing. If he had, he hopefully would have gone for something pricier than carnations.

I dragged my mind back to the telephone. "It was a lovely wake," I said. "The flowers were beautiful. Your suit was very nice. And the casket was…" I bit my lip and stopped talking before I said something stupid. Might have been a little late. "How can I help you, Mr. Beeber?"

"I'd like to make an appointment with Howard, please. I'm afraid"—he inserted another sniffle—"I have to set about the unthinkable task of executing my beloved's will."

"Of course." I opened the scheduling calendar on my computer and scanned it quickly. "He has something available on Monday at one, if that's convenient for you. Just bring all the paperwork, and Howard will get you started on the process."

"Shall I bring the insurance papers as well?" Another sniffle. "I don't know if I have the strength to deal with those people right now."

"We can handle that for you," I told him. "Just bring whatever you have."

"I appreciate that." He hesitated. "Would you mind terribly if I bring Chandler? He does love to go visiting, and I can't bear to leave him by himself yet. He reminds me too much of dear Dorcas."

I could see how, with that attitude. "Feel free to bring Chandler," I said. "I'd be happy to see him." Leaving, that is. Chandler and I had never had a kind word to say to each other.

Weaver said goodbye in a wavering voice and was gone. I inserted his name into the appropriate appointment time slot, closed the program, and called it a day.

My doorbell rang as soon as I'd stripped down to change my clothes. I snarled, "Be right there," snatched up the sweatshirt and jeans heaped on the floor, and pulled them on while I hobbled to answer it. Which reminded me, the orthopedic elf shoes were still in the back of the Escort. I'd wanted to throw them on the side of the road on the way home, but Maizy had convinced me that two hunks of rubber lying on the side of the road would be bad for the environment. They hadn't been too good for me, either. I had blisters the size of quarters on the ball of each foot.

Curt was waiting on my landing. He was wearing faded jeans and boots, his hair was windblown, and his jaw was darkened by a five o'clock shadow. Curt had a five o'clock shadow at noon, and somehow it worked for him. He looked magnificent. "Ready for dinner?" He looked me over. "Is that what you're wearing?"

I, on the other hand, looked like a full hamper. My jeans weren't even buttoned. I glared at him through the screen door. "Yes, it is."

Maizy peeked around his shoulder. "Hi, Jamie. I'm coming, too." She slipped past him and came inside. "I brought you something." She held out a brown paper bag. "Epsom salts. It's supposed to be good for blisters and stuff."

Curt frowned. "You have blisters? How'd that happen?"

"Blisters happen," I told him.

"Not to you, they don't," Curt said. "You have to actually
do
something to get blisters."

"Or wear poorly fitting shoes," Maizy said.

We all looked down at my sneakers. I had three pairs of footwear, and I wore the sneakers most of the time. I wore flats to work. I wore heels to special events.

"So we're never going bowling again," Maizy said with a wink. "Come on, get changed. Uncle Curt said I could drive. I've been practicing. I'm killer on the highway. Uncle Curt said so."

"I said you were going to
be
a killer if you didn't slow down," Curt told her. He turned to me. "You look great," he said, not very sincerely. "But why don't you put on something else."

"We could stay here and order a pizza," I said hopefully.

Maizy pooched out her lip. "But I want to practice driving. My test is in six and a half weeks, you know. And I haven't driven in
days
."

I raised an eyebrow at her. She was scary good at the deception thing. I looked at Curt.

"She really could use the practice," he said.

Maizy brightened. "Unless you want me to cook something," she said. "I like to cook. Even if it is socially repressive to relegate women to the kitchen." She shrugged. "That's where the food is."

I looked at Curt.

"She really could use the practice," he said.

Big help.

Maizy made a beeline toward the kitchen. "What have you got? I can make pasta, and hamburgers, and meatloaf, as long as you don't mind it a little bland…" Her voice trailed off when she opened the refrigerator door. She looked over at me. "You don't have anything," she said, "but an egg and some apple juice."

"And Chocolate Cheerios," I said, maybe a little defensively. I heard Curt smothering a laugh and sighed. I knew when I was outnumbered. I also knew when I was hungry. So I changed out the sweatshirt for a clean sweater, and twenty minutes later, we were settled in a booth at the Lincoln Diner, Maizy beside me, Curt across the table. A basket of warm dinner rolls sat on the table. Maizy ignored them, and Curt didn't eat white bread if he could help it, but I thought it was a shame to waste them after the waitress had carried them all the way from the kitchen, and probably for below minimum wage, so I dug in. Without looking up from the menu, Curt pushed a couple of packets of strawberry jam and the small bowl of butter pats closer to me.

The diner was crowded and noisy, with most of the tables and all of the booths taken. Someone had dialed up Eddie Money's "Two Tickets to Paradise"
on their little tableside jukebox and it spilled out of ours as well, tinny and indistinct. Curt punched a button and it went silent.

"I'll be taking some vacation time next week."

I slathered more butter on my roll. Turned out embarrassment was a real appetite stimulant. "Plan to do some work on the house?"

He shook his head. "A friend of Cam's is letting him use his hunting cabin in upstate New York."

Maizy wrinkled her nose. "Seriously, Uncle Curt? Hunting?"

"Seriously, Maizy. You know your dad likes to do a little hunting every year." He went back to the menu.

"Very little," Maizy muttered.

I frowned at her.

"I stole their bullets," she whispered with a self-satisfied grin.

I practically choked on the dinner roll. "You did not!"

Curt's head jerked up.

"I did so," Maizy said with a nod. "I told him there was no way I was letting him copy off my paper. Cheating is against the rules." She gave Curt a beatific smile.

He gave her a look of deep suspicion but didn't say anything. When he'd gone back to the menu again, Maizy fished an ice cube out of her water and popped it in her mouth. "Did you hear the police have a person of interest in the killing of that psychic lady?"

I looked up sharply.

"That means suspect, right?" She chomped on her ice cube. "I heard a witness came forward that saw someone in the area last Friday night."

My stomach did something strange, and I pushed my bread plate aside, no longer hungry. Despite Tippi McWirth's suspicious behavior at the cemetery, and the fact that she drove a black SUV, and the fact that I hadn't killed Dorcas, I was almost convincing myself that I had. Even though no one in his right mind would suspect me. I paid my taxes. I showed up for jury duty. I didn't mix non-recyclables with recyclables. More importantly, while I might have had opportunity, I had no motive. Tippi McWirth had one of the oldest motives in the book: money. I wondered how much of it her husband had wasted on Dorcas's readings, and then I wondered how I would feel if
my
husband had handed over the bank account to someone like Dorcas. Probably I'd feel as if I wanted to kill him. But would I want to kill
her
?

I glanced out the plate glass window. There was a man crossing the parking lot who seemed familiar. I realized it was Artemis Angle. He'd ditched the black suit for a black shirt and black slacks. Everything else was the same, including the flame-throwing eyes that suddenly seemed to be focused right on me. I was pretty sure he couldn't see me, but I shrank toward Maizy anyway. And what she'd just said suddenly got through. "
We
were in the area Friday night," I said, trying to keep my voice steady although Artemis Angle seriously creeped me out, even from a distance.

"I know, but we didn't do it, so we're fine. My dad won't tell me anything, but I think the suspect is whoever was in that SUV." She gave me a little sideways glance. "Probably someone with eight speeding tickets and a ticket for parking in a handicapped spot on their record."

Curt lowered the menu, his eyes narrowed.

Right. The SUV. We'd lost both SUVs from the funeral procession, but we had Tippi McWirth's. I looked into the parking lot again, wondering what Artemis Angle drove, but he was gone. "If we only had a license plate number," I said.

Curt's eyes slid over to me. They weren't happy eyes.

Maizy gave a sad headshake. "If only. It can't be that hard to find, if you know where to look."

"You don't know where to look," Curt told her. "And you," he said to me, "don't
want
to look. You've reached your lifetime quota of murder investigations."

"If you mean Doug Heath," I said, "that wasn't an investigation. That was beginner's luck."

He put down the menu very deliberately. I saw the muscles in his jaw working. "So you want to try again, is that it?"

"I don't
want
to," I said. "I think I have to."

His eyes went black. "And why do you have to?"

Maizy went still, her eyes wide and shifting between Curt and me.

I took a deep breath. I didn't want to get into this, mostly because I didn't even want to think about it. And I was afraid Curt might feel obligated to rat me out to his brother Cam. And I was afraid Cam might feel obligated to arrest me as the person of interest since my fingerprints were on everything but Dorcas's neck. Tippi McWirth or someone else might have killed Dorcas, but those were my fingerprints on the murder weapon.

Curt's gaze slid over to his niece. "Maizy, would you go tell the waitress we're ready to order, please?"

She rolled her eyes. "I'm not six years old, Uncle Curt. If you want to me to go, why don't you just come out and—"

"I want you to go," he said. He kept his eyes steady on me while she slid out of the booth and clomped off toward the counter. When she was out of earshot, he lifted his eyebrows just enough to tell me he was listening.

My voice was very quiet. "I might be the person of interest."

He didn't say anything at first. He turned his head to look out the window. He ran his hands across his face. He stared up at the ceiling. Finally, he said, "And why do you think that?" Which I thought showed remarkable restraint on his part.

"I touched the crystal ball," I said. "Twice."

Curt fell back against the booth. "You told me you didn't touch anything."

"I didn't. Not at the scene. Not even…" I shuddered. "Not even Dorcas. Well, I touched the light switch, but that's because the office was dark, and we couldn't see anything and…" And I'd forgotten I'd touched the light switch. Did they dust light switches for fingerprints? "I touched it at the office," I said. "When she came by to see Howard. She put it on my desk, and I tried to move it."

"Oh." He seemed relieved. "So you just pushed it aside."

I shook my head. "I laid hands on the thing as if I was trying to heal it."

He blew out a long breath. "Only you."

"What does
that
mean?"

"It means," he said, "that only you could frame yourself for murder."

I'd been thinking those same thoughts since Dorcas's funeral, but to hear them out loud, especially coming from Curt, was like a sucker punch to the gut.

A few booths away, I heard the first notes of "November Rain
.
"
I wished I couldn't. That song depressed me, and I didn't need any help in the depression department.