Fool's Puzzle Earlene Fowler (microsoft ebook reader TXT) 📖

The Auto Club was there in ten minutes.

6

“SO, HOW DID this Chief Ortiz find out you were checking out Rita’s place?” Elvia asked. We sat in her unofficial office, a round oak table in the corner of the coffeehouse. Stacks of purchase orders in dinner-mint pastels made a patchwork of the tabletop.

“Floyd told him.” I sipped my hot chocolate and gave her a who-cares look.

“Why is he spending so much time questioning you?” She pulled a shiny pencil, the color of her buttercupyellow silk suit, from behind her car and pointed it at me. “As chief of police, it seems to me he would relegate that task to someone less important.”

“I don’t know.” I shrugged. “I didn’t think to ask.”

“Just like an only child. You never question special treatment. After all, it’s only your right.” She examined the tip of the pencil and frowned. Elvia’s major in college had been psychology and the bookstore gave her the resources to pore through every new self-help book that hit the stands. Her latest fascination was birth order.

“I love it when you categorize me. Makes me feel so special.”

“From how you’ve described him, he sounds like an oldest to me. Does he have any siblings?”

“Honestly, Elvia, between the threats of arrest and engine advice, it didn’t come up.” I drained my mug, stood up and pulled on my jacket. “I have to go. Those quilts won’t hang themselves, and I have a feeling I won’t be seeing much of Eric over the next few days.”

“Do you think he had anything to do with Marla’s murder?”

“It’s hard to imagine, if only because killing someone would actually take some physical effort. Maybe he’s just running scared. Who knows what kind of illegal activities he’s trying to hide from the police.”

“What are you going to do about Rita?”

“Keep looking for her.”

“Even after what the chief said?” She frowned and tapped the end of the pencil against her cheek. Elvia was a rule-follower, as was I—most of the time anyway, unless there was a valid reason not to.

“What am I suppose to do? I don’t want to tell Aunt Garnet that her precious granddaughter is missing and is possibly connected with a homicide. That scares me a lot more than Ortiz’s threats. When I find Rita, this whole thing will be straightened out. She’ll give her statement and that’ll be that.”

The folds between Elvia’s eyes deepened.

I reached over and rubbed them with my forefinger. “You’re going to get wrinkles.”

She pushed my hand away. “Rita’s been nothing but trouble since she got here. You don’t need that in your life right now.” She stood up and for a moment looked me straight in the eye. Slipping on her tiny black Italian pumps, she rose three inches. At the bottom of the stairway, she laid a pink-nailed hand on my arm. “Are you going home for Thanksgiving?”

“No, and it’ll give Dove something to complain about until Christmas.” I held up my hand before she could ask the next question. “And I feel funny going to the Harpers‘. They always have a bunch of family come in from Texas and it just doesn’t feel right.”

“You shouldn’t be alone on Thanksgiving.”

“Spoken like a true oldest,” I said, teasing. “Always telling people what they should do. Really, I’d rather not be around a lot of people.”

Her delicate, coppery face was sober. “I mean it. You shouldn’t be alone. Come over to our house. Mama’s been asking about you.”

“I don’t know.” Being around Elvia’s six brothers and their families seemed as overwhelming as the family Thanksgivings I was trying to avoid.

“Fine,” she said. “Then I’m coming over to your house. We’ll make chile rellanos and chocolate no-bakes just like we did in junior high. I’ll iron your hair. Straight hair is back in style, you know.”

“Okay, okay.” I held up my hands in mock surrender. “Anything but that. Last time you ironed my hair—what was it, 1973?—you almost gave me a cheek tattoo.”

“We were crazy, weren’t we?” she said. “Dinner’s at one.

On the way back to the museum, I stopped by the police station and signed my statement. A tiny, bleached-blond female officer expertly rolled my fingers across the fingerprint pad as she chattered about her ten-year-old son’s scout badges. As she gabbed and rolled, I couldn’t help but feel vaguely criminal. Techno-cynic that I was, I worried my fingerprints would show up in a computer somewhere with the information that they were found at some liquor store crime scene in Modesto.

I drove back to the museum and spent the rest of the day making quilt frames and attaching Velcro to the backs. I called Eric’s house and left a terse message on his answering machine. “You are dead meat, buddy. I’m holding Dack and Cassandra hostage. You know who this is.” Then, just for spite, I stuck the computer disk containing his novel in my purse. He’d have to find me now.

At eight o‘clock, after the last of the artists had left, I locked up. As I was walking out to my truck, a small blue Toyota sedan pulled up and a husky young man in a denim shirt and navy tie printed with white peace symbols hopped out, a gold Blind Harry’s gift bag in one hand and a maroon garment bag in the other. I recognized him as one of Elvia’s clerks. His freckled face flushed a soft pink when he handed me the bags.

“She told me to hum the theme song from Mission Impossible when I gave you this,” he said. “I didn’t want to tell her I didn’t know it. Do you think she was kidding?” His face wrinkled in distress.

“No, but don’t worry about it. Just tell her I got hysterical with laughter.” He hurried back to his truck, a perplexed look on his broad face.

I opened the gold bag and pulled out a small paperback book. How to Become a Successful Private Detective—Earn While You Learn. A pink Post-it note stuck to