In Sickness And In Death Part 13

The waitress appeared next to me with their drinks.

I stepped aside to allow her access to the table.

As she pa.s.sed out their gla.s.ses, she glanced down at Maury's photo on the table. "Hey, that's a nice picture of Maury."

I glanced up at her in surprise. "You know him?"

"Sure. He's our linen rep. You know, the guy who delivers our tablecloths and napkins and uniforms and ap.r.o.ns and stuff. He comes here once a week, usually on Wednesdays."

I couldn't believe my good luck. "So you're saying he'll be here tomorrow?"

She shrugged. "He should be." She said Maury worked for a company called In-house Textiles.

I tried not to dance with excitement over the new lead and excused myself to call Ray right away with the news. He didn't answer. Impatient, I decided that if he didn't call me back by the time lunch was over, I would call the company and see if I could locate Maury myself.

I joined Cory at our table and filled him in on what I had discovered about Maury.

A minute later Leslie appeared, her lipstick and hair retouched. When she spotted Celeste, she raced across the room, pulled Celeste from her booth, and drew her into an embrace. "You're the best."

She released a visibly shaken Celeste. "Look at me." She twisted from side to side. "I'm a babe."

Celeste gave her a weak smile. "Yes."

"I'm going to ask him for a date when he comes to the farm tomorrow. I'll wear the green and say exactly what you told me to say." Leslie threw her arms around Celeste again and squeezed her so tight Celeste's eyes bugged out.

"Good. Good." Celeste's voice sounded more like a squeak.

"Thanks again for everything, Celeste."

As Leslie trotted over to join us, Mindy pointed at Leslie and leaned forward to speak to Celeste. I thought I heard her say, "That's her."

Celeste's eyebrows shot up in response.

Was it my imagination or did I see gossip tendrils sprouting from both their mouths?

The dining room was beginning to fill up by the time Leslie sat down with us. "What a great girl she is."

Cory winked at me. "Yep, that Celeste is one of a kind."

The two gla.s.ses of champagne I drank to celebrate Leslie's new look took the edge off the fact that Celeste and Mindy kept looking over at our table and whispering to each other all through lunch. I couldn't imagine what the two of them were talking about, and I wasn't sure I really wanted to know. My family had been "newsmakers" in this town for years. People loved to look at us sidewise like we were specimens under the microscope. I'd long ago decided that it was best not to ask too many questions. The answers were almost certain to depress me. This time their interest seemed to focus on Leslie. I couldn't decide whether or not to be relieved.

Leslie drank three gla.s.ses of champagne. With her size, they didn't seem to faze her a bit. She told Cory and me all about her visit to the hair stylist and the dentist's office, and how excited she was to unveil her new look to her friends and family-all punctuated by exuberant gestures, much batting of the eyelashes, and multiple fluffs of her wig. Overnight, she'd transformed from a rough cowhand into a radiant flower. And no one was more excited about it than she was.

"Wait until Dr. Albert sees me."

I looked at Leslie over my winegla.s.s. "Dr. Albert? Dr. Simon Albert who has an office next door to the psych center?"

She nodded. "Do you know him?"

I set my gla.s.s down. "My sister has been a patient of his for a couple years now."

Leslie forked her last bite of cheesecake. "I've known him about that long. We're almost finished with our sessions."

Cory lifted his eyebrow and looked at me. I knew he was wondering if I would be so bold as to ask Leslie what she was in treatment for.

I would. But as open as Leslie was, I hoped she'd just spit it out before I had to ask.

Her cell phone rang instead. She pulled it out of her black leather backpack and flicked it open. "h.e.l.lo ... okay, I'm on my way." She pushed back from the table. "I am so sorry, Jolene, Cory. I have to leave. The milking machine is on the fritz and my brother is losing it again. Thank you so much for lunch and for everything. Y'all have been wonderful. It's so nice to make some new friends."

She hugged me and Cory in turn, smothering me with her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and cutting off my oxygen.

Halfway across the dining room, she turned and waltzed back to the table. "And I'm going to hold off on the Caterham for now. I'm going to use the ideas Celeste gave me instead."

I wouldn't ask what those were, not ever. It would be too much like shaking hands with the devil herself. But let poor innocent Leslie use whatever tricks she could live with to attract the man of her dreams. "Okay, good luck. Keep us posted."

"Don't you worry, I will." With an excited wave and a couple funky chicken dance steps, she was gone.

Cory glanced at me. "Is it only me, or do you think she has some future in the theater?"

____.

Cory headed for home while I sat at my desk in the shop and dialed Information for the number of In-house Textiles, which, come to find out, was based in Buffalo. When I asked their receptionist for Emerson Boor, however, she said he was no longer with the company.

"Since when?"

The receptionist sounded like a young girl. "His last day was yesterday."

"Did he resign?"

"I can't say. You'll have to speak to Human Resources."

"Did he get fired?" I could be so much bolder on the phone than in person. h.e.l.l, I hadn't even given this girl my name.

"I really can't say. Would you like to speak to someone in HR?"

I scrambled for a way to get more information, knowing HR would just hang up on me. "No, it's just ... he's been dating my sister. If he hasn't got a job anymore, I don't think they should get married, do you?"

"Maury's getting married? Does your sister ... hold on, I have another call."

I listened to the music while I waited for her to return.

"h.e.l.lo, listen, I really can't talk. I'm sorry."

"But you don't think my sister should marry Maury?"

"He's not so bad. He brought me roses for Secretary's Day."

"So you think he's an okay guy?"

"He brings lots of girls roses. He's a little creepy. I have to go. Bye."

A little creepy. That wasn't news. That was the way Erica had felt about him in high school. She'd wanted to like him, because he'd always been so nice to her. But he was so persistent in his pursuit of her that he'd freaked her out.

It didn't help me to know he wasn't employed by In-house Textiles anymore, either. Now he wouldn't be showing up at the Coachman Inn tomorrow, where I'd been hoping to meet him.

Maybe the manager of the Coachman Inn could help me. Maybe he knew more about Maury, like where he lived. I headed back across the street.

The hostess summoned the manager, who I knew ever so slightly from the Wachobe Business a.s.sociation meetings. He and I both appeared at those meetings sporadically.

I explained about Erica's disappearance and the connection to Maury.

"Gee, Jolene, I'm sorry, but I don't really talk to the guy. He brings in our order and takes away the laundry. That's about it. I don't think any of the guys in the kitchen really talked to him. He's in and out of here pretty fast."

Another dead end. I thanked him for his time and stepped outside onto the sidewalk, holding Maury's picture in my hand.

I tried to think of all the places in town that might utilize In-house Textiles' services. The yacht club and a couple other upscale restaurants came to mind. Given the warm day and the sunshine, I decided to walk from place to place and ask about Maury.

By two-thirty, I had pink cheeks from the sun's rays and no more answers than when I started. My last stop was The Lincoln House. I didn't hold out much hope there, because Bernie, the owner and bartender, already said he didn't know Maury. If he was delivering linens to the restaurant, surely Bernie would know him.

I took a seat at the bar and waited for Bernie to spot me.

"Hey, Jolene, are you here for lunch?"

"No, but I could use a Pepsi."

"Coming right up." He filled a gla.s.s and set it in front of me. "I haven't seen or heard from Erica, if that's what you're here to ask. I hired a new girl to take over Erica's shifts this morning. I haven't seen that guy again, either."

I sucked down half the Pepsi through my straw, then pulled out Maury Boor's picture.

"Is this him?"

Bernie accepted the photo. "That's him. A little younger."

I explained what I had learned about Maury. "I also found out Maury worked for In-house Textiles. Do you use them?"

"We use somebody else less expensive. Sorry." Bernie filled a bowl with pretzels and set it in front of me. "Hey, my son Jacob is in the same cla.s.s as your boy Danny."

Danny wasn't my boy and he never would be, but I didn't want to miss an opportunity to check up on him. "Did Jacob give you any idea how Danny was fitting in?"

"I heard he has a good arm for football. They played at lunch yesterday."

"That's good."

"You should have him try out for the team in the fall. I'm a coach."

"We're not really sure how long Danny will be with us."

Bernie popped one of the pretzels in his mouth and chewed. "Is it true his father is in jail for car theft?"

I finished my soda and pulled out a five. "Yes. Where'd you hear that?"

Bernie waved off the money. "Jacob told me. He heard it on the bus. One of the other kids' mothers knew."

Word traveled fast in Wachobe. Some of the deputies had wives and mothers who didn't know when to keep their mouths shut. "I hope that doesn't cause problems for Danny at school."

"I'll tell Jacob that Danny needs a friend. Jacob's a good kid."

"Thanks, Bernie." I gathered my purse and stood. "Call me if you hear anything else, about my sister or Danny, okay?"

He swiped my gla.s.s from the counter and dunked it in the sink below the bar. "Sure thing, Jolene. Don't worry."

But worrying was one of the things I did best.

____.

I called Ray on my cell phone as I walked back to the shop. My feet had started to burn and ache in my dress boots. I think I even limped a little.

"What's up, Darlin'?"

I filled Ray in on Maury Boor's old job and my quest to learn more about him. "It's a dead end. Have you had better luck?"

"He drives a white Honda Prelude, not a Camry."

"That's good news, I guess. Right?"

"It means it isn't likely that he parked a white Toyota Camry with a woman's arm on ice in the trunk outside the psych center, if that's what you mean."

It was. "But everyone keeps saying he's creepy."

"I talked to the arresting officer about the stalking charge. He was leaving roses for a girl on her doorstep nightly. She asked him to stop, but he didn't."

"Not such a big deal, right?" But it was. It was. I knew it was.

Ray must have agreed. "I don't like it. I'll call the HR department at In-house Textiles and see what they're willing to share with me. I'll see you at home later."

He hung up before I had a chance to ask him if they'd gotten any more leads on Jessica James' body.

I checked the clock and realized I had just enough time to get over to the school for dismissal. I hopped in the car and hightailed it over there, successfully inserting my Lexus sedan into the last parking s.p.a.ce behind a rainbow a.s.sortment of minivans.

While I watched for Danny to appear in the stream of children exiting the school building, I tried to make sense of what we knew so far. A Camry had been stolen from a used car lot outside Geneseo. That same car, based on the VIN, had been parked outside the psych center with Jessica James' arm inside the trunk. Danny claimed the keys had been in the ignition when he took it. He also claimed the keys belonged to his dad, until he saw the woman's arm and changed his mind. Ray said they hadn't been able to get any clear prints from the keys to match Danny's father's prints, so maybe his father had stolen the car, maybe he hadn't. But from what Danny said, his father had been driving a Camry with all their things in the trunk. So, where were all their things? Had someone removed them from the car and replaced them with Jessica's arm in a cooler? What for? And what happened to their things?

The psych center or the doctor's office building figured into this somehow. Had the person who had stolen the car been in an appointment with their doctor or visiting a patient when Danny spotted the car and took it? If so, Danny's father couldn't be that person. He'd been in the county jail at that time. Were we blaming him for a car theft he hadn't committed? Were we looking for another car thief? Maybe one in treatment?

That seemed like a bit of a stretch. Car thieves didn't get treatment like kleptomaniacs. They got jail time. But I'd bet stalkers got treatment. Maybe Maury Boor had been required to seek treatment. Maybe Maury Boor had been at the psych center that day, driving a stolen Camry instead of a Prelude. He'd worked as a deliveryman. Maybe he had a customer close to the used car lot from which the Camry had been taken. He wouldn't want to mess up his own car with a dead woman's body, but he might have a preference for cars like his own. If so, was my sister in the hands of a murderer?

I squeezed my shoulder blades together to stop from trembling. My imagination was getting the best of me. Lots of people were in and out of that doctor's parking lot and the psych center every day. Even Leslie Flynn said she was a patient there.

I kicked myself mentally for not asking her about the nature of her treatment. But she didn't drive a Camry. She didn't live in Geneseo. In fact, I got the impression that prior to now she'd stayed pretty close to the farm most of the time. But she had been at The Cat's Meow-supposedly to pay off her brother's bounced check. Her brother had been there, too, talking with my sister on Tuesday before she disappeared. I'd forgotten to ask Leslie whether her brother had admitted to meeting Erica or not. I wondered what kind of car he drove. Maybe Ray could look it up.