Richfield & Rivers Mystery Series 1 - Combust the Sun (21 page)

We
agreed to meet at a coffee shop near the police station the morning after I
returned. I hung up and told Callie that maybe they had the guy and he could
help us fit the pieces together.

"Not
the guy," Callie said quietly.

"Well,
that saves me a trip," I said with sarcasm.

"Sorry,
I could be wrong."

But
I knew she wasn't.

As
Callie continued her study of the horary chart, I phoned Wanda, my faithful
dog-sitter, who said she'd stay with Elmo overnight. Then I sat down with Elmo,
cupped his large head in my hands, and stared into his soulful dog eyes.
"I have to go to Tulsa for a few days. Wanda is coming to take care of
you. She'll feed you, give you your pills, and play with you, just like I do.
You'll be perfectly safe, okay?"

Elmo
flopped onto the floor in depression and Callie laughed. Kneeling down in front
of Elmo, she said, "Your job, Elmo, is to guard the house while we're
gone. Got it?" Her tone was crisp and businesslike, and Elmo's ears rose
in anticipation of work to be done. "All creatures need a job to do. Elmo
has one now," Callie said and went off to bed. Elmo followed her. A
typical Hollywood animal—his loyalty was to whoever gave him work.

Callie
slid close to me, then pulled me over to her and kissed me. The initial meeting
of tongues ignited erotic memories, but I wasn't ready to be loved by Callie
and be denied loving her in return. I wasn't ready to love her only to find that
she still couldn't give herself to me. I pulled back.

"Letting
me love you will relax you and let you sleep so you won't worry about flying
tomorrow," she said.

"I
see, a purely therapeutic lovemaking. A mercy fuck."

She
pulled away quickly. "Oh, Teague, you say the most awful things."

Our
flight for Tulsa left the Burbank airport the next morning at six o'clock.
Whenever I had to fly, I tried to do it quickly without planning or
forethought, so I wouldn't have time for my anxiety level to build.
Unfortunately, I'd had overnight to think about it as I lay awake, electrically
charged by Callie's kiss. I had worked myself into a state of tremors. It was
the idea of being launched into space in a long metallic tube, strapped to a
chair that could fall thirty thousand feet to the ground that bothered me.
Viewed in that way, I didn't think my fears unreasonable. Nothing paralleled
airline travel for claustrophobia or a sense that one was being exposed to
three hundred viruses simultaneously, all compliments of the airline
ventilation system. I carried the fake stone in my bra so I could get to it
quickly if it came down to my life or the stone.

"Are
you all right?" Callie asked touching my arm. "You're perspiring."

"Fine,"
I said as we watched a man remove his belt buckle and keys for the metal
detectors. By now I was starting to hyperventilate, and Callie pulled me over
to the side of the concourse leading to the boarding area.

"You're
not going to die in a plane," she said forcefully.

"No,
I'll be blown apart and die in pieces in the air."

"You
will not die in any plane-related event."

"I
don't even want to be scared in a plane-related event," I said emphatically.
"I can't tolerate the bouncing."

"There
won't be any bouncing," she said firmly.

"You
can't promise me that."

"I
just did."

"Okay."

I
boarded the plane and took my seat behind the wing in the tourist section, that
area of the plane I had decided was most likely to survive a crash.
"People in first class always die," I assured Callie as I struggled to
get past a three-hundred-pound man who had the aisle seat in our row. I liked
sitting next to fat people. I liked to think of them as gigantic human life
rafts. If we crashed, my fantasy was I would fall from the sky and be saved by
landing on a fat person.

I
looked up in time to see Raider pass our row and take a seat three rows back
across the aisle.

"That's
him!" My heart nearly stopped. "The guy in the black leather jacket,
the guy I axed! Maybe he's here to blow up the plane!" It was too late. We
were already taxiing down the runway. My distress over Raider overshadowed my
fear of takeoff. I remembered to be upset over flying only after I felt myself
being G-forced into the seat at liftoff.

"Pretend
you're an angel and think of these airplane wings as your own wings, and you're
lifting yourself off the ground by your own power," Callie said in a
soothing tone.

Moments
later we were airborne. I was a wreck the entire trip, afraid that Raider had
boarded the plane to plant a bomb. I was certain at any instant we would all be
nothing more than metal confetti.
Why the hell is he on the plane?
I
craned my neck every minute or two for the next hour to check on him. He was
drinking, eating, sleeping, and reading, just like the rest of us.

Three
hours later we were descending into the landing pattern. I had to go to the
bathroom. I'd insisted neither of us go, because we'd have to pass Raider, but
now there was no waiting. I glanced back and saw his blanket pulled up to his
ears. I unstrapped my seat belt and headed for the lavatory. The Occupied light
was on, so I stood unsteadily waiting my turn. Callie had been correct, there
had been no bouncing, just sort of a mild sliding side to side. I kept my back
to the door so I could keep an eye on Raider's chair. The lavatory door opened,
and with lightning speed, a hand reached out, grabbed my jaw like a vise and
yanked me backward inside the stall, locking the door behind us. Successful
attack is nine-tenths surprise, and Raider had more than surprised and
terrified me. Jammed into the bathroom up against his sweaty body, I could feel
the coarse stubble on his chin scratch my forehead as we both struggled.

When
I banged on the side of the bathroom wall, he wrapped his belt around my neck.
"I'd just as soon kill ya, really. My boss is not amused. He says the
stone from the dead guy's eye is a fake and you got the real one." He
reached down into my blouse, fishing in my bra until he came up with the death
stone. "Bingo!" he said, holding the stone up. Then into my face he
crooned, "Nice tits. Wish I had more time. Now you're going to go back to
your seat and say nothing, understand? Because from where I'm sitting, I can
blow a hole through both of you before you can ring for a Bloody Mary, got it?
Oh, and don't try to have me searched." He took the stone, put it in his
mouth and swallowed it. I marveled that anyone could pop a one-by-two-inch tile
into his mouth and eat it like a piece of popcorn. The guy had to have a
windpipe the size of the Lincoln tunnel! He tightened the belt around my
throat, gripping it so tightly that I could feel my neck pulse, and I became light-headed.

"Stone
tasted like you." He grinned. "Like your perfume and just a little
salty."

I
slid my hand down his pants, as if I were about to do something very
pleasurable for him. He loosened his grip almost entirely with his right hand
to help. I grabbed a fistful of his crotch in a viselike grip, and hoarse from
his choking me whispered, "It's a shame a woman has to continually use
this particular portion of the male anatomy like a timeout buzzer, but it seems
to be the only thing that works. Let go of the belt, asshole!" He
complied, and I opened the door and shoved him out. A man waiting to get in
realized there were two of us in the bathroom and leered at me as I headed back
to my seat.

"What
took you so long? I was worried about you."

"Raider
dummied up his seat with pillows. He was waiting for me in the lavatory,"
I said, showing her the belt.

"Did
he attack you?" she asked, her voice alarmed. Then she saw the marks he'd
left on my neck. "Did he have you by the throat?" Callie's voice
rose.

"He
pulled me inside, strangled me, and he got one of the stones."

Callie
jerked her seat belt off. "How dare he touch you!" She bailed over
the top of me on her way to the aisle. I was surprised at the vehemence in her
voice, and my heart beat a little faster knowing she felt protective of me.

I
grabbed her belt loop and hauled her back into her seat. "I'm okay, and
the stone he's got is fake. Plus, he swallowed it."

"He
swallowed it?" she said incredulously. "Well, we don't want it back,
that's for sure."

I
laughed for the first time since I'd boarded the plane.

"If
my parents ask about the marks on my neck, I'll say you did it," I said.

But
Callie was looking over her shoulder at my attacker, her eyes as cold as steel,
her jaw set tight. "Whenever someone attacks the things I care about, the
cosmos always takes care of it."

I
chose not to pursue that comment, but made a mental note.
Don't hack off
someone tapped into the cosmos.

Within
seconds the wheels touched down safely in Tulsa. I was so happy I was almost
speaking in tongues.

Raider
hovered around the terminal, trying to decide what to do about me and
periodically hoisting up his pants. I went directly to airport security and
pointed him out. He vanished, never picking up any luggage, and I felt
nauseated and somehow violated that he had gotten away not only with stealing,
but with sticking his hand down my blouse and insulting me.

"Are
you sure he got the fake stone?" Callie whispered.

"I'm
from Hollywood. Everything in my bra is fake. The stone from Orca's and the
stone from Barrett's tea canister are sewn into my belt. Actually, I just cut
some stitching on the back side of the belt and slid them in between the two
layers of leather." I bent my belt back to show her.

"You
cut up your good belt?" Callie asked in alarm.

"I
can get another one." I shrugged.

"But
that belt matches your Ferragamos."

"Yeah—"

"But
now it has a hole in it! When this is over, I'll take it to a shoe repair place
and we'll get it fixed. Next time, tell me when you're looking for somewhere to
hide the stones and I'll help you come up with something." She sighed and
headed for the rental car counter.

"If
you were really cosmic," I said, "you wouldn't care so much about
clothes."

"Angels
are always shown in white satin or silk. The cosmos is very into look and
feel," she replied.

I
phoned Mom and Dad from the car to say I was in town. Mom asked how the Anthony
story was going, as chipper as if it were a school project. I couldn't tell her
it was going so well that we'd been put on the A-list for most likely to be
found dead or missing. I hung up and laid the phone down in the butter-soft
leather seats of our rental car. "Why did you rent a Cadillac?" I
asked Callie.

"I
like them. Why?"

"They
remind me of little old ladies with chubby butts," I needled her.

"So
you must be very comfortable," she said cheerily, making me laugh.

From
the airport, we drove downtown, where the runner-up for Miss Tetons was still
manning the reception booth at the Tulsa Health Club. I asked her if we could
get into the men's locker room and have a look at Frank Anthony's locker,
reminding her that we were the women who were writing a story about Mr.
Anthony. She gave us a furrowed look and said she "just couldn't."
Normally, I would have snapped at anything that fluffy standing between me and
what I needed to accomplish, but I refrained.

"Maggie."
I tried to charm her by having remembered her name. "We work for a very
tough editor." I was about to launch into my next ingratiating set of lies
when Hank Caruthers stepped out of the locker room, ready to leave the gym. He
exhibited pleasant surprise on seeing us again. Maggie quickly filled him in on
our request.

"Hasn't
been a woman allowed back there since the place was built in 1934. If a woman
ever got back there, why, rumor has it the shower heads would fall off and the
wallpaper would peel." Hank chuckled, seeming to make fun of the very
rules he enforced. "It's not because we're hiding anything...'Cept the
family jewels, of course!" He laughed at his own joke. "But I
understand entirely about doing your job. Why don't you gals give me a call at
my office and we'll talk? I'll tell you anything you want to know. I mean I was
the first person on the scene, so that ought to be worth something to your
editor."

Hank
handed us both his card. We thanked him with big, insincere smiles and left
moments after he did. As his car pulled out of the parking lot, I felt my legs
go weak, and I had to lean up against the hood. Callie was immediately at my
side, wanting to know what was wrong.

"Look
at his card! Thomas Harold (Hank) Caruthers. Initials THC. Frank was clutching
the stone to tell whoever found him to look on the towel for the murderer. The
towel says THC. Tulsa Health Club."

"Or
Thomas Harold Caruthers," she said. "I'm getting chills."

I drove
us across town to Maple Ridge, a historic district of ivy-covered mansions
built by long-dead oil barons and the home of Ramona Mathers. I was almost
certain Frank Anthony had confided in her before he died. She was so easy to
talk to, and I knew for a fact that she would be the one person involved in
this case who would be happy to see me.