Part 9 (1/2)

She raised an eyebrow at me while simultaneously taking a deep drag.

”Are you a cop or something?”

”I'm remodeling my kitchen. Randy was going to hook me up with some cool wood for my cabinets.”

She gave me a quick glance up and down. Yep, I could read her mind, he looks like Mr. Suburban House-Fixer-Upper.

”As good a friends as a waitress and customer can be without ever hooking up outside of here,” she said, her tawny mane nodding toward the back of the Ram's Horn.

I paused. Not much here, I thought. Then I asked, ”Did Nevada ever bring his girlfriend in here?”

She nodded. ”Cute girl.”

Okay, not much accomplished.

”Randy cracks me up,” I said. ”I can't believe he still drives around that piece of c.r.a.p yellow Cadillac. What is it, like, a 1965?”

She shrugged her thin shoulders. ”I only seen him in that black Nova. I used to drive one just like it in high school. Mine was gold, though. With huge rust spots all over. If I hit a pothole, little chunks would fall off.”

”Did you know Nova in Spanish means 'It won't go?'” I said. I was chock full of interesting tidbits like that. It was a big reason waitresses found me so fascinating.

”No s.h.i.+t?” she said. ”That's funny.”

Our bonding over and with a description of Randy's car, I thanked Mich.e.l.le, resisted the urge to run my hands through her hair and see if my dog Biffy, who ran away when I was three years old, was hidden in there. He wasn't. I walked back to my Taurus. Well, I had a description of a car. But little else.

I looked at St. Clair Salvage across the street. I wondered if I could just peek in the window and get a look at Hornsby's desk. That wouldn't be a crime, would it? Window shopping? People do it all the time.

They wouldn't send me to Jackson for that, would they?

Nineteen.

The direct approach seemed the best. I crossed the street, went around behind the main building and pressed my face up against the nearest window. Through a thin layer of grime I saw a lot of open s.p.a.ce with a bunch of gear on the floor. Clearly not the office, although I figured Nevada Hornsby's corporate decor wasn't exactly Architectural Digest caliber. I walked down to the next set of windows. I saw an old desk with a telephone. Okay, now that could possibly pa.s.s as an office. Now what? I really didn't feel like breaking a window and the law at the same time. I tried to get a better look but couldn't see directly beneath the window. I gave the window a hard nudge but it was locked into place. Probably more from years and years of paint as opposed to an actual lock.

I reconsidered the wisdom of trying to get inside. What were my odds, realistically, of finding a link to the missing employee? I figured the big wooden drawers in Hornsby's desk would be crammed with loose papers, receipts, important doc.u.ments imprinted with coffee stains- ”What the f.u.c.k are you doing?” The voice shot out from behind me and I jumped so hard I felt the Ram's Horn coffee threaten to slosh its way out of my belly.

”Oh, Christ,” I said.

My sister smiled at me. ”You have the right to remain silent, although with that giant maw of a mouth you have I've never actually heard you be silent-”

”Jesus Christ, you scared me,” I said.

”You were always such a Nervous Nellie,” Ellen said. ”What are you doing?” Again, she knew exactly what I was doing. My sister was the Queen of Rhetorical Questions.

”All right, I admit,” I said. ”I'm a peeping Tom. It started with your friend Sue Rogers. She had those giant eukanubas and her slumber party you went to-”

”Shut up John.”

”Close my giant maw?”

”Please.”

We stood there in awkward silence for a moment. Then Ellen stepped up to the window through which I'd been looking and took her time looking things over. She turned to me with a raised eyebrow.

”I thought I told you to stay away from this case.”

”I am. I just had my daily Ram's Horn breakfast and was walking off the biscuits and sausages...”

”Shut up.”

I shrugged my shoulders, deciding to obey her command to keep quiet. I could be a good doggie. Who's a good boy?

”So let me guess,” she said. ”You were trying to be good and not find a way to sneak in and snoop around the deceased's office. Which, of course, would be a severe violation of the law. You'd probably told yourself you'd just peek, deep down knowing it wouldn't satisfy you and that you would have to figure out a clever way to get inside. Spontaneity would take over and you'd find yourself inside, rummaging around. You might find something, you might not. And then you'd leave and feel terribly guilty, go home, and forget about it the minute you walked through the door and the girls descended on you and made you feel like your coming home was rivaled only by the return of Moses from the mountaintop.”

I both admired her and hated her.

I decided to quit being defensive and take the sisterly bull by the horns.

”So I guess you decided to come out here on your own,” I said. ”Without the a.s.sistance of your new friends from St. Clair Sh.o.r.es law enforcement because you wanted to take a good look around yourself, form your own judgments and keep any discoveries that might impact your case to yourself. And when you saw me, you were secretly relieved because you realized you'd benefit from both my keen insight and my warm companionability.”

”It's warm all right,” she said. ”Like a steaming pile of bullsh-”

”Thank you, I get the idea.”

I thought I saw the beginning of a smile play across her face so I said, ”Come on, you know what we need to do.”

”No,” she said. ”Run along, go get a piece of coconut creme pie across the street.”

She turned her back on me and walked to the back door of St. Clair Salvage, produced a key and unlocked the door. She stepped inside, started to close the door on me, but I caught it just before it shut and pushed it back open.

”Come on, don't shut me out,” I said. ”This is your little brother talking.”

She snorted and turned around, ignoring me.

I followed Ellen inside and shut the door behind me.

”Reminds me of your room,” Ellen said, surveying the piles of junk, empty beer cans and dartboard hanging askew on the wall. It was funny how even as adults, childhood is never far behind.

I inhaled deeply and said, ”Smells like your closet.”

The office, if you could call it that, was divided into three rooms. The doorway led into the biggest room where traditionally, the receptionist would sit. Instead of filling the s.p.a.ce with a chubby middle-aged woman with a telephone headset, Nevada Hornsby had chosen instead to furnish the area with a giant rusty anchor. Complete with dried seaweed.