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BARBARA AND I MADE the trip to Ward River together the next morning in the Lexus RX 350 I’d bought myself as an early Christmas gift. I told her about Styx and the puppy, who were so cute together it was heart-warming. “He really believes I got him a toy,” I told Barbara as we drove west. “When Little Guy is in his cage, Styx sits beside it and guards him. When I let him out, Styx carries him around in his mouth. He’s very gentle with him, and it’s so cute.”
“And how does the puppy react to that?”
“He’s a little scared,” I admitted. “He has to get used to Styx, that’s all. He’ll be okay.”
“I thought you were supposed to keep them separated until you’re sure the pup doesn’t have mange or something.”
I suppressed a grimace of irritation. “Dr. Camp would have called if there was anything to worry about.”
Barbara sighed, and I felt a lecture looming. In the end she chose not to start, which was good. It isn’t like she knows a thing about dogs.
We arrived at the diner midmorning on purpose, so the breakfast crowd would be gone and lunchtime customers not there yet. A few people lingered over the plates before them, and they examined us as we sat down at a table in the center of the room. The décor was cheerful though slightly dusty. The menus were grammatically correct, for which I was grateful. Barbara will go on for a whole meal sometimes about mistakes like potatos and Were not happy till your full!
When she brought our food, we asked the waitress if we could speak to the owner, who was also the cook.
“Is there a problem, ladies?” The man who stopped between us and set his fists on his hips had once been muscular, but his body was starting to let him down. A paunch spilled over his belt, and his jawline was descending into jowls. My Don would never have let himself go like that. Lars kept himself in great shape too.
“There’s no problem,” I told him with a smile. “We wanted to compliment you on the wonderful food.”
His stance relaxed. “I appreciate that.”
I’d have warmed the guy up a little more, but Barbara went right at him, handing him her business card. “Mr. Yates, we’re private detectives looking into an event in Allport on December third. We’d like confirmation of the evening time frame as well as information on Steven Deline’s character.”
She might as well have started the “You have the right to remain silent” speech and pulled out the metal bracelets. Yates’ stance went back to alert, and he crossed his arms on his chest, setting his palms in his armpits with the thumbs pointing up. It’s a common male pose, but for a cook, it was pretty unappetizing. “I told the police everything I know. Now I gotta set up for lunch.” With that he turned and disappeared into the kitchen.
“Barbara Ann, you’re about as subtle as a jackhammer.”
She glared at me. “It isn’t like I asked for his first-born child.”
“You’re not a prosecutor anymore. You can’t just demand answers, and you know people don’t tell strangers anything without a little soft soap.” Taking my purse from the chair beside me, I set my car keys near her plate. “Why don’t you wait in the car while I see if I can get back on Mr. Yates’ good side?”
“Your soft soap will not get that man to talk. To him we’re just two nosy old women.”
That was too close to the truth for comfort, but I pushed the keys closer and said, “Let me try. Please?”
With the air of Joan of Arc stepping onto the pyre, Barbara picked up her purse and my keys and left the restaurant. I paid the bill, chatting with the waitress for a moment until I saw Yates peer out the round window in the swinging kitchen door. When I caught his eye and waved he frowned, but I gestured for him to step into the dining room.
“My sister is a little brusque sometimes,” I said when he came to the doorway and stood looking down his nose at me. “She certainly didn’t mean to imply you’d distort the truth in any way.”
Yates’ stiff manner melted a little. “We wouldn’t lie to the police.”
“Of course not, but it’s easy to lose track of time at a party.”
He crossed his arms again, setting his hands in his pits. “We play cards every week, and it goes on all night. Everybody but Lila was there by eight. She came in just as the eleven o’clock news came on. At three, some people went home and some crashed with us, including Lila. Next morning she and my wife made pancakes for everyone.”
“That’s very helpful,” I told him. “Now what can you tell me about her relationship with Mr. Deline?”
Yates made a huffing sound. “The relationship was in Lila’s head.”
“But we understood they’d been together at some point.”
“Depends on what you mean by ‘together.’”
I gave him an impish smile. “I think you know what I mean.”
“It means different things to women than it does to guys.” Yates made an abrupt shrug. “Look, I ain’t got time to stand around and gossip. You have a nice day.” Once again he returned to the kitchen, letting the door swing closed behind him with a whoosh of air.
Barbara was reading the owner’s manual for my car when I got into the driver’s seat. “Did you know you can roll down the windows with your remote?” she asked.
“Remind me in July when the interior hits 90 degrees,” I replied. “Now here’s what I found out.”
I told her what Yates had said. Looking smug she said, “I don’t see anything that’s of help.”
Starting the car, I checked for other vehicles before backing out of the space. “Actually, I learned something pretty important.”
I saw her frown in my peripheral vision. “What’s that?”
“Whatever ended Lila and Steve’s relationship was Steve’s fault. Yates is loyal to his buddy, so he won’t tell and make him look bad.”
“Huh.” Barbara sniffed. “Well, Beale probably won’t talk to us either. Harassment is illegal, so she won’t admit to anything.”
“True.” I tapped my fingers on the dashboard for a few seconds. “But a female friend might be willing to tell what Steve did to Lila. She might even sympathize with what she did to get back at him.”
A quick search on my phone told us Andrew Yates’ wife was named Karen, and she worked at the local laundry and dry cleaner. The place wasn’t hard to locate in a town with only one major street, and that only four blocks long. When we entered we found a middle-aged man and a youngish woman at a counter that separated one end of a long room from an open area lined with coin-operated washers and dryers. Behind the counter were metal racks hung with plastic-covered clothing, revealing the place served as a drop-off and pick-up point for a cleaning service located somewhere else. In the main area, washers sloshed and dryers hummed. The smell of damp hung in the air, and every surface was coated with the dust of cooked towels and sheets.
The man was working on a cash register that looked like it belonged in a vintage shop. Pieces of it lay on the countertop around him, along with various screwdrivers and wrenches. He glanced up without much interest when we entered then returned to what he was doing. The woman who stepped forward to greet us had short, reddish hair held away from her face by a thin circle of elastic. Karen Yates was overweight and under-toned, a poster child for those who let themselves go soon after marriage. Her pale, freckled face had probably once had a gamin-like quality. Now she simply looked tired.
When we told her who we were, Mrs. Yates gave the same disclaimer her husband had. She’d already told the police everything she knew. Lila had been at her house from shortly after eleven on Monday until ten Tuesday morning when she’d left to open her flower shop, just a few doors down from the laundromat.
“We understand Mr. Deline got a personal protection order against Ms. Beale a while back.”
She looked at her fingernails, which were in dire need of new polish. “Well, yeah.”
“Why did he do that?”
Karen looked at her boss, who was listening though he tried to appear busy. “Want to go outside? I could use a smoke break.”
“Sure.”
Huddled against the outside wall of the building, she lit up. She’d put on a heavy (ugly) sweater, but she still shivered in the forty-degree chill. From the way she pulled on the cigarette, it was worth it.
“The PPO?” I reminded her.
“Yeah.” She blew the smoke upward. “There was a time when Lila thought she and Steve were a couple.”
“Were they?”
She grimaced. “He let her hang around, you know? If he got a better offer, Lila was out for a while, but when there was nobody else, he let her crawl back into his bed.” She shook her head. “It was pitiful. She thought she’d be Mrs. Deline someday, but he—” She stopped.
“He wasn’t the marrying kind?”
Her smile was cold. “You know the Julia Roberts movie The Runaway Bride? Well Steve was a runaway groom, except he wasn’t afraid of marriage. He just didn’t want any part of it.”
“And Lila did.”
“Most of Steve’s girlfriends moved on with their lives after he dumped them, but Lila was sure he’d wake up someday and realize she was his soulmate.” She picked a bit of tobacco from her tongue. “She actually said soulmate.” Hunching her shoulders even further she said, “As if there is such a thing.”
“So Deline was—” I hesitated, unable to come up with a word.
“Steve was Steve,” she finished for me. “Good-looking. Smooth. He could charm just about any woman right into his bed.” She glanced down the alley as if imagining something, and I wondered if she’d been one of those women at some point. “The smart ones figured out they were just another name on his ‘been there, done her’ list.”
“But not Lila?”
“It took a big jolt to wake her up.” A grim smile crossed her lips. “When it happened, she went off the rails for a while.”
“Hence the PPO.”
She grunted a laugh. “The protection order just made Lila more creative. She mailed him a dead fish. She signed him up for weird newsletters like Aliens among Us and Pedophiles Are People Too. She donated in his name to some whacko group that advocates the removal of any government official who can’t prove he was born male.” She flicked ash from her cigarette. “That’s when he finally left town.”
“And didn’t tell anyone where he was going.”
Karen pointed a finger at us. “What Lila did wasn’t right, but he deserved it.”
“Exactly what did Steve do to cause her to go after him?”
Karen looked away. “That isn’t anybody’s business.”
“Listen, we know she was at your house the night Steve was killed, so Lila isn’t a suspect.” Barbara glanced at me in warning, but I was determined to get Karen to talk. I put a hand on her non-smoking arm. “We need to know what kind of person Steve was.”
“He was a jerk.”
“Karen,” I said in my most convincing tone, “will you tell us exactly what Steve Deline did to Lila Beale?”
She almost did. Her mouth was open. Her eyes signaled readiness. But at that moment, her boss stepped out into the alley and asked, “Do you know where the Morrison order would be?”
“I have to go.” Before we could argue, she headed inside, crushing her cigarette against the side of a rusty coffee can near the back door.
As we watched her go, Barbara sighed. “I guess it doesn’t matter what he did. Beale has an alibi, and it’s been what—a year since he left town. Why would she decide to kill him after all this time?”
“I don’t know,” I replied, “but I’ll bet the story is a good one.”
We’d intended to meet Lila before leaving Ward River, but that was not to be. The flower shop was closed, with a sign on the door that said Making Deliveries: Back soon. A one-person operation was probably required in a town as tiny as this one. I was actually relieved, because I figured I’d get farther with Lila without Barbara. I can make people feel I understand them. My sister makes them feel like any little thing they’ve done wrong is one step down from Original Sin.
