RAIN, RAIN, AND more rain.
Heater going. Emergency flashers blinking to keep anyone from plowing into us, windshield wipers beating a tired rhythm, wet female rump on my left thigh.
The only thing missing was conversation.
“Harper,” I said.
“What?”
“The name. Where’d it come from?”
“From the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, of course.”
“Of course.”
She smiled. “A woman named Harper Lee wrote it. You should know that.”
“I do now, so there, smartie.”
“When I was in the eighth grade, I checked a book that had something like twenty thousand baby names. Harper wasn’t in it. My mother wanted to call me Ashley, but my grandmother was still teaching high school English when I was born and my last name is Leeman. Evidently Harper Leeman was too good an opportunity to pass up since it was so close to Harper Lee. My grandmother’s always had a way of getting her way, so Harper it was.”
“It’s a perfectly good name. Different. I like it.”
“Thanks. So is Mort. A little offbeat, which suits you. Anyway, I grew up with Harper so I’m used to it. That and Harp, like you’ve called me a few times.”
“Which means I’m a friend.”
“You better be, driving around with me like this.” She wiped a damp lock of hair off my forehead. “Speaking of which, could I lean against you a little harder? It’s not easy, trying to sit up like this and not press against you too much, but I’m getting kind of a cramp in my side.”
“Sure. But before you do, let me say something.”
“I think I know what, but go ahead.”
“Maybe not. I’m happy to have you lean against me, but I want you to know there’s no way in hell it will lead to anything. Sorry if that implies too much, but it needed to be said. I don’t want there to be any misunderstandings here. I’m happily and thoroughly married. But the tricky part of this commentary and the reason I’m saying all this is that I also don’t want you to think I don’t find you quite attractive, because I do. It’s just that I’m not tempted to let that run wild, though I am glad you don’t have a beer gut, whiskers, and your name isn’t Bubba, because if any part of that were true, you’d either be on the hood or we could park this truck right here until Christmas. I hope all of that makes sense and isn’t too far out of line.”
“It does. It isn’t. It means you like women, but you’re one of the good guys. I should be so lucky—which I haven’t been, yet. I got divorced four years ago and things haven’t been going all that great since. It’s like all the good guys have been taken already. So, can I lean on you now?”
“Be my guest.”
She tucked herself against me and settled in. I had a fairly small, firm, damp breast making itself noticeable and comfortable against my left side. Her right arm was draped around my neck, left hand resting on my chest. Her skirt was made of filmy material, flipped up in front by her leg. I got a glimpse of pale blue panties in the dash lights every time I glanced at the speedometer—couldn’t help it, but it wasn’t a problem since I have the self-control of an anvil.
We rode in silence for a minute or two, then she said, almost in my ear, “This is still fairly surreal, Mort.”
“Yes, it is. An hour ago I was driving along minding my own business, thinking I’d be in Ely in two hours, get a motel room, a shower, and a hot meal.”
She chuckled ruefully. “Sorry about this, really.”
“Yup. Not sure I am.”
“Oh?” She smiled. “Why not?”
“This’ll give me something to tell at Lions meetings. It’ll also be a terrific story for my grandkids when they get old enough to appreciate it.”
“You’re a member of Lions Club?”
“No, but I might join so I can tell this story and maybe get free drinks. We should take a selfie as proof.”
She laughed. “You’re a little bit wild, Mort. But I like that. You’re not all … tight.”
“So tell me how you ended up at the side of one of the loneliest roads in the country at dusk with rain coming.”
“I got dumped. Well, not dumped, exactly. What I did was, I hitched a ride with this older guy after there was a bang under the hood of my car and my radiator sprang a leak about half a mile south of Goldfield on Highway 95 and steam blew all over the windshield.”
“Very few people have radiators.”
She thought about that, then hit my chest. “My car’s radiator, fool.”
“Ah, that explains it.”
“Anyway, Goldfield’s a sucky place to have your car break down.”
“Gotcha. I’ve been through there lots of times.” With Lucy, in fact, when we met at McGinty’s Café in Tonopah a year ago. I’d known her less than an hour when we passed through Goldfield on the way to Vegas. Hell of a ride, that was. It changed my life. And Lucy’s.
“It was going to take two days to get a new radiator in for a 2008 Corolla,” Harper said. “Older car, I know, but it’s nice not to have payments and it still runs great.”
“Except when the radiator blew.”
“Uh-huh. That was so weird. The guy said it might take him a day to install the new radiator when it got there since he was backed up with cars needing repairs. This older guy, Frank, was there when I walked up. He heard what happened after my car was towed in, told me he was headed up to Tonopah then over to Ely if I wanted a ride. I couldn’t pass that up since he’d heard me tell the repair guy I was going to Ely to visit my aunt Ellen and she was expecting me. The mechanic told me Goldfield didn’t have any car rental places. And who the hell would want to stay three days in Goldfield? So of course I said yes to Frank.
“Anyway, I was dressed like this because, well, I like it, and it was 106 degrees when I left Vegas. I was gonna drive all the way to Ely by myself, so what did it matter what I wore? It was still a hundred in Goldfield when my car conked out. Frank looked about as old as my grandfather so I figured it would be safe. I’m dressed okay, or thought I was considering how hot it is, or was. A lot of girls wear skirts like this running ten-Ks and marathons.”
She looked at me. “I didn’t expect to get this cold, or this top to get soaked, which is one reason I’m not wearing anything under it—which might be kind of obvious.”
“I wouldn’t know.”
She smiled. “Aren’t you nice?”
“Not expecting to get soaked was one reason,” I said. “What’s another, since we’re talking about tops?”
“Well, I’m kinda small on top. I don’t really need a bra so I don’t usually wear one, as in about never. The only two I’ve got are back in Vegas. I hope that’s not too much, you know …”
“Information?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t worry about it. Lucy doesn’t wear bras either. Same reason. The two of you could be twins. But you didn’t bring more clothes for the trip?”
“I did, but Frank stole them—sort of. He acted nice all the way to Tonopah and past Warm Springs, but then he started to look at me differently, kind of checking me out. Finally, he reached out and put his hand on my bare thigh, so I pulled out my little Beretta and made him stop the car and let me out.”
“You got good use of that gun today, huh?”
She patted my chest. “I’m still sorry about that. After you stopped, I saw you looking at what I was wearing. I was tired. And cold. I thought I’d got rid of one lecher only to run into another. I’ll want the magazine back for my gun, and the bullets, but I’m pretty sure I don’t need them right now.”
“Only pretty sure?”
She laughed. “I’m sure sure, Mort. Anyway, I’ve never had to pull a gun on anyone before in my life. I guess it shook me up. I wasn’t thinking clearly. I should’ve ordered him out of the car, but I wanted to get the hell away from him. I got out and was about to get my travel bag out of the back seat when he gunned the engine and took off with all my clothes and stuff.”
“Bastard.” I put a fair amount of irony in the word.
“Well, he was.” She fell silent. After a minute she said, “I’m not too heavy, am I?”
“Not sure. What do you weigh? One eighty?”
She slugged my chest, not too hard. “Not a question a gentleman asks a lady. And I’m either kinda heavy on you or I’m not, so you could’ve just answered the question.” She pursed her lips, then said, “One twelve.”
“That would be soaking wet, right? Which you are.”
“Omigod, you’re a treacherous brute, aren’t you?”
“It’s part of my charm. At a hundred twelve pounds you’re not the most effective counterweight I could wish for. Steering is still iffy. Can you sit heavier?”
“Don’t know how to do that. Would you like it better if I weighed two twelve?”
I looked at her. “Don’t think so, Bubba.”
She grinned. “Thought so.”
“Do you work?” I asked, changing the subject.
“Sure. I teach high school in Vegas. English. I finished my fifth year at Palo Verde in June. And I coach girls’ cross country and track. Sprints, long jump, pole vault. I coach boys’ pole vault, too, because the other coaches don’t know how. I vaulted in college. I had an athletic scholarship.”
Figures. She was a little smaller than Lucy, but she had a solid all-girl feel, not an ounce of fat on her.
“Cross country, huh? You run with the team?”
She laughed. “Thirty miles or more a week. Closer to fifty in the off-season, which this is since school is out. I’ve run eight marathons. I ran Boston last year and two years before that. My PR is three hours, seven minutes.”
“Just my luck.”
“Why’s that?”
“I couldn’t outrun you if I wanted to.”
She smiled at me. “Do you want to, Mort?”
“Not sure yet, but I wouldn’t want to make a fool of myself.” Her arms were slender, hard with muscle. In fact, she was slim and solid all over. “Let me take a wild guess—you pole vault with the team, too.”
“Of course, showing the kids how to do it. It’s amazing exercise. I’ve cleared thirteen feet eight inches.”
“Wow. School record?”
“No. The coach doesn’t get the record. And the girls’ high school pole vault record in the U.S. is eight inches higher than my college best, so I’m just the coach.”
I couldn’t think of any major muscle groups that were left out in the pole vault. She and Lucy would get along great. Put them in bikinis and they would stop traffic.
I glanced at her. “Just so you know, I’ll tell Lucy about all of this.”
“Me on your lap, you mean?”
“That’s right.”
“No secrets from the wife?”
“None at all.”
“That mean you’ll tell her I pulled a gun on you?”
“Yes, but she’ll like you anyway since you didn’t pull the trigger. I know Lucy. You’re two of a kind. And you teach English so it’s likely you’re both grammar Nazis.”
“That sounds promising. What I mean is, you think she and I will meet sometime? Where is she, anyway? Why isn’t she here with you?”
“She’s in San Francisco visiting her mother. And I’m not willy-nilly driving around. This is a business trip.”
I didn’t tell her the reason for Lucy’s visit, that her mother, Val, was scheduled for her first colonoscopy on Wednesday. Under the circumstances, that would’ve been TMI. And isn’t that a perfect time to visit someone—when the visitee is having the time of their life in the bathroom?
Lucy’s father, Ed, was out of town, way out of town, somewhere in Indonesia. Lucy was going to drive Valerie home after her procedure. Lucy was supposed to return to Reno on Friday, five days from now. It was possible this thing with Harper and the gimpy truck could affect that, but Val needed moral support and a ride, so I hoped it wouldn’t. This was Sunday. I didn’t want Lucy to cut her visit short if it wasn’t absolutely necessary.
Harper’s face was six inches from mine. “You think I might be a grammar Nazi?” she asked.
“You teach English, so it’s possible. Lucy is.”
“How old is she?”
Right then I ran over a four-inch rock in the road that lifted the half-flat right front tire and dropped it again. The truck veered left and tried to tip to the right. I yanked the wheel and hit the brakes.
We stopped in the middle of the road, angled a bit to the right.
“Wow,” Harper said. “Close one, huh?”
“Very. We almost crashed at six miles an hour.”
She pursed her lips. “Okay, not so close. It was kinda scary anyway.”
I got us going again. The rain had eased off some, but the wipers were still on full to keep up with it. I stared into the watery night, feeling half blind. Good thing we hadn’t been going sixty miles an hour. Six felt pretty slow, though, so I eased it back up to ten.
“So,” Harper said. “Lucy? How old is she?”
“She turned thirty-two in April.”
“How old are you, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“I’ll be twenty-two in October. Lucy’s a cradle robber.”
She smacked my chest again. “Have you turned forty yet?”
“Been there, done that. I’m forty-three and what’s it to you?”
“You look good for forty-three, Mort. Scars and all.”
“What scars?”
She laughed. “As if you don’t know.” With a finger she traced a thin scar that ran across the bridge of my nose and across my left cheek. “This. And I noticed you’re missing a little bit off the top of your right ear.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really. But don’t worry. It suits you, gives you a rugged manly lumberjack kind of look.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. We rode in silence except for the drumming of rain overhead, then she said, “We’ve been talking a lot about me—too much. I want to know more about you since I’m on your lap.”
“What about me?”
“Everything. Where you live, what you do for work. And here you are, driving around in the middle of nowhere and you don’t have a change of clothes with you. I have an excuse for that, but why don’t you?”
“This wasn’t supposed to be an overnight trip.”
“Yeah? What was it? I mean, here we are, tearing along at, what? Ten miles an hour? We’ve got time to swap stories. How much farther is it to Grange, anyway?”
“Best guess, about twenty miles.”
“Lots of time. So, this wasn’t an overnight trip—and then it was. How’d that happen?”
“It was work. I’m a private investigator.”
She leaned away and tilted her head, gave me a look. “Are you serious? Like Magnum PI?”
I smiled. “Exactly like Magnum, except that I’ve had more women drop into my professional life than he ever did. Like with you, now. It’s a long, sad story.”
She made a face at me. “Not too damn sad, I hope. Right now, I mean.”
“Could be a whole lot worse, Bubba.”
She smiled. “You’re awful.”
“A basic part of my M.O.”
“I’m sure. So, what’re you detecting, way out here?”
“I’m hunting down Elrood, nominally speaking. So far not so good, I have to say, but I’m a persistent cuss.”
“What’s an Elrood?”
“Near as I can tell, it’s a twenty-five-year-old shithead who borrows money from women under false pretenses then splits, last seen driving a white 2006 Pontiac Vibe—and about to inherit over six hundred thousand dollars, if I can find him—but I’m not absolutely certain he’s a full-on unrepentant shithead so I reserve the right to retract that impression without prejudice.”
She smiled. “You are … something else, Mort.”
“So I’ve been told. Okay, without any editorializing the story is that Elrood inherited a whole lot of money. The executor of the estate hired us, my partner and me, to find him and let him know.”
“You have a partner?”
“Maude Clary. We call her Ma. She’s sixty-three and crusty.”
“Unlike you.”
“That’s right. She’s female, I’m not.”
“Uh-huh. I noticed that about you right away.”
“Means you’re fast on the uptake. Ma is training me.”
“Really? You’re in training?”
“Still. Forever. Among other requirements it takes ten thousand hours of training under the mentorship of a licensed PI to get a license in this state. It’s like a form of institutionalized nepotism. I’ve got just over five thousand hours left to go.”
“So you’re not a real PI?”
“Hush, child. Last location anyone had for Elrood was in one of Reno’s older neighborhoods. By anyone, I mean a woman about thirty years old who’d given him a thousand dollars and let him borrow her Pontiac Vibe. That was with the understanding that the thousand was just a loan. He was gone by the time I got there. Missed him by three days, so I did the private eye thing and a neighbor girl seventeen years old gave me an address around Sparks High School. She wouldn’t tell me how she got it, and I don’t want to know. That got me to a cannabis-enhanced goof in his late twenties who told me Elrood owed him a hundred bucks but Elrood needed another hundred for gas because he had to get, now, two hundred from some chick in Tonopah who owed him five hundred—but he would be back later that evening. That was a little over two days ago. He was last seen driving that Vibe. According to Judy Alcott, the gal who let him borrow it, it had bald tires.”
Harper laughed. “The cannabis guy and Elrood sound like winners. And Judy, if she let him borrow her car.”
“Do, don’t they? Judy has a second, better car, but I think she lost a thousand bucks. Anyway, the stoner found me a Tonopah address for the girl, said he’d split whatever money with me that I got from Elrood. I asked him why he didn’t go to Tonopah and pound the money out of Elrood himself, and he said, ‘Dude, it’d cost me like a hundred bucks to go get a hundred,’ at which point this hundred-thirty-pound scrawny twerp rolled his eyes like I was the one smokin’ ganj. But when you’re right you’re right, so I didn’t put him in the hospital.”
“I can’t imagine you putting anyone in the hospital.”
Little did she know. I’ve put people in the hospital, and in the ground. One in particular that only three other people in the world know about. We hoped no one else ever would, but that’s an investigation that would be active forever, unless they catch the perpetrators—me, Ma, and a gorgeous girl named Sarah, whom I first knew as Holiday Breeze of all the unlikely names. The FBI could still turn over a rock we hadn’t considered and catch up with us, but it’s been almost two years since that event, so the three of us are sleeping better these days. The only other person who knows the whole story is Lucy.
“I try not to,” I told her, “but sometimes it’s hard. The Tonopah address got me to a pimply girl of nineteen who could stand to lose thirty pounds. Elrood had bought her dinner—a hamburger and fries—spent the night with her in an old thirty-foot, single-wide trailer, taken her for four hundred bucks and moved on, not that she appeared to be aware that he’d moved on. He phoned her from Ely and pleaded with her to send him another two hundred, which he didn’t get. He called her on a cell phone registered to a person named Zola, presumably female, but these days you never know.”
“Zola? No last name?”
“I’m trying to keep this confidential and professional, but if I end up needing your help, I’ll deputize you, pin a star on your tank top, and name names.”
She smiled. “Really? You will pin it?”
“It appears that I misspoke. You will self-pin the star while I micromanage the operation verbally.”
“Uh-huh. Anyway, you might need my help? For real, or are you just making noise?”
“As if I ever just make noise.”
“Yeah, right. I think I’m getting you figured out.”
“You’re visiting your aunt in Ely so you might end up with free time and get bored. You also have a gun and you show spunk, two fine traits in an unpaid assistant.”
“Spunk, wow. Now there’s a word I haven’t heard in a while. Like almost forever.”
“My partner, Ma, came up with an address for Zola using the number that appeared on the shithead’s call to Tonopah. There I was in Tonopah, no point in going all the way back to Reno in order to drive to Ely, so here I am.”
“In a truck going ten miles an hour. I’m sorry.”
“Which you’ve said four or five times now, so you can shut that down since I’ve finally got the gist.”
She laughed. “Okay. And, hey! It occurred to me that after all this time I still don’t know your last name—Mort, private eye.”
Uh-oh. No telling how this would go. “Angel,” I said.
“Angel?” She backed away a little. “Mortimer Angel?” For several seconds she stared at my face in the dim light of the dash. “Omigod. You are.”
“Hey, whatever you might’ve heard, ninety percent of it is wrong, and the rest isn’t my fault.”
“You … you’re famous. Here in Nevada, anyway. I mean, you’re the guy who, who, who—”
“Don’t say it.”
“Who found those heads, Reno’s mayor and DA. And that politician guy’s hand.”
“I said don’t say it. And like I said, none of it was my fault. I’m a patsy, a shill for the gods. I’ve been in the wrong place at the wrong time over and over, that’s all. No idea why, unless it’s punishment for being an IRS thug for sixteen interminable years.”
“Wow.” She sank back against me. “An IRS thug. That sounds nasty.”
Little did she know. I once audited a guy who pointed out that pallets of taxpayer money was given to Iran who used it to sponsor terrorism. I told him the government is actually a collection of inept, bumbling clowns smoking exploding cigars and getting rich on corruption, but you’ll have to pay up anyway since you’re a nobody, not a corrupt politician. Now that’s nasty.
“The Internal Revenue Service,” I said to Harper, “is a ‘service’ like a mortuary is a theme park. I tried to keep my thuggery to a minimum, but it wasn’t easy because it was a condition of my employment.”
“And now you find missing people who—”
“Don’t say it.”
I didn’t think running through my entire curriculum vitae was a splendid idea since it included finding a dead stinky rapper in a garage and the skull of an IRS goon, stripped by harvester ants. And killing two birds with one stone. Well, two guys with one rock. A big-ass rock.
“This is just too, too freaky, Mort.”
“I’m harmless. Really.”
“I believe you, but that’s not what I meant.”
“Oh? What did you mean?”
“Running into you like this. You of all people.” She backed away a few inches, gazed into my eyes. “My mother is missing. She’s been gone for four days, Mort.”
Four days. Oh, Christ, no. Harper Leeman. Suddenly that last name jumped out at me. Not again …
“Nevada’s attorney general,” Harper said. “Annette Leeman? No one’s seen her since sometime Wednesday. It’s been in the news. You might’ve heard about it.”
Sonofabitch. Another famous missing person.
Ma was gonna fire me for sure.