CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Jeanette saw her leave the apartment building, striding down the sidewalk at a brisk pace that only the person who had frightened her would recognize as a near-run. To anyone else, the girl named Allison could have just been late for an appointment or worried she'd miss a bus.

A heavy duffel bag swung at her side, and this disturbed Jade. Was Allison, or Steffi, or whatever she wanted to call herself, splitting altogether? Leaving town? Was she worried she'd miss a bus? A Greyhound to another state?

But Allison didn't matter. Scoot was what mattered.

By five o'clock, evening was descending over the city like a flight of dusky moths. Most of the shops in the neighborhood were closing. Jade returned to her car, waited until the bulk of the street and sidewalk traffic had eased, and then calmly set about breaking into the thrift store.

She wasn't concerned about setting off an alarm, and didn't need to be. The back door, which was marked 'Emergency Exit Only' and opened onto an alley, had a cheap lock that broke after only two hard strikes with a hammer from the toolkit in the trunk of her car. No braying sirens split the air, no lights flashed. Who would bother installing an expensive system to protect a bunch of donated junk?

The store had been closed all day and there was the slim chance that it was because the proprietor was doing inventory. However, once Jeanette was inside, she found the place utterly deserted.

The scent of it brought back her childhood again, that unwelcome rush of memories. Musty upholstery. Harsh, cheap detergent. The poor-sweat of customers who'd handled the items on display. Rust. Mildew. She could almost see herself here, that younger Jeanette, pushing the cart for her mother while Mitchell kicked and squalled in the seat and Carrie and Deena pleaded for naked Barbie dolls in plastic bags, or threadbare stuffed animals. Their mother would be loading the cart with school clothes for them … mostly with the knees out or the cuffs frayed or splotched with bleach stains or missing buttons.

Shuddering, she forced those thoughts out of her mind and set about a purposeful search. The overhead fixtures were out, but enough light came in through the wide front windows to allow her to make her way through the store easily enough. Her petite stature made it easy to duck down unseen behind the stacks of cookie tins, wicker baskets, board games and holiday decorations on the shelves that topped the racks, if any pedestrians should happen by.

In the ladies' wear section, she selected the best outfit that she could assemble from the choices. The idea of putting on the clothes turned her stomach, but she had been seen by too many people in the black track suit, and it wasn't right for what she needed now.

She started with dark grey slacks, in the middle ground between dressy and casual. They were too long, but she found a pair of nearly-new black suede slouch boots to tuck them into. A plain white blouse with fake pearl buttons went under a vee-necked sweater in a green, white and grey diamond-shaped pattern, one sleeve bearing a cigarette burn on the inside of the elbow.

In all her younger years she had never once gotten lice or ringworm from thrift-store clothes, the thought of such vermin nagged persistently as she dressed in the plywood stall of the changing room. She stuck the track suit and hooded warm-up jacket on a spare hanger and jammed them onto a rack. The sneakers, she shelved with the other shoes. Everything that had been in her pockets went into a black purse with a strap she wore crossing her body from shoulder to hip. She suspected that she would carry her purses like that from now on.

By the time she was done changing, no police cars had been summoned by any silent alarm or keen-eyed passerby, so Jeanette let herself out the same way she had come in. Instead of returning to the car, she walked down the alley toward Dunley, behind the ugly backsides of the 6th Street businesses.

She saw two stray cats and a homeless woman, and then she was back on Dunley across the street from the used bookstore. She had watched Allison long enough to see the girl enter the bookstore, and remembered how the wheelchair-bound clerk had sounded so protective and fond of her.

Strange. He had struck Jeanette as an intelligent, literate guy. Not the sort who would run with a brain-dead slut like Steffi. Nor had Allison seemed much like Steffi in person. So what was she doing with Bigfoot? Or had it all been some sort of weird mix-up that Jeanette couldn't yet fit together?

The bookstore was dark, the 'Closed' sign in the door. Jeanette headed for the apartment building, moving like she knew where she was going and belonged here as much as anyone.

Getting in wouldn't be a problem … an elderly man with his pants hiked up to his armpits had propped the front door open with a rolled newspaper as he exerted himself into a stroke lugging groceries from a beat-to-shit old station wagon illegally parked at the curb.

Jeanette stood back out of his way as he went past, arms trembling to support a box full of canned goods – creamed corn, stew, soup, tuna. "It's … for … my … sister," he said. "Food … bank. She's … a shut … in. Fourth … floor."

"Let me get the elevator for you," she said, darting around him to thumb the button. In the wall, gears groaned and cables creaked, and before the doors even slid open, Jeanette knew that she wouldn't get in that thing if her life depended on it. The prospect of plunging down the shaft wasn't nearly as daunting as that of being trapped in the claustrophobic little cage, unable to get out, having to wait for rescue.

"Thanks!" wheezed the old man. "Going … up?"

"I'll take the stairs," she said, smiling and giving him a cheerful little wave.

Allison's apartment was on the second floor. Jeanette got out, nose wrinkling at old, familiar smells not much better than those of the thrift store. A cat box, diapers, the yellowed-newspaper stink of old people, stale cigarette smoke, frying onions.

The only person in the hall was a little boy, sitting on the carpet playing with a toy garage and a bunch of Matchbox cars. The door behind him was open, and the source of the frying-onion smell as well as the sound of a Seinfeld rerun on the television.

"Hello," the little boy said.

"Hi."

She didn't linger, kept on going. When she glanced back, the kid had lost interest in her and gone back to his cars.

The row of intercom buttons out front had shown an 'Arnold Kaminski' in 211 and an 'A. Montgomery' in 206, and no other A-names. 206 lined up with Jeanette's orientation of where she remembered the balcony being, and moments later she was at the door.

Now she had to move fast. The kid wasn't much of a witness, only two or three years old and paying more attention to his cars, but even he was bound to remember if the nice blonde lady took too long getting through the door, or had to do something as dramatic as kicking it down.

This lock, though, opened readily enough after a few pokes with a slim strip of metal that Jeanette kept with her for just such an occasion. She let herself in, glanced back again, saw the kid trying to drive his cars up the wall, and shut the door.

Allison's apartment was dark and quiet, and the smell of carpet shampoo hung in the air. Jeanette drew the drapes across the window that gave onto the balcony, then switched on the lamp.

She saw what was missing first. No television. And an odd sense of absence to the furniture, as if some large piece should have been present but wasn't. A sunburst clock hung askew on the wall, the hands pointing almost straight up and down as it ticked its way toward six.

Bigfoot had been here. Had been shot here. That was why the place smelled of wet carpets and shampoo. That was why some of the furniture was missing, either broken in the struggle or hauled away later with bloodstains. Jeanette had seen plenty of gunshot wounds and knew all too well how they bled. There was a lot of what Rayburn liked to call 'the claret' in a person.

But what, what had Bigfoot been doing here in the first place? What did Allison have to do with Steffi have to do with Scoot?

She was missing something. Overlooking some vital part of all this. And it was driving her crazy.

The tape cassette was not in the recorder. Scoot had listened to it, she was sure. And the fact that he'd taken it out suggested that he had either given it to the police, or hidden it for his own reasons. Had he hidden it here?

Hastily, she tossed the apartment. She found nothing to suggest that the girl who lived here was involved with any guy, let alone a stoner like Bigfoot. She examined a collection of small trinket boxes, some of which were very nice, expensive and imported. Some of the pieces of jewelry were quite good as well, and that in itself made her wonder all over again what this girl was doing involved with Bigfoot. Why hadn't he yet ripped off her good pieces and hawked them to support his drug habit?

The furnishings, though, could have come right from the thrift store. The clothes likewise, though there were some nicer outfits.

The books were mostly thrillers and mysteries – J.A. Jance, James Patterson, Jonathan and Faye Kellerman, Sharyn McCrumb, Janet Evanovich, Tami Hoag, the ubiquitous King and Koontz – with a few fantasy and romance standards by Anne McCaffrey, Robert Jordan, David Eddings and Katherine Kurtz. By the look of them, they had been purchased at the used bookstore.

She found a letter in with a stack of mail, and read the childlike printing with growing curiosity.

Dear Allie, I miss you, when are you coming home? David is going to tennis camp this summer and Steven to music camp so it will be boring here. Mom says it won't because I will have Danny to play with but Danny is a baby and he bites me. I drew you a picture so you remember who I am. Love, Missy.

In with the letter was a fairly skillful drawing showing a large house and a family, and a red-haired girl with sad eyes.

The envelope was embossed, with an ornate calligraphy M and the return address stamped into the upper corner in gold leaf. That was when Jeanette's brow really furrowed. She knew that neighborhood. It made Palmyra Hills look like tract housing and her own gated community look like the ghetto.

What in the world was a daughter of that kind of wealth and privilege doing living in a place like this? How had she gotten hooked up with a loser like Bigfoot?

Most of all, what was she, Jeanette, missing? The more she learned, the less it all added up.

She flipped through a bunch of celebrity gossip magazines in a wicker rack, more in the interest now of trying to get a handle on who Allison really was than for anything else, and froze when she uncovered a manila folder.

Hardly daring to blink for fear it would vanish like a mirage, she snatched it up and opened it.

Benedict Westbrook's bronzed, smiling face looked up at her.

The information! It was here, all of it, the papers that Rayburn had given her, the photographs, the addresses, the times and places!

A wave of dizziness went through her head and she had to brace herself against the wall. She clutched the folder to her chest to assure herself that it was real.

The folder was here. It had not been turned over to the police. The gun was in their hands, yes. After the shooting, it would have been taken. But not the folder. She put it in her new black purse.

The tape was gone … did that mean the police had the tape? Or did that mean the tape had been hidden?

And what about the money? If anything, that was what the shooting had been about. Probably the reason behind the lumpy purple mess of the girl's face, too. No attempted rape, but a disagreement over the cash. Twenty-five thousand would be a tempting pie, with everyone wanting the bigger slice.

Except … damn it, that didn't make sense either, if Allison was a rich girl. Unless she was disowned. Did people still do that? She had no idea.

A sudden voice made her twitch to a state of wary, catlike alertness. It wasn't in the apartment, which was a single room with a puny bathroom, but it was close. A moment later she realized it was coming from the other side of a sliding door, and was accompanied by the sounds of running water and sliding drawers.

"—a mistake to have anything to do with him," the voice said. It was a woman, textured with a slight Spanish accent. She sounded tired and irritated.

Distantly, a male voice responded, but Jeanette couldn't make out the words. She thought one might have been 'brother.'

The woman with the Spanish accent said, "But I am your sister, Hector, doesn't that mean anything to you?"

Hector!

Pots and pans clattered. "I would think after last night you would know better," the woman said. "You could have gone to jail. Why did you have to shoot him? There must have been some other way."

Jeanette drew her gun and held it against her thigh as she approached the door. She saw that it would be easy to open – throw the bolt, slide the door, and she'd be in. She'd get some actual-damn-answers, instead of just more questions.

Cupboards opened and closed. Ice clinked into a glass. There was the unmistakable hiss-pop of a soda can, and a fizzy gurgle. "I just don't know what all that business was that he was saying," the woman said. "Purse-snatchings and women with guns –"

The sound of the pouring soda had covered the metallic rasp of the bolt, and Jeanette flung the door aside at the word "guns."

**