Dirty Rotten Tendrils (25 page)

“If you can wait until noon.”

“I’ve been waiting for you all my life, Abby. What’s another few hours?”

Smooth.

Marco turned into the entrance of a mobile home park and followed the guidance of his GPS up a narrow, dusty lane jammed with tiny trailers. Some of the homes were well cared for, with patios outside, and even decorative awnings, while others were rusted and run-down.

Up the road one mile farther was a much nicer park, where the mobile homes sat on decent-sized lawns and had gardens, decks, and bump-outs that gave them extra room inside. But Darla Mae, once the wife of a wealthy lawyer, who had resided in the mansion where her ex still lived, didn’t have a home in the nicer park.

“You have reached your destination,” said the voice.

Darla Mae lived here, at lot number thirty-one, in a peeling, rusty, gray trailer that was about the size of my bedroom. To me, that spelled one big fat motive.

As we walked up to the door on the side of her trailer, an old man in faded blue overalls lumbered past. Seeing us, he paused to say, “If you lookin’ for Darla Mae, she at work.”

“Where does she work?” I asked.

“County home, where the old folks is at,” he said, then continued on.

“Do you have time to go see her?” Marco asked, as we got back in the car.

I glanced at my watch. Ten minutes past noon. Jillian would be busy transforming Lottie into . . . something, and I really didn’t want to witness it. “Let’s go.”

 

 

The county convalescent home was a low, flat, yellow-brick building that had been a hospital in its previous life, long before my time. When local officials finally got around to building a hospital in town, the old one became a home for ailing senior citizens who couldn’t afford private care. I’d never been inside, but I’d heard the building was in poor condition.

A set of revolving doors took us into a large, square waiting room that smelled of pine disinfectant and urine. Beneath humming fluorescent light tubes in the ceiling, I saw a small oak desk and chair near the entrance and a pair of stained, lumpy brown sofas against two outside walls, accompanied by a smattering of side chairs and a few occasional tables with artificial green plants on them. Other than an elderly gentleman in a three-piece suit sitting in a chair in the corner and staring out the side window as though watching for someone to come pick him up, we were alone in the room.

Marco pointed out a sign hanging on a door at the back: VISITORS MUST STOP AT THE DESK.

Fine, except that the desk was unattended. A brass buzzer on top had a label taped to it that said PUSH FOR ASSISTANCE
.
Marco pressed the buzzer several times, as we waited. After several minutes, we decided to try the telephone on the desk, except it had no instructions on what to dial for help. Marco tried dialing “0” but got a busy signal.

“I feel like we’ve stepped into a horror movie,” I whispered.

“Let’s try the door,” Marco said, but I was already on my way across the room to talk to the elderly gentleman.

“Excuse me,” I said.

He turned slowly, his gaze traveling from my face up to my hair as though he’d never seen a redhead before. “Yes, ma’am?” he asked in a trembling voice.

“Sorry to bother you, but there’s no one at the desk—”

He smiled sadly. “Yes, ma’am.”

“—so should we wait? Will a receptionist be here shortly?”

“Yes, ma’am.” He turned to stare out the window again, so I returned to Marco.

“He says we should wait.”

Marco took my elbow and guided me toward the door. “Thank you, sir,” he called.

“Yes, ma’am,” the old gentleman replied.

We were about to open the door when a woman about Lottie’s age stepped out carrying a cup of coffee. She had short, curly brown hair and wore a blue two-piece nurse’s uniform. She gave a start when she saw us. “Can I help you?”

“Yes, ma’am,” the old gentleman called.

“Not you, Norris,” she called with a laugh. “Poor guy,” she said to us. “He used to be a banker, so every day he dresses for work in that same suit, then waits for the bus to come pick him up. Sometimes he’ll stand on the stoop outside. He never leaves, of course.”

“That’s so sad,” I said.

“Not to Norris,” she said. “He’s perfectly happy there. I’m Pat, by the way. Who are you here to see?”

“Darla Mae Brown,” Marco said, showing her his private investigator’s license. “It’s regarding her ex-husband. Is it possible for us to speak with her, at least to introduce ourselves?”

“I guess it’d be okay,” Pat said, “as long as you don’t take up too much of her time. We’re short-staffed here. County budget doesn’t allow for much help.”

“We’ll try to keep it brief,” Marco assured her.

“Up the hallway to the end. You’ll see a door that says PHARMACY on it. She’s in there.”

Darla Mae had access to a pharmacy.

Through the doorway we found a wide, linoleum-tiled hallway lined with people in wheelchairs parked opposite a bank of windows that looked out onto a terrace. Some were chatting; others sat staring at their laps or through the windows; the rest were napping. The ones who were awake stopped what they were doing to stare at us as we passed.

“Hi,” I said, smiling at them. “How are you?” They continued to stare. Under my breath, I said to Marco, “This sure is different from Whispering Willows.”

A nurse in a cheerful print uniform stepped out of a doorway at the far end, shut the door, inserted her key in the knob and locked it, then turned, saw us approaching, and smiled.

“We’re looking for Darla Mae Brown,” Marco said, as we stopped in front of her.

“Then today is your lucky day, handsome,” she said in a pleasant Southern drawl.

Darla Mae was a skinny woman in her early forties with bouffant brown hair streaked—make that striped—with blond highlights. Her hairdo engulfed her head, which was small and rather elfin. She had enormous brown eyes with sagging purple bags underneath, leathery skin stretched over prominent cheekbones, a small mouth, a pointed chin, and a long, scrawny neck. I imagined her as a young woman with more meat on her bones and suspected she’d been pretty. Now she just appeared hard.

Marco showed her his ID. “Marco Salvare. I’m a private investigator. This is Abby Knight, my assistant.”

“You’re the florist from Bloomers!” Darla Mae said, turning a smile on me that showed a tooth missing on one side. “I know all about you, honey. You’ve been in the newspapers a lot this past year. Look at you, such a bitty, pretty thing to be helping the cops catch nasty ol’ killers.”

Bitty
and
pretty. I liked this woman.

She put her hands on her hips and studied us. “So what do we have here? A private investigator and a killer catcher. I guess you came to see me about Kenny’s murder, didn’t you? Thing is, I already answered all the detectives’ questions, so I’m pretty much talked out.”

“Could you spare ten minutes to answer a few more questions?” Marco asked, turning the full force of those soulful brown eyes on her.

“Give me a reason why I should,” she said.

“We’re not happy with the direction the police investigation has taken,” Marco replied. “We think they’re focusing on the wrong individual.”

Darla Mae cocked her head to one side. “So what you’re sayin’ is, you want them to focus on me instead?”

Marco gave her that ultra-appealing half grin, one corner of his mouth curving up in a way no woman could resist. “Interesting way of phrasing it.”

“I don’t beat around the bush, honey.”

“Then I won’t, either,” Marco said. “We’re looking for information that will help us point the police in the right direction. What that direction is, I can’t say.”

She smiled cannily. “Something led you in my direction.”

“Your blog,” I told her.

“Then you already know what you need to know,” she answered.

Marco glanced at me, but I didn’t have a clue as to what she meant. “What do we know?” I asked.

“That I killed Kenny.”

Wow. That was easy.

“Y
ou might want to shut your piehole, honey,”Darla Mae said to me. “You’ll be attractin’ flies shortly.”

“Did you just admit to killing your ex-husband?” I blurted, as Marco’s shocked gaze shifted from Darla to me, letting me know that perhaps I should have held my tongue.

“Let’s go up the hallway and sit a spell,” Darla Mae said. “I know you got questions.”

Understatement of the year.

She took us into a room filled with orange plastic chairs, metal-legged tables, and a row of dispensers for soda, water, and candy. Darla Mae sat down and patted the chair next to her, gazing up hopefully at Marco. He sat beside her, so I pulled out a chair and faced them both. If she did any more patting, it would not be on Marco.

“Fire when ready,” she said.

“Are you taking responsibility for the death of your ex-husband?” Marco asked.

“Listen,” she said, “I’ve been blogging about ways to kill him for months. I put the blueprints out there for the world to see—and someone took me up on it.”

“Did you put a drug in Ken Lipinski’s drink?” Marco asked.

She gave a careless shrug. “I might as well have. I gave the killer the idea, didn’t I?”

And didn’t seem sorry about it, either.

“Did you tell the detectives what you told us?” Marco asked.

“About being the instigator? Yep. All they said was not to leave town. So I said, ‘How could I leave town? That SOB ex-husband of mine took all the money. Why do you think I blog about ways I’d like to kill him?’ ” Darla Mae laughed.

“Do you have any idea who actually killed your ex-husband?” Marco asked.

“Nope,” she said, “but at one time I could’ve written a book about all the people that wanted to.”

“Who would be at the top of your list?” Marco asked.

Darla Mae leaned back with a frown. “Hard to say. I haven’t been in Kenny’s life for a while. When we were hitched, there was a list of lawyers and judges as long as my arm. Talk to Kenny’s secretary. She’ll know who’s been threatening him recently.”

“I talked to Joan this morning,” Marco said. “She didn’t mention anything about threats.”

“That’s Joan. She’s very loyal,” Darla Mae said. “Hard for her to admit Kenny was that much of a jerk.”

“What about your ex-husband’s associate, Scott Hess?” Marco asked.

“Scott’s a competent attorney,” she said, “but I don’t think he got a fair shake. Kenny couldn’t stand for anyone to step into his spotlight. You’ve never seen Scott’s name in the news, have you, even when he won a case? Kenny had to take credit for every single victory. His office, his win. Didn’t matter if it was a crappy judgment, either. Kenny was all about Kenny.”

“Do you think Hess is capable of murdering your ex-husband?” Marco asked.

Darla Mae’s face scrunched up as she pondered the question. “Scott’s a gutsy guy and pretty smart, but gutsy and smart enough to pull off a murder? I don’t know. Besides, why would he want to kill the golden goose? Kenny fed him clients.”

“Maybe he wanted bigger clients,” Marco said. “With Ken gone, Hess would inherit them, wouldn’t he?”

“Only if they trusted Scott,” she replied. “With Kenny alive, at least Scott was guaranteed a decent income—nothing like what Kenny made, of course. No one could top Kenny when it came to making money—or hanging on to it. He was the cheapest SOB I’ve ever met.”

“Why did you marry him?” I asked.

“He was nice-looking, smart, and wanted to become a big name in law. I thought he’d be a good provider.” She shrugged. “That was it, I guess.”

“How long were you married?” Marco asked.

“Let’s see. We got hitched after Kenny got his bachelor’s degree. I was already working as an LPN . . .” She counted to herself, then said, “Twenty-three years.”

“Why did you represent yourself in the divorce?” I asked.

“’Cause that slime-bellied snake in the grass said he’d kill me before he let another lawyer get a look at his finances. He told me I’d come out better letting him draw up the papers. I knew I was getting screwed, but he got so ugly about it, I finally signed the danged thing. Everyone knew Kenny was greedy and sneaky, but they didn’t know how mean he could be. I could tell you stories . . .

“But that isn’t why you came. To think, though, I worked all those years to put him through law school, made sacrifices that gutted me, only to have him leave me when someone with money came along.” Her expression hardened. “That fool left me for an heiress, as if he ever had a chance with a woman of her caliber.”

“This is the first I’ve heard of an heiress,” Marco said, writing in his notebook.

“It never came to anything,” Darla Mae said. “Kenny represented her in a big divorce case. When he saw how much she was worth, he wined and dined her right under my nose. He honestly believed she was wild about him. She played him for a fool to get herself a free divorce.”