Smoke (18 page)

She reached through the opening and struggled to open the door, narrowly avoiding getting cut by the jagged glass. Damn. It wasn’t locked. She hadn’t had to break the damn window after all.

She opened the door and slipped into the building, just as the car reached the corner. It seemed to be slowing.

She hurried to her desk in the dark and opened the drawer that held the envelope of clippings. Except it wasn’t there. She rummaged through the papers by feel, searching for the envelope. It was large enough that she should have run across it right away. It simply wasn’t there.

That was puzzling. Where would Mike have put it? Had he thrown it away? Unlikely, since he didn’t even clean the desk out before Immy started to work for him. Her course textbook was in the middle drawer and she stuck that into her purse.

The room suddenly lit up. Something terribly bright shone through the window

“Come out with your hands up,” called a voice of authority through a speaker.

She was busted.

Chapter 15

Immy walked out the ruined office door with her hands raised, her purse over her shoulder. She slipped a little on the pebbled glass fragments underfoot. The searchlight, bright as daylight after the dark interior, blinded her.

“Do you have to shine that thing in my face?” said Immy. “I’m going to fall and cut myself.”

“And whose fault would that be?” said Ralph.

Ralph! What in holy hell was he doing here?

A police officer who wasn’t Ralph stepped into the circle of light and roughly stuck her upraised hands behind her back. Her purse slid to the glass-strewn sidewalk. He started to wind plastic bands around her wrists.

“Wait,” said Immy, trying to snatch her hands away. “It’s okay. I belong here. I used to work here.”

He pulled the bands tight. “So why did you break the window?”

“I… I was just going to call that in...that broken window. Someone busted it. It’s terrible what people do. Destructive.”

“We saw you do it.” The guy whipped out a notepad. “Name please.”

“Where’s Ralph? Officer Sandoval?” Immy squinted against the searchlight, but couldn’t see Ralph. Had she imagined his voice?

“State your name.”

This guy was beginning to bother Immy.

“My name is Imogene Duckworthy. What’s yours?”

His eyebrows shot up. “Officer Hadlock.” The eyebrows went way down and he pressed the tip of his pen into the page of his notepad. “What were you doing here?”

“I left some personal effects behind, in the office. In my desk. I was retrieving them.”

“Immy, he saw you break in.” Ralph again. So he really was here.

She tried to peer past the searchlight to see where he was. She flinched with the pain of the light and her eyes started tearing.

“How did you know I was coming here, Ralph?” she said in the general direction of the light.

“Drew asked me what ‘B and E’ meant. She said you had to do one tonight.”

“How did you know I was doing it here?”

Ralph groaned.

Oops. Had she just admitted something?

* * *

After a long discussion between Ralph and Hadlock, outside the car, which Immy couldn’t hear because she was inside enjoying the eau de vomit and pee in the back seat of the Wymee Falls cruiser, Ralph opened the door and pulled her out. Rather roughly, Immy thought.

“Hey!” she said.

“Be quiet. Don’t say anything.” He sounded serious.

He pushed her toward his Saltlick cop car and opened the back door. “Get in.”

She had never sat in the back seat of Ralph’s car before, and it was humiliating. But his back seat smelled much better than Hadlock’s back seat. Her face was sore where the tire wrench had whacked it but she couldn’t rub it because she was still cuffed. They drove out of Wymee Falls toward Saltlick. Ralph must have been awfully mad at her because he didn’t say a word—and she didn’t dare to—until they reached the Saltlick police station.

Ralph helped her out of the car, gripped her elbow, and walked her inside. She was happy to see her purse in his other hand. “You can thank me now, Immy,” he said.

She stopped in the lobby, tried to wrench her elbow from his grip and faced him, her mouth dropping open. “For getting me arrested?”

“For bringing you to spend the night here instead of in the Wymee Falls jail.”

That was a good thing, she supposed, but she’d be damned if she was going to thank him for anything tonight.

Chief was inside, to Immy’s surprise. He stuck the fingerprint gizmo at her and, after Ralph snipped off the plastic cuffs, wordlessly rolled her fingers through the goo.

“So, what did you do?” she asked Ralph over her shoulder. “Send a BOLO to Wymee Falls?”

“What
could
I do? Drew told me you were going out to break the law. Your mother said you’d been fretting about leaving something in Mallett’s office.”

Any other time, Immy would be reassured by Ralph’s strong hand on her upper arm. But his intention was probably to make sure she didn’t run out the door as he steered her to a cell.

After Ralph locked her into the cell and left, Immy sat on the hard cot and wondered if it would be physically possible to kick herself. On her rear, where she needed it. Probably not. She had heard tell of an automatic ass-kicking machine once, probably from one of the Yarborough twins, but you never could tell how much of what they said was true.

How could she have forgotten to try the office door? But, on the other hand, why was it unlocked? With a loud sigh, she settled her head in her hands.

“Who’s there?” came a voice from the next cell.

“Amy JoBeth,” Immy said slowly. She rose and went to the bars at the front of her cell, but couldn’t see into the one next to hers, since the cells were side by side.

“No, that’s me. Is that you, Immy?”

“Yep.”

“Who do they say you killed?”

“I didn’t kill anybody.”

“Well, neither did I,” said Amy JoBeth.

“I committed a minor crime. I think it’s technically a misdemeanor. I broke into a place.” Immy stopped to think for a moment. “Hey, I broke in to Mallett’s office to get that stuff you left there. You know, those clippings?”

Silence came from the next cell.

“You know, all that stuff about the Squire family?”

“I don’t want it, Immy.” Her voice shook. Was that fear Immy heard in her words? Or anger? “I’m surprised Mike didn’t pitch it.”

“Ha. He doesn’t ever clean anything out. You ought to know that.”

They both let out a shriek as the heavy metal door to the cell block clanged open.

“Visitor,” said Ralph. “For Amy JoBeth.”

Vern Linder followed Ralph through the doorway. He stopped in front of Immy’s cell.

“What’s she in for?” Vern asked.

“I’m not at liberty to say,” said Ralph.

Immy could have kissed him for that. It was mortifying enough being seen here by him. It was none of his business what she’d done to get thrown into the clink.

“So, what’d you do?” Vern asked Immy.

She turned her back on him and he proceeded to Amy JoBeth’s cell. Ralph locked Vern in with Amy JoBeth for a visit, then left, without a glance at Immy.

Somehow, Immy avoided regurgitating at the billing and cooing that ensued between Vernie Wernie and Amy JoBethy Wethy. She had to resort to sticking her fingers into her ears to keep her dinner down.

How could Amy JoBeth stand the guy? Did she know he might be a murderer? Was Immy, in fact, sitting one cell from a murderer? Had Vern murdered Rusty because Rusty killed Gretchen?

Then she backtracked. Had it really been established that Rusty killed the pig? She tried to remember where that intel had sprung from. Amy JoBeth had said Vern told her Rusty killed Gretchen. How did Vern know that? Was it even true?

Mercifully, Ralph returned after about ten interminable minutes and Vern gave Amy JoBeth a noisy kiss.

“Vern,” Immy said when he was in front of her cell. “What makes you think Rusty killed Gretchen?” She stepped to the bars.

“He told me he did it. Right there in his shop.”

Immy narrowed her eyes at him. “Why in the hell would he tell you that?”

Vern lunged toward her and she backed away from the bars. “Are you calling me a liar?”

Ralph grabbed Vern and, after a brief tussle, hustled him out.

Immy hadn’t been calling him a liar so much as she was calling him a killer. She no longer believed anything Vern had said. Tinnie didn’t think Rusty had killed the pig, even after Rusty had told her he did. Maybe he’d told Vern, too, but why would he?

She leaned her forehead against the cool bars. Her cheek throbbed and burned where the tire iron had hit her. She wondered if she would have a bruise tomorrow. Maybe she could claim police brutality. Should she accuse Officer Hadlock? No, Ralph would only back up the Wymee Falls cop. She’d have to accuse Ralph. She’d been alone with him.

Oh shoot, she couldn’t do that. She blinked to keep tears from starting. The floor glittered through her tears. A bright pink sort of glitter. Then she noticed what she was seeing. After Ralph wrestled Vern away from her cell, she’d seen that one of Vern’s pant cuffs was drooping. Ralph must have turned it down during their scuffle.

And, on the cement floor in front of her cell, were a half dozen tiny pink, metallic pigs. Confetti that had dropped from Vern’s cuff.

“Ralph!” Immy screamed. “Come here!”

He raced through the door and she stuck her hand out of her bars to stop him before he stepped on the evidence. She pointed to the pile of incriminating pigs. “From Vern’s pant cuff.”

Ralph’s eyes grew as big as she’d ever seen them. “Holy shit,” he whispered.

* * *

Ralph apologized that he couldn’t release her that night. He needed to contact a judge or someone who was unavailable until morning. So she got to see Vern brought in and thrown into the third jail cell. Since the Saltlick jail only had three cells, Immy hoped that, for the rest of the night, no one was out driving drunk or peeing on neighbor’s trees. Amy JoBeth’s cell was a buffer between her and Vern, for which Immy was thankful. Vern ranted and screamed at Immy half the night after Amy JoBeth told him Immy had spotted the confetti, calling her horrible, obscene names that she totally did not deserve. All she’d done was point out the incriminating evidence he’d left on the floor. In the police station, of all places. The guy was an idiot.

Had he not changed his pants since the day he murdered Rusty? It was a wonder he didn’t smell worse than he did. Maybe Amy JoBeth couldn’t smell very well from being around pigs so much. They smelled a whole lot worse than cattle. Immy was glad Ralph usually changed Marshmallow’s litter box. She did hate the smell of it.

But maybe Vern took his pants off so carefully the confetti never dropped out? Nah. They hadn’t been washed, though. They couldn’t have been. Immy was thankful her mother taught her better than that.

When Vern finally quieted down, Immy grabbed a few hours sleep before the chief banged open the metal door, rattling his keys.

“I’m releasing both of you,” he said. “Immy, we got hold of the judge, who contacted Mike Mallett, who said he doesn’t want to press any charges. Amy JoBeth, it looks like we got a slightly better suspect for the murder, so you’re free for now. But don’t leave town.”

Immy noticed that Amy JoBeth didn’t walk over to Vern’s cell to tell him goodbye. Maybe she was finally done with him? He sure had called Immy some nasty names last night. Maybe she could see his true colors now.

* * *

In the morning, Immy came through the front door of the trailer and Drew leaped on her, clasping her hands around her mother’s neck when Immy picked her up.

“Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!” the child shouted, then broke down in heartrending sobs.

After wiping the corners of her eyes with the hem of her muumuu, Hortense gave her daughter a fierce hug. “I didn’t know what to think when Ralph called to tell us you were incarcerated. He said you had entered the premises of Michael Mallett without authorization and caused egregious property damage. Is that true?”

“Um, sorta.”

“Are there charges we’re responsible for? Remuneration for repairs?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. I’ll talk to Mike. He’s not pressing charges, Ralph said.”

“What is that smudge on your face, Imogene?”

She fingered the bruise on her cheek. “It’s from the tire wrench.”

“I don’t believe you’re making sense, dear. You’d better have some provender to keep up your strength.”

Immy followed Hortense and Drew to the kitchen, where she was overjoyed to see the waffle iron warming on the counter, a bowl of batter and a fat bottle of maple syrup sitting next to it. All three of them put away as many waffles as they possibly could.

After a short nap in her own, wonderful, soft bed, Immy walked to the library to see if she could log online to get her test score for her PI course. The library wasn’t open very many hours of the week, but Friday morning at ten was one of them.

Cornelia Puffin, the Saltlick librarian, reigning behind her high counter, peered over her wire-rim glasses and kept her sharp eyes on Immy as she climbed the stone steps and entered the sanctum sanctorum, as Hortense sometimes called it. Immy headed toward the two public computers and Cornelia nodded, satisfied that Immy had not come to wreak havoc or steal books. She had very little reason to think Immy would, but Immy knew she always suspected everyone. Immy had very seldom stolen books from the Saltlick library.

Immy had used the library computer before and went straight to the entry screen for Stangford Institute of Higher Learning, where she entered her ID and password. The S in Stangford was so fancy Immy knew it was a reputable establishment the first time she saw it. And the Crime Scene course had taught her a ton of things she hadn’t known, like how to take notes and measure things. Above all, to observe every detail and note it down. To always carry a flashlight, notebook, and pen. She had been surprised to learn that one should turn on all the lights when investigating a crime scene so they could see everything well. On television they always stumbled around in the dark with their flashlights when there were perfectly good light switches on the walls. Her course book had said to use the flashlight if the lights didn’t work, or to find small objects on the floor, underneath things or in tight places.