Chill Factor (8 page)

“Died of a massive stroke,” Ralph said, “barely a month after Mrs. Pine buried her husband.”

Why didn’t I know this?
Dixie shrugged away the guilt phantom that attempted to slither into her mind.

“Edna would’ve inherited her sister’s business, assuming the IRS and creditors left anything.” Dixie was guessing, but as she recalled, Marty and Edna’s sister had been the only family at Bill’s funeral.

“Mrs. Pine came out all right on that,” Ralph admitted.

In Ralph Drake terms,
all right
when applied to money meant “very well indeed.” So Edna’s estate when she elected to rob Texas Citizens Bank should’ve included any retirement money she and Bill had saved up, plus the insurance settlement for Bill’s death, plus whatever amount her business-savvy sister had bequeathed her, and possibly a second insurance payment.

“You say Edna came here in February. Why? Her sister’s death would’ve left her with only one heir. Her son, Marty.”

Ralph shrugged, crossing his legs as if uncomfortable.

“Didn’t you counsel Edna to draft a new will after she inherited?”

“Of course.” Ralph looked indignant. “We handled that immediately.”

“Then what changes did she make in February?”

“
Madonna mia!
You know I can’t tell you that.”

“Something must’ve struck you as unusual, Ralph, or you and Belle wouldn’t look like you’d swallowed sour milk.”

He shook his head.

Absurd to expect a lawyer to part with client information, but dammit, Dixie was practically family to Edna. She was certainly Aunt Edna’s friend. And Marty’s friend. And
Belle’s
friend.
And
a fellow lawyer.

“Ralph, if you allowed Edna Pine to do something irresponsible—”

“It’s not my job to tell a client how to distribute her estate.”

“How much money are we talking about?”

Again, he shook his head.

“Didn’t you also handle some business transactions for Marty? That makes
him
your client, too. Did you at least notify Marty that his mother made ‘unusual’ modifications in his inheritance?”

Ralph raised an eyebrow in a manner that suggested Dixie had “dolt” branded on her forehead. Telling Marty—or anyone—the terms of Edna’s latest will would’ve been highly inappropriate. Dixie knew that, but dammit, wasn’t it equally inappropriate to let Edna throw her money away?

“Your client Edna Pine just robbed a bank,” Dixie reminded him. “She shot and seriously wounded a police officer—not what I’d call rational behavior, Ralph. Are you saying she was totally rational when she came in here three months ago?”

“I saw no reason to believe otherwise.”

“Then why are you squirming in that chair like a kid about to pee his pants? What bothered you about the changes Edna made?”

“Niente!
Nothing, I tell you.”

“You smarmy sonofabitch, if you let Edna write Marty out and give the money to a stranger—”

“Did I say that? And what makes this
your
business?”

“Hey, you two!” Belle slapped her pencil on the desktop. “Flannigan, calm down. And, Ralph, Dixie’s right about one thing—we
were
concerned about Mrs. Pine’s decision. A dollar retainer puts Dixie on our payroll—as a consultant. Now tell her what you told me.”

The lawyer shot Belle a disgruntled look, but then he sighed and turned a thin smile at Dixie. Belle’s name came first on the law firm’s letterhead for a reason.

“In late February, Mrs. Pine bequeathed a significant portion of her estate to a church—which is
not
particularly unusual. When a person gets on in years, losing one family member after another, it’s not uncommon to worry about the afterlife, to try and … pave a path, so to speak.”

“What church?” Dixie didn’t recall the Pines ever being especially religious. Bill was Methodist. When Marty was young, Edna usually took him to the Unitarian Church.

“I’d have to refresh my memory,” Ralph replied. “Not a church I’d heard of. And that’s all I’ll say until probate.”

“Ralph, Edna was a generous woman,” Dixie explained reasonably. “But her family always came first. She wouldn’t willingly deprive Marty, her only son, of his inheritance.”

“
Basta!
Enough.” On his way out the door, Ralph directed
his response to Belle. “I’m not answering any more questions until the heirs are notified.”

Dixie made a face at the door as it clicked shut behind Ralph Mule-headed Drake.
Heirs.
Plural.

“When do you think your pseudo-Italian partner will change his name to something with too many vowels?”

Belle picked up her well-chewed yellow pencil and tapped the point on a notepad.

“Dixie, I saw Mrs. Pine that day. Spoke to her. Ralph called me in to make sure he wasn’t missing anything. Trust me, your friend seemed completely reasonable and happy with her decision.”

“So, why were you concerned?”

“Anytime an elderly client makes abrupt money decisions, my loony-alarm goes off.”

Dixie nodded, reluctantly. Giving a few bucks to a church didn’t qualify as a big reason for concern. As Ralph said, Edna could parcel out her money any way she wanted. But if Aunt Edna didn’t need the money she stole, and if she didn’t steal it for Marty, then her actions pointed more and more toward suicide. That was the thought that saddened Dixie.

“Ric …” She deliberately used her nickname for Belle to underscore that loyalty came before business. “A reasonable, happy woman—with money—doesn’t rob a bank at gunpoint.”

“
Flannigan
… what do you want me to say? When she came here in February, Edna Pine looked a thousand percent more together than she did the previous time I saw her—”

“Was that right after her husband died? Or after her only sister died? She was
grieving
, Ric.”

“She wasn’t grieving this past February. If anything, I’d say she was in love.”

“
Love?!
Edna was old enough to remember Rudolph Valentino, the Charleston, and penny bread loaves.”

“Not quite, but since when does love have an age limit?”

“Bill’s only been dead a year. If Barney had died first, Kathleen would
never
have fallen in love with another man.”

“How did your parents get into this?”

“Barney and Kathleen, Edna and Bill—they were the same. Same age, same lifestyle, same values. Marriage to them was
special, dammit. A very close, very
special
partnership. After Kathleen died, Barney mourned himself to death.”

“The woman I saw in this office three months ago was not ready to stop the world and get off. She looked calm, happy. She’d turned back the clock a few years.”

“I’d say ‘stop the world and get off’ describes precisely what Edna did this morning.”

Belle’s pencil tap-danced on her notepad. “A woman in love with the wrong man, a woman
jilted
, perhaps, by a man—heartsick, humiliated, after having already lost two important people from her life—might decide the world had taken one cruel turn too many.”

Dixie frowned, not liking the picture Belle painted. Standing abruptly, she looked through the glass expanse at a city filled with men as deceptively charming as Ralph Drake, with his roving eyes and six-going-on-seven divorces. Then she turned and headed for the door.

“So, Flanni, what are you planning to do?”

“About the will? I guess that’s up to Marty.” She reached for the fancy brass doorknob on the richly polished mahogany.

“About this whole business,” Belle persisted. “You were there when the robbery took place. Did Mrs. Pine act nuts?”

Dixie paused, her hand on the knob, and looked back.

“She wasn’t raving, if that’s what you mean. She knew exactly what to say and do. She didn’t waste any time taking the cash and getting out. She certainly didn’t hesitate to shoot—but I think she might’ve missed intentionally. Fired a warning.”

“Nice old friend turned bank robber—and you’re willing to let it go? Doesn’t sound like you, Flannigan.”

Dixie sighed. She did want to know what made Aunt Edna go bizocko, but she didn’t want to discover a senile-in-lust story. “What is it you think I should do?”

“I haven’t a clue. But if I ever rob a bank at gunpoint without any explanation, I hope someone cares enough to find out why.”

Riding down in the skyscraper’s art deco elevator, Dixie considered Belle’s comment. Was it possible Edna had been swept off her aging feet by a man? That would explain the physical rejuvenation. The excitement of being in love gave a
woman renewed energy and an outer glow that could take years off her appearance. A woman in love was likely to buy new clothes, change her hairstyle—

Dixie raked a hand through her own spiky mop.

As a kid, her hair had been an embarrassment—thick, long, frizzy. Combing the tangles out each morning hurt so bad Dixie longed to chop it off. For her tenth birthday, Carla Jean, her birth mother, allowed her to go to a beauty parlor alone, expecting her daughter’s waist-length locks to be done up in corkscrew curls—a style Carla Jean associated with pretty little girls in romantic old movies. But a cute boy at school had made a snide comment about the frizz, and to her mother’s intense disappointment, Dixie coaxed the beautician to cut it chin-length and blunt.

Almost three decades later, she’d finally allowed it to grow past her collar. She’d also started wearing lipstick and occasionally slipped into clothes more feminine than her usual jeans and boots. All because of a man.

The man responsible for her new interest in girly stuff was also responsible for the seventh, and final, message on her pager that morning during defense class. Parker Dann. The only man Dixie’d ever seriously considered snuggling down with for eternity. Not that he’d asked. Their relationship remained a part of Dixie’s life she couldn’t quite make work.

Having lived in the Houston area all her life, Dixie had no desire to go elsewhere. But Parker thrived on change, and three months ago, when he moved to Galveston, she hadn’t been sure she’d ever see him again. After a bodyguard job she was working turned sour—Dixie and the principal nearly killed—Parker had decided that being romantically involved with a woman who repeatedly courted danger only invited heartbreak. In addition to the eighty miles that separated his new house on Galveston beach from hers in Richmond, Parker maintained an emotional distance: They were “just pals.”

Over the months, they’d progressed from chatting daily on the phone to also enjoying a casual dinner together each Friday night. Yet, before his move, they’d spent six fun and intimate weeks under the same roof—for Dixie, some of the most sensational weeks of her adult life. At thirty-nine, she’d
enjoyed her share of long- and short-term relationships without ever desiring more permanence. Parker changed that, and she wasn’t ready yet to give up the intimacy.

When the elevator spit her out at ground level, Dixie returned Parker’s page, briefed him on the bank robbery, assured him she’d escaped with no injuries, and promised to elaborate later.

“How about over dinner tonight?” she suggested. “My calendar says Tuesday’s a fine day for seafood. I’ll buy.”

His hesitation told her he wasn’t going for it.

“Tonight, I need to take care of some paperwork. For a fifty-footer that ships tomorrow.”

“Sounds better than ‘I need to wash my hair.’”

“Dixie—”

“It’s okay, Parker. I’ll call you later.”

Another hesitation. “How about if I call you? About eight?”

“Okay. If I’m not there, leave a message.” She powered the phone off before he could say another word and piss her off even further.

“Another balmy spring evening,”
the radio weather girl predicted as Dixie drove home.
“Enjoy it.”

“Easy for you to say,” Dixie grumbled.

A stained-glass bauble dangled from her rearview mirror. Shaped like a sunburst, it bore the sentiment,
My day begins with your smile, your scent, your touch. Without those I would be cold and dark inside.
The sun catcher had arrived in a Valentine the day before Parker decided to end their intimacy.

He owed her no explanation now about his private life. For the three months they’d been apart, the “just pals” arrangement had remained rigidly intact. And she respected his concern over her choice of occupation. Hell, it wasn’t even a choice, merely something that needed doing. Something she did damned well. She refused to sit idly at home until a new career decision struck her. If Parker couldn’t accept who she was, then so be it. But if he was dating someone else, Dixie wished he’d be forthright enough to tell her.

Before she closed the gate and started down her long driveway shaded by rows of pecan trees, a hundred pounds of canine energy loped to meet her. She braked, opened the passenger door, and Mean Ugly Dog, her half Doberman, lumbered onto the seat. His larger, uglier half had never been divined.

“Hey, there, boy. Nice to know someone’s glad to see me.”
She scratched his ears as Mud sniffed out the various aromas she’d acquired during the day.

Dixie parked the Mustang in the old pecan-shelling barn, no longer in use since the year Kathleen turned ill, when Barney farmed out the physical end of the business. Also in the barn, alongside the tow truck, sat a taxicab and a van with magnetic side-panel signs—plumber, exterminator, delivery service. In the skip-tracing business, all four vehicles came in handy at times.

As they exited the barn, Mud ran ahead to retrieve his Frisbee from the back steps, then turned and blocked her path, his great ugly face eager.

“Okay,” Dixie agreed. A brisk game of fetch might work off her own tension. “Just give me a five-minute bathroom break.”

Mud dropped the Frisbee beside the steps and plopped down to guard it.

With her other mail on the kitchen table, Dixie found the invitation from Mike Tesche to visit The Winning Stretch. She opened it envisioning his unruly hair and lighthearted grin.

On the back, a map showed the location, marked by an orange dot, in a far north Houston area near the town of Kingwood.