Monkey Wrench (20 page)

I closed the lid and sat down on the bin. Wyatt had the drugs with him in Vangie’s car. She hid them here. When she came back for them, they were gone. Someone had hit her after she left. Someone who thought her backpack was full of drugs.

Who?

Maybe Vangie knew more than she was telling me. Something about Wyatt that she didn’t realize was important. A friend, a favorite hangout. Something that might lead us to the drugs and his killer.

I’d go find her. I walked to the front of the house again. As I passed by the dining room window, I saw a sewing machine set up on the table. A pile of fabric sat next to a rotary cutting board. The fabric caught my eye. The colors were the same as the purse in my hand.

I backed up, nearly falling over a ceramic frog perched under a bush. What was the address? I glanced back at the street sign. Ninth Street.

My heart thudded. Lois lived on Ninth. The chimes tinkled, just like that night. The night that Wyatt had been murdered.

Vangie had said she’d been bringing Wyatt home. Wyatt lived with Lois? Was this the connection Zorn was hinting at? Wyatt and Lois knew each other?

There was only one way to find out. With both of them dead, the house would be empty. I needed in.

Kevin had given me a lock pick key ring as a joke last Christmas, but I’d been practicing. Lois’s lock was an old one, without a deadbolt.

I stuck the torsion wrench into the lock, tapping the pins with the pick, starting from back to front. I heard the lock open with a satisfying click. I was in.

I stepped in and closed the door quickly. Yesterday’s paper was still on the kitchen table. One coffee cup and plate were in the sink. A fading Trader Joe’s bouquet of flowers were in a speckled vase in the kitchen window.

I bypassed Lois’s violet bedroom and headed for the closed door at the end of the short hall.

I stopped, hand on the knob, and took a breath. What if I found something that lead to Vangie? Something I really didn’t want to know.

She’d assured me she wasn’t addicted. She wasn’t dealing drugs and she hadn’t taken any. The question,was, did I believe her? Could I trust her?

I let my breath out. Of course I could. She was Vangie.

I opened the door. My eyes had to adjust to the darkness. The plaid shade on the single window opposite the door was closed. I dared not open it and attract the attention of a neighbor. I flicked the light switch. Nothing happened. I left the door open, letting light from the hall show me the way to a lamp on the maple nightstand.

It illuminated the room well enough so I could see a matching set of furniture. Single bed, desk, and bookshelves. Nothing looked new. Lois could have decorated this guest room years ago. The blue corduroy bedspread had been tossed on the floor.

A pair of khakis were folded over the desk chair. A skinny striped tie was laid on top. It reminded me of Ross, when he’d come to apply to be Pearl’s GrandSon.

The truth hit me. Lois had mentioned a grandson, helping her map out her route to the Crawl. Wyatt had been living with Lois. Not a grandson, a GrandSon.

Poor Lois. She must have found the stash of drugs. And got herself killed.

Seventeen

On the desk was
a laptop. I lifted the cover. Wyatt’s Twitter account was open. It hadn’t been refreshed. A line at the top read 967 new tweets. The ones on his page had been sent before the protest, before he died. A mention of Vitamin R chilled me. The street name for Ritalin. Scrolling back, I saw requests for HH and Oxy.

Wyatt had been dealing drugs and somehow escaped the Task Force’s sweep. No wonder he had been protesting so much.

The drug bust and Wyatt’s death left the field wide open. A new dealer would surely take over.

I minimized that window and another popped up. An IM conversation. The date was last Friday.

The screen name chilled me. RosstheBoss.

Ross: Scored six bottles of Happy Place from Granny Rose.

Wasn’t that the name of the woman Ross had been living with before Pearl? I jumped up from the chair. He’d gone straight from ripping off his last charge to Pearl.

Ross: 60 pills in each.

Wyatt: $25 a pop for the Abilify.

I did the math in my head. That was nine thousand dollars for Ross. Double that to Wyatt after he sold them on the street. Lucrative business.

Ross: A hundred Vavavoom from Dr. Aldana.

And he’d taken Pearl to the sports clinic and Dr. Aldana. My innards quaked at the thought.

Wyatt: $40 for the Vicodin.

They’d agreed to meet in the parking garage at midnight last
Friday to make the exchange. Nearly fifteen thousand dollars worth
of pills. With a street value of double that.

The pills that Wyatt had stashed in Vangie’s car. And that went missing from Lois’s yard.

I called Buster. “Do you have Ross yet?”

“No one’s home. I’m waiting outside.” He yawned loudly.

“Ross killed Wyatt, Buster,” I said, my voice rising fast. I gasped, trying to force air into my lungs. I heard Buster breathe into the phone. He was leaning in. He knew me, I didn’t get hysterical for nothing. “And Lois.”

“Tell me.”

I exhaled. “They were dealing. He stole pills from his last gig as a GrandSon and sold them to Wyatt. They’d set up a meet the night he died. He killed him.”

“We missed this guy?” Buster was mentally head scratching.

“Tell Zorn so he can leave Vangie alone. He threatened to arrest her if she didn’t come in for questioning,” I looked at my watch. “Right about now.”

Vangie was safe now. That felt good.

“Where are you?”

Uh-oh. I coughed, covering up my nervousness. “Can’t hear you, Buster. Go get Ross.”

“You get somewhere safe. Now.”

“Don’t worry, I’m going back to QP. I’ll leave the heroics up to you. Go!”

I hung up. I had to get out of here. Now the danger wasn’t from someone looking for the drugs. My bet was that Ross had Wyatt’s drugs.

The danger was from a beat cop finding me inside Lois’s house.

I wiped off Wyatt’s laptop, feeling like an idiot. I couldn’t leave trace evidence. Once I told them where Wyatt had lived, the police would be all over this place. I’d rather Zorn didn’t know I’d broken in. Or Buster for that matter.

Once I was back in my car, I let out a whoop and texted Vangie. She was free from Zorn.

My work was done.

_____

“We haven’t had a customer in at least two hours,” Jenn said when I got back to the store. She and Kym were playing canasta at the greeting table. “I sent Florence home.” She smiled at me. “Maybe there’ll be a last-minute rush?”

I shook my head. “Doubtful. You guys go home,” I said.

Kym said, “You’ll pay me till six, right?”

Even Kym’s money-grubbing ways couldn’t dampen my trium
phant mood. I agreed and the two of them gathered up their
things and went out the door, planning a quick trip to Nordstrom Rack before going home.

Ursula was at the cutting table. She had stacks of fabric strips in front of her.

“Hey, boss. Pearl and I are working on next month’s Strip Club. To be honest, I’ve cut the next three months. I’m working on January now.”

She waited for my approval. When it didn’t come, she said, “You
okay?”

“Where’s Pearl?”

“Bathroom.”

“Listen, can you take her out to dinner? I’ll pay. She can’t go home for a while.”

Ursula raised her eyebrows.

“Ross, the kid living with Pearl, was involved with Wyatt. They were in the business of selling drugs with a unique twist. They’d figured out that old people could get pain pills without too much trouble. Wyatt could sell those at school, marking them up outrageously. Pure profit, plenty of it. Pearl was their victim, too. She was getting pain pills from their doctor and swapping them for Ritalin.”

“Oh no! Poor Pearl,” Ursula said with a shake of her head. She gathered up the strips and laid them in a plastic bin.

“Buster’s at her house now, waiting for Ross to get home. He killed Lois and Wyatt. He wanted in on their action.”

Ursula shook her head. “So much pain.”

I picked up three of her project bins. She followed me, carrying
one bin. We stashed them on the shelving unit just inside the
classroom door. The classroom still had food and drinks laid out for the non-existent customers.

“Pearl might be a handful,” I warned. “She’s been taking Ritalin for the last couple of days.”

“I know what to do,” Ursula said.

I kissed her cheek, and she hugged me. Her arms felt warm and substantial, a reminder of what was good in the world. She’d survived. Pearl would, too.

She broke away, then asked, “Was Barbara the Damp in on the drug dealing, too?”

I looked at her questioningly. “I don’t think so. Why?”

“The sweating. She’s probably addicted to Vicodin.”

I didn’t have to ask how she knew. Ursula, poor sweet Ursula. She’d lived through more pain than most.

Pearl agreed to go to dinner with Ursula. I pulled two twenties out of the cash register and shooed them away. Ursula had convinced Pearl she wanted an authentic Japanese dinner and needed Pearl as her guide.

According to Crawl rules, I had to remain open for another hour so I left the front door open. We’d only cleared two hundred dollars in sales today. That was barely enough to pay for the help and the goodies we’d bought. Not a stellar day.

I hoped the rest of the stores were doing better.

The store was so quiet. And neat. With no customers, Jenn and Ursula had plenty of time to straighten up. I wished the place was a little messy.

My mom’s punch bowl was still full, the pretty parsley that had been frozen in the ice cubes laying on top like seaweed. The quilt we used as a tablecloth had a stained ring. The cheese had gotten sweaty and the crackers were soft.

The table looked like a girl doing the walk of shame still in her party dress. Wilted and pathetic.

I pulled over the garbage can and swept everything into it.

The back door opened. I steeled myself to go out and greet a Crawler. Only the most desperate to finish were coming out today.

Those and the lookiloos. Freddy had tweeted that he had spent the morning chasing away people taking pictures outside his place.

Maybe I could put the greeting table outside, with a sign reading “Stamp Your Own Damn Passport.”

I wished now I hadn’t sent Ursula and Pearl away. At least then I’d have someone to complain to.

Before I could get myself to move, Sonya stepped into the classroom.

“Oh boy, am I glad it’s you,” I said. “I’ve had it up to here with the Quilters Crawl.”

“Hey, girlfriend,” Sonya said. Today her skirt had a hem embroidered with tiny mirrors. “I was hoping you could help a sister out.”

She dumped out her tote bag and out came the Baggies containing the Monkey Wrench blocks. “I haven’t the foggiest notion what to do with these.” She held up a strip of purple and wiggled it at me.

I laughed. “They’re to make quilt blocks. You make all twelve and you have enough for a small quilt top. Like this.”

I pointed out the sample that Ursula had made.

“That came from that?” Sonya stared at the Baggies. “Impossible.”

I gave her a smile. I remember when I was this clueless about how to make a quilt. I hadn’t wanted to learn from my mother but Pearl and Ina had been there to teach me.

Helping Sonya make a block was the perfect distraction for the remaining hour. I could forget about Pearl and Vangie and Buster arresting Ross. Lose myself in teaching a novice to quilt.

I said, “Come on, we can do it. It’s a simple block, really. Even I can show you how to make it. And that’s saying something.”

“Are you sure you have time?”

I laughed. “Ha. The Crawl’s a total bomb. I sent everyone home early. Buster’s busy doing what he does. Vangie’s at school studying. Heck, yes I have time.”

I pulled out a rotary cutting mat and blade. “We’ve got to cut these fabrics to these exact measurements,” I said, pointing to the instructions that came with each block.

“Four and seven-eighths? That’s a ridiculous number.”

“Quilters use seven-eighths all the time. When the quarter inch seams are sewn …” Sonya’s eyes glazed over. “Never mind. The rulers are made for it.”

“Math was never my strong suit,” Sonya said. Her brows were knitted together as if we were designing a neutron bomb.

I giggled. “Seriously, it’s not that bad.”

Sonya grabbed a handful of her hair, lifting it off her shoulders and fanning herself underneath. The temperatures outside were typical October, mid-sixties. It was not hot in here. It was sweet that she was nervous.

I tried to put her at ease. “Really, it’s no big deal. If we make a mistake, we can get more fabric. There’s plenty where that came from.”

She twisted her hair around her fist and producing several long pins from her pocket, anchored the twist. She pushed the sleeves of her navy-blue peasant blouse up so the elastic was above her elbows.

“Here we go,” I said. “I’ll cut the first couple, then I’ll show
you how to sew them together. Do you have a sewing machine at home?”

She shook her head.

“No worries. I’ll mark the seam allowance and you can stitch them by hand.”

“Thanks, Dewey. It’ll be nice to have a memento of my Crawl experience. I may never do another one.”

There may never be another Crawl. I didn’t know the extent of the damage.

“Even if you do,” I said. “This is your first, so it’s special.”

She nodded.

I cut a square from each fabric, then sliced those into triangles, holding them up for Sonya to see. It felt so good to work on a simple, solvable problem. Just cutting and sewing. Nothing life or death. I sighed happily.

“Slap that up on the design wall over there,” I said pointing to the flannel board installed on the closet doors. “Put the two triangles together to make a square.”

Sonya did what I said. I cut the rest of the rectangles and squares that made up the quilt square.

“Now look at the picture, and see if you can work out how these go.”

After one or two missteps, she arranged them to look like the Monkey Wrench. Sonya clapped. “So that’s how it works. It’s like a puzzle.”

I laughed at her enthusiasm. “Exactly. It all fits together once you know how to do it.”

“I couldn’t see how I was going to sew that sucker together,” Sonya said. “I was picturing it all different.”

“Easy once you know how, huh?”

I showed her how to draw a line for the seam allowance. “You’ll sew on that line. Let me get a needle and thread.”

I looked on the open shelves for a hand sewing kit but didn’t find
one.

“I know there’s one up front,” I said. “I’ll be right back.”

I glanced at the clock. Twenty minutes until the official closing time. Of course who was to know if I closed up a little early? The Quilters Crawl Police were off duty.

I shut out the lights and locked the front door. A flip of the switch turned the Open sign to Closed.

I came back down the hall and locked the back door. One more day of the Crawl tomorrow. Then I would have a year to rehabilitate myself.

Sonya wasn’t in the classroom when I returned. Had I locked her out? Maybe she’d gone to her car for something. I looked out the window but didn’t see her in the parking lot. I went into the hall.

I heard the fan come on in the bathroom. So that’s where she was. The old fan had sounded like a jet engine. I enjoyed the purr of the new one for a moment before going back into the classroom.

I flipped through the Baggies that held the blocks she’d collected on the Crawl. Sonya had the block from Quilts Up in Santa Cruz, and Gwen’s in Half Moon Bay. She had gotten around.

I recognized the fabric in one of the bags. It was the latest Jay McCarroll line. I’d bought in a special order, just for Freddy.

Sonya’d said she hadn’t gone to Freddy’s, yet here was his Monkey Wrench kit.

I looked in her tote for her passport. Stuffed in the bottom was what looked like a piece of patchwork. I reached in and pulled it out. It was stiffer than a quilt and much smaller. The item sprang open as I released it.

A purse. In that now familiar fabric. The second purse Lois had made.

Lois had had lots of fabric left over and she told Ursula and I that she’d make another. So when she left her purse behind on Thursday, she must have used this one on the Crawl on Friday.

Why did Sonya have Lois’s purse?

Lois had been here the other day and met Sonya. The two had talked, even argued according to Barb V. What if what Barb V had seen
really
was an argument? What could Lois and Sonya have in common?

I flashed on Lois bragging to us about her grandson. Correction. Capital G. Capital S. Her GrandSon. Sonya had been the one to first bring the GrandSons to my attention.

What if Sonya knew all along it wasn’t a graduate student’s thesis? She could have posed as Ross’s mother on the phone with Pearl. What if it wasn’t Ross who was the brains behind the GrandSons and the drug dealing?

All this cozying up to me was a way to stay close to Vangie. She must have followed Vangie to Lois’s, hit her and taken her backpack. I could only imagine her frustration when the drugs weren’t in there.