Next, at the WellMart at the edge of Wymee Falls, she steered her cart to the party goods section of the store, concentrating on the list Louise had given her. Louise had decided either tiger stripes or leopard spots would be good. What they had to do with the theme, Immy couldn’t imagine. Maybe on Saturday night they would all be made over to look like cats.
Neither of them had thought how likely WellMart would be to carry tiger and leopard paper plates, napkins, and cups. Immy was also supposed to get matching plastic ware and placemats.
The only theme WellMart was stocking, a few days before the Fourth of July was firecrackers and fireworks. That had as much to do with makeovers as jungle cats, so Immy piled them into her cart. She was also supposed to order a cake so she made her way to the bakery counter, marking all the party paper products off the list.
A cart bumped into hers. Its driver was concentrating on a list, too. And its driver was Betsy Wiggins, the assistant at Dr. Fox’s vet clinic.
“Well, well, WELL. Fancy meeting YOU here.” She flashed a brilliant white smile at Immy, but it seemed cold, not warm.
It wasn’t clear how she felt about meeting Immy here, but Immy knew how she felt about meeting Betsy, who had, Immy felt sure, not only slept with Tinnie’s husband, but had dragged Gretchen’s carcass to the smokehouse.
Immy didn’t want to cross her, though. She remembered the ugly snarl Betsy had given Vern after she stuck him with the needle. It probably wouldn’t take much for her to turn on Immy like that. Betsy wasn’t from around here, so Immy didn’t know her family or her background. She came from Dallas. You never could trust people when you didn’t know their kin.
“Looks like YOU’RE going to have yourself a PAR-ty.” Betsy glanced into Immy’s shopping cart.
“Looks like you’re having one, too,” said Immy. Betsy’s cart was full of wine bottles and cases of beer.
“Oh, I just like to have DRINKS on hand for when people drop OVER.” She waved her red fingernails above the booze.
She didn’t seem to be mourning Rusty’s death. So, maybe she hadn’t been sleeping with him. Wouldn’t she be more broken up if she had?
Immy tried to find out. “Have you heard anything about Rusty’s memorial service? The autopsy is done so they’ll probably release the body.” Who would take the body? Not Tinnie, Immy would bet. He was kin to the Yarborough twins in Saltlick. Maybe they’d take it.
“I’m sure I don’t know. I probably wouldn’t have time to go, we’re so busy at the clinic with Vern gone.”
“Where’s he gone to?” This was a ploy. Immy had read in her
Compleat Guidebook
that an interrogator should play dumb to elicit information.
Betsy shrugged and shook her head. “No idea. Dr. Fox fired his ass. There’s drugs missing.”
Were these missing drugs what was used on Rusty?
“And
I
didn’t take them.” Betsy pushed past Immy and headed for the cheese case.
Immy wondered if Betsy
had
taken them, though. You just never knew about people who weren’t from around here.
Chapter 7
Emmet Emersen, the Saltlick Chief of Police, was expected for supper. The aroma of Hortense’s homemade beef vegetable soup greeted Immy when she carried the party supplies into the trailer. She had to admit, having the chief over was good. The quality of the Duckworthy cuisine had picked up considerably since he’d started coming around. They used to have a lot of meals of SpaghettiOs and Dinty Moore beef stew, two of Hortense’s favorites. But, when she began inviting the chief to supper, Hortense started pulling out the recipe file she’d collected over the years and never used until now. The relationship sometimes surprised Immy, but she was getting used to it. So far, it seemed platonic, or maybe gastronomic.
“Did you procure the Bisquick?” asked Hortense as Immy stacked the paper goods at the end of the kitchen counter. Immy waved the box she’d bought and got out a mixing bowl to put the biscuits together.
“Isn’t it too warm for soup?” asked Immy.
Hortense simpered. “Emmett loves my soup so. He requested it for tonight, so, of course, I cannot refuse him.”
He hadn’t been “Emmett” all that long, but things were progressing quickly and Immy needed to decide what that meant for her and Drew. What if they decided they wanted to get married? What if they actually
got
married?
Chief Emersen lived in a nice doublewide on the other side of Saltlick, which made it less than half a mile away. Immy thought it out. An engagement party in the backyard. A wedding in the church. A honeymoon, where? Maybe Fredericksburg? Then the happy couple would reside at the Emersen domicile. This could work out well. She might get the trailer to herself with Drew and Marshmallow.
* * *
As they were finishing the blueberry cobbler, Ralph gave his special rap on the door and Drew raced to let him in.
“Unca Ralph!” She jumped into his arms and he hoisted her above his head with a huge grin.
“Hey, Drew. You missed me?” He set her down, then spied his boss sitting at the table. Marshmallow grunted at Ralph, who reached down to pat the pig’s head.
Zack sat on the floor and watched without speaking, but smiled when the big policeman petted Marshmallow.
Immy could tell Ralph hadn’t expected to see Emmett here, although the two of them had met here once before, when their social calls overlapped. Immy abandoned her last two bites and hurried Ralph out the front door.
“Was that blueberry cobbler?” he asked.
“Yes, but that was also your boss. I thought you might need to collect yourself.”
“Maybe.” Ralph’s brow furrowed with thought.
“There will be some left when we get back. Let’s walk.” Immy needed to get Ralph alone, out of earshot of the chief, if she were going to learn anything.
They strolled through the warm evening, serenaded by crickets, locusts, and tree frogs. The constant wind was at a low point, barely stirring Immy’s hair.
“What’s happening with your case?” Immy tried to sound casual.
“Immy, don’t try to pump me tonight. We’re working hard to come up with something on Rusty’s death. The autopsy came out yesterday, so we’re not very far.”
“No leads?”
“I didn’t say that.” He sounded defensive.
“You’ll have to find her. She has to come back for Zack.”
“We’re looking.”
“Well, who looks good for it?”
“We’re questioning everybody. Everybody except Poppy Jenkins.”
“Why on earth aren’t you questioning her?”
“Because we can’t find her. We can’t find Tinnie Bucket either.”
“She’s at her mother’s in Fort Worth.”
“That’s where she was. It’s not where she is now.”
“Who else is there to question?”
He gave her a playful look. “You want me to haul you in?”
“Um, no.”
He grabbed her, tickled her, and they ended their match with a satisfying clinch.
Later, Immy wondered where on earth Poppy and Tinnie were. Was one of them a killer, a desperado, on the run from the long arm of the law? She hoped Tinnie wasn’t a murderer, for Zack’s sake.
* * *
By the time Immy and Ralph returned for his piece of blueberry cobbler, the chief was gone.
“Drew’s Mom?” Zack tugged Immy’s sleeve as she washed Drew’s face for bedtime. He couldn’t quite say Ms. Duckworthy and she hadn’t persuaded him to call her Immy, or even Miss Immy.
Smiling down on the child, she smoothed his fly-away blond hair. His shiny blue eyes looked sad. “Yes?”
“Do you know when Mommy will come and get me?”
Immy’s smile faded. “No, I don’t.” And she didn’t know how to reach her, or where she was. When Immy had called Tinnie’s mother’s house in Fort Worth after Ralph left, she’d learned Tinnie had left there on Tuesday. Tinnie’s mother wasn’t sure where her daughter was going, but probably not home, she said. She hadn’t seemed overly concerned about her grandson.
“Well, can I get a new pig?” Zack said.
She stifled a laugh. From being forlorn about Mommy to wanting a new pig—kids jumped around a lot in their heads.
“We’ll see.” She didn’t have money for another pig, that was for sure. Zack’s Mommy had plenty, Immy was sure, but where was she?
“That means no, wight?”
“Noooo, that means we have to ask your Mommy. As soon as she comes to get you.”
“Well, can we go wook at some?”
That might not be a bad idea. It would give her an excuse to check up on Amy JoBeth, and maybe it would get Amy JoBeth interested long enough in selling a pig to break the tornado shelter habit. Immy also wanted to see if this party on Saturday was going to come as surprise to her.
When Immy left work early Thursday to check out some pigs with Zack and Drew, Mike was out of the office. He’d been gone all afternoon and she had studied her text for her online PI course while the office was empty. The phone only rang three times, all with messages for Mike that didn’t sound urgent enough for her to call him. She had his cell number in case someone needed him in a hurry. She had a test Friday and hadn’t read half the material yet. The test was on The Crime Scene. The textbook emphasized that the subject could be a whole course by itself, a course they would sell you for an additional fee, so she thought she’d better delve deeply. It didn’t seem, though, that a private investigator like Mike Mallett would ever be involved in investigating a crime scene. The cops probably wouldn’t let him near it. She’d learned that much about allowing civilians at crime scenes in her course. She wanted to ask him about it, but he’d been busy lately and she hadn’t spent too much time at the office this week.
After she picked Zack and Drew up from their preschool, she drove to the outskirts of Cowtail while the kids snacked on raisins and juice boxes in the back seat. She didn’t have a car seat for Zack and worried about that.
She’d driven to the Buckets’ house, which sat in front of the jerky shop, Tuesday after work, after dropping the kids at her home, hoping to somehow get a car seat, but no one had been there. The shop, of course, was closed and yellow police tape on the smokehouse fluttered in the wind. She didn’t think Tinnie was there because the only vehicles on the property were the Jerry’s Jerky van and Rusty’s orange truck. Tinnie’s Volvo, which held Zack’s carseat, had been gone.
At least they didn’t have to drive past Zack’s home to get to Amy’s Swine. She didn’t want to do that to him.
She negotiated the dirt road and coasted to a stop at the pig farm. Snuffling, snorting sounds came from the pens behind the house. The pigs didn’t sound distressed, so Immy assumed they were being taken care of.
The children ran to the animals as soon as Immy released Drew from her car seat. Amy JoBeth didn’t appear, which wasn’t surprising, since Immy assumed she was in the underground shelter. Immy knocked on its slanting door but didn’t get an answer. She’d come prepared with a flashlight in case the light was off. When she pulled the door open, the interior gaped dark and silent. Immy switched on the flashlight and made her way down the steep steps, her hands sweating only slightly. It was not only dark, it was empty.
That was good! It must mean Amy JoBeth was feeling better. Immy hoped that’s what it meant. She scurried up the stairs and ran to the front door of the house. No one answered her knock there, either. Immy tried the handle. Not locked. She pushed it open, stepped in and hollered, “Yoo hoo. Howdy. Amy JoBeth. It’s me, Immy.”
Her calls fell on the kind of quiet that signals an empty space, as empty as the tornado shelter. She took another look outside. Drew and Zack were the only humans in the yard. Amy JoBeth’s white pickup stood beside the house, but Immy couldn’t remember if she had another vehicle or not. Immy closed her eyes and tried to picture the last time she was here. Maybe there’d been a car? Maybe not, she couldn’t remember, hadn’t noticed. Maybe Ralph would remember, but he wasn’t here.
Immy snapped her fingers with a thought. Someone could have picked up Amy JoBeth and gone somewhere with her. Probably her mother.
Well, she wasn’t going to worry about it now. They’d come to see the pigs and they could do that without Amy JoBeth.
She pulled the door shut behind her and joined the kids, who were pointing at one piglet, then another, saying, “I want that one.” “No, that one.” “No, I want the other one, over there.”
It turned out to be a good thing the pig seller was gone. That made it easy to tell the kids they couldn’t get one today for Zack. The boy left, happy that he had made a selection.
Immy turned her attention toward the engagement shower when she got home. Louise was coming over after supper to see what Immy had bought the day before.
As Immy could have predicted, Louise wasn’t happy with the firecracker plates and napkins.
“What do fireworks have to do with getting engaged? Or with makeup?” she said, shoving the packages away from her on the coffee table.
“Louise, be reasonable.” Hortense came to her daughter’s defense. “There isn’t a wide array of availability in the local establishments. And there isn’t time to drive to Dallas or Fort Worth.”
Louise cocked her head at Hortense and considered. For a moment Immy thought she was going to counter that there
was
time before Saturday, since it was only Thursday. But she didn’t. She gave in on the plates. She wasn’t happy about the cake, though.
“Why didn’t you get it at Fancy Frosting? Didn’t you get Drew’s cake there?”
How on earth did she know that? “I’m not made of money, Louise. I can’t afford another cake from there so soon. You go get a Fancy Frosting cake if you want to and I’ll cancel the grocery store cake.”
“Unless, that is,” said Hortense, “you’re planning to reimburse Imogene for all the expense she’s incurred so far.”
Louise mumbled something about being short at the moment so Immy assumed she wasn’t going to fork over any dough. Maybe Immy would send her a bill when this was done.
On Friday, Immy stayed an hour late at work and got all the billing caught up. While Mike was busy with phone calls, she stuffed the unfiled folders in the drawer of her desk where she kept her purse, called out her goodbye, and scooted out the door. Tonight she and Mother had to finish the baking for the party tomorrow.