Also on the walls were what Vines assumed to be California seascapes, painted in oils by obvious amateurs who, while competent, were less than gifted. In two corners of the room were heavy carved tables with ball-and- claw feet and round marble tops. Fat porcelain lamps sat on both tables, wearing orange silk shades that had faded and now looked more quaint than gaudy.
Virginia Trice was tall, at least five-ten, and wore tight old jeans that made her long legs look even longer. She also wore a man’s white button-down shirt with its tails out and its sleeves rolled up above her elbows. The collar was frayed. On her bare feet were scuffed Topsiders.
She lowered herself slowly into an armless chair with a worn plush seat. With knees together and hands folded primly in her lap she seemed to listen carefully as Sid Fork introduced Kelly Vines as “a friend of mine.” She greeted Vines in an almost inaudible voice as he and Fork sat down side by side on a couch with a cane back.
The short silence that followed ended when Virginia Trice cleared her throat and said, “Who shot him?”
“We don’t know yet,” Fork said.
“Was it a stickup-a robbery?”
“I don’t think so, but it could’ve been.”
“Well, was he shot once, twice, lots of times-what?”
“Two times. In the head.”
“Must’ve been quick then. I mean, Norm didn’t have to lie there, hurting and bleeding and yelling for help.”
“It was quick, Virginia.”
She sighed again. “What a shitty thing to happen.”
Fork nodded his solemn agreement and asked, “Is there anyone you’d like me to call? Maybe somebody you’d like to come over and stay with you.”
Instead of answering Fork, she looked at Kelly Vines. “You and Sid old friends?”
“Not really.”
“I’ve lived here four years and I don’t know hardly anybody I’d like to come over and stay with me. We’ve only been married three years. I’m his second wife. What he calls squaw number two. I used to be the waitress at the Eagle and I guess that’s why people didn’t like us getting married.”
“Who didn’t like it?” Fork said in mild protest.
She ignored him and continued speaking to Vines. “They didn’t like it because of me being a waitress and our ages. I was twenty-three and Norm was forty-three. Twenty years difference. You think that’s too much?”
Vines said no, he didn’t think it was too much.
There was a silence until she looked at Fork and said, “Now what the fuck do I do, Sid?”
Fork edged forward on the couch, rested his elbows on his knees and let a look of compassion spread over his long face. “First thing you do is get a good night’s sleep.”
“What’s sleep?”
“I’ll get Joe Emory to send over some pills.”
“Even with pills I won’t sleep.”
“You’ve got to so you can get up in the morning.”
“What for?”
“I don’t much like mentioning money at a time like this, but everyone’s gonna want to see where Norm got killed. You go down there and open up in the morning and you’ll take in a thousand, even fifteen hundred.”
Not even avarice could erase the grief and sadness from her face. “That much?” she said and quickly answered her own question. “Yeah, I guess maybe we could take in that much.” She frowned at Fork. “You think Norm’d mind?”
“Virginia,” Fork said, his tone kind and patient, “Norm won’t give a damn one way or the other.”
Chapter 15
Fork and Vines entered Mayor B. D. Huckins’s house without knocking at 12:46 A.M. to find Jack Adair on the cream couch with a bottle of beer and the mayor in her chocolate-brown leather chair. She turned to say something as they came in but Sid Fork preempted her with: “Somebody shot Norm Trice dead about an hour ago and left us a message.”
Huckins nodded, as if at some mildly interesting news, and rose slowly, turning away from the three men. She walked over to one of her Monet prints and seemed to examine it carefully. Still staring at the print, she said, “How’s Virginia taking it?”
“Hard.”
“You get somebody to stay with her?”
“She didn’t want anybody.”
Huckins turned from the slice of “On the Seine at Bennecourt,” her face composed, eyes almost dry, voice steady. “I’ll call her. See if she’d like to stay here a few days.”
The mayor moved to the rear of the leather chair and leaned her thighs against its low back, as if she found the support reassuring. Folding her arms across her chest, she said, “What message?”
Vines took the five-by-seven-inch manila envelope from his hip pocket, crossed the room and handed it to Huckins. “It’s addressed to you,” he said, “but it concerns all four of us.”
“I see you opened it,” the mayor said, her tone making it clear she didn’t like anyone opening her mail. She removed the photographs and examined them quickly. When she began to go through them more slowly, Jack Adair asked, “Who’re Norm and Virginia?”
“Virginia’s the wife of Norm Trice,” she said, putting the photographs back in the envelope. “He owned the Blue Eagle Bar and some other property around town. He was also my earliest backer.” She looked at Adair. “Financial backer.”
Adair used a sympathetic headshake to demonstrate how fully he appreciated the mayor’s loss. She walked around the leather chair to hand him the envelope. “I’ll miss Norm,” she said.
“I can imagine,” said Adair as he removed the photographs and went through them slowly. When he finished he looked up at Vines. “You hid and I stuck out my tongue.”
“The chief thinks it’s a metaphor.”
Fork shook his head. “You said that, not me.”
Adair looked at B. D. Huckins, who had moved over to a window and was staring out at the night. “Where and when did they take this one of you and the chief?” he asked.
Without turning, she said, “Just after six in the evening two days ago in the parking lot behind City Hall.”
Adair looked at Fork for confirmation. The chief tugged at an earlobe, frowned and said, “By God, that’s right.”
B. D. Huckins turned from the window to look at Adair. “Sid and I were talking-maybe even arguing-about whether to have a drink. We didn’t. Have a drink, I mean.”
“You didn’t notice the photographer either,” Vines said.
The mayor shook her head. “Those pictures of you two. Where were they taken?”
“Downtown Lompoc,” Vines said. “Less than an hour after Jack got out of jail.”
She looked at Fork. “I’d like a drink, Sid. Some brandy.”
“Anybody else?” Fork asked. Vines said he’d like a beer and Adair said he’d finish what he had. After Fork left for the kitchen, the mayor sat back down in her favorite chair, tucked both feet up beneath her and smoothed the black skirt down over her knees.
No one said anything until Fork returned with two beers and the brandy. He served Huckins, handed Vines an open bottle and asked if he needed a glass. Vines said he didn’t.
After she tasted her brandy, B. D. Huckins asked the room at large, “What could be the point of killing Norm?”
“To make sure we understand the message,” Vines said.
“Which is what-in plain English?”
“That’s easy,” Fork said, taking the only other chair in the room, which was really more stool than chair. “They used those photos to tell us they know all about how you and I’re going to supply the judge and Vines here with a
