Toyota with peeling paint and various dents sat in the driveway. I rang the bell, but no one was home.
It was a long drive to Rich Three Wings’ place at Elk Lake. I decided to wait a while, see if Cammie came home.
That left T.C. Mathers. Was I up to tackling her? Sure. I’d dealt with tougher, more hostile women in my day and come out with the upper hand.
The wilderness supply store was closed when I got there. Tom Mathers had told me they lived on the property, so I followed a dirt driveway around the store and across a barren acre till I spotted a prefab house nested in the shade of a grove of cottonwoods. A Ford SUV was pulled up outside.
I knocked on the door. For a moment there was no reply, then T.C.’s voice called, “Go away!”
“It’s Sharon McCone, T.C. I met you at the wilderness supply last week. I wanted to check and see how you’re doing.”
“The hell you say.” She slurred the words.
“That’s what I say.”
The remark seemed to confuse her. There was a silence, and then she opened the door.
Drunk, all right: her long reddish-blonde hair was tangled, her eyes unfocused, and there were stains on her sweatshirt and jeans. She reeked of alcohol and cigarette smoke. She stared at me for a time before motioning me inside. I watched her stumble across the room to a sofa and flop down. She picked up a pewter mug from an end table and raised it to me.
“Welcome,” she said. “You here to tear my home apart like those fuckin’ deputies did?”
I shut the door and sat in an armchair opposite her. “I only want to talk. Tough time, huh?”
She shrugged. “I’ve seen tougher.”
“I don’t know. I was married last year, first time. I can’t imagine how I’d deal with having my husband murdered.”
“Tom? That asshole. I only married him because all the good guys were already taken.”
“Like Rich Three Wings?”
She drank from the mug, replenished it from a vodka bottle tucked beneath the table. “How d’you know about us?”
“In a place like this, everybody knows everything.”
“Ain’t that the damn truth? That Cammie-little Miss Priss-found out about Rich and me getting it on. Then the shit hit the fan.”
“I thought Rich was pretty much committed to her.”
“
“And so you confronted him and Cammie-”
“Give it a rest. I got a bad temper, but they’re both alive, aren’t they? And I didn’t kill Tom. He had another woman, you know. Maybe you should check her out. Lives in that trailer park where Hayley Perez bought it. Little mouse of a woman. I happen to know he was with her that night, they always got together on Tuesdays.”
“That make you angry, T.C.?”
“Annoyed, but I didn’t care enough about Tom to kill him over any woman.”
“This ‘mouse’-you know her name?”
“Judy Perkins. She works as a hair stylist at the Vernon Salon. Little skank, wouldn’t hurt anybody. And Tom came home alive and well that Tuesday.”
“Any other ideas about who might’ve killed your husband?”
“I don’t know. He was such a nothing. I can’t imagine why anyone would bother.” Her eyebrows pulled together. “He had something else going, though. Knew something he wasn’t telling me.”
“For how long?”
“Not very.”
“And how do you know this?”
“Tom wasn’t subtle. He’d been strutting around acting smug and arrogant, talking about all the money he was going to have, and if I was nice to him he’d share.”
“But you have no idea where this money was coming from?”
“Uh-uh.” She reached for the bottle, refilled the mug. “It must’ve been something big. But before he could collect, he went and got himself killed. Stupid bastard. Now what am I gonna do?”
A prevalent mindset in contemporary society, and God knew I’d recently been guilty of it myself.
So Tom Mathers had had something big going. What, possibly, could that be? He was a wilderness guide; good money in that, and in the supply business, but it wasn’t going to make him rich-not unless he’d discovered Bigfoot or a vein of gold during one of those treks.
It sounded to me like blackmail.
There are three kinds of major-crime felons who are too stupid for words: bank robbers, kidnappers, and blackmailers. The first two because they almost always get caught; the last one because they are frequently killed by their own victims.
But who could Tom Mathers’ prospective victim be? A wealthy client who had committed some indiscretion on one of his wilderness tours? I’d like to get my hands on Tom’s calendar and invoices. Perhaps tomorrow when T.C. would-hopefully-be sober.
But right now, onward to see Judy Perkins.
I drove through the trailer park until I found Perkins’ space, one row down from Boz Sheppard’s. It was small but well kept-up, with her name painted on a cheerful yellow mailbox. I got out of the Rover and started along a path of flagstones.
A woman’s voice called out, “If you’re looking for Judy, she’s not home.”
I turned. The speaker was elderly, wearing shorts that exposed well-muscled legs; for some reason, she was watering her graveled yard.
“You know where she is?”
“Out of town. Someplace near LA. Her mother’s taken sick. Probably’ll have to be put in a home.”
“That’s too bad. When did Judy leave?”
“Almost two weeks ago, Sunday. I been picking up her mail.”
Almost two weeks ago, Sunday. The day after Hy and I had found Tom Mathers’ body.
“You have her mother’s address or phone number?”
“No. Why-?”
“That’s okay. I think I have it in my book at home.”
I started back to the Rover, but the woman said, “Sure has been a lot of tragedy in this place lately.”
“You mean Hayley Perez?”
“Yes. And now I hear they’ve arrested Boz Sheppard. Such a nice young man; he used to help me take out my garbage.”
Well, everybody has a few good points. “The night Hayley was killed-did you hear the shot?”
“… Yeah, I heard it. Everybody did.”
“But nobody called 911.”
“Not that I know of. Or if they did, they’re not saying. I didn’t; I locked my doors and kept the lights low. I’m old and so’re a lot of the other folks here. Not easy to defend ourselves.”
“Did Judy hear it?”
“She didn’t say. You’ll have to ask her yourself.” She turned back to watering her gravel lawn.
The old Toyota was still in Cammie Charles’ driveway, but its trunk lid was up. I parked behind it, glanced inside on my way to the house’s propped-open front door. Boxes and plastic garbage bags. The backseat contained more boxes and a couple of suitcases.
As I reached the door, I came face-to-face with Charles. Her arms were loaded with a comforter and pillows, her pert face flushed with exertion.
