Partner In Crime

“I didn’t actually talk to Bobo today,” Jaime said. “What I got instead was a call from Burton Kimball. He says he’ll be along for the ride when Bobo Jenkins comes to talk to us at ten o’clock tomorrow morning.”

Joa

“You tell me. I told Mr. Kimball all we want is to ask Bobo a few routine questions. Burton hinted that he thought our reasons for wanting to talk to his client were possibly politically or racially motivated.”

“Politically or racially motivated?” Joa

“I’ve heard talk that Bobo Jenkins is thinking of ru

“He can run for governor, for all I care,” Joa

There was a pause. “Are you okay, boss?” Jaime asked.

“What do you mean, am I okay?” Joa

“Kristin told me that you went home early, which, you have to admit, isn’t like you,” he said. “She thought you weren’t feeling well, and you do sound a little…”

“A little what?”

“Well… cranky,” Jaime replied reluctantly.

Joa

“Ten.”

When her other homicide detective, Ernie Carpenter, had asked to take a full week of vacation all at once, it hadn’t seemed like that big a deal. “When’s Ernie due home?” she asked.

“Monday.”

“I wish it was sooner, but that’s the way it is. All right, then. If Bobo is bringing the big guns in with him, you’d better have some backup as well. Call Frank Montoya and ask him to be there with you.”

“Will do,” Jaime agreed.

“All the same,” Joa

“Okeydokey,” Jaime Carbajal responded. “Who needs weekends anyway?”

He hung up and Joa

Joa

“Dee Canfield,” Butch said. “The woman who disappeared. Who’s she again?”

“She owns the gallery where Rochelle/Latisha’s art was going to be exhibited. Even with the artist dead, she was going to go through with the grand opening last night, but then she didn’t. Jaime Carbajal tried to go to the party himself, but the gallery was closed up tight, and it still is, more than twenty-four hours later.”

Butch lifted a pot lid to check on the potatoes. “I can hardly wait to read next week’s paper,” he said. “No doubt Marliss will figure out a way to make all of this your fault as well.”

At that moment Je

“Pork chops and gravy,” Butch replied. “Along with mashed potatoes, string beans, and apple sauce.”

“Great,” Je

“So what’s your fault, Mom?” Je

“At the moment, one person is dead and two others are missing,” Butch explained. “I was saying that in Marliss Shackleford’s next column, she’ll probably try to blame all of it on your mother. That’s Marliss’s usual modus operandi.”

“Oh,” Je

Butch shot Joa

Thanks, Jen, she thought. You’ve just provided a perfect ending to a perfect day!

Eight

IT WASN’T A PARTICULARLY NICE WAY to begin celebrating my birthday. For one thing, I had to be up and out of Belltown Terrace by five in the morning in order to make that 7 A.M. Alaska Airlines flight to Tucson. It was pitch-dark as I climbed into a cigarette-smoke-saturated cab driven by a non-communicative maniac. I wasn’t about to give the state of Washington access to the condo’s communal limo.

The rain was pouring down as we headed for the airport, but I didn’t regard that as any kind of ill omen. After all, it was the last week in October. Everybody knows it rains like mad in Seattle in October. And maybe that’s why the seven-o’clock plane to Tucson was loaded to the gills. It was full of people wanting to trade chill autumn rain for one last glimpse of sun along with a whole wad of purple-and-gold-bedecked rowdy Husky fans on their way to a U Dub/U of A football game.

When I reached my row, I discovered I was in the back of the plane in the middle seat, squashed between two very large men. I’m not exactly a lightweight, but these two guys dwarfed me. One was a twenty-something weight lifter with massive shoulders. The other was in his mid-to-late seventies and had probably never been in a gym in his life. His shoulder muscles had come about the old-fashioned way – by doing hard physical labor. He was an old codger with several missing teeth and amazingly bad breath. He read every word of his in-flight magazine, moving his lips constantly and showing off those missing teeth as he did so.

Resigned to two and a half hours of misery, I settled into my seat as best I could, closing my eyes and hoping to nap my way to Arizona. I willed myself into unconsciousness and thought about the previous evening’s night on the town with Naomi Pepper.

We’d had a nice-enough di

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“It’s my mother,” she said.

In the month or so that Naomi Pepper and I had been hanging out together, I had gleaned bits and pieces of information about her mother, Katherine Foley. Putting those pieces together, I had determined Katherine was something of a handful. Twice widowed and once divorced, she had now been abandoned by her most recent boy toy.

Some of Katherine’s wilder antics – like insisting on doing her weekly shopping at midnight in her local Albertson’s in full evening-wear regalia – verged on Auntie Mame behavior. It’s easier to deal with Auntie Mame when the person in question is some distant relative, preferably a second cousin. When the kook turns out to be your very own mother, all bets are off. That evening I realized that being Katherine Foley’s daughter had turned into tough duty for Naomi Pepper.

“What about her?” I asked.

To my surprise, Naomi’s eyes filled with tears. “Let’s not talk about it right now,” she said. “We’re having a fun birthday celebration. I don’t want anything to spoil it.”

“Tell me about your mother,” I insisted.

“She wants to move in with me,” Naomi said finally, after taking a deep breath. “She’s just this week been diagnosed with Parkinson’s. She’s worried about continuing to live on her own now that Geoff has taken off for parts unknown. I don’t know much about Parkinson’s disease, but I suppose she has a point. But she’s so incredibly bossy, Beau. She’s forever trying to run my life by remote control. If I let her move in…”