Racing the Devil Read online

  If I went to prison, who would take care of Jay?

  And Paul. I wanted to teach him to hit a baseball, shoot a basketball, catch a fish. Instead, D.W. would do those things, and I would fade from my son’s memory like a summer fog.

  I couldn’t go to prison.

  Thinking dark thoughts, I dressed as Ian Callahan and drove to ValeSong Stables. I hadn’t found an opportunity to ask Valerie about Hartwell’s first wife, but I was sure she’d know the tale; it was the kind of story families whispered over the Thanksgiving dishes. I told myself that was my reason for going back. It had nothing to do with the little bay colt.

  And nothing at all to do with the taste of Valerie Shepherd’s tongue.

  Her red Chevy was pulling out as I neared the driveway. I passed by as if that had been my intent all along, rounded a bend that took me out of view, and hooked a U-turn in front of the tack shop.

  I didn’t think Valerie had seen my car the last time I’d been there, but I kept my distance anyway, just in case. I almost lost her as she cut across two lanes to the Demonbreun exit. Holding my breath, I jerked the wheel to the right, darted into a space between two semis, bounced onto the ramp, and took a sharp left onto a small access road that curved onto Music Square.

  By the time I started breathing again, the red Chevy had cruised to a stop in front of a glass-fronted building with sleek silver letters on the glass. AudioStyle Recording Studio, they said.

  I cruised by and glanced into the rearview mirror as the door to AudioStyle Recording opened and a man with limp, shoulder-length blond hair jaunted out, hands jammed into the pockets of artfully frayed jeans. He looked to be somewhere in his thirties, rangy but muscular, and about six feet tall.

  My height. My build. About my age.

  I looked back at the road. Slowed for a right-hand turn. When I glanced back again, he was climbing into the Chevy’s passenger side, and she was leaning across the seat toward him. Their lips met, and the blare of a horn told me it was time to turn.

  When I looped around again, they were gone.

  THE DAY OF AMY HARTWELL’S funeral, I darkened my hair again, applied my Ian Callahan mustache, and put on a dark gray Canali suit with a white cotton shirt and a blood-red tie Maria had given me one father’s day. The shoulder holster made a slight bulge beneath the jacket. Someone who knew what to look for might realize I was packing, but no one at Windrider Travel was likely to notice.

  I pulled into the parking lot of the travel agency, noting the single Toyota in the parking lot with some satisfaction. As I’d expected, most of the office workers had gone to the funeral, leaving someone behind to man the phones and handle walk-ins.

  I pushed the door open, and the young woman behind the desk looked up from her computer monitor, gave me a distracted smile, and held up one index finger: Just a minute.

  “And thank you for booking with Windrider Travel,” she said into the cordless phone receiver clamped between her cheek and shoulder. Her frosted pink nails extended so far beyond her fingertips that she had to use her pen to punch the hang-up button. With a cheery smile, she swiveled her chair toward me, tucked her hair behind her ear, and said, “May I help you?”

  Her nametag said Felicity, a name so old-fashioned it had gone around the corner and come back into style.

  “I’m Ian Callahan. I’m working on a book about Amy Hart-well and wondered if you might have a few minutes to talk.”

  “A book,” she said. “One of those true crime books?”

  She looked more intrigued than disgusted, so I nodded and said, “Nothing lurid, though. I really want to do her justice.”

  I assuaged my guilt with the knowledge that this much, at least, was true.

  “Seems really soon,” she said. “It’s been what, a week?”

  “Just about. I read about it in the paper and thought since it happened right here in town, I might have a unique perspective on it.”

  “Will my name be in the book?”

  “Unless you tell me you want it changed. Then I just indicate that with an asterisk the first time the name comes up. That way, everybody knows which names aren’t real.”

  She frowned, although it couldn’t have been easy with her eyebrows penciled into startled arches. “I’ve never been in a book before. I don’t think I’d want my name changed.”

  She looked so hopeful, I felt bad about the lie that had gotten me in.

  Felicity was, in some ways, a P.I.’s dream. Young enough to be excited by the thought of being interviewed and smart enough to observe what was going on around her.

  She wasn’t too hard on the eyes, either, although she went a little heavy on the makeup for my taste. Her pouty lips were slathered with a waxy layer of coral lipstick, and her eyes were painted with pine green eye shadow and a thick outline of kohl, Cleopatra style. If you took her in your arms, you might end up with an image of her face imprinted on your shirt.

  Still, she had a nice figure and long, shapely legs that looked even longer beneath her short skirt. They were a pleasant distraction.

  “Do you mind if I tape your interview?” I asked Felicity, holding up my Sony pocket recorder. “For accuracy only. Of course, you’ll have a chance to review the book before it goes to press to make sure you’ve been correctly quoted.”

  “Oh.” She looked at the recorder. “I guess I don’t mind.”

  “What can you tell me about Amy?”

  Felicity fidgeted with her pen, then slowly twirled it between her fingers. “I don’t know,” she said at last. “What do you want to know?”

  I gave her an encouraging smile. “Well . . . what kind of person was she? Did people like her? How did you feel about her? Was she a good worker? Did she ever talk about her marriage? Or her kids? And what about this boyfriend—this Jared McKean?”

  “Huh.” She gave a nervous laugh. “You really have to think of a lot to be a writer, don’t you? Let me see.” She turned the pen over and began to doodle, covering the margins with sweeping curves and spirals. “She was a real good worker. Always on time. Me, I’d be late to my own funeral.” She caught herself, put a hand to her mouth. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “It’s okay. Just a figure of speech. What else?”

  “What else? She was, like, real private. Wore long, flowing skirts, like gypsy skirts, prairie skirts, down to her knees. Bulky sweaters. I think she was self-conscious about her weight.”

  “She didn’t look that heavy in the pictures.”

  “No . . . Not really.” Unconsciously, she sucked in her stomach, slipped a thumb into the waistband of her skirt and tugged. “But she wasn’t petite. And she just . . . well, you could tell by her posture. She wasn’t comfortable in her body.”

  “But you liked her?”

  “Everybody did, I guess. I mean, it wasn’t like we were friends or anything, but we got along. She seemed like kind of a prude. But then, I guess you never know about that. Her lovers and all.”

  “Her lovers?”

  “You know.”

  “Not really.”

  She gnawed at her lip, then flicked her tongue across it and answered. “This Jared McKean, for one. She never talked about him here. Nobody knew she was seeing someone else.”

  “Someone besides her husband?”

  “Well, him, sure. But I meant Ben Carrington.”

  “Ben . . .” I wrote the name on my yellow legal pad. “That’s C-A-R-R-I-N-G-T-O-N?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “Oh.” She giggled. “Ben’s her boyfriend. They had lunch together every day. Stayed late ‘talking.’ ” She made quotation marks with her fingers.

  “Did he know she was seeing somebody else?”

  “I don’t think so. It just broke his heart when he found out. I mean, he knew she was married and all, but he thought she was this sweet, innocent thing whose husband treated her like dirt. He thought he was the only one she was involved with. At least, until this other guy k
illed her. He was so torn up about it. He thought the guy might have found out about him and killed her because of it.”

  “Did he tell you he was having sexual relations with her?”

  She bit her lower lip. “N-o-o-o. Not in so many words. He’s a real gentleman. He’d never brag or anything like that.”

  “Did she ever talk about her husband?”

  “She told us once he didn’t want her working. I don’t think it was a very happy marriage.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “If she’d been happy, why would she go out with Ben?”

  “Good point.” I tipped my head in acknowledgement. “The night she was killed. Did she say anything about meeting anyone?”

  “Not to me.”

  “Is Mr. Carrington married?”

  “No.” She lowered her eyes. “His wife died about five years ago. Cancer.”

  I thought if Carrington wasn’t the murderer, he was the unluckiest bastard on the planet.

  I pumped Felicity for a little more information, just enough to ascertain that she knew nothing more about the murdered woman. Then I asked if I could take a look at Amy’s work space.

  “Well.” She bit her lip. “I don’t know.”

  I gave her my best, most charming smile, the one Maria said had made her marry me. “I promise to leave everything exactly how I found it.”

  She stared into my eyes for a long moment, possibly trying to gauge my sincerity. At last, she said, “All right. But don’t mess up anything.”

  She went back to her own desk, leaving me alone at Amy’s.

  I slid into the dead woman’s chair and scanned her work space, trying to get a sense of who she was and why someone might have wanted to kill her. I sat at her desk and soaked her in, from the jumbled cork bulletin board and color-coded file folders to the family photograph on one corner of her desk. I picked up the photograph and studied it, my tongue worrying at the scab on my lower lip.

  I recognized Amy from the pictures I’d seen in the news, and Calvin and the girls from yesterday afternoon. Calvin looked stern and solemn in his dark suit. One hand rested on his wife’s shoulder. It might have been a protective gesture, but in light of their troubled marriage, seemed possessive and proprietary instead. Amy, wearing a flowered skirt and a peach sweater covered with seed pearls, had an arm around each of her daughters, who looked scrubbed and fresh-faced in their matching jumpers.

  I looked into Amy’s eyes. Who are you? I thought at the photograph. Come on, baby, talk to me.

  Of course, she didn’t talk to me. She stared out of the picture, a strange blend of pride and sadness on her face.

  Who are you?

  A woman who felt overwhelmed by her children. Who had tried—and possibly failed—to love another woman’s daughter. Who had given up everything to be what her husband wanted and finally decided she wanted some of it back.

  Had it gotten her killed?

  Why had she gone to the Cedar Valley Motel?

  The calendar on her desk revealed no clues. Daily appointments were marked in a careful, even hand. Doodles framed the printed squares, not the usual hearts and spirals, but real drawings: a lone palm tree on a tiny hump of island, a cartoon Volkswagen with flat tires and a sad face, a cute-as-hell fly in a multi-sleeved turtleneck trying to pull free from a piece of flypaper, a chorus line of dancing raisins wearing clown noses and Groucho Marx mustaches. Escape and isolation. The raisins looked happy enough, but wasn’t the disguise really just another way to escape?

  The drawers of her desk were neatly organized: brochures, contracts, pens, and paper clips. In one drawer, I found a Nora Roberts paperback, a copy of Chicken Soup for the Soul, and a hardcover volume called The Incest Survivor’s Handbook. I thought of the photos Frank had found in my truck and wondered if Amy had known Katrina was being abused.

  I went back to Felicity’s desk.

  “Did Amy work on Friday?” I asked.

  “Yes, of course.” Her startled eyebrows tried to lift a little higher. “Why wouldn’t she?”

  “No reason. Just covering the bases. Did she say anything about going to see anyone that night? A date? An appointment?”

  “No. She said she was going home. But when I left, she and Ben were outside in the parking lot, talking.”

  “Could you tell what they were talking about?”

  The look she gave me was withering. “I don’t eavesdrop.”

  “No, of course not. But you might have overheard something in passing. Sometimes you can’t help but hear something.”

  “Oh.” She seemed somewhat mollified. “I guess that’s true. But no, I didn’t hear anything.”

  “Did they seem upset? Angry?”

  “They looked like a couple of high school sweethearts saying goodbye after school. You know. One more thing, then one more thing. Like they couldn’t stand to leave.”

  “Did you go straight home after work?”

  “No. I had dinner at Ruby Tuesday’s, then went home and watched Silverado on cable.”

  I grinned. “I saw that movie six times. Tell me you’re not married.”

  She smiled, eyes downcast. Demure. Flattered and embarrassed. “I’m not married.”

  “Woman of my dreams,” I teased. Then, “I don’t guess you’d let me take a look at Ben’s desk, would you?”

  She frowned. “Well . . .”

  “I won’t bother anything.”

  “I’ll tell you what.” She nibbled at a long, almond-shaped nail. “I’ll let you take a peek on the way out. But you can’t touch anything.”

  I held up three fingers. “Scout’s honor.”

  Ben’s desk had a few scattered Post-its and brochures.

  Call Margaret.

  Corey. Ballet. Sat. aft.

  There was a picture of a woman holding a baby, a smaller photo of a smiling little girl in a pink tutu tucked into the frame.

  “Corey?” I asked, pointing to the picture.

  “Mmhm. That’s his daughter. She’s six now.”

  “And Margaret?”

  “Babysitter.”

  “Ah.”

  “Is that all you need?”

  I thought about asking for her number, but what would I say if I called her? Hello, I’m not really an author and I lied to you about pretty much everything, and I’m the only suspect in the murder of your colleague. Want to go out sometime?

  Right.

  “That’s everything,” I told her.

  After an awkward silence, she flashed me a smile and said, “Well. Why don’t you just take my card? In case you need to ask me anything else.”

  She handed me a business card that said, Felicity Ambrose. Windrider Travel Agency. We’ve planned more trips than Timothy Leary.

  I don’t usually like drug jokes, but it was so unexpected, I laughed when I read it. “Well. Thanks, Felicity. Thanks for everything.”

  I gave her an appreciative smile and tucked the card into the inside pocket of my suit jacket.

  Then, regretfully, I got into my rental car and left.

  THAT NIGHT, JAY AND I watched as Ashleigh’s station broadcast a memorial service at Amy Hartwell’s church. Ashleigh looked pained and sincere as she introduced the show in front of the Road to Glory Church of the Reclamation. The cameras returned to her throughout the program to show us how touched she was. This was done primarily by showing her dabbing at her eyes with an embroidered handkerchief, with an occasional close-up of her quivering lips. Ashleigh Arneau, compassion incarnate.

  Yeah, right.

  “I really hate that bitch,” Jay said. I’d told him where and how I’d been arrested. “Let’s burn her in effigy.”

  “She’ll get hers someday,” I said, but I didn’t believe it. People like Ashleigh never get theirs.

  The thing is, if I’d really thought she’d turned me in out of some sense of duty, or honor, or citizenship, I might have actually admired her. But I knew better. Ashleigh was a glory-hunter. If she’d ever had a n
oble instinct, she’d long since choked it into catatonia.

  The service started with a welcome and a prayer. The choir sang “Amazing Grace.” Then members of the congregation stood up and said some complimentary things about Amy. They mentioned their love and sympathy for Calvin, along with their hopes that he and the girls could get over this and go on with their lives. Calvin stood up, red-eyed, and said he hoped the Lord would show his dear wife mercy. Then the honorable Reverend Samuel Avery stepped up to the podium.

  I sat up straighter. He was the same minister I’d seen at the jail. Same porcine build. Same balding, egg-shaped head. Same angry scar. He opened his mouth, and the voice that came out was soft and slithery like the serpent in the Garden of Eden. The very sound of it made me want to punch someone.

  I’d heard that voice somewhere before.

  Amy Hartwell, he said, had fallen into temptation, but he held out hope that she’d had time to repent before her grisly death. The Lord was merciful, he said, and so, despite her fall from grace, she might yet see the glorious face of the Almighty. If she had repented with her last breaths.

  If.

  Beside me, Jay murmured, “My God. In front of the children.”

  When Avery had finished, Valerie Shepherd sang a dramatic rendition of “How Great Thou Art.” Her voice rose high and clear, ending on a note that must have made the stained glass windows tremble. I’d been wrong about her voice; she didn’t sound like someone who should have been singing on top of a piano. She sang like she’d been born to it. Although her cheeks were streaked with tears, the smile on her face was orgasmic.

  She was good, even by Nashville standards, where your waitress, your pharmacist, and the guy who services your car might all be Garth Brooks wannabes.

  The camera panned to the blond man Valerie had picked up at the recording studio. He nodded and bobbed to the music, turning knobs and dials on a console that had probably cost as much as my truck. After the song was over, he gave Valerie a thumbs-up and a broad, gold-studded grin.

  Jay shook his head in admiration, “Now there is the next Streisand.”