Bonnie sighed. "You know why I hired her?" Our eyes met in the mirror. Bonnie dropped her tone down to a whisper. "On account of Mark works nights. I figure with Rozetta here, she won't be over at my house sleeping with my eighteen-year-old son!"
Bonnie fumbled in her smock for a pack of cigarettes and motioned to me to follow her out the back door and onto the little covered stoop that overlooked the bail bond office.
We stepped outside and Bonnie lit up without hesitation.
"It's gonna kill you," I said, waving the smoke away.
"Yeah, maybe one day, but that fella that was just here looks like he'll be the death of you a lot sooner." Bonnie took a drag on her cigarette and squinted through the smoke. "So what's up? And why is Vernell in jail, really, because as much as I hate him for what he's done to you, he ain't no cold-blooded killer."
I leaned back against the hard, red brick wall and shut my eyes for a second. Then I told her everything.
"So, I don't know what Vernell's done with the money. If Vernell didn't kill Nosmo, then I've got to figure out who did."
Bonnie was listening, smoking her second cigarette. "Who's on the short list?"
I thought for a moment. "In no particular order, Nosmo's girlfriend was drinking with Vernell and Nosmo before Vernell passed out. Maybe she shot him and took the money."
"Huh," Bonnie said. "A woman killin' for greed. Now who'da thunk that?" Then she laughed. "Who else?"
"Maybe one of Nosmo's rivals. Maybe it was all a big setup. If Nosmo was in the Redneck Mafia, maybe one of them took him out. It happens all the time in the real Mafia."
Bonnie stubbed her cigarette out against a brick and tossed the butt into a far corner of the little courtyard.
"Listen," she said, "you know anything about the Redneck Mafia?" I shook my head. "Well I do," she said. "They're a loose-knit bunch of men who pull construction scams. If Nosmo was laundering money, or lending it, there'd be plenty of folks ready to rip him off or take over. Maybe that fits, what with Vernell set up to look like the shooter. Had to be someone who don't know Vernell well enough to know he's a big 'fraidy cat."
I shrugged. "Could be Bess King."
Bonnie's eyebrow shot up. "The dear widow?"
"Yeah, think of it. She loses an abusive husband, she gains three million dollars, plus Nosmo's insurance money, and if Vernell's been ripped off, she could've taken his money, too."
Bonnie shook her head. "You know," she said, "Vernell's got a brain the size of two BBs rattling around loose in a freight car. When it comes to women, Vernell lets the little head do the thinking, and look where it's got him." She stopped herself, looked over at me, and shrugged. "You were his only exception. And what did he do? Run away from his one shot at normalcy. I'll just never understand that. Rodney was the same exact way…"
And she was off. Bonnie'd be talking about Rodney for the next half hour, and given the least encouragement by her next customer, she'd talk about him for the next hour. Some things just die hard, I reckon, and the marriage of Bonnie and Rodney Miller was certainly a weed that wouldn't die easy in Bonnie's memory.
As for my situation, I had a murder to investigate, without the help of two particularly irritating men. That would take some doing. I just needed an afternoon alone to work. Surely I could escape the watchful eye of Tony Carlucci for that long.
Chapter Twenty-two
Bonnie's car was an aging Toyota van that had seen better days a few years before she bought it. It was reliable and unobtrusive. In short, it was the perfect vehicle for an afternoon spent snooping.
I ducked out the back door of the salon, high-tailed it the few feet to the driver's-side door, and was freedom bound within seconds, turning off the tiny street where the Curly-Que sat and out onto Greene Street. The radio was blaring Reba's latest, and I was humming along, too busy concentrating on my next step to sing the harmony.
Nosmo King's girlfriend might hold the piece I needed to clear Vernell, but if she did then it probably meant she'd killed her beloved, or at least helped to plan it. I thought back to her behavior at the funeral reception and couldn't quite picture the sobbing, black-haired Pauline as a killer. And then I thought of her friend, the bleached-blond Christine. Now there was a cold-blooded vixen. Maybe the two of them together could've killed Nosmo King, but Pauline wasn't sharp enough or hard enough to do the job alone.
"You are just the last of the naive innocents, Maggie Reid," I said aloud. "Do you really think that all murderers have to look like the posters on the post office walls? Pauline could've pulled that trigger for two million dollars and been acting the grief-stricken girlfriend three days later if it meant saving herself."
But she'd seemed so certain that Bess King had killed Nosmo. Either way, Bess King was my starting point. If she'd hired Tony, maybe she knew about Nosmo's girlfriend. I turned the van toward the northeast and began the drive out toward Brown Summit. I looked into the rearview mirror, saw no one I recognized, and drove on, satisfied that Tony Carlucci was sitting on the hood of my car, fuming.
Just as quickly, I flashed to my last image of Marshall Weathers, standing outside the jail, watching me ride off with Carlucci. In that brief second, the pain overwhelmed me, taking my breath away.
"You weak-willed woman," I said. "What is wrong with you? You let a man see you naked for the first time in God knows how long, and the next thing you know, you think you're in love." I turned onto Route 29 and headed north. "Desperate and dependent, that's what you are." I merged into the early afternoon traffic. "You weren't this way last week. What's wrong with you, getting all upset over another stupid man? He told you he wasn't looking for a relationship." But that was it. He wasn't looking to get hooked up and here I was seeing that as a challenge.
It was the raw hurt in his eyes. It was the way he smiled when he took me into his arms, the way he held me as I fell asleep. It was all too much. I hadn't ever felt like that. It only made sense I magnified it into meaning more to him than it really did.
"Can't make a souffle' out of turnips and hog jowls," I said, quoting Mama. The car chirped in agreement, and then chirped again.
I looked at the console. What was that noise? It was insistenfand regular, and quite loud. I listened and heard it again, coming from Bonnie's tape holder. Bonnie, ever technologically aware, had a cell phone, the better to keep tabs on her six kids and the errant, estranged Rodney.
I picked it up out of a tape slot and opened the receiver. "Hello?" I said cautiously.
Bonnie's voice crackled to life inside the van. "Sugar, how're you doing?"
"How'm I doing? You just saw me ten minutes ago. What do you mean, how am I doing? What's wrong? Is somebody there with you?"
A cautious "Yes."
"Is it Carlucci?" If he was there threatening her…
"Nope, babe, can't say it is."
"Male?"
"Oh Lord, yes!"
Damn him! "Weathers?"
"Well bless my soul," Bonnie exclaimed.
"Does he know you're talking to me?"
"Well, sweetie, I just called to see if you were on your way home from school."
"I see. Put him on."
"I was hoping it might go that way," she said, and sighed. "It's always worth a good listen, especially if you've got a past history."
I was pulling off of 29 and onto the exit to the King ranch. What did it matter if I talked to him? He didn't know where I was.
"Bonnie, he's an idiot, just like they all are. When you look at him, I want you to think Rodney."
Bonnie laughed. "Nah, I ain't never seen this one flash his butt in the back of a pickup. Somehow I don't think it's the same."
She handed the phone to Weathers. I heard her speak to him first. "I had to see did she want to talk to you, but being as how you think it's urgent, I guess she will."