F is for Fugitive (Kinsey Millhone 6)

"I'm sorry I didn't identify myself last night." "What's it to me? I don't give a damn who you are."

"Maybe not, but I wasn't quite straight with Tap and I feel bad about that." "You look real tore up."

I shrugged. "I know it sounds lame, but it's the truth. You thought I was hustling him, and in a way, I was."

She said nothing. She stood and stared at me. After a while she said, "You want a Co'-Cola? I'm having one."

I nodded, watching as she picked up a couple of Mason jars and filled them from the hose dispenser under the bar. She set mine in front of me. "Thanks."

"I hear by the grapevine Royce hired you," she said. "What'd he do that for?"

"He's hoping to have Bailey cleared of the murder charge."

"He'll have a hell of a time after what happened this morning. If Bailey's innocent like he claims, why take off?"

"People get impulsive under pressure. When I talked to him at the jail, he seemed pretty desperate. Maybe when Tap showed up, he saw a way out."

Daisy's tone was contemptuous. "Kid never did have a lick of sense." "So it would seem."

"What about Royce? How's he doing?"

"Not that well. He went right to bed. A lot of people are over there with Ori."

"I don't have much use for her," Daisy said. "Anybody heard from Bailey?"

"Not as far as I know."

She busied herself behind the bar, running a sinkful of hot soapy water and a second sinkful of rinse water. She began to wash Mason jars left over from the night before, her motions automatic as she ran through the sequence, setting clean jars to drain on a towel to the right. "What'd you want with Tap?"

"I was curious what he had to say about Jean Timber lake."

"I heard you askin' him about the stickups them two pulled."

"I was interested in whether his version would match Bailey's."

"Did it?"

"More or less," I said. I studied her as she worked, wondering why she was suddenly so interested. I wasn't about to mention the $42,000 Tap claimed had disappeared. "Who called him here last night? Did you recognize the voice?"

"Some man. Not anyone I knew right off. Might have been someone I'd talked to before, but I couldn't say for sure. There was something queer about the whole conversation," she remarked. "You think it was related to the shooting?"

"It almost had to be."

"That's what I think, too, the way he tore out of here. I'd be willing to swear it wasn't Bailey, though."

"Probably not," I said. "He wouldn't have been permitted to use the jail phone at that hour and he couldn't have met with Tap in any event. What made the call seem so queer?"

"Odd voice. Deep. And the speech was kind of drug out, like someone who'd had a stroke."

"Like a speech impediment?"

"Maybe. I'd have to think about that some. I can't quite put my finger on it." She was silent for a moment and then shook her head, shifting the subject. "Tap's wife, Joleen, is who I feel sorry for. Have you talked to her?"

"Not yet. I guess I will at some point."

"Four little kids. Another due any day."

"Nasty business. I wish he'd used his head. There's no way he could have pulled it off. The deputies are always armed. He never had a chance," I said.

"Maybe that's the way they wanted it."

"Who?"

"Whoever put him up to it. I knew Tap since he was ten years old. Believe me, he wasn't smart enough to come up with a scheme like that on his own.

I looked at her with interest. "Good point," I said. Maybe Bailey was meant to get whacked at the same time, thus eliminating both of them. I reached into my jeans pocket and pulled out the list of Jean Timberlake's classmates. "Any of these guys still around?"

She took the list, pausing while she removed a pair of bifocals from her shirt pocket. She hooked the stems across her ears. She held the paper at arm's length and peered at the names, tilting her head back. "This one's dead. Ran his car off the road about ten years back. This fella moved up to Santa Cruz, last I heard. The rest are either here in Floral Beach or San Luis. You going to talk to every one of 'em?"

"If I have to."

"David Poletti's a dentist with an office on Marsh. You might want to start with him. Nice man. I've known his mother for years."