Going Through the Notions(5)

“I am not, damn it. I—” He slapped a hand on the plastic table, and quickly sucked in a breath, wincing again.

I stood up and addressed the guard at the doorway. “Excuse me, please. This man needs medical attention.” When required, I could still turn on my schoolteacher voice. If it worked on a room full of hormone-driven teenagers, it should work like a charm on one bored rural cop. “Immediately, if not sooner.”

The man nodded, unimpressed. “We’ll take care of it after the visit. Now sit down, ma’am, or I’ll have to ask you to leave.”

I glared at him. One of the desirable qualities in a teacher that I unfortunately lacked was an adequate supply of patience.

“Ma’am? Sit down.”

I’d have to watch myself or I’d be stuck in the clink with Angus.

I gritted my teeth and sat back down on the plastic seat with a thump. “Take us through yesterday morning, Angus,” I said. “Everything you did.”

“Well, when I woke up on the porch, I went in the house and took a shower. Betty had gone shopping, so I fed the cat and read the paper. Then I didn’t feel so good, so I lay down again. I think I must have missed the pre-auction walk-through.”

Betty nodded in weary agreement.

“Next thing I knew, the cops were banging on the door.”

The lights flickered too soon, signaling the end of the half hour, and we had to leave. I promised to drive Betty back again on Wednesday, the next permitted visiting day for his section of the prison.

Betty was silent until we got back in the car.

“I don’t want to go back to that place ever again, Daisy.”

“What do you mean? What about Angus?”

“You’ll still visit him, won’t you?” She stared at me with pleading eyes. “It’s just too awful. I can’t bear it.”

I blew out a breath as I started the engine. Betty’s defeatist attitude was not going to help her husband one iota. But I needed to keep in mind she was older than me and still frail from her recent surgery. “He’s going to be okay, Betty. He’ll be home before you know it, getting under your feet and annoying you like always.”

That brought a small smile.

I cranked down the window as we passed the lavender farm, and I breathed in deeply, hoping the sweet, yet spicy scent would help relax the tightness in my neck. Long purple rows stretched up from the side of the road toward the little stone shop where they sold soaps, lotions, and dried bunches of the pungent herb.

Angus and I used to crack each other up as we drove through the countryside on our travels. He’d say, “How come you’re called Daisy, but you don’t wear any Daisy Dukes?”

“Ha, ha, well done, Angus. Or should that be medium rare, Burger Boy?”

He’d tease me about getting my fancy clothes messed up as we clambered over piles of junk or walked through muddy fields at an outdoor flea market. I ignored him, concentrating on looking for diamonds in the rough, although I had relaxed my wardrobe somewhat over the past year. While he treated his wife in the most old-fashioned way, acting as the man of the house, oddly enough he expected me to hold my own and not act “like a girl” at all. Sink or swim was his mantra as he mentored me in the fine art of haggling for the best deals.

Now I was addicted to auctions, flea markets, and yard sales. It seemed as though my car braked automatically when it saw the signs. I’d even been known to pick up stuff off the side of the road. It was amazing what people threw out. One man’s trash is another’s treasure, as they say.

Betty and I were quiet for a few moments until suddenly I thought of something.

“Hey, Betty, if Jimmy drove Angus home on Friday night, isn’t your truck still at the pub?”

“No, Jimmy drove it here, and then he walked the rest of the way home.”

“That’s strange. You’d think he wouldn’t be in good enough shape to walk that far.”

“He said he needed to clear his head. One of his friends had given him a ride to the pub in the first place.”

“But Jimmy still kept the keys, though, right?”

Betty shrugged. “I suppose he held on to them so Angus wouldn’t be tempted to drive.”

“And to get into the auction building.” I gasped. “Wait a minute. I know why he walked. If he took the truck, you would have heard when he drove off. This way, he could double back and make a silent getaway afterwards with the loot.” I felt a rising sense of excitement. “And if Jimmy still had the keys, Angus couldn’t have driven back to his place the next morning.”

She shook her head. “There’s a spare set hanging in the kitchen.”