"Capron, Bill - Color Blind Detective - Ups Green" - читать интересную книгу автора (Capron Bill)

"No, Arizona," she chuckled.

"Did it take a long time to process the estate?"

"Sure nuf did. Her ex-husband, Jack Kelly, made a claim, said she'd never properly divorced him." A short silence. "Didn't stop Jack from getting married again. Sorta think that weighed against him with the court."

"And you're sure it was the same Tamarella Tubutz?"

"Sure was, saw her with my own eyes. Tamarella was never so pretty, but she had the cutest little girl with her." I could almost see her shaking her head. "And now she goes and lands another fortune. Out of the Kettle and into the chips. Some people got all the luck." I didn't inform her that the original unmixed metaphor was more correct.

"Does she still have any friends in Kettle?"

She laughed out loud. "Friends in Kettle. When people move out of Kettle, they never look back." She was still laughing as I hung up the phone.


* * * *
The next day was Sunday and Dave and I went back to the bluff overlooking Casa Fuller. A more furtive Edgerton Fuller,III, left early after putting an overnight bag in the car. I called the house and told the woman Edgerton had been in a fender-bender and she needed to come into town to give him a ride home. We waited while she packed the kid and started the car. We kept our eyes on the trail of dust until she intersected the main road. Dave kept lookout on the bluff and I worked my way down into the canyon.

The house was relatively new, and judging by the amount of grass it had a pretty good well. One of the master bedroom windows was unlocked. I took off my shoes and climbed through. I did a quick casing of the large ranch-style house, then went to the home office at the end of the westernmost wing. It had a beautiful panoramic view of the craggy ridge of the canyon. Everything in there belonged to Edgerton, business and private papers. His bank receipts showed a deposit of more than nine hundred grand in March. I found one of those retirement asset calculation sheets he'd filled out. He was worth a million and a half with about four hundred thousand in debt. Not so bad for a sales guy.

I searched the living room and kitchen, then went back to the master bedroom. I found it under the bed. A metal box from some California winery that once held three bottles, merlot, cabernet and chardonnay. No wine now, just a collection of letters and cards. Misty Cantarra of Smallston, Idaho, was a very popular girl, and, if the letters were any indication, a little too free with her sexual favors.

I wrapped the metal box in a towel and tucked it under my arm.


* * * *
I made the six hour drive to Smallston and arrived in town about four o'clock. I took a quick pass through. There were two bars. I turned around at the city limits and stopped in the Back Water Saloon. The wall was covered with license plates from the last sixty years, from what looked to be all fifty states. There was no one there but the barmaid, a busty blonde with pretty features washed plain by hard living, and not all of it in a vertical position.

They only had Michelob and Budweiser on draft. I begrudgingly ordered a bottled beer. "Nice little town," I lied.

She didn't look up from washing glasses. "Yeah, as long as you don't live here."

Great conversationalist that I am, I took that as an opening, "So why are you here?"

She turned to me with a who-the-hell-gives-a-shit kind of look, saw my disarming smile, and grinned, "I been out, screwed up big time, came home. Now I'm afraid to go anywhere else."

I was sympathetic, "That happens, life's tough."

"You ain't seen tough til you've seen Smallston tough." She cast her arm in a wide circle. "Trees and lumberjacks. Rednecks and idiots. You know what I mean?" I nodded, she continued, "You gotta be mean to live here, mean to stay. The men are mean, and if the women are to survive, they get mean, too."

I carried my end, "It's hard work. No room for creampuffs and softies. Someone's got to do it."

She softened up a bit, "Yeah, well it's like natural selection here. Darwin'd be proud. Only the fittest and the meanest survive, the rest leave in search of humanity."

"Must have been big trouble to bring you back?"

"It's the only kind of trouble there is." She dried the glasses, but kept her steady gaze on me. "You obviously got some reason to be talking, mister?" She made it a question.

I didn't shilly-shally around her perception, "Yes, I'm looking for a person." She waited, not helping me out any. "Misty Cantarra. You know her?"