I almost asked Trudy what she meant by that because it sounded like she had more information about Aunt Garnet’s intentions than any of us. But, bless her heart, Trudy was a bit of a gabber and I didn’t want it to get around church that Dove and I had no idea what was going on with Aunt Garnet.

  Ten minutes later my aunt caught me sitting on the bench in the church’s garden gazebo chewing on a hangnail.

  “Sorry,” I said, my hand dropping like I’d been caught stealing a Milky Way bar. But my bright pink cuticle announced my sin. All my life Aunt Garnet had nagged me about using cuticle cream. I braced myself for her lecture.

  She just smiled. “I hope you haven’t been waiting long.”

  “Uh, no,” I said, standing up. “Everything . . . okay?”

  “A couple of the men cooked us ladies a real nice brunch,” she said as we walked toward my truck. “Ham and cheese quiche, tiny cinnamon rolls and fresh papaya and pineapple. And the strawberries! They were picked this morning. Delicious.”

  I opened the passenger door, surprised yet again by her unpredictable new persona. “We do have wonderfully fresh fruit here in California.” Once we were settled inside the truck, I decided to go for it.

  “Aunt Garnet, I have a question.”

  “What is it?” Her face was placid and friendly. Her Jean Naté cologne smelled like lemon icebox pie.

  “Uh . . . you know, I’ve noticed that . . . I was wondering . . . Is everything . . .”

  Oh, for cryin’ out loud, I told myself, just say it. “What’s going on with you? Are you sick? Are you and Uncle WW breaking up?”

  Her expression registered a moment of surprise, then went neutral again. “Why, Benni, I’m just fine. And William Wiley and I are most certainly not, as you put it, breaking up.” She folded her hands neatly in her lap and stared straight ahead.“I do believe I’ll try one of those churros at the fair today. They looked delicious.”

  And that was that. I pitied any attorney who ever had to cross-examine Garnet Louise Wilcox on the witness stand.

  I got right back on Interstate 101 and headed up to Paso Robles. We talked about what we’d do the two hours until we were due at Flory Jackson’s house.

  “There’s the Mission Beach Cloggers at three p.m. or we could watch the pig races again or go look at the photography and art displays. There’s also a local wildflower exhibit I thought you might like.” Aunt Garnet loved her wildflowers.

  Aunt Garnet didn’t react to any of my suggestions. “What’s going on with our case?”

  I pretended to concentrate on the road. “You know how the police are. Hud keeps me in the dark. So like Gabe. Two of a kind. That’s cops for you. Honestly, it drives me nuts.” Why did I always prattle on and on like a teenager at their first driving test every time I wanted to appear cool and nonchalant?

  “Can the chatter,” Aunt Garnet said.

  “Huh?”

  I swear on a stack of poker chips she giggled.

  “I know you’ve found out something. Give up the goods.”

  “Give up the goods? Who are you and what have you done with Aunt Garnet?”

  “She’s right here,” she said, her voice soft. “Battle fatigued, but here.”

  It was the perfect opportunity for me to pump her again for information about her visit. But she blocked my play. “Give an old broad a break. What’s the scoop on Mr. Jones’s homicide?”

  I couldn’t disappoint her despite Hud and Gabe’s warnings. This ersatz criminal investigation seemed to be the only thing that made her forget her problems, whatever they were. So I clued her in on everything that had happened since I left the Morrison ranch last night.

  She settled back in her seat, satisfied. We passed the off- ramp to the Templeton Stock Auction. Only a few more miles to Paso. It was silent on her side of the cab and I hoped that my information had satisfied her curiosity.

  I should have known better.

  “Didn’t you say that Milt Piebald owns a car lot?” Her thin, white eyebrows moved inward. She twisted the hankie she held in a knot.

  “Actually he owns five.”

  “What’s the closest one to us right now?”

  “The one in Paso Robles. It’s not far from the fairgrounds.”

  “Does Juliette work for the business?”

  “Maybe. I honestly don’t know that much about their personal life.”

  “So, I was thinking . . .”

  I felt like swinging my arms helplessly like the robot on Lost in Space—Danger, Will Robinson!

  “Let’s see if we can find her truck. We obviously can’t go to all of the lots . . . today. But we could hit the Paso Robles one before we go sew the dolls.” She tilted her head and smiled at me, pleased with her plan.

  “Uh . . .”

  “I could pretend I was in the market for a car while you snoop around.”

  Aunt Garnet had definitely been watching way too many Matlock reruns.

  “You know,” I said, looking down at my watch. “The time . . .”

  “Nonsense,” she said, resurrecting her familiar prim voice. “We have plenty of time. What’s wrong, are you chicken?”

  I turned my head to gape at her. Was I being double-dog-dared by a seventy-five-year-old woman?

  “It’ll take us a half hour at the longest,” she said. “Who knows, we might get lucky.”

  “Okay,” I finally said, not knowing what else to do. I mean, really, what could happen? It was broad daylight in the middle of Paso Robles.

  I drove north on Main Street to Piebald’s Awesome Autos. The oversized fiberglass pinto horse and the gargantuan American flag were visible from two blocks away.

  “There it is!” Aunt Garnet said. She leaned forward, her soft peach face animated; her gnarled hands gripped her pocketbook. “Albenia, I have a good feeling about this.”

  That made one of us.

  I pulled into the newly paved parking lot. My truck was the only one there. So much for blending into the crowd. The sales office was a flat-roofed pink stucco building painted with a garish brown and white pinto pony spots.

  It could win the tackiest building in America award. Frankly, I was surprised that Juliette hadn’t nagged Milt into tearing it down and building more modern offices. The warehouse behind the car lot was a huge metal building that, thankfully, hadn’t been painted to match the office. It was a nondescript dark green.

  I turned off the motor. Before we could step out of the truck, a salesman was coming out of the office and ambling toward us.

  “Here’s our cover,” Aunt Garnet whispered. “I’m moving to San Celina from Arkansas and need a reliable vehicle. While I keep the salesman busy trying to sell me one of these lemons, you wander around the lot to see if you can find that sticker. Got it?” Her blue eyes looked downright beady. Honestly, I was getting a little scared—not of anything at the car lot but of my demented aunt.

  “Got it,” I said weakly.

  “Hello, beautiful ladies,” the salesman said. He was tall with sharp angles—nose, elbows, chin. His short-sleeved cowboy shirt—bright red with white piping—hung on his thin frame. His jeans looked ready to slip off his nonexistent hips and puddle on the ground around his cowboy boots. The man looked like a two-by-four come to life. “What can I do you for today?”

  Aunt Garnet looked over at me, raised one white eyebrow as if to say, Remember your lines, and replied, “Young man, I am obviously looking for a car. This is a car lot, isn’t it? That is, unless this place is actually a front for something else.”

  He widened his eyes, then gave a hawing laugh that ended in a wet-sounding cough. Too many unfiltered cigarettes, something that we could smell when he got within a few feet of us. Aunt Garnet’s nose twitched.

  He moved into his spiel. “You and me’s going to get along just fine, young lady.” He winked at Aunt Garnet, then turned to me. “And is this your sister?”

  “My niece,” Aunt Garnet said stiffly. “I do not have time to waste. I want something economical, easy to drive and that hasn’t been in an accident.” She narrowed one eye at him. “I worked in a body and fender shop in Arkansas, so don’t think about trying to pull one over on me.” That was a blatant lie. Aunt Garnet had never held a paying job in her life.

  The man held up his hands. “Wouldn’t think of it, Mrs. . . .”

  “Miss Honeycutt,” she said. Okay, she was using her maiden name. Her idea of a disguise. I felt like I was in the middle of an episode of Murder, She Wrote. “This is my niece . . . Rita.”

  Rita? I knew she was thinking on the fly, but did she have to choose my tacky younger cousin’s name? Well, Rita was Aunt Garnet’s real granddaughter, so it made some kind of sense. Okay, I’d be Rita for the next half hour. This, I kept telling myself, was going to be a really funny story someday.

  She pointedly looked over the salesman’s shoulder. “Is Mr. Piebald here? I really prefer to deal with upper management.”

  I almost choked on my spit. What if he was? What in the heck did she plan on saying to him?

  The man’s face looked slightly panicked. “No, ma’am, he’s not here today. He’s over to the fair. We got some cars showing there this year.”

  “That’s fine,” she said curtly. “I’m sure you can tell me everything I need to know. Rita will be looking around while you show me cars. I hope that’s acceptable.” She turned to me. “Rita, dear, you know what I’m looking for.”

  “No problem,” he said eagerly, certain he had the sale in the bag. “Just stay a ways back from them repair bays in back, Miss Rita. We do our own body work and detailing. It can get a little dirty sometimes.”

  “Rita’s a smart girl,” Aunt Garnet said. “She can take care of herself.” Then she boldly walked over to the man and slipped her arm through his. “What did you say your name was?”

  “Raymond,” he replied, his smile growing as wide as a Boston terrier’s.

  “Raymond, I believe you and I can do some business today.” Aunt Garnet was really piling on the Southern lady bull pucky.

  “Yes, ma’am, I believe we can,” he replied, thrusting his skinny neck forward. If he’d been a cartoon character there would have been dollar signs in his eyes.

  So, off they strolled down the aisles of cars and trucks, Aunt Garnet’s voice throwing out phrases like “rack and pinion steering” and “disk brakes.” I heard her ask if one of the vehicles had “off-road capabilities.” That gave me a crazy mental picture of my great-aunt bumping over a sand dune on Pismo Beach.

  I wandered the aisles of used cars, checking the bumpers of any white Ford and Chevy trucks. I was just killing time while Aunt Garnet played detective. The chances of the particular truck that tried to run me off the road being here was pretty slim. On the other hand, this was making Aunt Garnet happy, not hurting anyone, and it would give us something to laugh about later. The lot was empty of other customers, not surprising since it was midday and midweek.

  When I reached the back of the lot, I was far enough away from Aunt Garnet and the salesman to see but not hear them. I gazed idly over the cars and trucks, then thought of something—the employee parking lot. That’s where Juliette or Milt’s truck would be if it was anywhere. Chances were the employees parked in the back so I headed toward the large metal building. It was a long shot because this truck—if it existed—could just as well be at their ranch. And there was no way I was driving Aunt Garnet out there. No excuse in the world would explain our presence at the Piebald ranch. When I walked closer to the warehouse, I heard male voices, probably the guys detailing or repairing the cars they’d recently bought.

  Next to the building I discovered a small parking lot that appeared to be where the workers parked. The beat-up trucks and cars likely belonged to the men working in the warehouse. There were two white trucks, but neither had anything except dirt on their bumpers. Having done my due diligence and investigated, I was sure it would satisfy Aunt Garnet.

  Circling back, I passed the warehouse again. I almost jumped out of my boots when a door flew open and a man stepped out.

  “What are you doing back here?” he asked in a gravelly voice, slamming the door behind him.

  I froze, speechless. He was dressed in black jeans, a tight white T-shirt and red suspenders. His arms and neck were covered with green and black tattoos; a swastika bloomed over his larynx. His shaved pink head shined in the bright sunlight.

  “Nothing,” I stammered. “I’m uh . . .” Ladies’ room. That’s always a good excuse. “The ladies’ room. I’m looking for . . . I have to . . .”

  A tiny mole twitched under one aqua eye. I stared at him, mesmerized. It wasn’t a mole, but another tiny swastika. It was like I’d stepped into the scene of a B-movie.

  “Inside the sales office,” he growled.

  “Thanks.” I turned around and started walking, willing myself to not break out and run.

  “I know who you are, Mrs. Ortiz,” he called after me.

  I felt sweat dampen my breastbone. So he knew who I was. People sometimes recognized me. My and Gabe’s photo was occasionally in the Tribune. But I had a feeling this guy didn’t peruse the society pages.

  “You’d better watch yourself.” His voice carried across the lot like a flaming arrow.

  Don’t look, don’t look, I kept telling myself.

  “You’d better watch your family.”

  The word family hit my ears as I rounded the corner of the office. I leaned against the building for a moment, feeling my head grow fuzzy, my eyes darken around the edges. This was not just Milt Piebald making vague innuendos. This skinhead creep was threatening my family. My mind flashed on Dove and Isaac, Daddy and Aunt Garnet out at the ranch, suddenly realizing how vulnerable they were. How anyone could come up our ranch’s long driveway, shoot at them, set the house on fire, put poison out for our animals. So many ways to hurt people. And we’d never know when it might happen. Is this how Jim and Oneeda, Maggie and Katsy, Flory and the Sisters felt all the time? In that moment, I felt an uncomfortable mixture of shame and gratitude. In so many ways my life had been easy. All simply because of a random toss of genetics.

  I hurried across the parking lot toward Aunt Garnet who, by this time, had the salesman looking dazed. When I reached them, she was asking about the passing capabilities of a 1992 red and black Camaro.

  “I need some get-up-and-go,” she was telling him. “And a trunk big enough to carry my walker.”

  If I wasn’t so nervous, I would have laughed out loud. Aunt Garnet didn’t have a walker. My heart skipped a beat. Did she? Pushing that thought aside, I took her arm. “We gotta go, Aunt Garnet. Emergency at home.”

  “What is it?” Her face turned grayish white.

  I felt cruel, scaring her needlessly, but I didn’t have time to think up another reason to leave the car lot. I pulled gently on her arm. It was thin and delicate under my hand.

  “Dove needs us.” I looked over at the salesman, whose face was a mixture of disappointment and irritation. “She’ll be back later.”

  “We’re open until ten p.m.,” he said, following us.

  I kept Aunt Garnet moving as fast as her Keds would let her.

  “My card!” The salesman patted his pockets. “Shoot, I don’t have one on me. Wait, I have one in the office . . .”

  “No time,” I called over my shoulder. “It’s Randall, right?”

  “Raymond!” he called after us.

  “Whatever. Trust me. We gotta boogie, Aunt Garnet.”

  “Then let’s boogie,” she said, quickstepping toward my truck.

  We were buckled up and driving out of the lot in less than three minutes.

  I glanced in my rearview mirror. Raymond was standing in the middle of the lot, his hands on his shrunken hips, wondering what in the world just happened.

  “What’s the rush?” Aunt Garnet said, pulling a tortoiseshell compact from her purse and patting her shiny nose with the round pad.

  “I think we’re in trouble. Big trouble.”

  CHAPTER 15

  “I FEEL JUST TERRIBLE,” AUNT GARNET SAID WHEN I TOLD HER about the skinhead-looking guy who caught me snooping. “This is entirely my fault.”

  “If anyone is at fault, it’s me. Gabe’s always telling me to keep my nose out of police business and I never listen.”

  “You went to the car lot because I asked you to. Dove will kill me if she finds out I put you in danger.”

  “She will not, because we aren’t going to tell her.”

  Aunt Garnet and I looked at each other. Then we burst out laughing.

  “Yeah, right,” I said. “Like we can keep anything from Dove.”

  “Amen.”

  “As soon as we get to San Celina, I’m going to call the ranch, warn them that I—”

  “We,” Aunt Garnet corrected.

  “Okay, we might have stirred a hornet’s nest and to stay on alert. I’m also going to run by and pick up Scout, take him to Emory and Elvia’s house. Gabe’s gone tonight and you and I will be at Flory’s making dolls. I don’t want to leave Scout alone.”

  “Good thinking,” Aunt Garnet said.

  While her side of the cab grew silent—hopefully she was petitioning the Lord on our behalf—I kept a sharp eye in my rearview mirror. Though I doubted whether that young man was following us, I knew that he and any of his friends could find me or my family whenever they wanted. It was no secret where we lived or where we worked, and like most people, we had predictable habits.

  Jesus, please protect my family and my foolish self, I prayed.

  We swung by my house to pick up Scout and call Daddy. I explained what had just happened to me and Aunt Garnet, about this guy’s vague threats.

  “If you were twelve, I swear I’d restrict you,” Daddy said. “You call Gabe about this?”

  “Not yet,” I said, leaving it at that. I’d tell my husband later. “It’s probably nothing, you know. I’m probably just being dramatic.”

  “Not the first time,” Daddy said. “Don’t worry, we’re armed out here. You watch out for you and Garnet.”