Marcia Muller - Burn Out

“More like a big, thick envelope.”

“Did you open it?”

“No.”

“One thing in the envelope is a letter Boz Sheppard was looking for when he came to your cabin and cut you. I think he was going to look for it here too, when he saw the light on in the stable, spooked the horse, and hit me. He didn’t find it either place. Where is it?”

“… At Mrs. Ivins’ house. Dana Ivins, who runs Friends Helping Friends. I knew it wouldn’t be safe at Willow Grove or here, so I snuck over there and hid it in her garage.”

“Why didn’t you entrust it to Dana?”

“She’s nosy. I knew she’d read it.”

“But you didn’t read it.”

“I told you no. Hayley asked me not to.” Her eyes welled up and tears spilled down her cheeks. “I was upset with Hayley when I found out she’d been hooking all those years, and when I found out she was living with that loser Boz I felt even worse. But I still loved her, I would never pry into her private business. Now I wish I had; maybe she wouldn’t’ve gotten killed.”

I didn’t tell her that Hayley probably would have died of AIDS anyway since she apparently had forgone treatment. Amy didn’t need that kind of memory of her big sister.

Instead I said, “The other thing that’s in the envelope is a life-insurance policy Hayley took out on herself, with you as beneficiary. Since she was murdered, the double indemnity clause goes into effect. Eventually you’ll receive a hundred thousand dollars.”

Amy stared at me, her mouth opening in a little O.

“It’s up to you what you do with the money,” I went on. “Blow it on expensive cars and clothes and bad boyfriends. Or use it to give yourself a much better life than your mother and sister had.”

For a moment she looked away at the blank TV screen, envisioning any number of scenarios. Then: “I could finish up my GED and go to college.”

“Yes.”

“I could do something that would’ve made Mama and Hayley really proud of me.”

“That, too.”

Amy put her hands over her face and shook her head. “Oh, God!”

“What?”

“Oh, God, I’m all of a sudden so afraid.”

“Of what?”

“I’m afraid I’ll fuck up like I have over and over again.”

I grasped her wrists and pulled her hands from her face, looked into her eyes. “You have Ramon and Sara. You have Hy and me. You can be sure if you start to fuck up, one or the other-or all four of us-will tell you.”

Dana Ivins opened the side door to her garage, snapped on an overhead light. I followed her inside.

“There’s the storage cabinet,” she said, motioning to a hulking white assemble-it-yourself piece of the sort you can buy at Home Depot. Its doors were misaligned: one was at least two inches higher than the other.

I went over and reached behind the cabinet. Wedged against the wall beams exactly where Amy had described to me was a thick nine-by-seven envelope.

When I pulled it out, Ivins said, “Why, for God’s sake, did she hide it there, rather than give it to me? I could’ve put it in my safe.”

I shrugged. “She’s young and she wasn’t thinking too clearly, I suppose. Or maybe she thought your safe was too obvious a place and this envelope’s presence might’ve made you a target.”

“Amy always was a considerate girl. I’m so happy she’s safe with her uncle. What’s in the envelope?”

And she’s right, you are a nosy woman.

“I don’t know. Amy just asked me to retrieve it.”

“Maybe, for her sake, we should open it.”

“No, it’s her private property.”

“But it could shed some light on these killings-”

“If it can, Amy will turn the information over to the sheriff’s department. She’s been talking with them.”

“About what?”

“I haven’t been in on the conversations.”

Ivins looked disappointed. For a person who insisted on her organization’s right to confidentiality, she certainly played fast and loose with other people’s.

I drove a couple of blocks along the main street before I pulled to the curb and opened the envelope, as Amy had given me permission to do. It contained the insurance policy Hayley had taken out with her sister as beneficiary, and a smaller pink envelope with Hayley’s name written on it in erratic, badly formed penmanship. It had previously been opened, then closed with the flap slipped inside. I slid the letter out.

Dear Hayley,

I know you never want to lay eyes on me again and I dont blame you. I been a bad mother and a bad woman but that dont mean I dont love you. Bud Smith has been good to me. So I’m leaveing this with him in case you ever come back home or he hears where you are. What you need to know is Jimmy Perez wasnt your father. I was raped when I was 13 by a bastard named Davey Smith. Thats Bud’s little brother. He got off scotch free because he was some kind of genius and Bud took the rap for him so he could go away to school. My family wouldnt let me have an abortion, but they treeted me real bad so I ran away and had you. And I kept you-thats how much I loved you. The other thing you need to know is Davey Smith is a rich man now. Goes by the name of Trevor Hanover and lives back east someplace tho he has a big ranch outside of Vernon. Rattlesnake its called. I found out from the woman who cooks for him when he’s there-Linda Jeffrey, she lives on Yosemite Street. You can ask her if you want to. The way she knew he was Bud’s brother is that Bud went there to dinner once and she heard them fighting. I guess Davey tried to give him money, but he wouldnt take it. Bud told him to put the money in the bank for you and hire a lawyer to help you out because you were bound to get in trouble in Vegas. I guess you must of kept in touch with Bud because he knew where you were. But baby, Davey owes you more than that. Talk to Bud and have him set up a meeting with Davey. Your his daughter. You have rights, you claim them. I know I’ll never see you again baby, but you deserve a good life.

All my love,

Mama

Okay-slowly, cautiously. First I’d talk with this Linda Jeffrey.

Her tidy home was in the center of one-block Yosemite Street. A TV flickered in the front window. I rang the bell. After a moment the porch light came on, and a tall, slender woman in sweats, whose gray hair was pulled back into a ponytail, looked out at me.

“Yes?”

I said my name, gave her my card.

“Oh, you’re Hy Ripinsky’s wife. You’ve been helping out the Perezes. Come in, please.”

The room she led me to was cluttered, but in a clean, comfortable way. Books and magazines stacked on tables, a hand-knitted afghan thrown carelessly over the large sofa, videotapes and DVDs piled high atop the TV. Jeffrey turned off the program she’d been watching and said, “Sit anywhere, but before you do, look for cats.”

The chair I went to did contain a cat-a light-gray shorthair, whose sleepy gaze dared me to move it. I did, picking it up and setting it on my lap; instantly it curled into a ball and started purring.

“They run our lives, don’t they?” its owner said, taking a place on the sofa and pulling the afghan around her.

“Yes, they do.”

“I figured you for a cat person. And I assume you’re here to ask about what goes on at Rattlesnake Ranch.”

Her statement surprised me. It showed, because she added, “I know who Trevor Hanover is-or was-and I’ve been debating whether to go to the sheriff’s department about him. Your visit has more or less resolved that issue.”

“Why were you only ‘debating’?”

“For two reasons. When Mr. Hanover hired me to cook for the family, he had me sign a contract with a confidentiality clause. I was not to talk about him, his family, or anything that went on at the ranch.”