Christine Rimmer - Ralphie's Wives

It was not a question Phoebe wanted to be asked.

Her mother, using her psychic powers no doubt, read Phoebe’s silence correctly. “He showed up. Oh, my. What’s he like?”

Black hair, black eyes, lots of muscles and a great ass. “He’s okay. I guess. He got in from California yesterday. On a Harley.”

“Ooooo. Black leather jacket? Tight jeans? Interestin’ tattoos? Chains hangin’ off him?”

“Get a grip, Mama.”

“Your new partner got a job out there in California?”

“He’s a private investigator.”

“Hmm. Not exactly your average nine-to-five. But still refreshing. A friend of Ralphie’s who works. What’s he going to do—about the bar?”

“He hasn’t decided yet.”

“I do hate a man who can’t make up his mind.”

“Yeah. Me, too.”

“Hon, you do sound down.”

“I’m fine,” she lied.

“You’re lyin’. You have a nice birthday lunch with Tiff and Rose?” Not giving Phoebe any chance to answer, Goddess kept right on, “Thirty years old. I can hardly believe it. My baby is thirty years old…”

“Happens to everyone eventually.”

“That it does. And you’re still all broke up, aren’t you? You haven’t made peace with the fact that Ralphie is gone.” Phoebe decided not to reply to that. After a pause long enough to drive a fifth wheel and a horse trailer through, her mother said, “I am picking up nothing about that hit-and-run. But you wait. The spirits always come through. In fact, I’ve been thinking that we all need to make ourselves more open to communications from—” her mother’s voice cut out and Phoebe heard a beep on the line “—the grave. After all, the spirits can’t be heard if nobody’s listening and—”

“Mom, I have to go. I’ve got another call.”

Goddess harrumphed. “And if you think I believe that, I’ve got some swampland to sell you. You can build you some condos on it.”

“’Bye.” Phoebe punched the call-waiting button. “Hello.”

“Just checking to see if you gave me your real number.”

Already, she recognized his voice. Probably a bad sign. “Rio.”

“Too early for you?”

“Yeah. But don’t let that stop you. It never stopped my mother.”

“Goddess. Now, there’s a name for you.”

She tightened her grip on the handset. “How did you know my mother’s name?”

“Ralphie told me. It’s not the kind of name a man forgets. Ralphie also said he knew your mother from back in the seventies. And that he knew you and his other ex-wives back then, too, when you three were only kids.”

“Ralphie talked too much.”

“True. Rose and Tiffany. Your friends from the bar yesterday. Right?”

“What about them?”

“You know what. They’re the ex-wives I just mentioned. And I’ve been nosing around a little….”

“Nosing around, where?”

“Various places.”

“Oh, I’ll just bet—and why have you been nosing around?” she asked, as if she didn’t already know.

“Information is power.”

“Hold the phone. Let me write that down.”

“Don’t be crabby, Reina.” His voice changed when he said the unfamiliar word, became softer, more musical.

“What’s that, Spanish?”

He made a sound in the affirmative. “Reina. Queen.”

She started to tell him not to call her that, but couldn’t quite do it. Why not? It was a question she refused to analyze. She said, “I’d be a lot less crabby if you’d agree to sell me your half of my bar.”

“Help me get what I want. Then we’ll see about the bar.”

“And you want?”

“Take a wild guess.”

She didn’t have to guess. She knew. She muttered, “Answers.”

“Got it on the first try. And my take is that you really cared for the old SOB. I can’t figure out why you don’t want answers, too—unless you already have them.”

She tried to whip up a little outrage, but it just wasn’t happening. Wearily, she accused, “Meaning that you think I had something to do with what happened to him.”

“My instincts tell me you’re not involved.”

She ladled on the sarcasm. “I am so relieved to hear that.”

“But I do wonder…” He let the sentence wander off. She waited, refusing to prompt him. He went on at last. “Maybe there’s someone you feel you have to protect.”

“Why would I be protecting some drunk driver I never met?”

“You wouldn’t. If it was some drunk who hit him. But what if it wasn’t?” Before she could respond to that one, he said, “He was killed by a flat-fronted, high vehicle—an SUV, a full-sized van or a big pickup.”

“And you know this…how?”

“Accident description. Force applied above the body’s center of gravity. Forward projection—the body is flattened against the high front of the vehicle, accelerated to the speed of the vehicle, then thrown to the roadway ahead of the vehicle. In Ralphie’s case, the vehicle went right over him after hitting him.”

Phoebe’s stomach was suddenly queasy. She shut her eyes—and saw Ralphie’s lined, leathery face; his too-charming scam artist’s smile. Her eyes popped open—wide—and she argued, “They never found the vehicle, so there’s no way to know for sure what it was.”

“But they do know what I just explained to you. And they got paint transfer. Off the body. Red paint. I had a little talk with someone down at the OCPD. Paint analysis here takes four to six months. The FBI does it. Did you know that from one tiny flake of paint, it’s possible to get the make and model of just about any vehicle?”

“So in six months, they’ll know what to look for.”

“I don’t want to wait that long. Do you?”

Phoebe had a powerful urge to disconnect the call, throw the phone across the room and pull the sheet over her head.

And then what? Cry until she couldn’t cry anymore? Sleep?

Wake up, go to work, wait six months to find out whether it was a van or a pickup that had killed Ralphie Styles?

Rio said, “Come on, Phoebe. You’re not the little widow, wailing away at a back table as if turning on the waterworks is going to get you somewhere. You’re a strong woman who knows that if something’s not getting done, it’s time to roll up your sleeves and do it yourself.”

“The little widow has a name. Darla Jo. And you don’t know a thing about who I am.”

There was a silence on the line. For a moment, Phoebe thought he had hung up on her.

No such luck. “I could use a cup of coffee.”

Phoebe speared her fingers through her sleep-scrambled hair and growled at the phone.

“I heard that.”

“I’m not meeting you for coffee.”

“Fine. I’ll come there.”

“Forget it. I’m not givin’ you my address.”

“I’ve already got it.” Now, why didn’t that surprise her? “Ten minutes.”

That time he did hang up—before she could tell him to go to hell and stay there. She yanked the phone away from her ear and glared at it, then slammed it down on the nightstand.

And then she got up, pulled on some old jeans and a wrinkled Oklahoma State University T-shirt, and went to put the coffee on.

PHOEBE OPENED THE DOOR scowling. Rio saw the unwilling smile tug at her mouth as she took in his freshly cut hair, his cheap suit and square-framed glasses. “You look like Clark Kent.” She looked like the unmade bed she’d probably just crawled out of. It was a good look for her. Rumpled and sexy. Made him want to reach for her and rumple her up some more.

He kept his hands at his sides. “You’d be surprised the way people open up to a harmless-looking guy in a bad suit.”

“I’ll bet.” She craned her head toward her driveway where his Softail gleamed in the morning sun. “Maybe you ought to rethink that Harley, though. Puts a real dent in the mild-mannered image.”