Chapter One of Murder Pans Out

They'd covered four hundred miles on the road to Gold Country when the red light on the dashboard began to flash.

It didn't flash, actually, just emitted a steady, persistent glow. It was a glow that definitely wasn't supposed to be there, and ignoring it for a couple of minutes didn't make it go away. What's more, the little needle that monitored engine heat was hovering dangerously near the red zone.

Lynne Montgomery, driving the Booked for Travel van, switched off the air conditioning and the tape player, stranding Linda Ronstadt somewhere between Tucson and Tucamcari.

"Something's going on with the engine," she announced. "I've got a warning light and I'm pulling off at the next exit." She'd seen a sign for Midvale not long ago, and with luck they could limp along till they reached it.

Beside her, Betsy Danforth craned her neck to view the dashboard. "Overheating? Guess that's not too much of a surprise." Betsy was generally pretty unflappable, as befit somebody who'd taught grade school for nearly three decades, currently at Pettigrew Elementary in Floritas, California. But she'd also been imperturbable as an adolescent, when Lynne had first known her. Betsy was her oldest friend on earth. She wore her silver-blonde hair short and sleek and did daily yoga to maintain a trim, limber body.

"The last temperature sign I saw, on some bank in Stockton, said it was a hundred and seven," Lynne noted. "The San Joaquin Valley's a real killer in summer."

"Not much fun any time of year, actually," Betsy said.

Even on Highway 99, the older and more historic route north through California's Central Valley, everything was hot and flat and dusty. Major cities passed in a blur of car dealerships filled with SUVs and pickup trucks, and rural areas offered only the occasional grain elevator or pallet company. Everything was on a vast scale, however. This bleak landscape produced much of California's agricultural bounty, and California led the nation in agridollars, top producer of just about everything but cotton and tobacco. The only scenic relief came from hundreds of miles of graceful oleanders in a full palate of pinks and whites, lining the Highway 99 median and hiding opposing traffic.

As the needle continued to creep into the red, Lynne slowed to 55. "I hate car trouble," she said. "It always makes me feel so spectacularly incompetent."

Betsy nodded sympathetically. "It's the part where they call me 'little lady' that always gets my blood boiling."

"I guess I was lucky that I didn't have to deal with it at all for so long."

Lynne knew Betsy understood her reference. Monty had always taken care of their cars, and since his death she'd become totally reliant on the kindness of strangers. The local Floritas mechanics patronized and overcharged her, but at least they kept the van and her bright blue VW Beetle alive and running. "But it's always worse when you're on the road. It's like automotive potluck."

Betsy laughed. "Yeah. And every dish is tuna casserole."

The welcome green and white sign announcing the Midvale exit appeared and up ahead Lynne could see the towering logo of a major chain gas station. She could not remember ever hearing of Midvale before, unless maybe that was the town Janet Leigh had been trying to reach in Psycho. She crossed her fingers that the station would provide at least minimal auto service, along with pork rinds and cheese puffs and eighty-three kinds of carbonated beverage.

"What kind of light is it?" Betsy asked.

"Red," Lynne answered dryly. "I think it's the all-purpose your-engine's-screwed-up light. But we'll soon find out." As she drove down the exit ramp, she scanned the horizon for a town, but Midvale was either well off Highway 99 or a figment of the signmaker's imagination. The gas station had two cars at the pumps, a couple of trailers parked behind it, and a pair of frame buildings tucked off to the side in a lonely looking grove of shade trees. Other than that, there was nothing on the horizon but the freeway, fields of tomatoes and a distant orchard.

Lynne coasted into the gas station and parked outside a service bay that actually had a man working inside. Beyond the open door, he was bent over the engine compartment of a dusty black pickup truck. She closed her eyes for a moment, took a deep breath, and then switched off the ignition.

In the few minutes since she'd turned off the air-conditioning, the interior of the van had warmed up significantly. Still it was a shock to step out into the afternoon sun, rather like walking into a blast furnace.

Betsy hurried inside in search of a bathroom and Lynne approached the mechanic, who looked up and lifted the front of a grease-streaked gray T-shirt to wipe a sheet of sweat off his forehead.

"Help you?" he asked. He was lean and sunbaked, maybe forty, with a workingman's tan that didn't include his pale belly. Nobody was ever going to get his jeans clean again.

Lynne described the problem and the mechanic frowned, with that annoying air of automotive superiority that so often accompanies the Y chromosome. "I can look, sure. But it'll be too hot to work on right away, even if it's something easy. And if it isn't, you'll need to get towed over to Lodi, or maybe even down to Stockton."

A long-forgotten song lyric danced through Lynne's mind, something about being stuck outside of Lodi, again. She'd never before appreciated the desolation that lyric suggested. If the experience in any way resembled this one, once would be more than enough.

The mechanic followed her outside and popped the hood, still wearing the frown. He used a rag to open the radiator, which gushed and spat. As he poked around the engine compartment, Lynne fought a feeling of helplessness. They were supposed to meet up with two other carloads of teachers in the next few hours in Nevada City, in the northern part of California's Gold Rush country. Thus would officially begin the Highway 49 Revisited tour that Lynne had developed for the group.

This was a much more flexible and casual tour than the ones Lynne usually led, being comprised entirely of Floritas schoolteachers, several of whom were her old friends. It was, in fact, the travel agency equivalent of pro bono legal work. Still, they were counting on her, and she was carrying all of the communal food and drink in the van. It would be an enormous complication if she had to stay over to deal with a major engine problem.
And in Lodi, at that.

The mechanic looked up and for the first time he offered a smile. His teeth were dazzlingly white against his deep mahogany tan. Obviously nobody'd ever told this guy about melanomas. "Just a broken fan belt, ma'am."

As Lynne exhaled, she realized for the first time how upset she had been. It was one thing to be able to deal with most of the difficulties life dealt you, and another altogether to have to deal with them.

"Can you fix it?"

He nodded. "I've got the right sized belt, but first I need to finish up what I'm doing here. Your engine's gonna have to cool down anyway." He waved a hand to the right. "There's a little restaurant and antique shop over there, if you want to wait someplace cool. It's a bit warm out here."

A bit warm indeed. A thermometer on the shaded wall of the garage read 111 degrees. Betsy emerged from the mini-mart, holding two water bottles frosted by sudden exposure to the heat. She handed one to Lynne, who uncapped it and took a long swig. The icy water poured down her gullet with a jolt she could feel down to her toes.

"It's a broken fan belt," she explained, "and this nice young man says he can fix it as soon as the engine cools down. But we've got a bit of a wait, I'm afraid."

The mechanic nodded. "Probably an hour, anyways. I was telling your friend you might want to grab a bite or something." He pointed to the two frame buildings huddled beneath the shade trees. The sign in front of one announced pizza and tacos and the other read "Ledbetter Antiques & Fine Collectibles."

"I know where I'll be," Betsy said with a grin. During the years when she followed her husband's naval career around the globe, Betsy's possessions had been limited. Now that he was retired and they'd settled in Floritas, she had unexpectedly become a collector of almost everything. Her house was a cluttered melange of oddball curiosities, fifties and sixties retro kitchen appliances and the occasional genuinely attractive piece of old furniture. She held two garage sales of her own each year, just to keep pace with the constant influx.

Lynne sighed. "Might as well join you. Nothing I can do here other than sweat."

Ledbetter Antiques, beneath the canopy of native oaks, was cool and inviting, and at first glance appeared empty. Then a woman in her early twenties rose out of a tapestry-upholstered chair with atrocious carved griffin feet. She wore a perky little pink-and-white polka dot mini-dress and chunky pink sandals, with a lot of long tanned leg in between. Her sun-bleached hair was gathered in two pigtails over her ears, and the overall effect brought to mind Minnie Mouse.

"Hi," she chirped. The voice was Minnie, too. "Can I help you?"

"We're waiting while our car's being fixed," Lynne explained.

Betsy began a systematic inspection of the shop, in an exploratory pattern Lynne had witnessed countless times. First she stood absolutely still just inside the doorway, her eyes scanning the layout and identifying areas of particular interest. Then she began a leisurely and nonchalant circuit, careful not to reveal too quickly which items interested her.

Apart from the chair the girl had been sitting in, there weren't many large pieces of furniture in the shop. Ledbetter Antiques seemed to specialize in china and glassware, with an excellent assortment of Depression glass and an enormous collection of ceramic plates featuring painted views of Yosemite. The store's aisles were formed by breakfronts and hutches and bookshelves, all loaded down with collectibles. Lynne examined three shelves of salt-and-pepper shakers, shook her head over a hutch filled with rather unattractive porcelain birds, then began flipping through a bin of overpriced old Life magazines. An hour was going to be a very long time in this place.

"Oh, wow!" Betsy's voice came from a back corner. "Look at this!"

Betsy stood gazing reverently at a Victorian table lamp with a large bronze base and a spectacularly fringed shade. Lynne's first reaction was that she'd never seen Betsy tip her hand so quickly in an antique shop. Her second was that it was the ugliest lamp she'd ever seen.

"How... interesting." Lynne kept her tone polite and guarded. "Very nice."

"No, it isn't nice," Betsy told her with a cheerful grin. "It's ugly as sin. But it's exactly like the one that my grandmother had in her house in Ohio that burned down. I remember playing with the fringe on the shade and getting yelled at for turning the bulbs on and off." She pulled a little chain. Nothing happened. "Oops, it's unplugged."

Lynne looked around, then pointed. "There's a socket here, Bets."

Betsy picked the lamp up and carried it over. "Heavy sucker." She plugged it in and pulled the chain again. Still nothing. She shrugged. "Guess I'll have to rewire it."

"You're going to buy that?" Lynne heard her incredulous tone too late.

Betsy offered an incandescent smile. "I sure am. Even though it costs more than the monthly mortgage payment on our first house. But hey, what's the point of being a grownup if you can't do something irresponsible now and then?"

Judith Limone knew they'd made excellent time, leaving Floritas promptly at seven, sailing through Los Angeles on deserted Sunday morning freeways, gliding up Interstate 5 at precisely the speed limit. Punctuality and rules both mattered enormously to Judith, and the fact that this was a vacation was entirely irrelevant.

As principal of Pettigrew Elementary, she had learned that if she expected the best possible performance from her staff, they would invariably deliver. Those who couldn't deliver didn't last, and those who could knew that Judith would back them up against anyone. She had once suspended the son of a state senator for foul language. When the senator stormed into Judith's office, she listened calmly and then, in her best Bryn Mawr tones, repeated the son's vulgarities to his father, verbatim.

"Are we there yet?" Lisa asked, picking up the AAA map and refolding it.

Judith looked over at her daughter in the front passenger seat and smiled. Lisa was a lovely young woman, everything Judith might have hoped for. That she'd become a teacher and moved back to Floritas after graduating from UC Davis was more than icing on the cake. It was icing and whipped cream and chopped pecans and a boatload of cherries.

"About another hour," Judith told her. The older she got, the more Judith prized efficiency. Taking I-5, rather than the older, arguably more scenic Highway 99, had saved them some time, and the slowdown she'd feared going through Sacramento hadn't occurred. "It'll be slower once we're off the freeway, of course."

"Isn't that the point?" Lisa asked. She twisted and stretched, arching her bare feet. Lisa was 26, unattached, an avid environmentalist and an eighth grade history teacher at Floritas Junior High. "Are you sure you don't want me to drive?"

"Positive." Judith glanced over her shoulder into the roomy back seat of the full-sized Buick. "You feeling any better, Mandy?"

In the back seat, Mandy Mosher offered a little moan. "Fine, thanks."

"Did you manage to get any sleep?" Judith was fairly certain that Mandy was pregnant again, and her older boy was only going to be starting kindergarten this fall. Mandy had said many times that if she had any more kids she couldn't afford to keep working, and Judith hated the idea of losing her. Mandy wasn't just a wonderful primary grade teacher. She was also one of Judith's former fourth-grade students and the only Pettigrew alumna ever to join the school's faculty. Having Mandy around was a constant reminder of what teaching was all about. It was also a great deal of fun.

Mandy sighed. "Oh yeah. I've slept plenty. I've been pretty much conked out since Bakersfield."

Lisa turned around. "I tried to wake you up when we stopped for lunch and you said you weren't hungry."

"I did?" Mandy giggled and slapped an ample thigh. "I guess missing a meal won't kill me. Hey, this is pretty territory up here. Are we almost there?"

Lisa laughed. "That's my line. And I think that we're coming up to the Highway 49 cutoff any minute now."

All content © 2005-11 by Taffy Cannon.