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  I slapped my hands over my ears. “No. I won’t listen to your ridiculous theory.”

  “What if Sissy decides to make Rocky’s death look the same as Tim’s? But she can’t kill him that way. He has a phobia about having anything around his neck. So she goes to his trailer, gets him drunk and stoned.” Conahegg waved at the report. “If you’ll notice he had not only alcohol and marijuana in his bloodstream but Valium, as well.”

  I thought of my mother’s Valium prescription. Could Sissy have stolen a few pills and done exactly as Conahegg suggested?

  Impossible.

  “When Rocky’s out like a light, Sissy smothers him with a pillow. Except, he rouses and tries to fight her. She grabs the nearest thing that’s handy. I figure it’s the bedside lamp, there’s a chip knocked out of the base. She beans him on the noggin. When he stops struggling, she finishes the job. She ties one end of the belt around his neck and knots the other end around the bedpost and then she kicks him off the bed, breaking his neck.”

  I caught my breath. It sounded so plausible. Yet if I knew anything, I knew my sister was not a killer.

  But then why had she run away? I remembered the night she told me about the near rape. How desperate she’d seemed.

  “There are any number of people who could have killed Rocky. Why have you zeroed in on my sister?”

  “She’s the most promising suspect. And there are those fingerprints.”

  “But she was his girlfriend. Is it so unrealistic that her fingerprints would be in his bedroom?”

  “On the belt?”

  I felt my stomach go empty and the color drain from my face only to be immediately replaced by searing anger.

  “You bastard,” I said, springing to my feet. “You’re using everything I told you in confidence on that camping trip against my sister.” I couldn’t believe Conahegg was betraying me. The man I lusted after. The man I’d kissed.

  “That’s not true,” Conahegg said.

  “Bullshit! You’re using it to build a case against Sissy.”

  “Be reasonable. It’s my job to search for suspects.”

  “You didn’t even believe me when I first told you there was something suspicious about Rocky’s death.”

  “I believe you now.”

  “This is crazy.” I shook my head.

  “You’re upset, that’s perfectly understandable.” I leaned across his desk and jammed my finger under his arrogant nose. “Don’t you dare try to placate me with platitudes.”

  “I wish you would calm down.”

  “And I wish you’d never come back home to Cloverleaf.” He said nothing for a moment. My anger thrust hard against the inside of my chest making it difficult to breathe, impossible to think rationally.

  I had confided in him and he had broken my trust. I should have known better. He was a cop for heaven’s sake. What had I been thinking?

  “How do you know it wasn’t me?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “Maybe I killed Rocky.”

  “You didn’t.” He shook his head.

  “How can you be so sure? I disliked him.”

  “You have no motive.”

  “He was mistreating my sister, stealing things from my house.”

  “You never told me that.”

  “I told you too damned much.”

  “Look, I know what you’re doing, but it’s not going to work. Sissy’s fingerprints are on that belt, not yours. And she’s missing. You’re here. For once in your life stop taking the blame for other people. Stop trying to cover up for your family. When are you going to realize that you’re not responsible for what they do.”

  “You don’t understand. You don’t have a family who depends on you.”

  “I understand more than you think I do,” he countered.

  I didn’t know what he was talking about and frankly, I didn’t care.

  “Sistine is my sister,” I murmured, suddenly the anger was gone and only sadness remained in its place.

  “Ally, you’re entitled to your feelings, but I called you over here to let you know face-to-face. I have issued a warrant for Sissy’s arrest. For murder in the first degree.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  IF CONAHEGG was convinced my sister was guilty, clearly I had no choice. I had to find out the truth about what happened to Rockerfeller Hughes on my own. I would not allow my sister to spend her life in prison because some good-looking misguided sheriff had gotten the notion in his thick skull that Sissy was a killer.

  Honestly, I felt a little betrayed by Conahegg. I mean, I know it’s his job and if the evidence points to Sissy, then he had to consider her a suspect. But after kissing him, I’d secretly hoped deep down inside that maybe we’d get together. His prevailing attitude ended any chance of advancing our relationship.

  Ah well. It wasn’t as if I wasn’t used to being manless.

  I had to forget Conahegg. More pressing matters required my attention. Like where and how to start my investigation? Just call me Gumshoe Ally.

  Should I start with Darlene Hughes? I wasn’t a private detective; I had no idea how to find her.

  After spending a near-sleepless night wrestling with the questions, I called in sick to work the following morning. Since I had never taken sick leave in the seven years I’d been employed by Joyce, she didn’t give me a hard time.

  “What are you up to, Ally?” Aunt Tessa asked me. Apparently, she’d been standing in the doorway listening to me lie badly to Joyce. My aunt was dressed in a silky blue caftan, feathered matching mules and enough crystal jewelry to choke the whole of Sedona, Arizona.

  I hadn’t yet broken the news to her and Mama about the charges Conahegg had leveled against Sissy. I’d been trying to protect them, but I realized I was going to have to tell them the truth and even ask for their help. Someone would have to look after Denny while I was gadding about town in search of suspects.

  “Bring Mama in here,” I said. “I’ve got something to tell you both.”

  “More bad news.” Aunt Tessa nodded. “I knew it.” She trotted out to the pottery shed and retrieved Mama, who was covered in flecks of paint.

  “What is it, dear?” she asked.

  I told them about Sissy and the murder charge. Mama stared at me for the longest moment. I ran to stand beside her in case she was going to faint. But she shocked me by squaring her shoulders and looking me straight in the eye.

  “Sissy didn’t kill Rocky.”

  “I know that.”

  “You’ve got to prove it to Sheriff Conahegg.”

  “I know that, too.”

  Then my mother said something I rarely heard her say, “Let me help.”

  “What?”

  “I’ll try to find Sissy.”

  “But how?”

  “I’ll visit her friends, stop by the beauty shop.”

  “Really?” My mouth had dropped to the floor.

  “Your sister needs me.”

  A recent voice in the back of my head sniggered, “You needed her for years,” but I let it go. Mama had risen to the occasion and I couldn’t be more proud.

  “I’ll take Denny to spend some time with his friend, Braxton,” Mama continued, “so we won’t have to worry about him.”

  Stunned, I simply nodded. “Thanks, Mama.”

  She smiled faintly. “You’re welcome.”

  Then it dawned on me. Conahegg was right. Mama needed to be needed. All these years I’d been taking care of her because I thought she was so fragile and helpless. I’d had it all wrong. Was Mama’s dependency mostly my fault? If I hadn’t been so strong, so capable, would she have risen to the occasion long ago? It was a real eye-opener.

  “I’ll change clothes,” Mama said. “And call Braxton’s mother to see if it’s okay if Denny spends the night.” I nodded and eased down at the kitchen table still amazed at the transformation in my mother.

  Aunt Tessa sat beside me and placed her long lacquered fingernails on my arm. I noticed the paint had
chipped. She needed Sissy to come home and give her a fresh manicure. That thought made me feel sad. A lump formed in my throat.

  “I had a vision,” she whispered. “You’re walking into danger.”

  No shit, Sherlock. “Aunt Tessa…”

  “You need protection. Let me come with you.”

  “You don’t even know where I’m going,” I said, wanting to protect her.

  “To see Darlene Hughes.”

  I stared. “How did you know that?”

  “You’ll take me with you?”

  “No.”

  “Please. I can be a big help.”

  “It’s not a good idea.”

  “I know where she lives,” Aunt Tessa enticed me.

  “You do?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And you’re not going to tell me if I don’t take you along.” I sighed.

  “That’s right.” She gave me a rakish smile.

  I thought of Mama again. I met Aunt Tessa’s gaze and I have to admit it was nice to know I wasn’t shouldering the burden alone. “Let’s go.”

  Aunt Tessa directed me to the grungiest part of Cloverleaf, not too far from the sheriff’s department. We had to pass it on the way but unlike other occasions, I had no desire to stop in and see Sam Conahegg.

  We parked outside a small frame house with peeling paint and a litter of broken kids’ toys in the front yard. Did Rocky have children? I shuddered at the thought.

  I knocked several times before the front door opened to reveal Darlene, her eyes caked with sleep, a Marlboro dangling from her bottom lip, a pair of mismatched socks on her size ten feet.

  “Oh.” She yawned and scratched a breast clothed in a stained and faded T-shirt proclaiming: Stardust Casino, Loosest slots in Vegas. “It’s you two.”

  “May we come in?”

  “What for?” she asked, keeping the ripped screen door closed between us.

  “We want to talk to you about Rocky.”

  “There’s nothing to say.”

  “We know where the money is,”

  Aunt Tessa said.

  I looked at her.

  Aunt Tessa shrugged.

  Darlene threw the door wide. “Come on in. Don’t mind the mess.”

  We stepped over beer cans, more broken toys, empty pizza boxes. She swung an arm at the couch, knocking off a pile of debris. “Have a seat,” she said, then plopped her backside into a purple Naugahyde Barcalounger.

  Tentatively, Aunt Tessa and I settled on the edge of the couch.

  “You found out where Rocky hid that money?” she asked, fishing a lighter from the breast pocket of her T-shirt and setting fire to the end of her cigarette.

  “What we want to know,” I said, “is where the money came from.”

  “Beats me,” Darlene said and blew a cloud of smoke in our direction. Aunt Tessa coughed delicately. “But I wantcha both to know that’s my money. Rocky was still married to me when he died and Texas is a community property state. He was my husband,” she said. “And I loved him.”

  “Darlene,” a man’s voice bellowed from the back of the house. “Who the hell was at the door?”

  “Nobody. Go back to sleep.”

  I looked at my watch. It was ten o’clock in the morning. “Loved Rocky a lot, did you?” I couldn’t resist asking.

  “Oh, you mean Hank? Don’t worry about him. He’s just my boyfriend.”

  Lovely.

  “Listen, Darlene—” I leaned forward, ad-libbing as I went along “—let me be straight with you. My sister Sistine has the money and it seems she’s left town. We can’t give it to you until we find her. But in order to find Sistine, we need to know where the money came from.”

  “I just got out of prison, lady. I hadn’t seen Rocky in thirteen months till you caught us kissing in his hospital room.”

  “But surely he told you what he was up to. How he expected to get money.”

  “Actually,” Darlene said, gnawing at a cuticle, “he tried to borrow three thousand dollars off me.” She swept a hand at her surroundings. “Does it look like I got that kinda dough?”

  No, it did not.

  “You’re holding out on us, Darlene.”

  “What makes you think I’d tell you anything, anyway?” she asked.

  Greed.

  “You’d like to see justice done.”

  “What are you talking about?” Darlene narrowed her eyes at me.

  “Rocky didn’t kill himself while choking the chicken.”

  “No?”

  “He was murdered.”

  If I expected her to be surprised, I was wrong. Darlene didn’t bat an eyelash. She picked a fleck of tobacco off her tongue and flicked it onto the floor. “Is that right?”

  “According to the coroner’s report.”

  “Well, what do you know.”

  “Where were you on the night Rocky died?” I asked, not really knowing what I was doing but finding myself swept away by an unexpected excitement.

  “You’re not going to pin this one on me, sister. I was at an all-night AA meeting. With plenty of witnesses. Here. I’ll give you my sponsor’s phone number.” She reached over, tore a hunk from an envelope lying on the lamp table next to her and wrote down the information for me.

  Damn. There went a suspect. Of course, I’d have to check out her story. I had a feeling Darlene wasn’t opposed to lying if it served her purposes.

  “Are you certain you have no idea what Rocky was involved in?”

  “Nope.”

  “Liar!”

  Aunt Tessa, who had remained silent through the interrogation spoke. Except it wasn’t Aunt Tessa but Ung. My aunt, glaring like the wrath of God, pointed at Darlene with a three-inch-long fingernail.

  “Hey,” Darlene said. “She’s doing that thing she did the other day at your house.”

  “She’s channeling her spirit guide,” I explained.

  “I know all. I see all. You lie,” said Ung.

  “Make her stop,” Darlene whined and hugged herself.

  “I can’t. She’s not an attack dog.”

  “Those who lie rot in hell with the damned!” Ung’s voice was deep and gravelly as a rusted chain. She got to her feet and moved toward Darlene in jerky, Frankenstein’s monster movements.

  I was worried she was going to catch the heel of her mules on the rubble-riddled floor. But she seemed to step effortlessly over the crap as if in a perfectly choreographed ballet.

  “Worms will eat the flesh from your skull. Maggots will feed on your brains,” Ung intoned.

  Sometimes Ung comes on pretty strong.

  Darlene lifted her hands in front of her face. “Okay, okay, I’ll tell you the truth, just get her out of here.”

  I stood and placed a restraining hand on Aunt Tessa’s arm. “Spill it.”

  “I think Rocky was blackmailing someone.”

  “Who?” I demanded.

  “I don’t know for sure. Maybe Dooley Marchand. Maybe one of the sheriff’s deputies.”

  “Liar!” Ung screeched.

  Darlene cowered. “I’m not lying. Honest.”

  “I believe you,” I said. “Thanks for the info.”

  “Hey,” Darlene said as I took Aunt Tessa’s hand and guided her toward the door.

  “Yes?”

  “When do I get my money?”

  “SO,” AUNT TESSA SAID, fluffing her hair with one hand. “Did I do good or what?”

  “You were faking Ung?”

  “Uh-huh.” She giggled.

  I slanted her a glance. “Do you always fake Ung?”

  “Why, Allegheny Green, I don’t believe you asked me that.” Aunt Tessa sniffed and stared out the window. “I am a true and honest psychic.”

  “Okay, I apologize.”

  “And you wouldn’t have gotten that much from Darlene without me.”

  “That’s probably true. Thank you.”

  I looked at my aunt. Had I been ignoring a resource right under my nose? “Aunt Tessa, do yo
u really think Ung could help us find Sissy?”

  “Of course.”

  “Do you think you might be able to contact Ung?”

  “I can try.”

  Ung could be fickle, showing up when she wanted to, ignoring requests when she wasn’t in the mood.

  I hesitated, not knowing how to ask this next question. “Do you think you can contact Rocky?”

  “You mean from the grave?”

  No, from eating peanut butter and banana sandwiches with Elvis at Graceland. “Can you do it?”

  “I thought you didn’t believe in afterlife readings.”

  “Hey,” I said, “it’s better than nothing.”

  When we got home, Mama gave us a report. She’d gotten Denny organized and taken him over to his friend’s house. Then she’d gone by the beauty shop but no one there had seen Sissy in a while. She’d tried a few of Sissy’s friends but no one claimed to know where she was.

  Aunt Tessa told Mama about the séance and she insisted on being included. We entered Aunt Tessa’s parlor and drew the curtains. Mama lit the special candles Aunt Tessa used for enticing spirits. The strong scent filled the room and made me want to sneeze. Aunt Tessa seated herself in a plump straight-backed armchair like a queen on her throne.

  Mama and I sat around the antique lacquered table that Aunt Tessa and her second husband, Robert—an eccentric inventor who’d been struck by lightning while trying to perfect his aluminum water skis—had picked up in Hong Kong back in the early seventies. The three of us clasped hands and Aunt Tessa began preparations for her trance.

  Aunt Tessa closed her eyes, took several deep cleansing breaths and started her ritual incantation.

  She chanted for a few minutes, then abruptly, she sat up straight and her eyes flew open. Her grip on my hand tightened.

  “He is here,” Aunt Tessa said in Ung’s voice, staring at someone I could not see.

  “Who’s here?” I asked.

  “Man with name of rock.” Being twenty-five-thousand-years-old limited Ung’s vocabulary.

  “Rocky?”

  Aunt Tessa nodded.

  I couldn’t help it. I craned my neck and looked around the room. Nothing. No strange breeze blowing out the candles, no prickly sensation on the back of my neck, no ghostly whispers.

  “Can we talk to him?” I ventured.

  “Speak,” Ung invited.