Twice Dead - Catherine Coulter [184]
She didn’t want to wait. Lily grabbed her purse, her leather jacket, and headed out of the bed-and-breakfast. Mrs. Blade, standing behind the small counter downstairs, waved her on. Lily didn’t know Eureka well, but she knew to go to Wallace Street. A whole bunch of artists lived over in the waterfront section of town, and a couple of them ran art supply stores.
The day was cloudy, nearly cold enough to see your breath, a chilly breeze swirling about in the fallen autumn leaves that strengthened the salty ocean taste when you breathed in. She managed to snag a taxi across the street that was letting off an old man in front of an apartment building.
The driver was Ukrainian, had lived in Eureka for six years, and his high-schooler son liked to doodle, even on toilet paper, he said, which made you wonder what sort of poisoning you could get using that toilet paper. He knew where to go.
It was Sol Arthur’s art supply shop. She was in and out in thirty minutes, smiling from ear to ear as she shifted the wrapped packages in her arms. She had maybe eleven dollars left in her purse—goodness, eleven whole dollars left in the world. She wondered what had happened to her credit cards. She would ask Dillon to deal with it.
She stood on the curb looking up and down the street. No way would a taxi magically appear now even though she was ready to part with another four dollars from her stash. No, no taxi. Such good lightning luck didn’t strike twice. A bus, she thought, watching one slowly huff toward her. The bed-and-breakfast wasn’t all that far from here, and the bus was heading in the right direction. She jaywalked, but not before she was sure that no cars were coming from either direction. There weren’t a whole lot of people on the street.
No Wrinkles Remus is looking particularly handsome and wicked, right there, full-blown in her mind again. He looks annoyed when a colleague hits on a staffer Remus himself fancies; he feels absolute joy when he discovers that the wife of a senator cheated on her husband with one of his former senior aides.
She was singing when the bus—twenty years old if not older, belching smoke—lumbered toward her. She saw the driver, an old coot, grinning at her. He had on headphones and was chair-dancing to the music. Maybe she was the only passenger he’d seen in a while.
She climbed on board, banging her packages about as she found change in her wallet. When she turned to find a seat, she saw that the bus was empty.
“Not many folk out today?”
He grinned at her and pulled off his headphones. She repeated her question. He said, “Nah, all of ’em down at the cemetery for the big burying.”
“Whose big burying?”
“Ferdy Malloy, the minister at the Baptist church. Kicked it last Friday.”
She’d been lying in the hospital last Friday, not feeling so hot.
“Natural causes, I hope?”
“You can think that if you want, but everyone knows that his missus probably booted him to the other side. Tough old broad is Mabel, tougher than Ferdy, and mean. No one dared to ask for an autopsy, and so they’re planting Ferdy in the ground right about now.”
“Well,” Lily said, then couldn’t think of another thing. “Oh, yes, I’m at The Mermaid’s Tail. Do you go near there?”
“Ain’t nobody on board to tell me not to. I’ll take you right to the front door. Watch that third step, though, board’s rotted.”
“Thank you, I’ll be careful.”
The driver put his headphones back on and began bouncing up and down in the seat. He stopped two blocks down, in front of Rover’s Drive-In with the best hamburgers west of the Sillow River, sandwiched next to a storefront that advertised three justices of the peace, who were also notaries, on duty 24/7.
Lily closed her eyes. The bus started up again. No Wrinkles Remus was in her mind again, playing another angle.
“Hey.”
She looked up to see a young man swinging into the seat next to her. He simply lifted off the packages, set them on the seat opposite, and sat down.
For a moment, Lily was simply too surprised to think. She stared at the young man, no older than twenty, his black hair