A String of Beads (Jane Whitefield, #8)(30)

When she arrived in her cab, she paid the driver and said thanks. She watched him drive off, and then she went to the door of the house and rang the bell.

The door opened and a young, trim black woman wearing the pants and blouse from a business suit and an apron stood in the doorway. When she saw Jane she took off the apron, tossed it onto the table by the door, and came out. “I’ll bet you’re Diane Kazanian.”

“Yes,” said Jane. They shook hands.

“I’m Tyler Winters.”

“I hope I’m not interrupting dinner.”

“No,” she said. “I just got home from work a little while ago, and I thought I’d get it into the oven before my husband comes home. I’m free for a while. Ready to see the car?” She reached onto the table and pressed a remote control unit, so the garage door rolled upward.

“Sure,” said Jane. As they walked to the garage she said, “Is the car yours?”

“Not exactly,” Tyler Winters said. “It’s my mom’s. I’m just selling it for her.”

Jane smiled. “I thought not. You seem more like the BMW type.”

The woman laughed. “You got me. I have a Three Series, but I’ve been driving mom’s car for a few days so I could leave it in the company lot with a sign on it. How do you do that—guess the car?”

“I don’t know,” Jane said. “It’s just a knack I guess.”

“Well, you don’t strike me as the type for a six-year-old Chevy Malibu either.”

“Normally I wouldn’t seek it out,” said Jane. “But right now for work I need a small, reliable car that doesn’t catch the eye. I don’t want the car somebody would pick out in a parking lot to rob. I’m in pharmaceutical sales, and it’s much safer not to drive that car.”

“Then I think you’ve come to the right place.” She led Jane to the garage. The Chevy Malibu was a nondescript gray with cloth seats and the standard interior, but it was clean and shiny, without any nicks or dents, and the tires looked nearly new. Jane leaned close to the window. The interior was spotless. She said, “What’s the mileage?”

Tyler handed her the key. “You have to turn it on to read it.”

Jane sat in the driver’s seat and turned the key, then said, “One hundred and two thousand, two oh three.”

“Would you like to drive it?”

“Love to.”

Jane waited for her to get into the passenger seat, and then tested the headlights while it was still in the garage and she could see the two bright spots on the garage wall, backed out, and drove it up the street. “Your mother took great care of it.”

“Yes,” said Tyler. “My husband helped her, but she’s always been careful with things. This is just like the car I learned to drive on, and she kept that one for twelve years. We couldn’t talk her into letting us buy her a new one until I volunteered to sell the old one for her.”

“She drives a hard bargain,” said Jane.

“She sure does. But she’s getting old, and I’d just feel better if she had something new instead of waiting for some part to go.”

“Your ad said four thousand.”

“I’m willing to bargain a little, but that’s what my husband thinks is fair.”

“I’ll take it.”

“Really?”

“I like it,” said Jane. “And I think your husband is probably right about the price. Now what? Should we go see your mother to have her sign it over?”

Tyler said, “Uh, this is kind of awkward, but—”

“You want cash?”

“I’m sorry,” Tyler said. “But we don’t know you, and—”

“I brought cash. I assumed nobody wants to take a personal check from somebody who just arrived in town and answered an ad.”

“Great,” said Tyler. “My mother has already signed the pink slip, and a bill of sale. I just have to fill in the amount and hand it over. You can take the car right away.”

Ten minutes later, Jane had a car with the appropriate papers, traceable with great difficulty to a woman named Kazanian, whose last address was in Illinois, but who had no physical residence on earth. Jane drove her car out onto the street again, and made a few stops at stores. By the time she returned to the hotel she was very pleased with her purchases.

When she opened the door of the hotel suite, Jimmy stood and went outside to help her bring in four grocery bags and a few bags from clothing stores. They loaded the food into the refrigerator, and then opened the clothing bags.

Jimmy looked at the clothes she had bought him. He held up a sport jacket, and then looked at a pair of shoes, a pair of dress slacks, and a pile of shirts in their packages. “Thanks so much. These are really nice, but you know, I don’t usually wear stuff like this.”

“I can’t think of a better reason to start,” Jane said. “So now you do.”

“Why?”

“For a lot of reasons,” she said. “One I just told you. The people who are searching for you are looking for a guy who wears T-shirts in the summer, sweat shirts and puffy jackets in the winter, hoodies in the spring and fall. He goes to places where that’s what everybody is wearing.”