Nothing to Lose (J.P. Beaumont #25)(26)

If I had been billing a client, I might have had second thoughts, but seeing as how the only person I might have to answer to was Mel and since getting a driver had been her bright idea in the first place, that sounded like a fair deal.

“How soon can you be here?” I asked.

“Fifteen minutes work for you?”

“Sure,” I said.

“Wait inside,” she said. “I’ll pull up out front.”

“How will I know it’s you?”

“Oh, you’ll know me all right,” she said with a short laugh followed by a surprisingly serious cough. “By the way,” she added once the cough subsided, “if you’ve got sunglasses, you’d better bring them along.”

“Sunglasses?” I echoed, thinking she was pulling my leg. When I’d been packing to leave dreary Bellingham for wintertime Anchorage, the idea of bringing along sunglasses hadn’t occurred to me. And since it was still mostly dark outside, the idea of wearing sunglasses seemed laughable.

“Sun’ll be out later,” the woman warned. “Believe me, if you don’t have sunglasses on you, you’ll wish you did. And be sure to dress warmly. The heater core’s toast. I’ve got the part on order, but it’s coming from someplace in Pennsylvania and taking forever.”

That sounded ominous. The desk clerk had said TW’s services were “nothing fancy,” but it seemed to me that having a functioning heater inside a vehicle for hire in wintertime Anchorage should be mandatory rather than optional. I took her advice to heart, however. Because I’d been on my way out, I was already wearing my boots and had my coat and mittens with me. During my fifteen-minute wait, I went into the gift shop and invested in a knit cap and a scarf along with the suggested pair of sunglasses.

The garage exit might still be an issue, but someone had shoveled the front driveway. I was standing next to the sliding doors at the entrance a few minutes later when a brown-and-yellow seventies-something vintage International Harvester Travelall pulled up outside. A snowplow attachment of some kind, also painted bright yellow, occupied the spot where the front bumper should have been. A blue tarp lashed to a luggage rack on top covered what appeared to be an extensive collection of various-size boxes. Snowplow aside, it was the kind of vehicle I might have expected to encounter either when setting off on a desert safari or else lined up on display at an antique car show.

The woman who hopped down from the driver’s side and came around to greet me was a tall, ruddy-cheeked, salt-and-pepper brunette, probably somewhere in her early sixties. Her burly build would have made her a respectable lineman on any college football team, and I suspected that any overly enthusiastic male who attempted to get out of line with her would end up on the floor and wishing he hadn’t in short order.

She was dressed like a lumberjack, complete with a plaid flannel shirt and a voluminous Carhartt jacket that appeared to be several decades older than my puffy blue parka. My pull-on boots had been brand-new and fresh-out-of-the box that morning. Hers were well-worn metal-toed lace-up work boots, and the only perfume in the air surrounding her was the thick scent of cigarette smoke that permeated her hair and clothing.

“Mr. Beaumont?” she asked, holding out a rough, chapped hand and offering a disturbingly firm handshake.

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, “and you are?”

“Twinkle Winkleman,” she replied.

The name struck my funny bone, but I had the good sense to keep my expression as stone-faced as hers.

“Most folks call me Twink,” she continued. “My old man was like that jerk who named his poor son Sue, and he’s the one who stuck me with that handle when I was born—said he thought it was cute. I’ve cussed him about that every day of my life since I first set foot in kindergarten, but since he was also the guy who gave me Maude back there,” she added, gesturing with her head in the direction of the idling Travelall, “I guess it pretty much evens out in the long run. Shall we? You want to ride in the front or in the back?”

I could have told her I didn’t like my given names any better than she did hers. Rather than go into any of that, I simply answered her question.

“Front,” I said, and Twink held the passenger door open for me, allowing me to clamber up onto the front bench seat. It wasn’t a short step by any means, and as I settled in and fastened my seat belt, I muttered a mental thanks to Dr. Ault, the orthopedic surgeon who had installed my two fake knees. Fortunately, they worked flawlessly. I could only hope that the same held true for Twinkle Winkleman’s aging Travelall.

With what looked like eighteen inches of snow on the ground, I didn’t want to be stuck outside walking around, no matter how good my new knees were. On that score my Irish wolfhound, Sarah, and I were on exactly the same page.





Chapter 11




Twink Winkleman heaved herself onto her side of the tattered bench seat, fastened her seat belt, and then held out her hand. “Cash or credit card?” she asked.

I dug out my credit card. Twink might have been driving an antique vehicle, but her iPhone was up to date, and it came equipped with one of those little Square credit-card readers. “Whole day or half?” she wanted to know.

What the hell? I thought. Since I had at least three people I needed to track down in an unfamiliar city where road conditions were less than optimal, having a driver who knew her way around seemed like a good idea, so I went for it. “Make it the whole day,” I said.