Thyme of Death by Susan Wittig Albert

Author:Susan Wittig Albert [Albert, Susan Wittig]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 11

It was nearly five by the time I got back to the shop. Ruby wasn’t back yet, so I sent Laurel next door to close the Cave, while I locked up and checked out my register. When I finished, I made a quick survey next door, paid Laurel for three hours of store-sitting, and went home through the connecting door. I poured myself a sherry and sat down at the kitchen table to think things through, beginning with Violett’s claim that Roz had been in Pecan Springs on Monday.

Violett’s statement wouldn’t be difficult to verify. The airlines usually refused to give out passenger information, so there wasn’t much point in pursuing that tack. But I could call Helen Jenson, a good customer and friend who owned Jenson’s Travel, and ask her to check the flights into both Austin and San Antonio and tell me when Roz had arrived. I glanced at the antique schoolhouse clock that hung over the refrigerator, its pendulum swinging gently. The clock said five-twenty, but it was always ten minutes slow—not bad for a hundred-year-old clock. I should do so well at a hundred. But the agency would be closed already. Anyway, it was Saturday. On Saturday, Helen leaves the agency to Linda Bowles, her second-in-command, and drives ninety miles to Waco to spend the weekend with her elderly mother. I frowned. I wouldn’t be able to get any information from the agency until Monday morning.

If practicing law for fifteen-plus years taught me anything, it was that there was more than one way to skin a cat. Roz had rented a car, mostly likely at the airport, and the car was parked behind the cottage. If it wasn’t locked, I might be able to find the car rental agreement, which would document the day and time she’d rented it.

Not wanting Roz to see me, I took the long way— a right at the comer by the Craft Emporium, a half block, then another right down the alley. The red Buick Century was parked behind the cottage, against its windowless rear wall. I tried the doors. Locked. It looked like I wasn’t going to get my hands on that rental agreement. But there was something else I could get. I copied the name of the car rental company—Ace Car Rental, in San Antonio—from the decal in the rear window. I also copied the license plate number. Then I went back to the house—the long way again—dialed information in San Antonio, and got the number for Ace. So far, so good. But then I struck out.

“I can’t give you that information,” a curt male clerk told me. “Our computer has been down all afternoon. Try again tomorrow morning.” The clerk sighed the resigned sigh of someone used to dealing with recalcitrant computers. “Or tomorrow afternoon. Sometimes it takes a while to get it up again.”

“How about checking your paper files?” I asked.

The voice laughed nastily. “No offense, lady, but I’ve got people lined up from here to the Alamo waiting for cars, and no computer.

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