In The Company of Deceit

Chapter 11 - Life's Vagaries

Rose Bodine was a thirty-six-year-old divorcee with bottled red hair and eyelashes that kept the dashboard dust free, as she wheeled her Mercedes at a dangerous speed up the highway to Salt Lake. Her friend Megan, at the diner, had made her the proposition to take Edwin with her and after some negotiation, Rose obliged.

Edwin on the other hand reluctantly went along because he needed the transportation, otherwise the price the waitress eventually demanded would never have even been considered let alone paid. Rose glanced over at her passenger and grinned.

"That Megan's a real handful isn't she?"

"It is not something I care to discuss." He stared out the passenger window.

"You're not thinking of reneging on me are you, Edwin?"

His face soured as he turned back toward her. "I am a man of my word, Miss..."

"It's Rose, Edwin. Rose Bodine." She made a small moue.

The rest of the trip was made in silence and when they rolled into Salt Lake it was just after dark. They drove through the spacious streets of downtown and then onto smaller sections of the grid until Rose pulled into the driveway of a small house on a densely treed street away from the busier sections.

"Where are we?" Edwin asked as she shut the engine off and gathered her purse.

"It's a friend's place that I use when I'm in town. She's away in Europe for the season." Rose decided he didn't need to know that this was her real home.

"I need to get transportation to the East Coast."

"Well you won't find that tonight; you can phone the airport─"

"No! No airport. I need a car or another ride."

Rose looked at him in the light of the street lamp and saw the fear on his face.

"Are you running from the law?"

"No." He looked away, clutching his case tighter.

"Listen, I don't need any trouble. I gave you a ride; you were going to... well... I'll take money for the trip and some gas."

"What am I supposed to do now?"

"Pay me what you owe me."

"But I need a place to stay. You said I couldn't do anything tonight."

"Edwin, I got you this far. I don't need trouble in my life. Pay me please and then find the car or the ride you say you need elsewhere."

He looked around at the district and had no idea where he was or what he could do.

"Señorita Bodine, can I stay with you tonight and I will leave first thing in the morning. I will pay you five hundred dollars for this. Por favor?"

"Five hundred dollars!"

"Si. I will pay you now if you let me stay."

Rose climbed out of the car and waved for him to follow as she hurried up the walk to the front door.

******

Ross Cramer strutted around the office of the small newspaper with his ginger hair spilling over his freckled forehead giving him the impression of a Raggedy Andy. Ross had a cousin who worked at the municipal courthouse and he provided all the details of the bus crash and subsequent investigation in exchange for a backstage pass to the live entertainment show taking place at the Utah State Fair Grounds in downtown Salt Lake City.

It was a scoop for the paper and a bonus for Ross. Colleagues jealously gnashed their teeth over his performance; secretly cursing their own lineage for its paucity of well-placed informants. When Mickey read the story in the paper, a freebie for hotel guests, he nearly choked. There were the names of all the passengers and their personal information.

It read: Several passengers aboard the Desert Express Transportation Company bus involved in the horrendous accident on Highway 91 just outside of Levan are feeling lucky today after receiving mainly superficial scratches and abrasions. Two passengers, however, were not so lucky. A Miss Muriel Ashbury-Stark, critical in hospital with severe concussion and a Mister Jose Ramos, who unfortunately was killed. The article went on to name the rest of the passengers and where they were from.

He hurled the paper across the room. "Why me first, for Christ's sake? Why me at all? Jesus, Jesus, Jesus!" His outrage ended in a coughing fit that sent him staggering to the sink for a glass of water. He knew it wouldn't just be in some nickel and dime newspaper; the local and likely the national TV would be carrying it on their news channels.

High Hat would have him pegged again. He dug out his wallet and took out a folded piece of paper that was creased so badly it was separating. He flattened it on the counter and squinted at the address of his aunt's house in Salt Lake. Before his mom died, after his father had walked out, she had given him the address of her sister in Salt Lake and told him to get in touch with her, she would take good care of him and he wouldn't have to go into child services.

Mickey was fifteen and felt he was more than capable of taking care of himself; he didn't need a caregiver aunt. That was then. He got out the phone book and turned to the street guide section, located the street and decided to just split, to heck with the investigation.

Compensation, which he was sure the bus company would be on the hook for, either through ethical behaviour or a class action, would have been a nice extra, but he had plenty, and as his mom always said, greedy never gets.

******

Kate woke slowly, confused as her eyes rotated about the unfamiliar room, then she remembered and sat up staring at the morning sun glaring whitely on the window glass. As she climbed out of bed and padded to the bathroom she was surprised to see it was only seven-thirty and she leaned on the door frame letting her mind go over the previous events.

The bump was still there and sore but she could move some hair around to help hide it; it was the tiny scabs from the scratches that annoyed her. It looked like bugs on her face. She washed and dug out some fresh clothes and dressed, pondering her situation and the curious disappearance of the man with the small suitcase.

Her thoughts stopped at the Belinda/Muriel duo and the contents of their precious luggage and the strange glances Belinda had been tossing his way the whole trip. She turned and went back to the hotel door, opened it and did a silent aha, at finding the free paper. Back on the bed she felt her mystery writer experience surface and she spread the paper out, scanning each page for any news involving recent crimes in Vegas.

The article about the accident caught her eye and she was alarmed to read about Muriel's condition, but like so many of the books and novels she had promoted, the circumstances provided a unique opportunity to get a little closer to Belinda and perhaps, exploiting her theory, even befriend her.

Other news items provided little interest. Just the usual fights over the cost of one thing or another, traffic accidents and political scandals. Was there ever any good news?