Courage Begins: A Ray Courage Mystery Novella Read online

award with one of the bosses sitting at the table.”

  She paused a moment, as if trying to bring up the memory. “Oh, yeah, I was. I’d almost forgotten.”

  “Do you work closely with him?”

  “Garrett?”

  “Yes.”

  “No, not at all. At least not now. Back then, more, because I worked out of the Fair Oaks office. That’s the main office.”

  Our conversation shifted to the house again. The price. The neighborhood. Whether I’d been interested in having her list my house if I decided to make an offer on this place.

  “You know,” I said. “When I think back, I remember how excited you were. Understandably, that’s a big award. But Garrett seemed to be a little, I don’t know, surprised or unaware that you won.”

  She laughed. “That’s funny you say that. I remember talking about it with my husband later that night. Garrett had been so distant all evening. Not connecting with any of us at the table, and we were all Bate Real Estate employees. Then he gave that hilarious speech. It was a funny night. And I’ll never forget winning the award in front of all my peers.”

  “Real Estate Agent of the Year. And now, here you are showing me a house.”

  “Yes. Now how much are you willing to offer?”

  I told her I would think about it. She pushed a little bit, displaying the sales skill that enabled her to win Real Estate Agent of the Year, and drive an Acura Legend, but backed off when I told her I was late for work.

  My supervisor, Alex Melia, greeted me warmly when I knocked on his open office door at Cal Farm Insurance later that morning. He invited me inside and I sat, once again, in the chair across from his desk.

  “How’s the Bate investigation going?”

  “You were right about his alibi. That seems almost impossible to disprove.”

  “Yeah, that’s the deal breaker, isn’t it? Give it another day or two. It was unfair of me to give you one of our toughest cases your first day on the job. If you want, I can give you something else instead. I have a customer slip-and-fall at Big Bag Super Store that looks bogus. You could work with the lead investigator on that one, if you’d prefer.”

  Riding shotgun on a department store claim would be an easier way to rack up time and experience. I needed the hours to earn my license, and it didn’t matter how I got them, but I wasn’t a quitter. “No thanks. I have my teeth sunk into this one. And I don’t feel like letting go of it—at least not yet.”

  “Let’s give it a couple more days. If nothing shakes loose by then, I’ll give you a new assignment.”

  9

  “Did you find out anything?” I asked when Rubia answered the phone at the Say Hey.

  “You need to work on your conversational management skills. A simple ‘hey’ or ‘hi’ is customary when I answer and say, ‘you’ve reached the Say Hey.’”

  “Conversational management. I can’t believe you remembered something from your communication studies days. Very impressive.”

  “It’s one of the four skills in constructivism theory.”

  “Now you’re just showing off.”

  “And all this time you thought I was sleeping in your classes.”

  “I’m sure you were.”

  “Want me to rattle off the other three skills?”

  “No. Now what did you find about Candy?”

  “Candy Cane,” she said. “You gotta like that name. Sweet and curvy and melts in your mouth. Very creative.”

  “Don’t embarrass me.”

  “I think I already did.”

  “I’m waiting.”

  “Real name is Mandi Coupland. Twenty-five years old. Lives in midtown. She’s working on a PhD in astrophysics and nuclear engineering.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “No, just messing with you. She’s pretty much a fulltime stripper, though she’s taking one class at City College in cosmetology.”

  “How’d you find this out?”

  “I know a guy who knows a bouncer at Showtime Starlets. Candy mainly works there but sometimes goes on the road for better paying gigs. San Francisco, Reno, sometimes Vegas.”

  “She’s honing her craft.”

  “Yeah, honing her craft. I’ll have to remember that one, professor.”

  “Did you get an address?”

  “Cost me twenty bucks, but yes.”

  “I’ll pay you back.”

  “Damn straight.” She gave me the midtown address.

  I headed to 28th Street, arriving at the Elms Apartments, a three-story complex built in a square with a swimming pool in the middle. It was nicely landscaped and well maintained. From the numbers on the apartments I passed on the ground floor, I guessed Mandi Coupland’s place was probably on the far side of the pool, on the third floor.

  A female voice floated through the door when I knocked. “Who is it?”

  I held up my Cal Farm business card to the peephole. “Ray Courage, ma’am, with Cal Farm Insurance. I was hoping you might have a couple of minutes to answer some questions.”

  A lock clicked and the door opened about four inches, the door chain drawn tight just below her chin. “What kind of questions? I didn’t file a claim or anything.”

  “Oh, it’s nothing to do with you personally—”

  “If it’s nothing to do with me personally, then why are you here?”

  “Well, maybe a little bit. I wanted to talk to you about Garrett Bate.”

  She shut the door, and I thought she was blowing me off. But a second later I heard the chain slide and the door opened. “Come in.”

  The apartment was well appointed with butter yellow walls in the living and dining areas. The living room was tidy and tasteful—a leather couch and two wicker armchairs, a glass-top coffee table between them. A small alcove inset on one wall provided space for a television, stereo speakers, and a flower arrangement. Not what I expected of a stripper; though, I had to admit, the chrome dancing pole in the living room and flashing strobe lights I’d anticipated were a bit farfetched.

  “Very nice,” I said of the apartment, settling into one of the wicker chairs, dashing the pole imagery from my mind.

  She didn’t look like someone who made a living taking her clothes off in her white socks, blue jeans, and baggy green sweater. I supposed I imagined her opening the door wearing a lacy red bra and a thong. I admonished myself for stereotyping exotic dance professionals and their taste in furnishings and clothing.

  Mandi sat on the couch, both feet firmly on the floor as she leaned forwards. She had a “don’t bullshit me” face, someone who’d seen it all, heard it all, done it all, and who had little sympathy for anybody not recognizing.

  “How do you know I dated Garrett Bate?”

  “It was in our file.”

  She raised an eyebrow. It was never good to be in a file. “Why are you asking about Garrett?”

  “Do you still see him?”

  Her eyes narrowed and her nostrils flared. “That bastard. No, I don’t see him anymore. Not for over a year now.”

  “If you don’t mind my asking, why did you two break things off?”

  “Ask him. He just called me one day and said it was over. Out of the blue. Didn’t give me a good reason, but I think he was just tired of me and decided to throw me away. He was like that. He’d be all in to something, like a new band, or a restaurant, or whatever. Then, after a little while, he wouldn’t want anything to do with it. Like for example, he got all in to the Kings, bought season tickets three rows from the court. Cost a fortune. We go to four games and all of sudden, he says one day, ‘I hate basketball’ and stops going. Doesn’t even sell the tickets. Just lets them go to waste.”

  I didn’t know a lot about Garrett, but her characterization didn’t surprise me. “Do you mind if I ask how long you two dated?”

  “You never answered my question. Why are you asking about Garrett?”

  “It’s an insurance matter regarding his wife.”

  “Tiffanie? He hated that bit
ch. There’s another example right there. When Garrett met me at the club and asked me out, I told him no way because he was married. He said he was going to leave her and wanted to be with me. Can’t believe I fell for it.”

  “How long ago was that?”

  She paused to think, rubbing her chin with her thumb and forefinger. “Must have been close to three years ago.”

  “So you were dating when his wife died?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “Was Garrett noticeably upset when she died?”

  She laughed. “He was pumped, are you kidding me? He said a divorce was going to cost him at least a million dollars and it wasn’t fair. Part of me feels sorry for her. Maybe she wasn’t as bad as Garrett let on.”

  “Let’s talk about the divorce. Had Garrett taken any steps to divorce her?” Nothing in our files indicated that he had.

  “No. He just used that line on me to get in my pants. He never even talked to a lawyer as far as I know. But Tiffanie had. At least that’s what Garrett said.”

  “Tiffanie had started divorce proceedings?”

  “I don’t think she actually filed anything. He said that she told him she was going to.”

  I nodded and leaned forwards in the chair. Tiffanie might have sentenced herself to death the day she told Garrett of her intentions to divorce.

  “Did you know that Garrett had taken out a life insurance policy on his wife for a million and a half dollars?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Is there anything else you can tell me about Garrett and Tiffanie?”

  “I knew he was pissed at her for sleeping with some guy up in Tahoe. She’d slip up to their vacation home a couple of times a month and do this guy. Thought Garrett didn’t know. But he did.”

  “Did Tiffanie know about you?”

  Mandi shook her head. “No, we were discreet. I didn’t want to be that woman.”

  I thought about how to respond, knowing whatever discretion she’d practiced prior to Tiffanie’s death stopped shortly after it.

  “I know what you’re thinking. A stripper dating a wealthy married man. I already was that woman. But at the time, I believed he was going to divorce her, and what Garrett and I had was real.”

  I believed her. I did. “Last question. Did Garrett ever say anything about killing his wife? Either before or after she died?”

  She was silent for a long time. “He never said anything, but I thought about that as soon as it happened. Part of me thought he did it. That was when things were good between us, so I wouldn’t let my mind go there. Now, yeah, I think it’s possible. Like I said, he gets bored with things real fast and throws them away.”

  10

  Instinctively, I believed Garrett Bate to be guilty of killing his wife. His alibi made that belief misguided, even foolish. The character of the man emerging during my brief investigation was of someone far from likeable. That didn’t make him a murderer.

  Amanda Bate seemed like a good person to talk to if I was going to understand her son. Always a shameless hussy, I’d capitalize on the spark of attraction that seemed to fly from her when we met earlier. At least, I hoped it was a spark of attraction and not a post-menopausal hot flash.

  Truth be told, I didn’t reveal to her I worked for Cal Farm Insurance, offering only that we’d met the day before in the parking lot, and I thought she might help with my real estate needs. Yes, I drew out the word “needs” to give it an extra syllable and a shot of throatiness. Like I said, hussy.

  We agreed to meet at eight o’clock that evening at Arden Hills Tennis Club, where she had a regular weeknight match. She’d put my name on the guest list at the private club. I sat at a table in the bar and sipped a Bass Ale from a glass, waiting for her. The interior looked more like what you’d find at an upscale restaurant than a tennis club, the bar constructed of dark, heavy wood topped with white marble. Large original paintings adorned the walls, and every table featured a bouquet of fresh-cut flowers.

  She arrived about a quarter past the hour, wearing a gray tennis skirt that fell well above mid-thigh and a short sleeved, sunset patterned top in which the zipper had been pulled down to her cleavage. Even at her age, she had a figure that would turn heads.

  “Sorry I’m late. I was playing a challenge match for the club rankings and we had to go to tiebreaker. Took forever.”

  “Did you win?”

  She smiled at me and put a hand on my forearm sitting atop the table. “Darling, I always win.” She winked, a gesture suggesting she was either kidding or serious. I didn't know her enough to distinguish which. “I’m so glad you called.” She kept her hand on my arm.

  After setting the date to meet her, I’d spent all day trying to figure out how to play it with her, coming up with no good ideas. “Can I get you something to drink?” That was as far as my planning had gone.

  “Vodka gimlet, double, straight up. Just tell the bartender to pour my usual and he’ll know.”

  I returned with the stemmed gimlet glass in hand.

  She sucked down half of it in two swallows and turned her attention to me. “How do you know Garrett?”

  “I don’t really. We ran into each other in the parking lot and started chatting. That’s when we saw you.”

  “I remember.” She patted my forearm.

  I smiled at her and drank some of my beer. “It was a shame what happened to his wife.”

  Her face slowly dissolved from upbeat and flirtatious, to something else altogether. She cast her eyes down and pressed her lips together. “I’m sorry. That still breaks my heart. To be taken at such a young age.” She dabbed at a tear with her index finger.

  We sat quietly for several seconds. “I certainly know how to throw cold water on a pleasant conversation,” I said. “Let’s change the subject.”

  “Good idea. So you said you’re looking to make a move in the real estate market? Are you planning to relocate from where you are? Or are you a speculator?”

  I didn’t want to play the same game with her as I had with Gracie Nixon. I didn’t mind being a little deceitful, but I wanted to at least give the deceived a different line of bullshit. Even us shameless hussies have standards. “Let’s not talk business, not yet, anyway. I also thought it would be nice to meet you socially.”

  “Here’s to that.” She raised her glass and took another big swallow, leaving only a remnant of vodka and lime juice.

  “Another?”

  “Sure.” She polished off the rest of the drink.

  I ordered a drink for her and another Bass for me. This time we clinked glasses.

  “So, I don’t know a thing about you, other than you were talking to Garrett yesterday. Who are you, Ray Courage?”

  I gave her a true rundown of my biography up to, and including, my retirement from Sacramento State. At the moment, I told her, I was between careers, but was enjoying my retirement until I figured out the next stage in my life.

  She nodded and raised her glass to me. “To your next stage.”

  “Now it’s your turn. Tell me about you.”

  “Short version or long version?”

  “Long version will give us more time to drink.”

  “Here, here.” She raised her glass again, and I reciprocated.

  She was born and raised in Sacramento, married her high school sweetheart, divorced her high school sweetheart after fifteen years of marriage, and never wanted to tie the knot again. “I like men, don’t get me wrong,” she said with a wink. “But I don’t ever again want the pressure of making someone else happy day in and day out.”

  The comment gave me pause. Maybe that was why I’d never become a successful entrepreneur, real estate tycoon, or corporate executive. I lacked the drive to put business before family. I enjoyed making my wife, Pam, happy; cherishing the moments I could cook her dinner or surprise her with a gift or special night. I believed in my heart Pam felt the same. God, I missed her.

  Amanda continued her story. After she and her husband graduated
from Sac State, they started working for Coldwell Banker Real Estate before opening Bate Real Estate five years later. “We were successful right from the start. Maybe too successful. We both became addicted to the business, and before long, we started neglecting each other. We divorced when Garrett was twelve.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She waved off my comment. “Long time ago.”

  “Where’s your ex-husband now?”

  “They moved to Salem. Up in Oregon. My ex had some contacts up there and thought it would be a good place to start a new real estate business. We agreed it would be best for one of us to leave town so we weren’t in competition. He graciously agreed to be the one to leave. He’s a big golfer, and there are lots of good courses around Salem. So it’s been a perfect fit for him.”

  “You said ‘they’ moved to Salem. Who are they?”

  “My husband, Alexander, and my other son, Jake. We let the boys choose which parent they wanted to live with. Garrett chose me, and Jake wanted to move up to Oregon with his dad. To be honest, that hurt my feelings a little bit, but I understood. They were different. Garrett and I connected more than his brother and I did. Same with Jake and his dad.”

  We ordered one more round of drinks. Amanda’s hand went from my forearm on top of the table to my knee underneath it. A couple more drinks and this cougar would pounce. I was too long in the tooth for typical cougar prey, but I was getting the feeling she’d soon feast on anything male.

  After we polished off the round of drinks, I insisted on coffee for both of us before driving. Then I walked her to her car. She leaned in for a kiss, and we did so for a few seconds before I broke it off.

  “Want to stop by for a nightcap?” she asked.

  “Some other time,” I said, feeling both guilty for lying and my stir of libido at the attraction I’d felt for her. Hussiness was a tricky thing to manage.

  11

  The next morning, the drive west on Highway 50 took me across the Sacramento River, the recent rains swelling the slow-moving waters to within a couple of feet of the levee’s top. A good rainstorm might push the water over the brim, a constant concern in a city the Army Corps of Engineers characterized as the next New Orleans waiting to happen. The first exit across the river was Jefferson Boulevard, which I took south about three miles, arriving at the address on Partridge Avenue just after nine.

  Though West Sacramento had undergone an urban makeover in recent decades, this part of town remained rural. Many of the residents who lived in the small farms and ranches refused to identify their location as West Sacramento, preferring Southport, the area’s name in a bygone era.

  Tiffanie Bate’s childhood home sat at the end of a gravel driveway about fifty feet from the street. Two old pickup trucks and a newer Camry were parked on the driveway. The front yard consisted of several raised planter boxes with a variety of vegetables thriving in the wet fall weather, along with several large oak and maple trees shading the house. The side and back yards encompassed a couple of acres, home to at least the two horses and three goats I saw corralled inside the wire and wood fence.

  I parked up the street and approached the house, a small ranch style home, painted white with light blue trim. It was a place suggesting solid, middle-class America.

  “You the fella