Allison's face got almost sober. She stared at me blankly. I told her about the probate settlement from Les' parents' property.
"First I've heard about it."
But there was something else going on in her head. Like something that had been bothering her slightly for a long time was now coming to the forefront. I looked at her, silently asking her to tell me about it. She wavered, then looked away. "You have a plan, sweetie?"
"I thought I'd head out there. Check things out."
I regretted my answer as soon as I said it.
Allison tottered to her feet, held up her beer to check how much was left, then smiled at me. "You'd better drive. I'll navigate."
Then she began that job by trying to locate the front door.
Allison was quiet for the first half of the trip.
She'd complained bitterly before we left about me making her a thermos of coffee rather than tequila, then making her change clothes into something more utilitarian. I'd found a pair of Carolaine's drawstring Banana Republics and a crewneck pullover in the back of the closet. They fit Allison well. Once we got going, she curled into the passenger's seat of my mother's Audi with her knees on the dash and her face behind the coffee mug and a pair of my mother's purple sunglasses she'd pulled out of the glove compartment. For a while she made occasional "uhh" sounds and I thought she was going to be ill, but once we got out of the city she began to perk up.
She even decided to come with me into the tax assessor's office when we got to Wilming. Wilming was a small county seat consisting of an American Legion Hall and a Dairy Queen and not much else. The assessor's office was open Saturday because it was also the post office and the grocery store. After successfully scoring the deed and the last five years of tax records on Les' property I had to grudgingly admit that having the subject's wife with me, the subject's pretty blond wife, had helped expedite matters somewhat.
When we got back in the car Allison poured herself more coffee and said, "Gaah."
"It's just strong," I said. "You're not used to Peet's."
She shuddered. "Is this like Starbucks or something?"
"Peet's is to Starbucks what Plato is to Socrates. You'll appreciate it in time."
Allison stared at me for about half a mile, then decided to turn her attention back to the tax assessor's documents and the coffee.
She flipped through the paperwork on Les' cabin. "Bastard. Two years ago he changed the billing for the tax statements so they wouldn't come to the house. Exactly when we got married."
"He wanted a place you didn't know about. He might've already been thinking about getting away someday, leaving himself an exit route."
She made a small, incredulous laugh. "What's this billing address in Austin? A girlfriend?"
"Probably a mail drop. A girlfriend would be too risky."
"Bastard. You think you can find this place?"
I shook my head. "Don't know."
We had the exact address for the cabin but that didn't mean much at the lake. Most people had their address registered as a mailbox along the main highway, and there would be hundreds of those, all plain silver, many of them with incomplete or weathereddown numbers. Even if we found the right box it wouldn't necessarily be near the cabin. Most likely that would be a mile or two down some unnamed gravel road, the turnoff marked only by wooden boards displaying the last names of some of the families that lived that way. Often there was no sign at all, no way to find someone out here unless you had wordofmouth instructions. If you could avoid the notice of the locals, Medina Lake wasn't a bad place for a missing person to hide out.
We passed Woman Hollow Creek, wended our way through some more hills, down Highway 16. The ratio of RVs to cars began to climb.
Allison examined my mother's medicine pouch on the rearview mirror, letting the beads and feathers slip through her fingers. "So how do you know Milo anyway? You two don't seem—I don't know, you're like the Odd Couple or something."
"You know that scar on my chest?"
Allison hesitated. "You're kidding."
"Milo didn't do it. He had this idea. He thought I'd make a good private detective."
The road was too twisty for me to look at Allison's face, but she stayed quiet for another mile or so, the purple sunglasses turned toward me.