The Third Rule Of Ten: A Tenzing Norbu Mystery by Gay Hendricks, Tinker Lindsay Page A
Authors: Gay Hendricks, Tinker Lindsay
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recent and unidentified. Bets and Sofia were also the only two stored contacts. I went back to the current calls.
True to her word, Bets McMurtry had called Clara over a dozen times since Friday. The most recent outgoing call, dated last Thursday, was to a long string of numbers, recipient unknown . I jotted down the date and time of the call in my notebook—the last indication that Clara Fuentes was still alive. I was tempted to call the number myself, but good sense prevailed. Instead, I texted the digits to Mike. With any luck, he’d be awake soon. PLEASE VERIFY THE SOURCE OF THIS NUMBER, ASAP , I added.
What else, what else? My eyes lit on the 661 area code. Lancaster. Right. I scrolled my own contact list for John D. Murphy. I pressed.
“Hello! Hello!”
I grinned with pleasure. John D always answered his phone as if half-convinced no one would actually be on the other end.
“John D,” I said. “It’s Ten.”
“No kidding! It’s been a coon’s age. Thought you must have taken another vow of silence. How the hell are you?”
“I’m still standing,” I said. “Sorry it’s been so long. I was in India. My father died.”
I felt rather than heard John D’s heart quicken with sympathy. “You okay?”
My own heart softened at the old man’s concern. “Yes, I’m okay. But what about you?”
“Well, you know, the legs aren’t working too good, but good enough to chase after my granddaughter. Ashley’s two-and-a-half years old already, and an absolute peach. Talkin’ up a storm. That child hangs the moon as far as her mother and I are concerned.”
I had been somewhat instrumental in reuniting John D with his pregnant daughter-in-law, right after his estranged son, Norman, was murdered. I was glad the new little family was still intact.
“And you’re healthy?”
“Still breathing, Ten, still breathing. I’m finally done with chemo, and it did its job shrinking the basketball in my gut down to a manageable size. Now we’re at a geezer’s standoff. Tumor’s growing at about the same rate as I’m moving. I guess being older than God has its advantages. And the joints help.” He chuckled. “Joints for my joints. I do still love my medicinal weed.”
We shared a chuckle. John D wasn’t just my first client as a private detective—he was still my favorite. We’d shared a single but memorable smoke, many moons ago.
“So what can I do you for?” John D asked. “Or is this call purely personal?”
“It’s professional and highly confidential,” I said.
“Understood.”
I knew I could trust John D to keep our conversation to himself. I laid out the case as succinctly as I could. “Anything you can add to what I already know about your representative?” I asked. I liked to learn as much as I could about the people I was in business with. Google was fine, but there’s nothing better than verifying facts with trusted friends.
“Not much.” John D grunted. “McMurtry’s a hard-line, anti-immigration, anti-drug, pro-life, Tea Party windbag. Can’t stand her—can you tell? Thing is, she prances around in those tight skirts, acting all high and mighty, but she was in my son Norman’s class in high school, and that girl was a hell-raiser, for sure. There wasn’t a drug she didn’t like, or a boy she didn’t try to seduce. Then she found Jesus, like they do, got married, and made a fortune selling Christian beauty products, door-to-door at first and then at parties, like they did with that Tupperware stuff. My wife got invited to one of them wingdings once. I remember, because it was right before Charlie got blowed up in Iraq. After that she stopped going out.”
I again felt, rather than heard, John D revisit an old sorrow inside.
“Anyhoo, my wife came home with a stick of free lipstick and reported that those women told the dirtiest jokes she’d ever heard, in between paintin’ each other’s faces ’til they looked like you-know-whats.”
“Wow,” I
True to her word, Bets McMurtry had called Clara over a dozen times since Friday. The most recent outgoing call, dated last Thursday, was to a long string of numbers, recipient unknown . I jotted down the date and time of the call in my notebook—the last indication that Clara Fuentes was still alive. I was tempted to call the number myself, but good sense prevailed. Instead, I texted the digits to Mike. With any luck, he’d be awake soon. PLEASE VERIFY THE SOURCE OF THIS NUMBER, ASAP , I added.
What else, what else? My eyes lit on the 661 area code. Lancaster. Right. I scrolled my own contact list for John D. Murphy. I pressed.
“Hello! Hello!”
I grinned with pleasure. John D always answered his phone as if half-convinced no one would actually be on the other end.
“John D,” I said. “It’s Ten.”
“No kidding! It’s been a coon’s age. Thought you must have taken another vow of silence. How the hell are you?”
“I’m still standing,” I said. “Sorry it’s been so long. I was in India. My father died.”
I felt rather than heard John D’s heart quicken with sympathy. “You okay?”
My own heart softened at the old man’s concern. “Yes, I’m okay. But what about you?”
“Well, you know, the legs aren’t working too good, but good enough to chase after my granddaughter. Ashley’s two-and-a-half years old already, and an absolute peach. Talkin’ up a storm. That child hangs the moon as far as her mother and I are concerned.”
I had been somewhat instrumental in reuniting John D with his pregnant daughter-in-law, right after his estranged son, Norman, was murdered. I was glad the new little family was still intact.
“And you’re healthy?”
“Still breathing, Ten, still breathing. I’m finally done with chemo, and it did its job shrinking the basketball in my gut down to a manageable size. Now we’re at a geezer’s standoff. Tumor’s growing at about the same rate as I’m moving. I guess being older than God has its advantages. And the joints help.” He chuckled. “Joints for my joints. I do still love my medicinal weed.”
We shared a chuckle. John D wasn’t just my first client as a private detective—he was still my favorite. We’d shared a single but memorable smoke, many moons ago.
“So what can I do you for?” John D asked. “Or is this call purely personal?”
“It’s professional and highly confidential,” I said.
“Understood.”
I knew I could trust John D to keep our conversation to himself. I laid out the case as succinctly as I could. “Anything you can add to what I already know about your representative?” I asked. I liked to learn as much as I could about the people I was in business with. Google was fine, but there’s nothing better than verifying facts with trusted friends.
“Not much.” John D grunted. “McMurtry’s a hard-line, anti-immigration, anti-drug, pro-life, Tea Party windbag. Can’t stand her—can you tell? Thing is, she prances around in those tight skirts, acting all high and mighty, but she was in my son Norman’s class in high school, and that girl was a hell-raiser, for sure. There wasn’t a drug she didn’t like, or a boy she didn’t try to seduce. Then she found Jesus, like they do, got married, and made a fortune selling Christian beauty products, door-to-door at first and then at parties, like they did with that Tupperware stuff. My wife got invited to one of them wingdings once. I remember, because it was right before Charlie got blowed up in Iraq. After that she stopped going out.”
I again felt, rather than heard, John D revisit an old sorrow inside.
“Anyhoo, my wife came home with a stick of free lipstick and reported that those women told the dirtiest jokes she’d ever heard, in between paintin’ each other’s faces ’til they looked like you-know-whats.”
“Wow,” I
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