Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. Vol. 133, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 811 & 812, March/April 2009

As the doc drove off I went down the line of cabins to where I’d parked the ’57. The chrome of her door handles was so hot it scorched you to touch them but there were some things under the front seat I figured I might need in the near future.

Making sure I was out of sight of the lunchroom, I tucked my .45 Colt Commander’s model under my belt, letting my T-shirt hang loosely over the automatic. Then I slipped a reload clip and my red-handled paratrooper’s switchblade into my pocket.

Teddy Kelton was sitting with his back to one of the Esso pumps as I sauntered back to the main building. I nodded to him in passing and he didn’t respond. He just watched out of the corner of his eye as I pushed through the screen door into the lunchroom.

The little cafe, with its fading Formica counter and row of cracked Naugahyde stools, was like the rest of Devlin, clean, worn, and out of its right time. A couple of World War II vintage Coke promotions bled a little color onto the white-enameled walls, and a tough Mojave fly was trying to batter its way through a plastic cake cover.

A couple of booths were located at either end of the room and Lisette occupied the one that put her in the direct blast of the counter fan. She’d freshened up and had changed into a sundress and sandals. A bottle of Pepsi with a straw in it shared the booth’s tabletop with her sketchbook. A page was covered with a series of her lightning-quick impression drawings: a snatch of desert skyline, a wrecked truck belly-up beside a highway, the slack face of an unconscious old man.

Sue Kelton wasn’t in sight, but there was the intermittent click and clatter of someone moving around in the kitchen.

The Princess didn’t say anything, but she looked up as I slid into the booth across from her.

“The kid give you any trouble?” I inquired, keeping my voice pitched under the purr of the fan.

She shrugged. “Nothing beyond giving my dress the X-ray treatment. He seems to be a little distracted. So does Momma.”

“Pick up on anything else?”

“When Mrs. Kelton came back from the cabin, there was a tight little conference between mother and son in the kitchen.” The Princess took a sip of her soda. “I couldn’t hear anything over the fans. Then the boy went out to keep an eye on things.”

He was still at it. Looking over Lisette’s shoulder, I could see Teddy boy scoping us out through the front windows. Reaching under the table, I tapped her lightly on the knee with the closed switchblade. She cocked an eyebrow at me and accepted the knife. From beneath the tabletop I heard the snick of the blade deploying as she tested the spring action of the wicked little shiv.

“I’ve gotta go up the road for a while.” I said. “Go over and sit with the old man. Talk to him. Offer to do his portrait. Say he reminds you of your father. I don’t care what reason you give, but don’t leave him alone for a minute until I get back.”

The Princess closed the knife one-handed. Pretending to straighten a dress strap she deftly executed a gang-moll shift, making the palmed blade disappear into her bra. “It wasn’t an accident, was it?”

“The accident is that he’s still alive.”

Firing up the ’57, I motored out to the highway, turning west. I kept it casual until I was out of sight of the station, then I stood on it. I was pretty sure Lisette could pick up anything that’d be laid down back at Devlin. She can flip from cool kitten to hellcat when the mood’s on her. Still, I didn’t want to leave her holding the fort alone for too long.

When your wheels are set up right, speed doesn’t make you overheat, it’s the slow that’ll do it. The low-boy convoy was long gone and Route 66 was clear as Car and I burned up to the wreck site. I was running on police business so I didn’t hesitate to let Car run the way she likes. It only took a few minutes to get back to the piled-up pickup.

The wrecker hadn’t arrived from Barstow yet, likely he’d wait for the cool after sundown. It didn’t take me long to find what I was looking for. The truck’s swamp cooler had been torn out of the cab window during the roll-over and it lay a few yards away from the hulk, beatup but pretty much intact.

The sand around it was dry as the rest of the desert.

The cooler had been badly dented in the crash and because I was being careful about any fingerprints on the casing it took me awhile to get the reservoir cap open. I thrust a couple of fingers inside.

Nothing. Abso-flat-ass-lutely nothing.

Gingerly I carried the swamp cooler up to Car, stowing it in the trunk. Firing up again, I continued my tear up 66 to the next desert station up the line.

Amboy is located at the turnoff south to the big Marine base at Twenty-Nine Palms, so there’s a little more to it than at Devlin. You could almost call it a town, with a couple of gas stations and a stand-alone cafe, painted the usual reflective desert white.

The cafe was my target.