Candy

9:37 p.m. — A caller said a woman driving on Oak Woods Way stopped, got out and danced and then got back in the car and drove away.

“You’d like Candy,” Jack said.

I agreed and smiled while I patted my stomach. Then Jack laughed, saying I’d misunderstood. Candy was a great gal, he said. A real spitfire. He used words like fascinating and intriguing and even called her charming. That it was her never occurred to me.

I hadn’t seen Candy Mason in ten years; we knew her as Candace back then. Candace Mason had somehow convinced my brother Mike to walk down the aisle, and then she walked out on him and Wickerton four years later. But not before she’d run up twenty-two grand on his credit cards and left Mike with the bills. Some of us were relieved to see the back of her. And none of us expected to see her anywhere near Townsville again.

I did some investigating. I’m no Columbo, but when I heard it was Candy Mason in town, I smelled trouble. Turns out, Candy Mason had been in and out of hot water. She’d been arrested for grand theft auto when she stole some boyfriend’s car. She’d been caught drunk driving, too, smashing up another borrowed car.

Maybe it was none of my business, but I kept digging. I got Lewis from the Chronicle to pull some strings.

Candy had left quite a trail over these last ten years. Defaulted on loans. Broken leases and skipped owing thousands. Suckered a couple of folks into starting a business with her, then did a runner with the start-up funds. Got married and then divorced some schmoe in Folger City. Left him with a pile of debt, too. Candy had a fraud case pending, but she’d run off.

I saw her walking down Main one night, looking like a million. I’m not one to follow women’s fashions, but I recognize moneyed goods when I see them. And then Candy Mason got right into white Mercedes. A Mercedes Benz in Townsville! Donna Perkins would be on her knees.

I followed her. Don’t know what-all she was doing, dancing like that in the middle of Oak Woods. But I smelled trouble.