Tourist Trap (Rebecca Schwartz #3) (A Rebecca Schwartz Mystery) (The Rebecca Schwartz Series)

darling, so we didn’t tell you.”
    “Mom, what
is
this?”
    As if reading my mind, Mom said, “Don’t worry, darling, it’s not a brain tumor. They think it’s something you can have surgery for. Last night”—she sounded as if she were about to cry—“right after dinner, suddenly he couldn’t talk. He couldn’t say a word, Rebecca.”
    “My God.”
    “He’s okay this morning, darling. Really. But they have to do more tests.” She was starting to sob. “He wants to know if you can make it on your own today.”
    “Sure, Mom. I’ll be fine.” Sure I would; with green hair, a sick father, and an incoherent witness. Maybe I could get a recess. “Tell Dad I’ll call him as soon as I can.” I rang off quickly, not wanting to absorb any of Mom’s fear—I had enough of my own.
    I said: “Dad’s not going to make it to court today.”
    “Is he all right?” asked Rob.
    “They’re doing tests.” I was trying not to cry. “What shall we do about Miranda?”
    Picking up my need not to talk about Dad, he said, “Make her drink this.” He poured out a mug of coffee and took it over to her. She sat up and sipped.
    “We’ve met you before,” I said. “On Easter. At Mount Davidson.”
    “You chased me!”
    “Well, you punched me.”
    Unexpectedly, she laughed. “I did? I’d sort of forgotten.”
    “Listen, a lot of things have happened since then. Remember the man on the cross?”
    She looked panicked. “Yeah. I dream about that all the time.” She dropped her coffee mug, spilling coffee all over my white rug, and started sobbing—great, wrenching sobs. “I’m getting out of here.” She got up and tried to run, but stumbled instead, falling back down on the couch. “What are you trying to do with me?”
    “I’m the lawyer for a man accused of killing the man on the cross. Only he didn’t kill him. I want to know what you know about what happened there. You might be able to save my client’s life.”
    She stopped sobbing and sniffed. “I don’t know nothin’.”
    “Do you know a man named Les Mathison?”
    Again she looked panicked—trapped, surrounded by enemies. I needed to put her at ease. “Let’s try some more coffee,” I said gently, and Rob brought some. “We’re not going to hurt you. We just want to know what you know.”
    “Why should I tell you?”
    “Maybe,” I said, grasping at any straw that fluttered by, “you need to get it off your chest. Maybe it would help stop your dreams.”
    She looked up from her cup, and for the first time I saw hope on her face. “It would?”
    “I don’t know. It might.”
    “Do you have something I could put in this?”
    “Cream and sugar? Sorry, I thought—”
    “Some booze.”
    “I’m sorry. I don’t have any.”
    “I need some.”
    Suddenly, I felt terribly sorry for her. Out of the blue, I blurted, “Miranda, do you really want to be an alcoholic?”
    She shook her head slowly. “No.” It was almost a whisper. She looked around the room. “I’ve never been in a place like this. We were always poor when I was a kid. I left home because it was awful—and you know where I wound up. I’d like to live in a nice place. A clean place. I’m sorry I mugged you.”
    “
You
mugged me? You’re the one who mugged me?”
    “I saw your ad and I got nervous.”
    “Wait a minute. You knew all the time who we were and what we wanted?”
    “Not exactly. I was a little disoriented this morning—I am a lot of the time. But sometimes I can do things okay. Only I couldn’t kill you.”
    “Kill me!”
    “I meant to when I followed you. But I hit you once and that was all I could do. I can’t do that stuff anymore.”
    “What stuff?” I had a sudden wild thought that Miranda was the Trapper, momentarily forgetting that she was in no condition to have planned the crimes.
    She shrugged, looking very sad. “Just live the way I’ve been living.”
    “Miranda, what happened that night? The Saturday night before Easter?”
    “Les and I had a fight—” Rob came in and sat down as she began to talk, the words pouring out, finally, after so many months. What she told us might save Lou and it might not. I can’t say I wasn’t a little disappointed, but it was certainly better than anything I had so far. And there was still a crucial question she hadn’t answered. “Where is Les now?” I asked.
    “I don’t know. When I left Mount Davidson, I didn’t go back to the hotel. I figured he’d think it was because