Free The Ticket Out by Helen Knode Page A

Stenholm tend to get dead.”
    I stopped. “What?”
    Pavich laughed, swung the straw basket around, and skipped back to her car. She made a big deal of backing out, smirking the whole time.
    I leaned against the bars and watched her drive off.
    Jesus, I thought. I’d found the body thirty-six hours ago, and I was already way out of my depth.

CHAPTER SEVEN

    F ATHER WAS bombed. My sister had mashed herself into the corner of the booth and was picking at a piece of cheesecake.
    The Pacific Dining Car was an old-fashioned steak house on the edge of downtown. It catered to business and City Hall people, and the movie stars who still ate meat. My father’s Dining Car routine never varied. He always sat in the darkest room. He always sat on the same side of the same booth, so he could see into the bar and catch the game on TV. He always ate a shrimp cocktail, a T-bone, and onion rings; and when he paid the check, he always told the waiter he’d rolled a drunk for his credit card.
    They both spotted me as I came in. Father said, “Well, if it isn’t my long-lost daughter, by god! Hello, stranger!”
    I shook his hand and slid in next to Sis. She said under her breath, “You came—I can’t believe it.”
    I said, “Howdy, pardner. Texas still hot to secede?”
    Father said, “It sure the hell is. You still writing for that commie rag?”
    â€œâ€˜You have nothing to lose but your chains.’”
    Father laughed and I took a good look at him. He’d aged since I’d seen him last. He was going red in the face, and running to fat on his scotch and fried-everything diet. More and more he looked like what he was: an old-style Texas oilman.
    Father signaled the waiter. “Name your poison, child.”
    I said, “Just a Perrier. I’ve eaten.”
    Father rolled his eyes and pointed to his half-empty scotch. “Put this up on its feet, Diego, and bring two
Perriers
for the girls here.”
    The waiter took Father’s glass away. I was bored already; I wanted to be somewhere else, thinking about other things.
    I’d stopped by the paper on my way to the restaurant. Mark was in and I asked him to help check the computer archive for murders in Greta Stenholm’s circle. I searched Vivian’s filing cabinet for more Lockwood background. But everything she had, I already had. I raided Barry’s office and struck out: the guest list for the party was nowhere.
    Sis nudged me under the table and pointed at my bruised cheek.
    I dipped my head in Father’s direction, then shook it. That meant he wasn’t responsible. Sis glanced at him and blinked three times. That meant he was so loaded that we could talk in code all we liked. I nodded and ate a strawberry off her plate.
    My sister looked bad.
    I watched her pick at her cheesecake. She hadn’t looked happy or well for a long time. Two years to be exact.
    Two years ago she tried to commit suicide. It was the second time she had tried. The first time was right after our mother’s inquest. We were both flipped out; I quit college and wanted to leave the country, and Sis took a bottle of sleeping pills. When she recovered I asked her to come to Europe with me. She wouldn’t because she thought Father shouldn’t be left alone. So she’d lived with him for the next ten years—until she’d tried to kill herself again. I had flown to Texas, sprung her from the hospital, and brought her back to L.A. by force.
    She and I used to resemble each other. We were both blueeyed and built small, and we had curly brown hair that we didn’t like to comb. My jaw was stronger than hers, which always made her the “pretty” sister. I could only be “attractive” because, as our mother had liked to say, there were too many opinions on my face.
    We didn’t look like each other anymore. Sis was sober, but boozing and depression had ravaged her. She was sallow,