by MJ O'Neill
“Grandmother, are you all right?” I asked.
Burns pretended to steady her.
“Water. I need a glass of water.”
“I think you’d better get a nurse,” I told Margret.
She turned and walked down the hall. Once I was sure she was out of earshot, I knocked on the door.
A stunned look came over Jaffe’s face when he opened it. “Waters, what on earth are you doing here?”
“I don’t have much time. You can either let us in, or I can explain to the police that you were the last person seen with Stephanie Jackson before she was murdered.”
Jaffe’s face went white. He quickly opened the door, and the three of us filed in.
“DC, you’re on,” Burns said into the mic. DC was being dispatched to keep Margret busy.
“Jeffery, who are these people?” A matronly-looking woman in a nightgown sat at the small table in the room.
“You must be Ambrosia. I’m Theodora Waters. Didn’t you go to Smith?” Grand sat down next to Dr. Jaffe’s grandmother and quickly had her occupied with photos.
Dr. Jaffe began to hyperventilate. He sat on the couch in the small adjacent living room and put his head between his knees while he sucked on an inhaler. “I didn’t kill her, I swear.”
“How do you know her, and how are you involved with Chentinko?” Burns asked.
“I owe him money. A lot of money. He told me I could either do this job for him, or he’d take one of my hands. I’m a surgeon. I can’t lose a hand.”
“So how does Stephanie Jackson get involved?” I asked.
“I don’t know anything about breaking into houses. That was the job. I was supposed to break into this sex dungeon and steal some laptop. I’d met Stephanie on my last trip to Vegas. We were kind of an item, and she was looking for a thrill. Oh my God, and now she’s dead.”
He rocked back and forth on the couch and began to cry.
“Keep it together, Dr. Jaffe. How did you know she had been killed?” Burns asked.
“I was the lookout. No one was supposed to be in the house. When Stephanie didn’t come out right away, I got nervous, and then I saw that woman in that suit, lugging a giant garbage bag.”
“So you called Chentinko?” I asked.
“Yes. If the cops found out who she was, they’d link it to me. Chentinko wasn’t going to let that happen. I helped him toss her in the river.” He sat up on the couch now, calmer. He’d stopped crying and sniffed. I handed him a tissue.
“Margret’s on the move,” DC said in our ear.
“We have to go. What about the dead rat?” Burns asked.
“What dead rat?” Jaffe looked puzzled.
“Someone left a dead rat and a threatening note in my locker.”
“I suppose Chentinko could have done it on his own. Are you going to tell the police? Chentinko will kill me before he’ll let himself be taken in.”
“Maybe they can put you into witness protection,” I said.
“My career would be ruined. I’d never see my family, my grandmother, again. If we hadn’t gone to that stupid barbershop, none of this would have happened.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“The sex dungeon. That’s what it’s called. The Barbershop.”
I let it roll around in my head for a minute.
“She’s almost to you, Boss,” Neutron said.
I was missing something. I closed my eyes and replayed the day in my mind. All the pieces were right there. As Master Tahkaswami would say, I only needed to infuse them with my energy.
A knock came on the door.
“You didn’t call the cops already, did you?” Jaffe asked.
I continued to replay the day, as I would footage from a pageant.
“She’s got a security guard and a nurse with her, Boss,” Neutron said.
Finally, I opened my eyes. “Burns, I think I know where the laptop is!” It was a hunch, but I thought it was a good one. If Jaffe hadn’t sent the threatening note, someone else at the morgue had.
“Who’s on tonight, DC?” I asked.
“You’re in luck. It’s our favorite weasel.”
When Margret showed up, Grand made a miraculous recovery, and Jaffe helped get us out of there smoothly.
We pulled up, and everyone started to get out.
“We don’t need everyone to come,” Burns said.
“I’ve got to pee.” Grand pushed DC out of her way and held on to his cape as she slid down the high seat to the ground.
“Me too. Plus, I’m hungry,” DC said.
“When an old lady says she has to pee, it’s time to roll, people.” Grand headed toward the entrance.
Burns glared at Neutron.
“Fine. I’ll stay in the truck,” Neutron said.
DC badged us in. The morgue looked spectacular. It was like walking into a brand-new place. Sam’s rouge accent wall glittered against new custom pendant lighting Meg had designed for the space. Everything was set for the open house tomorrow.
“What are you doing here? You can’t be here unescorted,” Marshall said.
“I have several escorts,” I said.
DC threw back his cape.
Burns folded his arms. “I think it’s time for your break.”
“Right,” Marshall said, eyeing Burns.
“Let’s get to the evidence room,” I said as we watched Marshall leave.
“I’m hitting the bathroom, and I believe I spied a coffee bar. I can see why you like your job so much now,” Grand said.
“My stomach’s growling. Do you hear that?” DC patted his belly.
“You can’t go yet.” I took him to the evidence room. The chaotic scene from the early morning had been replaced by neat rows of catalogued merchandise grouped by type, ready to be moved first thing in the morning. The sale was set for the parking lot, where we could catch people coming and going. I spied a gorgeous electric-blue Kate Spade bag I’d have to come steal later. “Point at anything that you couldn’t put up for sale. It would be something that could hold something else. Like a bag or container.”
“All the stuff he wouldn’t let me sell was put back into the cage,” DC said, pointing into the room. The evidence room was divided into two sections. As new victims came in, evidence was tightly controlled and processed in a special holding area. The area was separated from the rest of the room by what looked like chicken wire and a locked door. The rest of the room was storage for evidence deemed not needed. Like the Island of Misfit Toys, the stuff here was waiting to be claimed by the family. The cage was piled high with leftovers. “Now, I have to go eat. I’m no fun when my blood sugar is low.”
As DC left, Burns opened the lock on the cage, and we started searching. I tossed aside a Crock-Pot, puzzled about why DC hadn’t put it into the sale pile. Burns opened a toolbox and lifted the tray out of it. He dumped the contents.
And out fell piles of money.
“What in the world? At least we know now why Dr. Hawthorne was twitchy about the evidence cage,” I said. I opened a bread box with blood on the corner of it. I didn’t want to know how it had gotten there. More money fell out.
Burns broke a ceramic lamp and kicked aside the pieces and another stack of bills.
We’d cleared almost the entire locker. While we were now surrounded by a hefty sum of money, we still hadn’t found the laptop. We were down to the blow-up doll, a few items of lingerie, and a barstool.
“Maybe he traded Chentinko the laptop for the money,” Burns said. “Although, that wouldn’t explain how he got it or even knew about it.”
Burns turned over the barstool. Something inside of it clunked. It had a fake bottom that took a key. “Maybe this is it.”
We looked around for something to pry it open with. I grabbed a large knife from a butcher block set in the for-sale section of the room and handed it to him.
Burns struggled to get it open. With one last tug, the bottom of the hidden opening flew off—and revealed not m
oney or the laptop but a collection of porn magazines.
“Damn it!” Burns kicked the barstool over. It landed on top of the blow-up doll. Instead of bouncing off the plastic or squishing into its softness, the barstool landed with a loud thud.
“No way.” Burns smiled at me. The doll had a base with weight in the bottom of it to keep it standing upright, so any extra weight from either money or a laptop would have gone unnoticed. He grabbed the knife and gutted the doll.
And there it was. A small laptop computer, lying in the now-deflated belly of the sex doll.
Thinking over the day and Dr. Hawthorne’s reactions, I should have known the laptop was in the doll. As Burns picked up the machine, I noticed a large patch in the doll’s butt. That must have been how the computer got there.
“Thank you, Katherine. I’ll be taking that.”
In the doorway stood Dr. Hawthorne. He had a gun to Grand’s head.
Chapter 22
“If you hurt her...” I said.
He threw a satchel at us. “Money in the bag, please, and there will be no reason for anything unseemly to happen. I assure you, I have no desire to harm your grandmother. I never wanted to harm anyone.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t be waving a gun around if you’re so committed to not harming people,” Grand said.
“How did you know we were here?” I asked as I started loading the cash into the bag.
“Marshall is a very obedient lapdog. He has a standing order to call me if anyone shows up.”
Figured. Weasel. Now Grand was being held by a murderer. “Pet services is one of the fastest-growing sectors in the pet industry, growing at twelve percent annually.”
Dr. Hawthorne looked confused. I made a mental note to sock Marshall the next time I saw him.
We finished putting the money in the bag, and Dr. Hawthorne led us to the autopsy room. I didn’t see Marshall or DC anywhere.
“So what happened?” Burns asked. “Gillian found something on the computer that linked you to something you didn’t want to be linked to?”
“Or did she recognize you coming out of Madam Scott’s dungeon?” I asked.
“With the morgue’s work with the police, I have a lot of exposure to journalists from the paper. She recognized me at Madam Scott’s right away. Of course, seeing a madam is not really a crime. While it would have been inconvenient and embarrassing, it wouldn’t have mattered much. Blackmail, on the other hand, is illegal and would have landed me in prison.”
“You were blackmailing Mrs. Scott’s other clients,” I said.
“Finding congressmen engaged in kinky extramarital affairs can be a lucrative retirement plan. Ms. Mathers’s discovery of my scheme interrupted my returns, however.”
“Diversification in retirement planning can be a pain,” Grand said.
“What gave me away?” he asked.
“Dr. Jaffe told us the madam’s dungeon was named the Barbershop, and the only regular withdrawals in your finances were your overpriced, bimonthly trips to the barbershop,” Burns said.
Hawthorne looked startled that Burns had his financial records. “When I first started seeing her, the cover for the place was a barbershop. I never bothered to switch my payments.”
“Plus, you were way too twitchy when we mentioned overhauling the evidence room,” I said.
“Couldn’t have you finding my insurance policy, now could I?”
We hadn’t heard from Neutron in a while. I was starting to worry about him.
“You can stick that pension where the sun don’t shine,” Grand said.
“Are you all right?” I asked her.
“She’d be fine if she’d stop wiggling.”
Grand squirmed under Dr. Hawthorne’s arm.
“I only need her for insurance. And this, of course,” he said, pointing at the laptop. “What I can fetch for this will round out my retirement nicely.” He sat Grand in a chair in front of us, keeping the gun aimed at her back, and picked up the phone. “Good evening, Mr. Chentinko. I believe I have something of yours that you’d like returned.”
Dr. Hawthorne negotiated a swap with Chentinko. The doctor would give him the laptop in exchange for a new identity and enough money to get him out of the country and set up for his golden years. They arranged to meet at Forest Park.
“I’m afraid I’m in a hurry. You’ll have to work faster than that, or I’ll have to find a bidder more eager to accommodate my demands,” Dr. Hawthorne said into the phone.
Chentinko must have agreed, because Dr. Hawthorne hung up.
“Now, Katherine, if you and Mr. McPhee could please proceed to the walk-in cooler.”
“You can’t put us in there. We’ll freeze,” I said.
“You’re in a meat locker with a hunk. I’m the one with the gun pointed at me,” Grand said.
“I’d imagine one of your associates will be along well before hypothermia sets in.”
With his gun, he motioned us into the freezer. I heard a loud clank behind us. Burns pushed on the door, but it wouldn’t budge. Dr. Hawthorne must have barred the door.
Burns pulled out his cell phone then shoved it back into his pocket. There was no way he would get a signal in the insulated steel refrigerator.
I rubbed my hands together and blew out a big sigh. I could see my breath. Thankfully, I had chosen one of my winter suits for the trip to the nursing home. It was a bit heavy for the spring weather, but I looked really good in electric blue.
“Someone will be here soon.” Burns rubbed his hands up and down my arms.
“We’re going to freeze to death surrounded by creepy dead people.” The cooler was full of sheet-covered bodies lying on the shelves.
“I’m sure Master Tahkaswami or Kierkegaard or whoever else wouldn’t want you thinking negative thoughts.” He brought me closer to him. “I don’t suppose somewhere in that Trivial Pursuit–master brain of yours is a tip on getting out of a walk-in?”
We huddled near the door. Burns had taken the sheets from the bodies and wrapped us under them. Right now, all I could think of was that gun pointed at Grand’s head.
“Tell me she’s going to be okay,” I said.
“I promise you, we’ll get her back. There’s no reason for him to hurt her until they’ve made the exchange.”
Finally, I heard the door open. We poked our heads out from under our sheet fortress.
“Don’t you two look cozy,” DC said.
We found Neutron on the ground of the parking lot. He rubbed his head as he started to come to.
“We have to get to Forest Park. Flynn’s already on his way.” Burns lifted Neutron up and put him into the back of the SUV.
“Sorry, Boss. He surprised me.” Neutron opened one of his laptops. He said they had installed a tracker on Dr. Hawthorne’s car after Gillian’s forensics had gone missing. Now Neutron was using the tracker to find out where the doctor was taking Grand.
It was a good thing too. Forest Park was a massive place. The park was the seventh largest urban park in the country and encompassed over thirteen hundred acres, almost five hundred acres larger than New York’s Central Park.
“We’ll find her. I promise.” He squeezed my hand.
“Got ya. He’s at the boathouse,” Neutron said.
The boathouse had a deceptive name. The space consisted of two buildings that looked more like tiki huts. One building housed a restaurant, and the other managed the boats. The restaurant was open only during the day or for events. Tonight it was dark and quiet.
We snuck around back. Tables with umbrellas lined the water’s edge. The dock sprawled off the back. Paddleboats and rowboats bobbed, tethered to both sides of the dock in little pretend parking places. Stray life jackets littered the metal dock top that glared brightly under the overhanging light.
Dr. Hawthorne stood near the dock with Chentinko and several men with guns. I caught a glimpse of the laptop next to a large envelope on an adjacent table. That must have been how they were making the sw
ap. I didn’t see Grand anywhere.
From between the two buildings, Flynn appeared, crouched close to the ground. He looked like something out of an action movie with two large guns slung over his back, ammo belts hanging off his arm, and another gun in his hand. He was almost to the table with the laptop when one of Chentinko’s men caught sight of him.
“I wouldn’t do that,” said someone with a thick accent.
Another man appeared, holding Grand at gunpoint. I squealed and ran out from where we were. Burns, DC, and Neutron followed, brandishing their weapons. Flynn kept moving and grabbed the laptop and envelope.
“Now we have some leverage,” Burns said.
“So we meet again, beautiful, my angel,” Chentinko said, flashing his eerie grin at me.
“Don’t hurt her!” I screamed.
“I will be with you shortly, my love. For now, let the men talk.” He made a kissing face at me before turning his attention to Burns. “It seems we both have what the other wants.”
“Seems like.”
“I will tell you what I will do. We will play a little game. I will be the generous one. You can choose which you take, the old lady or the computer.”
“That’s mighty big of you, but I think I’ll be taking both,” Burns said. He and Flynn pointed guns at Chentinko.
“Oh, I’m quite sure that’s not going to happen. If your associate doesn’t put down the laptop in the next five seconds, I’m going to kill the old lady, and then my men will kill you.”
“She’s not my grandmother,” Burns said.
“There’s a blessing,” Grand said.
“Five,” Chentinko counted.
“He’s bluffing,” Burns said.
“Flynn, put it down,” I yelled.
Chentinko’s grin grew. He looked like he enjoyed the game. Not a doubt remained in my mind that Chentinko was going to shoot her.
“Four.”
“Someone better do something. I’m not sure he knows all the numbers,” Grand said.
Chentinko squeezed Grand a little harder. She winced.
“Burns, what are you doing?” I asked.
“Three.”
“Thinking,” McPhee said.
“Two.”