Mystery Writer's Mysteries Box Set 1-3

by Becky Clark

  He ignored my outburst and went back to painting, swizzling his brush in a dab of paint the color of blood. “Says you.”

  I had to move away from him because a thick rage was bubbling up and I didn’t think I could control it right now. Before I went back to my table, I leaned in close to Lapaglia’s ear. “I will get the money you owe me”—I silently added and I will get Peter—“today.”

  He never turned around, just continued painting. Either he had no intention of reimbursing me or he was just waiting for me to tell him how much. Or maybe I had terrified him. I doubted it, but it gave me a little puff of satisfaction.

  I bit into my Reuben while I calculated what he owed me, both compensatory damages as well as punitive. He owed me, dammit.

  At one point I thought he was getting up to come over and beg my forgiveness, throwing himself on my righteous mercy, but he only angled his chair to get out of the sun. He didn’t even seem concerned that I might broadcast his location to the world. He should care about that, if he’d been the one to come face-to-face with all those furious workshop participants.

  I was too livid to call Ozzi or anyone else to come get me, or Penn & Powell to tell them I found their Golden Boy Jerk. I needed to wait until I could modulate my tone and my words, and probably not in public, just in case I misjudged. I ate half my sandwich, but didn’t taste any of it, while I stared daggers into Lapaglia’s back.

  The family reunion family made a noisy departure as they hurried to get to their trail ride on time. Watching them with their easy camaraderie and playfulness as they chased each other out of the area calmed me down the teensiest bit. Not everyone was horrible. Just Lapaglia.

  As I picked up the other half of my $18 Reuben, dangling a single strand of sauerkraut, I saw a flick of silver way up near the front of the outdoor kitchen. Something about it told me it wasn’t a bird. It seemed familiar somehow. I stared, straining to identify whatever it was.

  No. It couldn’t be.

  The Braid was sneaking up on Lapaglia from around the front of the outdoor kitchen. He hugged the brick. Lapaglia painted, oblivious to his presence. I reached up slowly and tilted the umbrella over my table so it blocked me completely. Then I slid out from behind it and moved quickly, with my head down, to the opposite side of the outdoor kitchen. I tiptoed the entire length of it hoping the Braid wouldn’t double back and run into me.

  I reached the short end of the brick structure. Unless he’d moved, which I didn’t suspect since I hadn’t heard any voices or scuffling, the Braid was still peering around the corner to the left, while I was on the right. Only about eight feet of brick wall separated us.

  I pressed my back against the bricks and squinched my eyes. There was no one in the long patio area or beyond it outside the main building. I knew if I screamed or caused a ruckus, both men would disappear. But if I could deliver Lapaglia to the Braid, he’d give me back Peter O’Drool. He promised. That was the deal.

  Slowly, like a well-trained ninja, I inched forward.

  Twenty

  I realized I didn’t want to hide from the Braid. I wanted to sneak up behind that jerk Lapaglia and deliver him into the Braid’s grateful hands. I reversed direction and snuck back the way I’d come. I crossed the patio toward the table where my lunch sat but I didn’t stop. Instead I continued on to where Lapaglia sat, preoccupied with painting his teddy bears.

  By the time I reached Lapaglia from behind, the Braid had sprinted up to him from the side. We each clamped a hand on his shoulders at the same time.

  “Here he is!” I raised my free hand, offering the Braid a high five.

  Lapaglia tried to stand but we both pushed him back into his seat.

  “What are you doing here?” The Braid scorched me with his eyes.

  “I found him for you.”

  “You did not do jack. I found him myself.” The Braid pushed me away and I fell to the concrete.

  This was the last straw on my last nerve. I was done being pushed around by old men, literally and figuratively. I scrambled to my feet, looking, I’m certain, like a honey badger with nothing left to lose. The full fury of my frustration and rage shot through me, bestowing Wonder Woman strength which I used to leap onto the Braid’s back and ride him like a rodeo bull, one arm around his throat, the other wrapped around his hair like reins.

  The faces of all those judgmental cops at my Dad’s funeral all those years ago flashed across my memory. Detectives Ming-Like-The-Vase and Campbell-Like-The-Soup, smug and condescending, questioning me about the murder of my agent. Those patronizing cops in Portland assuming I was a nut-job who watched too many movies. Lapaglia, entitled and arrogant, ruining my career, my credit, and maybe my entire life with his selfishness. And now the Braid, dognapping, backstabbing, double-crossing mobster, clearly with no intention of keeping his promise to me.

  I held tight to that ponytail, surprised that my fury hadn’t ripped it from his head completely. I never asked for any of this and I was sick of being dropped into circumstances out of my wheelhouse. How dare these men shake my comfort zone to the core!

  We galloped all over that patio with him trying to buck me off. I was a bitch on wheels with a full tank of gas. Lapaglia simply stared, mouth wide open.

  The Braid lost his balance when I hooked my foot around the leg of one of the propane grills and knocked his legs out from under him. I collapsed on top of him. His face smushed into the hot concrete. I straddled his back, my knees pinning his arms. I attempted to loosen the bungee cord holding the cover on the grill but couldn’t quite reach. I didn’t dare lift a knee off the thrashing mobster beneath me.

  I yelled to Lapaglia to grab the cord. He did so without a word, still gaping at the scene before him. I tied the Braid’s hands behind him. With my newfound superhuman strength, I yanked him to his feet by the back of his collar and dropped him into a chair. I splayed one palm on the Braid’s chest, commanding Lapaglia to grab another bungee. I used it to lash the Braid to the chair, winding it tight around his chest. Breathing hard, I got the third bungee and fastened his ankles to the legs of the chair.

  Leaving him in the sun, I stepped into the shade of an umbrella, Lapaglia at my side.

  I brought the thunder, I thought, chest heaving, quoting AmyJo’s favorite song. She’d be proud. I began to collect myself, willing my breathing to slow.

  The complacency had finally disappeared from Lapaglia’s face. It thrilled me to see he was now a cross between terror and shame, and what I hoped was culpability. All of this was his fault and the sooner he recognized that, the better off we’d both be.

  The Braid, however, had pasted a sneer on his face. I needed him to understand the depth of my emotion at this moment. But how? Then I spied a pair of gardening shears propped in one of the many alcoves of the brick kitchen structure. I walked casually to it, praying my hands wouldn’t shake as I picked it up, and that my voice would work when I figured out what to say.

  As I ambled toward the Braid, opening and closing the shears with my hand, testing them out, Lapaglia’s eyes widened. When I stopped next to the Braid, my knee almost touching his, I thought I saw a flicker of concern pass over his face. At least he’s paying attention.

  I bent down, my mouth next to his ear. “Where’s Peter O’Drool?” I spoke in my normal voice, swollen with pride I hadn’t squeaked.

  The Braid turned his face toward mine. I saw no worry or concern anywhere on it. He stared in an alpha dog manner, but I held his gaze, no worry or concern on my face either. I hoped. Then he made a dismissive pfft sound and turned his attention to Lapaglia.

  “Rodolfo.” The Braid stretched out the second syllable. “It is time to confess.”

  I couldn’t believe the Braid was trussed up like a Christmas goose and still thought he was in charge. Curious about the confession, however, I kept my mouth shut. But I did snap the shears a couple of times to remind them both that technically, I still had the upper hand.

  “Confess what?” Lapaglia’
s face had returned to his previous nonchalance.

  “Confess that you murdered my cousin.”

  “What?” Lapaglia blanched.

  “He murdered who?” I asked, stunned.

  “My cousin, Tiffany.” The Braid kept his eyes on Lapaglia but spoke to me. “She called me, but I couldn’t talk and let it go to voicemail. When I listened to it, she mentioned Lapaglia’s name. The next day I learned she had been found murdered in Denver.”

  I looked from the Braid to Lapaglia who hadn’t moved a muscle. I realized he might try to bolt at any moment. I stepped toward him, waving the pruning shears. “Get me those other bungee cords.”

  Lapaglia never looked at me, just moved mechanically toward the other grill and removed the cords securing the cover. He handed them to me, still without meeting my eyes.

  I dragged a nearby chair, placing it four feet away from the Braid’s. Pointing with the shears I commanded, “Sit down.”

  Lapaglia sat.

  I began to get scared. This was too easy. As quickly as I could, I tied Lapaglia to the chair the same way I’d tied the Braid. Lapaglia still hadn’t looked at me, simply stared at the concrete.

  “Now talk.” I gestured at Lapaglia’s chest with the shears.

  He didn’t move.

  The Braid started to speak but I pointed the shears at him and he shut up.

  “Lapaglia.” He still didn’t respond so I gently poked him in the chest with the tip of the shears. He looked up at me. “This man just accused you of murdering Tiffany Isaac, who he says is his cousin. Don’t you have anything to say to that?”

  “I didn’t do it.” He looked at the Braid with disbelief. “Tiff’s dead?”

  The Braid glared at him.

  “You have three seconds to tell me what’s going on. And then I’m calling the cops,” I said.

  “I don’t know. I just talked to her the other day.”

  “What did you talk about?” I asked.

  “Nothing. She told me she’d seen the photos online from the Dark Dagger Awards.”

  The same ones I’d seen. “What about them?”

  He looked me directly in the eyes. “I’m not sure. She wasn’t making a lot of sense, talking fast and disjointed. Told me a story about sitting in a sushi bar with a friend years ago, when they were in college. They were procrastinating homework or something and talking about how nice it would be to trade places with two women sitting near them.”

  The Braid made a noise in his throat. “She told me the same story,” he said, looking up at me. “She also told me that my name has been linked with Lapaglia’s, that I am the one accused of feeding him inside information about the family.”

  “Whose family?” I asked.

  “The family. The Zaminskys,” the Braid said.

  “Who are they?”

  Lapaglia answered. “A crime family. He works for them.”

  “And you know this because ….?”

  “Everyone knows this,” Lapaglia said.

  I didn’t know it, but I kept that to myself. I asked the Braid, “Is this true?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you feeding Lapaglia inside information?”

  The Braid didn’t answer but shot me an angry look.

  I looked from one to the other, becoming more and more exasperated with them. I wanted to call the police, but I wanted to know what was going on just the teensiest bit more. Besides, they were trussed up tight. I had plenty of time. I pointed my shears at one and then the other. “Remember when I went all spider monkey a little bit ago? Fair warning, I’m fixin’ to do it again if you don’t tell me what’s going on.” I opened and closed the shears. “In great detail.”

  The Braid and Lapaglia glanced at each other, neither wanting to explain. Finally, the Braid spoke.

  “Someone is setting me up to make it look like I am feeding stories to this hack so he can write his books.” He jerked his head at Lapaglia, who quickly glanced away. “The information is sensitive and not many people would know it. Unfortunately, I am one of them. Lapaglia will be accompanying me back to Jersey to tell them who has been spoon-feeding these stories to him to prove I was not involved. If he does not come with me, I will be forced to kill him to show he is nothing to me.”

  I thought about this for a moment. “So, either way you’re in deep doo-doo. If your family thinks you’re the snitch, you’re a goner. If Lapaglia turns up dead, the Feds will think you did it and you’re a goner.” I mulled this over. “What’s your real name anyway?”

  “Cesare Silvio.”

  Lapaglia gasped. “Every email I got was signed The Silver Fox.”

  I snapped my head toward the Braid. “You said you weren’t the one feeding him information.”

  “I am not. Someone is setting me up.”

  I thought about what Don and Ozzi had told me about the character “Taffeta” in Lapaglia’s books. “Was it Tiffany? Was she setting you up? She’s your cousin, part of your crime family too.”

  “You do not know what you are talking about.”

  “Educate me.”

  “She is my cousin, yes, but we are not part of the Zaminsky family. I only work for them. Just because someone works for Walmart does not mean they are related to Sam Walton.”

  “Then what did Tiffany have to do with any of this?” I asked him.

  “Yeah … what?” Lapaglia asked. “She’s not really dead, is she?” His voice had a sad, resigned timbre to it.

  The Braid scowled at him but answered me. “In her message she told me she was worried I was being set up for something and she did not want to see me get whacked.”

  I had no reason to believe him. In Lapaglia’s book, Taffeta/Tiffany was a double-crosser. But if the Braid was telling the truth that she wasn’t in the mob, then maybe “Taffeta” was someone else.

  I turned to Lapaglia. “Who was Taffeta in your books?”

  “Taffeta.”

  “Yes, Taffeta,” I said impatiently.

  Lapaglia frowned at me. “Taffeta … in my books … is … Taffeta.” He spoke to me like I didn’t understand English.

  “Who was she based on?”

  “Nobody. She’s fictional.”

  “Don’t play dumb, mister. You and I both know that fictional characters are often based on real people. Especially when they’re handed to you fully-formed on a silver platter.”

  “Silver. You said it yourself. Ask the Silver Fox over there.”

  I turned to the Braid. “So how would Tiffany know anything about the mob if she wasn’t in the mob?”

  “I do not know.”

  “Does she have friends in the Zaminsky mob?”

  “I do not know, but I hope she does not. They are ruthless.”

  “Unlike you, who spends his time feeding the hungry and building hospitals for the poor.”

  “You do not have to be sarcastic.”

  These men and this conversation were getting me all riled up again, and I still didn’t understand any of it. If Lapaglia wrote those books based on stories he was given, someone had a reason for wanting him to write those books and include those stories. If “Mohawk” from the books is the Braid, and the story line was that he had to make things right with the mob, and here is the Braid wanting Lapaglia to go back to New Jersey to makes things right with the mob, then who was “Taffeta”?

  If Taffeta was Tiffany, then maybe the Braid simply wasn’t aware his cousin worked for the mob too. I’d seen enough gangster movies to know there were always plenty of secrets to go around.

  But if it wasn’t Tiffany, then it had to be someone else in the Zaminsky crime family.

  I turned to Lapaglia. “Tell me again where you got the inside dirt on those mob stories.”

  “Emails signed The Silver Fox, like I said.” He jerked his head toward the Braid.

  “See? It is faulty information like this that will get me whacked. I never sent you any emails,” the Braid said.

  Lapaglia motioned to me to come closer
to him. I squatted next to him, but warily, and only after making sure he was still tied tight. I also made sure he noticed I still held the garden shears.

  “This is fishy,” he whispered. “He killed Tiff.”

  “He says you killed her,” I whispered back.

  “I loved her. Why would I kill her?” The silver clasp of his bolo tie caught the sun every time he moved.

  “Stranger things have happened.”

  “She never mentioned she had a cousin in the mob.”

  “Why would she?”

  “You’ve gotta believe me. I didn’t hurt Tiff.” His eyes filled as he stared at me. “Which scenario makes more sense … that a middle-aged author murdered someone in cold blood, or that a guy in the mob did? And notice how he never uses contractions when he speaks, like some Damon Runyon character?”

  “I was thinking more like Kim Darby in True Grit, but so what?” I whispered, trying to keep one eye on him and one on the Braid.

  “None of the emails sounded like that.” He cut his eyes at the Braid.

  “But would they? Do you talk exactly how you write in emails?” I mulled this over for a moment then nodded. Yes, people generally sounded like their emails. Unless they were trying to disguise it. “How long have you been getting mob stories from this Silver Fox?”

  “Years,” he whispered. “At least ten.”

  To me, that ruse didn’t seem sustainable over so long. Months, maybe, but ten years?

  As if giving voice to my thoughts, Lapaglia mimicked the Braid. “I do not think that a mook such as this could have been behind such a plot.”

  I shook out my legs and turned back to the Braid, speaking in my normal voice. “Let’s talk about Tiffany some more. Why would she have been murdered?”

  He looked as sad as Lapaglia had. For a minute I felt sorry for him. Then I remembered Peter’s kidnapping, the hair-pulling, and the potential whacking.