Murder Once Removed

by S. C. Perkins

  It didn’t take me long to get to Senator Applewhite’s former law firm in the Frost Bank Tower at Fourth and Congress. Like most people who called Austin home, I loved the skyscraper, with its unique, stepped architecture; spiky, multi-pyramid roofline; and shimmery, blue-gray glass facade. But while I agreed with other locals that the building resembled the face of an owl when it was lit up at night and viewed at the right angle, I also had to agree with the reporter who once wrote that it looked like a huge set of nose-hair clippers.

  It being only a quarter after seven, there wasn’t yet a huge influx of people making their way into the building from the parking garage. I easily found a spot, parked, and followed a group of three men in suits toward the garage’s elevators. Two of the men were over six feet, looked very fit, and were clearly under the age of forty. The third was around five ten, with a little more thickness around his middle than was probably healthy. His graying wheat-blond hair was rapidly thinning and he’d surpassed forty by at least twenty years.

  I looked again at the two other men. They weren’t just walking with him, I realized. They were flanking him. Protecting him.

  I didn’t even have to see the nose to verify the man’s identity.

  “Excuse me, Senator Applewhite?” I asked, trotting forward a couple of steps to catch up to him.

  The two tall men turned around so sharply that I stopped in my tracks, the one on my left with a hand by his hip, no doubt ready to clear leather. The senator, however, remained calm.

  “Yes? What can I help you with?” His rimless glasses didn’t hide the bags beneath his shrewd blue eyes. Bushy eyebrows raised in question emphasized his heavily lined forehead. The parrot-beak Applewhite nose was there, but it was less pronounced. Or maybe it was because it fit better on his wide, square face than it had on Caleb’s thin, angular one.

  “I was wondering if I could have a moment of your time. I’d like to—”

  “You’ll have to make an appointment, ma’am,” said the man who’d done the gunslinger impression as he eyed another group of people arriving for their workday. He and his buddy then shuttled the senator to the elevators.

  I stared after them, mouth agape. Ma’am? Really? I look like a “ma’am” now? Oh, that is so not right. I turned, stalking back toward my car.

  “Hey, I like your dress.”

  I looked to see a brunette about my age and build, then back down at my dress. We had on the exact same outfit, except she wore a tan belt and tan heels instead of all black like me. “Thanks.” I grinned. “I like yours, too.”

  “You two even kind of look alike,” said her striking companion, whose family clearly hailed from India.

  My sorta twin, with her long brown hair pulled back at the crown, giggled. “Old Morrison would love that, wouldn’t he? Then there’d be two first-year associates for him to sexually harass.”

  The other girl said, “I wonder how much more Obsession for Men he’d slap on if there were two of you.”

  “Probably a bucketful,” the first replied. Both girls made gagging sounds and broke into laughter as they kept walking.

  I opened my car door. More and more people were showing up. I slid down into my car seat with a sigh and went to dig in my handbag for my keys, yet my mind kept running over what the girl had said. Something about the name Morrison was familiar.

  I snapped my fingers. Got it. Calling up the search I’d run yesterday on my phone for the address of the senator’s law firm, this time I looked closely at the names of the partners.

  Morrison, Stokes, Burnside & Applewhite, LLP.

  My sorta twin was an associate at the senator’s law firm.

  I thought about how she and I were dressed almost alike. Leaning over my center console, I looked in my tote bag. Bingo. Serena’s Manolo Blahnik heels I planned to return. Hmm … the nude shade was a just couple of shades off from tan, wasn’t it? I unbuckled my black-patent belt and turned it over. I’d bought it because it was reversible. The opposite side was camel patent.

  I looked at my reflection in the rearview, pulling my hair back at the crown. Could it work?

  It did. Like a freaking charm. Sure, it probably helped that I acted as if the contents of the file folder I held were so engrossing that I only lifted my eyes every so often to make sure I didn’t bump into anything, but tomato, to-mah-toh. Once the elevator deposited me at Morrison, Stokes, Burnside & Applewhite, LLP, on the thirty-second floor, I was able to walk right past the receptionist, who simply gave me a friendly wave as she stowed her handbag under her desk and adjusted her headset for a long day of answering calls.

  Behind the receptionist’s desk was a wall separating her from the rest of the office. A couple of lawyers walked past me, not caring who I was. I glanced right, then left. The younger people arriving for work took a left, toward a room filled with cubicles.

  Must be where they keep the associates. Thus, I hooked a right, toward where the partners’ offices would be.

  “Good morning, Leigh,” said a deep, jolly voice. My head snapped up when I felt a hand brush my derriere as the man passed me. I caught a strong whiff of Obsession for Men and saw the back of a stocky, white-haired man with a significant bald spot.

  “Good morning, Mr. Morrison,” I replied, hoping I was right. I also hoped my sorta twin would soon be reporting him for sexual harassment.

  A thin, bespectacled lawyer came striding toward me and we made full eye contact. My insides dropped and I braced for, “Who are you and how did you get back here?”

  But as he drew nearer, he showed not one iota of knowledge that I wasn’t another lawyer at the firm.

  The chance was mine to take.

  I smiled as he got closer. “Hi. Know where we’re keeping the senator? Morrison asked me to give him this file.” I held up my file folder in front of my face for emphasis, and to keep him from focusing on me.

  “Down at the end of the hall,” he said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder as he passed.

  I resumed my nose-in-file position and walked at a confident pace down the hall, which was long, plush, and brightly lit. The color scheme throughout the office was steel gray and storm gray, with white and navy accents and modern furniture. Not my personal taste, but I had to admit it definitely worked here.

  The outward-facing walls of the offices themselves were panes of frosted glass; each large pane was in a frame of brushed metal. Many of the offices were occupied, yet I could only see shadows behind the glass, so I couldn’t tell what the lawyers were doing beyond sitting down or moving about their space.

  Passing more offices and several more lawyers, I started to sweat. I finally realized how crazy this scheme was, and the sane part of my brain wanted to turn around and walk right out the front doors before I was caught.

  I risked a glance up and nearly freaked out. The two men of the senator’s protection detail were walking toward me. Both had dark hair and strong jaws, but one was easily a couple years younger than the other, and he was staring right at me.

  I felt panic rising. He was the one who’d told me to make an appointment with the senator. My insides curled and I forced my feet to move one in front of the other. I imagined myself being hauled off to jail, or whatever they did to errant genealogists who snuck into law offices.

  “Hey,” he said as they passed. He smiled at me and winked.

  Okay, so the guy was kind of cute, so it was pretty easy for me to blush, smile, and look back down at my file folder.

  Even if Winky thought it was Leigh he was flirting with, not yours truly.

  Still … ha! Who’s not calling me “ma’am” now, huh?

  A few strides later, I made it to the senator’s office, which bore his name and legal credentials on the side of his door. I took a deep breath and knocked on the frosted glass.

  FIFTEEN

  “Come in,” the senator said.

  He was typing on his computer and didn’t even look up at me as I entered and closed the door behind me.

&nbs
p; Honestly, if it weren’t for the nose, I’d have wondered if I’d walked in the wrong office. In the parking garage, flanked by his ultra-fit bodyguards, Daniel Applewhite had seemed like a graying older man. But in here, at his desk and in his element, energy was radiating off him. His glasses were off, oddly de-emphasizing both the bags under his eyes and his parrot-beak sniffer. His hair looked blonder, eyebrows not so much fuzzy caterpillars anymore. He’d also removed his coat and rolled up his sleeves. Somehow the combination took ten years off of him. Instead of looking like an exhausted banker who’d been yelled at one too many times for not approving a loan, he looked like the man he was: a confident politician still at the height of his career.

  Either that, or there was some seriously good lighting in this office.

  “Is that the report on Senator Kubin’s cedar-tree reduction initiative?” he asked as he checked a spreadsheet against what he saw on his computer.

  I glanced down at the file I still held. “Er, sorry, no.” I paused. Okay, here goes nothing.

  “Senator Applewhite, I know I don’t have an appointment, but if I could have a few minutes of your time to ask you about your ancestors…”

  He jerked his head up, and looked at me with hard, defensive eyes. I realized he probably thought I was a reporter.

  “I’m not a journalist of any sort,” I said. “I’m a—”

  “You’re the genealogist,” he finished for me. I’d seen the recognition come over his face even as I’d spoken the words. “You’re also the young lady who … found Dr. Dell.”

  I nodded. “I am both, yes. Winnie was my friend.”

  Pulling out my business card from my hip pocket, I held it out to him. “I’d like to explain how I came to be involved in the press conference, if you’d allow me. I’d also like to talk to you about the conversation you had with Winnie before she died.”

  My arm was still stretched out as the door burst open and the senator’s two bodyguards were suddenly in the room, pistols drawn. The matte-black, squared-off barrels of their Glock 22 service weapons stared me down.

  “Show me your hands!” growled the one I’d dubbed Winky.

  I did as directed, and fast.

  “Stand down, men,” the senator said. “She was only holding out her business card.”

  Neither of them complied. The other guy said, “Senator, this is the woman who approached you in the garage. We told her to make an appointment.”

  The senator sighed. “I’m aware of that.”

  “She snuck in here posing as one of the associates, sir,” Winky added. “We’d like to at least question her.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” the senator said, getting to his feet. “Again, I said to stand down.”

  Both men looked loath to do so, but they slowly lowered their weapons without taking their eyes off me. I lowered my hands and sucked in a breath.

  “You may leave,” the senator told me. “But don’t come back here again or I will allow these gentlemen to do their job. Is that clear?”

  I nodded.

  “I’ll escort her out,” Winky said. He grasped me by the arm. I didn’t jerk away, but I did give him a dirty look.

  “Please show her to the back door,” the senator instructed.

  My escort opened his mouth to protest. It was clear he wanted to parade me in front of the entire law firm—probably in hopes of impressing the real Leigh—but the senator was too quick.

  “I don’t want a scene. She may leave on her own. Show her to the back door, please.”

  “Yes, sir,” he said. Through gritted teeth, it seemed.

  I left quietly. A handful of lawyers, none of them Leigh, stood watching the scene. My face burned, and I was grateful when Winky turned me in the opposite direction and we walked a few steps to an unmarked door.

  “Have a nice day, ma’am,” he said nastily as he closed the door in my face.

  “Yeah, you didn’t call me ‘ma’am’ when you thought I was your little crush, did you?” I said, a little too loudly.

  I heard the door handle turning again and I hotfooted it around the corner to the elevators.

  * * *

  I tapped the bar. “Hit me again.”

  Shortly, a shot glass slid my way. I downed it, making a face and shuddering.

  “Ay, chiflada, Lucia. If you don’t like grapefruit juice, why are you drinking it?”

  “It’s supposed to be good for you,” I replied. “Plus, it’s my penance for being so stupid this morning.”

  “That was pretty loco of you.”

  “Thanks a lot.” I picked up the last bite of my bacon-and-egg taco and popped it into my mouth. After my fiasco with the senator, I’d decided to go to Flaco’s for a proper breakfast—and a few shots of bitter grapefruit juice—before I went into the office. I had stalked the senator and been thrown out of his office all before 8:00 A.M.

  Flaco’s chuckle was heartier than normal. “Why did you not come talk to me first?”

  I gave him a quizzical look, then said judiciously, “Well, you know I think you’re the best, Flaco, and I know you’ve got lots of connections, but I didn’t think you’d be able to help me talk to a United States senator.”

  He gave me a shrug. “Maybe I could. You never know.”

  I slid my shot glass back. “How about some of the good stuff now? And explain what you mean by ‘you never know.’”

  Flaco slid a larger glass my way, which he’d filled with fresh-squeezed orange juice. “You know I am closing the restaurant Sunday afternoon from three to five thirty, yes?”

  “Sure,” I replied. “You close at that time every so often. For inventory.”

  Flaco’s mustache quivered and he held up his hands. “Sí, Lucia. Inventory.”

  He was doing air quotes. I’d never once seen Flaco Medrano do air quotes, or anything remotely resembling them. I cocked one eyebrow so high it felt like it was going into my hairline.

  “Um, Flaco? What gives with the air quotes?” I said.

  “I’m trying to tell you that on those days, I’m not doing inventory. I’m cooking for Senator Applewhite and his three golfing buddies.” He held up three beefy fingers for extra effect.

  “You’re kidding,” I said.

  “Nooo, Lucia. I would not lie to you.”

  I eyed him. “Then why haven’t you told me this before?”

  At the corner of Flaco’s aviators, I saw his eyes crinkle. “You have never asked me, and the senator tips me good not to say.”

  “Then why are you telling me now?”

  “Because you need to know, now.”

  I smiled at my friend. “But how can I talk to him?”

  Flaco disappeared and came back with a red-and-black bundle. The red was a T-shirt and baseball cap that read BIG FLACO’S TACOS in white lettering outlined in green. Beneath were the words AUSTIN, TEXAS outlined in blue. The black was a server’s apron.

  “Carmela cannot work on Sunday. She just told me.”

  I gave him a Really? look and his mustache twitched again.

  “You have already gone to the senator’s office and nearly gotten yourself arrested, Lucia. Here, you can talk to him with nobody around except for three guys who have been drinking since nine in the morning. The senator, he drinks but he does not get drunk. It will be the perfect time. Lo prometo.”

  “But what about you?” I asked. “If I try to talk to the senator and he gets angry, that will affect your arrangement with him. I wouldn’t want to do anything that would hurt you or your business in any way.”

  Flaco waved me off. “No te preocupes, Lucia. Trust me.”

  I gave him another doubtful look, but he only held out the T-shirt and apron. “You still remember how to waitress, no?”

  Flaco knew I’d worked as a waitress in College Station and again for another year during grad school at Driskill Grill, in Austin’s famous Driskill Hotel.

  I took the shirt and apron and launched into my best brassy, diner-waitress imitation. “H
ey, Cookie. Burn one, drag it through the garden, and pin a rose on it for me, will ya?”

  Flaco stared at me. “And you think I butcher the Inglés.”

  * * *

  “Lucy, you look smashing,” Josephine said when I hopped into her car wearing my vintage 1960s white tennis dress with the green piping. I stowed the tennis racquet I’d borrowed on her backseat. In my high, curled ponytail, I’d tied a matching green grosgrain ribbon and kept the sixties theme going with pale-pink matte lipstick and cat’s-eye eyeliner.

  It was Saturday and Halloween all in one, and I was feeling proud of myself. I’d managed to keep my mind on my genealogy clients and out of trouble with the law and other elected officials for nearly thirty-six hours. I couldn’t promise to behave myself come Sunday when I would be impersonating a waitress in order to talk to the senator, but tonight I was ready to relax, party, and not think about anything more brain-taxing than whether I wanted to drink beer, wine, or some of Walter’s high-octane punch he called Walter’s Wicked Wassail.

  “Likewise, most definitely,” I told Josephine, admiring her bejeweled, amethyst-colored bedlah, or belly-dancing outfit, which she wore with loads of gold bangles and rings, kohl-lined eyes, and a string of small gold coins circling her bare midriff. Her hair was loose and curly and the bright purple hues of her costume brought out the green in her eyes. Josephine as a belly dancer put all other belly dancers to shame, naturally.

  We parked on Serena and Walter’s street in the Oak Hill neighborhood and made our way to their townhouse with a flood of other costumed guests. Even though Austin was still expecting a cold front that would drop temperatures down to the high fifties, the fall weather of the previous days had waned, giving us a warm, breezy evening.

  Waiting for us at the door was Walter, dressed as Dracula, with two orange plastic cups of Wicked Wassail. (Or “Vicked Vassail,” in his attempt at kitschy vampire-speak.)