Josie Tucker Mysteries Box Set 2

by E M Kaplan

  You want me to stick to the recipes, to the facts, to be a predictable commodity. A service without interruption and of consistent, high quality. I have a brand, a recognizable name.

  I should never explode with unexpected emotion or rage in a fiery, confusing ball of pointless classical references about antiquated notions of sin and passion.

  Like Bruce Banner combusting into The Hulk when trapped and cornered. Josie angry. Josie smash.

  —Josie Tucker, discarded blog post entry

  Chapter 29

  “Keep your hands where I can see them,” the officer said, causing Lizzie to squeak again, even though the guy seemed pretty relaxed for a cop. “Just stay where you are.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I understand. I speak English and I’m a U.S. citizen. Although my grandma isn’t—well, never mind. Yes. Hands up.”

  Josie sighed and also put up her hands, feeling resigned—signed, sealed, and…stupid.

  This evening could have gone so, so much better.

  While the police officer holstered his weapon and radioed in his situation, she contemplated her life. Up to this point, she’d been fairly lucky for someone whose life could have gone downhill quickly, given her circumstances. Her great-aunt and uncle had taken her in and saved her from an uncertain future in the foster system. She’d gotten a solid college education and stumbled into a potentially great career as a blogger. Lucky breaks, one after another. Solid and much appreciated gifts from the universe, the powers that be…fate. So the question was, why did she continue to squander her good luck by putting herself into these risky situations?

  Crap, crap, crappity crap. Drew was going to kill her.

  No, not literally murder her, like whatever horrible thing had happened to Mary Clare, but absolutely slay her the way he always did by being incredibly understanding about her constant ability to get herself into a jam. He was going to kill her with his kindness. Oh, no doubt about it, he would be angry and blast her poor judgment for a while, but then he’d admit that it was a part of her. Then he would accept it. Somewhere deep in her heart, his compassion would pierce her to the core and remind her what it was like to feel like a disappointment again and again.

  “Do you two have I.D.?” the officer asked, his shoulder radio chirping. He reached up to turn it down a notch or two. His mellow tone and loose stance suggested he didn’t consider either of them a risk. That was a good start, because she was so not a threat.

  “In my back pocket,” Josie said. “Can I reach my hand in and get it out?” She spoke slowly and explicitly, as if she were talking to a preschooler. Not to be condescending. Just in case. Hey, she’d seen the stories on the news. One bad cop didn’t spoil the barrel, but it did make a person pretty darned cautious, especially if that person happened to be caught perpetrating some alleged suspicious activity. In the middle of the night.

  He seemed to be considering her jeans, not for any level of attractiveness or to determine if anything came between her and her…Levis, but as to whether she could be hiding a weapon in them or, more likely, how he could avoid a sexual harassment lawsuit while trying to retrieve her driver’s license.

  “Go ahead,” he said finally, though he watched her closely.

  Lizzie had already found her wallet—a big purple velvet thing with zippers and snaps—in the outside pocket of her shoulder bag and had thrust it at him. He shined his flashlight on it, squinting at her information. He took out her license and handed the rest back to her without comment.

  Josie, however, knew her I.D. was going to cause a few questions. Shaking her head at herself, she swept a finger in the inner pocket of her wallet, handing him the ridiculous piece of paper that said she was a private detective as well as her Massachusetts driver’s license.

  Before he could look at it very closely, however, the overhead light flooded on and the entire foyer was filled with bright, almost-blinding light. As they blinked and squinted at each other, Josie shifted her eyes toward the monstrous chandelier above them. It was a multi-tiered fixture with innumerable cascading, twinkling crystals, like a sparkly Venetian fountain of diamonds. A monstrous display of wealth. A thousand stars in the darkness.

  “Whoa,” she said. “Check that out.”

  The others looked up and admired the crystal masterpiece, then together as one, swiveled toward the kitchen at the clip-clop of unsteady footsteps in high heels. Marion emerged from the kitchen in all his splendor. In his gravity-defying wedges and fresh coral-pink lipstick, he held a pitcher in one hand, the emaciated fingers of his other wrapped around the stems of two glasses. He’d taken the time to draw on some eyebrows as well as perch his tiara atop his greasy gray locks.

  “Hey, girls, the next batch of sangria’s done. Sorry it took so long. Almost lost my buzz. Y’all ready for freshies?”

  While Josie appreciated the effort he took in his appearance and his commitment to making his performance believable—that he’d even go out on a limb for them—she wished he’d gotten his butt out here sooner and saved her the near-heart-attack.

  “Well hello, Officer Gorgeous,” he said to the cop and shifted his weight to one bony hip.

  The officer put his hands on his hips below his service belt. Kind of an aw-shucks move, except he was armed, bullet-proof vested, and had a utility belt more packed than Batman’s.

  “Marion, what in the heck are you doing out in this neck of the woods? Aren’t you usually at the Front Steps shelter over on 7th?”

  He wasn’t crossing his arms, Josie thought. From all of her past dealings with the guys in blue, all the way back to the juvie officers in her past life, the crossed-arms stance was her least favorite. She knew what crossed arms meant, so this casual buddy-buddy act made her wary. Unfamiliar territory, so to speak.

  “Well, long story, Officer, but I’m living here now. And these are my girls.” Marion gave them a Vanna White wave, making Josie feel like a new washer-dryer combo on a display pedestal.

  “Is that so?”

  The police officer looked at her and Lizzie with a heavy dose of skepticism.

  Waitaminute. What did he think Marion meant when he said they were “his girls?” Like, girls for hire kind of girls? Because Josie was a lot of things in life, including a lame burlesque dancer and a person who would consider flirting just to borrow a research file, but she was no hooker. She almost shouted for him to take that look back but figured, against her first instinct, that silence was still her best course of action if she wanted any hope of seeing her hotel room and not-yet-fiancé within the next 24 hours.

  “As a matter of fact, I do have a signed and notarized lease out in my suitcase by the pool. That’s my patio bedroom, if you’d like to come into it.” Marion lowered his voice suggestively, and even Josie, who was normally okay with other people’s public displays of affection, had to look away.

  “If you wouldn’t mind,” the officer said, playing into Marion’s scene. “Ladies,” he said, handing Josie back her I.D., “it’s been a pleasure. Apparently the neighbors got a little trigger happy calling us out tonight during your book club, scrapbooking, or whatever it is you’re doing here. Since it’s late, you’re going to want to get home now.” His comment was neither a question nor a suggestion, but a command he expected them to heed.

  No problem whatsoever with that plan, as far as she was concerned.

  As the officer followed Marion out to the patio and his poolside room with a view, Josie heard him asking their transvestite savior of the evening whether he’d been getting enough to eat lately.

  #

  “This was both the best evening of my life and the worst,” Lizzie told her.

  “That’s very Dickensian,” Josie said, her words slurring with exhaustion. Her eyes had stopped focusing. Her lids had decided earth’s gravity was inferior to Jupiter’s and were acting accordingly, and she could no longer hold them up. From behind her mostly closed eyelids, she could see the faint glow of the passing streetlights, rhythmic and soothing
.

  They were just minutes from Josie’s hotel. She didn’t know what time it was, but she thought the sky was starting to lighten. She stubbornly refused to acknowledge it was a new day until she’d been asleep for a while.

  Her mind should have been flooded with images of what they’d seen that night, but her thoughts were pretty much a flatline of nothingness, which meant she needed a pillow under her head. Preferably within the next ten minutes, or else she was just going to sleep standing up in the elevator, or here in Lizzie’s car.

  Lizzie, on the other hand, seemed ready for more adventuring. Her voice was extra loud in the chilly darkness of the car, too loud for Josie’s dwindling ability to concentrate. And luckily at this hour, the streets were empty, because Lizzie had started gesturing with her hands and swerving a bit, or at least she seemed to be as far as Josie could tell with her eyes now fully closed.

  “I mean, we didn’t collect any conclusive evidence pointing to the infestation or even presence of spirits in the Blake house,” she said, cutting across two lanes. “But I was able to use most of my equipment in the field. I’m not a field virgin anymore! High-five me.”

  Josie opened an eye and dutifully smacked the hand Lizzie held up. Her side of the celebration was more of a listless brush, but Lizzie didn’t seem to mind.

  “I think I could really do this,” she said.

  “You might have trouble making a living off hunting ghosts,” she told Lizzie, murmuring more than actually talking. “I don’t know how you could monetize that unless you sold t-shirts or had some kind of Etsy storefront. Branding would be really tricky. I’m sure there’s a copyright on that Ghostbusters red circle with a slash through it…I don’t know what that’s called, but I think it has a name. Something weird like umlaut…”

  The next thing she knew, Lizzie was shaking her awake and telling her to go into the hotel.

  Chapter 30

  The door to her darkened hotel room opened before she could get her card key out from her pocket, and Drew peered out into the bright hallway at her. She didn’t comprehend his explanation of how he knew where she was. Something about an app on her phone and GPS. Technology was amazing as long as she didn’t have to understand it right now. And even though she said she was fine, just tired, he insisted on pulling her into the room and lightly checking her over until he was satisfied she hadn’t been beaten or stabbed or clonked on the head.

  That last one, she appreciated.

  And also that he didn’t seem to be mad at her. Why had she thought he’d be upset? Was that all in her own mind? If so, she had more issues than People magazine. Had Mary Clare ever been written up in People magazine? The Ramsey family sure had. Josie remembered reading some of those articles in the dentist’s office.

  “I really need to get some sleep. Did you already do that?” she asked him as she kicked off her shoes and unzipped her jeans.

  “Yeah, a few hours until I realized you weren’t back yet,” he said, guiding her to bed. “Do you need a drink of water?”

  “No,” she said, eyes already closing, “Haven’t been out drinking…just ghost hunting.”

  She dropped her pants on the floor and crawled into bed. Then she sat back up and removed her jacket, which also landed on the floor.

  “What’s up with this bracelet on your wrist? It looks black.”

  Her head hit the pillow. At freaking last. “It’s supposed to be black,” she said. “It’s a Victorian death charm. I mean a Romany love charm. Gypsies. Whatever.”

  Also, she needed to ask him something, but she couldn’t remember what it was. She traced back through the evening in her mind.

  Aha. Now she remembered.

  “Hey, want to get some barbecue tomorrow?” she asked, but she fell asleep before he answered.

  When she woke up some hours later, arms and legs sprawled in an X across the bed, Drew was gone, but he'd left a handwritten note on the pillow next to her. Though she was much more awake now, she stared at it for several minutes trying to decipher what he’d said. Freaking doctor’s penmanship. The cliché was alive and well. Fortunately, the door clicked open while she was still sitting there in bed.

  “Hey, you’re awake.” He set a takeaway paper cup and a granola bar for her on the table next to the bed. “What are we doing today? While you were asleep, you said something about barbecue, a smoke house on fire, and Mr. Rochester.”

  Talking in her sleep? That didn’t sound good. She had a lot of crap in her head that would be better off staying in there.

  The opening of the cup had some foam puffing through it. She sniffed the drink and discovered it was a chai latte, but it was too hot to drink, so she ripped into the granola package as she considered where to start. Luckily she didn’t have to go into the plot of Jane Eyre. She’d proofread his paper on that book during their undergrad years, so she knew he’d read it. But the Mary Clare part, she needed to start at the beginning on that.

  “I saw your file on the desk here. I hope you don’t mind I read some of it while you were sleeping. I saw the boombox, too, but I didn’t want to wake you up. I’m guessing the tape has something interesting on it.” He looked embarrassed and a little…nervous?…as he pushed a hand through his hair.

  She, on the other hand, experienced a curious warmth building in the center of her chest. If she weren’t such a general crabapple, she’d say it was pleasure. Yeah, that had to be happiness. Or something.

  She slid off the bed in her t-shirt and undies and headed over to her Guy Friday where he sat at the desk, shifting papers around. “Excellent. I’m glad you did.” She slung her arms around his shoulders from behind. “I’ve been to Smiley’s already, but I think we need to go back. If not for answers, then at least so you can try their amazing beans.”

  “That’s the weirdest proposal I ever heard,” he said, and she nearly choked. “So, what? Are we going for lunch or dinner?”

  “I don’t even know what time it is. And I need a shower.” She kissed the side of his neck.

  “We’ve got time for a shower,” he said with that half smile she liked so much.

  #

  Later, Josie tracked down Gary on their way to the lobby and returned the boombox, which she had gone over with a washcloth one more time to make sure it wasn’t sticky. After fiddling with the buttons and inner gears a little more, she was relieved to get Rewind to work.

  Thank you, Samsung.

  She tidied up the Mary Clare file and slipped the cassette inside the folder in case they had time to return it to Skip after lunch.

  As they headed out of the hotel lobby on their way to the rental car, the baby-faced bartender stopped them. Today he wore trendy skinny jeans, along with some goofy leather driving gloves that left his fingertips exposed, as if he had a Formula One car waiting for him outside with his pit crew. With his height and slight build, he would have made a better jockey for horse racing, she thought. They stood practically eye-to-eye—and she was short, yes, she could admit it in this case, for a woman.

  “Hey, Ryan,” Drew said to him, momentarily confusing both Josie and the boy, who was apparently named Ryan, unbeknownst to her. Some P.I. she was.

  “Oh, hey, I didn’t realize you two were here together.” He looked wary, like he didn’t know how to proceed. “Look, can I talk to you for just a minute?” he asked Josie, still darting his glance back to Drew. “Is it okay if—?”

  “Yeah, he knows what’s going on,” Josie said, though Drew didn’t exactly know every single detail, including this part, probably.

  Ryan the bartender led them to a more secluded seating area behind a bank of planters filled with big leafy plants. A big leaf smacked Ryan in the head when he sat down, and he jumped like he’d been goosed. Josie took a seat next to him on a couch and Drew picked a chair opposite them.

  “Look, I didn’t know who you were when you asked me questions before. Later I kind of…saw your name on your credit card receipt and I looked you up on the Internet. I mean, y
ou’re not a cop, but you’re kind of a reporter, right? Or cook or something. So if I tell you this, like give you some information, you’ll do the right thing with it? At least, that’s what I’m hoping. I mean, I can’t really keep going with what I know and not telling anyone.”

  The circles under his eyes were more pronounced than before, but Josie had just chocked it up to his fair skin and unfortunate babyface—and maybe a habit of late-night partying or playing video games or sculpting his goatee. Whatever extracurricular activities he was into.

  “The thing is,” he said, picking at his nails, “I wasn’t fired from Smiley’s. I quit.” He lowered his voice. “I didn’t want to work for a murderer. That’s not the kind of place I can stay in. I just didn’t feel good there.”

  Josie stared straight into his eyes. “How do you know he’s a murderer?” She’d been working on him—on Ryan—for only a couple days, and now he had come to her willingly with information. She’d known there had been more to his story. She was so close to plucking the info out of him, she could almost taste it.

  He had turned fidgety though and was squirming in his seat.

  Wait. No, what’s he doing?

  He’d reached into his jeans back pocket and pulled out a…plastic baggy. Which he handed to her without a word.

  “What is this?” she asked as she took the mystery object between her thumb and forefinger through the plastic. Turning it this way and that, she tried to figure out what it was.

  It was pink and…good lord, were those teeth?

  Chapter 31

  She gave the bag to Drew.

  Okay, that was an understatement. Her jerky hand-off was like her tossing a hot potato, more of an underhand fling.