“Sounds reasonable. And what’s your excuse, rodeo queen?” Wallace said, referring to my cowgirl and pageant past. “Because we know Jack’s not the holdup.” He crossed his arms over his chest.
The music had stopped again, and the background hum of conversation seemed to halt with it, as if the whole room was awaiting my answer. The disco ball shot beams that danced on Wallace’s head like spotlights. Two sets of eyes bored into me, as I shifted from foot to foot. Wallace was right. Jack would have married me months ago if I’d agreed, but I’d been dragging my feet. It was hard to explain why, especially since he was successful, handsome, kind, and great in the sack. My cheeks heated again. Yeah, really great in the sack. It was just that he’d lost his wife and kids a few years ago. Then he’d proposed marriage to me to help me adopt Betsy, so I wasn’t sure whether he wanted me or just wanted to help me or even just wanted to replace his family. Especially because the L-word hadn’t been part of the deal. And I wanted the L-word. I wanted him to want me for me. I hadn’t admitted that to anyone, though, and now didn’t seem the time or place.
I pointed to my mouth. “I’m waiting to get these ugly braces—”
A hand tugged my wrist. I wheeled toward the pressure to find a pale, wiry man I’d never seen before. He stepped into me, into my space and eyeball-to-eyeball, his deep-socketed ones black and intense. “Tell Jack I didn’t do it.”
He released me and jogged off, punching the front door open. He stepped aside to let Phil in, then dashed out. Phil’s voice boomed over every other sound in the room. “Help! We need a doctor outside—and an ambulance!” I caught a flash of wild eyes under dark hair, and then he was gone.
***
Despite the fact that it was statistically unlikely that everyone in the room was a doctor, the crowd moved as one toward the door, with me in it. My mind reeled from the double whammy of the disquieting interruption by the pale man and Phil’s frantic announcement. Nadine broke to the front of the pack, with Wallace and me right behind her. We burst out into the parking lot. Cool air and the stink of cattle feed lots hit me. The smell wasn’t surprising as Amarillo is the cattle-feeding capital of the world, or at least Texas. The parking lot was unlit, except for a street lamp on the corner and the sparkling stars in the clear April sky, not unlike the lights from the disco ball inside. I stopped, searching for Phil, and so did Wallace, but Nadine kept running.
Wallace pointed past her. “There’s Phil.”
“What’s going on?” Jack asked, appearing out of nowhere and catching up to us.
We took off running again, Jack with us this time, in Nadine’s wake.
“Phil came in yelling for a doctor and ambulance,” I said, but I was starting to huff and puff so it didn’t come out all in one piece. “That’s all we know.”
We wove through the parked cars to the farthest, darkest edge of the lot, where it bordered an abandoned-looking building. Phil was kneeling over someone or something, his body blocking our view. Sirens wailed in the distance, moving closer. Nadine crouched beside her fiancé. We came to a stop behind them.
A tall woman in fishnet hose, garters, satin panties, and a pink satin baby-doll top lay facedown on the pavement, a pair of bunny ears on a headband askew. For a moment I thought, Ah, like Playboy, but then I realized there was no bustier or tail; it was almost Easter, and the ears were white, at least where they weren’t splashed with an explosion of something mushy and red. My stomach bucked. Phil and Nadine gently rolled the woman to her back. As they did, I realized that the mushy mess was an enormous sheet cake decorated with what looked like . . . I stared harder, not believing what I was seeing at first. The entire intact left side was covered by a red icing penis. Above the penis were the words “Congrats, Phil &—” but I couldn’t read the rest, because the right-hand side of the cake had been obliterated by the woman’s face.
Phil wiped cake from the woman’s nose and mouth and leaned down to begin CPR breaths. Nadine’s hand clutched at the back of Phil’s black shirt. I stepped closer. Now I could see blood dripping across the woman’s gashed temple and onto the pavement. I re-examined the cake and shuddered. Its top edge abutted a concrete parking stanchion, covered in dripping red liquid that couldn’t be icing. I shuddered, and Jack slipped an arm around my waist. The wiry man’s words echoed in my head: Tell Jack I didn’t do it.
The scream of the sirens was very near, growing louder. When it held steady, I peered down the street. A police car had parked ten yards away. Two cops approached, hands on their guns.
“Amarillo Police Department,” one of them shouted. “Put your hands where we can see them, everyone.” I knew the voice. Officer John Burrows, a good cop and a good friend.
I held my hands up, waving one, then pointing. “John, it’s Emily and Jack. There’s a woman over there hurt bad.”
John’s red head drew closer until I could see his face. He nodded at me and said something to the short, muscular female cop striding beside him. An ambulance drew to a stop at the curb behind the cruiser, and paramedics hopped out.
“Over here. Bring the gurney,” John yelled back to them.
A throng of people had gathered behind us. I glanced at them, their faces blurring together. Jack pulled me closer. John and the female officer started moving people back from the woman on the ground. The paramedics rushed over with their rolling stretcher through the space the officers had cleared. Phil stopped CPR to make room for them. He turned toward us, and my hand covered my mouth.
Phil’s face was covered in blood and icing. Red, cornflower blue, yellow, and black smeared together in a macabre mask. He sat on his haunches, unmoving, seemingly oblivious to it. Nadine lifted the corner of the skirt of her dress and wiped at his face, but he pushed her hand away. He lowered his head into his hands and rolled forward on his feet until his forehead rested on the pavement.
A woman’s voice shrieked, “Oh my God, that’s a man!”
My eyes shot back toward the woman on the ground. Her panties were askew, revealing indisputable evidence that she was in fact genetically a he.
***
Jack and I stood beside Phil in the open doorway of Get Your Kicks as John and the female cop—who had introduced herself as Alicia Nurse—questioned him. We’d already given our statements, so they allowed us to be present as his counsel, on the condition that I meet with a sketch artist later to capture my memory of the strange man that had appeared and disappeared so quickly, with a suspicious message at a suspicious time.
John said, “Do you know the deceased?”
“His name’s Dennis Welch.” Phil pointed to a black F-250. “That’s his truck.”
The cops shared a look. “How do you know him?” John asked.
Phil shook his head, his eyes closed. “We’ve been best friends since middle school.” He flicked on the light to the room, and I squinted as my eyes adjusted.
This was my first time in Get Your Kicks. I’d expected something très trashy, given the merchandise they planned to carry, the reference to Route 66 in the name, and the customer base I’d imagined for them, since Nadine worked in a strip bar and Phil had run a swingers club. But it was actually more sexy than tacky. The light was soft and rosy. The walls were painted a boudoir red, and curtains of dark lace were draped over black lights, casting moody shadows on the ceiling. They had a big space to work with, and they’d partitioned the center of the room with standing screens. One section featured an iron four-poster bed on which bondage merchandise was displayed in leather, metal spikes, synthetic rubber, and latex. Another one contained an old dance cage from an 80s club. One made me shudder, given what I’d just seen in the parking lot. It held a female mannequin in a sexy red-and-black bunny costume, holding an Easter basket full of fake green grass topped off with a dildo and flavored lubricating oil. The display I liked best had a swing hanging from the ceiling by colorful silk scarves tied one to another.
The gently divided sections faced different types of toys on shelves a
nd racks. Men’s wear. Women’s wear. Bondage. Media. Intimate items to enhance, ahem, pleasure. My mouth grew moist and I itched to slide my hands over some of the silky goodies in the women’s section, to slither them onto my body, and to try the swing. I looked back at Jack, and his amber eyes were as hazy as mine felt.
He cocked his sexy left brow, and my stomach tightened as his lopsided half smile drove his dimple into his left cheek. “Later,” he mouthed at me, and the rest of me suddenly felt moist as well. Yes, Mother was right. He had me hot to trot.
While I was lusting after my fiancé, John kept talking. “Where did you meet him?”
“Boys Ranch.”
That got my attention. I hadn’t realized Phil was a Boys Rancher. I was pretty sure I’d heard Nadine complain about his mother, so I hadn’t thought he was an orphan, but I knew that Cal Farley’s Boys Ranch for many years had taken in boys—and girls these days—who were in trouble, either themselves or because of their family situations. I’d been out to their facilities northwest of Amarillo for one of their rodeos. You wouldn’t realize Boys Ranch was anything but a small Texas town from looking at it. Modest but normal homes with house parents and kids living in them, a church, a medical facility, a school. It was completely self-contained, and everyone that lived there pitched in. They had a fantastic track record for saving kids, and Wallace had once told me that CPS referred as many kids their way as they could.
“Did he, uh, always dress like that?” John asked.
“No. It was a joke. He told me he couldn’t afford a stripper. For my engagement. That’s what the party was for. My engagement, and some, uh, recent good news.”
“Did you know he was going to be here?”
“Yeah. I invited him.” He held his phone aloft. It was smudged with blood and icing. “He called me from a few blocks away. I went outside to meet him.”
“Meet him for what?”
Phil looked at Jack. Not the look, I thought. Nothing good came after a client looked at his attorney like that. Jack kept his face impassive.
Phil finally answered. “He asked me to help him carry stuff in.”
This time it was Officer Nurse who spoke. “Did you talk to him in the parking lot?”
“No. I found him. Like that.” Phil’s voice broke.
“Did you see anyone else?”
He shook his head. “No.” He scrubbed his eyes and then his head angled forward into his hands and his back shook.
I patted Phil’s back, feeling inadequate for the task, wishing Nadine was there in my place, but she was outside per police instructions. The cops didn’t let witnesses listen to each other, and they hadn’t talked to her yet.
“Is there any other way we could verify where you were at the time?”
Phil pointed toward the office. “We just installed surveillance cameras, but the farthest one out just gets the perimeter of the building, not the parking lot.”
“My guy,” I said, and four heads swiveled toward me. “The one that came up to me inside right before Phil found his friend. He’ll be on the video.”
Officer Nurse wrote something down. “We’ll need to view and take a copy of that video, Mr. Escalante.”
“Of course.”
“Do you know anyone who would want to hurt Mr., uh—”
“Welch. Dennis Welch.”
“Mr. Welch.”
Jack had been staring at the ground, lips compressed, but he looked up at Officer Nurse. “Do you guys know yet whether this was foul play or an accident?”
“We’re just covering all the bases.”
I swallowed, my throat dry. A possible murder right outside the party where a strange man who knew Jack had accosted me, and they were treating us all like suspects, especially Phil. It was all sobering. Amarillo seemed like a safe place, but bad things happened here just like everywhere there were humans.
Phil was shaking his head. “He doesn’t even live here. He lives in Borger. And Denver.”
“Is this your place?”
“Yes.”
“Any trouble with break-ins, muggings, or whatnot?”
Phil waffled his hand. “Harassment. I used to run a swingers club here, and that goddamn church, Mighty is His Word—they’d stand in the way of cars, take pictures, hold up signs. Intimidate and humiliate people.”
“Were they ever physical?”
Phil shook his head. “Not that I know of.”
The two officers shared a look and Nurse sighed.
Jack jumped in. “Officers, is that all for now? We’d like to take care of our friend. He’s had a horrible shock.”
Nurse shook her head. “We’re going to need him to show us the video first. Stick around, though, please, in case we have more questions.”
“Can we come see the video? Emily might be able to ID the man she saw.”
Nurse and John looked at each other and shook their heads. John crossed his arms. “Jack, no offense, but we only have your word on where you were when this happened, and Emily is your fiancée. Let’s sit her down with the sketch artist, then we’ll show her the video.”
“And me?”
John shook his head.
“But it’s my client’s evidence.”
“And your client can choose whoever he wants for an attorney, even someone who hasn’t been cleared in an investigation, but we won’t compromise our investigation because of it.”
“Fine.” Jack put his hand on my back, easing me toward the exit.
I took off and he followed.
“We’ll be in the office area.” John took Phil by the arm and started walking toward the back of Get Your Kicks to the office.
I stopped. Jack veered around me and kept going. “John?” I said.
He turned to me and cocked his head, and his partner waited beside him.
“Do you guys know how Dennis died? Was it from hitting his head on the concrete?” I stammered a little, feeling awkward with Nurse there, even though she seemed okay.
He shook his head. “We’ll have to wait on the autopsy. Could be anything. A heart attack. Drugs. Or hitting his head.”
I nodded. “Okay.”
He smiled at me, the first time his guard had lowered since he arrived. Nurse started to walk away, and he leaned toward me and spoke softly. “Stay safe, Calamity Jane. The cavalry is only a few digits away.”
I saluted him. “Good night.”
As his comment sunk in, I got a funny feeling about it. Was John flirting with me? I knew he was going through a divorce, but surely he wouldn’t flirt when he knew I was engaged to Jack, and with Jack so close by. Well, whatever he was doing, it was nice he had my back. When John and I met a few months before, he’d accused me of being reckless and too quick to pull the gun my father had given me a lifetime ago. He was wrong, of course. My daddy had raised me to be self-reliant. But then, Dad had ended up in jail for killing a guy with a broken bottle—in self-defense, although that didn’t do much to lessen the way it made me feel. Or the taint on our collective reputations. But I wasn’t going down that path. Yes, I am self-reliant. I found Betsy and rescued her from kidnappers when the police hadn’t, and I saved two teen runaways from a bad cop all by myself, too.
Maybe I didn’t need John or anyone else coming to my rescue, but I’d keep him on speed dial just in case.
Chapter Two
My head was at the wrong end of the bed and my body entwined in covers after an athletic night stimulated by the sight of all those silk scarves, swings, and pleasure toys. We’d gotten home late from the police station, where I’d worked with the sketch artist—which had really keyed Jack up for some reason. Not that I was complaining. Who needed sleep anyway? Jack’s face was pressed against my hair. Ah, the beautiful afterglow. My whole body tingled and I rubbed my legs against his, luxuriating in the sensation of his skin. I touched my kiss-swollen lips and smiled.
“I love you,” I cooed, sleepily.
Silence.
My throat constricted, wanting t
o pull the words back in. I hadn’t meant to say them. I’d promised myself that I’d make Jack go first. He was the one who had proposed, after all. It was just I was all mushy with the intimacy and half-asleep to boot.
Brrrring!
Jack groaned in my ear. “Whose is it?”
Brrrring!
“Mine.” My heart hurt. Maybe Jack had been saved by the bell, but how could he just ignore my declaration like I hadn’t spoken? I reached for the bedside table, disentangling myself from my boss/fiancé as I did.
Brrrring!
I swiped my phone screen to silence the persistent noise. My scrunched morning eyes were too bleary to read the screen to see who it was, but these days I always answered it. It could be Betsy. Or good news about the adoption. “This is Emily.”
“Hi, Emily. This is Michele.” The warm voice on the other end made me smile despite the interruption, the early hour, and the fact that it wasn’t good news about Betsy.
I grabbed the lavender sheets in one hand and pulled them over my torso as I sat up. “Hi! I can’t wait to see you.” Michele Lopez Hanson was the Baylor law school roomie of my best friend and former boss, Katie. We met when I tagged along to a reunion as Katie’s plus one back before she got married, so she wouldn’t have to face alone all her married classmates talking about their perfect kids and spouses.
Beside me, Jack shucked the covers and levered his naked body off the tall four-poster iron bed. He was ten years older than me, but in far better shape for his age, even though I’d taken up hot yoga recently in an effort to keep up. He disappeared into the sage-green bathroom, shutting the door behind him. A little of my hurt dissipated.
“That’s why I’m calling. I’m going to email you my itinerary, but I wanted you to know I’m coming in Tuesday evening. Is that okay?”
Wallace had booked Michele next Wednesday to speak to Tri AMATX, Amarillo’s triathlon club. Michele had just completed an Ironman triathlon as a tribute to her deceased husband, a professional triathlete. The two had coauthored a successful triathlon training book, too, before he died, so she was a hot commodity in the endurance athletics world. Wallace loved the sport, so he was over the moon about her coming. I admired it, but I got tired just watching it on TV. Seriously. When Wallace made me sit through the TiVoed World Championship race, I’d fallen asleep way before Michele ever crossed the finish line.
Hell to Pay (What Doesn’t Kill You, #7): An Emily Romantic Mystery Page 2