Skating Around the Law

by Joelle Charbonneau

  Yikes. Seeing this guy on Mack’s dark porch was scary, but in the light everything, including his neck, looked three times larger. This guy was a walking billboard for steroids.

  “Thanks for meeting me on such short notice,” I said.

  Another grunt. The guy was pithy.

  Now that Anthony was seated across from me I doubted the brilliance of my plan, but I couldn’t get up without him following me, and I definitely didn’t want to be alone with him outside. I was stuck.

  The waitress came over, startling me from my building terror. I ordered the eggplant Parmesan. No need to count calories when faced with a hit man, right? Anthony ordered a glass of white wine and the linguine with clam sauce.

  We stared at each other across the table, and knots of tension formed in my shoulders. Quiet made me edgy. “So,” I said. “You and Mack were business partners?”

  Anthony’s eyes narrowed as he grunted again. Strange, but this time I wasn’t intimidated—probably because he had a deep-fried tentacle he’d pilfered from my appetizer dangling from his lips. Not that I minded. As long as I stayed alive, the man could eat anything he wanted.

  He nodded as he swallowed. “Not exactly.”

  “What’s that mean?” I asked.

  “Let’s just say the two of us shared a mutual interest.”

  “Like an eBay account?” He looked at me blankly. “Did you guys run a company together based on online auctions?”

  “Nope. Mack did that stuff all on his own.”

  So much for that theory. That just left the doll. “How were you and Mack getting along in your mutual interest?”

  Anthony’s massive shoulders shrugged. “Not good. Mack and I had different ideas about how business should be conducted.”

  I wondered if medicating his partners figured into Anthony’s financial strategy. “I heard you fought with him at the diner.”

  Anthony gave me a flat stare. “I don’t like people poking into my business,” he growled.

  “Well, I don’t like dead people floating in my toilets.” I straightened my shoulders, trying to look confident even though I was sure everyone in the restaurant could hear my knees knocking. “Finding Mack’s body in my rink gives me the right to ask a few questions, don’t you think?”

  He tilted his head and nodded. “You might be right.” The tone of his voice turned pleasant. “I apologize. This whole thing with Mack has me disturbed.”

  I blinked, not knowing what to say to that. Heaping plates of food arrived, allowing me to regroup while Anthony sucked down his meal. The red sauce Dom had prepared smelled fabulous, but I couldn’t eat while my stomach was churning.

  When Anthony slowed his gastronomic assault, I peered up at him and said, “I think it’s time for us to lay all our cards on the table.” Anthony nodded, so I continued. “From what I can tell, Mack’s got something that belonged to you. He was willing to sell it back for fifty thousand dollars, but you didn’t want to pay. How am I doing so far?”

  Anthony pushed his plate to the side and placed his elbows on the table. “Do you know what Mack stole from me?”

  “Would it be a turn-of-the-century china doll?”

  “I’ll be damned.” Anthony sat straight up. “He told you that?” I shook my head no, and Anthony slapped the table, making the silverware dance. “You’re good, girlie. Now.” His eyes darted across the room, and his voice lowered to conspiracy level. “You wouldn’t happen to know where the doll is, would you?”

  I leaned forward, trying to look more in control of the situation than I felt. “Tell you what,” I whispered. “You tell me how you killed Mack and I’ll tell you where the doll is.” Right after I called the cops and had him locked up for murder.

  The space between Anthony’s brows disappeared, and his mouth tensed into a tight line. When his eyes narrowed, my palms started to sweat. Either Anthony had indigestion or he was plotting ways to off me. My eyes darted toward the door.

  Anthony’s mouth twitched, and he began to chuckle. The chuckles evolved into a full-blown belly laugh.

  “You think I knocked off Mack?” Anthony asked as his thick fingers wiped tears from the corners of his eyes.

  I crossed my arms. “You had a motive.”

  He took a sip of his wine. “Look,” he said. “I bought some things from Mack on eBay. He was always real reliable with payment and shipping. Mack had a good business going. He was a top-rated seller. Then one day I decided to try my hand at it. I put one of my wife’s china dolls up for auction with a minimum selling price. Mack was interested in the doll, but he didn’t bid the minimum amount. No one did, so I pulled it.”

  Anthony leaned back in his chair with a sigh. “Mack wouldn’t take no for an answer. He e-mailed me privately and offered me ten grand for the doll. I accepted, and we agreed to meet. I exchanged the doll for his check, only his check bounced. When I told him I wanted the doll back he refused.”

  “I don’t get it. Why didn’t you report him to the authorities?”

  A pink shine colored Anthony’s cheeks as he cleared his throat. “I don’t want my wife to find out. She thinks the doll is at a professional restorer. Mack knew that.”

  Anthony clutched his hands on the table. “My Regina is trying to sell her dolls out of a store, and I suggested she try the Internet. My wife can be very hardheaded. She told me no one would ever pay top dollar on the Internet, so to prove her wrong I listed one. I’ve been trying to get it back before she finds out what I did. I don’t want to get a divorce over a doll.” My heart went out to the big lug. “Kid, I didn’t kill Mack. My wife would never let me buy a gun. Besides, I was in Vegas when it happened. I got back from my vacation and tried to contact Mack. That’s when I found out he was dead. I might have wanted to put my fist into the guy’s face, but I didn’t kill him.”

  Taking a sip of water, I considered Anthony’s story. Maybe I was naive, but I bought it. To top it off, Anthony said he didn’t have a gun. Mack wasn’t shot. Not exactly proof of innocence, but something told me Anthony could also prove he was in Vegas at the time. The evening had removed Anthony from the top of my potential murderer list.

  The waitress wrapped my uneaten meal while Anthony paid the bill. I thought that was decent of the guy, seeing as how I had just accused him of murder. We left the restaurant, and he followed me back to the rink. Leaving him waiting in the parking lot, I retrieved his wife’s prized doll from the office and walked back to the parking lot. Anthony stared at it for a moment, then clutched the thing to his chest. I swear I saw tears glittering in his eyes.

  “Thanks,” he said with a watery smile. “I hope you catch the guy who knocked off Mack. Remember, if you ever need anything thrown in a landfill, give me a call.”

  Asking him to dispose of Neil seemed like a bit much, so I bit my lip and waved as he drove away. Strange, but for a brief second I felt a sense of satisfaction at reuniting a man with his doll. Then the satisfaction was replaced by dejection. Anthony might think I was a good detective, but I knew better. I had no idea who gave Mack the pills, who took the money, or who was torching lawn ornaments in my grandfather’s front yard. Basically, I was clueless.

  I was walking toward the rink with my foam-encased leftovers when a voice called out, “Who was that? A hot date?”

  I blinked and spotted Lionel striding toward me. His expression suggested that he could benefit from some of Precious’s pills.

  Calmly I explained, “It wasn’t a date. The guy was my suspect in Mack’s murder.”

  “Right.” His left eyebrow twitched. “You expect me to believe that you went to dinner with a murder suspect?”

  I shifted the container of eggplant in my hands and waited. Lionel’s jaw dropped. “You did? You actually went out to eat with a murder suspect? Are you nuts? How could you be so stupid?”

  “I’m not stupid,” I yelled back. I was willing to admit that dining with a potentially homicidal maniac wasn’t my brightest idea, but that didn’t give Lionel
the right to call me names. “You should give me a little more credit.”

  “You want me to give you credit?” Lionel raked his hand through his hair and tilted his head up toward the dark sky. Under his breath he muttered, “You are definitely not girlfriend material.”

  Girlfriend? Horror movie music began playing in my head as visions of china patterns and homey gingham curtains danced in front of my eyes. Who said anything about girlfriend?

  Our eyes locked, and Lionel sighed, “All right, I’m sorry for the girlfriend comment, but the rest still applies. Going alone to an Italian restaurant with the Godfather is not a smart thing to do.”

  I cocked my head. “How did you know we went out for Italian?”

  “It’s a small town, Becky. Three different women called tonight to tell me you were having dinner with another guy. They didn’t know you were in mortal danger.” He shoved his hands deep in his pockets as he started to pace. “You should have called me.”

  “After you got angry and stormed away when I asked a perfectly reasonable question about your motives? Now who’s being stupid?”

  Lionel’s face looked ready to pop.

  “Look,” I said. “Dinner might not have been the smartest move, but I now know that Anthony didn’t kill Mack.”

  Curiosity bloomed in Lionel’s eyes. He said, “Tell me.”

  I walked Lionel through my discovery of the storage locker, Mack’s eBay business, and the extortion letter he wrote to Anthony. Finally I told him about the china doll. I saw Lionel’s hands twitch and could tell he wanted to throttle me for giving the doll to a guy who could have been lying to get back evidence. To Lionel’s credit, his face stayed expressionless until I finished. I asked, “What do you think?”

  “I don’t want to tell you what I think. I’d yell, and I don’t want to yell right now. Let’s save that for tomorrow. I think you’ve had enough excitement for one day.” Lionel stepped toward me. His hand cupped my chin. “Did you have dessert tonight?”

  My heart gave a little skip, and my mouth started to water. I know I was supposed to be upset with him, but a little taste couldn’t hurt. Right?

  My voice was a little breathless as I said, “I skipped dessert.”

  Lionel leaned down and nuzzled my neck.

  “We should do something about that,” he said as his lips traveled up my jawline. My legs went deliciously weak, and all arguments for avoiding a relationship with Lionel disappeared from my mind by the time his lips reached my ear. I heard Lionel whisper, “Do you have any ice cream upstairs?”

  If I didn’t, I’d make some. Milk, sugar, some ice…how hard could it be? I even had a few ideas about what we could do while we were waiting for the ice cream to chill.

  I grabbed Lionel’s hand. Together we walked toward the back entrance. I had to force myself not to race for the stairs. People were already gossiping about my eggplant Parmesan. An ice cream social with Lionel would really get their panties in a bunch.

  The minute I opened the back door, Lionel gave me a gentle shove inside. A second later, he had me pinned against the wall. His lips pressed hard against mine, and the temperature in the stairwell rose ten degrees. When tongue touched tongue, the thermostat broke and my body began to overheat. Forget ice cream, I thought. Lionel was better than dessert.

  We broke apart, panting. Lionel’s eye traced a path up the stairs. The two of us moved at the same time. Lionel took the stairs two at a time, but when I actually went to the gym I was a StairMaster champ, so I beat him to the top and flashed a wicked grin. He grabbed me and kissed the smile from my face. A pretty good prize for victory, I thought. Not breaking contact with his mouth, I fumbled for my key. I tried to slide it into the lock, but the door floated open the minute the key touched it.

  I pulled back from Lionel and stared at the gaping door. My blood ran cold, and an image of a flaming scarecrow flashed through my mind. Pointing a shaky finger at the door, I whispered, “I locked that door, Lionel. I know I did.”

  He stepped in front of me and gave the door a shove. It swung open. Lionel felt around the wall for the light switch, and the lights sprang to life. I peeked into the apartment and gasped. There on the floor was a man. The man was lying on his side with his back to me. His hands and feet were bound.

  I rushed over and carefully rolled him onto his back. My breath caught in my throat.

  It was Neil.

  Seventeen

  Neil’s eyes were closed, and a dish towel was stuffed in his mouth. Worse was the large gash in his forehead. My stomach went all squishy as blood oozed from the cut. I yanked the dish towel out of Neil’s mouth and pressed the already moistened fabric against the wound. With the blood stopped for now, I assessed the damage.

  He was breathing, which was good, but he wasn’t talking. Normally, a mute Neil was a pleasant Neil. In this instance, it was bad.

  Lionel knelt on the floor next to me and began to work at the ropes binding Neil. A minute later, Neil was lying spread-eagle on the hardwood floor, still unconscious. Lionel leaned back on his heels and passed me Neil’s restraints.

  I clutched them between my fingers. The ropes looked like shoelaces. I looked down at Neil’s feet. Sure enough. His shoelaces were missing.

  Lionel shook his head. “Who would do something like this?”

  I was about to say I didn’t know when a terrible thought swept over me. Cringing, I croaked, “I swear they weren’t supposed to kill him.”

  “What?” The vein in Lionel’s neck started to pulsate.

  My hands clenched and unclenched. “Neil was following me all morning. I had to go to Mack’s storage unit, so I asked Brittany and Diane to distract him.” Neil gurgled, and I looked down at his pasty face. Guilt hit me hard. “They were just supposed to talk to him. They were going to say they saw me on the other side of town. I thought that’s what they did. I swear to God. They weren’t supposed to hurt him.”

  I bit my trembling lip and stole a look at Lionel. He was looking at me with a combination of disbelief and amusement, neither of which made me feel any better.

  Lionel climbed to his feet with a half-smile playing on his lips. “Why don’t I call Dr. Truman?” he suggested. “Doc can come over and take a look at Neil. Make sure he’s okay. In the meantime, you should take a look around up here to make sure nothing is missing. Then go downstairs.”

  “Why downstairs?” I asked, scrambling to my feet. “Shouldn’t I stay here? It is my apartment, you know.” Which was why I wasn’t calling the sheriff. Sean would arrest me for assaulting Neil, just for fun. No doubt Lionel was aware of this.

  Lionel sat down on the couch with his cell phone. His fingers began pushing buttons. When I didn’t budge, he looked back at me with a sigh. “Becky, you should go talk to the girls. I have a feeling they aren’t responsible for this.”

  Now Lionel thought I was amusing. Perfect. “Stay here,” I commanded. I turned on my heel and marched around the apartment looking for signs of robbery. Nothing was out of place. Everything was just as I left it—aside from Neil on the floor. After conveying the lack of theft to Lionel, I gave Neil a quick pat on the hand and headed for the door. I was halfway down the stairs before I admitted that Lionel was right. The girls were good kids. They might tie up a dorky guy with his own shoelaces, but they wouldn’t bash him over the head.

  I took the rest of the stairs two at the time. Since it was Tuesday night, the rink was on the empty side. No Brittany and no Diane on the floor. I made my way down the sidelines to the snack area.

  Bingo.

  My shaky legs carried me to where Brittany was aggressively batting her eyelashes at two pimply-faced teenage boys.

  “Brittany,” I interrupted. “Can I talk with you a minute?”

  The girl jumped up from her seat as her face broke into a wide smile. “Hey, Rebecca. This is Brent and Emilio. They’re on the football team.” The way she said “football team” you would have thought they belonged to the Chicago Bears.

&nb
sp; I smiled at them and turned back to Brittany. “Can we talk in my office? I promise it’ll only take a minute.”

  Brittany rolled over to me, her eyes drifting longingly to the guys. I could tell she was worried they would disappear the minute she did.

  So I offered, “Why don’t the guys have a few pieces of free pizza while they wait for you. They’ll hang around. Right, guys?”

  The boys’ eyes lit up at the prospect of free pizza, and Brittany shot me a grateful smile. When the guys were safely stuffing their mouths, I led Brittany back to the office and shut the door.

  “How did you and Diane keep Neil from following me?” I asked.

  Brittany’s eyes brightened with triumph and words began tumbling out of her mouth. “You’d be really proud of us. Diane and I walked up to Neil and started talking to him. I asked him what he was doing in the parking lot, and he said he was a friend of yours. That’s when Diane pretended to be helpful. She told him that we just ran into you at the coffee shop, and I said you were getting a vanilla latte because details are important in making a story believable. After we said good-bye he took off down the street. We did good, right?”

  I swallowed hard. “Yeah, you did great. Thanks.”

  “Anytime. Oh, I also ran into Pastor Rich this afternoon. He said to tell you to come see him because you might be able to help figure out who stole that piece from the statue. I tried to ask him if he’d give you a reward, but he was busy paying attention to his secretary by then. I think they’re dating.”

  Brittany gave a little shiver. I guess to a sixteen-year-old, dating a pastor had a high ick factor. She turned and slipped out the office door, and I headed back outside and up the stairs to my apartment.

  Dr. Truman was kneeling beside Neil when I walked into the room. Lionel stood up from the couch, walked around Neil’s body, and put his arm around me. Grateful, I leaned against him.

  A loud moan made us turn in time to see Dr. Truman helping Neil into a sitting position. Neil started to cough, and Dr. Truman thumped him on the back.