by Karen Rose
‘No, not yet. I will when we’re done.’
‘I’ll call him on my way. Hey, wait a minute. Did you say “valet”?’
The thought immediately struck him. ‘Yeah. He’d have keys. Lots of keys. Hold on a minute. Hey, Lucy, did you self-park your car, or did you use the valet?’
She turned slowly, understanding in her eyes. ‘Valet. It’s a perk of ownership. That’s how he got my car key to put Russ’s heart there. I didn’t think of that today. I would have told you if I had, even if it meant telling you about this place. I’m not lying.’
He believed her, but he didn’t want to say so with Stevie listening. So he nodded, gently brushing a stray lock of hair from her cheek. ‘Yeah, she used the valet.’
‘I heard,’ Stevie said.
‘Looks like the valet parks cars for a lot of clubs. Do you employ him, Lucy?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘It’s an independent contractor. They’re a chain all over town. But I know the guy on duty tonight. He’s a good kid.’
‘I heard,’ Stevie said again. ‘I’m on my way. Hyatt will probably get there first.’
It was a warning, he knew. ‘The squad cars are here. I’ll secure the perimeter.’ He hung up and turned back to Lucy. ‘Hyatt will probably come. He’s been suspicious of you since this morning.’
‘Why?’
‘Because you hide things,’ he said.
She lifted her chin. ‘It’s my life. My right.’
JD might have criticized her defiant tone, but her misery-filled eyes told a different story. ‘Stay here until I get the uniforms set up. Then I’ll walk you inside.’ He looked around, but saw nothing that looked out of place except that the valet wasn’t back. Cars were starting to line up on the street. ‘Don’t go anywhere alone. Even the bathroom. He may still be here. Watching us. Watching you.’
‘JD, he could have left this body for me to find tomorrow, but he picked here and now. And he knew I’d be driving Thorne’s car. I only knew that myself a few hours ago.’
‘I know. We’ll make a list of everyone who knew. He could have been waiting here for you, too.’ He waved to the cops getting out of their squad cars. ‘Over here.’
He put one uniform next to the car, sent two others to cover the exits in the side and rear of the building, then sent the fourth to string the crime-scene tape. ‘Keep your eye out for the valet, too,’ he told them. ‘College kid, dark hair, five ten, one-seventy, wearing a purple vest. He was out here when I got here. He may be a witness.’
‘Or the perp?’ one of the cops asked.
‘Maybe. Window of opportunity was less than thirty minutes. I’ve got more backup coming. I want them to canvass the neighborhood for anyone who saw a person being put in this car. Come get me when they arrive. I’m going inside to find anyone who might have seen anything.’ He took Lucy’s elbow. ‘Let’s go.’
Lucy stood outside the club’s door, hesitating. ‘It’s eleven thirty. Gwyn might be on.’
‘That’s good. I finally get to meet Gwyn.’
She pulled Fitzpatrick’s coat tighter around her, thinking of what he was about to see. ‘We’ll see about that. Come on.’
She slipped inside the door and was stopped by Ming, the Samoan-born bouncer who was every bit as big as Thorne. ‘No entry,’ he boomed over the roar of the crowd, then faltered. ‘Miss Lucinda. I didn’t realize it was you.’ His eyes narrowed at Fitzpatrick, focusing on the gun in his shoulder holster. ‘Is this guy bothering you?’
Yes. ‘No. This is Detective Fitzpatrick, Homicide. Detective, this is Ming.’
Ming’s mouth dropped open. ‘Homicide. What homicide?’
‘The one outside,’ Fitzpatrick said. ‘I’m going to need to take your statement. Where have you been for the last half-hour?’
‘Here.’ Ming’s eyes flashed to Lucy’s, panicked. ‘I swear it.’
She laid her hand on Ming’s arm. ‘Just answer what he asks. You’ll be fine.’
‘But who died?’
‘We don’t know. But Detective Fitzpatrick will find out. Ming’s been with us for two years, Detective. He keeps good track of who comes and goes. Can you remember who came in or left after Thorne and I arrived?’
‘Nobody left. Only a dozen came in. Including you, sir,’ he said to Fitzpatrick.
‘I’ll need you to point them out when we bring up the house lights,’ Fitzpatrick said. ‘But that doesn’t seem a lot of people. Not for a crowd this size.’
‘Because it’s Monday,’ Ming said and Lucy’s cheeks heated, ‘and everyone knew Miss Lucinda would be coming back from her vacation, so everyone came early.’
Fitzpatrick cast her a curious glance. ‘I see. Anybody here ever start anything before? Any rowdiness or fights? Anyone threaten Miss Lucinda?’
‘Nah, they’re mostly regulars,’ Ming said. ‘None of them would kill anyone.’ Then he seemed to reconsider. ‘Well, maybe—’
‘Ming,’ Lucy said sharply, cutting him off. ‘Don’t speculate.’
Ming looked sorry and Fitzpatrick looked both surprised and very annoyed as he led her away from the front door, along the curtain that kept the outside light outside.
‘What the hell was that?’ he hissed.
She deliberately misunderstood. ‘That was Ming. His name is really Clive, but he feels like Ming makes him sound scarier.’ She shrugged. ‘Go figure.’
‘That’s not what I meant and you know it. What did you mean, “don’t speculate”?’
She readied herself for an argument. ‘If you catch them fair and square, have at ’em. But if Ming tells you people he thinks might be capable of murder, it’s not based on anything more than his imagination. Still, you’ll write the names in your little book. You’ll check them out and likely clear them. But the next time something happens here and you need names, you’ll go back to those. Even though they didn’t do anything wrong.’
His dark eyes snapped in irritation. ‘I wouldn’t do that. So next time, please be quiet or I’ll have to have you removed.’
It was what she’d expected him to say. Still, it rankled. ‘This is my place, and—’
‘Not when you have a dead body outside. Look, when you’re . . .’ He leaned close to say the words in her ear. ‘When you’re cutting up dead people, I don’t tell you what to do. This is my investigation. I don’t want to have you removed, but Hyatt would in a heartbeat. So don’t do that again.’ He backed away to search her face. ‘Please.’
Grudgingly she nodded. ‘Fine. We need to tell Thorne.’
A cheer rose on the other side of the curtain. Dammit. Gwyn had started her act.
‘What’s that?’ He started to push through the curtain, but she grabbed his arm.
‘No. Not here. You can’t enter here. You’ll let in the light and you might distract Gwyn. Somebody could get hurt. Come. We may be able to stop her before she starts.’
Hurriedly, she led him to the end of the curtain and slipped around it, holding the edge so he could follow. The roar of the place dramatically dipped, the crowd gone eerily quiet. Gwyn was about to do her thing. There was no time to safely stop her.
Lucy signaled Fitzpatrick to remain silent. She didn’t have to worry. He was staring at the stage where Gwyn, wearing a black bustier and thigh-high boots, held a coiled bullwhip in each hand. At the other end of the stage stood Mowry, their club manager and drummer, with a piece of straw in his mouth. He bent slightly at the waist, the straw being Gwyn’s target.
In rapid succession Lucy’s tiny best friend cracked each whip five times, alternating right to left, snipping off the straw a fraction of an inch at a time. When it was over Gwyn turned to bow and Mowry held up the now-short straw, pretending to slump in relief. It was an act they’d perfected through countless hours of practice.
The crowd cheered and Gwyn beamed. Lucy looked up at Fitzpatrick, whose expression was a mix of horror, fascination and awe. But mostly horror, she thought.
‘Earlier tonight you asked me how we
got out of Anderson Ferry,’ she said.
‘You said you went to college and Gwyn joined a sorority,’ he said, still staring.
‘That was a lie,’ she admitted. ‘But only because the truth is so fantastic.’
‘What’s the truth?’
‘You know those kids who threaten to join the circus? Gwyn did. Did high wire and was quite the contortionist. But she got hurt, so she quit, fell for a rocker, and joined a traveling band. She ditched the rocker, kept the band. That’s most of them, up there.’ Resetting the stage for the next set, unaware that their world was about to change.
That a killer could be here. Right here. She shivered, suddenly cold.
Fitzpatrick had recovered from his shock at Gwyn and her act and was checking out their crowd in a clinical way that made her feel a little safer. ‘Seems like it would get old, fast. I think I’d want a home that I could come to every night.’
There was a wistful note to his voice that she wondered if he was aware of. ‘The band was where she met Thorne, who was smart enough to have a day job and needed a secretary. She’s got a hell of a voice, but the bullwhips make more of an impact. Plus, she’s kind of a ham. I guess we all are.’
He glanced down at her dryly. ‘You know the most interesting people, Lucy.’
‘We need to tell Thorne and Gwyn so we can up the lights.’
Gwyn had already seen her and was pushing her way through the crowd, her eyes darting from Fitzpatrick’s face to the gun in his shoulder holster. Thorne appeared from behind the curtain, making Fitzpatrick frown.
‘Where did you come from?’ he asked.
‘The office,’ Thorne said. ‘The door’s right behind Ming. What’s happened? Ming’s babbling about a homicide and there’s a cop standing outside the front door.’
‘Homicide?’ Gwyn gasped. ‘Again?’
‘Again,’ Lucy said. ‘There’s a body in the passenger seat of your car, Thorne.’
Thorne’s expression darkened. ‘The Mercedes or the SUV?’
‘The Mercedes,’ she said.
His face grew darker still. ‘That you were driving. You found the body? Again?’
She nodded. ‘Yes, again. It’s a female victim this time. She looks about sixty.’
‘The killer knew you’d borrowed my car, Lucy.’ He looked at Fitzpatrick, something just shy of panic in his eyes. ‘What are you doing about this, Fitzpatrick?’
‘Investigating,’ Fitzpatrick replied levelly, ‘any and all people who knew she had your car or who could have been here waiting when you two arrived.’
‘Do you know her, Luce?’ Gwyn asked and Lucy shook her head.
‘No. We have a tight window in which the victim could have been put in the car.’
‘Between the time you got here and the time the two of you rushed out,’ Gwyn said.
‘You saw us leave?’ Fitzpatrick asked, looking uncomfortable.
‘Honey, everybody saw you leave,’ Gwyn said seriously. ‘I’m Gwyn Weaver, by the way, and I did not kill Russ Bennett. Just in case you still wanna ask.’
‘I’m Detective Fitzpatrick,’ he said. ‘What about the last hour? Where were you?’
Gwyn lifted her chin. ‘Right here. Ask anyone.’
‘I will,’ Fitzpatrick said calmly.
‘Wait,’ Thorne said, shaking his head. ‘If someone put a body in my car, which really pisses me off, then Kevin should have seen them.’
‘Kevin’s the valet,’ Lucy told Fitzpatrick. ‘Nobody’s seen him,’ she told Thorne.
Gwyn bit her red lip. ‘That’s not good. Kevin wouldn’t leave his post.’
‘Detective?’ An officer poked his head around the corner and gaped at Gwyn.
‘What is it, Officer?’ Fitzpatrick asked and the officer jerked his gaze away.
‘We, uh, found something you need to see.’
Fitzpatrick leaned close to the officer and they whispered back and forth, then Fitzpatrick turned, his expression gone unreadable, and Lucy’s stomach pitched.
‘No,’ she said. Denial rose strong in her chest. ‘Not Kevin.’
He nodded. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘How?’ she asked, her mouth forming the word, but her voice wouldn’t cooperate. Kevin. He was dead. People are dying, and I am connected.
‘We can discuss it later,’ Fitzpatrick said formally, but his eyes were sad. ‘Your ME crew is outside, and they’re asking for you. You may want to change first.’
Lucy looked up at Thorne who’d grown very pale. Gwyn had started to cry. Lucy took their hands and held tight. ‘We need to up the lights. Detective Fitzpatrick will need to talk to everyone who came in during the time frame in question.’
‘Detective, I’ve known Kevin for years. His parents are friends of mine. I got him this job.’ Thorne’s throat worked as he tried to swallow. ‘Did he suffer, like Bennett?’
‘No,’ Fitzpatrick said kindly. ‘It was quick. I’m sorry, Thorne. I’m sorry to all of you, for your loss. Let’s get moving and catch the bastard who did it.’
Chapter Thirteen
Monday, May 3, 11.45 P.M.
‘It ain’t your day, kid,’ Ruby said as she and Alan pushed the gurney around the back of the club where Kevin’s body lay in a pool of blood, his throat cut ear to ear. ‘Discovering three bodies in twenty-four hours. That might be a department record.’
Crouched next to the boy’s body, trying to separate her grief and guilt from the job she needed to do, Lucy wanted to scream at Ruby to shut up. But Lucy knew it was morgue humor, intended to help Ruby get through a hard night.
‘This was Kevin Drummond,’ she said quietly. ‘Twenty-five. He had a girl named Jen and a dog named Leopold. He wanted to be a rock star but couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket.’
‘Oh, honey, I’m sorry,’ Ruby said, squeezing Lucy’s shoulder through the white coveralls she’d pulled over a pair of sweats that she’d borrowed from the drummer. ‘You knew him? How?’
They didn’t know yet. Didn’t know she spent almost as much time here as she did at the morgue. Now, looking down into the boy’s lifeless eyes, her secrets were no longer important. This young man is dead. Because he worked near me.
‘Yes. I knew him.’ His blood was everywhere, covering his body, the gravel bed on which he lay, splattered all over the wall behind them. ‘He was a nice young man who had the bad luck to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.’
‘Which is not your fault,’ Fitzpatrick said firmly. He crouched next to her and met her eyes, his grim. ‘It looks like he was dragged around the building. From the other side,’ he added flatly, pointing away from the alley where they’d . . .
Oh God. They’d been having sex while Kevin was being murdered. Nauseous guilt surged.
‘Don’t,’ Fitzpatrick said sharply, as if he’d read the direction her mind had gone. ‘What can you tell me, Dr Trask?’
‘Cause of death is the severing of the jugular,’ she said. Kevin hadn’t suffered. For that she could be grateful. ‘There’s a bruise forming on the jaw, pre-mortem.’
‘He might have hit him to stun him first,’ Fitzpatrick murmured.
‘Yes. And there are defensive wounds.’ She lifted Kevin’s hand in her gloved one, pointing to the abrasions on his knuckles.
‘He fought, then,’ Fitzpatrick said.
‘For his life,’ she murmured. ‘Alan, be careful to bag this victim’s hands.’
‘Does he have his heart?’ Alan asked and Ruby quickly shushed him.
Lucy frowned up at him. ‘What?’
Alan flushed. ‘Is he going to be like the guy this morning? I’m sorry. I just wanted to . . . prepare myself better than before.’
When he’d looked like he’d faint. ‘The victim has his heart. As for the woman in the car, I don’t know. The assailant was taller than the victim. This wound angles up.’
‘Okay,’ Fitzpatrick murmured. ‘Over six feet, then. That’s good. The blade?’
‘Non-serrated, thin. Very sharp. He f
inished with a flick of his wrist. The wound curves around the ear.’
‘Okay,’ he said again. ‘We’re almost finished taking statements from your staff. Your Ming provided a complete list of people who’d come and gone.’
‘What’s a Ming?’ Ruby asked. ‘Luce, what’s going on here?’
Lucy rose, drew a breath. ‘This is my club.’
Ruby frowned. ‘What do you mean, your club?’
‘I’m part owner, along with two friends.’
Ruby’s mouth fell open, but Alan was strangely unsurprised. Ruby glared at them. ‘Why am I the only one who finds this news?’
Alan met Lucy’s eyes. ‘She’s Lucinda,’ he said and it was Lucy’s turn to gape. Alan’s smile was dry. ‘My friends brought me here for my twenty-first birthday and I’ve been coming ever since. The bands rock. But you . . .’ Something glittered in his eyes, a sexual appraisal she found more disturbing than complimentary. ‘I thought you’d recognize me when I interviewed for the morgue job, but you didn’t seem to. Or you didn’t want to admit it, if you did. My friends are green that I get to work with you.’
‘Drew says he’s ready to pull the other body from the car,’ Fitzpatrick said brusquely, changing the subject. ‘If Ruby and Alan can get this victim moved, we’ll get started out front.’ He took Lucy’s elbow and led her toward the club’s back door.
Lucy threw a last look at Kevin’s body, at Ruby who looked stunned, and at Alan, who’d known. The thought left her uneasy. How secret had her ‘secret’ really been?
Fitzpatrick escorted her into the club’s main room where she soon got her answer.
The club’s employees sat in a circle, shaken. Half were crying. The other half looked like they had or would. Hyatt and Stevie were standing by the bar, talking to Thorne and Gwyn, who’d changed into street clothes. The employees looked up when Lucy entered, staring at her like she was a stranger. They hadn’t known. She was now even more disturbed that Alan had.
Kraemer, the bartender, eyed her up and down. ‘Your day job, I take it,’ he said.