by Livia Quinn
“Where’s Tempe?”
The voice sounded like it belonged on a classic western, laced with tequila and cigarettes. I turned to face a tall man dressed in black. I could almost hear the cheesy “Good, Bad, and Ornery” music in the background. His name would have been Diablo.
I hadn’t even heard the door open. I thought of the covert operatives I’d met while serving in the Mideast. Intimidating, with his wet slicked black hair, dark eyes and stubbled jaw—this man would be hazardous to your health. His face held no expression, hands hanging loose at his sides, but I recognized a seasoned warrior when I saw one. Battle-ready.
“Who’s asking?”
“Dylan McGuinness, Special Investigator.” He pulled his black leather jacket aside to expose his badge.
What was he to Tempe? I wondered, as I pointed to the chair by the door. “Have a seat.”
He hesitated for a minute then, moving mindfully, taking stock of his surroundings, lowered himself onto the chair. Spring-loaded… dangerous… and proprietary were my impressions.
“What is your relationship with Tempest Pomeroy?” I asked and was blindsided by an irrational stab of… jealousy?
His lip quirked in tandem with an eyebrow. “What’s it to you? I’m here on official business, Sheriff…” he eyed the name plate on the desk, “…Lang.” I didn’t know the man but felt an instinctive dislike and distrust. What was his association with Tempe?
“State your business then—McGuinness, was it?”
I wasn’t sure how it happened, but we seemed to be in some kind of pissing contest. “Ms. Pomeroy didn’t have a phone call so how did you know she was here?”
“Why didn’t she get a phone call, if you’ve arrested her?” His thumb and index finger rubbed his whiskered chin and it wasn’t lost on me that he hadn’t answered my question.
I felt a sudden perverse sense of non-cooperation. I didn’t just not want to answer. I wanted to have it out with Diablo…take it outside, so to speak. Where was that coming from? Talk about irrational. And I prided myself on my rationality. I regrouped.
“Well, she’s not exactly arrested—yet. I’m still thinking on it.”
McGuinness’ narrowed eyes failed to conceal the workings of his quick lethal mind, and if I guessed correctly, a fondness for my prisoner.
Her comment about misplaced trust came to mind, and I felt myself bristle. I made fists under the table trying to push down the ugly green emotions roiling up inside me. Once again, I had nothing to go on, but my instincts were screaming in his presence.
“So, what do I have to do to spring her?”
“Depends. If you can keep her away from my crime scene, I’m tempted to let you have her,” I said, with implied double meaning.
He nodded. “I might be able to handle that. She has a sit-down with her boss in less than an hour, and if she doesn’t end up suspended, she’ll be busy working all day. I have to get a couple statements from her this evening or tomorrow.”
I winced as I remembered her comment about being fired over picking up Jordie. “How well do you know her?”
McGuinness’ head tilted, and he hesitated before answering. One black eyebrow arched, he asked, “What’s it to you?”
Ah, there it was.
“Just curious if you know her brother, River.”
He nodded. Contemplating again. This guy wasn’t one to run off at the mouth.
“I know River.” He inhaled, his shoulders relaxing finally. “I talked to Tempe earlier; she was concerned about him.”
Oh, she did, did she? “Why talk to you?”
“I guess she thought I might be able to help.”
“Again, why you? Why not the cops, her mother?”
“I was a friend of the family.”
“Was a friend?”
“Am a friend.” McGuinness’ head tilted again, and he placed his elbow on my desk. One big fist came up to casually prop up his chin. “Sheriff, is this going somewhere? Should I be calling a lawyer?” The man didn’t rattle.
“You know about the body we found at the clubhouse.” It wasn’t a question. I got the feeling he knew a lot more about this whole situation than I did.
“I was in touch with her because of UM’s involvement and an ongoing investigation that happened prior to this incident. When I talked to her, she was upset that River hadn’t shown up on his job site, yesterday morning.”
“So her concern about her brother has something to do with this stolen amphora?”
Oh, he was good. There was just the slightest flash of—alarm? Recognition? It was gone so quickly I wondered if I’d imagined it.
“His amphora probably went missing about the same time he was last seen.”
I would come out better questioning the unskilled liar in my cell than this PI but even pros slip up now and then. He’d known when River was last seen.
“When was that?” I asked.
“The contractor said his man saw him Sunday night at the Wasted Turtle.”
“Well, he’s probably sleeping it off somewhere, then.”
“Apparently you’ve never met River,” he said.
There was another space in time where we marked our proverbial territories, then I asked, “Work undercover much, McGuinness?”
After a quick mental assessment in my direction, he said, “Every now and then.”
I got up. “Before I release her, I should mention that I’m not done. I still have a case to solve and a lot of questions unanswered.” I looked at him pointedly, “By everyone.” It was hard to tell by his inscrutable expression if he heard me. Or cared.
“I have a couple more concerns to clear up with her and then she can go. Wait here.”
Tempe
The sheriff strolled in and leaned nonchalantly against the wall across from my cell. “Your boyfriend, McGuinness, corroborated your story about your brother.”
“He’s not my boyfriend.”
“Yeah, that’s what he said. Ex-boyfriend... whatever,” he said sarcastically.
What was his problem? “What do you want, Sheriff?” I blew out a breath. He was exasperating. The weight of the last twenty-four hours sat on my shoulders like twin boulders; it would probably be another eighteen before I got any sleep. And I hadn’t made any progress in finding River.
“When did you know your brother’s vase had been stolen?”
I blinked. It didn’t seem like a trick question. “It sits on the mantle. When I got ready to leave for work yesterday morning it was gone.”
“Your brother lives with you?”
“Yes.” My voice came out hoarse, and I cleared my throat. “Occasionally he stays with my mother.”
“What’s her name and address?”
“Phoebe Pomeroy.” I recited her phone number but had to think about the address.
“Is there some reason why you don’t want to give me her address?”
“Hold your shorts, Lang. Phoebe and I are not close. I’m trying to picture her mailbox.” I closed my eyes and yawned. “Try 61479 Hwy 217 in Alliance. I drove over there last night—well, this morning—before I came to the golf course. She wasn’t home.”
He wrote the information on his pad and I was aware of the masculine beauty of his hands once again. Someone said he’d been a fighter pilot. I could picture those hands on the stick, working the controls.
Unbidden came an image of tanned dexterous fingers stroking my thigh, his darker skin contrasting with mine… I shook my head to banish the image. It was a waste of time to think about this man in those terms. Any attraction he might have felt twenty-four hours ago was surely dead and buried.
“Am I still a suspect?” I asked.
“There’s the B&E at the clubhouse, and you’re connected to the vase, but unless you can be in two places at once, you’re clear of the murder. The same can’t be said of your brother.”
“What? You make me so mad.” I wasn’t volunteering another word. I paced the small cell.
“Your
brother has been AWOL since Sunday night and, most likely, so has the vase. I haven’t figured out the connection yet, but I will.”
“Sheriff, you need to start thinking of my brother as a victim—before it’s too late.”
“There you go again, pinging my cop radar. You might want to consider that if something happens to your brother, and you haven’t told me everything, you’ll be partly to blame.”
I closed my eyes, knowing it was true. “I already am.”
When I leaned against the cell door it swung open. I glared at him. I’d remained captive in an unlocked cell. Bet he enjoyed that.
I shoved past him to the front room where Dylan waited. There was a rare look of sincere concern on his face. “You all right, Pumpkin?” For some reason the “P” name irritated me more than usual.
The endearment wasn’t lost on Jack Lang as he leaned against the doorjamb watching us. “I need my cell phone.”
He rummaged through a drawer and brought out my keys and cell. Before I could ask, he said, “The vase is locked up in the evidence room.”
I was relieved that it was safe, but still furious with him for keeping it from me. “Don’t let anything happen to it. I’ll be checking with you this afternoon to see what progress you’ve made on finding my brother.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
Dylan followed me through the door to his pickup. “Where to?”
“Drop me at the house. I’ve got to change and get to work.” Maybe I should have thanked Dylan for springing me but it felt a bit too much like a rescue, something I could barely admit to myself, much less confess to my one time lover, especially after the way we’d split.
As soon as I walked through the employee entrance, several voices rang out.
“Tempe, Beck’s been lookin’ for you.”
“Hey, boss, jailbird’s back.”
“Oh, lay off her, will ‘ya, Charles,” Janice said.
“I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes,” one of the clerks said.
James Allen slid in next to me as I walked the mail and packages to my case. “Temp, a postal investigator was at the back door yesterday evening looking for you.”
“Who?” It couldn’t have been Dylan. “Dark hair, dark everything?”
“Nah, this was a new black dude from New Orleans—a real hot shot, looking to make a name for himself. I’m thinkin’ you made waves yesterday and he wants to ride them up the ladder. Look, if you need help today, with anything just—” He made the hand sign for a phone to his ear. “I’m serious.”
James’ route runs near mine and we often exchanged deliveries if we got in a bind. He was African-American with nearly white hair, even though he was only in his early forties. He had a friendly smile and a perpetually positive attitude I admired, while maintaining a realistic perspective about life, and the postal service.
“Thank you, friend. But you may want to steer clear of me for a couple days. You might catch the termination plague.”
He grinned. “I’ve been inoculated.” Meaning he’d been grandfathered in from the other system and they couldn’t touch him. We rapped knuckles and he went back to casing his mail.
The intercom shrilled, “Pomeroy, come to the office.”
I laid the undeliverable mail and packages from Monday down on the counter and crossed the floor to the office feeling twenty sets of eyes on my back.
Twenty-five minutes later, after an official warning, a yell fest by Bancroft pointing out that I’d picked a fine time to get official eyes turned on his little mail center, and some transparently self-serving questions from the New Orleans PI who definitely had me in his sights, I was told to get back to work and don’t call any more attention to myself.
“Tell that to the dead guy at the clubhouse,” I muttered, which I shouldn’t have said to my boss before I asked for the day off to look for River.
He turned me down.
Chapter18
Staying out of trouble hadn’t been working for me so far, so why start now?
* * *
Tempe
The rest of the day held no news about River, which kept me with a feeling of impending doom and in a bad mood pretty much all day. There were no appearances by law enforcement, recalcitrant Imps or ex-lovers—that was certainly a relief—but it didn’t mean the day had no aggravations. The EVAL Cert continued, the mail was extraordinarily heavy, and then there were the usual odd customers.
Like Mrs. Abercrombie who stood waiting at her mailbox to instruct me in the care and maintenance of her ornamental mailbox flag, shaped like a hummingbird. An elegant lady in her sixties, she said, “I’ll put my flag like this”…bird snout up…“when I have mail, but once you collect it I want you to put it here.” Instead of returning the flag/snout to its horizontal position next to the mailbox per regulations, she placed her slender index finger at the tip of the hummingbird’s beak and eased it to a forty-five degree angle. I may have been smiling and nodding, but inside I was doing a monster eye roll.
Less than ten houses later a retired accountant asked if it would be possible to put her mail in alphabetical order. Grrr… Customers like these were becoming the norm rather than the exception, since every mail service in the country was jumping through hoops to secure business. Unfortunately, these two women would continue to be disappointed with my service.
I did manage to get in touch with a man at The Tricked-Out Tarot on the south side of Destiny who said he could prepare the replacement bottle for River. I still had the same problem though. River’s force was in limbo. Without River and the bottle in the same, say, twenty square foot area, I wouldn’t be able to reconnect my brother with his life force.
And I figured it would be better if I had the original bottle with its ‘soul recall’. That meant I had to find the other lid, and soon.
At 11:30 I called Peggy. I asked what she found out at the Wasted Turtle, but she just put me through to the sheriff. He’d gone home for a couple hours. If irritation could be transmitted through the phone, mine would have been a hot blue flame biting at his eardrum. He was the cause of my being in this tired, irritable state, and he was wasting time sleeping when he should be out looking for my brother.
“What!” the sleepy voice groused.
“My, aren’t we the picture of voter appreciation. How do you expect to find my brother from your bedroom?”
“Get to the point.” His voice was muffled, like he’d pulled his shirt over his head. Then I heard a zipper...
“What did Peggy find out at the Turtle?”
Another sound, water running. “She talked with Rutledge’s man and got a description of the girl, though not much of one. Blonde, curvy, medium height, nice ass. His words. He either didn’t see her from the front, or didn’t look at her face.”
Figures. “I want to know what you find out, when you find out,” I said.
“Just get me that picture of River.”
The only “picture” I had of my brother was a self-portrait River had made with a wish that I had scanned once upon a time to use for just such a purpose.
“And stay out of trouble.”
I hung up. Staying out of trouble hadn’t been working for me so far, so why start now?
I wracked my brain to come up with someone River might have gone out with Sunday. There was one girl from River’s past, but she was a brunette. Paige Whyte. We’d never gotten along. She worked at the Red Carpet Inn. After work I drove by the motel, but it was Paige’s day off and her boss wouldn’t give me her address or phone number. Halfway between my house and the fairgrounds sat Joe’s Crawfish. I pulled in hoping he hadn’t already run out. He stopped scrubbing his ice chest when I got out of my truck.
“How ‘bout you take some crawfish off my hands, Tempe? I have three pounds of crawfish and a bunch of potatoes and corn. You can have it all for five dollars.”
“Are you sure, Mr. Joe? That’s awfully cheap.”
He opened a small chest and withdrew a bag, handing i
t to me. “I’m sure. Now I can close up and get outta here. Crawfish are dyin’ on me. I shoulda known better than to open this early in the season. This cold front will just screw it up for another week.” He pocketed the money, then picked up his hose and resumed his cleaning. Conversation over. My stomach growled as I put the truck in gear and headed home.
“Oh, man.” I pulled up beside the porch. I’d forgotten the broken window. I stood there, taking in the jagged edged sheet of glass propped against the tree. There were beads of glass everywhere. I must do something about Freddie.
I set my crawfish down on a stack of leftover roofing tin, pulled my gloves on and moved the broken pieces next to the house, covering them with the cardboard box and a tarp. Then I carried my dinner to the edge of the swamp and sat down on a fallen cypress tree.
Dusk is my favorite time of the day here. Everything wild takes a siesta, and the bayou turns into a mirror. Once or twice a day, a flock of white egrets flies low across the water, like now, creating the illusion of two flocks. The rain clouds were gone and the increasing moon sat just above the trees.
We’d named it Harmony, and any other time, this spot by the Forge would restore my sense of equilibrium, but tonight it wasn’t working. I couldn’t even eat Joe’s tasty crawfish. My stomach was queasy with worry.
I walked back to the house and looked in River’s telephone book for Paige. No luck. I called the phone company, pleaded an emergency to try and get his cell phone bill. They refused, since I wasn’t on his account. I copied his phone book for Peggy, printed the scanned portrait for the sheriff and printed 50 color copies because Sheriff Lang might be too cheap to print them in color.
I called Phoebe again, starting to wonder where the heck she was. But time moves slowly when you’re worried and watching the clock, Besides it wasn’t unusual for Phoebe be off on some tangent, or to shut me out.
I sat at my desk looking at my brother’s picture. He’d been such a cute kid. He’d grown into a sweet hunk of a guy, too. Clear golden eyes, unruly tawny hair, muscular build that was inherent to Djinn—to my mind, a real catch. If I had my way, he wouldn’t get involved with Paige again.