by Livia Quinn
Montana nodded her head toward the door. “Hey, Temp. That guy you work with is out there keying your truck. Not that he can do a hell of a lot of damage, but he was on the driver’s side—”
I pushed past her through the front doors. Sure enough, Fritz was gouging deep scratches into the side of my mail truck. Thunder rumbled around the parking lot as I raised my hand toward him, “Fritz!” and then he was tumbling ass over knucklehead across the parking lot where he came to rest against a dumpster. As providence, or karma, or supremely bad luck would have it, a familiar green SUV made a sliding stop, sending pebbles flying.
Fritz predictably started whining and pointing fingers at me. “Sheriff, arrest her. She hit me.”
I started to argue, to explain that I really didn’t go around picking fights and brawling at bars, but Jack Lang looked utterly weary and very irritable. He bent to lend Fritz a hand up but Toady shrugged him off.
What was it with the male population and me the last few days? I must keep that appointment with Aurora tomorrow as much as I dreaded it.
Montana followed me out. “Sheriff, I saw him keying the side of her truck.”
Jack Lang arched a brow meaningfully at the passenger side of my truck, where five-years worth of bush, brick, and mailbox scratches had taken its toll.
“The good side,” I said, crossing my arms.
“And he assaulted her in the bar,” Liam said behind me, where a crowd was streaming out into the parking lot for a firsthand look at the entertainment. “In front of a bar full o’ witnesses.”
A brief narrowing of the sheriff’s eyes was all I saw, but I felt sexual tension grip me, then he turned his glare on Fritz. “What have you got to say for yourself?” The hand on Fritz’s shoulder had turned into a twisting fist, and Fritz was standing on his toes, the threat finally starting to sink in. “Well?”
“Ahh, she attacked me… first?”
Wide eyed, Fritz looked into Lang’s hard face. Once again, Jack’s focused intensity reminded me of a predator—silent, mesmerizing, deadly.
“Is that right,” he said slowly.
Everyone seemed to hold their breath while Fritz just stared, then he shook his head, twice—left, right.
“That’s what I thought. Let’s see what a night spent in parish accommodations will do for your memory.”
“But—but…” Fritz sputtered as the sheriff opened the back door of the cruiser, placed cuffs on his wrists and lowered him onto the back seat, firmly shutting the door on his protestations. He walked over to me.
“We need to talk,” he said.
I looked toward his car, “If it’s about Fr—”
“Not him.” He took my arm and called out, “You folks can go back inside.” Montana stayed near the door.
“Go on now,” he looked at Montana. Seeing her reluctance, he sighed wearily and explained, “I just need a few minutes of Ms. Pomeroy’s time. In private.” When Montana crossed her arms and leaned against the front of the building, Jack threw up his hands and swore.
“All right.” He turned to me, “Can I trust your friends?”
“With my life,” I said. Fear crawled down my spine. “Is it River—” I gripped his arm.
“No. Tempe. There’s nothing new on your brother. I need to ask you to account for your whereabouts for the last eight hours.”
“Really?” When would this end? I felt like his favorite scapegoat.
“Your friends, too, now that I think about it.”
“We’ve all been in class or here for the last three hours. Before that, I was putting up posters and trying to run my mother down.” I looked at Montana, “Not literally, of course.”
Montana said, “I was sleeping this afternoon, spent an hour at the women’s shelter, then on to class. Bailey and I rode together from there.”
“What is it, Jack?” The muscles in his arm were rigid. He pinched the bridge of his nose with the fingertips of those long dexterous fingers.
Finally he said, “I’ve got good news and bad news. The call I got during class was from the coroner. The good news is the time of death—noonish—pretty much clears you of the murder, as you had a pretty fair alibi at the time.”
“Well, I knew I didn’t kill him.” I expelled a sigh. “And the bad news?”
“The body’s missing.”
Chapter 21
The way the four women looked at each other then, made my fingers itch.
* * *
Jack
“Missing—”
The color that drained from her face was better than a polygraph. It affirmed, if nothing else, that she didn’t know anything about the body being stolen from the morgue. She was always in the eye of the storm though, so I had no doubt there was something she still wasn’t telling me. My instincts told me that, and they never lied. “I’m afraid so.”
“But how can that be?” Montana asked. “Surely someone can’t just walk into the morgue, throw a body over his shoulder and walk out. And why would they want to?”
Tempe asked, “Wasn’t there a guard? An attendant?”
“There was, but he was on break and didn’t notice anything when he returned. The ME made the discovery when he was preparing to do the autopsy.”
“So, they don’t know exactly when the body disappeared,” Montana said.
I saw the second they realized the implications.
“And without a body…” Tempe looked at me expectantly then her mouth opened in a silent Oh… “the bad news…”
“Yeah,” Montana smiled, “But bad news for whom?” She looked at me. “If you don’t have a body—”
“Just because there’s no body, doesn’t mean the crime didn’t happen. The man deserves justice and I still have leads to follow. Like your brother’s involvement, how that vase figures into it all.”
“And my brother’s disappearance,” Tempe said. Montana just looked at me. The arched brow said it all.
“As far as I’m concerned, it’s all connected,” Jack said. “We just have to figure it out.” I wanted Tempe to be innocent of all wrong doing, and it would be a lot less complicated if her brother was innocent as well, but I just couldn’t shake the feeling that I was missing something important.
“You’ve come up with more possibilities than I have,” Tempe said, dejected.
“You know where to find me if you think of something. Right now Fritz needs a lift to jail, and I need to get home to my teenager.” I didn’t bother to request their discretion. It would be in the Tribune by daylight.
Then, the door opened, and a slender woman stepped out. Well, what do we have here? My instincts screamed runner. Olive complexion with black hair that fell over her shoulders like midnight; she wore black high heels, a black trench coat, and sunglasses—after dark. She looked like Destiny’s very own secret agent.
“Oh, excuse me,” said Triple O. Seven. She ducked her head and would have escaped back inside, but Tempe stopped her.
“Katerina. Don’t go.”
She twitched like a nervous cat when Tempe introduced us. “Jack Lang. This is Katerina Blackmoor.” Blackmoor. Of course. “Kat, Jack.”
Kat waved her small, gloved hand at me.
I held my hand out to her, wanting to see what the skittish creature would do. She contemplated for a split second whether to take it or not, then slipped her slender, black leather clad hand into mine. We’d barely touched before she was retrieving it however.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” Katerina said, looking at Tempe. “I saw everyone follow you outside…”
“It’s okay, Kat. Jack was just telling us that the victim’s body disappeared from the morgue.”
Interesting. Her friend didn’t even blink; well, I couldn’t see her eyes, but I’d bet she hadn’t blinked. I got the impression that nothing much surprised the black-clad refugee.
“It’s nice to meet you, Katerina. Are you new to Destiny?” I asked, studying her reaction closely.
“I work nights,”
Kat offered, presumably to explain why I hadn’t seen her around though she avoided a direct answer.
Tempe said, “Kat was looking forward to meeting you at class tonight, but you had to leave.”
I’ll just bet she was. I’d bet my left nut this woman had been desperate to avoid me. I got that reaction a lot though, so I put it down to eccentricity like the rest of the daytime soap lovers.
I pulled four business cards from my pocket and handed one to each of them. The spy plucked it from me with gloved fingertips and slipped it into the pocket of her trench coat.
“Katerina is an online financial consultant and an archivist for the newspaper,” Montana said. It seemed like they were trying to keep me from asking Kat any tough questions.
I smiled at Kat, “Well, I’ll be sure to let you know if I find some extra money lying around after buying Jordie’s clothes, sports equipment, and paying her tuition.” I yawned. “Excuse me.”
“Sheriff—Jack,” Tempe chewed on her bottom lip. “What do you think happened to the body?”
A bark of frustration escaped before I could contain it. “I have no idea, Tempe. It’s like he just woke up and walked away.”
The way the four women looked at each other then, made my fingers itch. I was starting to feel like I was being kept out of an insiders loop.
Tempe
After the sheriff left, we went back inside. Bailey brought our drinks to the table and risked Liam’s wrath to sit down. Montana leaned forward across the table keeping her voice as low as possible in the increasingly noisy bar. “What do you think happened to the body?”
“Did the sheriff think you stole it?” Kat asked, her eyes darting around the bar as she fidgeted.
“I don’t know. I think he was just crossing us off his list, officially.”
Mariah gave Bailey her drink order and said, “He sure is a hunk, don’t you think, Tempe? I’ll bet he’s one of those fitness nuts with zero percent body fat.”
Kat said, “He can investigate me anytime.”
I nearly choked on my tonic, even though I knew it for a lie. Kat must be feeling more at home with us to even joke about the possibility of someone looking into her past.
“I can vouch for the zero percent after delivering his package yesterday morning. But I didn’t know my customer and the sheriff were the same guy until it was too late to make a good impression.”
“I dubbed him Six-packs and Shaving Cream,” Montana said.
“You mean he was drinking when you met him?” Bailey asked. We all laughed, and Bailey shrugged, returning to the bar.
Montana watched Bailey walk away. “That Bailey is several filaments short of a working light bulb.”
We sipped our drinks for a minute. It was getting more difficult to carry on a private conversation with the pool tournament going on over in the corner. Two sets of players surrounded the two tables. I waited until they broke for a new game.
I leaned forward, whispering, “Montana, I don’t know how I forgot this, but the dead man… he was a fae, a variant. I don’t know all the subspecies, but isn’t there one that smells like rotten eggs?”
“Yep. A Nucklavee,” Montana said. “When they are damaged or die they reek of dead fish and sulfur.” She pondered her own words a minute, fiddling with her braid. “And wasn’t he nude, when you found him?”
I shivered at the memory. The violence of his death still bothered me.
“I haven’t seen one of them in a long time.” Kat shivered and made a face. “They’re disgusting and given their nature, I could wait a lot longer.”
I leaned forward. “Montana, what are you thinking?”
Montana said, “If it was a Nucklavee, he could have been playing possum, or in a transition state. And if he wasn’t dead, by the time they got ready to do an autopsy on him, he’d have been back to his ugly half ogre looking self.”
Kat and I both stared at her.
“You think he just got up and walked out?” Kat asked.
“I guess it’s possible…” I shuddered at the memory of his ruined face, “but he sure looked dead to me.”
“He wouldn’t be the only species that could reanimate as long as his head was still attached,” Katerina said.
“Well, if he did, he’d have to grow back most of his head,” I said.
“Or not,” Montana said.
“Eeeyuk, imagine running into Mr. Nucklavee if that’s true. Change of subject please, oh Goddess of the iron stomach.” I took another sip of tonic.
Montana said, “Of course he might have shifted into a less obnoxious form, or even glamoured his way out of there.”
“What about River? Isn’t there some kind of mindlink between you genie-types?” Kat asked.
My hands made fists under the table. “See, that just makes me feel even worse. I mean, you thought of it, why didn’t I?”
“Duh!” said Montana.
“Denial,” said Kat.
“I know. I know. I’m going to see Aurora tomorrow. I can’t deal with this Paramortal PMS anymore on my own.”
Montana laughed. “More like Paramortal puberty, considering the circumstances.”
“Peggy’s going to ask around at a few bars tonight, but in the morning it will officially be forty-eight hours, and I can go file a report.”
Kat checked for listening ears, then asked, “How much does Jack know? About River I mean.”
“He knows the amphora is River’s, but I’m having a hard time convincing him River is in trouble.”
Kat said, “He doesn’t know River’s a genie?”
“I hope not,” said Montana. “He told someone on the police jury when he was thinking about running for sheriff that he was looking for a,” both her eyebrows exclamated her next words, “normal small town to raise his daughter. Apparently, he was married to a real psycho and both he and his daughter are in recovery mode.”
“So, I heard you met the daughter.” Kat looked at Tempe.
“A tactful way to put it.” I laughed.
“I hear she’s Destiny’s hope for a state championship this year,” said Shannon.
“I didn’t know that. She invited me to her game this weekend though. We should all go,” I said.
“I want to go, too,” said Bailey, who’d gotten in on the end of the conversation. “Where are we going?” Leaning against our table, she caught the eye of a local bull rider, wound a curl around her finger and batted her eyelashes seductively.
“Basketball game at the high school, Saturday,” Montana said.
“Aw, I have to work.” Bailey pushed away from the table and headed in the cowboy’s direction.
Montana shook her head, “’Mild mannered reporter by day…’”
I watched Bailey put a hand around the cowboy’s neck and lean into him. “I think Jack’s got her pegged as a ‘three faces of Eve’ schizophrenic.”
Laughing again, Montana said, “He’s close.”
“Lucky Bailey,” said Katerina, eyeing the cowboy. Montana raised her brows at me and winked.
My sudden change of mood must have shown. I’ve been told I’m not good at hiding what’s on my mind. “What’s your problem?” she asked.
“I shouldn’t be sitting here joking. Having a drink with friends. Thinking about Jack Lang’s abs when my brother…” I put my head down on the table, sighing.
“Tell us what we can do, Tempe,” Kat said.
“I don’t know. If I knew where to look, I’d be looking. I’ve tried to find his old girlfriend, Paige Whyte. She was a housekeeper at the Red Carpet Inn, but she wasn’t there today. I’ll try again tomorrow after I file the Missing Persons report. This all just seems so surreal. One day everything’s normal, I’m doing my job, running the mail…” I took a sip from my glass and pushed it away.
Montana drummed her fingers on the thick polyurethane tabletop. “I’ll contact all the emergency techs and make sure the word gets out in the parish.”
“I’d bet my eye teeth someone saw s
omething.” Kat was half vamp as well, so that was saying something.
Montana’s pager vibrated, and she got up. “Love ya, girls. Try not to worry, Temp.”
“Love you too. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
Kat put a hand on my shoulder, “Time for me to go, too. I have a stack of articles that have to be archived by Friday. I’ll talk to some of the reporters at the paper—see they keep their ears open.” I wanted to hug Kat, but I didn’t dare. She wasn’t comfortable herself yet with the vamp side of her nature.
“Call me if you hear anything,” she said.
Bailey was plastered against the cowboy by the men’s room. I didn’t interrupt to say goodbye.
Chapter 22
“Well, from what I hear, Pomeroy’s at it again.”
* * *
Jack
The turkey in the jail cell kept me awake, belching and kicking at the bars in his sleep. I called Kirkwood and told him to swing by the judge’s office to pick up the warrants and meet me on Washington Street in front of the victim’s apartment at eight. Before the day was out, I would have some answers.
I opened the evidence room, going straight to the foot wide cube plugged into the wall. The portable refrigerator had come in handy many times. I unplugged it and carefully transported it to my cruiser, securing the evidence room behind me and unlocking Sleeping Beauty’s cell so he could leave when he woke up.
As I drove down the levee road toward Amity, I thought about yesterday’s events. When Tempe came to the office later this morning to fill out the report on her brother, I planned to take advantage of her whereabouts. I expected to eliminate her as a suspect today, but she would not enjoy the process. Prior to my 7:00 a.m. appointment with the manager of the clubhouse, I met with Basile to get the search underway.
I stretched a grid out on the reception counter. “I want you to start at this corner and work this way. When the man from DPD gets here in a couple hours, he’ll start here.” With my finger on a spot on the grid, I asked, “You know what to do with anything you find?”