“Too big to be a rat,” Lori commented casually, trying not to smile at me.
“Not funny, goddamnit.”
Harriet waved a careless hand. “That was one of them opossums. Harpies keeps them as pets. They crawl all over her like my kitties. Only they got nasty teeth.”
Fighting the nausea caused by the odor of rotting food, urine and rat droppings magnified by the summer heat, I looked Lori right in the eye and quipped, “I hope she remembered to buy tags for them.”
Lori rolled her eyes and gave Harriet an exaggerated smile. “How much further?”
“Just there at the dump.”
Ahead of us a large dumpster sat in a recessed area of the warehouse wall to our right. How in the hell could a truck get in here to haul it away or dump it? Pieces of furniture, metal shelving, and oil drums had been shoved against both sides of the alley, barely leaving a pathway wide enough for Harriet’s cart. Broken wooden crates and rain-soaked cardboard had been piled high around the big rusting bin. I guessed a trash service didn’t touch anything here.
Our guide pointed at the lid and flapped her hand for us to open it. Carefully, I stepped to the side and slowly raised it. Lori gingerly assisted at the other corner.
“I’d be careful,” Harriet’s suddenly loud voice echoed in the confines of alley’s canyon. “She don’t like being woke up. I remember one time she got madder than hell and shot a man full of holes.”
We dropped the lid before seeing anything but darkness and stepped back, staring at each other.
I wiped the back of my hand across my mouth. “Why would someone live in there?”
Lori shrugged. Harriet looked at us in disgust and wobbled closer, holding her arms up as if praying to the sun god. “Harpies, my darling. We come to visit. Can we come in?”
Hearing no sound, except teeth gnawing on wood near by, I wondered if I’d been taken for a sucker. Lori leaned toward Harriet to quietly ask, “Can we open her door now?”
“Sure you can, sister. Didn’t you hear Harpies say Come on in?”
Lori glanced at me and smiled weakly. “I wasn’t sure that’s what she said. Come here, Bob, and help me open the door all the way.”
We again slowly pushed the lid upward. A breeze whished down the alley, stirring the stench of rotting whatever from the bin into our faces. I breathed through my mouth. We edged to opposite sides to steady the heavy cover while lifting it higher. Finally it balanced on its steel hinges then fell back to crash against the warehouse wall.
I cautiously peeked over the dumpster edge. Lori squealed on an inhaled breath, one hand clamping over her mouth, the other pointing. The remains of a human skull glared back at me through black, hollow eye sockets. Hanks of long, snarled hair stuck to fragments of dark skin that stretched across the skull like beef jerky. Other yellow-brown bones and the dried flesh of the neck and torso peeked through strips of rotting clothing. A pile of beer cans hid the remaining lower half of the corpse.
I coughed and cleared my throat. “Lori, you want to call 911?”
“Cell phone’s, ah, down the front of my panties. You thinking rescue squad or cops?”
Just then the wind lifted the smell again and I finally turned and vomited all over the garbage sacks piled against the front of the dumpster.
* * *
Lori and I shared the rear seat of the patrol car. The officer had turned the fan up high, circulating comfortably cool air. Although the closed doors kept the inside smelling fresh from the paper pine tree hanging from the mirror, my nose hadn’t forgotten the dumpster’s stench. I pinched my eyes trying to control the recurring nausea and block out the image of the decomposing body.
A phone rang. Beside me Lori reached inside her waistband and pulled out the slender cell phone from its wonderful hiding place. When I glanced up she smirked. “Well, at least that put some color back in your face, Bobby Boy. Hello? Sgt. Moore?” Our eyes met again. “Okay, I’ll tell him.” She tapped the cell screen then shoved it back into her panties.
I cleared my throat. “Moore’s checking in?”
“Yeah. He didn’t mention anything about our find. Guess it’s not important enough to hit the news or make it to the street.” She slid her hand in one side of the leather top then the other while glaring at my frown. “Like I don’t deserve one goddamn cigarette right now?”
In a flare of temper at my silence, she threw herself back in the seat. Clamping her hands in her lap, she resorted to her habit of nonsense talk to work through the nicotine urge. “I know he can’t carry a police radio or listen to a police scanner. But the news creeps do. You’d think they would have some breaking news or something.”
I patted her knee to calm her down. She slapped it away and turned her back to me to stare out the window. “There goes Harriet. She’s pushing her cart back toward the Mall like nothing happened. Of course, to her it didn’t.”
The forensics photographer’s flash lit the shadowed alley. I peered around at the small crowd of men in uniforms and suits. “While I was puking my guts out, did you see Sgt. Slominski arrive?”
“No. And, Bob,” she looked over her shoulder at me, her face softening. “I’m sorry about the puking. I guess I have a stronger stomach. It’s nothing to be ashamed of—”
“What?” I interrupted her. “It was the smell, not seeing that. . . And like that was something you’ve seen or smelled before?”
“Well, as a matter-of-fact—”
I held up a hand to stop her, “I don’t want to know. Here comes a uniform.”
Looking a little green himself, the young officer opened the door on Lori’s side. “You people can go.”
Breathing out of my mouth as I stepped into the afternoon heat, I looked around. “Sgt. Slominski here?”
“No, he only works homicide and this,” he waved his hand toward the dumpster, “looks like just an old woman crawling in there and dying. After forensics gets done, Slominski might get involved, but not likely.”
“Was a name found on the body?”
“A social security card in the handbag. Someone mentioned hearing the name a while back. She was some street walker.” He glanced at Lori and said, “Probably a friend of yours.”
Cocking her left hip and propping a hand on it, Lori turned into the well-practiced and hardened hooker staring down a smart-assed rookie cop. “Oh yeah, handsome? So, what’s her name?”
His eyes narrowed as he glared back at her. “That’s for us to know, sweetheart. I hope you got a good look at her, because someday . . . you’ll end up the same way.”
I stepped between them and faced him. “How about we all, ah move forward? Officer, we found her so we’re curious. We’d like to know who she was and how she died. Isn’t that reasonable?”
“I don’t care what you think you need. Got it? Now, I don’t know if you’re her ‘customer’ or her, ah, handler—” Lori growled behind me.”—but either way, I suggest you take your lady friend and go about your business . . . far away from here.”
* * *
The cold, crisp German beer slid down my throat. I sighed and settled back in the chaise chair as the breeze carried the smells of water and summer grass across the patio. Over the deck rail, a series of distant sails danced on the glittering water. To my right a motor boat bobbed at anchor. A guy cast his fishing line, his back to the female form stretched out on a colorful towel on the deck. I had just focused the binoculars on her bare torso when my doorbell sounded. I picked up the intercom remote from beside my beer.
“Yes, who is it?”
“Harry.”
I thumbed the door lock button. “Come on in. Door’s open now.”
A moment later, Harry took a seat across from me at the glass table. “Drinking beer early today?”
“It’s my first and—” I looked at my Rolex. “—it’s after ten.”
“By a minute, maybe. But being rich and unemployed, I guess you can afford to get drunk before noon.”
“You didn�
�t come here to check on my drinking habits. Why aren’t you at work?”
“I took the day off. The girls have a softball game and Ann went to Kansas City to shop for clothes. Dress, shoes, something. I decided to stop by and let you know I got a call from the police a little bit ago. Seems the Dumpster Diva had a bullet in her head that matched the one taken out of Penny. They think the girl had been dead for just a little while.”
“Shit, she looked like she’d been dead for months.”
“They said the heat and the downtown critters did a number on the body. The bullet was in her head—”
I held up a hand to stop him and took another long pull on the cold beer to block the memory. “Who did you talk to?”
“Slominski. Bob, ah . . .he’s arrested Fr. Manning for murder again.”
“What the hell?“I sat up straighter. “Why can’t they leave the guy alone? That body was too badly decomposed to find semen samples, wasn’t it? What proof did they have this time?”
“He was stopped on the Interstate for speeding real early this morning. Seems he was on his way to someplace in Missouri. State Patrol found a gun in his car. Cops up here asked them to run a quick ballistics and the weapon in his car . . . killed both—.”
“Bullshit! You think Manning carried a gun at any time in his life?”
Harry shook his head then scratched at his neck. “Hell, I don’t know the man like Ann does, but . . . he admitted screwing prostitutes, didn’t he? That was hard enough for me to believe. Is owning a gun worse when you’re a goddamn priest?” He shrugged.
My mind raced with possibilities. “Was the gun in the open? I know they can’t search a car just for speeding. How did Manning say he thought it got there?” Frustration and anger mounting, I swung off the lounge chair. “And I thought they recovered the murder weapon after they found Penny.”
Harry sighed heavily, looking across the grass to Lori’s house. “I asked the same damn questions. Somebody jumped to conclusions and somebody else demanded more tests. Hell, those forensics people are only human, I guess. They concluded the gun taken from the wino wasn’t used on Penny.”
“So maybe they screwed up again!” I twisted the cap of my third beer and threw the little metal disc across the patio.
“Nope. This time it was two labs comparing pictures. The rifling was a match.” He reached over and took a beer from the six pack carrier on the table. “It’s one fucked up mess and Fr. Manning’s going to pay the price.”
“Not if I can find Harpies.”
“I knew you’d be like a damn bull dog.”
We both stared out at the lake and the anchored boat. Harry set down his beer and pulled a small case from his shirt pocket. He popped it open and held the fancy opera glasses to his eyes to get a better view.
“Goddamn opera glasses, Harry?”
“Compact, easy to carry on the job. Whoee, she’s got a nice rack.”
“I noticed.”
He glanced down at the binoculars on my side of the table then went back to using his own. “Where’s Lori?”
“Probably sleeping. We were up late.”
“Really? You two getting a little closer, eh?”
“No, if it’s any of your business. We closed up the Tickle Pink and then walked around the Old Market. I asked her to marry me.”
Harry almost dropped the glasses then stared at me. “You-you . . . I-I mean. What’d she say?”
“No.”
“You’re screwin’ with me.” He leaned forward. “From the look on your face, I guess not. She give a reason?”
“It’s kind of . . . a recurring theme.” I pulled on the beer then rolled it between my hands. “She wants to fuck me, but, ah, marriage? That seems to be something entirely different in her mind.”
“Yeah, well, hookers can be funny about those kinda things.”
I frowned at him until he shrugged and motioned for me to continue, “For me, getting laid isn’t enough. In my mind, with Lori, it’s just not . . . well, right.” I threw one hand in the air. “I don’t know any more. Two years of watching her, wanting her is driving me crazy. But I don’t want to be . . . just a john to her.”
“Hell to have a conscience, ain’t it, Mr. Norris?” I glared and the grinning Harry held up his beer bottle in salute.
In the man-to-man stare, I deflated. “She said she wants to be sure Eileen won’t interfere with a marriage. I have to prove to her I can give her my complete attention, complete love, because—where I get hung up treating her right—she doesn’t want to share me with a dead person.”
“Does she . . . want you to get hypnotized or something? How the shit you gonna forget Eileen?”
“I don’t know. At least this Harpies business is giving us something worthwhile to do together.”
* * *
“Lori, we gotta talk,” I yelled from her bedroom.
The water shut off followed by the shower door slamming. I pictured her stepping into the mauve-tiled bathroom and wrapping that wet body in thick towels. I sat in a cushioned chair, hands clasping and unclasping between my knees and stared at the open door where steam rolled out into the air-conditioned room.
“Come dry my back.”
“I don’t think so. “
“And why not? If I’m good enough to be a fiancé, ain’t I good enough to help? My hair’s dripping.”
“You never needed that kind of help before.”
“Shit! Okay, I want the help now. Please. Does need and politeness make a difference?”
Before I could argue myself out of it, I stepped into the spacious bathroom. The scent of her imported soap filled the wet air. Deliberately holding the towel open and barely moving one corner on her flat belly, she smiled seductively. Water ran in little trails across her smooth skin, a body tanned without a bikini line in sight.
She reached for another towel folded on the marble counter and tossed it to me, laughing when I almost missed it.
“Rub my hair with that,” she directed as she turned to the mirror, pulling the oversized towel to her front and showing me the perfect globes of her shapely butt. I clumsily patted at the mass of dark hair, as my attention followed the water trailing down her back and over that butt.
“You’re worthless,” she said in a husky voice that teased more than criticized. “Here.” She picked up the hair dryer and held it over her shoulder. Her fingers slid slowly out from under mine.
I refused to look at her in the mirror. Clearing my throat, I fluffed the heavy strands in the noisy air flow, fighting the fullness pressing against the zipper of my jeans.
“I can tell from that expression,” she spoke with more disgust than sexiness, “you’re back to playing Fr. Dumb Ass. So, what’s so damn important that you had to interrupt my shower?”
I resisted shoving my fingers all the way to her scalp. The ends of her hair were much safer. “Harry stopped by to tell me Manning’s back in jail. He was stopped before he made it to Missouri and brought back.”
“What the hell for?”
“This has turned into one screwed up mess, Lori.”
She snugged the big towel over all the important parts and took the dryer from me. I leaned against the bathroom doorway and told her what Harry had said.
“Are we going to play dress up and go for another jail visit?”
“Wouldn’t work. Too many cops know our faces now.”
She shut off the dryer and thoughtfully leaned back against the counter. No make-up, flushed from the steamy shower, she was more than gorgeous, more than a sex object. In the two years I have known Lori, I hadn’t more than glanced at another woman, not a serious glance, anyway. My artist’s eye needed this, needed her. She pulsed with life. Long ago I had learned when anxiety took over my mind and energy, the brush strokes of my charcoal and oils turned messy and scattered, too raw and almost ugly. Lori’s faultless lines, soft skin, eyes that shifted from hotly sexy to innocently curious had imprisoned my mind, my talent, and my creativeness. Sh
e now totally owned my spirit.
There hadn’t been room for Eileen’s images for some time. How can I convince you of that, Lori?
Just watching her thoughtful expression, I almost groaned. My visual exploration of her body kept me awake nights. In the daylight I had to fight the urge to create more paintings, more drawings of her. I wanted to capture her in early morning’s gold, high noon’s white glare, sunset’s peach and purples. The nymph-like beauty of her face when she laughed, the hint of wonder in her eyes when she learned something new, her proud almost arrogant look when she was confident about something, all of it filled my mind. I had enough material to do an entirely different gallery showing.
Feeling a little light-headed with the cascade of unrealized masterpieces I could see on the linen cloth stretched across my easel, I rubbed a hand across my eyes. My heart thudded and swelled with the realization that I had to have her, but like the Mona Lisa, I could not touch her. She was so far beyond what an aging artist deserved.
“Bob?”
I jerked as if slapped. “What?”
“So what are we going to do?”
I turned into her bedroom, working to focus on the situation and not her. “We have to find out who put the gun in the Manning’s car. Then I guess we continue looking for the killer of the two . . . now three women.”
I paced to the room’s angled glass door looking out across her patio to my own with its hot tub. More memorable images of the beautiful young woman in a black bikini with rhinestones flashed across my mind.
“Why? Why is this so important to you?” she said as she came into the room.
I fought for control and won. “At first it was for you, because you were shocked that Manning could be accused of something like this.” I turned back to smile at her and shrugged. “Now?”
“Yeah, now. You are so full of bullshit and so—I don’t know—damn blind, is all I can think of to say.”
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