House of the Rising Nun

by Dakota Cassidy

  I chuckled softly. That sounded like something Dr. Mickey would say, but then I sobered. There was a man dead, a treasured member of our community. I felt a little helpless, but there wasn’t much more I could do other than comfort them.

  “I wish I knew what to say about this Organ Grinder business. I can tell you the guys have talked to me about it. Just tonight, in fact, but they aren’t always the most reliable sources, if you know what I mean. I don’t know if you’re familiar with Madge, but she stirred them up with a spooky story and now they’re all in a bit of an uproar.”

  Though, in all honesty, Griffin wasn’t prone to tall tales the way Madge was. Nor did he have the dramatic flair Solomon did, and Griffin claimed to have personally heard this story of Skinny’s. What I needed to do was find out where Skinny was and ask him some questions.

  To boot, I could be grasping at straws for a connection to this Organ Grinder business where Dr. Mickey was concerned, but I still wanted to know that Lazlo was safe.

  “But Dr. Mickey did say the story might be true, Trixie. He did,” Amber persisted, her eyes pleading.

  “And I believe you. I truly do, Amber. I’m just not sure how pertinent it is to Dr. Mickey’s death. We don’t even know how he died yet. The Organ Grinder could have nothing to do with anything if he died of some medical cause no one knew about. Maybe he didn’t even know he was ill.”

  Her sigh was one of defeat. “You’re probably right. But I feel better knowing I at least told the right people on the off chance it means something.”

  “You did the right thing,” Nadia encouraged.

  “You absolutely did,” I agreed.

  The forensic team had arrived, complete with their infamous yellow tape. It was standard procedure for them to cordon off the area, but something told me they were deeper reasons that had nothing to do with protecting the crime scene from contamination.

  Coop made her way to me, slipping through the thinning crowd until she arrived at our table. She leaned down and whispered in my ear, “I’ve heard something, Trixie. Something vital.”

  Rising, I pushed my chair back and looked at the ladies. “Ladies, I’ll be right over there, but I’m not leaving. So if you need me, or you can think of anything else, please come and find me. Okay?”

  Both women nodded. “Thanks for listening, Trixie. You’re as nice as Dr. Mickey said you were,” Amber said before the mention of Dr. Mickey made her tear up again, and she and Nadia went back to consoling one another.

  I let Coop guide me to a corner mostly unpopulated as the forensics team began their perusal of the scene. I had one eye on the people milling about Dr. Mickey’s body and one ear tuned to Coop.

  “What’s up, Coop?”

  “You know how you always say to listen to everyone around you when something bad happens? Especially if it involves a death?”

  “Well, Stevie said that, but she’s right. So what did you hear?”

  She moved to stand in front of me so I was entirely focused on her beautiful face. “I think I know how Dr. Mickey died.”

  My heart began to pump hard in my chest and my hands grew clammy. If a man as kind as Dr. Mickey had to die, I wished a death from natural causes. I’d much rather a heart attack or aneurysm than think someone would intentionally hurt him.

  Crossing my fingers, I asked, “How?”

  Her eyes grew serious, her face as somber as I’ve ever seen it. “Someone stabbed him in the base of his skull and punctured his brain.”

  What is it they say about wishes? Wish in one hand, poop (which is so gross. Who makes this stuff up?) in the other, and see which one fills up first?

  So much for wishing, huh?

  Chapter 6

  I gripped her arm tight, my fingers trembling. How awful for Dr. Mickey. “Are you sure that’s what you heard, Coop?”

  She nodded her head, her red hair swishing down her back. “I’m absolutely certain, and you know I never lie, Trixie Lavender. I heard someone say that Dr. Mickey was stabbed in the back of his skull, probably by something small and sharp, and it punctured his brain. Then another person said whoever stabbed him had to be very angry to push the weapon so far into his skull.”

  My eyes flew wide open as I gripped her arm harder. “Who did you hear say that?”

  “The detective over there. His name is Detective Goran Griswald. He’s very cranky, by the way. Just in case you thought to have a chat with him. He’s very un-chatty.”

  My eyes strayed past Coop’s shoulder to the man she mentioned, to find he was busy barking orders at the police officers.

  I grimaced at the size of him. He was linebacker material if I ever saw one. Balding, with only a fringe of dark gray hair around the sides of his head, he looked grizzled and angry.

  “Wow, he sure looks mean, huh?”

  “He’s not very friendly, I can tell you true. I heard him tell Tansy he was just doing his time until retirement. But I also heard him speculate on Dr. Mickey’s murder, and he seemed very sure it was by a puncture to the back of Dr. Mickey’s head.”

  “A puncture. But there wasn’t any blood, not that I could see anyway.”

  Was there a lot of blood when your brain was punctured? I shivered. How brutal.

  “I didn’t see any either, but Dr. Mickey had a lot of makeup on. Maybe it just looked like part of his costume.”

  Though, it did explain the pattern of his ruffled hair. It literally looked as though someone had grabbed him by the head, which made sense if leverage was what one needed to puncture someone’s brain.

  I shivered again at the brutality of it all, then I put my hands on my hips. I had to wonder how this detective had drawn such a specific conclusion. “How do you think he knows something so specific, Coop? Does he have a PhD, too?”

  Coop shook her head. “I don’t think so. One of the forensic guys told him. The one with the bushy hair and spots on his face.”

  I looked to the forensic team as they milled about Dr. Mickey’s body and located the man Coop was talking about—or should I say teenager? He didn’t look like he was much older than fifteen, with a mop of curly brown hair and lanky arms and legs.

  “I think that’s acne, Coop, not spots on his face.”

  “Well, whatever it is, he’s the one who said it first. His name’s Pickle, FYI. I heard that crabby detective call him that, and Pickle told the detective there was a wound to the back of Dr. Mickey’s head. I saw him use a magnifying glass to look at it and everything. He said he can’t be one hundred percent sure that was the cause of death, but that was where he was leaning for a preliminary guess.”

  I closed my eyes and gulped. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t want someone angry enough with me to stab me in the back of the head hard enough to puncture my brain. “Pickle said that, huh?”

  “That’s exactly what he said, yes.”

  “And you heard all that while I was talking to Amber and Nadia?”

  Her eyes shone with pride…er, I think it was pride, anyway. “Yes, I did. I stayed on the outskirts of the conversation and was furtive.”

  I couldn’t help but smile. “Another new word?”

  “Yes, Trixie Lavender. I’ve been skipping around the dictionary due to boredom.”

  “Either way, good job, Coop. You’ve learned some interesting information.” I chewed on the inside of my cheek. “So they think someone may have killed Dr. Mickey…” That thought sank in further, and I grew sad all over again. Who’d want to kill someone like Dr. Mickey?

  He was the nicest man on the planet. Warm, kind, happy all the time—or maybe that was all just a show?

  Coop’s eyes grew intense. “I hate that someone hurt him, Trixie. He gave me a pack of toothbrushes and some toothpaste that tastes like cinnamon. Not everyone does that, you know. We didn’t even have toothbrushes in Hell, which makes it an especially kind gesture on his part.”

  I smiled at her in sympathy. “I know you loved Dr. Mickey. I’m sorry, Coop. I’ll miss him, too.”r />
  “Will you investigate his death, Trixie?” Her eyes looked almost hopeful, and I couldn’t bear that.

  “Probably not, Coop. I’ve been in enough trouble as of late, don’t you think? Besides, I’m not terribly good at sleuthing.”

  As much as I loved putting the pieces of a puzzle together, I can admit I’m not exactly my friend Stevie, who’s a super-sleuth as far as I’m concerned. Sometimes, it’s okay to admit you’re not cut out for something. Even when the admitting hurts your stinkin’ soul.

  “No. You’re quite bad at it, in fact. But the only way to get better is to try again. I read that if at first you don’t succeed, you should try, try again.”

  I pinched her cheek and made a face at her. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, Coop.”

  “That was a joke, right?”

  “That was a joke.”

  Her eyes narrowed at me. “Because I wasn’t complimenting you.”

  I burst out laughing. “No kidding.”

  “No. I’m not kidding.”

  I sighed and grabbed her shoulders, pointing her in the direction of the door. “Let’s go see if Higgs needs anything before we go home. I’m all Halloween-ed out.”

  But Coop dug in her heels. “You’re really not going to investigate the death of Dr. Mickey, Trixie?”

  Actually, I was trying to get the heck out of Dodge so I wouldn’t stick my nose in any deeper, especially after learning Dr. Mickey’s death could be ruled a homicide. I itched to snoop around, but to what end? The last time I snooped, I ended up held at gunpoint, and the time before that, I almost lost a foot—all for what? To not solve the crime?

  “Didn’t you just say I was bad at investigating? Why would I want to do something I’m bad at? Why would you want me to?”

  “So you can get better, of course, and because Dr. Mickey needs all the help he can get so you can bring his killer to justice. Practice makes perfect.”

  Her eyes implored mine with that intense gaze she possessed, but still, I didn’t know how I could do much more than remain an outsider. The police certainly weren’t thrilled with me for nosing about the way I had in the past. They wouldn’t like it any more now than they had before.

  “I’ll tell you what, if they don’t have some answers within the next couple of days, maybe I’ll do some poking. Okay?”

  She yanked the sides of her mouth upward with her fingers, making her gorgeous face look comical. “This is me smiling at your answer. Thank you, Trixie.”

  I fought a yawn, covering my mouth with the back of my hand. “And this is me fighting off sleep. Let’s go see if Higgs needs any help and then go home. I need my bed and my footie pajamas.”

  As we made our way toward Higgs, who had his hands full with some of the shelter guys, I took one last look at Dr. Mickey’s body—now being loaded onto a gurney in a black bag—and my heart clenched again.

  I sent up a prayer to the universe his next journey, wherever that led, was safe and filled with the kindness he’d shown so many others.

  * * * *

  Two days later, as I sat in my office at Inkerbelle’s and perused the local paper, I noted the article on Dr. Mickey, and I winced. According to the article, the police had no leads so far, but they were definitely ruling it a homicide. Yet, they’d chosen not to release his cause of death. I had to imagine the reason was due to the very specific nature of how he’d been murdered.

  I suppose they wouldn’t want that leaking out to the general public just yet. Higgs said the police sometimes withheld details to smoke out a killer. Some killers enjoyed the infamy that came along with news reports and articles, and if the police didn’t feed their appetites for attention, it sometimes drew them out to kill again.

  So, did that mean the police thought they had a serial killer on their hands? I will admit to looking up similar crimes and deaths involving a brain puncture, and checking to see if there’d been any similarities to recent murders in Oregon and Washington, but that’s all I’ll admit.

  I’ll also admit I didn’t find any—not locally, anyhow.

  But this article was more of a tribute to a wonderful man who gave to his community with a generous dollop of his time, and any details on the murder investigation were scarce.

  I set the paper down and looked away from the creased pages, using a tissue to wipe the smudged ink from my fingers. I was doing everything I could to stay uninvolved, and believe me, that wasn’t easy.

  I can’t tell you how many times I’d wanted to scour Facebook for details on Dr. Mickey’s personal life, but the small glance (yes, I swear it was a quick peek) told me he only had a professional page, which made sense, as he was in a profession that required a great deal of decorum, I suppose.

  Looking at the four walls of my tiny office, listening to the buzz of tattoos being created and the chatter of clients, I smiled in satisfaction. It was a busy Monday morning for us, and I had a boatload of paperwork to do.

  That should be enough to keep my mind occupied. Yet, my eyes kept straying to the article in the paper, and my laptop, and my fingers virtually ached with the desire to skim the Internet for something on Dr. Mickey.

  “Trixie?” Coop called from the doorway, sticking her gorgeous face into my office.

  She looked especially lovely today in her Joan-Collins-inspired scarf in muted tones of orange and pale blue. Her fascination with Joan—and Linda Evans—from Dynasty raged on in almost everything she did these days. Her attempts at laughter, her wardrobe, her speech patterns, her facial expressions.

  I looked up at her, forcing the guilt from my eyes and pretending to shuffle some invoices around on my desk to make it look like I’d been working when I’d actually been daydreaming about crime-solving. “Yeah? Everything all right?”

  She curled her lean fingers around my door and gazed at me intently, propping her hip against the doorknob. “It is. I just finished my last client until after lunch.”

  “Good. So what can I do you for, Coop?”

  She crossed her arms over her periwinkle T-shirt and flipped the ends of her scarf over her shoulders. “It’s been two days, you know.”

  I frowned and rose from my office chair, looking down at my crisp overalls to brush the crumbs of the donut I’d inhaled earlier from the bib. “Okay…”

  She gave me that look that said I was crazy for missing whatever point she was making. “Two days is a couple, correct?”

  I pulled my knit cap down around my ears and cocked my head in question. “Uh-huh.”

  “You said if no one had found Dr. Mickey’s killer in a couple of days, you’d look into it. We made a deal. It’s been a couple of days. So, are you looking yet?”

  Coop was so rigid when it came to even the most offhanded promise. Partially because where she comes from…you know, Hell…a deal’s a deal—sometimes to your detriment if you don’t ante up.

  I held my hands up in the air in surrender even though I was secretly giddy with delight she’d remembered. “Aw, Coop. I dunno. I don’t want to step on anyone’s toes. Surely you see how the police tease me about sticking my snout in where it doesn’t belong, don’t you? They’re making fun of the novice, and with good reason. I am a novice, playing at detective.”

  She sucked in her cheeks. “But you made me a promise, and a promise is your word. The police haven’t located Dr. Mickey’s killer yet. Now it’s your turn. Even if you don’t find the killer in the traditional method through effective sleuthing, you can still get lucky and fumble your way into finding him. That worked the last two times. Why can’t it work again?”

  I gave a wry laugh and rolled up the sleeves of my flannel shirt, wishing I’d worn a thermal underneath. It was dang drafty in our old building. “I’m not saying I couldn’t misstep my way into solving Dr. Mickey’s murder, but it’s a busy time at the shop, Coop. We have tons of bookings. I can’t just up and throw on my play detective’s hat every time someone is murdered.”

  Her chin jutted forward in a stubborn reminder
. “But it isn’t just someone, Trixie Lavender. It’s Dr. Mickey. And you promised.”

  With a long sigh, I nodded. I had promised. “You’re right, Coop. I’ll see what I can do—”

  “Trixie girl? You got some visitors,” Knuckles called from the front of the store.

  I gave Coop an apologetic look and skirted around my desk, poking my head out of the door to see Nadia and Amber by the front desk. Their pretty faces against the vivid colors of the shop walls only heightened how pale they were, leading me to believe it had been a rough couple of days.

  “Ladies!” I greeted them with a smile and a wave, crossing the floor and passing Goose, who was in the midst of tattooing a seventy-two-year-old grandmother of eight, if I remembered the schedule correctly. “What can I do for you? A tattoo, perhaps? We do have the best in Portland.”

  That sounded so silly, considering their plight, but I wasn’t sure why else they could be at Inkerbelle’s.

  Both women, so different in their street clothes, gave me a tentative smile, making me pause. Their eyes had light purple shadows beneath, and a weary sorrow in them that left my heart aching for the pair.

  Nadia was the first to speak, tucking her brown hair behind her ear, her eyes skirting mine before dashing to the floor. “Morning, Trixie. How are you?”

  Tucking my hands into the pockets of my overalls, I rocked back on my heels and smiled wider. “I’m fine. Just fine. But the real question is, how are you two?”

  Amber, dressed in a cute sweat suit and matching pink sneakers, instantly began to tear up. “We’re managing. There’s so much to figure out without Dr. Welch at the practice. Dr. Fabrizio decided to close the office for the week out of respect, and so we can figure out what to do next. He can only handle so many patients, but mostly I think he’s really torn up about this and overwhelmed at the moment. We had to make him leave his apartment today and have breakfast with us just to get him out of the house and put some sustenance in his stomach.”

  I reached out a sympathetic hand and squeezed Amber’s forearm. “I’m so sorry, ladies. Is there something I can do to help? I don’t know much about dentistry, but I’m a heck of a scheduler.”