Harley Jean Davidson 03 - Evil Elvis

by Virginia Brown

  Harley looked over the mail when she got in the car, wishing she was brave—or stupid—enough to open the envelopes. Most of it looked like bills or junk mail, but a postcard with Elvis on the front lay wedged under a Publisher’s Clearing House envelope. Shamelessly, she turned it over to read it.

  Words that looked like they’d been printed by a computer Inkjet nearly jumped out at her:

  “There’s to be a special interview with Channel 3 before the concert August 2. Dress as you would for the competition, and take the Memphis Tour Tyme van that will be at the Omni Hotel at 2:00. Do not tell the other contestants about the interview, please. There’s only room for a few of the best. Claude Williams will meet you in front of Graceland.”

  The postmark was dated July 30th. So who was this Claude Williams? Maybe she should find out how Leroy had been chosen. And why he’d been told to board her van when he wasn’t on her passenger list. There had to be an explanation.

  Harley decided to take Leroy’s mail to Patty Jenkins before she visited Lydia, with only one side trip. She didn’t need a Federal charge hanging over her head for tampering with the US mail, but making copies wasn’t really tampering.

  When Patty came to the door with a cigarette hanging from one corner of her mouth, she narrowed her eyes at Harley. “Thought I told them cops to do something about you.”

  “So you did. I just thought you might want your dead husband’s mail.”

  Patty hesitated and then took it from Harley’s outstretched hand. “I don’t, but I’ll take it. Get out of here.”

  “I’m on my way.” She stepped back, and then turned just before Patty shut the door. “By the way, did Leroy know about you and Darren?”

  It was one of those shot in the dark things, just something to see what she’d say or do, but Harley didn’t expect her reaction. Patty went red, then white.

  “Damn him! What’d that sonuvabitch say to you?”

  “Enough. Do the police know?”

  Patty stepped out of the house and shut the door. “Listen, it wasn’t like that. Only once or twice. No big thing. But if Leroy found out, he’d have used it against me. Taken the kids.”

  Harley thought maybe they’d have been better off with him, but didn’t say it. She just shrugged, and then winced at the pain in her shoulder.

  “So why’d Darren break up with you?”

  “It wasn’t like that, no matter what that asshole says. He had to go and tell Leroy he could move in with him, and I wasn’t going to take any chances. I told him to leave me be after that.”

  “Maybe Darren didn’t take it so well.”

  “That ain’t my problem,” Patty said. “Dumbass. Guess he thought it’d be funny to sneak around on Leroy while he’s got him living with him.”

  If that was true, Harley thought after she’d left, then it gave two more people motives for getting rid of Leroy. Which, of course, didn’t explain Derek Wade’s death. She mulled that over for a few minutes, and then decided to visit the Wades again. Maybe Derek had received a card.

  Though a little perplexed, the Wades were gracious enough to look in their mail basket.

  “I may have thrown away his mail that didn’t seem important,” Mrs. Wade said as she shuffled through papers in a wicker basket. “He didn’t get much anyway, just a few things—ah. Here it is. Yes, Derek did receive a card from the Elvis competition people. He was very good, you know.”

  Scanning it, Harley looked up at her. “May I borrow this, Mrs. Wade? I’ll return it to you as soon as possible.”

  “Yes, of course you may. You don’t have to return it.” Tears welled in the older woman’s eyes. “He doesn’t need it now.”

  Harley didn’t know what to say so she just put her hand on Mrs. Wade’s arm and nodded. It felt awkward, yet at the same time as if a connection had been made. An image of Derek as he must have looked to his mother flashed through her mind. How sad.

  Once in Tootsie’s car, she held the card next to the photo copy she’d made before taking Leroy’s card to Patty. Almost identical except for the dates. Derek was to meet Claude Williams the day after Leroy was killed. So who had sent them? And why? A lure? But to be so bold as to kill intended victims right in the middle of a crowd? It just didn’t seem logical. If it wasn’t logical, could it be true? Damn.

  This was evidence the police needed. She’d turn it over to them. After she made a copy of Derek Wade’s postcard, of course. There was a limit to her cooperation, though the main thing was to catch the killer. It didn’t really matter now who managed it first. She just didn’t want Bobby to accuse her of obstruction when she was only trying to help.

  Lydia Free rented a room near the Dixon Art Gallery off Park Avenue. Harley found the house easily enough since it was down the street from the very first house Elvis had bought for his mother on Audubon. She parked in a separate parking area in the back, next to Lydia’s car. It looked like the back door was the main entrance, so she rang the bell and waited. No one came. She rang the bell again. It was a pretty big house, so maybe it just took some time to get to the door. When no one answered after a few minutes, she opened the storm door to knock, figuring there might be trouble with the electricity since several MLG&W trucks were on the street. If someone had hit a light pole on Park, it’d put out lights for the entire neighborhood.

  Her first rap on the wooden door swung it open. It’d been left ajar. Harley got an uneasy feeling. Other than hers, Lydia’s was the only car in the driveway, but that didn’t mean Lydia was here. She could have gone walking, or ridden with someone else. Still...

  Maybe she should call the police and have them check out Lydia’s apartment. But what if she was just taking a nap, or jogging around the block? Or lying out in the sun? Harley walked over to the tall wooden fence, took a plastic bucket left in front of the garage, upended it and used it as a ladder to peek over the top. A tree had fallen over and just lay there with the leaves still green. Bushes were high and the grass needed cutting, but no Lydia.

  She retrieved her new cell phone from her car, locked it, and went back to the house. This time she stuck her head in the open door and called, “Lydia? You home? It’s Harley.”

  Nothing but silence.

  She got that tingling again, like the time she’d gone into Mrs. Trumble’s house and found her dead on the floor. This couldn’t be the same thing. Could it?

  Sucking in a deep breath, she stepped into the hallway. Straight ahead was a laundry room and to the right was a closed door. A spiral staircase climbed to a room overhead, and to the left she saw a living room with doors leading into other hallways and rooms. She had no idea which one was Lydia’s. Might as well start with the closest.

  She rapped lightly on the door, and when there was no answer, opened it. A huge room cluttered with musical instruments and tall speakers opened onto the back yard. French doors were wide open, letting in hot air and flies. Odd, but hardly ominous.

  Closing that door, she went on to the next. A check of three more downstairs bedrooms, the kitchen, dining room, and living room, didn’t produce Lydia or anyone else. Harley began to feel like a burglar. If someone came in, how would she explain her presence?

  Okay, just a quick look upstairs and she was done. A flight of stairs off the living room seemed the most likely for an apartment, and she went up as quietly as possible. When she got to the top, she called for Lydia again. “Lydia? You here?”

  No answer.

  She put a hand on the knob and turned it slowly. The door swung open and she peered in. A big dormer window let in light that fell across what was obviously a small sitting room that led to the bedroom. A kitchenette lay off the sitting room, small but efficient. Thick carpet cushioned her feet as she crossed to look in the bedroom. Clothes lay discarded on the floor. Beyond the bedroom, the sound of rushing water seeped out from another closed door.

  Relieved, Harley felt like a fool. Of course. Lydia was taking a shower. That’s why she didn’t hear the doorbell or kno
cking. What an idiot she was, looking for trouble behind every door. She really had to get over this. Recent experience made her much too jumpy. She’d wait in the sitting area for Lydia to get out of the shower, and hope an unexpected visitor didn’t scare her too badly.

  Nice little place, really, small but fairly tidy except for the clothes on the floor. Even the kitchenette off the sitting room had sparkled with cleanliness. She’d always figured Lydia for the sloppy type. Which only proved Diva was wrong about her daughter having keen perceptions.

  Halfway back to the sitting room, Harley paused. Something about those clothes on the floor...

  She went back and looked at them more closely. Dark red splatters stained the tee shirt and shorts. A strong smell hit her when she knelt down to look at them, and her heart began to thud rapidly. Blood?

  Looking up at the closed bathroom door, Harley rose and moved cautiously toward it. She dreaded what she’d find in the shower, images from the movie Psycho flashing through her mind. The bathroom door was unlocked, and she pushed it slowly open. Steam billowed out and fogged the mirror over the vanity sink. A black shower curtain had been pulled across the tub, hiding it. Heart still thudding hard enough to break a rib, she held her cell phone ready in her left hand and put her right hand out to pull back the shower curtain. She jerked quickly, and then stared. Blood ran down Lydia’s face onto her shoulders and made red puddles in the tub.

  Harley screamed.

  Then Lydia screamed.

  Chapter Eight

  “Tell me again why you’re here?” Lydia, wrapped in a huge towel and shivering, glared at Harley.

  “I wanted to talk to you about the murder on your bus.”

  “You couldn’t have called?”

  “In retrospect, that would have been a much better idea. You shouldn’t leave your doors unlocked. Why are you dying your hair red?”

  “Not that it’s any of your business, but my therapist said a change might be good for me.” Lydia pulled a smaller towel from her head. “I thought dying my hair red might be a good start, but then I spilled it everywhere, on my clothes, and now it’s on my face—I must look horrible.”

  “You do resemble an accident victim, but a little baby oil ought to take care of that. I can help, if you’d like. I’ve helped my brother dye his hair a few times, so I have experience.”

  Lydia looked uncertain, but Harley convinced her that she could be useful. It didn’t take long to scrub the dye stains from Lydia’s forehead, cheeks, and neck. When Harley realized one of the smaller stains she was trying to scrub away was a freckle, she stopped.

  “There. All done.”

  “How do I look?”

  Lydia peered up at her, and Harley didn’t have the heart to tell her the truth. Diplomacy would work much better. “As good as new.”

  “Red’s not my color, is it.”

  Now there was no escape. Harley shook her head. “Not really. I think you’d look good as a blonde, though.”

  “Do you?” That seemed to please Lydia, because she smiled. “Maybe I’ll try that.”

  “Go to a professional next time. Just in case.”

  Lydia nodded. “So what’d you want to know about the dead guy on my tour?”

  “Not really so much about him as about the guy who sat down next to him. Was there any distinguishing feature you can remember that might identify him?”

  “I already went through all this with the police. They were just two Elvis impersonators. I get a lot of them this time of year, reduced rates since they’re part of the entertainment, just like you do.”

  “I know. But my van was all Elvis impersonators, while you had only two. I thought you might be able to recall something different about either of them.”

  Lydia frowned. “Does Uncle Les know you’re doing this, asking all these questions?”

  “You mean Mr. Penney?”

  “Well, yes. He’s my uncle, you know.”

  “I’ve been asked by the company to do what I can to help the police find the perpetrator.” That sounded middle of the road, true without straying too far into details.

  “Oh. I didn’t know. Okay, I’ll tell you what I told the police. The other Elvis was tall, I guess somewhere around six feet, not fat but not skinny. He had on a black wig but the sideburns looked real. I didn’t pay too much attention to him. It was so noisy in there, everyone talking at once, and I was just trying to get through the day.”

  To Harley’s surprise, Lydia blinked away some tears. “I told Uncle Les that I’m not good at this sort of thing, that I wanted to work in one of the other offices as a receptionist or in the accounting department, but he said I had to start out at the ground floor first.”

  “Maybe now he’ll transfer you,” Harley said sympathetically.

  “I’m not going back if he doesn’t.” She shuddered. “Finding that man dead ... And the man who killed him was right there, and he could have killed all of us.”

  ““I think he picked his victim before he got on that bus.” When Lydia looked hopefully at her, she added, “And I think they knew each other. One of your passengers told me that there was a disagreement over seating.”

  “Now we know why.”

  Harley nodded. “Were there any words between them, maybe, anything you might have overheard?”

  Lydia shook her head. “They were sitting too far back. Even if I’d wanted to hear them, I wouldn’t have. Everyone was making too much noise.”

  “Talking?”

  “Singing. Someone started that Jerry Lee song, Great Balls of Fire, and then everyone started singing it. It was like Columbo, when he figured out the guy used music to disguise the murder.”

  “Uh huh.” Lydia was known to consider TV shows reality, but this time she might be right. Singing would mask any noise the victim might make when stabbed.

  Still, it didn’t make a lot of sense. It was too risky. No one in their right mind would plan a murder in a bus full of people. Would they?

  * * * *

  “The mistake you’re making,” Tootsie said, “is assuming that a murderer has a right mind. Except for a crime of passion or self-defense, any murderer is basically unbalanced.”

  “Is that you or Freud talking?”

  “Please. Don’t insult Freud.” Tootsie got up from behind his desk. He switched off the desk lamp and picked his keys up off the counter. “These murders were bold, yes, definitely risky in a crowd, but no one can identify a killer who looks like a hundred other people who all look like Elvis. In its way, it’s a perfect disguise.”

  “That’s what I said.” Harley leaned glumly against the desk. “I’m sure the police have recovered evidence, though—fibers, fingerprints, shoeprints—something that’ll identify him.”

  “This isn’t TV. It’s not going to get solved in an hour—forty minutes without all those commercials. It takes a while to gather and process evidence. It may take weeks or months.”

  “Oh great. Well, I’ll do what I can, but I’m about at a dead-end here.”

  “That’s all right.” Tootsie smiled wryly. “It was a crazy idea of mine anyway. The ogre wasn’t at all happy to hear I’d asked you to investigate.”

  “I can imagine.”

  They’d started for the door when the office phone rang. Tootsie paused. “Damn, I forgot to switch it over to the answering service.”

  Harley waited while he answered it, leaning over the counter to punch the buttons and give his usual spiel. She looked at her fingers and the nails chewed to the quick. There must be a better habit to have. This one was unattractive. She dug in her backpack for some gum and found the postcards. She’d forgotten to mention them to Tootsie. Maybe he’d know what to make of it.

  Then she lifted her head to look at Tootsie when he said, “What? When? Okay. We’re on our way. Just don’t touch anything.”

  He hung up, pressed a few buttons and looked at Harley. “There’s been another murder in one of our vans.”

  The police got there
before they did. Cruisers flashing blue lights nosed in around the van parked under the hotel overhang. Charlsie Spencer stood by the door and stared blankly ahead, her face reflecting nothing but flashing blue lights. Harley knew just how she felt.

  “Want to go inside and sit down?” she asked her, but Charlsie shook her head.

  “No. I just want to wake up.”

  “I know. A nightmare, isn’t it?”

  Charlsie turned to look at her. “How do you do it? Deal with it, I mean. Death is so ... ugly.”

  “Murder is ugly.”

  Charlsie was married with two little kids, a pretty woman with soft brown hair and blue eyes, a little on the healthy side but not fat. Just rounded, a Marilyn Monroe kind of round. She shivered despite the heat.