He parked the battered gray Pontiac right in front of her building. Not exactly what she’d consider unobtrusive, but maybe that was the point. Harley parked in back next to Cami’s Saturn, and by the time she cut off her headlights and locked the car Morgan stood by the back door.
“Looking for anyone special, sailor?” she asked breezily, and he shook his head.
“Just doing my job, ma’am.” He opened the door for her. “I’ll be out here all night, in the heat with the mosquitoes.”
“Is that a hint to be invited inside?”
He just smiled.
So much for that. Not that she wanted him to come inside. Really. Okay, so she did, but it had nothing to do with lust, just security. Mostly, anyway.
“Better move your car if you don’t want to be seen,” she advised. “Or is that the idea?”
“It might be a deterrent. Run along inside like a good girl so I can skulk back to the car to watch over you.”
“I feel so safe.” Prompted by an inner devil that usually got her into trouble, she stepped closer to him and playfully ran her fingers down the front of his shirt. “And I’m much more fun when I’m a bad girl,” she added huskily, and saw heat flare in his eyes. A muscle leaped in his jaw and just when it seemed as if he was about to say something, she ran the tip of her tongue over her top lip and stepped back. “‘Night, copper.”
If he answered, she didn’t wait to hear it but scooted inside and up the stairs. One more second standing on the stoop with him, and she’d have said something she’d probably regret.
The door to her apartment was locked and she used her key. Cami stood in the middle of the living room, surrounded by wreckage that looked as if she’d attempted to tidy up. Her short blond hair had damp streaks in front of her ears and on the nape of her neck, and she looked completely frazzled. She turned to Harley.
“I’ve looked everywhere for him. It’s dark now, but I went out looking while it was still light. I guess I could again. I have this flashlight, and should be able to see him in the dark. It’s the eyes, you know, they shine like flat circles—if he’s gone across the street to the zoo, he might end up as a snack for the lions. Oh, I can’t stand this.”
Harley said quickly, “Diva assures me that Sam is just fine. He’s off somewhere with a groundhog.”
Cami blinked. “A groundhog? Like the animal?”
“She doesn’t think so. You know Diva. All her messages are so cryptic. I keep thinking I should know, but the only thing that comes to me right now is the mole that King’s been after in Mrs. Shipley’s yard. There’s something else I’m supposed to be remembering, but it’s not coming to me. God, what a mess. Sam could be hiding somewhere in here, for all we know.”
Broken glass, shards of a lamp, and something she didn’t want to look at too closely on one of the chair cushions, turned her usually-neat apartment into a rubbish dump. It was obvious Cami had done what she could, but it needed a complete overhaul.
“You know,” Harley reflected aloud, “if I’m going to keep getting involved in situations where people feel compelled to try to kill me, I really need to get indestructible furniture. Or a maid.”
“Or a security guard stationed at your door.”
“Even better. How very practical of you.”
“Where can we look next?” Cami ran a hand through her hair, and sweaty strands stuck out like Dagwood Bumstead’s hair. “I’ve searched every cabinet, drawer, under your bed—by the way, that’s not a good place to store Old Faithful.”
“Old Faithful? Ah. Yes. Well, I haven’t really needed it in a long time, and forgot about it being there. The batteries are probably run down by now. I should get some more in this time of need, I suppose.”
“Better clean it first. It’s pretty dusty. But much more discreet than that wooden penis you keep on your dresser.”
“That’s a souvenir, a reminder to duck when people are shooting at me.”
“You need a reminder for that? Jeez, Harley. But back to the problem at hand. Do you still think Sam went over your balcony?”
“I’m fairly sure. He was really spooked. We’ll look outside.”
Cami glanced doubtfully at the French doors, now closed and locked. “I don’t know...”
“It’s safe. Morgan’s hiding out there waiting to pounce on any evil Elvis that comes by. Pretend you don’t notice him. I think he’s sensitive about getting his cover blown.”
After searching inside, they went outside and searched in the bushes again, each armed with a flashlight. Privet hedges stretched on one side of the yard, and bushes next to the building were kept neatly trimmed at waist-high level. The front yard gas lamp put out enough feeble light to barely see the green and white caladiums thriving in scalloped flowerbeds, but it was too dark to see the vivid hues of red and pink begonias. Dark shadows made a huge pool beneath the low, spreading branches of the magnolia tree. Sam could be anywhere.
After crawling under the bushes next to the building, calling kitty, kitty, kitty as softly as she could so no one would call the cops on her at midnight, Harley sat down on the bricked front stoop. She cut off her flashlight and blew out a frustrated breath. Over at one side of the house, Cami still made her cat noises, strange sounds she interspersed with “Here Kitty”‘ calls.
“What was that?” Harley asked Cami when she gave up and came to sit on the front stoop beside her.
“Cat in heat noises. Sam doesn’t know he’s been neutered.”
“Sounded more like cat being strangled noises.” She shuddered and made a sign from her forehead to her chest, then crossed herself.
“Catholic school training sticks, doesn’t it,” Cami said with a sigh. “But don’t worry about that happening to Sam. He takes care of himself really well.”
“I know. So does Frank Burns. I should take lessons from the animal kingdom.”
“It’d help both of us. I’ll set the trap I brought and bait it with some tuna flakes, and you check it first thing in the morning.”
“It’s not one of those things that traps his paw, is it?”
“Lord no, Harley, you know better than that. It’s humane, a cage with a trap door. Once he gets in to eat the food, the door snaps shut and he’s trapped.”
“Try Chinese rather than tuna,” Harley suggested. “He particularly likes shrimp fried rice.”
Cami stood up. “No wonder Sam loves you. He’ll just have to take what I brought with me this time. You can use egg rolls or sushi or whatever if he’s not in it in the morning.”
“The only sushi he likes is salmon. My favorite is the California roll.”
“Somehow, I’m not surprised.”
After Cami set the trap, sliding a can of reddish tuna flakes just for cats to the back of the wire mesh cage, they situated it next to the house behind the bushes, and at the foot of the white trellis that held some kind of climbing greenery. They crawled out of the beds and brushed dirt and mulch from their hands and legs. The gray Pontiac still sat under a streetlight at the curb.
“I wonder if that’s how the killer got down so quickly,” Harley mused, staring at the trellis she’d never really paid attention to before. “It looks pretty sturdy, not like the cheap, flimsy ones.”
Cami turned to peer at the white trellis against the shadowed brick. “More than likely. The police were down here earlier pouring plaster into footprints.”
“Ever efficient.” Harley couldn’t resist one last call of kitty, kitty, kitty before they went in, but there was no answering miaoow or indignant yowl. “Strangely,” she said, “I don’t want to go to bed without Sam there to irritate me. He likes to bite my feet when I wiggle my toes.”
“Kinky. But I told you that you’re a cat person.”
“As much as it pains me to admit it, you must be right.”
After Cami left, Harley worked on straightening up the apartment. Police had dusted for fingerprints that left a fine black powder over everything, a complete bust since the guy had wo
rn gloves. They’d taken a few things with them, but she had no idea why. Maybe they thought they’d find fingerprints or DNA. If they wanted DNA, they should have taken Frank with them. He probably still had bits of the killer between his teeth.
“Don’t you, Frank?” she leaned over the tank and asked. “Do you still have bits of the bad guy between your sharp little fangs? Or is that red lace I see?” She peered closer into the tank, but Frank obviously had other things on his mind. Cami must have given him more treats, because he barely paid any attention to the face hanging over the top of the tank. She wondered how she must look to him, magnified by the glass, and her face a collage of fleshy spots between wire mesh. Not that he seemed to care either way, as long as he had a piece of apple and a few raisins. Those were raisins, weren’t they? Eww. Maybe looking close was a bad idea.
Straightening up, she decided the rest of the mess could wait. Tomorrow loomed long and fraught with apprehension, anyway. A good night’s rest, if not sleep, would go a long way toward keeping her coherent. Besides, with Morgan outside her apartment watching over her, it was about as safe as it could get.
That led to thoughts about how safe she’d be if Morgan was inside her apartment instead of outside, and that line of thought was dangerous. Maybe not so much to her body as to her peace of mind. Well, maybe just a little to her body, since it still got these heated tingles in parts she’d rather not think about right now. Hm. It could be time to dust off Old Faithful, but it still wouldn’t compensate for the real thing.
She fanned her face with her hands. Time to think about something else. Anything else.
After a hot shower and thorough shampoo, she brushed her teeth, put Neosporin on all the cuts she’d sustained during the struggle, and put on a pair of men’s boxers she’d bought at Target. Great to sleep in, she’d discovered. A moment’s deliberation about the risks of being awakened unexpectedly led her to put on a wife-beater just in case. The sleeveless tee shirt covered her and wasn’t uncomfortable to sleep in. Then she went to her balcony and called for Sam again, just on the off-chance he might pop up and say Here I am! in cat-speak.
He didn’t.
She locked the French doors and shoved a chair in front of them, then triple-checked the locks on the hall door. A precaution. She wasn’t really scared, just prepared. Yep. It was always smart to be prepared. “A good thing,” as Martha Stewart would say. Only she usually meant crepes Suzette or baskets of painted pine cones, not arming herself against a killer.
While the lock on her bedroom door wasn’t as sturdy, it’d at least slow an intruder long enough to give her time to shake her canister of Mace. After a moment’s thought, she took the wooden penis off her dresser and put it on the nightstand, too. All she needed was Nana’s gun and she’d qualify as a mobster. But a girl could never have too many weapons these days. So now she had her cell phone within easy reach and Morgan’s number at the top of the list, and the house phone positioned just right. She was ready for anything.
Then, clad in her Looney Tunes men’s boxers and the kind of tee shirt men who beat their wives usually wore, she went to bed and tried to relax enough to sleep. Of course she lay awake a long time, tensing at any strange sound, half-expecting an Elvis to leap out from the shadows. Out in the living room, Frank chuckled to himself. She considered bringing him into the bedroom, not so much as an attack-ferret, but as company. It felt precariously solitary, an unfamiliar and uncomfortable feeling she didn’t like at all.
Tomorrow, this would hopefully all be over, with the bad Elvis in custody. All she had to do was stay alert. Still, her stomach clenched and her heart thumped.
She squeezed her eyes shut and pretended she was back in California that long-ago day Yogi had held her on his shoulders so she could release a balloon above the Golden Gate Bridge. She’d been four or five, but she still remembered it as vividly as if it had been yesterday. It had been a red balloon, bright against the blue sky as it soared toward a light drift of clouds. They’d watched it until it was only a tiny speck in the distance, pushed by wind currents to the unknown. For her, it’d been a magical moment that she’d held close, though she wasn’t sure why. Maybe it had something to do with being free, though she’d never really felt constraints in her childhood. Yogi and Diva believed in letting children discover the world at their own pace. While Eric thrived on that kind of thing, she’d yearned for more structure.
And for indoor toilets. Living in a commune with outdoor showers and toilets had been free, but also free of life’s amenities. That’s when she discovered that she must be a hedonist, because she liked her comfort too much. It’d been quite a relief to move to Memphis and a real house with indoor plumbing. Maybe she didn’t lie under the open sky and stars anymore, but she didn’t worry about snakes crawling into bed with her, either.
Life had its perks.
Sleep didn’t come quickly. For a long time after the apartment was dark and quiet, she lay awake. Fragments of conversations flew at her like bats in the night. A groundhog. Hughes on bail bond. Williams has an alibi. Penney’s son might want to hurt his father. Then: “The past is following you, but it’s not your past. You’re caught in between. Elvis isn’t dead, he’s hiding. He finds you in the candlelight ... but it’s not really you...”
What on earth did Diva mean by that? It seemed like she should know, and something hovered just beyond reach, teasing her. How maddening. This had to stop or she’d never sleep. She closed her eyes and focused on the balloon again, the polished blue of the sky and clouds scudding by, the feel of the wind in her face and her father holding onto her legs so she wouldn’t fall from his shoulders to the ground. The balloon rose so high, higher and higher as she watched it drift away...
Suddenly, a hawk appeared in the sky right next to the balloon. It soared on wind currents, wings outspread as it glided toward the balloon. Talons pierced the thin rubber and the balloon popped with a loud noise she heard clearly. Shocked, she yelled at the hawk to go away, but it was too late. Shreds of bright red fell from the sky and the hawk made a keening sound like laughter.
Yogi swung her down from his shoulders to the ground. He bent, scooped up a rock and threw it at the hawk. The hawk dove toward them from the sky, screaming furiously and looking like a small feathered bomber. Instead of aiming for Yogi, the predator went straight for Harley.
Shouting angrily, Yogi threw himself in front of her and took the brunt of the attack. Talons sunk into his shoulder as he fought the creature. Harley rushed at the combatants, not sure what to do, but knowing she had to do something. Sharp talons raked her, and she screamed but didn’t let go until the hawk lay on the ground with a broken wing. Yogi started shaking her.
“Harley! Harley! You’re all right, wake up!”
She jerked upright in her bed, heart still pounding hard as a jackhammer. Light stung her eyes and she blinked, but instead of Yogi, Morgan shook her. She sucked in a deep breath.
“What are you doing here? And how did you get in?”
He shrugged. “Easily enough, if you know how. Did you see anyone?”
“No. It was just a nightmare, I guess.” She shuddered.
“Well, it scared the hell out of me. I thought maybe Kirkland had let the perp get by him.”
“Who’s Kirkland?”
Morgan sat down on the end of her bed. “The back door guard.”
“Oh. So I rate two guards?”
He grinned. “Not so much you as the killer.”
“Well, that’s deflating. And here I thought I might be important.”
“Only to some of us, babe.”
Her eyebrow rose. “I note that you included yourself in that group.”
Instead of replying, he bent forward and kissed her hard on the mouth, his hands moving to her shoulders, then up to cradle her face. Oh boy. There went that tingle again, all the way to her toes.
“Want me to send Kirkland home?” Mike asked right about the time her bones melted to jelly. His mouth was still c
lose to hers, too close, and his hands had moved from her shoulders to the front of her wife-beater.
“I suppose I’d be safer with you inside than outside,” she managed to murmur.
“Not really, sugar, not really.”
“I take it our break is over?”
“As over as it can get.”
“Send Kirkland packing.”
He did.
* * * *
“You look pretty mellow for someone who’s going to be bait in a little while,” Tootsie said when she showed up at the office the next morning. He squinted at her. “Ah. You got some.”
Harley Jean Davidson 03 - Evil Elvis Page 29