Double Booked for Death

by Ali Brandon

  Lizzie sniffed, not to be mollified. “Fine, I know when I’m not wanted. I think I’ll go unpack some more books. And, just for the record, I think that hat is ridiculous.”

  She took off for the storeroom, with Darla unsure whether to laugh or be annoyed. Jake gave her an encouraging nod. “Ignore her, kid. I think your hat is kick-ass. If you don’t wear it tomorrow, I will.”

  The mental picture of Jake the Amazon decked out in that sort of frippery tilted Darla back toward amusement, and she smiled. “The hat’s mine,” she said with a shake of her head, “but tell you what. Do a good job of giving me directions to the church tomorrow, and I might even let you drive back.”

  “Deal. Oh, and by the way, I made that call for you. Ted the security guy can come by today if you want. I’ll give you the number so you can make the arrangements with him.”

  The front door bell jangled just then, and two customers came into the store. Sending up a silent thank you to the literature gods, Darla told Jake to write down the number and then rushed over to help her first customers in days. By the time she had loaded them up with half a dozen books each and explained about the increasingly forlorn-looking flower memorial down the block, Jake had gone and a still-pouting Lizzie had run off on lunch break.

  Darla took the opportunity to put in a quick call to James at his home to warn him about the security system that would likely be in place by the time he arrived in the morning. She opted against telling him about the late-night footsteps that Jake had been hearing—no need to drag James into that other melodrama. Rather, she used the confusion surrounding the autographing and its ghastly aftermath as the reason for the additional safety measures.

  He agreed that the cameras were a good idea.

  “Given the fact that many of our first-edition books are quite valuable, it would seem prudent to protect that investment,” he opined. “ And, as you said, if we are ever faced with a similar, ahem, situation as we had with Valerie Baylor . . .”

  He trailed off, leaving unsaid what they both knew. Darla fleetingly wondered if she should take the opportunity to also ask him about the news stories that she’d found on the Internet the previous night. The question was, would he speak freely to her concerning Jake?

  Not that she didn’t trust James implicitly. Between her aunt’s provisions for the man in her will, and the lawyer’s glowing assessment of the former professor, Darla felt confi – dent that James had no ulterior motives or shady past that would come back to bite her. But he had known Jake for far longer, and his loyalties might lie with her.

  Deciding there was no need for the moment to put her store manager to the test, she rang off and then went to call Ted.

  The security man arrived a couple of hours later, dragging an oversized case on wheels behind him. A blond bulldog of a man, Ted had a tendency to punctuate his conversation with mock shots from finger pistols.

  “I know you’re in a hurry to get it done today, ma’am, so here’s the plan.”

  Pow, pow.

  “If it’s okay by you,” he went on, “I’m gonna get it all set up this afternoon and come back tomorrow to hide the wires all nice and neat.”

  It was okay by her, Darla assured him. Grinning, Ted blew imaginary gun smoke from the tips of his forefingers and then dragged his case to the back.

  The rest of the afternoon proceeded with no particular drama. And, much to Darla’s relief, customers began to trickle in as well. It was not quite at the usual pace, but the earlier drought seemed to have ended. For his part, Hamlet spent the afternoon sulking high above the action. His self-imposed exile had come after he attempted a stealth attack on Ted. That assault had backfired, however, when the man calmly pulled out a can of compressed air from his case and puffed it in the cat’s general direction.

  The resulting hiss from the can, which sounded like an even larger, more obnoxious feline than the one doing the stalking, had sent Hamlet scrambling for cover in a most undignified fashion. Safely ensconced among the various flavors of Soup books, he had alternated between napping and sending Ted the green stink eye. Darla had received her share of nasty cat looks, too, even though she had been careful not to laugh at his comeuppance. Obviously, Hamlet was aware that she’d authorized Ted’s presence in the shop, and he made sure that Darla knew it.

  Lizzie had proved almost as great a distraction as Hamlet, announcing her own technological expertise and offering to help Ted out. Rather than using the spray can on her, however, Ted had distracted her with a manual the size of an old Sears catalogue that he asked her to review in case he needed help later. As Lizzie staggered off self-importantly under the burden, he and Darla had exchanged glances. Ted mouthed a single pow as he triumphantly shot off one of his finger pistols, causing Darla to swallow back a laugh lest the woman hear it and realize she’d been had.

  Ted proved as good as his word. A little before six, he called the three of them—Jake had rejoined them by that point—over to the store’s computer to demonstrate the equipment.

  “What you got here is my custom EZ-Does-It kit,” he explained proudly. “You got your six cameras: two down here, two upstairs, and one each outside at the front door and back. The outside ones and one of the cameras on each floor are your night vision.”

  At Darla’s nod, he went on, “The other two, they’re your standard-resolution indoor dome cameras. They’re hooked directly into your computer system so you can watch and record right there on your PC. If you’ve got another computer upstairs in the apartment, you can log into this system from there. There’s even a microphone to the audio input on your computer if you want to listen to what’s going on.”

  He shot a look at Jake and then clarified to Darla, “Of course, it’s illegal for you to record anything unless the other person knows he’s being recorded. I’ll leave you some stickers you can slap on your front windows to let people know they’re under audio and video surveillance.”

  He pulled up the monitoring screen, which was divided into six sections, each a bird’s-eye view from one of the cameras. He spent another half hour showing them how to switch to a single channel, zoom in live, and review previously recorded images.

  “Now, the way you got this place divided up with all this shelving, we still got a couple of blind spots on both floors,” he reminded Darla. “But, hey, I can always expand the system if you want, bring in another camera or two.”

  “No, this looks wonderful,” Darla exclaimed, feeling like a combination spy and casino security guard as she stared at the small picture of the four of them gathered near the register. Funny what was visible from up above. She’d never noticed until now that Jake had more than a few gray hairs among the black curls. Neither had she realized until this moment that her own hastily plaited French braid was decidedly off-kilter.

  Putting a self-conscious hand to the offending hairstyle, she asked Ted, “I don’t suppose you have a dummies’ version of the manual to go with all this?”

  He grinned. “Don’t worry, there’s a one-page checklist at the front of the binder. That’s all you should actually need. You have any problems, though, you call old Ted for help.”

  Right on cue, the finger pistols went off. She thanked Ted, choked a little at his invoice—“Just pay me tomorrow, when I finish the wiring”—and then showed the man out.

  After locking the door behind him, she returned to the counter to find Jake and Lizzie focused on the live-action shot being broadcast from outside the front door, where Ted stood at the curb, alternately hiking up his trousers and adjusting the resulting wedgie. He repeated the gesture several times, while a grinning Jake zoomed in and out.

  “Big Sister is watching,” she said with a chortle.

  Then, catching Darla’s disapproving look, she said a bit defensively, “Oh, come on, everyone is a voyeur at heart. And it’s not like old Ted didn’t know he’d be on camera standing right in front of the steps like that. He probably did all that on purpose, just to see if we were watching.”


  “Well . . .” Darla allowed herself a reluctant smile. “You’re probably right,” she finally agreed. “But keep in mind I’m spending the big bucks for these cameras for security reasons, and not for our personal entertainment.”

  Unless, of course, the cameras caught a poltergeist, in which case she planned to post that video online and wait for it to go viral!

  EIGHTEEN

  “SO DID YOU CATCH ANYTHING ON CAMERA LAST NIGHT?”

  Jake had come knocking at the shop’s front door that next morning a few minutes before ten. Darla had let her in, and then gone back to finish her opening routine. Now, having given the new security system a quick look—the program allowed her to fast-forward through hours of tape in a matter of minutes—she gestured toward the screen with its compound eye of a store view.

  “It all looked pretty quiet. I assume you didn’t hear any footsteps after midnight again?”

  “Not a step,” Jake replied. “And I assume Hamlet didn’t build any more book towers?”

  “He was still sulking about Ted getting one over on him yesterday, so he stayed pretty well behaved all night long.”

  Before she could say more, another tap at the door sounded. It was James, coffee thermos in hand, ready to start his shift.

  “Good morning,” he greeted her, and then gave an approving nod. “I heard about the hat from Jake. I am glad to see you found an appropriate outfit to go with it. I predict you will be the hit of the memorial service.”

  “That wasn’t exactly my intent, but thank you,” Darla said a bit sourly as she flipped the sign to “Open.”

  She was dressed for the memorial service in a basic black wrap dress, which had already seen funeral duty a time or two since its purchase. She’d dragged it from the back of her closet last night, along with a lacy black shawl that she’d tossed over one shoulder. With her cape of auburn hair twisted into a neat bun at the nape of her neck and the hat pinned on at a casual angle, she had been pleasantly surprised at the stylish results. Of course, it was the hat that made the difference. Maybe she’d been missing something all these years, limiting her headgear to ball caps and those knit toboggan thingies, she now told herself as she bagged it up again for the car ride.

  Jake ostentatiously cleared her throat. “Hey, what about me?” she demanded. “And here I have that whole Kato vibe going.”

  Darla grinned at her friend. In her black pantsuit with a tightly cinched jacket waist, and her curly hair neatly tucked under a driver’s cap, Jake did rather resemble the Green Hornet’s sidekick . . . except, of course, that she was female, Caucasian, and a good six inches taller than the late Bruce Lee.

  “I think you look like you could kick some serious butt,” she told the ex-cop. To James, she added, “Thanks for running the place alone for a few hours. Since you’ll be stuck here for lunch, feel free to have the deli deliver you something, and tell them put it on my charge card.”

  “I shall do so. And I expect a full report upon your return.”

  She and Jake had started for the door, when the other woman paused. “Since I’ll be sitting around for a while, you think I can borrow something to read?”

  “Sure.” Darla smiled and reached for a book off the stack of Haunted High novels and handed it over. “This seems appropriate.”

  Jake took it and smiled a little, too, as she tucked it into the big hobo bag she carried. “Guess I should go ahead and read it, since the whole rest of the world already has.”

  They walked to the garage in near silence. For once, Darla didn’t even make her usual half-serious protests about having to hoof it everywhere. Instead, she mulled over how best to approach the matter of the shootings with Jake. By the time she’d retrieved Maybelle from her slot and driven down the ramp to pick up her friend, she had decided that a direct approach was the best.

  Jake, however, beat her to it.

  “Okay, kid, spill it,” the woman demanded once she’d buckled herself in and they pulled out from the garage. “You’ve been acting odd ever since yesterday and something tells me it’s not because you’re eaten up with grief over Valerie Baylor.”

  “You’re right.”

  Darla glanced Jake’s way. The woman had pulled out her mirrored sunglasses and slid them into place, so that Darla couldn’t read her eyes. Which, in a way, made it easier. Taking a deep breath, she blurted, “What’s the story behind you shooting that guy in the parking garage?”

  “What guy?” Jake swiveled around in her seat for a swift look back at where they’d just left. “What in the hell are you talking about, kid? I don’t even have my service revolver on me.”

  Then Darla saw realization dawn on the woman’s face before her features hardened into an unreadable expression beneath the mirrored lenses. “Oh, yeah, the parking garage. So, where did you hear that story? Was James talking out of school?”

  “No, he didn’t say a word. I searched your name on the Internet and found an article mentioning it.”

  “You Googled me?”

  Jake’s voice hit a high pitch that Darla had never heard out of her before. “What in the hell did you do that for? Who do you think I am, some loser you met on an online dating site?”

  They had stopped for a red light. A bit defensively, Darla turned to meet her gaze.

  “Okay, maybe it was a crappy thing to do,” she admitted, “but I was getting concerned that you kept hearing footsteps in the night, and we never found anyone in the store. So I went online. I started by looking up poltergeists, and it ended with looking up you. I found the article about how you got shot trying to arrest a suspect. It all seemed pretty straightforward, and I decided I was worried for nothing. And then I stumbled across that story about the guy in the garage.”

  Jake began to sputter in outrage, but Darla held her ground. “I mean, I thought we were gun-happy in Texas, but finding out about your shooting two guys in two months was kind of scary.”

  Before Jake could respond, a car behind them blared its horn. Darla looked up to see the light had changed back to green. She threw Maybelle into gear and hit the gas, wishing she could leave behind this awkward conversation as well.

  If only Jake had let her ease into the subject instead of forcing her to leap right in, she thought in annoyance, her grip on the steering wheel tightening. Maybe she should swing back around and drop Jake back at the building, because it looked like her fear of spending the day stuck in the same car with an angry ex-cop was justified.

  When she glanced over at Jake again, however, she was surprised to see that the woman was smiling. To be sure, her expression held more than a note of irony, but it was better than the outrage Darla had expected.

  “Okay, kid, why don’t we clear the air a little?”

  “Works for me,” Darla agreed in relief, deciding she could risk continuing toward the expressway, as planned, rather than turning back around and heading home again. That was, assuming that the shooting story could be explained away in a rational fashion.

  She looked over again in time to see Jake’s smile slip just a little.

  “Now, as far as the guy in the garage, your news story was right, to a point,” she began. “I did shoot him, but the bastard damn well deserved it. No, no, not this lane . . . move over to the left!” she loudly interrupted herself and made wild gestures as a four-door whose main color was primer abruptly swerved into their lane. Darla hit the horn but held her ground—years of negotiating Dallas rush hours had prepped her for New York City driving—and reclaimed her spot.

  Crisis averted, Jake went on in a milder tone, “It happened just a few days after I’d been discharged from the hospital. Ma had driven all the way up from Florida to stay with me until I could get around on my own. So here we were in this parking garage, trying to find where she’d left her car—me in a wheelchair, and my seventy-year-old mother pushing me. And then some punk leaps out from behind a van waving a knife and demanding our money.”

  Darla gasped as Jake continued, “Of
course, being the good Jersey girl she is, Ma wasn’t going to take crap off of anyone. So before I could say anything, she jumps in front of the wheelchair and yells at the guy, You stay the hell away from my little girl.”

  Jake’s smile grew grimmer. “Then he starts cursing at her and acting like he’s going to cut her, and she’s yelling at him that he’d better pray his mother doesn’t find out what he’s doing. Meanwhile, I’m stuck in my wheelchair yelling at Ma to get behind me, and yelling at the punk to put down his knife because he’s under arrest, and neither one is listening to me. So, I pulled out my piece, grabbed Ma and dragged her into my lap, and then blew off the punk’s little toe, more to shut him up than anything else.”

  “Wow,” was Darla’s succinct reply, torn as she was between amazement and admiration. She made another quick lane change, catching a look at Jake’s coolly satisfied expression in the process. Clearly, the Martelli women as a group were not to be messed with, particularly if one wanted to keep all one’s digits.

  Jake merely shrugged.

  “The perp tried to run off, but he didn’t get far,” she continued. “The patrol officer who responded followed a nice little blood trail and found him one level down, crying behind a Delta Eighty-Eight and holding what was left of his tootsies. I found out later on that he had a rap sheet that stretched from here to next year . . . and, that he was suspected of attacking two other elderly people in two different parking garages that same week. One of the old guys didn’t make it, and the other one was laid up in the hospital for a month. Anyhow, the shooting was ruled justified, and Toeless Joe ended up sentenced to life. Guess the papers forgot to report that part.”

  “Wow,” Darla repeated, a bit inadequately. “He’s lucky you didn’t hit him somewhere more vital.”

  “Actually, I was aiming for his crotch. Ma jerked my arm at the last minute and knocked my aim off.”

  They drove in silence for the next few minutes, with Darla feeling slightly lower than worm footprints over the whole situation. She should have known that Jake was just what she appeared to be, and all the drama was in her own head. She glanced Jake’s way again and in a meek tone said, “Sorry.”