by Ali Brandon
And then an unexpected if familiar male voice behind her made both her and Jake jump.
“Whaddaya doing, looking for ghosts?”
“Hank!” Darla exclaimed as she swung about to see the beefy martial arts instructor standing behind them. As usual he was dressed in his baggy white gi pants and black gi jacket with the sleeves cut off, the better to show off his tattooed, muscled arms.
He was grinning, obviously pleased to have startled them. Despite herself, Darla smiled a little, too. “That was a rotten trick.”
“What can I say, rotten tricks is my middle name. So what are you doing?”
“One of Penelope’s students is in there,” Jake told him. “Guess she decided to get in a little private practice. We were just wondering if we should run her off.”
Hank’s amused expression vanished. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of that. Hey, you, kid!” he shouted through the glass before Darla could stop him, pounding on the window with a big fist. “Get outta there now, before we call the cops!”
“Wow, pretty harsh,” Darla told him. “We were thinking about something a little more low-key, like talking to her.”
As she spoke, the faint music inside abruptly ceased. A moment later, the door opened and a familiar face complete with pink-dyed chin braids warily peeked out.
“Pinky?” was Darla’s astonished cry as she and the young musician stared at each other.
He blinked and then nodded, opening the studio door wider. Like the male dance students Darla had seen the other week, Pinky was wearing black dance tights, though his T-shirt was black instead of white. “Hey, uh, Ms. Pettistone?”
“Yes, it’s me. What in the world are you doing in there?”
“Uh, dancing? I’m a student.”
Then, at Darla’s disbelieving look, his expression became defensive.
“I really am, and Madame Penelope said it was okay,” he declared. “She gave me a key so I could practice after hours, since I couldn’t come to class much. You know, with gigs and stuff. I have an audition coming up, and she said . . .”
He trailed off abruptly, the chin braids suddenly quivering, and Darla gave him a swift, impulsive hug.
“It’s okay, we understand,” she assured him. “But you probably shouldn’t be in there now. The police are still investigating the case, and it might not look good if they found you.”
“Yeah, I guess,” he agreed, looking embarrassed to have been the recipient of Darla’s display of emotion. “Let me get my stuff.”
A few minutes later, black backpack slung over his shoulder, he was headed down the street, having first left his key in Darla’s care once she’d assured him she’d turn it over to Reese.
As the youth turned the corner, Jake spoke up for the first time since the trespasser’s identity had been discovered. “I have to say, I wasn’t expecting that,” she said, lips quirking. “No way would I have guessed Pinky was a . . . What do you call a male ballerina, anyhow?”
“Technically, he’d be a danseur or a ballerino,” Darla told her, flashing back to those ballet lessons, “but I think these days you’d just call him a male ballet dancer.”
She was waiting for a sarcastic comment from Hank, but to her surprise he gave an approving nod. “Yeah, we send some of our black belts for dance lessons or yoga lessons sometimes. It improves their body awareness and uses some different muscles. Though we’ve had to have that argument with a few of the parents.”
“The gender stereotype one?” Jake asked. “Yeah, I know that one.”
“Speaking of stereotypes,” Darla broke in, “are you carrying around those flowers for a reason, Hank?”
The man glanced down at the small bundle of pastel carnations he held in one hand, as if only just remembering what he carried. His expression a bit sheepish, he said, “Yeah, I thought I’d leave them here. You know, for Penelope.”
He bent to carefully add them to the other blooms and then took a step back. “I remember it meant a lot to me and my brother to see all the flowers and stuff people left at the dojo for our stepdad. So I thought I’d, you know, do the same for her. She was a good broad.”
And then, as Darla and Jake nodded their appreciation of that sentiment, he added, “Say, how about I walk you ladies back to the bookstore? I was headed that way, anyhow. I was kinda in the mood for coffee, and what with Perky’s being shut down . . .”
“Actually, we’re closed on Mondays,” Darla reminded him. Then, at his disappointed expression, she added, “But I could go for a nice latte, myself. How about I open up the coffee bar just for us?”
They walked in companionable silence the rest of the way back to Pettistone’s, where they found Robert sitting on the stoop outside the Plinskis’ shop, Bygone Days, enjoying the relatively mild morning. He was reading a paperback novel—something fantasy or horror, from what Darla could see of its black and purple cover—and Roma, once again wearing her patriotic harness and leash, was seated prettily beside him.
“Hey, Ms. P. . . . Jake . . . Sensei,” he said as he looked up from his novel.
“Hey, kid,” Hank answered with a friendly smile, adding with a nod toward Roma, “So, how’s the little rat doin’?”
Robert and his sensei had long since made their peace on the subject of the little canine, who’d once been a subject of contention between them, so Darla knew the insult was just a joke on Hank’s part.
Roma, however, had not quite learned to forgive and forget.
As Hank drew even with the stoop, the little dog flattened her ears and bared tiny white teeth. Her initial growl morphed into a surprisingly low-pitched bark, and Robert promptly put a comforting arm around her.
“That’s okay, girl,” he murmured in her silky, folded ear. “Sensei is very sorry he ever said anything mean to you before.”
Darla shook her head. “Hank, you should do something—dogs have almost as long a memory as cats do,” she told him, thinking of how Hamlet held a grudge.
Hank puffed up his cheeks a moment and then blew out a resigned sigh. “Yeah, yeah, I’m sorry. Robert, how about you tell your little doggie I’ll send a donation to your animal rescue friends to make up for being a jerk, okay?”
“Really? That would be, like, awesome! I’ll bring the address to my next class.” He addressed the pup, “Roma, did you hear that? Do you think you can forgive him now?”
The tiny greyhound appeared to consider the question, her luminous brown eyes fixed unblinkingly on the man. Then she gave a little yip, and her white-tipped tail wagged just a bit.
“She forgives you,” Robert said in delight. “Thanks, Sensei.”
Hank gave a rueful shake of his head but moved on toward Darla’s stoop without further comment, while Jake grinned back at them both. As for Darla, she stopped to give Roma a quick pat. Then she told Robert, “I’m going to go inside to play barista and make lattes for Jake and Hank. Do you want me to bring you one, too?”
She smiled at his swift look of alarm—the hapless boss taking over his well-run station!—before he schooled his features back to neutral. “Thanks, Ms. P., I’m good. But do you want me to, you know, come over and help you out or anything?”
“I need the practice,” she assured him. “Besides, it’s your day off. But, don’t worry. I promise I’ll clean up when we’re finished.”
Robert didn’t look reassured, but he nodded. “Okay, but maybe don’t use the roaster. It’s a little, you know, tricky.”
Darla assured him she’d leave it alone. She left the youth to his book and let the three of them inside the bookstore through her private entrance. A few minutes later, Jake and Hank were lounging in the upstairs coffee bar watching with interest while Darla attempted to duplicate Robert’s effortless mastery of all things brewed and steamed. After a false start when she set the foaming temperature a notch too high and overboiled the milk, s
he finally produced what she considered three acceptable lattes and brought them over to the table.
Jake took a sip of hers and promptly gave Darla a thumbs-up. “Great job, kid. Almost as good as Robert.”
“Not bad,” Darla agreed as she tried hers. “Except for the lack of cute cat faces in the foam like he does. You’ll have to make do with the real thing.”
She was speaking, of course, of Hamlet. The clever feline had migrated down into the store from the apartment above through one of the many secret passages he had discovered over the years. Now, he sat atop one of the bistro tables (Darla made a quick mental note that all the tabletops should get a thorough wipe down before they opened the next morning) and was fixing his green gaze on the human interlopers.
Actually, on just one interloper, Darla realized. Hamlet’s attention was focused entirely on the martial arts instructor.
“Hey, what?” Hank exclaimed as he noticed the cat’s scrutiny. “I already said I was going to make a donation.”
“I don’t think Hamlet is worried about that,” Darla said with a smile. “He and Roma are not exactly BFFs. Maybe you made him mad last time you were here.”
“Well, all I did was what I always do, which was ignore him. So you can tell that cat of yours that I don’t have anything to feel guilty about.”
But a moment later, Hank blurted, “Okay, I wasn’t going to say anything, but she tried to hit on me a few weeks back.”
It took Darla a moment to realize his confession had nothing to do with cats or dogs. Then she stared at him, wide-eyed.
“Hit on you? Who, Livvy?” she exclaimed, mildly scandalized. Had Livvy cheated on George with the whole neighborhood?
Hank shook his head. “No, actually, I meant Penelope.”
There was a moment of stunned silence, and then Jake grinned a little. “So, spill. Did you do the dirty with her?”
“No way,” Hank shot back, looking slightly scandalized, himself. “She had to be, what, thirty years older than me.”
“What’s wrong with that?” Jake, herself about the same age as Penelope, asked in mock-disapproval. “Get with the program. The whole cougar thing is pretty popular these days.”
“Yeah, well, not for me. I mean, I didn’t want to be rude, but she was coming on strong. She started talking about mutton and lamb and Fonteyn and Nur-y-something.”
“Rudolf Nureyev,” Darla clarified for him.
Then, when Hank and Jake both glanced at her uncomprehendingly, she went on, “Nureyev was a world-famous Russian ballet dancer who defected to the West in the 1960s. Margot Fonteyn was a world-famous English dancer. When they met, she was in her forties, and he was almost twenty years younger. In the beginning, she refused to dance with him and called their pairing mutton and lamb. But they still supposedly had a long-lasting love affair along with their professional relationship.”
“Wow, they taught you that in ballet class?” Jake exclaimed.
Darla shook her head, smiling. “No, I read that in the book Hamlet pulled down the other day.”
Hank shrugged. “Well, it sounded kind of pervy to me, so I lied and told her I was seeing someone. She was a good sport about getting turned down, though.” Then he frowned. “I don’t know. Maybe I really dodged a bullet there. I still can’t believe Penelope would kill Livvy like that. The whole murder and suicide bit doesn’t seem her kinda thing, you know what I mean?”
No, it didn’t seem like her, Darla silently agreed. And yet from what Reese had said, the evidence pointed to murder-suicide . . . unless maybe that was the story the police were putting out to lull the actual murderer into complacency?
But Darla barely had time to consider this unsettling possibility when Jake spoke up again, all traces of amusement gone.
“I know it’s tough, guys,” she told them, hands wrapped around her latte as if for warmth. “I liked Penelope, too. But when I was a cop, I don’t know how many times all the friends and relatives swore at the beginning that so-and-so couldn’t have possibly done the crime. But then when you checked back with them later, a lot of them eventually decided that it really did fit the pattern.”
“Wait,” Darla countered, setting down her own latte as the obvious hit her. “We know that Penelope was seeing Doug at the same time she was putting the moves on Hank. So why would she then go ballistic over Doug doing the same thing with Livvy? It doesn’t make sense.”
Jake nodded. “Yeah, sounds to me like she didn’t really consider that she and Doug were exclusive, so I don’t get why she went to the trouble of talking to me at the street fair about being two-timed. Or for that matter, why she’d be angry enough to kill Livvy and herself over it.”
Hank, meanwhile, tilted his mug high, finishing the last bit of foam and coffee. “You ladies figure that out. I’ve gotta get going. Thanks for the coffee,” he said and shoved his chair back.
Jake rose with him, her expression preoccupied. Darla wondered if the PI had some additional theories on the whole Livvy-Penelope-Hank situation, but she wasn’t going to ask with the latter still there. Whatever Jake was mulling over, they could discuss that later, out of Hank’s hearing. Aloud, Darla merely asked her friend, “You want to take that cup with you?”
“Yeah, thanks. I’ve got a little pro bono job I need to get going on, so I need all the caffeine I can get.”
Carrying her own coffee with her, Darla escorted the pair to the shop’s front door. Robert and Roma had apparently retreated to their apartment, for the steps outside Mary Ann’s place were empty now. Jake waited with Darla on their stoop until the martial arts instructor headed off along the sidewalk in the direction of the dojo; then the PI turned to Darla. But rather than bringing up her theories about Penelope and Livvy, as Darla expected, Jake moved to an entirely different subject.
“I didn’t want to say it in front of Hank, but that pro bono I’m doing is for this one woman who stopped by my block party booth. Her teenage daughter got sick after vaping a few weeks back.”
“That’s terrible!” Darla exclaimed. “Is the girl going to be okay?”
“She’s fine now, but the daughter’s not talking about where she got the stuff she smoked. I’m guessing maybe she got hold of Livvy’s Kona Blue Party and had an allergic reaction to it. I’m going to poke around and see if I can trace anything back to Perky’s.”
“All right. Be careful. I’m just going to hang out for a bit and get a few chores done, and then kick back with a book.”
While Jake headed down the street, Darla settled on her own stoop with her coffee cup. It occurred to her that she didn’t do this often enough, the basic “stop and smell the roses” routine.
Heck, I’m lucky to see the darn roses in the distance, she told herself with a shake of her head. She’d had one not-so-relaxing vacation earlier this year. Maybe it was time to take some more time off while things were slow.
She spent a good twenty minutes simply sipping coffee, and weighing the virtues of vacationing in Colorado versus Seattle versus a quick run over to the Jersey Shore. So deep was she in thought that it took a moment for her to even register it when a familiar voice was calling her name.
“Earth to Darla,” Reese said, smiling down at her.
The sun was behind him, enveloping him in a yellow glow that, had she been in a whimsical mood, she might have deemed celestial. Since she was feeling far from fanciful at the moment—or maybe she still was suffering from a bad case of dog in the manger—Darla simply squinted up at him, raising a hand to block the worst of the light.
“Hi, Reese. Sorry, if you’re here for coffee, I already shut the bar down,” she told him.
He shook his head. “Don’t worry. I’ve had my quota of caffeine for the day. Actually, I’m here to see Mary Ann. She called me all upset about Mr. Plinski.”
As if on cue, the old woman’s reedy voice hailed them.
&nb
sp; “Detective Reese! Oh, thank heaven you’re here,” Mary Ann called from the open door of her antiques shop. She stepped out onto the stoop; then, with a furtive look upward, she hurried over to join Reese and Darla.
“Oh dear,” she said, hand over her heart as she tried to catch her breath. “I hope I’m not taking too much advantage. I tried phoning Jake a bit ago, but she said she was out on a case.”
“What’s wrong?” Darla asked in concern.
Mary Ann wrung her wrinkled hands. “It’s Brother. I told him that there wasn’t a serial killer in the neighborhood, after all, but he won’t listen. And now he’s gone back up to the roof to stand guard, and I can’t get him to come down again!”
EIGHTEEN
Reese gave the old woman a comforting pat on the shoulder. “Mary Ann, you want me to go talk to your brother, see if I can get him to give it up?”
The old woman gave him a grateful nod. “Oh, Detective Reese, thank you! Maybe he’ll listen to another man. He certainly isn’t listening to me, and I’m a bit worried that he . . .”
She paused, her lips trembling; then, determinedly smoothing the skirt of her belted coral shirtdress, she went on. “Well, I don’t want to borrow trouble. Let me show you the way.”
They followed Mary Ann into the antique store. Then, while the woman led Reese upstairs—to Darla’s relief, the elderly pair had recently installed one of those stairway lift chairs, so Mary Ann rode—Darla browsed about the shop. Unlike other similar establishments with their emphasis on European antiquities, Bygone Days Antiques specialized in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Americana. Over the past year, however, the brother and sister had been concentrating more on collectibles dating from the early twentieth century.
The faintly musty scents of old wooden furniture and vintage clothing and linens always made Darla feel at home in the crowded shop despite the fact that the place never looked quite the same any time she stopped in for a visit. For the month of July, Mary Ann had gathered all manner of examples of Americana and displayed them up front near the cash register. From brass eagle andirons to vintage bunting to an exquisite Chippendale walnut chest of drawers, the collection was a cheerful tribute to the Founding Fathers.