When I turned my attention away from Roger, I saw Mace had been revived and was sobbing in the back of a cop car. An officer, notebook in hand, struggled to question her. She looked up, caught my eye, and flagged me. I shook my head.
Detective Farley Stranger tramped toward Roger and me. He was chewing on a lollipop stick and wearing the same grease-stained sport coat. He jumped at me, accusations written all over his chubby face. “Well Ms. Darlin, another unusual death?”
I ground my teeth. “I had nothing to do with this. Is that a lollipop? What happened to the gummy bears?”
He pulled it from his mouth. It was a gummy bear on a stick. “Want to give me your version of how a senator ends up being run over by his own car?”
So I made a mistake when I hard-timed this guy about calling me Ms. instead of Miss and I couldn’t blame him for hard-timing me back. I shouldn’t have pissed off an overworked cop but now he’d pissed me off. And enough was enough.
I poked my finger in his chest. “Listen, buddy boy, you don’t get to talk to us like this. We’re witnesses, not suspects. There’s no our version about it. Show some respect or I’ll beef you out to the chief. That means the Miami PD Chief of Police whose wife is a close friend of mine. And the chief himself is very grateful for the deal I got them on their home.” I put my thumb and fingertips together and turned them upward under his nose. “Capisce?”
He stepped back. “Okay, okay, Miss Miami Nice. I just want to know what you saw.”
I wasn’t about to fall for his just-the-facts-ma’am act. He’d screw us when, not if, he could. But Roger and I cooperated and recited every detail we could dredge up. I was pretty acidic as I told my story. Roger kept giving me worried looks but what did he know? He was used to dealing with gentlemen from Scotland Yard and Interpol, not a Miami Vice wannabe.
He closed his notepad then looked at me. “One more thing.”
I rolled my eyes. Make that a Columbo wannabe.
“How long have you and Ms. Mace Kelly been friends?”
Snatching the notepad from his hand and stuffing it down his throat skimmed through my mind along with a dozen smartass responses.
Instead I said through clenched teeth, “Never saw her before this afternoon when the three-ring circus was here.”
“Three-ring circus?”
“Senator Grant and Mace in his limousine, Chief Whoever and enough Semaphores to fill the FSU stadium, and Tippy. You do remember Tippy, don’t you?” I paused for effect. “And you. Make that a four-ring circus. And if you count the mummy or mummies the Semaphores want us to look for, the number of rings goes up to five.”
Evidently that was more than he could get his sugar-coated mind around. He gaped at me vacantly, chewing on his gummy bear.
“Dr. Jolley and I have scientific research to do here.” I scooped up the fluorescent pink raincoats and the plastic sand pail. “If you don’t mind, we’d like to get back to work. It’s getting late.”
Roger nudged me. “Look at that.”
I turned from Stranger. While I was engaged in scintillating repartee with him, the place had turned into a hubbub. The crime scene and medical examiner’s vans had arrived. Techs were photographing the car, tire tracks, and body. Others were bagging scrapings and soil samples.
But the reason Roger had nudged me was the incredible amount of media crowding the street with more arriving. More uniform police had shown up also and had their hands full keeping the newsies off the property. Bedlam.
And it got worse. The bellow of a bull moose caused me to jerk my head around. The bull moose was Gary Grant. He was trying to get to Mace inside the cruiser. Two uniforms pulled him back and stuffed the grief-stricken son in another police car. Both cruisers drove off.
The chaos continued for nearly two hours. We were stymied until things calmed down. When the senator’s body was removed and the Audi was hauled off on a flatbed wrecker, the newsies and their satellite-dished trucks left. Most of the police cars followed suit.
Stranger waved to the last of the uniforms to leave.
“Detective Stranger, can we get some police protection? Just one officer for the night?” I asked.
He yanked the naked lollipop stick from his mouth and shook his head. “We’re understaffed. An accident scene doesn’t require security, Ms. Darlin.”
He spun on his battered heels and trudged back to his car.
“I’m going to have that guy’s badge before this is over,” I said.
Roger put his arm around my shoulders. “It’s a good thing that you know the chief.”
“Of the Semaphores? I saw him today for the first time, same as you.”
“No, of the Miami PD. Stranger treated us better after you told him about knowing the chief.”
I said nothing.
A few seconds later Roger said, “You don’t know the police chief, do you?”
“I don’t even know his name.”
Roger slipped into his professional mode. “I’ve got a mummy to identify.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Roger lowered himself into the pit and I stood sentry on the lip of the dig.
I did the guy-thing and compartmentalized the squashed senator, and the Semaphore surveillance. The only thing I couldn’t put out of my mind was my hunger.
I would have traded the mummy for a juicy burger and a vodka tonic, hold the tonic. I considered mashing the watermelon but then what would I sit on?
Hic slipped into my mind. My sixth sense was bleeping “action in the afterlife.” I paced away from the melon avoiding the yellow-taped accident scene. Oh Hic, where are you? When I made my U-turn, Mrs. MacGuffin was perched on the melon. I’d given up trying to figure out her supernatural hokey-pokey. I dashed to her side. “Hic?”
“Not much longer. He’s an old soul. I brought him into the world at least a dozen times. He’ll make it through.”
“Shouldn’t I go check on his body? Rotate it?” I shuddered.
She patted my hand. It felt like the kiss of a butterfly. “There is really no need for you to discover his body. It wouldn’t be pleasant, my dear.”
A giant sigh of relief escaped my lips. I was not looking forward to doing the Norman Bates thing. “I could just call the Nashville police to look in on him as a concerned friend.”
“Exactly.” She nodded.
I scooched down making eye contact with the fairy godmother of the afterlife. “You saw what happened here, earlier? Where does someone like Senator Grant go? Surely he isn’t permitted to come back again.”
She patted my hand. “Oh, but he can and will. Meantime we keep them in a vault. Let one out for every one hundred good souls. It’s an algorithm we maintain.” She grinned a naughty grin. “Some we keep for scratch paper.”
“Yikes!” Roger’s voice echoed up the walls of the fissure.
“I believe your young man has his mummy.”
I jumped in the pit which glowed from the light of two of the battery lanterns.
Roger was pulling the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang elevator hand-over-hand from the fissure, the third lantern wobbling on the platform. He stumbled off the elevator giddy with excitement. “It’s just as I thought. It’s a full-fledged mummy tucked into an airless pocket in the bedrock.”
He paced back and forth, punching his right fist into his left palm. “I need to get a legal Stay before the state starts messing with this property. I need…” His eyes glowed, a cat in the shadows. He whooped, “I need to file an Amicus Mummius!”
I flattened myself against the crumbly sandstone wall to get out of the blast zone of his enthusiasm.
“You, my darling, Wendy,” he kissed me with a smacking sound. “You must stay here. Don’t let anyone mess with that mummy. And don’t let the Semaphores attempt to fill in this excavation. If the wet sand gets into that dry air pocket the mummy is a goner.”
After a ten-second hugging session he was off and scrambling out of the pit.
“Whoa!” I yelled. “What�
�s an Amicus Mummius?”
He laughed. “I have no idea. I just made it up. Amicus Curiae is a Friend of the Court. I’ve just invented Friend of the Mummy. Let’s see if I can get a judge to fall for it. We just need a little time to properly excavate this baby!”
Roger whipped out his cell phone and walked to the curb. Five minutes later he disappeared into a green cab. I stood at the top of the pit feeling like the last woman on earth. The dusk of the setting sun illuminated the smog giving the site a dystopian aura.
The walls of my stomach stuck together from hunger. I should have thought of grabbing at least a candy bar or one of those expired bags of chips at Walgreens.
I heard a wolf howl. Fear was replacing logic. “This is downtown Miami, you idiot.” I said it aloud and wondered if the mummy thief was nearby. Torn between staying on the melon as the sun went down or slipping into the pit where the mummy lived, I chose to hunch over the fruit. It was time to call my BFF.
Kit grabbed his phone on the first ring with his comforting mac-and-cheese voice.
“I need you,” I whimpered then let the words spill out in a semi-coherent Readers Digest version of my situation.
Ice tinkled in a glass on his end of the phone. It sounded like a vodka tonic… with a lime wedge, but I could have been wrong.
“So you have a rogue mummy, a squashed senator, a missing boyfriend, and the Semaphore nation after you. Did I miss anything? Oh yeah… you’re starving,” he said with a soft snort.
Hearing it repeated back to me made me laugh. “And Goldie’s sitting cold and lonely at the dealership. I’m car-less.”
“I’m due on stage in two minutes for the early teaser show. I can be there by eight if I don’t stop to change costumes. But I’ve gotta be back here for the late show at ten-thirty.”
I could last that long. My nerves would keep me from passing out. I glanced over my shoulder. A shadow drew closer. Now what? Senator Grant’s ghost or another tribal leader protecting his ancestors?
Damn Stranger. He could have authorized at least one cop, even a short one. Whose pocket was he in? Three deep breaths later I noticed the jacked-up Jeep. It made a second pass, circled the block then disappeared. Either the Semaphores were making sure we kept our promise or this was a renegade group determined to fill the dig tonight despite Silver Hair’s orders.
Roger wasn’t answering his phone. He must be judge-wrangling, trying to double-talk his way around an Amicus Mummius. He could be adorable at times. I hoped he found a female judge with a weakness for guys with long dark eyelashes.
Crap! The yellow Ferrari was back carrying the Senator’s hotheaded son. He was bigger than I was and probably packing a gun.
Gary Grant sat in the car under the streetlights for a full five minutes. Maybe determining whether I was alone. It was clear he wanted to use the mummies as a reason for the state to grab the land but was he in a financial position to trade something for the land? With these Tallahassee dudes and their shifty Monopoly games you ever knew who was sitting on Park Place with three hotels.
Standing tall, I slipped my hand inside my jacket imitating Michael Corleone in the Godfather. I love that scene where unarmed, he bluffs the gangsters who’ve come to kill his father in the hospital. If only I could hide the mummy before Grant’s henchmen rushed me.
Grant held something to his ear. He gunned the Ferrari and left the curb at ninety miles an hour. Spoiled brat ignoring city speed limits. I hoped I’d seen the last of him.
My legs were getting tired. I sat on the melon and punched in Roger’s numbers. He picked up. “Cripes Wendy. I’m getting a serious runaround. They’re playing who’s got the judge? How are you holding up?”
“I’ve had a spooky visit from Gary Grant and my stomach is growling. Please bring me something to eat on your way back. I’m peckish and squeamish.” It sounded like a law firm.
Two minutes later, the darn Ferrari returned followed by a van with a faded gold real estate logo on the door. Two more sedans pulled to the curb. Both had magnetic signs on the doors. Faded real estate signs. Grant left his car and climbed into the back of the van. The lobbyist was gathering his little army. Was I willing to die for a mummy?
I redialed Roger. No answer. If he wasn’t on his way back I was going to be petrified besides being peckish and squeamish.
I paced around the melon, the steady hum of rush hour traffic wiping out the sounds from Team Grant’s van. What the heck were they up to? High tech or low stuff like shovels and pick-axes?
Crackly noises behind my back caused me to jump three feet in the air. It was Mace Kelly wearing a pink Chanel mini-skirted suit and a bandage around her right leg. “Where’s your archaeologist?”
I was glad to have company and needed a friend, even though she was a stranger, not an actual friend. Relief loosened my lips. “Roger’s seeing a judge… filing a protective order… because… well…. for the mummy in the hole.” I mentally kicked myself. Way too much info.
Her eyes lit up. “Another mummy?”
“That’s why I’m up here standing guard. How come the cops let you go?”
“All they needed was my statement. They said mechanical failure. The transmission slipped. Bull shit. We were set up. I figured someone would shoot the bastard, instead they monkeyed with his car.”
She bent over the pit, “You have a real mummy down there?”
“Yup. It’s a game changer. With a genuine mummy, a developer swap would be out of the question.”
She leaned in to whisper as if we could be overheard. “If there is another mummy Ms. Henman is going to have to deal with the Semaphores, the state and Gary Grant. Senator Grant may be out of the game, but Gary plans on taking over the site tonight. The old possession is nine-tenths of the law thing. He’s going to grab the dig and hold it until he can push the state to close it down because of the first two mummies. He’s gathering his squad of developer’s mercenaries right now.”
“Developer’s mercenaries?” I’d been in the real estate game for years and never heard of a mercenary.
“They’re rogue real estate agents who couldn’t cut it. Hire out as muscle for developers. Pays very well, I hear.”
So that’s what those car signs were. Renegade real estate agents. Now it all made sense.
“Grant can’t grab the mummy. If the Semaphores see Grant taking over the dig, they’ll bring in earthmovers and bury it.”
“Has Roger called for reinforcements from one of the archaeological societies?”
“He doesn’t want to get anybody else involved. He’s positive an international mummy thief salted the site with the sitting mummies.”
She smirked. I guess salting with sitting mummies was kind of comical. “Well, Doctor Roger Jolley is foolish to think he can do this by himself. Look I’m district leader for a covert group, P.P. I can help you.”
“I think I‘ve heard of P.P.”
“Pure Politics.”
“I thought it was an urban legend.”
“I hired on to Grant’s team yesterday specifically to catch that bastard in something we could pin on him. I’m used to doing what needs be done and asking permission later. Sometimes it’s the only way.”
“So you’re an investigator?”
“More or less. Now let’s get that mummy to safety.”
“Roger will kill me if I mess up this find.”
“He’s more likely to kill you if Gary Grant carries off the mummy. Or if the Semaphores bury it further underground. I suggest you move it now and ask Roger’s permission later.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Mace was right. The mummy should be taken to a place of safety. Tribesmen gathered near a broken entrance that had once walled off the Bates Hotel property. A single brave stepped into the center of the group and began to perform a spirit dance. Beautiful as it was, each beat of the drum made my skin clammy. I was treading on dangerous religious ground. What does Kit always advise? Do the opposite of my gut feeling because my gut
is usually wrong.
The van door opened and Gary Grant tumbled out followed by a team of portly agents in faded gold jackets. Each swung a softball bat, some pounded the ground as if on home plate. This was going to get ugly. The sedan spit out more agents, each one looking more desperate than the last batch. Some wore team jackets others ball caps backward. With their longish hair it was hard to tell if they were coming or going.
The Semaphores stepped from their Jeeps and twirled their shovels like sandwich boards. Mace and I stood at the edge of the pit. I punched in nine-one-one, my finger poised over the send button.
A black Escalade arrived on the scene bumping and grinding up the curb and stopping within two feet of the edge of the dig. Kit jumped out of his SUV carrying a pizza box and a six-pack of Coke. He was dressed in his stage drag costume as Queen Kitten. A six-four stunner in five-inch heels, a platinum blonde wig, Carol Channing eyelashes, and a gold lamé cocktail dress. He was every macho dude’s nightmare. You could have heard a gonad drop.
Grant and his real estate mercenaries froze as Kit teetered over the loose rocks and gravel balancing the pizza box on the flat of his giant manicured hand. If he was trying for shock value, he nailed it. To a man, the Semaphores dropped their shovels. The gangs of Miami were transfixed by a transvestite.
I took advantage of the mass hypnosis created by Kit’s theatrics. The best way to keep someone at a distance is to act insane. I spread the pink raincoats on the ground and squatted, motioning for my compadres to join me in a picnic.
Kit hiked up his lamé cocktail dress and scrunched down on his platform heels. If Carol Channing could see him she’d bust out in her raucous laugh. I opened the box and we each grabbed a slice of the cold cardboard food.
Mace fiddle-nibbled on a slice of pizza and fixed me with her bright green eyes.
My eye itched. I rubbed and got some garlicky pizza sauce in it which burned like the dickens but ignited a brilliant Wendy Darlin idea. My garage was dehumidified and temperature controlled. If we could get the mummy from the pit to my condo in reasonably good condition, it would be safe until Roger got his Amicus Mummius. Even nit-picky Roger couldn’t fault that plan.
Six Pack of Sleuths: Comedy Mysteries Page 27