by Duffy Brown
Thank the Lord for overactive imaginations. “An old elevator, right? Got to be authentic, and how did you get in here?”
“Front door.” Gabi pointed to the three others behind her. “Lloyd, Sylvester, Trixie and I came here to ask that girl who’s usually at the front desk a few questions. We heard that she liked strawberry smoothies.” Lloyd held up a to-go cup from Millie’s on Main to prove the point. “And when we got here, the front door was unlocked. We figured there must be clues in here somewhere if it was open, and here you are. So, what is it?”
“What’s what?” I stood and dusted myself off.
“The clue, silly.” Gabi laughed. Lloyd, Sylvester and the other girl whose name I forgot joined in.
“Uh . . .” Think, Evie, think. I jammed my hands into my jeans pockets to look like I was searching for something like a clue. I pulled out a gum wrapper, a receipt for beer and fried green beans at the Stang and Penelope’s business card that she had given to me when she thought Sutter and I were getting hitched.
“Here we go.” I passed Gabi the card and she focused her flashlight and read, “Penelope Woodward, associate manager, the Grand Hotel?”
“Let me tell you,” I stated in a serious voice. “Penelope knows what’s going on up there at the Grand, and that’s where the murder was, so she’ll have something to tell you for sure.”
“You know, we suspected her all along.” Gabi’s voice had a serious edge. “She gets real antsy when we bring up Peep and talk about that cell phone that’s missing and everyone’s interested in finding. Peep must have had the goods on her too, and now you give us her card. That means she’s got something to hide and could have knocked off the Peep to keep him quiet.”
Gabi threw her arms around me and hugged tight, making it hard to breathe. “You are the best, you know that. The Corpse Crusaders are going to win.” She hooked her arm through the tall guy’s arm and the other girl snuggled up to the shorter guy. “We sort of found each other in all the fun. Isn’t that fantastic? Murder, mystery and a little romance to add to it all. What could be more fun than that?” Gabi hugged me again, and the little band trooped to the door and left.
“Penelope’s going to kill us for doing that.” Fiona’s voice echoed up to me from below.
“Yeah, well, she’ll have to take a number, there’s getting to be a list.”
I reached down, took both of Fiona’s hands and helped her wiggle out of the elevator. Just for kicks I hit the elevator button and the piece of crap sprang to life, inched its way up to the first floor and stopped where it should. I followed Fiona down the hall to the frosted-glass door with Nathaniel Sutter, Chief of Police stenciled in black.
“Nathaniel. Looks very official,” Fiona quipped.
“I think it’s the gun and badge that are the official part.” I hunkered down, Fiona beside me.
I pulled out Angelo’s wallet and Fiona held the flashlight over it. “We should get our own lock-picking tools so we don’t have to keep mooching Angelo’s.”
“That would be like inviting trouble, and I’m done with trouble. We’re going to save you from the slammer, and then it’s nothing but keys and I never want to see these pick things again.”
I slid the L-shaped tension wrench into the lock to hold the cylinder in place. “Did you hear what Gabi said about Penelope and Peep? Do you really think he had something on her, and what could it be? She’s a desk clerk, not working for the CIA.” I added the hook pick to push the lock pins out of the way.
“I think Zo and Madonna are just making Penelope and the whole place jumpy. No one’s acting right, and can you hurry it up a little?” Fiona squirmed and made a face.
“Do I look like 007? I’m going as fast as I can here.”
“I have to pee.”
“Seriously? Now? And you couldn’t take care of this before?”
“A lot’s happened since before.”
“It’s down the hall and around the corner.” That I knew where the bathroom was in a police station said a lot about my life lately. I clamped the flashlight between my teeth and Fiona scurried off; the exit sign glaring from the front offered enough light to move around. I fiddled with the lock again and it finally gave way.
I opened the door to Mr. Neatnik Does Mackinac. All papers were in folders stacked on the desk, pens in holders, desk chair facing front and center and not one Snickers wrapper or scribbled Hello Kitty Post-it in sight. I’d heard that a person’s desk reflected the state of their mind, and in this case it was true. Sutter was orderly, methodical, precise, and efficient. I considered my workbench back at the bike shop. My brain was a recycle bin.
I sat in Sutter’s chair and flipped open the top folder to police reports. Well, dang, there really was shoplifting at Doud’s Market, and someone had stolen a whole ham from the Village Inn. How do you get away with that? Stick it under your shirt and look pregnant? There was an official-looking fax from the Detroit PD about Luka Vellardo followed by a question mark. What did that mean? And there was a picture of a guy I wouldn’t want to meet up with in a dark alley. He had a diamond stud earring, dishwater-blond ponytail and bad teeth. Can we say whitening strips? There were also three attractive forty-something women in nice suits who—
“What are you doing here?” Sutter asked from the doorway.
I nearly bit the end off the flashlight and flipped the folder in the air, with paper drifting down around me like oversized confetti. “Da ca crsadrs dud e.”
“What?”
I took the flashlight out of my mouth. “The Corpse Crusaders did it.”
When caught red-handed, blame someone else. A little something I learned from having two siblings. Not that Mother ever bought it, because my siblings were perfect and me not so much. “They came in through the front door, and I followed them ’cause I’m a good citizen and I knew they didn’t belong in here.”
Was that Fiona standing in the doorway?
“They tried to get in, though, by the scaffold,” I added to keep Sutter busy, something I was doing a lot of lately. “It collapsed, and who would be stupid enough to try to climb scaffolding in the back of a building in the first place, and if you don’t believe me you can check your camera. The yellow shirts they wear are hard to miss.”
Of course if Sutter did check the camera footage, he’d see that I didn’t follow them in, but in the grand scheme of whopper lies out there right now, that was a minor detail.
Sutter’s eyes narrowed and he stomped his way to the desk. “You’re going through my stuff?”
“Checking on what the Crusaders were up to. I wanted to see if it was important.”
When Sutter didn’t offer some sarcastic comeback to my really lame explanation, I cut my eyes his way. He was staring at the pictures of those three women and the scary guy and absently rubbing his leg. For a split second concern crossed his face. Anyone else would have missed it, but for better or worse I knew Sutter. Something was up and it wasn’t just me breaking into his office.
“Who are they?” I tapped the paper.
“Nobody,” Sutter answered in a cold, flat cop voice, giving nothing away. He snagged my arm and hauled me out of his chair, propelling it across the office.
“You’re lying.”
“So are you, I’m just a lot better at it.”
“Hey, the Crusaders were here, they came in through the front door. What do you know about Luka?” I tapped the name on the fax.
“Word has it he makes a mean lasagna.” Sutter led me to the police reception desk where Molly usually sat, then through the police station door, past the steps that led upstairs to the courthouse, then to the main door. He opened it, took my hand and slapped Sheldon into my palm. “I got seven 911 alerts about the scaffold falling and you left this. Molly had a hot date tonight and probably forgot to lock the front door when she left here.”
Curls o
f fog drifted over the street and twined around our feet and ankles. Halos of mist glowed from streetlights and porches. “You’re not going to arrest me?”
A smile tugged at the corners of Sutter’s mouth. It wasn’t a you’re so cute kind of smile but more one that said gotcha. He leaned against the doorjamb and folded his arms, with little droplets of moisture clinging to his too-long dark hair, and a hint of stubble darkening his jawline. “With you wreaking havoc around here and entertaining the troops with deeds of breaking and entering, Betsy Ross on the run, food fights—”
“I didn’t do the food fight.”
“And instigating murder week at the Grand Hotel, that lets me fly under the radar and find the killer.”
“I’m . . . I’m a distraction?”
Sutter stilled, the laughter in his eyes fading to serious, then mysterious as the night around us. He stood, hesitated for a second, then took a step closer. He tucked a strand of hair behind my left ear; the brush of his fingers against my neck sent chills down my spine. “Chicago, you are always a distraction,” he said in a voice smooth as warm brandy on a cold night.
“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” I could barely breathe, my voice just a whisper, his gaze meeting mine.
He wove his fingers into my hair, his hand steady, protective, possessive. He kissed me . . . slow . . . then hot, then sizzling. “I have no idea.” His lips formed the words against mine.
Then he closed the door, leaving me dizzy and alone and an inch away from being a melted blob in the middle of Market Street.
* * *
“They cancelled my flowers!”
I pried one eye open as Irma flopped back across my bed and tossed a pillow over her face. “Suffocation’s not the answer. There won’t be any flowers for the funeral, it’ll be a bust.”
I felt around on the top of my nightstand for Sheldon. “It’s six in the morning. Don’t you have a man in your house who needs tending to at this hour?”
The foghorn out in the harbor let out its mournful warning as I pushed myself up; Cleveland and Bambino, sleeping on my chest, did not appreciate the disruption one bit. The eerie thirty-second blasts always gave me a creepy feeling of not knowing what would happen next, and considering the present situation of killer on the loose, the creepy was worse than ever.
I clicked on the light and peeked under the pillow to Irma. Her eyes were glazed and her honey-blonde hair was in big O’s all over her head, like she’d just taken out the rollers for that nice springy-hair look. “Now the flowers have bugs?”
“The flowers are gone, as in ta-ta, sayonara, arrivederci baby.” Wiping her nose on the sleeve of her blouse, Irma stared at the ceiling. “I told Francine over there at Francine’s Flowers I’d take whatever she had left in the way of anything blooming, and she has nothing except one artificial Christmas tree, an Easter basket and a half-eaten heart left over from Valentine’s Day. It’s the Lilac Festival and weddings are everywhere and every flower down to the last rose, lily of the valley, baby’s breath and daisy within a hundred miles is spoken for and my flowers are missing. That I ordered them six months ago doesn’t matter diddly to that old battle-axe.”
Irma rolled over and faced me, her eyes blazing. “I’ll tell you what I think happened. I just bet there was a last-minute wedding and that money-grubbing Francine sold my lovely flowers of pink peonies and white roses for triple the price.” Irma crinkled her nose and snorted. “That little harlot has always had her eye on Rudy, and it just frosts her lilies that I got him and she didn’t. Na-na-na-na boo-boo.”
Irma grinned in triumph, then flopped back. “I found out last night about the demise of my flowers, and I tried to hold it all in and be stoic, but not having flowers is a big deal—at least to me it is—and I can’t tell Rudy.”
“He’ll beat up Francine? She’s seventy but feisty. You have to watch that one.”
“Rudy will say we should just elope, and I don’t want to elope. I want to get married on Mackinac. I’ve been hoarding tulle and lace for months to decorate the Butterfly Conservatory. I bought those yummy little almonds, bottles of bubbles shaped like wedding cakes and I even bought I married my best friend today champagne flutes. Nate’s here, you’re here, so is Irish Donna and that no-good Shamus and the Douds and the gang at the Village Inn and the euchre club at the Stang. Walt and Geraldine even came back from Arizona to be with me. All my friends are here and I want them to be at my wedding. I’ve been on this island for forty years; I want to get married here where it means something, not in front of some judge I don’t even know. I just won’t feel married if it’s not here on Mackinac. I want Fiona to put my wedding in the Crier. That paper is like our island scrapbook of what happens, and I want Rudy and me to happen here.”
“Fiona!” I bolted upright. “I forgot she was in jail!” My brain flashed back to Sutter, the courthouse and the kiss. “I was distracted.”
“Must have been one heck of a distraction to make you forget Fiona in jail.”
“You have no idea.” I scrambled out of bed and couldn’t find my last pair of clean jeans I had here somewhere. I grabbed my dirty jeans from last night off the floor, then stuck Sheldon in my pocket next to Angelo’s wallet.
Irma’s eyes started to sparkle, a grin pulling at her lips. “You know, this is perfect,” she said, sounding a little breathy with excitement.
“Fiona probably wouldn’t agree with the perfect part.” I shrugged on a sweatshirt I got from the Chicago Natural History Museum with If history repeats itself, I’m getting a dinosaur scripted on the front.
“We’ll do a jailbreak,” Irma gushed. “Something drastic is just what I need to get my mind off things. Time’s a-wastin’. Grab a crowbar, Chicago, let’s get a move on; we’ll pry Fiona out of jail if we have to. We all know she’s innocent.”
Crowbar? I flung myself in front of the door, spreading my arms and legs spidey style to stop Irma. “Nate is your son, he’s the police chief, remember? And Fiona isn’t exactly in jail but hiding in the police station bathroom since our great plan of escape by scaffold sort of bit the dust . . . or in this case the trees . . . and don’t give me that you’ve got to be kidding look; no way can I make this stuff up.”
“Scaffold? So you’re the one.”
“And an elevator. You and Rudy try to hunt up some flowers and a venue and a preacher.”
“And a dress.”
“Oh, yeah, the dress. If I’m not back by ten, ask Rudy to open the bike shop for me,” I called over my shoulder as I started down the hall. “Getting Fiona out of the bathroom may take some doing. I’ll commandeer Mother to help.”
“You’re going to need help in the shop when Rudy and I are on our honeymoon, dear, and your mother’s not in her room,” Irma yelled after me. “I have no idea where she is. Maybe you should rethink the crowbar.”
11
I wasn’t absolutely sure where Mother was, but I had a pretty good idea. I had no intention of visiting SeeFar at this hour to check if I was right, and I probably couldn’t find the place with fog covering the island like a big wad of cotton.
Mother was the perfect distraction for my jail rescue in that she knew just the questions to drive Sutter nuts and leave Molly shaking her head, giving Fiona a chance to sneak out. Irish Donna was my second choice as diversion queen. She’d be up baking at this hour, and no one would pay attention to Fiona if they had fresh warm blueberry scones to focus on, and—“Yikes!”
I jumped a foot to someone tapping me on the shoulder. I jerked around to . . . “Fiona?” I threw my arms around her. “You’re out of jail, that’s terrific. How’d you get here and . . . and is that my new blue sweater you’re wearing?” I looked closer. “It is my new sweater!”
“J. Crew, great choice, girlfriend. It was in your room just sitting there on the dresser screaming, wear me, wear me. After I took a shower I couldn’t very well put on
my filthy clothes that I crawled around in all night. And you need to do laundry since I’ve got on your last pair of clean jeans.” Fiona spread her arms wide. “Don’t you love this fog? It’s perfect hideout weather. I feel invisible.”
“You showered at my house and took my clothes?”
“And slept on your couch and ate two Nutty Buddies. I think I’m addicted. Thanks for distracting Nate with that kiss; it was brilliant.” She gave me a curious look. “That’s all it was, right? A distraction?”
“So I’ve been told. And you got out of the station by putting your finger alongside your nose and going up a chimney?”
“I snuck out the window. They lock from the inside, so it was a piece of cake. Who’s this Luka guy you were talking about with Sutter?” Fiona framed her face with her hands, looking forlorn. “I’m so out of the loop. I used to be the loop, and now I have no idea what’s going on.”
“I think Luka just got here and there’s a good chance he’s dating Molly. If Sutter finds out his sergeant is spending time with the family engineer he’s going to blow a gasket.”
“There something with being a family engineer?”
“There something with being a family godfather?”
Fiona’s brows arched to her hairline. “That family.”
“And what if this Luka guy and Peep got here around the same time? The Inside Scoop doesn’t exactly scoop sugar and fairy tales, and maybe someone had enough and knew who to contact. Luka could get rid of Peep, frame you, date Molly so everyone thinks he’s Mr. Law-Abiding Citizen. Does the name Luka mean anything to you?”
“The fog’s still hanging in there. I should visit SeeFar and take a look at this guy; maybe I do know him. We can peek in the window and stay out of sight. If we get caught, I take off and you go with returning Angelo’s lock picks that are probably in those gross jeans you’ve got on from last night.” Fiona wrinkled her nose. “How can you wear those dirty things?”