Braking for Bodies

by Duffy Brown

  “Not so perfect; she has an alibi, remember.”

  “For not pushing Peep off the porch. She could have paid someone to do that while she waited below and whammed him with the bottle.”

  “Seems kind of far-fetched, and besides, she loved Peep.”

  “But he didn’t leave you to marry her, did he? She had to be furious, and I think all that uproar about the stolen turtle necklace was to throw more suspicion on Fiona. It was probably her idea to come here; I doubt if it was Peep’s. Mackinac Island isn’t exactly a Peep kind of place. Her plan all along was to knock him off and pin it on Fiona or Idle or both. She knew they were here.”

  “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned?”

  “And I think Zo was feeling scorned and used and had enough of Peep. He probably promised her the earth and handed out peanuts.”

  “I know that feeling.”

  “And if Peep’s out of the way, she does have the dirt on everyone to keep blackmailing. Maybe I’ll get one of the staff to go with me. If she thinks I’m getting close to finding her out, it could get ugly.” I rubbed my elbows. “I’ve had enough ugly.”

  I started off and Madonna grabbed my arm. “All right, all right. I’m not the Marines, but I got a scream that’ll strip wallpaper, and you’re right: If I don’t get some straight answers, I’m never getting off this rock. If we get the hotel staff involved, they’ll call the cops and Zo will just run off.”

  I followed Madonna past the Employees Only door and headed farther down the hall into the older part of the hotel, still maintained to absolute perfection. Madonna pointed to Annex 1. “Okay, we’re here, now what do we do?”

  I knocked.

  “This isn’t the presidential suite; we probably have to go in on our own.” Madonna turned the knob and opened the door. “Are you ready?”

  “I’m ready.” Maybe. “Awfully dark. Where’s the light switch?” We stepped inside and the door slammed shut behind us.

  “Evie?” Madonna said in a flat voice, her voice echoing in the room. “I think we just reached the dumbass part.”

  15

  “Hello? Anybody here?” I called out, with Madonna yanking on the door handle behind me trying to open it.

  I reached in my back pocket, snagged Sheldon and poked the flashlight app. Thank you, Steve Jobs. “There’s got to be a light switch somewhere.”

  “There,” Madonna said as the beam zeroed in on the wall by the door. She flipped the switch back and forth, and nothing happened. “Any more brilliant ideas?”

  I scanned the room with the light. “I think we’re alone. We’d be dead by now if we weren’t.”

  “I feel so much better now.”

  “It’s a storage room of some kind. Dining room storage, judging by the bins on the shelves labeled cups, saucers, tablecloths, napkins, dishes, candleholders.”

  “Oh good, now we can have a dinner party, and is that an envelope with your name on top of that big box in the middle?” Madonna took my hand and directed the beam. “It is. How much you wanna bet it’s not the key to get us out of here.” Madonna handed me the envelope, and I slid out eight-by-ten glossies.

  “Cats?” Madonna said, looking over my shoulder. “Why cats on a pool table? Is this like cats playing a piano, one of those YouTube things? What is going on?”

  “It’s Cleveland and Bambino, they’re my cats and in the middle of my pool table, well actually it’s the town’s table but it’s in my bike shop for the summer.”

  I flipped over the pictures and Madonna read, “Butt out or lights out. I don’t think they’re talking about the lights out in this room.”

  “Neither do I.” My blood ran cold. I couldn’t breathe; little dots danced in front of my eyes. “What kind of sick bastard would harm cats? My cats? Okay, they’re a little testy at times . . . most of the time . . . and ill-tempered and crabby and grumpy and critical and bossy, boy are they bossy.”

  “If this means what I think it means, you might be in line to get some nicer cats.”

  Holy freaking hell! My hair stood on end. “I have to get out of here!”

  “If you remember correctly, I never wanted to come in the first place.”

  “The door’s locked, but I can pick a lock. Do you have a hairpin, nail file, even a safety pin? Underwire from a bra will do. My state of noncleavage doesn’t warrant a wire. It’s all because of that blasted cloud!”

  “I sure don’t see any clouds.” Madonna jutted her boobs. “And I didn’t pay ten grand for boobs that need wires. We can bend a fork and use one tine, except I can’t see the Grand Hotel using forks that bend, and I’m guessing knives are too big for your little Houdini trick. I say we take turns banging on the door. We’ll just have to wait till someone finds us.”

  “Everyone’s busy and I don’t have time to wait. No one’s going to find us for a long time, and I have to find Bambino and Cleveland.”

  “Um, why?”

  “The door is thick, really thick,” I said, trying not to panic. “Like soundproof thick and . . .” I focused the light to the ceiling, with fancy moldings still intact and a mural that needed work. “And the reason it’s soundproof,” I said as much to myself as Madonna, “is that this was a gambling room back in the day that the hotel served smuggled-in booze. I bet there’s another door. There would never be just one way in and out. Think about it; if the cops come in through the door we just came in, the escape exit would be across the room so guests could exit into another area, probably a nightclub or bar, and look as if they were there all along.”

  “I don’t see any door.” Madonna sat on the box in the middle of the room and crossed her legs.

  “It’s a secret door in case the feds went snooping around. We’ll have to move these bins off the shelves to find it. Come on, let’s get going.”

  “I think you watch too much TV, and I’m a singer, not a mover. Let me know what you find.”

  “Really? You’re just going to sit there?”

  “Of course not, I thought I’d take a nap.”

  Holding Sheldon in my teeth so I could see what I was doing, I tugged the bin of dishes to the edge of the shelf, then lifted them as best I could onto the floor so they wouldn’t break. Didn’t seem fair to have the Grand Hotel pay for my mishap. I did the same with the cups and the saucers, and when it came to the tableware I sort of accidentally-on-purpose dropped it to the floor with a thunderous clank.

  “Hey, a girl’s trying to sleep here!”

  I got a silver candlestick holder from the candlestick bin and started tapping the walls.

  “What in the world are you doing now? You’re giving me a headache.”

  “I’m listening for a hollow sound that should be the door. The walls are solid plaster, the door filled with Styrofoam or whatever they used to muffle sound back then.”

  Madonna sighed. “Maybe they boarded it up and plastered it over, ever think of that? We’re talking almost a hundred years ago with this gambling room idea.”

  I gave a few more taps. “This whole place is built on history. My guess is that sooner or later the Grand will rehab this room as the Rum Runner Room, say that Al Capone had a shoot-out here, sell bathtub gin at an exorbitant price and make a killing and . . . Here.” I tapped again, listening closely. “I think the door’s right here, I really do.” I searched the seam for a spring or latch.

  “You know,” Madonna said with a yawn, “I don’t think this is Zo; seems a little elaborate for her pea-brain, but whoever set all this up never considered the extra door idea. You were probably supposed to sit here in the dark and worry so much about your kitty cats that you’d give up on finding this killer person to protect them from future harm.”

  “That’s because the imbecile who did set this up doesn’t know that Evie Bloomfield’s a Midwest girl and meaner than a junkyard dog when pissed. I passed pissed an hou
r ago.”

  I gave one hard shove on the panel and it sprang free, with me tumbling headfirst into a lovely room draped in greens and mauve. There were maybe a hundred guests in tuxes and long dresses all holding champagne flutes, and right now they were all staring at me and not the bride and groom cutting a five-tiered wedding cake.

  “Congratulations,” Madonna said, offering a big toothy smile as she stepped over my back. “And to the groom, a little piece of advice—always remember those three magic words that keep a marriage strong: You’re right, dear.”

  Madonna headed for the exit with me right behind her.

  * * *

  “Where have you been? We’re running out of time,” Sutter said as I bolted into the bike shop. He was standing at the workbench expertly arranging lilacs in white wicker bike baskets, the whole thing looking like Better Homes and Gardens.

  “Where are Bambino and Cleveland? They’re not on the pool table; why aren’t they on the pool table?”

  “Because there’s blush tulle bunting spread out on the table so it doesn’t wrinkle. It’ll go over the white cloth bunting that—”

  I grabbed Sutter by the front of his navy T-shirt and yanked him around to face me. “Cats now!” I tugged the crumpled glossies from my pocket and crammed them into Sutter’s hands. “I got locked in a room for two hours with Madonna and cat death threats.”

  “I’m not going to ask which was worse.” Sutter smoothed out the glossies and read the back, his jaw tightening, cop face firmly in place. “When the cats aren’t on the pool table, where are they?”

  “In the kitchen snarling and hissing at me till they get tuna.”

  “The kitchen’s a zoo with cake, chafers, chillers and dinnerware. No cats. Try again.”

  “They sleep with me, one on each side. They bite my hair to wake me up at three AM for a treat.” My voice cracked and I swiped away a tear.

  “You sure you want to keep these cats?”

  I choked back a sob.

  “Right.” He grabbed my hand and we tore up the steps to my bed, which was surrounded four deep in a jumble of bikes, with Cleveland and Bambino in a tangled heap of calico and black asleep in the middle.

  Oh, thank you, God! I backtracked out of the room, sank onto the top step and dropped my head into my hands.

  “Are you okay?”

  “The one good thing about this is that it’s proof positive Fiona is not guilty. She’d never threaten to catnap Bambino and Cleveland thinking it would get me to back off finding the killer. That’s what this was all about; even Madonna thought so.”

  “Fiona wouldn’t hurt your cats, I’ll give you that. And of course she’d never hurt you. But this is a warning, Evie, and next time it might be more. You’ve got to be careful.” He closed his eyes. “I’m serious here. The next threat won’t be against your cats.”

  “I’ll stay out of dark alleys. I’ll stay out of dark anything.” I held up my little finger. “Pinky swear.” Sutter’s finger circled mine and we shook. “Okay, we got that over with, but right now we’ve got to get a move on. We really do need to get the bunting up. Who made these napkins into swans? They’re adorable.”

  Sutter picked up a bird. “I got it off YouTube.”

  Sutter started to get up, and I pulled him back down. “That’s it! Bunting? Swans? Chafing? Tulle? Either you’re gayer than a picnic basket, Nate Sutter—though that is such a stereotype and I apologize and if you are that’s fine—or the Detroit police department has added events planning to their new and improved public services for the city and you’re in charge. What the heck’s going on?”

  He shrugged, his broad shoulders rubbing against mine. “Nothing’s going on, just normal stuff, except for the John up at the bar. That was kind of interesting.”

  “Johnson. So I guess he was one of those most wanted people.”

  “The only thing he wanted was you. Not that I blame him. You looked hot.”

  I stared at Sutter. “Really? You know, I think it was the white shawl and the blue dress and—” I jumped up. “John?”

  “John.” This time Sutter pulled me down.

  “He thought I was a . . .” I laughed, and Sutter joined in. Then he kissed me again, making my insides boil and my toes curl and scrambling my brain. “I get it,” I said, all out of breath, my heart racing. “You’re not gay.”

  “You’re right.” He smiled, his eyes peering deep into mine, his fingers twining into my hair. “And you’re going to love your bouquet, and as much as I’d like to prolong this activity, it’s two hours to TBE and the flower baskets need lace bows along with everything else that needs to be done around here.”

  “TBE?”

  “The Big Event.”

  “So, you’re saying the Detroit police really do have an events planning department?”

  16

  “And by the power vested in me by Mother Earth Ministries, I now pronounce you husband and wife.” Rudy and Irma held hands and gazed adoringly into each other’s eyes as the sun dipped into Lake Michigan, setting the world ablaze in reds, pinks and blues.

  Friends and family cheered and blew bubbles because throwing food would invite swarms of seagulls. We all burst into “All You Need Is Love”—like Rudy said—led by Idle Summers and the string quartet from the Grand Hotel.

  “We did it! Fantastico!” Angelo swiped away tears, kissed Nate on both cheeks, then picked Mother up and spun her around. Luka popped champagne corks, Irish Donna cried and draped a lovely gold shamrock over Irma’s head that set off the yellow rhinestone dress borrowed from Idle and I snuck upstairs to check on the cats. With a house full of friends, Cleveland and Bambino were safe, but I had to check anyway.

  “Will you slow down?” Molly panted behind me. She was not in wedding garb but police shorts and jacket. Someone had to hold down the fort while Sutter did the best-man thing, not to mention tie bows, arrange flowers, stream yards of bunting folded from tablecloths and drape enough blush tulle to make any bride happy.

  I held up my hands and stepped back. “Molly, we’re friends, good friends, and if you say we got a problem I’ll scream.” I held out my dress. “I’m in lavender silk here, I have flowers in my hair. I have a bouquet, one that Sutter made for me and I still don’t get how that happened but it’s lovely, and I’m wearing strappy heels and have on perfume, the expensive stuff. I’m pretty.”

  “Zo’s dead, at least Madonna thinks she is and she’s raising holy hell up at the Grand that nothing’s being done about it and we’re all a bunch of slackers and the killer is getting away.”

  “She’s dead? Is Zo breathing or not breathing? Pulse, no pulse? And why does Madonna care if Zo’s kicked the bucket? The way those two get along, Madonna should be doing a jig and gulping martinis. Heck, the whole staff at the Grand should be drinking and dancing.”

  “Madonna’s afraid she might be next. There’s no body, but Madonna’s been trying all day to get hold of Zo over some will stuff and couldn’t find her anywhere. Madonna convinced the managers that something was wrong, and when they opened Zo’s room the place was trashed, not messy trashed but torn up, Johnny-Depp-the-early-years trashed, like someone was looking for something.”

  “And you don’t want to bother Sutter.”

  “Do you? I’m not exactly Perry Mason and you’ve been in on this dead-guy stuff since you ran over him. I thought we’d go together. It’s not a murder scene or even an official crime scene, but Zo is missing and with all that’s gone on . . . If something happens to Madonna she’s already on her last nerve and the fur will really hit the fan around here.”

  “And if you stumble across Zo’s body you don’t want to be alone.”

  Molly gritted her teeth and gave a little nod. “There is that. A reporter from Condé Nast showed up this afternoon to cover the mystery weekend as one of the ten best summer getaways. We’ve got to find th
e killer fast before the truth comes out that Peep the dead guy is for real. And you’re right, your dress really is pretty.”

  “You can borrow it sometime when you and Luka go out. Hope it brings you better luck than what I’m having. Meet you at the Grand in fifteen.”

  Molly didn’t budge, and bit her bottom lip. “Evie, what if we do find Zo’s body?”

  “We’ll hold hands, scream like little girls and I’ll bring vodka.”

  “Grazie.”

  “Prego.”

  “I’m getting good at this.” Molly and I exchanged high fives and she hurried off. Using an excuse of needing more ice because all events need more ice, I scurried out the front door, changed from cute strappy heels to old worn flats, and hoofed it to the Grand. The town was hopping with the festival being in full swing. There was lilac ice cream, lilac fudge, lilac scones and lilac tea at the Blarney Scone; the Island Bookstore had books galore on lilacs; and of course there were lilac bikes. The ones I’d rented out got a day free because we closed the shop for the wedding. Saturday was the parade and Sunday was vintage baseball using gentlemen’s rules and no gloves—ouch—and—

  I was yanked into the alley next to Little Luxuries. “Fiona?”

  “Shh.” She pulled me deeper into the shadows. “I missed Rudy and Irma’s wedding.” A tear slid down her cheek. “Was it beautiful?”

  “When this is all over we’ll have them get married again just for you.”

  “And we’ll have cake.”

  “Yes, cake for sure.” I took her hand. “You look bad.”

  “Zo’s missing and her room’s a wreck. I borrowed a maid’s uniform and some of Idle’s makeup and a wig, and I’ve looked all over that hotel for Zo and she is not there. Nothing. She’s gone. Someone made it look like I did in Peep, and now with the missing-bracelet mess I think they’re going to pin Zo’s murder on me too.”

  “Hey, we don’t even know for sure that Zo’s dead.”