Suspicious Mimes

by Virginia Brown

  She retrieved her new cell phone from her car, locked it, and went back to the house. This time she stuck her head in the open door and called, “Lydia? You home? It’s Harley.”

  Nothing but silence.

  She got that tingling again, like the time she’d gone into Mrs. Trumble’s house and found her dead on the floor. This couldn’t be the same thing. Could it?

  Sucking in a deep breath, she stepped into the hallway.

  Straight ahead was a laundry room and to the right was a closed door. A spiral staircase climbed to a room overhead, and to the left she saw a living room with doors leading into other hallways and rooms. She had no idea which one was Lydia’s. Might as well start with the closest.

  She rapped lightly on the door, and when there was no answer, opened it. A huge room cluttered with musical instruments and tall speakers opened onto the back yard. French doors were wide open, letting in hot air and flies. Odd, but hardly ominous.

  Closing that door, she went on to the next. A check of three more downstairs bedrooms, the kitchen, dining room, and living room, didn’t produce Lydia or anyone else. Harley began to feel like a burglar. If someone came in, how would she explain her presence?

  Okay, just a quick look upstairs and she was done. A flight of stairs off the living room seemed the most likely for an apartment, and she went up as quietly as possible. When she got to the top, she called for Lydia again. “Lydia? You here?”

  No answer.

  She put a hand on the knob and turned it slowly. The door swung open and she peered in. A big dormer window let in light that fell across what was obviously a small sitting room that led to the bedroom. A kitchenette lay off the sitting room, small but efficient. Thick carpet cushioned her feet as she crossed to look in the bedroom. Clothes lay discarded on the floor. Beyond the bedroom, the sound of rushing water seeped out from another closed door.

  Relieved, Harley felt like a fool. Of course. Lydia was taking a shower. That’s why she didn’t hear the doorbell or knocking. What an idiot she was, looking for trouble behind every door. She really had to get over this. Recent experience made her much too jumpy. She’d wait in the sitting area for

  Lydia to get out of the shower, and hope an unexpected visitor didn’t scare her too badly.

  Nice little place, really, small but fairly tidy except for the clothes on the floor. Even the kitchenette off the sitting room had sparkled with cleanliness. She’d always figured Lydia for the sloppy type. Which only proved Diva was wrong about her daughter having keen perceptions.

  Halfway back to the sitting room, Harley paused. Something about those clothes on the floor . . .

  She went back and looked at them more closely. Dark red splatters stained the tee shirt and shorts. A strong smell hit her when she knelt down to look at them, and her heart began to thud rapidly. Blood?

  Looking up at the closed bathroom door, Harley rose and moved cautiously toward it. She dreaded what she’d find in the shower, images from the movie Psycho flashing through her mind. The bathroom door was unlocked, and she pushed it slowly open. Steam billowed out and fogged the mirror over the vanity sink. A black shower curtain had been pulled across the tub, hiding it. Heart still thudding hard enough to break a rib, she held her cell phone ready in her left hand and put her right hand out to pull back the shower curtain. She jerked quickly, and then stared. Blood ran down Lydia’s face onto her shoulders and made red puddles in the tub.

  Harley screamed.

  Then Lydia screamed.

  Eight

  “Tell me again why you’re here?” Lydia, wrapped in a huge towel and shivering, glared at Harley.

  “I wanted to talk to you about the murder on your bus.”

  “You couldn’t have called?”

  “In retrospect, that would have been a much better idea. You shouldn’t leave your doors unlocked. Why are you dying your hair red?”

  “Not that it’s any of your business, but my therapist said a change might be good for me.” Lydia pulled a smaller towel from her head. “I thought dying my hair red might be a good start, but then I spilled it everywhere, on my clothes, and now it’s on my face—I must look horrible.”

  “You do resemble an accident victim, but a little baby oil ought to take care of that. I can help, if you’d like. I’ve helped my brother dye his hair a few times, so I have experience.”

  Lydia looked uncertain, but Harley convinced her that she could be useful. It didn’t take long to scrub the dye stains from Lydia’s forehead, cheeks, and neck. When Harley realized one of the smaller stains she was trying to scrub away was a freckle, she stopped.

  “There. All done.”

  “How do I look?”

  Lydia peered up at her, and Harley didn’t have the heart to tell her the truth. Diplomacy would work much better. “As good as new.”

  “Red’s not my color, is it.”

  Now there was no escape. Harley shook her head. “Not really. I think you’d look good as a blonde, though.”

  “Do you?” That seemed to please Lydia, because she smiled. “Maybe I’ll try that.”

  “Go to a professional next time. Just in case.”

  Lydia nodded. “So what’d you want to know about the dead guy on my tour?”

  “Not really so much about him as about the guy who sat down next to him. Was there any distinguishing feature you can remember that might identify him?”

  “I already went through all this with the police. They were just two Elvis impersonators. I get a lot of them this time of year, reduced rates since they’re part of the entertainment, just like you do.”

  “I know. But my van was all Elvis impersonators, while you had only two. I thought you might be able to recall something different about either of them.”

  Lydia frowned. “Does Uncle Les know you’re doing this, asking all these questions?”

  “You mean Mr. Penney?”

  “Well, yes. He’s my uncle, you know.”

  “I’ve been asked by the company to do what I can to help the police find the perpetrator.” That sounded middle of the road, true without straying too far into details.

  “Oh. I didn’t know. Okay, I’ll tell you what I told the police. The other Elvis was tall, I guess somewhere around six feet, not fat but not skinny. He had on a black wig but the sideburns looked real. I didn’t pay too much attention to him. It was so noisy in there, everyone talking at once, and I was just trying to get through the day.”

  To Harley’s surprise, Lydia blinked away some tears. “I told Uncle Les that I’m not good at this sort of thing, that I wanted to work in one of the other offices as a receptionist or in the accounting department, but he said I had to start out at the ground floor first.”

  “Maybe now he’ll transfer you,” Harley said sympathetically.

  “I’m not going back if he doesn’t.” She shuddered. “Finding that man dead . . . And the man who killed him was right there, and he could have killed all of us.”

  “I think he picked his victim before he got on that bus.”

  When Lydia looked hopefully at her, she added, “And I think they knew each other. One of your passengers told me that there was a disagreement over seating.”

  “Now we know why.”

  Harley nodded. “Were there any words between them, maybe, anything you might have overheard?”

  Lydia shook her head. “They were sitting too far back. Even if I’d wanted to hear them, I wouldn’t have. Everyone was making too much noise.”

  “Talking?”

  “Singing. Someone started that Jerry Lee song, Great Balls of Fire, and then everyone started singing it. It was like one of the detective shows on TV, when he figures out the guy used music to disguise the murder.”

  “Uh huh.” Lydia was known to consider all TV shows reality, b
ut this time she might be right. Singing would mask any noise the victim might make when stabbed.

  Still, it didn’t make a lot of sense. It was too risky. No one in their right mind would plan a murder in a bus full of people.

  Would they?

  “The mistake you’re making,” Tootsie said, “is assuming that a murderer has a right mind. Except for a crime of passion or self-defense, any murderer is basically unbalanced.”

  “Is that you or Freud talking?”

  “Please. Don’t insult Freud.” Tootsie got up from behind his desk. He switched off the desk lamp and picked his keys up off the counter. “These murders were bold, yes, definitely risky in a crowd, but no one can identify a killer who looks like a hundred other people who all look like Elvis. In its way, it’s a perfect disguise.”

  “That’s what I said.” Harley leaned glumly against the desk. “I’m sure the police have recovered evidence, though—fibers, fingerprints, shoeprints—something that’ll identify him.”

  “This isn’t TV. It’s not going to get solved in an hour—forty minutes without all those commercials. It takes a while to gather and process evidence. It may take weeks or months.”

  “Oh great. Well, I’ll do what I can, but I’m about at a dead-end here.”

  “That’s all right.” Tootsie smiled wryly. “It was a crazy idea of mine anyway. The ogre wasn’t at all happy to hear I’d asked you to investigate.”

  “I can imagine.”

  They’d started for the door when the office phone rang.

  Tootsie paused. “Damn, I forgot to switch it over to the answering service.”

  Harley waited while he answered it, leaning over the counter to punch the buttons and give his usual spiel. She looked at her fingers and the nails chewed to the quick. There must be a better habit to have. This one was unattractive. She dug in her backpack for some gum and found the postcards. She’d forgotten to mention them to Tootsie. Maybe he’d know what to make of it.

  Then she lifted her head to look at Tootsie when he said, “What? When? Okay. We’re on our way. Just don’t touch anything.”

  He hung up, pressed a few buttons and looked at Harley.

  “There’s been another murder in one of our vans. This time at the hotel where they were taken after a concert.”

  The police got there before they did. Cruisers flashing blue, Charlsie Spencer stood by the door and stared blankly ahead, her face reflecting nothing but flashing blue lights. Harley knew just how she felt.

  “Want to go inside and sit down?” she asked her, but Charlsie shook her head.

  “No. I just want to wake up.”

  “I know. A nightmare, isn’t it?”

  Charlsie turned to look at her. “How do you do it? Deal with it, I mean. Death is so . . . ugly.”

  “Murder is ugly.”

  Charlsie was married with two little kids, a pretty woman with soft brown hair and blue eyes, a little on the healthy side but not fat. Just rounded, a Marilyn Monroe kind of round. She shivered despite the heat.

  “Yes,” she said, “very ugly.”

  Harley hesitated. Maybe she shouldn’t ask her any questions. She looked pretty rattled. It could wait.

  But then Charlsie turned to look at her, eyes a little glazed as if she was seeing something horrible, and said in a whisper, “I thought he was asleep. I went to wake him . . . I touched him on the shoulder and he . . . he just fell forward. Then I looked at my hand. There was all this blood on it, so bright red and sticky . . . like my little girl’s finger paint. I didn’t know what it was at first, and then I realized . . . ”

  She began shaking again and Harley put an arm around her shoulders. “It’s okay. You’ll be fine. Has anyone notified your husband?”

  Charlsie nodded. “David’s on his way.”

  Harley waited with Charlsie until her husband arrived, and the look on his face when he saw his wife was a mix of panic and relief. They held on to each other for a few moments before he let her go, and even then, he kept an arm around her shoulders.

  Looking at Harley, he asked, “Can she leave now?”

  “You’ll have to clear that with the police. If she’s given her statement, I imagine they’ll let her leave.”

  When they left, Harley found Tootsie. He stood talking to the police, not far from one of the smaller vans. If this kept up, they wouldn’t have any vehicles left. Two vans and a bus were out of commission until the police ended their evidence gathering. It put a cramp in scheduling tours during their busiest month. Though cancellations were cutting into that.

  One bright spot was Bobby’s absence. He must be on another case. Thank God. She didn’t think she could deal with him right now. He’d ask questions she didn’t want to answer, and he knew her well enough to know when she was lying or evading. That was never good.

  Finally, Tootsie came to stand beside her. He looked stressed. “You okay?” she asked.

  “No. Three vehicles from our fleet are temporarily sidelined. Even if I get back the van you were driving, I’ll be two short next week, during the busiest season. Not to mention the bad publicity, with all these guys getting killed on our buses. Fifty thousand people will be here soon, all probably using other tour companies.”

  “Let Mr. Penney worry about that. Besides, this is only temporary. You’ve got friends at the TV stations and the paper. Get them to put a different spin on it, how Tour Tyme has taken extra security measures to ensure the safety of their clients during the festivities or something. I’ve got a friend in the security business. I’ll ask Butch to give us cheap rates.”

  For a moment Tootsie just stared at her. Then he nodded, though he didn’t look less stressed. “That’d be great. Security. It might help. Then again, it might backfire. What if tourists think it’s too dangerous to come to Memphis?”

  “It’s too dangerous to cross the street anywhere these days. That doesn’t stop anyone.”

  “True.” Tootsie looked a little relieved. “It might even work.”

  “See? You feel better already.”

  “I’ll feel better when I see a healthy bottom line after all this is over.”

  “Sometimes I just can’t figure you out. I know job security is important, but why should you get so upset about profit and loss?”

  “Think of it this way, baby. A healthy profit means a healthy payroll. Besides, you don’t have to work close to Lester Penney every day, and I do.”

  “Ah. There is that to consider. It pays to keep the ogre happy.”

  “A logical conclusion.”

  “Speaking of logical conclusions, I know I’ve said this before,” she said as they headed toward Tootsie’s car, “but it’s just not logical for someone to take such a big risk killing these guys on tour vans. Why not kill them at the concerts? In the bathrooms, or outside diners, or in alleyways, at home? Somewhere it’s not so crowded. Why stab Elvises right in the middle of a group of tourists sitting on a tour bus?”

  “Why stab them at all? Why kill just Elvis impersonators?”

  “I take it this last death is—”

  “An Elvis impersonator. Last seat in the back row, stabbed right in the heart.”

  “While the other people were singing Great Balls of Fire.” When Tootsie gave her a strange look she said, “I talked to Charlsie. She told me they were singing. I’m sure it helps hide any, uh, noise.”

  Once in the car, Tootsie said, “I’m beginning to think these victims aren’t random, but specifically chosen. Maybe there’s a connection between them that we’re missing.”

  “I used library records to check everything I know to check—work, family, friends, even looked up their old schools all the way back to kindergarten to see if they might have known each other. Nothing.” In the pause, she pulled out the two Elvis postcards from her ba
ckpack. “Except these. Both victims were sent these postcards directing them to take a Memphis Tour Tyme bus and ask for Claude Williams when they reached the concert.”

  “Who’s Claude Williams?”

  “I thought you might know, but it’s definitely something we need to find out.”

  “Have you informed the police about this yet?”

  She shook her head. “Not yet. I don’t want to talk to Bobby. He can be such a jerk.”

  “Maybe you should talk to Morgan, give him the evidence.”

  “Even worse. Besides, if I call him, he’s liable to think I just want to see him, and I don’t want him to think I’m chasing him.”

  “How sixth grade of you.”

  “Oh, shut up.”

  Tootsie laughed and said, “I’ll call Bobby if you want.”

  “Would you? I’d just as soon not get arrested if I can avoid it.”

  “Then I’ll be discreet.”

  Harley sighed. “He’ll see right through that. He’s almost as good at it as Diva.”

  “I think cops develop a sixth sense. At least, the good ones do.”

  “Then Bobby must be one of the best. So, what do you think? There has to be some kind of connection between the two cards and the dead Elvises. I’m willing to bet this third victim got a postcard, too.”

  “If he did,” Tootsie said grimly, “then we’ve got a serial killer targeting only Elvis impersonators.”

  “Yeah, but not randomly. He’s got some kind of devious plan. It must be one of the Elvis contestants trying to knock off the competitors.”

  “That makes more sense than anything else.”

  “So maybe we need to find out if these victims were any competition, and who’s listed as the favorite this year.”

  Glancing at her, Tootsie nodded. “That’s where we’ll start.”

  “I’ll ask Yogi who the favorites are. He always knows that kind of stuff.”