For Whom the Limo Rolls

by Lorena McCourtney

  “Did you tell the detective that? Show him the bite mark?”

  “They looked at it, but that kind of backfired. They figured if she bit me, it was while I was strangling her.”

  So, this explained Tom’s fingerprints on Mary Beth’s throat, and I believed his version. But his explanation for how the fingerprints got there, and the bite mark, had only deepened his problems with the police. Especially since there were apparently no other fingerprints on her skin. Had the killer come prepared with gloves, or just lucked out and not left fingerprints behind?

  “Anyway, I let her go when she bit me. I decided I’d talk to my lawyer about getting the necklace back. She was climbing up on a chair to take some picture off the wall when I left.”

  “And you didn’t see anyone else?”

  “No.”

  “You were pretty mad by then? You knocked the vases over when you left? And smashed the radio?” I asked.

  “I didn’t do anything with any vases or radio.”

  “This was about what time?” Fitz asked.

  “I don’t know. Maybe two or two-thirty.”

  Over an hour between then and when I got there close to four.

  “I don’t know what you’re asking me all this stuff for. The only thing that’ll help is if she’d contact Trafalgar.” He shot another baleful glare in my direction. “But she doesn’t think he exists.”

  “Contact with a being from another dimension is a difficult concept for some people to accept,” Fitz said, his careful tone suggesting that he and Tom were above such foolish disbelief.

  I figured Tom would stumble over concept, but he said, “Yeah, well, people used to have the concept the world was flat, and they were wrong. She’s wrong about this.” He gave me another sour glance, one that put me somewhere below hybrid cars.

  “Tom, did Mary Beth take anything to aid her in contacting Trafalgar?” I asked.

  “Take anything? Like what?”

  “Drugs. The time I saw her she did seem to have a rather peculiar glazed expression.”

  “I don’t think so.” His stubby fingers drummed the wooden arm of the lawn chair. “But maybe. Turns out I didn’t know Mary Beth as well as I thought I did.”

  “Isn’t it possible the investment thing Trafalgar told you about was actually a money-making scheme Mary Beth had cooked up to enrich herself?” I knew I was skating on thin ice here, because Tom was convinced Mary Beth and Trafalgar were two separate beings, and I was lumping them together.

  “Mary Beth didn’t need money.”

  “She didn’t?” I asked.

  “Nah. She had a big payment of some kind coming in real soon now.”

  “What kind of payment?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe an inheritance or selling some property down in California. I never asked.” He sounded aggrieved that I’d asked, but what I was thinking was, how come nosy ol’ Tom hadn’t been more curious above this? Love is blind? Except his next words suggested that since the shower incident, love had suffered a rude awakening. “Maybe she had some sugar daddy who was going to give her a bundle. I don’t know.”

  Fitz stood up. “It’s been good talking to you, Tom. You’ve given us a lot to think about.”

  “Yeah, well, just don’t get stuck with one of them hybrids.”

  Fitz and I crossed the street back to my place. Shadows from the forested hill to the west of Secret View Lane were lengthening now, the temperature cooling rapidly.

  “I’d better be getting back up to Bremerton,” he said.

  “I’m glad you came down. Did Matt mind?”

  Fitz’s son and I get along okay, but I always have the feeling he sees me as a bad influence, an overaged Mati Hari who dragged his father into real murders instead of the fictional ones Fitz had encountered on his TV detective show.

  “It’s good for us to get away from each other once in a while.” Fitz looked across the street at Tom sitting there alone, as if wondering if that could be his son some day. Or was he seeing himself? “Matt needs a wife.”

  “He doesn’t seem to think so.”

  “He just needs to meet the right woman. Maybe we should make it a project.” He sounded thoughtful, as if he were mentally lining up candidates.

  “But if Matt had a wife on board, you might be out of a job.”

  “Maybe you’ll expand your business one of these days. Buy another limo, hire another driver.”

  The thought occurred to me that this could be a great husband-and-wife enterprise, but then he was giving me a goodbye kiss and the moment for mentioning it passed. Although I didn’t know if I’d have mentioned it anyway.

  “I’ll miss you,” he said.

  “I’ll miss you too.”

  Back to business. I had evening limo clients.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I took my group of six on their traveling pizza party, complete with a full blast of Snoop Dog and Nine Inch Nails music from the CDs they’d brought along. I got home about ten wondering if my hearing would ever be the same. I’d taken Phreddie along. He, apparently more resistant to the music than I was, slept peacefully in his cat bed on the front seat all the way through the round trip over to Westport on the coast and back.

  The phone was ringing when I carried him inside. I was tired and almost let the answering machine pick up, but then I reminded myself that I needed all the business I could get. Although this was a rather late hour for a business call. Then the thought that it might be Fitz boosted my energy enough to pick up the phone.

  “Andi’s Limouzeen Service. Andi speaking.”

  “This is Danielle Lawrence. You came by the house this morning?”

  Was that only today? “Yes, of course. You were very helpful.”

  “I don’t suppose Fitz is around?”

  I felt a moment of indignation. What was she doing, checking to see if he stayed overnight? “No. The boat is up at Bremerton temporarily, and he went back up there. As he told you, he lives on the boat.”

  “Oh. I tried to call him, but when I called the charter boat number all I got was an answering service.”

  “May I help you with something?”

  “I suppose so.” She sounded disappointed but resigned, the customer who’s been told we’re all out of steak, you’ll have to take hamburger. “You asked me to call if the person taking care of Mrs. Delaney’s estate showed up at the house?”

  “She’s there now?”

  “Someone is. I see lights over there.”

  “The house lights are on?”

  “Actually, it looks like someone may be going through the house with a flashlight.”

  This sounded peculiar. “Perhaps it’s a burglar. You should call the detectives who talked to you. Didn’t they leave a number?”

  I expected suggestion of a burglar might panic her, but Danielle Lawrence had a different panic button. “No, I am not calling the sheriff’s department! All we need is some idiot roaring out here with police lights flashing and siren screaming. There’d probably be a reporter right behind them.”

  Those all-important property values.

  “It’s enough that the place has been a rental, and then all the notoriety connected with the murder is just too much. But it’s really none of my concern if you don’t want to come,” she said in an I’m-washing-my-hands-of-this tone.

  If this was the cousin here to take care of Mary Beth’s estate, she’d probably still be at the house in the morning. Yet a roaming excursion with a flashlight didn’t sound like someone who was entitled to be in the house.

  But if it wasn’t someone who was supposed to be there, did I want to rush out and encounter this person?

  Not alone. Yet Fitz was surely already back in Bremerton by now, too far away to rush back down here for some middle-of-the-night excursion. He’d probably already turned the car into the rental agency anyway.

  Then, another of those inspirations.

  “Yes, I’ll come. And I really appreciate your calling me. Can you see
a car?”

  “I think it must be parked around back, but it’s too dark to see back there now.”

  Not that the inquisitive Danielle Lawrence hadn’t tried, I was certain. “If you see it leave, perhaps you could get a description?”

  “You’re not going to call the police, are you?”

  “I’ll be very discreet,” I promised. Although, as I pointed out to myself, that wasn’t a promise not to call the police if the situation warranted it.

  As soon as I hung up the phone, I ran next door. Calling would have been easier, but India had never given me her cell phone number. I was relieved to see lights still on. I rang the doorbell.

  She turned on the light over the steps, peered out the peephole, and then opened the door. “Is something wrong?”

  I gave her a condensed version of the situation. The farther I got into it, the more absurd it sounded.

  Finally she interrupted with, “You’re asking if I want to come along?”

  “That’s what I was thinking. But the whole idea is beginning to sound dumber all the time.”

  I expected her to agree, to give me a polite Thanks, but no thanks. Instead she asked just one question.

  “Should I bring my Glock?”

  “Clock?” I asked, puzzled.

  “Not clock, Glock. It’s a gun.”

  “Well, uh. . .”

  “Never mind. I can see that makes you uncomfortable. Let’s take my pickup, okay? It’s more maneuverable than the limo.”

  Also more convenient and quicker. I’d have to move the limo to get my Toyota out of the garage.

  “I’ll change clothes and meet you out here in five minutes,” she said. At the moment she was in a flowered robe and slippers.

  I decided I’d change out of my chauffeur’s uniform too. India was already in her old pickup, engine running, when I got back outside. I gave her directions to Mary Beth’s house and told her a few more details on the way. Not, of course, mentioning Detective Molino’s confidential information about Tom’s fingerprints on Mary Beth’s throat.

  From the end of Mary Beth’s driveway, the house looked dark. My first thought was that whoever had been in the house had left, and I was half relieved, half disappointed. Then I realized the lack of lights might only mean Mary Beth’s cousin was inside and in bed. Maybe she’d just been doing a last-minute check with the flashlight to make sure the doors and windows were locked.

  Or maybe I was just trying to convince myself we could skip this and go back home.

  “What now?” India asked. We were stopped at the entrance of the driveway.

  “I guess we should drive on up to the house and take a look around. See if there’s a car parked around back.”

  India eased the pickup up the narrow driveway. The low bushes on either side were not uncared for, though they looked a bit ragged compared to Danielle Lawrence’s sculpted shrubs. Mary Beth’s Honda wasn’t in the carport. I wondered what had become of it since it had been at that other house when she was murdered. I saw now what I hadn’t before, that you could drive right on through the carport to what must be another parking area out back.

  And then, coming through the carport and directly toward us on the driveway

  “Hey, it’s a Corvette,” India said.

  I’m not that great at car identification, but I could see the car was low-slung and racy looking. And the headlights were off. There was also a certain furtiveness to the car’s cautious progress down the driveway. I shivered, product of more than the pickup’s non-working heater.

  The driver stopped within a few feet of the pickup and opened the car door. Standing behind the door, he motioned for us to back up and get out of the way. When we didn’t move he slammed the door and stalked toward India’s side of the pickup.

  In the headlights I couldn’t pinpoint his age, but I could see a stocky build, dark hair and mustache, jeans, denim jacket, and boots. Good looking, in a neon-cowboy sort of way. And he was obviously not, at the moment, a happy camper.

  “Maybe we’d better get out of his way,” I said.

  “He isn’t going to ram his fancy car into this junker. Don’t you want to know who he is and what he’s doing here?”

  Before I could say anything, India had opened her door and stepped out. Reluctantly I slid out on my side. I wondered if Danielle was watching out her window. I wondered if Danielle was going to see us get wiped out.

  “Is there a problem?” India said pleasantly.

  “Yeah, there’s a problem. You’re in my way. Move.”

  “Could be you’re in our way.”

  India stepped around the pickup and into the headlights. I realized now that she’d foregone the usual muumuu, although she still had the motorcycle boots. Now she was in dark jeans and a black leather jacket with fringe and silver studs that gleamed in the headlights. She was also an intimidating half a head taller than the stocky guy. She eyed his Corvette as if she wasn’t averse to kicking out a headlight or two.

  “Who are you?” she demanded.

  He didn’t look so belligerent now, but he managed to say, “None of your business. Who are you?”

  I didn’t step boldly into the headlights, but I pulled out my cell phone. “I’ll just call the sheriff’s office, and we’ll let them sort out who everyone is.”

  “No need for that,” he said hastily. His eyes flicked nervously between us. “I’m a friend of Mary Beth’s. I’d left a few personal items in the house, and I just wanted to pick them up without causing a big fuss.”

  A big fuss translating to, he’d rather the police didn’t know he was here?

  “You broke in?” India asked.

  “No.” He hesitated momentarily before saying, “Mary Beth always kept a key under a flower pot around by the back door.”

  “Did you have police permission to go inside?” India challenged.

  “I didn’t see any crime scene tape or no trespassing signs.” The belligerent reply suggested he had suspicions his entry wouldn’t be applauded.

  “You’re the man Tom Bolton encountered in the shower,” I said.

  He shuffled uncomfortably. “I guess I could be.” Then, bolder, “We shoulda called the cops on him. Thinking he could bust in like that just because he took Mary Beth out in a lousy limousine one time.”

  “It was not a ‘lousy limousine,’” I protested indignantly. “It’s my limousine. Andi’s Limouzeen Service.”

  He gave me a yeah, right look.

  India got us off this sidetrack. “I’m sure the detectives on the case would like to talk to you.”

  “I don’t know anything, but, sure, I can contact them. Be glad to. I want to do anything I can to bring down Mary Beth’s killer.”

  And he was going to rush right over to the police station and do that? In his language, Yeah, right.

  “Name? Address?” India asked.

  “I don’t have to tell you anything. I don’t even know what you’re doing here.”

  “Then you call the cops about us,” India said. She braced a foot on the battered front bumper of the pickup. The leg of her jeans rode up and revealed a gun strapped to the side of her right motorcycle boot. I knew she’d made the move deliberately.

  The guy saw the gun too. He gave an almost audible gulp, and his startled gaze said who are you people? as he stumbled a step backwards.

  “Okay, okay, don’t get excited. Let’s just talk here for a minute.” He sounded a little excited himself, but he made a soothing up and down movement with his hands, like someone trying to slow a speeding car. In the glare of the pickup lights, he looked rather like a mustachioed rabbit ready to run.

  “Okay,” India said. “Talk. Tell us who you are.”

  “I’m, uh . . . Sloan Delaney.” The hesitation before he said the name made me wonder if he’d invented it on the spot. “I’m staying in a motel out on the other side of town. Like I said, I was just picking up a few belongings here.”

  The name finally kicked in. “Delaney?”
I repeated.

  “Mary Beth was my ex-wife. We were divorced down in California, but we were planning to get back together. We’d both decided the divorce was a big mistake.”

  “So you were going to get remarried after you conned Tom Bolton and maybe some other ‘clients’ of Mary Beth’s out of a nice nest egg?”

  “I don’t know anything about that.” Said so quickly and nervously, and with no challenging questions about what did I mean by that, that I was certain he knew exactly what Mary Beth was doing. Maybe he was even in on it.

  “I’m in the, uh, car business myself,” he added.

  “What kind of car business?” India asked.

  “Buying and selling antique and classic vehicles. This is a ’78 Corvette.” He waved a hand toward the vehicle, obviously proud of it, and stepped aside to give us a better view. I noted the plates were from California. “I got a good buy on it a couple months ago. Mary Beth liked Corvettes.”

  “And you didn’t mind that she was romantically involved with Tom?”

  “Mary Beth was a big girl. I didn’t tell her what to do. I just wanted to get back together with her.”

  He sounded defensive, but what this said to me was that he was willing to have Mary Beth waltz around with some other guy as long as he stood to benefit. A real nice guy.

  “Mary Beth, through Trafalgar, was advising people about investing money in some get-rich-quick scheme. Did she have a scam like that going down in California too?”

  “She sold real estate down there. She picked up some extra bucks with the channeling, that’s all. It’s harmless. People even got some good out of it.”

  Okay, even if property-values-conscious Danielle didn’t like it, I was calling Detective Molino. I still had his card with his personal cell phone number on it in my purse. He’d given it to me the first time we’d encountered each other on a murder. I stuck the purse in front of the headlights so I could see to rummage through the contents. Purse organization is not one of my talents.

  “Look, another reason I was in the house was because I was hoping I could find something that would point to who killed Mary Beth. I want whoever killed her brought to justice.”