by Lee Driver
“She’s beautiful. Almost looks like a model.”
“She was. A thousand dollars an hour is what she earned. That face graced the cover of many a fashion magazine. I’m surprised you hadn’t heard of the great Rachel. She used only her first name. Her full name was Rachel Liddie, rhymes with tittie.” Nick grinned again and gave Sara’s shoulder a squeeze, stroking her skin with his fingers.
Sara stared at his roaming fingers. “Could you practice your drumbeat elsewhere?”
Nick removed his arm from her shoulder. “Sorry about that.” He turned his attention to the individual portrait of Rachel. “If you ask me, she could have done a lot better than my old man. But, hell, when you’re after money, you shoot for the moon. Right?”
Sara looked over her shoulder toward the stairway, down to the ballroom. “Where is your stepmother? It would be nice to meet the host and hostess.”
“It’s really quite pitiful.” Nick stifled a drunken laugh. “Stepmumzey is dead.”
CHAPTER 8
“The secret is to never use a lighter, always a wooden match.” Leyton Monroe blew out the match and held his cigar out. “And never puff on it to get it going.”
“It helps to smoke only cigars that cost fifty dollars or more,” Dagger added dryly.
Leyton filled out the entire width of the wing-backed chair. A basket of silk flowers sat inside a nearby fireplace. The room had a feminine touch to it in its pastel colors and antique roll-top desk. Dagger had declined the offer of a cigar.
“You know that damn wedding was going to cost me a hundred thousand dollars.” Leyton finally took a slow puff on his cigar, closing his eyes and savoring the taste. When he opened his eyes, he looked at Dagger and smiled. “Good thing I put a clause in the contract that I could cancel up to twenty-four hours beforehand. I knew that wedding wasn’t going to take place.”
Dagger settled back in his chair and crossed his right ankle over his left knee. He felt a little too old to be lectured to, especially by the likes of Leyton Monroe, who had made his money by crafty legal maneuvers.
“Well then, I guess we both got what we wanted,” Dagger said.
“My daughter deserves better than you—a private dick who lasted six months in the marines, two years in college, and was kicked out of the police academy. Your father was a two-bit hustler who lived at the race track and died crossing a street, too greedy with his winnings to see a semi big as life barreling down on him.”
Dagger’s eyes challenged him. “You two are a lot alike. You just do your hustling behind people’s backs. They never see you or your high-priced lawyers coming.”
If he was ruffled, Leyton didn’t show it. It didn’t surprise Dagger that Leyton had checked him out. Dagger would have been surprised if he hadn’t.
“See, I know my daughter pretty well. You’ll never make the kind of money that would keep Sheila in tennis bracelets and Gucci pumps.” Leyton paused to take a sip of his brandy. “She likes to push my buttons, always has. Had her navel pierced when she was sixteen. Went to her high school prom with a Hell’s Angels wannabe. Dropped out of college her first year because she didn’t like the weather in New York. She wanted to go to college in Hawaii. My daughter is not marriage material.”
“Finally, we agree on something.” Dagger shifted in his seat and played with the earring in his left ear.
Leyton took another long drag and blew the smoke out slowly toward the ceiling light. His cheeks reddened as though exhaling was too strenuous. “Sheila does not want to be strapped down by kids or a stove. She’d be hiring nannies and having meals catered. Now, what I like about you is you also aren’t marriage material. The only reason she wants you is because she knows I don’t approve. So if she holds a torch for you, she’ll never have the chance to meet Mr. Right, who just might lure her to that little cottage with the picket fence.”
Dagger was finally getting the picture. “So as long as she’s pining for me, she’ll always be right where you want her.”
“Now you’re getting it.” The broad smile brought his plump cheeks close to kissing his eyeballs. “She’ll stay at the newspaper and take over when I retire, keep it in the family. She’s my only child, so who else do I have to follow in my footsteps?” Leyton’s eyes twinkled. They were like two college roommates joined by a masterful plan, co-conspirators.
Fat chance, Dagger thought.
Leyton reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. “You should find this quite adequate. If anything, you should be able to replace that shit-can you call a car.”
Dagger’s blood pressure hit boiling point as he stared at the check made out to him for two hundred thousand dollars. He glared at Leyton as he slowly folded it in half.
“Not enough?” Leyton’s eyes mocked him.
What Leyton didn’t know was that money didn’t matter to Dagger. Leyton thought money mattered to everyone, that everyone had a price.
“Exactly what am I supposed to do for this money?”
Leyton gave a nod of his head as if perturbed he had to spell it out. “Do what you do best…keep stringing her along.”
CHAPTER 9
“You seem shocked, Sara.” Nick took a long swallow of champagne and emptied his glass.
“It’s just that she was so young. For your father to have lost two wives is such a pity. When did she die?”
“About five years ago.”
Sara tried to hide her surprise. Five years ago. Then who was it that was murdered? “How did she die?”
Nick set their glasses on a narrow table under a trophy case and leaned against the wall. He seemed to have to think hard for an answer and she wondered if the champagne was the culprit. “Rachel went out sailing one night. Got a little too tipsy and...” Nick motioned with his hands as if diving.
“Was she alone?”
“No. It was a sixty-footer with a two-man crew. They ran out of wind and out of gas. Drifted for hours.”
“Did anyone see her fall overboard?”
Nick raised his eyebrows. “My, you are full of questions.”
“Sorry. I’m just naturally curious, I guess. Someone that young and your father that rich, people might think he would be a suspect.”
“It would be the other way around, really. If it was my father who fell overboard and my stepmom who got his money, then it might draw suspicion to my stepmom.”
“I take it they found her body.”
Nick shook his head. “Never did.”
“What do you want, Sheila? You usually cozy up to me only when you want something.” Worm maneuvered Sheila around the dance floor to a brass band tune.
“You’ve always wanted a big assignment. Now you’ve got one. I want you to find out everything you can about Sara Morningsky.”
Worm laughed. “Why thank you, boss lady. That should win me a Pulitzer.”
Sheila pressed her body closer to Worm, letting her lips touch his ear. “Just think, you can ask her out on a few dates, get her talking, a little dinner, a few drinks, loose lips sink ships.”
Worm pulled away from Sheila, digested what she said, then smiled.
“Is he asleep?” Sara asked as she sat down on the black leather sofa.
Dagger turned away from the aviary, making sure the padlock was secured. It hadn’t taken long for Einstein to figure out how to slide open the grated door to the aviary. Having a fondness for chewing, he would leave gnaw marks on furniture when they weren’t around to police him.
“Yes, he’s asleep.” He eyed her yellow jogging suit. “You didn’t waste any time getting out of those panty hose.”
“They were sheer torture.”
Dagger stripped out of his tuxedo jacket and sat down. He pulled the check from his pocket and handed it to Sara.
“That would be tempting to a lot of people,” she said. “He probably thinks that rusty Ford is all you drive. He hasn’t seen the van or the other cars in the garage?”
“No, and neither has Sheila. I save the
m for surveillance purposes.” He took the check back and tossed it on the table in disgust. Leaning against the cushions, Dagger stretched his legs across the coffee table, hands clasped across his chest. There was many a night he fell asleep in this position. “The absolute gall of that man. To think he could buy someone.”
“And you want him to think he has?”
Dagger nodded. “Until I figure out exactly what I can do with the check that would do him the most harm.”
Sara wanted to ask him if that meant he would continue to date Sheila. Instead, she hugged her knees to her chest and changed the subject.
“Nick invited me to his birthday party tomorrow.”
“See, tonight wasn’t so bad after all, was it?”
“No. Once I focused my attention on the mystery of Rachel’s disappearance, I forgot all about my nervousness.”
“Oh yes. Rachel.”
“It was her, Dagger. I’m sure of it.”
“Okay,” Dagger conceded. “We’ll go together. Sheila invited me and I told her I would meet her there. This could be good. We should be able to find out more about Rachel.”
Sara picked up a pad of paper and jotted down notes. “We should check to see if Robert Tyler had Rachel sign a pre-nuptial agreement and what effect her death had on anyone’s inheritance.”
“Good idea.” Dagger stripped out of his shirt and walked to his bedroom to change clothes.
Sara tried not to stare at Dagger’s firm, tanned torso. His arms were muscular, his stomach flat. She didn’t understand the strange feelings that came over her whenever she saw him.
Dagger returned wearing loose-fitting cotton drawstring pants and pullover shirt. He pulled the rubber band from his hair and rubbed his scalp with his fingers. There was a slight curl to his hair resembling a relaxed permanent.
He sat down next to Sara and plopped his legs back on the oak coffee table. “Add another note to check the police report on Rachel’s death. Maybe some of the crew members are still around.”
“Then we need to find out where everyone was that night.”
“You can pick Nick’s brain on that one,” Dagger said. “Sheila might have some information, too. The Tylers were like a second family to her. I think their fathers went to high school and college together.”
“Do you think Sheila dated any of them?”
Dagger shrugged. “Never asked. Guess it’s possible.”
Dagger removed the lid from a painted box and lifted out the earring they had found at the townhouse. He rolled the piece of jewelry around between two fingers and watched how the light reflected off the small diamonds circling the larger stone. “This is very well made. I think I should bait them by mentioning I have a new client who found it at the Dunes Resort.”
“Yes, we took care of the problem. When can we meet?” The hotel suite was spacious with bulky furniture in conservative brown and gray tones. The man with the phone pressed to his ear looked like a furniture mover or nightclub bouncer. His biceps were the size of a normal man’s thigh. Dark, curly hair hugged his large head and his eyes turned down at the corners. He had a deceiving choir-boy look to his face. “Why so late?” He asked. He turned to the two men seated on the couch as he hung up the phone. “We’ll get the rest of our money tomorrow night.”
“I don’t like it, Luke. We should have been paid in full the minute we iced the lady.” Mince dragged one leg over an armrest of the couch, the laces of his untied tennis shoes dangling. His balding head made him appear older and his pudge face was marred with enough bumps and craters to resemble a misshapen bag of flour.
Sections of the newspaper were scattered around the couch and coffee table. The men looked as out of place in a four-star hotel suite as a homeless man at Buckingham Palace.
“Nobody pays in full. You get half before and the balance after the job. That’s what we agreed to.” Luke gathered up the papers and stacked them on the table. “You guys are absolute slobs.”
“We should up the ante,” Joey added, pacing as he chugged a can of beer. His eyes seemed too close together, his nose too pointed and slim, like the rest of his body. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
“We’re lucky we’re being paid anything. You two fucked up. You weren’t supposed to kill her.”
“Hey,” Mince yelled, pointing a finger. “Nobody gave us a Plan B. She was trying to escape. How many times do I have to say it?”
Joey argued, “You weren’t there, Luke. I know we were supposed to keep her alive. But what did you want? A woman on the loose or a dead woman?”
“At least you got rid of the body.” Luke crumpled his beer can with one hand.
Mince and Joey exchanged glances.
CHAPTER 10
Sara was up early Saturday morning making blueberry scones. After placing the pan in the oven, she went looking for Dagger.
She cautiously peered into Dagger’s bedroom, a room she still didn’t feel comfortable entering. It was the only other part of the house she considered his private domain. After all, he was paying rent and deserved some privacy.
Sunlight sprayed in through the blinds. A variety of floral aromas seeped into the room through the opened windows. In the distance, the wildflowers transformed the backyard into a botanical garden.
Dagger carried his taste in black and gray into his décor. A king-sized bed and wall unit in a black lacquer finish occupied one side of the room with a matching dresser and entertainment center. The room was almost as large as the aviary but without the high ceiling. Dagger had his own bathroom and walk-in closet.
A geometric-patterned bedspread in black and gray hues accented the gray wall-to-wall carpeting. Dagger had transformed the opposite side of the room into a mini-gym with a treadmill, exercise bike, weight machine, and mirrored walls. One section of the mirrored wall was ajar. It was a hidden door to Dagger’s secret room, accessible only by a code.
Dagger called out, “In here, Sara.” He had created this windowless room to house a variety of toys. A long-range semi-automatic rifle hung on a wall next to handguns, night scopes, night-vision goggles, wiretapping equipment, bulletproof vests, a Ruger police carbine, and numerous other items purchased, traded, confiscated, and retrieved by honest and sometimes not-so-honest techniques. Bright high-intensity lights no larger than inverted cone cups hung from the ceiling.
“Do you know a Sergeant Jerry Martinez?”
Dagger thumbed through boxes of printer paper as he mumbled, “Yes. Padre Martinez is bringing us a copy of the original missing person report on Rachel Tyler. Is he here?”
“Yes. He’s coming up the drive.”
“Did I hear the phone ring?”
“Sal Wormley called.”
Dagger looked up from the supply drawer. “Let me guess. He wants to take you to lunch or dinner.”
Sara chewed on her bottom lip. “Not a good idea?”
“Not HIS idea. Sounds like Sheila has him on a fact-finding expedition.” Dagger shoved a filing drawer shut with one knee.
Sara stepped closer. “What is that?”
“Remember that check from Leyton Monroe?” He held up several sheets of blank paper and the check. “Pretty good match, don’t you think?”
He had a devilish twinkle in his eye that had taken Sara very little time to recognize. He thoroughly enjoyed his work and especially liked those times he could be creative. And right now his creative juices were on overload.
The paper was identical in color to Leyton Monroe’s check. It was light blue with tiny threads running through it like the threads found in currency paper.
Sara stood close enough to smell his aftershave, subtle, woodsy. He didn’t shave daily. It seemed useless because no sooner did he shave then his face looked as if it had been dusted with tiny grains of black dirt. When she leaned forward, her hair drifted over her shoulder, cascading down to her waist. She flipped it back over her shoulder but it stubbornly refused to obey.
Beneath Dagger’s open-collared
shirt she could see the black leather cord necklace that had once belonged to her grandmother. A sterling silver charm in the shape of a wolf’s head hung from the cord. Its eyes were made of turquoise stones. He had found it strange that Ada Kills Bull had placed the necklace and a note to him in her jewelry box. It was as though Ada knew she was going to die.
Dagger held the sample paper in one hand, the check in the other. “What do you think? We do a little clip art to duplicate the border and typestyle and scan in his signature. Voila. We have signed checks from Leyton Monroe.”
Sara smiled slowly. “And what do you plan to do with blank checks, forged, I might add?” She fingered the cuffed edge of her denim shorts and stood with one foot snaked around her ankle as if in a bizarre yoga position.
“I’m not sure yet, but think of the possibilities.”
The front door knocker banged three times. In the background they heard Einstein shriek, “COMPANY, SQUAARK. COME IN.”
They exited the secret room and Dagger closed the mirrored wall.
Sergeant Martinez wasted no time shedding his frayed sportscoat revealing his shoulder holster. He was shorter than Dagger and stocky, with a forehead made larger by his receding gray hairline. A fresh scar on his left cheek was starting to heal.
Dagger said, “I hope the other guy looks worse.”
Padre stroked his scar. “Let’s just say he won’t be resisting arrest again.”
Dagger introduced Sara to Padre just as a blur of color flew past them.
Einstein clamped his claws onto the perch by Dagger’s desk. The macaw had been trained to only use the catwalk railing or the perches. Other than the ones in the aviary, there was one bolted to the back of the sofa and one attached to the paneled wall by Dagger’s desk. “AWK, UP AGAINST THE WALL AND SPREAD ‘UM. AWWWKK.”
They all laughed. Padre said, “You still around, Einstein?”