Tiger's Eye (A Stacy Justice Mystery Book Three)

by Barbra Annino

  Except I knew now what had happened with my mother and where she was. Lolly didn’t have that luxury.

  I asked, “So the dress, the bouquet?”

  Fiona nodded. “We prepare for the occasion every year, just us three, in private.”

  “And Lolly?”

  My great-aunt thought for a moment. “Your aunt Lolly has always been a bit scatterbrained. Mother used to say she was ‘away with the fairies.’ When Jack never showed up, Lolly did not believe it was by choice but rather some other…force that kept him away.” She twirled a lock of hair that had sprung free from a bobby pin. She looked at me as she explained, “She waited for him. Hours turned into days, days grew into weeks, and before we knew it a year had passed. And, well,” Fiona sighed, “she simply wasn’t ever quite the same.”

  “Her heart was broken,” I said hoarsely.

  Fiona smiled. “No, my dear. That’s just it. Her heart refused to break. So her mind bore the burden of the wound.”

  I was still processing that when Lolly and Birdie came down the stairs. Fiona rose to block me from the bride’s view.

  “Almost ready,” Birdie said. Fiona nodded and said, “Be right there.”

  I watched the eldest Geraghty Girl float out the back door in a worn wedding gown, her youngest sister escorting her train and I thought it was the saddest thing I had ever witnessed.

  “Stacy, dear, I need to go, but you can take this with you.” She opened up the kitchen catchall drawer and pulled out a notebook. “I wrote down everything from my session with Keesha. Hopefully it’s enough to help you find the poor girl’s family. She’s quite distressed.”

  She pulled out two small bouquets of lavender from the refrigerator and fluffed the herbs. “You call me if you have any questions, all right, dear?” She kissed me and hustled out the back door, allowing it to bang shut.

  I watched through the screen as Fiona handed the second bouquet to Birdie before filing in line behind her.

  The picture was surreal. The three of them stood there waiting for a wedding that was supposed to take place nearly half a century ago—a wedding they prepared for every year despite knowing it would not happen. It made my heart ache for Aunt Lolly.

  I vowed in that moment that no matter what, I would find out what happened to Jack.

  For the briefest moment, Birdie met my eyes.

  Chapter 11

  “Dogs are better than human beings because they know but do not tell.”

  —Emily Dickinson

  The parlor was empty as I made my way to the entrance door. Outside, Thor was rolling around on the front lawn, kicking his legs in the air and barking at nothing.

  Ah, to be a dog.

  “Come on, Thor.”

  We hopped back in the car and I swung around to my driveway and parked there. I gathered the notebook, the dog, and my bag and we headed inside. Thor immediately curled up on the sofa and I turned the portable air-conditioner on high, grabbed a pair of white shorts and a red tank top, and hit the shower.

  It was after one when I finished getting dressed. I twisted my damp hair into a clip, grabbed my amethyst necklace, and tossed the dirty lake towels, my suit, and cover-up in the wash. I was still full from breakfast and Thor was satiated for the time being so I slathered on some sunscreen, slipped into flip-flops, grabbed Fiona’s notebook, and headed outside.

  Partial shade covered the wicker settee on the porch. Only my legs, which were propped on the railing, were exposed to the sunlight as I opened the cover.

  Fiona’s normal handwriting was a work of art, the letters beautifully curved and so eloquently designed it looked like a computer font designed specifically for wedding invitations.

  A chicken on meth could have scratched out her “session” script. It was hastily scribbled with no paragraphs, no punctuation, and no spaces. Just words incoherently lumped together.

  I was able to decipher these on the first page:

  Keesha

  Pretty

  Girl

  Smart

  Help

  Teach

  Show

  I thought for a minute. Show. Teach. Was she an acting dog? I didn’t own a television so I wasn’t up on the latest programs. Perhaps for a children’s show where she would teach the kids…what?

  Or was she perhaps a show dog? An agility performance dog? I wasn’t aware of any competitive dog shows in the area, but I made a note to look into that possibility.

  On the next page, I found:

  Fun

  Car

  Lady

  There was a lady she had known. Her owner? A vet? Trainer? Groomer?

  The third page said only:

  Bad

  Man

  Sad

  The final page was a jumble of words branching out around one:

  Thor

  It wasn’t his name so much that disturbed me as the words around it: Good, Boy, Nice, Like, Play, Friend, Brave.

  Uh-oh.

  I shut the notebook and leaned my head back. I didn’t realize Fiona’s ability was stilted. I thought I would be reading this dog’s whole life story, not just random thoughts. But maybe Fiona knew the whole story and she just scribbled these notes down. I walked around to the side of the cottage where I could see the back garden.

  They were still in formation. Waiting for a phantom groom.

  Through the open window, Thor yawned loudly as he jumped off the couch. He nudged the door open with his snout, lumbered onto the porch, and stretched deeply.

  I sat back on the settee and he greeted me by sniffing the back of my neck like it was a turkey leg. Truth be told, it was a bit refreshing in this heat.

  I twisted to face him and said, “Please do not encourage Keesha. She seems to have a crush on you.”

  The reasonable side of me was well aware that responsible pet owners spayed and neutered their animals, but Thor, as my familiar, was different. And since he’d come to me with all his parts fully functional, I thought it best not to alter the original design.

  Besides, what if all his magic was stored in the luggage compartment?

  We were nose to nose and he gave me his most meaningful look and sneezed in my face, covering me with dirt and sand.

  I popped up. “Agh! That’s disgusting.”

  I dashed inside to rinse off the mucus and put the notebook on my desk. When I came back outside, Thor’s tail was thumping against the porch boards and Leo was walking up the driveway. He was wearing the same faded jeans he had on earlier, accompanied by a white polo shirt with an Amethyst PD logo in the corner. Standard cop shades hid his eyes.

  “Hey, Chief,” I said.

  As soon as my voice hit the wind, I heard the high-pitched yap of my nemesis.

  “Geez, you brought Cujo?”

  Thor’s ears perked up at the noise and he sidled over to me, leaned against my hip. He cocked his head, trying to decipher where the sound was coming from.

  Leo said, “He’s in the car with the air-conditioner running, so don’t worry. Thought it best not to take a chance with your bodyguard on duty.”

  “Not to mention it could get confusing with them sharing a name. I mean, how would we tell them apart?”

  “I changed his name, smart-ass.”

  “To what? Odin? Zeus? Hercules?”

  “Scrappy.”

  I made a face.

  “What? It was your suggestion. Besides, he is scrappy.”

  I held up my hands. “Hey, it’s none of my business. I can’t believe you didn’t find his family, though. Someone must be wondering where he is. He looked well taken care of.”

  “Gus has been working on it, but so far no luck.”

  “So what brings you by?”

  Leo held up a plastic bag with a tooth-marked cell phone sealed inside.

  I asked, “Do you know who he is—I mean was?”

  “Not yet, but I do know he hasn’t been down there that long. I also know who he was looking for.”

  I perc
hed forward. “Who?” If I could get an answer, perhaps I could return the watch to whoever it was meant for and put his soul to rest.

  “You.”

  I could feel the blood drain from my face as my body went cold. Friday’s phone call replayed in my mind.

  “Stacy Justice?”

  “Speaking.”

  “Stacy Justice the second, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “I just thought you should know that I have the tapes.”

  “What tapes?” I asked.

  The man on the phone swore softly. “You haven’t gone through his files yet, have you?”

  “Whose files? What you are talking about?”

  “It wasn’t an accident,” the man said.

  “Who is this?”

  “Your father was murdered.”

  Leo’s voice burst through my thoughts. “Stacy. Stace? Are you okay?”

  I wanted to pass out, collapse into a chair, scream—anything but stand here and pretend as if my world had not just spun out of control. But I couldn’t. Leo couldn’t know until I knew the whole truth.

  I took a deep breath, told myself to get a grip, that it still might have been a prank. Leo was watching, waiting for a response, and I had to give him one.

  “Sorry. It’s just the heat. Let’s go inside.”

  Leo followed me to the kitchen and I grabbed us each a bottled water. Thor came in too and heaved himself in front of the air-conditioner.

  “So, he tried to call me?” I asked after taking a huge gulp.

  “Not your private line, your work line. It’s a burner phone, can’t be traced. Your work number was the only number he dialed. Did you get any phone calls on Friday that were out of the ordinary?”

  “Nope,” I lied, averting my eyes.

  Leo studied me for a moment. “Are you sure? Nothing that might seem even remotely related to the body we fished out of the lake? Around noon?”

  I gave my best performance of trying to search my mind for information.

  “Nothing rings a bell.”

  “Interesting.” He uncapped his water and sipped it slowly. “The body that you reported, the one that”—he used air quotes here—“Thor drudged up, nothing connects you to it at all?”

  “What’s with the air quotes? You don’t believe me?” I narrowed my eyes at him.

  “Cut the bull, Stacy. The guy had a cement block attached to his ankle and that lake is about forty feet deep. There was no boat floating on the water, which means he didn’t tie it to his own foot.”

  No boat. Of course it wasn’t suicide. “A cement block? Is that on the record? Can I print that?”

  Leo sighed, drank the rest of his water, and grabbed his sunglasses. I could feel frustration rolling off him in waves as he approached the door, but there was no way I could tell him how I had actually discovered the body. You see, Leo, it was like this. The dude dragged me down into the depths of the lake à la Friday the Thirteenth Part One, and now I’m bound by a soggy oath to put his soul to rest.

  Yeah, that would not go over well.

  And perhaps telling him about the phone call would have been the right move, but there was something I had to do first.

  Leo paused at the door and said, “Please call me if you remember anything. Even if you suspect something or get a feeling about something or…whatever, please just let me know.” He turned back to me. “The information this guy was going to relay to you may have gotten him killed. If that’s the case, then you might be in someone’s crosshairs. Be careful.”

  Then he left.

  I stared through the screen, watching him walk down the pathway toward his vehicle.

  He was right, I knew. And as soon as I took care of one thing, I would tell him everything. The phone call, the watch, Dad—everything.

  Leo’s car motored away, the white tiger sprawled across the roof.

  Yep, he would hear all about it since I might need his help anyway.

  And someone else might need it too.

  Because if I found out my father was murdered, Heaven wouldn’t be able to save the son of a bitch responsible.

  Chapter 12

  “I was a dog in a past life. Really. I’ll be walking down the street and dogs will do a sort of double take. Like, Hey, I know him.”

  —William H. Macy

  So much for my relaxing weekend. I had a collie who needed to find her way home, a dead guy who needed peace, a musician who may or may not know something about said dead guy, a groom missing for half a century, and oh yeah—the little matter of lost tapes and my father’s possible homicide.

  Lazy days of summer these were not.

  I changed into jeans and sneakers and tucked my hair into a Cubs hat. Next I called Cinnamon, hoping she could accompany me on what I was about to do.

  Tony answered the phone. “That game really wore her out and she’s expecting a big crowd tonight so she’s catching a nap before work. You want me to leave her a message?”

  “No, that’s fine. I’ll catch up with her later.”

  I was about to hang up when I decided Tony might be able to save me some legwork. “Hey, Tony, is your auto body shop the only one that tows in this area?”

  “For seventy years. Why?”

  “Just following a lead. And all the cars that are abandoned go to the Junkyard Graveyard off White Hope Road, right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  I texted Derek. Road trip?

  He texted back. Heard about the body on my scanner. Pick me up?

  Wear grubby.

  Always do when I’m with you.

  Thor was snoring like a hibernating bear. I decided to let him sleep. I went into the bedroom and grabbed my workbag from the closet. I always kept a pad of paper, pens, and a recorder in there and I figured I might need ’em on this trip.

  My eyes traipsed over the Blessed Book and I hesitated.

  Could there be some prediction in there about Lolly’s Jack? Surely Birdie and Fiona would have scoured it from cover to cover by now, but was there something they missed? A message of warning that he was in danger, perhaps? Or a clue that hinted he wasn’t the man for Lolly?

  I set the bag aside and scooted across the carpet, reaching for the book. When I touched it, an electric shock jolted my finger.

  “Ouch.” I shook my hand out and left the book where it was.

  There was no time for looking into that right now, I decided. Lolly had waited forty-nine years; surely she could wait a little while longer.

  I closed the closet door, hoisted the bag over my shoulder, grabbed my keys, and walked outside.

  The newscaster on the car radio said it would be a high of eighty-two degrees today, but it felt more like a hundred and two when I pulled up to Derek’s apartment.

  He hopped inside and said, “Damn, it’s cooking out there.” He pointed the passenger vent at his face, soaking up the cool air.

  “Where’s your camera?”

  He grinned and reached inside his shirt pocket. He pulled out a pair of sunglasses and put them on, looking straight ahead.

  “Thanks for the fashion show, Derek, but I need your camera. The camera on my phone sucks.”

  He turned his head to face me, his movements robotic, and tapped a finger to the edge of his sunglasses. He pulled them down, slowly, and flashed his brown eyes at me, wiggling his eyebrows.

  “You’re beginning to annoy me,” I said.

  “I just took your picture.”

  “What do you mean, you just took my picture?”

  He tipped his head so that his right eye was angled at my ear. “Now I’m recording your cleavage.”

  I smacked his shoulder.

  “Yo, easy, woman!”

  “Quit messing around, will you?”

  “I’m not.” Derek removed his sunglasses and said, “The latest addition to my collection.” He tilted them toward me as he spoke, pointing to the right arm of the sunglasses. “This is the video/au
dio camera and this”—he shifted the shades and pointed to the left arm—“is the still camera.”

  He slipped the sunglasses back on and grinned at me. “Admit it, you think it’s badass.”

  I have to say, I was impressed. “Totally badass, dude.”

  He faced forward again, crossed his arms over his Abercrombie & Fitch T-shirt, and said, “Fo’ shizzle.”

  I paused, put the car in reverse, and said, “This better be a phase, Snoop Dogg.”

  The Junkyard Graveyard, about ten miles outside of town, was where automobiles, motorcycles, boats, RVs, and even large appliances went to die. It was one of those places that takes on a life of its own in a small community. That is to say, it became an urban legend of sorts so teenagers often dared each other to hike through the grounds at midnight, or camp out in the adjacent woods, or—the greatest challenge of all—knock on the trailer of its owner, Mr. Scoog.

  I had never succumbed to the legend myself. Growing up in the Geraghty house was kind of a living myth in its own right, but the rumors were that Mr. Scoog was a beastly man with a hook for a hand, a glass eye he liked to hurl at people, and a pet falcon that would rip your ears off if you got too close to the property.

  I believed all that as much as I believed in the Easter bunny.

  It felt like I had driven too far, but then I saw the sign for the street leading to the Graveyard.

  “Finally,” I said, slowing the car.

  Derek leaned forward and took his sunglasses off. “You’re messing with me, right?”

  I glanced at him quickly, not daring to take my eyes off this unfamiliar road for too long. “What do you mean?”

  “Devil’s Ladder Road? Where the hell are we going?” He squirmed a little in his seat. “No pun intended.”

  “We’re checking out an accident vehicle.”

  “Why? I thought the stiff was a floater. I didn’t hear anything about a car accident.”

  “Give me a minute.” I leaned closer to the windshield, looking for some indication that I was where I needed to be.

  We passed a sign that read: NO TRESPASSERS! Just after that, the paved road broke up, and we found ourselves meandering along a rocky dirt path flanked by overgrown weeds and low-hanging tree branches that scraped the car. It was an eerie sound. Like an unidentifiable animal sharpening its claws for a kill. The tree canopy grew thicker the farther along the path we moved until it eventually blocked the sun. I slowed the car down to a near crawl. There were no signs yet that we were heading in the right direction and I thought that perhaps my memory had failed me. I had never come here myself, but I could have sworn this was the way. The name of the road had been etched in my mind since I’d heard the adults whisper it around me in the aftermath of the crash that killed my father.