Eeny Meany Miny Die (Cat Sinclair Mysteries)

by Carolyn Scott

  The whole Faith thing was beginning to bother me. She was a mystery, and I hated mysteries. I liked to know what happened in the office. Call me nosy—and several people would—but I needed to find out how she'd gotten the job and how Will knew her.

  But how to do that? Neither would answer my questions. I considered more drastic action but decided that searching her bag and planting bugging devices under her desk were a little too low, even for me.

  I parked the van down the street from Slim's office and switched on the listening equipment. By late afternoon, the sun had warmed the van to boiling and I had sweat stains under my armpits. Even worse, my Hershey bars had melted. The warmth also made me drowsy, so I pushed the seat all the way back and closed my eyes. The sound of Clive's monotonous voice in my ear as he spoke to a colleague lulled me to sleep.

  ***

  Determined not to spend another day sweating it out in an unmarked van listening to Clive's moronic conversations, I decided to check in with Will via phone the next morning instead of in person. Fortunately it just happened to be when he had a regular meeting with one of our clients and his cell was switched off.

  "I've got a debriefing with Jenny," I said to his message bank. "I'll be back in the office later."

  It wasn't really a lie. I would be seeing Jenny, except I probably wouldn't get to speak to her, since she'd be on stage surrounded by hundreds of excited three-year-olds.

  I arrived at the concert hall and stood at the back behind two little girls wearing matching pink dresses with cartoon images of Play Group on the front. The real foursome jumped around on stage and smiled down at their enthralled audience, who grooved and sang along to the songs. I'd been to rock concerts before, but nothing compared to the adoration these kids had for their idols. It was a miniature mosh pit.

  "Getting clucky?" a dark voice whispered in my ear.

  I spun round and nearly fell backward from shock. "Scarface! What are you doing here?"

  I hadn't seen the mysterious, one-eyed cop since Carl Fortune's arrest a couple weeks ago. I was used to seeing him in jeans and old T-shirts, but he wore a suit and tie with the top button of his shirt undone and the tie skewed to the left. I resisted the urge to straighten it. Scarface wasn't the sort of man you straightened things for.

  He still had longish hair that for once was tied back, making the scar across his eye stand out more. He looked as good—and as creepy—as ever, but I was a taken woman now so the sexual energy he exuded didn't affect me at all. Not one bit. Nuh-uh.

  "I thought you'd fallen off the face of the Earth," I said.

  "I've been buried in work." His one good eye skimmed down my body, and I felt self-conscious in my tight tank and knee-length skirt.

  "Decided to catch a show in your spare time?"

  The corner of his mouth lifted in a trademark Scarface smile. "They're not my first choice of entertainment, but I like the outfits." He glanced at the stage. "Especially on the brunette. When she bends over like that—"

  "Okay." I held up my hands. "Enough. Jenny's got the goods, but that doesn't mean—"

  "You know her?"

  I nodded. "We were both desperate wannabes in L.A. together. She made it. We've been catching up while she's in town, and she invited me to come see their act. So what are you doing here? Work or pleasure?"

  "Work, although I'm getting a lot of pleasure right now." He crossed his arms as Jenny bent to pick up a ball on the floor then tossed it to Corey who caught it as he sang.

  Men! "You mean you're working undercover? Or have you quit the force and become an usher?"

  "Not undercover these days. Homicide."

  "There's been a murder here?" I glanced at all the happy faces around me. It must have been hushed up if no one was aware of it. "One of the staff?"

  "Frank Karvea, the manager of Play Group."

  CHAPTER 5

  "Fuck." I said it too loudly and a few mothers turned and glared daggers at me. "He can't be dead." I looked at the group on stage. All four were dressed like fairies and singing with bright smiles on their faces. "Do they know yet?"

  "Angel Karvea called it in early this morning, so yeah, they know," Scarface said. "She insisted the show go on. Said the kids were counting on them."

  "She's dedicated," I said.

  "Or cold."

  I shook my head. "She's really nice. I've met her. She's had a lot to contend with. Frank wasn't exactly husband of the year."

  "Nice people can commit murder, Cat."

  Didn't I know it.

  "So you've met the group?" he asked. I nodded. "In that case, maybe you can help us out. We want an objective view of the four—"

  "You don't suspect any of them, do you? Surely it was a random attack or something." The thought that any of Play Group had committed murder was beyond comprehension. They all seemed so sweet and innocent. Like their audience, only taller.

  "Maybe you should come with me."

  I followed him outside to the foyer, and that's when I saw the cops covering the entrances. I hadn't noticed them earlier. It seemed they really did suspect someone from the group. Someone I'd had dinner with only a couple nights before. Then I remembered what I'd seen and heard during and after dinner.

  "You still with Knight?" he asked me as we left the concert hall.

  Outside, I had to almost run to keep up with his long strides. "Yes. He's teaching me to be a P.I."

  He snorted. "I bet he is."

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "Knight is a control freak, especially where you're concerned. I bet he's got you working surveillance on a dead-end case that'll keep you safely out of harm's way."

  Damn. "Actually, I'm here working too."

  "I thought you were meeting up with your friend."

  "She's our client. I can't say more than that. It's confidential." More to the point, I didn't want to implicate Jenny in Frank's death. Admitting he was the cause of her financial troubles was giving the police a license to interrogate her. Jenny wasn't capable of something like murder. She just wasn't smart enough to get away with it.

  "So where are we going?"

  "The hotel. That's where the body was found. We've set up a room to question the cast and crew after the show."

  "You want to interview me before they get there? Can't we do it over coffee instead? Seems a little formal to do it in the interview room."

  "Scared I'll get you to confess all your secrets?"

  "I don't have any secrets."

  "All women have secrets."

  I wasn't going to get out of it. Fine with me. I had a few questions of my own to ask. "How'd he die?"

  "Stabbed several times in the chest and stomach. Very messy."

  "What sort of murder isn't?"

  He shrugged. "Drowning, suffocation doesn't leave much—"

  "Okay, I don't need to know the finer details."

  He chuckled and put his arm around me. "If you want to work in this business then you need a tougher skin, Kitten."

  I leaned into his body. It was hard and hot beneath his shirt, the ripple of muscle a promise of what lay within reach. "I do boring surveillance work, remember?"

  "Seems to me your second case will be your second murder, Cat. For some reason, you attract crazy despots."

  I looked at him. "You're not a despot, and only partly crazy."

  He grinned and squeezed my shoulder. "That's what I've missed about you. Brutal honesty."

  Yeah, right. Honesty wasn't one of my strong suits, and Scarface knew it. He'd been present when I'd lied my way into and out of several sticky situations.

  The hotel bustled with cops and crime scene investigators when we arrived. Scarface took me straight up to the room commandeered for interviewing. I had to wait while technicians finished setting up the recording equipment. Just before we started, Detective Stankovic entered. He grunted when he saw me. No "hi, how've you been," not even a nod. When we'd first met, I'd told him I was a private eye when in fact I was sti
ll only an office manager. Apparently he still held my little falsehood against me.

  Despite the air conditioning in the hotel, Stankovic sweated like a marathon runner at the finish line. He patted his forehead with a folded handkerchief and sat down heavily in the chair opposite me. Scarface paced the room, a caged tiger if I ever saw one.

  "Can we get on with this," I said. "I need to get back to work."

  "Knight can wait," Stankovic snapped.

  "But my work can't. I'm very busy."

  Scarface raised the brow with the white scar through it, but said nothing. Finally one of the technicians gave him the all-clear with a nod. He packed up his tools and left the room.

  Scarface wasted no time in getting to the point. "Let's start with what you know about each member of Play Group. Since you're friends with Jenny Monahan, you can begin with her."

  Stankovic flipped open a notepad and poised a pen above the paper. Scarface stopped pacing but remained standing.

  "Jenny wouldn't hurt a fly," I said. "She's naïve and a bit, uh, dense between the ears, but she would never hurt anyone, let alone kill."

  "What did she employ you for?" Scarface asked.

  "I told you, it's confidential."

  "You have to tell us. We're the police."

  "So you are," I said sweetly. "That would explain the attitude. Like I said, it's confidential. I know my rights and that of my client. Frank's death has nothing to do with her employing Knight Investigations. I can call Will and ask him to explain it to you if you like."

  Scarface rolled his eye. "Spare me."

  He and Will had been friendly rivals as young cops, but that had all fallen by the wayside after a domestic dispute went wrong. Will's maverick attitude—yes, believe it or not, he'd been a rebel back in the day—had led to Scarface getting shot and losing an eye. Since then, Will had changed and become the sort of guy who avoided domestics and any other situation that called for a radical approach. He played by the book and liked everything to work his way or no way.

  Scarface didn't like the new Will. He wanted his old buddy back, the one who squeezed the answers out of suspects and entered unsecured buildings to save a life. I wasn't so sure that Will had buried his old self as completely as Scarface thought. I knew he was capable of losing that iron control. I'd seen it happen in bed—and on the kitchen bench, his desk, and once, the back yard at his place.

  "What about the other members of Play Group?" Stankovic asked. "Angel Karvea for instance. Did she get along with her husband?"

  I saw no reason to protect her. She wasn't my client. I hardly knew her. "Frank bullied her."

  "How did he bully her?" Scarface asked. "Was he abusive?"

  "Verbally, but not physically, I think." I certainly hadn't seen any bruises on her when she'd done the strip show in her room. "He liked to keep her in her place, like a child. He ordered her food, controlled her spending money, that sort of thing."

  "Lots of husbands do that," Stankovic said.

  "Not in this century."

  "Guess I'm an old-fashioned guy."

  "Dinosaur more like."

  His face got redder and his lips whiter. I leaned back, out of his zone in case something popped.

  "You're wasting our time," Stankovic said. "Get her out of here, Forde."

  "Oh?" I said, all innocent. "So you don't want to know about Corey and Angel?"

  "What about them?" he grumbled. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Scarface smirk.

  "They were playing footsies under the table."

  Stankovic shrugged. "Could mean nothing."

  "Yeah, right. Everyone rubs feet under the table when their husband sits only a few seats away."

  "That all you've got?"

  I wanted to tell him to shove his attitude and give him nothing else, but my conscience got the better of me. She's a bitch that way. "Did you find the photos of Taylor in Frank's suitcase?"

  "Maybe," Scarface said, casual.

  His guarded answer was ruined by Stankovic. "Of course we fucking did. Anything else?"

  "That's all."

  "Good. Then go."

  Scarface looked like he had more questions, but he just jerked his head toward the door. He met me there and opened it for me, but stepped in the way so I couldn't get past. "I haven't finished with you yet." His voice was a soft purr in my ear. His roughened jaw skimmed my cheek.

  "Promises, promises," I sang.

  "If I find out you've withheld something important, Cat, I definitely won't be finished with you."

  I gulped. "Gotta go. I've got work to do. Can't stand around chatting to you all day."

  He let me go, and I drove back to the office. There was no point returning to the concert hall to speak to Jenny and the others. The cops would be all over them. They wouldn't be allowed to speak to each other let alone me. I wasn't sure where it left me with Jenny's case. If I could prove her money was invested in something without her consent, then maybe she could put in a claim with Frank's beneficiaries.

  Speaking of which—who benefited financially from his death? Usually the spouse did, but Frank's ex-wife might have a claim too. It wasn't looking good for Angel. I felt bad for telling the cops about her footsie play with Corey, but Scarface would have found out eventually. He was omniscient that way.

  I parked the car outside Gina's shop and headed inside. She was with a customer, so I waited until she was free and then I dumped my bag on the counter and sighed heavily.

  "Hey, Cat," she said. "You going to kickboxing tonight?"

  "Definitely. After the day I've had, I need to punch something."

  "That good, huh?"

  "You'll never guess what's happened to me. Again."

  She narrowed her eyes. "Someone's not trying to kill you, are they?"

  "No!"

  "Rape you?"

  "Gina!"

  "Blackmail you? Run you over? Burn your place down?"

  I held up my hands for her to stop. "The man I was investigating got himself murdered."

  Her eyes bugged out. "No way! Wow, you're cursed."

  I gave her a withering look, but it had no effect on her whatsoever. She just shrugged and put her scissors back in their holder. When she looked up again, her gaze slipped past me to the door.

  "Will's here," she whispered. "Look busy." She made a show of rearranging the flowers in the vase on her counter.

  I leaned forward and whispered back. "I don't think he cares if you're slacking off."

  "You got that right," came Will's rumbling voice behind me.

  "She just got here!" Gina said. "Honest to God." She crossed herself.

  Will's brows rose up to his hairline. "Am I supposed to take you more seriously when you do that?"

  "Of course!" I said. "Gina's Catholic. You know a Catholic is telling the truth when they invoke the Lord's name and cross themselves."

  "Pity you're not Catholic." He kissed the top of my head. "How's your case going?"

  I chewed the inside of my lip. I knew I had to tell him about Frank, but after the last case I'd worked on where my target had been murdered and I'd ended up in all kinds of trouble, I knew he'd worry. A worried Will became a smothering bear and not much fun to be around.

  "Fine," I said.

  Gina cleared her throat.

  Will leaned against the counter and crossed his arms. "Really? So the newsreader on the radio got it wrong?"

  I swallowed and gave my best Pollyanna impersonation, blinking up at him through my lashes and everything. "Maybe. What'd you hear?"

  "Frank Karvea, manager of Play Group, was found dead in his hotel room early this morning." He forked a brow at me, challenging me to get out of this one. "Heard anything about it?"

  I knew when I was beaten, but that didn't mean I couldn't retain a sense of self-righteous dignity. "That's low, Will. You should have told me you already knew instead of playing these games."

  He bent down to my level. His smoldering gaze sent hot tingles through me. His unsmiling m
outh came very close to mine. "If I could trust you, I wouldn't have to play games."

  "Well, that's just—"

  He put a finger to my lips and I quieted. "Uh-uh, Cat, don't twist this around. I'm not mad. Much. I just want you to tell me what happened." He removed his finger. "Talk."

  I sighed. Time to retreat. "I don't know any more than you do. Frank was stabbed to death. The police will be interviewing the members of the group now." I didn't mention Scarface was one of the investigators. One hurdle at a time.

  "Stabbing," he said. "Wow."

  "Gross," Gina said, pulling a face.

  "Why wow?" I asked. "What's so wow about a stabbing?"

  "It's more personal than a shooting. The killer has to be up close and be able to overpower the victim. Was it frenzied?"

  "I think so. Stabbed several times is what I overheard."

  "Enough!" Gina said. "Take your negative talk out of my shop. This is supposed to be a happy place. I don't need the bad karma."

  Will and I left together and entered the Knight Investigations office. Faith looked up from her computer screen and smiled at Will. Not at me, just Will. It was like I wasn't even there.

  "Hello," I said, pointedly standing in front of her.

  Her gaze shifted back to her monitor. "Hello."

  "Any messages for me?" Will asked. "I mean 'us.' Any messages for us?"

  I flashed him a smile. He was learning. He hadn't pulled me off Jenny's case yet either, although I wouldn't put it past him.

  "No messages," Faith said. She began to type, but she was slow. Her hands shook too much and she kept hitting the wrong key and had to delete half of everything she wrote. I hadn't thought it possible, but she was a worse typist than me.

  If Will noticed, he didn't care. "My office, Cat. We need to talk about this case."

  "I'm not dropping it," I said as we walked up the narrow hallway.

  He shut the door and dodged his way around the stacks of papers and folders that formed an obstacle course across his floor. Faith hadn't made it into his office yet, and I wasn't sure she should. As chaotic as it looked, Will knew where everything was. He could put his finger on any piece of paper he needed. Maybe I should warn her to leave it alone. Offering her some advice might get her to warm to me and tell me her story.