Skye agreed. Then, at the urging of her growling stomach, she got up and opened the refrigerator. Peering inside, she asked, “Are you hungry?”
“Starving.”
“There’s not much in here,” Skye reported, “but I’ve got a pepperoni and mushroom pizza in the freezer. Is that okay with you?”
“My favorite.”
While they ate, the two women discussed their mothers, their jobs, and their cats. Skye had considered asking Spike to be a bridesmaid, but since her friend was also Simon’s half sister, it might be awkward, so she contented herself with inviting the younger woman to the wedding. She intended to ask Bunny, too, though she was undecided whether to invite Simon.
It was nearly ten when Spike left, and a few minutes later Wally walked in the door. While he finished up the leftover pizza and drank a bottle of Sam Adams, Skye jogged his memory about Spike’s story. Once he was reminded of her investigation, Skye told him about the merchandise she had seen in the storage locker.
“If the Viderville board is guilty, I hope Spike nails them,” Wally said, draining his beer. “There’s nothing more despicable than a dishonest politician.”
“Betrayal of the public trust should be a hanging offense,” Skye agreed.
While they watched the late news, Wally said, “I was thinking that since we’ve arrested Jacobsen and the case is closed, you and I should go somewhere for a weekend getaway. How does Starved Rock State Park sound? There’s the main lodge and a couple of other resorts in the area. We could do a little hiking and have some time alone.”
“Perfect.” Skye snuggled against his side and kissed his cheek. “I’ll ask Trixie to come over and feed Bingo while we’re gone.”
“I’ll call now and see if I can get a room.” Wally took out his cell.
“Wonderful.”
It took a couple of calls, but Wally eventually reported, “Check-in is at four, so we should probably leave here about noon. We can swing by my place so I can grab a few things, then stop somewhere along I-80 for lunch. Morris or Ottawa would be good.”
“That means we don’t have to set the alarm.” Skye stretched. “I’m exhausted.”
“Me, too.” Wally yawned.
Upstairs, Skye dawdled in the bathroom until she was sure Wally was asleep. She was afraid of what Mrs. Griggs might pull if they tried to make love. Crawling into bed beside him, she made a mental note to ask Father Burns about an exorcism. The ghost was ruining her love life, and it had to stop.
CHAPTER 24
Cat-o’-nine-tails
Skye and Wally slept until nine thirty the next morning. Then as they lingered over a late breakfast, she noticed something on the floor, wedged between a cupboard and the stove. Curious, she got up, walked across the kitchen, and fished it out of the crevice.
“What’s that?” Wally looked up from the newspaper as she sat back down. Since he’d begun spending the night more frequently, he’d ordered Skye a subscription to the Chicago Tribune.
“A picture that Spike had in her small-town corruption file. It’s a photograph of the Viderville city board.” Skye laid the glossy page on the table and pointed to the group portrait. “Her folder fell to the floor yesterday when she jumped up to hug me, and she must not have seen the snapshot when she picked up the other documents.”
“Oh.” He turned back to the business section. “Do you think she needs it?”
“Probably not.” Skye ran her finger over the shiny paper, smoothing the creases, then leaned closer. Hmm. Why did the mayor look familiar?
“If you’re finished eating, you’d better start getting ready.” Wally put aside the sports page and picked up the book section. “I know how long it takes you to decide what to wear, so I’m sure packing will be a lengthy process.”
“What?” Skye stared at the photograph, not listening to Wally. Before he could repeat himself, she said, “I think that Viderville’s mayor was the deejay at Bunny’s bowler disco party. Isn’t that odd?”
“Not really.” Wally shrugged. “Lots of people moonlight.”
“But he was wearing a wig and had a beard when he was at the bowling alley.” Skye fetched a black marker from her junk drawer and added a beard and DJ Wonka’s elaborate hairstyle to the picture of the bald mayor.
“He probably wears it to keep his personas separate,” Wally countered.
“I suppose that could be it.” Skye got up and cleared the table; then when another thought hit her, she froze with her hand on the faucet. “Bunny said DJ Wonka was from Chicago. I’m sure the mayor of Viderville has to live in town, so he fibbed to her about that.”
“I’ll bet he thinks people will be more likely to hire someone from the city, so he lies about where he lives.” This time Wally’s explanation didn’t sound as confident as his previous two excuses.
“True, but don’t you think if an area mayor was also a deejay, we’d have heard about it? I mean, surely the local paper would have done a story. And the Star covers news from Viderville as well as Clay Center and Brooklyn.”
“Why are you so interested in this guy?” Almost before he finished his sentence, Wally shook his head. “Let me guess—you’re still not convinced that Jacobsen is the murderer.”
“No, I’m not. Convinced, that is.” Skye crossed her arms. “He didn’t even know how she was killed. He claimed to have stabbed her.”
“I admit that has been troubling me, too,” Wally said. “But why did he confess? It certainly isn’t for the fame, which is what fuels most false confessions. No one around here seems very interested since the vic wasn’t a celebrity and wasn’t from town.”
“People with Elijah’s type of brain injury are very suggestible.” Skye pursed her lips, thinking. “Maybe somebody told him to.”
“God?” Wally quirked an eyebrow. “Seriously? You’re suggesting that God told Jacobsen to admit to a crime he didn’t commit?”
“Of course not.” Skye blew a raspberry. “But I do think we should call Bunny and see how she came to hire DJ Wonka in the first place.”
“Maybe you’re right. I haven’t been happy with the resolution of this case, but between the county prosecutor being satisfied with Jacobsen’s confession and no other leads to follow, there wasn’t much more I could do.” Wally pulled his cell phone from his pocket, and dialed. After identifying himself to Bunny, he asked, “How did you find the deejay for your bowler disco party?”
Skye strained to catch the other side of the conversation, but could hear only Wally’s responses, which consisted of, “Oh. I see. That was convenient. Uh-huh.”
When he disconnected, Wally turned to Skye with a thoughtful expression. “It seems DJ Wonka contacted Bunny and applied for the job. She says he did it for free.”
“Which together with everything else seems strange,” Skye commented. Suddenly, snippets of conversations in which she’d taken part were sliding into place like the last Legos of a complicated structure. “You know, a group of girls at the high school said that they’d heard the music sucked. That it was as if the guy had never deejayed before.”
“Well, that’s certainly interesting.” Wally stroked his chin.
“Did Bunny ask for references or question him as to why he wanted to work without pay?”
“He told her that he’d heard some of the judges were bartering their services in exchange for the chance to participate in the cat show and speed dating and he’d like the same deal.” Wally pursed his lips. “But he didn’t take part in the activities. He hung around, but he didn’t enter a cat in the show or sign up for the speed dating or attend the awards brunch.”
“Did he go to the after party at the Brown Bag?”
“No.” Wally got up. “In fact, Bunny said he didn’t socialize at all.”
“Did he have any other alibi for the time of the murder?”
“No. All the servers had alibis, but the bartender, bouncer, and deejay didn’t.” Wally paced the length of the kitchen. “Since they had no contact wi
th the vic, I didn’t think they were viable suspects, so I put them at the bottom of the list.”
“Which was reasonable at the time,” Skye assured him. “You have limited resources and you needed to use the manpower you had to investigate the most likely suspects.”
“Maybe.” Wally walked back and forth. “However, now I’m beginning to think I should have scrutinized this deejay/mayor guy more closely.”
“That’s easy to see now, but you didn’t have all the information when you reached your original decision.” Skye hated to see Wally beating himself up over a choice most people in his position would have made.
He shrugged, clearly not convinced.
A few seconds ticked by. Then Skye narrowed her eyes as another piece of the puzzle slipped into its slot. “Frannie mentioned that Alexis’s last temp job was for a city official. What if she worked for Mayor Urick and somehow discovered his embezzlement scheme?”
“That would give him motive, and we’ve established he had means and opportunity.”
“Holy crap! We need to stop Spike before she confronts him.” Skye checked the clock above the sink. “It’s ten fifty-five. She’s probably already in Viderville.”
Skye searched frantically for Spike’s cell number—why hadn’t she programmed it into her phone? She finally located the scrap of paper she’d written it on, stuck in her address book, and dialed it while Wally put on his loafers and fetched Skye’s Keds.
She was slipping the tennis shoes on when the call went directly into Spike’s voice mail. She shot Wally a worried look.
He nodded and said, “We’d better get over to Viderville and see if she’s okay.”
They rushed outside and jumped into Wally’s Thunderbird. Once they were buckled up, he threw the sports car into gear and they tore out of the driveway. Skye held on to the dashboard and watched the speedometer climb.
After a few seconds, Skye caught her breath and asked, “Should we call the Viderville police chief? Maybe he could check things out.”
“No.” Wally concentrated on the road. “We can’t be sure Chief Eden isn’t mixed up with the embezzlement. I can’t imagine how the mayor would pull it off without someone on the PD being in on the scheme.”
“Maybe I should call city hall and ask to speak to Spike.” Skye hated sitting and doing nothing while her friend might be in danger. “I could tell her to get out, or at least to wait for us before she talks to the mayor.”
“Go ahead and give it a try, but unless Urick is keeping her cooling her heels, she’s already with him. Because if what we suspect about him is true, I doubt he wants her sitting around the waiting room talking to city employees. Or anyone else.”
A couple of minutes later Skye reported, “No one’s answering. I tried three times and the machine always picks up. The message says that due to a gas leak, city hall is closed for the weekend.”
“Son of a buck!” Wally tightened his grip on the wheel and pressed down harder on the accelerator. “That doesn’t sound good at all.”
“Do you think the mayor cleared everyone out so he can get rid of Spike if it turns out she knows too much?” Skye felt her stomach clench. If only she’d put the pieces together earlier.
“It crossed my mind.”
Wally made the fifteen-mile drive in less than ten minutes.
When he parked the T-Bird, Skye asked, “Why didn’t you pull into one of the spaces in front of the city hall? They were all open.”
“Exactly.” Wally reached into the glove box and withdrew a black calfskin case and a small flashlight. His gun was already in a holster under his leather jacket. He tucked the case and the light into the pocket of his jeans. “If our car is the only one sitting there, the police might run its plates. And when they come back to me, they might mention it to their chief, who might—”
“Contact the mayor,” Skye said, finishing his sentence. “Gotcha.”
Wally took her hand as she got out of the Ford. “We’re going to casually stroll by the front entrance and scope out the situation.”
There were only a couple of people around. The city hall was on a side street, and the businesses nearby were mostly law offices, real estate firms, and insurance agencies. Skye hesitated when she saw a CLOSED sign on the door, but Wally didn’t break his stride, tugging her along and then walking her around the corner.
“What do we do now?” she asked when they were safely out of sight.
“This way.” Wally led her toward the back of the building to an unmarked door. “Stand in front of me and pretend we’re having a fight.”
“Why?” Skye asked, as he drew the leather case he’d taken from the car out of his pocket. Then: “Those are lock picks, aren’t they?”
“Yep.”
“Where did you get them?” She moved into place, blocking Wally’s actions from the view of anyone who might happen to glance down the alley.
“I took them off a burglar when I was a rookie.” Wally’s voice was distracted. “My sergeant told me to keep them because they’d come in handy someday.”
“Have you used them before?” Skye was fascinated with this side of her fiancé. He was usually so persnickety about breaking the law.
He ignored her question. “Got it. Now we slip inside as fast as we can.”
With one last glance behind them to make sure they weren’t being observed, Wally eased the metal door open a few inches, waited for Skye to go through, then followed her, quickly shutting them inside. The room they had entered was windowless and pitch-black.
Wally produced his flashlight and illuminated the area in front of them. This was obviously a catchall space, full of boxes, old office equipment, and cleaning supplies. Skye felt her nose twitch at the odor of ammonia, and prayed she wouldn’t sneeze.
“See that door to our left?” Wally whispered. “I’m betting it leads into the rest of the city hall, so we have to be extremely quiet.”
Skye nodded, glad she had on her tennis shoes. She put her purse strap across her chest—a location she was beginning to think of as her fighting position—and carefully squeezed past the haphazardly piled paraphernalia blocking her path to the exit.
As they stepped through the door into a dimly lit passage, Wally extinguished his flashlight. Now they had a choice: Take the hallway in front of them or the one that veered to the right.
“Let’s each go a different way,” Skye suggested, worried that they were already too late. “What if we go the wrong way and by the time it takes us to backtrack something happens to Spike?”
Wally hesitated, then reluctantly nodded, prodding Skye toward the side corridor. She stood firm, knowing he thought the one he’d chosen for himself led to the lobby and thus the mayor’s office.
He nudged her again and she shook her head, digging in her heels.
This time he pushed her a little harder and whispered, “I’m the one with the gun.”
“Point taken,” she murmured and reluctantly allowed him to follow the more likely route.
She made her way down the hall in her assigned direction, passing offices on both sides. When the corridor took a sharp turn, she emerged into a reception area. Looking around, she spotted the words MAYOR TODD URICK stenciled in gold leaf on a large interior window. The blinds were drawn, but light seeped between the slats.
Skye wondered where Wally had ended up. She heard his voice inside her head telling her to wait for him, but she ignored it. What if her hesitation resulted in Spike’s death? She would never forgive herself, or be able to look Bunny or Simon in the eye again.
The whole building had an eerily deserted feeling. Skye shivered, then forced her feet to move forward. She crept toward that office, and as she neared it, she could hear a loud whirring noise and raised voices.
Skye was relieved to see that the door was slightly ajar, which meant it wasn’t locked. Either something had made Spike nervous or luck was on their side. Skye tiptoed to the gap between the hinge and the door and peered into the office.
Once her eyes adjusted from the dim lobby to the brightly lit room, her gaze swept the area. Spike was handcuffed to the arm of the chrome chair in which she was seated. Duct tape covered her mouth and bound her ankles. A man Skye recognized from the board’s photo as one of the trustees was shoving papers into a shredder and Todd Urick stood a few feet from Spike, pointing a gun in her direction.
The man who was shredding yelled at Urick above the noise, “How did this bitch find out about the money? Did you tell that big-mouth wife of yours?”
The mayor snorted. “She didn’t know anything, Garth. Until you burst in here waving a gun, she was just guessing. She had no proof. I told you on the phone that I had everything under control. All you had to do was to sit tight and keep your cool. I would have taken care of it.”
“Like you took care of that nosy temp worker?” Garth ran his fingers through his thinning blond hair and sneered. “We told you to shut her up, not kill her.”
“If you all hadn’t insisted I give her the hundred thousand from my share, none of this would have happened,” Urick snapped. “I already bought her a new car to keep her quiet. If we’d split the cost of the blackmail, it would only have been twenty grand apiece.”
“No way. We didn’t cause the problem. Why should we pay for it?”
“Then since you caused this problem, you get rid of this chick.” Urick handed the pistol to Garth and pushed him toward Spike.
Skye felt as if she couldn’t breathe. She had to save Spike. Praying that the door wouldn’t squeak, she had just started to ease it open when a hand snaked out and grabbed her arm. Swallowing a scream, she whirled around. Wally had his finger to his lips. He jerked his head, motioning for her to get behind him.
While Skye was trading places with Wally, Garth said in a wheedling tone, “Look, Todd, you already killed one bitch. What’s one more?”
Wally had his gun out and was poised to rush into the office, but as the men argued, he paused. He was clearly waiting for the best time to intervene.
Murder of the Cat's Meow: A Scumble River Mystery Page 22