by Kelly Rey
"Do you know where Dusty Rose lives?" Maizy asked.
Sybil wasn't done. "I even got a discount on a white suit, since I only needed the front half of it. Oxie didn't even wear pants; I kept the bottom half of the casket closed. He would have loved it."
She had just inherited millions thanks to incontinent adults everywhere, and she'd buried her husband in a napkin?
On second thought, he probably would have loved it.
"Maybe you should have considered cremation," I suggested.
"Oxie was afraid of fire," she said. "Of course, he was afraid of being buried alive, too. And boxer shorts."
Ewww.
She shook her head. "Maybe I should have filed him in one of those mausoleums. Or do you think that's a little too public housing?"
"Why didn't you go green?" Maizy said. "You could've put him through the wood chipper, and used him to mulch the garden."
Sybil didn't even flinch. "The HOA would never have gone for it. But I could still move him to the penthouse drawer. You can't leave flowers, but let's be honest, how many times am I going to visit him anyway?"
"You must have really loved him," I said.
"I married him, didn't I?" she asked.
I'd seen a warmer union between hamsters.
"What can you tell us about Dusty Rose?" Maizy asked. "We'd like to talk to her."
"I can't tell you anything about her," Sybil said. "Oxie found her and hired her."
"And diddled her?" Maizy asked.
Sybil stared at her. "I think it's time for you to leave." She yanked the door open.
Outside, a gleaming black Lincoln was pulling into the driveway. The funeral home director. And behind the Lincoln, a Mercedes sedan with Herman Kantz behind the wheel. A ginormous arrangement of red roses rode shotgun.
I turned to Sybil. "Nice of Herman Kantz to pay his respects personally."
"He was Oxie's financial adviser," Sybil said, as if that explained everything. "Thank you for stopping by."
"We'll come back later," Maizy whispered to me.
"Don't even think about coming back later," Sybil told us. "The neighbors keep a close eye on the place."
"I'm not worried about a bunch of blue-hairs," Maizy whispered.
"And then there's the security patrol," Sybil said. "They have guns. But don't worry, they won't shoot you."
"I'm not worried about some rent-a-cops," Maizy whispered.
"They'd rather sic the dogs on intruders," Sybil said. "Less paperwork."
"Our business here is done," Maizy said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
"That woman is a goober," Maizy said when we were back in the Bentley. This time she was driving. I was okay with it if Honest Aaron was. Even if Maizy had a tendency to consider red lights on a case-by-case basis.
"I was thinking of another word," I said. "But we can go with goober. Question is, did the goober commit murder."
Maizy whipped out her cell phone and snapped a couple photos of David as we drove past him. From the good side. "She's obfuscating."
I nodded gravely, like I knew what that meant. And wondering if I should have taken some pictures, too, since that might be my last visit to Oxnard's house. Then I remembered the Rod Rockstone photo in my bag. Close enough.
"I mean," Maizy said, "who doesn't know if their partner can swim? I know my parents can swim. I know Uncle Curt can swim. I know you can swim."
I grimaced. "I'm not swimming until it's socially acceptable to do it in full sweats." SI's swimsuit edition wouldn't be calling me anytime soon.
"That's just your negative self-image," Maizy said. "I keep meaning to talk to you about that."
We sailed past the gatehouse and through the open gate.
"There's no hope for me," I said. "Save yourself."
"Don't you worry," Maizy said cheerfully. "I'm just fine. My point is, family knows things like that, don't they? Maybe she knew Oxnard couldn't, so she shoved him in the pool and went to collect his money."
"But," I said, "the will hasn't been officially redrafted yet, as far as I know."
"But does Sybil know that?" Maizy asked.
I couldn't see how she would. Not like she'd had to sign it. She may have assumed it, and that would be just as dangerous for Oxnard.
I suddenly remembered something. "The contracts!"
Maizy glanced over at me. "Huh?"
"Remember the contracts I saw in Oxnard's office? I was hoping to take another look at them."
"What's the problem? You read them, right?"
Depended how you defined read. I'd seen some names and dollar figures. Beyond that, it had been a lot of boring legalese. Kind of like a day at the office.
"Of course I read them," I said. "I'm a highly trained legal professional."
"Okay," Maizy said. "So what were they about?"
"Not a clue," I said.
"I know what your problem is," she said. "You need to improve your brain's plasticity. I hear that gingko biloba is good for memory loss."
"It's not memory loss," I snapped. "I saw it one time, and I didn't think it was important enough to memorize."
"Everything's important enough to memorize," she said. "Maybe you should start taking pictures when we're investigating. You know, so you don't keep forgetting things."
"You're just showing off because you have an eidetic memory," I said. "And were those pictures you just took back there part of the investigation?"
She shrugged. "That was scouting. Herbie Hairston is looking for some statuary."
The juvenile delinquent in Maizy's class and frequent supplier of questionable goods. Herbie was the reason I'd wound up with zip ties, a shovel, and a bag of lime in the trunk of my car. If they'd all come used, I wasn't going to be the one to rat him out.
"Herbie Hairston lives with his parents," I snapped. At least until he moved into the county jail.
"That's the point," Maizy said. "Their anniversary is coming up. He wants to get them something nice. I think it's sweet."
"They live in an apartment!" I said.
"Don't judge," Maizy told me.
I sighed. If Herbie Hairston wanted to steal Incontinent David, that was his business. Maybe he could steal a wet vac while he was at it.
Maizy coasted through a stop sign and around a corner. "Maybe we should hypnotize you," she said. "People remember all kinds of things under hypnosis. It's not even that hard. I Googled it."
"I don't think so," I said. "You might make me do something stupid every time I hear a bell ring or something. Besides, I don't think you can learn how to hypnotize someone from the internet."
"Are you kidding?" she said. "You can learn anything on the internet. But if you want to do everything the hard way, we'll just sneak back in when Sybil's out having her teeth sharpened and—"
"Let's give it a shot," I said.
* * *
"Dude, you need to relax," Maizy said.
"I am relaxed," I told her, surprised that my pants didn't spontaneously burst into flames. Of course I wasn't relaxed. Even though we were at my apartment, the lights were low, and the nubs of my emergency candles were flickering, throwing off the delectable scent of vanilla, my nerves buzzed as if I'd mainlined a gallon of caffeine. The ambiance had, however, put Ashley to sleep immediately. She was curled up in the recliner on top of Maizy's hoodie, snoring gently. To be fair, Ashley slept about twenty-two hours a day, so it might have been less ambiance and more narcolepsy.
"Breathe," Maizy told me. She sat in front of me cross-legged, gazing earnestly into my eyes. "This won't work if you don't breathe."
"I told you," I said, "I can't be hypnotized. I don't believe in it."
"Yeah, I heard you," Maizy said. "But you'll change your mind once you get on the hypnotic staircase."
"Hypnotic staircase," I repeated. "That sounds made up."
Ashley cracked open one eye and gave me a Will you be quiet? You're disturbing my nap glare. Ashley was a very advanced cat.
&nb
sp; Maizy rolled her eyes. "Who's the expert here?"
"Beats me," I said.
"Look," she said. "You want to remember the names on the contracts, but because you're old, you can't. It's like my grampy when he has to pee in the middle of the night. So we can either sneak back into Oxnard's house, or you can start concentrating on this." And she held up the Rod Rockstone trading card.
My mouth fell open. "Where'd that come from?"
"I think we both know the answer to that," Maizy said.
It was the first time Rod had seen the light of day since I'd pilfered him from Oxnard's office. Well, except for that time I'd sneaked a peek in my car at the red light on the way home. And in the conference room, a couple or dozen times when I'd been having especially rough days at work.
Okay, so Rod had been hanging out more than tweens at a Taylor Swift concert.
"Now just let your eyes follow the bouncing stud." She started tipping the card back and forth, very slowly, as if it was the swinging pendulum from every clichéd hypnosis scene ever created. Only this was better, because Rod's pendulum was more fun to focus on.
"This is completely inappropriate," I told her.
Maizy kept tilting the card right, then left, right, then left. "Why?"
"Because you're using up my emergency candles," I said. "Why do you think?"
"You don't need them," Maizy said. "You have Uncle Curt. He's got flashlights. Anyway, don't be such a prude. It's not like the dude's totally naked." She glanced at the card. Rod was barely wearing a tan line. Just the Speedo that wasn't up to the job. "Can I borrow this?" she asked.
"No, you can't borrow it," I snapped.
"Whatever," she said. "God. Come on, take some deep breaths in through your mouth and out through your nose, real slow. Four counts in, eight counts out. Focus on relaxing your muscles one at a time. Start with your toes."
I rolled my eyes. "How am I supposed to relax my toes?"
"Stop clenching," Maizy said. "I can tell you're clenching. Straighten them out. Now your ankles."
"I have very tense ankles," I told her.
She ignored me. "And your calves."
"My calves have been under a lot of stress lately," I said.
"Forget the muscles," she said. "Imagine you're on the top step of a staircase, about to take a step down. Every step down will make you more relaxed."
"What's at the bottom?" I asked. "Are there spiders?"
"No spiders," she said. "Just mellowness. Take another step down now. And another. All the stress stays behind you while you go farther into relaxation. Down one more step."
"Is this the hyp…" I started to say, but then the words kind of drifted away from me and I felt a weird sort of calm overtake me. I settled into it. My shoulders felt loose. My body felt light. I think my toes even relaxed. If I'd believed in hypnosis, this is what I'd imagined it to be.
"Think about Oxnard's office," Maizy said. "You went through his papers. You found contracts."
I nodded. "No Flows, Incorporated."
"What were the names on the contracts?"
"No Flows, Incorporated," I said.
"The other names," she said.
"There weren't any," I said. "They weren't signed."
"Who was supposed to sign them?" she said. "God," she muttered under her breath.
I stared into middle space, picturing the office, the ginormous desk, the contracts, the pages of tiny print ending in signature lines. I could picture it as easily and vividly as if I held it in my hands. "Jalen Jefferson. Allison Madeline Cartwright. Caroline Kirby."
"Do those names mean anything to you?"
"Not a thing."
"Me, neither," she said. "Did you see anything else?"
I thought about it. "Yes. A scary picture of Abigail and Alston. His eyes follow you when you move, like that picture at the Haunted Mansion at Disney." I didn't want to think about Alston's eyes following me. It creeped me out a little. If he was forty years younger, it would creep me out a lot. He had those kind of eyes. Vulture eyes. Oxnard's eyes.
Maizy was frowning at me. "Anything else?"
I dragged my focus back to Oxnard's office. "An invoice from Lizette Larue for the wedding."
"Okay," she said. "How much was it for?"
"Forty thousand dollars," I said. "And eighty-two cents."
She blinked. "Seriously?"
"I know, right?" I said. "For a sappy CD and some folding chairs."
"What a waste," Maizy said.
I nodded my agreement. "All that filet mignon."
"I meant the money," Maizy said. "What a waste of money."
Oh.
"Yeah," I said. "I meant that, too."
"Do you remember anything else?" she asked.
I shook my head. "Yes," I said suddenly. "The pictures."
"What pictures? Who's in the pictures?"
I could feel a goofy smile stretch my lips. "He is. There were others, but he was the best."
Maizy stared at me. "We're still talking about Oxnard's office, right?"
"He's very flexible," I added. "Just look at him."
"Sure he is," Maizy said. "I see him right over there in the corner. Can you remember anything else besides your imaginary friend?"
"He had a big desk," I said. "That's all."
"Yeah," Maizy said. "All guys say that."
I stewed in my mellowness for a minute or two. Then my thoughts drifted over to Curt, and my grin got bigger because Curt was real. And that got me wondering what he was doing, and whether or not he was flexible. All signs pointed to yes.
"Whatever you're doing right now," Maizy said, "stop it. We're not done here. Concentrate."
We went back and forth for awhile, Maizy trying to extract a little more information from me, and me coming up empty. I just hadn't seen anything to remember beyond the names, and the names meant nothing to either one of us. Thing is, I didn't seem to care. I just wanted to float along in that mellow space for as long as I could. This was the meditative state that yoga kept promising me I would attain but never had.
"I think we're done here," Maizy said finally. "Come on back up the stairs, slowly. With each step you'll—"
"But I don't want to come back," I said.
"You have to," she said. "We have work to do. Walk up another step."
"I think Rod's gone," I said.
"Whatever," Maizy said. "Get up the steps!"
I snapped out of my mellowness instantly, blinked a couple of times, and said, "Where'd Rod go?"
"I must've skipped something," Maizy muttered.
I narrowed my eyes at her. "He's in your pocket, isn't he?"
Maizy shoved a handful of blue hair out of her eyes. "Forget about Rod. We have work to do. Do you feel alright?"
Someone knocked on my door.
"Bok bok," I said.
"Uh-oh," Maizy said.
My eyes got wide. "What was that?"
"Nothing," she said. "Someone's at the door. I'll go see who it is." She hurried away and came back a few seconds later with Lizette Larue. Lizette was wearing a perfectly tailored red pantsuit with sky-high heels that gave her four more inches of height. She'd lost the pink laptop but gained a carryon-sized leather handbag looped over her left forearm.
"I'm looking for Sybil Thorpe," she said. "I thought you might know where she is, since you were her maid of honor."
I ignored her.
"What did you do to me?" I asked Maizy.
"Little experiment," she said. "Guess I don't know my own strength."
"Want to find out mine?" I asked. "You've got to do something!"
"You just need a little tweak," she said. "No big deal."
"Hello?" Lizette stomped her little foot a few times to get my attention. "Did you hear me?"
"Bok bok," I said, and rolled my eyes.
Lizette stared at me.
"Okay," she said, "I get it. I was a witch. I treated you badly. But that woman made me want to kill someone."
I
nteresting choice of words.
"Did you?" Maizy cut in. "Kill someone, I mean?"
Lizette's eyes got big with indignation. "Of course not. I can't believe you would ask me that. Who are you, anyway?"
"Not important," Maizy said. "Just wanted to put it out there. Come in, sit down. Let me take your suitcase." She unhitched the bag from Lizette's arm and dropped it on the floor with a thud.
"Bok bok," I said.
"Why does she keep doing that?" Lizette asked Maizy.
"It's just a thing," Maizy said with a shrug.
"A big thing," I added with a touch of hostility, because I'd just known something like this was going to happen. And I had only myself to blame.
"So where'd you go after the wedding?" Maizy asked her.
Lizette grimaced. "I went to the closest bar and had a few drinks. I wanted to forget the whole affair."
"Me, too," Maizy said. "Especially the part where the groom died."
"That was awful," Lizette agreed. "I wouldn't be surprised if that model did it. She was really mad at Mr. Thorpe."
I remembered that. "Do you know why?"
"Some business deal or other, I think," she said. "It sounded like Mr. Thorpe had deceived her in some way. Of course, I didn't hear the whole conversation. I was busy working for free."
Lizette glanced at the recliner where Ashley had rousted herself into a sitting position and was watching us with unblinking eyes. "Look, I don't know what I can say besides I'm sorry," she told us. "But I'd reached my limit after dealing with Sybil. I shouldn't have even taken the job. I should have listened to my instincts when I heard her making plans for when the old goat was gone. That's what she called him."
Lizette seemed to eavesdrop more than a wiretap.
"Plans?" Maizy repeated. "What do you mean? Who was she talking to?"
"I don't know," she said. "She was on the phone. I just heard bits and pieces before she realized I was there and hung up."
"What pieces did you hear?" Maizy asked.
Lizette thought for a second. "I'm sorry, I don't remember."
"I can help you with that," Maizy said.
I flung myself off the couch. "No!"