She unhooked the pager from the compartment under the van’s clock and GPS system and handed it to Rick Streeter, the guy who’d told Harve to comply with the seat belt rules. He took it and clipped it to his belt.
“Do I just punch in your number?”
“It’s preset. It’ll go to the office, then to me.” She smiled. “You guys have a nice time. I think you’ll be particularly impressed with the Hall of Fame and all the gold and platinum records Elvis earned during his career.”
“I’m sure we will,” said one of the group.
She counted heads as they exited the van to be sure she was dropping off the right number of people. Past experience had taught her to be exact. An extra passenger or shy one or two didn’t work out so well.
As the men disappeared around the corner, her phone began playing “California” again. It was becoming annoying; she needed to change her ring tone soon. She unclipped her phone from the belt loop on her khaki jeans and thumbed the screen to answer.
Jordan cut her off before she could get out her greeting. “Something’s come up. Can we meet in an hour instead of at six?”
“Sure, as long as you’re willing to come to Graceland.”
“I can do that. Where do we meet?”
“Rock and Roll Café. I’ll be sitting at a table in the back.”
“I’ll be there in an hour.”
She left the parking area and walked down the sidewalk between buildings and out into an open courtyard. A 1950s-era red truck with sideboards was parked in the middle of the concrete, and slender trees grew in square plots of dirt. The long, glass-fronted ticket office of EPE, Elvis Presley Enterprises, anchored the strip. Souvenir shops and a café flanked the busy area. Graceland vans stopped under the covered portico to pick up and let out tourists for Elvis’s mansion across the street. It was a lot safer for people to ride in the vans than try to walk across the busy highway.
Harley entered the Rock and Roll Café and found an empty table near the rear. It smelled like frying burgers, and her stomach growled. Elvis sang “Kentucky Rain” on the juke box. Instead of getting a burger, she got a salad and had just finished eating when Jordan came into the café.
“Hey,” he said as he sat down and took off his sunglasses. “I don’t have long, but I wanted to keep my word to you.”
“Start with telling me the truth. Who is really after you? And don’t say it’s your wife, because I’m not buying it.”
“Filly can be very persuasive, and she’s obviously convinced you she has nothing to do with the attempts on my life. Fine. I think it’s her. I could be wrong though, so I’m open to whoever you think it could be. All I know is, someone is trying to kill me. If it’s not her, I don’t know who it is.”
Harley narrowed her eyes at him. His protests had the ring of truth to them, but she still didn’t quite believe him. “So tell me why you’re in financial trouble.”
He looked out the wide plate glass window, then back at her. “Bad investments. I thought I could make money but went bust instead. It’s taking all my paycheck just to survive.”
“And how does the girlfriend fit into all this?”
He rubbed a hand across his close-cropped hair. Harley watched his face, sure that the unconscious action was his “tell” that he was lying. Jordan shook his head.
“She doesn’t fit into this. I didn’t know Filly knew about Amy, but that doesn’t change things.”
“I didn’t say Filly knew her identity. I still need her name and address and where she works if you want me to do a full investigation. And I’m not going to keep on working this for you if you keep on lying to me.”
“I’m not lying! Well, maybe I left out a few things, but someone really is trying to kill me, and I still say my wife’s behind it.”
“Tell me more about your financial troubles. What did you invest in? Who do you owe? Does this affect your job as an accountant? Did you borrow from a person where you work or even a client? What are the terms of the loan? What does your roommate do, and why is he so unfriendly?”
“Damn, girl, you ask too many questions too quick. I don’t know how to answer that fast.”
“Better figure it out soon, because I’m getting impatient.”
Jordan blew out a puff of air like he was disgusted. Then he said, “I lost money on a . . . venture, I guess you could call it, so I borrowed from a friend of a friend. I’ve been paying him back, though, so I don’t think they’d try to kill me. They’d rather have the money, I’m sure.”
“You’re an accountant. Didn’t you think it might be a bad idea to borrow from a ‘friend of a friend’?” She did the quotation marks in the air to let him know she wasn’t in his corner yet. “And who is they? What happened to one friend? Now it’s friends? If you are paying him or them back, why would they try to kill you? Do you see my problem here, Jordan? Nothing you’re telling me makes sense. You’re not being straight with me.”
“I’m trying. If I tell you everything, I’d have to kill you.”
“Dude, do you think that’s funny? I’m totally not in the mood for jokes.”
“Who said I was joking?”
Harley sat back in her chair and studied Jordan. He looked a little pale, and one eye had developed a twitch. He was obviously under a lot of stress. She didn’t need this. It was his problem, and he wouldn’t be honest. She should walk away. She really should. Of course, she didn’t. She asked another question instead.
“Can you at least tell me what the losing venture involved?”
He hesitated, then said, “Tunica.”
“Are you a freakin’ idiot?” Harley waved her hands in the air. “You should know better than to borrow money to go to the casinos. Are you crazy?”
“It wasn’t like that,” Jordan said defensively. “It was a land deal, not gambling.”
“Oh.” Harley put her hands down. “How do you lose money on land in Tunica? It’s pretty high dollar down there.”
“Not when the economy tanks, and investors pull out and construction firms go belly up.”
“I get your point. So why are you getting all the blame? If you’re not the only one who invested, there should be plenty of blame to go around.”
“You’d think so, wouldn’t you? Those guys are mad, but I don’t think they’re mad enough to try to kill me.”
“Let’s widen the pool of suspects then. Who else have you ticked off enough for them to want to see you dead?”
Jordan shook his head and shrugged his shoulders at the same time. “Got me. I thought for sure it was Filly.”
“Yeah, well Filly may want to, but I don’t know that she will. Did you know she owns a gun?”
“It’s a twenty-two pistol. She’d have to get pretty close to do a lot of damage with it.”
“If you’re still living with her like she claims, that could be easy.”
“Look, I stay over there sometimes, but I moved out. She just doesn’t want to believe that I’m leaving her.”
“That so . . . well, spending the night with her after you’ve filed for a divorce can be a set-back to your plans, you know. And I have to ask—if you’re really convinced she’s the one behind these attempts at killing you, why do you ever stay the night with her?”
He threw his hands up in the air. “I don’t know! I just do. I mean, me and Filly had some good times, you know?”
“Does that explain the second honeymoon to the Bahamas?”
Jordan glanced away. “I have some other business down there. Told her it was a second honeymoon kind of thing so she’d get off my back. I mean, why would she think I meant it if I filed for divorce?”
“Because you’re still sleeping with her? Because she doesn’t know you filed?”
“I did file for divorce. All you have to do is look it up.”
“I will.” Harley paused. This was too damn confusing. Both of them were lying to her, but she couldn’t figure out which one had the most to gain by it. On the surface, Filly
stood to gain by keeping a husband she said she loved and wanted. But Jordan stood to gain his freedom from a relationship he didn’t want, as well as a girlfriend on the side. To further complicate things, there were people he owed money who might be after him. Trying to kill someone usually meant they were dead serious.
Harley studied him for a moment. He looked really unnerved. The facial tic and muscle tension plus the steady jiggling of his leg gave it away. Maybe he was telling the truth, maybe not.
“Are you going to continue investigating?” he asked abruptly, and she hesitated.
“I’ll let you know that once I’ve checked out your girlfriend and court records on your divorce. And I want the name of the guy who loaned you money. If you’ve lied to me again, I’m done. Getting shot at isn’t exactly one of my favorite ways to spend the day.”
“Mine either.”
She tilted her head to one side. “Yet no one has shot at you, just tried to run you down or over or crush you with concrete flowerpots. Wonder why?”
“What about shooting at you? Doesn’t that count?”
“Not really. Are you suggesting they should shoot at me?”
“No. They were looking for me.”
“That’s likely, but it doesn’t explain why they shot at me. I don’t look a thing like you, and you were nowhere in sight. Just where did you go so quick anyway?”
“They had to pull out into traffic to follow me, and I lost them when I went back to the Towers. I hung around by the fountain as long as I could, though.”
“So why didn’t one of them get out of the car and come after you? There were at least two of them. Didn’t you see all the cops out there? And me?”
He nodded. “I ran to the Tower lobby and watched.”
“So it didn’t occur to you that I might have been shot or anything?”
“No, there wasn’t an ambulance. I figured me showing up would just complicate things, so I stayed out of sight.”
“Yeah, thanks for that.”
“Look, I need to get back to work now. Are we done?”
“After you write down the names and number of the guy involved in your land deal, as well as your girlfriend and all her contact info.” She dug in her backpack and pulled out a pen and small notebook. After tearing out a page in the back, she shoved it toward him. “Make it legible, please. It’s not so easy to get hold of you to decipher.”
Jordan scribbled down the info, then pushed the paper back across the table. “Is that okay?”
She ignored his sarcasm and scanned the paper. “Yep. Very legible. Wait—isn’t Amy’s address the same as The Gilmore where you said you’re staying?”
Jordan looked uncomfortable. “Yeah.”
“I see. How many roommates do you have?”
“Just one. Why?”
Uh oh. It was possible he didn’t know about the unfriendly man at his girlfriend’s apartment. Maybe she should tell him. Maybe not. She debated for only a second.
“So what does this Johnny Pomona look like?”
“Average height, dark complexion. Muscled. Why?”
“No reason,” she said. “You might want to warn Amy I’ll be calling with some questions and to cooperate. I suggest you don’t warn Johnny Pomona.”
“Okay.” Jordan unfolded his long body from behind the table and stood up. Then he reached over to pull out Harley’s chair for her. “It may not seem like it to you, but I am trying to be cooperative. And I know somebody’s trying to kill me. I just don’t know who or how to make it stop.”
She shouldered her backpack. “All right. I’ll do what I can to find out who it is as long as you’re straight with me. But once I figure it out, you have to take the info to the cops. Agreed?”
“Agreed.”
Jordan walked outside with her and slid his sunglasses back down over his eyes. “I gotta get back to work. Later.”
Harley frowned as she watched him walk away. He didn’t go toward the parking lot. Instead, he walked toward the street in front of the mansion. There wasn’t any parking on the highway, so where was he going, she wondered. It was extremely doubtful he’d arrived on a MATA bus. Maybe he’d parked in the lot on the other side of the Lisa Marie. It wasn’t any of her business if he wanted to go the long way around.
She hefted her backpack and started toward the parking lot behind the shopping strip. She hadn’t gone ten feet when she heard the blast of a horn and screech of tires. A shrill scream quickly followed. A security guard ran past her toward Elvis Presley, and Harley got a funny feeling. She turned back. When she got to the street she saw Jordan Cleveland sprawled on the curb. The security guard and two other people stood over him. A woman who said she was a nurse knelt beside him.
“Jeez,” Harley muttered as she elbowed her way through the growing crowd. “Is he going to be okay?” She looked down at him. “Jordan—Jordan, can you hear me?”
Jordan lay motionless. Blood seeped from a scratch on his forehead, and his pants leg was torn. From the marks on his clothes, it looked as if he’d skidded on pavement. The nurse kneeling next to him asked her, “Do you know him?”
Harley nodded. “Yes. His name is Jordan Cleveland. Is he going to be okay?
“He may have a concussion, but I don’t think anything’s broken. They’ll check for internal injuries at the hospital, of course. Stand back, please, until the EMTs arrive, but hang around in case you’re needed for identification purposes.”
Harley went to stand by a knot of other people watching the efforts to help Jordan. Minutes ticked by as she stood there staring. It was very possible he was telling the truth. Someone was obviously after him, even if not for the reasons he’d mentioned. Filly was a long shot. Not impossible, but not likely. Even his girlfriend’s surly visitor was doubtful. Tunica investors now—that idea seemed a lot more reasonable. People got very testy when money was involved. The more money, the more testy they got.
“What happened?” she asked a bystander, and he shook his head.
“I didn’t see it.”
“I did,” said the guy next to him. “It was weird, really weird.”
“Weird like how?” Harley wanted to know.
“This black car came outta nowhere, going too fast, and it clipped him as it went past just like it meant to. The guy didn’t even see it coming.”
“What kind of black car?”
The young guy looked at her. “You mean like a Ford or a Chevy?”
Harley nodded and wasn’t too surprised when he said it was a Mercedes. “Had tinted windows, too,” he added. “No plates.”
When Jordan sat up at last, looking groggy, Harley got close enough to ask, “Hey, Jordan, do you want me to call your wife for you?”
His eyes seemed to work independently of each other for a moment before he focused on her. Then he squinted. “Who are you?”
The arrival of an ambulance and EMTs precluded any necessity of answering. Harley moved back close to the shops and out of the way. She decided to call Felicia and let her know what had happened. She’d be the next of kin if he was still too confused to give the hospital his information.
Just as she punched in some numbers on her cell phone, she looked up and saw Mike Morgan walk up to the ambulance. What was he doing here? Had he seen her? She stepped back several feet and ducked behind the shiny red pickup. No point in giving him reason to ask her a lot of inconvenient questions. Damn, damn, damn. He’d jump to the immediate conclusion that she was only there to meet Jordan. Then she’d have to confess she hadn’t quit investigating yet. She just didn’t need the hassle.
Bending low to hide behind the truck while edging backward toward a concrete and metal trash can, she kept her eyes on Morgan. If she could just get past the corner souvenir shop, she’d be at the sidewalk leading back to the tour bus and van parking area. Home free. All she had to do was make it around the corner, and she could escape to the parked van. Then she’d call Felicia to tell her about Jordan’s accident. Or deliberate attempt on his
life. It was a toss-up on which it was.
Still crouched down and keeping an eye on Morgan, she duck-walked backward a few feet before hitting a barrier. Her tennis shoes scraped over concrete sidewalk then hit something. She slid her left foot up and over. It met with resistance again so she shifted course. Morgan was still by the ambulance, but he was surveying the crowd. If she didn’t get around the corner quickly, he’d spot her.
The obstacle seemed to have moved with her so she glanced down to see what it was. It was a foot. Inside a black shoe. Attached to a leg. Her gaze traveled upward along the leg. Even before she got to the face she knew whose foot it was in the shoe. Bobby Baroni. Damn the luck.
Chapter 8
“WHAT THE HELL are you doing, Harley?”
“Working. Why?” She stood up. Pointless trying to hide now. Bobby and Mike had begun to tag-team her lately. She could almost count on a group bitch session unless she managed a quick getaway.
Bobby eyed her suspiciously. “When did you start working at Graceland?”
“I didn’t, as you very well know. I’m here with a tour group who are over at the mansion. When they page me, I’m taking them to the Rendezvous and then Beale Street. Is there any more of my itinerary you’d like to know?”
“Yes. How did you fit Jordan Cleveland into your busy schedule?”
“What makes you think I did?”
“He’s here. You’re here. Easy deduction.”
“I guess that’s why you’re a brilliant detective, and I’m a lowly tour guide. Oops. I hear my pager. Got to go. Good seeing you. Have a nice day.”
Bobby grabbed her by the arm when she tried to leave. “Not so fast, Harley. I still have a few questions for you.”
She pulled free. “And here I am without any answers. Ah ah—touch me again, and I’ll scream police brutality.”
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