“Yep. Got it. I’m good.”
“Yeah, well, just so you don’t forget—” Arms grabbed her from behind and pushed her toward the edge of the roof. She lurched forward and let out a squeal when her knees banged sharply against the concrete. The world tilted sideways as he swung her up into the air, and for a paralyzing moment Harley could see her imminent demise. She clung to the beefy arm with all the tenacity of a badger and babbled any and everything she could think of to get him to put her down on the roof and not let her go.
After what seemed like a half hour but probably wasn’t more than a few seconds, he swung her around and released her to solid roof. Her legs went out from under her, and she sprawled on concrete with a grateful sob of relief.
He bent over her and said, “Remember what I said, or next time I let go. And I’ll be watching you. Got it?”
“Got it,” she managed to say without groveling any more than she already had. She lay on the concrete tiles and held on to stop the spinning sensation that engulfed her. She was going to be sick, she just knew it. Long minutes ticked past. When she finally lifted her head, whoever the guy was had left the rooftop, and she was alone.
Harley got to her feet and stood shakily for a moment, then made her way to the doors and inside the hotel. She punched the button for the elevator and leaned against the wall until the bell signaled its imminent arrival. Waiting for the doors to open, she fought the waves of dizziness that threatened to overwhelm her when she thought about how close she’d come to plummeting fourteen floors to splat onto Union Avenue. Could this day get any worse?
Oh yes, she thought a moment later when the elevator doors whooshed open. She stood paralyzed, staring at the man slumped on the elevator floor, a small round hole in his forehead, and his mouth open like he was surprised. His eyes were open and empty of life. It was the guy from The Gilmore. For several seconds she couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything, heart racing and her mouth suddenly dry.
When the elevator dinged it jerked her from her paralysis, and she reached inside to hit the stop button to keep it open. She wanted to throw up. She wanted to scream. A loud buzzing sound in her ears drowned out any other noises. She sagged against the wall for several seconds, struggling for control.
Then she made a phone call.
HOTEL SECURITY cordoned off the murder scene immediately, anxious to keep guests unaware of what had happened. Harley was taken into their custody, of course, as the person who found the body.
Escorted to the Skyway beyond the elevators, she sat in a hardback chair while a security guard kept an eye on her. No one had let her make a call. They took her cell phone and did a cursory search to make sure she wasn’t armed, and now she waited for the police to arrive. Too rattled to do more than reply to direct questions, Harley sat shivering in the empty banquet room. Pale light came through a bank of windows on the far side. Every Sunday there was a champagne brunch, and it was usually packed. Now it was vacant of tables and chairs and looked desolate and a bit shabby.
Harley wondered if Tootsie had called her to pick up the businessmen. Maybe when the police arrived she could convince them to let her call for someone else to take the rest of her shift.
Fortunately, she didn’t know any of the policemen who showed up at the hotel. They were all business as usual, not prone to levity and looking grim as they went about their investigation. One of them approached to question her almost immediately after arriving. He wore a suit instead of a uniform and carried a small pad of paper and a pen.
After answering the initial questions about name, address, phone numbers, place of employment and reason for being on the roof, he got down to the basics.
“Did you know the deceased? Did you see anyone else up here? What did you see or hear? Anything unusual or out of the ordinary?”
Harley sucked in a deep breath. “I didn’t know him, but I’ve seen him before. Not here, though. There was another man up here earlier. He was very threatening.”
The detective’s gaze sharpened. “Describe his behavior.”
“For one thing, he held me out over the edge of the roof and threatened to drop me.”
A moment of silence followed that statement before he asked, “Was it the victim? You said you’ve seen him before. Can you identify either man?”
Harley was already shaking her head in answer to both questions. “I never saw his face, just heard his voice. I saw the victim only one time before, at a friend’s apartment. I don’t know his name or anything about him.” She shuddered. “Before you ask, I know why I was threatened.”
“Why was that, Miss Davidson?”
“Because I’ve been helping a friend of a friend find out if his wife is trying to kill him or if it’s someone else. I’m pretty sure now that it’s the someone else.”
“Does this friend of a friend have a name?”
He sounded a little sarcastic, and she sighed. “Yes. Jordan Cleveland. I work with his friend, Thomas Rowell, at Memphis Tour Tyme. You already have that information.”
“Why did Cleveland ask you to help him? Are you a private investigator?”
“Well, no, not really.”
“What does not really mean?”
Sarcasm again. Harley went with the truth. “Because I’ve had a little success in the past solving murders. Since he’s had attempts on his life and threats made against him, he thought I could do the same for him.”
The detective frowned. Then he expelled a gust of air and an expletive in the same breath. “You’re that amateur who runs around almost getting yourself killed, right? Were you up on the roof looking for information regarding threats against Cleveland?”
“No, I was waiting on my tour group to finish at the Rendezvous as I already told you.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Someone is trying to kill him. It’s most likely the same person who killed the man in the elevator. Maybe the same guy who held me over the edge of the roof. I don’t know.”
“You realize it could be you in that elevator, right?”
Harley had already had that thought, but it didn’t stop her stomach from flipping. “Yes. I do. Or I could be a puddle on the street about now. I know all that.”
“Then if you know all that, to keep on risking your life and the lives of others is downright stupid.”
“Thank you for pointing it out, but you’re not the first to say that.”
“I’m not surprised. Would you agree to a polygraph?”
“Yes. When?”
“Come down to two-o-one Poplar Friday at ten. Here’s my card.”
“May I have my phone back? I have to call in to get someone else to take the rest of my tour group back to their hotel.”
“I’ll check and see who has it. Don’t go anywhere.”
He returned pretty quickly with her cell phone. When he held it out, she wasn’t too surprised to hear him say her boss had already called her but talked to the police. She nodded. As long as Tootsie knew she wasn’t available to take the businessmen to Beale Street, that was fine. All she wanted now was to get away from here and go home.
She was directed to a service elevator in the rear of the kitchen and escorted there by one of the security guards. When the stainless steel doors slid open, Mike Morgan looked out at her.
“Going up or down?” he asked.
“Ha ha, very funny. This is the top floor.”
“I heard there was a murder, so I figured I’d find you close.” He flashed his badge and nodded at the security guard. “I’ll take it from here.”
“There are a lot of murders without me, you know,” she said as the elevator doors slid shut and closed them in. It rattled loudly as it descended.
“So I hear. And yet . . . here we are again.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
Morgan reached out to take her arm and pull her up against him. He sighed into her ear, “You always say that.”
“And it’s always true. Almost always.”
She felt his laugh. “
Come on, slugger. I’m taking you home before Baroni gets here.”
“Bobby? Let’s hurry. Wait. I have the tour van and—”
“Nope. Tootsie sent someone after it. You’re clear.”
“So how did you know I was here? Tootsie?”
“He thought you might need a friend.”
“Sometimes he is so wise,” said Harley.
“Later you can tell me what happened. After dinner and before breakfast maybe. A little pillow talk. If you’re in the mood.”
Harley sighed and leaned against him. Sometimes it was good to have a cop as a boyfriend.
Chapter 9
HARLEY AWOKE to tumbled sheets and the sound of rain against her windows. She snuggled even deeper into the covers. It was barely daylight outside, and Morgan had left an hour before. Neither one of them had gotten much sleep. That wasn’t a bad thing. She wondered if her toes were still curled. They should be. She sighed and closed her eyes. It took a bit of concentration, but she managed to banish the memory of the murder at The Peabody to the nether regions of her brain. She replaced it with more pleasant recent events.
The next thing she knew someone started banging on her door. It took a few seconds to get her eyes open. She debated getting up and answering the door or staying in bed where she was all comfy and sleepy. About the same time Sam jumped up on the bed and got in her face, the knocking changed to a pounding. The cat arched his back, and fur stuck straight up so that he looked like he’d stepped on an electrical cord. Then he hissed and let out a screech. Harley sighed. No point in trying to ignore the steady hammering on the door.
It took a minute for her to find enough clothes to keep from shocking her visitor, and as the door rattling continued she yelled, “Hold on! I’m coming fast as I can!”
She stepped into a pair of sweat pants and pulled on the Henley she’d worn the day before. A brand new pair of Victoria’s Secret thongs hung from the now motionless ceiling fan where Morgan had shot them like a rubber band. Such a lovely memory.
By the time she got the door unlocked and open, Sarah Simon nearly fell into the room. She was pale anyway, but now her face was without any color at all. Her eyes were big dark pools, and her hair was a mess. Harley caught her just before she crashed into a wall.
“Hey, what the hell’s going on, Sarah?”
Sarah had grabbed onto her with the tenacity of a baby spider monkey, her fingers digging into Harley’s arms like claws. “Man . . . in my . . . house!” she babbled. “Help!”
Uh oh. A prowler. Harley felt a little queasy. She really wasn’t up to some kind of confrontation. Not after last night.
“Are you sure?” she asked. “Maybe it was just the bushes against your window panes again.”
Sarah shook her head vigorously. “I saw . . . saw him! He’s w-wearing a helmet!”
“A helmet like a football player, or like an astronaut?”
Waving her arms over her head like a windmill Sarah looked a little wild as she said, “I don’t know! Just . . . just a helmet!” Then she began hiccupping.
“Okay, okay. Easy now . . . you’re safe.” She patted Sarah on the shoulder until she could breathe steadily and her hiccups stopped.
“Get him out,” Sarah said a little more strongly and coherently. “I don’t want him in my house.”
“Uh, did you ask his name or why he’s there? Did you let him in, or did he get in through a window or something?”
Sarah’s voice rose to the shrill level, about ten decibels above a chainsaw. “No, I didn’t let him in! He just got in somehow! I went down to the laundry room. When I came back with a load of dry clothes he was there!”
“Okay, calm down, I’ll see what I can do.” Harley paused, then headed toward her bedroom.
“The other way,” Sarah protested.
“I have to put on shoes. If I’m going to confront a burglar, I’ll need shoes. Combat boots would help, but I don’t have any.”
“Just hurry. He’s going to take all my stuff.”
“I’ve seen your apartment, Sarah. He’d have to have a ten-ton truck just to get half your stuff. Where do you hide your cash?”
“How do you know I have cash?”
Harley sighed, tied the shoelaces on her Converse, and went back into the kitchen where Sarah hovered between the breakfast bar and front door. “Because you told me. Where do you keep it?”
Sarah wrapped her skinny arms around her torso and shivered. “I’ve got it where no one will ever think to look.”
“Let me guess—your freezer?” When Sarah’s jaw dropped Harley said, “Stay here while I go check it out. Here’s my cordless phone. If I’m not back in five minutes dial nine-one-one and ask for the police. Okay?”
“But won’t the police try to come in my apartment?”
“Sarah, if I’m not back, it won’t matter to either one of us how bad your apartment looks.”
She took the cordless phone Harley handed her and said, “I’m not worried about how it looks. I don’t want them disturbing my collections.”
Harley rolled her eyes as she went out her door and down the staircase to the first floor. When putting on her shoes she’d grabbed her cell phone and an almost empty canister of Mace. If there was anyone in Sarah’s apartment, he was going to get a face full of Mace. She still wasn’t sure Sarah hadn’t just seen her own shadow or something.
She stopped outside Sarah’s partially open door. For a minute all she could hear was rain against the narrow windows on each side of the door out to the parking lot and her own heartbeat pounding in her ears. Maybe it was Sarah’s imagination. Maybe not.
Harley pushed the door open a bit more and peered inside. It was difficult to see anything for all the stacks of magazines, and she stepped just inside. No lights were on, and it wasn’t easy to see anything even with all the window shades up. The cloudy day filtered out the light. She crept between magazine stacks and paused beside the fairly neat kitchen. It was an anomaly in the midst of the cluttered rooms.
After a few moments went by with no sign of an intruder, Harley put her hands on her hips and started to say, “Nothing here that I can—” when a huge white blob appeared in the hall at the end of the magazine stacks. It wore a helmet over the entire head and carried what looked like a blowtorch, and it came straight at her. The rest of her sentence turned into a shriek. She fumbled for the Mace then realized it would be useless. So she gave a shove to one of the magazine stacks, and it tumbled over to block the narrow path between them. “Nine-one-one!” she yelled as loud as she could while scrambling backward. “Nine-one-one!”
The blob made a loud, incoherent sound and then started climbing on top of the magazine pile toward her. She moved backward nearly as fast as he moved forward.
Since she was moving backward she couldn’t see the doorway and ran right into it instead of out of it. The impact knocked her to the floor. For an instant all she could do was lie there, a little dazed. Then the blob loomed over her, and she scrambled to her feet and lurched into the small lobby and mailbox area. It promptly followed.
“Nine-one-one!” she yelled as loud as she could. “Nine-one-one!”
“Shit! Are we having an earthquake? What’s going on, Harley?” it asked, and she paused. The voice coming from the white helmet sounded vaguely familiar.
She turned back to peer at the blob. “Who are you? Wait—Arnie?”
Nodding, the blob took off the helmet, which was really a mask to the HAZMAT suit he was wearing, and looked up at the ceiling. “Yeah. It’s me. Is it an earthquake?”
“What?”
“An earthquake . . . isn’t that why we’re running?”
“I don’t know why you were running, but I was running because I thought you were a burglar or killer or something.”
Arnie, a huge guy with a red face, thinning blond hair, and a hurt expression said, “Jeez, Harley, why would you think that?”
“Sarah told me there was an intruder in her apartment. It was a logi
cal conclusion. So why were you in her apartment?”
“I’m the bug guy. I do all the apartments here and some in Cooper-Young.”
Harley squinted at him. “What happened to your job at Taco Bell?”
“Aw, I got tired of the same old thing. And I only have to do this during the week, so I have the weekends free. Who’s Sarah?”
“The renter. Didn’t you knock before going in?”
Arnie nodded. “Yup. But no one answered, so I went ahead and used the master key to go spray for bugs. Man, it’s creepy in there. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many magazines. Or stuff. Lots of stuff.”
Harley had to agree. “Yeah, it’s bad. Any bugs?”
“Not that I saw. Don’t know why not though. Place should be full of bugs. So what are you doing here?”
“I live upstairs.”
“The apartment with the mean cat?”
That had to be Sam. Harley nodded. “That’s the one. So you’ve been in to spray?”
“Last week. Never could get in this apartment. I guess she keeps locks on the door all the time and won’t answer when I knock.”
A light came on for Harley. “Have you ever looked in through the window to see if anyone’s home in this apartment?”
Arnie nodded. “Yeah.”
“Do you always wear that mask when spraying?” Another affirmative nod. Harley put both hands on her hips. “If you have to wear a HAZMAT suit, how safe is that stuff in the canister?”
“It’s not bad once it’s on the baseboards and window sills, but I just don’t want it to do anything to me since I’m around it all day. Gotta keep my boys fertile, y’know?”
“Dude. That’s a visual image I didn’t need. So . . . when you looked in the windows of this apartment, did you do or say anything?”
“I knocked on the window a couple times, but the window screen nearly came off, so I gave up. Why?”
“I think you’re the intruder Sarah’s been worried about. I’ll let her know you’re harmless. Except to bugs.”
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