Sprayed Stiff

by Laura Bradley

  I took off there, running my mouth, beginning with my refrigerator cleaning and telling the story in a way as sympathetic to me and Lexa as possible. Harland let me talk on, encouraging with sympathetic noises and even an “I understand” when I explained why I felt so sorry for Lexa.

  “And the rash on your hand?” Harland interrupted, surprising me. “Where did you get that?”

  I was about to be impressed with this sudden show of sharp thinking when I looked down and saw the index card in his hand with Scythe’s writing on it. Jerk. “It’s not a rash. It’s an abrasion of sorts. Or maybe you could call it a series of small punctures.” I mulled this for a moment, rubbing my fingers along the bumps as if they could tell me since I couldn’t see them with my hands behind my back.

  “A defensive wound, then?” Faithful Harland was still reading from the card. I wondered what other goodies were waiting there for me, courtesy of Scythe.

  “Defending myself from boar’s bristles? Lexa handed me a brush, and she slapped it down on my palm with a great deal of force, enough to break the skin.”

  “She must have been very angry.”

  “No, I would say confused, frustrated, frightened.”

  Harland really didn’t know how to handle this, which made me realize how lucky I was. Another cop might have hammered away at me to get to the motivation for her emotional state. As he pondered his index card and how to proceed, I turned on the charm. “Hey, Harland, what was the big deal in there a little while ago? Everyone was pretty worked up about something.”

  “Oh, yeah.” He leaned forward, excited. “The vic’s fingertips were chewed postmortem. We were trying to figure out if it was the suspect—you know, the guy’s got to be a whack-job if he painted her up like a clown.”

  “It wasn’t the suspect,” I said, disappointed that I already knew this juicy tidbit of information.

  “How do you know?”

  “Unless the Barristers’ cat’s a marksman.”

  “Her own cat chewed her? Eeuw!” Harland jumped up and shook his hands as if he could shake off the whole idea. He ran out of the room. “Hey, you guys, I found out who chewed…”

  I was left in the room with the tape recorder running and the index card on the table. I stared at the card and squinted, trying to decipher Scythe’s handwriting from four paces. It looked like chicken scratches. When I was a teenager, I used to be able to see across the hay field at home and into Errol Standard’s bedroom. That’d been better than TV. I sighed. I was getting old. I looked around the half-lit, dreary room. I couldn’t stand it—I had to know what Scythe had written on that card. I lifted my right leg and grimaced when the right side of my gluteus maximus clenched painfully. I pointed my toe and twisted my hip and stretched until the sole of my Tony Lama skimmed the card. I bore down and, even though my hamstring began to cramp, dragged the card close enough to read.

  Remember name/address.

  Sequence of events.

  Ask about her relationship with Wilma Barrister.

  Ask about her friendship with Alexandra Barrister.

  Ask about her personal life. Barrister has a son

  about her age. Kermit. Are they involved?

  “Oh, please, Scythe,” I muttered. “With someone named Kermit?”

  If not, whom is she involved with? Remember,

  most crimes are about sex, love, or money.

  “Sneaky bastard.”

  “Who? You?” Scythe’s voice called my attention to the door.

  My leg was still hiked up on the table; since my hamstring had locked, it would have to stay there. I tried to look cool. Scythe tried not to look up my skirt.

  “No. You.”

  “I’m not the one who’s snooping.” His laser blues drifted to my exposed thigh.

  I snapped my knees together. “What about those personal questions you sent your lackey in here to ask?”

  “That’s called investigating.”

  “Different word for the same action.”

  “Another difference: I’m trained and paid to do it, you are not.” Scythe snatched up the card and shoved it into his jeans pocket, which made me look places I shouldn’t be looking if I wanted to hang on to my high-and-mighty attitude.

  “It’s none of your business whom I’m seeing.”

  “It is police business—you are a material witness. You may be an accessory to murder. You may be the murderer, for all the Terrell Hills PD knows. Remember the gun. The only witness to your innocence is Wilma, and she’s not talking.”

  Gulp. My fingerprints were on the gun. I supposed I could be considered a valid suspect. I didn’t want Harland and Officer Bad Breath poking in my private life. I wanted Scythe poking around in it even less. “Okay, I don’t know Lexa’s brother, and I’m not seeing anyone currently. For your information, I took a vow of celibacy.”

  “Really.” Those eyes danced as they zeroed in on mine. He took a step forward, then another, then leaned forward and whispered low into my ear, out of recorder range, “I do love a challenge.”

  Six

  DESPITE ALL THE PROMISE behind the “I love a challenge” thing, it was nothing more than talk. I should’ve known better than to expect more. Scythe did this with regularity, got me all weak-kneed and fidgety, then walked off into the sunset. You know, if he got me weak-kneed and went in for the kill—I’d be supper that night. He probably knew that and was scared. Sure, that’s it, he was scared he’d fall head over heels with me, and life as the happy-go-lucky bachelor would be all over. Either that, or he was just using his effect on me to his advantage—for whatever he wanted me for at the moment.

  Yeah, I’d vote for that one too.

  And right now, he wanted me out of the way.

  So, there I sat, having regained strength in my knees, handcuffed in the armpit of the suit of armor, waiting for Scythe to return to transport me to jail. And that was when the bathroom door opened.

  Now, as far as I knew, no one had heeded the call of nature while I’d been there. This was either Wilma’s ghost, or a strong gust of wind—or, perhaps, the murderer.

  A rather shaggy brunet head belonging to an average-size androgynous body in a white T-shirt peeked out, saw me, swallowed an outburst, and retreated back inside. Going for the murder weapon, no doubt. I was dead. I thought longingly of jail and how I would never get the opportunity to experience it. Now fully depressed and regretting that I hadn’t planned my funeral in detail, I saw the door ease open again.

  From the shadows, either a high tenor or a low alto murmured, “I guess now you know I’m in here.”

  “Um, not necessarily.” My answer would depend on whether you have a gun or not.

  “It was stupid of me to open the door so soon. I just thought that policeman had taken you with him.”

  “No, he’s waiting until he can take me to the big house.”

  “A bigger house than this one?”

  I rolled my eyes. A dense criminal. Great, maybe he’d be less bloodthirsty. “The big house, as in slang for ‘jail.’ ”

  “Oh. Why? You didn’t kill Mrs. Barrister.”

  “How do you know?”

  “You weren’t here earlier.”

  “And you were?”

  “I work here.”

  “Okay.” The Shadow worked at the House of Horrors. That was good. “What do you do?”

  “I’m the gardener. No, actually, I work for the gardener.”

  “The gardens are lovely.” It’s good to give homicidal maniacs compliments. I read that somewhere.

  There was a long pause. I wondered if the Shadow was contemplating ways to kill me to keep me quiet. I decided now was a good time for a distraction technique.

  “So, did you kill Wilma, then?”

  “Of course not!”

  “Who did?”

  The Shadow sighed. “I wish I knew. While I was weeding the rose garden about seven-thirty, I saw Mrs. Barrister in her evening gown through the kitchen window. She was pouring herse
lf a glass of what looked like wine. Later, I heard a couple of cars come and go while I was finishing up planting impatiens along the back wall. I didn’t think anything of her having visitors. It happens often. The cars were gone when I came on up to the house about nine. I rang the bell. No one answered. Mrs. Barrister was expecting me, and the door was unlocked, so I came on in.”

  “She was expecting you at nine in the evening?” Oh, no, not another matron having an affair with a gardener. I’d been through this not long ago with the other murder investigation I’d bumbled my way into. Just as I was about to form a husbands-whose-spouses-left-them-for-the-gardener support group, he chimed in, “It’s not what you think. Mrs. Barrister was helping me get my GED so I could go to college.”

  Wilma, a hands-on (figuratively, that is) philanthropist? Well, go figure.

  “But when I saw she was…so weird-looking and dead, I panicked. I had some trouble with the police a couple of years ago—not this kind of trouble, though. I ran in here. I don’t know how long I stayed in here, wondering what to do, when I heard Alexandra’s voice, and then yours. Please don’t turn me in.”

  So he had an even lamer story than I did. I should’ve been thrilled there was some dumb schmuck to take some of the pressure off me, but instead I felt sorry for him.

  The Shadow stepped out of the bathroom, and I felt even sorrier for him. His dark brown hair was months from its last cut; probably meant to hang one length at his chin, it now sat on his shoulders. He was a slim-built twentysomething, about five-foot-two and probably a hundred pounds soaking wet. I wondered if he could handle pulling a patch of crabgrass, much less give cops any real run for their revolvers. “What kind of police trouble are we talking about? Running red lights? A plethora of parking tickets?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “What…” I paused to fortify my patience. “…exactly?”

  He cleared his throat. “An assault charge. Assault with a deadly weapon.”

  Oops. I tried not to laugh because it seemed so preposterous. But then, three-year-old kids had been known to pull a trigger. Sobering up, I scanned for the bulge of a concealed gun butt under his Hanes tee. “Not a revolver, by chance?”

  “No.” He held up his hands. They were disproportionately large on his sticklike arms. “These. I broke an arm, a nose, and five fingers. Someone was after my girl.”

  I had to bite my tongue to keep from laughing out loud this time. I wondered how surprised the Lothario had been when someone built like a midget scarecrow pummeled him good. “You know, your crime was one of spontaneous defense. The one against Wilma is definitely one of psychotic premeditation. Two different MOs entirely. The cops will question you and let you go. If I were you, I’d go turn myself in—be honest, tell them what you saw, and be done with it.”

  He hung his head. “You’re going to turn me in, aren’t you?”

  I cocked my head back toward my shackled hands. “Look, you and I are on the same side here. I don’t want to see you get in trouble, but, hey, what if I’m not the only one who knows you were here? The cops are going to come after you to question you because you work here. Having no alibi and a…history with the police won’t help you a bit. I say tell the truth now and you’ll be better off. And maybe you saw something important you don’t realize. Maybe your information will be what catches the killer.”

  “You’re right, I guess.” He sighed, rubbing those giant hands together.

  “Get your hands up!”

  The Shadow swung his head to the door, his small brown eyes filled with terror, and his hands flew into the air. I couldn’t see past the suit of armor to see who’d arrived, a logistic that Scythe doubtless planned when he put me down here. But if I didn’t recognize the voice, I’d recognize the breath anywhere.

  “Officer Manning,” I called past the metal elbow going up my nose, “this gentleman was about to turn himself in. I don’t think you need to hold him at gunpoint.”

  Manning and all his muscles stepped into the room, training his gun and gaze on the Shadow, but talking to me: “You’re just mad I broke up your strategy session. You don’t have to tell me: You are the brains and he’s the brawn of this criminal operation.”

  Manning must have caught my raised eyebrows in his peripheral vision. “Okay, maybe you’re the brawn and he’s the brains.”

  “Or maybe he’s Tweedledee and she’s Tweedledum,” Scythe’s voice interceded in our tête-à-tête. Leave it to him to worsen any insult. “What the hell are you talking about, Manning?”

  “Lieutenant, sir, I caught these two getting their stories straight, before he likely escaped out the balcony doors.”

  “There’s balcony doors in this room?” the Shadow asked, confused. Yikes.

  “He’s definitely the brawn,” Manning concluded with an officious nod.

  “Yeah,” I said with exaggerated pride. “Look at those hands. Brawny.”

  In answer, the Shadow smiled shyly at me and shook his hands where they were suspended in the air.

  Manning, observing the big hands for the first time, looked duly impressed. I winked. Scythe sighed. Big and loud. “You two know each other?”

  “We do now,” I offered.

  “We met ten minutes ago,” the Shadow clarified. “Except I don’t think we ever formally introduced ourselves. I’m John Tanno.”

  “I’m Reyn Sawyer.”

  “Good to meet you, Reyn.”

  “Same here, John.”

  “Wait,” Harland interrupted, coming into the room. “If they only met ten minutes ago, they couldn’t have murdered Mrs. Barrister, because the medical examiner just said she died about seven to eight hours ago—”

  Scythe cut him off with a glare. “Thanks for relaying that vital information to potential suspects, Officer.”

  “Oops.” Harland blushed. “Sorry, Lieu.”

  Scythe slid his glare over to me. I grinned. He leaned over me on the pretense of checking the fit of my handcuffs. “Leave it to you, Reyn, to manage to bollix something up even when handcuffed and behind a closed door.”

  “That’s where I do my best work. Behind closed doors.” Hell, I was already in trouble, I might as well have fun with it.

  A flare sparked in his laser blues for an instant before he stepped back and cleared his throat. “Manning, take Mr. Tanno here into another room for an interview. Cuff him if he’s uncooperative. Harland and I will stay and try to figure out how he got into the guarded room with Miss Sawyer. And what went on after he was in.”

  “I’ll make it easy for you boys.” I nodded toward the table, where the tape recorder was still running. “It’s all on tape.”

  I figured that after Scythe listened to the tape and saw how I was trying to help instead of hinder the investigation, he’d soften up and let me go. No such luck. Without a word, he and Harland exited again, sending a uniformed officer with the personality of a mannequin into the room to watch me. Guess I was considered a high security risk now that I’d managed to produce a live body from an empty room. I sneaked a look at the monolith sharing my air space. I wasn’t sure he was even breathing. Just as I was about to miss Officer Halitosis, Scythe returned, unlocked the handcuffs, and pulled me to my feet.

  “Let’s go to the car.”

  “Is Lexa okay?”

  “None of your business.”

  “Murder solved yet?”

  That earned me a glare. Well, anything was better than the none-of-my-business thing.

  I shook the hand of the suit of armor. Scythe nudged me in the small of my back. “Come on.”

  “Sorry. In case you didn’t notice, he and I got close.”

  “You’re punchy.”

  “And whom do I have to thank for that?”

  “Yourself. You could be home snug in your warm little bed with your dogs—”

  “Hey, who’s to say I wouldn’t be snuggled up with someone else?”

  “You’re the one who said you took the vow of celibacy.”

&n
bsp; “Well, some vows are made to be broken.”

  “I’m glad to hear that.” Scythe flashed a devastating grin. For a moment, the world fell away. It took me another moment to catch my breath. I’d have to start wearing some sort of protective sunglasses around him. Some of his expressions were just too much for me to think through logically. We walked out of the bedroom, down the hall, past the crime scene techs bustling around with their bags of equipment and cameras. Chief Ferguson crossed the massive foyer and looked up at us.

  “Chief, I’m taking her downtown,” Scythe said, trying a little too hard to act like he was a hard-ass. “I’ll be back shortly.”

  Ferguson threw me an apologetic look. “Is that really necessary?”

  “Is what necessary? Him coming back?” I quipped.

  Ferguson failed to hide a grin.

  “Yes,” Scythe said tightly, ushering me down the stairs. “It is necessary to book her.”

  Ferguson shrugged and followed a crime tech into the kitchen. Scythe opened the front door and led me to a Terrell Hills Police Department sedan. He opened the back passenger-side door.

  “You’re really going to make me ride in the back?”

  “We have to do this by the book.” His cocked his head toward a second-story window, where Harland, Manning, and half the crime scene techs were gathered, gawking. They scattered when I looked up. I got in the damned car. It smelled like athlete’s foot meets a week-long Thunderbird drunk. “You really need to start wearing deodorant, Lieutenant,” I said.

  Grinding his teeth without answering, Scythe fiddled with the handcuffs for show but didn’t put them back on. Then he slammed my door shut, slid into the front seat, locked the doors, and turned over the ignition.

  He drove out the gate before breaking the silence. “If you are so intent on helping your friend, tell me all you can about Alexandra.”