Sprayed Stiff

by Laura Bradley

  “Whoa.” I held up a hand before it got too graphic. “I get the idea.”

  “I was gonna say warm heart, man,” Guts clarified with a pouchy lower lip. Ah, the real romantic of the Roadkill.

  “Okay, dudes, I appreciate the advice. I make myself a mute and I’ve got it made. Right?”

  “I dated a chick once that was a mute midget,” Gore said, with a visual review of me. “You’re too tall for that, but I tell you, she was the perfect girlfriend, better than a pair of drumsticks.”

  Okay, I wasn’t going to think about that too hard.

  An officer led a handcuffed DD past me. DD threw me a wink and a lewd tongue-waggle. “You just want some, hot cheeks, come see me. You still owe me a thank-you.”

  “Thank you, DD,” I said deliberately, moving my booty well out of sight behind the couch. I smiled sweetly. “That ought to do it.”

  “No way, hot cheeks. A promise is a promise.”

  “Don’t hold your breath,” Scythe told him as he sidled up to me. “She doesn’t keep her deals.”

  I looked up at him with a steely glare, crossing my arms over my chest. He raised both eyebrows.

  “Oh-whoa,” the band bunch chanted from the paddy wagon.

  Scythe waved them off. “Enough already.”

  The officers closed the paddy-wagon doors, and DD pressed his tongue against the back window as a goodbye. I couldn’t suppress the shiver.

  “Just think, he could’ve been all yours if I hadn’t known you were going to do something stupid tonight.”

  I stared straight ahead.

  Scythe sighed. “So who told you about Lexa’s boyfriend?”

  I stared at him.

  “Have you gone mute?”

  “Gore tells me that all dream girls are mute.”

  “Dream girl is not an option for you, so give up the mute thing.”

  I glared at him. No, I guess I didn’t have legs to there and boobs to here, so I wouldn’t be any man’s dream. Well, there was my mouth. And, of course, the head-strong personality that I preferred to think of as independence—

  “Now, that—what I just said,” he said quietly, “you can take as a compliment.”

  Huh?

  He called to the Austin officers to hold the paddy wagon.

  Oh, so his strategy was to keep me off balance. Well, I wasn’t falling for it.

  “So, am I going to have them take you in for obstruction, or are you going to tell me how you found out about the boyfriend?”

  DD was doing the tongue thing again. Okay, I’d fall for Scythe’s strategy. Just this once. “A customer told me she ran into Lexa at a concert and she was romancing a member of the opening band. I did some sleuthing and we ended up here.”

  “You didn’t think to mention it to me?”

  “Well, I knew you were busy, going to see Shauna and checking out the Dumpster. How did that turn out, by the way?”

  He lifted his left eyebrow. “We found a body in the Dumpster. Thanks for the tip.”

  “A body?! It was supposed to be just a little blood on a photo. Now, if it were animal parts, that’s a different story….”

  Scythe got a little too close and a little too still. He held my gaze a little too long. “If you knew that, why didn’t you tell me more specifically what we were looking for?”

  “I didn’t believe my informant,” I said, thinking on my feet. “I thought telling you would predispose you to expect a certain something when it very well could have been anything.”

  “I don’t believe you, but I can’t argue with the strategy, and you know it. Sneaky girl. Now, what’s this about animal parts? Does this have something to do with Wretched Roadkill?”

  “I don’t know.” I mulled a moment about Annette, her connection, and the possibility the Roadkill had left Percy the parts. But why? They could’ve done it, but then the threats Percy was receiving were unrelated to the murder. The band had an alibi for the night of Wilma’s murder, and besides, I believed Asphalt’s denial. Of course, Lexa could’ve killed her mom on the band’s orders. Theoretically. My intuition told me that wasn’t true, but I doubt Scythe would buy that reasoning. He was more a facts man. “I can’t tell you any more until I clear it with my source.”

  Scythe blew out a breath and looked at the sky. It must be catching. All the men around me seemed to be doing that tonight.

  “Now, what’s this about a body?”

  He shrugged. “Just a joke.”

  I looked at him. He was telling the truth. “It’s not funny.”

  “You said it.” He put his finger under my chin and forced me to look into his eyes. These weren’t just any eyes. Steel blue and strong as a punch, eyes to make the devil tell the truth. “None of this is funny, Reyn. It’s not funny that you are so mixed up in this murder investigation that you were close to getting yourself killed. Again.”

  “Close only counts in the backseat of the car,” I quipped to lighten the intensity of his mood.

  He held up his right hand. “Don’t tell me, your gran used to say it.”

  “Still does, to my nieces and nephews.”

  The corners of his hard mouth turned up. “One day, I want to meet this lady.”

  Ooh, wouldn’t that be a field day for Gran? I’d have to sell tickets to that encounter.

  Hand on my elbow, he led me over to an Austin patrol car. “But until then, let the detectives talk to you. Give them a complete statement, then go home with your pals and make trouble with hair instead of with outlaws…” He paused as he turned to leave. “…and little boys.”

  “Nice boys, don’t you mean?” I challenged as he strode away.

  He stopped in the middle of the parking lot. He was backlit by the neon sign shining between two buildings, so I couldn’t see his face, but I could hear the honey in his baritone. “If nice is what you want, you don’t know how nice this boy can be.”

  Austin isn’t a big town, but it is the state capital and a hotbed of technology, so there’s money and power here. Money and power always breed a different atmosphere amongst public servants. Here the police seemed somehow slicker and less approachable than our hometown men in blue. Scythe was probably the most professional, hard detective I’d run into in San Antonio—I’d accidentally met a few—and, still, he was rough around the edges. He was definitely a cowboy cop, and these Austin guys were more what I’d call calculator cops.

  I was sitting in a patrol car, waiting for someone to take my statement, when two detectives walked by. “I’ve never seen a badge get in trouble from more departments in so short a time as Scythe—the SAPD, Terrell Hills PD, now us.”

  I sat very still and held my breath as the second detective chimed in, “All because of a meddling girlfriend.”

  I wondered what Zena had been up to, besides the bogus threat I’d blamed on her. Their next statement made me realize whom they were really talking about.

  “I heard her mucking around actually ended up solving that Ricardo’s Salon murder, but she nearly got knocked off in the process. Now here she is in the middle of this one, too, mixed up with guns and drugs and killing.”

  The other cop tsked loudly. “She must be good.”

  Ha!

  “At something, anyway.”

  At irritating and infuriating, I was sure would be Scythe’s answer.

  The pair wandered off out of earshot, worse luck. I could pretty much guess why Scythe would be in trouble with the SAPD over the Ricardo deal. I did get a tiny bit overinvolved with that investigation. He’d probably shielded me from a lot of heat then. I guess the Terrell Hills PD, probably just Manning, was pissed that I wasn’t arraigned. Maybe Scythe had called in a bigger favor than I imagined in getting me out of that one. The Austin PD likely hated that Scythe had come into their territory, into a situation that would require pulling a gun, without giving them a heads-up.

  Okay, I felt properly guilty now. However, I wouldn’t put it past Scythe to have staged the whole conversation just to e
voke such an emotion in me. It was probably the only one that would make me think twice about meddling further.

  And he knew it.

  The car door opposite me opened, and I jumped. A woman detective held out her hand. I shook it. She was probably close to forty, her demeanor as no-nonsense as that of my high school math teacher. “Detective Darcy. I need to ask you a few questions.”

  I nodded. “Go ahead.”

  She asked me to review the events of the evening, which I did.

  “What I don’t understand is why they wanted to kill us,” I mulled.

  “The marijuana is a new strain, super-high quality, traceable to a certain area of Mexico and a certain supplier. Mr. Ugarte apparently recognized the quality, commented on it. They got nervous.”

  Probably to kill time so he could avoid taking a toke. At least, I hoped so.

  “Were you offered any drugs?”

  “No, I just saw that one cigarette that I thought looked like what might be drugs.”

  “What do you mean, ‘what might be drugs’?”

  “Well, I’ve never seen drugs before, so I have to guess.”

  She studied me over her oval, wire-rimmed glasses with a dubious look that said she might discount my entire version of the night’s events based on that answer.

  “It’s true,” I insisted.

  What is the world coming to when the cops won’t believe that a woman without a police record has never laid eyes on drugs?

  “I take it back,” I put in.

  Darcy looked vindicated in her skepticism.

  “I’ve seen them on TV, on an episode of COPS once.”

  She rolled her eyes heavenward. Her too, huh?

  “Well, Ms. Sawyer,” she said, “while this all might be too much for you to comprehend, having led the sheltered life you have, it seems that the members of Wretched Roadkill were doing some drug running for some businessmen in Oaxaca.”

  Uh-oh, these businessmen were sounding familiar.

  “Do you know who these guys are?” I asked Darcy.

  “No.” She looked at me sharply. “Do you?”

  “I was just wondering how you found out about them. Are the Roadkill rolling on the bad guys?”

  “Yeah, some guy named DD in the paddy wagon is offering to tell all in exchange for a prison that allows conjugal visits.”

  Oh, swell. I hoped DD didn’t have my phone number. Of course with my piss-poor luck, he’d blab so much the authorities would be so grateful, they would let him walk and he’d be on my front porch by the time I got home.

  “I bet they met these Oaxacan businessmen through Percy Barrister, didn’t they?”

  “Is that”—she reviewed her notes—“ ‘Asphalt’s chick’s old man’?”

  I nodded. She shoved her glasses up the bridge of her nose and peered at me through the lenses. “How did you know about the connection?”

  “Good guess?” I smiled, shifting like I was going to leave the car. “Maybe I should go buy a lottery ticket.”

  Suddenly Darcy’s posture changed. She was on alert. Damn. I just had to open my big mouth, didn’t I?

  Putting one hand up, she quashed my plans to win millions. “Not so fast.”

  She called for her partner on her two-way radio, watching me for sudden moves. I had an itch on the back of my neck, but I was afraid to reach up to scratch it for fear she’d draw the revolver at her rib cage. I fidgeted, but she looked suspicious, so I stopped. Finally, the partner arrived, a whippet-thin fiftysomething who looked like a marathon runner or chain-smoker. He nodded when Darcy did a perfunctory introduction as he slid into the front seat and turned around to face us.

  He never spoke. Apparently, the partner was a total trampoline—someone to bounce things off later. Darcy did all the grilling.

  “How did you know about the connection between Oaxaca, the band, and this Barrister character?”

  “I didn’t. I was here looking for Lexa Barrister’s boyfriend.”

  “Why?”

  “The detectives working her mother’s murder case seem to think she might have had something to do with it. I just want to make sure she doesn’t take the rap for nothing.” Me, too, I added in my head.

  “So Lexa told you where you could find her boyfriend, this Asphalt?”

  “Oh, no. She won’t admit she has a boyfriend to me.”

  “Why not?”

  I shrugged. “Trying to protect me, I guess.”

  “Or protect him.”

  I’d considered that, but I didn’t like to hear it out loud. I frowned.

  “So what makes you think there is a connection between the Roadkill, Barrister, and these Mexican guys?”

  “I just happened to run into someone who works in the same building who mentioned that a scary pair who spoke only Spanish, very unlike his usual staid tax-law clients, were visiting Percy Barrister on a regular basis. When you said their suppliers were in Oaxaca, I thought that was too big a coincidence.”

  The trampoline nodded thoughtfully.

  “The Terrell Hills investigators know about this, probably more than I do by now, so you can check with them.” She grimaced. I knew about friction between police departments when it came to investigations. They all wanted to run the show instead of cooperate. This one was going to be a royal mess, and I’d just reminded her. It was Podunk PD versus the calculator cops.

  Darcy handed me a steno pad. “Write down your contact information. It’s looking like the daughter and boyfriend had something to do with the Barrister murder, maybe to protect the drug business. If this Lexa contacts you, let us know immediately.”

  Tramopline nodded. Bad sign.

  I shook my head. “I really don’t think that Wilma got killed because she found out about the drug running and put up an argument about it. I mean, if that was the case, why not just knock her off like it was an accident? Run her over, or booby-trap her car, slit her throat and dump her in the river or something. Why would they dress her face up like clown, take half an hour to spray her hair stiff, and leave her dead in her own house? Whoever killed Wilma had a personal vendetta, not a business agenda.”

  Trampoline’s eyebrows went up. The corners of Darcy’s mouth went down. She held out her hand for the steno pad. After briefly flirting with the idea of leaving Zena Zolliope’s address and phone, I was a good girl and jotted mine down and slapped it into Darcy’s open hand.

  “We’ll make note of your opinion.” I didn’t see her taking any notes. “But it’s looking like we can wrap these two cases up by the time we find the two missing perps.”

  Wow, what a fun ride this was going to be—Tessa insisted upon driving even though Rick had only had two sips of his Dos Equis and held a doobie at gunpoint. This had apparently rendered him unable to negotiate the roads in Tessa’s opinion, so he sat in the passenger seat up front and withstood Tessa’s silent reproof. Reproof for saving me from death, no doubt. I was not number one on her hit parade, having lured Rick back into temptations he hadn’t even thought of in years and nearly gotten him killed. I nabbed the middle seat, planting myself squarely in the middle. There was no way I was sitting next to Jon. I felt guilty about what he’d heard, but it was true, and if he was really carrying a torch, it was better he dropped it now rather than later. The man in question threw a tortured look my way as he squeezed past, then hunkered down in the backseat, arms crossed, and looked out the window.

  “Where are Trudy and Mario?” I asked. Only Rick, Tessa, and Jon had been waiting for me when I was finally released by Darcy and her trampoline.

  “They were smarter than we were and booked it in the bedlam that followed the gunshots,” Tessa answered tightly.

  That was out of character for my best friend and her husband. I dialed her number on my cell phone. Her voice mail picked up immediately. I left a short, worried message and hung up.

  “Did you all see which way Lexa and her boyfriend went?”

  “I saw them come out, because I was watching for the
two of you,” Tessa said, “but just a second later came the gunshot and the crowd ran around bumping into each other like a bed of disturbed fire ants. That’s about the time I lost Trudy and Mario, too. I guess they made for the door. Jon and I should’ve followed and let you two idiots walk home.”

  Some not-so-latent hostility filled the van.

  I tried to lighten the mood. I cleared my throat. “So, how did the interrogations go for everybody?”

  There was a beat of silence. Then Rick opened his mouth, but Tessa spoke first.

  “This wasn’t a job interview. My Lord, Reyn, don’t you do anything normal? A simple night out on the town turns into a shootout at the O.K. Corral. First you try to kill my cat, now my husband….”

  “I’m sorry, Tessa. If I’d known there was even an outside chance of that, I would have gone alone.” Hey, get over the cat thing, I thought. It wasn’t my fault he was sitting in the bushes and the murderer had used him as a brick through the window. Merlin had survived without a scratch and earned some major cat mojo—he won every fight on the block now.

  A small groan in the backseat told me Jon still gripped the torch.

  “The lesson here is you shouldn’t go at all!” Tessa’s voice rose, then dropped back down as she continued, “Look, I was afraid for you and for Rick. Just promise me you’ll stay out of this mess until the police wrap it up. It shouldn’t be too long. It looks like the two cases were linked. They’ll have everyone who’s anyone under arrest within twenty-four hours, I hope.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

  “Let it go, Reyn. I didn’t see Lexa hanging around to defend you after she got you into this. She’s in too deep to save.”

  Tessa reached over and switched on the news. I guess we were finished discussing our evening. The cello-phanish voice of the radio news anchor announced the news at the top of the hour: “An Alamo Heights makeup artist was found dead in her salon just after midnight. An anonymous caller tipped off police to the victim of an apparent shooting. This is the second murder this week in the ’09 zip code. The funeral for a Terrell Hills philanthropist found shot to death in her home Saturday night is set for a week from today. Wilma Locke Barrister’s mother is apparently on a retreat in the mountains of New Mexico. Family have gone to find her to bring her back to bury her daughter. In other news…”