Sticky Fingers

by Nancy Martin

  “Normally, I wear jeans and a sweatshirt. But I was thinking–”

  He began shaking his head before I got any further. “No, no, don’t think. Leave it to me. I’ll find something for you.”

  “I don’t want to look like an idiot,” I cautioned.

  “No dancing-bear outfit, you mean?”

  “I’m no twenty-year-old sweet tart, either.”

  “I get it,” he said. “Can I have my shirt back?”

  I released him at last.

  We split up. Nooch and Richie took the Monster Truck and went off to the nearest thrift store. Zack and I got into the front of the Escalade, Sage and Sugar into the backseat. Sugar was busy using her phone again. Did she never stop?

  My cell phone rang, and I checked the screen. Loretta.

  Her name prompted a surge of resentment. The least she could have done was mention sending Flynn off to the marines so long ago. But she’d kept it a secret for a lot of years. I needed time to process what I’d learned.

  I let her call go to voice mail, but the phone rang again almost immediately. Infuriated, I opened the phone and snapped, “What do you want?”

  “Roxy? It’s Tito calling. From the museum?”

  “Sure. Hi, Tito. Sorry, I thought—never mind. What’s up?”

  “You sound a little touchy, darling.”

  “It’s been an interesting day.”

  “For me, too, as a matter of fact. Do you have time to stop in? I have something to discuss.”

  “Well, actually, I’ve got a few too many irons in the fire at the moment. Can it wait?”

  “Of course. It’s just that I was really shocked by Clarice Crabtree’s murder—especially since you and I were talking about her shortly before her death.”

  “I know, crazy coincidence, right?”

  “I hope that’s what it was.” Tito cleared his throat. “Meanwhile, something interesting has happened I thought you’d like to hear about.”

  Suddenly I was all ears. “Let me guess. It’s about dinosaur bones.”

  “In a way, yes. Richard Eckelstine tried to sneak into our facility yesterday.”

  “Say what?”

  “Oddly enough, he was trying to return something.”

  I thought of Eckelstine’s heavy backpack. “Tell me more.”

  “He tried to break in, but unfortunately, he tripped the backup security system. He was discovered with a large bone from our collection. So I did a little digging.” Tito paused. “That’s archaeology humor, Roxy.”

  “Hilarious.”

  “Yes, well, I looked into our inventory records. I discovered that Clarice Crabtree had signed out a number of items from the megafauna department. Over the last several years, Clarice systematically removed over two dozen valuable bones from the museum’s collection.”

  “I bet she didn’t keep them for herself.”

  “You seem to be a step ahead of me.”

  “She sold the bones?” I said.

  “How did you guess?”

  I guessed because if I had my hands on some valuable dinosaur bones, I’d probably find a lucrative way to get rid of them myself.

  Tito went on. “I can’t make specific accusations, of course. Not until her office gets a thorough going-over. But judging by her husband’s eagerness to return a very large vertebra yesterday, I assume Clarice stole and sold a lot of items.”

  “Why would her husband return a vert—a verta—one of those things you said?”

  “He’s a scientist with a moral code. I think he discovered what his wife had done and was trying to do the right thing. He was returning something she stole.”

  “If he wanted to protect her reputation, he was a little late.”

  “There’s more,” Tito said in my ear. He dropped his voice as if someone might be eavesdropping. “After the Eckelstine incident, I looked through our really old records. Before the catalog was put on computer. We have old ledger books dating back to the days when the museum first opened for business. I found information dating back to the days when Professor Crabtree was associated with the institution.”

  My chest felt tingly inside—like the first time I figured out how to make an algebra problem work. “What did you find?”

  “Don’t quote me. But I think the Professor stole items, too. Mind you, most of it was things he gave us in the first place. But it’s bad form to make donations and then take back the stuff. The interesting part is that I found at least one of the skeletons he checked out of the collection twenty-five years ago.”

  “What do you mean, you found it?”

  “The skeleton is now owned by a movie star who collects all kinds of strange things—carousels, Native American pottery, Stickley furniture. And dinosaur skeletons. I think it’s pretty clear the Professor sold his skeleton to her. For a lot of money.”

  “Wow. Twenty-five years ago?”

  Twenty-five years ago, his wife had died in a supposedly random shooting.

  Tito said, “You there, Roxy?”

  “Yeah, sorry. My mind wandered. What’s the next step?”

  “We’ve started an internal investigation. It will take months to track down all the facts. And the police will be notified.”

  “You’ll let me know what happens? And if you notice anything else?”

  “Of course. Listen, Roxy. I don’t want you to get into any trouble with the police, but…”

  “Hey,” I said sharply, “I didn’t have anything to do with what happened to Clarice, Tito. So don’t hold back when you talk to the cops.”

  Beside me in the passenger seat, Zack turned and got interested in the conversation.

  Tito said, “That’s a relief to hear. I’ll be in touch.”

  I hung up, and thought about Richard Eckelstine trying to undo a small part of Clarice’s low-down thievery. Maybe he wasn’t such a dickhead after all.

  Then I tried to remember what Clarice had said about her mother’s death. How had it happened, exactly? And when? What did the Professor selling off an expensive dinosaur skeleton have to do with his wife’s murder—if anything?

  Meanwhile, Zack watched me think. And I found myself trying to figure out if Eckelstine was returning Clarice’s bones to cover up her murder.

  “Mom?” Sage said, yanking me back to the present.

  “Yeah?”

  “What’s that?” Sage leaned forward and pointed out the windshield.

  On autopilot, I had driven over to the North Side to my neighborhood.

  The scene unfolding in the middle of my street was a typical domestic disturbance—nothing out of the ordinary in my corner of the world. A few of my neighbors, in fact, were hanging out their doors and windows to watch the action.

  Jane Doe was shrieking while a Neanderthal dragged her by the hair toward a waiting car. Both of her children stood on the porch of the house, screaming.

  To Zack, I said, “Push in the cigarette lighter, will you, tiger?”

  “Huh?”

  “I need to light a fire. So heat it up. Sage? See those kids on the porch? Go pick up the baby. I’ll be there in a minute.”

  In the backseat, Sugar never looked up from her phone’s screen. “This is so boring.”

  I bailed out of the Escalade and grabbed the only weapon I could find on short notice—a plastic ice scraper the vehicle’s owner kept alongside the driver’s seat. To Zack, I said, “See the garbage can over there? Go set it on fire.”

  “But—”

  “Just do it,” I said.

  “Shouldn’t we call 911?”

  “No need.”

  I walked up the street and gave Jane Doe’s boyfriend a solid shot upside his head with the ice scraper.

  I gotta say, it doesn’t pay to buy cheap automotive accessories at a gas station, because a flimsy ice scraper is going to break when you need it most. This one shattered on contact, but Jane Doe’s boyfriend did not go down like I’d hoped he might. Instead, he turned on me like an enraged bull.

  L
ike most firemen, he was big and strong, and he knew how to use that size and strength. He had a bulldog jaw and the insanity of rage glaring in his red eyes.

  But he dropped Jane when I hit him, which was a good thing, and she had the presence of mind to stumble back toward the house, where Sage was just gathering up her children.

  I figured my best move was to knee the fireman in the nuts. Not a fair fight, and I hated getting in close in case things didn’t go my way, but it was a quick and easy solution.

  Trouble was, he dodged my kick. And grabbed my hair. He swung me against a parked car, and I heard Sage cry out. I made a fist and jabbed the fireman squarely in one eye. He howled and tried to punch me back, but his blow went wide and he hit the car window instead. Another howl, and he clutched his injured hand.

  Which gave me the opening to knee him squarely in the groin.

  Except I didn’t need to.

  Jane Doe came back and hit him over the head with a porch chair.

  It was like she suddenly had superhuman strength. She hoisted the chair over her head and brought it down on him with every ounce of muscle she had.

  He went down on the pavement like a stone. He sprawled on the street, eyes spinning in his head. He was breathing, but he wasn’t going to have a coherent thought for a while.

  Meanwhile, from behind me, I heard a whoosh and a small explosion.

  Then Zack cursed in surprise and came running toward me. “I don’t know what was in that garbage, but it blew up!”

  We looked down the street, where the trash can was already burning merrily. We could see the plastic melting fast, and an aerosol can suddenly popped up and disintegrated with a bang.

  “Hairspray,” I said. “The lady who lives in that house is a hairdresser.”

  The neighbors who had been watching the fight in the street suddenly turned their attention to the fire, and a few of them began shouting directions for putting out the flames.

  “C’mon,” I said to Zack. “Help me get everybody into the Escalade.”

  Sage carried the baby, and Jane Doe scooped up her little girl. They were all half crying, half laughing.

  Jane was giddy. “Did you see what I did? I can’t believe I did that!”

  Sage said, “I was so scared! Mom, are you okay?”

  “Sure, no problem.”

  Jane Doe burst into sobs. “Thank you. Thank you so much. He was—he came—I never thought I could—but you—and then I— Thank you, thank you.”

  “You did great.” I put a calming hand on her shoulder.

  She snuffled up her tears. “I didn’t want my kids to see him treat me that way.”

  “That’s progress.”

  As we left my neighborhood, we passed the first fire truck arriving on the scene. I figured Jane Doe’s boyfriend would be happy to see his buddies.

  23

  Used to be, rock concerts played in the old Civic Arena—a round-domed municipal relic that had hosted everything from the Beatles to Pink Floyd to country shows like the Dixie Chicks, not to mention a lot of great hockey back when Mario Lemieux played and more recently when Sidney Crosby led the Penguins to the Stanley Cup. But that crumbling hulk had been retired, and beside the old site was now a shiny new multipurpose arena that still had to prove itself to the locals, most of whom liked their Pittsburgh landmarks rough around the edges.

  I parked the Escalade among the tractor-trailers that hauled Dooce’s show around the country. At least a dozen uniformed city police officers hung around the trucks, but none of them seemed to be on the lookout for a stolen vehicle. We piled out of the Escalade. Zack took off for the security office. The rest of us made an odd parade going through the performer’s entrance.

  I gave my name to the guy double-checking security—a bearish, bearded guy who gave me a look in the eye that I recognized as an invitation. A heartbeat later, I read the name on the backstage credentials hanging around his neck: Jeremy Dranko. Dooce’s right-hand man.

  I returned the look and said, “You’re Dooce’s badass assistant.”

  “Personal manager,” he said. “What’s it to you?”

  “I hear you’re the man behind the man.”

  He had a crooked smile and gave me another slow once-over. “I do as I’m told.”

  “Sounds promising. Party after the show?”

  “You bet, baby,” he replied, then jutted his chin at the crowd behind me. “Who’s this? Your entourage?”

  “Family and friends. They’ll behave, I promise.”

  “Too bad,” he said. “What about you?”

  “No promises there.”

  He laughed and distributed backstage credentials for everyone—even Jane Doe’s baby. We slipped them around our necks, and I mentioned that I had two more people coming—Nooch and Richie Eckelstine.

  “This isn’t a backyard barbecue,” he protested.

  It seemed like a good idea to string him along. He’d been outside the Crabtree house the night Clarice disappeared. And the leather bomber jacket he wore inadequately covered the sidearm in his belt. I said, “But it could get hot later, right?”

  He grinned again and relented. “I’ll keep an eye out for them. As long as you make time for me, baby.”

  “Can’t wait,” I said.

  I winked and we went through the metal detector.

  We could hear the squeal of guitars tuning up in the arena, punctuated by the rattle of drums and someone counting into a microphone. We followed the sound along the wide concrete corridor to the first set of double doors. Another guard opened them for us. Inside, the work lights shone down on thousands of seats radiating from a big stage set up in the middle of what was usually the hockey ice.

  Onstage, a dozen roadies and local guys from the stagehand union were finishing up threading cables, setting lights, and otherwise hauling junk around.

  In the stadium, a group of observers sat in one cordoned-off section. To me, they looked like family and friends of the band or the roadies.

  I put Sage in charge of the kids and told them to sit in the stadium seats with everyone else. Jane Doe still looked a little shell-shocked. She had ice cream on her blouse, but she was smiling.

  Stony Zuzak called from the stage. “Roxy! That you?”

  I jogged down the aisle and climbed the stage, where Stony and his bunch of local musicians stood getting their orders from the woman I took to be Dooce’s music director. A tough blonde with a headset and a clipboard, she wasn’t in the mood for nonsense. She talked their language, and they all nodded and scribbled notes while Dooce’s lead guitarist made wisecracks with the drummer.

  Off in the shadows by the electric piano were Deondra and Kate, my partners in crime in the backup department. I joined them.

  Deondra wore a huge floral caftan. Her hair was freshly braided and swept to the top of her head. “Good to see you here, Rox.” Her big voice was relaxed and vibrant. “Kate and me—we were worried we’d have to do this gig by ourselves.”

  Kate—very thin, very white, and very nervous—was sipping from a huge plastic water bottle. I knew from experience there was more than water in the container. She said, “Did you review the tapes Stony sent? You know your part?”

  “Unless Dooce adds something fancy, I think I’m ready.”

  “Dooce won’t do anything fancy,” Deondra said. “He’s performed this same concert so many times he could do it asleep. There won’t be any surprises.”

  “Is he going to rehearse with us?”

  “No, he doesn’t get here until the show starts.”

  Kate said to me, “Is that what you’re wearing?”

  Kate favored short, skintight dresses and a hairdo that looked as if she’d cut it herself with hedge clippers—a look that worked for her. She glanced up and down my jeans and less-than-clean sweatshirt.

  “Nah,” I said, putting in a silent prayer for Richie to come through for me. “I’m going to change.”

  I saw Jeremy come down to the edge of the stage. He
lounged there, keeping an eye on everything while talking into a cell phone.

  The music director called us together, ran through the order of numbers without referring to her clipboard. She told us when Dooce would talk to the audience and give us time to get a drink, smoke, or run to the john. One intermission lasted twenty minutes, and we weren’t to leave the building. She gave the musicians some specific cues, then turned and shouted at the guys in the light booth. They talked back to her using the arena’s speaker system.

  Then we checked every microphone on the stage to fine-tune the levels. I counted to three when it was my turn—that was it.

  At last, they decided we should run through a number, and the music director chose one of Dooce’s classics, a song called “Summer Drive.” It was one of Dooce’s American anthems—a song that glorified youthful indiscretions in the backseats of cars. Written by a man, there was no mention made of teenage pregnancies, but what else is new? The lead guitarist struck a major chord, nodded at the drummer to start the beat, and we were off. Stony played bass, and Dooce’s keyboardist could really riff. The music director sang Dooce’s part in a half voice—she wasn’t bad—and the rest of us jumped in where we were supposed to.

  Backing up a lead vocalist isn’t like singing a solo in church or even harmonizing in a school choir. It’s usually a lot of harmonizing with “ooohs” and “aaahs” and the occasional riff on the melody, but the art is in watching the way the lead singer breathes and creates his phrases. Deondra had a big voice with the kind of power that could drown the lead sometimes, but she was great at the technical stuff of backing up. She dropped the right consonants, let her voice fade so the lead could soar. Best of all, she blended. I had learned by following her, and after a few years I could confidently take my own part in the harmonies. Best of all, I liked getting noisy, raising the roof.

  Okay, I wasn’t usually a team player, and I liked being my own boss. But singing in clubs, working with Deondra and Kate and Stony’s rotating band—it felt good to me. I liked the hard, driving music, but I also liked making myself part of a big sound.

  The lyrics for “Summer Drive” were all Dooce’s to sing, with the backup singers stuck with a long bunch of “c’mon, c’mons” and repeating the title phrase about two hundred times. Piece of cake. But fun.