A Dead Red Heart

by R. P. Dahlke

  It's not like I held her over the baptismal font and breathed my long-boned Norwegian genes into her. She came by her height, good looks and grace from two handsome parents; her charm from her dad and her ambition obviously from her mom. She sure didn't get it from me; Roxanne's family is all a luscious café au lait, and I'm a tall skinny, twice-divorced, middle-aged white woman. Of course if you asked my dad, I was a wash-out as a model, and the same could be said for my ability to run his crop-dusting business—especially after this morning's fiasco, when I single-handedly lost the widow Warren to an unethical competitor.

  Still fuming over what I saw as my dad's unfair attitude for the loss of the widow Warren, I angrily pushed through the double-doors‚ snapped up a discarded morning paper, and took my usual spot at the counter and close to the coffee machine. I considered myself lucky when a busy waitress saw my empty cup.

  "Just get off work, Lalla?" asked Linda, tilting the coffee pot over my outstretched cup, and letting the last of the pot trickle down to nothing. "Lemme get you some fresh," she said, reaching behind her to get it. Linda Earnest could measure my weariness by her own, since she was winding down from a long night shift. She was also the widow of an Aero Ag pilot. A pilot's job was hard to take in the best of times, what with the long hours, deadly chemicals and dangerous flying. One slip—and in Ted's case, flip—and it was all over.

  "Yeah," I said, as she refilled my cup. "Between weather problems and losing another customer to a thieving competitor, it's been a long day. God, I'll be glad to see the end of this summer."

  It was my usual lament, and in light of the fiasco with the widow Warren, the best I could do. She nodded and kindly didn't mention yesterday's front page with my picture on it, then moved on to the next customer. Reluctant to read the headlines, I unfolded The Modesto Bee to the back section and started with the funnies. When that chuckle was through, I turned the paper over to the front page and started at the bottom, vaguely wondering if the city council had ever solved the problem of Frances Quilmar's illegal outhouses.

  I did an audible gasp at the headline. Snowflake Man Found Dead by Woman He Harassed. The newspaper had obviously dubbed him Snowflake Man for the simple reason that paper snowflakes had recently garnished my Caddy and it looked good in print. Anything to take our minds off the August heat was a welcome change.

  I could feel eyes boring into my back. They'd all read the headlines, and my gasp only confirmed their suspicions, because nobody offered the punch line to "How long does it take for a girl crop duster to finish spraying a row of corn?" Why did I think I would have even a whole day without the entire town thinking I might yet be responsible for another murder? It hadn't stuck last year and I was going to make sure it didn't stick this time, either.

  A big dark hand with bright red nails set a plate in front of me. Roxanne, delivering good on her promise to fatten me up on Leon's pie because I didn't eat right during the summer season. Chocolate chip with dark chocolate cookie crust. Convinced that chocolate pie before noon would mean I'd have to join Overeaters Anonymous, I moved the plate out of reach and looked up at Roxanne. At her kind, sympathetic face, I covered my own with my hands, hoping the trouble my dad said I trailed along behind me hadn't followed me into her café.

  "Oh God, Roxy, how bad is it this time?"

  She glared at the occupants on the stools next to me, and though I heard a rustle and few muttered complaints, the counter was now clear of big ears. She patted my shoulder. "Eat your pie, sweetpea."

  I caved as she knew I would. I chewed on her husband's famous chocolate pie. I swallowed, urging the pie to go down where it belonged, but the silky texture and warm cocoa might as well have been sand in my throat.

  She lowered her voice and leaned in. "I called your house, didn't want to add to the ton of messages you must be getting by now. We heard some of it on dispatch, then some from Caleb when he came in. He looked about as tired as you do today. You get any sleep at all?"

  "I had to work today, and that didn't go so well either," I answered. "Caleb say anything?"

  "Just that he's been trying to reach you. Paper says you were questioned after finding the body, the police want to talk to anyone else who saw him that day, and right after this year's criminal and murder count, a brief rehash of your modeling career."

  "Okay, that's not so bad; though second billing below the state's murder count is now the least of my problems."

  "What do you mean?" she asked, her brows making twin furrows above her wide nose.

  I told her about my frightening experience with an intruder who left a threatening message on my dad's door.

  "When?"

  "It was after I came home from finding Billy Wayne in the alley."

  "I presume you're going to take that message as gospel." Gospel, according to my pragmatic friend, was whatever got one through the day, as long as it didn't get you arrested or shot.

  "I didn't ask for any of this. Before yesterday, I probably passed two, maybe three words with Billy Wayne. I was picking up Caleb for a lunch date at County, and Billy's down on his knees, those strange yellow rubber dish gloves on his hands while he's polishing rocks. Rocks, for cryin' out loud. I said hello or, 'nice job,' something like that."

  "Says here he was off his medication." Roxanne got her PhD in psychology only to discover that dishing out her husband's pie did about as much good for folks' mental health—and she didn't have to deal with county paperwork. In her spare time, she advocated for the homeless, kept track of their pharmacopoeia, and helped file their disability paperwork to the state.

  "Yeah, Caleb told me. I just wanted to tell Billy Wayne to quit with the snowflakes before he got served with a restraining order."

  "This old photo shows him in fatigues, says here he was a veteran—I knew that—also says he's a convicted felon—I knew that too, but uh-oh—"

  I snatched the paper out of her hand, read it, and then slammed my fist down on the page.

  "This crackpot reporter is insinuating that I drove him to do it?"

  "Don't you give it any mind. It's just a damn shame you were involved with that trouble last year."

  "Oh, yeah that trouble, and God forbid anyone else forgets about it either. I've been paying bills, working hard, all without a single dead body in my path for golly what—a whole year—and now this?"

  Last year a grieving husband had used my Caddy to clear his name. Worked out fine for him, but I was put in the hot seat for a murder I didn't commit. It was terrifying to realize that now I was back in the same position, only this time, with a killer who had made sure that I would not be speaking to the police about anything I thought I might have seen. Ironically, I didn't have an inkling, couldn't ID this person if they confessed, but I did know one thing—with every passing moment I was getting angrier. Pissed off and angry that the police thought I should remember more than I did and angrier still that a killer had dared to try to intimidate me with a threat to my family.

  Roxy turned to page three and pointed to the photo of a thin elderly woman in a limp housedress, her face twisted with grief and rage.

  "Good God! Who's the poor woman in this awful picture?"

  "Margery Dobson, Billy Wayne's mother," she said. "Looks like she's the one who's calling you a murderer."

  I looked again at the photo, gray hair sticking out in all directions, her mouth wide in a crazed, wild cry of grief. "I don't understand. Surely the police have talked to her by now. Where'd she get the idea I killed him?"

  "It's that nutcase, Del. Says here Billy Wayne was 'obsessed with you,' and he quotes your second ex-husband, who says you 'do have a tendency towards violence.'"

  I snorted. "That sounds like Ricky."

  Ricky Halverson would be only too happy to weigh in with his opinion of Lalla Bains. He might have gotten over the violence I did to his vintage Caddy when I caught him with his secretary, but he was still smarting over the damage when I took said vehicle in trade for a divorce, repaired it, and pai
nted it candy-apple red.

  "Caleb didn't even call to warn me."

  "I called," he said. "You were already gone."

  I turned around to see the man of my dreams. Though we shared the same birth date, forty on him looked great. Flat, hard abs in a tightly pressed khaki uniform; long, bony face, close-cropped, thinning blond hair, and just a trace of summer perspiration on his upper lip.

  Since I preferred him sweaty, naked and feeding me strawberries, and cream in bed, I knew my expression had disappointment written all over it.

  Nothing in his face said the long hours he'd spent with the investigative team had garnered any clues as to who might have killed Billy Wayne Dobson.

  I groaned. "Now?"

  When his icy blue-eyed stare swept the room, I realized that everyone in the cafe had been looking at me. As if the short fuse I generally kept well hidden was about to ignite? What did they expect? That I was going to jump up and yell, I did it! Snowflakes decorating the red paint on my Caddy just got to me and I snapped! What a buncha ninnies.

  "Might as well get it over with," I said. I slid off my stool, and leaving behind Leon's chocolate pie and the stares, I lifted my chin and walked out the door and to Caleb's cruiser.

  Caleb yanked the big Ford into reverse, one-handed the wheel hard over, and peeled out of the parking lot.

  "Sorry I couldn't get to you sooner," he said."It's been to say the least, a busy day."

  "Where'd you put the Caddy?"

  "Tucked in all nice and safe in my garage."

  "Nothing else on last night's intruder?" I bit my lip trying to ignore the warning signs of an impending migraine.

  His glance left my face and went back to the road. "Sorry, no. You get any sleep?"

  "I must have, since I woke up thinking last night was a nightmare. At work since four a.m., though that didn't go so well either. I guess I should thank you for the patrol car at the end of my road. What about Billy Wayne—anything there?"

  "You couldn't have done anything for him, Lalla. The blade nicked his carotid artery; by the time you got to him he was already bleeding to death. The M.E. says, with the amount of blood in his heart and lungs, he couldn't have lasted long enough for the EMT's to get there. There was no saving him, and nobody seems to have heard a thing, including Mr. Kim."

  "Got any suspects—besides me, of course?" I looked out the window, my voice a thin tight wire between two cans, and I'm nine again, begging for answers through a tin can.

  "Try not to stress over this. You're not a suspect and certainly not after last night's intruder."

  "Detective Rodney probably thinks I planted that note," I said, the breath hitching in my throat. I blinked back the tears and turned to gaze blindly at the passing scenery. The detective would be only too happy to go with the obvious choice for a suspect, the person who found him, the one who was the object of his unrequited affection—Lalla Bains.

  Caleb reached out to cup my cheek in his hand. "Sweetheart, don't cry."

  I sniffed back my tears. "I'm going to sell the Caddy."

  "Why? Because some nutcase left you a warning? Don't do it, Lalla. Everyone in town knows who you are and what you drive, so it won't matter. Besides, that note might have been left by somebody else and had nothing to do with the murder."

  I thought of our pirating competitor, Junior Margrave. He could've done it, but I had yet to give him reason to start lobbing angry volleys over my bow. "Why couldn't they just beat him up?"

  "Don't know yet. There were defensive wounds on his hands."

  "Oh, geez," I thought of Billy Wayne, trying to fight off a scissors-wielding attacker. "Do you think it was a drug deal gone wrong?"

  "Billy Wayne was in jail for a botched bank robbery, not drugs."

  "Bank robbery? How's a decorated Marine sniper end up robbing a bank?"

  "After he was discharged from the Marines, he got involved with a bunch of peace-niks. Called themselves the New Army of Freedom, and thought robbing a bank would be a good way to make a statement to corporate America."

  "Then he got into drugs after prison?"

  Caleb's lips flattened out to a grim line. "I never saw him loaded. He was on meds for his PTSD, that's all."

  "But isn't that why he was living on the street? I heard—"

  "You heard wrong. He wasn't into that shit."

  I was looking for a lead, anything that said last night's messenger had a rap sheet that would lead to his arrest, but all I'd managed to do was poke at Caleb's sacred belief that a decorated Marine would be above hanging around in back alleys and getting stabbed for a zip-lock bag of dope.

  He must've read the confusion in my face, because his voice softened. "Lalla, any drugs in his system will be determined when the autopsy is complete. I have something else to tell you, so will you sit still for a minute and listen?"

  I nodded, unwilling to antagonize him any further.

  "We finally got Mr. Kim's daughter to agree to another interview. She was reluctant to do so, but when pressed she agreed to sit in and interpret for him.

  "So what was the result?"

  "Mr. Kim says he saw someone at the end of the alley."

  "There. That's good, isn't it?"

  "Sure. I told you that DOA note may not have had anything to do with the killing. Didn't you fire a pilot last year for doing drugs? He might be pissed enough at you or your dad to leave a threatening note."

  "I'd like to think it was totally unrelated, really I would." I could hear the eerie echo of Mr. Kim telling me to stay away. If Mr. Kim saw someone at the end of the alley, then why didn't the killer leave Mr. Kim a threatening note? "Who then? Some other homeless guy? A drug dealer? Can't they pick up all these guys and get one to confess?"

  "It's complicated."

  "What's so complicated?" I could feel my voice going up an octave. If some druggie stabbed him for his stash, then why was it complicated? "Don't you have any suspects yet?"

  "Working on it," he said, the clipped reply indicating that he was done telling me anything more.

  My vague feeling of unease went into hyper-drive. "Then why do I need to go for another interview?"

  "It's just a simple interview."

  We pulled into a parking space in front of the Modesto police station and Caleb leaned over, gently kissed me on the lips, and seeing that I was calm once again, reached over to unfasten my seat belt, brushing my forehead with his lips in passing.

  "This won't take but a few minutes," he said, herding me toward the entrance. "I already told you, it's an interview, not an interrogation."

  "I never thought I'd care what Detective Rodney thought of me, but does this mean he's taking last night's threat seriously?"

  "Yes. I made sure he understands that he will take it seriously because I got Chief Aguilar to sign me onto this case."

  Chapter six:

  "Please don't tell me this is going to be with Detective Rodney, again." I burped. My stomach was showing its temper at losing out on Leon's chocolate pie. "Sorry," I said, "nothing to eat since last night."

  He dug a mint out of his pocket and held it out to me. "He's been bumped upstairs. You're getting a rookie today. She'll write it up, and then we'll go get some breakfast."

  "She? They got a new girl in the department? Good. I'm always glad to see more women on the force."

  "Just don't call Deputy Pippa Roulette a 'girl' and you'll be fine," he said, ushering me through the double doors and up the back stairs to the open office full of desks.

  I nodded, thinking Caleb was preparing me for some kind of hefty NOW radical with a ready-made chip on her shoulder.

  Inside the main office, a desk had been shoved to one side and away from the cacophony of police work. Unfortunately, I could barely hear Caleb introduce us for the buzz saw of a migraine kicking at my head.

  "Pippa Roulette, this is Lalla Bains." He gave me a little push in her direction and then stepped back. "I'll leave you in Pippa's very capable hands. I'll be downstairs w
hen you finish." He didn't kiss me, just left me standing there with my mouth slightly open and the insects in my head chirping up a riot.

  Pippa Roulette's sultry green bedroom eyes tilted warmly into my own, which meant that she was eye-level with me at almost six feet in her police issued brogues.

  She had long, curling, red hair held back at the nape of her long, white, young neck.

  I gulped and stuck out my hand. "Hi," I said, shaking the long, slim, young hand. And to think, last year I was all mopey about a simple fortieth birthday. Caleb and I will be forty-one this month—August. I resigned myself to make the best of this and took the proffered chair by her desk.

  Her smile was sparkling white smile as she sat down across from me. "I'm so glad to meet you. Sorry about the circumstances though."

  God. She was what—twenty-five?

  "I'm twenty-nine," she said, and filled me in on the rest of the questions rolling around in my head. "I was in my third year of college before I got off the fence and changed my major from law to law enforcement. Kinda hard to start over, but I'm glad I did it. I really can't see myself in a law office, can you?"

  Maybe as a centerfold—spread across a desk.

  She grinned.

  Good grief, this was spooky. The girl seemed to know what I was thinking!

  "So in spite of my advanced old age, this is my first real job."

  "Uh-huh." I was still trying to work my mouth around forty-one without stuttering.

  So why did Caleb set me in front of this gorgeous redhead with creamy white skin and no crows-feet? The uniform said police department, not sheriff's department; at least she didn't work every day with Caleb. Or did she?