Sleuthing Women

by Lois Winston

  “You’re not mad? You’re still going to let her go? After everything that happened?”

  “Are you kidding? She had the time of her life. If she can handle everything that went on here, New York sure isn’t going to give her any trouble.” She winked to show there were no hard feelings. Then she nodded at the five women to our right. “Notice the excess of flowery hats and veils?”

  Leon snickered. “Maybe a little more than the usual amount of chin hair.”

  Roxanne added, “Remember what I said about sisters wearing matching everything? Get a load of their shoes.”

  I followed her nod and saw matching suits, hats, and bony ankles in pumps the size of bathtubs.

  My mouth formed an appreciative O. “All of them? You think they’re all guys in drag?”

  “Or actors. He’s thrown the cops more than a few red herrings. It’ll keep ‘em guessing.”

  Apparently, the police weren’t entirely through with Garth Thorne. Something to do with the Internal Revenue wanting to have a serious chat with him about taxes. He sat across the aisle, staring straight ahead, wedged between two stout and grim-looking detectives.

  A bearded priest took the podium above the open casket, said a prayer for the dead, and as no one else offered, gave the eulogy. I didn’t even know she was religious, much less Catholic.

  When he was finished, he encouraged everyone to come forward to say good-bye and then he stepped back from the podium and, sweeping through the heavy velvet draperies, disappeared. A sliver of light, a sudden breath of air billowing the drapes, then I heard the soft click of a door closing. Hoping to have a word with him, I followed his example and exited the same door.

  I hurried around the corner in time to see him, head down, hands in his pockets, walking away. Although he didn’t seem to be in any particular hurry, I matched his steps with my longer stride and caught up with him as he was getting into a gray sedan. Just as he was putting the key into the ignition, I knocked on the passenger side window. Startled, he looked up, then smiled and leaned over and rolled down the window.

  “I thought that might be you behind me, Lalla. I’d just as soon not attract attention, so if you don’t mind getting in, we can talk here.”

  I opened the door, looked around to make sure no one was watching, and slid into the seat.

  “You did a really nice Irish priest, Eddy.”

  “Did I now? Your own brother wouldn’t have known me. Best performance of my lifetime, and I’m not even Catholic.”

  “Caleb says the judge will be behind bars for the rest of his life. What are you going to do now?”

  “I’m not going to stick around while the law decides if I should spend some more time in jail, if that’s what you mean. I did what I came to do, see justice for my dear Patience. I got a friend in Mexico who’s been waiting for us to show up. I think I’ll head down there. That is, if you don’t have to tell your sheriff friend.”

  His quirky little smile was back, and the tilt of his head said he was willing to bet I wouldn’t have to tell anyone.

  I gave him a quick hug and then watched him drive down H Street for the freeway that would take him south to Mexico and freedom. Then I turned back to make my way through the milling crowd to Caleb.

  Caleb, awkward in his dark dress suit, put an arm around my shoulders and hugged me gently. “The wake will be at Roxanne’s.”

  “Your car or mine? I got the Caddy back. It’s still primer gray and I’m kind of thinking I should paint it something besides red.”

  “Of course you’ll paint it red. What would you be without that bright red Caddy?” He smiled down at me, then grinned at the newspeople lined up like racehorses at the starting gate. “They’re going to mob you the minute you get in that car, red or not.”

  “After this week, I can handle anything, even turning forty.”

  “By the way, what are you doing tomorrow?”

  I looked up into his warm friendly face and said, “Well, after I get out of your bed, I’m going to fire a pilot.”

  “Isn’t it a bit late in the season to replace a pilot?”

  “That’s what Brad thinks. But I’m going to replace him with somebody who doesn’t need drugs to fly an airplane.”

  “And who would that be?”

  “Me, of course. Time I got back into the seat of my own Ag-Cat. Then I’m going to serve breakfast at Roxanne’s.”

  “Uh-huh. Something special, I presume. Like an order of crow to Boyd Lincoln and Marlon Whitaker? You planning on working up an appetite for that breakfast?” He kissed my mouth once, and then again, taking my breath away. We ignored the stares, and with our arms around each other, watched plainclothes detectives nervously sidle up to elderly matrons in big shoes and picture book hats. In the next few minutes, more than one detective got slapped for manhandling an old lady.

  Caleb laughed softly. “Somehow, I don’t think they’ll find him, do you?”

  I thought of Eddy McBride, heading for Mexico and freedom. “Nope. Don’t think so.”

  ~*~

  Lalla’s adventures continue in A Dead Red Heart, Book Two in the Dead Red Mystery series.

  What would you do if the love of your life lost their chance for a heart transplant because the donor organ went to a convicted felon? Grieve and let go? Or wait for your chance at justice and revenge?

  When a homeless vet litters her beloved red Cadillac with poetry scrawled on paper snowflakes, Lalla decides to confront him. But that doesn’t mean she wants the man to drop dead at her feet—with a pair of blue-handled scissors sticking out of his chest. With nothing but the man’s last words for the police to go on, Lalla decides that someone needs to be on the side of this misunderstood vet, and that person will be the exasperating, pushy, tenacious Ms. Lalla Bains. But digging into the man’s past will only unravel a more potent question: What would you do if the love of your life lost their chance for a heart transplant because the donor organ went to a convicted felon?

  ~*~

  Want to know what happens next? Click here to buy A Dead Red Heart.

  About the Author

  I sort of fell into the job of running a crop-dusting business when my dad decided he’d rather go on a cruise than take another season of lazy pilots, missing flaggers, testy farmers and horrific hours. After two years at the helm, I handed him back the keys and fled to a city without any of the above. And no, I was never a crop-duster.

  I write about a tall, blond and beautiful ex-model turned crop-duster who, to quote Lalla Bains, says: “I’ve been married so many times they oughta revoke my license.” I wanted to give readers a peek at the not-so-perfect-life of a beautiful blond. Lalla Bains is no Danielle Steele character, she’s not afraid of chipping her manicure. Scratch that, the girl doesn’t have time for a manicure, what with herding a bunch of recalcitrant pilots and juggling work orders just to keep her father’s flagging business alive.

  Connect with RP at the following sites:

  Email: rp@rpdahlke.com

  Website: http://rpdahlke.com

  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RPDahlke/

  GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18664399-hurricane-hole

  Sign up for RP’s newsletter at: http://rpdahlke.com

  Books by RP Dahlke

  Dead Red Mystery Series

  A Dead Red Cadillac

  A Dead Red Heart

  A Dead Red Oleander

  A Dead Red Alibi

  A Dead Red Miracle

  Romantic Sailing Trilogy

  A Dangerous Harbor

  Hurricane Hole

  Nonfiction

  Jump Start Your Book Promotions

  Murder is a Family Business

  An Alvarez Family Murder Mystery, Book One

  By Heather Haven

  Just because a man cheats on his wife and makes Danny DeVito look tall, dark and handsome, is that any reason to kill him? The reluctant and quirky PI, Lee Alvarez, doesn’t think so. The thirty-four-year-old, half
Latina, half WASP and one hundred percent detective has her work cut out for her when the man is murdered on her watch. Of all the nerve. From San Francisco’s famous Embarcadero to quaint Princeton-by-the-Sea, Lee, with a little help form the rest of the family, is out to find a killer before he finds her.

  ONE

  The Not-So-Perfect Storm

  “God, surveillance sucks,” I griped aloud to a seagull languishing on a nearby, worm-eaten post, he being my only companion for the past few hours. He cocked his head and stared at me. I cocked my head and stared at him. It might have been the beginning of a beautiful friendship, but a nearby car backfired, and he took off in a huff. Watching him climb, graceful and white against the gray sky, I let out a deep sigh, feeling enormously sorry for myself. I eyeballed the dilapidated warehouse across the parking lot hanging onto the edge of the pier for any signs of life. I didn’t find any.

  I knew I was in trouble earlier when I discovered this was the only vantage point from which I could stay hidden and still see the “perpetrator’s place of entrance,” as I once heard on Law and Order. That meant I couldn’t stay in my nice warm car listening to a Fats Waller tribute on the radio but had to be out in the elements, hunkered down next to a useless seawall.

  For three lousy hours, rambunctious waves from the San Francisco Bay made a break for freedom over this wall and won. Salty foam and spray pummelled my face, mixed with mascara, and stung my eyes like nobody’s business. Then the wind picked up, and the temperature dropped faster than the Dow Jones on a bad day.

  Speeding up Highway 101 toward Fisherman’s Wharf, I’d heard on the car radio that a storm was moving in. When I arrived, I got to experience it first-hand. Yes, it was just winter and me on the San Francisco Bay. Even Jonathan Livingston Seagull had taken a powder.

  I concentrated on one of two warehouses, mirrors of each other, sitting at either side of a square parking lot containing about twenty cars and trucks. “Dios mio, do something,” I muttered to the building, which housed the man who had caused me to age about twenty years in one afternoon.

  I struggled to stay in a crouched position, gave up and sat down, thinking about the man I’d been following. I was sure he was a lot more comfortable than I, and I resented him for it. Two seconds later, I realized the cement was wet, as well as cold. Cursing my stupidity, I jumped up and stretched my cramped legs while trying to keep an eye on the door he had entered, lo those many hours before. With me being the only one on the job, I couldn’t keep an eye on the cargo bay on the other side of the warehouse, but I felt pretty safe about it being a non-exit. Without a boat or a ship tied there, it emptied into the briny bay. The perp, thankfully, didn’t look like much of a swimmer, even on a nice day.

  I tried to focus my mind on Mr. Portor Wyler, said perpetrator, and the singular reason for all my misery. I kept coming back to this burning question:

  Why the hell is a Palo Alto real estate mogul driving forty-two-mile roundtrip two to three times a week to a beat-up, San Francisco warehouse on the waterfront?

  After that, I had an even better one:

  What the hell am I doing here? Oh, yeah. Thanks, Mom.

  My name is Liana Alvarez. It’s Lee to my friends, but never to my mother. I am a thirty-four year old half-Latina and half-WASP PI. The latter, aforesaid relatives, drip with blue blood and blue chips and have been Bay Area fixtures for generations. Regarding the kindred Mexican half of me, they either immigrated to the good old US of A or still live in Vera Cruz, where they fish the sea. How my mother and father ever got together is something I’ve been meaning to ask Cupid for some time.

  However, I digress. Back to Portor Wyler or, rather, his wife, Yvette Wyler. It was because of her I was in possession of a cold, wet butt, although I’m not supposed to use language like that because Mom would be scandalized. She has this idea she raised me to be a lady and swears her big mistake was letting me read Dashiell Hammett when I was an impressionable thirteen year-old.

  My mother is Lila Hamilton Alvarez, of the blue blood part of the family, and CEO of Discretionary Inquiries, Inc. She’s my boss. Yvette Wyler has been a friend of my mother’s since Hector was a pup, so when Mrs. Wyler came crying to her, Mom thought we should be the ones to find out what was going on.

  That didn’t seem like a good enough reason for me to be where I was, assigned to a job so distasteful no self-respecting gumshoe I hung out with would touch it, but there you have it. Leave it to my mother to lay a guilt trip on me at one of my more vulnerable times. I don’t know who I was more annoyed with, Mom or me.

  Furthermore, I had no idea what my intelligent, savvy, and glamorous mother had in common with this former school buddy, who had the personality of ragweed and a face reminiscent of a Shar-Pei dog wearing lipstick.

  Whenever I brought the subject up to Mom, I got claptrap about “loyalty” and “friends being friends.” So naturally, my reaction to the woman made me aware of possible character flaws on my part. I mean, here Mrs. Wyler was, one of my mother’s life-long chums, and I was just waiting for her to bark.

  But the long and short of it was pals they were. Discretionary Inquiries, Inc. was on the job, and I was currently freezing my aforementioned butt off because of it; thank you so much.

  Computer espionage in Silicon Valley is D.I.’s milieu, if you’ll pardon my French. The Who, What, Where, When, and How of computer thievery is our livelihood.

  To elucidate, high tech companies don’t appreciate staff making off with new hardware or software ideas, potentially worth millions of dollars, either to sell to the highest bidder or to use as bribery for a better, high-powered job with the competition. If you haven’t heard about any of this, it’s because this kind of pilfering keeps a pretty low profile in Silicon Valley.

  Upper management of most companies feel it’s important not to give investors the shakes nor the techies any ideas. Ideas, however, are what techies are all about, and it’s a rare day when somebody isn’t stealing something from someone and using it for a six-figured trip to the bank, whether upper management likes it or not.

  Until the recent change in copyright law, each individual company dealt with the problem by filing civil lawsuits against suspected counterfeiters. It was a long and arduous process often resulting in nothing more than a slap on the wrist for the guilty parties.

  Now that there are federal statutes with teeth, which include prison sentences, these companies are anxious to see the guilty parties pay to the fullest extent of the law. It’s at this point that Discretionary Inquiries, Inc. is brought into the act.

  D.I. is the Rolls Royce of high-tech investigation, if I must say so myself, with a success rate of over 94 percent. To say business at D.I. is brisk is an understatement. D.I. often turns away work. For me, it’s exciting and challenging; I love working with the FBI’s counter-intelligence division, the IRS, the U.S. Customs Service, and the "hi-tech units" of police departments.

  My particular specialty is being a ferret, and I hope I’m not being too technical here. I sniff out means and opportunity after the fact until I have enough evidence that will stand up in court. Yes, I am a perfumed ferret, resplendent in Charles Jordan heels, Bulgari jewelry, and Versace dresses.

  I sit in cushioned office chairs and have high-powered lunches drilling stricken staff members who "can’t believe what happened,” until I enlighten them as to how it can and did. Then everybody’s happy, and I receive a nice, fat bonus when the job is done. Sometimes I’m allowed to throw a bone to the local newspapers or one of the television stations, depending on how spiteful the wounded company wants to be, so everyone loves me. And, it is my dream job.

  This was my nightmare. I closed my eyes and willed it all to go away. It didn’t. Just then, the sky darkened, and a gust of wind whipped up at least half the water contained in the Bay.

  This water joined forces with a maverick wave with a nasty disposition and impeccable timing. They both came at me like a blast from a fireman’s hose. I lost my bal
ance, and found myself flat on my back in a very unladylike position, as my mother would say.

  I gurgled and spit out about a half-gallon of salt water hoping the Bay was as clean as the mayor boasted. My hair was plastered to my scalp and face in long, wet, strands that went nicely with the quivering blue lips and streaked mascara.

  I got to my feet and tried to zip up my black leather jacket. The teeth caught in the fabric of my sweater and refused to budge despite any amount of coercion from numb fingers. My wool slacks clung to my legs and lost whatever shape they previously had. To finish it off, my new suede boots bled their color in puddles around my feet.

  “Well, at least it isn’t raining yet,” I said aloud, trying to remember what I’d learned about positive thinking the previous month. I had attended a three-day seminar at the Malaysian Institute of Advanced Studies in "Self-Excellence and Positive Thinking" sponsored by the Ministry of Culture.

  I’m not sure what I got out of it, other than great food, but the Institute has a rather unique approach to carrying out daily tasks with “dedication and integrity,” as stated in their brochures.

  This approach is being written up on about a billion dollars worth of software right here in Silicon Valley. D.I. is their very own personal firewall against thievery, so I wanted to give these Malaysian theories a chance.

  I saw the lights go out from under the door of the warehouse and wondered if it was a power outage, or was Wyler preparing to leave? Whatever, my body tensed with renewed alertness or as much alertness as I could renew.

  At that moment, of course, a bolt of lightning struck. Its point zero was so close by my soggy hair stood on end, and my nose twitched from the electrical charge. The flash of light illuminated everything, including the white-capped waves of the Bay hurtling in my direction. The lightning was followed by a clap of thunder, which sounded like a herd of longhorns stampeding over a tin bridge.