M.URDER R.EADY TO E.AT
A Scotti Fitzgerald Murder Mystery – Book 2
Anita Rodgers
Copyright © 2015 Anita Rodgers
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Contact at: [email protected]
First electronic edition published by Anita Rodgers
M.urder R.eady to E.at
ISBN: 9780996624411
Published in United States with international distribution.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the
product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover design by: Jessica Wright
Kindle Edition, License Notes
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Dedication
To the wounded warriors who served their country well, only to be forgotten when they returned home.
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter One
Life is easy when you've got nothing to lose — you just dip your oar into the water and paddle like a crazy woman until you reach land. But once you've been ashore for a while and have built a new hut, you find yourself looking out to sea again. The security of home isn't nearly as appealing as what might be out there, over the horizon.
My name is Scotti Fitzgerald and not long ago, my carefully planned life went to hell. I lost my job, the diner I'd worked five years to buy, my business partner, my reputation — almost my life. But from the wreckage a new life was forged. A new business, a great man, friends, and a secure future. And life settled into a pretty sweet routine — what could go wrong?
Summer hit with vengeance. Triple digits and high humidity made everything slow and everyone a tad grumpy.
Mean Mike hurled his chocolate milk at my truck because we didn't have the bran muffins with little pieces of banana in them. "I want a divorce!" Thing is, we've never had muffins like that — so whose muffins was he talking about? The chocolate milk splatter on my freshly detailed truck baked in the afternoon sun while I searched for the Nature's Orange and a clean rag. For an old guy, Mean Mike had quite an arm. Maybe those stories he mumbled about being scouted for the majors, weren't all bullshit.
Our work week was over, and Zelda and I set out the left-over pies and muffins on the picnic table next to the skateboard cage at Sunland Park. Every Friday, we brought the leftover pies and muffins for the homeless vets who called the park home. No point in wasting good pie and coffee.
Three months earlier, we bought a food truck and became food truckers. It wasn’t a diner, but tooling around L.A. in a lime green truck selling homemade pies, muffins, and gourmet coffee turned out to be a roaring success. Our 2003 Chevy rig had a fully equipped kitchen, so we had the option of offering a full menu to our customers later down the line. For now, being the dessert queens in the local mobile food industry suited us just fine. And 'Sweet as Pie' gave us a freedom we'd never known while working for Manny the Cuban.
I plated a wedge of cherry pie, topped it with vanilla ice cream and went looking for my favorite park buddy Ron. He usually hunkered down under the big trees by the bathrooms. Younger than most of the other guys, Ron had served two tours in Iraq. Three days before his second tour ended, an IED detonated under his truck as his convoy headed back from patrol. He lost a lot of buddies that day. Though he survived, Ron didn't walk away unscathed — his parting gift from the U.S. Army was PTSD and traumatic brain injury.
I spotted Ron under the big pine tree, watching two sweaty guys batting around a tennis ball on the courts. It was 90 degrees, but Ron wore fatigues, boots, and a field jacket. His wool cap was pulled down to his eyebrows and his jacket collar pulled up to his ears — like he expected snow.
I sketched a wave. "Pie?"
Ron channeled through his short term memory and came up blank.
I plopped down next to him in the grass and set the pie in front of him. "Pie for Ron."
Ron held the paper plate to his face and sniffed. A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth and he forked off a big bite. "Good grub, ma'am."
Beneath the layers of clothing and ashy pallor, Ron could've been a Denzel look-alike, but younger and with a lot more hair. I imagined that once upon a time, Ron left a lot of swooning women panting at the road side, hoping for nothing more than a backward glance.
Ron cleaned his plate and held it out to me. "More, please?"
"How are you feeling today?"
"Today is good."
"Did you get your meds? Because we can take you to the VA if you need a ride."
His ebony eyes scanned the park as though on patrol. "Negative, ma'am. All good. Can I have more pie please?" He put the paper plate on the ground between us. "Don't worry about Ron, ma'am. Ron's okay. Okay, Scotti?"
I grinned because he knew my name after all. "I do worry about you Ron. I want to make sure you're taken care of and get what you need."
"Thank you, ma'am. A soldier takes care of himself, ma'am." He flashed his pearly whites while looking straight ahead. He held up his hands and offered a double thumbs up. "All good."
We sat together and watched the bad tennis players huff and grunt on the court for a few minutes. "It's not safe out here." I glanced at him. "On the streets."
Ron chuckled. "Safer than
Iraq."
He had me there. "Okay, Ron." I stood and brushed the grass off my shorts. "More pie it is." I tossed the plate in the trash on my way back to the truck. Fresh pie, fresh plate. Ron loved cherry pie, and I always saved a whole one just for him. I don't usually play favorites, but there was something about him that made you want to help him. He needed medical treatment that he wasn't getting. But I couldn't convince him to go to the VA, no matter what I said. All I could do was give him as much pie and coffee as he could consume and keep an eye on him.
I climbed into the back of the truck and caught Mean Mike with a fistful of coffee stirrers. "Mike, you're not supposed to be in here."
He tugged on his ragged Grateful Dead tee shirt and stared at his dusty shoes. "I needed something."
I grabbed a bag and held it open. "Like a thousand coffee stirrers?"
Mike raised a shaky hand over the bag and released the stirrers. "My house needs nails."
I rolled my eyes. "Your house is made of cardboard."
He scratched his beard and took the bag from my outstretched hand. "Uh-huh." He side-shuffled to the door. "Thanks, ma'am."
"Sure, but next time ask." I wagged a finger at him. "Can't break the rules, right?"
"Yessir, ma'am — rules. Mike don't break the rules." He stepped down to the sidewalk and grinned, exposing a few gaps in his smile. "Good pie. Thanks for the good pie, ma'am."
"We aim to please." I closed and locked the door after he left. Not to be a hard ass but my park buddies had boundary issues, and the health department is persnickety about who gets to be in the truck. Plus, I needed some coffee stirrers for the rest of my customers.
Zelda banged on the door and I let her in. "What's with the locked door?" Her face was flushed and parts of her crazy ponytail stuck to her neck. "I'm frying out there."
"Mike was liberating the coffee stirrers."
Zelda stood in front of the AC unit and groaned in the draft of cool air. "What does he do with those things?"
I scooped vanilla ice cream onto Ron's pie. "He claims they're nails for his house but I think he just wants them." I shrugged. "Who knows? If it makes him happy, he can have all the stirrers he wants."
Zelda opened the fridge, grabbed us each a soda and then hip-closed it. We popped the tabs, clinked cans and chugged it down.
I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, smoothed the hair strands plastered to my forehead, and opened the door. "I'm taking Ron his pie and then we have to book."
"Are we in a hurry to get home?"
"I wish. I could use a night off." I curled my lip. "Joe's got a job for us tonight." Joe is a private investigator that we work for part time. "So suck it up, partner."
Zelda rotated her index finger. "Oh, big whoop. Who are we stalking now?"
I shrugged. "Don't know. Joe'll fill us in when we get there. But it's probably a snooze-fest like the last one."
Zelda whined. "Can't you go alone?"
"Sure, I'll go alone if you do all the baking on Sunday."
Zelda pouted. "Scotti."
I crossed my eyes at her. "Zelda."
"I have a date, it's Friday night."
"Me too and it's Friday night in my world also." I climbed out of the truck and heard Zelda bitching until I rounded the skateboard cage.
When I got to Ron's spot, the same two guys were whacking the ball around the tennis court, but Ron was gone. Since his duffel and hand-cart were under the tree, he hadn't wandered too far. I placed the pie on top of his duffel and headed back to the truck. I looked back a couple of times watching for him but he didn't appear. His pie a la mode melted in the heat and would be a big plate of French vanilla soup by the time he got to it.
Mean Mike and Artie-Pants were hanging around outside the truck. "Hey guys, go find Ron and tell him his pie is melting would you? If it sits there much longer, the flies are going to beat him to it."
Mean Mike craned his neck to see where I'd left Ron's pie. "I can eat pie."
I spun back toward him. "Don't you dare." I wagged a finger at him. "If you do, I'm coming back for the coffee stirrers, and you won't get any more."
Mike scowled and smacked Artie on the back of the head. "Find Ron. Pie's going to shit."
Joe was expecting us, so we left them bickering about who had to find Ron to save his pie.
Chapter Two
Joe Enders is a sixty-something ex-pat from the great state of Mississippi. A former homicide cop, turned private investigator, he’s sharper than most people I know and will probably work until the day he dies. He perched at the edge of his chair eating 'barbecues' — a sandwich made of thinly sliced ham, simmered in barbecue sauce and served on a white roll with pickles, onions, and mayo. The perching was necessary because with every bite a big glob of drippings plunked onto the paper plate directly below his hand-held sandwich. About a dozen greasy balled up napkins sat to his right and a stack of fresh ones sat to his left.
Zelda and I slouched in our chairs watching him eat. Bite. Drip. Plunk.
Zelda sighed like a balloon dialing down to zero.
I leaned my elbows on his desk. "Joe, much as I enjoy your hearty appetite, it's been a long day."
Reluctantly, Joe put his sandwich down on the paper plate, wiped his greasy fingers with a fresh napkin, and backhanded his reading glasses up the bridge of his nose. "All righty." He balled up the napkin and tossed it into the pile on the right and snatched a file from a stack in the in-basket. "Let's see. Uh-huh." He flipped open the file. "Right. Okay." He closed the file, slid it across the desk to me, and looked up. "Carl Beidemeyer."
I opened the file to find out what a Carl Beidemeyer was. Attached to the inside flap was a photograph: middle-aged, graying at the temples, once handsome but now a little jowly and puffy around the eyes. His boyish half-smirk said he thought he was still hot shit though.
The rest of the file gave all the basics: profession; home and office addresses; color, make, model, and license plate number of his vehicle; favorite eateries and entertainment venues; and a summary of the case.
Zelda groaned. "Another divorce case? Crap. I thought marriage was supposed to be forever."
Joe peered over his reading glasses. "Yes indeed, Miss Zelda. Thems the bread and butter cases for which we thank our lucky stars. Sacred bond or no."
Zelda groaned again and picked at her cuticles.
"I told you girls that we ain't TV detectives. We gotta do what brings in the greenbacks. Not every case offers a hundred-thousand dollar reward. Hardly never if you wanna know the truth." Joe picked up his sandwich again and leaned over the paper plate. "Besides, you got a lot more hours to go if you want to get licensed."
Three thousand hours to be exact. And we hadn't even hit three hundred yet. "Is this just for tonight or the whole weekend?"
"Tonight. I'll spell you tomorrow during the day and depending on which way the wind blows, you might need to come back tomorrow night." He wiped his face with a fresh napkin and grinned. "But don’t despair. Sundays he goes to church with the missus and the kiddies, so you’re off the hook for that."
I made a face. "Whatever happened to no-fault divorce?"
Joe stared down his nose at me. "It's alive and kicking Miss Scotti. But this here's an exception. Prenuptial agreement violations need to be proved.'
I smirked. Joe had landed a big fish and seemed pleased as punch to reel it in for all it was worth.
We had about an hour to get into position to watch Beidemeyer, so I pulled Zelda to her feet. Joe gave me the keys to the Lincoln because neither her jeep or my ancient Toyota would blend into the scene. I let out a little yelp of joy. At least we'd be comfortable.
"Just make sure you don't bring it back with the gauge on empty this time." He waved us away with a dismissive hand and gave his full attention to the sandwich.
<<>>
We stopped at home to grab five-minute showers. Dressed in fresh tees and shorts, go bags in hand, we nosed the Lincoln toward North Hills.
According to Joe's notes, Beidemeyer regularly booked client meetings on Friday nights, all day Saturday and usually Saturday night. Mrs. Beidemeyer, our client, suspected the meetings were a cover for an affair he was having with a co-worker. Our mission was to catch him in the act, if indeed he was having an affair, to take pictures and document his actions — where he went, what he did, when he got there and who he did it with.
Joe had spent the day with Beidemeyer but came up empty. He'd gone to work, lunched with a male co-worker, worked through the afternoon and went home.
We cruised past Beidemeyer's place on Sophia Ave, a sage green mini-mansion with a two-car garage and a small but outstanding lawn. The house took up most of the lot, and I suspected he had a pool for a backyard. The street had enough trees to provide cover and we parked under a big Jacaranda in full bloom. Slunked down in our seats, we each watched the house from our side view mirrors.
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