by Kylie Logan
Chandra got behind the steering wheel and Luella climbed into the front passenger seat. Kate and I piled into the backseat of the van, and one by one, we exhaled sighs of contentment. The heater was making a sound that reminded me of the pained squeal of an old dump truck’s hydraulic system, but thank goodness, it spit out plenty of heat. There couldn’t have been more than thirty feet between the house and the van, but it was a thirty cold feet. The warmth was heavenly!
Chandra’s driving skills, not so much.
“Watch out for the lamppost!”
“You’re going to end up in that drift if you don’t turn the wheel. Now! Now!”
“If you try to go that fast, your tires aren’t going to get any traction and you’re going to slide!”
Our backseat driver advice didn’t help matters.
Chandra held the steering wheel in a death grip, yanking it first one way, then the other, trying to negotiate a driveway none of us could see. When she finally got out onto what we took on faith was the road and straightened the van, I imagined two whispered prayers of thanksgiving. I didn’t have to imagine my own, that one was real enough.
“Slow now,” Luella advised. “Take it slow. We’re not in any hurry.”
We inched along.
Fortunately, it was a pretty straight shot into town, and by the time we were halfway there, I finally felt the knot of tension in my stomach loosen.
“I was thinking about Peter last night,” I told them.
“You mean, about our case.” Chandra looked over her shoulder at me and I curled my fingers into my palms.
I think the way I also clenched my teeth sent the proper message: I wasn’t going to say another thing until she turned around and kept her eyes on the road.
She turned around and kept her eyes on the road.
“I was just going over it all in my head,” I continued. “Trying to get things straight. Trying to figure out what we know.”
“We know Ted might have lied about the peanuts,” Luella said.
“And that it looks for sure like he’s the killer,” Chandra added, though I was pretty certain we’d actually never come to that conclusion.
“We know our Princess has got a wild side,” Kate said, grinning at the thought of that box of condoms in Mariah’s room.
“And that Amanda might be in danger.” This was me, giving voice to the thought that had kept me tossing and turning all night. “You don’t suppose . . .” Was I letting my imagination run away with me? It wouldn’t be the first time. I took the chance of looking foolish. “You don’t suppose she’s just been pretending, do you? I mean, about being sick. Maybe after she got that note—”
“She’s hiding out! From the person who killed Peter!” Chandra was so sure she’d hit the proverbial nail on the head, her hands flew to her mouth.
The van did a fishtail slide from one side of the road to the other, barely missed a huge stone planter at the end of somebody’s driveway, and swooped so close to a big old oak tree, I swear if I’d had the window open (and if I weren’t so busy screeching), I could have reached out and grabbed a piece of bark.
Beside me, Kate was plastered against the backseat, her mouth hanging open and one hand clamped to her heart. Chandra, it should be noted, still had her hands off the wheel, the better to throw them in the air while she howled like a banshee.
Yet even through my panic and the scenes of my all-too-short life flashing through my mind, I registered the fact that Luella kept her head. She turned slightly in her seat, her voice calm and so quiet, it was a wonder Chandra could hear it at all above her own demented squawking.
“Turn into the spin,” Luella advised, her eyes on Chandra in a way that reminded me of a trainer trying to get through to a Jack Russell. “Both hands. Come on, Sandy, deep breaths. There you go. Hands on the wheel. Turn. A little more.”
We slowed down. We stopped sliding. One by one, all our spines went from scared stiff to slack.
Something told me no one was more relieved to see the Orient Express come into view than Chandra. Maybe a little too much so. No sooner were we outside the building that housed the restaurant than she slammed her foot on the brake. The van wobbled, righted itself, and skidded another thirty feet. It came to a stop inches from the front of the grocery store and the big square cooler that sat just outside the door, the word Ice written on it in red letters accented with blue frost.
Irony if I ever saw it.
“We’re here.” Chandra might have been smiling, but her voice bumped along to the same rhythm as my heart.
“My stomach’s still back there,” Kate said under her breath and with a look over her shoulder.
We tumbled out and into the snow, automatically gathering close together in hopes of keeping warm. We were still pressed into a tight little knot in front of the Orient Express when Ted pulled up in his SUV.
Not as dramatic an entrance as Chandra’s, but I gave him big points for being careful.
A cold wind picked that particular moment to come whistling around the corner of the building and smack us in the face, and as one, we turned away and waited for it to die down. When it did and we turned around again, Ted had the door open and he was standing back to let us inside.
Cold. Snow. Knees still rubbery from the adventure that was Chandra’s driving.
And still, we hesitated.
It didn’t take my overactive imagination to know why.
“The last time we were here . . .” Chandra’s voice reminded me of the drawn-out, mewling sound the wind made through the branches of a nearby tree.
“It was the night we found Peter.” Luella, so brave in the face of the danger so short a time ago, eyed the door of the restaurant as if it were a snake, reared up and ready to strike.
Kate took a step back. “We could—”
“This was your idea.” I glanced around at them all so they got the message that the your was plural. Ted was already inside, but I wasn’t taking any chances. I hissed out a whisper. “You’re the ones who wanted to investigate. That means we’re going to go inside and—”
If Luella’s laugh hadn’t stopped me, the friendly hand she clapped on my shoulder would have. “Look who’s braver than the rest of us. The woman who won’t read a scary book!”
“Maybe.” How’s that for a weenie way to respond? I knew if I didn’t make the first move, they’d stand there forever, so I pushed open the door and went inside the Orient Express.
That morning, it looked the same as it always had, and something about the mere fact that nothing had changed made anger boil up inside me.
Everything had changed!
Didn’t the Universe recognize that?
There in the restaurant with its red paper lanterns hanging above the three tables near the windows, and its Chinese calendar on the wall, featuring a gorgeous young woman in traditional clothing, everything was different.
It wasn’t just the Orient Express anymore. Peter had died there.
A chill snaked its way up my back. I chalked it up to the storm, and when I felt Kate step up behind me in the doorway, I ventured a few steps farther inside.
“So . . .” Ted already had his coat off. He stood behind the front counter and rubbed his hands together, and I couldn’t tell whether he was anxious for Chandra to get started or just plain nervous. “You sure you want to go ahead with this, Chandra? It isn’t necessary. Not as far as I’m concerned. But if you’re ready to get started . . .”
She was.
Oh, how she was!
Chandra had brought a tote bag in with her from the car, and now, she hoisted it up on the counter and dug through it. In less than a minute, she had three bundles of herbs and a white candle set up in the space between the cash register and the takeaway packets of soy sauce and hot mustard. Chandra slipped off her coat and handed it to me. I tossed it on the nearest chair and, curious, stood back to watch.
When Chandra took a few deep breaths, lit the candle, and mumbled something about
the energy of the light washing over her, I guess Ted had had enough.
“I’m just going to . . .” He poked a thumb over his shoulder and disappeared into the kitchen.
With Ted gone, Chandra engrossed, and Luella pretending to be paying attention, I made my move. Kate stood on my right, and I poked her in the ribs with my elbow and motioned to the stairs that led up to Peter’s apartment.
We were in luck; the door at the top of the stairs wasn’t locked. We went right inside.
“The woman’s off her rocker. You know that, don’t you?” Kate grumbled as soon as we had the door closed behind us. “I think this pretty much proves it. Maybe I should go back down and record the show with my cell. Then maybe Alvin could see what I put up with all summer. The chanting! The weird rituals!” She shivered. “You’ll see once the weather gets nice and she starts burning smelly things in her garden. Then you’ll know what a saint I am for putting up with it all these years.”
I restrained myself. But then, I wasn’t as interested in Kate’s woes as I was in Peter’s living space. We were in the kitchen, a tiny room with a blue Formica counter, white cabinets, and a blue and white floor made up of those one-foot-by-one-foot tiles that anybody can stick down and install on their own.
Pretty basic.
Well, except for the cabinet that was ripped off the wall near the refrigerator and the hole in the wall behind it.
I went over for a better look.
“What?” Kate was right behind me, peering over my shoulder, her question barely louder than the chanting that floated up from the restaurant. “You’re looking at it like it’s some big deal. Peter was remodeling, remember. He must have told you that. He told everyone who came into the Orient Express how he was redoing the apartment. That’s why he was always wearing a surgical mask. You know, because of the plaster dust.”
I made a noise she might have interpreted as agreement, then decided that, like it or not, it was only fair to tell her what I was thinking. “If you were remodeling, why would you take down just one cabinet?”
One hand to her cheek, Kate considered this for a moment while from below us, Chandra’s voice rose and fell to the tempo of a guttural noise that sounded more like really bad rap than actual singing. “It was damaged? He got a new refrigerator and it was bigger than the old one and the cabinet wouldn’t fit? He decided to put up one of those microwave shelves and didn’t have room so one cabinet had to go?”
All logical.
Still, the missing cabinet didn’t sit well with me.
Neither did the hole in the living room wall. Or the carpet that was ripped from the floor in the bedroom.
“It doesn’t look like remodeling to me,” I said once we’d finished a turn around the entire apartment and were back in the kitchen. “It looks more like demolition.”
“And it means . . .”
I didn’t have an answer. And even if I did, I had no idea how that answer might dovetail with the details of Peter’s untimely demise. I did, however, know when it was time to hightail it back downstairs. It was suddenly quiet down in the restaurant, and I didn’t want to take the chance that Ted might go back in there now that the coast was clear, spiritually speaking. As quietly as we’d gone upstairs, Kate and I snuck back down. When I peeked into the restaurant, Ted was still nowhere to be seen. Chandra, on the other hand, was lying on the floor.
“She’s grounding her energy,” Luella informed us. And with a straight face, too.
“So . . .” Done doing what she’d been doing, Chandra popped up. “Does everyone’s aura feel better? And . . .” She gave me a conspiratorial wink. “Any clues upstairs?”
So, in spite of the chanting and the burning—I waved a wisp of sweet-smelling smoke away from my nose—she had been paying attention.
“Nothing interesting,” Kate answered for me.
Which was just as well. I wanted to have a good look around the restaurant before Ted decided it was time to lock up and head out. I paced the area in front of the counter, picturing everything that had happened on Sunday when I stopped in for lunch. There was no sign of the threatening note on the counter where I’d put it when I picked it up off the floor, but whether that meant the cops had found it and considered it evidence, or Peter had disposed of it long before his death the next day, I couldn’t say.
As for the rest of the Orient Express . . .
With Kate, Chandra, and Luella standing back and watching, I walked around the restaurant. If there had been evidence left behind by the killer, the cops (of course) had it in their possession. Which meant there was little to go by other than impressions. And my imagination.
With that thought in mind, I stepped behind the counter and stood exactly where Peter usually did when he greeted patrons. Just to the right of the cash register. Within easy reach of the takeaway menus, the carry bags, and the free fortune cookies he included with each order.
“This must have been where he was standing when he was attacked,” I commented, and watched Kate’s face pale, Chandra’s blanch, and Luella give me a knowing nod. “He was right here.” I glanced down at the floor. “And you saw exactly what I saw. It didn’t look like there had been a struggle. Either Peter knew and trusted the person who killed him, or someone came at him from behind. Someone he didn’t know was in the building.”
I took another look around. The doorway that led out into the little hallway and the stairway to the apartment was to my right. “If someone was upstairs . . .” In my mind, I paced out the scene.
If Peter was standing where I was now and someone snuck down the stairs, he could have easily been surprised.
“He spun around.” I did, just to keep the action straight in my head. “He was surprised.” I stepped back like I imagined Peter had. “And the murderer—”
“Plunged that knife straight into his heart.” Leave it to Luella not to sugarcoat the facts.
I drummed my fingers on the countertop and looked across the twelve feet or so that separated the counter from the windows that looked out on the street. The other ladies did the same, and saw exactly what I saw.
From this vantage point, I could clearly see the sidewalk and the four café tables that Peter had already set up out there in anticipation of warm weather. Beyond the waist-high wrought iron railing that separated the tables from the sidewalk was the street, and across it was an empty storefront with a “For Lease” sign in the window. To its right was a souvenir shop that wouldn’t open until the beginning of May, and to its left, a place with a newly painted sign over the front door.
I read the bold, painted word. “Levi’s.”
Kate looked over her shoulder. “Levi Kozlov. He bought out that old bar. What was the name of it, Chandra? The place that was owned by the old guy who died last year.”
“Last Drop Inn. That was it,” Chandra supplied the information. “It was kind of a dive.”
I’d already walked around the counter and taken a couple steps toward the window, my gaze on the bar. “Is the new place a dive, too?”
“The owner sure isn’t.” Kate’s voice shivered with laughter. “Levi Kozlov has already got a reputation in town. Hot, hot, hot.”
Interesting.
But hardly helpful.
“Do you suppose Levi’s was open on Monday night?” I asked no one in particular.
I got shrugs for an answer, but that was pretty much what I expected, and it didn’t matter, anyway. I’d already made up my mind. I told Ted we were leaving, pulled my gloves out of my pocket, slapped my hat on my head, and headed across the street to Levi’s.
11
The front door of Levi’s was unlocked, but except for the jar candles burning on the bar and a few more that had been lit and scattered on tables around the room, the place was dark and so cold I didn’t take off my gloves or my hat once we were inside.
“Open, huh?” Through the gloom, I looked around at the empty tables, the silent jukebox, and the bar with no bartender. “Are you sure?”
>
“Sure, I’m sure.” Perfectly at home, Luella hopped up onto a barstool and banged a fist on the bar. “Hey, Levi!” she called out. “You got customers.”
A second later, a door that led into a back room swung open, and Levi Kozlov walked out carrying a case of beer.
Dark, remember, but that didn’t mean I didn’t catch the pertinent details: tall, blond, broad shoulders. I didn’t notice the blue eyes until he slipped behind the bar, set down the case of beer, and stepped closer. When it bounced from Luella, to Chandra, to me, then Kate, his gaze was as bright as one of those candle flames and, yes, it looked as if Kate was right on the money when she let slip the word hot. From the chipped-from-granite chin to the tiny scar just above his left eyebrow, hot was the right word.
I might actually have been impressed if cocky didn’t go along with the package.
“Now this makes it worthwhile staying open during the storm.” Levi’s voice matched the whole tall-and-gorgeous bundle, deep with just a trace of huskiness. Like we just woke him up. “Four beautiful women. What more could a guy ask for on a cold and blustery morning!”
Maybe it was me. Or the cold. Or the fact that we’d just left the scene of a murder. I was so not in the mood for hey, look at me, girls. I chafed my hands up and down my arms. “A little heat would be nice.”
“You . . .” At the same time Levi dragged a candle closer to where I was standing, he leaned over the bar, the better to peer into my face. I could only imagine what he saw, and what I imagined wasn’t pretty. My hat was pulled down all the way onto my forehead, and my bangs were wedged behind my glasses and poked my eyes. When I realized Chandra was hell-bent on heading out to the Orient Express that morning, I’d scrambled to clean up the breakfast dishes and get ready, and I’d grabbed the first scarf I could get my hands on. It was yellow and it didn’t looked particularly good with my mouse gray parka, my green hat, or my navy mittens. I could feel the frostbite setting in, so I didn’t need a mirror to know the tip of my nose was red. I was afraid it might be running, too.