Femme Faux Fatale

by Susan Laine

  Whatever Cain thought about Riley keeping secrets had to wait. Mirabel’s absence raised additional questions and concerns. She was Cain’s next port of call.

  “Where does this Mirabel Martinez live?” Cain asked as he started to rise from his seat. Tess tried to push him back down, vexed by his intention to jump right back into the fray.

  “Montecito Heights. She lives in a small apartment complex that’s sort of like a commune for artists and crafters.” Riley shrugged. “I’ve never been there, but I hear it’s quite charming.”

  That last part sounded unnecessary, Cain thought as he buttoned his shirt again.

  Tess brought up her hands in surrender but remained piqued if her huffs and puffs were any proof. “Argh, you’re impossible. Stubborn fool. You want to go and kill yourself on the job, by all means. Oh, and by the way? I deserve a raise.”

  She stormed out of the room and banged the door shut after her, the glass clinking.

  Riley chuckled. “Wow, she’s amazing. Love her.”

  “You’re not her type,” Cain grunted in reply, shrugging his coat back on. He felt stiff and sore, but this was what he got paid for. Plus, perhaps he had a masochistic streak because he loved the job, even when he got beat up in the process.

  Riley stepped up to him, looking worried. “You will be more careful this time, won’t you? If my actions landed you in the hospital… I’d never be able to forgive myself.” He shuddered, his face a picture of misery.

  Cain bussed his cheek softly, smelling the familiar crispy scents of thyme and spearmint oil from his own soap. “I’ll be fine, darlin’. Don’t fret.”

  Riley glanced up at him through thick lashes, fluttering them like a butterfly’s wings. “I think you should really try because if you’re terribly hurt we won’t be able to….” He whispered the rest into Cain’s ear, dirty little promises of things to come that could only be acted out in the safety and privacy of a bedroom, behind closed doors and drapes. Cain smirked just thinking about it. He would definitely love more downtime with Riley.

  MIRABEL Martinez’s place was situated in a small complex of five apartments at the end of Montecito Drive. Greenery amid the typical beige and brown of LA was a welcome change, and Cain appreciated the scenery as he drove uphill. On the rugged hillside, eucalyptus and crape myrtle grew abundantly, creating a lush, vibrant environment. Wide-open grassy areas in the back of the house showed people hanging about to enjoy picnics or jogging on the crisscrossing footpaths.

  The winds blew in hotly through the open windows. Most of the buildings were modern; many had not only satellite dishes on the roofs but solar panels as well, serving as proof that this was a progressive neighborhood.

  Early evening only made the air hotter as the sun had been blazing all day long. Cain hated the glare and the heat, but he wasn’t a god and could not affect the weather. Humans as a whole could, but that was another matter.

  The complex seemed to be a single restored building wrapped around an inner courtyard. There were separate apartment units on three floors plus a pool in the courtyard that he caught sight of as he parked his truck by the curb and walked to the front door. The view was unobstructed thanks to a wide archway with glass double doors that served as an entryway into the complex. Apparently the apartments were accessed through the courtyard, not the outside.

  Cain rang the bell by the door. A cute twentysomething blonde opened it and stared at him bleary-eyed, wearing nothing but a tight tank top and panties. The unmistakable whiff of weed followed her like a cloud. Her bloodshot eyes would have given Cain the same info.

  She ruffled her hair, yawned, and scratched her bare belly. “Pizza?”

  “No. Mirabel Martinez?”

  She shrugged and turned around. “Whatever.” Then she waved toward a narrow flight of stairs leading to an interior balcony that in turn led to individual apartments on the second floor. “Last door at the end of the hallway. Apartment 2F.”

  Cain sighed. Only in LA. He rolled his eyes, came in, closed the door, and headed for the stairs. By the deck surrounding the pool he spotted other twentysomething youths of both genders—along with two bongs, one of them bright pink with sparkly bling. Smoke rose from both. The inane chatter and occasional weird laugh confirmed for Cain that these deadbeat dwellers had no clue about what was happening in the real world.

  The door at the end of the hallway was closed and locked. Cain knocked twice. There was no answer. He knocked again, louder this time. Still nothing. He pressed his ear to the door to listen, but he heard nothing. Maybe Mirabel wasn’t home?

  “Dude, she keeps the key above the doorframe.” The same blonde girl from before walked behind him, clutching a sweating beer and a bag of Doritos to her breast. Her apartment seemed to be adjacent to Mirabel’s.

  Cain grimaced at her thoughtlessness. The hidey-holes of home keys should have been private information, not to be shared with complete strangers. Wasted on marijuana seemed to be the rule rather than the exception for sharing, at least according to these potheads.

  “When’s the last time you saw Mirabel?” Cain asked the blonde, though he had low expectations of getting anything helpful out of her. The funk of weed clung to the girl like a second skin. Cain couldn’t smell anything else, and his nostrils itched.

  Blinking, the girl peeked past him toward the pool. “Dude, I don’t know. Yesterday? The day before? Last week? What day is it anyway?” She checked her wrist—which was bare.

  Cain felt like punching a wall in frustration. He hated talking to potheads. Never a simple answer or a straight word. “Have you seen Mirabel with anyone? Or has anyone come to see her lately?”

  The girl frowned, pondering. She rocked back and forth as she thought, and Cain feared she’d fall down any second. Suddenly her brow cleared and she chuckled. “Oh, this is a trick question. ’Cause, like, you’re here to see her, aren’t you?”

  She cackled madly as she walked off, quite unsteadily, clearly believing she was a rocket scientist with that piece of insight. Cain blew out a breath, reining in his temper. He reminded himself that he was speaking not with a person, but with an addictive plant.

  With expediency, Cain fished out the poorly hidden key and unlocked the door. Since the other girl hadn’t appeared alarmed about Mirabel’s absence, maybe nothing was amiss, but Cain needed to see that for himself.

  As he entered, he rubbed his nose, which tickled from the reek of weed. He could have sworn he smelled something else, a fouler odor carried on the air inside the unit, but the marijuana lingered, overpowering his senses.

  Like college campus dorm rooms, the apartments in the complex weren’t big on space but had a lot of personality. Her wallpaper was rosy-red, her couch light yellow, the table and chairs orange, and the light fixtures hung above like Christmas lights—all spring-green and ocean-blue.

  Instead of movies, Mirabel had singer posters on her wall of Lady Gaga, Lady Sovereign, Fergie, The Gossip, 4 Non Blondes, and Melissa Etheridge. Every other available surface was packed full of framed photos, most likely relatives and friends. She had a huge family, it seemed. Cain couldn’t even count the number of people appearing in the photos.

  A collection of colors and styles, the place should have clashed horribly, but somehow it all worked. Little details of Mirabel appeared here and there, from a ruffled rainbow-colored scarf that hung over the armrest of the couch to the cold coffee cup on the table, with a touch of black liquid still inside. Shoes by the side of the door, vintage handbags over the dresser, a large assortment of books on the filled shelves, a slinky dress with bright colors on the backrest of the chair.

  Mirabel seemed like a vibrant person full of life and an adventurer with a deep passion to experience new things. Of course, Cain couldn’t be sure, but that was what he was getting from the interior.

  The bedroom door was firmly closed. Cain could hear insects buzzing. The noise was stark in the silence. Where did it come from? He turned the knob and pushed the door
open.

  He stopped in his tracks on the threshold. His gut roiled, and he had to fight nausea.

  On the bed lay two bodies. There was no question they were dead, for both the man and the woman had been carved in half at the waist. Bloody knife slashes ripped across their naked bodies covered by torn sheets. Their expressions were oddly serene in death. They’d been dead more than a day.

  The stench in the room caused by heat rotting their flesh almost knocked Cain off his feet, spreading outward like the plague now that the door had been opened. Swarms of flies covered the bodies, sticking to the blood and gore.

  Cain was on sensory overload, and not a good one.

  Well, fuck me sideways.

  Chapter Eleven

  “MIR, you’re the best maid I’ve ever had, but I refuse to abide by your blatant—”

  The woman’s familiar voice ended in a horrified shriek that pierced the air like a gunshot. Cain whirled around to face Camille Astor, who stood in the doorway, staring at the murder scene in abject horror, her hands cupping her face in a frozen tableau.

  Fast as lightning, Cain rushed to block her direct view into the room and gently but firmly escorted her back to the living room. Panting rapidly, her eyes glassy, she swayed as if about to collapse. Cain ushered her to the couch, where she promptly bent at the waist to place her head between her knees. Cain had to wait and see if she would throw up, pass out, or come to.

  “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God…,” Camille kept repeating, her body shuddering, her voice shrill despite her weird position. “They’re dead… they’re both dead…. So much blood…. Mir and Sherry…. Oh my God, what…?”

  Cain suppressed a sigh. So the man and the woman were Mirabel Martinez, the sick maid, and Sheridan Astor, the missing club owner. Fuck, this was the worst possible outcome to the case.

  There was a different thought haunting Cain’s subconscious, though. He felt the memory of something he’d read rattling inside his mind like a bird trying to break free from its cage.

  Frustrated, he fished out his iPhone and did an online search for the method of the murder. Upon seeing the results, he knew instantly that the case was far from over.

  Elizabeth Short was found mutilated, her body sliced in half at the waist, in Los Angeles in 1947. She posthumously acquired the nickname the Black Dahlia, given to her by newspapers….

  That was the gist of an online source, Wikipedia. Not quite verbatim.

  And coincidentally, or oddly, the Black Dahlia had been the topic of conversation between Cain and Riley earlier in bed. Short’s character had been Riley’s inspiration when she’d created her onstage burlesque persona, Dark Lily.

  So had Cain’s—or Riley’s—clothes and belongings been bugged too? How else could anyone know what they had talked about and arranged a killing to resemble that infamous unsolved homicide?

  Hold on a minute. No, that was impossible. Cain frowned. Judging from the condition of the two corpses, they had been dead at least a day. Long before Cain and Riley had discussed the Black Dahlia.

  So what was the connection? Had it all been happenstance or a coincidence?

  Of course, the obvious conclusion to draw was that Riley, perhaps driven mad by his keen fascination with the Black Dahlia, was the culprit….

  Cain’s head spun. This was getting awfully complicated.

  In any case, the cops had to be called in now. No way to avoid that.

  Then Camille’s small voice emerged from her huddled form. “Did you find it? The Rodin statuette? Was it there with the… the… the b-b-bodies?”

  “I didn’t look. And I can’t look. This is a police matter now.” Cain dialed 911 before she could argue against the plan. He wasn’t about to be persuaded the same way Camille had convinced Riley to abandon this exact idea earlier.

  For the time being, it seemed that the notorious statuette still remained unaccounted for.

  “I’VE had my share of… affairs,” Camille confessed to Cain as the police searched the rest of the house, spoke to the other residents, and finally allowed the crime scene techs to take over. They leaned side by side against the front of Cain’s truck, waiting for the cops to interview them more thoroughly. “I suspected Sheridan was sleeping with someone. At first I figured it had to be a girl at the club. But then… when Mir didn’t show up at work today… I knew… I just knew something was amiss.”

  “If you’re both having affairs, why did you care what Sheridan did?”

  Camille huffed indignantly, crossing her hands over her chest. “Because casual fuckfests with girls at the club were routine. He never cared for any of them, not really. But Mirabel? At our house? In our own bed? No, I knew it’d be more than a meaningless affair.” She shivered, a soft sob escaping her lips. “They were lovers. And they obviously tried to run away with the Rodin. My statuette.”

  Toward the end her tone took on a hard edge. Her sympathy and sorrow appeared to have run out. This was the side of Camille that Riley had seen. Cain had caught glimpses of this facet before. Now he got the full monty, so to speak.

  But having a lousy attitude didn’t make a person guilty of theft or murder.

  Camille shook her head in confusion. “But who’d do this to them? I mean, we live in the murder capital of the world, but still…. It’s so brutal and violent and unnecessary.” Quakes wracked her body as she hugged herself tighter. Then she visibly regrouped, straightened up, and faced Cain with a serious, pleading expression. “Mr. Noble, please find the statuette. With Sheridan gone… it’s the only thing I have to remind me of him. Our shared passion. Please?”

  “I’ll see what I can do, Mrs. Astor.”

  At this point making promises seemed like a futile exercise. Cain needed more information and perspective. He needed to distance himself and take a step back to analyze the situation better. He was stumbling about in the dark, now also apparently one or two steps behind a murderer.

  Things were getting out of hand.

  When the detectives came to question them further, Camille remained vague, and Cain had his case code and professional standards to fall back on. Thankfully the stoners inside had confirmed to the authorities the time of Cain and Camille’s arrival. This was further affirmed by the state of the bodies. So the two of them were in the clear and were merely asked to come by the station the next day for their official statements.

  After that they were allowed to leave. The last thing Cain saw as he backed away from the curb was the paramedics loading a black body bag on a stretcher into an ambulance. He vowed to himself that these corpses would be the last murders in this case.

  Naturally he had no way of ensuring that outcome.

  THE clock on his dash hit nine by the time Cain parked in the alley behind club Iris. He had to speak with Riley, who had steered Cain to Mirabel. Had he known the woman and Sheridan would be lying dead in the apartment?

  Could Riley be the killer?

  What did Cain have to do to get Riley to spill the beans once and for all? Grab him by the ankles and shake him till something dropped?

  Honoré stood guard outside. He bid Cain welcome and stepped aside, winking at him like a coconspirator. Cain didn’t want to stop for a chitchat. He had a heart-to-heart in mind with another person. He did, however, ask about Lily Lavender to make sure Riley was actually at the club. He got a firm yes in response.

  “You got a taste of the forbidden fruit, monsieur, so you return.” Honoré’s chuckle didn’t lower Cain’s irritation levels. Honoré made a kissy face. “Ah, cherchez la femme faux.”

  As Honoré laughed at his own joke, Cain felt like he’d missed something. “Come again?”

  “Fake woman, chief.” Honoré nodded toward the club. “That’s what they’re called in the underground circles in New Orleans. Or at least they are often dubbed that in my local hangouts. Men who dress up as women. I think the term comes from Paris, France, back in the nineteenth century, but that could be just a rumor. People like to talk and invent stories
.”

  Nodding to acknowledge Honoré’s statement, Cain headed inside and straight backstage to the dressing rooms. Hot girls in flimsy outfits passed him by, giving him lengthy once-overs, but Cain ignored them all. Wrong gender—despite how much it had turned him on to see Riley in stockings and a corset.

  The gold star on Riley’s door read Lily Lavender. Cain knocked, his mind a jumbled mess. He didn’t want his new lover to be responsible for murder, but judging from the secrets he kept, it was obvious he was involved somehow.

  The door opened a crack. Riley’s face appeared there cast half in shadows, makeup applied only to his eyes so far. His expression melted into a happy smile that certainly seemed genuine. But was it?

  “Cain? Oh, do come in.” Riley stepped aside to allow Cain to enter. He wore nothing but a silky dressing gown, the jade-green color matching his eyes. “Do you mind if I get ready while you’re here? I’m going on earlier tonight than yesterday, at ten.”

  “Sure.” Cain closed the door and sat on a wobbly plastic stool by the wall.

  Riley’s cute blush sent butterflies fluttering in Cain’s belly. “You’re the best.” Riley sat down in front of the vanity and continued applying eye shadow, a few strands of hair escaping from the bun on top of his head to frame his face. “I didn’t expect to see you until later. Did you speak with Mirabel?”

  Cain studied Riley’s handsome face in the process of being transformed into that of a stunning woman. The duality fascinated Cain; he couldn’t deny it. Every person had a duality to them, a feminine and a masculine aspect. But most people didn’t express them as well as Riley, who had discovered a niche that worked perfectly for him.

  As far as his honesty and straightforwardness were concerned… well, Cain hadn’t seen a sure sign of either thus far. What was Riley hiding? What game was he playing? Cain didn’t know the rules, but he feared he was on the losing team.