by Mary Marks
Jazz frowned and turned down the corners of his mouth. Birdie sniffed and looked horrified. The sickening odor I thought I’d detected before now permeated the air; the overwhelming stench of death left unattended.
I put up my hand. “You and Jazz better stay here, Birdie. Come on, Lucy.”
I took my tall friend’s arm and walked with her toward the back of the hearse. The rear door had popped open, allowing the coffin to fly out the back. The big casket now lay gaping open on the ground. No wonder none of the other drivers on the highway stopped to help us.
The good news was that despite my worst fears, Towsley had not cheated Birdie. Russell’s body had been perfectly preserved by the embalming fluids.
The bad news was I now understood what Arthur tried to tell me when he jumped on the side of the hearse and barked. Russell wasn’t alone. On top of his body lay the source of the awful smell—the decomposing corpse of a strange man with dark hair.
And plainly visible, despite the bloating and discoloration of his skin, was a spiderweb tattoo on the side of his neck.
Lucy and I took one look at each other and walked back to the Caddy. Jazz had one arm around Birdie, while he talked on his phone. “Northbound. We just passed signs pointing to Cottage Grove. Don’t worry, we’re not going anywhere.”
He closed his phone and pinched his brows together. “That was 9-1-1. I also left a message for Agent Lancet. Dare I ask what’s back there?”
There was no gentle way to tell them Russell’s remains lay exposed on the ground. “I’m afraid the coffin lid popped open when it slid out of the back and onto the ground.”
Birdie gasped. Jazz covered his mouth with his hand.
“I’m sorry, but it gets worse. Someone stuffed another body inside the coffin on top of Russell.”
Birdie sagged backward into Jazz’s chest.
“The upside is we don’t have to worry about Rene Levesque anymore.”
CHAPTER 21
Sirens screamed in the distance, heading toward us from both directions. Once I knew help was on its way, the adrenaline subsided, and my knees began to shake. The quaking became more violent as it traveled up my body. When it reached my neck, the muscles seized up into a mother of a spasm. My head throbbed so badly, I thought my eyes would explode out of their sockets. “I’ve got to sit down.”
Lucy helped me walk back to the Caddy, where Zsa Zsa and Arthur huddled together on the backseat. We sat in our usual places, with the doors open, and waited for the police.
I rummaged through my purse for my migraine meds. “Is there anything to drink?”
Birdie handed me an unopened plastic bottle of Arrowhead Mountain Spring Water. “That was Jazz’s crazy stalker, wasn’t it?”
I swallowed my pills and rubbed my pounding temples. “Who else? That creep tried to kill us.”
Lucy turned in her seat to look at me. “He’s got to be the one who hired Russell’s killer.”
“I don’t know.” I closed my eyes. “He seems perfectly capable of committing violence all on his own. The sooner Birdie can decode the diary, the sooner we’ll know for sure.”
The Cottage Grove Police parked behind us in a black and white SUV and proceeded to put flares on the road, diverting the traffic from the accident. The Lane County Sheriffs parked in front of us in a green and white car with a gold stripe on the side and hurried to examine the bodies and the coffin. Three dark blue Oregon State Police cruisers parked next to us on the highway, shielding our morbid tableau from curious drivers. A tall trooper assumed control of the scene. He seemed older than the rest, and I guessed he was a senior officer. A small bulge in his lower lip suggested he had squirreled away a pinch of Copenhagen.
“How are we going to explain all this?” Lucy asked.
I kneaded the back of my neck. “Very carefully.”
Two state troopers cautiously approached the Caddy. A young trooper stood on the passenger side of the car, while the tall one in charge bent down and spoke to Lucy in the driver’s seat. “License and registration, please.” He examined her papers and handed them back. “Was anyone injured in the accident?”
I raised my hand. “Me.”
He looked in the backseat, where I sipped from the bottle of water. His name tag read FRANKLIN. “Don’t worry, ma’am. Paramedics are on the way.” He raised his head and scanned the area. Then he looked back in the car. “Did you folks see where the driver of the hearse went to?”
I raised my hand again. “That would be me.”
His eyes widened. “Come again?”
“It’s a long story, Officer.”
He pushed his brows together, and his face conveyed a warning. “This better be good. There’s enough evidence lying on the ground back there to arrest all of you.”
I took a deep breath, and the words tumbled out like a landslide on the Pacific Coast Highway. “We were attacked just now by a famous Swedish rapper in a red Porsche who’s been stalking Jazz for a month.” I pointed to Russell’s lover, who nodded vigorously and hugged Zsa Zsa to his chest.
“Right. He have a name?”
“Li’l Ape Man.”
Trooper Franklin didn’t even try to hide his laughter. “Okay, lady, you need to step out of the vehicle and take a breathalyzer.”
I took a drink of water, trying to ignore the pounding in the right side of my head. “Please, just hear me out first.”
“This should be good.” He turned his head to the side and spat.
“We suspected Li’l Ape Man had been following us for the last couple of days but didn’t call the authorities. In hindsight, we should have. He appeared out of nowhere just now and deliberately ran us off the road.”
Jazz stroked Zsa Zsa’s head. “That’s my fault. He’s crazy about me.”
The trooper wrote something on his notepad. “Explain the bodies back there.”
“The real body is Russell Watson, her husband.” I pointed to Birdie. “The other body is an international assassin who is wanted by Interpol. We were afraid he was coming after us, too.”
“An international assassin.”
Lucy, who’d been silent throughout the questioning, finally spoke up. “His name’s Rene Levesque. He’s murdered people all over Europe and Florida.”
I cleared my throat. “Whoever hired Rene Levesque to kill Russell also hired him to steal something from Birdie, but we foiled his plan with a police dog and a frying pan.”
“Really. So how did he end up dead in another man’s coffin?”
“I guess the mastermind had no further use for him. He must have known Russell’s body was going to be buried out of state. What better way to get rid of the only witness?”
The trooper narrowed his eyes at me. “Why were you driving the hearse in the first place? How do I know you weren’t the ones trying to get rid of the body?”
Birdie twisted the end of her braid. “My friends here were helping me escort my husband’s body from LA to McMinnville. He wanted to be buried with his ancestors up there in the old family plot.”
Jazz twisted the diamond band on his left hand. “The Watsons traveled the Oregon Trail in a covered wagon.”
“And stole land from the Native Americans,” I muttered under my breath.
“And?” The trooper rolled his hand impatiently as if he were directing a traffic snarl at an intersection.
I took another sip of water. “Unfortunately, the hearse driver had a heart attack near Roseburg this morning. We left him in the emergency room of Mercy Medical Center. You can check that out too. His name is Earl. I don’t know his last name, but he’s married to Wanda—and he cheats on her.”
The officer parted his lips as if to speak then closed his mouth again.
I took a deep breath. “We couldn’t just leave Russell’s body in Roseburg. Getting him buried is the whole purpose of our trip. So I volunteered to drive him the rest of the way. Believe me, I wasn’t happy about it. Once I sat inside the vehicle, I detected a bad odor that Earl
had missed because he lost his sense of smell from smoking. Personally, I think that’s why the mortician hired him in the first place.”
The trooper closed his eyes and ran his hand over his face.
“Tell him about the FBI.” Jazz poked my arm.
“You need to know the FBI has jurisdiction over this case because Russell Watson was killed during a bank robbery. However, the LAPD is also searching for Levesque because he tried to break into Birdie’s house. By the way, the LAPD detective working on the break-in was raised on the Siletz reservation right here in Oregon. He’s my ex-boyfriend.” I watched Trooper Franklin closely, hoping I’d scored some credibility.
He just slowly shook his head and glanced at his partner, so I kept talking.
“The night of the attempted break-in, I heard the man swear in French. That detail, along with the spiderweb tattoo on his neck, enabled the FBI to identify Levesque. Here. I can show you his picture.”
The trooper put out a restraining hand. “Stop. Keep your hands where I can see them.” He looked at each of us. “All of you have to come to the station while I check out this cockamamie story. Get out of the car.”
I stood and clipped a strong black nylon leash to Arthur’s matching collar. “I’m bringing my dog. Remember I told you about my ex-boyfriend, the LAPD detective from Oregon? This police canine belongs to him. I think he deserves some professional courtesy.”
Arthur stood obediently beside me, ears pointed forward on alert.
Jazz placed Zsa Zsa inside her yellow tote bag and draped it over his arm. “My little princess can’t be left alone, either.”
Trooper Franklin made me blow into a breathalyzer three times before he reluctantly acknowledged my sobriety. The other state troopers searched the car. One of them removed the keys from the ignition of the vintage Caddy and opened the trunk. When the younger trooper reached for my purse, my stomach dropped to my knees. I had forgotten about the Browning inside.
He held up the gun. “Take a look at this.”
Another trooper had opened Lucy’s purse and pulled out the Glock. “We’ve got another one over here.”
Lucy held up her hand. “Those guns are registered to me. I have a permit to carry both of them. Look in my wallet.”
With a little digging, Franklin read the paper in her wallet. “This permit isn’t valid in Oregon. And anyway, what is your firearm doing in her purse?”
Lucy briefly glanced at me and raised her chin. “Isn’t it obvious? We didn’t know the assassin was already dead. We wanted to protect Birdie.”
“Here’s something else that’s obvious. I’m confiscating these weapons.” He turned to the other troopers. “Search ’em.”
A chunky blond female trooper with a large derriere patted down Lucy, Birdie, and me, while the young trooper frisked Jazz. When they were satisfied we were unarmed, they stepped back and gave us back our purses, minus the pistols.
Trooper Franklin gestured toward the backseats of the dark blue patrol cars. “We’re taking you to our field office in Springfield.”
Birdie wrung her hands, and her eyes brimmed. “But what’s going to happen to my poor husband? You can’t leave his body exposed like this.”
“His body will be taken to the medical examiner’s office in Clackamas. On the off chance your wild story checks out, his body will be released. You can make arrangements with a local mortuary for transport to McMinnville.”
“What about my car?” Lucy pointed to the Caddy.
“It’ll be towed to our office.”
I asked Jazz for Agent Lancet’s card and handed it to Trooper Franklin. “We’ve already called her. She’s probably on her way to Oregon as we speak. But you should call her anyway. She’ll vouch for us.”
The police radio clipped to Franklin’s shoulder crackled to life. He walked away from us to speak to dispatch. When he returned, he spat and looked straight at me. “I don’t believe it. An FBI chopper is on the way with agents from the Portland office. They’ve verified at least part of your story.”
“Of course they have, because it’s the truth.”
“Lady, I’ve got to say, I’ve heard some lunatic explanations in my time, but yours tops them all.”
He gestured toward an ambulance waiting on the road above us. “You said you were injured. Maybe you should get checked out by the paramedics.”
I shook my head. “No, thanks. I prefer to stay with my friends.”
As I walked toward the backseat of a patrol car, I heard the young trooper speak to his chunky blond colleague. “Wow. Li’l Ape Man. I know the dude these old ladies are talking about. He had this cool rap that was all over the radio for months.”
“Yeah? Which one was that?”
“‘Bite My Swedish Meatballs, Yo.’”
CHAPTER 22
The state police field office in Springfield, Oregon, was located right off Interstate 5. A narrow strip of verdant lawn lined the sidewalk in front, and a row of alders delicately camouflaged the small one-story facility. Once inside the station, curious stares greeted our little group—three senior women with a German shepherd and a tall man carrying a tiny Maltese with a rhinestone barrette.
A blowsy secretary snickered as we passed, but a hard stare from Franklin shut her up. Somewhere between Cottage Grove and Springfield, he’d gotten rid of the Copenhagen, and his lip was flat again. He opened the door to a conference room and gestured for us to enter. Then he and the young trooper joined us.
Lucy, Birdie, Jazz, and I arranged ourselves in a protective huddle at the far end of a long table laminated in brown wood-grained plastic.
Jazz leaned over and whispered, “I’m surprised, with all the trees in Oregon, they don’t use real wood for their furniture. And what’s with these beige walls? Don’t they realize that color paint, along with those fluorescent lights, sucks the life right out of a person’s cheeks?”
Franklin cleared his throat. “The ETA for the feds is about a half hour.” He crooked his thumb toward his young partner. “Posner here will stay with you while you’re waiting. I’ll be back.” He left abruptly and closed the door.
Young trooper Posner stood awkwardly. “Is anyone thirsty?”
Jazz flashed a smile. “It’s three in the afternoon. We normally take tea at this time. Maybe some scones and crème cakes to go with?” He turned his face to us and winked.
Posner didn’t get the joke. He nodded, stuck his head out the door, and shouted, “Madonna!”
The blowsy secretary shouted back, “Yeah?”
“I need you!”
A minute later, she appeared in the doorway. “What?”
Posner whispered something under his breath. She thrust her neck forward and stared at us. “Seriously?”
“Just do it, please.”
Ten minutes later, we each had a disposable cup of tepid water, with a Lipton tea bag floating inside, and a small package of chocolate chip cookies from a vending machine.
“You know, I’ve been thinking.” Jazz opened a packet of sugar and stirred his tea with a white plastic spoon. “Trucker Chic is too casual. I mean, how would I dress Johnny for the Oscars? I’m getting a whole new take on his wardrobe. Detective Debonair. I’m going to redo the Smokey Bear trooper hat in forest green felt and stick a partridge feather in the brim. Luckily, I’ve been saving a bolt of dark green cashmere for just the right project. I think that fabric would rock in a suit with wide lapels.”
Lucy sipped her tea. “Sounds an awful lot like Robin Hood to me, hon. And way too matchy-matchy.”
Birdie and I looked at each other in disbelief. Could this be our Lucy speaking? The one who always dressed with a theme? The one who had an extensive collection of color-coordinated shoes that matched every outfit in her closet?
Jazz pursed his lips. “Hmm. I see what you mean. Maybe I could do the whole look in midnight blue instead. With a peacock feather and an iridescent shirt.”
Lucy nodded with approval. “I think you’re on to some
thing.”
Trooper Franklin came back in the room around four, followed by two male FBI agents wearing gray suits and blue ties. They introduced themselves as Tucker and O’Neal.
“Make yourselves comfortable, folks. We’re going to be here awhile. We’re waiting for Agent Lancet’s flight to land in Eugene.”
Birdie raised her hand. “Have you apprehended Li’l Ape Man yet?”
Tucker shook his head. “No, ma’am. But authorities in all the surrounding states have been alerted. Unless he drives his car into the Pacific Ocean, we’ll catch him.”
Over the next two hours, the agents interviewed us one by one. During that time I received a worried call from Beavers.
“Kay told me about the accident. Are you hurt? Is Arthur okay?”
“We’re fine, Arlo.”
“I can fly up there tonight.”
Dealing with Arlo Beavers was the last thing I wanted to do right now. “Please don’t. Honestly, we’re fine. I’ll give you an update tomorrow.”
We ordered pizza from a local restaurant. I requested one with anchovies, instead of pepperoni made from pork, and shared it with the dog. Despite his owner’s instruction not to feed him people food, in my book, Arthur deserved a treat for being so well-behaved.
Agent Lancet finally showed up as we finished the last of our dinner. “I’ve just come from the forensics lab down the hall. The second body has been positively identified as Rene Levesque from a thumbprint they managed to lift from the corpse. Clearly, you can stop worrying about him as a threat. However, the person who hired him is still at large.” She looked at Birdie. “We have to assume he might come after you, even now.”
Jazz picked up the last slice of pizza with a paper napkin. “Don’t you think he just did?”
Lancet blew out a breath. “Yeah. I’m leaning toward the Swedish rapper for obvious reasons. Running you off the road was a desperate act.”
“He really became obsessed with me,” Jazz said. “Like Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction.”
I wasn’t convinced that such a violent man would bother to hire someone else to do his dirty work. Besides, how did he, or anyone else, for that matter, get access to Russell’s coffin? “So, are you ruling out Russell’s brother, Denver, and Jazz’s neighbor Cisco Conejo as the possible mastermind? Seems to me they both held equally strong grudges that could’ve led to murder for hire.”