by Livia Quinn
“You know where to find me if you think of something. Right now Fritz needs a lift to jail, and I need to get home to my teenager.” I didn’t bother to request their discretion. It would be in the Tribune by daylight.
Then, the door opened, and a slender woman stepped out. Well, what do we have here? My instincts screamed runner. Olive complexion with black hair that fell over her shoulders like midnight; she wore black high heels, a black trench coat, and sunglasses—after dark. She looked like Destiny’s very own secret agent.
“Oh, excuse me,” said Triple O. Seven. She ducked her head and would have escaped back inside, but Tempe stopped her.
“Katerina. Don’t go.”
She twitched like a nervous cat when Tempe introduced us. “Jack Lang. This is Katerina Blackmoor.” Blackmoor. Of course. “Kat, Jack.”
Kat waved her small, gloved hand at me.
I held my hand out to her, wanting to see what the skittish creature would do. She contemplated for a split second whether to take it or not, then slipped her slender, black leather clad hand into mine. We’d barely touched before she was retrieving it however.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” Katerina said, looking at Tempe. “I saw everyone follow you outside…”
“It’s okay, Kat. Jack was just telling us that the victim’s body disappeared from the morgue.”
Interesting. Her friend didn’t even blink; well, I couldn’t see her eyes, but I’d bet she hadn’t blinked. I got the impression that nothing much surprised the black-clad refugee.
“It’s nice to meet you, Katerina. Are you new to Destiny?” I asked, studying her reaction closely.
“I work nights,” Kat offered, presumably to explain why I hadn’t seen her around though she avoided a direct answer.
Tempe said, “Kat was looking forward to meeting you at class tonight, but you had to leave.”
I’ll just bet she was. I’d bet my left nut this woman had been desperate to avoid me. I got that reaction a lot though, so I put it down to eccentricity like the rest of the daytime soap lovers.
I pulled four business cards from my pocket and handed one to each of them. The spy plucked it from me with gloved fingertips and slipped it into the pocket of her trench coat.
“Katerina is an online financial consultant and an archivist for the newspaper,” Montana said. It seemed like they were trying to keep me from asking Kat any tough questions.
I smiled at Kat, “Well, I’ll be sure to let you know if I find some extra money lying around after buying Jordie’s clothes, sports equipment, and paying her tuition.” I yawned. “Excuse me.”
“Sheriff—Jack,” Tempe chewed on her bottom lip. “What do you think happened to the body?”
A bark of frustration escaped before I could contain it. “I have no idea, Tempe. It’s like he just woke up and walked away.”
The way the four women looked at each other then, made my fingers itch. I was starting to feel like I was being kept out of an insiders loop.
Tempe
After the sheriff left, we went back inside. Bailey brought our drinks to the table and risked Liam’s wrath to sit down. Montana leaned forward across the table keeping her voice as low as possible in the increasingly noisy bar. “What do you think happened to the body?”
“Did the sheriff think you stole it?” Kat asked, her eyes darting around the bar as she fidgeted.
“I don’t know. I think he was just crossing us off his list, officially.”
Mariah gave Bailey her drink order and said, “He sure is a hunk, don’t you think, Tempe? I’ll bet he’s one of those fitness nuts with zero percent body fat.”
Kat said, “He can investigate me anytime.”
I nearly choked on my tonic, even though I knew it for a lie. Kat must be feeling more at home with us to even joke about the possibility of someone looking into her past.
“I can vouch for the zero percent after delivering his package yesterday morning. But I didn’t know my customer and the sheriff were the same guy until it was too late to make a good impression.”
“I dubbed him Six-packs and Shaving Cream,” Montana said.
“You mean he was drinking when you met him?” Bailey asked. We all laughed, and Bailey shrugged, returning to the bar.
Montana watched Bailey walk away. “That Bailey is several filaments short of a working light bulb.”
We sipped our drinks for a minute. It was getting more difficult to carry on a private conversation with the pool tournament going on over in the corner. Two sets of players surrounded the two tables. I waited until they broke for a new game.
I leaned forward, whispering, “Montana, I don’t know how I forgot this, but the dead man… he was a fae, a variant. I don’t know all the subspecies, but isn’t there one that smells like rotten eggs?”
“Yep. A Nucklavee,” Montana said. “When they are damaged or die they reek of dead fish and sulfur.” She pondered her own words a minute, fiddling with her braid. “And wasn’t he nude, when you found him?”
I shivered at the memory. The violence of his death still bothered me.
“I haven’t seen one of them in a long time.” Kat shivered and made a face. “They’re disgusting and given their nature, I could wait a lot longer.”
I leaned forward. “Montana, what are you thinking?”
Montana said, “If it was a Nucklavee, he could have been playing possum, or in a transition state. And if he wasn’t dead, by the time they got ready to do an autopsy on him, he’d have been back to his ugly half ogre looking self.”
Kat and I both stared at her.
“You think he just got up and walked out?” Kat asked.
“I guess it’s possible…” I shuddered at the memory of his ruined face, “but he sure looked dead to me.”
“He wouldn’t be the only species that could reanimate as long as his head was still attached,” Katerina said.
“Well, if he did, he’d have to grow back most of his head,” I said.
“Or not,” Montana said.
“Eeeyuk, imagine running into Mr. Nucklavee if that’s true. Change of subject please, oh Goddess of the iron stomach.” I took another sip of tonic.
Montana said, “Of course he might have shifted into a less obnoxious form, or even glamoured his way out of there.”
“What about River? Isn’t there some kind of mindlink between you genie-types?” Kat asked.
My hands made fists under the table. “See, that just makes me feel even worse. I mean, you thought of it, why didn’t I?”
“Duh!” said Montana.
“Denial,” said Kat.
“I know. I know. I’m going to see Aurora tomorrow. I can’t deal with this Paramortal PMS anymore on my own.”
Montana laughed. “More like Paramortal puberty, considering the circumstances.”
“Peggy’s going to ask around at a few bars tonight, but in the morning it will officially be forty-eight hours, and I can go file a report.”
Kat checked for listening ears, then asked, “How much does Jack know? About River I mean.”
“He knows the amphora is River’s, but I’m having a hard time convincing him River is in trouble.”
Kat said, “He doesn’t know River’s a genie?”
“I hope not,” said Montana. “He told someone on the police jury when he was thinking about running for sheriff that he was looking for a,” both her eyebrows exclamated her next words, “normal small town to raise his daughter. Apparently, he was married to a real psycho and both he and his daughter are in recovery mode.”
“So, I heard you met the daughter.” Kat looked at Tempe.
“A tactful way to put it.” I laughed.
“I hear she’s Destiny’s hope for a state championship this year,” said Shannon.
“I didn’t know that. She invited me to her game this weekend though. We should all go,” I said.
“I want to go, too,” said Bailey, who’d gotten in on the end of the conversation. “
Where are we going?” Leaning against our table, she caught the eye of a local bull rider, wound a curl around her finger and batted her eyelashes seductively.
“Basketball game at the high school, Saturday,” Montana said.
“Aw, I have to work.” Bailey pushed away from the table and headed in the cowboy’s direction.
Montana shook her head, “’Mild mannered reporter by day…’”
I watched Bailey put a hand around the cowboy’s neck and lean into him. “I think Jack’s got her pegged as a ‘three faces of Eve’ schizophrenic.”
Laughing again, Montana said, “He’s close.”
“Lucky Bailey,” said Katerina, eyeing the cowboy. Montana raised brows at me and winked.
My sudden change of mood must have shown. I’ve been told I’m not good at hiding what’s on my mind. “What’s your problem?” she asked.
“I shouldn’t be sitting here joking. Having a drink with friends. Thinking about Jack Lang’s abs when my brother…” I put my head down on the table, sighing.
“Tell us what we can do, Tempe,” Kat said.
“I don’t know. If I knew where to look, I’d be looking. I’ve tried to find his old girlfriend, Paige Whyte. She was a housekeeper at the Red Carpet Inn, but she wasn’t there today. I’ll try again tomorrow after I file the Missing Persons report. This all just seems so surreal. One day everything’s normal, I’m doing my job, running the mail…” I took a sip from my glass and pushed it away.
Montana drummed her fingers on the thick polyurethane tabletop. “I’ll contact all the emergency techs and make sure the word gets out in the parish.”
“I’d bet my eye teeth someone saw something.” Kat was half vamp as well, so that was saying something.
Montana’s pager vibrated, and she got up. “Love ya, girls. Try not to worry, Temp.”
“Love you too. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
Kat put a hand on my shoulder, “Time for me to go, too. I have a stack of articles that have to be archived by Friday. I’ll talk to some of the reporters at the paper—see they keep their ears open.” I wanted to hug Kat, but I didn’t dare. She wasn’t comfortable herself yet with the vamp side of her nature.
“Call me if you hear anything,” she said.
Bailey was plastered against the cowboy by the men’s room. I didn’t interrupt to say goodbye.
Chapter 22
Jack
The turkey in the jail cell kept me awake, belching and kicking at the bars in his sleep. I called Kirkwood and told him to swing by the judge’s office to pick up the warrants and meet me on Washington Street in front of the victim’s apartment at eight. Before the day was out, I would have some answers.
I opened the evidence room, going straight to the foot wide cube plugged into the wall. The portable refrigerator had come in handy may times. I unplugged it and carefully transported it to my cruiser, securing the evidence room behind me and unlocking Sleeping Beauty’s cell so he could leave when he woke up.
As I drove down the levee road toward Amity, I thought about yesterday’s events. When Tempe came to the office later this morning to fill out the report on her brother, I planned to take advantage of her whereabouts. I expected to eliminate her as a suspect today, but she would not enjoy the process. Prior to my 7:00 a.m. appointment with the manager of the clubhouse, I met with Basile to get the search underway.
I stretched a grid out on the reception counter. “I want you to start at this corner and work this way. When the man from DPD gets here in a couple hours, he’ll start here.” With my finger on a spot on the grid, I asked, “You know what to do with anything you find?”
“Yes, sir.” My deputy scanned the paper.
I suspected the manager was not going to be happy.
I was right.
“Are you out of your mind? I can’t close the golf course for a week. Oh. My. God. What is that smell?”
Someone needed to remind Giles Fitzhugh—that couldn’t be his real name—that he was not the owner of the golf club or the King of Mardi Gras, just a well-dressed peon to the country club set. Not even well-dressed this morning, in LSU sweat pants under an insulated camouflage jacket, the sleeve of which he had covering half his face.
“I’ll have you know,” his vehemence muffled in camo, “we have a tournament this week and matches scheduled every day, starting at seven tomorrow morning.” He pinched his nose between two fingers, cocked one ample hip and poked his finger at my chest. “If we quose for da west of the week, I’ll have to caw da bembers. I won’t awow it.”
The pointed digit came my way again, and he squeaked as I grabbed his finger. I really hate it when someone pokes me with his finger. “You want to stop doing that, Mr. Fitzhugh. I’m sure your members would want to do right by the man who lost his life here,” I said, nodding at the floor in front of him.
It was a dirty trick, but the snooty pompous little weasel had pissed me off. He took one look at the blood and other evidence still decorating the hall and ran outside to the nearest bush. I followed him. When he was done, I followed him back inside and described the victim. “Sound familiar?”
“That sounds like Ray, our maintenance man.” The way he said the word maintenance implied a class distinction for Giles.
“Did he usually come in on Monday?”
“No. He isn’t…wasn’t allowed on Sunday or Monday.”
“So I guess he got what he deserved.” He actually started to agree with me, the mean-spirited stooge. “Are you allowed?” I asked.
He didn’t get it right away. When he did, he paled. “Well…of course, I’m the manager.”
“Did Ray have keys to the clubhouse?” I opened my pad.
“He had a key, but not the code to the alarm. I’m the only one with thos…” His eyes widened, “Except the president of the club. Oh dear, I don’t mean to suggest—that is, Ray might have gotten them sometime or other, but as far as I know he didn’t know the alarm code.”
Though I enjoyed bringing this phony down a notch, I knew he wasn’t the culprit. If I didn’t miss my guess, he was OCD. Killing someone by bashing his head in wouldn’t be his M.O. Not that he couldn’t kill someone; anyone could, given the right motivation.
“What’s the president’s name?”
He rattled off the name and number.
“What about the locker room? Who had codes to the lockers?”
“We remodeled the locker room and each member in good standing got their pick. First come, first serve.”
“Do you keep the list of members and their lockers? Check the locks out by some kind of list?”
“Um, well, I’d have to ask the girl who keeps our files. She goes to St. Mary’s High School.”
Great. All this posturing and the locks and locker combinations were in the control of a teenager. “Name?” I wrote it down, but I could see there were more holes in the clubhouse security than there were greens on the course.
“Thank you for coming, Mr. Fitzhugh.” I held out my hand. “I’ll need your key. And the codes.”
He grumbled under his breath, but delicately dropped the keys into my palm, careful not to touch my skin. “The alarm code will be temporarily changed to protect the evidence.”
“One other thing. Do you know River Pomeroy?”
“Never heard of him. Wait! Isn’t that woman who broke in a Pomeroy? You know one of our club members filed a complaint against her for theft.” This was delivered with an excess of malicious glee. Interesting.
“I’m aware of the complaint. So far, there’s been nothing to support that claim.” Damn it. I shouldn’t have responded to Fitz’s comment.
“Well, from what I hear, she’s at it again.”
“You’re free to leave now, Fitzhugh. We’ll let you know when you can reopen.”
He stalked out.
Stalked was definitely the wrong word.
Chapter 23
Jack
Kirkwood yawned and rubbed his eyes
as I drove up. “What happened to the quiet little crime-free town you promised me, Jack?”
“If you’re referring to what I said when I offered you the job, forget it. After five years of custody fights with my ex, no one wants quiet or ordinary more than me.” The key the landlord had supplied took some jiggling but we finally got in.
The front room smelled of incense and something I couldn’t put my finger on. It was musty but spare, and tiny, the living room just large enough for a small ugly couch, a cheap coffee table and TV. It had the feel of a vacant hotel room.
Ryan spoke as he poked at the telephone books neatly stacked under the phone. “You get the impression he didn’t live here?”
I walked over to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. A pack of off-brand beer, a Styrofoam container of Cool Cats, and what looked like alfalfa sprouts.
“Is that wigglers?” Ryan asked from over my shoulder.
“Yeah, looks like ol’ Ray might have been fishing recently. You find anything?”
“There was a desk in the bedroom. I found part of a cell phone bill made out to Ray Meeker.” He handed it to me. I was thinking if Ray Meeker was a fisherman, maybe he had been killed somewhere else. Or maybe that accounted for the smell. Nah, didn’t seem likely. The smell had been too strong, too strange.
“There wasn’t a cell phone on him. Did you find one here? I’d sure like to see who’s been calling him.”
“Not yet,” Ryan said. “Doesn’t look like he stayed here. One suit of clothes in the closet, no shorts or socks in the drawers. Nothing but a used razor in the trash can in the bathroom. I bagged it.”
I nodded. Kirkwood was a good man. He’d been my wingman in the Navy, but after sinus surgery was told he couldn’t fly anything but helicopters and low altitude aircraft. When I won the election, I managed to lure him away from Search and Rescue. See, Ryan was kidding about wanting peace and quiet; it was anyone’s guess how long he’d make it in a boring little town like Destiny.
As for me, I’d had more excitement in my personal life than on deployment; enough to last a lifetime. When this case was solved, I could picture myself in an aluminum boat, kicked back, jig pole in hand, a cool cat on my hook…