by Sam Cheever
“Any time, Punkin. What was the deal with that guy in the truck, anyway? Was he inappropriate with you?” The Lieutenant’s bulldog jaw tightened and his hands fisted around the steering wheel of his Escalade.
“No. He’s actually a friend of the deceased. I think he believes I killed Josh.” My pulse spiked as I said the words out loud. I still couldn’t believe it.
The Lieutenant’s shaggy brows lifted in incredulity. He stared at me for a long moment, and I wondered what he was thinking. I’d never been able to read his expressions.
Finally, the brows returned to their normal spot and he started laughing. A deep, endorphin-raising belly laugh that went on for a full minute. He swiped tears from his eyes and shook his head. “Well, he’s stupid.”
“He’s not stupid, Dad. He’s…” I frowned as my mind searched for the right adjective. I finally settled on one that kind of worked. “He’s intense.”
“Intense, huh? What is Mr. Intense basing this ridiculous belief on?”
“Because he doesn’t know who I am, and I was at the funeral pretending to be Josh’s girlfriend.”
The Lieutenant chewed on that one for a minute. “Okay, I can see that. But it’s still a leap.”
“I know. Like I said, he’s intense.”
He stared at me for a minute. “There’s more to it. Isn’t there?” The Lieutenant had his own version of the evil eye and his worked a lot better than mine. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat.
“I might have been sizing up all the mourners and skulking around behind a potted palm.”
The Lieutenant shook his head. “You should have been a cop, Punkin. You can’t seem to help yourself.”
I shrugged. Deep down I knew he was right. The problem was, I didn’t want to be a cop. I wanted to be an actor.
“Well, I’ll give him points for hanging around with you until I picked you up. Even if he was hiding in his truck when I got there.”
Despite myself, I couldn’t quite repress the grin fighting to escape. My lips quivered. “Especially after I pepper sprayed him.”
The Lieutenant barked out a laugh. “That’s my girl. Come to the house for dinner soon. Y’hear?”
“Yes, sir. I will,” I promised him. Blowing him a kiss, I watched him pull into traffic and roar off, tackling the road like he did everything else.
Full speed ahead and darn the torpedoes.
I was unlocking my front door before I realized I’d completely spaced on the Mitner wake at their home. “Dangit!”
I dropped my purse on the table by the door and called out to the yipping Pomeranian Devil in the back room. “I’ll be right there, Shakespeare!”
“Dangit, dangit, dangit!”
Grabbing my phone, I dialed Exit Stage Left, praying the owner, Ruthie Colburn would be in a forgiving mood. My situation definitely required a prayer, because a hope wasn’t nearly strong enough.
Ruthie didn’t cotton to shenanigans and tomfoolery. Unless, of course, it made her money.
I chewed on my lip, trying to ignore the frantic yipping coming from my bedroom, and waited for the phone to ring several times. Ruthie finally answered on the seventh ring, just when I was about to give up.
“May! My gosh, what’s your hurry?” Ruthie gave a watery cough, sounding like a two pack a day smoker. She wasn’t. And had never been as far as I knew. But she definitely had the voice of one.
Since the rings hadn’t happened any faster than usual, I wasn’t sure why I’d been labeled an unnecessary rusher, but it didn’t matter, because in a minute she was going to have something to really be irritated with me about. “Hey, Ruthie.”
“Shouldn’t you be standing in the Mitner’s living room right now, pretending you aren’t hungry and drinking only water despite a strong hankerin’ for a whiskey neat?”
I stood there blinking for a minute, before she said, “Oh, sorry, that last part was me. Why are you calling me instead of standing in the Mitner’s living room looking sad?”
“I uh…well…”
“Spit it out, girl!” she barked in her painful sounding rasp.
“I was kind of attacked by one of the mourners.”
Ruthie went very quiet, no doubt calculating how much it would cost her if I complained or, gasp, decided to press charges.
“It’s not dire. But he’s convinced himself I killed the deceased and he kind of kidnapped me.” Okay, I was exaggerating a tad, but I needed Ruthie to understand how desperate I was when I admitted how I’d pepper sprayed him.
“May, why would he think you killed the guy you were supposed to love?”
“He totally wasn’t buying my girlfriend act!” Then I realized Ruthie would see that as a failure to portray on my part and quickly went on. “He didn’t know who I was and he thought he would if I was really Josh’s girlfriend. He wasn’t even convinced when Josh’s father backed up my story. See, Ruthie, he didn’t believe the client either. I can act. Really, I can.
“Tell me what happened.”
I told her about Mrs. Mitner’s hysterics and Mr. Mitner’s determination to get me into that dang limo and Eddie saving me by offering to drive me to the house and then not driving me to the house and taking me to the intersection where Josh had been killed to accuse me of murder instead.
By the time I got to the pepper spray, Ruthie was probably already in a coma and hopefully didn’t even notice.
I took a deep breath and chewed my lip waiting.
“Pepper spray, May?”
“I know. I panicked. I’m sorry! But it wouldn’t be out of character for Josh’s girlfriend to spray him. I didn’t blow my role.”
“You think you can still pull this off?”
“Absolutely.”
She sighed, then coughed wetly again. “Okay, I’ll call over there and tell them you came down with a migraine. But you’re going to have to really bring it home at the gravesite tomorrow.”
“I will, I promise.” I hung up, sagging with relief.
Yip, yip, yip!
Shakespeare! I pushed weariness aside and headed for the kennel beside my bed, a.k.a. the Pom Hilton. My poor Pomeranian Devil was probably just about splitting a bladder.
4
My doorbell rang as I was settling Shakespeare’s bowl down on the floor of the kitchen. The little gray dog gave my fingers a quick lick before sticking his tiny nose into the bowl and daintily picking out some kibble to chew.
I groaned softly as the bell’s strident tones rang through my apartment. I was beat. It had been a long, emotionally charged day.
I just wanted to climb into my comfies and cuddle with Shakes in front of the television.
Alas, it wasn’t to be. The bell pealed through my apartment again and, food forgotten, Shakes ran barking to answer it.
I had no choice but to follow.
I scooped up the tiny, gray furball at the door and held him as he nearly vibrated out of my arms. Shakes was excitable. But his cascade of a tail was wagging in a friendly way when I pulled the door open to face the person with the annoying doorbell trigger finger.
I nearly swallowed my tongue. Unlike my dog, my tail was decidedly not wagging.
I really wished I had my mace.
As if reading my mind, Eddie Dietz raised his hands. “Don’t shoot! I’m not here to cause trouble. I just want to talk.”
“How’d you get my address?”
He looked at his feet. “I have my ways.”
“Now you’re a stalker?” My voice screeched across the space between us. The door to the apartment next door opened and my harmlessly friendly neighbor Doug stuck his dread-head out into the hall. “Everything okay, Dude?”
I shifted Shakes to my other arm so I could reach toward my purse on the table while eying my intruder. “I’m not sure. Is everything okay, Mr. Deitz?”
Eddie’s eyes were hidden behind dark sunglasses. The glasses were oversized and looked like they belonged to a woman. He reminded me of a large, predatory bug standing there. E
xcept he was much cuter than a bug. “I promise, I don’t want any trouble.”
I held his bug eyes for a moment and then looked at Doug. “I think I’m okay. But if I turn up dead in a field somewhere, this guy’s name is Eddie Deitz. He was the last person to see me before I was gacked.”
“Dude!” Doug nodded briskly, threw Eddie a vacant look and closed the door, leaving behind the suspicious scent of burning leaves.
Eddie lifted a brow. “Gacked? Really?”
I shrugged. “What do you want?”
“I want you to come to the wake. Alex is beside himself that you’re not there.”
Shakes stretched his tiny nose into the hallway, whining to greet the bug-eyed intruder. His tail smacked the back of my arm with happy regularity.
“You’re kidding, right? I’m not getting back in a car with you.”
“Look, I’m sorry. I’m not taking Josh’s death well. I might have overreacted.”
“Ya think?” I lifted my brows in amazement. “You accused me of killing him.”
Eddie dipped his head. “Maybe that was a tad hysterical.” The slow, crooked smile transported his face from handsome to stunning. It had an actual physical effect on me.
Still, I hesitated.
He expelled air. “Look, I’d have to be crazy to do anything to Lieutenant Ferth’s daughter, wouldn’t I?”
“How do you know who my father is?” I narrowed my gaze.
“I saw him when he came to pick you up.”
“You know him?”
“Know is too strong of a word. We’ve…um…interacted before.”
“Please tell me my father didn’t arrest you.”
“Your father didn’t arrest me.”
“Why don’t I believe you?”
“I have no idea. I’m an honest guy, trust me.”
“Yeah, see, that whole ‘trust you’ thing has already bitten me in the bum. I’m not in a real big hurry to do it again.”
“Okay, then trust that I’m terrified of your dad and there’s always Doug. Dude…he’ll tell on me if anything happens to you.”
I couldn’t help it. I grinned. “Okay, come on in. But I have this…” I held up the canister I’d pulled from my purse. “And I’m not afraid to use it.”
I turned and went back inside, settling Shakes onto the floor so he could run and greet the intruder. I watched carefully as Mr. Eddie Deitz crouched down and scratched my little dog behind the ears. Shakes really seemed to like him.
A definite point in his favor.
“He’s a handsome little fella. What’s his name?”
“Shakespeare.”
Deitz looked at me over the glasses. I winced at the vibrant maroon hue of his eyes. “That’s a mighty big name for such a little dog.”
“He lives up to it, believe me.” I turned around and headed for my bedroom to change. “As long as you’re going to be here, make yourself useful. I didn’t get a chance to fill his water bowl before. It’s on the floor in the kitchen.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I grinned as he snapped a hand to his forehead in a military-style salute. I didn’t mind being saluted. It complemented my bossy disposition.
“Why’d you name your dog Shakespeare?”
I swung my gaze from the passing Asheville, North Carolina countryside, which was looking a bit brown and wilty in the summer heat. We really needed some rain, and it didn’t look as though we were going to get it any time soon. “I got him the day I was chosen to perform the role of Gertrude in the play Hamlet.”
He stared at me over the silly looking glasses again. “You’re a little young to be Gertrude, aren’t you?”
“I’m thirty-three if you’re fishing. And a good portrayal is ageless.”
He shook his head.
“Where’d you get those glasses? Please tell me they aren’t yours.”
I’d meant to take a whack at him because he had me feeling peevish and defensive. I always got peevish when I thought or talked about my time in community theatre. I’d been a decent enough stage actress. But I didn’t have the temperament for all the drama. I’m not talking about the performing kind of drama. It was the behind-the-scenes kind that robbed me of my chi. The hysterical crying and crystal flinging type of drama.
I’d bumped up against one too many divas and a few too many casting couch wannabes and finally decided to walk. Exit Stage Left had seemed the perfect compromise to my love of acting but distaste for actors. I got to play a role that consoled people in their time of sadness, and I didn’t have to dodge cut crystal tumblers thrown by aging, jealous actresses.
Win, win.
“They were actually left in my office by a client. I’ve been carrying them around with the expectation that I’d return them to her but I haven’t gotten around to it.”
“You don’t have your own sunglasses?”
“I do. But they’re not dark enough.” He pulled the bug glasses down and I winced. His eyes were bloodshot and rimmed in deep red. Even the area around the eyes was the color of new blood. “Sorry about that.”
He shrugged and said something that gained him my respect. “Don’t be. I deserved it.”
We drove in silence for a few minutes. The countryside gradually turned less country and more civilized, though it was still predominated by large green areas. The main difference being that the green was decidedly more controlled, and the trees more carefully tended. After another mile, the open spaces started to become enclosed, mostly in tall wrought iron and stone fencing. Gates kept driveways private and security signs peppered the area around them.
“I guess the Mitners have money,” I murmured. There was no judgment in my tone. It was simply an observation.
Eddie looked at me a little funny. “I’m surprised you didn’t know that, dating Josh and all.”
I could have smacked myself for the rookie mistake. Shrugging in what I hoped was an unconcerned way, I tried to minimize the damage. “I knew he had money, but I just figured it was because he had a good job. Josh wouldn’t talk about his family much. I only knew they lived in Asheville, but nothing else.”
He seemed to be weighing my answer. If he didn’t buy it, he didn’t let on. “They’re good people, the Mitners. Josh was kind of wild. But he was a good man.”
It was said softly, no doubt spurred by emotions Eddie probably wouldn’t display in front of me. “Why did you imply Josh was murdered?”
“Because he was. I can’t prove it yet, but I intend to.”
I chewed the inside of my lip, debating whether I should tell him what I overheard at the funeral home.
“What is it?”
I looked over. He’d taken off the bug glasses and was giving me a raccoon-ish but intense look.
“I wasn’t going to tell anybody this but…”
He eased the truck to a stop at a four-way intersection and turned to me. “What?”
“I overheard Mr. Mitner talking to that other man. It’s what I was doing when you found me skulking around that potted palm.”
“Why were you eavesdropping?”
I hadn’t expected the question, but I supposed it was a fair one. “I hadn’t meant to. I was actually leaving, and I heard raised voices in that empty viewing room. I recognized Mr. Mitner’s voice and I…well…I was curious.”
Eddie frowned. “You were curious?”
I nodded. “It’s a side effect of having cops in the family, I guess. We tend to be nosy.”
He chuckled. “I can see that. What did you hear while nestled in the prickly arms of the potted palm?”
His tone was light, but I could tell my answer was important to him.
“Not much, really. Mr. Mitner seemed to be worried about something Josh might have heard. And the other guy was assuring him he didn’t hear anything. The only reason I paid attention was because they seemed to be kind of hiding away in that other room.”
“That’s a strange conversation to be having at Josh’s viewing.”
&n
bsp; “Yeah. I thought so too.”
He hit the gas and we moved on down the road. Five minutes later, he turned into a gated drive. We were ushered through by a man dressed like CIA. My head swiveled to watch the man as we drove past. I wondered if he had a gun under that dark suit coat. “Do they always have guards at the gate?”
“Not usually. I’d say he’s just there to keep the gate open for guests.”
Since that made perfect sense, I put it out of my mind. I had too many other things to consider. First of which was the fact that Eddie still hadn’t told me why he thought Josh had been murdered.
And I intended to get that information from him. What can I say? Cop kid. Nosy.
5
Alex Mitner met us at the door, his face an unhealthy shade of gray. He scrubbed a shaky hand over his face and nodded toward the adjoining room, which was filled with people who spoke in soft, deferential tones.
Toward the back of the house, a woman could be heard crying inconsolably. My heart broke for Josh’s grieving mother. My gaze caught Mr. Mitner’s. “I’m so sorry.”
He shook his head. “The doctor just gave her something to help her rest.” Alex Mitner looked at Eddie and his expression hardened. “You’ll find out who did this?”
Eddie didn’t hesitate. “You know I will, sir.”
At that moment I realized there was more to Mr. Eddie Deitz than I realized. I also comprehended that Eddie wasn’t the only one who believed Josh was murdered.
The door opened behind us, and Mr. Mitner excused himself to greet his new guests.
I looked at Eddie. “What did he mean by that?”
Eddie eyed me, seemingly weighing whether he should open up to me or not. I waited. If he still believed I’d killed Josh, he probably wouldn’t have brought me to the wake. Finally, he grabbed my arm and urged me toward a room where there was a long table filled with food.
The room was uninhabited. He tugged me to the back corner, next to a huge china cabinet built of some kind of rich-looking dark wood. Lowering his head, Eddie spoke to me in soft tones, despite the fact that we were alone in the large room.