by Hank Edwards
Sheriff Musgrave loomed in the doorway, thumbs hooked in his gun belt. “What kind of message? Is it about the hands from the beach?”
With a glance at Jazz, Michael moved behind his desk and pressed Play.
The caller’s deep growl of a voice came from the speaker. Jazz’s eyes widened, and he immediately came up beside Michael and put an arm around his shoulders. His touch helped Michael keep his emotions in check.
Why Mr. Pickles?
Sheriff Musgrave stepped fully into the office and stared hard at the phone as if trying to get a physical description of the caller out of it.
The message ended. Musgrave leaned over and pressed Play. He towered above the desk, big hands spread across the papers and folders on Michael’s desk, head cocked as he listened to it again.
“What the hell was that?”
They all jumped and turned to find Kitty standing in the door, stacks of mail in one hand and her keys in the other.
“It’s police business,” Musgrave growled.
Kitty gave him an arch look. “Even though the caller said not to involve the police?” She turned a worried look to Michael. “Did someone take Mr. Pickles?”
Lips pursed tight, Michael nodded.
Kitty entered and placed the mail on Michael’s desk. “Why in the world would they want to take Mr. Pickles? What do they want?”
“The drugs Dylan Roberts had on him,” Jazz said.
“Dilworth!” Musgrave nearly shouted. “This is a need-to-know situation, and Kitty does not need to know.”
“Oh hell, Hilton. I transcribe Michael’s autopsy dictation. Besides you’re going to tell Marty because he’s your brother, and he’s going to tell me because I’m his wife. So let’s just cut out the middleman.”
Musgrave glowered at Michael in accusation. “And how does Dilworth know about the drugs, Fleishman?”
Jazz waved at the answering machine. “I just heard the same message as you!”
“And he overheard your eloquent observation about shoving rubbers full of heroin up a poop chute,” Michael added.
When Jazz shot Michael a look, Michael shrugged. He’d planned on telling Musgrave that Jazz knew, and about the man they followed to the marina yesterday anyway. Complete transparency was necessary in a murder investigation.
That seemed to satisfy Musgrave but his eye twitched, like he was both annoyed at Jazz and himself.
Kitty looked at Michael. “What are we going to do?”
“There’s no ‘we’ about it.” Musgrave straightened up and glowered down at her. “This is an attempt to get those drugs. Most likely by the murderer himself.”
“Or herself,” Kitty interjected, always a feminist.
“Women prefer poison.” Musgrave waved to the phone. “And that was a man’s voice.”
Kitty put a challenging hand on a curvy hip. “She could have asked a sketchy friend to place the call. Or used a voice changer.”
“Oh, those are super creepy,” Jazz said. “They can really alter your voice.”
“Exactly,” she agreed, arching her brows at Musgrave.
“Stop it!”
Michael hadn’t meant to shout so loud, but the guilt, fear, and anger had built up inside him, a living combustible thing, and this foolish speculating was the match. The most important thing here was Mr. Pickles’s safety, not a women-can-be-murderers-too debate. He drew in a ragged breath and lowered himself into his office chair as the others stared.
“Sorry.” He waved apologetically, then fidgeted with his glasses and fisted his hands in his lap before anyone noticed how badly they were trembling. “The bickering just got to be too much.”
Jazz rubbed his back in a circular motion, the supportive touch not enough to calm Michael. “It’s okay. We understand. Mr. Pickles means a lot to you.”
“He does. But so does my reputation. And there’s no way in hell I’m going to hand over police evidence to this bastard.” Michael gaped at Jazz, feeling lost and afraid. “I don’t even know where HPP is!”
“Heavy Petting Point,” Kitty, Musgrave, and Jazz all said together.
“It’s north of town, in the nature preserve out by the lake,” Jazz added, hand resting on Michael’s shoulder now. “Sort of an out of the way, not-so-forgotten overlook to the lighthouse.”
“Kids have been making out there since forever,” Kitty said, looking at Michael. “You’ve never been to the HPP?”
“Well…?” Michael blushed. Jazz had been in town less than a year, yet he knew all about this place. “I guess I’m a late bloomer.”
The sheriff snickered.
“Don’t worry, sweetie,” Jazz whispered—unfortunately loud enough for Musgrave and Kitty to hear. “I’ll take you there sometime.”
Musgrave cleared his throat and shifted his weight, looking all around the office except at Jazz and Michael. “No one’s going anywhere. The sheriff’s department will handle these wasteoids.”
“We’re going,” Michael said, glancing at Jazz.
Jazz gave a firm nod. “Yeah, we’re going.”
Musgrave laughed. “You two got a better chance of finger-fucking a panther in a phone booth than going on this exchange.”
Michael was on his feet before he realized he’d even moved. Words shot from his mouth without conscious thought.
“I am absolutely going to be involved in this operation, and don’t you argue with me about it. Not only is my cat’s life on the line, but also the reputation of myself and this funeral home that has been in my family for generations. Besides, who in your department can pass as me?” He let out a blustery grunt. “These wasteoids, as you called them, must know what I look like if they’ve cased my house and kidnapped my cat. So before you go getting all Sheriff’s Department Righteous about this, you hear me, and hear me good, Hilton Musgrave.” Michael pointed at him to drive home his point. “I will be at HPP tonight and I will be part of this exchange. Is that clear?”
Musgrave’s eyes narrowed so much he could’ve been taking a nap. But it seemed he was simply waiting for Michael’s tirade to wind down. “That’s Sheriff Musgrave. And I will not have civilians traipsing around in a potentially dangerous situation.”
“I’m not just a civilian, Hilton,” he snapped back. “I am a county official, same as you. And I am a part of this investigation.”
“What are you trying to tell me, Fleishman? That you’re going to get those drugs out of police evidence and hand them over to save the life of your mangy cat?”
“My cat does not have mange!” His fists bunched at his sides and he leaned in. “Say something like that again, and I’ll….”
With his blood pounding in a fury, Michael couldn’t think of anything.
“You’ll what?” Musgrave challenged with a laugh.
“You don’t want to find out,” he said through clenched teeth, the venom in his voice startling him.
“Are you threatening an officer?”
Jazz put a hand on Michael’s shoulder. “Sweetie….”
The warning didn’t cool Michael’s temper. “Don’t make another insulting comment about my cat, Hilton. And I am going. This is not high school. You can’t just throw your weight around like a bully in my business because you won some stupid football game.”
Musgrave’s chest puffed up. “How dare—”
A piercing whistle rent the air before another insult or threat was thrown out and they all cringed.
Lowering her two fingers from her lips, Kitty looked between Michael and the sheriff a couple of times, like a scolding mother with two warring toddlers. “Whoa, whoa, whoa there, boys. Take a breather. This is getting way too amped up.”
“I’ll say,” Jazz whispered.
Michael shot his lover a surprised look, thinking Jazz sounded more turned-on than irritated.
The sheriff was the first one to respond rationally. “Hate to say it, but Kitty’s right. This is a serious situation.”
“It is,” Michael agreed, shooti
ng Kitty a nod of thanks. Jazz still had his hand on Michael’s shoulder, clenching lightly a few times. Michael studied his face a moment, unable to decipher his expression.
Licking his lips, Jazz gave Michael a smile, patted his shoulder once more, then lowered his hand. When Musgrave spoke, they all looked back at him.
“I’m not sure what the laws are about kidnapping furba—I mean pets. But pets fall under personal property. So that is a theft. But it doesn’t justify giving over evidence from an active murder investigation.”
“Who says we have to hand over the actual drugs?” Kitty folded her arms and smiled as she looked at them each in turn.
Ignoring the sheriff, Michael studied his clever receptionist. “What are you thinking?”
She was still smiling. “I’m going to venture a guess that one of you has condoms readily available?”
Musgrave sputtered and his cheeks turned bright red. He fidgeted from foot to foot and cracked his knuckles. When he finally regained the ability of speech, he said, “I don’t see what condoms have to do with this matter! You’ve always been a racy girl, and this just proves my point.”
Jazz walked around the desk and headed for the door. “For God’s sake, sheriff. She’s referring to the fact that the drugs were inside condoms, which were then inside Dylan’s ass. Kitty’s suggesting we use new condoms to recreate the situation.” He stopped at the door and faced her. “That was what you were suggesting, right?”
Kitty grinned. “You and me, we’re on the same wavelength, baby.”
“I’ll be back in two shakes.”
When Jazz hurried away, Michael suddenly felt very lonely without him there. He sank back in his desk chair, his legs wobbly.
“All right, Ms. Smarty Pants,” Musgrave said. “What are we going to use for the drugs?”
“Do we know what kind of drugs they were?”
Michael nodded and tapped a folder on his desk, trying to concentrate and not allow emotions to make him sloppy. Brock Hammer never loses his cool. You can do this. “Heroin. I did a few tests before I sent all the samples off to U of M.”
“I’ve got some prescription painkillers from when I had my wisdom teeth out,” Kitty said.
“That was a year ago,” Musgrave said. “Which means they’re illegal to still have.”
“Arrest me, then explain that to Marty,” Kitty quipped, then continued on as if Musgrave hadn’t spoken. “We could grind those up with some plain aspirin and maybe the opioid in the prescription drugs would satisfy any kind of simple test they would do.” She lifted a shoulder in a shrug and looked to the sheriff. “Think they’ll take a taste of it or rub it on their gums or something?”
“I don’t know, why are you looking to me?” Musgrave said.
Kitty shook her head. “Don’t you watch any cop shows or movies?”
“No, I don’t. I live the cop shows and movies every day out on the streets.”
“What streets?” Michael asked. “Cardinal Lane or Sunfish Avenue?”
That made Kitty laugh. It was a long, loud, rolling laugh, bright and clear. The sound shone a light into Michael’s dark corners and coaxed a laugh out of him as well.
Jazz returned, a little out of breath because he must have sprinted to the house, up the stairs to the bedroom, and back to the funeral home. He held a box of condoms up like an Olympic medal winner, then looked with confusion at Michael and Kitty, buckled over in laughter.
“What’d I miss?”
That just made them laugh harder still.
IT TOOK them until lunch to assemble the condoms to Michael’s satisfaction. Jazz and Kitty ran out to pick up some lunch from Kelsey’s, and Michael tried to keep busy by organizing papers on his desk. He was too distracted worrying about Mr. Pickles to get any actual work done, but at least he could get his office in some kind of order. There was also Mrs. Atwood for him and Ezra to take care of, which would help keep his mind occupied through the afternoon.
Musgrave had been pissy that Michael hadn’t told him about the man with the bushy eyebrows last night, but he’d left the parlor in a good mood, happy to have something to occupy his afternoon until the hand-off. He’d sent Deputy Tanner to ask Russell about the mystery man’s identity. Michael hadn’t heard what came of that. Musgrave was too busy supervising a boat-to-boat inquiry at Christy’s Marina about the mystery man, on the hopes that somehow he was connected to Dylan’s death.
Michael thought it seemed like a waste of resources. Their suspect was most likely holed up somewhere with Mr. Pickles.
If they harmed one hair on his kitty he’d—
His computer pinged to let him know he’d received an email, and he paused to click over to the application. The email was from his contact at U of M, with a PDF of the preliminary toxicology findings attached.
Did that group work all weekend? What a grueling schedule.
Grateful for the distraction, he opened the report and started to read through it. Ambien and alcohol in his system, the former at higher levels than recommended, but the combo wasn’t enough to be lethal. They confirmed Michael’s initial findings that his cause of death was drowning, but made special note that the water in Dylan’s lungs was tap water, not lake water.
Dylan had been dead before he’d gone into the lake.
Dead from drowning in tap water.
Who and what the hell had Dylan been involved in?
Chapter Twenty-Three
JAZZ HAD to argue with the sheriff, a lot, to be able to go along on the exchange. As much as Jazz had pushed for his inclusion, it was actually Michael who put his foot down and demanded it. Michael’s tone and the flash of defiance in his eyes had shot straight to Jazz’s cock.
When this was all over, he was going to give Michael the ride of his fucking life.
But right now he needed to keep his mind on the matters at hand.
Michael slowly drove his car along the sand-blown one-lane road, high beams illuminating trees, shrubs, and grasses growing off in both directions. The Albert Bennett Nature Preserve was expansive, taking up the northern third of Harbor County, and unlike the hard undertow that ran the coastline past Lacetown to Hardscrabble Beach, the sandy terrain north of the lighthouse was ideal for swimming. The distinct horizontal branches of native white pines cut shadows into the dark sky, like ghoulish fingers luring them in.
Jazz shuddered.
He and Russell had paid a visit to Heavy Petting Point on one of their trips to Lacetown—leave it to Russell to learn about a local kink scene—but Jazz didn’t recall it being quite this far off the main road or this creepy.
But then again, Michael was rolling the car down the trail at ten miles an hour. It would take them longer than usual to get to the Point.
Deputy Tanner had done a sweep of the Point half an hour earlier. He’d come back to report that he’d sent three teenage couples hightailing it out of there. After that, the sheriff and two deputies had driven a mile down the two-lane blacktop of Lake Shore Drive and parked behind an old barn. They were hiking back to the Point through a footpath Musgrave knew about for reasons he had not elaborated on.
Jazz figured he liked to sneak up to the Point and spy on the kids getting it on. But he didn’t say that out loud.
Michael might appreciate hearing it later.
“Is this it? It looks like it should be.” Michael’s voice trembled as he pulled off the trail and into an open area where years of car and truck parking prevented grass from growing.
Originally HPP had been created as a scenic turnout, complete with wooden posts and high-tension cables running between to keep cars from rolling off the edge of the overlook. But it was so far off the main road, it had pretty much been forgotten as a tourist spot, except by the local high school kids, and maybe some desperate extramarital couples. Russell had been overly excited to find two rocking cars and one minivan with steamed-up windows the night they’d come here in his Beemer. Horndog Russell had fucked the gear shift while he ate Jazz’s a
ss. Jazz had been too worried that Russell’s ass would pop the car out of gear and send them over the edge of the cliff, and so he hadn’t even gotten hard—not that Russell had noticed or cared.
What the fuck did I ever see in him?
Dismissing thoughts of his lousy marriage, Jazz took in the view from the turnout. A valley of pine and hardwood trees spread to a grassy lowland that melted into the sandy beach along Lake Michigan. Unlike the rocks of Hardscrabble Beach, the beaches moving north on the coast became sandy and white. Right ahead of them but in the distance, the Lacetown Light flashed intermittently as the lens did a one-eighty rotation, casting its beacon out over the lake. Though GPS and satellite imagery provided modern fishermen better navigation, Lacetown was proud of their working lighthouse. Even this calm spring night, Lake Michigan was her usual tempest, waves cresting white and crashing on the shore, her distant waters deceptively still, glimmering beneath the stars like a dark jewel. The sounds of the waves and the rustle of a breeze in the pines were like whispers around every corner. The moon was nearly full through the trees, lending the night a decidedly spooky feel.
When Michael cut the engine, the forest fell quiet, as if holding its breath.
“What do we do?” Michael whispered.
“Let’s get out of the car and lean against the trunk.”
Michael’s eyes were wide behind his glasses as he nodded. They stepped out and moved to the back of the car.
An owl hooted.
A gentle breeze rattled some leaves.
Waves crashed on the shore.
The night was so clear they could hear a dog barking from far away.
Then something moved in the woods to their right. Jazz’s heart skipped a beat, and he wished he’d brought his gun. But then he would’ve had to tell the sheriff, and he highly doubted Musgrave would have allowed it.
More sounds came from their right. Maybe a deer walking through the woods.
Or a black bear.
Or a killer who’d kidnapped Mr. Pickles.