Death on Planet Pizza

by Madeline Lepore Martin

  The throbbing in her head had reduced to a dull roar and she was finally seeing only one of everything. A distinct improvement from last night when she tried to remain calm in the face of twin realities. Her double vision had heightened her already off-the-Richter- scale agitation. Ignoring doctor's orders to let her rest, everyone and their cousin had come to cluck over her condition. Spenser had been thrilled.

  It had been Little Mary who'd finally put her foot down and threw everyone out of the trailer. After nearly twelve hours of sleep, Spenser felt as close to human as she was going to get for a while. Except of course for the damn crashing of pots and pans that was threatening to undo all the good.

  Mary watched her adult child amble carefully to the table. She began pouring soup. And pouring. And pouring.

  "Mom...!"

  Mary ignored her daughter's protest and ladled yet another heaping spoon full of soup into a large bowl. "Soup's good for you."

  Spenser hated being fussed over. When she was sick as a child she had to endure her grandmother's loving but annoying ministrations. A tradition now firmly in the hands of her mom.

  "I'm not sick." Spenser felt her head just to make sure there were no leaks.

  "Soup's good for other things besides sick. Like maybe stupid." Mary balanced the over-full bowl carefully setting it on the table. "Mangia," she directed.

  Spenser dutifully ate. Mary, not so quietly, cleaned up.

  "Mom..." Spenser knew her mom was upset big time.

  "Eat your soup." Mary was actually holding in her anger rather well she thought.

  "Mom..."

  "Eat."

  Spenser shoved the spoon into the bowl then into her mouth. "And you wonder why I'm fifteen pounds overweight."

  "Twenty. But who's counting."

  Spenser decided that the best course of action was none. She continued eating.

  "You have always been a worry, Nell."

  Spenser swallowed hard. "I know."

  "Just tell me this..."

  Uh oh. Here it comes.

  "What the hell were you doing breaking into private property in the middle of the night in a rain storm?"

  "It wasn't really a storm."

  "Are you twelve?"

  Her mother's olive toned skin darkened to the color of the sky at sunset. Boy, was she pissed.

  "Mom..."

  "I would like to know what gets into your head sometimes. What possesses you to do such foolhardy stunts?"

  "I..."

  "You could have been killed, young lady. Did you think about that? Did you think about anything?"

  "Yes." Mary's tirade had taken its toll on Spenser's aching cranium. "I thought about Tucker," she answered quietly.

  “Da mihi patientiam,” Little Mary told the coffee pot.

  The Isaacs women fell silent. Spenser put the spoon down, sighed a great sigh, and stared up at her loving mother. "All I wanted was to find Tucker's notebook and give it to Youngquist. I think it could prove that someone else killed Gina Mae."

  Little Mary had that same dubious look on her face as Youngquist. "Then let Youngquist find the book. Her head looks harder than yours."

  Spenser felt the lump just above her left eye and wondered if she looked like a Cro-Magnon.

  "Nell, I understand, I really do. I know that you want to help Tucker. But what you did was wrong. And very dangerous."

  "Yes."

  "Promise me you'll leave the detecting to the detectives."

  "I..."

  "Promise me, Brunella Philomena"

  "Please don't call me that."

  "Promise."

  Spenser didn't want to argue anymore. "I promise."

  “Lei sta per trasformare miei capelli grigi.” Little Mary began cleaning up. The noise was going to drive Spenser to murder.

  "You dye your hair, Mom. No way will it ever turn grey.” Spenser smiled her winningest smile. Her mother was not amused. An innocent sauce pan bore the brunt of her irritation. “Mom...please don't take this the wrong way, but...go home."

  Mary bristled. "How could I possibly take that the wrong way?"

  "You've been here all night. Why you don't look like a pretzel from sleeping on that torture rack I euphemistically call a love seat is beyond me."

  "I'm a DeCampli. We're used to sleeping on rocky slopes with grape vines puncturing our spines."

  "In Italy, Mom. Not in America."

  "Have you seen my bed lately?"

  "Mom!"

  "Fine, throw your mother out when all she wants is to care for her child." Mary put on her best martyr face.

  "You're a gem, Mom."

  "You're a pain, Brunella Philomena."

  Spenser winced. "Don't call me that."

  "You're going to rest." It was a demand not a request.

  "I'm going to rest."

  Mary picked up her purse and started for the door with Spenser two paces behind. "I'm only leaving, mind you, because I need a shower and that sprinkler head of yours doesn't give off enough water to clean a gnat."

  Spenser kissed her mother then the two hugged, a long, earnest embrace that spoke of emotions neither would ever voice. Mary ended the hug, turned and walked down the porch steps. "I'm buying you a push button phone with memory and redial." She opened her car door and faced her daughter. "My number will be first. 911 second." Mary entered the car, started the engine, and pulled out of the driveway, a concerned wave aimed at Spenser.

  "Alice Waring's getting a divorce." Spenser squinted across the border gravel toward Rasmussen's screen door. "Seems she was crying on her best friend's shoulder in the morning and her best friend was sleeping with her husband in the afternoon."

  Jeez. Regular 'Peyton Place'.

  "Guess people ain’t always what they seem."

  Amen to that, Shadow Master.

  "Hope you're feeling better." On that personal note, the recluse in space fourteen fell silent.

  Spenser closed the door, walked to the table, picked up the spoon, and silently blessed her mother. It was damn good soup. When the phone rang halfway through her vegetable beef, she thought it was Bea. She was wrong.

  "How'm I supposed to rest with you calling me every ten minutes," Spenser chided playfully.

  "How's your head?"

  Oh my god. Overoye. Spenser felt a wave of panic splash violently against her entire body.

  "You take a pretty good wallop, Missy." The weasel was joyful. Spenser was nauseous.

  "What do you want?" Spenser's voice cracked.

  "I like a woman who gets right to the point." Spenser cringed at the thought of Ival Overoye liking anything. Let alone a woman. "I got something you want."

  "What?" What the hell was he on about?

  "That stupid notebook you was looking for. 'Cause of you I gotta get out of town without my stash. So, you give me twenty-five thousand dollars, I give you the book."

  Was he insane? “Where the hell am I supposed to get twenty-five thousand dollars?”

  “That cripple’s got it, ask her."

  Spenser was about to ask just where the hell he supposed CC would find twenty-five thousand dollars when an idea hit her. "I’ll get the money, but only if you sign a confession that you killed Gina Mae."

  Overoye was silent for a very long time.

  Spenser heard the scrape of Overoye's hand over his beard. "Tell you what, you make it fifty thousand and I'll kick in a confession."

  Spenser felt sick to her stomach. I was right. "So, you killed Gina Mae."

  "Gonna take 50 large to find out, Missy."

  No way was this possible. "What if the cops don't buy it?"

  "Jesus. I'll put in enough details they'll know I done it, okay? You’re gonna bring it to me and you ain’t gonna tell nobody ‘bout it."

  Spenser was trying to figure out if the police really would accept just a piece of paper, signed or otherwise. "How do I know you won't clobber me again and take the money without leaving a confession?"

  "You don't." He laug
hed, coughing up sputum.

  God, what a pig. There was no way she was going to trust this piece of garbage.

  "C'mon, I ain't got all day."

  "I don't trust you, Overoye."

  "And I don't give a fuck. You bring the money or your idiot fries."

  No way was she going to do this. No way. "Where?" Okay, way.

  "The abandoned bowling alley in Azusa. Delivery door. One o'clock."

  "That's only five hours."

  "That fat bitch's got it. You're not there by one, I'm history."

  "Wait...what about the others. Pam, Chloe." Boy, was she pushing this envelope.

  "Give me a break."

  "You may as well confess to everything."

  "Trust me, sweet-cakes, you don't want to know everything."

  "If you're going to tell the truth about Gina Mae, why not tell the truth about Chloe and Pam?"

  "Oh...you want the truth." Overoye's laugh was vicious. "Look, bitch, that retard and his girlfriend were gonna fuck up a nice little deal I had goin'. Gettin' rid of them was...self-preservation. Yeah. Self-preservation." He was so pleased with himself it made Spenser sick. "But them others, didn’t matter to me if’n they was dead or alive. They wasn't no worry to me."

  What? "They weren't murdered?"

  "Didn't say that."

  This little game of his was really starting to piss her off. "Just tell me, goddamn it."

  "You wanna know who killed them you ask your precious Dr Saunders."

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "Don't mean nothin', Missy." Overoye laughed again. A vile noise that shook Spenser to the core. "One o'clock. Come alone or else."

  Spenser listened to the dial tone buzzing in her ear then hung up. She began a slow perusal of her cozy trailer. The love seat with its tattered arms. The CD player perched atop the TV. The book shelf overflowing with an eclectic array of paperbacks and hardcovers. Everything was exactly as it had been only minutes ago and yet all of it seemed alien. The familiar no longer.

  An ache began in the pit of her stomach. A fear. Overoye's words had generated a vortex of disillusion into which swirled Spenser's feelings. He didn't mean that Brianne had anything to do with the other deaths. It wasn't possible. She couldn't. She wouldn't.

  Overoye was a cold-blooded killer, for crying out loud. Mean and vicious and most definitely not to be trusted. And yet... No. "He's a lying piece of shit." Spenser banished his words from her mind and searched her purse for Youngquist's number. No way was she going to let that creep get away with murder. And especially no way was she going to that bowling alley. She found the card and dialed.

  "Sheriff's Department." The voice was female and young.

  "Lt Youngquist, please."

  "The lieutenant will be in the office shortly. May I take a message?"

  Damn. Spenser didn't want to ask...but..."Is Sgt Rysanek in?"

  "He's away from his desk."

  Double damn. She'd have to leave a message. But that was okay. She had five hours after all. She gave her name. Told the young woman of Overoye's call, of the urgency of Youngquist meeting her at the bowling alley before one o'clock and hung up. Spenser noticed that her hand and head were throbbing in syncopation.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Monday - morning

  Dr Brianne Saunders sat quietly in her silver-grey BMW. She had made her decision. There was no turning back. She rested her head on the fine leather upholstery and closed her eyes. She tried to think back to the defining moment that had brought her to this time, this place.

  Maybe it was when she first met Pam. A sweet child with a devastating disease. Or maybe that first day of her residency when the iniquity of illness annihilated any hopes she had held that her contribution would make a difference. Or maybe it was actually that day her beloved husband begged her to end his pain.

  The tears followed the contours of her cheeks and splashed noiselessly onto her silk blouse. She opened her eyes, reached into her purse and pulled out a small gun with an ivory handle, a Derringer that fit snugly in the palm of her hand. It was small, but it would be effective. He'd never suspect her of something so crass.

  She stared out the tinted window, snapping the safety of the tiny weapon off then on then off again. He'd made only one mistake really. Boasting, as he so often did while wallowing in his drunkenness, of his secret hideout. He'd chosen Azusa because no one ever bothered to notice anything in Azusa. He'd chosen the abandoned shopping center just two blocks from downtown because not even the cholos had found any use for it.

  Brianne scanned the building to her right, its familiar shape mutilated by hardship. She casually traced the missing arches of the dead McDonald's with her gun's barrel. One of the few original fast food icons, it lay pathetically gutted, a signpost to lost hopes. It seemed appropriate. A shadow twisted on the side of the old Boy's Market. She followed its progress toward the erstwhile bowling alley. Her heart was beating so loudly it bounced off the car window and back into her ears. She was afraid, but resolute. Ival Overoye's life of malevolence was drawing to a close. Brianne Saunders would make damn sure of that.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Monday - morning

  "Hey, Sarge." The young clerk waved her pretty, petite hand at Keith Rysanek. He sauntered toward her in his practiced Robert Mitchum swagger appraising her very noticeable attributes and once again thanking the head supervisor for his great taste in clerical support.

  "Shari, lookin’ mighty fine." The sergeant felt his smile take off and tried to rein it in. No need rushing his play. She'd be around for a good long while.

  Shari Nourse tried to smile back but it was an effort. She liked her job with the Sheriff's Office, but putting up with Rysanek's atavistic sexism took its toll.

  "I have a message for the lieutenant."

  Rysanek sat on Shari's desk, his calf touching her knees. He covered her hand with his in retrieving the note and looked at her with what he considered a seductive leer. Shari's hand recoiled. She moved her knees under her desk and picked up the phone receiver. "She said it was urgent. A Ms Isaacs." Shari began dialing.

  Rysanek cringed. Not that bitch again. It was her idiotic idea that put a bee in Youngquist's bonnet about Overoye that sent him on a wild goose chase to find background on the maintenance supervisor. A damn waste of valuable time. And just what did he find out? Squat.

  Overoye's references were all fakes. Rysanek watched Shari's breasts move up and down with her breathing then he walked over to his desk and threw Spenser's note in the trash. He picked up his phone on the fourth ring. "Rysanek."

  "Keith, its Tessa."

  The crackle on the line told him she was calling from her car phone. "Yeah."

  His enthusiasm was underwhelming. "I won't be in 'til after noon. Anything happening?"

  "Nope. Take your time." Rysanek rang off, then fixed his gaze on Shari's boobs. He began a day dream that included a cowboy hat, a horse, a very large spur, a lariat, and a whole lot of saddle soap.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Monday - early afternoon

  Walking into the sheriff's station, Tessa Youngquist just wanted the day to end. The APB on Overoye had netted nada, her captain wanted her to turn over her report on the Ambrose murder to the DA and she'd just spent the morning waiting for the toxicology report on Chloe Newcomb that came up negative.

  Why was she torturing herself? She threw her briefcase on her desk and sat down hard trying to organize her thoughts. Overoye assaulted Spenser because she found his loot. Just that. There was no other reason for Youngquist to think it had anything to do with anything. Especially anything like a blue notebook, contrary to what Spenser thought.

  But could Isaacs' suspicions about Overoye have any validity? Was he somehow connected to the Ambrose murder? Dammit, the evidence against the Watts kid was enough for an indictment.

  "There's no connection," she whispered to herself.

  "Talking to yourself is the first sign of insanity." Y
oungquist looked up to see Rysanek grinning that smart-ass grin of his.

  "Did you check out Overoye?"

  Rysanek picked up a paperweight and made it snow in Disneyland. "Yeah."

  Jesus, he pissed her off. "And..." Talking to her sergeant was like pulling teeth. No, more like a root canal.