Murder Most Deserving

by Hank Edwards

  Misty turned to face them and leaned her butt against the counter. She put a hand on her chest, tipped back her head, and gave a girlish laugh. “Oh, I’m ridiculous. Of course you don’t know how to do that. You don’t work here. I’m sorry, Hilton. I guess I’m a bit more shaken by all of this than I thought.”

  Jazz stood and took her hands. They were very cold and trembled in his. He gently led her away from the counter and over to the chair he’d vacated. “Misty, sweetie, you sit down and let me clean up the broken mug and make the tea, all right?”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m really sure. First of all, we didn’t have that many mugs to begin with. Can’t have you dropping more,” Jazz said, and was rewarded with a faint smile from Misty and a deep scowl from Musgrave. Undaunted, he continued to talk as he selected a couple of tea bags and two new mugs. “Besides, being busy helps me stay in the moment, you know? So this is good for me.”

  Jazz was glad when Musgrave returned to the front of the salon. Nothing worse than a big bear of a lawman hovering in the doorway when he suspects you of murder. Jazz grabbed the broom standing in the corner and started sweeping up the mess. He thought of Misty’s cousin Dorothy and her fear of brooms as he swept. A snorting chuckle escaped him.

  The sound seemed to startle them both, and their eyes met. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “Just thought of something, is all.”

  “What happened to him?” Misty asked. “His throat was….” She drew her finger across her throat and grimaced. “Was it cut? Do you think he knew what was happening? And why would he be here in the salon? How did he get in? And who was with him?”

  Jazz dumped the ceramic pieces into the trash can and filled the electric kettle with water before flicking the switch on. He really needed to get one of these for himself. He wondered if Michael liked herbal tea, and was sorry he’d never asked.

  Oh wait, Misty had asked him a question.

  Focus!

  As they waited for the water to heat, Jazz leaned back on the edge of the counter and faced Misty. He crossed his arms and tried to put the image of Norbert out of his mind. But it was there, in full high-def color. He could still smell the blood….

  He cleared his throat. “Those are all very good questions, and I wish I could answer even one of them. If we had a video surveillance system in here, we might be able to figure things out faster.”

  Misty nodded and looked down at her clutched hands on the tabletop. “I know. But what brought him here to the salon? Or, better yet, who brought him here? Norbert didn’t like you very much, so I don’t think he’d be hanging around here.”

  Her choice of words sparked a memory, and Jazz gasped and pushed up from the counter.

  “What is it?” Misty got to her feet. “Do you know something?”

  “I saw someone outside the back door of the salon last night when I came home. I thought it was weird at the time, but that was all. I made sure the door was locked and then went up to my apartment. Oh my God, what if she’s the killer? What if she murdered Norbert and left him here to throw Musgrave off her tracks?”

  “Her? It was a woman? Which woman?”

  The water reached a boil and the kettle automatically clicked off. Jazz stared at Misty with wide eyes.

  “Rae’s girlfriend, Ally,” he said in a quiet voice. “She was sneaking around behind the shop last night. And she’s Dylan Robert’s cousin. Her dad was the guy Russell was trying to kill when Michael and I caught him.”

  Misty’s eyes grew very wide. “That’s a pretty big motive. Oh, poor Amanda Rae.”

  Musgrave stepped into the break room, his expression even more cloudy. “Did I hear my daughter’s name?”

  Before they could answer, Michael appeared right behind Musgrave, his gaze dancing around the small space until it locked on Jazz. Michael wore a polo shirt, uncharacteristically untucked from a pair of blue jeans, and loafers with no socks. His chest rose and fell rapidly, brow damp with sweat.

  “What’s happened?” He squeezed past Musgrave and walked up to Jazz. He started to reach for him, glanced over his shoulder at Musgrave and Misty, and then dropped his arms to his sides. “Are you okay? What’s happened?”

  “How’d you get here so fast?” Musgrave asked. “Tanner just called you.”

  Michael kept his gaze on Jazz. “I ran.”

  “Oh,” Jazz said. “You ran all the way here?”

  Michael nodded, his hair slightly askew. “Tanner said there was a body at the salon we needed to pick up. He didn’t say who it was or what had happened. No one else was in yet, and I didn’t want to waste time getting the van out, so I ran here and came in the back door.”

  Michael blushed deeper as he explained, and the sight of those delightfully pink cheeks nearly pushed Jazz over the edge into chest-rattling sobs.

  He ran here for me….

  How did Jazz deserve someone so good and kind and decent when all he’d ever had in his life was darkness and deceit? And now that darkness and deceit was seeping into Michael’s life, and Jazz didn’t know what to do about it. He ached at the thought.

  “Well, it’s not me.” Jazz smiled and gave Michael’s arm a gentle squeeze. Simply touching him seemed to quell the rising panic. He gazed in Michael’s brown eyes and smoothed the hair off his brow, settling it into place. “But it’s someone we know.”

  Michael frowned and looked over at Misty and Musgrave before turning back to him. He placed his hand over the one on his arm. “Who? Is it a client?”

  “It’s Norbert,” Jazz said.

  Michael’s mouth dropped open, and he took a step back, letting go of Jazz’s hand. Jazz tried not to think he’d stepped away because he was afraid of him, but it was difficult to keep his mind from going to that place.

  “Norbert?” Michael looked between the three of them, ending up back at Jazz. “But… how? Why? How’d he get in here?”

  “All very good questions that my force will find the answers to,” Musgrave said and fixed Jazz with a cold, steady stare before turning to Michael. “Come on, let’s check out the scene.”

  Michael’s gaze had gone a little glassy, and Jazz could practically hear the gears and wheels frantically spinning as his thoughts raced. Michael blinked a few times, then stepped closer and took Jazz’s hand.

  “Are you okay?”

  Jazz gave him a squeeze and a smile that felt pretty feeble. “I’m fine.”

  “You found him?” Michael asked.

  “I did. Hadn’t even had my first sip of coffee.” Jazz sighed, then remembered he hadn’t yet made tea for himself and Misty. “And now I haven’t even had my tea. Do you like tea, Michael?”

  “Um….” Michael shot a concerned look at Misty, and Jazz wasn’t so addled he didn’t notice.

  Jazz shook his head. “I don’t know why I asked that. I’m fine. Really.”

  “Okay. I’m going to examine the crime scene,” Michael said and leaned in for a quick, sweet kiss. Jazz heard Misty sigh and Musgrave grumble something.

  “I’ll be back soon,” Michael said, his brows knitted close. “Are you really sure you’re okay?”

  “Positive. Just fine.”

  “C’mon, Fleishman,” Musgrave said. “We got rubberneckers at the window already.”

  Jazz smiled in reassurance at Michael, then said, “And before you say anything, Sheriff, I’m not going anywhere until I give someone my statement.”

  “Good to hear,” Musgrave said, then led the way out of the break room and Michael followed with a quick final look over his shoulder.

  When Michael was out of sight, Jazz took a deep breath, held it, then let it out. “How about that tea?”

  “Did you really see Ally at the back door last night?” Misty whispered.

  “I did.” He turned away as he prepared their cups of tea. “I only caught a glimpse, but I recognized her. You know how bright that light is in back. And that hair. Whew, it’s hard not to notice.”

  With the tea steeping, he faced
her again as she slowly shook her head. “Oh my.”

  “I know.”

  “You have to tell Hilton about it,” Misty said.

  “Hilton, not Sheriff Musgrave?” Jazz narrowed his eyes and crossed his arms, seeking a distraction from his own thoughts and trying to appear as calm as Michael always was when things went to shit. “You seem to be acting very friendly with the good sheriff. What’s going on?”

  “What?” She dropped her gaze and fussed with her hair. “Oh, well, I…. Nothing to speak of. And besides, it’s nowhere near as important as a body ending up in the salon.”

  Jazz nodded and didn’t pursue his line of questioning, but he knew there was something brewing between Misty and Musgrave. And he wasn’t sure how he felt about it. At the moment, his brain couldn’t seem to find the space to contemplate the idea. It kept stuttering back to the image of Norbert like some kind of faulty film clip.

  Jazz shuddered but tried to piece the facts out in his head.

  Russell had murdered Dylan and was now in prison.

  Norbert had been Russell’s PR rep long before Jazz had come into the picture. Did Russell know Bill Denton, the man killed yesterday and left in Michael’s hearse? Now Norbert had been murdered and left at Jazz’s work. What did that mean for Jazz? For Michael?

  Was Russell somehow lashing out from prison?

  But then there was Ally Roberts.

  Russell had killed her cousin and tried to kill her father. Based on her reaction at seeing Norbert at the festival, she blamed Norbert too. It couldn’t be chance that she was in town and seen creeping around the crime scene, could it?

  But what purpose did she have putting Norbert in Jazz’s chair? A sick joke? Because he had intervened on Norbert’s behalf last night? It made no sense!

  The murders were too similar to be a coincidence, but why would Ally kill her own bandmate and prop him up in Michael’s hearse?

  Was someone targeting them? Tormenting them? Were these bodies being left in Jazz’s chair and at Michael’s some kind of warning that one of them was next?

  “It’s so obvious, Jasper dear!” Russell’s airy laugh echoed in Jazz’s mind.

  Russell… it all keeps coming back to Russell. But what—

  “Hey, did you hear me?”

  Misty’s voice broke through the chaos spinning inside his head. Jazz rubbed his hands up and down his face, then gave her a smile he hoped looked more steady than it felt.

  “Sorry, my dear. I was woolgathering, as Michael puts it. What did you say?”

  “I said you need to go home and relax.”

  Michael’s cozy bed flitted through his mind. “I don’t think I can leave—”

  “Damn right you can’t leave,” Musgrave said as he crowded into the break room.

  Misty turned on him, hands on her hips and a surprising ferociousness burning in her eyes. “Hilton Musgrave, you change that tone right quick, do you hear me? Jazz has received a terrible shock, and he needs time for his mind to process it fully.”

  Jazz turned wide eyes toward Musgrave and watched with interest as emotions wrestled for dominance in the sheriff’s expression. First he looked angry—the man’s default expression—quickly followed by shocked, which was replaced in turn by some kind of lewd attraction.

  Oh God, it was true. If they weren’t doing it already, Sheriff Musgrave and Misty were really close to getting hot and heavy.

  Now Jazz hoped like hell he was allowed to go back to his apartment, if only so he could do a couple of shots of whisky in an effort to burn away the mental images frolicking inside his overwrought mind.

  It took a few seconds for Musgrave to tear his gaze from Misty—seconds that felt like years to Jazz as he stood there being drenched in their pheromones. When the sheriff finally addressed him, his expression had softened slightly.

  “Dilworth, give your statement to Deputy Tanner right now, and then you can go. But—”

  “Don’t leave the city limits,” Jazz said with a bored tone. “I know the drill.”

  Musgrave grunted. He delivered a long, hot look to Misty before turning to leave. Before Jazz could think of a single thing to say about any of it, Tanner appeared at the door, looking attractively all-American in his short-sleeved uniform shirt and nicely fitting pants. He seemed a bit nervous.

  “Sheriff said you’re ready to talk?”

  “I’m ready to give my statement, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Right. Yeah.” Tanner pulled a notepad from his shirt pocket, then a small nub of pencil missing an eraser.

  “You don’t make mistakes?” Jazz asked.

  “What?”

  “Your pencil doesn’t have an eraser. Does that mean you don’t make mistakes?”

  Tanner chuckled and that seemed to relax him. “Nah. I chewed it off. Nervous habit, I guess.”

  “Lots of fiber in pencil erasers?”

  “I don’t know, probably chemicals and some kind of glue.”

  “Okay, where do you want to do it?” Jazz watched Tanner’s face turn bright red and wondered what the hell was wrong with everyone. Or maybe it was just him?

  “How about my office?” Misty suggested. “Here’s your tea. Now take the deputy into my office and both of you sit down.”

  Jazz accepted the cup she passed to him, and then led the way to Misty’s office, situated across the short hallway from the break room. He kept his gaze on the office door and away from where Michael inspected Norbert’s body in the salon. When he tried the knob, it didn’t budge. “It’s locked, Misty. Do you have the key?”

  “Oh shit and shinola, I think I dropped them up front after I came in and saw…. Well, after I came in.”

  She stepped past them, and Jazz’s gaze followed her up to the front of the shop. The Tompkins twins were taping up newspaper over the front windows to block the view from the rather large crowd gathering outside. Michael was taking photos of the body, and apparently his employees had clocked in, because his creepy apprentice, Ezra, lurked behind him, and Steve leaned against a wall, his expression serious and arms crossed tight over his chest.

  A lot of people had arrived in short order, and Jazz hadn’t heard any of it.

  Misty bent to pick up her keys from the floor. Jazz turned away when he caught Musgrave checking out her ass from the other side of the salon.

  Gross. Just… gross.

  “Hell of a Saturday morning, eh?” Tanner said.

  “Yeah,” Jazz agreed with a nod.

  “First all of that excitement last night at the festival, and now this.”

  Misty returned, keys jingling, and unlocked the office door. “It’s a mess, but it’ll give you a place to sit and talk.” She leveled a somewhat stern look at Jazz. “Talk about everything. All the information you have.”

  Jazz scowled at her in return. “I’m very familiar with how to give a statement to the police. And I think both of us could stand with talking to people about everything and all the information we have.” Jazz looked over to where Musgrave stood behind Michael, and then back at her. “Don’t you?”

  Misty flushed and played with her hair as her gaze darted around, landing on everything except for Jazz’s face. “Well, I don’t know. I just meant that you should be as honest and open as you can be with the nice deputy. That’s all.”

  “Where do you want to sit?” Tanner asked. “At the desk or in the chair in the corner?”

  “I’ll take the corner,” Jazz said with a sigh. “That feels pretty appropriate at this point.”

  Tanner sat at Misty’s desk and scribbled notes as Jazz related the events that occurred after he and Michael had left the festival. He was glad he had Michael for an alibi for a portion of the evening. If only he’d spent the night with him, he would be free and clear right now.

  “I walked home from Michael’s house around eleven or eleven thirty, I think,” Jazz said. “I don’t remember the exact time, sorry.”

  “No worries. And you two were together the entire tim
e prior to you leaving?” Tanner asked. “You didn’t step out to the store or he didn’t have to go to the funeral home?”

  Jazz gave him a direct stare. “We were together and otherwise occupied the entire time.”

  Tanner blushed a deep crimson and looked down at his notepad, scribbling furiously. Jazz wondered if he was writing They fucked long and hard until suspect left between eleven and eleven thirty.

  Tanner cleared his throat, back on business. “You have a concealed pistol license, is that correct?”

  “I do, but I’m not carrying. You need my license?”

  He nodded and after Jazz fished his CPL out, Tanner wrote more notes on his pad, then returned it. “Were you carrying last night?”

  “I was on a date.” He stuffed his wallet in his pocket.

  “You didn’t answer my question.” Tanner narrowed his gaze, and Jazz could all but imagine him practicing Musgrave intimidation tactics in his bathroom mirror. He still had a long way to go.

  “No, my gun is in a case in my bedroom closet,” he replied.

  “You and the vic had a history. And not a good one,” Tanner remarked.

  “That’s not a secret. But I didn’t kill him.” He ran trembling hands over his face, pushing his hair back. “Jesus, someone murdered him, cut his throat or choked him or something. Even I didn’t hate him that much.”

  Saying the words aloud did nothing to erase the surreal insanity of the morning.

  Norbert was killed and left in my chair. What the fuck?

  “But you threatened him,” Tanner countered. “I heard you and it sure sounded like you hated him.”

  “If you heard me, then you also heard what he said about Michael. It pissed me the hell off, and I reacted. Poorly, I’ll admit, but there ya go.” He actually had meant the threat at the time, but now… Jazz shuddered.

  Tanner pursed his lips, thinking hard enough Jazz almost told him not to hurt himself. “Yeah, that was a very mean thing he said about Mr. Fleishman. He’s a nice man. Just has an unusual job, ya know?”

  He flinched at the astute observation. “Yeah.”

  “So you have no alibi after eleven thirty, and a long, bad history with our vic. You threatened to kill him, and the next day he’s dead. That’s motive and opportunity, Mr. Dilworth.”