19
Artie was shaking as he fumbled some coins into the slot, then sank onto the closest empty bench. With a jerk, the trolley moved forward, the motion barely moving the air around the stuffy interior.
As he waited for his heartbeat to slow, he pulled out a large handkerchief and mopped his damp forehead, then swabbed at the moisture that had collected around his shirt collar. Pity about Harriet. But couldn’t be helped. Should have taken her loss on the chin instead of showing up at the party with an attitude.
“Are you all right?”
He couldn’t repress a slight flinch as he searched for a face to fit the female voice. He didn’t have to look far. In the seat just behind his was an older woman, a plain woman with her graying hair neatly styled beneath a straw hat with a narrow brim decorated with a small bunch of dried flowers. Her clothes were also neat and plain, except for the astrological sign pinned to her lapel. There was a look in her faded eyes that Artie recognized.
He shrugged the slump from his shoulders, his hand moving automatically to his tie. He smiled, using equal parts charm and wan.
“It’s the heat, I think. Guess I’m not used to.”
“You’re from out of town?” A delicate pink touched the pale cheeks.
“From Cleveland. Here on business. But enough about me. Tell me about you—
Like a flower getting needed rain, her smile bloomed on her face.
“You opening a shoe store?” Luci asked from the doorway.
“Come in and shut the door.” Mickey watched her comply with his request, then lean against the closed door. She looked good against the stark wooden surface, the crossed ankles and calves hinting at further glories hidden by her party skirt. The shadows that hid her expression made her even harder to read than usual. “I’m sure what’s inside will be a big surprise to you.”
She stopped by one stack of boxes and lifted the lid to look at the neat rows of dollar bills. Her brows rose. “Are they all one dollar bills?”
Mickey nodded. “At least now I know what Dante wanted,” he said. “Somehow he must have found out about the scam that Reggie and whoever killed him ran and wanted to be cut in.”
“Well, well. Reggie, you old dog.”
“What do you mean?”
Luci gave a slight laugh. “He cheated fate. A dollar at a time. Finally got his successful scam.” Her shoulders rose and fell in a sigh as she fingered the bills, then closed the lid. “And then fate squashed him like a bug.”
“It might not have been his scam,” Mickey said. “We haven’t been able to match any of the prints we’ve found in the house to his.”
Luci seemed to find this interesting. “Really?” She frowned. “But if Reggie wasn’t here, how did he wind up under a bush?”
“Unless—”
Luci looked at him. “—the man they thought was Reggie—”
“—wasn’t,” Mickey finished. “Whoever it is, he was a busy bee at the party.” He walked over to a chair and turned it to face Luci, watching her face as the slumped body came into view. Though brief, it was surprise that flickered across her face. “Don’t suppose you recognize her?”
Luci was more than surprised. She studied the older woman dressed with a certain dowdy elegance, feeling a distinct sense of deja vu, if only she could figure out why…
“How come you aren’t doing the dust and poke thing?”
“Because Crime Scene is still working upstairs. And—” he was almost shuffling his feet, she noticed with amusement. “I didn’t notice her right away.”
“She looks like she’s sleeping.” Luci crouched down in front of the body and peered at her face, her sense that she was on the verge of a moment of clarity growing stronger.
“No kidding. I even tried to wake her up. That’s when I discovered the bullet hole. Looks like she was plugged right through the heart. Close range, too if the powder burns are any indication.”
“My elderly hitters?”
“I don’t think so. Different caliber weapon. I’m betting it’ll turn out to be the same gun that killed Max, Reggie, and the frozen John Doe. Our geriatric hitters were carrying a silenced 9mm Luger.”
Luci looked up at him. “Why didn’t we hear these shots? I mean, the music wasn’t that loud.”
“Killer used pillows to muffle the sound. Found one under her chair with her purse and the one used on Max was tossed behind the bed.”
“Really? How very enterprising.” She stood up, but continued to stare at the body, straining for that niggling something that was just out of mental reach.
“What?”
Luci looked up and gave a little shake. Mickey didn’t like hearing what she could remember. No reason to share what she couldn’t. “Odd coincidence we had two killers operating in the same house on the same day. Even for Seymours, I think it’s a record.”
“What makes you think it is a coincidence?” Mickey stepped closer, risking her volatile proximity so he could monitor her reaction.
“What else could it be?” The honest surprise in her eyes deflected suspicion, but he still felt she knew more than she was telling him.
“It has to be, doesn’t it? You just said that my elderly couple didn’t do this.”
“Just seems like too much of a coincidence. Wondered if you had any ideas?” Her smile was the one that always curled his toes. Made his shoes and his heart feel tight.
“You never like my ideas. They make your head ache.”
Mickey shifted impatiently. “That’s because—”
He stopped himself from finishing the sentence. Being told her ideas made no sense wouldn’t encourage her to share what she knew. And there was no getting away from the fact that her family’s pervasive personality played into the whole situation—which gave her an insider’s edge that he, unfortunately, needed right now, even if it did make his head ache.
She watched him, her arms crossed, looking at him in a way that told him he’d have to ask nicely. There would be no free flow of information. He didn’t mind climbing up, but down—
Luci watched him trying to choke down his pride. Poor guy. It wasn’t his fault he didn’t know how to navigate the Seymour Zone, but until he was willing to listen, there wasn’t much she could tell him that would help.
He gagged a few more times, then managed to choke out, “Anything in particular strike you about all this?”
It was only a small step for her, but a big step for Mickey, so she decided to meet him part way. “I did notice that wedding theme popping up again.”
He tried, but failed to control a flinch that also put the twitch back in his right eye. If he didn’t do something about all that bottled-up stress he was going to look like Clouseau’s Chief Inspector from the Pink Panther movies.
“Wedding…themes?”
“Did you notice her,” Luci nodded in the direction of the body, “wedding ring is new? The edges are barely worn.”
The twitch got a little worse, but he did go look at the ring. “So it is.” He swallowed a few times, then squeezed out, “Anything else?”
The trouble was, so much of what she noticed were feelings, not things that could be seen. Still, she owed it to him to try. “Reggie and Frosty were naked, but Max and this woman are clothed.”
“I guess our killer didn’t have time to strip these two—what with the party going on around.”
Luci gave him an approving smile. “Exactly. He’s starting to make mistakes.” Playing his sidekick was kind of fun when he didn’t whine. It would be interesting to see how long he could take it. She tapped a finger on her chin. “You found the money in the attic, but Dante’s guy was in the chimney in your room—”
“Yes.” A certain grimness to Mickey’s voice alerted her before he got his question out. “How did you know where the money was found?”
Luci gave him her “oops” smile. “I may have run across it when I was in the . . . attic, but I just thought my aunts had developed an aversion to banks. It was a reasonable assumption.”
“Uh huh.”
She thought he would say more, but he didn’t. Instead he opened a file and pulled out a creased picture. “We found this tucked in his pocket. Recognize him?”
Luci took the picture. It was a mug shot, though not a good one, complete with numbers across the bottom. Front and side view.
Luci felt the first tremor of...something. “Who is he?”
Mickey picked up the file. “His name is Arthur Maxwell and he was Reggie’s cellmate last time he was in prison.”
“Really?” She frowned slightly. “He looks...kind of like my neighbor’s new husband. The one she hit with her Volkswagen.” The pieces of all her impressions, the faces of the players both dead and alive, spun in her head like snow in one of those globes, with the truth buried somewhere in the middle. If she could just get alone to think…
Mickey ground his teeth and snatched the photo back. “This isn’t a joke—”
Luci sighed. “I am trying.” She lifted the lid on one of the shoeboxes and fingered the bills. “Do you suppose he’s given up on trying to get this? He must know you’ve found it.”
“We’re keeping it quiet. He might be hoping we wouldn’t search the attic.” He rubbed his head. “Under normal circumstances, we might not have.”
Mickey had the photos of the victims in a stack on the table. She sat down and looked through them, arranging them in order of discovery as her thoughts spun slower and slower.
“Not exactly a rogue’s gallery, is it?” Luci murmured. She tapped the photo of the guy found in the freezer. “I wonder how he fits in?”
Mickey sat down next to her. “What do you mean?”
“I’m not sure,” Luci admitted. “It’s just that, well, this one—”
“Dante’s sidekick, Max,” Mickey supplied for her.
“Just Max?” When Mickey nodded she continued. “Interesting. He must have been looking for the money, but this woman, Reggie, the hit couple, my aunts and their friends, the—they’re all, well, older.”
Mickey noticed the stop, the hesitation and the slight emphasis and frowned. What had she meant to say? He stared at her, the innocent widening of her eyes only increasing his suspicion that there was something, possibly several things, she wasn’t telling him. He made a mental note to keep an eye on her.
“You don’t really fit either,” he pointed out.
“No,” she said. “I don’t seem to, do I?”
She leaned back with an air of decision. “You should have the aunts look at your lady over there.”
“Why?”
Her eyes warned him to brace himself.
“I have a feeling she was Reggie’s date today.”
His whole body twitched. “Reggie is dead.”
Luci arched her brows. “Not the faux Reggie.”
Mickey sighed. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”
Luci looked apologetic. “Yes, but I feel conflicted about it.”
“Exactly what is it we’re doing out here?”
Luci looked at Gracie in surprise. Surely it was obvious.
“We’re looking for the missing body, the one Boudreaux saw in the freezer the first time.”
She let the beam of the flashlight dance around the darkened garden, then directed it back on the sketch she held. “Boudreaux has marked every area he can remember replanting in the last few months.”
“What if he forgot something?”
“I have considered that possibility, but prefer to deal with it only if we strike out. The largest area is over there by the fence. Some kind of bush. Couldn’t understand what he called them, but I think that’s the best possibility. It’s more person- length than the others. Though Miss Hermi managed to stir things up quite a bit this spring. She was in a new broom sort of mood.”
“Yes, I noticed that myself. Reggie got her all stirred up. If he hadn’t ended up under one of the plants himself, I’d think he had an ulterior motive. You’re quite sure there is another body? Couldn’t it have been Reggie that Boudreaux saw?”
Luci noticed that Gracie moved, not above the ground, but not really on it either, while Luci had to be careful for the pitfalls of uneven terrain that the fitful glow of flashlight failed to fully illuminate. The moist night was marginally cooler than the day, and the rich smell of earth and flower heavily scented the motionless watchful air.
It’s lucky I have no imagination and a working knowledge of the ghostly, Luci told herself wryly, or this feeling I’m being watched might make me uneasy.
“Boudreaux saw this body before Reggie was supposed to have gone to Cleveland.” Luci stepped off the path and shone her light against a line of flowering bushes. “I think this is the spot. Apparently Miss Hermi wanted to break up the block of color or something.”
She got on her knees and shone the light into the leafy interior of one of the bushes.
“Does the ground look disturbed?” Gracie asked, kneeling beside Luci.
“This is a reclaimed swamp. It probably didn’t look disturbed two days after these bushes were transplanted.” She leaned back with a sigh, giving Gracie a speculative look as she pondered the right approach for her proposition.
“So? Do you dig now?” Gracie seemed to grow still. “You don’t have a shovel. Why don’t you have a shovel?” A pause. Then it came. “Why did you invite me along on this little excavation?”
Carefully not looking at Gracie, Luci said, trying to sound casual, “I thought you might be more help than the aunts?”
“Surely Boudreaux would have been a better choice to dig up the garden?”
“I wasn’t...actually...planning on...digging up...anything. Disturbing the scene of a crime is a criminal offense, you know.”
“How were you planning—” Gracie stopped abruptly. Then, “No. No way. I am not sticking my head into the middle of a corpse—no matter how phantasmal I may be. I already did that once today and it was not fun. Why don’t you just have Mickey and Delaney take care of it?”
“There probably isn’t a corpse at all. Boudreaux was drunk when he saw this supposed body,” Luci coaxed. “I didn’t want to bother them until I was sure.”
“Bother me, please,” Mickey’s voice said out of the darkness just before a bright light flashed in Luci’s eyes.
Luci looked at Gracie.
“We’re busted,” Gracie said.
“You don’t have to sound so relieved,” Luci said. “No one’s gonna strip-search you.”
Gracie’s smile was edged with wicked. “You wish.”