The doctor came out a few minutes later, to update us on Kylie’s
condition. He turned out to be the same ER doctor who had been here
in December, when she had her car accident, and also the same guy
who had been here when Tim was shot in February. His name was Simon
Ramsey, and he was a good-looking guy in his thirties who either
recognized us, or pretended well. His smile was warm and familiar
and reassuring.
“She’s stable. Still unconscious. Lost a bit of blood but nothing extraordinary. She has a concussion, of course.”
We both nodded, although he addressed most of his remarks to me. I was pretty sure he had figured out, last time were here, that I wasn’t really Kylie’s sister, but maybe he didn’t remember that part.
“We’ll be keeping her sedated for a while to give her brain time to recover. We’ll probably bring her out of it tomorrow morning, and we’ll see if she regains consciousness on her own.”
“What if she doesn’t?” Aislynn wanted to know, gnawing on her bottom lip.
“Then we’ll just have to wait a little longer until her body’s ready. But there’s nothing too badly wrong with her that I can see. We gave her a CT-scan to rule out brain injury, and it came back clear. We’ve stitched her up. It looks to me like it’s just a matter of time before she wakes up on her own, but we’ll give her until tomorrow to rest.”
We nodded. Doctor Ramsey looked from me to Aislynn and back.
“You can see her if you want, although she won’t know you’re here. And there’s no sense in staying with her. Come back in the morning.”
I nodded.
“Can I see her before we go?” Aislynn asked.
So we went and saw Kylie, who was pale and bandaged and unconscious, and hooked up to various beeping and whooshing machines. Then I took Aislynn out of there and put her back in my car. “She’ll be all right. You heard what he said. He was the same doctor who patched her up last time, and he did a good job then. She’ll be fine.”
Aislynn nodded, sniffing into another tissue. “I feel so bad. If I hadn’t gotten upset yesterday...”
Then it might have been her in a hospital bed right now, and not Kylie. But since I’d already said that, I didn’t bother repeating it.
“You can’t think like that,” I told her instead. “Kylie would probably prefer it this way. I’m sure she’d rather be hurt than have you be hurt. And anyway, if she had been answering her phone, or if she’d called you before going home, she might not have been there alone. She might have picked you up first, and then it would have been the two of you coming home together.”
And if so, the burglar might have heard them coming and decided to book it out the back door rather than waiting for Kylie to walk in and then bash her over the head with something.
I wondered whether she’d gotten a look at the guy—or girl. Head-bashing is an equal opportunity crime, and once she woke up, maybe we’d get lucky and she’d be able to tell us something about whoever had done this to her.
Back at the house, there was a lot more activity than there had been when we left. Rafe’s Harley was gone, but Detective Mendoza was there, overseeing a group of crime scene techs in white coveralls. A Metro PD crime scene van was parked at the curb along with a gray sedan. I assumed the latter was Mendoza’s. And in spite of it being Saturday, he was dressed in another killer suit, complete with shirt and tie. Aqua shirt, teal tie today.
When he heard our footsteps on the porch stairs, he turned, and gave us a killer smile. “Ladies.”
Aislynn liked women and I’m happily married to the greatest guy in the world, but I’m sure we both sighed appreciatively. He was just so very pretty.
Then I shook it off. “Detective. We’ve been at the hospital.”
Mendoza nodded. “So your husband said. Everything OK?”
I gave him the rundown. Aislynn, meanwhile, was peering around the doorjamb, watching the crime scene team at work. I could have told her that she’d have a mess to clean up once they were done—fingerprint powder takes a lot of vacuuming—but I was more interested in whatever Mendoza had to say. “Any idea what happened?”
“No more than you do, I imagine.” He glanced at Aislynn. “The door was locked when you arrived?”
Aislynn nodded.
“Did you check the back door?”
We hadn’t. We’d just walked in, found Kylie, and raised the alarm.
“Is something wrong with the back door?” I asked.
Mendoza shook his head. “But if the front door was locked, it’s possible the culprit left that way.”
“That reminds me...” I glanced at Aislynn. She was still more interested in the crime scene than the conversation. I took a step to the side and lowered my voice. Mendoza followed, looking politely interested. “Yesterday afternoon, when I was driving by here, I saw a man in the yard. Or maybe a woman. Wearing a plaid shirt.”
Mendoza arched his brows.
“I didn’t get a good look, OK? He was just on his way around the corner of the house when I saw him. Or her. I pulled over and went into the backyard, but I didn’t see anyone. I figured he might just be a neighbor cutting through the yard, but now I’m not sure. It could have been someone casing the place, I guess. Although if he was, why didn’t he just break in then? The house was empty.”
“It was broad daylight?” Mendoza suggested.
“The backyard is private. And fenced. Nobody can see what’s going on.”
“Then that’s likely where our burglar entered,” Mendoza said. “I’ll make sure we dust for prints in the back of the house.”
There was a pause.
“Did you find the weapon?” I asked. “Whatever Kylie was hit with?”
He nodded. It was nice of him to be so forthcoming, actually. He didn’t have to. Then again, maybe he figured Aislynn would tell me everything later. And he probably planned to tell her. “Snow globe.”
“The one with the Eiffel Tower in it? That’s too bad.” I had noticed it the other night. It had been nice: big and sturdy.
“It was intact,” Mendoza said. “Sitting on the bookshelf on the other side of the room.”
I blinked. “He put it there after bashing her over the head with it?”
“Must have. Unless you moved it?”
I shook my head. “Last time I saw it, it was on the desk. That was two nights ago.”
“It was on the shelf this morning. With blood all over it. We’ve packed it up to be tested, but there’s not much doubt it’s the weapon.”
“Virgil Wright wasn’t killed with the snow globe, was he?”
“No,” Mendoza said. “The murder weapon in that case was a rock. It was found at the scene. Too rough to take fingerprints. We’ll try for trace DNA, but by the time we’re likely to get anything useful back from the lab, I’m sure we’ll have the murderer in custody anyway.”
Must be nice to be so confident.
“But you think you can get fingerprints from the snow globe?”
“Unless the burglar was wearing gloves,” Mendoza said. “And since he was in fact a burglar, it’s quite likely he was. But we’ll check.”
“Are you planning to go to the visitation?” I glanced at my watch. It was already past noon. With the trip to the hospital, the time had totally gotten away from me.
“I was,” Mendoza said, “until this. Now I have to talk to Ms. Turner. Are you going to the visitation?”
I told him I thought I might.
“If you learn anything you think I should know,” Mendoza told me, “give me a call.” He nodded. “Excuse me.”
He turned to walk back to Aislynn. I thought about offering to stay with her—she had that quality of making us all want to protect her; I’m sure Kylie felt the same way—but I decided against it. I really did want to get to the visitation, and Aislynn was an adult, she could handle this herself. Besides, I was pretty sure she’d already told me everything she knew. Which amounted to zilch, since she didn’t know anything.
So I told her I was leaving, and to call me if she needed anything. She looked at me with huge doe eyes, and I steeled myself. “Maybe you should run up to Bowling Green when you’re finished talking to the detective. Spend the night with your parents. You probably don’t want to stay here, and you won’t be able to see Kylie until tomorrow anyway.”
Aislynn sank her teeth into her lip, and I added, “You’re welcome to come back and stay with us again. But I thought maybe you’d like to see your mother and father.”
She turned to Mendoza. “Would that be all right?”
“As long as you tell me where you’re going,” Mendoza said, “so I can get in touch with you if I need to, I don’t see why not.”
I left them to work out the details, and headed for the Volvo.
Virgil Wright’s visitation took place at the Phillips-Robinson
Funeral Home in Inglewood, where Brenda Puckett’s memorial had also
taken place almost a year ago. Unlike then, there were no TV
cameras, and no reporters accosting me for a sound byte as I made
my way across the parking lot to the front door. And while Misters
Phillips and Robinson had opened every room in the place for
Brenda’s funeral last year, Virgil Wright hadn’t drawn that kind of
crowd. A handful of people were gathered in a room to the right as
I came into the lobby, and that was the extent of it.
I made my way there, and stopped in the doorway, looking into a room full of gay guys.
And I do mean that literally. There wasn’t a single woman in the room, and while it isn’t always easy to tell from the outside whether a man is gay, not one of them spared me a look.
That might have been partly because of the stomach. Most guys, even the heterosexual ones, usually take care not to ogle a pregnant woman. But I really think it was more a case of keeping an eye on the tableau taking place by the casket.
Kenny was there, somberly attired in a navy blue suit and tie, with a black armband. His friend from last night was standing a few feet away, cracking his knuckles.
Meanwhile, another man was facing them across the coffin. He had his back to me, so it took me a second to recognize the brown hair and slight build.
In fact, it might not have been the hair and build I recognized at all. It might have been the voice.
“I have the right to be here. He was my lover, too.”
A whisper ran through the room as everyone craned their necks. I moved a few steps into the room.
“Was,” Kenny said tightly. “A year ago. Not anymore.”
“I still loved him,” Stacy said. “Maybe we weren’t together anymore, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t care. Or that he didn’t.”
“This is my memorial for my lover!” Kenny said.
“He was my lover before he was your lover!” Stacy answered. Both their voices were becoming shriller the longer they were at it. He added, “And I can’t have a memorial for him, because you took him away from me!”
“He was sick of you by then!” Kenny said.
Uh-oh.
I waited for Stacy to go for Kenny’s throat, but it didn’t happen. Instead he shot back, “And he was sick of you now!”
There was another audible gasp, and Kenny’s pale face flushed a deeper red than I would have thought possible. “That’s not true!”
“What?” Stacy said tauntingly. “Didn’t he tell you he was tired of you? He told me!”
Uh-oh.
I had joked about Kenny and Stacy getting into a cat-fight over the casket, but I hadn’t actually expected it to happen. It had been a joke. I swear.
Kenny howled something. I’m not even sure what it was, it was so high pitched and hysterical. He threw himself forward, reaching for Stacy, who danced out of range. The guy from last night grabbed Kenny around the waist and tried to haul him back, but it was too late. Kenny attempted to crawl over the coffin to get to Stacy, and in the process, the coffin tipped over. Everyone in the room screamed. I’m pretty sure I screamed, too. If Virgil could have screamed, I’m sure he would have. I winced to think about what was going on inside that coffin at the moment, and I didn’t envy the funeral home employee who had to put it right.
And then pandemonium continued as Stacy pushed past me and knocked me back against the wall on his way out the door, running like a gazelle in black leather pants and biker boots.
“Get him!” somebody screamed, and there was a stampede on the door, and a bottleneck as everyone tried to get out at the same time. People grunted, shoved, and swore, and propelled each other through the opening. I’m sure casualties resulted. Kenny—released from the embrace of yesterday’s dinner partner—flew past me without a glance. The dinner partner thundered after.
In the silence after the storm, I looked around. The room was empty. It was just me and the overturned coffin, and funeral flowers scattered all over the floor. Many of them were flattened, from being trampled by the throng, and the scent was overpowering. Through the window, behind the somber red velvet curtains, I could hear whooping and hollering from the parking lot, like a pack of hounds scenting a fox.
I gave Virgil a silent apology, and then I got out of there as quickly as I could, before the attendants showed up and discovered the carnage. I wasn’t sure I could explain what had happened, or that I wanted to.
I ended up explaining to Detective Mendoza, though. He had told me
to tell him anything untoward that happened at the funeral, and
this definitely qualified.
After I’d run through the chain of events, there was a pause. “Really?”
“Yes,” I said, steering the car with one hand and holding the phone with the other. “Really. I barely got out of there with my life. When I drove away, Stacy had barricaded himself inside his Jeep while the mourners were rocking the car back and forth to try to get him out.”
Mendoza sighed. “I guess I better dispatch a couple cars to break it up.”
“That would probably be a good idea,” I agreed. “If they get their hands on Stacy, I’m afraid they’ll kill him. And while I know that pays your salary, it would probably be best if they didn’t.”
Mendoza agreed that would be best, and disconnected the call, presumably to get a couple of squad cars over to Phillips-Robinson to break up the party, hopefully before Stacy took damage. I headed home to Rafe.
He was back to mowing. When I pulled into the driveway, I saw he had picked up where he’d left off yesterday and was pushing the mower back and forth across the grass, shirtless and in the gym shorts he’d put on this morning. When I pulled into the driveway, he squinted at me but kept going. And when I got out of the car and stood for a second to admire the view, he waited until he got close enough that he didn’t have to yell, and then he announced, “Don’t even think about it.”
“You can’t stop me from thinking,” I told him.
“Well, then don’t tell me you’re thinking about it. I don’t need the distraction.” He turned his back and pushed the mower in the other direction. I watched the play of muscles under his skin and felt my mouth go dry and other parts go the other way.
“I’m thinking about it,” I told him when he came back around.
He groaned. “I told you not to tell me that. I gotta get this done or we’re gonna have weeds up to our knees.”
“I don’t mind if you don’t.”
“I mind,” Rafe said. “I’m an upstanding citizen these days. I gotta house and a wife and a kid on the way. I gotta keep things looking good.”
“From where I’m standing, things are looking very good.” Hell—heck—just put a shirtless Rafe into the front yard, and nobody would even look at the grass. We’d probably have accidents as people—women—ran into the fence next door because they weren’t watching where they were going.
“You’re good for my ego,” he told me on the third pass, “but you’re trouble. What happened to the girl who always did the right thing as per her mama?”
“She married you. And now she wants her conjugal rights.”
He shook his head. “I’ve got five minutes to go till I’m done. Just gimme that. After that you can have whatever you want.”
“I’ll hold you to that,” I told him, and went to prepare a glass of iced tea, since I figured he’d be hot and thirsty when he came inside. I was hot, too, and I’d only been standing there a couple of minutes.
He was as good as his word. Five minutes later, he sauntered into the house, still shirtless, and elevated the temperature by at least twenty degrees just by being present.
I handed him the glass of tea and watched him tilt his head back and dispatch it. His throat moved smoothly as he swallowed. I swallowed, too.
He was laughing as he reached around me to put the glass on the counter. “Still holding that thought?”
“It comes back,” I confessed. “Pretty much every time I see you.” Especially if he was flaunting skin. Then again, he could be fully dressed, in a winter coat and gloves, and I’d still want him.
“You poor thing.” He leaned in to nuzzle my neck, one hand on each side of me, braced against the counter.
“It’s terrible. I need help.”
He chuckled. “I’ve got what’s gonna help you.”
“I know you do.” I looped my arms around his neck and let him carry me upstairs.
“We’re having dinner with Tammy,” he told me an hour later, after I’d had enough help to make me feel nice and relaxed.
We were still in bed, facing one another, and he was up on one elbow twisting a strand of my hair around his finger.
That’s something I do—to my own hair—when I’m lying. But I didn’t see any reason why he’d lie about this.
“That’s fine.”
“At the FinBar.”
We’d been there yesterday, but Grimaldi didn’t know that. “OK.”
“She’s bringing Mendoza.”
I blinked. And blinked again. “You mean... like a date? A double date?”
Wasn’t Grimaldi dating my brother? Or wasn’t she at least sort of involved with him, even if it wasn’t strictly a dating relationship?
And for that matter, wasn’t Mendoza still married?
“I’m sure it don’t mean nothing,” Rafe murmured, as he continued to play with my hair. And of course the fact that he felt the need to point out that it didn’t mean anything, gave the impression that it did. “Just two colleagues going out together with friends.”
“Friends who are married.”
“A friend who’s also in law enforcement, and his wife.”
When he put it like that, it made more sense. However—“What about Dix?”
“He’s in Sweetwater,” Rafe said. “Ain’t he?”
“I assume he is. He hasn’t told me differently.”
“Then he prob’ly doesn’t even know.” And wouldn’t, the implication was, unless I told him.
“That’s not the point,” I said. “I thought he and Grimaldi... you know.”
“Your brother and Tammy are friends,” Rafe said. “Maybe they’re more than friends. Neither of’em has ever said anything to me about it, so I don’t know. There’s something going on there, but I dunno how serious it is.”
I didn’t, either. It wasn’t something Dix would talk to me about—a big brother doesn’t discuss his sex-life (or lack thereof) with his little sister—and Grimaldi just wasn’t the type to indulge in girlish confidences. I’d spent enough time with them—together and alone—to be reasonably sure that there was something romantic going on between them, but I didn’t know how serious it was.
Was he moving too slowly for her, maybe? She was tired of waiting, and so she was going out with Mendoza instead?
Or was it the girls? My brother has two daughters. Maybe the idea of taking on someone else’s children was hard for Grimaldi to handle.
Or maybe it was my mother she objected to. And if so, who could blame her?
Grimaldi had been part of Rafe’s and my wedding, that Mother arranged, last month. Mother might have gotten on Grimaldi’s nerves. In fact, she was certain to have gotten on Grimaldi’s nerves. Maybe Grimaldi had decided she couldn’t under any circumstances tolerate being related to my mother. It amazed me every day that Rafe had been willing to take her on. Especially as she’d made her disapproval of him abundantly clear. She would disapprove of Grimaldi, too. And might have let Grimaldi know it.
“I can hear the gears turning,” Rafe said, tapping my temple. “Don’t worry about it, darlin’. Not till you know there’s something to worry about.”
“If we’re having dinner with Grimaldi and someone other than my brother, there is something to worry about.”
“They work together,” Rafe said, “Could be they have dinner all the time.”
If so, Grimaldi had never mentioned it.
She’d been my maid of honor less than a month ago. And she hadn’t told me she was dating someone else?
“I don’t like this,” I said.
“We’ll figure it out.” He slipped the hand that had been fiddling with my hair around my neck and pulled me toward him. “C’mere. I’ll give you something else to think about for a while.”
I wasn’t sure I wanted anything else to think about. My mind was fully occupied with this, and wanted to twist and turn it, and think about the ramifications.
But I knew what he was offering, and it isn’t anything I’d ever turn down. I leaned forward and let him take my mind off things for a bit longer.