twenty-two
I DON’T LIKE CLIMBING TREES, NEVER DID, EVEN AS a kid, even as a self-professed tomboy. So scaling a tree to get out of my house showed just how badly I wanted to get to Illusions that night. I could’ve tried to waltz right out of the house and hope the cops stationed outside would let me mosey on over to the transvestite club at midnight. They might have, I don’t know, but I didn’t want to take the chance that they would stop me from finding out what I needed to know.
Scythe hadn’t returned, and was I ever relieved. That kiss was going to complicate an already complicated relationship. I know he thought it was a mistake, and I said it was a mistake, but while I didn’t think at all during the kiss, ever since our lips came unlocked, I couldn’t think about much else. I finally told myself that in a couple of days, when I had the case all solved for them, this badge-slinging cowboy could ride off into the sunset in his black sedan, never to be seen again, and I could go back to fantasizing about the vitamin salesman.
It would be ever so much safer.
Speaking of safe, I was sitting on an oak branch looking at a ten-foot drop and wondering how hard the ground was. It’s really cool to live in a hundred-and-fifty-year-old neighborhood with trees that are taller and older than the two-and three-story houses, until, that is, one is sneaking out of one’s house and needs a low branch to carry one safely to the ground.
I’m not a complete idiot. I had tried to go out the front door; the cop out on the street had waved through his car window. I tried to go out the back door, and the cop who sat with a view of the salon door and the kitchen door waved. I opened the upstairs window, and no one waved, so I turned on my bathroom light, set up my Spurs’ Tim Duncan bobblehead doll behind the frosted glass window, and turned a box fan on high to keep the bobblehead bobbing.
Looking up now, I realized it might not fool Scythe, who expected me to do stuff like this, but it was probably good enough for these guys.
I sucked in a deep breath, wiggled my heinie off the branch, and dropped to the ground, rolling to a stop in an ungraceful heap. I have to admit I worried about my back, but, amazingly, the jolt seemed to pop something back into place, and I walked a little more freely than I had before. Maybe my luck was turning.
I hoped it was dark enough in Illusions so the grass stains on my jeans and T-shirt wouldn’t show. I tiptoed over to my next-door neighbor’s house. Rick Ugarte is a songwriter whose muse is only awake from midnight to five A . M . and only when nourished by fresh air. I know this because when he and his attorney wife first moved in, I had a little trouble sleeping, what with his office being right below my bedroom window and some of his songs being hard rock boosted by a synthesizer. Rick and I had a little talk, and I told him I’d try to be tolerant if he’d try to write country music to a guitar. The next week, he sold his first song—to an up-and-coming country music star out of Austin. I haven’t heard the synthesizer or hard rock since. If I’d known it was that easy, I might have bought the damned song the week before.
Anyhow, I hunkered down next to Rick’s open window and waited for him to finish his verse. “You lost him today…but girl it’ll be okay…”
“Ricky,” I whispered.
He looked up, completely unfazed by a face in his window. I love creative airheads. “Reyn, what’s up, girl?”
“Can I borrow your van?”
“No problemo.” He reached into his pocket and threw me the keys.
“Thanks, I’ll have it back in a little while.”
“Whatever. Just don’t transport any dead bodies in it.” He grinned.
“Ricky, you know—”
He waved off whatever denial I would’ve delivered.
“What I know is, you’re famous. Infamous. Like Jesse James. I think I’ll write a song about you. ‘Reyn on the Run’…”He started to sing in his halfway decent tenor,
“She couldn’t stay, because the cops thought she oughta pay…or take a roll in the hay…”
Uh-oh. I looked over my shoulder. Rick had a direct view of the kitchen, although it was dark, so he hadn’t seen much. In fact, he might not have seen anything but Scythe accompanying me through the door. He was probably just guessing. “Listen, about that…”
“Hey, girl, I say get yourself some. You’re way overdue.”
He laughed as I shook my head and retreated toward the carport behind their house. Even my neighbors were keeping track of my celibacy. Maybe I was getting ready to set a world record. I pulled a face at my borrowed transportation. It was going to be tough being inconspicuous while driving a big eggplant, but on the bright side, the cops wouldn’t be expecting me to drive a purple minivan, so I’d probably slip by unnoticed.
I tucked my hair under one of their kids’ baseball caps, jammed it down on my head, and put on a too-small orange windbreaker with “Toby” embroidered over my left breast and the name of some Little League team emblazoned on the back. Sure enough, the cop on the street barely looked up as I passed and waved nonchalantly.
As I neared Illusions, I debated how best to slip in unnoticed, get my information, and slip out again. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the advantage of Bettina taking me through the back door. I couldn’t just waltz in the front door, because I wasn’t carrying two grand on me. I could either loiter at the back door, hoping someone came out for a smoke, or I could bum admittance by cozying up to someone entering the club. I almost opted for the latter as I followed a Jaguar into the lot and parked next to it. The silver-haired driver looked like a sharp-dressed businessman until he got out of his car and I saw that the lower third of his pinstriped three-piece suit was a black leather miniskirt complemented by fishnet stockings and patent-leather pumps.
Okay, loitering sounded like a great idea.
I didn’t have to hide behind the Dumpster long before a stagehand with a sweaty forehead and dirty jeans came out the door, propped it open with a chunk of wood, and lit a cigarette. I pressed the alarm button on Rick’s key ring, and the van’s horn started honking. From the front door, the no-neck bouncer went to investigate, but when he saw the stagehand smoking outside, he hollered at him to come check it out. Perfect. The guy ambled over there. I tripped up the stairs and into the dark hallway. “She’s More Than an Angel” poured through the speakers. There was a crowd down near the G dressing room, maybe a passel of VIPs with backstage passes. Sighing, I headed down the hall the opposite way, which would take me past stage right and into the audience. I had no doubt that Short, Hairy, and Menacing wouldn’t appreciate my return, but I was hoping he didn’t spend much time mixing with his customers. And anyway, I was wearing my disguise, which, upon review via the mirror on the wall, made me look like I was trying to be a ten-year-old boy. He’d never recognize me once I got in.
As I slunk my way past stage right, I could see Bettina performing a sultry number. Her alto was good enough to do a musical in a small-town dinner theater, I thought. Once on the floor, I tried to edge up to the stage without attracting any attention. Maybe she could slip me into the dressing room, and I could talk to Redhead and be out of there before Gregor saw me.
I tried not to stare at the patrons. There was a share of glassy-eyed and panting weirdos, but I was more surprised by how many normal-looking men were in there. Scary. A few stray women sat with their dates, trying not to appear uncomfortable. A table full of giggling middleaged women in their cups were whooping it up, and that’s where I caught sight of Gregor. Should’ve figured.
Well, maybe they’d keep him distracted. Bettina finished with a flourish. I had to admit her hair still looked fabulous. I was admiring my handiwork so thoroughly I almost forgot to call her name as she passed. She looked down and dismissed me. “Sorry, I don’t do little boys. Try little girl in a frilly dress next time.”
Gross. That was TMI for me. I struggled to get back with my program. “Bettina. It’s me, Reyn Marten Sawyer.”
She paused. I pulled off the baseball cap, unzipped the jacket, peeled it off, and called her name again. She looked back, recognized me, but then her gaze drifted past me, and she scooted backstage.
Uh-oh.
Before I could turn around, a hairy hand clamped down on my elbow. “This ain’t a strip joint.” Gregor hauled me around in front of him. “You!”
I smiled big. “Nice to see you again, Gregor.”
“I told you to get the hell outta here and stay out.”
“I will, I promise, if I could just show one of your, uh, performers a couple of photos. I’ll never come back again.”
The next performer, who was dressed up in a school-girl’s uniform, peeked around the edge of the stage. Gregor waved her on, and the music started. He looked back at me, squeezing my elbow harder.
“You’re nuts, you know that? I saw you on TV tonight, what you did at that funeral. You better not have dragged that killer here to shoot the place up; not the cops, neither. You’re trouble.”
“Nobody followed me. But the longer I’m here, the more risk you’re in, you’re right. If you let me talk to that, uh, employee of yours with the long red hair, I’ll go. But if you don’t, I’ll hang around outside until closing.”
“No you won’t, ole Tiger out front will bounce your ass down the road.”
“And I’ll call 9-1-1.”
He was caught, then, and not smart enough to figure out that the cops were the last ones—well, maybe second to the last after the murderer—I wanted to see right then. Squeezing my elbow until I knew I’d have bruises and glowering so hard he had one eyebrow, he dragged me through an unmarked door and down the dark hallway to the dressing room.
It went from chatter to dead silence as he opened the door. What the hell did he do to keep them so scared of him? Maybe it was his BO. That was pretty damned intimidating.
He pointed his short, hairy middle finger at the redhead sitting at the mirror. “Phoebe, get your ass out here and talk to this bitch, or I’ll fricking kill you.”
Oh, the charm.
Phoebe looked thrilled to see me, glaring to beat the band. He he was dressed in fifties garb and looked like my niece’s Lucille Ball Barbie doll. I wondered what she was going to sing. Gregor dragged me down the hall and shoved both of us out the back door.
“You have two minutes. Then I’m sending Tiger around. He’ll break your phone first, then your face.”
He slammed the door shut. Phoebe-who-was-probably-Phil pulled out some smokes and lit one quick. His/her hand was shaking, crimson-painted acrylics clicking together.
Out of my pocket, I pulled the picture of Senator Villita I’d printed off the Internet and showed it to Phoebe. “Is this the man who met Ricardo?”
“No way.” He/she started to reach for the handle of the door.
“Wait.” I’d found an old photo of Mike Van Dyke, Sarah Johnstone’s tan, handsome second hubby, in the newspaper archives on the Web. I pulled it out and unfolded it.
Phoebe did a double take. He/she grabbed the paper and looked closer. “Yeah, it could be him if this is an old picture. The dude with Ricardo was like in his fifties. This dude looks like his younger brother, maybe.” He/she turned and opened the door, ready to scurry in.
Before the door shut, I asked, “Why are you so scared?”
“Because there was a note on my car when I left last night that warned me to keep my mouth shut or else. I guess that’s what I get for talking to you. Or else.”
The door banged shut before I could tell Phoebe to call the cops about the nasty note. Shucks, our business was done in well under two minutes, so I wouldn’t get to meet Tiger up close and personal. I returned to the eggplant on wheels and got home less than an hour after I’d left. Rick quizzed me about where I’d been, and when I told him a transvestite club, he decided to change the second verse of the “Reyn on the Run” song. He said he’d have it finished the next time I was in the news, which, I warned him, at the rate I was going, would be the next morning. He was sure it was going to be his big hit, his ticket to Nashville. I just wanted to know if I got any nookie in it. He smiled and said it was a mystery.
Just what I needed, another one of those.
I was too tired to climb the tree back into my house and figured the cops couldn’t do anything about me leaving after I’d already done it except be pissed off, so I went to my back door and reached for the key I kept hidden in the fake rock in the flower bed.
“Hey!” the cop yelled. I glanced over my shoulder and saw him looking from me to the bobblehead’s shadow in the bathroom and back to me again. “How’d you get out?”
“I’m her twin sister. Reyn’s still in there.” The uniform looked simultaneously relieved and confused and was silent long enough for me to slip into the house. The girls mobbed me as I came through the door. Since I had practically no social life, they were not used to me up and leaving at midnight. It had them a little worried.
“Never fear, girls, I’m not turning into a vampire.”
They still looked at me expectantly. I sighed. “And I didn’t get any nookie, okay?”
All three drifted away then. Cab nosed her empty food bowl, Char sniffed my jeans leg, and Beau flopped onto the floor. So even my dogs were disappointed in my love life.
On that happy note, I stripped and dragged on the once black, now gray “Buck Off” T-shirt that my horse- crazy niece sent me for my birthday years ago. I crawled into bed.
The cacophony was deafening.
I pulled the pillow over my head and tried to ignore it. I was bound and determined to get the first uninterrupted night of sleep I’d had in three nights. Some people might call this stubborn, I call it focused. At any rate, I was so focused that I really didn’t consider for several minutes why my three Labs would be having fits in the middle of the night. It was still dark; I registered that before the pillow came down. When I finally began to feel uneasy about the barking, I assumed it must be the cops doing a perimeter search. But then I asked myself why. They hadn’t left their vehicles since they’d driven up, as far as I could tell.
Then I heard dog toenails scrambling across my hardwood floor and the screech of nails being dragged across said hardwood floor. Ouch, that was going to leave a scar.
“What the hell are you girls doing?” I yelled. I don’t often swear at the dogs, but that floor represented every drop of blood, sweat, and tears I put into this damned house.
As I threw the covers back, I heard a thump and a whump. And two yips.
It was only then that I considered I might have an intruder.
Okay, so I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer when woken from a deep sleep.
I jumped out of bed and proved I had a modicum of brainwave power by pulling on the smelly gray gym shorts I had left lying next to the bed several days before when I’d gotten a wild hair to exercise.
As I descended the stairs, I realized I should have a weapon. Besides my morning breath, that is. So I grabbed the girls’ leashes with their metal-link choke collars that I had wrapped around the bannister at the base of the stairs and envisioned myself swinging them like a lasso above my head, ready to strike the bad guy in one fell swoop.
I was too late. Three hundred pounds of frustrated dog came at me as I reached the first story. They scrambled for purchase on the hardwood floor and bashed into me, barking and baying. But as soon as they stopped, they were off again, leading me to the scene of the crime, I presumed. I followed them to the kitchen door, which was standing wide open, having been wrenched that way by a crowbar. I know that because the crowbar was sitting right on the steps outside. The door looked like it hadn’t put up much of a fight. There was a small dent in the hundred-year-old wood, and that was it. The lock still even looked intact. I guess I needed to move to Fort Knox if I was going to keep nosing around in Ricardo’s murder.
Char came up and nuzzled my hand. I patted her head and reached down to cradle her muzzle to thank her for protecting me. That’s when I saw the six inches of black material hanging from her left canine tooth. Hmm. Can we say clue? I felt the shiny material. Lycra. I grabbed her collar and visually inspected the other two. They didn’t get a piece of him. Or her. I hated to be sexist, even when someone was trying to get me.
I kicked the door the rest of the way open and marched barefoot to the SAPD car still sitting out behind my house. Now, granted, it was a bit of a stretch for the guy to see both doors, and he’d really have to be up patrolling all night and still not be able to swear he never saw anyone at either door, but he couldn’t argue it to me, because when Char and I walked up, he was asleep. I tapped on the window. He jumped. Poor guy. He looked about thirteen.
“Hi. I just wanted you to know someone just broke into my house, and my dog got a piece of the intruder’s clothing.”
“Uh.” He cleared his throat and sat up straight. “How did that happen?”
“You tell me, Officer Norland,” I said, reading his badge. “You’re out here.”
“Ma’am…”
“Don’t call me ma’am. I’m not old enough for that.”
“Of course you’re not,” he agreed, not believing it for a minute.
“Call your compadre, ” I recommended, “and we’ll go inside and figure this out.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said as he reached for his radio.
I led Chardonnay back to the house, giving up on him having the wherewithal to think of saving the material as evidence. I saw slobber dripping off the tip of the Lycra and hoped she didn’t swallow real hard between now and when someone with a Ziploc came along.
Norland and the cop who had been sitting at the front walked up to the kitchen door just as two cars pulled up into the salon parking lot. One turned out to be the burglary detective, who tried to make me feel like he was doing me a favor. The other was the fingerprint tech, who dusted the door. Someone, I’m not sure who, put the Lycra in an evidence bag, but the detective downplayed its importance and told me we’d have one in a million chances of ever finding a suspect from a generic clue like that, unless, of course, my dog had drawn blood.
Twenty minutes later, as I was trying to figure out how to keep my wrenched door shut for the night, I heard, then saw, a four-wheel-drive diesel Ford truck—all shiny black paint and chrome—roar up. Jackson Scythe emerged from the stud mobile and started talking to the surveillance cops, who’d gone back outside to check for clues at the perimeter. It was the first time I realized I might not be dressed appropriately for company—with no bra or underwear and a holey oversize T-shirt that hid rather ripe shorts. I considered going upstairs to put more or better clothes on, or at least underwear, until I saw how hard Scythe was chewing out the poor young guys.
“Hey, you!” I shouted out onto the lawn. “Try picking on someone closer to your own age.”
Baby-blue chips of dry ice found me. Boy, were they ever smoking. “And where would I find that?” he asked.
I shrugged. I pegged Scythe for around forty, though I never was good at guessing ages. It didn’t matter, I was after the insult. “Happy Trails Retirement Home? AARP membership roster?”
The two officers who were about half his age bit back smiles. The dark-haired Antonio Banderas lookalike Scythe had been chewing out particularly hard looked like he wanted to kiss me for the distraction. Cradle robbing had its appeal. I’d have to take a rain check. Scythe was already stalking my way.
“Why didn’t you call me?” he demanded in that low, quiet voice that was tight with fury.
“What for?” I answered. “The police were already here.”
That set him back a moment. “But I’m in charge of the Montoya case.”
“Who says this has anything to do with Ricardo?”
“Don’t be stupid, Reyn,” he snapped.
He was being his bossy self, which never failed to raise my hackles, but just as I was about to tell him where to go, he’d used my first name. He had never done that before. It distracted me from my counterattack just long enough for him to get in another verbal jab.
“Where did you go when you snuck out?”
“To see my boyfriend.”
“You don’t have a boyfriend.”
“How do you know that?”
“The same way I know you don’t have a twin sister.”
“You’ve investigated me?”
“You’re a suspect. How good a cop would I be if I didn’t?”
“I guess you think you know everything about me, then.”
“Not hardly,” he admitted, shaking his head in obvious bewilderment. “I don’t know why you’re the only one of five kids to have a halfway normal name.”
“Because I’m the only one that’s halfway normal. I’m the white sheep in a family of black ones.”
He shook his head, completely flummoxed. “That is unbelievable.”
“It’s not my sisters’ and brothers’ faults. Mom and Dad named us after something that happened during our conception. They were in Dallas; they were in the back of a Chevy; they were feeding each other pecan pie; they were playing a game of buck-naked charades.”
“And they couldn’t remember with you, so they pulled out some old family name?”
“No, they went bird watching and saw a wren and a marten before they couldn’t keep their hands off each other, apparently.”
“Wow, I guess they were really hot for each other.”
“Still are. It’s very embarrassing.” I pulled a face.
“Anyway, my parents’ naming strategy is well known in our little town, and the nurse assumed that wren was short for Reynolds wrap, about which she’d drawn her own kinky scenario. Hence the Reyn on the birth certificate. I send that nurse a thank-you card on my birthday every year.”
The corner of his mouth was twitching. “So, I guess you really like birds.”
“I hate them with a passion. That’s one thing I would murder.”
“Don’t joke about murder.” He was back to dead serious. I think he allowed himself amusement only ten seconds at a time, stopping it before it got way out of hand and he might have to smile.
“Who’s joking?”
“You are, most of the time, usually to avoid a serious conversation.” He seemed to see what I was wearing for the first time. I fought the urge to squirm under his laser vision which zeroed in on the “Buck Off” on my chest. “Like that shirt, for instance. How do you expect to get a date wearing that?”
I raised my eyebrows and crossed my arms over my chest. “ ‘Buck Off’ could be interpreted a lot of different ways. It could be a warning. It could be a challenge.”
I turned then and began tidying up my kitchen. I could feel him come up behind me. A little too close. “So maybe your parents passed down some of their sexual adventure to you?”
Just then, we heard the slamming of car doors out front. We hurried to the living-room window to see Trudy and Mario get out of the Miata and head for the house.
Once inside, they fussed, kissing and hugging until I waved my hands to get some space.
“Rick called us,” Trudy explained.
“Big mouth,” I muttered as I wandered back into the kitchen to make coffee.
“He told me to tell you he’s already working on a third song, and at this rate he’d have a whole Reyn album by the end of the week. What did that mean?”
“Never mind,” I said, spooning the Kona coffee beans into the grinder. “Everybody want a cup?”
“Thank you,” Scythe said, “but I can’t. I have someone waiting in the car.”
“Bring Crandall on in,” I threw out.
“It’s not Crandall,” Trudy observed as I followed her gaze out the window and to his car, where a willowy blonde had rolled down her window and was preening in the rearview mirror.
He’d been flirting with me with a date in the car? Did he never fail to surprise me with how low he could go?
“Better not keep her waiting,” I said.
“I suppose not,” he admitted. “It looks like she’s getting restless.”
Scythe turned to Mario and Trudy. “You all will take her home with you tonight?”
“The hell they will. I’m not going anywhere.”
All three sighed simultaneously. Trudy shook her head and patted Scythe on the arm. “We’ll stay here.”
“Thank you,” he said as he headed for the door.
“Hey,” I called. “You have any luck with Zorita?”
He half turned as he went out the door. “Yeah, I’m orange.”
“Wow.” Trudy breathed as she watched him go. “Orange is passionate, creative, adventurous, ambitious.” Then she turned to me. “Since he’s leaving looking dissatisfied, I guess you didn’t deliver your end of the deal?”
“I still don’t know what the deal is. You won’t tell me. He won’t tell me.”
“I guess he will when he’s ready.”