“Whatever it is, do it.”
“I did it a little while ago.” I looked at the time on the corner of the screen. “If I do it too soon after I just did it, I get dizzy.”
“You know what you need, Davis? Brown paper bags.”
I pulled surveillance up on two computers. “What I need is to know how many different ways there are to get to Lost and Found. That’s what I need.” (That, and Megan Shaw. And five million dollars. And Bea Crawford out of my home.)
“Davis, there are fifty ways to get to Lost and Found.”
She was close. Maybe there weren’t quite fifty, but there were easily ten.
“Why?” she asked.
“We need to watch surveillance video of every entry point to Lost and Found from Friday, midnight, until six in the morning Saturday, when Birdy found the bag of money. At least we’ll know if Baylor’s right and Megan Shaw turned in the money herself so she could steal it back.”
“I thought you already did that.”
“I didn’t do it hard enough.”
“It will take a week to look at every entry point. What we need is surveillance in Lost and Found. Or anywhere near it.”
“Well, we don’t have it. Which is why we’re looking for entry points,” I said. “The last locations we have surveillance before Lost and Found.”
“We don’t have time for that, Davis. We don’t have time for any of this,” she said. “You need to face facts. At this point, we’re probably not going to find the money.”
I sat back and slow blinked at her. Several times.
“We’ve already hit two walls,” she said. “Bird Woman is absolutely no help and the Casino Credit cashier is nowhere to be found. This is a wild goose chase.”
I slow blinked more.
“We’re doing nothing but spinning our wheels,” the voice of reason in the seat next to me said, “and with every tick of the clock, the money’s further out of our reach.”
I was about to slow blink myself into a coma.
“What we need to do is take a step back,” she said. “We didn’t steal five million dollars. We didn’t stuff it in a blue bag, we didn’t put it in a suitcase, we didn’t roll it around on a food cart, and we didn’t feed Birdy James spiked milk or see her panties.”
“Nightgown.”
“Whatever,” she said. “We didn’t have anything to do with Megan Shaw disappearing either. We didn’t park her baby at Play for three days. We’re innocent. We need to slow down, because this is going in too many directions, and if you ask me, they’re all the wrong way. We need to call Vegas. We’ll get Bradley, No Hair, and Mr. Sanders on a conference call, spill our guts, beg for mercy, get their permission to requisition the five million from the vault, wire it to Seattle, and be done with it.”
She sat back.
She crossed her arms.
I studied her. I tilted my head and studied her from a different perspective. “What’s the real problem here, Fantasy?”
“We don’t have decent suits.”
I nodded. “Let’s see the indecent suits.”
* * *
We stared at each other in a full-length mirror.
Fantasy’s suit was a leftover from The Prince Experience, a Prince Tribute concert we’d worked back in the day. Because we wanted to go to the concert. Fantasy’s suit was purple silk. Shiny purple silk. Shiny reflective purple silk. It was Donna Karan, it was stylish, it was a great cut, but it was still shiny purple silk. The only suit I had left in the closet was worse. It was wool, for one thing. In addition, it was sunshine yellow with wide black stripes. It was Diane Von Furstenberg. It fit fabulously. It cost a fortune. But still, I looked like a bumblebee.
“How fast could we get Elvis suits?” I asked.
“In and out of Josette’s?” she asked. “I’d say twenty minutes.”
“If we call on the way, fifteen.”
Fantasy, six feet tall and dark skinned, dressed head-to-toe in shiny purple silk, and I, barely five-foot-two and fair skinned in my bumblebee suit, said it on the same beat: “Let’s go get Elvis costumes.”
Our ensuing justification:
I said, “We’re never going to pass ourselves off as Biloxi PD detectives dressed like this.”
“We have to have Elvis costumes anyway,” she said.
“And honestly, Fantasy, we’re going to stand out more if we aren’t dressed as Elvis than if we are.”
“You’re absolutely right,” she said. “And it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to think detectives would want in on the Elvis action, would it?”
Oh, but it would.
Just not quite the stretch that Prince’s Number One Fan Fantasy and Queen Bee Davis were.
We donned wigs, terrified anyone would even remotely recognize us before we could hide behind Elvis costumes. The problem was, we only had two wigs left. Her wig was old-lady silver. Mine was a shoe-polish black bun, lending even more credence to my yellowjacket getup. The only tinted contact lenses I could find were sienna, which sounded dark to me, but on my eyes, which were the color of cinnamon to begin with, the sienna produced more of a terrifying tangerine effect. Fantasy chose large square eyeglasses, at which point, with her silver wig, she looked like Retired Professor Prince. With Gaming Commission and Immigration IDs around our necks, Biloxi detective badges clipped to our waistbands, and pistols in shoulder holsters under our jackets, just in case, we set out for Elvis costumes, if for no other reason, because we looked positively bizarre.
We were quiet on the elevator ride.
We stepped out on the Mezzanine and ducked our heads.
Best to avoid eye contact with anyone. Especially orange-eyed me.
“Do we want to walk or drive?” Fantasy asked.
“Drive,” I said. “It’s a million degrees outside.”
By that time, we were halfway down the Mezzanine steps. “I don’t have my car keys.”
I stopped. “Where are they?”
“In my purse.”
“Where’s your purse?”
“I left it in the office,” she said. “Do we want to go all the way back to the office?”
“We have to.”
We ran all the way back only to realize we were still locked out. I never finished hacking the door. Had Baylor not left it cracked when he’d stormed out, we’d still be locked in. I pulled my phone from my bee pocket and texted him. Take the office door off lockdown.
He texted back. I’m at the dentist.
What goes around comes around.
Cabs were nonexistent in Biloxi, so on our way back to the lobby, I tried Uber. The closest car was eighteen minutes away. Fantasy tried Lyft. The closest car was twenty-four minutes away. Obviously, the drivers were busy because of all the Elvii and the raging heat. I dug my phone out of my wasp pocket again. “I’ll call Crisp.”
After two seconds on the phone with Crisp, I grabbed Fantasy’s elbow and dragged her into a stairwell. Because calling Crisp for a ride didn’t turn out to be its usual five-second exchange.
“You’re where?” I asked again.
“On the twenty-ninth floor, Mrs. Cole.” He sounded out of breath. “At your residence.”
“Why, Crisp? Did Bexley call and ask you to drive her to Disney again?”
“No, ma’am,” he said. “Your mother-in-law called Mr. Cole’s personal assistant and she called me.”
“She’s not my mother-in-law.”
“My apologies,” he panted.
“The woman who isn’t my mother-in-law called you why?”
“To run an errand,” he said. “An errand I’ve almost completed. If you’ll give me time to change clothes and switch cars, I’ll be happy to pick you up.”
Fantasy made walking fingers.
I shook my head no. Josette’s Costumes, on Howard
Street, was a fifteen-minute walk and, considering the Elvii traffic, a ten-minute drive, but by then, it was a million and a half degrees out. And we looked like extraterrestrials. Which was beside the fact that Bea Crawford, who shouldn’t have even been there in the first place, was once again bullying Bellissimo employees like she owned the place. My husband’s personal assistant, Colleen, did not take orders from Bea, and my driver, Crisp, didn’t run errands for her either.
“Change clothes and switch cars?” I asked. “I don’t understand.”
He hemmed. He hawed.
“Spit it out, Crisp. What’s going on?”
“Mrs. Cole, everything’s under control. Maybe not the carpet, but everything else.”
“The carpet?” I asked. “What about the carpet?” Surely, he wasn’t talking about my living room carpet that had only been on the floor for three hours. By then, maybe four.
“It’s my fault, Mrs. Cole,” he said. “And I’ll do what it takes to make it right, even if that means replacing the living room carpet.”
He was talking about my living room carpet. And it had already been replaced.
“Start at the beginning, Crisp. I have very little time. I don’t understand what’s going on, and what it has to do with the woman who isn’t my mother-in-law.”
Bea Crawford, the woman who wasn’t my mother-in-law, and who shouldn’t have been there, had the nerve, the absolute nerve, to call my husband’s personal assistant, identify herself as my mother-in-law, which would make her Colleen’s boss’s mother (and she was not), to order fertilizer.
The tomatoes.
Colleen explained to Bea that the Bellissimo didn’t stock fertilizer, to which Bea reacted, Colleen said, violently. Bea threatened to report the Bellissimo to the Salvation Army, the Humane Society, and to every single one of Donald Trump’s kids, in addition to leaving horrific reviews “over the line,” if Colleen didn’t produce fertilizer in a hurry. Colleen found an organic fertilizer, Black Kow, at Home Depot on Elizabeth Boulevard. Home Depot said the Bellissimo could have the Black Kow, their entire inventory, and at a steep discount, if we’d pick it up right away. For one thing, Black Kow wasn’t a huge seller. The aroma, they said. It was aromatic, they warned. For another, it was sitting in the sun behind Home Depot, and they weren’t entirely sure, under the extremely blistering circumstances, it wasn’t combustible. Colleen sent Crisp to pick up the fragrant and possibly flammable organic fertilizer. Crisp said the smell was so strong he could only transport it in the trunk, for fear he wouldn’t be able to get the odor out of the car’s interior, and on the third delivery trip, lumbering through my home with one of the last bags of the nasty stuff, he’d tripped on a leg of sleeping Birdy’s wingback chair on his way to the veranda. A ten-cubic-pound bag of what amounted to cow manure had burst open on my brand-new carpet. According to Crisp, he, my mother, and my mother-in-law (not), were all desperately trying to clean the spill, not having much luck, but rest assured, he took full responsibility. That being said, he couldn’t drive me anywhere without changing uniforms and switching cars. And to be honest with me, Crisp said, he probably needed a shower. Quickly amended to definitely needed a shower. Black Kow, said Crisp, was pungent.
I could barely say goodbye.
I could barely lift my index finger to end the call.
I turned to Fantasy on the stairstep beside me. “Crisp can’t drive us.”
TEN
“Davis, when are you going to buy a car? Would you please buy a car? Who, in this day and age, doesn’t own a car?”
Fantasy and I were on our way to Valet to do something we shouldn’t have. After ignoring a baker’s dozen text messages from Colleen in Bradley’s office—six about Lost and Found, five about my ex-ex-mother-in-law, who shouldn’t have even been there, another saying considering the scented circumstances at my home she’d been made aware of, she could possibly move us to a single hotel room with two double beds on the fourth floor, but Housekeeping couldn’t have it ready for at least an hour, plus a bonus text message in all caps that dinged in as I was reading the last one, the final one about the inoperable ovens at Danish—I was on the phone with July explaining that there’d been a mishap at my home. I told her I was trying my hardest to locate Baby Oliver’s mother (not exactly true, because securing Elvis costumes wouldn’t necessarily help find Megan Shaw, but all the alerts and alarms I had set up could, so technically, I was working hard to find her), and I couldn’t get home because I had an errand to run. If I didn’t run the errand, I wouldn’t be able to work the Double Trouble banquet that night. If I couldn’t work the banquet, Baylor wouldn’t be able to sleep. (Preying on her emotions.) I asked July if she could possibly pick up Bex, Quinn, Baby Oliver, and Candy, who was, according to my mother, two interesting whiff the sneeze calf (a sneezing cat, who, given the new fertilizer circumstances, I’d totally lost interest in) and keep everyone at her condo until she heard back from me. July said she’d do her best. She knew about the Black Kow accident because she’d stopped by my home a half hour earlier to check on Baby Oliver. Initially, she’d hustled Bex, Quinn, Baby Oliver, Candy, Birdy, and the sneezing cat to the cavernous master closet of my bedroom, because all the air outside my closet was unbreathable. She was running back and forth from the closet to the cleanup. She said the fumes were overwhelming. She’d called Maintenance. They’d delivered three industrial fans, which meant opening all the exterior doors: patio, balcony, and veranda. The fans weren’t helping much because they might have been exchanging indoor Black Kow air for outdoor Black Kow air, as there was so much Black Kow on the patio, balcony, and veranda. She didn’t know if the heat was bringing in the chemicals or the chemicals were bringing in the heat, but they couldn’t close the doors because of the living room carpet. A crew was on the way to rip up and replace the carpet for the second time in a single day, everyone was wearing disposable face masks and goggles, but she felt certain everything would be okay soon.
“Initially?”
“What?” July was panting.
“You said initially.”
“Initially, what, Davis?”
“You initially moved Bex, Quinn, the baby, Birdy, Candy, and the sneezing cat to my closet. Initially. Where are they now?”
She didn’t answer.
“July? Did you check Bex, Quinn, and the baby into Play?”
Number One: I think we’d all had enough of Play. Especially Baby Oliver.
Number Two: Since the Bellissimo reopened after Hurricane Kevin with an employee childcare center—think Sesame Street—Bex and Quinn had been there exactly once. It was supposed to have been a quick stop by July’s office so she could sign a requisition for an order of Fisher-Price Lift-the-Flap board books for the toddler library room. It turned into an all-day Play pass for Bex and Quinn. It took five hours and Bradley leaving a board meeting to coax the girls home. We hadn’t tried Play again. Mostly because we didn’t want our daughters moving out before they turned three. And, given what had just happened with Baby Oliver, there was a chance Bex and Quinn would be lost at Play until they were ten.
“It’s okay if you did, July. Under the circumstances. Just tell me.”
She still didn’t answer.
“July?” I asked. “Are my children and Baby Oliver in the casino with Baylor?”
“They’re not in the casino.”
So they were at Baylor and July’s condo and Baylor was babysitting.
He who carried a baby upside down.
He who, lately, wouldn’t spit on me or Fantasy if we were on fire, but would stop everything and keep my children, a one-year-old, my dog, a sneezing cat, and even Birdy James at the crook of July’s finger. The worst part of Baylor helping July, and by proxy helping me? There’d be no one—absolutely no one—in charge of the Bellissimo until Fantasy and I returned.
Fantasy tugged the waspy sleeve of my jacket. “Do you need to
go home?”
I might have needed to go home. I most certainly didn’t want to go home.
I covered the mouthpiece of my phone. “There and back in twenty minutes?”
“If that,” she said.
I looked at my watch. Then, to July, I said, “Let me run this one quick errand. Quick, quick. I’ll be back in twenty minutes. Thirty, tops. Call Housekeeping and requisition as many clean-air machines as they can get their hands on, and as soon as the carpet is replaced, set up the clean-air machines, get everyone home, and let them watch Frozen.”
“I’m on it.”
We hung up.
“Who has Bex, Quinn, and the baby?” Fantasy asked.
“Baylor.”
“That dirty dog.”
And that was when Fantasy and I did what we shouldn’t have, which was march our alien-suited selves to the Valet window, flash our Gaming Commission badges, and tell the attendant at the Valet desk we’d lost our ticket.
“It’s a black SUV,” I said. (Because the roads were packed with black SUVs. Surely our parking garage was too.)
“What make?” the boy asked. “What model?”
“Mercedes,” Fantasy said. “And brand spanking new. We just bought it. Be careful with it.”
Ten minutes later, we were pulling out of the Bellissimo in a highjacked Mercedes GLS 550 SUV with 410 miles on it.
“This car is nice.” Fantasy ran her free hand along the mahogany dash.
“It should be.” I was sticker-shocked staring at the dealer flyer that had been removed from the car window and shoved into the glove compartment. “Someone just paid ninety-seven thousand dollars for it.”
The light changed. Fantasy hit the gas and pulled onto Beach Boulevard traffic. “We’re only borrowing it for twenty minutes. We’ll put it right back where we found it.”
Except we didn’t.
The streets were laden with Elvii. They were gathered at every crosswalk, stuffed in every seat of every car on the road, and hawking Elvis t-shirts on every corner.
“Did we know this Elvis business would be this big a deal?” Fantasy honked at an Elvis standing in the middle of the road with a karaoke boombox on his shoulder. She lowered her window. “You’re not in the ghetto, fool. You’re in the middle of the road. Move.”
Double Trouble Page 12
