by Norah Wilson
“Okay, Dixiecakes, I’m outta here.”
“What?” This time I managed to keep my voice down. “Are you kidding me? You’re leaving? Seriously?”
“I wasn’t joking,” he said, looking flushed and uncomfortable. “No one talks about cuddle club.”
Oh for pity’s sake! How stupidly far would they carry this cloak... or rather Cuddle-Uppie... of secrecy? Okay, sure, I could picture the reaction from Dickhead’s fellow cops if they found him here. He’d be drummed out of the blue brotherhood. But I really thought professionalism would override that macho crap. For God’s sake, he’d dragged me into this with his suspicions, and he was bailing on me now, when there was a body?
“C’mon, Dix, you can handle this.”
“Well, duh. Of course I can handle it, but—”
My words trailed off as I realized I was talking to myself. Dickhead was already blasting toward the exit. He paused in the doorway and shot me a meaningful look, as if to say, “You’re on this, Dix Dodd.”
Fine. I was on it. I gave him an enthusiastic thumbs up. Well, okay, strictly speaking, it was the middle finger I gave him, but it was enthusiastic.
Dickhead’s eyes narrowed, but he held my gaze a moment longer, his message clear: he found Albert Valentine’s sudden demise as suspicious as I did.
Damn it!
As soon as Dickhead disappeared, the first faint sound of a siren reached my ears. Also, the sounds of Gaetan moaning and wringing his hands. Maybe he’d only just started up with this whining, or maybe I’d just managed to ignore it until now.
“Oh, God!” He threw his chubby little hands in the air in a why-me kind of way.
“I... I can’t believe it,” a quavering female voice said.
I turned to see Babe standing close to the body, practically leaning over Dylan and Ruth-Ann. After her frantic, compulsive tidying (frankly, I’d seen more bizarre and irrational responses in this kind of situation), she’d re-emerged from the back room, presumably ready now to confront what had happened. Except as soon as she got a look at Albert, she started to cry.
“Our poor Albert!” she sniffed.
Ruth-Ann, on her feet now, put her free arm around the woeful Babe, as she held Dylan’s cell phone to her ear. Both of them watched Dylan’s grimly determined efforts.
“Oh, God,” Gaetan said again. He’d been leaning against the counter for support, but now he slid down to sit on the floor.
This was my chance. I walked over to Gaetan, slowly, wobbly like I was as upset as the other ladies, and slid down beside him. I slid a little too quickly and landed with an involuntary, “Umph!” A fleece-covered butt sliding across worn carpet is one thing; a fleece-covered butt sliding down a polished wood counter was quite another.
Gaetan turned his head and gave me a distracted look, then went back to staring intently at Albert Valentine, as if willing him to draw a breath.
That wasn’t happening.
“Poor fellow,” I said. The sweet, sympathetic approach—that would work best here, I reckoned. “Oh, poor, dear... our Albert. He seemed fine one minute, and the next—”
“I hope this doesn’t hurt business. Oh, God, a death. On the premises! That’s just... so unfair!”
Yeah, Gaetan Gough was all heart. The little prick.
Hold your temper, Dix, counseled that little voice in my head. Just for once in your life, keep your mouth shut.
Then a bigger voice in my head slapped the little voice down.
“I’m guessing Albert’s death is more of an inconvenience to Albert than it is to you.”
Gaetan blinked, as though only now really becoming aware of my presence. “Of course. Poor Albert.” He shook his head sorrowfully. “Yes, yes, poor fellow. Very unfortunate.”
As fake sincerity went, it wasn’t bad. I’d caught Gaetan off guard momentarily, but he was clearly back on his game.
The door opened, and two hulking ambulance attendants strode in with a gurney, led by one of the cuddlers, a middle-aged lady whose name I didn’t remember. Well, at least one of the club members had conscience enough to hang around to greet the ambulance crew and direct them to the scene. Bringing up the rear were two police officers who’d also responded to the call.
Dylan and Ruth-Ann gave way to the EMTs. Ruth-Ann hung up with the 9-1-1 operator and handed Dylan his phone back. The older woman looked exhausted, but she still had enough energy left to comfort Babe, who was still sniffling. Ruth-Ann wrapped her arms around Babe in a very there there way, pulling her gently backward to give the emergency responders room to work.
Once Albert had been bundled onto a gurney between chest compressions, the paramedics slapped leads from a portable external defibrillator onto his extremely hairy bare chest and zapped him, to no effect, or at least none that I could see. One of the paramedics—the older of the two—rose and asked what had happened. Ruth-Ann handed Babe off to Dylan (a process that resembled peeling off a limpet) and stepped forward to answer the paramedic’s questions. Once he realized she was a clinician, the two of them lapsed into medicalese. After a second jolt from the defibrillator failed to alleviate the grim expression on the EMTs’ faces, they piled the defibrillator onto the gurney and evacuated without further delay.
The police had questions, too. Mostly for Gaetan.
Yes, Albert had seemed fine when he’d walked in. No, he’d shown no signs of distress. Never had he complained of chest pains or anything like that! Cuddle club? Well, yes, there’d been a few others here, but they’d all been so upset about poor Albert...
“It was his heart.” That pronouncement came from Ruth-Ann, who was standing there with her arms wrapped around herself. The paramedics had gleaned all they could from her and were whisking Albert out the door.
“Are you familiar with his medical history, ma’am?” the female officer asked. She was definitely the senior of the two on this call. I recognized her, actually. Officer L. Pivans—Leola to her friends (of which I wasn’t). And though Dickhead still shouldn’t have rabbited, I was blaming him less and less for doing so. Pivans would have ridden him hard, and not in the good way.
“Not really,” Ruth-Ann said dryly, “but I know sudden cardiac arrest when I see it.”
“Did you know him outside of this... um... club?” Pivans asked.
“Only casually. The last time I saw him outside of this room was on campus last month. One of my former colleagues was retiring, and they had a big do for him at the Stark Center.”
“Ah, Albert did the flowers,” I guessed.
“Flowers?” Ruth-Ann looked at me like she wanted to ask if I was on crack. “Hardly. He was tending bar.”
I blinked. “But I thought he was a flower salesman?”
She shook her head. “No, he was definitely a bartender.”
Ah, of course. It looked like Dickhead wasn’t the only one lying about who he was at cuddle club.
“Albert was always so friendly here,” Ruth-Ann said. “Such a gentle soul.”
Gaetan snorted behind me, in that you’ve-got-to-be-kidding way. When all eyes turned toward him, he schooled his expression into sympathetic lines again. “Yes, that was Albert. Gentle.”
Constable Pivans cleared her throat. “So, did he have any heart issues that you’re aware of?”
Ruth-Ann, who’d been giving Gaetan a frosty look, turned back to Pivans. “Nothing specific, though I think he was under some stress. That’s why he was coming to cuddle club—to help him combat stress.”
Gaetan made a choking noise this time, but turned it into a cough. Interesting.
“Also, he was very short,” Ruth-Ann added, then turned an icy glare on Gaetan. “It’s been observed that short men are statistically more likely to develop heart disease.”
Gaetan’s face flushed, and he drew himself up as tall as he could make himself without actually going on tiptoe.
Suddenly, I felt Constable Pivans’s eyes on me. I looked up to see that she’d been studying me while I’d been absorbed studying the interp
lay between Ruth-Ann and Gaetan. Whoops.
“This has just been so upsetting!” I turned to Dylan, clutching at his arm. “We’d better go.”
“Of course.” Dylan peeled a puffy-eyed Babe away from his chest, revealing big dark splotches on his pajama top. He handed a tear-soaked and snotty Babe gently off to Pivans’s alarmed partner.
While the young male cop sputtered and stuttered, Pivans turned to me. “I’ll walk you out.”
“Oh, that’s not necessary. You’re far too busy—”
“Oh, I insist. And you alone, Ms. Do—”
“Davidson!” I shouted.
Pivans blinked, then nodded imperceptibly.
Dammit. Now she knew for certain that I was undercover.
Dylan cast me a questioning look, and I shot back an it’s-okay-I-can-handle-this look.
He inclined his head slightly. “I’ll get our coats and meet you out there.”
I headed outside with Pivans.
“How do you know Albert Valentine?” she asked.
“Well, Leola... may I call you, Leola?” I asked with a smile.
“No.”
Fair enough. “I met him here at the club.”
“Nice guy?” she asked.
“I suppose. Liked flowers.”
“Known him long?” She looked at me sidelong. “I mean, you seemed kind of upset just now.”
“I’m sensitive,” I said.
She laughed with real amusement. I guess my reputation really did precede me.
Pivans asked me a few more questions. What did I know of Gaetan Gough? How many people had been there earlier? Where did I learn of this club?
Fair questions. Easy enough to answer or evade. But then she asked me one more question.
“Who hired you to stake out the cuddle club, Dix Dodd?”
My heart gave a little jolt, which I’m sure was just what Constable Pivans was trying to accomplish. “That’s confidential information.”
Pivans smiled, then turned and walked back into the building.
Dammit. She’d be on this now like white on rice. (Yeah, I stole that metaphor too).
Chapter 6
THE NEXT morning was Saturday. I tried to sleep in, but my brain wouldn’t quit worrying about Constable Pivans.
I mean, I appreciated that she hadn’t blown my cover last night at the club. But I didn’t appreciate that she knew there was a cover to be blown.
And yeah, she totally knew something was up. And this young cop had a rep. She was ambitious, tough, and smart. Which kinda sounded like my own bio, actually. No wonder I liked her.
Sort of.
What were the chances she’d leave this alone? Not good. And why hadn’t she blown my cover? I wasn’t naïve enough to believe it was altruism. On the other hand, she wouldn’t be the first cop to give me enough rope to solve a case for them. (Or to hang myself, as the case may be.)
But if I told Dickhead about my conversation with Pivans, he’d hire someone else. That thought bothered me, and not just because of the potential for losing a paycheck. The mystery had hooked me, and I was dog-determined to solve it. There was something going on here, something serious. I felt it in my bones. Something was not right with these people, and I don’t just mean in the they-like-to-cuddle way. I didn’t for a minute believe Albert’s death was from natural causes.
Dammit! If only Dickhead had gotten that smoothie out the door. Of course, he’d have had to come clean about his cuddle club affiliation if he had. He’d have had to open a file, turn the smoothie over to evidence for forensic analysis. It even occurred to me to wonder if it hadn’t been Dickhead himself who’d tossed the smoothie out, not Babe. But no, I didn’t really believe that. If there’d been evidence on the line, I was pretty sure he’d have manned up, much as I hated to admit it. But since the evidence had been flushed into the city’s sewer system, he probably didn’t see the point of humiliating himself.
Toss. Turn. Toss. Turn. And then the doorbell rang.
I knew exactly who it was. Like I said, it was Saturday.
Rochelle Banks was my best friend. We’d met years ago, when I was working at Jones and Associates and her little sister needed some help. Little sister got said help in that we got asshole boyfriend out of the picture, and Rochelle and I had been fast friends ever since.
It was nothing for her to pick up tickets for a Stones concert, announce that we were going, and there’d be a road trip in the making. It wasn’t unheard of for her to call me in the middle of the night to tell me the woes of her latest lost love (okay, well, maybe not woes so much as snorts of laughter—neither of us were the woes type). And it was absolutely not out of the ordinary for her to show up on my doorstep early on Saturday mornings bearing fresh-brewed coffee, bagels, and news. As personal secretary to one of Marport City’s most prestigious and highest-ranking judges, it was usually pretty damn good news. Not good as in joyous. More like good as in juicy. Nothing that was privileged or protected, mind you. Nothing about cases. She was strictly professional about the judge’s business. No, this was more water cooler stuff. Court house gossip. And it usually encompassed the cops, from the chief of police to the lowliest constable, as well as lawyers, lesser judges and politicians. She got the dirt before the rest of us knew it was... well, dirty.
This bleary-eyed morning, as I opened the door to her 8 a.m. cheer, Rochelle was balancing a box in her arms in addition to the customary tray of extra-large coffees and the paper bag that I knew contained perfectly-toasted cinnamon-raisin bagels slathered in cream cheese.
“What’s in the box?”
“Don’t know. It’s from your mother. I stopped to chat up the concierge and he sent it up with me. Said he’d missed you with it last night.”
The concierge was a retired commissionaire by the name of Chester whom the building management paid to keep a presence in the lobby. This was what I’d inherited when I’d bought out mom’s condo.
“Yeah, I was a little late getting in.” I took the box from Rochelle and motioned her inside. Closing the door behind her, I looked at the package. Yep, that was my mother’s handwriting, and that was her address in Florida. I noticed it was marked Fragile. Handle with Care.
“Shake it,” Rochelle urged. “It rattles.”
I obliged and felt the loosely packed contents rattle around a bit. “So it does.”
“What do you bet it’s homemade cookies. Mothers are like that.”
I sighed. “What do you bet it’s not?”
“Oh, maybe it’s whoopee pies!”
“This is my mother we’re talking about, Rochelle. I think that precludes whoopee pies. Besides, whoopee pies don’t rattle.”
Moving aside the pile of yet-to-be-put-away (okay, this’ll-never-get-put-away) laundry, we settled in on my living room sofa. Rochelle pulled the coffee table closer to unload the Saturday morning breakfast.
I reached for my coffee and sat back.
Rochelle gestured to the box which I’d deposited on the coffee table. “You’re not going to open it?” She turned incredulous eyes on me. “Aren’t you even a little bit curious?”
Curious wasn’t the word. “Fine. I’ll open it.” I took a sip of life-giving Colombian, then put my cup back down to pick up the box. I opened it slowly, pulled back the tissues and...
“Oh my sweet baby Jesus!”
“Whoopee pies?” Rochelle moved in close beside me to peer into the box.
Not exactly. But I’m sure my mother had given some kind of cheer when she and her geriatric friends cut out these babies.
Incredibly, they were cookies. Frosted pink, sprinkled with sprinkles, and shaped like dicks. Yes, that’s right—penis-shaped cookies. And not a droopy one in the bunch. When I’d phoned Mother earlier in the week, she’d said she was having friends over and there had been some mention of cooking. I should have known. Except she could have meant she and her cronies were mixing up cocktails. Or baking those special brownies.
“Ah, breakfast is s
erved,” Rochelle grabbed a cookie and took an... um... strategic bite out of it. “Your mom’s cool, Dix.”
“That’s one word for her,” I muttered.
I took another sip of hot coffee, grabbed a still-warm bagel and started to pick out the raisins so I could eat them first. I know, just one of my endearing habits.
“So,” Rochelle said. “Tell me about cuddle club. How’s it hanging at Gaetan Land?” (Of course Rochelle punctuated that with another well-placed bite, grinning as she did.)
Yeah, I’d told her how I’d be spending my Friday night, and was dying to tell her more. And also dying to hear what my best friend knew about the same.
Twenty minutes later, Rochelle had the nutshell version of what had happened: the silk jammies, the fuzzy pink jammies, the happy clientele, Elizabeth Bee, Dylan-hugging Mabel, and the rest, the strange proprietor and his kid sister. Making tents. And Dylan telling the group gathered there (so easily, so easily) that we were lovers. And of course I told her about the demise of Albert Valentine.
She opened her purse, pulled out her iPhone. “Let’s check the online obits.”
“Excellent.”
Less than a minute later, she handed over the phone. “This him?”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
That was definitely the guy I’d met last night, but in healthier times. Younger times. He was smiling in this picture. I scanned the write-up. He was leaving behind five adoring kids, all grown, married and living in various parts of the country. A wife, Cathy Valentine. (Not a beloved wife... interesting). Albert was 60, had worked forty years for Marport City Auto Sales before retiring to tend bar part time. Donations? Yep—to heart and stroke research.
Man, that made three heart-related demises in one month for Gaetan Land. And as much as I was tempted to make a wise crack about knowing all that huggy-cuddly stuff was bad for a person, this was serious.
“So...?”
I looked at Rochelle. “So what?”
“So tell me about the club.”
“Hello? Just did.”
“Yeah, but tell me about the men. Were there any good looking ones there? Besides Dylan I mean.” She bit the end off of a cookie, and grinned at me. “And Detective Richard Head, of course.”
