Beignets, Brides and Bodies

by J. R. Ripley

  Sure, tie my hands, why don’t you?

  Donna made me promise to eat the left over icky balls and hemp seed tabouli for dinner tomorrow.

  Johnny lied once.

  I lied twice.

  Johnny jammed the plastic cap back on the wine. ‘So, what time are we going to Lisa’s condo?’ He whispered across the kitchen table.

  I shot a glance over my shoulder. The sliding door between my mother and us was shut. Mom was in the midst of some pose that would have sent me to the emergency room. I had planned on attacking Lisa’s place solo but I didn’t see any harm in Johnny tagging along. ‘Mom should be asleep by eleven,’ I said. ‘We go then.’

  I felt good. I felt confident. I was doing something. Besides, what could go wrong?

  EIGHTEEN

  The narrow bathroom window stood six or seven feet off the ground. No light showed from inside but then I hadn’t expected to see any, what with Lisa being dead and all. And if she was a spirit, something told me she’d have excellent night vision.

  ‘Up you go,’ I whispered, slapping Johnny encouragingly on the shoulder. Wearing yesterday’s black sweater and trousers, he was perfect for playing the part of a cat burglar.

  Lisa Willoughby’s condo was a ground-floor end unit located in one of several blocks making up the Meadow Reach Condominiums complex. We stood outside between an AC unit and some prickly shrub that seemed to have it in for me. Mom’s VW Beetle was parked around the corner. I’d waited until I heard the sound of her sleeping to sneak into my bedroom and steal the keys from her purse. We’d be back soon and Mom would be none the wiser.

  It was like being a teenager all over again. Not that I’m saying I ever stole my folks’ keys and snuck out in the middle of the night.

  Nope. Not me. No way.

  Johnny’s pasty white skin looked even pastier and whiter by the moonlight cast by the waxing gibbous moon above us. ‘Me?’ he griped. ‘You go.’

  ‘No, you go.’ I gave him a little push.

  ‘Ouch! Careful!’ he hissed as he backed into the deadly bush. ‘Why me?’ He brushed himself off. ‘This was your idea.’ He folded his arms across his chest.

  I bit my cheek. Talk about stubborn. ‘You’re skinnier,’ I said, much as I hated to admit it. The phone went off like a sonic bomb in my purse.

  Johnny hissed at me. ‘Turn that thing off or answer it, Miller!’

  I thrust my hand into my purse, dug around in the dark and grabbed the pulsing phone. It was Brad. ‘Hello?’

  I waved my hand at Johnny, trying to get him to scramble up the wall to the window. I’d been avoiding Brad all day. He’d called three times earlier and left two messages. I didn’t know what to say and was a bit embarrassed about jumping him last night. I didn’t know why I’d bothered to answer now – reflex, I guess – or that nasty warning look of Johnny’s.

  ‘Hi, Maggie. It’s me, Brad.’

  ‘Hi, Brad.’ It was nearly midnight. What the heck was he doing calling so late? ‘Kind of late to be calling, isn’t it?’

  ‘Sorry,’ he replied. ‘I didn’t wake you, did I?’

  ‘No, no. You didn’t wake me.’ I made a face at Johnny, who leaned against the wall staring stupidly at me. I held my hand over the speaker. ‘Get going,’ I whispered. ‘You’re the athlete.’

  ‘Is everything all right?’ Brad asked.

  I removed my hand. ‘Oh, sure. Fine.’

  ‘Do you have company? Am I calling at a bad time?’

  ‘Company? Oh, yeah. Right. Company. Johnny and Clive are here. We’re playing canasta with my Mom. And,’ I added, glaring at Johnny, ‘it’s Johnny’s turn to move.’ I put a lot of emphasis on the word move.

  ‘Sounds fun,’ Brad replied.

  ‘Oh, it is,’ I said quickly. Johnny reached a tentative hand up to the window ledge. His fingers barely even reached and he was on tiptoes.

  ‘Yes, I’ll bet playing cards is a lot more fun than standing around in the dark trying to break into a dead woman’s condominium.’

  My blood froze quicker than a teaspoon of water in a blast chiller. ‘Ummm.’ My eyes widened. My head darted in three hundred directions at once.

  There was silence on the other end of the phone. I stepped away from the shielding bushes and peered toward the parking lot. A dark Honda was parked in one of the handicapped spots near the clubhouse. A soft glow came from within.

  Brad Smith.

  ‘Are you spying on me?’ I shouted into the phone.

  ‘Quiet, Miller!’ admonished Johnny. ‘You want someone to call the cops?’

  I stabbed the phone to end the call and marched to the car. I grabbed the top of the window frame and thrust my head in the open passenger-side window. ‘What are you doing here? Did you follow me?’

  Brad put up his hands in surrender. ‘Settle down, Maggie. I have a friend who lives in the complex. As I was leaving his place I noticed your mother’s VW on the street.’

  I groaned.

  ‘It’s kind of distinctive with those eyelashes over the headlights and the Aliens Onboard bumper sticker.’

  He was right. I should have brought the Schwinn. It was pink with pink streamers coming out the handlebars and still less conspicuous than Mom’s Bug.

  Johnny beckoned me from the distance. ‘Hey, Miller! I found a trash can. Hurry up.’ He waved. ‘I think we can reach now.’

  Mr Stealth he wasn’t. If I wasn’t careful he was going to get us both arrested.

  Brad smiled wickedly. ‘I think your date’s calling you.’

  ‘He’s not my—’ I stopped. He knew darn well Johnny was not my ‘date.’ The reporter was only goading me. ‘Go home, Brad.’

  ‘I’m going. I’m going.’ He reached for my hand. I didn’t pull it away. His fingers were warm and my palm tingled. It must have been the night air. ‘Please be careful, Maggie. That’s a murdered woman’s home you’re about to enter. Not only is that breaking and entering—’

  ‘The window’s half-open,’ I interjected. ‘Technically, it’s only entering.’ I had no idea of the legality of what I’d said but it sounded good to me. I could only hope it sounded good to the police if they caught us.

  Brad began again, his voice firm. ‘Not only is it breaking and entering, but it could be risky. Whoever killed Lisa might be lurking about. And that person may not take too kindly to seeing you poking around.’

  ‘So, you know it’s Lisa Willoughby’s condo.’

  He nodded. ‘Of course.’

  ‘I guess that means you’ve been poking around too.’ Take that, wise guy.

  He twisted his jaw. ‘I’m a reporter, Maggie. It’s what I do.’ Touché. Brad turned the key in the ignition. The Honda started up quietly. ‘Call me if you need me.’ He squeezed my hand then released it.

  I watched the red taillights disappear then hustled back to the side of the building.

  ‘Hold the can for me,’ Johnny said. He climbed up, shimmied his skinny hips through the open window, kicked his legs madly then dropped inside. The trash can fell over, spilling reeking trash all over the grass and my shoes. I smelled rotten eggs and spoiled cabbage.

  ‘Ooof!’

  Apparently he’d found the floor. It sounded loud. And hard.

  I heard scrambling and not a small amount of cursing, then Johnny whispered from within. ‘OK, Miller. You’re next.’

  I didn’t see any reason for both of us to enter the hard way. I cupped my hands to my mouth and whispered, ‘Go unlock the front door. I’ll meet you there.’

  Johnny cursed again. I worked my way around to the front of the building. The complex was quiet and the lights were out in most units. Small torchlights along the walkway lit my path.

  The door to Lisa’s condo squeaked open and a hand grabbed my shoulder and yanked me inside. I stumbled across the foyer and caught myself on the edge of an armchair. ‘What is your problem?’ I swiped at my shirt.

  ‘Sorry,’ Johnny said. ‘I’m nervous, that’s all.’ He paced the small li
ving room. ‘Help me find a light switch.’

  I grabbed his arm. ‘No, no lights.’

  ‘Why not?’ complained Johnny. ‘We’re supposed to be searching the place. How are we supposed to do that if we can’t see?’

  I held onto his arm. The place was a little spooky. Dark. Quiet. A murdered woman’s home. I was beginning to wonder if this had been such a good idea after all. Maybe Brad was right. Maybe we should leave this to the police. ‘What if somebody sees the light? What if they know Lisa Willoughby and that she’s dead and can’t possibly be turning on the lights?’ I mean, was I wrong? Did ghosts need lights?

  ‘So what do we do?’ Johnny sounded on edge. ‘I can barely see my fingers in front of my face.’ He yanked his arm free of my grip and wriggled his fingers in front of his nose.

  I thought for a moment then snapped my fingers. ‘I know.’ I fished my phone back from my purse. ‘We’ll use our phones.’

  ‘Good idea, Miller.’ Johnny dug his iPhone from his front pocket.

  I hit my screen and let the dim glow from the phone play across the walls. Johnny fiddled for a minute with his own phone. The next thing I knew, a bright beam of white light shot from the back of it like a flashlight.

  ‘How did you do that?’ I gasped, looking lamely from my phone to his.

  He smiled smugly. ‘Got a flashlight app. Don’t you?’

  I scrunched up my lips. ‘Just keep that lighthouse beacon of yours away from the windows,’ I said stiffly. ‘We don’t want to be attracting the attention of anyone passing by.’ I ran a hand along Lisa’s sofa. Expensive fabric. Everything in the place looked high-end. ‘How could she afford all this?’

  Johnny sniffed. ‘I told you, the woman was a thief. Yet she had the nerve to sue us!’

  Johnny could have been right about Lisa. This girl had lived way better than I did.

  ‘So what do we do now?’ asked Johnny. The light from his phone lightly played across the beige carpet. ‘Where do we start? What are we looking for?’

  I stuck my phone back in my purse. Its dim glow paled in comparison to Johnny’s flashlight app, so what was the point? ‘I don’t know,’ I confessed. I never thought we’d get this far but I wasn’t telling Johnny that. ‘Let’s look for a desk. Or a computer. Someplace she might keep her papers and other personal effects.’

  ‘Good idea,’ Johnny said again and shone his phone light around the living area. Two chairs, a sofa and a dark stained painter’s easel in the corner with a table covered with paints, charcoal pencils and chalks. A pair of black-rimmed reading glasses sat in a white bowl.

  Apparently Lisa was an artist. It wasn’t surprising and explained her career choice as a cake decorator and a dress designer before that. The penciled outline of a man occupied the canvas on the easel. ‘Hold it!’ I whispered to Johnny as the light played over the canvas.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I’m not sure. He looked familiar for a second.’

  Johnny twisted his lips. ‘Could be anybody,’ he said. ‘The woman was a terrible artist.’

  Sounded like sour grapes to me but I wasn’t about to poke the bear. We moved on. The kitchen was in the rear on the left with a dining table and chairs against the wall to the right. A sliding glass door led out to a patio stuffed with expensive-looking rattan furniture and a stainless-steel barbecue grill that must have set her back a thousand bucks. I pointed toward the corner of the patio. ‘Is that a pizza oven?’ I gasped.

  ‘Focus, Miller.’ Johnny aimed the light directly at my eyes and everything went nova.

  I shook my head, wiped the tears from the edges of my eyes and turned around. Moving slowly. On the prowl for clues.

  On the lookout for ghosts.

  The one thing I hadn’t seen so far was a TV. Not even a little one. Weird. Practically inhuman. Who doesn’t own a big-screen TV or three? This is America, after all.

  A couple of empty takeout Chinese food containers sat atop the table beside a wadded-up paper napkin. Probably the remains of Lisa Willoughby’s last dinner. The two chopsticks rested across one another looking eerily, and prophetically, like a cross.

  A frisson ran up my arms as light as the touch of a dancing hummingbird.

  There was nothing else of interest in the living room so we headed down the hall toward Lisa’s bedroom. I could only hope her ghost wasn’t there waiting for us. Johnny went first, holding the light. We passed a bathroom and entered a bedroom that held the light scent of blackcurrant and iris.

  Johnny’s light explored the near wall across from the bed. There was a narrow desk with an open laptop and a collection of hats one atop the other – like something out of Dr Seuss’ The Five Hundred Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins – to the right of it. The door to the walk-in closet stood open. ‘I’ll check in here.’

  While Johnny checked out the closet, I moved to the desk. I touched the spacebar on the laptop and it sprang to life. The wallpaper she’d selected for her screen’s laptop was the logo for the Detroit Tigers. So, Lisa was a baseball fan. My dead ex-husband Brian was a big baseball fan. I knew all the team names and logos. I knew more about baseball than I cared to.

  I clicked the left-side button of the built-in mousepad and a small white arrow appeared on the screen. The computer wasn’t password protected. I ran my finger along the touchpad and clicked on the My Files folder. If Lisa Willoughby had any secrets – secrets that might lead to her killer – this was the place to start, though I didn’t have high hopes. If there was anything useful on the laptop, surely the police would have found it already.

  Johnny tapped me on the shoulder.

  ‘Hold on, Johnny,’ I whispered. ‘I want to look at this.’

  He tapped me again. ‘I think you’d better take a look at this first, Miller.’

  I spun around. ‘What? What is so interesting that I—’

  Johnny had his light trained on the bed and an open brown suitcase. The contents of the suitcase were spilled out across the bedspread.

  I crossed to the bed and fingered a pair of trousers. ‘These are men’s clothes.’ I looked at Johnny. He nodded in agreement.

  There were several papers tucked behind a mesh pouch on the right side of the suitcase. ‘Shine the light over here,’ I said, squinting to get a better look. There was a receipt of some sort on top. ‘It looks like it’s made out to’ – I pushed Johnny’s arm lower so I could read the bottom folded edge – ‘Willoughby,’ I said finally. ‘Houston.’ I straightened. ‘Uh oh.’

  ‘You mean Lisa’s brother?’ Johnny’s eyes widened.

  I nodded.

  ‘Her brother is here? Staying here in her condo?’

  I placed my hands on Johnny’s shoulders. ‘Calm down, Johnny.’ If he got this nervous over a simple breaking and entering it was no wonder he’d never taken the gold medal – you need nerves of steel not marshmallow. ‘It’s no big deal. Nobody knows we’re here,’ I assured him. ‘And nobody will ever know we’ve been here.’ I returned to the desk and snapped the laptop shut.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I could hear the worry in his voice. This guy was more skittish than a racehorse. This was the last time I was going to take Johnny Wolfe along on a break-in. ‘I’m taking the laptop.’

  ‘Taking the laptop?’ Johnny’s hands flew to his face. ‘Are you nuts, Miller? That’s stealing!’

  ‘From a dead woman,’ I said. ‘Mitigating circumstances.’ I pushed Johnny toward the door. ‘Besides,’ I added, ‘I’ll bring it back after I’ve had a chance to go through her files.’

  ‘But you can’t—’

  I clapped a hand over Johnny’s mouth. ‘Did you hear that?’ I whispered.

  Johnny pushed my hand from his lips and spat like I’d just forced him to drink a jigger of arsenic. He shone the light in my eyes. ‘Hear what?’

  I winced at the sharp light. ‘I thought I heard steps. Voices.’ I held up a finger. ‘Listen.’ We both strained to hear. ‘It sounds like somebody’s putting a key in the front lock.�
��

  ‘A key in the—’

  I clapped my hand over Johnny’s lips once again.

  He knocked my hand away. ‘Must you keep doing that?’

  ‘Sorry.’ I pointed to the phone. ‘Shut off that light,’ I whispered.

  Johnny nodded, did whatever he needed to do to turn off the flashlight and slid the phone into the pocket of his jeans.

  I heard the door swing open. ‘Uh oh,’ I whispered.

  ‘Funny,’ I heard a voice that sounded like Houston’s say, ‘I thought I’d locked the door when I left. No wonder I had such a hard time getting the thing open; every time I thought I was unlocking it, I was locking it.’

  A woman’s gentle laugh.

  ‘Come on in.’

  Double uh oh.

  NINETEEN

  Clutching the laptop to my chest, I moved stealthily out of the bedroom and down the hall. Hopefully they weren’t heading straight to the bedroom. What would Houston do if he caught us? I edged to the corner and slowly peeked around the wall. It was Houston all right. And the woman with him was Laura Duval! I almost shouted out her name but caught myself in the nick of time.

  I tiptoed back to the bedroom and reported to Johnny who was crouched behind the far side of the king-sized bed. ‘It’s Houston and Laura from the thrift shop.’

  Johnny bit his fingernails. ‘You’ve really done it this time, Miller. What are we going to do if they come in here?’

  ‘Hide under the bed?’ I suggested.

  He glowered. ‘I already tried that. It’s on a platform.’

  Yikes. ‘Closet?’

  ‘Sure,’ he said, way more snidely than he need have. ‘Because nobody ever goes into a closet.’

  ‘Do you have a better idea?’ I demanded.

  Johnny pouted. ‘No.’

  ‘We could go out the bedroom window.’ I looked at the big window appraisingly. ‘No problem.’ One curtain was pulled open, the other shut. Moonlight gave us just enough light to stop us banging our shins into hard objects.