Armed and Fabulous (Lexi Graves Mysteries)

by Camilla Chafer

  "I want to be Beckett!"

  "Rizzoli and Isles?" I countered.

  "So much better. Two hot, clever chicks, who don't need a man."

  Here was the thing: we probably did need a man for this one. Maddox had been trained for this sort of event, and Solomon probably killed people in his sleep. Our training consisted of TV detective shows and overactive imaginations. We weren't exactly what you would call qualified.

  "Do we need to wear disguises?"

  I knocked that one on the head quickly before Lily got any ideas. "Hell to the no."

  "Fine. Tell me the plan."

  "So when I snooped through Martin Dean's office, I didn't find anything. It was as clean as a whistle. Nothing personal like photos or toys except this little sand garden thing.”

  “I really want one of them.”

  “I’ll note it for Christmas. Anyway, I've never seen a desk so tidy." I twisted my mouth in concentration. What was my, er, our plan? "I think we should go to his house."

  "And break in?"

  "No! Investigate, Lily." And break in.

  "Cool. What are we looking for?"

  My shoulders slumped. "I have no idea. Anything that could have targeted Dean?"

  "Like a weapon?"

  "No, the killers took the gun with them. I was thinking more like anything that would show a connection between Dean and those men. Pictures, memos… maybe a diary. Stuff like that." I knew that I was grasping at straws because I couldn't imagine Dean kept a diary about any illicit activities. I could see Dominic doing it for him, but I couldn’t imagine Dominic as an underground crime boss in a fraud ring.

  "Where does he live?"

  "Hyacinth Avenue in Bedford Hills. I got the address from his desk." I even remembered the number.

  Lily dumped the empty packet on the table and grabbed her coat. "Let's go."

  I drove. I almost hoped the traffic would be heavy because my stomach did little flips all the way over there, but traffic was light, and the rush hour was long over by the time we put our plan together.

  "Hey, do the two sexy cop dudes know we're doing this?" asked Lily, peering into the little mirror to swipe on an extra layer of lipstick.

  "Not exactly," I said, adding, "strictly speaking, no. And only one of them is a sexy cop dude."

  "What do we call the other one?"

  I thought about Solomon. How could anyone categorize Solomon?

  "Prince of Sexy Darkness?" suggested Lily.

  "Too much of a mouthful."

  "Huh-huh," giggled Lily and I rolled my eyes. "How do you know they haven't already been through Dean's place?" Her eyes opened wide. "Maybe his body is there."

  I shook my head. "Nope. Maddox said the cops went through the place. No body."

  Lily looked disappointed. "So why are we looking?"

  "We're fresh eyes. We won't look at things the way cops look at things. We might get something that they missed." I sounded a lot like Maddox.

  "Cool."

  We cruised past Dean's house and I parked a block away under the shade of a massive oak tree. If we were lucky, no one would notice my car parked there. If we were really lucky, it wouldn't be covered in bird poop by the time we got back.

  Lily had wrapped herself in a knee-length, black, trenchcoat and slim-fitting black pants as a concession to fashionable burglar chic. Fortunately, I noticed the black beret in her hands and tossed it back into her apartment as we left. Me: I went for a far less conspicuous jeans and fleece, zip-up jacket. I tucked my hair back in a low ponytail that swung as we walked. Walking around my apartment to change was no problem. If it were bugged, they'd expect to hear footsteps. I left my cell phone behind and no one followed us here, so far as I could see from my every-ten-second-mirror-check, so I figured we were safe from prying eyes with regard to law-breaking.

  Martin Dean's house was a large, white, two-story stucco with a detached garage. The front was protected by six-foot tall, iron gates and an equally high brick wall flanked by green shrubbery. I tried the gates, but they were firmly shut. An electronic keypad recessed in the wall offered no clues as to the code. I hadn't seen an automatic gate opener on Dean’s desk, so I figured he must have kept it in his car, wherever that was.

  "Now what?" asked Lily as I shook my head.

  "Let's try around back," I suggested, scanning our surroundings to see how obvious we were being. Fortunately, all the other houses were behind walls and gates too, ensuring we weren't being observed. Favorably for us, the wide road was quiet. Everybody was either working late at the office or settling down to their family dinners, rather than jogging, walking dogs, or whatever the well-to-do folk of Bedford Hills did in the evenings. My stomach rumbled. I wanted dinner too.

  We walked around the side of the property, seeking entry, without any luck. The walls were just as tall here too and smoothly plastered without any footholds. Besides, even if we did scramble up, I had no idea what would meet us on the other side. At the back of the property, we struck gold. The gate seemed to be some sort of service entrance that led to the garage and it was open just wide enough that we could turn sideways, suck in our stomachs and slither through.

  "Nice," said Lily, looking around as we walked cautiously along the path, poised to run should a salivating Doberman suddenly appear.

  On one side of the path was an indoor pool, and a long stretch of neat lawn that separated us. In front was the four-car garage with a pitched roof, and just beyond that, the house.

  We made for the house, ducking across a neat patio with a cluster of furniture covered in tarpaulin. It didn't look like Dean entertained outside very much. A large expanse of glass in sliding panels revealed a living room, complete with a grand piano. I moved past it, careful not to fog up the glass by breathing on it as we headed for the only door.

  "DNA," said Lily, wisely, before scrubbing at the window with her sleeve. At the kitchen door, we paused and I tried the handle. "I knew you were going to break in," she said.

  "It's not a crime if no one sees you do it," I replied.

  "Very true," she agreed.

  "Besides, it's open." The handle turned easily, and without any resistance, the door opened. Also, now that the owner was dead, technically maybe it wasn’t even committing a crime. Besides, how could Dean file a complaint? Through a medium?

  "Prints," said Lily, sliding on a pair of slim leather gloves. I scrabbled in my pockets and found wool mittens, cumbersome, but fingerprint-proof. They would have to do. I pulled them on and wiped the door handle clean.

  "Where to first?"

  "Here, I guess. I keep all my bills and important stuff in a kitchen drawer."

  "Do you?" Lily's brows knitted together.

  "Don't you?"

  "No. I have a box file for tax, a binder for bills, and a shoe box for credit card statements."

  The shoe box was very fitting, seeing as Lily's credit card slid through more shoe stores than not. All the same, I felt a little chagrined that she was apparently a lot neater than I. I resolved to go to the stationery store and buy some binders. Or filch them from the office.

  I opened drawer after drawer, but apparently, Martin Dean was a neat freak too. All I got were knives, forks, and kitchen implements I couldn't even name, never mind own.

  "Maybe he has a study," said Lily, poking her head into the pantry, then pulling out. "This is a big house."

  "Okay, let's look." A thought hit me. "You think it’s theft-alarmed?"

  Lily chewed her lip a moment, looking thoughtful. "Maybe. The door was open. No one leaves a door unlocked, even in a nice area like this."

  "Maybe the police forgot to lock it when they left?" All the same, we agreed it was better to just be quick than get arrested. Leaving the kitchen, and ignoring the breakfast nook, we walked down the hall, taking a few seconds to duck our heads into the living room, then into a formal dining room.

  "This is a really nice house," said Lily. "Imagine having a place this big all to yourself." />
  "Your parents' house is this big," I pointed out. I knew their house currently stood empty while Lily's dad was posted abroad, but Lily preferred her own small apartment to living in their sprawling house. Her parents were loaded, but she never got an attitude about it.

  "I know, but it was never really home. They always moved about so much, except for the last few years of school. Oh, here's the study. It's so..."

  "Neat," I finished, taking in the large mahogany desk, inlaid with a leather writing pad. Except, the leather chair behind it wasn't empty.

  It was occupied by Martin Dean.

  Lily screamed and grabbed my arm. I jumped and screamed too. After a moment, we both clapped hands over our mouths and stared, bug-eyed, at my dead boss.

  I moved to take a step closer, but Lily clung onto me. So instead, I strained forward, taking in his ghostly gray pallor and his slack, still-open eyes. He wore the same suit as when I found him dead in the office. He didn't smell good.

  "Is he dead?" asked Lily, her voice shaking.

  "Yes."

  “Still?”

  “Ye-e-es.”

  "Maybe we should call the police?"

  "How could we explain being here?" My heart raced, and I felt the creeping onset of panic.

  "Maybe we came to visit?" she suggested.

  "Maddox said the police swept the place already and there wasn't a body then. They might think we brought it… him." I flapped a hand at Dean. "Let's search and get this over with."

  "You take the desk. I'm not going near a corpse."

  "I don't want to go near a corpse either!"

  "You already found him dead once!"

  And it seemed pretty damn mean that I had to find him dead a second time.

  "Okay, I'll take the desk," I said with a sigh.

  Lily walked shakily over to the bookcases flanking the near side of the room and I crept towards Dean, half expecting him to jump up and shout, "Punk'd!" any moment. I'd probably die of a heart attack if he did that. As it was, he stayed completely dead while I moved towards him, edging my way next to him. A set of drawers occupied each side of the desk. I opened all of them in turn, poking through the papers with my mittened hands. I didn't find any death threats, demands for money, blackmail notes or confessions, which was a trifle disappointing, given that I at least had the corpse. And boy, oh boy, was he too close to me right now. All the time I was going through his drawers, I expected an icy hand to land on my back. Or worse, my ass.

  "Here's something interesting," I said. "It's an address book. Oh, it's new. There's nothing in it. Sorry."

  Lily peered from across the room. "I got nothing," she said. "Lots of books on tax, accountancy and biographies of business leaders. Yawn."

  I moved my attention to the top of the desk, crossing around so I wouldn't have to stand hip to corpse with Dean.

  There was a hole in the desk for power cords, but no laptop or PC, which I found interesting. There was a small, black notebook that I flicked through, but it was a jumble of numbers, and nothing that made any sense. I put it to one side, because it was an oddity and oddities were what undercover operatives look for. A leather pen holder held an assortment of pens and pencils. I fisted them in one hand and shook the pot upside down, but the only things that fell out were a few paper clips and a little notepad. I put the pens and paper clips back, almost screaming in frustration at picking each one up in my wooly, mammoth paws, and picked up the notepad, turning it over. It wasn't a notepad at all, but a little matchbook. It was black with a single flame. No name or phone number. I opened it, just in case something was written inside, but there wasn't.

  "Uh-oh, we've got company," said Lily, flattening herself against the wall. I dropped to the floor, despite the wooden blinds at the window, as the electronic gates swung open and a community security vehicle maneuvered inside.

  "Time to go!" I pocketed the notepad and the matchbook, and we half crawled, half ran for the back door, shutting it behind us just as the doorbell rang.

  "Given that Dean isn't exactly going to answer the door, I think we should run," I said and Lily nodded enthusiastically. We sprinted for the rear exit, arms and legs pumping, nearly getting ourselves stuck in our race to squeeze through the half-open gate at the same time. We slunk around the side of the house and crossed the road, trying not to hurry as we walked back to my car. I risked a glance over my shoulder and saw the security guard standing at Dean's door, before he started to walk around the house.

  "I don't think he saw us," I said, pulling out my key fob and beeping the car open. We slid in on either side and I rested my hands on the wheel for a moment. I pulled my mittens off and stuck them in my pockets.

  "I can't believe we found your boss!" Lily exclaimed. "Do you think we broke the case?"

  Occasionally, Lily wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer. "Nope. I just think we found the body."

  "We have to tell someone."

  I nodded. "I know. But I can't tell Maddox without admitting we broke into Dean's house."

  “Won’t he be pleased? You found Dean and he didn’t!”

  I wasn’t sure he would see it that way. “Don’t know,” I said.

  "So leave an anonymous tip. People do it all the time."

  "You'll have to call. I don't want the line picked up by Traci." I wasn't sure if my sister-in-law was even on duty in the dispatch office at the moment, but I didn't want to risk it.

  "Fine. Do you have a burn phone?"

  "No."

  "All undercover agents have a burn phone," protested Lily.

  "I don’t. I have a two-year plan."

  "Never mind. It was just a thought." Lily pulled the seatbelt around her and buckled up. "I know! Swing by my manager's office. He's always got a drawer full of phones people leave at the clubs. We'll use one of those."

  "Cool." I switched the engine on, pulled a three-point turn and drove back the way we came, heading to Lily's manager's office. The lights were off when we got there, after fifteen minutes of speeding, but she let herself in with a key, and turned off the alarm. She rooted around in the lost property box, producing a little cell phone with two bars of battery life remaining. She dialed 911 and placed a call, adopting a weird accent and telling them there was a dead body. When she gave the address, she dropped the 'h' on Hyacinth, and hung up when they asked her for details. Lily tossed the phone back in the lost property box, and reset the code on the door.

  "Didn't sound like Traci," she said as she locked up, pushing the handle to test it.

  "Good. What was up with the Australian accent?"

  "That was British!"

  "Oh!"

  "That was totally Lara Croft."

  "Um, okay."

  We dived back into my car. "What now?" asked Lily as she turned down the collar of her jacket.

  "Pick up a pizza and go home? Spend the evening looking really innocent while bleaching our eyeballs so that I don't see a corpse every time I close my eyes."

  Lily was quiet for a moment, then, "Sounds like a plan."

  Lily dialed, using her own phone this time, and ordered a large margherita, a side of garlic bread, and a tub of ice cream. We picked it up and went home. In Lily's apartment, we finished off an open bottle of red wine and munched on the pizza.

  "You think they found him yet?" she asked, diving in for a third slice.

  "Maybe. Maddox will tell me in the morning if they did."

  "You think he's going to drop by on a Saturday?"

  In all the excitement, I had forgotten it was Friday night and that I wouldn't be in the office in the morning. Normally, it would be a blessed relief. I would go out, shake off the office cobwebs, with my nails painted, wearing a pretty dress and hit the bars with Lily, if she wasn't working, or maybe with Traci or Alice if they could get a pass out. Or I would have a nice night in front of the television, facemask on, nail polish ready and a bunch of snacks by my side. My third option was spending the evening with one of my brothers, or, on rare oc
casions, babysitting. Serena, funnily enough, never fit into my plans and that was a mutual thing. As it was, I'd veered out of my routine and started the weekend with a B&E after fleeing the scene of a crime. I was fairly certain tampering with a corpse would never stick, seeing as I hadn't even touched Dean.

  But the thought of Maddox dropping by was a little weird, and, if I really thought about it, quite nice. It was sweet that he had checked up on me several times through the past couple of days and even offered to come to my parents’ with me. Although I was still a little cross about the whole drugging thing.

  However, he hadn't mentioned anything about stopping by, but then, I doubt he thought it was necessary as long as someone else was keeping an eye on me. Maybe I was reading too much into it because I liked him. He was good looking, and he had a cool job and danger didn’t scare him. I liked him a whole lot more now than when he was just my new, annoying boss. I'd take an excuse to hang out with him quite happily, so long as the conversation avoided dead things and the possibility of me being next.

  Thinking about Maddox made me think about Solomon. Tall, brooding, quiet Solomon. I wondered how he spent his weekends; if he hung out at home and did normal things. I couldn't imagine him dragging out a lawn mower on a Saturday morning, or tending a garden. I also couldn't imagine him stripping drywall, or painting, or cooking or going shopping at the mall. I was fairly certain he could do all of those things, because men like Solomon could do anything. It just didn't fit with the image in my mind of him disappearing off on some kind of commando mission at the drop of a hat.

  "I don't know," I said. "I guess if Maddox wants me, he'll find me."

  "Hope you're naked when that happens."

  "Lily!" Still, I had a hard time struggling with how that could be a bad idea.

  She stuck out her tongue and changed the subject. "You want to come to my spin class tomorrow to work off the pizza?"

  "Is the hunky instructor going to be there? The one with the dreadlocks?"

  "Anton? Yeah. He's the only reason anyone goes." Lily sighed.

  "Count me in."

  Chapter Six

  My bedside phone woke me at what felt like the crack of dawn. I stuck a hand out from under the covers and grappled for it. I knocked it out of the charger first, forcing me to lean over the edge of the bed to search for it on the floor. I found it, hit “answer” and pressed it against my ear as I shuffled back under the covers.