Maggie Lee | Book 27 |The Hitwoman and the Body

by Lynn, JB

  “Well, that makes two of us,” he said with a wink.

  “Habile,” God piped up from between my breasts. “Habile. H-A-B-I-L-E. Habile. Dexterous.”

  Templeton’s eyebrows raised at the squeaking sound, but he didn’t say anything.

  “Maybe, habile?” I suggested to him. “H-A-B-I-L-E?”

  He looked down at his puzzle and beamed. “That works! You’re full of surprises, Maggie. Thank you.”

  “Told you!” God gloated.

  “Is there anything else I could do for you?” I asked Templeton. “Get you a drink? Or a snack?”

  He looked up from the book of crosswords he was doing and smiled with amusement. “There’s nothing you can do, Maggie,” he said. “Go talk to Griswald.”

  Nodding, I slowly made my way toward the back door, almost tripping over DeeDee as she came racing up to me.

  “Maggie! Maggie!” she barked excitedly.

  “What’s up?” I asked. I bent to rub between her ears, thinking something was wrong.

  “Missed you I.” She put her paw on my knee for emphasis.

  “I missed you, too,” I lied. The truth was, I hadn’t given her a single thought while I was gone.

  “Did you miss me?” God called out from my bra.

  “No,” DeeDee panted and then raced away.

  “She only misses those that feed her,” God groused.

  Chuckling, I went in search of Griswald. Templeton had been right. He and my grandfather were in the back, building something out of wood and nails and banging away with a hammer. At first glance, I couldn’t identify their project.

  “Maggie!” Griswald yelled, almost as excited as the dog had been to see me. He laid down his hammer and hurried toward me. This was not his usual manner of approach, and I found myself holding my breath, worried that something else had happened with Delveccio.

  He grabbed my elbow, turned me around, and yelled over his shoulder to Herschel, “We’ve got to get to work!”

  “We do?” I asked.

  “Get me away from your grandfather,” he ordered, propelling me right back into the house.

  “I thought you liked him,” I said.

  “I like him when he’s not putting me to work,” Griswald replied. “I’ve never even been able to leave the house to go see Mrs. Hallangen’s nephew.”

  I grinned, realizing that, for once, I was ahead of him. “Well, I went to the funeral home,” I said proudly.

  “And did you find out anything?” While he asked the question, he rummaged in the fridge, pulling out two water bottles, one of which he handed to me.

  “They said--” I began.

  “Quick,” he implored. “Let’s get out of here.” He practically ran for the front door. I hurried after him, waving to Templeton on the way out.

  “They said,” I began again, once we were both settled into Griswald’s car and he was making his way up the driveway. “That the Hallangen funeral arrangements were pretty standard. Nothing stood out to them. To be honest, none of the people I spoke with seem particularly suspicious.”

  “And yet, the man’s ashes were stolen,” Griswald reminded me. “You’d be surprised at how well people can lie.”

  I nodded, staring out the window. I, myself, had become a very good liar since I’d become a part-time assassin.

  “I did get a chance to talk via phone to Hallangen’s business partner,” Griswald revealed. “He said the business was in good shape. Not in financial straits. No reason to believe he’d made an enemy of anyone.”

  “Well, I could see why somebody would want him dead, if they were enemies, but I really don’t see how a business would care about his ashes.”

  “Agreed,” Griswald murmured. “I didn’t think he was a viable suspect, either. That brings us to Derek,” Griswald said. “Hallangen’s nephew. Mrs. Hallangen’s prime suspect.”

  I nodded. “That’s who we’re going to see?”

  Griswald nodded.

  “Is he expecting us?”

  “No. It’s always best to spring questions on suspects without warning.”

  “But Mrs. Hallangen didn’t give us a reason why she thought the nephew would have stolen the ashes,” I mused aloud. “She just said he wasn’t trustworthy.”

  “Sometimes people have good instincts about family,” Griswald said.

  I gulped and stared down at my hands. I really hoped that he didn’t have good instincts about me. If he did, either I’d end up in jail, or he’d end up dead. I didn’t want either of those things to happen.

  “The apartment is over the deli,” Griswald revealed, sliding his car into a nearby parking spot and pointing at the delicatessen across the street.

  “Ooh,” I said excitedly. “I wonder if they have sour pickles.”

  “More food,” God muttered from my bra.

  “We’re not here to eat, Maggie,” Griswald reminded me gently.

  “It’s just, I haven’t had anything to eat since your pancakes this morning,” I told him. I held up my now empty water bottle. “And this is not doing too much for my hunger pangs.”

  “Fine,” Griswald sighed in exasperation. “You go find a pickle, and I’ll go find our suspect.”

  “Very unprofessional,” God critiqued from my bra.

  I didn’t care. I was hungry. And delis always had the best sour pickles.

  While Griswald climbed a rickety metal stairway up to the door of the apartment above the shop, I strolled in the front door.

  “Can I help you?” a young man asked from behind the counter. He wore a white apron and a look of boredom.

  “Pickles,” I told him. “I’m in search of pickles.”

  “Well, then you’ve come to the right place,” he said. “We have dill, half-sour, sour, or gerkin.”

  “I would like to buy a container of sour pickles,” I told him excitedly. My mouth was watering.

  Chuckling, he walked over to the section of the store where there was a big vat of pickles. He held up two plastic containers, silently asking me which size I would prefer.

  “The larger, please,” I requested. “I just love them. Pickles and olives are my favorite vegetables.”

  A strange look passed over his face as he began to fill the tub he held, and I realized this stranger didn’t need to know so much about my eating preferences. “Sorry,” I muttered. “I’m just really hungry.”

  “My uncle loved sour pickles, too,” he said sadly, cramming another pickle in.

  “Are you Derek?” I asked.

  He nodded. “How did you know?”

  “Well,” I said. “I’m actually here to see you.”

  He took the container of pickles that he’d been filling with a pair of silver tongs, and threw it at me. Pickle juice, pickles and pickling spices came flying through the air at me. Then, he took off, running out of the store.

  “Griswald!” I screamed loudly as I chased after him.

  “I’m never going to get my pickles now,” I complained breathlessly, running after our now main suspect.

  17

  As I chased after Derek, my lungs exploding, my heart working overtime, I wondered how this was any different than some of my other non-legitimate jobs.

  “You need to have an exercise program,” God lectured as he scrambled up my bra strap to ride on my shoulder. “You wheeze like a deflating balloon.”

  This was not the first time that he’s told me that my physical prowess is questionable. He has a point. I’m just too lazy to actually go out and do any kind of structured exercise program. Basically, usually, the only times I run, are when I’m running for my life. This was unusual in that I was just chasing someone down. I wasn’t even sure whatever Derek may have done with the ashes was even illegal. After all, the person they belonged to was already dead. It wasn’t like anyone was actually hurt by the theft.

  As I huffed and puffed and almost blew an aneurism, I realized I was actually gaining on him.

  I wondered what kind of awful shape he h
ad to be in, that I was going to actually be able to catch him.

  Hearing a strange slapping noise coming from behind me, I glanced over my shoulder and saw that Griswald was quickly gaining on me.

  “The old guy’s going to lap you,” God mocked. Then, he decided to play the part of an announcer at a horse race. “It’s Derek the Pickle Man in the lead and Gasping Maggie currently in second, but Near Retirement and Recently Shot Griswald is making his move,” he cheered excitedly.

  Spurred on, both by his heckling and the fact that I really didn’t want Griswald to lap me, I sped up. It’s amazing what the human body can do when you put it under pressure.

  “And now, Gasping Maggie is attempting to close the distance between her and Derek.” God was having way too much fun with his little game. I was tempted to flick him off my shoulder.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that Griswald was almost abreast of me.

  Pride is an amazing tool. Somehow, it helped me ignore the painful stitch in my side and added speed to my steps. I drew ahead.

  “Griswald and Maggie are no longer neck-and-neck,” God continued. “But Derek is still in the lead. How long until our chasers run out of fuel?”

  “I hate you,” I wheezed.

  “If you’d brought the dog, you wouldn’t have this problem,” he pointed out.

  The fact that he was extolling the virtues of DeeDee caught me off guard, and I stumbled. At least, that’s what I was blaming it on. Not the fact that I couldn’t keep moving my legs anymore. Derek rounded a corner, and I, gasping for breath, slowed to a stop. Griswald raced past me.

  “And it’s Griswald in second place,” God cheered.

  I bent over, hands on my knees, and tried to suck in some much-needed oxygen. “Nobody ever said anything about chasing people,” I panted. “You didn’t say that was part of the job description.”

  The lizard offered me no sympathy. I pressed my hand into the stitch in my side that felt like it was boring a whole through my ribs. I was in pain. I couldn’t breathe. And I’d been lapped by Griswald. It was not a good day.

  A minute later, when my breathing had almost returned to normal and I was thinking about how disgustingly sweaty I now was, Griswald reappeared. He was alone.

  “I lost him,” he said.

  “That makes two of us.”

  “I assume that was Derek?”

  I nodded.

  “What did you say to spook him?” Griswald asked, pulling a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiping his brow. I wondered if that was official U.S. Marshal “we chased them down” issued equipment.

  “I just said I was there to see him,” I said. “Then, he threw pickles at me.”

  “And you stink of it,” God felt the need to point out. He wasn’t wrong. I did smell a lot like pickle brine.

  “Certainly a suspicious reaction,” Griswald said. “I’ll sit on his place. Eventually, he’ll come back.”

  I frowned. “We’re going to do a stakeout?”

  He shook his head. “No,” he said. “I’ll handle the stakeout. I’m not sitting in a car with you. You really stink.”

  “I didn’t know that the job would involve this level of violence,” I told him.

  He raised his eyebrows, silently reminding me that I had recently shot and killed a man in order to save his life.

  “On a regular basis,” I amended. “I didn’t know it would be violent on a regular basis.”

  “It usually isn’t,” Griswald admitted. “You just seem to have bad luck.”

  “And there’s the understatement of the year,” God opined.

  “Go home, Maggie. Call an Uber, take a shower, change your clothes, maybe burn those,” he finished.

  Nodding, I pulled out my phone. “Do you want me to come back and bring you some food or a change of clothes or…”

  He shook his head. “I can handle this.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I should probably get out of this general area before he returns and sees that I’m hanging out here.”

  “Excellent idea,” Griswald agreed. “I’ll wait in the car. I’m sure he didn’t spot that.”

  Nodding, I hurried away, scrolling through my phone.

  Once I was out of sight of Griswald, I made a call. I know that he had expected me to call a car service, but I called somebody better.

  18

  “Let me guess,” Gino said before I could even say a word. “You need a ride.”

  “Why…yes,” I admitted.

  “Okay,” he said. “I’ll be there in about fifteen.”

  He disconnected the call before I could even tell him where I was. I frowned at my phone.

  “What did he say?” God asked.

  “You weren’t eavesdropping?”

  “You had the phone pressed too tightly to your ear for me to hear,” he complained.

  “He said he’ll be here in fifteen minutes,” I revealed. “But he didn’t ask where I was.”

  A car slid to a stop beside me. The passenger window rolled down, and Gino said, “You just can’t stay away from me, Maggie.”

  I blinked, surprised that he was already there. It had probably only been… “Fifteen seconds,” I said as understanding dawned.

  “We aim to please,” Gino said with a grin.

  “Who’s we?” I asked, reaching for the door handle.

  “Me, myself and I,” he said as I sank into the passenger seat. He wrinkled his nose but did not comment on the pickle stench emanating from my being.

  “You didn’t run track and field in high school, did you?” he asked.

  I glared at him. “You saw that?”

  He nodded.

  “Well, why didn’t you stop him?”

  “One,” he said, pulling away from the curb. “It was too much fun to watch you with your flailing limbs and heaving chest. And two, I’m not getting involved with whatever that problem is.”

  “It’s a legitimate case that I’m working on with Griswald,” I admitted.

  “Legit, huh?”

  I couldn’t discern what it was that I heard in his tone, whether he was impressed or amused.

  “And what’s the eau de pickle about?” he asked with a chuckle.

  “We can keep the windows rolled down if you want,” I offered.

  He shook his head. “I kind of like it. It sort of suits you.”

  “Are you kidding me?” God moaned. “You’re going to flirt about running around like a fool and the fact that you stink of pickle brine?”

  I didn’t answer him.

  Gino glanced at the lizard on my shoulder, and said, “Let me guess, he doesn’t approve of our banter.”

  I stared at him for a long moment. “Can you understand him?”

  “No,” he assured me. “But his squeaking did sound really annoyed.”

  “I do not squeak!” the lizard thundered.

  “So why were you following me?” I asked, swallowing a smile.

  “Well,” Gino admitted, growing serious. “I wanted to talk to you, but then I saw you drive off with Griswald, so I tailed you.”

  “And he didn’t see it?” I asked.

  “He’s a U.S. Marshal, not a professional criminal,” Gino said. “Trust me, I can tail any law enforcement officer in the country, and they won’t know it.”

  I wondered whether or not he’d ever tailed Detective Patrick Mulligan, but I didn’t ask. There was enough tension between the two men. “And what did you want to talk to me about?” I asked.

  He frowned. “Let me park so that we can have this conversation face-to-face.”

  “We’re inches apart in the car,” I told him. “How much closer could we get?”

  He glanced over at me, waggling his eyebrows. “Much closer,” he said suggestively.

  I punched him in the shoulder because that’s how I flirt.

  He drove a little while longer, and then pulled the car off onto a side rode. He parked in front of a house that appeared to be abandoned. “Would you like a fresh shirt
?” he offered.

  “You’ve got one?”

  He nodded. “Back in a jiff.” He hopped out of the car and ran around to the trunk. Returning a moment later, he waved a white t-shirt at me like I was a bull, getting ready to charge a matador’s cape.

  Climbing out of the car, I snatched it out of his hands. “Look away,” I instructed.

  Anybody else would have probably made fun of me for the request, but Gino, being Gino, turned away, crossing his arms over his chest and staring off in the opposite direction. I wiggled out of my shirt, considered removing my pickle-brined bra, but decided that probably wasn’t the best idea, and pulled the clean t-shirt over my head.

  “Do you want to throw this away?” I asked, waving the offensive fabric in front of him.

  He turned around and said, “I’ll throw it in the trunk and then throw it in the wash for you.” He took it from me, put it in the trunk of the car, and then walked around to put his hands on my shoulders.

  I swayed toward him, hoping for another kiss, but he kept me at arm’s length, staring at me intently. “You need to keep breathing, Maggie,” he said.

  Everything in me tensed up. Whatever it was that he had wanted to tell me, that he’d thought was important enough to share that he’d followed Griswald, was not going to be good news.

  He took both of my hands in his, and I knew that he was trying to offer comfort. For what, I still didn’t know.

  “Just tell me,” I blurted out.

  “The owner of the tattoo,” Gino began slowly, “Nelson?”

  I nodded, signaling my recognition.

  “Things are more complicated with him than we’d originally realized.”

  I stared at him. “The man’s head and hands were chopped off,” I reminded him. “How much more complicated could things get?”

  “A lot more,” Gino said. He squeezed my fingers. “Especially when I tell you that his former cellmate was…”

  “Archie Lee,” we said simultaneously. My heart dropped. Was my father somehow involved in this framing of Delveccio?

  19

  My phone buzzed and I instinctually glanced at it. It was a text message from Armani that said simply 911.