by Kelly Rey
"Who told you that?" Hank asked. "That Susan broad tell you that?"
"I don't like that word broad," Maizy said. "And my sources are confidential. Are you afraid she's doing nicky-nack with someone from the bar?"
"What'd you hear?" he asked immediately. "It's that drummer, isn't it? I knew that guy was up to something again, the way she talked about him. Always 'Oh, he's so talented. Oh, he's so cute. Oh, he—'" He stopped short, his cheeks going red.
We stared up at him.
"Dude, get a grip," Maizy said. "God."
He regrouped with a shrug of the shoulders that caused a slight breeze. "A man can only take so much," he said. He glanced at Curt. "You know what I mean."
"Everyone's got a breaking point," Curt said. The way he was standing there, dead still, laser focused, grim faced, made me think he'd just about reached his.
"That's it," Hank agreed. "Breaking point."
"What's yours?" Maizy asked.
"Ain't reached it yet." He glared at her. "But I'm getting close."
"Yeah, me, too," she said. "One more broad and I'm there. Where were you last night?"
Hank stared out into the parking lot. "I was replacing a clutch. And a set of plugs."
"Were you here alone?" she asked.
"I'm always here alone," he said. "Unless I'm not."
Oh, that was helpful.
"The clutch picked up around seven," he said. "Worked out good."
Especially if he wanted to head on over to the Pinelands for a quick murder before heading home to dinner.
"And then you went to the bar, right?" Maizy prompted him. "You might as well admit it. We already talked to someone who saw you there."
A thundercloud rolled across his face. "What if I did? Ain't no one gonna pick her up on my watch. I ain't having it."
"Nicky D tried to pick her up?" Maizy asked. "Did you teach him a lesson or what?"
"Had to," Hank growled. "He didn't understand the word no."
"Wait a minute." Maizy whipped out her cell phone and held it up with her arm fully outstretched. It reached Hank's chin. "Say that again, nice and loud into the phone so I can record your confession."
Hank's expression hardened, if that was possible. "What confession?"
"You taught him a lesson," Maizy said. "Everyone knows that means twenty years to life. So just say it again, right into the phone here, and we'll be on our—"
Hank ripped the phone out of her hand and slammed it to the ground at his feet with a malevolent smile. It wasn't hard at all for my imagination to substitute the phone for an amplifier and the ground for Nicky D's head.
"I think we're done here," Maizy said.
I would have voiced my agreement, except I was sprinting back to the car. I didn't need an amplifier to fall on me to put two and two together. Forget TJ. Hank was an evil giant who'd killed Nicky D out of pure jealousy. Case solved.
Now it was up to someone else to rope him and brand him and lock him up in a very big cage.
CHAPTER TEN
"That went well," Maizy said when we were back on the road.
My heart was more or less back in the right place, but my eyes, when I checked in the mirror, were still a little wild, and I couldn't stop shivering even though sweat trickled down my spine. "What are you talking about? He destroyed your phone!"
Maizy shrugged. "It's insured. I needed a new one anyway." She tapped Curt on the shoulder. "That was smooth, right? We got him to confess to murder even if it's not on tape."
"Not quite, Maize." Curt turned up the air conditioning. "The guy's obviously a jealous maniac, but that doesn't mean he killed anyone."
"Somewhere, somehow, sometime in his life," Maizy said, "he's killed someone. I guarantee it. I can read people. It's a gift."
"If you can read people," I said, "why'd you stick your phone in his face?"
"Be serious," she said. "It was nowhere near his face. Besides, he practically admitted it. Nicky D moved on Susan One, and Bruce Banner went all Hulk on his—"
"We should talk to Susan One," Curt cut in.
I stared at them. "What is wrong with you two? How can you be so calm after what just happened?"
"What just happened?" Maizy asked. "We have a prime suspect, and I have a broken phone. Don't be such a drama queen."
"Drama queen?" I yelled. "He could have killed us and buried us in the Pine Barrens, and no one would have ever known!"
"See? Drama," Maizy said sadly.
"It's not drama," I snapped. "You hear about it all the time. People disappear in the Pine Barrens all the time, and no one ever knows what happened to them!"
"He wasn't going to kill us," Curt said quietly.
"How do you know?" I demanded.
"I know." He brushed the back of his hand along my jawline. "He's a bully. And like every bully, he'd back down if he was challenged."
"Are you packing heat, Uncle Curt?" Maizy asked. "If I'd known, I could have been really forceful with him."
"I'm not packing heat," Curt told her.
"You should be," Maizy said. "You can't be too careful. I hear people disappear all the time in the Pine Barrens."
I turned to glower at her. She gave me a cheery smile.
"I can score you a bazooka if you're interested," she said to Curt. "Herbie Hairston's having a sale on account of his dad wants to use the shed again."
"I'll pass," Curt said. "Where did Herbie Hairston get a bazooka?"
Maizy shrugged. "I don't ask questions like that. I need plausible deniability."
We drove along for another mile or two while I wondered what my problem was. I had to have one. I mean, here I was, in the middle of the Pine Barrens, mired in yet another murder investigation, confronting the Unjolly Giant and backstabbing musicians and maniac drivers trying to run me off the road.
Speaking of which.
"Did either of you happen to notice the F-150 back at Max's?" Curt asked.
"The one with the baseball cap on the dashboard?" Maizy said. "Yeah, I saw it."
"Did it look like the truck from last night?" he asked.
Maizy gnawed on her lower lip, thinking. "I don't know. I'm not sure about the color."
Curt glanced at me. "What do you think?"
"You're kidding, right?" I said. "I was busy trying to stay on the road. Besides, even if it is the right truck, that doesn't mean it's Hank's. It could just be in for repairs."
"We could always go back and ask—" Maizy began.
"No," Curt and I said together.
Maizy shrugged. "Or we could sneak back after hours and look for the papers in the glove compartment. Older trucks are easy to break into."
Curt narrowed his eyes at her in the mirror. "Are they, now."
"They're left unlocked all the time," Maizy said. "I mean, what's there to steal?"
"The truck itself?" he said.
She did a dismissive wave. "It's a niche market. Not worth the time."
"Do not sneak back there," I told Maizy. "Under any circumstances. Ever. Even with a bazooka."
"How would I get there?" she asked innocently. "I don't have a car or a license. Remember I'm blacklisted from the DMV for six more months 'cause that doofus examiner fell out of the car during my test."
Because the car had been an Honest Aaron special, and the examiner had fallen out when the door had fallen off.
"What are you talking about?" Curt asked. Being under the impression that Maizy had failed for less nefarious reasons, like parallel parking, an antiquated maneuver that was completely pointless in a state where spacious parking lots proliferated like mold spores in a damp basement. Because that's the impression I'd given him. And yes, I did feel a twinge of guilt about that.
"I mean," Maizy said, "he tripped while getting out of the car after a completely uneventful road test."
Curt fell silent, the muscles of his jaw flexing and relaxing while he ground his teeth. "Maybe society is better off," he muttered. I was pretty sure the rest of that sentenc
e was without you having a driver's license, but he wasn't about to say that. Not when he had Maizy's future car parked and waiting in his driveway for her to take legal ownership of it. Which didn't seem likely to happen so long as Honest Aaron stayed in business.
Maizy cheerfully ignored that comment. "What's next?"
"We should talk to the other guy from the band," I said. "Bones. Interesting that he hasn't shown up today. TJ said he was a terrible driver and might have had an accident." I hesitated. "What does Bones drive?"
"I'm not worried about Bones," Maizy said. "He didn't do it. It wasn't him going backstage. I'd know him."
"She's got a point," Curt told me.
"That person was all covered up," I pointed out. "Anyway, he could have seen something," I said. "Or heard something. Or at least be able to corroborate or refute alibis."
"Listen to you with the jargon," Maizy said. "Took you long enough."
"I was bound to pick up something at the foot of the master," I said drily.
"That's what I keep telling you," she said breezily. "Bones will turn up for the next show. We can talk to him then. He's kind of a loner anyway. He doesn't like to be bothered."
Sounded like a prima donna to me.
"Don't forget Archie Ritz," Curt cut in. "He hasn't been around for very long, but you never know."
"And the two Susans," I added. "If we can find them."
"That's easy," Maizy said. "They'll be at the next Virtual Waste concert. If they find a drummer. I should let my friend Walter Thistle know they're hiring. He can't play, but he looks like Roger Daltry, and that's got to count for something. Maybe he can fake it onstage. You know, like Milli Vanilli."
"That didn't end well," Curt reminded her.
"Walter won't care," Maizy said. "Why should we?"
"They've got a new drummer," I said. I glanced at Curt. "Right?"
"Only for a week or two," he said. "Until they find a permanent replacement."
Maizy squeezed herself in between the front seats with an alarmed expression. "You mean you were serious about that, Uncle Curt? You know they play at night, right?"
Curt sighed. "What's your point, Maize?"
"My point," she said, "is you're like Virtual Waste's median age plus thirty. You don't have any tattoos. And have you even heard of guyliner?"
"He can play the drums," I said. And he looked awfully good doing it. Hm. Maybe I had a little groupie in me after all.
"I'm sure you'll be there," Curt reminded her. "You can compensate for any lack of cool you think you see."
"I could," Maizy agreed, "but that's a heavy lift."
"That reminds me," Curt said. "I've got to put that Civic in my driveway up for sale. It's just taking up room."
Maizy's Civic, if she ever got tired of Honest Aaron's bargain junkyard.
"On the other hand," Maizy said, "I do like a challenge."
"Thought you might." Curt smiled. "Don't worry. I'll just keep my eyes and ears open. I won't interfere."
"I sincerely hope not," Maizy muttered. She'd gone into classic teen angst mode, arms and legs crossed, foot bouncing. "I've got it going on," she added.
Curt's lips twitched. "I know you do."
"I need room to operate," she said. "I won't be oppressed. You don't write my script."
"I wouldn't know where to begin," Curt said.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
It turned out that Maizy's Grandpa Ed showed up on Sunday for a visit, which gave me a reprieve from thinking about Nicky D. Instead, I spent the day with Ashley alternately napping and watching easily digestible movies. Between The Breakfast Club and Fast Times at Ridgemont High, I ordered a small pizza with pepperoni. Ashley was mostly interested in the napping part, although she did deign to nibble on some cheese.
Eventually my attention drifted away from Jeff Spicoli to Virtual Waste. More specifically, their various motives and alibis, which were less than ironclad. Plop, alone and sleeping, that was believable on its face, but how did we confirm it unless he was doing it onstage? Also, Plop had seemed awfully quick to throw his bandmates under the tour van. Someone with a psychology course in their background might call that deflection.
As for TJ, short of finding autographed cigarette butts, we had no way of knowing if he'd been telling the truth about his between-sets smoking break. It was possible someone had seen him outside, maybe even talked to him, but how did we find that someone? And TJ certainly had a clear motive in his stolen songs. Probably I should buy a copy of Nicky D's solo CD to determine how strong that motive was. I was pretty sure I could get through a few songs in the service of justice. But I didn't really want to. I had that ten bucks earmarked for better things than "Puddle of Drool."
Then there was Mike. We could confirm easily enough that he and Archie Ritz had been at the bar together between sets and maybe even that Mike had argued with Nicky D, as Bryn had said. But it would be helpful to know what they'd argued about. My guess was it had been something serious since Mike seemed the type who didn't suffer fools gladly. Everything about him seemed no-nonsense, except for that goofy unexplained arm movement at the Pinelands' back door.
The same apparently couldn't be said about Nicky D. Nicky D seemed to be all nonsense.
That left Bones, about whom I had no opinion since he had been conspicuously absent, and I knew nothing about him short of his penchant for silver jewelry. And that according to TJ, he was a terrible driver. Which made me think about the pickup with its round silver crucifix on the mirror. But there were probably plenty of terrible pickup drivers of faith. Maizy had given him a strong endorsement, so that would have to do for the moment.
And finally, massive Hank and his matching jealous streak. And that was as far as I planned to go with that. All this not knowing made my head hurt.
Curt called around five to invite me downstairs for some barbecue, followed by an untimely but heated discussion over which candy was best to give out at Halloween—he was in the Snickers camp, but everyone knows Hershey bars were the only way to go—after which I fell into bed just before eleven, thinking I'd just lived my version of the perfect day. Which meant something bad had to be looming on the horizon.
That something showed up when I got to work on Monday morning. I worked for a law firm called Parker Dennis, with no comma and no ethics, the sort of firm you see advertised during episodes of Jerry Springer. Ken Parker and Howard Dennis were the two survivors of a triumvirate which had included a self-aggrandizing shyster who'd filed his eternal brief but had left behind a less than Coppola-like suite of television ads. His partners didn't miss him, mostly because Ken only showed up at the office to have a quiet place to sleep—he'd flirted with the idea of retirement, but it was hard to retire from a perpetual nap—and Howard thought he'd invented the concept of specious lawsuits, although he let the Boy Lawyer, Wally Randall, chase all the ambulances. Because Wally worshipped Howard, he was only too happy to do it, even though he sometimes didn't know what to do with them once he caught them.
The support staff was a bit of tarnished brass, too. I held the lofty title of first executive assistant, only because I'd brought in a tidal wave of business after becoming a murder suspect. In reality I was a legal secretary along with Missy Clark, aiding and abetting the lawyers while they dodged disgruntled clients. And there were more of those than you'd think. Janice Iannacone still massaged the finances and somehow managed to find enough cushion to keep herself in a string of luxury cars. After a brief flirtation with assertiveness, the paralegal, Donna Warren, had rediscovered her essential mouse and ventured downstairs just long enough to snatch up a volume of Superior Court Reports or a weighty medical textbook before scampering back to the safety of her office.
The newest addition to the firm was an investigator named Eunice Kublinski. Eunice had initially presented herself as a recent graduate of the Harvard School of Law and Mortuary Sciences (Online), and while her enthusiasm for filing baseless lawsuits had thrilled Howard, it soon became clear
that Eunice didn't know a tort from a tart. But she was useful because she thought outside the box, even if she dressed like one, so Howard kept her on in the role of investigator, with a pay cut and without a private office.
That's why I found Eunice at the empty desk in the secretarial area, frowning at a yellow legal pad while she read, her lips moving slightly. Eunice blended nicely into her environment, which is to say you hardly noticed her. Brown slacks, beige sweater, clunky brown Earth Shoes, no jewelry except for a wristwatch on a thin gold band, no makeup, threads of gray woven through brown hair. Don't let the blah fool you. Eunice could think on her feet.
It was when she was sitting down that she had problems.
She glanced up. "Do you know anything about the Pine Barrens?"
A shiver tingled up my spine. "I know the Jersey Devil lives there," I said. "What else do I need to know?"
She held up the legal pad, the page full of Howard's tiny precise handwriting. "One of Howard's defendants is fighting back. He lives there."
I stashed my bag in the desk drawer and sat down. "Counterclaim?"
Eunice nodded. "He rear-ended our client, and he claims her car was illegally stopped, so the accident wasn't his fault."
"Where was she stopped?"
"At a red light," Eunice said. "But she stopped on the yellow."
Yellow lights in New Jersey weren't cautionary as a rule. They were encouraging. Sometimes daring.
Eunice consulted the legal pad. "He claims he can't work because his back is out and he lost his ability to…um…" Pinkness washed across her cheeks.
"Got it," I said. A loss of consortium claim, kind of a while-we're-at-it count that found its way into just about every personal injury Complaint. "And Howard wants action shots to defeat the counterclaim."
"That's it," Eunice agreed. "But I'm not taking action shots of that. I've got my scruples."
She might be working in the wrong place.
I looked over my day's work while waiting for the computer to boot up. A few Complaints. A Motion for Summary Judgment. Two Notices of Deposition. Some checks to be distributed according to the Settlement Sheet from one of Howard's cases. Howard had already skimmed his percentage off the top. "So what's the problem?" I asked.
