by Sibel Hodge
I was just reaching for one of the locker doors when my phone rang. I almost jumped out of my skin.
‘Hey, darling. I’m sorry about earlier. I’m just trying to do my job and getting caught up in Janice’s little agenda is not helping,’ Romeo said.
I stared at the lockers. ‘That’s OK.’ It wasn’t, really, but now wasn’t the time for this conversation. ‘I think Sabre might’ve found something. What are you up to?’
‘I’m doing some boring observation. My partner’s just gone to get us some lunch, so I thought I’d give you a quick call.’
‘And who are you partnered with?’
A long pause on the other end of the phone. And then: ‘Er…Janice Skipper.’
I felt my blood simmering away, working its way up to boiling point. ‘Janice Skipper?’ I yelled.
‘Ah. So, I suppose this isn’t a great time to talk about us moving in together, then?’
But before I could say another word, Sabre had jumped me from behind. He planted his front paws on the back of my shoulders and pushed me down onto the ground.
The wind flew out of my lungs, and the phone slid from my grasp, flying across the floor, as Sabre pinned me down, humping away at my back with his pop-up lipstick. Not a particularly good position to be in really, although I suspected it might be even yuckier if he’d jumped me from the front instead.
I tried to lift myself up and shake him off, but he was in a severely hyped-up humping frenzy by then and had a firm hold of me with his front paws, pushing me down. He whinnied away, and I felt his hot breath panting on the back of my head. My hair quickly became wet with slobber – at least I hoped it was slobber. Slobber was more preferable to other kinds of doggy fluids.
Sabre lost his grip for a second, and I managed to maneuver myself into a crawl position, attempting to drag my body along the floor, but this only seemed to excite him more.
Luckily, canine humping lasted nowhere near as long as human humping, and after a few more thrusts on my back, the whole horrible ordeal was over. He climbed off and collapsed in the corner of the room, panting. If I didn’t know better, I would’ve sworn I saw a smile on his face.
I got to my feet and pulled a disgusted face. I didn’t even want to imagine what I looked like. My hair felt matted, I could feel a sticky patch on the back of my T-shirt, and I smelled like wet dog. I’d done some bizarre things before to try and solve a case, but this really took the dog biscuit.
Like all males, Sabre decided to opt for a post-humping sleep, so while the coast was clear, I had a look in the lockers.
I didn’t really expect to find much, since the crime scene unit had already been over the whole building, but Sabre had given me all the confirmation I needed about the presence of drugs in his own unique way. However, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to look.
I rifled through most of the sixteen lockers and didn’t find so much as a single bag of grass or a joint. In the last one, though, I saw a tiny piece of white paper that had slipped in between the strip of metal joints on the back wall of the locker.
I picked up a pair of tweezers from one of the dressing tables and reached inside the locker, grabbing the edge of the paper.
Voila! It was a small piece of paper that had been folded in on itself. I carefully unfolded it and discovered some fine, white powder inside. I gave a wide grin, glad the day hadn’t been a total waste. I’d found a wrap of what I thought was probably cocaine.
I stuffed it into a plastic bag in my rucksack, grabbed a couple towels from the bathroom, and left. Draping the towels over my seat, I drove back to my parents’ house, being careful not to lean on the upholstery.
‘You forgot to mention that Sabre goes double bonkoid about words that rhyme with slipper, too,’ I told Dad when I dropped the dog off. He just shook his head at me, but I didn’t care. I pointed the car toward my apartment and rushed home for a long, decontamination session in the shower.
Marmalade took one look at me, sniffed around my legs for a minute, and ran under the sofa and hid. I didn’t blame him. If I could’ve hidden under the sofa to get away from me, I would’ve done the same, and his sense of smell was even more acute than mine. Instead, I dumped my clothes in the rubbish bin, scrubbed myself with apple blossom shower gel four times, and washed my hair three times, just to be on the safe side. I was squirting myself all over with perfume when I had a horrible thought about Heather.
****
I drove to her apartment, desperately hoping that I was wrong. I parked the Lemon next to her BMW and tentatively opened my door.
I noticed the flies buzzing around the boot before I smelled the familiar stench of decay and death. Slowly, I reached out and popped the boot catch.
It swung open in a fluid arc, sending a swarm of flies streaming out toward me. I swatted them away with my hand, and that’s when I saw her.
Heather had been dumped in the boot, curled up in the fetal position. A Barack Obama mask covered her face. The mask had a hole in it where a bullet wound to the center of her forehead had ripped through it, execution style. Maggots crawled around in the wound, vying for a good feeding spot. I guessed she’d probably been killed shortly before she was due to meet me on Friday night.
I’d dealt with death many times during my career. You got used to it to some degree; you had to. In order to be a good cop, you had to find a way to detach yourself from the reality of it, but it wasn’t exactly what I would call one of the most pleasant aspects of the job.
I stepped away from the BMW and called the police control room. I told the dispatcher what I’d found, and they assured me they’d send someone. While I paced furiously around the parking lot in circles, waiting for the coroner’s officer, I contemplated just how short life really was. If I knew that my number was going to be up tomorrow, would I do things any differently? Would I say yes to Romeo and move in with him? Or would I do the unthinkable and take my chances with Brad? Would I go running to Janice Skipper, begging for forgiveness, hoping she would give me my old job back? Or would I just put up and shut up, finally accepting that life moves on as, inevitably, it always does? Was anything really how it appeared to be, or was the truth just hidden in layers?
I was still lost in thought when Carol Blake, a coroner’s officer that I’d known for years, pulled up and parked on the other side of the BMW.
‘Well, well, well. Janice Skipper won’t like this, will she?’ She flashed me a wicked grin as she slipped out of her vehicle and pulled on a pair of rubber gloves.
‘Well, Janice Skipper can shove it up her–’
She cut me off with a throaty laugh. ‘That’s my girl. Don’t let the old hag get to you. Remember that famous, old saying: what goes around comes around? She’ll get what’s coming to her one day.’ She gave me a quick hug. ‘She tried to get me thrown off the force once, too, back when she was in charge of the coroner’s unit, you know.’
‘I didn’t know that!’
‘The trouble with Janice is that she can’t stand anyone who’s good at their job. It makes her look bad because she’s so useless. She’s one twisted individual. Luckily for me, she got moved to one of the special operation teams, and I don’t have to put up with her any more.’
‘It wasn’t so lucky for me, though.’
She threw me a grim look. ‘I know.’ She wandered over to the BMW, peering into the boot with a critical eye. ‘Is this to do with the Fandango case?’
‘Yes, I’m pretty sure this is his assistant, Heather Brown.’
‘You know that Janice Skipper is working this case, too?’ She lifted off the Obama mask to reveal Heather’s wide open, icy-cold eyes and waxy, pale skin.
I sucked in a breath and nodded.
‘Someone’s taking bets down at the station about who is going to get a result first,’ she said.
‘And who’s the favorite, me or Janice?’
‘You, of course. That woman couldn’t investigate her way out of a paper bag.’
That made me s
mile. ‘Well, game on then.’
‘And may the best woman win!’ She nodded toward Heather’s lifeless body. ‘I’ll let you know what I find.’
‘Thanks.’ I climbed into the Lemon as my phone rang. Romeo’s name was displayed on the caller ID.
‘Hey, darling. Are you still mad at me?’
I sighed and glanced up, staring through the windscreen at Heather’s bedroom window. ‘No.’
‘It’s just that you don’t normally hang up on me.’
‘I didn’t hang up. I was being humped to death by Sabre.’ I heard a muffled laugh from the other end of the phone. ‘It’s not funny.’
‘I take it that Sabre found something useful then.’
‘That depends.’
‘On what?’
‘It depends on whether we’re exchanging information. I’ll tell you my news if you tell me what Janice knows. I hear there’s a book down at the station, betting on who’ll be the first to solve this case.’
‘Darling, she’s keeping everyone in the dark about it. She knows it will get back to you.’
‘So, have you finished your stakeout with her?’
‘Are you jealous?’
‘No,’ I snapped, trying hard to keep the green-eyed monster out of my voice and failing miserably. ‘But since we’re on the subject, why is it so hard to ignore Janice?’
‘Because she’s crazy.’
‘A minute ago you implied that I was crazy,’ I huffed.
‘Yes, but you’re crazy in a nice way, she’s crazy in a psycho way.’ It was his turn to sigh. ‘Look, it’s just the same as you and Brad.’
God, I hoped not. Then I really would have a reason to be jealous of Romeo working with her. ‘Huh?’ I thought I’d try the vague approach.
‘Well, why do you think Brad gave you this job?’
I tapped the steering wheel. ‘Because he needed a good investigator, and I’m really, really good. I’d also like to add that I’m much better than Janice.’
‘No, Amber. It’s because he wants you back.’
‘No!’ I tried my best shocked voice.
‘Look, I’m not Brad, you know. I’m not going to leave you, so there’s no reason for you to be jealous.’ He paused. ‘And I trust you, so neither of us has got anything to be jealous about. Have we?’
I’m glad someone trusted me. I didn’t know if I trusted me. ‘Er…no,’ I replied, not overly convinced by the words coming out of my mouth.
‘Great – oh, I’ve just heard Janice is on her way down to Heather’s car with SOCO, so, unless you want to see her, I’d leave now.’
I didn’t need telling twice. I knew I’d have to give a statement at some point, but right now wasn’t the best time for me. Picking up the phone, I put a call in to the office to let them know about Heather, and stepped on the accelerator. I figured it might be a good time to make my way to the Cohens’ warehouse for a stakeout of my own.
19
Twilight had turned to dusk by the time I’d settled myself in for another exciting night watching the warehouse. I wrapped a fleece around me to keep out the chill and sipped on a super-sized cappuccino. A wave of tiredness threatened to smother me. I guess that’s what doggy humping did to a person. What I really needed was some matchsticks to prop my eyelids open. I settled for rubbing them instead.
A Lamborghini drove up to the warehouse a short time later. It was the same drill as before. The door rolled up, and the car disappeared inside. I peered through the night vision goggles, wishing that the arsonist would just hurry up and arrive, so I could catch him and go home to my snuggly bed.
I finally succumbed to weariness as my chin drooped onto my chest, and my eyelids slid shut. I didn’t hear or see Brad arrive until he’d sat down next to me. As his body slid in next to mine, bam! I was wide awake.
‘Here.’ He handed me a flask of coffee.
‘Thanks. What are you doing here?’
‘The same thing you are. I thought you might like some company.’
I sipped the hot liquid. ‘Heather’s dead.’
‘I heard. And the second Obama mask turns up.’
‘Strange, huh? But was it planted to make her look guilty, was it a message of some kind, or was she really involved in all of this?’
‘That’s the thousand dollar question. The woman who witnessed the white van leaving the scene of the crime said the driver wore an Obama mask. If Heather had found out who the perpetrators were, it could be a message to others to keep quiet.’
‘Or her killers put the mask on her to throw the scent off them and make it look like she was involved.’ I finished the coffee and poured another cup. ‘Or she really was involved in all of this.’
‘Did you find any drugs at Fandango’s office?’
‘I found a small wrap of coke. It could be something.’
‘Or it could be nothing. A lot of models do coke, don’t they? Models are in and out of that place all the time. A wrap is hardly evidence of a major drug smuggling ring.’
I stretched my legs in front of me, leaning forward to ease the stiff muscles in my back. ‘It’s the only thing at the moment that explains the payments from the mob. But if Fandango was smuggling drugs in with the shipments of his collection, why would the mob be involved in killing him and stealing the collection? Surely they’d want to keep him alive to carry on with their dodgy business.’
‘Maybe Fandango double crossed them. Maybe they wanted to teach him a lesson, so they whacked him, and helped themselves to the drugs.’
‘It’s possible. But at the end of the day, they’re still businessmen. I think they’d be in this for the long-term benefits. It wouldn’t be a wise business move to do away with the smuggler. Maybe Heather found out and double crossed Fandango. She had a motive. She had some kind of financial drain, probably drugs. She needed the money. Just think how much money she could make if she was in charge of a possible drug smuggling ring.’ I turned to Brad.
‘But then who killed Heather?’ He reached out and tucked one of my fly-away waves behind my ear.
I flinched, his touch burning my skin. I adjusted my position on the ground to avoid further hair molesting.
‘Samantha James also has a motive,’ he said.
I nodded. ‘And she lied to me.’
‘What about Tia? She stands to inherit his fortune.’
‘I don’t think Tia’s involved in any of this. I can’t say the same for any family she’s got lurking out there somewhere, though. We need to find out who Fandango was and who Bagliero is. Has Hacker come up with anything yet?’
‘No, he’s still working on it.’
A black Porsche drove up to the warehouse and disappeared inside.
Brad gazed at me intently.
‘What?’ Was I wearing a foam moustache from the coffee? Had I got lipstick on my teeth? I wiped around my mouth, just in case.
‘Are you hungry?’ Brad said.
‘That depends.’ I grinned.
‘On what?’
‘Are we talking about food or something else?’
Brad feigned surprise. ‘Food of course. My, my, my, Amber Fox, you have a dirty mind. Nothing’s doing here. Let’s get something to eat.’
‘OK, just as long as it’s not me.’
****
I knew I shouldn’t have got up the next morning. I should’ve just stayed in bed with a pillow over my head, hibernating from the world and thinking about nice things like clothes shopping. How long had it been since I’d done that? I couldn’t even remember. I loved investigating crimes, and it was all well and good wearing practical work clothes, but sometimes it would be nice to just have a normal job, where people didn’t want to kill me, and I could wear my clinging dresses and strappy shoes that were just gathering dust in the closet. I longed to have time to indulge my feminine side. I could get a massage, have my hair streaked, or get a manicure. Any of the above sounded much more pleasurable at this moment, because all the signs were there that something ba
d was about to happen: the ominous feeling hovering around the top of my head like a cloud, the sinister notion of approaching disaster fluttering around in my stomach. Yep, I definitely should have stayed in bed.
Instead of listening to the thoughts, though, I drove to the office, followed the whole way by the Goon Girls, Sally and Tracy. And if that wasn’t bad enough, they were trying to ram me again. To put the icing well and truly on the cake, I was also coming down with a bad case of grumpy PMS, and that last little straw tipped the scales.
Well, two could play at this game.
I pulled off the main road, grabbed the pepper spray and stun gun out of my rucksack, and pushed open my door so hard that it flew all the way open and then bounced back, slamming shut.
‘Hunh!’ I opened the latch again and kicked it open.
Right, that’s it. I’d had enough. I was going to teach these idiots never to mess with a premenstrual woman. Something happens in our brains to upset the delicate hormonal balance, and boy, were my hormones messed up. I was just about to scramble out of the car and give them another nut-zapping when I saw Tracy wind down his window and poke his arm out. The only problem was that he had a gun in his hand.
‘Shit!’ I threw the stun gun and pepper spray on the passenger seat and cranked the engine.
Tracy aimed his gun at my rear window.
I hit the accelerator and shot off down the road with my door still half open. A cloud of dust trailed in my wake, and hopefully in the Goon Girls’ faces.
I heard a loud crack as Tracy squeezed off a couple of shots.
My rear window exploded and I got sprayed with tiny pellets of glass as I screeched around the corner, narrowly avoiding a ditch. With a bang, my door slammed shut, making me jump up in my seat like a jack in the box.
I floored the Lemon the whole way back to the office. The wind whistled through the gaping hole where my window used to be, licking a draft around the back of my neck and sending my hair flying all over the place.
‘Slight problem,’ I said to Brad when I stumbled into his office, looking like I’d been dragged through a hedge backwards at high velocity.
