Murder of a Real Bad Boy

by Denise Swanson

  Before Loretta answered, Vince charged out of the bathroom, ignored Loretta, and said to Skye, “Okay, I’m ready.

  Let’s get going.”

  Loretta shook off Skye’s arm and, wrapping the sheet around herself, leapt from the bed. She strode past Vince into the bathroom and slammed the door.

  Vince looked between Skye and the closed door. He took a step toward the bathroom, then shrugged, took Skye’s arm, and tugged her toward the front door, saying, “Let’s get this over with.”

  “Shouldn’t you stay and talk to Loretta? I can go alone.”

  “Look,” Vince snarled, “you came here in the middle of the night for my help. Which is fine. I’m your brother and that’s what brothers are for. But then you had to force your way inside, and now that you’ve created a mess, you want me to let you go break into a murdered man’s building alone?”

  Skye didn’t have an answer. She knew she needed Vince to go with her, but she hated to see him sacrifice his relationship with Loretta to help her.

  She allowed herself to be pulled out of the apartment and into Vince’s Jeep. As they were driving out of the parking lot she finally said, “I’m sorry I pushed my way in, but you know that you couldn’t keep this a secret for long.” Vince shrugged. “Maybe, but it should have been our choice, not yours.”

  “You’re right.” Skye swallowed painfully, guilt settling heavily on her chest. “But now that I know, I can help.”

  “How?” Vince shot her a speculative glance. “Will you tell Mom and Dad for me?”

  Skye gulped. She hadn’t been thinking of that sort of help. On the other hand, she owed him. “Okay, I’ll tell them.”

  Vince nodded, a small smile on his lips, then quickly frowned. “Might as well wait a while. After tonight, Loretta probably won’t be speaking to either of us.” They were both silent until a few minutes later, when Vince turned into the narrow dirt path that ran alongside Alana Lowe’s property. The shed was well camouflaged by the landscape, and if Dulci hadn’t told Skye of its existence, she would never have spotted it.

  The windows of Alana’s house were dark, and no lights went on as the Jeep drove by, its engine revving as Vince changed gears. Skye nodded to herself. She had been counting on Neville still being at the hospital with Alana. If he were home, at a minimum he would stop them and demand an explanation, but probably he would just call the cops. She shuddered, picturing Wally catching her trespassing, or even worse, Sheriff Peterson. She wasn’t sure whose territory Alana’s property fell into.

  The lane ended at the back of Alana’s acreage where a massive building hunkered near the river. The moon had come out from behind the clouds that had hid it earlier, and the metal structure reflected the glow.

  As Vince parked in front of the immense sliding doors, Skye said, “I wonder why Beau built his storage shed back here. Ground this close to the water is too sandy to be stable. Not to mention the possibility of flooding from too much rain.”

  “His sister probably offered the land, and since it was free he took a chance.” Vince shrugged. “We haven’t had a flood in twenty years. People forget.” Skye nodded and opened the Jeep’s door, jumping to the ground. People did indeed seem to have short memories.

  How else could you account for the continued existence of trailer parks all along Tornado Alley?

  Vince followed her as she moved to the doors and asked,

  “What if they’re locked?”

  “My new contractor said they weren’t.”

  “How did she know?”

  Skye explained while she tugged on the door. It was so heavy, at first she thought maybe someone had bolted it since Dulci had been there. But when Vince reached over her and yanked, the door slid open, creaking in protest.

  Maintenance had obviously not been high on Beau’s to-do list.

  There were no windows, and the interior was pitch black.

  Skye stepped across the threshold, turned on her flashlight, and swept the wall for an ON/OFF switch.

  Vince, right behind her, said, “I’ll bet there’s no electric-ity. I didn’t see any utility poles or lines out to here. It’s almost as if Beau wanted to keep this place under the radar of any government agencies.”

  “Great.” Skye arced the flashlight’s beam around the cavernous space. “How can we find a black cat in the dark?” Vince scratched his head, then said, “Wait a minute.” He ran out to his Jeep, started it up, and pulled it inside the enormous building. He turned off the motor but left the headlights on. Before returning to Skye, he grabbed a flashlight from the glove compartment.

  Skye smiled at him. “Good idea.” The high beams illu-minated the front half of the storage area. “Let’s split up. You go to the right and I’ll take the left, and we’ll meet in the back.”

  Vince nodded and walked away calling, “Here kitty, kitty. It’s Uncle Vince. I’ve got supper.” Skye went in the opposite direction, shaking the box of dry cat food she had taken from her backpack. At first it looked as if the wood, drywall, and shingles were stacked haphazardly on the concrete floor, but after a while Skye detected a certain pattern and started to plot a route as if she were in a maze.

  From time to time she could hear Vince’s voice, but for the most part the rattle of the dry cat food was the only sound. It was slow going, stopping every few feet to check out a hidey-hole or climb up to look on top of a pile.

  By the time Skye had made it halfway through the labyrinth she was sweating. Even though the inside of the building was cold, the air was clammy. The dank, musty smell triggered her sinuses and brought on a violent bout of sneezing. She paused to catch her breath and was wiping her damp forehead with her sleeve when she heard a noise. Was it Vince?

  No. It was a clicking sound. Where had she heard that before? It came to her in a flash. She had heard it the day she had moved into the Griggs house and Bingo had gotten into the basement. It was the sound of his back claws on the concrete floor. Excitedly, she shook the box and called, “Here kitty, kitty.”

  “Meow.”

  Bingo! “Here, boy, come to mama.” Excitedly, she wound her way through the warren of supplies and machinery.

  Following the sound of the meowing, she edged past a mountain of pink insulation rolls and was abruptly at the back of the building in an area roughly the size of a small office.

  It had been left empty except for a beat-up desk and a new-looking, closet-sized cabinet which marked the inner boundary. A door in the corner and the metal walls of the structure formed the three outer edges.

  A four-foot by four-foot wire cage occupied the center.

  Pacing the length of the pen like the panther he resembled was Bingo. As Skye ran toward him, she yelled to Vince that she had found the cat.

  When Skye got closer to the cage, she noted a roasting pan in one corner containing an inch or so of water and an overflowing litter box in another. An empty food dish had been knocked over, but when she opened the cage door and scooped Bingo into her arms he didn’t feel as if he had lost weight.

  She looked around and saw that someone had left a twenty-pound bag of dry cat food leaning against the pen.

  Bingo had chewed a hole in it and had been dining alfresco.

  The big black cat purred loudly and rubbed his head against Skye’s cheek and chin. All of a sudden, the relief of having found Bingo alive and unharmed got to Skye, and her legs started to tremble. She stumbled over to the desk and collapsed onto the chair.

  After several minutes of petting and scratching, Skye’s gaze wandered to the desktop. Following a short, internal debate on right and wrong, she swiftly leafed through the papers on the top. They were mostly invoices and contracts — nothing interesting. Next she pulled open the center drawer. Pens, pencils, stapler, but again nothing out of the ordinary.

  Bingo was getting restless; he’d had enough affection and wanted to go home. Holding the squirming feline in one arm, she opened the desk’s side drawer. It was empty. That was odd. She got up and tr
ied the cabinet. The doors were ajar, and when she opened them fully, those shelves were empty, too.

  Someone must’ve been here before her. Had Alana cleared things out or had Beau’s killer been searching for something? While she had been thinking, Bingo had gone beyond wriggly and leapt from her arms. He ran toward the desk and into the kneehole.

  Skye pulled out the chair and crawled in after him. As she grabbed him, she noticed he had a crumpled ball of paper in his mouth.

  Afraid Bingo would get hurt if he escaped her hold again, Skye stowed him in her backpack. Gently prying the paper from his teeth, she threw it into the bottom of the pack, then laced the opening so that only his head was free. As he yowled in her ear, she turned to make her way out of the building, wondering why Vince had never showed up.

  When she reentered the storage area maze, she heard footsteps. Thinking Vince had finally found her, she called out, “Over here. I’ve got Bingo.”

  A moment later, a figure draped in a sheet appeared in front of her holding a gun.

  Twenty-Three Skiddoo

  Skye couldn’t tell who it was, or even if it was a man or a woman, but she instinctively aimed the flashlight beam at the eyeholes cut into the sheet. The enshrouded figure flinched, throwing up an arm to shield its eyes. She immediately thumbed off the light and ran back the way she had come.

  A gunshot ricocheted off a metal ladder a split second after Skye had passed it. Breathing hard, she flung herself at the door she had previously noticed and fumbled with the knob. It wouldn’t budge.

  Scanning the area for a weapon, Skye briefly considered trying to hide, but Bingo’s yowls made discovery a sure thing. Instead she quickly moved beside the hulking cabinet, put the backpack containing the feline behind her feet to protect him, and braced herself.

  Her attacker would be passing by the massive piece of furniture any second. She could hear the footsteps nearing, and as the pseudo-ghost stepped into her line of sight, she shoved the cabinet with all her strength. It teetered, and immediately she rammed her shoulder into it.

  After a heart-stopping instant, it toppled with a loud clatter, the metal ringing off the concrete floor. Her aim had been good. The cabinet had landed on top of the pretend poltergeist, and only a shiny wingtip shoe protruded.

  Skye knew she was losing it as a vision of the Wicked Witch of the West crushed by Dorothy’s farmhouse flashed through her mind, and a giggle bubbled forth. Giving herself a mental slap, she refocused, grabbed the backpack containing Bingo, stepped around the downed spirit, and ran toward the front.

  Vince met her near the door as he came rushing from the other side of the building. “I heard a gunshot.”

  “Where have you been?” Skye panted “I’ve been calling and calling for you.”

  “I caught my foot in a pile of lumber. I only got it free a minute ago.”

  “Are you okay?”

  When he nodded, she said, “We have to get out of here, now.”

  “Bingo.” He reached over to pat the feline’s head, but she grabbed his arm and tugged him toward the Jeep.

  “Get in.” Skye shoved him toward the driver’s side, then sprinted around the hood and jumped into the passenger seat. She held the backpack tightly in her lap, and as soon as Vince was inside she ordered, “Lock the doors and get us out of here.”

  He complied, then threw the vehicle into REVERSE. As he got the Jeep turned around, Skye saw the phony phantom running out of the storage building, sheet flapping around its ankles. Vince stomped on the accelerator, and they flew down the lane followed by the sound of gunshots.

  Phew! That had been close. Too close. Skye’d had a hard time persuading Vince to let her go home alone. Only when she had pointed out that Loretta’s car was still in his apartment parking lot, and he might have a chance at sweet-talking himself back into the attorney’s good graces, did he agree to let Skye go. Vince’s libido nearly always won over his common sense.

  Driving home, she tried to decide what to do about the pistol-packing poltergeist. Should she report what had happened? Obviously she couldn’t admit to breaking and entering, but she had to tell someone that she’d been shot at.

  As Skye passed the only pay phone in town — the one at the gas station across from Vince’s hair salon — she made an abrupt decision and pulled up to the booth. She rolled down her window and called the police department. Disguising her voice, Skye anonymously reported hearing gunshots at Alana’s address. The dispatcher was still asking questions when Skye hung up and drove away. She had done the best she could without incriminating herself. She just hoped it was enough.

  Skye spent the rest of the night locked in her bathroom with Bingo and her shotgun. She dozed for a few minutes at a time, only to be jerked awake by dreams she couldn’t remember.

  At five a.m. Skye gave up attempting to sleep, showered and dressed. She was eating a bowl of raisin bran when she remembered the ball of paper Bingo had carried with him into the backpack.

  The pack was by the front door where she had flung it after freeing the cat from its confines. She hurried over and grabbed the backpack, scooped out the crumpled wad and flattened it. She frowned. It was a newspaper page. On one side were listings for movies at theaters in Chicago and the suburbs; on the other side was a picture of a painting that looked familiar. In fact, it looked a lot like the one marked in the discarded library book.

  She took the newspaper page into the kitchen, grabbing the library art book from the sunroom on her way, and spread them both out on the table. The paintings were un-questionably done by the same artist. The caption under the painting pictured on the newspaper page read KAHLO’S FRIDA AND THE MISCARRIAGE LITHOGRAPH ON PAPER SOLD AT AUCTION FOR $107,216.

  Skye gasped. That was definitely the kind of money for which someone would kill. Still, none of this made sense.

  How would Beau get hold of an expensive painting? And who would know he had it, know it was valuable, and be willing to commit murder to get it?

  She chewed her thumbnail. Had it been a payoff from one of his blackmail victims? But none of the people that Skye knew of could afford that kind of artwork. She was getting nowhere with this line of thinking. She needed to approach it from another angle.

  Okay. Who knew about art, was trusted by Beau, and would be willing to take a life for money? Alana fit the first two criteria, but would she kill her own brother?

  Skye rubbed her temples, trying to make herself think clearly. Alana certainly couldn’t be the ghost who had shot at her and Vince at the storage building. And she couldn’t be the person who stirred up Earl Doozier. Earl had said it was a man who told him about Skye’s troubles, and she was pretty sure whoever got Earl going did so for a reason connected to Beau’s death.

  Besides, Skye prided herself on being a good judge of character, and she would swear Alana loved her brother and would never kill him. However, Skye had been wrong before, and maybe Alana was a better actress than Skye was a psychologist.

  One way or the other, it was time to visit the art teacher in the hospital.

  Skye checked her appointment book. She had a Pupil Personnel Service meeting at seven thirty at the elementary school, but nothing afterward that she couldn’t put off until Thursday. She’d take an emergency day and leave right after the PPS meeting.

  *

  *

  *

  The smell of disinfectant and flowers combined into an eye-watering aroma in the hospital corridor. Skye checked the numbers beside the doorways as she hurried down the sterile hallway. She had been surprised to be directed to a regular hospital room when she asked for Alana. She hoped that meant the art teacher was conscious and doing better.

  Three twenty-six. Skye paused and knocked on the partially closed door. There was no sign of Neville, and no answer even after she called out. Skye took a half step inside to see if it was the right room.

  It was. Alana lay motionless on the bed. Skye fully entered the room and moved closer to the still figure. She s
aid softly, “Alana, it’s me, Skye. I’ve brought something to show you.”

  An eyelid flickered, and then Alana’s index finger curled slightly, seeming to beckon Skye closer. Skye obeyed, stepping right next to the bed, and bending down to the reclin-ing woman’s level.

  “Is he still here?” Alana breathed, her voice rusty from disuse and softer than a whisper.

  “Who?” Skye asked, looking around. “I don’t see anyone else.”

  “Bathroom?” Alana asked in an undertone.

  Skye checked and came back. “No one.” Suddenly Alana sat up and clutched Skye’s arm. “You have to save me. When I figured out he had murdered Beau, he tried to kill me and make it look like suicide.”

  “Who?”

  A voice from behind her answered, “Me.” Skye whirled around. Neville Jeffreys walked into the room, closing and locking the door behind him. In his right hand he held a gun with a silencer attached to the muzzle.

  “Why?” Skye tried to back away from the advancing gun, but she was trapped between Jeffreys and Alana’s hospital bed.

  “Why did I kill Hamilton? He double-crossed me. He welshed on a deal.”

  Skye forced herself to think. “How did he do that?” There had to be a way out of this.

  “He refused to hand over the painting he stole from you.

  He said he found a higher bidder, but my buyer isn’t someone you can get away with doing that to.” The call button! Skye inched her hand down on the mattress near Alana, who once again appeared to be unconscious. “I don’t have any valuable artwork.” If she could find the button, she could signal the nurse. When the nurse came to see what Alana needed and found the door locked, she’d get help.

  “He found it when he was nosing around looking for something to blackmail you over. That old pack rat who left the house to you must have bought it from the artist herself back in the thirties. No one’s known where that painting has been since then.”

  Skye’s fingers found the smooth plastic of the button and she started to press it frantically, wishing she knew Morse code. “That explains the art book and the newspaper clipping. Beau must have seen the painting at my house, then read the article in the paper. He must have gotten the art book to check and see what else that artist had painted.” She kept talking, hoping the nurse would be quick to answer the summons.