Murder By Design

by Erin McCarthy

  The dining area looked a little light on the décor, but otherwise fairly normal. There were tables with men around them, drinking from open bottles of vodka on each table. Old school bottle service. Just pour your own booze. Pure vodka on the rocks, leave the mixers for the frat boys. The average age of the patrons was somewhere around fifty-five. There were a few younger guys in their thirties, but most were over forty. Some looked like they’d been drinking since the second world war. They were wizened and bald, eyes blinking behind glasses with thick bifocal lenses.

  Every last one of them stared at me. The reaction to my presence fell into one of three categories: irritation, attraction, or suspicion. I could have sworn I saw chairs shift back toward walls, like they were convinced I had been sent to seduce them from an enemy. This wasn’t going to be easy and strolling in here had been a huge tactical error. Everyone had seen my face. Everyone was aware of my presence and found it odd. Someone was going to enquire to the owners or management or whoever was in charge of this joint as to why the heck I was there.

  Time to beat a retreat. I put the two plates I was carrying down where Tony showed me, and smiled. “Is there anything else I can get you?”

  Four men stared at me. One was sucking on an olive between his thick lips. “It depends on what you’re offering.”

  Not what he was implying. “Steak sauce?”

  He gave a grunt. “No, thanks.”

  When no one else spoke, I realized they weren’t going to say yay or nay and they were just waiting for me to leave. So I did. Tony was already gone, which actually was a good thing. Instead of returning to the kitchen, I went in the opposite direction, hoping to find the locker room and Cezar. After discovering a broom closet and a storage room, I eventually pushed a swinging door and realized I was in the locker room and Cezar was waiting on a bench for me.

  “Where have you been?” he asked, sounding irritated.

  “I was waiting for you to come back and give me directions,” I whispered, equally irritated. “Now what am I even looking for? Everyone is super suspicious of me being here.”

  He pointed. “Number twelve. That’s Big Eddie’s locker. See if the key is in his pants pocket.”

  “Isn’t the locker, you know, locked?” I moved quickly across the room, surprised at how many piles of towels and clothes were actually just sitting around on benches. I would be afraid someone would steal my pants as a joke.

  “Nah. He has his gun with him and Eddie figures no one is stupid enough to steal from him. Besides, this place has a code of honor, you know. Don’t be a dick.”

  That said to me that there was no way Eddie had the key in his pocket, but I wasn’t going to point that out to Cezar.

  “That’s good.” I carefully opened the locker, terrified of the creaking noise it might make. Darting my gaze behind my shoulder repeatedly I started shifting through Eddie’s pile of clothes. I found the pockets of his dress pants and reached into each one, digging around. I came out with nothing but lint and a couple quarters.

  “Now what?” I asked Cezar as I closed the locker.

  He looked morose. “Go through all these pockets, and see what we get.”

  I shot him a look. “Forget it. I’m not a petty thief. By the way, where did all this money come from? You never told me exactly.”

  “Armored car robbery.”

  Well, that was great. “Cezar!” I whispered fiercely in my approximation of a “mom voice.” “That is not cool. You aren’t entitled to that money if you stole it, and neither are your sons.”

  “Finders keepers. Or in this case, we went out of our way to find it and remove it, then keep it. My youngest son helped me. He deserves his cut. And my older boy is a good, hard worker. He has a wife, kids, and a good job that is squeaky clean. I know he’s strapped for cash. What’s the harm at this point?”

  My moral compass was spinning in circles. I wanted to argue further with him, but I didn’t want to be in this locker room a second more. If I was caught I wasn’t sure what the outcome would be. “That’s very self-serving logic.”

  He made a mocking face. “Meh, meh, meh, meh, mehhh,” he said, imitating my words.

  Nice. I started for the door. “I’m out of here. There’s nothing more to be seen.” I certainly had already seen more than I wanted to, especially in the sauna.

  But when I opened the door to the hallway I heard voices coming from the kitchen. “Who?” a gruff male voice said, raised in anger. “Nikki? No, that’s not right. The caterer knows not to send female waitresses. Where did she go?”

  Oh no. Not good. I couldn’t hear the response but I decided this might be a good opportunity to get the heck out of there. So I started down the hall. But when I heard footsteps I panicked and yanked open the nearest door. I realized a second too late it was the walk-in freezer when cold air blasted me in the face. I reached back to stop it from closing, but the door had already clicked shut behind me. The light was off and I was afraid to move and trip over a side of beef.

  Reaching into the pocket of my black pants, I took out my phone and swiped the flashlight on. I shone it around the freezer and stifled a scream. That was no side of beef on the floor. That was a whole pig. Which admittedly, I’ve seen before, on a spit at a pig roast, but in the eerie glow of my phone light, his eyes stared coldly and blankly up at me. The skin was pale, stiff, and I had a sudden compelling aversion to pork. This was not cute.

  I clapped my hand over my mouth, cursing myself for opening this door. I should have just run down the hallway and bolted out the back into the parking lot. Fingers already starting to go numb from the chill, I reached for the door handle, having a sudden fear that I was locked in. Most freezers had a safety feature so you couldn’t get locked in, but that didn’t mean they had that here.

  Fortunately, it did open, but a peek out showed there were men moving around. One was Tony, which would have worked, if he weren’t with the guy who had the gun in his waistband. There were also a couple of guys headed toward the sauna in towels, including a body that looked particularly familiar and appealing.

  I closed the door, heart racing. That was Marner. I knew those pecs anywhere. He had been smiling and laughing with two other guys, a drink in his hand. Damn it. He would kill me if he saw me here. I’d be joining this pig on the floor. I waited, counting in my head, trying desperately to listen to hear the sauna door open and close, but the hum of the coolant in the freezer made it impossible to hear through the thick walls. When I got to twenty, I opened the door again, putting my eye up to the sliver of an opening. Cezar was standing there, staring at me. His eye was ridiculously close.

  I jumped back. “Geez!” I whispered.

  “Why are you in the freezer?”

  “I’m trapped in here. The boss man is suspicious of me.”

  “I’ll tell you when the coast is clear.” Cezar held up a key. “Look what I got.”

  Stunned, I was amazed at both his ghostly ability to hold physical objects and the ease with which he had found the key. “Where did you get that?”

  “I had the wrong locker. Eddie is twenty-two, not twelve. But I found him in the dining room, actually, and slid my hand in his pocket. That’s something I never want to repeat, but hey, I got the key.”

  “Awesome.” I had mixed feelings, because if it weren’t for Cezar’s inability to go anywhere other than his house without me, I wouldn’t have to be involved. He was perfectly capable of handling the situation, which was fine by me. I didn’t want to be a party to shifting ill-gotten gains. “Can I leave now? This freezer is freezing.”

  “Well, no shit.” Cezar rolled his eyes at me.

  There really was no need to have attitude with me. I just stared him down.

  He glanced right and left. “You’re clear.”

  I pulled the door open wider and slipped into the hallway. I was creeping down it stealthily on tiptoes, like the awkward intruder I was, when the door to the sauna opened and a man stepped out. He made eye cont
act with me.

  It just so happened to be my boyfriend. I came to a stop, freaking out, not sure how to react. “Oh hi, honey,” I said, giving a nervous laugh. “Fancy meeting you here.”

  Marner rubbed his jaw. “Bailey, what are you doing?”

  Jake was dewy and sweaty. His hair curled on his forehead and there was a sheen on his chest that made me very, very distracted. My cheeks heated both from embarrassment at being busted and something else entirely. “The owner asked me to stage this place,” I said, in the world’s most absurd lie. There was nothing here to stage, unless they wanted the steak knives rearranged.

  His eyebrows shot up. “Dressed like a waiter?”

  “This is waiter-chic. It’s a new trend in fashion.” I winced. Marner knew me well enough to know I would never wear a vest. Ever.

  “I…” He seemed at an actual loss for words. Like I had shocked him to the point that he was pretty sure he was dating an alien. “Were you worried this was a strip club or something? I would never lie to you about something like that.”

  Great. He thought I was spying on him, jealous that he might be at a true “gentleman’s club.” Because that wasn’t totally psycho girlfriend crazy, or anything.

  “No! Of course not. I can explain all of this. Cezar Wozniak asked me to come here.”

  Cezar reprimanded me. “What the hell, kid? Don’t tell the cop what we’re doing! What’s the matter with you?”

  “Cezar Wozniak?” Marner sounded bewildered. “What is going on, baby, seriously?”

  That gruff angry voice was moving toward us down the hallway. Cezar was railing against me. Marner looked like he was trying to solve the world’s most insane sudoku and I was about to find myself in some serious trouble. So I gave Marner a quick kiss, whispered, “I’ll tell you everything at home,” then did the only thing I could.

  I reached around him and pulled the fire alarm.

  Chapter Six

  In the ensuing chaos I bolted out the back door and ran to my car. I drove home with shaking hands, my phone blowing up with texts from Marner, then stripped off the waiter duds after extracting a promise from Cezar he would wait downstairs for me. I didn’t need him checking me out in my bra and panties under the guise of seeing if I was good enough for his son. That would definitely be his pervy MO.

  I called Marner because texts are wimpy. “If you come over, I’ll explain everything,” I said without even giving him a greeting. I needed to cut him off at the pass before he lost it on me.

  “This wasn’t what I was planning to do tonight. Stand outside in October in a towel while the fire department checks out the building, and I can’t tell them I saw someone falsely pull the alarm. And that that someone happens to be my girlfriend who was there under mysterious circumstances.”

  Like that.

  Momentarily distracted by the memory of Marner in that towel, I paused too long.

  “Bailey?”

  “Yes, I know, I’m sorry. I really am. There is an explanation.” Not one he was going to like, but an explanation nonetheless.

  Marner had the market cornered on sighing. He gave me a big one now. “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

  I had changed into a silky robe, which Cezar made fun of. “What is this, the Love Boat? Who dresses like that?”

  “It’s a kimono. Very hot right now. In all the fashion magazines.”

  “Well, given how often I pick up a fashion magazine I can’t argue with you.” He was sprawled out on my couch long way, forcing me to sit in the easy chair.

  “My boyfriend is coming over. He’s totally and understandably angry with me. He thinks I’m stalking him, worried that he’s cheating on me with a stripper.”

  “Yeah, I heard. I’m not deaf, you know. But sorry.”

  That was the world’s most lackluster apology ever. It was like he’d taken a class on sincerity from my mother. “So when he gets here, you need to make yourself scarce. I need to make this right with him.”

  Cezar made the world’s most offensive gesture. “I hear ya.” He smirked.

  I rolled my eyes. “That’s not what I meant. I meant I owe him an actual explanation of all this nonsense that’s going on.”

  “You don’t have my permission to do that. Some of the things we’ve discussed are of a sensitive nature. It’s a non-disclosure thing.”

  “I don’t need your permission to do anything.” It was tempting to add, “You’re not the boss of me” but I resisted.

  I went into the kitchen and fished my e-cigarette out from the back of the spice cabinet. I kept it behind the thyme, which I never used, in an effort to cut down on my use. I was doing great. I only pulled it out every few weeks when stress got the best of me. This was one of those times. I couldn’t see how my relationship with Jake could move forward and stay solid when I was constantly keeping the truth from him. It sucked.

  Which was why I currently had the e-cigarette to my lips and was drawing in a deep inhale. “Listen,” I said, as I sucked and thought furiously simultaneously. “Why do you think you can manipulate physical objects so well? I’ve never seen a ghost be able to hold something in the physical world the way you have that key.”

  Cezar just shrugged. “Got me.”

  I had no answer either, but I did feel like it could be used to my advantage. “I need you to help me convince Jake that ghosts are real. He thinks I’m a nut case. I had Ryan slam a door, but Jake blew it off, claiming it was the wind. But if you do something, something really awesome, he can’t dispute it.” I wasn’t sure what that was, but Cezar was fond of pinging pennies at me. Maybe he could do that to Marner.

  “Sure, kid. I can help you out since you’re going to go to the storage unit and open it and find my money.”

  “Right.” I still wasn’t sure how I felt about that. In order to keep my nose clean so I could live with myself, I wanted the discovery to be on someone else. “How about I give the key to your son? Say I found it and can’t get a hold of you? I can put a tag on it with the name of the storage facility.”

  “Not a bad idea. You’re no dumb blonde, I’ll give you that.”

  “I’m not blonde.”

  “Neither am I.”

  Hanging out with Cezar was like being with my grandmother. It was random, sometimes annoying, and amusing even when you didn’t want to admit it. “So we have a plan. Wow Marner. Pass off key.” I had another thought. “As soon as you do your woo-woo trip and make Jake believe in ghosts, you need to disappear so I can talk privately with him.”

  Cezar made air quotes. “Talk.” He rolled his eyes. “That’s what the kids are calling it now? I thought it was Netflix and chill.”

  That actually made me laugh. “Don’t ever say that out loud again.”

  He shrugged.

  There was a knock on my front door. I went and put my eye to the peephole. It was Marner, dressed in jeans and a Cavaliers sweatshirt. His hands were in his front pockets and he looked sexy as hell. The view of him in the towel would not quit my thoughts. I pulled the door open. His nostrils flared when he saw my silky floral robe, which was gaping slightly at my cleavage.

  “Oh come on,” he said. “That’s not even fair.”

  “What? I just changed into something more comfortable.”

  “This is how old-school porn starts.” His nostrils flared as his eyes ran over me.

  “I wouldn’t know.” Though I could fill in the blanks if I tried hard enough. “Are you coming in?”

  “Yes.” He moved in, crowding my space. His hand came up and cupped my cheek. He gave me a long, lingering kiss.

  I was instantly reassured that he wasn’t angry with me beyond reason. He kind of had a right to be, to be honest. Without the facts, I looked like either a lunatic or a loser. Maybe even both. “Hi. Thanks for coming over.”

  “You have me dying of curiosity. I wouldn’t miss it.” He shifted, brushing his body along mine, before stepping into my house and into the living room.

  I felt a flut
ter of both attraction and nerves. His greeting calmed my anxiety, but still. This needed to go well or Marner and me might be kaput.

  Cezar was still sitting on the couch. Marner sat on him.

  “Ow! What the hell?” Cezar protested loudly, shoving at Marner. His hands went through his back repeatedly.

  I bit my lip so I didn’t snap at Cezar to stop being a drama queen. There was no way that was actually hurting him. Because, you know, he was dead.

  Marner frowned and shifted uncomfortably, looking behind him. “Is the window open? There is a hell of a draft here.”

  “No, the window is closed.” I sat back down in the easy chair. “I think you might be feeling Cezar’s presence. As a ghost.” Nothing like just throwing it out there. Boom.

  Marner’s eyebrows shot up. “Come again?”

  I launched into a monologue, determined to be convincing, yet not desperate. “Let me start at the beginning. So when I went to Cezar’s for the home staging yesterday everything was normal, like I said. But when I went out back I saw a body in an Adirondack chair. A man in swim trunks with a bare chest covered in blood. I figured it was a gunshot wound, but I mean, I wasn’t sure. What I was sure of was that he was dead. Very dead.” I crossed my legs and then uncrossed them immediately. My foot tapped up and down in agitation. “So I called 9-1-1 and hid in my car, because I wasn’t sure if there was an active shooter or what.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me this yesterday?”

  Great question. Glad he asked. “Because here’s where it gets weird. The sheriff’s department showed up and there was no body.”

  Pause. Very long pause. “What do you mean, there was no body?”

  I pointed at Marner, nodding my head, letting him know that had been my thought precisely. “Exactly. That’s exactly what I said. Then I realized the horrible truth—I saw a ghost, not an actual body.”

  “Oh God.” Marner rubbed his forehead. “Are we on the ghost thing again?” He sounded pained.