“Benjamin?” he said.
“Yes. The Dallasandros’ had only recently purchased their home,” I said remembering what Andie Halliwell had told me. “And from what I’ve been told they purchased it from Humphrey Realty.”
“And that’s where Benjamin just told us that Blu got him fired from,” Levi said.
“Right,” I said.
“So if Blu learned about the house from Benjamin,” Levi asked, “why is there an X and an S next to it?” Levi asked.
“Because it had been sold and she knew she couldn’t use it anymore. That’s the reason for the ‘X’ next to it.” I skimmed down the list and noticed an X by names that had Benjamin’s initials, so that confirmed that part of it for me. But next to the “S” there were only dates – past and future.
“Soooo . . . This one . . .” I bit my lip trying to work it out in my head why the Dallasandros’ house had a DA, an X, an S and a date. “Oh!” I said, my eyes lighting up because I’d figured out her system. “She first got the address from Benjamin, then it was sold.”
“You said that already.”
“Wait,” I said. “She Xd it when it was sold, but,” I drew the word out to emphasize it, “then she got this same address from her lookout who told her when it was going to be empty. Hence the date.” I pointed to it. “And this date correlates to now.” I looked up at him. “To the time that the Mr. and Mrs. Dallasandro would be out of town.”
“So why isn’t there an ‘L’ next to it for ‘Lookout?’” Levi asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “She used Benjamin’s initials. Maybe this is their initial.”
“Only one initial?” Levi asked.
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Well, that might be right,” Levi said.
“Glad you agree,” I said.
“Aren’t you going to ask me why I agree?”
“You’re just free to tell me, you know. You don’t have to ask can you tell me.”
He smiled. “Blu once kind of told me that she had someone that found houses for her to stay in.”
“You just now telling me that?”
“I only thought of it when Benjamin said it,” Levi said. “Before, I was only thinking about him. I was just thinking it was Benjamin providing a place for her.” He glanced at me. “And Blu said it in passing. I didn’t think any more about it.”
“You’re a bad person to partner with. Withholding information,” I said. “That could have been critical and it could have stopped us from giving poor Benjamin a heart attack with us chasing him around the parking lot and he have to deal with the iPad Voice From Beyond.”
“We needed to talk to him anyway to find out about the location of the keys. And him saying it, even though, I hadn’t mentioned it to you,” he said stealing a glance at me, “confirmed it.”
“True,” I said. “But, still . . .”
“No ‘but, still.’ All we have to do now,” he said. “is figure out whose initial is S.”
I thought about the people I knew that worked at the Merry Stampede. None of them only went by only one name. Lowell O’Kirk. Tangie Dumont. Levi Garza. Blaine Wyatt. And neither one of those names started with an “S.”
I came back from one of my “getting more frequent lost in my train of thought” episodes and looked at Levi. “Do you know anyone’s name that starts with an ‘S,’” I asked.
“No. I don’t,” he said. “But I saw your eyes glaze over. What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking that the person who told Blu that the house was going to be empty was probably the only one who would have known that she was going to be there.”
He looked at me. “The killer?” he said.
“The killer,” I agreed.
Chapter Twenty-One
If “S” was the killer, then it wasn’t just bad luck on Blu’s part. Her murder wasn’t random like Tangie and Benjamin had offered. She had been targeted.
Then I thought, maybe Tangie and Benjamin only said that it was random to throw everyone off the right trail.
Solving one mystery in Blu James’ death had only lead us to another one. We were still standing in the stall, the decedent’s, as Andie called her, things still spread clutched in our thieving little hands. Levi was going through the notebook a page at a time, not wanting to leave until we knew everything it said. I kept a lookout to make sure no one saw us and thought about all that had happened.
In the few days I’d been trying to solve it, all I’d come up with was how she got into the house. And of course, that did nothing to solve the mystery. Everyone already knew she was inside of the house, heck it was where her body had been found. It took no great detective to do deduce that.
Now I had to figure out who a person was from just a single letter of the alphabet.
A lot of people hated Blu, and her murder, it seemed, didn’t seem to bother any of the people who’d I found who knew her. And now there was another person to add to that list, Miss S.
I turned back to get Levi to move it along, and as I walked up to him, I realized who S could be.
Swan.
Being half black, and with caramel-colored skin, it wasn’t easy to see my face change colors due to my emotional feelings. But I knew my face must have gone pale when I realized Swan could have something to do with Blu’s death.
“Are you okay,” I heard Levi say, he looked up at me from the notebook. “What’s going on? Is someone coming?”
Not Swan, I thought. It couldn’t be Swan.
Did she know Blu better than she let on to me? Was that story she told me about Ethan true, or was it she who was tangled up with Blu? Had she lured Blu to the house and killed her?
“Hey!” Levi said and pushed me. “What is wrong with you?”
I let me eyes drift toward Levi and then released the breath I’d been holding. “Nothing,” I said and swallowed hard. “Nothing. I’m okay.”
“You look like you’d seen a ghost,” he said.
Swan being a killer, I realized, was a lot worse than seeing a ghost.
“C’mon, let’s go,” I said. “There nothing left here to see. And we’re going to get caught.”
“I’m taking the box,” Levi said. I opened my mouth to protest. “Blu’s not coming back for it.” He looked at me. “There’s no reason to leave it.”
“And what are you going to do with it?” I asked.
“I dunno,” he said and shrugged. “Probably give it to the police. It might help them piece the puzzle together.”
“I was just wondering,” I said. “If it had helped us.”
We took Blu’s box and left the Merry Stampeded, sneaking out the same way we came in. I slid into the car seat of Levi’s Camaro and buckled in. Neither one of us saying anything. I held the box in my lap and the notebook in my hand.
“May as well head back home,” Levi said turning to glance at me with disappointment in his eyes. “I guess we’ve kind of ran out of, what do they call it?” Levi pursed his lips. “Leads?”
I blew out a breath. “Yeah, I guess we did,” I said.
“Too bad,” he said. “This was beginning to be fun. You and your grandfather. I enjoyed it.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t know about calling chasing down a murder fun. And I’ll have to hear all about you from my grandfather later.”
“And you speaking all those languages. How did you learn to do that?”
I shrugged. “A lot of languages in my house.”
“And you just picked them up?”
“Yep. I did.”
“And what else can you do?” he asked.
“Nothing,” I said.
“No more secrets, huh?”
I slowly wagged my head from side to side. “And me speaking different languages isn’t a secret,” I said. “I just can’t go around speaking them if no one’s around that understands what I’m saying.”
“So you don’t keep secrets?”
“Not like Blu did,” I said and held up her
notebook. “Keys. Addresses.” I opened up and flipped the pages. “And . . .” Then my eyes caught slight tear in the lining of the back of the book. I traced the impression of a folded piece of paper then stuck my hand inside and pulled it out. “Wait.” I looked over at him. “Will you look at this?” A smile slid across my face. “This paper is entitled “Blackmail List.’”
“Oh wow,” he said and snatched the paper out of my hand before I could even look at it. “Maybe that will tell us who killed her. I’m pulling over.”
“Okay, then,” I said and chuckled. He maneuvered the car to the curb and put it in park. “I was going to read it.”
“I’ve gotta be careful,” he said and glanced at me with a smile. “Blu might have my name on here.”
“Oh,” I said. “So what are you telling me? You should’ve been on our suspect list?”
“I’d never kill Blu,” he said and looked at me. “Remember, I told you, I loved her.”
“I remember you said that,” I said and hiked up an eyebrow. “Statistically, those are the ones who do the killing. Spouses and significant others.”
“Is that really a statistic?” he asked.
“According to my grandfather, it is,” I said.
“Well not me. I meant it when I said I couldn’t hurt her,” he said.
“Well if you want to know the truth, that’s not what I heard.”
“What!” he said. “Who told you that?”
I shook my head, not ready to divulge what Lowell had said. “I just heard you were abusive.”
“To Blu?”
I nodded.
“Never.” He hit the steering wheel. “I would never hurt her and I don’t know why anyone would say that. Shoot, if anything, it was Blu who was abusive to me.” He stared through the windshield of the car. “She played so many games. Broke my heart so many times.”
“That sounds like a reason to kill her,” I said.
“It doesn’t matter how many times you say it,” his voice edged in anger, his glare going through me, “it’ll never make it true. I didn’t kill her. Don’t believe whoever told you that.”
“How will I find out what happened if I don’t believe what people tell me?” I asked. “I have to believe some things I find out.”
“Not that. And, in that case, if I’m abusive, why would you come out her with me?” He turned his body toward me. “Wouldn’t you be afraid that I might hurt you?”
“No,” I said. “I’m not afraid of you.”
He smirked. “Girls like you – high heels. Designer clothes. Wont’ be able to charm the bad wolf away when he comes calling. You’d probably be wise to steer clear and to listen to people telling you about the bad guy.” He pointed a finger at me. “And not be cocky.”
“Are you telling me then that I should have steered clear of you?”
“I’m telling you I’m not the bad guy, Miss Smarty Pants,” he said. “You won’t be able to defend yourself if someone comes after you, just like Blu couldn’t.”
“Let’s just hope no one tries to challenge me,” I said.
His face relaxed, his voice seemed to calm and he had an amused look on his face. “Why? What would happen? You got a gun or something in your purse.” He reached out and patted it. “Is that why it’s so big? Or what? You know karate?” He started laughing. “You and your heels are going to beat up somebody?”
I didn’t say anything, but kept a stone look on my face.
“Okay,” he said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t intend to be mean and tease you.” He touched my arm. “No hard feelings?”
“No hard feelings,” I said.
“Okay,” he said. “Let’s get back to this piece of paper.” He glanced at me. “Sorry. Okay?”
“I said okay. I’m good,” I told him.
He turned his eyes to the paper and ran his finger across down the page, reading what Blu had written. Then he started chuckling again.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing,” he glanced at me. “I was just picturing you trying to beat up someone in those heels.” He shook his head. “It probably would be best for you to keep a gun or something.”
I rolled my eyes. “Can you just read what’s on the paper?”
“Sure,” he said still smiling.
I sucked my tongue. “Anything in there that would tell us who killed Bl?,” I asked.
Levi cleared his throat. “Let me see.” He studied the paper for a minute. “Looks like she had something on Blaine Wyatt,” he said.
“What?” I asked.
“Mexico Jail,” he said.
“No I mean what did she have on him?”
“That’s what it says,” he said and a pointed a finger at the paper.
“So what does that mean?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “That’s all she wrote next to his name. And here’s another one that says that too.”
“Who is it?”
“Scout.”
“Scout?” I asked. “Who is that?”
“I don’t know. “Never heard of anyone by that name. But,” he said and shrugged. “I’m sure it’s a code name.”
“How do you know that?” I asked.
“Because for Blaine she doesn’t have his name, she has ‘Bucko.’”
“Bucko? Was that his nickname?”
“It was Blu’s nickname for him.” He looked at me. “I heard her say it plenty of times about him, but never to his face. And I don’t think anyone else called him that.”
“Well did she call anyone Scout?”
He hunched his shoulders. “Not that I remember.”
“Who else is on the list?” I asked.
“Uhm . . . Let’s see,” he said and glanced back at the paper. “Lowell O’Kirk.”
I nodded “He did tell me that Blu had something on him,” I said.
“Oh yeah,” Levi said. “You did talk to him the day you spoke with Tangie.”
“She told you everything I did that day, huh?”
“Sure did.” He smiled.
“Smh.”
“What?” he said and scrunched up his face.
“Nothing,” I said. “What does it say next to Lowell’s name?”
“Outlaw.”
“Outlaw?” I asked. “What does that mean?”
“Don’t know, I guess part of her secret code. And then there’s one more name.”
“Who?”
“Ethan Meilyr.”
“Ethan?” I said.
“Yeah. I guess that’s how you say his last name. ‘Mil-yer.”
I felt cold air coming out of my nose and my heart started to race. Blu was blackmailing Ethan and she had put an “S” in her ledger. What had my friends gotten themselves into?
“What’s next to his name?” I said almost afraid to ask.
He shook his head. “Nothing,” he said. “She doesn’t have anything next to it.”
“Let me see,” I said. He handed me the paper and I stared at Ethan’s name and the empty space next to it. Why did she have his name down on that paper?
“Maybe we should find and talk-”
Levi was interrupted by his phone ringing. I knew he was going to say let’s find and talk to Ethan Mielyr because besides Blaine he was the only one he thought we hadn’t talked to.
Well technically, I hadn’t talked to Ethan about the murder. Just Swan. But I didn’t need to look for Ethan, I knew exactly where he was.
“Hold on,” Levi said and put up a finger. He pulled the phone out of his pants pocket and looked at it. “Oh she’s finally calling me back.” Then he started to swipe to accept the call when I saw the spark of recognition in his eye. “Yes she did refer to someone by that name – Scout. And that someone is calling me right now.” He turned the phone to me to show me the name on the screen.
It read, “Tangie.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Was it going to be that easy to find the murderer? Was she just going to call us up on the telephone? And was sh
e just the person who Levi had said it was from the beginning?
That would be too much of a coincidence.
And . . . Did this mean that Swan wasn’t the “S” in Blu’s ledger, and more importantly, not the killer?
I sure hoped so.
“I’m going to put her on speaker,” Levi whispered to me then accepted the call.
“Tangie,” he greeted her. “I’ve been waiting for you to call me back.”
“What do you want, Levi?” Her voice sounded as if she was distracted with him even before he said why he had called.
“I have something for you,” he said.
“I don’t want anything you have,” she said. “Is that what you called me for?”
“Where are you?” he asked.
“Why?”
“I told you, I have something for you. Something that Blu had that I’m sure you’d want.”
There was quiet on the other end of the line. A quiet that said she was thinking – thinking hard. All that was coming through was her breathing. Levi didn’t say anything either, he looked at me and we waited it out.
“I’m at the Lucky Leprechaun on Country Boulevard. West 76,” she finally said, her voice not as strong as it had been when she first answered the phone. “It’s a little down from the Merry Stampede. Across the street.”
“I know exactly where it is,” he said and made a U-turn. “I’ll be there in a minute.”
Literally, that would be all it took to get us there. A minute. We hadn’t long left the Merry Stampede and then Levi had pulled over to read the paper I’d found in Blu’s ledger. We couldn’t be more than a half a mile from where she was.
Levi clicked off the call. “Won’t she be surprised to see you?” he said, turning to me and smiling. “You might want to get that gun you keep in your purse, or mace or whatever you got to protect yourself out, because Tangie don’t like you too much. She just might try to dig her killer claws into you.”
A Merry Branson Murder Page 12
