Dead In Red

by L. L. Bartlett

  Bartlett presents her second supernatural mystery featuring Jeff Resnick, a down-and-out insurance investigator who acquired hard-to-control psychic powers after sustaining brain injuries in a mugging. Jeff is now living with his brother, Richard, in Buffalo. Better but still weak, Jeff is struggling to adjust to his strange new abilities. While minding his own business in a local bar, he’s asked by the bartender to look into the murder of his cousin. Jeff instantly gets a flash of a red, rhinestone-studded high-heeled shoe. Add to that the visions of bloody hands, and he knows he must take the case. Richard insists on helping him, and Jeff acquiesces even though he remains mired in guilt over putting Richard in the line of fire yet again. Their investigation leads them into a world of fetishes and drag queens. Jeff risks his health and possibly his life, but knows he must continue, or someone he cares about will be in danger. Bartlett’s hero is complicated and mesmerizing, making for a gripping and energizing mystery. -- Booklist

  Dead in Red

  L.L. Bartlett

  A Jeff Resnick Mystery

  Copyright © 2008 by L.L. Bartlett. All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the author.*

  * This also pertains to uploading to free download sites, which is considered piracy and does not recognize the labor of this author or her livelihood from that work. Please discourage piracy and purchase works (other than those offered by the Author or Publisher as "Free Books"). Thank you.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Originally published by Five Star/Cengage Learning, June 2008

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes:

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and you did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  The Jeff Resnick Mysteries

  Murder on the Mind

  Dead In Red

  Cheated By Death

  Bound By Suggestion (2011)

  DEDICATION

  For Frank

  Acknowledgments

  Every author I know has a group of friends who read and critique her/his work, and I’m no different. My first readers come from my Sisters In Crime Chapter, The Guppies. My thanks to Nan Higginson, Marilyn Levinson, Liz Eng, Lisa Black, Sheila Connolly, and especially to Sharon Wildwind for their comments and suggestions.

  Thanks also go to Michelle Martin and Judy Stock for their expertise on running small bakeries; Hank Phillippi Ryan gave me pointers on journalism, and Michele Fowler shared her knowledge about theater and wardrobe. D.P. Lyle, MD, provided his expertise in medical matters. (Likewise, Sharon Wildwind, RN.) Any errors in that respect are definitely of my own making. I can’t forget my staunchest cheerleaders and critique partners Liz Eng and Gwen Nelson, nor my agent Jacky Sach and editor Hugh Abramson.

  Thank you all!

  DEAD IN RED

  A Jeff Resnick Mystery

  by L.L. Bartlett

  (Smashwords Edition)

  CHAPTER 1

  My footsteps echoed on the pavement that cold night in early March. Huddled in my old bomber jacket, I dodged the mini skating rinks that had once been puddles on the cracked pavement. Preoccupied. By the creepy thing I’d experienced only minutes earlier. By thoughts of a new job. Of the fifty bucks I’d just won playing pool at the little watering hole near my apartment. Five months of unemployment had cleaned me out. I was on a roll and determined not to let anything spoil it.

  Then two imposing figures stepped out of the darkness, demanded money. I gave them what I had. It wasn’t enough. One of them grabbed me, decided to teach me a lesson.

  Not if I could help it. I yanked my arm back, kicked one of them in the balls—and paid for it.

  Backlit by a streetlamp, I saw the baseball bat come at me, slam into my forearm, delivering a compound fracture that sent skyrockets of pain to obliterate my senses.

  Couldn’t think, too stunned to move as the bat slammed into my shoulder, knocking me to my knees.

  The bat came at me from the left, crashed into my temple, sent me sprawling. My vision doubled as I raised my head and the bat walloped me again.

  “My cousin’s dead.”

  The voice brought me out of my reverie, or rather the nightmare memory that claimed me at inopportune moments.

  Tom Link’s bottom lip quivered and he looked away. Heavyset, with a barroom bouncer’s countenance, I hadn’t expected him to reveal any trace of what I was sure he would call weakness.

  My fingers tightened around the cold pilsner glass as something flashed through my mind’s eyes: The image of a sparkling red, woman’s high-heeled shoe.

  I tilted the glass to my lips to take a gulp of beer. Bursts of insight—if that’s what they are—bring with them a certain creep factor, something I doubted I’d ever get used to.

  I concentrated on breathing evenly as I sipped my beer and waited for Tom to continue. It isn’t often a bartender confides to a customer. I know. Years before I’d spent time on that side of the counter, listening to the stories of lonely men—and women—who had no other confidants.

  Tom wasn’t just a bartender at the little neighborhood sports bar that teetered on the verge of going under—he was also the owner of The Whole Nine Yards. I’d been patronizing the unassuming place for the past couple of months, getting the feel of it, a part of me hoping I could one day be a part of it.

  I’d heard about but hadn’t known the murdered man—Walt Kaplan. He’d opened the bar early in the day, whereas I’d never been there before eight p.m.

  “How can I help?” I asked.

  Tom’s gaze shifted to take in a group of regulars crowded around the large-screen TV bolted to the wall, before turning back to me. “You said you used to be an investigator—”

  “Before I got my head caved in,” I said, referring to the mugging I’d suffered some three months before. I’d read about Walt’s murder in the paper, but Tom probably knew more about it than the news had reported. “What happened?”

  Lips pursed, Tom ran a damp linen cloth over the old scarred oak bar. “Walt worked here part-time. He left here on Saturday afternoon and never came back.” His worried brown eyes met mine. “Your name’s Resnick. We’re landsman, Jeff. Would you be willing to look into it? I’ll pay you.”

  We weren’t “landsman.” I was a lapsed Catholic, not Jewish, but now wasn’t the time to dispute that. Besides, the idea intrigued me. I’d been hanging out at the little neighborhood tavern with the idea of eventually asking Tom for a part-time job, and now he was offering an employment opportunity far different than what I’d anticipated.

  “What about the cops? Don’t you trust them?”

  “I’ve been robbed four times in the last twelve years. Did they ever catch the guys? No.”

  Part of me—the smart part—knew if I accepted his offer I’d be sorry. Another part of me wanted to jump at the chance to feel useful again. I tried to keep my eagerness in check. “Tell me more about Walt.”

  Tom’s jowls sagged. “You woulda liked him. He was a lot like you.”

  My stomach twisted. “How so?”

  A small smile twitched Tom’s mouth. “Quiet. A loner. He wasn’t one to talk about himself. You’ve been coming here for a couple months now and I know your name and what you
used to do before your accident, but that’s all.”

  He had me pegged there. Spilling my guts to strangers wasn’t in my program. At one time I’d been a top insurance investigator, but office politics weren’t my forte. I screwed myself one time too many and ended up on the unemployment line. On the eve of starting a new job, I’d been mugged by a couple of street thugs. The resulting brain injury had changed my life forever.

  “The newspaper said Walt was found by the Old Red Mill. That he was stabbed and had apparently been robbed.”

  Tom nodded. “His wallet was missing. So was a big diamond ring he always wore. His father gave it to him when he graduated from high school. I went to the mill. Nothin’ much to see but some crime tape.” His gaze met mine, hardened. “But you’ll get more than I did.”

  Get more? The words made my insides freeze. How did he know? I could count on one hand the people who knew I was—that I could . . .

  Cold sweat broke out on the back of my neck. The word “psychic” didn’t really apply to me. Since the mugging, I’d been able to sense strong emotions. Not from everyone I met—but sometimes from those who were no longer alive. Sometimes I just knew things—but not always. It was pretty much haphazard and damned disconcerting when it happened. And often these feelings and knowledge brought on migraines that so far drugs hadn’t been able to quell.

  Tom’s gaze bore into mine.

  “Get more?” I prompted, afraid to hear his answer.

  “Being a trained investigator, I mean.”

  I heaved a mental sigh of relief. “Yeah.”

  “When can you start?”

  As a teenager I’d ridden my ten-speed all around Snyder and Williamsville, and could still recall some of my old routes. The area behind the Old Red Mill had always been weedy, with a steep embankment that loomed near a rushing stream. No way would I risk my neck to take a look in the dark. “Tomorrow morning.”

  Tom nodded. “It wouldn’t hurt for the regulars to get to know you. Dave”—he indicated the other bartender drawing a beer at the brass taps across the way—“doesn’t want Walt’s early shift. You up to working here at the bar three or four afternoons a week?”

  I looked at my reflection in the mirrored backbar. My hair had grown back from where some ER nurse had shaved it, but the shadows under my eyes and the gaunt look and sickly pallor were taking a lot longer to fade. I'd been living with my physician brother for the past three months. While I was grateful he'd rescued me, allowing me to recover at his home, I was tired of the enforced inactivity he’d insisted upon. The idea of actually having something to do and somewhere to go appealed to me.

  “I’d like to try.”

  “Okay. Show up here about eleven tomorrow and I’ll give you a run down on how we operate.” He turned, took a cracked ballpoint out of a jar and grabbed a clean paper napkin, on which he scribbled a few lines. “This is what you have to do. I don’t need workers’ comp or the IRS breathing down my neck.”

  My hand trembled as I reached for the napkin. Who would have thought that a part-time job in a neighborhood bar would make me so nervous? A warm river of relief flooded through me as I read the short list. “I can do this. Thanks, Tom.”

  * * *

  “A bartender?” My half brother, Richard Alpert, looked up from his morning coffee, his expression skeptical. His significant other, Brenda Stanley, lowered a section of newspaper to peer at me. The three of us sat at the maple kitchen table in the home Richard’s grandparents had built decades before in Buffalo’s tony suburb of Amherst, the egg-stained breakfast dishes still sitting before us.

  “I need a job.”

  “Okay, but why a bartender?” Richard asked.

  I’d been rehearsing my answer for an hour. Now to make it sound convincing.

  “I’ve done it before. It’s pretty much a no-brainer, which is something I can handle right now.”

  Richard scowled, studied my face. Being twelve years older than me, he’s felt the need to look after me since the day our mother died some twenty-one years earlier. Back then I was an orphaned kid of fourteen and he’d been an intern with generations of old money behind him. “Have you thought about the consequences of this kind of social interaction?” he asked.

  I frowned. Consequences?

  “Touching peoples’ glasses, taking their money. What if you get vibes about them? Stuff you don’t want to know.”

  I knew what he was getting at. Truth was, I hadn’t thought about that aspect of the job, although I had been counting on the somewhat erratic empathic ability I’d developed after the mugging to help me look into Walt Kaplan’s death. I couldn’t read everyone I encountered—Richard was a prime example. We were brothers—okay, only half brothers—but he was a total blank to me, yet I could often read Brenda like an open book.

  I met his gaze, didn’t back down. “I guess I’ll have to deal with it.”

  He nodded, still scrutinizing my face. “And what’s the rest of it?”

  “Rest of it?”

  “Whole Nine Yards—isn’t that where the bartender who was murdered last week worked?”

  My half-filled coffee mug called for my attention. “Uh. Yeah. I think so.”

  “You know so.”

  “Okay, I’m taking his job.”

  “And . . . ?”

  Talk about relentless. “And the owner asked me to look into things. Nothing official. The guy was his cousin.”

  Richard’s mug thunked onto the table. “Jeff, don’t get involved.”

  “I’m not.”

  Richard’s gaze hardened. “Yes, you are. The question is why?”

  Brenda folded the newspaper, all her attention now focused on me, too.

  How much of a shit did it make me to admit I wanted the dead man’s job? And that I was willing to endure a certain amount of unpleasantness to get it probably said even more. It’s just as well that Richard’s MD wasn’t in psychiatry, not that I was about to admit any of this to him.

  “Okay, as you won’t answer that question, then when do you start?”

  “Today. Afternoon shift.”

  He raised an eyebrow.

  “You’d better tell me if you’ll be late for dinner—not that you eat enough to keep a sparrow alive,” Brenda said.

  “How long a shift will you work?” Richard asked.

  “I didn’t ask.”

  His other eyebrow went up. “How much will you make an hour?”

  “I didn’t—”

  “You didn’t ask,” he said, glowering.

  I got up from the table, cup in hand. “You want a warm-up?”

  He shook his head. “I’m worried about you, Jeff. You’re not ready for this.”

  I poured my coffee, my back stiffening in annoyance. “Is that a medical opinion?”

  “Yes. You’ve made tremendous progress, but your recovery is by no means complete.”

  He was one to talk—Mr. Short-of-Breath. I wasn’t about to argue with him though, as I felt responsible for him being that way. He’d been shot trying to protect me not ten weeks before. Walking up stairs or any distance was still a chore for him. I didn’t want to cause him undo concern, and yet . . .

  “You’re about to start a new job,” I said, more an accusation than a statement.

  “It’s only a volunteer position. It’s not full time, and doesn’t start for almost another month. By then I’ll be fully recovered. Head injuries like yours don’t heal on that kind of timeline.”

  Somehow I resisted the urge to say, “Oh yeah?” Instead I turned to Brenda. “What do you think?”

  “As your friend or a nurse?”

  “Take your pick.” Why did I have to sound so damned defensive?

  She sighed and reached for Richard’s hand, her cocoa-brown skin a contrast to his still pasty complexion. “As a nurse, I agree with Richard.”

  He smirked at her, his mustache twitching.

  “As your friend.” She turned to face me. “You’re driving me nuts—the two of yo
u, because you’re both going stir-crazy.”

  Richard’s smile faded. He sat up straighter, removed his hand from hers.

  Brenda pushed herself up from the table, and headed out of the kitchen. “You’re going to do what you want anyway, so—get on with it.”

  I avoided Richard’s accusing stare, added milk to my coffee and stirred it. Stir-crazy, huh? Too often, Brenda could read me, too. Still . . .

  I faced my brother. “You want to come with me?”

  Richard blinked. “To work?”

  “No, to check out where the guy got stabbed.”

  “I thought you weren’t getting involved in this?”

  “I’m not. I’m just curious.”

  “And curiosity killed the cat.”

  I sipped my coffee. “I figure I’ve got at least eight lives left.”

  “Don’t kid yourself, Jeff. You could’ve died from that mugging.”

  “And I could get hit by a bus going to the grocery store. Are you coming or not?”

  Richard drained his cup, pushed back his chair and rose. “I’ll come.”

  * * *

  The vibrant green grass down the steep grade stood out in chunky tufts, belligerent in the wake of someone’s weed whacker. It had probably been cropped a week before, but already looked long and lanky and ready to defy another swipe by a plastic whip cord. A six-foot remnant of yellow crime tape fluttered in the breeze. Twenty or thirty feet below and a hundred yards further on, Ellicott Creek rushed past.

  Ignoring the “Danger—No Trespassing” signs, Richard craned his neck to gaze down the hill. “So where was the dead guy found?”

  “I’m not sure.” I glanced over my shoulder at the scarlet-painted barn of a building that hugged the embankment. As in years before, a huge stone wheel once again milled corn, wheat and rye, but was the end product more for show than commerce? Pallets of ground grains in sacks sealed in plastic were stacked on the mill’s back porch. The north end of the building housed a little café and bakery. Could they really use that much flour?