“A dead body.” When Amanda jerked back and whirled around to stare at her, Harley said, “Which is why I said to call the police. It’s my understanding that they generally like to be notified when one of those pops up.”
Shaking her head, Amanda backed away, gazing at her in horror. “I’m beginning to think you’re a serial killer, Harley.”
“I’m beginning to feel like one. I’ve seen more dead bodies in the last two weeks than the coroner has, I think. Call the cops, Mandy. Please.”
Cami had crossed the room to the desk where she’d left her purse, and Harley heard her angry exclamation. “Hey! Why did you do this?”
Amanda glanced over at her uncertainly. “Do what?”
“Empty out my purse like this. There was no need in that. Everything’s scattered all over the floor, and now I can’t find my cell phone. I need to call in to work . . . just look at this mess.”
“I never saw your purse,” Amanda said crossly, “I just got to work. It’s all such a mess, so I came in here to see how much more damage the police have done. There’s dust and yellow tape everywhere . . . we can’t even open today. Probably not this week. We need a cleaning service to come in. Then we’ll just hope we have customers.”
“Mandy dearest,” Harley said with a frown, “did you come in yesterday?”
“No. No one did. No one wanted to after—everything. Why?”
“Are you the only one here now?”
“Except for Madelyn. But she’s in the main office. Mama isn’t coming in today. She’s still . . . resting.”
Hung-over, was Harley’s thought, but she didn’t say it aloud. “And you’re sure no one else came in yesterday? Just to pick up something, maybe?”
“No, no one else came in, Harley. No one wants to come here for anything right now. And it better be one of your sick jokes about there being another body.”
“While that’d be nice, believe me when I say that spending the night in the dark basement with a corpse is nothing to joke about.”
Amanda looked toward the door still standing open and blanched. A light dusting of freckles stood out on her nose. “Mama’s going to have a fit.”
“Just run along and call the police. I’ll stay here to, uh, keep an eye on things. Not that he’s going anywhere. He looked pretty stationary.”
Amanda started toward the door, then turned around and looked back at her. “Is it someone we know?”
“I have no idea if you know him or not.” That was true. But Harry Gordon had known him, and so had Aunt Darcy. It could turn out to be a real problem. Police were known to catch on to that kind of thing.
Of course, Bobby Baroni asked the expected questions right after he got through telling Harley that she was one step away from being incarcerated as a public menace. He said a lot of other things, too, none of them very nice, and one or two that were even downright nasty.
“One more time, Harley Jean,” he said, his tone and the hard look he gave her indicating he was really pissed, “just what were you doing messing around here in our crime scene?”
“Obviously, finding a body you overlooked. Not that I was looking for one. I just seem to, uh, run across them lately. I’m not sure why. I’ve gone years without inconvenient corpses in my life, and now it seems every time I turn a corner, bam! There one is. Like finding a fly in my soup or something.”
“I don’t suppose you happen to know this particular fly?”
Bobby was writing in his little notepad, and looked up when she said, “As a matter of fact I do. His name is Julio.”
“Know his last name?”
“No. I only met him once. He worked for Harry Gordon.”
One corner of his mouth tucked in, but Bobby didn’t say anything, just kept writing. From time to time, he glanced toward Cami, who sat all hunched up in a chair like she was cold. When he’d first come in, right behind several uniformed cops, he’d gone straight to Cami to see if she was okay and she’d started crying. Harley didn’t blame her. She’d had a rough night. It’d been harder on Cami than on her. Maybe there was something good about having an early childhood that promoted self-reliance. It came in handy at times.
“So this Julio was a Designer’s Den employee?” Bobby asked.
“No, I don’t think so. Aunt Darcy didn’t seem to know him well. I think he worked for just Harry. You’d have to ask her or the shop manager to be sure about that.”
“I will.”
She didn’t doubt that for a moment. Bobby could be quite thorough and very untrusting. That had its good and bad points.
Police once more swarmed around Designer’s Den, unrolling yellow tape, snapping on plastic gloves, and setting up lights down in the old storm shelter. Déjà vu.
When she went up to the front of the shop, Madelyn and Amanda were huddled in the manager’s office, whispering. It struck her as odd they’d bother to whisper when no one else was around. She strolled in and perched on the edge of a desk. The room was decorated nicely, as it would be, of course, but nothing could disguise the fact it was an office. Four desks were placed according to principles of feng shui—Diva would be so proud—and the windows had expensive wooden blinds that matched the expensive wallpaper and lighting fixtures. Vases held tall skinny sticks that had been painted the same burgundy shade as the wall trim. Very nice.
“Hello, ladies,” she said casually, and smiled when they both looked at her with tight lips. “What secrets are we telling in here? You don’t happen to know anything about Julio, do you?”
“Who’s Julio?” Madelyn asked sharply.
“You know. The dead guy with the blue face that I found in your basement.”
“Oh. Him. That’s not a basement.” Madelyn shrugged when Harley just looked at her. “I think it’s been closed up for years. Mama had the door boarded up long ago.”
“Well, don’t look now, but someone unboarded it. And obviously knew it was there. Who besides you and Aunt Darcy knew about it?”
“You don’t think I had anything to do with this?”
“Again, as we’ve discussed before, dear cousin Maddie, what I think doesn’t really matter that much. It’s what the cops are going to think. Look, I know something’s going on with you two. It’s obvious as a rat in the Limoges sugar bowl.”
Madelyn got a closed look on her face. Only Amanda showed any reaction, and she bit her lower lip and looked down at her feet, a sure sign she knew something she didn’t want Harley to know. Fine. Amanda was the easy one to crack. Once she got her away from Madelyn.
“Maddie dearest, we’ll continue this discussion later. The police want to see you.”
“If they want to see me, they’ll come and ask.”
“I’m sure they will. Of course, if you’re seen as uncooperative, they may ask you to go downtown with them. Last I heard, that could be a singularly unpleasant experience, but you go ahead and stay here. Show your disdain.”
“Really, Harley, the more I’m around you, the more I dislike you.”
“Which justifies my absence from future family reunions.”
As Madelyn took herself off with an irritated twitch of her mouth, Harley turned her attention to her cousin Amanda. She smiled to throw her off-guard.
“Maddie’s never been the brightest bulb in the pack, has she?”
“She’s the smart one,” Amanda defended her sister. “And the pretty one.”
“So you are—what? What’s left, if Maddie’s the smart and the pretty one?”
“Nice. I’m the nice one.” Amanda sounded slightly bitter, then shrugged as if it didn’t matter. Harley knew better.
“Well, if you don’t mind me saying, I’ve always thought being nice was a bit underrated.”
Amanda smiled. “So have I. But it’s what I’m stuck with. So what do you want me to tell you now that you got rid of my sister?”
“I see they don’t give you enough credit. You’re much cleverer than Maddie. Okay, I want to know why you didn’t answer the phone
Thursday night if you were home like you said. It occurred to me, during a very long night spent in total darkness with a corpse, that you said you were home, but I called and no one answered the phone.”
“I guess I didn’t hear the phone ring. Maybe I was in the tub.”
“And maybe you weren’t home like you said.”
“Harley, where else would I be on a Thursday night? Or any night? I have no social life. I’m always at home unless I’m at the shop or with a client. Read the appointment book. You’ll see I have little time for anything but work or sleep.”
For a moment Harley didn’t say anything. She’d never really thought her cousin might be resentful of her life, but the tone of her voice bordered on an unfamiliar anger that she’d never have thought Amanda had in her. She’d always seemed . . . bland.
“Don’t you get tired of that? You’re what . . . twenty-six, twenty-seven now? Have you ever had a long-term boyfriend?”
“I could ask you the same thing, Harley.”
“Yeah, but I’m not living at home with my mother and spending all my free time in the kitchen or watching TV.”
“Running around with a transvestite is hardly a step up from watching Queer Eye, I’d think.”
“If you’re referring to Tootsie, he dresses much better than Carson. And I’m willing to bet he’s a better designer, too. His house is beautiful.”
“I’ve always wondered if you’re a switch-hitter.”
“Ah, what a Maddie thing to say. Perhaps I’ve misjudged you, Mandy dearest.”
“Most people do.”
Harley didn’t like the direction of the conversation. Who’d have thought Amanda could be so bitchy? Maybe she’d been around her sister too long. Or maybe it was stress. Or maybe it was like she’d said, most people had misjudged her. Whichever, Harley did some rapid mental adjustment and approached from a different angle.
“You know, the police think Aunt Darcy has something to do with Harry’s murder. And now there’s another body. This is liable to get worse quick. I’m worried about her, and you should be, too.”
“Don’t be. She has a solid alibi.”
This wasn’t the time to confess Aunt Darcy’s extracurricular activities. “For Harry’s murder, maybe.”
That seemed to strike home. Amanda looked startled. Her eyes got so wide they looked like Blue Willow dinner plates. “Are you talking about Julio?”
“Who else? He’s pretty dead. And he’s in a storm cellar no one seems to remember being here. Also, he worked for Aunt Darcy. Or Harry, which is the same thing as far as the police are concerned.”
“Oh God. Do you think . . . ?”
“Yes . . . ?” She waited for Amanda to make the connection, and just as she seemed to connect the dots, Madelyn stormed back into the office ranting about Harley making an ass of her by sending her off. Irritated, Harley waited for a break in the flow, then said, “I think it’s time I run along now. You’ve both been very helpful.”
The look her cousins exchanged didn’t make her feel any easier, or contradict her feeling that they both knew a lot more than either had said. Damn. She really sucked at this investigation thing. She was more confused than ever now. And still had no answers that helped. The only bit of information that she hadn’t known before, was that Amanda wasn’t at all happy being the nice one who stayed home with a box of cookies and the remote. A lot of help that was in finding out anything.
She found Cami still in the storage room. Julio’s body hadn’t been brought up from the cellar yet—flashbulbs going off indicated that the crime scene unit were taking pictures and doing their thing down there. Bobby was talking to another detective, and he glanced up when Harley went to sit down by Cami. For a minute, she thought he might say something to her, but he didn’t.
“So, I noticed that Bobby was a lot nicer to you than me,” Harley said, and Cami smiled.
“Not really. He’s pretty mad. He said we’re both crazy. And you’re dangerous.”
“Ah. How nice to be recognized for my talents. So, you ready to go?”
“I have been since we got here yesterday.”
It took longer than either of them wanted to get away from the crime scene, but finally they made it out to the parking area and Cami’s car. News teams were setting up again, vans with their logos crowding each other. They had to be scanning police radios to get here so quickly.
On the way to Cami’s house, Harley reflected, “Amanda doesn’t like staying home.”
After a moment, Cami said, “You mean at all, or instead of having a boyfriend?”
“The last one. Funny, I never thought about her minding it. She always seemed happy. I guess she isn’t really.”
“Well, you don’t see them very much. It’s not anything you’d notice right off.”
“No. I guess not. Sometimes I think I’m too self-absorbed. You know, just think about how I feel and not anyone else.”
“That’s not quite true. Besides, it’s human nature to see things from your own perspective rather than anyone else’s.”
“Yeah. I guess so.”
“Know what you need, Harley?”
“I’m afraid to hear this.”
Cami laughed. “You need a pet. Something to take care of besides yourself.”
“I have a pet. He comes by and brings food and pretty play toys.”
“Right. Great sex is certainly fun, but it doesn’t keep you grounded.”
“I thought that was the point of it. You know, that feeling you get when it’s really good and your eyes roll back in your head and all you can see is stars.”
“And when he leaves?”
“I enjoy my solitude.”
Cami was quiet for a minute, then she said, “After Jace and I divorced, I didn’t do much except sit around the house and think how miserable I was. Then a friend of mine asked if I’d look after her dog while she went out of town. It was nice coming home to a house that wasn’t empty. Even though it wasn’t my dog, he jumped all around, wagging his tail and barking when I walked in, and it was companionship.”
“I think you’ve carried it a little too far now. You’re harboring a zoo.”
“Maybe. Most of them are temporary, just waiting for a good home to come along. That’s how I felt for a long time. Just waiting for someone to show up and rescue me. It took a while to figure out that I had to rescue myself first. I’m luckier than the animals. I have options. So do you.”
“I’m happy,” Harley protested, “a lot happier than I’d be picking up doggy doodles from the floor. Sometimes I’m gone long hours. I don’t want anything I have to walk or that’ll miss me.”
“So that includes Morgan, I suppose?”
“Well, I don’t have to walk him, and he’s never hinted that he misses me that much, but I guess that includes him. What are you getting at, Cami?”
“Has it occurred to you that neither one of us is getting any younger and our biological clocks are ticking?”
“The only internal clock I have tells me when I’ve missed breakfast. Turn in to that Taco Bell up there on the right.”
“There’s no way I can eat tacos for breakfast.”
They settled on the drive-through at a chicken and biscuit chain, then Cami dropped off Harley at her apartment and went home to feed her animals. Harley let herself in and thought how nice it was not to have to worry about feeding anyone or anything but herself. No nuggets on the floor to clean up, nothing but silence and solitude. Perfect.
The message light on her answering machine was blinking furiously, and she hit the button, then rummaged through the Mrs. Winner’s sack for a biscuit while she listened. Tootsie had called three times and complained that she wasn’t answering her cell phone and how did she expect him to give her the information she wanted if she wouldn’t pick up. There were two calls from Mike Morgan, the last one a terse, “Call me when you get home” that indicated he’d talked to Bobby. Damn. That could get very inconvenient. The last call was a wrong n
umber. A male voice that sounded foreign said, “Hello” a couple of times, then hung up. Foreign accents could be delicious and exotic. Maybe she should ask Morgan to pretend he was Russian the next time they played bedtime games. She returned Tootsie’s calls first.
“It’s Monday morning, do you know where your employees are?” she chirped when he answered the phone with his Memphis Tour Tyme spiel. “So what’s up?”
“I could ask you the same thing. Mike Morgan called here looking for you.”
“I have a feeling he knows where I am by now.”
“So where are you?”
“Home. Just got here. You won’t believe this—”
“Damn baby, I hate it when you start off a sentence like that.”
“Right. Well, I hate spending the night in a dark cellar with Cami and a dead body.”
Silence greeted that remark, and after a moment, she heard Tootsie make a wheezing sound. She smiled. It wasn’t easy to rattle him, so she always counted it as a small victory when she managed to leave him speechless.
“So,” he said after a minute, “I guess that explains why Cami never answered her cell phone either.”
“It does. Shall I fill you in on the gory details?”
“God, yes.”
It didn’t take long. Then she asked, “What did you find out about Cheríe Saucier?”
“She died about eight years ago. Or at least, that was the only one I found.”
“Hah! I knew that scrawny bitch was a fraud. Aunt Darcy is always right on the money when it comes to sizing up another female. Which makes her opinion of me a bit uncomfortable.”
“So why did you want to know about her?”
“She worked with Harry Gordon. You know, it just occurred to me that Harry’s dead and now the guy who worked for him is dead, and that leaves only Cheríe who might still know why. If I could talk to her, I might just learn something.”
“Baby, your track record isn’t so good. Leave that to the police.”
“Well, I did pretty good last time.”
“You almost got killed last time. This time, you’ve only spent the night in a cellar with a dead body. Think about it. You’re still ahead.”
Harley Rushes In (Book 2 of the Blue Suede Mysteries) Page 12
