Drop Dead Crime: Mystery and Suspense from the Leading Ladies of Murder

by Lisa Regan

  Dimples thought I was starting to sound like a crazy person. Something had me spooked, but he didn’t know if it was my premonitions or something I wasn’t telling him.

  “Hurry,” I said. “I’ll wait here.”

  He exhaled loudly and shook his head, then continued to the car. I turned back to the parking lot, hoping I could talk some sense into Drake before Mack came out.

  As I reached Drake’s car, Mack came out of a door in the back of the building. Drake jumped from his car and ran to intercept him, ready to pull the gun from his waistband. I took off after Drake, hoping to stop him. Mack glanced up and stopped short. He turned back to the building and tried the door, but it was locked.

  Turning to face Drake, he pulled a gun from his waistband. “Stay back.”

  Drake froze. Damn. He should have pulled his gun already. Now he couldn’t reach it before Mack shot him. Thinking fast, he decided to buy some time by getting Mack to talk. “Why did you do it? She was innocent. You didn’t have to kill her.”

  “No, she wasn’t. She didn’t love you. All she wanted was your money.” Mack wanted to hurt Drake and would say whatever it took to twist the knife in his heart, even if it wasn’t true. “That’s all any of them want from you.”

  Mack’s gaze drifted to me. I stood a few feet behind Drake, and my heart hammered as Mack shifted his aim in my direction. My breath caught. I knew Mack had reached a breaking point, and right now, he was beyond reasoning.

  “Who’s this?” Mack asked. “You already have someone else? Get the hell out of my way, or I’ll kill her too.”

  Drake swallowed, then stepped in front of me. “No. You’ll have to kill me first.”

  “Drop it,” Dimples said, pushing the muzzle of his gun into the back of Mack’s head. Mack froze. He thought about shooting Drake anyway, but the cold muzzle proved too much, and he lowered his gun.

  “Put it on the ground,” Dimples commanded. After Mack complied, Dimples holstered his gun and expertly cuffed Mack’s wrists behind him.

  I slumped with relief, grateful that Dimples had skirted around the bar and come up behind Mack in time to stop him. Mack had wanted to kill Drake and probably would have killed us both if Dimples hadn’t stopped him.

  As Dimples read him his rights, I noticed Ramos standing at the edge of a small crowd that had gathered in the lot. Ramos was thinking that he would have taken the shot the moment Mack turned the gun my way if Dimples hadn’t been there.

  I snapped my mouth shut and shook my head, then sent him a smile and a nod. He did that head nod thingy and thought the plan had been a success after all. Mack thought he’d exchanged the diamonds for a wire transfer, and Ramos had the diamonds now.

  The wire transfer had been handled by Drake’s people to make it look real, but it was totally bogus. Everything had worked out great, even if I’d interfered. With a grin, he slipped on his helmet and fired up his motorcycle, thinking he’d talk to me later.

  I chuckled and turned to Drake. “Thanks for stepping in there. I’m sorry if I got in the way. I just didn’t want you to shoot him.”

  “I appreciate it. Did you pick up anything? Do you know why he did it?”

  “Some, but I’ll know more after we question him.”

  A couple of patrol cars pulled into the lot, and Dimples gratefully pushed Mack into the back seat of the car. He instructed an officer to bag Mack’s gun, then he came to stand beside me and Drake.

  “Thanks, Harris,” Drake said. “I owe you.”

  “Just doing my job, but because you were willing to take a bullet for Shelby, I think we’re even.” Dimples glanced my way, thinking that was a close call, and I had no idea how lucky I was. Or, maybe it was my premonitions that kept me alive? Either way, he was anxious to get back to the station and figure out what the hell was going on, because he knew he’d missed something, and he hoped I’d tell him what that was.

  Yikes. I wasn’t sure I could do that, and my enthusiasm to find out what happened to Lily waned a bit.

  “You coming?” Dimples asked.

  “Uh… yes.” I turned to Drake. “I’ll call you when I know more.”

  “Thanks, Shelby.”

  I followed Dimples back to the car, surprised that my legs shook a little, making it hard to walk. I sank gratefully into the front seat. After buckling up, I laid my head back against the seat and closed my eyes. Dimples didn’t bug me about anything, even in his mind, which was a real treat.

  We pulled into the precinct, and I took a deep breath. “That was close. But at least we’ve got him, right? Uh… thanks for saving my bacon back there.”

  He glanced my way and smiled. “Sure. It’s what partners do. Are you ready to talk?”

  He was thinking about the whole mysterious thing going on at the bar that I wasn’t sharing with him, so I deliberately misunderstood the question. “Yup! I think I’m ready to face him.” At his blank stare, I continued, “Let’s get in there and find out what happened to Lily.”

  He sighed, then opened his door and got out.

  Following Dimples’s instructions, the police officer had taken Mack straight to an interrogation room. Dimples and I found him cuffed to the table, and we took our seats across from him.

  Mack’s brows drew together in confusion. What was I doing there? He’d caught a glimpse of me at Manetto’s, then at the bar, but why here? Was I working undercover or something? If so, that meant I was fairly important, and he’d have to be careful not to speak a word without his lawyer present.

  “What happened, Jeremy?” Dimples asked. “Why did you pull a gun on Alex Drake?”

  “I’m not answering your questions until I have a lawyer present.”

  Dimples nodded, hating when that happened. He could question him all day and not get anything. But maybe with my premonitions it wouldn’t matter. He nodded at me.

  “You threatened to kill me and Drake. We also heard you confess to killing Lily Daniels, Drake’s girlfriend. How did you do it?”

  His palms began to sweat. He hadn’t said that he’d killed Lily, only that he’d kill me if Drake didn’t get out of his way. It was just a threat, nothing like murder. He just had to keep his cool and everything would be fine.

  “We found her body not far from your office. Why did you leave it there?”

  He was thinking that he should have left her body farther away, but he’d run out of time and didn’t have a choice. Good thing it had happened in her car. After dumping the body, he’d stashed the car across town. He’d wiped it down, so they couldn’t pin it on him, but it still didn’t make sense. He’d been careful to hide his tracks. And the fact that Lily had decided to leave town had worked in his favor. So how had we found him at all?

  I leaned closer to him. “We know you killed her. We found her car across town. Now it’s only a matter of time until we find a match for your DNA inside. Sure, you wiped it down, but all it takes is one strand of your hair to place you in the car. Maybe we’ll even find the knife… but I doubt you left it there. Is it still in your jacket pocket? That was pretty lazy of you.”

  “Shut up. You’re just making this up. You’re crazy,” he said. “I don’t know anything about this.”

  Good, I was starting to get to him. “We know you were blackmailing Lily. She brought you Drake’s watch and a few other things. But what I don’t understand is why you killed her. With her link to Drake, you could have kept blackmailing her for a long time. Drake’s a rich man. You could have made a lot of money. So why kill her?”

  Once again, he heard Lily’s voice echoing in his mind, telling him she was done and to go ahead and tell Drake. It had made him so mad that he’d lost control and killed her. She’d ruined everything.

  “Did Lily change her mind? Is that why you killed her?”

  “Go to hell!” Mack jumped from his chair, sending it flying backward. He leaned toward me, jerking at the chains holding his cuffs, thinking he should have killed me when he had the chance.

  Two
officers came in to restrain Mack, and I hurried out of the room. Dimples followed me back to his desk, and I sat down with a heavy sigh. Dimples sat beside me, sorry Mack had threatened me like that, and hoping I got something to make it worth it.

  “He killed her in her car,” I said. “I think she must have changed her mind. When she didn’t leave the items where she was supposed to, he ambushed her when she opened her car door. After he killed her, he drove the car to the alley and dumped her body there. Then he took the car to a spot at the end of the rail system and caught a train back to his car.”

  “Do you know where her car is?”

  “Not exactly. Just that it’s across town from his office. But I’m sure we can figure it out.”

  “Okay.” Dimples’s heart sped up with hope. Now we were getting somewhere. He pulled up the light rail system on his computer, and we mapped out the most likely places the car might be. Next, he found the make and model of the car she drove and put a call out to the police units in those areas to look for a matching car in those locations.

  “We should get a hit soon,” he said. “Did you get anything else?” He was thinking about the murder weapon, the items Lily took from Drake, and that other thing that was going on at the bar.

  “Yes. I think they’re in the bottom of a closet somewhere… uh… I mean… the knife and the other items.” Oops, I just did it again. Crap! “They’re probably in his house, but all I got was a closet, so I don’t know for sure.”

  Dimples nodded, so engrossed in my revelations that he hardly noticed my little slip. He just thought we were in sync, like a real partnership. A small smile turned his lips up. He caught my gaze, and his smile grew to epic proportions, causing his dimples to swirl with tornado-like zeal.

  Naturally, I smiled back.

  “Great. While we’re waiting on the car, I’ll get a search warrant for his house. If the items are there, we’ll find them.”

  While he went to work, I decided it was time for a break. I needed a diet soda something fierce, along with some time to unwind. I hurried to the drinks machine and also picked up a bag of Cheetos as I’d missed lunch.

  Realizing my kids were just getting home from school, I called them to check in and let them know I would be a little late. After promising pizza for dinner, I spent the next few minutes eating my Cheetos and downing most of the soda.

  By the time I got back, Dimples had some good news.

  “They found the car, right where you said it would be. They could see blood on the seat through the window, along with her purse. A team is on the way right now to process the evidence, but this is great news.”

  Relief washed over me. Now I could breathe again. With this evidence, Mack was going down.

  “I’ve also got the search warrant for his house,” he continued. “Want to go with me?”

  “You know it!”

  We arrived at the house before the rest of the team, so Dimples used a lock pick set to unlock the door, totally impressing me with his abilities.

  “Do they teach that at detective school?” I asked.

  He snickered. “No. I figured this out all on my own, but don’t tell anyone.” He was thinking that it was something his mentor had urged him to learn on his own time. It wasn’t on the training list, but it sure came in handy when he didn’t want to break the door down and hurt himself.

  That made sense to me. Maybe it was something I needed to learn? Too bad he probably wouldn’t teach me.

  Next, he pulled some rubber gloves from his pockets and instructed me to put them on while he did the same. We entered the house and opened the closet doors, starting with the entryway. It wasn’t until we reached the bedroom closet that I recognized the surroundings from Mack’s thoughts.

  “It’s in here somewhere.” Because I’d only caught a glimpse of the closet, I didn’t know exactly where he’d hidden them. “Is there a safe, or something like that in here?”

  “Doesn’t look like it,” Dimples said. He inhaled sharply at the sight of a black hoodie on the closet floor. “Look at that.” He picked it up and felt inside the pocket. “Bingo.” With two fingers he pulled a pocket knife from inside, still covered with blood.

  After glancing my way, he carefully replaced it and moved the jacket out of the closet and onto the bed where he could bag it as evidence. “Let’s find the other things. I’ll take the upper shelves, and you take the lower ones and the floor.”

  We searched the entire area but came up with nothing. “I know they’re here,” I said. “Let’s look one more time.”

  Concentrating on what I’d picked up from Mack, I stepped to the far right corner of the closet. Leaning down, I rubbed my fingers over the floorboard and felt a ridge. Pushing down, something caught, and a section of wood popped open, revealing a space the size of a shoe box.

  Inside, we found a black, velvet bag, cuff links, and a diamond tie pin. With care, I pulled the bag open and looked inside. Diamonds? Hadn’t Mack sold them to Uncle Joey?

  “What’s in there?” Dimples asked.

  I tipped the contents of the bag into my hand. “Diamonds.”

  I caught surprise from Dimples, then, as Mack’s motives clicked, he finally understood what he’d been missing. “That was what he was after all along. Those diamonds were probably in Drake’s pocket watch, in that secret chamber.” He shook his head while putting all the pieces together. “Do you think Lily found out, and that’s why she didn’t go through with it?”

  “No. I don’t think she had any idea.”

  While Dimples and the team of investigators categorized the items for processing, I left the house to give Drake a call. “We found the murder weapon,” I began. “Mack will be formally charged for Lily’s murder.”

  “Good,” he said. “Did you find out what really happened?”

  “Yes. Why don’t I come to your office, and I’ll explain it there.” He agreed and we disconnected.

  Dimples didn’t want to leave until he had everything wrapped up tight, so he had an officer drive me back to my car at the precinct. Twenty minutes later, I walked into Global Securities. The receptionist noticed my change of clothes from earlier and wished she could get away with more comfy clothes like that, although, with the top buttons undone, it looked a little risqué.

  Oops. I’d forgotten all about that. Embarrassment flooded my cheeks, and I moved my hand to hold my shirt together.

  “Hi, Shelby,” she said, smiling. “Go on back, he’s expecting you.”

  I buttoned my blouse before knocking on his door and stepping inside. He glanced up at me and nodded. “Come in and sit down. I’m anxious to hear everything.” He motioned me toward the couch and sat beside me.

  His blue-eyed gaze caught mine with sad resignation, and he nodded at me to begin.

  “I think this is what happened. It’s kind of creepy, but I think Mack’s been keeping an eye on you for a long time. With Lily, I think he saw his chance to get even. He found out about her past and used it to blackmail her into taking your watch.

  “She obviously followed his instructions but, knowing he could continue to extort her, I think she intended to run away and start someplace fresh. That’s why she packed up her apartment and took time off work.

  “But I think that once she reached the drop point, she changed her mind. Mack must have been watching and called her from his cell phone. That’s when she told him she wasn’t going through with it, and he could tell you whatever he wanted.

  “He followed her to her car and ambushed her when she opened her door. After he killed her, he drove to the alley and left her body there with the pocket watch around her neck to spite you. He kept the diamonds and other items, then left the car near a light rail station and went home.”

  Drake closed his eyes, plagued with guilt, thinking Lily died because of him. “I can’t believe I didn’t know about him. I should have picked it up somewhere.”

  I shrugged. “You can’t blame yourself. He did this, not you. Besides,
his life is over. He’s going to jail, and he’s never getting out.”

  Drake nodded. It helped to know that, but it was small consolation.

  “There’s one more thing,” I said. “I don’t know if it’s good or bad, but Mack kept a few of the diamonds. When we found the other items, they were in a black bag.”

  “How many?”

  “I counted five. But it was good in a way, because it finally made sense to the detective. He couldn’t understand why Mack would kill Lily over a watch, but the diamonds cleared that all up.”

  “I had wondered why the jeweler appraised them so low,” Drake said. “But now it makes sense.” He let out a breath and relaxed back on the couch. “How did you know to show up at the bar?”

  He’d planned to confront Mack and make him confess before telling him the wire transfer was bogus and Mack had nothing. But he hadn’t expected Mack to pull a gun on him. Facing death like that made him realize he needed to make some changes in his life. Starting now.

  I smiled, glad he would find his way out of this dark spot. “Would you believe it was because of my premonitions?”

  That caught him off-guard and he smiled. “Maybe so.”

  “Well, I guess we’re done here. Uh… here’s your check back.” I held it out. “I don’t think I earned that much, so I can’t take it all.” He took the check from my hand.

  “Well, let’s see…” He mentally counted up the hours I’d been on the job, then rounded up and threw in a couple of grand to be safe. “Nope. I think this is right.” I took a breath to protest, but he shook his head. “Take it. I’ve never seen anyone with your skills. You solved this case in one day. That’s unheard of.”

  I still hesitated, so he took my hand and put the check inside. “Thanks, Shelby.”

  “Sure. Glad I could help.” It was on the tip of my tongue to say “anytime,” but I just smiled instead. I didn’t want to start helping him like I did Uncle Joey or the police.

  As I left the office, I caught him thinking that I could put the money to good use and buy myself some better clothes for the job. Sure, I looked great in the tight skirt and heels, but it wasn’t his image of what a private investigator would wear.