Till Beth Do Us Part (A Jamie Bravo Mystery Book 2)

by Layce Gardner

  I think she’s being snide but I’m not sure. She follows the trail of blood and stops when she reaches the garbage bag. She looks at it for a moment. Then she looks at the bucket of bleach water, bloody sponge and rubber gloves. For the first time I notice there’s a big, badass butcher knife on the counter top. It’s been wiped clean with some of those Clorox wipey sheets.

  London whistles between her teeth then says, “This is a little more than just moving some stuff around—this is a big, big problem.”

  “Which is why,” Veronica says pointing at me, “she called you.”

  “Because,” London says, “I am a homicide detective and it appears a homicide has been committed.”

  “Well, I certainly didn’t do it,” Veronica huffs.

  “That’s not what it looks like,” London says. She squats down and peeks inside the garbage bag.

  “What are you doing?” Veronica says in a panic. “I finally got her wrapped up. Do you know how hard it is to lift a dead body? They’re really heavy. Of course, Beth Ellen did need to lose a few pounds. She has a bit of a roll around her waist.”

  “Muffin top,” I say.

  “What?” London asks.

  “The roll thing. It’s called a muffin top.”

  Veronica adds, “I was going to bring it up after a few dates. I’m too nice of a person to tell her she’s a little fat on our first date.”

  London raises an eyebrow at me. “Is she for real?”

  “’Fraid so. She’s always been self-centered, arrogant, and bossy,” I reply. “And shallow. Let’s not forget shallow.”

  “I’m standing right here. Stop talking like I’m not. And I am not any of those things,” Veronica says.

  “Says you,” I can’t help but say.

  London ignores Veronica’s protestations and unwraps the body being careful not to actually touch the body itself. I’ve never actually seen a dead body before. I’d been to Uncle Cheech’s funeral but there had been no body because they couldn’t find it. Another long story.

  This body looks dead. Very dead. Beth Ellen’s once beautiful face is now white. Not Kabuki white, more of a translucent white. Like the vampires in Twilight. Her eyelids are open and her unseeing eyes stare right at me.

  Bile rises up in my throat. Only pride keeps me from spewing my mostly digested melanzane. How could I ever look London in face if I was a puking pansy on my first truly important case?

  “Why don’t you tell me about the victim,” London says, rising to her feet and taking out her small black notebook.

  I want to whip out my own small black notebook but I don’t want to seem like a copycat. Why didn’t I have the presence of mind to write stuff down when I first got here? But no, I had to go and faint. . .

  London looks at me and says, “You might want to be writing this down, too. I’m thinking Veronica is going to need our help to keep her from going to the gallows.”

  “Yes, I do. Consider yourself hired. I’ll pay whatever…” Veronica stops. “Within reason.”

  “Only you would put a price tag on your freedom,” I say, pulling out my notebook and pen.

  “All right, I’ll pay whatever you want, but keep detailed records of your hours,” she says.

  “Look, if you’re in the clink for life you won’t be paying me anyway. So what does it matter,” I say somewhat testily.

  Veronica glowers. “I demand transparency in all my business dealings.”

  “Ladies, now is not the time to be bickering,” London says, examining Beth Ellen.

  “Has she been dead long?” I know some stuff from watching CSI, but it’s all different when there’s a dead body on the floor right in front of you.

  “When was the last time you saw her alive?” London asks.

  “At the reunion,” I say. “In the ladies room. I wasn’t wearing pants.”

  “Not you,” London says. “I was asking Veronica.”

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  Veronica answers, “We had sex. That was when I saw her last. Of course, there wasn’t much difference between her having sex and looking like this,” Veronica says. “It’s no wonder her husband left her.”

  London points her pen at Veronica. “This was a human being, an alive human being not that long ago, have a little respect.” London pulls the garbage bag back even further and studies the knife wounds.

  I lean over London’s shoulder and peek. It’s gruesome. I count at least ten stab wounds. “Looks to me like the perp was angry. Very angry.”

  “Good call,” London says. “What’s the victim’s name?”

  “Her name was Beth Ellen Warren. I’ve had a crush on her since high school. She came out about six months ago,” Veronica says, pulling out a kitchen chair and sitting.

  “She was married before?” London asks.

  “Yes. . .” Veronica snaps her finger. “That’s it! Her jilted husband slunk in here and murdered her out of jealousy and spite.”

  “It’s possible but the lock wasn’t forced, so how’d he get in here?” London asks.

  That stumps Veronica. The window isn’t an option. They don’t open and she lives on the 12th floor. The chances of the murderer being Spiderman are not good.

  “I know what happened. Beth Ellen let him in, they argued, he stabbed her and left me holding the bag,” Veronica says.

  “And you didn’t hear anything during all this?” I ask.

  “I’m a heavy sleeper. Maybe they were quiet,” Veronica reasons.

  “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do here,” London says. “I’m calling this in. Then I’m taking you in for questioning. It’ll look better for you if you surrender yourself voluntarily.”

  Veronica nods.

  “What about me?” I ask.

  “Put on your private detective hat. Make a list of everyone you can think of that hates Beth Ellen.”

  “But what if the murderer’s motive wasn’t about hating Beth Ellen? What if they killed her just to frame Veronica?”

  “Better make another list of all Veronica haters,” London says.

  “That’ll take weeks,” I say.

  “That’s not funny,” Veronica says. She holds her wrists out to London. “Cuff me.”

  “She says that to all the girls,” I say under my breath.

  Eighteen

  “She what?” Travis asks. He gulps his coffee. He evidently wants his brain to work at top speed as he takes in this new information.

  I’m on my third cup. I feel like I’m melting into my kitchen chair. My nerves are jangly and my eyes are sandpapery. I need to sleep for about twenty hours, but I’ve had so much coffee I might not sleep for a week. At least I changed out of the white tux and back into my usual black pants and black T-shirt.

  Fruit Loops flies over our head and lands on top of the fridge. His beady little eyes stare down at me. “The hills are alive!” he squawks.

  I can’t believe my ears. I look at Travis. “Did you teach him to say that?

  “No, Michael did. He taught him a bunch of show tunes.”

  “I’ve found a new home for him. I don’t know if show tunes will be welcome.”

  “Where?” Travis asks, pouring coffee and steamed milk in Fruit Loops’ bowl and setting it on top of the fridge with him.

  “Zio Tonino is living with my parents. His wife died and he just got out of surgery. I thought Fruit Loops would be good company for him.”

  “But he’s ours,” Travis says, pooching out his lips. The lip-pooching thing may work on his boyfriends, but it doesn’t work on me. Well, hardly ever.

  “He’s in mortal danger here,” I say, and as if to substantiate this, Veronica-the-Cat leaps from the counter to the top of the fridge. Fruit Loops squawks and flies away, but not before Veronica gets a paw full of feathers.

  “Hello, Dolly! Hello, Dolly! Hello, Dolly!” Fruit Loops squawks from his new perch on the blade of a ceiling fan.

  “Don’t get used to sitting there,” I say to him. “If anybody turns on t
he fan we could be having Parrot à l’orange for dinner.”

  Travis plucks Veronica-the-Cat off the top of the fridge and sets her gently on the floor.

  “I was just getting attached to the poor wittle birdie,” Travis says in baby talk.

  “I know, but Veronica is a wuthless murdewer,” I say back in baby talk.

  It’s weird that I just said Veronica is a ruthless murderer. I was talking about Veronica-the-Cat, but is there a part of my subconscious that thinks Veronica-the-Lawyer actually did murder Beth Ellen? If I weren’t so damn tired, I might do some soul-searching on this topic.

  “Can we have a going-away party?”

  I tune back in to Travis. “Don’t you think that’s a little premature?”

  “What do you mean?” he asks.

  “She hasn’t been proven guilty yet. She won’t be going away to prison for months. Depending on how long the trial takes.”

  Travis laughs. “I was talking about a going away party for Fruit Loops.”

  “Oh. Sure. Why not.” I imagine tiny bird party hats and seed cake.

  Travis pours a saucer of milk and sets it on the floor for Veronica-the-Cat. “So, tell me all about Veronica. Did she actually murder a woman just because she was lousy in bed?”

  “She didn’t murder anybody, Travis. At least I don’t think so. At least I hope not.” I know I don’t sound too sure of her innocence. But the whole thing is really unbelievable.

  Ivan pads into the kitchen. He looks tired. It had been a long night. Travis pours him a saucer of coffee laced with milk. I flip through the pages of a little red book.

  “What’s that?” Travis asks.

  “It’s Veronica’s address book. I’m trying to figure out who hated her enough to frame her for murder.” I had promised to hand it over to London after I went through it.

  “Pretty long list, I’m sure. So give me the goods,” Travis says.

  Over two cups of espresso, double shots, I told him everything.

  “She really wanted you to dump the body in the lake? Omigod, I’ve had some bad exes, but she takes the cake,” Travis says.

  “If I were a rich man,” Fruit Loops sings.

  I look up at the ceiling fan where Fruit Loops is still sitting. “How many show tunes does he know?”

  Travis shrugs. “A lot.”

  “Great.”

  The door chime goes off to the tune of It’s Raining Men. “You promised you’d change that,” I say, stuffing Veronica’s address book into my pocket.

  “But Michael loves it.”

  I’m already sick of Michael and they’ve only been dating a week. “Last time I checked, Michael doesn’t live here.”

  “Not yet,” Travis says.

  My eyes widen.

  “Just kidding,” Travis backtracks. “Not till he puts a ring on it.”

  Not a wedding. Please God, not a wedding. If there were one that would mean Michael would be moving in. One gay boy at a time is about all I can handle. I feel like the place is a zoo as it is.

  On my way to the door, I say, “I’m going to see Juniper. I’ll be back later to take the bird over to Zio Tonino.”

  “I’ll break the news to Michael about Fruit Loops’ relocation,” Travis says with a heavy sigh.

  I open the door to find Michael doing the splits on the floor. My groin hurts just looking at him.

  “Hi, Jamie. Are you going detecting?” he asks. He’s as bad as Travis when it comes to what they perceive as my exciting career.

  “Yes. And I’m sure Travis will tell you all about it. But do me a favor and don’t talk about it to anyone else.” Like it matters. It’ll be all over the papers by the evening edition.

  Michael pops up out of the splits like a jack-in-the-box. “My lips are sealed.” He does the lock his lips with the key thing.

  “I’ll be back later to pick your brains.”

  “We are so there for you,” Michael says.

  I smile and walk away. The last thing I hear is Fruit Loops squawking, “Let’s do the Time Warp again.”

  Nineteen

  I knock on Juniper’s door five times before finally giving up. She isn’t home. That or she’s hiding from me. I should’ve called first, but my sister is always home until the afternoon. And then she does the helicopter-parenting thing: driving Griffin to judo class, art class, and kettle drum lessons. Juniper firmly believes that summertime is to be spent learning things a child doesn’t learn in school. She wants Griffin to grow up to be some kind of Renaissance man who can kill people with his bare hands, paint their portraits, and then drum them a funeral march. At least he isn’t in front of the TV all day.

  I call Juniper while I sit in my car in her driveway. As the phone rings, I study her house. She’s upgraded to a green, solar-powered, all-glass, roof-top garden, new-age, weirdo house. It’s in a new development for groovy weirdoes who all have various versions of green, solar powered, all glass houses.

  “What do you want?” Juniper answers. Remember the old days before caller ID when people answered the phone with a hello and then you had to tell them who you were? I miss those days.

  “Where are you? I’m at your house and you’re not here.”

  “I can’t talk right now, I’m being cupped.”

  “Does your husband know?”

  “Not that kind of cupping, Jamie. It’s medicinal.”

  “That’s what they all say.”

  “We’re not supposed to talk on the phone so this better be an emergency.”

  “It is. I need your tech skills.”

  “I’ll be at Ma’s in an hour. I promised to cup her.”

  “TMI.”

  “Shut up, Jamie. You can meet me there if it’s really important.”

  “Gotcha.” I hang up and start my car. I’ll swing by my place, get the parrot and take it to my parents. That way I can kill one bird with two stones. Figuratively, that is.

  *

  I quietly open my front door. I don’t want to catch Travis and his boyfriend playing house. And if they are doing anything I don’t want to see, I sincerely hope they’re doing it in the bedroom, not the kitchen or living room. I walk into the kitchen. No hanky panky in here. Then I hear Michael’s voice: “Hold it like that. That’s good. If you lick it, it’ll stand up straight. Go on, give it a good lick.”

  “Hello?” I call out, queasily.

  “We’re in here!” Travis says.

  “Can I come in?”

  “Sure. There’s something I want you to see.”

  “I hope it’s not what I think it is,” I respond. I walk into the living room with narrowed eyes. Then I see what Travis and Michael are up to. “Nope. I wasn’t expecting that at all.”

  The boys are playing dress up with Ivan. Ivan is wearing a kimono and sitting on a red silk pillow. Travis is licking his palm and sculpting Ivan’s fauxhawk into place. Michael fiddles with a camera on a tripod.

  “What’s going on?” I ask.

  “We’re making a calendar. We’re dressing up Ivan with an around the world theme. Michael is going to sell them on an internet site he found,” Travis answers.

  “It isn’t a porn site, I hope?”

  “No!” they both answer.

  “It’s a site for Chinese cresteds. We can sell stuff on it if we donate a percentage of the profits to the Rescue the Uglies shelter,” Travis says. He gives Ivan’s hair one last lick for good measure.

  “Wait until you see him in his Gay-Paree outfit, you know, the striped shirt, black beret, red scarf—the whole Robespierre Reign of Terror look,” Michael says.

  “You’ll need a doggie guillotine to go with it.”

  Travis laughs.

  Michael frowns. “We’re using a baguette instead.”

  “I don’t know,” Travis says, “I like the guillotine idea. It would add a campy horror look to it.”

  “No, PETA will be all over that,” Michael says. “Besides, this isn’t camp. We’re doing a serious calendar.”


  I don’t know how Michael thinks dressing a dog up as a mime is serious, but whatever. “Well, you boys have fun,” I say, leaving them to it. I sneak back to the dining room and find Fruit Loops napping in his cage. I quickly throw a tablecloth over the cage and smuggle him out the door. This way—if Travis doesn’t see him go—there will be fewer tears and histrionics.

  Fruit Loops is oddly quiet as I drive to my parent’s house. His cage is sitting in Ivan’s basket in the passenger seat and I have him buckled in. “Don’t worry,” I say to the tablecloth that hangs over his cage. “You’ll like your new home. There’s lots of people, and Griffin, he’s my nephew, will love you. And just think of how much good you’ll be doing by keeping Zio Tonino happy. He’s not there right now. He swallowed his dentures and he’s still in the hospital.”

  “The sun will come out tomorrow,” Fruit Loops says.

  “That’s right. He’ll be home soon.”

  “Bet your bottom dollar, that tomorrow,” he continues.

  “I hate that musical.”

  “There’ll be sun!” he screams.

  I grip the steering wheel tighter. “I hate Annie. Every little redheaded girl in the world thinks she can belt out ‘Tomorrow,’ and I’m sick of it. The only thing that grates worse than Annie is Oklahoma.”

  There’s blessed silence. But not for long. Fruit Loops squawks loudly, “Oklahoma! Where the wind comes sweeping down the plain!”

  I grit my teeth and listen to the entire song. Not once, not twice, but three whole times before I pull into my parents’ driveway.

  Ma comes flying out the front door when she sees me getting the cage out of my car. I whisk the tablecloth off, much like magician, but without the abracadabra.

  Ma takes the cage from me and holds it up at eye height. “Oooh,” Ma croons like she’s looking at a baby in a carriage, “He’s pretty. You’re a pretty birdie, aren’t you?”

  Fruit Loops cocks his head at her and says, “I’m just a girl who cain’t say no.”

  Ma looks at me, surprised. I shrug. “His needle is stuck on the soundtrack to Oklahoma.”