I retraced my steps—carefully—and found him standing in front of the fridge. He inched the door open.
“Ohmygod!” I slapped a hand in front of my nose almost before he slammed the door shut again. “It smells awful! That food must have been in there forever.”
In the sliver of light that came in the kitchen window, I saw Quinn’s mouth thin. “Not exactly what somebody would do if they were thinking of leaving town for months on end, is it?”
He opened the freezer. Thank goodness there were no bad smells coming from there, but even so Quinn didn’t look any happier.
I scooted around the open freezer door and saw why.
“Topic candy bars,” I said, shining the narrow beam of my flashlight into the freezer. “A dozen Topic candy bars.”
“Yeah.” Quinn shut the freezer, and from there, we made our way through the dining room and into the living room where the flat-screen TV was covered with an inch of dust and the fifty-gallon aquarium had a layer of scum floating on the top along with six dead and mostly decomposed fish. Rather than risk catching a whiff of any more rotting things, I took the steps two at a time and waited for Quinn to join me on the second-floor landing.
Jack Haggarty was already there waiting for us.
I didn’t need to tell Quinn. He squished into the puddle in the middle of the beige Berber and made a face.
“What’s Jack telling us?” Quinn asked.
In response, Jack poked his head toward the end of the hallway.
We followed him to a room that featured a king-sized bed (unmade), another flat screen, a chest of drawers, and another, smaller, aquarium. Apparently, Jack was just setting this one up when he went missing. No water. No dead fish. Thank goodness.
The room was the size of my closet back in the day when my dad had yet to go to prison and we were one of the most better-off families in our way-more-better-off-than-most-to-begin-with neighborhood. When Quinn edged over to the window, I had to stand back against the wall. I waited until he lowered and closed the blinds and pulled the curtains shut over them before I flicked on the lamp beside the bed.
“Ew!” This from me when I saw that the base of the lamp was made from two deer legs and the shade featured outdoor scenes of romping moms and baby deer. They wouldn’t have been so happy if they knew that eventually, their pieces and parts would be turned into household furnishings. “That’s gross.”
Quinn spared barely a look for the lamp. He was already digging through Jack’s dresser.
“Jack liked to hunt,” was all he said.
While we were busy with all this, Jack made himself at home on the bed, and as Quinn poked through drawers of socks and underwear and ties that looked like they hadn’t been worn since sometime in the last century, Jack shook his head. I knew what this meant; there was nothing there, nothing interesting, anyway. I did not, however, report this to Quinn. He was back doing what he did best (well, second best), and I wasn’t about to break his little investigatin’ heart.
“Nothing.” Disgusted, Quinn banged the drawers closed and pushed away from the dresser. “Why did Jack want us in here?”
I looked to the ghost. “Why this room? What’s so special?”
When Jack got up from the bed, he left behind a wet spot. He walked over to the closet and with a telling look, steered me that way, too.
“There’s something in the closet,” I told Quinn.
He came over to check it out. “Did Jack say what?”
If Quinn had taken the time to glance my way rather than poking his head into the closet, he would have seen the look that should have reminded him that Jack wasn’t able to say much of anything. “He’s…” I wasn’t sure how to describe the ghost’s gyrations, which pretty much consisted of jumping and poking his chin toward the closet. “It’s definitely where he wants us to look.”
Quinn pushed the clothes on the rod to one side and pulled the chain for the overhead light. “Nothing but clothes and shoes,” he grumbled.
“Jacks says no.” The ghost made a move to get closer, but I stopped him in his spooky tracks. “I’ve had enough freezing for one night. Quinn! You get over there.” I grabbed his arm and sent him back across the room. “That way, Jack and I will have a little more room to maneuver.”
When Quinn vacated his spot, Jack took his place. He poked his chin toward the closet.
“But Quinn says there’s nothing in there,” I told him.
Jack poked some more.
The beige Berber there in the bedroom matched the carpeting in hallway and had probably been last vacuumed when that stuff had—when I was back in college. I wasn’t particularly happy about it, but I got down on my hands and knees and scooted as far as I could into the tiny closet. “Well, I couldn’t live in this house, that’s for sure,” I said, though I wasn’t sure Quinn could hear me since my head and shoulders were in the closet and he was back over by the bed. “I’d need to make one of the other rooms into a wardrobe room. There isn’t space in here for half of what I own.”
Jack, apparently, did not share my concerns. When I craned my neck to look over my shoulder, all I saw was him poking some more. Faster and faster.
I scooted even farther into the closet, turned on my flashlight, and skimmed it along the walls.
It wasn’t until just about all of me was squeezed in there that I saw that the edge of the carpet in the farthest corner was turned back a little.
I poked my head out (try doing that gracefully in a closet the size of a postage stamp) and told Quinn I’d found something.
Needless to say, he did not let Jack’s icy presence keep him away. He hurried over, stopped where the air was chilliest, told Jack to take a hike, and squatted down to peer where I was shining my flashlight. “Pull back the carpet,” he said.
I did, and found a loose floorboard underneath. Remember, no room to move, and I’m not exactly tiny (though it is important to point out that I am perfectly proportioned), so it took a while—and a broken fingernail—before I was able to grab the edge of the floorboard and tilt it up and out of the way.
“Go on, see what’s under there,” Quinn urged when I hesitated to stick my hand into the dark place below the floor. “What? Something’s going to jump out and get you? You already talk to ghosts. What could be scarier than that?”
“Spiders.” My hand over the hole, I hesitated. “Dirt. Creepy crawlers. Dead things.” I squeezed my eyes shut and felt around below the floorboards. “Paper,” I said when my fingers connected with something. I couldn’t quite get a good hold on it, so I took a deep breath, wedged my shoulders into the corner, stretched, and—
I grasped a corner of the paper and pulled.
“It’s an envelope,” I said and crawled out of the closet, said envelope clutched in one hand. I sat down with my back to the wall, set down the envelope long enough to scrape one spiderweb-encrusted hand against the leg of my pants, then took a closer look.
It was nothing more than one of those manila envelopes with the little metal clasp on them, dirty as all get-out and about the size of a piece of typing paper. It was fat and squishy and when I looked at Quinn and he didn’t object, I undid the clasp and peeked inside.
“Holy shit! There’s money in there, and plenty of it.”
When Quinn motioned for it, I dropped the envelope in his hands.
“How much—”
He answered with a shake of his head. “Hard to say, but thousands, that’s for sure. Way more than any cop should have stashed away.” His jaw went rigid. “At least any honest cop. Ask Jack what the hell’s going on.”
I would have, honest, but by the time I pulled myself to my feet and looked for him, Jack had vanished.
“You have money.”
“It’s not the same thing.”
“Of course it is.”
It was the next morning, and I had to leave for work from Quinn’s extra early if I wanted to get over to my apartment and change clothes. Which I obviously did so that I didn�
�t wear the same thing to the office two days in a row and because my black pants hadn’t fared very well from that excursion into Jack’s closet. Quinn was just cleaning up the espresso/cappuccino/latte machine that I knew cost more than what I paid for one month’s rent, and that alone should have been a reminder to him that when it came to simple living, he was not exactly a candidate for poster boy.
“I bet the cops at the station talk about you, too,” I said.
“So what if they do?” Quinn came over to the countertop and sat on one of the high stools pulled up to it. He’d toasted one English muffin for himself and one for me, and he slid mine over along with a jar of raspberry preserves. “It’s nobody’s business.”
Raspberries dripped onto my chin and I wiped them off with one finger and licked them away. “So when your fellow cops see you in your fancy suits—”
“They’re not all that fancy.”
“And your expensive ties.”
“I’m a very careful shopper.”
“But that’s not the point. You find money at Jack’s so you assume he must have been up to no good. That’s exactly what the other cops are probably saying about you. And since we know it’s not true about you—”
“I don’t want it to be true about Jack, either.” Quinn was just about to bite into his muffin, and he tossed it down. “I worked with Jack every day for three years. I knew him pretty well. Sure, he could be abrasive. He had this whole Dirty Harry thing going on, thought he was the toughest lawman in town, and he wasn’t afraid to let everybody know it. I’ve never met another cop who managed to pull off that kind of macho nonsense and actually get away with it.”
Quinn paused here, and because I was afraid I was supposed to say something, and I knew if I did that something would have been look who’s talking! I took a giant bite of muffin and chewed for all I was worth.
Thank goodness he was on a roll and didn’t notice. “And obviously,” Quinn said, “Jack’s personal life was a mess. Sure, I saw him bend the rules. Plenty of times. But I never saw him break them. Even after we stopped partnering…we didn’t see a lot of each other. He stayed in uniform, and I went on to the detective bureau. We weren’t exactly good friends. But we kept in touch now and again. I always thought he was a solid cop.” He washed away the thought with a sip of coffee. “And here I’ve spent all these months defending him, telling anybody who would listen that there’s no way he could have been involved in Dingo’s murder.”
“That hasn’t changed. Just because we found money—”
“It was thirty-five thousand dollars, Pepper.” We’d put the money back exactly where we’d found it, partly because Quinn wanted to figure out where it came from before he presented the money to the authorities and partly because we knew it would be safe there, especially after we wedged that floorboard down nice and tight and shoved a couple pair of Jack’s shoes into the corner to hide the loose carpet.
“You don’t just keep that kind of money tucked away for a rainy day,” Quinn said. “And you don’t hide it in your closet, either. Not if it’s honest money.”
“Maybe Jack didn’t trust banks.”
Quinn’s look was as bitter as my espresso would have been if I hadn’t loaded it with sweetener.
I let him think about all this while I polished off half my muffin. “Okay, so the bank thing, that’s not exactly a strong argument. But just because he had that kind of money, that doesn’t mean Jack had anything to do with Dingo’s murder. Come on.” Quinn was next to me so it was easy to give him a playful poke in the ribs. “Facts are facts. Admit it. Maybe it’s not honest money. I’ll give you that. But that money and the murder aren’t necessarily tied together.”
“No, they’re not.” I guess this realization actually made him feel better because he chomped into his muffin and washed it down with more coffee. “It’s still mighty strange, though.”
“I’ll give you that.”
“And I still want to look into it.”
“Of course you do.”
He got to his feet. “I’d ask you to come along, but I know you need to get to the cemetery.”
I was about to concede that this was true. Until I remembered Jean. And Chet. And Albert.
“Good news.” Smiling at the prospect of a day free of cemetery woes, I grabbed my purse. “Everything I need to work on at Garden View is taken care of. We can spend the day investigating. After I change clothes.”
He was about to slip his suit coat over his shoulder holster when Quinn’s cell rang.
“Hey, Vincent!” Good thing that geeky security guard over at the hotel couldn’t see Quinn frown. “What is it this time?”
Quinn listened.
I put on a fresh coat of lipstick.
“The morgue, huh?” He shook his head in a gesture of infinite patience. “Yes, I remember that, Vincent. You told me all about it when I came over to the hotel to talk to you. And when you called me yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that. What’s that? You think it’s going to happen at the convention? Yeah, you told me that, too, Vincent, and I really appreciate your help. I’m going to keep checking into this. I’ll get back to you.”
When he snapped his phone shut, his teeth were gritted.
I gave him a peck on the cheek when I breezed by. “Bad day at the office, honey?”
He wrapped his fingers around my arm to stop me in my tracks and pulled me close so hard and so fast, I couldn’t have stopped him if I wanted to. And believe me when I say, I didn’t want to. “At least it was a good night at home.”
The kiss he gave me to remind me of this was slow and deep and made my head spin.
“First we’ll head out and see what we can find out about Jack and Dingo,” he said when he was finished. “Then I’m thinking we need to come back here for some serious getting reacquainted time.”
I didn’t argue about that, either.
After all, I knew a good thing when I saw one, and what I’d seen—and felt—from Quinn the night before was as good as it gets. Still…
Oblivious to what I was thinking, he headed for the door, whistling softly.
And I wondered if he’d still have the same swagger in his walk if he knew a couple sessions of really good sex hadn’t changed anything. Not really. It was easy to forget that when we were in bed together. And when we weren’t?
When I walked out of the loft, my sigh rippled the air. When we weren’t in bed, it was impossible to forget that there was still a gulf between me and Quinn.
And it was about a million miles wide.
First stop, my place, and since I wasn’t planning on making an appearance at the office and I didn’t have to worry about looking business-y, I put on jeans and long-sleeved wheat-colored T-shirt and grabbed a jacket.
Second stop…
I have made many a sacrifice in the name of investigating. Sleepless nights. Grimy places. Dead people. Still, I had through luck (not to mention the whole ick factor) always managed to avoid places that had anything to do with tattoos and piercings.
Until now.
“Let me guess.” The girl behind the counter at Crazy Lady Body Art shopped in the large-sizes department. She was wearing a black tank top and a very short skirt, and every inch of skin I could see (and believe me, there were plenty of inches) was covered with tattoos. When she looked back and forth between me and Quinn, the silver stud in her eyebrow flashed. “You…” She grinned when she looked my way. “You want to get a stud in your tongue. And you…” The look swiveled toward Quinn, only this time, she added a come-and-get-it smile. “You’re looking for—”
He flashed his badge. “Gretchen,” he said.
The girl went a little pale. I mean, I guess she did. It was kind of hard to tell because she had a whole bunch of colored stars tattooed across her forehead, nose, and cheeks. Her smile fell right along with her hopes. “Gretchen!” she called out. “There’s a cop here who—”
“That’s fine.” Quinn marched through the shop t
oward the back room. “I’ll find her myself.”
Find her, we did. Gretchen had as many tattoos as the counter girl, and way more piercings. Call me squeamish, but I couldn’t look at her eyes and the studs in her eyebrows. Or her nose and the fake diamond that winked there. Or her lip and the gold hoop looped through it. If we weren’t on unofficial official business, I would have grabbed Quinn’s hand and told him to get me the hell out of there before I barfed.
The way it was, I stood behind him in the cramped Crazy Lady office and rather than look at Gretchen, I tried to focus on the calendar on the wall, but since it showed a tattooed torso, that wasn’t exactly successful. Neither was looking at the photograph on her desk, the one that showed a smiling Gretchen with her arms around a just-as-tatted-up guy with a bald head and a beer gut.
Dingo. I’d stake my reputation as PI to the dead on it.
“You.” Gretchen wasn’t happy to see us. She’d been standing, and now she flopped down into the chair beside a beat-up metal desk. Like the girl at the front of the shop, she was dressed in an outfit that showed off her body art to best advantage. Black bustier. Jeans cut off so short, I had to wonder why she bothered with pants at all. “Told you everything I know about Dingo last time you came around asking.”
“That was a while ago. The way I figure it, you’ve had time to think, and you remember a lot more now than you did then.”
“Think so?” She had a smoker’s laugh, and the cough to go along with it. “You’re wrong.”
“And you’re on probation for that robbery you and Dingo pulled off at the convenience store a couple years ago.” Quinn didn’t so much lean toward her as he closed in. “You don’t want to get on my bad side.”
Her laugh was meant to be seductive. Pardon me for passing judgment, but I just couldn’t tally seductive with all those nasty piercings. She glided a look from the top of Quinn’s head to the tips of his shoes. “You don’t have a bad side.”
Supernatural Born Killers Page 10
