by Liliana Hart
“Yep, I’m a real romantic at heart, so that story was a little bit of a buzzkill. I almost untied him and suggested we go out for dinner after all, but he turned things around pretty quick. It turns out he didn’t even need his hands to get the job done. That’s talent right there.”
Kate and I both nodded in agreement. That was indeed a talent.
“Frank told me that his wife always called him her Romeo. And the word Romeo was written in fancy script right between his wife’s legs. Not his real wife,” she clarified. “The tattoo of the wife.”
“Gotcha,” I said.
“Do you know what this means?” Scarlet asked. “After more than seventy years, I’ve caught the Romeo Bandit. Do you think there’s a reward?”
Chapter Four
It turned out there was a reward. A really, really big one. And I was suddenly a lot more interested in the Romeo Bandit’s capture. If, in fact, Elmer was the Romeo Bandit. First we had to prove it.
Kate got her laptop from her desk and set it up on the coffee table. “What’s Elmer’s full alias?” she asked Scarlet.
“Elmer Hughes. He lives in Villa one twenty-seven—three down from mine. He walked me to my door after I asked if I could join him that evening, and he was quite the gentleman. You know what that means?” Scarlet asked with a snort.
“What?” I said curiously.
“It means his plumbing doesn’t work anymore. That thing is useless as a monkey with a meat grinder. He didn’t even try to kiss me goodnight.”
“Uhh…” I said, for lack of anything better.
“Elmer Hughes,” Kate said, breaking in. “Age ninety-two. Permanent residence listed as the Hidden Sunrise Naturist Community.”
“Naturist. What’s that? Like a tree-hugging retirement village?” I asked.
“It’s a nudist colony,” Kate said wryly.
I closed my eyes and shook my head from side to side, trying to clear the images from my mind. “Sweet Jesus,” I muttered.
“Before we go on here,” Kate said. “Are you officially hiring this agency to help identify and capture the Romeo Bandit?”
That’s what I loved about Kate. She was all business, and she would charge her own mother for services. Though knowing the relationship between Kate and her mother, that probably wasn’t the best example. She’d probably charge her double.
“You can have two percent of the finder’s fee,” Scarlet said, her eyes narrowing as she gave Kate the stink eye.
“Ten percent plus expenses,” Kate countered. “If it turns out Elmer isn’t the Romeo Bandit, you just cover the expenses. I’m giving you a discount. This is an exclusive agency. We’re the best and we’re expensive. I can put Addison undercover, and we’ll have this solved in the next forty-eight hours.”
“Hold on just a minute,” I said, looking back and forth between Kate and Scarlet. “You’re going to put me undercover at a nudist colony? Have you lost your damned mind?” Then I turned to Kate and hissed under my breath. “I don’t want to look at a bunch of naked old people. I’ll need therapy. Not to mention I haven’t waxed my bikini line since Nick proposed, and I’ve maybe had an extra hot fudge sundae or two to help me get through this trying time. Nobody wants to see me naked right now.”
“You look great naked,” Kate said, rolling her eyes. “I saw you naked two weeks ago when that spider dropped on your head while you were in the shower. Hell, everyone in the whole office saw you naked and you didn’t have any complaints then.”
“That’s hardly the same thing,” I said primly. “This would be on purpose.”
“You can go this afternoon and get a bikini wax. Put it on your expense report.”
I narrowed my eyes and tightened my lips. This was war. “Oh, I’ll put it on my expense report.” Then I looked back at Scarlet. “The agency gets ten percent of the finder’s fee and I get another ten percent for the indignity of it all. That still leaves a big chunk of the million-dollar reward for you.”
Scarlet chewed on the inside of her cheek and stared me down like a gunslinger. “Yep, you’re a Holmes all right. You’ve got yourself a deal. I’m due for a bikini wax myself. We can go together.”
“Perfect,” Kate said, her smile big and toothy. “Put them both on the expense report.”
“I hate you,” I mouthed.
She scratched her eye with her middle finger and then turned back to the computer. “There’s nothing unusual that I’m seeing here. Elmer made his money from investments and retired about thirty years ago. He’s been living off the residuals ever since.”
“Get a grip, girl,” Scarlet said. “It’s not like you’re going to type in his name in your little machine and an alarm’s going to go off telling you Elmer’s the Romeo Bandit. He’s too smart for that, and he’s been hiding under the radar for a long time.”
“Can you find out anything in the FBI database?” I asked Kate.
Her mouth quirked and she said, “Not unless I want to go to jail. I don’t have access to the FBI database.”
“Oh, right. Sorry,” I said. “I’ve kind of gotten used to working with Agent Savage.”
Matt Savage had been playing a hell of a tug-of-war with my morals. I loved Nick, but there were some men that were just really good at muddying the waters. Savage had spent a good portion of the last year muddying my waters. And it didn’t help matters any that he’d occasionally lent me his expertise and the use of his FBI contacts during a couple of my cases.
“I’m pretty sure Agent Savage could’ve lost his job a couple of times falling in with your schemes.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said primly.
“I’d like to meet this Agent Savage,” Scarlet said. “I’ve been thinking about becoming a cougar. He sounds exciting.”
“He has his moments, but he’s gay,” I said, pulling out my cell phone to call him.
“That’s a shame. Maybe I could turn him un-gay.”
“I don’t think it works that way,” I told Scarlet as I put the phone to my ear.
“Savage,” he said, and I immediately got the shivers.
“You know anything about the Romeo Bandit?” I asked by way of greeting.
“That’s how you’re going to say hello?” he asked. “No small talk? No quick bite to eat to catch up? We haven’t seen each other in weeks. I thought we were friends.”
“We are,” I said, feeling a little guilty. I’d pretty much avoided all men for the last three weeks. And Savage was definitely a man.
“Good, let’s have lunch.”
I looked over at Scarlet and smiled. “My aunt is in town. I’d have to bring her with me.”
There was silence on the other end and then a sigh. “Is this a lunch I’m probably going to regret?”
“Most definitely. But don’t worry. I already told her you were gay.”
Another few seconds of silence followed and I had a feeling Savage was weighing the pros and cons of friendship with me. I had that effect on a lot of people.
“Why do you need information on the Romeo Bandit?”
I wasn’t about to take the chance of turning information over to the FBI and losing the reward. But at the same time I needed Savage’s help. Knowledge was power.
“One of my old students is doing a report on the Romeo Bandit. There’s not a lot of information in the database on him.”
More silence. “That’s the lamest excuse I’ve ever heard.”
I sighed and flopped back on the couch.
“But because we’re friends, let me look up the file and I’ll tell you what I can. You’re going to owe me big time though.”
“Owe you how?” I asked.
“I’ll think of something good.”
His voice had lowered and I could hear the bad boy in it, just waiting to debauch a good girl like me. This was my problem with Savage. I was pretty sure there was a bad girl somewhere deep inside of me that wanted to be debauched. I had to stay away from Savage at all costs.
“Crap
,” I muttered under my breath.
“I heard that,” he said.
I heard the clack of the keyboard as he typed and waited patiently for information. Mostly I was trying not to think about what the next forty-eight hours of my life were going to be like. If I was lucky, I might get hit by a plane before I had to see any old people naked.
“Okay, here we go,” he said. And then he whistled long and low. “This is way before my time, but this guy was a badass. And I don’t mean that in a complimentary way. One of the most successful bank robbers in history. He robbed a total of thirty-one banks between 1939 and 1945. He murdered twenty-two people in cold blood and left a long-stemmed red rose as a calling card. He was called the Romeo Bandit because he liked to seduce female employees of the bank sometime before he robbed them. Several of the women that admitted to sleeping with him mentioned an unusual tattoo on his arm.”
“What happened after 1945?” I asked.
“He vanished off the face of the earth. There were no other robberies listed after that date. It could’ve had something to do with the war being over, or he could’ve died. No one knows. There’s a million-dollar reward for his capture, though I’d have to say if he wasn’t dead by now then he’s probably pretty close to it.”
“Hmm,” I said. “Any idea about his true identity?”
“We have a list of the aliases he used over the six years he robbed banks. He never used the same name twice. We have several witness descriptions, and his appearance changed from time to time. Sometimes he had a mustache. Sometimes his hair was graying at the temples. They were all subtle differences. But judging from the statements of the women he seduced, they were literally so enamored with him that they didn’t even think twice about his motives. He got away with hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and gold.”
“Maybe he just knew when to quit and retired,” I said.
“Maybe,” Savage said skeptically. “Anything else you need?”
“Do you have a description of the tattoo?”
“I’ve got several renderings taken from witness statements. They’re all very similar. The women he seduced spent a lot of time looking at that tattoo.”
“Can you send me a copy of one of the sketches?”
“I’ll text it to you. Whatever you’re up to, make sure you’re careful,” Savage warned. “This guy might be old, but he killed a lot of people.”
“Right,” I said, getting that squishy feeling in my stomach. “Maybe stay tuned in case I need bail money or need to go to the hospital.”
“Ten-four. I’m going to pass on lunch today. I put on normal socks this morning because I haven’t done laundry in a while. No one would believe I’m gay in normal socks.”
“True,” I agreed. “It’s probably for the best anyway.”
Savage was a rule breaker. Which was probably why we got along so well. Though I wasn’t sure the FBI appreciated his rule breaking like I did…but he was the special agent in charge for the Savannah FBI satellite office, so he must’ve been doing something right.
I disconnected and looked at Scarlet. “Let’s go catch the Romeo Bandit.”
Chapter Five
Friday…
Because Murphy’s Law had conspired against me, I wasn’t at all surprised to see Rosemarie Valentine at my door the next morning. I had no clue who Murphy was, but if we ever met face to face, I was going to punch him in the throat.
I’d spent the night back at my mother’s house with an icepack on my nether regions in hopes the red puffiness from the waxing would go away before I had to take my clothes off at the Hidden Sunrise Naturist Community. Aunt Scarlet had changed her mind about the waxing since her skin was “as thin as paper” and she was afraid they’d rip it right off. She’d opted instead to have her pubic hair dyed hot pink.
So when I opened the door to Rosemarie, standing there with a bright and cheery smile without an umbrella to protect her from the drizzle, I barely even swore at all. I was almost expecting it.
“I’m playing hooky from school today,” she said. “This weather is making me sad, and I’ve been auditioning students for Evita all week. I need a margarita in the worst way.”
“It’s eight o’clock in the morning,” I said, moving back so she could step inside. We were both talking in hushed whispers because my mom and her husband were still in bed.
“I know. I was starting to have fantasies about tossing the kids down into the orchestra pit. Only the orchestra pit was full of snakes like in Indiana Jones.”
Rosemarie was the choir teacher at the school I’d taught at before they’d canned me for improper behavior. We’d never been close while I was teaching, but since I started working at the detective agency, Rosemarie had become an unofficial mascot of sorts, as well as my friend.
She’d decided to go all out for a rainy winter day in Savannah—purple ski pants and a puffy matching jacket, turquoise fluffy earmuffs, and galoshes with pink flamingos on them. Rosemarie was on the plump side, so it was a lot of color to be greeted with first thing in the morning. Her normal blonde Farrah Fawcett curls were flattened and damp from the rain, and her cheeks were rosy from the cold.
It was winter in Savannah, which meant it was a breezy spring evening to every state north of here that had four seasons. But it was the only chance we got to pull out our Uggs and North Face attire, so we tried to take advantage.
“The snakes are probably a good sign for a break,” I said. And then I heard the gentle squeak of the mattress and the headboard hitting the wall. They were sounds that couldn’t be disguised.
“Wow, early risers, huh?” Rosemarie said.
“And late to bed,” I told her. “Do you see these bags under my eyes? There’s a reason I can only live with my mother for a short amount of time. I’m going to have to accept Nick’s proposal just to get a decent night’s sleep.”
“So you’re going to accept?” she asked, bouncing slightly on the balls of her feet.
“I’m not ready to talk about it. But I’m going to have to do something soon. It’s been three weeks and the idea of sleeping in my car has more appeal than spending another night in this house. I’m waiting on my aunt to pick me up. She really needs to get here fast before my mother gets done and I have to look her in the face. I’m an adult. I know that she has sex, and I’m perfectly fine with that. But knowing and witnessing are two different things and I need at least twenty-four hours of sex distance before I can face her again.”
“That’s more than reasonable,” Rosemarie said. She cocked her head to the side and listened intently as the mattress squeaks stayed steady. “But don’t worry. She’s going to be preoccupied for a while. They’ve got a nice rhythm going. They’ll be at it for at least another hour. You know I once dated a man that was in his late fifties. There’s something to be said for age. That man could go for hours without stopping.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad,” I said, trying to be supportive.
“Are you kidding me?” she asked, appalled. “This body was not made for athletic sex of that magnitude. Don’t get me wrong. I like to dig in and get dirty. But that was Olympic-level sex. After three hours of thrust time my lady parts were numb and I was nodding off right as he was getting going. I had to break things off. I wouldn’t have survived.”
Why did I always engage? I should’ve known better. But that’s how friendship worked. One of you made a declaration, and if the other didn’t engage in the conversation it just made you look like an asshole.
“Hey, they’re revving things up in there,” Rosemarie said. “They might be done sooner than we thought.”
She was right. Mom and Vince had indeed picked up the pace, and accompanying moans sounded in harmony with the squeaky mattress. Listening to the crescendo was going to push me right over the edge, so I ushered us out the front door, along with my small travel suitcase.
We were now standing in the cold and drizzle, but sometimes escape was more important than hair and makeup. Gran
ted, I could pretty much count on one finger the number of times anything was more important than hair or makeup. This was the South, and by God you’d better put on your best face and hair to shop at the Piggly Wiggly, otherwise you’d be the center of gossip for days. I was used to being the center of gossip, so it didn’t bother me quite as bad as it once had to think Myrtle Strong was staring out her front window while I stood in the rain and let my perfectly straightened hair crinkle around my face.
A bright red Hummer pulled up in front of us, just in time, rolling right over one of the big planter urns my mother had set at the end of the sidewalk.
“Are you going on a trip?” Rosemarie asked. “And is that Scarlet Holmes? I thought she was an urban legend. Your family’s been known to exaggerate a time or two.”
I narrowed my eyes at Rosemarie. “All legends come from bits of the truth,” I said primly. “And my family was one of the town’s founders. Of course things are going to get blown out of proportion at times, but for the most part everything you hear is true.”
“All right, all right. Don’t get your panties in a twist. I’m just saying, Scarlet’s infamous.”
“For sleeping her way through the Nazi lines?” I asked skeptically.
“No,” Rosemarie said, a confused look on her face. “Because she single-handedly stopped Francois Pinoit while she was working as a spy in France. I heard she bested him with nothing more than a paperclip and a book of matches.”
Okay, so maybe not everything about my family was mostly true. I’d never heard this story about Scarlet. But Scarlet had a tendency to make up her own history.
“Scarlet and I are working a case,” I said. “We’ve got to go to Florida for the weekend.”
“Oh, that sounds way better than what I had in mind. Having margaritas in Florida sounds much better than having margaritas in Whiskey Bayou. I bet it’s sunny and warm.”
“Umm—” I said, trying to think of a delicate way of breaking it to Rosemarie that we were going to a nudist colony and she wasn’t invited. “You see—”
