by Lori Wilde
“Uh, Rocky, Ally Green here. You wouldn’t happen to know where Sissy is?” Silence.
I squirmed in my seat.
“Sanctuary!” Ung shouted. “Sanctuary!”
Great. Now, she was calling up Quasimodo. “Are you saying Sissy is in a sanctuary?”
“Safe place.” Ung grunted.
Okay. That was good.
“Ask Rocky who killed him?” I leaned over and murmured to Aunt Tessa. It would be nifty if Rocky’s ghost told us who’d strangled him. It would cut through a lot of red tape. Unfortunately, it would be pretty hard to substantiate in a court of law. I could just see Aunt Tessa-Ung on the witness stand.
“Man,” Ung said.
“A man killed him?”
“Man with gun.”
“A gun?”
“Man with star.”
A man with a gun and a star? I frowned. “Like a policeman?”
“Powder,” Ung said.
“Powder?” I was thoroughly confused and discouraged to boot. The séance was getting us nowhere and I was feeling dumber by the minute for even suggesting it.
“Drugs.”
Hell, wasn’t that exactly like Rocky? Even in the afterlife he was looking to get high.
“Tell him thanks for the trouble,” I said, pushing back my chair.
“Wait.”
I froze in midscoot. “Yes.”
“Bad man.”
“Okay, okay, I get it.” I snorted impatiently. “Bad man with gun and star and drugs.” Then as soon as I spoke the words, something Maddie Farnsworth had told me clicked into my head.
Conahegg had problems in his department. Someone was stealing drugs from the evidence room and selling it on the side. A deputy. Like the one I’d overheard talking to Rocky in the church rectory at Tim’s funeral.
As Oprah Winfrey is fond of saying, it was a lightbulb moment.
Could Conahegg’s deputy, Jefferson Townsend, be the one who killed Rocky?
I LEFT MAMA TO MINISTER to Aunt Tessa who slumped like a dishrag in her chair. Normally, I would have been the one to lead her to bed, bathe her face with a washcloth, make her tea and stay with her until her strength returned. But I was burning with the need to follow any lead and I was relieved to realize I could rely on Mama to take care of Aunt Tessa while I was gone. Feeling lighter than I had in years, I reviewed my theory.
Maybe Jefferson had been dealing to Rocky from the evidence room and Rocky knew where he was getting the drugs. Then Rocky, pressured to come up with the money to pay off Dooley Marchand, told Jefferson he’d better give him three thousand dollars or he’d go to the sheriff. Jefferson, not having the money, killed Rocky to protect his secret and got the idea from Tim’s death to make it look like autoerotic asphyxiation so no one would suspect the murder was drug related.
What I needed was something more substantial than a testimony from beyond the grave. I needed proof to tie Jefferson to Rocky.
But what was Sissy’s role and how had her fingerprints gotten on Rocky’s belt?
I pushed those nagging questions aside and took off to Jefferson’s place.
I hadn’t gotten very far down 51 when I spotted a car pulled over on the shoulder of the road. I slowed. It was a powder-blue Cadillac El Dorado. I stopped alongside the vehicle.
Gloria Swiggly was in the driver’s seat, her head slumped over the steering wheel. For one awful moment, I thought she was dead. Then she raised her head and stared at me. Her eyes were red rimmed. Any fool could see she’d been crying. The way I figured it, living with Reverend Ray Don was enough to make anyone burst into tears on a regular basis.
I rolled down my passenger side window and leaned as far over as my seat belt would allow.
Seeing that she wasn’t going to get out of having a conversation with me, Gloria lowered her window, too.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
She blinked as if she didn’t recognize me.
“It’s me. Ally Green. Your husband’s nurse.”
“Oh yes,” she forced a smile. “Nice to see you again. How are you?”
“I’m fine. But I’m worried about you. Are you having car trouble?” I motioned at the Cadillac.
“No, no,” she chirped brightly. “Just pulled over for a little prayer and meditation. One can’t pray too much you know.”
“I suppose not.”
She started the engine. “Bye, bye.” She wriggled her fingers.
“Bye,” I said and pulled aside to let her go past, wondering if the woman was on Prozac or whether she needed to be.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
SHERIFF’S DEPUTY Jefferson Townsend lived in a small apartment complex in the middle of town. No one answered my knock. For a moment I had the freaky sensation that behind that front door lay another body attached to a rope, but I resolutely shook off the feeling.
I knocked again.
“He ain’t home, lady.”
I looked down to see a little girl about six years old sticking her tongue out through the hole where her front tooth used to be.
“He’s not?”
She wagged her head. “He just left.”
“Oh. Well, I’m a friend of his and I dropped by to say hi. Do you know when he’ll be back?”
She shook her head. “No, but if you wanna go inside and wait for him, he keeps a key under the rug.” She peeled back the welcome mat and handed me the key.
“How do you know?”
“He’s my Momma’s boyfriend.”
I stood looking first at the key in my palm and the six-year-old leaning against the railing. Let myself in or not? What about the kid?
“Are you his girlfriend, too?” she asked.
“No.” I shook my head.
“My Momma’s got more boyfriends than him.” She jerked a thumb at Jefferson’s apartment.
“That’s nice.”
“None of ’em is as nice as my daddy, though.”
I wished the kid would scram. If I was going to break into Jefferson’s apartment I didn’t want a pint-size accomplice along for the ride.
The kid, however, had other plans. She plucked the key from my hand, inserted it in the lock and pushed the door open. “Come on in.” She beckoned.
And so I did.
“What’s you name?” she asked.
“Ally.”
“Mine’s Katie,” she said. “My daddy calls me Katie-did.”
“Like the bug.”
“Uh-huh.”
We stepped into the living room and my eyes widened. Every available space was crammed floor to ceiling with unopened boxes of electronic equipment—cell phones and computer components, DVD players and surround sound systems, satellite dishes and video cameras. Expensive cameras like the one I’d seen in Rocky’s trailer.
I gulped. Jefferson was lifting more than marijuana from the evidence room. It looked as if he’d hijacked a Radio Shack delivery truck. Maybe I really was on the right track.
Katie hopped up onto a box that housed a big screen television, whipped a Game Boy from her pocket and began playing Pokémon.
Stunned, I wandered around the apartment, not really sure what I was searching for.
I went through his bedroom, found rolling papers and roach clips and small brown vials of white powder. Jefferson’s blatant drug use was stupefying. Conahegg had far more problems in his department than I realized. No wonder it was easier for him to accuse my sister of Rocky’s murder than search for the real killer.
Sinking to my knees, I lifted up the bedcovers and peered under the bed. More electronic equipment and a huge baggy of greenish-brown leaves I feared was not tobacco. I thought of the kid in the living room. I needed to get her out of here.
And then I heard the words every girl was loathe to hear when she was in the midst of breaking and entering a drug dealer’s apartment.
“Sheriff’s Department. Get to your feet, put your hands against the wall and spread your legs.”
“WOULD YOU LIKE to tel
l me what in the hell you were doing in Jefferson Townsend’s apartment?” Conahegg leveled me a dark stare.
I’d never seen him so mad. One vein at his temple was distended. His fists were clenched at his side. His speech was slow and measured as if it took every ounce of control he possessed not to yell.
“Trying to find something to connect Jefferson to Rocky.” I wondered why his contained anger excited me, and brought fresh sexual fantasies surging into my mind.
“That was a very stupid thing to do.”
“Somebody had to do something to prove Sissy’s innocence.”
I avoided his glare by busying myself with slipping a finger under the corner of my blouse to retrieve my errant bra strap which had the irritating tendency to slide down my shoulder at the most inopportune times.
Conahegg was watching me like a lion stalking an antelope. His brows dipped low in a deep frown. “Since when did you become a private investigator?”
“Since you decided my sister was guilty of murder and stopped looking for the real killer.”
“I suggest you let me handle this. For your own good.”
“Oh, so now you know what’s best for me?”
“Believe it or not, I care about what happens to you. If you keep breaking and entering into drug dealer’s apartments you’re bound to get hurt.”
He cared? My heart lurched but I couldn’t seem to leave well enough alone. I didn’t need for him to assume the role of my daddy.
“I’ll take my chances. It’s better than sitting around twiddling my thumbs, waiting for you to make a move.”
He shoved a hand through his hair. I realized I was in trouble when I saw that his hand was shaking. Uh-oh. He must be really mad.
“You don’t give me enough credit.”
“Well, I come by my skepticism honestly. I’ve seen my share of incompetent men.”
He leaned forward, teeth bared, both palms splayed across the top of his desk. “Are you calling me incompetent, Ms. Green?”
Lordy! Get the fire hose! My loins were burning.
“Simmer down. I don’t think you’re incompetent. I think you’re an extremely hardheaded man who’s accustomed to getting his own way.”
Conahegg made a choking noise. “Me! I’m hardheaded? Lady, if I didn’t know better I’d swear your head was made of cast iron.”
“I’m a little stubborn,” I conceded. “Especially when it comes to my family.”
“A little stubborn? That’s like saying the Grand Canyon is a little wide.”
“You gotta calm down, Sheriff. You’ll have an ulcer before you’re forty.”
He mumbled something under his breath that I didn’t catch. Probably a good thing.
“So is there a connection between Jefferson and Rocky?” I prodded the conversation back to the issue at hand.
Conahegg heaved a long-suffering sigh and slumped in his chair, the anger dissipated from his face. Apparently, I’d worn him down. I should have been triumphant. Instead I felt slightly disappointed.
“There is a connection between Jefferson and Rocky,” he said. “Although God knows why I’m talking to you. Jefferson was stealing drugs from the evidence room and peddling them on the street. Rocky was a regular customer. Jefferson’s been up to some bad things but he’s got nothing to do with Rocky’s murder.”
“How do you know Jefferson didn’t kill Rocky?”
“Because on the night Rocky was killed, Jefferson was on patrol with his partner.”
“Oh.” And just like that, my entire theory vanished.
Conahegg shifted in his seat. “Will you for once give me some credit? Go home and take care of your family. Leave the police work to me. Can you do that, Allegheny? Or am I going to have to handcuff you to my desk in order to get some peace and quiet around here?”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
OKAY. JEFFERSON didn’t kill Rocky. And Darlene claimed to have an alibi, although I hadn’t yet called her AA sponsor to confirm her story. I put that on my mental to-do list.
Which left me with only one suspect. Loan shark and bouncer, Dooley Marchand.
It was early afternoon when I returned home from my setto with Conahegg. I seriously doubted if I would ever see eye to eye with that man. I’d decided to ignore his strict advice to let him handle the investigation. For one thing, my sister’s life was at stake. For another I was having more fun hunting down leads than I had in a very long time.
Aunt Tessa and Denny were fishing on the dock. Aunt Tessa wore a wide-brimmed straw hat and Holly Golightly gloves up to her elbow and a dozen strands of crystal beads. Mama sat under the umbrella at the picnic table painting a ceramic jousting knight.
I greeted them, then went into the house. I called Darlene’s sponsor and confirmed that she had indeed been at a marathon AA meeting at the time Rocky had been murdered. Frustrated, I got out the phone book and looked up Dooley Marchand.
I dialed his number and an older woman answered. When I asked for Dooley she said she didn’t know where he was but I could catch him at work at Tits-a-Poppin’ around eight o’clock that night. I thanked her and hung up.
Since there wasn’t much else to do, I took a nap to prepare myself for what lay ahead. Mama surprised me by making open-faced roast beef sandwiches, mashed potatoes and green beans for supper with strawberry parfait for dessert, but I was too nervous about meeting Dooley Marchand to eat much.
Still, the excitement energized me in a way nothing ever had. It dawned on me that I liked the danger. What was happening? I’d never been the type to take unnecessary risks. When had I started to change? What would happen when the murder investigation was over? Could I go back to my ordinary, mundane life?
At eight o’clock I dressed in a black Lycra pantsuit, the only slinky thing I owned, and a pair of two-inch black pumps. At five-nine, I refused to go taller than two-inch heels. Not sure whether I was trying to fit in or call attention to myself, I did the whole war paint thing along with perfume and jewelry.
Too bad Conahegg wasn’t here to see me. I twirled before the mirror. I tousled my hair, pursed my lips and winked at myself.
“Hey, there, big boy,” I purred to an imaginary Conahegg. I saw him, gray eyes gleaming with lust, steel jaw clenched against his desire, arms crossed over his chest.
I was way past horny.
Shaking my head, I dispelled Conahegg’s visages and applied an extra coat of mascara to my lashes. Satisfied that I looked as slutty as I could, I quickly tiptoed past my family in the living room.
I stopped at the garage to retrieve granddaddy’s twenty-two pistol from the wall safe and shoved it in my purse before darting out to the car, my heart racing, my palms sweating and my sexuality slammed into overdrive.
I hadn’t been this excited since…well since never. I was getting off on the rush of tracking down Dooley Marchand, going against Conahegg’s orders, doing something forbidden.
The sun had slipped behind the horizon as I pulled into the parking lot of Tits-a-Poppin’. A gaudy neon sign of a woman taking off her clothes flashed rhythmically. Shirt buttoned, prim expression—lights yellow. Shirt unbuttoned, boobs popping—lights red and green. Santa’s perverted wet dream.
I’d never been in a strip club but I had seen Demi Moore in Striptease, so I sorta knew what to expect. Except the girls didn’t turn out to be as cute as Ms. Moore. Nor was the clientele as high rent as Burt Reynolds in Vaseline and cowboy boots.
On the wall outside the club was a big sign warning gun toters about the legal risks of bringing weapons into a place of business where alcohol was consumed. I swallowed hard and clasped my purse tightly. Should I take the pistol back to the car?
And face Dooley Marchand with no protection?
I’d take my chances.
Feeling like a very wicked woman and thrilling to my bravery, I sashayed up to the door as if I owned the place.
The doorman eyed me suspiciously but didn’t stop me. The place was as dark as a movie theater. I had to stan
d to one side and allow my eyes to adjust to the change in lighting before proceeding.
In the center of the room stood a stage with a runway that ended in heavy velvet drapes, with two smaller stages off to either side. Colored lights strobed. Currently, one girl gyrated in the middle of the center stage, wearing nothing but a sequined silver G-string and six-inch heels that tilted her forward and made her butt stick out.
She was a little flabby and I could see her cellulite from across the room but she had big boobs, although you could tell they weren’t real. They jutted out like a hood ornament and the skin over her breasts was stretched to capacity.
Tits-a-Poppin’ was not as glamorous as its tag line—a Gentleman’s Cabaret—promised. First, there were no gentlemen in attendance and second, this was no cabaret. Which to my mind brought provocative images of Liza Minnelli and Joel Grey in outlandish costumes with interesting music played by a live band.
Here, “Hot Stuff” blasted from a cheap stereo system and customers vomited uninhibitedly on the cement floor.
Rocky’s kind of place.
“What’s the matter, lady, you looking for your old man?” A voice that sounded too much like one of those wrestlers rang in my ears.
I raised my eyes. The guy looked like a wrestler. Long blond hair, bulging forehead veins, arms thick as car tires. He had a cauliflower ear and an ominous scar running from the right side of his eyebrow to the top of his cheek.
“Uh, no. I’m looking for Dooley Marchand. I understand he works here as a bouncer.”
His eyes narrowed, his lips pressed into a thin line. “I’m Dooley. Whatcha want with me? The car payment is in the mail, swear to God.”
I stared at him. “Do I look like a repo agent?”
He sized me up. “No. I guess you don’t. So who are you?”
“I’m looking into the death of Rockerfeller Hughes.”
“You don’t look like no cop, either. Let me see your badge.”
“Did I say I was a cop?”
“You a P.I.?”
“Wrong again.”
“Who are you, then?”
“Sistine Green’s sister. The police think she killed Rocky and they’ve issued a warrant for her arrest.”
