Geared for the Grave (A Cycle Path Mystery)

by Duffy Brown

  “I . . . I don’t remember.”

  “Two shots of Jack Daniel’s and a half bottle of champagne will do that to a body, but we have pictures, the raspberry swirl cheesecake was divine, now let’s step on it, there’s a killer out there.”

  “Why do you care so much about this killer?”

  “Because you care, and finding the bad guy beats sitting home alone licking my wounds from Peter Bloomfield kicking me to the curb for a two-bit French floozy with no shirt, big boobs and feathers stuck in her hair and pasted to her firm little bottom.”

  By the time we got to the docks, I was still upset about the wedding, but now mostly because I felt bad that Mother’d had to rescue me and that I couldn’t remember the cheesecake. The rain had slowed to a drizzle, a golden halo of water droplets surrounding the dock lights. A foghorn moaned out in the harbor.

  “Do you see Donna?” Mother asked me, the big white ferryboat gliding toward us out of a thick bank of clouds, engines doing the slow reverse growl to bring it to a stop. All hands stood alert on deck to toss lines, lower the gangplank and usher fudgies on and off so nobody fell in the drink. The procession of weary tourists shuffled down the wharf, floating in and out of the misty swirls. A group of laughing partiers ran full-tilt to make the last ferry of the night.

  “I don’t see her anywhere,” I said to Mother, stepping out of line to get a better look at the crowd, a dockworker giving me the evil eye to get back where I belonged. “She has red hair and is probably wearing her long green coat tonight. I’ll take the front; you check the back.” I stood on my tiptoes and leaned to the side to get a glimpse of either Donna or Bourne at the front of the line. Something was up, I could feel it and—“Yikes!”

  I was airborne over the water, arms flailing, feet searching for the dock, and the ferry . . . the really big ferry . . . coming right at me. “Help!”

  The cold closed over me, the weight of my clothes pushing me down, down, down into the blackness, some part of my brain screaming, Swim, Evie, swim. Then I went up, up, up—and up never felt so good. In a split second I was on the surface, choking and spluttering and gasping for air. A beefy guy with lights blinking on his orange life vest bobbed beside me and slid an orange ring buoy under my arms.

  “Don’t move,” he ordered as walls of white gracefully slid over us, closing out the dock lights. Holy Saint Patrick, it was the boat passing over us, then it stopped.

  “Hold on to me and the ring,” Beefy said, and he didn’t have to ask twice. In a few strokes we were in front of the ferry, a ladder was lowered over the edge of the dock and Beefy was pushing on my butt as hands reached out to haul me up over the edge.

  I sprawled facedown on the dock and kissed it. Last time I kissed something around here it was the ground when I got off the horse. In my other life back in Chicago I mostly kissed chocolate cupcakes and occasionally other people.

  “Dear God, Evie. Are you okay?” Mother panted, kneeling beside me, her face white against the darkness. She swiped my hair from my cheek. “Say something.”

  “Crap.”

  Mother laughed, but it sounded part sob. “You screamed and you were gone and this gentleman went in the water after you. What happened?”

  “Pushed.”

  “That’s what everyone says,” the wet, beefy guy grumped, towering over me and dripping. He draped a blanket across me, then jabbed his finger at the yellow line on the dock. “You crossed it; I remember your pink scarf. You’re not the first drunk fudgie to take a late-night swan dive. Lucky for you we’re running the cat tonight and it just slid right over the top.”

  “Cat?” Mother asked, helping me to sit.

  “Catamaran. Two-side hulls. A regular boat would have just run right over you. Go home, get dry, stay the heck off our docks and don’t get drunk.”

  “Not drunk. Pushed.” And this was the second time since I’d gotten to this place. At least I now knew who pushed me the first time and why.

  I wobbled to my feet with Mother’s help and I hugged Beefy, wet clothes and all. “Thank you for saving my ass.”

  He gave me a sly grin. “Nice ass to save—but don’t do it again. You were lucky this time.”

  Mother gave Beefy another hug, in case he didn’t get how appreciative we were. She put her arm around me, and we squished our way up the dock.

  “I really was pushed,” I said to Mother.

  “I know you were, dear. Your friend Donna was not on that dock tonight, meaning someone had plans for us, and not nice ones.”

  Us? I looked at the dripping pink scarf around my neck and thought of what the dockworker said about remembering me and remembering the scarf. The thing is, this wasn’t my scarf, it was Mother’s scarf; her obviously expensive lovely pink silk scarf that anyone would notice. A shiver snaked up my spine, going clear through to my bones, but I wasn’t cold now—I was gut-crampingly, heart-poundingly furious.

  “You know how to get back to Rudy’s shop on your own, right? It’s just a block away.”

  Eyes huge, Mother stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. “What do you mean on my own; you can’t go someplace right now? You have to go home and get a hot shower and . . . and be safe. You’re soaking wet, you need to change, you’re freezing and you’re shaking. I’m shaking.”

  “I need to talk to someone.”

  “Evie.”

  I kissed Mother on the cheek. “I’ll be back in five minutes. Ten, tops. Rudy keeps decent bourbon in the kitchen cabinet. Drink it.”

  Soaked to the bone, I banged on the back door of Sutter’s house, and if he didn’t answer in one more second, I’d break a blasted window, climb through and beat him to a pulp till he listened to me. I banged again.

  “What?” Sutter growled when he opened the door, eyes widening as he took me in. “What happened now?”

  I grabbed the front of his shirt with both hands. “The killer, the real one, tried to murder my mother tonight. My mother!” I punched Sutter’s chest to get his attention and because I needed to punch something and he was handy.

  “They pushed me off Arnold’s pier thinking it was her.” I yanked at the soaked pink scarf. “If they thought going after my mother would get me to back off looking for them, they were wrong . . . dead wrong. I started tracking Bunny’s killer to save my job, but it’s gone way beyond that. Rudy’s being framed, my mother’s in danger and I’m pissed.” I punched his chest again. “Really, really, really pissed.”

  I turned to leave and Sutter grabbed my arm. “Don’t do anything stupid, Chicago. I’ll look into this.”

  I tried to yank my arm away, but Sutter held fast. “I mean it.”

  “Dutchy played your mother, took advantage of her being alone, stole her fudge recipes and is driving her out of business.”

  His lips thinned, jaw tightening, a steely, cold look in his eyes.

  “There it is. Now you get it.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “No, I’m not okay. I’m going to leave here, have a good cry on the way home then help finish off a bottle of Jim Beam. I’ve got plenty of practice with both.”

  “There’s a lot more going on here than getting rid of Bunny because she was a pain in the butt.”

  “The one thing we agree on.”

  Sutter stilled for a second, the only sound in the kitchen my ragged breathing and the eerie foghorn echoing over the island. Sutter tucked a strand of straggly hair behind my left ear, his fingers lingering at my neck, his touch warm and steady, and I really needed warm and steady right now. My toes curled into my soggy shoes.

  “You sure you’re okay?”

  “Terrific, and I’m going to stay terrific, and the next time I have raspberry swirl cheesecake I’m going to remember it.” I pulled my arm free and ran out the door.

  When I got back to Rudy’s, I grabbed a hot shower and met mother in her jammies a
t the kitchen table. I take that back—Mother had loungewear. I had jammie pants and a Chicago Cubs T-shirt that I gave to Timmy-boy, then took back when I moved out of our love nest. Mother passed me a glass of bourbon. “How’s Nate Sutter?”

  “How’d you know I went to see him?”

  “He’s a cop, he thinks Rudy’s guilty and now you have proof that he’s not. What did he say?”

  I tossed back the bourbon, choking and coughing as it burned a path down my throat. “That he’d look into it,” I wheezed. “How are you doing?”

  Mother added more Jim Beam to my glass, then clinked hers against it. “The cats and I are bonding.”

  I took Mother’s hand across the table and looked into her steady, intelligent, caring brown eyes. “You were the target of my late-night swim off the docks. Someone thought I was you. I had on your scarf, the one you wore around town all day. You need to be on the first ferry out of here in the morning.”

  “That is so sweet.” Mother’s eyes weren’t quite focusing.

  “I’m not sweet; I’m trying to keep you alive. Trevor and Lindsey will bury me in the backyard if something happens to you.”

  “First of all, dear, Carmen bought a really slutty dress and shoes today and she has a hot date with an even hotter Italian.”

  “Mother, this is serious.”

  “And I’ve got a rendezvous in the Woods. Been a long time since I had one of those. And I’m definitely not leaving you here alone with a killer on the loose.”

  “He might come after you again.”

  “He won’t, dear, that’s the whole point.” Mother held my hand a little tighter, her eyes dark, serious and completely sober. “You’re the target now, not me.”

  * * *

  Penny, knock, knock, knock jarred me awake at seven and, considering I hadn’t fallen asleep till five, this promised to be a really long day. The slow, steady clop, clop, clop of the taxis and drays drifted in from the street and, except for Bambino and Cleveland purring on my back, there was no other sound. No cars squealing to a stop, no motorcycles, no ambulance, no sirens, no growling buses, no trains to rattle the windowpanes.

  After a day of husband does the hussy and daughter in the drink, Mother needed to sleep in. I pulled on jeans and a sweatshirt, did the hair and teeth thing, fed the cats and started coffee. I sat at the little kitchen table, watching morning come to Mackinac and trying to figure out what demonic cretin had pushed me in the water. There was something I wasn’t getting, and it was right in front of me. Heck, it had to be right in front of me—the island wasn’t that big.

  I opened the double doors to Rudy’s Rides to start the day and noticed lights on in the back of the Good Stuff. If the killer went after Mother, he might have Rudy or even Irma on the list too.

  I peeked in the back window to make sure I wasn’t interrupting. Fudge simmered on the stove, ringlets of steam trailing off into the room. A yellow coffeepot and a plate of bagels and strawberries sat on the little table, but Rudy and Irma weren’t staring adoringly into each other’s eyes. They were staring at the murder board that was really the murder cupboard that Irma started a few days ago.

  “Really? A mustache on Bunny?” I said as I walked in, the aroma of rich chocolate laced with whiskey washing over me.

  “She had it coming.” Rudy poured another cup of coffee and handed it over. “Heard you took a late-night swim.”

  “Those docks can be tricky,” Irma chimed in. “Especially in the fog. Last year a half-tanked fudgie rode a bike right off the end of the pier. When they fished him out, he was still pedaling and wanting to know which way to the Grand. Why were you on the docks at that time of night?”

  “Got a note from Irish Donna that wasn’t from Irish Donna and I was pushed off that dock,” I said, studying the suspect side of the cupboard. “I’m getting close if the killer’s coming after me.”

  Munching a strawberry, I went over to facial-hair Bunny tacked to one side and the usual suspects on the other, with yellow flowered dishes, cups and saucers on the cupboard shelves in between.

  “I know Smithy’s out—he’s got more important things going on right now.” I took down Smithy’s picture. “So who gets your vote? Huffy, Dwight, Speed or Jason Bourne?” I turned back to Irma and Rudy, both of them staring at me wide-eyed, mouths gaping. “What?”

  “Pushed?” Rudy shook his head. “Again? How does this keep happening? The good news is Sutter’s got to see once and for all I’m not the killer.”

  “If it were only that simple,” Nate said, coming through the back door.

  Nate kissed his mother on the cheek, but he didn’t look happy. He didn’t look much of anything—he had on his cop face, and the cop face was never good news. “Mira Brindle was watching in that telescope of hers, the one Herman got to keep an eye on Jeannette Holloway’s bedroom. She saw you cut the cable on Bunny’s bike. She wasn’t going to say anything because she didn’t like Bunny and she does like Rudy, but Helen Levine convinced her she had to, seems they belong to the garden club and got to talking. You need to come with me to the police station,” Nate said to Rudy. “I won’t make a formal arrest till Tuesday so the fudgies don’t leave and the business community doesn’t go ballistic and stick my head on a spear outside the fort. But I can’t have a known killer walking the streets.”

  “Except that’s exactly what you are doing,” Irma said, spreading her hands wide. “The real killer’s still out there, Nate.”

  “And you can’t for one minute think Rudy pushed me in the water last night,” I added, trickles of fear and frustration crawling up my spine.

  Sutter folded his arms, looking every inch the unwavering cop. “Your late-night dip and Bunny being dead aren’t necessarily related. Rudy got fed up with Bunny trying to close him down and her antics with the town council. Someone else got fed up with you sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong.”

  “A lot of people wanted Bunny dead,” I tried to reason. “Why can’t you see that and . . . and I’m going to tell my mother on you, Nate Sutter, then you’ll be sorry.” Did that sound as bad as I think it did?

  Nate gave me a half smile. “I gotta say I haven’t heard that one in a while.”

  “My mother’s an attorney, a good one. She can fix this.”

  Rudy put his arm around me and sat me down in a chair. “I don’t see us getting out of this one, Evie Bloomfield. We’ve had one foot on a banana peel all along and now there’s Mira. Helen never did like me and Ed being friends. I’m sure she was happy as a pig in clover when she heard Mira’s story. I want you to have Rudy’s Rides if things go bad. If we make it through this somehow, we’re partners. You’re onto something with painting the bikes the way you do, and I bet you’re happier here than working for Abigail. You tried so hard to find the killer and help me, it’s the least I can do.”

  “I can’t even ride a bike.” My voice cracked.

  Rudy kissed me on top of my head. “You don’t have to ride ’em, Chicago, just rent ’em. And you know advertising. You’re good at it even if my daughter’s too thick-headed to see it.”

  “It’s going to be okay, Rudy,” I said, trying to keep the panic out of my voice as he and Irma followed Sutter out the door. “We’ll find the killer, I swear we will, this isn’t over.”

  Nate let the two go on ahead, then looked back to me. “Keep out of this, Chicago.”

  “Eat dirt and die, Detroit.” I slammed the door in Sutter’s face and kicked a chair across the kitchen. How could things go from happy to harrowing in under a minute?

  I doused the fire under the fudge cooking on the stove then cut across the backyard to the bike shop. I was mad and disgusted and frustrated and had the overwhelming need to break something. Since Sutter wasn’t around to tear limb from limb and that stupid broken step was right in front of me, I kicked it. Cussing a blue streak, I yanked and pulled on it till the da
rn thing finally broke loose, sending me sprawling flat on my butt. I picked up the pieces to toss in the garbage, my gaze zeroing in on the break that wasn’t a break, least not all the way. It was sawed through from underneath. No wonder Rudy broke his leg—whoever put this step on used bad wood or . . . or someone wanted Rudy to break his leg and sawed the step on purpose. That was nuts. Who’d want to do a thing like that? Why would they want Rudy laid up?

  I walked through the kitchen, told Cleveland and Bambino not to panic, and took the stairs. “Mother, wake up,” I said, plopping down on the side of her bed. “I have a problem.”

  She bolted straight up. “You’re pregnant? Wonderful!” She hugged me tight. “I knew there was something going on with you and Nate Sutter. I wanna be called Nana. Nana Carmen. I love it.”

  “Forget Sutter and not that kind of problem and where the heck did this Nana thing come from?”

  Mother dove under her pillow. “If it’s not good news, it’s bad news. Don’t admit to anything and call me in the morning.”

  “It is morning and there’s an eyewitness who says Rudy’s the killer.”

  Mother peeked out. “What kind of eyewitness?”

  “A woman with a telescope.”

  Mother sat up again and finger-combed her hair, her eyes clearing. “Telescope means a career busybody, the worst kind. Gossip is their life, and they usually get it right on who’s doing what. Where’s Rudy now?”

  “Police station. Sutter just picked him up. Rudy gave me Rudy’s Rides if he goes to jail, and we’re partners if he gets out. I can’t believe this is happening—he didn’t kill Bunny. He’s got to get out. What should we do other than beat up Nate Sutter?”

  “You stay here. I don’t want you going after Sutter on his home turf or I’ll have two clients behind bars. I don’t have a Michigan license to practice law, but I can ask the right questions, irritate the heck out of everyone and maybe get Rudy released just to get rid of me. Or maybe we should leave Rudy where he is; look what happened to you last night. Rudy could be in danger. Who found this eyewitness, anyway?”