by Norah Wilson
“Alone?”
“Jennifer never fit into Ned’s world. Not with his parents, not with the snooty neighbors. They all wanted her to be the same—quiet and polite and fucking plastic. She couldn’t be. She wasn’t a high-society snob. She wasn’t the shopaholic doting daughter-in-law. So she kind of retreated from everything and everyone in her world. Know what I mean? She retreated into herself. But once I got to know her...”
“Did Ned know about the affair?”
“He thought it was over,” Billy said. “We convinced him it was over. That was part of the plan, too. We didn’t want him suspecting anything while we got our ducks in a row to get the hell out of here. We were going to leave before the renewal of the vows this weekend.”
“I take it the vow renewing thing was Ned’s idea?”
“Worse.” Billy snorted with disgust. “It was the minister’s. Can you believe it? But Ned got caught up in this new preacher’s bullshit that that would make everything better. Renew the romance and all that. It’s bad enough Ned got in with that new church—all the money he’s donated to it would make your head spin—but now the minister is trying to re-cement the marriage? Just makes me sick!”
“So he knew about the infidelity?”
“Yeah.”
“Was Jennifer scared of her husband?”
Billy hesitated a moment too long. I could tell he was picking and choosing his words carefully. That always made me suspicious.
“Not really. She just didn’t want the public hassle. The pictures on page four, the in-laws growling her out...”
“Did Jennifer have a pre-nup?”
“No. When she and Ned were married, Weatherby Industries was in its infancy, hardly worth a thing. Actually,” Billy’s jaw tightened with anger, “it was Weatherby and Star Industries back then.”
“So once the divorce was through,” I offered carefully, “half the assets—including half the business would be Jennifer’s, and then yours and Jennifer’s if she married you. Financially, you’d be on top again. Right, Billy?”
He stared at me unblinking, and I stared back.
“I think you’d better get your ass out of here, Dodd. I don’t like what you’re implying.”
He stood, towering a good eight inches taller than me, his clenched fists shaking.
“I just have one more question?”
“We’re done,” he said coming around the desk and advancing toward me.
My mind shrieked skedaddle! but my gut told me to stay.
“Why didn’t Ned fire you?” I asked.
He stopped in his tracks and looked at me, startled. “Christ! You’re not too damn good at this job, are you, Dodd?”
Ouch. “What do you mean?”
“He can’t. If that son of a bitch ever tried to—”
He shut up. Too quickly; too thoroughly.
And at the sound of the cigarette-scratchy voice from behind me, I realized why.
“What’s going on here, Billy?” Luanne marched into Billy’s office, followed by two burley security guards that looked absolutely clueless as to what to do. And bringing up the rear, of course, were Tweedledumb and Tweedledee.
Busted!
“Nothing, Luanne. Nothing at all. This lady was just leaving.”
She hissed at him. “I hope you weren’t telling any of your lies against Mr. Weatherby.” The woman stood close to him. He dwarfed her in height, but it was easy to see she was scaring the crap out of Billy.
“I... I didn’t say a thing, Luanne.”
“Gentlemen, you know what to do.” Luanne nodded to the security guards.
“Yes, Miss Laney.”
Left-side guy grabbed a little too roughly. The maintenance staff were dismissed with a wave. I expected to be steered toward the elevator, but was turned right and directed down the staircase, away from prying eyes. Unceremoniously, I was escorted/tossed/shoved out the back door.
“If you ever come back here, Dix Dodd,” Luanne said, “I’ll have a restraining order filed against you so fast your ugly little head will snap!”
I was about to tag her with my best “Ha! There’s already one against me,” but I thought better of it.
And I couldn’t help but wonder as I got to my feet and dusted off my butt, how the hell did she know who I was?
Chapter 10
I was sitting at my desk, reading and re-reading the notes I’d taken that day the mysterious blonde had come into my office when I heard the police sirens in the distance.
Uh-oh.
Tensing, I sat there and listened for the sirens to draw closer and closer until they converged in my parking lot. Just how many cruisers would Detective Head send my way when he heard I’d violated the restraining order? Two? Six? Would he call in the military from the nearby base? A helicopter and a half-dozen tanks, maybe? But as I sat there, the sirens peaked then faded until I could no longer hear them.
Huh.
I’d thought that Luanne Laney, a.k.a. Weatherby’s psycho secretary from hell, would have had the police on my doorstep in no time. Damn, she was like a crazed German shepherd on Red Bull. True, she didn’t seem to know about the restraining order being in place when she threatened to slap me with another one. But I figured when she raised the matter of my incognito visit with Ned, or worse, lawyer dude, my ass would be grass. I pictured Ned and his lawyer racing each other to the phone to call the cops to report my transgression.
I glanced down at the yellow legal pad I’d been studying. Too damn sunny of a yellow, if you asked me. It lay there on my desk, mocking me with its happy yellowness. I picked it up and looked over my notes and doodles again. Was I missing something? Maybe the answer was there, if I could just see it.
I stared into the pad, like when you’re looking at one of those 3D thingies and the hidden picture suddenly leaps out at you from behind all those dots and squiggles if you can let your eyes drift out of focus.
Nope. Nothing leapt out at me.
I looked at the pad again. The tight little circles I’d already decoded. That was my subconscious saying, Dix, honey, your client could be a dude. Although looking at them now, they could also be my nerves. Lord knows they were wound tight enough.
But the other stuff... stairs going to nowhere. Was that significant? Did it relate to the many floors of the Weatherby building?
I’d learned a long time ago that women were better off when they trusted their instincts. What had my intuition been telling me that day when I’d made those scribbles?
Damned if I knew.
With a sigh, I tossed the pad down and picked up the phone. I punched in my password and checked the voice mail. No messages, but there were 33 hang-ups since Dylan and I had last been at the office, all from an unknown number.
Dylan’s female friend? Something fluttered in my stomach.
Okay, Dix, what’d you think? That the guy was celibate? Ha! Not in a hundred years. But he’d never talked about anyone seriously, never invited a guest up to the office. Not that I’d be jealous if he did. Not that we had the kind of relationship where I had the right to be jealous. No, it was strictly professional between Dylan and me.
My mind flashed to the memories of the massage room and his strong hands...
The phone rang, scaring the shit out of me. I glanced at the call display. Unknown number. This should be fun. I picked up the receiver.
“Dix Dodd,” I said in my sweetest, I-am-so-not-jealous voice.
Click.
Grrrrr. All that feigned sweetness for nothing.
I thumped my boots onto the desk, and turned my mind to the more pressing matter at hand.
Apparently my hunch had been right. Billy Star’s frequent guest at the Underhill Motel was none other than his boss’s wife, Jennifer Weatherby. (I made a mental note to send Mrs. Presley a basket of goodies for her help.) I must admit, my stomach turned at the thought of Billy seducing Jennifer to revenge himself on Ned. What a selfish asshole. Yes, Billy Star was definitely a rat. But I real
ly doubted that he was a killer rat. He’d said everything changed when he fell in love with Jennifer, and I believed him. He’d been torn apart when I’d come across him at the office. I doubted that he was that good of an actor, especially since he had no idea he’d had an audience.
Still, Billy Star knew something. Something that I’m sure he would have told me had Luanne not walked into the office just then. And the way his face dropped when she did told me something else. I’d never seen a man pale so quickly. Clearly Billy was scared of her.
She kind of scared me, too, in a knuckle-rapping Nazi-bitch teacher kind of a way. She was ferociously protective of her boss.
“Okay, Dix,” I muttered. “Just the facts. What do you know so far?” I was swimming in information; I had to compartmentalize.
The fact was, Ned was looking more and more suspicious to me. Maybe he wasn’t so in-the-dark on the affair continuing as Billy seemed to think he was? And even if he were, even if he truly believed it was over, there was bound to be residual jealousy. People didn’t just forgive and forget overnight, especially when it came to something as volatile as infidelity and sexual jealousy. Could Ned have orchestrated all the events that were now in motion? Could he have had Jennifer killed, and set me up accordingly?
If he did kill his wife and set me up, one thing was for certain. He’d hired an actress (actor?) to play Jennifer. Neddybear was at least 6’ 2” without heels. If he’d presented himself in drag, I’d have drawn a frank to go with those beans. And if he were responsible for Jennifer’s death, he would have hired out the hit, too. Made sense, really. Hire a PI to watch him all week so when the hit went down, he’d have a rock solid alibi.
And Billy had told me that he knew Ned had had mistresses in the past. Maybe he did again. Maybe someone he wanted to replace as the current Mrs. Weatherby? Was the planned renewal of vows all a hoax? Or was the mistress usurped when Ned ‘found’ the new religion and the pastor he seemed so very fond of?
Except Ned as the killer felt too neat. Plus he’d looked so horrified when he’d found Jennifer.
As I wrestled with all this, another fact dawned on me—I was hellishly tired. Sometimes the rush of adrenaline can backfire. It suits you fine when you need it, but the coming down from it usually means a crash.
I slouched down in my seat, my butt hanging precariously close to the edge of the chair. Before my bleary eyes closed, I looked at the coffee pot in the corner that seemed to be calling me. Ah, sweet, sweet caffeine. Dylan should be here any minute. I could start the coffee for us. Or I could grab a few minutes sleep, something I hadn’t had in almost 24 hours. It was a short contest. Within minutes I’d drifted into dreamland.
And of course, The Flashing Fashion Queen, was waiting for me there.
She was as blond as ever, this dream lady of mine. But she no longer was the mysterious lady in my mind; now she was the Flashing Fashion Queen. Purple clad, hat wearing, Flashing Fashion Queen. And she was pissing me off.
It was not uncommon for me to dream of the cases I was currently working. It was not uncommon for ‘aha’ moments to come within the dreams. And even as I slept, I knew better than to dismiss the dream lady before me. I knew she wasn’t Jennifer, but she had something to tell me.
Again she flounced into my dream, swirling her purple skirt around. It flew up over her knees to about thigh-high on her smooth legs. The scene was hazy around her, and this time again, she twirled away and eluded my reaching grasp. Coyly, she turned from me, and I still couldn’t see her face.
“So what shall I call you?” I asked.
“Why, Jennifer, of course.”
“But that’s not your name.”
She giggled. “Jennifer’s a lovely name. I think I’ll keep it.”
“But you’re not her.”
“Oh, poop!” She stopped dead in her tracks. Her back was to me but I could see the stiffening of her shoulders. “Given the chance, I’d make a wonderful Jennifer.” Her voice turned pouty. “How did you know I wasn’t her?”
“I’m smarter than you think,” I said. “I figured it out.”
She laughed out loud. “Oh, you’re not half as smart as you think, Dix Dodd.”
I ran a hand through my hair. God, I knew I was dreaming... why was I so very tired? “What am I missing, Blondie?”
She began to walk away. “You’re not missing anything, Dix. Everything’s right before your eyes. Always has been.”
“But who are you?” I screamed at her. “Just tell me who the hell you are!”
It was then that she stopped and turned back to me. Her face was now obscured by the haze of the dream and by the same glasses, hat and ton of make up she’d worn into my office the day we’d met, the day I’d dubbed her the Flashing Fashion Queen. She snarled at me. “I’m you’re worst nightmare, Dix Dodd! Because you’re just too damn stupid to figure it out!” She ran then and I could barely hear her trailing-off voice.
I awoke with a teeth-rattling jolt as I slid from my chair and my butt hit the floor.
Damn! Even in my dreams I was thought of as incompetent.
I ran a hand over my sore rear as I stood and climbed back into the chair. My legal pad stared up at me. I grabbed it quickly and started to write under the doodles I’d drawn. I wanted to get all the elements of the dream before they drifted away.
She’s a bitch... and not in the good way.
Okay, now that that was out of my system:
She’d swirled and swirled and swirled.
She wore the same clothing: bright purple dress with the mile-wide shoulder pads (or mile-wide shoulders?), floppy hat and dark sunglasses.
“I would make a lovely Jennifer.”
Jealousy.
No, not me. My dream mind was telling me that jealousy was the motive for this whole mess. Responsible for Jennifer’s dying.
I pressed the pencil to breaking as I wrote down the last glimpse of dream I retained.
“You’re just too damn stupid to figure it out.”
The phone rang again.
I snatched up the receiver without looking at the call display.
“Dix Dodd,” I answered. And yes, to hell with the sweet voice. My tailbone hurt, dammit!
Silence.
Well, almost silence. I could hear someone breathing very heavily on the other end of the line. Okay, kind of breathing, kind of panting. I glanced at the call display, and surprise, surprise, it displayed unknown. Either Dylan’s girlfriend had worked herself into an, um... frenzy and had breathlessly been expecting him to answer, or the caller of the day had just finished running a marathon.
Or maybe he was some pervert looking for a little phone fun?
And if this latter reason was the plan, boy, did he have the wrong number.
The heavy breathing continued.
“Listen, pal, I don’t know what kind of kinky stuff you think you’re going to pull here. Maybe you get your kicks by shocking women, but I’ve heard it all. Hell, I’ve seen, it all, and it ain’t as pretty as they make it sound. And let me tell you, you depraved little shit, if you think for one fuckin’ minute—”
“Dix Dodd, don’t you remember me?”
Oh shit. It was her. For a moment I wondered if I was still asleep. Because the voice on the phone belonged to the one and only Flashing Fashion Queen. The self same lady who’d been in my office just a few short days ago, and in my dreams a few minutes ago.
“Ah, Jennifer Weatherby,” I said. “I thought you were dead.”
“Maybe... maybe I am. Maybe I’m calling from beyond the grave?”
“Beyond the grave? Wouldn’t that be one hell of a long-distance charge?”
“You don’t believe me?” She was mocking me in her slow, throaty voice. “Oh boo.”
“Boo?” I scoffed. “I don’t believe in ghosts, Blondie! Who the hell are you?”
She ignored my question. Not that I expected a direct answer, but a clue would have been nice.
“You might not believe in g
hosts. But you do believe in money, Dix Dodd.”
Okay, she had me on that one. “What the—”
“I left the rest of the payment in your car. The other five thousand dollars for your week of service. You certainly earned it.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Because you did what I asked you to do. And I always keep my promises.”
“I repeat, why would you do that?”
She laughed, one of those forced, out loud laughs that always bugged the shit out of me. “You’re not all that smart, are you Dodd?”
I had to retort with something professional. “Bite me.”
“No, thank you,” she replied, “you’re not my type.”
Okay, now I was ticked. “Listen, Blondie, I’ve had just about enough of this—”
“Just check the car, Dix. You left it open, again. And I left the envelope on the front seat. Your payment’s in there. The other five thousand dollars for a job well done.”
“You’re lying.”
She snorted a most unladylike laugh. “Go see.”
Click.
Ah... fffffff-hell!
I had every confidence that this mysterious caller was playing games with me. Every confidence this woman was having the time of her life, yanking my chain. And every freakin’ confidence that I’d find no envelope of money awaiting me in the car.
Yes, my car probably was unlocked, because nine times out of ten, I left it that way. Bad habit, I know, but how did the caller know this?
I had to go see, of course. Stopping just long enough to start a pot of coffee, I headed out the door. As I strode across the parking lot, it occurred to me the Flashing Fashion Queen was probably watching me. I paused, scanning every window, every doorway. Nothing. I could feel myself getting angrier by the minute. I almost turned in my tracks and headed back to the office, because, of course, there would be nothing there!
