The Case of the Flashing Fashion Queen: A Dix Dodd Mystery (Dix Dodd Mysteries)
Page 13
I stared at her. She stood on one side of the elevator threshold, and I stood within it. Her back was to me. Why could I never see her face clearly?
“Hiya Dixie,” she said, her voice gritty.
“Still got that throaty thing going on, I see. Maybe you should see a doctor.” But for what? A polyp on the larynx or a sex change?
“You’re concerned about me! How sweeeet.”
Even as I slept, I could feel my blood beginning to boil. “Concerned? Not a chance. The only thing I’m concerned about is that your stint in jail is nice and long.”
“But you’ll have to catch me first, Dix Dodd. And I bet you can’t.” She waved a backward hand at me.
“I’d be careful on what bets I placed,” I goaded. “After all, I’m not in jail, and I know you wagered that I would be.”
She huffed. “That’s just a technicality. You’ll be there soon enough.”
“Still think you’re too smart for me, Blondie?”
She laughed. “Oh, I know it, honey. If I didn’t, then why would I—”
Quick as lighting, I reached and grabbed her. I jumped that quickly and that forcefully and grabbed this dream apparition. In my dream, I tossed her down onto the elevator floor beside me. No way in hell was she getting away this time. Not until I had some answers. Not until I saw her face. Not until—
“Dix! Wake up.”
And in that instant, murky turned to clear-as-glass as I awoke and discovered that I’d not pulled my nemesis down beside me after all.
It was Dylan who lay there in the red-sheeted bed beside me, eyes wide, his t-shirt pulled taut in my white-knuckled grip.
“You must have been dreaming, Dix,” he said.
“Yeah. I... I was.”
“Her again?”
I nodded, and released my grip on his shirt. I braced myself for the whiplash effect that would ensue as he jumped off the bed like it was on fire.
But he didn’t jump up off the bed in a hurry. He didn’t jump off the bed at all. He didn’t run away screaming. Dylan didn’t do any of those things. He hadn’t when I’d grabbed his shirt and hauled him down beside me. And damn—oh freakin’ freakin’ damnity damn damn damn!—not even when I leaned over and kissed him.
So much for wildest dreams.
Chapter 13
Okay, here’s the scoop (excuse/justification/explanation) on how Dylan Foreman ended up in my bed at the Underhill Motel.
For my fortieth birthday, my mother sent me glow-in-the-dark thong panties and matching push-up bra (did I mention Jerry Springer would love her?). My sister Peaches Marie (it’s okay, she likes her name), bless her, sent me tickets to the Stones. I’d taken Rochelle, and Judge Stephanopoulos had been jealous as hell. Jokingly, she’d threatened to throw me in jail and confiscate the tickets. (At least I’d hoped she was joking.) Even Dylan had gotten me a present for the big 4-0—a bottle of wine and a set of two wine glasses. He’d given them to me at the office, just as we were preparing to leave for the night. The wine, he explained, was a 1989 Australian Shiraz. Full-flavored, a little peppery, but luscious. It had gotten better over the years, he’d said, just as I had. (I’d have felt better about that if I hadn’t seen the Museum Wine sticker on the bottle.)
God, I remember that night so clearly. A weeknight, Dylan had hung around late. No plans, he’d told me. Just kicking around the office. I guess he felt like chatting. Mainly about the wine. Of course, I’m more of a rum cooler gal myself, and all I knew about wine was that I preferred red to white. After listening to him sing the praises of this particular vintage yet again, I’d thanked him effusively, set the bottle and glasses in my bottom desk drawer, and yawned widely. I was anxious to get out of there; there was a new CSI on. But man, I didn’t think Dylan was ever going to leave. So I stretched and yawned a little wider, then stretched and yawned again.
Finally, with a long sigh, he’d left, and finally I was able to go home to a frozen dinner and murder on the tube. Geez, hard to figure men sometimes. They just do not pick up hints.
But what did I give myself on my fortieth?
I gave myself one hell of a sleep disorder. And that’s why Dylan Foreman had landed so unceremoniously in my bed.
It had been at a particularly stressful time in my life with the new business. Of course, in retrospect, comparing the stress I was under back then with what was going on in my life right now was like comparing pilling a house cat to declawing a Bengal tiger.
Still, it’s little wonder I started ‘acting out’ in my sleep. Smacking lampshades across the room, ruining mini blinds with karate kicks. I had woken up on more than one occasion with the sheets completely off the bed and my ass on the floor rolled up in them. The wilder my dreams got, the bigger the mess I’d make of my bedroom at nights.
After weeks of thinking I was going crazy, I finally saw my family doc, who sent me to a sleep specialist who promptly diagnosed me as having REM-Sleep Behavior Disorder, or RBD. He said it was more common in men than women, as if I should be either amazed or proud that I’d managed to develop it. “Yeah well, so are hemorrhoids,” I’d groused. He’d replied that I might prefer hemorrhoids, and went on to explain RBD.
See, normally when you’re in REM sleep—the period when you dream—you lose muscle tone, resulting in a kind of a paralysis. This is a good thing; it stops you from acting out your dreams and hurting yourself or anyone in your proximity. But with RBD, that’s exactly what you do—act out your dreams. Obviously, that can get pretty intense. (Nightmares, anyone?) I’m told that they see RBD sometimes in people suffering from booze or sedative withdrawal, but it can crop up in anyone, particularly after they’ve reached—you guessed it—middle age. In my particular case, as the stress goes up, my dream mind tries to sort out the details of whatever case I’m working on. I dream more; I act out more.
It’s usually not a problem. I mean, I’ve knocked over a lamp or two. I’ve woken up on the floor a few times. I buy the cheapest of alarm clocks because I’ve found the expensive ones break just as easily when they hit the far wall of my bedroom. It’s frustrating, of course. And weird, I know. But though I have to replace the odd appliance and apologize to the odd motel desk clerk for the trouble, I can certainly live with it. Nothing too out of the ordinary has ever happened. Nothing too embarrassing.
That is, until my dream mind caused me to reach out for my blonde nemesis and capture Dylan Foreman instead. Until I’d found myself lying in bed beside him. Lying on red silk sheets, wearing only a housecoat pulled not so tightly around me. Yep, my eyes had been shut tight during all of this. Fast asleep in dreamland.
But when I kissed Dylan, my eyes had been wide open.
But you know what else? So were Dylan’s eyes when he kissed me back.
It was an impulse, really. A simple curiosity to know how his lips would feel under mine, how he would taste. Innocent, almost. But the moment I leaned into the solid heat of his chest, the moment his mouth opened under mine, it was no longer simple, and it sure as hell wasn’t innocent.
He tasted like sin. And, oh Christmas, he kissed just exactly the way I liked. His mouth was mobile, now hard, now soft, as he nipped and licked and swept his way into my mouth and invited me to return the favor. I did, enthusiastically, bearing him down further into the mattress. And once my hands touched his chest, I couldn’t seem to stop touching him. As my hands skimmed under his shirt, I felt his hands fist in my hair. Ahhhhh! If I hadn’t already gone from zero to sixty, that would have done it for me—gentle yet firm, curious and claiming. There’s just something about a man with his hands in my hair like that when we’re making out —
“Holy hell, Dix.” His hands gripped my arms, putting me away slightly. Not a great deal of distance, but enough so that I knew this wouldn’t be going any further. Enough so I knew he’d come to his senses. Enough to start the wave of embarrassment washing over me.
“I can’t do this.” He shook his head. “Sorry, Dix, I can’t. Not like this.”
I jumped up, pulling the housecoat around me so tightly it could have acted as a tourniquet. I checked the door leading to the Presley apartment. Unlocked, of course. That’s how Dylan had gotten in. But a quick glance revealed my clothes hadn’t yet been returned as Mrs. Presley promised they would be. I checked the clock. A peek out the window confirmed it was just about dusk. Holy crap! I’d slept more than three hours. And it had been nearly four hours since Mrs. Presley had taken my clothes. More than enough time to wash and dry them, yet Dylan had arrived and my clothes hadn’t.
Coincidence? Not!
Thank you, Mrs. Presley. Not.
I could just picture her now sipping her tea, looking at my clean clothes in her laundry basket and chuckling over it all. But I wasn’t chuckling as I closed the door and pulled the housecoat even tighter. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
“Er, Dix?”
I looked up to see Dylan standing in the bathroom doorway.
“Sorry,” I said, rubbing my forehead.
Dylan shoved his hands in his pockets, then pulled them out again. “Dix, don’t... don’t read anything into this.” With a quick wave of the hand he gestured to the bed. “I mean, don’t think I got up—”
I lifted an eyebrow. I could have sworn that he was ‘up’.
He ran a hand through his hair. “What I mean is, I stopped because—”
“Don’t worry about it, Dylan.”
“But you don’t understand. And I want to make sure you do.”
“Remember that sleep disorder I told you about? Well, you just witnessed it firsthand. I was dreaming of that goddamn Flashing Fashion Queen. When I reached for you, I was sound asleep. I thought I was grabbing her. Nothing more.”
“And is that why you kissed me? Because you were thinking about her?”
Damn.
“Damn.”
He did a poor job of trying to hide a smile.
“Of course not.” I let out an exasperated breath. “Look, let’s not ruin the good thing we have going here. I made a mistake. I was dreaming; I was caught up in the moment. You... you know the stress I’ve been under.”
“Yeah, Dix,” he answered, “I do know. And that’s why I couldn’t take—”
I raised a hand. “It’s okay.” I cut his words short again. I knew I did. Part of me knew I shouldn’t, but a stronger part of me knew I damn well had to.
We stood there awkwardly staring at everything but each other for a few minutes. Then, my stare turned to the coffee he’d brought. Coffee, muffin box and a brown paper bag (which I assumed, correctly at it turned out) held a change of clothing he’d picked up for me. Dylan had a key to my condo of course, for emergencies such as this. He followed my gaze to the motel dresser where he’d set the things down.
“Got your toothbrush and stuff. Grabbed the first things I came to,” he said. “Jeans, shirt and underwear from the bottom dresser drawer.”
After what had just happened, I was surprised to see him blush on saying the word ‘underwear’.
But if he’d gone to my apartment... “Can you be sure you weren’t followed?” I asked.
He grinned. “The cops they had tailing me are probably still parked in front of Camellia’s.”
“The peeler bar?”
His grin grew wider. “Yeah. I parked out front, then slipped out the back. Camellia said she’d send a couple of the girls out to flirt with the uniforms. Bought me all the time I needed to do some snooping around.”
“You left your bike there?”
“Hell, no. I left your mother’s car there.” He tapped his pocket to jingle the keys. “Then Camellia gave me a drive in her Hummer back to the office to pick up my bike.”
Brilliant of course. Mother had left her tiny Beemer at my place last time she was home—hanging the hot pink DO ME key tag on the cork board in my kitchen and telling me to use it any old time. Then she’s hopped on a plane and flown back to Florida with the new gentleman friend she’d hooked up with. She couldn’t wait to show him (him being ‘Frankie Dear’) off to the girls at the Retirement Residence. Gentleman friend, my eye. More like a sleeze bucket in a bad toupee. But I hadn’t been too worried about Mother; she could handle herself.
“Dickhead will kill them when he finds out you gave them the slip.”
“He won’t find out. When I leave here, I’ll double back to the club and come out the front door again.”
“With a grin on your face and a swagger in your walk, no doubt?”
“Is there any other way to exit Camillia’s?”
This thought left both of us finally smiling easily as we sat and sipped our coffees. The tension had eased a bit. I could feel the release of it in my shoulders and reached up to rub my right one. The coffee was unjangling my nerves.
“Why do you think you keep having that dream, Dix?”
Nerves jangling! Nerves jangling!
“I thought we were going to forget about that. I don’t dream of you that often.”
Dylan’s lips twitched in a grin. Lips I’d felt beneath mine, tasted... Oh, damn. He meant the sleeping dream, not the waking one.
“I meant, why do you keep dreaming of the Flashing Fashion Queen? With that intuition of yours, it always means something.”
“Oh, that.” My throat burned with the large gulp of coffee I tried to hide behind. “I’m dreaming because there’s something I’m missing. There has to be. The damn woman just keeps teasing me, flouncing around in her puff of purple dress. And I can never, ever see her—or his—face clearly.”
“That day she came into the office, she was hiding her face too. The big glasses, the make-up, the blond wig.”
“Of course she was. She didn’t want us to know she wasn’t Jennifer Weatherby.”
“Agreed. But that was the easy part, since Mrs. Weatherby stayed well out of the spotlight despite the attention her husband got from the media.”
“True,” I said.
“And it was a pretty safe bet that a PI with our address wouldn’t move in Jennifer’s circle, so there’d be very little chance you’d know her socially.”
I lifted an eyebrow. “Did you just call our office a dive?”
He grinned. “Your word, not mine. But what I am saying is that our Flashing Fashion Queen was hiding her face because she didn’t want you to know who she was, not so much because she didn’t want you to see who she wasn’t.”
I frowned. “This dream woman... she told me she wanted to be Jennifer. Told me she’d make a wonderful Jennifer.”
“Rich bitch wannabe?” he offered.
“A rejected mistress of the former philandering Ned Weatherby?” I countered.
“Transvestite lover?”
We sat there a moment in silence. My mind whirled, rearranged things, then did it again. Nothing. Dammit. With a fisted hand I punched my pillow. “Argh! This is so goddamned frustrating!”
“It’ll come to you. Just give it time.”
“Unfortunately, time is something we seem to be running out of.” I wasn’t worried about Dickhead’s 48-hour time limit. That kind of went out the window when he’d found me holding the murder weapon. Or rather what I suspected was the murder weapon. As if reading my mind, Dylan spoke.
“I did some calling around about the gun. Called in some favors.”
“You called Rochelle?” As secretary to Judge Stephanopoulos, Rochelle had her fingertips on the pulse of whatever was going on in the various law enforcement departments in Marport City.
“I tried, but she’s away this week. Her sister got re-married and she flew down to Hawaii for the wedding.”
“So who did you call?”
“My mother,” he answered sheepishly.
Marjorie Foreman, Dylan’s mother, was n
ot only a well-loved politician in Marport City, she was also known for being tough on crime. Without a doubt, she’d have been kept abreast on what was happening on such a high profile case as the Jennifer Weatherby murder.
“You were right about the gun. Initial ballistics tests confirm that the 9mm you were holding was the same one that killed Jennifer.”
“Unregistered?” I asked, suspecting it would be.”
“Surprisingly, it is registered.”
I sat up straight. Was a bubble of hope beginning to form? “To whom?”
“That’s the problem. It’s registered to Talbert K. Washington.”
“The Talbert K. Washington?”
He nodded.
Pop goes the bubble.
The name Talbert K. Washington was a name everyone in Marport City remembered. And would remember for a long time to come. About five years ago, there had been a double homicide. The only double murder in Marport City’s history. Washington’s car had broken down on the highway just inside the town limits. An elderly couple had stopped, offered to help, and he’d murdered the two and stolen their brand new Lexus. He’d driven it clear to Toronto before the police had caught up with him. Caught him and the fifteen-year-old girl he’d picked up along the way. In other words, Washington was a real slime bag.
There was plenty of evidence against Talbert K. Washington—the stolen Lexus, traces of the victims’ blood on his clothing and under his fingernails, the testimony from the girl whom Washington had amused himself with by relating again and again the details of the murder to the terrified kid. But most damning of all had been the 9mm handgun he’d used to kill the couple. It was registered to Washington and had his prints all over it when the cops found it in the glove compartment of the Lexus. You’d think the case would be a slam-dunk.
But nothing is ever that simple.
Talbert K. Washington’s father was Harland Washington, a rich lumberman from Maine. He hired a team of lawyers with specific instructions: Clear my boy. Clear my son at all costs. And I’ll make you all rich men.