The Case of the Flashing Fashion Queen: A Dix Dodd Mystery (Dix Dodd Mysteries)

by Norah Wilson

  It became a legal and media circus. The Washington team of ten lawyers—five from New York and five from a local law firm—had marched into court every day to face the frazzled team of two crown attorneys. The local paper had carried pictures of Talbert K. Washington in his younger days—doing everything from selling apples to raising money for Boy Scouts to petting puppies at the local animal shelter. There were glowing testimonials about his character from everyone from his high school drama coach to his earliest Sunday school teacher—who was photographed wiping a tear from her eyes as she held a picture of Talbert K. close to her chest. Not to mention the smear campaign that Harland Washington started against one of the crown lawyers, Carrie Press. Marjorie Foreman had made it clear that in Marport City, Talbert K. Washington would get a fair trial, but no one was going to be intimidated. Actually, I’d always suspected that’s why Carrie had gotten the case. Judge Stephanopoulos had heard the matter. Too bad for Talbert K. Rochelle told me that the defense’s posturing had backfired, especially the trash that was dished out against Carrie Press. The young Crown Prosecutor had been embarrassed, sure. But worse for the Washington team, she’d been extremely pissed off.

  But the media frenzy peaked when it became public that key evidence had gone missing—the 9mm that had been used to kill the old couple.

  The lawyers for Talbert K. Washington had wanted the case thrown out, but Judge Stephanopoulos held firm. And fortunately, there was enough other evidence to convict. And the jury wasn’t too impressed with the defense argument that Talbert K. Washington had been too rich to steal a Lexus; he could have just bought one himself. And that the kidnapped girl was lying and perhaps the killer herself. And that the blood all over Harland Washington’s boy was just bad luck when he tried to help out the poor little hitchhiking girl. It must have flown from her and onto him.

  Talbert K. Washington was now doing life with no chance of parole for 25 years.

  And that was a very good thing.

  But the very bad thing... how the hell did the missing gun now turn up in my possession? Was I cursed? Did I have a sign on my back that read kick me? Or perhaps, frame me? So now I was wanted for murder, escaping police custody and being in possession of stolen evidence from a murder/kidnapping trial.

  I knew better than to think that it couldn’t get any worse.

  “Let me guess,” I said. “The car that tried to run me down... the news you have on that sucks, too.”

  He lifted his shoulders in an apologetic gesture. “Sorry Dix. The car belongs to Mrs. Levana Fyffe. Ninety years old. She tripped over her geriatric poodle and broke her ankle last month. Hasn’t driven since. Her nephew has been doing errands for her while she’s been housebound, and she swears the car hasn’t left the yard. Detective Head checked it out. The car was parked in her yard when he got there. And Mrs. Fyffe has been home all day.”

  “Please tell me Dickhead hauled it downtown for forensic testing anyway.”

  “Unfortunately, Mrs. Fyffe wouldn’t let him. Told him he’d have to apply for a warrant if he wanted to steal her fuckin’ car. She knew the fuckin’ law better than all ‘you young bastards’. Those were her exact words. Then she kicked the lot of them off her property.”

  “Feisty old thing, eh?” I just was not catching a break on this. “Think Detective Head will get the warrant?”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know.”

  Things were bleak. No, not just bleak. They were horribly bleak. Yeah, that just about described them. But at least I wasn’t behind bars. And I knew what my next move was. What it had to be. I was going to the source of the matter.

  “I’m going to the Weatherby house,” I announced.

  “Are you forgetting about the restraining order?” he asked. “To say nothing of the BOLO that will have gone out by now.”

  “Ah, but they’ll be on the look out for Dix Dodd. I don’t plan on looking like Dix Dodd. Nor am I planning to announce my presence, if you know what I mean.”

  “I’m afraid I do know what you mean.” He shook his head, a look of concern clouding his blue eyes.

  “Don’t worry. You know I never met a lock I couldn’t finesse. I won’t get caught.”

  “Do you really think you’ll find evidence there?”

  “Don’t know, but it’s where I have to start.”

  “What are the chances you’d let me do it for you?” he asked.

  “Non-existent. You have no charges against you. Let’s keep it that way.”

  “Yeah, but it would be safer for me to go than you. You get caught, you’re toast.”

  “Yeah, and if you get caught, then who the hell proves my innocence when I’m behind bars? Who the hell else believes in me at this point?”

  That sobered him. Hell, it sobered me.

  He straightened one long leg as he reached into his pocket. “Here’s Ned’s schedule for tomorrow. Or the best I could figure it, anyway.”

  Why didn’t Dylan’s having this surprise me?

  “He’s picking his parents up at the airport at 6:30 in the morning,” he said. “He’ll have to leave home by six at the latest. By the time the plane lands, his folks go through customs and they drive back, you’ll have at least a couple of hours there. The place should be empty. I’ll stake it out early in the a.m. and call you.”

  “Is there a security system?” I asked. Usually, these high dollar places were alarmed liked Fort Knox.

  “There was,” Dylan answered. “But no alarm went off the day Jennifer was murdered.”

  “Which goes to prove,” I offered, “that the killer was someone she knew.”

  “You’d think,” Dylan said. “But Ned cancelled his account with the security company. Right after Jennifer’s murder. Said he had nothing left to protect.”

  I reached for my cell, and checked that it was on vibrate in preparation for the morning. Just in case, turning off the ringer while I was thinking of it. Nothing like having the phone ring when you’re hiding in the bushes, in a closet or under a bed. “What’ll you pursue?” I asked.

  “Tonight I’m going to go back over the pictures, notes and tapes we got.”

  I blinked. “Wait a minute... I thought Detective Head would have confiscated those?”

  Dylan smiled. “Yeah, there was some kind of a mix up. I accidentally gave the Detective the wrong stuff.”

  “What stuff did you give him?”

  He cringed. “The stuff from your mother’s seventieth birthday party. You know, the tapes of the party your sister sent you. The one with the dozen male strippers and the penis shaped piñatas.”

  Dickhead would have a toothpick snapping fit. I laughed out loud. And that felt pretty damn good.

  Dylan laughed, too. “Wait’ll he gets a load of the pictures where they’re doing the limbo.”

  I moved to put the now-empty coffee cup on the nightstand, and sat back against the head of the bed, still chuckling.

  “Er, Dix,” Dylan said. “You’re kind of... kind of coming undone there.”

  I sighed. “No, I’m fine Dylan. Just thinking.”

  “No, I mean, you’re... falling apart.”

  He just was not listening!

  “I’m fine, Dylan. Really.”

  He drew a breath. “I mean that your housecoat is coming undone and I can see your breasts.”

  Well, that sat me up straight. “I’d better get dressed.”

  With a pinching grip on the collar of my housecoat that would have made any Mother Superior proud, I grabbed the brown paper bag of clothing Dylan had brought, and raced to the bathroom.

  I’d just exposed myself to my employee. No wait, that wasn’t quite accurate—not quite the whole truth. I’d exposed myself to my employee after hauling him into bed and kissing him thoroughly and running my hands all over his chest. My life was on a roller coaster. One big freaking loop-de-loop. I opened the bag of clothing and pulled out the jeans and sweater Dylan had packed. But my hand stilled to the knock on the bathroom door
.

  “Dix?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I... I don’t want you to think that what happened... or rather what didn’t happen here between us, was because I didn’t think it could. Okay, what I mean is, it could. Really could. I mean, hey, I certainly could... if you know what I mean. Shit, I didn’t mean it like that. But I didn’t think it should happen. Not that it shouldn’t. But that if it should, it should be... you know, when it should.”

  Apparently, in all the excitement, I’d missed the alien invading the body of the usually eloquent Dylan Foreman. I’d never heard the man tongue-tied before. Yes, I know I should have let him off the hook. But it was kind of fun. Kind of cute. And damn it, kind of hitting home.

  From the other side of the door, I heard his exasperated sigh. “Oh, to hell with it. I’ll just say it straight out. Dix, you’re vulnerable right now. Only a jerk would take advantage of that. And I’m trying really, really hard not to be a jerk.”

  I sat on the edge of the tub. Not that my knees had gone weak, but... well, I just needed to sit.

  Oh, Dix, don’t do this. Don’t feel this.

  Okay, this was Dylan... but still, he was a man. I was too smart for that. Too tough. Too cynical. I wasn’t going to fall for any man, especially one so young and handsome, while I...

  While I what? What excuse should I make up this time?

  I gave myself a mental kick in the ass. And I continued to listen. Apparently the door between us gave him as much freedom to speak as it did me to listen.

  “Dix, I just don’t want to make love to you when you’ve got so much trouble on your mind. I don’t want to do anything that would fill you with regrets after. I don’t want us to share mind-blowing orgasms and then have to race away into hiding again. I want it to be like it should be for us. I want it to—”

  “Wait!” Oh, Jesus, he was scaring the shit out of me. Give me a mugger in a dark alley. Give me a cheating boyfriend who’s just been busted charging my way. Hell, give me Dickhead on a wild-eyed rampage. All of those things at once couldn’t scare me the way Dylan was scaring me right now. Dix Dodd didn’t do close. Close hurt. I squeezed my hands into tight fists until my nails bit into my palms. “What happened shouldn’t have happened, Dylan. Let’s just leave it at that.”

  “But Dix...”

  “We’re both under pressure here. That’s it. That explains everything. It was nothing.”

  Please, I prayed, as the minutes ticked by in silence, not even sure what I was praying for.

  “All right, Dix. You got it. It was nothing.”

  I should have felt relief. Yep, sure should have.

  “Good. Great. Glad we cleared that up.”

  His voice was flat in its return. “I’ve gotta get going. Need to sneak back into Camillia’s, then out again. I’ll keep working this, of course. And I’ll call you in the morning like I said.”

  I sat there for a moment, my insides shredding in the silence. Then I leapt up.

  “Dylan! Wait.”

  I dropped the jeans and shirt I’d been holding and held the housecoat around me as I raced from the room. But Dylan was gone. The backdoor was closed. I was alone with only the muted glow from the television flooding the room.

  “Just like you wanted, Dix,” I mumbled.

  But no one answered back.

  Chapter 14

  Eventually, Mrs. Presley did return my clothing. Washed, ironed (people still did that?), folded perfectly and smelling of Tide. My underwear had never been so soft. Mrs. P brought them to me herself, just after Dylan left. Which was good, because as I’d discovered when I searched the bag Dylan brought me, he’d packed the be-tasseled glow-in-the-dark abomination my mother had given me for my birthday. Could I be any more humiliated?

  I’m sure Dylan hadn’t planned to grab this set, especially. Yes, it was the only matched set of underwear I owned, but I doubt if that factored into it. I couldn’t see him rummaging around in my underwear drawer until he found a match. No, he probably just grabbed the first things he saw, which in the dimness of my unlit bedroom, would be the glow-in-the-dark green nestled there among... oh, shit, among my granny panty collection!

  To think I’d thought I’d bottomed out on the humiliation scale. Argh!

  But Dylan Foreman had seen more than just my underwear as of late I reminded myself. And that thought was causing me a little more consternation than I wanted to acknowledge.

  I barely slept that night. Tossed and turned, tangled the sheets up good all by myself. Thinking of... thinking of everything. The Flashing Fashion Queen. Dylan’s kiss that still lingered on my lips. No wonder the mattress was half off the bed when I awoke.

  It was not yet dawn. The curtains were not tightly drawn and I watched the sky. I found myself staring into the stars as I waited for my bedside phone to ring with the 4:45 am wake up call I’d requested. I no longer needed the call to awaken me, but I did need it. I needed it to cue me into getting a move on... getting ready for today’s criminal offense.

  But that wake up call came in the form of a petite woman in blue suede shoes, knocking softly on the door, and tiptoeing her way into Room 111 where she’d hidden me.

  “You’re not going out without breakfast, Dix Dodd,” Mrs. Presley said. “Don’t even try to argue.”

  I didn’t.

  She set the tray—complete with two fresh blueberry muffins, the butter already melting into them, orange juice and a steaming cup of my beloved nectar of the Gods (black coffee)—on the night table. The tray also contained a red rose in a tiny vase and morning paper, rolled up and held tight with a thin elastic band. The newspaper was spotted a darker gray in a place or two. It was raining. Good. Fewer early morning joggers to worry about when I broke into the Weatherby home. Just the fanatics, heads down and hunkered in on themselves against the rain.

  “Thanks, Mrs. Presley. But you didn’t have to do this. I could have grabbed something... somewhere.”

  “Ha. Are you kidding me? You don’t want to be coming eyeball to eyeball with the counter staff of any convenience stores or coffee joints today. You haven’t seen today’s paper yet!”

  Oh no.

  “I got Craig to pick it up when I sent him out for that other thing you wanted.”

  “He got it?”

  “He did.”

  I reached for the paper, but Mrs. Presley snatched it away before I could grip it.

  “First,” she said, with a stabbing finger toward the muffins. “You eat.”

  “I really don’t think—”

  “Well, I really do.” Her tone brooked no argument. “You’re no good to yourself fainting from hunger.”

  Resigned, I choked down one of the muffins and washed it down with some orange juice before Mrs. Presley relinquished the paper.

  Yes, there I was. Front page, of course.

  “Shit.”

  Mrs. P handed me my coffee with one hand, and set the other gently on my back as I looked at the paper.

  Murder Suspect Dix Dodd On the Loose. And in smaller letters below this lovely 80-point headline, Murder appears to have been crime of passion.

  The picture they put below the caption, of all things, was my driver’s license photo. I don’t take a good picture on the best of days, but after an hour of standing in line at the DMV when their air conditioning was on the fritz while some guy who must have bathed in ripe cheese stood in front of me digging who knows what out of his ears, I had a bit of a snarl on my face when the bubble-gum snapping employee clicked my pic. And omigod, it looked exactly like a mug shot.

  As picture ID, it worked fine. In fact, I kind of liked the kick-ass-and-take-names-later snarling edge to it. However, had I known it was going to wind up plastered larger than life on the front page of the Marport City’s Morning Edition, I’d have fled the DMV office that day and not come back until I’d been to the esthetician.

  “So much for my modeling career,” I mumbled.

  I rushed to read the story, and quickly decided
that the mug shot that made me look like Quasimodo’s ugly stepsister was the least of my troubles.

  Marport City Police have asked residents to be on the lookout for local private detective Dix Dodd, who is wanted for escaping police custody and resisting arrest. Police sources confirm she is a person of interest in the investigation of the recent brutal murder of Jennifer Weatherby, wife of millionaire businessman Ned Weatherby. Dodd is considered dangerous, and citizens are advised not to approach, but to immediately call police at 555-8250 or 911 should they see her.

  Though police declined to give more details, Jeremy Poole, lawyer and friend of Ned Weatherby, elaborated on the situation. “From what we’ve been able to ascertain, Dix Dodd apparently had an obsession with Ned. She’d been stalking him for at least a week—recording his every movement, snapping pictures, even going so far as to sleep outside his house in her car at night. You have to feel sorry for a woman like that.” But Poole quickly changed his tone when asked if perhaps Ned Weatherby had returned Dodd’s romantic interest. “He’d never be interested in a floozy like that.” (see ‘Floozy’ page A-4)

  I recognized the 555 number, of course. It was Dickhead’s cell phone. He must want me badly to give that number out to the paper.

  I turned to page A-4 and quickly scanned the pictures. It would serve no purpose at this point to read further. What more could they add that I didn’t already know? Breaking news! Dix Dodd totally fucked!

  No, I reminded myself, not totally. I was still free, still able to investigate, and I intended to remain that way.

  There were no other pictures of me. There was one of the parking area outside my office, with uniformed cops heading every which way (in the wake of my giving Dickhead the slip, no doubt). In one frame, Dickhead, in a moment of total frustration, was launching a small package across the yard. Toothpicks, I figured. There was a picture of Jennifer Weatherby—the real Jennifer Weatherby, not the phony who’d posed as her in my office—and my heart ached for her. There was a picture of Ned, leaving the church, I assumed after making funeral arrangements. Pastor Ravenspire had one arm around Ned’s shoulders, providing whatever comfort he could. The other arm was raised in failing effort to block the access by the flashing cameras. Luanne Laney stood looking severe and efficient behind them. There was a picture of Jeremy Poole, too, standing in front of the Court House, looking very lawyerly in his long black robe. Looking serious. And looking like he had a stick so far up his ass, he’d need three surgeons and a skilled dentist to extract it.