Divas, Diamonds & Death

by Elizabeth Ashby

"Oh, Lizzie," Sarah said with a gracious smile. "I've been wanting to thank you for helping us adopt our Pookie. She's just the loveliest, sweetest thing ever."

  "I'm so glad it worked out," I said.

  "Having her come to live with us truly did soften the loss of old Roger," Aaron said.

  Aaron Pohoke was one of the town's most respected citizens, a lawyer of cunning and skill. He'd represented more than one person in town for this matter or that one. "Mr. Pohoke?" I began.

  "Yes?"

  "There's a chance Jimmy John might be in need of representation."

  "Oh?" He frowned.

  "Lester Marshall's been suggesting he might like Jimmy John for that murder out on Two Mile Beach Saturday night."

  "No," Aaron said in disbelief.

  "Why that's just foolishness," Sarah said.

  "I know that. You know that, but evidently Detective Marshall doesn't, at least not yet. If this goes any further, would you have the time to—"

  "Of course, Lizzie. You tell Jimmy John to let me know. He has my cell number, and I'll take his call any time. Day or night. What the heck is it with that Marshall character anyway?"

  I shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine."

  He took hold of Sarah's hand. She smiled up at him, and their intimacy warmed my heart. Love like that was enviable. It was something I wanted for myself, and I wanted it with Tino. It worried me that he was feeling anxious about our relationship, which in turn was making me feel anxious about our relationship.

  The couple turned to go, but I thought of something and called out, "Mr. Pohoke?"

  Aaron stopped and turned back.

  I went on. "How's it working out with Dottie Holmes? I heard you offered her a job filing and doing other chores around your office to help her get back on her feet. That was certainly generous of you."

  He scratched his head. "You know, she said she could use the work and thanked me and all, but she hasn't come around, at least not yet. She did say she was grateful as all get-out, especially when I told her I'd help file papers for her to get back into her apartment. I hope she does take advantage of the offer. We should all be concerned with the plight of the homeless in our town, not leave it up to the churches and other charity organizations. You just never know when the slightest change in someone's life can turn everything around for her."

  I nodded. He was right. Helping feed, shelter, and employ the homeless was a task the entire town needed to shoulder. I hoped it worked out for Dottie and Doogie, and for as many others as possible in the same sad boat.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  After I finished with the flyers, I decided to head over to Second Chance Animal Rescue to see if there was anything I could do to help Fran. During the summer especially, I tried to stop by every day to help out. I hadn't been there since Saturday and figured things might be piling up on her.

  It was a pretty long haul for poor old Jasper, so I called Jimmy John to see if he could take me out there.

  He didn't answer, so I left voicemail and had barely finished before he called me back.

  "What's up?" He sounded hassled.

  "I finished with the flyers and came back home. Thought I'd see if you could take me and Vader out to Second Chance. He's been missing his new girlfriend, Rosie, and it might perk him up to get out. I probably need to help Fran catch up with chores around the place, and if you take us, it will give you the opportunity to make nice with Fran."

  "Yeah," he said. "Sure. Be right there."

  "Jimmy John, what's wrong?"

  "Nothing." By his tone, I knew it was way more than nothing. "I said I'll be right there."

  I watched for him out my living room window, gathering Vader into my arms, and rushing down the stairs before he'd even stopped his truck.

  Sliding into the front seat, I took in his frown and didn't waste even a minute. "Spill it, Jones. What's happened?"

  He shook his head. "Should've known you'd be asking."

  "Mm-hmm." I sat Vader on the seat beside me and hooked his harness into the seat belt. "So?"

  "That blasted Detective Marshall and a couple of cops were at my place when you called. They came with a warrant and damn near tore the place apart."

  A cold spot settled in my gut, slowly taking it over. "But of course they didn't find anything. Did they?"

  He shifted into drive and pulled out of the Hazlitt Heights parking lot. "Not as much as they wanted to, anyway."

  "What does that mean?"

  "It means they bagged my Dr. Martens boots and took them."

  I leaned over and looked across the cab at Jimmy's shoes. He was wearing a pair of old brown Top-Siders that I recognized from years and years of boating on the Sweet Lizzie with him. "Your Docs?" Lester Marshall's smug remark about the footprints in the sand at the murder site made from Doc Martens soles ran through my mind. I shuddered. "They took your Doc Martens?"

  He nodded.

  "That's not good."

  He agreed. "Not good at all."

  In silence, we rode all the way over to Second Chance, which was in the woods south of town further out than the lighthouse. I was consumed with worry. His shoes! They took my grandfather's shoes as evidence. Darn that Lester Marshall and his bulldog ways. Once he got something stuck in that pea brain of his there was no way to dislodge it. Well, actually there was, and that way was to prove him wrong.

  "You know what we have to do now, don't you?" I turned to Jimmy John as he shut off the truck in Fran's driveway.

  He grinned at me as he scooted from the truck seat. "You bet I do. We have to catch us a killer." But the grin never made it to his grey eyes, which were flat and worried, and maybe even a little frightened.

  Fran met us at the door, and we went inside. As she led us to the living room, I nudged Jimmy John and whispered beside his ear. "Tell her how great her new hairdo is."

  He cleared his throat. "Do something to your hair, Frannie?"

  I cringed. No. Say it looks great. What was it with men?

  She stopped and turned, her hand moving up as if to check her chic 'do. "You like it?"

  I nudged him again. "Oh, yeah." At least he sounded enthusiastic. "Kinda looks like Sabrina's."

  I thought I might choke.

  "Really?" She puckered her lips and there was enough acid in her tone to clean the battery cables on Jimmy's old truck.

  "Oh, Jimmy John," I said softly. "For a guy who once had to communicate with the entire world, you certainly could use a little practice with the one-on-one."

  Fran walked over to me and took me by the hand. "I'm so happy to see you, Lizzie." She glared at Jimmy John. "Let's go into the kitchen. I made a pitcher of iced tea a little while ago."

  We left Jimmy John standing by the front door. The poor guy was probably still trying to figure out exactly what he'd said wrong.

  Fran and I took a couple of hours to clean up the kennels, trim a few nails, express a few glands, and microchip and immunize a couple of dogs who were going out to adoption later in the day. My vet classes came in handy at the rescue center.

  When we walked back into the house, Jimmy John was pacing back and forth in the living room, talking on his cell phone—well, more like listening on his cell phone. His end of the conversation consisted mostly of: yes—sure—right and mm-hmm.

  He disconnected and turned to look at us. "That was Bud Ohlsen."

  Both Fran and I rushed over to him. While we were working I'd told her about Lester Marshall and his intention to make a case against Jimmy John, and her irritation had softened.

  "What did he have to say?"

  Detective Bud Ohlsen and Jimmy John were longtime friends. Good friends and excellent rivals. Both men had minds like rocket scientists, as well as the life and cultural experiences to back up any opinions they expressed in their late night cigar-smoking, bourbon-drinking bull sessions.

  Jimmy stopped pacing and stood in the middle of the room staring at his phone.

  "Jimmy." Fran's voice was soft. "Yo
u okay?"

  "Yeah. No need to worry about me," he said. "I'm just fine." He slipped his phone back into his jeans pocket and rubbed his hand over his eyes. "Bud was good enough to call and try to bring me up-to-date on what's going on with their investigation."

  "Do they have anything new?" I asked.

  "Things must be slow over there because they already got a lab report back. That piece of driftwood they found?"

  I nodded.

  "They tested it, and the blood on it belongs to Carlos Ramirez. Also, termite larvae were discovered in the wound matching those infesting the driftwood. So they know for a fact the driftwood was the weapon."

  "Ew." Considering all the things I'd had to deal with while helping out at the local vet's office, it was surprising some of the things that kind of grossed me out. But termite larvae in a scalp wound was definitely one of those things. I made a face. "Anything else?"

  "Nothing except that they're checking my Doc Martens against the casts they made of the shoeprints on the beach. That and a little whining that they can't seem to find where Ramirez might have been staying around here or any evidence of a vehicle he might have driven down here, either rented or owned. Bud said Lester's losing his mind trying to figure it out so he can search it—figures Lester's sure he'll find some hard evidence against me. Bud says he's hoping they might find something to link somebody else to the murder. They're also trying to get the Seattle PD to get a warrant and search Ramirez's place there."

  He went to the sagging sofa and plopped down, not even bothering to remove the throws that were covered in dog hair. He stared up at the ceiling, his mouth hanging open.

  "What are you thinking?" I asked.

  "I'm thinking,"—he looked apologetically at Fran—"it might be a good idea to roust out Sabrina and see if she can give us anything that might help us figure out where to look. If anybody can give you the dirt on a guy, it's his ex-wife."

  "Right," Fran said. "That's just great. Go see your friend Sabrina." The twist she put on the word friend was pretty ugly.

  "Frannie." The frustration in Jimmy John's voice was front and center. "It's just to find out whatever I can to try to clear myself. Nothing more. I swear."

  She looked at him, and her face softened. "Sure, Jimmy," she said. "I get it. You go on now and talk to her if you need to."

  He went to her, put his arms around her, and leaned in for a kiss. Fran turned her mouth away at the last second, so he gave her a peck on the cheek.

  His voice was full of sweet persuasion. "What do you say we dress up and go out to dinner, girl? Somewhere real nice, maybe run over to Olympia and that fancy new steak house or that Italian place you like so much?"

  "We'll see now, won't we?" she said, her Fargo accent making itself known.

  "I'll call you later, Frannie, and we'll make a plan," Jimmy said, crooking a finger at me to go with him.

  "Right." She followed us to the front door. "Good luck getting anything out of that critter woman without giving her what she wants in return."

  He stepped out on the porch and turned around. "What she wants in return? And what would that be?"

  Fran threw up her hands and shut the door in his face.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  We dropped Vader back at my apartment and then headed up Craggy Hill to Smugglers' Tavern. When Jimmy John had called Sabrina, she'd insisted on the conversation taking place over cocktails.

  I'd looked at the time, one forty-five in the afternoon, and shaken my head. "She said she wants to get drunk at this hour?"

  Jimmy John seemed a little defensive. "Nobody said she wanted to get drunk, Lizzie. She just wanted to go someplace quiet where we could talk—"

  I finished for him. "Yeah. Quiet, and dark, and where there's booze. She's trying to get you all liquored up, Jimmy John. Fran's right about her, you know."

  He'd waved me off as he pulled the truck up in a parking spot. "You and Fran must think I have oatmeal for grey matter. You think I don't know Sabrina's taken a shine to me? It's not like I've never been anywhere or done anything. Give me a little credit, will you?"

  I was suddenly a little ashamed of myself. Jimmy John loved Fran. I had no doubt of that. And if I knew my grandfather at all—and I did—there was no way in Heaven or on Earth he'd ever hurt her. And he was right. It wasn't like this was his first time around the block.

  Jimmy John hadn't been around much when I was a child. He'd been off reporting some foreign war, coup d'état, natural disaster, or critical election. But when he did come back to Danger Cove, he'd sit beside me on my parents' sofa and tell me stories of his adventures in faraway places, of candlelit dinners with women who kohled their eyes and wore silk saris, of riding in limos with powerful men and their women. In my child's eyes, he'd been Superman. In my adult eyes, he still was.

  "Sorry, Jimmy John. Sometimes I forget who you really are."

  He grinned. "Ah, no need to apologize. But maybe next time I tell you there's nothing going on for you to worry about, you could stop and think about it before you accuse me of being some besotted idiot who's going to be seduced by a heavy-handed come-on from some pseudo celebrity."

  I just sat there and looked at him for a minute. That was Jimmy John in spades. No words minced, no punches pulled. "Alrighty then," I said. I opened the truck door and got out.

  From the few cars in the parking lot it looked as if the lunch crowd had thinned out, and Sabrina's big fancy SUV might as well have had a sign on it that said Celebrity on Board. Evan, Sabrina's bodyguard, sat behind the wheel, waiting.

  "Sabrina must already be inside," Jimmy John said. "Let's go see if we can't get a little insight into this case from her."

  "Yeah," I said, "before she gets all liquored up."

  Jimmy stopped walking and turned to give me a look until he saw my face and knew I was just giving him grief. Then he just said, "Right. Liquored up."

  Lilly Waters was behind the bar. She looked up and waved at us. "Hey, guys. Good to see you. I'm thinking you're here for her?" She pointed a finger toward the back of the bar.

  Jimmy John nodded, and we moved in that direction.

  George Fontaine, the most handsome florist in three states, sat at the bar, eating a sandwich and nursing a beer. He looked up as we walked by.

  "Lizzie. Jimmy John." He raised a hand in greeting. "How are things with the two of you?"

  "George," we said in unison.

  Then Jimmy asked, "Selling lots of flowers?"

  George wiped his mouth with his napkin. "Thanks for asking. I am selling a lot of flowers," he said. "There seem to have been a lot of funerals in this town lately. It's sad to say, but funerals are a boon to my business."

  Another couple sat at a table near the front door, sharing an order of potato skins and a pitcher of margaritas.

  No one else was in the bar.

  Sabrina sat in the far corner booth, back where it was nice and quiet—and dark. I thought about the big bad wolf waiting quietly for Red with the covers all pulled up to his chin. All the better to jump your bones, my dear. But I didn't say a word to Jimmy John. I'd said enough already.

  Once we got closer and could see her, it was obvious that when Sabrina had taken Jimmy John's call, she must have jumped right in the car and rolled on up here.

  She was dressed in leggings, sneakers, and an oversized sweater. Her face was completely naked of makeup, and her hair—what there was of it—was cropped really short, and it stuck up all over her head like patches of crab grass. It was obvious that the smooth, glamorous 'do she sported most of the time was a wig. I'd have to be sure to remember to tell Fran she'd gotten her hair smoothed out for nothing. On second thought, maybe not.

  It was either one of two things. Sabrina was in such a big hurry to get up here, ply my granddad with liquor, and get him tucked in between her satin sheets that she bit the bullet and decided to go forward into the fray without her battle gear of makeup, hair, and wardrobe. Or—she was so confident he wanted her as badl
y as she wanted him that she didn't figure it mattered whether she was all glammed up or not, that he'd just fall at her feet (or into her bed) just because she was Sabrina Ramirez, the Critter Communicator.

  On either account, she was S.O.L. on two more counts. First of all, I was there. Sorry, Sabrina, no seduction party this time. And second, after what Jimmy John had just told me, I knew he had no intention of doing anything but working her for info about Carlos.

  She looked up from her half-empty glass, and I couldn't help but notice the already empty one beside it. She'd started the party without us, which might be to our advantage.

  She smiled and regarded Jimmy John from beneath heavy-lidded eyes. "James, my dear, dear James." She lifted a languid hand as if she expected him to kiss it or something. "I'm so glad to see—" She broke off as her gaze shifted and she saw me. "Oh, Elizabeth. I didn't know you'd be…"

  Ha! I knew it. Sly thing, she had it in mind to jump Jimmy John's bones all along. Not today, my pretty, not today.

  I slid into the booth and scooted around so I was beside her, which left Jimmy John to sit opposite her. She narrowed her eyes, which looked much smaller without the eye shadow and fake lashes.

  "What's going on?" Sabrina asked, looking from Jimmy John to me. "Have the flyers worked their magic? Did someone come forward with new information?"

  I shook my head. "Not yet."

  She sighed. "I was certain the ten thousand would do the trick. Do you think I should increase the reward?"

  Her eyes looked a bit unfocused to me. "No, Sabrina." It had only been a couple of hours since I'd finished posting them. "Probably just need to give it a little more time."

  "Can I buy you two a drink?" Her voice was polite, but less provocative than at first.

  "No," Jimmy said. "I'll buy you one."

  "Oh," she purred. "Thank you, James."

  "What are you drinking?"

  "Rum Runner." She put the straw in her mouth and sucked until she'd emptied all the liquid and nothing was left except that slurping sound. "I wouldn't mind another."

  I glanced at Jimmy John, my eyes wide. A third one might put her down, and then we'd never get anything out of her.