“Long story.” I couldn’t ask anyone to stay at the house, at least not until the place was fumigated, or exorcised or whatever it is people do after the victim of a grisly murder turns up in pieces in their basement.
It was decided that Frankie would take them back to his place and then pick me up in the morning if I was fit to be released. Then he’d drive me over to the police station so that I could make an official statement. In the mean time, Frankie would field the inevitable questions from Paul and the rest of the gang. I had some questions of my own, like where the hell was Toodie and what exactly was his involvement in all this.
I had plenty of time to think about it, because the nurses woke me up every hour to make sure I hadn’t “slipped over to the other side.” But try as I might, I just kept coming up empty.
In the morning I was pronounced “good as new” by a very perky resident, living, for the past six months, on No Doze and was told that I could resume normal activities. I think she’d gotten my chart mixed up with the woman down the hall who’d just had breast augmentation surgery, but it was still nice to be given a clean bill of health.
Uncle Frankie picked me up in his silver F150 and drove me to the police station. He played it cool but I could tell he was worried about me. “Are you sure you’re up for this? You could go home, rest awhile.” Funny thing, the house sort of lost its appeal when body parts started flying.
“I’m fine.” The back of my head felt like it was on fire, so I popped a handful of Hershey’s Kisses, because everyone knows that caffeine is good for getting rid of headaches.
“I think your dog is constipated,” Uncle Frankie said. “You should get him some Pepto Bismol. He sure is cute. What’s his name?”
I thought about this. “Homer,” I told him, thinking about The Simpsons.
Uncle Frankie shook his head. “Doesn’t strike me as a Homer.”
I decided to give it some more thought.
Frankie dropped me off in front of the station and went to park. I knew my way around the building from when Bobby first joined the force and we were still a “happy couple.” Seemed like a million years ago. A young, female cop greeted me and led me down the hall into an empty cubicle. The sign on the desk read Detective Robert DiCarlo. My heart did a little skipping around thing, which I attributed to nerves but may actually have been lust. Okay, sometimes I get really inappropriate urges at inconvenient times.
Bobby walked in with a Styrofoam cup filled with coffee, which he handed to me. There was an easy familiarity that was somehow very reassuring.
“Thanks.”
He walked around the desk and sat down. He was wearing faded jeans and a gray t-shirt, with a long sleeve button down shirt on top of that. He was so bad-boy beautiful he looked like a Gap commercial. “So, how’re ya doing?”
“Well, aside from the boulder growing on the back of my head, I’m doing okay.”
Bobby picked up some index cards and started shuffling them around, a prelude to getting down to business. So much for pleasantries. He put down the cards and looked at me. He was clearly uncomfortable. Well, tough. I wasn’t loving this either.
“Brandy, I’m sorry I haven’t been around much since you moved back—”
“Oh, hey,” I cut him off. “I heard about your wife and baby coming back. I’m glad for you Bobby. I know how much you missed your little girl.”
He nodded, relieved not to have to spell it out for me. “Listen, in case you were worried, your statement matches up with Barry’s and you haven’t been implicated in any way in this murder.” Should I have been worried? I hate missing an opportunity to needlessly fret over something. “And since it’s been determined that the actual murder didn’t take place there, we’ve ‘cleared’ the premises so you’re free to use the basement again.”
Actually, I was thinking of having it surgically removed from the rest of the house.
“Bobby, do the police know who she is—I mean was?”
He shook his head. “There are no prints on file and without the head it makes things a little difficult. Why didn’t you tell me you and Toodie Ventura were living together?” The question came out of the blue and there was more than a hint of accusation in his tone.
“Why are you saying it like I’m his common law wife? He needed a place to stay, I needed some plumbing work done. Period.”
“So, you’re not—”
“God no!” Jeez, how desperate for a man did he think I was?
“Okay. Sorry. I’m just relieved you’re okay, is all. We’ve got an APB out on the guy. In the mean time I want you to change your locks.”
“Are you saying you think Toodie killed this woman?”
“Well, given his history and the fact that he brought the freezer into your home, it’s not out of the realm of possibility.”
“But that doesn’t make any sense. I mean, why would he kill her and then leave her body in a freezer in my basement?”
“Gee, I don’t know. Why would Toodie buy a set of headless golf clubs? Because he’s crazy, that’s why!”
“It was only the nine iron.”
There’s a little vein that sticks out on the side of Bobby’s forehead when he’s trying to control his temper. It was sticking out now.
“Look, I’ve gotten to know Toodie over the past couple of weeks. I know he’s been in trouble before, but I can’t believe he’d do something like this.”
“Maybe you don’t know him as well as you think.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“If Toodie’s innocent, why did he disappear?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. And it really bothered me.
Bobby leaned across the desk until he was mere inches from my face. His voice was hard. “Stay out of this, Brandy. Let the police handle it.” He slid a card over to me. It had his work number on it. “If he tries to contact you, give me a call.”
I stood up. “Am I free to go?” I tried to keep the pissiness out of my voice, but it was hard. I’m not exactly known for following orders.
“Free as a bird.” He relaxed back into his chair again, expelling a breath of utter frustration.
“See you around, Bobby.”
“Change your locks!”
“Alright, who wants another brownie?” It was eight-thirty at night and the “Alexander Ghost Expeller Pajama Party” was officially under way. Janine made up the menu—chocolate, to appease the spirit of the woman who had “passed” and tequila shooters, “because alcohol is a disinfectant, right? So we’re just purifying our surroundings.” When I’d come home from the police station, I’d spent a hundred and fifty dollars on a cleaning crew to do the same thing, but Janine’s way was a lot more fun.
Carla tossed back a shot and burped. She was wearing a powder blue sheer mini nightgown with a gauzy matching robe.
“Aren’t you cold?” I was bundled into red and white striped fleece pj bottoms that made me look like a giant candy cane.
Carla shrugged. “I’m very warm blooded.”
I looked around the living room at my friends, grateful for their companionship.
Paul, Frankie and John had been here earlier, but they left when we put on Steel Magnolias, Carla’s favorite movie. I would have preferred to watch Anchorman. I really could’ve used the laugh. But after three tequila shooters even Steel Magnolias was funny.
When Frankie and I got back from the police station, we had to circle the area four times before we could find parking on my block. Hordes of cars trickled down the narrow street, stopping in front of my house to take pictures. The power of morbid curiosity is astounding.
I’d called a locksmith—not because Bobby told me to. It just seemed like a good idea. I still couldn’t accept that Toodie had anything to do with this woman’s murder. He really is too much of an innocent. But there was no denying he was involved somehow, and until I figured out how, I thought it best to err on the side of caution.
My mother called. She’d seen the
footage of me on the evening news. I’d rather have been reporting it, but hey, I made national headlines. She advised me to get a new roommate and to call Paul.
Franny called too. She said she was sick of the boat, sick of Eddie and she was coming home on the first flight out. I knew she was doing this for me and the tears sprang up so suddenly they threatened to choke me. I fought them back, allowing Franny her charade.
“So, how are you dealing, Bran?”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re fine?”
“Really, Fran, it wasn’t that bad. It was just the arms and legs. It’s not like I found the head.”
“Oh,” Franny said. “It was just the arms and legs. No head. That’s good, because that would have been gross. Why do you always do this Brandy?”
“Do what?” I asked, knowing perfectly well what she meant.
“Pretend that everything’s no big deal. That you can handle it all on your own.”
If you can call anesthetizing myself with booze and a six-brownie sugar high handling it. I sighed. “Is this the part where you tell me I need to see a therapist to help me through my ordeal?”
“No, this is the part where I tell you I love you and I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“…and then he punched a hole in the wall.” Carla was giving Janine a facial. She’d smeared some slimy green gook all over her cheeks and forehead, leaving a thin strip where her mouth is. The mouth was working in what Janine thought was a quiet whisper, but in actuality was loud enough to wake the dead. God forbid, as my mother would say.
“Who?” I asked. I’d just returned from the kitchen, where I’d found Rocky and Bullwinkle curled up together near the stove. The dog’s belly was beginning to look a little bloated. I made a mental note to pick up some Pepto Bismol, like Uncle Frankie suggested.
Janine looked up, her face a mask of green guilt. “Nobody.”
I gave her my most searing look, which was all the more scary with chocolate crumbs falling out of my mouth.
“Okay, you’re only going to hear about it from somebody else, so I might as well tell you. It was Bobby.”
Turns out, right after I left the police station, Bobby got another visitor. Marie. According to Janine’s friend, Cathy, who works in Records, Marie stormed into his office yelling a whole bunch of stuff in Spanish. It took a few minutes for Cathy to track down someone to interpret for her what Marie was saying, but by that time Marie had switched to English. “What was she so mad about?”
Janine shrugged. “Your name came up a few times.”
Oh boy.
“She seems to think you and Bobby are carrying on some kind of illicit affair.”
“But that’s crazy. We barely speak to each other. What does she think? That I planted the body in my basement just so Bobby would have a reason to come around?”
“Um, now that you mention it, yeah. She told him she wanted him to quit the case. And that’s when he punched a hole in the wall.”
Wow. This called for another brownie.
We got to bed at around three. Every light in the house had been turned on, plus the radio and the downstairs TV. We were all huddled together in my queen-sized bed, Janine in the middle, flanked by Carla and me on either side. Carla slept sitting up, her beehive pressed against the headboard. “It’s a small sacrifice for this work of art,” she told me, when I asked her about it.
Inside of two minutes, they were both asleep. Janine began to snore, lightly at first, and then with a steady rise in volume. I wanted to stick my head under the pillow, but Rocky was lying on top of it and she swiped at me when I tried to nudge her off.
After fifteen minutes of this I gave up and made my way downstairs. The dog followed me, wide-awake and ready to play. Typical male. He snuggled up against me as I stretched out on the couch.
Just as I began to drift off to sleep, I heard my cell phone go off. Oh great. Some pervert insomniac calling to tell me he wants to see me naked and covered in Jell-o. I let my voicemail pick up and tried to go back to sleep. A minute later, curiosity got the better of me. I pressed *86 and “retrieve”.
“Brandy. I’m in trouble.” The voice was just a whisper, but I knew it all the same. I clutched the phone to my ear, waiting to hear the rest of the message, but that was it. Toodie. Master of the understatement. “I’m in trouble.” No duh! My heart started beating in triple time. Should I call the police? Wake up Janine and Carla? Call The News Network and offer them an exclusive in exchange for a job? He sounded so scared and he hung up so abruptly. Toodie, what the hell is going on?
I woke up with the cell phone welded to my hand. After I’d calmed down, last night, I punched in “received calls” and Toodie’s number came up. Okay, so it wasn’t a dream. I tried to call him back, but he didn’t pick up. I knew I should be making a beeline to the police station to report this latest turn of events, but something held me back. It was the desperation in his voice. This was not the voice of a vicious killer. This was the voice of a little boy in big trouble. I kept hoping he would call me back. But then what? Ask him if he’d done it? That just seemed rude.
I was spared having to talk to Janine and Carla about this because they were already gone. They’d left a message on the coffee table.
“You were sleeping so soundly we didn’t want to wake you. Fed Rocky and ‘What’s his name’. Call us.” I could tell Carla had written the note because it was signed with a bunch of hearts and x’s and o’s at the bottom.
Paul needed me for the lunch shift, so I hopped in the shower and then threw on a clean pair of jeans and a black pullover sweater. I figured that way if I spilled anything on me, it wouldn’t show too badly. I grabbed my bag, stuffed a TastyKake in there for nutrition and headed out the door.
My cell phone rang just as I pulled into the parking lot of Paul’s club.
“Hey, it’s Bobby.”
I smiled at the sound of his voice, before I remembered that we had a strictly professional relationship these days. He probably had a lead on the freezer or something.
“What’s up?” I maneuvered, one-handed into the spot marked “Reserved for Owner.” Well, it is Paul’s car.
“I uh, just wanted to see how you were feeling this morning.”
“Oh. Fine. I’m fine. So, do you have any leads on the dead woman?”
“You know I can’t talk about the specifics of an on-going investigation.”
“You got nothin’, right?”
Bobby laughed and the sound went straight to the pit of my stomach. “I got nothin’.”
I pictured him leaning back in his chair at work, his long blue jean clad legs stuck out in front of him. I thought about the hole in his office wall and wondered if he had gotten it fixed. I thought about Marie and what she would think if she knew he had called me. It never once occurred to me to tell him I’d heard from Toodie.
“I’ve got to go, Bobby,” I said, guilt rearing its ugly head. I knew from past experience that he frowned on me withholding evidence in a murder investigation.
I started across the parking lot, the cell phone cradled against my ear. I could hear him breathing softly on the other end.
“Okay, well, take care. And change your locks.” I hung up without telling him that I already did.
Paul was waiting for me behind the bar. I took a moment to study him as he happily swabbed down the mahogany. My brother is one of the sweetest guys ever. He’s handsome and smart and infinitely kind. But he has no common sense when it comes to women. He always ends up with pound puppies, women who need to be rescued. The last girl he was serious about lived in Camden, in a doublewide trailer she shared with her alcoholic ex-husband and her six children. She was twenty-four. I guess bad relationship karma runs in the family.
“Yo,” Paul smiled, looking up. “The lunch crowd will be here any minute and it’s going to be jammed today. Grab a pad and start taking drink orders over at table four.”
“Right,” I said, wondering which one was table four. My
cell phone went off again, probably Bobby, wondering if I’d changed my locks in the last three minutes. I held up my index finger to Paul. “One sec,” I mouthed. “Hello?” I said into the phone.
“Brandy, it’s Toodie.” Oh, crap.
Chapter Four
“Paul, give me a minute.”
“Is someone there with you?” Toodie asked. The fear in his voice was palpable.
“Yeah. Hold on. Don’t hang up.” I covered the mouthpiece. “Possible job interview.”
Paul gave me two thumbs up and headed off to table four. I bolted for the Ladies’ Room and locked the door.
“Are you still there?” My hands were shaking but I kept my voice steady.
“Yeah. Where are you?”
“At Paul’s club. Where the hell are you?”
Toodie hesitated. “I’m not at liberty to say.”
“You’ve gotta be kidding me. Toodie, you left a freezer full of human remains in my basement, I think that warrants an explanation.”
“Oh, you know about that—”
“Not to mention the dog!”
“Oh, shit. I forgot about the dog. Is he okay?”
I took a deep, cleansing breath. “He’s fine, except he’s a little constipated. Listen, I hate to ask, but—”
“I didn’t do it, Brandy, I swear to God. I thought there were steaks in that freezer. I didn’t know until I looked in there.”
It was my turn to hesitate. “Do you know who she was?” In my mind I’d been referring to this woman by disjointed body parts. It was less painful than thinking of her as someone’s loved one.
“I didn’t even know it was a ‘she’. When I saw what was in there, it freaked me out so much I just slammed the door and bolted.”
“Well, where did the freezer come from in the first place?”
“It belongs to a guy I know named Glen.”
“So if it belongs to Glen, why’d you open it?”
“I got hungry.”
A small, hysterical giggle escaped my lips. I believed him. “Listen, Toodie, there’s an APB out on you. You’ve got to turn yourself in. You’ve just made things worse for yourself by running away.”
No Such Thing As a Good Blind Date: A Brandy Alexander Mystery (No Such Thing As: A Brandy Alexander Mystery) Page 5
