Sticky Fingers

by Nancy Martin

  “We all find ways to cope, Roxy. At least I’m a productive member of society.”

  I could have knocked her down and shoved all her stupid gold coins down her throat just then, but I held back. That’s me—the new master of my impulses.

  If I’d had any urge to protect her—to warn her that somebody wanted to do her harm—it evaporated. Suddenly I didn’t care if Muslim terrorists snatched Clarice off a street, tied her up in a cave, and left her to rot. They could have her, for all I cared.

  And the whole sisterhood of the murdered mothers? Screw that. I’d lived through it and done just fine on my own.

  With a cold smile on her face, she watched my storm of emotions. She enjoyed it, I could see. When I finally got control of myself, she said, “Are you interested in wine racks?”

  “Wine racks?” I knew I sounded stupid and hated myself for it. “Like—you mean wooden racks for bottles?”

  “Is there any other kind?” Her tone was withering. “The realtor tells me I should get rid of all the junk in the basement. Your arrival is timely. There are some big wine racks I’d like to dispose of. Would you like them? Could they be removed soon?”

  “Sure. We do our own demo.”

  She lifted her eyebrows. “We?”

  “My assistant and me. He’s outside.” I hooked my thumb at the door. “You want to meet him? Maybe check his résumé?”

  She gave me the smug stinkeye for another second. Then she put the pencil in her mouth and champed down on it. I could see she’d already chewed it so there was barely anything left of the yellow part. She removed the pencil and said, “That won’t be necessary. Shall we take a look at the racks?”

  “Lead the way.”

  With military precision, Clarice led me across the gritty-floored kitchen.

  As she walked away from me, I couldn’t help noticing her butt. It’s not like I’m in the habit of looking at women’s bodies, honest. But there it was. Unmistakable evidence that under her expensive, professorly pantsuit, Clarice wore a thong.

  Kind of surprising, since she’d been a cold fish back in high school.

  I shrugged and followed her down a set of wobbly steps, past the fuse box to the cellar, where only a single bulb with a dangling pull string cast a gray light across the eerie shapes of junk the old professor had collected over the years. Not just boxes and barrels of crap, but a whole crazy zoo was spread out across the vast floor.

  Maybe I was already off kilter. But suddenly I had to clamp down every iota of self-control not to break out in the screaming meemies.

  Because it was a horror show down there. Stuffed animals frozen in weird poses, glass eyes gleaming. An antelope, a leopard. A stuffed grizzly bear stood beside a rusted deep freeze, alongside a pair of barrels that contained something that smelled disgusting. A dozen stuffed birds hung upside down from the ceiling, laced with cobwebs. An arctic fox stared out from a corner, teeth bared in a snarl.

  I could hardly keep from running back up the stairs and into the night.

  Clarice enjoyed watching my reaction.

  But suddenly one of the beasts growled. It lunged out from behind a wooden crate. Ferocious growl, huge body, threatening teeth. I almost shrieked.

  Except the monster turned out to be Rooney.

  I sagged against a pillar, relief sweeping over me so fast I felt weak.

  But Clarice screamed, dropped her clipboard, and jumped up on the freezer, fancy shoes and everything.

  I grabbed Rooney’s collar and held him back. “Easy, big fella.”

  He twisted in my grasp and gave me a whine of complaint. He liked scaring people.

  “Good boy,” I said, patting his huge head.

  Instead of looking smug, Clarice was spazzed out, on her hands and knees on the freezer. It was good to see her looking unhinged.

  She snapped, “How did that get in here?”

  “I feel a breeze. There’s a door open somewhere.”

  “That’s impossible! I checked all the doors myself.”

  “Then the wind must have come up. Say hello, Rooney.”

  My dog was as big as the wild boar in the corner and twice as ugly, blind in one eye, and with a head that was a mass of scars. He looked right at home in the professor’s menagerie.

  When she realized Rooney wasn’t on the attack, Clarice climbed down off the freezer and pulled herself together. She dusted the dirt from the knees of her trousers and accepted the clipboard as I handed it back to her. “You should keep that animal on a leash.”

  “He can’t do his job on a leash.” I patted him and set him loose again. He went straight to Clarice and put his nose in her crotch. “Hey,” I said to him, and he obediently shied away.

  Clarice brushed invisible hairs from her pants. “Just keep him away from me, will you? Or I’ll send you the dry-cleaning bill.”

  Rooney knocked into one of the dead animals, and I reached down to prevent it from falling over. As I set it upright again, I said, “What the hell is this? Some kind of badger?”

  “It’s a Castoroides. A relative of the modern beaver.” Clarice smoothed her hairdo. “It’s been extinct for a hundred years.”

  “Shouldn’t it be in a museum?”

  “Most of my father’s mounts are infested with moths. No curator would want them contaminating an important collection.”

  I looked around a little more. Of course, I had never been one of those Girl Scout types that hiked around in the wood, breathing fresh air and learning how to treat snakebites with leaves and berries, but to me the grizzly bear had teeth that didn’t look like they belonged in the real world, and the rhino head hanging on the wall had plates on his neck that might have been designed for a sci-fi movie.

  I said, “What did your old man study, exactly? Mutants?”

  “He researched many things. None of them thoroughly.” Coldly, Clarice added, “He was more of a dilettante than people thought.”

  “That means you aren’t?”

  “You’re asking my academic specialty? I don’t think you’d understand, Roxy. Let’s just say I didn’t fly on my father’s coattails. I’ve made my own success,” she went on, starting to sound like her high school self. “I’m sought after in my own right. I do some seminars, but my research keeps me very busy. Plenty of international travel. I’m the foremost expert in my field.”

  “Impressive,” I said. “Now, about those wine racks? I don’t want to waste any more of your valuable time.”

  She glowered. “Very well. This way.”

  We brushed past more junk. I took care to stay away from the creepy animals. Eventually we came to the back of the basement, and I took a look at some dusty shelves that had been built into the original frame of the house. They were crude wine racks, nothing special, built of hickory, I guessed. But Clarice got all rapturous.

  “My parents once kept a vast wine collection.” She ran one finger down the edge of the racks, then looked at the dust with distaste. “But it was my mother’s interest, really. After she died, Dad just drank it all. He wasn’t an alcoholic, but he had a bottle with dinner every night for twenty years—so the collection dwindled to nothing.”

  The family tragedy didn’t interest me. “Well, the racks look in good shape. I know a restaurant that’s looking to make some upgrades. These might appeal to the owner. I can offer you a couple hundred bucks.”

  “That’s all?”

  “If they were carved or imported or something, I could offer you more. But these are nothing fancy. See? Even the joints don’t match. You could ask around, try to find somebody else who will offer you more. No skin off my nose.”

  “Oh, never mind. I’m just glad to be rid of them. I’d like all of this mess out of here as soon as possible. And a check, of course.”

  “You want me to pay you now?”

  Clarice checked her watch. “I have an important meeting this evening, and I don’t want to be late. Can you send it to me? To this address?”

  “Yeah, sure.
I could write you a check now, if you want. I just have to go out to the truck and dig out the checkbook.”

  “No, I’m in a rush.”

  “Okay, I’ll send the check. Where are you headed?”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “Whatever you say.” I shrugged. “You don’t have to stick around to supervise. If you’ve got big places to go, go. I’ll get the racks out of here tonight, put a payment into the mail tomorrow.”

  She hesitated. Either she needed the dough or she didn’t trust me. I was willing to bet on the trust issue.

  I said, “I’m bonded. Go to your meeting. Just—when you leave, send my guy down here. He’s waiting in my truck. Can you do that?”

  She turned briskly. “Yes. There’s nothing worth stealing in the house, by the way. And I have your business card, if there’s anything out of order when I return. Turn off the lights and lock the front door when you leave.”

  She left and went up the steps. I considered making a spitball and hitting her in the butt with it, but she was already gone.

  It was only after I heard her footsteps cross the floor upstairs that I realized I hadn’t gotten around to warning her.

  That’s when Rooney reappeared from the darkness. He jumped up and put his front paws on the freezer. He clawed at the lid and gave me a hopeful woof.

  “Now what?” I asked him.

  He barked again and smiled at me, his big tongue hanging out the side of his mouth.

  “You want something inside?”

  I looked at the freezer. Maybe all those weird animals had made me jumpy, but all I could think about was stupid heroines in horror movies who were always stumbling around in dark basements, opening doors that should have stayed closed. But the freezer beckoned. Rooney clawed at it some more.

  Gently, I lifted the lid on the freezer.

  Preparing to find a dead zombie, I peered inside.

  But all I saw was a heap of colorful frozen vegetable bags sitting alongside various sizes of packages wrapped in white butcher paper—probably meat. A soup bone sat on top. A really big one.

  Rooney jumped up and leaned his head into the freezer. The interior light glowed up on the wrinkled features of his face. Snuffling eagerly, he tried to climb into the freezer to get at the bone. But his hind legs couldn’t quite get enough traction to make it over the edge.

  I figured the old man had moved out of his house, and what were the chances of his bitch of a daughter wanting to eat his frozen food? Plus she’d said she was going to empty out the house in time to show it to a realtor. So I grabbed one of the white packages and hefted it. Maybe five pounds, I guessed. I ripped open the edge, and inside it looked like beef to me. With considerable freezer burn.

  But Rooney stretched his nose closer to the huge bone sitting across the top of all the white packages.

  I dropped the meat and reached in to push the bone closer to Rooney’s jaws. It weighed a ton, but he wrestled it out of the freezer and dragged it onto the floor. There, he crouched down and immediately fell to gnawing on one knobby end.

  “Enjoy it,” I said. “With Clarice’s compliments.” I closed the freezer. “Where the hell is Nooch?”

  Either he’d been sidetracked—which happened a lot—or Clarice had forgotten to deliver my message.

  I went upstairs to find him myself. Rooney grabbed up his big bone and followed. The bone clunked against the walls, and he had trouble getting it through the doorways, but he managed.

  On the front sidewalk in the dark, Rooney pushed ahead of me, then stopped dead and growled.

  I couldn’t see much, but I trusted the dog’s instincts and froze. The wind hissed in the trees overhead. A distant siren wailed. Rooney dropped his bone on the sidewalk, and I grabbed his collar. I could feel the hair on his neck bristling.

  I glanced up the street, my heart skipping. The streetlights weren’t much help. No traffic.

  Then a car door opened somewhere in the darkness and slammed a second later. I steeled myself, thinking fast about a weapon. Should I turn the dog loose? Or prepare to use my fists?

  But it was Nooch who pushed through the Crabtree gate.

  I expelled a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. “Where have you been?”

  Nooch halted in his tracks in the act of muffling a yawn with one hand. “In the truck, like you said.”

  “Didn’t Clarice Crabtree tell you I wanted you downstairs?”

  “Who?”

  “The lady who came out of the house a few minutes ago.”

  “Nobody told me nothing.”

  I glanced over at the driveway. Clarice’s car was still parked where she’d left it. The interior lights were on. Nobody was sitting inside. I could hear the bing-bing-bing of a key in the ignition, though. I headed over to the car.

  “What’s going on?” Nooch ambled after me.

  I reached the station wagon and peered inside. No Clarice. But the keys dangled from the ignition, and the car kept binging. I leaned in the open door to get a better look and saw her purse half hidden under the seat. Careful not to touch anything else, I snagged it off the floor.

  “What are you doing?” Nooch asked. “Jeez, you’re not purse snatching, are you?”

  “I’m checking her stuff. You fell asleep, didn’t you?”

  “Aw, Rox, don’t yell at me. I started visualizing a nice plate of gnocchi, but I must have dozed off for a couple of minutes, that’s all, and—what are you doing?”

  I had already pulled my cell phone from the hip pocket of my jeans. “I’m calling the cops.”

  Nooch’s eyes bulged. “All I did was fall asleep!”

  The first squad car arrived in less than three minutes. In half an hour, the street was crowded with cops and their vehicles. I guess it was a slow night for crime fighting. After the initial rush, Bug Duffy finally showed up.

  7

  Bug flashed his detective’s shield at the cop who’d been assigned the job of keeping sightseers away. He spotted me perched on the porch railing with Nooch. Shaking his head, Bug limped across the small yard toward us. He’d done something to his knee a few weeks back, and it looked as if he’d thrown away his crutches a little too early. He wore his rumpled jacket and corduroys with hiking boots, and he carried a big flashlight in one hand, turned off.

  He said, “We didn’t believe it was you who called in a car with keys in the ignition. Are you the new neighborhood watch?”

  “You mean I should have stolen the car?”

  “That would have been easier to handle than the homicide we’re working in Homewood. Drug bust turned into a shoot-out, thirteen-year-old kid killed. Depressing as hell. I had to get away for a while.” He looked down at Rooney. “That’s some bone.”

  The dog lay on the ground at my feet. He must have sensed Bug was referring to his prize, because he kept his teeth clamped on his bone, rolled his eyes up, and growled.

  “Easy, Rooney,” I said without moving from my spot on the railing. “Nooch, how about putting him in the truck before he starts thinking somebody’s going to steal his new toy?”

  The last thing I needed was my dog attacking a cop.

  “Sure,” Nooch said amiably.

  When Nooch was out of earshot, Bug said, “What’s this I hear about you giving up your religion?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Bug leaned against the porch railing. He tried holding back a smile. “I hear you’ve taken a vow of chastity.” He turned on the flashlight, and the glare hit me in the eyes. I put up my hand to cut the pain, but he kept it on me. I heard barely suppressed laughter in his voice. “Is it true? You’re on the straight and narrow?”

  “Mostly straight, rarely narrow,” I said, avoiding the light. “It’s a little less exciting than I’m used to, that’s all.”

  I hadn’t expected my life-changing decision to make the headline news at police headquarters, especially during a big homicide investigation. The fact that even Duffy knew
my business was a little embarrassing, I guess. For some reason, I didn’t mind everybody knowing I liked a quickie now and then. But now that I was trying to control my impulses, I felt kinda foolish.

  Maybe Bug noticed, because the flashlight went dark. “Less exciting can be a good thing.”

  “Is that the attitude in your marriage, Detective Duffy?” I asked. “How are Marie and the kids?”

  Full of affection, he said, “Driving me crazy. Your daughter?”

  “Pretty much the same.”

  Bug was the kind of name that stuck, especially to a skinny kid who’d worn huge eyeglasses right through high school. But somewhere on his life’s trajectory, Bug Duffy had filled out in the shoulders, gotten some Lasik done on his eyes, and grown into a not-bad-looking guy with a steady job, a nice family, and a couple of citations for bravery. We’d been acquaintances in high school. I wouldn’t call Bug a friend, exactly, but he tended to look me in the eyes, not any other part of my body, which elevated him in my esteem.

  How Bug felt about me, I wasn’t sure. Mostly, he seemed amused.

  “This neighborhood doesn’t usually have much crime.” He thumbed the switch again and pointed the flashlight’s glare on the station wagon. “Whose car is it, do you know?”

  “Isn’t this where the city’s finest technology comes into play?”

  “The city can barely afford telephone service, let alone fancy technology. To me, this looks like somebody walked away from their car, that’s all. What’s the big deal?”

  Nooch had come back, and was standing at the edge of the sidewalk. “I don’t feel so good.”

  Bug trained the flashlight on Nooch’s orange belly. “What’s the matter, big guy? Queasy?”

  “Hungry,” Nooch said. “I didn’t have no dinner yet.”

  I got to my feet and pulled the truck’s keys from my pocket. “Mind if I take him home? He’s on a quest for fulfillment, and he needs food.”

  “Send for a fulfilling pizza instead.” Bug lost his sense of humor. “So what’s the story, Rox? You wouldn’t call 911 without a good reason.”