by Nancy Martin
“Could he be violent?”
“Leeford Crabtree is an intellectual, not violent. Mark my words, it was certainly Mitchell who killed Clarice. Isn’t it usually the husband in these cases?”
“Usually, yes,” I said, looking him straight in the eye.
Icy again, he said, “May I have my property now, please?”
I handed over the backpack. “Can I ask you one more thing?”
“If you must.”
“How did Clarice’s mother die?”
“She was killed during a robbery.”
“Could she have been deliberately murdered? Targeted, I mean, and the killer made it look like a robbery gone wrong?”
“I very much doubt that,” Eckelstine said. “It was a mistake, that’s all. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“And Clarice?”
“What about her?”
“She never got over her mother’s murder?”
“She never wanted to,” Eckelstine said. “That’s my educated guess. She liked blaming all her problems on a thing that happened long ago. It was a kind of crutch for her.”
When I didn’t respond, Eckelstine shouldered his bag and walked away.
I let him go. I walked back to my truck, and Rooney gave me a wet greeting.
I sat in the truck for a while. Thinking. Trying not to feel anything, but thinking about Clarice and her kids. About her dead mother. And her screwed-up life.
Then I thought about her kids a little more and decided they deserved to understand how their mother died.
As for me, I needed some sex before I killed somebody.
14
Before any of the reporters caught sight of me, I trotted up the back porch steps of Eckelstine’s house and looked through the glass in the door. I had pulled my hair into a ponytail and jammed a ball cap over it.
Inside, the kitchen was a mess. I saw dirty dishes and glassware everywhere. A carton of milk forgotten on the counter. Bowl of bananas turning black. A stack of pizza boxes four feet tall. Sure signs of men living alone. I guessed Clarice hadn’t been here in days.
The door was unlocked. Which is practically an engraved invitation, right? So I opened the door and went inside.
From under the sink, the lower half of Reggie Ricco, owner of Busted Flush Plumbing, stretched out onto the kitchen floor. I recognized his belly, because his sweatshirt was all hiked up. He had a tattoo of a mermaid on his stomach, riding the wave of his considerable body hair. His head, shoulders, and arms were inside the cabinet, at work on the water pipes.
“Reggie?”
“Huh?” He banged his head as he came out from under the sink. When he saw it was me standing there, he dropped his wrench.
Reggie had graduated from high school with me, and his wife was Stripper Betty. She wasn’t really an exotic dancer, but back in tenth grade she’d accidentally lost her shirt when it got caught on the school bus door, and she’d been known as Stripper Betty ever since. High school humor is timeless.
The color drained out of Reggie’s face. “Roxy! What are you doing here?”
“I’m your assistant.”
“I don’t have an assistant.”
“Shut up and listen, Reggie. For the purposes of the newspeople outside and anybody else who might wander in, today I’m your assistant, and if you say otherwise, I’m going to tell Betty about you and me.”
Okay, I’m not proud of it. One afternoon a bunch of years ago, I’d bumped into Reggie, bought him a couple of beers, and ridden him like a circus pony. It was before he’d married Betty, but the interlude had so frightened Reggie that he still lived in fear that anyone—particularly his wife—might find out what he’d allowed to happen.
On the floor, Reggie stared up at me and gulped.
I said, “I’m not here to jump you, Reggie. I’m just going to have a look around the house.”
“You c-can’t do that. I’m bonded. If you steal something—”
“I’m not going to steal anything. I’m just looking.”
“But—”
“Dammit, is there anybody else in the house?”
“A kid. Teenager. He’s upstairs in his room, I think.”
“Okay, when does the father get back?”
“He said he’d be gone a couple of hours. He called me because the sink backed up, and he says they’re having some kind of funeral thing here soon, so I came right over to— Look, Roxy, I—”
“It’ll be okay. Forget I’m here.”
While Reggie stared in horror, I prowled out of the kitchen.
I peeked into the dining room. The table was covered with books, newspapers, and coffee cups. And more pizza boxes. In the living room, I decided the furniture had been chosen by a decorator who liked hotel lobbies. A big sofa and chairs in contrasting prints, tables with no scratches, color-coordinated lamps.
The only weird thing about the living room was a giant, ugly painting over the fireplace. It depicted an elephant with long hair, chasing what looked like cavemen with spears.
Art is something I don’t understand. Weird stuff is what people like now, not pretty things. Me, I like a nice painting of Italian beaches or maybe flowers.
I went over and looked more closely at the hairy elephant. There was a little brass plate at the bottom of the picture frame. I blinked and looked closer.
RHONDA
It was printed right there on the frame. The hairy elephant’s name was Rhonda.
“I’ll be damned.” My voice echoed in the living room. “The professor was looking for his elephant. Rhonda is an animal.”
Was an animal. Some kind of animal. Megafauna. A mastodon or a woolly mammoth or something. What was the difference?
I shook my head at the strangeness of people and took a cautious look through the window curtains at the street. The press hadn’t moved from their stakeout. I twitched the curtains closed and started nosing around again. I wasn’t sure what else I was looking for. But I figured I’d recognize something useful like an elephant with a name.
A stack of bills lay in a basket by the front door. I flipped through them. Recent postmarks. Utility companies, a Nordstrom bill, and a bunch of junk mail. Nothing Sherlock Holmes might interpret as a clue.
About that time, I heard music somewhere and followed the sound to a den in the basement. There I found Richie Eckelstine, the snotty son, sitting at a big table under the glare of fluorescent lights, hacking up some cloth with a huge pair of scissors.
My first thought was that he had good taste in music. The Clash finished up one of their hits, and then the tortured voice of Joey Ramone started wailing.
Richie caught sight of me and used his thumb to turn off the CD player. Instant silence.
He sat on a tall stool in jeans, a T-shirt, and a webbed belt with fringe. His bare arms were skinny and pale. His face was punctured with less jewelry than before, but he still had a ring through one eyebrow. He paused in the act of cutting with the scissors.
He stared at me. “What are you doing here? Looking for somebody else to beat up?”
The room was clearly his lair—Big-screen TV, video games, several pairs of sneakers left on the floor. He had painted graffiti all over the walls. Neon colors swirled around in big, puffy letters that made no sense. Ugly as hell.
And the big table in the center of the room—I decided it was an old Ping-Pong table—was littered with shredded cloth. And of all things, a sewing machine.
I said, “I was just talking to your dad. Apologizing. You know, for yesterday’s—uh—incident.”
He gave me a suspicious stare, then used the scissors to point at my face. “You have a fat lip. Did my old man do that to you?”
“Either him or the other guy. I forget which one has the million-dollar arm.”
“The other guy,” the kid said. “My father couldn’t hurt a flea.”
“He did a pretty good imitation yesterday.” I don’t know why I wanted to make Eckelstine sound like a hero, but
here I was, doing just that. Something in the kid’s manner, I guess. He didn’t have yesterday’s bravado anymore. I said, “Yesterday must have been a bad day for you.”
The kid went back to concentrating on the scrap of cloth in his hands. He focused closely on trimming an edge. “You mean me finding out my mother is a slut.”
“Hey, watch it with the insults, kid.”
“She was, though. A slut.”
“Just because she married two men doesn’t make her promiscuous. Maybe she married the other guy for a good reason.”
“Who knows?” Richie snapped. “Who cares?”
“You must care a little,” I said. “She was your mom, after all.”
If he teared up suddenly, he didn’t want to show it. He turned his face away from me and got busy fluffing through the fabric on the table. He said, “We didn’t get along. Never have. So it’s no big that she’s gone now, you know? Hell, maybe my life will get easier.”
“That’s pretty tough talk. You must be a strong person.”
“I do all right,” he said gruffly.
“So what’s all this stuff?” I attempted to sound casual as I looked around the table. His piles of material turned out to be clothes, I finally discerned. A few finished dresses hung on a rack nearby. “Are you helping with a school play or something?”
“They’re not costumes.”
“What are they, then?”
“Couture,” Richie said firmly. But a quick glance at him told me he wasn’t quite so sure. His voice had a note of defiance, though. “They’re clothing. Dresses, to be exact.”
“Dresses, huh? Kinda weird looking.”
“Cutting-edge,” he corrected. “I’m working on developing my own vision.”
“What? You trying to be a dress designer?” I couldn’t mask my amazement.
“Why not?” he demanded. “It’s like sketching and drawing. And designing dresses seems—I don’t know—like an extension of that.”
“Your parents okay with this hobby?”
“My father hates it. But my mom—my stepmom—she was kinda interested, I guess.”
“Clarice thought it was okay for you to design clothes?”
“I made a few things for her, and she liked them, yes.”
For the first time, I was hearing something good about Clarice’s parenting skills. At least, she wasn’t a total loss.
I nudged the kid with my elbow. “Got anything I can wear to a wedding on Saturday, kid?”
Firmly, he said, “I don’t do special-occasion pieces. No red carpet, no prom or bridesmaids. Couture, that’s what I do.”
I flipped through a few of the hangers on the rack beside him. I had no clue what I was looking at. It was all ugly. Black and brown fabrics had been ripped and shredded, then somehow knitted back together in weird shapes. The occasional feather poked out. Some of the seams were held together with safety pins.
“What these dresses need is a little color,” I said. “Maybe some buttons or a ruffle or something. It’s all gloomy.”
“Thanks,” he said. “I’ll keep that advice in mind.”
I heard his scornful tone and grinned. “This seems like an unusual hobby for a kid like you.”
“Like me?” he said carefully. “Are you insinuating I’m gay? Because I’m not.”
“What I meant was, you’re a young guy from Pittsburgh. We’re a long way from Paris.”
He sighed. “Don’t I know it.”
“Just seems like you could be spending all your free time watching reruns of old Super Bowl games like most of the guys in this city.”
“I like football,” he said. “Just so happens, I like making dresses, too.”
I yanked out one of the so-called dresses. To me, it looked like a bunch of bandages wrapped sideways, dyed weird dark colors, and then frayed with cuticle scissors. I held it against myself.
The kid made an involuntary move—like he wanted to snatch the dress out of my hands. But he managed to say quite calmly, “That’s really expensive fabric, you know. Maybe a thousand dollars’ worth of silk.”
“Holy shit.” I almost dropped the hanger. Carefully, I put it back on the rack. “Where do you get that kind of money?”
He fell silent for a moment.
Then he said, “My stepmother gave me an allowance. She thought my creative outlet was good therapy after I got into some—well. Maybe it was good therapy. My father disagrees, of course. He thinks it’s gay.”
“He’s wrong,” I said. “Looks to me like you’re actually interested in women’s bodies. Which is normal for a kid. Actually, you’re really gifted. Not that I know much about fashion, that is.”
He looked me up and down. “That’s painfully obvious.”
I laughed.
To me, the kid seemed like he was trying to bluff his way past being very sad. The thought of him being left alone on his own the day after his stepmother was found murdered made me want to chase down his father and punch him in the face.
So I said, “Hey, I’m sorry about your mom. She might have had some faults, but I bet you miss her.”
Kid shrugged. “I’ll get over it.”
I took a chance. “What’s going to happen to Rhonda now?”
He sat up straighter, surprised by my question. “What?”
“Your grandfather was asking about Rhonda the other night. It seemed to me like he thought your mom was supposed to be looking after Rhonda.”
Richie snorted and went back to concentrating on his weird fabric. “What’s to look after? A bunch of bones, that’s all.”
“Where are they? At the Professor’s house?”
“Who knows? Who cares? Not me. I don’t care about any of that. What are you doing here, anyway? I think you should leave.”
There was something in Richie Eckelstine that I liked. He was rebellious, judging by the criminal record, but he had standards. His dresses looked butt ugly, yet kinda sexy, but what did I know? It was probably a good thing that he was being creative. He was tough, too. I had a feeling he’d turn out okay.
But I made a mental note to check on him now and then.
In the meantime, I wanted to learn more about Mitch Mitchell.
15
Back in my truck, Rooney snored with his jaws clamped around his bone. It had begun to smell funky.
Cracking my window open for some fresh air, I pulled my phone out to call Bug to let him know I was on my way to meet him for lunch. I could hardly wait to tell him I’d figured out who Rhonda was. I’d have to leave out a few details, like breaking into the Eckelstine house, of course.
But my cell phone rang in my hand.
It was Flynn, and he sounded tense. “Hey.”
“Hey, yourself. I haven’t seen your friend the skater yet.”
“That’s not why I’m calling,” he said shortly. “I need some help.”
“You finally admit you want my body.” I was feeling good again. I knew who Rhonda was!
The joke didn’t amuse him. “Shut up and listen, will you? I’m in a jam.”
I laughed. “What happened? The Health Department? They found out about Rooney in the kitchen yesterday?”
“It’s a longer story than that. Where are you?”
I glanced around to decide what neighborhood I was passing through. “In Garfield. Why?”
“Pick me up behind St. Stan’s, will you?”
“Sure. Let me drop off Rooney first. I’ll be there in five minutes. That soon enough?”
He had already disconnected.
Intrigued, I dropped the dog off at the yard so he could sleep, and in a couple more minutes I pulled into the parking lot behind St. Stanislaus Kostka. St. Stan’s was a Polish cathedral-style church in the Strip, famous for being one of Pope John Paul’s tourist stops before he became everybody’s favorite pope. Before that, back in 1936 when the nearby Banana Company blew up across the street, the church’s congregation had to remove the ruined fancy bonnets on top of its steeples. But the ch
urch still looked like a special place, and the fact that it sat in the middle of the city’s grimy warehouse district just made it more quirky and beloved.
Flynn came out of the shadow of the old church and crossed the asphalt in a few long strides. He wore a leather jacket with the collar turned up and a ballcap pulled low over his face. He looked like half the men in Pittsburgh, except he still had the best butt of any guy I’ve ever known.
Wistfully, I found myself remembering the old days when we used to push each other into backseats, dark corners, even his cousin’s bed for hot sex. We fought a lot, but we laughed back then, too. Silly stuff would set us off, like the time we spent an afternoon on his dad’s boat, rocking with the water, listening to some guys fishing from shore who talked about sneaking off while their wives went shopping.
We told each other we’d never be tied down the way those people were.
Well, we got our wish.
Flynn opened the passenger door and swung up into the truck.
“Jeez, what’s all over this seat?”
“It won’t kill you. Get in.”
He slammed the door and said, “Let’s go.”
I spun the truck in a U-turn. It felt good to be on the run with him again. “What’s going on? Who’s on your tail?”
He shot me a sour glance, apparently not joining me in the flashback. “A writer from Food magazine.”
“Uh, forgive me for asking a dumb question, but isn’t that a good thing?”
“Under most circumstances, yes. Today, not so much.”
“Tell, tell.”
Flynn slumped in the passenger seat, staying low to avoid being seen. He took off his ball cap and ran his hand over his shaved head. “The dinner for Dooce last night? It went really well. He had this writer guy with him and a couple of musicians from his band—all of them serious about food. His assistant, that Jeremy guy, kept coming back, asking us for more. We gave them everything in the kitchen—the appetizers, the fish, the lamb, and some venison, too. Even the desserts were a hit. The bacon ice cream was, like, insanely good. But the soup—” Flynn stopped and shook his head.
“The soup was bad?”
