Diner Impossible (A Rose Strickland Mystery)

by Austin, Terri L.

  A pause so long, I felt my hair grow half an inch. “I have some news you might appreciate. David Ashby has a mistress. I’ve had Henry do a little sleuthing since you took all this on. And David Ashby is nailing Taylor Springfield. She’s a Hooters girl and she swears David was with her the night Delia Cummings was killed. He called his wife, told her he’d be working late and he’d sleep at the office. Apparently he uses that excuse a lot.”

  “Why didn’t he tell me last night?” I asked. “He confessed to everything else, why keep that a secret?”

  “He’s afraid you’d tell Charlotte?”

  That dude was some piece of work. Thinking he’d impregnated one woman while screwing around with a second mistress. All the while, his devoted—and loony—wife was desperate for a baby.

  I leaned against the vanity.

  “Then the case against Charlotte Ashby may have just gotten stronger.” I played out the scene in my mind. Charlotte made a copy of Delia’s condo key, then waited for weeks to kill Delia in the middle of the night. No. That didn’t sound right. Charlotte was batshit, clearly, but did she have the patience and brains to plan and carry out such a cold-blooded murder? That didn’t add up.

  “Hope this helps,” Sullivan said.

  “Wait, don’t hang up,” I said in a flurry of words.

  “Yes?”

  “Last night…”

  He waited.

  I wanted to tell him how I felt. I took a deep breath and tried again. “Last night was…”

  “Yeah,” he said, softly, “it was.”

  Chapter 24

  I found Jacks standing outside the dining room. She threw her hands up when she saw me. “There you are. You’ve been gone for half an hour.”

  “Sorry, I’ve been doing investigative stuff.”

  “Let’s go. They’re already tearing down tea and setting up for dinner.”

  We retrieved our coats and dragged them on as we exited the club. The valet brought my mother’s car and Jacks drove us back to my parents’ house.

  Waving goodbye to my sister, I blazed a trail to Roxy’s. I was more than a little concerned about her. I’d never seen her as upset as she’d been this morning. Sure, she was sometimes rude to customers, but she’d always fallen shy of throwing food at them. And wearing sweatpants? That was Defcon level one emotional trauma.

  I parked on the street and walked to the wide porch. In its Victorian heyday, I imagined this house had been a showpiece. Leaded glass diamonds sparkled along the tops of the windows. Gingerbread trim dripped like icing from the posts and a turret stood tall at the back of the house. But the paint was chipped and the porch sagged worse than my bowling alley neighbor, Wanda’s, boobs. The windows were filthy and the yard needed weeding.

  I walked in and tromped up two flights to Roxy’s apartment. A twelve-by-twelve square with its own tiny bathroom, it was the only place she’d ever called home.

  I knocked on the door, but she didn’t answer. “Roxy, I know you’re in there. Your car’s in the lot.”

  “Go away.”

  “Nope.” I kept knocking. She kept ignoring.

  “All right,” I said, “I didn’t want to do this, but you’ve left me no choice.”

  I began singing the opening lines of her karaoke anthem. A Spice Girls tune. And singing was a very broad interpretation of what I attempted.

  By the time I got to the chorus, she’d flung open the door. She wore a bathrobe and her snarl wrapped itself around the cigarette dangling from her lips. “You always ruin that song. It’s zigazig ah, not ziggy ziggy blah. Now go away.”

  “Roxy.”

  Her face crumpled like a used Kleenex. Tears began pouring from her bloodshot blue eyes. “I’m such a loser.”

  I snatched the smoke from her lips and held it away as I wrapped her in a one-armed hug. “That’s the last thing you are.” Dancing her into the apartment, I slammed the door shut with my foot.

  She allowed me to hug her for a few. Then she pulled away. “Give me that.” She reached for the cigarette.

  “Forget it.” I spied the rest of the pack on the bed, so I feigned to the left, then darted right, snagging them up and jumping across the bed in a move worthy of an NBA star. I made for the closet-sized bathroom and dumped them all into the toilet before she could catch me.

  She stood in the doorway. “Goddammit, Rose. I need those.”

  “No you don’t. I have a crazy agenda this afternoon. Lots of people to harass and you need to help me.”

  She shook her head, sending her two thick braids airborne. “No. I’m staying right here. I’m in wallow mode and you’re not talking me out of it.”

  “Oh.” I nodded. “Okay then.” I stepped around her and walked to the door.

  “Wait. Where are you going?” she sounded so lost, I almost dropped the ‘tough’ part of my tough love campaign.

  I looked at her with the blankest expression I could come up with.

  “If you want to sit in this room and hide, I can’t stop you. But I won’t allow your wallowing to hamper my investigation.”

  She slid her jaw to the right and her eyes narrowed into slits. “Hamper? I’m not a hamperer, Rose Strickland. I don’t hamper shit.”

  I lifted a brow. “Prove it.”

  She pulled her lips against her teeth, glaring at me while she stomped toward the portable rack she called a closet. She jerked a pink dress covered in rainbow lollipops off the hanger. “I don’t have to prove anything, but just to show you how full of total crap you are, I will.” She stormed to the bathroom and slammed the door so hard, the whole house shook on its foundation.

  When she stepped out moments later, the old, fearsome Roxy was back. With a vengeance. She growled at me as she slipped pink over-the-knee socks up her legs and shoved her feet into a pair of stacked Mary Janes decorated with little leather bows. She practically tore her pink fuzzy jacket from the rack. “Who’s ready now, beyotch?”

  I tried hard to keep a smile from taking over my mouth. “You are. Don’t forget your gum.”

  She blinked. “I know what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to piss me off so I’ll snap out of it. And if I didn’t love you, I’d kick your rich little ass across town.”

  “Sadly, my ass isn’t rich. And by the way, you’re never a hamperer. You’re my bestie.”

  “God, you’re such a dork.” She grabbed a pack of gum from her bureau, stuck it and her cell into a shooting star purse. “And that color looks good on you.”

  I flipped my hair over my shoulder. “Right?”

  My plan was to head back to Club Saturn and get more info on sometimes bartender, Jason Hall. If I could talk to him without running into his across-the-hall pal, Mr. Combover—even better.

  Jason’d been to Delia’s visitation for a reason and I wanted to know what it was. Also, Eileen, Delia’s next door neighbor, heard arguing and saw a man fleeing Delia’s condo a week before her death. Jason Hall might be a good candidate.

  Unless it was David Ashby. But he didn’t seem like the running away type. More like the swaggering away type.

  On the drive to the club, we sped past the movie theater. A sudden urge to look at the upstairs laser tag arena stole through me and I made a U-ee, forcing Roxy to grab onto the door handle.

  “What the hell, Rose?”

  “Sorry, something just occurred to me.” I drove to the parking lot—at this time of day it was fairly empty.

  “What are we doing here?” she asked, hopping out and catching up as I strode into the building. “Recreating the scene of the crime?”

  “Sort of.” I walked up to the ticket window and tapped on the glass. “I’d like to see a manager, please.”

  His tired eyes got stuck on Roxy’s braids. “What?”

  “Hey
, dumbass. Go get your boss.” Yeah, the old Roxy was definitely back in action.

  With the speed of a stoned sloth, he walked from the booth. Five minutes later, a man with a large belly and salt and pepper goatee walked through the inner glass door toward us.

  “Oh hell no,” I said.

  Roxy chuckled. “Think of the time you could have saved if you’d come here first.”

  I stared in disbelief as Captain Mark Smith of Starfleet made his self-important way across the lobby.

  “Miss Strickland, have you found the uniform?”

  “We need to talk.”

  “Don’t you have an office or something?” Roxy asked.

  He tugged on his snug red vest. “Follow me.”

  He marched through the doors, barking orders at the concession stand people. “Get busy. Even if you have no customers, there’s work to do. Look alive, Jasmine.”

  Jasmine looked at her chipped, pink nails instead.

  He led us behind the rows of video games, pulling a key from his pocket to unlock the door. He allowed us to enter first. “Where’s the uniform? Do you have it with you?”

  I spun and faced him. “Is there any reason you didn’t tell us you worked here?”

  He puffed his chest out like a pigeon. “I don’t work here, I own it. I assumed you knew. And if you didn’t, you’re a very poor investigator.”

  He had me there. “Surveillance video?”

  “I beg your pardon.” He walked behind his desk and began straightening already straightened papers.

  “Where’s the surveillance footage from the parking lot that night?”

  He hemmed. And hawed. “Well, I’m not required to show you that.”

  “You are if you want the uniform back.”

  “There are signs posted in your lot, claiming you have video cameras,” Roxy said.

  “Do they work or not?” I asked.

  Pursing his lips, he stared at his desktop.

  “No. When they stopped working, I never fixed them. Too expensive.”

  Crap. There went that theory. “Then let me see the laser tag room.”

  His gaze ran into mine. “What are you hoping to find?”

  “A clue, Captain Smith.”

  “Any reason why you don’t want us looking up there?” Roxy asked. “Hiding something?”

  “Certainly not. Come with me.”

  He strutted ahead of us, past the concession stand. The three workers hadn’t moved. Maybe this was why he craved respect from his Starfleet crew. Because no one at his theater gave him any.

  Up the stairs and through a set of locked double doors, he led us to a large rectangular room filled with plastic pylons and short, walled barricades. “Take your time, I have nothing to hide. I do, however, have work to do. Let me know when you’re finished so I can lock up.”

  He all but pranced away.

  “What an asshole,” Roxy mumbled. “Just tell me what we’re looking for?”

  I turned to her. “No idea.” We flipped all the lights on in the laser arena, but two had crapped out, leaving one corner dark. As I inspected a plastic pylon, the kid from the front desk shuffled into the room and propped the door up with his bony shoulder.

  “Old man said I have to keep an eye on you guys. You almost done, or what?”

  “What,” Roxy barked.

  Together we combed over every square inch of space. We turned the main lights off so we could get a good idea of what it looked like during the tag game.

  “Nothing,” Roxy said.

  “Let’s hit the break room.” I walked by the kid and he blew out an annoyed breath followed us down the hall.

  “How long have the cameras been broken?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “A few weeks, maybe a couple months—just after the parking lot lights started working again. And he wouldn’t fix those until the city sent him a summons. He’s only does it when he has to. I don’t know what you’re looking for,” he said to Roxy, who peered into an empty trashcan.

  I stopped. “Something flat, about yay high.” I held up my hands. “Wrapped in a blanket.”

  “Like that guy the other night?”

  Roxy stopped kicking the soda machine. “What? What guy? What night?”

  “The night those Trek nerds were here. Since the cameras don’t work, boss wants us to do a sweep of the parking lot every couple of hours.”

  “What did you see?” I asked.

  “Some guy getting a big blanket from his trunk. Then he walked to another car and put it in that trunk.”

  “Was he dressed like a Trek guy or a Klingon?” I asked.

  “Trek. Can we go now?”

  “What kind of car did he have?” Roxy asked.

  “I don’t know. It was dark. I didn’t care.”

  Roxy and I did a cursory run through of the break room and both bathrooms. The only thing we discovered was that according to the graffiti artist from the men’s room, Amy Busby was a slut.

  We walked back down the stairs and I made another stab at the kid. “Describe what he looked like. Tall, short, fat, thin.”

  He sighed and stared at the ceiling. “Man, I don’t know. Thin. Whatever. I need to get back.” He walked to the ticket booth with as much enthusiasm as he probably did to gym class.

  “Well, that narrows it down for us,” I said. “Starfleet took the uniform.”

  “But where is it now and who took it?” Roxy asked, popping a third piece of gum into her mouth.

  “That’s the enduring question.”

  Chapter 25

  We hit the road, but since it was close to six, I didn’t have time to stop by Club Saturn. And I was going to have to bring Roxy with me to Captain Bentley’s house. If Hard Ass didn’t like it, too bad.

  Captain Charles Bentley lived just north of Apple Tree Boulevard, in an established neighborhood. I parked along the curb and took stock of the house. Nothing fancy. A seventies ranch with brick exterior and a small yard. The neighborhood looked middleclass. The homes were definitely older, but well cared for.

  Andre had parked in the drive and emerged from his SUV as soon as I turned off my engine. When he glanced at Roxy and her rainbow lollypop dress, his eyes flickered shut for a millisecond.

  “Miss Strickland, what is your colorful friend doing here?”

  “I’m Roxy.” She held out her hand. He stared at it for an eternity before giving it a half shake.

  “Roxy’s okay.” I turned to her. “Captain Bentley has lung cancer. We only have thirty minutes with him.”

  Her jaw stopped chomping. “From smoking?”

  “Yes,” Andre said. “And don’t mention it unless he does. He’s a very proud man. If I feel this is too much for him, we leave. Understood?”

  Rox and I nodded then tailed him to the front stoop.

  A tall man, bald and emaciated, answered the door. His skin was grayish and his sunken cheeks bore evidence of recent weight loss. As did his plaid shirt and navy slacks, which, while neat and pressed, swamped him. Though his upper lip had been frozen into a permanent scowl, his mouth split into a grin at the sight of Andre.

  “How you doing, Thomas?”

  Andre actually smiled. “Can’t complain, sir. Thank you for taking the time to see us. This is Rose Strickland and her friend, Roxy.”

  Captain Bentley’s eyes worked their way from Roxy’s blue braids to her pink shoes. “Why do you dress like a kid? You look like that what’s her name—Pippi Longsocks, but with blue hair.” He stepped aside. “Come on in. Take a load off.”

  He gestured to the tiny living room. A striped sofa backed up to formal blue curtains. The blue recliner across from the television had a permanent butt imprint. This was the Captain’s chair. And nobody sat in it but h
im.

  Fish mounted to wooden plaques hung on all four walls. The carpet was faded blue shag that showed a flattened, dirty path from the front door to the Captain’s recliner.

  “Would you like some coffee?” he asked. I glanced at his left hand—married. I wondered where Mrs. Bentley was.

  “No thank you, sir,” Andre said. He motioned for Roxy and me to have the sofa and he stood near the door, his body ramrod straight, hands clasped behind his back.

  We sat while the Captain walked to the chair and slowly lowered his tall frame onto it. “Not as limber as I used to be. Goddamned—pardon me, ladies—chemo has taken the piss right out of me. Now, Thomas here says you want to talk about that son of a bitch, Martin Mathers.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said. “He’s being detained and questioned for the murder of Delia Cummings right now.”

  He threw out a rusty laugh that sounded phlegmy and was followed by a coughing fit. He grabbed a tissue and spit into it. “Good. I hope he gets a life sentence and they stick him in Gen Pop. Convicts will probably kill him in the first week. Bastard.”

  “What exactly happened between you two?” Roxy asked.

  “He cheated me out of my pension,” he said. “I’ve had to do a reverse mortgage on this house to pay for my medical bills, that’s what happened.”

  “Do you mind explaining from the beginning, sir?” Andre asked.

  Bentley leaned his head back. “Three years ago, some of my officers caught a drug dealer selling pot and pills right across from the high school. He wasn’t the big fish, but he was a decent catch. Mathers, on the other hand, wanted me to cut him loose. I said no, let the PA cut him loose. Our job was to stop the bad guys. I suspected Mathers was on the take. Too many suspects were either given a slap on the wrist or let off altogether. That David Ashby was in on it too, working it out with Judge Keeler. All of them live a hell of a lot better than they should on a public servant’s salary. God, they make me sick.” He cast his eyes to his loose wedding band and twirled it around his finger. “Before I knew it, not only had they let the drug dealer go, I was charged with taking bribes and obstructing justice. Suddenly my bank account had a five thousand dollar deposit. They framed me. Ashby told me that if I left without making a scene, they wouldn’t press charges and all I’d lose was my pension.