3 Loosey Goosey

by Rae Davies

  I appreciated Phyllis’ enthusiasm, but thinking back to what I’d seen of Tiffany’s restaurant, I couldn’t share in it. “I don’t think the stuff in the restaurant—”

  “Not the restaurant.” My crazed maybe-partner/maybe-employee made a sad face. “I wish. It’s what they moved out of the old theater when they converted it into a restaurant.”

  This, of course, was an entirely different kettle of beans. I sat up straight in my wooden chair.

  “He wants to meet us there at seven. I know it’s early, but his convention starts today. Can you do that?”

  Could geese honk?

  A half an hour later, Phyllis and I were standing outside the Antlers building waiting for Danes. I pressed my face against the front window and peered in.

  “Won’t see much that way.”

  I turned to see Daniel, star reporter, smirking at me from the street. With a backpack slung over one shoulder and his uncombed hair, he looked even younger than the twenty-something I knew him to be.

  He stepped onto the sidewalk. “What are you doing?”

  “Working.” I glanced at Phyllis, sending her a telepathic “no talk” warning.

  “Really?” He leaned forward to look in the window beside me.

  “I thought you wouldn’t see much that way,” I drawled.

  He laughed. “Just checking.” He looked around, then walked a few steps to lean up against a light pole.

  “I don’t want to keep you. You obviously have math homework to turn in or a frog to drop down some girl’s shirt.”

  He smiled.

  I didn’t like it. It was too sure.

  “What?” I asked, my eyes narrowing.

  “Nothing.” He smiled again. “You didn’t return my calls.”

  “I’ve been busy.”

  “With your brother?”

  I stepped away from the building and looked down the street for Phyllis’ beef rancher. When I looked back, Daniel hadn’t moved. “He’s visiting,” I responded.

  “I heard.”

  I waited for something more, some comment about my brother being a killer, a crazy, or something else, but Daniel, damn him, just stood there, smiling.

  Deciding that if I was stuck talking to him, I might as well turn the tables and pump him a bit, I sauntered over and tried to look friendly. “I saw your story, about Tiffany. You didn’t say much about how she died.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “Guess you can’t find a good source.”

  His smile wavered. “I have sources.”

  “She could have had a heart attack,” I offered. Not a lot of news to that, and I had the distinct sense Daniel was still working this case. Plus there was Stone and his interest in Ben. If the detective thought Tiffany’s death was a natural one, he wouldn’t be chasing my brother around, even for the joy of harassing me.

  “And rolled under your brother’s van?” Daniel’s smile turned more confident.

  “The autopsy should be back, right?” I shook my head. “Sad that you don’t have a connection there.”

  “Like you do.” He pushed away from the streetlight as if he was thinking of leaving, but as much as I wanted to rid myself of his company, I wasn’t letting him get away just yet.

  I widened my stance and put a hefty dose of challenge in my tone. “It’s not my job anymore, is it?”

  His jaw slid to the side, and I could see he was making a decision. Finally, his desire to one-up me took over. “I saw her body after they removed your brother’s car. There were no signs of any kind of external trauma. Your brother didn’t run her over.”

  Well, that was reassuring. I probably should have left it at that, with Ben in the clear, but Daniel knew more and, damn it, I wanted to know it too. Besides, I knew Ben wasn’t really in the clear, at least with Stone.

  “Like I said, heart attack,” I replied trying to sound confident.

  “She was in her thirties and under your brother’s van. Neither points to heart attack unless maybe she was changing his oil filter at the time.”

  I hadn’t thought about that. Maybe Tiffany had crawled under my brother’s van. The thing was certainly easy enough to spot. He had had a major part in ruining her opening. Could she have been doing something to the Lemon?

  “There is one other possibility.” Daniel leaned forward like we were buddies. “I talked to her a few hours after her fiasco of an opening. She was messed up, eyes dilated and acting weird. I thought she was on something then.”

  His confession jerked me out of my thoughts. “Overdose? And you left her alone?” I couldn’t imagine why he was telling me this. I also had to wonder if Stone knew.

  “I thought she was on something. I didn’t think she was going to die.”

  Well, then, that made everything okay, didn’t it? And it still didn’t explain why she was under Ben’s van.

  His expression turned coy. “Your brother’s all new age, isn’t he? Save the whales and all that?”

  “He’s in HA!, if that’s what you mean.”

  “And owns a goose that he dresses up?”

  “So? Lots of people dress up their pets.”

  “Their dogs, maybe their cats, but a goose? Who even owns a goose unless they’re...” He made a circular motion near his temple.

  “What?” I really didn’t like the direction this was going.

  “It just seems to me, your brother might be the type to...” He held his fingers in front of his face as if taking a toke.

  “My brother is very health conscious. He doesn’t even drink.” I really didn’t know for sure if the last was true, but I knew he didn’t drink as much as I did, which was good enough for this argument.

  “Drinking is for old people.”

  “What?”

  He sidled closer. Close enough I could have wrapped my hands around his neck and— I cut myself off before my thoughts showed in my eyes. Still, my fingers tickled.

  “I’m not saying your brother meant to kill her, but she was on something and things happened. He gave her a bit too much. Maybe he had too much too. Maybe he didn’t even realize she was dead until he read it in the paper the next morning.” He gave me what I’m sure he thought was a “you can trust me” face.

  It looked more like a “punch me please” face to me. My fingers curved into a fist.

  “Lucy! He’s here!” Phyllis bounced on her toes a few feet away. Her beef rancher stood at her side. She held onto his arm as if he was the last T-bone at a Labor Day barbecue.

  I flashed Daniel some teeth and stalked off.

  Chapter 9

  Richard, as the beef rancher insisted we call him, took us in through the kitchen. There were stairs in the back of the room that led to the second floor, where apparently Tiffany’d had an apartment and where the items taken from the main floor had been stored. While Richard walked around turning on lights and checking to see in what kind of shape the police had left the place, Phyllis and I waited in the kitchen.

  The food prep area was small but modern, with all new stainless steel appliances, pots, and pans. Even the tables back here were stainless steel.

  It was generic and cold and made me shiver.

  “She didn’t die here, you know,” Phyllis whispered in my ear.

  I glanced at her, surprised. “You mean because she wasn’t found here?”

  Sliding what appeared to be recipe cards around on one of the tables, Phyllis nodded her head. “Of course.” She shuffled through the cards, reading each before moving it out of the way with her index finger.

  I wished I could be as casual about where and how Tiffany had died, but with Ben obviously in Stone’s sights, I couldn’t.

  Phyllis fanned the remaining cards over the table, looked at each, and then stacked them back up and replaced them where she’d found them. I waited for her to make a comment about what she’d seen on them, but she just shrugged and wandered up the stairs where Richard had disappeared earlier. I dawdled, letting her get a nice lead on me so I could do some snooping of
my own.

  Recipes didn’t interest me, but I hoped something else I might find would.

  The kitchen was clean. Of course, Tiffany had probably had help with that. If Daniel had it right, and she was high on something, the work in the kitchen would still have gone on.

  For no good reason, aside from nosiness, I opened the refrigerator. It was still stocked with meat, cheese, dairy, and produce. All local, I noticed, at least based on the net bags that contained lettuce and herbs.

  Actually, the bags surprised me. They were from the same local grocery that HA! had been calling home. With the whole goose pâté thing, it surprised me Tiffany would buy organic. But then I guess even purveyors of tortured geese wanted clean livers of their own.

  With nothing of interest to see in the kitchen, I went upstairs. The door at the top of the steps opened into a one-room apartment.

  “This is all Tiffany’s,” Richard explained, walking with his head down through the part of the room that held a couch and two chairs.

  Based on the red color of the furniture and the white rug beneath them, I would have guessed that the chef was the main designer here.

  “The antique stuff that you’ll be interested in is in the back.” He motioned toward a door that led off from the bedroom area, but hung back himself as if being here made him uncomfortable.

  Phyllis had already gone to look, but I waited. “I guess the police have already been through?” I said it hoping he’d think that I was being conscientious, although actually I was just looking for a way to bring up Daniel’s story and get his opinion. As Tiffany’s landlord, Richard might not have known her well, but he probably knew her as well as anyone else in Helena, considering the short amount of time that she’d been here.

  He shoved his hands in his front pockets and nodded. “The next day. They called me that morning, looking for a key.” He glanced around as if the officers were still wandering about.

  “Doesn’t look like they messed things up too much.” I smiled. “That’s good if you’re looking to rent again soon.”

  He stiffened. “I don’t know about that. In fact, I’m thinking I’ll sell. There’s a man who’s been calling me.”

  “Carl Mack?”

  “That’s him.” Richard looked at me as if expecting me to add something.

  I filled him in on who Carl was and what his attraction to the Antlers was.

  “That makes sense.” Danes looked around some more.

  His antsy behavior gave me the distinct feeling that he wanted to get out of the room, maybe the building, as quickly as possible.

  His pocket buzzed. He gave me an apologetic look and pulled out his phone. After only a moment of conversation, he cursed. “Alright. I’ll be right there.” He shut off his phone and looked at me. “There’s some trouble at the conference. I’m going to have to go. Can you lock up?” He pulled out a key ring embellished with a tiny sparkly cow. “If you see something you think you can sell, take it. We’ll work out a price later, but I’m open. I really just want the place cleaned out.”

  “Of antiques, in the back room, you mean,” I asked, to clarify. Not that I saw anything in Tiffany’s section that could be sold at Dusty Deals, but you never knew what we might stumble on.

  “Yeah, that would be best.” He looked less sure now.

  “Is someone from Tiffany’s family coming to collect her things?” If they were, I’d want to know when. I wouldn’t want to get in the way of a grieving family.

  “What?” He’d been moving the key ring through his fingers, his mind obviously somewhere else.

  I repeated my question.

  “Her family?” He shook his head. “Tiffany didn’t have any family. She was an only child, and her parents both died a few years ago.” He paused. “Actually, if you think you can use the rest of this, take it too.”

  “I couldn’t. Even if she’s an only child, her property will go to someone.” I didn’t know how all that worked, but I was pretty sure finders keepers wasn’t the going law.

  “Don’t worry about that. I... rented the place to her furnished.”

  I knew Phyllis had said she was meeting him about buying things for the apartment, but the furniture I saw here, while ugly, was also quality. Definitely not what you found in most furnished apartments.

  My thoughts must have shown on my face.

  “I let her pick out what she wanted. I know that’s not normal, but I didn’t want to mess with shopping.”

  “Oh. Okay.” I nodded my head, trying to keep my thoughts to myself this time. ‘Cause I thought he was crazy.

  “Just lock up when you’re done. I can stop by your shop later to get the keys and a list of what you took.” He handed me the key ring.

  The little cow sparkled in the light. I was no jeweler, but those didn’t look like rhinestones. Also, I noticed, there was a second key on the ring, one that appeared to go to a car.

  I started working the key that I guessed went to the building off of the ring, but when I looked up, Danes was already leaving.

  “Wait,” I called. “Don’t you want your key ring and this other key back?”

  He waved his hand. “It’s not mine. It was Tiffany’s. Just don’t drive her car.” His eyes widened, and I could see some new worry had come over him. “I’ll get it from you later,” he called, then he jogged down the stairs.

  I was left standing there holding the tiny sparkly cow and feeling strangely out of sorts.

  Luckily, Phyllis was there to pull me back to reality. She sidled back into the room, and after a quick look around to confirm that she and I were alone, she huffed out a breath. “There is nothing back there but old junk.” She shook her head. “I really thought with all the hype around this place there would be something good.”

  Knowing Phyllis’ idea of junk and mine were not the same thing, I told her what Richard Danes had said about the furniture in Tiffany’s part of the upstairs being fair game too.

  “Really? What about the restaurant? I heard there was some great art down there.”

  Uh, yeah, no. I was not taking any of the red monstrosities I’d seen in the restaurant into Dusty Deals. Phyllis, however, had other ideas. She was already heading down the stairs.

  “I’m going to do a quick inventory and make a couple of calls. Then I’ll come back here and look at this furniture.”

  And she was gone. Images of blood-red tortured shapes lined up in my window made me shudder. But if Phyllis already had customers in mind...

  Still. Another tremor shook my body.

  But Phyllis was gone, leaving me alone to see what treasures the Antlers had to offer and that I liked. With a sigh, I left worries of ugly art behind and went to uncover some treasures.

  Twenty minutes later, I was practically floating with joy. Every dead animal that had been featured on my postcard was accounted for, but that was only the beginning. There were posters and velvet-covered seats and animal statues and light fixtures. There were even four pedestal sinks and two antique toilets.

  I had found a stash to outdo the Lost Dutchman’s Mine, Atlantis, and Blackbeard’s treasure combined. At least in my world.

  And, most importantly, every antique shop owner, auctioneer, and collector in a four-state region was going to be Jadeite green with envy. Especially Carl Mack.

  I took a moment to lean against one of the toilets and gloat. Then I reached for my phone to dial Betty.

  I needed to get this stuff out of here fast. Finders might not be keepers, but possession was as close to law as I was going to get. And I wanted every last dead or dirty piece currently crammed into this space crammed into my space where I could pet it, call it George, and love it as only I could.

  My hand on my cell, I paused as I remembered that it was for the moment a brick. I didn’t want to risk a minute of someone else getting wind of this bounty, though. So I returned to Tiffany’s section of the apartment in search of a phone.

  I found one, a red circle thing that I was sure Phyl
lis would want to add to her haul if she saw it.

  Betty answered on the first ring, a bad sign that told me business was slow. Of course, considering Phyllis and I had gotten to the Antlers at seven, it probably wasn’t even nine yet.

  I silently cursed my brother and his early morning commitment, and then went about asking Betty if she could track down her husband Everett to see if he would be willing to loan us his truck, trailer, and a few members of his jazz band to do the actual lifting.

  “Not a problem on the trailer. Man power might be an issue. Everett’s band isn’t made up of spring roosters.”

  “Ben can help.” He owed me after my 5 a.m. wake up.

  Not wanting to waste any time, I wandered around the apartment while I talked. I felt a bit like a ghoul, but I overcame that and checked to see if any of Tiffany’s things had Dusty Deals resale potential.

  “And maybe Peter.” I added the last with some trepidation. Not only was I not all that keen on putting Ben and Peter together in any way, but the idea of bringing Peter, the police detective, to help clear out the property of a woman Stone seemed to think my brother had a hand in killing felt like a less than stellar idea.

  Except maybe it wasn’t. Maybe Peter would see something here Stone had missed, something that would put Ben completely in the clear.

  Betty agreed to call Everett, and I hung up with thoughts of Peter and some clue the other officers had missed at the top of my mind. Who needed Peter? I was here. Yes, the police had surely been through Tiffany’s home, but they might have missed something. Besides, I was more motivated than they had been. I had a brother and a goose to get out of my house.

  I started in the kitchen. I didn’t know much about illicit drugs, but I kept my metabolism-boosting vitamins in my cupboard next to the coffee. Maybe Tiffany did the same with whatever drug Daniel had seen her on.

  I found vitamins and a bottle of pain relievers. I also found a bag of premium coffee, the same kind that I’d had at the organic grocer. I wondered for a minute or two if I could justify taking it under Richard Danes’ permission to take whatever and give him a list, but the whole ghoul feeling returned. I shut the cupboard with a snap, feeling guilty and more than a little dirty.