“Stevie!” Officer Nelson shouted down at me, startling me enough that I shut my mouth mid name-calling. “It’s the law. Now, cut it out and let them take me,” he ordered, much more quietly now. But his eyes…his eyes said, “See? Told you they’d suspect me.”
Those darn tears I couldn’t seem to shake today tickled the back of my eyelids again as Officer Baby-Face began to lead Dana out of the diner. But I followed right behind them, hot on their heels.
“I swear to you, Dana, I’m going to find who really did this and I’ll make them pay! Don’t you worry about a thing! I’ll call my attorney and we’ll have you out in no time flat!”
As the diner’s doors swung open and they led Dana to a squad car, putting a hand over his head to shield him from hurting himself as they put him in the back of the car, I shrieked again. “You’ll all be sorry when I figure out who did this! Every last one of you is gonna have egg on your face when Stevie Cartwright shows you bunch how to find a killer the right way!”
I knew I was overly emotional at this point from sheer exhaustion and worry about Dana and I was yelling at the wrong people. But sometimes, my emotions and my big mouth fly off the handle at the same time.
But no one paid attention to me much and my outburst. They were just as somber as Dana, as each of them got into their cars and pulled away, leaving me in an empty diner with nothing but a bunch of plates littering the tabletops and the sound of the waves, lapping at the shoreline.
* * * *
“Dove? I’m going to insist you sleep. You must sleep if you hope to get anything worthy accomplished. You hardly slept a wink last night, you’ve had an exhausting day, and now it’s half eleven.”
“Did you sleep when nuclear missiles and atomic bombs were out and about, frolicking across the country in the hands of lethal killers, Spy Guy?”
“As I recall,” Arkady intervened with a chuckle, “Zero was quite the catnapper. Always sleeping with the one eye open, right comrade? Do you remember the time I snuck up on you in Prague back in 2009, was it? Yes, it was in that old barn in the mountains with the pretty sheep herder’s daughter. Hah! You almost took the nose right off my handsome face with that knife of yours. Missed me by the hair on his nanny’s chin.”
Now Win laughed, too. “Oh, bollocks,” he deflected. “You were nothing if not stealthy, old friend. Like a bloody cat. And I was aiming for your ear, by the way.”
I rubbed my hand over my grainy eyes and popped two more aspirin, guzzling them down with water. “Hey? Spy buddies?”
“Yes, my beautiful patch of wildflowers?”
“Dove?”
“Can the spy reunion, would you? They’ve arrested Dana, boys. This is bad. This is very bad. He did not kill Sophia! This is serious, for goddess’s sake!” I know I sounded fragile, and maybe it was simply because I was.
The poor man had said goodbye to the love of his life just hours before being arrested for her murder and my two ghosts were chugging back metaphorical vodka as they relived their glory days.
Bel stretched and yawned from the fluffy bed I’d made for him out of an old scarf on our kitchen table. “You two are a laugh riot with all your spy-ness, but the boss is right. Our boy’s in a dirty jail cell. Ain’t nothin’ good about that.”
“Sorry, my little malutka. No more spy stories. How can I help turn your frown upside down? You want I should tell you how to break this man free of his chains? A jailbreak is easy enough. Once, when I was imprisoned in Latvia, seven guards surrounding me, I dislocated my bones to free myself. A prison cell is, how you say, cake. I can help. You just have to be very careful not to—”
“No!” I shouted, then winced and stuck the cold pack I’d gathered up when I got home back on my nose. “No. Thank you, Big A. No jailbreaks. I want to prove his innocence so there’s never any doubt. Because he is innocent.”
“If you say so,” Arkady drawled.
“Okay, so let’s go over where we’re at,” Win suggested. “First up, the gun. The smoking gun. How do you suppose someone got ahold of that gun in order to frame Officer Nelson? Where did he keep it?”
Groaning, I shrugged my shoulders. “In a safe, he said, when we talked earlier today.”
Win sighed. “So how did the coppers get inside the safe? Did he give someone the combination?”
“He said he didn’t, but he assumed they must’ve broken into it—which I guess they’d do if they couldn’t get in touch with him. After they questioned him at the station and let him go, he left. But Dana did give them permission to search his house just after he was questioned.”
“Without a warrant?” Win asked, disbelief in his tone.
“No. They had one. Not that Dana cared. But that’s Dana for you. He knows he didn’t do anything wrong, so why would he think they’d find anything, let alone a gun? I can’t think straight about that right now. If forensics says it was the gun that shot Sophia, why would he do something as careless as put it back where they could find it anyhow? Not even the stupidest of criminals would do that. It’s insane.”
“But it’s def something to tell Luis about,” Belfry chirped.
I made a note of it on the list of many things I had for Luis to look into. One of them being Eleanor Brown. I’d called him the moment I’d gotten into my car to drive home so Dana would have representation when they questioned him.
“Did I tell you Sandwich told me forensics also said it was a professional hit? He made a point of telling me Dana knows his way around a gun, as in, he’d know where to shoot her to make the kill effective, I guess.”
“This just gets better and better,” Win drawled. “And where are we on our search for a connection between Gino Fratiani and Sophia?”
I popped open my laptop and pointed to it before I typed in Gino’s name in the search engine. “That’s just beginning. First, I want to know how this guy died, because if it was anything other than natural causes, I wouldn’t want to be the person responsible for his death. He’s a mob boss’s kid, for goodness sake. I mean, take a look at his father.”
I scrolled to the picture of Loosey Luciano and shivered. He wasn’t your typical paunchy, spaghetti-loving, soft-in-the-middle man in his late fifties. He was like The Rock and a darker Daniel Craig all rolled into one.
Eyes like a razor’s edge, cheeks you could strike a match on and the kind of smug half smile that one only achieved when they were confident.
“Eh,” Arkady poo-pooed. “He is not so scary. Someday, I tell you all about Yuri Popovrakoff. He could cut you from across a room with nothing more than his stare of discontent.”
I grinned despite myself. Regardless of the fact that he was Win’s enemy, he was pretty funny, and if Win didn’t mind him hanging around, I didn’t mind either.
“Who is Yuri Popovrakoff?”
“Big, big Russian movie star. You have your Chuck Norris. We have Yuri.”
“Well, Loosey Luciano doesn’t look like the kind of guy who’d take his son’s death lying down. According to this article, Gino was killed in a barroom brawl a year ago in Chicago, but they haven’t caught the killer. Some of the suspects were the usual you’d expect in a killing like this.”
“A killing like this?” Win asked.
“Well, yeah. A mob hit. I’d bet dollars to donuts it was in retaliation for something. Taking out a mob boss’s kid is a big deal—it was payback of some kind.”
“Do you mean like a head-delivered-in-a-package-by-the-UPS-guy big deal?” Bel asked, his interest obviously piqued.
I snorted at Bel and his knowledge of mob shenanigans. “It’s probably on par with something like that, yes. Whatever the reason, the barroom brawl is likely a cover. The rival mob boss sends in someone to make it look like a barroom brawl. The stoolie starts the fight, the hitman is somewhere in the background, and during the melee with the stoolie, the hitman takes Gino out. A gun fires, but no one can ever find the gun or the person who shot it. Bel and I watched The Sopranos, all eleventy-billion episodes
. They did stuff like this all the time.”
“Well, then certainly it must be true,” Win said in his most uppity of British tones.
“Betcha she’s right, Winterbutt,” Bel teased. “Bet when you get deeper into this, you find out at least one of the suspects was from a rival mob.”
I scrolled another article and jabbed a finger in the air. “Aha! Bel’s right. Two of the suspects were rival mob bosses, Twitchy Tonio Antonelli and Caesar Ortolini. The article alleges the police thought one of them ordered a hit, but it doesn’t say why they’d order a hit, and all the witnesses in the bar claim they didn’t see anything—go figure, right? Of course, nothing was ever proven and Gino’s been dead for over a year now. I wonder if they closed the investigation…”
“See!” Bel rolled to his feet and began to walk the length of our kitchen table like a marching soldier. “I bet they closed the investigation pretty quick because some mob boss paid ’em to. Bet none of the witnesses saw anything either—because they were paid to see nuthin’!” he said in a heavy New York accent.
“And when did you say Sophia came to Eb Falls?” Win asked.
My stomach got that tingle, and a rush of adrenaline I didn’t think I had left in me surged to the surface of my limbs. “About eight months ago! Sweet Pete in a Speedo, do you think she knew him? No one knows for sure where she lived before she moved here. She told Dana she lived in New York.”
“Interesting,” Win commented. “Any idea how this could relate to Sophia? Maybe she was in the bar and saw something? You did say she enjoyed espionage novels but her bookshelf didn’t appear to be lined with mobster biographies. Maybe she wasn’t the one who looked up Gino Fratiani at all. It could have been anyone, Dove.”
I ran my hand through my hair. “That’s true, but I got that tingle when I saw the site, and remembered what Chester said about Sophia. It won’t leave me be, Win. I just feel like there’s a connection.”
“Then we carry on,” Win said.
I leaned back in the chair and stretched my arms. “What if Sophia saw something in the bar that night and she ran away because of it? The timeline fits. And what about the picture of the woman who looks a whole lot like her but can’t be because of the difference in their eye color?”
“Contacts?” Arkady suggested. “I use them all the time when I am spying.”
I thought about that for a minute then shook my head, grabbing my phone. “No. Look at this picture I took of the actual photo. She looks a great deal like Sophia, but she isn’t her. I’d bet a limb on it.”
“Hush, Dove,” Win chastised. “With the luck you’re having these days, you can’t afford to put that out in the universe.”
Laughing, I had to agree. “Okay, so let’s forget Sophia for a minute and take a look at Eleanor Brown and her locker-filled lust for Dana.”
“It’s quite obvious she has a challenge of some kind, Stevie. It was quite kind of you to ask Detective Moore to take it easy on her.”
That made me sad. Eleanor was suffering, maybe more than anyone had cared to notice. “You’re right. Something’s going on with her. She was very upset I’d seen what was in her locker, as you can tell from the piece of my cheek I’m currently missing. OCD maybe?”
“Or something far worse,” Win added, his tone sympathetic.
“Do you think she’s capable of murder, though? I mean, she’s pretty meek, and Dana had no idea she was crushing on him, which means her obsession hasn’t become intrusive. But I wonder if it’s impeded her work, her life in some way. I need to talk to her aunt, if she’d be open to talking to me, that is.”
“I’ll add that to our list of things to do—for tomorrow,” Bel offered. “Tonight you get your beauty z’s, Boss. You look pretty rough around the edges.”
I think the lack of sleep and the general knocking about I’d taken today was getting to me. Bel and Win were right. I needed to sleep if I hoped to be on the ball tomorrow, but I checked my phone with a sigh. “Still no word from Luis on Dana.”
“I’m betting that interrogation’s going to go on for quite some time, Dove. I also have to doubt Dana will get bail. This is a murder and they have Officer Nelson’s gun. Clear evidence linking him to Sophia’s murder. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it doesn’t look good at this point.”
“I know. I swear, I know, but it doesn’t mean I can’t hope Luis is savvy enough to get him bail, right? I mean, he has no priors. This is Officer Nelson we’re talking about. I’d bet he was hall monitor in school. Maybe they’ll cut him a break? Give him an ankle bracelet?”
“And here in the real world, where every crime isn’t solved with a cute little old lady from Maine, I’d guess not,” Bel said, rubbing his head against my hand. “I know it sucks Twinkies, Boss, but that’s the reality. We just have to work harder—tomorrow. Did I mention tomorrow?”
Whiskey trotted in from the hallway, where he’d taken to guarding the door on the entryway rug as of late, and pawed my leg. “Okay, big guy, time to call this a wrap. I’m going to take Whiskey out for a potty and then it’s lights out, boys.”
“I can get him, Boss,” Bel said.
“No, it’s okay. I need to clear my head and think about this connection between Sophia and Gino. It exists. I know it does. The fresh air will help.”
Turning, I half hobbled, half walked toward the front door. Gosh, my knees felt like someone had run a hand grater over them. They weren’t just bruised from the fall I’d taken in the diner, they were scraped, too.
Reaching down, I rubbed my palm over Whiskey’s big head and pointed at the door as I opened it. “Potty time, bud.”
He bounded outside and down the porch stairs with a harrumph, making his way around the side of the house, his white and mahogany fur rippling in the wind as he headed to his favorite spot to do his business.
Sighing, I looked around at all we’d accomplished in the few months Win and I had been together. The beautifully restored house, the amazing gardens Chester had helped me create, the twinkling Malibu lights dotting our lawn.
I sure loved it here. Which only reminded me of Fakebottom and his wish to yank the rug right out from under me.
Not gonna happen. I felt as protective of this house as I did my new life, and no one was going to take everything from me again.
Rounding the corner of the house, I peered into the darkness toward the line of hedges at the very end of the property, Whiskey’s favorite place to make some magic, but I didn’t see him.
Of course, who could see over a nose the size of mine?
“Whiskey!” I called out, whistling. “C’mon, buddy! It’s night-night time. Mommy needs some sleep!” Boy, did I need some sleep. I needed to be fresh and clear-headed for Dana’s sake.
Squinting, I saw Whiskey’s butt, the rest of him buried deep in one of the holly bushes. He was probably digging for something he shouldn’t be. Like a mouse or a snake or any number of things he’d brought to me in the recent past.
“Aw, c’mon, dude! No more mice. I mean, they’re cute and all, but do we really need another pet? You fill me up, buddy. You had me at hello. You’re plenty enough pet for me. Leave the nice rodent alone and let’s go to bed!”
I whistled once more and stopped before I heard a rustle of the hedges—and the sound of gunfire. Like gunfire that was really close by.
My head snapped up on my neck just as the sound registered in my brain, and then Whiskey was running for me, his big body eating up the distance between us as though his life depended on it.
Everything happened in slow motion then. There was another gunshot, Whiskey barreled toward me, his jowls flapping in the air he was getting, and then he was knocking me down to the ground and covering me with his big body.
My arms went around him instantly, tucking and rolling the way Win had taught me to until we were under a big rhododendron that sat in front of the wraparound porch. Running my hands over Whiskey’s back, that was when I felt something warm and sticky.
> Whiskey cried out with a soft whimper and my heart sank to my toes. “Whiskey! Oh, goddess, buddy! Are you okay?”
He inhaled and released a long groan before he slumped against me, lifeless.
Chapter 13
“Whiskey!” I sobbed his name into his fur, digging myself out from under him to grab his collar so I could pull him from beneath the shrubs.
He was heavy, so heavy, and my palms were sweating, making it that much harder to pull. “Win! Tell Bel to call the vet! We need him now!”
Next, I was vaguely aware of sirens blaring, the screech of them closing in on my driveway as I began CPR, praying I was remembering how to perform it correctly.
“Stevie!” Sandwich called from behind.
“Count, Sandwich!” I ordered, tears falling down my face. “Count compressions for me!”
As Sandwich finished counting off, I held Whiskey’s mouth closed and blew into his nose.
But then Sandwich’s hand was on my shoulder, pulling me away. “Stevie! Stop. Stop, please. Let him be.”
I raised my eyes to find his image, blurry and erratic from my tears, and I roared, “I said count, Sandwich! Damn you, cooount!”
But then Win was there, counting, soothing, reassuring me. “One, two, three…” he whispered until Whiskey stirred. His heartbeat was weak, and it was slow, but he’d stirred.
Our local vet, Dr. Northrup, arrived seconds later. Kneeling his lanky body down beside Whiskey, he asked me to step aside. “Let me see, Stevie. You go talk to the police. I promise I’ll take good care of him.”
Sandwich helped me from the ground, his wide hand wrapping around my upper arm until I was upright and we were eye to eye. “What happened?”
“Someone shot my dog, that’s what happened!” I screamed, standing on my tiptoes, as though sticking my face in his would make my point clearer. “I’m telling you, Sandwich, if—no, not if—when I find the son of a sac scratcher who shot my dog, I’m going to peel his skin off! Do you hear me? He shot my dog!”
I wasn’t just upset, I was fighting, spitting infuriated. I wanted this person to die. I wanted it to hurt. I wanted to do the hurting. I wanted to watch him squirm, crawl, beg for his life from beneath the heel of my work boot.
The Old Witcheroo Page 13
