Family Jewels (Dix Dodd Mystery #2) ddm-2

by Norah Wilson

  “Happy now, Dix Dodd?” the king of polyester pants asked me when the search of the premises had been completed.

  I didn’t answer Big Eddie. If he was looking for an apologetic mumble, a sheepish hanging of the head, he was barking up the wrong goddamn tree.

  Fact was, I was not happy. But nor was I convinced of Eddie’s innocence. In fact, more and more my intuition tingled. I just knew somehow Big Eddie Baskin was connected to all this. But how? If he’d not left the complex in weeks (and why the hell not?), and the jewels truly weren’t to be found on the premises, then where were they?

  “Maybe you should stick to writing those dirty books and let the men-folk handle the investigations?” Noel Almond suggested helpfully.

  The suggestion stung all the more because Deputy No Nuts knew I was no writer of books, dirty or otherwise. I was a PI, dammit, and at least as good at my job as the ‘men-folk’. But to protest would be to blow my cover, and I wasn’t ready to do that yet. So I bit my tongue and said nothing. And bit it. And bit it some more. God, the man infuriated me!

  I was also genuinely worried that no evidence had turned up in connection with the missing jewelry. But too, on this Wildoh search, I thought some sign of Frankie Morrell might show up.

  A snapshot.

  A piece of clothing.

  Another blue-haired hooker, lounging on a sofa.

  A lily pad with identifying evidence.

  Of course, Mom had her little green heart-shaped evidence still in the freezer. Yes, she was still sure that had been Frankie’s way of trying to win her back.

  But as far as hard (okay, remotely believable) evidence as to the whereabouts of Frankie Morell … that would come later.

  Oh boy, did it ever.

  ~*~

  That afternoon, Mrs. Presley thought she’d get some Florida sunshine. There was no golf this afternoon (guess Big Eddie exhausted his balls the day before and it wasn’t Lance-a-Lot’s day), so she pretty much had her pick of the lounge chairs outside the rec center, and that was where she was headed. No, Mrs. P wasn’t the most welcome guest at the Wildoh. Everyone associated her with Katt Dodd. Hell, half of the Wildoh residents thought she was the head of some Ontario granny jewelry fencing ring, and the other half thought she was the mistress of a mafia kingpin, ready to make one call and they’d all have horse heads in their beds by morning if they pissed her off any more. Mrs. P really shouldn’t have told them that.

  So in her oversized Hawaiian top, below the knee shorts and sombrero that shaded every square inch of her small body, Mrs. P set off. Despite all the goings on, I think she was having a good time in Florida. She’d never complain, of course. And I was damned determined to get her to at least one of those monster bingo games she so wanted to attend. She certainly knew the severity of the situation. But it didn’t worry her. “Ah, you’ll get it figured out Dix,” she said as she headed for the door.

  “I don’t get it,” I told her. “It feels like it should be Big Eddie. My intuition … Mrs. P, it’s jumping all over Big Eddie.”

  “Maybe it’s hormones,” she suggested. “Maybe they’re causing you to not see straight. Woman your age … wouldn’t be the first time hormones sent things out of whack.”

  Anyone else I would have whacked.

  I thanked her from my seated position on the couch. Tossed out a two-thumbs up.

  But truthfully, I was getting worried about this case. And as she set out the door, I tucked my arms around myself and let my smile fade. I was missing something. But what? Big Eddie was too damned cocky to not be guilty. Too damned smug about the whole thing. But without evidence….

  “Cupcake, Dix?”

  I only realized how very deep in thought I was when Mom’s words jolted me back to the present. I scooted my feet off the couch and she sat down beside me, sighing as she did. Mother had been in the kitchen baking, and before me now sat a tray of chocolate cupcakes, with inch high frosting.

  Well, they wouldn’t be sitting there for long.

  Oh God, they were good. Rich. Sweet. Decadent.

  But in the time it took me to scarf down two of the chocolate delights, she’d barely picked the paper off hers. (This is a reflection on her mood and lack of appetite rather than my gluttony and love of all things chocolate. Yeah, we’ll go with that.)

  “I got an email from Peaches Marie,” Mother said.

  “Is she having a good time?”

  “Yes,” she said, brightening a bit. “She and Rosemary were just heading up to the Shetland Islands. I like Rosemary. She’s good for Peaches Marie. Gets her to lighten up a bit, you know.”

  Lighten up? My barefoot, vegan, sister with a penchant for yoga positions that make my bones creak just thinking about them, needed to lighten up? If Peaches Marie got any lighter, she’d float away.

  And if Mom thought my sister was tightly wound, I’d hate to think what she thought of me.

  “Did you tell her about everything going on here?” Though I tried to make it sound casual, I had to ask.

  “No.” Mother sighed. “Why worry her yet? Let her enjoy the trip. Let her have a good time while she still can. Before….” It wasn’t quite a sob that ended her sentence, but as close to sob as I’d heard from my mother in a long, long time.

  I did not like that all-hope-abandoned resignation in my mother’s voice. She was giving up. Mother reached over beside her on the couch, and pulled a rose-colored, knitted afghan over her knees.

  She wrapped it around her legs and ran her hand over the rough pattern. “I wonder if I could make one of these,” she mused. “I wonder … I wonder if they let a person knit in jail. You know … they might not with the long-pointy needles and all.”

  I set my cupcake down. “Mom,” I said. “There is no way in hell—”

  “I’m an old fool, Dix,” she said. “Noel Almond is out to get me. And I know that he will.”

  “But you’re innocent.”

  She huffed. “I know this. You know this. Jane Presley … Mona Roberts. That’s a tally of four in my corner.”

  “Pretty good number.”

  She tried to smile. “Dix, I didn’t steal any jewels. No matter how bad things got, I’d never steal from anyone, let alone my friends. Times have been hard lately and I’ve had to sell off the rights to some of Peter’s old songs.” She looked at me sheepishly.

  “You did?” Of course, I already knew this, courtesy of Dylan’s digging, but I feigned surprise. “Mother, why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I didn’t tell your sister either, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

  “It wasn’t.”

  Of course it was.

  “Dix, I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to worry you. You’ve enough on your mind with your growing business. I didn’t want to be a bother.”

  “You’re my mother, you’re never a bother. We’re—”

  “We’re family,” she finished for me. “And I’ve done my best by both you girls. But I never wanted to burden you with any of it. Not when your father was sick. And certainly not now.”

  It was true. She’d been the one. It was only when I was grown up that I realized the sacrifices she must have made. The tears she’d hidden. The times when there was barely anything to hold on to — Katt Dodd had held on. For us. For my father. For herself.

  She didn’t deserve this shit now. She didn’t deserve to be framed for these crimes. And she didn’t deserve a daughter complaining about her wildness. About her going out and whooping it up in her latter years after all she’d done for us. Now some asshole was quite willing to let my mother spend her golden years behind bars for crimes she hadn’t committed.

  Damn that Eddie Baskin. I’d find the truth of this matter if it was the last thing I did.

  “I’ll figure this out, Mom,” I said.

  I got up and marched off to the kitchen.

  “There’s more cupcakes on the counter, Dix.”

  God, did the woman know me or what?

  But I w
asn’t after more cupcakes. I got two tall glasses and ice from the freezer. And lastly I grabbed two cans of Mountain Dew from beneath the cupboard.

  Mother’s eyes widened then misted when she saw me carrying them back.

  I sat down on the sofa again — beside her, yes, but closer somehow.

  “I’m … I’m scared, Dix.”

  “I know.” The pop cans clicked as I pulled back the tabs and fizzed the contents into the tall glasses. “Remember when you promised me you’d never tell anyone what my real name was?”

  She nodded emphatically. “And I never did.”

  “I never doubted. Because you promised me you wouldn’t.”

  She smiled. “If I recall correctly, it was more than a promise. It was a pinkie swear.”

  “It was a pinkie swear over Mountain Dew and cupcakes,” I said. “That makes it iron clad.”

  We linked our pinkie fingers together.

  “Mom, I promise you, I’ll get to the bottom of this.”

  She blinked rapidly. “Thank you, Dix. I have faith in you.”

  ~*~

  I spent the rest of that day like a woman possessed. It was one of those hot-as-hell, muggy Florida days. Sweat rolled off me, refusing to evaporate in the hideous humidity, and I kept the water bottle filled. I talked to all the Wildoh residents who would talk to me. None of them yet knew that I was a private investigator. They still thought I was the not-too-bright, erotica-writing daughter of Katt Dodd. So although they talked to me with hostility, it wasn’t guarded hostility.

  Except Big Eddie. He wasn’t the least bit hostile. The fucker was still just a grinning. I knew he was the culprit. He didn’t seem to care. Smug son of a bitch.

  I snooped around every complex, watched the comings and goings of everyone that I could. One of those people coming and going was Dylan, going about his security/maintenance duties. He nodded at me politely each time we passed, me on my overt fact-finding mission and he on his covert one.

  I charted. I plotted. I drew little stick figures and great big question marks, as I tried to tie each and every individual into Big Eddie Baskin.

  I thought about motive.

  I considered money.

  I pondered access.

  And I had no doubt Dylan was doing the same.

  And why was I looking for connections to Big Eddie? Because he had to have had an accomplice, that’s why. Someone had to be working with him to get the jewels off the property.

  And I didn’t like how these lines of thought looped and led.

  That evening Mother was almost her old self again. Apparently the pinkie swear promise was all she needed to buoy her spirits. She insisted we all ‘doll up’ and head out for a night on the town.

  I did the DD (designated driver, not Dix Dodd) while out with Mom and Mrs. P But I enjoyed a nice, cold glass of wine when I got home. And only as I relaxed and sipped, did I realize how tired I was. Pooped. Beat.

  And I slept like the dead. I didn’t stir until the next day, when I awakened to my mother screaming and pointing a shaking finger to the empty wall safe.

  Chapter 13

  I couldn’t believe it.

  Yet there it was….

  That safe was not twenty feet from where I’d slept all night! How could someone have broken in and gotten by me? It just wasn’t possible. And it was also highly risky. Whoever broke in here had to be pretty damn sure I’d not wake up. But how?

  Then I stood up from the sofa bed and reeled sideways. What the hell? I sat down again. The dizziness passed quickly, but when it did, I realized my brain was shrouded in a fog that was just beginning to dissipate. And not a sleep fog. I blinked.

  Jesus, someone had slipped me something! But who? When? Oh, where should the ass-kicking begin?

  My own, perhaps. Instantly the answer came to me.

  I’d been careless yesterday. The damn heat, I’d carried a water bottle around with me all day. Of course, I’d set it down everywhere I’d gone. To take notes, to run to the bathroom at Mona’s. I’d set the water down to shake hands with Roger (whose other hand was covered with chocolate … geez, I hope it was chocolate).

  Damn damn damn! Anyone could have slipped something into my water. I’m never that sloppy. But if I had in fact been slipped a mickey, why the delayed reaction? Why hadn’t it hit me until hours later? How could it not hit me until….

  Oh, shit, until I’d had that drink of wine after dinner. It must have been something fairly innocuous until it was intensified by alcohol. That perfectly predictable glass of wine.

  Or, shit, shit, shit, maybe someone slipped something into the wine itself? Slipped into Mother’s condo in order to slip it into the wine. Not that I could prove it. I’d polished off the last of it, a partial bottle of Shiraz. The same one Dylan and I had drunk from the other night. There’d been just enough left for a single glass.

  Whatever the method of delivery, in the water or in the wine, it had worked. It had been lights-out drowsiness when my head hit the pillow, which I attributed to stress. I’d crashed early, thinking my subconscious might solve the mystery my conscious mind seemed unable to crack.

  Mother was crying. Even the nerves-of-steel Mrs. P looked a little shaken.

  Shaking the last of the cobwebs away, I headed to the sliding door. Damn it! Not only was it unlocked, it had been left mockingly ajar! One white panel of the sheers rippled out into the wind. There were no tell-tale wet footprints. No muddy hand prints on the wall. And no water on floor this time, no little piece of greenery — heart-shaped or otherwise. I checked the lock. Of course, it wasn’t broken.

  “How could it be?” Mother asked me, bewildered.

  How could I answer her?

  ~*~

  I made two calls. The first one, I made easily, to Dylan. He was at the Goosebump. I know I woke him up — that was evident by the groggy “‘Lo”. But his alertness was instantaneous upon hearing my voice and the panic I tried to keep from it. Dylan Foreman was pretty good with his own bullshit buster. I told him what had happened. He’d be right over. He’d throw on his Dylan Hardy security uniform and be there as quickly as he could. He didn’t bother to tell me not to worry. That would just be too damn condescending in the circumstances.

  “Thanks, Dylan.”

  “And Dix,” Dylan said, before he hung up. “One of my contacts came through with that information on Frankie Morrell. Appears he does have a thing for hookers — blue haired, sharp clawed, whip brandishing … you name it. He’s been picked up twice in the last year soliciting undercover female cops. And apparently, he has some pretty kinky tastes when it comes to the services he pays for.”

  “How kinky?”

  “You don’t want to know.”

  That was all I needed to know.

  That was going to break my mother’s heart.

  But if Frankie was into assorted games with hookers, I wanted him nowhere near my mother. Not that I wanted him missing or dead. Just no-damned-where near my mother.

  The second call I made reluctantly. Yes, I had to call Deputy Noel Almond. That was a hard pill to swallow. I didn’t mind waking him up. Hell, I was silently pleading please be asleep into the phone even as I dialed his cell. But I just didn’t want to ask for help from the bastard. But there was no way around it. He had to know about this crime. And while I had him on the phone, I filled him in on the new info on Frankie Morrell.

  On the missing ring news, Noel seemed a little surprised. Heavy on the little. I know the guy is trained to hide emotion, but I’m trained to catch the flickers of it.

  When I told Almond about Frankie’s fetish for floozies, all he said was, “Well, that’s interesting.” But he said it with absolutely no interest in his voice. Not a bit.

  He’d known. Nutless bastard! “Perhaps your investigation of Morell’s disappearance should have been geared in that direction, rather than my mother’s?”

  I heard the chuckle before the phone clicked dead.

  ~*~

  When I
told Dylan I thought I’d been drugged, he looked stricken, sick for a moment. Then just plain angry. I was fine I assured him, and though he didn’t go into some macho-male going to kick-me some ass mode I find so tiresome, clearly he would love to get his hands on whoever slipped me the sleeping aid.

  Perhaps he would.

  I’m not stupid. Well, not that stupid. Dylan’s concern and anger went beyond the typical employee/employer thing. Beyond ‘friends’. I knew it.

  He made a quick trip into my mother’s before reporting to Big Eddie for work. He’d been painting, sorting tools, vacuuming like a madman under Big Eddie’s instruction. Clearly, Eddie Baskin was taking advantage of the perceived slow wit of Dylan Hardy and getting him to do a month’s worth of grunt work.

  We had to admit it then, to Mother, that Dylan was one of the good guys, on our side trying to solve this case. Sheepishly, I had to admit it.

  “Don’t hang that head too low, Dix,” Mother said. “I’ve known all along.”

  Of course she had. This was my mother.

  “I’ve seen the way you two look at each other,” she said.

  “Ah, you should see them when they think they’re alone!” Mrs. P added.

  Lovely.

  There was another knock at the door.

  Big Eddie was taken aback a moment when he walked into mother’s and saw Dylan there. Whereas I myself was taken aback to see Big Eddie. No one had called him. He had to know he wasn’t the least bit welcome. But as he walked in through the door, he was followed by Deputy Almond.

  “What are you doing here, kid?” Big Eddie asked Dylan.

  Instantly Dylan Foreman donned the Dylan Hardy face.

  “Saw the door open here, Big Eddie,” he said.

  “And you walked right in?”

  “This nice lady,” (he pointed to me) “invited me in.”

  Big Eddie grinned at me. “You look tired today, Dix,” he said. “Didn’t you sleep well?” He was baiting me. Clearly, clearly, he was doing everything he could to yank my chain. He was that confident. Had he slipped me the drug? My bets were on it.

  “Slept like a baby, Eddie. But not nearly as well as I’ll sleep tonight.” I smiled at him. Yes, I was fishing for a reaction. And yep, I got it.