Drive Thru Murder

by Colleen Mooney

  Our yard needed a little TLC where the landscaping was concerned, but it had a few plants that could be encouraged to bloom if I spent a little time cultivating them. I just had time to shower, change, fix my hair and put on makeup. It was warm outside, about seventy-five degrees, so I selected a comfortable electric blue cotton dress with a sweetheart neckline that had a ballet length, hitting me mid-calf. When I stepped into a pair of light gold strappy sandals, there was a knock on my front door.

  Jiff was standing with a bouquet of pink sweetheart roses in one hand and a bottle of Dom Perignon in the other.

  “I see my house warming gift arrived. You look beautiful,” he said.

  “Hi,” I said and leaned up on my toes to kiss him on the cheek while he stood in my doorway holding the flowers and champagne.

  I was just about to take the flowers he was offering me and invite him in when, over his shoulder, I saw Sandra getting out of a cab across the street. She was stumbling and reeling from one side to the other of the stairway as the cab drove away.

  “Oh no,” I said. Jiff must have thought I was talking to him, and a puzzled look came over his face until I added, “My neighbor is home, and she looks bombed. I’m afraid she’s going to fall in the bushes.” I squeezed past him and ran across the street leaving him on the porch. I didn’t make it in time.

  As I hit Sandra’s bottom step, she was almost to the top when she went over the left side, landing smack in the hedge. Jiff came running up behind me, and we both pulled her out before she got so tangled that I needed the oven mitts. I was very thankful when I noticed she was wearing underwear.

  We helped her up the steps and through her front door. We sat her on her sofa where she promptly fell over and passed out.

  “We’re done here,” I said ushering him out and locking her door behind us.

  “You think she needs help?” he asked me looking over his shoulder at Sandra’s house.

  As we walked back to my house, I explained this was the hot mess Sully at the bar had the pool on—Sandra—reader of palms and the nude phone sex operator. Jiff had now been briefed on the entire Sandra Saga. We might as well be on the same page I thought. I didn’t need to remind him about Sully, the corner bar, the hedge fund—because the realization came quickly as he nodded his head letting it sink in.

  Since I had been appointed the Sandra Wrangler, I told him I took my job seriously, and showed him the oven mitts I bought for the job. I advised that his inaugural introduction to Sandra’s hedge dive was one of the more uncomplicated ones, and only took a few minutes of our evening. Getting Sandra inside her apartment so she could sleep off the buzz she had going completed our mission and I was ready to get back to our planned evening.

  When we returned to my house he followed me to the kitchen where I found a vase for the flowers he brought me. “This is a nice place. Whoever renovated this house kept all the typical raised cottage vintage features,” he said. He was looking at our kitchen floor. It had twelve-inch black and white checkerboard tiles with white subway tiles on the walls.

  “They used the same ones in our bathrooms,” I said nodding to the walls. “Our two bathrooms each have black and white basket weave floor tiles with those white subway tiles. I would have done the same thing if I had renovated it myself.”

  “I like it. Whoever did the work, did a nice job,” he said. “It still has that old New Orleans shotgun feel.”

  “I didn’t thank you properly for the palms and these lovely flowers. Sandra sort of distracted me,” I said as I filled the vase with water and then placed them on the table between the two candles I lit. I moved the flowers I picked earlier over to the sideboard. He was standing right behind me when I turned around and he pulled me to him.

  “Well, go ahead and thank me.” He kissed me and I felt one leg bend at the knee. This was the same effect the first kiss had on me. His hands moved from my waist and were now holding my face in them and the passion in his warm, wet mouth on mine was starting to make my knees weak so I had to return to standing on both feet.

  Meaux started to bark at us for attention. Jiff let me step back while running his hands down my arms and ending with holding both my hands in his. I felt a little discombobulated trying to focus back to the dinner instead of dragging him to my bedroom. His kiss still had me hot and my clothes felt like they were on fire.

  He moved his head next to mine. While rubbing his to mine, his mouth was breathing in my ear and on my neck and his voice was deep and throaty when he said, just above a whisper, “I see why you like living here. It’s an interesting neighborhood.”

  “Yes,” was all I could muster. I took a half step back while I straightened the neckline of my dress and pulled down at my skirt to feel like I was put back together.

  “How about some of the champagne I brought for us?” Jiff’s voice was a little husky himself as if trying to regain his composure.

  “Sure.” My voice was still a little raspy from our kiss.

  He poured us each a flute I had pulled out of my antique china cabinet.

  “That’s a beautiful piece of furniture,” Jeff said. His voice was back to normal.

  “It’s from my dad’s side of the family and my mother wanted it out of her house. At least my dad didn’t let her give it to Goodwill. She made me take it when I moved out. I love antique furniture and family heirlooms.” I was having a wonderful evening and I didn’t want to say another word about my mother, sister or the current family crisis so I pulled him into the kitchen while I finalized the dinner.

  “I wish you hadn’t gone to all this trouble making dinner for me,” he said as we sat at the table. “I would have been just as happy to take you out,” he said sampling the salad and then the oysters.

  “You’re always taking me out. I wanted to do this,” I said. “You had a long, busy week with your work and I wanted to do something nice for you.”

  We sat at the candle-lit dining table and ate. He kept my flute filled with champagne and on occasion he would feed me a fork full of something he said was incredible.

  Over our dinner I told Jiff what I knew about Sandra and her escapades and that kept the dinner conversation going. Jiff had an interesting thought on why the bar hadn’t offered to put up handrails with some of the Sandra-in-the-bushes-lottery money.

  “Remember when you asked Sully that? His demeanor changed and I don’t know if you noticed it,” Jiff said.

  “Yes, I did notice. That’s when he called me a buzzkill. Then he threatened not to let me participate in the weekly drawings—like I would want to.”

  “Exactly. I think the buzz that would be terminated would be his. I think Sully might be using Sandra as an additional income stream,” he said.

  “I thought it was strange the way he responded, but how many people do you think actually buy a square on that board?” I asked.

  “Probably quite a few. Neighborhood bars stay in business for a reason—cheap drinks and a steady stream of local drunks. The local kind who will bet on anything when their judgment is impaired or fuzzy, and who might not even remember doing it,” he said.

  “And, I bet the Sandra lottery winners are the biggest drinkers who will drink all their winnings right back into the bar. That way, Sully can pocket the money and the bar owner is footing the bill for their drinks. Sandra is Sully’s cash cow.”

  “I can’t believe people will bet on the unfortunate circumstances of others, especially when one incident ended up with her in an emergency room. Remember Sully telling us that?”

  “Yes, but that can be fixed. When is the bar closed?” Jiff asked.

  “I saw a sign in there that said it was open every day except six a.m. to three p.m. Mondays,” I said.

  Jiff ate everything I put on his plate and then asked for seconds. He was either really hungry or he was very good at complimenting the cook.

  “So, I guess you like my cooking?” I asked.

  “That was one of the best meals I’ve ever had. Next time
I’ll cook for you at my place. It won’t be this fancy, but I do all right. That means I won’t poison you. Agreed?”

  “Agreed.” I liked the way it sounded and felt to make plans with someone more than five minutes into the future.

  “There’s one more thing I’d like to get your opinion on,” I said. “You have people in your office who know how to track someone, and I found out the person who lived here before we did was named Fara Theriot.”

  “Yes, we have investigators. What do you need help with?”

  I told him what I had found out from my landlord and what I did trying to locate Fara Theriot on my own. I also said that the lunatic across the street told me her name was Opal. My landlord, who lived here since he was a kid and inherited the place after his parents died, never knew of or rented to an Opal who lived here.

  “I’ll see if our forensic guy can search for anyone with the name Fara or Opal Theriot. We are still hoping it will match someone in the database.”

  When dinner was over, Jiff helped me clear the table and wash the dishes. He intuitively knew where things were to be put away, not that I have an extensive kitchen but it felt comfortable and natural doing a domestic chore with him.

  We went back to my living room and he produced the movie he brought for us to watch. The cover on the DVD box said The Predator and I thought, great, a horror movie with lots of gruesome killing. That should throw water on the fire that kiss started and was still hot below my Mason Dixon line. But, when I popped it in the player Sleepless in Seattle scrolled up.

  When I sat next to him on the sofa, he reached over and pulled my leg farthest from him across his lap until I faced him with my knees bent on either side of him. “I’d rather watch you than the movie,” he said and put his mouth on my neck and started kissing me down my chest as my back arched and head tilted back giving him more real estate to explore. We didn’t watch any of the movie and we started on our own story of Sleepless in New Orleans.

  Chapter Seventeen

  That Monday at my office I felt like I was still walking on air. The day flew by and I had butterflies in my stomach throughout the day every time I thought of Jiff. That evening when I left work to head home, I found a note on my car windshield. It was from Dante asking if I would call him. I wondered if Dante was having Feeling Number Two he wanted to talk to me about. At home, Suzanne was dressing to leave for work in the French Quarter.

  “Hey,” she said when I walked in from work. “Where did these palms come from? They give the place some class.”

  “They came Saturday afternoon, but you had already left for work. Jiff sent them as a house warming present. He wants me to think of him whenever I pass them or water them,” I said smiling and thinking of him.

  “Jiff’s housewarming gift is a little different from Dante’s house warming gift, isn’t it? Dante’s gift is so he can have a cup of coffee ready for him when he gets here.” Suzanne laughed. “Jiff’s a prince. Tell him I said thanks too.”

  “Yeah, I will. Also, he helped me get Sandra out of the bushes, and he laughed about it. We had a nice, no, a fantastic time together Saturday night. I made dinner.”

  “Dinner? My. My. Ooh la la,” she teased. “When I got home early Sunday morning I saw his car was still here so I’m glad I stayed out of your hair. I slept all day Sunday and then went to the school library to study for exams.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You should marry that guy, and if you don’t, I will. He has a good sense of humor, he’s smart, makes good money, and there’s nothing he won’t do for you,” she said, putting her handful of a costume into a small bag. Picking up her purse to leave she added, “Meaux likes him, and Jiff likes Schnauzers. This is a match made in heaven. I don’t know why you can’t see that,” she said, leaving.

  Then she stopped, turned around and added, “Oh, I know what I wanted to tell you. The new guy, Jesus, is that what we’re calling him? He’s digging somewhere in the yard and I don’t want him to tunnel an escape route for him and Meaux. When he comes in he’s full of mud but I can’t find the hole he’s digging. I’ve checked along the entire fence.”

  “I don’t remember any holes,” I said.

  “He, Jesus, or whatever his name is, and Meaux both came in all muddy after I let them out around four a.m. when I got home. I rinsed them off in the shower. Keep an eye on them when they go outside and see if you can find the hole they are digging so we can fill it up.”

  “OK, thanks. I’m sorry they’re being a problem,” I said.

  “Oh, it’s no problem. Jesus cries to go out when I get in, so I let him out and Meaux bolts out after him,” she said.

  “I’ll go check the yard again. If I find the hole I’ll put some moth balls in it. That usually makes them stop digging there. Hey, isn’t this a little early for you to go to work?” I asked. It was only a little after 6:00 pm and her shift usually started at 11 pm.

  “There’s a big convention in town. They are big drinkers and even bigger tippers. It’s why I went to work early Saturday and why I’m going in early tonight. Figured I could use the extra cash.”

  “Need a ride? I’ll give you a lift. I’ve got some time, and you won’t have to take the streetcar.” When Suzanne gave me a sideways look I added, “Besides, I’m looking for ways to procrastinate calling Dante. He left a note on my windshield to call him. I don’t know why he didn’t just call me or text me.”

  “Yeah, a ride would be great if you don’t have to call Dante right back,” she said.

  “Nah, I offered. We can catch up on stuff,” I said. “And I want to pick your brain about your rides home with Sandra.”

  “That will take all of two seconds,” she said.

  After we were in my car, I brought Suzanne up to speed on the night Jiff and I went to the bar in the neighborhood, the dinner we had together and I told her about finding the box of rings. I asked her about the cab ride with Sandra and the name of the bar Sandra was dropped off at.

  “I’m not sure of the name, but it’s about five blocks from our house. You could walk there, but she told me the bartender sends her home in a cab when she has a few too many,” she said.

  “You know, she told me she had a ‘friend’ she meets sometimes who’s a bartender. She says he sends her home in a cab. That’s too much of a coincidence,” I said.

  Suzanne arched an eyebrow, “Yeah, really. How many guys can Sandra string along?”

  “And it’s probably because he wants her bombed so she’ll do a nose dive into the hedges,” I said. “So, how often does she go there after work? I pulled her out the hedge three times last week so that means she is going there and staying until the time I leave in the mornings for work. I try to leave for the office around seven a.m., and that’s when I see her coming home. No wonder she falls off the porch. She’s been in there, drinking for three hours. Did she say anything particular about the bar or that bartender?”

  “She said she’s known him all her life, but didn’t say too much about him. I even asked her if she dated him and she didn’t answer me. She’s an odd one.”

  “Odd? You’re being kind. Did she mention the bartender’s name or even where she knew him from? She told me she used to date a guy who worked in a bar, but now she can’t get interested in men after the phone sex job.”

  “No, I can’t remember his name but you know, I’ll probably share a cab home tonight, or tomorrow night with her. What do you want me to ask her or try to find out?”

  “Really? You’ll pick her brain for me?”

  “I don’t think it’s going to be a long tedious job, or render a boatload of information,” Suzanne said. “Sure, I’ll see what I can find out. She’s a talker and one question launches a rant, usually an uninformative rant. I just zone out, but for you, next time I’ll pay attention.”

  “Okay, see if you can get her talking about the bartender. At least find out from her how long has she known him and where from. He’s an odd one too. Try and find out why she let
s him use her tumbles in that hedge fund pool. Maybe she’s got some skin in the game, but I don’t think Sandra is smart enough to broker that kinda deal.”

  “I hope I can stay awake to hear all that.” Suzanne smiled.

  “You know, she mentioned the gal who lived here before us was named Opal. I called the landlord and asked him about her and he said there never was anyone named Opal who lived here. She said this Opal used to call the cops over all the cats she feeds.”

  “Opal sounds like the one with the most sense,” Suzanne said.

  “Just see what you can get out of her. Don’t let on I told you about this Opal or anything. See what she tells you. I can’t go and wait for her at that bar because the bartender, his name is Sully by the way, will wonder why I’m there.”

  “Sully?”

  “Yes, short for Sullivan. He’s thin, dark hair in a ponytail, wears a lot of black and is what I would describe as sleazy,” I said. “Be careful. He didn’t like Jiff asking too many questions the night I took him there for our nightcap. That bar’s a dump and I think he put the free drinks on our door to see what we’re like. I had the feeling he wanted to size us up. When I brought Jiff with me, it threw him off,” I said.

  “Why are you so worried about this guy and Sandra?” she asked.

  “Because I think she could end up dead like Jimmie at the CluckIt, and phone sex is dangerous stuff. The CluckIt workers told me the other guy who was kidnapped and found floating in the lake used to get messages for a phone sex number to call. It all seemed very off the books or unusual for an 800-type service. It feels like it might be part of a credit card scam or smalltime hustle.”

  “You could be right, but Sandra doesn’t look like she’s reaping the benefits of a con game. She doesn’t even have a car.” Suzanne checked her watch and stood up and we headed to my car continuing the conversation.

  “Sandra told me she would describe herself as the other palm reader—the one that is now dead—if someone asked her what she looked like on a sex call. Every time I see her coming home around seven a.m., she’s getting out of a cab stinking drunk. I think that guy Sully is using her to make money on that stupid hedge fund lottery. Maybe I can invite Sandra out to another bar, or you can suggest you both go somewhere else and I’ll meet you.”