The Case of the Flashing Fashion Queen

I suppose I could have tried to pass the gun off as my own, claiming I’d whipped it out in self defense after that maniac tried to mow me down with her car, but under the circumstances, it didn’t seem advisable to play fast and loose with the facts. Especially since an officer had already collected the gun and stuck it in an evidence bag. Especially since they would very shortly know it was not registered to me.

No question about it. Things looked bleak. Even Dylan, always my cheerleader, couldn’t quite hide the depth of his concern. Despite all that was going on around us, I felt the tightening lump in my throat.

“Just a setback, Dix,” Dylan whispered to me. “Nothing we can’t handle.”

Come on, Dix, suck it up. I nodded an affirmative you bet. It was the best I could manage.

With a nod/grunt from Dickhead, soon there were two police officers from Ident doing a cursory search of my car. I could probably have stopped them; they had no warrant. On the other hand, they did have me brandishing a gun in a public parking lot, which no doubt gave them fairly broad scope. On yet another hand (clearly, we are dealing with a six-armed Mahakala here), if my nemesis had been in my car, she might have left trace evidence behind. If so, I wanted the cops to find it with their high tech searching gear. So I let them have a look.

Moments later, my faced flamed. And no, I’m not talking about the humiliation of standing there in handcuffs while cops searched my car. They may have been officers of the law, but they were still men. Thus, when they drew out the fake boobs I kept stuffed under the seat, the whole place went up in snickers. Eyebrows soared over the fake mustache I’d left in the glove compartment from my stint as Maintenance Man. All they needed now was to find my blow up doll (a.k.a. Betty, the decoy), and I’m sure they would have pissed themselves laughing. Thankfully, Betty was standing in the closet of my office, behind my truck-driver flannel shirts and nun’s outfit.

The first officer was pulling little plastic evidence bags out of his pocket, while the second officer was tweezering things into them. I rolled my eyes as they placed a month-old wrapper from a DQ burger into a bag. Right. Like that was going to have a mountain of clues on it.

“Got a hair here, Detective,” one of the cops called to Dickhead. He held the tweezers up like a prize ribbon, as if we could actually see from that distance. “It’s blond.”

“Well, duh. I’m blond!” I called over.

“Shut up, Dix.” Detective Head returned his attention to the men in my car. “Bag it, Edson,” he said. “Bag every damn shred of evidence you get. No, wait, even better. Call dispatch and have them send a hook. We’ll haul that piece of crap in and have forensics give it a thorough going over.”

Dylan shifted beside me. “You can’t just— “

“It’s okay, Dylan,” I said. “Let them.”

The way I figured it, the Flashing Fashion Queen had already planted the biggie, the literal smoking gun, and nothing else they found could trump that. I hoped. But I had to risk it, in the hope the CSIs would find some evidence against her. The cops already had my DNA from the night Jennifer was killed when Detective Head had scraped it from my cheek. So hopefully, something else would turn up pointing a finger toward the real killer.

“Do a good job, boys,” I called over to the officers in the car. “That car hasn’t had a good cleaning in a dog’s age. Be sure to get the vacuum deep down in the seats. And under the floor mats. And it’s kind of grungy there in the cup holder — too many spilled lattes. I’d wear gloves if I were you.”

Detective Head dug in his pocket and pulled out one of the mint toothpicks. I held off on any remarks about comparative phallic symbolism here.

“You just don’t realize what shit you’re really in, do you, Dodd?” he said.

I snorted. But actually I did fully understand the severity of the situation.

I was being framed for murder.

And well, even on the best of days, that sucked.

“You all right, Dix?” Dylan asked.

“Fine.”

Detective Head did a dramatic double take. “All right? You want to know if she’s all right? Let’s see what we got here. Obsessed, love-sick stalker who not only followed the husband of the murder victim around for a week taking pictures, taping conversations, crying herself to sleep, wringing her hands and moaning ‘why me’—”

I growled. I mean, I growled. This guy was pulling my chain and it was working. I would have liked nothing better than to rip a strip off him. And unfortunately that just would not do. Not now, at least. Beside me, Dylan tensed. I could tell he wanted to rip something off Detective Head himself. I shot him a look that said ‘wait’, and thankfully, he picked it up.

Detective Head continued, “And now what do we find in the possession of this lonely spinster? The very same gun that killed Jennifer Weatherby.”

“We don’t know that it’s the gun that killed Jennifer, Detective. That’s merely what I’ve speculated. And as I told you, that gun was left in my car by the woman who came into the office posing as Jennifer Weatherby. That’s the woman you should be harassing, not me.”

“Right,” he said sarcastically. “And you just happen to be the only one to have seen her.”

“I saw her,” Dylan answered.

“Today?” Detective Head asked, but he knew the answer. “You saw this blond today as she put the gun in the car? As she tried to run down your boss?”

Dylan shook his head. “No. Not today. I saw her the day she came into the office. But, holy hell, just look at—”

Dickhead’s lip curled. “Let’s move this party along, shall we? We’ll get to the bottom of this downtown. I got a nice cozy interview room I can house you in until we get around to asking you a few questions.”

Downtown? This I couldn’t allow.

If Detective Head got me locked up, I could be there for days. As long as he could possibly keep me. And I had no doubt that during my detention, the Flashing Fashion Queen would keep her blond self busy planting more evidence against me. If this woman was to be caught, it was going to have to be by me.

Thus there was no way in hell I could go downtown. I sent a sideways look at Dylan, who, with an almost non-existent flash of eye contact and a barely perceptible nod, signaled his understanding.

“Okay, fine,” I said. “I’ll be thrilled to ride downtown with you and answer your questions. But first, I have some business to take care of in the office, some stuff I need to hand off to my associate before I go. It’ll only take a few minutes. So if you’d take the bracelets off….” I angled myself to present my cuffed hands to Detective Head.

He raised an eyebrow. “Why would I want to do that?”

“Because no one’s arrested me yet?”

The toothpick bobbed. “I could rectify that. Hell, I probably will.”

“Come on, Detective,” Dylan interjected. “I appreciate you guys felt you were coming into a potentially hairy situation, so I understand cuffing her until you secured the scene. But everything’s under control now. No firearms, no resistance. Dix consented to the search of her car, and has said she will answer questions. You don’t need to arrest her and you sure as hell don’t need handcuffs.”

“Whether to cuff or not is my call, and mine only.”

“Precisely,” Dylan agreed. “But you’re supposed to use the minimum force necessary to accomplish the mission. Do you really think you need handcuffs to get Dix downtown?”

“Huh!” I put in. “He probably figures he has to cuff a woman to get her in the car with him.”

“Dix,” Dylan warned, putting me behind him.

Detective Head’s eyes bulged, and his jaw clamped so tight, I’m sure I heard his molars cracking. But after a few seconds, he produced his keys and removed the bracelets. “Ten minutes, Dix. If you’re not back down here by then, I’ll drag you out.”

“Okay, ten minutes.” I grabbed Dylan’s arm and we headed for the office. “See you then.”

“Hold your horses there, Dixiepicker.”

I stopped in my tracks. “Oh, what now!” With a huff of exaggeration, I turned toward him again.

Detective Head took the toothpick out of his mouth long enough to bark an order at one of his junior boys in blue. “Go with them. Make sure she comes back out.”

“Come on, Detective,” I said. “You can trust me.”

He couldn’t of course, but that wasn’t the point.

“Not as far as I could throw you, Dodd.”

I chose to make that statement a reflection on his manly strength rather than my size. “Fine!” I shouted at the young officer. “Just hurry up, Junior, I have work to do.”

I felt half bad when the young guy paled.

“On second thought,” Dickhead said. “Why don’t I escort you myself? Yeah, that would work much better.”

Damn.

I’d left the office door open, but pretended to fumble with keys in the lock so I could cast another look at Dylan. This is where a smart employee would start rethinking his commitment to his employer and start thinking about covering his own ass. But what I saw in his eyes was a clear, steady message. I’m with you, Dix. And oh, Jesus God, my throat got all tight and painful again.

While Detective Head waited behind us, I winked at Dylan in what I hoped he would interpret as an I-have-a-plan message.

The moment we walked into my outer office, I turned to Dylan. “Get my lawyer on the phone.”

“Now wait, Dodd—”

“I know my rights, Detective. And yeah, I know yours too. You can take me downtown and I’ll go. I’ll answer any and all your questions, but be damned if I will be downtown without my lawyer waiting there. I have the right to call her, and I’m calling her now. Dylan’ll get her on the phone.”

I didn’t have a lawyer. And of course Dylan knew this too.

“Sure thing, Dix.”

Dylan sat down at his desk, picked up the phone, and starting pushing buttons — to nowhere.

I walked from the outer office into my own.

Dickhead had never been into my office. I didn’t care about the dust in the corners, or the clutter on my desk. I didn’t give a rat’s ass what he thought about the one aloe vera plant dead in front of the window. But I knew that his presence, rather than one of the junior officer’s, would make my disappearing act harder.

“Geez, Dixie,” he said, “what stinks in here?”

“Funny,” I answered, crinkling my nose. “Didn’t smell a thing till you walked through the door yourself.”

He chuckled. Which meant he felt he could afford to chuckle. “You got ten minutes, Dodd,” he said. “Then it’s downtown with me.”

He studied my desk. As I’ve said, I didn’t give a rat’s ass about the mess left there, but I didn’t want him to see my notes. As if reading my mind, Dickhead picked up the yellow legal pad off the desk. He snarled/laughed/made some guy guttural sound. “What do you do here all day, Dix,” he asked eyeing the pad, “draw dirty pictures?”

He truly was an asshole. I ripped the pad from his hand. “These notes are none of your business.”

“If it concerns this case, it is.”

“What? You think Jennifer Weatherby’s case is the only one I have?” Well, it was but he didn’t have to know that. “Why, at any given time, I probably have a dozen cases on the go.” I waved an arm to the door, indicating he was to leave. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get a couple things done before we take our lovely little trip to the precinct.”

“I need to keep an eye on you.”

Damn.

“You’re kidding,” I said.

“Not a chance.”

“Look, I have some personal things to take care of. The glass is beveled. You might not be able to make googly eyes at me, but you’ll be able to see that I’m sitting right at my desk.”

“No way in hell, Dixieshit. Whatever you have to do you can do in front of me.”

“Fine, at least let me go to the bathroom.”

“You can go when we get downtown.”

“I can’t wait.”

“You can!”

I nodded. “Okay, then, you got it.” I walked over to my desk, sat, and opened the bottom drawer. And I pulled out a handy-dandy king-sized value pack of my favorite tampons. Yep, a pack of sixty Playtex Supers. (Is there anything higher for a woman in brand loyalty than feminine hygiene products?) I dug around a bit more, and pulled out the box of maxi pads and smacked them down in the middle of the desk beside the tampons. If this didn’t get Detective Head out of the office nothing would. I turned to look at a wide-eyed Detective.

“What the hell are you doing?”

I rolled my eyes. “Well, you see, Detective, boys and girls are built differently. While boys have a penis, or rather some of you do, we girls have—”

“Smartass,” he growled.

“And since you won’t give me a few minutes alone in the bathroom, well, you’re about to get a very detailed lesson of those things.” I nodded to my closet as I unzipped my jeans and started to shimmy out of them (all the while thankful for the granny panties I wore underneath). “Hand me my the feminine spray from the top shelf will you, the scented one. And while you’re at it, there’s a spare portable douche Bidet on the top shelf. It takes a minute longer, but so very worth it.”

“You don’t need all that! I was married you know!”

I stopped mid shimmy. “Well I got this itch you see. And my gynecologist prescribed the douche Bidet to relieve the swelling. Just wait, I’ll show you.”

“Christ! Dodd,” he yelled. But he yelled while he headed for the door. I knew it would work. Detailed descriptions of feminine hygiene products scare the shit out of most any man. “You’ve got ten minutes — no, eight minutes — to do whatever the hell you have to do.”

At that precise moment — damn the lad could read my mind — the phone on my desk rang. Dylan answered from the outer office, then yelled to me. “Dix, I’ve got Ms. Bee on the phone.”

“Good,” I said. “Give me a minute, Dylan, then send the call in.”

With a grumble, Dickhead closed the door behind him. I had to work fast.

The cabinet I had directed him to for the douche Bidet (to my knowledge there was no such thing, but I guessed Dickhead wasn’t up on these things) — was a cabinet I knew he’d never open in a million years if I asked him to. And of course it was the one that contained good old Blow up Betty. I kicked a box on the floor to make it sound like I was rummaging around. And while I did so, I pulled her out, whispered hello, and removed the jacket I’d been wearing. I stuck her plastic arms into it.

She looked better behind my desk than I did. Quietly, I pushed my chair out and sat on the floor. “Okay, Dylan,” I yelled. “Give me Ms. Bee.”

I picked up on the first ring, glancing only a minute at the call display before I erased it — Dylan’s cell phone of course. With my number on speed dial, it had been easy for him to call the office, pretend it was the non-existent lawyer, and buy me some time.

With duct tape I kept in the drawer for such emergencies (and there were a surprisingly number of them), I taped the phone to the blow-up doll’s hand, then taped that up to her head as if she were listening. If, and when, Detective Head looked through the beveled glass, he would see the outline of the doll and the black phone positioned against the blond head. And, where he thought I was talking to my lawyer, he maybe would give me a few extra minutes. Maybe.

God, I hoped this worked.

I turned to head toward the window leading to the fire exit. Not a venture I would enjoy. The rusty contraption hadn’t been used in years, and it emptied into a narrow alley between my building and the next one. I knew for a fact the alley was full of broken bottles and smelled of urine, but it was a way out.

I had one leg out the window when a thought occurred to me. I went back, grabbed the duct tape and positioned Betty’s free hand palm up on the desk in the classic middle finger salute, ready to properly greet Dickhead when he stormed in. Hell, maybe he’d think it was me for a moment, after all.

Task completed, I made my way down the fire escape and tiptoed through the broken bottles and other things I didn’t want to examine too closely. And just like that, I was officially on the lam.

Chapter 12

In my wildest dreams, I couldn’t have foreseen what would happen to me that day.

Possibly because my wildest dreams do not involve my life going into the dumpster. And there could be no question that’s where I was headed. Literally.

The alley, if you could call it an alley when it was bisected by a freaking nine-foot fence, proved a tricky escape route. The fence, a solid wood proposition, was too tall and too foothold-free for me to scale. Fortunately, a dumpster squatted right up against the fence. A dumpster that was no longer covered, its lid having been wrenched off by vandals not long after I’d moved into the building. I’d given up harping to the landlord about it months ago. So, there I am with an open dumpster and a nine-foot fence between me and freedom. No problem, I think. I’d just climb up on the dumpster, edge my way around to the fence and boost myself over.

Great plan, until I lost my footing and fell into the damned thing. And oh, Jesus, what a smell! Cursing, I pushed myself up out of the pizza boxes, rotting vegetables and rolled up disposable diapers. Ugh.

Goddamned leather soled flats. Next time I went on the lam, I wanted better footwear.

And then — oh, shit! — something small and fast moved under my foot. I came up out of that dumpster like a rocket and over the fence, slippery footwear notwithstanding.

As I pulled the cold, green pasta from my hair brushing the … whatever-the-hell-that-was from my jeans, I realized how very much this whole situation … well, stank.

But I’d seen a lot over the years as a PI, and if there’s one thing I know, it’s that women are resilient. When we have to face our dark hours, we do. And we usually find a silver lining there.

Don’t we?

My silver lining, as I loped off down the street, was picturing Dickhead, patience exhausted, finally barging through my office door and finding me gone. Finding Blow-Up Betty holding the phone in one hand and flipping him off with the other. He’d be frothing at the mouth!

I felt a tinge of guilt for leaving Dylan behind to handle the wrath of Detective Dickhead. He might not be spitting bullets, but certainly he’d be spitting toothpicks around the office as he raged and made ever more colorful expletives from my name. I knew he’d take it out on Dylan, blame him for my escape. Of course, there was nothing to link my escape to Dylan. Nothing anyone could prove, anyway. But Dickhead was the kind of man who needed to blame others for his fuck ups — you know, the kind of guy to shoot the messenger (thus back again to his blaming me when his wife found out he was cheating and left him). But Dylan could handle Dickhead. That law degree did come in handy sometimes. Hell, if I knew Dylan, he’d be hard pressed trying to hold back the laughs when he saw Blow-Up Betty so artfully posed. In any case, I’d know soon enough what had gone down between Dylan and the detective.

Because Dylan would know where to find me.

You see, we had it all worked out. Granted, we’d worked it out not so much in anticipation of my escaping lawful custody, but rather as a hedge against the possibility of my having to go into deep cover some time.

If I’d moved the dead aloe vera plant from the window and tipped it over on the floor to the left of said window, he’d have met me at the airport with some cash. If I’d left the plant upside down directly in front of the window, we would meet at the university library (third floor, stack twelve in the BFs). But I’d set it to the right of the window, and he’d know what that meant.

Of course, he also had to know that the cops would be tailing him to see if he would lead him to me. But I had faith in Dylan Foreman. He’d be patient. He’d be smart.

And he’d be there tonight.

I’d slowed to a brisk walk now, partly because I’d developed a stitch in my side (despite my gymnastics in clearing that fence back there, I am no athlete), and partly because I knew I’d attract less attention. But even with an ache in my side, even with the black cloud of a waiting jail cell hanging over me, I couldn’t suppress a small smile. The Flashing Fashion Queen thought she was pretty smart. But I was willing to bet she wasn’t counting on me running. She’d wanted my ass sitting helplessly in lockup while she dug a deeper hole for me by the minute. Well, bite me, baby! I wasn’t going to be her victim. I wasn’t going to be anyone’s victim. And as far as the Flashing Fashion Queen was concerned, I was about to become her worst fucking nightmare.

Did I finally have one up on her? I couldn’t help but grin as I wondered how that would make her feel when she realized I was still at liberty. The control was slipping out of her hands. She’d fucked up this once, and I had to believe that would rattle her.

+++

“Geez, Dix, what’s wrong? You look all shook up.” Mrs. Presley winked and elbowed me hard. “Get it … ‘all shook up’?”

“Yeah, I get it Mrs. P.”

For a woman who day in and day out worked below a sign that emphatically told the world she was not related to Elvis, Mrs. Presley had no qualms about stealing a line to get a good laugh. Even if it was her own good laugh.

God, I liked this woman.

We were sitting side by side on the lone bed in Room 111 of the Underhill Motel. This was her ‘special’ room, reserved for ‘special guests’. For the drop of a few quarters, the bed would start vibrating. The lampshades were red and when the lights were on, cast a red haze around the room. There were mirrors on every wall and built into the headboard of the bed. And I’d bet anything that the light fixture hanging from the ceiling would support the swinging weight of at least one nimble person. Hell, the toilet seats were even padded! (God, I hated the deflating sounds those things made when you sat on them, but far be it from me to complain.)

But that’s not what made Room 111 special. What made it special was its location, far away from the street at the other end of the motel, with a view that was unobstructed by trees or other structures. A person could keep a pretty good watch on traffic in and out of the motel — be that traffic irate husbands/boyfriends, johns, or in my case, the cops.

But even better, Room 111 had a secret back door. Not one with a doorknob, but a hidden one in the back of the never-used closet. A solid hip to the left of it, and it would open, but only when unlocked from the other side. That back door just happened to lead to a narrow, unlit hallway, low-ceilinged but straight. Those in the know (and few of us were) knew that there was a small penlight stashed up over the doorway. And that passageway led right into Mrs. Presley’s kitchen, and thence to the outside via a private exit.

Room 111 was always the last to be rented out. And the door was locked to most clientele, who were unwitting of its existence. But I knew for a fact that at least two women had escaped from abusive ex-husbands that way. And here was the best part — if anyone unwanted were foolish enough to find and burst through that hidden door, they’d receive a lovely how-do-you-do from one of Mrs. Presley’s hulking sons at the other end of it, neither of whom would have qualms about beating the crap out of an intruder. Those boys were just that protective of their mom.

“I don’t want to get you into trouble, Mrs. Presley,” I’d said, when I’d landed on her doorstep. “But holy shit, I’m in trouble!”

She’d raised an eyebrow. “Cops after you?”

“Yeah,” I admitted. “ I can understand if you don’t want to—”

“Trouble? Ah hell, we all have troubles. Quit complaining! You need a room? I got a room. That’s it; case closed.”

No need to sign the register. She just slipped me the key.

I slipped her a couple hundred from the Jennifer Weatherby advance, which Mrs. Presley promptly pocketed behind her pencil-pen-pencil combination. She was a businesswoman, after all. But I know Mrs. Presley, if I’d come there flat broke and on my ass, there’d be the same room and the same hospitality for me.

And yes, the same old Elvis jokes.

With a gentle suggestion that I might want a shower (okay, more like a ‘phew, you really stink’), Mrs. Presley left me. She took the back door, the one that led directly through her apartment and out. She was short enough so that she didn’t have to stoop to pass through, and knew the route well enough she didn’t bother with a light.

“Usually, I lock this door, but sometimes I forget,” she said with an obvious wink. “I’ll send that handsome young assistant of yours through when he gets here.”

If anyone happened to see Dylan enter the Underhill Motel, they’d only know he entered the main lobby and he’d exit from the same. They’d not see him entering Room 111.

As if in afterthought Mrs. Presley added, “Oh, and when you get in that shower — and I hope that’s soon — stick those old clothes in the passage, I’ll send Cal or Craig down to get them and throw them in the wash for you. I’ll have ’em back in an hour.”

“Thanks, Mrs. Presley.”

She headed for the closet/back door and gave it a hip check that would have taken out Tai Domi. “Take care, Dix. I mean that. And you get your ass down that hallway double time if you need help. Me and my boys’ll be home all night.”

The door snapped back into place as she left — back into near invisibility. And I let out a shaky breath I hadn’t even known I was holding. And when I took a breath back in — holy shit — even I had to grimace.

Mrs. Presley was right. I did need that shower.

I stripped from my standard uniform — jeans, t-shirt, granny panties and sports bra. I hipchecked the door open and quickly (as in I’m naked here, quickly) shoved the soiled clothes into the hallway to await retrieval by one of the Presley boys. Then I ran into the bathroom, closed the door and ran the water as hot as I could.

The warmth of the water felt amazing. I shampooed my hair twice, emptying the little hotel bottle of shampoo, and scrubbed every inch of me for a good ten minutes. With the side of my hand, I wiped clear the bathroom mirror, and I combed out my long blond hair. Despite having opened the lone, small window, the bathroom was steamy when I’d finished. Hot. And when I let myself out, despite the terrycloth bathrobe Mrs. Presley had provided, the cool air hit me.

I grabbed the remote and clicked on the room’s small TV, not at all surprised to find it tuned to a program that gave new meaning to the phrase ‘love triangle’. Hell, I was never that flexible. Quickly … well within an hour … I clicked to another channel, one that displayed the time. It was just after two o’clock. Dylan wouldn’t be along for hours, possibly not until after dark. And I knew better than to be out and about in Marport City. Every cop in town would be seeking my hide. I’d leave the TV on, volume muted. When I awoke, it would be easier to open one bleary eye to check the time than to move an actual major muscle to reach for my watch on the nightstand.

With the shower, the heat, and the coziness of the bathrobe, that bed looked damn inviting, despite its garish red bedcover. Of course, a reasonably clean floor would look inviting, considering I’d been sleeping in spurts of about 40 minutes since I embarked on the surveillance of Ned Weatherby just one week ago. I removed the bedcover, revealing red sheets beneath. Figured. I folded the bedspread and dropped it on the lone chair in the room. I tossed the heavy, warm quilt Mrs. Presley had provided over me.

“I’ll just snooze for a little while,” I mumbled, crawling into the sea of red.

Of course this was the logical choice, I assured myself, closing my eyes. Just until Dylan came.

Dylan. The thought of him was comforting to me. I wanted to see him. Okay, I’ll admit it, I really wanted to see him. I couldn’t wait to see him.

Strictly professional, I assured myself. You’re just tired and anxious to get working on the case and find out what he knows and needing a coffee and horny as a sailor on shore leave….

My eyes opened wide.

It’s been a long, lonnng time since I’d been with a man. Okay, if I was honest with myself, it had been a long time since I’d wanted to be with a man. Not that I didn’t have the physical desires — hell, I wasn’t dead. But it had been a long time since I’d thought of one specific man in that way. A long time since I had allowed myself, if only for the briefest moment, to think that way….

Geez, snap out of it, Dix.

But whatever I was feeling — however I got there and however I justified it, professionally or completely unprofessionally — I couldn’t deny the end result. I wished Dylan were here. He would be soon. As I drifted off to sleep, I allowed myself the self-indulgence of thinking of him.

But only for a moment, because wrapped in the snuggliness of the soft housecoat, I wasn’t long drifting off.

I dreamed of being back in high school, wandering the hallways in my PJs while the cool kids looked on. Then I was riding an escalator wearing just a pair of old blue fuzzy slippers. That morphed into the one where I was riding an elevator that just wouldn’t stop on the damn floor I needed. Okay, normal dreams. But then the dream elevator finally stopped on the floor I wanted. The door opened. And it didn’t surprise me that she was there again. There to taunt and torment me. The Flashing Fashion Queen.

I stared at her. She stood on one side of the elevator threshold, and I stood within it. Her back was to me. Why could I never see her face clearly?

“Hiya Dixie,” she said, her voice gritty.

“Still got that throaty thing going on, I see. Maybe you should see a doctor.” But for what? A polyp on the larynx or a sex change?

“You’re concerned about me! How sweeeet.”

Even as I slept, I could feel my blood beginning to boil. “Concerned? Not a chance. The only thing I’m concerned about is that your stint in jail is nice and long.”

“But you’ll have to catch me first, Dix Dodd. And I bet you can’t.” She waved a backward hand at me.

“I’d be careful on what bets I placed,” I goaded. “After all, I’m not in jail, and I know you wagered that I would be.”

She huffed. “That’s just a technicality. You’ll be there soon enough.”

“Still think you’re too smart for me, Blondie?”

She laughed. “Oh, I know it, honey. If I didn’t, then why would I—”

Quick as lighting, I reached and grabbed her. I jumped that quickly and that forcefully and grabbed this dream apparition. In my dream, I tossed her down onto the elevator floor beside me. No way in hell was she getting away this time. Not until I had some answers. Not until I saw her face. Not until—

“Dix! Wake up.”

And in that instant, murky turned to clear-as-glass as I awoke and discovered that I’d not pulled my nemesis down beside me after all.

It was Dylan who lay there in the red-sheeted bed beside me, eyes wide, his t-shirt pulled taut in my white-knuckled grip.

“You must have been dreaming, Dix,” he said.

“Yeah. I … I was.”

“Her again?”

I nodded, and released my grip on his shirt. I braced myself for the whiplash effect that would ensue as he jumped off the bed like it was on fire.

But he didn’t jump up off the bed in a hurry. He didn’t jump off the bed at all. He didn’t run away screaming. Dylan didn’t do any of those things. He hadn’t when I’d grabbed his shirt and hauled him down beside me. And damn — oh freakin’ freakin’ dammitty damn damn damn! — not even when I leaned over and kissed him.

So much for wildest dreams.

Chapter 13

Okay, here’s the scoop (excuse/justification/explanation) on how Dylan Foreman ended up in my bed at the Underhill Motel.

For my fortieth birthday, my mother sent me glow-in-the-dark thong panties and matching push-up bra (did I mention Jerry Springer would love her?). My sister Peaches Marie (it’s okay, she likes her name), bless her, sent me tickets to the Stones. I’d taken Rochelle, and Judge Stephanopoulos had been jealous as hell. Jokingly, she’d threatened to throw me in jail and confiscate the tickets. (At least I’d hoped she was joking.) Even Dylan had gotten me a present for the big 4-0 — a bottle of wine and a set of two wine glasses. He’d given them to me at the office, just as we were preparing to leave for the night. The wine, he explained, was a 1989 Australian Shiraz. Full-flavored, a little peppery, but luscious. It had gotten better over the years, he’d said, just as I had. (I’d have felt better about that if I hadn’t seen the Museum Wine sticker on the bottle.)

God, I remember that night so clearly. A weeknight, Dylan had hung around late. No plans, he’d told me. Just kicking around the office. I guess he felt like chatting. Mainly about the wine. Of course, I’m more of a rum cooler gal myself, and all I knew about wine was that I preferred red to white. After listening to him sing the praises of this particular vintage yet again, I’d thanked him effusively, set the bottle and glasses in my bottom desk drawer, and yawned widely. I was anxious to get out of there; there was a new CSI on. But man, I didn’t think Dylan was ever going to leave. So I stretched and yawned a little wider, then stretched and yawned again.

Finally, with a long sigh, he’d left, and finally I was able to go home to a frozen dinner and murder on the tube. Geez, hard to figure men sometimes. They just do not pick up hints.

But what did I give myself on my fortieth?

I gave myself one hell of a sleep disorder. And that’s why Dylan Foreman had landed so unceremoniously in my bed.

It had been at a particularly stressful time in my life with the new business. Of course, in retrospect, comparing the stress I was under back then with what was going on in my life right now was like comparing pilling a house cat to declawing a Bengal tiger.

Still, it’s little wonder I started ‘acting out’ in my sleep. Smacking lampshades across the room, ruining mini blinds with karate kicks. I had woken up on more than one occasion with the sheets completely off the bed and my ass on the floor rolled up in them. The wilder my dreams got, the bigger the mess I’d make of my bedroom at nights.

After weeks of thinking I was going crazy, I finally saw my family doc, who sent me to a sleep specialist who promptly diagnosed me as having REM-Sleep Behavior Disorder, or RBD. He said it was more common in men than women, as if I should be either amazed or proud that I’d managed to develop it. “Yeah well, so are hemorrhoids,” I’d groused. He’d replied that I might prefer hemorrhoids, and went on to explain RBD.

See, normally when you’re in REM sleep — the period when you dream — you lose muscle tone, resulting in a kind of a paralysis. This is a good thing; it stops you from acting out your dreams and hurting yourself or anyone in your proximity. But with RBD, that’s exactly what you do — act out your dreams. Obviously, that can get pretty intense. (Nightmares, anyone?) I’m told that they see RBD sometimes in people suffering from booze or sedative withdrawal, but it can crop up in anyone, particularly after they’ve reached — you guessed it — middle age. In my particular case, as the stress goes up, my dream mind tries to sort out the details of whatever case I’m working on. I dream more; I act out more.

It’s usually not a problem. I mean, I’ve knocked over a lamp or two. I’ve woken up on the floor a few times. I buy the cheapest of alarm clocks because I’ve found the expensive ones break just as easily when they hit the far wall of my bedroom. It’s frustrating, of course. And weird, I know. But though I have to replace the odd appliance and apologize to the odd motel desk clerk for the trouble, I can certainly live with it. Nothing too out of the ordinary has ever happened. Nothing too embarrassing.

That is, until my dream mind caused me to reach out for my blonde nemesis and capture Dylan Foreman instead. Until I’d found myself lying in bed beside him. Lying on red silk sheets, wearing only a housecoat pulled not so tightly around me. Yep, my eyes had been shut tight during all of this. Fast asleep in dreamland.

But when I kissed Dylan, my eyes had been wide open.

But you know what else? So were Dylan’s eyes when he kissed me back.

+++

It was an impulse, really. A simple curiosity to know how his lips would feel under mine, how he would taste. Innocent, almost. But the moment I leaned into the solid heat of his chest, the moment his mouth opened under mine, it was no longer simple, and it sure as hell wasn’t innocent.

He tasted like sin. And, oh Christmas, he kissed just exactly the way I liked. His mouth was mobile, now hard, now soft, as he nipped and licked and swept his way into my mouth and invited me to return the favor. I did, enthusiastically, bearing him down further into the mattress. And once my hands touched his chest, I couldn’t seem to stop touching him. As my hands skimmed under his shirt, I felt his hands fist in my hair. Ahhhhh! If I hadn’t already gone from zero to sixty, that would have done it for me — gentle yet firm, curious and claiming. There’s just something about a man with his hands in my hair like that when we’re making out —

“Holy hell, Dix.” His hands gripped my arms, putting me away slightly. Not a great deal of distance, but enough so that I knew this wouldn’t be going any further. Enough so I knew he’d come to his senses. Enough to start the wave of embarrassment washing over me.

“I can’t do this.” He shook his head. “Sorry, Dix, I can’t. Not like this.”

I moved away and he rolled off the bed. With a quick hand to the nether regions and a bow-legged dip to his walk as he took his first steps, he adjusted himself in his jeans and walked into the bathroom. I closed my eyes. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid! What had I been thinking?

I jumped up, pulling the housecoat around me so tightly it could have acted as a tourniquet. I checked the door leading to the Presley apartment. Unlocked, of course. That’s how Dylan had gotten in. But a quick glance revealed my clothes hadn’t yet been returned as Mrs. Presley promised they would be. I checked the clock. A peek out the window confirmed it was just about dusk. Holy crap! I’d slept more than three hours. And it had been nearly four hours since Mrs. Presley had taken my clothes. More than enough time to wash and dry them, yet Dylan had arrived and my clothes hadn’t.

Coincidence? Not!

Thank you, Mrs. Presley. Not.

I could just picture her now sipping her tea, looking at my clean clothes in her laundry basket and chuckling over it all. But I wasn’t chuckling as I closed the door and pulled the housecoat even tighter. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

“Er, Dix?”

I looked up to see Dylan standing in the bathroom doorway.

“Sorry,” I said, rubbing my forehead.

Dylan shoved his hands in his pockets, then pulled them out again. “Dix, don’t … don’t read anything into this.” With a quick wave of the hand he gestured to the bed. “I mean, don’t think I got up—”

I lifted an eyebrow. I could have sworn that he was ‘up’.

He ran a hand through his hair. “What I mean is, I stopped because—”

“Don’t worry about it, Dylan.”

“But you don’t understand. And I want to make sure you do.”

“Remember that sleep disorder I told you about? Well, you just witnessed it firsthand. I was dreaming of that goddamn Flashing Fashion Queen. When I reached for you, I was sound asleep. I thought I was grabbing her. Nothing more.”

“And is that why you kissed me? Because you were thinking about her?”

Damn.

“Damn.”

He did a poor job of trying to hide a smile.

“Of course not.” I let out an exasperated breath. “Look, let’s not ruin the good thing we have going here. I made a mistake. I was dreaming; I was caught up in the moment. You … you know the stress I’ve been under.”

“Yeah, Dix,” he answered, “I do know. And that’s why I couldn’t take—”

I raised a hand. “It’s okay.” I cut his words short again. I knew I did. Part of me knew I shouldn’t, but a stronger part of me knew I damn well had to.

We stood there awkwardly staring at everything but each other for a few minutes. Then, my stare turned to the coffee he’d brought. Coffee, muffin box and a brown paper bag (which I assumed, correctly at it turned out) held a change of clothing he’d picked up for me. Dylan had a key to my condo of course, for emergencies such as this. He followed my gaze to the motel dresser where he’d set the things down.

“Got your toothbrush and stuff. Grabbed the first things I came to,” he said. “Jeans, shirt and underwear from the bottom dresser drawer.”

After what had just happened, I was surprised to see him blush on saying the word ‘underwear’.

But if he’d gone to my apartment…. “Can you be sure you weren’t followed?” I asked.

He grinned. “The cops they had tailing me are probably still parked in front of Camellia’s.”

“The peeler bar?”

His grin grew wider. “Yeah. I parked out front, then slipped out the back. Camellia said she’d send a couple of the girls out to flirt with the uniforms. Bought me all the time I needed to do some snooping around.”

“You left your bike there?”

“Hell, no. I left your mother’s car there.” He tapped his pocket to jingle the keys. “Then Camellia gave me a drive in her Hummer back to the office to pick up my bike.”

Brilliant of course. Mother had left her tiny Beemer at my place last time she was home — hanging the hot pink DO ME key tag on the cork board in my kitchen and telling me to use it any old time. Then she’s hopped on a plane and flown back to Florida with the new gentleman friend she’d hooked up with. She couldn’t wait to show him (him being ‘Frankie Dear’) off to the girls at the Retirement Residence. Gentleman friend, my eye. More like a sleeze bucket in a bad toupee. But I hadn’t been too worried about Mother; she could handle herself.

“Dickhead will kill them when he finds out you gave them the slip.”

“He won’t find out. When I leave here, I’ll double back to the club and come out the front door again.”

“With a grin on your face and a swagger in your walk, no doubt?”

“Is there any other way to exit Camillia’s?”

This thought left both of us finally smiling easily as we sat and sipped our coffees. The tension had eased a bit. I could feel the release of it in my shoulders and reached up to rub my right one. The coffee was unjangling my nerves.

“Why do you think you keep having that dream, Dix?”

Nerves jangling! Nerves jangling!

“I thought we were going to forget about that. I don’t dream of you that often.”

Dylan’s lips twitched in a grin. Lips I’d felt beneath mine, tasted…. Oh, damn. He meant the sleeping dream, not the waking one.

“I meant, why do you keep dreaming of the Flashing Fashion Queen? With that intuition of yours, it always means something.”

“Oh, that.” My throat burned with the large gulp of coffee I tried to hide behind. “I’m dreaming because there’s something I’m missing. There has to be. The damn woman just keeps teasing me, flouncing around in her puff of purple dress. And I can never, ever see her — or his — face clearly.”

“That day she came into the office, she was hiding her face too. The big glasses, the make-up, the blond wig.”

“Of course she was. She didn’t want us to know she wasn’t Jennifer Weatherby.”

“Agreed. But that was the easy part, since Mrs. Weatherby stayed well out of the spotlight despite the attention her husband got from the media.”

“True,” I said.

“And it was a pretty safe bet that a PI with our address wouldn’t move in Jennifer’s circle, so there’d be very little chance you’d know her socially.”

I lifted an eyebrow. “Did you just call our office a dive?”

He grinned. “Your word, not mine. But what I am saying is that our Flashing Fashion Queen was hiding her face because she didn’t want you to know who she was, not so much because she didn’t want you to see who she wasn’t.”

I frowned. “This dream woman … she told me she wanted to be Jennifer. Told me she’d make a wonderful Jennifer.”

“Rich bitch wannabe?” he offered.

“A rejected mistress of the former philandering Ned Weatherby?” I countered.

“Transvestite lover?”

We sat there a moment in silence. My mind whirled, rearranged things, then did it again. Nothing. Dammit. With a fisted hand I punched my pillow. “Argh! This is so goddamned frustrating!”

“It’ll come to you. Just give it time.”

“Unfortunately, time is something we seem to be running out of.” I wasn’t worried about Dickhead’s 48-hour time limit. That kind of went out the window when he’d found me holding the murder weapon. Or rather what I suspected was the murder weapon. As if reading my mind, Dylan spoke.

“I did some calling around about the gun. Called in some favors.”

“You called Rochelle?” As secretary to Judge Stephanopoulos, Rochelle had her fingertips on the pulse of whatever was going on in the various law enforcement departments in Marport City.

“I tried, but she’s away this week. Her sister got re-married and she flew down to Hawaii for the wedding.”

“So who did you call?”

“My mother,” he answered sheepishly.

Marjorie Foreman, Dylan’s mother, was not only a well-loved politician in Marport City, she was also known for being tough on crime. Without a doubt, she’d have been kept abreast on what was happening on such a high profile case as the Jennifer Weatherby murder.

“You were right about the gun. Initial ballistics tests confirm that the 9mm you were holding was the same one that killed Jennifer.”

“Unregistered?” I asked, suspecting it would be.”

“Surprisingly, it is registered.”

I sat up straight. Was a bubble of hope beginning to form? “To whom?”

“That’s the problem. It’s registered to Talbert K. Washington.”

“The Talbert K. Washington?”

He nodded.

Pop goes the bubble.

The name Talbert K. Washington was a name everyone in Marport City remembered. And would remember for a long time to come. About five years ago, there had been a double homicide. The only double murder in Marport City’s history. Washington’s car had broken down on the highway just inside the town limits. An elderly couple had stopped, offered to help, and he’d murdered the two and stolen their brand new Lexus. He’d driven it clear to Toronto before the police had caught up with him. Caught him and the fifteen-year-old girl he’d picked up along the way. In other words, Washington was a real slime bag.

There was plenty of evidence against Talbert K. Washington — the stolen Lexus, traces of the victims’ blood on his clothing and under his fingernails, the testimony from the girl whom Washington had amused himself with by relating again and again the details of the murder to the terrified kid. But most damning of all had been the 9mm handgun he’d used to kill the couple. It was registered to Washington and had his prints all over it when the cops found it in the glove compartment of the Lexus. You’d think the case would be a slam-dunk.

But nothing is ever that simple.

Talbert K. Washington’s father was Harland Washington, a rich lumberman from Maine. He hired a team of lawyers with specific instructions: Clear my boy. Clear my son at all costs. And I’ll make you all rich men.

It became a legal and media circus. The Washington team of ten lawyers — five from New York and five from a local law firm — had marched into court every day to face the frazzled team of two crown attorneys. The local paper had carried pictures of Talbert K. Washington in his younger days — doing everything from selling apples to raising money for Boy Scouts to petting puppies at the local animal shelter. There were glowing testimonials about his character from everyone from his high school drama coach to his earliest Sunday school teacher — who was photographed wiping a tear from her eyes as she held a picture of Talbert K. close to her chest. Not to mention the smear campaign that Harland Washington started against one of the crown lawyers, Carrie Press. Marjorie Foreman had made it clear that in Marport City, Talbert K. Washington would get a fair trial, but no one was going to be intimidated. Actually, I’d always suspected that’s why Carrie had gotten the case. Judge Stephanopoulos had heard the matter. Too bad for Talbert K. Rochelle told me that the defense’s posturing had backfired, especially the trash that was dished out against Carrie Press. The young Crown Prosecutor had been embarrassed, sure. But worse for the Washington team, she’d been extremely pissed off.

But the media frenzy peaked when it became public that key evidence had gone missing — the 9mm that had been used to kill the old couple.

The lawyers for Talbert K. Washington had wanted the case thrown out, but Judge Stephanopoulos held firm. And fortunately, there was enough other evidence to convict. And the jury wasn’t too impressed with the defense argument that Talbert K. Washington had been too rich to steal a Lexus; he could have just bought one himself. And that the kidnapped girl was lying and perhaps the killer herself. And that the blood all over Harland Washington’s boy was just bad luck when he tried to help out the poor little hitchhiking girl. It must have flown from her and onto him.

Talbert K. Washington was now doing life with no chance of parole for 25 years.

And that was a very good thing.

But the very bad thing … how the hell did the missing gun now turn up in my possession? Was I cursed? Did I have a sign on my back that read kick me? Or perhaps, frame me? So now I was wanted for murder, escaping police custody and being in possession of stolen evidence from a murder/kidnapping trial.

I knew better than to think that it couldn’t get any worse.

“Let me guess,” I said. “The car that tried to run me down … the news you have on that sucks, too.”

He lifted his shoulders in an apologetic gesture. “Sorry Dix. The car belongs to Mrs. Levana Fyffe. Ninety years old. She tripped over her geriatric poodle and broke her ankle last month. Hasn’t driven since. Her nephew has been doing errands for her while she’s been housebound, and she swears the car hasn’t left the yard. Detective Head checked it out. The car was parked in her yard when he got there. And Mrs. Fyffe has been home all day.”

“Please tell me Dickhead hauled it downtown for forensic testing anyway.”

“Unfortunately, Mrs. Fyffe wouldn’t let him. Told him he’d have to apply for a warrant if he wanted to steal her fuckin’ car. She knew the fuckin’ law better than all ‘you young bastards’. Those were her exact words. Then she kicked the lot of them off her property.”

“Feisty old thing, eh?” I just was not catching a break on this. “Think Detective Head will get the warrant?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know.”

Things were bleak. No, not just bleak. They were horribly bleak. Yeah, that just about described them. But at least I wasn’t behind bars. And I knew what my next move was. What it had to be. I was going to the source of the matter.

“I’m going to the Weatherby house,” I announced.

“Are you forgetting about the restraining order?” he asked. “To say nothing of the BOLO that will have gone out by now.”

“Ah, but they’ll be on the look out for Dix Dodd. I don’t plan on looking like Dix Dodd. Nor am I planning to announce my presence, if you know what I mean.”

“I’m afraid I do know what you mean.” He shook his head, a look of concern clouding his blue eyes.

“Don’t worry. You know I never met a lock I couldn’t finesse. I won’t get caught.”

“Do you really think you’ll find evidence there?”

“Don’t know, but it’s where I have to start.”

“What are the chances you’d let me do it for you?” he asked.

“Non-existent. You have no charges against you. Let’s keep it that way.”

“Yeah, but it would be safer for me to go than you. You get caught, you’re toast.”

“Yeah, and if you get caught, then who the hell proves my innocence when I’m behind bars? Who the hell else believes in me at this point?”

That sobered him. Hell, it sobered me.

He straightened one long leg as he reached into his pocket. “Here’s Ned’s schedule for tomorrow. Or the best I could figure it, anyway.”

Why didn’t Dylan’s having this surprise me?

“He’s picking his parents up at the airport at 6:30 in the morning,” he said. “He’ll have to leave home by six at the latest. By the time the plane lands, his folks go through customs and they drive back, you’ll have at least a couple of hours there. The place should be empty. I’ll stake it out early in the a.m. and call you.”

“Is there a security system?” I asked. Usually, these high dollar places were alarmed liked Fort Knox.

“There was,” Dylan answered. “But no alarm went off the day Jennifer was murdered.”

“Which goes to prove,” I offered, “that the killer was someone she knew.”

“You’d think,” Dylan said. “But Ned cancelled his account with the security company. Right after Jennifer’s murder. Said he had nothing left to protect.”

I reached for my cell, and checked that it was on vibrate in preparation for the morning. Just in case, turning off the ringer while I was thinking of it. Nothing like having the phone ring when you’re hiding in the bushes, in a closet or under a bed. “What’ll you pursue?” I asked.

“Tonight I’m going to go back over the pictures, notes and tapes we got.”

I blinked. “Wait a minute … I thought Detective Head would have confiscated those?”

Dylan smiled. “Yeah, there was some kind of a mix up. I accidentally gave the Detective the wrong stuff.”

“What stuff did you give him?”

He cringed. “The stuff from your mother’s seventieth birthday party. You know, the tapes of the party your sister sent you. The one with the dozen male strippers and the penis shaped pi�atas.”

Dickhead would have a toothpick snapping fit. I laughed out loud. And that felt pretty damn good.

Dylan laughed, too. “Wait’ll he gets a load of the pictures where they’re doing the limbo.”

I moved to put the now-empty coffee cup on the nightstand, and sat back against the head of the bed, still chuckling.

“Er, Dix,” Dylan said. “You’re kind of … kind of coming undone there.”

I sighed. “No, I’m fine Dylan. Just thinking.”

“No, I mean, you’re … falling apart.”

He just was not listening!

“I’m fine, Dylan. Really.”

He drew a breath. “I mean that your housecoat is coming undone and I can see your breasts.”

Well, that sat me up straight. “I’d better get dressed.”

With a pinching grip on the collar of my housecoat that would have made any Mother Superior proud, I grabbed the brown paper bag of clothing Dylan had brought, and raced to the bathroom.

I’d just exposed myself to my employee. No wait, that wasn’t quite accurate — not quite the whole truth. I’d exposed myself to my employee after hauling him into bed and kissing him thoroughly and running my hands all over his chest. My life was on a roller coaster. One big freaking loop-de-loop. I opened the bag of clothing and pulled out the jeans and sweater Dylan had packed. But my hand stilled to the knock on the bathroom door.

“Dix?”

“Yeah?”

“I … I don’t want you to think that what happened … or rather what didn’t happen here between us, was because I didn’t think it could. Okay, what I mean is, it could. Really could. I mean, hey, I certainly could … if you know what I mean. Shit, I didn’t mean it like that. But I didn’t think it should happen. Not that it shouldn’t. But that if it should, it should be … you know, when it should.”

Apparently, in all the excitement, I’d missed the alien invading the body of the usually eloquent Dylan Foreman. I’d never heard the man tongue-tied before. Yes, I know I should have let him off the hook. But it was kind of fun. Kind of cute. And damn it, kind of hitting home.

From the other side of the door, I heard his exasperated sigh. “Oh, to hell with it. I’ll just say it straight out. Dix, you’re vulnerable right now. Only a jerk would take advantage of that. And I’m trying really, really hard not to be a jerk.”

I sat on the edge of the tub. Not that my knees had gone weak, but … well, I just needed to sit.

Oh, Dix, don’t do this. Don’t feel this.

Okay, this was Dylan … but still, he was a man. I was too smart for that. Too tough. Too cynical. I wasn’t going to fall for any man, especially one so young and handsome, while I….

While I what? What excuse should I make up this time?

I gave myself a mental kick in the ass. And I continued to listen. Apparently the door between us gave him as much freedom to speak as it did me to listen.

“Dix, I just don’t want to make love to you when you’ve got so much trouble on your mind. I don’t want to do anything that would fill you with regrets after. I don’t want us to share mind-blowing orgasms and then have to race away into hiding again. I want it to be like it should be for us. I want it to—”

“Wait!” Oh, Jesus, he was scaring the shit out of me. Give me a mugger in a dark alley. Give me a cheating boyfriend who’s just been busted charging my way. Hell, give me Dickhead on a wild-eyed rampage. All of those things at once couldn’t scare me the way Dylan was scaring me right now. Dix Dodd didn’t do close. Close hurt. I squeezed my hands into tight fists until my nails bit into my palms. “What happened shouldn’t have happened, Dylan. Let’s just leave it at that.”

“But Dix….”

“We’re both under pressure here. That’s it. That explains everything. It was nothing.”

Please, I prayed, as the minutes ticked by in silence, not even sure what I was praying for.

“All right, Dix. You got it. It was nothing.”

I should have felt relief. Yep, sure should have.

“Good. Great. Glad we cleared that up.”

His voice was flat in its return. “I’ve gotta get going. Need to sneak back into Camillia’s, then out again. I’ll keep working this, of course. And I’ll call you in the morning like I said.”

I sat there for a moment, my insides shredding in the silence. Then I leapt up.

“Dylan! Wait.”

I dropped the jeans and shirt I’d been holding and held the housecoat around me as I raced from the room. But Dylan was gone. The backdoor was closed. I was alone with only the muted glow from the television flooding the room.

“Just like you wanted, Dix,” I mumbled.

But no one answered back.

Chapter 14

Eventually, Mrs. Presley did return my clothing. Washed, ironed (people still did that?), folded perfectly and smelling of Tide. My underwear had never been so soft. Mrs. P brought them to me herself, just after Dylan left. Which was good, because as I’d discovered when I searched the bag Dylan brought me, he’d packed the be-tasseled glow-in-the-dark abomination my mother had given me for my birthday. Could I be any more humiliated?

I’m sure Dylan hadn’t planned to grab this set, especially. Yes, it was the only matched set of underwear I owned, but I doubt if that factored into it. I couldn’t see him rummaging around in my underwear drawer until he found a match. No, he probably just grabbed the first things he saw, which in the dimness of my unlit bedroom, would be the glow-in-the-dark green nestled there among … oh, shit, among my granny panty collection!

To think I’d thought I’d bottomed out on the humiliation scale. Argh!

But Dylan Foreman had seen more than just my underwear as of late I reminded myself. And that thought was causing me a little more consternation than I wanted to acknowledge.

I barely slept that night. Tossed and turned, tangled the sheets up good all by myself. Thinking of … thinking of everything. The Flashing Fashion Queen. Dylan’s kiss that still lingered on my lips. No wonder the mattress was half off the bed when I awoke.

It was not yet dawn. The curtains were not tightly drawn and I watched the sky. I found myself staring into the stars as I waited for my bedside phone to ring with the 4:45 am wake up call I’d requested. I no longer needed the call to awaken me, but I did need it. I needed it to cue me into getting a move on … getting ready for today’s criminal offense.

But that wake up call came in the form of a petite woman in blue suede shoes, knocking softly on the door, and tiptoeing her way into Room 111 where she’d hidden me.

+++

“You’re not going out without breakfast, Dix Dodd,” Mrs. Presley said. “Don’t even try to argue.”

I didn’t.

She set the tray — complete with two fresh blueberry muffins, the butter already melting into them, orange juice and a steaming cup of my beloved nectar of the Gods (black coffee) — on the night table. The tray also contained a red rose in a tiny vase and morning paper, rolled up and held tight with a thin elastic band. The newspaper was spotted a darker gray in a place or two. It was raining. Good. Fewer early morning joggers to worry about when I broke into the Weatherby home. Just the fanatics, heads down and hunkered in on themselves against the rain.

“Thanks, Mrs. Presley. But you didn’t have to do this. I could have grabbed something … somewhere.”

“Ha. Are you kidding me? You don’t want to be coming eyeball to eyeball with the counter staff of any convenience stores or coffee joints today. You haven’t seen today’s paper yet!”

Oh no.

“I got Craig to pick it up when I sent him out for that other thing you wanted.”

“He got it?”

“He did.”

I reached for the paper, but Mrs. Presley snatched it away before I could grip it.

“First,” she said, with a stabbing finger toward the muffins. “You eat.”

“I really don’t think—”

“Well, I really do.” Her tone brooked no argument. “You’re no good to yourself fainting from hunger.”

Resigned, I choked down one of the muffins and washed it down with some orange juice before Mrs. Presley relinquished the paper.

Yes, there I was. Front page, of course.

“Shit.”

Mrs. P handed me my coffee with one hand, and set the other gently on my back as I looked at the paper.

Murder Suspect Dix Dodd On the Loose. And in smaller letters below this lovely 80-point headline, Murder appears to have been crime of passion.

The picture they put below the caption, of all things, was my driver’s license photo. I don’t take a good picture on the best of days, but after an hour of standing in line at the DMV when their air conditioning was on the fritz while some guy who must have bathed in ripe cheese stood in front of me digging who knows what out of his ears, I had a bit of a snarl on my face when the bubble-gum snapping employee clicked my pic. And omigod, it looked exactly like a mug shot.

As picture ID, it worked fine. In fact, I kind of liked the kick-ass-and-take-names-later snarling edge to it. However, had I known it was going to wind up plastered larger than life on the front page of the Marport City’s Morning Edition, I’d have fled the DMV office that day and not come back until I’d been to the esthetician.

“So much for my modeling career,” I mumbled.

I rushed to read the story, and quickly decided that the mug shot that made me look like Quasimodo’s ugly stepsister was the least of my troubles.

Marport City Police have asked residents to be on the lookout for local private detective Dix Dodd, who is wanted for escaping police custody and resisting arrest. Police sources confirm she is a person of interest in the investigation of the recent brutal murder of Jennifer Weatherby, wife of millionaire businessman Ned Weatherby. Dodd is considered dangerous, and citizens are advised not to approach, but to immediately call police at 555-8250 or 911 should they see her.

Though police declined to give more details, Jeremy Poole, lawyer and friend of Ned Weatherby, elaborated on the situation. “From what we’ve been able to ascertain, Dix Dodd apparently had an obsession with Ned. She’d been stalking him for at least a week — recording his every movement, snapping pictures, even going so far as to sleep outside his house in her car at night. You have to feel sorry for a woman like that.” But Poole quickly changed his tone when asked if perhaps Ned Weatherby had returned Dodd’s romantic interest. “He’d never be interested in a floozy like that.” (see ‘Floozy’ page A-4)

I recognized the 555 number, of course. It was Dickhead’s cell phone. He must want me badly to give that number out to the paper.

I turned to page A-4 and quickly scanned the pictures. It would serve no purpose at this point to read further. What more could they add that I didn’t already know? Breaking news! Dix Dodd totally fucked!

No, I reminded myself, not totally. I was still free, still able to investigate, and I intended to remain that way.

There were no other pictures of me. There was one of the parking area outside my office, with uniformed cops heading every which way (in the wake of my giving Dickhead the slip, no doubt). In one frame, Dickhead, in a moment of total frustration, was launching a small package across the yard. Toothpicks, I figured. There was a picture of Jennifer Weatherby — the real Jennifer Weatherby, not the phony who’d posed as her in my office — and my heart ached for her. There was a picture of Ned, leaving the church, I assumed after making funeral arrangements. Pastor Ravenspire had one arm around Ned’s shoulders, providing whatever comfort he could. The other arm was raised in failing effort to block the access by the flashing cameras. Luanne Laney stood looking severe and efficient behind them. There was a picture of Jeremy Poole, too, standing in front of the Court House, looking very lawyerly in his long black robe. Looking serious. And looking like he had a stick so far up his ass, he’d need three surgeons and a skilled dentist to extract it.

“Good call, Mrs. Presley,” I said.

“Getting Craig to pick up the paper?”

“No, getting me to eat before I saw these pictures.”

She laughed, and handed me the other muffin.

“I’m not hungry.” I put the paper aside.

“Put the muffin in your pocket for later. When you’ve got your appetite back.”

Pocket, right. That reminded me. “Were you able to put together an outfit for me?”

She smiled. “Of course.”

One of the … er … benefits, of running an establishment such as Mrs. Presley’s was that clients sometimes left things behind when they dashed away in a hurry. And when they did, they often didn’t want to risk coming back for them. After thirty days, Mrs. Presley claimed the articles as her own. She got such a kick out of these little treasures. Money was her favorite (and least frequent) find, followed by jewelry, mostly of the costume variety. But Mrs. Presley also had a wide assortment of clothing and accessories that had been left behind. The undergarments (or what was left of the undergarments after some enthusiastic nights) she tossed out. But the other stuff, she kept. Feather boas, fur-lined handcuffs, tight-fitting skirts, dark glasses, assorted scarves. Oh, and lots of trench coats with high collars.

“Oh, yes, I got you an outfit, Dix. You’re gonna love it!”

She went to the closet, hipchecked the door open and popped herself out for just a moment. And when she returned with the outfit on a hanger, she held it out to me like the girl at the car show, showing off the latest model.

“Oh, my.”

One look at the skirt, told me it would be a tight squeeze. A very tight squeeze. And my knees would be pressed together so tightly, I’d be doing that penguin walk. It was black and straight and leather. Mrs. Presley had also provided me with a blouse. Sparkling white, of all things. But judging by the dated style, I knew it would have been a dingy white had it not been for Mrs. Presley’s meticulous domestic skills. The topper of the outfit, the most important ingredient, was a bright red blazer. The latter was classy-looking, and I knew without a doubt that it was new. And not cheap by any means. Two hundred bucks, easy. Two hundred of Mrs. Presley’s bucks. It would take a dose of sodium pentothal to make her admit it, but I knew she’d gone out and bought it for me.

“This … this is wonderful, Mrs. Presley.”

“Ah hell,” she said, “I’m glad to get rid of the old stuff. Been gathering dust in my closet for too long.”

Now I knew she was lying. Dust wouldn’t dare settle in her closet.

“Oh, I almost forgot this.” She reached into the deep pocket of her flowered skirt, and pulled out two things: a bottle of black hair dye and a bright pink disposable razor.

Okay, the hair dye I could understand, along with the finger-wagging warning not to get any on the bedding. Black hair would be great for my disguise/transformation.

But just how did she know I needed to shave my legs?

I looked at her quizzically. “The razor, Mrs. Presley?”

She waved a dismissive hand. “Oh, Dylan told me I’d better send that along. He said you should probably give your legs the once over before you headed out.”

My jaw dropped. “He didn’t.”

“No, he didn’t.” She smiled like the cat that swallowed the canary. “But now that I know how close you two got, I’ll be on my way.” With a nudge and a wink and a laugh at my expense, she leapt up and left through the regular door.

I groaned and covered my face.

Great morning so far.

Chapter 15

It was barely dawn when I prepared to leave the Underhill Motel.

The hair dye Mrs. Presley had gotten me was a temporary one, thank God, but somehow I couldn’t see getting my natural blond hair back in one shampoo as promised on the label. Maybe a week of shampoos, if I was lucky. It was so … well, black.

I’d piled my hair up high on my head, and set it in place with bobby pins. And before you groan, it looked great. Really. Just because my underwear isn’t that fashionable and I seldom bother plugging in an iron doesn’t mean I’m not damned good with my hair. Hell, I can fix it a dozen ways, and I can do it faster than a runway model can change outfits. All part of the job. The quick change, the ability to convert my looks on a dame.

Get it … on a ‘dame’?

But I digress.

By the time I perfected my makeup and put on the Roberto Cavalli shades Mrs. Presley had provided (at least one guest must have left the Underhill in a hell of a hurry to forget those puppies), I hardly recognized myself. Now as long as no one else did. Maybe the horrible picture of me in the Marport City Morning Edition had been a blessing after all.

As I stood looking at my reflection and admiring my handiwork, I let myself think the thought I’d been trying to suppress: You could run, Dix.

I closed my eyes and pressed a thumb and forefinger against my lids as though I could push the thought back. But there was no budging it.

Because, dammit, I knew I could do it. I could disappear. With my skills and resiliency, not to mention the five large in cash that the Flashing Fashion Queen had given me, most of which I still had, I could get away. With my connections, I could easily score fake ID, after which I could just evaporate. Poof into thin air. Granted, five grand wouldn’t carry me far, but it wouldn’t have to. I could certainly get far enough away from Marport City to start a new, anonymous, keep-to-myself life, with a nice, boring job. Hell, I could fly under the radar forever.

But that would mean the Flashing Fashion Queen would have won. And oh, God, it would mean Dickhead had won. And dammit, when I really thought about it, it would mean all those chauvinistic bastards at the Jones Agency had won. I could still hear their snickers when I told them I was going into business on my own. Still see the condescending eye-rolls.

I shook my head. No way in hell was I going to rabbit. No Plan B for me. It was Plan A all the way. The only plan I needed. The only plan that cleared me of the murder of Jennifer Weatherby, and put the guilty party, whoever she was, behind bars.

I put on the red blazer, which clashed slightly with my shades but matched perfectly the tint of my lipstick, and presto change-o, there I stood, the quintessential real estate agent.

The item I’d asked Mrs. P to get for me was a Marport First Realty Ltd. sign. I had no doubt she’d asked Craig to borrow one, and even less doubt he’d have to sneak back with it this evening. Craig had set the sign in the back seat of Mrs. P’s red Hyundai. Mrs. Presley was taking a chance lending me her car, but when I mentioned this to her, she waved me off with a flick of the hand.

“Someday, Dix Dodd, it might be me needing the favor.”

My throat tight, I just nodded. I’d do my damnedest to make sure that car wasn’t noticed. Starting with smearing dirt on the immaculate license place, which I did as soon as Mrs. P went back inside (she’d have had a bird to see me sully her baby). I stood back and examined my work. Upon close inspection, it wouldn’t hold up, but on not-so-close inspection, it would do just fine. And fortunately, there was enough of a lip over the license plate that the rain wouldn’t directly hit it. Not unless a wind came up, which was entirely possible. No, it wasn’t a perfect plan, but it had to do.

I wiped my hands best I could on rain-damped tissues and climbed into the car — no small feat considering how tightly my lower half was packed into that pencil skirt Mrs. Presley had provided. Automatically, I checked my cell to make sure it was set on vibrate, then dumped it in the inside pocket of my red blazer. All set for Dylan’s call.

Dylan’s call….

It struck me then that I was more nervous about that than I was about the pending break and enter. Schoolgirl nervous instead of jail-time nervous? Ack! The hair dye must be affecting my brain.

I stuck the key in the ignition, then checked my watch. It was time.

+++

I parked a few streets away from the Weatherby mansion, near a walking trail, to await Dylan’s call. I checked my watch again. I wanted the chatter of morning radio to keep me company, but I wasn’t quite up to hearing about myself on the news. It was just quarter to six. Figuring it would be a news-free zone until top of the hour, I flicked the radio on and quickly tuned it to the local station, the one with the ultra-cheery early-morning DJ banter.

“So it looks like another rainy day in Marport City, Kevin.”

“Great weather for ducks, Caroline. Ha ha ha.”

Someone pushed a sound effects button and a canned rim shot sounded.

Lame.

Well, no one said they were original ultra-cheery early-morning DJs. I turned the radio off again.

A couple walked by. They wore matched walking suits — his navy blue and hers pink — that must have cost what I spend on clothing in a year. And which perfectly matched the navy blue and pink jackets on their two pugs. Double Income, No Kids, I decided. They held close under Mr. DINK’s umbrella, while Mrs. DINK held the leashes of the two straining pugs. As I watched, I noticed them give more than just a sideways glance my way. I lowered my head and busied myself going through a stack of papers (which turned out to be takeout menus upon this close examination) I’d picked up from the seat beside me. Then I faked a sneeze, grabbing a tissue from the box squeezed between the seats to cover my face in an over-zealous nose-blowing effort. Eventually, the DINKS moved on, but not before the pink-clad one (the human, not the pug) gave a good hard look back at me.

“Okay,” I counseled myself, “don’t overreact. It’s raining. Any glimpse through the windshield would be blurred. I’m in disguise — a damn good disguise. Nobody is out this morning looking for a dark-haired real estate agent. They’re looking for a blond Dix Dodd, not….”

Which reminded me I needed a name. Not just to put me in character (though that was important), but in case I was asked and had to think of something quick. I glanced back again at the real estate sign in the back seat. There would be a name on the sign, of course. I turned and leaned back to read it. “Okay, they’re looking for Dix. Not … Bert Cartsell.”

Damn.

I glanced in the rearview mirror, staring into my well made-up eyes. “Hello there, Bert. How’s it hanging? Oh, it’s not hanging? Well, that’s probably a good thing.”

Had Mrs. DINK seen the sign? Would she necessarily put two and two together if she did? Maybe she knew Bert Cartsell? Who the hell sells carts anyway in this day and age? Apparently Bert.

“Argh!” Sometimes, I swear, I was my own worst enemy. Yeah, me and the Flashing Fashion Queen.

I felt the vibration in my pocket and glanced at my watch. Almost six. It had to be Dylan; I knew this before I even flipped the cell open and glanced at the number. “Bert here.”

“What’s that, Dix?”

“Never mind.”

“Coast is clear. Ned Weatherby just left.”

“House is empty?” He’d pretty much told me that, but I wanted to keep him on the line. We’d left things tense last night, and I wanted to make sure that was going to blow over.

“Empty,” he repeated.

“Well,” I said stupidly. “Empty is good.”

“Yep.”

“Yep.”

I waited for him to say something. Desperately hoped that he would. The tension was too heavy. And I didn’t want to lose my best friend. My best employee. Hell, I didn’t want to lose Dylan in any respect. “Well, I’ll head over, then.”

“Dix?”

“Yeah?”

“Want to know if this love is true? Call me and I’ll make sure you do.”

Jesus! I nearly dropped the phone. “Dylan, I—”

“For the business cards, Dix,” he said, and damned if I couldn’t hear the grin in his voice. “I know it’s not as catchy as my other suggestions, but I kind of like it. Cute, you know?”

I kind of liked it too. And I found myself smiling for the first time since last night.

“Not too bad,” I agreed. “If I ever get out of this mess….”

“When,” he corrected. “When we get out of this mess.”

I swallowed. “Thank you, Dylan.”

“You’re welcome, Dix.” His voice turned serious. “I’ve got an excellent view of the Weatherby house. I’m parked across the street, in the driveway two houses down..”

“Where are the owners?”

“Japan for four months while renovations are being done. Which I discovered the other day when I was talking to the neighbors, asking about Jennifer.”

“Are you in the same car?”

“Give me a break. I’m in a white van marked CHESTNUT CARPET SERVICE,” he huffed. “I’m not a rookie at this. I’m a big boy, you know.”

Totally inappropriate ‘big boy’ visions filled my mind, and I answered with a too-husky, “I know.”

Then I heard Dylan’s soft, amused laughter coming through the cell.

Way to go, Dix. I cleared my throat. “I’m going to head over to the Weatherby House now.”

Dylan sobered. “I’ll keep watch. Keep your cell on, all right?”

“I will.”

A pause. I could hear him drawing a breath. “Call me as soon as you can.”

The line went dead, and I looked at the cell a moment before I plunked it into my pocket. I started the Hyundai, and drove the short distance to the Weatherby house.

I parked alongside the road. Not quite in front of the Weatherby house as to say I was at the Weatherby house, but close enough that I looked like I might be at the Weatherby house. I glanced at the white van and the form of Dylan sitting in it.

Ducking under the black umbrella that Mrs. Presley had provided, I tugged the real estate sign from the back seat of the car and headed toward the house.

Awkward. The sign was heavier than it looked. I tucked it under my arm but was careful not to hold it against the expensive blazer Mrs. P had gotten for me. I imagined Bert Cartsell for a moment slinging the sucker around — sign in one hand, hefty sledge hammer in the other to pound the post into the ground.

But I wasn’t going to pound it into the ground.

I stepped carefully over the flowerbed, and leaned the sign up against the house. That would hopefully ward off any nosy neighbors who spied me this early morning. And I had every intention of being gone by the time Ned Weatherby returned, sign safely stashed in Mrs. P’s car as I sped back to the Underhill. Hopefully, with the information I sought.

Whatever the hell that turned out to be.

Okay, sign placed. Now I had to go into full real estate lady mode.

I stood back and took a businesslike look at the windows, and then further back to examine the roof (it had windows; it had a roof … good, good). Very quickly, I poked at the flowers. I rapped my knuckles on the siding in a few places — this seemed efficient. In fact, I rapped my knuckles along the entire length of the house. In fact I rapped my knuckles right around the corner of that house. Then I made a mad dash to the back of it.

Yes, I was good with locks, but not so good that I would chance spending a few awkward minutes trying to pick the front door lock in broad daylight. A back door would do just fine.

I was in luck. Which, I realized as I mentally high-fived myself, was a change for me these days.

Not only was there a back door, but there was a sliding glass patio door, and I bit down on the ‘bingo’ I wanted to shout. As long as the security bar wasn’t down….

The security bar wasn’t down.

Things were starting to go my way — the rainy day, Ned leaving on time, the easy access to the house. I quickly jimmied the lock. Easily. No alarm, just as Dylan had told me. No barking dogs. No surprises waiting on the other side.

Just smooth sailing from here on out.

I might have known better.

Chapter 16

You know, I would have made a lousy real estate agent. As you will have figured out by now, I’m not exactly a people person. But I must have looked passably convincing as a realtor. I stepped inside the Weatherby mansion (thank you, easy-to-open sliding door) and no alarms and whistles blared. No sirens came roaring down Ashfield Drive, summoned by suspicious neighbors. Mentally, I gave myself a pat on the back at my transformation skills.

Okay, yeah, I wouldn’t pass for Bert Cartsell, but hopefully no one would read the pilfered sign that closely. Or if they did, they’d probably assume I was an office underling sent to do the boss’s bidding.

Now, as long as old Bert himself didn’t drive by….

I glanced around the study. It was an eerie feeling being in the room — the very room — where Jennifer Weatherby had been murdered. It’s not that I felt the presence of her ghost, or a tingling up my spine or a rise in the hairs on the back of my neck. It was just that not so long ago, this room had been full of life, until, in one violent instant, it had been turned into a scene of death. Not that there was any lingering physical evidence of the crime. The bio-cleanup crew had been in and erased all trace. But it still felt like a murder scene. Especially in the quiet of the closed-off room.

And even though it had been an imposter who’d been in my office that day, I still felt I owed the real Jennifer something. Still felt for the victim in this crime. And if I didn’t catch her murderer, no one would.

Now, that was a scary thought.

Of course, the police tape had long since come down. The forensics team had done their work. Every fabric and fiber would have been examined; every surface would have been dusted for prints and — if I knew Dickhead — dusted again. And when the police finished processing the room, the cleaners had moved in and restored everything to its former state. Still, the place felt just as totally off limits as though yellow barrier tape still screamed CRIME SCENE — DO NOT ENTER. The double doors on the opposite side of the room from which I entered were closed firmly and the drapes were drawn. Dust didn’t lay heavy on the furniture yet, but a few motes swirled in a thin steam of sunlight that came through a slight parting of the drapes. Other indicators around the room attested to the loss of life. Memories of Jennifer were everywhere — a scarf carefully folded on a chair in the corner, a pair of sunglasses on top of the well-stacked bookcase. No wonder Ned had chosen to keep this room closed off.

Of course, I had every confidence Detective Head would have already searched this room thoroughly. But I also had every confidence that we were looking for different things.

In fact, I was growing more confident of this by the minute.

+++

Of course my heart was racing. Not in a holy-shit-I’d-better-get-outta-here racing, nor a kid-at-Christmas racing. But more of an I’m-getting-warmer racing. I knew it; I just freakin’ knew there was something here. Kind of reminded me of that game we played when we were kids, where one person would hide an object and the other would direct her to it by leading with degrees of you’re getting hotter-warmer-colder-freezing. This room definitely gave me hot vibes. So hot in fact, I doffed my red blazer and set it (neatly, with visions of a finger-wagging Mrs. Presley) on the first chair by the door from which I just entered.

This had been Jennifer’s room. Her sanctuary. The walls were femininely decorated. The carpeting was a rosy pink. It was cozy and comfortable feeling. Gracious.

My eyes swept past the beautiful Tiffany lamps in each corner. And then over the rows of bookshelves that spanned an entire wall of the room, stacked tightly and neatly with hardcover books. Fiction titles mostly, with a few nonfiction thrown in. I looked past the black leather club chair that sat in front of the giant office-style mahogany desk, past the coordinating leather office chair on the business side of the desk. And directly behind that chair, larger than life, hung the wedding picture of Ned and Jennifer Weatherby. He had been a dashing young man in a tailored tuxedo, while she looked almost consumed by the white gown she wore. The veil, the gloves, and oh, Lord, the pearls that seemed to snug just a bit too tightly around her neck. My heart dipped. Even on her wedding day, Jennifer had looked so out of place.

Turning from the depressing portrait, I tugged off the dress gloves I’d used to jimmy the door, stashed them in my purse and pulled on the latex gloves I’d dug from the same bag. Dexterity, baby. That’s what I needed now. Well, that and to keep my fingerprints — which Dickhead had from the other night when he’d found me at the murder scene — from getting all over Jennifer’s study again. Contrary to what PI novels might lead you to believe, private detectives do not make a habit of breaking and entering. No way in hell would they risk their license by engaging in clear-cut criminal conduct. But under the circumstances, losing my license was a little further down on my list of worries these days. And hell, what was a little B&E when I was already unlawfully at large? Not to mention that little ol’ murder charge hanging over my head.

My first thought, of course, was to search the desk, but I quickly scooted it away.

Reason one: Dickhead would have certainly gone through that desk and every scrap of paper in it. If there’d been anything of significance in that mahogany monstrosity, he’d have confiscated it. (And yes, it did just about kill me to give him this credit, if only in my thoughts.)

Reason two: If Jennifer had been hiding something, the last place she would try to conceal it would be in her desk. See, I’ve had lots of practice studying cheating spouses. And if the jealous husband or jealous wife is going to be snooping, someone’s private desk would be the first place to look for evidence of an affair. No, Jennifer would be more cautious than that.

And the third reason I didn’t start with the desk, it just didn’t feel right. My intuition was tingling, but not in the direction of the desk.

I looked around the room again, letting my mind lead me to where I should begin.

The books. Definitely, the books.

There was something about them that was calling me over. The shelves seemed neatly arranged. No books upside down, pulled out a little too far or pushed in a little much. But still …. I walked closer and scanned the titles. They were arranged alphabetically, by author. No surprise there. Alcott’s Little Women came before Austin’s Pride and Prejudice. Even the Stars Look Lonesome, by Maya Angelou was neatly shelved before Margaret Atwood’s The Blind Assassin and The Handmaid’s Tale. Life of the Bombay Dung Beetle by Elizabeth Bee came before Bronte’s Wuthering Heights.

Whoa, wait a minute — Elizabeth Bee? Life of the Bombay Dung Beetle?

With shaking hands, I pulled the book down and began flipping through the pages. Eureka! Jennifer’s journal, wrapped in a very professional looking dust jacket — complete with graphics and a back-cover write up — which she’d no doubt printed from her computer. I took a moment to marvel at her ingenuity. Hidden virtually in plain sight, it had escaped a forensic search. Obviously, Jennifer had put a lot of work into hiding her journal. Obviously she felt that she had to. So much for sanctuary.

I again glanced at the wedding picture of Jennifer and Ned hanging over the desk.

I didn’t dare turn on a light to get a closer look at Jennifer’s journal entries. I’d pressed my luck about as far as I wanted to with the neighbors. Fortunately, there was sufficient sunlight coming through the slight part in the drapes, spilling across an edge Jennifer’s desk. I crossed to the desk and settled my ass in what proved to be the most comfortable chair I’d ever sat in, ignoring the rude sounds of leather skirt on leather chair that would have sent any twelve-year-old boy into a fit of laughter. I felt now the kid-at-Christmas kind of heart racing as I held Jennifer’s journal in my hands. Her hidden journal. Surely it would hold the key to fingering her killer and to proving my innocence.

I moved the journal into the strip of sunlight on the desk. I was just beginning to relax, to feel the situation was coming under my control, when the desk phone rang, scaring the bejeezus out of me.

“Shut up,” I hissed. Which was more of a frustrated venting rather than a plea that I thought would work. (I’d long ago finished with talking to appliances, but that’s another story.)

Closing my eyes, I gathered my severely frayed cool, reminding myself I was alone in the house. Dylan had made sure of that. No one was going to hustle in here to answer the phone and find me sitting in Jennifer’s chair. But there’s just something about a phone ringing into an empty house when you’re doing something you’d rather not be caught doing. Looking through what you’re not supposed to have. Sitting where you’re not supposed to be sitting. You immediately want to put your hands up in an I-didn’t-do-it gesture.

After three rings, the answering machine clicked on.

It was a female voice, and I knew it had to be Jennifer’s. “Thank you for calling the Weatherby residence. We cannot take your call right now, please leave a message.” I wondered how long Ned would leave that message on the machine. It struck me as strange. Usually a grieving spouse would change a message like that as soon as possible to avoid the repeated heartache of hearing the voice of the deceased loved one over and over again. Or to avoid creeping out callers.

“Er, yeah, is this Pepper’s Pizza? Huh? Is it? ’Cuz I really need to get me a pizza with some spicy pepperoni. Hot pepperoni. Very hot pepperoni! Right this minute!”

Click.

Dylan? Pizza? What the hell? It had sounded like him. But he would have called me on my cell. Right? Right. He was probably just horsing around. Flirting maybe? I had to grin at that. “I got it, Dylan. Hot and spicy. Cute.”

Okay, in retrospect, I probably should have given that call more thought. But as it was, I was little distracted by my find. I have to admit, I felt a little smug as I held the journal in my hand. The journal that Detective Dickhead had missed when he’d searched the room.

Okay, I felt a lot smug. He wasn’t as smart as me … er, I mean as smart as I. Right … I. (Yes, mentally, I corrected my grammar to prove the point.) And he wasn’t as motivated by any means. And mostly, he wasn’t a woman. He wouldn’t know what to look for. I most definitely would.

I glanced at my watch before I opened the journal. It was about a quarter to seven, I had some time yet. Still, I knew better than to dally.

As I flipped through the pages, a few things spilled out into my lap. There was a birthday card for Jennifer from an aunt in Toledo. Jennifer’s aunt had tucked a cheque for five dollars in it, which struck me as both a little sweet and a little sad. There was a receipt for two very expensive men’s watches from Hardy Jewelers on Main Street. For Billy Star? For her husband Ned? Next was a flyer from Pastor Ravenspire’s church, clearly promoting the pastor himself more than anything else. Someone — presumably Jennifer — had drawn a circle around the pastor’s head, and drew a small line and a large question mark out from this.

But what caught my attention under these odds and ends and bits of life was what Jennifer Weatherby had written in the pages of her journal. And how she’d written it.

Every entry was written in peacock blue in flowing, feminine script. Jennifer had her codes — her shorthand — but after glancing at a few pages, I could easily figure these out. She put J when she was writing a note to herself. (J — return dress to Ryder’s. J — watch should be ready at Jewelers) Anything pertaining to Ned was prefaced with an N. N — evening meeting with Pastor Ravenspire. Again. The ‘again’ was underlined twice. Underlined so hard the pen had torn the page. Clearly, Jennifer wasn’t very happy with Ned’s newfound faith. I pondered over other shorthand notations.

BS? I thought on that one for a moment. Billy Star? Bull shit? But I realized it was referring to the Bombay Spa when I read the next line. A note to Jennifer herself.

J: be sure to tip EB well at the BS. Mother in Ohio still sick.

Wait a minute? Ohio? Elizabeth had told me she was from Maine. And that her mother had passed on when she was just a girl. Obviously this one was working for tips. Stretching the truth somewhat. Padding the story. I had to smile. Good little liar, that one.

Remembering the dates Mrs. Presley had given me that Billy Star had rented out a room at the Underhill, I scanned those dates in Jennifer’s journal. They matched, of course, without exception. The dates Billy had booked a room at the Underhill were days that Jennifer had written in her journal BS: call, confirm EVERYTHING. Emphasis on “Everything”. Which told me two things. One, that Jennifer’d called the spa to cover her ass. Annnnnnd, because she wrote it in such a manner, she was concerned that Dear Old Ned would be peeking at her journal should he ever find it.

I turned to the last few pages before the day Jennifer was killed. No, I didn’t expect to see my name there. No appointment with DD was entered on her to-do list. Nothing close to Frame private detective for murder. But something else leapt out at me, something that sent a chill along my spine. J — called Kenny Kent to cancel caterer for weekend. That was the last entry — the last in Jennifer’s writing, that is.

But there was more. One final note beneath Jennifer’s dainty peacock blue notation about canceling the caterer. A bold, slashing, all caps message in dark black that clearly wasn’t Jennifer’s doing: NO WAY IN HELL.

I could feel the cold along my spine.

While all of Jennifer’s entries had consistently been written in a dainty peacock blue, this one was written in dark black. Bold. Commanding. Right under the ‘called to cancel caterer’ … NO WAY IN HELL.

Someone had found Jennifer’s journal before I had. My eyes moved slowly up to the date on the page. It was May 30. Exactly six days before Jennifer had been murdered. And exactly one day before the Flashing Fashion Queen had made her way into my office.

The phone rang, but it didn’t startle me so much this time. I didn’t snap at it to ‘shut up’. Which was a good thing, because just then from the hallway beyond the office, beyond the locked doors that were just now being rattled by the sound of a key in the lock, someone else did hiss, “Shut up!”

Oh, shit.

Third ring, answering machine, Jennifer’s ghostly voice, then Dylan’s panicked one.

“Okay, I NEED a freakin’ pizza. Yes, pepperoni. Yes, smokin’ freakin’ hot pepperoni. I need it with the works. But I need it now. Do you understand. NOW!”

Click.

I clutched the journal to my chest. Why the hell hadn’t Dylan called me on my cell? Why hadn’t he…. Oh shit! Just as I dove under the desk, I realized my cell was in my red ‘realtor’ jacket. The very same red jacket that was draped over the chair on the other side of the room when I had entered. Shit. There’d be at least a dozen calls on that cell from a freaking-out Dylan warning me I was no longer alone in the house.

I slid myself under the desk — thank God for the desk’s modesty panel that went practically to the floor — and pushed myself up against it, both surprised and grateful that leather slides well on carpet. My heart beat so loudly I was sure whoever was on the other side of that door could here it. Certainly would hear it as they approached. I thought again of my red jacket? No way in hell did I dare crawl back out to make a mad dash to retrieve it. Geez, Dix, why didn’t you just leave a damned banner? Maybe hire a marching band to announce your presence. Hire a sky writer. Hire a bus with a bullhorn. I pulled my knees up close to my chin, scrunching myself up tightly as the rattling of key in lock stopped, and someone entered the room.

Silence. But not the comforting silence of being alone. This was the silence of someone crossing the room on very expensive, cushy carpet. I watched the chair glide out from the desk on noiseless casters, and the intruder — no, wait I was the intruder … make that Intruder Number Two — sat down. Sneakered feet inched toward me, coming within a gnat’s hair of brushing against me. I tried to shrink smaller, feeling the bite of the journal’s edges clutched so tight to my chest as I did. Were they looking for this? What would happen when they didn’t find it? Crap! Worse, what would happen if they found it attached to me?

I waited (okay, there wasn’t much else I could do, was there?) as this second intruder rattled keys, opened drawers, and rummaged through the desk. I heard the distinctive thump of papers being plopped on top of the desk. Were they cleaning Jennifer’s desk out? Oh my word, I’d be here all day!

Or maybe I wouldn’t. Because I realized whoever it was above me, was moving things around at one hell of a fast pace. Not a tidy/organized pack things up pace. But a my-life-depends-upon-it pace.

Drawers began opening with a sharp yank and closing with a loud bang. Papers were shuffled through frantically. A few fell on the floor and were left there at the intruder’s feet/my knees. I heard an audible gasp above me and a few panicked words. “Where the hell is it! Jesus Christ, I’ve got to find that damn journal.”

A chill needled along my back, down my arms that cradled the journal. Holy shit! My grip on the book tightened, and I crunched back a little further. How the hell would I get out of here? How the hell would I—

The doorbell rang.

Thank you, Dylan!

At least, I hoped it was Dylan. That would be all I needed to be caught in the middle of a meeting here or some damned thing. What if it was Bert Cartsell, real estate agent in the flesh who’d driven by and happened to notice he was selling a house he wasn’t selling? Maybe old Ned would have Jennifer’s wake here and the caterer’s were coming in? Caterers and mourners. In this very room. Hell, I could be stuck under this desk for days!

The doorbell rang a second time. Then a third and fourth time, frantically. The chair pushed back so hard it tipped over. Quickly the second intruder gathered the papers that had fallen onto the floor (and I pushed a few into the grasping fingers rather than have them venture further under the desk toward me), before running the hell out of there. Not via the front doors, but by the way I entered, through the sliding glass doors, and past the red jacket without so much as a glance.

I let out a breath and knew I had to get the hell out of the Weatherby home myself. Fast. But I was good with that as I clutched the journal tighter.

I slid out from under the desk and raced — or as close to racing as one can manage in a too-small leather skirt — for the door, grabbing my jacket on the way out. I could feel the vibration of the cell phone in the jacket pocket like a recrimination as I did.

Yes, it had been a close shave, thanks to my brain cramp in separating myself from my phone, but I’d escaped detection. I had Jennifer’s journal clutched tightly in my arms. And bonus upon bonus: I knew the identity of the second intruder, one who apparently had a heck of a lot to lose.

Chapter 17

Dix is my nickname, of course. Short for … well, short because my mother is weird. When she named me, she did so … um, originally. I swear my late father must have been having a Frank Zappa flashback when he went along with her on that one. She actually told me once that she’d scoured every baby name book, every telephone book, every birth announcement in every newspaper she could get her hands on — all to make sure that my name was ‘one of a kind’. And it is.

Thanks, Mom.

At the age of five, I’d sworn her to secrecy on that name. I wanted to pinkie swear (it seemed appropriate), but she said a pinkie swear wasn’t real unless we did it over chocolate-frosted cupcakes and Mountain Dew. Then we had a burping contest. She won.

Yes, my mother is weird.

But to get to the point of this preamble, I’ve been called a lot of things besides Dix over the years. Dickhead had his favorites, Dixieshit of course being a most recent addition to the ever-growing list. My first boyfriend used to call me DixieDoo. I know — gag. But I was thirteen and in love. In my defense, I called him Pookieboo, which made the love poems easier to write. But even back then when I dubbed him Pookieboo, it was largely in case I needed to blackmail him at some future point to keep him quiet about DixieDoo. (Hey, I might have been young and in love, but I was always a realist.) And then there was “the girl”. That’s what the guys at the old detective agency used to call me. And let’s not forget the men I’ve busted the last six months of business. Oh, you’d better believe they all had colorful names for me.

Yet, what Ned Weatherby called me when he came home to find me scooting around from the back of his house, hell-bent on grabbing the real estate sign and getting my butt out of there, I’d never heard before. And sincerely hoped to never hear again.

+++

“Oh, go ahead, Dylan. Just do what you’ve got to do. Just get it over with.”

“No, I’m fine. Really.” He nodded firmly, resolutely, but I could see the strain on his face.

“Dylan, you’re about to explode. So just go ahead and—”

He didn’t need anymore coaxing.

He exploded, all right — with laughter.

And not with a manly ha ha chuckle or even a curled-lip snort. He collapsed on the motel-room bed with peels of helpless mirth. Tears streamed from the corners of his eyes. He held onto his sides.

Did I mention he was rolling on the bed?

He’d seen the whole lovely scene unfold outside the Weatherby house as I’d made my hasty, and not so graceful exit.

“Oh, you vulture!”

That was the name that greeted me when I came barreling around to the front of the house. I stopped — or rather, skidded to a stop — in my high-heeled tracks.

Shit, shit, shit!

Ned was back. Back with grieving parents in tow. Right freaking in front of me! With mouth gaping open, he kept looking, first to me, then to the real estate agency sign I’d propped against the house. His parents had to have grabbed an earlier flight, one that hadn’t been available when Dylan had checked for me. Or maybe Ned had chartered a private plane.

His shocked parents gave me — that is to say, the dark haired, pink-sunglasses-wearing, tight-skirted real estate agent me — a look of utter disdain. Cockroach-on-the-dinner-plate revulsion.

“Who are you?” Ned demanded.

Wordlessly, I held the real estate sign up in front of me. Partly as a shield, and partly to hide Jennifer’s journal, which I’d tucked into the (ever more tight now — circulation slowly becoming non-existent) waistband of my skirt.

“Oh, you work for that Cartsell fellow, do you?”

“Yes.” After my initial squeak of an answer, I lowered my voice to what I liked to think of as my slow, breathy, lets-have-phone-sex voice. Not because I was feeling particularly sexy. But because, apparently, Ned hadn’t yet made me. True, the night we’d met, the night he’d found Jennifer dead, he’d been somewhat distracted. But even so very cleverly disguised as I was (God, I hoped I was cleverly disguised!), I wasn’t taking any chances. “Yes, that’s right, Mr. Weatherby.” I could literally feel the words purring in the back of my throat as I spoke. “I work for Mr. Bert Cartsell. And he—”

“Well, doesn’t that beat all! That son of a bitch just doesn’t give up, does he!” Ned’s face turned so red, it looked as if his head might explode. “That no-good, rotten, money-grubbing bastard!”

‘Breathe, breathe’ I silently coached. To both of us.

“Mr. Weatherby.” I took my phone-sex voice a notch lower, added a deep-south accent. “I assure you that Mr. Cartsell—”

“I told him to stay the hell away!”

Oh shit! Of all the real estate agents in Marport City, this was the one from whom Craig had to steal the sign!

Ned continued to rant, “I’ve no intention of selling this house. Not now, not ever, and not for any amount of money. The first day Jennifer’s obituary was in the paper, you goddamned people start nosing around, trying to make a buck off my wife’s murder. Well let me tell you, missy, I’ve had enough.” Ned opened his jacket. For the briefest of moments, I thought he was going to haul out a gun. Worse luck. He hauled out his cell phone. “I’m calling that Cartsell son of a bitch! No, wait, I’ll call Luanne! She’ll get his boss on the phone. She won’t let him get away with this. She’ll—”

“M-Mr. Weatherby,” I stammered. “I really don’t think—”

I could tell by the flick of his thumb, he’d pushed number one on the speed dial. And as he waited, and waited, he pointed a demanding finger at me. “And you stand right here.”

Not in this lifetime.

There was no way in hell I was going to maneuver down the walkway, past Ned and his parents (his mother’s walker looked dangerous, like a weapon now, in her grip), so I veered off across the rain-soaked lawn, making a mad dash for the street.

Bad idea.

My spiked heels sank to the hilt in the soggy lawn, causing my hips to move in ways hips weren’t meant to. After a few more heel-sinking, Frankenstein lurches, I stepped right out of them (my shoes not my hips). Barefoot now, I pulled Jennifer’s journal from the waistband of the skirt, clutched it to me with one hand, hiked the skirt up to my ass with the other hand, and with the red blazer fanning out behind me, I ran like hell to Mrs. Presley’s Hyundai. I peeled out of there so quickly you’d think I was trying to qualify for the Indie 500.

Well, at least Dylan was getting a good laugh out of it now.

“Asshat,” I mumbled, loud enough for him to hear me. I faked annoyance even as I bit down on my own grin.

“Sorry,” he said, wiping at his eyes. “But all I can see is you trying to run across that lawn in that skin-tight skirt and those high heels. The look on your face when the shoes stuck in the lawn! Omigod, it was priceless. And when you hiked up your skirt and really ran….” He started laughing again, so hard the bed shook.

“Look who’s talking.” I sat on the red sheets beside him, giving him a poke (okay, a damn good knuckle jab) in the ribs. “You were a sight yourself, Boy Wonder. Creeping along on your hands and knees, peeking through the neighbors’ bushes.”

The laughter subsided, but the smile remained. “Oh, you caught that, did you?”

“Ha!” My turn to tease. “How could I not catch that! All six foot four of you, crawling along the length of the hedge like some kind of long-legged, studly bug or something.”

As soon as the words passed my lips — the very freakin’ millisecond — I realized what I’d said. Studly. Should I try a quick recover and say ‘ugly bug’? Like, five times really fast. That would sound intelligent!

Dylan said nothing. Didn’t so much as falter in his grin, or blink. But I could tell by the glint in his eyes that he’d caught my slip of the tongue.

And I wanted to slip my tongue….

Whoa, Dix.

I busied myself re-belting the old brown housecoat Mrs. Presley had provided, cinching it even tighter, telling myself I needed the extra bit of warmth after the long, increasingly cool shower. It had taken so many shampoos to get the temporary dye out of my hair that I’d used up all Mrs. P’s hot water. But at last, I was blond again. And though I was fully clad in underwear (no, not the be-tasseled stuff that Dylan had brought over), jeans and t-shirt, the housecoat felt good around my shoulders. Protective. Defensive.

Butt-ugly.

“Had to make sure you got safely out of there, Dix.” His voice dropped a notch. Though his eyes still showed a bit of teasing, he’d stopped laughing altogether. “I’d crawl through worse than a few bushes to do that.”

“Well, thanks. If you hadn’t been watching my ass—” Oh, just shut up, Dix! “—I’d still be stuck under that desk.”

“Yeah, well.” He cleared his throat, then said, “If you need a hand checking up on the man, I’m the one to call.”

“Let me guess — another business card?”

He pulled himself up on the bed so both of us were leaning against the headboard. “It’s a good one, don’t you think? Straight-shooting from the hip. Gets right to the point. Clever and witty.”

“Ummm, that would be a no.”

“Geez, you’re hard to please, woman. We gotta come up with something.”

“I know, I know. But it has to be the right thing. The exact thing.”

And it felt kind of good just then, when I realized what I’d said. Dylan felt it too, I could tell by the impish grin on his face. We were talking positively about the business cards again. Talking about the future. Hope.

Things were beginning to look up. Jennifer’s journal had been an amazing find. And though I was far from out of the fire, I had maybe moved a little to the periphery of it. Maybe.

I heard a siren in the distance growing closer. Dylan’s eyes widened along with mine. Only when the siren sound began to fade again did I realize I’d been holding my breath. I let it out again. Just a little reminder that I was far from burn-free yet. This was no time to get lazy. No time to let my guard down.

It was time to get to work.

I told Dylan about the second intruder to the Weatherby home — Luanne Laney. Turns out it wasn’t news, of course. He’d seen Ned’s psycho-secretary walk up to the front door and let herself into the Weatherby house with a key.

That was why he’d called frantically on Ned and Jennifer’s home phone line after I failed to answer my cell. He’d ID’d her from all the surveillance pictures I’d taken over the course of the week I’d trailed Ned, even though she’d drawn her hat down over her eyes and pulled her coat collar up around her ears.

“I’m telling you, she might have had a key, but she wasn’t supposed to be there,” Dylan said. “Even without the turned-up-collar routine, her posture would have said it all. Self-conscious and guilty.”

“Odd for a woman known to scare the bejeezus out of just about everyone who knew her.”

Luanne’s presence there put a new spin on things. Why had she been sneaking around? Why had she wanted Jennifer’s journal? And, perhaps most importantly, how the hell had she even known about it?

“Do you think it was Luanne who came to the office dressed as Jennifer that day?”

“No,” I answered, without having to put too much effort into the thought. “For one thing, even in heels Luanne isn’t tall enough. And yes, I realize the impostor was putting on a fake voice, but I think it was too throaty for Luanne Laney under the best of circumstances.”

“Luanne could have hired someone. There’s a very good chance that whoever killed Jennifer and set us up did just that — hired an actress for that stint. And I’m betting that if that’s the case, that’s one scared actress right about now.”

I nodded in agreement. “Scared and close-mouthed, no doubt.”

Dylan scratched a hand along his unshaven jaw as he thought. “You said Jennifer hid the journal somewhere other than in the desk?”

“Right, the bookshelf.”

“So who was she hiding it from? Ned or Luanne?”

“And what the hell is so very important in this journal that Luanne Laney would risk breaking in to retrieve it?”

Dylan and I barely breathed into the silence now, as I opened Jennifer’s journal. The bed dipped between us as we leaned in closer together to look through the pages. Dylan was seeing this for the first time, of course, and studying it with all the intensity that I’d come to admire about him. I was giving the journal a second but substantially more thorough look — a more purposeful one now that I had the time to do so, and now that I’d had the chance to think things over.

I looked at the time correlation of the journal entries again:

J - return six dresses to Ryder’s.

N - meeting with PR.

J - buy three watches, choose one (return others within the week)

N - church meeting after supper

J - cancel first-class tickets to New York.

“She didn’t go to New York?” Dylan asked.

“She did.” I flipped forward a few pages, and pointed to an entry.

J - see Mrs. E at Tiffany’s on Fifth re: refund policy

“That’s Tiffany’s in New York,” I pointed out helpfully. “She went. She just didn’t go first class.”

Dylan huffed a laugh. “So she downgraded her ticket, and flew economy to New York? Why?”

I smiled. “Think about it. What’s the only logical reason someone would chose economy.”

Dylan was still for a moment, then nodded slowly. “Money. Jennifer downgraded the ticket and pocketed the difference.”

“That’s my guess.” I leaned closer to Dylan and started flipping through the pages — back and forth as I compared. “And look at the way purchases and refunds are aligned here. Every time Jennifer contemplates she should ‘return’ something, it corresponds with the times her husband is in church, at first.”

“Feeling guilty for excesses?”

“Orrrrrr,” I said. “Every time he goes to church, she got concerned. So she’d write a note to return a costly item. That’s the way Jennifer kept her entries — always what she ‘planned to do’. This wasn’t so much of a diary as an events calendar. And the more her husband went to church, the more Jennifer bought and returned.”

“I don’t know….”

“Think about it, Dylan. She puts items on her virtually limitless credit card. Returns them for cash. Husband, pays the credit card bills every month and is none the wiser as Jennifer tucks the money away. What would an outfit from Ryder’s run? At least fifteen hundred or two thousand, I’m thinking. That would certainly add up after awhile — build a little nest egg. Little backup cash just in case.”

Just in case of what? That was the question pounding through my mind.

“Nice theory,” Dylan offered. “Except stores would simply credit the amount of the refund back to the credit card, wouldn’t they? I’ve never known a retailer to do otherwise. I don’t think they can do anything else.”

“Sure, to you and me and the rest of us plebs. But this is Jennifer Weatherby we’re talking about here. You gotta figure the proprietors of those shops would bend over backwards to keep her business, especially in this fairly small backwater. Hell, they’d probably turn a blind eye while she stole the stuff, then send the bill to Ned.”

Dylan grunted agreement.

“I’ve got it!” I said, my eyes widening. “I betcha my best RF tracker that Ned Weatherby’s arrangement with Ryder’s doesn’t involve credit cards at all. I’m betting he has a free standing line of credit. You know, rack up the purchases, settle up once a month.”

“Oh, hell, yeah. That’s gotta be it. They could give her a cash refund, no problem, because they’d still get paid by Ned.”

“Oh, and hey, maybe they even levied a little surcharge,” I suggested. “Say five or ten percent, to make it worth their while. Then everybody’s happy.”

“Okay, that works for the local dress shops,” Dylan said, “but what about the airlines?”

I shrugged. “Maybe not the airlines, but certainly any travel agent that was interested in keeping the substantial Weatherby account could figure out a way to accommodate.”

He looked further through the journal. “But the consistent correlation of notes to self and Ned’s church times ends. And in the last few weeks, Jennifer was buying and returning up a storm whether she writes of Ned going to church or not. In fact….” He jumped up and rummaged through the pics on the bed. “In fact, the last time he went to church, when you snuck into choir practice, Jennifer didn’t even make an entry that day.”

And we both knew why.

“Church attendance was no longer noteworthy,” he said. “It was expected. Part of Ned’s everyday life now. She might as well have written in he brushed his teeth and wore a tie. Going to church was that common.”

“Right,” I said. “But Jennifer wasn’t a big Ravenspire fan.” I flipped around the pages. “Other than the first two Sundays Ned attended, Jennifer never returned to Ravenspire’s church.”

“We need to look into this guy some more,” he said.

“Oh yeah. Do we ever.”

Proud as oh-so-smart peacocks, we sat grinning at each other. This felt good. This felt like good old-fashioned private detective work. This felt like a bit of control here.

As we’d poured over the journal, we’d drawn closer together on the bed. Getting more casual, getting more at ease as we sat there. Together. Almost touching. Dylan looked at me closely, his eyes soft but unreadable.

“We … we still don’t know who killed Jennifer Weatherby,” I said.

“But, we’re getting warmer, aren’t we, Dix?” His voice was slow and deep.

I nodded. “Damn right we’re getting warmer.”

I tossed the journal on the bed beside us, and it fell open. A chill raced up my spine as I glanced over and saw where the book had opened, as if willed to this page by some other force. Some other spirit.

J cancelled caterer, in Jennifer’s handwriting.

And beneath it, contrasting sharply and angrily, the bold, black-inked NO WAY IN HELL.

Dylan and I both stared at it. And we both knew. The answer was here. Had to be here.

“Jennifer didn’t write that last part,” he said. “That’s not her blue; that’s not her hand writing. Someone else could just as easily have found out what she was up to.”

“Someone else did.”

“But who?”

“We’ll figure it out.”

Dylan nodded. He reached out and touched my hand. And I didn’t pull away.

Yep. Damn right we were getting warmer.

Chapter 18

Luanne was nothing if not ultra-efficient.

But was she an ultra-efficient murderer?

Dylan and I were motel-bound for the rest of that rainy afternoon. When Mrs. Presley saw us coming in, she said she’d fix up some sandwiches for our supper.

“Or should I fix up some oysters on the half shell?” she asked. “Strawberries dipped in chocolate? Want me to send down a bottle of wine for you two? Candles? I got some old 45s out back. What if I hook up a record player so you two can have some music to dine by. Love me Tender kind of stuff. You like love songs, Dix?”

Subtle, Mrs. Presley. Real subtle.

I told her — emphatically — that sandwiches would be fine, and that I’d be back in a little while to pick it up. But truly, food was the farthest thing from my mind right then, as Dylan and I headed down the hidden hallway to Room 111. We had work to do.

We got down to business immediately, pouring again and again over Jennifer’s journal. That was strange in itself, looking so intimately at the life of this poor dead woman. She’d clearly been taken by the attention of Billy Star. And again, that made me cringe as I reflected on Billy’s initial motivation for wooing Jennifer, i.e., to revenge himself on Ned. And, oh, how she’d soaked up that attention! At least at first. But, if I was reading the cues correctly — and I’m a woman so, hell, of course I was — love was waning as of late.

May 12

J - return (mail) necklace to BS

LL - needs to confirm things for reception — call the bitch and make sure she does.

May 16

J - call EB at spa, re-confirm all my Monday’s

May 20

J - must find that lost BS letter!

May 22

J - tell BS to go FCK himself once and for all!

Now, that last one was a shorthand code you didn’t have to be a detective to decipher. And I doubted very much if the BS here was the Bombay Spa. No, Jennifer was done with Billy Star. There were a couple more references to Luanne (LL), snarkily written. Complete with little frowning faces all over the page — and a fair number of devil’s pitchforks. The (PR) Pastor Ravenspire mentions were equally negative, but the accompanying graphics were a little more intense. And there were many N (for Ned) entries, of course. EB — Elizabeth Bee popped up every so often, always with a note to be sure to tip her for one thing or another. For one who apparently had been saving her money, Jennifer had no qualms about tipping Elizabeth very well. Genuine generosity? Buying her silence? There were a few references to neighbors, appointments to be kept, but nothing out of the ordinary.

And it wasn’t just the re-reading of the journal that kept us occupied that rainy day and evening. Dylan and I also listened to every taped conversation, again and again. We looked over every photo. We went over every note, the crumpled restraining order, every receipt. I swear, Dylan and I could have recited verbatim the contents of any of those documents or recordings.

+++

It was about 6 p.m. when, with a mutual huff, we set the pages down. The whiteboard Dylan had brought along had been written upon and erased time and time again until it was more gray than white.

“I’m missing something, Dylan. Any one of these folks,” I waved a hand over the pictures and pages before us on the bed, “could have killed Jennifer. Could have hired someone to come into the offices to pose as her and set me up. Could have written that NO WAY IN HELL in her journal.”

I groaned in frustration, then yawned on the next indrawn breath. I glanced at my watch. Holy crap, I was tired. And getting a little hungry.

I’d long abandoned the comfy brown housecoat. In fact, the room was warm enough that I’d shucked my socks hours ago. Now, weary and tired, I linked my fingers together and curled my back as I stretched out my arms. My neck was sore from the strain of hunching so long over papers. I rolled my head gingerly, then put a hand to the tight muscles on right side of my neck. Ouch.

“Let me, Dix.”

And before I could utter a word in protest (funny, I’m not usually such a slow talker), Dylan had his hands on my neck. “Whoa!” he said. “You’re tense.”

Well, duh. “Just … long, hard day, Dylan.”

He grinned. “Lucky for you, a master masseuse from the Bombay Spa is here.”

I arched an eyebrow. The mental picture of me beneath the white sheet, naked on the massage table flashed through my mind. I felt the heat rising in my cheeks, and lowering in other places. “And here I thought that diploma from the Cordick School was a fake.”

“It’s Cornick School. Not dick.”

“Of course.”

“And yeah, it’s a fake, but I’m damn good with my hands anyway. So let me get that tension out.”

“Oh well, no need. I’m just—”

He cocked his head. “Do I make you nervous, Dix?”

I snorted. “Of course not.”

Technically it wasn’t a lie. He didn’t make me axe-murderer nervous.

“Then just let me help you here.”

Why not? Dylan had made it clear the other night when he’d jumped out of my bed that he wasn’t interested in me that way, hadn’t he? And surely, I didn’t have feelings here myself that I couldn’t handle. No way. Not hard-assed Dix Dodd.

I lay down on the bed, fully clothed. He turned down the light. And I felt the anticipation rise unchecked within me as the mattress depressed, then I felt his hands on my back once again. But this time, it was even more intimate. This time there was no pretense, no Elizabeth Bee in the corner. This time there was nothing to stop us. Except ourselves.

Careful, Dix. Remember the trouble last time you let yourself feel.

But even as I reproached myself, I knew … I could be here. I could drift into this feeling. Give into this feeling. If only—

Though his voice was low, I startled when Dylan spoke into the quiet, darkened room. “You know Dix, sometimes when you’re so busy looking for the bad guys all the time, you miss the good guys. You don’t always have to be on the defensive. You might be missing something pretty good here.”

Maybe it was his voice. Maybe it was his hands. But, holy hell, whatever it was it was working. I was melting under the touch of this man. And that did make me nervous, paling in comparison to any axe-murderer at the door.

“Dylan, I—”

“Just hear me out, Dix. The other night when I held you was…. I felt something and you felt it too. I know you did.”

He waited, and though I was sorely tempted to, I didn’t jump into that pause. I could feel his warmth — all of his warmth as he touched me gently. I could hear his breathing. Goddamn it, I wanted to be this close to this man. We were alone in the world just then — in the quiet of our room.

“Dix,” he continued, his voice deep and soft as it curled along my spine. He was leaning down toward me. Leaning in to kiss me, I knew. “I was worried about you today. More than I knew I could be. And I knew—”

We both swore when the phone rang into the room.

Me, because that loud, shrill ring startled me. Dylan because when I startled, I jumped and smacked him in the face with the back of my head.

Oh shit!

Even as I picked up the receiver I could see his bottom lip swelling up. I cringed and mouthed a ‘sorry’, but what exactly was I sorry for? Certainly for the growing boo-boo on his handsome face. But was I sorry the mood had been broken? Again? That the kiss had been, shot (or rather smacked) out of existence?

“Dix, Dix you there?”

“Oh … oh, sorry Mrs. P. You just caught me … caught me mid thought.”

I gave Dylan the ‘okay’ sign and he headed to the bathroom. I heard the water running and a sucked in ‘Ow!’ as he put a cloth to his lip.

“Well,” Mrs. P said. “I’ve got your supper ready. And Cal and Craig and I are just settling in for TV bingo. So if you want it hot and you want it before bingo rather than after — jackpot’s twelve hundred — you better come and get it now.”

“Will do Mrs. P.”

“Supper?” Dylan asked coming out of the bathroom. His lip wasn’t bleeding — anymore. But the little smooth bulge on the bottom of it would be there for a day or two. And as my eyes looked southward, that was the only thing bulging on Dylan Foreman now.

Way to break a mood, Dix. That’s me, Dix Dodd, ball buster, lip buster extraordinaire.

“Yep. Supper’s ready. I’ll just go down and get—”

“Let me, Dix.” His grin was self-mocking. “I could use a bit of a walk.”

He hipchecked open the door and backed/dipped his way out. That hidden door was a wonderful idea, but certainly not made with six foot four Dylan Foreman in mind.

I lay back on the bed when the door closed behind Dylan. The lights were still low but I threw one arm over my eyes anyway. I drew the other hand across the slightly rumpled sheets. What had just happened here? More importantly, what had almost just happened here? Saved by the bell?

Damn bell.

“Can you get the door, Dix?”

I jumped up when Dylan called and scooted across the room. He backed up when I shoved the door open. I stood in the dark hallway as with tray in hand Dylan moved around me.

“Leave it to Mrs. P.” He gazed appreciatively down at the tray as he walked forward. “Shaved roast on whole wheat. Grapes. Three different kinds of cheese. And for dessert, cookies. Looks like chocolate chip oatmeal. And they’re still warm.”

I was watching Dylan’s backside and Dylan apparently wasn’t watching at all, because as he tried to step through the door, he cracked his forehead on the top of the frame.

With a loud crash, he and the tray hit the floor.

“Holy shit!” I leaned down over him. “Dylan, are you all right? Are you … quick,” I said, remembering my first aid training from Girl Guides. “How many fingers am I holding up?” I held up a couple. He raised his head a little and squinted his eyes toward them.

“Dylan? Say something!”

He grinned, and put a hand to his forehead.

“Honey, I forgot to duck.”

He was fine. Well not fine-fine (there was a fair sized lump popping up dead-center on his forehead), but he wasn’t seriously injured if he was cracking jokes, calling me honey quoting Reagan. I helped him to the bed.

“You sure you’re all right?” I asked, picking up the wonderful supper Mrs. P had made us. The sandwiches were a lost cause, but the main part — the cookies — were still good. “I can get Mrs. P to—”

“I’m fine, Dix.”

The poor guy looked like he’d done battle with, well, me. Between the busted lip and the lump on his head, he was one sorry looking man.

Actually, we both were pretty sorry looking. Dylan with the lump on his head, me with … well, me with the murder wrap hanging over my head.

I thought we’d hit pay dirt when I’d found Jennifer’s journal. Clues had lain in there certainly, but answers? The answer?

I was missing something. It was niggling at me. Nagging. And it was right there — hanging just out of my reach. What was it? What was I missing here? I stood there with these thoughts twisting in my brain, staring unseeingly at Dylan.

“Is it bad, Dix?” He’d been studying my expression. And now raised a worried hand, and a careful one, to his forehead.

“Oh, sorry. I … I was thinking about the case.” Yes, I felt incredibly sheepish admitting that.”

“But how bad’s the lump on my head?” He patted some hair down over it, and in all seriousness asked. “Can you notice it?”

“Can I notice it? Dylan, it’s a doozie.” I laughed out loud.

“Geez, Dix, you’re all sympathy!”

“Sorry. Sorry. It’s ‘oozie’ words. They get me every time. Always conjures up these weird mental pictures.” And combine that with the lack of sleep and tension that needed breaking … it’s a wonder I wasn’t rolling on the floor. “You know doozie … oozie.” I cracked up all over again.

He grinned. Okay, so he was lacking sleep and under tension himself. “Sounds like quite the affliction. For a moment there, I thought you’d been drinking. Thought you’d gotten all boozie.”

Wow, that was bad. But yes, it sent thoughts of flying pink pigs crashing into skyscrapers in my head, and it sent another snort of laugher into the room.

“What? No comeback?”

Oh, so this was the challenge was it — oozie word sentences that made sense? We’d played dumber games.

“Not enough for you to get beaten at online Jeopardy, Mr. Foreman?” I asked. “Haven’t had your ass handed to you often enough at trivia? Now I have to kick your butt at this, too.”

Okay, I didn’t always kick his butt at trivia. We were about 50/50 on that score. I suck at twenty questions (though I’d never admit to under threat of torture!) And on the slow times when we did play online games, his little blue-shirted avatar was a wee bit more skilled than my pink-shirted avatar. But for the purposes of this current mindless competition, the trash talk was called for. Necessary, even.

He shrugged. “If you’re not up for the challenge, you don’t have to play. I mean, if you so choose-ie.”

I snorted. “Just be prepared Dylan. You’re about to lose-ie.”

He rolled his eyes (a little heavy toward the top I noticed, no doubt trying to see if he could actually see the bump.) “Lose-ie isn’t a word, Dix.”

“It is now,” I said. “And you should talk. Choose-ie?”

He said, “I think this case is getting to you. We need to find some clues-ies.” For dramatic emphasis, Dylan picked up Jennifer’s journal from the bed bedside him.

Not to be outdone, I grabbed the newspaper Mrs. P had delivered with breakfast. “Maybe I should look in here. You know, check out the news-ie.”

Okay, I could see him mentally reaching on that one. He was desperately trying to think of something. Was I actually going to win this one? Was I—

“Why don’t you read it to me?” He pointed to his forehead. “That smack on the head has left me kind of woozy.”

I shook my head, and gently touched the goose egg growing on his forehead. “Dylan, you’re more than a flirt. You’re an out and out floo….

A chill went along my spine and I held deathly still as it did. The feeling niggled itself up my shoulders. Nagged it’s way up my neck. Every fiber in me knew there was something here. Knew I’d hit upon something. My mind reached for it. My intuition grabbed for it. Goddamned well caught it!

“SON OF A BITCH!”

“Er, that doesn’t rhyme with oozie, Dix.”

“Oh my God!” I shrieked (and I’m not one to shriek). But I had it! I freakin’ well had it! I jumped away from Dylan, bounded off the bed and cranked up the light Dylan had earlier dimmed.

“Jesus, Dix!” With both hands now, he felt along his forehead. “How bad is it?” He ran to the bathroom to check himself out in the mirror.

I raced around the room looking for my cell phone, finally having to call it from the motel phone in order to find it (I’d left it in the red blazer which I’d folded on the dresser — that blazer was just bad luck!). I grabbed my cell and raced back, already dialing as I jumped and landed cross-legged on the bed.

“It doesn’t look that bad, does it?” Dylan came out of the bathroom still rubbing his forehead. “Like, you don’t think it’s permanent?”

“It’s fine. Get your phone, Dylan. We’ve got some calls to make.”

He blinked. “To whom?”

I nodded to the pictures strewn all over the bed. “The whole lot of them.”

Genuinely perplexed now, Dylan shook his head. “What am I supposed to say?”

Before I could respond, the party I’d called answered the phone. I held a finger up to Dylan, signaling him to wait. I could tell his frustration was growing, but with any luck….

“Hey, Dickhead,” I said into the phone. “Where the hell have you been?”

He said something about the nude limbo videos Dylan had packed for him. Something colorful. (I took it he wasn’t impressed.) Then he went into detail about how he personally was going to see to it that my ugly butt was in jail for—

I cut him off mid-rant. “Meet me at the Weatherby house tomorrow morning at 8 a.m. sharp. Don’t be late.”

“What the hell are you talking about, Dixieass?” he snarled. “You finally coming to your senses, gonna turn yourself in?”

I laughed. “Hell, no I’m not going to turn myself in. I’m going to do your job for you. Because I know who killed Jennifer Weatherby.”

I hung up before he could scream at me anymore. And before he could trace the call.

Dylan stood dead still. He stared at me wide-eyed. “You know who killed Jennifer Weatherby? And who framed you?”

I nodded. I stood. I jumped on the bed. And jumped and jumped!

“I know, Dylan. Finally, it’s all come together. There’s only one person who could have killed Jennifer Weatherby.”

I stopped jumping and filled Dylan in on what I knew.

As soon as he’d heard me out, Dylan picked up his own phone and started dialing. Both of us now were calling in the players. Calling them to the Weatherby house for 8 a.m. tomorrow morning. And each and every one of them would show up. They had a reason to. We gave it to them: “Come to the Weatherby mansion at eight in the morning, because we know who killed Jennifer. And we know how you’re involved.”

An hour later, calls made, Dylan left. We both aimed to get some sleep before we executed our plan. Excited, of course. Happy. But … there was something else there. He kissed me on the cheek as he left the motel room. Shoved his hands in his pocket, and hipchecked the hidden door to exit the room via Mrs. Presley’s secret entrance. This time, he remembered to duck.

I remade the bed my jumping had messed, stripped down and crawled between the sheets.

And of course, I dreamed of her — my Flashing Fashion Queen.

Still she tried to elude me. Still she was out of my grasp. Ah, but I didn’t reach.

With her fancy, flouncy twists and turns, she managed to prevent me from getting a clear view of her face. But I didn’t look so very hard this time.

Didn’t have to.

And still, the bitch taunted me. Or rather, tried to.

“You’re not going to do this successfully, Dix. You’re going to fail. You’ll never catch me. I’m just too smart for you. Haven’t you learned that yet?”

And I chuckled as the Flashing Fashion Queen bounced away. “We’ll see, Blondie,” I called. “We’ll see.”

I slept wonderfully. Hands linked behind my head, I slept on my back, no doubt snoring like a sailor lulled by the waves of the ocean. And when I awoke well rested and ready a few short hours later, there was barely a wrinkle in the sheets.

Yep, it had been a perfect snoozie.

Chapter 19

Mmmmmmmmmm … homemade breakfast. Mrs. Presley had made enough for two lumberjacks, which pleased Dylan to no end when he arrived. By the look of him, he’d not slept as well as I had, but I had no doubt he’d be ready, willing and able to handle what the day had in store for us. The swelling on the lip had gone down quite a bit. But the bump on his head had turned a lovely purple color.

“Geez, Dix,” Mrs. P had offered upon seeing the worse-for-wear Dylan Foreman. “How wild did you two get in here? Playing cops and robbers? Or was it good cop, kinky cop? I bet I can guess which one you were, Dix. The kinky one, right? Next time I’ll send down a set of fur-lined handcuffs.”

Dylan just about choked on his toast.

I just about spewed my coffee.

Per usual, there was a single red rose on the breakfast tray. That and a pile of scrambled eggs, perfectly cooked sausage, and toasted homemade bread. Jam and peanut butter served in one of those fancy little silver things. She even had a little dish of mints. There was coffee, of course, and fresh squeezed orange juice. And speaking of squeezed….

“I’ll be back in a jiffy,” Mrs. Presley had said, after the teasing was done and she’d watch Dylan and I both for a few minutes to make sure we were going to do justice to her breakfast. “Just gotta powder my nose, put on some lipstick, and then I’m ready.”

“Ready?” I asked.

“Ready,” she affirmed.

Dylan paused between forkfuls of egg. “You’re coming, Mrs. P?”

“Are you kidding? I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

My first impulse was to argue. For her sake, not mine. And in a weak effort, I did so. But Mrs. Presley wasn’t about to budge. So we compromised, and Mrs. Presley agreed to travel with Dylan instead of me. A little less damning for her to turn up with him. And, as she reminded me, Dylan was a damn sight better looking that I was — lumps and all.

“We’ll have to take my Harley, Mrs. P,” Dylan said, in his best apologetic voice.

“I’ll go get my helmet!” She clasped her hands together, beside herself with excitement. “And I’ll hold on tight.”

I bit down on the smile; I just bet she would.

One last time, I reminded Mrs. Presley that she had hidden a fugitive from the law. Though I had every confidence I was correct about who killed Jennifer, and who (grrrrrr) tried to frame me for it, there was no need for Mrs. P to expose herself as having harbored me. She just shrugged her shoulders. “By the end of the day, you’ll not be a fugitive from the law, Dix. You’ll be a hero.” She stood in that way — shoulders back, hands on hips, feet firmly planted on the floor — that told me there was no sense in arguing with the woman.

But I really didn’t want to.

I liked that she had faith in me. And for that alone, this petite little lady in her flowered shirt and granny glasses looked pretty much like a hero to me.

While Mrs. P went to make herself ready, Dylan and I ate the rest of our breakfast and planned. The players had all received a personal invitation, and I was sure each would be in attendance at the Weatherby mansion. (Of course, in Dickhead’s case, he’d bring half of Marport City’s police force along with him.) More specifically, I’d called the meeting for the very room where Jennifer had died — her study. And this time, I wouldn’t be hiding under the desk.

At least I hoped I wouldn’t be.

+++

“One call and I can have you arrested on the spot, Ms. Dodd. And if you try to run, I’ll make that call so fast you’ll think you’re running backwards.” Judge Stephanopoulos held up her cell phone for emphasis.

“I understand, Judge. And I wouldn’t dream of betraying your trust.”

She huffed. “If it wasn’t for Rochelle’s faith in you….”

I sent a quick ‘thank-you-I-owe-you-big-time’ look at my friend. Rochelle flashed back a ‘you-can-bet-I’ll-collect’ acknowledgment. And I bet that she would.

I didn’t like the formality with which Judge Stephanopoulos addressed me this morning. But I couldn’t blame her. Technically, she was helping someone wanted by the police. Technically, she could get in a bit of trouble here herself — the line she was walking was pretty thin. But, this was a woman made of some brass. And honor. She was also a woman who believed in justice, and I had a feeling she’d do whatever she could to see that it prevailed.

So when I had called Rochelle (to confirm some things I suspected and to ask for — okay, beg for — her help), she’d presented everything to Judge Stephanopoulos who, according to Rochelle, shook her head and reluctantly agreed to meet with me and hear me out. Under one condition — that after I’d had my say, I’d turn myself in whether my suspicions panned out or not. I had agreed. We met. She listened. And she — yesss! — agreed to help me.

We would go to the Weatherby home together, where I would turn myself over to the police. Judge Stephanopoulos was an officer of the court bringing in a fugitive. But she’d make sure I had a few minutes of say before Dickhead hauled me away. That’s all I asked for. Yet if my theory was correct and I could pull this off, there would be no need for Dickhead to arrest me once this meeting was over.

Now, as we sat in the Judge’s car, she glanced back at me again as she put her phone away. “All I can offer you is time and forum. But nothing beyond that.”

“Of course, Your Honor.”

We were simply driving around Marport City now as we waited for the meeting hour to approach. Having stopped at the local drive-through coffee shop, I was well and truly caffeined. Dylan had gone over to the Weatherby house earlier, with instructions to call me on my cell once everyone had arrived.

Even though the Judge’s windows were tinted and therefore I wasn’t likely to be spotted, it was strange being out and about the town as ‘me’. There were no disguises today. No hair dye, no tinted shades, no red blazer. Firstly, I didn’t want Ned Weatherby or his parents to recognize me from the real estate agent fiasco, but also because I was through with running from the Flashing Fashion Queen. Through with disguises on this one. Through with hiding because of her.

“You know, Dix,” Rochelle said, “Dylan Foreman could be in a bit of trouble here, too.” She was sitting in the front passenger seat while Judge Stephanopoulos drove. “If you don’t walk away from this scot free, Dylan doesn’t either.”

Judge Stephanopoulos nodded. “Rochelle’s right, Ms. Dodd. Detective Head could well arrest Mr. Foreman for aiding and abetting.”

I’d thought of that, of course.

I’d given Dylan the option of cutting and running from mi vida loca last night while he still could. As it stood, there was nothing that could concretely link him to me since I’d been on the lam. Sure, he’d helped me escape custody at the office, but that couldn’t be proven. And Dylan was too smart to admit to anything, or be intimated under police questioning. He’d get a genuine chuckle if they pulled the good-cop, bad-cop shit with him. But once he entered that Weatherby house to set this up with me … if my goose was cooked, his good-looking gander was hitting the BBQ too. I had made that perfectly clear to him.

Dylan hadn’t blinked. Had not hesitated. He hadn’t missed a heartbeat before he answered my offer with, “Forget it, Dix. We’re in this together.”

Those words echoed through my mind now, as we drove around Marport City.

Then my cell phone rang. Judge Stephanopoulos glanced at me via the rearview mirror. Rochelle turned once again in her seat to stare as I answered.

“We’re ready, Dix. Everyone’s here.”

“Thank you, Dylan.”

I snapped the phone shut. Drew a deep breath. “Judge Stephanopoulos, Rochelle, its show time.”

Judge Stephanopoulos nodded, then headed the car to Ashfield Drive. And though I knew what awaited me, she couldn’t drive fast enough for my liking. But once the house was in view, my gulp was audible.

“Well, isn’t that a proper welcoming committee,” Rochelle muttered.

I’d expected cops, but good Lord! The street in front of the Weatherby mansion looked like a river of red and blue bar lights. Shit, there were enough police cars to escort President Obama through Kandahar.

My thoughts flashed back to Dylan. I’d instructed him to call me only when everyone was convened. Detective Head, on the other hand, would have been dead set against allowing this gathering to happen. He’d have used every threat and intimidation tactic at his disposal, including this display of police might, to make Dylan cave on that point. But Dylan hadn’t blinked. Thank you, Dylan.

Everyone would be sitting in Jennifer’s study right now, nervously awaiting my arrival. And Judge Stephanopoulos was my ticket in there. I surely hoped.

I opened the door and climbed out of Judge Stephanopoulos’s car.

“Dix Dodd, you’re under arrest.”

Detective Dickhead’s gleeful words reached me at the same time as the reek of the stale cigarette smoke that clung to him.

“Back on the butts, Detective?”

“Yeah, and just see what it’s done for my mood,” he smiled. “Now, hands behind your back, Dodd.”

He was in a better mood, all right. Hell, he was almost dancing as he pushed me up against the car and nodded to one of the female officers present. The officer — Officer H. Lapp according to her badge — frisked me quickly, then put the handcuffs on me. This I’d expected, given my last encounter with Dickhead when I’d taken off on him, leaving Blow-Up Betty in my place. He would make damn sure it wouldn’t be happening again, and the female police officer was there to ensure that no pleas of feminine emergencies would throw things off.

But when Officer Lapp moved one hand to my head and another on the small of my back to prompt me into the police car, Judge Stephanopoulos, followed by Rochelle, stepped out from the Judge’s car.

“Unhand Ms. Dodd,” the judge said, quietly but with unmistakable authority.

The female officer glanced at Judge Stephanopoulos, then did a double take. “Oh, Your Honor.”

Judge Stephanopoulos had presided over a great many criminal trials in Marport City, and most cops had testified before her at one time or another. She had a reputation for being intelligent and fair, for running a tight and efficient courtroom, and for being someone you just did not want to piss off. Officer Lapp looked to Dickhead for instructions. Yet she relaxed her hands enough to allow me to stand straight again.

“Judge Stephanopoulos,” Dickhead said. “You’re a little out of your jurisdiction aren’t you?”

“I’m an officer of the court, Detective Head,” Judge Stephanopoulos replied. “I’m making this my jurisdiction.”

“Not from where I’m standing,” he grated. “From where I’m standing, Dix Dodd is a dangerous fugitive on the run. I have to haul her in.”

Okay, this is where it got tricky.

And I watched the two — Judge Stephanopoulos and Dickhead — my head snapping left to right, right to left with every volley of words. My money was on the judge. And, well, my everything was on the judge.

“This doesn’t concern you at this point, Judge,” Dickhead said. “This isn’t your courtroom. This is my bailiwick.”

“This may not be my courtroom, Detective. But I assure you it concerns me. According to Ms. Dodd, a crime has been committed.”

“Yeah, by Ms. Dodd, and I’m— “

Judge Stephanopoulos raised her hand quickly, silencing him. “And, again according to Ms. Dodd, I’m directly involved.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose, as though trying to summon patience. “Look, dear, if you’ve got information we should consider, I’ll be happy to look into it. Right after we finish processing this prisoner.”

Yeah, I caught it — dear.

And by the way Detective Lapp was biting her lip, she’d caught it too.

Rochelle jabbed me with her elbow. “Oh, man,” she whispered, “the judge’s gonna castrate him.”

Castrate him? Why, was it Christmas already? I felt the excitement bubble up inside; I heard the carols playing in my head: Deck the halls with Dickhead’s balls, falalalala la la la la.

Only when Rochelle elbowed me a second time — harder — did I realize I’d been humming.

Eyes narrowed, Judge Stephanopoulos regarded Detective Head. Like something out of a Clint Eastwood spaghetti western, she stood with her arms at her sides as if she was ready to whip out a six-shooter. He glared right back. And though I had little doubt before, I really had no doubt now as to who would be winning this exchange, because she smiled at him. It was not a sweet smile.

“Let me explain something to you, Detective,” Judge Stephanopoulos began. “And I’ll say it slowly so that hopefully you won’t get hung up on the big words.”

Dickhead blinked.

Another elbow in the ribs from Rochelle, and I bit back the ‘you go girl!’ that threatened to erupt.

Judge Stephanopoulos continued, “Ms. Dodd is in no danger of fleeing at this point, Detective. You have her in handcuffs. You have her in custody in the pure definition of the law. You have many officers on the premises. On the other side of the coin, I have knowledge that an injustice has been done, and is continuing to be done. And I believe that this injustice will not be rectified until and unless Ms. Dodd addresses those gathered within that house, and gives the information to all, including yourself, that she has given to me. I am an officer of the court, acting in—”

“She can tell her lies downtown!” Dickhead interjected.

“She’ll tell her truths here!” Judge Stephanopoulos’s voice rang with authority.

Dickhead’s struggle was written clearly on his face. For a moment, it looked as though he was going to concede. He ran his tongue over his lower lip quickly. He rocked on his heels. Just when I thought he was going to agree, his glance fell on me and his face hardened.

“No.” He snapped. “Not going to happen. This is my show and what I say goes. And I say Dixielicks is going downtown.”

“Then let me put it another way, Detective,” Judge Stephanopoulos said. “Dix Dodd is going into that house right now. Rochelle and I are going with her. And if you try to stop us, you’ll have to arrest me along with Ms. Dodd. And in that event, you’d better make damn sure that you keep me behind bars a good long while. Because I assure you, Detective, when I am no longer a guest of the county, and when Ms. Dodd has proven her innocence, I will make it my personal mission to have you busted down to picking up dog shit in the park. And if you don’t believe me, Detective, then just try me.”

It was the way she said ‘try me’ … with the barely-there restraint in her voice. Almost as if she was daring him to call her on this. Almost as if she wanted him to do it.

Dickhead stared at the judge, hard. But not for long.

“Ah, hell!” He turned away and snarled in the general direction of Officer Lapp. “Well, what are you waiting for? Take Dodd into the house!”

Officer Lapp took me by the elbow, but not hard. Rather as a demonstration that I was indeed in custody.

Inside the Weatherby house, police lined the walls. Though no weapons were drawn, it was still intimidating walking the gauntlet. Obviously, they were serious about my not escaping custody this time.

And all eyes were on me as I entered the study.

“Dix!” Dylan had been sitting on a small sofa beside Mrs. Presley, but surged to his feet at the sight of Officer Lapp’s grip on my obviously cuffed arm.

“Hey, Dylan.” I smiled reassuringly. “Everything’s cool.”

Judge Stephanopoulos and Rochelle followed me into the room, and stood beside the door. And of course, Dickhead came to stand beside me, breathing down my neck.

I looked around the room.

Ned’s lawyer, Jeremy Poole, sat beside a nervous looking Elizabeth Bee on a matching sofa placed on the other side of the room. She looked from Dylan to me, then back to Dylan again with a confused, questioning look on her face. A tall, portly man completely decked out in baker whites stood between the two sofas. I knew this had to be Kenny Kent, the Weatherby’s caterer. Billy Star was there, standing beside Jennifer’s bookcase beside a rigid Luanne Laney. The latter had a steno pad and pen poised in her hands to take notes. Wow, that woman was efficient. Or psycho.

“Well, if it isn’t Dix Dodd! I haven’t seen you in ages,” Mrs. Presley shouted into the room. “Why when Dylan picked me up this morning and told me about the party, I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.” Bless her little ass-covering heart. “And didn’t I see your picture in the paper the other day? Something about … some case you were working on or something?”

“Hello, Mrs. Presley,” I said. “Good to see you again. And yes, that was me you saw in the paper.”

She smiled and looked around the room. “You know, it’s just like old home week here — all these familiar faces.” Half the men in the room averted their gazes — looking up, down, sideways and everywhere, except at Mrs. Presley.

Detective Head just looked angry. “Let’s get this over with, shall we?”

I turned to expose my handcuffed wrists to him. “Can you remove these?” I had visions of dramatically pointing to the guilty party as I made my Sherlock Holmes-style speech.

“Not a chance,” he sneered.

Damn.

“Damn.”

“Please watch what you say, Ms. Dodd,” Pastor Ravenspire said. He was standing between Ned and his father, and all three stood over the chair where Ned’s mother sat behind Jennifer’s desk. “I’m not used to such language. And frankly,” he looked around the room — a little too quickly, a little too nervously. “I don’t know why I’m here in the first place.” He looked at his watch. “I … I can’t stay long.”

Mr. Weatherby Senior took off his glasses, wiped them, and put them back on again. “You … you look familiar,” he said to me. He turned to his wife. “Doesn’t she look familiar, dearest?”

“Yes,” the old woman said slowly, thoughtfully. “Yes, she does. Give me a minute … I’ll place that face.”

Oh great, that was all I needed for Dearest to recognize me. I’d have to do this quickly.

I drew a deep breath, expelled it, and began. “Each one of you has been called here today for a reason. Each one of you knew Jennifer Weatherby. Each one of you was close enough to murder Jennifer Weatherby. And one of you … one of you did just that.”

I waited a moment for the hands-to-heart dramatic gasp, but obviously no one was as impressed as I was by my theatrics. I cleared my throat and continued. “A little over a week ago, someone disguised as Jennifer walked into my office. This person told me that her husband, Ned Weatherby, was having an affair and she wanted me to trail him for a week and keep a record of his activities.”

Ned sputtered. “That’s … that’s preposterous! I wasn’t having an affair. Jennifer was—”

He paled. He looked at his mother, his father, then quickly to the floor.

“What is it, Neddy?” his mother asked, turning in the chair to look up at her son. “Jennifer was what?”

Loyally, Ned remained silent.

So I finished for him. “Jennifer was having an affair herself, wasn’t she, Ned?” I had no desire to bring this out into the open, but I had little choice in the matter. “She was having an affair, and you knew about it.”

He let out a shuddering breath. “Yes, I knew. She and Billy Star had been involved for some time. But was is the operative word, Ms. Dodd. Jennifer ended it.”

Billy hmphed loudly, but didn’t say a word.

“Still, that must have angered you, Ned.”

“Of course it angered me!” He looked at his hands and played a moment with the wide gold band he still wore. When he spoke again his voice was softer. “But I wasn’t always the best husband in the world. Jennifer deserved … more. More attention. More affection. More everything. I was so concerned about making money, growing my business, sometimes Jennifer felt … forgotten. I know she did. That’s why … that’s why that damnable Billy Star was able to seduce her.”

“Why didn’t you fire Billy?

“I couldn’t. When I bought him out—”

“—and you bought him just before stocks in the company skyrocketed, Ned?” I offered. Yes it was a dirty dig, but I wanted to gauge his reaction. I thought there might be a trace of guilt there, but Ned didn’t skip a beat.

“That’s right. When I bought the son of a bitch out, his continual employment was part of the agreement. I couldn’t fire him for anything short or embezzlement. Certainly not for … for having an affair with my wife.”

“Still,” I baited, “your wife turned to another man. That had to make you angry, and not only with Billy Star. But with Jennifer, too.”

“Jennifer broke it off with Billy. She and I … we were trying to work some things out.”

“What kind of things?”

“Everything!” Ned swallowed hard and wet his lips. He appeared to be on the verge of tears. “We were renewing our vows on the weekend. And … and we’d come to some understandings. She wanted to go visit her family in Toledo more, and I promised to go with her once or twice over the next few months. And she didn’t want me going to Pastor Ravenspire’s church so much. She didn’t trust him.” He glanced at Ravenspire, who himself squirmed in his chair. “Sorry, Pastor. That was a sore point between us. And Jennifer … Jennifer promised to stop seeing Billy.”

I’d glanced at Billy often through this exchange — his face grew redder, his fists clenched tighter. And now I redirected my questioning to him. “And did she stop seeing you, Billy?”

“She said … she said she wanted to break it off,” he admitted, “but … but I know she didn’t mean it. She couldn’t have meant it.” He began to cry. “I … I loved her. And I know she would have loved me if it wasn’t for Ned. Ned took everything from me with the business. I couldn’t … couldn’t let him have Jennifer too.”

“So you pursued things with her still?”

He nodded. “I did. Best I could. Quietly. But I would have shouted it from the rooftops if I could have. But, for Jennifer’s sake, I didn’t want anyone to find out. Not until I’d won her back.”

“But,” I continued, “Ned finding out was the least of your worries, wasn’t it.”

Billy’s sideways glance confirmed what I had suspected.

“Luanne finding out was.”

The pen stopped flying over the steno pad.

“Yes,” Billy said. “She scares the hell out of me.”

“That’s enough, William,” Luanne said crisply.

Apparently, Billy didn’t think it was enough. He ignored her warning. “Luanne found some letters I had written to Jennifer. I was trying to win her back, but … but Ned was doing everything he could to ruin that. Picking her flowers, wooing her. Working fewer hours so he could spend more time with her. So I wrote Jennifer, and told her how I felt. It wasn’t about the money! About the business! Not anymore and I told Jennifer this. Somehow Luanne ended up with those letters. How she found them, I’ll never know.”

“I’m intuitive,” Luanne said.

“No,” I walked over to Dylan. He handed me Jennifer’s journal. “You’re nosy. Recognize this? If you were snooping through Jennifer’s journal, then chances are you were snooping through her mail too. You’ve got your own key to the house. You had access to Ned’s and Jennifer’s itineraries. You knew when the were home and when they weren’t.”

Luanne paled, but she lifted her chin. “Someone had to protect Ned!”

“It’s too bad no one protected Jennifer,” I said. “You knew about this journal when no one else did.”

“Luanne?” Ned said in disbelief. “You … you spied on my wife?”

“I had to. Don’t you see, Ned?” she implored. “I always knew that little tart would betray you. So I did what I did to protect you.”

“How … how much protecting did you do?” Ned asked, his voice trembling as if he was afraid of the answer. “You’ve never lied to me before, Luanne. Please don’t start now.”

Luanne’s bottom lip quivered. But she squared her shoulders as she answered. “Over the years of your marriage, I’ve read all of her mail. Every letter she put in that desk drawer, I’d sneak in here and read it. And of course, I read her journal. Kept track of her activities. But I did it all to protect you, Ned!”

Billy glared at her. “You bitch! You killed her!”

In a flash, Billy was on Luanne; his hands wrapped around her throat. Almost as quickly Dylan and two male cops pulled him off of her.

“How could you kill her?” Billy shouted, straining in the grip of the two officers. “How could you do such a thing?”

“I didn’t!” Luanne shifted her gaze from Billy to me. “Ms. Dodd, you’ve got to believe me. I didn’t kill Jennifer.”

I nodded slowly. “I know you didn’t.”

Chapter 20

You know, I don’t normally enjoy being the center of attention.

Ahahaha! That is so not true. I just love being the center of attention. Smack dab in the middle of it. Like right about now. No one in the room was entirely sure where I was going with this. Well, no one but me, Dylan, and possibly now the murderer.

After Luanne’s denial of guilt and my attestation also to her innocence, the room was so quiet you could hear the proverbial pin drop. I mentally broke into a chorus of Queen’s We are the Champions but thought better of actually belting it out loud. Too cocky, even for me. And besides, I had a ways to go before I was home free on this.

But things were definitely moving along.

And every set of eyes in the room was on me. I felt them. Some more than others. Dickhead, of course, was glaring at me. But I have to give him credit; he’d been quiet while I had my say. He might not know where this was going, but he wasn’t so stupid or vindictive as to stop me. Not when there was murder involved. Not even he would stoop so low as to let a killer go free just to bust my ass. And I could tell by the set of his jaw and the way he was listening to me, that he knew I was on to something.

As I stood taking a deep breath before continuing, I heard Ned’s mother mumbling. “I don’t know … I know that face from somewhere. Somewhere recent….”

Oh shit.

Jeremy Poole sat in the corner, so pale and still he could have been a wax statue. Elizabeth Bee sat perched on the edge of her chair, waiting to see what would happen next. Rochelle and Judge Stephanopoulos remained in the doorway, watching intently from the periphery, but not missing a thing.

Dylan was looking at me too, of course. I’d catch his eye every once in a while. I saw the encouraging nods. The hint of a smile. And I liked that. It felt good to be on top of my game while he watched. Strangely good. Weirdly good.

Cautiously good, Dix, I reminded myself. Cautiously good.

I let my gaze sweep again over the people assembled, each with their own agendas and fears and loves. Ah, yes, love. What a crazy thing it was. It could make us laugh or cry. It could scare the crap out of us or make us feel renewed. Make us feel stupid and brilliant all at once. It made old men pat their wives’ hands and call them ‘Dearest’. And as I knew all too well, love could break our hearts. It could turn us into romantic fools. And, yes, it could turn us into murderers.

+++

“Well!” It was Mrs. Presley’s voice that broke the silence. “If that don’t beat all! I had the secretary pegged for sure.” She nudged Dylan. “Just look at those beady eyes on her, will ya.” She opened her purse, turned toward Kenny Kent the baker, and handed him twenty bucks. “You won that bet, Baker Boy,” she said. “Double or nothing on Round Two?”

Swiftly pocketing the money, Kent replied, “I’ll quit while I’m ahead.”

Luanne wasn’t my favorite person in the world, and Billy Star wasn’t topping my warm and fuzzy list either. But neither of them had killed Jennifer. I was sure of it. Despite his initial reasons for wooing Jennifer, Billy had loved her too much to hurt her, and Luanne loved Ned too much to hurt him.

I began again. “You’re all forgetting something here. Whoever killed Jennifer, also did a damn good job of covering their tracks. Arranged for a mysterious Flashing Fashion Queen to come to my office disguised as Jennifer, and ask me to tail Ned Weatherby for the week. And I had to wonder why.”

“To frame you!” an enthusiastic Mrs. P shouted.

“That’s exactly what I thought at first, Mrs. Presley. But then I thought maybe it was more. Maybe it was so that Ned’s whereabouts would be alibied very carefully. So that he couldn’t be blamed for the murder of his wife.”

Ned looked at me, clearly shocked. “Surely … surely you don’t think I hired someone to pose as Jennifer, then killed her myself?”

“Actually, Ned,” I said. “That very thought has crossed my mind.”

“Ms. Dodd!” Jeremy Poole leapt to Ned’s defense. “If you’re going to accuse my client of murder, I’d make damn sure that you know just what you’re getting yourself into here. With all the charges against you now criminally, I don’t think you really wish to add a civil suit to your legal woes. As Mr. Weatherby’s legal counsel I must advise him not to participate in any further discussions with you here today. In fact, I strongly suggest to Detective Head that this meeting is a sham, a travesty, and that this meeting should be over.”

“Oh, I’m not accusing Ned Weatherby of murdering Jennifer Weatherby, Mr. Poole. Not at all. As I said the thought crossed my mind, then kept on walking.” I turned and walked over to the lawyer. “I’m accusing you.”

“Yes!” Elizabeth Bee hissed, pumping her arm in the air. She held her hand out flat and Mrs. Presley grumblingly pressed a twenty-dollar bill into it, which Elizabeth quickly secreted into her bra.

“What the hell are you talking about, Dix?” Dickhead said. But he didn’t say it with quite so much of a snarl this time. He didn’t say it with a ha ha belly roar of a laugh. He said it like a man who wanted to hear what I had to say. I had his attention.

Hell, I had everyone’s attention.

Dylan handed me Jennifer’s journal. Or rather tried to, but with my hands cuffed behind my back, that wasn’t an easy task. I looked at Detective Head. “Things would go a lot easier from here detective if you’d let me out of these handcuffs.”

He stared at me hard for a long minute, then moved to unlock the handcuffs.

“Don’t make me regret this, Dix,” he said as he removed the bracelets. “Because if I do, I guarantee you will too.”

“Understood.”

More out of reflex than because of any soreness, I rubbed my wrists quickly before I held up Jennifer’s journal. I read from the homemade jacket of the book. “The Secret Life of the Bombay Dung Beetle, by Elizabeth Bee.”

Loudly, Elizabeth hmphed.

“This is Jennifer’s journal,” I explained. “Her secret journal.”

“I never knew she kept one,” Ned said.

“No, she hid it well. But as we already established, you knew she kept it, didn’t you, Luanne?”

“Once or twice a week I’d let myself in … when Ned and Jennifer were out of the house. Yes, I’d read it. I needed to know everything to protect Ned.” Guilt free, she answered. “That’s how I was able to inform Ned of the affair between Billy and Jennifer. Once I put all the notes and pieces together.”

“But you didn’t tell Ned how you came by that knowledge, did you?”

“No,” she admitted.

“And,” I continued, “usually you just read Jennifer’s journal, said nothing, did nothing and put it back where you found it. Right?”

She sucked in a breath. “Yes. But the last time … the last time Jennifer made an entry, I … accidentally did something.”

“Because the last entry Jennifer made angered you so greatly that you wrote a comment back. Didn’t you, Luanne?”

“Yes!” she shouted. “I couldn’t help myself.” She looked around the room, as if seeking an ally for her behavior. “Jennifer wrote ‘J cancelled caterer.’ After all Ned was doing for her, she was canceling the caterer and thus I assumed she was canceling the renewal of the vows. That she was going to hurt Ned all over again. I just lost my temper. I just snapped! That’s why I wrote what I did.”

Kenny Kent, really interested now, shifted from foot to foot.

“The ‘NO WAY IN HELL’ written in the journal, Luanne?” I asked. “That was yours, wasn’t it.”

“Yes.” She lowered her eyes. “I know it was stupid! Very stupid! But I was just so angry!”

“This is ridiculous,” Jeremy Poole said. “It proves nothing whatsoever about my guilt. If you ask me, it’s Luanne Laney you should be pointing a finger at.” He stretched his arm and shook a pointing finger himself for emphasis.

I pretended to mull that over. “Ummmmmmm … no,” I said. “You see it wasn’t the person who wrote the NO WAY IN HELL that killed Jennifer. It was the person who cancelled the caterer.”

“Oh for Heaven’s sake!” Jeremy said. “It’s Jennifer’s journal. She cancelled the caterer. Obviously, her intention to renew with Ned was false. She was using him, again. Still.”

“No, Jennifer didn’t cancel the caterer. Jennifer always wrote in the future tense when she entered her plans; never what she’d done. Ever. This note was a done deal. This note wasn’t on her to-do list. This note was something else. This ‘J’ wasn’t for Jennifer.”

“I took that canceling call myself, and I was surprised to receive it,” Kenny spoke up nervously. “I always handle the Weatherby business personally.” He smoothed a nervous hand over his baker’s jacket. “Mr. Weatherby had been planning this event for weeks. It meant a lot to him. We’d gone over the menu a half dozen times. We had the ice sculpture ordered; the Cornish hens set to be flown in. And all of a sudden, I get this call canceling from a woman claiming to be Jennifer Weatherby.”

“And so you scrapped everything? Just like that?”

“Of course not! I called Mr. Weatherby’s office, he was tied up in meetings. So I called Mrs. Weatherby back. I wanted to tell her that she’d still have to pay the bill. I mean, after all, we’d gone to a lot of expense and trouble for this event.”

“And what did Jennifer say when you called her?”

Kenny ran a hand through his hair. “She assured me the job was still on. Assured me that it wasn’t her who’d called. And she … she also told me she knew damn well who’d called to cancel, pretending to be her. She was really, really angry.”

“Do you remember the date, Mr. Kent?”

“Of course. It was the 30th of May. I remember precisely because that’s the day I did inventory.”

I held the journal up for everyone to see the date. “It was a week before Jennifer was killed. And I’m betting ‘J’ who cancelled the caterer killed her.”

“That ‘J’ was for Jeremy. Not Jennifer.” Ned spoke slowly, disbelievingly. “You killed my wife.”

“Ned,” he said. “You … you have to understand. As your lawyer, I have to protect you. As your friend, I have a duty to not let you make such a big mistake as renewing your vows to that … that—”

“She was my wife!”

Detective Head was getting antsy. “Canceling a caterer is hardly evidence of murder, Dodd,” he said. “I suspect you have more.”

I caught it as he said it — the subtle nod to two of his uniformed officers to advance in Jeremy’s direction. Not so subtly, they did.

“Oh, do I ever have more. You see, someone tipped me off that the murderer was Jeremy Poole.”

“Do tell, who was that Ms. Dodd?” Jeremy was trying to act cool — trying to remain calm. He failed miserably. “A little birdie?”

“Well as a matter of fact, you told me Jeremy. You tipped me off.” I was smiling now. Okay, it was more like I was smirking in an I’m-so-smart kind of way. I held up the newspaper — the one that Mrs. P had provided the morning I went to break into the Weatherby house, the one with that horrible picture of me splashed all over the front page. “I have here proof positive that it was Jeremy Poole that killed Jennifer and set me up. The interview he gave to the reporter. The one where he so gleefully trashed me.”

“I read the interview,” Detective Head said. “I read it a few times. There’s nothing in there pointing to Poole as the murderer.”

I looked at him as if he were an idiot. Mostly because I enjoyed looking at him as if he were an idiot. But also for the dramatics of the thing. “Wrong again, Detective. Jeremy Poole is a pretty smooth talker. Pretty good with the lawyer-ese. I’ll give him that. But there’s one word — one particular word that gives him away. He used it in this newspaper interview and he used in when he posed as Jennifer in my office.”

“What would that be, Dodd?”

“The f word.”

“Oh for f—” Detective Head stopped mid rant as he glanced toward the judge. “I don’t think Jeremy Head is the only man to use that f word, Dix Dodd. If that’s all you’re going on, you’re pretty much f’d yourself.”

I shook my head. “That’s not the f word I’m referencing.”

“Tell him, Dix,” Dylan said.

“Floozy,” I blurted. It took every bit of restraint I had to bite down on an inappropriate laugh. “Jeremy used the word floozy when he was in my office posing as Jennifer Weatherby. And he used the word floozy again in the newspaper interview. Nobody uses the word ‘floozy’ anymore. Certainly not that much.”

“So you have a coincidence, Dodd,” Dickhead informed. “Nothing more.”

“I do have more.”

“I … I have to go to the bathroom,” Jeremy said. Judging by how pale he now was, I believed him. He stood, wavered sideways, stood straight.

“Oh no you don’t, Poole,” Dickhead said. “I’m not falling for that one again.”

An officer grabbed Jeremy by the arm and sat him down again.

“It was you who came into my office that day, wasn’t it, Jeremy? You threw me off there for a while, dressed as a woman. You were very clever. But I should have known you were a man all along. No woman carries that many different tubes of lipstick. Nor that many different brands of tampons in her purse.” I turned to Dickhead. “Do they, Detective? You were married, you know all about these things, don’t you?”

His eyes narrowed. “Just keep going, Dixie.”

I did. As if reading my mind, Dylan handed me the picture — the one with Jeremy and Ned coming out of the tennis court. The one where he was bent scratching his left leg under the white tube sock. “See this, Jeremy?”

Getting paler by the moment — so pale now I could see the stubble of beard on his white cheeks — he looked at the picture and nodded.

“This proves that you were posing as Jennifer.”

“I hardly see—”

I smiled. “You shaved your legs before you put on that purple dress and came into my office. You had to have just shaved your legs for them to be this smooth. And for them to be this glaringly white, you’d have to have not shaved them before, or at least not in a hell of a long time.”

“How … how would you possibly know that?”

“I just do, okay!”

Jeremy Poole crossed the legs under discussion and set his hands over his knees. “This is craziness. You’ve proven nothing here.”

Judge Stephanopoulos spoke up. “Well, maybe I can prove something here, Mr. Poole.”

All eyes turned to the judge as, shoulders back, she strode into the center of room. “I have here a restraining order, Mr. Poole. One taken out against Ms. Dodd advising her to stay away from the Weatherby house and Weatherby Industries. Ms. Dodd was kind enough to provide it to me this morning.”

Ned shot a look to Luanne, she shot one back at him. It was obvious that neither of them knew about this.

I didn’t think it was possible, but Jeremy turned even whiter. I imagine those legs of his would have the potential to blind now if exposed to the light of day.

“And, Mr. Poole,” the judge continued. “What most strikes my attention is the signature on this restraining order.” Judge Stephanopoulos stood before him now, towering over him as he sat cowering in the chair. She snapped the restraining order open under his nose. “You spelled my name wrong.”

“Oh shit.”

“And I would wager, Jeremy,” I said, “that when we manage to get a search warrant for the car and residence of a certain sweet little old lady—”

“I don’t know any sweet little old ladies,” he said.

He had me there.

“Okay, then if we manage to get a search warrant for the car of one cranky old woman with a broken ankle, a yappy dog and a sharp tongue, a.k.a. your aunt, we’ll find evidence you’ve been a very bad boy.”

Now it was Rochelle’s turn to jump into action. “I just happen to have a search warrant right here, Dix. Typed up and everything.” She turned to the Judge. “Your Honor?”

She pulled a pen from her purse. With a flare of pen to paper, Judge Stephanopoulos signed the order, and handed it to Detective Head.

“McGrath, Barnable.” Two officers stood straight. “Get yourselves over to Mrs. Levana Fyffe’s place.”

“Er, what are we looking for, Detective?” Barnable asked.

I answered; Dickhead let me. “Check the car for fibers and fingerprints. And oh, check the house for some flashing fashion.”

“Huh?”

“A purple dress that Jeremy here might have worn when he dressed up as Jennifer. Wide glasses. Fake boobs. Big floppy hat.”

“Wait a minute,” Detective Head said. “That still doesn’t explain the gun. We found the gun that killed Jennifer in your possession, Dix.”

Now it was Dylan’s turn to act. “Let me take this one, Dix.”

I smiled. “Go for it.”

He cleared his throat. It looked like he enjoyed being the center of attention too. “I did some checking around myself, Detective. That gun you found on Dix was used by Talbot K. Washington in that double murder years ago. If you recall, during the trial, it was discovered to have gone missing.”

“Holy hell, Foreman, tell me something I don’t know.”

“Okay, then I will. There was a young law student clerking at that firm when that gun went missing. He wasn’t on the regular company payroll, only worked one afternoon a week for one of the senior lawyers who paid him under the table. I guess the old guy felt sorry for him.”

“Let me guess,” Detective Head said. “That would be our friend Mr. Poole who was clerking there.”

Dylan nodded. “I went to law school with one of the lawyers who works there now. Apparently, Jeremy Poole was a poor, starving law student, but then quit working all of a sudden just after the Washington trial ended. Came into some fast cash somehow. And plenty of it.”

“You bastard,” Detective Head said. “You stole the gun didn’t you? Or caused it to be stolen. Washington could have walked because of you.”

“I … I think I need a lawyer.” Jeremy wiped a hand across his brow.

Detective Head snarled, “I know you do. Get this….” — with a glance at the Judge, he adjusted his language — “…gentleman downtown. Let him call his lawyer, then leave him for me.” The disgust in Dickhead’s voice was evident. And for a moment, I almost felt sorry for him. Then I realized the disgust was probably over the fact that I wouldn’t be going to jail after all.

“Why?” Ned croaked, his voice thick with emotion, eyes filling with tears. “Why did you do it, Jeremy?”

Out of courtesy, the two officers escorting Jeremy Poole from the room stopped long enough for the question to be answered.

Jeremy’s bottom lip began to quiver, and his voice became that throaty voice he’d used in my office — his Jennifer voice. “Because … I love you, Ned.”

Collectively, we all did a double take.

“What’d he say?” Mr. Weatherby, Sr. asked.

“I think he said he loved him,” Mrs. Weatherby answered.

“Loved Jim? Who’s Jim?”

“No, not Jim. Him.”

Yeah, it was getting confusing. Not even I saw that one coming.

Unprompted now, Jeremy continued. “I’ve loved you for so long. When Jennifer got involved with Billy, I thought maybe … maybe then you’d throw her out for good. But you didn’t, you took her back.”

“But why? Why’d you have to kill her?”

“She was livid when she found out that I’d cancelled the caterer. It was a stupid thing to do, I know, but I was jealous. And I didn’t think Kenny Kent would call her about it. I thought he’d call you, and you’d finally, once and for all, just end it with Jennifer. I hoped. But it didn’t work that way. And when Jennifer found out, she called me. I went over to apologize but she wouldn’t hear anything of it. I begged her not to tell you, Ned. Begged her. And eventually she agreed.”

“But that wasn’t good enough for you, was it, Jeremy?” I said.

“I … I couldn’t take the chance. What if … what if someday she changed her mind, and did tell him? Ned would turn against me. I … I couldn’t have that. So I posed as Jennifer, and went to Dodd’s office. I was looking for a not-so-bright private detective, and given the dive she works out of, I thought I’d hit pay dirt. Dammit! All I wanted was for her to follow you around for a week! I did it to protect you, Ned.”

“Protect me? Protect me from what? From Jennifer?”

“No,” I answered. “He wanted to protect you from being blamed for Jennifer’s murder. I provided a rock-solid alibi, all week, in fact, until Jeremy had the opportunity to commit murder.” I turned to Jeremy, “You were protecting Ned, weren’t you?”