Driven to Ink

Chapter 22

“Brett,” she said.“Do you have news about my father?” Her panic was evident in the tremble of her lips and the set of her jaw.

She thought I’d found her to tell her about Bernie and Sylvia. I shook my head.

“No. I’m sorry.”

Puzzlement crossed her face. “Then why are you here?” Her eyes slid toward Bitsy and then to Colin Bixby. She touched her cap as if she were brushing a hair away from her face. I thought about how stylish she’d been when she showed up at Jeff’s shop earlier.

“We’re looking for Dan Franklin,” I told Rosalie. “The wedding-chapel owner says he hasn’t been there in a couple days, and his phone’s no longer in service. Has he been here?”

Rosalie shook her head. “I haven’t seen him, either, but he’s not on the schedule until tomorrow. I didn’t know about his phone. Do you think something happened to him, too?”

“What’s going on?” Bixby interrupted, justifiably curious.

“My father and his new wife have disappeared, and we’re all trying to find them,” Rosalie said.

“And we’re trying to find out if that dead guy in Brett’s trunk had anything to do with it,” Bitsy piped up, eager to dispense as much information as she could. She couldn’t help herself.

“A dead body in your trunk?” Colin Bixby was legitimately confused.

“She found it yesterday,” Bitsy explained. “Sylvia and Bernie borrowed her car for their wedding, and then they brought it back to her, and then Brett went for a hike and found the dead Dean Martin impersonator in the trunk. With a dead rat,” she added.

Rosalie tensed up. “A dead rat?” Obviously, Jeff hadn’t told her about that.

“A dead Dean Martin impersonator?” Colin Bixby was having a really hard time wrapping his head around this. Admittedly, it wasn’t exactly something you heard every day, so I could cut him some slack.

“Because of the rat, you think Dan was involved?” Rosalie asked.

I nodded.

“How well do you know Dan Franklin?” Bitsy piped up.

Rosalie looked at her. “He’s a nice guy. He loves his job here, and he loves singing at the chapel. Lou did tell me no one over at the chapel has seen him. He thinks whoever killed Ray got to Dan, too. Until now, I thought that was a little crazy, but now I don’t know.” She paused. “Do you know Lou got mugged?”

I nodded. “Will Parker told me.”

“Will?” Rosalie asked. “When did you meet Will?”

“This morning,” I said, and since I didn’t want to explain how, I quickly added, “He said someone tried to run him down. Who would want to hurt those guys? What’s the motive?”

She bit her lip, and her cheeks grew pink as she mulled the question. Then, “All you have to do is look across the street at that other chapel. Sanderson’s been trying to put Tony out of business for years now.”

Interesting theory, but a little weak.

“So there wasn’t a beef between any of the Dean Martins?” I asked. “Will Parker said the trouble started when Ray Lucci started working there.”

For the first time, Rosalie’s eyes skittered across the room and landed on Bixby’s face. “I don’t know anything about that,” she said, but I could tell she was lying.

“How’s your husband doing?” I asked.

Her hand went up to caress her other arm, over the spot where I knew the tattoos were. The bruise around her eye was fading, and I wondered whether another one would soon replace it. I’d never met Lou Marino, but I didn’t think I wanted to.

“He’s been talking to Sanderson about a job over there,” she said.

So he’d allow himself to be coerced, if in fact Sanderson was the one causing all the accidents.

Rosalie glanced around the room, saying, “I really have to get back…”

“We’ll get out of your way now,” Bixby said, taking my arm.

I resisted the urge to shrug him off, but I had to ask one more question.

“What do you do here? Are you a technician, like Dan?”

Rosalie seemed to relax now that I wasn’t asking about Lou. She nodded. “That’s right.”

“How long has Dan worked here?”

“About three years, I think.”

“How did Dan Franklin end up working at the chapel?”

Rosalie smiled. “He’s always wanted to perform. I told Lou about him, and Lou got him the job over there.”

“So they’re friends?”

The smile faded slightly, but she fought hard not to let it go completely. “I suppose,” she said softly.

That was enough for Bixby. He started steering me out, his other hand on Bitsy’s shoulder. “Thank you for your help,” he said, as if he was the one who wanted it in the first place.

“I’ll let you know if I hear anything about your dad,” I tossed back as we left the room.

Bixby didn’t say anything until we were behind closed doors.

“I can’t believe you lied to me,” he said.

“I didn’t completely lie,” I said. “I did talk to Dan Franklin, but he wasn’t the one with the tattoo. The dead guy in my trunk? He came to my shop posing as Dan Franklin. And then we found out Franklin went missing and his phone’s disconnected.”

“I can’t believe the things you get into.”

Him and me both.

But if I admitted that, he wouldn’t believe me.

The elevator door slid open, and we stepped out. Bixby crossed his arms over his chest.

“Do you have everything you need?” he asked.

Who ever has everything they need? I wanted to ask. And looking at him, I thought maybe I wanted a second chance, needed a second chance.

I took too long to answer.

He sighed and looked down at Bitsy. “Nice seeing you again,” he said.

“Thanks, Doc.” She grinned.

He started to walk away, then stopped and stared at me. “You know, I’d just about forgotten about you,” he said softly before he turned his back on me and went down the hall.

I felt a slap on my wrist and looked down to see Bitsy making a face at me.

“You can daydream about him later,” she admonished. “We’ve got to get out of here. All those rodents gave me the creeps.”

We walked around the atrium and out the glass front doors. The sun beat down on the sidewalk, but it wasn’t hot. There was a slight chill in the air, and I wished I had my jean jacket with me.

“Maybe it’ll snow tonight,” Bitsy teased.

“It’s snowed here before.”

“For like a nanosecond. One day, like three years ago.”

It had been more recent than that, but I couldn’t remember when. I didn’t really want to argue it.

We maneuvered around the cars in the parking lot, and I spotted the Jeep up ahead.

But before I could point it out, a blue car swung around the bank of cars, skidding on the pavement as it careened toward us.