Beeline to Trouble (16 page)

Twenty-six

“I can’t believe you actually compared me to Patti,”
I said first thing when Holly answered her phone. “She’s over the top and isn’t sensitive to other people’s feelings at all. I’m working to protect us, to protect you.”

“Sometimes you just have to let things be,” my sister said. “Respect my decisions. But I take back what I said. Patti is way worse.”

Oh, okay, at least I’m semi-normal. Right now, at this very moment, I wasn’t appreciating my sister’s reading-people’s-minds skill nearly as much as in the recent past. She should stick to relationship advice and leave the rest of me alone.

“Is Effie having an affair?” I said, blurting out the real reason for my call, leaning way back on the chair in my office, pretty pleased with my assessment of the ducking passenger mystery.

Holly said, “What gave you that goofy idea?”

I told her what I’d seen. The truck, Effie, someone ducking down.

“You could have imagined it.”

“No, it really happened.”

“With the rain and how dark the day has been, you can’t be certain.”

“Yes I can,” I said with conviction. Then thought, maybe I
had
imagined it . . . but no, if Effie wasn’t hiding someone, she would have acknowledged me on the curb. The woman had been obviously ignoring me.

Holly, the amateur therapist, kept going, “Let’s work this out, shall we? Was the passenger male or female?”

“Couldn’t tell.”

“Hair color?”

“Not sure.”

“What
do
you know?”

“That I saw somebody slink down in the seat. Is Effie back home? Is the truck there?”

“Let me check . . . Yup, the truck is here.”

“Is Chance around?”

“Someplace. Last I saw him, he was working on the dock.”

“Do me a favor, go over and look in their windows. If her passenger is inside her home, she’s probably not having an affair.”

“You want me to look in the window of the carriage house? It’s above the garage. How am I going to do that?”

“A ladder.”

“I’m calling Mom and telling her you’re acting weird.”

“That’s not very professional of you. If you want to pursue psychology and help people, you can’t go tattling to their family.”

“I
am
your family.”

“Never mind. Forget I called.” I disconnected and stood up, making a firm decision. I had to find Patti. She was my one and only partner in crime. That’s all there was to it. I grabbed my umbrella and headed out.

First I looked in the vacant house next door to mine, which was my first guess. The house had a lot of possibility as a hideout. Even before Lori changed the lock to one of those Realtor ones, I’d jimmied a window so it would open easily for any future entry needs. Nobody lived there, and it was on the very end of our dead end. Patti could come and go easily without being seen. She wouldn’t have to pay for lodging, which would have been a big deal to her. Patti didn’t like to spend her money, preferring to mooch as much as she could. Anyway, that house? That’s where I would have been if I were Patti.

After slipping inside through the window and searching each room, however, I came up empty. No sign that she’d been there at all.

Next stop, her own house. She could be faking us out, letting us think she was gone while she hid out inside, waiting for some action. But her house was locked up tight, making me wonder how Bruno had managed to get in without breaking anything. Did he pick the lock? Or had she set him up, left it open so he wouldn’t see her wiring his car? That second option (baiting him)
was
Patti’s style.

I stopped to think things over.

When Harry Bruno came onto the scene, Patti had had him under surveillance pretty darn quick for someone who was supposedly out of town. And she’d been ready with all her equipment. Where was she finding the room to stash explosives?

I walked down to the Oconomowoc River, where raindrops plopped into the churning water. My windbreaker hood protected me and my flip-flopped feet didn’t mind getting wet.

Nothing appeared out of place. No camouflaged tent was pitched on the far side of the river, and I didn’t see any human-sized animal holes to burrow into, either.

Standing on the riverbank, I sighed in discouragement, turned, looked up over the roof of my house, saw the last of dark clouds passing overhead.

Suddenly, I had the weirdest, oddball thought. Could P.P. Patti Dwyre be inside
my
house?

It was perfectly Patti.

If she were here, she’d be in the attic, surely. I went inside, climbed the stairs to the second floor, then took the steps which led to the attic.

It wasn’t a place I visited often, even though it’s not a dark, tiny crawl space, but rather encompasses the entire full length and width of the house. Half of the space had pine flooring, but the other half was unfinished, still with exposed insulation. Besides a few cobwebs, the attic held several boxes of my childhood treasures, old rugs, or furniture that had seen better days but I couldn’t bring myself to throw away.

I opened the door. The enormous room was illuminated by several small windows on each of the four sides. Not much available light, since it was so overcast today, but enough for me to see P.P. Patti sound asleep on an air mattress. And not one, but three backpacks flung on the floor beside her.

For an “I Spy” character, it sure did take me a long time to wake Patti up. If I’d been her mobster ex-husband or one of his flunkies, she’d be dead before she knew what hit her.

“Get up, Sleeping Beauty,” I said when I finally had her attention.

“Shoot,” she said, unpleasantly surprised to see me.

I wish I’d had a gun to shoot her with. Not anything lethal. A BB gun would give her a good sting, and make me feel a whole lot better. “Comfy?” I wanted to know.

“Could be better.” She sat up. “Now that you know about my hideout, can I go sleep in your spare bedroom?”

“Depends.”

“On?”

“How helpful you decide to be. Come on downstairs, I’ll make you a sandwich.”

We sat at my kitchen table, drinking herbal tea and chomping on tuna salad sandwiches while I tried to get Patti to admit the truth. She insisted she’d been out of town during all the excitement outside her house. Yet she made one comment inconsistent with that. She said, “You’re better off not knowing everything. The last thing I want is to drag you into my problems.”

“Since when?” I wanted to know.

“Harry will be back,” Patti said, ignoring my question, “and he’ll be prepared next time. Men are so dense, you almost have to hit them over the head with a brick to get their attention.”

Or in this case, a bomb? “But how far will he go?” I asked.

“Not as far as I will.”

That
I believed.

“I’m trying to pin Nova’s murder where it belongs, on one of the flavorists,” I said. “They are lying about their whereabouts, I’m sure of it.” Patti had crept upstairs during cocktail hour at Holly’s house, so I said, “Have you heard anything about Camilla and Gil that might help me? Did you find anything?”

She shook her head. “I went through their rooms during the dinner, but I didn’t have much time.”

“Want another crack at it?” I said.

Patti shook her head again. “Harry’s my focus right now. Haven’t you noticed that I sort of have my hands full with my own problems?”

“If you solve Nova’s murder, you’ll get an exclusive and the
Distorter
will have to give your job back.”

“The
Reporter.
” Patti really hated when I called it the
Distorter
, but if the name fits . . . “Besides, I have to be alive to collect a paycheck,” she pointed out.

“I really need my life back the way it was before,” I said, putting a Patti-like whine in my voice. That method usually worked for her, so I thought I’d try it. “Hunter and I need more together time to grow our relationship. What he and I need is a vacation far away. If I help you with your ex-husband, will you help me straighten out my issues?”

Patti gave me a not-very-interested shrug, so I rushed on.

“Besides,” I said, slam-dunking, “the town is on orange alert. We’re all on the lookout for Harry already. See, I’m on it. Together, we’ll run him out of town.”

Patti smiled, and I knew she was about to reverse her position. “You’re my best friend, so I guess. Though we did this before, remember, and you weren’t much help to me that time. But if you offer that spare room . . .”

“It’s yours.”

Then I remembered Hunter, and how he and I live together now, and how I hadn’t talked it over with him first. Getting into the groove of togetherness wasn’t the easiest thing. I thought about reneging on the bedroom offer, but then I’d have to endure a whole bunch of sneering from Patti about how needy I am, and how I let a man lead me around.

“Okay,” Patti said. “I’ll search Camilla and Gil’s rooms, and this time I’ll be thorough.”

“But how will you make sure they aren’t in those rooms?” I asked. “What if you’re caught?”

“No problem,” Patti said. “I’m like the Invisible Woman.”

Sure
, I thought,
and I’m Catwoman.

Twenty-seven

Back at the store for the afternoon, I found time to
call Hunter.

“I ran into Patti,” I said, faking nonchalance.

“Really? Where?”

“Uh . . . just around. Anyway, she’s afraid to go home just yet and wonders if she can stay with us for a few days.”

Hunter groaned.

“Only for a day or two.” Was that pleading in my voice? I took a deep breath. “She says she feels more protected with us, you being a cop and all.”

I had to lay it on thick. I’d already promised her, but if Hunter thought he had the ball in his court, that he was all big and macho (which he is), and the decision was totally up to him, everybody could go home happy.

“And Patti is our neighbor,” I continued. “We have to help her.”

“Since when did you become so neighborly?”

Since now, was the real truth. Frankly, Patti hadn’t exactly been the friendly block-party type earlier.

“According to my sources, Harry Bruno was definitely in town,” Hunter said. “Apparently he’s the closest thing to next-of-kin that Nova Campbell had. He insists, though, that he went back to Chicago, that somebody stole his car and dumped it on Willow Street.”

“Oh, sure, right. That’s likely.”

“Dwyre should take a permanent vacation to Timbuktu.”

“You want her to run away?”

“He’s trouble, she’s trouble. I’m positive Patti was behind that explosion. Johnny Jay thinks so, too. And he wants to question her. I’m not hiding the woman or protecting her from the chief.”

“Isn’t there anything she can do to convince you? It’s only for a few days.”

Hunter sighed. “She’ll have to answer the chief’s questions first and to his satisfaction, before she stays with us. And there is absolutely no room for negotiation.”

So Patti was just another perp to my cop boyfriend. He always wants to play by the rules. Go figure.

In the end, Hunter approved her for a two-day stay as long as she contacted Johnny Jay immediately and cooperated with him. I pledged to take responsibility for her actions—now I knew how it felt to co-sign for a minor. Scary. I’d have to figure out a way to keep Patti on a short leash.

Next my man said, “You haven’t asked a single question about the murder investigation. You didn’t even follow up with questions when I mentioned Harry Bruno. Are you feeling all right?”

“I’m fine. I just know you’re busy, and not really involved in those issues anymore, and we should stick to talking about us, personal stuff only. Let Johnny Jay handle the problems.”

“That’s a new twist.”

“I’m complicated,” I said. With that remark I must have opened up one of Hunter’s sex neurons because the next part of our conversation was extremely private, for our ears only. Then he said before signing off, “I have to work late tonight. I’ll drop Ben at the house. Take him out to do his business when you get home, okay?”

After disconnecting, I went online and searched Google for images of Patti’s ex-husband, which I should have done in the first place. Photos popped up right away and they confirmed that it was in fact Harry Bruno I’d met face-to-face. He hadn’t sent a henchman, or whatever they call their employees, to do his dirty work. Harry had planned to handle Patti all by himself. But that was before his pricey car went up in flames. Patti was right, he’d be more prepared next time.

I thought about how many folks move to small towns to get away from the crowding and crime of cities. And here my little burg was with an unsolved murder and a Chicago mobster with a vendetta, both at the same time. Talk about drama!

The last thing I did on the computer was download and print out several copies of Harry Bruno’s photograph.

Before my workday was done, I manned—or womaned—the register. A herd of kids came in to buy old-fashioned candy. Local residents also popped in for papers or beer or quick meal items, and we caught up with births and weddings and all the other stuff that makes living in a small town so worthwhile.

With Pattie’s ex positively identified, I cut-and-pasted his photo and snazzed it up with a big bold “Wanted—Dangerous” splashed under his chin. Then I called Jackson Davis, the medical examiner, and offered to buy him a drink after work. “I’ll meet you at Stu’s Bar and Grill,” I said when he accepted. I hadn’t seen Jackson socially for a long time, and looked forward to it. Although I planned to combine a little business with pleasure, and hopefully learn something new about Nova’s murder.

I tacked a wanted poster on the door, freshened up a little in the office, and headed down Main Street.

The happy hour bar crowd had descended. Stu was behind the bar, since he likes to be in the thick of things, which is the best way for an owner to handle a small business. Whoever manages the cash register controls the business. That got me thinking about spending more time at the checkout counter. And also reminded me that Mom commandeered that position every single time she showed up.

I sat at the bar and ordered some of Stu’s chicken wings, which are always a popular item. He makes them from scratch and they are delish.

Jackson came in the door, spotted me at the bar, and bellied-up next to me.

“Let me buy you something special,” I said to him.

“Think I’ll stick to beer.” Jackson slid on the stool next to me. “I’m not falling for the same trick twice,” he said. The guy can’t handle his liquor worth a darn, and there had been a time, not too long ago, when I’d plied him with cocktails spiked with triple-strength booze to worm some facts out of him. But Jackson didn’t hold it against me, mainly because I’m pretty sure he has a special place in his heart for me, a certain admiration for me as a woman. I’m not bragging, it doesn’t happen to me often enough. But when it does, a woman knows.

The medical examiner likes me, and I like him back.

We both ordered beers. The chicken wings arrived with our brews.

“How’s the Nova Campbell case coming?” I asked him after catching up on our significant others, and what we’ve been doing in our spare time.

“I can’t discuss specifics,” he said. “But you know I would if I could.”

“Let’s talk nonspecifics then. Like how long could a person survive after drinking juice poisoned with water hemlock?”

“Okay, nonspecifics then.” Jackson took a drink from his bottle of beer. “Depending on the quantity ingested, death could occur anywhere from fifteen minutes up to around an hour or so.”

I thought about how the group had been running late, how once they arrived Nova had complained about feeling poorly and had gone down to the river, and approximately how long everyone was at my house before Nova’s death occurred. I finished with, “So it’s most likely that she drank the poison right before leaving Holly’s house for mine.”

“It’s more than likely.” Jackson’s facial expression said he was throwing me a bone. “But the water bottle could have been tampered with before that.”

That reminded me of the remaining jars of carrot juice that Hunter had taken from The Wild Clover. “What about the box from my store?”

“Not a trace of poison.”

Darn! So much for a perfect world. Hunter had been right.

We both took a few minutes to savor Stu’s chicken wings, then I said, “Other than saying she didn’t feel well, Nova seemed perfectly fine right before she died.”

“Was she flushed?”

I thought back and nodded.

“Other symptoms could include seizures, frothing, nausea, muscle twitching. Next would come respiratory paralysis and/or cardiovascular collapse. Are you sure you didn’t witness any of the symptoms I just mentioned?”

I shook my head, realizing the tables had been turned. Our town’s medical examiner was examining me!

“Whoever did this knew his stuff,” Jackson said.

“Both of the other house guests have that specific kind of knowledge,” I told him. “I just don’t understand why one of them hasn’t been arrested yet.”

I gazed steadily at Jackson, waiting for more detail, but all I got was, “How about those Packers?” The Green Bay Packers are a big subject, so everybody at the bar heard that and perked right up and joined our conversation. Talk turned to football and I couldn’t turn it back.

Soon after, Jackson took off for some family event. With Stu’s permission I tacked another Harry Bruno wanted (or watch out) poster on the bar’s door, and wondered what Patti was doing for me, if anything.

I went home and found that Hunter had dropped Ben off. I let him out for a run through the yard.

Patti joined me, stepping out of the shadows, her black garb blending into the background.

“Hunter has a condition to you staying with us,” I told her. “You have to talk to Johnny Jay about what happened with the Mercedes.”

“I don’t know a thing.”

“Then that’s all you have to say.” I figured she was lying, but looking back in time, I hadn’t actually seen Patti near the car. Just something big, black, and suspiciously human. “Let’s go down to the station and get it over with,” I suggested, giving her the benefit of the doubt, though that doubt was a crumb so small a mouse might overlook it.

“I can’t,” she said. “What if Harry comes back while I’m away and does something to my house?”

“We’ll have to take that chance.”

“What if the chief doesn’t let me go once I’m inside the station?”

A definite possibility. “Then Hunter and I will watch your house.”

“You’d do that for me?”

I reluctantly agreed. How had she gotten me so entrenched in her life?

Patti called the chief. He would meet us there.

We walked down to The Wild Clover and took off for the station in my truck.

Johnny Jay has a special interrogation room within the police station, one I’ve visited enough times to name details with my eyes closed. Bare-bones, heavy wood, lockable door, eagle print on the wall, not much else.

“You stay out here, Fischer,” Johnny said to me from a wide-legged stance in the waiting area.

“I came in to answer questions of my own free will,” Patti said to him. “And she’s my advisor. Story comes along. Or I clam up.”

Johnny Jay blustered, but Patti held firm. I’d never acted as an advisor before. Was that something like an attorney, giving legal advice? Whatever it involved, I liked the idea a lot, especially if it torqued off the chief.

Into the room we went.

Johnny Jay is a jerk but he isn’t a buffoon. He’s wily as a fox, smart, forceful (as in major bully), and tackles a case like a linebacker. But law enforcement officials have to work within some pretty strict guidelines. I understand that. They can’t randomly break into someone’s house to search for evidence. They can’t just haul a suspect in and book them without going through a whole lot of red tape, either.

That’s Patti’s main argument every time she inserts herself into an investigation and rushes right over the gray area into the black zone. Her moral compass points in a completely different direction than most of ours.

Hopefully she would handle this interview with some semblance of common sense.

“Start at the beginning, Dwyre,” Johnny said after swinging his legs up on the table. “And this better be worthwhile.”

Patti told him about her marriage to Harry Bruno, how she’d managed to hook up with a mobster without knowing it, and how eventually she got away. And how now Harry Bruno was out to get her, and she needed police protection.

“And why would that be?” Johnny Jay said to Patti. “Could it have anything to do with his second wife dying right next door? You knew her, right?”

Patti’s eyes were shifty, but she answered with a half-truth. “I knew
of
her.”

“The witness protection program might be a good match for Patti,” I offered.

“Did you witness something that could put Bruno behind bars again?” Johnny Jay asked her.

“Not exactly,” Patti said. “But I could come up with something.”

I couldn’t help myself. “If you refuse to do anything,” I said to Johnny, “Bruno will murder Patti, and then you can put him back behind bars without any effort at all.”

Johnny said, “Stuff it, Fischer.” Then to Patti, “Was there anything you witnessed during the marriage that you can offer us?”

“Not really,” Patti said.

“Then you can’t go into protection to feed off our tax roll.”

It had been worth a try.

“So Bruno shows up at your residence,” Johnny said, impatience in his voice. “And for no good reason you torch his car.”

“I don’t know anything about that,” Patti said.

“That would be a really smart reason to be afraid.”

Patti shrugged. “I wasn’t anywhere near there.”

“Where were you?”

“I was on vacation.”

“Exactly where were you?”

Patti mumbled something about visiting with friends in a neighboring town, and Johnny said he was going to confirm her story. “Write down their names and address for me,” he told her.

“Objection,” I said, jumping to my feet. “Is my . . . um . . . friend”—I’d almost said
client
—“being arrested? Charged with any crime?”

“Oh, shut up, Fischer, and sit down.”

Like that was going to stop me. I said to Patti, “Don’t give him any more information.”