Authors: Traci Andrighetti,Elizabeth Ashby
I chewed on my smoothie straw for a moment and then decided to ask a dangerous question. "Did she ever mention the name Hazel Kirkpatrick?"
Santiago propped himself up, and his eyes had a strange glow. "Who is this Hazel?"
I wasn't sure how much he knew, if anything, so I had to be careful not to give too much away. "A woman in Jackson, Mississippi."
"Ah." His face fell. "She sounds like a
habanero
, the spicy pepper named after
La Habana
."
Now I understood the reason for that glow. I gulped down some smoothie and stood up. "Thank you for your time, Mr., I mean, Santiago."
"You're leaving so soon?" he asked as he moved to get off the table.
"Stay down!" I shouted as though I were talking to a dog, which, in a sense, was true.
"You can't stay for a while?" His eyes narrowed into a seductive stare. "I'll teach you to salsa Cuban style."
I wasn't sure what all that involved, but I was pretty sure that it wasn't just dancing. "Sorry, but I have an urgent errand to run." I held out my hands in a stay-put gesture. "I'll see myself out."
I turned and catapulted myself into the hallway and hotfooted it to the exit—in case Santiago was in the mood for a chase.
When I was safely locked inside the Ferrari in the resort parking lot, I wondered whether I'd been barking up the wrong palm tree where Bulldog was concerned. I hoped that I was, because Santiago would undoubtedly tell her about my visit. But on the other hand, I knew that an alibi didn't necessarily translate to innocence. After all, Amy could have been right about that drifter Clyde Willard being the brawn behind Bertha's brain.
As I pulled out of the parking lot, I turned in the direction of the library. I could think of only two more ways to rule Bertha out as a suspect, and for Lucy's sake, I was going to see to both of them before going to the police. Even if I had to die trying.
* * *
Amy held the scan gun to a book entitled
Funeral Flowers for Beginners
but then stopped dead in mid-scan. "Santiago Beltrán was buck naked?"
"Shh!" I waved my arms like the snakes in Medusa's hair. "The patrons can hear you."
She had a gleam in her eye not unlike that of Santiago's when he'd asked about Hazel. "Did you get a look at his
schwanz
?" She moved in close. "That's German for 'tail,'" she said out of one side of her mouth, "but it's also slang for 'penis.'"
"I'd kind of figured that," I said, glancing around to make sure that no one was within earshot. When this investigation was over, my next assignment would be to help Amy find a boyfriend. And from all indications, that was going to take some serious sleuthing skills.
She swiped the scanner and frowned. "The system can't read the barcode."
"Probably because the computer doesn't want the book returned." I wrinkled my mouth. "Who would want to read about funeral flowers anyway?"
"Viola Aster, the vice president of the Garden Club," she replied, entering the barcode number by hand. "Since Margaret has no known relatives, Viola has taken it upon herself to choose the flowers for her funeral, whenever that is, and George Fontaine down at Some Enchanted Florist has offered to cover the cost."
"That's nice of them." I leaned onto the counter. "What did Viola pick?"
"Blue forget-me-nots."
I looked at Amy like she'd just coldcocked me with the scan gun. "Is that supposed to be some kind of joke?"
She shrugged and placed the book on a cart. "You have to admit that it's a pretty good way to remember her."
"Okay, fine." Let's face it—the flower was spot on. "But Danger Cove is going to want to forget all about Margaret when the news breaks about her involvement in black-market adoptions."
I heard a gasp from behind me and turned to see a woman giving me a shame-on-you stare as she led a little girl away from the desk.
"Would you use your library voice, please?" Amy hissed.
It took everything I had not to call her the proverbial pot calling the kettle black.
"Did you finish going through the
Clarion-Ledger
microfiche?" I asked in an irritated whisper.
She nodded. "But I couldn't find anything to indicate that other families had pressed suit against the hospital."
I put my bag on the counter. It was getting heavy, like this conversation. "So, you're telling me that the Bible could be the only proof that more babies were stolen?"
"Unless there were other cases that were settled privately," she replied as she scanned another book.
I rubbed my forehead. The thought that twenty-nine mothers might still believe that their children had died was already overwhelming. The knowledge that I might have lost the only evidence to prove otherwise was almost too much to bear. "I just wish that I'd turned that Bible over to the police."
"Right?" Amy agreed in her typical show-no-mercy fashion. "But at least you can tell them who stole it."
"It's just my word against Clyde's at this point. What I can't figure out is how he knew what Margaret was up to, especially if Hazel Kirkpatrick was the only one of all those women who figured out that her baby had survived."
She pushed up her glasses. "He could have been an acquaintance or a relative who stumbled on the truth somehow."
"Hey, that would make sense," I said, pointing at her. "I'll bet that Clyde was blackmailing her, and then she threatened to report him, so he killed her." I pressed my finger to my cheek. "But wait. Then why kill Dr. Windom?"
"He must have been involved with the adoptions in some way. He was a doctor, after all."
"I suppose, but he didn't show up in any of the information on the case."
My ringtone sounded, and Amy gave me a librarian look.
"Sorry." I pulled my phone from my bag and glanced at the display. "It's Gia. I need to take this."
I hurried out the main door and pressed Accept. "Hi."
"So let me guess," Gia began. "You wrapped up your investigation but stayed at the resort to play a rousing game of beach-blanket bingo with the retirees."
She had no idea how close that was to being true, especially the rousing part. "Actually, I'm at the library doing some research. Is the plumber still there?"
"Yeah, it was supposed to be an easy job, but he's run into a problem."
"There goes more money I don't have down the drain," I said as I took a seat on a bench by the front door. "What's wrong now?"
"He removed two corroded pipes, but he can't put the new ones in because there's some kind of obstruction in the wall. He's got to go underneath the house to see if he can figure it out."
I saw four dollar signs on my mental cash register. "Well, I guess it's too late for a second bid. Who did Detective Ohlsen send to oversee him?"
"Some guy I don't know." She paused. "But I'd like to know him better."
The last thing I needed was Gia flirting with the policeman while the plumber was trying to work, although, come to think of it, her Medusa getup might actually make him finish the repairs faster. "Okay, but remember that I'm paying the plumber by the hour, so please let the men do their jobs."
"Just what are you implying?" she huffed. "You know that I'll wait until the leak is fixed to put the moves on the cop."
I rolled my eyes.
"By the way, right after you left this morning, Zac stopped by on his way to work to check on us. Isn't that adorable?"
My breath caught in my chest, and it wasn't because of Zac's sweet gesture. Clyde had just exited the hardware store across the street.
"I'll call you later." I jumped behind a shrub and shoved the phone into my bag.
I peered through the branches and watched as Clyde loaded boards into the back of a Pirate's Hook Marine Services truck. He was wearing a short-sleeved shirt that exposed the purplish-brown marks on his arms. The spots still seemed fairly pronounced, considering that the accident at the Marine had happened days before.
Clyde threw the last of the boards into the bed and then hopped into the truck and sped away.
As soon as the coast was clear, I went inside and found Amy shelving books in the stacks. "I just saw Clyde."
Her eyes grew wide behind her lenses, and she stepped behind the cart. "He's not coming in here, is he?"
"He's gone," I said, waving my hand to calm her. "Listen, can you think of an illness that causes dark-purple marks on the skin, like on the arms?"
"Well, my
Großvater
Spannagel had those from diabetes."
"Oh my gosh." I put my hand over my mouth. "Diabetes!"
"I appreciate your concern for my grandfather, Cass," she said, resuming her shelving. "But the old man's dead as a doornail."
I shook my head. Amy never failed to amaze me. "What I meant was that a lot of diabetics need regular insulin injections. If Clyde is one of them, then he probably has syringes with him at all times."
"If you're thinking that he injected Margaret with one of those syringes, think again. Like I told you, it takes at least fifty milliliters of Barbicide to kill someone, and insulin syringes hold a fraction of that amount, one milliliter maximum. So, he would have had to inject her at least fifty times—"
"Enough with the graphic details," I interrupted, holding out my hand in a stopping motion. "But he would've had easy access to syringes, right?"
"Everyone does. I order them online for crafting, especially when I'm gluing small items like rhinestones."
I sat down at one of the public computers. "Darn it. I was sure that I had him."
She inserted a book on a shelf. "What are you going to do now?"
I tapped the keyboard to wake the computer. "Try to find Hazel Kirkpatrick."
"What will you say to her if you do?" she asked, walking up behind me.
"I don't know yet," I replied as I googled whitepages.com. When the page loaded, I entered
Hazel Kirkpatrick
and
Jackson, MS
, and then hit the Return key.
There was a match.
I didn't need to look at Amy to know that she was as surprised as I was, because I could see her open-mouthed expression reflected on the screen.
I inhaled and pressed the link to Hazel's address. Her contact information appeared, and I glanced at the clock on the screen. It was ten thirty, so it wasn't too early to call. With shaking hands, I entered the number into my phone and pressed speaker so that Amy could listen.
"Hello?" a raucous female voice answered. She sounded annoyed.
"Hi, my name's Ca—uh, Cathy, and I'm calling for Hazel Kirkpatrick?" I said it as a question, not quite believing that I had the right person.
"You got me," she snapped. "But I divorced Mr. Kirkpatrick years ago, the no-good, lousy bum."
"I…I see," I faltered, unsure of what to say after her rant.
"The name's Hazel Wil—"
The connection cut out, and Amy laid a wallop on my back that sent the phone flying.
I fell to my knees as I scrambled to retrieve it, thinking that surely Hazel had been about to say "Williams" or "Wilkins" or something. When I reached the phone, I asked, "Could you please repeat that name, ma'am?"
"I said," she began, dragging the word into two syllables, "Willard."
And there it was—something that I should have suspected all along. Clyde was neither an acquaintance of nor a relation to Margaret Appleby. He was connected to Hazel.
Swallowing my stupor, I pressed forward with my investigation. "By any chance, Ms. Willard, do you know someone named Clyde?"
"Clyde?" she bellowed. "What the hell's he done now?"
I paused, caught off guard by her reply. Clyde had done a lot, but I could hardly tell her that.
"Who'd you say you were again?" she demanded. "You're not with the police, are you?"
"Uh, no, ma'am. I—"
I heard the sound of the receiver crashing down. Clearly, Ms. Willard didn't have a smartphone.
Amy gave me a shove. "Call her back."
"You heard how suspicious she was. She's not going to talk to me again."
She twisted her mouth to one side, as though debating whether to say something she shouldn't. "Do you think she's going to call Clyde?"
"Don't
you
?" I smacked my forehead with the palm of my hand. "Why did I have to say that my name was Cathy? Why not Brittany or Megan? Now Clyde will probably know it was me."
"Don't worry about that," she said in an unusually reassuring tone. "Think of it this way—he already knows you're onto him, so that phone call isn't going to make any difference."
My lips flattened. "How comforting."
She put her hand on her hips. "He's bound to be onto you by now, Cass. It's time to face the facts."
"Good point." I tapped my lips with my index finger. "But what are the facts? I mean, Clyde is onto me, but I still don't know who he is in all of this. Is he the stepfather or step-uncle of the child? Or, if Willard is Hazel's maiden name, is he a maternal uncle?"
"There's no way to know based on what Hazel said."
My phone vibrated in my hand, and I dropped it like a hot potato, thinking that it was Hazel. But when I looked down, I saw Gia's name on the display. "Let me guess," I said, mimicking her earlier greeting. "The plumber found hidden treasure in the wall, and now we're rich!"
"Come home now," Gia said without a trace of humor in her voice. "Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200."
The line went dead.
Amy resumed her shelving. "That was fast."
"Yeah, short and not at all sweet," I said. Because if I had interpreted Gia's Monopoly-speak correctly, I was going directly to jail.
* * *
I stood in the middle of The Clip and Sip, wondering what was going on. This certainly wasn't the homecoming I'd expected. There were no squad cars out front, no officers waiting to read me my rights, not even a warrant for my arrest. It wasn't like I was disappointed—quite the contrary. But the fear I'd felt for myself was turning into concern for Gia. What if she'd called me because she was the one in trouble?
And then I thought about Clyde.
"Gia?" I shouted.
There was no reply.
"Is anyone here?"
The building was silent.
My pulse started to quicken, but I reminded myself that I'd seen the plumber's truck and the officer's unmarked car parked on the street as I'd pulled the Ferrari around back. Then it occurred to me that the officer might be with the plumber underneath the building.
I hurried to the stairwell and pulled out my phone. With every step I took, my worry intensified. "Gia?" I called with my finger hovering above 9-1-1 in my contact list. "If you're here, please answer me."
"Upstairs," she replied in a muffled tone.
I stopped near the landing, grabbed the railing, and bowed my head. I didn't know why Gia had sounded stifled, but it had better be because she was bound and gagged. Otherwise, I was going to tie her up myself.
When I finally found her, I knew why she hadn't heard me. For one thing, she was inside Vinnie's old bathroom. And for another, she was mesmerized by the Rambo-sized ribcage of the twenty-something-year-old officer, who, in turn, was bewitched by her Chicken Filleted chest.
"Sorry to interrupt," I said from the doorway. "But what's going on here?"
"I've almost got it," a gruff voice announced from below.
I stepped inside the bathroom to find the plumber on his hands and knees with his torso inside the antique vanity that contained the sink. Then I stepped right back outside. There was an enormous crack down there, and it wasn't in the floor. "Almost got what?"
Gia tore her eyes from the officer's buff bod. "He found a box in the wall, and he's trying to get it out."
The officer sprung into action—and so did his Dolce & Gabbana cologne. "The box was originally located to the right of the trap door under the sink, Miss Conti. But when Jim here removed the old pipes, it fell into the space where the pipes had been."
I gave him the once-over. "And you are?"
He flashed a smooth smile and lowered his already low brow. "Officer Stallone at your service."
Stallone?
Suddenly, everything became clear to me. "Gia, can I talk to you alone for a minute?"
She leapt to her feet and jerked me by the elbow into the hallway. "I thought you'd never ask. Isn't he
friggin' fab
? His name is Donatello, which is perfect, because he's totally a Greek god."
His name was perfect all right. "Donatello was the Renaissance painter that inspired the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. I think you mean Dionysus."
"Donatello, Dionysus." She made a dismissive gesture. "Whatever."
My sentiments exactly. "So, would you mind explaining why you made me rush home like that? You scared me half to death."
She gave a so-what shrug. "Donatello said that the homeowner had to give consent to open the box."
That did it. After the plumber and the Greek god of the Ninja Turtles left, I was going to hog-tie her Texas style.
"Don't you get it? This could be it." Gia squealed and rubbed her hands together. "Vinnie's missing money."
Although I was skeptical, I had to admit that I was a little excited. After all, what else would Vinnie hide inside a wall if not some ill-gotten gains?
Officer Stallone entered the hallway. "With your permission, ma'am, I'd like to have the plumber open the box, given the ongoing investigations associated with your property."
"Of course," I said.
We followed Officer Stallone to the bathroom, and he raised a manicured thumb at the plumber. "Yo, you're good to go, bro."
Jim nodded and pulled a hammer from his tool belt. Then he stuck his tongue out to one side and began prying the lid from the crude wooden box.
I was so nervous that I thought I was going to pass out from the anticipation—or from Officer Stallone's cologne.
"Got it," Jim grunted when he removed the last nail. As he lifted the lid, I squeezed my eyes shut and said a silent prayer—for cold, hard cash.
"Leaping lasagna," Gia exclaimed. "It's blue."
Blue? Didn't she mean green?
I opened my eyes and looked down at the box. It was filled with hundreds, maybe thousands, of light-blue, diamond-shaped pills encased in clear plastic sheets.
Jim rose to his feet and pulled up his pants. He exchanged an uneasy look with the officer. "I'd best get back to those, uh, pipes."
I turned to Officer Stallone. "What is this stuff?"
"I'm afraid that it's Viagra, ma'am." He shot Gia a penetrating look. "But I don't know that from personal experience or nuttin', yo."
So Uncle Vinnie
was
dealing drugs, although certainly not the kind I'd expected, and they were blue.
Gia gasped. "So, that's how Vinnie did it."
"Did what?" I asked.
"You know,
it
." She gave me a nudge. "As in, hiding the cannoli, bringing the al dente noodle to the spaghetti house—"
"Okay, okay," I interrupted. "You've made it unappetizingly clear."
"The Don Juan of Danger Cove was taking vats of Viagra." She flailed her arms into a
V
to reiterate her point.
Officer Stallone clutched his six-pack abs and laughed like a high school football player at a nerd convention. "Yo, everyone in town knew that old Vinnie got a lotta action and all, but if the dude needed this much blue diamond…"
I cocked my head to the side. "What did you say?"
"Pardon me, ma'am," he said, resuming his police persona. "I shouldn't have disparaged your relation in your presence."
"Not that," I said, exasperated. "The last thing you said—blue diamond."
"That's a street name for Viagra, and I shouldn't have used such a crude phrase in your company."
I didn't have time to be annoyed by his brownnosing, because another piece of the puzzle had just slipped into place.
"We used to have a problem with the illegal sale of Viagra here in Danger Cove, especially down at the Coveside Retirement Resort. Those old geezers were popping them like they were blue Skittles or something, and EMS was having to go out there every week because of all the side effects. Did you know that if you take enough of that stuff, you could start seeing blue?"
I didn't, but I could definitely relate.
"Then about a year or so ago," he continued, "the Viagra disappeared, just like that." He looked down at the box and raised his Neanderthal brow as though a light bulb had just turned on in his in head.
Gia and I exchanged a concerned look.
"So yo," Officer Stallone began with a combined hip-and-arm thrust more reminiscent of Elvis than Sylvester, "you ladies know that I'm going to have to report this discovery to Detective Ohlsen, right?"
Gia batted gold-flecked eyelashes at the officer. "Donatello, could you give us a moment?"
Hooking his thumbs into his duty belt, he continued the unintentional Elvis impersonation by jutting out his pelvis and curling his lip at Gia. "Don't keep me waitin' too long,
awright
?"
She giggled and twisted a curl around her finger.
This time I jerked her by the elbow to my bedroom. "Forget the flirting, cuz. We've got big problems."
"I know," she said, closing the door. "
Bobby Darin
and
bd
are codes for
blue diamond.
"
"Which Uncle Vinnie was dealing to Danger Cove," I added.
She collapsed on the edge of my bed. "What should we do?"
"Turn his little black book over to the police," I replied. Then a terrible thought struck me. "Wait. We still have it, don't we? Or did Clyde steal that too?"
"Relax. It's in my room with the copy I made." She flipped her hair. "But seriously, can we afford yet another scandal in the family?"
"What choice do we have? Officer Stallone has already seen the Viagra."
Gia stuck out her silicone. "I can take care of that,
cug
."
"We may live in an old brothel," I said, "but I'm not about to pimp you out to the police."
"It's not like I mind." She licked her lips. "Donatello's my dream date."
I refrained from comment—it would've been like shooting turtles in a barrel. "I'm not saying that you can't go out with him. I just don't think that your date should involve bribing him to hide evidence from the police."
"I don't get you sometimes." She flopped backward on my bed. "You say that you want to save your business and your reputation, but then you want to do something like this."
"Let me put it into perspective for you. Two people are dead from Barbicide poisoning, one of whom died in this very salon. And now blue pills turn up in our house, the place where Vinnie died."
She propped herself on her elbows. "Are you saying there's a connection?"
"I'm not sure. But Clyde is related to one of the babies in Margaret's Bible, so anything is possible."
Gia sat up and grabbed my forearm. "So, he
is
the one who snuck into our salon and killed her!"
"It makes sense. He supposedly peeps into windows. Maybe he looked inside The Clip and Sip, saw Margaret, and seized his opportunity."
"But why kill her now? He's not new to town, is he?"
"I don't think so, but I can find out." I put my hands on my hips. "The point, though, is that it's getting too complicated and too dangerous for us to investigate these murders."
"You know something?" she asked, her eyes full of wonder. "I actually agree with you."
"That's almost as alarming as your Medusa look," I replied, only half joking.
She stood up and socked me in the arm. "I'll go get Vinnie's book."
As soon as she left, I sat at my desk and wrote a list of my findings for Detective Ohlsen. I included the Bible, Margaret's true identity, Hazel Kirkpatrick, a.k.a. Willard, and, of course, Clyde.
"Here it is." Gia stood in the doorway with the black book in her hand.
"Awesome," I said, tucking the note into an envelope. "Give it to Officer Stallone, and have him deliver this letter to Detective Ohlsen."