“We don’t have shampoo,” she apologized.
“I’ll use the soap,” I said.
She shut the door behind her as she left. I locked it and stripped off my clothes. The blood had soaked through my shirt, and the skin around the dragon tattoo was pink. My heart began to pound, and I sat, naked, on the plastic chair, my head in my hands, and I began to sob softly. Somewhere in this building, Jeff was fighting for his life. I vowed to be nicer to him when he got better. I wouldn’t get as annoyed with him.
After a few minutes, I pulled myself together and turned on the faucet, the hot water crashing down around me, beating into my skin and washing away the blood.
The nurse had left me some scrubs, and when I was done, I put them on and found Tim waiting for me.
“Better?” he asked casually, although I could see from his expression that something else was going on.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Cops found the scene. Couldn’t really miss it. Pieces of car all over the place, lots of skid marks. A dent in that light pole you must have hit.”
He was holding something back, though.
“What?” I asked again. “What’s wrong?”
“There’s nothing else there. No car, no injured person. No one at all.”
Chapter 55
“S
o you think we ran ourselves off the road? That Jeff shot himself?” I asked indignantly. “Or maybe you think
I
shot him.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Brett.”
“Am I being ridiculous? You say that there was no body, no car, like I was lying or something. Like maybe it was all a figment of my imagination.”
“I know you’re not lying,” he argued. “But obviously you didn’t hurt the guy as bad as you thought.”
“There was blood on the hood of the car,” I said, shivering with the memory and looking around. “Where’s Flanigan? Doesn’t he want to take me in or something?”
“You’re being unreasonable,” Tim said, his voice full of exasperation. “Can you remember anything else that could help us?”
I didn’t want to remember anything. I wished I didn’t remember anything.
“Jeff said he saw the car in the side-view mirror. But he didn’t tell me what kind of car it was.”
It had been a little while from the time Jeff and I left to the time I called Tim. If the guy wasn’t hurt too bad, he probably drove away. It had felt as if we’d slammed into the other car pretty hard, but maybe it wasn’t as bad as it felt.
“Do you really think it could’ve been Dan Franklin?” I asked.
“He came after you this afternoon. He ran from us. He seemed a little squirrelly when we questioned him, although he had answers for everything.”
“Did he pick up his car from the shop after getting his timing belt?” I asked, emphasizing the words “timing belt” as though that was just a cover. Because it might have been.
I remembered something else. “What about Will Parker? He met Franklin at the Convention Center, right?”
“Franklin says he called him to pick him up and take him to work.”
I vaguely remembered him telling us that.
I thought about Parker and how Jeff and I had followed him from the Convention Center.
“Sanderson. Martin Sanderson. The owner of the Love Shack, that wedding chapel across from That’s Amore,” I said.
“What about him?”
“Parker went there from the Convention Center.”
Tim frowned. Oops. He didn’t know Jeff and I had followed Parker. But considering where Jeff was now, I wasn’t going to worry about it.
“Remember I asked you about that license plate number? Will Parker was driving the car registered to Martin Sanderson.”
I filled him in on how Jeff had followed Parker, adding that Parker ended up at Murder Ink, where we found him with Bernie.
Tim scratched his chin. “He said he was there for a tattoo?”
“That’s what Bernie said.” As I spoke, I realized how stupid that sounded. Parker had been to my shop earlier for a tattoo touch-up. He hinted he might want more ink, but it seemed too soon to head to another shop for another tattoo. But what other reason would he have to go to Murder Ink?
“Maybe I need to talk to Bernie,” Tim said. “See exactly what Parker wanted.”
“Maybe you do. But keep in mind he’s over eighty.”
“Which means his memory might not be as good.”
“Right.”
“He’s at his daughter’s house?”
“That’s where we left them.” And then I realized I hadn’t called Sylvia to tell her about Jeff. She had no idea her son was in surgery at the moment, shot in the shoulder by a crazy person. Considering that she’d lost one son, this would be terrible news. “I need to call Sylvia,” I said softly. “She doesn’t know yet, about Jeff.”
But then I had another thought. I debated with myself for a second, then said, “Sylvia withdrew ten thousand dollars from her account the day before her wedding.”
“How do you know that?” Tim’s eyes were as wide as dinner plates.
I told him about the quilted bag and how I’d come to be in possession of it. “It was all pretty innocent,” I added, “until I looked inside the bag and saw the bank receipt.”
“So you think she’s the one who gave the money to Lucci?”
“She says she didn’t. When I asked her about it later, she said to mind my own business.” I paused. “I guess it could’ve been for anything.”
“Except that her son left a duffel bag with exactly that amount in his locker.”
“But what about Dan Franklin’s money? The money he withdrew?”
“I see where you might connect the dots, but that one’s a dead end. Franklin did take the money out, but what you didn’t see was that he put it right back into a CD. His bank was offering a pretty good rate. We verified it all with the bank.”
Back to square one.
“So what about Sanderson? His assistant told me that Ray Lucci had been around threatening them,” I said. “Maybe Sanderson wanted to get rid of Lucci. Parker was with Lucci at my shop—” I stopped. What about that tattoo that Dan Franklin had?
Tim read my mind. “It really was Lucci. We verified the shop where Franklin got his tattoo.”
And then it came back to me in a flash. What had bothered me about Franklin’s tattoo. Joel told me he’d tattooed “That’s Amore” around Lucci’s bicep. Franklin’s tattoo was on his forearm. So much for that theory. But it didn’t mean Franklin was off the hook completely. He
had
run from us for some reason.
“Going back to Parker—he was with Lucci at my shop. He was messing around with Joel’s clip cord. He could’ve taken it and then killed Lucci with it later. Since Parker was driving Sanderson’s car and he went over to the Love Shack today, maybe he and Sanderson were in on it together.”
“And you think Sanderson hired him to do it?”
I shrugged. “You got any better ideas?”
He agreed. “It would make sense.”
“Parker did say someone tried to run him down in my car. Maybe Lucci tried to kill him first.”
“Or maybe he made that up.”
Definite possibility.
“Why would he kill Marino?” Tim asked.
There were still too many questions. And Parker was in the wind, so we couldn’t ask him.
“I’m going to take you home,” Tim said.
“What about Flanigan?”
“He agreed that you could go home, as long as I was with you.” He paused. “Of course he’s not completely trusting me right now, either, because of the Monorail thing, but I managed to convince him we’d go straight to the house.”
“I’m staying. I need to stay until Jeff’s out of surgery.” I heard a tinge of hysteria in my voice.
“There’s nothing you can do.” Tim sighed, then tried another tack. “You don’t have any proper clothes.”
“I thought you said you’d call Bitsy.”
“I couldn’t reach her.”
I nodded, remembering. “I told her she could leave early. She’s probably on a date or something. You know, you could go get me some clothes.”
“Or you could come home, change, get a couple hours of sleep, and then I can bring you back when Jeff’s in recovery.” He stared me down. This was not unlike some of our childhood power plays, and fortunately for him, I was worn down enough by the night’s events to give in.
I got off the bed and felt it in every muscle. Tim noticed. He took my arm as he pulled back the curtain with his other hand. Bixby was on the other side.
“Can you call me the minute Jeff is out of surgery?” I asked him.
“Sure,” he said, and while I’d done my best to assure him that Jeff was no more than a friend, he still looked a little uncertain.
I was too exhausted, worried, and in pain to care now.
“Thanks.”
Bixby leaned over and gave me a peck on the cheek.
Tim put his arm around me as we walked out the sliding doors and into the night. I shivered; the cotton scrubs weren’t exactly warm, and it had gotten pretty chilly out. Tim shrugged out of his tweed sport jacket and handed it to me. I put it on, and between the warmth from Tim’s body and the tweed, I felt a lot better.
When we were settled into the Impala, I turned to him and said, “I forgot to call Sylvia.” I took my phone out of my bag, and as I flipped it open, I realized I didn’t have Rosalie’s number. I called information and was put through.
No one answered. The phone rang and rang.
“That’s weird,” I said as I closed my phone. “Sylvia was staying over with her.”
“Maybe they’re very sound sleepers,” Tim suggested.
Maybe. But it felt as though something wasn’t right. It was possible they wouldn’t have heard the first ring, but I let it ring at least ten times.
“Unless they had the ringer turned off,” Tim said when I expressed my concern.
Okay, so maybe I was seeing trouble where there wasn’t any. But I hadn’t expected the boogeyman to jump out in the desert, either.
Tim’s phone rang. He scooted up in the seat and took it off his belt. “Kavanaugh,” he said.
I could hear the other person talking but couldn’t make out the words. Finally, Tim said, “Okay. Thanks.” And he hung up. He turned to me, his mouth set in a grim line.
“It was definitely someone from that wedding chapel who ran you off the road and shot at you.”
Before I could ask how he knew that, he spoke again.
“They found a torn piece of a jacket at side of the road. It had the words ‘That’s Amore’ on it.”
Chapter 56
I
didn’t think I could ever hear that song title again without having a panic attack. I closed my eyes and let the movie play in my head: the car ramming into the light pole, the gunshots, the body slamming into the windshield.
I looked at Tim. “Do you think it was Dan Franklin?”
“Could have been.”
“Why would he have changed into his Dean Martin tux, though?” I asked.
We sat for a few minutes pondering that. It didn’t make any sense.
“Will Parker?” I asked.
“Maybe.”
Or maybe it was someone totally unrelated to anything that had been going on tonight. Some guy with road rage who came after us.
No. It had to have something to do with everything that had been going on the last few days. Someone who felt threatened enough to try to kill Jeff and me.
Which reminded me, “We need to tell Sylvia about Jeff.”
“So what do you propose to do? Go over and wake them up?”
I nodded. “Exactly.”
“Why don’t I get a uniform out there?” Tim said. “Then you don’t have to worry. He’ll tell Sylvia about Jeff and take her to the hospital to be with him.”
The guilt I felt about leaving the hospital came rushing back. “I should be with her,” I argued. “I should tell her, and I should sit with her, waiting for Jeff.”
We were stopped at a light. Tim shifted a little so he was looking at me.
“Is there something more than friendship between you and Jeff Coleman?” he asked.
He was totally serious. While I understood why I had to explain things to Bixby, I shouldn’t have had to explain them to my brother.
“No,” I said. “But I was in that car with him. It could’ve been me.” And as I faced that thought, my whole body began to shake, but I kept going. “He would’ve stayed for me. I know that. He wouldn’t have left.”
Tim took a deep breath. The light changed, and he settled back into his seat and turned on the turn signal. In seconds, he’d spun the Impala around.
“Thanks, Tim,” I said, as I found myself headed back out to Summerlin.
We had to stop at the scene. The road was filled with flashing blue and red lights, white spotlights illuminating the desert as detectives and crime scene investigators combed the ground for any clues.
“They’re trying to re-create what happened out here,” Tim explained. I already knew that; I watch TV.
Tim flashed his badge for the cop who stopped us.
“We’re just heading up the road,” he said. “Guy who got shot—his mother’s in one of those town houses. We can’t reach her by phone, so we’re going to pick her up and take her to the hospital.”
The cop shone his flashlight in my face, and I blinked. “Okay,” he said, although I could tell he wanted to say more. He waved us through.
“He probably wanted me to stick around and re-create the crime,” I said bitterly, spots in front of my eyes because of the flashlight.
“Hate to tell you, Brett, but you’re not off the block yet. Flanigan will go over everything with you again.”
“After he talks to Jeff? To make sure our stories match, right?” I couldn’t keep the anger out of my tone.
“That’s right. It’s his job to get the story straight.” His tone was measured, as if he knew he shouldn’t rile me up even more.
I settled back in my seat and stared at the black sky ahead of us. I always counted on Red Rock for peace of mind, but I wasn’t sure I’d want to drive out this way again anytime soon. Maybe I’d have to check out Lake Mead, over in the total opposite direction. There were some good trails out there, too, although it was farther to go, less convenient if I had to get to work at a reasonable hour.