Let Slip the Dogs of War: A Bard's Bed & Breakfast Mystery #1 (3 page)

“I’m in the garage, babe.”

“Come on back. There’s a little package I
need you to mail for me.”

“Right now?”

“Yes,” I insisted. “You’ll be going past the
post office and it needs to go into the mail today.” That was code
for get your ass up here now and get rid of this dead body.

“Is the package wrapped and addressed?” Ben
wanted to know.

“No, I need your signature on the letter,” I
responded, my way of telling Ben he needed to see the corpse for
himself. In case you haven’t guessed yet, this isn’t the first time
we’ve had one pop up inconveniently.

“Okay. I’m on my way.”

I scrambled under the bed to get a better
look at the woman attached to the hand. I didn’t recognize her face
or the rest of her over-exposed self. How did the killer get her
into the Bard’s Bed and Breakfast? It’s not like we don’t have
security.

“Quiet, Puck!” I shushed the yapping dog.
“Come here, boy.”

Puck chose to run out of the room and I can’t
say I blamed him. I felt like doing the same thing. Instead, I
encouraged Mr. Darcy to join his canine friend and carefully shut
the door, to discourage any passing visitors from stopping by.

“Bea?” I heard Sir Galahad’s size tens on the
stairs and from the sound, he was wasting no time. “Where are
you?”

“Ephesus Suite,” I yelled. There was
something on the woman’s left ankle, a tiny tattoo. It was a little
bee.

“Damn!” I heard Ben step into the room and
lock the door. A moment later, his head appeared by the floor on
the other side of the bed. “Do you recognize her?”

“No,” I admitted. “She looks fairly young.
Definitely under thirty. Actually, she doesn’t look more than
twenty.”

“Help me pull her out from under the bed,
Bea.” Ben didn’t look happy. There was something about this body
that was upsetting him, beyond the fact that the girl was dead.
“You take the arm, I’ll take the leg. One...two...”

On three, we both pulled, and the body bumped
along the woolen surface of the rug. I was going to have to do some
cleaning to get out the bodily fluids on that by day’s end. The
dead body had unfortunately left its mark on Uncle Edward’s
favorite Kerman.

Out in the open, we could see the mottled
skin and the gray pallor on the poor dead girl, indications that
she had been there for a while.

“How long?” I asked.

“Maybe six hours,” he replied. I thought back
to where we were at that time. In bed. Sleeping side by side. I
know because I woke up with beard burn on my cheek, from Ben’s
amorous nocturnal attentions.

“She has a tattoo,” I told him. Ben’s head
shot up and he looked at me with interest.

“Where? Show me.”

“Right here.” I pointed at the slender ankle.
Ben took it in his two hands to examine it, which wasn’t easy,
given the leg was unyielding.

“Crap. What time is Mr. Williams coming in?”
Ben asked, suddenly concerned.

“Four-thirty. He wants us to pick him up at
the airport. Why?”

“Look around you, Bea.You see a naked
body.What does that suggest?” He was examining the body closely as
I thought for a long moment. “Do you see the woman’s missing
clothes? Hell, no.”

“Are you suggesting the killer must be a
woman?” I asked with disbelief.

“Why else take the clothes?”

“It could be a male who wants to impersonate
the girl. You think he or she has gone to intercept Mr.
Williams?”

“It’s possible. But it won’t do
her
any good,” Ben decided. “Williams will kill
her
.”

Chapter Three --

“How can you be so sure?” I wondered. “Maybe
he’s
just looking for a chance to kill Williams and
he
doesn’t need a lot of cover, only enough to get close
enough.

“
She’s
not the right honey.” He shook
his head and pointed to that ankle, where the bee was now sporting
very smudged wings. “If the killer tries to fabricate
her
own version of the tattoo, Williams will know.”

“Why would Mr. Williams suspect a fake
tattoo, Ben? If the killer doesn’t have to show
his
tattoo
to succeed at killing Mr. Williams, the tattoo doesn’t matter.”

“This one is probably made of edible ink.
Williams probably knows what it’s supposed to taste like. She
should have another tattoo on her somewhere....” My husband was
checking out each side of the naked woman’s inner thighs. He moved
up the front of the body before turning her over. “See?”

“It’s a flower,” I replied, looking at the
tiny red blossom on her back, just inches from her fanny.

“Not just any flower. It’s a rose.”

“So?”

“A rose would smell as sweet. Give it a
sniff,” he told me. I looked at Ben like he had two heads. It was
bad enough I was this close to a dead body. I really didn’t want to
put my nose near it. Ben waved his hand upward, until I got a
whiff.

“That tattoo’s got perfume in it?”

“One tattoo is to be tasted and one is to be
smelled. Those are her bona fides.”

“That’s ridiculous. What is the game here?” I
demanded. “Why does she need bona fides?”

“She’s here to give him a key to the code
he’s supposed to use. Williams knows what the verification
involves.”

“Did the girl turn it over to her killer
before she was murdered?” I leaned over his shoulder to watch as
Ben was examining the young woman’s arm. He pointed to the needle
mark.

“Possible overdose, but she doesn’t look like
a junkie. No, if she was carrying the key on her, the killer
probably didn’t get it because the girl wouldn’t have known the
significance of the tattoos.”

“Why kill the girl and put her under the bed?
Why involve us in this mess?”

“That’s the million dollar question, babe.”
Ben stood up. “I wish I knew the answer. I have to make some phone
calls.”

“Wait. How would Mr. Williams test the bee,
by licking it, by tasting it?” I looked down at the girl with the
two tattoos. “What if it’s a hit? What if the killer is wearing a
toxic tattoo?”

“Food for thought. But at the moment, I need
a photo of her. I have to call the Mother Ship.” Ben took two. He
checked them and then started dialing before he stepped outside
onto the Juliet balcony.

I stared at the young girl on the floor. In
death, she didn’t look like a prostitute. She wore just enough
makeup to enhance her well-proportioned features. Her hair was dark
and luxurious, simply cut. I looked at her fingernails -- clipped
short and painted in a light, pearly polish. There was nothing
seductive about her, other than the fact that she was naked. The
girl looked like she belonged on the tennis court, hitting tennis
balls with some lanky, good-looking guy who would ask her out first
chance he got. Maybe she was a young, inexperienced CIA trainee on
a mission.

I thought about what I knew of Mr. Williams.
Other than he was staying for four days, would be joining us for
dinner tonight and tomorrow night, and requested we make a bicycle
available for him to use during his visit, I knew little. On our
way to the airport, I would call the “travel agency” that booked
his stay with us and they would send me a photo of our guest and my
copy of a verification phrase that Mr. Williams would recite to
confirm his identity.

I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was
missing important clues. The killer, who was in this very room at
some point, removed all of the girl’s clothing, shoes, and whatever
else she had with her. How did the killer get the girl into the
Bard’s Bed & Breakfast without getting caught? Or did the girl
sneak in here on her own, as part of a CIA mission?

I was lost in thought when Ben came back into
the room, but I quickly realized he was not looking particularly
happy. I can’t say I really blame him. I wasn’t all that happy
about having a dead visitor, but then I wasn’t all that happy about
the live ones either.

“Langley wants us to pick up Mr. Williams as
scheduled. They want us to make sure we get to him before the
killer can.”

“Ben, what if the killer is already here, as
a guest? What if it’s an inside job, so to speak?”

“We’re working blind here, Bea. We don’t know
Mr. Williams’ reason for staying with us. But the tattoos on the
girl suggest he’s on a mission. Langley won’t tell me anything, but
that doesn’t mean we can’t figure this thing out for
ourselves.”

“Where do we start?”

“The tattoos. Bee and rose. Rose and bee. A
bee stings. A rose has thorns. They’re both sharp. They both have a
point.” Ben tried on a couple of possible answers, tossing them
into the air and hoping they would fall into place.

“Bees like flowers,” I pointed out. “They go
together, like salt and pepper, peanut butter and jelly.”

“Keys are usually numerical or alphabetical,
or a combination of the two. It’s a starting point for uncovering a
hidden message that stays hidden unless you have the key.”

“Uncle Edward’s reminiscences have rubbed off
on me,” I admitted. “You know how he always talks about how
vulnerable the new technology is to interception? He insists things
were a lot safer back in the OSS years.”

“That’s true. This tattoo thing is an
old-fashioned method of visually conveying a message,” he agreed,
nodding his head rhythmically, absent-mindedly. “What would be an
old-fashioned way of putting a code on her body that she wouldn’t
see as a code and neither would anyone else, except for Mr.
Williams?”

“Uncle Edward said it could be as simple as
moving a plant from one side of the window sill to the other. The
Nazis could look at it and see nothing. It only meant something if
you knew what it meant. It had to appear to be totally innocent.
Something added or something missing.” We both studied the girl
with fresh eyes. She really was totally naked. No jewelry. “But it
has to be on her person at all times, right? Because otherwise, she
might inadvertently leave it somewhere else. Where can you hide
something on a naked body?”

“Maybe that’s why she’s naked,” Ben
suggested. “Maybe the killer doesn’t need her clothes.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.” I wasn’t ready to give up
my theory yet.

Ben knelt on the floor, his hands picking up
hers, and he examined each finger. Then he moved down towards her
feet.

“She’s missing fingernail polish on her baby
toe, right foot. There’s none.”

“Are you sure she wasn’t just a nervous
Nellie, peeling it off instead of biting her nails?” My husband
ignored me, carrying on a one-sided conversation with himself.

“The bee could be the letter B. The rose
could be the letter R. The missing fingernail polish could be the
number for the new cipher. We start at B and add ten letters to get
the one we want, the L. And if we start at R and add ten letters,
we get the B, making L and B the letters for the key.”

“How do you know you’re not supposed to start
at B and go backwards ten? Which would be....”

“...G and R,” he said. “Maybe that means you
throw out the L and the G. Maybe the only letters that matter are
the B and the R.”

“What do we do with that?” I wondered.
Stymied, I sat down on the bed, my feet dangling near the dead
girl’s head, and checked the time. We had another two and a half
hours before we had to leave for the drive to Burlington. “Are they
someone’s initials?”

“It could be just about anything, Bea.”

“What should we do with the body? We can’t
leave Jane Doe here. Mr. Williams may not be happy about that.”

“Well, Langley didn’t give me any answers. No
confirmation they know the girl. No confirmation who handled her.
All they said was we had to get to Mr. Williams before the killer
does. They’re not coming to do the clean-up on this. That’s up to
us. I’m supposed to leave the girl in a field halfway to the
airport. They gave me the coordinates, and they’ll have a crew
swing by to pick her up. I guess I’ll go grab a trunk from the
attic.”

“Do we have a trunk in the attic?”

“Let’s hope so.”

“Ben, what if the killer is still hanging
around? What if....”

“Hi ho!” I heard Uncle Edward yodeling for
us. He was knocking on all the doors along the hallway.“Where is
everyone? Lorna and I are looking for a pair for bridge!”

“Oh, bloody la-dee-da!” I groaned. “Perfect
timing. Do we tell him?”

“Langley says no. Go distract him and the
fair Lorna while I tuck the body away.”

“Uncle Edward! Mrs. Gillman!” I whipped open
the door to the Ephesus Suite as if I were out of breath. “Hurry!
You have to help me!”

“Good God, woman, you’re in a state. Whatever
is the matter?”

“It’s Puck! I cannot find him anywhere. I’ve
checked all the rooms,” I insisted, as I shut the door behind me.
“I heard him whining, but I can’t locate him! Puck! Come here!”

“Puck! Where are you, you little rascal?”
Uncle Edward began searching in earnest for the pooch. His
companion joined in the effort.

“Perhaps Mr. Darcy knows where Puck is. Where
has my little dog gone?” Mrs. Gillman asked. “Here, boy!”

All I knew was I didn’t want the poodle and
the Shih Tzu leading the elderly couple back to the now-decomposing
body behind the door of the Ephesus Suite, because those little fur
balls would surely be persistent.

“Where was he when you last saw him,
Beatrice?”

“Chasing Mr. Darcy down the hallway about ten
minutes ago. But something frightened him and he took off like a
shot.”

“He must be around here somewhere. Puck?”

“Why don’t you two look downstairs and I’ll
keep looking up here. Holler up if you find him before I do.”

With that, the elderly couple hurried down
the long hallway and descended the stairs, calling for the missing
poodle.

“You’re clear,” I said, sticking my head in
to let Ben know he could head up to the attic.