Shay O'Hanlon Caper 03 - Pickle in the Middle Murder (4 page)

Dawg was Bogey’s opposite. He never chowed on anything unless it was offered to him. I often wondered if his good behavior came from his horrible past life as a junkyard dog. Dawg had lived in daily fear of beatings at the hands of his jailer—I couldn’t stoop to calling that man an actual dog owner—who starved the poor mutt on top of it. Now the jackass was lounging behind bars for murder. The best part was that he was cooling his heels in the brig because Coop and I stuck our noses where they didn’t belong last fall while trying to prove Coop innocent of offing his bingo barge boss. The adventure was a success for the good guys all around. Well, except for Coop’s dead employer, but he wasn’t exactly a pillar of goodness anyway.

When I’d swallowed the last of the chocolate-hazelnut banana, I secured the banana peel in the garbage. Bogey huffed disgustedly at me, attempted to lick his chops (which just relegated more drool to the floor), and wandered off.

After wiping up after the mad salivator, I grabbed my backpack and stomped up the stairs. A hallway ran from one end of the house to the other and divided the space in two. Our amazingly spacious bedroom occupied one entire half of the floor, with two additional bedrooms situated on the other side of the hall. One room had become my office, and the other was used as a spare bedroom for overnight guests.

In my office, my mother’s antique desk and wooden office chair took center stage. The set had been carefully hauled from my tiny apartment above the Rabbit Hole. Buttercream yellow paint covered three walls, and the fourth was taken up by mostly empty built-in bookshelves. A couple of filing cabinets and a new, buckskin-colored leather loveseat filled the rest of the room.

I set the backpack on the floor and dropped heavily into the desk chair. It squeaked as I leaned back and closed my eyes.

Everything that happened after five o’clock today was a surreal blur. I still could not wrap my mind around exhibit A: I’d found a dead body in an outhouse and that body had been iced. Smoked. Murdered.

Or exhibit B: a cop who apparently hated JT had arrested her, dragged her away, and locked her up like a common criminal. My JT, the maker and keeper of justice and the American way.

Then there was exhibit C: Russell Krasski. A man who did dastardly things, including trafficking
children
, had beaten the system and walked after JT’d wigged out and whomped him. I could feel the depth of self-hatred JT must have harbored against herself—and must still. I shuddered in my chair. It must have been absolutely awful knowing you were the one who was responsible for putting that spineless bastard back on the street. Would I have done the same thing had I been in her shoes? Probably. I suppose it depended on whatever Krasski had said that set JT off. I didn’t lose my temper all that often, but when I did, it was a doozy. I really wondered what buttons he’d tweaked that pushed her into the deep end of the pool—wondered if she’d ever feel comfortable enough to tell me.

My day at the Ren Fest ran in Technicolor on the video screen of my mind. JT had been gone a lot longer than I’d expected fetching my pickle. I didn’t know exactly where she was or what she’d been doing during that time, but I was sure there was no way she shot anyone. Wasn’t I? Then I thought about the tangy wet spots on her shirt. The pickle chunks. Krasski had a pickle crammed down his throat … were the bits and pieces clinging to her shirt from that same pickle? I couldn’t blame JT if she had indeed plugged him then stuffed him, though it still ate at me that she hadn’t shared what had happened. She had to know by now that I would’ve completely understood.

Christ on a cracker, this was a lot for my poor gray matter to work through. I scrubbed a hand over my face and pressed on my temples. If JT had seen Krasski during her pickle quest, she theoretically could’ve followed him into the privies. The rowdy crowd watching the Tortuga Twins had been geared up, screaming at top decibel, and I wasn’t sure if a gunshot would have been heard through the ruckus.

With a wheezing sigh, I sat up and watched the screensaver swirl its colorful patterns on the computer. Coop still hadn’t returned my calls, momentarily distracting me from my morose thoughts. For the seventy-sixth time, I wondered what was going on at the protest up in Duluth. Open Rabbit Hole bills lay scattered off to one side of my desk, and my mind skipped from Coop to finances. Stress-induced ADD? I randomly picked up the electric bill and thought inanely that the total due seemed high. Costs just kept going up. And up. I tossed the bill on top of haphazardly stacked, color-coded Rabbit Hole file folders next to the computer.

My eyes caught a framed 5x7 photo of JT and me that I’d set close to my workspace, snapped a few months ago when we’d taken off for a long weekend in Duluth. We were on the pier at Canal Park, standing on the stairs leading to the lighthouse at the canal entrance, grinning like fools in love at the camera. JT was a step above me, her arms tightly wrapped around my shoulders. I loved that picture. It froze in time a moment of new love in carefree abandon. We needed to find that abandon again very soon.

I reached out a trembling finger and traced JT’s face. Her long hair was pulled up in a ponytail, and wisps floated around her face in the breeze. Sunglasses rested on the top of her head. She was hot, she was beautiful, and somehow, she was all mine.

My throat constricted. I wished with every fiber of my being that she were home, safe and sound, in my arms instead of banging her head against the bars of a jail cell. Alone. Ugh.

I pulled the backpack onto my lap and gently slid the waxed flower from the bag. The colorful head was somehow still mostly intact, barely attached to the stem. I chucked the stem, hauled myself out of the chair, and gingerly set the head on an empty shelf. Better some than none.

The house was unnaturally quiet and depressing without JT. My jaws popped in a huge yawn. I desperately needed to sleep. Whether or not it would come was another question.

I descended the staircase to turn out the lights on the main floor.

Dawg was curled up on one corner of the couch, his head propped on the arm. At the sound of my footsteps, he hopped off and followed me as I extinguished the lights in the dining room and entered the kitchen to do the same. He licked his lips and gazed longingly from me to his bowl and back again. His entire upper lip was snagged on his lower teeth, giving him the most pathetic, irresistible face ever. However, tonight even that wasn’t working.

“Sorry buddy, that’s it. You don’t want to be up all night with indigestion, do you?”

He whined and put an even more woeful look on his squashed face. I gave him a vigorous cheek rub that flapped his lips up and down.

Then I turned my attention to Bogey, who was sprawled out on the kitchen floor. I stroked the soft fur between his eyes and he gave me a slow, deep sigh. He peered up at me with big brown eyes, and the loose skin on his forehead crinkled up. I patted the frown down, and he sighed again.

Life was sure easier when you only required some decent food, a nice yard to play and poop in, and lots of unconditional love.

Sleep, unsurprisingly, was hard to find. Time and again I jerked awake after groping for JT’s solid warmth and finding nothing but cool sheets.

I rolled over yet again and stared at the glowing red numbers on the clock radio. 7:15. Not the way I liked to start my Sunday mornings. With a frustrated sigh, I sat up and snapped the bedside light on, illuminating the room. When I moved in, we’d redecorated the bedroom to make it feel a little more like mine as well as JT’s. The walls sported a light orange color that at first I thought would be disconcerting, but now I actually kind of liked it.

A couple pictures of Coop, Eddy, and the rest of the café gang graced the walls, along with a few shots of JT’s folks. Above our bed was a headboard-sized painting done by Alex Rodriguez, a local artist pal of mine. She’d given it to JT and me when we’d finally decided to live in sin together. It was an abstract desert scene, done in both muted and vibrant desert colors. I had to admit it went well with the orange walls.

I threw off the covers and stood, the beige-speckled loop and pile carpet soft under my bare feet. I padded into the large bathroom and flicked the light. Three bulbs at the top of the medicine cabinet popped on, making me squint. I was headed toward the shower when I caught sight of myself in the mirror. What a case of bed head! My dark hair was flattened on one side and shoved up in tufts elsewhere. A line ran down the left side of my cheek where I’d laid too long on a fold in the pillowcase. Haunted, bloodshot eyes stared back at me. I turned quickly for the comfort of a hot shower, which did little to clear the fog in my head.

I rolled through the motions of dressing myself, pulling on black jeans and a semi-clean purple First Avenue T-shirt I’d tossed across the back of a chair earlier in the week. Fortunately, I didn’t have to work at the Hole on this dreary, misty morning. I was so distracted I’d probably give hot chocolate for coffee orders and serve up whipped cream instead of tapioca pudding.

Both Bogey and Dawg were still conked out at the foot of the bed when I was dressed for the day. They didn’t stir as I passed by.

I descended the stairs slowly, feeling the effects of being tackled by two lawmen. I sure wasn’t getting any younger. I stopped in front of the patio door and hollered, “Who wants to go out?”

For a count of three, silence greeted my words.

Then there were a couple of thumps overhead. The sound of nails scrabbled against the hardwood floor in the upstairs hall. Then the dogs banged down the stairs, bounded around the corner, and raced toward me. If I didn’t know them better, I’d have been afraid that two nearly hundred-pound canines would send me head over keister and crashing right through the sliding glass door.

But even though Bogey had a hard time controlling his snoot and Dawg enjoyed bouncing on anyone he loved, they both managed to screech to a halt just before plowing me over. Their muscles quivered in anticipation of the great outdoors, misty or not.

I slid the patio door open and they nearly tripped over each other as they burst outside. I followed them to the edge of the covered porch and leaned against one of the two carved pillars that framed the short set of stairs leading to ground level.

It was damp and chilly. I hugged myself and watched the pooches chase each other around the yard. They charged around the corner and out of sight down the run beside the house and then zoomed back again. After some vigorous snuffling and taking care of biz, they returned to careening around the now mostly brown lawn, carefree and exuberant.

Carefree and exuberant I was not. I was a study in contrasts, on edge and raw. Panic bubbled within me, in turns manageable, and then unbearable. The thought of JT locked away, probably terrified, conflicted with my darker contemplation of her tangled web of secrets. The crappy night of sleep wasn’t helping any.

I squeezed the back of my neck and blew out a long breath. I had to do something. Eddy often liked to tell me when I was younger that action was always better than contemplation. As usual, she was right.

With the dogs romping contentedly, I headed back inside to fill their dishes and pour myself a bowl of Lucky Charms. Maybe some of that little leprechaun’s luck would rub off.

I slumped into a dining room chair and chowed my breakfast. Once I washed down the last bite with a glass of orange juice, I dialed Tyrell’s cell. Hopefully he’d have good news for me.

On the fourth ring, he picked up. “Johnson.” His voice was hoarse and thick.

Oops. “Ty, it’s Shay. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

I heard rustling and a couple of soft grunts as, in my mind’s eye, he probably struggled to sit up. “No problem. You okay?”

“Hanging in there. Mostly. Did you hear anything more last night?”

“No. I tried. The Scott County Sheriff’s Department is pretty much locked down when it comes to anything related to JT’s arrest. Not sure why they’re being such dickheads.”

“It’s got to have something to do with that Clint Roberts, the detective who arrested JT. I’ve never seen her so hostile with another cop before.”

“Dunno, maybe he is the stumbling block. I’ll try again and see if he’ll play. Why the hell would JT have a beef with the guy, though, is what I don’t get. She gets along with everyone.” He sounded almost envious.

Did Tyrell let himself entertain the damning yet impossible notion that JT might actually have pulled the trigger? I had to admit that the circumstances did look terrible—considering the pickle chunks and juice splattered on her shirt, combined with the amount of time she’d been MIA. But I just couldn’t see her doing the deed. However, I knew better than most that even good people can be pushed into doing things they typically would never consider. I prayed this wasn’t one of those cases.

Eddy’s file peeping suggestion nagged at the back of my mind, and no matter how I tried to tune the thought out, it kept popping up and waving at me. She was right again. If Krasski was really as reprehensible as it appeared, the man would have enemies galore. Knowing how thorough both JT and Tyrell were, there was sure to be a list of potential killers in that file.

“Shay, you still there?”

I pulled myself back to the conversation I was supposed to be having. Might as well ask. “So, in that file you have on Krasski … ”

“Yeah?”

“Are there others who might want this piece of horse hooey dead?”

Tyrell was silent so long I could practically see his wheels turning as he tried to figure out where I was going with this.

Finally, he said, “Oh, hell yes. The man doesn’t have many friends, especially after a bunch of his pals wound up in prison after the botched bust and he didn’t. I’ll do everything I can to get a hold of
the detective on the case and make sure he has the full picture.”