You Don't Know Jack (27 page)

"Middle aged woman in the green apron?" I asked, afraid to hope they might actually have found out something useful.

"She didn't know anything about, um, which team Frankie plays for," Sophie said, back to the baseball metaphors. "In fact, she blushed something awful when I said the word 'sex'."

Madam Zee nodded sagely. "Like it was a filthy word."

"Like she was still a virgin!" Ida said in a resounding stage whisper that I was pretty sure everyone within two blocks had heard. Then all three of them laughed. I felt the tips of my ears heat, again. I wished we were in the car. Windows up. Doors locked. On a desert island.

If not that, the floor might cooperate and swallow me whole, but that wasn't happening either. Instead, my whole body was blushing.

"Jack B," Madam Zee leaned toward me again, her eyes fixed somewhere over my shoulder. "Who are those two men, the florist is plotting with?"

Plotting? Then I wasn't alone in thinking the behavior of my three suspects looked covert. I told them and watched three sets of eyes widen.

"The big redhead is Frankie?" Sophie said, over her half glasses, her gaze drinking him in. She frowned and leaned in again. "That man is definitely not gay."

"How can you tell?" Madam Zee stirred fake sugar into her tea. "He looks like a magazine model and you know..."

Sophie puffed up like a proud hen. "My Hermie always said I could spot, er, the 'same team players', at ninety paces."

"Yep, she's got the gay-dar!" Ida said.

I choked on a mouthful of venti breve caramel macchiato that I'd almost spewed across the table.

Sophie sipped her tea with her little finger out. "Besides, if he preferred gents, he wouldn't be ogling the waitress with the big gazoombas."

I resisted the urge to follow where Madam Zee's gaze went, even though her brows forked skyward. "Oh, yes, I see what you mean."

Ida craned around trying to get a look, and I felt the caramel macchiato rolling around in my stomach like a pinball missing the high scores and heading straight into loser zone. None of my theories were panning out. I might not be able to find the proof I needed against Peppermint Patty. And maybe Frankie didn't even belong on the suspect list. But damn it, I had heard him and Eve plotting my demise. I had. I sighed my disappointment at another dead end. "Well, I guess, then it's safe to say Frankie didn't have a romantic reason for killing Lars."

"No," Madam Zee said, as though she'd read it in her tea leaves just now. "But he might have had a professional one."

I frowned. "Are you talking about his encouraging Bruce not to sign the new contract with Dinah if she didn't enhance his salary and benefits?"

"I wouldn't know about that," Madam Zee said.

"Me, either." Sophie peered at me over the half glasses. "You didn't tell us to ask that, dear. Did you?"

"Nope!" Ida chimed in. "I would've remembered! My hearing ain't so good, but my memory's Cracker Jack!"

I squelched my impatience. "Then what did you mean about Frankie having a possible professional reason to kill Lars?"

"Rivalry... maybe?" Madam Zee said.

I was scowling so hard my head felt ready to explode. "Please. Someone. Explain."

"It's what the clerk told us." Madam Zee glanced toward the trio of suspects, then wrote on a piece of paper and pushed it across the table toward me. I read: Frankie and Eve are writing a book.

I blinked, certain I was misreading the looping script. Nope. That's what it said. I swear I heard Lars in my head scream,
"Jesus. Everyone thinks they can write a book!"

Was their book the reason Frankie and Eve were huddled with Hawks? Had he agreed to be their agent? I was oddly jealous and totally bemused.

"It's a romance!" Ida brayed. "Murder and sex!"

I felt eyes from all across the room burrowing into us.

"Our favorite genre." Sophie's snowy head bobbed in confirmation. "Even my Hermie loved romantic suspense."

I straightened my spine, a wayward connection clicking inside my fried brain. They were writing a romantic suspense? Murder and sex. Why did those words ring a chord? I smiled to myself as recall came. This was the genre favored by my elusive suspect, Ruth Lester.

An interesting possibility began taking shape. Were Frankie and Eve actually Ruth Lester? I'd been unable to find a photo of Ruth Lester. Or anyone who'd seen her. Even Teri Steele, who'd edited her book, had neither spoken to nor met her. Or was she lying about that?

I needed to find out. Right now.

On the theory four minds are better than one, I shared my suspicion with the Golden Oldies that Frankie and Eve were writing under the pseudonym of Ruth Lester.

"Or maybe Teri Steele is Ruth Lester!" Ida said, from the back seat of Sophie's Volvo. Sharp cookies come in all sorts of packages, even deaf with wrinkled, transparent skin and bullhorn brays.

"We'll know soon enough, Ida," Madam Zee said in her eeriest voice, sending a shiver through me.

Teri was expecting me, though I hadn't warned her I wouldn't be alone, or that she might be forced to have a Tarot reading.

"Listen, ladies," I said. "We need to be even more subtle with Teri Steele than with her sister."

"We didn't even talk to her sister, dear," Sophie said, as though I'd forgotten.

"Can't get more subtle than that!" Ida shouted from the back seat.

"Yes, I know." How did I tell my well-meaning bodyguards that I didn't want to piss off the woman who was editing my book without pissing them off? Maybe I could say: Let me do the talking, okay? Yeah, like that was going to happen. I really should add duct tape to my PI kit. I didn't suppose Sophie had some in her knitting bag.

Or in the glove box.

As I eyed the glove box another worry stirred. Maybe I should re-arm these women. The car poked through traffic toward the back roads that would lead us to our destination. Every passing block increased the sense of uneasiness I'd felt since I'd been in the bookstore. Maybe I shouldn't have had twenty ounces of caramel macchiato.

But what if it wasn't the venti? Was it fair to drag my elderly companions into a potentially deadly situation without a means of protecting themselves? It's not like they didn't know how to handle the guns. It's not like they didn't have permits to carry concealed. My finger bumped the glove box button. It popped open. No longer locked. My heart skipped. The revolvers were gone.

Three grinning old dames confirmed it: we were armed to the dentures.

Please God, I prayed, don't let them shoot the book doctor.

The jitters in my stomach were worse as we pulled into the lane that led to Teri Steele's house. I couldn't pinpoint the source of my foreboding. Was it that my companions were carrying deadly weapons or was it my nervousness over what the book doctor was going to tell me about my manuscript?

Though I admit to being both excited and terrified about the evaluation. I had done plenty of revisions. I had had plenty of rejections, but none of those occurred face to face with an actual editor, and though Teri Steele could no longer acquire manuscripts for her publishing house, she had influence. She could potentially recommend this story... or not.

Did I have what it took to write a sellable manuscript?

Or was Lars right?

I reminded myself that Teri already liked the story enough to offer to work with me. That meant I had, at least, a modicum of talent. Did that also mean Lars' reluctance to so much as read my work came from his own insecurities?

"Did not," Lars said.

"Liar," I countered, keeping the conversation inside my head. I offered an olive branch, "I suspect most writers are insecure."

Lars said, "Humph. Your rattled confidence, darlin', is a result of the fear that you mightn't be able to take the book doctor's suggestions and translate them into a sellable work of fiction."

"Lars Larson, the recently deceased, newly self-certified psychologist."
He said nothing. Gone again. Why did he just pop in and out like a jack in the box, scaring me to death, but offering zero help in solving his murder?

Then again, maybe being stuck halfway between Heaven and wherever he was headed didn't give a spirit all-knowing insight.

I had to give him one thing, though: he'd nailed the root of my fear. I'd always heard pinpointing the source of a phobia would ease the anxiety a bit. It wasn't working. Why?

The chattering little old ladies clarified the problem. The less than private office in Teri's home meant they would all hear whatever Teri had to say about my manuscript.

Well, okay, so Ida wouldn't hear. The others would.

Writing was so personal, I'd rather this possibly embarrassing meeting went down without witnesses. It was one thing to have your work shredded by a professional in private, quite another to have an audience to triple the humiliation.

Given the circumstances, though, I couldn't and wouldn't ask my Golden entourage to wait in the car. Safety in numbers. But first: some ground rules.

"Ladies, while I'm working with Teri, you'll all need to occupy yourselves with something else."

"In other words, no eavesdropping!" Ida brayed. Not much got past the ninety-year-old.

"I'll just knit, dear," Sophie said, tapping her holster, er knitting bag.

"I got a book!" Ida shouted.

"My Tarots." Madam Zee thumbed the edge of cards with a riffing sound like a Las Vegas dealer sensing high rollers at her table.

Assurances to the contrary, I couldn't trust they wouldn't listen in. Too bad I didn't have three iPods and three sets of head phones.

We pulled to the curb in front of Teri Steele's sad house. The gloomy gray siding echoed the sky. "It's such an ugly little rambler," Sophie said. "Some fresh paint in a sunnier color would go a long ways. I'll suggest it."

"It has a bad aura," Madam Zee said. "Someone died here. Recently."

How recently? I wanted to ask, but wasn't about to be distracted on this most important day with ghost tales. My manuscript took priority.

"Dreadful flowerbeds! Shameful hedge!" Ida tsked, her wrinkles forming a mask of disgust. "This Teri Steele oughta be arrested for garden abuse!"

We trouped to the door, my three companions mumbling disapproval of the walkway and something that sounded like a chant to ward off evil spirits. I knocked. We waited. No footsteps came toward us, but then, who could hear anything with the rock music blaring inside?

"You sure she's expecting us?" Ida brayed.

"Positive."

"Maybe she had to run to the store, dear..."

I knocked harder. Ida slipped past me and twisted the knob. "Look, it's open!"

Like fish flushed downstream we stumbled into the tidy mud room. Inside, the music was louder, hurting my ears. The scent of fresh coffee and bleach shared the air.

"We should leave." Madam Zee stood like an old fashioned TV antenna, arms in the rabbit ears position, jewelry hushed. "Now."

"No!" I caught her wrist, stopping her retreat, setting off a jangle of bracelets.

"I have to see her." My life depended on it, my hopes and dreams of becoming a published writer and having a career in my chosen field depended on it. "We're staying. You can wait in the car, if you want."

She considered that. "I'll stay. For a while. But only to protect you all from the malice lurking in this house."

I rolled my eyes. I did not believe in ghosts.

"Not even me?" Lars asked.

I ignored him. "Teri? Are you here?" I called out loud. The music drowned my voice and any response. I stepped into the kitchen, spied the source of the ear splitting music, a radio on the counter, and shut it off. The silence boomed. My once eager trio were now reluctant, their eyes wide, their steps faltering, obviously influenced by Madam Zee's portents.

"Teri?" I crept through the galley kitchen with the unease of a midnight visit to a cemetery on a moonless, starless night. But I was more concerned about interrupting a business call than about something evil hiding in the shadows.

"Coffee pot's still hot!" Ida stage-whispered. "She was here just a while ago!"

"Or... the coffeepot is set on a timer," I suggested trying to taking the edge off their anxiety as we reached the small sitting room.

"Oh, my, this view." Sophie had obviously looked beyond the unkempt lawn and falling down deck to the expansive water scenes.

Ida, however, had eyes only for the honey-do projects. "This gal needs a handyman and a gardener!"

"You'll be sitting in here," I pointed to the love seat and easy chairs, as I glanced toward the office, hoping she wouldn't hear us and think: home invaders.

Assuming they'd followed my instructions, I turned my back and strode through the archway into the huge office. "Hello? Teri? Are you here?"

"Holy Kapoly!" Ida said. As loud as her voice was, she had moved on cat feet, cane and all, to stand at my elbow.

I jumped.