Your Goose Is Cooked (A LaTisha Barnhart Mystery) (24 page)

“But my fingerprints are on there.”

“
Which is why he fingerprinted you.
And maybe that’ll teach you to wear gloves next time you dive.”

Hardy slanted me a look. “Why do I always get in trouble when I do something nice for you?”

“Did I ask you to go in that Dumpster?”

“You wanted me to.”

“Only after you told me you saw that blue car that almost ran me down.”

“We found the gun, didn’t we?”

“
We
didn’t find anything. It’s your fingerprints on that gun, not mine.”

Hardy grunted. “You just said I didn’t have anything to worry about, that—”

Chief yanked open the door that separated the front of the station from the offices. Hardy and I came to attention. “Even with the door shut I can hear you two.” Chief wagged his finger. “You’re worse than two tomcats howling on a fence.”

I crossed my arms. “I’m about ready to scratch his eyes out and yours too. Why’d you keep us waiting so long?”

Chief Conrad leaned against Mac Simpson’s clean desk. A desk so clean I couldn’t find one scrap of evidence to let me know what was going on in Maple Gap or what evidence had been collected from Aidan’s apartment or jewelry store.

“State police is sending someone out for the gun. Preliminary comparison says the bullet we found in the wall came from that gun.”

“What about fingerprints and registration?”

Chief shrugged. “Number has been filed off. We’ll have to wait. They’re going to search the Dumpster thoroughly while they’re here. I informed Betsy.”

“I’m sure she was real happy to hear that.”

Chief pushed himself upright. “She’s coming in for a few questions.”

Hardy vaulted vertical. “Good, so we can go.”

Chief shook his head and pointed to the chair. “Not so fast. I want to know what you were doing in that Dumpster.”

Hardy shuffled his feet. “
LaTisha
made me do it.”

“What!” I cuffed him on his arm. “Don’t mess with me, boy. I haven’t been able to make you do anything for forty years.”

He rubbed his shoulder. “I demand protective custody.”

Chief Conrad’s laughter rolled over us. “Listen, you two, I’m not arresting you or anything of the sort. I do need to know what prompted you to be in that Dumpster. I thought you might be up to something,
LaTisha
. It’s a good thing I followed you.”

“I thought you were strange tonight.
Didn’t even say good night to me like you usually do.”

Chief cracked a grin. “We know each other too well.”

I shifted my weight in the chair, chagrined. Apparently I didn’t know him well enough. “All I know is Hardy said he saw a blue car in Betsy’s back lot. He thought he saw the driver throw something away back there.”

Hardy piped up. “That was only after you said a blue car almost ran you over on Gold Street.”

Chief rubbed his jaw. “I heard something about that.” His eyes shifted to me. “You almost got hit by a car?”

“Sure did. It was a big blue car.
An old one.
Lady had long, wild red hair.”

Chief struck his cop pose. “Can’t tell me anything more than that?”

The prick of his eyes worked at my conscience. If I didn’t tell chief the license number, I’d never know anything more about the car, or the person to whom it was registered. “The license number is KXT-L685. Shiny Portly saw the car, so did Bob, Regina, and Janet. They came to help me.”

“I’ll run it. Why didn’t you report it?”

Hardy answered for me. “She thought it was some old person who was trying to avoid the highway and taking the back roads through Maple Gap.”

Which was true enough.

Chief pressed his lips together as if squelching a chuckle.
“
LaTisha
, really, an old person with red hair?”

“Women dye their hair.”

“Men don’t.”

“Did I say it was a man? And some do. Look at Eugene.”

“It could have been a man. What makes you think it was a woman?”

“Long red hair

“Men can have long hair.”

“Most don’t.”

“Some do.”

I speared him hard with my eyes. “Don’t play with me.”

Chief Conrad and Hardy shared a conspiratorial glance and burst out laughing.

“It’d serve you both
right
to just die laughing.”

Hardy slapped his thigh. “I keep telling you you’d miss me.”

“Why do you think I make sure to pay that life insurance premium? All that money would keep me toasty in the Bahamas.”

Betsy
Taser
chose that moment to make her grand appearance. The wind had picked up and the door flew inward, tugging Betsy off her feet. Her hair stuck out in all directions, or maybe that’s how she looked at 1:35 a.m. She straightened and pawed over her hair. I almost told her it was hopeless, but kept my lips sealed. I could tell by her look she was primed to explode.

“Why in the world am I being dragged down here?”

Chief stood straight, his chest swelled as he stepped back into his policeman’s skin. “We’ve had an interesting evening, Mrs.
Taser
. Something of interest was found on your property. I have a few questions to ask you.”

“Well, I’m here.”

Chief didn’t even flinch at her attitude. “That you are. I appreciate your coming in.”

His voice dripped not the least bit of kindness.

I’m sure we’d all appreciate you leaving even more
. I bit my tongue.
Hard.
And prayed.
Fervently.
I thought I might even be able to feel God giving me a pat on the head.

Betsy turned her head our direction. I braced myself. “Surely you don’t expect me to answer questions in the presence of them.”

This called for me to rise to the occasion. I doubled in size like William’s bread dough, but wasn’t anyone going to punch me down. “We were just leaving, Betsy, honey, so you’ve no reason to fear us. You do have good reason to fear the law, what with Hardy finding the murder weapon in your trash Dumpster.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chief was probably ready to smoke me right there. Betsy’s complexion paled a shade and I knew between her reaction after my comment about Aidan looking like a hit man, and the prospect of finding the murder weapon on her property, this gal was scared. Chief knew it too.

“If you’ll follow me, Mrs.
Taser
, we’ll talk about this in more detail.”
His hard gaze
razored
me.
“
LaTisha
.
Hardy.
We’ll talk later.”

Hardy pulled to his feet and flapped his boots to the door. I followed, wondering what thought might be skittering through his head. I shut the door behind us. Hardy turned and pursed his lips.

“Know what I think?”

“Knowing you do is real good news.”

He smacked his lips together. “Is that how you talk to the man who is your hero, and about ready to become your knight?”

“What you talking about?”

“I think we should continue diving.”

This truly surprised me. “What you meaning? What more do we need to be looking for in Dumpsters? The police crawled through every one of them in the alley, and the trucks came as soon as the scene was released.”

He scratched at his side, then his head, and I knew his wheels were spinning. I let my mind cast over the possibilities. The police looked through the Dumpsters for clues to the murderer’s identity, but mainly for the murder weapon. But that didn’t mean something else hadn’t shown up in the meantime. Savvy crooks would know how incriminating a Dumpster could be and might delay throwing anything away that could be used against them.

“You’re thinking we might find something useful?”

Hardy’s feet started shuffling and he did a little twiddle thing with his fingers, as if playing an imaginary piano. “What about Carl? His name keeps coming up. We could check Aidan’s Dumpster again too. If Eddie and Roger have something to hide, now is the perfect time for them to get rid of information.”

I knew he had a point.
A solid point.
Carl’s name had come up during this entire investigation. And someone else’s too. “Randy is working at
Shiny’s
. He said his momma was in Aidan’s jewelry store once and heard someone arguing.
Thought it might have been Flossie.”

Hardy kept pace with me, two steps to my one. He remained quiet until we passed Regina’s shop and took the footpath that led into the alley. “Doesn’t Flossie work with Carl?”

Flossie
. I rolled her name around a bit. Her name tugged on something in my head.
Flossie
.

“Couldn’t she be the one taking the jewelry to Aidan?”

“I’ve been wondering how two people so hot on a divorce, could suddenly want to be together so much.”

Hardy
stopped,
the whites of his eyes visible in the weak moonlight. “Should we do Carl’s first, or Aidan’s?”

“Aidan’s.
We’d better hope Eddie and Roger are deep asleep though.”

Turns out Hardy had to be real careful in Aidan’s nearly empty Dumpster, or the sound of his feet would have echoed off the metal sides and floor. I heard his grunt, and saw the flash of his light sweep the inside. His head popped out. “
There’s
two small bags. I’m going to push them out and we’ll haul them back to Old Lou.”

What was he thinking? “And what are we going to say if someone catches us with two bags of trash?”

He disappeared back inside. Before long a white bag was pushed my way. I grabbed it and set it on the ground. The other one appeared. Both were lightweight, nothing like the heavy loads of food waste I hauled out from the Goose.

Hardy poised to come out rear first, one leg made it over the edge. He hopped backwards, one foot still caught. That’s when the seam on his pants gave way. A nice ripping sound that startled Hardy into lifting his head and banging it against the Dumpster. With his leg caught on the edge, he ended up falling, his foot kicking the side and making more
racket
.

I quick picked up the two bags, checking to make sure he hadn’t smacked himself unconscious.

“Hurry!”
I prompted.

Hardy pulled to his feet, his hand rubbing the tender spot on his head.

A window above us snapped open and a voice hollered down. “Hey!”

Hardy took off, leaving me pushing to keep even with him. His car keys were in his hands as we weaved through the alley and popped out onto Gold Street and Old Lou. He made short work of unlocking the doors. I threw the bags into the backseat and settled myself, trying to pull my door shut and get it to latch without slamming it. We didn’t say another word until we got home, hustling those bags inside and shutting and locking the doors.

“You think they saw us?” Hardy asked as he ripped open a bag and scanned the contents.

“The only thing they probably saw was the whites of the bags and your drawers hanging out of that hole.”

Hardy twisted around, trying to see the hole, plucking at the broken threads with the most sorrowful expression on his face.

“Your old
faithfuls
finally busted out.”

He shot me a frown, but I was way too interested in digging into those bags. I parked myself on the ottoman and reached down to pull out some papers from Hardy’s bag. He watched me, not joining in, and I knew his nerves were still all knotted up. “Why don’t you play me a
tune.
”

Most of the papers contained junk mail. Others were wrappers and napkins, with a couple of fast food bags. The most disappointing discovery was at the bottom where a pile of shredded paper stopped me cold. I ripped open the second bag and discovered more shredded papers.