Designed for Death (16 page)

“Faye, come out by the pool. I need to sit down.”

In the shade of an umbrella, Faye crossed her endless legs, removed her Ray-Bans and fanned herself with an open palm. Her Opium wafted in the air with the scent of gardenias.

To deflect the olfactory overload, I took shallow breaths. “So tell me all about this balloon.”

“Well, I found this fabulous burial service,” Faye began, her voice only a little wobbly. “They’re going to put Treasure’s ashes in a weather balloon and let her float in the sky. When she gets up into the stratosphere, the balloon bursts. Her ashes’ll float to earth and settle over the trees and the grass and the flowers.” Tears sprang into Faye’s eyes.

“You’re ruining your makeup.”

“I can’t help it.” She clasped her Shaquille O’Neal-sized hands together. “The balloon idea is so beautiful. I know Treasure would’ve loved it.”

“Her body’s been released?”

Faye nodded as she searched for a tissue in her knockoff Fendi evening bag.

“When did you find out?”

“Yesterday. I told that lieutenant I’d take care of the funeral, so he notified the coroner. She’s resting in the Fuller Funeral Home right now. In a vault. Just like a treasure should.”

Breaking down completely, she sobbed into the tissue. I patted her knee. Under the chiffon, it was as rock solid as I remembered.

When her sobs slowed to a few shuddering breaths, I asked, “What about the cost, Faye?”

“I’m taking out a loan on my share of the Lady. I owe Treasure that much and more. She was the love of my life.”

Of that I had no doubt. “We have something in common, Faye.”

Her watery eyes rounded into pools of disbelief. “She was the love of your life, too?”

“No, my husband Jack was my one true love. I lost him last December.”

“Oh.” Faye squeezed my fingers so hard I’d forget about flexing them for a week. “Then you know what I’m going through.”

Though she bordered on the bizarre, with her chin stubble breaking through her pancake makeup, her mascara smeared, her cocktail dress absurdly inappropriate, we were sisters under the skin. Both of us had suffered the loss of our beloved other, and I
did
know exactly what she was suffering. Hell on earth.

Risking my fingers again, I took her hand and held it tight. “You’re not alone, Faye. We’ll face this together.” In that moment, I forgot all about thinking she was a suspect with a motive. Faye couldn’t hurt a fly. Well, unless she was attacked in a dark alley by a gun-toting marauder.

She nodded before letting go to give her little nose a mighty blow. “Thank you.” She sniffed and, freeing the chiffon the September heat had glued to her thighs, stood and dropped the sodden tissue into her bag. “I’ve got to leave, darling. The funeral director’s expecting me. After Treasure’s cremated, he’ll send her ashes to Heavenbound Burials. As soon as the arrangements are complete, I’ll call you. I know you’ll want to be there when Treasure goes up.”

“So will everyone here at Surfside. And I assume her friends at the Foxy Lady.”

Faye shook her head. “I doubt it. Most of the gang hated her for having that operation. Or maybe they were jealous. I don’t know.” She tossed her acrylic hair over her shoulders. “I don’t care what they think, or what they say. Treasure didn’t, either.”

“Did she know they were so bitter?”

“Absolutely. She told me she only had one friend left at the Lady.” Faye pointed a gilt-tipped nail at her chest. “
Moi.
”

One friend and a lot of possible enemies.

“Tell me something, Faye. The night you were attacked, did you recognize the guy’s voice?”

“No. I think he tried to disguise it. You know, sound deeper than normal.”

“So he was afraid you’d know him?”

“Maybe.” Faye shrugged and slipped on the Ray-Bans. “He could be anybody. But he won’t catch me off guard the next time.”

“You think there’ll be a next time?”

“Why not?” She flung her arms wide. “Why was there a first?”

Why, indeed?

“That Lieutenant Rossi, though, he doesn’t think it’ll happen again. He said it was probably some drunk acting out.”

“Did you mention what your attacker said about the widow?” I asked.

“I did. He couldn’t figure that one out because I told him I didn’t know any widow.” Faye sucked in a lungful of humid air and picked up her purse. “But I do, don’t I?”

“Yes.”

She gave me an arch look from under her heavily mascaraed lashes. “Want to know a little secret?”

Oh God, not another one.
“I’m not sure…”

“In case you haven’t noticed, that lieutenant’s quite a guy. A diamond in the rough, so to speak. I’d sure like to polish off his rough edges. Turn him into a gem, if you know what I mean.” A single super-long lash brushed her cheek in a wicked wink.

Rossi and Faye?
I stood rigid on the tarmac. “Faye, do you have a crush on Rossi?”

She giggled. “Course not, lovey. Just fantasizing about him. You ever fantasize about him?”

I shook my head. “No.”

“Too bad. Try it some time. You might like it.”

“To be honest with you, Faye, I have enough troubles already.”

“Chicken.”

“Exactly.”

As we strolled the rest of the way to her car, I didn’t have a clue as to what Faye was thinking about Rossi, or Treasure, or life in general. But as for me, I wondered why Rossi hadn’t connected the dots. He knew I’d lost Jack, and that Faye and I had met and talked. Maybe he thought Faye didn’t know I’d been widowed, or maybe he’d deliberately tried to ease her mind. Keep her from assuming the assault might be connected to the murder…if such a connection existed at all. What the heck was the man up to? Playing us? Maybe I should give Faye his number, let her bug him.

But, my mind in a whirl, I merely waved her out of the parking lot. She roared down Gulf Shore Boulevard, her wig blowing in the breeze, threatening to fly off her head into the Camaro’s back seat.

At my doorstep, I picked up the
Naples Daily
and went inside more depressed than ever. In a few days, Treasure would become airborne dust while her killer still ran around free. Even the Ferrari’s disappearance failed to cheer me.

For some reason, the sense of menace, which had faded a bit over the past few days, returned in full force. I checked all the windows and the dead bolt on the back door, and resumed under-the-bed and closet searches. Satisfied my castle hadn’t been breached, I kicked off the heels, put the kettle on for tea and slid the paper out of its sleeve.

On the front page, in bold, black letters, the headline shouted Flash Flood Traps Motorist. The accompanying photograph showed a car submerged in water up to its roof. That near-drowning and other reports of the tropical storm’s havoc filled several columns.

I skimmed the rest of the paper until a small headline buried on a back page caught my eye. Woman Assaulted Leaving Kmart.

Curious, I scanned the two short paragraphs.

Tuesday, September 27, Lee Skimp, 18, was accosted at approximately 9:30 p.m. in the Kmart parking lot, 2170 Tamiami Trail. Skimp, a Kmart employee, was waiting for her father, Merle Skimp, 53, when she was attacked by a middle-aged white male. According to the victim, the assailant was of average height and spoke in a deep voice.

After securing Skimp with an armlock around her throat, the man attempted to force her into his vehicle at gunpoint. When an NPD police cruiser entered the parking lot on a routine patrol, the assailant released the victim and fled. Skimp reported that her attacker drove a dark-colored van, but that the rain obscured his license plate number.

A second assault in paradise. Both within two days of each of each other. Nothing strange about that. Muggings happened every day, in every city in the world.

Still…a deserted parking lot, a male with a deep voice, an arm around the throat, a gun in the victim’s back. The M.O. was a copycat of Fayette’s assault. Except this victim was a woman; Fayette, not so. Puzzled, I sat staring at the paper, trying to discover a connection where most likely none existed. The incidents were undoubtedly random, by two different men.

I sipped my tea and read the piece again, searching for an elusive something, anything, but found nothing. Nothing, that is, until a phrase leaped out at me.
The deep voice.
How would Lee Skimp know that unless the mugger had said something? But whatever he’d said, the
Naples Daily
hadn’t printed.

I tore out the story and dropped the rest of the paper into the trashcan. As soon as I finished my tea, I’d change the taupe suit for shorts and a shirt and pay a visit to Kmart.

The store manager paged Lee Skimp in the employee lounge. When I confided that my friend had been accosted earlier in the week, Lee willingly gave up part of her lunch break to talk to me. A fragile, innocent-eyed blonde, she drew me over to a quiet corner between garden hoses and rakes and filled me in on the assault. “I’ve never been so scared in my entire life,” she said in a soft Alabama drawl.

Whether her chalky pallor was the result of the mugging or not, I couldn’t tell, but I had no trouble believing she’d been frightened. “It must have been awful. You were lucky the cruiser pulled into the lot when it did.”

“I know. I might have been raped. Or worse.”

“It was a terrible night to be out. With the heavy rain and all.”

Her pale face serious, she nodded. “My daddy was real mad he had to come for me in the storm, but I had to work late. I don’t know why the store didn’t close early. We didn’t have but one or two customers all evening.”

She ran a small hand across her eyes. “The rain made Daddy late. Everybody else had left when this man popped out of nowhere. I didn’t see any car drive up, so he must have been waiting. Or else he turned off his lights when he drove in. Anyway, the officers scared him away, and then Daddy came.”

Her cheeks turned a pretty pink. “I kissed and hugged those officers! Daddy, he didn’t like that much, but I was so grateful everything was over.” Her pale eyes clouded. “Except for the scared feeling. I might never lose that. Daddy promised from here on in, he’d be a half hour early every night.”

“Good. You can’t be too careful these days. You’ve been very helpful, Lee. If you don’t mind, I just have a couple more questions.”

“Yes, ma’am.” She brushed a lank blond strand from her forehead and peered at her watch. “I have three minutes left. It does me good to talk about what happened. Kind of gets it out of my system. Y’all know what I mean?”

A stock boy pushing a pallet loaded with molded plastic chairs passed by us. “Hi, Lee. You okay?”

“I’m fine, Sonny. Don’t you worry none about me.” As he pushed his load farther down the aisle, she said, “Everybody’s being so nice.”

Probably for the first time in her life, Lee Skimp had the starring role. For her sake, I was glad last night’s show had been a miss, not a hit.

“Did you get a good look at your assailant?” I asked.

Her eyes clouded. “Not a good one. He had on a baseball cap with the brim pulled way down. Sunglasses, too. How he could drive with those glasses on, I can’t imagine.”

“Maybe he took them off to drive?”

She shivered. “I’m glad I didn’t get to find out.”

“Amen to that. One final question, Lee. Do you remember what he said to you? The paper mentioned he had a deep voice. My friend said the same thing.”

She glanced over her shoulders at the hoses and rakes before whispering, “Y’all think it’s the same creep?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, he just said one little thing. He asked if I had me a boyfriend.”

“Really? How strange. What did you say?”

“I said, ‘No. My daddy won’t allow it.’”

The poor kid. She obviously had more than a mugging problem in her life. I took an old business card out of my shorts pocket. Until I had some new ones printed, it would have to do. “My local number’s written on the back. If you think of anything else, call me anytime.” God, I was starting to sound like Rossi.

She glanced at the card then over at me with something like awe in her expression. “An interior designer? I never met no interior designer before.”

“Well you have now. Someday when you’re ready for a home of your own, give me a call. I’ll help you design it free of charge.”

“Truly?”

“Yes. One good turn deserves another.”

Her eyes took on a silvery shine. “That’s what my granny used to say.” She held out a hand and, with the gentlest pressure in the world, gave mine a shake. “Thank you, Miz Dunne, it’s been a pleasure.”

“The pleasure’s all mine, Lee.” I meant it. She was one sweet girl.

As I wove my way past rakes into power tools and toys,
Do you have a boyfriend?
and
Stay away from the widow
echoed in my head like twin mantras. So I’d learned what I wanted to know. Now what? The two muggings sounded like separate incidents. This time, I didn’t have the nerve to bother Rossi and risk pushing him from annoyed to downright hostile. I’d found Treasure’s body; I was implicated. I didn’t want his negative vibes focused on me. Nor would I go over his head after all, not with so little. But the two statements nagged at me, nonetheless.

In front of a Barbie doll display, I got a grip. Maybe it was the sight of all the frou-frou gowns and golden curls staring me in the face that did it. Whatever. I rolled my eyes and laughed. A decorator playing detective? Who was I kidding?

I drove home in a quandary, resolving to take a long, sweaty, demanding jog. A half hour later, in Nikes and running gear, I gave my tensions and my muscles a good workout. The air had the consistency of a sauna, but the sun was easing lower, filling the sky with coral and indigo and traces of sapphire. The sunset would be spectacular.

A few mothers and toddlers lingered on the beach, some starting to pack up toys and picnic baskets and umbrellas for the sandy trip home. With my legs pumping overtime, I raced along the shore, the idea of going into my own business lightening my mood the more I thought about it. Energized by future possibilities as much as by the colorful sky, I increased my pace until I reached the Edgewater Beach Hotel then turned back to Moorings Beach.