Double Strike (A Davis Way Crime Caper Book 3) (7 page)

EIGHT

“Davis. I don’t care what you do when you’re not at work.”

Our phones—mine, Fantasy’s, Baylor’s, No Hair’s, Mr. Sanders’s—had locked interfacing GPS. There were times when we needed to find each other fast. No Hair let me get all the way to AL-28, the Welcome to Camden sign, before texting instructions to see him the minute I got back. Hours later, when Bradley and I were ten minutes from back, he texted instructions to meet him at his car.
We’re going for a ride
.

The first thing he said was, “That is not a natural eye color, Davis, or hair shade, either. What were you thinking? Cover up some of that or I won’t be able to talk to you.”

I could skip this talk.

He backed into a parking space under Sharkheads Souvenir City, four miles west of the Bellissimo on Beach Boulevard. We were under the store because it was built on huge pink stilts. Having been drowned by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, it built back with an eye on staying above future storm surges. Early Monday evening wasn’t primetime souvenir shopping, so we had the understore parking lot mostly to ourselves.

“With all the irons we have in the fire, Davis, I’m not sure why you’d take off for Alabama for the day and not say anything.” We faced each other, our backs against the car doors, but as large as this mother was, there were still five feet of air between us. “And I don’t understand why you didn’t tell me you were getting married.”

“I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.”

“Yes,” he got snippy, “you could have.”

“Do I need your permission?”

“Of course not.”

“I didn’t get married.”

“I know that.”

No Hair drove a big Cadillac Escalade the color of aluminum foil. The interior was Sag Harbor gray leather and it always smelled good. Whatever it was, they should replace the Essence of Chocolate Chip Cookies in the
future
Gaming chairs with it. I tapped a finger to my nose. It was a spicy smell. Not pepper spicy. Man cologne spicy.

“Why do I make more money than Fantasy?”

Frustration knotted No Hair’s brow. As time marched on, he had an easier time with the pogo stick that was my thought process and only asked me to back up and explain myself several times a day instead of every time I opened my mouth. “Because you’re the lead, Davis, you have seniority. And because Fantasy isn’t on the Bianca detail.”

“There’s no other reason?”

“There’s no other reason, Davis.”

“And then there’s the Baylor in Tunica business.”

“Yes.” He cleared his throat.

Tunica, Mississippi, was cattycorner to Biloxi on the Mississippi map. Before dockside gambling was legalized by Mississippi in 1990, Tunica County was the poorest county in
America
. Not in Mississippi. Not in the South. In
America
. Now it’s second only to Biloxi as a Mississippi gambling venue. Mr. Sanders had wanted to know what was going on at Lost Fortune Casino, a privately owned little place making huge waves, and by huge waves I mean big bucks, which, in my opinion, might be huger waves and bigger bucks if they changed the name. Maybe Found Fortune Casino. Baylor drew the short straw on the fact-finding mission. (It was rigged. Neither Fantasy nor I wanted to go to Tunica.)

“He was arrested with three hookers, No Hair. I had to bail his drunk ass out of jail.”

“What’s your point?”

“Why wasn’t he fired?”

“Please put some sunglasses on, Davis.”

“One of those prostitutes was fifteen years older than him.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Bad judgment!” I threw both hands in the air. “Surely he could have found three hookers born in the same decade he was!”

We watched traffic for a full five minutes.

“What does any of this have to do with you not telling me you were getting married?”

Of five cars that passed in front of us on Beach Boulevard right then, four were white.

“Are you asking me to fire Baylor, Davis? I know he’s young and impulsive, but he’s on our team because believe it or not, he’s got your back.”

I didn’t see it. I liked Baylor, I liked him a lot. He’d partied himself out of an LSU football scholarship, but he was a smart kid. He was quick on the draw, he was big and burly, he was cute as all get-out, and we needed him. He did all sorts of Bianca chores—carried her bags, fluffed her ego, held his hand out for the chewing gum she’d grown tired of—and he was essentially reliable. For a man his age. (Twenty-five.) Who lived life to the fullest. And strongly ascribed to the Love Thy Neighbor business, especially if the neighbor was female. As far as him having my back, I wasn’t so sure.

Three tour buses passed in front of us, no doubt full of senior citizens on their way to the Bellissimo.

“Are you suggesting, Davis, that Fantasy makes less money than you because she’s married?”

A big Harley.

“Fantasy’s job is as big as she wants it to be, Davis. If she wanted a larger role, she’d have one.”

I knew this. Fantasy had one husband, two dogs, and three sons. She’d been with us almost two years. In the beginning she kept up with me, working round the clock when duty called, but it wasn’t long before the job began jeopardizing her home life. She deliberately took a backseat, and now worked a forty, sometimes fifty-hour week. Special occasions, like next week, she’d work more. It was all hunky dory.

“And I’m not keeping Baylor around so he can have your job.”

I didn’t know this. Baylor had screwed up and screwed up and screwed up. He’d been forgiven and forgiven and forgiven, just two days ago, for letting Little Sanders
gamble
.

“I’m married, Davis. I’ve been married twenty-five years, and I’ve done one or another version of this job the entire time. I do this job every day of the week. Being married won’t keep you from doing your job, and I don’t know how you even cooked that up. Fantasy’s job isn’t any less because of the fact that she’s married, and I’m not grooming Baylor for your job.”

No Hair had never, ever lied to me. Not once. I doubt he’d start now. But the pervasive belief that married women are less dependable, less focused, less available than single unencumbered career women was such a deep-rooted mindset—so ubiquitous, so subconscious—I’m not sure No Hair, or any man, would be able to identify, much less acknowledge, their free-floating discrimination of married women in the workplace. So subconsciously, the powers-that-be (Mr. Sanders and No Hair) scoot the responsibility away from a married woman (which would be me) to a man who could barely dress himself (and that would be Baylor). If I were under-the-radar married, I could put the power shift off until I was ready. Or at least until Baylor was ready.

I blinked back the stress and emotion of the day that threatened to roll down my cheeks.

No Hair fired up the Cadillac. “What happened in Alabama?”

“I don’t even know where to start,” I said.

“I had coffee with your dad Sunday morning, so you can start with today.”

Daddy. Greasing the gears. “So you know?”

“Yes, Mrs. Crawford. I know.”

I swung. He ducked.

“The divorce went from Municipal Court,” I said, “where it was ruled on, to Judicial Court, where it should have been filed.” The words hurt. “When it got to Judicial, someone noticed that Eddie wasn’t a legal resident of Alabama, which he’d filed as.”

“Was he living in Mississippi?”

“No. He had moved back to Alabama.” So close to me I could’ve reached out and slapped him. “But he didn’t get a job. He lived in a trailer his parents owned and still had a Mississippi driver’s license.”

The Bellissimo loomed in front of us.

“So he hadn’t established residency when you filed.”

“Right. The court notified him to show up with a current piece of mail addressed to him in Alabama within ninety days or we’d have to file again.”

“And he didn’t?” No Hair asked.

“And he didn’t.”

We pulled into No Hair’s parking place. I had one leg out the door, bracing myself for the drop, when No Hair said, “For the record, Davis, I don’t think anything you said just now has anything to do with why you didn’t tell me you were getting married. It’s not about your job. There’s something you’re not saying.”

Both of my legs dangled in the air.

“Just think about it. And fess up to Richard about shooting the Mercedes in the lobby.”

Dammit.

*     *     *

“Girl.” Hashtag Elspie and I were under the gold icepick chandelier in the Strike casino. “I thought you, like, were head of marketing for a software developer.” She was drinking her juice dinner through a straw from a clear plastic bucket with a dome lid. It looked like tar. “How did you, like, market without social media?”

“They were old fashioned,” I said. “Very trade-magazine focused.”

“No wonder they went bust.”

The installation of the
future
Gaming chairs was complete. The room now looked like an upscale Fifth Avenue nightclub with fifty black space capsules. Or a very cosmopolitan science lab.

“Do you ever eat food, Elspeth?” I asked. “Cheeseburgers?”

She laughed. “Girl!” Her palm-tree ponytail bobbed.

We were with the rest of the Strike casino staff for this dress rehearsal, waiting to be waited on by the Strike waitstaff. Elspeth said they’d gotten hung up in spray tan. The new waitress, Toni, the tall black girl, had a fit and refused to get in the spray tan booth. (I’d like to have been a fly on the wall for that.) They’d worked it out, and everyone would be along shortly. In the meantime, Hashtag said, “We’ve got to talk microblogging.”

“Did I not do it right?” I’d tumbled and retwitted and liked stuff every hour when my phone dinged to remind me, even from the clerk’s office at the courthouse in Camden, which is what she’d asked me to do.

Elspie had a Monroe lip piercing I hadn’t noticed before, with the tiniest of diamond studs in it tonight. (#Painful) Her dark eyeliner was thick and glittery. This must be her after-six look. (#Impressed) She said never, ever, ever again type the word
hashtag
. Use the pound symbol. And no spaces or punctuation. To separate words, use capital letters. (#GotIt) Don’t type
shout out
. It’s a capital S, capital O, preceded by the pound symbol. (#WillDo) Use Emojis. Emojis are little picture icons—dancing ballerinas, fried eggs, palm trees. Sneak them in. (#FriedEggs) She was nice about it, but at the end of the tutorial she asked, “How old did you say you were?”

I have yet to meet a firewall I couldn’t wiggle through. I write computer code almost to the point of operating systems. I can take out a long-range moving target like a SWAT sniper. Have I really missed this social media boat? (#MissedBoat?)

“You’ll catch on,” Hashtag assured me with her signature friendly punch. Conquer-the-world Katy Perry music came blaring out of nowhere and she cartwheeled off her barstool squealing, “Here they come!”

The energy level with this one was exhausting. (#Exhausting)

With great pageantry, the waitstaff appeared, one at a time, from behind a dark corner that led to the service area. They were stark naked. (#Hypothermia) Honest to Pete, the gold bikini tops were teeny triangles hanging on by threads, the bottoms barely there. Their skin had been sprayed so gold, they looked like Oscar trophies, and until you looked closely, they looked like they were wearing absolutely nothing. (#Naked) It was hard to see where the gold skin started and the gold bikini ended.

Elspie turned back to me and mouthed, “
O, M, G!
”

The lean, gold Bellissimo Ballet Barre bodies scattered through the room and passed out champagne flutes full of bubbly. Fantasy was the fifth waitress to turn the corner. I barely recognized her. Miss Brazil. She was spectacular. She got two steps in, then stopped dead in her tracks and sneezed all over her champagne. Then again. Then four more times. The waitstaff continued to spill out, weaving around her, while she sneezed at her champagne. Six waitresses later, Baylor appeared. Mr. Chippendale. He was wearing skin-tight gold lamé
stripper pants, gold cuffs on the wrists of his bare golden arms, a gold bowtie at the top of his bare chest, and the most ridiculous gold cowboy boots I’d ever seen in my life.

Fantasy turned around and ran back to the service area, sneezing and screaming simultaneously.

I let Elspie spread her giddiness halfway across the casino floor before I slipped my hand into the black leather tote she’d abandoned. I dove in, thinking (a) nothing would bite me, and (b) I wanted her phone for thirty seconds to send a code to the sim card and clone it, so I could get a grip on this twittering business before I got fired again, but (c) got a handful of cold, hard, trouble instead. It felt like a Glock.

Not one piece of Strike was falling into place for a smooth run. Not one piece. At this rate, I may be single for the rest of my life.

*     *     *

On Tuesday morning, I hung a Do Not Disturb sign on the doorknob of control central in our basement offices, then locked myself in. I had serious work to do. Before I went downstairs, I went upstairs and snagged Little Sanders. He was my ward for the morning. (#FallBreakFail) I parked his butt outside the office with a laptop stuffed full of Strike pictures from the night before and told him he’d better not move a muscle or I’d deliver him to his father for another day of watching him work. Or worse, to his mother, for a day of watching her watch herself.

He said, “Duuuuude.”

He complained because he couldn’t play with the Baylor dude, and asked what he was supposed to do all day.

“You’re going to tweet, post, and make little movies.”

“And do what with them?”

“Give them to me, so I can stop what I’m doing every hour and send them out for the next ten days.”

He said, “Dude, HootSuite them.”

“Who?”

HootSuite is a social media manager. Somehow Little Sanders knew all about it. For a small fee, it would manage all the social media sites, integrate them, track them, analyze them, and best of all, it could be loaded up with scheduled posts and tweets well into the future. HootSuite would do for me what I was supposed to be doing for Elspeth. Which would free me up. “Do it, Thomas,” I said. “Load me up with ten days’ worth of stuff.”

Baylor and Fantasy were recovering from their morning Bellissimo Ballet Barre at Fantasy’s allergist’s. Fantasy is allergic to all the usual suspects. In addition, she’s allergic to nickel—her gun is solid steel, her personal electronics all in OtterBox cases, and she never touched coins—red dye #40, and fingernail polish. Today she was welcoming the newest member to her allergen family—Aroma Brand, Chocolate Chip Cookie flavor.

We’d already seen a sneaky exchange between Cassidy Banking and Missy and Red Jennings. (Right?) And now Hashtag Elspeth was, for whatever reasons, packing heat and carrying concealed. Our team had gone from Code Let’s-Get-This-Over-With to Code Uh-Oh to Code High-Alert.

Fantasy’s doc needed to fix her up and fast.

I settled in at the computer with a large cup of coffee and blueberry frosted Pop Tarts. The most pressing question on my mind was, did he know? Had he been waiting for this day to come? Or had it, like most things, slipped right by him without registering in his pea brain?

My ex-ex-husband, Eddie the Ass Crawford, looked and moved like Rhett Butler, but he did it with the mental wherewithal of Pee Wee Herman. The reasons I married him twice are blurry, painful, and well behind me. They can be attributed, for the most part, to me having been born and raised in Pine Apple, Alabama, population two: me and him. I truly, at the time (times), didn’t know any better.

The court’s clerk in Camden told us we couldn’t see the docket, because she had no idea where it was. The filings, proceedings, and rulings for my old divorce were in off-site storage, with seven off-site storage facilities to choose from.

“We hired this company out of Montgomery to scan everything into our system and all they did was rip us off.” She dropped her mouth wide open and slid her lower jaw back and forth. Pop, pop. “So we dumped it all over town. We don’t have room to keep it here, except murders and stuff.” She cracked her knuckles, one hand, and then the other. Crunch, crunch. “All’s I can tell you is the divorce never was finalized because your husband didn’t live in Alabama.” We got out of there before she could ask one of us to walk on her back. Snap, snap.

The bad news was, I couldn’t break into seven different storage facilities and track down the divorce docket. The good news was, neither could they.

I had to cook up and backdate evidence proving Eddie the Rat lived in Alabama at the time of our divorce, then cook up and backdate evidence of him responding to their original request. Then I had to go back to Camden, slap down the proof, and get my divorce. So I could get married.

From Alabama Power’s web site, I recreated an image of a four-by-six manila card payment-due notice. It was the same goldenrod postcard that I’d pulled out of my Pine Apple mailbox a hundred times. I downloaded the old dot-matrix font and produced an electric bill in the amount of $37.14 for March of 2008. I didn’t need to track down the perforated card stock to print it on; I only needed a copy. Next, I imaged a cashier’s check drawn off Pine Apple Savings and Loan and dated it three weeks later than the date on the postcard invoice. I stamped it PAID by overlaying a grainy stamp image. Last order of business, I downloaded and used a sloppy, masculine, handwritten font to address a #10 envelope to the Court Clerk, Camden County, from Edward Meldrick Crawford, Shady Acres Mobile Home Park, Slip 18, Pine Apple, Alabama. I overlaid the appropriate postage and USPS processing imprints for the day, then gave everything a seven-percent blur for age. Print.

Like falling off a log. It took longer to eat the Pop Tarts than it did to prove Eddie the Rotten Snake in the Grass lived in Pine Apple at the time of our divorce. The difference is it’s perfectly within my legal rights as a tax-paying citizen to eat Pop Tarts. Making Eddie Crawford a former Alabama resident who responded to a court summons took breaking several federal laws.

And that’s when I smelled someone else breaking the law.

I threw open the office door to let Little Sanders have it, but slammed it closed faster.

Honestly, I might kill Baylor myself.