Dying in Style (20 page)

“If you scam some terrorists, who do they complain to—the Better Business Bureau?” Josh said. “You take their money in Iraq or Istanbul, change your name and run for the good old USA with your loot.”

“And get away scot-free,” Josie said. “Unless you’re addicted to sounding off in the newspapers and someone sees your picture.”

“Right,” Josh said. “Serge shot his mouth off for the media. Sooner or later, the people he scammed were going to find him.”

“There’s the perfect motive for murder,” Josie said. “Serge was killed by someone he swindled in a nuclear arms deal.”

Josh looked deep into Josie’s eyes. “Exactly. You figured it out. You’re smart. You’re beautiful. You’re sensitive. There’s something I’ve been trying to get up the nerve to ask you for a long time.”

“Yes?” Josie fluttered her eyelashes the way women did in the chick movies. Josh was going to ask her out.

“Would you read the manuscript of my novel?” he said.

“Uh.” Josie felt like she’d been punched in the gut. Did she look like a literary agent?

“I know you’re surprised,” Josh said. He was talking very quickly, the way Amelia did when she tried to persuade her mother it was okay to let her stay up late on a school night.

“You probably don’t read science fiction. But my novel is so good it transcends the genre. I can bring it tomorrow and give it to you when you come in for your coffee.”

“I need a drink,” Josie said flatly. “Why don’t you meet me for a beer Sunday at the Schlafly Bottleworks?”

Josh raised one eyebrow. “I didn’t know you were a beer drinker.”

“Hey, I’m a St. Louis girl. Beer is in my blood. But not over the accepted legal limit, of course.”

Josh laughed. “Meet you there at two?”

“Deal,” Josie said.

Josh leaned toward her to seal it with a kiss when the doorbell chimed.

“Hey, anybody here?” the skinny guy called. “Is the computer fixed yet?”

Josie floated out of the coffeehouse, down the street to her flat and into her car. It was only when she was halfway to Amelia’s school that she came back down to earth.

Josh had given her new information on osmium-187. He’d also strengthened the case for terrorists as the killers.

But if terrorists poisoned Serge when they found out he’d sold them worthless nuclear materials, why kill Danessa? Was she an innocent bystander who died because she lived with Serge?

Or was Danessa part of the bogus nuclear weapons scam, hiding the worthless osmium-187 in shipments of purses? Did she know what was going on? Or did she find out?

Is that what caused those bitter arguments with Serge and Marina in the stockroom? How did the mysterious Marina fit in this? Where was the Russian Amazon?

And what about Olga? The saleswoman had been snooping in the store and found out her health insurance was about to be canceled. Did she find out something even more disturbing?

If Olga was a top saleswoman, why did she stay with Danessa? Someone with her ability and high-end client list could have easily found a job with an employer who treated her better. Was it easier for Olga to collect those blackmail payments if she stayed at the store?

Josie thought Olga was a liar. She was also the only person who knew the truth about Danessa.

Chapter 19

South St. Louis had many charming apartment houses, but this wasn’t one of them.

Olga lived in a yellow-brick box built in the sixties. The brick had turned a dirty tan, like a dog that needed a bath. A screen hung loose on one window and dingy curtains flapped on the sill, the flag of surrender in uncertain neighborhoods.

There were eight units in Olga’s apartment house. All the doors were painted a sad green, except one, which was nailed over with plywood and spray-painted BOB’S BOARD UP. Josie wondered what disaster it covered. A break-in? A fire? Or did the police have to force their way inside?

“Nice neighborhood,” Alyce said. She looked frightened. This wasn’t her world. People here joined gangs, not committees.

Josie shrugged. She’d had to shop worse neighborhoods. She’d deliberately dressed to attract no attention. She wore old jeans, a faded T-shirt and cheap tennis shoes no one wanted to steal.

Josie walked confidently across the dead lawn with a don’t-mess-with-me strut. Alyce picked her way delicately on slick-bottomed Italian leather shoes. Her understated blue linen dress belonged at a Junior League lunch. Her creamy skin and white-blond hair came only with money. Alyce’s golden life gave her a glow that made her a mark here. She looked like a society lady in a slum. And she was, Josie thought.

“I just have to ask Olga a couple of questions and we’re out of here,” Josie said. “She lives in Unit Seven.”

The bell dangled from the wall by naked wires. Josie figured it wasn’t working. She pounded on the green door. No answer.

“Olga!” Josie kept pounding.

A dog barked two doors down, but there was no other response. No curtains twitched. The Mrs. Muellers, the guardians of neighborhood propriety, had left long ago—or been mugged out of existence. The apartments on either side were sightless and silent. The only sound was the furious dog, throwing itself against a locked door.

“Maybe you have the wrong apartment number,” Alyce said.

“Nope. It says ‘O. Rachmaninoff’ over the bell,” Josie said. The letters were printed in an odd square script on a white card thumbtacked to the wood.

“Olga, open up,” Josie said. “It’s important.”

“Great. Now she’ll think you’re from immigration,” Alyce said.

Josie tried the door handle. Locked. “In the movies, it always swings open,” she said.

“Well, this one didn’t,” Alyce said. “Let’s go. This place creeps me out.”

“One last thing. Let me go around back and check her kitchen window,” Josie said. “Maybe I can see inside. Olga could be hiding in a back room.”

“She could also be calling the police,” Alyce said. “You can trespass if you want, but I am not going in that horrible backyard.”

“Fine, stay on the porch,” Josie said. “You can be a real pain sometimes, you know?”

Alyce said nothing. She stood there with her arms folded, looking scared and out of place.

Josie went around the side of the building. To get to the backyard, she had to pick her way through a narrow gangway piled with junk. Josie stepped over a rusty bike, bent rakes, broken clay pots, rotting boards, and busted garden hoses. She could see the fleas hopping on an old mattress and prayed none of them jumped on her as she brushed past it.

Rats, snakes and spiders are in here for sure, Josie thought. She stepped carefully, listening for hissing and scurrying, hoping she didn’t feel the feathery brush of a black widow or a brown recluse.

She heard a low growl and picked up a bent aluminum clothes prop in case she had to chase away the dog.

Josie, carrying the clothes prop like a spear, came out of the gangway into a dry, dead little yard surrounded by a chain-link fence. From the size of the dog piles, the creature throwing itself against that door was at least seven feet tall. Josie walked carefully and wished she had something bigger than a bent pole.

Olga’s back window was shut. It was a narrow slit about a foot above Josie’s head. She went back into the gangway, found a cinder block, put it under the window and stood on it.

Josie heard an odd buzzing noise. She looked in at the kitchen. It was a seventies’ nightmare in harvest gold and avocado green.

Olga’s floor may be uglier than mine, Josie thought. She has avocado green tile with some sort of weird red-black splash pattern—

Omigod. It’s blood. Olga was lying on the floor and there was blood all over. Her eyes were wide open, her head resting against a kitchen-table leg. Josie thought she saw Olga’s black spiky hair, but then it moved. Josie pounded on the window, and the hair rose up and flew away.

It wasn’t hair.

It was flies. Hundreds of black flies, crawling over what was left of the little saleswoman’s head. They set up an infernal buzzing. Josie thought if she went to hell, she’d hear that sound.

Olga was wearing her work outfit, the sleek black pantsuit. It looked stiff with blood. Olga’s pale skin was an odd greenish white. One small hand reached out, grasping at nothing. Josie thought she’d never seen anything so heartbreaking.

She fell backward off the cinder block. She didn’t bother brushing off the mud and grass on her jeans. Josie sprinted through the gangway like an Olympic hurdler, nimbly leaping rakes, hoses and boards.

Alyce was still on the porch, arms folded, face in a frown. “Josie, what’s wrong?”

“Olga’s dead.” Josie realized she was carrying the aluminum pole.

“Are you sure?” Alyce said. “Maybe she’s hurt.”

“Her head’s almost gone,” Josie said. “I think she was shot. I know you don’t survive an injury like that.”

“Let’s get out of here.” Alyce grabbed her hand. “What if the killer is still around?”

“He’s long gone,” Josie said. “The blood looks dried. We’ve got to call the police.”

“You can’t call them,” Alyce said. “What are you going to say? ‘Hi, I’m Josie Marcus. You already think I killed Danessa Celedine and I flunked a lie detector test. Now I accidentally found her head salesperson—the one who didn’t wipe my fingerprints off the fatal snakeskin belt—and guess what? She’s dead, too. I didn’t kill her. I’m telling the truth.’ ”

Josie stared at her friend. “That’s quite a speech, Counselor.”

“I’m not debating with you,” Alyce said. “We need to move, right now.” She started across the dry brown lawn. This time there were no delicate steps. Alyce planted her feet firmly and marched.

“We can’t leave her in that kitchen,” Josie said. “She’s crawling with flies.”

“We’ll call the police as soon as we’re out of here.”

Suddenly that seemed like a good idea. Josie sprinted across the dried-up lawn after Alyce.

“I’ll unlock the door, but you have to let go of that clothes prop to get in the car,” Alyce said.

Josie looked down at the dirty, bent pole and saw her handprint on it.

“My prints,” Josie said.

“Actually, I’m a princess,” Alyce said.

“My fingerprints are all over everything,” Josie said. “Do you have a rag? I need to wipe them off.”

Alyce handed her an old cloth diaper. Josie ran for the front door. She wiped down the door. In the back, she cleaned the window and the sill. She could hear the frantic buzzing of the trapped flies as she worked. She refused to look in the window again.

When she had wiped down everything she had touched, Josie carried the concrete block back to the trash in the gangway, then wiped it, too, even though she was pretty sure cinder blocks didn’t take fingerprints. The aluminum pole was still leaning against the SUV. Josie threw it in the back and said, “Drive on.”

“Why did you bring that?” Alyce said.

“Because I don’t want to waste more time wiping it down,” Josie said. “We need to find a pay phone.”

“I have my cell,” Alyce said.

“And I have mine,” Josie said. “But those calls can be traced back to us.”

“Oh,” Alyce said. “You’re good at this.”

“Please don’t tell my mother,” Josie said.

They drove for ten minutes looking for a working pay phone. Most had been either vandalized or removed to prevent drug deals.

“Do you think anyone saw us?” Alyce said as they scanned the streets for a functioning pay phone.

“I hope not,” Josie said. “But we were pretty obvious. We drove up in a big fancy SUV that doesn’t belong in this neighborhood. A tall blonde in a designer dress and her short brunette sidekick beat on the door, shouted at each other and then drove off.”

“Maybe they won’t believe what they saw,” Alyce said.

“There’s a lot of crack around here,” Josie said. “We could be a hallucination.”

“I almost hope I am caught,” Alyce said. “Jake won’t think I’m so boring if he has to bail me out for murder.”

“Jake doesn’t think that,” Josie said. She saw a single tear slide down her friend’s cheek and realized she didn’t know what Jake thought.

“Look, Alyce, I wouldn’t worry. This isn’t an area where people get involved with the police.”

“Look! Outside that convenience store—a pay phone,” Alyce said and pulled a U-turn across three lanes of traffic. Horns blared and single digits saluted them.

“Way to go,” Josie said. “You’ll be a city girl yet.”

“No, I won’t. I don’t like this neighborhood, or the three men hanging around the door.”

Three dark-skinned teenagers slouched against the smudged door of the convenience store, smoking cigarettes and drinking malt liquor. They were five feet from the pay phone, which stood in a pool of trash.

“Those are bored kids, not thugs. I can tell the difference,” Josie said.

“I’m still going with you.” Alyce pulled her pepper spray out of her purse. Josie walked through drifts of plastic bags, empty cups, and used condoms. The blacktop was sticky with what she hoped was spilled soda. The pay phone was covered with phone numbers, gang symbols and slogans: TIFFNY IS A HO. If this were New York, Josie thought, it would probably be in some museum as urban art.

“I’m going to burn these shoes when I get home,” Alyce said. She looked disgusted and Josie couldn’t blame her. They were a long way from West County, or even Maplewood. But Alyce followed Josie to the pay phone, pepper spray in hand. Josie expected catcalls, but the three young men drifted away, silent as ghosts.

Josie called Information and asked for the main police nonemergency number.

“Why not call 911?” Alyce said.

“Because those calls are traced,” Josie said. “Someone here might remember us. I don’t think calls to the main number are.”

“You really do have a knack for this,” Alyce said.

“I just hope my daughter didn’t inherit that gene,” Josie said, as she punched in the number.

“Hello?” Josie said, in a bad Russian accent. “Policeski?”

Alyce stared at her.

Josie made her voice shrill and cracked, like an old woman’s. “My neighbor Olga is not answerink her door. She iss home. Nice young woman. Works at that Danessa shopski where the boss lady vas killed. That’s right. Danessa. But she’s dead. I’m worryink about Olga. We are supposed to meet this mornink. Her car vas here, but she vas not answerink of the door.