Harley Rushes In (Book 2 of the Blue Suede Mysteries) (13 page)

As she was pondering her misspent youth and the mystery of the cheese to tostada ratio always being off by a few chips, her phone rang. She went inside to answer it, bare feet padding over the wood floor that still bore faint traces of flour residue despite being scrubbed several times.

It was Cami, her partner in crime.

“You won’t believe this,” Cami said before Harley had a chance to say Hello, “but I’m on the horns of a moral dilemma.”

Harley rolled her eyes and licked melted cheese off her fingers. “Uh hunh. Funny you should mention being on horns.”

“You’ve got to stop finding bodies, Harley. It isn’t healthy. Now listen—this may shock you, but Bobby has been calling me.”

“It’d be a shock if he didn’t. I saw the way he looked at you. So what’s the dilemma?”

“He has a girlfriend.”

“Angel of the topless dancer variety. Why is that a dilemma? Bobby never dates one person for very long before he moves on. That’s a warning, in case you missed it.”

“No, he’s more than dating her, Harley. She
lives
with him.”

“Still?”

“Affirmative.” Cami blew out what sounded like a sigh, and added, “What should I do?”

Harley grimaced. “I really don’t like getting mixed up in other people’s love lives. I’m not good at it. Hell, I’m not good at my own, so I’m the wrong person to come to for advice.”

“You’re doing all right. Bruno—I mean Mike—seems like a great guy.”

“He is. So far. But it’s only been a week. It could go south at any time now. My record on long-term relationships is six months, but that was with George.”

“George? I don’t remember you dating a guy named George.”

“I didn’t date him. He was my goldfish, remember?”

“Oh yeah. The koi you liberated in the Audubon Park koi pond.”

“I think he still remembers me, though, unlike most of the other men in my life.”

“Men don’t forget you, Harley. They may cross the street when they see you coming, but they don’t forget you. Now, back to my problem. What should I do about Bobby?”

“Run the other way. He has commitment issues. Unless you just want a good time in bed, he’s probably not the guy. Besides, he’s allergic to pet hair and you have a zoo at your house.”

“I adopted two of the cats out this week. I think it’s going to work out great for them.”

“Uh hunh.” Harley wasn’t that big on cats. They’d always seemed like such sneaky, evil creatures, skulking about to leap out from dark corners to massacre unwary birds. And bare toes. That reminded her of the one cat she had liked, one of Cami’s rescues, a contrary beast that had seemed less repulsive than most. She’d never met a blue-eyed cat before, and he’d reminded her in a way of Morgan. Must be the arrogance.

Cami was saying, “I have this stuff I spray that eliminates the animal dander so people with allergies can visit. It works really well. Bobby hardly sneezed at all last time he was here, and his eyes didn’t swell up and turn red, and his nose didn’t run . . . ”

“Last time? How many times has he come over?”

There was a brief silence, then Cami said faintly, “Four.”

“Four times? In a week? Cami, you’ve been holding out on me.”

“We haven’t really talked.”

“That’s true. I’ve been busy. And it sounds like you have, too.”

“Not like you think. I mean, we haven’t slept together or anything. And he doesn’t stay long, usually. He just comes over and we sit out on my deck and have a beer or wine, talk about things.”

“Things? What kind of things?”

“Sometimes he talks about cases he’s worked on, but mostly we talk about personal stuff. You know. Things we did when we were kids, old girlfriends—my ex—what we want in life. Stuff like that.”

It sounded serious. Harley got alarmed. The only thing she’d ever known Bobby Baroni to take seriously was his job. Cami might get hurt, and she didn’t need another disappointment.

“Hey,” she said, “I’m about to go check out a few family alibis. Wanna go with me?”

Cami sounded surprised. “Are you involved in this case, Harley? Bobby said—”

“Keep in mind that Bobby thinks like a cop. It’s a flaw or a virtue, depending on which side you’re on. So. Go with me. I just want to be sure my cousins are telling the truth about where they were when Harry Gordon was killed.”

“The gruesome twosome?”

“Those are the ones.”

“Are they still obnoxious?”

“They don’t spit anymore as far as I know, but other than that I can’t see that they’ve changed that much.”

“I have to be back at work at eight tonight. I’m on split shifts. Can I make it home in time to get ready?”

“Sure. This shouldn’t take too long.”

Harley should have known better.

Cami wore a cute halter top and pair of shorts, and she’d dyed her hair blonde again. She drove her little green Saturn and had the sunroof open, so she had on a baseball cap and sunglasses.

“You look like a duck,” Harley said by way of greeting. “Now I feel overdressed in my cutoffs and tee shirt. Do you remember where they live?”

“Thanks for the compliment. Out off Massey Road, right?”

“I’ll guide, you drive. Got another hat?” She smiled when Cami pointed to the back seat.

When they arrived, Amanda was in the kitchen. The empty box of Krispy Kremes still sat on the counter near the island sink, and her cousin sported a thin layer of glaze around her mouth. She looked guilty of something, but Harley wasn’t sure if it was gluttony or lying.

“Hey, Mandy. What’s up?”

“Why are you back so soon? Mama’s asleep, and—”

”Not to worry. I just thought of a few things I’d like to ask you, that’s all. You remember Cami, don’t you, from my old neighborhood?”

Looking defensive, Amanda crossed her arms over her ample chest and nodded. “Yes, of course I do. How are you, Cami?”

The niceties over, Harley jumped right in. “So where were you Thursday night? Say, between the hours of six and nine?”

For a minute, she thought Amanda was going to keel over right there on the kitchen floor. She sucked in air, her eyes got big, and she went so pale she blended right into the white pickled color of the cabinets.

“Why . . . do you want to know?”

“Use your imagination. Look, I’m just trying to help out Aunt Darcy. The police intend to solve the case, and they have a tendency to ask unpleasant questions. If they haven’t already asked you this, they will. Trust me. They just move at their own speed for their own reasons. If I can, I’m going to make sure all of you are above suspicion. Now. Where were you?”

“Here.” Amanda’s chin came up, and her round, pretty face took on the expression of a petulant mule. “Just like I told the police. Right here. All night.”

“Great. So you have proof of that, right? Someone who saw you and can verify that?”

Amanda blinked. Her lower lip quivered slightly, and a flake of glaze dropped to the front of her blouse. “No. As a matter of fact, I don’t.”

“Aunt Darcy saw you? Madelyn, maybe?”

“I . . . I was here alone at that time.”

Ah, so the lovely and bitchy Madelyn had lied. Not surprising. It had been her best subject in school.

“Really, Mandy? All alone, huh. Maybe you made some phone calls, talked to someone who can say you were here?”

“No. I watched TV. One of my favorite shows. And don’t call me Mandy.”

“Mandy suits you. It’s cute. Friendly, in a puppy dog kind of way. If I were you, I’d go with it. Well, while I’m sure you aren’t involved in any way, you better be prepared for some in-depth police questions when they get back around to you. I assume you already gave a statement of some kind to them?”

Amanda nodded. “That night. When they came to talk to Mama.”

“And she was gone when the police came.”

“Oh no, she was back home by then. Madelyn had Mama’s car, so she picked her up at the meeting and brought her back. They were both here the rest of the night.”

“Ah. That’s good. Thank you, Mandy. You’ve been a great help.”

And now I know who was in Aunt Darcy’s car at the shop . . .

They found Madelyn playing tennis on the courts behind the house. Paul Fontaine had built them a few years before when Darcy flirted with getting physically fit. Apparently, she now had activities of a different physical nature, so a lawn service kept weeds from sprouting in cracks in the asphalt, and that was usually the most action on the courts.

“What a surprise, Maddie, to find you out here playing tennis in the heat,” Harley said, and smiled when her cousin shot her a sweaty grimace. “You don’t usually do anything that gets you into a lather unless it involves wine, a man, and Mr. Bubble.”

Madelyn’s partner, a tanned, tall, athletic type who looked as if he regularly made the society pages, caught the tennis ball and bounced it off the court a few times. He seemed to be a bit uncomfortable. As he should be. He had at least twenty years on Madelyn, maybe more.

Wiping her face with an embroidered terry towel, Madelyn stalked toward Harley where she stood in the shade of a flowering crepe myrtle. Her fair skin was flushed and damp, and her crisp tennis skirt hadn’t lost its snap in the heat. Neither had her tongue.

“What the devil do you want?”

“Do I need a reason to visit my cousin?”

“You’re not here to visit. You want something. Get to the point, Harley.”

“What a suspicious nature you have, but you’re right this time. I do want something. Like the truth. Where were you Thursday night between six and nine?”

“At home, just like I told the police.”

“Wrong answer. You were in Aunt Darcy’s car. Why? Where’s your car?”

Madelyn’s eyes narrowed. “How do you know that? And what difference does it make to you where I was and what I was driving?”

“Let’s just say, inquiring minds want to know. Besides, the police might be interested to learn that you lied to them.”

“You wretched little sneak! You wouldn’t!”

Harley smiled. Madelyn hissed a few nasty words that singed some of the leaves on the crepe myrtle, then she glanced toward the Memphis version of actor George Hamilton before she turned back to say through clenched teeth, “We’ll talk about this in private. Give me a few minutes.”

“To think of a reasonable lie?”

“To get rid of Trey so we can conduct
family
business in private!” Her glance at Cami left no doubt that she did not include her in the family, then she pivoted on an expensively shod foot of spotless white leather and stalked toward the bemused Trey.

Harley looked at Cami.

Cami shrugged. “Guess I’ll go talk to Mandy for a while.”

“Distract her with food and she might say more than she wants.”

“I’m watching my carbs. But maybe she’ll say something interesting.”

“You’re on a diet? Why?”

Waving a hand dismissively, Cami muttered something about fitting back into her size four jeans as she walked off. Harley watched her for a moment. There might be more between Cami and Bobby than she’d thought. That could be interesting. Or disastrous. With Bobby, it was a toss-up. To the despair of his stereotypical Italian mother, Bobby had commitment issues. He’d never married, nor expressed the least interest in having a long-term relationship. Instead, he had the habit of choosing totally unsuitable women so that friends and family were relieved when the relationship finally ended. The only exception had been Harley, but that’d been when they were still teenagers and it’d never been serious, just an experiment both had decided to end quickly. It had turned into a friendship they both maintained without much effort. Most of the time, it worked well. On occasion, Bobby irritated her into avoiding him, and vice versa.