Kill Smartie Breedlove (a mystery) (13 page)

“Twinkie?” Smartie hollered down the hallway and up the kitchen stairs, clapping her hands. “C’mere, baby. Mommy’s got cookies.”

Shep found the source of the deafening music and turned it off, then attempted to shake Herrick back to consciousness.

“Mr. Herrick? Sir, I’m from Salinger, Pringle, Fitch & Edloe, your wife’s attorneys. You are hereby informed that a duly enforceable restraining order is in effect. Henceforth, you are not to come within five hundred feet of Ms. Breedlove or this residence. Do you understand?”

“No,” Herrick whispered sadly. “I’ll never understand. They didn’t even award a Pulitzer in 2012.
Fifty Shades of Shit
gets seven million from Random House. Smartie Breedlove smirks over the burning rubble of a once noble art form.”

“You will be notified of the date and time of the Order to Show Cause hearing within twenty days,” Shep persevered, “at which you must be present with counsel or this temporary restraining order will become a permanent order of protection. Any questions?”

“Why don’t they just cut off my manhood and use it as a swizzle stick?”

“I’m just the messenger, sir.”

“She’s an eviscerating hag,” Herrick murmured. “Get out while you still have a soul.”

Shep located a pair of well-traveled loafers and attempted to work them onto the poor sod’s feet.

“C’mon, asshole, I’m trying to help you out here,” Shep said irritably, but by this time Herrick was a dead weight that dropped to the hardwood floor when Shep heard Smartie screaming.

“Smartie?” Shep bounded up the stairs two at a time, service revolver in hand, safety off, heartbeat fully engaged. “Where are you?”

“
Shep! In here! Please, help me!
”

The bedroom had been tossed, the bed upended, dresser drawers dumped, closet turned inside out. Glass from the French doors to her office lay in shards and scythes on the floor along with a blizzard of papers and pages, bits and pieces of her computer and fax machine, books with bindings sundered and twisted.

“Over here,” she cried. “Hurry!”

On the far side of her ruined desk, Smartie was on her knees, struggling to lift a heavy bookcase that had been toppled in front of the bay window. In one heart-sinking moment, Shep took in the sickening smell of blood and the sight of the Bullmastiff’s rope-thick tail curled motionless beside its crushed hindquarters. Hoping against instinct, he shoved his gun back into his shoulder holster and waded through the destruction.

“On three,” he said, squatting next to Smartie. “One, two,
three
.”

They heaved the heavy oak shelf onto its side and thrashed away the books and broken tchatchkes.

“Oh, sweet baby. No, no, no…” Smartie grasped Twinkie’s matted flank, stroking the side of his pulped head. “Help me get him to the car. We have to get him to the vet.”

“Smartie, he’s dead.”

“No! No, feel him. He’s warm.”

“He’s not breathing, Smartie.”

“I can feel his pulse. Here! Feel.”

“Smartie, that’s you. That’s your own heart pounding. He’s dead.”

“
Oh!
” She arched away as if she’d been stun-gunned. “
Oh, no, baby
.”

Smartie crumpled over the broad barrel of Twinkie’s indented rib cage, clutching thick wrinkles of soft fur in her fists, and for the next several minutes, Shep didn’t know what else to do but kneel beside her, rubbing her back as she wracked and sobbed Twinkie’s name and Hill’s name and heartbroken words that didn’t attempt to make sense.

Fucking ex, Shep silently berated himself. Always. It was
always
the fucking ex. There were no exceptions.

It took all his will to keep from bombing back down the stairs to throttle the living shit out of that drunken leach, and as if that thought passed through his palm into Smartie’s spine, she straightened and sucked in a deep breath through clenched teeth.

“Bastard. Bastard. That bastard!” She made for the door and was down the stairs kicking Herrick awake before Shep could get hold of her. “Get out! Get
out
of my
house
!”

Flinging her fists and feet and curses at Herrick, who sat up blinking his blurry eyes at the gore that smeared her face and the front of her body, Smartie savaged the restraining order paperwork from her purse and threw it in Herrick’s face.

“Get out, you little piss fig! Get out or you’re dead! If you ever come near me again, I will have you killed. Do you understand me? I will tell my attorney, and she will have you murdered!”

“
Smartie
.” Looping one arm around her middle, Shep lifted her bodily back from the sofa. He raised his other hand to Herrick and barked, “She did not say that. And if you know what’s good for you, you didn’t hear it.”

“I heard it,” said a startled voice in the kitchen doorway.

“Casilda,” Herrick gulped. “There’s been a misunderstanding.”

Standing under the lintel, a canvas book bag looped over one arm, eyes large and alarmed, Casilda held a pressed cardboard drink tray from Starbucks with three coffee cups perched in it at diagonals.

“Who are you?” Her baffled stare shifted from Shep to Herrick, and her jaw went taut. “You’re drunk. After everything we’ve been through. All your promises.”

“He killed Twinkie.” Smartie pointed a trembling finger at Herrick, her face wrecked with blood and weeping. “That drunk little bastard killed Twinkie.”

“No. He could never…” Casilda visibly rocked back. She took an unsteady breath and set the coffee on a side table. “Herrick, have you lost your mind?”

He mumbled something unintelligible and sank into the sofa, covering his face with his hands.

Blinking back tears, Casilda turned on Smartie. “This is all your fault. You set him off with the whole divorce thing out of the blue, then left him here alone when I specifically asked you not to.”

“Get him out of here!” Smartie cried. “He is a hanger-on. He’s pathetic, and his stultifying book is never going to get published, and I want him out of my sight,
or I swear you’ll find him stuffed in a refrigerator at the bottom of a bayou.”

“
Smartie
.
Shut. Up.
” Shep took her shoulders and turned her toward him. “Not another word until the police get here.”

“Oh, God.” Casilda started crying quietly. “Smartie, please don’t have him arrested. He’s in no condition. Please. He needs to go back to rehab.”

“Ma’am? Let’s just take this one step at a time,” Shep said gently. “Please. Have a seat.”

Leaving Casilda and Herrick huddled on the sofa, he hauled Smartie to the foyer, parked her on a side chair and knelt in front of her. A deep trembling had taken her over. Her arms felt fragile and cold when Shep rubbed them between his hands.

“Smartie, you need to calm down. Let’s just take a minute to breathe before they get here, all right? You need to think very carefully about what you say.”

Shep stepped out on the porch, pressing the
9
and the first
1
into his cell phone, but his thumb stalled over the last digit as the whole can of worms opened in front of him, squirming with unpleasant possibilities.

Clearly, Smartie had orchestrated this entire thing to bait Suri, and now it had gone horribly off the rails. A credible witness had just heard him abetting a client’s death threat against a spouse. He was obligated as part of Smartie’s legal team to prevent her from incriminating herself, even if she’d been playing him for a sap since day one, and if there was anything to Smartie’s theory, he had no small stake in preventing her from incriminating Suri until he could prove that the rest of the firm—himself included—was not involved.

The police would have to be called or there would be a documentation issue. The only way to dodge a full-scale processing of the situation was to have Herrick hospitalized instead of arrested. And since pressing charges was not up to the offended spouse in a domestic disturbance, his only hope was a sympathetic ear from the responding officers.

Hating it like hell, Shep took Claire’s card from his wallet.

“It’s Shep. You said you’d have my back.”

\\\ ///

15

“O
n three,” said Shep. “One. Two.
Three
.”

Grasping the edges of Smartie’s down comforter, he and Penn Hewitt heaved the two hundred-forty-pound burden of Twinkie’s carcass into a biohazard bin in the back of Hewitt’s truck.

“Geezes balls,” said Hewitt. “What kind of dog was that?”

“Big,” Shep managed between labored grasps of air.

Hewitt, who was pretty big himself and a younger man than Shep, was barely winded. Hopping up into the truck, he collected the top of the plastic bag that lined the bin and sealed it with yellow tape. Before he hopped down, he gave the bag a gentle pat.

“Poor dude,” he said sadly. “Seemed like she was pretty attached to him, too.”

Shep nodded, panting, leaning forward with his hands on his knees.

“So the guy who tried to off himself came back and offed the dog?” Hewitt hefted a steam cleaner from a rack. “She better get rid of that asshole. I see this kinda thing all the time. First trip, it’s ‘Oh, no, officer, it was just a misunderstanding.’ Second trip, ‘Huh-uh, he swears it’ll never happen again.’ Third trip, I’m scraping the chick’s liver off the wall.”

“Did you speak to her about…” Shep made a gesture that hoped to convey something about the disposition of Twinkie’s hefty remains.

“Sure did,” said Hewitt, who was fluent in unspeakable. “I got her a deal with a local crematorium. They’ll send her the ashes. Nice Lucite box. Pet’s name engraved on it and everything.”

“Thanks,” said Shep. “That’ll mean a lot to her.”

“Listen, dude, are y’all two together or just friends? I mean, I know she’s married to the guy who killed the dog, but that’s looking like a deal breaker.”

“I work for her attorney.”

“Sweet,” Hewitt whispered heavenward. “Put in a good word for me, will you? Tell her I was sensitive about the dog. I’m not even gonna charge her for today.”

“Why not?”

“Because I can get in serious crap if I nail a customer. I can’t sleep with her while she has me under the sixty-day service warranty, and I don’t want to start the clock all over again, so I figured, what the hell. No charge no foul.” He shouldered the steam cleaner. “If she goes for me, awesome. If not, I did my good deed for the day.”

“Mighty big of you.”

Hewitt grinned and hefted his equipment cart up the sidewalk steps like a can of Tinker Toys, leaving Shep to eye the array of evidence-erasing chemicals in back of the Hewitt & Son CTS Decon panel truck. In the time Hewitt was running his mouth, Shep had conducted a professional inventory of the man. Smartie was right about the complicated logistics of the serial killer thing, but Hewitt had the tools to pull it off.

Shep took out his cell and speed-dialed Libby, who reported that Herrick was resting comfortably in the St. Luke’s psych ward.

“I managed to pencil-whip him into rehab at Cypress Knee starting tomorrow. His insurance gives him the twenty-eight-day fluff and fold.”

“Did he consent to the tox screen and residue testing?”

“Readily. I’m nudging for the results, but I’ve got Charlie with me, and he’s way past nap time. I can’t hang out here much longer.”

“Right. Of course. I appreciate it, Libby. You’re a lifesaver,” Shep said sincerely.

“How’s Ms. Breedlove?”

“Physically okay. Still pretty upset.”

“She’s probably a little shocky. Try to get her to eat. Push decaffeinated fluids. Listen if she wants to talk. What is she doing?”

“Hanging out with the cleaning guy. They have sort of an Adams Family rapport.”

“Shep, this woman seems to have a lot of complications in her life.”

“She’s a client. That’s all,” he told her. And it was true. There was no reason for him to feel like a liar.

“Okay,” Libby sighed. “Whatever. Talk to Charlie while I check on those results.”

“No, Lib, please, don’t put him on the phone.”

“Ungo shit.”

“Charlie, give the phone to mommy, okay? Charlie. C’mon, slugger.”

Charlie broke out a stream of alien babble and kept it up while Libby talked and laughed with her coworkers a few feet away. Shep knew from bitter experience that if he hung up, Charlie would deposit Libby’s cell in the handiest trash can, toilet, or bowl of Cheerios.

He squeezed the back of his neck. “God damn it.”

“Bob man it!” Charlie rebroadcast.

“Shep?” Smartie stepped out onto the patio and held out a cordless phone, her hand cupped over the mouthpiece. “Suri Fitch for you.”

“Charlie, give the phone to mommy. Charlie. Oh, for Christ sake. Here.” Shep took the cordless and handed Smartie his cell. “Talk to my nephew while I take this.”

“Oh. All right.” Smartie looked curiously into the cell. “
Guten label
, is this Colonel Portly? Yes. This is Dr. Tweed. From the cocktail party.”

Shep stepped away with the cordless and said, “Hartigate.”

“Shep,” Suri said sharply. “What. The. Hell.”

“How did you know I was here?”

“Mr. Barth tells me Ms. Breedlove’s car was vandalized. Now she’s telling me her husband has wrecked mayhem on the place and for reasons I don’t understand, you failed to have him arrested.”

“Did Barth get the video from the parking garage?” asked Shep.

“There appears to have been some malfunction with the camera.”

“That’s unfortunate.”

“Shep, in my office earlier, she was pumping a lot of helium into this case against her husband. Could she have arranged all this in order to hang him for it?”

There was just enough hesitation between the question and answer for Suri to draw her own conclusion.

“It’s always the ex,” said Shep.

“Yes, but which one?”

Shep squinted in the afternoon sun. Smartie paced the patio a few feet away, still on the phone with Charlie.

“Feldspar?” she said, and Charlie guffawed. “Why you old bandicoot.”

“Collect the evidence with a view toward proceeding against hubby darling,” said Suri, “but make it plain to Ms. Breedlove that any theatrics on her part will result in my immediate withdrawal from her case and the forfeiture of her retainer. Make it clear and get it on record, Shep: under no circumstances will I or anyone else employed by this firm be involved in any improprieties.”