Kill Smartie Breedlove (a mystery) (8 page)

The girl turned toward the camcorder, whisking her honey-colored hair over her shoulder, an expression of wide-eyed innocent surprise on her heart-shaped face. Van Reuse remained oblivious for a second or two, head tipped back, eyes closed, but then he did a double take, his face flexing from startlement to instant rage when he saw Shep leaning out the window with the camcorder in his hand.

Van Reuse thrashed himself upright, pushing the young woman’s head from his lap, dragging his pants up around a spit-glistened woody. For the sake of the camcorder, Shep tried hard not to laugh, but he took particular delight in nailing this ass clown. Chowing it to the teenaged babysitter. That was low.

Smile, asshole
, Shep grinned.
You’re on candid
—

“If you post that on YouTube, you’re dead, you fucking pervert!”

“Mr. Van Reuse, I’m an investigator with—hey, hey. No. I advise you to stay in your vehicle, sir.”

Van Reuse crashed out of the Lincoln, shouting at Shep that he was a pervert and about to die. Raising his window, locking the doors, Shep kept the camcorder running. He wanted an iron-clad close-up ID of the subject along with the verbally abusive and downright loco behavior. Van Reuse strode to the rear of the Navigator and brought out a tire iron.

“Sir, you do not want to do that.” Shep called through the closed window. “Listen, sir. Mr. Van Reuse? Listen to me.”

They never listened.

“Fuck you, asshole!” Van Reuse bellowed, and the rear window of the Range Rover exploded.

“Mr. Van Reuse? Sir, you’re only making this worse for yourself.”

The tire iron jabbed through the passenger side window and raked across the hood. The windshield spider-webbed and sagged.

“Ah, God damn
it,” Shep groaned.

He spurred his headlights and caught a fleeting bit of footage of the babysitter running down the street, her Hello Kitty backpack bouncing off her shoulders. As the Range Rover roared away from the intersection, the tire iron clanged against the rear quarter-panel and bangaranged on the pavement.

Shep cursed and lowered the driver’s side window, completing the involuntary cross-breeze as he headed toward the freeway. He was going to require a beer before going home. And a coin-operated car vacuum. It was Shep’s job to deliver Charlie to daycare every morning, and Libby would not be amused if she saw her son’s little safety seat filled with auto glass niblets.

The cell vibrated in his breast pocket. He fished it out and checked the caller ID.

Suri Fitch.

Shep said, “Hey, boss.”

“Good evening, Mr. Hartigate,” said Suri. “Did you bag Van Reuse?”

“Paper or plastic?”

“Sweet. Upload the video and e-mail a link as soon as you get home, will you? I’m anxious to see it.”

“No problem.”

“Why so noisy on your end?”

“Got the top down.”

“Ah. How
Roman Holiday
of you, Shep. Hang onto your Fedora.”

He enjoyed the way she said his name, enjoyed the easy back-and-forth they’d settled into over the last year. The honeysuckle texture of Suri’s laughter combined with her all-business demeanor to create a short-skirt-long-jacket brand of sexy.

Smartie Breedlove had been the anti-Janny with her generous curves and petite stature; every time Shep watched Suri walk purposefully down the hallway, he was instantly returned to everything he loved about Janny’s long, lean legs and angular body. Suri had the same strong lines and unquestionable
right
ness with which Janny had always carried herself.

In the ultra-modern glass and steel construct of their workplace, Suri’s private office was a tastefully sensual haven of rich fabrics, soft side chairs, and warm wooden fixtures. In an intricately carved box on her desk, she kept a collection of little elephants carved from soapstone and tiger’s eye, and she played with them sometimes when she was thinking.

“It’s getting late,” Shep said casually. “Why don’t I stop by the office and see you to your car?”

He’d wait until they were in the elevator together before he suggested they go for a drink. Get her to a bar. Take it from there.

“You’re very thoughtful, Shep, but Mr. Barth is here.”

Shep’s shoulders sagged a little. Oh, well. Worth a try.

“Shep, could I trouble you to take care of one other tiny thing?”

“Sure, boss.”

“I had a rather odd conversation this afternoon,” said Suri. “This new client is supposedly announcing her intent to file tonight.”

“Supposedly?”

“I got a frisson that something was off.” Suri retreated just short of anything that might sound like an accusation. “It’s a bit late, but I wish you’d pop round and verify that she made good on her intention and the spouse is off the premises. For her safety, or however you care to spin it.”

“Got it.”

Suri gave him the address, but Shep’s hand stopped midway as he jotted it down.

“Smartie Breedlove?” he said. “She’s your client?”

“Yes. How do you know her?”

He groped for an answer. “She’s a writer, isn’t she?”

“Shep,” Suri said crisply. “Don’t make me be an archeologist.”

“I interviewed her a while back.” For some undefined reason, Shep didn’t want to say any more than that. “It was a non-issue. The case never made it to filing.”

“What case?”

“The Bovet matter.”

“Indeed.”

A stone-cold trickle crept down Shep’s back.

“She didn’t know anything,” he said.

“About what?”

“About the Bovet matter.”

There was a silence. Shep suddenly felt Neville-ish and sweaty, wishing he could close the broken windows on his car.

“My goodness, Shep. What an elephantine memory you have,” said Suri. “To recognize her home address after all this time.”

Shep didn’t answer. He waited. Let her play the black key.

“Also an interesting coincidence that Ms. Breedlove should come to us,” said Suri. “There are so many less expensive firms that could proficiently handle what appears to be a simple annulment to avoid giving up any of her assets.”

“She has grounds for that?”

“Tax records show lack of cohabitation. Both parties have maintained individual residences. No consummation. He’s on record objecting to the fact that she documented his impotence in a book. Case closed.”

There was another brief silence. Suri made a little cricket sound between her teeth.

“Pop round to Ms. Breedlove’s,” she said. “Make sure the spouse is out and she’s sincere about her intent to file. Tomorrow I’d like to revisit your notes on the Bovet case and refresh our memories on Ms. Breedlove’s involvement. Have those files on my desk first thing, if you would, please.”

“No problem, boss.”

\\\ ///

9

P
arked across the street from Smartie’s house thirty minutes later, Shep still felt that uncomfortable tickle somewhere between the back of his mind and the root of his shoulder blades.

The porch light was on, as were the driveway and patio lights, and what appeared to be pole lamps inside the downstairs windows. Shep debated knocking on the door, but before he’d had time to puzzle through the various ways this thing might play out, he saw Smartie and her gargantuan dog jogging up the block.

“Smartie,” Shep called, and she stopped in the center of the street, feet set apart, arm raised to shoulder level. A small object glinted in her hand.

“I have pepper spray,” she announced. “And this dog is trained to attack.”

“It’s me.”

“Shep.” As she jogged toward him, she muttered something that sounded like, “Yams.”

Twinkie, whose attack training had apparently lapsed a bit, loped over to the Range Rover, plopped his hammy paws on the window ledge and thrust his head in, leaving a wide swath of drool across the headrest and Shep’s neck.

“Dog. No! Sit. Down, boy.”

Still breathing hard and perspiring from the jog, Smartie gave Twinkie a schnuzzle and hauled back on his leather collar, gently scolding.

“Twinkie, down. Go kennel up, baby. Twinkie, kennel for cookies.”

Leaving another swath of drool on Shep’s shoulder, Twinkie heaved himself off the car door and gamboled across the street and up the steps, assuming his assigned post on the front porch like a lion outside a library.

Smartie eyed the Range Rover’s broken windows and scarred rear section.

“Nice wheels,” she said.

“Nice hair,” Shep shot back, relieved when she laughed.

“It’s good to see you again, Shep.”

“Is it? I left several messages and didn’t hear from you.”

“Right,” said Smartie, offering no white lies or legless disclaimers.

“Right. Well. Sorry to bother you so late. Your friendly neighborhood divorce lawyer asked me to come by and make sure your spouse is off the premises.”

“He is.”

“Everything okay?”

“God’s in His heaven. All’s right with the world.”

“Excuse me?”

“It’s a poem. ‘Pippa’s Song’ by Robert Browning.”

“Ah.” Shep nodded. “Okay. Well. I’ll tell Suri you’re all set.”

“Thank you.”

“Let me leave my cell number in case—”

“I have it.”

“Okay. So. Good. Good to go.” After a beat or two, he nodded and turned his key in the ignition. “Goodnight.”

“I thought maybe you were here to return my files,” said Smartie.

Shep took the manila folders from him briefcase and handed them to her.

“Anything there pique your curiosity?”

“Nope.”

The crickets had their say for a long moment. Shep let the engine hum idly. Smartie stood under the street lamp, a host of moths and June bugs high overhead.

“I suppose you have all sorts of interesting little bingetty-bongs in there,” she said abruptly. “Snazzy gadgetry? Spy toys?”

“I prefer to think of them as tools of a dignified trade.”

Craning to look inside the driver’s window, leaning close enough for Shep to see the pepper of freckles on the side of her neck, Smartie said, “May I see? Or would you have to kill me?”

He indicated the passenger door. “Hop in.”

She went around the vehicle, pausing to run her hand across the tire iron welts on the hood before she climbed into the passenger seat. Even vented by the broken windows, the air in the Range Rover was immediately filled with the magnolia sweat of a woman’s body well spent. Smartie smelled like mowed lawn, mosquito spray and fake vanilla cigarette, not a combination Shep would have expected to find sexy, but the autonomic demons down below thought otherwise.

He pulled across the street to her driveway where there was better light before he opened a steel strongbox in which he kept his most expensive bells and whistles. Hands clasped like Christmas morning, Smartie sucked in a deep, delighted breath.

“Oh, knobs,” she said reverently. “These are wonderful.”

She made a slow exploration of the neatly ordered toolkit, touching each item for texture and weight, questioning Shep about form and function, the words already working in her head.

I ran my hands over the spider-sexy tools of Nash Babcock’s haut tech trade. The under-dash storage unit sported more implements of invasion than a Pigalle kink boutique.

“…so then I upload the video,” Shep was saying, “digital photos, transcripts of my notes on the surveillance, et cetera, to a secure online storage facility where it’s accessed by the paralegals who do most of the legwork for trial prep.”

“What’s this little skittlebob?”

“That’s an infrared illuminator. Clarifies nighttime video.”

“Nifty.” Smartie held up a little bullet-shaped device, held it to her nose, touched it with the tip of her tongue. “This?”

“IP network cam. But this one’s better.” Shep handed her something that looked like a miniature planetarium. “Multiple compression formats.”

“Multiple compression formats,” she echoed, committing it to memory like a Rubaiyat.

“What kind of trouble could a girl make with these?” I wondered, slipping a whisper-thin listening device into my bra.

“Any kind she wants,” said Nash. “I’m into multiple compression formats.”

“What about the old school rough stuff?” asked Smartie.

“Such as?”

“Handcuffs? Brass knuckles?”

“I’m there to observe, not engage.”

“But what if it’s like
Hey, he’s getting away!
and you’re
Down on the floor, dirtbag!
and he’s
You won’t take me alive, copper!
and so forth?”

“It’s not like that.”

“Nunchucks?”

“I’m a licensed investigator, not a Ninja Turtle.”

“Bulletproof vest?”

“Yeah,” Shep said, “but I never wear it.”

“Why not?”

“It makes people shoot at my head.”

Smartie’s eyes lit up. “
Yes
. That’s great. I’ll use that.”

“Knock your lights out.”

She held up an electric razor and studied it intently.

I clicked the switch with my thumb, and there was a deep-throated GZZZZZZZ.

“The sound of information about to be extracted,” Nash intoned.

“Either that or a lesbian with a hard-on.”

“Holy jacks. What’s this for?” asked Smartie.

“Shaving,” said Shep, but wanting to make it spy-like, he added, “When I tape a wire inside my shirt. Hurts like hell if you don’t shave first.”

“Where’s your gun?”

“Handy.”

Poking through a compartment on the side, she reached between Shep’s worn key maps and drew out a copy of Smack Wilder #3:
Too Easy
.

“I liked it,” said Shep. “The plot was clever, but there were a few procedural—”

“I didn’t ask you what you thought,” she clotheslined him midsentence. “You don’t hear me criticizing your job skills.”

“I wasn’t criticizing. I just wanted to offer, you know, if you ever have questions about police or investigative procedures. Feel free to give me a call.”

“Clearly you’re the expert.” She flicked a crumble of safety glass off the seat with her finger.

“Things get up close and personal.” Shep stretched his arm along the back of her seat, no more suave or less brazen than a kid at the drive-in. “Nature of the beast.”