Killer Commute (15 page)

But Charlie regretted all that bottled water and moved ever so slowly backward down to the level of the patio—hoping she was in shadow, too—when something furry tickled itself between her ankles. She knew it was a cat, hoped it was Hairy Granger. He actually liked everybody. Everybody but Tuxedo.

Another shadow—this one had to be luscious Larry—moved away from Jeremy's house and toward Maggie's Subaru. Beautiful men have a way of moving their shadows—no explaining the laws of nature.

Charlie had just bent over to pick up Hairy Granger and keep him from tickling her into revealing her presence in the drama unfolding across the expanse of concrete courtyard only to find he was Tuxedo Greene instead, when the compound's all-but-forgotten security system kicked in. Cars with unofficial light bars (yellow in color, but flashing) roared into the newly ungated compound and disgorged middle-aged male figures with sizable beer bellies and sleek Dobermans upon Charlie's world.

There had to be a god of the inane and poor timing following Charlie through life. Suffice it to say that by the time the first Doberman reached her, Tuxedo had climbed to the top of her head and she had released some bottled spring water onto her patio for the Doberman to stop suddenly and sniff. His burly-gone-pudgy handler couldn't stop in time and took a nosedive over the attack dog in an attempt to land on top of Charlie Greene and her daughter's cat.

But Charlie and Tuxedo backed away in time to escape into the kitchen, only to find Hairy Granger right behind them, and the two felines, so happy to have escaped the Dobermans, were content to wage a sound fight that held to warning moans and occasional cat screams in Charlie's condo. While she could only guess what the flesh-eating canines and ghostly shadows and uniformed geezers were doing without. At least she could hear it all. Where was luscious Larry?

She'd found some Keds and fresh sweatpants to put on by the time the Dog Patrol types knocked on her door to report that a house in the compound had been gutted by fire and the front gate blown off. “What do you want us to do?”

“Nothing. You are fired.”

“Sorry, lady, but we got to talk to a Mr. Fiedler. He's the one hired us.”

“What, you don't read the papers? He was murdered here a few days ago. The bombings and the fire are just the frosting on the cake. Besides a murderer and the bombers, we've had homicide, the bomb squad, and the fire department here. And now you show up. We've been paying you all these years, too. For what, I don't know. But you're still fired.”

“Not our fault. Our computer broke down.”

*   *   *

The dog-guard people and their Dobermans had at least scared off one shadow, but Charlie, Larry, Maggie, and Betty Beesom all waited nervously for some hidden bomb to go off.

They sat in Charlie's breakfast nook drinking coffee and listening to what was left of the night.

The shadow Larry had been following in the courtyard was not the woman in the long coat. He swore it was a man. And that man had been inside the burned-out shell of Jeremy Fiedler's house. Larry had avoided the dog patrol by reclining on the backseat of Maggie's Subaru, which she had not locked, still lulled by the habit of relying on the idea of Jeremy's protected fortress.

“Any other neighborhood, people would have moved to a motel to wait this out,” he offered languidly. “But never, do I think, has this been any other neighborhood.”

“Motels are dangerous places. Read in the paper all the time about people getting murdered and raped and robbed in one. We're safer here.” Betty had removed her nightcap but wore what she called a “duster” over her nightgown. It was pink and flowered and frilly but seriously machine washable. Charlie figured it must be called that because it was meant to be worn while you dusted your house before you took your morning shower. People who had to be on the road early to commute to work need not apply. If she lived long enough to retire, would Charlie wear a duster? Nah.

“His ghost,” Betty said with certainty. “I been dreaming about him ever since he was murdered. That was no shadow. He still lurks around here, wanting to tell us who killed him.”

This late at night, with Betty's weepy red eyes magnified by her eyeglasses, and everyone's lack of sleep after the dog patrol and bombers and murder had invaded the sanctity of their haven—Charlie could believe in ghosts, almost.

Except that Jeremy was the least ghostly type person you'd ever met—a realist, an undramatic, dependable guy. But then, too, Charlie had been dreaming of him attending his own memorial service last night and driving a semi at her on the 405 before that.

They all sat very quiet for a while. Tuxedo on top of the refrigerator glared hatred down on Hairy Granger, who sat in Larry's lap, his furry coat rippling pleasurable trembles with every stroke of Larry's hand. Charlie squirmed only a tad.

“Bet the man you saw tonight was the man that left that spooky message on Jeremy's answering machine when we broke into his house,” Betty changed her mind. “Bet he was the one who killed Jeremy, too. ‘I'm on to you and I'm going to blow your sick little world to pieces,' he said.”

“You broke into Fiedler's house?”

“Before they blew it up, we all did,” the old lady assured him. “That nice Detective Amuller said it was all right we did that, Charlie. Won't get us in any trouble. Wanted to know if I knew the voice of the caller. But I didn't.”

“You told Amuller we broke into Jeremy's house? All evidence of that's been destroyed by the bomber and the fire department.” Maggie Stutzman, in sweats to cover her sleepwear, scratched embarrassing places, ran her fingers through dark hair. Her hair was thick and luscious and wavy instead of curly and unruly like Charlie's. “Now he knows anyway.”

“When did you talk to him?” Charlie had this drowning feeling.

“This afternoon. He was asking all about you, Charlie. I told him about how I didn't care that much for you at first when you moved in, but how I'd come to see you in a Christian light.”

Larry moaned and Tuxedo sat up on his ass on top of the refrigerator.

“I don't want to get your hopes up, Charlie. But I think that young man might be interested in you.”

“Oh great, Mrs. Beesom. What kind of a Christian are you to want me to be suspected in Jeremy's murder? Jesus, what else did you tell him?”

“I don't mean in that way, Charlie dear. I mean it's possible he could be interested in you romantically. I just told him about you being all alone with a child to raise and how you worked so hard and lived so hard—you could sure use a rest. And how you came home from Las Vegas last fall and could still do your work and see to your mother and your daughter after all those people dying. Just take up your life like it hadn't happened. You're so strong to carry on like that after nine dead bodies … Charlie? I told him how I'd come to trust you after all that. What's the matter? Did I say something wrong?”

CHAPTER 21

O
FFICER
MASON
ARRIVED
while they were eating breakfast. She thought the idea of a memorial service for Jeremy was a good one. “Be interesting to see if anybody shows up. I'll see if I can't pull some strings and get notification of it in the morning's
P-T.”

“He must have known somebody outside these walls. I'll post a sign on the wall out front. Maybe one on the back wall, too. Hold it tomorrow down at the beach walk.”

“That's a little soon to get a minister lined up, isn't it?”

“Larry can officiate. He's an actor. Can't you, Larry? Betty and Maggie and I'll write you a script.”

Right now Larry looked more like a handsome derelict in need of a shower and a shave. But he set down his bowl of rice with cinnamon, sugar, and milk, turned his palms toward the ceiling, and shrugged at Officer Mary Maggie.

She shrugged back. “No law against it, I guess.”

Charlie had poured the broth off the rest of the Mamas' chicken soup to heat separately in a cup in the microwave and poached an egg on top of the chicken and noodles. Still made her thirsty, but she felt better. Betty and Maggie had gone home to breakfast and Maggie was driving off to work late when Officer Mason and Charlie stepped out onto the patio. Charlie described the recent attack of the dog-protection folks and Larry's following a shadow in the darkened courtyard just before that.

“Without police backup, those home-guard things are a rip-off. And house burglaries are not top priority at the Long Beach PD, but we still get there before most private security agencies. Was this shadow the mysterious woman in the long coat you keep telling us about?”

“Larry swears it was a man. And he'd been inside Jeremy's bombed house.”

“So why are you in such a hurry to have a memorial service?”

“I have the gut feeling the longer I'm the only suspect, the deeper the shit I'm standing in. Betty told me about talking to Amuller yesterday.”

“Your gut has good instincts. You're playing games with us and the doctors about your hearing. And you have Mitch Hilsten. And you just spent the night with your hunk secretary. You don't come off exactly like Snow White, you know.”

“What I know is Amuller's after me. But I thought you had some sense of fairness. You're beginning to sound like Kenneth Starr, too.”

Officer Mason flinched as if she'd been slapped. “That's the nastiest—how—don't you ever compare me to that—cops have feelings, too.”

Officer Mason, in a huff, passed Detective Amuller as she and her car roared out of the wide-open-ended compound. And, of course, J. S. was sitting in Charlie's living room when her hunk secretary stepped out of the bathroom shaved and showered.

“I'm going to run into the office. I'll be back tonight and bring something to wear to the memorial service.”

“Don't wear robes,” Charlie told him.

“Uh, right.” He paused on his way across the room to ponder that with a knitted brow, gave the homicide detective a nasty scowl, and left. He'd thoughtfully folded up his bedding and stashed it somewhere so it looked like he had slept upstairs last night and would again tonight.

The homicide cop shook his head and sighed like a man twice his age. “You're certainly a busy single mother, I'll say that for you. Officer Mason told me about Mitch Hilsten.”

What she didn't tell you, because she didn't know, was that I have been celibate and happy to be so since Las Vegas last October, which is probably more than you can say. What's more, I plan to remain celibate the rest of my life. Besides, my gorgeous Larry's gay. “Detective Amuller, this is not what it looks like. Larry worries about me being alone after murder and bombings and fire here.”

“Oh, I'll bet he does. Where do you stash your kid on nights like last night? She's at a pretty dangerous age, you ask me.”

“She spent the night with a friend.”

“Your millionaire friend, the president of Esterhazie Cement? Or his son?”

Charlie tightened up somewhere inside as she had with that unsympathetic doctor at the hospital. She could hear the defiance and resentment in her voice. “It's concrete.”

Careful Greene, you know how much trouble you can get into when you let yourself hate someone. He's just doing his job.

“He's never been a deaf single mom.”

“It's hearing-impaired these days, lady. You seem to have this impairment intermittently, when it's convenient. And I'm never going to be a mom. But I am a cop, lady, with a job to do. And I don't care who you sleep with, I'm going to do that job. I assume, with all the trouble you've been in, you have a lawyer. But I suggest, since you aren't charged with anything, you don't call him in just yet. You noticed what happened to the Ramseys in Boulder. Since you were born and raised there, you must have sat home and watched the play-by-play on television.”

“I work. I don't sit home, I don't watch daytime television.” Again, that dangerous growl in her already growly voice scared her. She knew she was highly vulnerable as a mere citizen and a woman, but her taxes helped pay this guy's salary and he had no right to judge her on what he considered her profile or her noncriminal-related morals.

Don't get mad, Charlie. Get cool. And then get even.

“So why would I want a lawyer? I didn't kill Jeremy or blow up things around the compound.”

Detective J. S. Amuller had been intimidated and insulted by Charlie and Maggie's take on Jeremy's house and their lack of involvement with him as a neighbor. But Maggie had that man, the married Mel, as an airtight alibi, and Betty Beesom, the only other known candidate for suspect, was a frail eighty-three-year-old. Charlie could think of only one other ploy to disrupt the cop's headlong course toward the easy way out.

“Somebody has been searching my computer files at work since you probably told them I was home watching daytime TV. I have the feeling the Feds are more interested in how someone could disappear electronically than—”

“That's their problem. Mine is who killed a man outside your back door. Even if his identity was erased from data files everywhere. They've got the computer problem. I've got the body. We all have a job to do, Ms. Greene.”

His grin appeared more malevolent than silly now.

That's just your fear talking. Ever since your “intermittent” handicap you've felt more vulnerable. Charlie's inner self was ever trying to impose sanity on insane situations, when it should be panicking.

“And right now, you have everything going for you.” He settled more comfortably into her couch, his long legs bent at the knees like a grasshopper's, and grinned with his lips together for the first time Charlie could remember seeing. They were going to have a nice long chat with no Maggie Stutzman to interrupt with talk about menopause. “Where there's smoke, there's fire. And you've been involved in a lot of homicide cases.”