WG2E All-For-Indies Anthologies: Viva La Valentine Edition (21 page)

I didn’t buy it, but she had me interested.
“Did Gregor kill Lon?”

“No, Lon milled really good flour. Gregor
divorced Yvonne and forced her to marry Lon. Then, to break her
heart, he put a curse on all her female offspring. It didn’t bother
Lon. What can you expect from a werewolf? They shed and slobber all
over the furniture and expect you to have sex with them even in
their hirsute state –”

“GRANNY!”

“Sorry, they give me the willies.” She
shuddered. “What you experienced is Gregor’s Curse of the Curse,
usually triggered by first sexual intercourse. The strongest
effects occur during PMS. The twenty-eight day cycle of the moon
controls the Curse as it does the transformation of the werewolf.
Your vampire blood is rising.”

I expressed my disbelief as tactfully as
possible. “ARE YOU FRIGGIN’ CRAZY?”

Granny patted my forearm. “I had hoped the
Curse skipped you as it did your mother.”

“So you have the Curse.”

“The witch blood is dominant in me but I have
limited powers. I can’t do spells and other powerful witchcraft but
can tell fortunes and hold séances and create cool special effects.
All of which provides me a decent living and, combined with good
investments and a solid 401k plan, money for small indulgences like
the Ferrari stashed in the garage out back. The effect of the Curse
on me is I lose my powers for a week each month which severely cuts
into my income.”

My head was spinning. “Aren’t vampires
supposed to live forever and have incredible strength?”

“Only pure-breds. Most likely you’ll live to
be a hundred and fifty or so but look a lot younger. You’ll become
much stronger than the average person but if you don’t satisfy the
craving for male blood during PMS, you’ll quickly wither and die.
Only a drop is needed if you like your donor. But if a man angers
you, you must drain him dry to satisfy your craving and preserve
your life.

Granny’s words echoed in my ears as Hugo came
into the coffee room. He sat in the chair next to me and put his
arm around my shoulders. I rested my head against his chest and we
waited.

Finally, Detective Jambon took us back to the
interview room where we filled out a giant redwood’s worth of forms
and signed our transcribed statements. Before we left, he told us
the machine-gunner had been released and QT had been arrested for
murder and transported to the Palm Beach County Jail.

When we arrived at the jail, Hugo gave his
card to the guard working the desk and said we wanted to see QT
Pye. Another guard led us to the visiting area and showed us where
to sit.

Lingering orange-scented industrial cleaner
irritated my sinuses. The institutional green walls, scarred grey
chairs, and concrete floor would have been too dreary for a
black-and-white movie prison set. In my bright yellow dress I felt
like a daffodil growing in the cracks of a crumbling macadam
parking lot.

The guard brought out our newest client, slim
and trim, still dressed in her pink dress and
pink-and-white-striped apron. I wondered when she’d have to trade
them for an orange jumpsuit. Her medium-length blonde hair was
styled in a flip. She had big blue eyes and an annoyingly bright
smile. She positively beamed at us.

It’s not like I have anything against
smiling, I smile a lot myself. But in a place like this, sure to be
overrun with germs and cooties, a smile was a long way from my
face. And I wasn’t even charged with murder.

She took the seat across from us and the
guard walked away. A wooden half-wall topped by a glass partition
separated us. The glass was smeared where visitors and prisoners
had tried to make contact by sandwiching the glass between their
hands.

Hugo leaned closer to the speaking grill.
“Ms. Pye, I’m Rongg… Hugo Rongg, and this is my associate Victoria…
Victoria Station. We’re private eye writers and we were hired to
take your case story by a fan of your pies, particularly your key
lime pie with black raspberry and dark chocolate topping.”

The smile on her face didn’t change, like it
was pasted on. “Good choice. I add ground macadamia nuts to the
graham cracker crust.” She spoke breathlessly, like Marilyn Monroe
after climbing four flights of stairs.

“It’s our signature pie and please call me
QT.” She batted her eyes at him.

“QT it is. Call us Hugo and Victoria. That
is, call me Hugo and my partner Victoria.”

She laughed like it was the funniest thing
she ever heard. Then she tittered at him. Tittered, if you can
imagine that. What a twit.

I swallowed hard and tried to keep my voice
pleasant. “Listen, sister, could we get to the facts? We saw the
shootout in the kitchen.”

She cut her eyes in my direction and the
stars disappeared from them as she focused on me. Her perfect white
teeth gleamed and her dimples were deep enough to hold walnuts but
her voice was curt when she answered. “My former business associate
Ginger Breadman was murdered, except she didn’t go by that name
anymore. She became an ardent feminist and changed it to Ginger
Breadperson.”

Hugo’s almost-smile crossed his lips. “That
might be grounds for justifiable homicide, QT.”

Her eyes widened. “But I didn’t kill her.
Ginger provided the seed money to start my pie shop in exchange for
a quarter ownership in it. I opened my pie factory and delivery
service to restaurants and other outlets with my own money. She
maintained that she deserved a quarter of those profits too. Our
communications degenerated to my lawyer talking to her lawyer.”

“A lawsuit?” I asked.

She kept her eyes on Hugo when she answered.
“It hadn’t gotten to that point. She had already tripled her
investment with her share of the pie shop profits. My lawyer was
trying to negotiate a buyout of her share that would have tripled
her money again. A franchising deal is in the works, and I wanted
to settle the dispute amicably before the national launch.”

Once QT warmed to the subject, there was no
stopping her. She detailed the structure of her operation
ad
nauseum
. All very interesting, but people charged with murder
are usually good for it.

“All very interesting, doll.” Hugo tugged on
his lower lip. “But people charged with murder are usually good for
it.”

Ooh, so good. Did I have this private eye
writer stuff nailed or what? The twit’s face rosied up as if Hugo
calling her
doll
meant something. Obviously, smiley didn’t
know private eye writer lingo, probably had flour on the brain.

Desperation reached QT’s eyes and her voice,
but her stupid smile didn’t change. “Hugo, you have to believe me!
I didn’t do it! I didn’t do it! I didn’t do…” Her voice choked off.
Tears streamed down her cheeks, coursed around her smile, and
dripped onto her pink and white striped apron straps.

“You don’t have to convince us, angel. You
have to convince twelve people in the jury box… unless we can find
the real killer.”

She might not have to convince Hugo, but
she’d have to convince me. This phony was capable of anything.

“I called Ginger to settle this once and for
all. When I got to her house, the door was wide open. I went in and
called her name several times. She wasn’t in the living room. I
figured she was cooking up a storm in the kitchen and didn’t hear
me. I tripped on a gun on my way there. That scared me so I picked
it up.”

“Exactly where was the gun, QT?” Hugo
asked.

“On the floor,” she chirped, proud as if
she’d just won a national spelling bee.

Hugo ran his hand over his face.

“Oh, you mean
exactly
where. Next to
the island that separates the great room from the kitchen. When I
stepped into the kitchen, Ginger was lying by the fridge. So I put
both hands on the gun and spun around in case the killer was
lurking. The door leading into the garage creaked.” She held out
her hands like she was gripping a gun.

“It started swinging open. So I popped a cap
but because I was a little nervous, the shot went wide into the
door jamb. I over-corrected and shot two into the other jamb. The
door opened all the way before I could fire again. I recognized
Kenny Bunkport and took my finger off the trigger.”

A latent tear rolled down her cheek over her
still smiling lips. “Kenny’s the doctor who lives next door to
Ginger.”

Hugo pushed his fedora back with the tip of
his finger. “He fired into the ceiling. Was that an Uzi with a
sound-suppressor?”

She nodded.

That got my attention. “What’s Ginger’s
neighbor doing with a silenced Uzi?”

QT looked confused. Probably her normal
state. Then her eyes lit up. “I get it. You don’t know about Kenny
Bunkport, do you? He’s a doctor
and
a licensed firearms
dealer. Cosmetic and Social Surgery, that’s the name of his
business. A plastic surgery clinic upstairs with a gun shop
downstairs, including firearms range. And he has a camp in the
Everglades where he trains people.”

“A camp?” I said. “Like a cult or an
anarchist group?”

“Nothing so serious. It’s more like aerobics
or Zumba with bullets. It’s a lot of fun. Ginger and I used to
share a tent but she frequently went out on night maneuvers and
came back just before dawn. I recently figured out she was slipping
over to Kenny’s tent. I guess he didn’t think it would look right
for Commander Bunkport to be sleeping with one of his officers.
That was before Ginger turned on Kenny.”

“When did that happen?” Hugo said.

“About the same time Ginger changed her name
to Breadperson and got an attorney to press her claim against me.
I’d say three months ago, give or take.”

She turned on the waterworks again. “A lot of
people are depending on my heart-shaped pies for Valentine’s Day.
Any pie with my name on it is made by me or under my direct
supervision. And I’m stuck in here just because the gun I was
holding is the murder weapon and Ginger and I were having a little
tiff.” Tears cascaded around her smiling lips like a waterfall
scene in a cheap chick flick.

The vapor-head evidently never heard of
means, motive, and opportunity.

“Listen, cupcake,” Hugo said, “if you get out
of this joint, call my cell immediately. This deal is screwy and
you might be in danger.”

She batted her eyes so hard that the tears
flying off her lashes made the glass partition look like a
windshield going through a carwash. “Ohhh, thank you so much Hugo.
I’m all alone. I’ll call you as soon as I get home, no matter what
time of day or night it is. I know you can protect me.”

If she kept it up, she’d need protection from
me.

When we walked outside, Hugo said, “I don’t
know what we’re into here, peaches. I don’t like not shooting
straight with a client but I want to know when she gets out, not to
protect her, but to keep an eye on her. With the way she handled
that Glock this morning and her training with Kenny Bunkport, she
doesn’t need protection.”

We got into Hugo’s classic Yugo and I held my
breath. The car had already been started several times today, but
it held up and caught on the third try. I exhaled. I wouldn’t have
to risk a broken nail pushing the darn thing. Hugo put it in
reverse and the rearview mirror fell off. I retrieved the giant
roll of duct tape from under the seat and reattached it.

“It’s time,” Hugo said, “we pay Kenny
Bunkport a visit, cupcake.”

We chugged down US 1 to Boynton Beach about
ten miles south of the jail. Kenny’s place was a two-story
structure among numerous medical buildings on a side street leading
to a major hospital. The sign in front read
Cosmetic and Social
Surgery, Dr. Kenneth Bunkport, MD, LFD
. The windows on the
bottom floor were barred.

Hugo pulled into a parking space next to the
only other vehicle in the lot, a Jeep Wrangler in obviously
hand-painted camouflage. I slid out and peered into the interior of
the Jeep. It might look like a military vehicle but it was
super-deluxe with a custom beige leather interior personalized with
black stitching on the seatbacks spelling
Kenny B
.

Our engine wouldn’t shut off. While Hugo
hassled with that, I decided to see if Kenny was in. The steel door
sported a florescent yellow sign, with a border of bright flowers,
stating
Trespassers Will Be Cheerfully Shot
. The window next
to it had a hand-lettered sign announcing a Valentine’s Day
special,
Botox Treatment Half Off with Purchase of Any New
Glock
.

A tall lean man in full cammo gear including
ballcap, shirt, and pants tucked into jump boots backed out of the
door and locked three deadbolts with different keys. He pulled a
metal accordion gate across the door and locked it. A red LED
mounted in the jamb flashed three times then went dark.

He turned fast and almost slammed into me.
“Excuse me, miss. Didn’t see you there.” He appraised me from head
to toe and back again, pausing for a moment on my remarkably perky
breasts, and continued to speak in staccato bursts. “You don’t need
any cosmetic work. You must be here for the gun shop. Have to come
back. We’re closed. Since you don’t need Botox. If you buy a Glock.
I’ll permanently remove the hair from your hoo-ha. No charge.
Matter of fact I’ll do that even if you don’t buy a Glock.” He
grinned wolfishly.

Thank you, Mother Nature, for me not having
PMS. I would have had to drain this guy on the spot. He was the
same size as the Uzi-wielder but hard to recognize with a
stethoscope around his neck and sunglasses jammed under the bill of
his low-riding cap. The bridge of his nose was covered by the
annoying tag that gets in the way when you’re trying on
sunglasses.

“See you’re admiring my nose protector.
Sunglass companies build them in. Can’t understand why everybody
doesn’t use them. Can’t be too careful with skin cancer these days.
Almost everybody’s getting it. Caused by the government
fluoridating the water. Makes the sun react badly with our
skin.”