Whiskey on the Rocks (18 page)
Read Whiskey on the Rocks Online
Authors: Nina Wright
Tags: #Mystery & Detective, #Women real estate agents, #Michigan, #General, #Mattimoe; Whiskey (Fictitious character), #Mystery fiction, #Women Sleuths, #Fiction
“What happened to Garth?”
“History. When he got fat and lost his hair, my mom lost interest. She’s into the club scene now. Since she had a face lift, tummy tuck, and boob job, she thinks she’s twenty-five. She has more tattoos and piercings than I do.”
I didn’t care to picture that. Quietly I said, “Avery, you can’t stay here.”
“Why not?”
“Because your father is dead, and I’m not your mother, and we don’t even like each other.”
“I don’t like most people! What’s your point?”
“I’m not a child-care provider.” I was growing very tired of explaining that.
“So hire someone! You can afford to.”
“Avery, sweetheart!” Walter St. Mary appeared on the terrace with Mother Tucker’s succor, so to speak.
Avery began sobbing anew. Walter reached out to comfort her. I reached out to take the food. That was when we heard the shot. Mother Tucker’s vegetable lasagna, which Walter was still holding, exploded. He reeled back, I hit the ground, and Avery screamed. I might have screamed, too; I don’t remember. What I do remember is seeing an immense pair of bright yellow wings drift up and out of sight beyond the dunes.
“The shooter used a long-range deer rifle, a 30.06, with ballistic-tip ammo. That much we’re sure of,” said Brady. He eyed me uncertainly. “You say he escaped in a hang glider.”
“I saw it!”
Brady scratched Officer Roscoe behind the ears. “I’m sure you think you saw it, Whiskey. Yesterday you thought you saw Abra.”
“I did see Abra, as it turned out! She came back, remember? Then she left again, this time for California.”
Brady said, “Yesterday you needed a brain scan.”
“Well, today I need police protection! Someone’s trying to kill me, and we already know who it is!”
“You mean Darrin Keogh.”
“A.K.A. Sparky the Sicko. When is Jenx going to get here? She knows what I’m talking about.”
“The state police are questioning her about the Reitbauers’ missing watercolor and the missing bodies bound for Canada and the missing girl from Grand Rapids and the missing finger with the missing ring. It could take a while.”
“Are your sure Walter will be all right?” I asked.
“Minor flesh wound,” said Brady. “But the lasagna is history.”
“And Avery?”
“I checked with Peg Goh. She said Avery could stay with her, so I sent her over. That lady’s the best at calming people down. Ironic, isn’t it?”
“Why?”
“She’s in the caffeine business.”
I asked Brady whether the state police would bring Keogh in.
“They might want to question him, but there’s something you need to know. With or without a hang glider, Darrin Keogh couldn’t have shot at you.”
“Why the hell not?”
“Because he was selling antiques and collectibles in Angola, Indiana.”
“How can you know that?”
“I called the Angola Chief of Police. She personally vouches for Keogh. Said she stopped by his store at noon to discuss church business. They take turns delivering meals to shut-ins.”
I groaned. Brady continued, “Nobody could get here from Angola, Indiana, in an hour. Glider or no glider.”
“Maybe the man she saw wasn’t Keogh! Or maybe he hired someone to shoot me!”
“The chief says she’s known Keogh for years. He’s practically a saint.”
“He’s a perv among pervs! He’s . . . the perviest!”
“The chief says he sings in the choir, helps maintain the church cemetery, reads to the blind—”
“Oh, shut up.” I buried my face in my hands. Roscoe began licking my fingers.
“Is he trained to do that? To comfort victims?”
“There’s lasagna on your fingers.”
When my telephone rang, I welcomed the distraction. But Chester’s voice made my heart clench. No way he’d made it to California already. Plus, he was using his extra-high Tina Breen voice, which always meant trouble. I told him to take a breath and start over.
“Abra ran away again! We stopped at the Canine Coastal Salon on our way to the airport, like you said we should. When we came out, Abra froze, like she saw something in the distance. She was staring and growling and her hackles went up. And then she took off! I’m sorry, Whiskey!”
“Calm down. She probably saw a squirrel. She’ll come back in an hour or two. Or tomorrow. Or the next day.”
“No! She jumped into a car! Somebody at the other end of the parking lot opened their passenger door, and she jumped in. Then the car pulled away! I tried to order my driver to follow them, but he doesn’t speak English. We lost her again, Whiskey!”
Calmly I asked what kind of car it was. Chester said it was a Beamer. He was sure because half the kids at his school have them. This one was dark blue. I asked Chester if he’d seen the license plate. He hadn’t.
He said he felt too depressed to go to California now. I told him that was why people go to California, to feel better. Or was it to feel nothing at all? I told him to go, and I promised to call the minute I knew something about Abra. I thought it best not to mention the shooting incident or the hang glider or the fraternal twins. Even in California, Chester wouldn’t need one more thing to obsess about.
When I hung up, Brady was concluding a call on his cell phone.
“I owe you an apology, Whiskey. DNR reports an unauthorized hang glider on the dunes in the state park at the time of the shooting.”
“Bright yellow wings?”
He nodded. I told him the latest Abra story, insisting that Sparky was here. Brady said he was sorry, but he had to believe a fellow officer of the law. Suddenly I knew what I had to do, and I told him. He hated the idea.
”If you go to Angola, we can’t help you. That’s not our jurisdiction.”
”But you said Keogh is practically a saint! If that’s true, we have no problem. If it’s not, I’ll bring back evidence.”
Brady threatened to hang crime scene tape around my terrace if I left town. I dared him to. He said he supposed he should head over to the Coastal Canine Salon.
“Thank you!” I said. “So Officer Roscoe can sniff out clues!”
“I was thinking he needed a makeover.”
I called Odette to tell her I might be away overnight, depending on what I found out in Angola. She had already heard about the hang glider.
“I can see why you don’t want to sleep at Vestige, but why Indiana? You could stay at our house. It would be a nice change for you: we have food.”
I thanked her but declined. Odette added that Rico Anuncio had just phoned with the best offer on this month’s Featured Home.
“How is that possible?” I said.
“Same story he gave at the Open House: he recently came into money and expects to come into more. If he gets his dream home, he might not sue you.”
“Sue us, you mean.”
I asked Odette to stop at Vestige a little later in case Abra was trying to get in.
She said, “Why don’t you install one of those doggie flaps so she can come and go as she pleases?”
“Abra already does that. That’s the problem.”
Odette said, “If Avery is scratching at the door, should I let her in?”
“No way.”
I grabbed a map and my overnight bag, just in case. This would be my first road trip since recovering from the accident. I stared at Leo’s photo on the mantel.
“I’ve got to confront the creep you kept away from us,” I said aloud. I slid his picture, like a talisman, into my bag.
Although I had never been to Angola, Indiana, I was confident that I could find my way. In fact, I immediately spotted For Art’s Sake on Maumee Street less than a block from the soldiers’ monument in the center of town. My problem wasn’t finding the place; my problem was finding it open. Since Indiana doesn’t follow Michigan into Daylight Savings Time, I’d gained an hour on the trip in. Still, I reached the door exactly seven minutes after closing. Locked up tight. I could see lights on inside, though, through the narrow frosted panels on both sides of the door. I knocked. Hard.
Who should open it but a dead woman known as Ellianna Santy. She looked very much alive but not the least bit happy to see me. She slammed the door in my face.
The store had to have a rear exit. I started running full-out down the sidewalk toward the corner of the building. Then my pesky quadriceps piped up. They wished to remind me that I’d just spent two hours in a car and hadn’t bothered to stretch. Gasping in pain, I forced my legs to keep pumping. I rounded the back of the building in time to see a door fly open and two fair-haired figures rush out. One paused to play with the lock on the door while the other leapt into a midnight-blue Beamer. The driver gunned the engine, roared forward and narrowly missed me.
Darrin Keogh was still trying to lock his back door.
“Nothing works the way you think it should,” he said quietly. I wondered whether he meant hardware or a life of crime.
When he turned to me, I expected to feel the force of evil. Whatever that is. But close up, Darrin Keogh seemed about as sinister as Chester.
“How about a beer, Mrs. Mattimoe? There’s a nice little bar across the street. Seeing how you’ve come all this way, I’d say I owe you a drink.”
“She’s supposed to be dead!”
I had waited as long as I could before saying it. We were sitting across from each other in The Boot, which may or may not have been a nice little bar. It was definitely a dark little bar. I could barely make out Darrin Keogh’s face, but he seemed to be pressing a finger to his lips. I lowered my voice and leaned closer. “She’s wanted by the police!”
“Not if the police think she’s dead.”
“Two bodies are missing! And they’re not the bodies we thought they were.”
He shook his head. I couldn’t tell if he was disagreeing with me or just reminding me to be quiet. “Tell me why you’re here.”
I peered at Darrin Keogh through the darkness. “Did you shoot at me with a deer rifle today? And then escape in a hang glider from the dunes?”
He laughed so hard he nearly spilled his Amstel Lite.
“Do I look like the deer-hunting, hang-gliding type?”
“You don’t look like a dog molester, either, but you are!”
That came out louder than intended. I could feel if not see several heads swivel our way. The bar was suddenly silent.
“How about coming over to my house?” Keogh said. “It’s two blocks from here, on Superior Street. You need to see something.”
“I don’t think so, thank you.” I sounded like a Sunday School teacher declining Satan. But I knew Darrin Keogh was no devil. In the flesh, in the dark, he seemed like a dweeb.
“Give me a half-hour, counting the walk over,” he said. When I hesitated, he raised his voice in the still-quiet bar. “Everybody here knows I’m taking you to my house. You couldn’t be safer. Right, everybody?”
There was a murmur of amused consensus. One male voice rasped, “His mama will make sure of that.”
A chorus of ragged laughter followed us out the door. In the slanting early-evening light, I studied Darrin Keogh. He was short, pale, and bookish with wire-rim glasses. His pants were two inches too short.
“I’m onto you, Sparky,” I said menacingly.
“I’m not Sparky.” He adjusted his glasses. “You’re all wrong about this.”
“Do you have my dog? Or does Mrs. Santy? Where are you hiding Abra?”
He shook his head and started up the sidewalk.
I caught up with him. “Why were you in Magnet Springs asking Rico Anuncio about me? Why do you want to hurt me and my dog?”
“You need to see some things.”
As we passed the Angola Police Department, I quipped, “How convenient that you hang out with the Chief.”
Keogh said, “We sing in the choir at First Methodist. And we both teach Sunday School. I baby-sit her kids.”
“You’re kidding.”
“They call me Uncle Darrin.”
I let him walk a few yards ahead of me. About five feet seven inches tall, Keogh was soft with round shoulders and thinning sandy hair. All in all, not a scary man. More like an invisible one.
His home turned out to be the best maintained of three Victorians on a block of ranch houses. Neatly trimmed burning-bushes and clumps of bright chrysanthemums lined his front lawn.
“Sweet property,” I murmured.
“Leo liked it.”
“Leo was here?”
“Three times. Twice before you were married.”
That’s when the barking began. It sounded like three or four dogs. When Keogh opened the front door, I saw six. All of them beautiful. All of them Afghan hounds.