Armed and Fabulous (Lexi Graves Mysteries) (30 page)

"Or in a waterproof bag," suggested Solomon.

"I guess. Whatever it was, Dean didn't want to keep it at home or at work." I took another swallow. "You heard everything the waitress told us. Any clues?"

"Not one."

"This sucks." I pulled the keys out of my jeans pocket and passed them to Solomon. "These were in Tallulah's hand when I found her and this little key too. I don't know why I picked them up. I just did."

Solomon examined them and came to the same conclusion as me. "House and car keys. I'll let Maddox know to look out for her car. It's probably parked nearby. What are the smaller keys?"

"You tell me. Maybe a locker?"

"Too small."

I straightened up. "Could it be something useful?"

"Maybe."

"You think Lily is okay?" I felt bad for leaving her behind, even though I knew she had her own car parked in the employee's secure lot an
d
planned to drive home alone anyway at closing time, long after we
were gone
.

"Maddox called while you were in the bedroom. The club's been shut down and everyone has been detained. Your friend is still there."

"I've seen two dead people in a week," I said,
draining
my bottle. "
Have y
ou seen dead people?"

"Too many."

"Oh." It was probably best
not to
dwell on that.
“Is Solomon your first name or last?”

“Last.”

“What’s your first?”

He looked at me for a long time. Just when I started to regret asking, he said softly, “John.”

Maddox arrived an hour, and two beers, later. After a brief discussion in hushed voices in the hallway, Solomon left without saying goodbye
,
al
though I didn't have the energy to be irked
,
and Maddox walked in.

"How're you holding up?" he asked, sitting next to me and pulling me into his arms.

I held up my bottle and gave him a lopsided smile. "
Marvelous
," I said
with a
hiccup
,
t
hen
a
yawn.
The fright had worn off and sleep beckoned.
I hoped I wouldn’t dream tonight.
"What happened?"

"I saw the guy and ran after him
,
but he gave me
the
slip so I walked back to where I left you
,
but you'd gone and Solomon was there. The body you found was Tallulah, Dean's girlfriend."

"I guessed. She was shot."
Of course
,
he knew that. He’d seen her. I just couldn’t get past it.

"The crime scene investigators are doing their thing and Montgomery PD are questioning everyone in the building. Lily won't be home for a while, but I had someone check on her and she's okay."

"Why didn't you stay?" I waited for him to say
,
‘
because he wanted to be with me.
’

"I didn't want to blow my cover."

Oh, well.

"Did you see who shot her?"

"Barely. White guy, shorter than me. Almost certainly the same man the waitress saw."

"So that narrows it down to, what
?
F
orty percent of Montgomery?"

"Yeah."

I thought about that for a moment. Whoever this guy was, he would be almost impo
ssible to find
,
given our
vague
description. I doubted anyone in the club saw anyt
hing, except maybe the waitress. E
veryone else was concentrating on the performers or bumping and grinding on the dance
floor. If he w
ere
an average guy, no one would have pa
id him a second gl
ance. Our best witness was dead. For the second time, I thought about the keys.

"I found keys in her hand and gave them to Solomon."

"He said. Maybe she was getting ready to go back to her car or..."

"Maybe she thought she could fight the guy off?"

"With just her keys?"

"It would be the only weapon she had."
I made a jabbing motion.

"Some weapon," said Maddox.

I uncurled my legs and walked into the kitchen, pouring myself a large glass of water. Maddox followed me and leaned against the doorjamb
,
waiting.

"You know, a key could have been hidden in the
toilet tank
," I said. "It's small. It wouldn't be damaged by the water.
If
Dean trusted her and he knew she could only hide something in there if he w
ere
with her, and could only pick it up if she had a guy, him, with her
, he might have
had
her hide something,” I babbled
.
“He might figure i
t was safer than keeping it at home or the office."

Maddox nodded. "Sounds plausible. I'll check with the M.E. to see if her hands were wet when they got to her."

"That wouldn't matter," I pointed out. "She could have dried her hands on her dress or a paper towel."

"W
hy didn't her attacker take the
key with him, if that's what he wanted?"

"Maybe we disturbed him?" I suggested. "It could only have been seconds between her getting shot and you
running
outside."

"I didn't even see her. I just took off after him. He could have grabbed it from her."

"Maybe she wouldn't give it up. Maybe she knew he would kill her if she gave it to him. Maybe she was bargaining?"

"There wasn't a lot of time to bargain," Maddox pointed out.

"Not by the time they were outside," I said. I drank the water and turned to pour myself another glass. I didn't want a hangover in the morning on top of everything else. "Maybe she was bargaining the whol
e time?
'I'll get you the k
ey—if that's what it was—and
you let me live.' That sort of thing."

"But she had her keys in her hand."

I smiled. "The guy didn't go into the bathroom though. He waited outside, like you did. Tallulah could have gone in and switched the keys. She could have put the mystery key on her keyring and given him a different one.
One of them wasn’t on her keyring.
Or maybe she just wanted to confuse him."

"Why would she do that?"

"Bargaining
still
,
or to confuse him,
" I said. "He might not have known what he was looking for. Or maybe she didn't know Dean was dead yet."

"Maybe."

"Maybe she wouldn't give up the keys," I continued, even though I started to think we were talking in circles now, "so the
murderer
had to kill her too. What if he was going to grab them when we came out? He'd have to take off when he saw you."

"If that's true. He'll still need the key. It's a long shot."

"What would he need to do to get the keys now
?
I
f that's what he wanted all along?"

"Normally
,
they'd go with the body to the morgue. The M.E. would put all the effects together for the next of kin
,
if we don't need it as evidence. If it's evidence
,
it goes to the evidence locker."

"So...
if he hasn't gotten them already, there's no way he could get the key now Solomon has them?"

"It's unlikely," agreed Maddox. "You did
right
picking them up."

I
t
didn't feel
right
, not one bit, p
lucking
the keys out of Tallulah's dead hands.

Chapter Nine

I had no recollection of crawling into bed and passing out. When I woke up, Maddox was clattering around in the kitchen, singing
softly
and
a
large glass of water
was
on my nightstand. I rolled my thumping head to
eye
the pillow adjacent
to
mine. No indent
ation
s. Despite that, my jeans
had magically disappeared
,
but
my sweatshirt was still in place. I changed into clean jeans and a
fresh
top
before
dragg
ing
a brush through my hair
,
and
tumbl
ing
into the bathroom to splash some water on my face.

"I made scrambled eggs," said Maddox when I wandered through, yawning
, noting the reappearance of my jacket on the rack in the entryway
as I passed by
. "And tea. You don't have a lot of food. What do you eat?"

"Food that people
bring mostly," I said. "You...
stayed over?"
Again
, I stopped myself from saying. Strangely, I didn’t mind that he’d stayed. It was nice having company. Definitely reassuring after last night.

"Yeah. We made passionate love
,
then fell asleep.
You were an animal.
" He watched my mouth drop open as I tried to remember any shenanigans, then laughed when my eyes continued to flit. "You fell asleep on the couch
,
so I put you in bed. I slept on the
couch
."

"Ah."

"I didn't want to leave you on your own." Maddox thrust the plate of eggs at me and added two slices of toast.

"Thanks." I wasn't sure if I was thanking him for breakfast, or taking care of me. Both, I thought.
It was pretty considerate, given everything we’d been through in the last few days.
I would have felt horrible waking
up
to an empty apartment. I wondered if Lily was okay and if she w
ere
downstairs yet.

He gathered up his own plate and the mugs, nudging me towards the living room.

"Sorry for passing out on you," I said.

"No need for apologies. Two bodies in one week is cause for a good drinking session."

"Never again," I moaned as my head thumped when I sat at my small dining table. Normally
,
I
squashed
it
in
to
the corner of the room, a nod to civilized eating that satisfied my mother
,
on the rare occasions she came over. Today it seemed nice. Nicer still with Maddox.

"Bodies or drinking?"

"Both."

"I have an ulterior motive for staying over," Maddox confessed. "I need to take your statement and I didn't want to drive all the way home
,
then back again."

For some reason, I hadn't really thought about Maddox having his own home, much like I couldn't imagine Solomon living in a neat
,
one
-
family
unit
. I wondered how Maddox decorated it,
and
what he liked. "Where do you live?" I asked.

"
Harbridge
," he said.

"Alone?" I asked.

"Is this your way of asking if I'm a mommy's boy?"

"Are you?"

"No, I have my own place. I even do my own laundry."

"I bet your mother is proud."

"She is."

I
shoveled
the buttery eggs into my mouth, swallowed, and demolished a piece of toast, washing it all d
own
with a hot gulp of sugary tea. Finally, I pushed the plate to one side and slumped
in my seat
.

"How's the head?" asked Maddox.
He munched a slice of toast and a little butter caught in his lip. I thought about licking it off.

"It's okay. I didn't drink that much."

"It was probably the shock."

"Probably," I agreed
,
waiting as he ate his breakfast
. When he finished, I took our plates into the kitchen and refreshed our mugs. "Let's get this over with," I said and Maddox retrieve
d
his notepad
and a digital recorder
.

An hour later
,
Maddox was gone, my statement
on tape
. He said he'd type it up himself and
make sure it
remain
ed
confidential until the investigation was complete. Tallulah, as we still called her, would
also
remain a confidential case until then. At some point
,
I would probably have to testify, but I tried not to think about that. I hadn't actually
seen
either murder, just the immediate aftermath
.
I hadn't even seen Tallulah's murderer up close
,
so my testimony wouldn't be the concrete evidence a prosecutor
c
ould
use
anyway.

I cleaned the
kitchen, phoned Lily and left
a message
before going
back to bed for the rest of
the day.
My phone rang a couple of times
,
but I let the answering machine pick up the messages. One was from Lily
,
saying she was fine
, and the police had been very nice,
and
she was
staying in bed to catch up on sleep. The other was my mother asking if I knew where to get a belly
-
dancing outfit. I didn't.

I wanted to enjoy a day in bed
too
,
but
instead of sleeping, my mind whir
r
ed with possibilities.
Finding the bodies had been horrible
,
but I couldn’t help thinking about the key, the numbers in the notebook
,
and the missing money. I wanted to know what was going on under my nose.

I had the urge to call in sick on Monday and spend another day hiding under my quilt, but my commitment to work seemed to have increased tenfold
,
now that I had the discovery of two bodies under my belt. A day of wallowing ha
d taken me
from
fear to anger
to resolute determination to find out what the hell was going on.

Looking in the mirror, I couldn't believe that two nights ago
,
I had been a half-dressed slut, and today I looked...
well, pretty damn stylish
in red pants, a cream blouse and cute
,
two
-
tone heels. I got up early to blowdry my hair,
swe
ep
it into a ponytail, grab my beige tote
,
and le
ave
. Downstairs, all was quiet in Lily's apartment so I figured she was still asleep. Not me though. I had murderers to catch
,
and today
,
I planned on talking to everyone in the office.

As I rode up the elevator with three call center monkeys, I added a quick chat to their supervisor to my list. My reasoning was pretty simple, someone had passed the fraudulent claims through the department and I wanted to know how
,
as well as who. I suppose I could have asked Maddox
,
but somehow, I thought he probably wasn't telling me everything
,
given that I wasn't
PD
or FBI. I was just a blonde temp who had the unfortunate habit of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

After logging on and
ensuring
Maddox wasn't around yet, I decided to start with Dean's assistant.

"Hey, D
ominic," I said, coming to a sto
p in front of his desk. Behind him, the doors to Dean's office remained firmly shut.

"Hey," said Dominic, looking up and checking out my
ensemble
. For a couple of weeks
,
I thought Dominic was on the other team, then I was informed that he was in the metrosexual camp. I still had no idea what that meant, except he seemed to enjoy fashion and gossip, and had an eye for the ladies. He was single, kinda cute and an efficient guard dog to Dean's office,
which
he pretty much ran when Dean wasn’t around
. I had a hard time envisagi
ng him putting together a multi-
million dollar fraud
scheme
,
even if he managed Dean's personal diary and correspondence closely.

"Dean still not back?"

"No." Dominic leaned forward. "I'm kinda worried, you know. I have to book his travel and hotel for next week
,
and he's so particular
,
but I can’t get in touch
. Do I book it
?
O
r wait until he gets back?"

"Book it," I said. So wh
at if Dean would never use them?
It was company money. Besides
,
I wasn't supposed to know he was dead.

Dominic nodded, so apparently
,
I'd given the right answer. "I'll book everything he had last time. He didn't complain."

"Does he ever take a girlfriend with him?" I asked.

Dominic frowned. "Not that I know of. I don't think he even has a girlfriend
,
but he wouldn't tell me, I guess. Why?"