Blind Dates Can Be Murder (15 page)

“In a week or so.”

“A week? What was her name? Viveca what?”

“I don’t know. Why?”

“Never mind. So you signed up for the dating service?”

Lettie could hear a female voice on the other end, speaking in soothing tones.

“Here you go, baby,” the woman said. “It’s all over now. Have a drink.”

“W-what’s going on there?” Lettie asked.

“I just got back from the police station,” Mickey said. “They questioned me for over an hour.” There was a muffled sound and then he spoke in the distance: “Blanche, get Ziggy on the phone.”

“The police?” Lettie asked with a small gasp. “Why?”

“’Cause my business partner died in the middle of a kidnapping and false impersonation. They wanted to know if I knew anything.”

“What did you tell them?”

“The truth. I didn’t have a clue what he was doing with that girl.”

Lettie closed her eyes and swallowed hard.

“Do…do you think they’ll find out about me?”

“Not unless you mess up. I sure didn’t say nothing.”

“Mickey, what if I can’t find out anything here about Frankie or Jo Tulip?”

She could hear the clink of ice in Mickey’s glass as he took a long sip.

“Do what you can,” he told her. “We pulled all of Frankie’s papers and his computer out of his house early this morning. My boy Ziggy is scanning the hard drive now to see if it has any information. Maybe that will give us a clue.”

“Good.”

“In the meantime, I may be sending some muscle to Mulberry Glen.”

“Some muscle?”

Mickey’s voice hardened.

“Things have gotten more complicated,” he said evenly. “I think this Jo Tulip might have something of mine, and I want it back.”

Danny didn’t understand why Jo wanted him to meet her at a gas station out in the country. All he could make out was that she wanted him to stop by her house to let Chewie out and make sure he had some water, and then go directly to the Pack-n-Pay in Bridgemeyer, which was about thirty miles northeast of Mulberry Glen.

“Bridgemeyer?” he had said loudly into the phone. “Why?”

In between bursts of static, she said something about picking her up so they could go to Peter Trumble’s house.

“Bring your camera equipment,” she added before they were cut off completely.

Now Danny was about fifteen minutes away, and as he drove he couldn’t help but wonder if, in a way, he had become Jo’s personal lap dog. He seemed to jump at her every command, didn’t he? He considered his actions of late.

In his concern for her welfare, he kept an eye on her dog and her house, gladly handling any situation where she needed help.

In her quest for better household hints, he had allowed her to invade his home and his closets, sorting his possessions and exploring his messy psyche.

In his desire to give her space, he had kept his feelings about her to himself.

In his need for her to love him back, he had let her work through her relationship issues for months on end—only to see her jump into the arms of another man at the drop of a hat.

Danny reached up for the rearview mirror and twisted it until it showed his reflection.

“So what are you?” he asked out loud. “A man or a mouse?”

His own face stared back at him, and he knew the answer to the question: He was a mouse.

But he was ready to be a man.

With fresh resolve, Danny put the mirror back into position and turned his gaze to the road. It was time to tell Jo that he loved her. For days he had avoided that particular conversation, blaming it on lack of time or opportunity or whatever. But really, it was all about having the guts to do it. It was time for Danny to summon all of his nerve and lay his cards on the table.

“Jo Tulip, I’m in love with you,” he said, trying to hear how it sounded out loud. “Not just as a friend, but as much more than a friend. I have been for a long time. More than that, I think you’re in love with me too. You just don’t know it yet.”

Okay, that sounded pretty good. He knew they had to spend an hour or so at this guy’s house, but after that Jo was all his. No matter what else was going on, he would insist that she give him an hour of her undivided attention. They could find some little park or other scenic spot where they could sit outside and talk it through. Maybe a romantic restaurant?

Wherever they went, Danny knew this for sure: It was time to tell Jo the truth. He loved her, he always had, and he always, always would.

Jo paced inside the convenience store, wishing she had found a less boring spot for the chief to drop her off to wait for Danny. The trip out to Frank Malone’s house had taken up so much time that she knew she wouldn’t be able to go all the way back with the chief to Mulberry Glen, pick up her car and Danny, and drive back out to Peter Trumble’s house. Better she get Danny to pick her up there and they could head west together, reaching their destination that was, Jo figured, about 15 miles away. If Danny got there soon, they wouldn’t be very late.

She had bought a bottle of water and a little bag of peanuts when the chief first dropped her off, thinking it would be polite to make a purchase if she were going to stand around for half an hour. Now she ate the peanuts out of boredom, watching the store’s cat settle comfortably on the windowsill. She wondered how much longer it would be before Danny’s red Honda turned into the parking lot. To pass the time, she read the peanut bag which proclaimed, in large blue letters, “Warning: This package may contain nuts and/or nut-related products.” Well, duh. A bag of nuts contains nuts? That was almost as bad as sleep-aid pills warning they may cause drowsiness.

Jo sprinkled a few of the nuts in her hand and thought of her Aunt Winnie, who was allergic to nuts and shellfish and a whole host of other things. It must be awful to carry that burden, to always have to be so careful of what one ate or breathed or came into contact with.

She thought of Frank Malone, of how he had suffered with asthma the night he died. Had that been allergy related? If so, she wondered what his particular allergens were. Maybe he was having a reaction to men in chaps.

The cat grew restless and jumped from the windowsill to the floor, running behind the counter. As Jo watched it go, an image suddenly popped into her mind, that of a small blue pillow covered in white animal fur. She thought back to last night, to standing around the crime scene while Danny took photos. A cop had removed such a pillow from Frank Malone’s car.

Yet, out at Malone’s house, there had been no sign of any animals that she could recall—no cat food in the cabinet or dog house in the backyard or water bowl on the floor.

So where had that pillow come from?

On a hunch, Jo approached the young woman behind the counter, who was sitting with her feet propped on a stool, reading a magazine. She was the only person in the store except for an older man who looked as though he was probably her father, sitting in the corner far behind her, pushing buttons on an adding machine. The sound made a steady rattle-tattle-tat as it spewed out a ticker tape of paper. The cat now sat at the man’s feet, where it would occasionally take a lazy swipe at the paper with an upraised paw.

“Excuse me,” Jo said to the woman. “By any chance do you know a man named Frank Malone? His house is just down the road from here.”

The girl looked up, focusing on Jo. She was about sixteen, with pretty brown skin and a head of wiry curls.

“That old dude who died last night?”

“Yes, him. Did you know him?”

The girl just stared at Jo for a moment, and then her whole face lit up.

“I
knew
you looked familiar!” she cried. “You’re that girl—the girl who was in the newspaper.”

She stood and retrieved a messy newspaper from behind the register, spreading it onto the counter in front of her and turning the pages one by one. The adding machine noise stopped, and the man looked up as well.

“You’re Jo Tulip,” the girl said. “Right here. See?”

As if Jo needed proof that she was, indeed, herself, she looked where the girl was indicating to see a photo from last night, one of her and Brock Dentyne near Frank Malone’s car.

“You’re that household hints lady,” the man added from his perch in the corner. “Do you know how to get black smudges off white shoes?”

He held out a leg for her to see his scuffed sneakers. Jo suggested trying whitewall tire cleaner and an old toothbrush, and then she attempted to steer the conversation back in the direction she wanted. Over the years since she had written the column, she was used to strangers asking her household hint questions, but it seemed a tad bizarre to be helping a man with dirty sneakers when she needed information relating to a murder.

“Did you guys know him?” Jo asked again. “He lived so close to here, I’m sure he must have shopped from time to time.”

The man joined the girl behind the counter, nodding emphatically.

“He bought gas here a lot,” he said. “He didn’t come inside much, though. Just for milk or a loaf of bread or something, and always real fast.”

“How about food for his pet? Cat food? Dog food?”

The man and the woman looked at each other and then back at Jo.

“He didn’t have a dog or a cat,” the man said. “He was allergic to animals.”

“How do you know?” Jo asked intently, leaning forward.

“Because of Cuddles,” he replied, pointing toward the cat under the table. “That’s why he never shopped in here. He always said if he spent more than a few minutes around a cat, his asthma would kill him.”

Danny found the Pack-n-Pay and turned into the parking lot, surprised when Jo came running out to his car. Her eyes were blazing, and for a moment he was afraid she was angry at him about something. But as she climbed into the car, he realized that she was on the telephone, and she wasn’t angry, she was agitated. He sat idling there in the parking lot and listened to her conversation, which was obviously with Chief Cooper. Jo had just learned that Frank Malone was extremely allergic to animals—which was important, since a pillow covered in animal fur had been recovered from underneath the backseat of his car.

Jo finished the conversation and hung up, directing Danny which way to go to get to the house and then, as they drove, bringing him up to speed on what she’d learned.

“Do you think it’s possible,” she asked breathlessly, “that somebody murdered Frank Malone? And if so, why?”