Braking for Bodies (3 page)

“What?” I said to Bambino and Cleveland, perched side by side in the middle of the pool table, paws on hips, giving me the
you big fat liar
look. Okay, they
didn't really have their paws on their hips, but they would if they could and the look was for real, I swear. They were sweet and darling felines to the rest of the world, and to me they were judgment on steroids, like that little cricket in Pinocchio who never let him get away with anything. “So I told Irma a little fib.” I fessed up. “It's for her own good so she doesn't have a meltdown.”

Cleveland twitched his tail.

“It's the truth.”

Bambino curled his lip.

“All right, all right. You win, I lose. I didn't tell Irma what was going on because I didn't want her to be disappointed in me, and how about some tuna and we forget the whole thing.” The fur balls might be very judgmental, but tuna as a diversion won out every time.

I dished out tuna; tied the white box to the basket of the Sherlock bike, which was painted up in tweed hats, pipes, magnifying glasses and book titles; and wobbled off down Main. Shops were closing for the night, and the Lilac Festival crowds were heading for dinner or the bars or a stroll through Marquette Park. Until I came to the island the only thing I'd ever ridden was mass transit, and considering my present biking ability, everyone around here would be safer if I'd kept it that way.

There were two directions on the island, up and down, and from Main Street everything went up. Huffing and puffing and sweating like a roasting pig at a
barbecue, because I sat on my butt all winter and painted bikes instead of getting to the gym, I struggled onto Cadotte. Streetlights glowed like pinpoints of bright in the night; the Grand Hotel in the distance was bathed in moonlight. Strollers and bikers in fleece jackets enjoyed the evening, and was that Zo on the other side of the street in shiny red biking shorts and jacket, huffing and puffing on a red bike? No one would ever question Zo's favorite color, but it was nice to have some company in the huffing and puffing department.

My great plan was to switch the dresses with Idle before I had an ulcer from messing this up, and then I'd drop off the bike at Heaven Sent. There were no addresses on the island, just names of shops and the behemoth Victorian cottages like Edgewood, Lakecliff, and Over-the-Glen that suited Daddy Warbucks way more than Goldilocks.

The white porch of the Grand Hotel was a Ripley's Believe It or Not two football fields long and lined with twenty-five hundred of the biggest, reddest geraniums on earth. Tonight the air was still a bit chilly for socializing outside, so most of the action was inside. “Saint Louis Blues” wafted from the open French doors, and carriages crowded the main entrance with people coming and going. I pedaled around back of the hotel to find a less congested path to park, struggled past the recycle and trash bins, then held tight to the handlebars and started down the other side.

God bless down! Shadowy bushes and plants
whizzed by as I flew around toward the front of the hotel, the only light shining down from the porch above. Lilacs and more geraniums lined the path on one side, the hotel shops on the lower level were now closed on the other side of me and . . . and something big and dark and sort of blue was smack in front of me. A garbage bag? A big garbage bag! The Grand Hotel did not put their garbage out front. What the—

Brakes! Holy criminy, brakes! I jammed the pedals into reverse, front tire skidding, back tire fishtailing, as the momentum carried me forward and flipped me over the handlebars. I slammed into the Brides and Bliss box; it sailed off into the night and I landed with a solid
oomph
on top of the bag. Sherlock tumbled onto my back, a pedal wedged where no pedal had any right to be. I lay there for a second, my tongue counting teeth, the little bones in my spine realigning.

Landing on garbage was not a high point in my life, I'll give you that, but the squishiness kept me from looking like skinned roadkill. The bag smelled like salad . . . Italian? Personally I thought it needed more oregano. I blinked open one eye and spotted the Brides and Bliss box to one side, the yellow rhinestone dress dangling from a lilac bush.

I blinked open the other eye and stared at the Peepster, his face inches from mine. His eyes were open too, but they weren't staring back at me. They weren't anything. They were cold, vacant and
dead.

D
ead? No! I blinked a few times and refocused. The Peepster had a deep gash across his forehead and there was blood.

Yes, dead! Yikes! Forgetting teeth and bones, I shoved Sherlock off into the grass and scrambled to my feet, trying really hard not to scream. Bloomfields did not scream. A whimper now and then if things got a bit hairy, but that was it. I stumbled backward and slipped and fell on my butt. Life was not improving. I pulled Sheldon from my back pocket, prayed my landing hadn't smashed him to smithereens and hit speed dial.

“Got the dress?” Sutter said from the other end.

“Got a problem.”
Breathe, Evie, breathe.
“Path on west side of the Grand. Meet me.” I disconnected and
gulped in air. I focused on the lilac bushes instead of the Peepster and came face to face with . . . “Fiona?”

Eyes wide and scared, she gave a little wave.

“What are you doing here!”

“Meeting Peep like he said.”

“Define
meet
.”

She crawled between the bushes. “I saw him in the lobby and we talked, and then I went off to clear my head, then got a text from him to meet up here.” She pointed a shaky finger. “He was like this when I showed up, and I hid when I saw your bike coming 'cause I didn't know it was you, and before you ask I didn't have any part of this but on the inside I am kind of yelling yippee and doing a happy dance.”

“Fiona!”

Fiona stood and helped me up. “Were you just talking to Sutter?”

“Yeah, and you've got to get out of here. Anyone on that dock this evening knows you and Peep were not bosom buddies, and he's staring at the stars and not thinking
Gee, is that the Milky Way?
”

Fiona nudged Peep's arm with the toe of her gym shoe and gave me a little shove. “Check for his cell phone.”

“Me?”

“I'm not going to touch him. I didn't like the guy when he was sucking air, much less now when he's cold and creepy. You didn't know him.”

“I knew enough, and why do you want his cell phone?”

“Hey, Bloomfield,” came a voice from above. “What's going on down there?” For a second I considered the possibility I'd died in that fall and this was God wanting an accounting since I was here with a dead guy. I rolled my eyes up to Sutter leaning over the railing. Okay, not God, but at times he thought he was. Sutter clicked on a flashlight and Fiona dove back into the bushes.

“You . . . you got here really fast,” I stage-whispered. “Why are you on the porch?” Nate Sutter was not a Grand Hotel kind of guy; he was more a beer at the Mustang Lounge with a side order of fried green beans kind of guy, most of the time not bothering to order his own and swiping mine.

“That L.A. wife caught up with the L.A. secretary.” Sutter leaned over the edge. “The hotel staff called me to deal with the fallout. I sent the secretary in one direction, the wife in the other, and the duel's at dawn. Why'd you call?”

From her hiding place in the lilacs, Fiona made the
shh
sign with her finger over her lips and added the pleading puppydog look of
don't give me away
. I knew she wasn't a killer; at the moment it just looked that way.

“You have the L.A. wife and secretary and I have the L.A. husband/boss and he's . . .”
Dead as a rat in a trap
wasn't exactly the thing to be yelling out at the Grand Hotel. “He's fallen off the porch,” I said instead, and from the amount of alcohol consumed here on any given night, a header seemed perfectly reasonable.

“Is he hurt?”

“Sure, let's go with hurt. But not 911 kind of hurt.”

“Then he's okay?”

“Well, he's not in pain.”

Sutter disappeared back over the top and Fiona scurried out to Peep. She hunkered down, pulled her sleeve over her hand and started digging through his pockets . . . wallet, keys, flask. “His phone isn't here. Where's the darn phone? I've got to find the blasted phone.”

I didn't know about the phone problem, but in my shaky condition the flask had definite appeal. I picked it up with the edge of my fleece before Fiona could stuff it back in Peep's pocket with all the rest of the stuff. I unscrewed the top, prayed the alcohol gods were smiling in my direction and took a swig.

“Vodka, good vodka,” I said, the booze warming my insides. “What is that gooey stuff on your sweater?”

Fiona took the flask, gulped and swiped the back of her hand across her lips. “Peep always did have excellent hooch, his one good quality.” She passed back the flask. “It's slippery. Everything's coated in olive oil. Don't mention to Sutter that I was here, and keep him busy; I need a few minutes to look around. I'm desperate.”

“Desperate about what?” But I might as well have been talking to myself because Fiona was nowhere in sight and Sutter was hustling up the main drive in front of the hotel. Olive oil meant there was an olive oil bottle, and since I didn't believe in coincidences on an
eight-mile island I figured extra virgin was the culprit. I watched Sutter as he dodged horses and carriages and chatted with a few of the drivers, and I tried to catch a glint of light reflecting off broken glass. There! Using my jacket, which was already a mess from playing slip-and-slide with the Peepster and the olive oil, I picked up the broken bottleneck and wiped around the edge to get rid of fingerprints.

Here's the thing. Fiona didn't do in Peep, but her fingerprints would be on the bottle since she bought it. The real killer's prints might be there too, but I couldn't take the chance of the only prints being Fiona's. Sutter turned onto the path where I was, his black Windbreaker and dark features fading into the surroundings. I casually dropped the chunk of bottle next to the body and stepped away as Sutter clicked on his flashlight. He drew up next to Peep, bent down and felt for a pulse.

“You call this hurt? The guy's toast.”

“Yeah, but I got the
no pain
part right. I was going fast and couldn't stop, so he really was hurt, he was just sort of dead first. Not that I could be yelling that in front of the Grand Hotel. Talk about bad for business.”

“Have you been drinking?”

Not nearly enough
, I thought as Sutter looked closer and said, “The front gash is flat and looks like he might have fallen off the porch. Then there's another cut on back of his head. The first blow didn't kill him. Someone finished him off from down here, or they hit
him on the porch and fell over from the blow. This happened at eight ten; he smashed his watch in the fall.”

I figured words like
gash
and
cut
warranted another helping . . . or two . . . of vodka. I took a swig; Sutter caught me in the act.

“Does that belong to . . . ?” Sutter glanced back to Peepster. “You're kidding.”

I took another swig. “He didn't have any use for it, and this is all really stressful and . . . and it's his fault so he owes me.”

Sutter muttered something that would do HBO proud, pulled on gloves, pried the flask out of my hand and put it beside the body.

“If I have a breakdown it's all your fault.”

“Fake Rolex, not even a good fake,” Sutter said, not caring about my mental state enough to give me back the booze. He picked up the chunk of broken bottle and held it to the porch light. “Extra virgin olive oil, and from the looks of the pieces probably the murder weapon, meaning he was finished off down here.”

“Or . . . or maybe he fell with the olive oil bottle in his hand?”

“Right. And then he hit himself over the head. What do you know about this?” he asked me. “And you know something. Your left eye's twitching.”

“I was nose-to-nose with a dead guy; I get to twitch. Anybody would, just ask, and there are lots of people to ask right now, and . . . and . . .”
Oh boy.
“You know, I think we should go with the
fell off the porch
story
and forget the murdered part, and before you blow a gasket, hear me out. The falling story is easy and uncomplicated and will give us time to find the real killer without throwing everyone into a panic. He or she won't know we're on to him or her, and we won't be upsetting the fudgies with tales of murder and mayhem at the Grand Hotel.”

“Are you out of your mind? We can't act like nothing's happened. What do we do, just toss some mulch over the guy, plant a geranium and have a beer?”

Okay, Sutter would find out about Fiona, the olive oil and Peep soon enough, but Fiona was looking for something she didn't want out there, and if I could buy her time I would. But Fiona wasn't my only concern. Selfish as it was, I needed to come up with a way to not upset the fudgies who were here spending money on bicycle rentals and more fudgies coming the whole summer who would spend more money. One hint of murder and bye-bye bike shop.

“Think of it not as forgetting about the murder,” I pushed on, “so much as postponing things till we can find the killer. Then it reads
Man killed by jealous lover
instead of
Man killed and no one knows who the heck did it
. There's nothing to be gained by going inside the Grand Hotel right now at the height of the dinner hour and yelling
Murderer on the loose, run for the hills
. We haul the guy to the medical center like he's had an accident.”

“We got a crime scene here, Chicago? The wife and secretary just might want to take the body back to
L.A., and the yellow tape across the path could, just maybe, be a giveaway to one and all that something's up, ya think?”

“What's to tape off? You got the murder weapon and time of death, and Doc's in Traverse City. Unless you want to leave a body on the path for the next three days till he gets back. With all that olive oil and in the hot summer sun, the Peepster will . . . marinate.”

“Peepster? You know him?”

“And Doc's not there to examine the body and release it, so the secretary and/or wife can't have the body till he signs off on it, and that buys us time. We've got to figure this out for all our sakes.”

Sutter's eyes narrowed. “This is about money, isn't it?”

“It's about good business for the island. Warren Buffett would take the guy to the medical center.”

“Do I look like Warren Buffett?”

“What's going on?” a guy called down from the porch. “Is somebody down there? Did somebody fall?”

Sutter and I exchanged
uh-oh
looks and a woman on the porch squealed, “Oh my goodness! It's a body! This is fantastic! I know what this is. It's one of those murder mystery weekends right here at the Grand. The victim's right down there, I can see him all sprawled out there on the ground. Oh, this is so much fun.”

“Look, lady,” Sutter shot back. “This is no mystery weekend party. This is a real crime scene here.”

“Of course it is,” she squealed again. “You all are great actors, this is amazing. What a fantastic surprise
at the Grand Hotel.” She got out her iPhone and started clicking pictures. “I've been to these before; they're a hoot and for it to come out of the blue like this unannounced and just happening is so real.”

“It
is
real,” Sutter growled.

“And you even have a smashed bike, I wonder what clue that is, and I bet there's a murder weapon down there and I think I see blood. They never have blood.” She clicked more pictures as a string of onlookers lined up on the porch doing the same; more iPhones clicked and someone pulled out a flashlight.

“I see the weapon,” the guy said next to her as he pointed over the railing. “It looks like a green bottle of some kind. Bet he was hit over the head.”

“I think he was hit over the head after he fell off the porch,” a lady in a blue evening gown chimed in. “If I were setting up a murder, that's what I would do. A little shove here, a little whack there . . . perfect. I wonder who are the suspects.”

“We're all suspects,” the squealing woman squealed again. “That's what makes this so cool. And we all get to find the killer. I've read every Sherlock Holmes story and I'm really good at finding the killer. I'm going down there for a closer look.” She hooked her arm in the air to the others. “Come on, everybody, let's go. The game is afoot.”

The clatter of hotel guests stampeded across the porch, and Sutter waved his arms in the air as if trying to land a 747. “No! What the . . . This is crazy. Holy crap!”

“Give me your jacket,” I said to Sutter. I tossed it over Peep's head and shoulders. “Call Molly, I bet she's still at the police station. Tell her to bring crime scene tape and a body bag and then get one of these carriages to haul Peep to the medical center. We can make use of that new refrigeration unit Doc insisted get put in.”

“That refrigeration is thanks to you and the last body you found that got stashed where no body should ever get stashed. Do you see a pattern here, Chicago? You? Bodies? Two murders in ten months where there hasn't been a single murder in ten years?”

Sutter ran his hand around the back of his neck and let out a deep sigh. “I'm a cop, I can't go along with this. The carriage driver's going to know we've got a real body and this isn't some stupid game.”

“He'll keep his mouth shut or this time next week the only thing he'll drive is himself to the unemployment office back on the mainland 'cause there will be no one staying at this hotel or anyplace else on this island.”

I grabbed Sutter by the front of his T-shirt. “Listen to me. If you don't go along with this, you'll have an island full of hysterical fudgies because there's no way off this chunk of rock till morning. It's murder and mayhem week at the Grand Hotel, so put on your deerstalker hat and get used to it.”

*   *   *

The sun wasn't
up yet as I sat at the chipped yellow Formica table in the kitchen at the back of the bike shop. The mess with Peepster and Fiona as prime
suspect had me drawing hangman nooses on the Hello Kitty notepad I'd just bought at Island Stationery. A smiling cat with a cute pink bow deserved better, but today I was tired to the bone and had a lot more questions than answers.