Hound Dog Blues (17 page)

“Sure.” She hung up the phone, grabbed a few things, and headed back downstairs to the parking lot and her bike. Fat chance. She wasn’t about to hang around to be hit on the head again. Whoever was after that necklace had the bad habit of hitting before asking questions.

Only after she was two miles down Poplar did it occur to her that she had nowhere to go. While it was a safe bet Morgan’s cover was blown, no point in making certain of it by going there again. Besides, she didn’t really trust him. He had his own agenda and would be more interested in that. Bobby had Angel, and her grandparents would ask too many questions, and then they’d treat her to a rehash of all the circumstances that had led to their eldest daughter marrying “that Davidson boy” out in California and not coming back home for fifteen years. Anything that went wrong could be traced directly back to that single error, in their minds. Memories were long on the Eaton side, absolution scarce. No wonder the South had never forgotten the War of Northern Aggression. People like her mother’s family had the emotional tenacity of rabid bulldogs.

That left her with few options at the moment. She didn’t really want to stay with Tootsie, though he wouldn’t mind, but some of his friends were a little too weird for her tastes. Family was definitely out, and friends she could impose on, few. Then she thought of Cami. Perfect. No one would think to look for her at Cami’s house.

She took the Bill Morris Parkway out to Hickory Hill, cruising along at a speed calculated to escape the notice of any police cruisers. No point in inviting trouble.

Hoping Cami was home, she pulled up in the driveway of the neat little house on a busy suburban street and cut her engine. Cami was one of the few people who wouldn’t care if she appeared on her doorstep unannounced, or that they hadn’t talked to each other in a couple of months. She was the kind of friend that they could pick up a conversation where they’d left off. They’d lived close as kids, lost contact for a while after school, still called each other now and then, and got together on whims.

The porch light flashed on when she rang the bell, and above the frantic barking of dogs, Harley heard Cami squeal “Harley!” as she peeped out the hole in the door

It was just the kind of greeting she’d expected. Harley grinned. Camilla Watson had been her best friend from the seventh grade through high school graduation. They’d slept over at each other’s houses, double dated, and gotten into trouble together. Adulthood and change of lifestyles had altered some things, but not their mutual bond of affection.

“So what are you doin’ out here, Harley?” Cami asked, holding a huge orange and white cat back with one foot to let Harley in the front door. “Don’t mind Punkin. He thinks he wants to be wild and free.”

Harley eyed the feline warily. Cats had never been her favorite animal. They were sneaky and evil.

Punkin regarded her with the same degree of welcome, made a brief hacking sound, and promptly ejected something from his throat that was the size of an undigested rat. It landed atop her right foot. Harley froze. Cami promptly and efficiently wiped the blob off her shoe with a paper towel she magically produced from thin air.

“Hairball,” Cami said cheerfully. “It’s all his long hair. Come on in.”

Rethinking her decision to stay with Cami, she stood stock still until Punkin abandoned his role as the welcoming committee. Just on the other side of a baby gate, a flock of dogs still barked loudly, then two of them launched into a scuffle that only ended when Cami stepped over the gate and shoved them apart.

“Uh, maybe I came at a bad time,” Harley said, but was overruled.

“You came at a perfect time. I don’t get much company. They’ll all settle down in a few minutes, I swear. Just step over the gate, will you?”

“Jesus, Cami, are you running an animal shelter?” Harley stared at a variety of cats draped on chairs and a sheet-covered couch, all disinterested in her arrival. Save Punkin, who watched her from the kitchen doorway. A small dog leaped up in the air, barking until shushed with a doggy treat.

“Kinda,” Cami said, “I’m a foster home for dogs and cats rescued by local groups. Not all of these are mine.”

“Thank God. I was beginning to think the divorce got you unhinged.”

“Hah. Getting rid of Jace was the best thing I ever did. I’m grateful, not crazy.”

Then this must be penance
, Harley thought, and remembering Jace, probably worth it.

Cami led the way into her den. There was a sense of messy organization to the stacks of magazines, though cat toys scattered on the carpet looked as if they’d been there a while.

“Have a seat,” Cami said, waving one hand toward a stuffed chair covered in a blue plaid sheet and cat hair. “Take off that sheet if you want. And just shove the cats out of the way. They won’t mind.”

Short and slender, Cami’s red hair was different from the blond ’do she’d sported last time Harley had seen her. She wore shorts and a huge football jersey, and her pixie face was serene and oblivious to the Noah’s Ark in her den.

Harley stepped gingerly over a fat dog asleep on his back with four legs thrust into the air, dangling paws twitching in some kind of doggy dream. Something squealed loudly and she jumped, only to find that she’d somehow stepped on a furry pink pig with a jaunty bow. The dog woke, rolled over and grabbed the stuffed pig, making it squeal again.

Cami had misled her, Harley realized, as she tried shooing cats from the chair. The furry things did mind being moved. Hisses and claws greeted her attempts. She decided not to sit.

“Here, I’ll move her,” Cami said, and scooped up the remaining squatter to carry it to the couch.

Sitting down with the cat in her lap, Cami eyed Harley expectantly. It was obvious she wondered why she’d come, and now that she was here, Harley wondered the same thing.

“Uh, I need a place to stay for the night,” she said after a moment, and Cami smiled.

“Great. I have a guest room. It’s off-limits to the animals, so you should be comfortable.”

It was the mark of bad manners for a guest to betray any sign of domestic disapproval, Grandmother Eaton had always said, but she’d been friends with Cami too long to care about that sort of thing. Miss Manners would be so anguished.

Relieved and not reluctant to show it, Harley nodded. “That’ll work.”

“So, what’s up? Your new apartment not working out?”

“It was until tonight. Someone trashed it. A burglar.”

“
No.
” Cami paused in stroking the cat’s head. The animal glared at Harley, obviously holding her personally responsible for its eviction from the chair. “Did the thieves take a lot?”

“Not that I can tell.” Harley decided that eye contact with the cat only made its ears go flatter on its head. “I just didn’t want to hang around. I’ll deal with cleaning it up tomorrow. Are you still with the phone company?”

A change of topic seemed appropriate. It’d save a lot of unnecessary questions and lies.

“Yep, nearly twelve years now. Doesn’t seem like it’s been that long since we were in high school, does it.”

“Twelve years? Are you sure?” She did the mental calculation twice before deciding it was right after all, and sighed. “Jeez, it doesn’t seem like it’s been that long.”

Cami’s wide brown eyes regarded her solemnly. She gave a good imitation of a crazy cat lady, but she wasn’t stupid and had to know Harley was holding out. There could be definite disadvantages to long friendships.

Fidgeting, Harley mumbled something about life changing a lot, then added, “Don’t look at me like that.”

“Life may have changed, but you haven’t. Tell me what’s wrong. I could always tell when you were upset about something. You get that frantic look in your eyes. Is it just the burglary?”

“No. Uh, did you hear about Mrs. Trumble?”

“Being found dead in her house by a neighbor? It was on last night’s news and in today’s paper. They said it was a home invasion, but I think she pissed off the wrong person.”

“That’s likely. The neighbor who found her was me.”

Cami’s eyes got really wide and her fingers closed in the cat’s fur so hard it let out a shriek that would peel wallpaper. She released it instantly, but the cat left in an obvious huff.

“No,” Cami said, and Harley nodded.

“Yes. And it gets worse. The police think Yogi’s involved.”

“Ohmigod, Harley!” Cami’s screech woke one of the dogs and it lurched to its feet barking at the ceiling.

After Cami got the dog quieted, Harley told her the events of the past two days, leaving out the part about Bruno Jett really being undercover cop Mike Morgan.

“So do the police think Yogi killed her?” Cami’s eyes were wide.

“Bobby knows better, I’m sure.

“Bobby Baroni?” Cami let out a sigh of pure pleasure. “He still hot?”

“Diluted to lukewarm. He’s living with a stripper named Angel.”

“Too bad. I always thought he was the sexiest guy we knew.”

“He has his moments. Listen, Cami, if I asked you to help me with something and not ask too many questions, would you do it?”

She sat up straight. “Try and stop me.”

“I knew I could count on you. I’ve got some ideas I want to try out, but I need some help. It may not solve anything, but there’s a few angles I want to check on.”

“You mean investigate like in
Charlie’s Angels
?” Cami looked excited. “I could be Lucy Liu. I’ve even got a black leather jump suit that Jace bought me after the first movie came out. He had me dye my hair black. When we got divorced, I went blond for a while. I just did it red, but I think I still have some black hair dye. Do I need a disguise?”

Harley gave her a cautious look. “Nooo, not exactly. Unless it’s called for, of course,” she added when Cami looked disappointed. “I had in mind something less dramatic. I want to visit a jeweler, and I want you to act like you’re a prospective client.”

“God, I love it. When?”

“Tomorrow morning okay?”

Cami grinned. “I’m off for the next four days, courtesy of working twelve days straight. It’s one of the perks of my job. I get a mini-vacation once a month.”

“Sweet.”

On the way to Cami’s an idea had formed, and she thought she knew a way to find out if her suspicions were valid once she heard back from Tootsie. Armed with the name of the jeweler and the alarm company, she could eliminate Charles Freeman as a suspect in the theft of his wife’s necklace and focus on the real thieves, or at least have another possible suspect to name to the Crime Stopper’s hotline.

It was entirely possible that finding the real thieves would clear Yogi of that particular charge, at least. It was highly unlikely that Yogi would purchase a necklace like that; he just didn’t have the money. And Diva didn’t care that much about jewelry anyway. She preferred her pretty crystals and wind chimes. Materialism just wasn’t her style. The only reason she could imagine for the necklace being in his workshop had to involve Bruno Jett. How else?

It was unlikely that Jett née Morgan had put the necklace there to incriminate Yogi, despite her occasional nasty thought in that direction. It was possible that whatever criminals he had coming by to fence hot stuff had decided, for some incomprehensible reason, to squirrel away stolen goods and come back for them later. Maybe they got the address wrong and thought they were next door. Maybe they’d left it for Jett to retrieve. Maybe it had been overlooked. Now they were coming back for it and probably pretty pissed off that it was gone.

“Why do I keep hearin’
Dixie
?” Cami asked, and Harley realized her cell phone was going off.

She pulled it out of her backpack and jabbed the button, expecting Tootsie but hoping for Diva or Yogi.

A hoarse voice grated, “Give it back, bitch, or you’ll wish you had.”

She went cold, then hot, and her stomach did an odd flip. “What?” she managed to say, but it came out in a strangled croak, “Give what back?”