Love Game (18 page)

I crawled around in a panic, trying to find the necklace. Lucy would never forgive me for losing it. It had to have cost a fortune.

“Maybe something else is buried with the dog,” I heard Ruth say with a hopeful edge to her voice.

“Keep digging,” Spencer commanded.

I was thankful to hear them shoveling dirt, because it gave me needed time to find the necklace. I continued to search the ground in wider and wider circles from where I went down. It was a hopeless endeavor.

“I’ll never find it,” I muttered. “I’m stupid, stupid,
stupid.” I couldn’t believe I was out in the dark, crawling around among the wildlife, with a possible kidnapper and dog murderer watching me.

Worse than that, instead of finding Lucy’s necklace, I was touching more than my share of squishy gross things in the mud. “Yuck,” I mumbled. “Blech.”

But I couldn’t quit. I had already ruined her shoe and ripped her dress. I tried to focus on the task at hand and not on the possibility of stumbling on a rattlesnake or having a spider crawl up my dress.

But I worried for nothing. I didn’t come in contact with any snakes or spiders, and, against all odds, I did find the necklace. I breathed a sigh of relief.

Lucy’s necklace was right in front of me, right under my nose, as I crawled on all fours in the thick line of trees overgrown with brush. There it was, the diamond picking up the starlight, shining through the night, resting comfortably on the corpse of Michael Rellik, who lay in stunned silence, his eyes open and unblinking, his body riddled with bloody holes.

“Yep, I’m going to be sick,” I said.

I THINK
it was the sound of my retching that got their attention, or maybe I screamed, but it was a matter of seconds before Rellik’s body was illuminated by Spencer’s and Remington’s flashlights.

“Gladie, you found Rellik,” Lucy said.

“Well, how about that? Zelda was right. You do have the gift,” Ruth said.

“Did you hurl on my coat?” Spencer asked.

SPENCER GOT
on his phone, and in a short while we were invaded by half of the Cannes police force and fire department.

The area was roped off, and Remington, who was supposedly a forensics expert, got to work on the scene while we waited for the regional coroner.

Fred and Sergeant Brody escorted me to the fire truck and wrapped a blanket around me. “Mostly we wanted to see you,” Fred explained.

Sergeant Brody nodded. “We heard you were naked.”

“No, I just ripped my dress up the back,” I said.

“That’s still good,” Fred said.

“Not quite as good,” Sergeant Brody said, obviously disappointed.

“I also sort of upchucked on Spencer’s coat,” I added.

“Where? Can I get a picture?” Brody asked.

THE CORONER
arrived about an hour later. By that time, Remington had finished with his investigation into the crime scene, and we all stood around at the fire truck, talking about low-carb diets, football, and apple pie recipes.

Luanda was taking credit for finding Rellik and was on her cellphone, pretty much telling everyone in town that her psychic abilities were proven and that her matchmaking fees would, unfortunately, have to go up.

I had failed Grandma. She could never compete with that kind of PR. If I hadn’t found Rellik, Luanda’s business would have suffocated under the weight of her dog discovery and everything would have gone back to normal for Grandma. But no. Once again, I
had to trip over a dead person. Once again, death was my calling card.

I was despondent, Lucy was steamed, but it was Ruth who was truly pissed at Luanda. “
Now
you have a cellphone? You couldn’t have had one when we were locked away in the dungeon?” she demanded.

Luanda waved her away, busy telling someone on the line that, yes, she could pick the winning lottery numbers but for a price. She clicked off her phone.

“My work here is done,” she announced in her usual loud singsong voice. “The spirits must rest, and I must be away.” She lifted her arms like she was planning to fly home. “Well, Chief?” she asked Spencer after a moment. He looked up, as if he wanted to fly home, too.

“I’m in the middle of a murder investigation, ma’am, and I have to meet with the coroner just now. As soon as I can, I’ll have one of my men drive you home,” he said in his cop voice.

“I’ll drive you,” Lucy offered, clutching her Taser-laden purse to her chest.

“But no funny business, or I’ll grand-slam your ass,” Ruth said, waving her bat.

I decided to leave well enough alone, heed my grandmother’s warnings, and wait for a cop to drive me home. Lucy took off with Ruth and Luanda. I watched as she slowly turned the car around and made her way down the dirt road.

The coroner approached me, wearing paper booties and a jumpsuit. “Are you the young lady who corrupted my crime scene?” he asked. He smelled like my mother. Like the inside of a bourbon bottle.

“Uh,” I said.

“What did you eat today, the entire junk-food aisle at Walmart? What a holy mess over there.”

He wasn’t half wrong. I had eaten a full bag of chips, at least, two Attica apple explosions, and all the appetizers at the Swingathon. A heat enveloped me, and I knew I was bright red. I probably glowed in the dark.

Spencer shot me one of his annoying smirks, and Remington had the decency to look away. I tried to think of a quick retort to the drunk coroner, but I came up empty.

“Come on, boys,” the coroner ordered, and Spencer and Remington followed him, but not before Spencer pulled me aside and warned me to stay with Fred at the fire truck.

“I know that look, Pinkie,” he told me. “You’re positively giddy.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I lied. I did feel a certain giddiness, like elves were dancing in my stomach. It didn’t feel all that bad.

“It’s the meddling-murder thing you’ve got. You can’t help yourself.”

“That’s not true,” I insisted. “Were those bullet holes or was he stabbed?”

“Stop the giddiness, Pinkie. I order you.”

“You what me?”

“You heard me.”

I did as he said and waited at the fire truck with Fred. “You want a Milk Dud, Underwear Girl? I got some in my pocket.”

“Sure, Fred.” I took one from him. It was warm and melty and helped cover up the vomit taste in my mouth.

“Would you excuse me a minute?” I asked.

“The chief wants you to stay here.”

“I have girl things to do in the trees, Fred.”

He took a step backward. “Oh. Okay, sure. Go ahead.”

I limped toward the crime scene, careful to hide behind a nearby tree. I didn’t actually want to see Rellik’s dead body again. But there had been something odd about it, and I needed my questions answered.

I peeked around the tree. The coroner was kneeling over poor, unfortunate Rellik. “Dead eight to twelve hours,” he said. “These entry wounds to be determined at autopsy. Are you outsourcing to San Diego?”

“Um, no. Doc Stevenson is going to perform it,” Spencer said.

“With me attending,” Remington added. His voice was still smooth jazz but with a hard edge I hadn’t heard before. Authoritarian.

The coroner stood and inspected Remington. “The chief told me about you. CSU?”

“Trained.”

“Uh-huh.” The coroner nodded and took off his gloves. “Well, it’s a simple case of murder. Stabbed to death with something small. Repeatedly, obviously. Who was he?”

“A kidnapper,” Spencer said.

“We reap what we sow,” the coroner remarked wisely, and then hiccupped. “Probably his partner did it, or maybe it was revenge.”

I thought about that for a moment. There was no evidence that Rellik had a partner, but I bet Grandma would know for sure. What was going to happen to the house now that Rellik was dead? Would it stay in
some kind of real estate probate limbo, half remodeled? Did Rellik have family who would inherit? Did kidnappers generally have family? Or even friends?

The revenge theory was more interesting. Could one of his victims from the panic rooms have found Rellik and given him a taste of his own medicine? That would mean twelve suspects. I thought I could rule out Spencer, Lucy, Bridget, and me, which left eight. A lot of suspects.

It dawned on me that Luanda had taken us right to the corpse, and I didn’t think it was because she was a psychic.

“Suspect number one,” I muttered, drawing Spencer’s attention. The three heads turned my way, with three different looks of surprise on their faces.

“Are you kidding me?” Spencer asked.

“She’s a nosy one,” commented the coroner.

WE DROVE
into town behind the meat wagon, as Spencer called it.

“I don’t know why you wouldn’t let me look at the body,” I said. I sat in the backseat with my arms crossed in front of me. Spencer was being his usual ass self, ordering me to stay out of his investigation.

“Why do you want to look at it?” he asked. “You want to throw up on him again?”

“No, smart-ass. I—” I started, but then changed my mind about telling him why I wanted to look at the body. If I told him there was something about it that set off warning bells in my head, he would make a crack about what was in my head and tell me to
stay out of his investigation. Somehow, I would have to work around Spencer.

“Are we going to talk about the TOD?” Remington asked Spencer.

“What about it?”

“Well, it’s been cold lately.”

“Oh, crap,” Spencer said.

“What? What?” I asked, pulling at my seat belt. “Why is that bad?”

“It’s not bad if you’re dead,” Remington explained. “It means Rellik wasn’t killed eight hours ago. The coroner was wrong. Rellik was murdered more than twenty-four hours ago.”

“When we were in the panic rooms?” I asked.

Nobody said a word, but I could hear the brains kicking into gear. There went my suspects. We were all locked up at the time of his murder. That meant Luanda was innocent.

“What caused the holes in his body?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Remington said. “Something small. We couldn’t find the murder weapon.”

“Shut up, probie,” Spencer demanded. “First rule in Cannes police work is don’t tell Gladie Burger anything.”

“Hey!” I shouted.

Spencer drove me to pick up my car at Luanda’s abandoned factory, after I lost a fifteen-minute argument about why he should take me with him to the morgue to see Rellik’s body. Actually, two minutes into the argument, I realized there was no way I would make it into the morgue without fainting, but on principle I wouldn’t give in to his dictatorial attitude.

I saw my car immediately. The building was dark, but there was a light on in the almost-empty parking lot. Spencer drove up beside my Cutlass Supreme and let me out.

He pulled me close to him by the lapels of my borrowed coat. “Remember what I said, Pinkie. Stay out of it. There’s a murderer out there.”

“There’s always a murderer out there,” I said.

“Only since you got to town,” he pointed out. “I gotta run. They’re doing a rush on the autopsy.”

“Oh, good. Let me know what they find.”

“Funny,” Spencer said, and hopped back into his car. I was relieved to see him drive away. I didn’t appreciate him ordering me around. After all, if it hadn’t been for me, Spencer never would have known Rellik was murdered in the first place.

Then I realized I didn’t have a screwdriver. I couldn’t start my car, and I was stranded in a parking lot in the middle of the night. And that wouldn’t have been so bad if Harold Chow wasn’t running toward me at a breakneck pace, completely naked, yelling, “Woman! Woman!” repeatedly like he was counting females in the country one by one.

“Help,” I squeaked. “Help. Naked. Help.”

“Woman!” Harold continued, running full out like a circumcised Olympian with a potbelly and receding hairline. “Woman! Woman! Woman!”

“Naked. Help. Naked,” I squeaked. It had been a hell of a week. It was probably fitting that I died like this, run over by a streaker with a one-track mind.

“Harold,” I managed. “It’s me, Zelda’s granddaughter. Gladie.”

It was like he didn’t hear me. Unblinking, he maintained
his trajectory. Just before he got to me, I jiggled open my car’s door handle and closed myself in. Harold seemed confused for a moment and then banged on the hood.

If he had half a brain, he would have tried any of the doors, which would have opened pretty easily. But Harold only banged on the hood and mumbled incoherently, like his brain had been sucked out by aliens.

“The zombie apocalypse,” I breathed. There was no other explanation. Something had turned Harold Chow into a zombie, and it was only a matter of time before he caught me and changed me into a zombie, too.