Love Game (24 page)

Lucy screamed and hugged me. “Thank you, Gladie. How did you do it?”

“Let’s just say I’m a genius unmatchmaker. After lunch I’m going over there to tell him.”

“Oh,” said Lucy, fixing her hair.

“You want to come with me, Lucy?”

“I have work.”

“Poor Uncle Harry,” I said. “So lonely.”

“What?” Lucy asked.

“Yeah, he doesn’t let on, but he’s in that big house without anyone to love, if you don’t count Lurch and the two Cujos. He’s probably ready for love in his life. Commitment. Not Ruth Fletcher, of course, but someone else to love.”

I studied Lucy to see if she was catching on or if I was being too subtle.

“I hear Doris Schwartz is single,” Bridget said. “She just had a bad breakup with a young guy. She might want to go older now.”

Lucy shot Bridget a nasty look.

“My grandmother already matched Doris,” I told them. “I was thinking somebody more his speed, classy, someone he knows already.”

“I’m not sure I appreciate you trying to match Uncle Harry, Gladie,” Lucy said. “We just got him free from Luanda.”

I almost banged my head on the table. Getting through to Lucy was no easy task.

“Sorry, Lucy. I’ll forget it.”

“Do you hear that?” Bridget asked.

“What, darlin’?” Lucy asked.

“Those men. Their voices sound familiar.” We listened for a minute. Three men at the neighboring
table were talking about football and toe fungus. “Oh, my God. Oh, my God,” Bridget whispered, covering her eyes with her hand. “I know those voices, those men. One of them asked to beat the cheeks and take a ride on my donkey express.”

LUCY WENT
off to work, and since Bridget had no car, she agreed to go with me to Uncle Harry’s. I convinced her to turn off her phone and just relax for the afternoon. Five minutes into the ride, she slumped against the car window and fell asleep, snoring softly.

As we got closer to Uncle Harry’s, I started to fantasize about what I would do with my money. Sure, I’d had to pay Luanda a hundred dollars to get off his back, but I would still have more money than I had had in months.

Kirk Shields, Uncle Harry’s security guard and my fellow kidnappee, stopped us at the front gate. “Hi,
Kirk,” I said, rolling down my window. “It’s me again. How are you?”

“Fine. You’re not on my list.”

“I know, but I’m here on business. I have good news for Uncle Harry.”

Kirk called the house to announce us. I noticed his phone hand was bruised and cut.

“Ouch,” I said. “That looks like it hurts.”

He slipped his hand into his pocket. “It’s nothing. Accident,” he said, and waved us through.

“When the workers rise up, this will be the first house to go,” Bridget said, seeing Uncle Harry’s mansion for the first time.

“They’ll have to get past the dogs,” I said. We could hear the dogs through the doors, growling and snapping their teeth. “Don’t show fear.”

Uncle Harry’s butler answered the door and let us in. I held my breath as we squeezed by the growling Rottweilers. “Hey there, Legs, how’s it hanging?” Uncle Harry greeted me in his living room. The last time I was there, a fireball was hurtling through it.

I introduced him to Bridget, and we took a seat on his gigantic couch. Bridget was looking around as if she was memorizing the location of the doors for the eventual revolution and invasion of the proletariat.

“Give me good news, Legs,” he said. “The witch has shown up here three times since I saw you last. She woo-woo-wooed for hours. I still have a headache. I’m contemplating moving.”

“I have good news, Uncle Harry. I unmatched you. Luanda is going to leave you alone now. You’re free.”

I threw my hands in the air to illustrate his freedom.
He jumped up off the couch and hugged me. Then he poured himself a glass of brandy and gave me a handful of hundred-dollar bills.

“What a relief,” he said. “She was worse than Eddie Two-Fingers. You’re pretty good at your job. I’m impressed.”

“Well, technically, unmatching people is not my job.”

“Pity, ’cause you’re a natural.”

“Do you mind if I ask you a question?”

“You can ask, but I don’t promise I’ll answer.”

“In all your dealings with land development and construction, did you ever come in contact with Michael Rellik?”

“The kidnapper? Yeah, sure. He made a bid, but we didn’t take it.” Uncle Harry lit up a cigar and took a puff.

“Too high?” I asked.

“No, his background wasn’t clean, something about a fire in Orange County.”

“In Orange County?”

“Yeah. Strictly speaking, he wasn’t a local. Moved here a couple years ago. Why do you ask?”

There was a clicking in my brain, like cogs were moving into place. “What’s the story about the fire?”

“Legs, are you snooping again?”

I shrugged my shoulders.

“Some people died,” he explained. “There was a rumor about the electrical wiring. My associates and I don’t need that kind of trouble.”

Uncle Harry already had questionable associates and opposition to his development plans by Mrs. Arbuthnot and other members of the community. If
anything went wrong with the construction, Uncle Harry’s future prospects were finished.

“That’s odd,” Bridget said. “He seemed like a very good contractor. The house we saw was beautiful.”

“That may be, little lady,” Uncle Harry said. “But I wouldn’t turn the lights on, if I were you.”

“May I ask you something else?” I continued.

“About the kidnapper?”

“No, about your security guard.”

“You interested in him? I thought you and the chief were an item,” he said.

My face got hot. I thought back to our kiss, to Spencer risking his life in the cage. For what? To prove something to himself? To me? To impress his girl? Was he sending me a message through his actions because it was impossible for him to verbalize it?

“No, we’re not an item,” I told him. “And I’m not interested in your security guard. I mean, not in that way. I was just wondering what you know about him.”

“Former cop. Clean record. As far as I know, he shows up on time. Other than that, I don’t care. Is that all, Legs?”

“One more thing: You’re taking Lucy out for breakfast tomorrow morning.”

“What?” Bridget cried. “He is?”

“Yes, it’s time. Don’t you think so, Uncle Harry?”

Uncle Harry stubbed out his cigar and smiled. “Technically, is
that
your job?”

“Lucy is an intelligent, kind, generous, beautiful woman, and you would be lucky to go to breakfast with her,” Bridget said, her hackles up.

“Yes, it’s my job, but Lucy is my friend, so this is on the house,” I added.

Uncle Harry smiled. “Lucy Smythe,” he said, like he was tasting her name in his mouth. “That might be a good idea, Legs.”

“I have those on occasion,” I said.

I JABBED
the screwdriver into the ignition and started my car. “I have a great idea,” I told Bridget.

“About Lucy?”

“No.”

“About the snooping?” she asked.

“Yep, about the snooping.”

I PARKED
in the hospital’s lot.

“I thought we were going to the morgue,” Bridget said.

“Actually, there’s no official morgue in Cannes. Usually the bodies go directly to the mortuary or to San Diego if they need to be autopsied. They set up a makeshift morgue in the basement for Rellik, though, since Remington was here,” I said.

“A morgue in the basement,” Bridget repeated.

“I know. Gross. It’s all my fears combined into one ball of terror.” I counted on my fingers. “Dead person, diseases, murder, closed spaces, really mean nurses, and toxic cleaning products. That’s why I brought this.”

I held up a bottle of beer that I had pinched from Uncle Harry’s house.

“I’m going to get just enough buzzed not to freak
out, because getting put on a seventy-two-hour psychiatric hold is another one of my fears.”

“And mad cow disease,” Bridget said.

“Mad cow?”

“Yes, there’s a mad-cow-disease scare at the hospital, too.”

“How contagious is that?” I asked. “Can it travel through the vents?”

“I think you get it from eating hamburgers.”

My hand flew up to my mouth. “Oh, my God,” I said. “I ate a hamburger yesterday.”

“Maybe now’s a good time to break open the beer.”

“Oh, you want some, too?”

Bridget eyed me. She was haggard and slightly greasy. Dealing with sex fiends who didn’t share her feminist convictions had taken a toll on her.

“Of course I’ll share,” I said. “Do you have a bottle opener?”

It took us fifteen minutes to get the cap off the bottle. The half a beer didn’t give me the buzz I was hoping for. But I did succeed in managing my freak-out by pretending I was going for an expensive facial. That way, I could explain away the mean nurses and the toxic cleaning supplies.

It was harder to get to the basement than I had envisioned. We needed a special key for the elevator to go down to that level.

“ ‘Personnel only,’ ” Bridget read aloud. “Now what?”

What would Nancy Drew do? I wondered. Would she give up and go home? I was pretty sure she wouldn’t let a key get in the way of her and a makeshift morgue. I shuddered. Maybe Spencer was right.
Maybe I couldn’t help myself. Maybe I was a sicko meddler who needed professional help, or at least really good prescription pills.

“Bridget, we have a right to get down to that morgue. Power to the people.”

“I’m all for power to the people,” Bridget said, “but I’m not sure that includes breaking into a morgue to inspect a dead man.”

“In the movies, they steal doctors’ uniforms from the linen closet,” I said. “We could do that.”

“That wouldn’t help with the elevator,” Bridget pointed out.

I drummed my fingers on my cheek. “There’s probably no key in the linen closet,” I said.

An orderly approached us. “The elevator’s not working?” he asked.

I racked my brain, trying to think of an excuse for why we were there. I didn’t want him to get suspicious, didn’t want to draw attention to us. If we were caught, we would be sent off to jail, and I can’t pee in front of other people.

“Uh,” I said.

“It’s working,” Bridget said, “but we need to go down to the basement, and we don’t have a key.”

I almost punched her. She didn’t know the first thing about stealth reconnaissance missions. To be fair, neither did I, but I did know that when confronted by the enemy, lie, lie, lie.

“I have a key,” the orderly said. “I’ll get you down there.” He pushed the
DOWN
button, and the elevator doors opened. Once we were in, he put the key in the slot and turned. “Push the minus one, and it will take
you right there,” he said, smiling, and hopped out of the elevator.

The doors closed, and we started our journey down to the basement. “People are too trusting,” I said.

“I hope he doesn’t get in trouble,” Bridget said.

“I mean, we could be terrorists.”

“If he gets arrested, I’ll make sure he gets good representation,” Bridget continued.

We arrived at the basement, and we stepped out. The hallway was abandoned. No alarm went off; no cops were there to arrest us.

“The security is pathetic at this hospital,” I said. “Perhaps we should report them. I don’t feel safe at all.”

“Which way is the morgue?”

“Just follow my panic attack. Better than the yellow brick road.”

WE ALMOST
missed it. Michael Rellik’s body was being stored in a small, nondescript walk-in cooler at the end of the hall. His black body bag lay on a shelf.

“We’re going to need more beer,” I said.

“If I believed in the supercilious constructs of the Judeo-Christian tradition, I would say his soul is already in heaven or hell, and the only thing in this body bag is an empty vessel,” Bridget said.

“It’s awfully cold in here,” I said, shivering.

“That’s so that his flesh doesn’t rot.”

“I definitely should have pinched a second bottle of beer.” I took a deep breath. “Okay, how about you unzip and I look. Deal?”

“Deal.” She unzipped, and I took a look.

“They sewed him up,” I noted.

“That’s from the autopsy. What else do you see?”

“Five little holes.”

Bridget zipped him up, and we jogged back to the elevator.

“Did you find what you were looking for?”

“I don’t know,” I said, but I couldn’t deny that a theory was forming in my brain. “Do you mind if we make another couple stops?”

I drove out of the lot, and Bridget checked her phone. “Twelve messages.” She sighed.