Malicious Mischief (A Rylie Keyes Mystery) (Entangled Select) (14 page)

“Gilad,” I said. “What about Elsa? Don’t do this, please.”

There was no mistaking his disgust: cavernous frown, eyes pointed. “Elsa has herpes,” he said. “She’s dead to me.”

Was I speechless?
Oh yeah
.

Booth chuckled as he stepped aside briefly for a passerby with a Golden Retriever. “In case you haven’t noticed, Rylie.” He pointed to his round visage. “This is my
I told you so
face. Score one for the rumor mill.”

Totally. Yet had not that same mill said two seniors had herpes, which led me to wonder if Gilad had it, too. Or had Elsa got it from another man? If so, which one?

Sunny’s voice rose to chastise teasingly the rabbi for his modesty. “Oh, you must know how very clever you are, you really must.”

“You’re very kind,” the rabbi told her as the Golden Retriever doubled back to sniff at his pant leg. “Few people know that my father was a comedian.”

“Was he famous? Would I know him? Had he been on Johnny Carson?” Sunny asked. Her poodle eyed the retriever as its owner tugged on its leash.

Somehow, the poodle wiggled free, released some yaps, and dashed for the retriever.

Sunny shrieked. “Duchess, no!”

But Duchess kept running, a tiny pink blur in hot pursuit of a rapidly disappearing retriever. People scattered to make way. Sunny grabbed Gilad’s hand, pleading with him to save her precious Duchess.

Gilad wrenched free, wiped his hand on his pants. “I don’t know. I heard the former French president was mauled by a clinically depressed poodle.”

“Well, then,” Sunny said. “Sex tonight is off the table.”

Gilad held his ground, his face a riot of revolving emotion. I burst out laughing. I couldn’t help it. He looked so conflicted.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake.” Booth thrust his angry rash under Gilad’s nose. “Catchy, catchy.”

Going. Going. Gone
was Gilad as he took off after Duchess, with Sunny at his heels, leaving us alone.

“I want my SIM card,” Booth said to me.

“Solo has it,” I said again.

“Is he here?”

“He was.” I pointed to the empty booth inside the deli. “But he’s gone now. I don’t know where. We’re both working the party tonight. I’ll see that he gives it to you then.”

“No can do,” he said. “I need it now. It’s got my contacts.”

I needed to distract him, so I blurted out, “You got that rash from the stinging nettles on Leland’s hillside, didn’t you?”

His eyes widened. “This curiosity with my rash wouldn’t have anything to do with a detective needing to talk to me?”

“Sounds like they know you introduced Leland to the seniors who ran me off the road.”

It was difficult to see guilt behind his cool facade, but I managed.

“Detective Lipschitz brought them up when he called earlier. I hear they’re dead. No matter, see, as I didn’t know them. I got their names off a bulletin board and gave it to Leland. So like it or lump it, I gotta now go see some Detective Talon and straighten this out.”

“Then tell me this—” I began.

“This is where you witness my pissed off face. I know all about your silly PI fantasy. But listen, and listen good, I don’t talk to amateurs, even when I got nothing to hide, see.”

His eyes were challenging, and I knew he expected me to back down. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

“How about Otto’s watch?” I said.

His look of irritation turned to joy. “Meaning this?” He raised his wrist to show off with some fanfare the apparent object of my interest. Only problem, I hadn’t known his watch had been Otto’s. Nothing about it appeared special. Not with its plain, wide burgundy leather band, white face, blue hands, and two crisscrossed flags below the twelfth hour.

“That’s Otto’s watch?”

“Yessiree, Bob. This is my first time putting it on. Not bad, huh?”

Hard to believe it was so expensive. “May I see it?” I asked. “Off your wrist.”

“Why?”

Good question, for which I had no answer. “I just want to.”

“Then you’ll need to pry it off my cold, dead body,” he said.

“You like it that much?”

“Hell, I’m filthy rich because of it.”

“Twenty thousand hardly makes you filthy rich.”
But I’d take it.

“What would you say to fifty grand?”

I mouthed my best holy mackerel pie hole.

“Yep, just like Otto this watch is ancient, yet unlike Otto, it’s a collector’s item.” He held it up for me. “See, it’s a pocket watch. The weird band holds it in place.”

It was indeed a pocket watch, and an unremarkable one at that.

“I think it’s the shit.” Translation: cool. “Otto told me not to wear it, said it didn’t go with my swag, like he was a fashionista.”

“Why would Otto wager such a pricey watch?” I asked. “Did he know its value?”

“Don’t know. Don’t care. But he brought it on himself, see. He’d been losing hand-over-fist all night, was down to his last dollar. The dumbass could have said all in, but instead he bet the watch.”

“All in?” I asked.

“Never mind, what’s important here is that he lost the watch to me fair and square.”

“Leland says it’s worth twenty grand, you say fifty. Who’s right?”

He gave me a steely smile. “You’re looking at one lucky son of a bitch, see. My jeweler friend offered me twenty. That’s where Leland got that number. But that bloodless bastard over there.” He pointed to White’s Jewelry table. “He just offered me fifty.”

I thought that was a good description of the man, bloodless. “Wow, why the difference?”

“Can’t say,” he said.

A hunch about the bet surfaced. “Otto meant the watch to be just collateral, didn’t he?”

“It’s called a marker,” he said, giving nothing away.

“I suspect you were to give it back once he paid up. It seems to me a deal like that would need to be in writing, especially since we both know Otto trusted no one.”

“Are you going somewhere with this shark tale?”

I refrained from remarking on the aptness of the word
shark
. “A note like that could prove you didn’t steal the watch. Pretty important note, maybe important enough to cut off Otto’s air until he is unconscious so you could search him. Maybe he fought back and died.”

“See, if that was true—and I’m not saying it is. I would want a note like that destroyed? With it, see, I’d have no legal claim to the watch, speaking hypothetically of course.”

“Of course,” I said, thankful for the safety of a busy street. “Booth, it was premeditative, wasn’t it? You meant to kill him, destroy the marker.”

“One flaw,” he said with a radiant smile. “My bad hip won’t let me climb that hill, let alone climb from your driveway to Leland’s garage. And Leland’s tram is busted.”

He slipped up!
“I never mentioned that Otto fell from Leland’s garage balcony.”

“Too bad it’s all over the local news.”

“Oh,” I said, deflated.

“Better luck next time, greenhorn.”

I absorbed the smug look on his face as he left, and I absorbed his remark:
greenhorn
. I couldn’t move. I went on standing there for some time, my hands crossed in front of me, my eyes on my feet. I turned, my doubt about solving this case rising. I walked into Detective Talon.

I stumbled back, apologizing as he reached out, steadying me with a gentle hand.

“Thank you,” I said awkwardly, shocked by the comfort I found in his touch.

There came a lengthening silence as he stared down at me. His handsome face folded in, brooding, deep into a frown.

I looked at him in bewilderment. “Is something wrong?”

“It’s the way Lipschitz talks of you. It isn’t right and proper,” he said. “You do know he was once in love with you. And dammit, he quite possibly still is.”

Such concern, he must have written the Bintliff note. “There was never anything between us—why dammit?”

“A detective on a power trip, a vulnerable suspect, and an axe to grind—never ye mind, I suspect it’s better if I say no more,” he said, his voice steady but worried.

His assertion intrigued me on many levels. Though loosely exercised, it was a breach of the age-old police code of silence. Even when guilty of wrongdoing, cops don’t talk bad about other cops.

“I never encouraged Lipschitz,” I said. “He was too busy calling me
bastard baby
to realize that at the time. You should know something else. I had nothing to do with Otto’s death.”

“No mind, I already knew you weren’t involved,” he said. “Though it makes no sense to me, you trying to persuade your grandfather by solving Otto’s murder.”

I raised my brows, figuring he had learned this from Leland. “I need his blessing.”

“Answer me this: does the grape ask the yeast what type of wine it should be?”

Puzzled by this man, by how he talked in riddles, I stepped back, clumsily turning on an ankle. He didn’t steady me this time, didn’t touch me. It shamed me how much I had wanted him to. “I find you so confusing,” I said self-conscious, a bit shy.

“I cannae fault you for that. I’m up to my neck in confusion. There is no rhyme or reason in why I’m willing to break a dozen department rules to discuss this case with you.”

“Don’t risk your career for me,” I said too hastily, too coolly, as one does when skeptical, for police officers carried another burden, the binding pressure of their code of conduct.

He picked up on my doubt and gave me a half-amused smile. “My career will survive, though my ego may not be as blessed.”

I forced myself to say, “Ego complicates things.”

“Aye, while laughing last and loudest. Petulant thing, ego.”

He continued to look at me with his dramatic eyes. I saw the soulfulness in them and thought back to his anger over Lipschitz’s contempt for me. I wondered why it bothered him, why he felt the need to write the anonymous Bintliff note. Surely, he had more to worry about than me. He was a man of contrasts; I could see that now. The dangerous detective with a discerning stare, concerned stranger abhorring the ways of a hateful partner. I smiled, oddly becoming more at ease with him. But there was something baffling, even staggering about the suddenness of this change. I was entering dangerous grounds, I knew I was, but still I said, “Maybe yours just got out of bed on the wrong side.”

“Innuendo?”

“No,” I said, but it had been, and I turned cold all over at my boldness. I was acting harebrained. It had to stop. “Talon, why are you doing this? I’m more often the friend than lover.”

He raised his brows faintly as though to question why. “Perchance it’s the men,” he said.

I had the impression he left off the words
that you choose
.

“Rylie, I’d like to know you.”

Not get to know me, but the more intimate
know me,
which meant he was purposefully being lovey-dovey for grins, or for a reaction, or worse, to poke fun at me. But I did not want jokes from him, or kidding. Not now, not when it strangely hurt more than amused. I had a ridiculous desire to cry, but instead I took back the power with a faux smile, a tilted smirk. “How can I be of service to you, my good sir?” I asked with an equally mocking salute at his inappropriate jesting.

He didn’t answer right away. “I won’t press,” he said at last, very softly, very kindly.

And it shocked me when I grasped in that quiet moment, in those quiet words, his sincerity.

“Promise me this,” he said. “Give my words a chance to breathe. That’s all I ask.”

I pictured it, how stupid my constant confusion over him must appear. “No, I’d rather not.”

Standing there, in that awkward moment, feeling a pang of regret when he smiled again and nodded, I studied him. He was too beautiful a man for a girl like me to hold onto for a month, or even a week, let alone a lifetime. “I’m sorry,” I said, and he surprised me with an even deeper smile.

“Everything has beauty, Rylie,” he said as if my thoughts were open, “but not everyone sees it.”

“More Robert Lewis Stevenson?”

“Confucius.” He stepped back as Solo rounded the corner. “I’ll leave you to your friend.”

I stood there for several minutes watching him navigate the crowd toward the station. He was so perplexing, so enigmatic. I found it all too much to take in, especially on an empty stomach.

~I have the answer in my head. I just haven’t found it yet~

I caught Solo up to speed on my chat with Booth. He hadn’t said a word as I relayed the sad news of Elsa’s STD and Gilad’s infidelity with Sunny, but he did a lot of head shaking.

“Just the tip of the iceberg.” Solo leaned on a light pole outside the deli. “Color me surprised. I didn’t peg Gilad as a slime ball.”

“Yeah, but if Elsa didn’t get herpes from him, then she got it from another man. That makes them both slime balls.”

“But who is the other man?” he asked.

I reminded him of what Gilad had said at the start of the bonfire, of his anger at Otto.

“
Nooooo
,” he said. “You cannot think—Otto and Elsa. Gross.”

Otto and anyone was gross. “Exposing a germaphobe to herpes just might be enough to make him crack. Add in jealousy, and he might murder. We know Gilad is capable of killing, but we don’t know for sure another man exists. We need to look at FoY’s medical records to—”

“Find out what other senior has herpes,” Solo finished. “But that’s against the rules.”

I grinned. “What fun are rules?”

It was fifteen minutes later, and we were standing at the curb waving good-bye to Tita as she drove away in her ancient Pinto Wagon to collect Elsa at the Ready Clinic. I decided not to mention Elsa’s STD, as I feared she would have the tiniest bit of fun with the news. My Latina comrade deemed misfortune a lucky reason to poke fun.

“Do you think Booth suspects we’re onto him?” Solo asked me.

“What Booth thinks is anyone’s guess.” I took a bit of the cinnamon bun he’d saved for me from the
Oy Vey
special. “He is just spinning a web of vague comebacks.”

“He killed Otto to keep the watch, I just know it,” he said. “Fifty grand or even twenty grand is a lot of money. Premeditative murder, the big kahuna, murder one is what he did.”

I was more open-minded. “I wish I knew if Otto had known the watch’s value.”

“I don’t think he did,” Solo said. “Otherwise, he would have sold it. He always complained of being broke.”

“It might have been his safety net, to use in an emergency, for a health crisis perhaps.”

Solo shrugged. “One thing is for sure, without a witness to the game, it’s gonna be hard to find out if he bet the watch or used it as a marker.”

I chewed on that and the cinnamon bun, staring at the police station. “Solo,” I said. “Talon implied—well, more than implied—he sort of came right out and said it. It’s all so odd, but he is willing to discuss this case with me. Why do you think that is? Solo?” I turned when he didn’t answer. “What’s that grin for?”

“It isn’t a question of why, but a question of why not. He likes you.”

I let out a steadying breath. “But it’s against the rules. I’m a suspect.”

“What fun are rules?” he asked with another grin.

“Well, as far as I’m concerned the issue is closed. I will not jeopardize his career, which means we must get cracking if we’re to do this on our own. It’s already one thirty. So, what did you find in Booth’s call history and don’t tell me again to wait and see. I wanna know now.”

“All right. All right. Check your cell phone.”

I hit the power button and scanned my messages. “Are these last three texts Booth’s?”

He nodded. “Copied, pasted, and sent to your phone.”

“Omigod, you’re brilliant. What would I do without you?”

“It’s so nice to be needed.” His massive arms crushed me into a hug.

I struggled to breathe. “Solo—you are—you’re killing me.” I gasped, gasped again. “Seriously—you’re killing me.”

“Oh,” he said, jumping back. “I got sort of carried away.”

I sucked in a deep breath and laughed. “I’m sure glad you’re on my side.”

His eyes twinkled. “So what do you think? Too cool, huh?”

I read the messages again, slower this time, finding it hard to see a reason for his excitement in these three short messages from only initialed senders. To wit:

1) Call me from Q.

2) I’m here from J.S.

3) Answer your damn phone from H.H.

“HH has to be Happy Hye,” he said.

“It sounds like her. And Q is probably Queenie, but who is JS?”

“Him.”

I lifted my gaze to see Solo pointing a finger at a car rounding the corner. I looked back, confused. “A taxi?”

“Listen,” he said.

Then I heard it. The sound of an engine squealing as the cab pulled to the curb in front of us. “This is the cab Booth took this morning. The squeal is the same.”

“Ya, mawn,” he said. “I heard it when I called the number. That’s why I asked him to pick us up. Come on, we have some investigating to do.”

I remembered giving Tita all my cash. “I don’t—”

“Before you say no,” he said, misinterpreting my hesitation. “Look at the time of the cabby’s text. Nine forty-five last night, which means he picked up Booth from the fundraiser. Maybe he saw something, like Booth and Otto arguing?”

Solo bent as the cabbie rolled down the passenger window. “We need a ride to Fountain of Youth Retirement Home on Northeast 156
th,
between Northeast 24
th
and Northup,” he told the bearded driver. The man wore a navy vest over white pants and tunic along with a bright orange turban.

“How much to you charge per mile?” I asked the cabbie.

“Two-fifty drop off. Two dollars per mile. Get in, please.” His voice lilted with a strong East Indian accent. “You are my last fare. Hurry now. I wish to go to temple and pray.”

“Do you take credit cards?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Cash only. Oh, look at that, a bird made a mess on my back window.” He climbed out of the cab and went to work on the splatter with a wad of napkins.

I turned to Solo. “I gave Tita all my cash. How much do you have?”

“I used my last five on Gilad’s blintz.” But he waved a ten. “Tita returned yours since the
Oy vey
special was on the house.”

Awesome
. “Let’s go, then.”

We climbed into the backseat, finding it tattered and torn. I twisted, gazing around. Gray duct tape held together the headliner, while the driver sat on a worn out beaded seat cover. Draped across the front seatback was a banner saying:
I am not Muslim
.

Solo caught my interest. “He’s Sikh, a religion born out of Hinduism, without the idols and caste system. It’s the fifth largest religion in the world.”

“How do you know that?”

“PBS,” he said simply.

I scooted forward and peered over the seatback, looking at the many colorful beads hanging from the rearview mirror, and spied the driver’s name on the dashboard. Jaspal Singh.

“You go to Northeast 156
th
?” Jaspal Singh said as he clambered in behind the wheel. “That is most funny. I live very near there, across from Crossroads Park.”

As we drove away, Solo told him about the dogs that had escaped from the shelter.

He slammed on the brakes, whipped around, a loose end of his turban flopping. “Stray dogs are loose in my neighborhood, no! That old woman with pitchfork got crazy when that happened last time.”

“Pitchfork?” I said.

“Yes. Evil woman, Ma Hye.”

“Do you mean Happy Hye?” Solo asked.

“No, no, Ma Hye. Happy Hye is her daughter. We are neighbors. Their house is on the corner of Northeast 8
th
, very pretty garden, crazy people,” he said. “Praise God if all the dogs are captured now. My daughter works at the shelter. Many dogs are stolen.”

Solo and I looked at each other, both knowing why. Dog soup.

“Mr. Singh,” I began. “Will ten dollars take us to where we’re going?”

“Very nearly.” He hit the gas, detouring due to the marathon before he stopped for a red light. “I saw you two this morning with the police.”

“I had an accident,” I said. “About the fare you had then. Where was he going?”

“Home.”

This confused me. “Didn’t you say Happy Hye was your neighbor, in the Crossroads Park area? Isn’t she his wife?”

“Hope for his soul,” Mr. Singh said. “Booth has new place. He visits there only sometimes. He has big plans.”

“What sort of plans?”

Mr. Singh frowned. “I drive Booth a lot, but I want nothing to do with such plans, understand me? Why you ask?”

I shrugged. “Just curious.”

He glared at me in the rearview mirror. “Maybe I tell Booth about you, maybe I find out what is up your leg.”

My mind blanked on an excuse. “I think—”

“She thinks he’s hot,” Solo said in a rush.

What!
I gaped at him.

“Rylie really loves her some Booth,” Solo continued. “She thinks he’s USDA prime beef, bacon-wrapped tenderloin, porterhouse terrific, sexual chocolate, don’t you, Rylie?”

I didn’t answer.

“And now with him leaving Happy Hye. That’s what you mean by big plans, I assume,” Solo said. “Did you hear that, Rylie? Booth will soon be free.”

If only murder was legal
.
“Terrific,” I said, my voice half-hearted.

Mr. Singh spat sideways. “That is you throwing yourself down a rat hole. Astounding. You American girls” —
Spit. Spit
— “you are most gullible. Booth is bad. He is most wicked.”

“Has this wickedness something to do with his big plans?” I asked.

Mr. Singh braked when another light turned red. “My wife says it is not my business. I will not say any more.”

“Will you tell us where Booth went last night? Please.”

Brief pause. “Most strange.” He appeared calmer with the change of subject. “I no pick him up at his work like usual, but at the lake. But God prevailed, he gave me another fare to the area. Grumpy man he was, refusing at first to get into my cab, waiting and waiting by a fountain until nine thirty-six exactly. Fine, I meditated, charging him for the wait.”

“Sabbath,” Solo said. “Nine thirty-six would be about the time it ended. Strict Jews won’t ride in a car until it’s over.”

I grinned. “Mr. Singh, was your fare a small man with a long white beard and a Jewish hat? Did you pick him up at a retirement home?”

“But how do you know these things? Yes, yes, that was him.”

“So you drove this man to Leland’s?” I said.

“I know nothing of this Leland.” He maneuvered the cab off one road and onto another. “But if you mean the house with giant numbers on a sign by the garage, then you are most correct.”

“One hundred and fifty-five?” I asked.

He nodded.

“That’s Leland’s!” Solo exclaimed.

“Did you wait for Booth after dropping off your fare?”

He shook his head. “Life is full of roadblocks. I tried to wait, but there was no parking on the parkway. And then a nasty woman with a garden trowel ran me off her private street. So I drove to 7-Eleven, came back a little after ten with a winning Lotto ticket. God is good. Forty American dollars I won. Booth was not angry about my lateness. He was not on time either.”

So Booth had been late.
“Your fare, did you see him talk to anyone?”

He shook his head. “He just pressed buttons on that machine for going up and down.”

“Leland’s broken tram,” I said.

“Then he went into the garage.” He pulled the cab to the curb. “We are here now.”

I looked around. “But Fountain of Youth is several blocks away,” I said.

“Ten dollars brings you this far. Pay me, please, and get out. I must go to temple.”

I grabbed the door handle. “Thank you, Mr. Singh. You’ve been very helpful.”

“About Booth? Let him go,” he warned. “Stay away.”

I said nothing as my heart had just tripped.

Zach, driving his old Porsche, had stopped at a nearby red light. He was not alone. His focus was away from us, but I saw a woman’s fall of chestnut hair as she bent forward in the passenger seat. He was caressing a loving hand across her back, pausing only to run his fingers through her hair. When she curved into him, he kissed the top of her head, left his lips against her hair. It was Mackenzie Desmont.

They moved on swiftly, leaving only empty pavement, where so much affection had been obvious. I turned away and sat there, staring out the windshield. I waited to breathe again and for the thaw that would follow. But it didn’t come. I didn’t move.

Little by little, I felt Solo’s hand around mine on the seat, and when I heard Mr. Singh speak again, looking at me and frowning, I managed, “Excuse me.”

“I said do not wait until it is too late,” Mr. Singh said.

I knew he was referring to Booth, but I wasn’t when I said, “It’s already too late,” and climbed from the cab.

Solo and I were silent as we walked to FoY, our friendship enough to fill the open space. A bald eagle was shrieking overhead in the trees, and I could see a crow defending its nest with its beak that was inferior and yet victorious at the same time. It was an ugly and spiteful thought, but Mackenzie was that crow and her spoiled brat attitude that beak. That was how the heart, my wounded heart soothed me.

I had lost Zach to a lesser woman.

But from the murky water that was my mind splashed a sudden awareness where a minute before there had been only sorrow and jealousy. I had some trouble with this awareness, a kind of reluctance, denying it as absurd at first, considering it again, denying, but when all was said and done, I came away knowing I had never loved Zach as more than a friend. He was a safe friend, one I could trust not to hurt me in the same way my father must have hurt my mother: heartbreak so greedy, so devouring her only recourse had been to abandon me. Oddly enough, I found this realization—with its air of tragedy—calming, somewhat heartening. I may never have Zach as a lover, but always,
always
he would be my friend.

I looked at Solo, who walked close by, frowning and looking down at the sidewalk. He glanced over at me, his dark eyes heavy and discerning.

“Why didn’t you tell me I only loved Zach as a friend?”

“Some things need to be seen for what they are, not heard,” he said. “It’s a good thing.”

“A good thing,” I repeated, meaning it.

“Plus, the timing is right. Life is all about timing.”

I attempted to look shocked, though I wasn’t. I knew what—who—he meant. “No, absolutely not. I’m putting one foot forward, not jumping off the cliff with a man like Talon.”