Muzzled (9 page)

All I wanted to do was go home.

9

So much for going home…

The basic wooden bench, splintered from years of crudely written messages, jabbed like a branding iron into the soft flesh at the back of my legs. Squirming offered no relief. I slid a furtive glance to the metal bunks cemented into the wall at the rear of the cell. Flinched at the sight of thin unwelcome mattresses, even thinner blankets and the lip curling scent of eau-de-urine emanating from one of its snoring occupants. And when a six foot transvestite, decked out in an iridescent green and purple mini-dress that showcased his hairy legs and frilly knickers, leaned over and burped his vomit-enhanced breath in my face—I decided I might as well bang my head against the prison bars until I passed out.

Reporting Jack Lantana’s murder to Detective Inspector Adams was a big mistake. Think Tyrannosaurus Rex big. I should have contacted a nice polite uniformed constable and left the Colombo look-alike to get on with whatever he’d been doing before I disturbed him. Probably torturing some sweet old Granny he’d caught smoking pot to relieve the pain of her arthritis.

It took four rangers from the local dog-pound, each armed with a tranquilizer gun, to capture and remove the Cujos. But the moment they’d settled the dogs in the RSPCA vehicle, DI Adams acted. Through the smashed window of the lounge we heard Adams shouting instructions to his back-up team before hauling off and breaking down the front door.

“We must stop meeting like this,” Tanya told him, saluting his hurried arrival with a can of VB beer—her sixth—as we met him on the other side of the broken door. He scowled, pushed past us and stomped toward the kitchen. We followed. When he reached the industrial sized refrigerator his face grew grim. One look inside and Adams promptly radioed in something called a Code 503: ‘
White Caucasian—60 to 65 years of age—around 85 kilos—probable cause of death, several blows to the head with a blunt instrument.’

Within minutes, a team of CIB detectives and uniformed police arrived on the scene. While they spread their tentacles into every crack of Lantana’s house, DI Adams produced two sets of police-issue handcuffs and, reading us our rights, fastened them around our wrists.

End result—after an hour long interrogation, Tanya and I were incarcerated in a holding cell at our local police station, awaiting bail.

I cringed as Burping Bertha belched in my face again. My stomach did a back flip and I instinctively screwed my nose and turned my head away. That’s when Bertha’s mate, a short fat guy with a small hairy patch just below his bottom lip and tats decorating every exposed body part, shadow-boxed in front of me—all the better to display his flopping belly and active tattoos. That was okay until he leaned into me, face so close his broken nose almost touched mine.

“Reckon ya too good for me and me mate, eh?” Tat Guy said, thin lips twisting in a sneer. “Think ya somethin’ special, hey, bitch?”

I was dead meat. No—I was maggoty dead meat. I flattened my shoulders against the rough gray wall behind me until every crevice poked through my sweater. A doomed fly eying a raised can of Mortein spray.

“Oh, no,” I squeaked. “Not me
.
I’m definitely not special. I’m just an un-special nobody.”

Tat Guy made a noise like a constipated vacuum cleaner and spat on the floor, barely missing my one hundred dollar Adidas sneakers, bought at a 50% off sale. “Because if ya do, bitch, I’ll have to smash ya teeth through the back of ya head.” He grabbed me by the neck of my sweater. “Unnerstand?”

“Understand? Oh, yes. I understand,” I gasped through partially closed off airways. “This un-special nobody understands perfectly.”

Tanya, who’d been slumped on the bench beside me, singing something from West Side Story and hiccupping when she forgot the words, staggered to her feet. “Hey, you! Porky! Leave my best friend alone.” Bottom lip protruding, she shoved Tat Guy in the chest, her ten pretty pink lacquered nails digging into his sweaty exposed skin.

Holy catfish
! What was Tanya doing? Committing suicide? Had sculling six cans of booze in ten minutes robbed her of all rational thought?

I took a shuddering breath as Tat Guy’s hold on my sweater loosened. And just when I’d resolved to break free and insert myself between Tanya and the two hundred pound porker, endure the punch that was surely coming her way, Burping Bertha reached out, his ham sized fist closing gently around Tanya’s small hands. “
Dahling
,” Bertha gushed. “You
have
to tell me the name of your nail polish. It’s
deevine
. Where did you get it?”

Tanya stopped in mid shove. “Oh this?” she said admiring her nails like a princess admiring the Crown Jewels. “This is
Honeymoon Orgasm
in hot-pink. You can pick it up from our Virginia store,
The Luv Bug
. It’s on sale this week for $8.99 a bottle.”

“You work at
The Luv Bug
?” Bertha’s big, craggy, heavily made up face lit up and his voice dropped ten octaves until he sounded like a bear in man’s clothing. “I thought I’d seen you somewhere before. My cousin, Louie and I go there often.” Bertha turned to his cousin and casually peeled the man’s fingers from the neck of my sweater, allowing air to infiltrate my lungs again. “Louie, this gorgeous gal works at
The Luv Bug
. You know, that fuck-me shop where we came across those fuck-me vibrator jock straps.”

Louie grinned and I swear he’d either filed his canine teeth with a rasp or he was part Vampire. “Oooh, yeah,” he drawled. “And what about that blow up doll we found there? Screamed ’er ’ead off every time we stroked ’er tits?”

“
And
the leather whip with the electrodes?”

Oh…my…God
.

I slumped back onto the bench, closed my eyes and let the talk of vibrating jock straps, orgasmic blow up dolls, pink handcuffs, and battery-charged whips pass right over my head.

How did I get myself into these predicaments? Why did I keep finding dead bodies? I sighed. All I wanted from life was to train enough winners to keep the bank manager from my door, watch soppy videos on the lounge with my dogs and spend time having hot sex with Ben.

I opened my eyes and blinked. I must be hallucinating. Thinking of Ben must have magically granted my wish. For there, leaning against the wall on the other side of the bars was my
One-Phone-Call
. A flutter of pleasure at the sight of his hurriedly pulled on jeans and unbuttoned shirt made me smile. He didn’t smile back. In fact the crease between his eyes told me he was not especially pleased to see me.

“Ben?”

“That’s me.”

Hmm…definitely pissed off.

I let out a sigh and pushed up from the hard bench. Okay, I guess when you’re woken at one in the morning by an almost incoherent phone call and it’s your girlfriend begging you to drive to the police station to bail her out, it’s enough to make you a little testy. Probably one of those random situations not covered in the latest Dating rule-book. Especially when said incoherent girlfriend confesses she’s discovered a dead body—the second in the past six weeks. Oh yeah—I forgot—and once again she’s a murder suspect.

“Thanks for coming.” I ran the tip of my tongue over my dry lips and swallowed. “Did I wake you, babe?”

Ben rolled his eyes then glared at Tanya who was still listing all the new products due to come into the store over the next couple of weeks. “If I can drag you and Ms. Sexpert away from your new friends,” he growled, “I’m here to bail you out.”

A uniformed sergeant stepped forward and after producing a long black key he called our names and opened the cell door.

Hallelujah and thank God for long black cell-door keys!

Not waiting for Tanya, I rushed at Ben and engulfed him in a hug. I was so pleased to see his familiar face I could have eaten him.

He didn’t respond.

Confused, I let my arms drop to my sides and frowned. Geez, I’d hugged more receptive telegraph poles.

A tic in Ben’s jaw twitched and his dark accusing eyes met mine. “We talked about this, Kat,” he said, hands still clamped in his jeans pockets. “I said not to go to Lantana’s house alone.”

“But I didn’t.” I bleated.

“I said I’d come with you.”

So—
that’s
what was up Ben’s nose. Surely he couldn’t be jealous of me finding a dead body. He could take over that honor any day. “Ben, before I left I rang you at home and there was no answer.”

“Well, you should—”

“
And
your mobile was switched off.”

He shook his head, his expression clearly telling me what he thought of my intelligence. “So, you went anyway. And not in the daylight—oh, no—you had to go visit a potential killer at night.”

“I had Tanya with me.”

“Tanya?” His rolling eyes were becoming a bit of a cliché.

“And if the dogs hadn’t chased us we wouldn’t have gone inside.” I scowled back at him.

Who’d stolen my gorgeous laid-back boyfriend and substituted this cold snarly clone? If this was how he was going to act when he was annoyed, I’d rather we’d just stayed mates. I needed a hug. A loving hug. A hug to melt the ice in my chest and chase away the nightmares.

I tried again. “Ben…it was awful. There was this dead guy and—and he was scrunched up in the refrigerator and…”

Without warning the image of Jack Lantana, head bashed until it didn’t resemble a human head anymore, flashed across my eyes. I could feel a tremor starting in my legs and travelling up my body. I reached for Ben’s coat sleeve and clung on to stop myself from sinking to the floor. “And—and he had ice all over him and there was blood.” I closed my eyes but the picture wouldn’t go away. “And the back of his head was all staved in—and I could see…”

I broke off, unable to describe the way Jack Lantana’s brains, white and slimy and lifeless, poked out of his skull.

Ben’s arms snaked around my body and crushed me hard up against his chest. “I’m sorry, babe. You scared me shitless. Come here.” His body was warm and welcoming and when he bent and kissed me on the top of my head, I let out a sigh. “It’s all over, Kat,” he promised. “You’re safe now.”

“Sorry to get you out of bed,” I mumbled into the comfort of his jacket.

He chuckled and the sound of his laugh warmed me further. “I must admit I’d rather you got me
into
bed.”

I snuggled closer. Benjamin Taylor smelled of damp dogs, fresh air and sunshine on rich damp earth.

10

What a relief to be home. To be welcomed at the front door by Tater, Lucky and Stella, all vying for the first lick of whatever part of my skin they could reach. I made my way through the sea of tap dancing fur on legs, routed a jar of tiny teddy biscuits from the pantry and distributed two teddies to each open mouth. The tap dancing didn’t stop so I figured if I didn’t let my welcome committee into the back yard pretty damn quick, we’d be knee deep in puddles.

“No noise, mind,” I warned the dogs as they fell over each other in their eagerness to rush through the open door, “or you’ll set the mob off in the kennel house.”

Dogs attended to, I hurried into the kitchen. After filling the electric jug I reached into the cupboard over the sink and pulled down an economy sized tin of Nescafe. Caffeine—the drug of the gods.

Without a gallon of it Tanya was likely to pass out in the next five minutes.

Although it was 2 am, a time when ghosts supposedly roam the earth—which is probably why it’s also a good time to be in bed, asleep—Ben, Tanya, and I decided to talk first and sleep later. After all, it’s not every day you discover a dead body, your brain gets chewed up by a clichéd
good-cop-bad-cop
routine, and you become intimate with the occupants of a police station’s holding cell.

When the jug boiled I snagged a colorful Simpson’s mug, the largest on my black metal cup tree, and placed it on the laminated counter top. Tanya wasn’t in great shape. After drinking six cans of beer in ten minutes, in the name of stress relief—her words not mine—was it any wonder? So, to join in our conversation on any useful level she required black coffee.

A bucketful of the stuff.

Looking half his age with sleep tousled hair and hastily dragged on clothes, Ben perched on the edge of a kitchen stool. Tanya, on the other hand reminded me of what Tater dragged in after he’d been on a mouse hunt. Head in her hands and an I-don’t-feel-so-good expression on her slightly green face, she slumped in a chair, woebegone and limp. She groaned. “Oh God, why do I do this to myself?”

“Beats me,” I said spooning coffee and sugar into a mug. “But please, if you’re going to puke, the bathroom’s down the hall second on the left.”

Tanya flicked me a this-is-so-not-a-joke, scowl. “I know where your damn bathroom is, Katrina.”

“Uh-uh…no fighting, ladies.” Ben stood up and, running a hand through his already spiky hair, turned to me. “Ready with that medication?”

“Yep. Coffee number one coming up.” I snapped one hand forward like a theatre nurse assisting a doctor performing surgery. Ben wrapped his fingers around the half-filled Simpson’s mug and passed it on to Tanya.