Authors: Kathy LaMee
Tansy Taylor (7 page)
Chapter Seven
My alarm went off way to early in my opinion.
“Ugh, really? It cannot possibly time to get up.” I grumbled at my alarm clock hitting the snooze button. I kept my eyes closed and then realized, with some satisfaction that I indeed could stay in bed for a little bit longer than usual, since I had showered the night before. I hit the snooze three more times before I forced myself to get out of bed and get going.
Downstairs I grabbed the baggie of brownies and ran out the door. I would hit the drive-through at Starbucks for a triple venti americano on the way into work.
The day flew by at work and I was actually in a half way decent mood for once. Sure, most of the calls were from moody women who wanted to know the future of their love lives, and Mr. Dunkan totally yelled at me three times, but I felt like I had a mission in life; to find Buster’s killer and get Callie some closure. I wasn’t about to let my mundane job and idiot boss ruin my mood. All day long I had the Mission Impossible theme song rambling through my head.
“Hey there!” A voice interrupted my happy thoughts.
“Geez Becca! You totally startled me! I was just getting my stuff together to leave. What’s up?” My heart skipped a beat as she brought me out of my own little world.
She came around and slunk into the extra chair in my meager cubicle. I was officially off thirty seconds ago but Becca had an hour left on her extended shift. “That’s what I want to know from you!” she whispered. “What happened to the hunk from the weekend? Have you guys hooked up or what? I totally have been swamped on calls and I had to miss lunch for the dentist today, but I am dying to know. You didn’t mention him yesterday.” She unwrapped a stick of gum and started chewing frantically. Y guess was that she had either decided to quit smoking again, or she had been hitting the Mountain Dew a little hard this afternoon.
I shrugged. “I haven’t seen him. Callie and I’ve been working on trying to figure out what happened to her boyfriend.” I packed my water bottle and my reusable lunch sack into my backpack.
“You are being careful, right? I’m not sure if it is safe to be running around investigating what happened to someone who was most likely murdered.” She put her hands out on my shoulders.
I took her hands off my shoulders and placed them back in her lap. “We’re being careful! We have been keeping it on the down low. I have my disguise right here!” I waved my overstuffed recycled Nordstrom’s bag her direction.
“Whoa! What is that smell?” She plugged up her nose and held up her hand.
“Oh good!” I smiled and took a quick whiff. “They are getting a bit ripe, aren’t they? I was hoping they would. These are my homeless woman clothes and they are covered in some unidentified car gunk and dumpster juice, I think.”
“That is absolutely disgusting! Why on earth would you want to wear those?” She edged back toward the cubicle opening, her nose still plugged.
“Duh, so that I am in disguise and not only look like a homeless woman but smell like I’ve been out on the streets too. Yesterday I smelled a little bit too much like shampoo to truly be convincing.”
Becca rolled her eyes and disappeared back out of my cubicle; slithering almost, back to hers so as to avoid Mr. Dunkan’s all-seeing eye. I logged off my computer, grabbed my smelly bag and headed to the ladies room.
Once I had changed into my foul disguise, and yes, it was getting nice and ripe, I smeared a bit of charcoal on my chin and face and teased my hair up again and stuck a knitted cap on for added effect. I peeked out the bathroom door and slunk out the side door. I was meeting Callie at Dixie’s so that she could be my back up down at the dealership.
“Okay, so what do we know so far?” Callie asked. We were in my car, windows rolled down, taking stock of what we knew about Buster’s disappearance. Callie had her nose plugged, and was glancing furtively at my bag in the back seat.
“First, we know that Mr. Big is doing what appears to be some shady business with a Russian dude named Popov.” I said.
“Second, we know that they are meeting up at the docks on Saturday night for more of their shady business.” Three, I thought to myself, we know that Clucky most likely saw or heard something when Buster was killed or kidnapped judging from what he was saying last night when I left.
Callie looked at me. “Is that all we have so far? It seemed like so much more last night.”
“Don’t worry. I am sure that we will figure out some more this afternoon. There are others that will be around that I can check out.” And I will be able to have Buster get close to whoever I think might have something interesting to say, I thought.
“I did want to ask you about some files. I heard those guys last night say something about stolen files or something. It sounded like whoever they ‘took care of’ might have been the one who had it. Since Buster is missing, it’s most likely that they were talking about him.” I asked.
Callie looked seriously contemplative. “I don’t think Buster ever mentioned anything. I don’t remember seeing any discs or flash drives or anything. It would have been out of place since he usually just listened to music and stuff on his computer or his phone. I’ll keep thinking about it though-maybe there was something.” I nodded.
We pulled onto the main drag that would take us past the dealership, but found that the road was blocked off with multiple emergency vehicles, including what appeared to be the coroner’s truck.
“I think they’re at the dealership!” Callie said. We ogled the scene until someone less interested honked, startling Callie into action. She hedged her car over as close as she could to the curb so that Mr. Anxious behind could go by.
“I think you’re right. Is that a body being loaded into the coroner’s wagon?” She stepped on the brakes-abruptly halting our progress toward the scene.
Callie nodded. “That sure looks like a body bag on that stretcher. What if it’s Buster?” We both sat silently until another loud horn from behind startled us into action, this time it was a large public bus. Callie pulled down a side street and over to the curb.
“We have to figure out what happened. I have to know if it was him.” She was barely stopped when she flung her door open and attempt to alight from the car “Oomph!” She cursed under her breath as she reached down and fumbled her seatbelt off. I reached out to try and stop her.
“Callie! I can’t go over there looking like this! The police might want to question us and then what are we going to say. My cover will be blown.” I felt like pouting. I totally wanted to go over and see what was going on.
“I can go over and get the low down. I’ll just say that I was driving by and saw all the police and wanted to make sure that everybody was okay since I know people at the dealership. That doesn’t sound too far fetched and it’s actually the truth.”
“I hate to admit it, but that sounds like a good idea. I guess I’ll just hang out here at the park and maybe wander over to the back of the car lot. There’s a little alley that I can sit in and try and hear some of what’s going on in the back without causing too much suspicion. Take your walkie-talkie and call me if you need me to cause a diversion or something.”
Callie nodded and pulled her face in a grim line as she made her way across the street toward the front of the dealership.
I climbed out of the car and wandered across the street to the park. I scanned the scene and noticed a few kids and parents hanging out by the playground, but only a few others. One was a tall smartly dressed who I figured for a plain clothes detective, out asking questions of the locals. I wandered over closer to where he was to see if I could pick up anything useful. He turned and looked my direction. I tried to look away, but he caught my eye and started to wander towards me. Crap, I was made.
“Hey there!” I waddled away as fast as I could, but my layers of skirts made it difficult. “Stop! I need to ask you a couple of questions!”
I slowed down to a walk since I knew I would never outrun him in my getup; may as well play along. No need to tell him my real name, after all, I was sure that Clucky would never reveal his true name to a cop.
“Whadya want?” I cackled back over my shoulder and then tripped on my skirt. Thump! I landed on the grass in a heap.
The officer caught up to me. “You okay? Have you been drinking?” He asked, and held out his hand to help me up. “Whoa!” He turned his head in what appeared to be an effort to try and escape my smell without actually offending me. I let go of his hand and grabbed my bag off the ground and started rifling through it, like I had seen so many of the homeless do.
“Were you hanging out in the park this afternoon?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Why should I tell you?” I gave him a suspicious eye, taking in the fact that he was a very nice looking detective. He was dressed in a crisp white shirt and pressed gray slacks-no wonder he was so quick to let go of me. He was an obvious neat freak.
“Well, miss…. Oh, can I get your name?” He had whipped out a little leather bound steno pad and clicked his pen. It was poised just millimeters above the paper, obviously ready to take some notes. Very retro detective, I thought. Crap, what was my name.
“Um, my name? Oh, well, it’s Cruella.” Damn. I sucked at this under cover stuff. I really needed to start working on my back stories, or at least on my aliases. The officer eyed me suspiciously. He had these smart detective eyes, you know, the ones that make you feel like you’d confess to stealing a piece of bubble gum when you were three. Or, I thought, the kind that would make you confess what you wanted to do once he got you alone. I felt a slight blush creep up from my shirt collar and I quickly looked back in my bag. I glanced back up at him nervously and was met with his sharp green eyes and a slight frown.
“You got a problem with my name?” I argued back, taking a step toward him and waggling my finger. Huh, these fingerless gloves really help tie the whole ensemble together “What’s your name, detective, hmm?” I gave them anther wangle in his direction.
“Oh, sorry, it’s Detective Max Smith.” I was sure that Detective Smith was usually more professional and didn’t forget to give his name to a potential witness. I had obviously thrown him off his game, probably a result of my foul odor.
“Well, that’s original, isn’t it, Detective Smith.” I snickered, trying to sound at least a bit on the batty side. I gave a cackle for good measure and started to wander off toward the back alley and the dealership.
“Wait, uh, Ms. Cruella, you shouldn’t go over there!” He started after me.
I turned. “Why the heck not Detective? That’s the way I always go to get back to the mission. I got to get me some supper before it’s over.” I had no idea if there was even a mission let alone what the hours were and my only hope was that he didn’t either. A look of confusion came over him. Crap, he obviously knew more about the area than I did.
“What mission are you headed to?” His eyes narrowed.
“Byah!” I shouted and threw my arms into the air and started running back across the park in the direction I had come from. I added some cackling and crazy talk for some added affect. Once I was a good fifty yards away I turned back and saw that Detective Smith was still there, scratching his head and looking even more befuddled. I smiled. Finally, my acting skills were working.
Damn, I had successfully run away from the dealership, which was not the plan. How was I going to find out what was going on over there? I headed back toward the car; hopefully Callie had gotten further than I did in trying to figure out what was going on.
I stood outside the car, I could barely stand my own smell and there was no way I was going to climb into an enclosed space and have to endure it. I tried my best not to look too suspicious.
“Hey there.” A familiar voice said.
“Ack!” I spun around, “What the heck you tryin’ to do? Give me a heart attack Detective? Are you following me? What d’ya want?” I shrank back and glanced around nervously. This backfired, since I bumped right back into a prickly bush which made my jump-right into Smith.
“Whoa! You need to stay back a bit from me, okay?” He raised his hands to deflect my sudden lunge.
“Now, why are you lurking over here by this car? You’re not planning on causing any trouble are you?” The detective had a wary look about him and I wasn’t about ready to get hauled downtown for whatever reason he could think up. I stood there, silent, with my arms crossed over my chest.
“Are you trying to see what’s going on over there?” He asked, a bit conspiratorially.
“Ah, you caught me.” I said, dropping my hands and my head. I shuffled my feet and looked over toward the dealership. “My friend Buddy usually hangs out over there, gets any leftover doughnuts from the sales meetings, you know. He likes to share. I don’t wanna get involved in any po-lice business or nothing, just wanted a doughnut.” I kicked at the ground in front of me.
Detective Smith put away his notepad. “Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I doubt that Buddy is getting any doughnuts today. There’s a murder investigation going on, so no one’s going to be coming or going from Mr. Big’s for a at least an hour or so.”
“It’s not Buddy that’s dead is it?” I stepped in close to Smith, and he promptly backed into my car. “Oh no, I don’t think so.” He scurried around to the other side of the car. “So, I’m going to get back to interviewing any potential witnesses and you should move on to wherever it is you are headed.”
“Can you spare a bus fare? So I can get back downtown?” I figured I better finish up with some familiar street person behavior.
He signed and reached into his pocket for his wallet. “Here’s a five. You get a cup of coffee or something to eat with the difference.” He held it out and I snatched it out of his hand and stuffed it down my shirt into my bra.
“Thanks Detective, you’re the bomb diggity.” I gave him a double thumbs-up.
“No problem. Now get on your way, I’d hate for you to miss the last call for supper.”
I tottered off, waving my fingerless gloved hand at him. “Toodles!”
I glanced back over my shoulder and saw the good detective heading back over to the park shaking his head as he went. I turned the corner and spotted a Dairy Queen about a block away. Perfect spot to change my clothes and grab something to drink, compliments of Detective Smith, I chuckled.
I snuck into the ladies’ room through the back door and locked myself in a stall. Man, I stink. I held my breath and crawled out of the stinky clothes, swapping them for jeans and a hoodie that I had packed in the bag. I threw the foul clothes into a kitchen garbage bag and tied it off. I pulled my little makeup bag out and did a quick wash of my face and hands with a little moist towelette. I slathered on a ton of deodorant and gave myself a generous spray of body mist. A bit of moisturizer and mascara and I was almost presentable. I tried to pull a brush through my hair, but it was a losing battle. I settled for a hair band and a ball cap and then headed back out.
I ordered a mint chocolate chip Dilly bar for myself, and got a grape slushy for Callie. She struck me as a grape slushy type girl.
She was slumped against the car when I got back. I noticed Detective Smith was still in the park and he was looking towards us with interest.
“Hey there!” I said, coming up to the car.
“Oh, hey, where did you go?” she asked. “You changed out of the stinky clothes.”
“Ya, I kind of had to, I’ll explain in a minute.” I glanced back over at Detective Smith, he was honed in on our position now; this was not good. Not that I figured he would recognize me, but could I really be sure that he wouldn’t?
“Um, Callie, let’s get out of here.” I threw open the passenger door and crawled in pulling the brim of my hat low over my eyes.
“Oh, okay,” she shrugged and hopped in the car.
“Oh, grape!” she said, taking a sip off of her slushy cup. How’d you know it’s my favorite?”
“Psychic, remember?” I responded, tapping my head and smiling. She rolled her eyes in my direction and started the car. “So what did you learn?”
“Well, I’m positive that it wasn’t Buster. For one thing the body was huge.”
“Um, Callie, it could be that way from decomposition, you know?” I tried not to think about a decomposing Buster as I licked my Dilly bar.
“No, I thought of that, and then I saw someone carrying an evidence bag with a large black dress shoe in it. It looked like it was at least a size thirteen. Then they unzipped the end of the bag and compared it to the socked foot inside. The socks were black too. Buster always wore sneakers and white tube socks to work, so I’m positive that the body in that bag was not him.”
“So, you think it was somebody from the dealership then?”
“I’m not sure. I suppose that it could be. I saw Ronnie and Mr. Big and a few others we met the other day.” She scrunched up her face. “Um, oh! And I saw Jimbo and Johnny too.”
“Well, that’s about everybody that we talked to the other day. I wonder who it could be.” I sat back and contemplated the limited options as we made our escape from Smith, who I noticed was watching us leave.
“So why are we in such a big hurry?” Callie took a long slurp out of her slushie cup and then smacked her forehead.
“Brain freeze?” I asked. “You need to take it slow with the slushie my friend. We are in a hurry because there was a detective headed our way. I’d already talked to him while incognito and was afraid that he might put two and two together. I should hope he wouldn’t, seeing as I was quite stinky and disgusting, but, I did have the same old Nordstrom’s bag. So, if he was much of a detective he may have pieced it together, especially if I had to talk and he recognized my voice as the same pathetic liar that he met only minutes before under the name of Cruella.” I was totally rambling now and my ice cream was melting. I took a breath and slurped around the edges of the chocolate coating. Tasty green minty ice cream, yum, one of my all time favorites, I thought. How can one go wrong with chocolate and mint?
“Cruella? Is that what you came up with for a name?” Callie snorted. “Who’s named Cruella? Besides the obvious Disney Dalmatian destroyer?”
I gave her a fake scowl. “You can stop laughing. I couldn’t think of a good name. Besides,” I shrugged, “I think it’s a pretty creative street name. I could totally see some mean ass homeless woman being named Cruella.” I licked my ice cream and maybe my wounded pride a bit too.
“Okay, but I can’t see you being mean ass enough to be named Cruella. Were you rude to him? Hit him with your Nordy bag? Anything like that to live up to the name?” She asked.
“I couldn’t hit him! I could get drug down to the station for assaulting an officer! I did act crazy and cackle at him. Besides, how is he to know that I’m that much of a badass? He doesn’t, that’s what! We just met, so there is no instant expectation. For all he knows I got the name because I like to wear polka dot fake fur!”
“Point taken. So, he was pretty cute. We should go back then, so that he can get to know the real you.” She put her blinker on, like she was actually going to head back.
“No!” I yelped. “I do not need a man in my life right now! Do not play matchmaker, it won’t end well. I am a walking nightmare when it comes to men. The ones I date always end up having some sort of weird fetish or some other skeleton in their closet.”
“Ooh, sounds interesting. Do tell more!” She flipped her signal off and continued on.
I stuck my tongue out at her. “Not now, maybe over drinks sometime. We have serious work to do. Plus he wasn’t really my type; a little to tall and a neat freak.” I paused a minute to finish off my ice cream and glanced over at my new friend. “You know, you seem to be doing a bit better today.”
She sighed and shrugged, giving a lopsided cross between a smile and a frown. “I know Buster would hate it if he knew I was brooding over his death. Don’t get me wrong, I feel like my heart has been sucked out of my body, stomped on and then tossed into a garbage disposal. There is no way that I’ll be over losing him anytime soon. But, I just want to capture a little bit of normalcy, you know? He was always so matter of fact about life and death. I think it is because he lost his parents when he was young. It gave him renewed appreciation for life and he always said you had to live in the moment. I just know he would hate it if I lived in a constant state of unhappiness.” She turned and looked out the window at the sunset and a saw her swipe a tear off her cheek. I was sure, having met Buster, that she was absolutely right.
The sky was painted with deep jewel tones. “What is it they say? ‘Red sky at night sailor’s delight’? I think this is a good omen for us. Maybe we’ll get some more answers tomorrow.” I smiled at her. She turned and smiled gently, her face lit by the soft back glow of the setting sun.
