Vanessa Gray Bartal - Lacy Steele 07 - Icy Grip of Murder (11 page)

“So, what now?” Lacy asked.

“Nothing tonight. I need to think,
and we need to get him home before he turns into a
copsicle
,”
Michael said. He helped peel Jason out of the chair because his pants had
frozen to the seat. It was going to be a long walk to the car and an even
longer night.

Lacy would be glad when the whole
ordeal was over and they were back home. No one would be gladder than Jason,
though. His frozen pants were so stiff that couldn’t bend his legs. He waddled
like a bowlegged penguin, and it was a mile to the car.

They let themselves into the
bungalow with the key the Swensons had given them. Lacy thought it was awfully
generous and trusting that they gave two strangers and Michael unlimited access
to their house. She wondered who else had a key. Did any of the kids they used
to care for take advantage of the kindness or was there some kind of unwritten
code that forbade it? Michael seemed to have a lot of respect for the duo,
though not a great amount of affection. It was clear to her that he liked them,
maybe even loved them, but didn’t see them as surrogate parents.

She ran a hot bath for Jason who
didn’t protest over the
girliness
of it for once.
While he was defrosting in the hot water, she took his clothes and washed them,
glad that the washer/dryer were in the basement. There was little chance of
waking their hosts since the noise was so far from their room. Since Jason’s
items made such a small load, she tossed in some of her clothes and Michael’s
too. After that she made a pot of decaffeinated coffee. In addition to paying
Len and Linda for their hospitality, she vowed to do something else. She didn’t
know what now, but she would find something. Perhaps she could find out what
their critical needs were and start there. At the very least she could buy more
laundry detergent and coffee to restock what she was now using.

Michael came into the kitchen and
captured a mug of coffee. He looked weary and distracted. Lacy knew he had a
serious side, of course, but she was used to seeing him as the easygoing friend
she had come to know. The sight of his frown was disturbing. “It’s going to be
okay,” she reassured him. “They’re going to drop the charges against you.”

“For how long?” Michael said. He
sat at the kitchen table. Lacy pulled out the chair and sat beside him.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that right now they see
Jenny’s death as a suicide. But how long will it take them to reach another
conclusion? Some day some cop with too much time on his hands or an axe to
grind is going to look at her case and see some discrepancy. They’re going to
rule it a homicide, and then they’re going to come after me. Again. I don’t
want to spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder.”

“What are you saying?” Jason asked
as he wobbled into the kitchen wrapped in a blanket.

“I’m saying that I need to try to
figure out who killed Jenny. And I’m begging you to not let that blanket drop.”

Jason sat. Lacy poured him a cup of
coffee and set the cream and sugar within reach. She and Michael took it black.

“You guys should go,” Michael added.
“You’ve done enough. The charges will be gone tomorrow, and I can move around
freely.”

“While Jenny’s killer sits and
waits for you to stumble onto him?” Jason said after a sip of coffee. “What do
you think his reaction will be?”

“I can handle myself,” Michael
said.

“So could Jenny, from all reports.
Lacy will go home tomorrow. I’ll stay.”

“Lacy will not go home tomorrow,”
she said, pinning her hands on her hips.

“Woman, getting yourself into
danger was my whole argument against you coming here in the first place. Now we
know a killer is roaming loose, and you shouldn’t be here.”

“None of us should be here, and you
can’t tell me what to do,” she said.

“You guys are good at fighting in
whispers,” Michael observed. “It’s like you’re yelling, but quietly. Like angry
mice.”

Jason changed tactics and wiped the
frustration from his features, to be replaced by a soft, pleading expression.
“Lacy, baby, please.”

Lacy wasn’t fooled. He knew her
vulnerabilities. It was hard to refuse him when he looked like that, especially
shivering and wrapped in a blanket, but she was determined. “Jason, baby, no,”
she said.

“How’d you get to be so stubborn,
woman?” he asked.

“I learned by watching you,” she
said. She refilled everyone’s coffee and sat down.

“I’m never going to be able to
sleep tonight,” Michael said. “I keep seeing…” He broke off, but they didn’t
need him to continue. He kept seeing Jenny swinging from a tree. Even though
she had put him through a lot, they had once meant something to each other.

“I saw some chamomile tea in the
cupboard. Want me to make you some? My grandma swears by it,” Lacy said.

“No, thanks. What I really need is
a distraction, something compelling enough to take my mind off of everything
else,” Michael said.

“Like what?” Jason said.

Michael smiled.

“Oh, no, not that,” Jason said.

Michael nodded.

“I thought it burned,” Jason said.

“I don’t think it can. I found it
when we went back to get your clothes,” Michael said. He reached inside his
shirt and withdrew the manila envelope containing Pearl’s play.

“Isn’t there something else we
could play that would be more fun? Russian roulette, maybe,” Jason suggested.

“No, it has to be this. Let’s begin
where we left off and this time I think we should all read parts,” Michael
said. “Lacy, you can be Dolly McGee and Lucy Stone. She was the red-haired
harlot, in case you’ve forgotten.”

“I think I remember, thank you,”
Lacy said.

“Jason, you can be Jesse Canticle,
the burly cop with an impressive crop of chest hair,” Michael said.

“Who will you be?” Jason asked.

“Everyone else,” Michael said. “I
believe we begin with you, Jesse.”

“’I won’t leave you in that jail,
Dolly. Especially not for a crime you didn’t commit. Even though you’ve already
been de-loused.’”

“’But, Jesse Canticle, what about
your career? You can’t risk that for me,’” Lacy/Dolly said.

“’I can, and I will. There will be
other jobs. I could become a cowboy.
Or an assassin.
Or I could open a bowling alley. But there won’t be other women like you,
Dolly.’”

“And here it says for you two to
kiss,” Michael said.

“I want to do that part, to keep it
realistic,” Lacy said.

“I second that,” Jason said.

“I’m the director here, and I vote
we move along,” Michael said.

“But how will I get properly get
into character if I don’t twine my fingers in his ‘glorious mane of chest
hair’?” Lacy asked.

“Fake it,” Michael said. “Moving
along.”

“’That was some kiss, Dolly. You’re
all woman.’”

“’Was there ever any doubt? Because
a lot of women grow facial hair.’”

“’Never a doubt in my mind. Let’s
get you out of here.’”

“Here is where he ties the jail window
to his car and pulls the bars out, thus allowing Dolly a space to crawl free,”
Michael said.

“That doesn’t even make sense,”
Jason said. “First of all, there are no windows facing the street. Second, that
would never work. You would need a tank and an industrial-grade chain.”

“Let me get this straight: the
logistics of the jailbreak are more disturbing to you than the repeated
references to the pelt of fur curling over your
pecs
?”
Michael said.

“No, I’m simply choosing to dwell
on what my mind can accept. Anything else makes my brain liquefy and I lose
focus,” Jason said. “I’ve been self-protectively spaced out for most of this
play.”

Lacy changed the clothes from the
washer to the dryer and they continued reading Pearl’s play until the clothes
were finished. By then they were yawning and their blinks were growing too
frequent to concentrate on the play.

Michael carried the completed laundry
upstairs for her. They folded it at the kitchen table while Jason got dressed
in his long underwear. Though she was exhausted, Lacy was dreading the coming
nighttime sweathouse ritual. She put on her shorts and t-shirt and lay on top
of the blankets, but as soon as Jason clutched her in his iron grasp, she
started to overheat.

Suddenly she couldn’t take anymore.
She reached out and shoved at his chest. “You have to let me go,” she said.

“You don’t want to cuddle?” he
asked. He propped himself on his elbow, his expression as bewildered as his
tone.

“My endocrine system can’t take
it.”

“Huh?”

“I’m sweltering, Jason. I’ve
sweated so much that I’ve probably passed some sort of Iroquois rite of passage
and should be assigned a spirit animal as my guide through life.’”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” he said.

“It’s not your fault. Maybe it’s
the long underwear or maybe it’s just me. Whatever the reason, I can’t take it
anymore. My tongue is starting to swell from dehydration.”

“Okay. No big deal.” He rolled over
and faced the wall. Everything Lacy said was true, but she still felt guilty,
as if she had hurt his feelings or, worse, rejected him. Tentatively, she faced
him and stretched her arm over his waist.

“I could cuddle you,” she said.

“
Mmkay
,”
he said. He attempted to pat her hand but was so sleepy he missed and patted
his chest instead. He was already falling asleep, proving that his hurt
feelings were all in her head.

Her hand eased up to the opening of
his shirt, and he jolted awake. “What are you doing?”

“Making sure there’s no man fur
there,” she said.

“You know I don’t have chest hair.
That’s a figment of Pearl’s twisted imagination, along with everything else.”

“Just checking. It seemed so real
when we were reading the play.”

He realized she was teasing him and
lay back down. “Jesse Canticle is a moron. Why would anyone go for Dolly with
Lucy Stone, the red-haired strumpet, nearby?” He reached around and pinched
her.

“Maybe because Dolly can shoot a
loaded Uzi from a moving vehicle and hit her target every time,” Lacy
suggested.

“Don’t get me started,” Jason said,
yawning. A few minutes later, they were asleep.

The next morning when they stumbled
into the kitchen, Len and Linda were still there having their coffee.

“You kids were out late last
night,” Linda commented.

“We found Jenny,” Michael said. He
eased into a chair looking worse for wear after the night. Lacy wondered how
much he had actually slept.

Linda stared at him, her lashes
fluttering in surprise. “You did?”

“Yes, unfortunately she’s dead.”

A small cry emerged from Linda’s
throat. Lacy couldn’t tell if it was remorse or alarm. She reached for Len’s
hand. He clutched it with one hand and the edge of the table with his free
hand.

“Dead?” Len wheezed.

“Yes,” Michael said, looking at the
older couple in confusion. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to put it so blatantly. I
was under the impression that, well…”

Lacy wondered if he was going to
say he thought Len and Linda didn’t care for Jenny. By the way they spoke of
her, she had thought the same thing.

“It’s always hard when we get bad
news about one of the kids,” Linda said, dabbing ineffectually at her eyes.
Soon her gentle weeping turned to wracking sobs. “Excuse me,” she said and fled
the room.

“Me, too,” Len said. He slowly got
to his feet and followed his wife to their room.

“It’s a good day when I can stick
my foot in it before breakfast,” Michael said.

“That seemed like an extreme
reaction to the death of someone already presumed dead, plus I didn’t get the
feeling that they liked her all that much,” Jason said.

“Maybe after someone is in your
care you’re always vested in them,” Lacy said.

“I guess it’s a good thing we’re
going to vacate the house today. Give them time to heal,” Jason said. “And speaking
of vacating the house, I assume we’re going to talk to Flea and figure out his
whereabouts last night.”

“He’s the most obvious place to
start since she was found at his workplace,” Michael said.

“Why do I sense a ‘but’ coming?”
Lacy asked.

“But I don’t want to come at him
full throttle this time, at least not at first,” Michael said.

“What did you have in mind?” Jason
asked, his tone wary.

“We need to do some recon work, see
if we can get something on him. If we present him with incontrovertible evidence,
then he’ll be more likely to come clean,” Michael said.

“I may not be on duty, but I cannot
participate in illegal activity,” Jason reminded him.

“Who asked you to?” Michael said.

“And Lacy won’t, either,” Jason
added.

Lacy started to protest, but he cut
her off. “The price you pay for having a boyfriend who’s a cop is that you’re
no longer allowed to break and enter places. Deal with it.”

“Yes, because I did it so much
before we started dating,” she said.

“Once was enough.”

“I can do it on my own,” Michael
said. “I’ve been doing it since I was tall enough to reach the handle.”

Jason put his fingers in his ears
to plug them.

“Give me the keys,” Michael said,
holding his palm to Lacy.

“You’re not going alone,” Lacy
said.

“Lacy,” Jason said.

“Jason and I will go along and
conveniently look the other way while you run your errands,” Lacy said.

“Driving the getaway car is still a
crime,” Jason said.

“I’ll drive,” Lacy said.

“Still a crime,” Jason said.

“You said I couldn’t break and
enter. You didn’t say anything about driving the getaway car,” Lacy said.

“Is everyone’s dating relationship
an ethical minefield?” he mused.

“No, just people who date boy
scouts,” Michael said. “Let’s go. We’ll grab something to eat along the way.”

“If I’m going to have to look the
other way while a felony is being committed, then I want doughnuts. And maybe a
kringle
,” Jason said.

“Let’s get a dozen
kringles
. Then maybe Lacy and I can actually eat some,”
Michael said.

“Real men have curves,” Jason said.

“By the end of this trip, you might
be the realest man I’ve ever known,”
Michael
said.