Mother was crying. Even the nerves-of-steel Mrs. P looked a little shaken.
Shaking the last of the cobwebs away, I headed to the sliding door. Damn it! Not only was it unlocked, it had been left mockingly ajar! One white panel of the sheers rippled out into the wind. There were no tell-tale wet footprints. No muddy hand prints on the wall. And no water on floor this time, no little piece of greenery — heart-shaped or otherwise. I checked the lock. Of course, it wasn’t broken.
“How could it be?” Mother asked me, bewildered.
How could I answer her?
~*~
I made two calls. The first one, I made easily, to Dylan. He was at the Goosebump. I know I woke him up — that was evident by the groggy “‘Lo”. But his alertness was instantaneous upon hearing my voice and the panic I tried to keep from it. Dylan Foreman was pretty good with his own bullshit buster. I told him what had happened. He’d be right over. He’d throw on his Dylan Hardy security uniform and be there as quickly as he could. He didn’t bother to tell me not to worry. That would just be too damn condescending in the circumstances.
“Thanks, Dylan.”
“And Dix,” Dylan said, before he hung up. “One of my contacts came through with that information on Frankie Morrell. Appears he does have a thing for hookers — blue haired, sharp clawed, whip brandishing … you name it. He’s been picked up twice in the last year soliciting undercover female cops. And apparently, he has some pretty kinky tastes when it comes to the services he pays for.”
“How kinky?”
“You don’t want to know.”
That was all I needed to know.
That was going to break my mother’s heart.
But if Frankie was into assorted games with hookers, I wanted him nowhere near my mother. Not that I wanted him missing or dead. Just no-damned-where near my mother.
The second call I made reluctantly. Yes, I had to call Deputy Noel Almond. That was a hard pill to swallow. I didn’t mind waking him up. Hell, I was silently pleading please be asleep into the phone even as I dialed his cell. But I just didn’t want to ask for help from the bastard. But there was no way around it. He had to know about this crime. And while I had him on the phone, I filled him in on the new info on Frankie Morrell.
On the missing ring news, Noel seemed a little surprised. Heavy on the little. I know the guy is trained to hide emotion, but I’m trained to catch the flickers of it.
When I told Almond about Frankie’s fetish for floozies, all he said was, “Well, that’s interesting.” But he said it with absolutely no interest in his voice. Not a bit.
He’d known. Nutless bastard! “Perhaps your investigation of Morell’s disappearance should have been geared in that direction, rather than my mother’s?”
I heard the chuckle before the phone clicked dead.
~*~
When I told Dylan I thought I’d been drugged, he looked stricken, sick for a moment. Then just plain angry. I was fine I assured him, and though he didn’t go into some macho-male going to kick-me some ass mode I find so tiresome, clearly he would love to get his hands on whoever slipped me the sleeping aid.
Perhaps he would.
I’m not stupid. Well, not that stupid. Dylan’s concern and anger went beyond the typical employee/employer thing. Beyond ‘friends’. I knew it.
He made a quick trip into my mother’s before reporting to Big Eddie for work. He’d been painting, sorting tools, vacuuming like a madman under Big Eddie’s instruction. Clearly, Eddie Baskin was taking advantage of the perceived slow wit of Dylan Hardy and getting him to do a month’s worth of grunt work.
We had to admit it then, to Mother, that Dylan was one of the good guys, on our side trying to solve this case. Sheepishly, I had to admit it.
“Don’t hang that head too low, Dix,” Mother said. “I’ve known all along.”
Of course she had. This was my mother.
“I’ve seen the way you two look at each other,” she said.
“Ah, you should see them when they think they’re alone!” Mrs. P added.
Lovely.
There was another knock at the door.
Big Eddie was taken aback a moment when he walked into mother’s and saw Dylan there. Whereas I myself was taken aback to see Big Eddie. No one had called him. He had to know he wasn’t the least bit welcome. But as he walked in through the door, he was followed by Deputy Almond.
“What are you doing here, kid?” Big Eddie asked Dylan.
Instantly Dylan Foreman donned the Dylan Hardy face.
“Saw the door open here, Big Eddie,” he said.
“And you walked right in?”
“This nice lady,” (he pointed to me) “invited me in.”
Big Eddie grinned at me. “You look tired today, Dix,” he said. “Didn’t you sleep well?” He was baiting me. Clearly, clearly, he was doing everything he could to yank my chain. He was that confident. Had he slipped me the drug? My bets were on it.
“Slept like a baby, Eddie. But not nearly as well as I’ll sleep tonight.” I smiled at him. Yes, I was fishing for a reaction. And yep, I got it.
And I saw it — the slightest waver to his grin. His eyes slid over to Almond before they slid back to me. What did I have? Not much — suppositions. But I’d gotten what I wanted — I wanted to throw Eddie off the slightest little bit. But I felt it too. The niggling was there. Hormones, my butt!
While I was watching Big Eddie, Almond was watching us both. Carefully.
“Say, Deputy,” Mrs. P said. “Give me a—”
“What, Mrs. Presley?” He rolled his eyes and turned to her. “A seven letter word for castrated?”
Mrs. P gasped. “Do all you sheriff’s deputies talk such filth to little old ladies? What I was going to ask for was a boost up.”
He did a double take. “Excuse me?”
“I’m too short. And there’s something at the back of this safe.”
We all were there in an instant, elbowing for room.
With a pointy right (hers) to the ribs (mine), Mrs. P won.
There was indeed something at the back of the safe.
“Dust?” I asked. Well, that was the first thing that came to mind.
“Come on, Dix,” Mrs. Presley said. “This isn’t your apartment. Dust doesn’t grow that thick here.”
She had me there.
“Maybe it’s bird poop,” Dylan said.
We all did a double take on that one.
“What?” he said. “Birds poop.”
“Yeah,” Big Eddie said. “Yeah … they do poop, Dylan. Now just shut the hell up.”
Almond reached in to touch it, his fingers coming away with grains of fine sand.
“Know what that is, Eddie?” Deputy Almond asked.
Big Eddie wet his lips before he answered. Apparently, the strain from staying on his tiptoes was getting to Big Eddie. His bald head was gleaming with sweat.
“Not sure, Deputy. Could be anything really.”
“Looks like sand.”
“Lots of sand in Florida.”
Eddie clumped down to flat footed again.
Almond nodded. He turned to Mother. “So, Mrs. Dodd. How very unfortunate that suddenly you’re a victim of crime too.”
Already, I did not like where this was going.
“Why, just yesterday your daughter hiring a pricey lawyer to get you out of jail, you’re the prime suspect in all these crimes — and let’s not forget the disappearance of Frankie Morrell — and suddenly, surprise, surprise, you too end up being the victim of a robbery. What are the chances?”
My jaw dropped. I could not believe what I was hearing.
“Yeah,” Eddie said enthusiastically. “Seems pretty coincidental to me too.”
Fucker!
“Easy, Dix….” I only realized my hands were fisted when Mother put her hand on my arm. She turned to Almond. Oh, how she turned to Almond.