Armed and Fabulous (Lexi Graves Mysteries) (37 page)

I had to admit I was pretty cross at Maddox. I'd
essentially
provided him with a bunch of clues, ruined my good taste in fashion with hooker heels, stumbled on two corpses, and there wa
s the small matter of the blood-
stained dress
, heels and purse
that
disappeared
from my apartment the night Maddox drugged me. I really liked that dress and I was full on
“
say no to drugs.
”
If he thought
he could leave me
out of the investigation, he was wrong. It
had already become
very personal.

By the time I got home
,
I had
devised
a plan. I went up to my apartment first and poured a glass of water
,
then pulled the phone book out, flipping through the pages until I
found
what I wanted. I
drank
the water, stuffed the phone book back under the
couch
,
and clattered down the stairs to knock on Lily's door.
Passing
me yesterday's newspaper
,
she sat down. "Do you want to go to the movies Wednesday?" she asked. "That new comedy is out. I just checked."

"Sounds good." I needed a laugh
without the
danger of kissing a man. An annoying little voice in my head
nagged as to
whether I was
maybe
overreacting a little
since
I enjoyed kissing Solomon
.
P
erhaps, just maybe, I was having a guilt attack.
I told t
he little voice
to
shut up.

"Did you see the headline? There's been another hit
-
and
-
run. Mayor Mathis. Just
got
hit when he was taking an evening stroll and
the driver sped
off. That's the second one in a week! What's wrong with this town?"

It struck me
that
a lot wrong
was wrong
with this town. My boss was dead, his girlfriend
,
Tallulah
,
aka Tanya Henderson
,
was dead and there was a huge stash of
stolen
money out there somewhere. Of course, I didn't say that. Instead, I just
replied
incredulously
, "He was going for an evening stroll?"

"Yeah. Says here. He went out for a stroll after dinner and was struck. Some neighbors found him in the road."

"That's rough," I said, trying not to imagine Mayor Mathis squished
all over the road
.

"Tell me about it. You try and look after yourself,
keeping
fit
,
and what does someone do
?
R
un you over, that's what! You want to go spin on Saturday again? Anton will be there."

"Yes, definitely. You think Mayor Mathis was trying to keep fit?" That struck me as funny. The last time I'd seen Mayor Mathis
,
he'd been cutting the ribbon of the new public library and his stomach
hung pretty
far over his pants. I
doubt whether
he'd ever seen a gym, but
I’d bet
he'd certainly seen
more than
his fair share of donuts.

Lily looked at me
as I
struggle
d
to keep a straight face. "Maybe he turned over a new leaf. Like a mid-life crisis or something."

"I guess." It could happen to anyone. I'd
already experienced
my share of crises and non
e
of them had been mid-life
.
I could only hope
the universe wasn't waiting to whack me with a doozy. I'd take a mid-life sports car though. Not Vincent's Spyder, but maybe a cute little
convertible
. I shook
the daydream from
my head and got back on task. "I want to visit Tallulah's family," I told Lily.

"How come?" she asked.

"Maybe they know something."

"Awesome," said Lily. "We know nothing."

"Exactly."

"Where does she live?"

"I checked the phone book and there are three T. Hendersons in Montgomery."

“Did Hot and Hotter asker you to do this?” she asked.

“Which is which?”

“Does it matter?”

“Guess not
,
and no
,
they didn’t. Maddox
wants me
off the case.”

“Huh,” said Lily. “Do we still like him?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“There’s nothing wrong in calling to pay condolences to Tallulah’s family,” decided Lily. “It
was
sad.”

“It was,” I agreed. “It was really sad.”

"Let's call them first." Lily got her phone book and flipped through to the Hendersons,
checking
them off with a Sharpie. She
dialed
the first number and asked to speak to Miss Henderson, waited for the answer, said goodbye and
put
the phone down. "Miss is a Mr
.
Thomas Henderson," she explained.

T
he third call
was the charm
. "That was Tanya's sister. She
told me
her sister had just died and she was sorting through her things."

"Let's go over and talk to
t
he
sister. Maybe they were close?
"

"Okay, a
nd we have to go to
my
sister's baby shower after
wards
." I looked down at my work clothes. I still passed as smart and neat. Clean, too.
And,
to my
relief, I was hangover free.

Lily saw me looking at her sweater and jeans and took the hint. "I'll change."

Tanya Henderson lived in an apartment block on South Street in Frederickstown. The area, named after Montgomery's first mayor, was a melting pot of small
,
one
-
family homes, apartment buildings and independent businesses. It sprang up to house the overflow of a population boom in Montgomery more than forty years ago
,
but h
ad quickly gone to the dogs. It
s biggest problem was no one thought
ahead far enough
to connect the public transport system to the area. By the time they
di
d, the commuters had moved out and the area had
fallen to ghettoization
.

It wasn't the nicest of neighborhoods, being
mainly
poor
.
T
he whole
South Street
block looked like it
needed a coat
of paint and landscaping around the communal gardens, but it wasn't the wo
rst neighborhood either. My car—
which had
mysteriously
appeared in my parking s
pace sometime during the night—
would
most certainly
be here when I got back
,
so I parked on the street and we walke
d over to Tanya Henderson’s apartment.

"So, what are we looking for?
"
asked
Lily. She pulled her sunglasses down her nose and looked at me
expectant
ly, with the
air of someone who trusted someone else to know what she was doing
.

"I don't know yet."

"What are we going to say?
"

"We'll say we're friends from the club and we heard what happened."

"
Plausible
," agreed Lily.

I located the button for 3B and pressed it. A moment later
,
a woman's voice called, "Hello?"

"H
i
!
This is...
Jennifer and...
Alison
,” I said, picking the first names to pop into my head
.
If the cops asked later, not that I could fathom why they would, she wouldn’t have our real names. I was probably over thinking it, I decided. “
We're friends of Tanya's."

"Come up," said the voice and the door buzzed open. The elevator was out of order so we climbed the t
wo
flights
to the third floor
. Someone had tried to jazz up the communal space outside Tanya's apartment with a little console table
that held a
plastic plant with a framed print above. A woman waited in the doorway for us. She was in her thirties and had waist
-
length
,
brown hair.

"I'm Tara, Tanya's sister. You heard what happened?" she said without preamble.

I nodded. "We're very sorry for your loss."

"Thank you. She was only twenty
-
eight, you know. Too young. What can I do for you?"

"I wanted to ask you a couple of questions. About Tanya. We were pretty concerned about her."

"Me too. Listen, come on in. We can talk while I sort through her things. The landlord wants everything out by the weekend. Harsh, right?"

"Totally."

Tanya Henderson had tried to make the best of her apartment. It was neat,
although
a little on the sparse side
.
S
he
attempted to make it more cheerful by using
bright throws and pillows.
A modern art print had been tacked above a fake fireplace.
I couldn't
connect
it with the red head in the
tight
leather
dress
. I couldn't picture Martin Dean in it either. It was a far cry from Bedford Hills
and the grand piano
.