Bingo Barge Murder (10 page)

I drove the speed
limit home, not wanting to take the chance on getting pulled over. I thought about what Rita had told me, or maybe, more importantly, what she hadn’t told me. That eye twitch thing was a dead giveaway that she was lying through her teeth. She knew damn well where the almonds were. What did it all mean?

Rocky told us about Rita and Kinky’s confrontation, and I definitely saw a ruthless streak in that evil woman that I wouldn’t want to tangle with. Could she be capable of murder? If she knew where the nuts were, that meant they really didn’t disappear. Kinky thought the nuts were missing. But Rita had them. Vincent and Pudge obviously thought Kinky was in on the disappearance. I wondered if they knew about Rita. Hell, maybe Kinky was in cahoots with Rita and her husband. But what were Rita and hubby going to do with the nuts? Ransom? Maybe they were going to ransom the nuts to Kinky. But that would mean that Kinky wasn’t involved with Rita and Luther after all. Jesus. The possibilities made my head spin.

Weariness from one too many shots of adrenaline was beginning to take its toll. I turned down the alley and pulled up to the garage behind the café. I pressed the button on the remote, and the old garage door rumbled up. The engine ticked softly as I climbed out of the pickup and banged the broom handle on the wall to get Coop to open up. I was about to push the wall-mounted garage remote to close the rolling door when a figure silhouetted itself against the deepening twilight outside. Detective Bordeaux. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up and I froze, a deer in the high-beams once again.

With the realization who was standing in the doorway, it dawned on my muzzy brain that Coop had to have heard my pounding. Was he in the process of opening the trap door? Thank the freaking heavens the entrance sat toward the back of the garage, in the deepest of shadows. Oh shit. The light from above would spill down into the darkness.

Rapidly I moved toward the good detective and said in a loud voice, praying Coop would hear, “Detect—uh, JT!” Play up to her, Shay. Do this.

My feet didn’t slow when I came abreast of her—I strolled right past her out into the night. JT turned around, away from the open garage door and took a step to follow me. Either she hadn’t seen anything that piqued her interest, or she was playing a very good game. I swung around the corner out of sight of the garage door. She followed like an obedient pooch and I resisted the urge to pat her on the head.

“So,” I turned on her and said breathlessly, “what are you doing lurking in my alley?” The best defense was always a weak offense.

My alley-lurker bit garnered a half-smile, then the cranky expression on JT’s face the day before returned with a vengeance. Not surprising in light of my strange actions. I wondered if her voice would come out smooth as butter or harsh and accusatory.

She said, “I was in chatting with Kate. She said you’d been gone most of the day, and that you’re acting kind of weird, but she didn’t really explain what that meant. But she indicated something wasn’t quite right. I decided to wander around a bit and make sure everything’s okay.”

Kate was dead meat, just as soon as I could get rid of JT. “Kate’s a bit high-strung. Everything’s fine.” I waved a hand at JT, hoped I sounded sincere. She was burning up what precious time Coop and I had to figure out what to do next. Desperation gripped my neck in a chokehold, and I shuddered.

JT saw me shiver and stepped closer, stopping less than an arm’s length away. She was so close I could smell laundry soap on her clothes. Silent electricity popped inside me, and I wondered if she felt it as well. Loose strands of hair that had escaped her ponytail waved in the slight breeze. Her stern demeanor faded away, replaced with what looked like obvious concern. The dim light accentuated her cheekbones. She was a very beautiful woman when she wasn’t scowling.

“What’s going on, Shay?” JT asked softly. “What can I do to help?”

I really, really wanted her question to be an honest offer of assistance, but my paranoid state of mind prevented me from taking her words at face value. She gave me the impression she’d be very good at using every trick in her cop psychology book to her benefit. But then again, maybe I was being a touch rash. She sure sounded sincere. Oh hell. I hated it when people I tried to blow off started being nice to me. Or at least pretended to be nice to me. It was sorely tempting once again to dump the entire, sorry affair into her lap. However, Vincent’s warning bounced around my brain like an irritating song I couldn’t get rid of—call the cops and it would be lights out for Eddy.

“JT, nothing’s wrong, okay? I—” At that moment Coop walked around the corner and stopped short of running into JT. His eyes widened, his jaw dropped. So I did the only thing I could think of to buy him some time to get away.

I grabbed JT and pulled her toward me, hard enough I felt the whoosh of her breath as her body slammed into mine. I mashed my lips on hers, surprised when she didn’t immediately shove me away. The element of surprise must have been in my favor. She stood frozen, arched slightly away from me, but I kept my mouth attached to hers. I peered desperately over her shoulder praying Coop had disappeared. He was still there, the expression on his face a mix of amazement and horror. I tried to pull JT tighter to me when she grabbed a handful of my hair and jerked my head back, exposing my throat, effectively ending the most interesting and awkward kiss I’d ever had.

JT remained pressed against me, her breath warm against my neck. Good thing she wasn’t a vampire, or I’d have been dinner. “Well.” She whispered, paused, then repeated, “Well.”

I smiled weakly, wondering if the roots of the hair tangled in her fist were going to tear out of my scalp. The woman certainly had power over me in more ways than one. Did cops fraternize with people who may be involved in nefarious activity? I’d started this, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t exploit the situation. Was JT playing me, trying to strip my defenses so I’d confess my sins? Really—what did she know? She knew I was Coop’s friend. That was it. That in and of itself wasn’t a crime. She couldn’t haul me in for that. Could she?

I cleared my throat and tried to look her in the eye but the angle was bad. “Ah, this is slightly uncomfortable.”

JT loosened her grip so my head was only slightly tilted away from her. The icy glare was back. “Shay—” She looked away for a moment and then returned her gaze to my face. It seemed she was trying so hard to keep roiling emotions stuffed inside, but they were very close to bubbling over. “I’m not an idiot. I know something’s going on here. I don’t know you well, but my instincts rarely guide me in the wrong direction. Whatever it is, you’re in it up to your pretty little ears. I—I really want to—help you.” She released my hair and settled her hand lightly on my shoulder as she took a half-step back.

I broke our gaze like she’d broken our kiss—abruptly. That smooch was something I’d have to seriously consider when no one’s life was at stake. That, and the fact she thought I had cute ears. I put a bit more distance between us, my hand momentarily covering my eyes. “I, ah—sorry about that.” I squinted between my fingers. Thank God Coop was gone.

It was dark enough now that all I could make out were the angles and planes of JT’s face. Easier talking to a shadow, anyway. I needed to play this very carefully. JT still could turn out to be a solid ally if things got desperate enough.

“It’s like this,” I began, not wanting to lie and not wanting to push her further away. Frustration festered, and I turned to the wall of the garage, biting my lip both figuratively and literally, my palms and forehead resting against the cool, worn wood siding as she stood beside me, her arms crossed, back stiff.

“Damn.” I drew a steadying breath and turned back to face her. “All right. Something is up. But people I love are in some serious shit.”

JT tilted her head toward me but remained silent, one eyebrow slightly arched in either curiosity or skepticism.

“I can’t tell you—can’t tell anyone, for that matter—until—until I take care of some … things.” Lame. Too lame. I so badly wanted to tell her that evil men threatened to kill Eddy. I repressed the urge to shake her and tell her that my best friend had nothing to do with cold-blooded murder. I wobbled on the brink, wanted to scream at JT to fix it, to do her cop thing and make it all right. Instead, I said, “Really, JT, there’s nothing you can do to help me right now.”

She exhaled loudly and peered skyward, as if counting backward until she’d be calm enough to speak rationally. After a few agonizing moments, the shadows that were her eyes fastened on my face. “I could haul you downtown for questioning, you know.”

The blood drained from my brain and for a minute, I thought I might drop right there.

JT must have sensed my panicked vibes and said slowly, “Jesus. Okay. Fine. Have it your way. For now. But, listen to me, Shay. Do you still have the card I gave you with my phone numbers on it?”

“Yeah.”

JT gripped my shoulders and gave me a not-so-gentle shake. “Keep it with you. I want you to call me any time, day or night, if you’re in trouble. Do you understand?”

“Why do you want to help me?”

“Because I’m a cop and that’s what cops do.” JT raised her hand and moved it toward my cheek again but stopped before she made contact. “Because my gut tells me you’re okay. And I know you’re in some deep crap that’s going to bite you in the ass.” Then she laughed. “And it doesn’t hurt that I find you completely irresistible.” She turned on her heel and walked away.

After a moment of stunned immobility, I shook myself like a dog and stumbled into the garage. The garage door rumbled shut, and I fled to the safety of the loft.

Coop was laughing so hard he was nearly doubled over. “I couldn’t believe it when I come around the corner, and whoop, there she is!” Another guffaw burst out of him. “And then you glom onto her like a stray mutt with a hard-on for a rawhide. Oh my god!”

I held my head in my hands and replayed the entire episode in the theater of my mind.

Coop eventually dragged himself to the table and collapsed in a chair. “Okay, I think I’m under control. What was she doing here? What happened at Rita’s?”

“One thing at a time. I don’t know why JT was here. Besides spying on us. Guess Kate said something to her about things being a little ‘off’.” I floated quotation marks in the air with my fingers. “So she decided to hang around. Seems like snooping to me.”

“If she had more information, you think she’d have dragged you down to the station for some one-on-one, if you know what I mean.” Coop had crass down to a science.

“She threatened. And stop smirking. You’re damn lucky I did what I did or you’d be the one bending over and coughing for the cops. The least you could do is show me some appreciation.”

We settled down, and I recounted my adventure with Rita and her mole. I also added my thoughts about the fact that perhaps Kinky really hadn’t known where the truckload of nuts had gone, and maybe Rita and hubby were mired in this mess.

Once I finished, Coop leaned forward in his chair and banged his forehead against the tabletop. Alarmed, I made a grab to stop him and missed. “What
are
you doing?”

He thunked his head again and mumbled, “Sometimes it makes me think better.”

This time I got a handful of hair. “You’re insane. You’ll scramble the only brains you have left if you do that again.”

“Might help,” he said, defeat echoing in his voice. “What now?”

“We need to get into that place on Washington and see if we can find something that’ll tell us where the nuts went. A bill of lading, a transfer order …”

Coop rubbed his hands together, his momentary tangle with doom giving way to a glimmer of hope. “We’ll need some equipment. We’re getting to be old hands at burgling.”

Great. The last thing I wanted to become was an old hand at breaking and entering. But I didn’t really have a choice. As darkness fell, we gathered up the paraphernalia Coop decided we needed and headed toward Lazar and Company Dry Storage.

_____

Washington Avenue runs a fairly straight line from northeast Minneapolis through downtown and extends past 35W until it hooks a corner and drifts into the West Bank of the U of M. It cut through the Warehouse District, and in its day had been home to a number of strip clubs, biker bars, triple-X stores, and other questionable enterprises. In the last few years, the city council had worked to clean up the notorious avenue and forced a number of seedy sin, skin, and sex shops to close up. Apparently they missed one shady place.