Crazy for You (11 page)

Mike the pinsetter made a razzing noise from his post above the lanes. “My two hunnert-year-old grammaw can bowl better than that.”

Mike’s insults are part of the Koz’s tradition. Oddly, they never seem to hurt his tips.

“Did the killer leave fingerprints?” Labeck asked Josie.

“They think the killer was wearing gloves. Rhonda wasn’t sexually assaulted. No trace of saliva, semen, or sweat in or on her body or clothing. She had a Betty Boop tattoo on her left ankle and a lot of surgical scars. That woman must have had every inch of her body nipped, tucked, or enlarged.”

The bartender yelled that he had a table for us, so we scratched on the game and trooped over to a narrow wooden booth at the back of the bar. A vintage advertising poster for Pin Up Ale was tacked on the wall above the booth, showing a woman in a skimpy costume straddling a dolphin-sized bowling pin. The ad copy read: “Grab your balls and strike!”

A man with white hair like dandelion fluff came to take our orders. He was wearing a towel as an apron and his face said he’d seen it all, but against all the evidence believed that a few decent human beings still inhabited the planet. Ordering at Koz’s is easy. You have whatever the cook feels like making that night. Tonight we were all having sloppy joes. Labeck said he’d spring for beer, an offer that wasn’t as generous as it sounds, since Koz’s only charges five bucks a pitcher.

I described my encounter with Lieutenant Trumbull that afternoon. “He practically accused
me
of killing Rhonda.”

Josie shook her head. “Blowing hot air,” she said. “Vince Trumbull likes to throw his weight around. I ought to know, because I work with the guy.”

“I’ve had run-ins with Trumbull,” Labeck said. “He plays for a police hockey league. Last time we played, my team beat his team, and he didn’t take it well.”

“You need to watch out for that guy,” Josie said. “Trumbull is dangerous. He’s stubborn, once he gets an idea in his head you can’t move it with dynamite, and he’s got connections—his brother-in-law is the mayor.” She looked directly at Labeck, her rhinestone frames glinting in the dim light. “I think he’s going to finger you for the
murder, Bonaparte.”

Labeck nodded glumly. “He gave me the third degree today. I was covering that Iraq veterans’ demonstration at the courthouse and he hauled me off the job, tossed me in the back of his car, and grilled me for about an hour. I told him the truth—that I’d dropped Rhonda off at her place Monday night, then left.”

“Did he believe you?” I asked.

“Are you kidding?”

The waiter brought our pitcher of beer and three glasses, and we waited until he left before resuming our conversation.

“You two aren’t the only suspects,” Josie said. “That pyromaniac neighbor lady was questioned, and there’s a couple others on the short list. You can bet Rhonda’s ex-hubby will be getting a proctology exam, too.”

Josie drank, wiped foam off her upper lip, then looked up and stared meaningfully at Labeck. “The techies found an unknown male’s fingerprints on the tarpaulin used to cover Rhonda’s body. Same prints on her purse, the front door, and a coffee table indoors.”

“Mine?” Labeck asked.

“You tell me, Bonaparte,” Josie said. “You don’t have a police record, so your prints aren’t on file in some database. But you’ll be asked to ‘voluntarily’ go in for printing. And there’s something else.” Josie drew figures on the wet tabletop. “The forensics guys found traces of skin under Rhonda’s nails.”

“Christ,” Labeck said. “Rhonda had her hands up under my shirt, she was gouging into my back. What was I supposed to do—karate chop her?”

Sometimes you had to feel sorry for guys. Defending yourself from a predatory female is a lose-lose. Let her have her way with you and you feel unmanly. Tell her no thanks and you feel even more unmanly. Guys are supposed to want sex however they can get it.

“They can have my prints, my DNA, whatever the hell they want,” Labeck said, raising his voice. “It doesn’t matter, because I didn’t kill Rhonda. Why would I kill a woman I barely knew?”

Josie looked at him in a way that was almost pitying. “You took her home that
night, you started fooling around, the rough sex got a little rougher—you got carried away. Or maybe Rhonda got you all stirred up, then said no at the last minute and you killed her in a fit of thwarted lust.”

“With a shoestring I just happened to have in my pocket? Or did I tell Rhonda to stand still while I unlaced my shoe?” Labeck is probably the coolest person I know. He treats most provocations with mockery or laughter. But now I saw him truly angry, his jaw clamped so tight the cords in his neck strained.

Josie held her hands up. “Oh, simmer down, Boney. I’m on your side. I’m just telling you how Trumbull will sell it to the judge. He’s already obtained a search warrant for your car and apartment.”

“Seriously?” Labeck stared at Josie.

“Serious as death, Boney. Next Trumbull is going to request that a judge issue a warrant for your arrest. He’ll say you were the only one with motive, opportunity, and the strength to do the deed. When Forensics discovers that it’s your skin beneath Rhonda’s nails, they’ll nail your hide to the wall.”

“This is all bullshit.” Labeck looked disgusted.

“I know. What can I tell you? Trumbull’s got a one-track mind. And right now it’s tracking on you.”

Our sandwiches came and we dug in. Sloppy joes on kaiser rolls, potato chips, and dill pickles so sour they puckered my mouth. The sloppies, whose secret ingredient, I’ve heard, is tapioca, were so good I was unable to use my usual strategy of saving half for my next meal. I had to stop myself from licking the plate.

“What I don’t get,” Labeck said, “is why whoever killed Rhonda dragged her body outside onto the lawn?”

“Maybe it’s a sick joke,” Josie said. “Here’s the neighborhood slut, out sunning for the last time.”

“When we find the guy who did it, we can ask him,” I said.

Labeck glared at me. “There is no we. You are going to stay out of this, Mazie.”

“The hell I will. I’m already involved, remember?”

“This thing could get nasty. I don’t want you getting hurt.”

Same old overprotective Labeck, treating me like a Fabergé egg. I opened my
mouth to make a scathing reply, but Josie spoke first.

“Don’t fight, babies.” She pointed her pickle slice at Labeck. “You listen to me now, Bonaparte. I know how Trumbull thinks. He’s going to come after you tomorrow. He gets off on waking people at five in the morning, catching them asleep. You need to lawyer up. The second you’re busted, your lawyer steps in to handle things.”

Labeck nodded. “You’re right. I’ve already retained Maury Eisenberg.”

Josie whistled. “Lawyer to the stars. Pretty heavy hitter. Can you afford him?”

“He owes me a favor.”

The people who owed Labeck favors were coming out of the woodwork, and it struck me once again how little I actually knew about the guy.

Labeck looked at me. “You’re sure you want to get involved in this, Mazie?” I returned his gaze. My voice shook a little. “I’m sure.”

“All right. You are now my official fugitive advisor.” He glanced up at the beer poster above our table as he rose from the booth. “It’s time to grab my balls and strike.”

Chapter Fourteen

My cellphone video trumps your ten eyewitnesses.

—Maguire’s Maxims

It was six o’clock in the morning and a police officer named Melvin Stumpf was rapping his knuckles against the floorboards of my apartment, apparently on the theory that a secret underground hidey-hole lay beneath. His partner, a pinched-faced woman named Nadine Krumholz, was unscrewing the plates on the hot-air registers so she could peer inside.

When Stumpf finished rapping on the floor, he walked around opening closets, peeking under my sofa bed, and checking my kitchen cupboards. Krumholz opened my refrigerator. Maybe she came from a land where six-foot-two-inch males lived scrunched up among bottles of cranberry juice and doggie bags of moldy Panda Express, because I assumed they were hunting for Ben Labeck.

The officers had knocked on my door ten minutes ago, flashing a search warrant in front of my sleep-clogged eyes. Neither of them would answer my questions; they just kept repeating that they had legal permission to search the premises, and informed me that if my dog bit one of them I’d be charged with a misdemeanor for failure to restrain a pet.

Restraining my pet was not easy. Barking and growling, Muffin was squirming furiously in my grip, trying to get at the intruders so he could tear them to kibble. Muffin is a shih tzu–bichon frise about the size of a hairy jelly bean. He has soft, pale-gray fur, enormous black button eyes, and wiry white whiskers. He looks like a teddy bear who’s been demonically possessed by a wolverine. Technically, Muffin belongs to Vanessa Vonnerjohn, my ex-mother-in-law, but he’d switched his love and loyalty to me, and I was never giving him back.

If they were looking for Labeck here, that must mean he’d bugged out before they could arrest him. I smiled. They’d never find Bonaparte Labeck. He was too smart and
waaay too sneaky to get caught.

Melvin Stumpf lumbered into my bathroom. A minute later he called out, “Ma’am, could you come in here and open this for me?”

Keeping Muffin clamped tightly in my arms, I walked the few steps to my bathroom. The officer was staring at a wicker laundry hamper whose lid was closed. Really, this was ridiculous. Did he think Labeck was hidden in my dirty laundry?

“It’s not locked,” I said. “You just open it.”

“This is a real nice hamper,” Stumpf said. “My wife would like a hamper like this. Where’d you get it?”

“Saks Fifth Avenue.”

“Really?”

“Nah. St. Vinny’s.” Same as everything else in this place.

“What’s going on in here?” inquired a voice from the doorway of my flat. Muffin detonated from my grip and rocketed to the door, tail wagging furiously. Magenta was here! Magenta, his hero! Magenta, dispenser of gourmet dog biscuits!

“I’m Miss Maguire’s landlord. I live in the apartment above and heard all the racket,” Magenta said, one hand laid dramatically to his heart. “People are trying to sleep.”

“Sorry, sir,” said Officer Krumholz. “But we have a warrant to search this apartment.”

Magenta scooped up Muffin and shook his head sorrowfully. “Mazie, Mazie, Mazie—have you been hiding men in here again?”

Both officers stared at Magenta. He was wearing yellow silk pajamas beneath an emerald-green bathrobe embroidered with sequined dragons. A sleep mask was pushed up on his forehead, his skin glistened with cold cream, and he wore a peach-colored patch between his eyebrows called a Frownie, which he claimed smoothed out his frown lines while he slept.

Magenta’s real name is Wally Pfluge, but he didn’t intend to go through life with a name that sounded like a drain cleaner, so he’d changed it to Magenta in honor of a character in
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
. Like Cher, Madonna, Eminem, and Bono, Magenta possesses the larger-than-life personality to carry off a single-name name. He
has hazel eyes, a wide, expressive mouth, and hair that until recently had been worn in a ponytail, but now was short and spiked, like peaky black meringue.

He’s the closest friend I’ve had since Gloria Dinkmeier got married and moved to New Zealand. He owns the building, lives in the apartment above his clothing shop, and rents me my flat at a monthly rate way below fair-market price.

“You’ve made a mess in here, officers,” Magenta scolded, looking around my flat. “I hope you’re planning to put everything back when you’re through.”

“We’re done here,” Krumholz said brusquely, and both officers shouldered past Magenta and left, not bothering to close the door.

I looked at Magenta. “That was bizarre.”

“That was beyond bizarre,” Magenta said. “And I saw that woman going through your purse.”

I snatched up my purse and began rummaging through it, feeling outraged. Root in my closets, ferret around my fridge, but keep your paws off my purse!

“Did she take anything?” Magenta asked.

“I have no idea.” I dumped everything out onto my coffee table.

“Mazie, that thing’s a landfill. You’ve got to get organized.”

“I
am
organized. I’m prepared for life’s emergencies.”

“Check your wallet.”

I did. “Nothing’s missing.”

“Keys?”

“Here.”

“Cellphone?”

“Check.”

“Pills?”

“Motrin … let’s see … aspirin, Advil, Tylenol—”

“Omigod,” Magenta gasped. “She was planting something. Dope, bet you anything.”

We stared at each other. The penny dropped. “That’s why the other cop called me in to the bathroom,” I said. “He didn’t care about the stupid hamper. He was giving Krumholz time to stick something in my purse. Why would she—”

“So they can find the illegal substances later and arrest you. Those guys were Brookwood police, weren’t they?”

“Yeah.”

“Then they must be acting under orders from that detective—what’s his name again, the one with the hideous comb-over?”

“Trumbull?”

“Right. So this guy arrests you for possession, then bargains with you. He drops the dope charges if you squeal on Labeck.”

“He can’t do that!” I sputtered, but I knew Magenta was right. Trumbull had one toe over the line between legal-but-dicey and “Fourth Amendment? What Fourth Amendment?”

Setting Muffin down on the coffee table, Magenta pointed to the mound of purse junk and commanded, “Find the bad stuff, boy!”

“Muffin is a lover, not a sniffer,” I said.

Ignoring both of us, Muffin hopped off the table, trotted into the kitchen, and sat down in front of the cupboard where I kept the doggie treats.

We went through every item in my purse. I flushed all my drugstore pills down the toilet, just in case Krumholz had substituted street drugs for over-the-counters, and tossed out my packets of gum, hard candies, antacids—even my mini-tube of toothpaste. If there’s one thing I’d learned in prison, it was that drugs have the pliability of Play-Doh: you could tart up amphetamines to look like Altoids, or barbiturates to look like Bubble Yum.