Geared for the Grave (A Cycle Path Mystery) (4 page)

BOOK: Geared for the Grave (A Cycle Path Mystery)
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“If you’re calling on Dwight,” Fiona said, “I was up at the Grand doing a piece on
Condé Nast Traveler
naming the hotel one of the five top resorts in the US and I saw His Sleaziness shoveling breakfast like he was King Tut on a throne. The man’s already zonked and told the waiter he intends to spend the whole day celebrating. If you want my opinion, I think Dwight’s a little too overjoyed about the Bunny Festival. He’s got a finger or toe in this somehow, I just know it.”

Fiona nodded to Irma. “Hey, I know,” she continued. “Since there’s a good chance he orchestrated the Bunny Festival, maybe you can get him to orchestrate Dutchy. After the way that jerk double-crossed you, he’s due a festival of his own.” Fiona stared at my Band-Aids. “New fashion statement? How about a lift back into town?”

Thank you, Jesus!
I started to climb on board, and Irma yanked me back. “We could use the exercise.”

At this rate I was going to die of exercise. Fiona gave a little wave and flicked the reins, and hooves plodded off down the hill. “But . . . But we had a ride,” I said to Irma, trying really hard not to whine.

Irma sat on the steps in front of SeeFar, staring blankly out at the water. She pushed her glasses up her nose. “They all know about Dutchy. I’m the laughingstock of the island. I’m like one of those people on
Judge Judy
that you want to slap silly because they’re so brainless. I’ve made some bad decisions, and there’s no way to fix things now. I’m just going to burn down the emporium and be done with the place.”

I parked beside Irma. I’d had similar thoughts about Abigail’s ad agency until Grandpa Frank, my own personal cheerleader since I was old enough to hold a crayon, gave me a pep talk on not caving in when times got tough. It was my turn to pep. “Light the match and Dutchy wins. You don’t want him to win, do you? You’ve got to be strong. So what if you can’t make fudge? There are already a bunch of fudge shops here. Do something that people will notice, and then they’ll forget about Dutchy. Something new and different—like maybe open a bookstore. That’s it, everyone loves bookstores, and there’s no cooking.”

I could almost see little gears churning behind Irma’s intent gray eyes, a slow grin rippling across her face. “I think you’re right.”

“I am?”

“Bunny winding up in the bushes is new and different around here, even better than the chili duel. Rudy’s not guilty of the Bunny Festival, but someone sure the heck is, so I’ll find out who.” Irma gazed skyward and folded her hands. “I feel so much better now; better than I have in months. I can help a friend, a really, really good friend who I haven’t been all that nice to, and do something exciting for a change.” She gave me a hug. “Thank you; you saved me.”

“Can’t you get saved with a bookstore?”

“We already have the Island Bookstore.” Irma took my arm and hauled me to my feet. “We’ve got to step on it while Dwight’s off getting drunk as a skunk. We all know he owes people money, so he might have it written down somewhere. If it’s a lot of money, that’s motive for him wanting this house to sell off.” Irma lowered her voice. “I think he did the old girl in; now we just need proof.”

I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and held my hands out like a school crossing guard. “Waitaminute.
We
cannot break into someone’s house.”

Irma waved her hand in the air and grinned. “You are such a city girl. There’s no locked doors around here, and we’re simply making an unannounced neighborly visit to see how Dwight’s getting on since his mamma’s gone to that great town council meeting in the sky and isn’t it too bad Dwight’s not home and we’ll just have a look around to see if we can help.” Irma ducked under my arm and hustled toward the back door before I could stop her.

“It’s locked! There must be something really juicy inside.” She pointed to an open window on the second floor. “I’m wearing this skirt. You climb the trellis and take a look. Easy as pie. We don’t have to worry about neighbors ratting on us. I have a get-out-of-jail-free card. My son’s the police chief around here, least for a few months.” Irma sighed, a proud twinkle in her eyes. “He’s such a handsome boy, and so polite. I taught him that.”

Of course her son was the police chief. What did I expect? My black cloud must be the size of Texas. Detroit cops did not have
polite
in their job descriptions, and sonny boy didn’t get those scars from writing parking tickets. Plus I was already on his poop list for standing up for Rudy. “If something goes wrong, it’ll be my butt in the slammer. An island can never have too many bookstores.”

Irma harrumphed. “Isn’t it the code of the universe that if you save someone you owe them whatever they want?”

“I think it’s the other way around.”

“Well, close enough.” Irma squared her shoulders, bunched up her long skirt into her waistband and stomped toward the rickety-looking trellis.

“A
ll right, all right, I’ll do it. I came to help Rudy, and this is a good place to start.” And I really had to save my job. “You’re on lookout. Throw a rock at the window if there’s trouble.” I grabbed the first rung of the trellis and glanced back to Irma. “So what am I looking for?”

“Something suspicious.”

“That would be us.”

At least thorny roses weren’t growing up the trellis, but some leafy plant instead, and it was the only thing holding the slats to the house. One plank gave way under my foot, then another, splinters floating to the ground, me holding on by my fingertips.

“This is so much fun,” Irma stage-whispered. “I never do things like this.”

“It’s not exactly a night on the town where I come from either,” I whispered back. I grabbed the edge of the gutter and shimmied onto the roof. I crawled on scraped knees, thinking
ouch, ouch, ouch
every inch of the way
.
I stuck my head in a window to find an unmade bed, an overflowing ashtray and a half-finished bottle of Jose Cuervo tequila on an antique dresser next to a copy of
Playboy
. Miss August smiled up at me in all her natural glory with
G. Winslow
and a phone number scribbled across her boobs. Next to it was Tiffany 1-800-HotBabe. When I got back to the cycle shop, I would be scrubbing my eyeballs.

“Well?” Irma called from below.

“Dwight’s a horny slob.” I swung a leg around, lost my balance and tumbled inside, landing in a pile of dirty laundry. If Rudy
was
guilty after all this, I’d draw and quarter the man myself. A large unopened envelope from
The Seniority
,
whatever that was,
sat next to the
Playboy
along with a black one-hundred-dollar chip from Caesars Palace. I pulled out Sheldon and added Winslow’s number. Tiffany’s digits were branded in my brain for all eternity.

I yanked out dresser drawers full of neatly folded clothes thanks to mamma Bunny—I sure couldn’t see Dwight folding anything. There were more unopened envelopes with
Urgent
stamped across the front. The guy needed a master course in fiscal responsibility, sometimes referred to in the real world as
a job
.

Four other bedrooms were bare, two freshly painted, and Bunny’s bedroom was at the end of the hall with Queen Anne style furniture and old photos giving me the evil eye of
what are you doing here
. If I could find canceled checks that would prove Bunny was paying for Dwight’s lifestyle, that would help explain the motive of why he wanted her—

A door closed downstairs, an off-key whistling of “We’re in the Money” drifting up to the second floor from below, making Irma the worst lookout on the planet. I crept back down the hall toward Dwight’s room and the open window, the floorboards creaking under my right foot.

All movement and whistling from below stopped. A beat passed, then footsteps sounded on the stairs, the top of a bleached blond, bad comb-over popping into view. I took another step with another creak as a hand closed over my mouth, propelling me backward into a closet. A shaft of light slicing through the crack between the door and the jamb cut across a man: fiftyish, fedora, cunning eyes, wearing a leather jacket. He made the
shhh
sign with his finger to his lips, and we sank deep into the shadows of mothballs and coats.

Footsteps got closer to the closet. I tried to come up with some story as to why I was in here with a guy in a fedora when I heard a loud pounding out at the front door.

“Dwight?” came Irma’s muffled voice. “Are you there, sweetie? I saw you coming up the walk. Dwight? I’m here to comfort you in your hour of need. That’s what neighbors do around here. Let me in.”

Slurred four-letter words filled the hallway, followed by retreating footfalls. I let out a lungful of air and turned to my fedora-wearing rescuer, but . . . but he wasn’t there. Gone? How could he be gone? This was a freaking closet. I pawed through winter clothes. A ghost? Ghosts didn’t smell like cigars and a touch of mint, did they? Secret passage? I bet this old house had a lot of secrets.

I eased out of the closet and tiptoed to the open window, keeping close to the side of the room, hoping for more solid construction where floor met wall. I took Sheldon from my back pocket so as not to crush him, then butt-scooted across the roof through gravel that had never made it to the window, rock-throwing not being Irma’s strong suit. I climbed/fell down the trellis, skulked through the neighbors’ backyards, and met up with Irma on the sidewalk by the giant flowerpots with the purple petunias.

“Let me tell you,” Irma groused as we headed for the steps leading to town, “Dwight is nasty and rude and practically threw me out of the house. Can you believe that? I was there to comfort him.”

“You were there to break into his house.”

“That’s beside the point, and he sure didn’t know about it. The only thing that boy cares about at the Bunny Festival is winning the jackpot, and what he deserves is nothing but the booby prize.”

And he had that sitting right there on his dresser. “Do you know a guy with a fedora and a leather jacket?”

“Jason Bourne. He lives two doors up in the green and yellow cottage.”

“Jason Bourne, like in
The
Bourne Identity
? I don’t think so. This guy was more Robin Williams.”

“We all just gave him the name and it sort of stuck. When he goes off island, he always has his silver briefcase handcuffed to his wrist and wears a leather jacket. Sometimes he even wears a wig and fake mustache.” Irma dropped her voice. “He’s a hit man. He leaves the island and is gone for a few days, then comes back. He always has money and doesn’t do any work and gets a mean look in his eyes if you ask what he’s got going on.”

“A hit man? Really?”

“Irish Donna delivers him scones every Tuesday and Friday. Once he had to take a call and she got a chance to nose around and saw that silver briefcase right there in the hall. About peed her pants.”

“Well, Mr. Bourne was inside Bunny’s house hiding in the closet with me.”

Irma stopped, her eyes huge. “Get out of town.”

Oh, if only I could.
“If he is a hit man, maybe someone paid him to orchestrate the Bunny Festival. But why was he in her closet hiding out? And surely a hit man could come up with something a whole lot better than cutting a bike cable.” I held up Sheldon so Irma could see the screen. “I found this number on Dwight’s dresser.”

“Two three one is a Mackinaw City area code. Probably another sleazebag; they all hang together like on that
Breaking Bad
show.” Irma grinned. “I never said sleazebag before, and it’s thanks to you.”

And your son’s going to hang me up by my thumbs.
“Since Dwight had the number written down, my guess is it’s new to him, not a friend’s number.”

“Cell phone reception around here is the pits, but give it a try anyway. Maybe we’re in one of those hot spots fudgies are always looking for. Yesterday I saw a guy hanging off Arnold’s ferry dock looking for bars, and I’m not talking the drinking kind.”

I punched in the 231 number and hit
speaker
. A sweet voice on the other end answered, “Hollister and Winslow, Attorneys at Law.”

I disconnected. “An attorney? The Bunny Festival happening and Dwight doing the happy dance and him contacting an attorney aren’t coincidences. If we start poking around the Bunny Festival, Dwight could
festival
us. There’s money and murder, and things could get ugly. This is serious stuff we’re dealing with here.”

Irma’s eyes widened to cover half her face. “I hadn’t bargained on that.” We started down the steps to town.

“So you’re rethinking the bookstore?”

“I’m thinking I should call Winslow and ask a bunch of nosy, irritating questions about Bunny’s estate and Dwight’s finances.”

I stopped Irma on the first landing and put my hands on her shoulders. “Because you have a sudden death wish?”

A smile hung at the corners of her mouth, and she patted my cheek. “Because I’m going to tell Mr. Winslow, Attorney at Law, that I’m Rita Delong and own a fudge shop right here on Mackinac Island and that Dwight owes me a ton of money and I want it now that he’s getting SeeFar and that I know everything.”

“Dwight will blow a gasket.”

“And he and his attorney will come looking for Round-heeled Rita and Dutchy,” Irma said, hiking up her dress and doing a little jig right there on the landing. “Those two thought they could mess over me and I’d roll over and play dead. I almost set my shop on fire, of all things. Well, I’m not dead anymore, and a little grief is just what Rita and Dutchy deserve. I’m so clever I scare myself.”

BOOK: Geared for the Grave (A Cycle Path Mystery)
12.88Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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