Never Tease a Siamese: A Leigh Koslow Mystery (12 page)

Chapter 9

"Where did it come from?" Randall asked tensely, examining the loose cardboard
flaps. The box was addressed to the clinic on a plain white, computer-generated label. Otherwise it was blank. "It didn’t come with the rest of the mail; there’s not even a postmark."

"I didn’t bring it in," Jeanine said quickly. "Nora got the mail."

"What’s all the yelling about?" asked the chubby brunette in the doorway. "And what did I do?"

Leigh looked at the amiable thirty-something technician, the clinic’s best cat holder and would-be stand-up comedian. Leigh had always liked Nora. She was smart, even-tempered, and didn’t care for Jeanine.

"Was this box with the rest of the mail this morning?" Jeanine snapped.

Nora’s brow wrinkled, and she stepped closer. As her gaze rested on the box’s contents, her pupils widened, but only slightly. "Let the past stay buried, or everyone there will be?" she read curiously. "Damn. And I wanted my ashes scattered over Graceland."

"Did it come with the mail or not?" Jeanine hissed.

Nora shrugged. "I don’t know. I don’t think so. I took in three or four boxes and dumped them in the office. I wasn’t really paying attention."

The doorframe was suddenly filled with two more bodies. Marcia and Michelle appeared with jackets on and purses in hand, evidently on their way out for the day. "What’s going on?" Marcia asked, stepping forward.

Leigh cringed in anticipation of the forthcoming blast, and she noticed that her father did also. Marcia and Michelle were nice enough, but they weren’t the brightest bulbs in the factory and were drama queens besides. Lifelong friends who did everything together, they giggled at every puppy, gushed over every spay, and blubbered like banshees during euthanasias.

Their screams nearly brought down the ceiling.

"Oh my God!" Michelle wailed when she had caught her breath. "Is that what was in that box! It could have been a bomb or something!"

"A bomb!" Marcia squealed. "Did anybody check for wires?"

"Calm down, please." Randall said quietly. He voice was perfectly controlled, but there was no missing his simmering annoyance. "Michelle, you’ve seen this box before?"

The young woman nodded, her face pale. "It was on the back doorstep when we came in this morning. I thought it came UPS or something."

"Does it
have
a UPS label?" Jeanine sniped. "Does it
have
any label at all?"

"Sorry," Michelle gulped.

"Who is it supposed to be for?" Marcia asked, her voice shaking. "What does it mean?"

Leigh seized her opportunity. "We think maybe a guy named Dean sent it. You know anybody named Dean?" She watched the three suspect faces carefully.

Nora’s registered a blank, but Marcia and Michelle nodded in unison. "There’s two in Avalon," Marcia said quickly. "Dean Hamly and Dean Murchison."

"Dean Hamly’s a sweetheart," Michelle chimed in. "He’s got three kids. We used to baby-sit for him."

"Dean Murchison’s an asshole," Marcia added unapologetically. "My sister dated him once, and she said—" The assistant broke off when she glanced up at her boss. "Well, anyway. He’s a goof, and he’s like, weird, too. I can see him doing something like this."

"But why would he?" Michelle asked no one in particular. "You think he could be, like, a psychopath or something?" They both looked at fearfully at Randall.

"We don’t know who sent it," he said simply.

"It’s just like the rock," Jeanine proclaimed. "This makes two threats. And whoever it is, now they’re threatening
all
of us."

Leigh cringed again, but not fast enough, as Marcia’s and Michelle’s renewed screams rattled the lightbulbs in the surgical lamps.

"Stop that!" Nancy Johnson cried harshly. The normally serene business manager’s face was angry as she forced her way into the surgery. Leigh had never seen her miffed before, but dealing with Marcia and Michelle all day could fray anyone’s nerves. "We’ve got clients out front who are convinced some poor animal is being tortured back here. What’s going on?"

All the principals in one room
, Leigh thought to herself.
Excellent
. "We’ve gotten another anonymous threat," she answered, motioning toward the box.

Nancy stepped up and looked into it, then backed up, obviously daunted. She said nothing.

"I’m going to call the police and let them handle it," Randall said firmly. "Nobody else touch the thing. Marcia and Michelle—go home. Nancy—tell the people the girls saw a mouse. Nora—go back to whatever you were doing. And Jeanine—take Number One Son to a cage and keep a close eye on him till he’s awake.
Now
."

Reluctantly, the staff scuttled, and Leigh wished that her father had waited a few moments longer. The staff’s reactions were giving her valuable information. She would bet money that Nora had nothing to do with the threats. On the other hand, Marcia and Michelle’s personal knowledge of Dean made them very likely to know something, whether they were aware of it or not. And Nancy had been visibly disturbed by the box, which deserved further questioning.

As her father headed off to call the police, Leigh peered again into the nest of dirt and Styrofoam. It was undeniably creepy, even if the sender hadn’t been so macabre as to injure the doll itself, which, other than being muddy and having no clothes on, was fine. But what did it mean? Did the fact that it was a baby doll have something to do with the mystery heir that no one—with the apparent exception of Dean—believed existed?

She let out a breath and shuddered a little. Marcia and Michelle knew Dean, and they had said he was weird. They had even wondered if he was a psychopath. Having had some acquaintance with a psychopath in the past, she didn’t think so. She didn’t even think he was a violent person. But then, she had never really talked to him one-on-one.

Perhaps it was time.

***

"You want to meet for lunch today?" Warren J. Harmon III, District 2 County Councilman, was dressed in his standard business suit, and looked divine. He generally did, a fact which Leigh had foolishly overlooked during the first twelve years of their acquaintance. It had taken her a long time to see past the skinny, acne-scarred teenager she had met as a University of Pittsburgh freshman, but when her eyes had finally opened, she had been instantly hooked. Her good-hearted geek of a buddy had morphed into a savvy and successful local politician, with his integrity still amazingly intact. Along with—conveniently enough—his weakness for her.

"I can’t," she said, genuinely regretful. "I have…other plans."

He looked at her thoughtfully. "Like what?"

When she didn’t answer, he pulled over a rickety chair and sat down next to her at the breakfast table. "All right. Enough. Tell me what you’ve been doing all weekend. And don’t say unpacking, because I’m not blind."

Leigh’s eyes scanned the cluttered room. "I found the toaster," she offered weakly.

Her husband just looked at her. He had always had the unnerving ability to read her mind, and since their marriage a year earlier, he had only gotten better at it. "Perhaps I should ask, 'which relative is it?’ Has your Aunt Bess gotten into trouble again? Or is it Cara?"

Leigh smiled. "The Morton women are all fine, thank you. I’m merely helping my father with a little melodrama at the clinic. We’ll talk about it tonight. Promise." She finished off her java and rose, hoping she had sounded sincere. She did intend to tell him everything eventually; his opinion could be valuable. But this morning, there simply wasn’t time. Besides, if he knew what her immediate plans were, he wouldn’t like them. Neither would Maura.

"And why didn’t you mention this last night?" he asked, still eyeing her suspiciously.

An evil smile spread across her face. "We were preoccupied."

Warren hid a grin behind his coffee cup. "That’s no excuse."

Leigh planted a kiss on his cheek. "Gotta go."

***

Avalon’s Chuckwagon Cafe was short on ambience and long on grease, but it was easy on the budget, and Leigh came from a long line of cheapskates. She glanced over the stained plastic menu towards the dark wooden doors, which swung open to the sound of a clanging dinner bell. Dean and Rochelle Murchison entered, he dressed in jeans, a black T-shirt, and dirty sandals; she in a midriff-baring top and skin-tight leggings. They scanned the dingy room with sunglasses on.

"Over here," Leigh waved, plastering a smile on her face. It didn’t really matter if she was noticed, since no one she had any respect for could possibly be eating there also. "Have a seat."

The couple slid into the booth opposite her, the adornments on Dean’s massive belt clanking as they settled themselves on brown vinyl cushions patched liberally with duct tape. Dean wrapped an arm around his wife, removed his sunglasses, and eyed his hostess with amusement. "I still don’t know what you want to talk to us about," he said in the same overloud, self-important voice that had bugged her at the will reading. "Your dad want more of Lilah’s money?"

With great effort, she returned a smile. Dean Murchison was the kind of sleazeball who looked at every woman as though confident she wanted him. "Of course not," she said pleasantly, teeth gritted. "Your mother has already been extremely generous with her cats."

"Tell us about it!" Rochelle sniffed, her sunglasses still on. Leigh tried to read the other woman’s expression, but the dime-store mirrored lenses showed only Leigh's own reflection. It was a good trick. She would have to remember it.

"I asked you here because I need your help figuring out something."
And also because it’s a public place, and as pathetic as you look, you may still be dangerous.
"Ever since your mother’s plane went down, my father has been receiving threats at the clinic. We wondered if the two things might be related, and we figured you were the best one to ask. What do you think?"

Dean didn’t answer immediately, and Leigh squirmed in her seat. Perhaps confronting the couple head-on had been a bad idea, but she didn’t think so. Despite Maura’s rather forceful insistence to the contrary, she
did
know the difference between police business and a little harmless fact-finding. Namely, that only one of the above ever happened fast enough. She wanted to know if Dean Murchison was behind the threats at the clinic, and she wanted to know now. Sure, if he was guilty, the Avalon PD would eventually catch him in the act, or come up with some physical evidence tying him to the rock or the doll. But why wait for the wheels of the justice when, for the cost of a few burgers, a clever story, and a ditz act, she might very well settle the whole mess over her lunch hour?

"I’m sorry," she apologized as a waitress appeared. "I’m picking your brains and I haven’t even fed you yet. Please, order whatever you want. It’s the least I can do."

She selected the grilled cheese and bacon combo on page three; her guests mumbled off their orders without looking at the menu. It figured.

As soon as the waitress had departed, she dove in. "I have this theory, you see, but nobody can really help me with it except it you guys." She lowered her voice for effect, and was gratified to see both members of her audience leaning in. Rochelle even took off her sunglasses. "I think that somebody is planning to try and pass themselves off as your mother’s real heir. Now, you and I know that your mother doesn’t really have another heir—that she just made that up."

"We do?" Dean said suddenly.

Rochelle poked her husband in the ribs, and Leigh tried hard not to notice. "But I think that somebody’s planning to fake some evidence, like a birth certificate, and try to get your inheritance. Only someone at the clinic knows that this person can’t be Lilah Murchison’s child. And that knowledge is getting them threatened."

"Yeah," Dean bellowed, leaning back again. "We know all about the messages and stuff. The fuzz think
we
did it." He chuckled heartily.

Leigh feigned innocence, hard. "They do? Why would they think that?"

Dean shrugged. "Like because I’m the one with the most to gain, I guess. But they got it figured different from you. They think somebody at the clinic knows who the real heir is."

"But there is no real heir."

"Course not," Rochelle answered smoothly, her voice pitched low. "But the police don’t know that."

"They don’t know anything," Dean agreed, projecting an oddly goofy grin. "They have no clue what a witch mummy dearest was, either. She never gave me squat, did you know that? All those millions, and she let Rochelle and me live like pond scum."

Rochelle nodded enthusiastically, the spikes of hair on her head lagging a little behind the bobbing of her chin. Her voice was screechy again. "He’s had to
work
for a living!"

Leigh made a mental note of the tone switch, then turned back to Dean, trying hard to look sympathetic. "That’s awful. Did you have a rough childhood?"

Dean shrugged. "Eh. It was okay."

"Lilah was never around," Rochelle piped up bitterly. "He was, like, raised by the maids, you know? Servants and cats. That’s what he grew up with. Skinny, cross-eyed cats."