Stilettos & Scoundrels (43 page)

He coul
d claim he wasn’t threatening me, but I
knew he
de
finitely was. He was subtle; I had to give him that. I
clearly understood what he was getting at without him ev
en saying anything directly. I
wo
uld have to file that one in my
memory bank
. That kind of subtlety
m
ight
come in handy later.

“Last I looked
,
it was a free country, and I could poke my nose wherever I wanted. Who do you think you are
,
telling me what to do?”
I
asked
flippantly.

He took another step closer to
me. It took all my
willpower not
to back up. I
had to hand it to him; he was good at this intimidating shit.

“Listen, Presley,” he said in a tone that didn’t even attempt to
try to
hide the fact he wasn’t a happy man. “I have a lot vested in this situation. I will not have you screwing things up.”

“Why
, did you kill the Senator?” I
didn’t really expect an answer, but was curious
about what he might say. I
thought
that
by just flat out
asking him, I
might get some informa
tion from what he didn’t tell me
or
I could get even luckier and
he would tell
me
something
outright
.
Hey, anything is possible
.

My
question got a fleeting smile out of him. He
was amused I
would be brazen enough to ask him.
He had to hand it to her; she could put on a brave front.

“You think I killed him?” Simon started laughing. “Now,
why
would I
want
to kill Senator Daniels?”

“Then why warn me away from finding the killer if your investment in this situation isn’t the fact that you have something to hide?”

“Let’s just say that there are certain things that I would rather stay quiet, but I am no killer.”

“Well, if it wasn’t you
, then who was it?” I
forged ahead. He didn’t seem
to have a problem answering my
l
ast question so I thought I would see how far I
c
ould take this.

“What does it matter? He’s dead and he was an ass. It’s not like anyone’s going to miss him anyway.”

“He had a wife and family. Don’t you think they want closure?”

He snorted, which I
interpreted as
laughter. “You’re barking up the wrong tree,
a
ngel.”

I
looked at him quizzically. D
id Helen not care about Tom? I
knew Helen cared about someone else too
—
that was evident in the make
-out session I
had
witnessed the other night. Su
rely, she
still had some feelings for Tom
,
or they wouldn’t be married
,
would they
?
Although people do stay married for
strange reasons. That’s why I
was still single. Emotions were too complicated.

He noticed
my
confusion
and
continued, “Not that Helen wanted the Senator dead, but it does make things easier for her.”

“Is that why you two were talking in your car last night?” Simon was startled by this bit of information. Obviously, they didn’t realize they had been spotted.

“You would be helping yourself out
if you forgot
you ever saw us together.”

“Why were you together in the first place?”

“Just stay away from this situation.”

“Who killed him?”

Simon shook his head. “Let the people who pass for cops in this town handle it.”

Now I
was pissed. He
couldn’t talk about my
friends that way, even if
he
w
as
a scary person who may or may not have killed someone.

“The cops in this town are worth ten of you,
j
erk.”

I
finally wore
out his patience. He grabbed my
arm
,
and
I
tried to twist away, but he was quite strong
. He started to shake me, saying
, “Just go back to Chicago.”

“Let go of me
!” I
screamed, hoping one of those senior citizens would hear and call 911.

“Hey! Put her down!” I
heard someone yell. It was Katy. Simon looked up for a minute but didn’t seem too worried about the situation
. Why would he? Even two of us
were no match for him.
“Let go of her!” Katy said as she reached
us
, grabb
ing
his arm and tr
ying to pry it off me. The three of us
struggled
, and I
was sure i
t would have been comical had I
not been sca
red. Simon would not let go. I
wasn’t sure what he thought
he was going to do. Just as I
was about to give up the hope
of him
let
ting go of my
arm, Katy dumped her coffee on him, scalding his arm.
Go, Katy!

“You bitch!” he sn
eered, quickly letting go of me
and doubling over in pain.

“You started it. Besides, Katy was the one
who wasted her coffee,” I
retorted, backing out of his reach
and
not feeling the least bit sorry for him
. I needed
to gather
my wits. I
felt br
aver now that he was burned. I
thought this might be an opportune time to ask some more questions.

“So, if you didn’t kill Tom Danie
ls then who did, Simon?” I asked. Katy looked at me like I
was crazy, but
I thought I
would give it one last shot. He wasn’t in any shape to hurt anyone
at the moment, so what did I
have to lose? Besides
, I
felt much better with
the two of us there, though I
wasn’t
certain
Katy would agree.

“Can’t we just get out of here?” she whispered to
me
. “Wouldn’t that be the smart thing to do?”

“No! Well, yes, it would probably be the smart thing to do, but he attacked me and I want some answers.”
I
looked at Simon expectantly. He seemed to be dealing with his burned arm okay, but still didn’t look completely back to normal. He was still a little pale
, and I
could tel
l he was extremely angry at us
.

“I’m not telling you anything and I’m not going to tell you again to stay out of this.
Can’t you just forget about this and go shopping or something?
”

“Listen, Simon. You obviously have something to do with this whole mess. The police are going to figure it out soon, if they haven’t already. Your time is running out.”
He began
to head back to his car. “Simon, if you don’t tell me who killed the Senator, then what reason is there to believe that you didn’t do it?”
I
yelled, trying one more time to get some answers.

“Why don’t you ask your little friend’s boyfriend who killed the Senator,” he said over his shoulder, pulling open the door on his Cadillac.

I
looked at Katy
, and Katy returned my confused
look
and shrugged her shoulders.

“What did that mean, Katy?”
I
asked.

“I have no idea,” she replied.
She pulled out her phone. “That’s why it’s handy to have friends
who
are cops.” She dialed Dirt’s number.

I
sat in the parking lot of the police department for fourteen minutes waiting for Dirt to come out
—not that I
was counting or anything
, but when I finished my
coffee
, I
started getting antsy
about
waiting on him. When I
called him after the
incident with Simon, he told me
to come to the station
and wait for him
until
he came out, which was what I
did.
When I finally
saw him coming out of the door
, I stuck my
hand out the window so he would see
me
. Jogging over to the car, he opened the
passenger
door and got in.

“You look horrible, Dirt,” I
said
,
looking at him. He did look horrible. His clothes
were
wrinkled as if he had slept in them,
but
the bags under his eyes didn’t seem
to
indicat
e that he’d been sleeping at all
. His eyes were also bloodshot and his hair was sticking out every which way
,
as if he had been raking his fingers through it.

“Thanks for that boost to my self-esteem, Presley,” he said wryly.

“C’mon, Dirt. I think you always look good no matter what, but you do look a little worse for wear. I take it you haven’t been getting much sleep lately.”

“
No much,
Pres.
Not
since the Senator was murdered
, anyway.
When the FBI got here, I stupidly thought it might be easier
,
and they could help us deal with it. Admittedly
,
we don’t have the resources for an investigation of this magnitude. However, they seem more interested in pointing out ways we have screwed this investigation up, rather than
in
try
ing
to find the killer. And they won’t share anything
with us
. Assholes.” He pounded his fist on the dash in frustration.

“Do you have any leads?”

“All we’ve been able to confirm is that he did in fact have a gambling problem and owed some men in Vegas big time. Which we pretty much all knew anyway.”

“Why wouldn’t he just pay them if he was in that much trouble? It’s not like h
e didn’t have the money.” As I said this, I wondered if I
should tell Dirt what Helen said about
the gambling
. How did this shit just happen? It
seemed surreal
to me
that people
could ever get
in these kinds of
overwhelming
messes.

“Well, that’s just it
,” Dirt continued.
“
We’re not sure he did. We started looking into his finances
,
and it seemed Helen had control of the money and had him on an allowance. He already paid someone several hundred thousand in debts and may not have had the money this time. Unless Helen was willing to give him more. We are now trying to figure out exactly
who
he owed.”

“Have you asked Helen?” I
wondered how the Senator managed to gamble so much if Helen had the purse straps shut tight
, t
hough that was probably why he owed millions.

“Not yet. The FBI headed over there this morning to do just that.”

“Well, I guess we’ll find out then. Do you think they killed him because Helen wouldn’t give him money? Would that make her an accessory to murder?”

“No, it’s not a crime to be a big bitch,” Dirt replied. “It’s not a crime to be stupid either, but it could
make
y
ou a statistic.” He gave me
a stern look. “What were you thinking asking Simon if he murdered the Senator?”

“Really Dirt, what was he going to do to me? We were in a public place
.” Now that it was all over, I had my
bravery back and didn’t w
ant a lecture. It’s not like I
was in any real danger. Although scary at the ti
me, I
didn’t think Simon was really a killer.
He’d just been angry I wouldn’t listen.