Superstition (7 page)

She must have felt him looking at her, because she glanced up just then and their gazes collided. Joe felt a stirring of slightly bemused interest as it occurred to him that she
was
his type—hell, hot-looking redheads were probably everybody’s type—except for the fact that at the moment, she was clearly royally ticked off and itching to take it out on some poor, unfortunate soul. Like him? Probably. It had been one of those days.

Reaching them, she snapped her cell phone shut. An echoing snap to his left made him glance in that direction. The black-haired woman was about ten feet away and on the move toward them, her now-closed cell phone in hand.

It was obvious that the two had been talking, and it wasn’t much of a stretch to guess what they’d been talking about.

Good thing for Vince they weren’t holding any popularity contests out at the Old Taylor Place tonight.

“Nicky.” The black-haired woman greeted the reporter with obvious relief, scooting past Joe and Vince and shooting them a venomous look in the process.

“Got it covered.” Nicky dropped her cell phone into a side pocket of the purse slung over her shoulder as her gaze slid between him and Vince.

“Mayor Capra?” she asked crisply.

“That’s me,” Vince said, squaring up to her. Her eyes zeroed in on him, narrowed still more.

Right,
Joe reminded himself. This was Vince’s call. Vince’s problem.
You go, Vince,
he thought, and took a small sideways step out of the line of fire.

If he was any judge of human nature—and, once upon a time, he had prided himself on that—this was going to be something like the clash of the Titans.

“Nicole Sullivan.” Her tone was brusque. She stuck out her hand and shook Vince’s. Joe wasn’t exactly sure whether Vince had cooperated, but whether he had or not, the result was the same: handshake accomplished. The woman was obviously a go-getter, and what she was used to getting was her own way.
“Twenty-four Hours Investigates.
I understand there’s some question about whether or not we have the necessary permission to film here?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Vince said, going for polite but firm. “Or rather, no, ma’am, there’s no question. You can’t film here. You don’t have a permit.”

Nicky smiled. Or more accurately, Joe thought with a bystander’s objective appreciation, bared her teeth. Very nice, straight, white teeth they were, too.

“Actually, we don’t need a permit. All we need is the permission of the homeowner, which we have, in writing. Would you care to see it?” She unslung her purse from her shoulder.

“No, ma’am, I wouldn’t. The bottom line is, you don’t have a permit. That being the case, I’m going to have to ask you and your people here to leave.” Vince held his ground as she unzipped her purse and plunged a hand inside.

“Here.” Nicky thrust a piece of paper at him. “Written permission from the homeowner. We checked, believe me, and that’s all we need.”

Vince took the paper and scowled down at it.

“Hey, Vince,” the blond guy called by way of a casual greeting as he and the older woman reached the top of the porch stairs and started toward them.

Vince—who knew everyone on the island while, so far, Joe was basically acquainted with the guys in his department, their families, the city council, and various assorted lawbreakers—looked up. Joe watched him focus and frown.

“John. Mrs. Stuyvescent.” Vince nodded at the newcomers perfunctorily. “I hate to tell you to turn right back around, but I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

“Nobody’s leaving,” Nicky said through her teeth, snatching the paper from Vince and thrusting it back into the depths of her purse. “We’re on the air, live, in”—she glanced down at her watch—“oh, God, eight minutes.”

“Without a permit . . .” Vince began, shaking his head in pseudo-sorrow.

“Stuff the permit.” Nicky’s eyes shot sparks at him. “We don’t need one.”

“You cuttin’ it close, girl.” The chiding voice, a woman’s, interrupted before the exchange could grow truly heated. It came from behind Joe. Three people—clearly, they’d come from inside the house—rushed past him. A small, wiry, Hispanic-looking man, a tall black woman with close-cropped hair, and a tiny little blonde with a waist-length ponytail and huge platform shoes surrounded Nicky. They wielded, respectively, a hair-brush, lipstick, and a giant pink powder puff. The blonde had what looked like a translucent overnight case hanging from her arm; it was full of makeup. Joe watched with surprised interest as the trio swooped around Nicky like hyperactive fairy godmothers, everybody working on her at once.

“I know,” Nicky replied. “I had to . . .”

“Quit talking and purse your lips.”

Nicky pursed. A thin brush—lipstick—was whisked over her mouth. Joe watched in fascination as the full, pouty contours he had admired on the screen earlier were restored.

“Hold on there.” Vince raised his voice to be heard over the hubbub. His face, Joe noted with interest, was becoming flushed. “There’s no point in all this, because there’s not going to be any TV show. Not here, not tonight.”

If anybody was listening, they could have fooled Joe. Even as the guy used his brush to flip up the ends of her hair, Nicky pulled Mrs. Stuyvescent, who released John with seeming reluctance and murmured something that sounded like a panicky
Nicky, no
into the circle.

“Guys, I think a little powder here,” Nicky said. “And . . . should we touch up the lipstick?”

“Oh, definitely.”

Mrs. Stuyvescent was attacked by the same giant puff that had just dusted Nicky’s face as the fairy godmothers went to feverish work on her, too.

“The show is cancelled,” Vince announced loudly, to no visible effect.
“Cancelled,
do you hear?”

“If I were you, Vince, I’d give up on trying to interfere with Leonora’s big TV comeback,” John said, his eyes, like everyone else’s, on the women. “You can’t stop a runaway train. Anyway, why would you want to?”

Leonora? Leonora
James? For Joe, the other shoe dropped as he figured out that Mrs. Stuyvescent, who was at that moment cringing in the midst of the makeover frenzy, must be the famous psychic who was supposed to conduct the séance that was supposed to air live on Channel 8 in just a few minutes.

“We don’t need to have the whole country thinking about us in terms of a triple murder, especially with the high season coming up,” Vince growled. “It’s bad publicity.”

“There’s no such thing as bad publicity,” John said.

“Hold your breath!” This hardly adequate warning came from one of the fairy godmothers, and it was followed almost immediately by a hissing sound as an aerosol can discharged its contents over the two women at the epicenter of all the activity. To his horror, Joe found himself engulfed in a drifting cloud of hair spray. He accidentally breathed in, choked, and started coughing even as he backed up out of the way.

“Stop . . . this.” Vince was coughing too, and waving his hand to clear the vapors. “Damn it, how many times do I have to say it: There’s not going to be any TV show broadcast from here tonight.”

“Choo-choo,” John murmured.

Vince’s face turned an interesting shade of magenta. He shot John a fulminating look. “Folks,
it ain’t happening
.”

For all the reaction that got, he might as well have been talking to himself. The screen door opened. A short, chubby, sixtysomething woman with gray hair curled close to her head hurried through it. As she bustled toward the party, Joe saw that she was wearing an ankle-length flowery skirt and a pale pink sweater set and looked like somebody’s nice old granny. Behind her, carefully holding the door so it wouldn’t bang shut, came Dave.

“Oh, thank goodness, Marisa,” Nicky greeted the newcomer. Meanwhile, Joe lifted a questioning eyebrow at Dave. He shrugged, looking sheepish. Joe took that to mean that he’d had about as much luck as Vince. Having apparently come to the same conclusion, Vince, who was also looking at Dave, audibly ground his teeth.

“Everything’s all set,” Marisa said to Nicky with a quick smile. Then she switched her attention to Leonora and her voice turned brisk. “All right, let’s get you hooked up. I’ve got good feelings about tonight.”

“You don’t have a permit to film here,”
Vince roared. With his face red and his eyes bulging, he looked like a balloon that was about to pop.

Other than glancing his way for the briefest of seconds, none of the TV crowd paid him any attention whatsoever. Their focus was on Leonora—a fluff of her hair, a flick of lipstick, a tug to straighten her dress. Marisa curled a hand around her arm. Leonora clutched at Nicky’s hand with seeming desperation.

“I just don’t think I can do it,” Leonora moaned.

“She’ll be fine,” Marisa said to Nicky in a comforting tone. For her part, Nicky looked less than reassured. “Nothing but preshow nerves.”

“I’m not feeling a connection.”
Leonora looked wildly around the group. “Does
no one
understand?” Her lips parted, and she started breathing hard through them. “I’m blocked. I’m
blocked
.”

“Leonora. Here.” John stepped forward, produced another folded brown paper lunch bag from his pocket, snapped it open, and pressed it into Leonora’s hand. She glanced down, seemed to register what it was, then clapped it over her mouth and nose without relinquishing her grip on Nicky’s hand.

“Just do your best,” Nicky said, as calmly as though there was nothing at all surprising about this really weird behavior. If her hands hadn’t curled into fists at her sides as she spoke, Joe might have believed that she actually
was
calm.

Leonora’s reply was incomprehensible through the bag, the sides of which were expanding and contracting as she breathed into it. Marisa tugged on her arm. She didn’t budge.

Nicky continued in the same soothing tone: “Remember when you found that little girl who was lost in the woods? Remember when you saw that there were survivors after that boat capsized? They were saved because of you. This is nothing compared to that. Just one more day at the office.”

Leonora shuddered and shook her head.

“All right, you’re gonna make me do something I don’t want to do,” Vince threatened loudly.

“Is there somewhere I can sit down?” The pregnant lady—she was blonde, thirtyish, and hugely, scarily with child—trudged along the porch toward them. Flip-flops flapping, wearing micro-sized white shorts and a crotch-length pink tent, she was leaning heavily on the supporting arm of the other guy, who Joe saw also had red hair. She was breathing hard, perspiring. Her face was flushed and blotchy, and her eyes looked all red and puffy, like she had bad allergies or something.

“You okay?” Nicky asked as she reached them, her voice sounding strained for the first time.

“Fine,” the pregnant woman answered, pressing a hand to her belly. “For an
elephant
.”

Then her mouth trembled, her eyes welled over with tears, and she clapped both hands to her face. Joe realized, to his horror, that she was crying.

For the first time that night, he felt a stab of real alarm. Weeping pregnant women were
way
outside his comfort zone. If he hadn’t already been backed up all the way to the porch rail, he would have retreated. As it was, he was stuck. Beside him, Dave and Vince looked as horrified as he felt.

“Don’t cry, Liv,” Nicky said, patting the pregnant woman awkwardly on the arm. “He’s not worth it.”

“I
know.”
The pregnant lady—Liv—sobbed through her fingers. “I c-can’t help it.”

“It’s the hormones,” Leonora said, lowering the bag and sounding surprisingly normal. “I was exactly the same when I was pregnant.”

“Three minutes,” a voice called from inside the house.

“Don’t worry, Nicky, I’ll take care of Livvy,” the red-haired man said, pulling her away.

“Hold
sti-ill
,” the fairy godmothers chorused.

A hiss heralded the release of another toxic cloud of hair spray.

“I’m gonna have to . . .” Vince began, only to be interrupted by a coughing fit as the fumes engulfed him. Dave, caught by surprise, succumbed, too. Having retained the presence of mind to remember what the warning presaged and hold his breath, Joe had to smile. Folding his arms over his chest, resting a hip against the porch rail as he settled himself more comfortably, he discovered that for the first time in a long time, he was actually starting to enjoy himself.

“Nicky . . .” Leonora gasped over her shoulder as Marisa, with John’s help, finally succeeded in moving her.

“You can do it,”
Nicky said. “There’s nothing different about this one. Karen, help them with her, would you please?” The black-haired woman nodded, then moved away to join Leonora and company. Seconds later, Nicky called after them in a sharper tone: “Don’t let her go inside until we’re ready to start. We want to get her reactions to the house from the very beginning. And one of you, for goodness’ sake,
take that paper bag away from her
.”

“Two minutes, Nicky. We need to get you miked,” a man called urgently through the screen. Glancing that way, Joe noticed that a TV camera inside the house was now visible. The cameraman appeared to be positioning it so that it captured anyone entering through the front door.

“Coming,” Nicky responded, and suited the action to the words. Swinging hair, spine straight as a poker, nice ass with a provocative sway to it, long-legged strides: Yep, no doubt about it, she was walking away.

Mark that down as a whiff for the home team.

“See what trying to be nice gets you? Ignored.” Openly seething, Vince stared after her, then glanced sideways at Joe. “You’re the damned Chief of Police. You handle it. They don’t want to leave, fine. Arrest them.”

Joe shot him a disbelieving look. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Hell, no, I’m not kidding you. What do you think we’re paying you for? Do your job.”

“Shit,” Joe said, catching Dave’s eye. His Number Two looked as dubious as he felt, but, hell, it was Vince’s call. With Dave following and Vince bringing up the rear, he headed semi-reluctantly toward where Nicky was now standing in the middle of a huddle in front of the screen door. A few feet away, in the middle of her own huddle, Leonora was once again breathing into the paper bag.