With Vics You Get Eggroll (A Mad for Mod Mystery Book 3) (11 page)

FOURTEEN

I was out of my car before it stopped moving. I jumped into the Jeep and worked the gag from her lips down to her neck. One of her eyes was shaded with a deep purple bruise. The other was swollen shut. The seatbelt had been secured over her arms handcuffed together. Dark welts were visible on her wrists.

“Is that yours?” I asked, pointing to a cell phone sitting on the floor. She nodded. I picked it up and called 911. “I’m at the Casa Linda parking lot in a black Jeep along the back row of cars. One of the abducted women is with me. She’s still alive but she needs help.”

“Water,” Cleo choked out. She cut her eyes to the cupholder, where a plastic bottle of water lay. I set the phone down, uncapped the water, and held it up to Cleo’s mouth while she drank. An overflow of liquid spilled down the side of her mouth onto the tight red sweater she’d been wearing yesterday when I was at her house.

Cleo picked up her handcuffed hands and reached for mine. She fed her fingers through them and clutched me like a toddler learning to walk. “Is he gone?” she whispered.

I hadn’t stopped to think that the man who did this might still be close. I pulled the door shut next to me and locked it, but still felt exposed. Who had put her here? Was he still around? The only cars in the lot were in a line waiting to exit. I was too far away to see the plates, make, or model.

“Do you remember anything? How you got here?” I asked. She shook her head. “Do you know who brought you?” Again, a head shake.

I looked at the interior of the car, hoping to find some clues as to where Tex had gone. There was nothing. No trash under the seats, no napkins by the dashboard. It smelled like Armorall, that plastic scent infused with lemons that was particular to cars newly detailed.

She closed her eyes and leaned back against the headrest. I untied a strip of Caution tape that had been wound around her ankles. Sirens sounded close by. When I sat up, a fleet of cop cars headed toward us, their blue and red lights diluted by the waning sunlight. Officer Iverson was the first one out of his car. He raced to the driver’s side of the Jeep and yanked the car open. He looked surprised to see me inside with Cleo.

“What’s going on here?” he asked.

“I found her in the car. She was gagged. Her hands are cuffed.”

He fished a set of handcuff keys out of his pocket and unlocked the metal restraints. The door next to me opened and two medical technicians faced me. “Are you hurt?” one asked me.

“No.”

“Wait over there,” he commanded.

I climbed out of the Jeep and watched Iverson. He had the look of someone who was very tired, who’d been jolted awake. Bags under his eyes told of sleepless nights, but the ease with which he managed the scene gave the impression that he had an autopilot setting. He stepped back and gave the medical technicians access to Cleo. Her sweater had been torn in two places and her white shorts were streaked with grass stains. Her feet were bare but clean.

I turned around and scanned the parking lot, my hand shielding my eyes from the sun. A handful of cars were scattered about, most parked close to the entrance of the stores in the strip mall. An employee in a red vest rounded up carts that had been left in the far corners of the lot. He looked over at us with curiosity, as did a small group of people standing in front of the entrance. More employees clustered outside of the rest of the shops, pointing our direction. A Jeep, surrounded by four police cars and an ambulance. I expected the news van to arrive any second.

From where I stood, I could smell the Chinese food. The scent had clung to everything I’d worn since becoming Tex’s eggroll supplier.

Officer Iverson approached me. “Ms. Night, how did you know Mrs. Tyler was in the Jeep?”

“I didn’t. I thought this was Lt. Allen’s Jeep. I didn’t see her until I was out of my own car.”

Iverson studied me. “How do you know Mrs. Tyler?”

“I’m doing some decorating work for her.” I didn’t mention that her husband had fired me earlier that day.

“Did you know she was missing?”

“I heard about it on the news last night.” I wrapped my arms around myself and scanned the parking lot. Had the person who did this left in the row of cars I’d seen driving away? Or was he sitting in the parking lot now, watching us, taking note of how the police were conducting the investigation? Instinctively, I stepped closer to the professionals who were processing the scene. They were busy with their individual tasks and the last thing they wanted was for me to be there, but I was too unnerved to care that I was in their way. Standing even a foot away felt too separated from safety.

Before I could continue, a small gold BMW sped into the parking lot and pulled up next to us. Dan Tyler jumped out of the car. Iverson tried to stop him.

“Sir, you have to stay back.”

Dan pushed him out of the way. “She’s my wife. She needs me,” he said. He pushed his way through the others until he reached Cleo. “Baby, I thought I wasn’t going to see you again.”

Tears streamed down Cleo’s face. Her hands had been freed from the handcuffs, and she held one arm around him. The other was in a sling. I didn’t know what kind of internal injuries she’d sustained.

Officer Iverson watched Cleo and Dan for a few moments, and then turned to me. “You said something about Lt. Allen. Was he here?”

I stood back and stared at Tex’s Jeep. Something wasn’t right and I didn’t know what it was. I couldn’t lie to the officer and he knew it. I knew the pressure to find the Lakewood Abductor—whether he turned out to be a police officer or not—was making every cop on the force follow every procedure they had with zero leniency.

I took a deep breath of air scented by fried rice from Hunan Palace, and then exhaled. “It’s a setup,” I said suddenly. “We’re supposed to think this is Lt. Allen’s Jeep but it’s not.”

“I know you’re friends with Allen, but you’re not helping him by lying.”

“I’m not lying. It’s not his Jeep. Do some legwork. Run the plates, check the registration. It’s not Lt. Allen’s Jeep.”

“I already know it’s not Lt. Allen’s Jeep. I’m more interested in knowing how
you
knew it wasn’t Lt. Allen’s Jeep. It’s the same make, model, year, and color. Anybody remotely familiar with Lt. Allen’s Jeep would have made the assumption it was his. Why didn’t you?”

I had been hoping to catch the officer by surprise, have him run the plates and tell me something I didn’t know. But he already knew what it had taken me twenty minutes to figure out.

“Ms. Night, Lt. Allen is one of us, but if he’s involved in something illegal, I’m not going to protect him. If he’s caught in somebody’s web, then the truth will come out. Mrs. Tyler is going to be okay, but there are women out there who might not be so lucky.”

“When I saw the Jeep, I thought it was his. But Lt. Allen and I had Chinese food in his car. The smell gets into everything. This car is too clean, too new. Other than that, I don’t have any information for you. I saw a man in a dark uniform move away from the window. He got into a black car and drove away. He must have done this.”

“Did you get any identifying information? License? Description?”

“I was too far away to recognize him, and when I got closer and saw Cleo, I had to help her. She was gagged and looked hurt. I think the sedan pulled out of the parking lot, but I can’t be sure.”

For a few uncomfortable seconds, we stood facing each other, no words said. The technicians moved Cleo into the back of their ambulance and Dan climbed in with her. Iverson joined three officers who stood by the side of the Jeep talking amongst themselves.

“Officer, if you don’t need me for anything else, I’m going to be going,” I said.

“Be careful, Ms. Night,” he said. “There’s a maniac out there.”

I left with the sound of his words ringing in my ears.

Unless coincidence was on the side of the bad guy, whoever was pulling the strings seemed to be calling all of the shots. I didn’t like it. But for everything we didn’t know, it seemed that one thing Tex had hit upon might be true. The abductor hadn’t chosen Tex at random. The Jeep that was just like Tex’s Jeep, the fake badge, and the identity leaked at the first press conference said one thing. This whole setup was personal.

FIFTEEN

Last night I’d called Nasty in an effort to find someone to help me reason through the information. Her response had thrown me for a loop, but it didn’t stop me from wanting to figure this out. Again I remembered Effie’s attack, and again it felt off. Different. There was something about her story that didn’t fit with what we knew.

I drove to Mad for Mod, where I kept the resident applications for the apartment building. While being a landlord only overlapped with being an interior decorator insomuch as a 1957 building occasionally needed repairs and the occasional paint job, keeping my tenant records at the studio had solved two problems: storage and confidentiality. Well before my tenants knew I was the owner of the building, I implemented a system to keep correspondence addressed to The Night Company and files locked in a cabinet behind my desk.

Once inside my studio, I went straight for the cabinet and pulled Effie’s application. As suspected, her emergency contact was her boyfriend, Chad Keith. His address was listed as Luxury Uptown Lofts. I checked directions on MapQuest and left.

The Luxury Uptown Lofts were on Lemmon Avenue on the other side of Highway 75. If it had been earlier in the day, it would have taken less time to get there, but on a Friday afternoon with people cutting out of work early, rush hour interfered. I parked by a curb and walked half a block to the entrance. A directory of apartments hung by the lobby. I scanned the listing until I found Chad’s name. There seemed no other way to gain access to the apartments than to ring the buzzer.

“Hello?” Effie answered.

“Effie, hi, it’s Madison Night.”

“Madison! It’s great to hear your voice. What are you up to? Did I forget to sign something?”

“Actually, I’m in the area, and I thought I’d see how you were doing.”

“Where are you?”

Despite the obvious, considering I’d buzzed her from the lobby, I answered. “I’m downstairs.”

“Oh, duh, of course. I’ll buzz you up. We’re on the second floor.”

The gate let out a sound not unlike a bug zapper and I yanked it open. “I’ll be right up.”

The lobby of the building was a study in shiny Italian marble. Brushed chrome fixtures mirrored the elevator wells. There were no hallmarks of any particular design era other than the sort of minimalism that said “young and affluent.” I wondered what the rent was at a place like this, and why so many college grads preferred to sink their money into a unit here instead of one with character. It certainly would be a change of pace to Effie, who had spent her college years in a mid-century box with fifty-plus-year-old carpeting.

When the elevator doors opened on the second floor, Effie was waiting for me. Disappointment in her face quickly said she’d been hoping that a visit from me meant a visit from Rocky. She recovered and gave me a hug.

“I wasn’t sure the building allowed pets,” I said. “Rocky’s with a friend today. Next time I come to visit I’ll bring him, I promise.”

“Sure, that was good thinking. I don’t think Chad would have a problem with him, but I should ask.”

I followed her to the apartment at the end of the hall. She turned around before opening the door. “You’re probably not going to like the way he decorates.”

“It’s okay, Effie. People have different tastes.”

She was right. Chad Keith had not only embraced the minimalistic concepts portrayed in the architecture of the new building, but he’d shown off his own personal interests with a state of the art gaming console and sound system. The living room was white with a black sofa, black coffee table, and black entertainment center. Sleek chrome speaker stands flanked the massive television, and additional speakers were hardwired into the walls. Interrupting the stark interior were two signs of Effie: a pizza box on the coffee table, and a pair of bear paw slippers tucked underneath it. She took a seat on the sofa. I sat in the black and chrome chair.

“I hope you don’t mind the impromptu visit,” I said.

“No, I’m happy you’re here. Chad’s out doing something and he asked me to stay here until he got back. I didn’t think he’d be gone so long. I can’t figure out how to work his remotes, so I’m pretty bored. How’d you know where he lived?”

“I checked the emergency contact information on your lease.”

“You really are a good detective. I was telling Chad about everything that’s happened to you and he’s impressed. He said he never would have expected a woman who looks like June Cleaver to be able to take care of herself.”

“Chad watches
Leave it to Beaver
reruns?”

“I watch it at night. It’s on Antenna TV.” She looked embarrassed. “I think he meant it as a compliment, even though it doesn’t sound like one.”

I waved my hand to show it didn’t bother me. “I guess you two have been together a long time.”

“We’ve been on-again and off-again for most of college.” She shrugged and picked at a tear in her workout pants. “We used to hang out in high school. Not like dating, but my friends and his friends were a group. You know how high school is.”

Considering Effie was more than half my age, I was flattered by her comparison.

“Did you bring that referral letter? That’s why you’re here, right?”

“Actually, I came to talk to you about what happened the other night.”

“Oh.”

I leaned forward and put my hand on her thigh. “Your statement made a difference. I’m proud of you for going to the police department and talking to them.”

“Okay, so I talked to the police. Why can’t it be done now? Why does everybody want me to keep talking about it?” she said. She crossed her arms and turned away from me. “First Chad, then you. I just want to forget it ever happened.”

“Effie, what happened to you was a very scary thing. Chad probably wants you to talk about it so it doesn’t end up haunting you.”

“What about you? Why do you want to talk to me about it?”

“I’m afraid my motivation is a little more self-serving. Another woman was taken a few nights ago. She’s a client. The police found her abandoned in a Jeep in the Casa Linda parking lot. ” I looked down at my hands for a second, and back at Effie’s face. Her shoulder was still turned away from me, but her head was facing me. “You know Lt. Allen is my friend. Your statement helped him, but it also raised a lot of questions. I was hoping you’d be willing to go over it with me again. There might be something you can tell me that nobody else knows.”

She raised her hand to her mouth and chewed on a fingernail. After a few seconds, she lay her hands in her lap.

“I don’t know how I can help, but I’ll tell you what I told the police.”

“Thank you.”

She leaned back against the cushions and stared up at the wall in front of her. Before she started, she turned to me again. “You heard most of this already, but I have to start at the beginning. Okay?”

“Okay.”

She straightened in the chair and focused on the wall again. I got the feeling she was taking a trip back in time to before the attack had happened. “My friends and I went to the Landing for happy hour. Angie’s older sister Barbie just moved here, so a bunch of us stayed for dinner so we could celebrate her new job. I had a beer during happy hour, but I switched to Pepsi when the food came.”

I nodded and she continued. “We ordered a bunch of appetizers for the table instead of getting individual meals, and we picked off all of the plates. French fries, potato skins, chicken fingers, and onion rings. We had two baskets of onion rings. Barbie wouldn’t eat them because she was planning on going to her boyfriend’s house after we left.”

“Did anybody talk to you inside?”

“Barbie started dancing in front of the jukebox even though there’s not really a dance floor, and then she realized her necklace had come off. She freaked out. The bartender gave her a shot of vodka on the house to calm her down, and then somebody said they found her necklace in the bathroom. I left after that.”

“You didn’t stay with the rest of the group?”

“It’s no fun being the sober one in a crowd of party girls. I left around nine.”

“What happened when you left?”

“I’ve been over this so many times, you know? My car was in a space by the back of the lot. There are tons of lights all over the place, so I wasn’t scared. A couple of people were by the back door smoking, but they went back inside when I left. I backed out of the space and was about to drive off when the officer came over to me.”

“What can you tell me about him?”

“He had on a uniform and a name tag that said Lt. Tex Allen. He had a hat on too, a cowboy hat with a sheriff badge in the middle of it. It was pretty big and cast a shadow over his face.”

“Lt. Allen is a police lieutenant, not a sheriff. He wouldn’t wear a hat like the one you’re describing.”

“I should have known that, shouldn’t I?”

“Not necessarily,” I said, reassuring her.

“It was dark and I was scared. He popped up out of nowhere. If he wasn’t dressed like a cop, I wouldn’t have even rolled down my window.”

“Do you remember what he said to you?”

“He told me I had a tail light out and he asked me if I wanted to get out and see. That’s when I saw the knife in his hand. Madison, I’ve never seen anything like it before. It was curved, with a point on the end. I got scared. I threw the car in reverse and then took off.”

“You told me you thought you knocked him over?”

“I don’t know what happened to him. I kept looking over my shoulder to see if he was following me, but nobody was there.” Her eyes were wide and filled with tears. She tipped her head back and then side to side, letting the tears run into her hairline. “Excuse me,” she said. She stood up and went into a room in the hall. Seconds later I heard her blow her nose.

Her account today wasn’t that different from what she’d told me when it had happened. A few details had surfaced in the passing days, but it was hard to trust the accuracy of them. The mind could create memories, and if Effie had been pushed hard enough to remember specifics, she might have populated the actual recollections with bits and pieces of things she’d seen throughout the day without even knowing she was doing it.

But one detail stuck out: the knife. I could close my eyes and picture it as if it had been in front of me. Because it had. Her description perfectly matched the strange curved knife that Lyndy had been carrying the day he showed up at Mad for Mod.