With Vics You Get Eggroll (A Mad for Mod Mystery Book 3) (14 page)

TWENTY

If a fortune teller had predicted that I’d walk into a topless bar after midnight, I would have had her license revoked. Yet here I was, inside the poorly lit red and gold interior of Jumbo’s. I looked away from the stage where a woman in a cowgirl outfit danced to “Mustang Sally,” and I scanned the crowd for Tex. I found him at the bar, his back to the stage, sitting next to Officer Iverson. Two empty shot glasses sat in front of Tex.

As I passed a table of rowdy young men, I felt something brush against my hip. I looked down and saw one of the men holding a wad of one dollar bills. “Hey, Sandra Dee! Cool. I didn’t know it was amateur night. You up next? These singles got your name written all over them.”

I shook my head and kept walking.

By the time I reached Tex and Officer Iverson, they were aware of my presence. Iverson looked amused. Tex looked angry. I caught my reflection. My expression matched Tex’s.

“Go home, Night,” Tex said.

“I can’t. You took my keys. If you don’t hand them back in the next five seconds, I’ll be forced to drive that camper home instead of my car. I have no problems doing that, but in all fairness, I should tell you, the clutch on the Alfa Romeo sticks.”

Tex stood from the bar stool and patted down his front jeans pockets, and then the back ones, and then the pocket on his T-shirt. His angry expression turned to confusion. He turned around and looked at the bar, the stool, and the worn wooden floor boards.

“This isn’t a joke, Lieutenant,” I said.

“I don’t have them,” he said. He turned to Iverson. “You see a set of keys?”

“Nope,” Iverson said. He picked up his drink, a clear glass tumbler filled with ice and liquid, and poured it down his throat. “Good luck, man,” he said. “Hotel California” came over the sound system. Iverson patted Tex on the back and moved to a seat closer to the stage.

The bartender, a slim man in a black T-shirt and jeans, leaned against a wall filled with bottles of booze and dried a glass with a white terrycloth towel. His attention was on the stage.

“Night, I don’t know what to say. You have a spare set, don’t you?”

“Not with me.”

“So I’ll give you a ride home.”

“Between the two beers in the camper and the empty shot glasses in front of you, I’d say you’re not driving anywhere.”

“So, what, you’re going to hang out with me and watch the stage show? You really are an enigma.”

“They must have fallen out of the camper when you left. Come help me look.”

Even with pain throbbing in my knee joint, I made it to the exit before Tex. As I passed the bouncer, I cut my eyes to him for a second. He stifled a smile.

“It’s not what you think,” I said.

“It never is,” he replied.

We scanned the lot between the doors to Jumbo’s and the back of the camper. My keys weren’t there. Tex asked the bouncer if he’d seen them, and the bouncer shook his head. Tex rejoined me.

“Tell you what. I’ll have your car towed to a safe lot overnight and you can pick it up in the morning.”

“And in the meantime I just accept the fact that my keys are gone?”

“Night, they didn’t spontaneously combust. They’re probably in the back of the camper.”

Tex pulled the back doors open and climbed in. I watched him from the lot. He squatted to the floor and looked around the table and the bench. “You got a nail file?”

“Not on me.”

“What kind of a woman are you?”

“The kind who is rapidly losing patience with you.”

He looked down at me. “Your keys are wedged between the bench and the table. The way I see it, you’ve got two options. Give me a ride to Thelma Johnson’s and take the camper—”

“Or?”

“Spend the night here with me and we figure it out in the morning.”

I grabbed the camper keys from him. “Buckle up, Lieutenant. I’ve never driven a camper, but I’m pretty sure it’s going to be a bumpy ride.” I went around to the driver’s side and climbed up into the cab. I was thankful that it was the middle of the night and the roads would be close to empty.

The engine turned over easily, but the camper jumped when I put it into reverse. It took a second to find the emergency brake, and then we were off. I checked every mirror three times and eased the behemoth out of the space, cut the wheel to the right, and left the parking lot.

The drive to Thelma Johnson’s house was slow and steady and filled with more mirror checking than backstage at a beauty pageant. I was surprised that Tex had asked me to bring him here. I parked the car out front and walked around back to check on him.

He wasn’t there.

What had happened to him? Had he climbed out the back while I was stopped at a traffic light? Why? Simply to make me mad?

The man was infuriating.

I threw the camper in reverse and backtracked over the route I’d traveled. I made it most of the way back to Jumbo’s without seeing any sign of Tex. When I turned the corner, the five police cars, spiraling red and blue lights, and scattered crowd of uniformed officers in the parking lot out front distracted me from my annoyance.

I threw the camper into park and got out. A young cop put his hand up to stop me from getting closer to the crowd.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but this is a crime scene. I can’t let you get any closer.”

“But I was here earlier tonight. What happened?” I looked past him to the crowd and picked out Officer Iverson talking to a uniformed officer I didn’t know. Iverson looked out of place in his civilian clothes, a chambray shirt and jeans over cowboy boots. Behind them, several of the dancers from the club huddled together, each wrapped in blankets that covered their near-nudity. Iverson spotted me. He raised his chin and then nodded in a sign of recognition. “Let her through,” he said. The young officer stepped back.

“Officer, what happened?” I asked.

Iverson put his hand on my shoulder and turned me away from the others. “You left here with Lt. Allen, right? How long ago was that?”

“Ten—fifteen minutes. Why?”

“Where’s he now?”

I studied Iverson’s face. I didn’t know where Tex was, but all of a sudden I was afraid to acknowledge that.

“Ms. Night, I’m on Allen’s side. I think you are too. But unless we can prove he wasn’t anywhere near Jumbo’s in the past ten minutes, we got ourselves a problem.”

“Why?”

“Because somebody dumped the body of another of the abducted women.”

TWENTY-ONE

I swayed with a bout of vertigo. When I opened my eyes again, I saw the body on the asphalt. She was face up, her legs bent underneath her at an unnatural angle. Her arms were out on either side of her, as if to say, “Come and get me.”

“Who is she?”

Officer Iverson turned around and stared at me. “Her name is Linda Gull.”

I chewed on my lower lip, too stunned to answer. Linda Gull was the second woman who’d been reported as missing after Kate Morrow. She’d been abducted while on her way to Shreveport. It wasn’t until after she failed to meet her friends that someone noticed the abandoned car left outside of the Mexican restaurant on Greenville and put two and two together.

“How did she die?” I asked.

“You don’t want to know,” Iverson said.

“I need to know.”

“Her throat was slit.”

I turned away and bent over, anticipating dry heaves. The ground spun below me. I dropped to my knees and put my hands out in front of me so I was on all fours. Pain shot through my knee cap. I curled into a ball and wrapped my arms around my head, trying to erase what was happening.

Officer Iverson stooped down and put a hand on my shoulder. “You okay?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “No, I’m not okay. This can’t have happened. It can’t.” I slowly righted myself. Iverson stood and held out a hand. I took it and he pulled me up until I was standing.

“When is this going to end?” I said.

“When justice is served,” he said.

I looked at the empty space where my car had been parked. “Where’s my car?”

“The Alfa Romeo?” asked the man who’d been tending bar earlier. “That guy you were with earlier called. Said to have it towed.”

Great. Now I was minus one police lieutenant and minus one car. On my worse day in the softball league in high school my batting average was better than this. If it hadn’t hinted at the proximity both Tex and I had had to the person who dumped the body, it would have been laughable.

Another man in a dark suit approached me. I recognized him as being in Tex’s precinct, but I didn’t know his name. “Madison Night?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Sgt. Osmond,” he said, holding out his hand. “We spoke on the phone about Cleo Tyler.”

“How is she? Do you know anything?”

“She’s going to be fine. The hospital is sending her home tomorrow.”

She was going to be fine. Except for the nightmares.

“Ms. Night, Officer Iverson says you were here earlier tonight. I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

I darted my eyes behind him to Officer Iverson. He stared at me but didn’t make a move.

“Sergeant, Officer Iverson said her throat was slit. Remember when we talked about the contractors? Have you tracked down Lyndy? He carries a sharp carpet knife with him, the same kind that was used to threaten a woman on Wednesday night.”

He took more notes. “What were you doing here tonight?”

“I was here earlier with Lt. Allen.”

“Arrived together?”

“No, but we left together.” It took every ounce of emotional strength to let my words hang out there without any additional explanation. We were in the parking lot of a topless joint frequented by police officers. Tex had a reputation as a ladies’ man among them. Now was not the time to defend my honor.

“Lt. Allen and I left in the camper,” I said, pointing to the big white vehicle. Behind Sgt. Osmond, the two guys who had mistaken me for Sandra Dee snickered between puffs on their cigarettes.

The sergeant looked at them and then back at me. “You don’t look like the type to go off in a camper with Lt. Allen,” he said.

“I don’t know what type you take me for, Sergeant, but I can assure you that I’m able to take care of myself when it comes to Lt. Allen.”

“You said you and the lieutenant arrived separately. Where’s your car?”

I wasn’t the best liar under regular circumstances, and while my number one priority was helping Tex, I didn’t think inventing false leads was going to do a whole heck of a lot to help his case. “I thought the lieutenant took my keys by mistake. I went in to get them but he claimed he didn’t have them. We found them wedged in the back of the camper, and neither of us was equipped to get them out. I offered to drive him home and then take the camper to my house.”

Sgt. Osmond made notes on an iPad.

“Sergeant, Lt. Allen told me there was another abduction, Barbie Ferrer. She’s a friend of a friend. Are you any closer to figuring out where these women are being held?”

“We heard about Ms. Ferrer yesterday afternoon. The press was all over the Cleo Tyler disappearance, which we knew nothing about. Made us look like fools,” he said. “When your call came in about Mrs. Tyler, I was with the Ferrer family, getting details about her last twenty-four hours.”

“She was out with friends on Wednesday night,” I said. “She left the Landing and went to her boyfriend’s house.”

“He’s the one who called us. She left his place in the morning but never made it home. Her sister thought she was with him. We don’t know when or where she was taken.”

I looked away again, but there was no place to look that didn’t remind me of what had happened.

“Ms. Night, has your contact information changed?”

I could give him the address of the apartment building, but I knew I wouldn’t be there. I could give him Thelma Johnson’s address, but there was a decent chance Tex would be there, and I didn’t want him to walk into a trap. And then there was Hudson’s address, where I’d spent last night. I didn’t want to draw Hudson into this mess. And after how I’d left, I didn’t even know if I was still welcome there.

“You can reach me at Mad for Mod.” I gave him the address to the studio. Sgt. Osmond made a note and clicked a button on the side of his iPad. The screen went dark and he tucked the tablet under his arm.

“Thank you, Ms. Night. You’ve been very helpful.”

Having been given permission to leave the scene, I climbed back into the camper and left the parking lot. I was at a loss as to where to go. If ever there was a night that I wanted companionship, it was tonight, but showing up at Hudson’s felt too much like I was using him.

Ultimately, I drove to Thelma Johnson’s house. It didn’t hurt that Tex had hooked my spare key onto the ring of keys for the camper. I parked by the front curb and moved quickly from the vehicle to the house. The lack of lights told me I was alone.

There was something strange about being inside the house—my house—where Tex had been staying for the past few days. I checked the fridge and found a half-empty case of beer, a carton of eggs, and a block of butter sitting next to my assortment of yogurts and bag of spinach. Saltines, Campbell’s soup, and a stack of tuna cans had been added to the existing contents of my pantry.

In the living room, I found a windbreaker draped over the back of a chair and a pair of sneakers pushed underneath it. I turned on the TV; the last channel watched had been CNN. The yellow blanket from my bedroom had been moved to the sofa, along with a pillow in a pink, yellow, and white floral case. Tex might have tried to shake off the Doris Day quality of my residence, but it was hard to escape the daisies.

I climbed the stairs, showered and changed into a clean pair of pajamas, and slipped between the sheets on the bed. The loneliness was stifling. Ten minutes later, I moved downstairs to the sofa and rested my head against the pillowcase that now smelled vaguely of Tex.

After a fitful night of sleep, I dozed off around five. Too bad the sun comes up around five thirty. There was no ignoring the bright rays that flooded the living room. I stretched, stood, did a few toe touches to limber up my joints, and looked out the window. The camper sat by the curb where I’d parked it. A black Jeep was parked behind it. Tex was sitting on the concrete steps out front.

I combed my fingers through my hair, matted and knotted since I’d slept on it wet. I double-checked that the buttons on my PJs were all buttoned and opened the front door. Tex stood up and climbed the stairs. I stepped backward and let him in. He pulled a chair away from the dining room table and dropped into it. I dropped into the one catty-corner his.

“When I realized you weren’t in the camper, I went back to Jumbo’s,” I said.

“If this is about your car, I’ll square that when the impound lot opens.”

“This isn’t about my car, Lieutenant. Another woman is dead—Linda Gull. Her body was dumped in the parking lot outside of Jumbo’s after we left.”

“Shit.”

Tex leaned back, one arm on the table, flipping a pack of matches from Jumbo’s between his fingers. The other arm angled down by his side. His knee jiggled, his wrist shook, his fingers twitched. He was wired for sound.

“Do whatever it is you came here to do and then you’re coming with me. We’re going to the pool,” I said.

“I appreciate the gesture, but I don’t have time for water aerobics.”

I stood up and slammed my palms down onto the table. “You are twitching like a bomb with a lit fuse. You’re going to explode if you don’t do something soon. I don’t care where you spend your nights, and I don’t care where you drown your sorrows, but I’m not going to let you destroy yourself because you can’t control what’s happening to the women who’ve been abducted. If somebody sees you like you are right now, you’re going to go off and that’s not going to do you—or anybody—any favors.”

He stood up and stormed outside, slamming the doors behind him. I watched out the window as he walked down the sidewalk toward the garage. He stopped halfway and turned toward a gnarled oak tree that sat by the property line. He pulled a gun out of his waistband and shot the tree three times. A branch fell onto the ground. Next door, a window opened and my neighbor pushed her head out.

“Thomas Rexford Allen, are you shooting that poor old oak tree again?”

“Sorry, Mrs. Yoder,” he called.

“You better be. You scared the dickens out of my cat Sadie.”

“Sorry, Sadie.” He sheathed his gun and walked to her property line. I lost sight of him as he rounded the freestanding garage.

Only in Texas. Anyplace else, half the neighborhood would have called 911 at the sound of the shots.

For the first time since I’d met the lieutenant, I was scared of what he was capable of. He was turning his back on the world he knew—the world where he went after the bad guys—because it was protocol, but it was killing him.

I felt for him; I recognized the cage he’d put himself into. For the first time, I saw a glimpse of the darkness that had driven Nasty out of his life. I understood why he wouldn’t tell me where he lived, why whenever we got close to talking about something real he defaulted to wisecracks and flirtation. He was separating from the world. But I knew better than most that isolation is never the answer. I also knew I couldn’t force him to do anything he didn’t want to do.

I went upstairs and rooted around in the closet for a bathing suit. Swimming laps required something more practical than the vintage suits that matched my every day style. Last year one company had a closeout sale on poor selling patterns and I’d cleaned house on what they called their retro floral print, buying the same style in four colors. Today I pulled out the purple and blue one and added a white swim cap and clear goggles. I followed with two faded orange towels.

From a bin that I kept on the lower shelf, I pulled out a pair of mustard yellow men’s swim trunks trimmed in light blue that I’d acquired during one of my many estate buy-outs. The tags were still on them. Trafficking in vintage as I did, I found it hard to give up dead stock, even if it was intended for the opposite sex. I changed into a powder blue A-line dress that zipped up the back. An oversized Peter Pan collar and large covered buttons decorated the front. I pulled down a navy blue straw hat that was shaped like a wedding cake and trimmed with tiny wicker bows and set it on my head. When I went downstairs, Tex was waiting for me in the kitchen. He glanced up at my hat, and then shook his head at the style.

“You got a bathing suit around here for me?”

I pulled the yellow trunks out of my bag and held them out. He grabbed them.

“I’ll change when we get there. Let’s go.”