With Vics You Get Eggroll (A Mad for Mod Mystery Book 3) (20 page)

THIRTY

I closed the doors and went outside. Dan stooped down on the ground ruffling Rocky’s fur. Watching him play with my dog left me feeling dizzy. I dropped the hardhat and it fell to the deck with a clatter. Hudson rushed over to me. I smiled weakly.

“What’s wrong?” he said.

“We need to get out of here,” I whispered.

Dan crossed the yard and put his hand on my upper arm, his grip biting into my flesh. He spun me around and forced me to the front of the house. “What’s the rush, Madison? Why are you in such a hurry to leave?”

I flung his hand off of my arm. “I saw the uniform, Dan. In the closet. It’s you. You kidnapped your own wife and set it up so you could rescue her. Why are you doing this? Where are you hiding the other women?”

Hudson stepped between us. “Madison, what’s this all about?”

“We need to call Chief Washington. Dan has a policeman’s uniform hanging in his closet. He could be the Lakewood Abductor. He said he went out of town the day Cleo was taken, and he could have left her stranded in the Casa Linda parking lot so she’d be found. He wants her to need him. He set it up so he could rescue her.”

By now, Cleo had joined us. Rocky and Daisy came with her. Rocky, in tune with my emotions, stood by my feet and faced Cleo and Dan in a show of solidarity.

“Dan? Is any of this true?” she asked.

Dan ran his hand over his short buzz cut hair and then turned to her, his back to us. “Cleo, baby, don’t listen to her.”

“But the uniform? And you being out of town when I was abducted. Does it mean what she said?”

Dan turned halfway toward us and stared me in the face. Hudson had moved closer to me. Dan looked at him for a second, and then at Cleo, and then back at me.

“That’s my brother George’s uniform. I’ve had it in storage for a long time. Being back here, having all of this drug up again, the anger came flooding back.” He turned to Cleo. “I know you want this house, and I know you wanted to work with Madison and Hudson because of their past, but I don’t know if I can do this.”

“Our past?” Hudson said to me. I put my arm out and shook my head, silently telling him not to bring that up now.

“Where did you go when you left town on Wednesday?” Cleo asked.

Dan hung his head. “There’s a support group in Austin. For families who’ve lost someone in law enforcement. I can’t attend the meetings around here. These cops—they took George long before he died in that crash. But I needed to talk to somebody. I had to find a way to deal with the anger.”

Cleo put her hand on her husband’s arm. “You could have talked to me,” Cleo said. “We’re supposed to be a team.”

“When’s the last time we felt like a team, Cleo? When’s the last time we turned to each other instead of turning to someone else?”

She ran her hand up and down his arm. “Maybe we should try to change that,” she said softly.

He wrapped his arms around her and she nestled into him and hugged back. I stood there, awkward, wanting to leave but still feeling like something had to be said. Moments later, their embrace ended. Dan turned to me.

“All things considered, I think it’s best if you hire another decorator,” I said. “I’ll put together a list of recommendations and refund the balance of your deposit.”

“No,” he said. “This is your job. I need to get over my demons. I promise I’ll stay out of your hair until you’re finished.”

With the confession of what it was he’d been trying to hide came a visible change in Dan’s appearance. His eyes looked wider, his shoulders looked softer, his smile looked more genuine. Was it the act of a psychopath who plays for the audience in front of him? Uncomfortable as I was, I needed to leave their property to process what had just happened.

“I think it’s best that we call it a night,” I said. I went inside, clipped Rocky’s leash to his collar, and collected my belongings. Hudson stood by the front door waiting for me. Dan caught up with us after I’d rolled the coveralls up and shoved them into my hardhat.

“Madison,” he called. “This whole Asian room is Cleo’s idea and I want to give it to her. How soon can it be done?”

“It’s going to take time to do it right.” I calculated the time frame. I was thinking silver walls with a gold hand-painted pattern, like custom wall paper. To achieve the level of depth I wanted on the walls, it would take about four coats of silver paint, which would take a day to dry. Add in the time it would take Hudson to hand paint the detail on top of the undercoat, another day. We wouldn’t even start on lighting until later in the week. Furniture and accessorizing would happen last.

“We could be done sometime next week,” I said.

“I want it done on Friday.”

“There’s no way I can do that. It’ll take twenty-four hours to do the basecoats and let them dry before Hudson starts on the hand painting. I haven’t even picked out the paint yet.”

“I thought you said silver and gold?”

“There’s more than one shade of silver and gold,” I said quickly.

“I’ll have Jake pick something up tonight.”

“No,” I said with more finality than I’d planned. “I have an account at Paintin’ Place, and I have some outstanding business to discuss with the owner. You know the store, don’t you?” I studied his face for signs of a tell, but he didn’t react.

“Jake can meet you at the paint store tonight,” Dan said. “That’ll shave some time off the job.”

“But—”

“Madison, either you can pick the paint tonight or Jake can pick the paint tonight. What time do you want him to meet you?”

There were few things I wanted less than to meet up with Jake at the paint store that night, but one thing I wanted more was to get out of there.

“Let’s play it by ear.”

“I’ll wait to hear from you.”

Hudson and I walked out together but climbed into separate cars and went opposite directions. I drove to the end of the street and called Tex. He didn’t answer. “Meet me at Thelma Johnson’s house,” I said. “It’s urgent.”

The first thing I did after arriving was to check for evidence that Tex had been there. The same number of beers were in the fridge; the same number of soup cans were in the cupboard. The sheets, pillows, and towels were as I’d left them that morning. As far as I could tell, Tex had moved out. I left him a just-checking-in message and headed upstairs for a shower.

It took three rounds of lather and a washcloth to get the dirt from the construction site off of my skin and two rounds of conditioner to detangle my hair. After the sudsing, I stood under the nozzle and let the hot water pelt me. The release of working demo on Cleo and Dan’s living room had been what I needed in order to think clearly.

And then, a color name popped into my head. One that I liked. And then another. Using my index finger, I wrote them in the condensation on the wall. When I got out of the shower, my normally fair skin was a bright shade of pink. I wrapped my head and body in towels and wrote the names on my mirror in a stubby pink lipstick.

They worked. I could hand them over to Mitchell tonight and cross something off of my list. Better yet, it was a something that had nothing to do with abducted women, cheating spouses, or police impersonators. It was something that represented Mad for Mod and me.

As a counterpoint to the coveralls and hardhat look, I dressed in a fitted black and white checked cotton dress that belted at the waist and ended just below my knees. The dress had a matching blazer lined in yellow silk. I added a yellow flower pin to the lapel and buckled a pair of black patent leather T-strap shoes on my feet. Even though there was a matching checkered hat on the shelf of my closet, I rooted around in a bin of ribbons until I found one that matched the lining of the jacket. I placed it under the back of my hair and tied it in a bow on top.

When I went downstairs, I found Tex in my kitchen. Rocky sat by his feet, and an open bottle of beer sat by his right hand on the countertop.

“I came by to return your keys,” he said.

“Keep them.”

He tapped his finger on top of a set of keys on the table and then slid them toward me. I made no move to take them. Behind me, the clock ticked off the passing seconds.

“Lieutenant, I think the abductions have to do with family. According to the newspaper, Susan Carroll was here to celebrate her parents’ anniversary with her brothers, and I found out today that Cleo Tyler’s brother is Jacob Morris.”

Tex registered surprise at this, but I continued. “Kate Morrow was an only child and she was killed.”

“What about Linda Gull?”

“I don’t know. The paper only said she was on her way to meet friends in Shreveport. If it turns out she’s an only child, then that could be the determining factor in whether these women live or die. Can you call the chief and ask him?”

Tex shook his head.

I didn’t understand his reticence. “You don’t think this is worth investigating?”

“I quit the force today. Effective immediately.” He held a hand out to stop me from interrupting him.

“But last night you said—”

“Last night I was a cop with orders to stay out of an open investigation. Today I’m not.”

“No!” I said, slamming my closed fist down on the kitchen table. Tex stood up and walked around behind me, looking out the window at the property next to mine.

“Somebody is destroying everything I stand for, and as long as I’m on the force, I have to sit on the sidelines and give up control. I can’t do it. There’s still one vic out there but we have no way of knowing this guy’s next move.”

“You have to trust the system.”

He picked up his beer bottle and threw it at the backsplash over the sink. The glass shattered and beer sprayed the counter. He put his hands down on the edge of the sink and stared at the drain. “The system’s not working, Night. I
was
the system. Now I’m just a guy.”

“Damn it, Lieutenant, you’re not just a guy. You’re the person who swore to protect the rest of us from whatever threats are out there. You’re the person who’s supposed to make it okay for the rest of us to sleep tonight.”

“Not anymore.”

“I don’t believe this for a second. Last night you told me you were a cop. You were always going to be a cop. You said even after you retired, it was who you were. What happened in the past twenty-four hours to make all that change?”

He yanked several paper towels from the roll, pushed the broken glass into a pile, and dumped it into a plastic bag. He wiped down the counter with the sponge from the sink, making sure the beer and the residual shards were gone. He was holding something back. His ability to turn off, to block me from his world when I was trying so hard to help him, infuriated me, and I raised my voice in a desperate attempt to get his attention.

“Don’t shut me out, Tex. I know what it feels like to be alone. I know what it feels like to think you have nobody.”

“Night, if I’d have met you twenty years ago when your parents died, I would have made sure you never felt like you were alone.”

“But I’m not alone anymore and that’s what matters. We all get to make choices.”

“And I made my choice today. Finding this guy is something I have to do. Now I don’t have to answer to the chief or to the city. I can’t risk anybody else getting hurt. That’s
my
choice.”

He stood up and let himself out the front door. The spare set of keys remained behind on the kitchen table.

THIRTY-ONE

If Tex had expected me to follow him outside or beg him to reconsider, he’d be let down.

I couldn’t force him into seeing things differently than he did. I could only hope that after this was over, he could return to the job that defined his life.

Just like I needed to return to mine. I made my color name choices slightly more official by writing them on Mad for Mod letterhead, smiled at all four names, and folded the paper in thirds. I slipped it into an envelope and into my handbag.

Next, I called the police department. Officer Iverson answered. I identified myself and asked to speak to Chief Washington.

“He’s in a meeting. You want to leave a message?”

“No, thanks,” I said.

“You heard about Lt. Allen didn’t you? That’s why you’re calling.”

“Does it make sense to you?” I asked.

“He was a couple months shy of retirement eligibility. I have a good twenty years before I’m at that point, but I can’t see throwing it all away in the last couple of weeks. I didn’t figure him for the type to quit, but a case like this messes with a cop’s head.”

“Are you guys any closer to finding Barbie?”

“I’m sorry, Ms. Night. You know I can’t talk about the investigation. Did you get that tail light fixed yet?”

“Yes.”

“Good. I’ll tell the chief you called.”

I thanked him and hung up.

Paintin’ Place was due to close by six. I made a quick phone call and told Mitchell I had what he wanted but would only deliver those paint names in person. He agreed to stick around until I arrived. I told him my shopping list, and he said he’d start pulling the supplies needed for the job so all that would be left for me was the selection of the paint. I collected Rocky and we headed to the store.

The lot was close to empty. I swung my car around in an arc and backed into a space in front of the paint store. Mitchell met me by the front door.

“Hey, Madison, you’re finally going to deliver? You weren’t pulling my leg, were you?”

“Not pulling your leg.” I pulled the envelope out of my handbag and gave it to him.

He unfolded the sheet of paper. “Beach Party, Lemon Twist, Cherry Rocket, and Cool Cat.” A smile crept over his face. “Gotta admit, I was expecting something more along the lines of Yellow Yikes and Retro Red. But these,” he flapped the sheet of paper back and forth, “these have style.”

“So we’re good?”

“Better than good. I’ll drop the names onto the labels and send them to the printer. We’ll go into production with the paints within a week. If these sell, maybe we can talk about carpet samples.”

I held my hands up in surrender. “One thing at a time, Mitchell. You wouldn’t want this collaboration to go to my head.”

We consulted about gold and silver paint swatches for a couple minutes, and I narrowed the decision down to two. He suggested adding crushed mother of pearl to the paint for added luminosity and rolled out a sample on a piece of scrap wood. I called Hudson while I waited for the paint to dry.

“Are you busy?” I asked. “I’m at the paint store, and I’m caught between gold number twelve and gold number seventeen.”

“I thought they closed at six.”

“I promised Mitchell a product endorsement if he’d wait for me.”

“Tell you what. I’ll meet you there in a couple of minutes if you’ll agree to come over for dinner when we’re done.”

“Sounds good.”

The store’s front door chimes rang after I hung up. Mitchell was using a blow drier on the paint samples and didn’t hear it. I turned around. Jake stood in the doorway. In a flash I was enveloped in hot fear that prickled my skin from my ankles to my hairline.

“Jake. I told Dan I’d call you when the supplies were ready.”

He came closer. “I wanted to talk to you. Alone.”

I looked at Mitchell, and then back at Jake. “Hudson—you met him today—is on his way over to help with the final decision.”

“It’ll only take a minute to say what I need to say.”

Mitchell set the plank of wood down and moved to the register, where I’d stacked a package of drop clothes, a dozen paint trays and liners, and several rollers and brushes. As long as he stayed in the store, we wouldn’t be alone.

“What’s on your mind?” I asked.

“Your friend at the pool, he’s a cop, isn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“Sgt. Allen.”

“It’s lieutenant now,” I said, ignoring the fact that for the past several hours, Tex didn’t have a title that connected him to the force.

“He made a lot of trouble for me a few years ago.”

“From what I heard, you made that trouble for yourself.”

“Did he tell you about Stephanie? About how she died?”

Even though I hadn’t heard the name before, I knew immediately that Stephanie was the woman who had been behind the sofa, the woman who had been killed by the stray bullet fired from Tex’s gun.

“Yes.”

Jake looked away. “I made a lot of mistakes back then. I never thought anybody would die. But when that bullet went through the sofa, I was more scared than I’d ever been. Her little brother came after me. He couldn’t have been more than fourteen. He said I’d pay for getting her killed and I split.”

“Who was he?”

“I don’t know. She told me she came from an abusive family. She never mentioned a brother. I think that’s why she was willing to run away with me. She liked the idea of a fresh start. At least she did at the beginning.”

“You kept her there against her will.”

He looked down at the toes of his shoes. “She wanted to leave and I wouldn’t let her. We had a fight. Her death was an accident, but I’m more to blame for what happened to her than your friend the cop.”

“After the case went to trial, you left Dallas. Why’d you come back?”

“Cleo tracked me down when our parents died. She said she was buying a place in Texas and I could stay here when they were in Los Angeles. After years of having nobody, of staying away from this area because of what happened, I wanted to have a sister.” He studied me for a moment. “Madison, I can’t bring Stephanie back. I can’t change any of that. But I put it all behind me. I’m just a guy looking for a break. You know what that feels like?”

Hudson’s truck pulled into the lot and parked next to my car. Mitchell pointed to the door and Hudson nodded and came inside. He looked at Jake and then at me.

“Perfect timing,” I said. I raced to him and pulled him outside. I didn’t say another word until we were in his truck.

“You want to tell me why you just ran away from Jake?”

“I’ll tell you over dinner.”

“What about the silver paint?”

I pulled two swatches from my pocket. “Pick one and we’ll call it in.”

Hudson drove out of the parking lot to Brick House, a small brick oven pizza place down the road. I didn’t miss the way he scanned my outfit as we walked inside.

“There aren’t many women who can look as good in coveralls and a hardhat as they do in a 1960s power suit.”

“You have a preference?”

“Yes, but I’m keeping it to myself.”

We decided on silver number seventeen. I called Mitchell while Hudson ordered a pizza. Mitchell said he’d have the paint ready in an hour and would stack the cans in the back of my car while Hudson and I ate.

We sat in a booth across from each other, waiting for our food. Hudson fiddled with the wooden napkin dispenser that sat on the side of the table, straightening the rods that jutted up and leveling the piece of wood that ran between them, holding down the pile of napkins.

“You want to talk about why you left Paintin’ Place so suddenly?”

“Not right now.”

I took a swig of water.
I’m just a guy looking for a break.
Jake’s words rang in my ears. That had been Hudson when I first met him. Was I guilty of letting Jake’s past mistakes color my opinion of him now? A woman was dead because of him. But I knew he was on Tex’s radar. I knew the whole force was aware that he was back in town, and if Jake Morris came close to breaking a law, they’d catch him.

“Okay, new subject. Are you still thinking about selling the apartment building?” he asked.

I welcomed the shift in conversation. “I’m leaning toward it. The memories—they’re not all good.”

“So why haven’t you?”

“They’re not all bad, either.”

He reached his hands across the table and set them on top of mine, their warmth squashing the last of my nervousness from seeing Jake at the paint store. If there were other people in Brick House, I didn’t notice.

As Hudson and I stared into each other’s eyes, the rest of the world dropped away, which only became an issue when the waiter cleared his throat to let us know he was next to our table with the pizza.

I enjoyed the company and the change of pace from Chinese food and dug in. For the first time in a week, I relaxed. We took what we didn’t eat, and Hudson drove me back to the paint store. We both got out of the truck, and he walked around the back of the car while I counted the number of paint cans in the back seat. Alongside the cans of silver and gold that we’d phoned in sat cans of the taupe Beach Party, red Cherry Rocket, yellow Lemon Twist, and turquoise Cool Cat. Mitchell must have blended them after we left as a thank you.

“Your tail light is out,” Hudson said.

“No, it’s not. It was fixed on Thursday.” I joined him at the back of the car. The red plastic tail light cover was snapped in half, part of it missing.

Hudson bent down and found the broken piece of plastic on the ground. “Must not have been put back on properly. The light here’s no good. You want to leave your car? I’ll take you home tonight and fix this in the morning.”

“Not necessary. You go ahead, I’ll be right behind you.”

I climbed in and started the car. Hudson pulled out of the lot and I followed. Seconds after I backed out of my space, the engine sputtered and died. I disengaged the key and then started the car again. This time the engine wouldn’t even turn over. I pumped the gas pedal, but nothing happened. I fished my phone out and called Hudson. He didn’t answer. I left a message and called AAA. The operator took my name and location and listened as I described the problem.

“Sounds like you’re out of gas,” she said.

“That doesn’t make sense. I just filled the tank yesterday.”

“I’ll send a service truck out. He should be there in about thirty minutes. You’ll receive a courtesy call on this number when he’s close.”

“Thank you.” I hung up. The car was close enough to being in a parking space that I didn’t have to worry about pushing it, but I didn’t like being alone in the Casa Linda parking lot. The next call I made was to Hudson’s home phone. “I’m going to be late. The engine died and AAA is on their way,” I said to his answering service.

In the corner of the lot, I saw Tex’s Jeep. I got out of the car and headed there on foot. A uniformed police officer stood by the driver’s side window, leaning against the car. As I got closer, I recognized Officer Iverson. He looked up at me and I waved. He said something to Tex, nodded, and met me halfway.

“Madison, what are you doing here?”

“Car trouble. I’m waiting for AAA.”

He put his arm up to block me, and then turned me around the other direction. “Tex doesn’t want to talk to you.”

“I’m not going to lecture him. I just want to make sure he’s okay.”

“Take my word for it. He’s okay. It’s been a rough day and he wants to be left alone.”

My phone rang. I excused myself and answered. The AAA operator said my driver would be arriving within the next few minutes. I thanked her and hung up.

“They’re close. I should be getting back over there,” I said to Officer Iverson.

He escorted me back to my car. “I thought you said you fixed that tail light.”

“I did. Thursday.”

He pulled on a pair of gloves and snapped what was left of the light off the car. “So this happened recently?”

“It probably happened tonight. The other half was sitting under the bumper.” I pointed to the piece of plastic that sat inside the car on the back seat. He picked it up and held the two pieces together. They made a perfect fit.

Iverson pursed his lips and tipped his head to one side, and then the other, as if he was weighing what I’d said. He held up the broken plastic. “These should be dusted for prints. Maybe our guy is getting sloppy.”

“Officer, you’re keeping an eye on Jake Morris, aren’t you? He was here tonight. He might have been alone with my car.”

“We’re aware of Mr. Morris’s return to Dallas. Now, about this tail light, don’t think I’m going to go easy on you.”

“It’ll be fixed tomorrow. I promise.”

“I’m going to make it my personal agenda to make sure you’re not lying to me.”

The AAA truck pulled into the lot. I said goodbye to Iverson and he left us. I showed my membership card and the driver ran a couple of tests on my car. “Out of gas,” he said.

“I just filled it yesterday.”

“How long have you had this car?”

“A couple of weeks.”

“I’d take it in to the shop. Seems to me you might have a leak.” He pulled a red gas can out of the back of his van and poured its contents into my tank. “That’ll get you to the nearest station,” he said. “If you have a leak, I wouldn’t try to go much farther than that.”

When he was finished, I drove out of the lot to the gas station on Buckner. I pulled up to the pump and reached into my handbag for my wallet. It wasn’t there. I looked on the floor, and behind the seat. No wallet. Had I left it in the paint store? I leaned back and thought about it. No, I had a standing account with Paintin’ Place. There’d been no need to use a credit card. And Hudson had paid for dinner.

I moved my car to a space near the air pump. I felt between the side of the passenger seat and the door. No wallet by the door. I felt under the seat. A police car pulled up behind me and Iverson got out.

“What’s the problem now?” he said with a smile.

“I can’t find my wallet,” I said.

“Doesn’t seem like it’s your night.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

“Looks to me like somebody cut your fuel line.”

“What?”

“Come take a look,” he said.

I got out and shut the door behind me, and then, too late, realized my mistake.

He’d gotten me out of the car.