A Hard Day’s Fright (9 page)

A rush of color left Ella looking like a ripe apple. She leaned closer and lowered her voice so the guys couldn’t hear. “Their butts,” she said. The message delivered, she was free to include Delmar and Reggie in the conversation again. “I had to get out of there, and I was going to give up on investigating altogether and head home. That’s when I walked out of the ladies’ room and you found me.”

“Good thing we did.” Two guys over in the corner were scuffling, and Reggie looked their way. “This is no place for either one of you.”

“So what are you doing here?” I wailed. “Ella, what kind of investigating can you possibly do in a place like this?”

“It’s all your fault.” She plucked at the sleeve of her jacket. “Yours and Ariel’s. It’s not like I haven’t thought about Lucy in all these years. Of course I have. I could never forget Lucy. But what with Ariel running away and then you asking all those questions about Lucy…well, it got me to thinking.”

“Lucy?” Reggie leaned forward. “Is that whose murder we’re investigating?”

“Nobody said she was dead,” Ella snapped. “But nobody knows what happened to her, either. And thinking about it…” She ran a hand through her hair. In honor of the occasion, she’d added more gooey gel than usual to her do, and I swear, I heard it snap, crackle, and pop. “I was thinking about everything you asked the last time we talked about Lucy, Pepper.” She turned in her chair so that she was looking directly at me. “And that made me remember things. You know, about the night of the Beatles concert.”

This simple statement made something blossom inside me. Something that felt like hope. I leaned forward, eager to hear more.

“Wanna dance?”

I was so focused on Ella, I didn’t pay much attention to the voice behind me.

Until someone poked my shoulder. “I said, you wanna dance?”

By the time I registered that the question was meant for me and I turned to find a burly guy with a chew of tobacco in one cheek smiling down at me, Reggie was already on top of things. He ran a hand up and down my arm. “This is my old lady,” he said.

Before I could object to either his choice of adjectives or the too familiar way he was touching me, Reggie shushed me with a look.

The burly guy eyed Reggie and decided I wasn’t worth the fight.

I thanked Reggie by handing him money and telling him to get himself another beer, and once he walked up to the bar, I got back down to business.

“The night of the Beatles concert…” I pinned Ella with a look. “What about it?”

“Well, I told you I saw Lucy talking to Mr. Monroe. Patrick Monroe, he was an English teacher at our high school,” she added for Delmar’s benefit. “But the more I thought about it, the more I remembered about that night. Mr. Monroe wasn’t the only one Lucy talked to at the concert.”

Now she had my attention! I waited for more.

“You remember what I told you about that night, Pepper,” Ella said. “I said we left our seats during the intermission, before the Beatles came on. I walked out of the ladies’ room, and that’s when I saw Lucy with Mr. Monroe. When they were done talking, Lucy told me to get in line and order a Coke for her, that she’d be right back. But when I got the Coke and went looking for her, I didn’t see her anywhere. I finally found her with Darren.”

It was my turn to supply Delmar with the running commentary. “Darren was a friend. He and Ella and Lucy, they all went to the concert together.”

Ella nodded. “Which is why I never thought anything of it. Lucy and Darren were friends, only…” Ella worked over her lower lip with her teeth.

“You’re not betraying a confidence,” I said as a way of urging her on. “Lucy’s secrets don’t matter anymore.”

“But she and Darren weren’t dating or anything.” As if the very idea was impossible, she clicked her tongue. “If they were, I would have known. Everyone would have. Girls who dated Darren considered themselves the luckiest girls at Shaker. Lucy never would have kept that a secret.”

“Except…”

“Except just the way they were standing there together…” Thinking back, Ella narrowed her eyes and tipped her head. “Darren put a hand on Lucy’s arm and I don’t know, just something about it…it made me think that maybe there was something going on between them. Not that I think he had anything at all to do with Lucy’s disappearance! Like I said, they were friends, and Darren is a prominent businessman. Don’t get me wrong, Pepper. I’m not accusing him. I’m not accusing anyone. Like I said, I was just thinking. About everything that happened that night.”

This still didn’t explain Hog Wild. I waited for more.

“When Lucy and Darren were done talking, Lucy walked away,” Ella continued, “and it was crowded so it was really hard for me to see where she went to. I was pretty short back then.”

I bit my tongue.

“I wandered around for a while, and the next thing I knew, I saw Darren and Janice talking together. Janice Sherwin,” she supplied the information to Delmar, who was looking more confused by the moment. “Janice came to the concert with us, too, and Janice and Darren had always been friends, but I’ll tell you what, they didn’t look friendly that night. Janice’s cheeks were fiery and she pointed a finger in Darren’s face.” Ella demonstrated, using me as the target. “I tried to get closer to hear what they were talking about, but that’s when I heard Lucy’s voice behind me. She was telling somebody to get lost. I turned around, and that’s when I saw…” As if she was almost afraid to look, Ella slowly turned toward the bar.

And the pieces fell into place.

“Chuck Zuggart.” Now that I was thinking clearly, I could almost recognize the bartender from the picture in the yearbook Ariel and I had found on Ella’s desk. “That’s why you came here? To talk to him? You think he knows something about Lucy?”

Ella shook her head. “I don’t know. It’s not like I really saw anything. By the time I pushed through the crowd and made my way over to where Lucy was standing, Chuck had already walked away, and when I asked her about it…” She shrugged. “Guys were always flirting with Lucy. She knew how to handle them. She acted like it was no big deal. But what if it was, Pepper? What if there was something more to it than that? I never said anything to anyone about Chuck Zuggart. I didn’t even know his name. Remember, I wasn’t at the high school then and I didn’t know the kids everyone else knew. But then you got me to thinking about Lucy again, and I started looking through the old yearbooks. And there he was.”

I, too, looked Chuck Zuggart’s way. The way he was turned, it was the first I noticed the new scar that had been added to his pug-ugliness since high school. It snaked along his neck, down from his ear and all the way to the neckline of his T-shirt. He was not a man I would want to tangle with, that was for sure. But in the great scheme of things, I was more qualified to do it than Ella would ever be.

“I know you think I’m silly for coming to a place like this on my own, Pepper,” Ella said, “but all I could think of was Lucy and how I owed her this. Lucy and Ariel. All I could think is that if something ever happened to Ariel, I’d want someone to stand up for her. That’s all I wanted to do. So please don’t think I’m a foolish old lady. After all this time, I just wanted to stand up for Lucy.”

I squeezed her hand. “You did. And now it’s time for the professional to take over.”

And before I could convince myself not to, I sauntered up to the bar.

Zuggart was busy pouring out beers and shots and I waited until he was finished.

“Got any Beatles on the jukebox?” I asked.

He cocked an eyebrow at me. “A little young for the Beatles, aren’t you?”

“Bet you are, too.” Oh, yes, I can be shameless when the situation calls for it. Shamelessly, I slanted myself against the bar just enough to show a little cleavage. He was interested. It was creepy. I kept smiling. “My parents used to listen to them and…I dunno…” One well-timed shrug and his gaze traveled down to where the lace edging of my cami veed between my breasts. “I’ve always liked their music. Man, can you imagine what it must have been like to see them in concert?”

“Believe it or not, I think I did.”

“No way!” He thought I was referring to the impossibility of him being old enough. He liked that. Good thing he didn’t realize I was actually questioning the
think I did
in that sentence. “What, your babysitter took you?”

“Oh, you’re good.” He poured a shot and slid it in front of me. “On the house,” he said.

I ran a finger around the rim of the glass. “Were they any good?”

“Hell if I know.” He’d poured a shot for himself, too, and Zuggart chugged it down. “The only thing I remember about that night is being high as a kite. That and puking my guts out when I got home.”

Colorful, yes, but not exactly an alibi.

“So you don’t remember talking to Lucy Pasternak at the concert?”

It was on the tip of his tongue to say, “Who?” I knew, because of the way his brows dropped over his eyes for a second. The next second, though, they shot straight up. “Hey, I remember her. She was that chick who disappeared way back when I was in school.” Now, he really was interested in me. But not for the same reasons he was interested before. “What do you care?”

“I’m a relative.”

“Why do you think I know anything?”

“You talked to her at the concert.”

“Who says?”

“It’s true, isn’t it?”

He wiped a rag over the bar. “I might have talked to her.”

I slipped onto the nearest empty bar stool. “She told you to get lost.”

“So you think I had something to do with her gettin’ lost?” Zuggart pulled back his super-sized shoulders. “That ain’t polite.”

“Neither is murder.”

He leaned over so he was right in my face. “Do I look like a man who would hurt a fly?” he purred.

“If I wanted to know about flies, I might care.”

“Well, I didn’t do nothin’ to that stuck-up Lucy. And you’d better be careful if you’re tellin’ anybody I did.”

“But you don’t have an alibi.”

He was holding a bottle of whiskey and he slammed it against the bar. “What are you, a cop?” His question boomed through Hog Wild and the results were predictable.

I was the center of attention again, only this time there wasn’t as much lust in the eyes of the guys who looked me over as there was suspicion. Along with some anger and a whole bunch of hatred.

I glanced over at the table and tipped my head toward the door, signaling Ella and Delmar that it was time to hightail it out of there. I slipped off the bar stool.

Only since Leather Lady was right behind me, I stepped on her foot.

“Sorry.” I was. I liked these new sandals and didn’t want anything to happen to them. “I didn’t see you.”

“I was saving that seat for a friend of mine.” She stepped forward, and her elbow caught me in the ribs.

I’d tried to be polite, yes? But this was too much.

I didn’t even try for a smile. “I doubt that. I’m pretty sure you don’t have any friends.”

I think she was about to say something clever like, “Oh, yeah?” but she never had the chance. Down at the other end of the bar, Reggie jumped to his feet. He smashed a beer bottle against the bar just as another guy—short, wiry, and looking like he was out for blood—tackled him.

“I
love these shoes.” I cradled one patent leather and cheetah print sandal for a last moment, then, rather than risk getting sloppy and sentimental, I kicked off its mate, scooped them both up, and padded across Ella’s kitchen to toss them in the garbage can under the sink.

“Sorry.” She was at the table, her head bent. And not just because she was feeling guilty. Ella had an ice pack on the back of her neck. It covered the purple bruise she’d gotten thanks to the beer can Leather Lady threw.

“I’m the one who’s sorry,” I said. “That beer can was meant for me.”

“But you wouldn’t have been there if it wasn’t for me thinking I could go out and investigate on my own.” Ella’s shoulders heaved. “A bump on the back of the neck is a small price to pay for what I put you all through.”

“Good thing that beer can didn’t hit you smack on the head. It coulda done some real damage.” Reggie got a fresh ice pack from the freezer, took away the one on Ella’s neck, and replaced it, and she thanked him with a smile. He was looking at me over her head when he said, “Told you going to a place like that was a bad, bad idea.”

“Which it wouldn’t have been if you didn’t start mixing it up with that buddy of yours down at the end of the bar,” I reminded him.

Guilt wasn’t Reggie’s style. He poured himself a cup of coffee from the pot Ella (bruise or no bruise) had made the moment we walked in her back door. He blew on the hot coffee, sipped, and grinned. “I showed him a thing or two.”

“And you sure showed that fat lady!” Delmar told me. His excited smile dissolved when he looked Ella’s way and realized he might have offended.

“Get over it, kid.” Without ever looking up, she brushed aside his worries. “You’re not going to hurt my feelings. I’m way past stressing out about the size of my hips.”

“You’re not anywhere near the Shamu league,” I reminded her, but of course, thinking big (really big) made me think about Leather Lady, and that soured the coffee I’d already poured into my own mug. I added an extra sprinkle of sweetener. “If it wasn’t for that nasty, no good—”

Delmar whooped. “You gave as good as you got, Pepper, that’s for sure. When she elbowed you, you showed her!”

I didn’t need the reminder that I’d lost it. Childish, yes. But who could blame me? When Leather Lady came at me, I had to defend myself, and since I was no match for her incredible hulkness, I did the only thing I could do. I stomped her instep, so thrilled to watch her hop up and down and shriek, I hardly noticed that the impact of cute patent leather against meaty Big Foot broke my sandal.

That is, until Leather Lady stumbled into our table, and before he could get crushed, Delmar shoved her away.

And Leather Lady got really pissed and started flipping tables.

At the same time Reggie and his friend got into it and Reggie flew across the bar.

After that, the crowd at Hog Wild…well, they went hog wild.

The beer cans—and the fists—started flying, and it was time for a quick escape. That’s when I realized my sandal was history—it’s hard to run like hell in a broken shoe.

I propped my elbows on the table and dropped my chin into my hands. “I loved those shoes,” I muttered.

“The hell with your shoes. We’re lucky we got out of there with our heads.” Reggie took the chair next to mine. The swollen skin around his right eye was quickly turning from a shade of sickly red to a vivid and even sicklier purple. He slanted me a look and I could tell his face hurt because he clenched his jaw. Tough guy that he is, Reggie had refused any first aid. Nice guy that he is (and he’d deny it in an instant), he said it was more important for Ella to use the ice packs. “You think it was worth it?”

“In terms of my shoe wardrobe, obviously not. As far as my investigation  .  .  .” I’d been so busy staying alive, I hadn’t had time to think about Chuck Zuggart. I shrugged. It was the only logical response. “He says he doesn’t remember anything about the night of the concert.”

Ella’s head came up. Since she didn’t have a tough-guy image to uphold, she winced for all she was worth. “But—”

“I know. You saw him talking to Lucy at the concert.”

“And—”

“And it might mean something.”

“But—”

“But it could mean nothing at all. Zuggart says he was high and he doesn’t remember much of anything that happened that night.”

“So he could have—”

“Sure. Or he could have been so drugged out Lucy could have fought him off with one hand tied behind her back.” Considering that Lucy had told me she’d been tied up by her kidnapper, it was my turn to wince. Then again, since no one knew this bit of info but me, I didn’t need to apologize.

“Except some drugs, they make you friggin’ powerful!” At that moment, I’ll bet Delmar wished he had some of them. He had a cut across his left cheek, his knuckles were raw, and one sleeve of his leather jacket was missing.

My sigh was echoed by the others around the table and I’ll bet our thoughts meshed, too: Chuck Zuggart might have had nothing to do with Lucy’s death. Or maybe he had.

And I was right back to where I started, except that now, my head was pounding, two of my fingernails were broken, and my newest favorite shoes…

I glanced toward the kitchen sink and the garbage can nestled beneath it, stretched my legs, and leaned back in the chair, the better to forget my problems.

While I tried, Ella dragged herself out of her chair and went to the cupboard for a package of Chips Ahoy. She grabbed three cookies for herself and put the bag on the table. After a long night of brawlin’ at the biker bar, there was nothing like sugar. Reggie, Delmar, and I nearly started another brawl all reaching for the cookies at the same time.

“I’ve wasted everyone’s time.” Ella had a mouthful of cookie and crumbs on her chin. “I put everyone in danger, and for what?”

“Hey, it was no skin off my nose,” Reggie said, and then he chuckled because his nose was raw. He got up and sauntered over to the door. I’d offered to drive both Reggie and Delmar home, but they insisted they’d had enough of the Pepper Martin brand of excitement for one night and had called a friend to come get them. Out in the drive, a car honked. “That’s more fun than I’ve had in I don’t know how long. Who would have thought you two cemetery ladies would be so down and dirty. And the best part—”

“We didn’t get nabbed.” Delmar popped two cookies into his mouth at the same time, grabbed another one for the road, and followed Reggie to the door. “Which means no dings on our probation reports.”

“I suppose that’s all good,” Ella mumbled once they were gone. “But it doesn’t help with our investigation, does it?”

I was getting a little nervous about how everybody was suddenly calling this
our investigation
. But I wasn’t about to argue the point with a woman who’d taken a whack from a beer can with my name on it. Now that I thought about the beer can incident, I actually smiled. Not because Ella got hurt! Believe me, it just about killed me to think what might have happened. I was grinning because if Leather Lady hit a short, round woman instead of the five-foot-eleven redhead she was targeting, it meant her aim was as nonexistent as her fashion sense.

That cheered me only as long as it took for me to realize that as far as the investigation went, Ella was right: we were no further along in explaining Lucy’s disappearance then we were before we went to Hog Wild.

And that meant only one thing.

It was time for me to talk to my client again.

This time, I’d make sure I had exact change.

S
ince Lucy had already been dead for forty-five years, I figured another couple days wouldn’t hurt anything one way or another. Besides, I was wiped out after our Friday night adventure. I canceled out on my Saturday night with Delmar, Reggie, and Absalom with the excuse that I’d already seen two of them the night before and I’d catch up with all three sometime soon. Then I spent the weekend in, napping and thinking, and while I was thinking, I was thinking how pathetic it was that a woman my age didn’t have anything better to do.

I remedied that on Monday. OK, so talking to Lucy might not exactly qualify as something better to do, but it was, at least, something. And doing something in the name of my investigation was better than doing nothing.

I slipped into a seat on the rapid, sliding aside the morning’s newspaper that someone had left there. No big surprise, the headlines were still all about that serial killer, Winston Churchill, and the front page promised more inside: photos of his childhood home, a look at his apartment, a one-on-one with a woman who’d actually survived one of his attacks. Too depressing. I scanned the articles briefly, all set to drop the paper onto the empty seat in front of me when something else caught my eye.

How predictable am I?

Of course, it was Quinn’s name along with the words
arresting officer
. As always, he was a man of few words. This time they pretty much consisted of a snappy, “No comment.”

At least there was no photo of Quinn accompanying the story. I got rid of the paper, sat back, and waited, avoiding the watchful eye of the transit cop lounging at the front of the car.

It didn’t take Lucy long to show up.

“I thought you’d given up on me.” Lucy put the back of one hand to her forehead. “Abandoned. Again. It was as if night had closed in around me, deep and impenetrable, and I was separated from all earthly things.”

“You pretty much are,” I reminded her while at the same time wondering if Lucy and Ella really weren’t sisters. Lucy and Ariel certainly shared the same drama gene. “I’ve been busy,” I told her.

“Investigating?”

It seemed simpler just to nod than to try to explain. “We need to talk about Patrick Monroe,” I told her.

“Oh.” It wasn’t my imagination. Lucy’s cheeks flushed a color that reminded me of fresh peaches.

My suspicion level rose. “He was your secret boyfriend.”

“Oh my gosh, no!” It was hard not to believe someone who went from flushed to sickly green in a heartbeat. “Ew. Mr. Monroe? He was so old!”

I’d done my homework, and I pointed out that at the time he taught at Shaker, Patrick Monroe was all of twenty-three. “Not all that much older than the kids he taught.”

“Maybe. But definitely not boyfriend material.”

“Did he want to be?”

“My boyfriend?” She tried to make it sound like the thought had never crossed her mind, but I am not easily fooled.

I turned just enough in my seat to make it look natural to the living around me, and clear to the dead that I wasn’t going to back down.

Lucy glanced away. “Yes,” she said quietly. “I think Mr. Monroe would have liked that.”

I knew the value of a well-timed stall so I kept my mouth shut.

Lucy squirmed in her seat. Sighed. Made a face. “He used to write poetry for me,” she said and grimaced. “Bad poetry. I mean, really bad poetry. He’d slip the poems into my locker and sign them
Anonymous
. Like that was supposed to fool me? What high school boy would think to sign his poems
Anonymous
? The guys I knew couldn’t even spell it.”

“So did you tell Monroe you didn’t appreciate his artistic efforts?”

“I told him I didn’t think it was right when he tried to kiss me after class one day.”

My stomach soured. “He didn’t force you, did he?”

“It was nothing like that.” Lucy pressed her lips together, no doubt coming to grips with exactly how she felt about the situation. “Hey, it was the sixties, and everyone was into free love and free thought. You know, all the groovy stuff. But I didn’t think it was groovy. Not with an old guy like Mr. Monroe. He tried. I told him I wasn’t interested. He backed off. That’s pretty much all there was to it.”

“But you decided to report him to the principal.”

“What?” Lucy’s mouth fell open. “No! I wouldn’t have done that to Mr. Monroe. What he did was wrong, sure, but when I told him I wasn’t interested, he didn’t press it. And believe me, I kept my ear to the ground, and I told him if he tried it with any of the other girls, then I would go to the principal. I’d tell anyone who was willing to listen.”

“Which means he might have been mad enough to kill you.”

“I was actually mad enough to kill him.” Getting her thoughts straight, Lucy shook her head and her golden hair shimmered around her shoulders. “He gave me an F in my summer school class.”

“Because you weren’t interested in him?”

“Well, that’s not what he said. Mr. Monroe said it was because I hadn’t turned in my final assignment. That’s what I was going to see the principal about. To complain about my grade. And I wasn’t going to squeal on Mr. Monroe or anything. I mean, not about how he tried to kiss me. I was just going to say that it wasn’t fair for him to say I hadn’t turned in my assignment because I had. I even had a copy of it so I could prove I’d turned it in. I never had a chance to show it to Mr. Wannamaker. I was murdered, remember.”

Like I could forget?

I processed everything she’d said, then asked, “And when you talked to Monroe about your grade? I mean, you must have, right? You must have spoken to him first before you made that appointment with the principal.”

She nodded. “Mr. Monroe said there was nothing he could do. That rules were rules, and the rules said that if the final project wasn’t complete, I couldn’t pass.”

“So he deep-sixed your assignment, gave you an F, and got his revenge for you not being interested in him.” This made sense in a sick and twisted way. “Killing you seems a little above and beyond. Unless…” I slid her a look. “You’re not leaving something out, are you? Like that Monroe was your secret boyfriend?”

“Secret boyfriend?” For a moment, Lucy’s golden brows dropped. Then her eyes flew open. “There’s no way you could know about that. Not unless…” Again, she put the back of the hand to the forehead. The girl needed a new drama coach. “Oh, the treachery!” she groaned. “Little Ella spilled the beans. She must have. She was the only one who knew my secret.”

“Only she didn’t. Know the secret, that is. She only knew that you had one.”

Lucy was silent.