Dipped, Stripped, and Dead (30 page)

Like me, and like the young people at Mike’s workshop, she favored bright-colored denim coveralls—hers in a cheery hot pink—and her hair was caught back in a scarf of the same color. The little armoire had every single drawer out, and she was lovingly staining them a rich oak color.

She looked up at me—she was kneeling—at the same time I looked down at her, and I suspect mirrored my surprised look, though I couldn’t have said why I was surprised except that at this point I expected a robot rather than a human.

The girl cleared her throat. “The application forms are up front,” she said, speaking just slightly louder than normal, to be heard above the roar of the exhaust hood above and the various whirrs, cracks, and chirps of the little robots all around.

“Applications?” I asked, probably screaming louder than I should have.

“You’re not here to apply?” she asked. “To work?”

“Oh. No. I’m with him,” I pointed vaguely in the direction from which Mike’s voice came. “Or her . . . or . . .”

She smiled at me, a fellow female smile, full of solidarity. “Oh, that’s a him, no matter how much makeup he wears. The weird thing is that Mike is a perfect gentleman,
but Miss Jewel is like an octopus.” She shuddered delicately. “Hands everywhere.”

I nodded. “That’s just so wrong.”

“Tell me about it,” she said.

I feared she might think
I’m with him
was more permanent or something, so I said, “He’s just giving me a ride home, because I was walking and . . . it’s kind of far.” And then, trying to change the subject from Mike and his peculiarities as quickly as possible. “I’m Dyce. Dyce Dare.”

“Oh,” she said, and looked startled for just a moment. “You’re the girl that . . . that does furniture refinishing.”

Considering where we were and what was going on all around us this seemed like a very small distinction, but I nodded.

Into the silence caused by my momentary awkwardness came Mike’s voice, loud. “Look, I’m not saying that Nick is a bad refinisher, but you have to stop letting him cull the estate stuff for you. It was a Sheraton chair, I tell you, with a lyre back.”

Rocky answered something back that couldn’t be readily understood, and Mike roared back, “Are you calling me stupid? It’s not that hard to recognize a Sheraton, man.”

The girl looked concerned, stopped her staining, and looked at the source of the noise.

“Are they going to come to blows?” I said.

She glanced at me. “What? Oh, no. They’re friends. They went to high school together. Were on the football team. Rocky finds . . . Mike’s
thing
bewildering, but they’re still friends. Yeah, they always yell at each other, but it doesn’t mean anything, you know?”

I knew. Or at least I knew men like that.

“I’m Tiffany, by the way,” she said. “Tiff. I . . . I was just concerned because Rocky . . . well, you know, he’s a very busy man, very successful. He can’t do everything.”

Of course he couldn’t; that’s why he had robots. In my mind I saw Rocky as a science fiction villain, standing there, arms outstretched, ordering his mechanical legions to attack me and . . . and what? Dip me in lye? Sand me? Who knew? Though if he were really a supervillain, he’d probably have them hold me while he told me his plans to conquer the world.

But Tiff clearly didn’t know of my own thoughts, because she looked like she was still following the conversation—which meant that she must be able to hear better than I could. Obviously she was sympathetic to Rocky’s plight, whatever that might be. “He’s a very busy man. I mean, it’s not just the work as such. We do refinishing of exterior pieces of buildings for renovators, including, you know . . . All Saints, downtown? Yeah, we refinished all the woodwork there. And . . . commercial buildings and all. We are the go-to for wood refinishing. And Rocky can’t do it all. He just can’t . . .”

Of course he couldn’t, and to banish the mental image of robots whirring around All Saints, and also to try to do something that resembled investigating murders, I said, “I bet he misses Nell’s help a lot.”

She jumped a little, which could be of course because by now it was widely known that Nell had been murdered. At least I assumed it was. I hadn’t had time to look in the paper, but I assumed it was there. Tiff looked down and really seemed to concentrate on the staining as she said, “I was never sure that Nell was very good for Rocky. All she ever wanted to do was manage the workshop, and instead of pitching in, she kept telling Rocky what he was supposed to do.”

“But I thought they were about to reconcile,” I said.

“Well . . .” She shrugged. “Men are like that, aren’t they?”

I thought of Ben calling Les. “Oh yeah.”

Once more we shared a look of female understanding.
And then she said, “But yeah, we miss her. I mean, even a supervising pair of eyes was better than nothing. She got most of the machines in, you know? A huge investment but very helpful. But her real issue was Nick, because . . . like Mike, she thought sometimes he put valuable pieces outside. The thing is, you know, we have so much work that the occasional loss of a few hundred dollars is not that big a deal.”

I didn’t know, though I hoped someday to be in a state in which a few hundred dollars wouldn’t make a big difference.

“And Nick has been doing the work for five years. He came straight here from high school and in a way, I think he’s like a son to Rocky. At any rate, Rocky is very loyal, you know?”

I looked across the workshop where the loyal Rocky was gesticulating violently at Miss Jewel. He didn’t look so much loyal as aggrieved and perhaps volatile. He was a big man with red hair and beard. Red beard. Wasn’t that a pirate or something who was supposed to have killed many wives? Judging by Tiff’s softened gaze, whenever she looked at her boss, she might be the next victim. I shivered and wished Mike would hurry up.

“But it still was a terrible way to go,” Tiff said. “I mean, immersed in lye. Oh, I know they say she was probably already dead or out cold and that it would have been quick, because lye dissolves a human in like . . . what . . . twenty minutes? But it’s still terrible.”

Amen sister, and at that, she hadn’t seen the body. I shivered again and felt nauseated. “Perhaps I should start walking,” I said. “If Mike is going to be—”

At that moment, as if summoned by my words, Miss Jewel called out, “Come on, Dyce. Our work here is done.”

Because that statement was normally preceded by the words
confusion, chaos, destruction
I wondered what Miss
Jewel considered her work. But I didn’t want to know, truly. I just wanted to get out of Rocky’s in one relatively solid piece.

I mean, perhaps Rocky was one of those men who didn’t kill outside marriage, but why count on it?

CHAPTER 21

Masculine Wiles

I closed my eyes in the car, of course, and opened
them again only when I realized we had stopped for long enough that we must have arrived. In addition, I heard Miss Jewel—oh, it had been her driving the last ten minutes, for sure—get out of the car and the
click
,
click
of her heels walking.

I opened one eye, not without trepidation, because after all, Miss Jewel might be more than a guy in killer outfits, she might be a killer in girls’ outfits. But we were in my driveway, facing the unlovable dilapidated hulk of the Edwardian mansion with its chipped blue paint and the big white primer patch where
Bitch
had been written.

My relief lasted about two seconds. Maybe less. Before Miss Jewel’s impeccably manicured hand had opened my door, I realized that there were three cars in the driveway. Three. Mine and Ben’s and . . . another, which I couldn’t identify. It wasn’t All-ex’s and that was probably to the good, because surely he’d be more than a little upset to see me arrive with a guy dressed as a woman.
Heaven only knows what he would think of my proclivities then.

But it was still a car, which wasn’t a good thing. And for that matter, neither was the fact that Ben was there. I was hoping he’d gotten so wrapped up in stuff with Les that he would completely forget I’d given him the slip. Failing that, that he would realize it only after I was home safe and sound. Then I could have lied and told him I had taken a taxi home.

The forlorn hope that he wouldn’t notice that I’d arrived, and therefore wouldn’t know how I’d arrived, was lost as I saw the front curtain twitch aside and someone at Ben-height peek out. Followed by another person at Ben-height.

Oh, Archons of Athens!
as Dad would say. I clenched my teeth as I got out of the car and faced the house. I was so preoccupied with what awaited me inside that I didn’t realize that Miss Jewel, instead of stepping away, stepped closer.

Before I had time to do more than recoil slightly away from the painted, five-o’clock-shadowed face about an inch from mine, she brought it closer. Lipsticked lips touched mine, and as my mind thought,
Oh, ew
, I felt a manicured hand touch my rear.

Several responses were available to me, including backing up and screaming or perhaps hauling out and slapping him/her. Only at that point I wasn’t thinking of how normal people would react. I was more preoccupied with an overwhelming sensation of
ew
and the fact that up close and personal, Mike smelled of equal parts of old tobacco and new makeup. Which didn’t help.

My knee rose. He was way above me, but my legs were proportionately long and his very short. The skirt of the blue dress first rose, then caught and tore under the violent impact. And then my kneecap hit something soft and something not so soft full on. I stepped full force on
the nearest stiletto-heeled foot, ducked under the arm raised between me and the door, and ran hell-bent for leather toward the steps to the front porch.

I was vaguely aware of a hoarse moan behind me and a bewildered, “What was that for?” but I didn’t care. I had my key out and was about to open my door . . .

And the door opened. I was faced with a wall of male disapproval. Ben stood on the right, looking pale and serious—very serious—and at a great risk of turning into granite. To the left, at about the same height even if a lighter build, stood Officer Wolfe. Somehow he was no longer looking like a Cas. Both of them crossed their arms on their chests, and both of them stepped back to allow me in.

The resemblance ended there. While Ben looked like he had removed himself to some unreachable polar region, Officer Wolfe looked . . . like a man who was trying to appear stern while fighting hard not to crack up.

Like all generals facing a tough battle, I chose the weaker point on the wall and gave the policeman my best
It wasn’t my fault
look. This look had stopped working on Ben some sixteen years ago. He’d said that although one should never attribute to malice what could be easily attributed to stupidity, he knew I wasn’t stupid, and so that left malice and a total lack of self-preservation instinct.

Officer Wolfe didn’t react with sympathy, but perhaps that was too much to ask for, at least depending on what Ben had told him—which at this point was probably that I’d been born to hang—but he did smile and shake his head. “Is that how you normally react to kisses, Ms. Dare?”

“No,” Ben said sourly. “Only when she doesn’t have a chair handy.”

Both Officer Wolfe and I turned to him surprised, Wolfe probably thinking the resentment was personal. I knew better, as I was remembering the incident in question.

“New Year’s Eve seven years ago,” Ben said. “She hit some poor guy over the head with a chair. He was drunk. We had a hell of a time convincing the EMTs that he’d tripped and hit the chair just right.”

“I see,” Officer Wolfe said appreciatively. “So felonious assault is a specialty.”

“He had already tried to drag a woman into a bedroom,” I said. “Besides, he was fine. Well, he still has that thing with his left eye, but he’s okay. And he doesn’t get drunk now. Or attack women.”

For some reason this made Wolfe smile as he stepped farther back. Ben gave him a betrayed look, as if—I thought—they’d agreed they wouldn’t smile and that neither of them would give me a chance to charm them. Which just went to show that Ben did not get straight men and the “cute little thing” effect. Having been born small and relatively inoffensive-looking was my best asset.

“Very well,” Officer Wolfe said, recovering his composure and clearly remembering their pact. Ben walked behind me to close the door. I’d heard Mike start up his car, but all the same, I felt a little odd as the door closed. There went my one avenue of escape. I was now trapped here with these two hulking males. And it wasn’t like I could hit Ben on the head with a chair. Well, I could, but first I’d need a ladder to reach it, and second, annoying though he was, I kind of liked him. I kind of liked Cas Wolfe, too. At least he didn’t wear lipstick to kiss me.

Remembering the lipstick, I rubbed my lips on my sleeve, which brought another smile to Officer Wolfe’s eyes. It didn’t touch his lips this time, but it looked wicked. As though he took great joy in my discomfiture.