Hot Blooded Murder (19 page)

I eased from the vehicle. I stuck with the shadows on the uneven sidewalk. I resisted tiptoeing. Playing cartoon movie games kept my absolute terror over what I was about to do down to stage performance level. At the edge of the yella building’s parking lot, now empty, I paused and looked around. Nothing. I slid along a bordering fence and reached a corner of the building. There was, dammit, another gaseous streetlamp right in front of the building. To get to the door I’d be flooded by light. And if I hugged the wall and slinked around it, any passerby could see my ridiculous moves. The fear intensified. I could not move. I stood, paralyzed, hardly able to breath. It felt like there was an obstruction in my throat, and the breath I inhaled only went so far, stopping short of actually entering my lungs. I pressed my quivering hands to my throat and my chest. Tried not to hyperventilate. Closed my eyes. Thought of my ride on Amethyst just an hour ago. The blissful moment when he picked up his big trot and floated across the arena. Peace entered my body, slowly, slowly. Suddenly, I gasped, inhaling loudly. I breathed, my chest heaving, the panic attack diminishing and I called, “Here.”

I waited. Rustling sounds, faint clicks of toenails on pavement, then Lulu was at my side. I let my hand fall to the soft pouf on her head. Feeling the dog so close I relaxed further.

“Lu. We are entering the den of a psychopath,” I whispered. “I need your help.”

Lu panted quietly in response; she was in the loop at last.

Emboldened, I hissed, “Heel!” and strode across the lot to the front door. I tried it. Son of a gun. The universe was with me. It was open. One quick glance around the hot dark street, no one pointing guns or tossing grenades. I slid inside, Lu glued to my leg.

I took out my tiny high-intensity flashlight and clicked it on. The dirty narrow stairs. I shuddered. “C’mon Lu, let’s get this over with.” Quickly, I ran up. The glass-topped door at the landing was locked. Twice–dead bolt and knob lock. I listened. Absolute silence but up here, no one could see my flashlight beam either from the parking lot or the street. I held the flashlight in my teeth, extracted my pick set, and went to work on the dead bolt.

Five minutes later, the dog and I were sneaking into the abandoned office. A greenish glow from the street filtered in through the scummy windows. I flicked off my light and stood quietly. The beam might be seen through those windows.

Let the room speak to you
, I told myself. It was still gruesomely hot. Hotter. My turtleneck instantly adhered itself to my back and chest. What had Anton III been up to? I heard grinding. There was another room, off to my left. I hadn’t noticed it earlier this afternoon, mesmerized as I had been by the Special Forces eyes of Big Anton. I turned on the flashlight and followed the beam to a closed door. Sound from inside. Copy machine? Incoming fax? No light under the door, but First Brain was chattering at me, “Stop this asinine behavior right now. Get the hell down those stairs and go home!” Second Brain yawned and said, “No light under the door. Open it.”

I touched Lu next to me and whispered, “Lu! Alert!” And I felt the dog rise to a standing position. I tried the door. It opened. Shone my light. Oh! A shredder, chewing through papers. A thick wad in an automatic feeder tray waited their turn to be masticated. Placing them there must have been Anton III’s last act before leaving the building. I jumped into the room and saved them. Shaken, I leaned against the wall. Lulu growled at the whining shredder.

“Hush. S’okay, Lu.”

The room was crammed with a giant copier, the shredder, a huge printer and a couple of fax machines. I set the papers on the copier and, holding the light in my teeth, looked through my find. The last page of an…assumption? signed by Marcie and a…Kitty Z. Abeletti? Who the hell was that? A chill of fear thrilled through me and combated the external heat. Not how I’d chose to cool off, though. The Kitty signature was exactly where Aimée Pritchard’s should have been. All witnessed by Felix B. Ligitoni, Attorney at Law. I shuffled through the other papers. Aah! Another treasure! An appraisal, clearly for Marcie’s farm! It valued the place at ninety-eight thousand dollars.
What!
I whipped through it. Air conditioning not working, house unpainted, graveyard on property…I relaxed. Second Brain had been right again. I’d needed to break in here! Now to connect the Delons to all of this in some legal fashion. How could I bring these to the attention of Sheriff MacWain without implicating myself? I moved the papers again and heard a noise.
Omigod.
I went absolutely still. Tuned off the flashlight. Even Lu didn’t pant. A subdued sound, paper crackling.
Had an Anton come back?
My heart throbbed in my chest. My eyes nearly burst from their sockets, as if by expanding, they’d see through the wall between me and the outer room, from where the sound emanated. I touched Lu’s muzzle with the flat of my palm, a silent Stay command. Moved to the door. Quiet again. The shredder, deprived of its fodder, had stopped.
There! A crackle!
I pressed my back against the wall, inched to the doorjamb, and paused. A red light blinked on the hungry shredder. On, off, it caught Lulu’s intense black eyes with each glowing red On. She looked like a killer. Reassured, I dared to lean my head around the jamb and saw the still-dark room. The smeary light from the windows showed there was no human standing up, poking through papers. They could be crouching–hearing my noise, poised to attack and Big Daddy Anton knew a few things about attacking. Still tight to the wall, I slid into the short hall. S
tay up against the wall
, hissed First Brain, panicked. I heeded it, but wished I had a gun. Like a movie detective. Then I could suddenly jump out, legs in a wide-braced stance, thrust a big magnum-something straight out in my two hands and, of course–looking like Angelina Jolie in a cat suit, yell, “Freeze! You m–” The sound again. I was armed with a tiny flashlight. But so far no sign of a standing Anton. Or a crouching Anton. Even bent, either would make a huge shadow. I tiptoed into the big room and dropped to a squat at desk level.
There! Off to my right!
The crackle.

“
Lu!
” A loud whisper from me.

Instantly Lu was at my side, loving the hunt. There was nothing for it but to get gutsy and turn on the flashlight. I took a deep breath, flicked it on, and screamed. Lulu burst into deep mastiff-like barks and lunged. What I saw strobed in my mind, flash, flash flash. A huge rat, upright in the open tray drawer of a desk. Big as a cat, it peeled the wrapper of a Snickers bar like a banana. And ate. Its beady eyes needled into mine like lasers before I whipped the flashlight away.

Great thumpings and squeakings in the darkness. I sat on my haunches, paralyzed.
A rat! Yeow.
Lulu made furious bow-wow-wow’s. There were frantic clawing sounds. Trembling, I stood and trained my light on the dog, who was trying to tear down the wall behind the desk. I ventured closer. Shined the light where Lu dug and growled. A sizeable, raggedy hole in the cheap wood paneling. Mr. Rat was gone. My palms were slippery with nervous sweat under the latex gloves. I was shaking all over again and I sank into the nearest chair. It slithered back a yard.
Someone had pulled me from behind!
I whirled.
No one.
Just the chair’s wheels sliding out from under me. The dog was still scritching at the wall.

“Lu! Let it go. Quit.” In the beam of the flashlight, she gave me a beseeching look. “No,” I hissed in the darkness, “Quit. Here!” She came to my side, eager for the next exciting assignment. I was able to smile as I took a calming handful of soft poodle topknot and get back to serenity.

Then I knew what to do. I got up and went back into the room of machines. I turned off the shredder. Then I went to the big desk that was Anton’s and picked my way into the locked top drawer. The checkbook. I opened it and read the last few stubs. Saw an overdraft annotated in the amount of $2,458.00. Then a deposit, neatly entered, for $15,000. Took the account from overdrawn to flush. A scrawled note on the stub: FT&T, dated May 24. Fil and Tammi Takeur giving Anton Delon fifteen grand? Nope, not entirely. Next a $5,000 check to…damn! the mysterious Kitty Z. Abeletti! I had to find this Kitty person.

A check had been written to Entergy Utilities for four hundred-plus, dated today. Another to the phone company for over eight hundred. A check for cash in the amount of five hundred. Another to Bourke Appraisals and Land Surveys for three grand. Weren’t appraisals usually around three hundred? Then there was another deposit, also annotated FT&T in the amount of $35,000 with a magical word on the stub: “Earnest.” Earnest money to secure the mortgage! But the $15,000, less five to Kitty, was this some kind of kickback to Anton for arranging a false appraisal so the Takeur’s could get out of their legal agreement with Marcie? Weirder and weirder.

Quickly I unsnapped the ring binder, took these stubs and hurried to the machine room. I copied first all of the rescued papers, then the stubs, then put them back in the checkbook. Then I shuffled through a stack of file folders on the desk. The ones Anton III had clutched in his shaking hand. I flipped through and stopped. Another appraisal…Word of God Church Road. I skimmed it…it was Marcie’s place all right. Estimated value: $390,000. More like it!

Since they’d been destined for the shredder anyway, I stuffed the sheaf of rescued original papers under my arm along with the stubs and the good appraisal and hissed, “Here!” to Lu. We slunk down the musty stairs and out into the street. The ghoulish light of the streetlamp seemed almost sunny and the humid night air almost clean after the dark and moldy interior of Anton’s office.

Crossing the Causeway by moonlight, waves sloshing black as India ink to my right, I decided I had to make one more stop before my head could place itself on my pillow. I drove past my turnoff and soon was on Highway 38 then turning into Word of God Church Road, past the gravestones. I parked behind the big house. In moments I was in Marcie’s office. Quickly, I made copies of all my contraband documents then I opened the bottom file drawer and stuffed the original papers into it. Finally I could remove the latex gloves. I couldn’t decide if all this sweating under plasticized rubber was aging or youthening my hands. I returned to the car and drove home to my beckoning pillows.

Chapter Twenty

I stared at the tiny book in my hand, the
Tao Te Ching
. Apparently I can’t
know
, but I can
be
. Was I
be
-ing when I did last night’s B&E? I decided if I just kept reading and puzzling it might someday make sense. My coffee mug was empty. I’d been up since five and ridden Am for forty-five minutes. Then I filed a story to
Equus
magazine on a University of Colorado study of the effects of MSM on sub-fertile mares. Effects: Good. Then I answered my ringing phone.

“Hello.” I heard breathing. I was about to say,
Oh c’mon!
when a ragged, emotionless voice said: “Female dogs who sneak around will get thumped.” Caller I.D. indicated a private number.

“Hello? Hey!” The voice was gone. I put the phone down. Did the Antons have hidden cameras I’d missed? I doubted it, since up till that fifteen thousand dollar deposit, the Delon Mortgage Corporation had been broke. Couldn’t pay their electric bill, so they could hardly afford videotape. I looked back at my
Tao Te Ching;
re-read today’s message about knowing and being and gently set it on my coffee table. Phone again. I read Caller I.D.

Gulp. I needed to talk to him, but was I ready? After one small scared breath, I answered. “Hi, Tuan.”

“Good morning.” Gosh. He sounded official. Had someone reported me?

“Likewise.” I tried to sound light and witty. “Great timing, long arm of the law. I think I was threatened. Phone call just now, something about female dogs sneaking around getting thumped.”

“You’re thinking they mean yourself and Lulu? Are you sneaking around?”

“
Me
?”

“It’s happened before.”

“That’s true.” I evaded answering and hoped it would work.

“I suppose the voice was unrecognizable.” The evasion had worked.

“Of course. Low, hoarse. My guess is male, but couldn’t swear to it. But, how may I help you, Deputy?”

“Just checking on you. Wondering by any chance did you ever track down Marcie’s husband?”

“Actually he tracked me down. He was over here the day after the murder, took Domino home with him. Thought you-all knew that.”

“I guess someone here did. This is not the only case on deck, you know.”

“I know. But isn’t it the only murder?”

“For now, yes. This stallion has to go somewhere. Someone named Tammi Takeur told Teddy she’d board him. No charge, till it all settles down.”

“God! I hope you don’t send him to her!”

“Why not?”

“I think her husband’s somehow implicated in Marcie’s death. He’s the one who was going to buy Marcie’s farm then backed out.”

“Oh. Right. Seems I remember the name from some of the paperwork we found at Marcie’s”

“Um, Tuan. Speaking of paperwork. Are you absolutely sure you got all the papers that pertain to the case from Marcie’s office?”

“Why?” His tone was different. Guarded, alert. He
knew
. I’d have to
be
very careful.

“Just wondering. It’s very confusing that the Takeur’s, after months of hammering out various offers to buy, suddenly announce they can’t buy and back out on the pretext he lost his job. Now they want to take on the expense of boarding a stallion they don’t even own and surely cannot afford to buy. Doesn’t that seem weird?” But I was remembering the video now. Tammi’s intense interest in Once’s small son, Twice. Her husband’s scorn.

“Yes. But what about the papers you mentioned?”

“Just speculating. Has her office ever been re-checked since that first day?”

“No, Simon Asprey is a very thorough forensics man.”