No Such Thing As a Good Blind Date: A Brandy Alexander Mystery (No Such Thing As: A Brandy Alexander Mystery) (31 page)

“Jesus Christ, Keith, we’re talking about national security here. How could you sell out your own country like that?”

“The price was right.” Keith resumed his pacing. “If it hadn’t been for that God damn dog eating the thumb drive, everything would have been fine.”

“So that’s really what happened?” Even in the midst of a life and death crisis, Adrian’s gastric capabilities impressed me.

“You can’t make that shit up.” Keith emitted a rueful snort.

Slowly the puzzle was coming together. “The dog was Ilene Werner’s wasn’t it? She was at Glen Davis’s house the night she was murdered. Why did he kill her?”

Harrison glanced at his watch, his agitation increasing tenfold with each passing minute.

“How the fuck should I know? Couple of junkies having a lovers’ quarrel. According to Davis, her last boyfriend was that idiot friend of yours, Ventura,” he added. “Talk about the perfect scapegoat.”

“So Glen planned all along to set Toodie up for Ilene’s murder?”

Keith shook his head. “You give that cretin far too much credit. He needed someone with a dolly to haul the freezer out of there and not ask questions. Ventura fit the bill.”

“But Toodie said he was supposed to meet Glen at his house, only when he got there, Glen was gone. Why would he call Toodie up and then just leave?”

“Oh for God’s sake,” Keith barked. “The guy’s hooked on ice. He has to get high about every fifteen minutes. He went out to score something and forgot all about Toodie and the freezer. If it hadn’t been for me suggesting he bury the head in Ventura’s back yard, Glen would be on death row by now.”

I thought about this. “I don’t get it, Keith. I mean I can understand you hiring Glen. He’s your equivalent of Toodie. He probably did whatever you wanted and didn’t ask a lot of questions. But you’re really going out on a limb for him by helping him cover up his girlfriend’s murder. What’s in it for you?”

Suddenly the light dawned. I figured out the passport scam so now Keith wants me dead as much as Glen does. Only Keith’s a white-collar kind of guy. He doesn’t go in for the hardcore stuff, but he’s perfectly willing to let someone else do it. I wondered if Glen knew Keith’s motives weren’t exactly altruistic.

“Why don’t you give it a rest for awhile?” Harrison suggested, brandishing the gun at me. It didn’t look entirely natural in his hand.

My head was hurting so bad he would have done me a favor by shooting me. “You don’t happen to have any aspirin on you, do ya?”

“Sorry, no. But don’t worry, your headache will be taken care of soon enough.”

Keith resumed his pacing while I sank back along the wall again in a vain attempt at seeing only one of him. The word “concussion” was fast becoming a permanent part of my lexicon.

It was freezing in the warehouse. I stuck my hands in my coat pocket to keep warm and found an old Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup in one of them. Brain fuel. I popped it in my mouth.

Okay, so Keith comes over to see Glen. Ilene is there with her dog, visiting Glen. It’s hot in the apartment because of the broken thermostat. He takes off his coat, lays it on the couch. Adrian finds the thumb drive in the coat pocket and eats it, thinking it’s a candy bar. Then somehow, the dog runs off and Keith goes looking for him. Is that when Glen killed Ilene? And in the scheme of things did it really matter?

I gazed around the room, trying to come up with an exit strategy that didn’t include me being carted away horizontally. I decided to try my hand at bluffing. “You’re not going to get away with this, Keith. You may have the information, but I left an extra copy with a friend, with a note saying that if anything happened to me to go after you.”

“You made an extra copy?” His look of incredulity really ticked me off.

“Of course I made an extra copy. What do you think, I’m stupid?”

I made no extra copy. I am so stupid!
I meant to make a copy. I really did. But then the whole Marie debacle happened and it just slipped my mind.

There was a sudden scuffling sound coming from outside and then someone rapped on the warehouse door. Keith inched his way toward it, keeping his gun trained on me the entire time. It really wasn’t necessary. I could barely lift my head, let alone leap to my own defense.

Keith flattened himself against the wall and tugged on the sliding door. A thin shaft of light worked its way into the room, illuminating a scrawny figure standing at the entrance. A small caliber pistol jutted out from his right hand. He wore a dark, hooded sweatshirt and torn black jeans. His sunken eyes and emaciated form gave him the surreal look of a walking skeleton. Physically, he was the polar opposite of his brother, Turk. In fact, it was hard to believe he had any human relatives at all. He was unequivocally the ugliest person I’d ever seen. My phone buddy and mental tormenter, Glen Davis.

My stomach flipped at the sight of him and I automatically scooted farther back along the wall, willing myself invisible. He squeezed through the narrow entry, his entire being radiating a manic energy. Once he was all the way through, he shoved the door open wider with his hip, revealing another figure.

She was a stark contrast to Glen, with her beautiful, almost angelic face and luxurious dark hair. His arm was wrapped around her and I would have thought they were partners in crime, had it not been for the look of sheer terror on her face. There was a slight swelling under her eye, where I’d decked her. Tears stained her cheeks. Obviously, Marie DiCarlo didn’t have a lot of practice being held captive by lunatics. Well, it was her own stupid fault. I didn’t invite her to this shindig; she crashed it all on her own.

“Oh, Christ, who’s this?” Keith grumbled.

Glen shoved Marie into the room and she tripped, landing about two feet in front of me. It was sort of nice to have the company, but I wouldn’t wish this on anyone.

“I found her snooping around outside. I figured she’s a friend of the bitch here.”

Oh Glen, you couldn’t be more wrong. And what’s with everyone calling me a bitch?

Marie was openly sobbing, her entire body convulsing with fear. I completely understood how she felt, but I simply would not allow myself to give in to the urge to curl up in a fetal position and wait to die.

“Marie,” I said as compassionately as possible, “shut up. This isn’t helping.”

“My baby,” she whispered, taking in huge gulps of air. “She’s in the car.”

Oh fuck.

“Now what do I do?” Glen was saying to Keith.

“You have to kill them both.”

This started Marie on a fresh wave of hysteria.

I braced myself against the wall and tried to stand up. It was a fruitless effort. “Let her go, you guys. She probably hates me worse than you do. In fact, you’d be doing her a favor by killing me.” I glared at Marie with all the energy I could muster. Marie picked up her cue and glared back, spitting on the ground at my feet.

Glen laughed. It sounded like a cartoon hyena. “Why does she hate you?”

“I slept with her husband.” I didn’t add that it was before they’d ever met.

Marie flinched, and this time her glare was for real.

“She keeps following me around, trying to catch us in the act, I guess.”

“So then why do you care if she lives or dies?” Keith asked.

I shrugged. “She’s got a kid. I’m a sucker for babies.”

Glen closed the gap between us. He ran the barrel of his gun along my jaw line, openly leering at me. “I’ll bet you suck real good.”

I turned green or whatever color revulsion is.

Harrison’s voice was sharp. “Don’t be an asshole, Glen.” If Glen was insulted, he didn’t show it. My guess was he heard that a lot.

“You sure are a funny little thing,” Keith continued, directing his next comment to me. “You went to all this trouble to get a low-grade moron out of jail, and now you’re trying to save a woman who despises you.”

“I’m a regular Mother Teresa.” It was getting harder and harder to come up with wise cracks, what with death looming over my head and all.

Glen was becoming impatient. “Hey, I don’t got all day. And I’m not crazy about killing two of them. What am I supposed to do with the bodies?”

Keith limped over to the door and opened it a crack. “It’ll be dark soon,” he said. “Just sit tight for a little while and then we can get this thing over with. Where did the tall one park her car?” he asked as an afterthought. “Maybe we should move it before it attracts attention.”

Marie paled and made the sign of the cross and began reciting a rosary in Spanish. At least I think that’s what she was saying. My Spanish is limited to the holiday classic “Feliz Navidad” and old Arnold Schwarzenegger movie catch phrases.

I scooted over next to her. “Look,” I whispered, “we’re in deep trouble here. We’ve got to work together if we’re going to survive.”

She gave a slight, begrudging nod. I guess she was still thinking about that whole ‘slept with her husband’ crack.

I glanced over to the door. “One of us has to create a diversion while the other one makes a break for it. Are you with me on this?”

Marie responded with a tearful hitch in her throat. “I’ll do anything to keep my baby safe.”

“Good. Now here’s the plan—”

“Hey, you at the door.” Keith whipped around and Marie stood up, arms akimbo, like Wonder Woman.

“Marie, what are you doing?” She ignored me, keeping a steady eye on Harrison.

“Look, you want her dead. I don’t know why and I don’t care. I just want to get out of here. I’ll shoot her.”

My mouth flew open and stayed that way.
So much for team building.

“I kill her, you let me go. Everyone’s a winner.”

That’s it. I’m gonna die. Now I’ll never get to sleep with Nick again. Alright, I swore I wouldn’t anyway, but now I’ll really never get to. And what about Rocky and Adrian? They’ ll be orphans. I mean who would take in a dog who could literally eat you out of house and home?

A lump the size of Utah began to form in my throat.

“It’s a trick,” Glen decided.

Keith sneered at him. “Of course it’s a trick.”

I wasn’t so sure.

“Actually, this gives me an idea,” Keith continued. He grabbed Marie by the wrist. She cursed him and tried to jerk free, but he held fast, pinning her arm behind her back.

“Settle down there, honey. I’m about to make your wish come true.” Keith turned to me, aiming his gun at my head. “Get up,” he growled.

I struggled to get to my feet, but Keith is an “immediate needs” kind of guy and I guess I wasn’t moving fast enough for him. He reached out and yanked me upwards. I stumbled against him, nearly knocking him flat. “Take her,” he called to Glen.

Glen moved in and Keith released my arm. “Put her over there.”

Davis dragged me to the other side of the room. If he knew what Keith was up to, he wasn’t saying.

The pain in my head worsened. Whatever Keith had in mind, I wished I could do it sitting down.

He eyeballed me for a while and then turned to Marie, who had gotten over her crying jag and had replaced it with major attitude.

“Do you know who my husband is?” Marie challenged Keith. He didn’t seem to care, but she told him anyway. “He’s a detective with the Philadelphia police force. He’s going to hunt you down and you’ll be sorry you were ever born.”

“Is that true? Her husband’s a cop?” he asked me.

“Yeah,” I said. “A good one. He’ll find you alright.”

Keith shrugged. “I’m not even going to cross his mind. The poor guy is going to be overcome with grief, once he discovers that his wife shot his lover and then killed herself in a fit of remorse.”

“Oh, please, who’s going to believe that?”
Shit. Just about anyone who knew Marie.

Keith began shuffling us around as if he were staging a high school production of
High Noon,
Marie on one side and me on the other. I tried to catch her eye, but she wouldn’t look at me. I guess I couldn’t blame her. After all, I was the one who gave him this brilliant idea by telling him she wanted me dead. I wondered if her offer to shoot me had been legitimate. Well, it was a moot point now, wasn’t it?

Glen tightened his grip on my arm and rubbed up against my side. I could feel his excitement pressing into my hip, and a picture of Andi flashed through my mind. Did he have a hard-on when he slashed her throat? Bile rose up in mine and I squelched it down.

He rubbed one filthy finger against my cheek, lifting my chin so that I was eye level with him. I met his gaze, refusing to play the helpless victim.

“We need some alone time,” he whispered in my ear.

“Just shoot me now,” I hissed back.

Glen swung his left arm back and popped me hard in the mouth. I reeled back in pain, blood spurting from my upper lip. He let go of me and I slumped to the floor in a heap.

“What the hell are you doing?” Keith began walking toward us, his limp more pronounced now. It had been a long day for him. Marie was tucked in behind him, shackled by Keith’s free hand. He released her and bent down to examine my face.

“How are we going to make this look legit if her face is all smashed in?”

Out of the corner of my eye I detected a slight movement. Marie was slowly inching her way toward the door. I decided to help her out, although it was real iffy as to whether she’d return the favor.

“He’s nothing but a stinking coward,” I said, nodding towards Glen. “All he knows how to do is get high and beat up on women. Is that why you killed Ilene? Because she found herself a
real
man?” I braced myself for another punch in the mouth.

“Shut up, you God damn bitch. You don’t know anything about me and Ilene.”

There was surprising emotion behind his words and for once it wasn’t pure anger. Could it be he’d really cared for her?

Marie was almost to the door. If I could just keep their attention for a moment longer.

“Hey, maybe she was having a thing with Harrison. I hear he’s quite the ladies’ man.”

Confusion clouded Glen’s face and he cut his eyes to Keith, who looked like he was about to strangle me with his bare hands.

“Just shut the hell up, would ya?” Keith demanded. He turned to Glen. “Can’t you see what she’s doing? She’s trying to cause trouble between us. We’ve got to stick to our plan if we’re going to get you out of this mess.”