Wedding Day of Murder (12 page)

When Lacy woke again, Bobby Flay
was gone. “Bobby, Bobby Fway?” she called, a little desperately, but there was
no answer. She hurt in places she didn’t know it was possible to hurt. Her
throat was parched. Her head throbbed. She was both cold and hot and her cheeks
felt unrecognizably swollen. After a few seconds of frantically searching for
Bobby Flay, she was exhausted. She lay back down and tried hard to think, no
easy task. Her brain was foggy. Something had happened to her, but what?

“Dey stole my teef.” She remembered
saying that, but to whom? And why? Had someone taken her teeth? If the swelling
and gauze were any indication, then the answer was yes. Her mind flashed to an
episode of
24.
Taking someone’s teeth
was a routine method of torture, and the victims were often held in dark,
enclosed spaces. Was she a political prisoner? What had Jack Bauer done to her?
Was this real or a dream? Maybe her whole life had been a dream and this was
reality.

Her thoughts were on fast-forward,
like a one of those flip books that if flashed fast enough looks like
animation. There were so many images. Which was real? She remembered Jason.
Jason was real. She had seen him not that long ago. Where was he now?

Frannie was in some of the
pictures, only she was riding on a flying broom in the middle of a tornado.
That one wasn’t real. Kimber, Riley, Tosh, Andy, Michael, and Travis all
flicked quickly through her mind. Some of those images felt real, and some felt
blurred. There were a lot of official-looking people wearing white. Had she
gone insane? Did someone put her in an institution? She felt around, but the
walls weren’t padded.

Her body felt sick, her mind
muddled, but her psyche struggled for lucidity. Occasionally it would break the
surface of confusion and she would have a clear thought, but it was gone before
she could take hold. All the real thoughts bobbed up and down in a sea of false
images. She closed her eyes and focused, trying hard to put the pieces
together. Her last clear memory was of running with Jason. The mortification
from that day had left an indelible impression, that’s how she knew it was
real. What happened after the run?

There was a meeting. That was why
Travis was in one of the scenes. He had made the meeting break apart. Her
mother. Lacy talked to her mother and it hadn’t gone well, but that might have
been any conversation between them. Work. She went to the Stakely building, and
that was when things really began to fall apart. There was fear, a flash of
green, Jason, a doctor, and pudding, it always came back to pudding.

“Dey stole my teef and gave me
pudding,” she rationalized, although she had no idea why. Had she sold her
teeth for pudding? No, she had money. Didn’t she? Was that part real? Had she
inherited a million dollars? She thought so, although that also seemed like a
fairy tale at the moment. But no, she did something with the money, something
concrete. She bought a building. The Stakely building; that was why she had
been there. She was working at the Stakely building because she owned it.

She tried to smile as another piece
of the puzzle clicked into place. She was Lacy Steele. She owned a building.
She was dating Jason Cantor. The smile that had never made it all the way up
tried to turn down. Her cheeks were so swollen that her lips had a couple of
convulsions and went slack. Was she dating Jason Cantor, or was that part of
the dream? It seemed so real, but also like a fantasy.
I love you.
That was real. He had said that to her. Hadn’t he? They
ran and he told her he loved her. That part must be true because it was too
irrational to be made up. If she were going to make something up, it would be
something believable.

She was dating Jason, he loved her,
she owned the Stakely building, and she was inexplicably missing teeth and
confined to a little box. Was it a coffin? Her heart thundered painfully until
she ascertained that the space was too big for a coffin. It had four walls with
some sort of large pipe protruding from one of them. The pipe felt warm. She
cozied up to it, felt hot, and immediately moved away. The wall with the pipe
was made of brick. The brick was cool. She alternated between pressing her hand
to the pipe and the bricks as her temperature alternately climbed and
plummeted.

Had someone put her in the box? The
question seemed important, and yet as hard as she tried, she couldn’t find an
answer. She had no memory of how she arrived wherever she was. She pressed her
hand to the wall again, reveling in the feel of something familiar. The
confusing jumble of thoughts tried to pull her under again, but she struggled
to hold on to the last one.
Familiar. The
feel of the bricks was familiar.

Jason had never broken into a
business before. Fortunately, he’d had a lot of experience arresting people who
had. He had learned from them to act casual, and to strike when no one was
looking.

“Evening, Joe,” he said as Joe the
security guard passed him on his nightly rounds.

“We’re closed up, Jason,” Joe said.
His tone was suspicious. Joe was so innocuous that Jason sometimes took him for
granted, but he was smarter and sneakier than he looked.

“I know,” Jason said. “But I need
to get into Lacy’s office and take a look around. She might have left clues to
her disappearance.”

At the mention of Lacy’s
disappearances, Joe’s eyebrows drew together in a sad frown. “Okay,” he agreed,
as if he had any choice. As if Jason wouldn’t have steamrolled right over him
to get what he wanted. He was so intent on his purpose that only compassion had
made him stop when Joe hailed him. Joe’s life had been rough and made rougher
after Jason incorrectly arrested him for murder some years back. He was on the
straight and narrow now and deserved all the kindness he could find. Lacy had
made it her mission to see that he found a lot.

Joe watched while he raced up the
first open flight of stairs and ducked into the stairwell on the second floor.
The elevated vantage point would give him a birds-eye view of Joe. Jason opened
the door a crack and watched as Joe slowly ambled around checking doors. When
he was finished, he disappeared. His sister would have supper ready, and Joe
would go home for a while before coming back to wander around some more. Jason figured
he had at least an hour, but he wouldn’t need that long. He jogged downstairs,
put on leather gloves and jimmied the lock on Michael’s music store. His
conscience pinged, but only a little. Now that he knew how much more there was
to the man, he was determined to form a complete picture and have his questions
answered. If Michael had anything to do with the dead protester, Jason wanted
to find out. He wouldn’t be able to use it in court, but he didn’t care right
now. He felt as if he were suffering some sort of mental break. All he could
think about was finding the truth about Michael. If he did that, he magically
believed he might find Lacy. Did he think Michael knew where Lacy was? Yes.
Somewhere along the way, he had come to that conclusion. Michael was the last
person to see Lacy at the hospital. Michael had brought the protesters to town.
Michael was the person who had suggested where to find Lacy in the baseball
shed. Michael was the key to everything.

The door popped. He slipped inside,
took out his flashlight, and held it in his mouth. He might not know exactly
how to break in somewhere, but thanks to all the idiots he had arrested over
the years, he knew what not to do. Not being drunk or high was already a step
in the right direction toward not getting caught. Not being stupid was another.
Being careful was even better. He would leave no prints; he would get in and
back out again without leaving a trace. Thanks to his OCD tendencies, he would
successfully rearrange everything as he had found it, maybe better. He would
have to hold himself back from fixing any messy organizational mistakes. Maybe
if he was caught and lost his job, he might have a career as a burglar. He
wouldn’t steal anything; he would simply break in and clean up.

Michael’s workspace was tidier than
his disheveled appearance would indicate. In fact, the only mistakes Jason
found in his files was a misspelling of mandolin and a folder about banjos in
front of the one about bands. He made a quick search of the desk and found nothing
incriminating outside of a dubiously vast taste in music. If he was the
criminal mastermind Jason thought him to be, how could he have left no trail?
Of course, the more likely culprit for incriminating evidence was his house,
but Jason couldn’t search there because Michael was home; he had ascertained
during a reconnaissance drive by.

After the desk, he moved on to some
filing cabinets. They were filled with vintage records. He was just about to
stick his hand inside one of the covers to make sure they were records when the
lights flipped on. Jason looked up, caught and hoping to see Joe.

“I can’t say I’m surprised, but I
thought it would happen long before now,” Michael said. “You’ve held off
searching my things for a tolerably long time. You must have more patience than
most.”

“Where’s Lacy?” Jason asked.

“That’s the million dollar
question,” Michael said.

Jason tossed aside the record and
stepped in front of the desk. Michael took a step inside and closed the door.
Tension crackled between them. A fight loomed, and Jason was more than ready.

“Suppose you tell me what this was
about. Why now?” Michael asked. He took another step forward. Jason matched him
and drew a step closer on his side.

“You told me where to find Lacy
last time.”

“Lucky guess,” Michael said.

“I don’t believe in luck, not from
a stranger who has no good reason to know about the ball fields,” Jason said.

“Except that I like to hit to
relax. Baseball’s the great American pastime, or so the saying goes.”

“You were the last person who saw
Lacy this morning.”

“I doubt that. There were people
everywhere,” Michael said. “A hospital is a crowded place. I saw Lacy. She was
eating pudding like the world was about to end. We had a pleasant conversation
wherein she thought I was Ina Garten. She kept asking me for my roasted chicken
recipe. I gleaned some amusement from her delusional state, and then I left.”

“No,” Jason said.

“No?” Michael echoed. “You don’t
believe me?”

Jason shook his head.

“Why not?”

“Because I have your record.”

“Ah,” Michael said. “That. I was
wondering when we would get to that. I’m surprised it hasn’t come up before
now.”

“You were arrested for murder,”
Jason said.

“Arrested, but not convicted,”
Michael pointed out. “After the uncomfortable accusations, I thought it would be
better to leave Minnesota.”

“You wound up here. Why?”

Michael shrugged. “Why does anyone
wind up anywhere? Destiny? Fate? Chance?”

“You sound like Rain,” Jason
accused. “She came here because of you.”

“She came here because she’s
crazy,” Michael said.

“If you knew she was crazy, why did
you ask her out?”

“Since when is being attracted to
crazy a crime? I have questionable taste in women.”

“Which brings us back to Lacy,”
Jason said.

“Your words, not mine,” Michael
said, holding up his hands in surrender. Jason tensed at the gesture, preparing
to leap aside in case he delivered a blow. Michael seemed to realize and gave
him a sheepish smile. “I have no cause to hit you, mate. These fists are for
defense only.”

“A lover, not a fighter,” Jason
said.

“My reputation precedes me,”
Michael said.

“You still haven’t answered my
questions,” Jason said.

“You haven’t asked them,” Michael
said.

“What is your interest in Lacy?”
Jason asked.

“She’s a friend. She’s my landlord.
We have similar interests,” Michael said.

“Did you know the protester who was
killed?”

“I saw him around. He tried to
sneak into the building a few times. I chased him away,” Michael said.

“Did he say why?”

“No, but he was overtly interested
in Lacy.”

“A common theme,” Jason said.

“You’re barking up the wrong tree
there,” Michael said.

“I don’t think so. Something’s been
going on with you and her since you moved here.”

“It’s called friendship,” Michael
said.

“No. I know friendship, and that’s
not it. There’s something more. I’ve been to the community meetings. I would
rather have my eyes gouged out. The only reason I go is for Lacy. No one hangs
around community meetings for friendship.”

“Those would be the similar
interests I was referring to. Community development, that’s my thing.”

“I thought crime was your thing,”
Jason said.

Michael shrugged a shoulder.
“Youthful indiscretions. I’m on the straight and narrow.”

Jason took another step closer. He
wanted to look Michael in the eye, to read him and see if he was lying. Michael
did the same until only a foot of space was between them. “Are you going to ask
me to dance?” Michael said.

“No,” Jason said, and then he
punched him in the face. Rather, he would have punched him in the face, but
Michael had good reflexes. He ducked and wrenched Jason’s arm behind his back
in one smooth motion. Jason hadn’t fought with anyone since high school. Then
he’d had good reason. Now he had no idea why he wanted to beat Michael’s face
in; he just did. All the frustration, worry, anxiety, and tension bubbled out
of him and demanded release. Michael knew more than he was telling. Jason was
sure of it. He wanted the truth, even if he had to punch it out of him, but
beating someone up wasn’t as easy as he remembered. Most of his training had
gone into defensive maneuvers. It wasn’t in his nature to attack someone for no
apparent reason. He was out of control, and the more he let go, the more he
liked the feeling.