You Don't Know Jack (8 page)

I tried shutting out the noise, gaze glued to the altar, to the ornate gold and silver casket that appeared to be surrounded by the entire stock of two florist shops. I drew in a ragged breath, inhaling a nauseating clash of male cologne, female perfume, and every fragrant bloom known to humankind. My stomach lurched. I feared I'd be sick. But then, I was already sick.

And mad as hell.

I bit down the urge to shout, "Shut up! This is God's house, a place of sanctity, a day of solemn rite!" To yell, "Stop rustling your clothes, fidgeting your feet, wagging your non-stop tongues! Bow your heads and show the man in the coffin some respect!"

Instead, I stared at casket. Lars Larson was dead. Murdered. Like a crystalized cyst tight against my heart, grief, anger and frustration pressed, the aching hurt and sense of loss a surprise. I hadn't expected I'd care this much.
But I did
. Another important piece of my personal history was gone forever. Stripped away. First Daddy, now Lars. And I had no clue as to why either of them had been taken from my life. Or who had taken them.

Was Lars the third victim of the Black Boutonniere Killer? Or dead by the hand of a crazed fan? Or murdered by someone close to him? At this point, I knew only what the newspapers reported and, so far, those reports were sketchy and cautious. Stone had been less than forthcoming, quick to point out:
Your best friend is a prime person of interest.

Apollo.

Seated beside me, my BFF was frazzled, a broomstick in black silk jeans, black silk shirt, and black spiked hair, his ordeal with the police ongoing. One positive: he was still speaking to me — which meant he didn't know I'd given Stone the incriminating tie. The guilt to spill my guts and clear my conscience boiled like an unstable volcano, but I held my tongue. I had to.

The history of Apollo's life fit together like an awkward puzzle of betrayals, the pieces made up of dark colors and hostile shapes that formed an ugly picture. It wouldn't matter that I'd meant no harm. Once he knew the truth, our friendship would be as dead as Lars.

I had to fix this before it was unfixable.

I raised my head and glanced around the chapel. Standing room only had late arrivals crowded ready-wear to haute couture against the walls. The front pews held a good portion of King County's gay community. All of them dressed to the nines. And weeping.

The middle section overflowed with Crain relatives and friends, and — I'd swear — every woman who had ever had her hair ratted or permed or dyed at the
Clip and Flip.
All of them coifed to the nines. And weeping.

I had not wept. I felt too stunned to cry.

"Lars certainly touched a lot of lives," whispered Sophie Ferman, one of the elderly C & F customers. She was seated behind me, along with her two best friends, Ida Schultz and Madame Zee. The self-proclaimed "Golden Oldies" trio went everywhere together.

I nodded. "He would have relished this huge turnout."

"Burnout?" shouted Ida in her ninety-something voice, the bray screeching across the chapel like a bull horn. Ida had lost her hearing sometime during the sexual revolution of the sixties and seventies. She didn't speak; she blared. I tried shushing her, but before I could, she bellowed out, "He died of burnout? Is that when your guts get so hot you burst into flames?"

Startled faces snapped in our direction.

"No, Ida, that would be instantaneous combustion!" Sophie said, loud enough for Ida and half the church to hear.

"Oh, my!" Ida fanned herself with a memorial pamphlet. "I hope I don't get
that!
"

"I think you're safe," I assured her, embarrassed as the organ music grew louder.

"I don't know!" Ida fanned herself harder. "It's so close in here I'm starting to heat up!"

"Ida, dear, writer's don't get burnout," Sophie said, shaking her snow globe head and knocking half-glasses askew on the tip of her nose. "They get blocked!"

"Oh, my!" Ida exclaimed, the pamphlet stopping in mid-fan. "My uncle Eli got blocked! Intestines! Excruciating way to go! Undertaker couldn't get the grimace off his face! Had to have a closed casket!"

For the first time the crowd fell silent, their collective gazes shifting toward the altar and the closed casket. Ida started fanning again. "Oh, my! Poor Lars!"

Sophie righted her half-glasses. "I could have sworn I heard he was poisoned."

"He died by the dagger." Madam Zee proclaimed in her eerily soft, yet commanding voice, an all-knowing glint in her ice blue eyes. Large and round, her hair dyed jet black, she dripped of dangling, clanking gold jewelry and myriad colorful scarfs. She fancied herself a reincarnated gypsy fortune teller and offered readings of palms, tea leaves, Tarot cards and head lumps. She ran the tip of a blood-red fingernail across her throat to emphasize her point. "I did a reading. It was in the cards. The dagger."

I shivered at the image, recalling the blood on my hands, and I wondered again just how Lars
had
died. Stone hadn't said. Cause of death was one of the things the police were holding back.

"Oh, for God's sake." Apollo said, exasperated either at the conversation or the fact that mourners from all sides — Lars' friends and fans — tossed disapproving stares our way. He growled in a taut whisper, "Lars was shot."

I jerked fully toward him, stunned that he'd have such information. "Who told you tha—?"

"I'll tell you later," Apollo said, cutting me off. Strain showed around his dark eyes, despite his best efforts to hide the physical signs of his distress with concealer. My guilt meter ratcheted another notch higher.

The minister stepped to the pulpit.
Game on
. The church fell quiet. Finally. His kind face and reverent voice did nothing to slow my motoring mind. If Lars had been shot it would solve everything. Charging someone with murder required means, motive, and opportunity. Apollo had opportunity, but neither means, nor motive. If Lars had been shot, then Apollo would drop off the suspect list like last week's best seller on Amazon.com.

But had he been shot?

If only I had seen the wound. As the rest of the congregation bowed their heads to pray, I stared at the coffin, and prayed once again for X-ray eyes.
Were you shot, Lars
?

The question seemed to draw the force of the Jedi into my skull with a swift, brilliant, roaring flash that I felt all the way to my toes. A second later, I swear I heard Lars whisper inside my head,
"Ah, darlin', you know you didn't hear a gunshot that night."

I stiffened like a corpse. Liquid evaporated from my mouth. Either I was starring in a remake of
The Blair Witch Project
or I'd gone stark raving mad. Did that even make sense? Could grief drive you suddenly insane? Was I certifiable? Lock-up-able? Or was this just wishful thinking? Just my wanting to speak to Lars so badly that my mind had actually conjured his spirit?

"You're not crazy, darlin'."

I almost wet my pants.
It was Lars
. OMG. What was he doing in my head? I glared at the coffin, hoping what remained of him there could feel my animosity for scaring the beejesus out of me, for being dead, and for dashing my hope of easily excavating Apollo from the shit pile.

But damn his ghostly hide for being right. I'd heard a scuffle the night he died. No loud pop. Nothing that sounded like a car backfiring. No gunshot. Maybe the killer used a silencer. Or maybe Apollo, like the others, was speculating.

"Figure it out, darlin'," Lars urged.

"No." My breath caught; I was arguing with a ghost. "Leave me alone."

"You owe me, darlin'."

Damn. Even dead Lars wouldn't take "no!" for an answer. What if his ghost hounded, er, haunted me until I solved his murder?

"I will, darlin'. Count on it."

"Why don't you tell me who did it and then I'll find the evidence and give it to Stone?" I waited. But there was no response. Nothing. No more ghostly advice or arguments or assistance. Just me talking to myself in my head.

I shifted uncomfortably on the pew as the preacher advanced to reading from notes, expounding his own interpretation of what he'd been told about Lars' life. An edited version, no doubt, considering Lars Larson penned best-selling fiction crammed full of action, adventure, and sex. But even if the minister had been reading from one of those novels, I wouldn't have noticed.

More questions kept cropping up — like why was Lars at the nightclub when he knew I was starting my investigation that night? Checking up on me? Making sure I honored our contract? The rat. He would do that. But why had he been killed? Was he the latest victim of the BBK? Or not? What I knew about serial killers was that they usually stalked their victims, familiarized themselves with their targets' routine. Lars' routine was to write at night. His being at the club was not routine.

So was his murder random? Wrong place, wrong time? Or premeditated? Planned, arranged?

The questions made my head ache. Stone wouldn't share anything about the case. What he'd said was: "keep your snout out of my investigation." But I couldn't. I'd tossed Apollo to the wolves. The cops were digging through his life. His apartment. His past and present.

Stone hadn't arrested him... yet. Yet. That damned yet kept pinging around my brain like a pellet fired into a tin box, zinging and vibrating and threatening, making my headache pound, making me desperate to recall something I'd heard or seen that seemed inconsequential at the time and that now my subconscious niggled was important. What?

I couldn't remember, and trying aggravated the pain arcing my skull as though a vice grip kept clamping tighter and tighter. So was playing "what if?" as though Lars' murder was a new book plot that I couldn't let go of. I felt like groaning, but I had to hide my headache, or Madam Zee would be reading the lumps on my noggin with Mrs. Schultz bull-horning the results.

Apollo broke my thoughts. "Do you think Lars' killer is here?"

I tensed. Researching my mysteries I'd learned that killers often attend a victim's funeral as some sicko ritualistic closure, but I'd been too wrapped up in my thoughts to think of that today. I looked side to side, eying with suspicion the faces of mourners. No one stood out. No one looked as guilty as I felt. "If he is, he forgot his ID tag."

And just as the words were out of my mouth that same eerie feeling I'd had at
Club Jaded Edge
of something insidiously evil nearby seemed to touch my neck. Goose bumps rose across my arms and legs leaving my skin chilled.

"Joseph, Mary, and Hey-Sues, girlfriend, you're as white as the lilies on you-know-who's casket."

Before I could respond, the minister called for another prayer. I prayed it was the end of the service. Okay, so that was callous. Inappropriate. I was going to Hell for sure, but maybe God and Lars would forgive me if I solved his murder. Apollo's forgiveness was another matter, but recalling that a killer often took perverse pleasure in attending his victim's burial rites had given me an idea.

The collective "amen" coincided with my dragging Apollo to his feet. "Come on. We have work to do."

"Aren't we going to the grave-side service?"

"No. We're going straight to the celebration of life party."

"But... that's not until after the burial."

Okay, I had to tell him something that didn't sound like I'd lost my ability to tell time, or that I was totally deranged, or that made him think I was hiding something from him. I hustled him outside into the cloud-riddled day. Noon. The temperature hovered in the fifties with a biting wind. I said, "We can't sit by while the cops focus on the wrong person for this murder."

Apollo went ashen. "Far as I can tell, girlfriend, they're only looking at me, and hand to God, I did not kill Lars. Or anyone else. I am not the Black Boutonniere Killer."

"Duh." Like I needed convincing. Apollo hated violence. He'd grown up with it. He couldn't. Wouldn't. "We need a suspect list of our own. But first tell me why you said Lars was killed with a gun. Did the police tell you that?"

"No. But all the speculation was making me sick. I wanted it to stop." He looked perplexed as I hurried him to Old Yeller. He finally said, "What do you mean a suspect list of our own? Don't you believe Lars was the third victim of the BBK?"

"I haven't worked that out, but in case he wasn't, we should cover all the bases." I started the engine. "I don't know if I ever told you, but when plotting murder mysteries, I work from the theory that the dead body is the most important character. I ask myself who wanted him or her dead and why and that gives me the story, the other characters involved, as well as the method to solve the crime. So, we start with Lars. Who wanted him dead and why?"

"A longer list than the Oscar nominees."

True. He probably had as many enemies as fans, but that was too large a pool to draw from. "We can't get too far afield. We need to hone in on his inner circle."

He thought a moment. "No one's more inner than Bruce. As to motive, well, Lars hired you to get something or other on Bruce. Perhaps he caught Lars snooping around and they fought and Bruce..."

He drew his hand across his throat, apparently buying the Madam Zee dagger scenario.

I made a face. "Stone and I can alibi Bruce."