Dead Between the Lines (21 page)

“Phew! That’s a relief.”

We split the check and said good-bye at the door. I waved as Zizi roared away in her Pontiac GTO, then headed back to my store to check something on the Internet and get some cash from the safe. When I had mentioned that the police were examining Quistgaard’s documents, I’d remembered about his pawned laptop. It had given me an idea, and there was a good chance that I’d need more than the twenty bucks I currently had in my wallet to execute it.

Shadow Bend Pawn Shop and Jewelry was located on the edge of town, not far from the highway’s entrance and exit ramps. As I pulled into the empty lot, I was glad to see that there were no other customers. What I had to do was best accomplished without witnesses.

The three floor-to-ceiling windows that faced the road were outlined in blue neon lights with the words
BUY, SELL, PAWN
in red. A yellow
OPEN
sign blinked on and off as I pushed through the glass door, and I immediately noticed on the back wall behind the register a poster listing electronics, jewelry, guns, musical instruments, sporting goods, tools, and lawn equipment as items that were pawnable.

Although a buzzer had sounded when I’d entered, Addie was nowhere in sight. While I waited for him to appear, I wandered around the huge space. A wide-ranging array of items, from an Elvis costume to a complete set of antique china, was on display, including a Wurlitzer Vintage 850 Peacock jukebox that made my heart go pitter-pat. Too bad the ten-thousand-dollar price tag nearly gave me a coronary.

Having called out Addie’s name two or three times while I browsed, I realized several minutes had gone by and there was still no sign of him. Had he fallen asleep? Or had something happened to him? I shivered. Maybe Quistgaard’s killer had had the same idea as I’d had, and come for the author’s laptop.

I dug my cell from my purse and punched in 911; then, with my thumb ready to complete the call, I yelled, “Addie, are you here?”

Silence.

I moved toward a passage leading to what I assumed was a back room and raised my voice. “Addie, it’s Dev Sinclair. Are you okay?”

This time I heard a thump, then what sounded like the squeaking wheels of an office chair. As I edged a little closer to the hallway, I wished I had a Taser in my hand instead of a cell phone.

Deciding to try one more time before I got the hell out of there, I shouted, “I’ve called the police, and they’re on their way.” As I backed toward the entrance, I hit a table full of Calphalon pans. The sound of clanking metal rang through the shop like the clapping of the amplified cymbals of an acid-rock band.

“What the f—” a deep voice roared, and my heart stopped.

“Damn it!” Addie lumbered out of the corridor. “What’s going on out here?” Old-fashioned earphones hung around his neck, and he scrubbed his eyes with his fist. Clearly, I’d woken him from a nap.

Once my breathing was back under control and I’d checked to make sure my undies were still dry, I said, “Sorry. Did I wake you?”

“I thought I’d locked that door.” Addie didn’t bother to answer my question.

“Nope.” I took a step away from him, briefly wondering how Addie’s anger-management classes were going. “Maybe I should come back later.”

“Nah.” Addie’s posture relaxed and he pasted what might have been a smile on his face. “My meditation is all gone to hell now. That yoga shit is harder than it looks. I should go back to lifting weights.” He patted his stomach. “Especially since my six-pack is now hiding behind my keg.”

“You look fine.” What else could I say? I wasn’t exactly a poster girl for
Hot Bod
magazine myself.

“Thanks.” Addie ducked his head, then asked, “So what can I do for you?”

“Last time I saw you, you said you had Quistgaard’s laptop. Did you mention that to the police?”

“Nope.” Addie raised a pierced brow. “They didn’t ask, and I didn’t tell.”

“Because they would have confiscated it and you’d be out whatever you gave Lance for it?” Knowing Addie’s fondness for profit was similar to my own, I had figured that he’d kept quiet about the computer.

“Yep.” Addie didn’t seem at all uncomfortable with my allegation.

“How much do you want for it?” I had done a quick search on Bing back at the store and I knew a used laptop wasn’t worth much. Depending on the model it could be anywhere from sixty dollars to four hundred.

“Three bills and it’s yours.” Addie went behind the register.

“What kind is it?”

Addie flipped through a stack of papers. “Dell Latitude D600.”

“I’ll give you a hundred bucks, assuming it works.” I reached into my purse, grabbed five twenties, and fanned them out on the countertop.

“Two C-notes, and I’m only doing it because you’re a friend.”

“One twenty.” I added another Jackson to the stack. “And if I don’t end up turning it over to the police when I’m through, I’ll give it back to you for free.”

“Deal.” Addie’s huge paw engulfed the money on the counter, shoved it in the register, and handed me the Dell. “Don’t tell the cops where you got it,” he ordered.

I bobbed my head noncommittally, then made a hasty exit. When I slid into the car, I noticed a scene from Bosch’s triptych
The Garden of Earthly Delights
on the computer’s lid, and snickered. How apropos for a man who had written a book about sex.

After a quick call to Jake to tell him I was safe and heading home to spend the rest of the afternoon and evening with Birdie, I put the BMW into gear and pulled out of the parking lot.

As I drove, I wondered if the answer to the mystery of who had killed Lance Quistgaard was waiting inside the laptop right beside me.

CHA
PTER 25

G
ran kept me busy for the rest of Thursday afternoon, helping her get the garage apartment ready for my father’s return. When the rooms were up to her standards, she asked me to drive her over to the county seat so she could buy new sheets and towels for him at Walmart. It was really too bad that no one in town sold linens.

I’d considered stocking them at the dime store, but I didn’t have enough space. Maybe I should open up a bed-and-bath department in the unused upstairs rooms. I’d have to crunch some numbers and see if the profits from the additional merchandise would justify the added costs.

After we finished shopping, Gran decided she wanted to see a movie and go to dinner. Since I’d been neglecting her recently, my guilty conscience badgered me into agreeing to all her demands—even if it meant yawning through the latest slasher flick and consuming truck-stop food.

We didn’t get back home until ten, and by then I was too pooped to do more than take a quick look at the laptop. When I saw that the computer was password protected, I gave up and went to bed.

At 6:05 the next day, the ping of a text coming into my phone roused me from the Land of Nod. According to Noah’s message, the doctors had kept Nadine overnight but still couldn’t find anything wrong with her, so they were sending her home. Noah was heading into his clinic to take the morning shift, and he’d stop by the store when he got off work.

I frowned. How long could the poor guy dance attendance to his mother, see all his scheduled patients, and not collapse? His mom may not be having a coronary, but she might give him one.

I wasn’t pleased with Noah’s new habit of waking me at the butt crack of dawn, but I had to admit that I liked what I could accomplish with an early start. After a quick shower and a hurried breakfast with Gran, I arrived at the dime store at seven thirty.

Xylia had sent me a text agreeing to come in at ten and stay until we closed, so I was hoping to spend most of the day creating baskets. Once I finished the Mother’s Day orders, my next priority were thank-you baskets for my biggest client, Oakley Panigrahi, a Kansas City real-estate tycoon who sold luxury properties.

Noah had hooked me up with Oakley six weeks ago, and I was working on his second order of twenty baskets. He demanded that the gifts to his buyers be filled with unique items customized to their tastes, which took a lot of research and inspiration. I was willing to put in the extra effort to get everything just right, because if he continued to order baskets from me, his business alone could potentially keep me in the black.

At nine, I greeted Hannah and opened the store. She and I dealt with the morning shoppers until Xylia arrived. I told them I’d be at my worktable if there were any questions or problems, and left them to handle the front of the shop on their own. By twelve, when Hannah left to attend her afternoon high school classes, I’d made good progress on the baskets and decided to let Xylia take a break.

As usual, lunch-hour business was slow, and in between the infrequent customers, I was able to finish up the rest of my orders by the time Xylia returned. Turning the register back over to her, I grabbed a cup of coffee and a bagel, went into the storage room, and opened up Quistgaard’s laptop.

Now that I wasn’t so tired, it took me only a few minutes to find a blog that told me how to get into a password-protected computer. It instructed me to press the
CTRL
,
ALT
, and
DELETE
buttons simultaneously, then put the word
administrator
under the user name and leave the password box blank. The blogger explained that this method worked because there is a secret administrator’s account in every computer.

I was congratulating myself for getting in when I ran into a second wall of protection. The poet had password protected his files.
Shoot!
I knew accessing those wouldn’t be as easy.

Most people used fairly common words or phrases for their passwords, such as their name or the name of their spouse or child. I tried
L
ANCE
and
Q
UISTGAARD
with no luck, and, as far as I knew, he didn’t have a wife or any offspring—at least none he acknowledged.

Next, I typed
PASSWORD
. Nope, not that either. According to his Web site, he didn’t have a pet, but it did say he’d attended the University of Missouri at St. Louis, so I keyed in several variations of that. His site said he was a Valentine’s Day baby, so I tried his birthdate with several guesses as to the year, but, again, nothing.

I was getting frustrated, but counted myself fortunate that at least the password program didn’t lock me out after so many attempts. That annoying feature would have made the search much more difficult, as I knew after forgetting my username on eBay so often.

After trying
GOD, DEVIL, LOVE, LETMEIN, MONEY, WELCOME
, and the title of both Quistgaard’s books and his column, I was stymied. Getting up, I stretched and checked my watch. It was a few minutes until three. Time for the after-school rush.

Exasperated, I returned the laptop to my desk, locked the drawer, and took my place behind the soda fountain. Hannah had lined up all the supplies before she left, so with Xylia manning the candy case, we were ready for the onslaught. She and I worked steadily until four thirty, when most of the kids left to go home for supper, and by five the store was empty.

As I’d made sundaes, shakes, and root-beer floats, I’d been thinking about my problem. I’d put in a call to Chief Kincaid yesterday afternoon and he still hadn’t returned it. Once he did, I’d have to turn the laptop over to the police.

With that in mind, I retrieved the computer from my desk drawer and set up Operation Get the Hell into Lance’s Files at the soda fountain.

I tried every shred of information from Quistgaard’s Web site, any word related to “The Bend’s Buzz” that popped into my head, and all the famous poets I could either think of or find on the Internet. Then, as I was running out of ideas, it hit me. Holding my breath, I typed in
LLCHARLES
, and, like magic, I was in.

Most of his files were manuscripts, poems, and gossip columns. I opened a spreadsheet labeled
MONEY
and whistled noiselessly. Although his advance for
Ten Colors of Blonde
was only five thousand dollars, he was waiting for his first big royalty payment, and he estimated that check would be in the high six figures. Who knew that there was that kind of cash in authoring soft-core porn? At those prices, if I had a shred of writing talent, I’d sure give it a try.

Curious about all the fuss the novel had garnered, I clicked on a file labeled
T
EN
C
OLORS OF
B
LONDE
and started scanning the document. Within the first few pages, I learned that the point-of-view character was Xanthia Luce, a twenty-year-old accounting major attending a small Midwest college and working part-time as a clerk in a dollar store. She had mousy blond hair and dressed like she was teaching at a parochial school.

The next chapter began with the line,
I stare at myself in the mirror. My only unique feature is a heart-shaped birthmark high on my right cheek, which I find myself touching when I’m nervous.

Why did that sound so familiar? A second later, my gaze flew to Xylia, who was dusting a display in front of me. Our eyes met and I glanced quickly away.
Oh. My. God!
Xanthia Luce was Xylia Locke.

Suddenly I remembered what I had wanted to ask Zizi. I had never found out whom Ronni had seen her talking to after the book club. Of course, now I didn’t have to ask. It had to have been Xylia. Had Zizi recognized her as the woman from Quistgaard’s book and asked her about it? Most people wouldn’t have mentioned it, but Zizi wasn’t most people. She clearly had a bee in her bonnet about the novel, and she would have considered it her duty to confront Xylia about her role in it. Why hadn’t Zizi mentioned that to me? I bet Xylia had pleaded with her to keep her identity a secret, probably playing on Zizi’s social-worker instinct to keep what people told her confidential.

I opened a file labeled
XANTHIA
. It contained notes and a video link. I muted the sound, then clicked. When the recording started right up, I was glad I’d sprung for the highest-speed Wi-Fi connection. As I watched Lance Quistgaard and my straitlaced clerk having some extremely unstraightlaced sex, I swallowed a gasp. If the handcuffs and spanking were any indication, Xylia had been an extremely naughty girl. It was time to shut down the peep show. I had already seen more than I ever wanted to witness of my employee’s love life.

Oh, shit!
Had Xylia murdered Quistgaard because of her role in his book? A shiver ran down my spine. Would she off me if she found out I suspected her?

Before I could hit the little
x
in the corner that would close the window, an arm slammed around my throat and Xylia whined, “I warned you, Ms. Sinclair. Why didn’t you stop snooping?”

I clawed at her sweater-sheathed arm, wishing for the long nails I used to have before I quit my city job. “I. Can’t. Breathe.” What kind of person was willing to kill me, but not call me by my first name?

Xylia loosened her grip but replaced her arm with a hand holding a jumbo box cutter that seemed suspiciously similar to the one I used to open big cartons. So nice that I could provide her with a ready weapon. No need to bring a gun when a handy, everyday item will do.

“How did you get his laptop?” Xylia demanded. “I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw that decal on the cover and realized it was Lance’s.”

I opened my mouth to answer her, but the sharp corner of the razor poked into the delicate skin covering my jugular vein as she muttered to herself, “I went through everything at his house and made sure I destroyed any trace of that awful book.”

“But it’s published.” I eased a fraction of an inch away from the blade.

“Without him or his notes, no one could prove the woman in that novel was me.” Xylia used her free hand to pull her cardigan together, almost as if she were chilly or maybe covering her breasts.

“But Zizi knows,” I blurted out, then mentally kicked myself for putting my friend in danger. I needed to focus and figure a way out of this rather than throw other people under the bus.

“With Lance dead, there’s no one for her to pillory, so Zizi won’t pursue the matter.” Xylia licked her lips nervously. “If she does, I’ll appeal to her woman to woman. She’ll protect my name. I told her how badly Lance abused me. I showed her the marks on my wrists and ankles from the handcuffs.” Xylia straightened her shoulders. “I’ve got an attorney investigating whether there’s any way to stop further publication of the book. He says we might be able to threaten the publisher with libel, but that it’s hard to prove.”

Well, that explained Riyad’s disclosure that the killer also needed a literary lawyer. I doubted she could stop the distribution of such a megabestselling novel and wondered if she realized that a lawsuit would expose her identity to a lot more people than Zizi ever could.

“You had no idea he was basing Xanthia on you?” I asked, trying to keep her talking until I could think of a way to overpower her.

“Of course not,” Xylia snapped. “Before I overheard him on Friday night, I had no idea he wrote ‘The Bend’s Buzz.’ Then later, when Zizi told me about that book, I was in shock. He always claimed he didn’t care about material wealth or fame. He said he was a poet, not a merchant.”

“I guess even artists have to eat and pay the rent,” I said. Then, when Xylia frowned, I quickly changed the subject. “So, Friday night after Zizi told you about the book, you decided to kill Lance?” I thought about the timeline, then asked, “But he’d already left the store by then. How did you lure him back here?”

“One of his fantasies was sex in a forbidden place.” Xylia noticed I had moved away from the box cutter, and she adjusted her aim. “He ordered me to hide in the store after everyone left, and let him in the back.”

“Ah.” I
knew
I’d locked that door. “So he walked right into your trap?” Why hadn’t I ever asked Xylia for her alibi? Oh, yeah, there was nothing to connect her to the victim. She wasn’t mentioned in the “Buzz,” she hadn’t challenged the poet when he spoke at the book club, and she’d said she didn’t know Quistgaard when I’d asked her about him Friday afternoon. No. Wait. She’d hedged and never answered my question.

“That isn’t how it happened at all.” Xylia shook her head so violently, she nicked me.

“Ouch!” I winced, staring at the red droplet that fell to the front of my sweatshirt.

“I never meant to kill him. It was an accident.” Xylia seemed unaffected by the sight of my blood. “We were in the May flowers display, and he wanted me to sit on the table while he, you know, did me. But I confronted him about the book, and about him exploiting our relationship for profit.”

“That must have been very painful for you to find out about,” I soothed.

“It was.” Xylia sniffed. “When he first asked me to be his submissive, I . . . I was so inexperienced and so insecure, I actually thought I liked having him tie me up and beat me. He was so sweet to me afterward, and he made me feel attractive and desirable. But gradually his demands got kinkier. Even then, I was so in love with him, I just kept giving in.”

“Giving up on someone you think you love is always hard,” I said.

“Eventually, though, the whole situation got scary and I wanted to stop being with him. But he said he owned me, and the times I didn’t show up at his house when he ordered me to, he came and dragged me out of my apartment. He was really hurting me, and I could barely cover the bruises.” Xylia wiped a tear from her cheek with the back of her hand. “Then he told me I had to turn over my valuables to him. When I said no, I ended up having to go to the emergency room for stitches. After that I was so afraid, I gave him what he wanted, but it was never enough.”

“The time you went to the ER, was that when you told me you’d hit your head on an open cupboard door?” I asked, feeling guilty. How could I have not noticed that my clerk was being abused?