The Hitwoman and the Neurotic Witness (2 page)

The cop scowled. “Listen, lady—”

He didn’t get any further because another car, an unmarked sedan with flashing lights barreled into the lot.

“Patrick!” Doomsday barked, wiggling her stub of a tail.

If I’d had one, I’d have wiggled mine too as the redhead jumped out of his car, his face a mask of worry. Instead I waved weakly, which was a bad idea since it threw off my shaky sense of balance. I stumbled, barely able to keep from falling.

“You okay?” Detective Patrick Mulligan (who’s also my murder mentor) asked hurrying toward me. The two words sounded as though they’d been ripped from the depths of his soul.

Shaken, I just stared, not answering.

DeeDee had no such hesitation. She launched herself at him panting, “Patrick. Patrick. Patrick.”

“Easy, girl,” Patrick murmured, patting her side without taking his eyes off me.

“Detective?” the uniformed officer interrupted. “You know this woman?”

“Are you okay, Miss Lee?” another familiar male voice called.

Tearing my gaze from Patrick’s I saw Marshal Griswald emerging from Patrick’s car. The U.S. Marshal who’d headed up the task force to capture my prison escapee father moved toward me. He looked almost as tired and beat up as I felt.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“We’ve got this,” Patrick said, dismissing the uniformed cop.

“Her dog should be on a leash,” the cop muttered before heading back toward his brethren in blue to work crowd control.

“He’s a moron,” I said, watching him go.

“His father is the deputy police commissioner,” Patrick said dryly.

“What are you doing here?” I asked again staring up into his familiar green gaze. What I really wanted to do was throw myself into his arms like the dog had, but considering the place was crawling with cops and at least one Fed, that wasn’t a good idea.

“We heard the announcement on the radio,” Griswald interrupted. “We thought maybe someone….” He trailed off.

I could see from the haunted shadows in Patrick’s eyes that they’d thought maybe I was dead.

“We thought maybe the Lubovsky’s had targeted you,” Griswald said, finishing the thought.

His theory didn’t sound far-fetched, considering that I’d just helped to put incriminating evidence against the Lubovsky crime family into the hands of the FBI.

I swayed unsteadily, though I wasn’t sure if it was because of the revelation or because I was still dizzy from the blast.

“We should get you out of here,” Patrick said, stepping closer and grabbing my upper arm.

I knew he’d done it to make sure I didn’t keel over, but all I wanted to do was to lean into him and have him wrap his arms around me. But we couldn’t do that, not with a U.S. Marshal watching our every move, so instead I closed my eyes and focused on how good the physical contact, no matter how slight, felt.

“Maggie? Maggie?” Another voice called, shrill and panicked.

I opened my eyes and saw Aunt Loretta and her fiancé Templeton rushing toward us.

“My eyes! My eyes!” God moaned, covering his face with his front paws. “I’ve been scarred for life.”

If the shocked expressions on the faces of Patrick and Marshal Griswald were any indication, God wasn’t the only one traumatized by the sight.

Aunt Loretta, close to sixty but wearing a lacy negligee that anyone other than a twenty-year-old supermodel would have had trouble pulling off, came closer, breasts bouncing, thighs flashing, lace not covering a damn thing.

Templeton, also close to sixty, wearing pink silk boxers that left little to the imagination and nothing else, followed closely behind.

“Oh Maggie,” Loretta gasped, bosom heaving. “We were so worried.”

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“We heard about the fire on Templeton’s police scanner and rushed right over.”

“I can see that,” I said dryly, instead of asking why Templeton had a police scanner.

“For the love of all that is holy, cover her! Cover her!” God begged.

“What’s that squeaking?” Loretta asked.

“Maybe you should put something on, Aunt Loretta,” I suggested.

“Put on?”

“Cover up?”

She looked down at herself displayed in all her fleshy, half-naked glory. “This is just a tease. Part of the act of seduction. The important bits are covered.”

“Barely,” God griped. “A slight breeze and I’m going to be traumatized for life.”

“What
is
that noise?” Loretta asked, bending toward the sound, straining the tensile strength of the skimpy fabric.

Tearing his gaze away from the horrific sight, Patrick cleared his throat. “I’ve got a couple extra jackets in the car.”

“Get them,” the Marshal ordered. “Now.”

Patrick headed back to the unmarked car.

“What happened here?” Templeton asked.

Making sure that my gaze didn’t slip anywhere near his pink boxer shorts, I looked him in the eye. He seemed genuinely concerned.

“We smelled gas.”

“We?” the marshal asked sharply.

I pointed at Piss who was pretending not to listen to the conversation as she groomed herself. “We?”

“Smart kitty,” Templeton approved.

“Ugly deformed creature,” Loretta sniffed dismissively.

The cat stopped licking her paw in order to glare at my scantily-clad aunt. “Bless your heart,” she meowed with saccharine sweetness. “That’s like the pot calling the kettle black.”

I chuckled.

“Bravo!” God cheered.

I laughed harder.

“What are you laughing at?” Loretta asked worriedly.

Unable to tell her that the cat had just said she, too, was an ugly, deformed creature, I just shrugged.

“Shock,” Templeton said. “The poor thing’s in shock.”

He stepped closer to wrap an arm around my shoulders. Not wanting to be touched by the nearly naked man in pink boxers, I stepped back. Still unsteady on my feet, I fell on my butt.

“You’re a woman of unparalleled grace,” the lizard groused, having barely escaped being crushed by my fall.

Patrick returned, thrusting oversized jackets at Loretta and Templeton while staring at me, sprawled in an undignified heap on the ground. “What happened?”

“She’s in shock,” Loretta told him with authority. “First she started laughing and then she fell over.”

“She can hear you,” I reminded her.

“We’ll have the EMTs check her out,” Marshal Griswald said. Stepping closer, he crouched down in front of me. “Did you notice anything strange before the explosion?”

“Besides the smell of gas?” I asked.

He nodded tightly.

I thought about it for a second. “I don’t think so.”

“You didn’t see anything? Hear anything?”

I shook my head.

He looked up at Patrick, who was staring down at us, his expression grim. “It’s not the way they
usually
get rid of their enemies.”

“Wait,” Loretta said, struggling to get into the jacket Patrick had provided like a magician struggles to get out of a straight jacket. “Are you saying someone tried to harm Maggie intentionally?”

The marshal straightened slowly. “We can’t rule out the possibility.”

“Oh my. Oh my!” Loretta began fanning herself.

“Catch her!” I yelled at Patrick.

To his credit, he moved quicker than a cat, and caught her as her eyes fluttered closed and she fell backward.

“She’s prone to fainting,” I said as Patrick carefully lowered her to the ground.

“Retta? Retta?” Templeton called, kneeling over his beloved and slapping her cheeks.

“Drama queen,” God muttered.

Ignoring my aunt and her histrionics, the marshal declared, “We’re going to put you in protective custody.”

Patrick, still crouched beside Loretta’s prone form, glanced over sharply, caught my eye, and gave a subtle shake of his head.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I said slowly. I actually thought it sounded like a pretty good idea, but Patrick didn’t seem to agree so I followed his lead.

“Why not?” the marshal asked.

“Well, um…I have my pets to worry about.”

“Care take,” DeeDee agreed with an enthusiastic bark.

Patrick tilted his head in Loretta’s direction, indicating I should mention her.

“And then there’s my family,” I continued, my argument gaining strength. “What would happen to them? Are you going to guarantee their safety?”

Griswald frowned. I could practically read his thoughts on his face. No one in their right mind would volunteer to try to corral my crazy family.

Patrick stood up slowly, leaving Templeton to minister to Loretta. “We don’t even know if this is connected. This property has its own problems. The owners recently sold it so they can build a shopping center here.”

“Here?” I asked. I wouldn’t think this was the kind of neighborhood that would support a lot of stores. The busiest business around was the strip club. I shivered as a terrible thought occurred to me.

What if the developers were connected to the Delveccio brothers? What if that’s why they’d been in the neighborhood? What if they’d thought they’d kill two birds with one stone by blowing up the apartment complex while I was in it? They’d get rid of me
and
be able to go ahead with their development plans.

“Who bought it?” I asked, hoping no one would notice the way my voice cracked nervously.

“A real estate development company that fronts for the Delveccio crime family.” Griswald replied.

I swayed weakly. The Delveccios
were
involved.

The lizard obviously connected the same dots because he said, “You are
so
screwed.”

After Loretta regained consciousness and the EMTs checked me out, Marshal Griswald and Detective Mulligan decided the best course of action was to transport us all to the B&B.

“Scare the marshal,” Piss prompted DeeDee.

The Doberman cocked her head to the side, confused. “Why?”

“So that Maggie and her man can have a moment together,” Piss explained patiently.

I shot her a grateful smile.

“Excellent idea,” God opined. “I approve.”

“Oh good,” Piss drawled sarcastically. “I so wanted
your
approval.”

Oblivious of the tension between the reptile and feline, DeeDee asked, “How scare?”

“Lunge at him!” God ordered. Leaping forward to illustrate his point.

“Growl at him.” Piss suggest mildly, licking her paw.

“Bare your teeth,” God suggested. He demonstrated the move.

Have you ever seen a lizard that’s only a couple of inches long bare it’s teeth? No? There’s a reason for that.

Piss swatted at God to shut him up. “We want him to ride in another car, not have Animal Control take her away.”

“Scare no DeeDee,” the dog lay down and covered her ears with her paws.

“You’ve got to do something,” God insisted.

I bent down so that I could whisper without the other humans hearing me and thinking I needed to go bunk with my mom at the mental institution. “Please? For me?”

“Sniff his crotch,” Piss suggested. “Keep sniffing it. Follow him around to sniff it. It won’t scare him, but it’ll make him real uncomfortable. Humans are strange about those things. They don’t like sniffing.”

“Not as good as the other idea,” God complained.

“Try,” DeeDee declared, getting to her feet, almost knocking me over. “Try Maggie.”

“Thank you.” I pressed a kiss to the side of her face and stood up.

She loped away, toward Marshal Griswald.

The four-legged creatures and I held our collective breath.

DeeDee walked right up to the U.S. Marshal and buried her nose in his crotch taking a deep whiff. Griswald tried to push her away, but the dog kept sniffing at him like he had a t-bone hidden in his briefs.

Piss chuckled softly as the poor guy kept trying to push the dog away to no avail. He turned a shade of pink you don't see too often on a man.

Everyone around them, Aunt Loretta, Templeton, a couple of EMTs, and another marshal, pretended not to notice the predicament he found himself in, but even as far away as I was, I could see they were all on the verge of laughter.

"Oh," God said grudgingly, "that does seem to be an effective plan."

Patrick who'd been a few paces away talking to some uniformed cops, turned around to see Griswald backing away, trying to escape the sniffing dog.

"DeeDee," Patrick warned sternly. "Stop that."

The dog hesitated, her head swiveling to first look at him and then to us.

"Don't stop now, you imbecile," God shouted at her.

"You're doing real good, Sugar," Piss purred.

Encouraged, DeeDee resumed her attack.

"Oh for chrissakes," Marshal Griswald roared, "put it in the car."

Unlike everyone else, Patrick made no attempt to cover his amusement. Chuckling, he grabbed DeeDee's collar. "Come on, girl. You're scaring the big bad U.S. Marshal."

"I wasn't scared," Griswald argued.

"Freaked out?" Patrick asked.

Ignoring him, Griswald asked Templeton. "Can you give me a ride back to the B&B?"

"Of course we can," Loretta cooed, batting her fake eyelashes at him.

Templeton just nodded.

"Mulligan you take the menagerie back to the Bed and Breakfast," Griswald shouted as Patrick let DeeDee into the car.

"Grass," DeeDee sighed happily.

Patrick glanced over at me, silently asking who I was going to ride with.

"Pick me up," Piss suggested. "If you're carrying me, they'll never ask you to ride with the marshal."

"Me first!" God ordered.

Bending down I scooped up the reptile and let him scramble onto my shoulder. Then the one-eyed cat leapt into my arms.

"You're quite devious." The lizard's tone was tinged with awe and distrust.

Nestling into my arms, the cat raised one shoulder in a lazy shrug. "I am a cat."

"We'll see you at the B&B." I moved toward Patrick's car with a cat purring against my chest and a lizard perched on my shoulder.

Griswald, Loretta, and Templeton all nodded.

Hurrying around the car, Patrick opened the passenger door for me. "You're doing great, Mags," he murmured.