Braking for Bodies (11 page)

“Who are they?” I tapped the paper.

“Nobody,” Sutter answered in a cold, flat cop voice, giving nothing away. He snagged my arm and hauled me out of his chair, propelling it across the office.

“You're lying.”

“So are you, I'm just a lot better at it.”

“Hey, the Crusaders were here, they came in through the front door. What do you know about Luka?” I tapped the name on the fax.

“Word has it he makes a mean lasagna.” Sutter led me to the police reception desk where Molly usually sat, then through the police station door, past the steps that led upstairs to the courthouse, then to the main door. He opened it, took my hand and slapped Sheldon into my palm. “I got seven 911 alerts about the scaffold falling and you left this. Molly had a hot date tonight and probably forgot to lock the front door when she left here.”

Curls of fog drifted over the street and twined around our feet and ankles. Halos of mist glowed from streetlights and porches. “You're not going to arrest me?”

A smile tugged at the corners of Sutter's mouth. It wasn't a
you're so cute
kind of smile but more one that said
gotcha
. He leaned against the doorjamb and folded his arms, with little droplets of moisture clinging to his too-long dark hair, and a hint of stubble darkening his jawline. “With you wreaking havoc around here and entertaining the troops with deeds of breaking and entering, Betsy Ross on the run, food fights—”

“I didn't do the food fight.”

“And instigating murder week at the Grand Hotel, that lets me fly under the radar and find the killer.”

“I'm . . . I'm a distraction?”

Sutter stilled, the laughter in his eyes fading to serious, then mysterious as the night around us. He stood, hesitated for a second, then took a step closer. He tucked a strand of hair behind my left ear; the brush of his fingers against my neck sent chills down my spine. “Chicago, you are always a distraction,” he said in a voice smooth as warm brandy on a cold night.

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” I could barely breathe, my voice just a whisper, his gaze meeting mine.

He wove his fingers into my hair, his hand steady, protective, possessive. He kissed me . . . slow . . . then hot, then sizzling. “I have no idea.” His lips formed the words against mine.

Then he closed the door, leaving me dizzy and alone and an inch away from being a melted blob in the middle of Market Street.

*   *   *

“They cancelled my
flowers!”

I pried one eye open as Irma flopped back across my bed and tossed a pillow over her face. “Suffocation's not the answer. There won't be any flowers for the funeral, it'll be a bust.”

I felt around on the top of my nightstand for Sheldon. “It's six in the morning. Don't you have a man in your house who needs tending to at this hour?”

The foghorn out in the harbor let out its mournful warning as I pushed myself up; Cleveland and Bambino, sleeping on my chest, did not appreciate the disruption one bit. The eerie thirty-second blasts always gave me a creepy feeling of not knowing what would happen next, and considering the present situation of
killer on the loose
, the creepy was worse than ever.

I clicked on the light and peeked under the pillow to Irma. Her eyes were glazed and her honey-blonde hair was in big O's all over her head, like she'd just taken out the rollers for that nice springy-hair look. “Now the flowers have bugs?”

“The flowers are gone, as in ta-ta,
sayonara
,
arrivederci
baby.” Wiping her nose on the sleeve of her blouse, Irma stared at the ceiling. “I told Francine over there at Francine's Flowers I'd take whatever she had left in the way of anything blooming, and she has nothing except one artificial Christmas tree, an Easter basket and a half-eaten heart left over from Valentine's Day. It's the Lilac Festival and weddings are
everywhere and every flower down to the last rose, lily of the valley, baby's breath and daisy within a hundred miles is spoken for and my flowers are missing. That I ordered them six months ago doesn't matter diddly to that old battle-axe.”

Irma rolled over and faced me, her eyes blazing. “I'll tell you what I think happened. I just bet there was a last-minute wedding and that money-grubbing Francine sold my lovely flowers of pink peonies and white roses for triple the price.” Irma crinkled her nose and snorted. “That little harlot has always had her eye on Rudy, and it just frosts her lilies that I got him and she didn't. Na-na-na-na boo-boo.”

Irma grinned in triumph, then flopped back. “I found out last night about the demise of my flowers, and I tried to hold it all in and be stoic, but not having flowers is a big deal—at least to me it is—and I can't tell Rudy.”

“He'll beat up Francine? She's seventy but feisty. You have to watch that one.”

“Rudy will say we should just elope, and I don't want to elope. I want to get married on Mackinac. I've been hoarding tulle and lace for months to decorate the Butterfly Conservatory. I bought those yummy little almonds, bottles of bubbles shaped like wedding cakes and I even bought
I married my best friend today
champagne flutes. Nate's here, you're here, so is Irish Donna and that no-good Shamus and the Douds and the gang at the Village Inn and the euchre club at the Stang. Walt and Geraldine even came back from
Arizona to be with me. All my friends are here and I want them to be at my wedding. I've been on this island for forty years; I want to get married here where it means something, not in front of some judge I don't even know. I just won't feel married if it's not here on Mackinac. I want Fiona to put my wedding in the
Crier
. That paper is like our island scrapbook of what happens, and I want Rudy and me to happen here.”

“Fiona!” I bolted upright. “I forgot she was in jail!” My brain flashed back to Sutter, the courthouse and the kiss. “I was distracted.”

“Must have been one heck of a distraction to make you forget Fiona in jail.”

“You have no idea.” I scrambled out of bed and couldn't find my last pair of clean jeans I had here somewhere. I grabbed my dirty jeans from last night off the floor, then stuck Sheldon in my pocket next to Angelo's wallet.

Irma's eyes started to sparkle, a grin pulling at her lips. “You know, this is perfect,” she said, sounding a little breathy with excitement.

“Fiona probably wouldn't agree with the perfect part.” I shrugged on a sweatshirt I got from the Chicago Natural History Museum with
If history repeats itself, I'm getting a dinosaur
scripted on the front.

“We'll do a jailbreak,” Irma gushed. “Something drastic is just what I need to get my mind off things. Time's a-wastin'. Grab a crowbar, Chicago, let's get a move on; we'll pry Fiona out of jail if we have to. We all know she's innocent.”

Crowbar? I flung myself in front of the door, spreading my arms and legs spidey style to stop Irma. “Nate is your son, he's the police chief, remember? And Fiona isn't exactly
in
jail but hiding in the police station bathroom since our great plan of escape by scaffold sort of bit the dust . . . or in this case the trees . . . and don't give me that
you've got to be kidding
look; no way can I make this stuff up.”

“Scaffold? So you're the one.”

“And an elevator. You and Rudy try to hunt up some flowers and a venue and a preacher.”

“And a dress.”

“Oh, yeah, the dress. If I'm not back by ten, ask Rudy to open the bike shop for me,” I called over my shoulder as I started down the hall. “Getting Fiona out of the bathroom may take some doing. I'll commandeer Mother to help.”

“You're going to need help in the shop when Rudy and I are on our honeymoon, dear, and your mother's not in her room,” Irma yelled after me. “I have no idea where she is. Maybe you should rethink the crowbar.”

I
wasn't absolutely sure where Mother was, but I had a pretty good idea. I had no intention of visiting SeeFar at this hour to check if I was right, and I probably couldn't find the place with fog covering the island like a big wad of cotton.

Mother was the perfect distraction for my jail rescue in that she knew just the questions to drive Sutter nuts and leave Molly shaking her head, giving Fiona a chance to sneak out. Irish Donna was my second choice as diversion queen. She'd be up baking at this hour, and no one would pay attention to Fiona if they had fresh warm blueberry scones to focus on, and—“Yikes!”

I jumped a foot to someone tapping me on the shoulder. I jerked around to . . . “Fiona?” I threw my
arms around her. “You're out of jail, that's terrific. How'd you get here and . . . and is that my new blue sweater you're wearing?” I looked closer. “It
is
my new sweater!”

“J. Crew, great choice, girlfriend. It was in your room just sitting there on the dresser screaming,
wear me, wear me
. After I took a shower I couldn't very well put on my filthy clothes that I crawled around in all night. And you need to do laundry since I've got on your last pair of clean jeans.” Fiona spread her arms wide. “Don't you love this fog? It's perfect hideout weather. I feel invisible.”

“You showered at my house and took my clothes?”

“And slept on your couch and ate two Nutty Buddies. I think I'm addicted. Thanks for distracting Nate with that kiss; it was brilliant.” She gave me a curious look. “That's all it was, right? A distraction?”

“So I've been told. And you got out of the station by putting your finger alongside your nose and going up a chimney?”

“I snuck out the window. They lock from the inside, so it was a piece of cake. Who's this Luka guy you were talking about with Sutter?” Fiona framed her face with her hands, looking forlorn. “I'm so out of the loop. I used to
be
the loop, and now I have no idea what's going on.”

“I think Luka just got here and there's a good chance he's dating Molly. If Sutter finds out his sergeant is spending time with the family engineer he's going to blow a gasket.”

“There something with being a family engineer?”

“There something with being a family godfather?”

Fiona's brows arched to her hairline. “
That
family.”

“And what if this Luka guy and Peep got here around the same time? The
Inside Scoop
doesn't exactly scoop sugar and fairy tales, and maybe someone had enough and knew who to contact. Luka could get rid of Peep, frame you, date Molly so everyone thinks he's Mr. Law-Abiding Citizen. Does the name Luka mean anything to you?”

“The fog's still hanging in there. I should visit SeeFar and take a look at this guy; maybe I do know him. We can peek in the window and stay out of sight. If we get caught, I take off and you go with returning Angelo's lock picks that are probably in those gross jeans you've got on from last night.” Fiona wrinkled her nose. “How can you wear those dirty things?”

“Because someone has on my last pair of clean ones!”

“There is that.”

I followed Fiona through the fog. After a lifetime here she could probably navigate the island in her sleep and on one foot. We cut across the wet grass of Marquette Park; the big bronze statue of Father Marquette, who watched over us all, was hidden in fluffs of white. At the back of the art museum we caught the steps—officially called Crow's Nest Trail, but I'd personally dubbed them the steps from hell—that zigzagged straight up the hillside. Wheezing and panting and trying to ward off death by exhaustion, we reached the
East Bluff. “Hope we don't peek into the wrong house or fall off the blasted cliff,” I panted. “I can't see a blasted thing.”

“You need to get to the gym,” Fiona said, not breaking a sweat.

“You never go to the gym. Why aren't you ready to pass out?” We headed up Huron Street, with the Mackinac Bridge in the distance and the town below swallowed in clouds, the ghostly foghorn echoing around us.

“It's a proven fact that we islanders are born with great lungs, can smell a snowstorm twelve hours before it hits and know from birth how to drive a snowmobile. What are Chicago babies good at?”

“Putting toppings on pizza.”

Fiona stepped around the black wrought iron gate that marked the entrance to SeeFar and squeaked like something from a Hitchcock movie. It also announced intruders and was most likely why
the family
never oiled the thing. We did a stealthy tiptoe up the walk, flattened ourselves against the side of the house, then clam-crawled around the concrete statue of the Virgin Mary to the kitchen window. A light was on; the window was open a crack and the scent of burned bacon washed over us.

The Seniority was the older contingent of
the family
and last year acquired SeeFar in a real estate settlement. They also got the owner as a live-in cook in retribution for trying to swindle them out of a boatload of money. My guess was that the
live
part of the deal had definite
appeal over the obvious alternative. That the window was only open a crack this morning and not flung wide meant former owner Dwight Wainwright the Third's cooking was improving.

Angelo sat at the table drinking something steamy. A younger guy with dark wavy hair, intent black eyes and a backward Detroit Tigers ball cap stood beside him studying something spread out on the table.

“I know him,” I whispered to Fiona as I pointed inside.

“You mean you
wish
you knew him. Hubba hubba, come to mamma. That is one delish Italian stallion, and I got to tell you he is a fine way to start the day.”

“And Luka belongs to Molly,” Mother said from behind as she joined in the staring. “Angelo set the two of them up and they seem to be getting along.” She held up a pink Blarney Scone bag. “Breakfast?”

I took a blueberry scone, Fiona cranberry, Mother chocolate. Mother was definitely Carman this morning in her fringe jacket, skinny dark denim jeans, hair tumbled and curly, and not one hint of Ann Louise anywhere. “He got off the same ferry as Peep and Zo,” I said. “I remember the hat.”

“If the hat's what you remember about the guy, you need a shot of that hormone therapy stuff.” This time Fiona was the one panting and it had nothing to do with climbing steps. “I'm getting a cardio workout just looking at the guy.”

I took a bite of scone and mumbled, “So, what exactly does the family engineer do?”

“Fixes things like SeeFar's crumbling foundation,” Mother chimed it. “He's got the blueprints right out there in front of him. He's so shy I don't think he's ever been out of Detroit till now.”

“Or it's a great cover,” I added. “It's those shy quiet types you have to watch out for.”

Mother patted me on the back. “Luka isn't like that. He leaves the exciting part to his brother. He got the personality genes, and I think he's a cover model for books or magazines or something.”

“In L.A.?” I dropped my scone, then picked it up quick to stay within the no-germs rule of things retrieved off the ground within five seconds. “That's the connection. What if Peep had something on Luka's brother and Luka went after Peep?”

“And,” came Angelo's voice out the window as he leaned over the sill. He had a
Kiss Me I'm From Detroit
mug in his hand, dark eyes dancing, hair mussed and sexy. “What if the moon is really blue cheese and those astronaut guys didn't let any of us know so they could corner the market and make a killing? I know you're all trying to find out who plugged that Peep guy, but Luka here's not your man. We're a family here, and just like all families we got our ways of doing things. Wasting good olive oil is not our style; we save it for the lasagna and a nice ziti. And we pick up after ourselves—no messes left behind, if you know what I mean—and Peep croaked was a big mess. Now I'm making my hot chocolate here, so if you girls wanna
come on in instead of stomping all over my new red geraniums, that would be fine by me.”

Mother stood, kissed Angelo through the window then sauntered off toward the back door. I passed Angelo the wallet with the picks and mouthed
thank you
, and Fiona and I faded into the fog, neither of us up to facing a guy we'd just accused of being a killer.

“Well, that was a little awkward.” Fiona popped the last bite of scone into her mouth when we reached the steps leading down to town. “Do you think Angelo's hacked off that we accused Luka of murder? I mean, we've got enough problems around here without adding him and the rest of the family to the list. And I think it's all for nothing. Luka didn't come here to kill Peep. When I was in L.A. I never met him or his brother or heard anything about either one.”

“Yeah, but you've been gone for a year. Whatever got Peep dead was something recent that came up. But why come to Mackinac?” I stopped Fiona before we started the steps. “You're the link in all this, the one thing that's in common with the island and Peep. What aren't you telling me?”

Fiona puffed out a deep breath and stared down at the wood platform. She kicked an acorn, sending it flying over the side into the white abyss. “Peep wanted me back. The
Scoop
is doing well and he needs an editor, someone who already knows the paper and the contacts. He said he wanted to start cutting back on work, which makes no sense since Peep is all about
work and money, but that's what he said. I hated the
Scoop
, but I was a good reporter until . . . until I got fed up and had to get out of there no matter what.”

“Okay, so Peep was using the stuff he had on you to get you back to L.A., I get that. But like we've said before, he could have bullied you over the phone. He didn't have to come to a place he didn't know existed. Everyone loves you on Mackinac. No matter what you did or got involved with, it's over and you've moved on.” I took Fiona's hand. “What's so important that Peep thought he could get you back?”

“Threats up close and personal are more effective than three thousand miles away.” She pulled in a deep breath. “And if you really must know, I just happen to have Orlando Bloom's phone number. Nothing's more important than Orlando Bloom except maybe that new hottie, Channing Tatum.”

“I'm trying to be serious here and save your butt and you're not cooperating, and who the heck is Channing Tatum?”

“Girlfriend, you so need to get out more.” Fiona raced down the steps, her footsteps slapping against the wood planks breaking the early-morning quiet as she faded into swirling white puffs.

I did a quick Google on Channing while considering the fact that whatever was on Peep's phone meant a lot to Fiona personally, but I couldn't imagine anything that would have her so upset and—

Holy mother of pearl! I stared at Sheldon, my retinas starting to sizzle. Fiona was right about one thing,
I really did need to get out more, especially if that was what was out there. Yowzer!

Weak in the knees, I stumbled down the steps, then followed the sound of the foghorn out in the harbor, figuring I'd either wind up on Main Street or stumble into the lake.

“Glad you're here, but the ferries aren't running in this pea soup so you didn't have to hurry,” Rudy said to me as I came into the shop. He was standing on a teetering stool and lovingly polishing his euchre trophies displayed on the shelf over the workbench. Bambino and Cleveland were sprawled across the pool table enjoying an early-morning snooze that would morph into a noonday snooze that would give way to an afternoon snooze interrupted periodically by meows of
servant, give me tuna now or I pee on your clothes
.

“But once the fog lifts,” Rudy continued, “all those fudgies waiting on the other side will descend upon us like a swarm of locusts, and I know that's a good thing but it sure does make for a crazy day.” He cut his eyes my way. “And what's wrong with you? You're all flushed and you just knocked over two bikes and didn't even notice.”

I picked up Nancy Drew and Babe Ruth. “Well, since you asked, there's this guy, Channing Tatum, that Fiona was talking about and—”

“That new pooper-scooper who follows the horses around and cleans up? I hear he's terrific and doing a great job.”

“Not exactly, but you got the terrific part right.”

Rudy's shoulders slouched as he climbed back to earth, and he plopped down heavy on the stool where he'd been standing. He picked up a brown wicker basket and a screwdriver. “At least something's going right around here. Like Twain says,
the world owes you nothing, it was here first
, so I'll just have to figure things out on my own.”

I took the stool beside Rudy and patted him on the back as he attached the basket to Harry Potter. “I wish there were something I could do.”

“Finding a new euchre partner is going to be tough.” Rudy nodded at the shelf of trophies. “There's room for two more and I need someone who can help me whip the pants off Trevor Fallon down at the Stang.”

I looked from Rudy to the trophies. “I . . . I thought you were having a meltdown over the wedding.”

Rudy waved his hand in the air as if shooing a fly off a beer. “Not to worry, things'll work out just fine. I love Irma and she loves me, so what else really matters? We're friends who found each other and now we're inseparable; we're together for better or worse, through thick and thin. The wedding is just window dressing.”

I didn't think Irma would agree about the window dressing part; she wanted the celebration, the ceremony, the romance, but I was sure she'd agree that she and Rudy were . . . friends.

“Actually,” I said, as little gears in my brain started to turn, “you're best friends.”