Braking for Bodies (6 page)

Rudy laughed. It was one of those big laughs that filled the room, but it sent little tremors down my spine. Nate Sutter was all cop and I was one big pain in his butt.

“You couldn't be content with just Irma wanting to string you up by your toenails. Now you've got Nate on your back?” Rudy said. “You really think that shamrock around your neck is enough to keep you safe after all this?”

“Not a snowball's chance in hell, but Fiona's my friend. I can't sit back and do nothing.”

Rudy sobered. “Yeah, she's my friend too, and this is serious.” Rudy checked his watch and handed me the socket. “Can you finish up? My latest batch of Mojito Madness fudge is ready and I need to get it sliced up and in the display case for the afternoon rush of fudgies.” He pointed to a screw and nut under the seat. “Just tighten this. Remember,
righty tighty, lefty loosey
. We want the tighty part, not the loosey. Can't have the seat fall off when the kids are riding. Bad for business.”

Rudy gave Cleveland and Bambino some of the treats he kept in his pocket. They purred and cuddled up to him like sweet little darling kitties from some YouTube video.

I rented out the Star Wars bike for a week, the Grand Hotel bike and all three of the Downton Abbeys. I started in on my newest paint job, the doggie bike. My plan was to get a little cart that hitched onto the back—a pooch caboose—where the dog could ride
along. Earlier this spring I tried a cat carrier and took Cleveland and Bambino for a test run.
Bad idea
took on a whole new meaning.

I got out the tube of raw sienna for a golden retriever for the puppy bike and ivory black for the black lab, and spotted a woman putting papers in the
Town Crier
newspaper stand across the street in front of Doud's Market. Donna said Fiona's dad did the deliveries this week, and her mom was here on the island too. My guess was this was Mom, and maybe she knew where Fiona was. With it being ten minutes till twelve, Fiona needed to get to the police station before Sutter imploded.

“Hi,” I said, coming up to the newspaper stand. “I'm a friend of Fiona's and I'm wondering where she is. I haven't seen her since yesterday.”

The lady was tall and thin like Fiona, her graying hair pulled back in a loose bun with a pencil jabbed through it. My guess was that the pencil part came from running the
Crier
for twenty-five years.

“She lost some tote bag that she really likes,” the woman said while stacking the papers. “I don't know what's so special about a tote bag, but it's got her in a state.”

The bag! If Fiona left it somewhere, anyone could have taken the olive oil bottle, smacked the Peep over the head and framed Fiona for the deed. “I'm Evie Bloomfield; I operate the bike shop across the street. Fiona and I are friends. In fact, I gave her that tote. It has
I
the Town Crier
on it and—”

The woman stopped stacking papers and stared at me, the thin lines at the corners of her mouth pulling tight, her eyes chilly. “You're the one who ran into the dead guy on the path. You need to mind your own business, missy. You've caused enough trouble.”

“Trust me, getting involved in the Peep Show wasn't a planned event.”

“Leave Fiona alone. Her father would be heartsick if he knew all . . .” Mamma shook her finger at me. “Look, the guy was slime and he deserved what he got.” Her eyes narrowed. “I have everything under control now, so let it be. No one hurts my family, you understand me, no one. We don't need your help. We'll fix this.” The woman tramped off and called over her shoulder, “That's what parents do, they take care of their kids no matter what.”

Well, dang. Rudy said Walt was really protective of Fiona, and it carried right over to Mamma Bear. Whatever Peep had on Fiona, the parents knew what it was, or at the very least they had their suspicions.

I started back across the street to the bike shop and spotted Irma coming out the front door of the Good Stuff. Sutter on horseback trotted down Main with his pissed-cop face firmly in place. Both of them headed straight for me, and was that Fiona peeking out the window at Rudy's Rides? How'd I get so popular? It was at times like this that living on an island had definite disadvantages. There was no
escape!

“T
hank heavens you're both here,” Irma wailed as I met up with her on the porch of Rudy's Rides. Sutter climbed off his horse and tied the reins to the railing as Fiona ducked back down inside the shop.

“The wedding's falling apart.” Irma's apron was splattered with white icing, a smear of chocolate streaked her cheek and she smelled like crème de menthe. Irma looked good enough to eat.

“Mom,” Sutter grumbled in a low voice. “We've got a serious problem over at the medical center, and the instigator of that problem is running around here and I have to find him and find Fiona, and your wedding needs to take a backseat to . . .”

Irma glared up at her son, and his words trailed off. Was that smoke curling from her ears and was her hair
actually on fire? Irma took a pink The Good Stuff order pad from her apron and smacked Sutter on the arm. “Backseat?”

“Or,” Sutter added, “maybe not.”

“There's still time to find your dress,” I rushed in. “I've made some calls.”

“It's not just that. It's worse.” Irma fished around in her apron pocket again and this time pulled out a little white bride figure made of foam and started squeezing it. “This is a stress ball . . . actually it's called the stressed-out bride. Brides and Bliss sent it to me; they thought I might need it. A case of gin would have been a better idea, but this is what I got.”

“Look,” Sutter said in his
I know everything
cop voice. “It's just a dress. You can find another dress; they're everywhere.”

That got him three more whacks with the pink order pad along with, “Who raised you, Nathaniel Sutter! You don't just replace a wedding dress! It took months to find that dress, and it's not just the dress that's got me going. Now I need to find another place besides the Butterfly Conservatory to have my wedding. How do these things keep happening?” Irma gave the bride more squeezes.

“The butterflies escaped?” I asked.

“Infestation.” Irma squashed the little bride faster. “It's an aphid outbreak. No one's allowed in or out until the ladybug shipment arrives to eat the aphids. Margaret Ingram had to strip buck naked and leave all her clothes inside. Word has it she's got a great butt and now has
two marriage proposals. She said if she knew men were that easy, she'd have stripped a long time ago.”

Irma fished in her apron and pulled out a squishy figure in a black tux with white tie. Eyes bulging and staring at her son, she compressed the bride in her right hand and the groom in her left. “Fix this now!”

“Me?” Sutter took a step back.

Irma's nostrils flared. “I don't remember being in labor for twenty-three hours with anyone else on this island. You know weddings, and you solve crimes. Solve this!”

Sutter put his hands on Irma's shoulders. “Mom, I got a murder going on and—”

“And there's going to be another murder real soon,” she grumbled deep in her throat. She pointed at me. “Or maybe even more. I want to get married and you two are going to make it happen, and I don't give a hoot who's belly-up in that meat keeper over there at the medical center. Do something!”

Irma stomped off, and Sutter and I stared after her. “She's your mother,” I said.

“And she's bonkers. I've never seen her this way. Even when I painted the cat green for Saint Patrick's Day and ran the snowmobile into the lake. And why is she harping on me when you're the one who lost the dress?”

“Brides and Bliss lost the blasted dress, and I had nothing to do with the aphid plague, and you're the one responsible for the twenty-three-hour thing so you win the prize.”

“I should have stayed in Detroit,” Sutter mumbled as he climbed up on his horse. He held out his hand to me. “I'll drop you at the conservatory and you can check out when those ladybugs are coming in and how fast they gulp down aphids. I've got to get up to the Grand. Zo said she saw Fiona talking to that singer lady, Idle Summers. They're both from L.A. Maybe there's something going on with those two and Idle knows where Fiona is.”

The sun caught in Sutter's hair and for a second—just a second—I forgot about dresses and dead bodies. His silhouette was tall and lean and he looked as if he belonged in the cast from
Young Guns
. I think this all happened because it had been a while—a long while—since I had anything to do with any kind of guns.

“Hey, are you listening to me?” Sutter grumped. “Fiona? Where she is? Earth to Bloomfield, we got a situation here, remember?”

“Why would you think I know where Fiona is? Was it my time to watch her? Does she have a bell around her neck? We are not joined at the hip and—and—why don't you check on the aphids and I'll talk to Idle?”

“Because I'm the freaking police and do the questioning around here, not that anyone cares!” He pointed to the patch on his jacket.

“Fine, I'll walk up to the Butterfly Conservatory.” Mostly because putting my arms around sun-in-his-hair Sutter right now was not a great idea with my brain and other body parts already in mush mode.

Sutter trotted off and I refused to consider any more
hunky cowboy references coming to mind. What was wrong with me? Sutter was over the hill, forty-three years old. He took life too serious, ate healthy, and most important of all had called me a total of five times—just five, I tell you—all winter, proving beyond any doubt that he wasn't interested. At least he wasn't interested in me. He was back and forth to Detroit, but that's no excuse. They have phones in Detroit!

I stomped inside the bike shop as Fiona poked her head out the door that led to the kitchen. “Is he gone?” She had two ice cream cones, one in each hand, and a split lip and a red knot on her forehead.

“For the moment he's gone,” I said, coming into the shop. “He's hunting everywhere for you, the guests at the Grand think Peep's murder is a mystery game and you're tops on their suspect list, so that means they're all looking for you too, and what the heck happened this time? You're all banged up.”

“I got pushed down the steps at the Grand Hotel while sneaking around and I thought the ice cream might help my lip. I could have used ice, but Nutty Buddy tastes better and you always have a stash. Want one?”

I took a bite. “Why would someone push you down the steps?” The first bite of a Nutty Buddy was always the best when the frozen chocolate covered with nuts cracked and then melted in your mouth and all the problems of the world melted away too, at least for thirty seconds.

“I've been asking a lot of questions.” Fiona took a
nibble of chocolate. “I'm thinking it's a warning to back off, which if you think about it is a good thing. I'm getting close to the killer and making him nervous.”

“I'm not sure about a nervous killer being a good thing.”

“It means I'm on the right trail, but what I don't get is how in the world did I wind up a suspect in the Peep Show? I was careful, I hid in the bushes, no one saw me.”

“And you've got a purple hat.” I took two licks to stop the ice cream from dripping, then pulled the hat off the workbench and handed it over. “This thing is like a neon sign. People at the Grand saw it last night when you were hiding out, and then I found it in Zo's room, which was also Peep's room. I know you didn't kill Peep, but Idle Summers was nearly doing cartwheels across the Grand Hotel lobby this morning, and I'm pretty sure it has to do with Peepster being on a rolling rack in the refrigerator and not Raisin Bran. Got anything to add to this?”

“I must have left the hat when I went looking for Peep's cell phone in Zo's room. One of the maids let me in and did lookout. I helped her pass high school algebra, so she owed me. Idle and I knew each other in L.A. Peep had stuff on her and was threatening to go public with it now that she's doing really well on the club circuit. I told her to come here to Mackinac to get away from him, and we'd figure out what to do together.”

“As in knock him off?”

“It was on the list.”

I bit my lip instead of the Nutty Buddy. “Ouch!”

“Hey, it was just a suggestion.” She expertly caught an escaped chunk of chocolate at the corner of her mouth. “The Grand's always looking for name talent, and Idle has a dynamite voice. We got together last night before I met with Peep. Our plan was to talk to him, just talk and convince him to go away. I got nowhere. Peep wanted money and he wanted me to come back to L.A. and work for him on the
Scoop
or else . . .” Fiona let out a sigh and stopped eating her ice cream. “Or else he'd tell my parents about some of the more questionable ways I got info back in L.A. and blab about Idle's checkered past. Neither was an option for either of us. I was so rattled when I left Peep the first time that I lost the yellow bag you gave me somewhere. I have no idea what I did with it, but someone sure found it and the olive oil and used it on Peep and now I'm duck soup.”

“You agreed to pay Peep?”

“What if your parents found out you were a stripper, married and had kids?”

Three customers chose that exact moment to come into the shop. Really? Now? With
kids
and
stripper
hanging in the balance? Why couldn't they come in when Sutter was questioning me about something I didn't want to tell him, or when Irma wanted to know about the wedding dress?

I handed Fiona my cone and she hustled off for the kitchen. In a sweat over the last bit of Fiona's news, I
somehow managed to rent the pink, purple and white lilac bikes for the week, then took a call for the New York Yankees bike to be delivered up to the Grand by three.

Fiona stuck her head out. “Is it okay?”

“Are you kidding?” I jabbed my hands on my hips. “No, it's not okay. You're married and have kids and never told me!”

Licking her Nutty Buddy, then mine to keep it from dripping, Fiona looked a lot calmer than I felt. She reclaimed her stool, crossed her legs and tossed her hair. “Of course I'm not married with kids.”

“You just said that to take ten years off my life?”

“We got interrupted.” She handed me my cone. “I didn't get a chance to finish what I was saying, but you get my point, right?” She sobered, looking completely serious. “My parents had—have—high expectations for me, and some things they do not need to know. Peep texted me to meet him again in front of the Grand to get the money, and when I showed up there he was saturated in olive oil. That's all I know about Peep dead, but I don't believe that Idle and I are the reasons he came here. He could have blackmailed us from anywhere. Why Mackinac Island? That piece of crud had something else up his sleeve, but I have no idea what.”

“He just needed a vacation?”

Fiona took another bite of ice cream, leaving a white mustache over her top lip. “Vacation for Peepster was Vegas, the craps tables and a bottle of Johnnie Walker.” Fiona licked the mustache. “But he did look
bad last night, with sunken eyes and pasty skin. And he was jumpy, and he's never jumpy. Peep gets off on making everyone else jumpy.”

Fiona stopped dead, her eyes slowly widening as she turned to me, ice cream dripping over her hand. “Jeez Louise, Peep was on the run. That's got to be it. He was hiding out here. Nothing else makes sense as to why the guy shows up on my doorstep in the middle of nowhere. Someone's after the rat for a change instead of the rat chasing the cheese. He knew that Idle and I were both here, and he could hit us up for money and not use his credit cards so whoever's after him couldn't track him that way.”

“Any idea who's chasing the rat?”

“Half of Hollywood.”

“You need to tell all this to Sutter. Give him someone else to focus on besides you. Right now you've got top billing, my friend.”

Fiona shook her head. “Well, I'm not giving up Idle.”

“And I hope she comes to visit you in the slammer, 'cause that's where you're headed.” I handed Fiona a paper towel from the workbench. “You can't hide forever on this chunk of rock, and if you leave the island and run away, it will look worse.”

Fiona reached for her hat, and I took her hand and held it tight. “Idle's your friend, I get that, but she's desperate and not lily pure; you said she has a checkered past. Did you consider that she might have done in Peep on her own?”

“She wouldn't let me take the blame like this. She might go after Zo or Madonna and let them hang, but not me. I'm going to keep a low profile and nose around a little.”

“Tall, blonde hair, green eyes, loved by one and all—the low profile isn't happening. Hold down the bike shop and let me see what I can find out.”

Fiona spread her arms wide. “Like people won't recognize me in here?”

“Patience, grasshopper.” I batted my eyes and looked smug. “I've got a plan, a really good one that will help you out and me too.” And fifteen minutes later I was pedaling the New York Yankees bike toward the Butterfly Conservatory with Fiona tucked away safe at the bike shop dressed in my Betsy Ross outfit. Hey, if it can work for Rudy to be Twain, it can work for Fiona to be Betsy, and with a pillow under her apron, a gray wig and white bonnet that covered a lot of her face, no one would know her. She fit right in with the island inhabitants: a real blacksmith who always looked like a blacksmith; the soldiers up at the fort in uniform, their cannon blasting off every day at ten and six; and horses and buggies everywhere. Betsy Ross was in her natural habitat.

Huffing and puffing, my lungs on fire and sweating, I headed up Cadotte. Instead of turning off toward the Grand Hotel to the left with most of the two-wheeled and four-legged traffic, I went straight toward Surrey Hill. The neat white clapboard framed by an array of blooming lilacs was just ahead with the glass
conservatory to the back and the adorable green ceramic turtle painted up in white daisies out front. A big
Quarantine
sign in black forbidding letters was posted for all to see, and a British Redcoat soldier circa 1800s—did I know my Mackinac Island history or what—complete with musket on shoulder kept watch. If George Washington suddenly rounded the bend galloping on his horse, smote the ground and brought forth the Declaration of Independence, I wouldn't have been one bit surprised.