Dead In Red (2 page)

I frowned. Consequences?

“Touching peoples’ glasses, taking their
money. What if you get vibes about them? Stuff you don’t want to
know.”

I knew what he was getting at. Truth was, I
hadn’t thought about that aspect of the job, although I had been
counting on the somewhat erratic empathic ability I’d developed
after the mugging to help me look into Walt Kaplan’s death. I
couldn’t read everyone I encountered—Richard was a prime example.
We were brothers—okay, only half brothers—but he was a total blank
to me, yet I could often read Brenda like an open book.

I met his gaze, didn’t back down. “I guess
I’ll have to deal with it.”

He nodded, still scrutinizing my face. “And
what’s the rest of it?”

“Rest of it?”

“Whole Nine Yards—isn’t that where the
bartender who was murdered last week worked?”

My half-filled coffee mug called for my
attention. “Uh. Yeah. I think so.”

“You know so.”

“Okay, I’m taking his job.”

“And . . . ?”

Talk about relentless. “And the owner asked
me to look into things. Nothing official. The guy was his
cousin.”

Richard’s mug thunked onto the table. “Jeff,
don’t get involved.”

“I’m not.”

Richard’s gaze hardened. “Yes, you are. The
question is why?”

Brenda folded the newspaper, all her
attention now focused on me, too.

How much of a shit did it make me to admit I
wanted the dead man’s job? And that I was willing to endure a
certain amount of unpleasantness to get it probably said even more.
It’s just as well that Richard’s MD wasn’t in psychiatry, not that
I was about to admit any of this to him.

“Okay, as you won’t answer that question,
then when do you start?”

“Today. Afternoon shift.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“You’d better tell me if you’ll be late for
dinner—not that you eat enough to keep a sparrow alive,” Brenda
said.

“How long a shift will you work?” Richard
asked.

“I didn’t ask.”

His other eyebrow went up. “How much will
you make an hour?”

“I didn’t—”

“You didn’t ask,” he said, glowering.

I got up from the table, cup in hand. “You
want a warm-up?”

He shook his head. “I’m worried about you,
Jeff. You’re not ready for this.”

I poured my coffee, my back stiffening in
annoyance. “Is that a medical opinion?”

“Yes. You’ve made tremendous progress, but
your recovery is by no means complete.”

He was one to talk—Mr. Short-of-Breath. I
wasn’t about to argue with him though, as I felt responsible for
him being that way. He’d been shot trying to protect me not ten
weeks before. Walking up stairs or any distance was still a chore
for him. I didn’t want to cause him undo concern, and yet
. . .

“You’re
about
to start a new job,” I said, more an accusation than a
statement.

“It’s only a volunteer position. It’s not
full time, and doesn’t start for almost another month. By then I’ll
be fully recovered. Head injuries like yours don’t heal on that
kind of timeline.”

Somehow I resisted the urge to say, “Oh
yeah?” Instead I turned to Brenda. “What do you think?”

“As your friend or a nurse?”

“Take your pick.” Why did I have to sound so
damned defensive?

She sighed and reached for Richard’s hand,
her cocoa-brown skin a contrast to his still pasty complexion. “As
a nurse, I agree with Richard.”

He smirked at her, his mustache
twitching.

“As your friend.” She turned to face me.
“You’re driving me nuts—the two of you, because you’re both going
stir-crazy.”

Richard’s smile faded. He sat up straighter,
removed his hand from hers.

Brenda pushed herself up from the table, and
headed out of the kitchen. “You’re going to do what you want
anyway, so—get on with it.”

I avoided Richard’s accusing stare, added
milk to my coffee and stirred it. Stir-crazy, huh? Too often,
Brenda could read me, too. Still . . .

I faced my brother. “You want to come with
me?”

Richard blinked. “To work?”

“No, to check out where the guy got
stabbed.”

“I thought you weren’t getting involved in
this?”

“I’m not. I’m just curious.”

“And curiosity killed the cat.”

I sipped my coffee. “I figure I’ve got at
least eight lives left.”

“Don’t kid yourself, Jeff. You could’ve died
from that mugging.”

“And I could get hit by a bus going to the
grocery store. Are you coming or not?”

Richard drained his cup, pushed back his
chair and rose. “I’ll come.”

* * *

The vibrant
green grass down the steep grade stood out in chunky tufts,
belligerent in the wake of someone’s weed whacker. It had probably
been cropped a week before, but already looked long and lanky and
ready to defy another swipe by a plastic whip cord. A six-foot
remnant of yellow crime tape fluttered in the breeze. Twenty or
thirty feet below and a hundred yards further on, Ellicott Creek
rushed past.

Ignoring the “Danger—No Trespassing” signs,
Richard craned his neck to gaze down the hill. “So where was the
dead guy found?”

“I’m not sure.” I glanced over my shoulder
at the scarlet-painted barn of a building that hugged the
embankment. As in years before, a huge stone wheel once again
milled corn, wheat and rye, but was the end product more for show
than commerce? Pallets of ground grains in sacks sealed in plastic
were stacked on the mill’s back porch. The north end of the
building housed a little café and bakery. Could they really use
that much flour?

“Tell me about the murdered man,” Richard
said.

I repeated what Tom had told me the night
before.

“You get any impressions yet?”

“Depends on your definition of impressions.
So far, not here. But I did flash onto something weird that relates
to the dead guy last night at the bar. Probably because he spent so
much time there. I don’t know what it means.” And I wasn’t ready to
talk about it.

Richard did not look pleased, but he didn’t
push. He understood what I’d said—that I was already caught up in
the guy’s death, and that something beyond my usual senses was
going to feed me information about it until . . . well,
corny as it sounds . . . until justice was done. One way
or another.

Goat-footed, I tramped down the rocky slope,
over flattened grass and weeds to where the crime tape flapped. As
Tom said, there was nothing much to see. No blood marred the spot.
The ground hadn’t been dug up for evidence. Had Walt been killed
elsewhere and just dumped here?

I closed my eyes and the flash of what
I’d seen the night before came back to me. A
sparkling—sequins?—woman’s stiletto-heeled shoe. I tried to tap
into that memory once again, opening myself up, but it was someone
else’s experience that assaulted me.
Walt’s
face, chalk white—his body drained of blood. Milky eyes open,
staring up at the sky.

Nausea erupted within me, doubling me over.
I grabbed onto a sapling to keep from falling down the hill,
retching, choking, until the inevitable. Then Richard was beside
me, his hand on my shoulder until my stomach had finished expelling
my breakfast.

“What the hell happened?” he demanded.

I coughed, gasping, trying to catch my
breath. “Not me. I got caught in someone’s reaction to seeing Walt.
I dunno. Maybe some rookie cop’s first time seeing a body.”

“Good Lord,” Richard muttered.

I wiped my mouth on the back of my hand.
Poor Walt had been dumped here like so much garbage.

“Excuse me, but what are you doing
here?”

We both turned. A tall, buxom blonde stood
between the sacks of grain stacked on the porch. The morning sun
highlighted the fine lines around her eyes, but the overall effect
was not detrimental. Dressed in a denim skirt and peasant blouse,
she was the epitome of Southwest fashion from her
silver-and-turquoise squash-blossom necklace to her tooled leather
boots.

“Just looking around,” I said lamely, and
staggered back up the hillock, with Richard following me.

“This is not public property. I’m the owner,
and unless you’re a mill customer, I’ll have to ask you to
leave.”

“Cyn Taggert—is that you?” Richard
asked.

The blonde squinted at him. “I’m sorry. Do I
know you?”

“Richard Alpert. We were friends when you
were at Nardin and I was at Canisus High.”

The anger dissolved from her features and a
mix of astonishment and delight lit her face. “Richard?” She
lurched forward, capturing him in an awkward embrace.

I got another flash—so fast it almost
didn’t register:
Hands. Blood.

She pulled back, the movement startling me,
and examined Richard’s face. “How many years has it been?”

He laughed. “Too many.”

The two of them stood there, staring at one
another, oblivious of what I’d just experienced. Then the woman
gave a nervous laugh. “I’m Cynthia Lennox now. I was married for
twenty years to Dennis. He passed away last fall.”

“I’m so sorry,” Richard murmured.

Her smile was wistful. “So am I.”

I looked away, realizing my fingers were
clenched so tight they’d gone white. Flexing them, I noticed
half-moon indentations in my palm. That latest burst of insight had
affected me more than the sparkling red shoe or the vision of Walt
Kaplan’s body.

The woman took Richard’s hand. “What
happened to you? Last I heard you were in medical school.”

“A lot of years ago,” Richard admitted,
smiling. “I got my MD and moved to California for eighteen years.
I’m back now.”

I waited for him to say something like,
“about to get married to the most marvelous woman in the universe,”
but he kept looking at this stranger with a vacant, sappy grin.
Ex-girlfriend, I mused? So what. Why not tell her about Brenda?

I cleared my throat.

Richard seemed to surface from the past.
“Cyn, this is my brother, Jeff Resnick.”

“Brother?” she asked, puzzled.

Richard hadn’t even known about me when he
was in high school. “It’s kind of a long story.”

She didn’t look interested in learning it. I
was too far away to shake hands—not that I wanted to—so I nodded at
her. She did likewise. No love lost there.

“Well, come on in,” Cyn told Richard,
gesturing toward the mill. “We’ve got the best coffee in
Williamsville, and a wonderful apple strudel.” She looked at him
with eyes half focused on the past. I wondered if I should just
slink back to the car and disappear. Then again, it had been
someone from the mill who’d found Walt Kaplan, and I wanted to know
about it. Uninvited, I trotted along behind them.

We followed Cyn up the stairs and into the
mill’s side entrance, stepping into the dim interior of what looked
to be a storage barn. Crates and more pallets of grain and flour
were stacked so that there was only a narrow path between this and
a larger room with bright lights to the left: the bakery and
storefront.

Cyn stopped dead ahead of us and like two of
the Three Stooges, Richard and I bumped into one another. Richard’s
at least six inches taller than me, so it was difficult to see
around him.

“Tigger,” Cyn chided. A fat tabby leaped
onto the stack of crates, giving a lusty yowl and looking
self-satisfied. “Stay there,” Cyn told us. “I’ll take care of
it.”

Richard stared down at his shoes—no, just
beyond them, at a gray, furry lump. Either a very large mouse or a
small rat.

Cyn returned with a worn and stained
gardener’s glove on her right hand. She picked up the limp creature
and inspected it. “Good work, Tigger.” Cyn started off again,
paused to take aim at a trash barrel with a black plastic bag
folded over its rim, and tossed the body in. Two points!

Richard followed, his gaze straight ahead as
he passed the barrel. I had a quick look inside and grimaced.

Cyn ditched the glove.

We entered the café, taking in the mingled
aromas of fresh-ground coffees, vanilla, and baking that filled the
upscale bakery’s storefront. Only one of the white-painted bistro
tables stood empty. At the rest, customers sat lingering over
conversations with cappuccinos, lattes, and decadent pastries. Not
a bad mid-morning weekday crowd. Had business been this good before
the dead man had been found on the property?

Cyn sailed across the room to a door marked
“Private,” ushering us in. “Gene, bring us some coffee and strudel,
will you?” she called over her shoulder.

“Sure thing, Cyn,” said a thin, balding,
enthusiastic young man behind the café’s main counter.

“That’s not necessary,” Richard said.

“Nonsense. It’s the least I can do for an
old friend.” Cyn closed the door behind her.

Like the storefront, the brightly lit
office was immaculate. No stray papers marred the desktop or hung
out of the four-drawer file cabinet in the corner. Unlike the
country charm outside this small room, Southwest accents of hanging
ristras and a stenciled border of coyotes were cheerful against
pale turquoise walls. Behind the desk was a large-framed photograph
of a younger, happier Cyn arm-in-arm with a sandy-haired man—the
now deceased Dennis?—in front of a low adobe building with the
legend “Santa Fe
Café au
lait
.
”

“Sit,” Cyn urged and took her own seat.

We complied, taking the two upholstered
office chairs before her antique wooden table of a desk.

Cyn folded her hands and leaned forward.
“It’s wonderful seeing you again, Richard, but what on Earth were
you doing behind my café?”

“Curiosity,” he said with a touch of
embarrassment. “Murder isn’t an everyday occurrence in
Williamsville.”