Loose Lips (21 page)

Old and creaky. It reflected how I felt.
Then add defeated.

According to Rachel, Joe had gone through
their trash well before Missy was murdered. Which means if he had
the murder weapon, he hadn’t found it discarded in the Dumpster. Of
course, maybe he’d gone through the trash more than once. I had a
hard time imaging why he’d do that, but it
was
possible.

I glanced at my phone, checking the
time.

Over 24 hours had passed since he’d been
arrested. Was that long enough to get DNA evidence back? Was there
still hope that the police were wrong and the stocking they’d found
hadn’t been used on Missy?

Maybe, but the sick feeling in my stomach
said I was losing hope.

The phone rang and I jumped. The shop
outside my office had grown even darker. The phone rang a second
time before I snapped out of my fog and answered it.

Cindy Deere replied to my hello: “I have the
key. Meet me at the mansion in ten if you want the painting, and
bring the dog.”

She hung up, leaving me feeling like I’d
been dropped into some spy flick where I’d almost certainly meet
with death.

I glanced at Kiska. “But you’ll be okay.
Movie execs know better than to kill the dog.”

The walk from the alley to the mansion was
dark and unsettling. Made me grateful that Cindy had told me to
“bring the dog.”

When I got to Darrell’s, the front door was
ajar. Feeling more than a little uncomfortable, I nudged it open
with my toe and called inside. “Cindy?”

Kiska bumped into my leg and then plopped
down in an exhausted sit.

Apparently, he hadn’t logged his full 20
hours of sleep yet today.

I shook my head at him. I wasn’t sure why
Cindy had told me to “bring the dog,” but I was pretty sure it
wasn’t so he could fill in his missing naps.

Fingers squeezed my upper arm and someone
jerked me over the doorway.

“Shut the door. Someone might come by.”

Cindy’s face glowed under the beam of a
flashlight that she had positioned directly under her chin like
some camp counselor intent on giving each of his campers nightmares
that would last for the entirety of their formative years.

I moved to pull the door shut.

“Wait. Where’s the dog?”

The dog had already made his way inside and
was busy sniffing around a box that sat next to the door.

Cindy turned the flashlight on him. “Oh,
good. If Darrell shows up, we turn him on him.”

I raised a brow; not that Cindy could see it
in the dark. True as it was that Darrell and Kiska shared no love
for each other, my malamute was no attack dog, and I wasn’t sure I
could “turn him” on anything except a tasty snack.

“Leave him here, by the door. He’ll let us
know if someone tries to get in, right?”

She didn’t wait for my reply, instead taking
off down the hall in a trot that caused her flashlight to bob up
and down.

It was just as well. I was pretty sure she
wouldn’t care for my answer, which was “only if they trip over
him.”

I followed her past the room where I’d seen
all the boxes in my first visit and into the bedroom. She was busy
rummaging through a drawer like a demented squirrel.

“Uh. Isn’t this Darrell’s bedroom?”

She looked up. Even in the dark, I could see
the crazy in her eyes.

I took a step backward.

“Not Darrell’s. Darrell doesn’t own this
house. All the Deeres own this house.”

That seemed unlikely and a bit complicated,
but then it was rumored that the fight for the Deere property was
complicated and not all that friendly.

“Are you sure it’s okay that we’re
here?”

“I told you. It is. My mother made a call.
She’s in Florida.”

The disgust in her voice was evident.

“Snowbird?” I asked. My own grandparents had
had a winter place in Texas and they had just been escaping
Missouri winters. Nothing like what we saw in Montana.

She snorted. “More of a cougar. An
old
cougar. She has a 30–year–old boy toy. He dances.”

“Oh.” I couldn’t really think of anything
else to say.

“Check the closet,” she ordered.

“Uh.” I walked to the closed closet and set
my hand on the doorknob. “Are you sure—”

“It’s fine,” Cindy snapped, flinging what
looked like Darrell’s underwear over her shoulder and onto the
floor.

“I thought you said—”

She turned. A pair of men’s boxers were
draped over her shoulder. I stared at them for a second before
continuing. “I thought you said Darrell didn’t live here.”

She snorted. “Darrell isn’t supposed to be
living here. Which reminds me.” She handed me the flashlight.
“Point it there.”

Holding the flashlight as directed, so it
fully illuminated the pile of underwear, I waited as she pulled out
her phone and snapped a picture. When she was done, she gestured to
the closet. “I thought you were going to look in there.”

Not sure what it was that I was looking for,
but a bit afraid to ask, I shuffled back to the door and opened it.
The door caught on something. I reached down and pulled the object
free. It felt like a ball, on a rope. I hadn’t known Darrell had a
dog. Still holding the toy, I realized I also had the flashlight. I
flipped it on.

The “toy” in my hand was no “toy.” At least
not for dogs.

“Uh, Cindy...”

“What?” She sounded annoyed. Then she walked
over and saw what I was holding. “Gotcha!” she yelled and pulled
the “toy” from my hand. “I knew I’d catch the old pervert.”

After that, she shoved me out of the bedroom
and pointed me to the front door. “The painting is yours. I’ll just
box a few other things up while you get your Jeep.”

I glanced around and chewed on my lip. I was
not feeling good about this at all.

She watched me from the bedroom doorway. “Do
you want the painting or not?”

I did want the painting, and Darrell had
promised it to me, and Cindy was a Deere too, and she wanted to
give it to me... and as far as I knew, she had as many rights to
anything in this house as anyone, but.... Peter. Really. Just
Peter. He would kill me. I wasn’t sure why, but I knew he
would.

Obviously, reading my indecision, she
plopped down on the floor next to Kiska and said, “He can stay with
me while you get the Jeep. Don’t worry. He’ll be fine.”

There was a glimmer in her eye. Adrenaline
from her discoveries in the bedroom or threat? I wasn’t sure.

Kiska rolled over, belly up. Cindy gave me
another stare. “He’ll be fine. You’ll be fine. It’s all just
fine
.”

Deciding to believe her, I went to get my
Jeep.

o0o

Twenty minutes later, Kiska and I were back
at the shop.

It was dark, past dark. Which made my
mission feel all the more unsavory. But I didn’t want to wait until
daylight when the Gulch would be bustling and people like Peter
might see me struggling to get the painting inside and decide to
ask all kinds of unnecessary questions, like how I had gotten it,
or what the other boxes in the back of my Jeep contained, or if I
had broken any laws in the past few hours.

Rhonda’s was bad enough, with her raised
brows and tilted head as I told her that in Cindy’s words
everything was
fine
.

“So then this could have waited until
tomorrow. You didn’t have to call me down here tonight, when no one
is around to see what we’re doing? That’s just coincidence.”

“I told you. I don’t want it stolen.”

“So there have been a lot of thefts out of
locked garages in your ghost town of twenty?”

She really was being a pain. I scowled at
her.

She sighed. “
Fine.
But I’m denying
all knowledge of anything.”

“Fine
,” I replied in my most lofty
tone.

Rhonda, it turned out, despite her extra
height and daily yoga, was not the moving woman that Cindy had
been. But then, Cindy’d had a fire in her that my best friend
obviously lacked.

Rhonda set her end of the framed painting
down on the asphalt. “You know this is why God gave us men.”

I didn’t bother with a verbal response. I
just picked up my side and nodded for her to do the same.

Once we were moving, the task didn’t take
all that long, but I knew I’d be hearing about it for much longer.
Which reminded me...

“Uh, you know I’d rather Peter didn’t hear
about how the painting got delivered.”

She swiped a length of her red hair over her
shoulder. “Got delivered?”

“Appeared?”

She grunted.

“Anyway, if you wouldn’t mind...”

She shook her head. “You know I won’t say
anything, but if this gets you locked up, I am not going to be
happy.”

With that and a warning glance, she
left.

Kiska and I left my shop and headed out for
the rest of the night’s assignment, the dicier part. Delivering the
boxes in the back of my Jeep to Frosted.

I drove nice and slow, a good five miles per
hour under the speed limit, chanting to myself the entire time.
“It’s legal. It’s fine. It’s legal. It’s fine.”

When I arrived, the bakery was dark except
for a light in the back. I hooked Kiska to his leash and checked
the front door. It was locked.

The back alley was dark enough that I put
Kiska back in the Jeep and we drove the twenty feet to the back
door. There, we piled out again.

The back door was open. Not wide open. More
like “whoever had last entered had been in a hurry and not pulled
it completely shut” open.

Either way, I wasn’t standing in the alley
in the dark. I pushed it open and let Kiska lead us in.

We found ourselves in a small alcove, which
gave us zero view of anything past what appeared to be a giant
steel refrigerator door and two trashcans. I jerked Kiska away from
whatever tasty treats might be hidden in the can and took a step
toward where I guessed the lone light that I’d seen inform the
front was located.

A couple of steps past the refrigerator and
I heard Cindy talking.

“Yeah, well, you cut me off cold. I don’t
owe you anything, but you do owe me.”

Whoever she was speaking to didn’t respond.
It took me a moment to realize that she was talking on the phone. A
wave of relief washed over me. I didn’t want any witnesses to my
part in Cindy’s retrieval of the boxes. Even though I knew it was
fine
, I reminded myself, and that Cindy has as much right
to what was in the mansion as anyone.

“That doesn’t
quite
match what I
was thinking.”

There was a pause as whoever she was talking
to replied, or at least that’s what I assumed was happening.

After a minute, Cindy replied again, “I’m
sorry if the timing isn’t convenient.” A pause and then, “Where are
you?” After that she must have either lost the connection or
whoever she was talking to hung up. Cindy muttered a curse and
dropped her phone with a thump.

I jerked Kiska back to the alcove, waited
ten seconds or so and then kicked over one of the trashcans. True
to his history, Kiska dove forward. I, however, was ready for him.
With my hands wrapped around his collar, I yelled, “Bad dog. Get
out of that trash!”

Cindy came running. She glanced at the
dumped garbage and the lunging malamute and muttered something
under her breath.

While she went to get a broom, I lead Kiska
into the safer, food–free zone of the ordering area and shut him
out there. From behind the display case, I watched him for a few
seconds, just to make sure no one had left a stray box of cupcakes
or a wedding cake behind.

He sniffed around a bit, looked disgusted,
and then positioned himself so he could stare longingly at the
empty display case.

I left him and went back to where Cindy had
finished cleaning up my mess.

She’d turned on a second light. This one
illuminated the concrete back porch that Kiska and I had climbed
when we’d entered the building.

My ploy with the trash seemed to work. She
didn’t waste time questioning when I had arrived or if I had
overheard her conversation. She walked to the right of the
refrigerator and opened a door that I hadn’t noticed before. It was
lined with shelves that were mainly empty. There was just a random
pastry box here and there, but a decent layer of flour coated the
floor.

“We’ll put the boxes in here.” With that,
she moved past me and grabbed a box.

Less than thrilled with the manual labor
that awaited, but in a rush to free myself from any ties to her
perfectly legal
acquisition of the boxes, I followed
suit.

We completed the task in what felt like five
minutes or less. Cindy practically tossed the boxes from the Jeep
directly into the storage room. Each time a box landed, I cringed,
hoping whatever was inside was not the imagined irreplaceable
highly breakable treasure that popped into my mind.

When we were done, she stood by the door,
waiting for me to retrieve Kiska and leave. It was past midnight by
now, and I had missed my dinner, but there were no offers of coffee
or cupcakes or any of the other major food groups as a thank you
for my help.

Only slightly disgruntled, I loaded Kiska
into the Jeep and headed home where I would eat and sleep and work
very hard on reminding myself of all of the reasons that nothing
that I had done tonight was in any way illegal.

o0o

Sunday morning, I was a bit slow moving.
Part of it was the late night, but a bigger part was knowing what
was waiting for me at the shop.

The painting.

The painting that I had worked so hard to
get.

The painting that now felt at best suspect,
at worst... dirty.

Betty did nothing to help assuage my
guilt.

When Kiska and I arrived, she was standing
in front of the painting, assessing it like I might a piece of
marked RS Prussia: with a high degree of suspicion.