Loose Lips (4 page)

Two hours later, I was out of anything and
everything resembling a disinfectant. I’d even broken open a bottle
of gin that I’d bought with ideas of becoming more highbrow in my
alcohol tastes – shaken, not stirred and all that – and poured
twenty martini’s worth on one particularly disturbing stain on a
couch cushion.

The cushion was now sitting outside, airing
out and awaiting a squirt with the hose and a hit of something more
conventional in the way of cleaning products.

The cupcake massacrer and I got into the
Jeep and went in search of more weaponry.

The closest store that I had a shot at being
open was the grocery store in the same shopping center as the
Caffeine Cartel.

That’s why I went there... in hopes of a
steam cleaner, not because I’d heard the owner of the coffee kiosk
say she’d be open by then and all thoughts of loyalty to Joe had
been thrown out the window an hour into that morning’s
activities.

Not because of those things
at
all
.

However, a latte, if available would not be
unappreciated, and maybe a brownie or three. Seeing as how Kiska
had killed my cupcake supply and all.

There was one car in the parking lot. The
same one that I’d seen at Frosted. Making me think the Cutie I’d
seen there was inside the kiosk brewing up something dark and
delicious and brain cell stimulating. However, the sales window was
closed up tight, and there were no customers in sight.

To my chagrin, the grocery store was closed
just as tightly. The sign stuck to the inside of the sliding door,
however, said it should have been open ten minutes earlier.

I checked the time on my phone just to
confirm that I had every right to be annoyed and then walked back
to my Jeep, where I stood, staring at the Caffeine Cartel.

Coffee would be good right now. Very,
very good.

I could drive to Joe’s. That would be
the right thing to do, but...

I stared in the window at Kiska. He stared
back, obviously wondering why I was standing there when baked goods
were so close.

Never one to ignore the wisdom of my
malamute, I walked over to the kiosk. The front was closed up, but
that didn’t mean someone wasn’t inside. The Cutie’s car was
here.

They had to be opening soon, and a nudge
from an eager customer wouldn’t be a bad thing, right? And the
Cutie had given Kiska a cookie. She couldn’t be all bad.

With that in mind, I knocked on the door. No
answer.

I sighed and walked around it again. The
kiosk wasn’t huge, but it wasn’t tiny either. Maybe eight feet by
sixteen. Small enough that if someone was inside, they couldn’t
have missed my knock.

I glanced at the grocery store. Still
closed.

Annoying.

With a sigh, I circled back around and
knocked on the door again. This time I noticed that the door moved,
in and out, like it was closed, but not locked tight. I placed my
hand flat on the cool metal and pushed. The door edged in a little
and then swung back my direction, smacking against the side of the
kiosk and making me jump.

To my left, behind my Jeep, the main lights
in the grocery store flashed to life. A kid dressed in jeans and a
cotton shirt unlocked the front door and then stepped out, looking
around.

Feeling guilty for no good reason, I jumped
inside the kiosk and jerked the door closed behind me. As my heart
thumped against my chest, I realized how silly my leap had been. Of
course, now I was stuck. I couldn’t just hop back out, advertising
what I’d done. I’d have to wait for the grocery employee to go back
inside and then slide my body back to its proper side of the
door.

I sucked in a breath and counted to ten. The
place reeked of coffee. Not shocking, but standing there in the
dark, it was a bit overpowering. I liked coffee, but being trapped
in there for eight hours a day, like I guessed the Caffeine Cuties
were, might cure even me of my addiction.

Trying not to inhale, I slowly pushed open
the door, planning to check for the grocery boy, then hit the store
and leave with no one being the wiser to my little trip inside the
Cartel.

The door jerked from my hand and a girl
wearing a Cartel Cutie shirt and a horrified expression screamed so
loudly I jumped backward, falling over something that lay on the
floor behind me.

The Cutie clutched the doorframe and leaned
inside. Her face pale and her eyes anime huge, she screamed, “Oh,
my God, Missy! Is she dead? She is! She’s dead. Oh my God, you
killed her!” Then she turned and ran, screaming every step of the
way.

Stunned, I sat there, wondering who Missy
was and who exactly the “you” was who had killed her.

Then I looked down.

Under my legs was, I presumed, Missy. And
based on the cold clammy feel of her skin, she was most definitely
dead.

o0o

Twenty minutes later, I was once again
leaning against my Jeep. This time, however, I was far from the
only person in the parking lot.

Police, paramedics, and newsy types crawled
around the space, eyeing each other in challenge before going on
with whatever their own personal role in the unfolding drama might
be.

Arms folded over my chest, I stared across
the lot to where the Cutie who had found me in the kiosk with the
unfortunately dead Missy stood shivering in a blanket that looked
suspiciously like one my boyfriend kept in his truck. She was also
talking to him.

The conversation was, I knew, of an official
type, what with him being a police detective and her having just
opened the door on a dead body and, in her mind, a killer. Still, I
couldn’t help but grimace as she leaned a little too close to his
strong form and stared up at him with an annoying little–girl
expression.

She was shaken. I got that. Finding a dead
body did that to you, the first couple of times at least. By the
fifth, a kind of morbid resolve apparently set in.

At least that’s what I was feeling. Or maybe
it was some new form of shock.

I didn’t know, but at the moment, I just
felt a little dead myself.

After discovering that the screaming Cutie
had been right, and Missy was both in the kiosk and dead, I’d
scrambled out with very little thought of any kind except panic.
Blind panic.

The Cutie, whose name I still didn’t know,
had disappeared, but before I’d been able to punch 911 into my
phone, she was back with the grocery store employee I’d seen
earlier, screaming and pointing and in general acting as if she’d
seen me chortling over Missy’s body with a bloody knife in my
hand.

Not that Missy had been stabbed.

At least I didn’t think she had. I didn’t
have any blood on me, and I had been sitting... a shiver of my own
passed over my body. I shook it off and ran my hands up and down my
arms.

The Cutie, still talking to Peter, pointed
at me again and pulled her shock–repelling blanket tighter.

I shivered again and tried not to look
uncomfortable. A near impossible feat with reporters from both of
the local TV stations and the
Helena Daily News
circling
my Jeep like starved sharks watching a wounded seal.

So far the uniformed police officers
standing at the four corners of my parking spot had kept them at
bay, but as Peter signaled for two of the officers to take over
Cutie duty, Daniel from the
News
moved in.

I glared at him and did the unheard of. I
walked toward the closest TV reporter and started talking.

Her name, it turned out was Bev. Bev was new
and young and seemed shaken when I stopped in front of her. Maybe
she’d heard the Cutie’s claims. I didn’t care. I just didn’t want
to get stuck talking to Daniel, and I did want to get my story out,
or at least part of it.

“Have you had their coffee?” I asked,
perky.

Shaking her head, she glanced at her
cameraman and then took a backward step toward him.

I squinted at him, but kept going. “Me
neither. I never stop here. Everyone knows Cuppa Joe’s has the best
coffee in town and the best ambiance. I mean this...” I waved my
hand in a dismissive manner toward the kiosk.

She shoved her microphone toward my face.
“We heard someone is dead. Is that true? Did you know this person?
Are you a suspect? Did you kill them?”

Uh... my mind stuttered.

“We heard you were found inside the kiosk
with the victim. What were you doing in there? Do you have a
record? What’s your name? What’s your connection to the victim if
you weren’t here for coffee? Was it one of the girls who works
there? Did you follow her there, or drag her inside after you
killed her?”

For a little thing, this one had balls.

I wasn’t all that fond of them.

“Uh...” This time I managed to say it out
loud. I wasn’t sure it was an improvement. She shoved the mic
closer.

“Lucy can’t talk right now.”

I turned my head to see Daniel smirking at
me from behind a blue Toyota. He, however, wasn’t who had spoken. I
swiveled, this time moving my entire body.

George, police officer and friend, waved at
me in a highly official looking manner. “Ms. Mathews, the detective
is ready to speak to you now.”

Nodding and bobbing, I scurried away from
Bev the Bold and past Daniel. He was grinning, the little...

Shaking his head, George chided me, “You
should know better than to talk to the press before us.”

I did, but knowing better and doing better
were not all that related in my world, and George knew me well
enough to know that too.

He lifted an arm and pointed toward the
kiosk. Expecting to see Peter there, waiting for me, I let out a
sigh of relief.

But Peter had moved on. He was in his truck,
watching me from under the brim of his cowboy hat. I couldn’t see
his face, not well enough to read his expression. Not that that
would have told me anything. When he was in detective mode, he was
annoyingly deadpan.

With a grunt, I looked to see who was
waiting for me instead.

Stone. “I thought he’d left,” I muttered.
Detective Stone and I were not close.

George chuckled. “Lucky you, it’s his last
week. He’s breaking in the new guy.”

The “new guy” was older than either Peter or
Stone. In fact, with his gray hair and loose skin, I’d have guessed
he was retirement age. Based on his blue suit, I’d have also
guessed he wasn’t from Helena.

“Who is he?” I asked. Best to get any inside
knowledge I could, especially since I was sure Detective Stone
wasn’t going to be painting my character in any shade close to
rosy.

“Ken Klein. From Chicago. Retiring here, but
working for us a bit until we find a full–time replacement for
Stone.”

“You have Peter.”

“And Peter has you and you keep finding dead
bodies. Kind of a conflict of interest, don’t cha think?”

I didn’t, but obviously the Helena P.D.
hadn’t bothered consulting me.

More than a little wary, I put on my best,
most innocent face and followed George to where Stone and the new
detective waited.

While Stone introduced us, Detective Klein,
as I was told I could call him, stood silently taking in my
appearance or aura or something that I couldn’t quite define.

I shifted from one foot to the other, like a
guilty schoolgirl.

Klein stared at me from beneath bushy gray
eyebrows. “I understand you were inside the kiosk when Ms. Sanders
opened the door.”

My gaze darted from him to Detective Stone.
I didn’t know why, but the guy made me nervous. “I was.” There was
really no point in denying it.

“You work there?”

“No.”

His brows didn’t even twitch. “Have some
other connection?”

“No.”

“Think it was self–serve?”

“Uh...” That was a tougher one. I didn’t
want word to get back to Joe that I’d been frequenting his
competition, but then again, what other plausible reason did I have
for going inside the kiosk?

One lone eyebrow hair stirred. I stared at
it, fascinated. I’d never known anyone with that kind of control,
not even Peter.

Another hair twitched. His gaze, blue and a
little watery, washed over me, bored.

Bored because I was so easy. Bored because
he knew he had me.

I panicked.

“The grocery store was closed,” I
blurted.

“Closed?”

“Yeah, they were supposed to open at six,
but it was ten after and they weren’t open. My malamute ate
cupcakes and I needed a steam cleaner. I used the gin, but it
wasn’t enough. And now my house smells and I couldn’t take it. I
just couldn’t.” I let out the last in a burst of exasperation that
I knew would glean me at least some sympathy. I looked at him,
expectant.

“So you went inside the kiosk?”

I nodded, relieved. He did understand.

“And you killed the owner.”

I nodded again... and stopped, switching the
nod to a shake as quickly as I could. “No, no, no. I didn’t kill
her. I didn’t even know she was in there.”

He nodded, understanding.

I sighed. He was much more reasonable than
Stone. I glanced at the soon–to–be–out–of–my–life detective and
tried not to gloat.

“Do you own any weapons, Ms. Mathews?”

Startled, I twisted my attention back to
Klein. “Weapons? No...” I glanced at the kiosk. I hadn’t noticed
any blood. “Was she... did someone shoot her or stab her? What kind
of weapon are you looking for?”

He nodded again, slow and understanding.

Understanding of what? A lump formed in my
throat and threatened to leap out. His calm was beyond
disconcerting. I felt like a sheep, being watched by a benevolent
shepherd who knew today was the day I became mutton.

“Can I see your hands?”

I held them out.

“Palms up.”

I flipped them over.

He leaned close, studied my open palms.
After a moment, he pulled back.