Pretty In Ink (34 page)

“His mother started it, but she’s a whack job. I asked him to finish it after he finished up with Rusty’s. It was a full house that night.”

“The Queen of Hearts Ball,” I whispered, unable to tear my eyes away from the ink. It wasn’t Lester Fine after all. It was Frank DeBurra. “You were in drag.”

He coughed. “For the job,” he said.

But the band of flush that crawled up his neck said that could be a cover.

“Why did you say your name was Colin Bixby? I mean, did you know him?”

“Lambert and Abbott did. He was at that ball. I met him.”

Of all the pictures I’d seen of the Queen of Hearts Ball, I hadn’t seen one of Bixby. I hadn’t even considered that he might have been there. “And you just decided to use his name that night?”

“Couldn’t exactly use my own, could I?” he hissed.

Suddenly I thought about that picture on Trevor’s Facebook page. The one of the drag queen whom I’d seen across the street from Chez Tango after discovering the slashed tires on Jeff’s car.

As I looked at Frank DeBurra, it was all coming together.

He
was that drag queen.

And if Trevor knew, maybe that money that he had coming in under the table
was
blackmail money, like Charlotte suspected. From Frank DeBurra.

It was possible Trevor had put that picture on Facebook to taunt him. And as I’d suspected before, but hadn’t known the true reason why until now, DeBurra made those Facebook pictures disappear. So no one could identify him. Like me.

“How much did you pay Trevor?” I asked. “Was it just that fifty thousand?” As I spoke, I remembered something else. How quickly DeBurra had shown up at Trevor’s apartment the day Jeff and I got shot at. “You were in Trevor’s apartment,” I said, not able to stop myself. “You were the one who shot at us. You took that money. You put it in Ace’s bank account to set him and Charlotte up. You probably have lots of ways of getting into bank accounts, being in Homeland Security.”

He stared at me, not admitting anything but not denying it, either.

Tim had been surprised that DeBurra was at Chez Tango the night Trevor got hit with the champagne cork. He said he thought DeBurra was racking up some overtime. But I was beginning to think there was another reason he was at the club that night.

The guy with the champagne. How tall was he? I’d been concentrating so much on the tattoo and the bottle and the sweatshirt that I hadn’t thought too much about his height. DeBurra was about my height. I was about as tall as the guy in the club. I’d subconsciously registered that.

I also flashed back to a comment DeBurra had made when Wesley Lambert’s body was found. About how this made “that queen’s death” suspicious. At that point, I hadn’t thought anyone suspected Trevor’s death of being from anything other than natural causes. Tim and I had discussed the possibility of poison, but that was later.

“You killed Trevor to get him to stop blackmailing you. Did you pay Wesley Lambert for that ricin on the champagne cork?” I paused a second. “You were after Charlotte because you knew she might have something in Trevor’s documents that could incriminate you. And what about the investigation into Lester Fine? Was that for real?” When I was on a roll, I couldn’t be stopped. But then I made a mistake.

“Does Shawna know?” I asked.

I didn’t even see his hand until it made contact with my cheek. My head whipped back with the impact, and it felt as though my neck snapped.

He laughed as I instinctively put my hand to my face, which was hot.

“It’s the job,” he said again.

“What? You dressed up like a woman for the job but then decided you liked it too much to stop?”

I touched a nerve, because he stepped closer, reaching out for me.

He underestimated my instincts. Just as I’d automatically kicked Rusty Abbott in the groin, my foot shot out and nailed him right in the shin. His knee buckled, and I took off past him, back toward St. Mark’s Square, to the canal where the crowd had formed. I needed people around me. He couldn’t touch me if there were that many witnesses.

I had to get back to the shop to call Tim. My gut told me if I tried to tell the uniforms who’d responded to Charlotte’s accident, they might not believe me over the word of a detective.

And that said detective was gaining ground on me and holding out his badge as he shouted, “Stop her!”

I looked around like I didn’t know he was talking about me, even though I was the only one running. I glanced at the scene in the canal as I passed: Charlotte being taken out of the water by a couple of paramedics, Bixby helping, a gurney waiting on the walkway, two uniforms. Uh-oh. DeBurra got the attention of the two cops, directing it toward me. They were young and eager to help. Now we had a conga line, but no one was dancing.

I spotted Joel on the footbridge ahead, among a throng of people. I needed to get over there.

“Joel!” I shouted. “Joel!”

He looked over at me and waved. I pushed my way to him.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” I panted, clutching his arm. “We have to call Tim.” I started to nudge him down the bridge the other way.

“Do you know if Charlotte’s okay?” he asked, indicating the gurney, where she now lay. She was lying flat, but her eyes were open and she was smiling at one of the paramedics.

“Looks okay to me,” I said, nudging a little more forcefully now.

“Hey!” He frowned. “What’s your problem?”

I felt my problem in the small of my back. I twisted around slightly to see Frank DeBurra and the gleam of his service revolver.

I
guess he figured I’d gotten away from him too many times, so he felt he had to resort to holding me at gun-point. Still, it was risky to do it in a crowd. Even if I ran, I doubted he’d actually fire at me. Cops are trained not to do that. But then again, this particular cop was a bad guy, so all bets were off.

Joel was talking to me.

“What’s going on?”

I sort of cocked my head back, hoping he’d notice DeBurra behind me, and because Joel and I have that kind of karma, he did. His eyes narrowed just slightly, and he blinked twice.

“You’re not getting away from me again,” DeBurra hissed from behind, throwing me off any psychic connection I had going on with Joel. He pulled my left arm around, and his hand encircled my wrist.

The pressure was off my lower back now, and I twisted a little to see him putting his gun back in his hip holster. He reached around behind his back, and I guessed what he was going for.

Handcuffs.

Crap.

I had to do something.

My right hand brushed the front of my jeans, and I felt it. The brooch. It was still in my pocket.

I had an idea.

Joel was staring at me; it had been only a couple of seconds, and he was still waiting for some sort of sign. I pulled the brooch out of my pocket and undid the clasp with one hand. I raised my eyebrows at Joel, then turned fast so I was facing DeBurra. At the same moment that he slapped the bracelet around my wrist, I shoved the pin into the top of his hand as hard as I could.

The queen of hearts winked at me as she stuck to DeBurra.

DeBurra yowled, pawing at his hand to try to pull the pin out.

With the handcuffs dangling from my wrist, I took advantage of the moment and ran, grabbing Joel’s arm as I went, shouting, “Come on!”

The throng of people on the footbridge, without really knowing what was going on, parted like the Red Sea. I wondered whether Sister Mary Eucharista wasn’t doing some sort of hocus-pocus from her seat in Heaven.

Joel lumbered more slowly than I liked, and he stopped suddenly, right in front of me, causing me to take a misstep and slip. My feet flew out in front of me and I landed on my butt, sliding down the stairs like a toddler and landing with a
bump
at the bottom.

It knocked the wind out of me for a second.

Joel didn’t even notice I’d fallen. He just kept going. I put my hand down to push myself up, but then I felt someone’s hand under my armpit, pulling me up.

“Kavanaugh, you certainly know how to make a statement.”

I whirled around to see Jeff Coleman, a small smile at the corner of his lips. I opened my mouth to say something, but I was distracted by what was going on behind him.

Tim was handcuffing Frank DeBurra.

I looked back at Jeff.

“What’s going on?”

“The detective here stole my car.”

“Huh?”

“You have such a way with words.”

I rolled my eyes at him. “What about him stealing your car?” I held my hands up as I spoke, and the handcuff swung around and almost hit me in the face.

Jeff grinned. “I had no idea you were so kinky, Kavanaugh.”

My eyes should be on automatic roll when I’m around Jeff Coleman.

“They’re DeBurra’s. He was going to take—” But I didn’t get to finish, because Jeff took my arm and led me back up the footbridge.

Tim looked annoyed when Jeff tapped him on the back, but then he saw the handcuff and Jeff said something so softly, I couldn’t hear.

Within seconds, Tim was unlocking the cuff and my hand was free. I rubbed my wrist. “Thanks,” I said, glaring at DeBurra, who was glaring back. “What are you charging him with?”

“He stole my car,” Jeff said again. “Right after you took off. I hadn’t taken the keys out; he just jumped in and drove off after you. I got your brother away from the paramedics and we’ve been looking for him.” He chuckled. “Criminals are stupid. He left the car out front, told the valet he’d just be a few minutes, to leave the engine running.”

A gold Pontiac had followed Bixby and me back to the Windsor Palms. I’d assumed it was Jeff. But it was DeBurra.

“He’s done a lot worse things than that,” I said.

Tim looked at me grimly. “No kidding. How do you think he knew there should have been two bodies in that building?”

So I wasn’t the only one who’d picked up on that.

 

Bixby wasn’t talking to me. I guess I couldn’t blame him; I’d suspected him of . . . well . . . I wasn’t quite sure of what, but I’d suspected him of something, and he wasn’t stupid.

Made it a little awkward, however, when I tried to see Charlotte in the emergency room.

Bixby sent out some other doctor, who was about a hundred and fifty years old and who had about as much charm as a desert cactus. He told us we had to wait; Charlotte was still being evaluated.

“Boy, you really screwed that one up,” Bitsy said, ever blunt, as we sat in the corner of the waiting room. Joel was with us, shifting on the uncomfortable plastic chair. The armrests were too close together and he had to sit at an angle, shoving his girth between them. I was uncomfortable for another reason—who knew what was on these seats? But I’d been standing for an hour now, and I finally had to give my feet a rest despite my reservations.

“How was I to know Bixby didn’t know anything about Lambert’s science experiments?” I asked. “He said he knew the guy, and I freaked. I admit it.”

Kyle patted my hand. “Honey, if it’s any consolation, his mother lives down the hall from him. You wouldn’t want to be involved with a guy who’s tied to mama’s apron strings.”

My cell phone warbled Springsteen, and the receptionist gave me a glare. I got up as I flipped the phone open, and went outside to talk to Tim.

“We found quite a few withdrawals from DeBurra’s bank account that match the spreadsheet Trevor had,” Tim said.

I’d given Tim the laptop before he took DeBurra to the station for questioning.

“We also found some correspondence via e-mail with Wesley Lambert.” He paused. “DeBurra paid Lambert to lace that champagne cork with ricin. And the day before he died, Lambert sent him a threatening e-mail, saying he was going to rat him out.”

“Do you think DeBurra killed Lambert?” I asked.

“There’s no evidence of that. Lambert died of ricin poisoning.”

I asked him the same question I’d asked DeBurra: “Was he ever investigating Lester Fine, or was that just a story he told Charlotte?”

Tim was quiet a second. “He didn’t lie about that. But there’s nothing that links Fine to the ricin lab. At least not that I know of.” And since Tim wasn’t with Metro Homeland Security, he might not be privy to that information.

“What about Rusty Abbott? Where is he? What’s his story?” I’d told him everything about Abbott, from the roulette game to his sudden appearances all over the place.

“He made the bomb DeBurra set off at the club. We found his fingerprints.”

“How did you tie DeBurra to it?”

“Abbott did. He left us DeBurra’s fingerprints, too, on a second device that didn’t detonate. It wasn’t ever live.” Tim paused. “DeBurra thought Charlotte had seen him at the apartment. He also thought she had Trevor’s laptop.”

“And she would put two and two together, which was why he wanted to get rid of her. And he thought I would figure it out, too,” I said. “He’s the one who called me pretending to be Kyle, right?”

Tim’s silence verified it.

I had another thought. “The call came from Chez Tango.”

“There’s such a thing as call forwarding. He thought you might try to call back.”

We were quiet a couple of seconds; then he said, “We can’t find Abbott.”

“What do you mean, you can’t find him?”

“Just what I said. We can’t find him. It’s like he disappeared or something. He’s gone.”

“People don’t just disappear.”

Tim chuckled. “People like Rusty Abbott do. You know that’s not his real name? He was using a dead guy’s social security number to get paid. Someone else is living in his apartment, claims she’s been there for five years, no one by the name of Rusty Abbott ever lived there. Lester Fine’s not talking, either, if he knows where Abbott went. He says he’s as surprised about all this as we are. All he asked about was that brooch. He wants it back.”