Shadow's Lady (A Pajaro Bay Cozy Mystery + Sweet Romance) (13 page)

"And what you can tell me."

Matt looked at him. "Yeah, that truth stuff I've heard about. It'd be nice to be honest with someone other than my own personal pimp. What kind of case makes you dress up like a cliché out of a '70s movie?"

"The feds needed someone who's not local for backup and called in a favor. Just simple money laundering in an import-export business. But it's in the Tenderloin and I needed to dress so I wouldn't stand out." He tugged at the clingy polyester shirt. "So outragous you're invisible. You know the drill."

"Yup." He closed his eyes. "I'm getting tired, George."

"You need to rest."

"Not that. Tired of this whole thing. The layers of lies."

"It's gotta be this way. That's what the Project's all about: the invisible agency that sneaks around the edges of the law to get things done."

Matt shifted in the bed. "Like
Mission:Impossible
in real life. I know. Keep working ten steps ahead of the competition and all that."

"Speaking of which," George said. "You getting shot makes no sense."

"Yeah. But it means someone's worried about us."

"But not Moreno. He wouldn't shoot you."

"I know. We're trying to get Moreno, but maybe we stirred up someone else. The whole fake smuggling operation we made up, I dunno, maybe—"

"—Maybe we got in the way of some real smugglers?"

"Unlikely, I know," Matt said.

"But possible," George said. "But we've gotta keep going with the plan. It's too late to change now. Just keep all the innocents out of the way and make this happen. Then when Moreno's hands are around your throat we'll have him."

"There's a nice thought."

"Just be sure to give him a chance to leave some good fingerprints on your neck."

"Thanks, man. You've always got my back."

Then Dr. Lil, the elderly woman who ran the clinic, came in, and they went back to acting like gangsters again.

After confirming that Matt wasn't going to die in the near future and putting a fresh bandage on his leg, Dr. Lil left and Matt went back to staring at the ceiling and thinking.

"I have a family, Matt," George said, out of the blue.

Matt stopped staring at the ceiling and looked at his partner. "I know. Hani makes a great Chicken Hekka. And the rugrats drive up Nintendo stock with every trip to the toy store. So?"

"So? I take off these ridiculous clothes and I go home to my wife and kids. I have a life."

"Please. I've been shot. I've probably got pneumonia. I don't have the strength for the changing diapers and mowing the crabgrass speech. Cut me some slack here."

"Look at that dog you adopted," George continued, undeterred. "You're looking for roots, a family."

"Oh, spare me. I took the dog because Gloria needed to find him a home. I was doing a favor for a fellow agent. I don't need roots. I've got family right here in town."

"Have you talked to them?"

No. He had told them he was in town, and that they must continue the charade that their son was a gangster, for their own safety as well as his. But then he'd ended the call. His family had its own version of the diapers and crabgrass speech, and he didn't want to hear it.

"Let go of the Shadow, Matt. It's time to come home."

Matt had heard this from George too many times. "The Shadow works," he responded. "I just say my name and perps confess. You can't argue against its effectiveness."

"Yeah. I know. I've seen your record. But it's time to give it up. This latest gambit shows how far you're pushing it. It's getting out of hand. And you deserve a life of your own, outside of the Project."

"George, you're my partner, and I respect your opinion. Now shut up."

George sighed. "Okay. We'll talk about it later." He stood up. "I gotta go buy some lottery tickets."

"Lottery tickets again? Don't you know the lottery is a tax on the mathematically challenged?"

"Of course," said George, who had a master's degree in economics. "But while you were off swimming in the bay the jackpot topped 50 million."

"Oh, well," Matt said sarcastically, "that makes it worthwhile. Anything less would hardly be worth the bother of entering."

"It takes a lot to buy a house in Hanalei. How am I supposed to leave all this and become a surf bum without a cushion?"

"You could always go to work for Moreno."

George looked startled. "Sometimes I can't tell if you're kidding, Matt."

"Of course I'm kidding. If you turn out to be the mole I'm cooked."

"I'll be sure to tell Moreno that next time I talk to him."

Matt shifted his leg in the bed, trying to find a comfortable spot. "You do that, George. And I'll put some lotion on my neck so Moreno's hands won't get sore when he strangles me."

George stood up. "The Project is going to use your injury to bring in some DEA agents to conduct interviews around the village. They'll say they're looking for anyone who might be connected to the Shadow. See what that turns up."

Matt was staring at the ceiling again. He really didn't want to think about George's weekly crabgrass speech. Leave the Project? Stay in Pajaro Bay? With Lori?

"I'll be going then," George said.

Matt lay back against the rock-hard pillow in his hospital bed and decided, since he couldn't stop thinking about her, he might as well go ahead and wallow in his obsession.

"Hey, George."

"Yeah?"

"Do me a favor, man."

"Anything, partner."

Matt looked at him. "I know you will. I appreciate it."

"So what do you need? Want me to smuggle in a pizza?"

"No. Actually, I need two favors."

"Smuggle in a pizza and a six-pack?"

"No. Lend me your phone. I gotta make a call."

George handed the phone to him. "And the second favor?"

"Rent me a dvd."

"You want me to get you an iPad so you can stream some movies while you're in here?"

"I'm pretty sure Netflix doesn't have this one."

"Which one?
Buxom Babes From Betelgeuse
?"

"No. This is important."

"If intergalactic warrior women in silver mesh bikinis aren't important, what is?"

"This is research."

"Research?"

"Yeah. Important research." Matt scribbled a line on a slip of paper and handed it to George. "See if you can rent this at Santos' Market."

"Netflix won't have it but little Santos' Market will?"

"Where you been, man? Santos' market is the center of the universe. They may even have intergalactic babes in metallic bikinis...."

The bell on the newspaper office door jingled as Alec O'Keeffe led Lori inside.

"I assume you are going to explain to me why a newspaper has a morgue?" she asked.

He led her to a room walled with shelves spilling over with yellowed newspaper clippings. "Our morgue," he explained. "Where we keep the dead old stories. The newer stuff's on the computer, but anything more than five years old was before my time and is filed in here. Now let's have a look at Matt's file."

"File?"

"Yup. An actual paper file. Everybody in town's got a file. Small-town press is nosier than the NSA."

He pulled out a file and set it on a table. "Let's see what we've got."

The folder was labeled
DiPietros
. Lori reached for the top clipping.

Football Team Sweeps Championship
. Next to the headline was a picture of two young men, grinning, covered in mud, holding a football between them.

"The one on the left is Kyle Madrigal. And the other one's Matt, of course," Alec pointed out, but she knew. Even covered in mud, there was no mistaking Matt DiPietro from his rippling muscles to his devastating smile. But he looked younger, happier, without the weight he now carried.

"
Old and New Meet in The Big Pass
," she read aloud. "What does it mean, old and new?"

Alec shook his head. "Old towns have old prejudices. It doesn't matter that the two of them knew each other since kindergarten. This town was founded on Madrigal land, and Matt comes from Wharf Flats. So the good citizens of Pajaro Bay will smile at Kyle Madrigal, but they'll always wonder whether Matt DiPietro is going to steal their car. The irony of course is that if anyone was a troublemaker in high school it was Kyle Madrigal. He was a real wild one back then. Matt was—" He broke off, and stared down at the picture.

"Matt was what?" She had to know.

Alec shook his head. "Nothing." He pushed that paper aside and shuffled through the stack. One clipping fell out of the stack onto the floor.

Lori bent over to pick it up.

Juliet Robles Death Stuns Village. Popular local girl dies of drug OD. Boyfriend Matt DiPietro faces questioning in drug case.

Lori let Alec take the paper from her. "Her name was Juliet?" she whispered.
I hate Romeo and Juliet
, he'd said.
Anything but that play.

Alec said softly: "They dated in secret all through high school. But it was after graduation, when they told their families they were going to marry, that everything broke loose. Her parents weren't about to let their precious daughter marry a wharf rat. Juliet joked that they were doomed lovers, that she was Juliet to Matt's Romeo, but nobody took her seriously. After she became a heroin addict her father slugged Matt's father outside Santos' market. Called him a filthy rat whose son ruined Juliet's life. But it wasn't Matt's fault. Millions of girls have parents who disapprove of their boyfriends—most of them don't destroy themselves to make a point."

"Mabel Rutherford didn't get the point."

"The Mabel Rutherfords of the world never get the point. But that's not what I brought you here to see."

Alec pulled out another story and began to read from it: "
Local Connection in Gang Murder. Matteo DiPietro, son of local family, was arrested yesterday in San Francisco. DiPietro was alleged mastermind behind a drug dealing conspiracy at college campuses
—"

"—Did he do it?"

Alec stopped reading and looked up at her. "He was acquitted."

"But that's not an answer, is it? He was acquitted because the witnesses disappeared."

Alec laughed. "The story gets more outrageous with each retelling. As I understand it, the witnesses were unable to remember what the killer looked like. The guy was three feet away from them, but apparently their eyesight failed them and at the trial they were unable to identify the killer."

It was hopeless. What had she thought she would find here? Something to excuse a brutal murder, and explain away the whispers of other, unproven crimes?

"Do you think Matt's a killer?" she asked.

Alec's grin vanished. "I don't care what Mabel Rutherford thinks: I will never in a million years believe he gave drugs to Juliet. His only crime in that case was in loving a girl from the rich side of town."

"But the murder? It was also about drugs. You think that's a coincidence?"

"Well," he said. "I've read every news report with his name in it. But if you asked me if the Matt DiPietro I knew back in high school was capable of committing the crimes he's supposedly committed, I'd have to say no."

He put the clippings back in the file. "But people are strange. Just when you think you know them, they go and do something unexpected..."

"It sounds like he had a lot of reasons to go bad."

Alec shook his head. "That's a dangerous line of thought, Lori. The world's an unfair place, and some kids get more breaks in life than others. But we're talking cold-blooded murder here, not stealing candy from the corner market."

He was right. She couldn't excuse his behavior. Whatever had happened to him, however he'd been wronged in the past, he was now someone she couldn't trust.

She gave Alec a half-hearted smile. "Thanks for your help. I've seen enough."

•••

"You have a lot of explaining to do, young man."

Matt looked up into a pair of vivid blue eyes that peered at him from beneath a wide-brimmed fedora.

"Hello, Ms. Zelda."

"I'm not used to coming when called."

"I appreciate that, ma'am. Thank you for agreeing to meet with me."

Ms. Zelda settled herself into a chair near the bed. "I'm here because we apparently have a common interest."

"Ma'am?"

"My great niece."

"Then I might as well get right to the point," he said. "Lori can't go back to the island right now."

"I see. And why is that? Is she in danger?"

"Not directly. But she shouldn't be out there alone. There are, um, criminal elements in the bay area right now that could be dangerous."

"Really?" Ms. Zelda raised an eyebrow. "Criminal elements? Why don't you stop playing games and tell me what you want, Matteo."

Matt smiled. "I think we can be honest with each other, Ms. Zelda. You know what I am."

"Do I?"

"Yes. I've done things that would make your skin crawl."

"It takes a lot to make my skin crawl, son. What crimes have you committed?"

"I'm not going to give you details, ma'am. Confessing to any alleged crimes would be dumb. But you know that Lori would be safer far away from people like me."

"People like you?"

"Yes. Keep her with you for a couple of weeks. Here in town she'll be safe."

"If she gets hurt—"

"You'll throw me out a window. Got it."

"Don't underestimate me, son. I'm not kidding with you."

He thought of the rumors that she had gotten the role in
Lady Versus the Mob
because none of the studio bosses had the nerve to say no to her. "Nope. You're not kidding."

"Why don't you tell her yourself about the dangers?"

"She won't listen to me. But you can convince her it's not safe."

"What makes you think she'll listen to me?"

Nobody's going to tell me what to do
, Lori's voice echoed in his head, and he wondered if he'd gone about this the right way, calling her aunt instead of Lori. But if she wouldn't listen to her aunt, she certainly wouldn't listen to the Shadow. Lori was from Ms. Zelda's world. "If you love her, you'll find a way to convince her to stay out of the way. You can do it. You're her family. You're not a killer."

"Neither are you," Ms. Zelda said.

"I don't know what you mean, ma'am."

"Don't you? All right. We'll let it pass. We're here to discuss Lori."

Those eyes bored into him. He had underestimated Ms. Zelda. A little old lady, he'd thought. She was too much like Lori. Sweet, waiflike, and soft on the surface, but then bang! She turned her sights on you and you were dead meat. He'd seen all her old movies.
Lady Versus the Mob
—that was the film where the gangster had taken one look at Zelda Potter and had gone willingly to his doom. Yup. Lori and her Aunt Zee were a bit too similar for comfort.

"Lori's a lot like me," Ms. Zelda said, and he wondered if she'd been reading his thoughts. "She just doesn't know it yet. She's had a couple strikes against her, and it's taking her time to learn what a strong person she really is."

"But with all due respect, she's not quite as tough as you are. She needs protection. She's so fragile, so vulnerable." He tried to put what he thought of Lori into words—without revealing how much he cared. "She reminds me of the character you played in
Lost Love
. I think it was
Lost Love
—the one where you shot the villain who was after your lover, but then died before he found out you'd saved his life."

"You're not planning on re-enacting that one, are you?"

"Of course not," he said. "And Lori isn't going to jump in front of any bullets for me anyway."

Ms. Zelda took off her hat and examined the feather on it. "Let me tell you a little something about
Lost Love
, my dear. My onscreen 'true love' was a violent drunkard I wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole. I had garlic for lunch before every kissing scene to keep the creep from getting lecherous. And the tough city streets were a dusty back lot that still stank of horses from the western shot there the previous week. Things are not always what they seem." A knowing look from those eyes. "Are things always what they seem, young Matteo?"

"I don't know what you mean, ma'am."

"Don't play dumb. It's your least convincing performance. I know a bit about acting, young man, and if you're a cold-blooded murderer, I'm an innocent ingenue."

Matt felt the floor drop out from under him. "No," he said. "You're wrong."

"It's all right, Matteo. Your secret is still safe. I only realized it now. I always felt there was something suspicious about little Matteo DiPietro turning into a vicious killer. But it all seems clear now, seeing you here, so desperately trying to convince me you're evil so you can protect my great-niece from harm. What are you, really, underneath the gangster persona?"

This was too much like talking to Lori. How did this whole conversation get out of his control so quickly? "This is what I am," he said firmly. "It's not an act."

" Just the same, I think it's time I had a talk with your mother. She knows me better than you do. I have a feeling she'll tell me the whole truth, if I ask her nicely."

He instinctively glanced around the room, as if he could spot the bugs that might be there.

She noticed, because then she said with a little grin, "Of course I know you've been involved in a lot of criminal activity, but I don't believe you would hurt my great-niece." She winked at him.

He must have looked stricken, because she added, "Relax, son. I'm not going to pin a note to the bulletin board at Santos'. You'd be amazed how many secrets I've kept."

He swallowed hard. "Yes, ma'am. But spreading false rumors can be dangerous."

"I know, son. But I will insist you come clean to Lori before you marry her."

Before Matt could think of a suitable response to that, George re-appeared in the doorway.

"And now your friend's back." She smiled at George. "Nice gold chains."

She stood up. "I'll go see if I can tell Lori what to do without her defenestrating me, and you get some rest."

"Defenestrate?" George asked as soon as she left.

"Throw her out the window," Matt said. "You get the dvd?"

George handed it to him.

"This, my good man, will explain all."

•••

A little while later they had commandeered the TV in the waiting room.
Lady Versus the Mob
, the title flashed across the screen.

"There's a football game on the other channel," George whispered.

"Shhhh!" Matt responded "Shut up and watch."

The petite blonde slinked across the screen, all eyes turning to stare as she passed. Even in a scratchy black and white film, the resemblance was uncanny. Pale, wispy curls, eyes wide as she glared up at the vicious gangster: "You mess with my kid sister and I'll... I'll kill you."

The villain laughed menacingly. Dumb ox had no clue what he was up against. Didn't the guy know he was in a Zelda Potter movie? He didn't stand a chance.

They watched in silence, a small crowd of nurses and other patients gathering around them as the story wound its way to the inevitable conclusion.

"I warned you," Zelda said as she pushed the evil gangster out the window in the final reel. The man plummeted to his death, the look of surprise frozen on his face.

The woman turned away from the window. "I told him I'd stop him, one way or another," she whispered.

The nurses applauded. "You showed him!" one said.

"It's her eyes," Matt muttered, watching the screen.

"Her eyes?" George asked.

"They see right through you. You can't lie to them. They know you. They know who you really are."

George reached over and felt Matt's forehead. "You're getting delirious, man. The aspirin must've worn off. How long did the doctor say it would take for those antibiotics to kick in?"

"I'm not delirious," Matt responded, brushing away George's hand. But maybe he was. He stared at the TV, as if watching the ancient celluloid images would somehow help him break free of the spell.

But other images were burned into him. The sight of Lori. The heat of her touch. The sound of her voice, deceptively soft, but not able to conceal a razor wit.

"Wow," George whispered. "The spitting image. You guys weren't exaggerating."

Matt glanced over at George, ready to tell him to shut up again, but George wasn't watching the movie. He was staring at a petite blonde silhouetted in the doorway.

Matt grabbed the remote and turned off the movie. The audience booed. He felt as guilty as if he'd been caught watching
Buxom Babes From Betelgeuse
.