The Lady Who Sang High: A Reed Ferguson Mystery (A Private Investigator Mystery Series - Crime Suspense Thriller Book 7) (8 page)

I threw her a halfhearted smile when I went back into the store. She was cleaning the countertops, and she glared at me and then winked. For the next couple of hours I swept floors and checked and changed light bulbs. I noticed that Wes and Heath had both left, neither one of them saying a word to me. It sort of hurt my feelings, and I had to remind myself that I was just the help.

I walked back into the store a few minutes before seven. The regulations stated that no marijuana could be sold after that time, so the store closed at 6:45 so that all customers were gone before the deadline.

“Hey, get yourself some samples,” Ivy said.

Bill smiled. “You should try the energy drink.”

“Isn’t that a contradiction?” I asked. “Doesn’t weed make you mellow?”

“Dude,” he said. “Weed’s evolved way beyond that.” He held up a bottle full of orange liquid. “You really will get an energy boost. Or at least you’ll laugh your ass off a lot longer than usual.”

“Okay, I’ll try it.”

He gave me a couple of bottles and Ivy rang it up. “Two cents.”

I gave her a nickel. “Keep the change.”

“Think about what I told you,” she whispered as she took the money.

“Uh-huh.”

Bill leaned against the counter, swaying to the beat of some reggae, the perpetual look of happiness on his face.

“Did you clean the table?” Ivy asked him.

“Yeah, I did it earlier.”

She looked around to see if she missed anything. Satisfied all was completed, she waved a hand. “I’m outta here. Bill, are you going to listen to that all night?” She headed around the counter.

He grinned, then shut off the music. The store became eerily quiet.

“Have a good one,” he said to me as he sauntered past Ivy and out the door.

“Are you coming?” She looked at me as she held the door open. “We can go back to my place and try some of your samples.”

“Sorry to be the buzz-kill, but he can’t,” Jodie said as she strolled into the store. She jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “I want him to stay and help in the back. We’ve got to get him up to speed on all this.”

“Why the rush?” Ivy asked innocently.

“In case we expand,” Jodie said.

“Yeah, business is booming.” Ivy threw me a threatening look that Jodie and Bill didn’t catch. “See you tomorrow, then.”

She shut the door and Jodie locked it.

“Whew.” She leaned against the door and blew out a large breath, her bangs flying up off her brow. “I thought this day would never end.”

The weariness and stress showed around her eyes, but she marshaled some reserve strength and pushed herself upright.

I glanced around. “Is anyone else here? I didn’t see Carlo and Pete.”

She shook her head. “They sometimes let themselves out the back. Let’s go up to my office,” she said as she walked past me. “I want an update on your investigation.”

She’s not going to be happy
, I thought as I followed after her.

A few moments later, she settled into her desk chair. I pulled up the chair on the other side of the desk and sat down.

“How’d it go today?” she asked, her eyes on the ceiling.

I gathered my thoughts. “I’ve met everybody now.”

“And?” She closed her eyes.

“They all seem to like being here…” I hesitated.

“What?”

“Like I said before, no one liked Jude.”

She lowered her eyes and gazed at me. “Wes and Heath didn’t, I’m coming to realize, but that’s not true of the others.”

I shook my head slowly. “I’ve only been here two days, and I hate to break it to you, but the others didn’t like him, either.”

“Huh.” She rubbed her hands over her face and thought for a second. “So they didn’t like him. Does that mean one of them killed him?”

“That’s why I’m still here, to find that out.”

She sat forward and placed her hands on the desk. “You honestly think someone killed my brother just because they didn’t like him?”

“No, I don’t. Here’s what I do know. Your new method of growing marijuana isn’t secret from some of your employees.”

She blanched. “How could they know? We’ve been extremely careful with everything and we only talk about it when no one’s around. There are security cameras all over the building and in the lab, so we could check to see if Carlo or Pete were in there when they weren’t supposed to be, or if they stole anything.”

“I don’t know about Pete because he was pretty quiet when I talked to him, but Carlo’s no dummy. He’s put two and two together and he knows you’re up to something. But he’s not the one I’m worried about.”

Her eyes grew hard. “Who?”

“Ivy.”

“Her? She’s hardly ever in the warehouse. What does she know?”

“She says she overheard Carlo talking to someone about his lab work and growth cycles, and she knows that Jude was in the lab doing research as well. On top of that, she said she was conducting her own experiments.”

“Who was Carlo talking to?”

“She didn’t know.”

She thought for a moment. “But she doesn’t know the new process. There’s no way.”

“Not yet, but she thinks she’s close to figuring it out. And she’s got plans on what she’ll do when she has the process.”

“What?”

“She’ll open her own store and compete against you, or she’ll sell the new process to your competitors.” I paused. “Or she’ll blackmail you.” I told her all the details of my conversation with Ivy.

Jodie sat back and stared at me. “That devious little bitch.”

I let that hang in the air.

“Oh, I told Jude we couldn’t trust anyone,” she snapped. “She’s fired, tomorrow, first thing.”

“You can’t do that.”

“Why the hell not?” She slapped the desk, fuming. “After what you just said? Not only does she not deserve to work here, but if she stays, she may get information I don’t want her to have. I can’t afford to have her figure out the process.”

“Calm down.” I raised a hand. “She’s probably not that close if she’s asking for my help. And if she killed Jude, or had something to do with his murder, firing her will alert her, and it’ll make my job harder. I need her around and not suspicious of anything.”

She growled.

I ignored that and continued. “If she didn’t have anything to do with Jude’s death, she may still have information that could help us. And she thinks she has me under her thumb and she’s being careless. Once we know who killed Jude, then you let her go.”

Jodie stared at me for a ten-count. “All right,” she finally said.

“And you’ve got to act like you know none of this. You can’t blow my cover.”

“How can I act like nothing’s wrong when she may have killed my brother?”

“We don’t know that,” I stressed. “It doesn’t make sense that she’s asking for my help to find the notes for this new process
after
she killed Jude. Why do that? Desperation? What if she tried to blackmail him and when he didn’t agree, she killed him? But why blackmail him
before
she has the new process?” I shook my head in frustration.

She shrugged. “I just don’t see Ivy hurting anyone.” She emitted a harsh laugh. “But then, I didn’t think she’d try to steal our process, either.”

“Anything’s possible,” I said. “But you’ve got to give this time and we’ll see what she does. You can’t let her go just yet.” I repeated. “I’ll keep an eye on her.”

“All right,” she said again, more emphatically.

“Do you have an employment file on her?”

“Yes.” She went to the file cabinet and pulled out a sparsely filled manila folder. “Here.”

I took it from her and read it.

“What’re you looking for?” she asked.

“I was hoping to find out more on her background. How does she know how to do her own research? Do you just pick that kind of knowledge up, or did she work at another store before yours?”

“She told me this is her first experience at a weed store.”

Her application concurred. It also said she went to Stanford. Nice. I’d have Cal give her a thorough background check.

“And you don’t know anything about that guy Jude was talking to yesterday?”

“I’ve never seen him before and Jude told me he was a friend.”

“Hm.”

“What?” she asked.

I told her about Carlo dragging me into the alley. “He was nervous.”

“Well, that was where Jude was…” her voice trailed off.

“Do you have problems around here? Robberies? How safe is the neighborhood?”

“Detective Spillman asked the same thing. The answer is we don’t have problems here, and no robberies because of our security. But it’s downtown and we’re a weed store, so anything could happen.”

“I guess so,” I said. There were too many ‘ifs’ right now.

She snapped her fingers. “Oh. I forgot to look for Jude’s set of keys.” She got up and rushed out of the office, with me on her tail.

Jude’s office was as we’d left it. Jodie sat down in his chair and rifled in the desk drawers and a moment later, she triumphantly held up a set of keys. “Got ’em!”

“Are there any that look like shed keys?”

She took a closer look. “No.”

I pondered that. “It sure seems like he didn’t want anyone to get in there.”

She started rummaging in the drawers again. “So he’s hiding them…but where?” She mumbled to herself, then glanced up at me. “Don’t just sit there, start looking around.”

I wasn’t sure why I’d waited – needing permission, maybe – but once she gave me the okay, I started my own inspection. I checked the file cabinet but came up empty. Then I noticed a jar of weed sitting on the floor under the small table with the other computer. I opened it, stuck my hand inside and a moment later extracted a small key.

“Here it is,” I said.

She stopped looking in drawers and came over. “Not the most original hiding place.”

“Whatever works.” I pocketed the key. “Let’s go.”

“Let me straighten up so no one knows we’ve been looking around.”

She started to tidy up, but I held up a hand.

“What?” she said, too loudly.

I put a finger to my lips, asking for quiet. She raised her eyebrows at me. I counted to ten, listening. Then I tiptoed to the door and peeked out. Nothing.

“You didn’t hear something in the hall?”

“No.” She looked at me, puzzled. “Everyone’s gone.”

“And it’s all locked up?”

“Yeah, I locked up earlier.”

“Huh. I’m getting paranoid,” I said.

“I’ve got to finish a couple of things in my office,” she said. “Can you give me about ten minutes?”

“Okay. I left my samples downstairs,” I said. “I’ll get them and wait for you in the store.”

She grinned slyly. “What’d you get?”

“Energy drinks.”

“Are you going to use them?”

“No, but I want Ivy and Bill to think I did, so I’ll take them home. I can return them later.”

“You could try them, you know.”

“I’ve got to keep a clear head,” I said.

“I meant later on.”

I shrugged. “It doesn’t interest me anymore.”

“Square,” she said.

I had to own that. Her laughter followed me as I left her office and went downstairs.

I came down the stairs and started down the hallway to the store, but something made me stop. I turned and stood in the doorway to the warehouse. The lights were on and the fans hummed, their drone like hundreds of flies. I listened as I gazed at the marijuana plants in the front room. Had I heard something or was it my imagination?

I stepped into the room and wandered down the first row. The plants were small to medium-sized, with string strung up to hold them upright. I’d forgotten to grab sunglasses and I shielded my eyes. I was about to go back for a pair when I stopped again, this time sure I’d heard a noise. I cocked my head and strained to hear over the din. It sounded like a conversation, coming from the next room.

The fans whirred, and I lost the voices, making me doubt myself again. I tiptoed to the end of the row, took a right and went to the doorway that led into the back room. I stood there for a moment, and was certain now that I’d heard voices. But who? Jodie and I were supposed to be the only ones left in the building.

I peeked around the corner, prepared to jerk my head back if someone was nearby. No one was, so I stepped carefully around the entryway and pressed myself against the wall.

It was just as bright in the back section of the warehouse as the front, so I squinted as I looked around. The plants here were much taller and it was difficult to see around or through them. I couldn’t see anyone, and the constant hum was again making me doubt myself. I choose an aisle and started down it, glancing right and left. About halfway down, I thought I saw movement over near the back door. I ducked down near some plants, getting a good whiff of the pungent odor. I waved a hand in front of my face and suppressed a cough.

Two people stood by the back door, leaning close to each other. I couldn’t make out much. One was tall and solidly built, and had a baseball cap pulled low over his face. The other had his back to me. I assumed they were both men, but the smaller one could’ve been a woman. Frankly, I couldn’t tell for sure.

I kept an eye on them as I slowly moved forward in a crouch toward them. They were deep in conversation, and Baseball Cap waved his hands around as he talked. I crept along to the end of the row, and I was about to pull out my phone to take pictures of them when Baseball Cap turned away. I froze, wondering if he’d seen me.

Suddenly the room was plunged into total darkness. I stood up, straining to hear them. Nothing but the damn fans! I took a hesitant step forward, one arm out in front of me. My eyes tried to adjust to the blackness as yellow spots danced in my vision. I blinked a few times, but it did little good. I silently cursed and moved ahead to where I thought the back door was.

Through the humming, I heard a faint whistle and then something whacked me on the head. I was lucky that it was a glancing blow that didn’t fully connect, but I still dropped like a bag of sand onto the floor.

“Ugh,” I moaned as I tried to get up.

Hands pushed me down and a fist hit me on the cheek. I rolled around, disoriented. The hands frisked me, diving into my pockets. I heard a grunt, then footsteps fading away. The back door opened and a sliver of gray light shone into the room, and then the light disappeared. I got to my feet and tumbled back into some plants. Just then, the lights came on again. I was momentarily blinded and I floundered around for a minute before I managed to get upright.

“What the hell?” Jodie came running up. “Reed, what’re you doing? You’re ruining the plants! Get off of them!”

The lights were giving me more of a headache than I already had. I mumbled something, lurched forward and grabbed her arm.

She finally seemed to realize I wasn’t okay. “What’s the matter?”

“Someone hit me,” I said. “Get…out of…the light.”

She guided me to the lean-to in the corner and helped me into a chair. I put my head in my hands.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Give me a second.” Getting out of the lights helped. I took some deep breaths and my vision cleared. I reached a hand to my head. A bump was already forming above my ear, but it didn’t seem too serious. It’d be tender tomorrow. I was lucky my assailant had bad aim. Or couldn’t see well in the darkness. “I think I’ll be okay.”

She scrutinized me. “Your cheek looks a little swollen.”

“I’ll ice it later.”

“What happened?”

“I heard voices in the warehouse. When I investigated, someone doused the lights, hit me and searched me.”

“They robbed you? In here?” She was incredulous.

I thought for a second. “I don’t know if I was robbed.” I felt for my wallet. Still there. I reached into my front pockets. The change I had was there as well, and my keys.

“Keys,” I said slowly.

She gazed at me, then it dawned on her. “They took the shed key.”

I nodded. “It’s gone.”