The Marsh Madness (18 page)

As I turned my gaze toward a young woman who’d backed herself into a far spot where she stood looking wretched, a little buzz swept the crowd as a cluster of glamorous people arrived chattering. They handed their wraps to the coatroom attendants.

“Gotcha,” I said, as Shelby appeared right after the group swept into the room.

“Let’s head her off at the pass,” Lance said.

The gallery was jammed with people by this point. So
very many high-end skinny jeans and ankle boots. So many five-inch stilettos. So much designer scent: Juicy Couture, Yves Saint Laurent and Calvin Klein. We wove our way in between people balancing martini glasses and canapés and headed toward the door where Shelby stood. From the way she glanced behind her, she was waiting for someone to follow her in. Was it the mysterious man in her life? The one who’d enticed her into this very bad situation? As we got closer, I could see she was even paler than she’d been at Summerlea. She’d done a haphazard job of using concealer to cover the dark circles under her eyes and what looked like a minor breakout. But her underlying skin color was gray, and there wasn’t a makeup in the world that could hide that. She could have done with a shampoo too. Shelby Church was clearly a woman under stress. And that was about to get worse, if I had my way. Because let’s face it, if you’re implicated in a murder and you’re willing to let other people take the rap for it, whatever bad stuff happens to you, you’ve got it coming.

Shelby caught Poppy’s eye. Poppy lit up and held out her arms. Her face clouded as Shelby worked her unsteady way toward the center of attention.

“Let’s position ourselves so she doesn’t get past us,” I whispered to Lance.

“I’ll get over to the front door, in case,” he said, sidling smoothly toward the main entrance. “I guess she came alone.”

I wiggled my way through the crowd, teetering on my five-inch heels. Now that my days and nights were spent in a small upstate New York town chasing first editions online, I’d gotten out of training in the art of wearing stilettos.

“Excuse me. Excuse me.” I kept repeating it as I found myself blocked by men and women who were too fascinated with each other to let another person pass. Finally, I stopped bothering and put my elbows out. In our family, we pride ourselves on our pointy elbows.

When I got close enough to speak, Poppy was holding
Shelby by her arms. “What’s wrong with you?” she asked, for a moment forgetting that she was center of attention.

Shelby shook her head and said, “Nothing. Just a migraine. I’m fine. I couldn’t stand to miss tonight. I wanted to tell you how wonderful it all is . . .” She took her first look around at the artworks on the wall and turned with a weak smile to Poppy. “Then I’ll head home to bed.”

No way you will
, I said to myself.
Not before I get my hooks into you.
The group between Poppy and Shelby and me simply ignored my elbows and my “excuse mes.” Shelby gave Poppy a peck on each cheek and a hug. I could hear their conversation, but I needed to get close enough to speak to Shelby myself.

“I hope you’re not driving with that migraine. You look awful.”

“Thanks,” Shelby said with a crooked grin. “My friend is waiting for me in the car.”

“Oh, come, Shelby. Don’t tell me you’re still involved with that—”

Damn. Why hadn’t we asked Poppy about the man in Shelby’s life? We’d asked other people.

I pushed my way through two of the chatty types who seemed determined to block anyone from getting past them. As I did, I turned and caught Lance’s eye. I made a ridiculously complicated gesture, pointing to Shelby, pointing outside and turning an imaginary steering wheel. I hoped he would understand what I meant.

“Shelby!” I called. She whirled.

Poppy recoiled. “
Sorry
, um,” she said, meaning she was not sorry at all, “but Shelby and I are having a private chat. Do you mind waiting?”

Meaning she couldn’t have cared less if I minded or not. Face it, this was her party and her friend, and I was nobody and nothing.

But not to Shelby. She whirled and stared at me. She shook her head, frowned, trying to figure where she’d seen me.

“It’s Jordan, Shelby,” I said.

“Leave us alone,” Poppy said.

“I have to go,” Shelby said shakily.

“It is a matter of life and death,” I interjected loudly.

Shelby flinched. Poppy stared at her and at me. “We have security here,” she said, jabbing me with her long red nail. “I said this is a
private
conversation. Spare me the life-and-death crap.”

I’d already elbowed so many people out of the way, I felt sure if Poppy raised the alarm, I’d be tackled if not actually lynched.

“When I say life and death, Shelby, or should I call you ‘Lisa,’ I think you know what I mean.”

Shelby swayed.

“Murder is a bad thing to be involved in, Shelby. You’d better come clean, because the longer you don’t, the worse it’s going to be when the police catch up with you.”

Poppy’s jawed dropped. “Get out of here! Shelby, what’s going on?”

“I’m going to be sick,” Shelby bleated. She pushed forward and ran across the gallery, hands over her mouth. People who didn’t move in time found their martini glasses flying. Shrieks were added to the din of conversation.

Shelby stumbled but kept going. I was right after her, pushing my way through people and hearing glass crunch under my feet. Shelby hit the emergency exit, pushed it open and vanished.

A
S SHE RUSHED through the door, the alarm shrieked. I sprinted after her, out the door and into the alley next to the gallery.

“Wait, Shelby!” I screamed as I followed. “You have to speak to me. Please! You are going to get deeper into trouble! Wait for me!”

Please?
Was I really pleading with a fleeing murderer?

Shelby reached the sidewalk and turned left. I hobbled after her. The heel on my left shoe snapped off. You can only run so far in stilettos, even when they do have heels. I kicked off both shoes and kept going. I found myself yipping as I stumbled over small bits of gravel and debris. A charcoal Lexus SUV was idling in front of the gallery. Was that Shelby’s friend? Apparently, yes. As I limped out of the alley, still shouting, “Wait! Shelby!” she reached the vehicle. The driver reached over and wrenched the door open for her. She tumbled in. The door of the SUV slammed, and the Lexus shot forward and squealed around the corner and out of sight.

All I got was the barest suggestion of a big, squarish head
in a ball cap and large hands in black gloves. And Shelby’s backside as she tumbled into the passenger seat without a shred of dignity.

Of course, who was I to talk?

A horn blasted behind me. Lance, my knight in shining Beamer.

As the Beamer glided up, I yanked open the door. Normally, I would have barked at him to watch out for the car. But instead I shouted, “After them!” I’d always wanted a reason to say that.

Lance gunned it, and the Beamer showed its stuff, taking that corner smoothly. Gotta love that powerful engine. In a minute we were almost on top of the SUV with Shelby in it.

I took my lipstick from my tiny clutch and wrote the license plate number on my bare arm. With shaking hands, I pulled out my iPhone and dialed a number I knew by heart.

“Tyler? You have to listen to me. I’ve seen the woman who was at Summerlea. She’s currently fleeing from me—”

A torrent of words swirled from the phone.

“Let me finish! I’m not doing anything illegal. I’m not snooping or interfering. I happened to be Lance’s date at an art thingie in Grandville, and there she was. I almost fell off my shoes. I would have thought she’d be in hiding.”

Lance and I exchanged glances.

Another torrent. I held the phone away from my blistered ear.

“Well,” I said, “that’s your opinion, Tyler. But here’s the license plate of the Lexus SUV she took off in. Do you want to track it down? . . . Oh, come on, don’t be like that . . . Here’s something else you should know.” I squinted as I got a blast from Tyler. When he took a breath, I shouted, “I am not interfering. I am not messing with the investigation. I happened to come across this information. Perfectly innocent . . . You can check with Lance.”

Lance gasped. I glared at him. “Man up,” I whispered.
“No, no! That wasn’t to you, Tyler. Anyway, I leave it to you and Detectives Castellano and What’s-his-name . . .You should pass on the information . . . What? . . . Wait! There’s more . . .”

“Get home now. And stop this. I’m serious,” Tyler shouted before hanging up.

“That went well,” Lance said.

“Better than I expected, actually. At least I can massage my poor, messed-up feet now. I think they’re bleeding,” I said. “Where are they?”

“Your feet?”

I ignored that. “Shelby and her driver.”

“Did you see him?” Lance asked.

I shook my head. “Just got an impression.”

“Was the impression like the faux Chadwick?”

“No. It wasn’t. That guy had a narrow face, a narrow head and that beaky nose. This guy was more—”

“Big headed?”

“Are you making fun of me, Lance?”

“Never.”

“All I saw was a guy with a big, squarish head, wearing a ball cap. I didn’t see his face.” I chuckled. “Let’s hope he’s enough of a blockhead not to notice us following him. Oh, and he had big hands too, with long fingers.”

“You noticed that in a fraction of a second?”

“I’ve been reading too much Marsh, I guess. I’m paying close attention to everyone’s hands, including yours.”

Lance rolled his eyes. “Whatever. Here on the main road, there’s lots of traffic, but if we stay on their tail, they’re going to notice us. Would Shelby recognize this car?”

“I didn’t even know about this Beamer until a couple of hours ago. It’s a good thing we didn’t take the Saab. She’d have recognized that, for sure.”

“Do you think Dekker will follow up on your information about the plate?”

“I do. But I don’t think he’ll tell me what he finds.”

“We’ll have to find out on our own, then,” Lance said. The Beamer surged faster into the night.

I rubbed my feet and wrote off my hose. There’s usually a first aid kit in any car my uncles own, and this one was no different. While Lance focused on the road, I slipped out of the shredded stockings.

He said, “Normally, that would have been sexy.”

I used a sterile gauze to get the grit out of my feet and winced when I applied rubbing alcohol. I finished off with bandages and hoped for the best.

As our pursuit continued, I filled Lance in on what happened at the gallery.

“Oh snap,” he said, when I told him about pursuing Shelby and the alarm being set off. “Poppy will be out of her mind. Did you see how much they sank into that reception? Caviar? Grey Goose?”

“Yes.” It would have been enough to get a good start on a return to grad school, I thought. But I had other things on my mind. Catching up with Shelby, for one.

We managed to get closer to the Lexus and followed as it swerved and shot around corner after corner. I hung on as Lance took the corner on two wheels. I bit my tongue so I didn’t say, “Next time, I’m driving.” Too late, we realized that the Lexus driver had pulled over to the right and turned off his lights. We shot past. I turned, pointed and squawked. Lance slammed on the brakes, and I gave thanks for my safety belt. Through the window, I spotted Lisa/Shelby’s white face and wide eyes. She saw me too. Her hand shot to her mouth.

As we pulled up alongside, the SUV lurched forward, swerved to make a U-turn and sped off in the opposite direction. Lance accelerated and made a tight turn, but those few lost seconds were too many. The taillights of the SUV had vanished. This time for real.

Fifteen tense minutes later, we had to admit defeat.

Lance finally exhaled. “Whoever he is, he’s coolheaded. There’s nothing we can do now.”

That stopped me. “Yes, there is. We can find out where she lives.”

“Shelby?”

“Who else. We can drive by there and—”

“She lives in LA now, working on her film career. We’d have to find out where her parents live. And we won’t be welcome back at the gallery. I have a feeling that Poppy won’t be glad to see me again. Ever.”

I thought about that. “Actually, Lance, you’d already left the reception when I confronted Shelby. She saw me, not you. Then she panicked and ran out the emergency exit and set off the alarms. Don’t look at me like that.”

“Jordan! You told me you shouted at Shelby and you chased her out the door.”

“Okay, fine. So I can’t go back. But you could go and apologize for me.”

“Not the first time.”

“Very funny. You could say you need to contact Shelby and say how sorry you are that your psychotic date chased her.”

“Sure. I’ll make up a story about you.”

“I’m sure you’ll make it a doozy. I’m counting on it.

“At least with that wig, no one will know who you really are.”

“That is one good thing. Drop me off somewhere, so I don’t get spotted. I don’t really want to spend twenty minutes on the floor of the car. Make sure you get an address for Shelby. Don’t get too caught up in the apology thing.”

“Give me some credit,” Lance sniffed.

*   *   *

LANCE DROPPED ME outside Walmart, as close to the front door as we could get. With my head held high, I limped in. Small clusters of people did notice my bare feet, not the usual style in chilly early April. I sailed by them and found
myself some new stockings, more bandages and pair of low-heeled shoes that looked like they’d be good to run in. It had been that kind of day, and it seemed like the right idea to be prepared.

I waited patiently for Lance’s return in the evening gloom. We were getting closer to finding the man Shelby had been with. I felt that she’d been an accomplice and not the person behind the killing or even the whole charade at Summerlea. Would the kind of person who could plan a murder panic like that?

Shelby was falling apart.

*   *   *

LANCE SURVIVED THE apology session at the gallery, but barely. He said, “The cuts on my knees from crawling over broken glass groveling to Poppy are much worse than what happened to your feet. Trust me.”

“Go ahead, rub it in, Lance.”

“I told her that I’d heard what happened and that I’d stepped outside to make a call at the time.”

“Did she ask about me?”

“Oh yes. You’re toast if you ever see her again. But I told her that I didn’t really know you well. Anyway, I don’t think anyone noticed us. They’re all kind of into themselves. Lots of people walked through the door at about the same time. I said you’d attached yourself to me, and I’d thought that was kind of strange, but not a big deal at the time.”

“Good thinking.”

“I said that I thought you’d seemed a bit off. She thought so too.”

“Mmm.”

“I said that’s why I went outside to make the call. Just to put some distance.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I said I really wanted to connect with Shelby because I’d got this weird message from her.”

“Very good!”

“Yeah. Poppy’s furious with Shelby, as well as with you, whoever you are. Almost ruined the big night. So I said that it looked like everything had been cleaned up really well.”

“Had it?”

“Yes. Everyone seemed to have replacement martinis and canapés. I insisted her opening was a triumph. It was painful, but I suggested that it was such a great night it would take more than that to ruin it. I made a big deal about needing to apologize to Shelby too.”

“And she believed you?”

“Better. She gave me Shelby’s parents’ address.”

“What are you waiting for? Let’s do this thing.”

Lance seemed pretty proud of himself as we headed toward this confrontation.

I said, “At least if we find her—”

“Of course we’ll find her. We found her at the gallery, didn’t we?”

“Yeah. But we also blew our cover there.”

“That does make it trickier.”

“She’s probably terrified by now. She’s bound to tell you everything.”

I bit my lip. “I wonder. She was looking pretty ragged. And as you said, nervous. Before she had even seen me she was already jumpy. Guilty conscience. Chadwick was murdered.”

“Maybe she was also scared of the guy driving the car and the people who set up the murder. She’s got something else to be frightened of. She’s an accessory.”

“Worse, she’s a witness. An unstable, terrified witness. She bolted when I called her name. How long do you think she’d hold out in an interrogation room?”

Lance took his eyes off the road to stare at me.

“Watch where you’re driving, Lover Boy.”

“You think she’s in danger?”

“I do, and not only from us.”

“So what do you want to do about it?”

“Should we go and confront her? And how do we know she’ll be alone? Maybe the real guilty parties will be there. Why not get rid of us if we go nosing around?”

Lance swallowed hard.

*   *   *

NO ONE WAS home at 41 Belleview Crescent, Shelby’s parents’ address. No car in the driveway. No sign of life. Lance peered through the window of the garage. No car inside that either.

The house was a classic design, updated with a sharp charcoal paint and a new-looking porch in the front. I craned my head and caught a glimpse of a sunroom addition in the back past the three-car garage.

Nice. This was a lovely middle-class home. It was a home to be proud of in a pleasant neighborhood on a tree-lined street where everyone kept their property looking good. But Shelby’s family home wasn’t in the same league with Summerlea, for sure.

A solitary light glowed from a fixture in the central hallway. That was like a welcome mat for burglars. Come on in. Take everything. We’re not home.

I rang the doorbell and knocked loudly for the third time. “She’s not here. Maybe she knew we’d find her,” I said to Lance as we paced in front of the house, exasperated.

He glanced around and noticed a woman across the street, ambling slowly with a large dog.

I said, “Someone has to come home sometime. I’ll sit here all night if I have to.”

“I can’t stay. I have to work tomorrow. I need to get some sleep. And don’t give me a hard time because I have a job.”

“When did I ever do that, Lance? Get some sleep. My job is to find Shelby and exonerate myself, Kev and Vera. But I need a car to sit in.”

Lance blinked.

I said, “Shelby and her driver know the Beamer now. And I’m sure the neighbors do too. So we need to get another vehicle here for my surveillance until she comes home.”

I didn’t want to say “if she comes home.” I shivered at the thought that I couldn’t quite keep out of my mind.