“She was a protegee of mine, Ernie. I promised her mother I would look after her and I failed pretty miserably.” I could see Zerlina Ramsay’s strong, anguished face in my mind’s eye and it didn’t cheer me any.
“So?”
“So when I heard she’d died at the Rapelec site I thought I’d better go check it out, see if I could learn any reason she might have gone there.”
“You ever want to talk to my people again, Vic, you check it out with me first. Cray was damned angry that you came there impersonating a police officer. He was all for having you arrested. If I hadn’t known it would embarrass the hell out of Mickey, I would have done it too. You want to play at detective you go do it someplace else.” He sounded downright ugly.
“While I’m playing at detective, Ernie, there is one thing you can tell me-why was it so important to you that somebody really senior come and investigate? If you’d left it with the beat people, they’d have just reported a dead junkie and I probably never even would have heard about it.”
Even as I asked the question, part of the answer came to me. Ernie called Furey because he was a pal and he was with the cops, Furey got Bobby involved. No, that didn’t make sense-Furey would have wanted Mallory to stay far away, to minimize any fuss at the Rapelec site. Well, maybe he’d botched it and hadn’t been able to keep it from Bobby. But that didn’t make sense, because Bobby was pissed at being called in-someone had ordered him to go there when he hadn’t wanted to.
While all this was spinning through my head Ernie said heavily, “Just learn to mind your own business, Vic. Everyone will like you better.”
I was getting kind of peeved at this message. “Oh, go make ugly faces at someone who’s scared of you, Ernie. You don’t impress me any.”
As he hung up I thought I heard him mutter, “I still don’t see what Mickey sees in you.”
And I couldn’t see what a sweetie like LeAnn saw in him. What did she do when he started rattling his chains at her? Probably giggled and said, “Oh, Ernie, don’t be such a crybaby.”
I stumbled into the kitchen for some coffee, my feet tender and swollen from last night’s escapade. Was Ernie angry because he felt I’d undermined his control of his project site? Or was there something specific about Cerise’s death that was bugging him? I couldn’t imagine what, but I couldn’t come up with any reason why Bobby had been dragged unwillingly into the investigation. My brain was still woolly and remote, though, not churning ideas with any facility.
I resisted the temptation to take my coffee to the bathroom and while away the morning soaking my sore toes in the tub. I know that however unappetizing it seems, running is the best antidote to a thick head. Anyway, a big dog like Peppy depends on running for her mental health-it wasn’t fair to leave her to the sedate walks Mr. Contreras could manage.
I grumbled my way to the living room to do my stretches. They took longer than usual. Even so I didn’t feel fully fit when I pulled on my sweats and stomped down the back stairs.
Peppy heard me coming and raced up to greet me. She was always ready to move from deep sleep to intense action without taking time between to loosen up. Recognizing my sweats, she whipped herself into a frenzy, dancing around me several times, rushing to the bottom of the stairs, then darting back up to check my progress. Mr. Contreras came to his back door as we passed.
“Just taking Her Serene Doggedness out for a spin,” I said.
He nodded without speaking and retreated into the kitchen. Still feeling wounded. I gritted my teeth, but didn’t try calling to him. I wasn’t ready to kiss and make up.
I moved up the alley to Belmont at a slow gait, calling Peppy back to me at the intersections, trying to avoid pulling a muscle. At the harbor I finally felt loose enough to actually run full out for the better part of a mile, but I kept it to a jog again as I started back.
I picked Peppy up at her usual spot by the lagoon. She’d found a family of ducks and was diving after them hopefully. Until they finally took off toward the lake she pretended not to hear me calling-a fit response for ignoring her the last couple of days. Then she came loping up to me, tongue out, grinning wickedly-I knew you were calling me all along, but you’ll never be able to prove it.
My head felt a lot cleaner on the way home. Back at the apartment I even felt good enough to make up with Mr. Contreras. I knocked on his kitchen door, told him I’d been up till four on a case, and asked if he had any coffee ready. That made me feel totally virtuous-his coffee is foul, overcooked stuff, and it would be faster for me to brew a fresh pot than to chew the fat with him.
He allowed as how he had some left over from breakfast and opened the door, looking sternly from the dog to me, “Why’d you let the princess go in the water? Let alone it’s only sixty degrees out, the water in that lagoon hasn’t been clean since 1850.”
Characteristic. In order to be forgiven I had to be scolded. I bared my teeth in the semblance of a smile. “I know, I know. I begged and pleaded with her, but you know how it is-lady wants to do something, she does it without taking advice from anyone.”
He gave me a sharp look. “Seems to me I’ve known ladies like that, uh-huh. And then you got to just ride it out until they’re ready to listen to you again.”
I smiled significantly. “That’s right. That’s it exactly. Now, how about some coffee.”
17
An Aunt’s House
Is Her Castle
Mr. Contreras gets vicarious pleasure from my thrills. He’d heard the excitement last night when Bobby had accosted Robin and me, but he’d still been on his dignity- “I know you like to keep your own business to yourself, doll” was how he put it-and so he’d kept the slavering Peppy inside. And I hadn’t thought I had blessings to count. By the time I’d stepped him through the morgue and the late-night tour of Rapelec Towers, he was palpably jealous.
“Should have taken me with you, doll. They threaten to dump a load of steel on you, I’d of known how to handle it.”
“Indeed you would,” I agreed, blenching slightly. The time or two he’d come to my defense with a pipe wrench still haunts my nightmares. “Thanks for the coffee. I’ve gotta go now-need to see a man about a dog and all that stuff.”
Or a woman about the hair of the dog, I thought grimly as I ran up the stairs to my own place. Time to nail Elena down to some approximation of the truth. I took a perfunctory shower, patted myself dry while pulling on my jeans, tucked my rose silk shirt into the waistband, and headed for the door.
I was just starting to lock it when the phone rang. I sprinted back inside. It was Robin. Robin. I’d forgotten to call him, but he didn’t seem to be bothered by it.
“Everything go okay last night?”
“Depends on what you mean. They wanted me to ID a kid whose body they’d found at a construction site.”
He made sympathetic sounds. “Did you?”
“Yeah. She was black, poor, and an addict, so the odds were against a happy ending, but it was still a shocker.”
“The cops could’ve acted a bit more human to you under the circumstances.”
“I suppose under the circumstances they were trying to jolt me into telling the truth.”
He hesitated a moment. “I don’t want to be a pest, especially after you’ve had a bad night, but have you thought any more about taking on the Indiana Arms investigation? We need to get going.”
I felt a warm little glow under my rib cage. Someone thought I was a competent human being, not a pain in the butt who should mind her own business. Even though I’d made up my mind last night to do the job, it just felt good to have someone-some man-call up and think first that I should be working, not that I should stay home and play with dolls.
