Double Shot

stripper’s admirer, lay sprawled across the hood of Marla’s Mercedes. Ringing started up in my ears. I trotted across the gritty sidewalk, feeling in my pocket for my new cell phone. As I got closer, I could see blood streaming out of the man’s nose and mouth.

He wasn’t moving.

11

Before I’d pressed the 9 in 911, Marla wrenched the phone from me.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she demanded.

“This guy is bleeding—”

“Forget it. You can’t see that because you’re not here.” She closed my phone and handed it to me, nabbed her own cell from her big Vuitton bag, and punched buttons. As she did so, she leaned down over the injured man and shook his back. He groaned. Marla then held up a warning finger while informing Denver emergency response that a man had been beaten and left on the hood of her car. Yes, he was conscious. Yes, there was blood, lots of it, all over the place. No, it didn’t look like a gunshot or a stab wound…well, a wicked bloody nose, not something you could do to yourself. Marla gave an approximation of our street address, then closed the phone while the operator squawked, “Please don’t hang up, ma’am, we need to know your name and the man’s identity if you happen to know—”

The bald man moaned again and struggled to turn his head. I scrambled over to him.

“Don’t move!” I barked while assessing his bloodshot eyes. I tried to make my voice reassuring. “Help is on the way.” The man moaned more loudly.

“Hey!” Marla hollered, her head next to mine. “Who hit you, guy?” When the man didn’t answer, Marla raised her voice. “Whoever beat the crap out of you left you on my car!”

With great effort, the bald, bloodied man focused on us. He blinked. He burbled something. Marla and I edged closer and said, “What?”

The man wheezed. He announced, a tad louder, “Elvis.”

Marla and I looked at each other.

Marla said, “Goldy, you need to scram. Let Denver PD handle this. If the Furman County detectives get wind of what’s happened here, and that you were involved, they could haul down the mountain and demand to know why you were here questioning Sandee. As for Sandee, she knows more than she’s letting on. Looks to me as if her jealous boyfriend Bobby could be snagged for assault, end up doing the jailhouse rock.”

“Sandee was checking around that club like a parakeet looking for the house cat. She and Lana both. I should have known something was up.”

“Something’s always up at a strip club,” Marla commented somberly.

“We shouldn’t joke,” I said. “This poor guy”—I gestured at the fellow groaning on the hood of her SL —“probably got beaten up for paying attention to Sandee with two e s. Think our ex got whacked for the same reason?”

Marla shrugged. I slumped against our parking meter and tried to think. Why would Nashville Bobby have stolen my kitchen shears? Had he beaten me up prior to killing John Richard, just for good measure? Or was my being assaulted incidental to the theft of my kitchen shears and my thirty-eight? The theory of Bobby-Elvis as the killer was intriguing, if mystifying. Then again, we didn’t yet have the autopsy results. Maybe Marla was right, and John Richard had been shot and then stabbed with the shears. I shuddered.

Worry for Arch solidified into a hard pain in my chest. How was he doing? Shouldn’t I be trying to comfort him over the death of his father instead of racing around Denver trying to figure out who had killed his father?

I tried to stand up straight, felt dizzy again, and grabbed the meter. Arch was blaming me this morning. For not locking up my gun. For not calling paramedics. And yet this was the same Arch who saved half his allowance for a soup kitchen. He’s not himself, Goldy, Tom had said. And then instead of feeling dizzy or worried, I realized I was experiencing something else: a rising panic, a raw fear that only figuring out who had murdered John Richard would restore my relationship with Arch.

“Damn the Jerk!” I jumped away from the parking meter and started kicking it. “Damn him!” The meter clanked more loudly inside its concrete hole each time my foot whacked it.

“Now what?” Marla cried.

“I hate him! He wrecked my life while he was alive. And now he’s screwing it up from the grave!”

“Take it easy, will you?” Marla cried, inserting her large body between me and the meter. “There’s a fine for destroying Denver city property, you know.” She seized my shoulders. “When the Jerk is actually in the grave, you and I can go dance on top of it. In the meantime, go stand there by the bald guy. Kick my tires if you want.”

I stalked over to the Mercedes, crossed my arms, and fumed. I hated John Richard Korman more than ever, with his schemes, his libido, his lying, and all his excuses and justifications for bad behavior. Now he was dead, and I was the prime suspect in his murder.

When was all this going to end? But I knew the answer to that: when the cops, or I, or someone figured out who had killed John Richard. And why. Oh, yes, and then there was that dancing-on-the-grave bit.

“I just called you a limo,” Marla announced as she snapped her cell phone shut. “They’re right around the corner, and I ordered you an express. In a few minutes, you’ll get transported back to the mountains in style.” She frowned. “You look awful.”

“I don’t care.” I stared at the Mercedes hood and the poor bloodied bald fellow, who was still moaning. “Look, I don’t need a limo. I’ll take an express bus to Aspen Meadow and walk the twenty minutes to my house.”

“The hell you will,” Marla retorted. “There’s no way I’m letting you brave those reporters camped on your porch. The driver’s going to escort you right to your door. And I am going to stay here and deal with the Denver police. Not to mention whatever city agency oversees parking-meter destruction.”

I frowned at the meter, now listing toward the street. And then, for the second time in two days, sirens wailed in the distance, and they were coming toward a crime scene that involved yours truly. I kicked the parking meter again.

“Will you stop?” Marla hollered. “Pay attention. I need you to tell me what to say to the cops. Quickly. Should I tell them about this bald guy”—she pointed at the man on her hood—“and his connection to Sandee’s boyfriend, Nashville-Bobby-the-Elvis-impersonator, and Sandee’s connection to the Jerk?”

“You already said you didn’t want Denver PD to connect this to Furman County. So don’t mention Sandee Blue or Bobby Calhoun.”

The guy on her hood moaned. “It was Elvis.”

“Why not?” Marla demanded. “It wouldn’t involve you.”

“Look. If you say anything about this guy somehow being connected to John Richard’s murder, Denver PD will call the Furman County detectives, who will roar down here and demand to know what your connection is to the Jerk and his death. And by the way, they’ll ask, ‘What were you doing here, Mrs. Korman? Who was with you?’ Then they’ll talk to everybody in the Rainbow, demanding to know how long you were in there and if you were alone, on and on until we’re all hauled in for questioning again. This would not make Brewster-the-criminal-lawyer happy. Marla, please. I’m thankful you got me a limo. Trust me with the cop stuff.”

“But—”

“Listen. Let Denver PD do a simple assault report. Tell them this fellow who got beaten up said the guy who hit him looked like Elvis. Then say vaguely that you think the Elvis impersonator hangs out around here, and if the Denver cops go into the Rainbow, they might be able to get the name of the assailant. The end.”

A silver stretch limo rounded the corner and flashed its lights.

“But how will they ever connect the beating of the bald guy with the Jerk’s murder?” Marla protested.

“Anonymous tip. As in, you call Furman County later and leave one.”