Grounds to Kill Page 17

  Mojo sat impatiently with her stuffed duck waiting for me to finish eating. Occasionally she’d hit me in the shin with the duck. Finally I picked it up, yelled, “Attack” rather half-heartedly and tossed the duck so that it landed near the kitchen. My next throw was even less enthusiastic with the duck landing near the door. When she brought it back for the third throw I told her this was the last one. Unfortunately, my toss was lame and the duck landed under the sofa across from me.

  “Okay, that one doesn’t count.”

  Getting up I walked toward the sofa and bent between the coffee table and couch to look underneath. My fingers reached for the duck and hit instead a single sheet of paper. I must have missed it when tidying up the other blank sheets I’d tossed to the floor either in my sleep, or in my focused state.

  I snagged the duck, too, but instead of “Attack!” I screamed, “Holy Crap!” because now I saw a note had been written on the paper.

  The writing was in that loopy scrawl always used by the Hand of Doom and it read,

  Dear Jen, at Lenora and Fifth there is a hooker named Kiki. She knows the truth.

  This motivated a number of excited texts between Mallory and me. Plans were made for that very evening. Even Beth was game. Not that she was interested in participating in any more of what she called woo woo stuff, she still loved an adventure. I also texted Fred on the off chance that he or one of his connections might know something about a prostitute named Kiki who worked Lenora and Fifth. He responded immediately with: I’ll get bak 2 U.

  My phone rang and I saw it was Kellum. I let it go to voice mail and chewed my lower lip while I listened to the message.

  “Ms. Hamby, this is Detective Kellum. I wanted you to know that your sister’s autopsy should be completed today. I’m calling to give you the coroner’s number, so you can arrange for a funeral home to transport the body once the coroner’s work is completed.” Then he rattled off a telephone number that I scribbled down at the bottom of my message from HOD.

  I tapped the pen against my chin. That was an odd message from Kellum.

  There was no, “We found your laptop with a bloody knife.”

  There was no, “Obviously you killed Misty and did something to Alison Walker.”

  None of that.

  Huh.

  I didn’t know whether to feel immense relief or worry. Selecting a the-other-shoe-might-drop-but-I’m-not-thinking-about-that-now kind of feeling, I went to the mall for a few hours but returned empty handed. When I got home I quickly looked through my closet to figure out what to wear when looking for a hooker. It was too hot for jeans, so I went with khaki capris and a flirty pink tank top that showed a little cleavage, but not too much. I didn’t want this Kiki person to think I was competing for business, so I kept the makeup light.

  Finally the duo part of the Tremendous Trio showed up. Beth was dressed as loose as she got with her hair down instead of tied back, and she too wore capris.

  “Look at you,” I gushed and gave her a hug.

  “Yeah. Whatever,” she said. “Mallory told me if I didn’t wear something besides black she’d start calling me Morticia.”

  Mallory had gone with a simple flowered sundress.

  “Wow,” I said, nodding my approval. “No public service announcement to save the animals of the world?”

  “I need to do laundry,” she said simply, then bent to pick up Mojo and gave her a snuggly hug.

  “Well, we can’t just head on down to Hooker Alley when it’s still daylight,” Beth said. “How do we kill a couple of hours before the sun goes down?”

  “Tea?” Mallory suggested.

  “No,” Beth shook her head. “I’m sick of tea. If we’re drinking, I’m suggesting hard liquor and we leave the car here.”

  “And then what? We take a cab to look at hookers?” I asked.

  “You’ve got a point,” Beth said. “But this is your baby, so I say you’re the designated driver and you let me and Mallory drink.”

  “I volunteer to be the driver,” Mallory said, raising her hand. “I’m starting a new colon cleanse tomorrow and I don’t want any extra toxins in my body.”

  “Too much information, but fine, I’ll accept your offer to pollute the environment with my car,” Beth announced.

  “Don’t put it that way,” Mallory said. “Or I’ll change my mind.”

  Mojo whimpered a little.

  “You had two walks today,” I reminded her. “And we played Attack Duck.”

  “You do know she’s a dog, right?” Beth said.

  “Yes,” I said, indignantly.

  Mallory dug in the bottom of her purse for a treat. The dog ran to her princess bed with it, content to allow us to leave without the guilt.

  Once in the hall we ran into Mrs. Rudnicki.

  I said, “Hello.”

  And she sniffed in response.

  “Your neighbor hates you,” Beth said as we took the stairs down to the lobby.

  “I caught her grandson treating her like crap and called him out on it.”

  “She hates you for that?” Mallory asked in disbelief.

  “Well, no,” I admitted. “Pretty much she’s always hated me. That was just the icing on the cake.”

  “It was nice that you stood up for her anyway,” Beth said.

  “Turns out I know the grandson, Charlie, from work and I already had my own reasons not to like him, but now I hate him more. I think she hates me more now that she knows I hate him.”

  As we drove out of my parking lot, I filled my friends in on gropey Charlie and the betrayal of the lemon scones and topped off the story with Mrs. Rudnicki’s slap. All the details pretty much took up the entire drive from my place to Collins Pub on Second Avenue.

  Even into the ordering of burgers and sloshing back my Chimay red beer, Beth continued to pepper me with questions regarding Mrs. Rudnicki and Charlie. It was to the point where I wanted to drop the entire conversation.

  “Enough about my poor relations with my neighbor,” I said, raising my beer and taking a deep swallow.

  “Yeah,” Mallory agreed. “I’m hungry. Let’s order something to eat before we go cruising for hookers.”

  That comment brought some curious looks from the next table.

  “Here’s the thing,” Beth said seriously. She leaned across the table and pointed a finger in my face. “This Charlie obviously knows you and he hangs out at your building, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Did he know Misty too?”

  I shrugged.

  “I have no idea, but I guess it’s possible. Misty had a better relationship with Mrs. Rudnicki than I do.”

  “And Charlie’s a baker, so it’s not unusual for him to be up in the middle of the night, right? You said Mrs. Rudnicki patrols the building late at night. Well, what if she had reason to?”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “What if she knew her grandson was a scumbag lowlife.”

  “From what Jen said,” Mallory piped up. “This Charlie is not exactly a good guy. He slapped his own grandma even. What kind of a guy slaps his grandma?”

  “So what are you getting at? You think Mrs. Rudnicki patrols the building because she’s worried about her grandson?”

  “Maybe,” Beth said.

  The waiter came over and took our orders. Beth and I ordered burgers and Mallory went with a vegan option.

  “What if Charlie was more than just a loser who doesn’t keep his bakery promises and slaps his grandma?” Beth asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Do I have to spell it out for you?” Beth asked, rolling her eyes.

  “You have to spell it out for me,” Mallory said. “I think you’re connecting dots that aren’t even there.”

&nbs
p; Our food arrived and we began to devour it.

  “Okay, let me explain it to you this way...” She picked up the pepper shaker and peppered her fries. “Charlie had access to the building through his granny, so that also meant he could’ve had access to Misty, because you said Mrs. Rudnicki had spare keys to Misty’s place. And, since he knew of you from his granny and he also knew you through Merlot’s, he has a connection to you. Charlie had a connection to everyone,” Beth proclaimed triumphantly.

  “But does all that make him a killer?” Mallory asked.

  “No,” I said. “Where’s the motive?”

  “You’ve already said he’s a bottom-feeding sludge hound, who loved to grope and grab,” Beth pointed out. “There’s a good chance he would’ve groped Misty. Maybe she turned him down and he killed her.”

  I blinked at Beth in surprise, because it all made perfect sense. Suddenly I’d lost my appetite.

  Chapter Twelve

  Pushing my half eaten burger aside, I downed the rest of my beer and ordered another round for all of us.

  “You’ve forgotten one important element in your little display,” I told Beth. “Where’s my dad in all this? You’ve left my dad out of the equation and we all know he’s the number one suspect. Or maybe I’m number one now that the knife showed up with my laptop. Either way, he’s a real suspect. As much as I would truly love to throw all this on Charlie, you have to solve how Misty ended up with a lost dog flyer on her face after I’d already seen her body without one.”

  “Charlie could’ve seen you get the flyers from your dad. He might even have gotten one off your dad himself. He works in the area, right? So he brought the flyer with him when he goes to visit Misty thinking the flyer would be an icebreaker. After all he has something from her dad, right?”

  “Why is he visiting Misty?” I asked.

  “Maybe he had a thing for her,” Mallory suggested.

  “That’s possible,” I admitted. “Every guy I’ve ever known had a thing for Misty.”

  “I admit Charlie isn’t the perfect answer, but I don’t think your dad is either.” She sat back in her chair. “Just because a flyer showed up on her doesn’t mean he was there or that he killed her. I feel like it’s more likely that a known creep like Charlie put that flyer there specifically to frame you or your dad.”

  I thought about that. Charlie could’ve known about the flyers if he’d been delivering bakery stuff when Dad decorated the wall in the alley. Maybe he even saw Dad do it. And he could’ve known who Dad was from either Misty or his granny. It was making sense, and I felt a great relief that it could even be a probable solution. Taking a pull on my beer, I nodded.

  “Maybe you’ve got something here.”

  Beth smiled.

  “Maybe you could get Fred to check out Charlie,” Mallory suggested.

  I duly texted Fred our request to check out Charlie and our suspicions that he might be involved.

  Fred replied that he still hadn’t gotten around to checking out Kiki and that if we kept throwing new people at him he was going to start charging us.

  It felt good to focus on someone else besides Dad, but we still had hooker work to accomplish.

  “We should still check out Kiki at Lenora Street and Fifth Avenue.”

  Everyone was in agreement, but we—Beth and I—needed one more beer for courage. Mallory had a cup of coffee to keep her awake.

  Soon we were bombing around in Beth’s sedan. Beth was riding shotgun and I was in the back, although Beth did a pretty good job of sounding like she was the one in the back seat.

  “Do you have to drive so close to the curb?” she demanded. “Jesus, don’t slam on the brakes like that!”

  By the time we reached Fifth and Lenora, Mallory was so rattled she drove into the nearest parking lot and put the car in park.

  “I thought we were going to drive around until we saw a hooker and then ask her if her name was Kiki,” I said.

  “Beth’s making me crazy,” Mallory said. “If I keep driving with her criticizing from the passenger seat, I’m going to hit a pole.”

  “Well, if you’d drive more carefully then I wouldn’t have to—” Beth started.

  Mallory jumped out of the car obviously miffed by Beth’s criticism. Beth and I climbed out and looked around.

  “Actually, this might be the perfect place to start,” I said.

  We were in the parking lot of Kings Value Motel. It had a neon crown that hung precariously and it looked like a place that most likely charged guests by the hour.

  “Let’s go inside and ask the desk clerk if he knows anyone by the name of Kiki.”

  The Tremendous Trio marched inside the motel and waited for a multi-pierced young man to tear his eyes away from his TV show and come serve us.

  “Yeah?” he asked snapping a wad of gum.

  “We’re wondering if there’s somebody named Kiki staying here,” I asked.

  He carefully looked each of us over and snapped his gum again.

  “Maybe.”

  “Well, could you check?” Beth asked.

  “Nope. Sometimes she’s here and sometimes she’s not. I’m not in charge of Kiki.”

  “Oh. Well, maybe you can tell us which room she’s in and we can see if she’s available?”

  “I can’t be giving out room numbers. At least not without some kind of motivation.” He made gruesome sucking noises and pointed at his crotch.

  Beth reached across the counter and grabbed him by the throat.

  “Where. Is. Kiki?” she demanded.

  “Try McNally’s Pub across the street,” he gasped.

  Beth let go and he fell backward.

  “You’re dangerous when you’re pissed.” I was impressed.

  “I could tell that about her just the way she was yelling at me in the car,” Mallory grumbled as we crossed Lenora toward the pub.

  Beside the word “dive” in the dictionary there should be a photo of McNally’s Pub. Dimly-lit bulbs hung from the ceiling and seating was four or six hard back chairs around each cheap veneer table littered with empty glasses and bottles. The bar was long and there were a half dozen vinyl booths in the back, but I had the feeling we should stay near the door. A couple sucking face in the corner vacated a table for four and we took their seats.

  “This place is disgusting,” Mallory hissed. “Try not to touch anything except yourself.”

  She tugged a bottle of hand sanitizer from her purse, squirted a blob in the center of her palms and rubbed them together. She held out the bottle to me and I snatched it from her outstretched hand and squeezed a four-inch blob on the table, then used a handful of tissues from my purse to wipe down the entire thing.

  “Better.” Beth nodded.

  A bored-looking middle aged woman with massive boobs falling out of a purple scoopneck approached our table. She eyed us skeptically.

  “What’s up?” Beth asked.

  The waitress frowned.

  “We’ll have two Buds and a Coke,” I said.

  When the waitress returned, I handed her some bills to cover our drinks and then slipped her an extra ten dollars.

  “We’re looking for a lady named Kiki,” I said.

  The woman straightened up and tucked the bill into her bra.

  “I know a Kiki, but she ain’t no lady.”

  “Do you know where we could find her?” Beth asked.

  “Well, sometimes she come here and sometimes she don’t, but today she do.” She laughed and shook her head at a joke only she understood, then hooked her thumb in direction of the booths at the back of the bar. “She’s busy with somebody now, but I’ll tell her you wants to see her.”

  “Thanks.”

  After the waitress was gone, I craned my neck to see d
own the other end of premises, but it was too dark to make out anything other than shadowy shapes.

  We sat there a few minutes sucking our beers. Well, Beth and I sucked back beer and Mallory stared into her glass of Coke trying to decide if it was toxic waste or not.

  “I gotta pee,” I announced.

  Mallory reached a hand across the table and clamped it on my wrist.

  “You can’t use the bathroom in here!” Mallory hissed. “You’ll end up with every disease known to man and a few known only to women.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “I’m not really going to pee. I’m going to walk down that hall and check out who’s sitting over there and I’ll dip into the washroom, wash my hands and come back.”

  “You need company?” Beth asked.

  “Don’t leave me,” Mallory whispered.

  Just as I went to stand up, a group emerged from the dingy back area and walked to the front. A lanky woman well over six feet wearing a poison green miniskirt and matching tank top paused at the bar on her way out. The waitress said something to her and she tilted her head quizzically at us.

  A few long strides and the tall woman was at our table. An inch of foundation did little to hide the fact that she’d had a recent run-in with someone’s fists, causing a massive shiner.

  “I’m Kiki,” she said with her hands on her hips. “How can I help you ladies?”

  “Y-you can’t!” Mallory blurted. “We don’t need any help. We’re fine. Okay even.”

  “Don’t mind her. She’s not well,” I said. “Do you know a homeless guy by the name of Jack Hamby?”

  “No. I don’t think so.” She frowned. “But then I see a lot of homeless dudes around here. Describe him.”

  “White. With dark, longish hair with a lot of gray. He’s fifty, but looks older, wears a denim jacket and blue jeans.”