Читать книгу Getting Off On Frank Sinatra - Megan Edwards - Страница 16

After stopping by the Max to grab my gym bag and backpack, I headed up the stairs to my apartment over the garage. The interior was not only as hot as a toaster oven, it was stuffy. Because the outside temperature had finally dipped below 90, I bypassed the old air conditioner and opened the window over my bed. A breeze that was almost cool instantly freshened the whole room. I kicked off my sandals, sat down on the bed, and sighed. Here I was, back in my old apartment as though nothing at all had happened in the last forty-eight hours. The calm before the storm, I couldn’t help thinking. What would happen when everybody found out that I—not Sean—was the one who had discovered Marilyn’s body? It didn’t seem possible that it would stay a secret forever, and—did I even want it to?

I stretched out with my clothes still on. I was certain I’d never fall asleep, having just lived through one of the most shocking days of my life. My mind whirled as I stared at the ceiling. Who would want to kill a person as generous and lovely as Marilyn Weaver? There had to be some dark secrets under that sweet philanthropic façade.

God, I wished I could talk the whole nightmare over with David. My brother’s offer of counseling was thoughtful, but what I really longed for was the comfort of David’s bear-like embrace while we analyzed everything.

Too bad, Copper. You’re on your own now, a star player in a celebrity murder investigation.

Damn. Yesterday, writing about kids at the Parks Academy had seemed like a big journalistic break. But now—with a dead body in the picture—

Shut up, Copper! Marilyn Weaver is still on a morgue table, and here you are thinking about how her death might catapult you to fame.

The self-admonishment didn’t do any good. As I lay there, phantom footage rolled in my head.

“Our guest tonight is Copper Black, the investigative journalist who solved the murder of Las Vegas philanthropist Marilyn Weaver. Her best-selling book … ”

The camera panned over the audience. There, in the front row …

Daniel! Oh, my God! He’d be here in less than two days.

Seeing Daniel again would be challenging enough without throwing a murder into the mix. When he and I last parted right before New Year’s, we’d just had the huge fight that dealt our relationship a mortal blow. I’d been investigating a story I hoped would get me taken seriously as a journalist. It involved prostitutes and a family in distress, but he thought I was just being nosy. He couldn’t—or wouldn’t—understand that it’s a reporter’s job to find things out, even when it means a little invasion of privacy. He steadfastly refused to acknowledge that I have a professional obligation to poke into other people’s lives.

And now you’re invading their closets! I could almost hear Daniel say it. I really didn’t have a good excuse for snooping in Marilyn’s bedroom. I couldn’t claim I was working on a story. Nothing more than plain old curiosity had led me to her body.

I sighed. If Daniel can’t accept me for what I am, I told myself, he can just get back in his car and keep driving to Berkeley. We aren’t a couple anymore, even if we have never formally broken up.

That thought made David pop into my head again. We aren’t a couple anymore, either, even though, once again, our relationship has not been formally terminated. God! That’s weird! What am I? Some sort of crazy person who can’t say good-bye?

My mind kept spinning. I’ll never sleep, I thought. Never, never, never …

And then it was morning.

A cat was curled up next to me, and a slight breeze was blowing in the window. Sekhmet stretched and yawned along with me, and she showed no sign of wanting to leave after I got up.

“Nothing to eat here, my darling,” I said, stroking her. “We both need Sierra for that.” I showered quickly, threw on my clothes, and headed into the vicarage. With work and moving day ahead of me, I didn’t want to miss Sierra’s pain perdu.

Nicky was bawling at the top of his lungs from his high chair next to the kitchen table when Sekhmet and I walked through the back door. He stopped mid-wail when he saw me.

“Copper! Copper! Copper!” he cried, dropping a spoon and holding his arms out. I crossed the room and hugged him. He was even better than a cat for making me feel wanted.

“You’re truly amazing,” Sierra said. She was slicing strawberries next to the sink. “He’s been trying to convince me to let him play with a steak knife for the last fifteen minutes, and nothing I could think of would distract him. Then you walk in, and—”

“More fun than a steak knife,” I said, ruffling his hair. “I’m flattered, Nick!”

Sierra brought him some strawberries. “There’s coffee,” she said. “Oh, and the newspaper. Your story’s on the front page. Michael only made the local section.”

I was still looking at the file photo of Marilyn Weaver, looking considerably younger than when I met her at the Boneyard, when Michael walked into the room. He was dressed for ministerial activity, but his hair was still damp.

“Hi, Copper,” he said. “I never did find Curtis last night.”

“Copper! Copper!” Nicky yelled. I lifted him out of his high chair and sat down at the table with him in my lap.

“Sean wasn’t arrested. I did learn that much.”

“That’s good news, at least,” I said, although it reminded me that I still had some investigating to do. I didn’t know much about Sean, other than what he had told me himself. He seemed fine, but what if he wasn’t what he appeared to be?

“The situation with Curtis is a little more complicated,” Michael continued. “The police were still searching for him when I left the station last night. I’m going to do a little looking of my own later on.”

“I hope you talk to the shaman dude first,” Sierra said as she set the table.

“Shaman dude?” I said.

“Front page, section B,” Michael said, lifting a squirming Nicky off my lap. “A Paiute medicine man is claiming the bones we found are from an Indian burial ground. He’s gearing up to hold a ceremony of some sort this weekend, and he could generate some serious media interest.”

“Give him his fifteen minutes,” Sierra said, “Maybe it’ll blow over.”

“We can hope,” Michael said. Nicky tugged at Michael’s collar. “Word is that Willie Morningthunder is coming.”

“Who’s Willie Morningthunder?” I asked. The name seemed vaguely familiar.

“A Lakota chief from South Dakota,” Michael said, “and former congressman.”

“That does put a different spin on things,” Sierra said.

Michael sighed. “I’m bracing myself for a very long weekend.”

“Speaking of which, you want to have dinner here tomorrow night, Copper?” Sierra asked. “Hans and Dustin are coming over. Dustin’s making crêpes suzette, and I’ll try to hold my end up with coq au vin.”

Oooh. Scratch the thought of a party at the Nash house.

Hans and Dustin are my favorite neighbors, a gay couple who bought a wedding chapel in downtown Las Vegas as a retirement project. Dustin used to be a pastry chef at the Tropicana.

“Daniel’s arriving tomorrow afternoon,” I said, which prompted Sierra to drop a spatula. She recovered quickly.

“Daniel? You can bring him along, but I thought you two had—”

“Yeah, we did,” I said. “He’s on his way to graduate school in Berkeley. I told him he could crash at the Nash place for a night or two.”

“Are you sure you really want to move into that creepy house?”

“It’s not that bad,” Michael said. “Curtis says it’s ‘architecturally significant.’”

Sierra shrugged. “It’s significant, all right, but it has nothing to do with architecture.”

Once again, I wondered what I was getting myself into, but the thought shrank to nothing when I compared it to all the other things I could allow inside my brain. Speculating about the Nash house was a whole lot more enjoyable than letting my thoughts drift to a dead body at the end of a tasseled drapery cord.

“I’m excited about it,” I said, “I think it’s going to be fun.”

Which was more than I could say about the prospect of going to work. Had my coworkers learned that it was one of their own who had found Marilyn’s body? All the news I had heard and read suggested they wouldn’t have, but there was only one way to find out for sure. I thanked Sierra, promised Nicky I’d be back soon to play pirates, and headed back upstairs to prepare myself for the gauntlet that might await me at The Light. If I hurried, I would have time to pack some basics to take with me to the Nash house.

Figuring I could cram all my toiletries into my gym bag, I unzipped it and pulled out my beach towel. As it unfurled, a hairbrush clattered to the floor.

But that wasn’t all.

Bending down, I picked up a tiny bottle of Shalimar perfume. Next to it lay a small tube of something called Next Generation Wrinkle Eraser.

Damn!

They had to be Marilyn’s. I must have grabbed them by accident when I cleared my stuff off her countertop. And I’d inadvertently carried off three more objects, too, I realized as I dumped out the rest of my gym bag’s contents.

A lipstick, a packet of tissues, and a slim black case.

I picked the case up and snapped it open. A pair of expensive-looking aviator sunglasses lay folded inside. I snapped the case shut, and that’s when I noticed the initials “CW” engraved into a small gold oval stuck to the top.

Holy crap.

In addition to everything else, I’d managed to steal Curtis’s sunglasses. I thought back to those surreal moments right after I found Marilyn’s body. I must have been in shock, and I’d definitely been in a hurry.

And now—double crap!—I should probably call Detective Booth. I’d sworn to him that I hadn’t touched or moved anything, and I hadn’t changed my story when Booth told me a cop needed to check my car. That was when I realized I should have mentioned that I’d had my bags with me when I was in Marilyn’s bathroom, but the last thing I wanted to do was to give Booth reason to think I was less than truthful. He might have kept me stuck to that sofa all night, and the only important thing was that I was innocent. That’s all the cops needed to know.

But now …

I looked at the small pile of objects I’d unintentionally lifted from the crime scene. What if they held clues to the killer’s identity? I didn’t see how a bottle of Shalimar could help, and Curtis’s sunglasses were hardly a smoking gun. It was his bathroom, too, after all.

Opening the case again, I removed the glasses and unfolded the temples. Super-strong prescription, I noticed as I peered through the lenses. Especially the right lens. With a sigh, I put them back in the case and closed it. Curtis will definitely wonder what happened to them, I thought. Maybe I could find a way to return them.

But not right now, I told myself. I’ve got too many other things to think about.

Oh, my God, like getting to work before it got any later.

Grabbing only my backpack, I left everything else in a pile on the floor and motored off to The Light.