Chapter 1
Neil Haversack came to see me in my cell just two hours after I was arrested for murder.
It was after ten on Friday night, and Neil was not in one of his
better moods. I couldn't blame him. Neil didn't like being hauled back to the Police Station just
hours after he'd finished up a hectic work week dealing with surly cops and arrogant
individuals in suits wanting him to do his job their way. Neil enjoyed spending
his Friday nights at home in front of his widescreen, his feet propped up, a
bottle of beer in his lap.
And he certainly didn't appreciate being
called back in just an hour or so after he'd had his dinner and had just
cracked open his second beer.
I hadn't seen my dead buddy Mike most of
the evening. Luckily, she hadn't appeared in the cell
with me. If she had, I wouldn't have been able to talk
to her. The small black box fastened just above the door to my cell provided
clear proof that I was being monitored. If anyone saw
me talking to someone who wasn't there, they would
have transferred me to Psych, shaved my head, clipped off my nails and put me
on a diet of stewed prunes. I wouldn't have minded the
nail clipping, but I liked how my hair looked and hadn't experienced a craving
for stewed prunes since I was a toddler.
"Why the hell am I here, Deacon?" Neil barked at me the moment the
guard opened the cell door.
Neil looked like someone who had been interrupted
in the middle of his favorite part of the weekend. He was wearing a loose-fitting
gray sweatshirt with the number 24 on the front, frayed jeans and beat-up
tennies-his bumming-around-the-house outfit-and his eyes were bloodshot. He
stood stiffly, his hands on his hips, glaring as the sheepish-looking
cop slammed the cell door shut and spun around quickly to watch the other end
of the corridor and appear as invisible as possible.
"I called you," I told him.
He shook his head and glared. "You know what I mean, dammit."
I knew right then that being a smartass right now wasn't
going to get me anywhere. If anything, it would probably earn
me more jail time, so I told myself to cool it. I knew I was in hot water, so I
figured this would be a dandy time to try out my people skills. Neil wasn't the perfect guy to try people skills on, but if I
could manage it with him, it would most likely work on just about everyone else.
"They let me make one call, so I called you."
"Dammit, Deacon, you were supposed to call-"
"I know. I just figured I'd try you first."
"Why?"
I shrugged. "We're buds, ain't we?"
"Tonight? I ain't so sure."
"We go way back, Neil..." I hoped that would cut some
of the edge off his anger.
It must have. He sighed. "Just put a lid on the bullshit and tell me
what happened." He shuffled over and collapsed on the hard cot beside me. "It's
been a long night, a helluva long week, and I'm damn tired."
"I know. I'm going through the same thing."
He rubbed his eyes and yawned. Then he shook himself. "Is it true
that you've been brought in for murder?"
"That's what they told me."
"They told me out there it was pretty bad."
"It was awful."
He sighed and rubbed his eyes again. Then he shrugged. "All right,
then. Let's have it."
"Right now?"
He lowered his head and stared at the concrete floor for a few minutes. "No, Deacon. Let me get some
shuteye here first. This cot looks a helluva lot more comfortable than the
four-thousand-dollar job I just bought for the house. Then I'll have the
Station manicurist come in so she can do our nails. Once she's through, you can tell me
tomorrow afternoon. Better?"
"Seriously? You've got a manicurist here?"
"Dammit, Deacon..."
I knew right then that I was going to have to work a little harder
on keeping my smartass down to lower simmer. It's really hard, though-especially when someone hands you
so many possible zingers. People skills. I had to remind myself. "All right, I'll knock it off and get serious. It'll
be tough, but..." I shrugged.
"Neither of us is getting any younger..."
"All right, then. Here's my story..."
Chapter 2
I'd had a rough week
myself.
It probably wasn't nearly as bad as Neil's,
but for me, it was still bad-but for a totally different reason.
The reason, of course, was that it had been a series of five long,
boring days. I didn't mind the long part. Hell, I'd had a bunch of those over the years. All private
detectives go through periods where the jobs just don't
come in, sometimes for weeks at a time.
However, being bored was what usually put the kink in my colon.
Boring, to an energetic private eye like myself, was the kiss of death, and
often led to burnout and career change.
I'd had just two
clients-which made me a little nervous about how I was going to come up with my
next monthly rent check. Two middle-aged sisters had come into the office Monday
morning, asking me to check out the whereabouts of some
long-lost uncle who owed them money.
The case took me about four hours.
I warmed up my chair the rest of the week, took several short naps,
drank coffee, tossed two or three hundred darts at the dartboard I'd bought a few months earlier, and watched the Orange
Avenue traffic zip by my office window. My dead buddy
Mike, bless her, broke the monotony a few times by materializing on my desk and
entertaining me with her dry wit and impish moods.
Other than that? Four solid days of nauseating boredom had plagued
me, making me wonder why I hadn't chosen a more exciting
career, such as plumbing or garbage collection.
By five-thirty on Friday, I needed release from my suffocating
cocoon of inactivity. I decided to drive over to Sheffield's on East Colonial,
listen to some quality sounds, have a couple of drinks, and treat myself to a
steak dinner at one of several restaurants just a few doors down.
Like most bars in the Central Florida area, Sheffield's hadn't been around very long. The business before it had
been one of those fast-food eateries that pops up overnight, enjoys a great
crowd for a few months, then folds when management discovers that the teens they'd brought in to run it had no sense of responsibility and,
like so many of their peers, devoted more time to their cell phones and iPads than
to their actual jobs.
Sheffield's catered to the older crowd, although many
in the 25-35 age range frequently came in for their excellent club sandwiches. The
place played all sorts of jazz and the sixties stuff I loved so much, rather
than the mindless atonal rap crap with its jungle beat
and vulgar street-barking that had turned the music business upside-down decades
earlier.
Sheffield's owners apparently grew up listening
to the Beach Boys, The Beatles, The Stones, Blood, Sweat & Tears, Chicago, Three
Dog Night, and all those other classic rock groups popping up from the Woodstock
era. My cup of tea, of course, but I knew better than let myself get too close.
Having lived in Florida most of my life, I knew that once I let my guard down
and made this place my regular haunt, Sheffield's would close
up shop and morph overnight into another Beefy Broiler Bonanza, or
Crispy Fries R Us.
At five-thirty, I left the office. At five-forty-five, I stepped
into Sheffield's and, not expecting anything special or extraordinary to happen
after nearly a solid week of excruciating boredom,
chose a stool in the middle of the bar.
Then, as I nonchalantly scanned the darkly lit place, I saw her.
A blond goddess sitting about eight stools down, at the far end of
the bar.
Like most men, my first instinct was to get her attention subtly,
using my drop-dead good looks and devil-may-care attitude. Since there were
other guys in the room and since I wasn't sure if any
of them had tried the same thing before I came in, I figured the drop-dead good
looks thing might not work. Besides, since I was now over forty, I wasn't totally sure how good-looking I was and didn't want
to run the risk of having my ego bruised.
I was, however, pretty sure the
devil-may-care attitude might work a little better. Babes seemed
to prefer guys who didn't get worked up over a beautiful face and figure.
They also seemed to respect a man possessing more than the average amount of
self-control. From what I'd also observed, they didn't
think too much of someone who drooled and went all sorts of clumsy. In my own
personal unwritten book of sexual conquests, I'd had
much better luck when I gave the impression that I didn't care if I got laid or
not.
Sheffield's bar lady, a good-looking redhead about fifty years old,
came over and asked what I wanted. She was tall, about five-nine, with small
boobs and a tiny waist. After I gave her my order, she said, "Any requests?"
The speakers were doing one of Chicago's earliest LP's. I saw no
reason to interrupt the flow.
"No, thanks. Chicago's always been good enough for me."
When she came back with my drink, I said, "Do you always ask all
your customers for requests?"
She smiled. "Just the ones who really appreciate what we play."
"Am I that obvious?"
"Well, we've seen you in here several times,
and you always seem to enjoy what comes out of the juke, so..." She shrugged and
wandered off.
I sipped my drink and hoped that her version of obvious wouldn't pop my devil-may-care bubble. I figured that since we
were talking about my taste in music and not women, I was pretty
safe. Besides, the goddess wasn't watching at
the moment, so I breathed a little easier.
I sipped more of my drink. Just as I set down my glass, I saw that my
goddess was getting up to leave.
It just figured. I'd planned to down at
least one drink before deciding what to do about my approach. I realized that
in this scenario, dragging my feet wouldn't get me
very far. As far as I could see, she was the only babe sitting alone in the room.
And with more than a dozen guys sitting at tables, that narrowed down the
playing field considerably. It also narrowed down my
decision-making time.
However, I soon realized that none of that mattered. Right after she
slid off her stool and picked up her clutch, she walked right over to where I
was sitting. And stopped.
"Hi." It was a soft, low-pitched voice, and I heard it the same
moment I smelled her strong ginger scent lightly brushing the air around my
face.
She was just a couple of feet away, smiling timidly. She was even more
beautiful up close-her eyes large and deep blue, with long, thick lashes. Her cheekbones
were swelled, her lips full and pouty. She looked like the poster girl for Passion.com,
but something in her eyes told me all was not fun and games in her world. She
trembled a little, and her frequent side glances at the front door told me she might
be frightened.
She wore a sleeveless turquoise V-necked blouse, black slacks, and
open-toed black pumps. I couldn't see the heels beneath the slacks, but whatever
height they were made her about five-eleven. A
glittering silver necklace adorned her swanlike neck. She wore a silver
bracelet on each slender wrist, a gold watch and two sparkling silver rings on
each hand. Her thick golden hair was brushed back and
hung loose, with long tendrils dangling near her cheeks. It had obviously cost
her a bundle to get her hair looking that way. In my humble
opinion, it was worth every penny.
Like all guys with healthy, active hormones, I wondered how she
looked naked. I realized how sexist that sounded but I just couldn't
help it. This woman had everything a man could ask for-flawless looks, slimness,
lots of hair, extremely long legs, a soft, low voice...
She even smelled good. Despite my urge to cling to the devil-may-care
attitude, I quickly found that, for me, the most difficult
thing right now was to keep my drooling down to the bare minimum.
She obviously belonged to someone with money. What I couldn't figure out was why she was sitting over there all alone.
Nor could I decide why in heaven's name she'd just
approached me.
I got up from my stool and struggled not to act like an idiot. Believe
me, this was much harder than it sounded. As much as I wanted to act dignified and
reserved, I found that this woman was making me feel
just as awkward and as stupid as I'd felt in high school when I'd found myself
in the same room as the Homecoming Queen.
"Can I help you?" I was surprised that my voice actually
worked. I was also surprised that I wasn't drooling.
"I...don't know how to ask you this..." She lowered her head and stared
at the floor. I expected her to put her palms together and pray but realized
how stupid that sounded.
A moment later, I followed suit, gazing stupidly at her painted toenails
before snapping out of it and shifting my attention to the floor. It was
ceramic tile, copper in color. Although the squares were all different, it was hard
to notice that in the dim bar lighting. But no one went to a bar that was
well-lit, and certainly no one went to a bar to examine the floor.
If Mike had been here, she would have told me that I was staring at
the floor and looked ridiculous.
I imagined that I did indeed look ridiculous, as well as stupid. This
was all it took to snap me out of it. I straightened. Then I wrenched myself out
of my sex fantasy and decided to find out exactly what this lady wanted. "Just
ask away," I told her.
Those big blue eyes began searching mine. "I was just wondering.
Could you...I mean, would you mind very much if...if you went outside with me and walked
me to my car?"
It sounded like an innocent request, but in my line of work, nothing
that sounds innocent actually is. "I wouldn't mind at all. Might I ask why?"
She took a breath. Her voice was very soft,
almost inaudible over the classic Chicago number, "Make Me Smile," thumping through the wall speakers when she said, "Someone's
following me."