One Deadly Sister (Sandy Reid Mystery Series #1) (3 page)

He realized his fantasies might be getting ahead of him. Could this be one of those “be careful what you wish for” deals? Why else the troubled voice? Likely, she wanted something else from him, wanted him to do something expensive or stupid, maybe both. The least he could do, he decided, was to show up and see what she wanted. Wouldn’t most people say, don’t ask too many questions just go?

At the motel, he found her in a poolside setting lifted straight off a Florida postcard: a lounge chair by a palm tree, a green bikini, sunglasses and a floppy straw hat. She even had the requisite one-knee-drawn-up pose.

She didn’t look bad. The unforgiving bikini provided no place to hide physical flaws but presented no problem for her body. The bikini top was crowded yet borderline respectable. The scanty bottom, however, belonged on some topless rollerblader down at South Beach.

Loraine had put it all there to be looked at.

The pool area, circled by the small three-story motel, wasn’t crowded. November was warm though still too early for many snowbirds. A young mother waded with her three children at the far end. Across the pool, two women sat on the edge talking and dangling their feet in the water. A balding, overweight man had strategically located himself in the center of the pool in line with Loraine’s legs and enjoyed what he considered his good luck. A bikini can unlock a lot of imagination. She noticed but ignored the sneaky peeks.

After greetings, Ray sat on the edge of a lounge chair facing her. Up close for the first time in daylight, he noticed the lines across her forehead. Her nose seemed more pointed. And she was even older than he had supposed at the party. He chalked it up to the wine then and the bright Florida sun now. She had tied her red hair back. Oversized sunglasses hid those unflinching pale green eyes.

He felt this calm poolside scene didn’t match her frantic phone call. “What’s this all about, Loraine?”

“I enjoyed last week at your place. I’m glad we hooked up.”

“Yes, it was fun. I never expected a follow-up call.” He started to relax, must have overreacted. How bad could the situation be? She was there lounging about poolside as carefree as a puppy. “You sounded as though you needed help. You didn’t mention this poolside event and the green bikini.”

“Chartreuse.”

“Really skimpy isn’t it?”

“Yes, glad you like it.” She moved her sunglasses down on her nose and looked over at him. “First time I’ve worn it. It’s a thong in the back. Here...I’ll show you.”

“No! Stay still. Don’t move anything.” So much skin made him uncomfortable. He glanced around quickly to see who else was taking an interest. A young man with a towel around his neck appeared, from somewhere and sat innocently a few chairs away. Ray guessed soon another man and then another, would show up to enjoy a look at the pool. He began to think he had given her too much credit for being clever.

“Can’t wait to go to the beach,” she said as though reading his mind and confirming his judgment.

She seemed completely cool now, not agitated as on the phone. He tried again to get her on track. “Your phone call, what’s up?”

She was quiet for a moment then, “I do need your help. Maybe I’m in trouble.”

“Okay. Before you start a public disturbance, can we end the show here and talk in your room?”

“Well, just let me tell you. Ah—.” She appeared serious now. She sat up and arranged her beige see-through beach shirt around her shoulders. Then blurted out, “My best friend was raped.”

“My God! That’s what this is about?”

“Happened in her apartment, night before last.”

“They catch the guy?”

“Oh, we know who did it, Sonny Barner, her boyfriend. Her bastard boyfriend.”

“Date-rape? How is she?”

“Beat the hell out of her, blackened one eye. I told her to call the police. She was shaking. Kept mumbling about maybe it was her fault, maybe she teased him. All that cliché crap. The next day she was still hurting, still curled up.”

“Rape by a boyfriend tough to prove, he-said she-said. Is she going to let him get away with it?”

“The next day she decided to call the cops.” She shrugged. “But by then it was too late.”

“Why?”

“Because I had already shot him.”

R
ay scanned the circle of windows that looked down on the pool, certain the entire town was watching and had heard what she said. At first, he could only stare, giving her a look a father would give a child. He grabbed her arm. “To your room, now...fast!” She led the way up the steps to her second floor room.

The motel room was dimly lit, heavy drapes drawn. She blocked his hand, when he reached for the light switch. “Don’t spoil the mood.” She tossed her sunglasses on the nightstand, kicked off her sandals, let her hair fall loose and got onto the bed. She adjusted the bikini and leaned back casually against a mound of pillows. “I liked your dimly lighted bedroom when we made love at your place last weekend.”

“I didn’t have a lamp.” He leaned against the desk, away from the bed. That was as close as he dared. Was she wild enough to kill a second man? “Now call the police!”

“Don’t shout. I’m sorry now I killed him, but it’s not as if anyone knows I did it. Nobody even knows I was there.”

“Well everyone knows I was here. You had us down there chitchatting about your bikini. Call them now.” In a high-pitched voice he said, “Yes, Officer, that’s the man who was sitting by the pool with the bikini murderer.”

“No! I don’t want to get involved.”

“A bit late for that, Loraine.”

“What I meant was they don’t
know
I’m involved.”

“Did you give a second thought to getting
me
involved? I can’t believe this. Of course, they’re going to catch you. You didn’t kill a stranger, you knew this person. You’d be a suspect in any case. Just as I’m now a suspect because I know you. Know you? Hell, I slept with you.” He thought about that for a second, then said, “I slept with a murderer.”

“Do you have to use that word? Well, what do you want?”

“I want the clock turned back. I haven't been here, you haven't seen me, nobody has seen me, and I haven’t been out of my apartment all morning.” He wanted to shake her by the shoulders. “And I want you to put on some clothes.”

“In a minute, I’m still a little warm.”

“So, what happened?”

“Well, Tammy Jerrold is my girlfriend and Sonny Barner is one of her men friends. She’s
popular,
if you get my drift. When I went to Tammy’s place, Norma Martin was already there. Norma’s her best friend, after me of course. We saw Tammy and felt so sad for her. You should have seen her. Norma told her to let it go. She and Tammy are truly a pair, shuffling men back and forth. However, I couldn’t stand it. Men shouldn’t do that. I was mad.”

“You went after him.”

“I got his address and went to his house to tell him off. I figured it’s the least he had coming. Didn’t want him to get away with it by claiming she agreed or something, you know. Well, he got mad at me. Can you believe it? The rapist or whatever you call him, gets mad at
me
. He told me to get the hell out of there. We started arguing. When I didn’t leave he got his gun out.”

“You stood there. He pointed a gun at you?”

“Guns don’t bother me, grew up with them. You should have seen the expression on his face, when I just grabbed the damn thing. The bastard was shot with his own gun. Now that’s some sort of poetic something.”

A wild story, nevertheless it described self-defense. Ray felt slightly better.

“I know all about guns. My daddy had guns.” She pointed to a small box resting on top of an overnight bag against the wall. “That one’s about as small and light a .38 you’re going to find. Feels good to a woman. Don’t bother with peashooters, that’s what daddy called .22s, not enough smack. Take a look.” She pointed to the glossy cigar-box-size carton sitting in plain sight.

Ray was startled. “The gun’s in there?”

“No, no, that’s a different gun, that’s my gun. Bought it yesterday. Was going to use it to shoot him but got scared. As it turned out, I didn’t need to buy it after all.”

Ray turned on the desk lamp and carefully picked up the new gun box by the corners. On the top was a multi-color picture of a small revolver nestled in the folds of an American flag. Printed across were the words Ladysmith Special. Cautiously he opened the box, handling it by the edges. Inside he saw a small revolver, only about six inches long, wrapped in plastic and resting in Styrofoam. It appeared the gun hadn’t been fired, never even unpacked.

“You say this gun has nothing to do with the shooting. Where’s the actual murder weapon...as they say?”

“Guess it’s still there, beside Barner. Should we go get it?”

“What’s this ‘we’ stuff? Why did you bring that new gun with you here?”

“Would look funny if they found it at my place, I’d have to explain.”

“The police could be swarming your place right now.”

“Don’t need it now. Maybe I’ll take it back to the store for a refund. What do you think?”

“You shouldn’t go anywhere near that store ever again.” He realized the police would construe any advice he gives her as conspiracy.

“What should I do with it?”

“Get rid of it, I don’t know how. It screams out premeditation.” He thought throwing it off a bridge would be smart. He didn’t say that aloud, didn’t want her to repeat those words to the police.

“You could get rid of it for me.”

“No thanks, I never saw this gun.” He gave the box a symbolic push away with his fingertips. “Why did you phone me? You got me involved in this mess by calling me here and confessing a murder. Now I need help too. What am I supposed to do?”

“I don’t know, I thought we fit pretty well after the party. You seemed to like me.”

“So, you called me over for old times’ sake to see if I might want to get involved in a murder?”

“Well, can’t you help? Aren’t there certain things you’re supposed to do in these cases?”

“Yes, get a lawyer.”

“Don’t know any lawyers. Tammy sort of knows one. She smashed into a couple of parked cars last year. She gave this lawyer a trade, that’s what she called it, for helping her out. No, I mean don’t we have to do things about the body, the gun, things like that? Should we move him?”

Ray gave her an eye roll. “You’ve really screwed me up. You’re forcing me to call the police.”

That seemed to surprise her. “Hey! That’s not right. Don’t do that. I was in trouble and believed I was calling a friend. I wouldn’t have phoned you, if I thought you were going to turn me in. You’re not involved.”

Ray sat shaking his head. “I now have criminal knowledge of a murder, and I’m helping you...to some extent. That makes me an accessory after the fact.”

“I don’t know about that stuff.”

“Well the police do. Sorry, you’re giving me no choice. As soon as they arrest you, they’ll come after me. No question about it. The only action I can take now is to report it before your arrest, before my name comes up. I have to appear open and cooperative.”

“You don’t like me.” She squirmed on the bed and folded her arms across her chest.

He didn’t think she understood. “You’ve a good case of self-defense. You were angry about the guy raping your girlfriend. Very understandable. You were so infuriated thinking the bastard might get away with it that you went to his place to tell him off. He had to pay for what he had done. He pulls a gun. Luckily, he’s the one that got shot and not you. The defense rests.” Again, he had conspired with her by opening his mouth and giving her a feasible script to run with. He could hear her telling the police,
“But officer, that’s what he told me to say.”
He was getting in deeper.

“What do we do now?”

“What do
we
do? We say goodbye. That’s what we do. I’ve listened to your story, now I’m calling the police to report what you told me. I’ve no choice. There’s not a chance in hell I’m going to avoid police questioning, thanks to you.”

“You’d turn me in? That’s a rotten thing to do.”

“Hello! You got me over here and displayed me to the world. There are a dozen witnesses outside that door ready to testify we met here. If you’d whispered your secret to me out on the street somewhere, I’d have a choice but not now. Don’t you get it?”

“But no one knows I was there. I can get away with it, if you’ll just keep your damn mouth shut.”

“Well, you won’t. Murderers always fail to notice something. For one thing your prints are on the murder weapon.”

“No, don’t think so. I grabbed his hand not the gun.”

“You just told me you grabbed the gun. Which was it, his hand or the gun? You see the police will jump on little things like that. Your DNA is on his body if you struggled. I don’t know. Or they’ll find out you bought a gun. Something. Where did you get his address? Tammy gave it to you, didn’t she?”

“Don’t remember.”