Strip Poker Read online

  A gaggle of teenagers flocked around the table making any further investigating impossible. Raydean, sensing the end, looked over at a particularly wild-eyed boy whose black hair had frosted blond tips frizzed out in a quasi-afro.

  “How ’bout them Nine Inch Nails?” she asked.

  “Smooth,” the boy answered.

  Raydean cocked her head and popped a pimento-cheese finger sandwich into her mouth. “The force be with you,” she whispered, and turned away.

  We left without ever speaking to Rebecca Watley and the children. Raydean stepped out into the sunshine, stripped off her hat, and shook her head to loosen her tightly wound curls.

  “Amen,” she said as we stepped off the porch. “Ain’t nothin’ like a funeral to set the world to rights.” She stopped in her tracks and pointed down the street to the car parked directly behind mine. “Well, lookee here,” she drawled. “You gonna make a lapdog out of that one yet!”

  John Nailor was leaning against the side of my car, scratching Fluffy behind the ears as she hung half out the side passenger window. When he saw me he frowned, like even though he’d found my dog and my car, he still hadn’t expected to see me there.

  He was wearing my very favorite navy-blue suit and a white starched shirt. His tie was a deep red. I knew he’d smell good, just the way I knew he was pissed off at me again. Some things you can just come to count on in a man, and John Nailor was no different. He walked toward us, his eyes dark circles of displeasure.

  “Hat pin,” Raydean whispered to me. “Concealed deadly weapon.”

  I burst out laughing, which certainly didn’t help the situation. “It’s the sunlight,” I said to her. “It’s right in his eyes. That’s why he’s frowning.”

  “In your dreams,” Raydean shot back.

  Nailor stopped three feet away from us and pulled out his notepad. “I’ve got you on assault,” he said to her.

  “You got nothin’ of the kind, honey,” Raydean answered. She spoke to him as if he was a misinformed pupil and she was his slightly irritated teacher. “What you have is a thwarted attack by a homo sapien pervert with alien overtones. Now, I’d report it myself, but since you’re offering, make sure they know the quadrant and vector. They always like to know the precise location.” Raydean turned away and headed back to her own car.

  “Oh,” she said, tossing a last word over her shoulder, “if you’d be so kind as to throw in the longitude, latitude, and exact minutes, they’d probably eat you up with a spoon!”

  And he let her go. I figured he wasn’t going to make a federal case out of Raydean anyway. What, take a sleazy, dope-dealing, stripclub owner’s word against that of a known psychotic elderly maniac? No contest. The jury would go with Raydean every time.

  But Nailor wasn’t thinking about any of that. His attentions were focused on me.

  “Can we talk business a second?” he said.

  I looked around, like maybe he was talking to someone else. “Sure. What’re you doing here?”

  Nailor shrugged. “Nolowicki and I wanted to interview some of the witnesses from the other night and I wanted to see who showed up for the funeral.”

  “Nolowicki’s here?” I asked. “I didn’t see him.”

  “Well, I don’t think he was looking to announce himself. He’s here somewhere.”

  Nailor led me over to my car, his hand warm against the small of my back. I wanted for some foolish reason to turn so he’d be forced to take me into his arms, but I fought the urge and won. This was business. Of course, nothing turned me on like the prospect of business with John Nailor.

  He waited until I leaned against the front fender, side by side with him, before he spoke.

  “About Gambuzzo,” he said.

  “Yeah, what about him?”

  There was a long pause. “Vice wasn’t the only squad investigating him,” he said. “The DEA’s got an informant saying that Vincent’s dealing rock out of the back of the house.”

  I pushed off of the car and jumped in front of Nailor. “Well, I don’t care who said that, it’s not true. I know Gambuzzo. I know the house. He wouldn’t do that. He isn’t doing that.”

  Nailor was watching me, a slight smile crossing his face. “I know,” he said simply.

  “Then why’d you tell me that?”

  Nailor was watching me that way he did when his cop brain was thinking one thing and his man brain was thinking another. He was amused and serious all at once.

  “Just wanted to see what you’d say,” he said. Then he straightened up and looked me right in the eye. “Sierra, maybe you’re accustomed to being the only one doing the thinking in a given situation, but I’m not stupid. In fact, on this one, I’d say I’m a step ahead of you.”

  That griped me. Who was he to tell me I didn’t know what was going on?

  “Sierra, Vincent didn’t kill Denny Watley. That’s my gut feeling. Now, Nolowicki thinks different, but he doesn’t know Gambuzzo. This is just too clean. And frankly, I know Vincent’s a candy ass. As much as he’d like the world to think different, he’s just the son of a used-car dealer trying to make out like he’s tough.”

  I didn’t say a word. What could I say?

  “But my gut instinct isn’t going to spring Gambuzzo. We’ve gotta find out who did kill Watley and we’ve gotta find out without stepping on Detective Nolowicki’s toes and before Carla and her DEA task force come running down here looking to settle a score with you and packs Vincent off on a twenty-to-life vacation in the federal pen.”

  Two things hit me simultaneously: Nailor said we had to find out who killed Denny the Whiner. And Nailor was giving me the heads-up that his ex-wife, the DEA agent, was back in town and loaded for bear, which, by the way, suited me just fine.

  “What do you mean ‘we’ have to find out who killed Denny Watley?” I asked. For now, I was going to ignore the Carla Terrance situation.

  Nailor smiled. “Sierra, I got two ways I can go with you. I can try to work around you, or I can try to work with you. I’m thinking it’s time to try working together on this. After all, you’ve got some contacts who won’t normally talk to me, and I’ve got some information you could use to make those contacts talk to you.” He shrugged, his eyes doing a long careful inventory of my body, then coming back up to look at me. “So, you wanna try it?”

  My stomach flipped over as a horde of butterflies started doing figure eights around my insides. Yeah, I wanted to try it, whatever “it” was.

  “I’ll take it into consideration,” I said.

  “So we’ll discuss it at dinner?”

  I licked my lips and he noticed, smiling slowly and enjoying my discomfort.

  “Yeah, dinner ought to do it.” And by the way, I’m going home for Christmas. Nailor was already standing by the door of his black Crown Victoria, his fingers curled around the door handle.

  “I’ll pick you up at six,” he said, his eyes issuing a challenge.

  I gave it right back to him. “See that you do.”

  After Nailor pulled away from the curb, I turned, spotting the Widow Watley crossing the backyard toward a large freestanding garage. Now was as good a time as any to express my condolences. Maybe she knew her husband’s enemies. Maybe she needed a soft, womanly shoulder to cry on. I slipped across the yard behind her, trying to think of my opening line, trying to picture myself less like a dancer and more like a mother, or a best girlfriend. But I needn’t have bothered. Just as I reached for the door handle, I heard her voice and knew that a sister wasn’t what the Widow Watley was looking for.

  “What are we going to do?” she was saying, her voice soft and muffled. She started to cry.

  “Hey, don’t do that, baby.”

  Wasn’t that just like a man? Don’t let a woman have a good cry, oh no. God forbid we should have feelings.

  I couldn’t see the man, but I could guess who it was. I stooped down and gently pushed the door open a few inches more.

  “Everybody’s going to find out,” B
ecky Watley said.

  “Hush, baby. It’s going to be all right.”

  “No,” she wailed, “it won’t!”

  And that’s when I made my move. I darted up a few inches and looked inside. Becky Watley’s back was to me and she was wrapped in the arms of Turk, the bad dresser. Their attention was entirely focused on each other, so I pushed the door a little wider, slipping into the almost darkened garage and ducking behind two large trash cans.

  “Becky,” Turk said, “it was going to happen sooner or later. I just didn’t think it would happen like this.”

  What? I asked him, silently. What?

  Becky Watley drew back from his shoulder. “You weren’t supposed to let anything happen. Not yet. Not until …”

  Her next words were lost to me. When I moved deeper into the shadows, hoping to get a better view of the couple, I stumbled, stretching my hands out to keep from falling forward onto a sack that lay just in my path. I bit my lips together, hoping not to make a sound as I fell. I hit as quietly as I could, considering that I had just landed on something warm and wet and most definitely human.

  Twelve

  My mouth opened, the scream bubbled up in my throat, but then stopped. I pushed up off the body and bit down on my lower lip as hard as I could. I looked back at the couple standing mere feet away from me and tried very slowly to breathe. The body in front of me was only sleeping. Yeah, I told myself, that’s it. He’s just drunk and passed out. Don’t be an idiot, Sierra. No way is this person dead.

  I reached out and touched the body. It was warm. I breathed a sigh of relief The guy wasn’t dead. He was drunk. The guy was small, dressed in faded jeans and a black leather vest. Next to him was a black leather cap, the kind Frankie and almost every other biker I knew wore. I leaned closer, examining the man. He looked wizened, with wrinkles that hung off his skinny neck like chicken leather, and harsh, wind-roughened lines around his eyes. He smelled of alcohol and vomit. I backed off, trying not to breathe through my mouth.

  “Honey, you can’t do this to yourself,” Turk was saying. “You’ve gotta think about the baby now, our baby. Try not to be upset.”

  Becky Watley was still crying. “I know,” she said, “but what if they find out? What if the girls find out? I can’t let that happen. This has to be kept quiet.”

  I leaned over the body, straining to hear every word.

  “They won’t,” Turk said. “I’ll take care of it. I won’t mess it up this time.”

  I looked down at the body. There was something not quite right about it. And then I realized the guy’s eyes were open, fixed and blue, staring straight up at the ceiling. Drunk men don’t pass out with their eyes open, I told myself But dead guys, now, they do that all the time.

  I began whispering to myself, trying not to scream, not to panic. I reached out again and touched the man’s chest, willing it to rise and fall, hoping to feel his heart beating against my palm. Nothing.

  I was screaming silently, no longer focused on the widow and her lover. I made myself examine the man. His neck seemed a little crooked, like maybe he’d passed out sideways. Only he wasn’t passed out. Nope, this guy was class-A dead, and his neck was broken. And his killer was probably standing ten feet away from me, holding the mother of his unborn child.

  “Stay calm, honey,” I whispered to myself, backing up in a crouch, creeping out of the garage. “It’s going to be okay. We’ll just walk back to the car, get the cell phone, and call the police.”

  I backed the rest of the way out of the door, still almost on all fours, right into a pair of legs wearing trousers and shiny black leather shoes.

  “Miss Lavotini, isn’t it?” Detective Nolowicki asked, and I screamed. This time it came out nice and loud.

  Nolowicki jumped, then reached out to grab my arm. “What in the world is wrong with you, lady?” His tone was flat and thick, like maybe he was from Chicago or somewhere in the Midwest. He was looking at me as if maybe I was wound too tight and he should anticipate fireworks.

  “It’s … there’s … okay,” I said, trying to draw air into my lungs. I closed my eyes for a second, made myself take a deep breath, and then tried to say something the man could understand.

  “There’s a dead guy in there,” I said. “He’s lying behind the trash cans.”

  Nolowicki looked at me, his eyes not registering. He didn’t seem concerned, or panicked, or like he was intending on taking any action. Instead he was looking at me like maybe he needed to get me a nice cool glass of punch, like maybe I had the vapors.

  “I’m telling you,” I said, this time trying to put the command back in my tone, “there is a man inside, a biker-looking, older guy, and he’s dead. And there are two other people in there. And the body’s still warm, so I think it just happened.”

  Nolowicki was watching me, still not appearing to believe me, only now he was starting to frown.

  “Meathead,” I said, “the guy in there might’ve killed the other guy! Will you do something already?”

  And that’s when Nolowicki moved. His right hand reached inside his suit jacket, pulling out the gun that sat strapped to his left side.

  “All right,” he said, his voice calm but still strong like Nailor’s. “Wait right here. Don’t move from this spot, okay?”

  Now we were getting somewhere. “Okay. I’ll be right here.” Of course, Detective Nolowicki didn’t take that as me saying I’d be there to back him up, that I’d help out if he needed it, but I felt better.

  Nolowicki pushed the door wide open and vanished inside the building, his gun held high and by his side, just like a movie. He was gone for about a minute before reappearing in the doorway.

  “There’s a dead guy, all right, just where you said. But there isn’t anyone else in here. Maybe you were hearing things.” He didn’t wait for me to answer. He flipped open his cellphone and called the police.

  I heard the words “possible homicide” and knew Nolowicki didn’t get it, not yet. There was no possible to it.

  “Hey,” I said, as he flipped the phone shut. “I not only heard voices, I saw the two people talking and I know who they are.”

  Nolowicki stared at me. “Well, why didn’t you say so!” he barked. “We could’ve stopped them! Who was it?”

  “I did say so! It was the widow and her boyfriend, some guy named Turk.”

  I was thinking that if Nailor had been there, he would’ve listened to me, gotten it the first time, and been lightyears ahead of the stupid vice cop. It didn’t help matters that I went ahead and told Nolowicki my thoughts. When I reached for my own cell and called Nailor, it further cemented our bad relationship.

  “Don’t go anywhere,” Nolowicki said as I started walking away from him toward my car. “I’m not done asking you questions.”

  I whipped around and looked at him like he was Fluffy’s leftovers. “You may not be done, but I am. I’ll do my talking to a real homicide investigator, not some quasi-vice-narcotics dipshit who thinks my boss is running rock and that I’m hearing voices!”

  I kept right on walking until I reached my car, knowing he wouldn’t follow me when he had two other more likely suspects to round up.

  In no time at all, police cars from the tiny town of Port St. Joe were screaming toward the Widow Watley’s, and Detective Joe Nolowicki had the entire community in an uproar. Of course, that sort of thing is to be expected when you come running into a house with your gun drawn and held high in the air, screaming for the poor grieving widow not to move and scaring her poor grieving children half to death. You expect a mob reaction when you start off an investigation like that, especially when most of your mourners are fishermen used to handling bullies and big fish in small ponds.

  I stood outside, listening to the hostile voices, watching the chaos erupt, and waiting for the cooler head of one professional homicide detective to arrive. I figure that was the only way I noticed Izzy Rodriguez slinking off the property, ignoring the police order that no one was to leave. Af
ter all, when had Izzy Rodriguez ever listened to the law?

  Thirteen

  By the time John Nailor arrived, called back in not only by me, but by the Port St. Joe police department, the crime scene was shot straight to hell. No one listened to poor Nolowicki. They all ran straight out to the garage to look at the dead guy, and then collectively agreed that they’d never seen him before in their lives. To further gum up the works, no one would admit to seeing the Widow Watley leave the house, swearing she’d been right on the couch all afternoon, in plain sight of everybody.

  As for Turk, why, nobody’d seen him at all. In fact, very few people even remembered what he looked like. As far as they were concerned, Nolowicki was an octopus and they were all clams, sealed up tight and not willing to crack so much as an air bubble’s worth of information to the police.

  Nailor looked fit to be tied after about thirty minutes of wrangling with the locals, and Nolowicki was nowhere to be seen. I figured they’d sent him off to avoid an all-out riot. Or maybe he was following up on another of his half-baked ideas.

  I slipped back inside the house and watched the police work. All they were getting was name, rank, and serial number from the mourners. The widow had gotten so worked up she’d had to go lie down upon her doctor’s orders. Masterful, I thought, given all I’d heard in the garage.

  I moved my base of operations out into the kitchen, figuring it would be the hub of anything I needed to know. The kitchen is always the headquarters for the women, and the women are always the ones that know. So I picked up a dishtowel, slipped up to the sink, and proceeded to blend in with the others, drying and passing the plates on to the next lady in line.

  “Cain’t imagine them bothering her the way they did! As if she knew a thing,” one sniffed.

  “And looking for Turk like he’s a criminal!”

  I dried a saucer and handed it to the elderly lady beside me. “I can’t believe it,” I sniffed. Big mistake. The others looked at me, suddenly noticing that I wasn’t one of them, and proceeded to dry their plates in silence.