You Don't Know Jack Page 6

  I raised my head and glanced around the chapel. Standing room only had late arrivals crowded ready-wear to haute couture against the walls. The front pews held a good portion of King County's gay community. All of them dressed to the nines. And weeping.

  The middle section overflowed with Crain relatives and friends, and — I'd swear — every woman who had ever had her hair ratted or permed or dyed at the Clip and Flip. All of them coifed to the nines. And weeping.

  I had not wept. I felt too stunned to cry.

  "Lars certainly touched a lot of lives," whispered Sophie Ferman, one of the elderly C & F customers. She was seated behind me, along with her two best friends, Ida Schultz and Madame Zee. The self-proclaimed "Golden Oldies" trio went everywhere together.

  I nodded. "He would have relished this huge turnout."

  "Burnout?" shouted Ida in her ninety-something voice, the bray screeching across the chapel like a bull horn. Ida had lost her hearing sometime during the sexual revolution of the sixties and seventies. She didn't speak; she blared. I tried shushing her, but before I could, she bellowed out, "He died of burnout? Is that when your guts get so hot you burst into flames?"

  Startled faces snapped in our direction.

  "No, Ida, that would be instantaneous combustion!" Sophie said, loud enough for Ida and half the church to hear.

  "Oh, my!" Ida fanned herself with a memorial pamphlet. "I hope I don't get that!"

  "I think you're safe," I assured her, embarrassed as the organ music grew louder.

  "I don't know!" Ida fanned herself harder. "It's so close in here I'm starting to heat up!"

  "Ida, dear, writer's don't get burnout," Sophie said, shaking her snow globe head and knocking half-glasses askew on the tip of her nose. "They get blocked!"

  "Oh, my!" Ida exclaimed, the pamphlet stopping in mid-fan. "My uncle Eli got blocked! Intestines! Excruciating way to go! Undertaker couldn't get the grimace off his face! Had to have a closed casket!"

  For the first time the crowd fell silent, their collective gazes shifting toward the altar and the closed casket. Ida started fanning again. "Oh, my! Poor Lars!"

  Sophie righted her half-glasses. "I could have sworn I heard he was poisoned."

  "He died by the dagger." Madam Zee proclaimed in her eerily soft, yet commanding voice, an all-knowing glint in her ice blue eyes. Large and round, her hair dyed jet black, she dripped of dangling, clanking gold jewelry and myriad colorful scarfs. She fancied herself a reincarnated gypsy fortune teller and offered readings of palms, tea leaves, Tarot cards and head lumps. She ran the tip of a blood-red fingernail across her throat to emphasize her point. "I did a reading. It was in the cards. The dagger."

  I shivered at the image, recalling the blood on my hands, and I wondered again just how Lars had died. Stone hadn't said. Cause of death was one of the things the police were holding back.

  "Oh, for God's sake." Apollo said, exasperated either at the conversation or the fact that mourners from all sides — Lars' friends and fans — tossed disapproving stares our way. He growled in a taut whisper, "Lars was shot."

  I jerked fully toward him, stunned that he'd have such information. "Who told you tha—?"

  "I'll tell you later," Apollo said, cutting me off. Strain showed around his dark eyes, despite his best efforts to hide the physical signs of his distress with concealer. My guilt meter ratcheted another notch higher.

  The minister stepped to the pulpit. Game on. The church fell quiet. Finally. His kind face and reverent voice did nothing to slow my motoring mind. If Lars had been shot it would solve everything. Charging someone with murder required means, motive, and opportunity. Apollo had opportunity, but neither means, nor motive. If Lars had been shot, then Apollo would drop off the suspect list like last week's best seller on Amazon.com.

  But had he been shot?

  If only I had seen the wound. As the rest of the congregation bowed their heads to pray, I stared at the coffin, and prayed once again for X-ray eyes. Were you shot, Lars?

  The question seemed to draw the force of the Jedi into my skull with a swift, brilliant, roaring flash that I felt all the way to my toes. A second later, I swear I heard Lars whisper inside my head, "Ah, darlin', you know you didn't hear a gunshot that night."

  I stiffened like a corpse. Liquid evaporated from my mouth. Either I was starring in a remake of The Blair Witch Project or I'd gone stark raving mad. Did that even make sense? Could grief drive you suddenly insane? Was I certifiable? Lock-up-able? Or was this just wishful thinking? Just my wanting to speak to Lars so badly that my mind had actually conjured his spirit?

  "You're not crazy, darlin'."

  I almost wet my pants. It was Lars. OMG. What was he doing in my head? I glared at the coffin, hoping what remained of him there could feel my animosity for scaring the beejesus out of me, for being dead, and for dashing my hope of easily excavating Apollo from the shit pile.

  But damn his ghostly hide for being right. I'd heard a scuffle the night he died. No loud pop. Nothing that sounded like a car backfiring. No gunshot. Maybe the killer used a silencer. Or maybe Apollo, like the others, was speculating.

  "Figure it out, darlin'," Lars urged.

  "No." My breath caught; I was arguing with a ghost. "Leave me alone."

  "You owe me, darlin'."

  Damn. Even dead Lars wouldn't take "no!" for an answer. What if his ghost hounded, er, haunted me until I solved his murder?

  "I will, darlin'. Count on it."

  "Why don't you tell me who did it and then I'll find the evidence and give it to Stone?" I waited. But there was no response. Nothing. No more ghostly advice or arguments or assistance. Just me talking to myself in my head.

  I shifted uncomfortably on the pew as the preacher advanced to reading from notes, expounding his own interpretation of what he'd been told about Lars' life. An edited version, no doubt, considering Lars Larson penned best-selling fiction crammed full of action, adventure, and sex. But even if the minister had been reading from one of those novels, I wouldn't have noticed.

  More questions kept cropping up — like why was Lars at the nightclub when he knew I was starting my investigation that night? Checking up on me? Making sure I honored our contract? The rat. He would do that. But why had he been killed? Was he the latest victim of the BBK? Or not? What I knew about serial killers was that they usually stalked their victims, familiarized themselves with their targets' routine. Lars' routine was to write at night. His being at the club was not routine.

  So was his murder random? Wrong place, wrong time? Or premeditated? Planned, arranged?

  The questions made my head ache. Stone wouldn't share anything about the case. What he'd said was: "keep your snout out of my investigation." But I couldn't. I'd tossed Apollo to the wolves. The cops were digging through his life. His apartment. His past and present.

  Stone hadn't arrested him... yet. Yet. That damned yet kept pinging around my brain like a pellet fired into a tin box, zinging and vibrating and threatening, making my headache pound, making me desperate to recall something I'd heard or seen that seemed inconsequential at the time and that now my subconscious niggled was important. What?

  I couldn't remember, and trying aggravated the pain arcing my skull as though a vice grip kept clamping tighter and tighter. So was playing "what if?" as though Lars' murder was a new book plot that I couldn't let go of. I felt like groaning, but I had to hide my headache, or Madam Zee would be reading the lumps on my noggin with Mrs. Schultz bull-horning the results.

  Apollo broke my thoughts. "Do you think Lars' killer is here?"

  I tensed. Researching my mysteries I'd learned that killers often attend a victim's funeral as some sicko ritualistic closure, but I'd been too wrapped up in my thoughts to think of that today. I looked side to side, eying with suspicion the faces of mourners. No one stood out. No one looked as guilty as I felt. "If he is, he forgot his ID tag."

  And just as the words were out of my mouth that same eerie feeling I'd had a
t Club Jaded Edge of something insidiously evil nearby seemed to touch my neck. Goose bumps rose across my arms and legs leaving my skin chilled.

  "Joseph, Mary, and Hey-Sues, girlfriend, you're as white as the lilies on you-know-who's casket."

  Before I could respond, the minister called for another prayer. I prayed it was the end of the service. Okay, so that was callous. Inappropriate. I was going to Hell for sure, but maybe God and Lars would forgive me if I solved his murder. Apollo's forgiveness was another matter, but recalling that a killer often took perverse pleasure in attending his victim's burial rites had given me an idea.

  The collective "amen" coincided with my dragging Apollo to his feet. "Come on. We have work to do."

  "Aren't we going to the grave-side service?"

  "No. We're going straight to the celebration of life party."

  "But... that's not until after the burial."

  Okay, I had to tell him something that didn't sound like I'd lost my ability to tell time, or that I was totally deranged, or that made him think I was hiding something from him. I hustled him outside into the cloud-riddled day. Noon. The temperature hovered in the fifties with a biting wind. I said, "We can't sit by while the cops focus on the wrong person for this murder."

  Apollo went ashen. "Far as I can tell, girlfriend, they're only looking at me, and hand to God, I did not kill Lars. Or anyone else. I am not the Black Boutonniere Killer."

  "Duh." Like I needed convincing. Apollo hated violence. He'd grown up with it. He couldn't. Wouldn't. "We need a suspect list of our own. But first tell me why you said Lars was killed with a gun. Did the police tell you that?"

  "No. But all the speculation was making me sick. I wanted it to stop." He looked perplexed as I hurried him to Old Yeller. He finally said, "What do you mean a suspect list of our own? Don't you believe Lars was the third victim of the BBK?"

  "I haven't worked that out, but in case he wasn't, we should cover all the bases." I started the engine. "I don't know if I ever told you, but when plotting murder mysteries, I work from the theory that the dead body is the most important character. I ask myself who wanted him or her dead and why and that gives me the story, the other characters involved, as well as the method to solve the crime. So, we start with Lars. Who wanted him dead and why?"

  "A longer list than the Oscar nominees."

  True. He probably had as many enemies as fans, but that was too large a pool to draw from. "We can't get too far afield. We need to hone in on his inner circle."

  He thought a moment. "No one's more inner than Bruce. As to motive, well, Lars hired you to get something or other on Bruce. Perhaps he caught Lars snooping around and they fought and Bruce..."

  He drew his hand across his throat, apparently buying the Madam Zee dagger scenario.

  I made a face. "Stone and I can alibi Bruce."

  "Damn. The spouse is always the most likely suspect. How did you end up being his alibi?"

  We hadn't had time to really talk since the night of the murder, what with Stone keeping us apart, hauling us to the station and continuing to keep us apart, not to mention absconding with our cell phones which literally squelched phoning and texting between us.

  As I drove I explained how I'd been eavesdropping on Bruce and Stone when I heard the scuffle — that I now realized was Lars being murdered — in another room.

  "Since Stone hasn't returned my Nikon or high-tech recording device, we'll need some back up gear." We stopped at Walmart, bought a couple of throwaway cameras, and hit a Starbucks afterwards, where I clued him into my plan over a couple of triple-shot, double mocha Grandes. I figured if we took photos of as many of the memorial attendees as possible, and mingled in the crowd, listening, we might glean something that could lead to proving who'd killed Lars.

  Back in my car, we headed to the celebration of life party, being held at Maplewood Greens Golf Club on Maple Valley Highway. Apollo was fiddling with his new cell phone, a SmartPhone he'd upgraded to after Stone took his old one. He said, "This phone is better than sex."

  "Really?" I watched his finger stroke the screen and could see what he meant. There was something sensuous about it. Maybe I needed one. "Would it replace my vibrator?"

  "Absolutely."

  Oh, yeah, I definitely needed one. Though... on second thought, how much tension would a cyber orgasm relieve? And even though my bank account bulged thanks to Lars' check, I was back to watching my pennies in case I needed to bail Apollo out of jail, or hire him a lawyer.

  He began typing, checking e-mail, I supposed, or texting or tweeting. Or maybe climaxing.

  I hoped someone was. Climaxing, that is.

  He said, "What about other family members?"

  "Deceased. Lars was an only child, change of life baby. His parents were in their sixties when he was in middle school."

  "I'm eliminating the Crain Sisters and the Golden Oldies," Apollo said. "Besides the obvious, the consensus at the C & F is that the world without Lars will be much less interesting."

  "We need to move to the next ring of his circle. Business associates. Starting with his agent, Carter Hawks. I can't figure out his motive though. Lars was Hawks' cash cow. His bread and butter. Worth more to Hawks alive."

  "Maybe not." Apollo tapped on his phone, read something, and then said, "Gossip Central, aka, Twitter has it that Lars was about to sign on with a new agent."

  "No... no... that can't be true. Carter Hawks pulled Lars from the slush pile and made him a superstar. You don't drop an agent or manager who does that for you. Besides, Lars would have told me. Part of our deal was that he was going to introduce me to Hawks, and recommend Hawks read my manuscript."

  "Well, you can't believe everything posted on Twitter. They're always claiming some movie star or other is dead, when they aren't. Key words: Gossip Central."

  It did seem anyone could post something on a social network and soon everyone was adding their opinion and embellishing on the original post even if the original post was false. Personally, I didn't Twitter. Or tweet. Or Facebook. Or Google Plus. I can barely keep up with texting given all my jobs and writing and the Crain Sisters. "We'll need to confirm all rumors pertaining to our suspects."

  He was typing again. "Even rumors about Lars?"

  "What rumors about Lars?"

  "Some folks are saying Lars had major writer's block."

  "I get writer's block." Usually because I've written myself into a corner. "It goes with the territory, but it seldom lasts long."

  "They're saying his was so bad he plagiarized his last book. The one he was sued over."

  I remembered the case. A woman dragged Lars to court for stealing her story. She claimed she'd shown it to him at a conference. The judge sided with Lars. "Do you remember who the woman was?"

  "No one ever saw her. She sent her lawyer to court. But I can dig up her name."

  "Do it. Anyone else?"

  He sighed. "I heard a rumor a couple of weeks ago that I didn't put much stock in, but maybe we should check it out. Patricia Pepper, aka Peppermint Patty, of The Peppered Page bookstores in Bellevue and on Bainbridge Island, was allegedly stalking Lars."

  "Stalking him?" I pulled into the Maplewood Greens parking lot. The cold windy day discouraged golfers, but the lot was filling quickly with arrivals for Lars' send off. "Why would a bookseller stalk an author? Wouldn't he do book signings in her stores?"

  "According to the rumor, Peppermint Patty was obsessed with Lars. I heard he was trying to get a restraining order against her."

  "You mean she was making threats or was maybe dangerous?"

  "I heard she thinks Lars was her husband or fiancé."

  Didn't Peppermint Patty know Lars was gay? "Sounds like she's an erotomaniac."

  "A what?"

  "I watched a documentary on the Discovery Channel, or the Lifetime Channel about it. The gist is, some guy will see a woman on TV or in the movies and become fixated. They actually believe the starlet or model or whoever is personally involved
with them. They develop a whole fantasy world around the object of their fixation. Often these fantasies turn violent."

  "That's just wrong." Apollo undid his seat belt. He looked worried. "I'm pretty sure I saw Batty Patty at the service earlier."

  "Maybe she'll be here, too.

  "That's what worries me."

  "Put her on the list." Crazy dangerous made for good suspects — as did the cheated and betrayed.

  I stepped from my car, feeling the chill of the wind right through my winter coat. I always thought Lars was a dog, but wow, if he was as disloyal as rumors suggested, I owed canines everywhere an apology. Even junkyard dogs are loyal. Lars didn't seem to have a loyal bone in his body. Of course, his disloyalty to me had once seemed like a godsend. It brought Stone Maddox back into my life in a passionate firestorm, and Stone, bless him, mended my shattered ego and revived my squelched libido with the skill of a master mechanic making a mishandled motor purr.

  Lately, it didn't seem much of a favor, what with my motor in constant sputter-mode, and my master mechanic withholding his magical tools.

  Apollo licked his lips. "I know you said you could alibi Bruce, but you should know there is a possibility that Lars was about to leave him."

  I turned wide eyes on my BFF. "Do you think that's true?"

  "Maybe..."

  I thought about it a moment. "Hmmm..."

  "Bruce might have hired someone to kill Lars..."

  I nodded. "He's back on the list."

  "Tippy top."

  I pictured Nancy Grace giving us a thumbs up.

  We hurried inside the one story building, into a wide corridor and through the double doors of the banquet room. Bruce had spared no expense. Round tables covered in floor length white cloths dominated, the decor decked out as lavishly as a wedding reception. Guests were everywhere, packed elbow to elbow. A sumptuous buffet spread across two long tables and spiced the air with mouth-watering aromas. Mourners were queued and filling plates.

  I spied Stone's older brother, Duke, and his father, Carl near the bar. Carl, a retired Seattle Police officer, was my father's partner when Daddy was murdered. Duke, a high powered criminal attorney, was as polished as Stone was rugged.