Born Under a Blond Sign Read online

  “Yeah, look, I’m not answering your questions,” he said. “Leave me alone.”

  “You don’t work for the O’Shaunessys, do you?” said Brigit, jumping right in. It was enough to make me proud, how she was taking initiative like that.

  “What?” said Bix. “No. I sell molly. The O’Shaunessys aren’t even in that game anymore. They want to be, but they’ve got inferior product shipped in from the Netherlands or some shit. What they sell can’t hold up to what I sell.” He cleared his throat. “Not that I’m admitting that I sell or anything—”

  “We already know you sell drugs,” I said. “That’s been established. You don’t have to try to hide that or anything.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m not trying to tell you my life story or nothing,” said Bix. “And I really do have to get to class. Honestly.”

  “So, who do you work for?” I said.

  “None of your business.” Bix turned away from us and started walking. “I’ve got to go. Sorry.”

  We went after him.

  “Do you have some hostility against the O’Shaunessys?”

  “What?” He turned and looked at us as if we were crazy. “We’re doing fine. If anyone’s angry with anyone, it’s the O’Shaunessys. They’re mad at us, because we’ve taken over their market on molly, and they can’t even get a toehold anymore. That’s where the animosity is coming from. Not from us. Not from me. I could give a flying fuck about the O’Shaunessys.”

  I digested this for a minute. “So, if the O’Shaunessys are angry with you, then are you frightened they might retaliate?”

  He threw his hands up in the air. “You know what? I’m not saying anything else unless I have a lawyer present.”

  “Bix, we’re not the cops,” said Brigit. “You don’t need a lawyer. We can’t arrest you. So, why don’t you just answer the question.”

  He started walking again.

  “Seriously,” I said, starting behind him again. “We’re private detectives.”

  “Go away,” Bix threw over his shoulder. “Just go away.” He picked up the pace.

  I started to walk faster too, but then I thought better of it. He’d given us the information we needed.

  * * *

  “That was suspicious, and you can’t deny it,” I said. “Did you see the way he took off when we asked him about fearing retaliation?”

  “I did,” said Brigit. “So, I think maybe that theory you and Crane cooked up has some merit. I mean, maybe they are scared shitless of the O’Shaunessys. Maybe he would have freaked out if he’d seen her there and then seen a gun. Maybe he would have felt he needed to fight for his life.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I think it’s the best theory we’ve got going right now.”

  “It’s the only theory,” she said.

  “Besides the official story, which is that Gilbert actually shot everyone.”

  “Right, besides that.”

  “So,” I said, “we need to find more evidence on this drug thing. We need to know who it is that Bix works for, and we need to know what their relationship is like with the O’Shaunessys. We need to keep digging, find out what we can to make this stick.”

  “Okay,” said Brigit. “What’s our next move?”

  “You’re the one who brought up knowing Cori Donovan,” I said. “That’s our contact, right? Find her again.”

  “I guess I can do that,” said Brigit. “I haven’t talked to her since last fall, but that shouldn’t be a problem.”

  I eyed her. “Is it a problem?”

  “It’s only that I’m not really as tight with that crowd of people as I used to be. I haven’t been hanging out with them much, because I’ve been working a lot. And I’ve been doing a lot of my socialization with you.” She made a face.

  “What?” I said. “What’s wrong with socializing with me? Other than the fact that I’m old, of course?”

  She sighed. “Geez. I’m sorry I said that you were old. You’re really not going to let that go, are you?”

  I shrugged. “Maybe you hurt my feelings. Age ain’t nothing but a number, Brigit, and I’m young at heart.” I stuck out my tongue. I was teasing her.

  She glared at me. “Are you really pissed at me or what?”

  “I’m going to be pissed at you if you can’t help me find Cori Donovan.”

  “Really?” She looked worried. “Because I’m not really sure that I will be able to find her. I’ll try my best, but—”

  “Brigit, breathe,” I said.

  She took a deep breath.

  “Do your best,” I said.

  She nodded.

  * * *

  Linda Hopkins, the homicide department secretary, did not like me one bit. She hadn’t liked me when I worked for the police force, and her opinion of me was not improved when I was fired. So, I was hoping that she wouldn’t be around when I showed up at the department. In fact, I waited until pretty late—around seven in the evening—before bothering to go at all. She usually worked during the day, and I didn’t expect her to be there in the evening.

  But.

  She was.

  “What can I do for you?” she said, a saccharine smile pasted on her face.

  “I need to get into the records room,” I said.

  “You don’t work here,” said Linda, still smiling. Her tone was ice. “So, I don’t think you need to get anywhere. Why don’t you just turn around and march out of here.”

  “It’s for Pike,” I said. “He asked me to come in and check something out for him.”

  “Pike’s on leave,” she said. “He’s not working on any cases right now.”

  I glared at her. “Right, well, you know Pike. Maybe he’s not supposed to be working on any cases, but what makes you think that’s stopping him?”

  “Why would he send you?” she said. “You don’t even work here. Besides, I thought the two of you broke up. Please do not tell me that in the face of this tragedy, he’s flung himself into your trashy arms. Haven’t you done enough damage to that man already?”

  I looked down at my wrists and then turned them over to survey my elbows. “These arms? They don’t look trashy to me.”

  Her smile faded, and she gave me a cold glare. “Turn around and get the hell out of here, Ivy Stern.”

  “Yeah, as soon as I’m done in the records room, I’ll be out of your hair.” I started to walk by her desk.

  “Don’t even think about it.” She was up and out of her desk, grabbing onto me before I could make it three feet.

  “Get your hands off me!”

  “I’m not letting you in that records room,” she said.

  “Fine,” I said. “Then just go pull every file on the O’Shaunessys in the past ten years and bring it out here to me.”

  “You are insane, aren’t you?” said Linda. “There’s no way that I would ever—”

  “What’s going on here?” interrupted a voice.

  Linda and I both turned to see that Miles had entered the office.

  Linda let go of me. “What the hell are you doing here, Mr. Pike? You’re not supposed to be working. You need to go home and relax and deal with everything. We don’t need you here, and you know it.” She had a stern but motherly way about her when she liked you.

  Miles gave her a wan smile. “I was hoping you’d be gone for the day, Linda.”

  Him and me both.

  “Well, I’m not,” she said. “And in the future, don’t send her in to do work for you either. She doesn’t work here anymore, and she doesn’t have access to our files, so if you think—”

  “I’m sorry,” said Miles, “my mistake.” He nodded at me. “Stern? You think you could come back to my office with me for a moment?”

  “Sure, Pike,” I said. Great, so now he knew that I was lying to try to gain access to files at the department, and that I was using him as my lie. He wasn’t going to be happy with me, and I knew it.

  “Don’t worry, Linda, it won’t happen again,” he said to the secretary. Then
he took me by the arm and led me back to his office.

  Once the door was closed, he let go of me. “Why the hell are you here looking into the O’Shaunessys? You figure that because I’m exiled from the station, it’s the perfect opportunity to brush up on your vendetta?”

  “No, it’s not like that,” I said. “It’s part of Gilbert’s case.”

  He folded his arms over his chest. “You really think you can sell me on that? Because I’m not stupid, you know.”

  “It is,” I said. But I didn’t want to tell him everything, not yet. If I was wrong, and Gilbert really was the shooter, then he’d be devastated.

  “How is it connected?”

  I hesitated.

  He sighed heavily. “Jesus, Ivy, I swear to God—”

  “No, it really is related,” I said. “I’m working on a theory, and I don’t want to say much about it yet, because if I’m wrong—”

  “And this theory somehow involves the O’Shaunessys?” His voice was dripping with sarcasm.

  “Yes, it does,” I said. “Did you know that one of the girls who was shot was Charlene Jarrett?”

  “So?”

  “Jarrett,” I said again.

  “One of those Jarretts?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Now, I don’t know if there’s any bearing on the case—”

  “How could there be?” said Miles. “My brother shot a bunch of kids. It didn’t matter that one of them was old man O’Shaunessy’s granddaughter.” He brought his brows together. “Did it?”

  “I don’t know yet, Miles. I need time to investigate. Please don’t ask me any more.”

  He uncrossed his arms. “You really think there could be some kind of connection?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “What was my brother mixed up in, Ivy? Does it have something to do with the drugs? Is that why he took the gun? Come on, if you know something, you have to tell me.”

  “I don’t know anything,” I said. “Not yet. I only have theories. I’m looking into them.”

  “So, you need some files.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Anything that’s connected to the O’Shaunessys and the sales of MDMA.”

  “Okay,” he said. “I guess I can get that for you. But you promise me that when you figure this out—”

  “You’re the first person I come to. I’m working for you, Miles, so, of course, I’d tell you everything.”

  He nodded slowly. “Okay.”

  We were quiet.

  “I’m sorry that I was trying to sneak into the records room using you as my cover,” I said. “I shouldn’t have put you in that position.”

  “No, you shouldn’t,” he said. “But it’s all right. If it’s for Gil, it’s all right.” He turned towards the door. “I’ll, uh, get you those files.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  He paused, hand on the doorknob. And then turned back to me. “Hey, I was wondering… I have to go to a dinner at my family’s house. My father is having me and my brother over. Generally, I would blow that kind of thing off, because I hate my family. But I feel like I need to go. I just don’t think I can handle it alone. And I know that the last time you saw my father, he was rude to you, so I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t want to see him or anything, but, if you said yes, it would mean a lot to me.”

  I wrinkled my forehead. “Are you asking me to come with you to a dinner at your family’s house?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Exactly that. Will you come along?”

  This was kind of a big deal. My heart did flip flops in my chest. “Yes, of course I’ll come.”

  He smiled. “Thanks, Ivy. It’s a real favor. I really appreciate it. Uh, you’ll need to dress for dinner. It’s semi-formal. Do you even have anything that—”

  “I have dresses, Miles.”

  He raised his eyebrows.

  “I do,” I said.

  “Okay, good. Well, then, wear one. They’ll probably still be awful to you. If you want me to find you something, I could do that.”

  “You find dresses?” I was skeptical.

  “I don’t know about the sizes and stuff, but I know what would look right for dinner at my family’s house.”

  Now, I was getting nervous. “Should I be worried about this? Is it complicated?”

  “Can you just show me the dresses you have before you decide which one to wear?”

  “Seriously?”

  He rubbed a hand over his face. “God damn it, this is what my family does to me. I get obsessed with getting it right. Getting everything right. Look, I’ll go get the files.” He threw open the door.

  I bit down on my lip, now feeling very insecure about my dresses.

  “Oh.” He turned to look at me. “Do not under any circumstances try to take on any member of the O’Shaunessy family by yourself. Got it?”

  I rolled my eyes. As if he could stop me.

  * * *

  I spent the rest of the evening trying on all of the dresses in my closet. I didn’t have a lot of dresses, because there wasn’t much reason in my day-to-day life to wear them. So, in essence, most of my dresses were from costume events. There was a Mardi Gras party in Keene. I always went, and I always dressed up. I had three or four dresses that I’d picked up from various thrift shops, but they were overly glitzy in a chintzy way. The kind of thing that was fun for Mardi Gras, but not so great for dinner with Miles’s parents. Then there were some dresses I’d worn for Halloween costumes. A witch dress, a princess dress, a prostitute dress. Well, that one wasn’t really a dress. It was kind of more of a shirt.

  Luckily, I did have a few dresses that weren’t costume-y dresses. Thing was, the last time that I’d worn them was when I graduated from college. I’d needed dressy stuff for several dinners and parties then. I tried the dresses on.

  Boy. I had gained a good bit of weight since graduating from college.

  I mean, I didn’t generally think of myself as fat, but in those dresses?

  Ouch.

  I texted Miles and asked him what kind of dress it was that I should be wearing.

  He apologized, saying he’d probably given me a complex about the whole thing, and he hadn’t meant to. He said it wouldn’t matter if I looked impeccable, his father would probably be rude.

  Which, you know, made me feel so much better.

  And then he texted over about ten links to pictures of dresses. Something like these, his text read.

  I squinted at them. Okay, well. Then. Yeah, maybe I don’t actually have anything to wear, I texted back.

  The dresses were simple but elegant. Most of them were three-quarter length skirts. They looked like something you’d wear to a fancy dinner party. I didn’t have anything like that.

  Do you want me to get you something? Miles texted.

  I cringed. No. I did not want that. I wanted to show up looking amazing and blow his mind. Not have him bring me some dress that I hadn’t tried on, that might not even fit, that might be absolutely horrible…

  Don’t worry about it. I’ll figure something out, I told him.

  This seemed to make him nervous, because he then texted me about ten differently worded versions of, Are you sure?

  I was sure.

  Because, Miles said, it was really no problem for him to look around and pick something up.

  But I shut him down. I’d get my own damned dress. I could do that. I could find a nice dress, put my hair up, wear some actual makeup and look stunning.

  I was going to make him swoon if it killed me.

  By that time, it was late. Too late to go dress shopping, which was a shame, because I couldn’t think about anything else. I wanted to just be able to go to the store, find the right dress, and get this show on the road.

  When I tried to think about other things, all I could think about was the dress.

  I turned on the TV, but I couldn’t concentrate on the programming, because I was picturing myself going into the store and trying on the perfect dress and paying for it. I was pi
cturing that over and over and over—

  I gave up TV and tried just surfing the Internet, going on a private detective forum that I liked to visit occasionally. But that didn’t work either, because the same thing happened. I was swept away by picturing trying on dresses again and again. I couldn’t turn that off, and it was driving me nuts.

  There was only one thing that I could do in situations like this, one thing that shut up my stupid, stupid head.

  I went to The Remington.

  There was some guy standing at the bar when I walked in. He had blond hair and dimples when he smiled.

  I sidled up to him, bold as brass. “You want to buy me a drink?”

  He grinned. “I could do that.”

  Seven drinks and two orgasms later, I lay on the sheets of his bed next to him. And my mind was deliciously, perfectly quiet.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The next day, when I pulled in to the office parking lot, there was an ambulance there, lights flashing.

  I jumped out of my car, alarmed. What the hell was going on? I went over to the ambulance, but before I could talk to anyone, the doors to the building burst open. Workers carrying someone on a stretcher rushed past.

  I hurried over to the stretcher, and then I realized that it was Kitty Richards on there.

  Fuck.

  I’d done this to her somehow, hadn’t I? I hated Kitty Richards, and I’d thought about her being dead, and now she was on a stretcher, being dragged out of her house.

  “What’s wrong with her?” I called to the EMTs.

  “You family?”

  “No, a neighbor,” I said.

  “Sorry, we can’t release information about that,” said the EMT.

  They wheeled the stretcher up the ramp and into the ambulance, slammed the doors after themselves, and then the ambulance peeled out of the parking lot, sirens wailing.

  Man. Poor Kitty.

  I didn’t really believe in superstitious mumbo-jumbo, so I knew that I hadn’t really had any part in whatever had happened to her. But I still felt guilty, because it’s never a good thing to feel as if you’ve thought unkind things about someone who’s badly hurt. I still had no idea what was wrong.

  “Hey, Ivy, what happened?”