The Case of the Flashing Fashion Queen - A Dix Dodd Mystery

  The police cars screeched to a stop, arrayed strategically around me, their blue and red bar lights flashing. Not having a death wish, I didn’t wait for an order to be barked over a bullhorn. I immediately raised my hands high, stepped away from my car, then slowly bent to deposit the gun on the asphalt. Still moving slowly, I stood and kicked the Glock toward the closest car.

  The doors on the two cruisers popped open and the officers slid into position behind the safety of their doors, weapons drawn and trained on me. A curse dragged my attention to Detective Richard Head, who had just heaved himself from his unmarked Taurus. Unlike the patrol cops, he didn’t unholster his weapon. Nor did he hide behind the door of his car. Rather, he strode right up to me.

  “What the fuck are you doing, Dix?”

  “I’m counting my limbs, dammit, because someone just tried to deprive me of a few of them.” In a rush, I told him about the attempt on my life. Told him about the crazed imposter who just tried to run me down. And told him if he’d get his ugly ass in gear, he might catch her!

  To his credit, Detective Head instructed the officers to stand down. He also sent a patrol car in the direction I indicated, and radioed in the vehicle description and plates I’d supplied. Of course, I would have felt better about these developments if I thought he believed me. Or if he hadn’t put me in bracelets.

  “Standard operating procedure, until we sort this out,” he said. “Now, would you like to explain why you were waving a handgun around the parking lot?”

  “Sure. Right after you explain why half the police force is here staring at me when some maniac woman just tried to run me down.”

  “We got a 9-1-1 call about a maniac woman waving a gun around in a parking lot. Now, spill. What’s going on here?”

  Which is when Dylan Foreman showed up. He pulled up on his motorcycle right in the middle of Detective Richard Head’s grilling of/yelling at me, as I tried to explain what had happened. And as I tried to explain why he’d come upon me in the possession of the gun that had most likely—shit, shit, shit—killed Jennifer Weatherby.

  I suppose I could have tried to pass the gun off as my own, claiming I’d whipped it out in self defense after that maniac tried to mow me down with her car, but under the circumstances, it didn’t seem advisable to play fast and loose with the facts. Especially since an officer had already collected the gun and stuck it in an evidence bag. Especially since they would very shortly know it was not registered to me.

  No question about it. Things looked bleak. Even Dylan, always my cheerleader, couldn’t quite hide the depth of his concern. Despite all that was going on around us, I felt the tightening lump in my throat.

  “Just a setback, Dix,” Dylan whispered to me. “Nothing we can’t handle.”

  Come on, Dix, suck it up. I nodded an affirmative you bet. It was the best I could manage.

  With a nod/grunt from Dickhead, soon there were two police officers from Ident doing a cursory search of my car. I could probably have stopped them; they had no warrant. On the other hand, they did have me brandishing a gun in a public parking lot, which no doubt gave them fairly broad scope. On yet another hand (clearly, we are dealing with a six-armed Mahakala here), if my nemesis had been in my car, she might have left trace evidence behind. If so, I wanted the cops to find it with their high tech searching gear. So I let them have a look.

  Moments later, my faced flamed. And no, I’m not talking about the humiliation of standing there in handcuffs while cops searched my car. They may have been officers of the law, but they were still men. Thus, when they drew out the fake boobs I kept stuffed under the seat, the whole place went up in snickers. Eyebrows soared over the fake mustache I’d left in the glove compartment from my stint as Maintenance Man. All they needed now was to find my blow up doll (a.k.a. Betty, the decoy), and I’m sure they would have pissed themselves laughing. Thankfully, Betty was standing in the closet of my office, behind my truck-driver flannel shirts and nun’s outfit.

  The first officer was pulling little plastic evidence bags out of his pocket, while the second officer was tweezering things into them. I rolled my eyes as they placed a month-old wrapper from a DQ burger into a bag. Right. Like that was going to have a mountain of clues on it.

  “Got a hair here, Detective,” one of the cops called to Dickhead. He held the tweezers up like a prize ribbon, as if we could actually see from that distance. “It’s blond.”

  “Well, duh. I’m blond!” I called over.

  “Shut up, Dix.” Detective Head returned his attention to the men in my car. “Bag it, Edson,” he said. “Bag every damn shred of evidence you get. No, wait, even better. Call dispatch and have them send a hook. We’ll haul that piece of crap in and have forensics give it a thorough going over.”

  Dylan shifted beside me. “You can’t just— “

  “It’s okay, Dylan,” I said. “Let them.”

  The way I figured it, the Flashing Fashion Queen had already planted the biggie, the literal smoking gun, and nothing else they found could trump that. I hoped. But I had to risk it, in the hope the CSIs would find some evidence against her. The cops already had my DNA from the night Jennifer was killed when Detective Head had scraped it from my cheek. So hopefully, something else would turn up pointing a finger toward the real killer.

  “Do a good job, boys,” I called over to the officers in the car. “That car hasn’t had a good cleaning in a dog’s age. Be sure to get the vacuum deep down in the seats. And under the floor mats. And it’s kind of grungy there in the cup holder—too many spilled lattes. I’d wear gloves if I were you.”

  Detective Head dug in his pocket and pulled out one of the mint toothpicks. I held off on any remarks about comparative phallic symbolism here.

  “You just don’t realize what shit you’re really in, do you, Dodd?” he said.

  I snorted. But actually I did fully understand the severity of the situation.

  I was being framed for murder.

  And well, even on the best of days, that sucked.

  “You all right, Dix?” Dylan asked.

  “Fine.”

  Detective Head did a dramatic double take. “All right? You want to know if she’s all right? Let’s see what we got here. Obsessed, love-sick stalker who not only followed the husband of the murder victim around for a week taking pictures, taping conversations, crying herself to sleep, wringing her hands and moaning ‘why me’—”

  I growled. I mean, I growled. This guy was pulling my chain and it was working. I would have liked nothing better than to rip a strip off him. And unfortunately that just would not do. Not now, at least. Beside me, Dylan tensed. I could tell he wanted to rip something off Detective Head himself. I shot him a look that said ‘wait’, and thankfully, he picked it up.

  Detective Head continued, “And now what do we find in the possession of this lonely spinster? The very same gun that killed Jennifer Weatherby.”

  “We don’t know that it’s the gun that killed Jennifer, Detective. That’s merely what I’ve speculated. And as I told you, that gun was left in my car by the woman who came into the office posing as Jennifer Weatherby. That’s the woman you should be harassing, not me.”

  “Right,” he said sarcastically. “And you just happen to be the only one to have seen her.”

  “I saw her,” Dylan answered.

  “Today?” Detective Head asked, but he knew the answer. “You saw this blond today as she put the gun in the car? As she tried to run down your boss?”

  Dylan shook his head. “No. Not today. I saw her the day she came into the office. But, holy hell, just look at—”

  Dickhead’s lip curled. “Let’s move this party along, shall we? We’ll get to the bottom of this downtown. I got a nice cozy interview room I can house you in until we get around to asking you a few questions.”

  Downtown? This I couldn’t allow.

  If Detective Head got me locked up, I could be there for days. As long as he could possibly keep me. And I had no
doubt that during my detention, the Flashing Fashion Queen would keep her blond self busy planting more evidence against me. If this woman was to be caught, it was going to have to be by me.

  Thus there was no way in hell I could go downtown. I sent a sideways look at Dylan, who, with an almost non-existent flash of eye contact and a barely perceptible nod, signaled his understanding.

  “Okay, fine,” I said. “I’ll be thrilled to ride downtown with you and answer your questions. But first, I have some business to take care of in the office, some stuff I need to hand off to my associate before I go. It’ll only take a few minutes. So if you’d take the bracelets off...” I angled myself to present my cuffed hands to Detective Head.

  He raised an eyebrow. “Why would I want to do that?”

  “Because no one’s arrested me yet?”

  The toothpick bobbed. “I could rectify that. Hell, I probably will.”

  “Come on, Detective,” Dylan interjected. “I appreciate you guys felt you were coming into a potentially hairy situation, so I understand cuffing her until you secured the scene. But everything’s under control now. No firearms, no resistance. Dix consented to the search of her car, and has said she will answer questions. You don’t need to arrest her and you sure as hell don’t need handcuffs.”

  “Whether to cuff or not is my call, and mine only.”

  “Precisely,” Dylan agreed. “But you’re supposed to use the minimum force necessary to accomplish the mission. Do you really think you need handcuffs to get Dix downtown?”

  “Huh!” I put in. “He probably figures he has to cuff a woman to get her in the car with him.”

  “Dix,” Dylan warned, putting me behind him.

  Detective Head’s eyes bulged, and his jaw clamped so tight, I’m sure I heard his molars cracking. But after a few seconds, he produced his keys and removed the bracelets. “Ten minutes, Dix. If you’re not back down here by then, I’ll drag you out.”

  “Okay, ten minutes.” I grabbed Dylan’s arm and we headed for the office. “See you then.”

  “Hold your horses there, Dixiepicker.”

  I stopped in my tracks. “Oh, what now!” With a huff of exaggeration, I turned toward him again.

  Detective Head took the toothpick out of his mouth long enough to bark an order at one of his junior boys in blue. “Go with them. Make sure she comes back out.”

  “Come on, Detective,” I said. “You can trust me.”

  He couldn’t of course, but that wasn’t the point.

  “Not as far as I could throw you, Dodd.”

  I chose to make that statement a reflection on his manly strength rather than my size. “Fine!” I shouted at the young officer. “Just hurry up, Junior, I have work to do.”

  I felt half bad when the young guy paled.

  “On second thought,” Dickhead said. “Why don’t I escort you myself? Yeah, that would work much better.”

  Damn.

  I’d left the office door open, but pretended to fumble with keys in the lock so I could cast another look at Dylan. This is where a smart employee would start rethinking his commitment to his employer and start thinking about covering his own ass. But what I saw in his eyes was a clear, steady message. I’m with you, Dix. And oh, Jesus God, my throat got all tight and painful again.

  While Detective Head waited behind us, I winked at Dylan in what I hoped he would interpret as an I-have-a-plan message.

  The moment we walked into my outer office, I turned to Dylan. “Get my lawyer on the phone.”

  “Now wait, Dodd—”

  “I know my rights, Detective. And yeah, I know yours too. You can take me downtown and I’ll go. I’ll answer any and all your questions, but be damned if I will be downtown without my lawyer waiting there. I have the right to call her, and I’m calling her now. Dylan’ll get her on the phone.”

  I didn’t have a lawyer. And of course Dylan knew this too.

  “Sure thing, Dix.”

  Dylan sat down at his desk, picked up the phone, and starting pushing buttons—to nowhere.

  I walked from the outer office into my own.

  Dickhead had never been into my office. I didn’t care about the dust in the corners, or the clutter on my desk. I didn’t give a rat’s ass what he thought about the one aloe vera plant dead in front of the window. But I knew that his presence, rather than one of the junior officer’s, would make my disappearing act harder.

  “Geez, Dixie,” he said, “what stinks in here?”

  “Funny,” I answered, crinkling my nose. “Didn’t smell a thing till you walked through the door yourself.”

  He chuckled. Which meant he felt he could afford to chuckle. “You got ten minutes, Dodd,” he said. “Then it’s downtown with me.”

  He studied my desk. As I’ve said, I didn’t give a rat’s ass about the mess left there, but I didn’t want him to see my notes. As if reading my mind, Dickhead picked up the yellow legal pad off the desk. He snarled/laughed/made some guy guttural sound. “What do you do here all day, Dix,” he asked eyeing the pad, “draw dirty pictures?”

  He truly was an asshole. I ripped the pad from his hand. “These notes are none of your business.”

  “If it concerns this case, it is.”

  “What? You think Jennifer Weatherby’s case is the only one I have?” Well, it was but he didn’t have to know that. “Why, at any given time, I probably have a dozen cases on the go.” I waved an arm to the door, indicating he was to leave. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get a couple things done before we take our lovely little trip to the precinct.”

  “I need to keep an eye on you.”

  Damn.

  “You’re kidding,” I said.

  “Not a chance.”

  “Look, I have some personal things to take care of. The glass is beveled. You might not be able to make googly eyes at me, but you’ll be able to see that I’m sitting right at my desk.”

  “No way in hell, Dixieshit. Whatever you have to do you can do in front of me.”

  “Fine, at least let me go to the bathroom.”

  “You can go when we get downtown.”

  “I can’t wait.”

  “You can!”

  I nodded. “Okay, then, you got it.” I walked over to my desk, sat, and opened the bottom drawer. And I pulled out a handy-dandy king-sized value pack of my favorite tampons. Yep, a pack of sixty Playtex Supers. (Is there anything higher for a woman in brand loyalty than feminine hygiene products?) I dug around a bit more, and pulled out the box of maxi pads and smacked them down in the middle of the desk beside the tampons. If this didn’t get Detective Head out of the office nothing would. I turned to look at a wide-eyed Detective.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Well, you see, Detective, boys and girls are built differently. While boys have a penis, or rather some of you do, we girls have—”

  “Smartass,” he growled.

  “And since you won’t give me a few minutes alone in the bathroom, well, you’re about to get a very detailed lesson of those things.” I nodded to my closet as I unzipped my jeans and started to shimmy out of them (all the while thankful for the granny panties I wore underneath). “Hand me my the feminine spray from the top shelf will you, the scented one. And while you’re at it, there’s a spare portable douche Bidet on the top shelf. It takes a minute longer, but so very worth it.”

  “You don’t need all that! I was married you know!”

  I stopped mid shimmy. “Well I got this itch you see. And my gynecologist prescribed the douche Bidet to relieve the swelling. Just wait, I’ll show you.”

  “Christ! Dodd,” he yelled. But he yelled while he headed for the door. I knew it would work. Detailed descriptions of feminine hygiene products scare the shit out of most any man. “You’ve got ten minutes—no, eight minutes—to do whatever the hell you have to do.”

  At that precise moment—damn the lad could read my mind—the phone on my desk rang. Dylan answered from
the outer office, then yelled to me. “Dix, I’ve got Ms. Bee on the phone.”

  “Good,” I said. “Give me a minute, Dylan, then send the call in.”

  With a grumble, Dickhead closed the door behind him. I had to work fast.

  The cabinet I had directed him to for the douche Bidet (to my knowledge there was no such thing, but I guessed Dickhead wasn’t up on these things)—was a cabinet I knew he’d never open in a million years if I asked him to. And of course it was the one that contained good old Blow up Betty. I kicked a box on the floor to make it sound like I was rummaging around. And while I did so, I pulled her out, whispered hello, and removed the jacket I’d been wearing. I stuck her plastic arms into it.

  She looked better behind my desk than I did. Quietly, I pushed my chair out and sat on the floor. “Okay, Dylan,” I yelled. “Give me Ms. Bee.”

  I picked up on the first ring, glancing only a minute at the call display before I erased it—Dylan’s cell phone of course. With my number on speed dial, it had been easy for him to call the office, pretend it was the non-existent lawyer, and buy me some time.

  With duct tape I kept in the drawer for such emergencies (and there were a surprisingly number of them), I taped the phone to the blow-up doll’s hand, then taped that up to her head as if she were listening. If, and when, Detective Head looked through the beveled glass, he would see the outline of the doll and the black phone positioned against the blond head. And, where he thought I was talking to my lawyer, he maybe would give me a few extra minutes. Maybe.

  God, I hoped this worked.

  I turned to head toward the window leading to the fire exit. Not a venture I would enjoy. The rusty contraption hadn’t been used in years, and it emptied into a narrow alley between my building and the next one. I knew for a fact the alley was full of broken bottles and smelled of urine, but it was a way out.

  I had one leg out the window when a thought occurred to me. I went back, grabbed the duct tape and positioned Betty’s free hand palm up on the desk in the classic middle finger salute, ready to properly greet Dickhead when he stormed in. Hell, maybe he’d think it was me for a moment, after all.

  Task completed, I made my way down the fire escape and tiptoed through the broken bottles and other things I didn’t want to examine too closely. And just like that, I was officially on the lam.