“Wait,” I yelled, stepping in between Sean and the angry red-and-white mob. Looking at the newcomer, I said, “I’ve been threatened, my grandfather’s been knocked over, and my father looks like he’s ready to bolt. Can you tell me why?”
The short, pudgy guy sucked in a few deep breaths and nodded. “My friends did not mean to scare you. They came from Moline to find your father. Mr. Robbins said he was coming to see you, so that is where they looked.”
All eyes swung to Stan. He was in the process of creeping backward. The minute he spotted us looking at him, he froze and gave his best salesman’s smile. None of us smiled back.
“Do you know these guys, Dad?”
My father shrugged. “Could be. I meet a lot of guys on the road. Can’t say I remember them all.”
“You took our money.” The short, pudgy guy stomped his foot and looked ready to launch at Stan. “Now we are here to get what we paid for. If you do not give it to us, I will tell the police officer to arrest you.”
Sean lowered his gun a couple of inches and looked back and forth between the angry mob and my father.
“Is this true, Dad?” I crossed my arms.
“Sounds like something Stan would do.” Pop stepped away from Stan and aligned himself with his former intimidators. “I should have known he was a thief before my Kay married him. He has shifty eyes.”
“I do not,” Stan insisted between offended noises. “And I didn’t steal their money. I just had to wait a little longer for their order to come in, and Eduardo here wasn’t around to tell. The rest of them have some communication problems.”
Eduardo didn’t look convinced. “You did not answer my messages. After two weeks, my friends decided to come looking for you. We need our order.”
Okay, I just had to ask. “What did you order?” Guns? Drugs? Bootlegged DVDs?
“Musical instruments.”
That would have been my next guess. “Musical instruments?” I turned to Stan. “Since when do you sell musical instruments?”
My father shrugged. “A friend of mine has a connection in China. He sends me whatever his company has too much of. This time, it was musical instruments—for their mariachi band. But he had trouble with customs, and I wasn’t sure the stuff was ever coming.”
“You mean you don’t have our order?” Eduardo waved his hands in the air. “We need our instruments. We have two gigs next week.”
I looked closer at the shirts. On the left shirt pocket there was a picture of maracas. The shirts must be band uniforms, I decided.
My father puffed out his chest. “Don’t worry. I got a call this afternoon from my friend and he says the instruments are on their way. You should have them first thing tomorrow morning.”
Eduardo translated Stan’s words for the rest of the band. The group let up a rowdy cheer and began slapping one another on the back. They were happy. I was confused.
“Wait a minute. You threatened to kill me over a delivery of instruments?”
Eduardo cocked his head to the side. “We did not threaten to kill you.”
“Yes, you did. I read the note you left.” Sean seized the opportunity to swagger forward and take charge. “You told Rebecca she couldn’t run from you. That you were going to kill her.”
Eduardo shook his head. “We didn’t write that.”
Sean stuck out his chest. “I saw it. Whoever wrote the note had terrible handwriting, but I clearly saw the word muerte. You’re under arrest for threatening Rebecca with death.”
Eduardo slapped a hand to his forehead. He turned to the big guy who had threatened me with the wire and began to yell. The big guy hung his head and said something under his breath. I didn’t know Spanish, but I recognized embarrassment when I saw it. The big dude looked like he wanted to climb under a rock.
“I am sorry about Miguel’s handwriting.” Eduardo shot a pitying glance at the slumped-shoulder Miguel. “The word he wrote was not muerte. It was muérgano. Your father was looking into getting an organ for Miguel’s mother. Miguel wanted to cancel the order.”
“I wish I would have known that earlier.” I turned toward Sean. “All this time, I thought someone was trying to kill me.”
Suddenly, Sean developed a rapt interest in his shoes. Go figure.
“Hey, look at the time.” Pop lifted his scrawny wrist to display his Timex. “I’ve gotta get to the center. I go on in ten minutes. You can all come with me if you’d like. It’d be nice to have fellow musicians in the audience.”
“Wait.” Sean holstered his gun and held up his hand. “There is still the matter of the assault and harassment charges.” He turned to me. “Rebecca, you can still have these men arrested.”
“No thanks.” I shrugged. They had been chasing my father for stiffing them—something I completely understood.
Eduardo smiled at me and translated for the rest of the band. They all nodded. A few said, “Gracias.”
“You’re welcome. But there’s one thing I don’t understand. If Miguel wasn’t threatening me, why did he have a wire in his hands?”
I looked to Eduardo for an answer, but Miguel stepped forward and carefully enunciated, “No wire. Guitar string.” Miguel pulled out the same kind of wire I had seen him with before and smiled. Eduardo added, “He carries it in his pocket.”
Some people carry keys or loose change. Miguel carted around his guitar strings. Made sense to me. It turned out the other instruments of torture were also musical accessories. Too bad the fiery car case wasn’t as easy to solve. These guys were innocent of wrongdoing, but someone in Indian Falls wasn’t. I really wanted to find out who.
I turned to Sean. “Guess this was all a big misunderstanding.” Sean looked disappointed he wouldn’t be making a bust. So I added, “But it might not have been. Thanks for getting here so fast.”
Sean shook his head in resignation and headed to his car. We were all free to leave. Since Eduardo and his merry band had nothing better to do, they piled into their car and followed us to the Indian Falls Dinner Dance.
Dinner had already come to an end when we walked into the recreation room. Right now, it looked like a revival of Grease. Records dangled from the ceiling. One corner sported a soda fountain, complete with servers wearing white paper hats. The men all looked like they’d combed their hair with a pork chop, and every woman over sixty was sporting a low-cut top and a poodle skirt. I looked out of place in my black cocktail dress and killer stilettos. The mariachi band looked right at home. Go figure.
Pop ditched us at the door to get ready for his set. The band headed for the soda fountain in search of tequila milk shakes, leaving me and Dad alone in the doorway.
He looked at me and sighed. “I made a real mess out of this instrument deal, didn’t I?”
“You got out of it,” I said. “You always do.”
His shoulders slumped. “I didn’t intend for things to turn out like this. I meant for the instruments to arrive on time and for my customers to be happy. Things didn’t go as planned.”
“They never do.” Which was how I was back in this town, selling Mom’s rink and doing a poor job of solving crimes. “Once the guys get their instruments, everything will be back to normal.”
Stan squared his shoulders, took my hand, and said, “Rebecca, I’m really sor—”
“Stan! I’ve been looking all over for you.” A woman I didn’t know came scurrying over. Or at least I was pretty sure I didn’t know her. What with the poodle skirt, saddle shoes, black beehive hair, and large quantities of blue eye shadow, it was hard to tell. “The music is about to start, and you promised me the first dance.”
My father looked at fifties Barbie and back at me with one eyebrow raised. “Go ahead and dance,” I told him. We hadn’t had a father-daughter chat for almost two decades. What was one more day? The beehive lady squealed and dragged Stan toward the dance floor.
“Well, would you look at that? Your father has moved on to someone else.” Doreen stood next to me in her fifti
es getup and gave a small tsk.
“You did, too,” I reminded her.
“Had to.” She nodded. “Your father is a heartbreaker. Always knows just what a girl wants to hear and says it in the right way. Problem is, he means it when it says it. That’s why we all fall for it. He just forgets. Fun for a night, but a lifetime … well, you know.”
I did know.
Doreen sighed, gave herself a little shake, and said, “I called the rink earlier, but you weren’t around.”
“I didn’t get the message.”
“I didn’t leave one.” Doreen’s eyes sparkled along with her glasses. “There is so much bad news in my business. I like to give the good news in person.”
“Good news?” After my breakup with Lionel, I could use some.
“I told the buyers you were anxious to complete the sale. Since there is a trained manager in place, they are willing to move back the closing. How does next Friday sound?”
“Next Friday?” The room in front of me spun.
“I knew you’d be delighted. I even made sure they’d give you a couple weeks to move your mother’s things out of the apartment. As long as the place is empty by the end of August, there won’t be a problem. That’s when their renovations begin.”
“Renovations?” What renovations?
Doreen nodded. “They’re planning on dividing the office/third bedroom into two bedrooms. Oh, and they’re going to remove the living room window that overlooks the rink. I can’t say I blame them. I like my privacy.”
That window was torture as a kid. Mom would watch me like God from above, seeing every mistake in my skating. But the idea of removing it hurt. A lot. My mother had loved it. Maybe, just maybe, I might, too.
“Ladies and gentlemen.” A disembodied voice echoed in the hall. “The Indian Falls Senior Center is proud to present … Elvis!”
Synthesized music filled the air. Pop strutted out onto the stage in all his glittering glory. A flock of women crowded the front of the stage. Pop gyrated his hips to the right. The women shrieked. He gyrated his hips to the left, and the women went wild. And then he started singing “Can’t Help Falling in Love.” Next came “Don’t Be Cruel,” and the hits kept coming.
To say Pop wasn’t the greatest singer was an understatement of serious proportions. But what my grandfather lacked in skill, he more than made up for in style. He smiled, he winked, he moved his pelvis in a disturbing manner, and he gave out dozens of scarves. Everyone was so busy fighting over them, they didn’t notice that Pop occasionally forgot the words. Pop was a rock star the likes of which Indian Falls had never seen. Who needed talent?
Thirty minutes after Pop started, he strutted off the stage for a break. With my distraction gone, I was left to wonder why I wasn’t up dancing with the rest of the female population. The rink was finally selling. My time in Indian Falls was coming to an end. Life was good.
So why did I feel so crappy? Maybe it was like Christmas when I was a kid. I’d get so worked up anticipating the day. Then, when it came, it never lived up to the hype. That had to be it. It wasn’t that I wanted to stay in this town and run the rink. No. I’d spent my entire life running from that fate.
Of course, there were the unsolved car thefts and fires. I wanted to know who was behind them. Leaving town before that case was settled felt wrong. Incomplete. Once the thief was put behind bars, I’d be ready to celebrate my return to Chicago. Right?
I smoothed out my dress and started forward, ready to kick up my heels to Frankie Avalon’s crooning. Suddenly, my feet stopped moving and my mouth went dry. Standing in the doorway, looking incredibly handsome, was Lionel—and he’d brought a date.
Twenty-two
Lionel scoped the room.His eyes settled on mine as he wrapped his arm around the bottle blonde next to him. No doubt the same blonde my father’d mentioned ogling at Lionel’s place. A gray-haired woman near the couple pointed at them. Then at me. A woman next to her clutched her chest and raced over to share the drama with a group near the stage. The Indian Falls gossip train was heading out of the station. Just what I needed to brighten my day.
The blond bimbo smiled up at Lionel and giggled. My stomach clenched. A simmering rage built in my chest. Most women I knew would have wanted to claw out the chick’s eyes in this situation. Not me. I wanted to punch Lionel square in the mouth. He had created this drama. The chick was blameless, even if her clothes were tacky. Lionel’s date had vacant eyes, big boobs, and a really short skirt. Not his type. Or was she? The way he smiled at her, I wasn’t sure.
With the hall buzzing about Lionel’s new love interest, I looked around for a safe haven. Jimmy Bakersfield gave me a thumbs-up from across the room. He was surrounded by half a dozen Senior Center women, who were all watching me with knowing smiles.
The mariachi band seemed to be missing in action, but Clayton Zimmerman had sidled up to the soda fountain and was talking to a couple of ladies. Hooking up with the new lawyer in town might help my bruised ego, but the memory of squirrel dust made me think twice.
Bingo. Walking in the door was Sean Holmes. He’d changed clothes since our adventure in the parking lot. Now he was sporting a white T-shirt, jeans, and a black leather jacket. A small bulge under the jacket made me smile. Only Sean would think it necessary to be armed at a dinner dance. I wondered if he’d lend me the gun. Lionel was giving blondie one of his lazy smiles. I decided death was too good for him, so I went with plan B.
Taking a cue from my grandfather’s act, I swung my hips into undulating action and crossed the room. I reached Sean, smiled, and pulled his head down for a kiss. It wasn’t a great kiss, but I couldn’t blame Sean for that. The guy was surprised as hell. So was Lionel. I could see his nostrils flaring when Sean and I came up for air. Score.
“Jailhouse Rock” boomed from the speakers as Pop bopped back out onto the stage. Behind him were three members of the mariachi band, equipped with tambourines, maracas, and castanets. The crowd went wild.
I yanked Sean onto the dance floor and started jiggling, hoping to entice him to play along. Sean gave me a goofy look, shrugged, and cut loose. Wow, could the guy dance. He spun, twirled, and dipped me without causing injury to either of us.
The song ended, and Pop and his backup band began playing “It’s Now or Never.” I wrapped my arms around Sean before he could bolt. Lionel and his date were still on the sidelines. Lionel looked furious. The girl looked hurt and confused. She was trying to talk to him but was receiving no response.
“So what’s the fight about?”
I looked up at Sean. “What fight?”
He laughed. “Doctor Doolittle has his arm around Betsy Moore, and you’re coming on to me. I don’t mind being used, but I like to know the pertinent facts.”
I snuggled closer for the pleasure of our viewing audience. “Lionel and I had a disagreement about my father today. Before we could talk it over, he shows up with what’s-her-name draped all over him. He did it to make me jealous. So I decided to return the favor.”
Sean cocked his head to the side and nodded. “Sounds about right.”
“Really?” I couldn’t tell if he was joking. Thank God Sean wasn’t in our poker group.
He shrugged. “You don’t sit around waiting for situations to resolve themselves. He should know that. Hell, the whole town knows it. It drives me nuts.”
“I can’t help it.”
“I’ve figured that out.” He gave me a half smile. “But that doesn’t mean I’m ever going to like you poking into my cases. In fact, I’m surprised to see you here. Aren’t you supposed to be staking out nearby fields in case they explode?”
“Tomorrow,” I joked. “Tonight I’m doing the supportive family thing.”
“Maybe by tomorrow, you won’t have anything to stake out.”
I peered up at Sean’s knowing expression. “What does that mean? Did you find Sinbad’s car? Do you have a lead?”
Sean just gave me a smug smile, which I thought was pretty
silly, considering my hand was inches from his gun. The song came to an end. Pop’s voice disappeared, and Sean pulled me close. He leaned down. His face closed in on mine. I could smell mint. He must have brushed his teeth before coming to the dance. His mouth stopped an inch from my lips, and he said, “I have an arrest to make. Don’t follow me, or I’ll shoot your tires.”
The next thing I knew, the man was across the room and out the door.
Sean had to have known he couldn’t drop a bomb like that and expect me to stay put. He’d just finished telling me as much. It had to be a dare. One I accepted.
A few people tried to engage me in conversation as I made my way to the exit, but I was on a mission. Sean thought he’d solved the car theft case before I could. A part of me hoped he hadn’t. Call me crazy, but it was my case. If I was finally selling the rink and leaving town, I wanted to do it in a blaze of glory.
My feet hit the hallway as “Viva Las Vegas” blasted through the center. I was almost to the front door when an arm grabbed me.
“Becky, what the hell was that?” Lionel’s green eyes blazed in the fluorescent light.
“What was what?” I could see Sean’s police cruiser turning from the parking lot onto the street.
“The number you did with Sean Holmes. You hate the guy.”
“Hate is a strong word.” I watched the car turn left and strained to see it as it disappeared out of sight. Drat. Looking up at Lionel, I said, “You’re right. Sean and I don’t always see eye-to-eye. Today we do.”
“What’s so different today?”
My first answer was a D-cup blonde in a miniskirt. I went with my second choice. “Until today, I was involved with you. Now that we aren’t dating, I thought I’d give Sean a whirl before I leave town.”
Lionel dropped my arm as if scalded. “You’re really leaving town.” It wasn’t a question. He was pronouncing a death sentence.
“We close on the rink next Friday,” I said, trying to ignore the sick feeling I got when talking about the sale. “As soon as I pack up the apartment, I’m off to Chicago. Then you won’t have to worry about my getting in the way of you and your blond girlfriend.”