Hot Stuff

  “Maybe he’s a spook,” Julie said. “Like a wanderin’ soul. And that’s why we can’t see him when he leaves. He could just go under the door like a vapor. My cousin Charlene lived in a haunted house once. She said there was talkin’ and everythin’. And sometimes things would disappear. My mamma always said it was Charlene’s husband, Dale, who was takin’ stuff and sellin’ it so he could go to the dog races, but no one knew for sure.”

  Sharon leaned forward. “Shhh! I think he’s at the door!”

  In a fashion that would have made Lucy and Ethel proud, everyone scrambled to their feet and pressed themselves to the wall. The doorknob turned, and Cate held her breath.

  “We’re watchin’ history take place,” Julie whispered.

  The door opened and an overweight man in overalls stepped out and closed the door behind himself.

  Sharon had her hand to her throat. “Excuse me, sir,” she said. “Are you the resident of 2B?”

  The man looked at the unit he’d just left. “Me?” He adjusted his cap and shook his head. “No, I just fixed a plumbing problem. Had a bad float valve on a toilet.”

  “Is the resident in there right now?”

  “Nope. It’s a real nice apartment though. The guy’s got a wicked sound system. Real good music collection too.” He nodded and turned toward the elevator. “Have a good one.”

  Sharon started to go after him, and Cate grabbed the back of her shirt. “Enough, stalker-girl,” Cate said.

  “But I had just a couple more questions.”

  “That’s a big fib. You wanted to put him in a dark room, blindfold him, and make him recite everything he remembered about being inside 2B.”

  “Yeah, that’s true,” Sharon said. “I would have beat it out of him if he hadn’t cooperated.”

  “This has been disappointin’,” Julie said. “I expected to see some gangster or some reclusive individual. I’m goin’ back upstairs and hang out the window some more. Maybe I can see 2B coming into the building.”

  “I don’t suppose you saw anyone strange come into the building last night?” Cate asked Julie.

  “No. I was working the trolley last night. I don’t usually hang out the window after dark anyway. I saw a strange little man this morning though. He was standin’ on the sidewalk, lookin’ up at our building. He was a hairy little thing, and he had sideburns and a Kewpie doll curl in the middle of his forehead.”

  “Did you talk to him?” Cate asked.

  “I asked him if he was a Kewpie doll, and he said no. He said he was a Pugg. I don’t know what the devil he meant by that.”

  “It’s his name,” Cate said. “He’s my mother’s friend.”

  “He’s kind of cute,” Julie said. “Like a furry little forest animal. And he’s short. It’s been my experience that a short man with a little wee wee makes a real good lover. They gotta try harder than the big uns.”

  “He’s sort of a nut,” Cate said.

  “Speaking of nuts, I saw Kitty Bergman drag her gloom-and-doom cloud into the building this morning too,” Julie said. “She’s here a lot, and she just comes on in. She doesn’t have to intercom anyone to get past the buzzer door. How does that work?”

  “She owns real estate here,” Sharon said. “Two rental units on the first floor and one on the second floor.”

  Chapter

  EIGHT

  Cate stared openmouthed at the car in front of her.

  “What?” Kellen asked. “Is something wrong?”

  “This is your car?”

  “Yeah, it’s a beauty, isn’t it? It’s a ’65 Mustang, totally cherried out in its original black paint scheme. It’s got steel wheels and a K-code solid lift engine. And you don’t have to worry about Beast in the backseat. The leather is practically indestructible.”

  It was a sign from God, Cate thought. Kellen McBride rode a black horse.

  “It’s a great car,” she said.

  Kellen smiled. “I got it as a bonus for a job I did last year.”

  Kellen opened the door, and Beast climbed onto the backseat and hunkered down. Cate slid onto the passenger seat and cracked her knuckles.

  “Want to tell me about the job?” Cate asked.

  “No.”

  “Just dandy,” Cate thought. Black horse, sexy smile, hot body, dreamy eyes, and he was probably a hit man for the mob.

  “Was it illegal?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “Did it involve drugs?”

  “No.”

  “Okay then.”

  Kellen stopped for a light and cut his eyes to her. “Are you worried about me?”

  “Not anymore.”

  He reached over and held her hand. “Good.”

  “Maybe a little.”

  Kellen blew out a sigh. “I’m a salvage expert.”

  “What the heck is that?”

  “I retrieve lost property.”

  “A repo man.”

  Kellen gave a bark of laughter. “I’ve never thought of it that way, but I guess it could apply.” He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed it. “Are you still worried?”

  Cate had the cake on her lap, and under the cake she pressed her legs together. “No. Yes.”

  “About my job?” Kellen asked.

  “That too,” Cate said. “You aren’t one of those guys who go around breaking peoples’ knees, are you?”

  “No. I hardly ever break knees.”

  “That’s a relief.”

  They were in a neighborhood of sturdy, modest homes on small lots. No garages. On-street parking. One block over was a street filled with small businesses, including the Madigans’ store.

  “My parents live in the cream-colored house with the green door,” Cate said. “You’ll never find a parking place on the street, but you can park in the back. There’s an alley and room to pull in behind the house.”

  Kellen drove to the back of the house, parked the Mustang, and reached for Beast’s leash.

  “Are you nervous?” Cate asked Kellen.

  “About meeting your parents? No.”

  “If you had any intelligence at all you’d be shaking in your boots,” she said. “This isn’t going to be pretty.”

  “Is that why you brought Beast? To take the pressure off me?”

  “No. I brought him because my brother Danny is going to turn green with envy. He’s always wanted a cool dog like this.”

  Cate’s mother was at the back door, holding it open.

  “This is Beast,” Cate told her mother. “And this is Kellen.”

  “Good glory,” her mother said. “I was expecting a little dog, and I thought you were fibbing about bringing a man.”

  “I’ll put the cake in the kitchen,” Cate said to her mother. “You’re on your own,” she said to Kellen. “It’s every man for himself from here on out.”

  Danny was in the kitchen. He gave Cate a hug and a bottle of beer, and eyeballed Kellen and the dog.

  “I don’t know about this guy you brought,” Danny said. “But the dog is excellent.”

  Kellen stuck his hand out. “Kellen McBride.”

  “You’re kidding,” Danny said, shaking his hand. “You made that name up, right? Only leprechauns are named Kellen McBride.”

  “Behave yourself or there’s no cake for you,” Cate’s mom said to Danny.

  Zoe and Zelda ran in and flung themselves at Cate. She bent and hugged them, and introduced Kellen.

  “Mommy and Daddy sleep in the same bed,” Zoe said to Kellen. “Do you sleep with Aunt Cate?”

  “Not yet,” Kellen said.

  “People don’t sleep together until they’re married,” Danny said to the girls.

  “Are you going to marry Aunt Cate?” Zoe asked Kellen.

  “Maybe,” Kellen said, his eyes smiling at Cate, showing nice crinkle lines at the corners.

  Danny looked from Kellen to Cate. “Black horse or white horse?” Danny asked Cate.

  “Black. Mustang. ’65,” Cate said.

>   Danny took a pull at his beer. “Huh,” he said, not looking entirely happy.

  Beast was beside Cate, eyes bright, tongue out, sizing up Zoe and Zelda.

  “This is Beast,” Cate said to the girls. “He’s a Bullmastiff.”

  “He’s big,” Zelda said. “And he gots slobber on his mouth.”

  “That happens when he gets nervous,” Cate said. “He’s very sensitive.”

  “Why’s he nervous?”

  “Everything is new for him here. I think he’s nervous about meeting you and Zoe.”

  Zelda put her nose to Beast’s and looked him in the eye. “You don’t gots to be nervous, doggy. I’m going to take care of you. You can watch television with me.”

  “He likes cartoons,” Cate said. “And nature shows, but he’s afraid of lions.”

  Zelda wrapped her hand around Beast’s collar and led him into the living room. “I bet you don’t like when the lions go roar ’cause it’s so loud,” Zelda said to Beast. “And the lions gots too-big teeth.”

  “Do you come from a large family?” Cate asked Kellen.

  “Four older sisters. Plus my grandmother lived with us.”

  “Were your sisters overprotective?”

  “No, but for a bunch of years I used the next-door-neighbor’s bathroom. We only had one in our house, and it was always occupied.”

  Kellen looked around and knew he was going to like the Madigans. Their house was a little worn down at the heels in places, but only because it was well used. It was overflowing with life, love, and family. The way a house should be. It felt a lot like his parents’ house.

  Margaret Madigan was working at the stove. She stirred a lump of butter into a pot of green beans and checked the two big deep-dish cast-iron fry pans in the oven.

  “Biscuits are done,” she announced.

  Everyone grabbed food and marched into the dining room.

  Cate took a seat and looked around. “Where’s Amy?”

  “She’s upstairs,” Danny said. “She gets sick when she smells food. She’ll be down for dessert. It’s the only thing she can eat.”

  “Can doggy sit in Mommy’s chair?” Zelda wanted to know.

  “He doesn’t know how to sit in a chair,” Cate said.

  “He can sit on a couch,” Zelda said. “He puts his hiney on it like a person’s.”

  Jim Madigan buttered a biscuit. “What sort of work do you do?” he asked Kellen.

  “Salvage,” Kellen said.

  “You mean like a junkyard?”

  “No, sir. I work for banks and insurance companies and sometimes individuals. I investigate lost property.”

  “Like a private detective?”

  “Sometimes the work might be similar. But I’m not a private detective.”

  A lightbulb suddenly blinked on in Cate’s head. Kellen was using her to investigate Marty. Marty had something someone else wanted, and Kellen had been hired to retrieve it.

  “Omigod,” Cate said, turning to look at Kellen.

  “Uh-oh,” Kellen said.

  Cate narrowed her eyes. “I just figured it out.”

  “Can we discuss this later?” Kellen asked, voice lowered.

  “Absolutely,” Cate said. And she kicked him in the ankle.

  Kellen dropped his fork and sucked in some air.

  “Oops,” Cate said. “Sorry. It was an accident.” She kicked him again. “Oops, again.”

  Kellen wrapped his arm around Cate and whispered into her ear. “Kick me again, and I’ll give Pugg your cell phone number.”

  “Might be worth it,” Cate said.

  “What’s going on?” Danny wanted to know. “Is there a problem?”

  “Nope,” Cate said. “No problem. Just playing.”

  “So tell us about your folks,” Jim Madigan said to Kellen.

  “They’re dead.”

  The table fell silent.

  “I’m so sorry,” Margaret Madigan finally said. “And your sisters?”

  “They’re dead, too.” Kellen cut his eyes to Cate, daring her to kick him again.

  “Any dead dogs and cats?” Danny asked.

  “A few,” Kellen said, almost smiling.

  Cate was in the seat next to Kellen, arms crossed, eyes focused on a spot on the windshield. Beast was in the back, leaning forward, sensing impending doom.

  “Not good body language,” Kellen said to Cate. “You look angry.”

  “Madigan women don’t get angry. We get even.”

  “Do I have more coming to me besides getting kicked in the ankle?”

  “You have nothing coming to you. Ever.”

  “We’re talking about sex, aren’t we?”

  “It would have been good, too. I was going to show you wild woman. I was going to do it all.”

  “All?”

  “Almost all.”

  “Gee, that’s too bad,” Kellen said. “I was going to do a lot, too. Want me to tell you what I was going to do?”

  “No!”

  Kellen turned the Mustang onto Mass Avenue. “I might as well try to explain this while I have you captive. I’m an independent recovery agent. It occurred to me when I was a cop that the police do an okay job of catching bad guys, but do a very poor job when it comes to recovering stolen property. There are a lot of reasons for this, not the least of which are budget and focus. Too much crime, not enough cops. And frequently the stolen item is immediately fenced and passed along without a traceable record.

  “Sometimes stolen property can be easily replaced. Sometimes it’s irreplaceable. I go looking for the irreplaceable. Usually I’m employed by an insurance company that has taken a high-ticket hit. In this case, I’ve been retained by an individual who had a one-of-a-kind piece of jewelry stolen and wants it back.”

  “And you think Marty’s involved?”

  “If I run Marty’s history over the last two years I find seventeen instances of theft occurring at parties Marty has attended. Marty is the only person common to all seventeen.”

  “Coincidence?”

  “Seventeen is a lot of coincidence. Two weeks ago Marty performed at a charity function in my client’s home, and the next day my client discovered an heirloom necklace had been removed from his safe. I’ve been hired to find the necklace. I was hoping I’d find it in Marty’s condo.”

  “So you got friendly with me, so you could search the condo.”

  “That was my original plan. It was a lot more palatable than romancing Marty, but after watching you tend bar for an hour I wanted to be friendly just to be friendly.”

  “Sounds like a lot of Irish blarney,” Cate said.

  “Actually, I’m not Irish. My real name is Kellen Koster.”

  “Kellen Koster?”

  Kellen had been slowly cruising Cate’s street, looking for a parking space. He found one half a block from the condo, angled the Mustang into it, and turned the engine off. “It was supposed to be Kevin Koster, but it got screwed up at the hospital and never got changed. Most people call me Koz.”

  “I’m not most people.”

  “I’ve noticed.”

  “Now what?” Cate asked.

  “Now we get Beast out of the Mustang. He’s panting hot dog breath on me. Then we mosey up to the condo and see where we go from here.”

  Cate took Beast’s leash and coaxed him out of the car and onto the sidewalk. It was a little after nine and the city hadn’t yet cooled down. It was cold beer and iced Frappuccino weather in Boston. Red Sox hats and funky T-shirts and sandals weather. And air so thick with hydrocarbons you felt a rasp in the back of your throat and felt the city grit against your eyeballs. All part of summer in Boston, and people were sucking it up at outdoor cafés and cheering at Fenway.

  Beast plodded after Cate and patiently waited while she keyed herself into the condo building.

  “Well, good night,” Cate said to Kellen when the door clicked unlocked. “It’s been . . . interesting.”

  “You’re not getting rid of me yet,” K
ellen said. “I’m coming upstairs.”

  “No way.”

  Kellen pushed the door open and stepped inside. “I want to search the condo again. And I wouldn’t mind a good night kiss.”

  “Not going to happen.”

  “The kiss or the search?”

  “Either.”

  Kellen got into the elevator with Cate and Beast and hit the button for the fourth floor. “Usually there’s word on the street when an unusual piece is floating around. And there’s no word on my item. I think Marty still has it. Somewhere.”

  “Why would he keep it? Doesn’t that increase his risk of getting caught?”

  “Only if he shows it. Most high-level thieves keep an item now and then for their personal collection. If they’re smart they keep that personal collection hidden. And sometimes a piece is taken that’s too hot to handle and has to be set aside for a year or two . . . or ten.”

  “Marty’s condo has already been searched.”

  “I want to search it again.” But mostly, Kellen thought, he just wanted a kiss.

  Chapter

  NINE

  Cate plugged her key into the lock on her front door and the door swung open.

  “Oh crap,” Cate said. “Déjà vu.”

  Kellen stepped inside and looked around. “This isn’t good.”

  Cate and Beast followed him into the foyer and gaped at the mess. Tables were overturned, furniture was askew, and couch cushions were on the floor.

  “This wasn’t a normal search,” Kellen said, walking through the condo. “It looks to me like there was a fight here. There’s a spray of blood droplets on the kitchen floor, like someone was punched in the nose.”

  “That makes no sense.”

  “Maybe Marty returned and someone followed him.”

  “I can’t see Marty leaving the front door open or walking away from blood on the floor. Marty is fastidious.”

  “Maybe Marty didn’t walk away.”

  A half hour later Cate and Kellen were in Marty’s small office, and Kellen was in Marty’s desk chair, rifling through Marty’s drawers.

  “Nothing of any value in his file cabinet,” Kellen said. “His computer is traveling with him. I can’t find any memory sticks or disks or safety deposit box keys. No James Bond fake drawers or revolving bookcases. This office is clean. In fact, so far as I can see the whole condo is clean. And I don’t believe it. I know I’m missing something.”