Dixie Diva Blues (42 page)

Of course, it was the rubber dildo that I’d unwillingly held earlier in the day. At that moment, I didn’t care. It was the best thing I could find to use as a weapon. Panties with no crotch would hardly be much help in a fight.

Heavy footfalls sounded on carpet, and crouched where I was just down the single step into the Blue Velvet Room, I saw a large dark shape pause by the velvet drapes. I held my breath. Maybe Carolann had escaped and even now police were on their way. That made me think of my bodyguard. Had he seen Walsh come into the shop? Were the police out there setting up a trap? Jake had assured me I was protected. So where were they?

And why would Walsh come after me
now
? They already had what they wanted. They had the flash drive. What else could they want? Revenge?
Why
, when they must know every cop in the area was searching for them?

All these thoughts raced through my brain in a matter of seconds, a continuous loop of random questions with no answers.

Walsh stepped just inside the door, and in the dark, missed the step-down. He fell like a sack of horse manure and landed about three feet from me. I froze.
Don’t look this way, don’t look this way,
I prayed silently. All he had to do was turn his head to the right and he’d see me crouching behind the display case.

Muttering profanities, Walsh rose to his knees. He caught hold of the edge of the case to pull himself up, but had his back to me. He was close, so close, yet he didn’t even look around. He stood indecisively for a few moments, peering into the shadows, then started back through the drapes. What a close call!

And at that precise moment, my cell phone rang.

Disaster . . .

CHAPTER 20

For one thing, I had forgotten all about having my cell phone. I’m not yet used to having it available, I guess, because anyone with the tiniest shred of common sense would have already dialed 911. So when it rang, the country song pealing away in the darkness, I was just as surprised as Ray Walsh.

Unfortunately, he recovered first.

He spun around and saw me crouched on the carpeted floor looking up at him. I felt like Little Brownie must when caught doing something wrong. Walsh looked big, bad, and angry. I managed what I thought was a placating smile.

“Hello,” I said as I tilted my head back to look up at him.

He replied with a few pithy words that I felt were entirely unnecessary. My smile vanished, and I thumbed what I hoped was the On button on the still singing cell phone. It stopped immediately.

Walsh demanded I hand it over. So I threw it. Not to him, but past him so it would land several feet away. Then I screamed as loudly as I could, so whoever was on the other end of the call might realize something was wrong.

My scream startled Walsh and he whirled around to look at me. I stood up from behind the display case, one hand holding the rubber dildo behind me.

“Leave us alone,” I yelled at the top of my lungs. “Go away, Walsh!”

He stared at me for a second. I don’t think he expected my combativeness. That was okay by me. I certainly hadn’t expected him to pop in like he had.

“Where is it?” he demanded tersely, and I blinked a few times just like Bitty would have done.

“Where is what?” I asked.

“The account numbers. The password you got from Whittier’s stuff.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You’re lyin’! I want the damn password, lady.”

Momentarily confused, I just shook my head. “You already have the flash drive, and I don’t know anything about a password.”

Walsh took a menacing step toward me. He was taller by at least four inches, and he looked pretty mean, even covered in dark chocolate. His mug shot had not done him justice, apparently.

“You know where it is, and you’re gonna get it for me. I ain’t taking no from you, so make up your mind if you’re gonna hand it over or take me to get it.”

By that time he was looming over me like doom. My knees began shaking and I got a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. I shook my head again.

“I’m done playin’ with you, lady.” He reached out and grabbed me by the left arm. “You’re gonna take me to get that password or I’m gonna—”

That was as far as he got before I smacked him hard in the face with the rubber penis. He made a harsh, gargled sound like a swallowed scream and immediately released my arm to stagger back a step or two. I followed him and hit him with the hard rubber penis against the side of his head this time. It made a solid, satisfying
thwack!
every time I hit him with it, and I hit him at least three more times. He went down, arms flailing, and got tangled up in the blue velvet draperies. I swung the penis again at where I thought his head might be; it was difficult to tell since the drapes had pulled free of the rod and he was wrapped up in yards of loose velvet.

“Lady!” came the high-pitched scream from the velvet blob floundering about on the floor, “Are you nucking futs? Stop mitting he!”

Good. I had him babbling.

About that time Carolann showed up with a shop broom. She whacked him with it a few times for good measure. Panting, she looked at the blue velvet creature writhing on the floor and said, “You better be glad the cops are here, or you’d really be hurting!”

“Cops are here?” I echoed in relief, then said, “It’s about time!”

She looked at me and said admiringly, “You really are good at this, Trinket. I’d forgotten that with the electricity turned off the phones don’t work. It’s a good thing your cousin showed up when he did . . . he’s out there talking to your bodyguard.”

“Well,” I said rather sharply, “I hope he’s asking him how Walsh got past him and in here.”

“Probably. Oh, here he is now.”

Jake strode across the shop floor toward the now motionless lump of blue velvet. He looked down at it, then up at me.

“Did you kill him?” he asked, sounding faintly annoyed.

“No. Not that I didn’t try.” I held up the rubber dildo. “He must have a soft head. A few whacks with this and he was down for the count.”

Jake stared at the dildo for a couple beats, then muttered, “Fascinating. You never cease to amaze me, Trinket.”

“I hope that’s a compliment.”

He shrugged. “You can take it that way, I guess.”

He kicked at the drapery bundle. “Get up, Walsh. Come on. On your feet.”

There was a faint groan, then some of the velvet shifted slightly. Jake bent and grabbed a fist full of material and jerked it away. Walsh lay there in a fetal position with his arms up over his head. Blood trickled from a cut on his scalp. Since the dildo didn’t have any sharp edges, I figured that it happened when Carolann smacked him a good lick with the broom.

“You got him good. Way to go,” I said to her, and she smiled.

Meanwhile, Jake grabbed Walsh by his belt and his collar and hauled him up off the floor to his feet. Walsh swayed a little bit unsteadily, and gave me a malevolent look.

“I just got the bandage off and you opened up that cut again, damn you,” he said. He pointed to the top of his head. “First I get stabbed with a high heel, and now you done tried to beat me to death with a blackjack.”

I held up my weapon. “This isn’t a blackjack.”

His eyes got wide as he took in the length and breadth of my weapon. I could swear I saw envy in his eyes before Jake started giving him his Miranda rights as he took him out of the shop.

“Well,” I said when I turned to Carolann, “I think we’re running behind for our Diva meeting.”

“Lawd, lawd,” she said, and gave a shaky laugh. “Is that it?”

“Is what it?”

“Do we . . . just . . . go on with what we were doing?”

“If you want to straighten up the shop first I’ll give Bitty a call—oh, no! I forgot!”

“Forgot what?” Carolann asked as I turned around and began searching the floor.

“My cell phone. It rang while I was hiding—and gave me away—and I threw it at Walsh. It’s got to be here on the floor somewhere.”

Amazingly enough, when I found my cell phone my caller was still waiting. I put it up to my ear and said, “Hello?”

“Are you okay?” Bitty asked anxiously. “I heard a lot of horrible noise—”

“Didn’t it occur to you to call the police?” I interrupted.

“Of course. Didn’t Jake get there yet?”

“
You
called Jake?”

“No, he happened to be here when I called you. He just stopped by, he said, to see how I was doing and if everything was okay. Gaynelle scares him, I think, because when he saw that she was here he didn’t have too much to say. Then you finally answered your phone, and of course, he left pretty quick after that.”

“Well,” I said, “I’m just glad he got here in time. Although Carolann and I were doing pretty good on our own, weren’t we?”

I addressed that last part to Carolann, who had begun picking up one of the racks Walsh had overturned, and she laughed a bit shakily.

“All Jake had to do was frog-march him out of here.”

“We’ll be there shortly,” I said back to Bitty. “We’re just going to straighten up a few things. I’m bringing wine and chess pie. I’m afraid the chocolate cake is ruined.”

“Come on as soon as you can. Rayna’s here, and Cindy and Sandra, and Deelight will be here in a few minutes with Cady Lee. We want a play by play of what happened when you get here, too.”

I promised they’d hear all the details, then I hung up. I stood there a moment, staring down at my phone and frowning. There was something really off about what had happened. It felt like something was . . . missing. Walsh wanted something I didn’t have. If I was supposed to have the password, what would it be? Where would it be?

“Can you help me get this off the floor?” Carolann asked as she tried to pick up one of the racks Walsh had knocked down, and I closed my cell phone and slipped it into my pocket. Whatever I was trying to work out would come to me. Maybe a few months down the road, but whatever was bothering me would eventually surface in my brain. It usually did.

Only two other Divas were left at Bitty’s.
Rayna and Gaynelle still sat in the cozy parlor with their legs curled up and cups of hot coffee in their hands. Carolann had been one of the last to leave, and she had expressed her admiration for my cold-cocking Walsh with a . . . well, cold cock.

“It was beautiful,” she had said with a sigh, clasping her hands together. “Trinket was so brave. She took that rubber penis and hit him so hard with it that he could barely talk. You just should have seen it!”

“So he’s in jail now?” asked Rayna. “Do you think he’s really the one who killed Larry Whittier, Trinket?”

“I don’t know. That applies to both questions. I’m assuming Jake took him right on to jail, so as far as I know he’s still there. As for him killing Larry Whittier . . . it’s quite possible. Even probable. Together, he and Garcia must be responsible. We know they’re partners in crime, anyway.”

“They certainly are,” said Bitty sharply. “That Walsh was very unpleasant. Left me tied up in that old house—why, I could have been there
months
without anyone finding me.”

“I doubt it,” said Gaynelle. “That house has been there for ages, but I understand it’s on casino property now, so at some point someone would have checked it out. Sooner or later the police would have gotten around to it after they realized Walsh had escaped their dragnet.”

“I tell you what, the world is coming to a bad state when innocent people get snatched up by criminals and then they don’t even go to jail for it.” Bitty looked pretty indignant. “No, that Jake Hankins just let them walk away.”

“Not really, Bitty,” said Gaynelle. “Jake was just too late to catch Walsh before he got you away from the casino.”

“Still,” Bitty insisted, “they got away. Until now, anyway. But that wretched man with the bald head is still running around out there somewhere.”

“Do you mean Garcia?” I asked Bitty. When she nodded, I said, “He’s not bald. I caught his cap on fire with a candle. He got burned.”

“Well, he doesn’t have any hair on the front of his head, anyway.” Bitty tucked Chen Ling close to her where she sat in one of the plump chairs. “I worry that he’ll come back and try to do something. So many criminals out there. It’s a shame, I tell you, just a shame that we can’t round them all up and put them away.”

“Does anyone else think it’s a bit strange that when Rob and I got back from Clarksdale, our hotel had been broken into?” asked Rayna.

“Strange?” I echoed. “Why
strange
, instead of irritating or scary?”

Rayna shrugged, then flipped one long strand of her dark hair over her shoulder. Silver earrings shimmied against her jaw line. “Well, nothing was taken, so that’s good. I don’t know why I said strange. It just seemed . . . well,
strange
that stuff had been moved around but all our expensive things weren’t touched.”