One Hot Mess Read online

  He gave a brief shrug. “Perhaps nothing.”

  “Perhaps?”

  Stepping forward, he took my hand in both of his. They felt warm and strong. “I did not mean to frighten you. It is simply that…” He paused. Emotion flashed through his ever-earnest eyes. Regret, sorrow, fear. Or maybe he was just a really first-rate actor. “I, too, am fearful.”

  “Of…”

  He drew a fortifying breath. “The truth is this: Last night I was visited by a dream,” he said.

  I waited, but he failed to continue. “Is this a version of Dr. King’s speech or…”

  “About Gerald.”

  “Oh?”

  “As you know, he and I have had our difficulties.”

  In fact, “Gerald” had at one time accused his old man of murdering the woman whom they’d shared as a fiancée— a long, twisted, and somewhat perverted story.

  “But he is my only son. My heir,” he said, and fisted his hand against his chest. “The produce of my loins.”

  Whoa, I thought, and wondered if it was time to swoon like a wilted lily.

  “I have no wish to see him hurt.”

  I shook my head.

  “In my dream…” He spread his fingers and swept his hand in the air between us, as if seeing the scene in panoramic color. “He was lying on the concrete. Eyes open, face pressed against the cold cement.”

  Despite the theatrics, I felt my heart slow dramatically. My own dream last night had been similar, although in mine, there had been another body beside Rivera’s—an unidentified woman. I took a deep breath, steadying myself. “What does this death have to do with Jack?” I asked.

  “As of yet… nothing.”

  “Then why—” I began, but he pulled a Polaroid from his breast pocket.

  I reached for the photo with some misgiving, peered at the image, then turned it right side up and looked again. It took me a minute to determine the logistics. Longer still to realize that the thing I was looking at had once been human. “Holy shit!” I rasped, and, jerking back, dropped the snapshot.

  There was a moment of silence, then the senator stepped forward to retrieve the photograph. “I am sorry,” he said.

  My hands were shaking. “What was that?”

  “At one time that was a woman. Her name, I believe, was Kathleen Baltimore.”

  I pulled my gaze from the picture to his face. “Why are you telling me this? Showing me this?”

  “Because my dream also revealed her.”

  The shattered images of my own nocturnal imaginings jolted through me like a cruel electrical current.

  “She lay on the concrete beside my son’s unseeing body.” He paused. I said nothing. I felt too sick to my stomach to remind myself that I didn’t believe dreams were the harbingers of evil to come. Neither did I set much store by the boogeyman or extraterrestrials. “So you see why answers must be found. Before it is too late,” he said.

  “But who is she? How is Jack—”

  “So far as I know, Gerald does not know Ms. Baltimore.”

  “Then why—”

  “Neither is he acquainted with most of the victims with whom he becomes involved. And yet he is put at risk with each new tragedy. Therefore, we must do something. For her as well as for him. Before my dreams become reality. As they so often do.”

  I shook my head again. Thus far it wasn’t helping the situation a great deal. And it was something I was good at. “The LAPD is a huge department,” I said. “Are you sure Jack is even involved?”

  “I believe my son has yet to review this case.”

  I turned my head a little, maybe believing it would help me think. Couldn’t hurt. “You got the picture before he did?”

  He paused for a second. “In truth, Ms. Baltimore died in Edmond Park.”

  “Edmond Park! That’s—Is that even in California?”

  “It lies some miles northwest of our fair city.”

  “Nowhere near Jack’s jurisdiction.”

  “Maybe it would not be quite… kosher for Gerald to become involved in this tragedy, Christina, but he is a strong-willed man. A stubborn man. A man bent on justice, and I feel in my heart, in my soul, that he will become embroiled for some reason, and…” He shook his head, seeming to subdue a shudder. “My dreams of late have been quite vivid, filled with evil. With death. How would I forgive myself if something were to happen to him, my only son, before amends were made between us?”

  I remained mute for a moment, trying to separate honest emotion from calculated sensationalism. But he was a politician. Perhaps the two had blended into one quixotic toxin years ago. “Listen, Senator,” I said, “I appreciate your concerns, but I don’t know what this has to do with me.”

  “It was you who solved the mystery of Andrew Bomstad.”

  “That was different.” And quite personal. Bomstad had been determined to rape me before he dropped like a slapped housefly at my feet. It hadn’t seemed quite fair that I might be held responsible for his death.

  “What of Robert Peachtree?” he asked.

  “Sorry about that,” I said, but it probably wasn’t my place to apologize. Old Peachtree, had, after all, murdered the senators fiancée, Salina Martinez, and tried to do the same to me after I’d learned the truth. I know it seems unlikely—a nice person like me—but these things happen … repeatedly.

  “I am not above begging,” the senator said.

  “I’d like to help you. Really I would, but—”

  “All I am asking is that you look into the situation. Learn the truth about her death before Gerald becomes involved. I would consider it an enormous favor.”

  “I wish—”

  “Indeed, you would be a hero to the great state of California. A shining example of feminine ability.”

  “That’s nice, but—”

  Someone rapped a happy beat on a window not six feet from my head. I jumped, shoved my heart back into the too-tight confines of my chest, then excused myself to open the back door. SuperSeptic Guy stood there. His coveralls were still gleaming, as was his smile.

  “Are you finished already?” I myself may have been a little more on the scowly side.

  “I’m afraid you’ve a bit of a problem,” he said.

  My spleen knotted up despite his toothy expression. “A problem?”

  “It looks as if your pipes may need to be replaced.”

  “Replaced.” My spleen did a free fall, waving dismally to my stomach as it headed toward my knees. “Which pipes?”

  “All of them. It appears as if you’re going to need an entirely new system.”

  “I can’t—”

  “And the sooner the better.” He turned away, one happy little camper.

  “Wait,” I said, stepping onto my dry, crackly lawn. “There must be something else you can do.”

  “Traid not,” he said, and was already whistling as he disappeared around the corner of my house.

  I followed him, intent on verbal persuasion or bodily intimidation or both, but in that instant, the senator spoke from behind me.

  “I’ll pay” he said.

  I turned in a haze.

  He stood framed in my humble doorway, well dressed, polished, and as serious as a coronary.

  “I am quite a wealthy man, Christina,” he said. “If you help me save my son, I shall pay you handsomely.”

  2

  Excrement happens.

  —SuperSeptic Associate

  ORRECT ME IF I’M WRONG, but isn’t there some sort of governmental department that handles things like, say, the prevention and investigation of crimes?” Laney asked. Elaine Butterfield has been my best friend since the fifth grade. Back then she was called Brainy Laney—later she was called a lot of other things, several of which had to do with her cup size. Brainy Laney Butterfield is as watch-me-as-I-sink-into-depression beautiful as she is smart. Currently she was on location, filming segments of The Amazon Queen, an admittedly hokey series that had garnered millions of fans.

&nbs
p; As for me, ten hours after the senator’s visit, I was snuggled up on the couch with an oversize dog, cell phone pressed to my ear. Following work, I had changed back into my tattered shorts ensemble, considered going shopping for Christmas gifts, and promptly fallen into a post-Thanksgiving coma from which the phone had awakened me.

  “The senator said the murder was in a different jurisdiction, in Edmond Park,” I explained.

  “So crimes committed in other parts of the state can no longer be solved without involving Christina McMullen, Ph.D.?” she asked.

  “I guess he’s worried about Rivera.”

  “His son Rivera?” she asked. Her tone was a little dubious. Laney has a tendency to cut through bullshit like a snowplow through whipped cream. Though she herself would never call it bullshit. Or eat whipped cream. Nothing but self-harvested seaweed sprouts and moon juice for Laney. “The son whose fiancée he was sleeping with?”

  I rubbed my eyes. “The same.”

  “The son whose fiancée he planned to marry?”

  I refrained from sighing. “I never said the Riveras were normal.”

  “Uh-huh. How exactly is he worried about his son?”

  “He said he had a nightmare about him.”

  “About Jack.” Her tone had gone from dubious to don’t-even-go-there.

  “Yes.” I didn’t tell her I’d had a similar dream. It was, after all, probably just a coincidence. But I’d had other dreams about Rivera. Less horrific ones, but just as vivid. They had revealed that he was … well, quite favorably endowed. And if I remembered correctly how he’d looked stepping out of my steamy shower some months ago— which I thought I did—the dream had been startlingly correct. I didn’t tell Laney that, either. I needed some time to think things over before voicing the words aloud. “Saw him facedown on the concrete and felt it was a premonition. Something destined to take place if he became involved in this investigation.”

  “Well, he is an investigator,” she said. “Which, lest you forget, you are not, Mac.”

  “I know, but…” I pulled a blanket over my legs. I felt a little chilled despite the fact that the temperature still hovered near triple digits. Must be my minuscule body weight. “You didn’t see the picture.”

  “There was a picture?”

  “Of the murder… of the victim.”

  “How did he get a picture?”

  “I don’t know. He was in politics. He can probably pull a rabbit out of a hat, too.”

  “That’s great, if you need a rabbit. Do you need a rabbit?”

  “Not so much.”

  “Then I’d be careful. This sounds kind of fishy to me. How did he even learn of a death in Edmond Park? Who is this woman? And why does he care about her? I don’t like the idea of you getting involved.”

  “With a murder investigation?”

  “With a politician.”

  I grinned a little, happy just to hear her voice. “But maybe I could help.”

  “You asked for my advice. I’m giving it. Stay out of it. Please. For my sake.” She sounded just like she did in the seventh grade when she’d asked me not to meet Jeremy Jackson in Zocher Park after curfew. I hadn’t listened then, either. I’d ended up having to cover for the two buttons missing from my parochial-school jumper. Jeremy, on the other hand, had been forced to explicate a broken nose.

  “I’ll think about it,” I said.

  There was a pause, then a sigh. “You already agreed to help him, didn’t you?”

  I hesitated. Lying to Brainy Laney is like trying to con the pope—foolish and morally prohibitive. “Did I tell you about the SuperSeptic guy?”

  Silence. Then: “I’m trying to divine if there could possibly be a segue here.”

  “He said my pipes are broken. Or something.”

  She hesitated. “And you felt that was the universe’s way of telling you to risk your life by investigating the death of a woman you’ve never met.”

  “I felt I don’t have enough cash to pay for toilet-bowl cleaner much less a whole new system.”

  “The senator offered you money?”

  “Said he had only one son.”

  “Mac, if it’s just money, I can wire you some—”

  “No.” It was tempting, so tempting that I felt a need to interrupt her before I crumbled like my aging pipes. After all, I still owed her for the last loan, which had been given to me on account of my fundamentally deranged brother. Word of advice: If your fundamentally deranged brother says he needs twenty thousand dollars, jab a nail file in his eye and run like hell, even if the money is to repay a loan from a cowboy-wannabe mobster who has something of a crush on you. I think there might be a bumper sticker to that effect. “I appreciate it, Laney. Really. But I’ll be fine. There are a lot of crazies here in L.A.; business is brisk.”

  “Maybe that could be your logo: L.A. Counseling, where crazies come to roost.”

  “You think it’d help business?”

  “Depends. How crazy are they?”

  I laughed, but just then there was a knock at the door. The laugh froze in my throat. It was well past nine o’clock in the evening. I have three really good friends—I was currently speaking to one, another was drooling on my leg, and the third was lying in vibratory preparation in the little drawer next to my bed. That just left rapists and somnambulists roaming the streets.

  “Mac?”

  “I think there’s someone at my door,” I said.

  “Look and see who it is. I’ll stay on the line.”

  I traipsed to the kitchen window and peeked between the curtains. I’d bought them on sale at JCPenney sixteen months earlier. It’d just be a matter of time before the wrinkles hung out.

  “Damn it,” I said.

  “Who is it?”

  “Rivera.”

  “Junior or Senior?”

  “Junior.” I slipped the curtains shut, but at that exact moment he turned his head toward the window. “Oh, crap.”

  “What happened?”

  “I think he saw me.”

  “Good. Go talk to him, get his opinion. See if he thinks it’s wise to look into this.”

  “Yeah.” I was hiding behind the wall. But I was pretty sure he could see through it. Like Superman. But without the cape. And the Speedo. And tights. “Yeah, that’s a good idea.”

  There was a momentary pause. “What’d you do, Mac?”

  I made a face but decided on the truth. “It could be I told the senator I’d keep this a secret.” I was whispering now, though I was pretty sure Rivera would have to have Superguy’s super ears to hear me.

  “Why?”

  “Because he offered me a crapload of money,” I hissed.

  “So he is paying you.”

  “I haven’t said I’d do it yet, but the man’s richer than Zeus.”

  “I didn’t even know they had an established monetary system on Olympus.”

  Rivera rapped on the door again. “McMullen,” he called. “Open up.”

  I stood thinking in silence for a moment, pretty sure Laney had heard him. “Do you ever wish I weren’t an idiot?” I asked finally, and she laughed.

  “Never.”

  “McMullen!” He rapped again, louder this time.

  “You’d better let him in, Mac. Doors are expensive.”

  “You’ll be home soon?”

  “Before the next attempt on your life,” she promised.

  “You’d better hurry,” I said, and hung up.

  “God damn it, McMullen. Either that was you at the window or there’s an intruder in your house. In which case I’m going to break—”

  I opened the door before he could complete the sentence or activate the intent.

  “Lieutenant Rivera,” I said. My tone was ultra-controlled, but seeing him generally makes my ovaries emit some kind of supersonic whine heard only by bats and insects. “How nice to see you.”

  Harley tromped past me, skidding to a halt in front of Rivera, who rubbed the dog’s ears and scanned the inter
ior of my domicile, possibly looking for desperadoes and expatriates.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  Those were generally the first words out of his mouth. Like “hello” to nonpsychotics.

  “I’m fine.” I gave him my most charming after-nine smile. “Thank you for asking.”

  “You were damn slow at opening the door,” he said, and glanced through my foyer to my living room. A misplaced lamp shade and a pile of magazines could be seen from where I stood. He handed me a grocery bag and moved into the bowels of my house.

  “What’s this?” I asked, peering into the bag.

  “Have you been burgled?” He moved into the living room, surveying the damage of my survival.

  “What’s with the flour?” I asked.

  “Did you see the guys who did this?” Tossing my latest romance novel from the La-Z-Boy onto the couch, he took a seat not far from where his father had been just that morning.

  “I didn’t think the LAPD was allowed to be so hilarious,” I said, and, following him into the living room, set the bag on the arm of the couch. There were approximately six food items inside. One was shrimp. They looked gray and unusually uninviting. “Normal men bring chocolates.”

  “I brought a recipe, too.”

  “Why?” I asked, pulling a carefully printed index card into the light.

  “Give a woman a fish and she’ll eat for a day” he said. Reaching beneath him, he came up with a comb and two ink pens. “Teach her to cook…” He tossed the pens beside the paperback. He looked good. Tired but rugged, dressed in faded blue jeans and a bone-weary T-shirt that knew what to do with a man’s chest. “She’ll make a man happy without getting naked.”

  I dropped the recipe back in the bag. “You wish you’d ever been so happy.”

  He watched me. The devil was shining in his eyes. “You sure you’re all right?” he asked again, but slower now, studying me.

  “Just frustrated.”

  His brows rose hopefully. “Yeah?”

  I gave him a look meant to scathe. “About my septic system.”

  “Still peeing at your office?”

  “I prefer the term ‘micturition,’” I said, but I didn’t really. I grew up with three brothers. If I had used that word on any one of them, they would have laughed until their kidneys fell out.