Page 10 of Dirty Deeds

“Enough, Camille. No one likes visiting memory lane.”

She propped a hand on her hip, deliberately provoking, and Joe’s gaze dropped slowly down her body.

I elbowed Jack and whispered, “It’s like we’re in our very own soap opera. A dead body and lots of drama.”

“Ssh,” Jack said. “I want to hear.”

“Really?” Camille asked. “Memory lane is one of my favorite places. Don’t you wish you could recreate those frantic and sweaty nights? Of course, there’s something to be said for maturity. Experience always trumps enthusiasm. Wouldn’t you say, Joe?”

Joe cleared his throat and was starting to look a little overheated, so I thought it might be a good time to remind them they had an audience and a dead body, neither of which was conducive to successful seduction.

“Did your grandmother get a good look at Leon in the courtyard?”

Camille smirked and dropped her hand to her side, and then she went back to the desk and opened the laptop, making sure everything was up and running.

“Oh, she saw him all right.” She gave the sign of the cross again. “She said he was dead as a doornail and God probably delivered the final blow himself. And that it was no less than he deserved.”

Joe winced. “Don’t speak ill of the dead, Camille.”

“I didn’t say it,” she said. “You know how grandmother is. She speaks her mind. I’m all finished up here.” She turned to Jack and me. “The internet connection isn’t great, but it’s as good as you’re going to get. Unless a storm rolls in. Then you’re shit out of luck, as my grandmother likes to say. Now if you all will excuse me, it’s long past the end of the work day and I can catch a couple of hours of beach time if I’m lucky.”

“Thanks for getting us set up,” Jack said. “You’ve saved us a lot of time and hassle.”

“Tell me that when you’re waiting for dial up. I went to college in the states and got my degree in computer science. I was used to the best of the best when it came to technology. Then I moved back here when my mama got sick, and it was like being thrown into the stone ages. I thought I’d die from the boredom of how long it took to get connected to the outside world. Fortunately, I’ve found other things to keep my interest. At least until I can get back to the states.”

I felt a little sorry for Joe. His expression turned to one of disappointment as she mentioned leaving, but he perked up again when she brushed her breast against his arm and batted long eyelashes at him.

“Why don’t you come buy me a hamburger before you get bogged down in all your police work. I watch TV. It could be days before you get to see me again. All this talk of memory lane has made me…curious.” She pouted prettily, and I knew we wouldn’t be seeing any of Joe for the rest of the night.

Joe cleared his throat again and put on his straw hat. “Sure, I guess I could buy you a burger. It’s been a long day. Unless you need me for something?” he asked, remembering we were there and doing his job for him.

“No, we’re going to be here a while,” Jack said. “Though if you’ve got copies of all the statements you took this afternoon that would be helpful. I can start going through them with fresh eyes. We can follow up with whomever we need to tomorrow.”

“Sure,” Joe said, nodding. “Though you’d best make it an early day tomorrow. Rain will be coming in by mid-afternoon. You’re going to want to be holed up in your cabana by then.”

Joe gave one more look at Leon laid out on the table, shrugged his shoulders at us with a sheepish smile, and then followed the sway of Camille’s hips right out the door.

“Twenty bucks says they do it in the car before they make it to memory lane,” Jack said.

“That’s a sucker’s bet. We could be doing that if we weren’t stuck here with this body.”

Jack sighed and looked down at Leon Stein. “Then lets get it done. My patience for being helpful is about at its end. We didn’t come here to do all their work for them. And they don’t seem too in a hurry to find out who did it.”

“Maybe no one liked Leon as much as Father Fernando said. Though it seems like someone would’ve killed him a long time ago instead of waiting until the week before he turned a hundred.”

“So we’ll keep looking for answers. At least for a little while. But twenty-four hours is probably going to be our limit on this. If we don’t find the killer by then we’re going to enjoy the rest of our honeymoon and say to hell with it. I want to visit memory lane too.”

Chapter Six

“Victim is identifiedas Leon Stein. Male. Age 99. Height is five feet, eleven inches. Weight is one hundred and sixty-two pounds. No birthmarks or tattoos. There’s a large incision scar down the sternum, indicative of open-heart surgery. And more incision marks near the pelvis, indicative of hip double hip replacement surgery.”

I turned off the recorder and looked at Jack. “See, that’s what sucks about getting old. You start to fall apart and end up like a patchwork quilt of other people’s organs and body parts.”

“Maybe by the time we’re that old everything will be robotic and we’ll be like the Bionic Man.”

“I’m telling you, the minute things start falling apart on me you should just put me down like a dog.”

“Technically I could do that now. You know how your knees creak every time you walk up the stairs.”

---