The Root of All Trouble Read online

  "You weren't dating Joey Miller, were you, Mr. Cabrera?" Perry asked, wiggling his dirty blond, perfectly-shaped eyebrows. He took his manscaping seriously. "That might explain some things. Like your taste in shirts."

  Perry, who was openly gay and had been since middle school, loved to tease Mr. Cabrera about his sexuality. At first, my grumpy meddling neighbor took it personally and went on the defensive. Now, however, he tended to tease right back.

  His unruly eyebrows rose. "I may have passed along a compliment to him a time or two. He had a fine way with a circular saw. A true talent."

  "Aha!" I accused playfully.

  "Now, now, Miz Quinn," Mr. Cabrera said calmly. "As you well know, Ursula and I are doing just fine right now. This death," he waved toward the back yard, "is all on you and your curse."

  It was true I had a bit of a reputation. I had an uncanny knack for finding dead bodies—people who'd been murdered—and for helping to solve their cases. At this point the police should just put me on the payroll.

  Six months had passed since I'd seen any kind of dead body, and until today I had started to think my own curse was finally broken...

  My curse, apparently, had been taking an extended vacation.

  "That," I waved outside, "isn't my fault. I barely even knew him."

  "Perry and Mario knew him," Mr. Cabrera said. "They're your friends, therefore you're guilty."

  "And you've finally lost your mind," I said.

  "Aha!" Perry pulled a bottle of gin from the box. He kissed the label before practically skipping toward the kitchen. "Who wants a G and T?"

  "I do," Mr. Cabrera and I said at the same time.

  It had been one of those days.

  Dark clouds skimmed treetops as they sped eastward. It looked like the worst of the weather had passed. The Reaux Construction crew were still out in the elements, huddled together just beyond the deck, corralled by a police officer trying to keep them away from the crime scene. Delphine was the only one who had an umbrella and she wasn't sharing—the rest of them looked water-logged. A Freedom PD homicide detective would be here soon to talk to them.

  I had a feeling I knew which one, too. Detective Kevin Quinn.

  My ex-husband.

  I couldn't escape the man.

  And couldn't decide if I wanted to.

  Lime slices balanced on tall glasses as Perry set the drinks on a fancy tray and carried them over to Mr. Cabrera and me. The tray was a nice touch of normal in the midst of all the dust and chaos. The walls had been torn down to the studs, the bricks from the fireplace lay in piles on the warped wooden floors, and the only furniture in the open living and dining room was a beat-up table with four mismatched chairs.

  "Nice watch," I said, taking hold of his wrist. The vintage watch had a decorative golden crackled dial and a dark brown leather band.

  "This is the one I told you about."

  Perry had begun receiving anonymous gifts right after he moved in, and the watch was the latest to arrive. He'd yet to uncover the identity of his admirer. "It's a beauty."

  Abandoning his drink for a moment, Perry stopped and admired the timepiece, holding his arm out to let the light glint off the crystal lens. "It's a shame I can only wear it when Mario is at work."

  Mario was a court stenographer downtown, and I wondered if Mario was on his way home or if he was in a hearing and hadn't yet heard the news about Joey Miller.

  "Why?" Mr. Cabrera took his drink off the tray.

  "Because Mario thinks it's from an old boyfriend who's trying to get me back. He's the jealous type."

  Mario, a dark-haired, dark-eyed Latino was definitely the jealous type.

  "Could it be from an ex?" I asked.

  "I don't think so. If any of my exes had this good of taste I'd probably still be with him."

  Mr. Cabrera grunted. "A watch is a watch."

  "Said the man with the flamingoes on his shirt," I said.

  He raised his glass to me. "Said the woman with the There's Something About Mary hairdo."

  My hands went to my hair and Perry knocked them away. "Let me." He twisted and tucked and next thing I knew, my hair was pulled up in some sort of chic knot.

  Perry was a magician, I was convinced, his hair brush his magic wand.

  As my stylist, he knew my hair better than anyone else. Maybe even better than I knew it myself. Until I met him I hadn't cared much about my hairstyle. Now I was in his chair getting highlights every eight weeks—my one vanity.

  Mr. Cabrera frowned. "You don't have any idea who's sending the gifts?"

  "None. I also got a silk pocket square and some expensive cologne. Mario doesn't know about those, so if we can keep them between us, I'd appreciate it."

  "I can be persuaded," Mr. Cabrera said.

  Perry sighed. "Which one do you want?"

  "The cologne. The ladies love a great smelling man."

  "You're making me queasy," I said. "Besides, why do you need to impress 'the ladies' when you have Mrs. Krauss?"

  "I have a right to smell good, Miz Quinn," he snapped.

  I rolled my eyes and grabbed my drink. I had a feeling I'd need a refill soon.

  Perry motioned toward the back yard. "I hate to think about how long he's been out there." He cocked a hip, swirled his ice, and said, "I started smelling something bad back there yesterday but couldn't figure out what it was. I thought it was a neighbor's trash. Mario joked that we'd moved into a trashy neighborhood."

  "That's not funny," Mr. Cabrera said. "This neighborhood was just fine until—"

  "Yeah, yeah," I said. "We don't need to go through all that again." I leaned on the edge of the table, and was glad that Mario wasn't home, or he would have chastised me to use a chair. He was a stickler like that.

  Mr. Cabrera squeezed his lime. His dark eyes were as big as moonpies when he asked, "Did you see how his head was dented in like Mario's car that one time you crashed it?"

  Despite his commentary about the state of the Mill, there was nothing Mr. Cabrera liked better than a little commotion in the neighborhood. He was the gossip king, and all this hubbub would be great fodder at his weekly to-do, which once included a cribbage match or a poker game. On tap this week was a Scrabble tournament.

  "Makes sense," Perry said, "considering, and thanks for bringing up the car, Mr. C. Mario still gets peeved about that. See if I share that cologne with you after all."

  "Considering what?" I asked, my nosiness at an all-time high.

  "The bloody rhinestone hammer that fell out of the tree with the body. I'm guessing it was what did that to his skull." Perry tsked and said mournfully, "It's a shame, really. He had such a nice head of hair. Not many men can wear a shag cut and pull it off. That's about the only nice thing I can say about him."

  Mr. Cabrera nodded in agreement. "The shag is a toughie. I tried it once in the seventies."

  Perry gasped. "With your bone structure?"

  "It was a mistake I've never repeated."

  "Your Clark Cable slick suits you. Don't fix what ain't broke."

  Mr. Cabrera patted his hair with a smug smile. I didn't think his 'do was in danger of change since he had a cabinet full of pomade at home that he wouldn't want to go to waste.

  Sadly, I couldn't argue with Perry's assessment of Joey. The man was a bit of a...cretin. He'd pinched my ass more than a few times, and he leered at every woman he ever met. There was an air of slimeball about him that made me squirm. He was the type to steal a granny's retirement fund and milk from a baby.

  It hadn't surprised me at all that he was dead.

  What did surprise me was where he was found.

  I stood up and peered out the slider. I hadn't seen the hammer when I arrived. "Wait a second. That hammer... Wasn't that Delphine's?"

  "Have you ever seen anything more ridiculous?" Mr. Cabrera shook his head. "A rhinestone encrusted hammer?"

  I was about to mention his shirt again, but decided against it and took another sip of my drink.


  Jean-Claude mentioned the hammer had gone missing, but he neglected to mention it had gone missing at the same time as Joey.

  "Do you think she's the one that bashed in his head?" Perry asked, his eyes aglow.

  He was going to fit into this neighborhood just fine.

  "I can't see it," Mr. Cabrera said. "She has the fight in her all right, but she's too tiny to get him into the tree."

  "On her own," Perry said ominously.

  Mr. Cabrera nodded. "True, true."

  "I wouldn't rule her out. The opening of that hollow was only three feet off the ground, and she's stronger than she looks."

  Through the glass, I studied Delphine as she hunkered beneath a plain black umbrella. She was small, maybe five foot one or two, but she was as curvy as any 1940's pinup girl. She had long dark hair and smoky black eyes. A skintight black leather micro-mini skirt clung to her wide hips and nipped in at her narrow waist, and a tight t-shirt barely contained her double Ds. One of her crew members, Bear Broward, held the umbrella over her head, and she kept dabbing at her heavily-lined eyes with a tissue.

  There was a don't-mess-with-me look about her that made me believe she wouldn't think twice about using that hammer on someone. But why? "Okay, conspiracy theorists, why would Delphine kill Joey? What's her motive? And wouldn't she have been stupid to leave the hammer behind?" She struck me as a lot of things but stupid wasn't one of them.

  Perry finished off his drink and wiggled his eyebrows. "They were a couple."

  "A couple of what?" Mr. Cabrera asked.

  Perry shot him a look.

  I said, "He can't handle his alcohol. It makes him loopy."

  "A couple." Perry made kissing noises. "I saw them making out in the front seat of her truck once. Could be this head bashing is the result of a lover's quarrel."

  "I like it," Mr. Cabrera slurred, making kissing sounds.

  Perry pried the glass from his hand and said, "Ooh, here comes someone who can probably sort it all out. Man, does he get more gorgeous every day?"

  Yes. Yes, he did. Not that I noticed or anything.

  Kevin had arrived, and he didn't look too happy about the scene before him. A scowl tugged at his lips as rain spilled down his face.

  "Don't let Mario hear you talking like that," I said, hating the pangs I felt in my stomach.

  Perry made the sign of the cross.

  Kevin looked around, then swiped a hand through his wet hair, slicking it back. He turned his face up toward the sky and Perry and I both sighed a little.

  Mr. Cabrera knocked on the slider and waved like a madman, alerting Kevin to our presence inside the house. The dry house.

  I said, "No more gin for him. Ever."

  "You should have warned me before."

  "I was a little distracted with the dead guy and all."

  "They're coming up here," Mr. Cabrera said.

  "I need a refill," Perry mumbled.

  "Me, too. In a to-go cup." I needed to get out of here ASAP.

  Perry grabbed my arm. "Oh no. You're the one who talked me into moving to this neighborhood in the first place. You're staying."

  "If I'm staying," Mr. Cabrera said, "I'm going to need a refill, too."

  "No," I said.

  "You're not the boss of me, Miz Quinn." Mr. Cabrera set his hands on his hips and tipped his head, challenging me.

  "Do I need to go and get Ursula?"

  He paused for a second before grumbling, "She's not the boss of me, either."

  "She's not?" This was news to me.

  "She thinks she is, but she's not."

  Perry said, "When are you going to pop the big question to Ursula anyhow? I thought you've been looking at engagement rings."

  Mr. Cabrera sniffed. "I don't know if I am."

  "What's that mean?" It had been decided that the key to them staying together permanently was to get married. His curse only affected women he dated.

  "If you must know, I'm not sure I'm ready to settle down," he said. "I'm a catch."

  I rolled my eyes—he was always going on about what a catch he was. I didn't have time to dissect his little tantrum and what it meant for Brickhouse's and his relationship because the patio door slid open.

  Kevin stepped inside, paused a second as he looked at me, and said, "Hello, Nina. Fancy seeing you here."

  The worst of the weather may have blown over, but by the look in Kevin's eyes, the real storm was just beginning.

  I looked at Perry. "I'll take that refill now."

  Chapter Three

  It was a motley crew who followed Kevin inside.

  A drenched motley crew, four of them in all, all as mismatched as the chairs Kevin directed them to sit in.

  "Luvie, can I trouble you for a towel?" Delphine Reaux purred to Perry as she rubbed up against him. Whisking raindrops from her face, she batted her fake lashes.

  It was last week when I started to wonder if Delphine was part cat since she couldn't seem to talk, walk, or stretch like a normal person. She had the sleek look of a feline, but there was a glint in her eye that warned she might be feral, so approach at your own risk.

  I kept my distance.

  "Absolutely!" Perry snapped to and dashed down the hallway, at her beck and call. Even though there wasn't a heterosexual bone in his body, Delphine had that effect on all men.

  "A whole stack," I called after Perry. Delphine hadn't asked for towels for the others, who were more soaked through than she, because she'd been the only one to have an umbrella.

  It spoke volumes about her character. Not that her character was ever in question. With Delphine, what one saw was what one got. Claws and all. And speaking of claws, her fingernails were painted blood red and bedazzled with crystals.

  I had to admit, I kind of liked the crystals (don't tell my fashionista sister Maria). I could hardly remember the last time my raggedy nails had been painted. With my line of work, a manicure was a waste of money.

  I was surprised Delphine didn't have the same problem, being in construction. But obviously she didn't get her hands dirty too often, with work, at least.

  I stood off to the side along with Mr. Cabrera, who'd found the gin on the counter and poured himself another drink.

  He was going to regret that decision in the morning.

  Me? I was probably going to regret it in fifteen minutes when I had to walk him home and explain his condition to Mrs. Krauss. The man couldn't hold his liquor and was going to be falling-down drunk soon.

  I'd known Brickhouse since I was fifteen years old. She scared me then, and she scared me now. We'd come a long way in our friendship, mostly because I'd discovered that she was more bark than bite, but every once in a while she still gnashed her teeth and took a chunk out of my hide. I feared that when I delivered an inebriated Mr. Cabrera home to her that this was one of those times when she would bite.

  The group sat forlornly at the table, most of them dripping rainwater onto the floor. I wasn't too worried about the old wooden boards—they were due to be pulled up and replaced any day now.

  Well, it had been scheduled. I wasn't sure how Joey Miller's murder would fit into the renovation plans.

  My gaze skipped from face to face. This group had all become familiar to me over the past week, yet in light of what had been found in the back yard, I was looking at them through fresh eyes. It was very possible one of them was a killer.

  Delphine sat at the head of the table and to her right sat Brian "Bear" Broward, who only had eyes for her. He'd earned his nickname because he looked just like a giant bear. Over six feet tall, he had shaggy curly brown hair, big round brown eyes, a rounded belly and a slightly hunched back. But make no mistake, there was nothing cuddly about him. He was more grizzly than teddy.

  Opposite Delphine sat Ethan Onderko. If he had a nickname it would probably be something like "Serial Killer." I'm kidding, kind of. Mid-twenties, he was tall and skinny with a bit of a James Dean look about him with gorgeous downturned eyes that were black and devoid
of humanity. With his slicked-back hair he had "bad boy" attitude stamped all over him. He favored white tees and ripped jeans, drove an old pickup truck and smoked like a chimney. I wouldn't have been the least bit surprised if he pulled a switchblade from his pocket and carved his initials into the walnut table—right after he stabbed someone with its sharp tip. He was terrifying.

  On Delphine's left, Plum Reaux tapped her modestly-manicured nails on the table and made puppy dog eyes at an oblivious Bear. Tall (almost as tall as Bear), she was heavyset with broad shoulders, triple Ds (at least), a modest waist, and wide hips. If one "supersized" Delphine, she would look a lot like Plum, which made all kinds of sense since they were sisters. She embraced her womanly hourglass figure by wearing a gold one-piece jumpsuit that was belted just under her enormous breasts. With her dark blue eyes and long chestnut hair, she was va-va-voom gorgeous—even soaking wet.

  Seriously, the whole Reaux family was stunning.

  Too bad about their criminal inclinations.

  Speaking of which, I hadn't seen Jean-Claude since I pulled in the driveway. I snuck a peek out the front window to see that the cab of my truck was empty. Jean-Claude was long gone, and I could only imagine where he'd wandered off to.

  Or why he'd been so fidgety when we pulled up and he saw the police. As far as I knew he wasn't involved in any recent dirty dealings.

  Which didn't mean too much. He was a sneaky one, and often kept his extracurricular activities a secret.

  Most of the time.

  I had once uncovered his secret life as JC Rock, an exotic dancer. He still moonlighted down in the Blue Zone to earn extra money, but that wouldn't explain his current nervousness around the Freedom PD.

  It was something to look into. Later.

  Plum flicked her gaze toward me, and like Ethan, I didn't see much humanity in her eyes. There was a cold calculation within the blue depths that made me shiver. I wanted to wring Perry's neck for ever agreeing to hire this group. Although, I couldn't completely blame him. It had been Mario who hired them.