The Trouble with Twelfth Grave (Charley Davidson #12)(47)

“Thanks, hon.”

We pulled out and drove toward my humble abode-ment just as I got a text from Amber. Her message sent a shiver of worry down my spine. It read, What does it mean when someone you’re investigating threatens to kick you in the face and sell your teeth on eBay?

I texted her back, using Siri so I could text and drive without killing someone. I’d say it means you may have found your man. “May” being the salient word. Now just figure out his motivation.

Hers, she texted back. She’s an assistant volleyball coach.

“What?” I shouted into Siri. I gave up and called the little stinker.

“Hey, Aunt Charley,” she said, cheery as ever.

“What the hell? Why is an assistant coach threatening you?”

“Not me. Petaluma.”

“Who’s Petaluma?”

“She’s our special investigator in charge of acquisitions.”

I blinked in surprise, then asked, “Expanding already?”

“We have three cases now. How do you keep up?”

“Sweet pea, do you even know what acquisitions means?”

“No, but we heard it on a TV show last night. It sounds cool, right?”

“Totally. I want you to tell your mother everything you just told me. Maybe not the acquisitions part. And tell her to figure out who this assistant coach is.”

“Oh, I know who she is.”

“No, tell your mom you want dirt. Greasy, sticky dirt.”

“Um, dirt. Okay. Is that a technical term I should be aware of?”

“Most definitely. Ask your mother.”

We hung up, and I refocused on Angel. “What happened next?”

“Where were we?”

“Hector. The bar. The football players. The gun.”

“Oh, yeah, so Hector pulls a gun, and one of the guys knocks it out of his hands all stealthy like. Then there is this huge fight, and they knock him out. They freak. The owner of the bar tells them to go home. He’ll take care of it. They are all buddies, I guess. He doesn’t want them to lose their careers over some piece of shit like Hector Felix.”

That guy was seriously disliked.

“They leave, and the barkeep calls this other guy. Some friend of his, but before he even shows up, Hector wakes up. He tells the barkeep he’s coming back to kill him and that he wants the names of the guys so he can kill them, too.”

“Dude’s got issues.”

“But Hector leaves all beat up and covered in blood and shit. Then he ends up dead a few hours later. Interesting, don’t you think?”

“Very,” I said. “Which bar was that?”

“They aren’t open. It’s too early.”

“But they serve food. They’ll have deliveries.”

“Suit yourself,” he said with a shrug. “Trickster’s on San Mateo.”

I made a U-turn first chance I got and headed to Trickster’s.





14

Some days I amaze myself. Other days I put my keys in the fridge.





—MEME


“Where are you?” Cookie asked when she picked up. I was sitting outside the bar, waiting for a delivery truck to show up.

“I’m at Trickster’s. I need to talk to the owner. Can you get me a number?”

“Sure. Amber told me what’s going on. What the hell?”

“Right? Some people, people I like to affectionately refer to as idiots, think they can talk to Deaf kids any way they want without consequences. I don’t know what this chick’s problem is, but I need dirt, Cook. Something with grease that will stick hard enough to get her ass fired.”

“On it. Now, why are you at a bar at seven in the morning?”

I explained about the football players and had her scour the Internet for something, anything, that may have mentioned the fight that night. She promised to get back to me if she got a hit.

In the meantime, Angel left to check on his mother, and Artemis tore out of the car to chase some strange noise she heard in the distance, so it was just me and Misery. Left to our own devices. Would people never learn?

I grabbed my phone, checked messages, then bought a digital copy of the third book, Stardust, since I’d left the paperback copy at the apartment. I’d barely opened the app to read it when a delivery truck pulled up.

If Angel had been there, I could’ve asked him if the guy taking the delivery was the bar owner. Perhaps the departed man in the Hawaiian shirt waving at me from on top of the delivery truck would know.

I motioned him down with a wave of my own, at which point he took Angel’s place in the passenger’s seat.

He really did look like Magnum PI, if Tom Selleck had been a chubby, balding man in his early sixties. Otherwise, he’d nailed the look. The mustache helped.

“Charley Davidson, I presume.” He held out a hand.

I took it. “Domino, I presume back?”

“That I am, ma’am. That I am. So, you’re really bright. I remember you.”

“Yeah, Angel told me you hit on me once.”

“Only once? Must be losing my touch.” He gave me a flirtatious wink and chuckled.

I laughed with him. It felt good. Not as good as the sip of mocha latte I took, but good nonetheless. “Is that the bar owner from the other night with Hector?”