Home Wreckers
By
M.E. Troy

The telephone jangle yanked me to consciousness. I flicked on the light and reached for the receiver, knocking the hotel services directory to the floor. My watch said six ten in the morning. Somebody was going to pay for this. I dragged the phone to my pillow. Mumbled something about death to whoever disturbed my beauty sleep.

"Val, something terrible has happened. You have to get down here." The voice belonged to Sherri Costello, Head Coach of the Tropical Storm.

"Where's here? What's happened?"

"Julie's room. She's dead."

"Dead?"

"Somebody shot her."

I hung up, mind reeling. The Tropical Storm sat atop the Women's Professional Basketball League. Julie Ramos was a post player on the team, first in rebounds, second in points, big in headlines -- such headlines as women received, anyway. Me, I consulted to the team on matters of security. My headline days were past. When things went smoothly nobody noticed me or my job. Now, with one phone call, that was changed. Julie was dead and the team, including me, was in big trouble.

Especially me. I had a twenty-four year old guy in my bed. He had big brown eyes, big wet tongue, and the energy of a Frisbee dog when it came to sex. He had slept through the call.

I gave his shoulder a hard shove. "Dennis! Wake up!" He made a sound like an air mattress deflating and rolled over. His breath smelled like the floor behind a bar. I shoved him again. "Dammit, wake up!"

He rolled his eyes open and gave me a cockeyed grin. Then he clamped a big paw on my left breast and glued his mouth over the other one. I pried his hand off and it snaked between my legs. I grabbed his head and stuck a thumb in his eyeball with enough pressure that he saw stars. He yelped and rolled off.

"Oww! What's the idea?"

I shoved him off the bed. "Get up, idiot. Somebody killed your wife."

It took him a while to get it. That was another thing about him: the sight of a naked breast drove everything else from his mind.

Finally he said, "Julie? Julie's dead? Where? Her room?" He got to his feet and started around the bed to the door, grabbing his pants off the chair.

I lunged for him and got his arm. "Where are you going?"

"To Julie. I gotta get down there."

"No! You can't go there. You're not even supposed to be here yet. Right now you're supposed to be on a plane somewhere over the Pacific."

"Yeah, but she's dead." He struggled into his pants.

Why do I fall for the dense ones? Just once I'd like a man with good hands and a good brain. I grabbed his face with both hands. "Listen to me, Dennis! It's a murder. The police are on their way. If they find you've been up here with me the whole time we'll both be in deep kim chee."

"So what do we do?"

"You leave after I leave. Take the stairs, not the elevator. Make sure nobody sees you. Got that?"

He nodded slowly. "Yeah, sure. Why don't I go to the airport and wait for the flight from Honolulu? When it gets in, I come back here like I just got off it."

"No! The first thing the police will check is the manifest."

"Okay. Don't worry! I'll think of something."

I threw on some clothes. My bra was MIA and I had no time to look for it.

I tucked my tee shirt into my jeans and stepped into a pair of leather mules. Over the tee shirt, I put on a blue blazer which I bought because no matter what you're doing a blue blazer makes you look professional. Ditto the leather bag. At the door I stopped. "Remember . . ."

"Don't let anybody see me. Trust me!"

Why didn't that fill me with confidence?

I stepped in the elevator, caught my reflection in the mirror and gasped. The Bride of Dracula! Wild hair, circles under my eyes, and a quarter-sized purple hickey at the base of my throat. I ran my fingers through my hair, fished a scarf and some Tic Tacs out of my bag. I knotted the scarf around my neck and shook six Tic Tacs into my mouth.

Sherri Costello was waiting with the hotel manager outside Julie's room. The brass tag on his lapel gave his name as Watson. He tapped a cell phone nervously against his pants leg. Sherri, in contrast, was the picture of control. She had on a slate gray suit and heels. Her makeup was perfect. At six in the morning?

"Val, it took you long enough."

"I had to put on my face. Anybody call the police?"

"I did," said Watson.

"Sherri, tell me how you found her."

"I was supposed to meet her for breakfast. We have a conference call scheduled. Oh God, I have to cancel that."

"I think that can wait. This breakfast meeting, it was something important?" Sherri seemed hesitant and then it hit me: today was trading day. "Julie was being traded?"

Sherri lowered her voice. "It wasn't final. The trading deadline is noon, Eastern time. That's less than two hours from now."

"Did Julie know about the trade?"

"She requested it. When she didn't show for breakfast, I called her room and then I got the manager to come up with me."

"You went in together?"

"He went in. I couldn't. I had a bad feeling about it. Are you going in? If you do, make sure she's covered. I don't want people leering at her." She threw the manager a narrow look.

"It's a crime scene," said Watson.

"No yellow tape, yet. Sherri, watch the elevator. Tell me when you see the police."

The room had a single queen-size bed, a bureau with a television and lamp, a table with two chairs. Julie Ramos lay on the floor on the far side of the bed. She was sprawled on her back, a big red splotch soaking her nightgown. The blood came from two small holes in the middle of her chest. Her nightgown had ridden up when she fell, exposing the lower part of her body. I tugged it down.

Before leaving, I looked around. On the night stand was a glass with about an inch of what looked like cola. Sweat from the glass pooled around a romance novel bearing a picture of Fabio and a swooning, bosomy maiden. The table by the window held a trove of junk food: potato chips, buttered popcorn and Oreos.

The telephone's message light blinked insistently.

Using a tissue from the bathroom, I picked up the phone and pressed the message numbers. A programmed voice said, "Welcome to Manor Hotel's voice mail service. You have one new message sent at 1:17 a.m." Then I heard Dennis's voice say, "Honey, I'm on board a big old jet airliner. Keep the fire going 'cause I'm coming to stir it." The last words were nearly swallowed by a high pitched metallic screech. I replaced the handset just as Sherri hissed a warning that the police were here.

Two uniforms arrived first. They separated us and took statements before the detectives arrived.

I leaned against the wall, closed my eyes, feeling tired and angry and confused. It's what I get sleeping with a man ten years younger. The morning after is when the age difference shows up. The anger was directed at myself for getting involved with Dennis. When I was younger I wouldn't have given him a second look. Men came around as regularly as subway trains. Now, the trains didn't run so regularly. Dennis comes along and I hop on. Knowing that I'd do it again made me angrier.

What had me confused was the message on the machine. At 1:17 this morning, he was not on an airliner; he was dancing with me.

"Miss Lyon, security consultant to the Tropical Storm. Have I got that right?" I opened my eyes to find one of the detectives in front of me. Decent looking guy in chinos and a sweatshirt, detective shield on a cord around his neck, yesterday's stubble adding character to otherwise bland features.

"Sorry. Catching a nap. I'm not much good at this hour."

"Yeah, me neither. Steve Lebeaux. Must be tough losing a client on your watch. Got your fee in advance, I hope?"

I pulled myself up taller. Time for the blazer to power up. "The team curfew is eleven-thirty. Once they're in their rooms, I don't have responsibility."

He looked at me coldly. The blazer didn't seem to be working. "What exactly is your responsibility?"

"Public appearances, team gatherings. I check out the venues before a game or press conference. Make sure the locker rooms are secure, that no nuts can get in. That sort of thing."

"A women's basketball team needs 'that sort of thing?' No offense, but you don't have any Jordans or Shaqs."

I felt my face burn. "They're professional athletes. They work as hard and give as hard as the men."

"Hey calm down. I'm not saying they don't. You still haven't answered my question. Why does the Tropical Storm need security?"

"People get fanatic about their hometown team and some go over the line. Each city we go to we get hate letters."

Lebeaux produced a glossy photograph, similar to ones in the lobby and outside the arena. The photo showed the team wearing stiletto heels, cocktail dresses and boas. The caption said, "Watch out! The home wreckers are coming."

"Catch me up on this home wrecker thing," said Lebeaux.

"'Home wreckers' -- The Storm wins despite the other team's home court advantage. The road's been good this season. Ten, fifteen, twenty points a game. People started to notice. First it was, 'Wow, that's interesting.' Then it became an attitude. 'We're going to come into your house and tear it down.' The team gets jazzed up for road games. Radio jocks play it up. The league loves it because it puts butts into seats."

"They show up like this, I guess passions run high."

"They don't show up like that. Look, Detective, if you have questions about it, you should contact the league office. If you have no other questions for me, I'm going to my room to get some sleep."

"Had a big night?"

"I don't think that's any of your business."

"Have it your way. You already told me you don't patrol the halls after bedtime. Where'd you hit the clothesline? Your tourniquet's slipping."

"Shit!" My hand flew to the scarf at my neck. I tugged it down over the hickey.

Lebeaux's eyes flickered in amusement. "Mrs. Ramos . . . she was married, right? She was one of these home wreckers?"

"Julie was a gamer. Her rebound production went up on the road."

"So let's say somebody takes exception to this home wrecker attitude and wants to straighten things out, it wouldn't be a surprise they'd see Mrs. Ramos as one of the problems?"

"No, it wouldn't"

"You do anything about these hate letters?"

"I notify the local police. They make a note of it. The fact is, the desk officers don't seem any more inclined to take us seriously than you do."

"I get the point. You carry a gun?"

"I have one. I'm not carrying it now."

"I have to see it."

"It's up in my room. I'll get it."

"I'll go with you."

Lebeaux set a quick pace to the elevator. My legs were almost as long as his and I could match his stride, but I held back. Give Dennis more time. He should be gone by now, but with Dennis you never know. Lebeaux reached the elevator ahead of me. He asked my floor and punched the buttons.

"You ever play?" he asked.

"Years ago."

"Yeah? What position, same as Mrs. Ramos?"

"Guard mostly, but I could handle post."

"Figures. I make you close to her."

Lebeaux followed me to my room. I put the card in the slot and eased the door open. Lebeaux went in behind me.

Thank God, no Dennis.

Still, I couldn't relax. Lebeaux stood just inside, surveying the room. He didn't need a detective's powers to see what had gone on. Bed clothes in disarray, indentations in both pillows, an unopened beer in the ice bucket and empties scattered around. I crossed to the dresser where I had the gun, switched on the lamp and found my bra. It was hanging on the shade, one cup on the inside and one on the outside. The clasp caught on the shade when I snatched at it and I had to reach out to steady the lamp. Lebeaux watched.

I dropped the bra on the dresser and took the gun from the drawer, held it out to him, butt first.

"You need to see this?"

"Yeah," he said. He seemed disappointed. "A .357?" He swung out the cylinder and sniffed the barrel. "You fired it lately?"

"Couple weeks ago on the range."

"I had you for an autoloader. Something flat like a .380 that would fit in a purse."

I relaxed a little. A gun I could talk about, not so a bra on a lampshade. I said, "I like my chances for a first shot better with the revolver."

"A first shot doesn't get you much if you miss."

"Like I said, I like my chances."

"I'll hang onto this."

"I take it you found shell casings from a .380?"

Lebeaux put my gun in his belt. "You'll get it back," he said. He looked around again, glanced at my bra, at the lamp, the bed. Calculating the trajectory.

"Do you need to see anything else, Detective?"

"Gotta use your bathroom. May I?" He didn't wait for my answer but went straight to the door and tried it. "Locked," he said. "Somebody in there?" I felt blood drain from my face. Lebeaux noticed. "Police!" he shouted. A long second later Dennis walked out of the bathroom. He gave me a sheepish look. "I thought, why would anybody look for me here? Bad choice, huh?"

"Detective Lebeaux," I said, "Dennis Ramos, flaming idiot and husband of Julie Ramos."

Facing each other, the contrast in size was marked. Lebeaux had a head and then some over Dennis. He said, "I'm sorry about your wife, but I don't suppose it's news that she's dead, is it?"

"No," said Dennis. "Can I see her?"

"I have some questions first. Like what were you doing last night?" He shot me a look. "I'd say that just became my business.”

Steve Lebeaux slid into the booth opposite me. "Good morning," he said.

"Sounds like an oxymoron," I said.

"This morning in particular?"

"All mornings."

We were in Manor Hotel's coffee shop, more than a day since I'd first met him outside Julie's room. I'd spent most of that day at police headquarters. I must have given my story a dozen times. The gist of it was that I'd picked Dennis up at the airport a few minutes after midnight as we'd planned. Not being a player, I wasn't subject to curfew. We'd stopped at a roadhouse where we'd had some drinks, did some dancing. We'd left about 1:30 and arrived back at my hotel room around 2:00.

Lebeaux slid a bulky manila envelope across the table to me. I opened the flap and saw my gun.

"It's clean," he said. "M.E. puts the time of death around one in the morning." He ordered coffee, eggs and pancakes. The waitress brought my English muffin and refilled my cup. When she'd gone, Lebeaux said, "We liked him for the murder, you know. Things weren't the greatest between him and Julie. He ever tell you that?"

"He may have."

"He ever tell you about Julie's trust fund, the one he gets now she's dead? See, it wasn't likely he'd divorce her and lose all that."

"Let me make something clear, Detective. I had no illusions about where the relationship was going."

The waitress brought his coffee. He added four sugars and stirred it.

"Yeah, well, can't get a guy on motive alone. We can't put him at the scene because plenty of people saw him with you at that roadhouse. You two got some attention with your dance style. Is it always like that?"

"We don't always dance."

The waitress brought his breakfast. He dug into the pancakes. "Those reports you filed, about the hate letters, don't give us a lot. I'm gonna have to speak to the sergeant, get the desk officers to be more thorough taking complaints. A whacko fan! Whatever happened to shaving your head and painting your belly?" He put a wedge of pancake into his mouth, chewed it and said, "It's after curfew, who's she open the door to? A boyfriend?"

I shook my head. "A romance novel and junk food on the table? She wasn't seeing a boyfriend."

"Yeah. Nor her husband. We know where he was."

I put the envelope and gun in my bag, got up, threw some bills on the table. "I hope you find the whacko fan," I said.

"Hey, I say something wrong?”

I spent the rest of the day drawing time lines and sifting facts. I was missing something. At midnight I went back to the roadhouse. Roadhouse 27 was so named because if you took a straight line for about a mile due West from the front door, you'd be at the beginning of Runway 27. Even at that hour the planes seemed to come one right after the other. An ear piercing shriek shook the building as I reached it. I looked up at the shadowy underside of a wide-bodied jet on it's final approach.

Inside, it was just as noisy, but the source was the club's sound system. Three or four couples occupied the dance floor which was awash in colored lights. The tune had a swing tempo and the dancers moved around with a great deal of energy.

I made my way to the bar and claimed a vacant stool. The bartender set a coaster in front of me. He wore the same white shirt, same grenadine stain, bow tie and sleeve garters, as two nights before.

"Vodka and tonic?" he asked.

"Yeah. Good memory."

"You're not one to forget. Where's your friend?"

"Busy. You remember him?"

"Hey, I know there was some kind of trouble, because the cops asked me about the two of you."

"You said you saw us?"

"You put on quite a show. I could miss that? Lotta people saw it." He set a tall drink on the coaster. I pulled out some bills but he waved them off. "It's covered. Sam, down at the end."

I took a quick look where he indicated. An older man raised a beer at me and grinned.

"He was here that night?"

"Sam's always here."

I pushed the bills across the bar. "Tell Sam I appreciate the offer, but I buy my own drinks. Where's your phone?"

He counted out some change and pointed to a double swinging door. "Through there."

The door swung shut behind me, cutting off most of the music and bar noise. I found myself in a narrow hall leading to the restrooms. Between them was a pay phone. I fed some coins and punched some numbers. It was picked up on the third ring. "Hi, it's me. My room in about two hours?" I had to strain to hear the reply because at that moment a jet flew over with a high pitched whine and screech.

When I got back to the bar, Sam was sitting on the stool next to mine. I took my drink but remained standing.

"Your lips say 'No, no,' but there's 'Yes, yes,' in your eyes." he said.

"Then read my lips."

"And luscious lips they are. I read a lot on them the other night. On the rest of you, too. 'No' never came up. Definitely not."

"It's a new day and a new chapter." I no longer had a taste for the drink. The music, the lights and Sam leering at me felt like a big hand pushing me down.

"Listen, you can do better with me than with that other guy."

I put down the glass and hitched up my shoulder bag. "You don't know anything about him."

"Short jerks like him can't lay off the tall ones."

"Now that's astute."

"Listen, you don't have to be a shrink to figure that guy out. He's a mommy's boy. Mommy as in 'mommaries.' He comes in with older, taller women. Likes those puppies up close to his face."

"You've seen him here before?"

"Got your attention now? Yes, indeedy. Five weeks ago I think."

"He was here with a woman?"

"Running true to form. About your age with a good set of what counts. I'm not springing anything, am I? You look like you know the game."

Five weeks! Right before I started doing Dennis. Yes, we had played a series here about that time. But, much as I hated to admit it, Julie was noticeably younger than me. "Did the police talk to you about this?"

Even under the colored bar lights, I could see his face go pale.

"Why would the police talk to me?"

I shrugged. Casually let my blazer fall open just enough so he could see the butt of the gun on my hip.

"You a cop? You undercover? Hey, I don't want trouble." He drained his beer and scuttled away.

"What's with him?" asked the bartender.

"He had a conversion experience, I think." Suddenly the bar didn't seem as oppressive as before.

Dennis showed up at two o'clock, like a train running on time. He had his hands inside my robe and his mouth at my cleavage before I could close the door. I pushed him off -- not an easy thing to do -- and sent him sprawling across the bed. "Settle down. We have to talk."

I refastened my robe and gave him a beer from the ice bucket. Room service had brought them a few minutes earlier.

"What's there to talk about? I'm mad for you; you're mad for me. Let's jump in the sack."

"I need to know who killed Julie."

He gave me his cockeyed grin. "It wasn't me, Babe, and it wasn't you. We were together."

"And a lot of people saw us."

"Lucky them. I'd say we were inspiring."

"Was Julie filing for divorce?"

"Who told you that?"

"I think she was trying to make a clean break. She was going to dump a team and a husband at the same time."

He sucked on his beer. "We were patching things up. Besides, what's the deal? I didn't kill her."

I sat down in a wing chair by the window, the better to be near my gun which I'd stashed between the arm and the cushion. "Your call from Roadhouse 27 bothers me. Why did you call her?"

"Hey, I was just playing along with the game."

"You knew she'd be in -- it was after team curfew. If she doesn't answer, something's wrong, yet you showed no concern about it."

"I was with a sexy woman who was making my head spin."

"Big mistake to leave that message, Dennis. You knew someone was going to kill her. You called for confirmation. We left the bar right after your call because your alibi was established."

Dennis slid off the bed. "You're wrong, Babe. We left because you were making me hot enough to burst. I'm about to burst now." He sank to his knees in front of me and spread my robe. "Let's go away, Val. You and me. Julie left me set pretty good."

"What about Sherri?"

"What about her? It won't take long for the police to figure it out." His warm breath was raising gooseflesh on my thighs.

"She could implicate you."

"In what?" He raised his brown eyes to me "I didn't hire her."

"You manipulated her into killing Julie. You played her, just like you played me for your alibi."

"I didn't play anybody. If she imagined something between us, she was only deluding herself."

The bathroom door swung open. Dennis jumped to his feet and fell back against the bed. Sherri stood in the doorway.

"Liar," she screamed. "You said you loved me."

I pulled my gun from the cushion as her hands came up, gripping a shiny automatic.

I had my gun on her, screaming, "Sherri! Don't!"

Dennis was pleading, "For God's sake, Sherri," his hands out in feeble protection.

Sherri fired three times. One shot went through his hand. All of them went into his chest. Dennis rolled off the bed.

Steve Lebeaux said, "You convinced Sherri Costello she needed to hear what Dennis had to say. You know she had a gun when you hid her in the bathroom?"

"No."

"But you figured she killed Julie so she must have had one."

"In hindsight."

Lebeaux shook his head, "I thought we were looking for a whacko fan. I never thought it would be a whacko coach."

"She wasn't whacko. She loved Dennis; Dennis said he loved her. She had a good thing with him. Julie found out and tried to end it in the only way she could; she asked for a trade and was about to file for divorce. It meant Dennis would be out a lot of money and Sherri would be out Dennis."

"What tipped you to Sherri?"

"Sherri asked me to cover the body, but the body was on the other side of the bed. If she hadn't gone in the room, how could she know how Julie looked?"

"Sherri says the killing was Dennis's idea."

"Probably was. But as coach Sherri had the best opportunity and was the least likely suspect. She's a take-charge kind of person. Dennis couldn't have done it."

"Okay," said Lebeaux, "what does a successful woman like Sherri Costello see in a weasel like Dennis Ramos?"

"Dennis was a train that didn't run so regularly."

"Huh?"

"You wouldn't understand. Wrong equipment. Am I free to go?"

"Yeah, I can't see how you're involved except as an alibi and you didn't know about that. I can't say I'm sorry the way it ended. We have Sherri for two murders. I doubt we'd have gotten anything on Dennis, so I guess Sherri did that part of the job for us."

He fumbled awkwardly with his hands. "Listen, now it's over, I was thinking, unless you have to go back right away, we could get some coffee."

"Coffee?"

"Drinks. Dancing."

I looked down at his hands. Big, strong, a thin strip of fish-belly flesh circling the third finger left hand. "No. I'm through hopping on trains for awhile."

"Like I understand that one, too. Here's something you can clear up for me. You told me you like your chances with a first shot. If you had the drop on Sherri, why didn't you shoot? Dennis would still be alive."

"So I was wrong about that first shot. So sue me."

###
M.E. Troy is the author of THE MONTRESSOR HIT, winner of the Edgar Allan Poe Sesquicentennial Homage Award. He lives in College Station, Texas where he jumps out of airplanes when the terrors of the blank page become overwhelming. HOME WRECKERS is the fourth story featuring private eye Val Lyon.
For more on his stories you can visit his web page at http://www.tamu.edu/marshome/staff_pages/murder.html
The three previous Val Lyon stories can be found at the following locations:

"Wahine O Ka Hoe" appeared in Murderous Intent Mystery Magazine (print, contact the magazine)
http://www.murderousintent.com/mimm.htm

"Drop Dead Zone" appeared in Mystery Buff Magazine (online)
http://WWW.Mysterybuff.com/gossip.html

"Kill Leader" appeared in "Plots with Guns" (online)
http://www2.netdoor.com/~ansmith/