Words With Fiends Read online

  Abruptly, she recalled the argument between the sensei and Grace Valentine, whose son had been excluded from an important tournament. But surely that wasn’t a motive for murder. Just as swiftly, she recalled the few chill words exchanged between Tomlinson and his stepsons just two days before the man’s death. Could the enmity between them have run far deeper than anyone suspected?

  Then she frowned. “But the man was a martial arts expert. No way would someone have gotten the jump on him. He’d have fought off any attacker who tried it.”

  “Maybe they took him by surprise, or maybe he was sleeping or drugged,” Jake said with a shrug. “Just because you’re the second coming of Chuck Norris doesn’t mean someone can’t take you out. So don’t let your imagination run away with you.”

  “What do I tell Robert about all this?”

  “Don’t tell him anything yet,” Jake advised. “Like I said, none of this is official yet. Let the kid have a little fun buying that dog some cute stuff without worrying about a murder investigation, okay?”

  Darla considered that for a moment and then nodded. “Okay. Time enough for him to find out when the cops come around asking questions.”

  Then she looked down at her barely touched dessert, and her practical side kicked in. “Mind if I wrap this up and take it with me?”

  • • •

  A FEW MINUTES BEFORE ONE, DARLA MET ROBERT AND A BUNDLED UP Roma outside the bookstore for the trek to Fluffy Faces Pet Boutique. The day was sunny despite the chill in the air, and Darla felt her spirits rise a bit. As Jake had said, nothing about Master Tomlinson’s supposed murder was official yet. She’d enjoy assuming ignorance for a couple more hours.

  A couple of blocks into their journey, however, Darla realized that they would be passing the dojo on their way to the pet store. That reminder was something that Robert didn’t need right now. And surely it would be confusing for little Roma to be taken past what had been her second home now that her master was gone.

  The same thing must have occurred to Robert, for he halted momentarily and said in a subdued voice, “Can we, you know, take the long way?”

  “Of course,” she assured him and made a quick turn at the next corner. Robert made no other comment, though she saw him surreptitiously swipe at his eyes with his free hand, Roma tightly cradled in the other.

  Quickly, Darla started a conversation about a shipment of books due later that week, and her ideas for some Easter promotions. By the time they reached the pet shop, Robert was almost smiling again, and his attitude was eager as he reached for the door.

  “She’ll need two sweaters in case one gets dirty,” he determined, “and maybe I should get her some of those doggie boots for when it snows.”

  “Don’t go too crazy in there,” Darla reminded him. “Technically, you’re only fostering her until we know that no one else wants her.”

  “Yeah, I know,” he agreed as he hurried in, Darla following after.

  The pet boutique lived up to its descriptor. Rather than items being tossed in bins, as in the pet supermarkets she’d seen back home, the merchandise in this shop was beautifully presented on heavy glass shelves. Rhinestone leashes and collars mingled with vases of exotic blooms and vintage pottery, while designer canine couture was artfully arranged upon antique children’s tables and chairs. On one wall, a variety of dog bowls had been mounted to form a mosaic that, at a distance, resembled the shop’s poodle face logo. The staff all wore smart bib aprons with that same logo embroidered on the chest.

  Definitely not a pet supermarket.

  Darla wandered to the cat toy section (which the sleek hand-painted sign above that aisle branded feline diversions), and found a toy she thought would appeal to Hamlet’s hunter instincts: a flexible wand with a mass of feathers and small leather strings bundled on its end like some captive steampunk bird.

  Perfect, she thought, and then did a double take when she checked the price tag and saw the item cost more than the last pair of shoes she’d purchased for herself. Well, maybe not so perfect, after all.

  Sorry, Hamlet, she silently told the cat in absentia. Looks like it’s the old toilet paper cardboard core and piece of string for you.

  Robert, meanwhile, seemed unfazed by the prices. He was walking Roma up and down the dog aisle, accompanied by a gushing young woman who seemed as impressed with him as with Roma. Suppressing a bit of indulgent amusement, Darla watched as Robert tried various colors and styles of sweaters on the little hound, who wiggled a bit but was surprisingly agreeable to the process. She expected the teen to settle on one of the doggie goth looks in black that were displayed alongside a somewhat frightening arrangement of spiked collars. To her surprise, however, he chose a more sedate mauve that complemented Roma’s gray and white coat. Its slouch-style neckline allowed the fabric to be pulled high enough up so that it covered her delicate ears like the canine version of a hoodie.

  “Let’s get the yellow one, too,” Robert told the salesgirl. “Oh, yeah, and the red one, just in case she wants to look, you know, festive for Valentine’s Day. And we need a harness—the stretchy kind, so the straps don’t scrape her—and a matching leash. And maybe some toys.”

  A few minutes later, he had completed his selections and was proudly carrying Roma, wearing her new mauve sweater, up to the register to check out. The salesgirl—Tina, according to the embroidered name on her apron—followed behind carrying the rest of his purchases. But halfway to the counter, he halted in front of a small display from which hung perhaps two dozen wide collars crafted from richly embroidered fabrics in jewel tones that looked straight out of a European history book.

  “Sick,” the teen exclaimed, and held up Roma so she could better see the collars. “If you wore one of these, you’d be a real Renaissance dog. Check it out, Ms. Pettistone,” he added in Darla’s direction. “Wouldn’t Roma look epic in one of these?”

  While Darla nodded her assent, Tina declared in a strong Brooklyn accent, “They’re called martingale collars. They’re for dogs like yours with delicate necks, so they don’t squish their tracheas when they pull on their leads. Seriously, you should buy one for her.”

  Robert set Roma down and handed the salesgirl his other purchases. After a moment’s consideration, he reached for the tag hanging from a particularly handsome collar threaded with the same shade of mauve as Roma’s new sweater. Darla saw his eyes widen in disbelief as he read the price; then, reluctantly, he shook his head.

  “Sorry, Roma, maybe later.”

  “Wait,” Darla impulsively declared. “How about I buy that collar for her as my own little present?”

  “Really? That would be, like, awesome!”

  He grabbed the collar he’d admired and put it on Roma. While the salesgirl removed the tag and handed it to Darla—more expensive than the cat wand, but cheaper than a car payment, she told herself—Robert walked Roma over to the full-length mirror where she could presumably admire her reflection.

  Darla, meanwhile, took herself over to the cash register, trying not to wince when Tina finished totaling up Robert’s purchases. The teen was going to be putting in a lot of OT the next few weeks if he hoped to repay Darla for Roma’s new wardrobe before the end of the year, she told herself as she signed the charge slip. Then, feeling guilty over her splurge on the collar for the dog, she told Tina to wait a minute and then headed back to the feline diversions aisle.

  Grabbing the fluffiest of the cat wands, she returned to the register. “This one, too,” she said, hesitating only a little as she handed over her credit card again.

  A few minutes later and many dollars lighter, she and Robert were headed back in the direction of the brownstone. Snug in her new sweater and wearing her fancy collar, Roma pranced her way down the sidewalk like a tiny dressage horse.

  “Thanks again, Ms. Pettistone,” Robert told her, looking far happier than he had since the previous day
’s tragedy. “I’m going to take great care of Roma. You’ll see.”

  Then, as they approached a grocer on the next corner, Robert halted and thrust the little hound’s leash and his bag of purchases in her direction. “Can you, like, hold her for a minute while I get something?”

  She had barely grabbed hold of the lead before he had vanished into the small store. Darla gave Roma a quick scratch and then took the opportunity to whip out her phone and pull up her word game. Before she and Robert had left for the pet store, she’d hurriedly responded to a couple of the in-process matches. Fightingwords had made a counter play to that last for a modest seventeen points.

  Grinning, Darla slid the Q on her virtual rack to the spot on the playing screen where two I’s now were kittycorner to each other. The move formed the same word, Qi, both ways. Since the Q tile was worth ten points, and the open slot was a triple letter, that meant she had just scored over sixty points. Take that!

  While she basked in this momentary triumph, Robert reappeared bearing a paper-wrapped bouquet of seasonal blooms. For a confused moment, Darla thought the flowers were meant for her. But when he took the leash back from her and casually asked, “Do you mind if we, you know, go home the regular way?” the light dawned and she realized he meant to leave them as a tribute in front of the martial arts studio.

  “Sure, if you want,” she replied, keeping hold of the bag for him since he was now juggling both dog and flowers.

  For both their sakes, she prayed that no official word had yet come from the medical examiner’s office. The last thing she wanted was for Robert to find crime scene tape blocking the dojo door and police swarming the place.

  Which was pretty much what she and Robert saw when they turned the next corner.

  Even from a distance, they could readily spy the yellow-and-black tape stretching from one of the red concrete fu dogs to the other to form a visual barricade across the studio’s entry.

  “What the—what’s that?” the teen demanded, halting and scooping up Roma in his arms. Holding the dog protectively to his chest while awkwardly juggling the flowers, he exclaimed, “There’s, like, cops and stuff at the dojo. Why are they back?”

  Darla had stopped in her tracks, too. For a moment, she contemplated feigning ignorance. If she confessed that she already knew what the police were looking for, Robert might wonder why she hadn’t said anything before. She was hard-pressed to come up with an explanation that didn’t sound vaguely patronizing, like he was a child and she was protecting him. Better to treat him like an adult and lay it on the line now.

  “I was going to wait to tell you until I found out if it was official,” she admitted, “but I guess it must be now. You see, I heard from Jake that there was some question about how Master Tomlinson died.”

  “What do you mean, question?” Robert’s blue eyes darkened. Roma, sensing his change in attitude, wriggled in his arms and gave a small whine. For her part, Darla raised a warning hand.

  “Nothing’s written in stone yet,” she told him . . . though given the two squad cars parked along the curb and a van marked Crime Scene Investigations, it was starting to look pretty darn official. “But Jake said the police think it’s possible that he”—she paused, struggling a moment for the words—“that he was murdered, instead.”

  “Murdered?”

  Robert’s disbelieving tone echoed the same incredulity that Darla had expressed to Jake a bit earlier. Then the teen shook his head.

  “No way,” he declared, his smooth features knitting into a frown. “Who would do that to him? Everyone loved Sensei.” In the next breath, however, he added, “Well, maybe not everyone. Those jerks, Hank and Hal . . . they were always, like, in his face about stuff.”

  The teen’s voice began to rise, and he shifted into a defensive posture reminiscent of one of their class drills. Looking as menacing as he could, given that he was cradling both a small, sweatered dog and a bouquet of flowers in his arms, he went on, “I swear, if I find out that—”

  “Don’t start accusing anyone,” Darla broke in, putting a restraining hand on his shoulder. “The police will probably want to talk to us again, and you can’t go around pointing fingers at people just because you don’t like them. It could have been some crazy person off the street looking for something to steal, and Master Tomlinson had the bad luck to catch them in the act.”

  “Yeah, but then why would they do what they did? I mean, that was like, all psycho and stuff, hanging him up by his belt. And no way some random dude could’ve killed him,” he said. “Sensei trained with Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris. He wouldn’t let himself get gotten by some, you know, street punk.” Robert shook her hand off and strode down the sidewalk toward the dojo.

  Shouldering the bag of pet gear, Darla hurried after him. At the moment, all of the police seemed to be elsewhere—with luck, she could convince Robert to pay his respects with the flowers and move on before that changed. But as they drew closer, the dojo’s front door opened and Officer Wing, accompanied by Reese, wandered out.

  Darla muttered a few bad words under her breath but managed to regain her composure by the time the men spied the teen bearing down on them.

  “What are you two doing here?” Reese bluntly greeted them, his tone belying the fact that he’d played the part of confidante to Darla’s weepy role of witness the evening before.

  So much for good old Father Fiorelli, she told herself, more than a little stung.

  Officer Wing’s reaction was more formal. “Ms. Pettistone, Mr. Gilmore, I’m afraid this is a crime scene. We may need some further witness statements from you later, but for now we have to ask you to leave.”

  “Good to see you again, too, Officer Wing,” Darla coolly replied. She pointed to the modest mound of cards and flowers that had accumulated beside one of the fu dogs. “We just stopped by to pay our respects. I’m sure you understand.”

  Robert, meanwhile, had ignored the officer’s warning and slid past the yellow tape to squat beside the small memorial that the sensei’s students had raised. Watching him, Darla felt an answering tug on her emotions. While not as impressive as other displays she’d seen, this tribute to the departed martial artist was more personal . . . more poignant. Among the random stems and cards, Darla spied a tiny stuffed bear wearing a gi, and a pair of white china fu dogs, miniature siblings to those who guarded the dojo door. One of the younger students had even left his small yellow rank belt—doubtless one of his prized possessions—curled among the bouquets.

  Soberly, Robert added his flowers to the lot. Darla saw Reese and Wing exchange glances, but neither man made a move to roust him. Apparently, they agreed that the teen’s presence on the other side of the tape, so long as he didn’t actually go inside the building, wouldn’t be enough to taint the investigation.

  Darla, however, wasn’t getting off that lightly. Taking her by the arm, Reese walked her several feet down the sidewalk and then muttered, “All right, Red, what gives? I talked to Jake, and she said she already gave you the heads-up on what happened. So you’d better not have come here looking for clues on your own. This is an official investigation.”

  “I’m well aware of that,” Darla clipped out and yanked her arm from his grasp, giving him a slanted look that she was sure Hamlet would have approved. “Not that it’s any of your business, but Robert and I were out shopping at the pet boutique a few blocks away.”

  She reached into the bag and pulled out Hamlet’s cat wand by way of demonstration, letting the feathers dangle perilously close to Reese’s nose for a moment before shoving it back into the bag again. “And on the way back, Robert said he wanted to leave a little tribute at the dojo, and I said okay. That’s all that ‘gives.’”

  Reese suppressed a sneeze—apparently, he was sensitive to feathers, Darla noted in satisfaction—and then grudgingly nodded.

  “Fine, sorry for jumping on you like that. But w
e don’t need anyone else tromping around on our crime scene.”

  Before Darla could question just what this halfhearted apology meant, the dojo door opened. A second uniformed officer ushered out a trio of civilians. From their mutually outraged expressions, Darla guessed that they weren’t leaving the premises voluntarily. That impression was deepened when the female member of the group angrily shook off the cop’s hand and stopped to reach into her handbag for a cigarette. The officer, meanwhile, sourly confirmed that the three had apparently gone afoul of police procedure with a quick, “The scene’s secure again, and everyone’s out now,” to Reese and Wing.

  It took her a few seconds to recognize two of the crime scene crashers as brothers Hank and Hal, used to as she was seeing them with their bulging biceps bared. Today, however, they were both wearing heavy down jackets, and Hal’s bald head was covered with a knit cap. They seemed to have had no trouble recognizing her, however, for they gave her similar perturbed looks, as if resenting her presence. Not that she necessarily blamed them. Had it been a relative of hers that was murdered, she’d probably not appreciate any gawkers.

  But Darla’s attention was for the impeccably dressed bottle blonde who had taken a couple of puffs on her cigarette before tossing it down and grinding it out beneath a designer heel. The woman appeared to be no older than her mid-forties, though Darla assumed that she had to be a decade older than that. For surely from the solicitous way Hank and Hal were escorting her, this was Dr. Jan Tomlinson, the Steroid Twins’ mother . . . and, more to the point, the late sensei’s wife.

  Some grieving widow, was Darla’s first reflexive if admittedly unworthy thought, noting that the woman appeared more outraged at the police than distraught over losing her husband. Despite herself, Darla couldn’t help a stir of indignation on the sensei’s part. Why, she and Robert had known the man only a few months, and as best she could tell, the two of them were more distressed over the situation than Tomlinson’s own family!