Casey Daniels - Dead Man Talking

Fortunately, Tony, the maintenance man, arrived, and we didn’t have any more time to discuss Ella’s bad-boy fantasies. As Tony was walking up the steps to the doors of the monument, Absalom showed up in a silver Hummer. He had Sammi with him, and they got out, waved, and came up the stairs, too.

Remember how I said I was planning on going all-out for the art show? Well, I think I really outdid myself. I was wearing a body-hugging, Empire-style, strapless satin dress with a V bodice that showed off just enough cleavage. The dress was what they called an “ikat tribal print” at the store where I bought it, with streaks of color that ranged from vivid canary yellow to lemon to a nice, clear white that perfectly matched my round-toe sling-backs and my chunky bead necklace and bracelet.

Oh yeah, I looked good, all right, and Absalom acknowledged as much with a tip of his head. He was wearing a three-button tuxedo with a long jacket, and I guess he and Sammi had decided to color-coordinate. His lime green brocade vest was a perfect match for her gown with its see-through lacy midriff and flounced hem. I recognized the pattern and the color. I’d seen a shower curtain just like it at Target.

“We are going to rock tonight!” Absalom slapped me a high five and did the same to Ella. She didn’t know him as well as I did, so she didn’t brace herself for the impact, and she nearly fell over. As a way of apologizing, Absalom wound an arm through hers and escorted her to the door. “After you,” he said to me, and waved me into the building first.

Immediately inside the door to the memorial is an entryway with a winding staircase on the left that leads down to that crypt where the caskets of the president and his missus are on display for everyone to see. On the other side of the entryway is the tiny gift shop/office where the docent who usually mans (or womans) the building waits for visitors. Ahead of us and up two shallow steps was the rotunda, and though I’m not usually impressed with monuments (and never with cemeteries), even I am willing to acknowledge that this was a special place. The entire inside of the building is decorated with mosaic tiles and marble columns. There are even thirteen stained glass windows around the rotunda, each symbolizing one of the original states. In the center of it all is a larger-than-life statue of James A. Garfield in all his presidential splendor. Tony followed us inside and touched a hand to the light switch. Floodlights bathed the statue and hit our displays. I stepped into the rotunda and-

“Oh my gosh!” I stopped cold and Ella slammed into the back of me. After a moment of stunned paralysis, I forced myself to move. I stumbled into the rotunda with Ella, Absalom, and Sammi right behind me.

One by one, they saw what I saw.

“What the-” Absalom’s voice rumbled up to the top of the dome above our heads and echoed back at us.

“Oh, dear,” Ella chirped.

And Sammi? She took one look at her display, screamed, and broke down in tears.

“What’s going on in here?” Reggie and Delmar had just arrived, and they rushed inside and looked to me for answers.

Somehow, I was able to find my voice. “Our art show…” I looked around again, and my heart sank. “Our art show has been vandalized.” I waved a hand toward what had been a beautiful display when last we saw it. Now it was a mess. Absalom’s dolls had been torn down and stomped on. Jake’s photos were ripped to pieces. So were Delmar’s drawings. A couple of Sammi’s outfits had been burned. The ashes of all that was left of them lay in little mounds on the floor.

And all of it…

From my vantage point, I could see all four displays. They had all been scrawled with letters that were distorted and hard to read. They were written in a shade of pink that looked awfully familiar.

I turned every which way, trying to get a sense of the entire message, and when I couldn’t, I violated every rule of Garden View and stepped onto the marble platform that houses the statue of the president. From there, I could see exactly what James A. Garfield could see. Too bad his statue couldn’t talk. Then he might be able to tell us who had scrawled the message that started at Sammi’s display and ended on Absalom’s. It was written in the garish pink lipstick I’d thrown in the Monroe Street trash the moment I found it. It said-

I gulped down the sudden sour taste in my mouth and read the words out loud. “Pepper, don’t ignore me.”

“Oh, dear.” With nervous fingers, Ella twisted her beads.

Sammi was on the floor next to her display, scooping up the ashes and weeping.

Delmar was too stunned to move, and Absalom, he pounded one fist into the open palm of his other hand. I could just about see the steam shooting out of his ears.

That’s how Crazy Jake found us when he shuffled in and snapped some pictures.

“You look pretty, Pepper,” he said. “You’re standing with the president. You’re the first lady.” Jake thought that was pretty funny, but it didn’t take a genius to know he wouldn’t be laughing when he saw that his photos had been destroyed. Maybe Reggie and Delmar realized that; they latched onto Jake and walked him outside before he saw any of the damage.

I stepped back to where my teammates waited. “What does it mean?” I asked Absalom. “Who would do such a thing?”

“I don’t know,” he thundered. “But when I find the guy, I’m going to break his freakin’ neck.”

I am not a violent person, but I thought it was a great plan.

“Pepper.” Ella touched a hand to my arm. “Pepper, I know how awful this must be for you. All your hard work.” There were tears in her eyes and she sniffed. “And I know you don’t feel like thinking about anything else right now, but Pepper-”

“The caterers are here!” Delmar called from outside.

“And your guests are going to be right behind them,” Ella reminded me. “Pepper, what are you going to do?”

Honestly, I didn’t know. It was too hard to think about anything except the damage that stared me in the face.

That, and the inescapable reality that pounded through my body and filled my veins with ice water.

I had pissed someone off. Big time.

Call me Little Miss Sunshine, but I had a feeling this was actually good news. It meant I was getting close to finding out who killed Vera Blaine.

Pissed-off murder suspect or not, I had other things to i worry about. Notice I didn’t say bigger things. Just other . Other big things. Like the fact that even as I walked out of the memorial-still in shock and with my head spinning-I saw that our guests were arriving. In return for their twenty-buck donations, they were hoping for something more than just fruit, tiny glasses of wine, and nibblers. At Mae’s, they’d gotten fancy brownies and a taste of the high life. From us-

We needed a Plan B, and we needed one fast.

Lucky for me, I’m quick on my feet, and nothing if not resilient. In the time since I’d become PI to the dead, I’d faced worse problems than a messed up art show, and I’d never let them beat me.

With that in mind, I swallowed down my panic, went through my mental Rolodex for every way I’d ever seen anyone-anywhere-raise money, glanced over my team, and reminded myself how fine they all looked that evening, and-

Voilà!

Yes, I am a genius. Which is why when I blurted out my plan to Ella, I fully expected her to jump up and down with joy. Instead, she stared at me a little slack-jawed for a moment, before she said, “I’m not sure we can do that.”

Fifteen minutes later, I was still trying to persuade her with the whole Pepper-is-brilliant argument. She was still not so sure. We were back out on the flagstone veranda, and it was Ella’s turn to pace. She was also wringing her hands. For the record, I was no less nervous, I just wasn’t going to let it show.