Casey Daniels - Dead Man Talking

“And Kowalski, he says-”

“Nothing new, so nothing you’re going to want to hear.” Lamar didn’t take the hint. He stood there waiting for me to say more, and I figured since he apparently wasn’t careful about what he wished for, either, he was about to get what he deserved.

“Kowalski says exactly what he said back then: the desk clerk swears you and Vera were at the Lake View plenty of times.”

Lamar’s cheeks got dusky. “I remember that from the newspaper. It’s preposterous, of course. I told the police that. Why would the man lie?”

“Exactly what I want to know. Only, the thing is…” A roar went up from the crowd and new commotion started when Sammi’s auction was concluded. I don’t think I was imagining it when I saw Virgil race up the steps to claim her. After the fights that had been so prominently featured on Cemetery Survivor , nobody else had the nerve to do much bidding. He got her for a song: three hundred bucks. “The desk clerk never talked to the cops. He never testified. He seems to have conveniently disappeared.”

“And that means…?”

“The hell if I know!” Crazy Jake’s auction was next, and I could see he was having the time of his life taking pictures of the crowd, even if he did go for only seventy-five dollars and the woman who won him looked enough like him for me to figure out it must have been his mother and she knew nobody else was going to bid.

Delmar did a little better and brought in another eight hundred.

I did some quick calculations and hoped my math was right. We were still behind Team One’s five thousand one hundred and twenty dollar total. I hoped Absalom had fans.

Rather than obsess, I concentrated on the case. “I’d like to know which of them was lying,” I said, and big points for Lamar, he was a quick study.

“You think Kowalski made up the quotes from the kid? But why?” He must have seen Kowalski earlier, just like I had, because he scanned the crowd. I looked that way, too, and saw that if they weren’t eagerly participating in the auction, at least most of our guests looked like they were having fun. I didn’t see Reno Bob, but Kowalski was over at the food table, loading a plate. Was it a coincidence that Bad Dog was standing right behind him in line?

I watched them chat and wished I had super powers for super hearing. “You could just like, pop up over there, couldn’t you?” I asked Lamar. “I’d love to know what they’re talking about.”

“Too crowded. Not enough space.” He shook his head. “If I get close enough to hear them, someone will get frozen solid.”

I might have been willing to take the chance if Bianca wasn’t in line, too. And if I didn’t hear a voice calling my name from out in front.

“What about Pepper?” It was Absalom. Apparently, the bidding for him was over, and I hadn’t been listening to hear how much he’d gone for. When he didn’t get enough of a reaction from the crowd, he boomed the question again. “What about Pepper? Let’s get her out here!”

The crowd cheered and my stomach went cold. “Oh, no!” The last person who cared was Jefferson Lamar, but he was the only one I could complain to. “I told them I wasn’t going to participate. I told them, no auction for me.”

“It’s for a good cause,” he said, and I guess he didn’t want to hear what I was going to say about that, because he winked out.

I thought about climbing the wall that surrounded the veranda, scaling down the side of the monument, and getting out of there, and I might have done it, too, if Absalom hadn’t come around to the side of the building and latched onto my hand. When he took me out front, the cheers intensified.

“She’s a mighty fine woman,” Absalom said, holding me at arm’s length so the crowd could get a good look. “What do I hear for the captain of our team, Pepper Martin?”

“Fifty dollars!” The voice was small and tentative, and one I didn’t recognize, a man’s. It came from the back of the crowd, but though I was standing on higher ground, I couldn’t see him. Of course, that wasn’t going to stop me from sending a scathing look in that direction. Fifty bucks? For me? Please!

Not to worry, the auction got more lively from there. “One hundred!” someone called.

“Two hundred,” another countered.

“Six hundred.” It was the first I realized that Bad Dog had returned to the front of the crowd. He grinned when he called out his bid.

I reminded myself the whole thing was in good fun.

“Seven hundred.” This from Mike Kowalski.

I shot a panicked look at Absalom, but he was having too much fun to notice. He looked over the crowd. “Only seven hundred dollars for this gorgeous lady? How about eight?”

“One thousand dollars,” Bad Dog yelled.

Yeah, it was only for the rest of the evening. Yeah, it was so the cemetery restoration could be completed. No, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to spend my evening with ex-con Bad Dog Raphael. He was better looking than Kowalski, that was for sure. But he was one of my suspects, remember. Traditionally, guys who arrange hits on girls wearing jelly bracelets do not make good dates.

I had my hands at my sides, and I was sending Absalom little signals to keep the bidding going when a voice called out from the back of the crowd. “Three thousand!” it said.

Oh yeah, Quinn knew how to make a dramatic entrance, all right. He looked like a god in a navy suit, a white shirt, and a plum silk tie with swirls of navy in it, and he strode through that crowd like he owned the place. When he sauntered up the steps, he had a check all written out and in his hands. He handed it to Absalom.

It would take more than grand romantic gestures to make me cave, but I couldn’t control a smile, and I guess that told Absalom all he needed to know. “Going once, going twice, gone!” He sped through the technicalities, grabbed my hand, and put it in Quinn’s, who promptly shot me a grin as hot as the deepest fires of hell.

“You’re mine for the night,” he said.

I smiled politely. “I’m surprised to see you. It’s been a while.”

“Too long.” He led me down the steps. Now that the auction was over, our guests were scattering to chat and stand in line for food. I guess Quinn figured being the big spender got him special privileges. He went right to the front of the line, got a glass of wine, and handed it to me. “Would you believe it if I told you I missed you?”

I wanted to. But then, I saw the curt nod Quinn gave Ella when she walked by. I clutched my wine in both hands. “Ella called you. How else would you know about the fundraiser?”

“Are you kidding? I haven’t missed an episode of Cemetery Survivor .” There was a twinkle in his eyes that would have been sexy if it wasn’t so darned annoying. “I’m a huge fan. I loved the episode where you and Sammi were arguing about lord knows what. I’m not sure you two did, either. And I especially liked it that day you went down in the mud. If I’d known you were into mud wrestling, I would have-”

“What?”

Quinn leaned nearer, all slick smiles and smelling like Flavio. He was too hot to handle, at least in public. In an effort to stay sensible and stay off Greer’s radar except to smile, wave, and look good, I stepped away from the table and out onto the lawn where the crowd wasn’t quite as heavy and there was more room to keep a safe distance. “Ella told you what happened to the art show, didn’t she?”

“Which doesn’t mean I didn’t miss you.”

“Which you could have proven like a hundred times if you’d just picked up the phone and called.”

“Been busy.” He sipped his own glass of wine.

“Been annoyed.” I smiled sweetly.