 |
Mummy's The Word
Hardback
Publisher: Covenant Communications Inc
Order from
Seagull Book and Tape.
This title also available on CD! Order
from Amazon |
When Samantha Shade is offered the opportunity to run
Nightshade Investigation, her uncle's private detective agency, she
literally jumps at the chance. It has always been her dream to work at the
famously quirky firm. But when a wealthy, eccentric client hires Nightshade
to protect a priceless artifact, and the relic is almost immediately stolen
from right under Samantha's nose-her dream turns into a terrible nightmare.
With a long list of suspects, and a short supply of
experience, Samantha must accept the help of an antagonistic and reluctant
policeman and the eclectic staff at Nightshade to solve the case and keep
her uncle's beloved firm from disaster. Filled with the twists, turns, and thrills of classic detective novels,
along with a generous helping of humor, readers will enjoy sleuthing the
crossword clues in this exciting, frothy mystery.
Chapter 1
ACROSS
58
Above the horizon; Where things are always looking in Wick Barlow’s
line of work
DOWN
3
Cretin; Creep; Miscreant
44
Vital piece of “equipment” on stakeouts; Powdered sugar _____
For
the second night in a row, I sat in my ancient, black VW on the seedy side of
town doing what I do best—minding somebody
else’s business.
Beside
me on the passenger’s seat was a half-empty package of donuts—the itsy-bitsy
white ones that contain more carbs than some people eat in a week. Carbohydrates
and calories aside, they’re a bad addiction for a girl whose wardrobe tends
toward black-on-black. Those little donuts were designed to explode on impact
with human lips, sending powdered-sugar particles careening into the atmosphere
and, worse, down the front of one’s shirt. Still, they’re as necessary to me
on a stakeout as a car radio, digital camera, and crossword puzzle. Besides, I
figure that the general idea of a stakeout is to be invisible. If I do my job
right, nobody will know I eat donuts with the grace of a two-year-old.
If I do my job right. I might
as well admit from the start it’s the ifs
in situations that usually get me into trouble.
Wick Barlow had just signed off the airwaves with his trademark, “Stay
tuned. Stay awake. Stay alert. Things are looking up!” so I knew it was 3:00
A.M. Barlow’s three-hour talk show airs at midnight—prime
time for UFOlogists, denizens of the street, and private detectives. Barlow is
king of the first cult, the drug dealers and immodestly clad women milling
across the street from my car were members of the second, and I, Samantha Shade,
was trying my darndest to make a name for myself in the third. (Move over Sam
Spade; there’s a new gumshoe in town.)
I was sorry the radio show was over. Wick Barlow is offbeat to the point
of being off his noodle, but he’s always good for a laugh. With one hand I
switched the dial to soft rock. With the other I reached for a two-liter bottle
of Diet Coke on the floorboard. It was caffeine free, of course. I don’t need
loud music or artificial stimulants to keep me awake, even in the tiniest hours
of the morning. Ever since my parents adopted Arjay nine years before, staying
up all night has come naturally to all of us. Even our weimaraner, Clueless, is
nocturnal.
I’d just loosened the cap on the soda bottle when a car came slowly
down the street. I screwed the top back on and dropped the bottle. It was the
third time that car had circled the block, slower each time. It wasn’t the car
I was looking for. The man I was being paid to photograph drove a new BMW. This
Chevy Cavalier was at least as old as the clunker I drive. The driver was wrong,
too. He wasn’t the middle-aged city councilman who’d lose his happy home and
promising political future when I gave his wife the pictures I’d taken of him
the night before. The guy in the Chevy was young, probably in his late twenties,
and too good-looking to be picking up a date in this neighborhood.
I think it was because the guy seemed so out of place that I watched him
so closely. Because of how slowly he drove, I knew he was looking for something
in particular. Someone in particular.
I frowned in disgust when it occurred to me that it might be the
girl who’d just emerged from the shadows of a vacant museum. I’d spent the
last two nights trying to talk to that teenager but had never been closer than
fifteen feet before she ran away from me.
I
raised the digital camera carefully. It was new, top of the line, and very
expensive. I probably shouldn’t have taken it from the office without Uncle
Eddie’s permission, but if you want to be the best, you have to have the right
equipment. I want to be the best private investigator on the planet.
To be perfectly truthful, I want more.
Would
you laugh if I confessed that I’ve always longed to be bitten by a radioactive
spider, like Peter Parker, or to learn that I’d been adopted from another
planet, like Clark Kent? (My parents adopted Arjay, after all, and he certainly
seems alien to most people.) I’d settle for being transformed into Hulkette in
a freak accident, but no matter how long I hang around my father’s genetic
research lab, there is never an accident, freaky or otherwise. At twenty-three
I’m still mortal, petite, a little plump, almost pretty, and past the
comic-book stage in every aspect of my life except in my heart of hearts.
But that night I stared across the street imagining how I’d use
superpowers if I had them. I’d want the right kind of powers, of course.
Forget sticky fingers or biceps of steel; I wanted the power to send druggies to
rehab and misguided women to college or vocational school. Of course, that was
just for starters. I wouldn’t exactly turn down the ability to fly and/or leap
tall buildings in a single bound.
I
sighed, knowing my chances of saving the street (let alone the world) were
pretty slim. Then I studied the guy in the Chevy again, thinking I could do some
crusader-like moonlighting even without superpowers. After all, if a creep
stalking a little girl didn’t scream out for pro bono scum-busting, nothing
did.
When his car rolled to a stop several yards ahead, I snapped a picture of
its license plate, being sure to include the sign on the business behind it to
pinpoint its location. (That’s one of the first things my co-workers Knute and
Delano
taught me in Stakeout 101.) Then I
focused on the driver’s window as the car door opened. By adjusting the
powerful lens, I not only had a perfect picture of the man’s sandy brown hair,
but I saw quite clearly that he had light gray eyes, a cleft in his chin, and a
dimple in his right cheek.
Boyish, I thought. Then, Too
old to trail teenagers.
I snapped off a shot of his long, jean-clad legs and well-fit leather
jacket. Then I lowered the camera lens and watched with my own eyes as he
approached exactly who I’d predicted he would.
The girl was huddled in the doorway of a long-abandoned planetarium.
Despite her age, her image reminded me of myself as a little girl. I’d visited
that museum on a class field trip accompanied by my mother. I wished this girl
had a mother with her now. She looked like she needed one badly. But that was
the end of our similarities. With her long, red hair and big eyes she resembled
a My Scene Barbie doll. She seemed to have taken fashion tips straight from the
pea-brained doll designers. Her tube top, low-slung jeans, and faux leopard-fur
coat were what all the best-dressed fashion dolls—and worst-dressed
teenagers—wore that year. I decided to call her “Bambi” because those doe
eyes of hers made her look like a frightened fawn. A fawn who was being stalked
by a hyena.
I turned my attention back to the scumbag as he approached the child.
Bambi didn’t run from him as she had from me. Instead she took a step closer.
I shivered despite the fact that it wasn’t cold in
Phoenix
, even in mid-October.
The man stood over Bambi, dwarfing her with his height and broad
shoulders. Quickly raising the camera, I took a picture of him leaning down and
speaking into the girl’s ear. Bambi shook her head vigorously, but the scumbag
kept talking. Minutes passed. Bambi’s head stopped shaking, and her shoulders
began to heave with sobs. The man put out a steadying hand to hold her in place.
More minutes. More talk. More pictures. At last the girl wiped her eyes and
nodded. The cretin led her toward his car.
I’d seen enough. Too much.
“Hold it right there!” I hollered. I bolted from my car, leaving the
door open behind me in my hurry to right wrong and defend the innocent in my own
little corner of Metropolis.
The other people on the street probably didn’t mistake me for Supergirl
as I charged across the street toward the abandoned museum, but they must have
thought I was an undercover cop. They dissolved into the surroundings until only
Bambi and the man remained. He turned toward me in surprise.
“Get away from her!” I ordered, extending my digital camera as if it
were a ray gun. “I have a camera and I know how to use it!”
The man stepped between me and the girl. “I don’t know who you are,
lady,” he said, “but—”
“I’m your worst nightmare,” I retorted. (Sure, I’d probably
copped the line from an action movie, but doesn’t it seem worthy of a
superhero?) I brandished my camera to strike fear into his heart. “I’ve got
pictures of you and this . . . child. By
tomorrow morning I’ll have sent copies to the police, the newspapers, and
everybody you’ve ever met.” He looked more annoyed than alarmed, so I added,
“I also got your license plate number, you pervert. And I have connections.
Don’t think I can’t destroy you.”
“Listen—” he said.
Before he could finish the sentence, Bambi darted out from behind him and
ran. She was worthy of the nickname; deer in hunting season are slower to react
than that girl.
For a split second I thought the guy would chase her, but he must have
known it was futile. As she disappeared around a corner he let out a long
breath. “Good job,” he said. He actually had the nerve to sound sarcastic
about it.
I smiled up at him, triumphant. “Thank you. All in a night’s work.”
My shoulder-length bob of honey-colored hair swung over my shoulders as I turned
back toward my car.
But
before I could walk away, he gripped my arm. “I’ll need to delete my
pictures from your camera before you go.”
My smile widened as I stuck the camera securely in the pocket of my
jacket and deftly slipped my left leg into a defensive position. I’d just
graduated from a course in tae kwon do, so I was confident that in the next
minute this piece of crud would be lying on his back, looking up at me with a
whole lot more respect.
But before I could remember the move, let alone complete it, he was
standing in front of me with both my wrists locked in one of his hands. He used
his free hand to reach into my jacket pocket for the camera. “Keep
practicing,” he said. “You’re a little slow.”
“You creep!” I screamed. “Let go of me! I’ll—”
“You’ll what?” The camera was in his hand, and his face was split
by a grin that would have been incredibly attractive on anybody but a scumbag.
I looked down at my feet and smiled myself. There’s
a reason I wear leather boots with reinforced metal toes, I reminded myself.
I wear them for just such occasions. I swung my foot toward the front of his
leg. If he hadn’t been quick I probably would have broken his kneecap. As it
was, I delivered a glancing blow to his shin. Fortunately, it was enough to get
the jerk to release me. Unfortunately, he didn’t let go of my camera.
I was about to tear into him with all the wrath of a five-foot-three
superhero wannabe when two things happened at once. A very tall, very large
shadow separated itself from the blackness nearby, and a police car turned onto
the street. The patrol car was still most of a block away when the shadow loomed
over us.
I looked up—way up—into
the dark face of the giant. He grinned down at me, revealing a row of straight,
white teeth that were incongruous in the deeply lined, homely face.
“What are you doing here?”
I demanded with my fists now on my hips.
“Eddie said to tell you it’s called ‘backup’ if you caught me at
it,” the giant said.
I was appalled. “You didn’t call Uncle Eddie, did you?”
“He called us,” the man said. “Wanted us to know they got to
Paris
today.
Delano
filled him in. We thought—”
“I don’t need a babysitter, Knute!”
The grin widened as he looked down at my sugar-coated black T-shirt.
“Of course you don’t, Sam. Did you save me any donuts?”
I brushed automatically at the white powder on my front, but I was more
angry than embarrassed. I was mad at my associate, mad at my uncle, and mad at
the lowlife who had taken the camera away from me. Mostly I was mad at the
lowlife. After all, it was his sick proclivities that had started this. Whirling
toward him I opened my mouth, then found I couldn’t speak. The creep had drawn
a gun. He raised it toward Knute’s chest, lowered it, raised it again, and
finally lowered it for good.
“Good choice, pervert,” I said after I found my voice. “The cops
are here. That stolen camera in your pocket guarantees you a free night in jail.
Pulling a concealed weapon on us ought to cinch another week or more. And when I
send them my pictures, I hope they’ll lock you up forever!”
Once again, the expression on the guy’s face didn’t match what I
thought he ought to feel. The scumbag should
look scared—or at least sorry to have
gotten caught—but he looked more annoyed
than ever. As the patrol car rolled to a stop, he glanced inside it. At last his
shoulders slumped as he said, “Oh, shoot.”
I stared up at him, incredulous. I’d heard a whole lot of expletives
since going to work on the streets as a PI, but shoot
wasn’t one of them. I figured I must have misunderstood. Regardless, the
police were finally there, and they couldn’t have come at a better time.
“Watch out!” I shouted at the officer who opened the door on the
passenger side of the car. “He has a gun!”
In one fast, fluid movement the patrolman exited the vehicle, drew his
service pistol, and used the door as a shield. The gun was aimed at Knute.
“Drop it!”
“No!” I cried out in irritation. “Not him!” I swung an arm toward
the cretin. “Him!”
When the officer ignored me, I stepped in front of Knute. Isn’t it always this way? I thought. Just because the creep is clean-cut and good-looking, and Knute is
shaggy, dark-skinned, and unnaturally large, they suspect the wrong guy.
The second officer, a tall, older man with a mustache, exited the car. He
didn’t draw a gun. “Drop the weapon,” he told the cretin calmly.
Knute had raised his arms in the classic posture of surrender. The creep
obediently dropped his gun, but he raised his hands only partway, and even then
it seemed like an afterthought.
I glared at him and moved to retrieve the gun, but the older cop said,
“Don’t touch it.” To his partner, he added, “Get their statements while
I talk to . . .” He hesitated. “The suspect.” He walked around the car,
then picked up the gun himself and pocketed it.
Under the streetlight I could read the officer’s nametag. Dix. Captain Dix. Good
deal. What we needed right then was a guy with both experience and authority.
“Captain!” I said. “I’m so glad you’re here. I—”
He waved me off as if I were a troublesome black beetle buzzing around
his ear. “Take her statement,
Monroe
,” he said again before motioning for
the suspect to follow him down the sidewalk.
Although the young man was unarmed now and docile, the police were
treating this thing way too casually. If ever a little police brutality was
called for it was now. “He’s a mugger!” I called after the captain. “He
assaulted me!”
The creep turned. “Now wait just a minute. I
assaulted you?”
“Yes!” I confirmed. “When I stopped him from propositioning a
little girl, he attacked me and—”
“I never—”
“You did!” I insisted. To the officer I added, “And he stole my
camera! You’d better—”
“
Monroe
will take your statement,” the
captain said tersely. But at least he gripped the creep’s elbow and yanked him
farther away.
Young Officer Monroe gazed down the street. I could have sworn I saw him
stifle a grin. At least there’s one man
on the force who wants to see justice done, I thought. I rewarded him with a
smile as he pulled a PDA from the front pocket of his shirt and turned to me
with stylus in hand. “Your name, please.”
“Samantha Shade,” I replied. “And this is Knute Belanoff. We work
together.”
One eyebrow rose as he scribbled. “You’re out here every night . . .
working?”
I felt my cheeks burn with indignation. Although I’ve been told I dress
like an undertaker—and/or a vampire—I’ve
never been mistaken for a streetwalker. “I’ll have you know—”
Knute dropped a restraining hand on my shoulder and extended the other to
the cop. It held one of our white-on-black business cards that in the right
light—or lack thereof—glow
green. (I just love those glow-in-the-dark cards.) “We’re private
detectives,” he said. “With Nightshade.”
The officer took the card and then looked up at the giant. “Hey, I’ve
heard of you. You’re that weird outfit that’s only open nights, right?”
Knute
nodded as
Monroe
pocketed the card.
“Word
is you’re folding.”
“Word is wrong,” I said.
“Eddie Shade hasn’t retired?”
Knute smiled. “He’s trying to. Sam here has other ideas. She’s
Eddie’s niece. She’s kinda running things while the boss is in
Europe
.”
In other words, I’d been given three weeks to prove myself.
Over
the misgivings of his brother (my father), Uncle Eddie had taken me into his
business and given me a chance to show all the Shades that I was better suited
for a career at Nightshade than I was for one emptying bedpans and organizing
bingo at our other family-owned-and-operated business, Shady Acres. Don’t get
me wrong. The Acres is a beautiful facility for the elderly, and my mother makes
it a paradise on earth for her residents, but while it’s so
her, it isn’t me. I’m all about
mystery.
Mostly to please my parents, I earned a degree from ASU and completed an
internship at the state mental hospital. But for the last six months I’d lived
my childhood dream of working for Uncle Eddie. After all, being a detective is
the next best thing to being a superhero, right? I love every minute of my job—even
the long, sometimes tedious hours on stakeouts. (Being addicted to crossword
puzzles helps with that.) By now I’d breezed through the training Uncle Eddie
had provided and was weeks away from getting my private investigator’s
license. Then, if I made good on my own while he was in
Europe
, I’d have the chance to be his
partner and maybe even take over the business when he actually retired. I
wanted that more than anything, so I had to make good. I had
to.
When
Monroe
turned to look at me I met his eyes
and defied him to find me inadequate based solely on the fact that I look a
whole lot more like Bewitched’s
Samantha Stevens than I do Sam Spade.
“So
you’re out here . . . ?”
“On
a stakeout,” I said, filling in the blank.
He looked surprised. “You mean you were watching for the guy over
there?”
I shook my head impatiently. Busting a lowlife like him was frosting.
I’d taken pictures of the cake the night before. Those pictures were still in
my camera, thank goodness. I had a meeting with the councilman’s wife the next
night where I would bask in the glory of successfully completing one of
Nightshade’s more important cases. I mean, not even Knute has busted a dirty
politician.
“No,”
I said to the cop. “I just happened to notice the creep. He showed up while I
was waiting for . . . somebody else. I watched him proposition a girl who
couldn’t have been more than fourteen.”
“Red hair?”
I frowned. “Yes. How did you know?”
“She’s . . . uh . . . she’s a regular.”
“Him too?”
Monroe
was too busy with his stylus to look
up. “I, uh, haven’t seen him before.”
“But you’ll arrest him, right?” I asked. “I want to press
charges.”
“I need the rest of the story.”
I provided the details with alacrity—and maybe a little embellishment.
While I talked I looked past
Monroe
toward the cretin down the street. He
still wasn’t in handcuffs. Even stranger, the police captain seemed to be
doing most of the talking while the suspect stared down at the filthy sidewalk.
“You’ll arrest him, right?” I pressed when I’d finished giving my
statement. “I want to charge him with assault.”
“I’ve got that,”
Monroe
said.
“You know,” Knute interrupted, “I saw it go down. Assault
might not be exactly what she means.”
It’s a good thing for Knute I don’t have superpowers because the look
I cast him would have stunned if not killed. “Assault
is exactly what I mean,” I insisted.
To the officer I repeated, “He grabbed me. He stole my camera. I want to press charges.”
“Right.”
Monroe
pushed a button on the PDA. “I think
I’ve got it, Miss Shade. Thank you. You’ll have to come down to the station
to file a formal complaint.” I nodded, and he turned to Knute. “Now tell me
what you saw.”
“He didn’t see any—” I
began.
“If you can’t be quiet,”
Monroe
said, “I’ll have to ask you to
excuse us.”
“She can’t be quiet,”
Knute told him. “I’ll guarantee that.” He grinned at me before strolling a
few feet down the sidewalk with the young officer on his heels.
I
crossed my arms over my chest and glared after them. If Knute Belanoff hadn’t
been the best detective on earth—and the
kindest man on the planet besides—I might have
fired him on the spot.
Monroe and the captain finished their questioning at about the same time.
I planted myself in front of the patrol car when they returned and smiled to see
that the creep finally looked like I thought he should—crestfallen and very
sorry he’d tangled with Samantha Shade.
“She wants to file a complaint,”
Monroe
told his superior. “For assault.”
The older man closed his eyes as if praying for patience, then opened
them to glare at the cretin. “Cuff him,” he said. When
Monroe
took half a second too long to comply,
he barked, “Do it now. I’ve got better things to do tonight than hang around
down here.”
I smiled in satisfaction, then extended my hand. “My camera, please,”
I reminded the officer.
He patted his pocket. “It’s evidence. You’ll get it back.
Eventually.”
“But
I need it now!” I protested. “It’s my uncle’s! Besides, I have other
pictures on it. I need those pictures for a meeting with a client tomorrow
night. A very important client. I have
to have that camera, Captain! I—”
Unmoved, Officer Dix circled the car. “You can file a petition for its
return when you come down to the station to file your complaint.”
“But—”
Knute
chuckled. “What do I keep telling you, Sam? Sometimes even when you win, you
lose.”
“But—”
As the creep was turned to be put into the back of the squad car, I got
another look at his face. It was strong, finely chiseled, and ironically noble—the
kind of face I saw more often in my dreams than in my line of work.
“Believe me, lady,” the bad guy with the great face said. “You’ve
got this all wrong.”
I turned away as Officer Monroe closed the door. “Chalk one up for the
good guys,” I said, hoping the words were truer than they felt. Despite
myself, I couldn’t help thinking there was
something disconcerting about the scumbag I’d busted—aside from his
all-American good looks, I mean. I shook my head. Obviously I’d just saved the
day like a true superhero. I should feel proud, not melancholy.
I
looked up at Knute. As the big man watched the police car pull away, his brows
knit together.
“He
did proposition that girl,” I said. “And he stole my camera.”
“That’s what it looked like, all right,” Knute replied.
The patrol car turned the corner, and the denizens of the darkness began
to reappear in ones and twos and dozens. I sighed. There is just so much wrong in the world that needs righting, you know? I sometimes
doubt a bona fide superhero could handle it all.
“Your heart is in the right place, Sam,” Knute told me as he walked
me back across the street to my car.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He looked down at me fondly. “You thought you knew what you were doing
when you nailed that guy, and you thought you knew why you were doing it. What
you don’t know is what you did will do. We seldom know that.”
I didn’t have to understand Knute’s homespun philosophy to know I
didn’t like the sound of it. The intuitive giant was seldom wrong, and he was
hinting . . . what? I thought about the handsome perp and the scared runaway,
and my heart turned over. Had I struck a blow for truth, justice, and decency,
or had I made one of the biggest mistakes of my life?
I stared into my still-open car in dismay. Somebody had swiped the rest
of my donuts, my Diet Coke, and my
daily crossword puzzle. I had no goodies, no camera, no diversion—and no
stakeout. I knew I might as well call it a night and swing by my parents’ home
to see if Arjay wanted to go to the Purple Cow with me. (My professional motto: When
the going gets tough, the tough get ice cream.) Not that chocolate fudge
could fill the pit that had formed in my stomach. The only way I thought I could
fix that was if I could get back my pictures of the councilman, if I could find
the runaway, and if I could see to it that I did learn what I’d just done
would do.
Have I mentioned yet it’s the ifs
in situations that get me into trouble?
Order
from Amazon
|
