Hit and Nun Page 5

  Tansy headed straight for us, her typically cheerful face zeroing in on mine. “Well, well, fancy who we have here. It’s my favorite ex-nun turned killer wrangler. How are we, Miss Lavender? How’s the foot?” she asked in her very proper British accent, but her tone was, as always, cheerful.

  Since Fergus’s murder, I’d seen Tansy around town at some of our favorite eateries and once at the local outdoor market, and I still liked her as much as I had upon our first meeting. I admired her drive, the fact that, according to Higgs, she’d fought her way up the ladder to make detective, and in the process, fought off some serious gender discrimination.

  “This ex-nun and her foot are fine—finer than fine. You look well. How’s you?”

  She pulled out her small notepad from the pocket of her wrinkled blazer and winked. “I’m smashing. I see you’ve stepped in the middle of another dead chap. What say you, Trixie? Have you an expert opinion? Natural causes? Foul play?” she teased as her eyes roamed over the man on the ground only a few feet from me.

  “I have no opinions, and even if I did, they wouldn’t come with any sort of expertise. Unless you count watching Death In Paradise—a show I’ve been watching in your honor, by the way.”

  Gosh, I can’t tell you how much I love a good British mystery. Stevie had turned me onto them, and since, I’d binge-watched more of them than I care to admit.

  Now her eyes went playful but her tone was serious. “So are you telling me you don’t know what happened here?”

  “I didn’t see anything. Not a thing. I just tripped over a dead guy on my way out to buy some coffee for the shop and some incoming clients. Swear.”

  “No theory to share, love?” she asked, a twinkle in her eye.

  I gave her my best impish grin. I heard a little from Higgs about what everyone was saying about the ex-nun who’d gone out of her way to solve a murder in order to move the investigation along so she could open her tattoo shop.

  Tansy was enjoying teasing me, and I was going to let her because I liked her. “Nope. Not a one. I know my place, and it lies solely with a Netflix crime-show binge and a dream.”

  Tansy barked a laugh. “And what about your strange but wonderful friend, Coop? Did that unfairly gorgeous creature see anything?”

  Coop came up behind the detective and tapped Tansy on the shoulder. “Strange but unfairly gorgeous creature is standing right here, Detective Tansy Primrose.”

  “Tans?” Higgs called out, tugging Jeff’s leash to encourage him to walk. “Hey! Where ya been? I’ve texted you at least three times this week to see if you and Marv want to grab dinner.”

  She grinned at him, her blue eyes lighting up at the sight of her friend. “Sorry, bloke. It’s been bloody madness at the station with two new detectives in training. Wee lads with nary any street experience, dumped on me as though I’m suddenly the precinct’s answer to a uni dorm’s house mother.”

  Higgs chuckled and nodded. “I remember the days. Still, work will always be there. You need to make time for yourself and the people who love you.”

  Tansy reached down and gave Jeff a stroke on the head. “Says the man who’s out at three in the blessed morning, checking to be sure the homeless have enough blankets?”

  He held up a hand and laughed. “Point made. But let’s get together soon, okay?”

  Tansy bobbed her bleached-blonde head, her chin-length hair swaying as she did. “Soon. I promise. Until then, did you see anything, Higgs?”

  “Nope. I was late to supper. Didn’t get here until after he was on the ground. But he’s definitely dead. We checked.”

  Tansy’s pencil-thin eyebrow rose, her face hesitant. “Have any thoughts on what might have occurred?”

  “Nope,” he said with a charming smile. Meaning, he didn’t want any part of what had occurred.

  “Good enough, love,” she said with a return warm smile. Then she turned to Coop and drove her hand through the loop of her arm, taking her off in the other direction—standard procedure is usually to separate witnesses to garner the most authentic recollections. “Ready for a chat, darling?”

  As I watched her corral Coop, I kept my fingers crossed my demon would do her civic duty to the best of her ability.

  “So your assessment, Detective Lavender?” Higgs teased as he moved closer to me, Jeff’s leash wrapped securely around his wrist.

  Heat rushed to my cheeks. I was never going to live down the last time we’d found a dead body.

  “You hush, ex-undercover police officer. I have no assessments. As I told Tansy, I’m merely an innocent bystander who tripped over a dead man.”

  “Ah, but I see the gleam in your eye, Sister Trixie. It’s the same one you had the night we did the stakeout under the Hawthorne. You love a good mystery to solve—it’s evidenced by all the questions you ask me after watching endless episodes of Psych. There’s no shame in your game.”

  “Do you mean the night I saved your hide, Cross Higglesworth, and nearly had my foot shot off?” I said on a giggle as we brushed shoulders.

  Okay, a little honesty here. I didn’t save-save his life. I happened upon the killer, who happened to shoot me by mistake while in a struggle with Higgs for the gun.

  But Higgs wasn’t at all daunted by the notion. One of the traits I admired most about him was how humble he was. I didn’t feel at all like I’d saved his life, but he did, and he said so often. He called me selfless. I reminded him I was more asinine and careless than I was selfless, but he wasn’t picking up what I was laying down.

  “That’s the one I’m talking about. You were all sparkly-eyed and salivating while we looked for a killer that night.”

  “I did not salivate, thank you very much. And I ask questions about Psych because I want to know if they’re taking artistic license with the law and whether any of the facts about the forensics and procedures are real. I’m just getting my head screwed on right.”

  He peered down at me, the gleam in his eyes dancing. “Shawn and Gus take artistic license to a new level.”

  My eyebrow cocked upward. “You know who Shawn and Guster are? You watch Psych?”

  “I might have watched an episode or forty.”

  I smiled up at him. It warmed my heart that he wasn’t shunning everything remotely police-ish. I know Higgs suffers with the choices he made while he was undercover in a gang back in Minneapolis.

  I also know those choices haunt him, and it’s why he ultimately left undercover work to give service to his community in other ways. I only wish he’d open up about it more, but time was on my side. I hoped one day he’d feel comfortable enough to share with me.

  “So what’s your take on this?”

  Instantly, Higgs clammed up, and I guess I couldn’t blame him. He was clearly still raw, judging by the hardening of his jaw. “I have no take on anything.”

  Sighing, I lifted my face to the cool-ish breeze after the heat of the day and decided I wasn’t going to pussyfoot around. I needed to know where I stood with Higgs as far as my interest in murder mysteries went.

  “Listen, Higgs. I’m going to be brutally honest here.”

  “I’d expect nothing less from a nun.”

  “Ex-nun…and good. Because here it comes. I get that you want nothing to do with your former life. But if my asking questions and theorizing out loud about whatever—a murder-mystery show, a news story—upsets you, if it makes you feel like I’m pressuring you to join the conversation, say the word and I’ll stop.

  “I’m not asking you questions so that you’ll suddenly realize you miss being an officer of the law. I’m not looking for epiphanies. This isn’t me using my powers as a person of service to therapy you out of this thing you have about leaving the past behind. That’s your choice, and I respect it. I’m just muttering out loud most times—it’s obvious I don’t know my backside from my elbow. But what I won’t do is find out I’m driving you crazy with my murder chatter too late in the game. If you want to avoid all things murdery, say the word and
I’ll keep my thoughts to myself.”

  He paused a moment, his tanned face pensive as he looked off into the distance, where muffled laughter threaded its way to my ears—likely another batch of bikers.

  He spoke after he swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down in his throat. “How can we be friends if I put the kibosh on your enthusiasm? I remember what it was like to be just as enthusiastic, even though a dead body is hardly something one should be enthusiastic about. But I remember the tingle in my gut, the itch to solve a crime. In fact, I remember it well.”

  “You still haven’t answered my question. Would you prefer I leave that our taboo subject?”

  “No,” he said with an easy smile—a Higgs specialty, by the way. When things got uncomfortable, he smiled. “Theorize away, Sister Trixie. I’m all ears.”

  Avoid, avoid, avoid. But that was okay. As long as he wasn’t silently grudging or angry that I couldn’t shut up about my love of mysteries in general, especially a murder mystery, I was willing to let go until he was willing to let me in.

  I’m not so sure why I wanted him to confide in me so much. Maybe it was because my nature is to nurture—to heal—but it meant something to me. And I had the feeling Higgs being able to confide in someone meant something to him, and he wouldn’t do it without feeling one hundred percent comfortable.

  Cracking my knuckles, I decided to indulge my whim. “Okay, Coop said he got off the bike and sat down and that was the last she saw of him, until I tripped over his body. So he was alive when he first got here.”

  He nodded his dark head. “And that leads you to believe what?”

  Well, now that the expert had put me on the spot, I felt a little self-conscious… “Heart attack?”

  “It could be a lot of things, and sure, a heart attack is certainly one of those things. But it doesn’t hurt to think outside the box.”

  I peered at the naked man again, still seeing nothing out of the ordinary. “Kidney failure? Poisoning? Demonic possession?”

  I can’t believe I said that, but it just slipped out.

  “Demonic possession?” he asked, wide-eyed, a half smile on his lips.

  “Well, you said think outside the box…”

  “I said think outside the box, not consider things that don’t exist.”

  Says you…

  I crossed my arms over my chest, tucking a hand under the strap of my purse. “Demonic possession is outside the box,” I replied coquettishly.

  Higgs popped his lips and grinned. “It’s more like crushing the box. Next theory, please?”

  “Lady Lavender!” a familiar voice yelled, forcing me to turn around and peer into the twilight. “Lady Lavender! Is that you?”

  “Solomon?” I called out, just as he came into view, the oncoming darkness revealing the outline of his beloved shopping cart, filled to the brim with his most prized possessions.

  After our run-in with Fergus’s killer, Solomon had escaped the hospital once he was well enough to slip through the nurses’ fingers. There was nothing he despised more than doctors, and hospitals, and tests.

  But we’d gleaned a vague diagnosis for his behavior—nothing official, mind you; the doctors wouldn’t cop to anything of the sort without thorough testing. However, the general consensus was that he was autistic, high-functioning to be precise, and that made perfect sense to Higgs and me.

  As such, I’d spent some time online perusing autism sites, reading about the plights of parents with autistic children, trying to understand how I could best obtain Solomon’s trust without frightening him off. I wanted him to know he could always turn to me—no matter the circumstance.

  He sought me out often these days, always with his medieval shtick, which I’d come to learn was his most comfortable form of communication. He stuttered less, repeated words and phrases less if he had his Viking hat on and his fingers wrapped around the handle of his shopping cart—essentially, they were his safe items, rather like a child with his favorite blanket.

  And that was okay by me. Solomon, despite his fears, was a sweet soul who’d picked (okay, stolen from the flower pots outside of the little burger place down the way, but whatever) flowers every day for me when my foot was mending, living in a body riddled with anxieties I was only just beginning to understand.

  My ultimate goal was to have him see a doctor regularly, but that was a long way off. That he was seeking me out right now was enough.

  As he rushed toward me, the wheels of his shopping cart clacking over the bumpy pavement, his Viking hat crooked atop his head, he called out again, “Lady Lavender! I must speak with you—’tis a matter of dire urgency!”

  Putting a welcoming smile on my face, I waved him toward us. “My liege! What a wonderful surprise. How art thou this fine eve?”

  He came to a full stop a couple of feet away from us, the distance he typically deemed comfortable between himself and another human being. “Terrible, Lady Lavender! Terrible, terrible, awful!” he crowed, his eyes darting from place to place but never quite landing on my face.

  His hands, fingers splayed, were fluttering about his head, which meant he was stressed, and his gaunt face—fuller now that he knew he could come to me for a meal at least once a day—had lines of worry.

  “Saulie? What’s wrong, buddy?” Higgs asked, his tone laced with concern.

  “No!” Solomon shouted abruptly. “No-no-no-no-no! You must not address me as such, you peasant!”

  I patted Higgs on the arm and gave him the look, reminding him he wasn’t playing the game.

  Clearing his throat, Higgs corrected himself. “My apologies, oh great and wise king. How can we help you? Are you hungry, sire? Have you supped?”

  My heart clenched in my chest at his words. Higgs’s willingness to do whatever he could in order to earn Solomon’s trust endeared him to me in ways I can’t quite describe.

  But Solomon made a face, his lips creating a thin line as he danced back and forth on the sneakers we’d bought him, and I found myself relieved to see he hadn’t sold them for candy. Gobstoppers being his favorite.

  “Whatever is the matter, King Solomon?” I pressed, my concern growing.

  “Him!” he bellowed, pointing to the man on the ground, where two police officers stood guard.

  My eyes widened, and I had to force myself not to move closer to Solomon and latch on to his thin arm so he wouldn’t escape me. “What about him, my liege?”

  “They slaughtered him, Lady Lavender!” The words shot from his mouth like a cannonball, clearly with much effort. “Just like the warrior Braveheart! I saw with mine own two eyes! They killed him!”

  My mouth fell open at Solomon’s words.

  But the only thing I could think was, dang it all, Coop had been right.

  I should have taken pictures.

  Chapter 4

  And then I was so ashamed. Maybe that was morbid, and I was disgusted with myself for even thinking such, but darned if that tingle of the possibility of a crime didn’t settle right in the pit of my belly, and I wasn’t sure how I should feel about that.

  Also, I hated to admit this, and I know Solomon’s words sound very dramatic and maybe even a little crazy, but this wouldn’t be the first time he’d rattled off some half-cocked story that, in the end, was true.

  The hard part was parsing the fiction from the real story and connecting the dots. They didn’t always add up. His recounting of events was always a riddle.

  “Sire? Whatever doth thouest mean?” Higgs asked with clear concern, moving a little closer to Solomon while Jeff dug his heels in and strained against the leash.

  Jeff was a little hesitant around Solomon, and with good reason. He’d once attempted to steal some turkey jerky right out of Solomon’s pocket. He’d chased Jeff up and down the block, hurling soda cans at him and calling him thief.

  “Thouest? Nice, Sir Higglesworth. It’s thou. Whatever dost thou mean,” I whispered to him, fighting a giggle.

  But Solomon was already
creating more space between himself and Higgs by dancing back and forth along the street in an erratic pattern. “Stay there, you scoundrel! Don’t come any closer or I shall use my sword!”

  Sword? Whoa, whoa, whoa. Had he somehow managed to find a sword? Cheese and rice, a sword in the mix was the last thing we needed.

  But then Solomon pulled a large tree branch out of his beloved shopping cart and pointed it at Higgs, affecting the stance of a fencer ready to do battle.

  Higgs instantly acquiesced and held up his hands in surrender.

  “Okay, okay, King Solomon. I apologize. I’m only trying to help.”

  “You stay there, heathen!” he shouted, jousting an imaginary foe with the branch, his hat sliding around his head. “Only Lady Lavender can help me!”

  It was time I stepped in. I took a tentative step forward, only enough so I could see Solomon’s face clearer, yet not invade his space. “My liege? Can you tell me of your adventures this night? I wait with bated breath.”

  “Nice,” Higgs whispered under his breath, making me preen a little.

  Not full-on preen, mind you. Just a small preen. I mean, he’s an expert on all things homeless, complimenting a total novice. That was worthy of a preen, don’t you think?

  “Him!” Solomon finally sputtered. “They murdered him with a steed of steel! That’s what they did. They did, they did, they diiiid!”

  I inhaled sharply and fisted my hands together. If what Solomon was saying was true, he’d seen this man murdered. But Solomon was hardly a reliable source. Yes, it was true he’d witnessed Fergus’s murder, but his story of the events had been riddled with misleading information, and it was only through a series of revelations by Higgs that we put two and two together. As I said, what he told us had all been true, but it had been in the form of a brainteaser that, at the time, I didn’t understand.

  And what the heck did a steed of steel mean? But then a shiver slithered up my spine and it hit me, I think I knew what he meant. So, as I prepared to ask him my next question, I tried to keep the excitement of revelation out of my voice and remain calm and soothing.