Murder By Design Read online

  “What happened to you?”

  “No clue. One minute I’m sitting there, enjoying a beer, the sun, a little porn on my phone, and then whammo. Nothing. I wake up on the other side.” He put his hands on his rather large hips. “This is crap. I need to find my body.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that. “I don’t even understand where your body is.” But I knew what he needed. I’d been down this road twice before (which was a stat I’d never aspired to) and it was pretty certain that if Cezar’s body and murderer were found, he would get to ride the elevator to the top floor and rest in peace. “It seems kind of a pain for someone to kill you in your own house then move your body.”

  Cezar stared at me. It was long and intent and I fought the urge to squirm. He looked like a man who took no crap during business negotiations. “You don’t know much about murder, do you?” he asked.

  That was kind of ironic. “No, but I know more than I wish I did.” I was clutching my iPad and I felt a little intimated by Cezar. A dead guy was unimpressed with me. There’s an ego boost. “I can’t help you. I’m sure your family will need time to decide if they still want to sell this house or not.” The Vegas carpet was going to have to stay for now. Cezar could sit around his living room in his swim trunks and enjoy the kitsch. “Nice to meet you,” I said and started for the front door.

  I know. It was a ridiculous parting line, but what the heck was I supposed to say? Sorry you’re dead? The urge to get out was as loud as the carpet pattern.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa.” He held his hand up. “You can’t just leave. You need to help me.”

  “I just told you, I don’t think I can,” I said, infusing as much of an apology into my voice as I could. “You said it yourself, I don’t know much about murder.”

  I got around Cezar and was charging toward the door when something clipped me in the back of the head. “Ow!” I whipped my head around and saw that a penny had bounced to the floor and was rolling across the carpet. “Did you just throw that at me?”

  That was disturbing. The other ghosts I had encountered weren’t able to move objects immediately. Why was Cezar so strong already? Something felt off about this whole situation.

  “Of course I did. Listen, little girl, I don’t have time for you to be squeamish. There’s money missing and I need to find it. My kids deserve it, not Big Eddie or Sammy Salami, or whoever is responsible for putting a bullet in my chest.”

  I blinked. “Sammy Salami?” That couldn’t be real. None of this could be real. Maybe Marner was right and I had lost my mind. Because no one should have a nickname that referenced processed meat.

  “Yeah. Or Mad Dog Daniel or Ivan the Terrible. It had to be one of those guys.”

  “Aren’t you a little old for camp nicknames?” I asked, totally bewildered why grown men would refer to each other that way. Women don’t do this.

  He scratched his bloated belly, his index finger taking a dip into his belly button. I struggled not to fixate on the gesture in horror, but I couldn’t pull my eyes away. He had found a piece of lint buried in there and was playing with it.

  “Haven’t you ever heard of organized crime, kid? Everyone has a nickname. It’s a thing. Look it up.”

  “You’re in the mob?” I asked, astonished. That certainly explained the love of mirrors and flashy colors. But I thought the mob was something of a myth these days.

  “You’re on a need to know basis,” he said. “And you don’t need to know anything more than what I just told you.”

  My eyebrows shot up. “I’m leaving. Have a nice day, Mr. Wozniak.” I had a long drive home and a wasted day in my rearview mirror. I didn’t need a dead guy being coy with me.

  He didn’t say anything. He just waved me off and made a disgusted sound.

  That was the thanks I got. Fine. I was out. As I pulled the front door shut behind me and put the key back in the lock box after locking it, I fished my phone out of my purse. I had a text from Marner.

  A fissure of excitement rolled through me. I couldn’t help it. I was still attracted to Jake, even though he thought I was a few fries short of a Happy Meal. I wanted our relationship to continue, but he had been aloof since I had told him Ryan was hanging out in my kitchen with us while we cooked dinner.

  Hey, Trouble. Give me a call.

  Trouble was a new nickname that had appeared in recent weeks. Not exactly the term of endearment a woman wants from the man she’s dating. (Were we still dating? I think, maybe?)

  Why? What’s going on?

  This was a thing we did. He sent texts that to me were cryptic. To him they were short segues to an actual conversation. But if he wanted to talk to me, why didn’t he call me? Why did I have to call him? It was a song and dance I didn’t understand.

  Just call me.

  Yep. I had the sinking feeling he had already heard about my interaction with Lawson Hill.

  In my car, I turned around in front of the house at a concrete pad for that purpose and started down the long drive. I ordered my phone to call Marner.

  He answered immediately. “Hey.”

  “Hi, how are you?” I sounded breathless. I always did when I talked to Jake. It was an unexplained phenomenon that had started a few months ago when Jake had smoothed my hair back and told me I looked good. Now I was Pavlovian when it came to him. He rang and I drooled.

  But he wasn’t calling to flirt or to reprimand me for wasting the time of law enforcement. “Do you want to go to Nick Pitrello’s arraignment hearing? It’s in two hours.”

  Gross. The thought of Nick made me shudder. I didn’t want to face him. Yet I knew the longer I avoided dealing with it, the harder it would be when I was called as a witness in his trial. I probably had at least a year before the case went to trial, and I was really good at creative avoidance. As much as I didn’t want to go, I thought it was a good idea. “You always take me to the most romantic places.”

  Marner gave a snort. “I’m a romantic guy, what can I say?”

  He wasn’t. Not really. He had his moments, but mostly he was pragmatic and steadfast. Which was why he thought I was a bag of bolts for claiming to see Ryan’s ghost. But while he wasn’t exactly romantic, he was sexy as hell. He had a stare that made me weak in the knees. “Is there dinner on the table for after this delightful hearing?”

  “Yes. And you can have whatever you want.”

  There it was, that sexy Jake voice that made my insides turn to liquid.

  “Anything?” Carte blanche both excited and scared me. What were we talking about here? Spinach dip and sliders, or our relationship? “That sounds like an offer I can’t refuse.”

  It would have been a seductive conversation if it weren’t for Cezar Wozniak popping into my passenger seat in his swim trunks and flip-flops. He cleared his throat and folded his meaty fingers over his bare stomach.

  That was most definitely a mood killer. As were his words.

  “I’m not leaving your side until you find my body.”

  Chapter Two

  I ignored Cezar, even as he started shouting, “Hey! Hey! Hey, lady!” at the top of his lungs. I quickly ended my call with Marner and turned to him, furious and flustered.

  “What? Are you a child? You could see I was on the phone. Give me a second!” Just because he was dead didn’t mean he was allowed to thumb his nose at any and all etiquette.

  “Sorry, but I don’t got all day.”

  I was pretty sure he had eternity, but unlike him I had manners and wasn’t going to point that out. “What can I do for you, Mr. Wozniak?” Maybe if I were exceptionally polite he would respond in kind.

  “I already told you! Find my damn body. It’s not that hard.”

  So much for politeness. I accelerated onto the highway, irritated that I had to spend the next forty minutes in the car with this guy. “And I told you, I can’t help you. I’m not a private investigator or a cop. I don’t know anything about your life or the mob or whatever. If you were shot in your house, and they
disposed of your body instead of leaving it there, then I wouldn’t even know where to begin. Sorry. Can’t help you.” And to further punctuate my statement, I turned up the radio.

  For a minute Cezar didn’t speak and I prayed that he was gone. But when I glanced over I saw that he was actually grinning at me. “Nice, kid. I like the spirit.”

  I had no response to that as I glanced in my rearview mirror to merge onto the highway.

  “How hard can it be to find a body? I’m not exactly a little guy.”

  “If it’s not that hard, someone will find you in the next day or two.” I was sticking to my guns. “I don’t exactly have the authority to drag the lake. I mean, don’t you think that’s the most logical explanation for what happened? They shot you then tipped you right into the lake? Your chair was fifteen feet from the shore.”

  But Cezar shook his head. “No way. Too obvious. I’d be floating, so why even bother putting me in the water? Or if they weighted me down, same thing. It would only buy a few days until the gases in my body lifted my corpse to the surface.”

  To be honest, Cezar looked like he would be full of gases. “Maybe they took your boat out and dumped you.” He had a dock, though I hadn’t seen a boat in the slip.

  “It’s out of the water for the winter. All that’s around is a rowboat, and I don’t exactly see my colleagues putting that much back into it, you know what I’m saying?” He rhythmically drummed his fingers on his belly. “So if the lake is out, I’m guessing the woods, the dump, or a storage unit.”

  “The woods is a little vague.”

  “Yeah, we should try the storage unit first, then the dump.”

  I didn’t want to try anything, but I admit, I was a little curious. “What storage unit?”

  “We have some…stuff there.” He shrugged. “It’s over off MLK. But to get the key to the unit we have to go to the Schvitz. It’s in Big Eddie’s locker there.”

  “What’s the Schvitz?”

  “It’s a club for men.”

  I knew what that meant. “A strip club? There is no way I’m going there. Sorry.” Ew. Double ew.

  “It’s not a strip club, relax. It’s a sweat bath.”

  “I don’t even know what that means.” Not that I was going anywhere near whatever it was. I had a hearing to attend and a dinner date with a certain sexy detective. But I really had no clue what a sweat bath was. It sounded like code for a crack house. Did they still have those? Was crack still a thing? I was out of the loop in terms of drugs since I had left the department.

  Cezar looked at me like I was an idiot. “What do you mean you don’t know what it is? A sweat bath is a sweat bath. A sauna. Only with vodka and meat. You get dinner, drink a bunch of Tito’s, and sweat. What’s so confusing about that?”

  Everything. “Why would you eat a steak and drink vodka, then sweat? I really don’t get it.” Then I had a thought. “Oh wait, is this a gay club?” That made a lot more sense to me.

  “No! What the hell do you think is going on there? Can’t a guy sit in a towel without someone thinking it’s a gay thing? I bet gay guys are sick of everyone assuming all they want to do is bang.” He shook his head. “Why does everyone have to be so wrapped up in sex? It’s not about sex. It’s about camaraderie. Get your mind out of the gutter.”

  My lips pursed and I mentally counted to five. My mind was almost never in the gutter, so the whole thing was pretty damn ironic. Sometimes I wished my head were more in the gutter, but when your dating life is as sporadic as mine, you learn it does no good to fixate on sex. “I just don’t get the connection between steak and vodka and a sauna. One of these things is not like the other.”

  “Meat sweats. It’s good for the constitution.”

  Meat sweats? I felt a shudder roll over me. That was a horrifying concept. “Well, whatever. I’m not going there, regardless. You said it’s men only and I’m not about to ask someone named “Big Eddie” for a key to his private storage unit where there may or may not be a dead body.”

  “You’re not going to ask him. Don’t be dense.” He scoffed. “You’ll have to pretend you’re one of the catering girls. Then you’ll have to look for the key.” He gave me a sideways glance. “Because no offense, you’re not exactly the kind of woman who can seduce a guy for information.”

  Offense taken. “That’s a rude thing to say. I may not be Angelina Jolie, but I am not a troll.” I wasn’t. I was cute, well put together. I had gained a few pounds back, so I wasn’t hovering on the edge of anorexic-chic the way I had been after Ryan’s death, and while I did have a smattering of freckles, I had good skin. I wasn’t a supermodel, but I wasn’t objectionable. And I didn’t need to be insulted by a man with hair on his ears and a belly that rivaled a woman pregnant with triplets at full term.

  “Don’t be all sensitive. I’m just saying you’re a nice girl, not a hooker.”

  Still not okay. Cezar was basically the definition of a misogynist. “So hire a hooker to seduce Big Eddie.”

  “No one but you can see me.”

  That was the rub. Which meant that clearly at some point I had jerked around karma, because why else would it be biting me in the ass like this? Why was I the only one who had the pleasure of seeing Cezar Wozniak? Not fair at all. “I’m not going to a sweat bath unless it’s in Vegas and I’m guaranteed privacy and cleanliness. I’m not going to pretend to be a caterer. And I don’t want to see naked old mobsters sweating off meat and vodka.” Just in case that wasn’t clear.

  “That’s why you can’t seduce men. You’re a priss.”

  That made me turn the radio up another notch. I stared at the road and started singing along to the music. I didn’t care if Cezar thought I was a priss, but I didn’t want to be bullied into doing his bidding. He was going to have to learn manners.

  “See, that’s what I’m talking about. Stick up your butt.”

  “The eighties called and they want that carpet in your living room back,” I said, unable to resist.

  “Hey, that was expensive carpet,” he said, clearly insulted.

  “Sure, when you bought it in Atlantic City, circa 1985.”

  He laughed. “That’s more like it. You have a little more bite to you. That was funny.”

  “I don’t have a stick up my butt.” Not too far, anyway. “I like things orderly. I’ve always been that way. You have to understand, seeing ghosts isn’t orderly. It’s invasive. You are traumatized. I get it. Dying is a big deal. But I’m still doing my ordinary day-to-day thing and you have to recognize that if you want my help, you have to respect my time and my boundaries.” Maybe I needed an Intro to Death course of my own. Ryan had said there had been instructions after death on what was what, but clearly there was no unit on “how to respect your spiritual medium.” I needed to create a curriculum or I was never going to get any peace or privacy.

  Cezar just snorted. “Does that mean we have to have like, appointments and shit? That’s very inconvenient.”

  “What else are you doing?” I asked, exasperated. My social niceties evaporated. “You have eternity.”

  “That was a low blow.”

  He was literally the world’s most annoying ghost. I’d thought Ryan had irritating moments, but Cezar took the cake. Phil had been a dream compared to this guy. “Take it or leave it.”

  “We’re both holding a pair of aces, sister.”

  I frowned. “What does that mean?”

  “I need your help. But if you don’t help me, I can make you help me by harassing you endlessly.”

  That was my greatest fear. But I still figured I had a winning hand, if he wanted to use poker analogies. “I’m the only one who can hear you, remember? So I’m the only one who can help you find your body. And ultimately, the money. Wasn’t that what you really wanted? How much money?”

  “Three million,” he said begrudgingly.

  I whistled. “Not a small chunk of change. You want it to go to your kids, right?”

  “Yeah, I have two boys.
One of them is around your age. You single?”

  The thought of dating Cezar’s son made me blanch. “No, not really. It’s complicated.”

  “What is this complicated crap? Why does everyone under thirty-five want to play games? In my day you dated or you didn’t. There was no in-between unless you were just fooling around without a commitment. But that was different. None of this “taking a break” or “keeping it open” or all those stupid explanations my son gives for why he’s still online looking for chicks when he has a nice girl he’s been seeing.”

  I couldn’t exactly argue. It was an odd modern trend to be constantly on the hunt for someone more attractive, more interesting, wealthier, and so on, online. But I found it hard to believe that any generation wouldn’t have done the same thing if they too had had access to dating sites and apps. “Maybe your son isn’t ready to settle down. How old is he?”

  Hearing myself, I mentally groaned. Why was I inviting conversation with the Cleveland version of Goodfellas? In Cezar’s case, Flip-Flop Fellas. He didn’t feel menacing, just irritating.

  “He’s twenty-six. How old are you?”

  “Older than him. And not interested. I have a guy that I see.” I wasn’t sure how else to describe what Marner and I were. Cezar could think what he wanted, but I wasn’t interested in a blind date set up by a dead guy.

  “So what you’re telling me is he is bangs you and gives you just enough hope that you’ll get married someday that you stick around.”

  What was this, 1950? I wasn’t sitting around on the daily pining to get married. “Not at all. We’ve been friends for a long time, and we’re transitioning to something romantic.” Then I realized I had no desire to discuss what I didn’t understand myself with a sexist spirit. “Not that it’s any of your business.”

  “Easy, kid. I don’t really care. Unless you want to date my son, then I do care.”

  “Oh, I don’t.” I was pretty damn sure on that score.

  “That’s a shame, because that would be ideal. I could still communicate with him through you and be involved in his life and your relationship.”