Legend of the Jade Dragon Read online

  Kip giggled. “You’re mad.”

  “Damn right I’m mad. That woman should be taken off the air as a danger to herself and others.”

  Miranda leaned on the arm of the sofa. “You didn’t see the driver, did you?”

  I shook my head. “No, I was too busy watching Daniel. If anybody caught the license plate, the police would know by now.”

  “What happens if the person who did hit Mr. Barrington sees it and thinks you know who they are?”

  Now that idiot had my kids scared. That was the last time I’d ever talk to her. However, I might just punch her out next time we met. “I don’t really think that’s going to happen,” I said. “People know Sutton always exaggerates her reports.”

  Settling into the chair at the computer, Kip turned to me. “I’m sure glad you’re mad at her and not me right now.”

  I flashed him a smile. Sometimes my son had a way of making the irritations of life seem brighter. “Funny boy. Funny.”

  He hesitated, then cleared his throat.

  “What is it, honey?”

  “Uh, I know you’re really busy lately, but are we still going camping this weekend?”

  Camping! Oh God, with all that had gone on the past couple of days, I’d forgotten about our reservation at the resort. I winced. Now was not the best time to go, but I’d promised the kids, and Kip had been so good during the time I’d grounded him; I hated to let him down. I took a deep breath and held it, thinking. The deposit was nonrefundable, I’d lose a hundred dollars if we didn’t go. Kip stared up at me, his eyes earnest and hopeful.

  “Okay,” I finally said. “I’m still not convinced this is the best idea right now, but I did promise, so we’ll go.”

  Kip’s eyes lit up. “Yay! I was hoping to look around for rocks for my science project.” They were studying geology, and he was currently in the crystal phase all kids go through when they discovered quartz and fool’s gold.

  “Cool. What about you, Randa? You still up for it?”

  I didn’t think she’d be that interested, but she surprised me. “I could take my old telescope—the one I had before you bought me my new one for Christmas. The viewing will be a lot better out there, as long as there aren’t any clouds. I know you’re worried, Mom, but I think you need a break.”

  Well, she was right about that. “Then it’s settled. I think I’ll ask Murray to tag along. She’s been having a rough time adjusting to her new job, and I think she could use a break, too.” If she went along, not only would I feel safer, but it would also give us a chance to discuss some of the strange things that had been going on lately.

  “May I invite Lori?” Randa asked. “She likes astronomy, too, though she doesn’t want to be an astronaut. She wants to teach.” I was so relieved that Miranda actually had made a friend her own age that I would have agreed to her dragging a dozen kids along on the trip.

  I took over the computer, and we typed up a list of things to be done before the weekend. I delegated the chores to the kids since I had to work.

  Miranda cleared her throat. I waited. “Um… Mom, can I… I know this isn’t the best time to ask, but is there any way I might be able to buy a few new clothes?”

  New clothes? My no-nonsense daughter who owned four pairs of black slacks, three pairs of jeans, two skirts—one black, one gray—and a dozen shirts of various neutral shades, was asking for new clothes? She never expressed an interest in shopping except when something grew raggedy or too small. I had despaired of ever getting her into anything remotely feminine. She liked the severe look, but it didn’t seem natural for someone her age to be imitating Donna Karan.

  Wondering what brought this on, I considered our bank account. “Well, a few things, sure. Of course, sweetheart. Do you want me to go with you, or do you want to go with Lori?” I wasn’t going to interfere; if she expressed the remotest interest in going out with her new friend, I was all for it.

  Randa blushed again. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to go with Lori. Can I get my hair done, too?”

  Too shocked to comment, I simply said, “You aren’t going to get it cut much, are you? It’s so pretty when it’s long.” I ran my fingers through the long, raven locks that hung past her shoulder blades.

  She shook her head. “I want a shag—long and layered. It would be easier to keep up.” Her words fell over one another, and I realized she wasn’t trying to rationalize her desires to me, but to herself.

  Adolescence was hard enough without having your mother psychoanalyze you. “Tell you what, next week I’ll give you the charge card, if you promise to stick within the budget I set.”

  With a hasty nod, she slipped off the sofa. “I need to make some notes in my journal for tonight’s star watch.” She tripped off up the stairs, and I heard the ka-thunk of her door.

  Kip looked at me, a glint in his eye. “She’s turning into a girl, isn’t she?”

  I grinned at him. “Yeah, I think so… but somehow, I don’t think Miranda’s going to be like one of the girls on Who Wants to Be a Pop Star.”

  He shook his head. “Nope… more like Dexter meets Tank Girl.”

  Yep, I thought, my son was pretty observant. I motioned for him to join me in the kitchen, where we decided on chef’s salad for dinner. After setting Kip to tearing lettuce, I gave Murray a call. She was still at the office.

  “Don’t you ever go home anymore?”

  Her voice told me I’d picked the wrong evening to tease her. “Coughlan left for the rest of the week, which would be just dandy except he dumped a stack of reports on my desk and told me to get them typed up. Em, this is work the clerks should be doing! I’m a detective, not his secretary, but he said if they aren’t done by Monday, he’ll write a warning in my file that I’m not keeping up with the work.”

  “Can’t you go to Tad Bonner? Tell him what’s going on.” Why was she letting this jerk walk all over her? Murray never let anybody take advantage of her, but it was like she was paralyzed when it came to this guy.

  She hemmed and hawed and finally blurted out the truth. “I can’t. Tad didn’t want me to take this job. He said that he didn’t think I had what it takes to be a detective. He didn’t mean anything bad by it; he said I’m one hell of a cop, but that I just didn’t have the personality to fit the job. I can’t go to him now and tell him he was right. I’d be humiliated.”

  Incredulous, I stared at the receiver for a moment, wondering if I’d heard right. “Murray, you wouldn’t be admitting he was right. You have some legitimate concerns with the way Coughlan is treating you. If Bonner can’t figure out the difference between harassment and ineptitude, then he’s a poor chief of police.”

  She stammered a bit more, then sighed. “Em, when I took this job, I swore I was going to make it work. I can’t give up now, and I can’t let anybody else fight my battles for me. I’ll have the damn reports done by Friday. I know Coughlan doesn’t think I can do it, but I’m going to prove him wrong. He’ll be speechless.”

  She was going about this all wrong, I thought. No matter what she did, she’d never impress the man. I kept my mouth shut, though. She probably wouldn’t listen to me on this anyway. “Hey, do you want to go camping with us this weekend? We’ve been planning on this trip for several weeks; I’ve got a nonrefundable reservation for one of the cabins at Tyler’s Resort.”

  She perked up. “That sounds like fun. When are you leaving?”

  “Friday night. We’ll drive back on Sunday morning. Come with?”

  After a brief pause, Murray said she’d love to come. “By the way, I saw you on television tonight… again.”

  I groaned. “I hate that bitch. So what’s the scoop? Can I sue her?”

  Murray snorted. “Sue her? You’d be lucky if the courts let you write her a fan letter. I’m fed up with the government. Before you know it, we won’t have any right to privacy left at all.” And then, before she could really get started, she cut herself short. “Soap bo
x issue. I’d better stop before I lose track of time. I’ll call you at the shop on Friday morning.”

  As I returned to my cutting board, I thought about Murray and her promotion. She was making a mistake if she thought Coughlan would break down and offer her the respect she craved. Men like that never did. If they couldn’t fault you for one thing, they’d find something else wrong with you. Roy had taught me that lesson.

  Kip and I were putting the finishing touches on the salad when the crash of splintering glass filled the air. I raced into the living room, yelling over my shoulder for Kip to wait in the kitchen. The huge bay window that overlooked our porch and front lawn lay shattered into a thousand pieces. A brick rested in the middle of the jagged fragments covering the living room floor. There was something painted on it, but I was barefoot and couldn’t get to it without slice-and-dicing my feet.

  “Holy hell! Kip, get back in the kitchen,” I said as he peeked through the swinging doors. I could hear Miranda’s footsteps as she raced downstairs, and I yelled to warn her. “Don’t go in the living room! Go through the hall into the kitchen, and stay there with Kip. Grab a pair of my shoes from the hall closet and take them with you before you do.”

  I gingerly backtracked into the kitchen. Kip stared at me, wide-eyed and frightened. “What’s going on, Mom? Who’s doing this?”

  “I don’t know, honey.” I held him close for a moment, then brushed his hair with my fingers and picked up the phone, hitting Redial. For the third time in two days, some force had intruded into my life and destroyed my property. First, Randa’s telescope, then the shop, now my house. Why were they targeting me? And what… or who… would it try to destroy next?

  Chapter 6

  “WHAT IN THE world is going on, Em?” Murray surveyed the damage to my living room window while a couple of uniformed officers poked around outside, hunting for footprints or other clues that might lead to whoever just destroyed my window. She held the brick in a latex-gloved hand; the writing along the side of it was in white paint and spelled out a nasty four-letter word that started with a c.

  I motioned for her to wait a minute and went back into the kitchen. “Randa, you and Kip round up the cats and put them in the downstairs guest room with a litter box and water. We don’t want the kittens getting into the broken glass. Use the hall if you can, instead of walking through the living room. Then, go ahead and make sandwiches to go with the salad, and eat. And both of you make sure you’ve got good shoes on.”

  Kip started to protest, but Miranda, sensing I wanted them out from underfoot, promised him the last piece of apple pie. I flashed her a grateful look as they got to work. I returned to the front porch, my stomach a tangle of knots.

  “What’s going on? I wish I knew. First Miranda’s telescope takes a dive, then my shop gets trashed, then my home. I feel under attack.”

  I couldn’t escape the thought that if either the kids or I had been in the living room when this happened, we could have been seriously injured by the flying glass. Murray was talking to one of the cops who had responded to her request for a uniformed team. While she was occupied, I took the opportunity to call Joe. I needed a strong shoulder to lean on, a masculine shoulder, and I needed it right now. He offered to come right over.

  Murray and I sat on the newel posts by the porch steps. The other officers joined us. They hadn’t found any indicators pointing to who might have done this. “The only evidence we have is that brick; we’re dusting it for prints. There aren’t any footprints in your front lawn that we can find. Truth is, unless we lift a print, your vandal could be anybody.” She glanced at the driveway. “Who’s that?”

  Horvald Ledbetter was coming up the stairs, a concerned expression on his face. “What happened? I saw the police cars and came over to see if you were okay.” He looked worried, and I realized that maybe my neighborhood wasn’t so aloof after all. I started to introduce him to Murray, then stopped. Great. Oliver, Ida’s nephew, was right behind him. He startled Horvald as he pushed past the older man and craned his neck, trying to get a glimpse of the broken window.

  “I saw the police from my aunt’s house,” Oliver said.

  “Somebody decided I needed to redecorate.” I motioned for them to find a seat. “Did either of you notice anybody strange around the neighborhood this evening?”

  Oliver shrugged. “I’m afraid that I wouldn’t know who’s a stranger and who isn’t, at least not yet. I’m sorry about your window, though. That looks pretty nasty.”

  Horvald plopped himself down on the porch swing. “Strangers? Let me think.”

  I rubbed my temples, my headache threatening to explode into a migraine. Horvald pulled out a roll of Menty-Mints and offered me one. I gratefully accepted the mint-chocolate cream. Chocolate made everything better.

  Oliver pushed past Murray, toward the door. “I’ll be glad to give you a hand cleaning up.” Ida would have made the same offer, but truth was, I just didn’t want strangers mucking about in my house.

  I shook my head. “No thanks, I’ll take care of it.”

  He blew off my concerns. “Don’t worry about it. My aunt told me to give you a hand whenever I had the chance, and I’m not going to let her down.”

  “Listen, Oliver—” As the weariness of yet another disaster descended on my shoulders, I realized I didn’t have the strength to argue. “That’s very kind of you.”

  He reached out and for a moment I thought he was going to pat my hand, but then he simply removed the whisk broom and dustpan I’d carried out from the kitchen in my state of dazed confusion, and set to work out on the porch. A few minutes later, he asked me where I kept my garbage can. I told him that it was near the back of the house, next to the kitchen door, and he disappeared down the steps and around the house.

  Murray frowned. “Who’s that?”

  “Ida’s nephew, Oliver. I told you about him, remember? He seems nice enough, in an odd sort of way. So, what should I do? Get a security system for my home, too? I don’t want to live in a locked box. I don’t even know why this is happening.” I couldn’t imagine turning my house into an armed fortress.

  “The telescope was probably just an accident. Maybe the same person who trashed your shop is also responsible for breaking your window.” She leaned against one of the columns.

  I thought about it for a moment. “I don’t know. I suppose it could be two different people. Stranger things have happened, but I think you’re right. I think the incidents are related in some way. I just don’t know how or why.”

  “Given the writing on the brick, we just might be looking at Jimbo. This stunt would be right up his alley.”

  I glanced over at Horvald. He looked so deep in thought that he probably couldn’t even hear us. “Did you catch up to him yet?” I’d almost managed to forget my altercation with redneck-boy.

  She grinned. “Yeah. He insisted he had no idea who you were and said he’d never heard of your shop. We got a half-assed alibi out of him for Sunday night, but it hasn’t checked out yet. I’ll have another talk with him after I leave here. He’s probably over at Reuben’s or the Brown Bear. I gather he spends most of his spare time there. No girlfriend. No ex-wife—apparently nobody was ever stupid enough to marry him. No kids around that I can tell. He’s a loner and keeps to himself except when he’s drunk.”

  Horvald snapped his fingers. He’d been concentrating so hard that I’d been worried he might blow a circuit. “I remember something! Last night I was out working in the zinnia garden. I was getting cold and was about to go inside when I saw a chopper drive by, real slow. I think it was black with red detailing along the sides. The man riding it was wearing black chaps, a black helmet, and dark glasses. I remember thinking that he didn’t belong in this neighborhood, or I would have noticed him before.”

  Murray jotted the info down. “Anything else? License plate, maybe?”

  Horvald went back to concentrating but shook his head after a moment. “I’m sorry
. I was worried about my flowers. The aphids are going to be thick this year, and I wanted to make sure they didn’t set up house on the zinnias. Only noticed the biker because, when I was young, I used to ride, and detailed bikes always catch my eye.”

  I could tell Murray was suppressing a smile. The thought of this grandfatherly man on a Harley seemed almost comical, but then again, there were a lot of old bikers around, and they were still in good shape. “That’s fine. Do you think you’d recognize it again if you saw it?”

  Horvald gave us a self-satisfied smile and dipped his head. “Yep. It was a beauty, hard to miss.” He mumbled good-bye and hurried across the street to his yard, settling back into weeding the patch of phlox spreading parallel to the path that led from the sidewalk to his house. He was trying to train the floral groundcover, but it still looked like a giant pink jumble to me.

  Sandy Whitmeyer popped out, holding a paper bag. “Detective Murray? Surprise of surprises, we managed to lift a couple of prints off the brick. Everything’s ready to go.”

  “Excellent,” Murray said, her eyes lighting up. “Okay, if everything’s bagged, then head back to the station with the evidence. I’ll be along in a few.” The sound of tires crunching on gravel heralded Joe’s arrival. Murray flipped her notebook shut. “Em, it looks like we’ve got everything we’re going to get here.”

  I wanted to hug her but refrained. I wasn’t about to show her anything but professional respect when other officers were present. There was no way of knowing who might be one of Coughlan’s snitches. They headed over to the prowl car.

  Joe shouted a quick hello to them as he bounded up the stairs. He gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek, then stood gaping at what had, until recently, been my living room window. After a few minutes, Miranda and Kip joined us on the porch.

  Randa perched on the wide railing that overlooked the front yard. “Mom, Mrs. Trask called, but you were busy with the cops, so I took a message.”