up to your eyeballs.” And come to think of it KiKi’s eyeballs weren’t focusing too well at the moment. Maybe I should have left off the last dead reference. I snagged her arm, hauled her off the chair, and ushered her into the main room where life and theme song carried on as usual; a little color returned to her cheeks.
“In two minutes the cops are going to come barreling through that door,” I whispered to KiKi, hoping to get her mind off things dead. “Any suggestions how we can prepare all these workers?”
“Yell ‘The jackass bit the big one’ and run like the dickens before someone recognizes us?”
Translation . . . a little fresh air and Auntie KiKi was back to being Auntie KiKi.
“Ohmygod, Ohmygod!” screamed poodle-pin girl, running out of Seymour’s office. “Kip’s dead! He’s really and truly dead right there in his office and not breathing or moving or anything, and how can this happen, and now who do we vote for?” The girl crumpled into a heap on the floor like that wicked witch when they threw water on her.
Everyone stared for a moment, the headquarters quiet as a tomb, comprehension as to what happened sinking in bit by bit. It was the lull before the storm. Then as if someone had thrown a switch, three guys ran for Scumbucket’s office, girls cried and hugged, and sirens blared in the distance that suddenly wasn’t distant at all but right outside the place.
Detective Aldeen Ross flanked by three uniformed police rushed in. Ross stopped dead when she spied me, her eyes narrow, frown lines puckering her mouth like she’d sucked on a lemon. “I should lock you up and throw away the key once and for all. Do the city a favor.”
I wanted to say the feeling was mutual, but Ross had a gun strapped to her bony hip and knew how to use it. She once possessed the proportions of a fireplug but had developed a crush on Dr. Oz, dropped forty pounds, and with her brown hair and suit now looked pretty much like a stick.
“Every time I see you someone’s dead,” Ross groused.
Duh, you’re a homicide detective
was on the tip of my tongue, but again there was the gun issue.
“Heard Seymour and your mamma had an altercation.” Ross pulled a notebook from her brown saddlebag purse as the uniforms tried to calm everyone down, though with the arrival of the coroner coach and the press, calm was not happening any time soon.
“Altercation my old tomato,” poodle-pin blurted as she struggled to her feet, hair wild, pupils dilated. “It was a knock-down drag out brawl right out there on the sidewalk.” She jabbed a manicured finger in that direction. “That old bat judge punched Kip. She killed him as sure as if she stabbed him with a knife. How could she do something like that?”
“Gloria Summerside is not an old bat,” I growled, hands on hips. “My guess is Kippy thought bacon was the fifth food group and it caught up with him.”
“Is it true?” Delray Valentine said as he huffed his way through the door, his face blotchy and red. “Kip’s really . . . gone? What happened? How can this be?” Delray ran his hand though his thinning gray hair. “I was at the printers and got a tweet about the fight and . . .” His voice trailed off, and he leaned heavily against a table. “We had such big dreams, big plans for the city. A vision.”
Visions of dollars from bribes and payoffs and a lot of lying and cheating
, I added to myself.
Poodle-pin girl swiped away more tears, sniffed, and hugged Valentine tight. “Kippy was a wonderful man, simply divine. This can’t be happening. How will we ever survive? What should we do?”
“Celebrate?” Auntie KiKi’s eyes brightened and a grin tipped her lips. She did a little jig right there in Scumbucket’s headquarters. “Gloria Summerside wins!”
Chapter Two
“W ELL, that was about as much fun as getting poked in the eye with a sharp stick,” KiKi said to me an hour later as she powered up the Beemer and we headed for the