A DEAD RED HEART By RP Dahlke 2nd in the Dead Red Mystery Series When a homeless Vet litters her beloved red Cadillac with poetry scrawled on paper snowflakes, Lalla decides to confront him. But that doesn't mean she wants the man to drop dead at her feet—with a pair of blue handled scissors sticking out of his chest. With nothing but the man's last words for the police to go on, Lalla decides that someone needs to be on the side of this misunderstood vet, and that person will be the exasperating, pushy, tenacious, Ms. Lalla Bains. But digging into the man's past will only unravel a more potent question: What would you do if the love of your life lost their chance for a heart transplant because the donor organ went to a convicted felon? A Dead Red Heart ver. 10/9/14 © 2011 RP Dahlke Published in the USA by Dead Bear Publishing A Dead Red Heart is a work of fiction. The names, characters, and incidents are entirely the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or events, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be copied, transmitted, or recorded by any means whatsoever, including printing, photocopying, file transfer, or any form of data storage, mechanical or electronic, without the express written consent of the publisher. In addition, no part of this publication may be lent, re-sold, hired, or otherwise circulated or distributed, in any form whatsoever, without the express written consent of the publisher. Credits: Many thanks to my friends, readers, fellow authors and family who kindly read and made suggestions for this story: My cousin Beth Phillips Englehart, authors: Victoria Heckman, M. Louisa Locke, Carol Towiss, Jinx Schwartz, and as always, my sweet husband, Lutz Dahlke. Thanks to Joe Maxwell, and "Hey Ray!" for patiently answering my questions about police work in the Modesto area. My Editors are: Christine LePorte. http://christineleporte.com And Lisa Cox PhD Book cover designed by Stan Tremblay. http://FindTheAxis.com Dog tags added by Karen Phillips: http:/karenphillips.com Many of the characters names in this book were borrowed from the roll call at Ceres High School... you know who you are. There is a real Pippa Roulette and she's a redhead and a pistol, just not this pistol! Dedications: To my granddaughters, Simone & Hanna Shanahan John Shanahan, my forever flyboy: 1964-2006, and to my daughter, Dettre Schmidt Galvan, who always inspires me. Chapter One "Billy Wayne? Wake up! Come on now," I said in disgust. "This is getting out of hand. You've got to stop this nonsense." I like having a man at my feet. Tough guys who grovel are my favorite, though I'm not averse to a little toe kissing when appropriate. I leave the toe kissing for those uneven date nights when my sweetie, Sheriff Caleb Stone, is not on duty and I'm not neck deep in summertime work as a crop duster. None of which had anything to do with the man presently draped across my feet. Dead drunk, I figured, looking down at the patriotic red, white, and blue ribbons binding his ponytail. I was too late for that heart-to-heart I'd come for — he was already out cold. Caleb warned Billy that his continued attentions would be ill advised and considered harassment—his words, not mine. Caleb's belief that a fellow Marine should always be able to pull himself out of the fire didn't take into consideration that Billy's alcohol-doctored post- traumatic stress disorder was not conducive to any such persuasion. His obsessive interest in me stopped for about a week. Then, in the Save-Mart parking lot, I had to shove my way through a crowd surrounding my car. I stood with the rest of the slack-jawed gawkers ogling the fluttering white paper snowflakes acting as a second skin to my vintage Cadillac. With one hand I swiped up a handful, and with the other I waved off the spectators. "Practical joke, folks, nothing special." I didn't have the heart to report this latest infraction to Caleb. Billy Wayne, I knew, was shy, easily startled and would panic if Caleb should feel compelled to make good on his threat of a restraining order. Instead, I decided I would confront him myself. Make him understand that his attraction to me, though flattering, was never going to go anywhere. So that's how I came to be in the alley behind Mr. Kim's Chinese restaurant on a late afternoon. I held my breath against the smell of garbage and knelt down to shake Billy Wayne's shoulder. He rolled away and onto his back, murmuring softly. I looked down at the blood on his nearly new white T-shirt. His dog tags seemed to be chained to the stain, and he was clutching a pair blue handled scissors. The scissors appeared to be sticking out of his chest. In the gusty twilight, his paper snowflakes swirled into the air and cartwheeled merrily down the dark alley. I leaned in their direction, aiming for flight, for help, for anything that would get me away from this horror. I would've succeeded too, except for the tight grip he had on my ankle. I squatted down next to him, gently pulling his fingers off my ankle. "Billy, please, let me get you some help." He was trying to speak, his breath choppy gasps as he struggled for air. "Too late," he said. "The more there is the less you see." A speck of light shifted into shadow, crept across the dirty walls and disappeared. Someone was there? I jerked to my feet to call them. "Help!" I croaked. The sound echoed the length of the alley and back to me like a bad recording. Whatever I thought I'd seen was gone. I knelt again and touched his neck for a pulse. It was there and then it wasn't. With a strangled sob, I struggled to my feet and went for the help he no longer needed. Chapter two: The owner of Mr. Kim's Chinese Restaurant gently set me down in front of a good strong cup of hot green tea laced with plenty of sugar. I felt the touch of his fingertips on the back of my hand, lighter than a thought, and just as quickly withdrawn. I looked up into the fathomless black eyes set between deep wrinkles, and heard the weedy chime of Vietnamese in his American English. "Miss Bains, you too close to ghost. Not safe here. You must stay away." With those few words of wisdom, he silently disappeared behind the doubtful barrier of swinging glass beads to his kitchen. Caleb entered the front door trailing one of his deputies and I immediately felt the tension creasing my forehead ease. His deputy, Kenny Everett, passed Caleb for Mr. Kim, but Caleb simply held up his hand, indicating that he should leave it. Having served as military MP in Japan, Korea and eventually China, Caleb's version of an interrogation with the elderly Vietnamese would be quietly respectful. He sat down across from me and cupped warm hands around my cold ones. "Hey. You okay?" "Fine, fine," I said, hanging onto the small porcelain teacup. He nodded thoughtfully, doing that humming thing he always does when he's thinking. "You said he was alive when you found him? Did he say anything to you?" I felt ashamed that I thought Billy a nuisance. How could I think he was an embarrassment, when now the poor guy was dead, and with only me, the woman who rejected him, to hear his final words, such as they were. "He whispered some nonsense about not being able to see, or maybe it was the more you see, the less you see. Not something I'd choose as my dying words, that's for sure. Not me. I'd be screaming the name of the bastard that did it." Caleb gave my cold hands a gentle squeeze. "Billy Wayne could be hard to take when he was off his meds. We'll find out who did this." Caleb was one of the few people who'd bothered to take an interest in a fellow Marine who'd fallen on hard times, especially after Billy's communication dipped into single syllable sentences. Caleb drew me up, and I leaned into him, my forehead to his, begging for the wrestler's hug I usually got, the one that would confound my breathing, and leave me clearheaded again. Instead, he took my elbow, and passing his sergeant, said, "I'm taking her around to the alley." I dug in my heels at the mention of the alley. "Is this really necessary? I already gave them a statement. Can't do it, Caleb, not again." But no amount of heel dragging was going to change his mind. "Take a deep breath, Lalla. It's not like you haven't done this before. Better now while it's fresh, right?" Yes, I'd had the practice, but I that didn't mean I was ready for another one. A year ago, I'd found the body of a young woman whose greed had finally gotten the better of her. Her death finally led back to her killer, but it still reminded me how much I didn't want to be part of another murder investigation. In the alley, city homicide detectives acknowledged the right of a fellow police officer to be there.