Wicked Charms_ A Lizzy and Dies - Janet Evanovich Page 0,23
time stood still for a beat when we all realized he’d shot himself.
Diesel whistled and Carl disengaged, leaping from the top of the stairs onto Diesel’s shoulder.
“Oh crap,” the guy said, looking down at his stomach, where a bloodstain was beginning to show.
His eyes rolled back and he crumpled, falling headfirst over the metal railing. There was a loud crack and a thud and then total silence. We rushed over to see if we could help, but he was beyond anything we could do. He was beyond anything anyone could do. He still had the gun in his hand, his head was mashed into his neck, and blood was pooling under him.
—
Nergal answered his phone on the fifth ring.
“So how’s it going?” I said to him.
“Pretty good. How’s it going with you?”
Diesel had laid the burlap monkey sack over the guy’s face and what was left of his neck, and I was trying not to look in that direction. “It’s going okay,” I said. “So what are you doing tonight?”
“Not much. Watching television.”
“Do you think you would be able to come out?”
“Are you having one of those special-people mixers?”
“Sort of.”
“Great. Where is it?”
“The Derby lighthouse.”
“That’s a terrific place for a party,” he said. “I’m not far away. I’ll be right there.”
“This is totally horrible,” I said to Diesel. “How are we going to explain this?”
“It’s either accidental suicide or death by monkey. I’m going to push for suicide.”
Ten minutes later there was a knock on the door, and Diesel went to answer it.
Nergal stepped in and handed Diesel a bottle of wine. “Am I late?” he asked. “Where is everyone?”
“It’s just getting started,” I said.
“Yeah,” Diesel said, “by midnight this place will be rocking.”
Nergal looked over at Carl, and Carl flipped him the bird.
“Does the monkey have enhanced abilities, too?” Nergal asked. “Is he a powerful wizard under an enchantment?”
“This isn’t Hogwarts,” Diesel said, unscrewing the cap on the wine and chugging some from the bottle.
Nergal caught sight of the body on the floor and the blood leaking out from under the burlap. “Uh-oh,” Nergal said.
“We have sort of a situation here,” Diesel said, lifting the burlap sack so Nergal could appreciate the fact that the head was basically sitting on the man’s shoulders.
“Whoa,” Nergal said. “This isn’t really a party, is it?”
“No, but we’re a pretty fun group.”
“I can see that,” Nergal said, approaching the body.
“We didn’t kill him,” I said. “We just found him like this. More or less.”
“Did you call the police?”
“Not yet.”
“Most people think of that first thing when they find a body.”
“Do you think you could touch him?” I asked, gesturing vaguely with my hands. “Do your thing?”
He hesitated. “This is very irregular. I usually do it with the police around. As a CSI.”
“Think of it as a secret mission,” I said. “For EAF.”
“What’s that?”
“The Enhanced Abilities Force.”
“Is that a real thing?”
“It could be,” I said.
Nergal went down to one knee and put his hand on the body.
“This guy died pretty pissed off.”
“He had a bad day,” I said.
Nergal tilted his head, as if he were listening. “I’m getting a lot of complaints about a monkey.”
“Way to go, Carl,” Diesel said.
“And he’s thinking he made a bad decision to go off on his own,” Nergal said.
“On his own where?” I asked. “What does that mean?”
“That’s what I’m getting,” Nergal said. “And he wished he hadn’t shot himself.”
—
After we were done communing with the dead, we made an anonymous call to the police and left. Nergal wanted to go out for a drink, but I asked for a rain check. I gave him a sterile kiss on the cheek and thanked him for the wine. Diesel drove me back to the bakery so I could get my car, then he and Carl followed me home.
“There’s something I should tell you,” Diesel said when we were at my front door. “It could be a mess in there.”
I looked at him with raised eyebrows.
“I left Carl in your house today, so that’s where he was snatched. Probably there was a tussle.”
“A tussle?”
“Unless the monkey-napper had a bag of doughnuts, Carl wouldn’t voluntarily go into that sack.”
I opened the door and gasped. The house was a wreck, and Cat was standing his ground with his fur bushed out like a porcupine’s quills. He saw Diesel and me, and he relaxed.
The couch cushions were on the floor, and furniture was overturned. In the kitchen, canisters were emptied onto the counter with flour and sugar sifted out everywhere. Boxes had been