Red Blooded Murder

“The same Lucy DeSanto whose husband you and I caught laundering money for the mafia?”

“Yep.”

Lucy DeSanto was a tiny, lovely, elegant blonde who lived in Lincoln Park. She was married and had two children. Her husband, Michael DeSanto, was not living at home, however. Rather, he was living at a maximum-security holding cell, awaiting his federal trial for racketeering, fraud and money laundering. Due to the nature of the people DeSanto worked with—mafia people who tended to run for parts unknown if they got even a glimpse of sunlight—bail had been denied.

Mayburn had been hired by the bank where Michael DeSanto worked and he’d pulled me into it when he hit a brick wall with the case. As payback for aiding me in my search for my missing fiancé, Mayburn asked for my help because I could fit in the upscale North Side neighborhood where Lucy lived. He trained me on surveillance techniques and had me pose as a neighborhood mom to get close to Lucy and get inside their house. When Michael DeSanto had come home one day and found me in his office fiddling with his computer, I thought that my time on earth had come to an end. But I managed to get out of it, and the evidence I got out of Michael’s computer had sent him away, at least for now. Although Mayburn had never met Lucy during the investigation, he’d spent plenty of hours watching her come and go from the house, and I’d always suspected he had a long-distance crush on her.

“I didn’t think you were supposed to meet your subjects,” I said.

“You’re not. But you know Lucy.”

The waitress delivered our food. The omelet didn’t look as delicious as the one Theo had created. But then again, if Theo had put a pile of dirt on a plate and handed it to me while naked, it would’ve looked good.

“I do know Lucy,” I said, taking a bite. “She’s probably the sweetest person on the planet.”

“Isn’t she?” Mayburn’s voice carried something like awe. “She is such a good person.”

I blinked. I’d never, ever heard Mayburn talk this way. He sounded more like one of my girlfriends than the sarcastic, seen-everything P.I. he was.

“How did this get to the point where you know Lucy DeSanto personally, and you’re taking her to the hardware store?”

“You know how bad we felt for her after they took Michael away?”

“Yes. I even called her to tell her that.”

“Well, I did, too.”

“So you admitted that you were the investigator who was hired to watch her husband?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you tell her that you’d been spying on her for months, trailing behind her when she took the kids for a walk and following her when she drove to the grocery store?”

“I did.”

“That’s not the typical pickup line. How did she take it?”

“You know Lucy.” He smiled with one side of his mouth and then pushed his plate away, as if the thoughts of Lucy had fed him enough. “She was kind about it. She was actually happy that it all happened. She had no idea Michael was into something dirty. She’s filed for divorce.”

“And now she’s got you, apparently.”

That one-sided smile again. “This is it, Izzy.”

“It, like you’re in love?”

“Yeah.”

“It, like you want to marry this girl?”

“Yeah.”

“Wow. I’m jealous. I can’t seem to decide if I want Sam or …” Or Theo. Or Grady. Or someone else altogether. Or no one at all. “Anyway, does Lucy feel the same way?”

“Not sure. It’s a lot more complicated for her.” He pushed his chair back. “All right, enough about me. I need you to eat that omelet fast, because we have to go to the lingerie store.” He turned and pointed through the front windows at a store across the street.

“The Fig Leaf? Don’t tell me you want me to model lingerie so you can pick out something for your girlfriend.”

“Nope. Have you ever worked in retail?”

“No.”

“Well, I want you to work there.”

“You want me to fold panties?”

“And I want you to sell them and ring them up, and mostly, I want you to watch Josie, the manager. My client, Marie, the owner of the store, doesn’t trust her lately, but technically the store is running great, so she doesn’t want to fire her.”

“This doesn’t sound like your usual case.” Mayburn worked for big law firms, monster corporations and international banks.

“It’s not. Marie is a family friend. Maybe she’s being paranoid about her manager. Who knows? But I’m not treating it different from any other investigation.”

“Okay, so what’s Josie up to? Skimming money off the top?”

He shrugged. “The books seem like they’re up-to-date. Inventory seems well-handled. They’re just getting a lot more traffic, which obviously is a good thing, but they haven’t increased marketing efforts or their PR. Marie can’t figure out exactly how it happened. She wants to make sure everything is on the up-and-up, especially since she spends most of her time in Palm Beach now. If there’s nothing to find, everyone’s happy.”

I stared at the Fig Leaf. It was an upscale place I’d been once. The merchandise had been ludicrously expensive, but still I had purchased a white nightie, very short and very sexy, for my wedding night. The nightie still hung at the back of my closet, tags on.

“Since Marie started spending more time out of town, Josie has been telling her they need to hire a clerk,” Mayburn said. “This morning, Marie told Josie she’d found someone—her family friend Lexi, who is attending law school during the day.”

“Does Lexi have red hair?”

“Yes.”

“Lexi,” I said, trying the name out. “Lexi what?”

“Lexi Hammond.”

“Lexi Hammond,” I repeated. “I like it. But wait a minute, what about filling out IRS forms and stuff? Won’t I need a social security number?”

“They’re paying you cash under the table. And then I’m paying you a freelance investigator fee.”

“Shouldn’t I be getting an investigator license if I’m going to keep doing this?”

“Nah. It’s a pain in the ass to get a license in Illinois. And expensive. Plus, I just need your help to get intel. I don’t want you to testify or anything like that.”

I thought of something else. I told Mayburn about my job at Trial TV. “But Jane says I won’t be going on-air right away.”

“Should be fine. I need you to start tomorrow, Sunday, and if we’re lucky I won’t need you more than a few weeks. So, what do you think, Lexi?”