Motor Mouth - Janet Evanovich [48]
Nevertheless, I called to warn him. “I’m at Topper’s, and Dan says Horse and Baldy were looking for you earlier.”
“I’ll juice up the fence with a couple extra volts. I’m guessing you’re barside, wanting to see the Spanky spectacle.”
“Yep. Too bad you’ll miss it. It’s going to be awful.”
“Darlin’, you’re hitting a new entertainment low.”
I blew out a sigh because it was true. I disconnected and ordered a beer.
A half hour later, Spanky and Delores graced the room with their grandeur. As was expected, half the bar applauded and half booed. Dan and I did neither.
Dan threw back a handful of bar nuts. “I’m going to puke.”
“You can’t puke. You’re an impartial journalist.”
“No such thing. That crap went out with fedoras. To slightly change the subject, what do you make of Huevo’s murder?”
I sipped my beer. “I haven’t given it much thought. Do you have an angle?”
“No. But I think everything I’ve heard so far is wrong. Everyone is intrigued by the bite marks, but I don’t think they have anything to do with the murder. The medical examiner said they happened later, after Huevo was already dead. I think they’re accidental. I think someone killed Huevo and packaged him up to keep him on ice. Probably just used whatever was at hand. Which would lead me to think this wasn’t planned.”
“Someone just happened to have miles of shrink-wrap?”
Dan shrugged. “It’s a common household item, and some people stockpile. If you shop at the big-box stores, you buy in quantity to save money. The teams do it all the time. Anyway, my theory is that someone killed Huevo and needed to keep things neat, so they wrapped him. They had him sitting in a corner, waiting for it to get dark so they could dispose of the body, and their dog decided Huevo looked tasty.”
“So the killer had a big dog?”
“That’s what I’m thinking. And it was an inside job, because Huevo was found in Spanky’s truck. Someone was making a statement. And by the way, if I knew who the killer was, I’d send him a box of Godiva. Putting Huevo in Spanky’s new Avalanche was genius. I hear Spanky threw up when he saw it. Plus, they impounded the truck as evidence.”
“What kind of statement do you think the killer was making?”
“Don’t know. Sometimes people commit crimes and actually want to get caught, so they leave clues. Sometimes it’s an ego trip and they want to leave a calling card. Or maybe this was a kind of revenge crime. Maybe someone was pissed off that Spanky won. If it had been me, I would have killed Spanky and left him in Huevo’s car, but that’s just me.”
“Anything else?”
“According to the police, they scoured the parking lot and didn’t come up with any evidence that said Huevo was killed there. Huevo and his entourage were staying in one of the big hotels on Brickell. He had a power breakfast scheduled but never showed.”
“I can see you’re fascinated by this,” I said to Dan.
“There’s a story here. I can feel it. We’re just seeing the tip of the iceberg. And I don’t think the dog is part of the murder, but I do think he’s a place to start looking. If we go on the assumption that this was an inside job, then we just make a list of everyone who has a dog big enough to have swamp-monster teeth.”
“Have you started the list?”
Dan’s face flushed. “Yeah, but so far there’s only one name on it.”
“Probably you need to work harder on the list.”
“My exact thoughts. There are probably tons of people out there with huge dogs with huge teeth. I just have to hunt them down.”
Spanky and Delores were posing for pictures and signing