Love Can Be Murder

calling her?
    "No," she said aloud. "There's no such thing as magic, voodoo, or witchcraft."
    Steeled with resolve, she marched back into the store and drank a glass of Hot Voodoo Sex. Two of them, in fact.

    * * *

    "I can't believe he didn't change the locks after the divorce," B.J. muttered as they entered the house through the back door. "That's rule one."
    A whining noise sounded, a warning to disengage the security system before an alarm went off. She punched in a code, and the whining noise stopped.
    "Rule number two," he said. "Change the code on the security system."
    "Lucky for us, Deke was a creature of habit," Penny whispered into the hush of the house.
    "You don't have to whisper," he said.
    "Sorry," she said. "I've never broken into a house before." The latex gloves felt strange and cold on her skin.
    "Which way to the office?"
    Using her loaner P.I. penlight, she led the way through the foyer and up the stairs, her pulse ratcheting higher with every step. At the top of the stairs, she pointed. "There."
    He opened the office door and walked in. Penny hung back, the idea of seeing the room again, of visualizing Deke's body on the floor, overwhelming.
    "You don't have to do this," he said.
    "No...I'm fine," she lied and followed him inside the room. The bloody rug was gone and the room was relatively neat, without the disarray she recalled. She exhaled.
    "Do you remember any files being on the desk or being open?" he asked.
    She squinted, thinking back. "No, sorry."
    "What about the file he had when you saw him at the museum?"
    "Blue," she said. "I think it was an accordion file."
    For over an hour, they looked through drawers and file cabinets, but they came up with nothing.
    "Maybe the police took the file," she offered.
    "Could be. Did your ex-husband have a secret hiding place—other than the ficus tree?"
    "What do you mean?"
    "You know—the drawer you wouldn't necessarily want people to open after you're gone."
    She started to shake her head, then she remembered the place where she had once found some nudie magazines. "The garage."
    They backtracked through the house. "Nice woodwork," he mused, shining his light on the crown molding.
    "Thanks," she said. "I refinished most of it myself."
    "I shouldn't be surprised, but I am."
    "Why?"
    "Because you're...resourceful," he said.
    His words were smooth and velvety in the darkness, strumming her libido...or maybe it was all the voodoo juice she'd drunk.
    She opened the door leading to the garage, closed it behind them, then flipped on the overhead light. "No windows," she explained, then walked past Deke's red Lotus Elise and Sheena's yellow Miata to a metal toolbox that Deke had bought one weekend when he'd been feeling particularly ambitious. But Penny had used the toolbox more than he had, thus finding the stash of girlie magazines. She opened the bottom drawer, then lifted out the tray that held wrenches of all sizes imaginable. Underneath it were magazines and videos, but not the more innocent, pinup kind she'd found before.
    "So Deke was a kinky guy," B.J. said.
    "Not with me," she murmured, picking up an S&M video picturing a man having his bare bottom welted with a leather strap. The rest of the items were more of the same and worse, with a particular lean toward spanking and punishment by lashing. Near the bottom, they found a plain video case with no markings.
    "Looks homemade," B.J. said. "If it's something the two of you did—"
    "It isn't," she assured him.
    B J. put the tape in the bag he'd brought along, then held up the magazines by the spine and gave them a shake. "Just checking for notes or letters," he said, but he didn't find any. "Let's hope the tape tells us something." They replaced the items and closed the toolbox. On the way out, B.J. stopped to look at Deke's car.
    "I hated that thing," she said. "And now it seems petty."
    He crouched down. "Was Deke a bad driver?"
    "Yeah," she said. "He loved to talk on the phone while he was in the car, and he drove way too fast. Of course, when your mother's the mayor—"
    "You don't have to worry about speeding tickets," he finished.
    "Exactly."
    "Looks like he hit something," B.J. said.
    Penny leaned down to look, then stared at the crumpled fender. Waves of recognition rolled over her, colliding with denial. The little car the voodoo doll was holding...the crumpled edge of the casket...
    "What's wrong? You look like you've seen a ghost."
    She jerked back and stepped into a garden tool