Hers: A Raleigh Harmon mystery short story (The Raleigh Harmon mysteries)

  HERS FOR THE TAKING

  by Sibella Giorello

  Published by Running Girl Productions

  Copyright © 2016 Running Girl Productions. All rights reserved.

  Kindle Edition

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Characters, names, places, and incidents in this novel are either products of the imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real people, either living or dead, to events, businesses, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Hers

  Thanks for reading

  Hers

  The pink sign blinked.

  HERZ!

  Neon pink.

  HERZ!

  Splashing into the midnight sky.

  HERZ!

  “What happened to the T?” asked the airport shuttle driver.

  It was almost midnight. I leaned forward and pointed through his wide windshield. “You can drop me off right there, thanks.”

  “But . . . .” He glanced back at me, his sole passenger perched on the edge of the bus’s hard plastic seat. His bristly neck bulged against his uniform’s white collar. “Hertz is back at the terminal. Isn’t it?”

  I grabbed my carry-on bag. “Right here’s great, thank you.”

  “So if Hertz is back there . . .” He turned around once more, neck swelling. “What the hell’s this place?”

  I stared at the yellow placard of legal liability directly across from me. Please remain seated until shuttle has come to a full stop. Another time. Grabbing the cold steel bar, I hoisted myself up and tried to get out of this bus before details had to be given. “Right here is great, perfect, thanks.”

  He braked under the pink neon sign, craning his neck to gape at the four flashing letters. His copper hair glowed fuschia, his confused eyes transfixed by the girly lights blinking and blinking and blinking.

  “I take one week off,” he muttered, “look what happens.”

  “Thank you for the ride,” I prompted.

  He glanced over, saw the tip in my hand. “You renting a car here?”

  I placed the money in his palm and hustled out of the shuttle.

  The parking lot was brand new black pavement. I passed an entire fleet of vehicles—everything from silver Mercedes and black BMWs to sapphire Priuses. Their rectangular windshields reflected the flashing pink lights above, turning the glass into sparkling pink tourmaline. I moved toward the pink hut in the middle of the lot. The fresh pavement sent up a bitter scent. Creosote, and my rotten attitude.

  I stepped into the pink hut.

  “Hi!” squealed a curly-haired blonde behind a counter. It was also pink. And matched her pink shirt. “Are you looking for a rental? Because we’re just about to close!”

  And I was just as excited to get out of here. “I’m picking up a car that was left here. Belongs to a woman named Charlotte Harmon.”

  My aunt.

  My kooky logic-challenged aunt who decided that instead of her car sitting Sea-Tac’s airport garage—where I would’ve happily paid for parking—she would try this latest venture at the airport. HERZ.

  “Women-only,” my aunt said.

  Actually, she said, “No men.” Like that made it smart to leave your car here and let total strangers drive it around Seattle for a week.

  “Raleigh,” my aunt said. “This idea is brilliant.”

  I shut my mouth because one, it’s her car, and two, nobody in their right mind—no matter how broke, drunk, or stupid—would rent my aunt’s dilapidated Volvo which was so filthy inside and out that we’d all stopped suggesting she get it cleaned. It was terminally dirty, fatally messy.

  “Gee, I don’t see that name in our records . . . .” The girl stared at a computer screen, apparently scrolling down a list. I think she was trying to frown but those muscles hadn’t gotten enough exercise. “What kinda car is it?”

  “Volvo. Black. Station wagon.”

  “Do you happen to know what model, and, like, year?”

  “Mayflower.”

  “What?”

  “The first Volvo to cross the ocean.”

  “Really?”

  I shook my head.

  “Oh. You made a joke.”

  I glanced out at the hut at the parking lot. Maybe I should rent some other woman’s car . . . .

  “Here it is! And—oh!—I have good news!”

  “The car died?”

  “No, not at all.” She smiled, dimples appearing in her cheeks. “You made a twelve dollars and seventeen cents!”

  “Somebody rented it?”

  “For TWO whole days!”

  I did the math in my head. “They paid six dollars a day?”

  “Twelve dollars a day. We take half. Because, you know, we have overhead costs and stuff like that.”

  “Electricity for the sign.”

  “What?”

  “Never mind.”

  *

  I drove my aunt’s wheezing Volvo north to Seattle, then rattled through the deserted night streets of Capitol Hill. Streetlights glowed white. Stoplights flickered red, yellow, green. But nothing compared to that pink neon at the airport.

  When I finally reached my aunt’s Craftsman-style house on Spring Street, every minute of the time change from Virginia was weighing on my eyelids. Monstrous jet lag and all I wanted was sleep. Which meant sneaking into the house undetected or else my aunt would start asking why I’d cut short my trip to Virginia. That explanation could wait until I got some sleep.

  I pried open the driver’s side door with all the care of a cat burglar wielding a crowbar. The rusted joints weren’t exactly silent. But I made it out of the car without any house lights coming on. The real problem began when I opened the back hatch to get my carry-on bag. I yanked. But the strap was snagged on something. I yanked again.

  “Piece of crap,” I muttered, both to the car and all the junk inside it.

  I yanked again. The bag wouldn’t budge. Reaching in, I felt around for the strap and whatever it was caught on. I touched many things. One item was long, metallic, thin. Golf club? But Aunt Charlotte didn’t play golf. Not that that meant anything. Crap flew into this vehicle the way filament smothered magnets. I tried to ease the strap from around the golf club/lead pipe/bazooka/steel digereedoo—all seemed possible—but then my fingers touched something damp.

  My hand flew out.

  First thought: pee.

  Because that’s the kind of total strangers that would rent this heap. Could they have . . . .

  But then a second thought: oil.

  Maybe the old car was bleeding to death.

  I reached back in, praying for the car’s demise. I patted the thin nylon carpet that covered the wagon’s back floor. Definitely damp. I patted some more.

  It felt warm.

  My hand shot out.

  Please-no-please-no. I jumped up and down, rubbing my fingers on my jeans until my skin seemed to be coming off, while my other hand dug into my jean jacket for my cell phone. I typed HERZ into the Internet search window, found the phone number, and pressed the call button.

  “Hi, girlfriend!”

  A recorded message. Great.

  “Tired of pa
ying those gigantic parking fees at the airport? Now you don’t have to! In fact, you can make money while you’re on the beach in Maui sipping Mai Tais. Seriously! Before you fly out of town, drop your car off at HERZ, catch the shuttle to the airport and while you’re gone, we’ll find some super cool woman to rent it! HERZ is women-owned, women-operated, and for women drivers only—because women really DO know how to drive! Leave a message after the beep. One of our girlfriends will call you back during normal business hours. Open seven days a week, six a.m. to midnight. Bye!”

  The beep went off. It was the precise sound of Western Civilization flatlining. I left my name, number, and managed to stop talking before I said something that ruined my life even more.

  I checked the time. 1:33 a.m. All I wanted was sleep. But if I waited to deal with this until the morning, Aunt Charlotte would start asking about the trip, forcing me to lie about how everything was fine.

  Clicking on my phone’s flashlight feature, I crouched and leaned into the hatch’s opening, searching for whatever hooked my bag, and whatever disgusting thing happened to the carpet. By the looks of things, my aunt was using the car to store junk from her New Age store. Crystals boxed according to their spiritual powers. Wisdom, read one label. Generosity. Love. I found a paper bag full of feathers—what for? Marble amulets. And a whole bunch of crap testifying to why even I’d stopped offering to clean out this heap: an 8-ounce bottle of discounted Russian salad dressing; plastic container of tofu—God knows when that rolled out of her shopping tote; two starfish, their dried pimply legs amputated. And an open bag of cassava chips—cassava chips, why would anyone eat that?

  But I did find what had hooked my carry-on: A tarnished brass lamp stand. Because every car should carry around random light fixtures.

  I was pulling my bag out when the flashlight on my phone raked across the black carpeting. Only the carpet wasn’t black. Or all black. One section was pale, almost white.

  I reached down, tapping it with my fingers.

  Damp.

  I held the light over it. My mind was rattling off all the chemicals that could bleach fibers. But these were nylon fibers. Nylon resisted most chemical reactions. That’s why manufacturers used it in automobiles. I leaned down, sniffing. Chlorine. Plus another element that should be part of the Periodic Table because it altered so many things. Elbow grease.

  I held the flashlight over the pale section and leaned down for a closer look. The nylon fibers were frayed from heavy abrasion, friction. Somebody had worked really hard to clean this carpet. And then, they’d pulled all of Aunt Charlotte’s junk right back over the spot.

  I stood in the driveway a long time, staring at that bleached carpeting.

  Finally, I picked up my carry-on and crept inside the house.

  I wasn’t thinking about sleeping.

  *

  At 6:02 a.m., my cell phone rang.

  I rolled over, flopped my hand on the nightstand, and murmured Hello.

  “Good morning! This is your girlfriend at HERZ! Calling you back!”

  I groaned. Was there such a thing as a pink personality?

  “Yeah, hi, my aunt left her car there and somebody rented it for a couple days.”

  “Yay!”

  I put a hand over my throbbing eyes. “Can you tell me who rented it?”

  “That info is strictly confidential. HERZ girls never gossip.”

  “What if something went wrong, with the rental?”

  “What happened?”

  Skip that. Nobody in their right mind would understand why I was upset that somebody tried to clean that pigsty of a car, which had been rented for a grand total of twelve dollars for two days. “I think there was some kind of accident.”

  “You signed the waiver, right?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Somebody had to. Otherwise we couldn’t let a girlfriend rent your car!”

  Aunt Charlotte. She would sign anything. The woman who once told me, “If they needed me to read the fine print, they’d make the letters bigger.”

  “You’re telling me there’s no way I can find out who rented the car?”

  “Did you report this problem to the girlfriend here in our office, when you picked up your car?”

  “I didn’t discover the problem until I got home.”

  “You should always inspect the car for damages.”

  “It’s a little hard with this car.”

  “I’m sorry, is there something you need me to do?”

  After eight years in the FBI—three in the materials analysis lab—I’ve learned that rarely will it make things better if I explain to ordinary people what’s on my mind. For instance: Telling this Pink Mafia that my aunt’s disgusting Volvo wagon is just long enough to carry a human body in the back, and that whoever rented that sty of a vehicle worked very hard to remove a stain from black nylon carpeting.

  So I tried another tactic: Speak their language.

  “Let’s say I really, really needed to find out who rented the car,” I said. “There’s absolutely, positively, totally no way to do that?”

  “Well . . . .” She sighed. A pink sigh. “We always try to keep our girlfriends happy. So if you’re really, really, really not okay with this, then I guess you could talk to the owner. She’s super great. Her name’s Lisa Allyn. Spelled A-L-L-Y-N, not like a man’s name. She comes in around four.”

  I thanked her, then rolled over.

  But sleep had left the bedroom.

  *

  Downstairs, I got an early morning greeting which almost compensated for everything that had gone wrong in Virginia—and last night.

  Madame, the world’s greatest dog, raced into the kitchen and leaped into my arms. My mom’s dog. But dogs can’t stay in mental hospitals with their owners. So Madame stayed with me.

  I made a pot of coffee, pet Madame, and took the cup outside, hoping not to wake Aunt Charlotte. In December, Seattle felt like it was swaddled in gray flannel. Wet gray flannel. But this morning only the heavy clouds hung overhead, bloated with doom.

  Madame left her scent on the small lawn that faced Spring Street while I opened the Volvo’s rear hatch and took a daylight gaze at carpet. My gut tightened. All this crap in my aunt’s car and somebody apparently still added more? And whatever they put in here made them rub the carpet with bleach and panic. Fingerprints could be wiped away. Dirt could be vacuumed. But bleach? People most often used bleach for one thing. To get rid of evidence.

  I moved aside the various objects and checked the rest of the carpet. My gut twisted again. The whole back of the wagon had been vacuumed. No dirt. No crumbs. No dust. Not even a cassava chip spilling from the open bag.

  I leaned in close and took a nose-hit of Clorox. I saw one gray pebble burrowed deep in the nylon fibers.

  I pinched it, held it up to the sky.

  “Raleigh!”

  I looked over my shoulder. Aunt Charlotte, waving from the side door off the kitchen. She cradled a cat—Beryl? Amethyst?—and begged me to come inside.

  Gripping that single grain of soil, I backed my head out of the hatch and closed the wagon door, making sure not to touch any surfaces with my bare fingers.

  *

  After lying about how fantastic my trip was, I gave Aunt Charlotte her twelve dollars and seventeen cents. She was thrilled. She went on and on about HERZ. Such a brilliant idea. Women renting women’s cars. Even the Seattle Times did a big story on it.

  I asked to borrow the car for the morning, and drove down to my office in the Smith Tower. I work as an independent forensic geologist. For the next hour I sat at my desk and looked up girlfriends.

  Googling the name Lisa Allyn brought up a whole bunch of stories about Lila Allyn. Same last name but this woman was a wealthy benefactor to Children’s Hospital and the humane society. I added HERZ to the search, plus the name Lisa Allyn. That was the ticket.

  According to the Seattle Times business section, Lisa Allyn was a serial entrepreneur. She came up with the
idea for HERZ after a girlfriend went out of town and loaned Ms. Allyn her car. The story also noted that Ms. Allyn, age 31—same age as me—had purchased a six-month lease from the port of Seattle for the HERZ parking lot. I knew those leases weren’t cheap. She also paid extra to have a lot near the airport, and was required to contribute money to the airport shuttle that traveled among the rental car lots. The Times pointed out these costs and how challenging they were for new businesses.

  “But I’m totally committed to HERZ,” Ms. Allyn said. “I think it’s my best idea yet.”

  A deeper background search revealed more of Ms. Allyn’s entrepreneurism. Fresh out of University of Washington, she’d started a yoga and yogurt shop. The business name—YOYO!—made HERZ seem subtle. But YOYO went under after its first year. Allyn then launched PURRFUR, a pet sharing business. People with jobs who didn’t like leaving their pets alone all day could drop off their animals with lonely shut-ins, who then babysat the animals. Sounded like a win-win. But the lonely people got attached to the animals and a string of pet custody cases started making their way through King County Superior Court.

  Ms. Allyn’s last known business was a high end fashion enterprise. It was called, HEY! CAN I BORROW THAT? This service linked moneyed-yet-frugal Seattle women who spent winters in warmer climates with women who couldn’t afford designer clothing but wanted to look like they could. HEY! offered flat-fee payments, per-season plans, and even a lease-to-own enterprise—Ms. Allyn covered it all. Unfortunately she lost her shirt on dry cleaning bills. The business closed after its second year.

  Reaching into my work bag, I pulled out a Ziploc baggie. It contained the single grain that I’d found in the carpet of my aunt’s Volvo. I also had two more baggies. One held carpet samples tweezed from the bleached spot of carpet. The other bag held gray grains that looked a lot like that single grain, only these were taken from the kitty litter box in my aunt’s mud room. My aunt always bought the same brand of kitty litter.

  I walked across my office to the microscope and removed three glass slides from a drawer. I smeared the glass with Vaseline—petroleum jelly not only holds grains in place, it’s also colorless and nonreactive with minerals.