Harley Jean Davidson 03 - Evil Elvis by Virginia Brown Read Free Book Online

to decide if that’s hair gel or horns on top of your head.”
     
    “Very funny.”
     
    “I’m glad one of us is amused. How do you do it? How do you go nearly thirty years without getting anything worse than traffic tickets, and then in the space of three months run across five corpses?”
     
    “Just lucky I guess. And this makes six. Don’t forget the guy in the warehouse.” This conversation was eerily similar to the one she’d had with Morgan, and she’d had enough. “Since I’m not really involved, I’m going to pick up my passengers and take them back to their hotel. Am I released?”
     
    He snapped his notebook shut and jammed his pen in the breast pocket of his suit coat. He looked rumpled and tired. And pissed off. “I’ll need your official statement.”
     
    “I can find my way to the precinct with my eyes closed by now.”
     
    “Which explains the unusually high rate of traffic accidents lately.”
     
    She didn’t dignify that with a reply. Haughty aloofness was a much better response.
     
    Bobby stepped back as Harley got out of the van and headed for the shops to find her tour group. They were in one of the gift shops across from Graceland, mulling over ceramic replicas of the mansion mounted on top of music boxes, and discussing the exchange rate between pounds and dollars. She pulled out a calculator and helped them figure it out, then accompanied them to a store that specialized in Elvis CDs and tapes. Elvis videos played on one of the TV sets, a continuous stream of different songs. As much as she came here, Harley was always reminded anew of Elvis’s sheer talent. Dark walls in the small museum built behind Elvis’s house had rows upon rows of gold and platinum records to attest to that. There had never been anyone like him before he burst onto the music scene, and there would never be anyone else like him, a man recognized the world over the moment his distinctive voice was heard.
     
    Finally they left the shops and headed for the van. Police tape stretched around the bus, and cruisers with lights still flashing barricaded it. Bobby was still there, talking with other officers. She’d been hoping they’d all be gone by now.
     
    “Bloody hell,” one of the men in her group exclaimed, “what happened here?”
     
    Not wanting to alarm the tourists, Harley just said that a passenger had died. Let the cops get them alarmed. They were better equipped to handle hysteria than she was. Of course, the police took down names, addresses, and any pertinent information from each one, and a statement as to what they saw or didn’t see. That took a while, so Harley got into her van and turned on the AC. Might as well be comfortable while waiting.
     
    A familiar tingle in her right jeans pocket signaled an incoming call on her cell phone. She ignored it. Bobby had unnerved her. Dammit. Why did this keep happening to her? Okay, it was bad enough it seemed to be happening to Elvises, but it was beginning to look really bad that she always seemed to be around when it did. She rested her head against the steering wheel and closed her eyes, waiting for the police to finish taking statements and move some cruisers out of the way so she could leave. In a few minutes the cell phone vibrated again, humming against her hip.
     
    Finally, giving in to the inevitable, she played back the messages. Tootsie. Three times. All sounding a little frantic.
     
    “Harley,” he said on the last call, “Lydia’s tourists need a ride and all the other vans are too far out to get there quickly enough. Call me, girlfriend. I’m getting desperate here.”
     
    She called him back to tell him she’d have to drop her group off first, and then she would have room to take some of Lydia’s tourists to their hotel.
     
    “Thank God.” He sounded relieved. “Charlsie can pick up a few, but she’s in the small van. By the way, darling, I’m glad this body wasn’t found in your van. I don’t think the police