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

someone else tell him the guy had been murdered. It sure wasn’t her job.
     
    Tootsie met her at the garage when she returned the van. He looked frazzled. His hair was all loose around his face and straggling out of the ponytail he kept it in for work, and his silk shirt was half out of his pleated-front pants. Not at all normal. He was always immaculate.
     
    “What’s up?” she asked in concern, and he gave her an open-mouthed stare.
     
    “Two ... dead ... bodies. On our vans! When this gets out we’ll have cancellations all over the place.” He cupped a hand over his mouth, words coming out all muffled. “This is worse than being embezzled.”
     
    “I’d think so. Although Sandler does look the type. It’s always the quiet, snarky ones.”
     
    “Not always. Believe me, it can be someone you least expect. Anyway, I’d settle for that right now instead of this. At least it wouldn’t run off a lot of our clients.”
     
    “Speaking of running off clients, you look pretty frightening at the moment.”
     
    Tootsie went back to pacing, his Birkenstock sandals slapping against the concrete floor of the parking lot. “This is unbelievable. Unbelievable!”
     
    Harley looked at him. He seemed awfully upset for a mere employee. Could it be that he had a personal stake in the company? Like financial? She’d often wondered just how the ultraconservative Lester Penney had been induced to hire a man who painted his fingernails in the office and wore women’s clothes after hours. For that matter, how had they even met? That could be a very interesting story. Now wasn’t the time to ask, but one day...
     
    “What can I do to help out?” she asked when he stopped pacing and leaned his forehead against the concrete wall with a big blue number two painted in the middle.
     
    With his head still resting against the wall, Tootsie cut his eyes at her. Silence stretched, and then he said, “I can’t believe I’m even asking you, but could you help find out who’s behind this? Quietly, and without publicity?”
     
    Harley blinked. “Wait—you’re asking me to help?”
     
    “I know. I can’t believe it either. But you do seem to have a knack for it.”
     
    “I have a knack for getting hit in the head, crapped on by a goose, and whacked with a wooden penis. Although technically, I did most of the whacking with the last one.”
     
    “As if I need a reminder of your newest hobby. Not wooden Johnsons. Dead bodies.” He turned to lean back against the wall and briefly closed his eyes. “Jewel thieves, smugglers, now dead Elvises. Your career has taken quite a different turn.”
     
    “Who’d have thought.”
     
    “But somehow, and I have no idea how you manage it, it all ends up good.”
     
    “For the police and aspirin corporations.”
     
    He opened his eyes. “You didn’t do too badly last time, if I remember correctly. Ten thousand dollars is a nice reward.”
     
    “You’re offering me money?”
     
    “No. But I’ll keep you on the payroll even when you aren’t doing tours.”
     
    “Can you do that? What’ll Mr. Penney say?”
     
    “Just let me worry about that. Think you can do it?”
     
    “Why not? It’ll be a great distraction for me right now. I can’t promise there won’t be publicity, though,” she warned. “There usually is.”
     
    “As long as it’s a Tour Tyme employee who solves the murders, that can only be good. Just be sure you help solve the murders and save the publicity until after it’s over, okay?”
     
    “I’ll do my best.”
     

Chapter Four
     
    It was much too quiet in Harley’s apartment. The Spragues next door didn’t have their music up loud for a change. Maybe the honeymoon had worn off. Not that she was complaining. Right now, listening to rather vocal lovebirds would be like throwing a bucket of water to a drowning man, completely unwanted.
     
    Thoughts of Morgan had changed from regret to resignation. In some weird way, she understood his