Eat, Prey, Bike: A Mike Dodge Mystery

All dogs go to Heaven. All humanity comes to dust. And it seems all Sarah’s retired high school/work buddies wind up within 30 miles of Casa Dodge Arizona.

It’s like we never left Illinois. Sports and politics and playfully racist and Luddite nostalgia with similarly idled husbands who’d much rather be getting tastefully wasted on the Back Nine, auto-eroticized at a classic cars orgy, or not so tastefully blitzed at Sloan Park on Rio Salada.

But once in a blessed while, Cyndi Lauper holds sway, and the “girls” decide to have low-carb fun, leaving the boys to fondle Corvettes or drink the innings away or avail themselves of $2 Street Taco Thursday at the strip plaza down Val Vista.

I opted the last, and as soon as Sarah cleared Shadow Palms, I mounted my big red Sun and pedaled like young Charlie with a golden ticket to the magical taqueria. Except with dual horchata and agua fresca tanks instead of a high-cacao river cruise.

Beating the crowd is an iffy affair in Snowbird Territory, but at 11:30, the booths in the long, narrow cafe were mainly landscapers and utility crews and a couple Gilbert uniforms in case things got muy caliente.

Like most lower-rent strip plaza joints wedged between the nail salon and the higher-rent coffeehouse, Riberto’s had thrown a couple bistro tables on the front sidewalk, and I soon settled in with one carnita, one carne asada, and one lengua (don’t ask). I took a long draw of cinnamon/vanilla bliss, kicked up the new Deaver on my Kindle, and got down and dirty.

I plowed through meat and white corn and cilantro left largely to my own horrifying devices. A muscular little blonde in laminated bike spandex welded to a steel workout tumbler about a quarter her size, a trio of millennial Real Housewives, and a newly old-money/recently refurbished AARPer skirted the slavering carnivore. The departing SRP/tree guys regarded my cardiac combo with disdain, diner’s remorse, or boisterous disinterest.

I got a little love from a passing doodle and his proud Gen-X mom, and a seemingly homeless dude in a Cubs cap and a Texas A&M jacket tossed off a bro nod. Most of my post-retirement wardrobe was Old Navy when the name meant something — he may have wondered what scratch-off Lotto I’d won.

I was vacuuming the last lost scraps and considering a custard palate-cleaner when the cops emerged from the cafe.

“Hey!” a lanky hipster in a barista’s apron fairly screamed as he scrambled toward us. I nearly spilled my horchata as I saw the younger uniform twitch toward his holster before reassessing the situation.

“Hey!!” The tiny blonde overtook Mr. Coffee.

“Hey, hey,” the older cop called, displaying both palms. “What’s up?”

“They took my fucking bike!” Gold’s Gym yelled.

“There’s a dead dude!” Coffee Dude shrieked.

The officers sprinted toward Bueno Beans. Thoughtful triage is a law enforcement essential.

“My bike,” the blonde yelled, then, alarmingly, plopped down across from me. She noticed me then, and jumped, slightly. I smiled, which only seemed to make things worse.

Might as well go for broke. “You didn’t happen to notice if the big red bike is still there?”

She glanced at me witheringly. “No. You’re fine. My fault, I guess. Left my lock at home. But I ride everywhere.” My new pal suddenly flushed, recognizing she was over-interacting, took a hit off her tumbler, and peered disgustedly back at 5-0. “I guess I just wait ‘til they get done with whatever this is.”

“Dead dude. Mike, by the way.”

She blinked like I’d asked her sign at a wake, but she was my guest now by Arizona law. “Um, Tansy.”

Horchata slopped onto my good Smokey Bear tee as something big and woolly attempted to mount me.

“Zeus!” The doodle’s magenta-haired mom groaned, juggling a plastic Fry’s bag and a long poop-scooper. “I’m so sorry.”

“Not a deal,” I assured her, subtly holding the doggie deity at bay.

“Hey, you mind if I just squat here for a while?” Zeus’ mom asked. “I was just at the coffee place, and the cops asked me to stick around.”

Tansy grimaced as she took another sip, so I nudged the chair beside her.

**

“So, I was gonna just sit on the patio with Zeus, but the guy seemed kind of pervy,” Elodie confided as she nursed a recycled content cup with a chill coffee bean flashing a thumbs-up. Easy for him. “Guess I shouldn’t say that about a dead dude, huh?”

“Among new friends,” I grinned. Tansy silently agreed to disagree.

“Pervy how?” I asked.

“He pretended to be interested in Zeus, asked me what breed and shit, but like Zeus was down here, if you get me?” I did, and I refocused on the new car with the dash lights pulling to the curb near the Bean. “So I got outta there. Then I see some dude steal a bike just outside the place. I mean, he was like really grungy, and it was this really fancy bike.”

“$3,000,” Tansy snapped. Her wrist clattered against the metal tabletop, and Zeus’ head popped off the concrete. “You tell the cops? Because it seems like they couldn’t care less.”

“I think they think he mighta killed the perv.”

“Mr. Dodge?”

Jesus. I was beginning to feel like Ina Garten on Labor Day. Then I recognized the approaching man.

“Jesus,” I said. No blasphemy intended. That was the detective’s name; we’d met a couple of times under freaky-deaky circumstances. I peered around Jesus, and spotted a gloved Det. Yu taping off Bueno Beans’ wrought-iron patio gate.

“I thought that might be you,” Jesus murmured. Tansy started up. “Yes, Ms. Colman — Ms. Migaki has given us a detailed description of your bicycle thief, and we’ve put out a description.”

“Mrs. Colman,” Mrs. Colman corrected. Ina she wasn’t.

“Pardon. Mr. Dodge, I wonder if you might come with me, answer a few questions?”

“Uh, sure.” I pushed back. “You know, I didn’t see a thing,” I told Jesus.

He nodded with his usual unnerving smile. “But you have graced us nonetheless. And you seem to possess acute powers of observation.”

“God giveth,” I began.

**

“Thought that was you,” Yu muttered.

The last bit of my lengua began to shift uncomfortably as I observed the bloodied bistro chair next to an overgrown section of wrought-iron patio fence, sitting in a gastrique of more blood.

“Struck from above with what appears to be a hammer or similar tool,” Jesus launched in. “Head wounds nearly perfectly round, and the sheer force looks to have splintered the surrounding skull.”

Yu gave me the side-eye, and I shrugged. “Kid’s the assistant manager. Shawn Letts. Slow day, and Cleary was the only one outside. Two women inside, in a corner near the front, but the counter has a direct line of sight through the patio door to Cleary’s table.”

“Mason Cleary,” Jesus informed me. “So, this Letts saw nothing?”

“Since it’s so slow, he says he was cleaning the grinder and espresso machine. But he knows Cleary — guy works at the battery place, and Letts comps him a cup as long as he sits outside on the patio. He’s kind of a pussyhou—, ah, insensitive guy, and some of the female customers have complained.”

“Add one,” I suggested, nodding toward my commandeered table.

“Hot Blonde?” Yu asked.

“One with the dog.”

“Thought that was a llama.”

“You say it looked like a hammer killed the guy,” I inquired.

“The M.E.’s assistant said larger than a contractor’s claw hammer, smaller than a mallet,” Jesus clarified. “What say we engage Mr. Letts, see how he missed the melee outside?”

**

“I probably had my back to the door,” Shawn the Hipster drawled. He turned to the backbar and pulled a coffee tamper from the sink. Shawn wiped the stamp-like instrument with a clean towel as he talked.

“I did hear him talking shit with some woman out there and thought, oh shit. But I see him looking at his phone, and figure she blew him off. After that, I was cleaning The Beast” — he nodded toward the espresso machine — “and lost track ‘til I saw he was sitting funny. That’s when I came out. God.”

“Indeed,” Jesus said. “Did you hear what kind of shit Mr. Cleary was talking?”

“Not much,” Shawn admitted. “I heard him call out, ‘Whatcha drinkin’?’ -- pretty lame. I couldn’t make out what she said except she mighta been pissed. But he keeps up, asking her about doing her steps, which is weird cause you can see he’s no fitness type. Then, he just shuts up, and I figure his break’s about over, sooo…”

“Nothing about a dog?” I inquired.

Shawn looked to Jesus and Yu. “Dude, what? No, no dogs. We did have some girl come in with one of those big fuzzy dogs, you know, and she did take her, uh, oatmilk latte out to the patio. Only other customers this morning was one of those dragon ladies.”

“Dragon ladies?”

“You know — rich snowbird, body like a 25-year-old, face like an iguana. Smelled like chemicals — how I knew she’d just been at Tranh’s getting her nails done.”

“You see the guy stole the bike?” Yu asked.

“Well, I kinda had a dead body, sooo…”

**

“Just got out of prison in September — DUI with two injuries. His cousin manages the battery place at the end of the plaza and hired Cleary for his probation,” Yu reported as we inspected the scene of the crime. The second one.

“First conviction, and according to the cousin, he’s been getting to AA meetings regularly, at the Rec Center about six blocks away. Three month day chip in his pocket, in fact. Cousin has his doubts, though — says he came back from his Thursday night meeting a few weeks ago late and in a mood that hasn’t quite gone away.”

Jesus’ phone sounded, and he stepped off, leaving Yu and I alone at the bike rack. I considered broaching Mideast geopolitics or the Cubbies, but his partner was back within minutes.

“Found the bike, by a Del Taco dumpster on Southern near Gilbert,” Jesus reported. “Probably never find him, but I’m getting the bike run in case he’s in the system. Or if he did kill Cleary.”

“Which I seriously doubt,” I said. “Look, how fast can you look up somebody’s criminal record? I’m going to guess from somewhere else, maybe several years ago.”

Yu looked to Jesus, then sighed and pulled his iPhone free.

**

“Two DUIs, 2017 and 2020, in Tucson,” Yu related. “Somehow avoided doing any time, but under an indefinite license suspension. She and her husband moved here in 2022 with their realty business, probably to get away from the stigma.

“Rides everywhere,” I noted. “What Tansy told me. Then, she tried to backpedal. Sorry. Thing is, you know any hardcore fitness types who don’t love to brag how many miles they get in in a day? Unless that’s their sole means of personal transportation.

“So we got two drunk drivers, one for sure in a 12-step program, the other a likely candidate. So despite the one-year sober romance rule, say these two hook up at AA, then things go sour. Mason’s pissed, and more so realizing Tansy probably used connections to get off two DUIs while he did time and now’s schlepping batteries. Maybe he’s even threatened to tell her hubby, or her clients or social circle.”

Jesus glanced toward the patio. “So it wasn’t Migaki he was taunting?”

“She and Zeus blew out before Tansy pedaled up. Mason spots her, and starts in about what she’s got in that big steel mug of hers and why she hasn’t been to any meetings lately. And I think Tansy realizes she isn’t getting rid of him that easily. So she decides to get rid of Mason the old-fashioned way.”

“Hold up,” Yu protested. “Cleary’s like three times Colman’s size.”

“Buuuut… Say Tansy stalks back to her bike after her chat, and, unlocking it, realizes she has the perfect weapon to give Mason an express lobotomy. Heavy and hard, with a handle that would give even a Chinoweth-scale pixie the balance and force she needed.” I tugged on the lock that secured my chariot to the rack, and fumbled in my shorts for my keys. With an awkward contortion, I shoved the smallest key into a recessed hole and pulled a roughly 12-inch horseshoe shackle from the thick cylindrical lock.

I displayed the U-bolt components, then clicked them back together. “Of course, ours is the cheapo Walmart U-lock, where I’m going to guess Tansy would have sprung for the heavy-duty, German hardened steel, cycle shop model.”

Yu hefted the lock, then stepped around the rack into the decorative rock, kneeled, and, grasping the silicon-covered shackle, hammered on the red granite boulder I’d seen the homeless use for alfresco dining and hydration. Shards flew, and the homeless now had a handy new cup caddy. The cop handed the lock back, and the lock cylinder dropped to the sidewalk, rebounding off my left Skecher.

“I did say it was the Walmart version, didn’t I?” I asked. Yu shrugged with a grimace.

“The GPD will happily replace it in appreciation of your assistance,” Jesus murmured. “With the cycle shop model, of course.”

I nodded, bygones. “So, Tansy marches back into the Bueno Beans patio, beats living shit out of Mason as he screams bloody murder and fends off Tiny Tansy’s blows. And, fortunately, all of this transpires directly across from the café patio door, in full view of the horrified assistant manager. A tragic episode of instantaneous passion. Oh, wait.”

“He didn’t see it coming,” Yu nodded. “He was sitting with his back to the fence, and the killer came around outside the patio…”

“And swung away the only way she could through the eight-inch opening,” I concluded. “Even if the manager hadn’t been busy, he probably couldn’t have seen Lil Tansy behind the Incredible Bulk, half-hidden by vines and shrubs. So, having finished Mason, she emerges from the vegetation with her bloody bludgeon, only to discover her bike had been boosted. Leaving her exposed. She could start walking, but is she going to hike down Val Vista with the murder weapon in her hand, or toss it in the plaza trash for the cops to find? You saw her outfit – nowhere to hide.”

I glanced back at Tansy, chatting up a pair of uniforms dutifully intent on guarding her flank.

“We checked the dumpsters in back, and the yards over the wall behind the plaza,” Yu noted. “We’re not going to miss something that big.”

“Not in its original state,” Jesus suggested. He looked to me. “But in its component parts…?”

I waggled the orphaned shackle. “Last summer, we redid the rocks on the fence line behind our house back home. Now, any Midwesterner with too much time on their hands knows you lay down a weed barrier tarp first, securing it with horseshoe stakes so it doesn’t come up at the edges.” I stooped in the rocks with an ominous pop and positioned the shackle between a couple of stones. And shoved, sinking the piece deep enough to drive it the rest of the way with my foot until only a curved section of steel remained above the surface. I kicked rocks over the exposed “stake.”

And staggered back to the rack. “You think you could throw in a horchata with that new lock?” I asked Jesus.  

**

“Mrs. Corman, we located your bike,” Yu announced cheerfully as we rejoined Tansy and her police entourage. “Turns out to be one of our regulars – homeless guy thinks if it isn’t nailed down, it’s community property.”

“Wow, you guys are fast,” Tansy exclaimed.

“Intelligent policing,” Jesus smiled, playing on the Gilbert PD’s public motto.

“He tried to tell us you gave him the bike,” Yu grinned. “Said you unlocked it for him.”

“He’s full of shit,” Tansy muttered, waving her travel mug. “I told you, I forgot the lock. Dumbass move, but there it is—“

“No,” Jesus corrected gently, bringing an evidence bag from behind his back. “Here it is.”

Yu waggled a finger. “We found this driven into the ground beside the coffeehouse. You were probably clever enough not to leave fingerprints, but even though you’re obviously fit, we haven’t had any rain lately and you would’ve had to use a little footpower to push this thing into the compacted dirt. My little sister works at the SanTan Dick’s, so I know my top-of-the-line cross-trainers. I’m gonna bet the tread on those boojie Shimanos matches the dusty partials on this shackle.”

“See, you jingled,” I noted. “When you were ranting to us about police apathy, you hit the table with your keys. I wear mine around my wrist, too, so they don’t fall out of my pocket. You had your bike lock key even though you said you left the lock at home. And that just leaves one piece of the puzzle. The lock itself, with all that blood and maybe brain matter you didn’t have time to wash off.”

Tansy’s flat abdomen then spasmed, and she issued a guttural sound.

“I’m surprised you didn’t hurl when you were refreshing yourself earlier, though I could tell you weren’t enjoying your Water-Plus with bonus hemoglobin and for all I know, Hep-C.”

And that was it. The Gilbert PD delegation stepped back as Tansy ruined a good pair of Shimanos, and her steel tumbler bounced twice on the pavement before the plastic lid popped free. Jesus’ loafer neatly trapped the runaway U-lock cylinder.

“ZEUS!” Elodie yelled as her "son" nearly ruined the whole moment.

**

I awoke on the patio lounger in the failing afternoon light, ankles still throbbing, to find Sarah hovering.

“How was lunch?” I asked.

“Where’s the bike?” she demanded.