Blind Dates Can Be Murder (28 page)

Jo reached out to still Chewie, who was frantic to get out of the car.

“But dating you would be like dating my brother,” she said. “Kissing you would be like kissing my brother.”

“Uh-huh,” Danny replied. “And that kiss yesterday, that was real sibling-like, huh?”

Jo didn’t have a reply for that. She told Chewie to stay and got out of the car. Going around, she grabbed an empty wheelchair from the foyer, opened the car door, and helped Danny slide out. By the time he was in the chair and ready to roll, his parents had arrived.

“Oh, Danny, look at your ankle!” his mother cried. “It’s so swollen!”

It was, indeed, twice as big as normal. Gritting his teeth, he set his foot on the footrest and told his mom it would be all right.

“I’ll see you later, Jo,” he said nonchalantly, barely looking at her.

“Take care, Danny,” she replied. “I’ll call you.”

They wheeled him away, the automatic doors closing with a whoosh between them. At that point, all Danny could do was pray, asking God to work a miracle inside Jo’s heart.

“I still don’t understand why I have to be here,” Lettie whispered sharply.

“Shhh,” Tank insisted. “Keep it down. I told you, I need you here to hold the flashlight and to keep watch.”

They were hiding behind some bushes and waiting for the last police car to pull away from Frankie Malone’s house. They had parked almost a mile away, in the deserted parking lot of a convenience store, and walked from there. Now, as they watched the red taillights of the cop car disappear up the gravel road toward the highway, Tank decided it was safe for them to move.

“All right, let’s go.”

Crouching, the two of them ran toward the old farmhouse. Yellow police tape was stretched across the doorway, but Tank wasn’t interested in going there anyway. Instead, clicking on his flashlight, he ran around the side of the house, through the overgrown garden, to the Bilco door over the basement.

“You hold the flashlight,” he commanded.

Lettie did as she was told, pointing the beam toward the rusty padlock. Tank had brought along a battered sack of supplies, and from it he produced a hacksaw. It only took a few moments to cut right through the metal and pop it open. The door made a horrible sound of metal against metal as he pulled it up, but they were alone in the woods now with no one around to hear.

“Wait here.”

Tank took back the flashlight and descended into the basement. Lettie watched as he played the beam around the room, especially on an empty shelf that spanned one wall. Finally, he pulled out his cell phone and punched in a number.

“Mickey, it’s Tank,” he said. “Okay, I’m back in the basement and the shelves are empty, just like we told you before, when we came and took the computer…yeah…okay…that’ll be about the only place we
haven’t
looked. If it ain’t there, I don’t know where else it could be. Okay. I’ll call you back.”

He hung up and emerged from the basement. Lettie hoped that meant they were leaving, but instead he gestured for her to follow him across the backyard, through tall weeds and overgrown grass that scratched her legs.

“Where are we going?” she whispered sharply, reaching down to brush a bug from her thigh.

“Here,” he said, stopping at what looked like some sort of structure. As he played the light over it, Lettie realized that it was a well. Weeds had grown so tall around it that the stone wall was almost completely obscured.

Tank pushed through the foliage and leaned over the top of the well, shining his light down inside.

“You see anything?” he asked.

Gingerly, Lettie stepped forward and looked down into the empty hole. It was dark and deep.

“Like what? What are we looking for?”

He grunted.

“For anything that shouldn’t be in a well.”

The beam wasn’t strong enough to go all the way to the bottom, but certainly nothing reflected back at them or seemed out of place.

“Hold this.”

He again handed her the flashlight and then dug a rope from his sack. He dropped most of the rope into the well and then tied the end to a nearby tree. He looked at Lettie, as if sizing her up. She shrank back, eyes wide.

“No way,” she whispered.

He shrugged.

“Suit yourself,” he said. “I was just hoping you knew something about rock climbing. I sure don’t.”

Still, he hoisted himself onto the edge of the well, took back the flashlight and clenched it in his teeth. Gripping the rope, he began climbing down. Lettie watched him go, shivering at the sight of the cobwebs and vines he was encountering.

Lettie realized that she was holding her breath. She looked up, looked around, sucked air in, and blew it out. It was a quiet night, dark, with only the occasional rustle of wind in the tops of the trees. She looked up at the sky and wished she were anywhere but there.

Jo tried not to work on Sundays, but after the day she’d had, a few blessed hours with her column were going to be a relief. She pulled into the driveway and parked, but before she even got out she realized that poor Danny was stuck at the hospital in his damp clothes. She left the car running while she let Chewie into the backyard and locked the gate behind him. Then she drove around the block to Danny’s house and let herself in with her key.

It felt weird walking into his home after all that had happened. Suddenly, she was seeing the place with new eyes, with the eyes of someone whose whole world had experienced a giant tectonic shift. Where before she wouldn’t have thought twice about breezing through his house and digging in his dresser for some dry clothes, now she felt like an intruder. Face burning, she did it anyway, gathering a change of clothing and putting them into a plastic shopping bag from the kitchen. She scribbled out a quick note:
Danny, I thought you might like something dry to wear while you’re waiting in the ER
. She stuck it into the pants pocket, then on second thought she pulled it out again and added
Love, Jo
.

Love, Jo?
Should she take out the
Love?
Just write
Jo?
Just write
Jo
and add a smiley face?

“Aargh!” she cried, shoving the note back in the pocket as it was, locking up the house, and returning to her car. She drove to the hospital and parked near the entranceway. Dashing into the waiting room, she spotted Danny’s father sitting alone in the corner.

“Mr. Watkins?” she said.

He looked up and smiled.

“Hi, Jo. They just took him back to X-ray, but it was a little crowded. Thought I’d wait out here.”

Jo was relieved not to have to face Danny.

“Here,” she said, thrusting out the bag. “His clothes are damp. I thought he might like some dry things.”

“Well, that’s so kind of you. I’m sure they’d let you go back there if you—”

“No thanks!” she said breezily, with a wave. “Gotta run!” Then as if to prove it, she turned and jogged back to the car.

Once she got home, Jo didn’t even go into the house. She called Chewie in from the backyard and went to her home office. It had always been her haven, and tonight was no exception.

Locking the door behind her, Jo took a seat at her desk, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly.

What am I going to do?

Her mind racing, Jo closed her eyes and prayed out loud for direction.

“You’ve got to help me out on this one, God, because I’m at a complete loss, to say the least.”

No booming voice responded from the heavens, of course; Jo knew that God’s direction didn’t work that way. But she kept her head bowed for a while, praying some, listening some, grateful that her life wasn’t really in her own hands at all but in the hands of the all-seeing, all-knowing God. Bottom line, if Jo and Danny remained open to His leading, then no matter what happened, Jo knew that God would guide them in the direction He wanted them to go.

Finally, she gave a quiet “amen” and turned her attention to the desk in front of her, grateful for the distraction.

Chewie seemed agitated, but Jo dug right in, powering up the computer, digging through the basket of reader mail, and writing a week’s worth of newspaper columns. She had left her desk a tad messy, which wasn’t like her, but she soon had it back under control. As always when she worked, her mind was soon absorbed in the task at hand. Now that spring was almost here, a lot of her readers were asking about pests—ants in the kitchen, spiders in the closets, skunks in the yard. She spotted the theme early on and dubbed the entire week “Getting Rid of Critters.”

She wrote about “big cat scat”—the dung of lions, leopards, tigers, and other such animals—and how useful it could be, sprinkled around the yard, to ward off all sorts of pests, including deer, raccoons, and skunks.
If you’re fortunate enough to have an upscale garden center in your town
, she wrote,
then they should have bags of big cat scat for sale. If not, try visiting your local zoo. Just be sure to let the professional handlers do the pooper scooping for you!

Chewie began to whine.

“What’s the matter, boy?”

Thinking the dog might be hungry, Jo went to the pantry and took out a can of food for him. As she opened it up and scooped it onto a plate, Jo couldn’t help wondering when she had made such a mess of the food cabinet. She liked to group items by category, labels face out, but instead everything was jumbled around. Maybe Danny had come there one night, looking for a snack, and left it in disarray. The office didn’t have as much food in it as the kitchen did, but she still tried to keep it partially stocked—both for working on household hints and for when she got hungry.

“Here you go, Chewie,” she said, setting the plate on the floor. She refreshed his water bowl and returned to her work at the desk. When she finished the week’s worth of columns, she went online and sent out the file, pleased to be doing it a whole day early. Then she took a look at the reader comments from her blog.

Jo did a double take. The screen said there were 142 comments. Thinking a spammer had gotten hold of her address, she went to that section to delete them. Instead, all 142 comments were from readers—all of whom were chiming in about the food-spilled-on-the-chest issue. Jo couldn’t believe it. Her words had genuinely struck a chord.

Jo wrote her blog for the next day, going with the same theme and laying out her basic “Stains 101” lecture. She could never understand why most people were so baffled by stains. They really weren’t all that complicated, once you got down to it.

Chewie was still restless.

Jo posted her blog in the queue, shut down the computer, and retrieved his favorite chew toy from the shelf. Maybe after the busy day and Danny getting hurt and the long ride home in the car filled with tension, Chewie just needed to work out some tension of his own. Jo sat on the rug and played keepaway with him for a good ten minutes. He got so worked up that finally she let him keep the toy. He settled next to her and went to town, tearing it up for all it was worth.

It was Jo’s turn to be agitated. It was late, but she had already written her column and her blog. She wasn’t in the mood for TV or reading. Finally, she decided to have a bowl of ice cream before heading to the house and calling it a night.

She got out a bowl and spoon, growing aggravated with Danny for leaving her dishes in disarray as well, and then she reached into the freezer for the ice cream. Of course, the freezer was a mess too. This was getting to be a pattern! She would have to have a stern talking-to with Danny. It was okay if he wanted to be a slob in his own home, but he didn’t have any right to come over there and mess up hers.