Blind Dates Can Be Murder (47 page)

“You think you’re all high and mighty and better than me!” he screamed now into the phone. “Well, you’re not. You’re no better than me! You’re just scum, Lettie. You’re just trash. You’re the trash on the side of the road that’s been eaten by rats. You’re no better than me.”

The truth was, Lettie realized as she closed her eyes, she
was
no better than him. Not anymore.

In her desperate quest to be free of him, she had done so many wrong things. Justifying her actions, she had turned a blind eye to the thousands of people whose credit she had destroyed. She had learned how to lie and manipulate. She had stolen, even taken money out of a Girl Scout cookie sale, for goodness’ sakes! What was next—stealing the communion wafers from church? She had kept silent about poor pregnant Viveca, who had been hit by a car and was in the hospital. Now she was about to be responsible for someone’s murder.

With tears streaming down her cheeks, ruining her makeup, Lettie simply ended the call and turned her phone off. She stifled a sob, thinking of Melissa, seeing her face recede further and further away. She thought of the sermon on Sunday, of the good Samaritan who stopped and helped a stranger for no other reason than that the stranger was in need. Considering that this was a situation Lettie herself had created, could she do any less?

With desperate resolve, she stood and walked down the hall to the living room.

“Marie? Jo?” she said.

They both turned and looked at her, startled by the tears.

“Lettie? What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

She inhaled deeply and then let it out.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, “but I have to tell you something.”

She had hung up on him. Lettie had actually hung up on him! He hadn’t realized she wasn’t there until the dial tone started ringing in his ear. Furious, he slammed down the phone. Almost as soon as he did, it started ringing again.

“Don’t you
ever
hang up on me!” he screamed as he answered.

“Uh, what?” a man’s voice said.

“Who is this?” Chuck demanded.

“This is Buzz, from the bar?”

Chuck ran a hand over his face, trying to regroup.

“Yeah?”

“I got one thing you wanted, but not everything.”

Oh, great. Now even the dealer was coming up short on him.

“How much?” Chuck asked.

“Just fifty.”

Fifty dollars. Even in his drugged and drunken state, Chuck knew that meant one thing: This guy had only acquired the detonation cord. The plastique or the bomb would have cost much more than that.

“Plus another two hundred for the heat.”

“Fine. You got it now?”

“Yeah, same place? Ten minutes?”

“Make it fifteen. I gotta get dressed.”

Jo could not believe the tale that was coming out of this girl’s mouth. At first, the things she said were merely confusing, but the more she talked the more she began to make sense. They tried not to interrupt her but simply let her speak. Jo was afraid if she asked any questions that Lettie might simply clam up.

Lettie said that the man who had grabbed Jo earlier, the one with the bomb, was probably her husband, Chuck, who had just gotten out of prison for bombing an insurance company. She said he was fully capable of blowing up someone’s house and that the police should take the threat very, very seriously.

“But I know where they might be able to find him,” she said.

“Then let’s call the chief,” Jo replied.

With her eyes large and imploring, Lettie said, “Can we call a lawyer first? I think I need to make some kind of deal.”

The Impala’s battery was dead. Again.

Slamming his hand against the steering wheel, Chuck let fly a string of curses. Why had Mickey given him such a piece of trash?

He got out and started walking. There really wasn’t another choice. He knew no one would help jump off the car battery if they saw how drunk he was. Clearly, he shouldn’t be behind the wheel.

Twinkle Donuts was only about a mile away. If he couldn’t walk a mile down a quiet street late at night, there was something wrong with him. It didn’t even matter if he was weaving around a little as he walked; there was no traffic to worry about anyway.

The thought flashed through his mind that the guy might give up on him and leave. But Chuck knew dealers; they weren’t too quick to give up on any profit, especially not something they’d had to acquire specifically. He’d still be there.

Sure enough, though it took Chuck nearly half an hour to get there—it must have been farther away than he thought—the man was sitting in his car out back, in the dark and otherwise-deserted parking lot. Fortunately, the long walk had helped to clear Chuck’s head a bit. He conducted the transaction and then asked if he could get a lift back to his motel.

“I’m not a taxi service,” the dealer said, handing him a piece of paper. “But if you need to make any more purchases, just leave a message on that voice mail.”

The guy got back into his car, rolled down the window, and added, “If I were you, I’d sober up a little before you start building an explosive. You’re bound to blow your head off.” Then he drove away.

“Bound to blow your head off,” Chuck muttered as he shoved the paper in his pocket and began the long walk back to the Palace. “I’ll blow
your
head off.”

The walk back was harder. He got confused and overshot his turn by a very long block. By the time he figured out what he’d done, he had to double back pretty far. At least his new leather jacket was warm, though his clothes were dirty. It was time for more clothes. He’d have to get to a thrift store sometime soon.

He’d also have to pick up the supplies he’d need in order to build himself a pipe bomb. There didn’t seem to be any way around it. A pipe bomb might not have the full effect that Semtex would—that’d be like comparing a puff of smoke to a volcano—but a homemade number that was well built and well placed could still do plenty of damage.

At least he had the det cord now, which was the only part of the final product that couldn’t be had at a normal store. He’d pick up the other things he needed tomorrow morning and get to work.

Finally, Chuck could see the Palace in the distance. He tried to estimate how long he’d been gone. An hour? Two? All that time out in the cold just because the car Mickey gave him was a clunker.

As Chuck got closer, he spotted movement, a dark silhouette that moved among the bushes up ahead. Chuck might not have noticed at all except that the movement came between him and the few lights of the Palace. His first thought was that it was a deer. Then he realized that no, it was a person. Crouching. Next to another person.

Silently, Chuck moved from the road to the warehouse nearby, glad to have some cover. He wasn’t completely sober yet, but he was sober enough to know what he was seeing. He pulled out the gun he’d just bought—a nifty little .38—and tried to move forward, to get a better look. What he saw shocked him.

There were men, four that he could see, crouching among the bushes and facing the Palace. They had guns and were wearing identical, dark jackets. It was some sort of SWAT team or something.

Chuck knew they were there for him.

Slowly, carefully, he tucked the gun into his pants and moved backward along the building. Then he rounded the corner, out of sight, and took off running. He ran as long as he could through the warehouse district and along the train tracks and behind a residential street, until finally his legs gave out, and his lungs were burning like fire. Gasping for air, he found a spot behind someone’s garden shed, hidden away among the weeds. He lowered himself to the ground, closed his eyes, and passed out.

After all that had happened during the night, Jo didn’t think she’d be able to get to sleep. She was in Marie’s room on an inflatable bed that crinkled every time she moved. Across the room, Marie was breathing evenly, already sound asleep. That left Anna and Lettie out in the living room, still talking, still trying to figure out how to salvage this mess. The past three hours had been as intense as they come, with a tearful confession by Lettie, a consult with Anna (who had willingly come over) as her lawyer, and a tactical move by the bomb squad to stakeout the Palace motel, where Lettie said Chuck was possibly staying.

Anna had suggested they postpone Lettie’s full confession to the cops until the morning, when the DA could approve a plea bargain. But for tonight, she had at least given the police the information they needed to stop the bombing. That was everyone’s first priority.

Now it was after 3
AM
, and Jo just wanted to grab a few hours of rest so that she could function in the morning, in case the motel didn’t pan out and she had to go through with the exchange. At least now she knew whom she was dealing with. She also knew the full story behind most of what had been happening to her in the last few days.

According to Lettie on Friday night when Mickey Paglino watched the news and learned that his friend Frank Malone was dead, he sent his two henchmen to retrieve the hidden cash from Frank’s home, to no avail. The money was missing, and they all assumed Jo had taken it.

But she hadn’t taken it.

And in this crazy series of events, there were two remaining mysteries that had yet to be solved: Who took the money and where was it now? More importantly, who killed Frank and tried to kill Mickey?

Frank’s death was a suspected homicide, and Mickey was probably poisoned. Neither could have been done by Chuck because he had been in prison until Monday morning. According to Lettie, it was highly unlikely that the two thugs who worked for Mickey had done it. That left the mafia, but nothing pointed in their direction—not the method of murder nor the word on the street. These deaths just didn’t add up to be mafia hits.