Blind Dates Can Be Murder (48 page)

Apparently, at least one more person was a part of this situation, one person that no one had yet considered. It was someone who had access to Frank’s car (for placing the pillow covered in what had turned out to be cat hair), his asthma inhaler (for squirting out most of the medicine soon after the prescription was filled), and Mickey’s home or office (for poisoning him one way or another). But who could have done all of that? And why, considering that the money was ruined anyway?

Those were the questions that swam through Jo’s mind as she tried to get to sleep.

27

J
o was awake by six, but after only a few hours of troubled sleep, she wasn’t exactly feeling chipper. As Marie continued to snooze away, Jo got out of bed and made her way to the front of the apartment. There, Lettie was asleep on the couch in the living room and Anna was sitting at the kitchen table, writing on a legal pad in front of her. All over the table were little bits and pieces of aluminum foil.

“Anna?” Jo whispered. “Did you get any sleep?”

“No. That’s okay, though. I’m used to pulling all-nighters.”

“Have you talked to the chief?”

“Yes. So far, there’s been no movement at the Palace.”

“How’s Lettie?”

Anna took off her reading glasses and rubbed her eyes.

“She’s exhausted. It was a difficult night.”

“For everyone.”

Jo quietly went through the cabinets looking for Marie’s coffee. Marie wasn’t the most organized soul on the planet, so it took a few minutes to assemble coffee, sweetener, milk, cups, spoons. As the coffeemaker bubbled away, Jo thought of fixing Chewie’s breakfast, and then she remembered that he was over at the chief’s house.

Jo found a rag, wet it, and began to wipe down the counters. Turning her attention to the table, she started to scoop the foil into the trash when she realized that it wasn’t ordinary foil—these pieces had been formed into little animals! One by one, she picked them up and studied them, marveling at the delightful craftsmanship.

“You did these?” she asked Anna.

“No, Lettie did. The whole time we talked. She needed to occupy her hands.”

“Incredible.”

“Listen, Jo, I know you and Marie are upset with Lettie, and justifiably so.”

“I’ve never seen Marie so hurt, even if Lettie did give the money back.”

“I know. But Lettie and I talked about a lot of things last night. She’s had a very tough life. I’d cut her some slack if I were you.”

“Cut her some slack? Because of her, someone I love could be killed today!”

“Shhh.”

“Sorry,” Jo said, lowering her voice. “But you know what I’m saying. Christian charity can only go so far. At some point, we all have to be accountable for our actions.”

“She showed me her back, Jo. It’s scarred from top to bottom.”

Jo faltered, putting down the little animals and turning her attention to the coffeemaker.

“Why?”

“Whippings by her stepfather when she was a little girl. Beatings by her husband when she was grown. Hot oil, which Chuck threw on her one night at dinner. Afterward, he wouldn’t even let her go to the hospital. You can see where the splatter marks burned all the way through her skin. The scars are incredible.”

Jo poured a cup of coffee for herself and Anna and then set them both on the table along with the sweetener and milk. She hadn’t thought of that, hadn’t considered that extenuating circumstances might drive a person to a life of crime. The desperation of trying to find an escape could have easily clouded Lettie’s judgment. Maybe Jo needed to remember that Lettie’s sins were between her and God—and that it wasn’t Jo’s place to judge.

“The world can be an ugly place, can’t it?” Jo said, staring into her cup. Sometimes she felt so sorry for herself, for the emotional neglect her parents had done to her as a child. But compared to someone like Lettie, she had no right to complain. At least Jo’s parents hadn’t hurt her. At least her home had been a safe place to grow up.

Jo knew, in their own obtuse way, her parents loved her.

Chuck woke with the sunrise, completely disoriented. He was lying in the dirt in somebody’s backyard, squeezed between a shed and a fence. He felt as though he’d been hit by a truck.

He sat up, wiping his eyes and trying to get his bearings. He remembered most of last night, remembered walking back to the motel and seeing the cops and hightailing it out of there. Now he was without a car, and he looked like a bum out of the gutter.

Not one of his better days.

Still, he thought as he stood and brushed himself off, waking up filthy and free sure beat waking up clean and incarcerated any day. He picked up the spool of detonation wire from the ground and patted his pockets to take inventory.

He had his wallet, inside of which were three hundreds, a twenty, and some ones. He had Mickey’s cell phone. He had a gun and some ammo. He had the car keys and motel key, which would do him no good. And he had the little leather address book, which reminded him of his goals for the morning. Make phone call. Make bomb. Plant bomb. Get money from Jo Tulip.

He had a lot to do. Worse than that, he was going to have to lift a car. Quietly, he slipped from behind the shed and made his way to the street. He walked out of the neighborhood and toward some shops, eyeing the vehicles that he passed on the way. Out in the open, he was afraid he’d be spotted with the spool of detonation cord, so he stopped at a dumpster behind a big music store and removed a banged-up old guitar case that was poking out from the rubble.

He put the spool inside the case and carried it that way. He kept walking, glad when he finally spotted a car that would be easy to hotwire. Looking in every direction, he approached the vehicle.

Within a few minutes, he was inside, driving down the street and planning out his day.

Jo stopped by Dunkin’ Donuts and still made it to the chief’s house by a quarter till eight, bringing with her a giant carton of coffee and two dozen donuts. As she set everything up on the counter, she was glad to see that the chief was asleep on the couch. Poor guy, he had to be exhausted. There were three other men there, members of the bomb squad who were sitting at the kitchen table, plotting out their tactical moves for the money exchange.

As they eagerly served themselves from the goodies she had brought, they explained that Chuck Smith had never emerged from the motel room, so just a short while ago they had busted the door in, only to find that the room was empty. His car was still in the parking lot, but he was nowhere to be found.

One two-man team had yet to report in, but it looked as if their all-night search for the to-be-bombed house was also a wash. They had managed to eliminate a few targets and evaluate the most likely ones, but not a trace of explosives had been discovered. Some of the men felt certain it was a bluff and that nothing was going to happen. After having heard much of Lettie’s tale, Jo doubted that was true. Chuck wasn’t the type of guy to bluff.

The chief awoke when the final team arrived, also with nothing to report. He gave some last-minute instructions to Jo and then left for the police station, where he would be working with the DA to cut a deal for Lettie and then question her. Before he left, he patted Jo on the shoulder and assured her that he would never be far away. She appreciated his concern. After he was gone, she fixed Chewie’s breakfast and brought it out to him in the dog pen. He seemed perfectly fine, greeting her with enthusiasm and digging into his food with gusto.

Back inside, the morning passed quickly. Danny called Jo and wanted a full update, even though she would have preferred to shelter him from some of the facts. She felt certain that knowing everything would unnecessarily agitate him, considering his incapacitation, but he handled it well. Once he had asked a ton of questions and gotten the whole story, he insisted that if he couldn’t be in her house with her when the call came, at least he wanted to be nearby, with the cops. After they hung up, she informed the bomb squad that Danny Watkins would be showing up at the chief’s house in a bit to listen in. As a police photographer, Danny had the necessary clearances to be there.

In preparation for her upcoming meeting with Chuck, the technicians fixed Jo with a wire and did some sound tests. They gave her a suitcase filled with a combination of real and fake money. She paid close attention to each of their instructions for what to say and what to do. She was going to follow this scenario to the letter in the hopes that the bomber and the bomb would be apprehended without incident.

At 10:30 they said that it was time for her to head home.

“You may feel scared all by yourself,” the director told her, “but just remember that we can hear everything you say and do. You’re not alone in this at all.”

“Thanks,” she told him. “I’ll be counting on you.”

Her final decision was whether or not to bring Chewie with her. While she wanted him for protection, she didn’t want to put him in any danger. In the end, she chose to leave him behind. Better she protect him and face this one alone.

“All right, guys,” she said bravely, “let’s do this.”

They followed her out and got into their vehicle as she climbed into hers. At first, as she drove down the street, they were right behind her. But eventually they peeled off to go to their own separate location within hearing distance but not so close as to be seen.

She drove onward toward her home, wishing the whole thing could simply be over and done with. She didn’t know how she was going to get through the next few hours other than by faith and prayer.