Checkered Past (A Laurel London Mystery Book 2) (19 page)

“What favor?” I asked. “You don’t get a favor. You didn’t do anything for me.”

“You asked me to get you into Eddyville and I told you how.” He sounded out of breath. I could only imagine—but really didn’t want to know—what he was doing on the other end of the phone. “It was up to you whether you got on the Holy Roller bus.”

“Don’t screw with me Antonio. I’m not in the mood.” My attitude went from bad to worse.

“Listen, babe.” He had a condescending tone to his voice. “Please don’t make me go to your little boyfriend,
Jax Jackson
, and let him know you were snooping around the prison.”

“You wouldn’t!” I gasped.

Jax might not have fully believed I was on the bus to Eddyville to spread the good gospel as a favor to Sharon Fasa but he didn’t need a bug in his ear from Antonio that I needed to know how to get into Eddyville.

“Babe, I would.” Antonio snickered on the other end of the line. “I gave you the easiest way to get in the prison. I can find out if you went with the Holy Rollers by checking the sign in at the checkpoint. Now.” He was breathy. “What about my favor?”

“You are a no good sonofa—” I snapped before he interrupted me.

“That is not ladylike.” Antonio laughed. “And I need you to be lady-like on my favor.”

“I’m not doing any sexual favors.” I gritted my teeth.

Damn
, I should’ve been clear about what I would do and wouldn’t do.

“I think I told you the first time I met you, you aren’t my type. I like a little junk in the trunk,” he said. “You have a nice rack, but you could stand do some squats and pump up that—”

“Alright!” I shouted. “What is your favor?”

I could only imagine what was going to come out of his mouth.

“I need a date to the Correctional Ball.”

“The what?” I asked. He had me curious.

The FBI agent on the Walnut Grove county line stuck his hand out in front of me. I came to a stop and rolled down my window.

“The Correctional Ball is for the local and surrounding area officers and is going to be held at the new casino there in Walnut Grove. What’s that noise?” he asked.

“Hold on,” I said and put the phone down.

“I need to see in your trunk.” The officer pointed to the end of the Old Girl.

“Yeah, yeah.” I turned the car off, got out and used the key to open the trunk.

The officer looked in the empty trunk as the other officer stuck the big pole mirror thingy and walked around my car to see if Willie Ray was stuck to the bottom like road kill.

“You can go.” The officers stood next to each other waiting for me to move and search the other car.

I got back in, started the car and took off.

“Hello?” Antonio’s voice was a distant scream.

“Crap!” I grabbed the phone. I had forgotten all about him. “Hey, sorry. I got stopped by the border patrol.”

“Border what?” he asked.

“Nothing.” The less time on the phone with him the better. I turned on River Road. “What is this ball thing?”

“I told you. I need a date to the ball and you are the date.” He told me like I was going to just say okay. “You owe me.”

“I don’t owe you.” I really did, but I had to protest. I didn’t like owing anyone.

“It’ll be fun. All the food and booze along with the ding, ding, ding of slots.” He did make it sound better than he had before.

I could do anything if I had food and booze.

“Fine. When is it?” I knew I was going to regret not trying to get out of owing him.

“In two days.”

“Two days?” I didn’t have time to waste to get ready for some ball.

He added, “And you need to look hot. The guys need to be jealous of me. So fix that unruly hair of yours. Prop your tits up and wear something tight on the butt.”

“You’re disgusting.” I hit the off button and threw the phone next to me, taking a right on Second Street.

There was no way I was going to go buy some fancy outfit. But Gia had all those types of clothes and hers were straight from a fancy store in Louisville, not the dumpster behind K-Mart where most of my clothes came from.

There was a spot in front of Jax’s office. I pulled up and stuck the gear in park. I sent Gia a quick text letting her know I needed some sort of fancy outfit for the Ball and I’d fill her in on why I was going later.

“Laurel.” Eric stood up when I walked into the office. “Have you come in here to deliver us Willie Ray Bowman?”

“I guess your little lead this morning proved to be nothing?” I asked.

“Sharon Fasa had called again. She said someone had just stolen her apple pie off her open windowsill.” Jax smiled. His eyes softened, softening my heart. “I need to apologize for thinking it was Willie. We found a raccoon with the pie just beyond Sharon’s fence line.”

“Oh, that’s good.” Jax was offering a bit of an olive branch. I took it. “Say, do you want to have lunch at The Cracked Egg after I take Sharon to her appointment?”

We met for lunch on a fairly regular basis catching up on some of the PI cases he had. It was fun trying to brainstorm some of his cases with him. We hadn’t done lunch since Eric came into town.

“Yeah. Sounds good.” Jax looked over at Eric. “You can eat on your own right?”

“I guess, if I’m not invited.” Eric shook his head and walked into the bathroom leaving me and Jax alone for the first time since he had been here.

“I’m sorry.” He pointed to the bathroom where Eric was. “He is really protective of his cases. He really is a good guy.”

“Yeah, a real gem.” A sarcastic tone to my answer made Jax smile wider. I leaned on his desk, eyeing Willie’s file. I had to get the details of the robbery and whom the police had interviewed at the scene. Maybe one of the tellers saw something. “I’m glad we can go eat.”

“I’m glad that person didn’t try to come back last night.” Jax looked at me as though he was trying to see my reaction.

“Yeah.” I sighed. “Me too.”

I didn’t dare tell him about Ben Bassman or about his little visit with Johnny Delgato.

“I’m sure we will be fine.” I had to get a look into the file. “Is there anything new with the case?” I asked.

Before he could answer me, his phone rang. He looked at it, got up and walked outside to take it.

Strange
. I thought and watched him from inside. With limited time, I grabbed a handful of papers from the file, hoping I had gotten what I needed and stuck them under my shirt.

“Where are you going?” Eric asked. He stood in the open bathroom door drying his hands with some paper towels.

“None of your damn business.” I flung the office door open, waved at Jax and got in the car heading toward Sharon’s.

She wasn’t waiting like she normally was. I beeped the horn. While I waited I took a look at the papers. There were two other tellers in the bank at the time and one loan officer. The one thing that struck me odd was how the police accused Willie of trying to rob the bank when he wasn’t even in the lobby. He was in the safety deposit box room where there was no money to be easily had.

I beeped again and looked out the passenger window at Sharon’s front door. I was on time so I knew she didn’t get another ride somehow. I quickly checked the calendar on my Drive Me app and confirmed I had an appointment with Sharon.

I looked back down at the papers, waiting patiently for Sharon. The report also gave the tellers’ names, home numbers and addresses.

I picked my phone up and dialed the bank phone number.

“Hi, is Bethany Roth there?” I asked the man who had answered the phone.

“I’m sorry she no longer works here,” he stated.

“Oh no,” I said with a lot of concern. “I’m her friend from school and we haven’t talked in years. I’m in town for a few days. Can you tell me when she quit?”

“Um.” he paused. “She quit a few years ago after we had a serious break-in here. I’m sorry that is all I can tell you.”

I hung up the phone. “Okay, Bethany.” I tapped the paper where her address was typed. “I guess I’m going to make a visit to your home.”

I wanted to see her face to face. Mano a mano. I was good at reading people and if she knew something that was going to shed some truth on Willie Ray, I was going to uncover it.

I beeped again. Still no Sharon.

“Damn.” I turned the car off and tucked my phone in my back pocket.

I got out and headed up to the door. Sharon could’ve been sleeping or maybe she wasn’t home. I was going to check before I left.

“Sharon?” I knocked on the door.

Weren’t Jax and Eric just there checking out the raccoon? Hell, I hope the raccoon didn’t get revenge on Sharon. I snickered at the thought.

“Sharon?” I opened the screen door and knocked on the solid front door, which pushed open a little. I pushed it open a little more and called, “Sharon?”

The light was on in the kitchen and I heard her TV blaring.

“Is she going to the hearing doctor?” I snickered and stepped inside calling her name again before I walked back to the kitchen. “Sharon!”

I rushed over to her lifeless body on the floor. Her new bottle of diabetic insulin lay next to her. The needle stuck in her neck.

“Ohmygod, ohmygod.” I grabbed her to feel for a pulse.

The needle slowly bounced up and down with each beat of her heart.

Carefully I put her head back on the floor and dialed 911 from my phone.

“Stay with me,” I pleaded. Tears dripped down my face.

I told Sharon to get a home health nurse to help her with her new medicines. She was so nervous about the injections and unsure how to give them to herself.

“The ambulance is on the way,” I assured her.

Within minutes Derek and the rest of the Walnut Grove’s authority was there. Not much happened here and when it did, everyone knew about it.

“What happened?” Derek pulled me aside.

The ambulance crew worked on Sharon. I looked away as they took the syringe out of her neck.

“Derek.” I grabbed him and nuzzled my head in his neck. “I told her to get a nurse to help her with her diabetes.” I turned back to the EMT. “She just got diagnosed with diabetes and got put on insulin.”

My mind was too jumbled to remember what all she had gone to the doctor for over the past weeks. So I left it at the diabetes thing since it was apparent she had accidentally overdosed.

Jax and Eric rushed in as they were taking Sharon out to the ambulance to transfer her to the hospital.

“Oh no.” Jax watched with sad eyes. “What happened? We just saw her.”

Eric looked around the room and bent down to look at her bottle of insulin on the floor. He picked it up.

“Man.” He shook his head. “The whole bottle is gone.”

“I’m not sure if it was full or not.” I bit my lip.

Derek and Jax were in the corner exchanging a few words. Derek was writing in his little cop notebook. The sight of the two standing next to each other had my heart going in all sorts of directions. They were both so handsome. The ambulance might have to revive me if I couldn’t get my emotions in check.

Trixie and Clyde Yap rushed in with a few more residents of Walnut Grove. “I heard on the scanner Sharon Fasa overdosed.” Trixie adjusted the tin foil on her head.

Jax walked over to her and Clyde.

“Trixie, what’s with the hat? I thought we told you the new equipment would catch any aliens.” Jax put his hand on her back and rubbed her. My heart soared at his affection toward my Trixie.

“It don’t follow me off of the property.” She huffed and turned toward Derek. “What happened? Did she overdose?”

“I’m not sure. It looks like she was giving herself her insulin shot and maybe got a little too much.” He put his notebook back in his pocket.

“She didn’t tell me she was diabetic.” Trixie frowned.

“I think she was just diagnosed when I drove her the other day.” I wanted her to feel a little better about not knowing.

“She’s alive and the doctors will work on her at the hospital in Louisville.” Derek looked at each of us. “I’ll keep you posted.”

“Okay.” I said my goodbyes to everyone. I had a date with Bethany Roth and I would stop by the hospital to see how Sharon was doing afterward.

Chapter Twenty-One

I made it safely through the checkpoint and followed my GPS to Bethany’s address. It wasn’t in the nicest section of Louisville. More on the lower end of middle class. The houses were the typical three-bedroom ranch homes. Each one looked the same. Same shutter colors, same door colors and bushes.

My phone rang from my back pocket. I pulled up in front of the address I had for Bethany and noticed a very pregnant woman on the front porch. A cigarette sticking out of her mouth and another couple kids hanging off her hips.

Hell, I’d be smoking and drinking.

“Hello?” I answered quickly when I saw it was Derek on the caller ID.

“Where are you?” he asked.

“I’m on an appointment.” I didn’t necessarily lie or tell the truth. I was on an appointment of my own accord.

“Sharon Fasa was knocked in the head with a blunt object and then injected with the insulin.” His words cut through my heart like a sharp knife.

“What?” I gasped trying to wrap my head around his words.

“I went to the hospital to get some information from the doctor. He said they found a bump on her head that was not made from falling on the ground. Something struck her. The insulin went into her system after she was knocked out.” He took a deep breath. “Someone wanted it to look like she overdosed. Someone wanted her dead.”

“No.” I couldn’t believe what I was about to say. “Someone knows I’m close to figuring out who framed Willie Ray and they wanted to send me a message.”

“Geez, Laurel.” Derek’s voice was concerned. “What the hell have you done?”

“It doesn’t matter. Is she going to be okay?” I asked.

“Yes. You got to her in time.” He took a deep breath. “What in the world have you done? I told you to stay away from that case. I think Jax did too.”

“And did you think I was going to listen?” I asked as if he was losing his mind.

“I should’ve known better, but I thought you had grown up a bit and listened to someone for once.” He was mad.