Don't Sweat the Small Stuff (13 page)

I had no idea what he was talking about.

“A what?”

“E-mail Trap. This device sends out messages to a computer. When the owner of that computer clicks on the message, you have total access to everything on that person’s unit. Total access, Skip. All the e-mail, Web sites, you name it, you’ve got it. It’s worth its weight in gold.”

Again I questioned whether Winston and Linda even had a computer. I’d seen no sign of one in their tiny trailer.

“So I need all three of these things?”

“You do.”

“Are they all legal?”

Jody smiled. “Skip, come on.”

“They’re not, right?”

“What you do with them is your business.”

I nodded. “Jody, we’re not making a ton of money on this case.” I didn’t want to ask for favors, but—

“Not to worry, dude. I’ll get you an itemized bill. It’s not going to be that much. You guys are friends, so I’ll give you a professional discount.”

Again, “not to worry.” I wondered if he’d helped us get a license just so he could sell us all the equipment. It wasn’t going to cost that much, but what exactly was
that much
? I mean, he
said the E-mail Trap was worth its weight in gold, and I knew that gold was a little pricey right now.

“But of course I’m going to add the seventy-nine for the smoke detector video camera.” He gave me an accusing look. “Plus a past due fee, Skip. I don’t care what your good friend tells you, he didn’t cover it all.”

I was certain that Jody would add the past due amount. James had sworn to me that he would take care of that bill. I should know by now you can’t always trust James with money. And I wasn’t sure about Jody Stacy.

“Hey, Skip, one more thing.”

He laid the bag with my three purchases on the counter.

“Yeah?”

“I heard you broke up with Emily.”

Son of a bitch.

“True or not true?”

I let it sit for a second or so. Technically Em and I were on a break. Not broken. There was a difference. Definitely a difference. Break. Broken up. He wasn’t going to get me on a technicality. No way. Finally I looked him coldly in the eyes.

“Not true. Sorry, Jody.”

“Hey, dude, I just wanted to know if you were all right. You surely understand that, right?”

It was comforting to know that my new best friend was looking out for me. He had my best interest at heart. And I thought about his closing line: “You surely understand that, right?”

I turned and walked out of the store, into the teeming, hot Florida summer. I understood more than he thought I did.

On the drive back to Carol City I kept an eye out for the black Cadillac SUV, and actually saw two that passed me at high rates of speed. Well, high rates, considering how fast I was able to go, but I was certain those Escalades weren’t keeping tabs on me.

I steered the sputtering Taurus onto the dirt road that circled the barren patch of ground where the show performed and pulled onto the gravel next to the trailer. James was walking out with a good-looking blonde. Not Angie Clark. My engine sputtered and died.

“Hey, babe.” She walked to the open window and rested her elbows on the door, staring right into my face.

Smelling her hair, the light scent of her perfume—

I didn’t answer. Couldn’t. I had no idea what to say. I was sure she’d never come back and afraid that if I said anything at all she’d turn around and walk out again. I was shell-shocked.

“You do remember me, right? It hasn’t been that long.” A little sarcasm, a little humor.

I finally found my voice. “What—?”

She turned to James. “He’s a man of few words. Not the loquacious charmer that you are, James, but I get his drift.”

Backing off, she let me open the door and step out. Then she ran the few steps to me and threw her arms around my neck, pressing that warm curvy body into mine. God, she felt good.

“I missed you, Skip.”

“Yeah, well—”

“I know. At least I think I know.” She hesitated. “I wanted to see you again to be sure.”

“Sure of—”

“Sure that we should get back together.”

“And?”

She pressed her warm moist lips to mine and we held that position for seconds. Minutes. I had no grasp of time. Finally we broke.

“Skip. Here you are, up to your butt in more trouble. You and your miscreant friend. I miss that.”

I stood back and took a good look. Silky blonde hair, a faint spray of freckles that dusted her cute nose and cheeks, a crooked smile on her lips, and a red top featuring cleavage that showed off her full breasts. She wore a pair of tight jeans and sandals with just a little bit of a high heel. I’d missed everything about her.

“You miss me being in trouble?”

“No,” she said, “I think I miss not being here to get you out of trouble.” I couldn’t believe she’d actually said that.

James stood off to the side, a frown on his face. “Miscreant? Skip’s miscreant friend?”

“Do you even know what it means, James?” She glanced over at him. “Miscreant? Obviously it’s not good.”

He was silent, squinting his eyes. Em’s relationship with James was part of the problem. A big part of the problem. And I knew he’d look up the word miscreant the minute he had a chance.

“Anyway,” James said, “I told Em what’s been going on here and she agrees with me, pard.”

“Em has never agreed with you. On anything.”

“She’s never met Winston, but she thinks there’s a good case to give the little guy a hard look.”

God I’d missed her. We’d dated off and on since high school and the off had always been her idea. I was
on
100 percent of the time.

I reached into the car and pulled out the bag with my purchases.

“Great,” James said. “Stuff to work with, right?”

“We’ll see.” I was feeling less than confident about the buys I’d made. “Jody suggested three different things we could use.”

“Let’s look at them in the trailer.” James furtively glanced around, then grabbed the bag from my hand and climbed into the Airstream.

I let Em go first, and I have to admit I admired her cute little butt in those tight jeans. I couldn’t help grinning. Why she’d come back I had no idea, but I certainly wasn’t going to question the motive.

“I’ve got coffee on the stove,” he said. “I’ll just heat it up.” James turned up the gas burner on a cheap tin pan full of brackish looking liquid. I immediately thought of dirty dishwater.

Opening the bag on the small table, I pulled out the Cell Sleuth. Time to explain all of the spy paraphernalia. “Jody had these suggestions.” I wasn’t going to take all the credit. Or all of the heat. “This Cell Sleuth tracks a client’s cell calls, even text messages. We’ll know all about his communications.”

“Oh, yeah?” James took the small device out the box. “How does it work?”

“I, uh, have no idea. Somehow it lets us bug his phone, and I guess we can hear all of his calls on that little receiver there.”

James held up a small black box. “This thing?”

“You know, I’m not even sure that Pugh has a cell phone.” What had I been thinking?

“Everybody has a cell phone, amigo. We’ll figure out how it works later. Okay, what’s next?”

“This gizmo,” I said, feeling like I’d been had, in the light of day, in front of my friend and girlfriend. None of this stuff seemed to make any sense. Stuff that Jody had convinced me was a good idea. “It’s a program that sends a message to a computer. If the operator opens it, we have access to everything on the computer. Everything. According to Jody we can open any of his programs.”

“Well,” Em looked at the box suspiciously, “if this four-foot killer Winston Pugh doesn’t have a cell phone, he and his Linda may not have a computer either.”

I knew that.

“But if they do have a computer, we could learn a lot,” James said. “And if they don’t, I could send a message to Angie and get a complete profile of the girl. Would that be cool or what?”

Em and I both glared at him.

“Got another package there, Tonto.”

“Yeah. This is a pen.” I removed it from the box and James studied it for a moment.

“And what does it do?”

“Writes.” I took it back and clicked the top. Writing on the back of my hand I printed “Video. Audio.”

“Oh, cool,” Em said. “A video camera with sound?”

“Amigo, this is something we could really use.”

“Yeah.” At least they were impressed with something I’d brought back. “We can plug it into a computer and download everything on a disc.”

“How much?” James was eyeballing the assorted spy devices and appeared to be concerned.

“Apparently it doesn’t matter.”

“What does that mean?”

“We don’t pay our bills anyway. Jody says you still haven’t covered the smoke alarm camera that we used on our last case.”

“Ah, let me check on that.”

“James?”

“I can’t remember, Skip. Seems like, you know, I’m pretty sure—”

“This is what I missed.” Em shook her lovely head. “You guys just bumbling along. You need guidance, boys.”

“And just what kind of guidance,” James asked, obviously relieved to be let off the hook.

“You need someone to lay out a plan.”

I picked up the pen, pushed the record button, and aimed the invisible lens at her. “Okay, Em. You’re back. You’ve got most of the details, so come on and give us the plan.”

She smiled, her eyes bright and her lips moist. “You’re recording this, right?”

“I am.”

My on-again, off-again girlfriend pulled a pen from her purse. “Since your spy pen is already in use, I’ll use this.”

James handed her the roll of paper towels that was sitting on the sink.

“What am I supposed to do with this?”

“Write on it. We don’t have a lot of colorful tablets lying around.”

“Okay, boys, pay attention. You’ve apparently got until Sunday night, and I think it’s probably impossible to figure this thing out. I stand on that statement. This is probably impossible. But,” she hesitated, “but, if we’re going to make a stab at it, here’s how I think we play this out.”

It was great to have her back. Great to have her getting involved with our caper, even though she had no clue what she
was doing and even though she was putting us in more trouble than we could possibly imagine.

Seven o’clock and all the lights were on. Our carnival, Moe’s Show, was twinkling in the early dusk, like fairy dust from a Disney movie. The crowd had grown and as the three of us sat on lawn chairs outside the trailer we sipped the watery, stale coffee that James had manufactured. I took a taste and grimaced.

“James, what did you put in this? It tastes like watered down gasoline. The cheap grade.”

“Dude, you said we drink too much alcohol. I’m figuring out ways we can be sociable and not have a beer.”

“We’re heading out to introduce you two to Winny Pugh’s Petting Zoo. Probably better that we don’t have a beer.” I was thinking our meeting should be sober. I was also thinking that our meeting could cost fifteen dollars if Linda stuck to her five bucks a head rule.

“If we hit it off,” Em gave her cup of brackish liquid a look of contempt, “we may get invited in for tequila. Right?”

“If,” I said.

“Better than this garbage.”

“I looked up miscreant.” James spat a stream of coffee out of his mouth. “Something about being a villain?”

“Villain, immoral, lots of low-life references, James.” Em tossed the rest of her coffee on the ground and stood up. “I’m ready to meet the famous dwarf and his girlfriend. Anybody want to come along?”

James and I followed suit, tossing our foul tasting drinks on the dirt and rising from the cheap plastic woven lawn chairs.

“Gentlemen,” she turned and faced us, “I’m sorry,” she paused for a moment. “Gentleman and James, let’s conduct ourselves in a professional manner. If James is correct, we may be
confronting the man behind the equipment failures, the injury, and death of a Moe Show patron, and the murderer of Kevin Cross.”

“Could be.” I nodded.

“No question. It all goes together, team. Let’s travel.”

Traveling would take all of ninety seconds. I was apprehensive, but we had Em’s plan and come hell or high water we were going to stick to it. Except that we didn’t.

Couldn’t.

The lights burned bright in the early evening, casting a colorful glow over the dreary piece of dirt we now called home. The three of us trudged across the barrenground, watching the growing crowd line up for the main event. The Dragon Tail was obviously the premier attraction, and even those who had no intention of mounting the green and gold monster huddled nearby to watch the gyrations and marvel at the brave—or stupid—people who rode it. Not once. Not twice, but sometimes three times in a row. As crazy as that sounds.

“It’s a phenomenon, bro.” James kept shaking his head, shaggy hair hanging low on his forehead.

“What is?”

“The DT.”

“DT?” Em looked at us with a puzzled expression.

“Dragon Tail.” James nodded toward the ride.

“Well, yeah, it is. So phenomenal that I would only ride it once.” I glanced back at the huge beast. “In respect.”

“Bullshit.” Em turned and gave me a sly smile. “James told me you two had negotiated half a ride.”

“But that didn’t happen.”

“What did you expect? These two guys—”

“Bo and Charlie,” James chimed in.

“Bo and Charlie were worried you were stealing their jobs. How can you blame them? Two college educated guys like you come along and,” she hesitated, “well, barely college educated.”

James and I had partied a little too hard during our four years at Samuel and Davidson, better known as Sam and Dave University, and to Em’s credit, she was right. We’d barely graduated. And personally, I didn’t feel any smarter, more intelligent, or more mature for the experience. But there were some great times. I mean some really great times.

“And these two guys,” she continued, “they take over the ride. What do you expect Bo and Charlie to do? They want to scare the crap out of you. They want to scare you off. Warn you that if you interfere with their job, they will screw you.”