Grab & Go (Mayfield Cozy Mystery Book 2)
Read Grab & Go (Mayfield Cozy Mystery Book 2) Online
Authors: Jerusha Jones
Text copyright © 2014 by Jerusha Jones
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Cover design by Elizabeth Berry MacKenney. www.berrygraphics.com
If you want to bump into anyone in my small town, you just go shopping. Guaranteed you’ll meet someone you know at the general store and have a shot at blowing a good hour in gossipy conversation, in case you don’t have anything else to do.
Hank was just the man I was hoping to see because I wanted the scoop on how his beautiful wife, Sidonie, and brand new twin boys were faring. We hadn’t talked to them in a couple weeks, figuring they needed all the sleep they could get.
But Hank looked worse than I expected. Lithe and swarthy, with piercing dark eyes and a sort of restrained energy — the kind of man you imagine could break a wild stallion in one ride. He’d clamp onto the beast and wrangle it into submission without ever uttering a word.
But pouches the color of bruises hung below his eyes, and his formerly smooth cheeks had several loose creases. A few gray strands — definitely new — stood out in contrast to the rest of his jet black hair.
“Nora.” He gripped my elbow so hard it hurt. “I must speak to you.” He whispered hoarsely, his eyes cast in the direction of Etherea Titus’s bottom as she bent over a box of Wrangler jeans, sorting out the boys’ sizes I’d ordered.
His watchfulness wasn’t lust — no one who’s seen Sidonie would ever think that — it was a look of wariness. Etherea, as proprietress of the general store, is the rumor hub in town. Although I’ve never known her to share something that caused harm.
I frowned at Hank. He’s always serious, but this aura of caution was abnormal. “Sure,” I whispered back.
“Outside. When you’re finished.” He gestured to my pile of purchases on the counter and slipped out the door.
“Whew.” Etherea straightened and plopped an armload of jeans on top of the three cases of canned tomatoes that were shoring up the rest of my haul. “It’s like you won the lottery or something. You’re spoiling those boys.”
“Not possible.” I grinned. “Just making sure they’re warm and not hungry.”
Etherea emitted a sympathetic grunt and started ringing up my order. “At the rate they’re growing, you’re fighting a losing battle. How’s Bodie?” Her eyes were fixed on the cash register keys, her work-worn fingers jabbing away, but one shaggy salt and pepper eyebrow was angled my direction. I think the woman can hear through every pore in her body.
“Quiet. Eats a lot. Works hard.” I could have said the same about every one of the other eighteen boys at Mayfield and their guardian, Walt Neftali.
Etherea nodded. “Probably the best he’s been treated in his entire life. He’ll blossom. I always thought those Ramsay kids were smart.” She clucked softly. “Pity.”
“Well, if you see any other loose ones, send them my way.”
“Gladly.” Etherea tipped her head back and hollered her husband’s name in a manner that would win a cow-calling contest.
Bob Titus appeared, wheeling a hand truck from the backroom. He was clad in a flannel shirt that was an exact match with his wife’s. I haven’t figured this out yet — why the store owners dress identically, but they do. Gray, cobalt and white plaid today, which certainly suited the partially cloudy and bitterly cold weather.
I bundled the squishable items into tote bags, and Bob followed behind with the stackables. Bob’s a master packer, so I stood to the side, watching him expertly puzzle-fit what seemed like two carloads of groceries into the back of Clarice’s Subaru station wagon.
Hank’s beat-up blue pickup was in the parking lot, but it was empty. I kept glancing around for him. There are not many places one can go in this single four-way stop town.
I thanked Bob and made a show of digging through my purse for some necessity while he strolled back into the store.
Hank’s cowboy boots crunched on the gravel as he stepped out from behind the propane tank refilling station and came toward me.
I tossed my purse in the car and met him at the back of his pickup. “What’s wrong?”
“Have you heard from your husband lately?”
I blinked a few times, mainly to reset my reality. Sometimes, when things are going well, especially when I’m busy helping with the boys’ camp, I forget that I’m married — still married, however briefly — to a fugitive criminal who’s left me in the lurch.
I shook my head. I’ve not heard from Skip since the first evening of our honeymoon. He did send a gigantic bouquet of roses several weeks back, but that’s it — no verbal communication.
“Did you know I work for him, indirectly?” Hank shielded his eyes from a brief but bright sunray that slanted through the clouds. “He owns the freight terminal I manage. Just came across his name on the property tax records.”
Maybe someday I won’t be shocked by how many enterprises Skip has his crooked fingers in, but for now I stood there with my mouth open.
“Surprised me too. The man who hired me last year left after a few months without passing along much information. Paychecks are processed by some company in California. I was digging through the records because something’s going on. I don’t like it, Nora.” The muscles along Hank’s jaw rippled. “The value of the freight coming in doesn’t match what’s going out. Some shipments more than others. Bills of lading have been doctored. I think some of the stuff’s fenced.”
“Have you talked to the police?”
“Thought I’d talk to you first. Because of Skip’s connections—”
He didn’t have to finish the sentence. A few of my husband’s business associates — of the drug cartel variety — had paid a visit recently.
I gnawed the inside of my cheek. “What kind of stuff?”
“Electronics, clothing, designer perfume and cosmetics — those items are not uncommon, not unusual for truckers along the way to turn a blind eye to that type of fraud. But yesterday it was baby formula. Nora, if there’s not a valid chain of custody from manufacturer to retailer, who knows what’s actually inside those containers? Could be anything.”
All the worry of a father with two baby boys and a sweet little girl at home pulsed through Hank’s tense body. Baby formula. I sank onto the pickup’s bumper.
“I held up the load,” Hank continued, “but I can only do that for a maximum of forty-eight hours or we’ll lose the contract and any chance of finding out who’s behind this.”
Something zinged past my head, felt rather than heard. Then more missiles, and the propane tanks started pinging.
I’ve spent enough time in the rough parts of San Francisco to know that sound.
I football tackled Hank around his middle and drove him to the ground. He didn’t need my help, though — he was already crumpling as I grabbed him.
I landed hard on my hands and knees in the gravel, straddling Hank. His face was gray under the tan, almost waxy.
“Nora—” he rasped.
Bullets scattered stones around us, and I flattened on top of him, hooking his head in the crook of my arm. Giant knobby tires spun across the parking lot, and I glimpsed an older Ford pickup, an oxidized red color, pulling a tight u-turn. The passenger hung out the window, gun raised, his last shots going wild. Then the truck roared away, ignoring the stop sign, headed west.
But one shot had found its mark. Hank’s shirt was soaked with blood.
I screamed for Etherea.
Hank’s breathing was ragged and shallow. His chest looked caved in under his bloody shirt, but he’s not a large man. There was only one hole, but I couldn’t tell how much damage — what had the bullet hit inside him?
His eyelids fluttered. “Nora—” he rasped again. “Sidonie—”
“I know,” I whispered, clutching his hand. What could I promise him that would give him comfort? What promise could I keep?
Etherea dropped to her knees beside me, and Bob pulled up behind her with a shotgun in his hands. Out here in rural May County, most residents were prepared to defend themselves because they couldn’t afford to wait for the law to arrive. This was especially true of the only business with a cash register for miles around.
Bob’s plaid shirt was off in an instant, and Etherea pressed the wad against the wound.
“Saw it happen,” wheezed Gus O’Malley, as he staggered up. “Did it go through?”
My brain was stuck in an endless replay loop, and I just stared at him. His face was red from the exertion of charging across the street and his bald head was shiny with sweat. He awkwardly dropped his three-hundred-pound frame to one knee and gently rolled Hank’s torso so he could peek underneath.
“Nope.” Gus was still wheezing. “That’s good.”
Gus is the postmaster and a mechanic, but he was also a Green Beret in his prime, and his solid, reassuring presence kicked my brain into gear. I stuck my hand in Hank’s right front jeans pocket and came out with his keys.
Bob dropped the tailgate on Hank’s truck, and they lifted Hank into the bed while I fished behind the bench seat in the cab for anything that could be used as padding. I came up with a stadium seat cushion with a tear in the vinyl and one filthy towel that looked as though it had been used to wipe off the windshield every dewy morning for the past decade.
“Nora, you drive,” Bob shouted as he clambered back up the stairs to the store, “but hang on a minute.”
He returned quickly with an armful of brand new Pendleton wool blankets and tossed them in the back. Then he joined Etherea in giving Gus a boost into the bed as well. It was a good thing Bob wasn’t wearing his shirt anymore or he would have popped all the buttons with the effort, but Gus scooted into position and started tucking the blankets around Hank. Bob slammed the tailgate closed.
“I’ll give you directions,” Etherea said as she yanked open the passenger door and joined me in the cab. “Be careful,” she hollered over her shoulder to Bob.
I wrangled the pickup into reverse then flung some gravel of my own as we shot out of the parking lot. I caught a glimpse of Bob in the side mirror, holding the shotgun diagonally across his chest, feet spread in a don’t-mess-with-me stance. What were the odds the red pickup would return?
No one had even thought about dialing 911 for an ambulance. There just wasn’t time to wait. Gus was the closest thing we had to a medic, and Etherea wasn’t far behind him. At least, I figured not since Sidonie had mentioned that Etherea had offered to help if the babies came too fast to make it to the hospital in time. But this wasn’t a birth with a healthy mother who’d done it once before. This was her husband with a bullet hole in his chest.
“Dear God,” I whispered, “what am I going to tell Sidonie?”
Etherea gave me terse instructions for where to turn and which lane to be in once we got to Woodland. I ran several yellow lights and slowed for a red one then eased through the intersection while laying on the horn. I kept hoping for flashing red and blue lights in my mirrors so we could get a police escort, but none materialized.
We barreled up the on-ramp to I-5 North and I risked a long look in the rearview mirror to check on Hank. I couldn’t see him — just blankets and the back of Gus’s bald head. He seemed to be cradling Hank, hunched over. It had to be windy and bitterly cold back there, exposed as they were.
I angled over to the fast lane and pressed the accelerator to the floor. The speedometer hovered around 80 — as fast as the old girl could go.
“Twenty miles,” Etherea muttered. “Hold on.” She gripped the edge of the seat with her callused hands as though by doing so she could also hold Hank’s body and soul together.
The distance passed in a blur that couldn’t go fast enough. Etherea nudged my arm and pointed to the sign for the next exit. I swerved back across the lanes and skidded onto the off-ramp. Then we had to endure slower city speeds and traffic for a few miles until the hospital sign came into view. I swung the pickup wide through the emergency entrance loop.
Gus barked orders at the scurrying medical staff. I guess the sight of a large, bald man in bloodied coveralls standing in the back of a beat-up pickup is enough to get anyone jumping to attention, especially when he used a voice like that. To me, he’d always been a gentle giant, but watching him orchestrate Hank’s removal from the pickup bed made me realize he had a sergeant’s command presence under the full gray beard and aw-shucks exterior.
I found a parking spot in the back forty and returned to the waiting room. Etherea sat in an upholstered armchair — part of a furniture grouping that was meant to look like the average suburban living room but placed in the middle of a large, echoing room full of suffering people, a flimsy sort of comfort. She had a phone pressed to her ear. Gus occupied the better part of a short faux leather sofa at a right angle to her. He patted the empty space beside him, and I dropped into it.
We garnered plenty of short, repeated stares, and even though the room was crowded, we were granted a generous, if invisible, privacy perimeter. Might have been because Gus and I were wearing enough blood that we appeared as though we were the ones in need of medical attention.
I buried my face in his shoulder. “How bad?”
Gus wrapped his arm around me. “Can’t speculate, punkin. He lost consciousness the last few miles. Lotsa blood, but maybe it looks like more than it is.” He pinched a fold in the formerly navy fabric of his coveralls — now a rich purple. His cheeks were red and chapped, his beard tangled from blowing in the wind.
“Did you recognize them?” I whispered.
Gus’s mustache indented where his mouth is, and I caught a glimpse of a pink lip. “Might have.”
Etherea dropped the phone in her lap with a heavy sigh. “Bob’s called the sheriff and roped off the parking lot until they arrive.” Her hazel eyes sought mine. “He also called out to Mayfield. Walt’s gonna go tell Sidonie and bring her in. Clarice volunteered to watch their little girl.”
I nodded my thanks and bit my lip. I ran Hank’s last words over and over in my mind. I didn’t want to forget a single one. This had something to do with Skip. I was sure of it. I couldn’t afford to hope that my missing husband was only an innocent party to a business deal gone bad. His track record didn’t support that kind of wishful thinking.
And if my husband was involved, then, by association, so was I.
Time stood still. A big, old-fashioned schoolhouse-style clock hung on the wall above the fake potted palms. The red second hand clicked forward, wavered for much longer than a real second, then clicked forward again. Why did it have to be red? All I could think about was Hank’s blood. And how much of it wasn’t in his body anymore.
They’d taken Hank straight into surgery, so he was in better hands than mine, which were clenched on my lap.
Walt finally arrived. He entered through the sliding glass doors, face pale under his reddish-gold stubble, his blue eyes like beacons. He acknowledged my glance with a nod and herded his charges — namely a weeping Sidonie and two baby carriers toward us.
I hated for Sidonie to see Gus and me the way we were — covered in Hank’s blood. But what she needed most was a hug, and I jumped up to put my arms around her.
Gus surrendered the sofa to us, and we sank into the cushions. I held her tight. “I will find out why — and who,” I whispered.
She squeezed my hand. “Be careful. I knew he was worried, but he wouldn’t tell me why. Something at the terminal. He’s a good man, Nora.”
“I know.” I choked on the words and for the first time realized how intense of a grudge I held against my husband. He’d hurt me, betrayed me, and I’d felt as though I could handle that, but this extension, the harm he caused, no matter how indirectly, to my friends, innocent people — I ground my teeth together.
Gus laid a warm hand on my shoulder. “We should be heading back.”
I jumped. “What? Why?”
“I’ll stay,” Etherea said. She was already cradling the twins in her arms. “The sheriff’ll want to talk to you two.” Her jaw was set in a firm line. “Witnesses.”
Sidonie squeezed my hand again and gave me a wavery smile. “Go. Hank’s strong. He’ll fight through.”
I hoped with every fiber of my being that she was right.
oOo
I sat in the middle because that’s the protocol when a woman and two men are riding in a pickup with a bench seat. My shoulders bumped back and forth between Walt’s and Gus’s as we rumbled down the road. I’d left the keys for Hank’s truck with Etherea and felt fidgety now that there was nothing for me to do — except worry. I hate sitting still when my mind’s racing.
I wished I hadn’t given the Gonzales family so much space after the birth of their twins. I’d just assumed they’d appreciate not being bothered because I’m that way myself, but maybe Hank would have felt more comfortable telling me about his concerns sooner if I’d been more present.
Unless he’d only recently come across the evidence of Skip’s participation in the business. His comments seemed to hint at that — like Hank had been working to put the pieces together and just come to some preliminary conclusions.
I’d spent the past few weeks helping Clarice explore and turn hospitable the derelict mansion we lived in — dusting, vacuuming, polishing and laundry, loads and loads of laundry. Everything about the place was industrial-sized since it was built as the main residence, dormitory-style, for a poor farm and also served time as a nursing home before being shuttered in the 1960s.
It had been a relief to lay low for a while, recover from my brief but terrifying kidnapping experience surrounded by only friendly faces without a drug cartel enforcer in sight. I should have known it was too good to last.
The FBI had promised me that they were watching all the known haunts of Giuseppe Ricardo Solano, otherwise known as Joe. Since no one with a badge had mentioned to me that he’d been spotted, I suspected he’d found a new place to hunker for a while. He’d successfully vanished — for the time being.
This morning’s incident felt different. Joe had sent me a disembodied finger as an early warning. Not exactly subtle. But a drive-by shooting? That was blatant. I’d gotten a good look at the shooter and a decent look at his driver. They didn’t seem concerned about being identified. Maybe they hadn’t counted on any witnesses surviving the assault.
But would Joe wait for a couple weeks and then send this kind of in-your-face message? No, it seemed much more likely that what happened today had been prompted more recently, and probably by Hank’s inquisitive digging through records.
“Punkin,” Gus broke into my thoughts, “don’t know what Hank was up to, but is there any chance the shooting was directed at you?”
It was only because of Gus’s efforts that I’d been found after the kidnapping. He seems to have a vested, strongly paternal interest in me now.
I gave him a weak smile and shrugged.
He grunted and resumed studying the green, tree-packed scenery. A brown sign that said ‘Now entering May County’ flashed by.
I could feel Walt watching me out of the corner of his eye. He probably had as many questions as Gus did but was even better at holding them in. What answers could I give them? I only had questions myself. I leaned into Walt’s shoulder a little bit more and left it at that.
