Grab & Go (Mayfield Cozy Mystery Book 2) (7 page)

CHAPTER 9

After a pitiful attempt at catching a few winks, I was on the road again. I wanted to get to the restaurant parking lot before Josh. Mainly in case I needed to hightail it out of there. I wasn’t expecting him to be a creep, but the whole situation gave me the jitters, probably because he, a former FBI agent, had sounded nervous on the phone. What makes a hardened law enforcement officer nervous? Unless it was his own conscience, I didn’t want to guess. And I wanted to see him before he saw me.

Dwayne’s map markings and advice had been spot on. But I needed to buy a warmer jacket. By the time I’d reached the Gonzales’s house on foot, my eyes and nose were streaming from the frosty air, and I couldn’t feel my ears, toes or fingers. Traipsing about in the frigid dark forest required better equipment than I currently owned. The way things were going, I needed to plan on more of the same.

This time, I decided to borrow Sidonie’s old, boxy Volvo. Variety is the spice of life. It’s also good not to set patterns in case anyone is watching. Our Snoopy consort hadn’t raised any objections to our pretense of neighborly concern last night, so I was hopeful that our side trip had slipped under their radar.

Clarice had strongly — vehemently — objected to my taking this venture solo. But the possibly tapped phones — my original one and Skip’s — were a problem. Someone had to monitor them for potential ransom calls, but they couldn’t leave the premises without arousing suspicion. Which meant she was stuck holding down the fort and the phones.

I probably should have given her more warning of my plans, but I’d wanted to keep the inevitable argument as short as possible. Disagreeing with Clarice is an exhausting undertaking. She’d eventually relented and sent me off with a shoulder bag stuffed with snacks and a thermos of coffee.

I’d left her something to stew on — one of the copies of Lee Gomes’ contact list. I’d handed it to her without comment. Her eyes had flicked back and forth over the pages, her mouth puckering into a tight knot, and she’d dropped heavily onto a kitchen chair.

When she did glance back up at me, her eyes were huge and worried behind her cat’s eye glasses. “Cinco and Nueve. And — and Freddy.”

When I’d found Skip’s extra bank accounts — the ones he’d allegedly used for money laundering — and the notebook in which he’d tallied how much money belonged to whom, Clarice and I had made a list of his top clients, the ones he still owed money to. We’d labeled them Numero Uno through Nueve since at the time we didn’t know their real names. We’d since identified a few of them, but their numbered monikers stuck in our minds.

Freddy Whelan was Skip’s lawyer and general counsel for his carwash business, Turbo-Tidy Clean, who had rather inconveniently never returned my calls after Skip was kidnapped.

I’d nodded. “Makes you wonder why Skip bought this place. Proximity? Did he offer this property rent-free, all expenses paid, for the boys’ camp as a charitable cover? It would fit with his push to fund the foundation I ran — placing emphasis on his honorable activities in order to hide the bad.”

“Now, you don’t know that for sure,” Clarice had warned.

“Patterns. I don’t like it.”

“I’ll do some research—” she’d waved her empty hand toward the ceiling, indicating the possibility of invisible listening ears. Then she’d crumpled the corner of the pages in her fist, a fierce scowl angling all her wrinkles horizontal.

The farther south I got, the more treacherous the driving conditions became. The air temperature must have been warming because what started as the tiniest specks of swirling snow turned into bouncing ice pellets. The thick, steel-gray clouds sank lower and squelched any hint of a sun rising behind them.

Twenty miles later those pellets became splatty, and ice chips slithered across the windshield on a film of water which the wipers struggled to keep up with. I clenched the steering wheel with aching hands and motored through. It felt exactly like what I was doing inside my own mind, too — motoring through, not lingering over the icy stabs of hypocrisy or worry or indecision. If I hesitated even for a moment, I was terrified I’d become paralyzed, as though my brain and body would seize up, rendering me ineffective.

I struggled with the urge to self-justify, that somehow the names on Lee Gomes’s contact list turned my conscripting of a minor, however willing he might have been, for a criminal activity into an acceptable endeavor. I gulped at what Walt would think of my ethical gymnastics.

In trying to fix Skip’s wrongs, I was becoming too much like him. I was counting on Josh to give me some answers, to clear the path I was supposed to take, even though I knew my conscience was no one’s burden but my own.

Hours passed in dreary monochrome grayness slashed with red taillight streaks and road spray. Just north of Canby, I slammed into a wall of precipitation.

The car in front of me spun with no warning. After two full rotations, a back tire hung up on the rumble strip, and the car shot into the ditch nose first. I was past the scene before I knew it, foot off the gas but still coasting too fast. The ditches on both sides of the three-lane freeway were littered with vehicles. Those still on the pavement slowed to a crawl, brake lights lit up like Christmas.

The Volvo’s radio antenna wobbled lopsidedly in the wind, coated with ice to three times its normal diameter. The wiper blades were icing up, sloughing cracked sheets of freezing rain off the glass. I turned the defroster to full blast and cranked the dial to its hottest setting.

A fire truck puttered by on the northbound center shoulder, lights flashing. Soon it was followed by an ambulance and another fire truck. I concentrated on not rear-ending the car in front of me. Following distance was suddenly of paramount importance. And no sudden movements — just letting the clunky old Volvo roll, keeping the steering wheel loose. The last thing I needed to do for the Gonzales family was wreck their car.

Southbound, the exits were numbered in descending order. I became fixated on the big green reflective signs announcing the upcoming towns and counting down to my destination. An Oregon map I’d found in the glove box lay open on the seat beside me. At ten miles per hour, I might not make it to the restaurant before Josh.

Then the small towns funneled into Salem, the capital, and the traffic speed increased. I hoped the other drivers knew what they were doing and went with the flow in the slow lane.

Exit 253. I eased onto the off-ramp, turned left on Highway 22 and stuck to that main route until I saw the sign for Shari’s. The hexagonal building sat in the close corner of a huge WinCo parking lot. Just like that — the easiest thing all day. I was grateful for Josh’s selection, and the banner strung over several of the restaurant’s windows, flapping in the cross breeze, announced fresh cream pies — banana, coconut, chocolate. My kind of place.

I backed into a space on the west edge of the lot so I had a wide-open view through the rain-streaked windshield. Josh didn’t know what kind of car I was driving. I tipped the seat back a bit, hunkered down, and grabbed the first composition book my hand landed on. A little light reading while I waited.

oOo

I ended up knitting on hat number fourteen while waiting for Josh. I just couldn’t concentrate on poetry and short fiction while contemplating how much of the truth I might want to share with a former FBI agent. Given his situation, maybe Josh and I had conscience struggles in common.

The black Accord arrived precisely at 10:00 a.m. and angled into a spot all alone on the south side of the lot. A tall, slim, dark-haired man in jeans and windbreaker climbed out of the driver’s seat and strode directly into the restaurant. He didn’t look around; he didn’t swerve for puddles. Hands in his jacket pockets, head down, as though he was completely focused on his own thoughts.

I exhaled and wound the loose yarn around the skein, reminding myself that Josh had requested this meeting. It didn’t make sense for my stomach to be jittery, but trying to apply logic to your internal organs is an effort in futility.

I creaked my stiff joints out of the Volvo and followed in Josh’s wake, slogging across the parking lot.

There were only a few patrons relaxing over coffee and breakfast remnants in the restaurant. Josh was already seated in a booth facing the door, and a pair of intense brown eyes regarded me over an open menu. No question — he’d known I was there the whole time.

I waved the hostess off with a weak smile, dropped my bag onto the bench seat across from Josh and slid in after it.

“You look exactly like your picture, except thinner,” he said.

Was I supposed to say thank you? I wasn’t sure it was a compliment. “What picture?” I asked instead.

“On Skip’s desk. Looked like it was taken up at Sutro Heights.”

I winced. I knew the one. The day after Skip had proposed, we’d played hooky from work and taken a long, leisurely walk through the park, stopping at every viewpoint, blissfully happy. At least I had been, and it showed in that photo. I wondered if the picture was still there.

“You’ve been in Turbo-Tidy Clean’s offices?” I asked.

Josh shrugged. “A few times.”

“In what capacity?”

Josh’s brows drew together, hooded over his eyes, giving his face the narrow, peaked look of a bird of prey — Gus would know which kind — falcon, eagle, hawk? Then he shrugged and glanced out the window. “Consultant.” His tone indicated it was a questionable label, not definitive.

“Let’s dispense with the veiled meanings,” I gritted out. “I don’t have all day. We might be able to help each other — or not. Why are you here?”

“Cognitive dissonance.”

At first I thought he was being flippant. But maybe that was the technical, law-enforcement term for when things don’t add up. If it was, then I had it too.

“Explain,” I said. “Talk until you don’t feel comfortable talking any more. Then I’ll do the same. We’ll see where we end up.”

Josh actually grinned at me a little and nodded. “Now I know why Skip liked you.”

A waitress bumped her hip into the end of the table and leaned there, breathing through her open mouth, pen poised over her order pad, one eye squinted in lieu of a greeting. I thought about asking about the special of the day to see if she could pantomime that too, but instead I ordered blueberry French toast. Josh doubled the order. She flipped our mugs over and splashed coffee into them before strolling away.

“First,” I said, “how long have you known Skip?”

“We were roommates for a couple years while we were at UC Davis.”

I had to set my mug down to keep from spilling it. “Mechanical engineering?”

Josh shook his head. “That was Skip’s thing. I majored in psychology.”

I leaned back and crossed my arms over my chest. Their friendship, acquaintance — whatever it was — was longstanding. Skip had been an older college student, taking classes at a rate he could afford. I guessed there was at least a five-year age difference between them.

Josh studied his fingers as he pressed the tips together, forming a hollow sphere with his hands. “Went our separate ways after I graduated. Skip was still chugging along, you know, in that steady way of his. I got bored with the options available to me with a psychology degree, so I applied to the FBI. Got in, worked at a couple lousy postings until a spot in the San Francisco office opened up. Skip called me on my third day downtown.” Josh shook his head. “It was like he knew, had been following my career or something.”

I did a quick mental calculation of the timeline and guessed that this renewal of their friendship occurred before I started working for Skip, certainly well before my photo showed up on Skip’s desk. “What did he want?”

“To pick my brain. Boy, was he curious.”

I flexed my hands under the table, trying to distract myself from expressing frustration. I opted for silence — long and uncomfortable — because my attempt at verbal prompting sure wasn’t effective at speeding up the pace of Josh’s forthcomingness.

He opened his mouth, caught sight of the waitress arriving with our plates stacked on her arm, and closed his mouth again. I was no longer hungry, but eating was something to do. I tucked in.

Josh impaled a row of blueberries on the tines of his fork then left them to marinate in a puddle of syrup.

I made it about halfway through the sticky, fruity conglomeration before my stomach started cramping. I shoved the plate away and switched to twisting a paper napkin to shreds in my lap.

Josh had been fiddling with a sugar packet. It started leaking white granules all over the Formica tabletop, and he brushed them onto the floor. “Okay, look. I didn’t figure it out for a while, why Skip was so fascinated with organized crime figures. I thought it was some sort of morbid curiosity, and I indulged him, shared details, had a few laughs with him at some of their ingenious antics. But he kept pressing me — names, locations, preferred forms of money-making vice. He was so appreciative, though, made me feel — I don’t know — important. We all have this complex, you know — FBI agents. White knights, guard dogs protecting the sheep, hacking off the many heads of the criminal serpent, whatever. It’s not something you can talk about with just anybody, and that often includes your spouse and close family. It’s nice to be appreciated.”