Marja McGraw - Bogey Man 02 - Bogey's Ace in the Hole (6 page)

“And it could have been yours,” Chris said.  “One wrong move and we could be at the coroner’s office identifying
your
remains.”

“Chris!” I said sharply.

The Church Ladies sucked in their breath, collectively.

“Poor Vic, whoever he is,” Addie said, placing her hands on her
flushed cheeks and leaning forward.

Chapter Eight

“Excuse us, please,” Jasmine said.  “We need to do some heavy duty praying, and we need some privacy.”

Before they could leave the table, a waitress walked over to talk to us.  It wasn’t the one who’d waited on us when we sat down.

“I see your friends finally showed up.  Are you feeling better now?”

Addie smiled sweetly at her.  “I certainly am, and bless your heart for asking.”

The ladies left the table and walked outside, but the waitress lingered, watching them walk away.

“If that was my mother,” she said, “I’d have the doctor check her over.  She was telling us the wildest story about someone trying to kill someone else and hiding in a camper so she could follow a man.  My grandmother lost her mind toward the end, and she used to make up some whoppers, too.  Old people just haven’t got much sense.”

Our waitress
had walked up and listened, nodding her head in agreement.  “Not one lick of sense.  Getting old is a terrible thing.  Senility must be setting in.”

“Sorry to burst your bubble,” Chris said, “but she wasn’t making up a story. 
In fact, she’s probably saner than you two.  And she isn’t our mother, but if she was I’d be proud of her.”  I was surprised to hear him sticking up for Addie.  I knew the Church Ladies were getting on every one of his nerves.

“Is that our check?” I asked, glancing at our waitress’s hand.
  I had a feeling it might be a good time to take a hike.

“Oh, yes.”  She handed it to Chris.

He pulled out his wallet and counted out some money.  Slapping the check and cash on the table, he walked out of the restaurant without another word.  This was a side of Chris I very seldom saw.

“Ladies,” I said, working my way out of the booth, “
there’s a lesson to be learned here.  Never talk about one customer to another customer, and never cross the Bogey Man.  He may have a lot of bad habits, but loyalty is most certainly one of his best traits.”  I followed Chris out the door with the two women’s voices buzzing behind me.

“Sometimes you surprise me, Chris.  What made you stick up for Addie?  I mean, you could have just let it go.”

He shook his head.  “Just because she’s old doesn’t mean she’s lame-brained.  Someday those women are going to be old, too.  I hope someone talks nicer about them than they did about Addie.”

I slipped my arm through his and we strolled toward the Chevy.  The ladies were standing behind
it, heads bowed, saying a prayer for Vic, whoever he was.  Chris and I waited in the car.

The ride home felt shorter than the one we’d taken to go pick up Addie.  There was just enough room in the old Chevy for the six of us.  Addie sat in front, between Chris and me, and before too much time passed she nodded off.  She’d been through quite a lot in the past twenty-four hours.

The other three ladies sat in the back and talked in hushed tones.

“Why do you think she really climbed into the back of that camper?” Chris asked.

“I think she was absolutely honest with us.  I think she felt that someone needed help and it was her obligation to be the helper.”

“You mean like a Good Samaritan?”

“Something like that.  These women
are
pushy, and they want everyone to become a believer like they are.  Their intentions are good.  But whether they get on a person’s nerves or not, they’re always there if someone needs them.  And I’ve never heard them complain about helping out – not even once.”

Chris smiled.  “You actually remind me a little of them,
cupcake.”

“Yeah, like I never complain about anyone or anything.”

“Not very often.”

When Addie woke up, we talked to her about staying at Jasmine’s house until the thin thug with a
droopy mustache could be located.  It took some fast talking, but we finally convinced her.  We drove by her house and while she put some things together, Chris and I walked over to Elsie’s to let her know we’d found Addie.  We also wanted to let her know that Addie would be gone for a few days.

Chris knocked on the door and it opened an inch, just like the night before when I’d approached her, but there was something different this time.  She looked Chris up and down, slammed the door
, pulled off the chain, and opened it wide.

“Well!  I never,” she said.  “Look at you.  If I didn’t know better I’d think Mr. Humphrey Bogart hisself was visiting me today.
”

She briefly glanced at me.

“Hey, Pamela.  Who’s this hunka man?”

I laughed.  “Elsie, this is my husband, Chris Cross.  I call him the Bogey Man, and obviously you can see why.”

“Come on in,” she said, taking Chris’s arm and pulling him inside.

I could see by Chris’s face that he didn’t know what to make of the little gnome-like woman.

Elsie glanced over her shoulder, looking at me.  “You come on in, too.”

I followed Chris and Elsie inside and took a seat on the couch.  Chris sat next to me and Elsie sat on his other side.

“Isn’t this cozy,” she said.  “What can I do for you today?  I saw you walking Addie to her door, so I know you found her.  Where’s she been?”

“In the back of th
e camper you told me about,” I said.

“She’s going to stay with Jasmine for a few days,” Chris said.  “If I leave you our phone number, would you call us if that stranger comes back?”

“I will, but no matter how much you look like Humphrey, you sure don’t sound like him.”  Elsie sounded disappointed, and I knew that’s all it would take for the Bogey Man to put in an appearance.

“Listen,
dollface, we gotta get the goods on this goon.  It sounds like maybe he’s been hired to turn some Good Joe into buzzard bait.  We gotta find him first and make sure he goes to the slammer.”

Elsie smiled.  “Well, I’m the dame for this job.  They don’t call me Ol’ Eagle Eye for nothin’,
buster.  If he shows his schnoz around here again, I’ll use my wooden nickel to pick up the phone and…  And…  Aw, shoot!  I can’t think of something snazzy to say about calling you.”

Chris turned to me.  “Say,
angel, this cupcake is aces with me.”

“Okay, you two,” I said.  “Elsie, if he shows his face around here you’ll call us.  Right?  You won’t try to talk to him or anything?  Right?”

“Okay, if that’s all you’ll let me do.”  She didn’t
really
sound disappointed about being told not to confront him.

Chris wrote down our phone number and handed it to her, and she walked us to the door.

“Now, Bogey, don’t let those loony women talk you into anything crazy – like going to church or something.  They’ll do their best, you know.”

“Hey, wait a minute,” I said.  “
I
go to church.  Does that mean I’m crazy, too?”

Elsie knew I was joking with her.  “
Not now, but wait ‘til you’re
their
age and then we’ll take another look.”  She glanced at the floor before looking back at me.  “No, they’re not really all that bad.  I just like to give them a hard time.  I’m as harmless as they are, and it brightens my day to pick on them.  I actually kind of like them, truth be told.  Don’t you dare tell them I said that though.”

Chris
nodded his head.  “Yep, I like you, Duchess.”

Jasmine was helping Addie with
her suitcase when we walked back to the car.  Chris took it out of Jasmine’s grasp and opened the trunk, gently laying it inside and closing the lid.

We drove back to our house where Jasmine picked up her car, and the Church Ladies left.

I glanced at my watch.  “It’s after three o’clock.  We need to go pick up Mikey.”

Chris nodded.

We’d called Phyllis while we were on the road, our Marilyn Monroe look-alike waitress, and asked her to open the restaurant if we weren’t there in time.  It meant going in a little early to set things up, but she didn’t mind.  It also meant overtime to her.

I hurriedly changed into my forties clothing, this time opting for a simple blue day dress with buttons down the front and puffed sleeves.  With time in mind, I wore my hair down instead of taking the time to style it.

“Let’s take Sherlock and Watson with us.  Maybe they’ll distract Mikey.  If I know my son, he’s going to ask questions.  I don’t think he quite believed the story we gave him.”

Chris walked through the house and picked up the dogs’ leas
hes while I waited in the backyard.  The Labs were
very
happy to see us and it took a few minutes for them to calm down.  Then I made the mistake of saying, “Let’s go bye-bye,” and we had to calm them down all over again.  I’d found that
sit
and
down
are good commands to distract them.  We were on the road within ten minutes, even with all the excitement.

When we arrived at Constance’s house, Mikey needed distracting, too.  He’d been waiting for us with questions.  Chris took him outside with the dogs while I talked to my friend.

“As soon as you and Chris left, he started asking me what was really going on.  He didn’t believe your cover story for a New York minute.”

“I’ve always wondered,” I said.  “What’s a New York minute?”

“I think it has something to do with New York being so busy and people being impatient.  Anyway, it means less than a real minute.  You’re stalling, aren’t you?  What did you find out?”

“Well, it seems that Addie overheard two men talking about bumping somebody off.  One of the men realized she was listening and he followed her home and threatened her.  She decided it was her Christian duty to jump in his camper and find out where he was going.”

“Is that the story-in-a-nutshell version?”

“It is.  We have a first name and an address
for the possible victim, and we’re going to check it out after I go to church tomorrow.”

“What if your killer decides to do the deed tonight?” Constance asked.

“He was headed in the other direction, toward Las Vegas, so we don’t think the victim is in immediate danger.  I know we’re taking a chance, but we don’t know what else to do.  The police won’t listen because there’s no real evidence of an impending crime.  Right now it’s all hearsay.”

“Janet Riley would listen to you, and she’s a
homicide detective.”

“I already talked to Janet.  She’s the one who told me there’s not enough to go on.  Of course, when I talked to her we didn’t have an address or a name.  If we can come up with something concrete, I’ll call her again.”

“I knew there was something going on,” Mikey said from the doorway.

“Where’s your father?” I asked, cringing.  I didn’t want
him to know we were working on something again.

“He’s checking the plumbing,” Mikey replied.  “You were trying to keep me in the dark again, weren’t you?”

“Oh, Mikey,” Constance said, smiling.  “You’re way too smart for a seven-year-old.  Where do you come up with this stuff?  Checking the plumbing?”

“
He’s in the bathroom.  I’m like my mom, and she’s smart.  Besides, I’m seven and a half now, almost eight.”

“Why, thank you, son,” I said,
smiling and hoping to distract him again.  “You think I’m smart?”

“Yes,
Mom, but not smart enough.  What’d you say about somebody getting bumped off?”

“How much did you hear?” I asked.

“Enough to know you and dad are on another case, and that’s enough for me.  Who’s your customer this time?”

“Our
client
, if you can call her that, is a woman named Addie.  She’s one of the Church Ladies.”

“
The Church Ladies?
  Bye, Mom.  I’m going back out to see the dogs.”  He turned and ran out the door.

“Oh, for goodness sake!  They’re not
that
bad,” I called after him.

Constance laughed.  “Yes, they are.”

Mikey accompanied us to the restaurant that night, along with the dogs.  He didn’t ask any more questions about our so-called case.

Chapter Nine

Sunday morning Mikey and I got up early to get ready for church.  I was preparing a big
breakfast when Chris came downstairs, wearing a nice pair of tan slacks and a blue dress shirt.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

He mumbled something that I didn’t quite catch.