The Rented Mule (25 page)

“That’s what I thought, so I’ve been workin’ on some protections myself. They ain’t as high-tech as yours, but they work.”

“No shit? So whatcha got, some strings with cans tied on the ends?”

Maynard set his beer on the counter. He needed his hands to talk. In that respect, he was like a Southern preacher, handcuffing him would be the same as putting a gag in his mouth. “Well… I found some boards in the barn, and I drove a bunch of rusty nails through ’em, so they all stick out on one side, and I placed ’em under all the windows. Sharp side up.”

“You thought of that?”

“Seen it in a movie. Somebody sneaks up on us and tries to look in the windows… we’ll hear ’em scream… and we’ll find ’em stuck to a board.”

“I hope we ain’t gotta jump out the windows.”

“Iffin you gotta, jump as far as you can,” Maynard said flatly, after taking a big swallow of beer.

“You better tell everyone about them boards, ’cause I don’t think Mad Dog has any tetanus shots in his medical kit,” Jesse Ray suggested as he watched Jenny bound through the back door. “Where you been, girl?”

“I was lookin’ around in the barn. Somebody is visiting the place pretty regularly.”

“Shit, I can’t imagine why? This freakin’ place is spooky.”

“Well, there are fresh footprints around the barn, and they’re too small to be Maynard’s.”

“I don’t like this place… I got bad vibes.” Jesse Ray shook his head.

“Well, this gig will go to hell if somebody shows up. They might be making meth and that
really
ain’t good.” Jenny continued explaining, “Meth heads are bat-shit crazy. You can’t predict a thing about their behavior.”

“I feel ya. I’ll go put up some cameras and ground sensors. Come on, Maynard. Grab my toolbox and that extension cord.”

Maynard did as directed, and the two men started out the back door.

As their voices slowly drifted away, the door to Clarence’s room eased opened. A moment later, he hobbled out wearing black boxers and a white T-shirt.

“You look like hell,” Jenny said, reaching into the refrigerator for a bottle of water.

Clarence strained to reply, “I feel like it.” He grimaced in pain and stretched to sit down in a chair in front of Maynard’s entertainment center. Jesse Ray had set up a satellite television dish that picked up every station except local channels. Maynard had found a black-and-white television in a closet upstairs and added aluminum foil to the rabbit ears, allowing the NBC and Fox affiliates from Montgomery to come in, albeit fuzzy.

Jenny held the cold bottle to her forehead. The old plantation house was hot inside despite fans running in every room. The AC window unit in the den had not stopped running since they arrived—only suggesting the air was conditioned.

Clarence groaned again and then said, “Jenny?”

She knew he was serious about something. He rarely called her just plain Jenny. “Yeah?”

“I think you need to take me to the hospital. I got a kidney stone.”

“Oh shit. Are you serious?”

“Yeah… I’m hurtin’… and I’ve been pukin’.”

“Okay. There’s a hospital just two exits down from Vaughn Road Park.”

“I hate it… but I’m really hurtin’. Tell the boys. We’ll sedate the girl again, and then you and I can go.”

“You got insurance?” Jenny asked trying to think ahead.

“Yeah, but I don’t wanna use it. I don’t want any record of me being up here. I got cash,” he answered in a strained voice, “and even if I didn’t, they gotta help.”

P
iper came dancing into the house, white wires hanging from her ears. She had her iPod in one hand and a travel bag in the other. Cooper and Donna met her in the foyer. Cooper and Piper hugged briefly, and before Piper had a chance to say anything to her aunt, Cooper asked if she knew where her mother might be.

Piper looked at him in a strange way, and then at Donna and shook her head. “What’s wrong?” she asked, dropping her designer bag.

“We don’t know, babe. Nobody has seen her today. She wasn’t here when we got home.”

Cooper and Donna glanced quickly at each other. A wave of fear shot through his body. He uncrossed his arms to rub his unshaven face. He needed to call the police. He dreaded it. It was acknowledgment of what was going on and what it might mean.

“Go unpack your bags, and put away your clothes,” Cooper gently instructed. He needed to keep her busy while he called the police.

“Yes, sir,” she replied, recognizing the serious tone of his voice.

Cooper watched her run up the stairs. He turned and made eye contact with Donna. He let out a deep breath.

“You need to call, Coop. She may have been in an accident. Do you know anybody on the force?”

“I met a policeman at the Lions Club a year ago… what was his name?” he replied, rubbing his forehead. “I don’t know. I’ll just call.”

“Tell them what’s going on. They’ll know what to do.”

Cooper nervously walked into the kitchen and picked up the telephone. He hesitated, almost dialing 911 before he realized what he was doing. He had never called the police before. Searching the phone book, he found the number.

Donna sat down at the kitchen table, watching Cooper dial the number and wait for an answer.

“Yes, ma’am. My name’s Cooper Dixon. I… uh… I live here in Montgomery, and my wife is missing.”

“How long has she been missing, sir?”

“Well, I don’t really know… I just realized it this morning, but something could of happened last night.”

“Sir, normally we can’t do anything until twenty-four hours has passed. Would it be safe to say that she has been missing that long?” the officer asked.

“I really don’t know… I was also wondering if maybe there was a way to check with the hospitals and see… if maybe… you know, she was in an accident.”

“Yes, sir, we can do that. Let me get some information from you, and I will dispatch a unit to your house to gather additional details.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“No problem, sir,” she responded professionally. “Now, let me ask you a few questions.”

Cooper sat down at the table across from Donna and answered the police officer’s questions.

C
larence rode in the front passenger’s seat of his Escalade, with the seat fully reclined. In his hands was a plastic trash bag in case he needed to throw up again. The big man writhed in pain and grunted in agony each time Jenny hit a bump.

Jenny asked, “So how many of these stone things have you had?”

As she drove, she blindly searched her purse for a cigarette.

“Too many… three for sure. My pops had ’em too. It runs in the family. Damn girl! Are you trying to hit
every
pothole in the road? ’Cause I think you missed one back there.”

Jenny ignored his sarcasm. “Are you worried about giving the hospital your name? Establishing that we were here?”

“I’m not. I’m gonna give ’em a fake name and address and say that I don’t have any ID because I lost my wallet at the Auburn game. I’ll pay with cash.”

“I dunno.”

Jenny cracked her window and then lit a cigarette.

“Everythin’ gonna be fine. I’m positive. When did ya start smokin’?”

“I only do it when I get nervous,” she said through tight lips, taking a drag. “Do you think you’ll have to spend the night?” She blew smoke out the window and then reached over to adjust the radio to find a local news broadcast.

“Did you hear if State won yesterday?” Clarence asked.

“Yep, they did. Gates was pissed ’cause he bet against ’em.”

“That’s my boys.”

Clarence tried to vomit but couldn’t. Jenny lowered the air-conditioning thermostat and turned the blower to high. She sped up just perceptibly and blew another stream of smoke toward the cracked window.

“I shouldn’t have to spend the night. I just need some heavy-duty-no-shit painkillers, and I’ll be okay. Don’t worry, everything’s gonna be fine… once they drug my big ass,” he groaned. “I just gotta get some relief… quick.”

Jenny didn’t believe that a simple prescription was going to solve his problems. He looked horrible and was obviously in a great deal of pain. Jesse Ray and Maynard being left unsupervised added to her stress level.
Nothin’ about this job’s goin’ smoothly
, she thought.

They drove in silence the rest of the way to Jackson Hospital’s Emergency Room, right off I-85 at the second exit. A wiry black orderly spotted Jenny trying to get Clarence to his feet and rushed a wheelchair out to them.

“Thanks, man,” Clarence mumbled as he placed his feet on the footrests.

As the electric doors opened, a heavyset, older black nurse, who appeared to be in charge, glanced up to assess the new arrival. There were dozens of patients awaiting treatment.

“Well, shugga, either you’re having a heart attack or a kidney stone… which is it?”

“Stones, he thinks,” Jenny replied politely.

The nurse looked at Jenny for a long moment. “Let me get you some forms to fill out… your wife can do it while I take you on back.”

Jenny almost shot back that she wasn’t his wife but realized things might go smoother if she played along. She had to get Clarence in and out with as little commotion as possible. “Yes, ma’am. Just tell me what I need to do,” she offered.

The nurse handed Jenny a clipboard thick with papers. Pointing at another nurse behind the desk, she instructed Jenny to ask her for any help if she needed it.

A buzzer sounded, and the orderly rolled Clarence through a door. Jenny knew she could not completely fill out all the information, so she took an open seat and then looked around the waiting room. There was a kid with a fresh cast on his arm; his parents and a doctor were talking. An older man read a newspaper. There were several sick kids with parents. A shirtless guy had a hand wrapped in a blood-soaked T-shirt, trying to fill out paperwork. An ambulance slowly backed into the unloading area, its red lights flashing. A white female orderly anxiously waited.
I hate hospitals,
thought Jenny.
I wonder how long we’ll be here.
She felt exposed and trapped.

When the patient from the ambulance distracted everyone, Jenny slipped through the previously locked internal door to search for Clarence. The only treatment room she couldn’t see in was divided into two areas, separated by a curtain. “Clarence? Where are you? Are you decent?”

“Yeah… come on in. I can’t get comfortable,” he groaned.

“I need to ask you some questions to get these forms filled out,” she said quietly as she pushed back the curtain. “That gown looks… well, let’s just say there’s more you than there’s gown.”

“I don’t care. I’m hurtin’,” he said, rolling onto his side, trying to get comfortable.

Jenny spent the next few minutes asking Clarence questions and filling in his responses. When she finally had as much completed as she could, she left to turn in the paperwork.

“He’s really hurtin’,” she said, handing the paperwork to the head nurse.

“We’ll get to him shortly. A gunshot victim just arrived.”

Nodding as if she totally understood, Jenny left the forms and walked outside to have a smoke.
I guess a gunshot wound did trump a kidney stone,
she thought.

Her lighter glowed briefly as she took a long, deep drag, lighting her cigarette.
I sure as hell hope this doesn’t get us caught!

They were way off script. She thought about everything from Gates to Maynard to how bad she needed the money from this job. Between drags she unconsciously folded her arms tightly across her chest. A few minutes later, invigorated by the nicotine, she snuffed out the cigarette in the grass and walked back inside.

She slipped into the exam room area again, and as she turned the corner heading for Clarence’s room, she saw him leaning against the nurses’ station counter, his gown hanging at an oblique angle from around his
neck
, the only part of his body actually covered by the gown. The nurses didn’t seem to notice that he was bare-ass naked. When the waiting room door opened, the people there could clearly see Clarence’s entire backside. For those who hadn’t just witnessed a head-on collision, their facial expressions looked as though they had.

“Clarence! Clarence!” Jenny called under her breath as she scrambled to cover him.

“I ain’t movin’, and I don’t care what anybody sees,” he mumbled. “This is the first time in days that I ain’t been hurtin’.”

“Honey, if he’s comfortable, let him stay, we’ve seen it all. We don’t care,” an older nurse said absently.

Jenny looked at Clarence’s big butt sticking out in the hallway, aimed straight at the waiting room and sheepishly asked, “Well, can we at least get a bedsheet to cover him?”

The nurse looked up over her bifocals at Jenny and then past her out into the waiting room, where she saw several people staring straight at Clarence’s ass. She chuckled and then said, “Yeah… sure thing, sweetie.”

MONDAY—DAY 2

C
ooper didn’t sleep a wink all Sunday night. He paced the house and watched the driveway, hoping Kelly would pull up. By six on Monday morning he was a total wreck. As seven approached, he realized that he had to put on a brave face for the kids. The police promised to have an officer over first thing that morning to open up a full-scale investigation. He welcomed the idea of the kids being at school instead of having them listen to his conversation with the police. At least at this point the kids didn’t know enough to be upset.

He wondered what he needed to do to get Piper and Ben ready. Kelly always took care of the school details. When they came downstairs, each bombarded him with questions that he tried to answer, but really couldn’t. However it happened, they seemed satisfied with his explanations. The carpool had them out of the house by 7:40 a.m. He hoped they had everything they were supposed to have. He had given them each a wad of cash with instructions to buy whatever they needed.

At eight, Cooper called the office to inform them that he wouldn’t be in today. As expected, that opened up a round of questions that he diverted. He tried to end his conversation with Mrs. Riley by saying, “I’ll check in periodically, and please tell Gates to call me when he gets in.”