The Rented Mule (34 page)

“Yes, sir, I understand. I’ll call you in a few minutes.”

“And Cooper, listen to me, they are
crucifyin’
you.”

“I’ve seen some of it. That’s why I need you and need to be free, so I can fix this.” Cooper broke the connection but, ignoring the risks, left the phone on for a few more minutes, hoping for a response to his text.

T
he key rattling in the padlock woke Kelly. She knew that they were coming down to administer more drugs. She had the port pulled out again and prayed that this time it worked. They never suspected she was responsible for the other times it was loose. The mental fog was still thick, and her muscles ached from inactivity. The cool, musty air of the cellar now had undertones of human waste.

Her captors had not hurt her and had, in fact, worked to ensure that she was well cared for. Whenever possible, she attempted to talk to them, but they never answered her questions. The more she asked, the faster they worked to put her back under. No one ever made eye contact.

A skinny white man sauntered down the basement steps wearing a Sammy Davis Jr. mask. This was the first time she had seen this guy, and she began shaking. She was humiliated, her spirit almost broken. Being tied up for days, uncertain of her future, and thinking of Cooper, her children, and her life had taken a significant toll.

Sammy Davis Jr. stood at the bottom of the stairs, looking around the room and finally at Kelly, making eye contact.

“Please help me… please,” she begged with fear in her voice and tears in her eyes.

“Are you hurt?”

Kelly sobbed and nodded her head. “Yes, and I wanna go home. I have kids. Please.”

Maynard took a step toward her and quickly glanced up at the top of the stairs.

“Why are you doin’ this?” she asked.

“Money,” he whispered back.

Kelly tried to understand.
Money? What money?

She said, “Please help me. I’ll die if I keep lying here. I’ll pay you if you help me.”

Maynard carefully watched her eyes, studying the depths of her suffering.

She continued in a soft voice, “Is my husband doing this?”

Maynard looked intently at her. He knew that she wouldn’t be hurt with his cousin’s crew—they weren’t murderers or rapists—but he didn’t know the Client’s intentions. Maynard could steal and sell anything without remorse, but seeing this helpless woman bothered him, the tug of conscience getting stronger the longer he was with her.
My momma raised me better than this.

Maynard began thinking through potential scenarios of how he could help her. He noticed her necklace with a small, shiny aluminum duck band hanging on it. Maynard hunted ducks when he lived in Arkansas and immediately recognized it as a rare and highly prized Jack Miner band.

“Whereja get this?” he asked, reading the short Bible verse inscribed on it,
Have faith in me
.

“My husband shot the duck and told me the story about this missionary from Canada who bands wild ducks. I loved the story,” she whispered, frustrated to be talking about duck hunting, but realized that she was making a personal connection with one of her abductors, which couldn’t hurt.

“I’ve only heard of these, and I’ve seen dozens of federal duck bands, but this is a real honest-to-goodness Jack Miner,” Maynard reverently responded as he held it.

“Help me get out of here, and you can have it,” Kelly offered with hope in her eyes.

“No, no, I don’t want it… it’s yours… it’s special. Your husband must love you very much to give it to you. Most guys would keep it and show it off on their call lanyard. Believe me, I know. I’m a duck hunter.”

“Please, I have a family,” she begged. “Help me.”

“Where you from?” Maynard asked quietly.

“I grew up in Union Springs.”

Maynard’s eyes grew wide. “Who’s your daddy?” he spat out, surprised.

She told him.

“No shit!”

Maynard knew her father. He had worked for him at Bonnie Plant Farm until they caught Maynard growing marijuana in the corner of a greenhouse. Kelly’s father did not have him arrested, and Maynard knew that he could have. Maynard owed him.

Kelly said, “Small world, isn’t it?”

Her eyes had hope in them as she watched her captor processing this information. She watched him pick up a syringe of drugs and then squeeze it out onto the floor. He looked at her and then walked over beside the cot. He quickly glanced up the stairs to see if anyone was coming down or standing
and listening. He turned to her and whispered, “I’m gonna help you get outta here tomorrow. You can trust me. Okay? Nod if you understand.”

Kelly emphatically nodded her head.

“Here, drink some Gatorade. No more drugs. But you gotta promise to be quiet. If someone else checks on you, you gotta act drugged and asleep. I’ll do my best to make sure I draw the straw to treat ya next time. We’re leavin’ tomorrow… and I’ll think of something. Okay?”

“Tell me the truth, is my husband responsible for this, and where are we? Tell me, please,” she whispered.

“We’re ’bout an hour north of Montgomery, and all I know is that somebody really wants to destroy your husband, and they want you to think he’s responsible for all this,” Maynard explained and inserted a teeth-whitening strip to soothe his frayed nerves.

Kelly’s mind was sluggish from the effects of the powerful sedatives she had been receiving for several days.
Someone wants to hurt Cooper?
She started shaking and crying. After a moment she quietly asked, “Is my husband all right?”

“Don’t know. The cops can’t find him.”

“Oh God!” She whimpered and started crying.

“Shh… be quiet. You gotta be quiet, or I can’t help ya. Look, you gotta trust me and don’t do anything crazy, or you’re on your own.”

Maynard looked toward the top of the stairs again and then leaned down to her ear and asked, “What’s your husband’s cell phone number?”

Kelly whispered it to him. Her eyes reflected an odd combination of fear and hope. Maynard swallowed hard and then put a finger to the plastic lips of his mask to signify silence. She nodded her understanding and then closed her eyes, saying a silent prayer of thanksgiving.

When Sammy Davis Jr. went upstairs, she lay still and tried to think of who would want to hurt Cooper so much that they would go to this extent.

B
y late afternoon, Cooper had endured the toughest day of the ordeal—each was actually getting more difficult than the day before.

Earlier, at 12:27 p.m., Cooper received another text from the captor, explaining that Cooper wasn’t allowed to ask any questions and that this person had “ALL the answers.” Cooper sent several replies. Not one was answered. He was enraged and frustrated.

Cooper sent Millie to discreetly talk to Donna, his family, and especially the kids, to try calming their fears about his absence. He knew they all had to be worried sick and confused.

At Millie’s, Cooper watched one of Kelly’s uncles, who Cooper hadn’t seen in a dozen years, claim on CNN that none of this surprised him. He said that he always suspected Cooper was capable of anything.

Cooper’s midafternoon conversation with James Longstreet revealed that Gates had been arrested on charges of illegal gambling and possession of a controlled substance.
According to Longstreet, who had contacts inside the FBI feeding him information, Gates was singing like a bird to avoid prosecution and was asking for protective custody. He also learned that Gates believed his gambling debts were responsible for Kelly’s disappearance.

“Gates is responsible?!” Cooper asked, stunned by this turn of events.

“Apparently. The Alabama Bureau of Investigations and the FBI have been watching Gates’s bookie and wiretapping his telephone and office conversations for months. They arrested everyone involved a short time ago. When asked a question about the bookie, Gates started talking and wouldn’t shut up. Turns out, handcuffs were a real buzzkill for your boy Gates.”

“Good grief,” Cooper replied, staring out the windshield. “Get to the part about Kelly!”

“When they busted into his office, he was in the middle of a line of coke. That may have encouraged his mouth to outrun his brain,” James Longstreet replied incredulously.

“I’m gonna kill him!”

“Remember what I told you when you wanted to enter this partnership?”

Cooper sighed audibly.

James Longstreet continued without waiting for a response, “You only need a partner if you have a bucket of shit to eat.”

“Look, I really don’t need a lecture right now. I need to know about Gates!”

“Okay. The bad news is that the cops aren’t puttin’ much stock into what Gates is saying because of what they discovered in your office. They still think you’re their man. Apparently, Obermeyer lost his composure when he found out I’m your attorney. He wants you bad. I mean real bad.
Pressure is coming down hard on him from high above. Anyway, the good news is that they’re checking into Gates’s story because there’s a taped conversation about screwing you out of your interest in the Tower Agency so that when it’s sold Gates would use that money to pay down his gambling debts. This is all good. It’s ammunition for us.”

“It’s unfreakin’ believable is what it is!”

“They’re about to put Gates’s bookie through the ringer to see what comes out. The FBI’s going to interrogate him.”

“I can’t believe this. Gates has been my partner and friend for years.”

“Cooper, he’s basically broke, and his family quit supporting him financially. I don’t think that they are going to make bail for him either,” James Longstreet explained.

“He’s always had money issues.”

“It’s more than that. Gates got cut off from any family money months ago, and with the sale of your business pending, he had to quit milking the agency too. But he never stopped gambling or drugging or anything.”

“So how does Kelly’s kidnappin’ help him? I don’t have big money, and they’ve not even asked for money yet.” Cooper paused a moment, trying to think. “I’m gonna kill Gates myself.”

“Whoa, son. Just hang loose for a little while, let me get some answers. I’m working on some theories, and the Feds are about to put the heat to these boys.”

“What about this son of a bitch who’s been textin’ me?”

“No word yet. I have people on it though. Please try to calm down. We’ll get this straightened out.”

“Calm down?! The cops are after me. The media’s rippin’ me a new one. I’m worried sick about Kelly. My kids are freakin’ out, being told by folks on national TV that I kidnapped their mother and probably killed her, Gates is
screwin’ with my life. I’ve got too much to think about… and to do. I don’t have time to be calm.”

“Just don’t do anything stupid. They know you’ll be gunnin’ for Gates once you find out he’s involved. He’s in jail. You couldn’t get to him anyway, and you gotta stay away from his house and your office. Just do your best to sit tight and wait for me to get some answers. Check back in a couple of hours. I’ll have more information then. I gotta take another call.” James Longstreet hung up without another word.

FRIDAY—DAY 6

J
esse Ray was giddy to be leaving the old house. While packing his electronics, he sang out loud to keep from thinking about all the paranormal activity since they arrived. At night he thought he heard footsteps and had experienced many events that he believed were otherworldly. Once, while sleeping, he was convinced something grabbed his leg and tried to pull him from bed. Another night, while medicated on over-the-counter-pain meds, he thought he saw an old man walking slowly across the yard, carrying something. He kept this to himself and had not slept soundly since.

Clarence, too, had scarcely slept. He didn’t know what to believe, but did know that something to do with this house had him on the edge. He tried to shake it all off and act unbothered. But the fact was from about midnight to dawn each night, he thought he heard voices and stayed freaked out. So much so, he had decided he just wanted out of this deal. This desire figured strongly in his decision to drop the pursuit of a more profitable angle for this job. He had blamed the painkillers, but what had pushed him over the edge was
an apparition he saw in the yard around two in the morning. A pale man wearing a black hat and overcoat was standing in the trees, looking at the house, and then it suddenly vanished. Clarence assumed it was his imagination, the drugs, exhaustion, or most likely a combination of all these. But it seemed too real to discount offhand. The man was gaunt with the appearance of someone straight out of the mid-1800s. The apparition seemed to be in black-and-white, not in color, which further confused and fueled Clarence’s wild thoughts. He didn’t tell the others, but swore to himself that he wasn’t spending another night in the creepy old house.

When the Client called, Clarence was jubilant. He and the rest of the crew were eager to get back to their relatively mundane criminal activities—robberies and burglaries, or really anything that didn’t bring to mind a haunted house.

“Jesse Ray, shut up singing and listen. You and Jenny gather up all your shit, wipe down your rooms, and get back to the hotel,” he directed with authority.

“Maynard, you clean up the den, wipe down
everything
… even if we didn’t touch it. We’ll take all the trash with us. You’re stayin’ with me until the Client gets here with the money.”

“What’s next?” Jenny asked. “Got any ideas?”

“Somethin’ that’s more our style. I’m open to suggestions.”

“That Florida home-shopping warehouse!” Jesse Ray exclaimed.

“Plan it out, and present it to me.”

“No problem. I am so outta here. I’m never staying anywhere old again.”

“At least you don’t have a ghost leaving you flowers,” Jenny added. Everyone wanted to laugh but didn’t.

“Larry and I will be there as soon as we get the cash. Okay, let’s get busy.”

Jesse Ray looked at Clarence and winked. His facial expression said that he had everything under control. Maynard took this chance to plead his case to stay a part of the group.