There's Something About Marty (A Working Stiffs Mystery Book 3) (23 page)

“No, idiot. The passenger seat. Climb over the console.”

Struggling to clear my thighs past the stick shift, I hesitated so I could get a better angle.

He pushed me. “Just get your ass over!”

“This would have been a whole lot easier if you’d let me get in the other side.”

“Shut up.”

I looked up at Darlene, staring at me with her mouth gaping open in stunned silence. “Aren’t you going to do anything to help me?” I shouted.

Jeremy glanced over at his mother. “Everything’s okay, Mom. I’m just going to take Charmaine someplace where we can have a little talk.”

Grimacing, she took a tentative step toward us. “Are you sure?”

“What?”
Are you completely blind to what your son is capable of?

“Yeah. I’ll come back later to finish up,” he said reassuringly.

I locked on her gaze. “You can’t possibly believe that. He—”

Dripping beads of sweat on me, Jeremy wrenched my arm back, the pain in my shoulder white-hot as I fell into the passenger seat. “If you say one more word I’ll break it,” he whispered, his fetid breath warm against my cheek.

He slid behind the wheel and waved to his mother. “I’ll be back in about an hour.”

The implication in Jeremy’s words couldn’t have been more obvious. He’d return
alone
.

Turning the key, he shifted into reverse and backed to the driveway, swinging toward where I’d parked Gram’s car. Thankfully, he didn’t appear aware that an eighty-year-old lady with peach spun sugar hair was watching us through the cloud of dust he had stirred up as we barreled toward the road.

Since that old lady was known for siccing Steve on me at the slightest sign of trouble, I sure hoped that he was near his phone.

“So, what do you want to talk about?” I asked, searching the cab for something I could use as a weapon while he drove through farm country like a bat out of hell.

Nothing, not even a stick of gum I could throw at him.

Since Jeremy didn’t answer, I figured that I’d better start talking and hope for an opportunity to distract him on the road ahead.

“Okay, I’ll talk and you can listen. I was thinking about how you must have been planning to kill your father for a long time.”

No response.

“How long were you experimenting with that plant in your mother’s yard? I bet it would take at least a year for it to get to that size.”

He stared straight ahead, his face impassive.

“It’s going to show up on the toxicology report, you know.”

The corner of his mouth curled.

My little threat about the toxicology results gave him pleasure? What sick bastard gets off on someone telling him that he won’t get away with murder?

I looked back at the blades of grass taking flight from the bed of his truck. Only a thin layer of green covered the plant he had used to kill his father—a plant that would soon be thrown over a bank somewhere off of State Route 17, along with my body.

“And when it does and the Sheriff comes calling, Nicole will be happy to show him the greenhouse where Victoria grows the kind of plant used to kill your father. Maybe you can manage to shed a tear when you blame yourself for introducing her to him.”

He grinned. “You’re not so stupid after all.”

“Gee, thanks.” Since I was sitting in the truck of a killer I doubted Steve would agree. Why, why, why hadn’t I trusted my instincts when I first talked to Jeremy? I knew something was off. There were too many mixed signals and for good reason. He had taken pride in the planning and the execution of his father’s murder. That explained the smile I had spotted that day, the business as usual attitude. I had seen no sense of loss because none existed. Worse, he hadn’t been conflicted by regret.

“I didn’t sense any remorse,” I muttered, my thoughts escaping my filter.

“Remorse?” He chuckled. “Not really my style.”

I shivered. This guy was as sick as he was deadly.

Somehow I needed to get out of this truck. If I jumped out I’d probably kill myself, but if I did nothing I was as good as dead.

Staring at the road ahead I looked for tall grass, a landing place that could cushion the blow my body would take at this speed. If I were lucky enough to survive the fall, what was to keep Jeremy from backing up to finish the job?

No, I might be scared spitless, but I hadn’t been scared stupid—at least not yet.

I needed to make a move when there were people around. Maybe if he slowed to take a turn and there were a car behind us—someone to act as a witness. Maybe that would be my best chance to escape.

But if that chance never came, if this were it, I didn’t want to be driven to my grave without some answers. “Why kill your father on his birthday?”

Jeremy turned to me with a gleam of delight in his eyes. “Nice touch, don’t you think?”

“No.” I mentally replayed the descriptions all the witnesses provided of Marty’s final hours, bile rising in my throat. “It’s awful.”

“Maybe physically, but the old man forced my hand.”

I knew of only one thing that had changed recently—an addition to the family. “Because of Cameron.”

He slanted me an amused glance. “Look at you. Uncovering the skeletons in my dad’s closet.”

“How long have you known?”

“I figured out who he was a couple of weeks ago, after I saw Pop crying in his office. My dad didn’t cry, not even when he left my mother.”

“Your mother knew about Cameron.”

Nothing registered on his face.

“And with him working at the shop she must have figured that it would be just a matter of time before your father acknowledged him.”

Again, no reaction.

“Maybe even included Cameron in his will,” I added, fishing.

Jeremy smirked.

Bingo!

Now it made sense why Darlene had been in no hurry for Cameron and his mother to meet the rest of the family. She didn’t want anyone hanging around to challenge Marty’s will prior to Jeremy and Nicole receiving their inheritance.

“It was about the money.” I stared at him. “That’s what you meant about your father forcing your hand.”

“I didn’t want to share with my baby brother or my new mommy. Does that make me a bad guy?”

No, it made him a sick and twisted guy. “Does your sister know?”

“No, and she never will if I have anything to do with it.” He squinted at his rearview mirror. “She has enough problems with her deadbeat husband.”

Probably true, but since I was sitting in a vehicle with her murderous brother, my problems trumped hers at the moment.

I noticed his knuckles blanch as he angled to look in his side mirror. Something had gotten under his skin and clearly it wasn’t me.

“What?” I turned to see what he was looking at and noticed a car in the distance. Were those flashing lights?

Jeremy hit the brake as we passed a sign for Haughton Lake, an old fishing destination of my grandfather’s.

“Plan on doing some fishing out here?” I asked, holding on as he took the sharp right turn.

“Wrong season, but it should be nice and quiet. You know. For the rest of our talk.”

Jiminy Christmas!
I was going to be in big trouble if I didn’t come up with an escape plan in the next five minutes.

I noticed him glaring at his rearview mirror again as his truck bounced from pothole to pothole in the narrow road, and an obscenity escaped his lips.

I looked in my side mirror and realized that he hadn’t sworn because of what this bumpy road was doing to his wheel alignment. The car with the flashing lights had taken the right turn and was gaining on us.

Good.

“You should slow down. That cop back there might arrest you for speeding.”

He frowned.

“Plus, this road’s really bad,” I said as we rumbled across a cattle guard marking the entrance to the dairy farm we were blasting by. “And there could be some cows in the road up ahead.”

“Shut up.”

There were certainly plenty of black and white faces near the fence to support my prediction, but none of them looked like they wanted to make a break for it.

I sure did.

I just needed Jeremy to shift his attention to his rearview mirror for a moment.

Watching, I sat breathlessly waiting, a tight coil of tension gripping my gut.

Come on, come on, come on.

Just one little look back, one split second of distraction was all I needed.

My fingers twitched in anticipation. My pulse pounded in my ears.

I heard a siren. Jeremy must have, too, because he directed his attention to his rearview mirror. And as soon as he did, I lunged for the wheel and put all my weight into turning it to the left, toward a big Holstein grazing on the other side of the ditch we were careening into. With a sharp thud we banged to a stop with an airbag pressing against my chest.

Fighting my way out from under the airbag, I scrambled out of the truck and ran toward the white and green Sheriff’s vehicle slowing to a stop, lights flashing, in front of the Holstein.

“Are you okay?” a deputy asked, aiming his weapon at the guy crawling out of the truck’s passenger side.

That was the same question Steve asked me an hour later, after I ran into his arms at the Sheriff’s office.

“I’m fine,” I said, while he frowned at a bump I had on my forehead. “Other than the fact that I’m going to be a little sore the next couple of days, the paramedics gave me a clean bill of health. I take it Gram called you?”

“Fortunately, our game had just ended. Otherwise, I don’t think I would have heard the phone.” He wrapped his arm around my shoulder. “Everybody around here knows Jeremy’s rig, so I didn’t have to give much of a description. Most of the credit goes to your granny for watching which way he went. After that it was a matter of guessing where he was headed.”

I shuddered to think of what he would have done when we got there. “I told Deputy Barnhart about the poisonous plant in the back of Jeremy’s truck.”

“I heard. Looks like those lab results will become a formality.”

“He poisoned his father. Killed him for the money. Can you believe that?”

Steve shook his head.

“And he was setting Victoria up to take the blame.” Even after what Jeremy had divulged in the truck, I was having difficulty wrapping my brain around the words coming out of my mouth.

“Makes sense in a warped way,” Steve said. “Convict Victoria and it’s a few more million for Jeremy and his sister.”

I stared at him in disbelief. “How could someone do something like that?”

Steve cupped my face with his palms. “I used to ask myself the same question when I worked Seattle Homicide. Never thought I’d have to ask it here.”

I shivered.

He pulled me close. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

I nodded.

“You did good getting him to talk.”

“I also managed to get myself into harm’s way,” I admitted with the hope that if I cleared the air, I wouldn’t have to hear a lecture about it later.

“Yeah. We’re going to have to work on avoiding that in the future.”

I liked the way he said
we
.

“We’re ready for you,” the Sheriff’s Detective said, holding a door open for me.

I turned to Steve. “I have to give a statement.”

He smiled. “I’m familiar with the drill.”

“I don’t know how long I’ll be.”

“I’ll be right here waiting for you.”

∗ ∗ ∗

Almost an hour later, Steve passed the
Welcome to Port Merritt
sign at the south end of town—a sign that I never thought I’d be so happy to see.

“I think you have a decision to make,” he said.

I didn’t care for the sound of that. “What kind of decision?”

“I promised your grandmother I’d bring you home as soon as I can, but after that, what would you like to do?”

“Well, I never got to go to the herb farm. That’s where Gram and I were headed, so that might be nice.”

His mouth was a grim line when he turned to me. “Herb farm? Not happening.”

“I feel fine, so I’m sure—”

“I’m sure you should take it easy and relax.”

“At home? Is my mother going to be there?”

He nodded. “She’s there, waiting for you.”

All worried and motherly. “Great.” In no way, shape, or form was that my idea of a relaxing afternoon.

“Seeing how she’s leaving tomorrow, she might even have more wedding stuff that she needs help with,” he said, his voice as solemn as if he were testifying in court.

“Seriously?”

He grinned.

I folded my arms. “You’re an ass.”

“I beg your pardon, and here I was about to suggest that we get a pizza later and make out in front of the TV.”