Tried & True (Mayfield Cozy Mystery Book 5) (2 page)

CHAPTER 3

My ticket for admittance to the warm kitchen at Mayfield was a full recounting of my impromptu summons for Clarice. She doesn’t like it when I disappear on her, for good reason.

She huffed around in her ruffled red apron, banging pans to some effect, and querying me. I shoveled in a plateful of leftover dinner and answered.

“And Gus was with you the whole time?” she grunted.

I muttered around a mouthful of scalloped potatoes. “They weren’t going to touch me in his shop.”

A grim smile put a little color in her cheeks. “Huh.”

I could tell she liked the idea of her sweetie being my protector. Standing next to Gus was one of the safest places on the planet. There was no question his large physical presence and resolute personality had a calming influence—on everyone, from roughneck mobsters to my stalwart executive assistant.

“You have those reprobates shaking in their grungy boots,” she declared.

I wished I could agree with her. “Gus’s hypothesis.” I wanted to amend her expectations. “Based on a lot of unknowns. Doing his best to make me feel better.”

Clarice smacked a spatula on the counter. “He was recruited, you know. By the Hells Angels and Vagos. Those groups like having former military members in their ranks, even better if they were special forces.”

I stared at her. Clearly Gus and Clarice had been having more in-depth getting-to-know-each-other conversations than I’d been aware of. I wondered if she’d shared her arrest history with him. For all I knew, Gus might find the fact that she’d bitten a police officer on the ankle endearing. Those two were made for each other.

“Turned them down flat,” she continued, “of course. But he knows the culture.”

I nodded, slowly smiling. Hidden depths.

“Now. There’s a little girl expecting you to read her a bedtime story.” Clarice shooed me through the doorway to our living area, and I was glad to go.

oOo

After Gus’s pep talk, I was certain I’d be hearing from the Mongrels’ esteemed leader—and soon. Which meant I had to make yet another request of a man who’d demonstrated true friendship in spite of the way my husband had used him.

Josh Freeney.

He’d been hoping to be reinstated to his previous special agent position, given his leadership and success in taking down my Numero Dos, Victor Lutsenko, with only a ragtag band of civilians as his crew. I hadn’t seen him since he’d escorted Kamala, a Laotian victim of human trafficking, to rejoin her family who’d been living in the basement at Mayfield at the time.

After tucking Emmie in for the night, I’d retreated to my attic think tank and was pacing in front of the desk where some of the old video encounters with Tank Ebersole that were still archived on Bay Area television news sites were playing in a loop on my laptop. They weren’t reassuring.

The fact that Numero Ocho had sought me out irritated me. It meant I was getting slack.

There weren’t too many remaining Numeros on my list who were roaming free and clear. Numero Uno, Numero Ocho, and possibly Numero Cuatro, even though I had reason to hope Martin Zimmermann’s days of autonomy were limited due to the loose lips of his mistress, Angelica Temple.

And I was skating by, letting them continue their criminal enterprises unimpeded. Time to knuckle down.

I punched in Josh’s number and listened to the phone ring. And wondered if he’d switched out his own phones yet again. I actually had a lot of things to talk to him about.

“Nora.” Josh sounded pleased.

His past experience with me should have taught him to be wary, but I plunged in while the proverbial door was open. “Are you back home?”

“Uh, no. I’m still cooling my heels in Salem, staying with my sister. Federal bureaucracy moves at a glacial pace in the best of times. When an agent’s fudged around the edges of his oath, the cogs seem to freeze solid. I’ll be lucky if I’m back in the San Francisco office in three years at the rate my case is being reviewed.”

“Good,” I said. “For me, I mean—not for you.”

Josh actually chuckled. “What’s on your mind? I hate being housebound.”

“I need an ambassador with an attitude.” I explained about the shock of Numero Ocho opening diplomatic relations through his emissary.

Josh whistled softly. “Unprecedented. I’m gonna have to brush up on OMGs—outlaw motorcycle gangs—and the Mongrels in particular. But yeah. Hell, yes, I’ll do it. I still don’t have anything to lose.”

I grinned into the phone. I could understand Josh’s eagerness to see action, but I also hated that my misfortune was his impetus. It was downright chivalrous the way he came to my assistance, even if it was out of boredom.

Gus’s hypothesis was still rolling around inside my head and came spilling out of my mouth. “How plausible is it that a biker gang president is worried—so worried that he wants to talk to me instead of killing me? Or is it a setup?”

Josh considered for a long moment. “OMGs are not nearly as hierarchical as other organized crime groups. They’re a weird dichotomy of free-for-all criminality and yet they enforce incredibly strict club rules, especially regarding identity—things like their patches—and codes of interpersonal conduct within the group. Outside the group, they don’t care one bit what a member does as long as he’s loyal.”

“Loyal,” I whispered.

“Maybe Gus has something there.” Josh’s tone turned ruminative. “Any hint of weakness, and it’d be blood in the water. It’d be all over for that leader. Huh. Yeah.”

I chewed my lip, but I was going to have to tell Josh at some point. He deserved my complete honesty. “I heard from Skip again.” I squeezed my eyes shut and plowed ahead—because if I stopped talking I would surely lose the courage. “He returned his wedding ring several days ago—in the mail, sent from Twin Falls, Idaho. And there was a note.”

After the ring had fallen out of the packet and thunked on the kitchen table, I hadn’t stuck around to examine the envelope. I’d hightailed it outside for a good cry in the woods. Clarice had had the prudence to thoroughly investigate and brought the note to me later that evening.

She’d sat silently on the side of my bed with a fierce scowl on her wrinkled face—a fortifying presence—while I’d read Skip’s words. And grown so furious that I couldn’t cry anymore. At least the note meant he was still alive, even though it was all about business matters and didn’t explain his motives regarding the return of his wedding ring.

Josh remained blessedly quiet, and I pressed on. “Did Skip ever hint to you that he thought his corporate lawyer, Freddy Blandings, might be a mole? Not for the FBI, but for at least one of his money laundering clients?”

“Whoa. Back up,” Josh breathed. “First off, no. Because I had no idea Skip was working on the wrong side of the law until he disappeared. Then, hindsight, yeah, all his questions and interest in my investigations of organized crime syndicates made sense. But isn’t this Blandings guy still involved? I thought I’d heard he was contesting the declared bankruptcy of Turbo-Tidy in court.”

“Grubby-fingered weasel,” I grumbled.

“Why, Nora? Why is he making such a fuss?” Josh’s voice rose with excitement. “Think about that. Who’s he really working for? You already suspected he wasn’t really representing the best interests of Skip’s company. So he’s either working for himself or someone else.” It was Josh’s turn to speak in rapid-fire sequence. “You could turn him. Put pressure on him—financial, obviously, and maybe in other ways. I can’t get any dirt on him now since my clearances have been revoked. But it could be big. You just found out?”

Now I felt guilty about sitting on the information for over a week. But it had just been speculation. Neither Clarice nor I had been sure what to make of it.

I should have known better though. My entire, rather shaky, plans for the past couple months had been based on nothing more solid than speculation.

Josh inhaled deeply as though to steady himself, then he paced his instructions methodically. “You’ll have to go through official channels for this. Talk to Matt. He needs to get in touch with the judge handling the disbursement of Turbo-Tidy’s assets immediately. Gum up the wheels of justice with some inane paperwork to give yourselves time.”

I scrabbled to take notes. Even though Josh was talking off the top of his head, he was operating in a completely different realm.

Maybe Josh knew my husband better than I did. They’d roomed together in college and had extended the friendship into their professional careers. Josh’s excitement made me wonder if Skip was, in his remote way, teaching me how to know his—and therefore, my—enemies, including their fears. Skip seemed to have mastered the art of manipulating people, and from the tone of his last note, it sounded as though he expected me to do it too.

Josh paused. “Got it?”

I fixed my chicken scratch handwriting in a few places. “Mmhmm.”

“I’m sorry I can’t be hands-on with Blandings. But I wouldn’t do you any good there. Call me the moment you hear from Ebersole, okay? Let me handle the details in my role as spokesman.” Josh gave me a phone number to pass on to Ebersole. “I want to control the location and the time. Evasiveness on our side may actually reassure him. But the privacy he’s demanding means you’ll have to make an appearance eventually—meet him face-to-face. You ready for that?”

I gritted my teeth. “I will be.”

“Good girl.”

Next, I called Matt. Although it was difficult to tell for sure over the phone, it was possible he exceeded Josh in the amount of excitement he exuded. What I wouldn’t have given to actually see, in person, my very own FBI special agent in a delighted frame of mind, grinning from ear to ear like a little boy. Because that’s how he sounded.

“It’ll be messy and time-consuming,” I said. “Josh was talking about paperwork.”

“There’s nothing the federal government is better at than producing paperwork. Mounds of it. Metric tons. Dump trucks full. You just made our legal team’s day.” Matt might have chortled a little bit. “I’ll ask the San Francisco office to start surveillance on Blandings. We’ll know about his embarrassing foibles soon enough.”

He was still cackling when he hung up. At least someone was in a good mood.

I, however, was dealing with a churning stomach. Because something else was niggling at me.

The idea of knowing your enemies. I had the feeling I hadn’t explored a few possibilities with regard to my Numeros. And I really hoped I hadn’t missed the opportunity.

So I dialed Sheriff Des Forbes, and prepared to face his serious disapproval.

We got the usual pleasantries out of the way, and then I asked, “Can I visit a prisoner?”

Des sighed heavily. “Which one?”

“Viktor Lutsenko.”

“I was afraid of that. He’s not in my jail anymore. Why don’t you visit Angelica Temple? Maybe she’d quit complaining for two minutes. She’s driving my custody chief crazy.”

That idea appealed to me about as much as a root canal. Visiting Lutsenko didn’t rate any higher. But my Numero Dos had the kind of ego I thought might be conducive to the shadow of a scheme that was flitting around in my head.

“No dice. It’s Lutsenko or bust. Where is he?”

“At the South Correctional Entity, otherwise known as SCORE, in Des Moines. It’s a joint jail facility for a bunch of cities up north, but they also take overflow from other jurisdictions. Not the one I usually use, but it’s more conveniently located for federal court appearances. It’s where your case manager, Matt Jarvis, wanted him.”

“So I have to ask Matt if I can see Lutsenko?”

“I didn’t say that.” Des’s voice was stiff. “What are you up to?”

“I don’t know yet. I just want to ask him a few questions.”

Des snorted softly. “I guess you have a right to do that. Since I’m the sheriff in his booking county, I can get you in. No promises he’ll actually talk to you though. Especially not without his lawyer present.”

“Oh, I think he will,” I murmured.

CHAPTER 4

There was no convincing Des that I could find the SCORE complex in Des Moines and filter through the requirements for an inmate visit by myself. He insisted on both chauffeuring and chaperoning me.

One of the upsides to his assistance was that I didn’t have to fit into the standard visiting hours. He called ahead and arranged for a private conference room. The warden would notify Lutsenko of the appointment, but Lutsenko would also have the right to decline to speak to me—at any point before or during the scheduled time slot. I hoped I wasn’t conscripting Des into a goose chase.

Des picked me up shortly after noon, and I spent a couple hours riding shotgun in his official Jeep Grand Cherokee. I had my array of phones in my tote bag, but I was hoping against hope that Tank Ebersole wouldn’t choose this particular afternoon to extend our acquaintance. Try chatting with an outlaw biker president while the sheriff is all ears right beside you.

Consequently, I was rather taciturn, chewing on my lower lip and studying the scenery. Des kept darting worried sideways glances at me.

Finally, he spoke. “So you and Walt—you, uh, make a good pair.”

“Oh no.” I frowned at Des’s profile. “I do not plan on ever having to respond to a kidnapping again. We’re not some commando recovery team. That episode was way outside my comfort zone.”

This time Des’s glance was both quizzical and slightly amused. He stretched the fingers of his right hand then rewrapped them around the steering wheel. “I wasn’t talking about that. Walt’s the right age for you.”

The right age for what? I shifted in my seat and brought my stare fully to bear on him.

Des always looks a little weary. But this time, when his mossy green eyes swung in my direction, they held sadness behind the smile he gave me. And the realization hit me like a punch in the stomach.

“I don’t want to be treading on another man’s territory,” he murmured.

Clarice and Loretta had teased me about Des’s attentions, but I’d brushed off his motive as neighborliness. And the fact that he was concerned about the safety of his county’s residents, of which I was one—the one who probably demanded more of his law enforcement efforts than all the others combined.

I’d also been counting on my married status to act as a sort of immunity to romantic interest. Not that my husband was present or available to truly function as a marriage partner.

My mouth was open for a long time before I could actually speak. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. I was desperate that I had disappointed Des. I respected him far too much to intentionally trifle with his emotions.

But why had he mentioned Walt? If anything, this conversation should have been about Skip.

Des shrugged. “Wishful thinking on my part.” He reached over and squeezed my knee. “A woman like you doesn’t come around too often. It’d have been stupid not to at least throw my hat in the ring. So, did you ever get a handgun?”

I blinked to clear the hurdle of this shift in topics. “Um, I have a gun, yes.” I had no idea if it had been obtained legally, but it was on the top shelf in my bedroom closet, courtesy of Josh.

“Good,” Des said firmly. “I’m going to teach you how to shoot. We’ll start tomorrow.” He told me where the shooting range was.

Trees are gorgeous. I mean real trees—not the kind that are dwarfed by drought and the decorative whims of landscapers, but the kind that grow wild and free in a crowded forest. All different shades of green, shapes, bark textures, needle lengths, scents. There’s as much variety in trees as there is in humans. But they had the advantage that you couldn’t hurt their feelings. I pressed my lips together and returned to staring out the window at the wall of trees on the edge of the highway.

To say I’d been blindsided by Des’s remarks would’ve been an understatement. Walt? Like Des, Walt had only treated me honorably. I didn’t think the fact that Skip had returned his wedding ring to me was public knowledge. Besides, I wasn’t even sure what—if any—symbolic meaning that act portended.

But rumors get around. Boy, do they ever. The tiniest details moved at light speed to tickle every ear in May County.

By the way,” Des cleared his throat, “that switchblade you and Walt used to cut your way out of Ace Trailer Repair’s storeroom—it’s illegal. I’m not going to ask where you got it. But in Washington a knife like that is only approved for members of law enforcement and the military, while they’re on duty and for use in an official capacity. You can’t get a concealed carry permit for it. Which is kind of crazy since it’s no more or less lethal than a gun. So there you go—” Des directed an amused tilt of his chin toward me, “another one of the laws I have to uphold. Which means if it’s in your bag, don’t let me see it. And definitely don’t try to take it into SCORE with you.”

“I don’t suppose anyone will be breaking into a marked sheriff’s vehicle in a jail parking lot, will they?”

Des chuckled. “Probably not.”

Just like that, he reassured me, gave me comfort, let me know he was okay—that
we
were okay. I was only in May County because of my mess, my problems, but I’d certainly overflowed to infect the good people around me. Where would I be without their support? I was flooded with gratitude. Des was the best of men.

Then he talked me through the protocol of a jail visit, which seemed to consist of signing a bunch of record logs, presenting my ID, clearing a security inspection, and waiting.

The SCORE facility was built like a concrete industrial park secluded deep in the woods. But the architects had put a good face on the unpleasant reality—the main entrance was coldly welcoming in a soaring, multi-angled, steel and glass sort of way.

Des ensured that I received VIP treatment—as much as such a thing was possible—which meant I was afforded the luxuries that the occasional high-powered attorney received and didn’t have to use one of the phones in the long bank of metal, not-exactly-private cubicles in the regular visiting area.

I was ushered into a small room bare except for a stainless steel-topped table with four round seats orbiting it like satellites, all welded to the same base. Similar to the permanent, weather-resistant furnishings in the outdoor seating area of a fast food restaurant, except not as cheerful.

The air was stuffy with a pervasive odor resembling the sweaty mold and chemical scent of a locker room, but worse. It gave me the creepy feeling that the room was coated with a nervous detritus—prisoners’ skin cells and dandruff and tears—the kind of stain a janitorial crew could never fully bleach away. All that suffering piling up, layer upon layer, passed down among the generations. Even though the building was only a few years old it reeked of apathy and misery.

Des kept me company while we waited. We didn’t talk, just sat on the uncomfortable seats with our elbows on the table and breathed. I wanted to thank him, but I felt as though our words were worn out at the moment, and touching him, even an innocent hand on his arm, wasn’t a good idea. Nonetheless, our silence wasn’t awkward. 

Perhaps because the jail around us supplied more than enough noise. Clanging, shouts, echoes. Squeaky shuffling down the linoleum hallway, chains jingling. An orange jumpsuit—

I shot to my feet.

Lutsenko scuffed into the room, followed closely by a pudgy guard in a navy blue uniform. The guard and Des exchanged knowing, stern nods. The guard pushed Lutsenko onto a seat and hooked his chains to an eyebolt embedded in the floor.

“We’ll be just outside.” Des squeezed my shoulder and closed the door behind him.

I could still see both Des and the guard through the wire-reinforced glass in the door’s window. Which was a relief because suddenly this was all too real.

Viktor Lutsenko—Numero Dos, casino boss, and human trafficker—was three feet away. It was the closest I’d ever been to him.

The last time I’d seen him, he’d promised to kill me—at least that was how I’d interpreted his words—if there was ever a next time. I reminded myself that he was shackled to the floor, did a quick calculation regarding his chain-restricted arm span, sucked in a deep breath and held it.

“Ms. Ingram-Sheldon,” he said curtly. “What a surprise.” There was a trace of defiance in his flat tone.

“Thank you for meeting with me.” If I was going to negotiate with an outlaw biker president in the near future, surely I could converse civilly with a fettered prisoner.

Frankly, Lutsenko looked horrible and not terribly threatening. Des had told me that he was being held in a single cell for twenty-three out of every twenty-four hours to minimize his contact with other inmates. The last thing anybody wanted was Lutsenko recruiting for his particular flavor of organized crime among the receptive jail population.

Lutsenko’s spray-on tan was long gone, but his skin still seemed to match his orange jumpsuit. Maybe it was the fluorescent lighting. Stubble filled the valleys in his jowly face. He was saggier and slumpier than I remembered him, his former swagger buried under an attitude of sullen, impatient disgust.

I needed him to still have an outsized dose of pride. I was counting on it. At least he wasn’t bombarding me with protestations of innocence.

Now or never. I clasped my hands behind my back but decided to remain standing. Not that I would ever be able to intimidate Viktor Lutsenko, chains or no chains. “I’d like to talk about revenge. Comeuppance. Retribution. Leveling the playing field. Whatever you want to call it. You interested?”

An evil sneer cracked one corner of Lutsenko’s face. “Not so lovey-dovey with your husband anymore, huh?”

It was a reasonable assumption, and I tried not to let him see me flinch. “I was thinking of Ochoa—Felix Ochoa. You entertained thoughts of supplanting him, didn’t you? It’s not too late to see that he suffers too.”

“Ochoa?” Lutsenko snorted. “The man lives in a barricaded fortress. He’s afraid of his own shadow.”

I didn’t think it was a good time to point out that Lutsenko was also now living in a barricaded fortress. The only difference was that he was provided room and board at the taxpayers’ expense, whereas Ochoa was living off the proceeds of extortion, drugs, prostitution, kickbacks, bribes, and too many other illegal enterprises to name.

“So I’ve heard. And yet he refuses to retire and live an easier life, a life with less risk of being assassinated. Because that would also be a less lucrative life.” I tipped my head and peered at Lutsenko. “He has a weakness.”

Lutsenko nodded in grim agreement. “Besides the fact that he’s a megalomaniac.”

Said the pot of the kettle—again—but I let that particular irony pass without comment. I’d known there was no love lost between these two organized crime kingpins. Time to play upon the idea. “It’s never enough, is it?” I said.

Lutsenko shifted forward and looped his elbows onto the tabletop. The chains were too short to afford his wrists the same luxury, so he tucked them against his chest. “He filched the entire slot trade in southern Idaho out from under me. Pulled a heavy-handed fast one. Turned my manager and all the joints in a matter of a few hours. Probably cut their takes as soon as they were secure, too.”

“Think he’d be interested in a business opportunity in car wash franchises?” I asked.

Before Skip’s company, Turbo-Tidy Clean LLC, had gone bankrupt because I’d drained all the bank accounts, it had owned about half of its branded car wash locations. The other Turbo-Tidy Clean locations were owned and managed by independent franchisees.

But given the nefarious activity they’d all been involved in, it was safe to assume those franchise owners weren’t upstanding citizens in their communities. The car washes had functioned like relay stations for the network of couriers who’d collected and delivered the funds that Skip laundered for his blacklist clients. On the surface, those franchises were a nice cash cow business. Underneath they were even better, if you measured by off-the-books net profit and return on investment.

Lutsenko crimped his fleshy lips into a sly grin, and his eyes focused on a spot in the far corner of the room.

I found his contemplative glee disconcerting. He would need to be in the right frame of mind to seed the necessary rumors, and that would require some emotional restraint on his part. I waved a finger to get his attention. “I’m not sure how reliable Freddy Blandings is anymore. What’s his story?”

“Pffft. Pompous ass.” Lutsenko shook his head. “Idiot.”

Aha. I agreed with all those sentiments, and the fact that Freddy’s name hadn’t prompted a blank look in response meant that Skip’s suspicions were grounded in truth. “But he’s still leaking information.”

Lutsenko showed me his palms and shrugged.

“He’s not
your
lawyer,” I pressed. “What do you owe him?”

Loyalty has never been a strong point between rival criminals. I could see a hint of the joy of betrayal working its way into Lutsenko’s psyche as he squinted at me through his eyelashes.