by Tracey Quinn
“Now pumpkin, you know how you get with drafts,” Kristi murmured cheerfully. “We don't want that bronchitis flaring up, do we?”
“Let me get that for you,” I said, taking Zeke's hat and scarf.
“Yeah, keep 'em this time,” he grumbled.
“Why, Dani darling, when you called this morning you got us all on the edges of our seats, figuratively speaking,” Kristi said. “Just what is this exciting news you said you wanted to tell us?”
“Come, let's sit down,” I said, leading them to a booth at the back of the dining room near my office. “I shouldn't say anything until the guest of honor arrives.”
We didn't have long to wait; Zeke and Kristi had barely taken their seats when the big black Cadillac swung into the parking lot and Roger jumped out.
“Dani, you're a real lifesaver!” he said as he burst through the door. “But enough talk about candy, right? Get it? Livesavers candy?”
“What are you rattling on about?” Zeke groused.
“It's good news, Zeke, very good news,” Roger replied. “Dani here has agreed to be our pilot after all! The sky's the limit now, right? The sky? Get it?”
“Oh, that's wonderful!” Kristi said. “Isn't that wonderful, cupcake?”
“It's about time,” Zeke muttered.
“Yes, I'm sure you'll all enjoy flying in Roger's plane,” I said.
“Of course, of course!” Roger said and then leaned in close to me. “Er, can I have a quick word, Dani?' We stepped away from the booth and he said in a low voice, “It's just going to be Kristi and me on the Aruba trip. Zeke gets airsick and all that, so Kristi doesn't think he'd be comfortable on such a long flight. We'll get good ol' Zeke up on a shorter flight later.”
Just then Roger's phone rang. His ring tone was the Pina Colada Song, which seemed exactly right for Roger. “Excuse me, probably some venture capitalist wanting to invest with me,” he said, pulling his phone from his jacket pocket. “You know how it is with business! Always busy!”
He took one look at the screen and suddenly all the color drained from his face.
“What's the matter, Roger?” I asked. “You look like you've seen a ghost- or gotten a call from a ghost.”
“It can't be....” Roger stammered. “It's gotta be a trick- this is all a big trick!”
Suddenly Roger ran for the back door of the diner, but just before he reached it the door was pulled open and Bob stepped in, barring the way. “Where are you going in such a hurry, Roger?” he asked. “I think you'd better stick around for a while.”
“But- but- I don't get it!” Roger looked at me. “How did...”
“How did Lloyd Duval call you just now from his private number, you mean?” I asked.
The door to my office opened and Mark stepped out, holding the cell phone that I had found in the paper towel dispenser. “I'm sure you recognize that phone,” I said. “It's the one you were burning down buildings to try to destroy; Lloyd's old phone, the one that he didn't use anymore but kept around because of all the messages it had on it between the two of you proving that you robbed the Kettletown glove factory together six years ago.”
“That's a lie!” Roger shouted.
“It's all on there; Lloyd had gotten a job at the glove factory, planning to learn when the money for the payroll came in so that he could steal it. The money was kept in a safe, but fortunately for Lloyd he knew someone from his high school days that would make a perfect accomplice; you were always in need of money due to all your get-rich-quick schemes that were constantly failing, and you had access to the steamfitter's tools and equipment from your father's business. So you broke in together and got away with the safe full of $15,000 in cash. You were going to bust open the safe and split the money 50/50, but then Lloyd got arrested for killing a man in a bar fight before that could happen.”
“I don't know what you're talking about!” Roger protested. “Lloyd was a liar and a crook, and whatever he put on that phone is all lies! I've never had anything to do with him, and I hadn't seen him since high school!”
“And probably hoped to never see him again,” I said. “You kept all the money from the robbery, but you didn't save Lloyd's share for him. That ended up getting used up in failed business ventures just like all the rest, and when you heard Lloyd got out of prison early, you knew you were in trouble. I don't think you had any idea just how much trouble you were really in, though.
“You see, while Lloyd was in prison he was making plans to rob the Farnsworth Bank. He had spent a lot of time at the rec center when he was a teenager and he had learned that the bank vault sat just on the other side of the wall in the back room. That's why he leased the building under the pretense of putting on his 'Courage' lectures. He needed money so that he could look the part of the successful 'life coach'; nice clothes, expensive car, etc. He planned to use his share from the glove factory robbery, but when he got out and contacted you, he found out the truth.
“Of course, you wanted nothing to do with Lloyd at this point. You had started a romantic relationship with Kristi Constable and she had convinced her rich old husband to finance your latest harebrained scheme, and things were looking up for you. You had no intention of letting your old criminal career come to light and ruin what you had going.”
“Now just a minute!” Kristi cried. “This is pure, bald-faced slander!”
“Pipe down! I want to hear this!” Zeke snapped.
“Unfortunately for you, Lloyd wasn't about to let you off the hook,” I continued. “He had evidence that could put you behind bars for the glove factory robbery, and he used that to blackmail you into helping him. You siphoned away money Zeke had given you for the airport project and gave it to Lloyd, hoping that he would leave you alone after that, but Lloyd had other plans. He'd need your tools and expertise again to break into the bank vault, or so he thought; it turned out that a kid with a kitchen knife could have broken into the Farnsworth Bank vault, but you didn't find that out until you had cut through the wall. Of course, that wasn't the only mistake Lloyd had made. He had underestimated you, Roger. He didn't think you'd go as far as murder.”
“You can't pin this on me!” Roger shouted. “It's all lies!” Suddenly he made a dash toward the front door but he had barely gotten two steps before Bob's hand on his collar yanked him back.
“I'm sure Lloyd had promised to destroy the evidence of the glove factory robbery if you gave him the money,” I said, “but then when Lloyd used it again to leverage you into helping him break into the bank vault, you knew that he was never going to let you out from under his thumb. So you came up with a plan of your own; once you had opened up the vault and Lloyd was distracted gathering up the money, you shot him.
“You had learned from Kristi earlier that Lloyd had caused some problem with his ex-wife and Gene McGee had made threats to kill him in front of everyone at the Breezy Spoon. So you cleaned up the vault and hauled Lloyd's body to McGee's Market and tossed him in a crate behind the building. Then you broke out one of the tail lights on Gene's car and made sure that you were at McGarity's getting a tune up on the Cadillac when Gene came in to get the tail light repaired. I'm sure it wasn't too hard to slip the gun and a money wrapper from the Farnsworth Bank into Gene's trunk when McGarity was busy elsewhere.
“That left you with only one loose end to tie up; Lloyd's phone with the incriminating evidence on it. You had assumed he would have it with him when you killed him, but he didn't. You knew that if the phone were discovered you'd be sunk, so even though you had successfully framed Gene for the murder, you had to take the risk of searching Lloyd's hotel room. When that didn't work, you got desperate, burning down Lloyd's house and then the rec center in hopes of destroying the phone wherever it might be hidden.
“However, Lloyd hadn't been that clever when it came to hiding the phone. He was just keeping it in his pocket, figuring it would be safest if he had it with him at all times. But as things went on he suspected that you were scheming to get it fr
om him; maybe you had even tried to steal it. A short time before the bank robbery was to go down, Lloyd started going around town telling everyone about his lectures so that he could get good crowds and look successful, and one of his stops was the Breezy Spoon.
“When Lloyd was here he saw you coming, and thought you were following him. Afraid you had some new scheme to steal or trick him out of the phone, he slipped into the restroom on his way out and dropped the phone into the back of the paper towel dispenser. He knew no one would look in there and he figured he could come by and retrieve it later. Thanks to you, he never got a chance to do that, because you killed him and cost me a small fortune in napkins.”
“I want to call a lawyer,” Roger mumbled.
“You can call from the sheriff's office,” Bob said, taking him by the arm.
“Don't call from the sheriff's phone,” I said. “You'll get better reception from your cell! Get it? Cell phone, jail cell?” Nobody laughed but I didn't care.
“I've got a call to make to a lawyer, too!” Zeke Constable snarled, jumping up from his seat and stalking toward the front door.
“Oh, sugar lump, wait!” Kristi cried, wobbling after him on her high heels. “I can explain! It's not like that!”
After everyone had left Mark came up to me and said, “The diner business is too exciting for me. I think I'll go to the firehouse and see if there's a nice, relaxing four-alarm fire I can deal with.”
“You can get your eyebrows singed off again later,” I said, looking at my watch. “We've got to get over to the high school. The basketball game has probably already started.”
“You have got to be kidding!” said Mark. “After all that you still want to go watch Jimmy play basketball?”
“We promised him we'd be there,” I said. “Besides, how bad could it be?”
“I don't know how bad, but it'll be bad,” said Mark. And he was right.
When we got to the high school the second half of the basketball game was just beginning. The score was East Spoon Creek High School 12, Pumpkin City High 104.
“There must be something wrong with the scoreboard,” said Mark. “That couldn't possibly be right.”
It was, though, and the second half didn't get any better. Jimmy didn't look like he knew whether he was playing basketball or baseball out there, but as the final minutes of the game wound down, one of the opposing players fouled him and the referee called for a free throw.
I nudged Mark with my elbow. “Wake up,” I said. “Jimmy might actually score something.”
Jimmy started for the free throw line, but then hurried over to the sideline where the cheerleaders were dancing to give Charlene a quick kiss. Unfortunately, Charlene was jumping up and down facing the crowd and hadn't noticed him approaching, and as her feet kicked out when she jumped her heel caught Jimmy right between the legs with considerable force. He fell to the floor and didn't get up.
“I can't watch any more,” Mark. “This whole game has been brutal.”
The crowd was chanting Jim-my, Jim-my and his teammates were yelling for him to hurry. He somehow managed to do a commando crawl back to the free throw line and with a great deal of effort he pushed himself up till he was on his knees. The referee threw him the ball and Jimmy and heaved it up into the air with a wheeze that sounded like a balloon losing air.
“It went in!” I exclaimed. “Jimmy actually made a point!”
“Great, that almost cut the other team's lead down to 100,” Mark said.
“Don't be such a sourpuss. It's a big moment for Jimmy.” The whistle sounded which marked the end of the game, and Charlene ran onto the court and threw her arms around Jimmy's neck, driving her knee into his stomach by accident.
“I thought you were mad at Jimmy.”
“Well, I suppose if he'd actually done his job right he would have found the cell phone instead of me, and who knows what he would have done with it? He hasn't got the sense God gave a jackrabbit.”
Mark laughed. “And his odds of making the NBA aren't looking good, either. What say we get out of here and cross our fingers that tomorrow night will be a little less excruciating?”
The next night was indeed shaping up to be more fun, as we were headed to the Country Club to go dancing. When we got there we saw Kitty and Bob wave to us from a table near the dance floor. We made our way toward them through the crowd which consisted of young men in jeans and cowboy boots, and young women who were all wearing jeans, too.
Mark said, “You know, Dani, it looks like you didn't have to buy a new dr-”
“Mark, you seem to have such a happy life right now. Why would you want to cut it short?” I said.
“What's that about?” Bob asked.
“Oh, just your sister threatening my life again,” Mark replied. “Nothing unusual.”
“Happy birthday, Kitty,” I said, giving her a hug.
“Now that Gene's home again it's a very happy birthday,” Kitty said. “Thanks to you we can put all of the craziness and trouble with Lloyd behind us now.”
“I'm glad I could help. You and your family deserve the chance to move on with your lives in peace without Lloyd looming like a cloud of doom over you.”
“They're not the only ones,” Bob said. “Kitty, tell them about the car.”
“What car?” Mark asked.
“Lloyd's car,” Kitty replied. “By rights it was supposed to go to Lloyd's mother, but she wants nothing to do with this business and said I could have it. After what I heard about the people Lloyd harmed, I decided that I would sell the car and let Maurice Sharp and Ray Belcher split the money from the sale.”
“That's awfully generous of you, Kitty,” I said, “but I wouldn't expect anything less. I'm sure they'll be very grateful.”
“By the way, sis,” Bob said, “Mom called earlier this evening and told me to let you know that Centralia, Pennsylvania didn't turn out to be what she and Dad thought it would be, so they're leaving.”
“Oh, that's too bad,” I replied.
“Centralia, Pennsylvania?” Mark asked. “Isn't that the place where there's been a fire raging in a coal mine for decades and they can't put it out?”
“What?”
“Yeah, I saw a video on YouTube a couple years ago about a town in Pennsylvania where they had a fire at a trash dump and somehow it got into an old coal mine. It's been burning underground since the 1960's because it was going to cost a half billion dollars to put it out. I think the name of the town was Centralia.”
Bob was looking at his phone. “Yep, that's Centralia, Pennsylvania all right,” he sighed. “They estimate that it might burn itself out in about 250 years.”
“Not again!” I groaned. I thought back to the time my parents had accidentally ended up in the middle of the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally when looking for a quiet little town to visit. “Mom and Dad have such bad luck with the places they visit. We should have researched the place before they went there and warned them.”
“I used to think that way, too,” Bob replied, “but they like traveling around in the RV and they go where they want to go; they wouldn't listen to anything we told them anyhow. Besides, Mom said they're heading to California to investigate land by a lake out there, so maybe this one will work out better.”
“I'm sure you're right,” I said, although I wasn't sure at all.
“Come on, they're playing a great song,” Kitty said, getting up from her chair. “I feel like dancing!”
“Let's show 'em how it's done!” Bob agreed.
“It's a well-known fact that firefighters are much better dancers than sheriff's deputies,” Mark told me. “It's up to us to prove that point to the world once again.”
“Well, when you put it like that...” I said.
An hour later the disc jockey was playing one of my favorite songs, I Can Love You Like That by John Michael Montgomery for the last dance of the evening. My feet were sore from line dancing in high heels and I was glad to switch to slow dancing for this last song.
“You look so hot in that dress I'm almost afraid I'll get burned if I touch you,” Mark said.
My arms were around his neck and his were around my waist. “You seem to have overcome your fear,” I replied.
“Good Lord, you may be right! I seem to be getting over that overwhelming shyness that I have whenever I'm near you.”
“You know, you are an extremely handsome man and an extremely poor liar.”
He pulled me closer and kissed me. “I know,” he said. “It's a terrible curse.”
Later that night when we were driving home Mark said, “Did I mention how hot you look in that dress?”
“Only three or four times,” I replied, “but who's counting?”
“Oh, that reminds me of Jimmy,” he said.
“Well, there's a mood killer. I sort of thought you were thinking about me.”
Mark laughed. “I'm definitely thinking about you. I just thought you should know that Charlene has finally figured out that we sort of like each other and we might be thinking about dating sometime in the future, and she sent Jimmy to talk to me about it. This afternoon I was at the Breezy Spoon, just finishing a piece of caramel apple pie a la mode, which was very good by the way, when Jimmy came over, sat down, and asked if I had ever had the talk about m-a-t-t-i-n-g. I asked if he meant the card stock that people put around pictures when they frame them; he looked sort of shocked and said it wasn't about dirty pictures, it was about responsible mating.
“That's when I realized what Jimmy was getting at. I actually had to try not to shudder at the thought of what he was about to say. I convinced him that my father had explained the subject very thoroughly when I was about 14 years old. He asked if I still remembered everything since that was such a long time ago, but I told him I remembered every single word and it was etched on my memory as if it were yesterday and I thanked him for his concern. And as more proof that there is a God who answers prayers, Don called Jimmy to clear off some tables and the torture ended.”
