by Tyler Colins
Rey, Linda and I looked at each other, not quite sure what to make of Kent Winch.
He smiled benignly, like a contented feline having finished a bowl of warm cream.
We returned the smile and as we did, he whipped out a gun from beneath the jacket – the Bersa I'd left in the kitchen hutch the last time we'd been here. Dang. (Another major lesson learned: always, always, always be vigilant.)
With an adrenalin surge, I shot the Sako at the same time Linda aimed the Taser. She got him in the chest and I blew off an earlobe.
* * *
“Oopsy.”
We looked down at our inert former colleague.
“Were you aiming for the ear?” Rey asked as we watched blood ooze from the wound.
“The heart.”
“You may want to visit the range more often,” she suggested with a gentle slap to the back. “You wanna call Ald? I'll call 911.” She grabbed our bags and passed me mine.
Linda tucked the Taser into hers and pulled out a cell. “I'll do it.”
My ears perked and I grabbed Rey's arm. “Do you hear that?”
She canted her head. “Yeah. It's AC/DC's –”
“ 'Hell's Bells'!” we shouted in unison, clutching our bags to our chests as we raced pell-mell into the teeming wetness.
We were maybe forty feet from the dwelling when a blast boomed behind. It shook the ground – and us. I flew into concrete, slamming my chin (par for the course these days) while Rey skidded into a rock garden head-first and Linda did an acrobatic flip-flop near me, her face greeting sodden grass. Three simultaneous grunts spiraled into the rain.
The living room and foyer were write-offs. Gray smoke spiraled upwards while flames capered from what had once been windows and doors. The Haleiwa retreat would soon be history.
As would the Toyota Echo and Nissan Cube because, in a matter of seconds, both debris-damaged vehicles would end up fireballs – and, sure enough, as a bolt of lightning streaked across the sky, one exploded and then the other. With a resigned sigh, I glanced around and noticed that a couple of people had run from their homes. One man was speaking rapidly on a cell phone and another was taking pictures. A call to 911 had obviously been taken care of.
Rey, Linda and I gazed at one another, smiled, and then laughed. We looked like – to use a common phrase – drowned rats. While Linda's face resembled a camo mask, my cousin would probably need treatment (and pain meds) for an ugly weal on her forehead. Rey pointed at my chin and I touched the bleeding sore gingerly. When this case was officially wrapped up, investing in a custom-designed chin guard would be priority number one.
Slowly, we got to our feet and meandered down the driveway where two cars with curious onlookers had now stopped. A siren sounded in the background, but it could have been bells ringing in my head; I felt wobbly and the pain in my chin was amplifying.
“Are you okay?” a middle-aged man who'd been taking photos anxiously asked. Soaked to the bone, thin tendrils of blond hair stuck to a high burnished forehead and cheeks.
“We're fine,” Linda replied with a sheepish smile, wiping mud and grass adhered to her face, but only succeeding in rearranging them.
“We're good,” Rey confirmed. “Nothing a couple of bandages and pills won't cure.” She peered at my chin, pulled a package of tissues from her bag, and pressed the soggy package into my hand. “Stitches, too.”
“Was there anyone else inside? What happened?”
We turned back to the smoldering house. Much like his stepbrother, Kent Winche was a done deal.
“Yes,” Linda answered quietly. “It's too late for him, though.”
He scanned the house and then us. “What can I do to help? I have medical training.”
“We're good,” Rey repeated with a gracious smile. “But thanks.”
He gestured a large custom single-family house across the road. “Come over. My wife just put on a huge pot of coffee. You can dry up and wait for the police.”
* * *
Three medical examinations, four stitches and a CT scan later, we were seated with a weary-looking Ald in a small hospital lounge, providing details of what had transpired at the Haleiwa house. The only fact not revealed: who'd killed Coco Peterson. Given Kent's state – crispy fried – a secret it would forever remain. We did, however, mention the fact they'd had an unusual bond that had been equally close and tumultuous, and that Kent had alluded to his stepbrother's “unhinged” state.
Nor did I [yet] advise of two notes found under my windshield wipers (I was going with that). As for Coco, after some much-required sleep, two laundry loads done, we'd go imu searching tomorrow. Having discussed it between medical tests, the three of us had decided Coco Peterson was definitely “findable”.
There was also Colt. Kent had remained silent about the man. Why? Loyalty? Or fear? Maybe a combination? And what were we going to do about him? He couldn't be allowed to continue bombing, threatening, and/or traitoring, uh, colluding. The man was responsible for at least one death: Kent Winche's. Heaven knew, though, what else he'd done. Unfortunately, it didn't look like there was anyone left to enlighten.
Ald glanced at his watch. “It's after eleven. You look like hell and I'm feeling like hell. Let's call it a night. I'll have someone drive you home.” He looked from Rey to Linda to me. “We'll meet at the station at 10:30 tomorrow and go over everything in minute detail. Seeing as you have no means of transportation, I'll send someone to collect you at ten.”
We got to our feet and the three of us waited until he'd placed a call to someone named Meftalli.
“My guy'll be at the entrance in fifteen. You can't miss him. He's built like a haul truck.”
Mumbling thanks, we ambled down a dim, quiet corridor.
“Anyone for car shopping?” I asked with feeble humor.
“Shouldn't we collect insurance first?” Linda responded with a slim smile.
Rey eyed her damaged bag, sighed, and slung it over a shoulder. “I need a new purse.”
“You have thirty-two,” I pointed out.
“Thirty-one now,” she said with a pout.
I slipped an arm around her back as we stepped into misty rain.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Sunday afternoon found the Triple Threat gals meandering along various streets near Walker and Wahiawa Fresh Water State Park. The objective: check for imus on public terrain and purchasable homes. Coco wouldn't be buried on private property or within immediate view of a street or sidewalk. The hope was that we didn't appear overly conspicuous, despite me carrying a serrated folding camping shovel in a plastic tote bag, Rey pulling a nylon hockey bag on wheels filled with locating-body and digging-for-said-body tools, and Linda hugging a large knapsack with drinks and snacks. This was seriously doubtful, however, given our keen and furtive demeanor.
So far, we'd surveyed five imus, or replicas thereof: one behind a ramshackle snack shop, two in the rear of for-sale houses, one on a dirt lot with a foundation that once supported a small building, and one belonging to a community center closed for renovations. Gauging from the debris – burned banana stumps, chicken wire, ash and corn husks, among other things – it had been some time since they'd served as underground ovens.
“I could do with some fueling,” Rey announced.
Linda pointed to a straight-back steel bench in a parkette sandwiched between a long three-story apartment building and a small diner. No occupants or action appeared in either.
Once seated, Linda dug out three bottles of water and organic granola bars, and Rey quickly grabbed the one with carob chips. Linda and I exchanged smirks and we settled into silence as we munched and watched a street oddly quiet for 1:30 in the afternoon. Granted, the weather was gray and drab, and tepid – conditions that might make you want to stay in.
“How's the head?” I asked my cousin when I finished my bar. She sported an ugly, bumpy bruise. Fortunately, other than some smarting moments, there'd not been any serious head trauma.
�
�The Advil helped.” She jostled my arm. “How's the chin?”
“The Advil helped.” I jostled back.
“Too bad we didn't take any to dull the pain of Ald's longwinded reprimand this morning,” Linda grinned.
“After two minutes about the dangers of confronting whack-jobs, he began to sound like white noise. I zoned out.” Rey crumpled the wrapper, tucked it in my tote bag, and nodded to the sky. “Looks like rain. We'd better have at it again.”
Linda pulled out a list of places that Gail had provided at the police station. She'd met us there with the addresses, as well as coffees, before departing for Cousin Harry's b-day lunch. “I say we forget the rest of these houses and focus on the condemned place and old park.”
Rey and I murmured agreement and slowly got to our feet. Our bodies would take a couple of days to recover from the aches and contusions borne upon colliding with concrete and ground.
“Kent was right. Who'd have ever imagined Buddy Feuer as a hitman?” Linda asked as we walked in the direction of the condemned house two streets over, which was en route to the old park.
“She had us fooled,” Rey declared with a grim smile. “I guess we'll be honoring another deep and dark secret.”
“Just like Aunt Mat's,” I agreed solemnly.
“Don't you feel kinda weird about it?”
“Guilty, you mean?” I asked wryly.
“That's the place.” Linda indicated a one-story ranch-like dwelling.
“Ugh. That's what I called condemned,” Rey muttered.
Situated on a half-acre of stones and litter and desiccated weeds, the paint-peeled place had boarded windows, rotting panels, and a damaged roof. A lopsided yellow “This Property is Condemned” sign hung from a battered wooden fence that, like the house, had seen [much] better days.
We looked around and saw no one save for a portly muumuu-clad lady shooing a fluffy white cat from a cluttered lanai into a house.
“Everyone in the neighborhood seems to be on hiatus today,” Linda commented quietly as we slipped past a derelict gate and down a cracked pathway to the rear.
“All the better for us,” I said.
The back was long and narrow, and lined with wild and withered shrubbery. An old crumbling brick barbecue stood to the right, a tumbledown shed to the left, and two giant clay pots holding twigs and wands that once served as vegetal growth were situated by a broken door.
Rey gazed around with apparent distaste. “This place coulda belonged to The Munsters.”
“Who?” Linda.
“They were a weird family featured in an old sitcom – oh, never mind.” She gestured the far end. “I'll check in and around there while you two pick a side. Let's make it quick. It looks like it's gonna pour any sec.” Leaving the hockey bag, she marched onward.
With a nod to Linda, I turned to the left and picked my way along a rough weed- and debris-lined ground, keeping an observant eye open for anything that seemed out of place.
A couple minutes later, Linda called softly and beckoned us to the barbecue.
Keenly, Rey and I trotted over.
“What do you think?” She gestured a three-by-five space that was covered with chipped bricks, old bound newspaper, and clumps of pebbly soil.
Thunder rumbled like a New York subway train. We looked at the darkening sky and then one another. Without a word, I pulled out three plastic ponchos still in packages and we slipped them on. Next came the handy-dandy, multifunctional shovel.
* * *
“That's pretty f'g gross,” Rey murmured as she crooked an arm on my shoulder and leaned close.
“Yup,” Linda agreed, rubbing the back of a hand across her forehead. “Post-death meltdowns are never pretty.”
I blew hair from my eyes and concurred.
Swathed in shrink wrap, Coco lay like a folded ventriloquist dummy in a space that had once been used to roast pigs.
“I'm guessing Mr. Lookeeng Goo-ood didn't suffer much,” my cousin offered, lifting her poncho hood as light rain began to fall.
I smiled tartly. “I understand he went down pretty quickly after the second thrust of a Henckels knife.”
Linda crouched and took photos of our find and the property. “Do we call Ald? Or do we tuck putrefying Mr. Peterson into Rey's bag? He looks like he'll fit.”
“I don't think Ald would like us screwing up potential evidence or mucking around with a crime site,” I pointed out, zipping up my poncho as winds began to whip around like an amusement park swing carousel. “And I don't think I want to touch putrefying Mr. Peterson in case he bursts or something.”
“You just got my vote,” Rey grimaced.
“Ditto.” Linda.
“Do you think Ald'll find anything that might incriminate Buddy?” Rey asked, unable to look away from the cadaver.
“I suspect she was extremely careful,” I replied matter-of-factly.
“What about those two typed clues? Are we telling Ald that's how we came to discover him?” Linda took one last photo before standing.
“It's as good an explanation as any,” I replied with a shrug. “But now that I think about it, let's tell him they were found in a notebook that Kent had on him at Picolo's –”
“Yeah,” Rey interrupted, slapping my back. “One that detailed Coco's escapades –”
“And one Kent always carried with him,” Linda continued excitedly.
“Because he preferred not to make notes on-line,” Rey finished. “Works for me.”
We high-fived one another, peered back down at Coco, and then up at the sky as a heavenly floodgate opened.
* * *
Dressed much like us – in jeans and fleece – Gail tramped into the living room at seven that evening and dropped onto the sofa alongside Linda. A wet and tepid afternoon had transpired into a cool, stay-warm-and-at-home evening.
“How'd Cousin Harry's party go?” Rey asked, toasting her with a cup of hot orange-pekoe tea.
“Better than your afternoon,” she said gaily, watching Bonzo hop from Rey's lap to hers. Upon receiving a kiss to the nose, he returned to Rey. “I hear Ald chewed you out again. Two times in one day. How lucky can you get?”
Rey stuck out her tongue. “He's a bear who loves to bellow.”
“He called you?” Linda asked, grabbing a snickerdoodle from a dwindling mountain of cookies we'd been ingesting the last hour. She shook her head when Button, laying across her lap, gave a can-I-have-a-bite look.
Gail nodded as I held up a teapot from the kitchen. “Not long after you texted me about this get-together, he called and asked me to talk some sense into you. I seemed the best choice for providing guidance, seeing as you won't take it from anyone else.”
Placing a steaming mug of tea on a coaster on the coffee table before her, I dropped on the armchair across from Linda.
“Do you want to hear it?” she challenged.
“If we must,” Rey sniffed with feigned haughtiness.
“I'll give the Reader's Digest version. Do not: hold back on evidence, go it alone, play cavalry, confront lunatics, or shoot a weapon if you're a bad shot.”
It was my turn to stick out my tongue.
Gail laughed and, grabbing the mug, settled in. “So after killing Picolo, Stretta, and Razor – and possibly that Trott guy – mass murderer and blame-framer Kent Winche is dead. Another case closed.”
“Not quite. There's still Coltrane Hodgson Coltrane, a.k.a. Colt,” I advised.
“After that wicked threat, do you still want to go after him?” she asked, surprised.
Rey, Linda and I nodded at the same time.
“I'm not sure he's catchable,” she warned.
“Either are we,” I confessed. “He's bombed four places and killed Kent, and bullied me. Who knows what he'll do next, if anything. Maybe he's confident that his threat has succeeded in stopping us from pursuing him any further.”
Rey's lips grew taut, Linda's eyebrows arched, and Gail's gaze darkened.
“Possibly. B
ut he may also decide to get rid of us, maybe by bombing one of our condos,” Linda said worriedly.
I shook my head. “The guy would have to be damn sure he got all three of us, because if he only got one or two of us, or flubbed up, he'd have to know he's roadkill.”
“Eloquently put,” Linda grinned.
“I have a feeling he's going to lay low here on in,” Gail stated.
“But we're not the only ones who know about him,” Rey reminded her. “And who knows what your boyfriend –”
“Uh-uh,” I cautioned.
“Who knows what your ex-boyfriend has in mind for Colt, if anything,” Rey continued with a smirk. “He may be in a similar situation, like not having evidence, or he's been threatened. The guy's gonna protect his family. Hell, he may not even be on Oahu anymore, given how badly he'd been beaten or what he's working on now.”
“Leave Coltrane be.” Gail looked sternly from one face to the next. “The police are investigating the explosions. They may uncover something that leads them straight to that lunatic. And they can handle that guy better than you.”
“I suppose that's fair.” Rey sighed and nodded, then smiled. “Not everyone in the detecting biz is as talented or dogged as we are. The folks in blue may require more time.”
Linda offered a Reynalda Fonne-Werde buffalo snort.
Which prompted laughter from the rest of us.
Chapter Forty
“Fonne.”
“Jones.” I kept the surprise from my voice.
The surfboard clock over the Kenmore range said it was just after 10:30 a.m. This sunshiny Monday had started with Button and I taking a leisure walk along Ala Moana Beach Park, a 7:00 a.m. boxing class and a two-mile run directly after. Rey, Linda and I were desk shopping at two (hopefully, we'd finally agree on which ones to purchase) and then heading to the office afterward to stock it with supplies and give it a final once-over. Tomorrow marked the official opening of the agency office, but the excitement I'd felt earlier about tackling a new day had lessened, thanks to apprehension now seeping in.
