Flash and Bang

by J. Alan Hartman

  “Dammit, Beth, I told you to stay out of it and let us do our job. I can’t allow you to put yourself in danger.”

  “Just be there, Harry. Nine o’clock. Don’t be late.”

  Before he could protest further, she hung up.

  Harry rushed out to Glenda’s desk, found the phone number Beth had left and dialed it quickly. A recorded message came on in her voice.

  The message was, “Moe’s Diner on Denton Highway, Harry. Nine o’clock.”

  “Damn! Damn! Damn!”

  Harry paced back and forth, his anger building. After a few minutes, he dropped in Glenda’s chair. Beth had put herself in grave danger and he had to do something about it.

  After a few more minutes of sitting and calming down, he thought, What if she’s right? What if Jennings is willing to admit his guilt by paying her off? It’s crazy and it’s risky, but if it worked for Raymond Chandler….

  *

  At eight fifteen, Harry knocked on Beth Harding’s front door.

  “Harry,” she said, “I said Moe’s Diner at nine.”

  “Beth, we have to talk now.”

  Once they were seated at her dining room table, Harry jumped right into it.

  “Beth, what you’ve done is crazy and dangerous. I could arrest you for interfering in a murder investigation.”

  “Well, since you weren’t going to do anything, I decided to take matters into my own hands. If you want to arrest me, go ahead. You’ll just be letting a murderer get away.”

  Harry sighed. “I’m not going to arrest you. Not yet anyway. We’re going to play it out your way and see what happens. If it blows up in our faces, I’ll lock you up and swallow the key.”

  He glared at her and he was sure she was suppressing a grin.

  She managed to hold a straight face and asked, “How do you want to play it, Harry?”

  “All right, listen carefully. When you get to the diner, the waitress will seat you in the last booth on the left. She’s really one of my deputies, and she’ll be armed. She’ll seat me two booths in back of you. I’ve wired your booth for sound so I’ll hear everything the two of you say. I’ll have another deputy outside in an unmarked car. As soon as Jennings pays you the money, we’ll step in and arrest him. Got that so far?”

  “Got it.”

  “Good. One more thing, and this is very important. Everything takes place in the diner. Under no circumstances do you go outside with him. Got that?”

  “Got it all, Harry.”

  *

  At eight forty-five, Harry pulled in at Moe’s Diner and drove around the building. The diner sat between two taller buildings, leaving a narrow canyon-like parking area on each side. He passed Pete Wilson sitting in his car on the north side of the diner and nodded. He did not see a red pickup.

  Harry parked on the south side and went into the restaurant. Beth Harding was already seated in the last booth on the left. She sat facing him and looked in his direction, but made no sign of recognition. Deputy Peggy Randall approached him with a smile, looking every bit like a diner waitress, and escorted him to his booth. A dozen or so tables and booths were occupied by other patrons. Harry ordered a cup of coffee and pretended to study the menu.

  At ten minutes past nine, Harry heard Pete Wilson’s voice coming through his ear plug.

  Pete said, “Incoming.”

  A tall, overweight man entered the diner. His faded jeans were too tight, his NASCAR tee shirt was wrinkled beyond recovery, and the baseball cap he wore to contain a wild mass of black hair was so old it was shapeless. He ignored Peggy, spotted the only female sitting alone, and walked toward Beth in the last booth on the left.

  The first voice Harry heard was Beth’s.

  “Did you bring the money?”

  “Yeah, I brought the money, but damned if I know what the hell for. You said you saw me last night, and it would cost me a hundred grand. Why don’t you stop playing games and tell me what you’re up to.”

  “Sure, I’ll tell you, Mr. Jennings. I was across the street from Martha Robinson’s house last night, and I saw you come out of there in a big hurry.”

  “Hey, lady, I don’t know what you been smokin’, but I didn’t kill that woman.”

  “Yes you did. You killed her, and if you don’t pay me a hundred thousand dollars, I’ll tell the police.”

  “You’re crazy, woman. You can’t prove nothin’. It’s your word against mine.”

  “Very well, Mr. Jennings, if that’s the way you want it. I’ll call the police right now, and we’ll see who they believe.”

  “No! Wait! How do I know if I pay you, you won’t still call the police? What guarantee do I get?”

  “You’ll get my word that I’ll never say anything to anybody, not ever. Besides, I’ve always wanted to live in Europe. Your money is all I’ll need to move there and get a new start. You’ll never see or hear from me again.”

  “I guess I’ll have to trust you,” he said.

  “I’m glad we agree, Mr. Jennings. Now, where’s my money?”

  “Out in my truck. Let’s take a walk out there and get it.”

  “Oh, I’ll just stay here while you get it.”

  “No, you have to go with me. I ain’t takin’ no chances on somebody seein’ me pay you off.”

  Harry wanted to shout, “Don’t go, Beth!” but it was too late. She was already following Jennings toward the door.

  Harry waited until they were outside before he left his own booth. He caught Peggy Randall’s eye and pointed toward the back of the restaurant. She understood and headed toward the entrance to the kitchen, which would get her to the rear exit. When Harry stepped outside, he saw Beth and Jennings turn the corner of the restaurant into the north parking area. Good. That’s where Pete Wilson was parked.

  “Coming to you, Pete,” Harry said into his lapel mic. “Be ready.”

  “Ten four, Chief.”

  There were two rows of parking spots between the restaurant and the tall warehouse next door. Jennings’ truck sat halfway down the back row, three cars up from Pete Wilson’s spot, under a large fluorescent street light. Harry crouched and moved around the corner, staying lower than the cars parked in the first row. He stopped twenty feet from Jennings’ truck and kept out of sight.

  Jennings opened the driver’s door of his truck. “Okay,” he said. “Get in.”

  “No,” Beth said. “Just give me my money and we’re done.”

  Jennings reached under his shirt, pulled a hunting knife from his waistband, and held it against Beth’s rib cage. “Get in the truck. You think I’m stupid? I pay you, you just go through it and come back for more. Get in. We’re goin’ for a little ride.”

  Harry drew his gun and stood up. “Police!” he shouted. “Richard Jennings, you’re under arrest. Drop the knife.”

  Jennings spun Beth around in front of him and threw his free arm around her waist, still pressing the knife against her side.

  Harry shouted again. “Drop the knife! Now!”

  Jennings glowered at him and shook his head. “Back off, cop. I ain’t goin’ to prison. I’ll do her right here.”

  Harry whispered into his mic. “Pete, shoot the light over his head.”

  The BANG! from Pete’s Glock echoed like a bomb between the buildings. Instantly, the fluorescent light overhead exploded in a blinding flash, and a shower of sparks spewed to the ground.

  The distraction caused Jennings to loosen his grip on Beth, and she fell to her hands and knees by his side. Harry moved toward them, his gun extended in both hands. “Drop the knife, Jennings, or the next shot goes through your head.”

  Jennings took only a second to toss his knife to the ground.

  Harry moved closer. “You okay, Beth?”

  “I’m fine.” She rose to her feet and brushed at her knees. “But I think I’ll have bruises.”

  *

  The next morning at eleven, Beth came to the station and gave her statement about the night before. As soon as she finish
ed, she hurried to Harry’s office.

  “Good morning,” she said.

  “Good morning, Beth. How are your bruises?”

  “Not as bad as I thought.”

  “Good. You’ll be happy to know, last night we charged Jennings with assaulting you with a deadly weapon.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Assault? Didn’t you listen to his murder confession on the tape?”

  “We listened, and it’s all there. Unfortunately, a smart lawyer could challenge it as being inconclusive and inadmissible.”

  “What are you saying? Jennings could get away with killing Martha?”

  Harry chuckled. “Relax, Beth. He’s not going to get away with anything. I was just giving you a hard time. Serves you right for what you put me through last night. We searched his truck and found his bloody clothes wadded up under the front seat. We also found Martha’s wallet and jewelry, and traces of blood on his knife. I’m sure the lab will tell us it was Martha’s. He was smart enough to wipe the crime scene clean, but not smart enough to get rid of the evidence right away. At nine o’clock this morning, we charged him with the murder of Martha Robinson.”

  Beth plopped into a chair. “Well, that’s a relief.”

  “And, I have more good news for you. I’m not going to arrest you for interfering with a police investigation.”

  She smiled. “Thank you for that, Harry.”

  “On one condition.”

  “What’s that?’

  “We might never have caught Jennings without you, and we’re grateful to you for what you did. You were very brave, and I know Raymond Chandler would be proud of you. But, you have to promise me you’ll never do anything like that again.”

  She gave him a wide grin. “I can’t promise you, Harry, but I’ll try.”

  The Wrong Girl

  Barb Goffman

  I was replacing a roll of toilet paper in the handicapped stall when the restroom door banged open. My cart had pushed the stall door slightly ajar, so I could see a thin blond girl lean against the sink, breathing hard, eyes tearing.

  Poor child.

  The bathroom door crashed open again. A redhead and a brunette rushed in. All three girls wore the same tight jeans and had iron-straight hair.

  “Are you okay?” Ginger squeezed Blondie’s arm.

  Blondie shook her off. “Mrs. Zulkowitz is such a bitch!”

  “She totally is,” Cocoa said.

  “I hate her,” Blondie said. “Hate. Her.”

  I’d been a janitor at this private school for nearly thirty years, and I’d heard this sentiment more than once. Paula Zulkowitz taught fifth grade. She was known for being strict and domineering, her tongue as sharp as the crease in her trousers. Over the years, she’d made many children cry. I’d seen and heard them weeping in the halls and bathrooms, though these rich children never noticed me. Like now.

  “I can’t believe she did that,” Ginger said. “Making you go to the front of the room to read a passage, and then interrupting you after every single word. So rude.”

  “Public speaking is totally overrated,” Cocoa said. “So what if you talk too fast?”

  “I don’t talk too fast,” Blondie yelled, her words jumbling into each other. She totally talked too fast.

  “Well, it’s over now,” Ginger said. “When you stormed out of the room, Mrs. Z let us go for lunch. Only six minutes late.”

  “Oh, it’s not over.” Blondie wiped tears off her cheek. “She’s messed with the wrong girl. We have to do something.”

  “Like what?” Cocoa asked.

  Blondie sniffed and pulled lip gloss from her pocket. She rubbed the shiny pink wand over her lips perfectly without looking in the mirror. Ginger and Cocoa quickly grabbed their gloss and started primping too.

  “You remember how Mrs. Z is allergic to hand sanitizer?” Blondie said. “Tomorrow when she’s not looking, we’ll rub and spray it all over the classroom. Especially the markers for that stupid whiteboard she loves so much.”

  “Ooh, and her desk,” Cocoa joined in. “And her chair. She touches them a lot.”

  Blondie nodded. “And that big dictionary she flips through every day, teaching us a new word, like we’re stupid or something.”

  “But she’ll get sick,” Ginger said. “That’s why she told us at the beginning of the year we couldn’t bring any hand sanitizer to school. Ever. She’s deathly allergic.”

  “Exactly.” Blondie smiled. Ginger pursed her lips, looking nervous. Blondie glared at her. “You have a problem?”

  Blinking a few times, Ginger shook her head. “No.” Her voice trembled.

  “Good,” Blondie said. “We’ll do it first thing tomorrow, when she leaves to get her precious mug of coffee. Now c’mon. Let’s go to lunch.”

  She smoothed her hair and practically pranced out of the room, her minions in her wake.

  It wasn’t the first time I’d heard kids plot against their teachers. Usually they were simply blowing off steam. But sometimes, like now, I could tell the kids meant it. In the past, I’d reported them to the principal. The result every time: parents were summoned, the children pleaded they’d been joking, and the incidents were swept under the rug. No punishments. No consequences.

  Not this time. Mean girls who faced no consequences grew up to become mean women who thought they could bully everyone and get away with everything. I couldn’t let that happen again. This time, I’d let the plan move forward far enough that the authorities would have to act.

  Finally, justice would be served.

  *

  Right before the school doors opened the next morning, I spilled a bucket full of water outside Mrs. Zulkowitz’s classroom. I’d just begun mopping up when the kids streamed into the building. Blondie walked by with her friends, smirking. The plan was on.

  I maneuvered myself so I could see into the classroom without being obvious. Mrs. Zulkowitz was writing an assignment on the whiteboard as the kids emptied their backpacks. She then grabbed her mug and headed to the teachers’ lounge at the end of the hall. She didn’t say a word to me.

  Blondie and her pals went immediately to work, spritzing and rubbing hand sanitizer everywhere. A few kids were watching, wide-eyed, but they didn’t interfere. Blondie clearly was too powerful.

  Moments later Mrs. Zulkowitz emerged from the teachers’ lounge, sipping from her mug. I stepped toward her. It was time to act. The girls couldn’t pretend they’d been joking now.

  “Excuse me, I need to—”

  “Aaah!” Mrs. Zulkowitz slipped in the puddle. Her body slammed onto the floor, the coffee splashing her as the mug shattered.

  “Oh, God.” I dropped my mop and ran to her. “Let me help you.”

  “You idiot! What kind of moron allows water to sit out like this?”

  I wanted to point out the bright yellow “danger, wet floor” caution boards I’d set out, but the woman clearly was in pain. “I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”

  “Do I look okay?” Mrs. Zulkowitz ignored my extended hand and stood, wringing her silk shirt. “My blouse is ruined. I might have burns on my stomach. And I’ll be bruised for a week.”

  “I’ll pay the dry-cleaning bill.” I couldn’t afford it, but since I’d purposely spilled that water, it was the least I could do.

  “You’re damn right you will.” She stepped toward her classroom.

  “Wait. I need to—”

  “I’m done speaking with you, you imbecile.”

  “But—”

  “Just shut up. I’ll have you fired for this, you incompetent boob.”

  My face grew hot as she marched into her classroom and reached for a sanitized whiteboard marker.

  I let her.

  Silent Measures

  BV Lawson

  Scott Drayco knew the statistics were grim—if kidnap victims weren’t found in a week, chances they’d turn up alive dwindled fast. The police weren’t giving up on the case, but the child’s mother didn’t have much faith left. Not after the ransom
was delivered, but the boy wasn’t returned. Three weeks and not a word.

  The father of Joey Jensen wasn’t on board with hiring a private consultant until his wife’s insistence wore him down. Grim statistics or no, Drayco gladly took on the case, unable to get the mother’s tear-stained face out of his mind. After preliminary interviews with the family’s friends and foes, he had a snapshot of the situation that got clearer by the day. But definitely not any prettier.

  The father was essentially a modern-day carpetbagger, buying up properties at bargain-basement prices from desperate homeowners after floods and hurricanes, and selling them to developers for a tidy profit. It hadn’t won him many friends.

  The mother was well-intentioned, but trying to keep up with the high-society Joneses meant a parade of babysitters and boarding schools for a boy who crimped her lifestyle. Especially a boy who was deaf.

  The teachers at Keirnes Boarding School where Joey disappeared were polite, but defensive. Perhaps because a few of the students confided to Drayco that Joey was often disciplined in “the box room” for misbehaving. When Drayco saw the box room, a space about the size of a walk-in closet with bare walls and one lonely seat in a corner, he thought Joey might have run away, the kidnapping all a hoax. Until Drayco heard a tape of the ransom phone call.

  The voice on the phone was digitally altered in a professional way hard for a deaf child to do. And then there was the mysterious series of bangs at the end of the call. Joey’s mother was terrified the banging was a gun, but Drayco’s expert ears knew better. The synesthete part of his brain also picked up on something else, some color and texture of that sound he felt he should be able to identify.

  The most helpful witness was one of Joey’s boarding schoolmates, a nine-year-old named Chase Cole. Like Joey, Chase had a cochlear implant, giving him muted hearing and the ability for limited speech. When Drayco asked Chase about Joey’s habits, Chase said Joey liked to haunt the musical therapy room. Joey especially enjoyed putting hands inside the piano when someone was playing, to feel the vibrations.

  The musical therapy room was in the north wing of the school, and Joey walked there through an outdoor trail every evening at seven, come rain, ice or snow. Many school staff knew this, but it would be easy for an outside kidnapper to pinpoint the perfect time and place to snatch the child.