Death by Chocolate Malted Milkshake

by Sarah Graves

  Sally straightened from snapping her dog onto his leash. “Oh, I did,” she said, gathering the shaggy little creature up into her arms.

  “I did call. Twice, in case I’d gotten the wrong number. And I let it ring and ring.”

  Popsy grinned toothily, panting and gazing up at his mistress with bright, adoring eyes.

  “But,” said Sally, “there was no answer.”

  I sat up straighter. My arm was a mess, but that was apparently among the many things I couldn’t do anything about.

  Urgency seized me; Ellie wasn’t in the shop. But once these guys drove away with me, who knew if I’d last long enough to look for her? Because something weird was going on with them, that was for sure.

  “Listen,” I told the woman with the little dog squirming in her arms, “did you hire these guys or . . . I mean, how did you get them to come here at all?”

  She brightened as she replied, “I did hire them, yes. I’d found their card by the front steps, which meant they could find their way here since obviously they did it once already. So I hurried home and called them, and said I had a hauling job for them, but only if they came right away.”

  Apologetically, she added, “As I said, I don’t drive, myself, and my son’s not allowed to. But they’ll take you back to Eastport.”

  Right, sure they would. That’s why their business card had been found by the doorstep of a house I’d been left to die in....

  “And after that,” Sally called, backing away, “you’d better get some medical attention.”

  Right, much more of that bleeding business and I wouldn’t need a doctor, I’d need an undertaker. But first I had to get out of this van, or the choice would be made for me, and not in my favor, either.

  Too bad my body was still even slower than my drugged brain. I lunged for the door just as one of the guys slid it shut. As it closed I got a glimpse of his denim jacket, so raggedy that the pockets were tearing off and various papers stuffed into them nearly spilling out.

  “Hey,” I objected weakly as another wave of nausea rolled over me. After that I had to concentrate on keeping my stomach contents from decorating my surroundings, while he got behind the wheel and the other one took the up-front passenger seat.

  I’d have preferred taking it myself instead of the hard floor here in the cargo area. But nobody asked me; on the other hand, it seemed that no one had recognized me yet, either, which I took as a good omen.

  It was the only good one I’d experienced recently, but what the heck, it was all I had so I clung to it. Hauling myself up, I peered at the clock on the van’s dashboard. The numerals said it was 1:45.

  That meant Norm McHale had about an hour’s head start on me. It was plenty of time for him to get back to Eastport, visit Ellie at The Chocolate Moose, and spin a story—about me being in terrible trouble somewhere, maybe—plausible enough so that she would go with him.

  Maybe even without telling anyone about it, if he convinced her that it was enough of an emergency . . .

  The van rolled past the chain-link fence through the gate whose padlock had been cut off, perhaps with the substantial pair of tin snips lying near me on the van floor. There were a lot of other tools back here, too, and a pile of copper piping that looked as if it might have been liberated out of somebody’s cellar.

  “Guys?” The one who was driving kept his eyes on the road. The other one looked back at me, but he still didn’t seem to know me.

  That was fine with me. “Guys, could you maybe drive real fast? I mean, not fast enough to get a ticket, of course,” I added hastily as we pulled onto Route 1 headed for Eastport. “Just fast enough to—”

  But in the next moment I shut up as the van’s sudden acceleration threw me back down onto the hard floor; driver guy didn’t seem worried about getting a ticket.

  Or anything else. They drove up Route 1 as if their hats were on fire and their backsides were catching, as Bella would have put it. Groggily, I kept trying my phone; it had begun working again as soon as we got away from the dead zone around the abandoned cul-de-sac.

  But each time I punched in Ellie’s number I got the same result: nothing, not even voice mail. The line at my house was busy, Sam and Mika’s cells were also engaged, and Wade was at work somewhere, so I doubted he’d be much help.

  By the time the van got to the causeway and onto it, though, I was realizing, through a diminishing but still very substantial drug-induced haze, these guys hadn’t killed me. In fact, they were doing as I’d asked, taking me back to Eastport without delay.

  So the next time I woke up enough to punch in another speed dial number, I let the guys drive on instead of trying Bob Arnold. I could explain all this better to him in person, anyway, I decided.

  But moments later when the van reached The Chocolate Moose, I could see from outside that the lights were out. The door was locked, too, and when I staggered over and let myself in, I found the credit card reader and ceiling fans turned off, and the register closed out.

  So Ellie’s departure had been orderly . . . unless someone had set things up neatly to allay any suspicions otherwise.

  Thinking this, I finally did call Bob Arnold, but when I did the dispatcher told me that he was tied up at a traffic accident, there were serious injuries involved, and did I have an emergency?

  Well, no. Not one that I could explain very well, anyway. So I hung up, and back outside while I thought about what to do next I paid the van guys an amount of cash that seemed to satisfy them.

  That they hadn’t just murdered me and stashed my body somewhere seemed to deserve a bonus—how had their business card gotten on that doorstep, anyway?—but since they still didn’t seem to recognize me, I didn’t mention it.

  Then I thought for a minute more, which considering the way I was still feeling was no small feat all by itself. And what I thought was: Ellie had gone somewhere unexpectedly, but first she’d taken the time to close the shop properly, which to me meant she hadn’t been kidnapped by force. More likely, as I’d thought earlier, someone had convinced her to go with them. And when I thought about who that someone almost certainly was—Norm McHale, of course; if he told Ellie that I’d been hurt and that I needed her, he could easily have lured her.

  Hastily, I punched redial, discovering from the dispatcher this time that Bob had summoned some county sheriff’s deputies to help with the accident, and to cover things here in town temporarily. They would be arriving in half an hour or so, and would I like to speak with one of them when they did? No, I replied, then tried all my other numbers again, which was how I learned that Wade wasn’t just busy at work; he was on a boat headed to Nova Scotia to help bring a disabled freighter to Eastport.

  Also, Sam was halfway to Bangor for some lawn-mower parts he’d found on Craigslist and gotten for a song, and Mika and the baby were at the health center; the baby had an ear infection.

  All of which I gathered from Bella, who added that no, Ellie wasn’t there, they hadn’t heard from her, and my dad was dozing in the screen house in the backyard. But if she could do anything for me—

  “No,” I said. Our midnight ride had probably taken a lot out of him, and, anyway, I didn’t want either of them to get involved in this.

  Besides, if I had to try explaining it all to Bella right now I would lose my mind. I didn’t even understand it, myself.

  “No, I was looking for a lift, but I’ve got one and I’ll be home soon,” I rattled off hastily, and ended the call before she could ask me what was wrong with my own car.

  Then, glancing around helplessly, I spotted the gray van still in its parking spot outside the Moose.

  “So can I hire you to drive me around a little more?” I asked the guys, peeling off another pair of twenties apiece.

  I mean, what the heck, they hadn’t killed me the first time, and I was desperate. Also, you never knew, I might get information out of them; that conveniently placed business card of theirs, for instance, was still a serious puzzle.

&nb
sp; “How about fifty bucks each?” I upped the ante, and they turned to each other.

  “Deal,” said the driver, and I was just about to get back—but in the passenger seat this time, for fifty dollars I wasn’t going to be bouncing around on that hard floor in the back—when a familiar vehicle came tearing down Water Street toward us.

  Big, red, and eye-poppingly shiny, it was my dad’s new truck, and behind the wheel—looking old, grouchy, and terrifyingly determined—was my dad.

  “Hop in,” he called to me from across Water Street.

  Leaning over, he swung open the truck’s passenger door; he’d heard Bella’s end of my conversation with her, I gathered.

  I’d pulled my sweatshirt on over my arm, so he couldn’t see the damage. Hastily, I shoved the money at the guys in the van, all fifty of it for each of them.

  For not murdering me, I thought, back when I was still so doped up that they could’ve done the deed by pressing a hand over my mouth.

  But now, just as I turned away, the driver guy’s eyes narrowed. “Hey,” he began aggrievedly, “aren’t you one of them two nosy women who—”

  So he’d finally recognized me. “Yes, I am,” I replied briskly, then pushed a couple of extra tens at him.

  “For your trouble, okay?” Because whatever the hypodermic rig had been doing at their cottage across the lake from Miss Blaine’s place, I was sure now that they weren’t behind any of this or responsible for the old teacher’s injuries, either.

  I mean, and you should forgive me for saying so, but these two were a little dim to be responsible for much of anything.

  “Thanks for the ride,” I told them, then sprinted back across the street.

  Idling by the curb, the pickup truck’s engine rumbled powerfully, and I could tell that my dad was already getting good use out of the vehicle by the ratty-looking cardboard boxes he’d loaded into the bed, to take to, so I supposed, the dump.

  As I hopped in, he hit the gas and peeled out, an act he very much enjoyed, I could tell.

  “So I guess you’re looking for Ellie, then,” my father said.

  He did not comment on my appearance, which by that time must’ve been ghastly. I did him the same favor; I’d been correct about last night taking it out of him.

  “Yeah, and I guess you weren’t out in the screen house, after all,” I retorted. Because clearly he’d gathered enough from listening in on Bella to know how to find me.

  “Where to?” he wanted to know.

  “Beats me.” I’d been so busy figuring out how to chase Norm, I hadn’t had a chance to think yet about where to chase him.

  But wherever Ellie was right this minute, I was willing to bet he’d put her there; for all I knew, he might still be with her.

  “I’m not even sure what car we’re looking for,” I added.

  Norm could be driving mine, or his own little green sports car. Or he might have switched to one of his other vehicles.

  Nervously, I pushed up my sleeves, remembering only at the stab of pain what was under one of them.

  “That arm looks iffy,” my dad remarked in casual understatement.

  “Right,” I said absently, and then a funny thing happened.

  As we made the turn up Washington Street past the big old granite post office building, Marienbad Jones came hurrying out of the Rubber Ducky.

  Which was odd. “Slow down,” I told my dad, and he did, so I could go on watching Marienbad.

  Very odd. She hustled across the street and got into her own car, a big old black Cadillac sedan that she’d gotten in lieu of an unpaid bar bill, sometime in the distant past.

  It was the same car I’d seen her in earlier, up on Route 1. Now it jerked backward out of its parking spot, then roared forward.

  “Go,” I said as it came around the corner, and I don’t know what kind of an engine was under that shiny red hood, but it was big.

  Also, it was loud. Little kids looked up as we roared by, and if I hadn’t been so scared for Ellie I might have enjoyed it, too; instead I watched the rear-view, and when Marienbad turned left onto High Street I sent my dad around the block so we could get behind her.

  Because the thing was, during business hours Marienbad never left the Rubber Ducky; I mean, never. But now here she was, swanning around in broad daylight for the second time in one day.

  Then I realized from the direction she was headed where she must be going. “Stay back. Don’t let her know we’re behind her.”

  My dad slowed obediently again and we rumbled along that way through Eastport side streets, keeping Marienbad’s big, boatlike car well out ahead of us.

  Then, “Pull over,” I said. She’d turned a corner, but the street she’d turned onto was a dead end, so I knew she must’ve stopped in front of Norm’s place.

  At my gesture, my dad pulled over near the corner. I got out, leaned back into the truck’s cab, and told my dad that I thought Norm McHale had Ellie right now and was holding her against her will.

  “I don’t know why,” I added. “I don’t know what’s going on. But Bob Arnold’s busy, and there’s no time to wait for him or anyone.”

  He nodded slowly. No argument, no objections. Even the town ambulances and the fire department were at the crash Bob Arnold was tied up with; I could tell by the distant wail of the sirens.

  “You know this is crazy, right?” I asked my dad. “My just barging on in there like this, you know it’s . . . ?”

  Nuts was the term I was looking for, actually. Because what I intended was to find Ellie if she was in there and get her out.

  “Lots of things worth doing are. Crazy, that is.”

  A short laugh escaped me; he ought to know. “Don’t you follow me,” I warned. “If I don’t come out of there in a reasonable amount of time, get Bob Arnold and drag him here if you have to.”

  He nodded gravely. “I will.” And then, “Jacobia.”

  Halfway to the corner, I turned back. Up there behind the wheel of his new truck, my skinny, aging, long-haired father resembled an elderly hippie who had somehow gotten into the wrong vehicle.

  What he really belonged in was an old VW van with suns and flowers inexpertly painted onto it. Oh, and with machine-gun turrets, too; as I may have mentioned, he was a complicated guy.

  Now as if reading my thought he raised two fingers at me: either a V for victory or a peace sign, I couldn’t tell which.

  I nodded acknowledgment. Then, trying to look casual, I strolled down the sidewalk to the corner, and around it.

  And then . . .

  A faint cry came from inside Norm McHale’s house, quickening my step.

  And then the real fun began.

  * * *

  “Keep still, please.” Norm’s voice, coming from the same front parlor Ellie and I had visited a day earlier, sounded flustered.

  Good, I thought, listening from outside on the flagstone path. My intention was still simply to march in, grab Ellie, and skedaddle with her. And for that plan, the less sure of himself Norm was, the better.

  As for Marienbad, I had no idea of her part in all this, if any. I wasn’t sure now that she was even here, after all; I didn’t hear her, and when I’d come around the corner a few minutes after she did, her black Cadillac was nowhere in sight.

  But I’d deal with her somehow if it turned out that I had to, I’d decided. I crossed the granite-slab doorstep between the rosebushes, not bothering to knock before I went in.

  Dusty afternoon sunshine slanted in through the smeary windows flanking the door, gilding the vases stuffed full of ostrich feathers and the bamboo-legged tables with porcelain card trays on them.

  I heard no more voices. Everything was silent as I crept along the flat, red hallway carpet, past the framed mirrors on the walls and the mahogany hat rack with the dusty hats dangling on it.

  Or it was silent until that damned parrot started squawking. “Hello!” it yelled from the big brass cage in the hall window.

  The cage’s door stood wide ope
n, but the big green bird didn’t come out. I stood still, letting my heart rate drop; I’d forgotten that it was even here, so the dratted bird had startled the wits out of me.

  “Hello!” it hollered again, and, of course, I didn’t tell it how much I would’ve enjoyed wringing its neck, mostly because suddenly someone had both their hands wrapped tightly around mine.

  “Urk,” I pronounced as my captor propelled me roughly into the parlor.

  “You have a visitor.” It was Marienbad behind me. She released my throat, shoving me hard. I tottered forward a few gasping, undignified steps.

  “Oh,” said Norm, sounding disappointed as he looked up, sweaty and red-faced with frustration. He was holding a syringe like the one he’d used on me a few hours earlier.

  Trying to inject Ellie with it, apparently. But she hadn’t been cooperating. Instead because he hadn’t bothered putting her hands behind her before tying them, she’d been using her two clenched fists as a clubbing tool when I came in.

  Now she took his moment of inattention as a chance to put her two bound feet together, draw her knees up sharply and suddenly, and kick out at Norm McHale just as hard as she could, aiming for the middle of his chest.

  “Oof,” he grunted, backing away just in time so her feet only grazed him. His look changed to one of thwarted fury as he raised the glinting needle once more.

  But my pal Ellie only took this as an invitation to more mayhem, and her next kick dropped him to the carpet. I rushed at him, shoving ornate end tables out of the way and tripping over a really darling little embroidered footstool.

  I threw it at him, then hurled myself onto him and tried holding him. “Norm, what are you doing? What’s all this about?” I demanded.

  Then, “Ellie, call Bob Arnold,” I said. “Tell him that unless he’s out there loading victims into ambulances all by himself . . .”

  We need him here, I was about to finish. But before I could—

  “Jake !” Ellie cried warningly, but too late. Sharp fingernails dug into my shoulders and strong hands hauled me backward, freeing Norm from my grip.

  “Ouch!” I yelled as Marienbad grabbed my arms, pulling them back behind me and upward toward my shoulder blades.