by Paula Boyd
“They wouldn’t let me actually place a bet.” His lips twitched up a little at the corners. “Said it would be like insider trading.”
My mouth fell open in absolute outrage, but before I could even sputter, he had wrapped his arms around me and sealed my lips with his own for a quick kiss. He leaned back and ran his thumb between my brows and along my cheek, trying to smooth away the frown. “I’d heard about the pool through the grapevine, but I didn’t feel the need to dignify it with any kind of comment. Enough said?”
“Yes.” I laid my face against his chest and held on to him. “It’s been a really long day, Jerry.”
He held me and rubbed my back for a few moments then said, “I’ve heard the condensed version of what happened to you tonight. Let’s get you dressed and we’ll go through it chapter and verse.”
I leaned back and looked up at him. “I didn’t know, Jerry, really I didn’t. It did not occur to me that somebody wanted to pick over me like they do a corpse. I just felt gross and dirty and I wanted to clean up. I didn’t know it was going to be a major crime to wash my shirt.” I’m not a fan of crime shows, but I’d seen enough bits and pieces to know that spending the night with the forensics people would have been pleasant. “Would you want somebody putting plastic bags on your hands and cleaning your fingernails like a corpse? That’s what they do, isn’t it?”
He stroked his hand through my damp hair and brushed his fingers across my cheek. “It’s okay. It will mean we won’t have physical evidence from you to connect you to where you were taken, but there are still things we can do. We should probably get blood work to see if they can determine what you were drugged with.”
“What’s the point? It was nitrous oxide.” I saw his raised eyebrow so I explained. “No, I’m not positive, but it seemed right. There was a bit of a high but I went out quick and I felt horrible afterward. But there were two cylinders clanging together, not just one, so I don’t know how that works.”
“If it was nox, that’s good.”
“Why?”
“They mixed it with oxygen. Knew what they were doing. Otherwise, you’d probably have frostbite or be paralyzed or dead.”
“Great. I was kidnapped by knowledgeable druggies. I’m so fortunate.” It could have been worse, that was for certain, but it had been damn bad enough and I was shaken. A traitorous tear leaked out of one eye. “I really didn’t mean to screw this up, Jerry, really I didn’t.”
“It’s okay.” He kissed me again. “Now, put your shirt back on.”
Yes, I’d forgotten I’d been standing in front of the world in my bra. “I have to dry it first.” My voice sounded kind of pitiful even to me. I pushed away, shuffled over to the wall-mounted hand dryer and punched the button. Hot air burst from the nozzle and I held my shirt beneath it, wiggling and jiggling it for maximum heat coverage. “You go on. I’ll be out in a few minutes.”
“That’s not going to dry anytime soon. My undershirt wouldn’t cover up much so I’ll go find you something.”
As he turned toward the door, it opened and a plastic-covered white shirt came flying in. Jerry bent down and picked up a hanger with a man’s dress shirt, fresh from the laundry. “Peace offering, I do believe.”
“They just didn’t want to see what I’d do if they handed me an orange jumpsuit, that’s all. Probably because somebody has a bet on when that will happen too.”
He shook his head. “It’s going to be okay, Jolene. And really, you’re doing better than I’d expected. After what I heard, I was prepared for you to be hysterical.”
“Hysterical? Me? Nah, I was just standing half-naked in the police station bathroom screaming at a cop while half the police station watched. I am calm, collected and in complete control.” I ripped the plastic off the shirt and started unbuttoning a heavily starched size 18 1/2 Big and Tall. Once I got it on and buttoned, I was not sure I’d improved the situation all that much. I looked more like a five-year-old playing dress-up. So, I rolled up the sleeves and unbuttoned the bottom four buttons, tying the ends in front, low across my hips. “Truth is, if I let myself think about what really happened, I’d be a wreck. Hysterical is just one mental replay away.”
“You’re going to have to talk about it, Jolene, when we get back in the room. Are you ready for that?”
“No, but I’ll do it anyway. I’ll even try not to yell and will be appropriately traumatized for the interview, because I am traumatized. It was not a fun experience tonight, Jerry, believe me, and in case you didn’t know by now I use a lot of denial, anger and sarcasm to deal with these horrific situations I seem to find myself in here in the great state of Texas.” Yes, my voice was escalating. “So just because I’m not bawling my eyes out right this second doesn’t mean I’m not upset. Because I can be really upset and you might not even know it. I hide it real well sometimes,” I said, my voice quivering just a little. I was hiding nothing and we both knew it. “I really do.”
“I will certainly have to remember that,” he said, trying to chuckle and make it sound sincere. The incident had shaken him and he was worried. He wasn’t showing it, not even a little, but I knew. He was trying to help me get through the interview before the emotion of it all overwhelmed me. “You’ll be talking to Lieutenant Daniel Perez. He’s a good guy. Probably won’t have a crush on you like Rick did since he’s got kids your age, but you never know.” He attempted a little fake laugh to lighten the mood, but since it didn’t seem to be working, he shrugged. “He does his job well.”
Actually, it had worked a little—the topical distraction, not the fake laugh—as I was willing to think of anything besides recent events. “Rick had a crush on me? Really?”
He frowned. “I was speculating.”
It was darned flattering to be sure that Detective Rick Rankin, AKA Surfer Dude, had lusted after me. I’d suspected it myself, had even teased Rick about it, but it was nice hearing Jerry acknowledge it. Couldn’t hurt for him to think that someone else found me attractive, particularly a hot young guy. “He moved to Tyler, right? East of Dallas? Gosh, what was he twenty-two, twenty-three?”
“Actually, Jolene, he’s thirty-two and recently engaged.”
“Really?” I’d always liked Rick and it was kind of nice to know he’d found somebody. He always seemed lonely to me. “Have you met her? Is she nice? Smart? Pretty?”
“Yes to all,” Jerry said. “Now, come on, let’s get this over with.”
No sooner had the words left his mouth than my mother walked by carrying a cup of coffee, another bottle of water and a can of Dr Pepper. She didn’t even bat an eye at my shirt. “At least you smell better.”
It was a pretty fair compliment in Lucille-ese, so I considerately carried the Dr Pepper for her as we marched back to the interrogation room. I chugged down half the can before we got there for courage. I was not looking forward to the inquisition no matter how cavalier I pretended to be.
Mother put the bottle of water on the table, then sat herself down, took a dainty sip of coffee and said, “I should draw in your eyebrow before we talk to the detective. That looks pitiful.”
“That’s very thoughtful, Mother, but the Dr Pepper and the ego boost are good enough for now.” I plopped myself down in the chair beside her and took another long swig. “Besides, I kind of like it. Sets off the big red stripe where my lips used to be.”
Lucille tsk-tsked me as only she can do. “I have foundation that would cover that up.”
I scowled some more.
Jerry sat down next to me, leaned back and crossed his arms. “Try to behave.”
About one more directive from either of them and it was going to get ugly. Really ugly.
The door opened and a short olive-skinned man carrying a manila file folder, clipboard, yellow legal pad and pocket-sized recorder marched in. “Well, ladies,” he said, unceremoniously dumping his cargo on the table. “I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t heard about you two. Probably couldn’t find two people in the building who have
n’t.”
“Lies,” Lucille said, setting her coffee cup on the table so she could bang her fist for emphasis. “All lies, I tell you. The entire Redwater Police Department is just a bunch of gossiping, betting-pool cheaters that make up wicked lies about innocent citizens to suit their tawdry imaginations. My daughter Jolene hasn’t done a thing wrong. Ever.”
Oh, if only I had that statement in writing. She didn’t mean a word of it, of course, and the glaringly obvious omission of her own culpability was comforting to no one.
“And,” she continued, “there’s certainly no cause to be picking on a frail senior citizen who can barely get herself over to the senior center to take her meals. It’s an outrage, I tell you!”
Yes, an outrage indeed. I tried to keep a blank face while Jerry did the sighing for both of us, and gave a weak shrug in the detective’s direction. There really wasn’t much you could say anyway.
Lieutenant Daniel Perez was about five-five, with silver-streaked black hair and a gold-rimmed front tooth. His gray suit was rumpled and his tie askew. He looked almost as tired as I felt.
“My information about you came from police reports, Miz Jackson,” he said to Lucille. “I think it’s fair to say that you and your daughter have been involved in a number of our cases for one reason or another. But that’s not why we’re here now, is it?”
I glanced at my mother, who was tapping her fingers on the table, looking around the room, appearing to have not heard one word he’d said.
Perez took a seat at the end of the table. “You should know, however, that we have reports of a car matching the one you drove up in racing down Seymour Highway at speeds nearing one hundred miles per hour.”
“Well, that’s why we’re here, for pity’s sake,” Lucille said, an obvious “duh” in her tone. “And if it weren’t for the fact that my Buick is rigged with a governor, we’d have been here a lot sooner.”
“Gunfire was also reported.”
“Then I guess you know also,” Lucille said, not skipping a beat, “that it’s just a thousand wonders we’re not dead. Are you going to find out who was trying to kill us or just keep making it out like we did something wrong?”
We hadn’t even gotten started and this had already gone bad. I rubbed my eyes and tried to hold my head up. “We were running for our lives tonight, detective. You know that. As for the other, uh, situations we wound up in, well, there were extenuating circumstances.”
“Oh, Jolene, you don’t have to make excuses for us to this man,” Mother said, more than a little irate. “We have simply been victims of circumstance. We were just doing our best to take control of the unfortunate situations we found ourselves in and not be victims, just like tonight. Why, who knows how many gangs of murderers would be running loose if not for us doing what we had to.” She pointed an infamous nail at Perez. “You people should be grateful to us instead of criticizing.”
Perez looked at Lucille in sincere disbelief. After a few seconds, he realized—as we all have—that there are times when there is just nothing to be said and you just have to move along. He punched the button on the recorder, said some memorized legal spiel and ended with, “Tell me what happened tonight.”
Figuring I’d better spit out as much as I could before Mother threw another rock at the hornet’s nest—and had it captured on tape—I said, “We’d just gotten back from grabbing a bite at the Dairy Queen. Mother went over to a friend’s house and I stayed there, waiting on a call from…”
“Me,” Jerry said. “She was waiting on a call from me. We were planning to have dinner, but I got tied up and couldn’t make it.”
That was a detail I needed to piece into the whole picture later. “Anyway,” I said, back to the point. “The short version is that I was at my mother’s house, asleep on the couch, when for reasons I can’t imagine, some lunatics broke in, tied me up, gassed me, hauled me off to some dumpy house where they said not one word, just watched as I threw up, gassed me again and left me back at my mother’s on the couch, considerably worse for the wear. There was no apparent point to the whole fiasco at least as far as I know at this point.”
I didn’t volunteer that my mother was most likely the intended target because it was likely to add a good two hours to our time in the room. I’d just tell Jerry and let him figure out what to do with my assumption. “Once again, I was minding my own business, not bothering anyone, and somebody very literally dragged me out of the house and into the middle of whatever kind of mess this whole thing is.”
Lucille banged her fist on the table. “Some hoodlums kidnapped my Jolene from my very own home and just about killed her and I want to know what you’re going to do about it.”
Perez tapped his pen on the paper of his clipboard. “Well, ma’am, I’m going to ask official questions and write official answers on this report. We’ll have an official tape of everything else you’ve said if we need it.”
Lucille eyed the little machine as if it were a rattlesnake, which was probably a good thing. Maybe it would keep her quiet. Unfortunately, Perez reached over and clicked it off.
“As you might guess, Miz Jackson, there’s not much we can do now that any physical evidence we might have collected is headed to the sewer.” Perez tapped a little more on the paper then pointed the pen at Jerry. “This incident actually occurred in Kickapoo so this is technically your jurisdiction, Sheriff, not mine. And frankly, writing up this report is more effort than I feel inclined to make right now just for drill.”
Jerry just nodded. “I know what you’re thinking, Lieutenant, but let’s get the details down in case we need to file it officially. If we stumble onto the house where Jolene was taken, your crime scene unit’s going to get the call anyway. And this will just make a cleaner case.”
Perez eyed me. “Your conflict of interest issues aren’t my problem, Sheriff.”
“Actually,” Jerry said, “the conflict of interest potential is significant on several fronts.” He nodded toward Lucille. “One of my deputies is dating Miz Jackson.”
Perez looked at Jerry with your basic “you’ve got to be kidding” look and shook his head. “It’s still not my problem. You have the resources to handle this, and I don’t see a good reason why we should get involved, and there are two very good ones why we shouldn’t.”
Yes, he meant me and my mother, what else would he mean? I really missed Rick.
Jerry just smiled a little. “As far as technicalities go, Lieutenant, you have two women, one obviously injured, who showed up at your station because they believed they were running for their lives. Gunfire was reported in Redwater jurisdiction. You have to write it up.”
Perez grumbled and muttered. He knew what he had to do; he just hadn’t accepted his mission yet. “I have choices, Sheriff.”
“I know you do,” Jerry said. “But I think you’ll eventually find that this incident is related to the homicide at the New Falls Motel this morning.”
The detective raised an eyebrow. “What do you know about that?”
Jerry nodded. “It’s in the report.”
“You see,” Lucille added helpfully, “Jerry had this nice girl with him and when he took her back to her motel room, not that there was anything untoward with all that, but when he did, well, it seems there was already someone in it. Dead. Can you believe that? Well, I suppose you can since your people were there taking pictures of it all.” She shook her head and tsk-tsked, her theatrics in full swing. “I do not know what this world is coming to. And do you know we found out your very own police department had a tawdry little game going on about Jolene and me? A betting pool they called it. Did you know about that? Isn’t that illegal? I sure think it must be. Why the whole thing just makes me wonder why we pay taxes at all, this sort of thing happening right under our noses.”
Deflect and redirect. Lucille is a master.
Perez glared at Lucille then at me as if he were waiting for something. I just shrugged so he turned his squinting eyes back on Lucille.
“Exactly what do you know about the incident at the motel this morning, Miz Jackson, specifically about the girl?”
Lucille scanned the room, studying her options. “I saw her this morning, in the truck with Jerry Don,” she said, trying to find out what they knew and didn’t. “She’s real pretty, if that’s what you mean.”
Perez sighed heavily, an acquired habit when Lucille is present. He looked again at me and at Jerry, that time with sympathy or maybe pity. “We know she’s your granddaughter, Miz Jackson,” Perez said, cutting to the chase. “Why is she here and how is she involved with the death this morning?”
Lucille’s mouth dropped open and her eyes flashed. She clickety-clacked her nails on the table, not at all amused that her charade had been found out. “Sarah had nothing to do with anything, so don’t you be dragging her into this. Why a respectable citizen can’t rent a room without some hoodlum showing up dead in it is beyond me. What do you say about that, that’s what I want to know?” She huffed and puffed and lifted her chin, but when Perez just kept glaring at her, she added. “I suppose you very well know too that Jerry Don took her out to his ex-wife’s house so she’d be safe, although I don’t know why we have to worry about hiding out all the time in our family. What is this world coming to?”
I propped my elbows on the table and dropped my forehead into my palms. This was going to be a long and tedious process.
“Actually, Jolene,” Jerry said, jumping in when Lucille took another breath. “I had to make some arrangements for Sarah last night, trying to get her back to Denver as soon as possible, which is why I stood you up for dinner. It wound up taking a lot longer than it should have. I tried to call and tell you, but you didn’t answer. I left a message. I figured you were asleep.”
I raised my head slowly and looked at him. “Oh, I was asleep alright.”
“Jolene…”
“You could’ve called back, Jerry.” Fears, tears and anger formed a big ball in my throat. “Or come over when you got finished.” Oh, the doubts and insecurities, fueled by fear, sleep deprivation and a couple of near-death experiences pushed me right over the edge. “I was kidnapped, Jerry. They taped me up like a bag of trash and gassed me. Twice. I somehow manage to live through that only to get to stare death in the face again from my half-blind mother driving a hundred miles an hour in the dark with a lunatic chasing us. And you didn’t even check on me!”
