“No. Probably just out of college. Hire them cheap at Three they do.” Wads peeled back the cuff on the sleeve of his parka. He peered at his watch. “Kwik Trip calleth. I’ve gotta get to work.”
“You’re going to leave me with this mess?”
“Howard, get me hired and I’ll be glad to stay, but until then, selling gasoline and Mars bars pays the rent for me.”
Zigman made a turnaround. He took in the full scene as if for the first time. “So what have I got here? A murder at your farm that may or may not be connected to this house fire, a fire caused by nobody knows what, and the death of a young woman that shouldn’t have happened.”
Wads tapped his ear. “Add this to your list, a guy who can’t hear too good.”
He walked off toward his truck. Wads stopped at a scorched coaster wagon on the way. Were Shatha Naseri and her daughter in the fire? Wads picked up the wagon. He ran a gloved hand over the damage. Maybe they’ll want this if they weren’t. Wouldn’t take much to clean it up.
He spotted a doll that had been flung wide and picked that up, too.
At his truck, Wads lifted the cover on the box and laid the wagon and the doll inside. Could that be one of those Bratzillaz dolls? Whatever happened to Barbie? He secured the cover and went around to the driver’s door, the door bashed in and the window shattered. A blackened toilet laid on the ground.
Now how’m I gonna explain this to my insurance man?
FOUR
WADS, FLASHLIGHT IN HAND, read the gallonage off pump eight and wrote the numbers on his inventory sheet. A Cadillac station wagon thumped in over the cracks in the concrete driveway as he turned the beam on the numbers on pump nine.
“Get a little service here?” came a husky voice from the wagon.
Wads continued his inventory. “It’s you-pump at this place.”
“Aw, come on. Have pity on an old lady, wouldjah, honey?”
Wads stepped around the pump. He leaned his elbow through the driver’s window and hunkered down, to get a look at this helpless soul. Surprise lit his face. “Kranz?”
“Understand your truck got damaged out at the fire.”
“Yeah, the door got pretty well bashed in.”
“Well, I’m here to help you.”
“How’s that?”
The Bratsburgh fire chief brushed Wads back as she opened the door and stepped out of her car. She wore a purple fedora at a rakish angle, a storm coat, slacks with a knife-sharp crease showing below the coat’s hem, and low heels.
Wads admired the woman. “You clean up pretty good.”
“Blow the smoke off me and I’m not half bad.” Kranz reached back in her car and brought out a leather portfolio. “Tonight I’m your friendly neighborhood insurance adjuster.”
“I knew you messed with insurance, but I never guessed this.”
“Yup, work for myself. LaPrairie Mutual called me, so here I am. Where’s the truck?”
He motioned toward the side of the building.
“Let’s take a look, shall we?” she said and led the way. “So what hit it?”
Wads pulled out his cellphone. He tapped a photo up on the screen and held it over for Kranz to see.
“A toilet? Well, flung out by the blast, that’ll sure do it.” She bent a bit at the waist, the better to study the door panel, caved-in. “See you duct-taped some plastic for a new window.”
“Darn cold driving into town without any glass, I’ll tell you.”
“Can you open it?”
“What?”
“The door.”
“No, it’s jammed. I have to get in and out the passenger door.”
Kranz straightened up. She wriggled her fingers for the flashlight, and Wads gave it to her. She played the beam up one side, over, and down the other side of the door’s edge. “Frame’s not damaged, so you’re in luck on that part. New door and glass, door painted to match your truck, we’re looking at thirteen, fourteen hundred dollars, and you’ve got a thousand bucks deductible.”
“At least the insurance will pay the rest.”
“I wouldn’t turn in a claim if I were you.”
“Why not?”
“LaPrairie will pay, but they’ll dingly-damn sure come back on you and up your premium, stiff you three ways from Sunday.”
Wads gazed at the bashed door on his pickup. “So I gotta eat the expense?”
Kranz got a good fire going on a fresh cigar. She blew a ring of smoke to the side. “I’d do it. Look, every farmer I know is a mechanic. Get yerself a door at the junkyard, put it on, and make a deal with Herb over at the Dedenter shop to use his place and paint it yourself. You can get by with maybe two hundred bucks outta your pocket.”
“Two hundred I don’t have versus a thousand I don’t have, some choice.”
“Wads, you can drive your truck as it is. Your passenger door works, so you’re all right.”
“But my driver’s door, it’s a shameful mess.”
“Uh-huh, like my partner’s truck. She never fixes anything, which is good for me because she leaves my Caddy alone.”
WADS SLASHED his box cutter along the top of a carton of Huggies, then busied himself stocking a shelf with packages.
“Boss,” called out the high school teen at the cash register.
“Yeah, Cindy.”
“You should come see this.”
He glanced over at the six-foot-four brunette in a Kwik Trip smock waving to him. Wads liked her, hired her because he knew no one would try to buffalo a woman of her altitude. Shoplifting had dropped to zero on her shift. He tucked the last of the Huggies onto the shelf and trotted up the aisle. “Whatcha got?”
She aimed a long finger at the front window. “Eight bikers at the pumps. Look, they’re all filling at the same time.”
“They swipe their cards?”
“Tapped the ‘pay inside’ buttons.”
Pump one clicked off on the light board next to the cashier, then three, five, seven, and the rest. The motorcyclists twisted the gas caps down on their tanks and, on a signal from a guy in a spiked German helmet at the farthest pump, all threw a leg across their saddles and roared away.
Wads grinned. “Cute. Gas theft. I love it. Did you get any license plates?”
“No, and the video system’s down.”
“Okay, hon, here’s what you do. You call Nine-One-One and tell ’em what happened. They’ll have four police cars out here before you hang up.”
“That’s it?”
“Nope.” Wads dashed back to his office. He came out, pulling on his parka. “I know who those yahoos are and where they’re going.”
He slapped a business card on the counter as he backed his way toward the front door. “Three minutes, call that number. It’s a sheriff’s detective. You tell Howard to get a couple deputies out to the Owls’ Club, and they can have themselves a party arresting the gas thieves.”
FIVE
WADS SAT IN HIS TRUCK at the top of a hill, the engine idling. He peered through night-vision binoculars he’d liberated from Uncle Sam at the end of his hitch in Iraq.
“Jake, Jake, Jake,” he murmured, “you shouldn’t make it so easy.”
In the glasses, a dozen motorcycles parked in front of the Owls’ Club, a tavern on the backside of Lake Kandiyah, eight of the bikes clustered together, all leaning away from him.
Wads rummaged his Army nine-mil from the glove box. He shoved the gun in his waistband and eased the truck down the hill onto the flat of the county road, the chunky cinder-block building gro
wing in his windshield, the neon sign beckoning thirsty souls inside for a Miller’s or a Rolling Rock. He cut his headlights short of the club’s gravelled lot and rolled in, the air tainted by engine exhaust and beer. Wads punched the number of the tavern into his cell.
On the third ring, a rumbly voice answered.
“Is Jake Karns there?” Wads asked.
He heard the voice on the other end shout, “Karns! Call for you.” In the background, Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor screeched away on “Survivalism.”
Some moments went by before a new voice came on, asking, “Yeah?”
“Jakey boy. This is Wads. You where you can see out the front window?”
“So?”
“Watch the show.” He clicked off and, with a ballet of movements, pulled on the headlights, slipped the transmission into first, and drove forward. He banged and bounced over one motorcycle after another until eight laid in ruins. Wads then floored the accelerator. The dual rear wheels sprayed gravel as the truck rocketed sideways and slid to a stop beyond the tavern’s front door.
Wads bailed out. Gun in hand, he plastered himself against the wall as the door whammed open and a squat, bald man in leathers ran out, others behind him.
Wads grabbed the lead man’s collar. He yanked him back, jammed his pistol in the man’s ear, and bellowed at the others, “Kiss the dirt or old Jake gets a killer of an ear ache!”
Karns sneered. “You don’t have the balls.”
Wads flicked his gun away and whipped it back hard, the blow snapping Karns’s head to the side. The yell said pain.
Wads again jammed the barrel in Karns’s ear. “Boys, are those sirens I hear?”
Several of the bikers twisted in the gloom of the parking lot. They stared over their shoulders at distant lights and sound coming their way.
“That’s sheriff’s deputies, boys. They’re coming to take your butts to jail or your buddy’s body to the morgue, your choice. Down on your knees. Now.”
Two of the larger men, built like Green Bay Packer linemen, stepped forward. As they did, they brought out pistols of their own.
Wads gave them the cold eye. “Bad choice.”
Karns raised a fist. “Kill the bastard, and shoot me if you have to to do it.”
Wads racked back the hammer on his gun.
SIX
TREMBLING, WADS LEANED against the shower wall in his apartment, the water roiling down, flushing away the soap but not the harrowing moment at the Owls’ Club.
Too close.
Too damn close.
He shook his head to rid his memory and swiped soppy hair up out of his eyes.
Enough of this.
He turned the hot water off. Wads stood for a bit–dripping, the bathroom infused with the scent of Irish Spring–before he reached out through the curtain for a towel. A hand put one in his hand. He felt fingers touch his, and Wads popped his head out through the curtain. A woman, barefoot and in his Packer Backer bathrobe, stood before him.
“Where the heck–”
“Your spare key.” Barb Larson gave him a radiant smile. She held the key out, and she also held out a glass. “Rum and Coke?”
“Don’t like rum. Don’t even have any.”
“That’s why I brought my own.” She savored the drink in a way that said something better, far more warming, was in the offing. “Hon, you were so miserable at last call, I figured you could use a little company.”
He pulled the towel inside and rubbed down. “I came within a calf’s eyelash of blowing a man’s head off tonight.”
“You didn’t say anything earlier.”
“Didn’t wanna talk about it.”
“But you didn’t do it, right?”
“Huh-uh.” Wads wrapped the towel around his waist. He felt a draft. Before he could turn, hands slid down under his towel to his groin–fingers, soft and warm. They encircled his penis as Larson leaned into him.
“I’d say you’re ready, big fella.”
“Barb.”
She, now naked, turned him to herself and guided his penis in, between her legs.
He flushed, his breath quickening.
“Come on, cowboy, you can do it.”
A rapping came at the apartment door.
“Ignore it.”
“But–”
The rapping continued, more insistent.
“Somebody–”
She wrenched the shower faucet on, but the sound from the door cut through the spray.
Wads twisted himself free. He stumbled out of the shower and grabbed up a fresh towel and the robe Larson had dropped, the rapping demanding that someone come. Wads stepped into his slippers. He went to the door, pulling on his robe as he hustled along. When he got there, he squinted through the peephole. “Shatha?”
“Mister Wadkowski, I have to see you.”
Wads opened the door.
Shatha Naseri stood before him, a petite, olive-skinned woman, lost in a full-length quilted coat and keffiyeh. She glanced at his feet. “Why are you wearing bunny slippers?”
“A niece, she gave them to me. But you didn’t come here for that.”
“My Raheem, he is dead, isn’t he,” she said, her eyes red and filled with sorrow.
Wads took hold of the woman’s elbow. He drew her inside and closed the door. “Where in God’s creation have you been?”
The confusion in her eyes suggested the woman was grasping at loose ends and not doing well. “Madison,” she whispered. “Raheem said little Afraima and I had to leave. He was afraid.”
“When?”
“This morning–yesterday morning.”
“Afraid of what?”
“He would not tell me. I borrowed our neighbor’s car, took Afraima to the mosque. When we came back, our house was burning. I knew then, so I took Afraima to friends, and I have been driving around since. Raheem said I should see you.”
“Of course. How about I make you some tea?”
Shatha Naseri studied her hands. “How many times have we had tea together, you, my Raheem, and I?”
Wads scuffed away to the kitchen. He turned the burner on under a saucepan of water and rifled through a cabinet until he found a box of tea. “All I’ve got is Red Zinger.”
“You Americans, you can never have just black tea.”
“Right, we’ve got to juice it up.”
Barb Larson came out of the bathroom dressed in a tight sweater and short skirt, her bartender’s outfit.
Wads, when he saw her, dropped the box. “Shatha,” he gabbled, “this is Barb Larson, a friend. Barb, Shatha Naseri.”
“I know. I heard.” Larson went to Naseri and took her hands. “I am so sorry for what happened.”
“You knew my Raheem?”
“No, but Wads has always said nice things about him, and you, and your daughter.”
Wads rattled in with a Partridge Family tray on which rode Melmac cups, spoons, and the pan of water. He set it all on his coffee table–a cabinet door that straddled two plastic milk crates–and splashed hot water into the cups. A tea bag bobbed to the top of each.
Wads settled on a plastic chair shaped like hand. “So why come to me?”
Naseri stared at Larson.
“Shatha, Barb’s a friend of the best kind. She can keep secrets.”
“And you know this how?”
“She’s a bartender.” He passed a cup and spoon to Naseri seated kitty-corner from him on his couch. “Why me?”
“Raheem, he said if he should die, you would find the person who took his life.” She brought a thumb drive from her pocket and held the drive out.
Wads raised an eyebrow. “What’s this?”
“Raheem said you would know.”
Larson took the thumb drive from Naseri and passed it to Wads. “The only way you’re gonna find out what’s on this is to plug it into your computer.”
He shook the drive in his hand, like dice, as he got up and went to his laptop on a milk-crate table next to the window. Wads snatched a look outside–a peaceful night, as it should be at two in the morning, except for the little yapper in the yard across the street. A cat must have set him off.
Wads booted up the machine. When he had a screen, he plugged the drive in. “What am I going to see here?”
Naseri set her tea aside. “I do not know. Raheem only said it is important.”
He leaned forward. Wads maneuvered the cursor around, clicking on one item, then the next. “Seems to be some kind of spreadsheet, and there are other files here. Hmm, bank stuff. And I’m supposed to see something in these figures? We’ve got derivatives here. I never did understand those things.”
Larson came over. She hunched down, her breath warm on Wads’s ear as she read over his shoulder. She tapped a jewel-studded fingernail on the screen. “That’s yield, isn’t it?”
“Appears so.”
“I’ve got to buy some of that. Hold that for a while, I’d never have to work again.”
“With the economy in the toilet, Barb, ehh.” He wobbled his hand.
She riffled his hair. “Sweetie, you lost your farm. I didn’t.”
“Uh-huh. I think I’ve got to get my old accountant out at the Farm Credit to go over this. Shatha?”
“Yes?” She rose and came across the room as Wads turned to her. Glass shattered and she fell.
Wads bolted from his chair. He came down on his knees next to Naseri, sucked in wind when he saw blood escaping from a wound in her temple. He glanced up to Larson and croaked out, “Nine-One-One, now.”
Iced (John Wads Crime Novellas Book 1) Page 2
