Nick of Time

by John Gilstrap

  Gramma started to cry. Her hands trembled. “Please don’t do this,” she whimpered.

  “I have to,” Brad said. “I’m caught in a crack, and you happen to be my only way out. It sucks, but welcome to my world.”

  “I don’t think I can,” she whined.

  Scotty felt his face and ears turning red with rage. Who did this guy think he was, making Gramma cry?

  Brad said, “You think about it, Gramma. Ask yourself what you asked the kid: is it worth taking the chance?”

  “Please don’t,” she said again.

  Brad gave her a poisonous smile. “You’re in the driver’s seat. Get us out of here safely, and your troubles are nearly over.”

  Gramma made her decision. Scotty felt a surge of pride as he saw the sniveling weakness drain from her face, then to be replaced by the angry set of her jaw that Scotty had become so used to seeing. “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “Out of the parking lot and hang a right. Join that line of cars.” The rain had slackened a bit, but there was plenty left in the clouds.

  Gramma backed out of the parking space, then pulled the transmission into Drive and whirled the wheel to the left to clear the back of the car that had parked next to her. That done, she straightened the vehicle out and headed for the driveway, beyond which the traffic was barely moving.

  Brad climbed back over the seat to join Nicki in the back. “When they stop you, they’re going to ask if you’ve seen us, and that’s when you need to put in an Oscar-winning performance. If they want to know where you’re going or where you’ve been, you just tell them that you took your grandson out to get a movie.”

  “And a video game,” Scotty corrected. He shrank from the heat of Brad’s glare.

  “Just get us through this,” Brad continued, to Gramma, “and everything will be fine. Screw it up and you’ll regret it forever.” He faded farther back into the shadows, pausing to whisper in Scotty’s ear. “Listen here, little man, I’ll tell you what I told your grandmother. If something happens so these cops find out that we’re here, there’s going to be shooting. When that happens, the very first bullet kills your Gramma. The second one kills you. Think about that.”

  Brad turned to Nicki. “Did you find the driver’s license?”

  Actually, she’d forgotten completely about it. With trembling hands, she turned her attention to the mammoth purse. Glancing at the flashing lights of the roadblock, she asked, “Are you really going to shoot if we get stopped up there?” she asked.

  Brad gave her a hard look. “I told you that I’m not going back to prison. You just keep your head down.”

  “But Brad, what about them?” she asked with a sweeping gesture. “They didn’t do anything.”

  He turned away to face front again. “Not yet they haven’t,” he said.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  North Carolina State Trooper Matt Hayes would not have been more soaked if someone had stood on a ladder and poured buckets of water over his head. On typical wet days, his plastic rain slicker kept most of the rain out, but today he might as well not have worn it.

  He handed Hector Nunez back his license and waved him through the roadblock, beckoning the next in line to stop. He’d chosen this spot for the checkpoint because it was only a few hundred yards from the place where the road from Essex split in three. A similar checkpoint had been set up on the northern end of the same road, some thirty miles from here. Getting in and out of Essex required passage on this road, period. If the murderers were traveling by car, their escape route was sealed off. They were either holed up or trapped. Matt couldn’t see a third option.

  Now that he’d been here for three hours, though, things seemed a hell of a lot less sure.

  A battered green Bronco without hubcaps was next in line, complete with a little old lady behind the steering wheel. Matt whirled his fingers in the air to motion her to lower her window. The height of the vehicle allowed him to look her straight in the eye rather than tilting his head and dumping a torrent of water from the wide flat rim of his plastic-covered hat. “Hello, ma’am,” he said. “Are you keeping dry?”

  The woman seemed nervous as she shot him only a cursory look and then returned her eyes to the road. “I’m trying,” she said. “I’m taking my grandson to get a video and a game.”

  Matt’s curiosity was piqued by her behavior. “Are you okay?” he asked. “You look nervous.”

  “No,” she said. “I’m fine. Just tired of the weather.”

  Matt wiped the cascade of water from his mouth. “Could I see your driver’s license, please?”

  This time, the look in the woman’s face was something close to panic.

  * * *

  Brad felt his insides seize. Why hadn’t he thought of that? Of course, they were going to want to see her license, but Nicki still held the bulky purse on her lap, hugging it to her chest and trying not to let her breathing run away from her. Up front, Gramma clearly didn’t know what to say.

  “Are you okay, ma’am?” the cop repeated. “You don’t look so good.”

  In his mind, Brad could see the cop slipping his pistol out of its holster. His hand tightened around the grip of his own.

  “I’ve got your purse here, Gramma,” Scotty said, and he unhooked his seat belt. Reaching over the edge of his seat, he grabbed the bag from Nicki and lifted it over to his grandmother. “I was looking for some gum while you were inside getting the movie,” he explained. “Then you came back and I was scared that you might get mad about me going through your stuff.”

  * * *

  Corporal Hayes smiled as a waterlogged boy leaned forward with the purse gripped in his fist.

  The grandmother accepted her bag, and at the moment of the handoff they exchanged a significant glance that Matt didn’t quite know how to interpret. When the boy caught him watching, it grew awkward, and then the kid smiled at him.

  Gramma still avoided eye contact as she fished through the junk in her bag for her wallet, and from there she started fishing for her license. She riffled through all of the picture sleeves in the wallet—past a couple of credit cards and a photo of what could only be a younger version of the boy in the backseat.

  “I know it has to be here somewhere,” she said.

  “Ma’am, you look nervous,” Matt said. Scared to death actually came closer to it.

  “Do I?” she said. “I just can’t—Oh, there it is!” She looked past her wallet into the cavern of the purse itself and pulled out the plastic card. “It must have fallen out.” She dared a flash of eye contact as she handed it over.

  Matt looked at it, compared the picture to the face in front of him, and was reassured. It was her, all right. But there was something wrong here. “Give me just a minute, will you?” he said. He stepped away from the truck just far enough that the occupants wouldn’t be able to hear what he was about to say on the radio.

  * * *

  In the back of the Bronco, Brad seethed. How could he have been so stupid? Jesus, he should have thought of the license. As it was, he was lucky to snatch it away from Nicki in time to dump it in the purse. The kid was one smooth liar, though. Brilliant.

  Brad dared a peek over the boy’s seat, out toward the window. What was happening? Why were they still sitting there?

  “The cop took her license,” Scotty whispered, making Brad wonder if he’d spoken his thoughts aloud.

  Brad touched a finger to his lips.

  “It’s not her fault,” Scotty said. “She’s trying, she really is. She’s just not very good at this stuff.”

  “Be quiet,” Brad hissed. “And quit looking at me. It doesn’t matter whose fault it is.”

  “Brad, you can’t shoot them,” Nicki said.

  “You be quiet, too,” he snapped. Brad had no idea what he was he was going to do if things got ugly, but it sure as hell didn’t involve shooting an old woman and a kid. He had to threaten them, though, or else they wouldn’t be frightened into doing what he wanted. And he had
to be equally hard on Nicki simply because she didn’t have it in her to be frightening. That left only one effective option: she had to look as frightened as the others. People on edge were pliable. It was a skill he’d learned a long time ago. Intimidation wasn’t about being tough so much as it was about sounding tough.

  He liked to call it the Big Bluff. It was how he’d survived on the street. Sure, you had to duke it out a few times to keep it credible, but if you chose your opponents properly, even the fight could be part of the ruse. Pick on the weaker ones and only hit them hard enough to maybe break a nose. He didn’t care what people saw in the movies, a fight always ended once you broke somebody’s nose.

  What the hell was taking the cop so long? Brad had been watching the guy. Every other car that approached the roadblock was stopped only for a few seconds—long enough to show their identification—and then they were motioned through. This was trouble for sure.

  Brad tried to think of some way that Gramma might have communicated with the cop. Maybe she’d sent him a note, or blinked out an SOS. There were a thousand ways she could have sent a silent signal. After he’d promised to kill the boy, though, if anything went wrong, he didn’t think she’d risk it.

  But what else could it be? The cop was taking forever on the radio. The whole damn plan was unraveling right in front of him. There had to be something for him to do. There was always one more option.

  Running wasn’t a choice. The act of rushing the driver alone would make the cop draw down, and nobody here needed that kind of madness.

  Think, Brad. Think ...

  “What’s he doing now?” he whispered to the boy.

  “He’s still talking on the radio,” Scotty said. “Oh, no. He’s not anymore. He’s coming back to the window.”

  Brad ducked back down, lying faceup on the floor, his weapon ready in his hand.

  Killing a cop wasn’t on the agenda, but it looked as if the agenda might be changing. His grip tightened.

  * * *

  It was a good ruse, Matt thought as he finished his discussion on the radio. He never would have suspected the Bronco, and certainly not the old lady. According to her license, she was June Parker, from one of the off-road neighborhoods in Lincolntown. When he returned to the window, he did so carefully. At least he understood why the woman was acting so crazy.

  “You didn’t tell me the truth, did you, ma’am?” Corporal Hayes asked.

  There was that terrified look. She seemed to be close to tears.

  “I was wondering why you were shaking like that,” the cop went on. “You’ve got two outstanding warrants for speeding on the interstate, did you know that?”

  The news seemed to startle her, and something changed behind her eyes. “Yes, sir, I do.”

  “You’ve got over five hundred dollars in outstanding fines. I’m supposed to arrest you and take you in for that kind of money. You’re in very serious trouble.”

  “Are you taking me to jail?” she asked.

  Matt looked at her and sighed. The answer here should have been a resounding yes. Should have been. “I’ll tell you what. If you promise me right here and now that you’ll bring yourself to the courthouse first thing Monday morning and set this all straight, then I won’t take you in. The weather is miserable, and they don’t arraign on the weekends anyway. With that boy and all, it doesn’t make a lot of sense for you to sit in a cell for forty-eight hours.”

  She stared at him, as if she didn’t comprehend.

  “You need to say something, ma’am,” Matt prompted.

  “Oh, yes,” she said. “Yes, of course. Monday morning, first thing.”

  Matt leveled his forefinger at her nose. “This is a gift, Ms. Parker. My favor to you in deference to your situation. But don’t think that I won’t be checking up on you. If I hear that you haven’t been by the courthouse by, say, two o’clock on Monday, I’ll come out to your house and cuff you myself. Do we have a deal?”

  “Yes, we have a deal,” she said. Again, there was something leaden in her tone.

  Matt chalked it up to the fact that her kid had overheard that his grandmother was a criminal. “For what it’s worth,” he said, more for the benefit of the kid than for the driver, “if you can write a check right there at the courthouse, or show proof of some kind of payment plan, they’ll vacate the warrant, and you’ll be able to go on home. I’ll make sure that it’s noted as such in the file. But if you don’t show—”

  “I know,” she said. “You’ll cart me off yourself.”

  Matt sealed the deal with an abrupt nod. “Done,” he said. “Now, you can be on your way.” He started to turn away, then stopped himself. “Oh, I almost forgot. Keep an eye out for a couple teenage kids, a boy and a girl. They’re wanted for a murder up the road, and we’ve got this checkpoint set up to look for them. If you see any strangers fitting that description, please give us a call.”

  “I will,” said the driver. “I’ll be sure to do just that.”

  She drove off, and Matt beckoned for the next vehicle in the line.

  * * *

  “She was just nervous,” Scotty said once they were moving again. “She wasn’t trying to shit on your plan.”

  “Scotty!” Gramma hated crude language.

  “What? Oh, Jesus.” This language crap was going to kill him.

  “Scotty!”

  Brad stood as tall as he could in the confines of the truck. “Both of you, be quiet,” he barked. He again climbed over the seat and helped himself to the spot next to the boy. “Scotty, watch your mouth. Gramma—do you mind if I call you Gramma?”

  “Fine,” she said.

  “Okay, Gramma, I want you just to drive home. You’re going to have some guests for a while.”

  “What are you going to do to us?”

  “Not a thing if you do exactly what I tell you. You heard what that cop said about me. One murder or three, the penalty’s the same.” He made a deliberate effort not to look at Nicki, who’d stretched out on the floor in the back. “I looked at your driver’s license, so I know where you live. If you don’t drive straight there, I’ll know.”

  He settled into his seat and pivoted so he could keep an eye on both of them.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  When Ben Maestri’s wife opened the front door, Carter wondered whether he should have brought a doctor instead of a cop. She looked to be about seventy years old, and a grayness around her eyes spoke of some imminent health problem. She cracked the door and peered out at her visitors, her hands poised to slam it shut in an instant. She said nothing.

  Deputy Sweet did the talking. “Hello,” she said, her tone light. “Is this the Maestri home?”

  The woman glared.

  Carter gave it a try. “We’re looking for Ben Maestri, owner of the Quik Mart on Shore Road.”

  “Who are you?” the woman asked. The question was leveled at Carter.

  Carter produced a business card from the pocket of his suit coat. “I’m Carter Janssen. I’m a lawyer from upstate New York, and I was wondering if Mr. Maestri might have a moment to speak with me.”

  “Us,” Darla corrected. “Speak with us.”

  The woman regarded them both with a look that hovered between contempt and fear. Then she closed the door.

  “Well, that was friendly,” Carter said to Darla.

  Darla arched her eyebrows. “Do you suppose she’s going to get Ben, or was that our signal to leave?”

  Carter took a few steps back to the edge of the porch and craned his neck to catch a peek into a window. Behind them, the rain continued to pour.

  They waited a full minute before knocking again. This time, Ben answered. He glared.

  Carter decided to go first, extending his hand. “I’m Carter Janssen,” he said. “I’m—”

  “I know who you are,” the man said. He displayed Carter’s card, holding it like a cigarette between his first and second fingers. He squinted at Darla. “Deputy. What do you want?”

  “Can
we come in?” Carter asked.

  “No.”

  The bluntness of the answer caught Carter off guard. “It’ll only be for a few minutes,” Darla said.

  “Just say what you need to say from there.”

  Carter scowled. The attitude confused him. A wild thought shot through his brain, and he let it fly. “Are you frightened, Mr. Maestri?”

  The question drew a startled glance from Darla, but she didn’t say anything.

  “Your clock is ticking, folks. Unless you want to talk to the door, you’d best get on with it.”

  “We’re getting soaked,” Carter said.

  “And you won’t get any dryer standing there.”

  In the car, they’d agreed in deference to his personal stake in this that Carter could take the lead in the questioning. He began, “I know you’ve had a very difficult day, sir. It’s a terrible thing that you went through, and if there were any way for me to—”

  “I know everything I need to know about myself, Mr. Janssen. Try talking about you.”

  Carter cleared his throat. “Yes, of course. Well, sir, you seem to think that my daughter was involved in that unpleasantness this afternoon.”

  “Oh, really?” the man said. “Is that what you call murder up in New York City? Unpleasantness?”

  “It’s New York State, sir—”

  “I don’t give a goddamn what it is, state, city, or country. Murder is murder. And if your daughter was one of them that killed Chas, then I’m probably gonna feel sorry for you one day. It’d be a shame to have a girl on death row.”

  “My daughter didn’t kill that boy,” Carter said. “That’s what I want to talk to you about.”

  “I already told them everything I know.” He glared at Darla. “And Deputy, I don’t much appreciate you bringin’ him here. This is not the day for social chats.”

  Carter started to speak, but Darla placed a hand on his arm to stop him. “There’s nothing social about this, Ben. You’re upset and I understand that. But I’ve got a murder to investigate, and Mr. Janssen has some pertinent questions to ask.”