by Sam Cheever
Agnes looked around. “I don’t see any other buildings. Unless, maybe she worked in the warehouse.”
“From what I remember she was some kind of office clerk so I doubt that. But let’s go inside. Somebody in there should be able to tell us.”
They climbed a metal staircase with dimpled risers that were damp from a morning rain. The railings were damp too, and slippery, as Agnes discovered when her foot slipped off the first step and she grabbed for the railing to keep from falling. Her hand slid down the wet metal and her leg slipped in between the steps. She slammed to the ground, her thick leg wedged between the first and second rung of the steps.
“Oh my Lord! Are you okay?”
Agnes grimaced, grabbing her back. “I think so. But my leg’s wedged.”
Flo tried to help her get loose but she wasn’t strong enough. “You’re really wedged in there aren’t you?” She glanced up the stairs. “I’ll have to go see if there’s someone who can help.”
Agnes nodded unhappily. “Please hurry. My butt’s getting wet and it’s cold.”
Flo patted her on the shoulder and carefully climbed the steps, pulling the dented metal door open to a horrendous shrieking sound. She stuck her head inside. “Hello? Is there anybody who can help me? My friend fell out here.”
A big man was standing directly across from the door. He turned as Flo stuck her head inside and looked at her, a mug of steaming coffee in one hand. “Mornin’ ” he said, shoving a ball cap back on his head. “Who did you say fell?”
“It’s my friend.”
He frowned. “And you are?”
Flo took the last step into the trailer, her temper rising. “I’m the person who’s asking you to help us out.”
He blinked and shook his head, setting the mug down on a rolling cart holding the coffee maker. “Forgive me, ma’am. I ain’t had my coffee yet this mornin’. I’m a bit slow. I’d be glad to help if you’ll just point the way.”
“Thank you. She fell through the stairs.”
“You don’t say?” He shook his head, stopping at the top of the stairs and looking down at Agnes, sprawled over the bottom step. She turned red and gave him a little wave. “That ain’t easy to do.”
Flo chewed the inside of her lip, choosing not to comment. “Can you help her?”
“Let’s see what I can do.” He started down the steps and stopped, crouching down to examine the situation better. “That leg’s really in there, ain’t it?”
Flo was starting to wonder if they’d have better results with somebody else. Or maybe she should get the pot of coffee from the trailer and make him drink the whole thing.
He reached down and tugged the edge of the step upward, trying to bend it away from Agnes’ leg. Of course, it didn’t move.
“Maybe you should...”
The door at the top of the steps slammed open and a small man with thinning dark hair glared down at them. “What’s going on here?”
The man in the ball cap glanced over his shoulder. “This lady’s stuck, boss.”
The small man came down a couple of stairs. “Stuck? How’s that possible?”
Flo stared at the two men, goggle eyed. “Does that really matter? We just need you to help get her out.”
The boss reached up and scratched his sparse hairs, glowering down at them. “I hope you don’t think you’re gonna sue us for this. It’s not our fault your friend’s a klutz.”
“Hey!” Agnes objected. “Don’t tempt me.”
Flo’s irritation was quickly becoming anger. “Despite your clearly enormous heart and concern for the well-being of others...” Flo hesitated to let that sink in. “—a law suit never crossed our minds. We just want help getting her free.”
The little man leaned against the railing and crossed his arms over his chest. “We’re gonna need the jaws of life for this.”
The big guy in the ball cap reached an arm between the risers and grasped Agnes’ leg. She jumped, flinching when he yanked it from side to side in an attempt, apparently to loosen it. “You try to pull while I move it from side to side,” he told Agnes.
The theory was a good one. Flo decided she could probably help too. “I’ll grab her under the arms and pull.”
The big guy nodded.
Flo skirted around Agnes and stepped down into the gravel. She reached down and slipped her arms under Agnes’ fleshy limbs. “Ready.”
“On three,” the big guy said. “One, two, three...”
They all applied themselves to Agnes’ jammed appendage, pushing and pulling until their faces were red and glistening with sweat. It did no good at all.
The big guy climbed down and examined the problem from another angle. “Maybe we should grease her up.” He lifted his head and whistled. Across the lot a door opened and a head shot out. “Yeah?”
“Bring me some spray grease.”
Agnes’ head whipped back and forth. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“It’ll be fine, little lady. Just hang in there.”
Agnes flushed at being called either little or a lady, Flo wasn’t sure which, and fell silent. A moment later another guy in a ball cap jogged over and handed the big guy a can of something.
“Thanks, man.”
The second guy, whose long, narrow face held a mournful expression Flo suspected was permanent, eyed Agnes’ predicament and whistled softly. “Well, this is a hot mess.”
Flo threw him a look and he shrugged.
“Okay, this’ll do it,” the big guy said as he commenced to applying half the can of grease to Agnes’ leg. Her khaki slacks would never be the same. He set the can aside and looked at Mr. Mournful. “You take the left arm. I’ll take the right.”
“You need to wrap this up, boys,” said Mr. compassionate at the top of the steps. “You both have deliveries to make this morning.”
The two drivers grasped Agnes’ arms and did the count down again. On three, they pulled. Nothing happened. They tried again and Agnes’ eyes went wide. “I think it moved a little.”
“Okay, one more time, Bobbie,” said the big guy.
“One, two, thr...”
There was a horrific wrenching sound and the man standing on the top of the steps went pale. The two drivers grunted and dug in their heels, pulling even harder.
Another horrendous groan was followed by a trembling shudder of the metal stairs. The man on the top turned around and reached for the door.
The stairs shuddered hard and then lurched away from the trailer, sending gravel up in spurts as it jerked across the lot under the two men’s efforts.
The little man at the top spun around, arms akimbo, and gave Flo a terrified look just before he toppled backward and disappeared between the stairs and the humble home of his modest establishment.
~SC~
Vance Bickel held an oil stained rag wrapped around ice cubes to the purple knot on his head, grimacing with pain as it touched. He kept glowering at Agnes, as if it was her fault his guys had dumped him off the stairs, and muttering, “I’m surrounded by idiots.”
“Mr. Bickel...”
“Don’t talk to me lady. Because of you, my day’s started off with a bang. And it’s not a good bang. It’s a really bad bang. Like the sound of my head hitting the side of those stupid stairs.”
Flo pressed her lips together to squelch a smile. “We said we were sorry a dozen times.”
Agnes nodded. “I’m not going to sue you for the woman-eating stairs. That should make you feel better.”
His frown turned to a glower. “Go away and leave me to my misery.”
“I’m afraid we can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because two people in this office have died over the last couple of days.” She cocked her head. “Aren’t you at least curious about why?”
He shrugged. “Curiosity killed the kitty.”
“Okay, but in this case, not being curious could get somebody else killed.”
He looked at Flo
as if she had whiskers and groaned. “My head hurts too much to be curious, lady. Just go away and leave me be.”
“Can you tell me about your boss?” Flo remembered seeing the news report on Brad Carey but she hadn’t paid close attention to it. She only knew the police were keeping the details quiet.
“What about him?”
“Well, for starters, how did he die?”
Bickel scanned a look toward the particle board door at the end of the trailer. It was closed, with crime scene tape over it. “The cops wouldn’t tell me anything. But I was the one who found him so I know.”
“And?” Flo urged, her brows lifting with irritation.
“And I don’t see why I should tell you.”
She closed her eyes, striving for calm. Finally, she opened them and stood. “Okay. We’ll be in touch, Mr. Bickel.”
He twitched. “Wait. Why will you be in touch? I don’t ever want you to come back.”
“One of my friends is a lawyer. A very good lawyer. We’re going to go speak to him about how dangerous your stairs are and discuss Agnes’ options.”
“Options?” Bickel surged to his feet and then groaned, flinging a hand up to his head as he winced in pain. “We don’t need lawyers mixed up in this. You promised...”
“That was before we realized you were going to be difficult,” Agnes told him. “Now I’m feeling kind of sick and my leg’s killing me. Plus, my pants are ruined.”
Bickel sighed. “All right, you win. Carey was stabbed with his letter opener.”
Agnes’ eyes went wide. “People still use those things?”
“He did. Look around you, lady. We’re not exactly cutting edge here.”
Flo couldn’t disagree with that statement. “Do you have any idea who might have wanted your boss dead?”
“Other than half of our customers?” Bickel said on a snort. “The guy cheated just about everybody we worked with.”
Just great, Flo thought. The suspect pool would be big enough to float a pontoon in. “Someone clearly hated him more than most.”
Bickel shrugged. “No idea.”
Flo realized she wasn’t going to get much more from the man about that murder, so she moved on to the one that had brought her there. “What about Betty?”
Bickel opened his mouth and Flo flung up a hand. “If you say, ‘what about her’ I’ll call my lawyer friend right this minute.”
Bickel made a sour face. “I don’t know who would kill Betty. To tell you the truth I liked her. Far as I know everybody liked her. She was a nice woman. And a good employee. Betty was always here early and stayed late. I’m gonna have trouble replacing her.”
“She told us someone tried to run her off the road. Do you know anything about that?”
“It wasn’t me?” Bickel said, eyes wide.
“Good Lord,” Flo murmured. “Okay, do you know what project she was working on at home yesterday?”
“Yeah. Some inventory management charts. She was almost done with them and we needed to get them submitted to the main office this week.” He shrugged. “I guess I’ll have to do them now.”
“Did you pick the paperwork up at her apartment last night?”
He frowned. “Why would I do that? I told her she had to bring ’em back to me here, today.”
“Well somebody wasn’t interested in waiting,” Flo told him. She watched his reaction closely as she gave him the bad news. “The folder was missing when we went back to her place last night. And Betty was dead.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Bickel paled drastically, the purple knot on his brow the only color in his mottled face. “The inventory charts are missing?” He dropped heavily into his chair. “Why would somebody steal those?”
“A better question would be, why would somebody kill for them,” Flo told him. “Because that seems to be exactly what happened.”
Bickel stared at the floor for a long moment, his mouth hanging open. He appeared to be considering her question. Flo figured the mouth needed to be open for the brain to work. Finally, he shook his head, which was covered in a sheen of perspiration. “This is crazy.”
“Mr. Bickel, what kind of inventory was Betty charting?”
“Just normal stuff. Boxes of coffee, cleaning supplies and cough drops.” He shrugged. “Nothing anybody would kill over. We keep track of the time it takes for a shipment to be delivered from the time it hits the warehouse floor. You know, efficiency type stuff.”
“You said the owner had a lot of enemies. Could he have been shorting customers merchandise and selling it himself?”
“That would be nuts! He’d never get away with it.”
“Is it possible there was something in the warehouse that shouldn’t have been there?”
“Like what?”
Flo shrugged. “I don’t know. Guns, drugs, explosives...”
The pallor of his skin turned even chalkier. Flo hadn’t thought it possible. “Explosives...?” His voice cracked on the word and he seemed to have trouble swallowing. “Who are you, lady?”
She bit her lip on the urge to tell him she was just a woman who read too many mysteries and thrillers. Instead she gave him an enigmatic smile. “Something’s going on, Mr. Bickel. You said it yourself, nobody would kill over coffee or cleaning supplies. But someone would kill over guns or explosives.”
“I think it’s crazy. But I’ll have the guys take a look in the warehouse when they get back from their runs.”
Flo shook her head. “I don’t advise you do that, sir. If there’s something in the warehouse that shouldn’t be, one of them might have been in on it.”
“That’s not possible.”
She arched a brow. “So, you think your boss was hefting crates around by himself?”
Bickel frowned. “Not likely.” He expelled air. “Okay, you talked me into it. I’ll go have a look myself.”
Flo stood up, nodding to Agnes. Her friend moved quickly to stand in front of the door, giving Bickel a smug smile when he glared up at her. “What’s going on?”
Flo joined him, her smile slightly friendlier. “I’m afraid we’ll have to come with you, Mr. Bickel.”
“Lady, who do you work for? Is it one of them ABC organizations with the government?”
Flo let her smile widen. “I’m sorry, Mr. Bickel. We can’t tell you that. Just know that your country appreciates your cooperation on this very important matter.”
He stared at her for a long moment and then nodded. “Okay. I don’t want any trouble with the government. I just got one thing to say. You folks must have really bad recruiting processes. You two are pretty long in the tooth to be special agents. If you know what I mean.”
Flo glared at him. “Mr. Bickel, don’t make me pull out my gun.”
~SC~
The warehouse smelled like gasoline and mouse droppings. It was only about a third full of merchandise, most of it shrink wrapped on pallets or piled high in boxes. The other end of the big building was covered in oil spots, a partially dismembered box truck sitting on blocks at the front.
Bickel glanced at Flo as they entered the place, jerking his head toward the right-hand side. “You two search over there. I’ll take the other side.”
“What are we looking for,” Agnes asked.
He punched bony shoulders towards his oversized ears. “You’ll know it when you see it. If it isn’t boring, it doesn’t belong here.”
They watched him saunter toward the other end of the building and then shared a look. “I’m on information overload,” Agnes said.
Flo grinned. “You heard the man. We’re looking for something that’s not boring.”
Agnes pointed toward the outside row. “I’ll start over here. You start over there and we’ll work our way in.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Flo headed toward the long line of metal shelves that made up the perimeter of the storage area. She quickly realized what Bickel had been talking about. Boxes upon boxes upon boxes of sweetener packets were piled up next
to a seemingly never-ending supply of latex gloves. All sizes and colors. She wondered who in the world would need so many gloves. Then wrinkled her nose as an unpleasant thought occurred and moved on down the line. The next aisle held mostly paper products. Paper plates, napkins, paper towels, even boxes of plastic-ware and cardboard coffee cups. The very end proved slightly more interesting. That was a double row of hemorrhoid cream. “Alrighty then,” she murmured, hurrying on. Flo was halfway down the third aisle and up to her eyebrows in animal crackers when Agnes called out to her. “I’m coming,” she responded.”
The aisle where Agnes stood was three times the width of the others. There were grease spots on the floor, which told Flo there were usually mechanical things stored there. The front half of the aisle was clear and Agnes stood halfway down, her back to Flo and her hands on her broad hips. Whatever was stacked in the middle of the aisle was bigger than most of the things in that warehouse and less neatly piled. Agnes didn’t turn around as Flo approached. She stopped in front of a pile of something that was covered in a very large tarp.
Flo lifted one corner of the tarp and exposed a chain saw packaged in bright orange cardboard with shrink wrapping. “I’ll admit this is more interesting than the billion boxes of toothpicks I just perused, but I doubt Betty was killed over a bunch of chain saws.”
Agnes finally looked at Flo. Her wide face was pale and her eyes were wide with shock. “Adjust your gaze a little higher.”
Flo scanned upward, frowning at the tarp that covered the pile of saws. “I don’t see what...” Her words trailed away, choked off by shock as her gaze came to rest on the spot where Agnes had pulled the tarp away. Something that looked like a cannon peered through the opening, its huge, unblinking eye staring right at her.
Flo gulped. “Is that a cannon?”
Agnes reached over and grabbed the tarp, yanking it completely away. “Not quite. It’s worse.”
The massive metal contraption was olive drab colored, with tracks instead of tires and a massive turret that held an enormous gun on the front and a smaller one by the hatch. The letters “U.S.A” and a number were painted on the side of the turret in gold paint. “Good Lord. It’s a tank,” Flo breathed. “How is that possible?”
