by Jean Erhardt
“I got you now!” He had Amy by the leg and was dragging her back to him. She screamed and turned, swiping at him with the knife. He screeched like an animal, but he didn’t let go.
“Goddamn you!” he cried, eyeing the deep, bloody stripe Amy had left across his arm.
I took my chances and fired again. I didn’t know exactly where, but I’d hit him. Scotty Mink’s body jerked suddenly, then he dropped flat on his belly. Amy pulled her leg free and scrabbled to her feet. He rolled over onto his back and rocked in pain.
“Had enough, Scotty?”
Finally, he managed to hold up a hand. “Enough.”
He was losing blood, a lot of it, all over Amy’s living room floor, but I didn’t care if every last drop of it leaked out. I just didn’t want to watch.
“You move a hair,” Amy said, “and Miss Cutie Puss here will cut your balls off.” He looked up at her, blinked woozily and moaned.
“The phone’s behind you, on the end table.”
Without taking the gun off Scotty, I reached back for the cordless. I snatched it up and punched 9-1-1.
Chapter 44
It was quite a circus that morning on Yale Avenue. Emergency vehicles of every variety were parked out in front of the Tudor. The Channel 5 news van was already on the scene. This was no doubt the most action Terrace Park residents had seen in a long while. Despite the wee early morning hour, the neighbors were already gathering in full force around the police tape that had been stretched in a wide circle around the Smith place.
While one of the paramedics doctored Amy’s superficial cuts, the rest of the emergency team was all over Scotty Mink, hooking him up to tubes of all sorts and preparing to carry him out to the ambulance and speed him off to the ER.
The Terrace Park police combed the house and played connect the dots with Amy and me. Somewhere along the line, somebody had handed us paper cups of black coffee.
A Terrace Park police detective named Friedman was asking most of the questions. He made it no secret that he resented being dragged out of his warm bed, but he was pleasant enough, given the unpleasant circumstances. The three of us sat at the dining room table, and Amy and I filled Detective Friedman in on the details. Friedman had already phoned Chief Cokie and she was reportedly in rapid transit to Terrace Park. I could hardly wait to see her again.
“Guess that about does it for now,” Detective Friedman said, closing his notebook. “I know you’ve have had one hell of a night and I’d like to let you go, but Fogerty PD will wanna chat, too.” One hell of a night didn’t touch it.
“I’m actually looking forward to that part,” Amy said.
I wasn’t going to go that far. A nice shot of morphine and straight to bed sounded a whole lot better to me, but it was going to be satisfying indeed to have Chief Cokie off our backs, Rick Rod off the hot seat and one less homicidal maniac roaming city hall.
“Can I get you more coffee or anything while you wait?” Detective Friedman asked us. He was a pro, a real smoothy. Maybe some of his charm would rub off on Chief Cokie.
Amy and I both voted for more coffee.
“Finkelstein,” Detective Friedman barked to one of his minions, “more coffee here and how about some pastries, too?”
They were downtown cops of the better neighborhood variety. No plain old doughnuts for these guys. It was pastries, all the way.
Our little interlude with Chief Cokie didn’t turn out to be as tedious at it could have been. I think she was so relieved Officer Mike wasn’t the killer that she didn’t really give much of a hoot about the rest of it.
“You’re both damn lucky to be alive,” she said to Amy and me. We couldn’t have agreed with her more.
“Guess I’ve got all the info I need for now. Claypoole, can I give you a lift back to town?” Chief Cokie said. Maybe Detective Friedman was rubbing off on her, but before I could answer, we were all distracted by a boisterous racket coming our way.
“This guy says he lives here,” said Finkelstein.
“I do live here. I’m Dr. Douglas Smith, and this is my home. Now please let go of me.”
Dr. Smith was everything I’d expected, short man, thinning hair, designer wire-framed glasses, below average across the board.
“You want him in or out?” Finkelstein asked Friedman. Finklestein still had Dr. Smith by the arm.
“Honey,” Dr. Smith whined, “tell them who I am.”
“He’s my husband,” Amy said flatly.
“He can stay,” Friedman said, biting into a cherry cheese strudel. Finkelstein unceremoniously let loose of Dr. Smith.
“Darling,” Smith said, making a beeline for Amy. “I’m so sorry. Are you all right?”
Amy stood up and they hugged. She didn’t look particularly thrilled to see him, but she didn’t exactly look miserable about it either.
“So where was he last night?” Chief Cokie said, sort of under her breath.
“At Mommy’s house,” I said. This was beginning to look like a very good time to amscray. “Chief, I think I’ll take you up on your offer.” At least this time, maybe I’d get to sit up front.
It was just daybreak when Chief Cokie pulled into the drive at Tara. The birds were starting to twitter in earnest and the sun had peeked up over the horizon, turning the sky flamingo pink.
“You gotta wonder,” the Chief said, putting the cruiser in park, “just how many guys like Scotty Mink are out there sittin’ behind their desks, ready to crack like walnuts.” I knew that she wasn’t really asking for my opinion, so I kept my mouth shut. “And what the hell did Scotty do with those penises?” She shook her head. “Now I have the privilege of driving over to tell his wife.”
“I don’t envy you one bit,” I said in all honesty.
“Damn!” Chief Cokie said. “This is not the kind of news you’d wanna get.”
“Definitely not.”
The Chief sighed heavily, and then she gave me a friendly pat on the shoulder. “Get some sleep, Claypoole.” As badly as I needed it, sleep was not in my immediate future.
Chapter 45
Before I’d even hit the step, my mother swung open the front door. She was in her slippers and bathrobe and had Bunky under her arm.
“You’d better hustle in here and do some fast explainin’,” Evelyn said.
“Better put on some coffee and your seatbelt.”
I’d put down another two cups of coffee and had just about finished relating the entire riveting saga to my mother, when Agee and Alonzo showed up in the Dukemobile. They’d caught the story on the morning TV news. They knew more now than I did.
“They said on the news that Scotty Mink’s in stable condition and he’s talking to the police,” Alonzo said, pouring himself a cup of coffee.
The miracles of modern medicine. In a way, I was kind of relieved that I hadn’t actually killed Scotty Mink. After all, it might be more fun to think of him rotting in prison, or worse.
“Gee, Kim,” Alonzo said, “you and Amy Delozier are some kinda studs.” He eyed me with respect.
“Yeah,” Agee chimed in, “Abbott would be real proud of you, too.”
“Thanks, boys,” I said.
“Man,” Alonzo said, “you really pumped old Scotty Mink full of bullets, didn’t ya?”
“Well,” I said, demurely, “I did what I had to.”
“It’s a wonder you didn’t get yourself killed,” Evelyn said. “I always said that Scotty Mink wasn’t quite right upstairs.”
“Must have been blood everywhere,” Agee said with some degree of delight. “A real mess, huh?”
I wasn’t quite ready to replay the whole video yet. What I was ready for was bed. “Wake me up in about a week,” I said, heading for the stairs. Bunky scampered up the steps behind me. I took a quick, hot shower, then, together again, Bunky and I checked out in the Ashley Wilkes four-poster bed.
I didn’t exactly sleep for a week, but I did remain fairly comatose until almost four o’clock that afternoon, at which time
my heavy slumber was savagely interrupted by a booming cadence I knew all too well. It was the ancient drumming sound of my mother practically beating down my bedroom door.
“Kimberly? You awake in there?”
I opened one eye. Bunky stirred and emitted a low moan. Then the door flew open. “The police chief’s here,” Evelyn said. “She’s got some news.”
Bunky moaned again, or maybe it was me.
I went to the bathroom, threw on some clothes and eventually stumbled downstairs. Chief Cokie, Alonzo and my mother were sitting in lawn chairs on the patio drinking iced tea.
I slid open the patio door and joined the party.
“If it ain’t Sleeping Beauty,” Alonzo said. He was sweaty and grass-stained. No doubt, he was responsible for Evelyn’s freshly mown lawn.
“Feel better?” Chief Cokie said.
“Much,” I said, which was an overstatement, but hey. I poured a glass of tea from the pitcher on the patio table and located myself in an unoccupied chair next to the Chief. “So what’s up?”
“Thought you’d like to hear the rest of the story,” she said. The nagging questions on my mind still centered on Larry White. I hoped Chief Cokie’s story might just have a chapter about him and his land deal.
“I’m all ears.”
“Old Scotty Mink’s been talking up a storm,” Chief Cokie said. “Since the Feds are involved now, he just can’t be helpful enough.”
“The Feds?”
“Yep. And that’s why this conversation we’re about to have here will have to be kept strictly confidential,” said the Chief, making eye contact all around.
“Wow,” Alonzo said.
“We can keep a secret,” said Evelyn. Since when?
“Good then,” the Chief said. “Now you ain’t gonna believe this. Turns out Scotty Mink and this Larry White character go way back, served together in the air force. After all these years old Scotty gets on the horn to Larry White, which ain’t his real name by the way, because Scotty’s found something real interesting on that piece of property of his.”
“Like what?” I said.
“Like a bunch of A-Bombs,” the chief said.
“A-Bombs?” Alonzo, Evelyn and I said in unison.
“Yep. He was poking around his place one day and found ‘em in a cave, right down by the creek,” Chief Cokie said. “So Scotty’s old air force pal, who’s a real yahoo, kind of an Ollie North type, gets interested in these A-Bombs. He starts to do some digging around, looking for old maps of forgotten stash sights, and low and behold, he finds a map of the area here and guess what? There ain’t just one cave full of bombs, there’s four!” I was starting to feel a major queasiness settling over me.
I said, “And the other three wouldn’t happen to be located on the properties that Larry White wants so badly, now would they?”
Officer Cokie just nodded. “Years back, that was all government land. The Feds checked it out this afternoon, and I’ll be damned if there ain’t four caves full of A-bombs exactly where he said they were and get this, the motherlode is right out behind WFOG.”
“You mean I’ve been sittin’ on a pile of A-Bombs all these years?” Alonzo squealed.
“A big pile,” the Chief said.
“Mercy,” said Evelyn.
The chief went on. “But Larry White only tells the air force about Scotty Mink’s cave full of bombs, because he’s plannin’ on sellin’ the rest of ‘em. Had some Northwest militia nuts all lined up to buy ‘em and Scotty was set up for a nice chunk of the proceeds.”
“Lord have mercy,” Evelyn said, fanning herself with the newspaper.
“Where’s the cave opening on the WFOG property?” I asked.
“Right under that old outbuilding at the foot of the hill on Cemetery Road. No doubt that’s what Charlene had intended on showin’ you and your friend.” No doubt.
“The Feds got Larry White locked up tighter than a drum.”
“Thank goodness,” Evelyn said. “A buffalo ranch, my butt.”
“So,” I said, my head reeling, “in the process of sleazing around with Charlene, Scotty spills the beans, and being the upstanding citizen that she is, Charlene and her creepo ex, Jimmy Jacobs, try to muscle Scotty for a slice of that militia money.”
“Exactly,” Chief Cokie said, “but they grossly underestimated Scotty Mink’s nut factor. Hell, who didn’t?”
“And poor old Abbott just got caught in middle of it,” Alonzo said. “He should’ve never messed with that Charlene.”
“You got that right,” Chief Cokie said, “but she sure got around. Still hard for me to believe that a cop like Mike was messin’ with her, too. Guess she told him the whole crazy story that night she dragged him out behind WFOG, but he thought she was just makin’ it up to get into his pants. I oughta suspend his butt for bad taste in women.”
“Officer Mike’s lucky he didn’t lose his thing,” Evelyn said.
“Speaking of that,” Chief Cokie said. “The boys went through the Mink house today and the penises turned up. Found ‘em in the pantry in a jar of canned tomatoes.”
“A jar of tomatoes? You gotta be kiddin’,” Alonzo said.
“You heard it right,” Chief Cokie said. “That Scotty Mink’s a real sick puppy.”
“To think he was mayor of this town for all these years,” Evelyn said. “Poor Glenda.”
“They had to sedate her after the canned tomatoes,” Chief Cokie said.
They’d have to sedate me, too, if I found a couple of Mr. Winkies in my pantry. “The prison shrink ought to have a real party with that one,” I said.
“That’d be funnier if we weren’t talkin’ about Abbott’s penis,” Alonzo said.
He had a point.
“So,” said the chief, “when everything’s said and done, we can, well, turn Abbott’s penis back over to you folks.” What great news.
“Now I guess my brother can finally rest in peace,” Alonzo said solemnly.
“More tea, Chief?” Evelyn asked.
“Believe I will, thank you,” she said, holding out her glass.
“What about Rick Rod Delozier?” I asked.
Chief Cokie looked more than a little sheepish. She took a sip of her tea. “We’re in the process of cuttin’ him loose.” Then she shook her head. “Poor old Rick Rod was an easy setup, and Scotty Mink knew just how to do it and like dummies, we fell for it.” She stared at her shoes. “Nearly hung the wrong guy. Damn!” she said. “I hate it when that happens.”
Chapter 46
Alonzo, Evelyn and I went to Sparkie’s Lounge for pizza that night. I’d wanted to call Amy and invite her along, but I thought maybe it was best to butt out at this point. Clearly, she and the dentist still had things to work out. Besides, somebody had to celebrate his new-found freedom with Rick Rod.
“Man,” Alonzo said, beating me out for the last slice of pepperoni pizza, “them militia goons could’ve done some serious damage with them A-bombs. Hell, maybe you and Amy prevented another Revolutionary War.”
“It’s possible.” It was nice that my cousin had such a high opinion of me.
“The President ought to give you a damn medal,” Alonzo said, chewing up the last of the pizza.
“He’d have to ask his wife first,” Evelyn said.
The waitress brought us another round of Little Kings. “By the way,” the waitress said, “everything’s on the house tonight.”
“Wow,” Alonzo said.
“That’s certainly nice of you. Thanks,” I said.
“No, thank you for baggin’ that psycho pervert, Scotty Mink. Never could stand the sight of the guy. Now I know why.”
She left us alone with our Little Kings and what was left of our free ride at Sparkie’s Lounge. We sat peacefully and enjoyed the ride while Mario Lanza once again sang Because You’re Mine.
The whole evening had been a little bittersweet. It was way past time for me to hit the road and head south, and I knew it would be a good while before I’d be b
ack. This wasn’t really anything new, it just felt different somehow this time. Maybe I was feeling extra sensitive because I might be leaving more behind this go-round.
The next morning, I woke up bright and early. I decided to pack up and hit the highway right after breakfast. After all, everything had been resolved, not counting Evelyn’s money crisis, which was the whole reason I’d come to Fogerty in the first place, but I knew my hanging around town wasn’t going to solve anything. She had her Social Security check and I could send her a little money here and there and so could my brother, Clint, and hell, maybe her applying for a job at Wal-Mart wasn’t such a bad idea after all.
I showered and packed. Evelyn had washed and folded my clothes and while I was in the bathroom, she’d stacked them on the bed next to my open suitcase. Coming from my mother, this was an extraordinarily competent and touching gesture.
When I went downstairs, I found Alonzo, Agee and my mother sitting at the kitchen table eating breakfast.
“Who’s manning the air waves?” I asked.
“Didn’t we tell ya? We got us an intern from the broadcasting school,” Alonzo said.
“She’s a looker, too,” said Agee. “Might even get us another one.”
“Yeah, another one would be good,” said Alonzo. Free employees were always the best kind, especially when they were all Evelyn could afford.
I sat down and joined them for a bowl of Cheerios. Evelyn poured me coffee.
“Did you find your clean clothes?” she asked.
“Thanks, Mom. That was sweet of you.”
