Swamp Monster

by C. A. Newsome

  The woman’s chest was wrapped with some kind of cloth. As she walked toward them, it wiggled.

  The barrel of the gun rode up and down Jenny’s spine. The woman with the wiggling chest stopped ten feet away. The schnauzer strained and whined.

  “Funny running into you. I was just working Chewy. Are you connected to the school?”

  “Lia, right?”

  The wiggling thing popped a head out. A puppy, with odd, blotchy fur and bright blue eyes. Jenny gasped, a barely audible intake of breath. The puppy snarled, frantic to escape. The woman—Lia—clapped a hand on the pup and shushed her.

  Behind Jenny, Dick tensed.

  Lia smiled apologetically. “I don’t know what’s got into her.”

  Jenny held her breath. Beside her, Dick thrummed like an overwound guitar string. Anything would make him snap.

  3:24 p.m.

  Where’s Peter?

  Chewy tugged and whined, jerking Lia’s attention from the couple in front of her. Alarm bells went off in her head as she felt the situation slipping out of control.

  Bad idea, taking your eyes off a possible kidnapper.

  She resisted the urge to whip her head back. “Chill, little man,” she scolded, using Chewy as an excuse to keep Dick from seeing panic on her face.

  Gypsy kept snarling.

  Lia stooped by Chewy, watching Dick and Jenny with her peripheral vision. The woman’s eyes darted like a trapped bird while Dick’s face took on a hard look.

  Something was definitely wrong. Lia looked up with what she hoped was a placating smile.

  “I’m really sorry, they usually love people.”

  3:25 p.m.

  Ahead, Susan’s Caddy rounded another curve.

  Peter fought the urge to stomp the gas.

  Forget the school and what in God’s name Lia is doing there. It’s Saturday. Don’t kill a kid.

  He swooped around an Amazon delivery van, braked for a dog walker. A Chrysler performed a three-point turn at a speed approximating continental drift. He drove on the sidewalk, wincing as hedges gouged his department vehicle and making a mental note to apologize for the ruts he put in two lawns.

  Motion in a driveway.

  He slammed his brakes. A lawn service truck backed an equipment trailer into the street, maneuvering awkwardly between parked cars.

  3:27 p.m.

  Jenny froze in an agony of indecision. This might be her only chance. But with the gun pressed against her back, Dick would feel her move. He’d pull the trigger before she took a single step—with the woman named Lia and her dogs in the line of fire.

  She prayed.

  The sound of a motor. A car, cruising into the lot like a great white shark. As it pulled up to the little group, a blonde head leaned out, smiling and feral, dangerous as the great white.

  Susan Sweeney, who’d outed her on YouTube and got her into this mess.

  “Dick! I thought you were in Indiana. Who’s your friend?”

  As if she doesn’t know.

  Dick turned his head toward Susan, his voice curt. “You’ll have to excuse us, we have somewhere to be, and we’re late.”

  “Oh,” Susan said. “I won’t hold you up, but before …”

  Dick turned a little more. Pressure from the gun lessened, then vanished. Jenny spun away, slamming the tool bag in the back of Dick’s head. The gun roared. She dropped the bag and ran.

  3:27 p.m.

  Lia continued to shush the dogs, her brain scrambling for a way to stall long enough for Peter to appear. The sound of a car motor sent relief flooding through her. She glanced up.

  Not Peter. Susan.

  He’s working with Susan? But no, Susan yammered at Dick as her car idled, obviously clueless. Lia tried to catch Jenny’s eye, but Jenny stared into the distance, looking at nothing.

  Jenny’s hands tensed around the bag. “Look at the hands,” Peter had said during an impromptu training lecture, “The hands tell you what’s about to happen. The eyes tell you when and where.”

  Lia dropped to the pavement, rolling onto a shrieking Gypsy as she dragged Chewy down.

  A gun went off. Dick fell as Jenny flew across the lot, tools flying like shrapnel, a gun spinning across the pavement.

  Susan leapt from the car. “You bitch! What did you shoot him for?”

  Dick pushed up on his knees and shook his head, blood on his face and murder in his eyes. Susan bent over him. He shoved her aside, grabbed the gun, and jumped into the idling Caddy. Someone screamed.

  The car took off in a screeching circle, heading for Jenny.

  3:29 p.m.

  Peter punched his steering wheel, mentally cursing the lawn service truck. When the truck finally straightened out, it backfired.

  Not a backfire. A gunshot.

  He floored the accelerator. A hundred yards from the school, it came: the unmistakable sound of steel slamming into concrete.

  Blood roaring in his ears, Peter whipped into the parking lot, shoved the transmission into park, vaulted from the car. Susan’s Caddy sat, crumpled against a brick wall while Chewy and Gypsy’s howls pierced the air like twin sirens.

  Ada Belle of the nights of burning passion banged the Caddy’s passenger door open, waving a small pink something over her head as she emerged. Her voice quavered with rage.

  “Try to kidnap me, will you!”

  Susan sat on the asphalt, wailing, “My car!”

  Lia huddled behind a dumpster with an arm around Jenny, shushing the dogs. Gypsy ignored Lia, howling over a mouth full of scarf.

  Dick was nowhere.

  “Where’s Dick?” Peter demanded.

  Susan moaned, “My car—”

  “The car,” Lia yelled. “He’s in the car.”

  Ada Belle remained by the Caddy, jabbing the phone-sized pink rectangle at the open door like she was poking a stick at a cottonmouth.

  “I stunned him.” Jab. “I’ll do it again.” Jab.

  “Ada Belle, back away from the car. Now!”

  Jenny called, “He has a gun.”

  Brewer had twenty years in the Army. He wouldn’t hesitate to shoot. Peter edged up to the driver-side window, drawing his Glock. Dick lay across the seats, groping the passenger-side floorboard. Peter aimed as he slammed a fist on the Caddy’s roof.

  “Hands up!”

  Dick jerked, turning, gun in hand.

  Peter fired. Shreds of leather and foam rubber flew inches from Brewer’s head as the gun clattered to the floor. Dick’s hands swerved up, shaking.

  “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!”

  Peter kept his Glock trained on Brewer’s face as the men stared at each other. With Brewer’s gun in reach, they were at a stand off.

  Brewer looked like he could piss his pants, but you couldn’t trust that. Getting him out of the car could be a problem. If Peter had to physically haul him out, he’d have to holster his weapon, giving Brewer a chance to grab his gun.

  Backup, he needed backup. The silence stretched out.

  “This is a misunderstanding,” Dick said.

  “And I’m going to handcuff you until we sort it out. Get out of the car. Slowly.”

  Across the lot, Susan shrieked, “What did your nasty dog do to my scarf?”

  Day 23, The Wee Hours

  Sunday, May 12, 2019

  Outside the Wasabi Grill, the man who looked like Matthew McConaughey sat cross-legged on the pavement. He held chopsticks above a platter of sushi on the low table in front of him, the tips floating and quivering like a divining rod.

  Lia knelt by him, placing a twenty in his tip jar as he held her with blue, blue eyes. The chopsticks dipped to a slice of dragon roll.

  “Fame,” he said. “Taste of the dragon, my love, and it will be yours.”

  He lifted the delicacy.

  Viola woofed.

  Damn dog. If she didn’t open her eyes, maybe Matthew would come back.

  “Viola, stop it. I’m here. Gypsy’s here. It’s my apartment and neither one o
f us is going away. Go upstairs if you don’t like it.”

  A hand stroked Lia’s cheek. Her annoyance melted away with the dream. Peter sat on the side of the bed, looking down at her.

  She tugged on his shirt. “You can stay, but you gotta take your clothes off.”

  “I feel so cheap.”

  “I promise I won’t look.”

  Peter groaned. “I wish. I’m not done for the night.”

  “Two minutes ago, Matthew McConaughey was in love with me. He told my fortune with sushi and said I would be famous if I ate the dragon roll. You woke me up. Now I’ll never be famous. You gotta give me something.”

  “Eat the dragon roll? You fell for that?”

  She elbowed his thigh.

  “He’s a little old for you, isn’t he?”

  “This was 1997 Contact McConaughey.”

  “Celebrity preacher? He didn’t quite pull that one off.”

  “Millions of women across the globe don’t care.”

  “You sure that wasn’t Texas Chainsaw Massacre McConaughey? It’s easy to get them confused.”

  “That’s pathetic and unworthy of you.” Lia glanced at the bedside clock. “It’s after midnight. What do you need to do?”

  Peter kicked off his shoes and slid in beside her. She sat up, leaning against his chest for a bit of normal in a day that had been anything but.

  “I have to write the search warrant for Brewer’s place if we want to get in first thing tomorrow. We need to prove he held Jenny against her will, and we have to nail it down before he sees a judge.”

  “How is Jenny holding up? I told her she could stay here if she didn’t want to be alone, but she declined.”

  “Donna Merrill is with her. Jenny’s tougher than she looks. She’ll make a solid witness.”

  “You’ve had a long day. Did Dick have that much to say?”

  Peter huffed a humorless laugh. “It took four hours to get cleared on the bullet I put in Susan’s leather seat, and I had to explain to Parker how I missed center mass from three feet. Then there was the added complication of the shot in Susan’s front fender. After that I got to talk to Brewer.”

  “Was Parker upset?”

  “Unofficially, no. My bad aim saved us all from the mess that comes with a shooting.”

  “I’ve seen the videos. I know how fast things can go bad. You took a huge risk.”

  His chest shifted under her cheek when he shrugged. “He was face down on the seats. I had time to get off a second shot before he could aim.”

  She curled her hand into a fist and gently thumped his chest to emphasize each word. “Don’t. Do. That. Again.”

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  “How did it go with Dick?”

  “We got Brewer for stealing Susan’s car. The Davis kidnapping will probably get dropped because it’s not clear he knew Davis was in the car when he took it.”

  Lia’s mouth dropped open. “But—”

  “I know and you know Brewer knew Davis was in the car, but there’s what we know and what we can prove. If we try, some idiot jury will believe him and it will poison the carjacking. Juries are like that. If one part of a case is bad, they’re inclined to let them walk on the whole thing.”

  “But what about Jenny?”

  “No one saw Jenny under duress.”

  “I said I couldn’t see his hand. That doesn’t mean he didn’t have his gun on her.”

  “Speaking of which, don’t you ever do that again.”

  “You had no backup. He might have gotten away if I hadn’t delayed them.”

  Peter kissed the top of her head. “You could have been shot again. I’d rather let a hundred kidnappers escape than see you hurt.”

  Lia rubbed the dime-sized dimple in her thigh. “I won’t sit home and knit when you’re out on a limb like that.”

  “Since when do you knit?”

  “Don’t change the subject.”

  “I let the air out of two of his tires, Tonto. I had it covered.”

  “You could have told me that.”

  “I didn’t know you were running to my rescue. But it didn’t hurt having you on the scene as a witness, especially after the way Susan went on about Jenny.”

  “Does Dick deny being in the Johnsons’ house?”

  Peter snorted, shaking his head so that his chin brushed her hair. “You should have seen him in the interview room, all cocky like he was checking out the talent at happy hour instead of cooling his heels in police custody. Then he tells a story about Jenny picking him up for hot, kinky sex.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “And it’s my job to keep him talking. I have to make like we’re just two guys and everything he says is reasonable. Then I had to walk him through it all, like how she wanted him to tie her up—”

  “That’s crazy!”

  “It is, but I needed the details. That’s what hangs you.”

  “And did he?”

  “Hang himself? There were a number of inconsistencies in his story. I felt filthy after I came out of there.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. The payoff is, he thinks he pulled it off.”

  “How did he get from kinky sex to the Johnsons’ house?”

  “All her idea. He went along for the ride, hoping for more kinky sex. That’s a B and E, but still no kidnapping. The prosecutor wanted to arrest Jenny, but agreed to hold off when I pointed out it was Brewer’s lock rake and we needed to explore her claims of kidnapping before we went there.”

  Lia sat up, stretched and yawned. “Poor Jenny. What’s his explanation for why she brained him?”

  “Jealous because Susan showed up. That, or she’s nuts. He barely knew her, so who knows?”

  “And he stole the car because?”

  “He thought she took off with his tools.”

  “As if they weren’t all over the parking lot. He has an answer for everything, doesn’t he?”

  “Guy didn’t turn a hair. Says he lied to Waller because it wasn’t Waller’s business if he was playing hooky with Jenny.”

  “Geezlepete. I’m still half asleep. Make coffee while I get up?”

  “Coffee? You?”

  “Someone needs to keep you company in your misery”

  Lia grabbed a robe and splashed water on her face before she joined Peter in the kitchen. A steaming cup of coffee with cream waited for her on the table. Peter sat on the other side, his face in his laptop and a hand under the table, feeding biscuits to Viola.

  Chewy and Gypsy abandoned Lia in favor of treats. Viola growled, sending Gypsy behind Lia’s robe. She scooped up the whimpering pup and cooed.

  “There there, little girl. I won’t let the mean, nasty bitch get you.” She held Gypsy pinned to her lap as she took a sip of coffee. “You’re pursuing Dick as an opportunistic fortune hunter, right?”

  “That’s the prevailing theory.”

  “I’ve been thinking about this all day. What if it’s more? What do you know about Dick? When did he enlist?”

  “He has no arrests. I put in the paperwork to get his military records, but that takes weeks unless you have contacts, which I don’t. What are you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking about those vandalized yearbooks and how those same years were missing from Ruth’s set. I’m wondering if we had them but Dick took them.”

  “We have no reason to connect Brewer with our break in.”

  “Gypsy connects him.”

  “How do you figure that?”

  “She went crazy in the parking lot today, just like she did during the break in. I think it was Dick, and she remembered his scent. If it was Dick, it means he had a reason to hide something from high school.”

  “Like a connection to Jenny? She didn’t know him.”

  “People change in thirty years. I bet he wears size eleven shoes.”

  “It’s a common size.”

  “Don’t be a jerk.”

  “You’re connecting dots that may not b
elong on the same page. He has a lock rake. Why go through the coal chute?”

  “He saw the discrete ‘this house is alarmed’ sticker on the door? Tell me this. How old is he?”

  Peter rubbed the emerging stubble on his chin. “I don’t remember. Babe, I have a warrant to write and I need to catch whatever sleep I can. Can you play Scooby Doo tomorrow?”

  Lia searched Peter’s haggard face. “Can I see the yearbook photos Alma sent you?”

  Peter sighed. “If I let you look at them, will you let it go for tonight?”

  “Unless I find something.”

  Peter punched up a file and pivoted his laptop so Lia could see.

  He came around the table and stood behind her. She found Cowboy Dick on the third scanned page.

  “Here.” She pointed at the obese boy painting scenery. “Look at the eyes.”

  Peter bent over her shoulder. “Maybe, maybe not. Why didn’t they put names in the caption?”

  “Are the yearbooks you got from Hughes still in the living room? I bet we find him in the student portraits.”

  Greasy hair fell into the eyes of the boy staring sullenly at Lia. “That’s Dick as a sophomore in 1987. No one would recognize him now.”

  Peter accepted the yearbook from her and examined the photo. “He definitely got the army makeover. If I’d done the math when I ran him, I would have realized he was too young to enlist when Heenan went missing.” He inserted a slip of paper to mark the page, then set the book aside on the couch.

  Lia yawned. The coffee wasn’t working. Probably just as well. “Commodore got his dates wrong or Dick didn’t retire with a pension. Do you think he got kicked out?”

  “Maybe. You talk about the attic while you were at Boswell’s?”

  Lia tried to remember, couldn’t. “It would be like Terry to tell a contractor about this place. Dick had to know Ruth. I bet he signed her yearbooks.”

  “It’s a good bet Brewer knew Jenny, or knew of her. There’s no way to know who vandalized the Hughes yearbooks, or when it was done. Unless we can tie him to the break-in, knowing Jenny only supports the fortune hunter angle.”