Out Jumps Jack Death: A Clancy Evans Mystery (Clancy Evans PI Book 8)

by M. Glenn Graves

  Starnes drove her old Ford Escort and parked closer to the spot. She managed to find a parking place hidden by some other vehicles, but close enough that she still had a visual on me.

  I drove Starnes’ other truck, the one which Diamond had driven when we had discovered her body close to Laurel’s house. I spent a couple of hours cleaning Diamond’s blood from the floorboard of the truck. I could still smell the cleaner I used.

  I had grown impatient with the hospital in Asheville since I had received no word from them about Diamond’s condition. I called before we left for our meeting with The Voice. All they said was that there had been no change in her condition. They did say that she was still sleeping and that was a good thing.

  Sam was sitting in the passenger seat next to me. I parked in an empty space directly across from the outside dining area. I rolled the window down and told Sam to stay put until he could see that I needed his help. I walked into the restaurant and requested a table outside. They seated me and I ordered some sweet tea. From where I was now sitting, I could easily see Sam. He had his large, black head resting on the door frame of the truck, watching my every move.

  The sun was shining with a slight breeze to make the open-air spot enjoyable for the other two diners who were eating an early supper. Or a very late lunch. I was likely the lone exception to that enjoyment thing. My table was full of chips, salsa, a tall glass of tea, and a laptop. I also had my 9mm in my back holster and my .32 neatly concealed and attached to my right ankle.

  At 4:45 I had finished the first bowl of chips and The Voice was a no-show. The waiter brought me another round of chips and I ordered a taco just to make him feel useful. A few minutes before five, my taco arrived. The waiter brought me more salsa as well. He refilled my glass of sweet tea and left me sitting with my chips and salsa, laptop, sweet tea, beef and bean taco, and my empty searching about the premises for the unknown villain.

  A minute or so after five o’clock, an attractive older woman approached the area and came directly to my table. After she sat down directly across from me, she opened a laptop and began punching the keys without saying a word to me.

  I munched away on my chips and salsa once I had finished my taco. The food was good.

  “Who are you?” I said to her when my curiosity got the better of me.

  “No names,” she said rather pleasantly.

  She continued typing on her laptop.

  “I don’t think you’re the menacing Voice who has been calling me.”

  “I am not.”

  “So where’s my villain?”

  “Oh, he’s watching.”

  The woman continued typing.

  “More importantly, where’s Laurel?”

  “Who?” she said.

  The question threw me off guard for a moment. I pondered the fact that she didn’t know the name of the girl the man was holding. Strange associate. Uninformed associate. Maybe it was a need to know kind of thing. I looked around to see if I could spot someone watching this little adventure besides my colleagues. I tried not to be too conspicuous in my canvassing of the area. Nothing was suspicious or evident.

  “The reason I am here with my trusty computer is to exchange money for the kidnapped child,” I said.

  She stopped typing and looked across the table at me. Her fingers were resting lightly on top of the keys. She frowned fiercely at me.

  “I don’t know what your game is, Miss Evans … is it Miss?”

  I nodded and held my tongue. I wanted to know what she knew, if she knew anything at all.

  “But,” she continued, “I am here to transact some business on behalf of my client. I am told that you have money that belongs to him, and that you are to transmit this money to his account. I am here to make sure that you send the money to his account so that I can verify that the transaction has occurred.”

  “And you know nothing of the kidnapping?” I said.

  “He told me to expect some unusual tale from you. Is this your idea of some humorous story to get out of paying my client?”

  “Are you a lawyer?” I said.

  “I am not. I am merely someone my client trusts and I possess certain computer skills in order to assist my client.”

  “Client,” I repeated. “Such an interesting word. Just how is this man your client?”

  “That is none of your affair, Miss Evans,” she said with some feeling.

  “How clever.”

  “Clever?” she said.

  “How clever of your client to handle our business this way.”

  “Well, I don’t know about clever, but I can say that my client is a highly intelligent man.”

  “So, you’ve known him for some time.”

  “A few years now. I think we need to get down to business. Enough of this chit-chat. I don’t care about small talk. He warned me about your ability to indulge in this kind of distraction.”

  “Well, lady, since we have no names, or rather, since you have the advantage of me in knowing my name without me knowing yours, we have a problem here.”

  “Just what is this problem, Miss Evans?”

  “You’re not going to get any money from me.”

  “Oh. Why not?”

  “I want Laurel Shelton. Your client wants one point something billion dollars. If there is no Laurel Shelton to be handed over to me, there will be no money transferred into his account. Your computer skills will not be needed today.”

  “He thought you might say something like that, so here’s a live feed for you to view,” she said and rotated her laptop around so that I could see her screen.

  The screen showed some pastoral picture for about five seconds. Suddenly, the pastoral scene was gone and I was staring at my twelve year old friend.

  Laurel was tied to a chair with ropes. A gag was around her mouth and head. It appeared to be secure enough that there was no possibility of her speaking. A man wearing a hideous Halloween mask was standing behind her. A local newspaper was propped in her lap resting against her legs and stomach. The camera zoomed in on the newspaper to show the date. It was today’s newspaper. From Asheville.

  “Begin the transfer, Clancy Evans,” the now familiar yet unknown Voice said through the computer’s speaker, “or I shall be forced to begin eliminating each of these.” The person in the mask held up the unbound hand of Laurel Shelton. I watched the person place one of her fingers between two scissor-blades on a pruning device. The Mask then looked directly into the camera at me.

  “I suggest you begin at once. Time starts now.”

  I looked up from the monitor and directed my attention at the well-dressed older woman sitting across from me. She smiled but said nothing.

  “And you’re a party to this,” I said to her.

  “You should begin the transfer, Miss Evans,” she said without feeling.

  I looked at the computer screen once again. While he held onto Laurel’s free arm and hand, Laurel was not watching him. She was staring at the camera and calmly shaking her head ever so slowly. The movement was so slight I nearly missed it. I took her head movement to mean that she was saying no to me. Either the girl was stoic and had no fear whatsoever, or she knew something I needed to know.

  “Okay, I’ll begin,” I said and began typing on my laptop.

  The woman across from me had not yet rotated her computer back to its original position. She hadn’t moved it at all. It was still in position for me to view the screen and see what was happening to Laurel. The menacing threat was very much visible each time I looked up from my computer screen. It was also in position for the hideous looking masked person to see me, I figured. Two-way viewing.

  I keyed in my laptop to Rogers who had been standing by. I typed in my request to her since I dared not use voice commands. Too much knowledge, I feared.

  Rogers started her trace of the live feed from the laptop I was watching.

  “It’ll take a few minutes for the computer to send the money,” I said to the woman as well as to th
e Voice who was listening and no doubt watching through the woman’s computer. My best guess was that the person in the mask was also the Voice.

  “Check the account, please,” the Voice said to the woman.

  The monitor immediately removed the scene of Laurel and the masked person.

  She rotated the computer back so that she could check the screen. Her typing was manic if not swift. She definitely had keyboard skills.

  “The transaction has begun,” she spoke in the direction of the computer screen.

  “Well advised, Miss Evans. I am surprised you have no tricks,” the Voice from the computer said to me.

  “I want Laurel,” I said.

  The Voice laughed. “Such an imagination. Due time, Miss Evans. Due time.”

  Rogers was working on two fronts. She was slowly transferring the money into the account which I had been provided by the woman sitting across from me. Rogers was also tracing the live feed from the woman’s computer in order to give me the location of Laurel.

  I GOT IT, Rogers wrote across my laptop screen in all caps. The typed message then disappeared as quickly as it had come. Another message appeared: BARNARDSVILLE. MARVIN DILLINGHAM’S ADDRESS.

  The words disappeared and I was left to some serious contemplation. So whoever had Laurel also had Marvin, no doubt they had taken him as a backup in case they needed additional leverage. That was why he had not returned the phone messages we left.

  “The transfer is complete,” the woman announced.

  I knew I had only a few seconds to react and to make sure that my scheme with Rogers would work.

  I quickly closed my laptop and stood up. In doing so, I knocked over my glass of tea in the direction of the woman’s laptop. She reacted quickly and grabbed the laptop, closing it in the process. That was exactly what I had hoped would happen. So far, so good.

  “You nearly ruined my computer,” the woman said as she began to lose a little composure.

  “My apologies to you. I’m just a little nervous in all of this,” I said.

  “He told me that you’d do something when we finished. Good thing I had such quick reactions to you and your deceitfulness.”

  “Tell your client I expect a call ASAP in regards to Laurel. If no call comes, then tell him that I will not stop until I have hunted him down and made him wish he had never heard of me.”

  “I have no idea what this obsession you have with a Laurel person is all about, but you are clearly a woman of devious means. I will tell him what you have said, but you should not expect anything in that regard to be happening. Your instructions, Miss Evans, are to leave this place immediately.”

  She stood her ground as I gathered up my laptop and walked towards the truck. The woman was still standing at the table watching me as I drove out of the parking lot.

  I drove in the direction of Barnardsville as fast as I could get the truck to go. I looked into my rear view mirror and saw that an old pickup and an Escort were following close behind me.

  I never saw the woman leave the restaurant.

  63

  The whole scheme was a gamble based on time. Of the many activities in which we are engaged in our culture, the rapid speed of technology is something we either long for or take for granted. Our gamble in this was that the messenger, the woman, would assume that what she saw happen, remained. That she would be, in fact, a teller of tales, in so many words. No take backs. No need for do-over’s. That she would take for granted that she had accomplished her mission. Her word of confirmation to the Voice listening in on the computer gave us the time we needed to get to his location in Barnardsville. We hoped.

  We had to make it to Marvin’s home before her. That was our other gamble, to wit, that the psychopath in the mask would not check once his associate had confirmed the transaction. It also meant that the woman would not check and alert him to our subterfuge. Gamble on two fronts.

  We had roughly twenty-five minutes to arrive at Marvin’s place and retrieve Laurel.

  We were running ahead of the twenty-five minute window as we approached Marvin’s house. It was still about a quarter mile ahead and off to the left. I pulled over and stayed far enough back from the house so that I could talk with Rosey and Starnes after they had hidden their vehicles out of sight on the side road where I had secured the small truck. I watched them pull into the road and park behind me. There was plenty of space for us to hide our three vehicles well out of sight from the main road which passed in front of Marvin’s house.

  I brought them up to date on what had happened. Detail by detail.

  “And why did Laurel shake her head no when the masked man was threatening to cut off her fingers if you did not begin the transfer?” Starnes said.

  “That, I do not know. She’s smart, so there had to be a reason as to why she was signaling me by shaking her head ever so gently, almost indiscernible. I just hope that I was reading her signal correctly.”

  “Dangerous game,” Rosey said as we moved quickly towards the side of the house where the thick grove of trees helped us remain hidden.

  “Let’s split up and converge,” I said.

  “Time check,” Rosey said.

  “Three minutes before entry,” I said to them. I used the cell phone to match the time with Rosey and Starnes who used their watches. I felt a bit deprived.

  “You should get a watch,” she said.

  “Two minutes, thirty seconds. Go,” I said.

  Rosey took the back of the house while Starnes stopped at the side window nearest the grove of trees. I drew the frontal attack position. I crawled along the front behind some of the about-to-bloom bushes next to the house. Small buds had appeared already. There was just enough space for a medium sized person to pass between the shrubs. I was slightly more than a medium-sized person -- maybe an inch or two more in height than medium as well as some additional pounds larger than what one might refer to using that median measurement. I squeezed through with minor scrapes despite my length and girth.

  I heard a car pull into the drive. The woman from the restaurant was getting out of a dark blue, late model Buick.

  I stayed hidden behind a bush. I watched her walk up the path and enter the house without knocking. I glanced at my phone and it was past time for me to enter the front door.

  I walked in on Rosey and Starnes who were pointing their small arms directly at the woman who had just entered before me.

  “Good of you to join us,” Rosey said to me.

  “I had to give the lady messenger time to get inside.”

  “We saw her coming,” Starnes said. “You, take a seat,” she said to the woman.

  “You cannot hold me,” the woman said.

  “Wanna bet?” I said.

  “What have I done to you?’ she asked.

  “Directly, nothing. Indirectly, well, you have aided and abetted the person who kidnapped Laurel Shelton, and likely enough, Marvin Dillingham. That would be two counts of kidnapping and extortion for you to be connected with.”

  She sat down reluctantly.

  “You might as well tell us who you are. We’ll find out sooner or later,” I said.

  “I’ve got nothing to say to you.”

  “Have it your way,” I said.

  “I certainly will have it my way. You’ll be sorry that you have held me against my will.”

  “I’ll live with that. Any sign of Laurel or Marvin when you entered the house?”

  “Not yet,” Rosey said and moved towards the other rooms.

  “You wanna stay here with her,” I said to Starnes, “while I go look around?”

  “Gladly,” she said.

  I moved out of the living room and passed through the kitchen headed towards the back of the house. Rosey met me in the back hallway.

  “Does Marvin have a basement in this place?”

  “Don’t believe so,” he said. “But I think he has a cellar and an out-building.”

  “You take the cellar search and I’ll go rummage through t
he out-building,” I said.

  I had never been inside Marvin’s out building, but I could see it from the back door. I watched Rosey open the heavy wooden cellar doors that lay at an angle against the back of the house. He moved cautiously down the cement steps into the darkened area. I waited to see if he would uncover something important. I was hoping for Laurel. And Marvin as well.

  After a moment or so of waiting and no affirmation of finding anything from Rosey, I moved on toward the out-building. As I approached the door to the barn-like structure, Rosey joined me.

  “Nothing in the cellar but potatoes and old apples. Not enough room down there to store much else, certainly not two people.”

  “Is there another entrance/exit to this building?” I said.

  “I’ll go see,” he said and moved off to the right toward the back of the building.

  The door had been padlocked, but was now opened. The padlock was hanging from the latch without securing the doors together. I eased in quietly by moving one of the large doors ever so gently. The building was dim but I could see well enough from the multiple windows that allowed just enough light to see my way as I entered. Marvin used it for storage. Cardboard boxes were stacked around against the walls. The boxes of various shapes and sizes were stacked no higher than five feet from the floor up. There was an array of old furniture mingled with the boxes. Everything was neatly arranged. The oddity was that the center of the building was open and unoccupied except for a singular table and chair. Something was in the chair and covered with a blue tarp. A pair of wire cutters were on the table.

  As I approached the center of the room, I noticed two other things. There was a laptop on the floor behind the chair. My heart sank. The second thing I noticed was the red liquid on the floor, on the table, and in the lap of the person who was tied to the chair.

  Before I could make it to the chair to see what was underneath the tarp, a noise from the back of the building alerted me. I stopped my approach toward the middle of the room and moved quickly to the closest stack of boxes so I could shield myself.

  In a few moments, Rosey appeared from the back of the building.

  “Don’t shoot,” I said. “I’m over here.”