Peppermint Soul (Liza McNairy Mysteries Book 1)

by Dan Glover

  But then the doubts began creeping in. The twins were adults now. Maybe they went to Oklahoma City to keep from being found. His relationship with them had always been tenuous at best. He thought there'd be plenty of opportunities to mend his ways... to quit working so much and spend more time with the girls. To set aside the bottle and be a father. And then they were gone... poof... like they'd never even existed.

  "Is it possible your girls ran away, Mr. Picany?"

  The question haunted him. Sure, he'd answered... but unlikely. Why on earth would Missy and Melinda just take off like that? Did it have something to do with the talk they had? He only wanted to warn the girls... he'd been a boy once too, and he knew exactly what they all wanted. The girls were so pretty. They didn’t deserve to be used like that... to be treated like a piece of meat and then discarded. He only wanted to warn them. And that Jonathan Baker boy... the way he looked at the girls gave Allen the creeps.

  "Go to bed, Allen. We're going to miss our flight."

  "Go without me, Paula. I'll catch the next plane."

  Honestly, he didn’t want to travel with Paula. She'd be on his nerves for the entire flight. Oh, Allen... do you really need another drink? We'll be landing in half an hour. Can't you hold off? No I can't. Do I get all over your ass every fucking time you pop a goddamned pill?

  "I can't believe you sometimes. Jesus. The twins are waiting for us to get there tomorrow and here you are drunk the night before."

  "Just go. Leave me be."

  Instead of going up to bed, he kept drinking. When the liquor gave out, he went out back to his secret cache he kept in the attic above the garage... his getaway spot that Paula knew nothing about. He must have passed out. Now, looking at his watch, he realized he'd missed the flight they'd scheduled. Paula doubtlessly left without him.

  He shouldn’t have treated her so rudely, but Christ... she knew how he was when he was drunk. Couldn’t she just cut him a little slack? Anyway, he'd call the airport and catch the next flight out... make it to Oklahoma City before Paula had a chance to hail a taxi.

  Staggering to the back door with a splitting headache and about to vomit in the bushes he thought heard someone talking. Had she left the television on downstairs? She knew how he hated that. Paula said how it would discourage burglars... that they'd hear the voices and think someone was home... as if anyone was stupid enough not to know the difference between real people and televisions shows. It was all that Xanax Paula crammed down her gullet. It made her feeble-minded. At times she couldn’t remember where she was.

  Stopping to listen, he heard two distinct voices. One was Reilly Cooper... but the other was a woman. She sounded familiar, as if he knew her from somewhere but a name wouldn’t surface through the thick fog of his hangover. Putting a hand on the doorknob to step inside he found it locked.... fumbling in his pocket he realized he'd left his keys back in the garage attic. Fell asleep in his clothes and the damned things were wearing a hole in his leg so he took them out and set them on the floor beside him.

  The woman was saying something to Reilly about how he'd been poisoned... that if he revealed certain information, she'd give him the antidote. Was it some kind of game they were playing? From the sound of Reilly's plaintive reply, Allen gathered it was serious... enough so that he lurched back to the garage attic where he'd left his phone and dialed 911.

  Chapter 71—Spiders

  (And Webs of Deceit)

  She'd caught the wrong spider in her trap but a spider nonetheless. The man was lower than a leech... even Hank said so. Planting those pictures in the Picany house had been a ploy to perhaps jump in the sack with Allen... payback for the cruelties that Paula and Hank had foisted upon her over the years.

  It hurt, the knowing she wasn’t good enough. Oh, Hank never said so in words but she could feel it in the way he looked at her. As if she didn’t measure up to the other woman—the other women—in his life.

  Of course her husband had no idea that she'd mastered so many arts during all the times she'd spent on her own. Alone with nothing to do but learn of macabre and splendid ways of dealing with those she detested. Once the children were grown and gone there was only so many hours she could devote to needlepoint and spinning. And the internet offered such a plethora of information just waiting for any intrepid entrepreneur to mine.

  It had started out innocently enough. She merely wanted to help find those twins. The police had long ago given up, or so Hank said, and there were no recent leads on the case. She thought she'd have plenty of time to conduct her own investigation but then the Picany's hired those psychics. As if those two charlatans could find their way out of a taped up cardboard box on their own. And that McNairy woman... she hadn’t forgotten her. She saw how she was all over Hank at that Christmas party... especially when the bitch thought they weren’t being watched.

  No one was aware of fat Sally though. And now that she'd lost all the weight she still went unnoticed. Not that it mattered. In fact it made the things she had to do easier. Who'd suspect the wife of Hank Lupo as being capable of not only planning a murder but carrying it out? Hell, not one, but three, and counting. Well... two and a half. The munchkin black dude was still breathing when she had to take her leave of him. A shame, really. She would've rather enjoyed watching him go.

  The chime of the doorbell startled her, and when someone began to kick in the heavy door, she panicked. Anyone would do the same. And so what if they found Reilly Cooper dead in the kitchen? She had an airtight alibi. The way she planned it, Paula Picany would soon be sitting behind bars charged with murder one and Sally would be free to continue the investigation into the twin's disappearance.

  That all hinged on Cooper being dead, or at least brain damaged enough that he couldn’t speak. Otherwise, they'd know, and those girls would never be found. But then again maybe that'd be better. Perhaps there really was something to that karma junk everyone talked about... how people brought about their own damnation by the best of intentions. Maybe it'd be better to leave all the old shit lay where it fell, like everyone else seemed content in doing.

  Someone made a lot of money off those girls and others like them. To be sold as sex slaves would be bad enough but what happened to the twins was unspeakable. She didn’t believe it at first. No one could be so cruel. Now, though, two people had confirmed it and done so under the duress of impending death. And of course there was the journal that Johm had given to her... the one that laid out all their plans and which she'd shared with Paula. After all, the woman had a right to know.

  Luckily, it wasn’t the police who came to the Picany house. Instead, someone apparently had called the fire department paramedics. Who? The name McNairy popped into her mind. That woman was insufferable. Not only did she want Hank, but she ruined a perfect afternoon. It wasn’t every day that a person got to watch someone die.

  Now she had to get downtown in a hurry to put her alibi in place and to simultaneously cement Paula Picany as the suspect. The woman was obviously deranged... a danger to herself and others. With luck they'd take down Allen too. And then finally maybe she could get to the bottom of who kidnapped those twins.

  Chapter 72—Pie

  (Al a Mode)

  1

  "Sally! What a surprise!"

  He couldn’t remember the last time his wife had come down to the office. Seeing her walk into the vestibule he thought for a crazy moment it was Paula Picany visiting, which of course as the mother of vanished twins she had every right to do. Still, they'd decided long ago it'd be better not to press things.

  He hadn’t realized how much weight Sally had lost. Oh, he remembered her talking about the workouts and the diets but the woman was always going on about such things and never actually accomplishing much. Now, though, he found himself wanting her again, like in the old days, before the kids and the ton and a half she'd put on afterwards.

  "Hi, sweetie! I was just across the street at the gym and I thought maybe my husband might like to buy me lunch
."

  Jesus Christ, she looked good. Used to be he was embarrassed when Sally came around the office. The guys liked to talk, maybe too much, and sometimes he couldn’t help but overhear the mean remarks about the Hank harpooning the whale. Now, though, he was proud of his wife.

  "Absolutely, doll! Sit down while I clear some time and we'll make an afternoon of it."

  Mentally he counted the days since his last encounter with Paula Picany. Hell, it had to be a week at least. Twenty years ago that wouldn’t have made any difference but now he had trouble keeping it up if he tried to have sex more than every three or four days. He kept meaning to talk to the doctor about it, maybe get some of those little blue pills he heard so much about, but it never seemed to make any difference. Now, it did.

  When they walked out of the building he couldn’t help but see how Sally had a wiggle in her hips just a little more pronounced than he noticed before. Oh yeah... she was feeling it too. At the gym? When had Sally started exercising? And for Christ's sake... why hadn’t he noticed how shapely she was? She looked like she was eighteen again.

  "Maybe we should work up an appetite first, Hank. What do you say?"

  What could he say? Hell yes... the Commodore Hotel had a great restaurant... he'd spent time there with Paula, though not so recently anyone would remember him. And of course if they did

  2

  The employees there knew which side their bread was buttered on. At least they better know.

  Six hours later when he checked his phone, Hank discovered over twenty messages from the office. Apparently someone had broken into a house. He wondered why on earth they'd bother him about something like that until he saw whose house had been broken into: the Picany's.

  "Jesus, Sally... the police are at the Picany's house."

  "Why on earth would the police be at their house, Hank?"

  "Someone tried to kill Reilly Cooper."

  "Who is that?"

  "He's a former FBI agent. I guess he got mixed up with the Picany's somehow. Anyway, someone poisoned him."

  "Is he dead?"

  "No... they got there just in time to resuscitate him. He's in a medically induced coma as we speak."

  "Who did it? Do they know?"

  "Paula Picany. Apparently she invited Cooper over while her husband was away. Your classic cougar. Wanted some of that young stuff. Only he turned her down. Pissed her off enough that she tried to kill him. At least that's the word I'm getting."

  "I always thought there was something a little off about that woman, Hank, something just a tad odd."

  "Maybe you're right, sweetie. They just picked her up at the airport. Apparently she's been implicated in two murders. Seems as if she was fleeing town to avoid arrest."

  "Poor Allen... I always felt sorry for that man and what he had to put up with, married to a woman like Paula."

  "Really... you never told me that, Sally."

  "Come on, Hank... you know how she is. Christ, she must've fucked half the guys she worked with. She was always bragging about it. That's one of the main reasons I stopped being friends with her. Besides, I think she just used me to make herself feel better... you know, poor fat Sally, can't keep her man happy."

  "Well, I don’t know about that, darling... it's been a pretty happy afternoon if you ask me."

  "We really should do this more often, Hank. I almost feel like a kept woman... did you see the way the concierge was looking at us when we checked in? It's really quite al a mode, isn’t it."

  She was right. He'd taken his wife for granted... assumed her lack of sexual appetite was simply part of her preconditioning... that nothing he could do or say would ever enlighten her to the ticklish nonsense of living life on the edge. Yet her she was, lying beside him in a strange room in the middle of the afternoon with her luscious little tits hanging out and those slim muscular legs spread wide as if inviting him inside for more.

  "I get the feeling I've been missing out on a lot, Sally. I work too much. Always have. That shit's gotta stop, honey. From now on, it's you and me, babe. How about we hit it one more time?"

  Chapter 73—To Be

  (Or Not to Be)

  1

  He wished he felt more excited over his accomplishment. The twins had been found. Another case, solved. After twenty years and countless investigating hours spent poring over half a million dead leads, the girls had been located by a queer and his dream dragon.

  "The DNA analysis proves it, Danners! You did it again, sweetie."

  He almost wanted them to be someone else. But who would he wish that fate upon? Not even the prison guards who taunted him nightly for the ten year stretch he did for a crime uncommitted, at least by him.

  "So what happens now, Liza?"

  They were at breakfast. The same greasy spoon where they'd been dining since hitting Oklahoma City... just down the street from the motel. All the waitresses knew them by now. He liked the biscuits and gravy and Liza as usual simply had sweet tea and toast.

  "Allen and Paula are flying out as soon as they can catch a flight. They'll probably be here tonight. We may as well plan on spending another day here. You know... when we first arrived, I hated this place. It sort of grows on a person, though."

  Yeah, if you like living on the North Pole. Christ, he couldn’t remember the last time he was warm... oh yes... when Liza spent the night cuddling with him. Maybe they could do that again soon. No sense pushing it though.

  "They'll be taking the girls home?"

  "I'm guessing they'll want to, DanMan, but the twins seemed so settled. I'm not sure that's the best scenario for them... are you?"

  "Absolutely the wrong approach, Liza... but no one is asking our opinion, are they?"

  "We could talk to them, Danners... let them know that the girls are happy here. That they have a life... as much of a life as they'll ever have. And poor old Ally Nola... what's she going to say?"

  "She has her other patients... and besides, the woman is a whack job, Liza. She's never been a nurse. She totally misrepresented herself."

  "Who else do you know who'd give their entire life to taking care of mentally ill patients who cannot make it on their own?"

  "She's certifiable herself, Liza. You know it and I know it."

  But was she really? The woman seemed happy. The twins too. The other four patients were much like those two girls... wandering that old building in a daze. He imagined them on the streets... winos and bums and derelicts haunting the cuts and byways of any large city... scavenging for food in Dumpsters... bathing in public drinking fountains, shitting in the weeds. Instead, they had homes. But for how long? Once the media got hold of the story they'd frenzy like sharks. And then the authorities would get involved.

  Like they got involved with him. People charged with meddling in affairs that didn’t concern them... taking a bad situation and making it worse. The do-gooders... oh sure, they cared. For about five minutes. And once the case was settled to their satisfaction, they promptly forgot all about that little boy found abandoned in Union Station and fed to the predators.

  Did his mother know what would happen to him? Did she? The question had haunted him for a thousand years, or so it seemed. She'd be eighty years old now if she had lived and of all the people he ever set out to find, she was still his only failure. Was it because he didn’t want to find her? Had she really drowned like the authorities said? To know the truth might well be more than he could handle. Maybe some mysteries were better left unsolved. The dragon seemed to know that. Why didn’t he?

  He missed Benji bear. That Liza surprised him with a new teddy bear was sweet but she didn’t understand. Benji couldn’t be replaced like that. The bear was more than stuffing inside mottled fur. Maybe if she'd gone to a second hand store and found another bear who'd been loved, well then, perhaps then the feelings of loss might be mollified.

  He supposed that stupid old bear

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  Was like a church or a university... any place or thing sanctified
by deep feelings over immense oceans of time. Most people thought of inanimate objects as just that. Dead. Empty. Devoid of magic. Like the world in general. But he knew better. Like small children and the insane, Danners could sense the love imbued within Benji and yearned to make it his own.

  "It's too late."

  "What is, sweetie?"

  "We're too late to save those twins. The best thing for them would've never to've been found. No, to've never been born at all. Who was it who said that? Ah yes, I remember... Heinrich Heine, that fag who never met a closet he didn’t love. Asshole. And here we are. Harbingers of doom, calling down the apocalypse upon them both. I feel like scum, Liza."

  "Don’t do that, Danners. You saw how they live in that old asylum. The place is infested with rats and cockroaches and who knows what else. They have next to nothing to eat. And it's cold as a tomb. They deserve better. Now, they'll get it."

  "Sure wish I could agree, lover... but I don’t see it. Their lives are going to change, but will it be for the better? Doubtfully. You saw the parents. Jesus, I wouldn’t wish those two on anyone, much less a couple of hapless girls like those two we saw out there."

  "What's the alternative, DanMan?"

  "Unfortunately, there is none. The press will see to that. Once the media gets hold of this story, the twins' fates will be sealed."

  "What if the press doesn’t hear about it, Danners?"

  "Not sure I follow, Liza... this sort of shit is what they live and breathe for. There'll be no keeping them away once..."

  "Once we spill the story. See? It's all up to us, DanDan. Let's concoct a tale that states we were wrong. Hell, everyone makes mistakes."

  "Yeah, but we'll have to convince everyone else involved to go along with that story. That'll be a hard sell, Liza."

  "Eh, not necessarily... we're the ones feeding them the information."