by D. C. Brod
Great. After giving it some thought, I decided to pretend I hadn’t gotten the message. I needed to avoid both Landis and Hedges while I had this goat in my life.
We were just entering the outskirts of a little town called Bookman and I was wondering how far west I would go. We passed a couple of motels before I got to a gas station, a bar and a pottery shop. There was also the requisite diner and a convenience store. Not much else to do in Bookman. When I’d cleared the town I thought of the sign on one of those motels. I turned around and drove back through town. On the right was a long, low motel with a string of about eight rooms. On the lower half of the Wayside Inn sign were four lines of black, battered lettering that read: “Air conditioned. HBO SHO Videos. Hrly rates.” But this little place was trying to be everything to everyone because the bottom line said: “SMALL PETS WELCOME.”
Behind me, Sassy stopped chewing. A pygmy goat was probably not what the owners of the Wayside Inn had in mind as a small pet, but I knew of an animal that would surely qualify that could, in a way, act as a cover. I accelerated out of town, driving east, back toward Fowler.
CHAPTER 18
Bix did his usual happy dance when I walked into my apartment. I’d left Sassy in the van, which I’d parked on Holden, a side street one block west. It was a street of mostly businesses and a couple small factories, so I hoped any bleating he did would go unnoticed. I didn’t plan to be here long. I just needed to get out of these towels and into comfortable clothing, grab a few things for a night away and leave with Bix in tow.
I changed into a pair of jeans and a sleeveless top, threw on a hooded sweatshirt, tossed a change of underwear and some essentials, Bix’s travel bowls and some dog food into a tote bag, and clipped Bix’s leash onto his collar. When he started to snuffle around the floor for a few crumbs beside his dish, I decided I didn’t have time for his dithering and scooped him into my arms. Then I stepped out the door and pulled it shut behind me.
“When Erika said you wanted to talk, I didn’t think you’d be so scarce.”
I clutched Bix so tight he yelped, and I looked up to see Jack Landis standing on the top step leading to my tiny porch. I loosened my grip on Bix, and he began to squirm.
“Now’s not a good time,” I said, doubting he cared.
“Where you off to?” He climbed the final step so that he stood in front of me on the porch. The forty-watt bulb did a meager job of illuminating the area, and it cast shadows across Jack’s face, burying his eyes so it was as if he watched me from two deep, black pits.
“I’ve got some errands to run,” I told him.
He snorted a laugh. “At ten thirty?”
Just then the phone in my sweatshirt pocket vibrated. But it wasn’t completely silent and in the stillness between us here on the porch, the faint buzz was audible. It had to be Mick.
“Why don’t you get that later,” Jack said as he stepped closer to me.
He wore a T-shirt and jeans and his arms were folded over his chest. I couldn’t see any weapons on him, but he was a good deal larger than me and those muscles I’d admired earlier weren’t nearly so appealing now.
“I want the letter back,” I told him, hoping he wouldn’t think I knew about anything else. “I don’t know what it is to you, but I do know it means a lot more to my mother.”
I saw him nod. Now he raised one hand to his mouth and began to pull at his lower lip as though giving this some thought. “Yeah, I’ll bet,” he said.
Gone was the affable charm he’d exhibited the other day. The icy tinge his voice had taken on was probably more natural for him. I could imagine him taking those huge hands and wrapping them around Mary Waltner’s—or my—neck. And while I was scared, I was also angry. I hate bullies. I drew in a deep breath and pulled myself up. Bix stopped his squirming.
“You’re some nice guy, aren’t you? Finagle your way into an old lady’s room and then steal something that has no monetary value, but is priceless to her. If you’re looking for extortion money—” I nearly choked on that word “—you’ve come to the wrong person. I have no money.”
“You’re sure about that?” Then he chuckled and added, “Your mother’s an interesting lady. A little too trusting, though, don’t you think?”
“You’d better stay away from her.”
But he went on as though I hadn’t spoken, “Especially when there’s a nice-looking man involved...”
“There you go again. Being modest.” I shifted Bix in my arms. Even a little dog can start to get heavy. “Okay, Landis, just what is it that you want?”
He took a step back and leaned his butt against the railing. “So you’re prepared to make a trade?”
“For what?”
His face was no longer in shadow, but the yellow light didn’t do much to soften his features. He wasn’t blocking the stairs anymore, but he could still keep me from getting past him.
“You’re a pretty bright woman, Robyn. But a lousy actress. You don’t play stupid very well.”
He seemed convinced that I knew what he was talking about, so I decided I’d let him keep thinking that. Eventually, I might be able to figure what the hell he was talking about. “Okay,” I said. “Maybe we can deal.”
“Now you’re talking.” He eyed me and the tote bag and purse that hung from one shoulder. “You got it with you?”
“Of course not,” I said, and added, “you just said I wasn’t stupid.”
He nodded.
“I’ll have to go in and get it.”
“Fine. I’ll go with you.”
“Let’s see the letter first.”
He studied me for a moment and then pulled a folded piece of paper from his back pocket. After unfolding it, he held it up for me to see. I had a chance to read only the first line, which said: “My Dearest Elizabeth.” Then he snatched it away and stuffed it back into his pocket. I wanted to tell him to be careful with it.
“Okay?”
I nodded once.
He jerked his head toward the door. “Let’s go.”
I knew once I let him into my place only one of us was coming out alive. And the smart money was on the one with the bulging biceps. So this was my only shot.
He pushed himself away from the rail and stood over me, waiting.
“Here,” I said, “you hold him while I get my key.” Before he could protest, I handed Bix to him. Landis raised his hands, probably as a reflex, either to take Bix or to fend him off, and once Bix saw those flailing hands his head shot out like a viper’s and his jaws clamped down on the little finger of Landis’s left hand.
“Shit!” Landis pulled his hand back at the same time I retracted Bix who, after giving the finger a good shake, released him. Landis fell back against the rail, grabbing at it to keep from going over.
I clutched Bix to my chest and tore down the steps. With a dog in one arm and my two bags hanging from the crook of my other, I bounced off either rail most of way down. But I made it.
As I cut through the cars in the small lot and headed toward the bank’s drive-up window, I could hear Landis coming down the steps. I had maybe twenty feet on him. Then I heard a crunch and a loud thud and Landis swore. I allowed myself a glance over one shoulder and saw him sprawled at the bottom of the steps. But he was still moving.
I cut through the drive-up window lane. Once I got to the sidewalk, I considered running the opposite direction, to throw Landis off, but knew I didn’t have the time to lose him or the energy to outrun him. As I rounded the corner onto the street where I’d parked the van, I saw Landis coming out of the bank lot and heading my way. I had a half block to run and a key to dig out of my handbag before he caught up with me. If there’d been houses in the area, I might have run up to one and pounded on the door. But I’d carefully chosen a place without residences to park the van.
Sassy had been silent as I’d approached the van, but now he took up his bleating again. One doggie downer hadn’t done much for this goat. I set—dropped—Bix to the ground and
began dredging my handbag. Why do our mothers always chime in at a time like this? I could hear her: “Robyn, a place for everything and everything in it’s place.” And her new adage: “Robyn, if you had a compartment for your car keys you wouldn’t have been bludgeoned to death.”
Landis was closing in on me—slowed by a slight limp—as my hand found the smooth, plastic key holder. I jammed my thumb on the lock button, threw open the door, hoisted my bags and Bix onto the passenger seat and had the key in the ignition as I was slamming the door. Jack Landis filled my side-view mirror as I pulled away. He ran after me for about fifty feet, but didn’t follow me around a corner. I’d turned west even though I planned to head directly over to Dryden, hoping that would throw him off. Maybe he’d look for me in that direction. He might have gotten my license plate, but he wouldn’t be looking for me out in Bookman.
I drove around several blocks before heading back toward Main Street. During that time Sassy was hollering his little horned head off, and Bix had joined in the chorus with incessant yapping while he tried to climb into the back. I didn’t want to open the windows, so I cranked up the air conditioning. As I neared the intersection, a car pulled off a side street and headed in my direction. I wished I knew what kind of car Landis drove. But I knew he wasn’t the kind of guy who gave up easily, and so I had to believe he was driving around looking for me.
Once I got to Main Street I turned right. Although I needed to head the other direction, there was just enough traffic to keep me from making a left. In my rearview mirror I saw the other car make a right. Could be coincidence, but I had to assume it wasn’t. At the next opportunity I made a sharp left, earning myself an unfriendly gesture from the guy I’d cut in front of, and then I headed back west at the next block. No one seemed to be following me as I made for Dryden. I considered calling Dryden, but there would be no one at the desk now and the place would be all locked down. By the time I got one of the nurses on the phone, I’d be there already. Besides, my cell phone was in my purse, and I’d have to pull over to find it. I can’t multitask in a car.
I kept off the major streets and drove a mile or two under the speed limit. This went against my inclination, seeing as I figured I might be in a race with Landis to get to Dryden. But I couldn’t risk being pulled over. I didn’t know how I’d explain Sassy to a cop. I could try telling him that the goat was being used for a production of an Albee play, but even if he bought it, he wasn’t going to forget a black goat with a crescent moon around its belly. Mick had insisted that Bull would not go to the police with this, but I wasn’t so sure.
Dryden’s parking lot was quiet when I pulled in and took a place in the residents’ area. The trip had taken less than fifteen minutes and during that time, the boys had quieted down, Bix taking refuge on the floor in the front. I cracked the windows. “I’ll be back in ten minutes and I don’t want you two annoying each other.”
Before I went in there, I needed to take the time to call Mick. First I checked the message he’d left me.
“It’s me. Where are you? Call me.” He sounded more concerned than annoyed, and I hoped once we finished our conversation, he would continue to think kindly toward me.
I hadn’t rehearsed what I was going to say to Mick, and there was no time to write a script. So I just hit the speed dial number.
“Yeah,” he answered.
“It’s me. Are you alone?”
“I’ll call you right back.” He disconnected.
I waited almost a minute, and had just about decided that “right back” could mean anywhere from one to fifteen minutes, which I didn’t have, when the phone jiggled in my hand.
“Where are you?” he asked.
“I’m with my mom,” I said.
“Everything go okay at Meyer’s?”
I didn’t want to lie, and it took me a second or two to figure out that I could answer this without lying and without telling him the truth. “Yes,” I said.
He sighed his relief, and I felt a stab of guilt.
I hurried on before he could question me further. “Is it time for me to call Bull?”
“Yeah. He doesn’t know the goat’s gone yet. Let him know. Then tell him you’ll call him back. Remember how we rehearsed it?”
“Of course I do.” I wasn’t driving around in a third-rate acting company’s van for no good reason.
“Call me.”
“I will.”
I disconnected the call, plugged in my voice changer, pulled in a deep breath and hit speed dial #2. Although I’d committed Bull’s number to memory, I didn’t trust myself to dial it. I mean, what if I were to misdial and wound up telling some insurance salesman in Topeka that I’d stolen his goat?
As I listened to it ring, I had another one of my absurd moments. Here I was, sitting in the parking lot outside of Dryden Manor making my very first extortion call.
Bull answered on the third ring, barking a “yeah” into the phone.
“Mr. Severn?” I read from my cheat sheet.
“Yeah?”
“I have your goat.” I wondered what I sounded like to him. Mean, I hoped.
A pause. “What’re you talking about?”
“I have Blood’s goat.”
“The hell you do.”
“Then where is he?”
“I don’t know.” Another pause. “He’s around somewhere.”
“Why don’t you check on that, Mr. Severn? I’ll call you back in fifteen minutes.” I disconnected, knowing it would be longer. But Mick had said it wouldn’t hurt to make Bull wait.
I had just about enough time to collect my mother.
It was after hours at Dryden, so I had to be buzzed in. While there was no reason I couldn’t take my mother off the premises at any time, it was not something I’d ever done at eleven p.m., and I knew I’d need a good excuse—or at least a reasonable one.
Why I thought my mother would be safer with me and the boys, I wasn’t sure. But Landis had gotten into her room once before. He might have a tough time gaining access at night, when the place was locked down, but there was always tomorrow. And tomorrow I couldn’t be around. I had to have her with me. Even as I was running afoul of the law.
I was buzzed in by a nurse I knew only by sight. She wasn’t the one who usually called me when my mother was having a bad night. For this I was relieved. I’d come to learn that the better I knew someone, the harder it was for me to lie to her.
The nurse was a short, thick woman with harsh red hair and severe bangs. Her black and white badge read Meg Savoy.
“I’m Robyn Guthrie,” I told her. “I’m here to take my mother out for the evening.”
She looked as though she hadn’t heard me correctly.
“I’ll need to sign her out,” I prompted.
“Is there something wrong?”
“No.” Wrong? How could anything be wrong? “ I want to take her to see an old friend in Ohio tomorrow. We’re getting an early start.” I shrugged. “I meant to get over here sooner, but it’s been kind of a crazy night.”
She regarded me for a moment, her hands clasped in front of her. “Did you tell anyone about this?”
“I didn’t think I had to.” I held her gaze. “I am her daughter.”
“Of course,” she said, sounding none too convinced. “I’ll have to get her meds together.”
“Thank you.”
We traveled up the elevator together in silence, but I could feel her eyes on me. When the doors opened, she said, “I’m sorry, Miss Guthrie, but I’m going to have to ask to see an ID.”
“Sure,” I said. If an ID check was all it took to keep her from giving me the hairy eyeball, then I welcomed it. I dug my wallet from my purse and showed her my driver’s license.
After giving it a thorough scanning, I could see some of the tension leave her shoulders. “Thank you. You do understand, I—”
“It’s okay. Really. I’m glad you do check.”
“I’ll bring the meds down to her room.”
I thanked her and hurried down the hall.
My mother was up watching television. When she saw me at the door she looked stunned and then alarmed. “What’s wrong? What’s happened?”
“Nothing, Mom.” I walked past her into the room and dug an overnight bag out of her closet. “We’re going for a little trip.”
She sat there in the pink flannel nightgown I’d given her, her feet encased in blue fuzzy slippers. She didn’t respond, nor did her expression change.
“It’ll be fun.” I packed her toothbrush, cold cream and hairbrush. I figured if I kept moving, acting like I knew what I was doing, she wouldn’t start with the questions.
“Robyn?”
It was as though she wasn’t sure who I was. I stopped packing and walked over to her. “It’s me, Mom. Robyn. You always say you’d like to get away from here for a while. Well, that’s what we’re going to do.”
“I’m not sure,” she said, starting to whimper a little. “Did you tell them?”
“Of course I did. I’ll have to sign you out.”
“My room. Will they give my room away?”
“No, they won’t.” I have her hand a squeeze. “I’ll bring you back tomorrow.”
As I tossed her underwear into the bag, I realized it was past time to buy her some new ones. Why didn’t I ever think to go shopping with her? I folded up a navy blue sweat suit and a yellow knit shirt I didn’t recognize.
“Do I have to put that on?”
“No, no. You keep your nightie on,” I said as I helped her into her flannel robe. “We’ll just go to bed when we get... there. You’ll be that much ahead of me.”
“Robyn,” she began, bending to accept the sleeve. “I don’t know about this.”
